Thank you.
MI 2026-003-281-6102 Ridge Avenue.
I vote yes with proviso per amended refusal dated August 4th, 2026.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Layla Beebe, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Jeremy, members of the board. Have a great day.
So, number 10, MI-2026-002867-263, West Rittenhouse Street, Michael Egnall is the attorney.
they're being promoted to panelists
oh good morning
I'm always so used to just looking down here
please take a seat both of you
counsel could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
Good morning. My name is Michael Agnall, last name E-G-N-A-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I so swear.
So I do believe we received a letter of opposition a little short time ago.
We believe that letter of opposition stated was relative to four units. Am I correct, counsel?
Right. Although you're down to two units. Am I correct?
That's correct.
All right. So our vice chair has a few questions for you.
sure good morning have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of
this hearing we have okay and do you weigh the reader know your refusal and stipulate to his
accuracy we do all right thank you show your screen and proceed with the case
and counsel just to clarify the letter that the chairman was referring to was the rco letter
i i did see it come over uh this morning yeah thank you
you're coming up sir it it's telling me you're getting ready to hear you're up okay you see me
here okay so good morning board uh my name is michael eggnall i'm very pleased to present to
you, the zoning variance appeal for 263 West Rittenhouse Street. The zoning refusal relates
to multifamily household use, which is prohibited in RSA 3. The subject property is a masonry
twin uh there there's our continuance posting uh the time stamp there um
my client jennifer webster uh has lived in the subject property or it was her home since the
19th seven since the 1970s um and uh after it stopped being her family's house uh she used it
as a rental property. Unfortunately, this winter, through no fault of her own, the house was
extensively damaged through a freeze and a pipe burst. So this was really upsetting for my client.
It was her childhood home. It was an element of her retirement plan, her economic security,
and she had just recently renovated the place and updated it. So it was just devastating.
and my client explored putting the house back together and economically it is impractical
unless it's separated into a two-family or three-family use we had a meeting with the
community and discussed the three-family use the community was very opposed to it
we came back we rejiggered our plans and we proposed
uh we came back we rejiggered our plans and we proposed a uh two-family use you'll see on the
screen the the main level uh would be a two bedroom two bath and the um give you a moment to take that
in and i'll come back to it but you see there's a driveway at the top of that image and um there's
been accessory parking on the lot for the last 50 years. So that's always been there, and we did not
mention it, but there would continue to be off-street parking for all of the occupants of
the property. The upper unit would have a bi-level three-bedroom, two-bath. This would not increase
the intensity of the usage of the property but it would make restoring uh mrs webster's childhood
home economically feasible it would provide you know much needed housing in the community
and that was the substance of what we brought to the neighborhood uh i haven't had a great
opportunity to review the letter from the rco since it came in late this morning but um my
understanding is that the rco leader is new to the role and he didn't really understand what he was
doing or how to run the meeting. I saw the number of votes on there was completely disproportionate
to the number of near neighbors who attended. He gave sort of legal advice during the course
of the RCO meeting where he advised that we had to go back and amend the application for
parking lot usage, just all sorts of like very bizarre behavior. I've been asking him for the
letter so that we could kind of discuss it, engage with the community and bring it to the council
people for weeks. And as we all saw, the letter came in at the 11th hour and is frankly a little
bit bizarre. So I think that there's a great deal of support in the community. My client has many
friends, family members nearby who supported. She got a petition signed by plenty of people.
there's plenty of uh support she's maintained the property well um we think that the the near
neighbors actually are supportive of this and there are a lot of people you know the rco is
very large it takes in a very large area and i think that there are a lot of people who
really didn't have uh any involvement with this who i think were allowed to vote and oppose this
so uh with that i my client has prepared some comments that sure could you please
pull the mic real close to you why don't we do that it'll come right back pull the whole thing
no no like yeah yeah that's it that's it yeah i could you please state and spell your name for
the stenographer my name is jennifer webster my name is spelled j-e-n-n-i-f-e-r
webster w-e-b-s-t-e-r do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth yes council yes mrs webster do you have a statement you'd like to read to us yes
good morning members of the board i respectfully ask for your approval
to convert my property at 263 west written house street into a duplex it's currently single
family residence. I grew up in this house. I came here as a child and my parents bought that house
and we've lived there forever, pretty much, until I got married and got out is what that boiled down
to. So this property is personal to me, not something I just picked up off the street. It's
my home. I care about the community. I've been a part of the community, maybe not as
involved now because I have, you know, my own family. And so I'm always a community
person. And I want to continue to be a positive part of this community. Unfortunately, after
repairing the house, the people who were
living there before, they did some pretty
decent damage, you know, and
was in the process of repairing the house. We
went through that
and I came back. We were getting ready to
just like take pictures to advertise
for rental and the house was cold we couldn't stay in the house the heater
wasn't working called a repairman the plumber he came and he fixed the heater
called a repairman the plumber he came and he fixed the heater and
he left around three o'clock that evening and around seven o'clock that evening we went down
there and the place was flooded so it was like a swimming pool in there when you open up the back
door to where the kitchen is, you were squoosh, squoosh, squoosh, walking. It was very devastating.
My grandson was like, Tata, this is a swimming pool. We can swim. And that's where the swimming
pool thing came from in my head. But that's exactly what it was. When you look down there,
the water was everywhere. And it went down to the basement. We couldn't even go really too much
into the basement because the water was high so you just you know you start to laugh so you stop
crying and you go up and I don't know if you guys remember but we had snow uh don't like really low
temperatures and everything was shut down and that's that's what I got caught in
so the temperatures make the third floor bathroom burst the pipe in there burst
anyway you got to keep moving and so since May of 24 I had no rental income from that property
because we were renovating it and it just went out but I continued paying the mortgage because
that's my responsibility. I use my own funds, obviously, to cover the repairs and try to
restore the property. I received a lot of encouragement from the neighbors across the street, down
the street, and even reconnected with some people that I had thought had moved, but they
were still there. Um, I'm grateful for their support. And my daughter also plans on living
there. So, um, the contractor, she redid her mom's house and we toured that. And that's
the same idea. Anyway, she said, if you fix the house up like that one, I'm coming back
because she lived there at one time before she moved away too so the house is not just a house
it's a house with a lot of memories a lot of family has been in there
and what has happened is because it's such a huge house you know the houses in Germantown they're
huge you can't rent it easily to a family it's very hard so that's why we are asking
for this variance to be approved and um just to give me an opportunity to make the property
whole again um i would appreciate that and
that's why i'm here thank you council what's the rest of the block look like
so the uh the southern half of the block i want to say that there's maybe eight twins like this
And then there are large apartment buildings in the northern half.
Are the twins also in multiple family?
The few twins are single family, I believe.
I believe that's right.
Across the street, there are divided.
How about the adjoining neighbors?
Are you adjoining neighbor in favor of this?
All right.
Questions from the board.
you said the adjacent neighbors are in favor of the uh your plans that that's right um mrs
webster has a good relationship with them all the opposition seem to come from people not here uh
mrs webster is in touch and friends with and had a petition signed by the adjacent neighbors
and what's your plan for trash for both the units trash storage
from what i was told the people would bring their trash to the back and put it in like
individuals i guess i could get like individual um recycling bins
okay no and you will put them i'm just where would you put them and now you put them in the
rear or in the driveway where would you put them no not on the drive there's okay there's a
there's a wall
that you put the trash behind there
so it wouldn't be visible from the street
so the lots are very large and very deep
and you know they are twins
you know they are twins so there's a nice drive aisle where you could bring um trash around so i
so there's a nice drive aisle
where you could bring trash around
so I think
think it does lend itself to rear trash storage and the front is a lovely garden that mrs webster
has created which she wouldn't want to get you know have trash on then you go back to the floor
plan what's happening in the basement uh no habitation uh i believe utilities like hot water
tanks and heaters probably just the hot water is there for both units would be there the hot water
for both units like all utility connections for both units would be in the basement yes we would
do everything are there multiple entrances to the basement or is the first floor apartment the only
one that has access to the basement so i i i believe the proposed plan would be uh that there's
an entry i think i'm trying to pull it up here uh that you walk into the building and then there's
the the basement steps are there and then you could either enter uh the first unit to the right
or you would go upstairs so both units would have access to the basement and is that room at the
front it's an enclosed porch that's an enclosed front porch that's right all the questions
chair we have a hand up from susan podson let me let me do our attorney first
Council? Yes, I have a couple
comments. Did you want your client to adopt your testimony?
Mrs. Webster, do you adopt all of my testimony? Yes, I do.
We also do not have the
petition that you referred to.
I'm just letting you know for the record, we don't have the petition.
We're more than happy to email those.
but we yeah okay another thing is i just wanted to let you know that um you indicated that at the
rco parking came up um just so i wanted to know for the record that parking is required but it is
not listed on your description in the refusal so we're just applying for the use change because
the parking was extant and it's an accessory to the use so we didn't think it was appropriate to
add to the application because we're not touching that i i understand that yeah but just so you know
for rs3 parking is required so we should explicitly mention that in there well i'm just saying you
you're doing change of use that's something you need to explore you might need to do a separate
application for it or not i'm just saying that just noting it for the record appreciate that
thank you you're welcome so a question i'm just i'm sorry so just i'm looking at this plan i just
want to make sure that i see this correctly so you come into on the right there uh that's the
enclosed porch you come into this hallway but then you've got these doors that sort of enter
into this sort of common hallway which kind of and but there's stairs that go upstairs
to the second floor unit the second and third floor unit our second unit right
am i correct is this is this an existing layout on that floor
i so i i think the the building's been gutted and unfortunately our our designers uh parent
passed away so she's not able to be here right now uh this is mrs webster can you speak to the
question so question so i was i was trying to i was asking whether or not the the way that this
is laid out on this floor plan is that is that layout there or is this something that you're
going to frame out no the place the place has literally got it okay all right so these so the
walls that we see here are going to be proposed but that's right we're going to have to have a full
uh blueprints prepared and uh by all and i okay all right all right thank you it does well it
kind of does that layout entrance way at the stairway well this kind of doesn't make sense
but at any rate you're not going through a bedroom to go to the backyard so i'm happy um but okay
What should your comments have from the virtual audience?
Hi, Chair. We had a hand up from Susan Ponson.
They're allowed to speak.
Good morning. My name is Suzanne.
Can you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Suzanne, S-U-Z-A-N-N-E, Ponsen, capital P-O-N-S-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
I am the president of the neighborhood organization, not the RCO that was chosen as the coordinating RCO, but an affected RCO.
Please proceed.