view under the property faces the l um except the line which is above in this photo and that white
apartment building is towards the middle this is along front street our properties are where my
mouse is indicating as you can see there is a rather tall building here
these are some nearby properties along coral that are also appear to be at maximum height
uh properties along coral um that are also appear to be at maximum height again we are
anticipating a 44 foot high building onto the use variance the property is in a very unique and
culturally significant neighborhood an applicant as a local and who lives and operates a business
in the area believes that this hotel use could really benefit the property and the area and
the residents nearby. It would allow visitors to explore the city and it would be a great place for
creatives and traveling artists to stay as well as families of nearby residents. Applicant intends
to put in the following measures in order to decrease any disturbances to nearby residents
which have been discussed with the RCOs and the nearby neighbors.
I am also going to show you our letter from the RCO, sorry, which I have at a 10.
so applicant intends to manage the property and it will not be outsourced mike and his
team will be fully involved in not only the construction of this property but also in the
management and operation of the hotel space and the commercial space he's he is committed to
having one full-time employee for the hotel use that is available all the time for any issues
that may arise. He does not have any tenants in place yet, but has every intention to not only
work with the community, put in a useful use in one of these commercial spaces, but also to have
that commercial space be cohesive with the hotel space in order to not only keep eyes on the
property but to also you know service the guests that are staying there we are happy to work with
the and we're committed to working with the rcos in order to provide a commercial space that is
appropriate for this area applicant is also suggesting or is intending to have set check-in
times as well for parking to there's street parking in this area but also they have been
working with nearby parking lots and parking garages to create a voucher system for guests
as well as any septic keys is an option as well. Applicant will require guests to abide
by noise restrictions to prevent any unruly guests and will prevent one guest from booking
all of the rooms to prevent any partying concerns as well as a two-night minimum on the weekends.
So, in conclusion, I will go through what was the vote show is the vote of the RCO was 29 to 2 of the.
Okay, thank you.
I will just quickly go through our tax equipped here clearance certificate deed.
deed, our application, and as I showed earlier, our posting, as well as our notice and certificates of service. I would, again, this, like I mentioned before, this is a really unique property.
The applicant is a local who saw a hole in the market and wants to fill it, and as you can see and as you mentioned, we've received overwhelming community support.
I would now ask Mike Lastowski, sorry for butchering your name, to please raise your hand.
Mike Lastowski has been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. Hello. It's Michael Lastowski. That's M-I-C-H-A-E-L-L-A-S-T-O-W-S-K-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
i do please proceed mike are you the manager of front and coral llc the applicant in this matter
and owner of the property yes i am and were you present for the testimony that i just presented
to the board yes i was were would you adopt that testimony as your own yes i would i would also
like to have matt master pasqua to please raise his hand he is our architect in this matter
i i think your testimonies spelled it out very well all right well i'll ask the board for any
questions all right questions from the board no mr chairman no chair no chair questions or
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
comments from our attorney hillary emerson i just wanted to
I just want to clarify a couple of things.
Ms. Miller, you mentioned that there was commercial space on the first floor.
Is that existing commercial space or is that newly proposed commercial space?
Because it's not listed on the refusal, although I see some references on your application to it.
So I'm just trying to understand what all is being proposed.
So something may have been missed on the refusal.
My understanding is that the property is currently vacant and the commercial mixed use district allows for commercial space on the first floor.
It should be, but there's vacant.
So the proposal is for vacant commercial space on the first floor.
I mean, there's no, there isn't a business isn't there right now.
It's going to be maintained as commercial space.
correct okay so that should have that should have been noted on the refusal
so we'll just i think mr chair we can um indicate just a proviso that um use registration is
required prior to occupancy for vacant commercial space on the first floor
okay and and you depending what the use is it may be by right but you do have to get a permit
for the specific use understood so all right thank you thank you questions or comments from the
virtual audience there are no hands chair planning commission thank you chair bergman and good
afternoon david effecto with the city planning commission chairman and board members the
comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed use zoning at this location
the proposed variance for a non-conforming structure appears to be a variance peculiar
to the site itself and not self-created so the city planning commission recommends the board
grant the dimensional variance however there is no unique physical condition or circumstance of
this property that would prevent it from being used for long-term rentals so the city planning
commission recommends the board deny the proposed use variance for visitor accommodations
Thank you.
So MI 2024-000239-2105-07 North Front Street, I vote yes for the zoning refusal, the vertical extension, and for the used refusal, the visitor accommodation, I vote yes for a temporary variance that will expire 3-21-27.
And, Hillary, what's the other thing you want me to add?
So, excuse me.
So, use registration required prior to occupancy for vacant commercial space on the ground floor.
Use registration is required for occupancy for commercial vacant space on the ground level.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes with provisos.
James Snell, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you, counsel.
Number five, MI 2023-005-966-6174, Ridge, number T-A100825.
Richard DeMarco is the attorney.
There is a letter of support.
From Central Roxburgh Civic Association, a letter of support from the Roxburgh Development Corporation, a letter of support from Councilmember Jones.
Richard DeMarco has been promoted.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
DeMarco, did I swear you in earlier this morning? Do I remember that?
No, that was yesterday.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I was on yesterday. It's all right.
Could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer, please?
Richard DeMarco, last name spelled D-E-M-A-R-C-O.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Do you identify your client and relationship to this property?
Yeah, there are three clients.
The property is being consolidated after, hopefully, we get approval from this board today.
The three clients are Carolina Topolesky, 6172 Ridge Holdings, LLC, and 471 Leverington, LLC.
They are the owners on the deeds that have been submitted with the packet.
Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I agree.
Have you emailed in all of the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing yes i did thank you please proceed and share this main
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen, Council.
council thank you mr chairman so this uh
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So this is quite a unique scenario, Mr. Chairman. This is a scenario where the – can you hear me okay, Mr. Chairman?
I think I froze. I'm sorry. Can you hear me okay, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Chair, you're muted.
Yes, sir, I can. Yes, I can.
Okay, sorry. I think I froze for a minute. Anyway.
We're good.
All right, great, great. So this is a unique scenario where there was an as-of-right permit that was pulled for this project in the early part of 2023.
The as-of-right project, as you're going to see from my slide presentation, is seriously nowhere near as efficient and beneficial to the neighborhood as the current project that's before you today.
This has been a collaborative process with the two RCOs in the area who my clients worked for almost a full calendar year with them on improving the project over the eyes of right permit into a project that was really embraced by the groups.
And I credit both neighborhood groups with their efforts in working with us, with my clients, to produce really a much heads and shoulders, much better project that's before you today.
So while the variances that we're looking for might seem significant, when you consider that the as-of-right project was what it was, you can see where the variances are warranted.
so very briefly uh we're asking for parking variance and that is really the reason why
we're before you um the initial permit that was given only had 26 dedicated parking spaces for
um nine nine excuse me 82 units the current project has 71 parking spaces for 94 units
It also has an underground garage, which is actually a variance item on the refusal.
As you can see, I'll show it with my cursor.
You see it here, excuse me, here, the third one, the middle one there.
The original overlay, and these are, by the way, mostly overlay provisions that we've
run afoul of, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
The overlay is pretty stringent there.
And what happened was through the collaborative process, we came up with what we think is a much better project.
But anyway, actually, the overlay only permits surface parking, and that caused an issue because the applicant could not fit significant parking into the as-of-right project.
So we are here now for the variances for to have the underground garage and to have, which I think everybody agrees is more desirable because it buries the parking, which can be ugly.
so that we're here for actually for a variance, but we're suggesting to the board that that is
actually beneficial to the community in this instance. And then there's some dimensional
variances. The use is a permitted use. It's a mixed-use structure, commercial along the entirety
of the first floor facing Ridge Avenue. I'll show you some renderings, which will demonstrate that
aptly, and a residential above. So let's go right to some of the drawings. This is our petition of
appeal which i in which i made the argument that i just made let me just briefly show here's the
photos the posting which was done timely um it's a long ridge avenue you can see there's some empty
storefronts um here dollar store which is obviously being replaced and there's a restaurant that's
being replaced okay so let me show you oh and here are some panoramic shots of the streetscape
All right, so here's the as-of-write permit, which was dated February of 2023.
In between that date and the current date, there were additional changes made to the
overlay, which are another reason why we're here for variances.
But as you'll see, the community really embraced this process, and the applicant really worked
with the neighbors to really improve it.
And that's why we have such, I would like to suggest, overwhelming support.
and that's the as of right permit which was only 26 you see it here only 26 accessory parking spaces
for 82 dwelling units which we would submit is probably not even though that was compliant with
the code at the time probably not enough parking so that's why we now have the 71 spaces and the
for the 96 units this is the original as of right project you see there's a surface parking lot in
middle that faces out towards leverington which was not ideal as you'll see as we go forward
uh you'll see how that was improved upon all right so what am i
uh you'll see how that was improved upon all right so what I'm going to do is I'll switch to
uh this is a site contextual uh over over over uh overhead drawing you can see there's Ridge
Avenue a very busy commercial corridor but there are some residential homes um so we were trying
to be sympathetic and I'll get to that in a moment this is the current zoning panel let me do this
I'm going to switch to our CDR.
So this project went through a civic design review process.
The applicant had already worked with the neighbors, the Central Roxborough Civic Association and the development, Roxborough Development Corporation.
This is a pocket park, which the neighbors are very protective of.
What we did with the changes to this project is make the new structure, as opposed to the as-of-right project, which would have destroyed the mural.
There was a mural that was very beloved by the neighbors that was going to be replaced with the old project.
The new project is going to replace it with three new murals under the supervision of the Mural Arts Program.
And that's what you could see on this image.
um we also were more sympathetic to the pocket park that's the survey let me get right to some
uh i want to show you the one so here so you can see here we created an opening here
that and these will hopefully be restaurants along that's the intentions to have restaurants
here again the mural arts program is going to be operated through the neighbors and the mural
arts program to have the new murals. And this is the pocket park with an open courtyard from our
building leading into the pocket park. And that was a key element that was really embraced by
the neighborhood groups. And they asked for that, and we did that. Here's a better view of that.
So you can see how the new project is much more sympathetic, whereas the old project was just
really a blank, a straight wall, which was not sympathetic to the pocket park.
These are some of the, so this is another view. This is the opening courtyard that allows light
and air into the building. Much better than having a surface parking lot there. We obviously know we
buried the parking lot and this is now an open courtyard and green roof instead of a slab of
concrete. That's the Leverington side. This is the opening here into the underground garage. You can
see it right there. And this is the site plan showing that courtyard here. And then this is
the building. But it's really more open than that site plan shows because you have really the open
courtyard here. I just want to show the board some of the comments from the CDR. I guess Mr.
perfecto, we'll talk to you more about that. But we were very thrilled to have the Civic Design
Committee members applaud the efforts of the developer to work with the neighbors to really
improve over what was an as-of-right project, which really was not sympathetic. It had some
elements that were beneficial, but overall, it was not really the best way to go about this
development and as you'll see from their testimony they're going to testify today um and hopefully
you'll see that the the there's been a really a collaborative effort with the neighbors which
resulted in a much better project um so i think that's all i have as far as the documents let me
go ahead and have eric marshall um be uh promoted to a panelist to uh adapt my testimony and answer
a couple of quick questions. Excuse me. Eric Marshall, please raise your hand virtually.
His hand is up, and I will allow him to speak. Thank you. Mr. Marshall, could you please state
your name and spell for the stenographer? Hi, Eric Marshall, D-R-I-C-M-A-R-S-H-A-L-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Please proceed, Mr. DeMarco. Thank you. First of all, I did want, I left one thing out,
So the height variance that we're requesting was necessary because you'll note, and especially in this image, the first floor has a much higher ceiling.
This was intended and something that was done in collaboration with the neighbors to have higher ceilings on the first floor to make the retail spaces more desirable.
And that drove the height of the building up significantly.