##VIDEO ID:yPo4cao-Y1s## e e e e e e e e good evening and welcome to the January 13th zoning Board of appeal meeting um just for um anybody new here um I will go over the procedures after I introduce our board members to my far right is Jeff sour to my right is Ken scholes who is the clerk um to my left is Ken Jin and to my far left is John bowner um my name is Karine dy I am the chair and from the planning department is our planning director Brian zelli um when the clerk calls your case please proceed to the podium um present your your case and we will Del we will ask questions we will go out to the audience for questions and then we will deliberate and tell you your fate so with that um we have minutes for Let's see we have minutes for the December 2nd um 2024 meeting any comments or edits uh m M chair I did not get a chance to review the minutes so I would ask to hold okay to the next meeting yeah um both sets of minutes yeah I didn't review any of them I did not sorry I did not realize they were there okay no problem that's fine okay so we will um put those on the agenda for the January 27th meeting so with that Mr clerk if you could read the first case thank you madam chair first case is 48 North putam Street zoned R1 request a finding under the table one of the dam zoning bylaw to expand an existing non-conforming use as a personal training facility into the remainder of the building where currently only half of the building is allowed to operate as a gym the request is made by Ralph Gian Gregorio docket 24-58 3 Madame chair we are in receipt of a letter from Mr Gian gorio uh dated January 7th um stating he's waiting for the engineer to finish the plans for the parking uh he can't make it to the meeting and he wishes to continue to February 24th meeting do I have a motion to continue Madam chair I'll make a motion to continue to February 24th I will second that all in favor I any opposed no um next on the docket um our next case is 180 182 Pine Street and 75 silven Street uh zoned R1 for Pine Street and uh industrial 2 for the silven street property uh request the variance to allow eight two-bedroom residential units on a combined parcel comprising of three properties listed above where 7.5 units are permitted and to the extent necessary a use variants to allow accessory residential use on a section of the parcel zoned in industrial 2 the request is made by Nancy M mccan Esquire to at 24-58 n Madame chair we are in receipt of a letter from Nancy MC mccan Esquire uh stating that she's waiting for Town Council input regarding the 75 silven Street property to make sure it is a viable option that they can do the eight units uh they wish to continue to the uh January 27th meeting do I have a motion to continue Madam chair I'll make a motion to continue this case to January 27th I will second all in favor I I any opposed so our first order of regular business our next case is 15 Oak Street it's zoned R1 request a finding under Section uh three paragraph 12 of the Damas zoning bylaw to expand the existing single family home into a dup on a pre-existing non-conforming lot due to size the request is made by Craig Hartwell dock at 24-50 91 good evening Madam chair excuse me my name is Craig Harwell I'm here on behalf of exma Properties LLC which is the current owner of 15 Oak Street uh we are respectfully requesting a finding that the proposed modifications to the structure and the change of use from a single family to a two family is not substantially more detrimental than the existing non-conforming structure to the neighborhood uh we have submitted in support of our application we have submitted uh the proposed plans and also we've also submitted the property cards for the abing properties or the nearby properties on Oak Street that are already designated as multif Family Properties as well happy to answer any questions you may have um Mr Hartwell I you're an attorney correct you're representing the applicant yes ma'am is the applicant here with you it's here ma'am okay thank you and if we ask questions please proceed to the microphone um but we'll start asking now Jeff uh thank you madam chair I have no questions at this time Ken thank you madam chair so the the new two family is on the existing Foundation that's in place now yes sir no changes to that the foundation no sir okay no further questions okay also the um the Height's not going to change right the overall height I believe changes two feet it goes from okay yeah it is going up to 26 feet 7 in but it's still below the required 30 30t okay so you you're adding a dormer essentially at the end there we're going to it's going to raise it up a little bit there I got you all right the front yeah let's have him go to microphone could you go sorry the proposed dormas are too low so the the proposed changes to make the living space more livable yep but you're still within the requirement height so correct yep good John thank you madam chair um can you tell me uh how many bedroom will be in each [Music] unit is it three and three three and three I believe three bedrooms each and Madam chair through you I'd like to go to uh Brian yes Brian um what's the required parking uh for three-bedroom units uh and multif family um unless you're in the center which we're not it's it's two so two spes per unit two per unit two two per apartment or two per bedroom two per bedro part of the public on hold H well well Brian's looking that up um can you tell me the uh square footage of each of the units that's 1, it's almost 13 1300 Square ft each year 1300 each approximately approximately 13 each and uh I see on your plan um that the you know a new driveway is proposed for the left side of the building um uh there's currently no curb cut there where is that where the second driveway is yeah the second driveway because the the can you identify yourself please the good thing just say your name for the record oh my name is Eugene Eugene Jalia Jalia know me uh I do I guess I'm not sure I do I do the the house to the okay the other guy in Denver in your inside your house oh I help you okay door uh you know what Madam chair I'm going to recuse myself from this case okay I I'm sorry I did not realize that excuse me very quickly uh so the multif family it's two spaces for each dwelling unit plus one space for each bedroom over two so for a Max of three spaces per dwelling unit so in this case if it's three bedrooms that's six spaces for each total each unit has to have at least two but because it's more than two bedrooms okay there's another so it's three spaces for one unit and three spaces for the other for a total of six spaces and and Madam chair I hate to do this but um I should have recused myself at the beginning I think you have to go to the applicant to see if they're okay with only four voting members yes um there are only four voting members now because um Mr Boehner has um recused himself so I'm just alerting you to that fact and um before before we begin with any deliberation or even going out to the audience um I'm looking at your plan and Mr zakeli just said that you need to have six parking spaces and I believe that your plan having a driveway on one side and a new curb cut with the second driveway will only yield you four spaces is that correct for total spaces Madam chair yes this say on two sides we can do these sides am I am I not the proposal has two full driveways with parking in them that you would be able to fit far more than two cars per driveway well how how do you how do you propose I I see that I see that you have two um you want to increase you want to have like a second driveway so you want one on one side of the house and one on the other so what you're saying is that you can park more than two cars in each one of those driveways yes ma'am okay and the driver has run the full length of the of the house back of the lot so you would have tandem parking then correct so in other words they would have to be behind one another in order in order for you to be able to enter or exit the driveway so in other words if you parked four cars yep you wouldn't be able to the the the car in front wouldn't be able to back out so in other words you would have to Tandem like two or three on one side and then do the same on the other so that the cars would be able to get in and out of those driveways is that correct because it doesn't the plan even though you only you only have a few cars on each side even though you're saying that there's room for more cars so I want you to tell me how you plan on parking them on both of those driveways so it looks like the left side driveway is 13 feet wide right so it's pretty hard to fit two cars next to each other no no I know I'm you're saying they have to be tandem they have to be stacked right right in the I'm sorry I I meant stacked no no you're saying it correctly I'm just wondering if if you look in there on the right side here is that meant to be parked on the this back portion here so you could put two cars like you could them this way right okay and then you get that so you can at least get some there the the problem seems to be getting three cars on the left hand side not in tandem which correct correct which you can't do so yeah it looks like on the left side you're you're doing one two three for your three cars yes so yeah I mean that can be problematic now and and have you spoken to your neighbors about this project yeah I I spoke to the to the to the side neighbor yes okay so the the neighbor who will be most impacted is is if you're looking out the front door the neighbor to your right because obviously because that that curb cut will be now instead of like a lawn and a like a sidey yard they're now going to have like a second driveway there um it also seems as if your your property is because we we always go by to do a site a site view um it seems as if your property is a little bit higher so I'm wondering what the ramifications will be to your neighbor to the right if you put in a driveway now as far as water runoff and everything else and on the other side of your neighbor they have that little little Street or or kind of like roadway that leads to um uh where the old danver's Hardware storage units used to be so again have you spoken with your neighbor have they expressed any concerns to the left because I don't see anyone there on the right side yes I I spoke to him okay and and what did is is your neighbor on board with this project do they have any issues no okay all right because if they're not here yeah I I suppose I suppose um again I do have concerns and um I have a question for Mr selli so say we Grant this and then um to get an additional curb cut what's the process for that that is a uh process with DPW it's called a street opening permit yeah um they're basically just going to make sure that it's not too close to either another intersection or um but generally it's kind of a filling out a form it's not a exhaustive process it's not a long process okay but it's it's a street opening permit with DPW okay so chances are they would grant that I would I would as of now yeah I would say it's likely okay okay all right so so there's no there's no real chance if we granted it that they would say yeah no we're not giving them that curb cut and then what would we do no yeah I don't see that's happening um I think though where you're going potentially is that we had a similar situation with 48 North putam having to do with this triple stacked so it's different when it's commercial with the idea that this is one it's not so the left hand side here it's still one unit meaning they all know each other it's one family so we don't the the bylaw doesn't care about that oh no no no I I'm I'm fine with that what I'm always concerned about especially on this side street is it's too difficult to park in the driveway so I'll just park out in the street and we have all these cars on the street and on you know trash day and and snow removal day it's it's causes a nightmare on that street for all the other residents Fair um anyway um okay anyone from the audience have any questions yes please go to the microphone I think it's Kenny excuse me is that Ken up there looks like Ken jarvin is it oh yeah yeah it is that's up uh Marshall Smith oh yeah yeah he Mar 70-year resident 40-year landlord I've built 10 Oak Street 12 Oak Street 13 Oak Street and I'm Excuse me not 13 Oak Street I've remodeled half the street the the house that you're talking about number one I come from a family of firefighters and police you can't get a unit down that street period And I get hauled out of there regularly Now by ambulances CU I'm fighting other diseases but you can't get a piece of fire apparatus down there you can't get an ambulance down that street the second thing is human nature is and I they did it they tried to do it across the street they just put a curb cut in by themselves they just bought the house put a curb cut in I fought them and fought them and fought them as I did the jump the dump behind me for 45 for 40 years I fought them but across the street they just decided to put curb Cuts in it created a master problem because human nature is if my if my front door is there and my driveway is over there I'm going to park right there and walk to my front door and you can't get up and down Oak Street at all anyways if a trash truck wants to go down there it's not happening fir truck wants to happen not happening ambulance it's not happening and then I don't know what happened to the laws but is there not a percentage of land that you can occupy on that land as far as home dwelling because as a two family you need to have so much space and you can only occupy so much space per square footage based on the size of the lot I own one of my Lots it's 5,000 square feet okay you can't put unless you're going to tell me I can put two or three dwellings on there now cuz the laws have changed since I've done a bunch of these two families in town uh I mean you're you're talking about lot percentage yes um I I don't think that uh is apparent for in the R1 it's not it's not a a calculation that's used in the R1 zoning District are you sure that I'll make double Shore right now please make sure that the next thing is is how do you access is it up down is it is it two stories how is the second floor of the second condo or how is the other part of the dwelling going to be accessed because according to my rules I was told which I see all over town now I don't understand and maybe you can help me but everybody's putting second and third floors and putting open staircases on them every time I tried to do it I was told the staircase needed to be covered because of snow and ice and now the planet is in danvas is just developing like crazy and to think that you're going to put a shed on Oak Street is literally someone's not thinking correctly because you can't do it especially at 13 Oak Street or uh 15 Oak Street just you just can't it's too small and it's going to restrict the street ferociously because the street is restricted as it is so the only uh the only residential use in all of town that that has a max lot coverage is an assisted living facility which is 40% but it's not applicable in the table of dimensions for any residential use okay I just wanted to check that because it used to be um excuse me what was the property address um on your street that has the illegal or the well across the street so um there's 13 Oak Street they're directly across the street they put in illegal curb cut okay okay and and I called the town and and well actually I called the police they came down they said you can't do that and there was a big huge battle and the police had to come down and the town the Public Works had to come down and take the sign that she put up the woman that previously owned the house and you know eventually the cops gave up and they sold the house okay across the street from me and a single family they could park 40 cars over there but that was one of the issues is where are these cars going to park there's no way in hell anybody is going to park next to their you know they're going to park right next to their front door that's it okay and to Tandem them that's absurd because why is anybody G okay well let me know who's in who's last and to work that out I know that because I had to work that out at 10 and 12 Oak uh 10 and and uh 14 Oak Street um the same thing it's the same issue it's about trying to maneuver cars around and totally disregard the the the neighborhood in the street and especially at fire you know like I said my brothers are firefighters policemen and they look at it and it's like you got to be kidding me you can't put a shed on Oak Street that's all I it is a tight Street it's a tight Street and the thing it is is something dangerous happens and it's regularly happening to me I can't get equipment down the street so okay okay thank you yes you may and then Mr Brad street you can go after as as soon as he addresses you can go next I'll be brief just to address the the parking situation you'll notice from the plans the entrance ways for both units are towards the back of the property the idea being to draw cars into the property so that they won't be parking by the street because that would give them the furthest distance possible to walk to their door that driveway is opposite my street opposite my driveway I've had five accidents I've had five people brought the co because of people talking at the end of the driveway okay but but the street on this plan one at a time please you look you'll see the street is actually to the bottom of the plan and the cars will park closer towards the entrance way for both units which are further towards the back of the lot so furthest away from the street and concerning the the walk up entrance way that is a covered entrance way to the second floor so that does comply okay Mr Brad street Bill Brad street Town medium member Precinct one uh one of the comments was made about the parking on Oak Street they've already had an issue with the parking on Oak Street off of Locust Street because of how narrow it is and as he said it's difficult for but you can't park on one side and narrow the street to start with and emergency vehicles would have a very difficult if not impossible time coming or going either direction on the street uh if the abuts are notified do they send a letter or do you accept the uh gentleman's uh notice that there's no problem in the past I think uh the questions been brought up about if they were notified did they contact the board either I don't know written or by phone call often times they they'll either call Mr Zak Kelli they'll send emails or letters into the um planning department which we read into the record if we receive them I was just asking um you know obviously if if people have concerns usually they show up I'm not sure um what the issue is but uh but again usually when there are concerns people do show up or they'll they'll take the time to at least send an email uh let letting us know what their concerns are okay I'm just uh a little disappointed and I understand your explanation but disappointed I think some of the residents in town might feel frustrated and just what's the use uh I'll let it go with that it's a it's a n it's a narrow lot and I can just picture as he stated K are going to park where they want no matter what and for plowing the street where's the snow going to go I mean it's a lot of the little things that just kind of accumulate and make a project like this uh more of an issue than anyone would like to see damis is busy enough as it is yes thank you yes would you like to go to the podium state your name state your name for the record thank you madam chair John bowner uh preaching for owner of uh 10 Green Leaf Drive and I'm very familiar with Oak Street I also own a property on Oak Street um uh through you I would ask if the applicant has considered uh potentially making these two-bedroom units therefore limiting um the parking requirement down by one vehicle um so that would be my question thank you okay and once he responds you can you can go back up with your second question Madam chair um in the alternative we would be willing to expand the parking area in the back certainly to address the the concerns if that is a recurring concern that the board has I don't think there's a an appetite to reduce the number of bedrooms You' still have the same square footage that you'd be dealing with you'd just be designating a room something else um the more practical response might be to add additional parking in the back if that's what the Building Commissioner would require but you know we're we're open we're open to suggestions if there's if there's stuff that or changes to be made to the plan well how how would you add more spaces well the property Contin that's the property continues back quite a bit so we could add you can add driveway off the currently existing driveway as well we're we're nowhere near the rear setbacks at this point so you're you're talking about like Paving more of the the backyard I if it's if it's a concern of the board that they would rather us add additional pavement to to address parking concerns we're willing to discuss it I mean it certainly seems if it's that strong of a concern we don't want we don't want to leave it un you know settled or even add a condition that at the building commissioner's discretion whether additional parking needs to be provided and that we would provide it to his satisfaction okay all right um that's certainly a consideration um Mr Brad street do you have another comment or question again Bill Brad street town meeting member Precinct one I think was stated that the new structure was going to be the same footprint as the old or maybe I misunderstood correct yes what we no that's what he said I uh I think it's a it's non-conforming Now is it going to make it more non-conforming is that the way the system works or do you stop at non-conforming and that's as far as you can go as far as the setbacks it isn't any more detrimental okay so if it was allowed you could have six stories then if that were allowed yeah it's only 30 feet allowed okay well again it's a very busy uh project thank you okay let's begin our deliberations Jeff uh thank you madam chairman um I'm not concerned with the increase in the height of the building or the design changes to the building looking at the before and after I would determine that the building is probably not any more detrimental than the existing building but I am unhappy with the parking and I think stacking three cars would be more detrimental because people won't stack them they'll Park them out in front and that will be a detriment so uh I'm a no on this plan but I'm not a no on the building um I would just like to see a plan with three delineated parking spaces for each unit so at the present time I'm a no Ken yeah I have the same thoughts as Jeff um I just think you're asking for trouble on the left side of the building there with that narrow driveway um so as far as this plan sets I'm okay with the building the building's fine with me I I have no problem with that because you're not changing the square footage of the uh of the cement so I'm not okay with the parking on the left side I think we need to make some changes to that so I'm going know on this plan um Ken yeah I think the the parking is doable I think on the left side it it's one family I mean it's going to be the same family so I think they can jockey it I do it at my house I have three vehicles we have three vehicles and we have to move them around it works it's just a tandem um so and there's a bunch of d uh double families and triple families in that neighborhood so I would be I I'd vote for this but I would like to I mean if it is possible of course you could do something better with the parking that would be good but I don't think I'd be a no if you didn't so I would I would approve of this okay um and I would not approve of this because of the parking situation I have actually driven down Oak Street um I don't know what day of the week it is but on trash day and it's a nightmare trying to get down that street and I especially with the big barrels the recycling barrels all of the cars so um I'm not a no completely on the project I I'm more in line with with Jeff that you need to do something with this um parking so that we have everything delineated and we also need um you know I I I guess a a better plan for lack of of of of more clarity but we need a better Plan before we're willing to kind of vote this project in understood Madam chair so with the chair's commission could we continue to the next meeting and allow us time to prepare additional plans having heard your concerns and the concerns of the abuts about the parking that'll give us plenty of time to address that on the plan and we'll actually delineate each of the spots so the six spaces will be shown each according to their required dimensions on the next iteration that you get okay that'd be good all right that that sounds great now yes very quick so if if you were to be continued to the next meeting which is the 27th we would need revised Plans by Tuesday the 21st do you think today is the 13th so we're we're talking a week and a day is that a reasonable timeline for you no problem okay so you want to continue until the 27th yes okay Madame chair I propose that we uh continue this case to our meeting of January 27th I'll second that all in favor I any opposed okay we will see you in a few weeks thank you madam shair and fellow members it'll be faster than you realize Madam chair I'll make a motion to uh now that I'm back uh to adjourn I'll second that all in favor I good night d for