So this is really not the best picture,
but I'm going to show you additional ones.
This is the property in question here.
There are a number of addresses here that I'm going to show you specifically a little later.
But this is what the area looks like and specifically,
Thank you.
This is a map of the entire parcel.
Now these buildings are not the subject of zoning today.
It's just this particular parcel, which is 1650 to 1660.
This is really just an open, open space
that used to be used by these buildings for parking, et cetera.
i'm going to go through several pictures to show you what the area looks like and then i'm going
to go through a specific plot plan which shows you where we like to place this equipment on
the lot and how the lot would be laid out this right here is van dyke street going towards
Carlsdale Street. It's pretty empty. On the left-hand side, the buildings that you're looking
at are 1612 to 1644. They're not part of this application, but they are owned by my client.
That's all that's back here. On the right-hand side is an abandoned CVS. This is Van Dyke looking
towards the other direction. It actually empties out into Orchard Street. On the left-hand side,
where you see the little or the little awnings is a sign company, which is the only other business
back here. This is actually just the opening the gate to our property, which would allow you to get
into the lot. Again, the buildings on the right hand side are not subject of the zoning request
today. There are buildings and warehouses that are already zoned for I2, which we can already
park our trucks in. This is just a better look at the whole street from Van Dyke. I wanted to
show you the posting, and I wanted to show you some of the blocking that we have, barriers on
the fencing around the property. Just another look down Van Dyke Street, Van Dyke Street.
this is across the street directly across the street from us and this is a sign company which
is pretty much besides on Paul Street over here there's a car lot in a car company but those are
the only businesses back here and when I noticed the meeting there were only 13 properties to be
noticed they're all commercial again this is van dyke street and this is a abandoned
cvs that's been abandoned for some time
so here is our entire lot which we would like to place the back cement plant on that apparatus
And I just took a few pictures of the lot to show you the scale and how large it is.
It's actually 44,400 square feet.
The lot is surrounded by a fence and a barrier.
And earlier when I went out for the lot, it was still a little bit snow covered, but this
is basically the lot and the surrounding.
So now I really want to go to what I call the rendering, which will really explain what
we would like to do here on these premises.
Here is the entire site plan.
So this part right here to the right today is not the subject of zoning.
Eventually, Mr. Kevin Ponieski will move his entire operation, about the 75 to 80 employees,
and they will occupy these buildings, have administrative offices, have some parking.
and they will occupy these buildings, have administrative offices, have some parking
for his employees around here. He currently rents this property out to another trucking company.
They don't have a batch plant, but they are a cement company, and they park their trucks on
the lot around here. Now, what Mr. Koniecki would like to do is actually build his own cement batch
plant which i'm just going to enlarge and move over a little for you on the empty um lot that
i showed you the pictures of so here we go this is the empty lot these are the railroad tracks
and the water the creek is back up this way let me just scale it down a little bit further
there. So this is the opening and the entrance to the lot. You saw the overhead entrance with
the rolling gate on it. On this lot, we would like to be able to store the sand and the rocks,
et cetera, that we will use, put in this apparatus to make the cement. And I'm going to scale down
for the apparatus a little later on to show you what we're actually going to do but i wanted to
talk a little bit about the lot so this lot will be paid won't be paved we will have a crutch
um stone on this lot and i do have the engineer on the lot today excuse me on the line today if
anyone has any questions about the lot this apparatus will be a place here by a company
and maintained by the company the trucks will our trucks will come in the lot this way
and go around and come under here where cement gets deposited into the trucks
the trucks can come on out and they can come right back on out the lot at a later date and
Even when the business maybe takes on some more clientele or is more productive, we may
think about putting another entrance on this side of the street somewhere.
But I'm going to go down now into what we call the actual batch plant.
plant. So this is what we would like to build and or store outside. This is actually what
we call a cement batch plant. Materials are put in here, they're put in here, they're
mixed, and they come out through the chute here. A truck will drive up under here. The
cement will be loaded into the truck and the truck will go on its way to do whatever job
it is hard to do now we would like to um operate this uh batch plant and again this is a step by
step project these buildings need a lot of work before his company can move over here and they
could be used in a fashion but before we can relocate we really wanted to get the uh plant
going uh so that we can have a more a business whereby we don't have to go outside to purchase
cement now currently mr konieski purchases cement from outside companies which is not productive
or cost effective for his business and i'm just going to give you an example if he has a
city job at nine o'clock in the morning and the cement company has a bigger job than his
and they're supposed to come at nine they may call him and tell him this cement won't be delivered
to 12 o'clock and that means he has to pay the union laborers to stay on that site an extra four
hours without doing any work before the cement is delivered and he can do his work i'm just going to
flip back to the pictures because I wanted to just show you a couple more
things in regard to what we have planned here.
So there are a lot of concerns in regards to having this type of operation at this facility.
One of the first concerns is the dumping and in one or two of the pictures that I showed
you previously you can see there's a dumping problem in this area because there are not really
many businesses uh in regard to that uh my client once they are on the premises
In regard to that, my client, once they are on the premises, they will have a crew that will not only maintain the outside of the area, but the crew will also maintain their lot and make sure that it's clean and there is no blowing rubbish.
Additionally, there is fencing around the whole lot, which would lead to the creek, as well as a cement wall, which stops the blowing of rubbish and or trash.
Additionally, there is security cameras located all around the perimeter of the buildings.
The security cameras are actually connected to a telephone and they actually send messages
when something is happening in the area whereby someone can come and see what's happening.
There are also a security camera in the yard currently just to monitor the conditions of the yard and what's going on at the site.
In regard to the structure or the pavement or the surface of the yard, currently there is crushed stone on this yard.
If I go back to the wandering, I can show you there's also currently a cement pad in this yard in regard to drainage.
We're not really putting any permanent structures on here or any building.
It is my understanding that the drainage for the yard since it's crushed stone currently is sufficient.
I did speak to the engineer about it and she can answer any of the questions she may have,
but she did indicate to me that once they cover the whole service,
that they would have to submit a stormwater plan to the water department
and it would have to be approved before any other additional colorings of the lot.
uh and basically um that is uh my uh presentation uh in regard to the cement batch plant that we
would like to sit at 1650 to 1660 van dyke street all right you want to bring your client on
mr konieski can you come on the line please
Kevin?
He's rejoining now.
sir could you please state your name is bell for the stenographer yeah you unmute unmute
you're muted that's it hi my name is kevin kinesny k-e-v-i-n k-o-n-i-e c-z-n-y do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth nothing but the truth i do counsel good afternoon kevin good
afternoon kevin are you the current owner of 1650 to 1660 van dyke street yes i am
have you heard my uh testimony as presented to the board today yes and if you were to testify
today would you be able to adopt my testimony as true and correct kevin correct thank you
questions from the board yeah but well hold on our our attorney would like a question so so
Ms. Threet, so unfortunately, I think this refusal is completely wrong.
Oh, boy.
So a storage use would be like keeping trucks there.
This is production.
This is considered an industrial use.
And also, I think the structure to hold the sand and perhaps the structures that want
to be installed for the concrete production, those probably also need zoning permits as
None of this was in materials that were submitted to L and I with the zoning permit application.
So unfortunately, if if the board did grant the variance here, all you'd be able to do with this property would be to store materials and vehicles and that sort of thing.
You couldn't actually do production because that's a different use.
You also in order to set up all of this, that probably would need additional permits for structures, too.
probably would need additional permits for structures too yeah and and that's that's
So, yeah.
what i was thinking because um outdoor structures like this um that's that's what they're considered
like i i've had a little lava please i said outdoor structures like this um that that's
what they're considered they're considered to be like structures um i've had some cases with like
refrigeration units that were like outside. I've had some cases with some other types of
like big fueling stations. Yes. Cell phone towers. Almost like a manufacturing plant.
Yeah. Yeah. It can be outside, but they wouldn't just,
they're going to want to approve the structures and the process too is different this is not just
storage yeah this is not this is not storage this is industrial use yeah so so i think i i don't know
if the refusal can be amended frankly to include everything that's here because it's a it's only
a change of use um but we can we can look into that but i i don't think this refusal is at all
what um you're seeking to do here unfortunately it's very different
oh it wouldn't be included in uh buildings equipment materials buildings no so so no
because specifically that that use in in the code for equipment materials storage
yards and buildings its uses related to outdoor indoor bulk storage of equipment products or
materials whether or not stored in containers and then if you go to industrial use intensive
industrial actually includes the manufacturing of cement in its definition so it's it's an
intensive industrial use which may this is an i2 property it may be permitted you know by right in
this but no it's not okay being told no so um yeah so i think you're gonna need relief either
way but this doesn't have anything of what you're seeking to do in it unfortunately
um we can we can understand yeah okay we can we can talk further offline but i had
no idea until i heard your presentation what exactly was was being proposed so all right so
we're going to you'll wind up talking with her offline yeah we're not going to continue this
right well i would respect respectfully request that uh you give me a time to consult with ellen
i and this refusal and uh see if it's allowed to be amended if so i'll amend it if not i'll start
over yeah that's we can probably just um just continue just continue this we'll put a continuing
in state on it but in the meantime we can either if it can be amended then we'll do a resumption
hearing um actually let's set a let's actually let's set the res let's set a resumption date
um and at that point we can either resume it with an amended refusal or we'll it'll be withdrawn and
we'll need to do a resumptive date of 9 15 26 at 9 38. uh commissioner if i could is it possible
we could get a july uh date because it'll be a yes or no whether or not it could be this is what
i would recommend you do call the office and tell them your situation all right okay thank you very
much thank you thank you thank you number nine mi 2026 000 848 326 cater street david orphan
GENETES IS THE ATTORNEY.
SUPPORT FROM QUEEN'S VILLAGE NEIGHBORS ASSOCIATION.
good afternoon mr chairman members of the board could you please state your name and spell for
the stenographer certainly my name is david orphanetes the last name is o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i did i do could you identify your client and relationship to the property yes my client is rich
or richard stouffer and he's the owner of the property and our vice chair has a few questions
good afternoon um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing
um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing
uh we believe we did we attempted to we resubmitted them i think yesterday just to make sure they went
through because we've been having some problems uploading through the portal and then we just
provided revised drawings based upon some communications that hillary and ian and i
had regarding some changes to the design uh just this afternoon with the new revised provide updated
revised proviso plan form to the one that was previously submitted okay thank you for that
and do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do all right thank
you you can show your screen to proceed and just to note for the board for this matter there is um
there is a revised refusal um and three pages of revised plans this matter can move to a vote
today based on the changes that were just submitted by mr orphanetes cool thank you
okay all right ready
i'm sorry may i proceed sure oh okay sorry um so we're here for 326 cater street uh picture
of the property is here uh up on your screen right now uh the history has the property has a history
of non-residential use at one time it was a barn or a stable with carriages you can see that kind
of telltale door loft door up here at the second floor uh the the property you can see here is
located um right off of south street and if you give me one put here you go let me just move this
here out of the way. It's going to bother me. Okay, here we go. All right. So the property
you can see here is located right here, and it's right off of South Street. Cater Street
is the first half block or first block south of South Street. We're located between 3rd
and 4th Street. And what you're going to see in a couple minutes is that the lion's share
of this block, there aren't a lot of properties on this block that actually front on Cater
street there there are 20 properties that front on it um six on the south on ours only six on our
side when i say front have an address there are a number of properties that have frontage but the
primary frontage only six of them are on the south side and 14 of them are on the north side but
you'll see in a minute um you know there you're going to see that we have a residential property
across the street we have a residential property next to us and then we as we go down the block
we have residential properties down at Oriana I'm sorry we go to Oriana Street not the third
Street ends at Oriana and there's a series of residential properties down here on the
north side at the east end and then one property down here at 308 other than that
all the all the properties that actually have the front door on cater Street have residential
residential type properties and when I say residential type properties you'll see with
with this zoning map, that our block or our side of the block is zoned CMX2.
The north side of the block is zoned CMX3.
And what you'll see is that even though the properties down at the east end on the north
side all look like single family homes, a few of them have received zoning approval
for visitor accommodations because that is a use that's permitted in CMX3 and they didn't
need to come to the board for that.