you swear to tell the truth
and the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do Vice Chair
please proceed
just wanted to indicate as counsel had stated earlier
We support this appeal. The facility has a long history in the community dating back to when it started off, the adjacent building started off as a homeless shelter.
This is exactly the kind of location that we want our daycare providers to be in rather than going into row homes, RSA5 homes, or RM1 row homes that we frequently have as applicants.
There's been no history of problems with a pickup or drop off of the children, with parents' cars blocking the street.
We do have SLACS, which is Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School, occupying the second and third floor.
We think that the, I'm going to call it in my terms, the unity of use as an educational facility running from pre-kindergarten up through fourth grade is great for our community.
And we would ask you to grant this appeal
on a permanent basis.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your testimony.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no more hands.
Planning Commission.
Amy Board with the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends
no change to zoning at this location
from the existing multifamily RM1.
The proposed use is consistent with documented prior use, and there are unique physical circumstances or conditions that would prevent the property from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
The Planning Commission recommends the Board grant the proposed variances for daycare.
mi-2024-002-0705-6901 my vote is yes for permanent use of child care facility
michael johns my vote is yes
Joe Gaston, my vote is yes
Sonata Graham, my vote is yes
Hyawin, my vote is yes
Congratulations
Thank you very much
All right
Number 17, MI-2024-002793, 6518-20 Ridge Avenue, Richard DeMarco.
Number 17
MI-2024-0
Richard DeMarco has been promoted to panelists.
Good morning, Mr. DeMarco.
Please state your name and spell it for the court reporter.
There we go.
Took a while to link in.
Hello.
Hello.
Can you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
My name is Richard DeMarco.
Last name is spelled D-E-M-A-R-C-O.
Can you please identify your client?
The client is 19128 Investments, LLC.
George Lezis is the principal and is on the call.
You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Do you agree to wait to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I can.
You emailed all the documents in five days in advance of this hearing.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So this matter is a...
And I will just add, Mr. DeMarco, we did receive the letter of support from Ridge Park Civic Association.
Yeah, I'll get into that. We signed a CBA, Community Benefits Agreement, with Ridge Park Civic. I'll go into a little bit more detail about that. And we have their support.
So I have the refusal on the screen. The property is zoned RTA1, which is a change from earlier zoning. The property is an existing seven-unit dwelling. Per the agreement with Ridge Park Civic, we are only proposing six units.
The property is a double lot. It's a longstanding multifamily dwelling use. The issue was the owner that sold to my client last year did not have a permit for the full seven units.
It looks like in the archive, the last approved use was a total of five units, one commercial space, and four residential units.
But as my client will affirm, the property has been a seven-unit residential multifamily dwelling for multiple decades.
So to make the point about the refusal I have on the screen, the RTA actually permits a duplex in each of the lots.
You can see here it's a double lot, 6518 and 68.
We're not seeing a lot right now, counsel.
Can you see my screen?
We see your screen, but we're still on the same page.
Right, right.
I'm circling with my cursor, the double address, 6518 to 20 Ridge.
It's too it's a large lot. I'll get that. Let me pan down. I'll show you. Anyway, last last point I want to make about the refusal, the parking. We are using part of the rear yard for parking. We have a total of eight parking spaces for this property. We erred on the side of including as much parking as possible.
There's a driveway leading back to the rear, and there's plenty of room for parking.
We included as much parking as possible, anticipating that the neighbors would require more than one-to-one or at least one-to-one parking for the lots.
So that's why we incurred that refusal.
So let me show you some photos.
This is the double lot, the overhead.
You can see it's a combined lot.
This is the driveway leading to the rear parking area.
Per our agreement with Ridge Park, we will use pervious coverage on that area, so the water will be able to seep into the ground.
We're also doing some facade improvements, which I'll get to as well.
Here's our posting.
The property is historic.
It's in a district, so we have to be careful about what we do with the facade, but we are promising to do certain upgrades to the facade.
We're going to cover these meter boxes with an aesthetically pleasing box that's accessible, but it won't, you won't, you know, you'll have a nice, you know, aesthetically pleasing box over it that'll be consistent with the facade.
Let me get to the, that's our posting.
I'll show you the multiple.
So you can see there were multiple utility accounts for these Unix.
for these units. It's been that way for a long time. There's separate utility counts for each
It's been that way for a long time.
unit. And you can see in the basement, there are multiple gas meters as well. But again,
we're going to reduce the unit by one to six per the agreement with the RCO. We did our plans form.
So I did upload revised plans showing the six units. We also promised and proposed
additional landscaping. I'll zoom in so you can see this a little better.
There's eight spaces in the rear. There's additional landscaping consistent with planning
commission guidelines. The second page that we uploaded, so what we'll do, we'll ask that the
board, if the board is willing to grant this and vote the case, we'll ask that two pages be stamped
by the board as the revised plan per the agreement with the neighbors. This is the landscaping.
We added landscaping to the front as well as the rear, all consistent with Planning Commission guidelines.
We're going to be redoing the front walkway and the driveway.
There's some cracking.
We'll be repairing the porch.
We'll be doing painting.
These are all listed in the CBA with the Ridge Park Civic, which we have signed.
This is the facade treatment.
This is actually listed on one of the plans, but it's part of the CBA.
As you can see, we're going to be doing some pointing, some filling in of cracks, obviously consistent with the commission.
Going to repair this porch, repair this railing, and redo the cracking along the front.
And, of course, this is the area where you see the new landscaping over here on the left and the right.
I just want to show you the CBA.
This is the community benefits agreement. Obviously, we're not asking that that be included in the decision, but the decision should incorporate the revised plans that we uploaded, two pages showing six units and the additional landscaping.
This is the signed community benefits agreement with Ridge Park Civic.
I think the only other thing I would want to show you is this was the original plan that I just included for reference only, by the way.
um we did the client did have some issues trying to pull an official tax clearance but there is
zero tax balance online uh he paid he paid all the taxes he's he did try to reach out to revenue
um hopefully that's enough i did attach the proof of zero balance uh for all taxes um i guess
Hillary can confirm that. But we we don't we don't have the official picture of the tax clearance, but we have zero zero tax balance.
Here's the certificates of mailing. We had two meetings with Ridge Park and we hammered out this agreement with Marlene Schleifer.
I was supposed to text Marlene about when she may not be able to join us today, but she did submit the letter.
um she said it would be okay if she talked she didn't care if she did or not i was supposed to
text her we were delayed today so i i didn't do that um i could certainly do that if the board
wants it uh that's the um zoning archive which shows a total of five units and on each side
two family in one of the units and then i'll just show you this real quick um this has to be
You see, for 6520 Ridge, there was a beauty parlor at some point and then two apartments above.
So there was a total of five units historically at the property.
And we're just going to be doing six per the agreement with the RCO.
So here's the deed.
And then I'll just show you the tax proof of the zero tax balance.
And I'll ask George Lezis to raise his hand virtually, and he can speak about some of this testimony.
One other thing I'd like to mention, Mr. Chairman, the reason why we believe there's hardship,
and I think the community agreed, if he were to try to convert the property to the current zoning,
which is now, the zoning in the past was RSA 5, R5, excuse me,
which would have permitted the seven units as of right due to the size of the rear yard.
But the property changed to RTA1.
There's a hardship, we would argue, because Mr. Lezis would have to basically destroy the building to convert the property to four units.
They'd have to destroy several kitchens.
They'd have to move out all the tenants.
There are tenants in each of those units.
He's going to be moving out one of the units in order to actually going to have to move out two of the people once their lease is up in order to combine the sixth and seventh unit into.
once their lease is up, in order to combine the sixth and seventh unit into one unit.
So there is some hardship already, but obviously we agree with the neighbors on this to go to six
units, but to go to four would be simply a non-starter for him. He'd have to move everybody
out, completely redo the entire property, and it would be an extraordinary hardship for him.
But we agree with the neighbors on the 6th. We're going to do all the upgrades that we promised. And let me go ahead and ask George to accept my testimony and answer a few quick questions.
Can we promote his client, George, please?
Yes, George Lezis is allowed to speak.
Hello, my name is George Lezis, George, G-E-O-R-G-E, Lezis, L-E-Z-I-S.
Thank you. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Mr. Lazarus, did you hear my factual, the facts and circumstances in the presentation I made this morning in this case?
Yes, I did.
Are they true and accurate, to the best of your knowledge?
Do you adopt them as your formal testimony in this matter?
Yes. And are you in agreement with this Ridge Park Civic Association Community Benefits Agreement as far as the upgrades that you're going to perform and to convert the property to six units total?
Yes, that's correct.
All right. And do you also agree that in order to convert the property to four units, you would be looking at destruction of most of the entire property and it would be prohibitive for you to do that?
That's correct.
Mr. Chair, I think that's all I have. Happy to turn it over for questions and just let me know if there's anything else you want to see on this and I'll...
Sure. Questions from the board?
Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Not at this time, Mr. Rice Chair.
Questions from the virtual audience?
There are no hands.
Planning Commission.
Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.
The property was remapped to RTA 1 in 2018.
There are unique physical circumstances or conditions that would prevent the property from being used in performance with the Zone and Code, and the proposed use is consistent with documented prior use.
The Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the requested variance for seven-family dwelling and for off-street parking.
Thank you.
MI-2024-0027936518-20 Ridge Avenue. My vote is yes with proviso. Revised two-page stamp by ZVA on September the 18th, 2024, and also a maximum of six units, dwelling units,
as well as stamp photos of the existing driveway curve cuts.
Excuse me, Mr. Viceroy, there was one page of revised plans that needed to be stamped,
and then the other proviso was a maximum of six dwelling units.
Yeah, and Richard said he uploaded another page.
There is two pages.
One of them is the landscaping drawing, so I thought I was just being thorough.
I'll defer to Hillary on this.
It could be the one page.
This is the one page.
that the i'm sorry i guess this would be the one page to be stamped actually it's the other one
the other one okay fine yeah but it's the other page that i'm looking at the one that's revised
from what ellen i received so it's the one with the pictures of the the driveway oh right that's
what i thought because that shows yeah because this one is different than what was sent to ellen i
um originally so it's just the other one page so yep one page or what okay all right so uh one
page stamp by ZBA September
18th. No problem, Rich.
And then maximum six dwelling units.
And the maximum of six dwelling units.
Michael Johns,
my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham,
my vote is yes with proviso.
Iowan,
my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl?
You're on mute.
You're on mute, Cheryl.
I'm sorry.