Number 11.
MI 2025-007-690-3301, Green's Back Street, Danelle, the attorney is Treat, Darlene Treat is the attorney.
We have
They're being promoted to panelists
Good morning
Yeah, why don't we get to that
We should get her
No, you don't have to
Good morning, Darlene
good morning commissioners darling please could you please state your name and spell for the
stenographer Darlene threet d-a-r-l-e-n-e threet thomas h-r-e-a-t-t do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do um could you identify your client
in relationship to the property i believe my client is sitting in the room today he's sitting
right in front of us but i've still asked you to do mr christian uh cordero we had a little mix up
all right okay um and he's the owner yes he is okay our vice chair has a few questions
good morning have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing
yes I have and do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their
accuracy yes I do all right thank you you can see your screen and proceed with the case
Okay. All right. Thank you. You can see your screen and proceed with the case.
here we go good morning my name is darlene and i'm representing christian cordero today
i've submitted a package of information which contains the refusal
appeal property information form deed tax information
Additional property information, plans, pictures, a community letter and a proof of mailing. We did meet with the community association. Unfortunately, though I asked a couple of times, I did not receive a copy. We can't see your exhibits.
Oh, let me read here.
No problem.
you're coming up now okay yep you're up all right i uh submitted a uh package of uh exhibits which
are listed in the syllabus here a commission is uh mr cordero uh purchased this property
in december of 2024 uh he started work and didn't have the proper permitting
uh and then he sought out to apply to the zoning board of adjustment to build a one family single
family dwelling which he intends to live in this property is a substandard property it is uh zoned
as a rsa 5 which allows for single family uh development uh we were refused because there's
not um enough space basically there's the property is only 651 square feet and there's not enough
room for uh the rear yard um etc we filed an appeal to the zoning board of adjustment
indicating that we like to build a single family structure which the lot is actually zoned for
here's the project information form
there's a deed, a tax information, general property information.
I just wanted to show you that it is a very small substandard lot in the house we are building.
There are compatible in lot and dimension as the other houses on the block.
Here are the actual plans.
I'm just going to blow it up a little bit.
This is just actually the site plan,
which shows we plan to build a single family house on the spot.
Down in the corner here on the plan,
you can see what's currently existing here.
Generally, we want one family on the top, a garage and some storage up on the bottom.
I'm going to go down to the actual floor plan.
Mr. Cordero has a business.
He is a trucker.
He plans to have an office on the first floor and some storage for some of his business equipment, files, et cetera.
I'm on the second floor, which I'll blow up a little bit more.
He just wants to have a one-bedroom.
Cutting the grass outside.
On the second floor, he just plans to have a simple one-bedroom dwelling.
It's a nice size apartment.
Basically you have a kitchen and a dining room area here.
Basically, you have a kitchen and a dining room area here.
You walk back, you have a full bathroom here.
And back here, you have a large one bedroom.
I'm just going to reduce that a little.
Here is just a rendering of what the rear,
the front of the property looks like this is the length of the property
and this is what the rear of the property looks like
here is the picture of how the property currently looks here's a picture of the posting
there is a little breezeway that you can walk through to the back there's not much of a back
there's somewhat of a year a rear alley back there that's down pretty much and here are some
other pictures just to show you that this house is built compatible with the size width height
of the other houses on the left that's the rear of the property
that's the little breezeway that i showed you that you can walk from the side of the
property all the way down the side to the rear
that doesn't look fabulous but that's what the back of the properties look like
that's a left side of the street of brands back
and that's a full picture of both sides of the street of brands back
some additional pictures
the commissioners we did uh actually meet with the 47th ward we met actually twice uh we met
with mr plumes at the property initially i went through it and then we noticed the meeting with
the community on april 27th i believe i sent out 156 flyers and it was my understanding that the
uh property was approved and again i apologize i was not able to get a copy of the letter although
i tried uh and that's our mailing and to show you uh that we did uh send out the appropriate mailers
for the meeting and that's all i have commissions
you want to bring your client want to adopt your testimony
council
mr cordero yeah sir could you please state your name get closer to the mic if you would
could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer christian cordero
c-r-i-s-t-i-a-n and cordero is c-o-r-d-e-r-o do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the
whole truth nothing but the truth i do counsel
uh mr cordero are you the owner of the property at 3301 grand south yes and have you heard the
presentation that i made today yes and if you were to testify today would you be able to
adopt my testimony as true and correct yes that's all i have commission questions from the board
Yeah. Go ahead. I guess my question is, is there a legal curb cut for this driveway?
No, there's not a legal curb cut. There is not.
So. So this garage, then, do you need to go to streets to get approval for that?
uh be honest with you i didn't initiate this application and it should have been done in
the beginning and it is my intention to file a review and to see if i can get some parking
for downstairs but that's wouldn't isn't that part of what we would be looking at though for
consideration no today today the application he does have a home business our application
is for storage and a home office
downstairs, not for parking.
All right.
Thank you. Other questions?
Yes. I have a question
just because it didn't seem
that all of the plans align with
the photographs. What is the
depth of the rear yard?
There's no real
real yard. I'm going to go to the
rear yard. Is anything behind
the facade?
So how much depth is there
from the interior of the back wall to the end of the property line.
of the of the back wall to the end of the property line because your drawing shows one foot six
inches which is 18 inches and the drawing showed that there was enough space for a person to take
an angled picture with the camera and it looked like it was a closer to three feet and I just
wanted clarity and also I don't is the breezeway on the site plan yes the breezeway is on the site
plan this is in a little bit darling you you it was more visible when you had it at 400 and then
you okay okay so where's the breezeway on here because it's showing an offset around the entire
like there's no breezeway shown on this drawing
and showing the exterior
walls from the property line to property line
with an 18 inch rear yard
which is not what we've depicted
and is there a fence
between sort of your and it looks like the three-foot alley is not part of the legal property
right so that's outside of the property because typically there's an easement and that's shared
amongst neighbors so is the alleyway part of the property or or not this is the existing alleyway
i don't believe the alleyway is part of the property property line and the breezeway
is on the right side where on this drawing
so so on this plan the neighbor has a dream a breezeway
with the the hatched area below has a breezeway but you don't show
a breezeway on your property you just show your property going to the property line
let me just go back down for a second here and I guess I can just state so my concern is that like
part of the reasons we have rear setbacks is to allow for egress in the case of a fire and that
18 inches is not enough space for a human being to exit and so if uh if that if this drawing is
correct and a fence is put up at the property line then it negates the purpose of having that
rear door for a person to to get out they'd have no exit to that alleyway and and um out of the
property same with the breezeway um and because they're neither of them are even shown on the
site plan it makes it hard to i do uh i do see your concern and it does look like the plan the
line is incorrect on the plan but there's definitely an alley in the back and it's about
two three feet can we i mean is it i think it's hard to i feel like this whole case is predicated
on an accurate depiction of the of the existing conditions
and since it's already built i'm also assuming this was this built with permits i usually know
and check today okay it received a stop work permit which is why they applied for the zoning
got it so i think we need an accurate drawing of what is there
all right so so we before we go any further um why don't we consider this carlene why don't we
give it a result of hearing you come back with proper appropriate drawings that would depict
is that okay um is it possible for me to just submit um a new set of plans
i don't think the question of whether the use is at odds with what's supposed to be due there i
just think there's some inconsistency in that back breezeway in the plan so i would like an
opportunity just to be able to submit new plans hear the whole case then close it except for
appropriate plans yes we can we can do that if the board wishes okay other questions from the
board so that everything's on the table yeah if my second question is is the idea to to keep these
combined or is it to separate the unit so that in the future the unit could be separate from the
business like is it meant to have an office space and a separate unit because they didn't seem
fully legally separated also by the plans is there a door that would allow the upstairs
residential tenant to have their own separate this no no
their own separate this no no this is a home office use it is the intention of
my client mr. Cordero to live there and to use the downstairs for storage and
his personal home office understand okay and then I guess the big question
elephant in the room is if the you know if this gets converted to be a garage
later it doesn't look like the plan is set up to accommodate that easily right
now i didn't hear the last part of your question it doesn't seem like the plan is set up to
accommodate the conversion of this to have uh parking well if we had to convert it we would
have to go to the streets department um and have them sign off on a legal curb cut okay so you're
just gonna do that as a complete simple process yeah understood and there is no basement in this
unit right no no there is no basement all right thank you all the questions yes um so the garage
is going to be just used for an office or whatever there's no plan to um have curb cut
currently the garage is going to be used for storage mr cordero is an independent uh trucker
He has a business, and he plans to use the downstairs for his office for his business and to store some supplies.
Okay, so.
No commercial use for the storage is intended.
Personal use.
Okay, so because I guess my question is, again, there is no plan to use this as an actual garage, correct?
not currently and if in the future it's used as a garage we would go back through
license and inspections and put in the proper paperwork the proper plans with the proper cuts
on the curb okay so and is there parking that there's no parking allowed on that street there
no there isn't okay all right thank you there is parking on the street
no those that's parking is illegal people are parking on the sidewalk right yeah that's what
i mean i mean there's no parking there is no parking um a question from our attorney
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair we have one hand up from uh sloan folks they're allowed to sure
good morning chairman bergman gv board good morning sloan could you please state your name
is spelled for the stenographer yes my name is sloan folks um s-l-o-a-n-e f as in fire o-l-k-s
i'm representing the office of council member ketchy lazada room 484 city hall right do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir we do proceed yes
Yes, the council member initially was going to request that any vote would be held for
two weeks to ensure that a letter from the community was on record regarding this variance
request.
What we're hearing now is that there's going to be, not going to be a resumptive hearing,
but there's going to be another hearing prior to approval.
Is that correct or incorrect?
Correct. That's what we would like to do. Okay. So our request is that prior to any vote, a letter from the community is, and we can ensure that happens. We're meeting with the community on a separate matter this week, but a letter from the community is on record stating their, any concerns they may have and anything that they really want to say.
So we will not do anything until after that meeting.
Thank you, sir.
okay anyone else in the board I mean in the audience
no hands at this time chair any Commission good morning chair David effecto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with
the City Planning Commission do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes sir I do please proceed thank you Mr Chairman and board members good morning
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA 5 residential single-family zoning at
this location. The city rezoned this neighborhood in 1973 and a council supported map change.
The structure proposed to become a single family home apparently already exists. This appears to