And then this is proof of mailing of that.
It's the only reason why taxes are showed owed is because they're not, but, you know, they're showed owed, but they're not due yet until, you know, a couple of months from now.
I will ask that Mr. Itescu virtually raise his hand.
Mr. Itescu has been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
my name is nathaniel itescu and it's spelled n-a-t-h-a-n-a-e-l last name i t as in thomas
e s-c-u right you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes proceed counsel uh yes uh nate you heard everything i had to say today about your zoning
matter yes is it true and correct oh yeah oh uh and do you adopt this your own testimony yes
thank you questions from the board no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from our attorney
hillary embers not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
no hands chair planning commission
good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg walton from city planning commission staff
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single family zoning
the plan has not supported their hardship claim with evidence of the unique physical circumstances
or conditions of the property the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board
denied the variance. Thank you. MI 2023-004-875-1633, Latona Street, I vote yes. Temporary
variance that expires 2-14-27. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso. James Snell, my vote
is yes with proviso. Thank you, counsel. Thank you. Thank you for the combination. Thank you.
Number 12, MI 2020.
It appears that we have lost the chair due to technical difficulties.
Please stand by while we resolve them.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm back.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I'm back.
Thank you, Tanya.
Number 12, MI-2023-0006-462-1832-46, Germantown.
Rachel Pritzker is the attorney.
Good afternoon.
you've already been sworn I think a few times today maybe please just state your name for the
court stenographer yeah Rachel R-A-C-H-A-E-L Pritzker P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R
could you identify your client in relationship to the property
yes the client is M-C-G Germantown LLC which is the owner of the property okay Mr. Holloman has
a few questions for you good afternoon counsel do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to his accuracy yes did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required
five days in advance to this hearing yes thank you please share your screen okay
um mr chair this is hillary i just wanted to to note that um we've received a letter of support
from south kensington community partners as well as a letter of non-opposition from councilmember
lazada thank you very much thank you uh so this is the subject property um it's this sort of giant
oddly shaped if you can see on my screen uh running on germantown avenue
um and you know kind of again this like weird like jenga piece almost um
or no tetris not jenga jenga's squared this is like a tetris piece as you can see sort of in
the middle of the block. And the property is about 33,358 square feet. So quite a large parcel.
It's been vacant for about 27 or so years and has had no improvements on the property. And again,
fronts on Germantown Avenue. It's zoned RSA 5, which is a kind of odd zoning designation for
a parcel this large and a parcel on Germantown Avenue. I will get into the comprehensive plan
in a minute, but just wanted to show the refusals on our screen. We're proposing obviously new
construction, semi-detached structure with a roof deck, roof deck access structures
on the plans which we'll go through. We're requesting use for multifamily, 89 dwelling
units, vacant commercial space with a variety of different uses proposed depending on sort of the
viability at the time that the project's finished. The commercial will include options
like takeout restaurant, prepared food shop, commissary and catering, and personal services,
visitor accommodations. And again, given the RSA 5 zoning, we selected a number of uses
the hopes of one of these being viable at the time that the project is ready. There will also
be 34 parking spaces, one accessible parking space, one van accessible parking space, and two
electrical parking spaces, and 30 class 1A bicycle parking spaces. Most of these refusals are
bicycle parking spaces. Most of these refusals are generated due to the fact that the property
generated due to the fact that the
is owned RSA 5. And again, it's about a 33,538 square foot parcel. And given its sort of odd
shape, as mentioned, would be a really odd setup for single family homes. It's also fronting again
on Germantown Avenue, which is a commercial corridor in the city. I want to just mention
before we go through the plans that obviously with 27 years of it being vacant, the city's
present and past zoning has presented an obstacle for it being developed. Obviously, given the aerial
photos and the lack of improvement on this site or any records since 1996. When you look at the
lower north district plan, the property was originally zoned for industrial use and then
was the district plan recommended a change to CMX2.
So a commercial mixed-use designation
similar to what we're providing.
Obviously, CMX2 encourages multifamily household living
above commercial.
And the district plan makes no mention
of placing a single unit or single family homes
on this property.
So what we're providing is in alignment
with not only the spirit of the code,
but also the commercial corridor that this sits on
in addition to the oddly shaped lot, which again, makes single family use really difficult. Even if
you were to put a ton of single family homes, sort of the narrow, odd nature of this would make that
incredibly difficult and almost undoable. If it was on CMX2, we would be more in alignment.
We're proposing a bit more units than the CMX2 classification would allow for. But again,
And we're also taking advantage of the bonus, sorry, not the bonus, the overlay that requires
affordable housing.
So we're not requesting any waivers or variances from providing the affordable housing, which
I think is important.
And with the additional units comes additional affordable housing, which the community was
supportive of.
Some of the other variances we're requesting are due to parking and location of parking
and also the commercial use.
Again, the property zone RSA 5, so you can't provide any commercial uses without triggering a refusal.
I'm going to sort of pause there and bring on our architect, Chris Klass, to go through the plans.
The project did go through Civic Design Review as well, and we did submit a letter to the board just showing that we completed that process.
We also met with the South Kensington community partners a number of times through both the CDR process and zoning and made some adjustments and ultimately obtained a letter of support.
And as mentioned earlier, a letter of non-opposition from the council office.
When I have if we can promote Chris class to go through our plans.
Mr. Class. He's been promoted here.
sir could you state your name and spell please for the court stenographer
good afternoon the members of the board able to hear me yeah we can could you state your name
and spell for the court stenographer yes christopher class chris class representing
design blends do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do proceed counsel chris are you able to share your screen and go through the plans for the board
i can give me one moment
sorry i apologize for the delay i just have to pull them out
are you able to see my screen we see it now great so as rachel mentioned uh we're proposing
89 dwelling units on this site with a primary access from germantown avenue
the site is fairly odd in shape but does connect back with a leg back to north 6th street
we found this area to be better served with parking and we're using a single direction drive
better served with parking, and we're using a single direction drive to promote better
vehicular circulation through this area. We're providing ample landscape buffers between
the adjacent districts where possible, and I'll just run through the plans briefly.
Basement levels will be predominantly utilities and amenity spaces with some
tenant storage. The ground floor, we're proposing a commercial space along Germantown Avenue
with a small lobby access. We understand, you know, we're trying to avoid congestion on Germantown
Avenue and providing lay-by-lane and loading spaces, although we're not qualifying them as
loading for zoning within those areas for drop-offs, pickups, trash, and move-ins.
All the trash will be contained within the building, and we're providing landscape buffers
at Germantown Avenue and 6th Street to conceal some of the parking.
There are some residential units in the back, and we're utilizing all the available open space that we can for additional greenery, trees, and open common space.
Above that is predominantly dwelling units.
And then finally on the roof, there will be an occupiable roof deck set back from the edges pretty far so it won't be visible from the adjacent neighbors.
and uh in speaking with the community they had voiced their interest in providing warm
uh color palettes and we had given them a few options and they seemed very receptive of these
uh Rachel is there anything specific you want me to go through in addition to that
um no unless the board has anything
we're okay okay thank you well now i think of it i did want to mention just the chris for you to
just uh talk about the just the parking for a moment because that was one of the refusals that
we have um sure so i just so from the the district uh parking is prohibited in the rsa5
You know, the count that we have proposed is fairly similar to those of other districts that require parking for multifamily development.
We think that it's a necessity for this area.
So we're really trying to maximize parking in the areas that we feel are, for the most part, unbuildable for the site, being the strip along connecting 6th Street and partly under the building.
So very minimal view from the street, and most of it will be commercial space that you'll see from Germantown Avenue.
If you could also just touch on the height as well.
Yeah, so we're asking for additional height so that we can accommodate viable commercial spaces and a quantity of dwelling units that is acceptable to the client and really just to make the value of the site worth it.
But the additional height does allow us to get some parking underneath the building as well.
So, and last, I just want you to share that you guys, we did look into single family homes
and just if you could give a little bit about kind of the difficulty of a single family
home configuration, just from a perspective.
So, we looked at a number of different schemes for our client in this project.
Due to the shape of the lot, providing single family homes within the site would only allow
us to capture frontage along germantown avenue and possibly along 6th street it'd be very difficult
to get vehicular access into that site but what would remain is a very large unusable space in
the back corner because there is no frontage for an actual road ultimately if they were to go that
a route with additional buildings they would be in the same situation of needing a variance
for buildings that didn't have true frontage.
So from a building performance standpoint,
this was certainly the more viable
and appropriate option for the site.
Thank you, Chris.
I have nothing else, Chairman.
You want to bring your client on
to adopt your testimony?
Yes, please.
If you see Andres Rolland.
Andres Rolland has been allowed to speak.
Thank you.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the course stenographer?
Andres Roland, A-N-D-R-E-S-R-O-L-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Please proceed, counsel.
Andres, have you heard my testimony today?
Andres, have you heard my testimony today?
Do you believe it to be true and accurate, and do you adopt it as your own?
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Yes, just briefly, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Pritzker, did you discuss with your client what eating and drinking establishment uses he was seeking to have the board approve at this property?
Yeah, I did email you back about that, so I apologize if you didn't see that.
It would be a prepared food shop and takeout restaurant.
All right.
um and um i because i didn't receive the proviso plans until today i have not had a chance to
review them so we will need to just hold the vote so i can make sure everything is something that
can be approved by the board we'll just hold it for one week thank you no problem um questions
or comments from the virtual audience i see no hands chair planning commission
good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg walton from planning commission staff
in 2016 the zoning map was amended from commercial mixed use to residential single
family at this location with the support of the community the comprehensive plan recommends
commercial mixed use the proposed proposal completed its civic design review in december
2023 the civic design review committee's advisory recommendations are not an expression of the city
planning commission's recommendation or opinion regarding zoning variances special exceptions
or other discretionary approvals associated with this proposal the appellate has not shown that a
variance for double the allowable unit density which would permit 43 units by right in the
recommended zoning district is necessary to enable the viable economic use of the property city
PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMENDS THAT THE ZONING BOARD GRANT THE VARIANCE FOR GROUND FOR COMMERCIAL
USE BUT LIMIT THE NUMBER OF UNITS TO 43 UNITS WHICH IS WHAT WOULD BE ALLOWED UNDER THE COMP PLAN