of the wall been near the door, please be advised that this proceeding is being recorded
by a court reporter and is also a webcast live.
Accordingly, we must ask you to refrain from any disruptive noises or actions in the hearing
room when presenting information to the board. Please turn on and speak into the microphone,
first stating your name and home address. When you're finished speaking, please turn off
your microphone so that your microphone is no longer picking up sound or background noise.
All persons planned to testify either in favor or in opposition must have raised their hand
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These cards are located on the table near the door and on the witness table.
Upon coming forward to speak to the board, please give both cards to the
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shall be closed at the conclusion of each case, except for any material specifically requested
by the board. The board and the staff will specify the end of the hearing exactly where it is expected
at the date when the person must submit the evidence to the Office of Zoning.
After the record is closed, no other information shall be accepted by the board.
The District of Columbia Administrative Procedures Act requires that the public
hearing on each case be held in the open before the public, pursuant to Section
405b and 406 of that act. The board may
consistent with its rules of procedures and the act enter into a closed
meeting on a case for purposes of seeking legal counsel on a case pursuant to DC
Official Code, Section 2-575b4,
and or deliberating on a case pursuant to DC Official Code,
Section 2-575b13.
But only after providing the necessary public notice in the case of an emergency closed meeting
after taking a roll call, though. The decision of the board in cases must be based exclusively
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turn off beepers and cell phones at this time, so as not to disrupt the proceedings.
Preliminary matters are those which relate to whether a case will or should be heard today, such as requests
for a postponement, continuous or withdrawal, or whether proper and adequate notice of the hearing
has been given. If you're not prepared to go forward with the case
today, or if you believe the board should not proceed, now is the time to raise such a matter.
Mr. Secretary, do we have any preliminary matters?
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. I do have a
very quick announcement with regards to today's docket.
There are two case applications that
will not be heard today. First is application number 19508
of John Tekesi, T-E-K-E-S-T-E.
This application has been withdrawn
by the applicant. And second, case application number
19659 of the Federation of State Medical
Boards has been postponed rescheduled to January 31st,
2018. And that's it from the staff, Mr.
Chairman. Okay, great, thank you.
If anyone's here who wants to testify
with the board, if you could please stand and take the oath which is going to be administered by the secretary to my left.
Good morning.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the
testimony you're about to present is proceeding is a true whole truth and
not much truth? I do. Ladies and gentlemen, you may consider yourself
your right.
All right, everybody. I'm sorry we got started a little late
today. There were some issues that we had to work through.
So just to let you guys know as far as the agenda and how we're
going to follow it, normally we go through the decision cases first.
We're going to move one of the decision cases until later in the day, which is
appeal number 19573. We're going to move that
until later in the day. So the first decision case is going to be 19564.
After that, we'll go into our hearing docket
and those cases will be followed in the order in which they're listed in the
agenda.
Thank you. That would be
this is a, as you recall, a continued hearing
case application number 19572 of SIN, S-I-M
development LNC. This is
application for variances from non-conforming structural requirements
step title C, section 202. And the parking requirements
of step title C, section 701.5, which would
add two stories containing 16
units to an existing two-story, nine-unit mixed-use
buildings. And the M-U-4, that was
in 1916, 15th Street in Southeast, where
5766, lot 845.
This was last heard by the board on November 15th.
And I believe the board left
the record open, this is a continued hearing, but left
the record open and determined to hold a continued and limited scope hearing
to focus on any transportation issues.
And
Mr. Vice Chair, I wasn't here for the original hearing, but just
let the board know I have read the entire record and watched all
of the testimony. But since you were chairing, I think maybe
just appropriate that you can continue to chair and I can just stay quiet.
Thank you Mr. Chair.
Do you want to go up there?
Oh, for this case we have some...
I'm a witness. Do you want to go up there?
Yeah.
There is a
request from ANC 8A.
And
this postponement request
is connected to the ANC 8A's
I guess they're rescinding their
support of the
project.
And so they're just rescinding their support by a load of
0, excuse me, 4 to 0 to 2.
That's exhibit 64.
Does the board have any
any conversation, any comments on
the postponement request?
I mean, Mr. Vice Chair, I'd be interested to see if the ANC's here, though whoever made
the request. I'm sorry, who's the ANC?
Oh, okay. I'm sorry, sir. I guess, and actually Mr. Vice Chair
didn't mention, but I guess I don't know if you want to introduce yourself.
Thank you for coming. If you could introduce yourselves from my
right to my left. Absolutely. Good morning, Mr. Vice Chair.
Troy Dante Presswood, Chairman, Advisory, National Commission 8A.
Finest challenge
representing the development community outreach.
Peter Semler, representing Capital Intelligence,
opposed to the development.
Good morning, Erwin Yandres, Vice President and Principal
of Growth State Associations.
Good morning, Nina Crookshaug, Architect, Architectural Solutions,
and I'll see you later.
Good morning, Corrine Kennedy, 1915.
I'm a resident, directly across from the public property.
Door to the J-90.
Door to the J-1926, 15th Street,
resident, opposed to development.
Holly Muhammad, ANC 8A.
Thank you.
And so the ANC, Mr.
Presswood. Presswood.
I put it on Dante and I realized it wasn't. I can go by Dante as well.
Mr. Presswood, could you talk about
the necessity for the postponement?
Absolutely, so. Or why you're proposing?
Sure, so our communication to the BPA was in two-fold.
One was to let you know that we rescinded our support from
the vote that we made back on November 8th,
November 7th, 2017.
And then secondly, to ask for postponement.
The postponement is to allow more time with the developer
and the residents to continue discussions
with regards to how this will impact
the community. When we first voted in support
of this, the commissioner that represented that area felt
that everything that he had asked for
the developer was going to do, had reached out significantly
to the community, had, you know, garnered the support that was
necessary, had, you know, full support
of everyone involved. And what we later found out was that
that was not necessarily the case as the ANC
became aware that many, many residents were
very upset with what was about to occur.
My understanding is that the design, the scale,
the scope, the size of the building, the additional floors, the traffic
study that was done was insufficient.
In addition to that, they, we may unsatisfied
with the type of building materials that were being
proposed by the applicants and what that impact
will have on the overall character of that neighborhood.
And so what we proposed was that
the developer and the residents
continued to discuss these issues.
We understand, and I did note that in my communication to the board
that on November 30th, 2017, that the developer
and the community did participate in a meeting where
they began to discuss these things, but my read out of that
meeting was that it was not complete. It was just a beginning
of a discussion that they, my understanding is that they need
to continue. So what we decided to do
was to ask that the board would
direct the applicant to
ask that the support that they
hold off on moving this forward. We're asking you, rather, if you will
hold off on approving this while we allow that process to take
forward. The ANC is fully prepared to provide additional comments
on this based on what the outcome of that conversation
is with the applicant and the residents
in a letter of support or a letter of non-support.
Okay.
So, Mr. Presswood
you noted that there is, that there was
initially some conversations, but
the information that you received or that the
other ANC member, the single member district received was
that there were other conversations that had happened
that actually didn't happen? I'm a little
sure. Let's do the timeline.
Absolutely. So I can tell you that one of the things that we had requested
from the applicant was that we'd be provided with
a impact study for traffic and parking.
We did receive that, but we received that on the day of
our public hearing back on November 7th.
As a result of that, the other commissioners and the community, or rather I should say, did not
feel that was sufficient time for them to inspect that record, even though we know
it was uploaded to the VZH case records, the community
and many of them here did not feel that was sufficient time for them to inspect
the record to actually go over that, to even bring in a third
party to examine that, to see in fact if
that's sufficient for them to be able to walk,
potentially have to walk blocks
from wherever they can find parking to their home,
and what some of the scenarios played out may look with this additional
structure in the community adding 25
units, I believe. So that was one of the things that came up.
The other issue was I believe that the community benefits agreement
the applicant did in fact agree to
a number of conditions that we had discussed as a commission, but
I don't believe, and the applicants here, the representatives
here, that they in fact had these conversations with the community.
They had them with us, but not necessarily with the community,
at least fully, and so they have not
fully vetted or have added their
input as to what they believe would be sufficient for them to
approve this particular project. So those were two things there
Mr. Vice Chairman. And also Mr.
Kessler, it was developed? We only became aware of this
information in the letter after the last hearing
when we were able to see the letter, when we had
an November the 30th meeting, Ms. Dork has bought the letter
to that meeting and we were able to see that that was in the letter.
We didn't realize that that was in the letter. We had no knowledge even
at that time that we needed to vote on that because we didn't have it in our
packets.
I just want to ask Mr. Pressworth,
I distinctly remember this board asking them to come back and go out to the ANC
for the same issues that I'm hearing that they now say that they haven't had time for
so I'm concerned, what happened? How long has it been?
Okay, so it's been 30 days. We
particularly myself, and I think the board agreed with me, to go back out to the community
and I think of that hearing. Mr. Pressworth, you were here and I know Ms. Fuller, that's
why I called Ms. Fuller when I remember seeing her here. Were you here with Mr. Pressworth? I was not here, I watched
online. Maybe you had another hearing when I was here.
Anyway, I remember Ms. Fuller being here
and specifically asked that they after they go back out and come back
and talk to the ANC and the community and at that time I think my colleagues will remember
that he agreed to do that and they agreed to come back out
and some of those same issues that I'm hearing
are the same issues that I heard at that previous hearing
so I'm trying to understand what happened at that meeting that this board
asked the after they go back out. From what I'm hearing, it sounds like
nothing. Absolutely.
Okay, and I would recognize Commissioner Hood
the two residents who are here, who are in
that community. I would just back up just one second and say that
the initial letter Mr. Vice Chairman
had an editing error in it. We had copied
the entire verbiage for the application
and put that in the November 7th letter
and that's how that error got in there, that we voted
for not just the non-conformity structure but also
the parking relief. And this letter that we dated December 6th
explains as much. It talks about the error and what
we're trying to do in terms of the recension of the vote. In terms of
what happened at that meeting that the developer and the community had
on November 30th, Commissioner Hood,
I would like to recognize we had two residents from that community here.
They could speak, I think, in terms of what
transpired and what the conversation
Let me do this before you go to Mr. Vice Chairman.
I agree with the deal with the postponement.
Let me hold off on giving it to those kind of merits.
Because we actually haven't heard from the applicant yet and we have to hear from the applicant
Mr. Jones. Yes, I'm French speaking.
Thank you Mr. Vice Chair and members of the Board
and the Chairman. Let me say
that we started this process in October, early October in the
Executive Meeting of AAMC. As I testified before
when I was here, there was a request for a community benefit
package. We agreed with everything that was requested to the developer there.
In that meeting, we requested
AAMC requested a transportation study. We
brought on a transportation consultant and in the October
meeting, the transportation consultant
appeared before the AAMC and we engaged him at
that point to do the study. As soon as
the study was completed, we transmitted
that to the AAMC office. What you've
heard testified today is they got some courtesy copies at
the meeting. I believe it was the morning of the meeting that it was
transmitted to the AAMC office. And of course we have no
control over how it would get to its members. But I just thought
it would be nice in case someone said they had not received it.
I brought some courtesy copies to the meeting to all the commissioners.
And there was a vote. The single
member district member voted, moved the
motion and it passed four to two and one.
It is my understanding that in his last meeting the same
single member district member still supported. He was one of the
two who supported it. And I'm not certain of that and you can inquire.
But the developer is prepared and let me
just explain. We came back in their last
November meeting and presented and
the board asked to go back and meet with the community. We did that.
And the community basically, the two members that are here, basically
does not want the additional units on the building.
And the report has been filed. It's not
going to change the transportation committee. The report has been filed.
It was filed in your package before you heard the case.
The commissioners had it as their own admission. They got it on November 7th and they still
have that time to read it. There is a tactic to delay this project
to kill it. The developer would like for you to
make a decision and we will live with the board's decision, whatever that decision is.
Yes, the two members of the community who live adjacent to
the building have asked us in the last meeting to just
develop the building as it is without
any additional units. There was a question
about parking. The building exists, there's a renovation.
It exists on the front of the land.
98% of the land. There was some discussion, could we
go under the building and build parking underneath the building? And we explained
that the building is there. And there is no
space for parking as it exists today.
How many units do we talk about? Again, I can tell the record. Let me turn to the architect.
I think it's 24, 25 units.
Yeah, we were able to get
25 units into the building.
Thank you.
But I want to re-intricide. Before the board
we've been to the ANC since early October. The developer is
prepared to live with the decision of the board.
And Mr. Jones also, you said that you met with
the ANC Executive Committee in October and at that point
they requested a transportation plan.
And then you hired somebody and had a report
delivered to the ANC
the morning of the ANC meeting. Slightly.
The report had not been done for the October meeting. We appeared to the
October meeting with the transportation
engineer. He explained what he was going to do
and he explained that their scope was greater than that
he was asking for. But we engaged him to do what the ANC
asked. And in the November meeting
we then delivered that report to the ANC.
Okay.
Who's the company you used for the transportation
study? He's here. He can speak to that.
Yes. We've chatted before but I didn't remember.
Yes. My name again is Erwin Andrews with Grossly Decisions.
And you're one of the partners on the panel? Yes.
Mr. Vice Chairman, if I could just clarify a couple of things. The
applicant met with the ANC AA Executive Session
in September 2017. They then appeared
at our October public meeting. The data I don't have
informed me. And they came back for the November 7th meeting
for the vote. The other thing I wanted to clarify was
that yes, the transportation study and
a list of benefits that the applicant was prepared to
provide to the community for this project was transmitted to
both myself and to Commissioner Hawkins on the morning
of the afternoon really on
November 7th 2017. Which was the day
of the public meeting for November. And then
the last point I wanted to clarify was that so Mr.
is correct, Mr. Jones is correct that Mr. Hawkins moved the motion
on November 7th. However, for December
the 5th, he abstained.
Can I
I think we've gotten the information that we need at this point.
We still have to go through the whole the rest of the hearing. So this is
just to decide whether or not this should be
postponed and move to a different date.
That's what we're kind of having to do. But then go to a decision
and then I know the Chairman is back on the 31st
Actually, I'm back on the 17th.
Okay, so then I would propose the 17th where Chairman Hoot is back here again
because he was here on the first time and this time and would be able to either whatever we end up doing
in terms of deliberation or the continuance. But that's just kind of my open public
meeting discussion thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Much appreciated. Yeah, and it's
I've been listening to all of this and I think that the concerns that
while they're general concerns, the ANC is raised
about the traffic
impacts. They wanted to have a kind of a
further discussion about the traffic impacts. This
case has, while it is only
a few parking spaces that they're asking
for relief from, it still is parking.
It's a related type of thing. And I think that having
a, and I actually think it may be better to have a continued hearing
because we actually have questions for the ANC or others.
So I think that postponing the
accepting the postponement request
for approving it is kind of where I'd be leaning.
And scheduling it for when the
Chairman Hood was back
in January would be helpful. So
that's kind of where I am with this. And I don't know if the
it just seems
they're going to have to come back again anyway. I think the testimony issue
it just seems a little bit odd
to have the testimony we're going to be postponing this.
So that's the kind of
issue that I have. My opinion would be to wait until they
had an opportunity to interface with each other.
And perhaps certain things can be resolved. Because if they
testified today, then their opinions might be different
than what they will be potentially on January 17.
But again
I think it's important for the community to be a little weigh-in on this.
I would agree. I don't think
that Commissioner Mahomet has asked us too much. My only problem is
I thought we had been down that road when I asked her to do it last time. That's what I'm
having a problem with. So I'm hoping we don't come back with the same result.
I think her ask is not, I don't think it's too much to ask what she's asking for.
And I would agree that I think we need to postpone this even though it seems like we already had it here.
I think we need to postpone this because that way the community
can operate on the information at hand. Instead of operating on what they have right now
and apparently they feel like they don't have time to review it.
If I'm mistaken, somebody can correct me but I'm wrong by what I've heard.
So I think it's better to move in the fashion when everybody has all the same
information. We're all operating off the same shoes.
Or singing off the same shoes.
I think I'll add that this has been postponed
a couple of times already. And I think that this is
I think we should, while I am supportive of
having, I guess a little further conversation about this,
I understand that there may be some issues that still are unresolved.
Because there are issues about transportation but there are also issues about
Chairman Press would have talked about
scale, scope, sufficient materials of the building.
Those things are not transportation related.
So yes, Ms.
I'm just going to make a factual statement without giving any opinion.
Zone, the MU4 zone
you can have 75% lot occupancy.
The existing building is at 91%. So
for the applicant to make any improvements to the property
to expand it in any way, they're already over
the maximum limited lot occupancy. So that's why that variance
kicks in. The additional construction that the applicant is proposing
at this property would in fact be below
75%. So they're meeting that lot
on the additional floors that they are proposing to construct.
We believe the variance test
has been met for that addition to a non-conforming structure.
That argument is outlined in our report. With respect to the special exception
we've discussed this. They need relief
from the minimum required parking. They're required to provide
three spaces. They're proposing to provide zero spaces on site.
The
parking test is a special exception. There are a number of criteria
that the board should
follow in evaluating that request. We've analyzed those criteria
in our report. Again, the existing
structure is at 91%. So it takes up the majority
of the property and does not allow sufficient
space to get parking on site without the applicant
demolishing a portion of the existing structure.
So that kind of is the first criteria.
And then other issues that we look at are access to public
transportation. The property is about
one mile from the Anacostom metro station. It's also served by
metro bus lines that run on Good Hope Road in Minnesota Avenue.
In looking at kind of common
evaluation metrics for properties. It has a high walk score, a high
transit score. The bike score is 53. So that's a bit
lower. But there is the ability to walk
to good services and jobs in the neighborhood.
I think those are the key points
from the criteria for the parking relief. I know
at the last hearing it was requested that the district's department's transportation
kind of weigh in again. The initial D-DOT memo
indicated support for the requested variance and
special exception. The supplemental D-DOT report reiterated
that recommendation for approval of the
requested relief. Just to include my summary, I can answer additional
questions. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I'm good with everything.
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Battali and
Chairman. So I'll kind of bring it back
to us about, it sounds like everyone
would like to have a, all the board members would like to have a close
moment for this application. It looks like we're looking at the
17th, Mr. Secretary.
And you need for us to say that we are
actually voting this or have you heard it up to
No, the staff has heard it up on me.
This can continue to January 17th and
it sounds like from what I've heard it's a continued hearing. Yeah, I think that it
should be. I don't know if anyone else has any objection to that. Okay.
So I think it should be a continued hearing. The one caveat
is when we're getting the ANC report, because
if they're meeting on the 9th to 17th is the next week.
That's adding that correctly.
Yeah.
I just need to make sure that we have an ANC report.
If we give them a deadline for the
report itself.
January 9th is a Tuesday, so perhaps the ANC can follow
its resolution on a letter by the end of the week, or the Monday of the following week
which would be January 15th. And we don't have any
issue with the 7th day.
Well it's a continued hearing on the 17th, so everyone's coming back on the
17th. Yeah, I just want to make sure that that's not a
that's not an issue.
I just want to make sure there wasn't an issue at all.
They're having to waive the 7th day.
Does the board have anything else they'd like to bring up?
I think there was an issue about the money.
I think the Friday is fine.
Mr. Secretary, how about the Friday?
So we're looking at ANC filing
by Friday the 12th.
Mr. Presswood, does that timeline work for you?
You will make it work. I'm going to make sure.
I understand.
Can I also just ask that rather than waiting until the
January 9th for the ANC meeting that we
encourage the applicants and the community to meet before then?
I'm actually looking, if you guys want to meet this week, next week, any week before
then, it's up to you. We're just trying to set forth the timeline for
and we're leaving it up to you to fill that timeline in
to get us to have some reports of us so that we understand
what your position is on this and any additional
or remaining concerns that you have for the case.
I just want to go on record, Chairman Presswood, that's a very good point.
I think we all encourage that as much as you wish.
Thank you very much.
So I think with that,
we will see you all on the 17th.
Thank you very much for coming.
Mr. Presswood, I just
for clarity on the staff's part, this is a
continued hearing of some records. It's open.
Meeting that
is open.
Thank you.
