HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-BZA-1991-10-07 BZA Appeal No. 2051
CHAIRMAN PECK: May we have the next case, please?
SECY. ECKSTROM: The next appeal is number 2051, 318-320 College
Avenue. It is the appeal of Jason Fane for an area variance for
deficient rear yard and off-street parking under Section 30.25,
Columns 4 and 5 of the Zoning Ordinance to permit the rear building
(the Honey Butter Building) at 318-320 College Avenue to be used for
an assembly use. This building shares the property with other
buildings, and is located in a B-2B (Business) Use District in which
the proposed use is permitted; however, under Section 30.57 the
appellant must first obtain an area variance from the listed
deficiencies before a building permit or Certificate of Occupancy
can be issued.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Good evening. If you'd begin by identifying
yourself and where you live for the record.
MR. FANE: My name is Jason Fane. I live at 133 N. Quarry Street in
the City of Ithaca, and that's about two blocks from the subject
property.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay. Would you tell us a little bit about your
appeal.
MR. FAKE: All right. First, I'd like to give you an overview of
the presentation, and then we'll try to go through it as quickly as
possible. I'm going to give a brief narrative of what the
application's about. Then I want to go through the specific points
in the zoning law that I feel have a bearing on this presentation
make sure that I cover all of the items that are supposed to be
covered so that there won't be a situation you say "well, maybe he's
entitled to it, but he didn't cover that point" . Then Mr. Yengo,
who works for me, will go through some of the efforts he's made to
market the property and why we feel we have to be here. And
finally, we're responding to the issue that you raised the last time
we were here; we have a prospective tenant who is interested in
renting the space and he'll be hereto tell you what he's hoping to
do, and then if you'd like to ask him further questions, he will be
glad to answer them.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay.
MR. FANE: The site at 314-320 College Avenue consists of two
contiguous buildings. The front building is a wood building at 314-
316 College Avenue, and that is not the subject of this appeal. The
rear building is . at 318-320; this is a substantial steel and
concrete building, which was built I believe about 65 years ago -
there's some debate as exactly when it was built. We're not seeking
to change the building in any way. However, when the building was
built, it was built up to the rear lot line and about half of the
width of the building. And also as you can see from the plot plans
that you have, there really is not space to put in more than about
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
one or two parking spaces, and there's a question as to whether even
those would be legal parking spaces in the zoning sense because of
the steep grade that they're on - I think they exceed the 10%
maximum allowable grade for a zoning parking space. The reason for
the appeal is that the rear building is set back about - you've got
the exact dimensions there, but it's about 50 or 60 feet from the
sidewalk on College Avenue, and the retail uses, the C2 mercantile
uses which we can do without an appeal, do not appeal to the market.
Shopkeepers want to have a window where somebody walking by can see
their merchandise, and they want to have a door right there by the
sidewalk where somebody can walk right in. We have been, I think,
extremely diligent in trying to promote this space for C2 uses -
we've spent many thousands of dollars in advertising, I have a full-
time salesman who's worked to rent the space. We've advertised it
locally, we've advertised it in out-of-town papers - I think the
advertising budget alone has been over $10, 000. We've called on
people. We've done all of the things that you normally do to try to
rent stores. We've had signs, we've lit up the place at night.
We've many different things, and the upshot has been we've not been
successful in doing this. The space has been vacant for more than
two years. I've only had it occupied three or four months out of
what's now close to five years that I've owned that building. We
therefore concluded, after giving it a real try, that the market for
the space was going to be some other use. And during the time we've
been doing all of these things, most of the inquiries we got were
for assorted C5 uses. People wanted a restaurant; they wanted a
bar; they wanted a health club; they wanted a dance club; they
wanted video games or a billiard parlor. These were the uses that
we got numerous, numerous inquiries for, and they are all C5 uses.
So that is the reason for the appeal. Briefly, what the case comes
down to is this: we feel unless we can get permission to use the
space for some C5 use, based on our experience, this space should be
vacant virtually into perpetuity as long as that building stands
there. Now, I would like to go through the items in the Zoning
Ordinance for an area variance, and that's what this is, to make
sure I've covered them all. The first is the issue of practical
difficulties or special conditions. The unusual physical
circumstance or other conditions peculiar to the particular lot or
the improvement thereon which make it impractical, expensive,
infeasible, or difficult to develop the property in strict
conformity with the provisions of the zoning regulations and there
are two of them. There's an existing heavy steel and concrete
building that goes right up to the rear lot line. We didn't put it
there; it was there when I bought it, actually it was there when I
was born, and probably there when all of you were born. So that's
what the condition is with respect to the rear lot. And with
respect to the parking, the requirement I think for the - our
applicant would like, our prospective tenant would like to do a
health club - and I think that the Building Commissioner determined
that 23 spaces would be required. There is no place that I can see
where it would be possible to put 23 spaces on this lot. It's a
small lot, and the building covers most of the lot except for the
driveway, and the driveway's really the access to one of the levels
of the space. Just is no place to do it. So that's the practical
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
difficulty. Now the next section deals with I have to show you that
it will not create a substantial negative change in the essential
character of the neighborhood, nor substantially or permanently
impair the appropriate use or development of the adjacent property
nor be detrimental to the public welfare. I feel that a health club
will not be detrimental to the neighborhood because it's additional
service to people. There were two people in there working out.
It's a healthy activity. I think it's certainly a morally sound
activity. It's good for people to be in good shape, and be in good
health. Honestly, if there is some reason why it's detrimental to
the neighborhood to have healthy people, I cannot tell you what it
is. Now with respect to the adjoining property, I am the owner of
most of the adjoining property, and I don't feel there's any
detriment either to current uses or potential future development.
The other owner is Art and Ellen Rosten, they have the Collegetown
Motor Lodge, the motel. I have spoken with them. They basically
had one concern - they didn't want anything which was going to be an
annoyance to their guests, and they felt that the principal
annoyance that there could be would be if there was noise,
particularly late at night when a guest might want to be sleeping.
The reality of the health club business in most places that they're-
not open at night. People work out until a certain hour; they just
get tired and they do whatever else they do, but they're not in the
health club. While there is sometimes is music in a health club,
it's not loud music like you have in a dance club, it's something to
help you keep rhythm and so on, and for a lot of the exercise they
don't; I mean guys who are in the weight room or something are not
going to be using - they probably wouldn't even have music - but
maybe just quiet entertainment. So, I don't think there's any issue
of being detrimental to the neighbors. Now then, the final issue is
being detrimental to the public welfare. I just don't know what to
tell you that demonstrated will not be detrimental to the public
welfare, but you haven't got that many people there. This is
intended, I am told by our tenant applicant, to be a neighborhood
health club. He does not expect people driving in from Syracuse, or
Rochester, or New York to work out in his health club; it's people
who are in the neighborhood. They walk over, they work out, they
use the machines - whatever his program is - and they walk home.
All right. The burden is on the applicant to clearly identify the
nature of the practical difficulty. I think I've done that. I do
not have actual bids on what it would cost to demolish a piece of
the building or to demolish the whole building and put up a parking
structure with the 23 spaces. I'm going to have to rely on your
judgment to accept just on a conceptual basis that there would be a
real practical difficulty in doing that. But, if you feel that
that's a deficiency in my application, I'd like you to tell me and
I'll try to come back with something more specific. It says factors
which may be considered - whether the requested variance represents
a relatively minor deviation from the area requirements in question.
And with the rear lot, the building is there. We're not changing
it. We're not adding anything. The use is clearly a legal use and
the parking is really a minor deviation because, if I were to build
apartments on top of the building, no parking would be required for
this use; I'd merely have to have as much area of apartments as
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
there is area of the use, and I think the area of the use is in the
range of about 5,000 square feet, and that would be approximately in
the range of 6 to 9 one-bedroom apartments, so there would be three
parking spaces required. I realize that's not the application we're
making of putting the apartments there, but it's something that we
could do. That would increase the density in the area a lot more
than just renting out the space that's there. The next issue -
whether a substantial positive change will be produced in the
character of the neighborhood. We're adding a new healthy service
to people in the neighborhood. I think that's a positive change.
Whether or not it's substantial is a judgment that I can't make.
Whether granting the variance will increase the accessibility or
adaptability of the property for handicapped or disabled
individuals. Our tenant applicant tells us that he plans to make
sure that the space will be accessible. Next item. Whether
granting the variance will have a positive impact on affordable
housing. I don't think it's going to have any impact on it one way
or the other. We're not doing anything with housing. I don't think
we're going to make it worse; I don't think we're going to make it
better. We're not having any effect on this. Whether granting the
variance will enhance or foster the preservation of scenic or
natural beauty. I don't think it's going to have any effect at all
on the scenic or natural beauty in the area. Not positive. Not
negative. It's architectural character. It would be improvement to
this existing building. The applicant is planning to do some
exterior work. I think we may be also. As far as historic
resources or other rare or irreplaceable features, I would say again
there'll be no effect on that one way or the other. The next
question is one of self-created hardship. I don't think we've
created this hardship ourself, the building as I said was put up
before I was born. We're not planning to make any change in the
size of the building. Whatever hardship is there was really - is
imposed by a change in the Zoning Ordinance which required parking
in B-2B zones for commercial uses. A few years ago, I think about 3
or 4 years ago, we could have done - we would have had no parking-
requirement for this, and there must have been a time when you could
build a building without the rear lot requirement, or else how do
various owners get the building in the situation that it's in. So
that's my presentation to try to show that we're complying with the
requirements of the zoning law. And I've tried to stick strictly to
the points that are there. Now, John, if you could come up, I would
like you to tell the Board what you've done to rent the space in
strict compliance with the C2 requirements so that they can be
completely convinced that we have made an extensive and diligent
effort, and we're just unable to do it.
MR. YENGO: I'm John Yengo, and I live on the Danby Road in the Town
of Ithaca. I have run Jason's commercial department for the last 12
years, and since we have acquired this building from Norstar Bank
some 5 years ago, I have made a diligent effort to rent it as a C2
facility, and have probably done over a couple hundred showings on
it. Like every salesman, I take whatever I can get and show the
property. Unfortunately, each time it's been a mercantile
establishment it hasn't been an attractive showing, where the
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 71 1991
building on the front - the 314-316 - has just proven the opposite
because it's got about 40 feet of frontage right on College Avenue.
It's apparent that there's a need for public assembly space in
Collegetown. It's also apparent that Planning and Development and
the Zoning Board are playing a cautious game and that they don't
want to increase the density of the area with people coming across
town for nightclubbing and so on and so forth. That's really not
our intention tonight. Our intention is to introduce Don Milley,
who is one of my public assembly people, who would like to rent the
place but he is very cautious and doesn't want to get into any legal
lease-writing at the moment until we can clear the path for him to
make a $200, 000 investment in producing a health facility. And
again, this is one of the constraints on renting space. When people
make a major investment, they don't want the stumbling block of
whether or not, in hiring architects and spending time in creating
estimates and planning of their project, that the expend all this
money and then they can't go forward for one reason or another. So,
like Jason says, we've spent tens of thousands of dollars
advertising in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, trying
to get people from the outside to come in. We're continually
advertising in The Ithaca Journal and the Cornell Daily Sun. We've
just have not been successful with this particular property. We had
an ounce of success only to get stuck for about 60 grand with a
previous tenant.
MR. FAKE: Could you tell them how we got that tenant.
MR. YENGO: Well, we got that tenant out of the New York Times.
They came out of Philadelphia. We thought they had a great idea and
it was simply a grocery store, discount beverage (unintelligible)
type of retail establishment. Again, with the ramifications of
putting a business together and they went into this, I don't think
blindly, they were both well-qualified individuals, but they found
it was an unsuccessful location for the project they wanted to•
undertake. I don't know what else to say. At the last meeting, you
insisted that we take this to a use atmosphere and I was able to
persuade my tenant prospect, Don Milley, to come in and make his
presentation for the kind of use, and I really think that we meet
all the criteria as far as an area variance is concerned. Now, that
you're insistent about knowing which particular tenant we'd like to
put in there, I'd like to introduce Don Milley.
MR. MILLEY: My name is Don Milley. I'm a resident of 127 Eddy
Street in Ithaca. I'm here at the request of Mr. Fane and Mr. Yengo
to, you know, clarify some of the issues with regard to use, etc. I
would like to briefly go over a couple of the points that Mr. Fane
went over, more from a tenant point of view, and for Ms. Rossiter's
benefit as well. There will be considerable soundproofing in the
building so as not to disturb the Collegetown Motor Lodge. With
regard to detrimental use, detrimental to the public welfare,
traffic-wise we're really not targeting people to be coming around
across town, etc. I'm specifically targeting the Cornell college
student market, specifically west campus residents and specifically
Collegetown residents. I did a survey of approximately 700
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 -OCTOBER 7, 1991
students, of that 60% expressed interest in joining a club like
mine, but only 20% belong to one presumably because of lack of
accessibility. This location is great for the Collegetown area.
People will be using the facility. It will be healthy. There's
nothing illegal about it, and hopefully, it will produce a
substantial positive change in the neighborhood. As Mr. Fane
mentioned, we will be modifying the building so as to provide access
for handicapped individuals. It is something that we'd like to do.
I have a good friend who currently goes to Cornell and is
handicapped. (unintelligible) I should be kind of just talking with
him as a consultant as to what kind of services I can provide to the
handicapped population at Cornell, and even the Ithaca area, so as
to provide valuable services in that way. Be maintaining proper
care of the building. Right now, it's in need of a coat of paint,
and I understand there's some regulations that have to go along with
that as well, but I will be taking care of the building, etc. I
don't know what else I can tell you.
MR. FANE: Could you describe the program you plan for upgrading the
building.
MR. MILLEY: Okay. The building itself has two floors. The top
floor will be the entranceway. Two very large locker rooms, full
service. The top floor will also have an aerobics floor of
approximately 26 x 50' dimensions with a padded wooden floor. This
.will also reduce noise as well as wear and tear on legs, knees, etc.
Downstairs will be, aside from the boiler room and an office, a
laundry room, a smaller locker space and nautilus and pre-weight
.equipment in the larger open space, constituting about 2,500 square
feet of equipment. The .equipment, you know I can show you pictures
if you wanted. It's top of the line - it's going to be a high-tech,
enjoyable atmosphere. I'm hoping to provide a valuable service to
the Cornell community. If we don't, I'm bankrupt anyway. I don't
know if there's anything else I should cover.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, why don't we find out if there's any questions
from members of the Board. Are there any questions from members of
the Board?
MR. VINEBERG: Yes, before we move. Did you say you did a survey of
students to see if they were interested in this facility?
MR. MILLEY: Yes, I did.
MR. VINEBERG: Did you ask them how many would have to drive to the
facility? How many were within walking distance?
MR. MILLEY: I didn't. I did this presumably with regard to the
walk-by traffic in Collegetown. I just sat out there for an entire
day asking people as they walked by to fill out a brief survey. To
my knowledge, a good portion of these people were Collegetown
residents, and thereby wouldn't need to drive to the place. But, to
answer your question, no I didn't ask if they would need to drive to
the facility.
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 71 1991
MR. VINEBERG: Did you do the survey there and not
MR. MILLEY: Yes, right almost in front of the building, within 20
yards.
MR. STRAUSS: What hours would you anticipate being open?
MR. MILLEY: We'd have an aerobics class from 7: 30 to 8:30 in the
morning. The facility itself would open for full service at 8:30 in
the morning and then would close at 10: 00 P.M. after a self-defense
class. Again, this is another benefit. I'm not sure if most of you
are aware that there have been a number of rapes and sexual assaults
in the Collegetown area recently. Something that we're planning on
helping out with is providing self-defense classes at night to local
Collegetown residents.
MR. VINEBERG: I have a couple questions for Jason.
MR. FANE: Yes, Ken.
MR. VJCNEBERG: The main concern for me is parking; that's the only
issue ' I see and I don't really know the history of some of the
parking issues on this site. I'd like to ask you some questions
about that. If I can be perfectly frank, I once heard a rumor that
you had used the parking lot around the bank to fulfill your parking
requirement for your adjacent apartment buildings, and that the
.people, in the bank had to apply for a variance to run their bank
.without the required parking.
MR. FANE: You were misinformed.
MR. VINEBERG: Could you give me some information on that? How many
spacesare available to the bank? Why is there spaces for rent on
that site, and why do we have listed here that there are four spaces
set aside for mercantile use?
MR. FANE: All right. When I was negotiating with the Norstar Bank
to purchase that site, it was a three-part transaction. They're
selling the property, they're providing a mortgage for a part of the
price, and they were leasing back some of the property. The
property consists of two parcels. The one we're dealing here with
is the 314-320. The bank is on the 330 parcel, which is a different
parcel. So, now I'm not talking about the parcel that's in our
application, now I'm talking about the parcel that the bank itself
is on, which
MR. VINEBERG: (unintelligible) verify the borderline between the
parcels?
MR. FANE: It's where there's a concrete wall between the parking
lot and the Honey Butter building. I can show you where it is on
your map.
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. VINEBERG: There's a concrete wall here where the drive
(unintelligible) behind.
MR. FANE: The drive is on the 314-320 parcel. The bank's on the
other side of the line.
MR. VINEBERG: (unintelligible) where the property follows the Honey
Butter building.
MR. FANE: I believe so.
MR. VINEBERG: So all this parking, except for this small drive, is
part of the bank's property.
MR. FAKE: That's right. Your question was why is the bank not
using it. I was discussing this with, I think his name was Erkland
Kalborn (spelling?) , everyone calls him Erkie, and the view that we
have in our office it's like somebody running an ala carte
restaurant - every piece of space you want, we charge for because
it's desirable space. If you don't want it, then you save some
money, but maybe somebody else wants. So, we try to get the space
in the hands where the person has that wants it. We said to him,
how many parking spaces do you want to rent? That was where we
phrased it. He said, I don't want to pay for any parking. So, well
in that case, you're not going to get any parking. He says well, as
far as customer parking goes, most of our customers walk in and
other people in there, their freeloaders; why should I pay rent for
all these freeloaders? So, then I said "Well maybe you'd like to
rent some parking spaces for your employees. " He said "No, they're
getting paid. If they want a parking space, they can rent out of
their salaries. " I said "Well, if you don't rent any parking space,
you're not going to get any parking spaces. You understand that?"
He says "Yes, I understand that. " So that's why the bank didn't
have any parking spaces. That was the discussion we had, and I felt
that if the bank didn't rent the parking spaces, there might be
somebody in Collegetown who would want those parking spaces.
They're nice parking spaces, good location. I don't believe that he
needs a variance because the bank was built - I might not be right
to the exact date, but I think in 1964 . At that time, most
certainly subsequently, in B-2b zoning there was no parking
requirement whatsoever.
MR. VINEBERG: That's because I wasn't here that long. Let's settle
that. Has the bank had to get a variance for the rented space to
fulfill any requirements.
SECY. ECKSTROM: I don't think so. I'm not familiar with any.
MR. FAKE: So, therefore, the bank is in compliance historically, as
are most of the other B-2b commercial sites in Collegetown. Almost
all of the B-2b commercial buildings, particularly if there's no
apartments up above, they could not build that today unless they had
parking, and most of them do not have it. As a practical matter,
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 71 1991
there might be enough parking someplace for one or two of them to
get it, but they certainly couldn't all get it.
MR. VINEBERG: Let's go right to the "who is parking in these 23
spaces in this around this bank"?
MR. FANE: Whoever wants to pay rent for it. If you would like to
rent a parking space, we'll rent one to you.
MR. VINEBERG: Do these belong to you? These spaces.
MR. FANE: They belong to me. I bought and paid for them from the
bank, and I rent them to who wants them. My guess would be, if you
were to come back at some number of yours, that site will get
developed by me or somebody else, but it's not the subject of
tonight's application.
MR. VINEBERG: And the other question is, are any of the required
spaces for any of your adjacent buildings being fulfilled by the
property around this bank?
MR. FAKE: It's not my understanding that they are. In the
Collegetown, the. . . The three houses - the 123, the 125, and the 127
- do not have any parking . . . Even though they have parking, there
is no parking required because of historical reasons; they're
grandfathered. The only new building I have in that contiguous
parcel is the Collegetown Plaza, and that parking requirement is met
in two locations . . You know, I wasn't prepared for this so I may
be wrong about the exact numbers, but I believe that 42 parking
spaces on the Collegetown Plaza site itself, and then the additional
parking spaces are at the 705 Buffalo Street. Now, we had to do it
that way because it was my architect's understanding of the parking'
requirements at the time we did that building, and I don't think
this has changed, that if you have your parking in more than
(unintelligible) some parking that is remote from the construction
site, it all has to be in one location. And the challenge that I
had when we were doing this was to find a single site where you
could get, I think it was 30 some odd parking spaces that were
required, and what I did, I took maps and I had a string and I
measured the 750 foot radius, and I said what are the possible sites
where you could get that number of spaces alone. There was only one
possibility, that was the 705 Buffalo Street, so I went and bought
it. It's the only reason I bought that.
MR. VINEBERG: And is that not your recollection that that's where
this parking is.
SECY. ECKSTROM: That's right, yes.
MR. VINEBERG: You know the zoning had hoped that the developers of
those sites would put up a parking just like you did because the
zoning was trying to encourage more parking in that neighborhood to
minimize the pressure on Bryant Park neighborhood for student
housing, and I think that was why they created this benefit of if
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
you create apartments above mercantile space, they gave you a break
on parking. They also were asking for parking spaces to try and
minimize the parking pressure in Collegetown. By finding parking on
an adjoining site, you met the requirements but you did not help
relieve some of those parking problems to the extent that you might
have been if there was parking right at that building. But, be that
as it may, the question then becomes in my mind there is a
requirement for 22 spaces for a fitness center, and there are 22
spaces available on that property.
MR. FANE: No. That's a different parcel. If you would imagine
that somebody else owned the parcel of the bank, you cannot ask me
to go and say "Well, because somebody else has some parking there or
some other parcel has parking. "
MR. VINEBERG: Well, we often ask people to look into renting spaces
if they don't have any off-street required, and we could do that in
this case, and those are spaces that are (unintelligible) and they
are right adjacent to the property.
MR. FANS: I understand what you're saying, but I think you're not
dealing with the reality of the situation. No one is ever going to
provide 23 parking spaces for this health club. You could kill the
thing or conceivably, there might be additional apartments built
which would increase the density in the area, in which case I would
find the three parking spaces that were necessary. But, I do want
to say one other thing. At the time that part of the Ordinance was
passed, it was generally agreed there was a shortage of housing in
Collegetown. I sincerely believe if you were to do a survey today,
you'll find that there's no shortage of apartments in Collegetown,
that a lot of landlords are desperate to get tenants, that rents
have been falling for the last few years. The Ordinance was
successful in that since it was passed, several hundred apartments
have been built, of which I think I built my share, and an awful lot
of my neighbors are having trouble filling their apartments because
of this additional supply of what I built. Mack Travis' building
which has got 64 apartments. I don't know how many apartments John
Novarr has on the other side of State Street, but it's a huge
project.
MR. VINEBERG: I agree that the apartment problem has been solved
because of efforts like yours and Mack Travis. I think that has
worked out rather well. The parking problem hasn't been. To some
extent, you know, Mack Travis got a good break - somehow he avoided
the issue of parking - and I think a lot of people regret that, of
course, and you found a way to avoid creating as many parking spaces
as might have been ideal for the City.
MR. FANS: With all due respect, I 100% complied with the parking
requirement. 42 . I'm not sure that's the exact number, it's in
that range, exactly on the site and the balance of them are a couple
of hundred feet away at 705 Buffalo Street and it's quite close.
And then, in addition, we built a direct route to go from the
building, shortcutting so you don't have to go all the way around
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BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 71 1991
that peninsula on Dryden Road and that . . And we allow the whole
community to use the stairway and walk up our driveway, it's a
convenience to people coming from down Eddy Street and down Buffalo
Street and Seneca Street. They're welcome to do it, and they do it
in significant numbers, and it's a convenience to the community.
There may be people who got some favors in terms of building their
apartments, but I 100% complied with each and every and all the
requirements. (unintelligible) recall I did not come for any
variance to build that building.
MR. VINEBERG: Did you have any rough idea of who's renting those
spaces?
MR. FANE: If I had known you were going to ask that question, I
could have brought in the forms because we have each person fill out
a form. They are - I can't give you percentages, but as I recall,
it's approximately - I can be wrong - I'd say maybe 1/5 or 1/4 of
the people are merchants who have stores in the area where they
don't have parking; people maybe on College Avenue, on Dryden Road,
and they rent it for themselves or for their employees. And then,
the balance of residents, we might get one or two people who are
commuters and they like the convenience of it. The people prefer
our parking spaces to the City ramp because we give them an
assigned, 24 hour space. So, you can park your car and you can
leave it there for six months if you want, not that they do, or you
can come and go and that's your space and no one else is ever
supposed to be in there. If there's someone else in there, you
could have them towed, whereas there are times when the City ramp is
full and even though you're prepared to pay for it, it won't make
any difference. So they're very popular. And I think also some
people prefer it because the access is generally more convenient
than the City ramp. I think right now we are even charging less
than the City ramps. That's another reason they like it.
MR. VINEBERG: Because this is also about parking, but it's not
clear to me. On the form, why was it listed that there were 13
spaces for a bank (unintelligible) mercantile?
SECY. ECKSTROM: I think we need to clarify this because Barry's
asking the same question. This worksheet basically, of the zoning
requirements, was based on this survey which shows the three parcels
combined. I believe that's also the way the tax office is taxing
the parcel. You may know different.
MR. FANE: Well, it's not the way the deeds go.
SECY. ECKSTROM: The deeds. If this has not been recorded and a
single deed drawn, then that may be an error. But, basically, the
way the Building Department looks at the change in the Ordinance
between when there was no parking requirement and when there is now
a parking requirement, is that when the change happens you're
basically locked into what you have as what is the nonconforming
use. The bank, when it was built, had no parking requirement, but
now it has some parking. And you really can't take a step backwards
Page - 11
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
towards noncompliance. So, what I did was, based on this survey,
analyzed how many of the 20 spaces, which are zoning-compliant in
size, at the bank were required parking for the bank. Using the
overall site plan, established what the parking requirement was for
the 314-316 College Avenue space. So, that's the four mercantile
spaces that show on there. If there . . . It appeared to me to be
beneficial in Jason's case to look at it this way because it
resulted in a 19 space deficiency rather than the 22, if you used
that parking. Then that would be an off-site parking location if it
was not one single lot.
MR. STRAUSS: Do you mean to say three of those spaces would be
applied towards 318-320?
SECY. ECKSTROM: Yes, right.
MR. VINEBERG: So, the determination that your making is that if
this is in fact one parcel, and you change the use in one of the
buildings on the parcel, then everything has to be brought up to
code standards of parking?
SECY. ECKSTROM: No, just that everything . . . The parking
requirement for uses which existed and continued throughout the zone
change, when there was parking, is what parking it had.
MR. VINEBERG: I don't know, you lost me.
SECY. 'ECKSTROM: When it was built, I think Jason's right early
1601s, there was no parking requirement in a B-2b zone, however, the
bank felt it needed some parking so it built a parking lot as well.
The zone changed in the mid-801's, I don't know the exact date,
requiring parking for a bank use.
MR. VINEBERG: But the bank is grandfathered in.
SECY. ECKSTROM: The bank was grandfathered for no parking, although
it did have parking when the zone changed. So, that's its
grandfathered configuration. It's grandfathered to the extent that
it was nonconforming. In this case, it had 20 spaces, it really is
not nonconforming because the requirement's only 13, but there is a
13 space requirement for the bank. The Ordinance allows property
owners to rent those spaces in the free market, so it's not required
that they rent them to the bank people. So I don't see that we've
got a problem with that.
MR. VINEBERG: That's got me more confused. You're saying that
there's 13 space requirement for a bank. The bank had them when the
ordinance was made, but that the law does not require that they be
used for the bank, they could be rented out by the owner
(unintelligible)
SECY. ECKSTROM: That's right.
Page - 12
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: Can we hold a second please. (turned tape over)
Okay. Continue.
MR. MILLEY: If I may, just from a tenant point of view, as far as I
know the buildings in that contiguous parcel are separate parcels
for tax reasons, etc. I'm not sure on the technicalities of it all.
What I do know is I am required to have either 19 or 22 spaces, all
of which must be together within 750 feet of the building. From my
point of view, there are two practical difficulties aside from the
fact that hopefully I won't even need any parking if I'm targeting
the right market. These two difficulties are the fact that from the
limited research I've done, there aren't many lots available where
these 22 spaces could be designated for my use. Second, such
MR. VINEBERG: We did establish there is a lot right next door
(unintelligible) .
MR. MILLEY: It doesn't have 22 spaces, plus as far as I know, it is
a separate parcel. Again, you know.
MR. TOMLAN: We'll come back to that.
MR. MILLEY: Second, to rent those spaces at an exorbitant price for
one of those spaces, again a round estimate is about $1,400. Again,
over .the course of a year, that's $30, 000 or so which would pretty
much eat up a good deal of profits. So, there is some practical
difficulty just from my point of view. I just wanted to touch on
that.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Are there any other questions from members of the
Board?
MR. TOMLAN: Yes. I have a series from a different point of view.
Hold it, Don. How many members do you project this club to have?
MR. MILLEY: Approximately 700.
MR. TOMLAN: 700 members. How many staff members do you expect to
have?
MR. MILLEY: It varies upon time of day.
MR. TOMLAN: Maximum.
MR. MILLEY: Maximum at one point in time, about 10.
MR. TOMLAN: 10. Did you at any point attempt to secure parking
within the radius?
MR. MILLEY: I've gone around looking for lots of 22 spaces or more.
I haven't spoken to anybody about the possibility of renting those,
etc.
MR. TOMLAN: Okay.
Page - 13
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. MILLEY: As far as I'm concerned, there aren't any that aren't
already being allocated to either an apartment building or
(unintelligible)
MR. TOMLAN: But you didn't do anything that was formal?
MR. MILLEY: No.
MR. TOMLAN: You essentially looked around and you were kind of
checking things out to see whether in fact it was the case.
MR. MILLEY: Yes.
MR. TOMLAN: And what would be the projected length of your lease?
MR. MILLEY: 5 years with option for 5 years, so 10 years.
MR. TOMLAN: Fine. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Other questions from members of the Board?
Gentlemen, thank you. Is there anyone else here that would like to
speak in favor of the current appeal? No one. Is there anyone here
who'd like to speak in opposition to the current appeal? No one.
Then the case is ours. Some discussion, please.
Page - 14
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Discussion
MR. VINEBERG: I think the first thing I've got to say just so for
Jason is the silly of idea of . . It seems like the demand in
Collegetown is for parking more than for any other use. I wonder if
you could turn this building into a like a storage building for
people's cars who want to store things for the winter, store them
for the summer while they're out of town. No. It's just a thought.
CHAIRMAN PECK: No. Jason, I'm sorry. Ken, you can't address . . . He
can't speak again now in his defense.
MR. VINEBERG: Well, he can if I . . .
CHAIRMAN PECK: No. (everyone talking at once) Okay, we don't want
to engage in a discussion that's not in relationship to the
application as it is here. Desk getting kind of crowded, David?
MR. VINEBERG: To the members of the Board it seems like there's
more need for parking than
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, okay. That's fine, but that's not what his
application is for. I think that we have to figure out what the
zoning issues are here and I think you're both right, I think that
it is - that parking is the issue.
MR. TOMLAN: Well, the reason I asked about the membership was
because 700members is a good number, and we've had health clubs in
_other parts of the City where there have been major parking impacts
by virtue of those health clubs -operating in those neighborhoods,
and we know where those are. Okay. Now, whether Collegetown is any
remarkably different place, that people aren't going to drive to
because their friends are somehow not involved or something of that
sort . . . I'm not going to particularly argue one way or the other.
I don't think we have any particular information about. I am
curious about the staff members. I asked about the staff members
particularly because in Collegetown, as I know from personal
experience, most of the people who operate businesses in Collegetown
park on the street. Plain fact. That's Planning studies have
confirmed that so that where you're providing parking for the staff
is a concern to me, if there is any, and in this instance there
isn't. So, I see essentially a question with respect to the number
of members, and I assume the number of members may be idealized; I
see no pro forma, I have no sense of income level generated from
that number of members. I would be interested to see, though it is
only an area variance, it seems to me somewhat relevant to ask the
question of how many members would be necessary to carry a parking
lease as part of the cost of doing business - for the staff at
least. And I'll stop there.
MR. VINEBERG: I like the issue of staff. I mean I think that it's
our question is to establish some sense of how many parking spaces
really would be required in order to avoid any parking problems
caused by this new use. If we could say that, in fact, if the
Page - 15
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
property could provide parking for the staff and we didn't think
that the users would create any parking problem, then I think we
have a reason to grant the variance on the condition that 10 spaces
or whatever (unintelligible) required for staff was provided on
adjacent property.
MR. STRAUSS: With 700 members, though, it's hard to believe that
there wouldn't be some who would want to drive there.
MR. VINEBERG: It's a hard one to determine. I certainly don't
know. I think you could make a case
MR. TOMLAN: 700 people would come in without cars.
MR. VINEBERG: Well, I don't know that anyone would have to drive
there would choose it as a place to go to work out. I think if you
have to drive, you might drive to any of the other fitness centers
in town.
MS. ROSSITER: I think at this stage, it is as good a guess to say
that this would be a place that would attract walking, walk-in
traffic for the very reason that it might be the option for a
clientele that would find it difficult to go to the downtown
facilities because they don't have a car. We're guessing. And
again, I think the assumption that all 10 staff would be driving
might be too large an assumption, especially if we're supposed to be
. . . if they're supposed to be healthy staff (unintelligible)
understand the benefits of walking.
MR. HOLMBERG: Does the nighttime parking scene change in
Collegetown from the daytime, or is it just a different set of
people trying to find spaces?
MR. TOMLAN: They're a different set completely, because what you
have essentially is businesses of the smaller shops closing down and
the bars opening up. And of course around 1:00 or 2: 00 a.m. , there
are so many people on the streets on most Friday and Saturday nights
that you can't drive through there. I know from personal experience
again.
MR. VINEBERG: I've been unable to get to the parking garage at
night because it was full. And they do keep an attendant there 24
hours because they have enough people coming and going and parking.
MR. STRAUSS: Question. Is the applicant required to get 22 spaces
all in the same place?
SECY. ECKSTROM: That's the way off-site parking ordinance reads,
yes.
MR. STRAUSS: And where within 750 feet are the spaces available?
Page - 16
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
SECY. ECKSTROM: They have to also be in a zone which permits the
use, basically just the B-2b zone. All around that is residential
and institutional.
MR. STRAUSS: So, are there places in this area where 22 spaces are
available?
SECY. ECKSTROM: On one site in my estimation, there aren't. I
haven't done any detailed study of parking
MR. STRAUSS: Anything close to 22 spaces?
SECY. ECKSTROM: I don't think so.
MR. STRAUSS: Besides of course the bank parking lot.
SECY. ECKSTROM: Which has 13 required spaces. There may be 7
spaces that aren't taken up by other parking requirements.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well?
MS. ROSSITER: Are you saying then that without a variance with
regard to this parking issue that the building cannot be used?
CHAIRMAN PECK: It can't be used for assembly.
SECY. ECKSTROM: It can be used for mercantile uses only at this
point.
MS. ROSSITER: Okay.
CHAIRMAN PECK: That's the problem. Right?
MR. TOMLAN: Right.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Right.
MR. STRAUSS: Also, I would like some clarification. This proposal
proposes to provide how many parking spaces.
SECY. ECKSTROM: Basically, none apparently.
MR. STRAUSS: Are there precedents for granting a variance for
public assembly with no parking spaces?
CHAIRMAN PECK: I'm sorry. What did you ask, Barry?
MR. STRAUSS: I asked if there was precedent for granting a variance
for public assembly use without any parking spaces.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, we've, as I recall on my tenure on the Board,
we've always people to provide parking as much as we could with
their appeals.
Page - 17
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. VINEBERG: I was here for one. We asked them to look for
parking and only if they could come back and say "well, we tried and
couldn't find any. " You know, it seems to me that because of the
nature of this parcel, we're in a position to . . It's a funny
thing. I mean, if we I think we could say that we want some number
of spaces set aside for this tenant, and that could be done.
obviously whoever's in those spaces now would be evicted and . . .
MR. STRAUSS: It would mean that other people would not have parking
spaces and that . . . It would cost money.
MR. VINEBERG: But see the thing that's still in my mind is that the
City was hoping to create some pressure to create more spaces by
these developers when they built their projects. And Jason's right,
he did create spaces. He created a parking lot in an adjacent
property that was cheaper than creating a parking garage on this
property. And I think he's right in saying that that's the same
parking. I mean he created spaces. So, I guess that's why I come
up with the comment that I'd rather see him createmore space
(unintelligible) this building.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, we are going to have to vote on this.
MR. HOLMBERG: The sooner the better.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Does anybody have a motion?
MR. VINEBERG: I think . . . In my mind it's like -yes, there are lots
of people need parking, and here's this space that you can rent that
you have to own a store in Collegetown. You can rent a space from
Jason. You can park there. But the issue before us is that this
building seems to need a certain amount of parking, this use, and
it's available from this property owner, and he should provide the
parking that we think is necessary for this use on that property,
and the other people are going to have to solve their problem
elsewhere. I think that's a reasonable way to look at it.
MR. HOLMBERG: But wouldn't you say that I mean there's another
perspective not necessarily that I'd argue this that parking is
totally saturated in that area, and it's reached its absolute total
limits, and you bring something else that needs more space; well,
there's no place for them to park. It's already saturated. It
really . . This one (unintelligible) say it doesn't change things
very much. All the parking places are already full. So the thing
can't. . It'll either, you know . . .
MR. VINEBERG: It's a valid point. It's a question of whether it's
denying someone the fair use of their property but saturation has
occurred here.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, we need a motion from somebody. I think that
. . . I don't see any clear resolution to the problem myself.
MR. VINEBERG: Is there any more discussion?
Page - 18
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MS. ROSSITER: Well, I think that there is a concern as you've just
raised as to the issue of denial of fair use of the property based
on the evidence presented at past gatherings of this group that
attempts were made to rent this for mercantile use that have
apparently been unsuccessful, and given its location and the way it
sets on the lot that it's unlikely that that use could be made, and
there is I think a very real issue as far as whether the property
can be used for anything of that nature - a mercantile use that
would allow this parking problem to go away.
MR. STRAUSS: Could you speak to the issue of setting a precedent?
MS. ROSSITER: As far as whether or not it would set a precedent,
I'm not sure that it would necessarily set a precedent that . . . It
seems to me that any time that we make a decision that someone else
would have to come forward that is exactly in the same situation,
totally similarly situated, that would allow them to rely on one,
you know, a particular decision. I mean anytime that a variance is
granted, we are obviously bending a rule.
MR. STRAUSS: But we don't usually grant variances without any
parking provision whatsoever.
MR. VINEBERG: Barry, there's a precedent . I've only been here
for six months, but early on the liquor store right across the
street from this parcel closed up and were looking for a new tenant
and a pizza parlor wanted to move in and we asked them to look for
spaces. They weren't able to find any, and we granted them a
variance from the parking requirement for assembly in what used to
be a mercantile. Exact same situation.
MR. TOMLAN: Except the impact was astronomically different in terms
of numbers. You didn't have 700 people, at least I don't think the
Schauffler's intended 700 people to march in their former liquor
store.
MR. VINEBERG: That's the issue before us.
MR. TOMLAN: I'm opposed. I'm flat out opposed. I can't see how
you can not, in my neighborhood, have some impact by virtue of 700
people in a health club. And the fact that they're essentially
asking for no parking at all is to my mind tatamount to . . . Well, I
won't go any further.
MR. HOLMBERG: Why don't you present a motion to that effect and see
where we stand.
MR. TOMLAN: All right, I will.
Page - 19
BZA APPEAL NO. 2051 - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Decision
MR. TOMLAN: I move that Appeal No. 2051 be denied.
Proposed Findings of Fact:
1. There has been no demonstration on the part of the lessee
that there has been any documented effort to find the parking.
2 . The impact of the proposed size of this business is bound
to effect not only the Collegetown area but the immediate
surrounding neighborhoods, and that is inconsistent with the
character of those neighborhoods.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Do I have a second?
MR. STRAUSS: I second.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Any further discussion? None. A Yes is to deny.
Vote, please.
SECY. ECKSTROM: 4 Affirmative votes and 2 nay votes.
CHAIRMAN PECK: So, the appeal is denied.
I certify that the foregoing was transcribed from a tape recording
to the best of my ability from the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting of
October 7, 1991 regarding Appeal No. 2051.
ea�t�-e�
Carol Shipe, Red6rding Secretary
Page - 20
APPEAL NO _ 2 O 6 5
SECY. ECKSTROM: Appeal Number 2065 - 303-309 Dryden Road. Appeal
of Ching Po for an area variance for deficient minimum front and
'side yard dimensions under Section 30.25, Columns 4, 11, and 13 of
the Zoning Ordinance to permit alterations and an addition to the
existing building at 303-309 Dryden Road. It is proposed to convert
this building from five dwelling units to three dwelling units with
a total of eighteen sleeping rooms. This building is located in an
R-3B Multiple Residential Use District in which the proposed use is
permitted; however, Sections 30.49 and 30.57 require that an area
variance be obtained before a building permit and a Certificate of
Occupancy can be issued.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Gentlemen, good evening. If you would begin by
identifying yourselves and where you live, please, for the record.
MR. DEMJANEC: My name is Peter Demjanec and I am an architect
practicing here in the City of Ithaca. This is my associate Joseph
Westbrook.
MR. WESTBROOK: I live in Park Lane, Town of Ithaca.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay, gentlemen, if you would tell us about your
request, please.
MR. DEMJANEC: Yes. The owner purchased this building in February,
1991. At the time she bought it, the property was inspected to
determine what sort of condition it was in, and it appeared to be
reasonably maintained, reasonably sound property. In the period of
time between the purchase and where we are now, it has turned out
that there are some problems with the building that need to be
rectified, need to be corrected. The existing steam heating system
simply isn't doing the job any longer. There is no heat in the
basement; the upper floor spaces have heat intermittently, but not
uniformly throughout the building. It is clear that itis going to
need a new heating system placed in the building. The current
electric service for the 5 units is a 100 amp service. We have had
complaints from tenants with circuit breakers popping - actually
fuses blowing; we don't have circuit breakers in the building. It's
clear that we are going to need a new electric service, new breaker
boxes, and undoubtedly some additional circuits to the five units
that are in the building. The plumbing system has shown up with
drainage problems. We have detected some lead drainage plumbing and
we suspect some of the copper has lead solder in it, so the plumbing
system is up for replacement. New roof on the building, and the
list tends to go on and on and on. Some of it was evident at the
time the building was purchased; such as, the rear parking lot
needing to be re-graded and re-paved. Obviously, we knew at the
time that the roof needed to be replaced. The owner took a look at
what would be required to invest this money in the building and
bring it up to a point where we have confidence in its ability to
hold its own and not continue to deteriorate, as these properties
have a tendency to do if people are not able to invest money in
them. And we looked at ways that we could increase the revenue from
the building and offset the amount of money that needed to be
Page - 1
.^. J
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
invested in the building to improve the mechanical systems and the
building itself. And we started by looking at the 5 units and asked
-'ourselves can we stay inside this envelope and reconfigure this
building and turned out not to be something that was cost-effective.
We looked at the possibility of putting a six-bedroom addition on
the Dryden Road face of the building and see if that would offset
the cost of repairs that were needed, and that turned out not to be
sufficient. We ended up with having to come up with an 18-20
bedroom addition in order to carry the cost of replacing the
mechanical systems that are in ' the building now. We have designed
and submitted to the Board for their review a copy of our proposed
addition to the building and conversion to the existing building,
changing it from five single-bedroom units with 10 occupants to
three six-bedroom units with a total of 18 occupants. We have
tried, I believe, to create this addition in as positive a way as
possible. I believe that it improves certainly the Dryden Road
facade of this building, which is currently quite (unintelligible) ,
not quite particularly pleasing. We think our addition is much more
pleasing than what is currently there on the Dryden Road side of the
building. We have provided in the proposal one handicapped
adaptable unit, which is required under the New York State Code if
you exceed two units, but currently we haven't got in the building.
We have improved the rear parking lot, not only by re-grading it and
paving it, but also pulling it back from Bryant Avenue; it currently
encroaches on Bryant Ave's front yard. We pulled it back from that
front yard. So, we have been able to improve, we believe, some of
the existing nonconformities in the building. We have talked to
property owners in the area to try to determine their particular
opinion about the proposed addition, and we received support from 7
of the 18 property owners that are in the area. Two of the property
owners that we spoke with expressed no opinion, and we haven't
received responses from 9 out of the 18 property owners. I do know
that we have one property owner who is very much in opposition to
our proposed addition, and I expect that she'll speak shortly with
very strong objections, and we have taken the liberty of
anticipating some of her objections, and preparing responses to
them. I would like to ask the Board if it would be possible to
postpone delving into responses to objections until after we've
heard the content of the objections.
CHAIRMAN PECK: I think that we'll stick with the order in which we
usually do cases; that is, we'll hear from the people in favor of it
and followed by the people in opposition to it.
MR. DEMJANEC: Okay. So, let me try then, if I can, to anticipate
some of the objections that we might hear from the property owner
that I know will speak in objection. One of the things that we
might hear is that we have traffic problems in the area, and we
tried to address that particular issue by talking with the City of
Ithaca Traffic Engineer and determining what the current capacity of
the traffic system in the area is. If you would pass these around
please. According to Mr. Gombas, who is the City Traffic Engineer,
we currently are experiencing 310 cars an hour during the peak hour
on Dryden Road. That represents about 15% of the road's capacity.
Page - 2
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
If we had all eight of our additional tenants bring cars with them,
and they were to add 2 trips each during peak hour, that would go
'from 15 to 16% of capacity; in our opinion not a significant impact
on the capacity of Dryden Road. Another objection that I expect you
are going to hear has to do with off-street parking, and we've done
some research concerning off-street parking. Our proposal will be
providing 9 parking spaces for 18 residents. That ratio of one
space for 2 residents is the highest ratio that is required under
the Zoning Ordinance. It is the strictest parking requirement, and
we are meeting it. I would suggest that the 9 spaces we're
providing will provide all of the parking that will be needed by
tenants of this building, and we base that on two pieces of
research. One is discussions with Cornell University traffic and
housing, where we've determined the percentage of students that
bring cars to campus, and the second is a survey of Collegetown
student apartments, where we verified that percentage of students
that bring cars to campus. We expect that the 9 parking spaces will
be sufficient for the 18 tenants that we have, and our 9 on-site
parking spaces will take care of our property and no off-site
parking will be required. I would further point out that there
certainly are . . There certainly is competition for street parking
in the area. The competition for street parking in that area is
generated in part by a lot of residences that do not comply with the
current Zoning Ordinance and don't have sufficieht on-site parking.
Simply an observation. I did speak with one property owner who felt
that we might have a visibility problem at the intersection of
Dryden and Bryant Road, and I've got 2 things that I would like the
Board to consider, if in fact, they hear that as an objection. The
first, of course, is that this is an issue that is addressed in the
Zoning Ordinances and our proposal does comply with the Zoning
Ordinance requirements in that regard. In fact, it exceeds the
requirements, so we are providing slightly more visibility at the
corner than the Zoning Ordinance would ask us to. The second
response I have is that the proposal that we have before the Board
this evening should work to improve the visibility around the corner
at Dryden and Bryant. We currently have two problems there; one is
planting, which obviously can be corrected with a simple chain saw,
but the second problem is topography. Our front yard facing Dryden
Road runs level, while Dryden Road runs downhill, and cars coming up
Dryden Road are not visible to cars parked or waiting at Bryant
Avenue until you can see over the crest of that hill along Dryden
Road. Part of our proposed project will be to grade down that front
yard slightly, and that's going to improve the visibility, both from
Dryden Road toward Bryant, and from Bryant down toward Dryden Road.
I expect that you may hear some people say that we simply have
enough student housing; we don't need any more student housing.
That's undoubtedly true. There are more student housing units on
the market now than there are students looking for housing units,
and I think that's a good thing. I think it's a good thing because
it makes the market much more competitive. It means that the
students can pick and choose. It means that the landlords have to
offer amenities that they would not have had to offer previously.
The landlords have to upgrade their properties; they have to do this
while maintaining or even lowering the rents. I think that
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
competition is good in the marketplace, and I would expect that the
effect of a competitive student housing market would be to make
=unmarketable those units that have not been maintained, those units
of the older properties that are suffered from deferred maintenance.
Those units will no longer be attractive to students. They will no
longer get tenants, and as a result they will be out of the market.
I think the competition in the student housing market will work to
improve the quality of housing stock that we have throughout the
community. There was one mention when I was speaking with owners
about the possibility that our proposed addition would be a little
large for the site, and the reasoning that I heard in speaking with
this owner was you have a 5 bedroom house now, you're going to be
building an 18 bedroom house; I expect it to be 3 times as large as
what you have there. That's not quite the case; our addition is
only about 60% of the size of the existing building. It does
contain 10 bedrooms; the balance of the bedrooms are worked by
reconfiguring the existing building. Obviously, a 5 unit, 5-bedroom
building is not as efficient as a 3 unit, 6-bedroom building, so
with an increase of 1-1/2 times in footprint, we managed to increase
our number of bedrooms substantially. We're still well below the
coverage that's permitted in the zoning. Zoning allows us 40%
coverage; we're at 30% coverage so we're well below that.
Similarly, I heard some objections that when we go from 5 bedrooms
to 18 bedrooms, we're going to increase the number of tenants by a
factor of 3 . That, again, is not true. We currently have 10
tenants in that building, which we are allowed to have by a
Certificate of Compliance. Each of the 5 units in there right now
is a 2-occupant unit. When we are done, we will have 18 tenants, so
we will have increased from 10 to 18. All those 18 each in single-
occupant bedrooms, which obviously are more marketable than the
double-occupant bedrooms. Curb cut. We have got a curb cut
proposed for Dryden Road, and I would just like to pass around quick
photos indicating that, if you could focus on the blue Miata there;
the blue Miata is in the curb cut immediately adjacent to our
proposed new curb cut and you'll see that you can see that from
quite a distance both up and down Dryden Road, so I don't think that
our new curb cut in Dryden Road is going to pose a traffic hazard.
It's located on the side of the road where there is no parking.
There are no plantings. There is good visibility both up and down
the road.
CHAIRMAN ACK: Okay, thank you.
MR. DEMJANEC: Thank you. I have got other prepared responses to
anticipated objections, but I think I'll forego reading them into
the record at this time, and take my chances on the creativity of
the opposition, I guess. So, does the Board have questions?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Questions from members of the Board?
MS. ROSSITER: I have a question. Peter, you talked about at the
beginning of your presentation, you talked a great deal about cost
factors and making some changes in this building that would not be
cost-effective without doing this addition. Could you be specific
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
as to the time frame, I mean, how long a period are you amortizing a
new furnace and electrical work for the building. Are we talking
rabout a payoff within 12 months of installation, or 5 years, or 7
years, or 10 years; what's the time frame here?
MR. DEMJANEC: Approximately 15 years.
MS. ROSSITER: 15 years.
MR. DEMJANEC: We're looking for the building to be at a break-even
point in 7-8 years down the road. So, the owner would have to carry
it from 7-8 years.
MS. ROSSITER: Okay. Now, in talking about the payback within 15
years, or the building breaking even at 7-8, are you factoring into
that the cost of the addition itself?
MR. DEMJANEC: Yes.
MS. ROSSITER: Is there a way of breaking out - let's say, for
example, the owner of this building was going to merely install a
new furnace and new electrical in the building as is, have you
factored what the amortization period would be without any addition?
MR. DEMJANEC: No, we haven't. But, I would suggest. . . Our
preliminary estimates indicate that there's $45,000-$50, 000 worth of
systems work required in the building, so if the owner did nothing
except take care of the problems in the building, it would be an
investment of between $45, 000 and $50,000. With 5 units, each unit
is then required to carry $9,000 - $10,000, and that's simply not
possible. It's well outside the realm of possibility.
MS. ROSSITER: And this . . When was this building purchased?
MR. DEMJANEC: Early this year, February, 1991.
MS. ROSSITER: Okay.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Other questions from members of the Board?
MR. VINEBERG: In some of the literature we got from some of the
neighbors, they claimed that originally these 5 one-bedroom units
had one tenant per bedroom, and when the ownership changed, it went
to two tenants per bedroom. Do you know anything about that?
MR. DEMJANEC: That's incorrect. I have both the Certificate of
Compliance for the previous owner, and the Certificate of Compliance
for the current owner, and I guess I'll produce those if you will
bear with me for a moment. This is the current Certificate of
Compliance, which is in the name of Ms. Po. And I have to go back
into our . . . This is a Certificate of Compliance that the previous
owner had, and I don't have more than one copy of that if you'll
pass it around and inspect it. It's the last document.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: Other questions from members of the Board? Barry?
''MR. STRAUSS: I have a question about the new proposed single-
occupancy bedrooms. Will these be limited to single occupancy by
the City of Ithaca Housing and Zoning Code?
MR. DEMJANEC: Yes.
MR. STRAUSS: So, there's no way, even if the owner changed
(unintelligible) in her mind that these could be turned into two-
person.
MR. DEMJANEC: Absolutely not. They're all below 120 square feet
per bedroom. But we've also found from our experience, you can't
get two students to live in a 120 square foot bedroom. We've been
finding the market conditions are against it as well as the Housing
Code.
MR. HOLMBERG: There's something that puzzles me about all this.
You're replacing a furnace and putting in electrical system requires
like this huge construction. Now, many of us over the years have
had electric service upgraded and new furnaces put in. I didn't
feel like I had to build a whole new addition where I'm sure . . .
It's just hard for me to see why a furnace can't be upgraded and the
electric can't be upgraded . . All in all, why is it necessary to
have this large construction. I really don't understand the logic
behind it. I think more what's going on here, it seems to me, is
you want to produce more money in general out of what's now a
relatively small structure.
MR. DEMJANEC: I'm not positive exactly how to respond to that.
It's certainly possible if you have a building that is showing a
reasonable return to, on occasions, put some of that money back in
the building. So, for example, if you have a property and you..have
owned it for 30 years, the 5th or 6th year you may be able to
upgrade the electric service; in the 10th or 12th year you may be
able to replace the roof and install the new bathrooms; in the 20th
or 25th year you may be able to replace the boiler. It is not the
same as buying a building in which you have not accumulated equity,
in which you have not received the benefits of increased property
values, the fact you have paid people for their property values, and
now you're confronted with having to replace not only a boiler but
the entire steam heating system, including that nasty material
that's on it, and put in a new electric service. And not only new
electric service, but new breaker boxes as well as new circuits.
MR. HOLMBERG: What you're arguing basically is that the whole
market conditions the whole economy of the Collegetown areas is
changed such that when, you know, things . . . somebody put a lot of
money into a property at one point, it's harder to sustain that now,
• and that's where the economic hardship is coming from.
MR. DEMJANEC: The economic hardship is coming from being confronted
with this building as it stands and discovering that you either need
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
to invest major money in this building to bring it back up to a
standard that will allow it not to continue to deteriorate, or not
"put the money in it because you can't put $50, 000 in a 5-unit
building.
MR. HOLMBERG: How long has this property been owned by this
particular
MR. DEMJANEC: Since the beginning of this year.
MR. HOLMBERG: On some levels, you know, it's kind of intriguing to
discover you know 6 months after the date that one buys the
property. You would have thought there's another logic here when
you were thinking, or when someone was thinking about buying the
building is you could have checked it out. I mean, _asbestos
removal's not a new thing. It's something that is quite well known,
and in fact, I know with steam systems, a lot of problems with steam
systems have to do with when you expand the horizontal distance that
you have to carry the steam; steam systems just don't work under
those conditions. So, in effect, you know replacing the whole
heating system may be also from another perspective a function of
the fact that you are expanding the space of the house.
MR. DEMJANEC: When Ms. Po wanted to purchase this building, we did
inspect it, and the Certificate of Compliance (unintelligible)
inspected was in fact appended to the end of our inspection. Our
inspection contained about 8 pages of things that we had identified
in the building that needed correction, and part of what we looked
at was is there a way to put this money in this .building and
increase the cash flow on the building so that you could pay for
having put the money in the building. So, no, we didn't go into
this blind. True. On the other hand, some of the things that we've
encountered in the past 6 months, we did not know when we inspected
this building in February. Some of them have turned out to be nasty
surprises to us.
MS. ROSSITER: Could you give us a little more information as to
what was discovered during the basis of the pre-purchase
investigation versus what you've now referred to as "the nasty
surprises" that have cropped up within the six months - roughly, I'm
not asking for exhaustive detail, but if you could give us some of
the large-ticket items that might fall in one category versus the
other.
MR. DEMJANEC: When we looked at the utilities, we identified the
electric service as being a 100 amp. service with 100 amp. , 3 pole,
125-250 disconnect, 2 70 amp. a lot of stuff that goes on. At that
time, we understood that to purchase that building we needed to
bring the electric system up to current code conditions, which the
owner did upon purchasing the building. Having done that, we
discovered the building still does not have adequate electric
service, both in terms of capacity and in terms of circuiting, and
circuiting is one of those things that's extraordinarily difficult
to detect until after you have experience with the building. You
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
can't go into a building and discover that all 5 bedrooms happen to
be on one circuit, and if you have 2 tenants running 2 stereos and
everyone turns their lights on, the breaker goes or the fuse goes.
You can't discover that. We now know that because we have had
tenants complaints. So, we're looking not only at the new electric
service, but also these circuits to many of the spaces. In terms of
the heating system, at the time we had identified no problems with
it. We described it as a single-zone, one-pipe steam system with
cast iron radiation, gas-fired steam boiler appeared to be adequate.
Having gone through a winter with it, we now know that the basement
space has no heat, the upper floors have intermittent heat and
inconsistent heat.
MS. ROSSITER: Well, wouldn't this have been a winter when this
investigation was made as to . . If this property was purchased in
February, I would think you would have had an opportunity to check
the building out in December or January.
MR. DEMJANEC: Yes. I was actually in the building in February and
no one at that time told me that there was no heat in the building.
MR. HOLMBERG: See, the issue here is that a large part of your
argument for a variance is economic hardship.
CHAIRMAN PECK: David, could I interject something here? We're
dealing with an area variance, we're not dealing with economic
hardship as a possibility for this variance. What we're dealing
with is practical difficulties, and I'd really like our questions to
be directed around practical difficulties, such as: are you
increasing any of the current deficiencies that exist in the
property, for example.
MR. DEMJANEC: Well, no. Obviously our proposal is fully. conforming
with the Zoning Ordinances, and we are not increasing any of the
existing deficiencies. We have two deficiencies, an inadequate side
yard and an inadequate front yard on Bryant Ave. ; and in both cases,
it pertains to the existing building so there simply is no way to
remove those deficiencies. They're existing area deficiencies that
pre-date the Zoning Ordinances. The practical difficulty we have
with this building is that we need to put money in it, and we need
to put money in it in a way which is economically sound. And we
started by looking at what this building requires, and what we have
to do to it in order to make that possible. There are a lot of
properties in that area that have deteriorated to the point where
they are virtually unusable. They have been alternately condemned
and put back on the market, and we'd like to not have to do it.
CHAIRMAN PECK: I didn't mean to cut you off, David.
MR. HOLMBERG: Yes, I'll bring this up later. I'm confused about
(unintel,l.igible) with this particular (unintelligible) .
CHAIRMAN PECK: Other questions from members of the Board? Ken?
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. VINEBERG: Yes, I have one. There have been complaints about
this landlord, that they don't maintain their buildings well and
,'that they have a lot of overcrowding in their buildings to some
extent. Do you have any sense from working with this owner that by
improving this building to the extent you wish to by enlarging it
that it's going to become a well-maintained, well-designed building
that will be an asset to the neighborhood.
MR. DEMJANEC: Yes. I have a very strong sense, and I'll tell you
about my experience with this particular client. We have worked
with this client on several projects now and have discovered that
her intent in purchasing and maintaining properties is to buy
properties that are in good condition, to keep them in good
condition; where they are not in good condition, to do what can be
done to bring them back to good condition and then own them
indefinitely. She's not the type of person that is looking to buy
something, let it run down and sell it, and take the money and go.
The projects that we have done with this particular client include
amenities that no other landlord has ever allowed us to. include in
projects. We have done things like put patios with covers on them
on basement apartments where anyone of more economically driven
reasoning would say this is simply a needless amenity, we are not
going to let you do that. Another project we just put porch roofs
on because the owner felt it would be a nice amenity for the
students to have a roof over these existing porches. No real
economic basis for this, no real economic motivation, simply we want
to do something nice for this property to make it look better, to
make it better for the students. 403 College Ave. , which is a
project that was just recently finished, major amount of effort
spent in bringing a building that had just about reached the useless
point back to fully usable, well-conditioned, marketable building.
My sense of this particular client is that anything that we do for
her will be well done, well maintained, and will be in her
possession probably for many, many years.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Any other questions from members of the Board? No?
Gentlemen, thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak
in favor of the current Appeals? Okay. In the interest of getting
us a short break here before we start hearing people opposed, we'll
take a 5 minute break. Can we reconvene, please? Is there anyone
who would like to speak in opposition? Would you please come
forward? Oh. Question?
MR. DEMJANEC: Speaking in support?
CHAIRMAN PECK: I thought I asked that before we finished, didn't I?
MR. STRAUSS: Yes, you did.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Asked if anybody else wants to speak in support.
MR_. DEMJANEC: I'm sorry, we didn't hear it.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: I thought I did. Well, does anybody want to speak
in favor, anybody else. Would you come forward then. Sorry about
"that. It's not our intention not to hear people.
MR. BURNS: My name is Brian Burns, I live in 307B. I am a tenant
in the building which you guys are talking about right now. They
brought me along basically just to explain that there are some
problems with their building that have been made evident to me just
by living there. In my apartment, there is not a heating problem,
but I am closely acquainted with the people that live downstairs in
the basement. There have been a few cold days already, and they
have complained that it's been particularly cold down below and the
heating has been on and been ineffective. We've had once in our
apartment and several times in one of the apartments on the first
floor, the fuses have blown. You turn on a light and all this and
everything went out. The roof I didn't know about. I can vouch for
the fact that the parking area really does need to be re-graded
because I do park there. It's an inconvenience to get in and out of
it. So, the changes that they are proposing, I mean . . . The
deficiencies in the zoning that they have been talking about are
obviously very evident to me being a resident. Being that I know
Betsy, pardon me Mrs. Po, the owner of the building, and that we
were searching for apartments - me and my fellow tenants were
searching for apartments last year at the conclusion of the school
year. When we met with Mrs. Po, she showed us several of her
various apartments, and one of the apartments that she showed that
was not on Dryden Road - it was another apartment on College Avenue.
She showed it to us as a very impressive apartment and it is very
similar to the proposed plans that are before you. I believe it was
an 8-bedroom apartment, not a 6-bedroom apartment, and it was very
evident that a lot of work had gone into that apartment. It was
made nice, very attractive. We felt like we were walking around in
a townhouse, not a college student's apartment. She told us that it
had already been rented to college students, and she expressed
considerable concern in the fact that she doesn't want to rent to
irresponsible college students, and I am here telling you that I am
a responsible college student, and we are not going to cause a lot
of trouble. I see the proposed addition of having three 6-bedroom
apartments instead of the five 1-bedroom apartments that are there,
being: 1) aesthetically pleasing; 2) it would be very efficient in
terms of tenants and monetary turnover for the owner. I would take
great pleasure in living in that apartment knowing the owner as I
do, and knowing that she would maintain it and respond to any
problems that we have. I would assume that in the construction
renovation that any problems that are now present would be
eliminated.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay. Questions from members of the Board? None.
Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak
in favor? No one. Is there anyone who would like to speak in
opposition? Would you please come forward? If you would begin by
stating your name and where you live for the record.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MS. BRANN: My name is Susan Brann, and I live at 227 Bryant Avenue.
I am slightly outside the 200 foot limit, so I am not speaking for
'myself as a resident, but I am speaking on behalf of the Bryant Park
Civic Association.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay.
MS. BRANN: I wonder if you have in your packet a letter dated
October 1, 1991, Board of Zoning Appeals, signed by 10 residents.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, we do.
MS. BRANN: Okay. I won't read that since you probably have looked
at it.
MR. DEMJANEC: (Unintelligible) I don't believe we received a copy
of that.
MR. STRAUSS: Just give them a copy.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Somebody have a copy they want to give to them.
Here's mine. Okay.
MS. BRANN: I believe that there are here tonight 9 people who all
live within a block to a block and a half of that property, and who
are all outside the 200 foot limit, and I believe at least one other
person has a letter to present to you who cannot speak, but would
like to present a letter. So, I don't know when the appropriate
time to do that, but that does exist. I'd like to speak to several
issues, several of which are mentioned in this letter, and some are
not. First of all, I believe that corner, the corner of. Dryden Road
and Bryant Avenue, is presently a dangerous corner with respect to
visibility. There traffic moves fairly quickly on Dryden Road and
in turning into Bryant Avenue also goes quickly around that corner.
There are often cars parked on Bryant Avenue all the way to the
corner, in other works past the legal limit. There is sometimes,
and sometimes not, a sign saying "no parking here to corner", but it
doesn't really make much difference there are cars parked there.
Who belongs to those cars it is not possible to know whether they
are attached to that apartment building or not. That's as it is
now. In general, this is an area that is already very congested
with traffic, with parking, with noise. Parking certainly is a
difficult problem on the street. A number of years ago the Civic
Association, during the time of heavy building in Collegetown, did a
survey of the new beds added in Collegetown. Between 1980 and 1986,
there were 1, 300 new beds added in Collegetown. Since 1986, I don't
have an exact number but my estimate is that there have been at
least another 500. That brings us to a total of 1,800 beds in the
last 11 years that have been added in Collegetown already. So, it's
no small wonder that there is parking and a congestion problem. A
couple of other points. This property owner, that I know of, has
already another one or two properties within a couple of blocks of
this building. At least one of which, and I believe two, are
presently out of compliance with zoning. There have been numerous
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
complaints by neighbors of more people living in them than are
supposed to be, and I believe that there have been complaints made
"to the Building Department, and I believe that there are good-sized
files in existence. One of the main issues that the owner is
discussing is that the reason for the variance is one of hardship.
I believe that is a hardship that is a self-imposed hardship; that
she chose to purchase this building at the time, knowing, .1 think,
most of the repairs that needed to be done, and that in itself does
not seem a reason for granting the variance to increase the density
in an area that is already overly dense and that by someone else's
earlier admission, there is a high vacancy rate already in
Collegetown. So, it's hard to be able to justify reasons for adding
more beds when there is already a high vacancy rate. In addition, I
would also say that the building in its present condition, I cannot
tell you that has changed certainly since the purchase of the
building in February, 1991, but it is presently not in good
condition. It is not being well kept. There's a fair amount of
dirt and garbage around the building. The driveway to the parking
area is not in good repair. Cars zoom in and out of there, and I
find that it is a hazard even to drive by there. So, it'.s not
presently in good condition. I understand that the issue is
upgrading that, but my concern is that there is already some
precedent for this owner having buildings which are out of
compliance and which are not now certainly a credit to the
neighborhood. That's it.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Questions from members of the Board? Well, let me.
For those of you who are going to speak in opposition to this case,
let me just run down this very quickly. We'd like to address the
zoning issues, and we'd like to address the zoning issues of this
case is what we'd like to do. All right? This is a request for an
area variance. What's being proposed is legal in this case. Okay?
We're not concerned . . . The Board shouldn't concern itself with
economic hardship that only plays a role in use variance before the
Board. Okay? Now, what I'd like to hear from people are remarks
that are directed to this case and to the variance to the zoning
issues of this case. So, if there are questions from members of the
Board now which we might direct toward that issue. Yes, please go
ahead.
MR. VINEBERG: This is a major question.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Go on, Ken.
MR. VINEBERG: We're saying that it would be inappropriate to deny a
variance for reasons that have nothing to do with . . .Suppose we
thought there was too much density in this neighborhood.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Oh, that's fine. That's within our purview, I
think. But, we have to remember that this is an area variance and
. not a use variance.
MR. VINEBERG: So you want to stay away from the economic
Page - 12
z :
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, I don't think economic issues play a bit. I
mean, that's my opinion out of six here.
MR. STRAUSS: I agree with Jack. I agree with you. Just a question
- is the phrase in question "change the character of the district?"
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, absolutely. I mean we have to remember this is
an R-3b district which this is permitted, and we'd better have some
damn good reasons for not permitting it if we intend to do that,
that's not going to lead the City into court somewhere. That's our
job as the Board of Zoning Appeals.
MR. VINEBERG: (unintelligible) I do have a question for you. Are
you speaking to some extent for the Bryant Park Civic Association?
The idea with creating high-density zoning in the middle of
Collegetown was to take the pressure off of Bryant Park so that
students would not live there, but they had to live somewhere. The
Planning Department made (unintelligible) concentrate in the non-
residential part of Collegetown, the most commercial part. This
zoning is in place because of that concept. What is it that the
Bryant Park Association has against that?
MS. BRAUN: Well, first of all, I know that that's a premise of the
Planning Department went on in allowing the density of construction
that took place in the mid 180's in Collegetown. Unfortunately, the
side effect of that is it may have taken some housing pressure off
the Bryant Park area but it put a great deal of additional parking
pressure and traffic pressure on the outlying area because there
isn't sufficient parking in Collegetown for all of the cars that are
there. Consequently, the adjacent streets, which are R-1 and R-2
zoned, are constantly filled with cars and with traffic in a way
that they were not before all of that construction was done.
MR. VINEBERG: I know that that's an ongoing question. Is there any
other solutions that the Civic Association is pushing for solving
their parking problem?
MS. BRANN: There are. I don't know whether they're relevant.
MR. TOMLAN: Good question.
MR. VINEBERG: I'll stop there.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Other questions from members of the Board? We've
heard testimony from the architect that they're intending to
increase visibility at the intersection by reducing grade, and in a
sense upgrading the problems that you are asking us to consider.
How do you think we should deal with that?
MS. BRANN: I guess I don't really understand what the architect
said because the particular visibility problem that he described I
don't think exists. I don't think that there is a crest of the road
over which cars come, and you can't see them beforehand. I mean I
would view the road as being on an incline and if you are at the
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
corner of Bryant Avenue trying to make a left turn onto Dryden Road,
you can see a block down. I think that is not the issue. I think
the issue is the parking; parked on Bryant Avenue you cannot see
around that. I don't know exactly how much additional footage this
building will have on its front, and whether the building itself
will effect the visibility. I don't really see that the grading
problem - it may be relevant. I just don't see it.
CHAIRMAN PECK: How about the parking issue then. It's my
understanding that they are providing more spaces than they're even
required to, or is that not right, Rick?
SECY. ECKSTROM: I think they are meeting the parking requirement.
CHAIRMAN PECK: They are meeting the parking requirement. It says
District Regulations are 5 and proposed is 9.
SECY. ECKSTROM: Right. They are developing
CHAIRMAN PECK: I'm sorry. So, in other words, according to the
zoning law - I'm trying to explain this to everybody at the same
time, okay? According to the zoning law that we are guided by that
we have to follow, they've met the parking requirements for this
building.
MS. BRANN: That is assuming that there are no more . . . I don't
remember how many parking spaces they are planning to provide, or
whether they're planning to increase the size of the present parking
lot. As it is now, it is hard for me to imagine that more than 5 or
6 cars could fit in there, but if it was enlarged, I suppose more
cars can fit in. I don't think that is the only issue. The issue
is that it is if you . . Depends whose standards you use how many
cars appear per student. If you talk to Cornell, you get one
number, and if you talk to City Planning Department, you get another
number, if you actually talk to the people who live there, you get a
third number. So that even if 9 parking spaces were provided, I
wouldn't know how many cars that would actually be there - there
might be 9, there might be 6, there might be 10. I don't think
that's the only issue. The other issue is that there would be
people coming to visit them. There would be increased traffic as a
result of increased numbers of people, and those cars, whether or
not they can fit into the parking lot, would have to go someplace.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Other questions from members of the Board? No?
Barry? David? Thank you very much.
MS. BRANN: Is there a mechanism for someone to enter another letter
who is not allowed
CHAIRMAN PECK: You can certainly just give it to us and we'll put
it in the record. That is not a problem. I mean, we'll put it in
the file. Is there anyone else who would like to speak in
opposition? Would you please come forward?
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1 ;
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. JOHNSON: My name is John Johnson. I'm the third ward alderman,
and as you know, we've experienced over the last several years
" incredibly in growth and population on East Hill and in this area.
Parking has constantly been a problem. I'm not sure what the basis
of the information that was provided regarding the number of cars or
the parking needed that the architects presented, but I know several
years ago a Collegetown parking study was done, and we know that has
changed along with census information. This has always been a high-
density, a high-traffic corner. I think that any increase in the
number of occupants is going to bring an increase in the number of
vehicles, and is going to make it a more dangerous intersection with
the higher traffic. We have worked closely with Cornell to help
them realize their responsibility to provide more housing for their
students, and the neighborhoods and residents shouldn't have to be
responsible for doing this. I hope that we can retain this - it's
got an R in the zoning and we'd like to see it remain as much and as
close to residential as we can, and less of a dormitory area.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Questions from members of the Board?
MR. STRAUSS: Do you think this project will change the character of
the district?
MR. JOHNSON: It will make it more intense in density and
population, and I think it will bring more cars on that corner.
It's not that you can't see the coming in and out (unintelligible)
onto Dryden, but it's just going to increase the number of cars
coming in.
MR. VINEBERG: I feel like we are picking on you, but
MR. JOHNSON: We get paid to have that happen.
MR. STRAUSS: Hope it's a lot.
MR. VINEBERG: Here we're talking about a group of students, a few
extra students in this neighborhood, and there's a lot of objections
here. There was a guy who was going to put 700 people
(unintelligible) in aerobics and there were no objections from you
(unintelligible) parking problems in the neighborhood.
MR. JOHNSON: I was looking for the alderpersons from that ward to
address that.
MR. VINEBERG: It isn't your ward?
MR. JOHNSON: It's a different ward.
MR. TOMLAN: Unintelligible
. MR. JOHNSON: We try to be careful in respecting each others
responsibilities.
MR. VINEBERG: (Unintelligible) you feel
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i
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. JOHNSON: I'm concerned about that, and I'm glad the Board took
'the action it did.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Thank you. Just keep that in mind will you until
future actions. Would you like to know how we calculate parking
spaces? Would you like . . . I mean you all seemed to be confused.
I mean that's something that's really written down and done very
mechanically. There's no special trick to it.
SECY. ECKSTROM: This is three dwelling units with proposal for 6
unrelated occupants in each unit makes it a cooperative household
under the Zoning Ordinance. It has a special calculation for
parking, which is one space per two students. So, for 18, well I
shouldn't say students but for unrelated occupants. For 18
unrelated occupants, there is a requirement for 9 spaces.
MR. JOHNSON: We may have to do some more work on the parking
(unintelligible)
CHAIRMAN PECK: Michael, don't you say a word.
MR. TOMLAN: I'm glad you caught me because I was going to launch
forward.
CHAIRMAN PECK: No, no. Are there any other questions from members
of the Board? Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who'd like
to .speak in opposition? Please come forward. If you would begin by
stating your name and where you live, please.
MS. STEEL: My name is Katrina Steel, and I'm representing my mother
and father, Dimiter and Emilie Arnaudoff. I have been' doing that
most of my life because they have a problem with English, but I live
in London, actually. So, I'm rather glad I'm here to protect them
at this moment in time.
CHAIRMAN PECK: We're never going to be able to disallow anybody
from speaking if we let you speak. (laughter) To Mrs. Arnaudoff:
Will you be speaking at all?
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: No, my daughter is.
CHAIRMAN PECK: All right. Because if you were, we would need your
voice on the tape with your name, that's all. Okay, go ahead.
MS. STEEL: Yes. This is being taped?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, that's why we need you to identify yourself,
so we know who it is.
• MS. STEEL: Okay. I believe the Board has received my letters which
I created.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, we certainly have.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MS. STEEL: I don't know if Mr. Eckstrom has received a copy because
' I was short one copy.
SECY. ECKSTROM: I don't think we have.
CHAIRMAN PECK: I can give Mr. Eckstrom my copy for the file. I've
read it. If you'd briefly state your
MS. STEEL: I beg your pardon.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Go ahead, present your case.
MS. STEEL: As I said in the letter, we've resided at 301 Dryden
Road for 31 years. I grew up in a rooming house with my mother and
father. We've always kept a quiet house. In fact, I remember
seeing the area before all this development has taken place. Even
before Jason Fane was on the scene, I was there looking around and
thinking what a nice neighborhood we had, you know, what friends we
had down the road. It certainly has changed. I come back every
year. I see more changes, and I see my parents getting older, and I
get concerned. So, this is why I've brought all this about. I
feel that our properties with Mrs. Po wanting to build next door to
my parents' property, I believe our properties, as I said in the
first paragraph are already too close aggravated by a minimum side
yard deficiency. When I say that, I am concerned because that side
yard deficiency didn't seem to be apparent to the Building
Department as it was presented, because they accepted it in good
faith, and it had to be me to go into the public records department
and find a map - an ordinant survey map - to discover this
deficiency. Now, I find that strange for a novice who never has
heard about deficiencies before to have to look between our two
buildings and realize there was not a 5 feet requirement, and all of
the sudden I discover that the ordinant survey map that was made out
to Mrs. Ching Po was a deficiency existing at one point, which I
submitted.
CHAIRMAN PECK: I believe that we have a side yard deficiency on our
list. Is that correct? Yes, we do.
MS. STEEL: So, this got me on the track of trying to understand
this problem. I have pictures here that show how close our
properties exist. I can only pass . . . You can look under the A.
The yellow and green is our property.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Usually all of the members of the Board go to the
sites that are in question (unintelligible) you know, so if somebody
seems to pass it along rather quickly, it probably means they've
seen it.
' MR. HOLMBERG: Yes, I was at the site.
MS. STEEL: I feel that I am, apart from Mr. Lower, we are the only
two adjacent boundary line people, and in fact as I see it, within
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
the two hundred yard area, we are the only - as I made clear in the
tally of votes - that we're the only residents left in the middle of
'this area. They're all non-resident landlords. As I said to you
earlier when I came, all my friends, all my people that one grew up
with, they slowly die or move out of the area and I rather see a
change in the character of the neighborhood already taking place.
Now, what we are going to ask is if there is . I am thinking about
a substantial negative change in the essential character of the
neighborhood or district. I would say it's already gone too far,
and I wonder if you want to aggravate that. Are we going to have a
ghetto of college students, or are we going to have a few residents
left that are actually going to live there permanently like my
parents? As I see it, we are the only residents left now, and we
would like to stay there. I am going to take care of my mother, and
I'm going to carry on the Arnaudoff tradition of taking care of our
house. I have some intention of repairing it and making it nicer.
Which comes to this substantial. . . Would this substantially or
permanently impair the development of adjacent property? Now. If
you could see from this picture here, they propose . . There was a
bit of a boundary problem. I don't know unless I.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Pardon me. Just one minute. Let us turn this tape
over. Okay, go ahead.
MS. STEEL: They propose. . . This is where our boundary line. . . There
is a picture of where our boundary line is and there is a picture of
the wall. They propose to start increasing that wall upwards right
by the wall as it was explained to me. The boundary line goes from
that pole up around onto this, I don't know, wall here (referring to
picture) Now, my father's bedroom - and he's handicapped - is this
bay window, and the wall would be right in front of the bay window.
Right now, we enjoy views. We've enjoyed views for 31 years up
Collegetown, and our tenants have enjoyed light and ' air, and my
father as he's getting older can look out and see a bit of green,
but they intend to block that off, and this is why I took this
picture here. And you. . In all, we will see . . This is, I've stood
10 feet away as they want . . . Was it 10 feet? 5 feet or whatever,
that was the maximum amount I looked at the map how much was
required, and I stood where the building was about to take place,
and I took this picture, and I said this is what we are going to
see. We are going to see other people's bedrooms. And we are going
to see. Even now, when I stand in the bathroom, with the new
tenants coming in they don't have curtains, and you can see
everything going on in the adjacent house. I don't think this is
good. So, this I think, in the future, if we want to continue our
renting of rooms, I think this would impair our use permanently.
Also, we've already had our use impaired because of the fact that
Mrs. Po cut down a tree, which I didn't mention in the letter. I
came here in July and my mother said the tree had just been cut
down, and she didn't make the right reparations. I mean this was
because the tree is right next to the property line, there isn't
enough room between our structures. It's in the back yard right in
the middle where there's the least amount of room, 1.9 feet, and the
tree of course had no place to go, so it landed on our roof. It was
Page - 18
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
an enormous tree, and it did this tremendous damage, which we've had
to pay for. Mrs. Po tried to paint this over, tried to do a little
Y'bit of patch work repair, but the water kept pouring in through the
guttering and ceilings came down, and we wondered whether we were
going to rent anything at all, and we had to pay all this money to
repair our rooms. So, it's already impaired our use, and I wonder
what would happen in the future if anything else would fall on us
while I'm away. So, then I believe their driveway would impair the
visibility. I have a handicapped father. I have to have a
handicapped parking permit, and we have to pull out of the driveway.
I use the car for him, and as I go around the corner - as this is a
view, the view is on the other sheet of paper - you can see the view
up Bryant Road that's from where the truck is. We would have to
look around, and if there's a structure there, it's going to be more
dangerous for us. I mean, I know you are providing for . . . I know
he's providing other handicapped people, but how many handicapped
students are there? I have an elderly parent, and he actually
already has a permit, and you know this is going to harm him. As I
said here, it will impair the visibility and endanger anyone pulling
out of our driveway. I also believe that the 13 bedrooms will
constitute a serious impact on the density of the neighborhood, and
be detrimental to the public welfare. I. just by talking to
neighbors, I'm not sure does the Board allow neighbors outside the
200 foot to talk?
CHAIRMAN PECK: We're not supposed to, but occasionally we do.
MS. STEEL: They're here. Would you allow them to talk because they
have valid. . . I would be very grateful.
CHAIRMAN PECK: We're certainly not going to hear the same argument
over and over again all night long, but we certainly don't want to
keep anybody from speaking that wants to, and has a legitimate
concern to speak.
MS. STEEL: Thank you. I believe it's detrimental to public welfare
because the density it's already created is affecting the adjoining
districts, and creating incredible traffic problems. I know two
neighbors already who have to check all the time to see whether
their driveway is blocked and I, myself, I got a little house
thinking that. . . I still remember the area as I was growing up - I
have very good memories of the area; I even remember looking Dryden
Road and seeing trees, and I thought to myself I couldn't see them
until I hit the top of Buffalo Street today because Jason's building
was in the way. I bought a building, helped my mother buy a
building on Linden Avenue for their retirement so that the time will
come that I would run the house and they could be in Linden Avenue
and live there in a little quiet house, and I stayed there and my
mother was very proud of the house and what happened? We couldn't
sleep. My husband and I just couldn't sleep; there were parties,
fire crackers going on all summer long, and we thought it would
stop. We complained to the Police. I talked to the Police
Commissioner about it; I even sat in the Police Commissioner's
office at 3: 00 in the morning saying when are you going to send the
Page - 19
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
squad cars out? I'm tired. You know, they said we have too many
people. We have this problem. This particular - Linden Avenue is
'known for parties.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay, but we need to concentrate on Dryden Road.
MS. STEEL: So, that was one of the . . It's already gotten out of
hand. So, I'm wondering how my parents can retire quietly with
firecrackers going on in our area. Then, we always have fire
engines. I get woken up all the time with fire engines and flashing
lights in the morning and at night. It's a very dense area. I
believe all this has been created by density. By adding further
density to the situation, by taking . . . increasing from 10 people to
18 or as they wanted to say 20 people, you aggravate all these
problems, and I've talked to various people - the Fire Chief, the
Police Chief - they all say our problems are caused by density. It
takes a toll on our public resources, we have to pay more money. I
think that the more density that's created, the more people are
disturbed and the more everything costs for the general public.
It's detrimental to the public welfare, but it is benefitting the
few developers who are making more money out of their property. So,
we have to decide whether or not those that . . Are we going to
benefit a few developers for commercial interests, whether they can
make their property pay or not, or are we going to benefit the
neighborhood, which is already suffering from these aggravated
problems of overdensity, lack of sleep, lack of parking facilities,
constant complaints. Do you think neighbors - people - want to live
with .constant. . . There are neighbors in this who wanted to come
today within the 2 who are frightened to even speak up because they
think the people with the commercial interest would ruin their
business. And I am concerned about these older people who are
frightened to speak up. There are neighbors . . There's a Mr.
Leonardo - I have two people wanted to come in today - Mr. Kendall
of Cascadilla School and Mr. Leonardo of The Palms Restaurant; both
of these people oppose, and I don't know when I'm allowed, but I can
tell you what they've told me to say in their opposition. Maybe I
could come up again.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, why don't you just do it now?
MS. STEEL: Also, I've got some . . . When it comes to financial
hardship, I have some figures here when they bought 303-309 Dryden
Road, they paid . . They were renting out
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, I . . . I think that the Board is pretty much in
agreement that we're not going to consider financial hardship in
this case.
MS. STEEL: Okay. They're maximizing an already substantial return.
I've got evidence to prove that. All right, hold on. I think
instead of it says will it enhance or foster the preservation of the
scenic or natural beauty of the area. I think it's taking away the
scenic and natural beauty of the area. As you can see, they are
taking away the green patches. I was walking around and I noticed
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I i
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
most green patches are being covered up by black tarmac, and we have
to decide is this going to exasperate the problems in our area? Are
we going to have black tarmac or green patches? Are we going to
allow developers. . .? This is going to set a precedent. You realize
that I have heard developers say already that if Mrs. Ching Po is
allowed to build, we will do the same. We're just seeing what would
happen. By setting a precedent like this, we could be covering
every square area with building just for the area variance, and the
neighborhood would go to pieces, and there wouldn't be no more
scenic beauty or natural beauty. There would be lots of parking. I
mean in Linden Avenue, I have a beautiful long lot of land with
lilies of the valley that I could tar over with 7 parking spaces,
but I choose not to do so because I like the lilies of the valley.
There are people, the part of us, who are in the R-3b district - I
have two houses in the R-3b district - I've been made part owner of
both houses, so I speak as an owner, and I choose not to cover over
my bits of land with tarmac and add buildings. My parents have just
put in a heating system, and they didn't raise the rents for that.
They didn't increase the building. We don't put the burden on other
people. We learned to take the responsibility of our needs on
ourselves. We take on our own responsibility.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Are there any questions from members of the Board at
this time? Thank you very much.
MS. STEEL: There are two more people that I could tell you what -
man from Cascadilla School
CHAIRMAN PECK: Oh, yes. You were going to do that. I thought you
had done that already.
MS. STEEL: Mr. Leonardo. Mr. Orson Ledger wanted to send a letter,
and this is something from his secretary: "To Whom It May Concern:
I am Orson Ledger's secretary. He opposed to the situation on
Dryden Road. A follow-up letter will be coming soon. " I scribbled
this from Mr. Kendall - "He has not changed his mind. He's still
not in favor even though he's been lobbied. " (There's been
considerable lobbying going on by Mr. Demjanec, the architect, of
all the neighbors. ) He has decided that taking away the front yard.
He's against taking away the front yard. His words are: "This
project was cleverly disguised. Building in the front yard will
impair the vision. " He voices concerns, speaking for Cascadilla
School, for a large apartment building to be raised. The school was
concerned about losing the character of the neighborhood. There was
always a healthy balance, these are his words, between the
neighborhood between the residents, students and the business. " He
wants to ask the question: "How much of the addition is necessary to
pay" or let's see "How much of the addition is necessary to pay -
how does he make it economically feasible? How much of the front
yard does he have to take away in order to make it economically
feasible to put in a heating system or repair or something like
that. " And a healthy neighborhood, there is a question. . .
Page - 21
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 71 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: I think we've gotten the gist of your comments. If
you have anything else to add.
/MS. STEEL: I'm trying to read my notes, here.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay. Are there questions from members of the
Board?
MS. STEEL: Maybe my mother would like to say something.
CHAIRMAN PECK: She's certainly welcome to.
MS. STEEL: She's been here for 31 years.
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: I'd like to tell. I cannot sleep
CHAIRMAN PECK: If you could tell us your name.
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: My name is Emilie Arnaudoff and I live 31 year in
the house. 31 years was peace. When . Mrs. Betsy, I don't know, Po
buy the house is no more peace. She next door come in so many
people - in groups - sit by my window, and I must at 3:00, 4:00 go
in nightgown and housecoat, I said can you please go away. I don't
like to you talk and listen when I want to sleep. Then they go in
their house, but they no stop. Always so many people coming and
going, and talking. They sit by my window. That's not from the
street, this is from Mrs. Po's house coming and going in group. I
can't sleep. I have no more peace. In 31 years, I have peace.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay.
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: When too close, they sit by window, these people.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Thank you very much.
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: Thank you.
MS. STEEL: And Joseph Leonardo. He was here, but he couldn't wait
so he signed something quick, just to have something to sign.
CHAIRMAN PECK: If you would like to send those up, we could put
them in the file.
MS. STEEL: But, he told me to tell that he said about this aunt
that lives in the area. He's very concerned, and he's concerned
about the overcrowding, and he disagrees and generally opposes and
reinforces everything that we say about the parking and so on.
Well, he should know because he runs the Royal Palms; he sees what's
going on, and he is worried about it effecting the rest of the
neighborhood. He believes that what is considered a residential
• district should be, even whether it's 3-b or what, should be a
residential district, and people shouldn't be effected in this way.
He is in disagreement and so is Mr. Ledger, and so is Mr. Kendall.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: (unintelligible) Avramis sheet. Parking. But
nobody's said that she build the house
MS. STEEL: My mother says that is very concerned about the way this
whole thing has been handled. As you know, I've been concerned
about the way it's been handled and have highlighted all the changes
from the time that I first showed the map. And then, my mother's
been concerned because they do say they demonstrate good faith and
what has happened is that they . . . I know from two people who - Mr.
Avramis and Mr. Rider - who have been very upset by the fact that
Mrs. , I don't know approached them, maybe Mr. Demjanec or Mrs. Ching
Po, but somebody approached them and said; I think they said both of
them came in and said "Sign here. We're only putting two parking
spaces in. " So, they signed.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, we saw that
MS. STEEL: Afterwards, I rang them up and they said "My goodness, I
don't agree with this, and I don't know what to do because I already
put my signature to something. " And Mr. Avramis came and was upset
and came to the Board of Planning and Development and said. . . And
people have been generally upset by the manner this whole thing has
been conducted, and nonetheless me. I feel my parents are going to
be vulnerable.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Did he also put a letter in that file that you
submitted to us, too? Didn't he, Mr. Avramis?
MS. STEEL: Yes, he did. And Mr. Rider was going to do that, too,
but he was still thinking about it. I did give you a survey already
of what the opinion . . . I went and talked to every single person.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, we got that.
MS. STEEL: And I feel most people opposed. Some people are a bit
more frightened than others, but you know.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, we're not frightened so, don't worry about it.
Okay? We'll try and do the best.
MRS. ARNAUDOFF: (unintelligible) when I said something
(unintelligible) my house (unintelligible)
CHAIRMAN PECK: Thank you both, very much. Is there anyone else
here who would like to speak in opposition? Will you please just
come forward?
MR. BOOTH: My name is Dick Booth. I live at 510 Mitchell Street,
and I represent the third ward on Common Council. I don't appear
very often in front of the Board of Zoning Appeals, but where
• there's a variance proposal that, I think, raises serious questions
about the neighborhood, I feel compelled to take a position and to
come and speak. And incidentally, you wisely asked, why neither
John nor myself spoke with respect to the proposal on College
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Avenue, I at least had the experience of appearing in front of the
Board and trying to speak as an alderman about a project outside of
'my ward, and was told that I was not allowed to speak. That
involved one of the many Valentine Place controversies that the
Board has as part of its history. I want to read a letter, which I
will give to you, and then I want to make a couple of additional
points.
"Ladies and Gentlemen:
I represent the Third Ward (upper East Hill) on Common Council.
I ask that the Board accept this letter as part of the record for
Appeal #2065. I have reviewed the plans pertaining to variance
Appeal #2065. I strongly urge the Board to deny this variance
request. In that regard I raise the following points for the
Board's consideration:
1. In my opinion allowing the proposed expansion of the
existing residential structure at 303-309 Dryden Road will have
serious, adverse impacts on the neighborhood in which is property is
located. I know that the Board considers neighborhood impact in all
of its decisions. In this case I hope• that it gives particularly
careful attention to what this proposed expansion will do to this
neighborhood. This expansion, if allowed, will cram more people
onto an already heavily used parcel. This expansion, if allowed,
will permit even further crowding in what is an already too-crowded
area. Too many people, too many cars (both on and off the streets) ,
and too much noise have brought this neighborhood to a critical
turning point. Piling more people on to this one parcel will
aggravate an already difficult situation and do much to tip this
area toward one that is pervaded by increasingly unattractive
conditions for the people who live there.
2 . The Board's approval of this variance request will send a
clear and very negative signal to other property owners in this
neighborhood. Those neighboring owners (of what are totally or
largely rental properties) will not be able to avoid the obvious
conclusion - i.e. , if someone owns a property that is already
substantially utilized but that has some additional room that could
be developed, that person should squeeze every possible amount of
development onto that land, regardless of what this action and
similar actions by other property owners will do to the well-being
of the surrounding neighborhood.
That is exactly the case in this situation. This rental
property at the corner of Dryden and Bryant is well-utilized. Its
owner is not being prevented in any way from making very substantial
use of that property and gaining a very reasonable return on it.
This variance request will, if approved, allow the property owner to
squash even more people onto this particular site. That message
will, I am confident, be clearly received by nearby property owners,
and this neighborhood will suffer the consequences of even more and
even denser development.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
3 . This proposed expansion of an existing building requires a
variance because the existing building is much too close to the
"property lines that surround it. Substantial problems already exist
between the people who use this building and the building
immediately to the west of it (i.e. , the building that sits at the
corner of Dryden and Linden) . From every perspective that makes any
sense, this proposal will seriously aggravate the existing condition
vis-a-vis the neighboring property to the west. Expanding an
already deficient situation that is currently causing problems makes
no sense, and I urge you to deny this variance on this basis.
4 . It is clear to me that this variance request, if approved,
calls for an unsightly appendage on the front of a building that
sits on a heavily used corner lot. The proposed structure will look
terrible. Its aesthetic impact will further detract from the
surrounding neighborhood. I am never sure how aesthetics are
supposed to enter into the Board's decision-making. I urge the
Board to consider the negative aesthetic character of this proposed
addition as part of the adverse neighborhood impact that this
project will generate and to deny the variance request on that
basis.
In conclusion, I appeal to the Board's common sense in dealing
with this variance request. This property is already heavily and
profitable utilized. Too much is too much, and this proposal asks
for far too much for this property and this neighborhood. I urge
that you exercise the discretion that is properly part of your
decision-making powers and deny this variance application.
Thank you for your consideration. "
I have a couple of copies of this. Pass them. If I _could just
quickly make a couple of additional points. The notion that was
suggested by the applicants that this project will improve the
situation at the corner of Dryden and Bryant is to say to least
counter-intuitive. I can't believe that the Board seriously will
consider that suggested conclusion. And I might add there were
enough discrepancies in the original application for this
application to be skeptical about claims that this project will, in
fact, improve an existing situation. Secondly, there has been a lot
made in the application that this is not expanding existing
deficiencies. And, technically, that's true, however, I would
suggest to you that, effectively, this proposal will expand existing
deficiencies. You have two buildings that are much too close;
that's a historical fact. By making one of those buildings
considerably larger than it now is, even though the new addition
will technically meet the setback requirements, will, I suggest to
you, aggravate the existing deficiencies that already exist.
Thirdly, I think what you have, although you say you're not
considering it, the applicants made a very heavy point of this; you
. have essentially an argument - we spent money to buy a building; we
then found a bunch of problems in it, we need to vastly expand the
building to pay for this facility - and to allow that kind of
reasoning to justify this kind of an addition in an already very
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
crowded area seems to me to border on the foolish. And finally,
this is an R-3 zone as was correctly pointed out. It seems to me
= that the people who live in this area and in nearby residential
areas understand that. I don't think the people of upper East Hill
are anti-student. I never have. I believe what they're anti is
being overwhelmed, and I think that this project and a number of
other things that might conceivably happen in the future are the
kinds of things that can simply tip a balance and cause a
neighborhood which already has some difficulties to become a much
more difficult place to live. And finally, with regard to the
Collegetown zoning decisions which the Common Council made back in
the early 180's and then the mid-1801s, let me assure you that
those were strongly opposed by the Bryant Park Civic Association,
and we are seeing the spin-out from those decisions in terms of the
huge amount of parking and traffic that now permeates those
neighborhoods on a virtually 24-hour basis. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Questions from members of the Board?
MR. VINEBERG: Are the (unintelligible) effect of more such
development. This is one of the rare cases where we could stop the
project. There are many cases like this where there will be no
violations, they'll just be built.
MR. BOOTH: I understand that, but I think one of . the things that
this City did a long time ago, which made a lot of sense, was where
an existing building was not in compliance with the rules, it made
those proposals come through this Board. And I think this is a case
that perfectly exemplifies why that was the situation because we
have lots of existing buildings that don't comply. And in some of
those cases, and this is one of them I strongly believe adding this
amount of development simply is too negative an impact to impose on,
particularly the property next door, but I would suggest at this
corner, this will have a larger impact and will be a very negative
message in the neighborhood as a whole. You're right. An ordinance
can't, and shpuldn't, prevent all development. I don't see myself
as anti-development, I just see myself as being anti-getting overrun
by it when it doesn't make sense, and I think it doesn't make sense
in this case. This is a facility that houses 10 people and to have
it house 18 or 20 people seems to me to simply be asking too much
from one particular place. And I realize they technically meet the
parking requirements or they do meet the parking requirement with
this proposal, but those of us who have watched Collegetown for a
long time believe, and some of us have argued, that the parking
requirements are in fact lenient, that that's not a criticism aimed
at the applicant; that's a criticism properly aimed at Common
Council. We haven't been able to muster the votes to change that.
The reality is 18 people, there are likely to be 10 or 12 cars and
even with 9 cars, you are going to have that much more traffic, that
much more crowding on this site, and the message that it will send
to the nearby neighborhood, I think, is very negative.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: Questions from members of the Board? Thank you.
Anyone else who would like to speak in opposition? Please come
' forward.
Ms. Demo from the audience asked if she could come up front for a
minute. CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, you can't really. Ms. Demo: Then,
do I have a choice whether I stay for my appeal or leave. I would
just like to know my choices (unintelligible) in terms of . .
CHAIRMAN PECK: If you leave, then your appeal won't be heard
tonight. Ms. Demo: I am not feeling well, and I would like to know
if I can legitimately leave and have my appeal heard? CHAIRMAN
PECK: Tonight? Ms. Demo: Either tonight or (unintelligible)
CHAIRMAN PECK: You can ask for a continuation. Ms. Demo: Then how
do I do that? CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, maybe you just did. Ms. Demo:
Well I certainly hope so. CHAIRMAN PECK: Which appeal number is
it? SECY. ECKSTROM: It's 2066. It's the next appeal. Ms. Demo:
7, 119 Auburn Street CHAIRMAN PECK: 2067, okay. Ms. Demo:
(unintelligible)
MR. TOMLAN: We're in the middle of a hearing at the present time.
I think we can deal with that after the conclusion of this hearing,
can we not?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay.
MR. TOMLAN: I think this particular case. I think it's certainly
out of order to vote on an instance when you're in the middle of a
hearing at the moment.
CHAIRMAN PECK: I think Michael's right.
MR. STRAUSS: But, considering that she's ill, couldn't we
(unintelligible)
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, we can We'll handle it after this case. If
you feel ill enough that you have to leave, please go ahead and do
so. We'll take care of it.
Ms. Demo: (unintelligible)
CHAIRMAN PECK: Whether to continue you or not. I suspect that we
will continue you even in your absence, given what you've just said.
If you leave now, we will give you a continuance until next month.
Ms. Demo: And what does that mean?
CHAIRMAN PECK: It means you can come back and present your case
next month.
Ms. Demo: And do I have to go through the process? And do I have to
• pay more.
CHAIRMAN PECK: No.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Ms. Demo: So, I will appear on the agenda in order.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes.
Ms. Demo: That's all. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay. Please begin by identifying yourself and
where you live for the record.
MR. HAAG: Yes. My name is Mark Haag and I live at 260 Ridgecrest
Road, but I own property within the 200 foot limit at 113 and 117
Oak Avenue. And I think that you've eliminated the financial
hardship. I can speak to that, but I won't. I think Mr. Booth
spoke very well about a whole bunch of other issues. I just would
like to add my personal opinion, and the opinion of a number of
other landlords, both within that area and outside that area, that
have expressed to me but do not want to come forward and be
identified that they're against increasing density more, that
they're sympathetic to the parking problem and trying to do what
they can do to it. I think this is an issue of maximizing the
numbers game you can play with the Zoning Code, and I do think it is
a precedent-setting case because if you allow, again as Mr. Booth
said, expanding a deficient use, it's going to happen again, and
it's going to happen again if you open the door to allow that to
happen. I mean it's just a numbers game. This is really pushing it
to the maximum. I express my personal feelings against it.
Practical difficulties existed when she bought the building. I
don't know why she's here in the first place. She should have done
this before she ever bought the building.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes, but that's not our practical difficulties. Our
practical difficulties aren't her problems with heating. Our
practical difficulties are the property. (unintelligible)
MR. HAAG: I understand. I know. The property didn't move. The
property line was 1. 6 feet away when she bought it.
CHAIRMAN PECK: That's correct.
MR. HAAG: And it's perfectly fine to use that property ad
infinitum, and I've owned properties for 20 years that are out of
compliance but I haven't increased them by double.
CHAIRMAN PECK: That's correct.
MR. HAAG: I've lived with what I bought, or I didn't buy it in the
first place, and I know lots of other people that did, too.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Wait a minute. We have a question.
. MR. TOMLAN: I have a question for you, Mark. I have here the
survey conducted by the architect of the property owners within 200
feet, some of whom are absentee landlords.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. HAAG: Most of whom I have spoken to.
''MR. TOMLAN: What I'd like to do . . . Without identifying names,
what I'd like you to do is look over this list and tell me how many
of those people agree with your point of view. The reason I'm
bringing this up, members of the Board, is that I've been approached
independently by other property owners, other absentee landlords,
landlords in the area, and they have said the same thing to me
independently. There apparently seems to be some difference between
what we see on the dotted line, so to speak, and (unintelligible)
people by virtue of the fact that many people just don't want to
break ranks with their occupations, be it developer.
MS. ROSSITER: Mike, are you saying that people who signed that they
did not oppose this have said otherwise to you. Is that the point
you're making?
MR. TOMLAN: Yes.
MR. HAAG: I can say one thing to clarify that. You know, I have
heard it said before, but let me reiterate it. I was approached in
person, on the phone, let me bring this down and I will show it to
you. Here is a card, please sign it and so forth. It was not
represented to me when I was spoken to about. . . I said I want to
keep this and I want to investigate it a little further. It turned
out to be much more than putting two parking spaces on a piece of
land. In my mind.
MR. TOMLAN: That's what I (unintelligible)
MR. HAAG: In my interpretation of it. And I can say that there are
names on that list. . . I spoke to Betsy and said that I was
(unintelligible) opposed to it. I must be the one "opposed" person.
MR. TOMLAN: Yes.
MR. HAAG: But, I think there have been others who have said that,
too.
MR. TOMLAN: Fine, thank you.
MR. HAAG: In all fairness, I did not give her back the card. I
spoke to her in person. Okay?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Are there any other questions from members of the
Board?
MR. VINEBERG: I don't understand this issue. Are you saying that
they gave you false information.
• MR. HAAG: Incomplete information, I guess, would be the fairest way
to put it, and it went from last month to this month. Quite
honestly, I don't want to get into this kind of issue because this
is Mr. Dieterich's issue, but I'd sure have to - and I'm an
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
architect - I would sure have to see a lot more of how this ever
went together to know that this site plan, which is what you're
'voting on, is doable. I mean, you can't get off of this back porch,
which in some of the Building Department records is the second means
of egress or the first means of entrance through a stair that goes
through a car. I mean, the stairs have got to be out here or in the
building. If it's out here, it's another deficiency. If it's down
here, you can't have the parking space. If you have handicapped
accessible apartment, where is the handicapped accessible parking
space? And as I say, I don't want to deal with those kind of
issues. Those are other peoples' things, but I want to express a
personal opinion and that of other people who don't want to come
forward. I won't get up this time.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Are there any other questions from members of the
Board now?
MR. VINEBERG: I don't understand. Why don't the other landlords
want to come forward.
MR. HAAG: Everybody's afraid that if they come forward and say
something at a meeting, that it's going to be quoted back to them.
If they come in with an appeal, they're going to say "You came and
you were against that guy, why do you want to do the same thing" or
something like that.
MR. VINEBERG: Well, I would have.
MR. TOMLAN: Precisely. That's why they're not here.
MR. HAAG: I don't know that it would happen. I think each case is
different. You don't hardly find two identical cases, but people
don't want to stand up and say what they think. They're afraid
something's going to happen to them, whether it's you guys or what.
MR. VINEBERG: Sorry. This is so little (unintelligible)
MR. HAAG: Quite honestly (unintelligible) That's true.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Any other questions from members of the Board?
Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak
in opposition? The case is ours.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Discussion
CHAIRMAN PECK: Some discussion.
MR. TOMLAN: Let me offer an observation. As one who has passed
that site no less than 8,760 times in the course of the last 12
years,
MR. STRAUSS: On foot or by car
MR. TOMLAN: On foot. At least that many times. I notice, in fact,
when the lawn isn't cut, when the garbage isn't picked up, when the
- in fact, I notice when the walks aren't shovelled. I've noticed
when the gutters have fallen down. I know when the aluminum siding
was put on. I know when they painted it last. I mean, I've watched
this building a long time, okay? And I also, as I've said earlier,
have been approached by developers who do not want to be identified
in this instance, but are watching closely what happens in this
decision because they've said "If she gets approved, we're going to
march right in afterwards. " My point is very simply that I believe
strongly that the density has increased. I am aware of the other
properties this landlord owns and by virtue of that, I don't
completely agree with the architect's caricatures characterization.
I think the neighborhood opposition and concern is real. That at
the earliest opportunity after you all give vent to your thoughts
and feelings, I would be moving against.
CHAIRMAN PECK: More .discussion?
MR. VINEBERG: I have a couple of questions for Rick. Someone said
that there have been complaints to your office that this landlord
has (unintelligible) having exceeded the occupancy limits in her
buildings. Do you know if there were any such complaints. Have you
found out anything about that?
SECY. ECKSTROM: There's one other building . . Well, I guess there
are two other buildings that I'm aware of. One of them, the problem
has been resolved, and the other one we're working towards
resolving.
MR. VINEBERG: You think these are misunderstandings or just normal
new owner trying to get acclimated, or what was the problem?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, maybe Rick doesn't have to answer that one.
SECY. ECKSTROM: From the architect's perspective, all the work that
he has done for his client, I think he's true. I mean his
statements
MR. TOMLAN: As far as he knows, (unintelligible) sure
MR. VINEBERG: Have you had complaints about building maintenance
issues from Mrs. Po.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
SECY. ECKSTROM: For this building?
MR. VINEBERG: No. This building she hasn't owned very long so I
wouldn't expect that. Buildings that have been owned for awhile
would have been expected that they would be under her control.
SECY. ECKSTROM: I don't know if I can give you a good answer. I'm
not aware of any maintenance complaints.
MR. VINEBERG: Did you find any irregularities in the application
that should be brought up? It was delayed for a month. Why was
that?
SECY. ECKSTROM: Well, originally we accepted the application. It
was the Deputy Commissioner that accepted it without a survey. When
we were presented with a survey, it was obvious that we had not
completely advertised all the deficiencies, and that was the side
yard deficiency.
MR. STRAUSS: Just wanted to say that I, too, had been persuaded
that this would change the character of the district, and I intend
to vote against it.
MS. ROSSITER: Is there a distinction to be made between changing
and exacerbating?
MR. TOMLAN: Probably.
MR. VINEBERG: My reaction at this point is that I'm not totally
against the project, but of all the complaints raised, the only one
that I really feel is legitimate is the . . Is rather particular one
of these two cars that are being parked in this driveway that opens
onto Dryden Road. Because of the nature of that parking which is
going to be new to this project, those cars are going to have
(unintelligible) forward and they are going to have to back out ,into
a very busy part of Dryden Road, and the Planning and Development
people expressed concerns about traffic. I don't think there's
going to create additional traffic (unintelligible) a problem. I
don't think it's going to create parking as a problem. I don't
think the corner's a problem. But those two cars backing into
Dryden Road at that spot I could see is legitimately a serious
(unintelligible) . And I at this point would vote with something to
the effect that I don't think we should grant those 2 spaces, and I
think the building should only be allowed to build to the extent
that the 7 spaces in the rear would allow or whatever spaces they
can legally create in the rear. That would be my opinion at this
point.
MR. TOMLAN: Did you pick up the (unintelligible) fact that is a
walkway necessary for access (unintelligible)
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MR. VINEBERG: Oh, I think that goes back to the Building
Department. If in fact they cannot create 7 legal spaces, they
'would not grant the permit.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Hold it for a second, please. Okay. Further
discussion? Ken?
MR. VINEBERG: Some of these issues about, you know, why you'd stop
the development here. I have problems with that because this
particular owner is being subjected to scrutiny because of pre-
existing deficiency, and other owners who don't have that deficiency
would not be treated in the same way. I see a moral conflict there
- a variance conflict. So, that I want to deal only with what I see
as deficient in this proposal according to issues of zoning. And
the only thing I see is this question of cars backing into a very
busy block.
MR. HOLMBERG: What about the notion that - this is just for the
sake of argument - that the pre-existing deficiency in certain
respects was compensated for, particularly by the immediate
neighbors, by having that open yard to the side, and there is some
compensation for the fact that this house is jammed right up against
(unintelligible)
MR. VINEBERG: Who has to compensate? Why doesn't the other owner
compensate? These are equal deficiencies by both of these owners.
This boarding house - we should have asked - has 14 bedrooms and I
imagine has a good number of tenants.
MR. HOLMBERG: But it's not asking to do anything.
MR. VINEBERG: That's a valid point.
MR. HOLMBERG: Well, then how many . . . What you're proposing is if
you got rid of the two parking spaces
MR. VINEBERG: You'd have to get rid of 4 bedrooms to maintain
conformity or something along those lines. And it would be up to
the architect to design something that could work with the parking
behind the building which I think is a more reasonable request.
Now, maybe that means we just deny it and they'd have to come back
if they wanted to make another proposal.
MR. HOLMBERG: What of the notion of an adverse impact on the
neighborhood?
MR. VINEBERG: I think that should be addressed by changing the
zoning. I really have problems with people wanting to do what the
area is zoned to do. The zoning was set up to create a very high
density. If the conflict between this high density area and this
lower density area is a very real problem which Bryant Park people
are aware of and tried to fight against legitimately hasn't been
solved, but it should be solved, but I don't think this is the way
to solve it. I don't have a good suggestion. Cornell providing
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
more housing (unintelligible) solution. It's a question how do you
create a buffer between very diverse districts.
MR. HOLMBERG: Aren't we also supposed to consider some issues like
green space. . .
CHAIRMAN PECK: Lighting and space and things like that.
MR. HOLMBERG: Light, space, issues like that.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Those are all things under our purview.
MR. HOLMBERG: Which would mitigate against . . . which is also what
we're supposed to look at which mitigates against the actual
technical regulation for that particular zone. The way I see it is
Yes, if you take Jane Doe is adding a deck to the back of her house
and the house is 3 feet from the side of the property. Yes, that's
technically, it's the extension of a or enlargement of a
nonconforming structure. Most of the cases we let go by us, I mean
we give variance to, are fairly, relatively they're not huge
alterations, substantial alterations of structures. You know, maybe
a room added on
MR. VINEBERG: R-1 and R-2 districts (unintelligible) to build
substantial buildings.
MR. HOLMBERG: Yeah, but I know. I think we've seen a lot of
instances, I mean, we've probably seen, even since the brief time
I've been on the Board, we've probably acted on 30 or so of such
things, but they tend to be fairly minor extensions of nonconforming
structures, not major extensions of nonconforming structures, which
is what this appears to me to be.
CHAIRMAN PECK: No. This isn't an extension of a nonconforming
structure. This is completely within the boundary of zoning. The
deficiency is not exacerbated by this structure.
MR. HOLMBERG: We don't have to grant the variance.
CHAIRMAN PECK: No, you're right, we don't. That's why we're here.
MR. HOLMBERG: You grant the variance according to certain . .
CHAIRMAN PECK: The problem is you've got a front yard and a side
yard deficiency, neither of which are going to be increased by
what's proposed to be built on the site. We've had lots and lots of
cases before the Board in other districts, you're absolutely right,
Ken. I think in R-1 and R-2 districts where that's been
MR. HOLMBERG: Why does one need a variance then for
CHAIRMAN PECK: The only reason these people need this variance is
because their house is too close to the property line. If this
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
house wasn't that close to the property line, they could build this;
they wouldn't even be here.
MR. HOLMBERG: Then, why do we have to grant a variance if it's so
clear cut? I mean, it seems to me, that the reason that a variance
is required in this instance is because there is some question. If
there wasn't a question, we wouldn't be asked to do a variance.
CHAIRMAN PECK: No, that's not true, David. The reason they're here
is because of that side yard and
MR. HOLMBERG: The pre-existing side yard
CHAIRMAN PECK: That's correct. That settles it.
MR. HOLMBERG: The new structure is not doing anything new, you can
simply have a variance that says if anything you add onto a
structure that does not aggravate, then you don't need a variance.
They're asking for a variance . . . We presume that the regulations
is asked us to give a variance. . . A variance has to be granted for
a . . I mean not just to have us sit here until 10: 10 at night. Why
go through this whole procedure?
MR. VINEBERG: Well, this is a very good question. Dick Booth
raised it. He's saying that he thinks that the law is written this
way exactly for cases like this to the point. .
MR. HOLMBERG: Well, that's the point I guess I am at least raising
not necessarily
MR. VINEBERG: And there is a motion coming before Common Council
that issues like this would not require a variance. So here we are
faced with
MR. HOLMBERG: Yes, we're faced with (unintelligible) that has yet
to happen.
MR. VINEBERG: Should this kind of case require our scrutiny, and
what is the basis of scrutinizing.
CHAIRMAN PECK: And all I'm saying is that in many other . . I'm
sorry, Judy.
MS. ROSSITER: I'm sorry. I was just going to say that we started
off this discussion quite a while ago by a presentation with regard
to the reasons why a variance was being sought. You recall those
reasons were largely economic in nature. I pursued them. We had a
lot of questions and answers. And, in the past, we have had cases
in which people have requested area variances where they have
addressed things that went into the bag of practical difficulties
such as: we cannot pick up the house and move it, etc.
CHAIRMAN PECK: That's correct. That's what I think.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
MS. ROSSITER: Refresh my recollection this evening with regard to
the actual issues that were . . . the points made that speak directly
"to practical difficulties. If someone could help me out on that
regard, I would appreciate it.
MR. VINEBERG: No. I think we
MS. ROSSITER: That's the way we, you know, again. . . I'm not looking
at a huge tenure here
MR. VINEBERG: (unintelligible) situation where we're saying that's
not adequate because the practical difficulty's the house can't be
picked up and moved, and that's it. And these other issues are
issues that it is in question whether they should be discussed or
not. Do we have a right to look at this on things other than the
actual zoning practical difficulty of the house is too close to the
side yard?
MR. STRAUSS: Of course we do. I mean the Ordinance says so. It
said that we can consider whether the (unintelligible)
MR. VINEBERG: There is something in the - something I once read in
the State manual that says how do you balance a very small area
variance request against issues of neighborhood activity and
traffic.
MR. STRAUSS: Good question. That's why we have the Zoning Board.
MR. VINEBERG: And I think, I mean, that I think, is why I am
pointing at these two cars here.
MS. ROSSITER: Ken, to go back to your . . . to the point you are just
starting to make. The practical difficulty is not that. it's too
close to the house next to it, that is the problem, ' that is the
deficiency. For a person to be able to get a variance, they must
come up with the practical difficulties associated with not being
able to plan what they want to do to somehow get around the
deficiency. So, I think that we can get hopelessly lost here
tonight if we start confusing the concept of deficiency with the
practical difficulty. For example, what I'm referring to then, is
to go back to the drawing board here. What are the issues in terms
of, if we're going to be talking about how this was (unintelligible)
in terms of return for the investment. How about tearing the whole
thing down and rebuilding a new building on site that fits within an
allowable footprint for a building of that sort? All right? And
those sorts of things, to my recollection, were not even addressed.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, I did ask the appellant to state whether they
were continuing an existing deficiency, and they said that hadn't
just precisely for that reason. So that would be in the record
initially.
MR. HOLMBERG: Mostly people (unintelligible)
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
CHAIRMAN PECK: The problem I face, and all of us face, I know that
we're all struggling with this, is the fact that lots of people have
:come here with precisely this problem and we've said
MR. TOMLAN: No, it's not precisely this problem.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Well, with the problem of practical difficulty - a
side yard or a front yard that's out of line with the Zoning
Ordinance. They want to build on the back of the house, we say go
right ahead and build on the back of the house. How's your
footprint? What are you doing? Where are you? Now, this is
admittedly bigger than anything we've ever seen before, but like Ken
correctly pointed out, we usually see things in R-1 and R-2
districts for this and not in R-3b districts. I want to hear a real
good motion to vote on regarding . . I don't think that we can say
anything about practical difficulties in our motion that's going to
shoot this proposal down.
MR. HOLMBERG: That's, I mean, I think Ken's point there is a quite
valid point, and I think that will be point on which I'll have to
make the decision. Because, really when the other ones that we look
at, people are always saying Hey, look, we're putting this deck on.
It really doesn't have a major . . . One of the arguments that people
will make for a variance, which we listen to on some level . . . This
is not a major transformation of this whole scene. Yes, so what,
we're out of compliance over here; we're putting this little thing
on here. It doesn't have a big effect. We're talking about here
something that's going to, you know, 40% . . .
CHAIRMAN PECK: How is this going to effect the neighborhood?
MR. STRAUSS: (unintelligible)
CHAIRMAN PECK: That's what we need to think about.
MR. STRAUSS: The applicant must demonstrate that the exception
would observe the spirit of the Ordinance and would not change the
character of the neighborhood.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Okay. How does this change the character of the
district. We need . . . That has to be in any motion that gets made
here.
MR. HOLMBERG: Character of the district?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes. That's what it says.
MR. HOLMBERG: The district is the zoning district?
CHAIRMAN PECK: Yes. I would guess. You hear me, Michael.
MR. TOMLAN: Well. The very obvious fact the density is being
increased in occupancy, and the parking on Dryden Road as Ken has
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
pointed out is going to be exacerbated by virtue of the additional
curb cut is I think sufficient evidence.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Do you see the point I am trying to make. In other
words, in terms of practical difficulties, we've got a case that's
the same as lots of others we've handled. If this is changing the
character of the neighborhood, then that's the direction we have to
go in.
MR. TOMLAN: Yes. I think very clearly it's changing the character
of the neighborhood.
MR. VINEBERG: I think I would suggest Judith. I don't think I
agree with what you're saying. The variance being sought is for a
side yard deficiency; it's not for parking, it's not for density.
MS. ROSSITER: I didn't say it was, Ken. All I'm saying is I don't
MR. VINEBERG: It's a very minor variance.
MS. ROSSITER: We can get in an endless loop if you keep - if the
two things get confused. What is the actual problem that got
someone here in the first place, and what are the reasons that
they're articulating for asking us to set the rule aside? Okay?
And what I'm saying is in the past we have sat here and tried to
extract from people what it is that their practical difficulties
were.
MR. VINEBERG: I don't think that's the way to focus on this
problem.
MS. ROSSITER: All right, and we have . . . Well, that's the only way.
That's the standard.
MR. VINEBERG: No, practical difficulty is not the only standard.
There are several standards which have to do with the effect on the
district, the strenuous use of the facilities provided by the City.
Those are all equal factors along with practical difficulties as I
view.
MS. ROSSITER: When we determine practical difficulties, we are
allowed to take certain issues into consideration. The newest
issues that we have been instructed that we are allowed to take into
consideration are the ones which I went through ad nauseum at the
last meeting, and inserted into every single case we had; for
example, handicapped accessibility and so on and so forth. There
are factors, but those factors are to be taken into consideration
when we determine what the practical difficulties are, but that is
the standard.
MR. VINEBERG: Isn't it the factors that are making this a difficult
case and not the actual variance? It's the factors that effect on
the neighborhood that are making this a difficult case, not the
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 71 1991
variance being asked for that makes it complex. It's the factors
here that are becoming the issues. If it was not the factors that
:were the issue, we should grant this thing (unintelligible) .
MR. TOMLAN: Are we ready for a motion?
CHAIRMAN PECK: I think that we should have a motion and see how it
goes.
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7j 1991
Decision
MR. TOMLAN: I'll move that Appeal No. 2065 be denied.
Proposed Findings of Fact:
1. The traffic on Dryden Road and Bryant Avenue is already
well known to be difficult to negotiate, as noted by the Planning
and Development Board and a number of neighbors. The addition of
another curb cut would only exacerbate those difficulties.
2. The increase in density is undesirable in this location,
and in this neighborhood.
3 . Neighborhood opposition and the additional questions
surrounding the supporting documentation lend support to a denial.
MR. STRAUSS: I second.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Further discussion? A Yes is to deny.
SECY. ECKSTROM: 4 Yes and 2 No votes.
CHAIRMAN PECK: So, the appeal is denied.
October 18 , 1991
I , Carol Shipe, hereby certify that these minutes were transcribed, to
the best of my ability, from a tape recording of the hearing on Appeal
No. 2065.
Recording Secretary, Board of Zoning Appeals
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BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Decision
9
MR. TOMLAN: I'll move that Appeal No. 2065 be denied.
Proposed Findings of Fact:
1. The traffic on Dryden Road and Bryant Avenue is already
well known to be difficult to negotiate, as noted by the Planning
and Development Board and a number of neighbors. The addition of
another curb cut would only exacerbate those difficulties.
2. The increase in density is undesirable in this location,
and in this neighborhood.
3 . Neighborhood opposition and the additional questions
surrounding the supporting documentation lend support to a denial.
MR. STRAUSS: I second.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Further discussion? A Yes is to deny.
SECY. ECKSTROM: 4 Yes and 2 No votes.
CHAIRMAN PECK: So, the appeal is denied.
October 18, 1991
I , Carol Shipe, hereby certify that these minutes were transcribed, to
the best of my ability, from a tape recording of the hearing on Appeal
No. 2065.
Recording Secretary, Board of Zoning Appeals
Page - 40
BZA MINUTES - OCTOBER 7, 1991
Decision
MR. TOMLAN: I'll move that Appeal No. 2065 be denied.
Proposed Findings of Fact:
1. The traffic on Dryden Road and Bryant Avenue is already
well known to be difficult to negotiate, as noted by the Planning
and Development Board and a number of neighbors. The addition of
another curb cut would only exacerbate those difficulties.
2. The increase in density is undesirable in this location,
and in this neighborhood.
3 . Neighborhood opposition and the additional questions
surrounding the supporting documentation lend support to a denial.
MR. STRAUSS: I second.
CHAIRMAN PECK: Further discussion? A Yes is to deny.
SECY. ECKSTROM: 4 Yes and 2 No votes.
CHAIRMAN PECK: So, the appeal is denied.
October 18 , 1991
I , Carol Shipe, hereby certify that these minutes were transcribed, to
the best of my ability, from a tape recording of the hearing on Appeal
No. 2065.
Recording Secretary, Board of Zoning Appeals
Page - 40