Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is to dismiss.
Number 13, yep.
MI 2024-001-964-2600 Mulfield Street.
Joseph Consul is the attorney.
We do have a letter.
Am I correct, Hillary?
That is correct, Mr. Chair.
MI 2024-001694, my vote is to dismiss.
I believe that's a withdrawal, Mr. Chair.
Oh, I'm sorry, withdrawal.
All right.
Excuse me, Chair, Joseph Consul had their hand raised
and they have to vote it to panelists.
This case was withdrawn.
I got a letter yesterday.
Thank you very much, Mr. Consul.
See you in a minute.
So we're going to go to our add-ons.
Number one, MI 2024-005-238-1353 South Hollywood Street, I vote yes for a temporary variance, expires 1-15-27.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Charles Gaston, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Snetta Graham, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes, with proviso.
And number two, MI 2024-005-319-2500 Federal Street, I vote yes with proviso.
Approved use is a sit-down restaurant with two-family household living.
I'll vote.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tyia Wynn, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
We're going to go to our regular list.
Number one, MI 2022, 006213, 2551 West Silver Street.
Steve Masters is the attorney.
I understand we do have letters of opposition.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Good morning.
Could you please, Mr. Masters, please state your name.
and spell for the stenographer steve masters s-t-e-v-e-m-a-s-t-e-r-s do you swear or firm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do but you identify your client
relationship to the property yes um my client is a latasha turner um she uh owns this property
via a LLC called RL Property Group, LLC.
uh and um she is our client okay our vice chair has a few questions sure good morning counsel do
And she is our client.
Okay, our vice chair has a few questions.
you agree to wave the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy um i do want to go
through the refusal but i do stipulate to its accuracy understood um have you emailed in all
the required documents and exhibits that's needed and required to proceed with this case five days
in advance of this hearing? Yes, we have. We actually do have some amended exhibits that we
are sending in this morning, but we will go over them as we go through our presentation.
I understand we were supposed to be received a tax compliance letter in prior to starting.
Have we received that? Yes. One of the new exhibits is a payment agreement for the tax
compliance we have not received the rco letter as of yet actually we did sorry we did this morning
we received letters of opposition from strawberry mansion community concern the coordinating rco
and swamp poodle neighborhood parcels association the affected rco thank you
um please proceed and share your screen okay will do
Good morning, Mr. Cherrigan, members of the board. I had hoped to be with you in person
today, but yesterday I got some shoulder surgery down in Methodist Hospital, so I'm doing all
right. The nerve block is still working, so I'm still working.
uh we're here today um on uh property it's it's 2551-2553 west silver street uh there is um
extremely high level of support for this application among the near neighbors but there
also appears to be um opposition to this project from the two rcos uh we have as we go through
our exhibits you'll see we have 42 petitions of support uh we have a hundred percent of all the
community members who who attended the rco meeting seven seven community members um all voted in
favor uh and uh this the opposition that that you'll see um is primarily not related to the
zoning at all but it's related to perhaps some issues that may come up with the building uh with
certificate of occupancy and and perhaps the board of building standards so i wanted to first go
through um our refusal and and talk about um the hardship um aspects of it here so uh we had to go
back to lni to get a revised refusal um the the notice um that's still in atlas for this matter
shows a previous refusal that is not correct. So this is the August 7th, 2024 is the correct
refusal. There are three use refusals. But what this is, this is a property that was originally
two row houses um 2551 and 2553 west silver um back in 2005 uh this pro this property was
was owned by the land bank uh or the vacant property review review committee i'm not sure
which one but it was it was a phcd uh property that was that was um conveyed to a prior owner
and we'll go through that in a second because there's quite a bit of alarmist
communications from the RCO groups about this but it was two single family row houses
it was a lot consolidation into one lot and because of that the single family
So we're looking at the proposal here is a single family apartment that is on the first floor, primarily of all of the, but not all, but most of the first floor of this combined unit.
And then there is another unit that is mostly on the second floor with one aspect on the first floor, and that is a rooming house for two rooms.
the single family apartment is essentially the same as the historic use when this was a single
when these were two row houses but we have a refusal for the single family apartment simply
because there are two uh two primary uses in this building now that it's consolidated it used to be
uh two primary uses in this building now that it's consolidated it used to be two row houses
and uh the the um as you'll see each of the each of the residential facilities does cross over into
into both of the of the previous row house separate row houses so that's um that that is
really the distinction here uh the single room residence with two bedrooms is essentially the
same impact as the historic use as a two-bedroom apartment. We have a couple unnecessary hardships
here. There's a substantial hardship to convert the structure. Our client bought this two years
ago. It was already divided up as it exists today quite a long time before, and for her to convert
it back to a single-family home, which is what the zoning is for this consolidated property,
would be prohibitively expensive, and so the courts have long ruled that that constitutes
an unnecessary hardship. There's a third refusal, though, and that is that when there's a rooming
house use, there has to be a minimum number of parking places. Two is what is indicated in the
refusal. We can't put any parking on this property because there is no open space for parking in the
front in this whole neighborhood there are no driveways or anything this is a row house neighborhood
in the rear there is no alley and there is no access for a vehicle to go into the backyard
so it's it's impossible to put any parking in this property and therefore that's an unnecessary
hardship uh the so i wanted to then um share the petitions of support um and uh this is a caveat
that we presented at the RCO meeting last week as well.
And as some of you know, members of the board,
I'm an election lawyer.
I do a lot of work with petitions at election time.
And you'll see that many of these petitions
have the same handwriting for the category of address and date.
But you also see that the names and the signatures
on the petitions are unique to each person who filled it out. So our client, Ms. Turner, will
explain that she had to go through a few iterations of the petitions because we, at first,
this application was for multifamily. And then when we came into the picture, we discovered that
it wasn't a multifamily project. It was a combination rooming house and single family
apartment. So we had to redo the petitions. And the neighbor said, we'll sign your petition,
but we don't want to keep writing up our address and everything. So that's why we have good
signatures for all the neighbors. But you'll see that the actual addresses, the address part of
the petition are filled out by our clients. So this is 42 signatures in support. These
addresses are extremely close they're they're all within the 250 feet um as provided by the
the planning commission um now uh before i go into the alarmist um arguments from the
from from the rcos i'm just gonna i want to go through um our floor plans um which are somewhat
um somewhat complicated and that and that was that was one of the issues that the that the rcos
uh we're struggling with um so we're going to go down to exhibit five okay
so um we have a basement that's unused it just has mechanicals um in the basement and there is
uh it's a two-story um building so the the salmon color is um is the single family apartment
the entrance to it is at the 2551 uh front door and you come into a living room the bathroom the
kitchen and then when you you do a dog leg to the left and there is the single bedroom all of this
is on the first floor we also have a rear door uh that that uh that opens onto the the backyard
and there's clear there's clearly places for the trash um to be stored in the rear and then to be
brought to the front uh on trash day this is all on one story although originally when this was
a single when when this was its own when 2551 was a row house and 2553 was a separate row house
there was a stairway uh that went up to the second floor um but as it
there was a stairway that went up to the second floor but as it is configured now the apartment
is only on the first floor and it and it's the entire first floor of 2551 and it is the rear
of 2553 now the purple bluish area is the rooming house space and that access is
We'll go back over to the first floor.
So it's accessed from the 2553's front door.
You then can either go left into a communal space or you can go straight ahead up the stairs to the majority of where this rooming house is, which is on the second floor.
So as you come up the stairs, you have two units.
One is to the right, where you have a door here that goes into the kitchen area.
The trash receptacles would be, we presume, around here.
Then there's the bathroom, and then you go down a hallway and you go to the bedroom.
That is what we're calling one of the units for the rooming house.
And the other one is you come up the stairs and you go to the left. You get into the kitchen through this door. There's a place for the trash over here. There's the bathroom. And then you proceed down a hallway into the bedroom.
so uh the entrance is as you saw on the first floor um there is uh at this time no exit um
from to there is no rear exit um from for this property the last thing i want to highlight is
the basement
access to the basement is through a stairway
but it is accessible to the
existing single family apartment it is
not accessible for the rooming house
so we came up with a
trash, let me go a little more, let's see we have our
zoning code analysis here
for open areas and occupied areas
that we are all compliant in
this is our elevations
our front elevation
this is the 2551
with the front door, this is the 2553
that, I think that concludes
our plans
Steve, do you have photos?
with it here come the photos so here's the 2551 front door uh the 2553 uh you see it's a two-story
building
this is um this is the
first floor bedroom um this is this is the single family apartment so this is uh this is
all of these are vacant there as soon as um we had a citation from lni for for lacking the proper
zoning permit and certificate of occupancy for this use and so this the this building has been
vacant for several years now um this is a photo of the as i said of the part of the bedroom this is
apologize apparently this is kind of a large file so it's been it takes a while this is the um
um this is the bathroom in the apartment uh this is the living room that as you walk in from the
front door this is the living room area for the apartment and then we have the kitchen
um for that first floor the single apartment on the first floor then this is the um this is the
common room uh on the first floor for uh the rooming house this is a bathroom in that common
room um it was originally used when when the previous owner uh had this uh was using this
property they had a third rooming a room on this first floor but we uh decided that that was uh
that was not it was not conducive it didn't really have a place for a kitchen it was just too small
so we've made this into a common area and the two the two rooming units are going to be on the
second floor here's where you go up the stairway to the second floor this is at the top of the
top of the stairway and here we have um the kitchen in in one of the rooming units unit one
stairway. And here we have the
this is the bathroom and the bedroom um off off of that room in one the room in one
this is the bedroom
and now this is oh this is the second bedroom
the second unit each each of the roaming units is one bedroom
this is the kitchen for that second unit
and the bathroom in that second unit
another view of the bedroom
and the second bedroom has a 20-foot square foot closet
uh this is the unfinished basement that is not going to be used for any residential
uh purposes just for for um accessory storage and utilities this is the rear of the property
here you have the exit door for the 2551 uh single family apartment uh and this also is part
is on that on that first floor part of the single family apartment as i said there is no at this
time there is no uh exit from uh from the second floor for the for the rooming house there's just
the front exit this is um up here is a is part of the rooming house second floor and this is a
window in the bedroom, or I think this is actually the kitchen area for the single apartment.
This is the right side of the backyard.