There's all these vacant properties in between.
Let me pull 3930.
3930, I believe, has a front porch.
So are you aligned with the face of that?
what brick wall are you in line with the face of the porch outside of the porch outside line of the
porch we're in line with 3904 which is on the other side but not 3930
I mean there's so many vacant properties yeah I understand I understand but I understand what
you're saying no we we I don't believe we align with 3930 but we do align with 3904
and the other one any other questions
our attorney please uh yes it's more of kind of a statement and kind of a question um we have
we're probably going to have to hear and hold this because of the tax compliance I know that
I thought he said he had it straight now no um he does not um we're going to need to have proof
of tax compliance even from revenue or the applicant from the applicant it needs to be
in the form of a tax clearance certificate not just what you produce that when the purchase you
know with when the property 18 000 in real estate taxes when he purchased the property in february
and we gave you the canceled check people to the city when it was purchased correct
that's not sufficient for what we need so
it was the title company that beat him yeah i understand it's been it's been a while it's not
reflective on the record so that's why we need something it should be showing up on the records
if it was applied correctly it has not been potentially applied correctly i'm not disputing
potentially that we have to have this is certain things that we have to have certain documentation
um and you you have not supplied that documentation so okay okay questions from the um virtual audience
there are no hands okay um planning ina solomonic with the planning commission in 2023 the property
was remapped from rm1 residential multi-family to rsa5 residential single-family attached in
accord with recommendations from the comprehensive plan the city planning commission recommends that
the board deny the multi-family use so we're michael we're going to hold the vote on this
i'm going to hold it to the 16th right is that right the 16th we've been given right correct
is that doable it's up to revenue and whether they when they will well no here's the money
that they took back in february is okay wait a minute wait a minute so i i understand you're
upset by it. So what I would do is hold it to the 16th, right? We'll look to vote order at two
o'clock. If it's not here, it's okay. But the other thing is, I'm not talking to your client,
I'm talking to you. I think you should evaluate the whole issue where you want to stand with a
porch. Okay. Okay. You talk to your client. Understood. Okay. Sorry about this. Yeah. It
didn't work out. And by the way, thanks for sitting here the whole day, but we appreciate it.
This might have been as long as you've been here in a long time, but thank you very much, okay?
That's okay. Thank you.
Okay. All right. Thanks.
All right. Number five.
MI 2026-003-733-423-27 East Ashmead Street, Joseph Constance.
423 to 27 East Ashmead Street.
Joseph Consul is the attorney.
Does Joe have both of these coming up?
We can't do them together, right?
They're both different places.
I'd rather do that.
Yeah, I'm good.
I know, it's shocking.
Joseph Consul is rejoining as a panelist.
Sure, thank you.
And I'll be recusing from these two.
Michael you're gonna you can leave uh the last two cases it's the last two cases I'll
I'll be around just in case but I'm not gonna be okay all right all right hi
all right Mr Counsel how are you the last two cases are yours uh we're gonna we we're not
going to do them together obviously they're in a little bit of a different location so
actually they're they're literally right across the street from each other we just happened to
get i yeah so i i see people there telling me they're giving me there's people here giving me
hand signals too no it's okay your hand signals are good they were saying i mean but here's what
we're going to hit little joe this is what we'll do is we'll vote them separate if you think you
can work them in together but i am going to vote them separate yeah that's fine don't plan you
state your name and spell for the stenographer attorney joseph consol j-o-s-e-p-h or his name
consul right co and so early firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do would you identify your client in relationship to the property i've got
michael thomasetti and he is from chandetta property group they are the equitable owners
and developers of the property and our vice chair has a few questions good evening um have you
submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing yes okay and you have a
host of use refusals and zoning refusals so do you waive the reading of those refusals and stipulate
to their accuracy uh yes what's my use refusal the the parking yes yes okay okay all right um
thank you you can share your screen and proceed with you there is a letter of opposition from
winga hawking yeah we didn't get the one from from winga hawking um yeah well and then solo
germantown wrote something too yes yeah i'll address that uh all right so joe console good
evening uh for the record console madison llp represent chivetta property group the developer
and equitable owner of the property connection with uh two related zoning appeals being heard
back to back today uh first uh and i'll bifurcate them but i'm gonna do a um a similar intro 423
to 27 and 429 to 39 east ashmead street and then 313 through 15 east bringhurst street
also on the call with me is adam montalbano from moto design shop which is the architect
Because they're across the street from each other and part of the same public home ownership effort, I'm going to give the board the common background once, then the Ashmead Appeal, and then the Brinkhurst Appeal second.
So starting with the big picture, I have the sort of top-down atlas on the screen to orient you to the properties.
These are not unrelated one-off variance requests.
Properties are literally right across the street.
The Ashmead project, which we'll talk about first, includes two homes that front Bringhurst Street, and the Bringhurst project is directly across the street from that same development area.
Together, the two appeals are part of the same development agreement from the city-supported Land Bank Turn-the-Key Home Ownership Program, in this case turning long-overgrown public land into new single-family home ownership.
not multi-family apartments we're asking for it's not a commercial project or rental properties of
any kind it's a coordinated public land reinvestment project for single home ownership
so looking top down you can see the bringhurst lot and the ashmead lot i labeled them with just
crude text. And then on the other side of the Ashmead lot is train tracks. So that kind of
orients you to the layout of what we're talking about here. The context we believe matters. This
is not a uniform suburban detached house district, which is also why I have this up on the screen.
It's a mix of attached, semi-detached, and detached residential homes. It has unusually shaped,
let's just say, vacant public parcels. You've got angled streets,
you've got rail adjacent conditions and just irregular geometry of these lots. Now the zoning
you've got rail-adjacent conditions, and just irregular geometry of these lots.
for the lots we're talking about today is RSA3, but the sites do not lay out like clean and
conventional type RSA3 lots. This will be the hardship in both cases. It's not simply that
the land is vacant, as obviously that's not enough, but it's a combination of these are
large public redevelopment parcels that have irregular shapes uh angled frontage rail adjacent
edges and combine that with the public program requirement that the land be used for workforce
single-family home ownership and we believe we have a good case for the granting of these variances
earlier today the board received updated renderings we believe those renderings will be helpful
We didn't have them until today, but they will show these brick front homes, front doors, stoops, landscaping, and an engagement of a normal pedestrian residential frontage.
Regarding the opposition, before I jump in specifically to Ashmead, we don't believe that every opposition letter should be treated the same procedurally.
We respect the comments and we'll answer them, but we should distinguish between a coordinating or affected RCO and a neighboring RCO.
There has been opposition.
The main themes are parking, design, and green and open space, and a concern that the projects are trying to do too much.
We understand these concerns, but it's important to weigh them against what the sites are today and what the city agency selected them to become.
They're vacant, overgrown public parcels.
I'll start with just showing you at least that view for Ashmead.
Let's see if I can find that good one.
So this kind of gives you an idea of what the Ashmead lot looks like now.
Now, they are not maintained open space, the Bringhurst is more overgrown than this, although
if you go back in time with the Google Maps and things like that, you'll see that this
lot had abandoned cars parked on it and things like that.
It was not some kind of a cared for neighborhood park, it wasn't something that appeared to
contribute to the block.
The proposal today is proposing to turn these conditions into new home ownership.
It's also relevant to note that we submitted support letters.
They give the board some real-world flavor of this developer.
They come from people who have experienced this team in this specific area.
If neighboring RCOs that aren't the coordinating RCO or an effective RCO can have a say,
then we believe that some actual people from nearby blocks who have worked with this developer
nearby should have a say too. We've submitted letters from block captains, from Rieger Street,
property owner on Springer Street, and these describe the team as helpful, communicative,
responsible, and it goes into more detail about the way that they work and how they clean up
and their work sites and things like that. And we even have a resident on East Ashmead Street
that supports this development plan saying that the team has been communicative open and helpful
and worked with the neighbors um so all right with that framing i'll move to ashmead and sorry
this is a little bit longer than my normal presentations but i think it's all relevant
and i'll start from the top here so looking at ashmead this is the larger of the two projects
we're presenting today proposal is to relocate the lot lines of the two lots on ashmead and
re-divide these two existing vacant parcels into 12 single-family home ownership lots
two of the homes again front bringhurst uh in a way that you can't really even tell it's the
same lot because it's completely to get from one street to the other you have to drive around the
block and the remaining 10 homes front Ashmead Street.
This refusal is longer than the Brighurst refusal, there are more parcels, but the basic
issues are the same.
Parking is not provided on these properties as it's zoned RSA 3, it's required, and we're
not providing it.
There is refusals for some of these properties being considered attached homes.
And again, RSA 3, so that generates a refusal. There's also dimensional refusals regarding the width of the properties and some minimum lot area issues and some front setback issues.
issues and some front setback issues. The question is, is the relief justified by the
site conditions? And we submit that it is. So regarding Ashmead, we've got with these
two lots combined, 25,341 square feet. If we were doing 12 properties by right in RSA 3, we would
need 27,000 square feet. We're 1,659 square foot shy, which is about 6%. If these were zoned RSA 5,
which a lot of the surrounding lots are, we would only need 1,440 per lot, and we would be at 17,280
total, and we'd be 8,600 square feet above what will be required. So we're just below the RSA 3,
but well above the RSA 5 lot sizes that we would need here. We don't believe that this is over
density. The applicant's not trying to double or triple what the land can support.
address the refusals. I'll just bring up the top-down plan while I give some more of my
spiels. This kind of gives you an idea. At the bottom, you've got Ashmead Street and then
effectively the backyards of that lot, once you combine them, create the two new parcels that
will front Brighurst Street. Let's see. So again, these are irregular rail adjacent lots and there's
no way to create the kind of frontage that would translate neatly into perfectly compliant RSA3
lots. To be compliant, it would be a completely different project. Fewer homes, wider lots,
different frontage conditions. You'd have to have curb cuts and a reduction in the number of
workforce ownership opportunities that was selected by the city to for this developer
to provide.
So that's sort of the top down.
You've got the 10 at the bottom and the two on Brighar Street.
Here's the drawing renderings, but we also further down in our presentation, we'll get
to the actual renderings itself.
the 10 properties that front ashmead are two-story three-bedroom two-bath homes
again we can come back to this and we can talk to the architect because he's on the call
and the two properties that front bringhurst are three-story three-bedroom two-bath homes
and the height of these properties and the layout is affected by the neighboring properties in the
block, the developer mimics the layout of other properties on the block. So this is the Bringhurst
view. This is where the property will go to the left of the property you see here.
Those will be the two properties on Bringhurst and again to the left of that are this
sidewalk leads downstairs that take you to a train station. So it's used for that.
This is the Ashmead view, another Ashmead view, this is looking up Ashmead Street, so I think it's important to note there are all, you know, attached single family homes up and down this block.
That's not the same exactly for Brighurst, Brighurst is more of a mix, but as you see here, we've got plenty of single family homes with no included parking.
Proof of mailing.
We already went through those.
Just want to find the actual renderings we got today.
We submitted our resolutions with the city.
Tax clearance was submitted.
All right, so here's the renderings.
This is what the two properties will look like on Bringhurst.
Two attached homes.
homes. And this is what the architects applied for the 10 homes that will front Ashmead Street.
So again, we did meet with Wingahocking and Worcester. That's the coordinating RCO. The
other two listed RCOs are the 12th Ward and Wakefield 49ers. We didn't see the letter
from Wiener Hocking, but we'll assume it says a lot of the same things as this letter from
Solo Germantown Civic. I don't want the board to ignore that letter, but again, they don't
Again, they don't appear to be listed, and they call themselves a neighboring RCO.
appear to be listed and they call themselves a neighboring.
They did bring a lot of negative energy to both of the RCO meetings that we had for this and Bringhurst, which, for what it's worth, made our job of talking to the neighbors a little more difficult.
So we talked about the parking merits. The goal here is to deliver ground-up new construction at a maximum sale price to workforce housing.
Off-street parking is not free, and I mean that in every sense of the word.
It would consume land. It would reduce the number of units.
It would require curb cuts and would push the project towards a more vehicle-dominated frontage.
But more practically, it would add cost and reduce yield in a way that would make it next to impossible to deliver the kind of quality that they deliver a new construction home within the program's price range.
It's just not contemplated that these entry-level workforce housing homes come with parking.
This is an entry point home, and they're being delivered as new construction, high-quality properties, and parking is just not contemplated.
um so that's our presentation for ashmead i can call my client to adopt and the architect
can help answer any of the board's questions regarding the layout of the properties so let
me let me say kim why don't we do this the same architect right yes sir do you have your
presentation for both do you need more to do for the other one uh i i don't i can no i mean i can
start saying is like why don't we get it done then whoever comes up can you know anybody
wants to comment they'll comment on the individual properties but so yeah whatever you want to do