So I'd like to call to order a regular meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals for
Wednesday, May 13th at 7:00 PM.
Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Roll call.
Mr. Safaya.
Present.
Mr. Green.
Present.
Mr. Perry.
Present.
Mr. Lindsay.
Present.
Mr. Watts.
Present.
Mr. Assessor.
Present.
Mr. Jersey's present. Chairman Stovitch?
Present.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to excuse Mr. Cliff.
Motion to excuse.
We have a motion by Mr. Jersey, support by Mr.
Green to approve Mr.
Cliff's absence today. All in favor?
Aye.
Anybody opposed?
That's approved. Takes us to adoption of the agenda.
So moved.
Support.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to make the following changes to
the agenda. I'd like to move item six
to the May 27th meeting,
item 10 to the May 27th meeting, and remove item
14 completely from the agenda, and leave the rest as written.
Support.
So we have a motion by Mr. Jersey, support by Mr.
Lindsay, to approve the agenda with those changes made.
All in favor?
Aye.
Anybody opposed?
So, any
individuals for
item six, which is to I Drive, item 10, which
was Susan Elliott on Christine Street?
I think it was Garrick's.
Okay. It won't be re-posted, so this is the only notification
for those meetings.
Before we move on past this, we are one board member
short today,
and there are two use variances on the agenda still.
So a use variance requires six yes votes
as opposed to the regular five, which all other
requests need. So I did want to offer-
12 and 13
... to convert petitioners for items 12 and 13, since they are use
variances, whether they want it to be rescheduled or not.
Item 12 was applicant Steven Paris on Sunset,
and item 13 is
Ferris Golan on Shaner.
Do you want to still proceed even though we're down one?
Yeah.
Okay. And you are...
Ferris Golan.
Okay.
And is Steven Paris here?
Do you still want to proceed?
Yeah.
Okay.
No changes.
Okay.
And we can move on to approval of the minutes.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve
the regular meeting minutes of February 11th, 2026, March 11th,
2026, and postpone the
approval of the minutes for April 8th, 2026 and April
22nd, 2026 to the May 27th meeting.
Support.
We have a motion by Mr. Jersey, support by Mr.
Assessor, to approve the minutes of February 11th and March
11th, and to postpone the two April
minutes to the May 27th meeting. All in favor?
Aye.
Anybody opposed? Okay. Minutes are approved.
Takes us to item number seven.
Item seven. Applicant, Jonathan Salaka.
Representative, Jonathan Salaka. Common description, 24800 Hoover.
Variance is requested permission to, one, conduct a temporary outdoor retail sales
operation without a permanent building.
Two, conduct a temporary outdoor sales operation in a 30 foot by
30 foot, 900 square foot tent in an area designated for parking from
9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, June 21st, 2026 through July
6th, 2026.
Good evening. Karen Bertie on behalf of Jonathan Salaka, who's to my
left.
My address is 28225 Mound Road, Warren, Michigan
48092.
At the last meeting, I had quite a few handouts on the table for you.
I hope that you brought those. But
board member Mr. Sophia wasn't here last time, so I brought the
documents for him.
So my client is proposing a fireworks tent from June 21st,
2026 through 7/6/2026 from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.
This tent is located at 24800 Hoover Road.
This is the exact same site, the exact same site plan, approved by the
city for many, many years. It was
previously brought by my
client's uncle, Pat Salaka, who sadly passed away.
My client had worked with Pat Salaka doing
the fireworks for many, many years.
The petitioner's family does have a brick-and-mortar business in
Warren called Nick's Chips. It's located at
21001 Groesbeck in Warren. And I
showed you by Googling it that they in fact have
this address in Warren.
The shopping center has one store in it, the Value Fresh
Marketplace. They do not sell fireworks, and they welcome Mr.
Salaka doing itLike I said, they've been doing
it there for years.
I would
say that I think it's rather important that we
have these opportunities for these fireworks tents in the City of Warren
because I think the residents are better served when there are
providers where there's competition for prices.
If we limit, if you will,
the sale of fireworks only from
brick and mortar stores, I think you very much limit the competition,
and I think at that point you end up with a situation where the residents suffer
because there's not competition for prices.
As stated, the tent is a 30 by 30 tent.
It is secured by eight water
barrels.
There are two at each corner.
Each water barrel weighs 458 pounds each.
It's a 55-gallon water barrel. A gallon of water weighs
8.34 pounds. If you take 8.34
pounds by 55, that's 458.7 pounds.
If you take that and multiply it by eight, that's
3,664 pounds holding down that tent.
But that's not all that's holding down that tent.
In addition to that, there
are 42-inch steel stakes with
three-quarters inch ropes. And
those stakes
hold the tent down in addition to the water.
If we were to use concrete blocks, they're 400 pounds each.
The water barrel is 58 more pounds each.
This has been the way that the Salakas have secured this tent at
this location for years and years and years and
have never had an incident. I believe that that is a secure
way to
keep the tent
secured.
Now, I'm going to be a little more thorough tonight because I've made presentations
about fireworks in the past, and many of the things that I've
said, some people have indicated that they want to see some documents.
They want to see backup for it. So I took my time this time, and
I put together the backup documentation for things that I've been
telling you for quite some time about fireworks tents.
If you guys can all look at this packet,
this is the one that has my client's fireworks certificate from the
state as the first page.
On the second page,
I took a screenshot of his
application to the state.
To apply for this license, he had to provide
a site plan that's reviewed by the Fire Bureau in Lansing.
He had to provide a floor plan that gets reviewed by the Fire
Bureau in Lansing, and that is to make sure it's in compliance
with all of the
rules that are contained within the Fireworks Safety Act.
Once that's approved, he has to provide a sales tax license.
He has to show the state that he has the
ability to collect the sales tax, 6% to the State
of Michigan.
He also
has to provide a bond, a $5,000 bond.
The $5,000 bond is to ensure that he follows the Fire
Safety Works Act. If he fails to comply in any way with the
Fireworks Safety Act, he doesn't pay his sales tax, he doesn't pay
his Fire
Works Safety fee, which is an additional
6%. If he gets a citation
by the Fire Bureau,
anything that he doesn't do to comply by, and there's a
fine in the Fireworks Safety Act, this bond is to ensure payment to
the state.
So if you turn the next page,
we've got the traveler's bond for $5,000.
The next
few pages, you get to the floor plan of the tent,
the inside floor plan. And as I've instructed in the past,
there are rules. Where are the fire
extinguishers... Thank you. I'm sorry. Where are the fire extinguishers located?
How wide are the aisle ways? How big are the exits?
How many exits are there? These are all just examples of things that get looked
at on the floor plan.
Then there's a certificate of liability insurance.
You have to buy a million-dollar policy to get a
fireworks certificate from the State of Michigan.
The million-dollar policy, if you'll look at the bottom,
it says, "What additional insureds do you want?" My client
listed AJ Fireworks. He listed himself.
He listed the owner of the property.
He listed the company that owns the property.
He listed Value Fresh Market, but he also listed City of
Warren, Michigan.
So there's a million-dollar policy covering
any liability that could happen at that site.
And not only does the owner, everybody have coverage,
also the City of Warren has coverage.
Now, with regard to
the other items that I put in the packet,
we have
the Fireworks Safety Act,
and I provided this
to you, and I want to point out a couple
things in thatAnd I'm going to try to be brief, but I want to show
that these are the things that I've been saying, and where did I get these
things? I didn't just make them up.
They came from the law, and they came from how it's practiced
over the years. On page four,
it talks about what you have to do to get a license, and it's all the things I just
talked about.
That's in the Safety Act itself.
Then in the act,
it talks about the fireworks safety fee.
Let me talk about that for a moment.
The fireworks safety fee is not the sales
tax. If you sell fireworks, you have to pay to the state of Michigan
6% sales tax. Anything, it's a good.
It's sold, 6% sales tax. In addition, there's an
additional 6% fire safety fee.
That fire safety fee goes to Lansing.
It goes into their fireman's fund, and it is
distributed by their council for the
instruction and training of all firemen within the
state of Michigan. Now, how can I say that?
On the LARA webpage, this is another document that I put at your table,
it says specifically, "All fees generated as part of this
program are allocated to support the operation of the
program and the training of the state's approximate 29,000 firefighters."
I have several firefighter friends who have indicated to
me that they have been able to take advantage
of
training that's offered at the state that the city used to pay
for and does not pay for now. That
there's been more money available for training in this state since the
beginning of fireworks than there was prior.
And I'll also show you in the law where it specifically
says where the money goes and how it's allocated.
On page nine,
a person who fails to remit the fireworks safety fees as
described,
the first violation is $5,000 if you don't pay it.
Second violation is $20,000. A third violation is
$40,000, and you're not ever getting a license again.
Now, that's on page nine of the act.
Then I'm going to read to you exactly what it says on page 10.
"100% of the money received from the fireworks safety fees under Section
VIII to be used for the training of firefighters under the direction and
approval of the Firefighters Training Council established under the
Firefighters Training Council Act."
So that's 100% of the safety fee goes for that.
Then I've talked about in the past how obviously you can't sell
fireworks to a minor.
Well, that's contained on page 10 of the act.
And I've explained to you that there's enforcement,
that not only can our own police in the city of Warren go and
make sure and spot-check, if you will, that fireworks aren't being
sold to minors, but in addition to that, the state actually sends
people in to try to buy fireworks. They use minors to try to
accomplish that. And the first fine is
$1,000. Every fine thereafter is
$2,500. And if you get a second fine, your
license is suspended.
So you're not going to be selling fireworks for long if you sell to minors.
Then
I had talked about in the past that the fire
marshal or his designee can issue citations, and the
authority for that is page 13 of the Fireworks Act.
So
they have authority to issue citations.
They also have authority on page 14 to confiscate
fireworks. Illegal fireworks, they can confiscate them.
You also can't get a fireworks
certificate for sale
if you have ever been convicted of a felony involving theft, fraud,
or arson.
And then lastly in the act, they talk about the fact that
the department shall, not can, but shall
promulgate rules under this act,
and those rules are law.
So I gave you a copy of those rules
because I wanted to make sure that you had them.
Very specifically, I'm not going to go through each thing,
but I want to indicate to you that on page three,
it talks about the fact that the State
Fire Bureau must inspect the site.
That's contained within the rules.
It's also important to note on page four, five,
and six,
these are
all of the
standards, NFPA this, NFPA that,
all of the standards that have to be followed to be in compliance.
And these
are not
just a few standards. Like I said, it takes two and a half
pages to put them.
The rest of it, I don't want to sit here and read you the act,
but I want you to know these further support
the things that I've been sayingall along that this is not
a fly-by-night operation. People who do the firework
sales are not fly by night. The requirements
that they have to follow are
quite extensive,
and the penalties for not complying are extensive,
and they need to be sharp and operate a very clean
operation, or they're not going to be in business very long.
I have seen people who have not complied with the Fireworks Safety
Act or the rules, and they get put out of business very
quickly
because they can't
seem to be in compliance as they should.
So
why do I make sure that I explain all of that?
It's because we have a track record here with the Selaca
family. They have been in compliance.
They do not get citations. They've never been cited,
ever, for failure to comply with what they're
supposed to do.
And last year, when my client put up his tent,
my client was inspected by the
state fire inspector, Tom Lyon, L-Y-O-N.
Two Warren fire officials came out while he was open two separate
times.
He can't remember the name, but two Warren fire officials came out,
and in fact, spent a great deal of time there
on two occasions. The electrical inspector from the city
also came out and inspected.
So as I have said in the past,
anybody from the City of Warren who comes out that is an official,
we will honor them
looking at what they need to look at,
having free access to what they need to have free access to because we're
running a tight ship. We're running a compliant ship.
So any inspector coming out, we don't have any problem with.
We're glad to have them come, and they are welcome.
So in short-
Are you using your item?
... I will say that
not only is the fire bureau from Lansing
making checks, but definitely in this case, we also have the City of Warren
making checks, and
I believe that my client runs a very safe and compliant operation,
and I would ask you to please approve his petition
here tonight.
Thank you, Ms. Birdie. This is a public hearing.
Is there any audience wishing to speak on this item?
Not seeing any, I close the public portion of the meeting and turn it over to the
board for questions and discussion.
Mr. Chairman?
Yes, Mr. Stefani?
I appreciated the presentation tonight and the extra backup material.
I'm familiar with that parking lot.
I think it's a spacious parking lot, and I personally don't have a problem or
see any issues for this short period of time.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Lindsay.
So thank you for the presentation.
I'm not quite sure what
firefighter training and sales tax have to do with this variance
request. But the way that I view this, and
honestly all of these firework stands,
our job here as a ZBA is to determine if a practical
difficulty to comply with the ordinance has been met.
I look at this, I don't think a practical difficulty has been met.
The presentation that you've given doesn't seem that there's any
unreasonable impact or burden to maintain compliance with the
property as it is.
I don't see that there's anything unique about this property.
I believe that the firework stands, how I've seen them in this city, are a
detriment to the area,
and this is clearly economically driven.
So I don't see how I could vote yes on this, so I'm going to be a no vote.
May I say that that is not the-
I didn't have a question
... standard of review
for tents. It's not the standard.
Any other questions, discussion, or any motions, or...?
I have a comment.
Yes, Mr. Ding.
So I'm always curious when items like this come up,
and
they're specific to
the sale of fireworks. But we have numerous other items
that come in front of us that are approved.
Flower sales,
there's a whole bunch of them that we do.
So I think if we
are
strictly going with the practical difficulty standard,
I think it can be read either way.
And
we've had this discussion about brick-and-mortar and all these other different
things.
We need to have the discussion on everything if we're going to do that, or it
doesn't look like we're being fair across the board.
That's my opinion, and I will vote yes on this to
approve.
Mr. Chairman?
Yes, Mr. Stefani.
If there's no other comments, I'd like to make a motion.
I've approved the other flower stands in town.
I personally like, as a Warren resident, being able to go to Warren businesses
for things than going to the outside community.
With that, I'd like to make a motion to grant permission to conduct a temporary
outdoor retail sales operation without a permanent building, to
conduct a temporary outdoor sales operation in a 30 by 30,
900 square foot tent in an area designated for parking from 9:00
AM to 9:00 PM, June 21st, 2026,
through July 6th, 2026-
It's four
... because it's not a detriment to the area
So we have a motion by Mr. Safaya, support by Mr.
Perry, to approve the request for the reason stated. Mr. Safaya?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion. Mr. Perry?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Assessor?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Watts?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Green?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Lindsay?
I vote no. I think it's economic.
Mr. Jerseyll's votes no. I believe it's a detriment to the area.
Chairman Ostrovich?
Yes. So your request has been approved, Ms. Bergen.
Thank you. Have a good evening.
Takes us to Item A.
Applicant, Darren and Michelle Moore. Representative, Darren and Michelle Moore.
Common description, 32206 Newcastle.
Variance has requested permission to retain widened portion of the driveway from
the south front corner of the garage, 10 feet towards the south property
line.
Is the...
I'm really struggling. At least I am.
I'm really struggling to hear everybody.
If you could maybe talk into the microphone more?
Is that better? There we go.
Thank you.
Thank you. Sorry about that.
I figure if I'm having to come out the building, you are.
I appreciate that. Thank you, sir.
And if you could start with your name and address for the record, and then your
request.
Hi, I'm Michelle Moore. I live at 32206 Newcastle Drive, Warren,
Michigan, 48093.
I'm Darren Moore. I also live at the same address.
And if you want to explain your request today?
Yes. We came here today for a permission to keep our
retained widened portion of our driveway.
11 years ago, we hired a company, a licensed
contractor, and came down to the city with us to go over a
plan to re-pour the cement
in our garage, our driveway, and the city sidewalk
due to cracks.
When we came to the city, we were coming for permits.
Well, first we
went over the whole entire project, and the city told us we only needed a permit
for our garage, which we received the permit.
Then we had the company start our project.
First, they
tore out the cement, put the bordering in, had to have a city inspector come out to
okay them to pour. The city inspector, this was 11
years ago, came out,
looked at the city sidewalk, looked at the driveway, looked at the
garage, told the company that we had hired that
they held the job until they went to the city to show them
stamping because of the city sidewalk.
The company we hired went to the city, showed the stamping.
They had permission to pour.
We completed the job. They did the garage, the
driveway, and a couple of the city sidewalks.
And the first city inspector came out, looked at everything,
gave them the okay.
Well, the first one,
when he came out, the only thing he told us, we had to have the stamp for the city
sidewalk. And he went over everything, said that the
driveway was fine at the time, as long as the approach wasn't
changed, and there was 10 feet between the driveway
and our neighbor's property line.
We had the job completed. Another city inspector came out and deemed it
as excellent. 11 years later, we've received a variance in the
mail
for our driveway.
Okay.
Thank you for that explanation. This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak on this item?
You can also approach and start with your name and address first.
My name is John Pozloski. I live next door at
32052 Newcastle Drive.
I have no problems whatsoever with this pad the way it is.
I would suggest to you that the issues that seems to be going around the
neighborhood right now,
I don't know why they're becoming ahead now because there's so many
different variations on the houses, where the driveways go, where the
approaches go, how far back they go.
All kinds of things going on. And I would prefer to
see vehicles parked on driveways rather than in the street.
We have problems in certain areas of the street where people park
cars and with trailers and stuff on the street, and they never move.
We've got one house towards the end of the block.
The guy, he had one car sitting in his driveway for 22
years that obviously was never being used, and yet the city never
came around and did anything about it.
And I made a complaint, and he got a ticket, and then I guess about three weeks
later, the car was gone, but he still has two pickup trucks
and a trailer there. And he parks his trailer and
pickup,
which makes it tough because right by 14 Mile Road, and if you want to
get out on the street and you got somebody coming in or there's somebody parked on
the opposite side of the street, it is dangerous.
There's no question about it. So again, I would much rather
see cars off the street onto parking lots.
And we seem to be spending a lot of time worrying about the dimensions of
a pad or something like that, which seems a little silly to me.
And just as a side note, the city also owns
the trees that are in the boulevards.
When these trees get knocked over from a storm or something, the city comes and
pulls them out. They don't come and replace them. Why?
I don't know.
That's my two cents.
My name is Jonathan Smith. I'm a neighbor far down the block,
32922 Newcastle. I'm also here for the same thing
today.
It's a very busy street, especially between 2:00 and 7:00.
I live in that first four houses off the corner,
and it is dangerous.
I prefer my kids playing in the driveway and in the backyard of the driveway,
and just think that we need to be focusing on other things.
Thank you.
Hello there. My name's Joe Scali. I live right
across the street from Darren and Michelle, and I actually
appreciate that they are not parking on the street
because when I pull back out of my driveway,
cars would be there ordinarily.
But since they have their cars on that
concrete, it's
safer for me.
They put a lot of money into their house.
It looks good and I
feel that it's actually safer to have them off the street.
Now, if he was a backyard mechanic and he was
just wrenching on things, it might be a different story, but he's not
using it for that purpose. It looks good.
I believe it brings up the property value,
and I actually appreciate all that they've done.
Thank you.
My name is Mohammed Hassan. I live in 32205 Newcastle
Drive, just on the other side of the street. I have three little boys.
I've been living there for eight years.
I've been taking care of my yard. They have a nice yard, right?
And then I have little kids, and every day there's buses passes
by. Having the car
in the
parking lot, it's better for us, for my kids.
I have no objections. It looks beautiful, and if you see how the
house is there, it's all beautiful. It's well taken care of.
There's absolutely no reason for have them give this hard
time. I really appreciate if you can approve this not
to make any adjustment for their driveway. Thank you.
Okay. Thank
you for those comments. With that, I'll close the public portion of the
meeting and turn it over to the board for questions and discussion.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Watts?
So
I think it's important to answer a few questions.
What's going on here? Somebody paved their
driveway on another street over,
and
a stop order was put on because they went over and above.
You only need a permit
for the approach and the sidewalk.
You don't need to replace your driveway itself,
but the driveway has to be... The ordinance
is from edge of the garage to the other edge of the garage.
And the gentleman on the other street did the same thing, went way
over. He was told not to pour, the stop work order.
He did it anyways, and this is what brought all this to a head,
and we turned him down.
He put a shed in without a rat wall on the same concrete.
Just tons of violations. Violated the ordinance, violated a
stop order,
and we said, "No, you can't do this," because everybody's going to be doing
it.
Now, I've drove through the neighborhood four or five times in the past month and a
half since that came down, just knowing this was coming,
and he told us at that meeting, "I'm going to go turn everybody in in the
neighborhood that's got extra driveway.
That's why you guys are all here."
28.
28 people he turned in. So thank your neighbor for this, because
he violated a stop order and violated the
ordinance. It's not rocket science.
So they have to-
So this is the problem. And then we have one down the street from you.
Hang on.
We have one down the street from you. Same thing. They went for a permit.
They said they didn't need a permit to replace their driveway.
But not only did they replace their driveway, they doubled the size of it.
That's not included in any ordinance.
And this is happening all over the city,
and people are parking like five, six, seven cars
where lawn used to be, turning their
front lawns into parking lots. That's why we're here.
Now, you guys might not be here had your neighbor been such a
kind of guy like, "Well, if you're going to get me, I'm going to get all my
neighbors."
So you have to understand where it's coming from.
Now, as a ZBA member, I'm a former council member.
We have ordinances, and we have to abide by those ordinances.
It's unfortunate that you
got caught. I don't know why. I don't understand
here why you didn't get caught when they approved the sidewalk and the-
Yeah, we had three city inspectors-
The approach
... approve it.
The approach
Before it was poured.
So-
We would have never poured it if they told us otherwise.
Yeah. I mean, that would have saved us money.
Okay. So this is where we're at.
So there you go.
Now, we can't
deny
one. Another one got denied. It's two. So there's going to be a problem.
I can't go for this because it's getting bad with the-
But then what is the point of coming here if you-
Point of order
... can't make a-
Point of chair.
Well, the thing is, this was 11 years ago for us.
We're... It's our portion now, okay?
So that's how... I wanted you to know how we got here and the people who spoke.
Oh, we know how we got here.
You know?
We think it's ridiculous.
So-
Well-
... the city inspectors are doing their job now and enforcing it.
So then the alternative is to come to a variance.
And we have, as city people, a
committee or commission,
it's our job to stay on top of the ordinances.
If we let one go here and then one gets over here, and
everybody... See, this is what's happened.
Everybody's over there saying-"Oh, Joe's got that.
I'm going to do that, too. Sam's got one.
I'm going to do that, too." And everybody goes another six inches.
Everybody goes another foot.
To me, it's a detriment to the area.
And I understand what your neighbors are saying about the-
11 years ago is when that should've been taken care of, not-
I'm not going to argue with you about that because I understand.
Okay. We live close.
I find this is a detriment to the area, and I'm going to be a no vote.
I can't approve this kind of stuff.
Okay.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Green.
So
this is getting kind of complicated.
And
please understand,
ordinances are
laws of the city. They're
actual laws. Like for example, in theory, if you went
to sell your house and you were in violation of an ordinance, like let's say this
one in particular, a mortgage company might not approve your mortgage until you
become compliant with the law. Because a lot of things
that laws have baggage that come with them.
But that's not the motivation for what's happening.
Somebody turned it in, and that's a whole another story.
And the part of the motivation at the beginning was, you have to picture this
in your mind. We had people literally
paving their entire front yards, not just what you guys have
done, which a million people in the city of Warren have done.
We've had people who paved their entire front yards, and what they were doing was
they were running businesses out of there, and the neighbors weren't happy about
it, or they were having multiple families live in their house.
So at that time, it became an issue with where are we
at and where are we going with this.
I personally think that a lot of the confusion is a result
of what you guys are saying. Your permit was to have
your garage poured.
Yes. Because we own it at the same time.
I'm not asking a question, but I understand.
And it's confusing to a layperson who you only do it once in your life,
so it's not like you have a lot of experience doing it.
I think we should require a permit for the driveway.
Because right now it's kind of confusing.
So I don't have to get a permit for my driveway.
I have to get a permit for the apron because the city owns it, and for the
sidewalk. And then I think people think, well,
then the inspector comes out and says, "That looks great." What he meant
was, "That looks great," because you didn't have to pull a permit for it.
So I think as we move forward here, and I'm going to try
to straighten that out in a second, that one of the things we need to do, and I
don't know if you can or you can't, is to
require permits for driveways. And that way, the person can say to you right there,
"You can't do that," or, "You can do it."
Pre-1995-
So-
... Warren required permits for driveways.
Well, that's good to know, but it doesn't now.
So I'm not trying to argue with you or debate with you.
No, I'm just asking you what you have to say.
I know, but this is
really kind of your nuts. We're just supposed to do this.
No.
So
I'll give you an example. At the last meeting, we had people
voting based on what they thought about the existing ordinance.
The existing ordinance is what it is.
At this particular point, there's not a heck of a lot we can do about it.
So what I am suggesting is this,
and
I don't know how they're going to particularly handle
what we do here on whether we deny or approve your variance.
I'm sure there's going to be an answer for that.
But
I think what we need to do is I think we need this body, and
our attorney will be the person who would do it.
I think we need to send a letter to council
explaining that we've had numerous driveway complaints that come our way
as a result of this particularly new phase of
people
cementing their entire front yards and parking their work vehicles and having
multiple families and stuff. I asked Steve today to get a number for the letter
of how many people in the last year,
Steve Waterbond, have come to us with driveway problems.
And then
I want the city council to look at the ordinance
to see if there is anything that needs to be changed,
and I want them to see why we're not requesting permits for
driveways, because it is a source of confusion for
homeowners.
And then the attorney can draft that letter,
and that letter can be to council, and then council, whatever the
process is to contact plan. I don't know.
It would go from there to planning or whatever.
But I think we, as a body, need to send a letter to the council saying, "Look,
we're sitting here in front of people who've had driveways for 20 years to tell
them they can't have them," because in theory,
unless those practical difficulty standards, if you don't,
it's a law. So we need a pretty good reason to
say you can keep it. So I personally don't
know if there is an answer, if the ordinance can be
changed to
accommodate everybody. But I've
seen a lot of people who have basketball poles for their kids, and they want to add
a couple feet,
or we've approved some people who've had handicapped children who
need extra spaces and stuff. There are situations
where there can be
some leeway. Our problem
is Warren's the little residential house
community.
So to keep that residential
look is I think a part of this particular ordinance that's in the books now.
We have a driveway, and the argument of parking in the street,
I understand what you're saying, but it's not the argument
that's going to winWin the day for you because
people have been parking. I know it. I'm in the same boat you guys are.
I live on a street where people are flying out of this condo place,
and I park on the street because I have two cars in the driveway.
And a lot of people use their garages for, they store stuff in it, so there's not a
lot of room. It is a problem. So that's why I am going to
request, I don't know if we need to vote on this or not.
Probably under new business or something.
So under new business, I'll be requesting a letter be sent to council,
and our city attorney can draft a letter based on our comments to her
during new business.
And in the meantime,
I don't know how the administration wants to handle this in the meantime.
But in the meantime, I think what they have to be careful
of is
this is complicated. We have a city ordinance
that specifically says the authority of the building department
limitations. And I want to read this into the record
so it's pretty clear where we're coming from, because we weren't born
yesterday.
Under no circumstances the building department permitted to make
changes to an ordinance or to vary the
terms of any application or any applicable ordinance
in carrying out the duties of the building department, nor shall the building
department be permitted to grant exceptions to the actual
meaning of the ordinance.
So that's pretty clear
that the ordinance we have,
we have to work with it until we change the ordinance.
So the answer is to change the ordinance.
Hopefully, after we vote on this, whether you're denied or approved, if you
listen to me,
hear me, what I'm telling you,
whether you're denied or approved,
I have to vote to deny. This is a city law.
The bigger problem is
there's some people out there who are p****s,
who are turning people in when they know it's just to be
mean. And that's not the purpose of what we're trying to do up here.
So we're going to try to solve your problem, but we can't solve your problem today.
And solving your problem is not going to be as easy as it sounds, because we got
multiple layers of government in there.
But we're not going to sit here today and we are probably...
I'm going to vote to deny. But if you get denied, it
doesn't mean we're not going to sit here and try to solve your problem for you.
So I think you need to
sit back. I talked to Steve Waterpront today, and he gave me some
ideas about maybe having some administrative leeway
where, and I don't know if I'm for that or not, but coming out and saying,
"Well, you don't have to get a variance if you add
four feet for your basketball pole." But you can see where that opens
up, so where's the cutoff?
Is it four feet? Is it six feet? It has to be thought out really well
for us to change the ordinance.
And I
want to keep in mind that
the building department has an ordinance says that they got to
carry out their duties at the building department because it's the law.
So it doesn't meet the practical standards as we
sit here today,
and
that's how I'm going to try to
solve the problem for people and make it at least
realistic. But we're not allowing people to pave their
entire front yards. We're not allowing people to put 10 or 12
feet
unless they can prove a practical difficulty, and that's what a
variance is for. So it's
disappointing that you've had it for 10 years and now it's come up.
That's out of our control.
We didn't do it to you. Someone else did it to you.
You need to
appreciate that.
So did I make any sense?
You made absolute sense.
All right. Then I'm done.
I'm proud of you.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chair. Oh.
I'll get-
Mr. Missy, go ahead. Mr. Safaya.
My comments on this, I have a different view.
The function of this board is to evaluate the
unique circumstances of each item independently
without precedent of others. I'm looking at the Google image of this house.
Unlike some of the other petitioners that we have seen with small
yards, this is a wide lot, and the driveway is done
tastefully, in my opinion. It's been there for 11 years.
If this was a criminal case or a civil case, there's usually a statute of
limitations, which in my opinion is far exceeded.
Not to mention a building permit was pulled for the garage floor.
Now, I know the building permit, the inspector comes and looks at the
garage floor. But in my experience with the inspectors in Warren, they're very
thorough. And that little piece that is
allegedly not part of the garage floor permit,
it's right
out in the open. It's not some little inconspicuous thing in their
backyard. So in my mind, if the building inspector was out there 11 years
ago, he saw that the
sidewalk slab was new, just like the garage floor.
If there was a problem, 11 years ago was the time to address it, not
now. So this is definitely a yes vote for me.
I evaluate each one of these driveway extensions
individually based on the uniqueness of the lot.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Jersey.
Both my colleagues bring up great points.
To Mr. Safaya's point,
we do need to evaluate each one on an individual basis.
There's a few of you who have been on the board when we had
pre-existing conditions where a homeowner bought the house with
said side cement
poured to the side or whatever. They wanted to put up a shed, and all
of a sudden this got red flagged unbeknownst to them
We've passed stuff like that
in the past,
but I fully agree. Every property is unique,
but
we all kind of have a good argument with this.
When you grant this, it goes with the land forevermore.
There's no reverse. So
say you have good intentions with it, doesn't mean somebody else will come in,
start a landscaping company, and just put trucks.
So I'm trying to devil's
advocate for some of my board members who feel like it's...
So not to say it's currently being that way, but
it could potentially, maybe down the road, somebody sees, "Oh, I got some
room here, and I could put multiple trucks in here.
This would be a good spot, a good house to buy for my business."
To Mr. Green's point,
since our last meeting, I've been doing some thinking about
absolutely what you just said,
about sending this to council.
We take a vote as a board,
come up with some kind
of unanimous vote to send it back to council for review.
Because just like I stated last meeting, we could have one of these meeting for the
next 20, 30 years with as many as there are in this town, and it's not just your
neighborhood. And I also feel I want to put it on the record, too.
We need to stop being a complaint-driven city.
That just puts neighbor against neighbor,
tit for tat, makes living conditions
awkward for people who
invest to live in the city of Warren.
We need to be more proactive with either this current administration, next
administration. We need to be more proactive instead of
all of a sudden, "Oh, I got you."
And that, to me, is no way to operate
indefinitely. I do like the idea of
having the permitting for a driveway.
That was a good thought. I think there's been a lot of good thoughts on this board
from whatever angle you want to approach it with.
But to Mr. Green's point, we're kind of bound by
the law, and also to Mr. Safaya's point, got to take everything on a
case-by-case basis.
I live in that area. That street is busy.
There's big buses that go down that street.
It's a bus route, and it has the cutouts on the street, which actually make
it nice, so it's not an absolute drag strip going up and down there.
I remember when my dad bought the house, he says that was one of the cool things he
thought about Newcastle was it had kick outs where you
didn't have to worry about people drag racing up and down the street.
But there is, from our perspective,
at least from my perspective, there's no easy solution with this.
It is tastefully done. I do agree with Mr. Safaya.
I do agree with Mr. Watts and Mr. Green.
So,
I'm kind of torn in half with what to do here.
So,
I also agree, too, with what we discussed last meeting with
Chairman Nostovich's comment where
maybe we grandfather in a certain length.
And I don't know what the answer is, but that's going to be for council to try
and reevaluate and maybe re-look at this through
a different set of lenses and come up with a
solution that
fits.
So, with that, I'll yield the floor.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr.
Lindsay.
I guess first of all, is my mic on? There it is.
I've been having a hard time hearing myself talk, so I apologize.
So just to echo some of the comments that my fellow board members
make, I think you guys are in a really tough spot, and I do feel really bad.
This really puts the board in a tough position.
The way that I would look at this,
the unfortunate circumstance is you guys have had that
driveway,
but had the proper processes been followed, you guys request a permit,
it would've been required to get a variance on it, and it probably would get
denied. This is something that the board hasn't really
favored,
and now we're seeing
people coming to the board after the fact and saying,
"Well, we've had it, so can we get the variance?" But if it would've went
through the procedure the first time, the variance would probably get denied before
you guys poured the concrete. So I feel bad for you guys.
I don't know how this is happening in your neighborhood, just
suddenly.
It kind of sucks for everybody involved.
I think the board members
are included in that.
I look at this.
I will be a no vote. I look at the building
permit. The building permit specifically for the garage floor,
how the concrete gets poured past that 11 years ago, I don't know.
That's not really what we're here to decide.
I see this again, looking at the practical difficulties.
If this was put up for a variance
before concrete was poured, I'd vote no on it then, so I'm going to
continue to vote no on it today. I just really want you guys to understand where
I'm coming from so that when I do vote no, you at least understand why.
It's an unfortunate no vote for me. Okay.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Watts.
So,
I want to go back. I want one of the inspectors to come up if they can, too,
because I got a question for them. But I want to go back to a comment that one of
the gentlemen made from the other side of the room there about the place with the
trailers. They put the pad in. They're running a business out of there with the
trailers and what have you. That's the kind of problem we're faced with
because that guy is definitely out of-
He's not running a business. He's a hoarder.
Oh, he's out of code either way. I understand.
And he doesn't have an extension on his driveway.
Yes, he does
On the one side, yeah.
Has he?
Yeah, because I looked at it when I went by.
Looked at the driveways.
Yeah. And it's just, I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" Because I would lose my mind
if that was on my street. And the
thing of it is, I'm going to go back and I'm going to say it again.
Somebody moves in there like, "Oh look, those nice people over there, they extended
their driveway. I'm going to do it." And these people just do it, and then we find
out later on, and that's a problem. I get it.
You guys are in a bad situation, but Steve, can you come up? I got a question.
I would have never-
Or I don't know, they might be able to answer it too.
But what I'm wondering-
If the employer permits to begin with, we wouldn't be in this
position because they could've denied it right then, 11 years
ago.
We would've never-
How can you get a variance-
So my question
is-
Point of order.
Sorry.
This is a public meeting. We can't be talking over.
We can't be taking questions from the audience.
If someone wants to speak, they need to approach the podium.
They need to get permission from the chair.
So Mr. Watts-
So-
... has a question for Steve.
So Mr. Waterpoint.
Yes, sir.
My question is,
I can't really tell by looking at the picture, and I don't think it's on this
print, but how close is the edge of that concrete to the property line?
Is that
conforming to the ordinance of how close we can be to a property line on something?
As far as the cement, it is far enough away for a
setback.
Okay.
Okay, thank you. That's all I got.
Any other que-
Mr. Watts?
Yeah.
That's a good point you raise. Mr. Waterpoint, I'm sorry, I missed it.
The ordinance is that the driveway cannot extend past the side wall of
the garage?
The side wall of the garage is what the ordinance is, what it
allows.
Okay.
Engineering only allows to the
length of the opening of the garage for the apron.
Zoning allows it to the garage.
Okay. Now what about homes where the garage is
perpendicular to the drive? How are they-
Where it turns?
Yeah.
Basically, you allow a turn radius, but it's not
more than the width of the garage for the approach on that.
Okay, because there's some homes on that street on the Google
image where there's a wide turn into the garage.
Now, obviously the drive is the same width as the opening of the
garage door.
Once you get past the edge of the house, it can go
wider too. So that's mostly where you got your turn.
Okay. That makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other questions or any motions?
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Watts.
If there's no further questions,
I will make a motion to deny to retain a widened
portion of the driveway from the south front corner of the garage 10 foot
towards the south property line.
And I feel it wasn't a burden. It was
self-imposed.
The property is not unique.
I feel it's a detriment to the area, and it wasn't necessary.
Support.
So we have a motion to deny by Mr. Watts, with support by Mr.
Assessor for the reasons stated in the motion.
So it's a yes vote to deny.
Mr. Watts.
Yes to deny for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Assessor.
Yes to deny for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Green.
Yes.
Mr. Lindsay.
Yes to deny for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Perry.
Yes to deny for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Safaya.
No. I believe the practical difficulty standard has been met.
Mr. Jersey also votes no. I believe the practical difficulty standard was met.
And Chairman Nostavich.
I also vote no, because I agree with my previous
two board members.
So unfortunately, your request was denied with a five to three vote.
So I guess for your next steps, maybe you want to talk to the
zoning department. I know we, under new business, will address Mr.
Green's suggestion. But
for tonight, your request has been denied.
Okay. So what do we do from here on out?
I-
Because I received that letter saying that it was a $1,000 fine.
A day.
A day. Because-
I can't even afford to tear it out right now.
You should-
I would tell her to say Steve
... see Steve Waterpoint.
He could actually explain all that to you.
Okay.
Because 11 years ago, an inspector saw something that wasn't
supposed to be and didn't say anything about it.
No, I understand. But unfortunately for-
They would've had a better time to say it before we poured the cement,
which I would happily not poured and saved a lot of money.
No, I understand. But you could talk to Steve, and he could actually help
address next steps, and-
Okay
... thank you for your time.
Mm-hmm.
Takes us to item number nine.
Item nine.
Um.
I- I- No.
And not at this time.
Um.
Item nine. Applicant, Jessica-
Oh, during-
... and Jonathan Smith.
Representative Jessica and Jonathan Smith.
Common description 32922 Newcastle.
Variance has requested permission to retain the widened portion of driveway that
extends 12 feet 11 inches
from the southwest corner of the garage toward the south property
line.
So if you could start with your name and address and-
Jonathan Smith, 32922 Newcastle.
Jessica Smith, 32922 Newcastle.
Okay. And-
It's got a green light. There we go.
Thank you.
And then-
Um. You guys are-
Take us through your request.
Oh.
What was that?
Yeah. If you can explain your request.
Yeah. We're pretty close to the corner.
It's a very dangerous street, like I said.
I've had a car parked and hit. I've had a car stolen
from the driveway. Um-
It's been very rough. We've had people try to break in and wife barricaded in the
house, and the police say, "Call your husband."
This is a very unique situation. We
did this six years ago. We were under the understanding that you can have a
driveway or a trailer in your backyard.
How do you get a trailer in your backyard? You drive it over muddy grass.
Well, how can we get the trailer out?
We can only fit two cars in our driveway.
We have a four-bedroom house.
So we did expand it, and we checked with the company.
The company said no permits were needed from the sidewalk as long as we don't touch
the apron
to the garage.
But we're allowed to have
trailers, correct?
Which would be parked in the backyard. How do you get to the backyard?
So I went to the
city three times before I got a little bit of clarification,
and they were talking that you can't bump out the
side driveway unless you were a certain feet in front
of-
The garage
... the front of the garage. And that was with Suzanne, which was the lady who
wrote the ticket, and somebody else.
So we were told at the very worst, we're going to have to cut some of the driveway
out, but not the whole thing.
And the trailer was only for recreational use. We like weekend warriors.
We like to go up north and have a good time.
And
we got cited for the trailer after we built the garage,
two years.
And when I went in to figure out what it was, I thought it was the driveway.
I was upset with the company that did the pour of the concrete.
He said, "No, it is not the driveway.
It is your trailer is parked too close to the back of the house."
It was in the backyard behind the fence, but the tongue and a little bit
of it was still too close to the house, is what they said.
So we said, "Okay, it's not the driveway, but we have to get the trailer out."
We're now on our third year of paying to have the trailer
stored, which we didn't build the driveway until...
We just did it in a way to make it make sense and
reasonable.
So-
Can I interject real quick on the trailer? Do you mind?
Go ahead.
Okay. So when they came out and cited us two years ago for having the trailer
too close to our house, they said nothing about our driveway at that point in time.
They said the driveway was okay when I went in, actually.
So we now pay $800 a year after
pouring our driveway, being told that there's no permit needed.
Which what I would suggest when you're going to make your recommendation is
permit and zoning should be one thing, because as a
citizen, if we're told that we don't need a permit, we have
absolutely no idea what 4.06 means.
And it doesn't make sense. If you read that to me, it doesn't say anything about
any of that.
Any average citizen,
in my opinion, would not be able to comprehend that that means you cannot expand
your driveway.
Just saying, you might want to clarify that.
The com-
Go ahead, no.
The company is reputable. They've been in Warren for 30
years.
I-
They do Warren business.
Yeah.
We sent them over.
If you look at it, we did widen it. And
when we had the concrete to be poured, we had it smaller, but when
he clarified that we didn't need
to do anything permit-wise, it made sense to get the
trailer around the corner. You back up on an angle. It's a blind spot.
To get a trailer back there is crazy.
So we did it as conservative as we could in order to get our driveway,
so we could get the trailer into the backyard, into the side of the
house.
So this ticket came on March 3rd
or the first-
The letter in the mail.
Actually, someone came to our house on March 3rd.
We had over $10,000 worth of
water repair done. We had a leaking basement.
So the gentleman comes on the 3rd and says, "Final
grade not approved." Gave me a card, which I believe was
Don Jarvis, but we got a bunch of cards from the few
trips we took up there to try to get an understanding, and nobody knew what was
going on. Nobody. We all got pushed into this variance.
We didn't ask to be in the variance.
So when I went up there, when I got the citation, or three
days after that, we got the letter in the mail saying the same date as this
disapproval. So I thought that it was all connected.
So I went up to the city,
and
I don't know how you guys are hitting us on both sides.
This was a final grade, March 3rd. The frost frozen, it
fell down this much. I still have like 15 grand worth of work to
do to fix my house. The company will not answer my calls.
They won't respond to me because you guys are denying them.
They don't want to work with me anymore because you guys did a final
grade for three inches. The good thing was, when we built the driveway,
we went ahead and put a garden. Me and my family spent a long time building the
garden. A lot of dirt brought in, so we can have nice things.
I have no idea what happened. Nobody got ahold of us.
Nobody talked to us. Company hasn't reached back out.
So I took care of it myself.
I disassembled my garden because we have to get our patio done
because it is uneven, crazy, and it's dangerous.
It was like that when we got here. I spent a couple of days trying to fix it a few
years back. It's time to get done. So we're like, "All right, we're going to save
up, get the patio done, and get the driveway
corrected so that we can put our trailer in the backyard." And then we get
the citation for that.
We are getting hammered every which way, robberies, every which way, and
there's no leeway anywhere. And we were told, we were almost
assured, that going through this process was our
remedy. We are seeking a remedy.
We-Cutting up the driveway. What?
Can I say something?
We may have made a mistake somewhere along the line, but
we have been misled too.
And I just,
I'm at a loss for words.
I would like to say, if I can speak as well,
that I understand your guys' position.
It's very unfortunate that this one person
came and got denied, and the associate of the city
that did it, may I add, in which we submitted the documents to her so
she told us she would help us, either got quit or
fired within a one-week period, and then we received a court date.
This woman-
She has, by the way, she has concrete missing on her sidewalk, into
her front porch, and in her driveway, open.
No concrete at all.
Regardless, it seems like-
And plywood
... a bigger issue for you guys to come through and deny 30 people.
And, like the gentleman said, if you look at our block, there are so many--
It's not cookie cutter. There is a dozen houses where their driveways face
north and south. There's people that have circle
driveways and a driveway.
Multiple
Two of them.
We have a very wide yard as well. We have a lot of grass. We maintain it.
We've done a ton of work, and I just think
the one issue should have maybe been settled with that person and the
employee instead of now, what is your neighborhood going to
look like in the property value? You make 30 people rip up their driveways.
There's garages on that street that face the back of the house.
They literally-
It's literally-
... have a-
... behind the house
... parking lot
The driveway goes from the sidewalk down the edge of the property all the way to
the back of the property line so they can get in their garage.
The whole entire thing. They can fit 20 cars in their driveway.
We can fit two before we expanded it.
Now I can fit three and maybe force four.
It's not for business. It's for my kids to have a safe place on that corner.
It's for me to have to take my two kids to
school and not have to move a different vehicle to get this vehicle out because my
other vehicle only fits two people.
It's
my property. Last year, we paid for the sidewalk, for the
city sidewalk. You guys come and tell us we got to pay for the sidewalk.
$800.
Sure, we paid the sidewalk. Put our trailer in storage.
What do you guys do? You guys come on our property this year, our property.
I guess we don't have property rights.
And now you guys are demanding that we cut up our driveway or a thousand
dollars a day.
It doesn't make sense. Something is wrong with the situation,
and I'm going to keep digging around.
I don't know what else to do.
All we want to do is have our three cars in the driveway and live our life.
We don't mess with nobody. We pay our taxes that are almost as much as our
mortgage. It'll only take them one more year or two, and my taxes will be as much
as my mortgage.
We get hammered everywhere we go all the way through this.
I've lived in Warren my whole life.
Never had any issues, ever,
ever.
It's
just a very unfortunate situation because we're hardworking people, and we're
just trying to raise our family. Like legit.
We pay $7,400 a year to live in the city of Warren,
have had an escrow shortage every single year.
When that man tried breaking into my house, and I know it has nothing to do
with this, but I just feel like everybody's resources-
What needs to be focused on
... can be done better. I was told by the 911 operator
to hang up the phone and call my husband.
A police officer didn't show for an hour and a half.
I was in the house alone with my three children.
Barricaded in a room.
That is what we need to focus on. I understand you guys are in a hard
position, but I don't think you should be holding hearings when all you can do
is deny it based on the variance.
And we were pushed into this process.
The first time I went there, the gentleman, I believe his name is Gary, which is
the guy I was told to get ahold of for the non-approval,
he chuckled and said, "Boy, you got yourself in a mess on this one." He
said, "Here, take that letter," which if you read it, it's not
properly spelled. It doesn't make any sense.
He said, "Put your name on here. We're going to make a copy, and we'll get in touch
with you." Okay. And then I go to the city because my
water tank is leaking a week afterwards.
I go there. I'm acquiring to do it for myself because
I can't afford to pay the $2,000.
Big run around.
I just lost my train of thought, but...
You don't want to pull a permit for to fix the water heater.
I haven't pulled the permit because I got this non-approval.
I got you guys breathing at me about this one.
I would rather clean up water on my floor than to deal with
public stuff. It's not my thing.
We had all this other work we had to get done.
We put everything on hold because of this situation.
And now there's no outcome. We're still in
limbo.
I just think to hold any more of these hearings is a
waste of anybody's time because all that's going to happen is everyone's going to
keep getting denied.
And he said it last week, and he said it again this week.
When we were here for our other neighbor-
But you guys get the chance.
Right.
We were told to come here for this. We were told that
all of us were going to be brought in a room together, and we were going to go
through this because this was a big problem.
I was told by all these people, the people behind the counter had
no idea. They were upset, visibly angry.
Said, "Don't you tear your driveway out.
You fight." This is what your employees are saying to us.
Not yours, but people behind the engineering desk.
Yes.
It went on and on. It was the third time.
Suzanne, I called her on a Thursday.
Her thing said two days to get ahold of you. So Monday, she called me back.
I'm at work.
I'm like, "I don't know what to do about this.
I'm trying to figure it out." She's like, "Well, if you come in, if you come
right now, I'll help you."I said, "Well, I can't come right now, but
I work by myself." I said, "Okay, fine.
I'll be there at 12:00." I go there, and all she did was she told me
this, but she led me to believe she was going to help me understand the paperwork.
She said, "Fill this out, make these measurements, and then I'll postpone your
court date."
She'll put a hold on court date. Fine. That's okay.
So we did that, sent it to her that night. It was a week, we heard nothing.
We call back. "Sorry, I don't work at the City of Warren no more."
Nothing. What do we get the next day? Appearance in court.
No matter what we do, we're getting shut down and nobody knows what's going on, and
all we're doing is chasing our tail.
Yesterday was my 14-year wedding anniversary.
I spent the night preparing for this after kids' baseball practice. It's crazy.
We're missing our kid's first baseball game today. This is silly.
This is silly.
If we did make a mistake, can you guys write us a fine?
It was not intentional. We thought we did our due diligence.
When we do everything else, the company says whether we need a permit or
not. That's what we go on. I didn't know that I'm supposed to do that with every
single thing. I thought the business would be the one that would be held liable for
something like that. They led us to believe.
I guess that's all we got to say. We already know what you guys are going to say to
us, but it feels good to get that off my chest because I've been sitting on it
for, I don't know, since March 3rd.
Thank you for that.
Thank you.
Thank you for that explanation. This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak on this item?
Please approach and start with your name and address and then your comments.
John Pozelski, 32052 New Castle. I'm just
watching this whole thing here, and
I'm amazed. This is supposed to be a committee of adjustment, right?
It's not a committee of the laws can't be changed, and they are the way they
are and nothing can be done about it. It's a committee of adjustment.
You have to have some common sense here a little bit.
And the way things are going here, it seems that the attitude is,
"Okay, we'll just cut up all these driveways, put all these cars in the street,
and have chaos,
absolute chaos in the neighborhood." You say that you're doing this to keep up the
standards of the neighborhood. No, you're not.
You're not keeping up the standards of the neighborhood.
These are pieces of property that have 100-foot frontage.
It's not like it's all jammed together, okay?
When these subdivisions went in in the '60s, you didn't have
three and four cars in a
household, which is very common today.
And yet nothing seems to change. It's like, okay, this is the
rules. It's black and white, and don't step out of line because I'm not happy with
that. You're talking about
Michelle and Darren should have gone for
an adjustment for something that a
permit wasn't required. How do you get an adjustment on something that
doesn't require a permit? And then you're going to deny them because you say, "You
didn't get a permit. You didn't get an adjustment." There was no permit that was
necessary at the time. But yet nobody seems to
recognize that.
That's all I got to say.
Hello, my name is Shantel Burt, and I live at 32548 New
Castle.
I was here before. I have gone to a meeting with the mayor to sit down
with the mayor to try to come up with some resolution with the mayor,
and again, getting the runaround. We're looking into it. We're looking into it.
I would personally like to see the mayor, zoning, and the council
try to sit down to work together because again, in making phone calls, we're
still getting misinformation.
One neighbor is getting a $1,000 fine.
Well, several neighbors are getting the $1,000 fine, where one neighbor is getting
a $200 fine. Some neighbors are being told that they're grandfathered
in, where we're being told nobody is grandfathered in.
So it's still misinformation. So there's no
clarity in even reaching out to the city's legal department.
So I think that all of the entities need to work together to try to come up with a
resolution instead of us coming here in this
public forum where you guys are clearly saying that you have to
abide by the rules. And we get that. We understand that.
But we need a resolution other than
getting misinformation, because that's all we're getting. I've emailed the mayor.
I went to that meeting with the mayor.
People are telling me they're going to call me back.
City employees have given me their cards.
And then when I call back, then nobody's responding, nobody's answering.
So,
we have no direction. We don't know what to do.
And even if somebody could tell us some direction, because all of the government
entities haven't sat down to come up with a resolution, we don't know who to listen
to. We don't know what it is that we should be doing.
I'm asking the mayor directly, should we be worried about getting these
$1,000 a day fines until we come up with a resolution?
If you're saying that at some point you got to rip your driveway up.
So how do we save money to rip up a driveway when you're saying you're going to
charge us $1,000 in fines every day?
One of my neighbors was absolutely given a fine. She paid the fine.
Her fine was only $200. And then they said, "Oh, you're grandfathered
in. We're going to give you your money back." So who's grandfathered in and who
isn't?
We need some real clear direction. Thank you.
Jonathan.
Jessica.
Hi.
Nice to meet you, neighbors.
Nice to meet you.
Please go ahead.
My name is Dan Prater, 32903 Cambridge Drive.
Is anybody in this board in our neighborhood?
Does anybody in this room
not want a driveway installed in the neighborhood?
Isn't this about the people in the neighborhood,
not necessarily a board?
The letter that we received, I received one too. It was very traumatizing.
I received it on a Friday. I showed up as early as I could on a Monday.
Extremely traumatizing to my wife and I.
Our driveway has been in existence for 15
years.They literally carpet bombed
our neighborhood because of one person.
Mm-hmm.
The correct decision would've been to correct that person.
Mm-hmm.
We're all here because of the decision that you made, and now you're making
decisions to cover up the first decision. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
I don't have an appointment here, but I'm here to speak as a citizen and as a
neighbor of this neighborhood. There's nobody in this room, that I know of,
that would deny having a driveway
in our neighborhood. I'm good with it.
I'm good with it.
So that's all I have to say. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for all those comments, Mr. Jersey.
Yeah, we have three things to read into the record.
Yep.
Plus, it-
Oh.
I'm back up.
Yes, it is
kind of a ridiculous thing, and I'm sure we all know this
because we are told, "Pay $90, come here,
and you may be able to keep it." But we're told, "Oh, well, the law is the
law."
Well, then what's the point of coming before the board
if that's all they're going to say is, "The law is the law," so we
can't go, "Well, okay, we understand your circumstances,"
and then say, "Oh, okay, well, we'll allow it because
it's been 11 years. We'll allow it. It's been 10 years. We'll allow it.
It's been 20 years."
So with this, I'll close the public portion in the auditorium here.
And Mr. Jersey, you've got a couple items to read in.
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is from a Douglas and Christine Berg, who reside at
32921 Newcastle. It says, "To whom it may
concern, please find and attach our letter in support of the driveway expansion at
the residence of Jessica and John Smith located at 32922 Newcastle.
As neighbors who live directly across the street, we wanted to share our
positive experience and express our full support for the
improvement. The driveway expansion has been in place for approximately six years,
has been well-maintained, and has been a positive addition to the appearance of
the neighborhood. Thank you for your consideration."
Next one
is, I believe it's from... Did you guys
submit an email?
I just submitted-
Oh
... extra stuff in email just-
Yeah
... that I didn't originally submit.
I will-
You don't have to read it, but-
I can read it into the record. That's fine.
Okay.
So this is from
Jonathan and Jessica Smith, who reside at
the said address tonight,
32922 Newcastle. Says, "To whom it may concern, we appear in
front of the zoning board-
Oh, that was for us
... tomorrow." Wait.
Is that you guys?
That's got to be right.
I was just-
That was for me.
Okay.
Yes.
All right.
I asked him. That was just for me to have some talking points.
Okay, gotcha.
Basically, I think he covered pretty much everything that's in here.
No, it wasn't that.
And then some.
It was just the notice of how many different properties on there,
the copies of the business cards that we have received.
Yep, we got all that. Yep.
And then just another image of the property-
We have-
... because we didn't originally submit that.
Yeah.
And those cards were just to show the clarity that-
Yep
... you were given.
All right. Thank you, folks.
So the next one is from
Leanne Jones, who resides at 32933 Newcastle.
She writes to the zoning board, "I'm writing in support of my neighbors, Jessica
and John Smith, regarding the driveway expansion at their home.
I have lived across the street from Jessica and John for several years and have
always found them to be respectful, considerate, and responsible neighbors.
Their home and property are exceptionally well-maintained, beautifully cared for,
and are a positive addition to our neighborhood.
They take great pride in their home, and it clearly shows in the appearance and
upkeep of their property. The driveway expansion that was completed
approximately six years ago has never created any issues or concerns for
me or, to my knowledge, for the surrounding neighbors.
It has blended naturally with the property and neighborhood and has not
negatively impacted the appearance, safety, or character of the area in any way.
In my opinion, requiring them to go through this process
after so many years seems unnecessary, especially considering the care
they put into maintaining their property and being good neighbors to those around
them.
Jessica and John are exactly the kind of homeowners any community would want, and I
fully support them and respectfully ask the board to consider approving this matter
favorably."
That's all I have, Mr. Chair.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jersey.
So with that, the public portion is closed, and we're turned over to the board
for discussion and questions.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Watts.
So I'm not going to repeat myself because I know you guys were here.
And I hear you.
I hear you loud and clear. I hear everybody loud and clear.
Now, I don't know what they're telling you at the desk.
A lot of stuff.
But, and I understand that. I get it.
But if they're telling you you can go for a variance, yes, you can.
That doesn't guarantee you're going to get it, and we have
criteria that we have to follow,
that has to fit into, and that's where the problem is.
Okay? Now, I don't know-
Should we be aware of the criteria?
Because maybe we could have addressed some of that stuff.
I
don't know.
I'm sorry.
I don't know on that, but-
It's in their packet.
I forgot to bring it.
Because I'm con- I
get it,
and I don't know
what the solution is. I hear your other stuff, but we're still in the same
situation. I don't know what went on with the trailer.
I had the same problem in my house. I got a violation for my trailer.
And I had to take care of it. But
Can I say something?
Yeah.
Actually, I won't. I'll just let it go.
I
hear you, but we have the criteria we have to follow, and we
turned down one. We actually turned down two.
So you have to turn down them all.
And you have to turn down them all.
Can we know what the criteria is?
So-
You had it in your package. You wrote it.
Got it.
Steve's got it. So Steve, did you have something you would like
to address to us?
Yeah. I'll put this on the record. The criteria is that
worksheet. That's what they have to follow.
You have to have hardships that meet that criteria.
Why-
So the questions we answered-
The questions you answered-
... understood
... that's part of the criteria.
Got it.
You have to meet that and go from there.
Understood.
So you have to fulfill those, so.
Thank you, Steve. Appreciate that.
So-
Never had a clue.
You know. Stuff on the dirt
... I'm all set. Thank you.
Okay.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Green?
Again,
the issue of, and I know sitting up here and saying, "We've got to follow
the rules and all the stuff," doesn't do s**t for you guys.
Doesn't make you feel any better, doesn't make the situation any better,
but we can't grandfather
a law.
You can't do it. You can't grandfather a law. You can't do it.
So,
well, you can't do it.
Can I ask?
So anyways-
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
No, it's okay.
Do you have a question?
I really would like to understand.
No, I'm going to explain. Let me finish because-
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said I could speak
... I can't-
I apologize.
No, you're good. So-
Okay
...
I don't think everybody being mad is going to get us anywhere.
I don't work for the city. I live in the city.
And what I've been seeing the last...
I'm new on the board, but what I've been seeing are people paving their
entire front yards
and parking 10, 12 cars in it on my street.
And it's not one house, it's multiple houses.
So somewhere along the line, whether you like it or not, we need
to address the driveway issue. Now, you're
not running the business. You don't have a bunch of people living in your house,
but
the more I sit here, the more I start to realize what's going on.
We're going to send this letter, and it's going to get sent over in a timely
manner.
And so someone's going to have to spend some time on it, and we're going to ask
some specific questions. So in the meantime,
I don't think they're going to be getting charged $1,000 a day.
But you don't think. That's a lot of money.
In the meantime, well, also, I don't work for the city.
I understand.
But all I can do is say I want the letter sent, and we're going to vote on it in
new business, and we're going to put the things we want.
I want to understand why there's all this confusion.
Right now I'm figuring out why there's confusion.
Number one, there should be a permit for a driveway.
And number two, Steve, I want to ask you this question, if you
can.
Let me see.
Are we allowed to put a trailer in the backyard?
Try to be-
As long as it's on hard surface and in the rear yard, five feet from the property
line.
Would the hard surface be a driveway?
It could be cement path.
So what-
What are we doing here?
So,
well, I'm try-
Something in the paper says no.
So we had a
person come up and say that they spoke to the mayor, and
I think
maybe you're starting to figure the problem out.
Read me?
Can be.
I think you're starting to figure part of the problem out
because this can be solved. My concern is, and with all
due respect, Steve, to all the departments,
what's going on?
So this one person has a list, and I'm trying to be as nice as I can, and I'm
not that nice, of all these cards of people who went out.
You mean to tell me not one of those people when the project started, went
and looked, "Hey, excuse me, homeowner, but that's not going to
pass."
Why did nobody say that? I'm trying to figure out what's going on, Steve, and I'm
being nice. All those people, there's seven cards on that
one. Not one person looked at that and
said, "Do you realize that's a violation of the
ordinance, so don't do it?"
Everybody who we
spoke to the last two months has come up here and saying, "Everybody said it was
great. Everybody said we were cool."
Well-
And then they get-
... I can't speak for the people that were there.
Then who can speak for them?
I don't know who the people are.
Well, I want to know who can speak for them, Steve, because-
They can speak for themselves.
Well, no, who do they-
I can't speak for any individual.
Wait, wait.
Mr. Green.
I want to make a clarification.
I don't need a clarification. I didn't ask for a clarification.
Those cards pursuant to the homeowner, the petitioner, were given
after.
Not before.
Well, when they came out for approval of their
driveway, that was before the driveway was poured.
And when they see forms put... Wait, wait, wait. Am I the stupid guy?
And they've got forms put in. We've had multiple ones,
Jennifer, of people who have forms put in, and they're told not to
pour, or they're told they can pour based on information they're getting
from the city. I don't care when they got the cards or not, and
you can protect the administration because that's your job.
But I've been sitting here listening to this for the last year.
Something's not right.
Where in this whole system is somebody saying
that... Who is in charge? Who's the person who's
supposed to say, "We're going to take care of this"?
I can speak for myself as a zoning inspector.
If I go out, I'm quoting zoning laws.
If someone has an electrical problem, I don't say anything.
That's not me. I don't try to correct someone else's problem.
If they have a building issue, I don't try correcting itI don't know who those
inspectors are. Engineering has inspectors.
We have a lot of inspectors in the city.
This is a zoning-
Right
... ordinance issue, and we do not go out and inspect
in the field for this type of thing.
So I can almost guarantee none of those seven cards are
zoning inspectors that know the zoning ordinance.
How many zoning inspectors are there?
A lot.
We have seven zoning inspectors.
Okay, there's-
There's zoning inspectors-
Yep, these are zoning-
Hold on, hold on. Don't speak
... that's me.
Thank you.
I wasn't out-
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait
... I know. I wasn't out at your house-
Excuse me, Steve.
Further discussion.
Here. Petitioner, please don't. You're hurting yourself.
So that's almost all of them,
and somebody in that group saw that this whatever
there-
I don't know when they were out there.
I know he has my card, and I know I was not out at this property.
So you can pick up cards at our desk all you want.
A lot of years ago. All right. Somewhere there's a problem. I'm not an idiot.
So.
Somewhere there's a problem, and it's not us.
There's a problem somewhere. Somebody's dropping the ball-
I-
... on all of this stuff.
I don't disagree with you on this.
Okay.
And I do think there should be some clarity, but the ordinance is
what the ordinance is-
Because to be honest with you-
... and go from there
... I'm getting tired of sitting up here and have people b******g at me because of
something that I don't control, and then when I ask people who
controls it, everybody says, "Not me."
Well, I control part of the ordinance on enforcement, and I'll go
from there.
No, I get it.
And I will put my-
I'll give you that much.
Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions or discussion?
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Lindsay.
I just want to make a comment.
We all on the board, we hear the concerns that these citizens
are having.
But at the end of the day,
whether you guys as homeowners know it or not, right?
I'm not going to get into that. There is an ordinance. Okay?
There is an ordinance. You have to have a permit
to extend a driveway past the garage line.
That's the ordinance, okay? The fact that we're all up here
and this is happening is because cement was poured,
and there is no permit for it. So when something is
outside of the ordinance, it requires a variance.
That is what we are here to decide, whether we will grant the variance or
not. I don't know what led this whole neighborhood to getting
cement poured without permits, whether it was
contractors, whether it's people at the city.
I don't know, okay? And that's where we can empathize with you guys.
We feel bad, but our job is to say
we don't set the permit. The permit's required.
A permit wasn't pulled, so that's why we're having this conversation, okay?
I'm not going to repeat my former comments.
I think we've all kind of said our piece on these things,
but I want you guys to understand the accountability has to be with the homeowner
at the end of the day, whether it's right or wrong. Permits are required.
Permits weren't pulled. Okay?
Can I just ask a question? It's just I understand that fully.
Unfortunately, there's no question that was directed to you.
If somebody has-
Okay
... a question.
Yeah. I'm ready to move forward on this.
Well, Mr. Lindsay, I know what you mean, but no permits
are required for the driveway.
Past the...
No.
Zero.
Zero permits.
That's why we didn't give them a permit to go.
Okay.
Just keep it.
So no one's coming out to inspect anything because there's no permits.
And we're allowing-
I mean, well, it is on the homeowner to know what the ordinances are-
... to get a trailer
... and how far they can go with their driveway.
I agree, but
only for engineering standards past the sidewalk is there a
permit required.
And your garage.
Doesn't that mean we're free-
Yeah, past the garage
... to do what we want to do?
Mr. Chairman?
Yes, Mr. Watts.
If there's no one else, I'm ready to move forward.
Well, is there another comment over here or no?
I just wanted to add that's why I was supporting these
petitioners on a case-by-case basis, because no permit was required.
It's up to the board to decide whether a variance is warranted based on the
uniqueness or not of the property.
This is another case where I think it's tastefully done.
My problem with the driveway extensions are when they extend in front of the front
porch and on that side of the yard. This is just on the other side to get into your
backyard. So again, I have no problem with this.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Christian.
Real quickly, just to that point, Mr.
Safaya, I think I can't speak on Mr.
Cliff's behalf, but he brought up that point with the last meeting.
He was okay with it going into the side setback versus it going
into the front setback. Two different animals, but Mr.
Cliff did bring that point what you just raised up, too, at the last meeting. So.
Sure. And of course, it just depends on the uniqueness of the property.
Each petition is a unique, independent
decision.
Mr. Watts? Not hearing any other discussion or question.
I'm prepared to make a motion.
Yes, please.
My motion would be to deny to retain the
widened portion of the driveway that extends 12 foot 11 inches from the
southwest corner
of the garage toward the south property line, and the reasons are
the same as the last. Not a burden. It was
self-imposed.
Property's not unique.
It is a detriment in my opinion,
and it was not a necessary add-on.
Support.
So we have a motion to deny by Mr. Watts, and with
support by Mr. Green for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Watts?
Yes, to deny for the reasons stated.
Mr. Green?
YesMr. Lindsay?
Yes, to deny for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Assessor?
Yes, to deny for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Perry?
Yes, to deny.
Mr. Safaya?
No. The practical difficulty standard has been met.
Mr. Jersey also votes no. I believe the practical difficulty standard was met.
Chairman Nostovich?
I also vote no. I think the practical difficulty standard was set.
So unfortunately, your request was denied on a five to three
vote.
Understood. You guys,
I would recommend finding a different way to deal with it, because the news will be
here, and it's just the most ridiculous
thing. There is no point in taking $95 of your citizens'
money when you already know you're going to say no.
You guys have a good night.
Thank you for your time.
Takes us to item number 11.
Item 11. Item 11, applicant Wayne Craft Incorporated, Representative
Jason McFall. Common description
32326 Exeter. Variance has requested permission
to allow a four foot, four inch by 18 foot,
11 inch, 82 square foot covered porch to extend to
within 22 feet, eight inches of the front property line, in addition
to a 484 square foot detached garage and
160 square foot enclosed patio in the rear yard for a total
of 726 square feet of accessory floor structure.
My name is Jason from Wayne Craft at
13525
Wayne Road in Livonia. And I'm here to get
a variance approved for the replacement of a front porch awning on the house that
was already there. It looks like it's been there from probably the '60s or the
'70s.
And then
it looks to be like an existing rear,
hybrid sunroom type structure on the back that's got a wood roof and
then sunroom walls based on the photos that I had seen,
that we did not do, but it looks like it's been there for quite some time.
But we just wish to do the awnings for the family at
this home,
just basically as a replacement for what's already there, just to cover their
porch and whatnot.
Okay.
Thank you for that explanation. This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak on this item?
Not seeing any, are turned over to the board.
Mr. Chair.
Yes, Mr. Watts?
I want to clarify, looking at the photo of the home, you're
replacing the awnings that are existing awnings?
Yeah, there should be an ex-- I believe it's an existing front porch awning.
Yeah. Yep, that's what I'm looking at.
Yeah.
So you're replacing those.
Yes.
So technically, there is no real change.
No, it's just going to be the same stuff.
Just replacing them. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Jersey?
If no other board members have anything additional to say,
prepared to make a motion.
I'd like to make a motion to grant the petitioners permission
to allow a four foot, four inch by 18 foot,
11 inch, 82 square foot covered
front porch to extend to within 22 feet, eight inches of the
front property line, in addition to a 484 square
foot detached garage and 160 square foot enclosed patio in the rear
yard for a total of 726 square feet of accessory
structure floor area due to the fact it's not a detriment to the area and the size
and shape of the lot.
Support.
So we have a motion by Mr. Jersey, supported by Mr.
Assessor, to approve the request for the reasons stated.
Mr. Jersey votes yes for the reasons stated in the motion. Mr. Assessor?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Perry?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Watts?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Green?
Yes.
Mr. Lindsay?
Yes, for the reasons stated.
Mr. Safaya?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
And Chairman Nostovich?
Yes, for reasons stated in the motion. Your request has been approved.
All right. Thank you very much.
Takes us to item 12. Applicant, Steven Paris.
Representative Steven Paris. Common description 21308 Sunset.
Variance has requested permission to allow the dwelling to be
used as a two-family residence in an
R1C zoning district.
Let's start with your name and address and then-
Hello, my name... Oh, sorry.
And your request.
Hello, my name is Steve Paris. I live at 21308 Sunset Avenue.
I've resided there since 2018. I'm coming to you
guys today because I purchased a home that was built in 1954.
It was built as a two-story duplex,
so it's almost a nearly identical footprint on the first floor and second
floor. It has two electric meters, two gas meters, two electric
panels.
It has two boilers, two completely different, separate
units that can't be combined
without spending an exuberant amount of money to reconfigure the home.
I
purchased the home in 2018. The person
who I purchased the home from, he purchased the home in 1989.
In 1989, he had canceled the contract
with the people who were renting the home.
The home has been a multifamily unit rental since 1955.
It was built that way. I purchased it with that understanding that it was a
multifamily unit. I live there. I've lived there since 2018.
I do not rent out the second-floor unit, but to modify the home would be
extremely expensive. To not modify the home would waste
almost 1,000 square foot of space in my home that I purchased and paid
for.
And I'm coming here today because I'd like to keep the home as a multifamily unit
because the home directly behind me is a triplex.
The home three doors down from, or five doors down from me, because there's two
empty houses... is a duplex.
There's about 40 rental properties on my street and the street behind me.
And
I have no intention on renting the home out, but like I said, I did purchase the
home with the opportunity to be able to do that.
But the home is not properly
allocated as a multi-family unit in the City of Warren.
But like I said, there is two kitchens, there's two
completely separate units. They're identical. They're not side by side.
They're up and down, first floor, second floor.
So there's a completely separate furnace system run up to the second floor
to the first floor. Like I said, there's water heaters, everything's separate.
Plumbing's separate, everything's completely separate.
And so, the city is saying that they would like me to
remove the stove from the second floor to make it not a multi-family home,
is what I've been told. After all my electrical on the first floor, there was
a smoke damage fire to the home, so that's kind of what brought this up.
As I'm renovating the home with no insurance money because 10 months later,
State Farm says, "You have to pay me any money on this home." Well, anything above
$50,000. So I'm personally footing all these bills myself.
I ran all new electric wire, I ran new gas,
completely repaired everything on the second floor. Everything's been approved.
And then the city is coming to me and asking me to demolish the second-floor unit
and just make it an empty voided space or spend probably approximately
$200,000 in renovations converting the home.
I don't have $200,000 for renovations, and I didn't buy the home with the
understanding that it was two separate or one unit.
And, personally, at this point, I couldn't afford to modify the home
to be one unit. So I'm basically asking you guys to grant me the
permission to adequately zone this home for what it
was built as in 1954. So that's what I'm here for today.
Okay. Thank you for that explanation. This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak on this item?
Not seeing any, I close the public portion and turn it over to the board.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Rutz.
So I have a question.
Yes, sir.
When was the second doorway installed?
The second doorway?
Yeah.
There's a total of four doors on the home.
Okay.
There's two doors. There's a door on the second floor to a balcony, a safety
balcony that was built as a fire escape in the event of emergency on the second
floor. There's a side door entry that's a combined joined
unit, so the side door in the driveway.
You can enter the basement, the first floor, or the second floor through that.
And
then the front door, there was a
door privately leading to the second floor with no access to the front door to the
front. During this process, I pulled a permit.
I pulled about $5,000 in permits to the City of Warren to add a second
door to the front to make it easier to get furniture, so I don't have to go and
take my couch, my massage chair, my refrigerator, anything through the dining room
window to get it out of the home. So I'm just making it easier access.
Okay. So you installed a second doorway-
I personally just added-
... to the front
... the second floor.
Okay.
Yeah, last week. Or second door. So it makes it a total of four doors
now.
Okay. And you bought the home,
but your intention is not to rent it as a duplex?
I'm not going to rent it as a duplex. That's just what I bought the house as.
So you're going to flip it?
No. No, sir. I've lived there since 2018. I reside there.
I have no intentions on moving until I move to like maybe Alma or something one
day, maybe when I have enough money to purchase five
acres for $400,000.
All right.
Okay. That's it.
Thank you.
So Mr. Watchpoint, I got some questions.
Excuse me.
Sure.
Do we have any
records on this dating back as a duplex, as
a rental,
or anything like that?
It has never been a rental duplex. It has never been approved any
way
that we could find.
As far as the permits, I would have to go look into that, but
that
still wouldn't have been a permit to allow it as a duplex.
That would've had to go through you guys to allow it as a duplex
and/or be rezoned by the planning commission.
Okay. So
then the next question, all permits have been pulled for what he's doing, correct?
I am not sure on all that. I know
there was some enforcement for
the electrical service release that there was some
enforcement for. I don't know if it's been pulled or not-
I see that
... by now.
Yep. I see that.
And then-
I would have to do the research.
Yeah, I had pulled permits for two new panels. Those are all installed.
I pulled permits for two new riser poles, two meters, two outside service
disconnects. All that's been coordinated with DTE to make this
process happen. All roughs are
passed. All the new insulation's installed.
The drywall's in the front yard waiting to be installed.
Okay.
Every-
So-
All the rough permits are completed at this point and paid for
Okay. So I'm looking at the other enforcement issues with trailers
and vehicles and stuff on the lot. I drove by there, as I do with everything we
get in the packet.
Are we into code on that stuff, do we know?
I have not been by there recently. I don't know if
you saw any trailers or anything. There is-
There is a trailer parked in the yard, and that's because that's storing all the
contents of my home.
And I kind of assumed that, so okay.
I was actually-
And we do allow that
... notified that.
Yeah.
I have two trailers on the property, and that's because the contents of the
property and what was sellable is in those trailers
temporarily, so.
Okay. I'm all set if anybody else has got anything, so.
I have actually a quick question for Steve.
That was me.
The other Steve.
Yeah.
The guy with less hair.
So Steve-
A little more than you.
I know. I'll give you that. I'll give you that.
So Steve, he brought up a good point about
other houses on that block. Is that whole block R1C,
zoned R1C?
I believe it's R1C or R1P.
Okay.
And if he gives us those addresses, we can start looking into them for
enforcement and go from there.
Got you.
Because he claimed... I just wanted to make sure.
So to speak of the record, the one is 21150 Sunset Avenue.
It's got two porches, two doors, two separate electric panels.
I've actually been in the backyard because I helped my neighbor cut down their tree
during the storm and haul it away for free for him.
Well, the thing is, you're going to have to probably just email Steve those
addresses on the side. We're not going to air dirty laundry right here.
No, I know.
But yeah.
Yeah. They're legal properties-
Sure
... they're legal tenants.
So I was just-
I went down and asked, and they couldn't tell me
individual addresses. They had no way to look it up, individual addresses, because
I actually wanted to show you guys, "Hey, in this one square mile, we have 54
duplexes." Or whatever the number might be.
Well, that's kind of-
They wouldn't tell me that information itemized on there.
That's kind of what I'm getting at, because this is kind of like one of those subs
that's kind of piecemealed kind of together.
We got multi, and then-
I haven't been in the field in a while.
I'm not sure if it is.
There's a couple on the south
end on the east side. He's more on the west side.
So I'm not sure if this street is...
But most of the ones I've been to over there are single family, I believe.
Okay. All right. Thank you, Steve.
Any other questions or discussions, or?
If not, any motions?
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Lindsey.
If nobody has any questions or other comments, I'll make a
motion. I'd like to grant permission to
allow the dwelling to be used as a two-family residence in an R1C
zoning district due to the fact that the property's
unique and it's not self-imposed.
Support.
So we have a motion by Mr. Lindsey, support by Mr.
Safaya, to approve the request for a reason stated.
Mr. Lindsey?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Safaya?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Perry?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Assessor?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Watts?
Reluctantly yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Green?
Yes.
Mr. Jersey votes yes for the reason stated in the motion. Chairman Stavich?
I also vote yes for the reason stated in the motion.
Your request has been approved.
Thank you very much, guys. I appreciate your consideration tonight.
Takes us to item 13.
Item 13, applicant Fares Golan. Representative Fares
Golan. Common description 26247 Shanor.
Variances requested permission to operate a private business office
within the home exclusively for the
administrative and recordkeeping purposes of a driving school with
no employees or clients visiting the property.
Good evening.
My name is Fares Golan. I live at 26247
Shanor Road.
The reason I'm here today, to request approval to use a small portion
of my home,
located, as I pronounce it, 26247 Shanor
Road, Warren,
as a private office space strictly for
administrative and recordkeeping purposes.
And please note the following. There will be no customers or
clients will
visit the property.
No signage will be displayed on site or property.
There will be no impact on traffic, parking, or the residential
nature of the neighborhood.
The space will be used only by myself for
office-related work.
This request is solely to maintain proper records
related to my business and will not involve any
on-site business operation or public interactions.
Please let me know if any additional information or documentation is
required to process this request.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Okay. Thank you for that explanation.
This is a public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak on this
item?
Yes.
Okay.
Hi, my name is Susan. I live next door to him.
I don't have a problem with him doing business at his rental home.
Can you have to state your full name and address?
Oh, I'm sorry.
For the record.
Susan Corey, I live at 26235 Shanor Road in Warren.
I don't have a problem whatever he's doing in his rental home inside of it.
Because we share the driveway, my dilemma is I want to make sure my kids are safe.
I don't want people to come over, like students, traffic.
But whatever he's doing is his business.
I want to
be able to get in my driveway and leave, and I don't want a lot of cars.
So he's saying there's not going to be people, but happen if that he does
not comply with whatever he's saying.
So that's all.
Okay.
Thank you for those comments.
Not seeing any other audience members.
We're closed to public portion of the meeting and turn it over to the board.
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Watts, then Mr. Jersey.
So-
Yes, sir
...
if you're running your business out of there with the office stuff-
Yes
... where do you meet your clients at?
I go pick them up from their houses and drop them back to their houses.
Strictly training.
Okay.
I am licensed for teens and adults, but right now I'm only
training, so I'm not conducting any classes or anything,
just training. So that's why I'm applying
for a provider for the state of MichiganI've been doing this
since 2000, for over 26 years. So strictly
training. Pick them up from their houses, drop them back to their houses after the
training. That's it.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Jersey.
Good evening, sir.
Good evening.
So just a couple questions.
Yes.
Are you the property owner?
No.
So this is a rental.
Yes.
The other thing,
so it's a driving school. So do you use your own...
I'm trying to understand where-
Yes
... because most driving schools have their own cars, or is this just-
Yes, I have a-
... you're using your own car?
I have a 2024 car.
It's going to be approved by the state.
Of course, they're going to pay me a visit to inspect the car.
I install a brake on it.
I'm going to have a $1 million liability on the car,
proper insurance, documentation.
Like I said already, the brake is installed with the proper company,
and after the approval of the city, then the state will pay me a
visit to inspect all that they need to see.
That's why they need to see a desk. I just have a small room, have a
desk, computer, a locker with a key on it.
That way, I can put all the students' documents in there.
It's secure, and that's it.
So just kind of just for my own information,
where do you keep the car? Is it on the premises, or you keep it off premises?
Yeah. My car, it's in my driveway, yes.
So this driving school car is in your driveway then?
Yes. But I'm going to have a portable sign.
So let's say when I go to training, I put the sign.
When I finish my training, put the sign, take the sign, it's magnet.
So take it off, put it
back and put it in my trunk.
Like I said, we'll be conducting no business with any students, not so
ever affect my neighbors or anybody else, or the traffic, like
I stated in my notes.
Here's the one thing,
the kind of slippery slope I see.
Yes, sir.
I mean, because you're here
just looking for
to use the home as exclusively for administrative and recordkeeping purposes.
Yes.
Where you have
actual property regarding the driving school
itself on the premises, whether it's a car, whether it's
whatever, that's kind of already...
My concern is forward-thinking, your business grows, okay?
And you do exponentially well, okay?
And you purchase two cars, now three cars.
You see what I'm saying?
Yes.
And
I'd also,
no offense to you, but I just have a hard-- Did you
clear this with the property owner?
Yes.
You did? He signed it already?
Yes.
He signed it okay?
Yes.
And, again, I have a hard time,
not that I don't believe you, but I mean, if said property
owner was here
trying to illustrate a little bit better, that would carry a lot more weight.
I have a hard time having petitioners,
people renting a property, come in fighting for that,
a variance that's going to go with the property forevermore.
We grant this, it goes with it forevermore.
It's not just for the duration that you're there.
So that creates another kind of slippery slope for us as
well.
So
those are just my concerns. I wish you nothing but the best and
success as an entrepreneur, but-
Okay
... tho- those are just my initial concerns.
So-
If you allow me to explain.
Mr. Chairman.
I don't have a question, so I apologize.
Mr. Green.
Mr. Watrous. So maybe
Mr. Jersey answered my question. So if we approve this, it's a rental,
and the rental sells,
the house stays as a house where you can run a business out of?
It would stay as a house where
I believe you can run a... The way it was written, it's not
any business. It would be specific to how it was written.
I didn't bring the form with me.
So specific to a driving school?
Oh, okay.
Just the administrative part of
it.
It would be,
and I did talk to the gentleman. We went through what his plans were and everything
else.
To be operate a private business office
within a home exclusively for administrative
recordkeeping
purposes of a driving school with no employees or
clients visiting the property. That is the variance that is before
you. So it is, we do try to restrict it when it comes before you.
So if it sells, someone could
move in and run a car business or another-
Could run a driving school,
administrative, and recordkeeping purposes only.
Okay, thanks. That answers my question.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman.
I just have one. Oh, can I just add a comment first?
Yeah.
See, the
issue I always have is that slippery slope where
this petitioner
says there'd be nobody visiting and all that sort of stuff, but
if this stays with the property, I mean, there's only room for
like one car in his driveway.
He shares a driveway with the neighbor,
so nobody should be parking there ever getting in the way,
and
he's located on Shaner,
which is a main street with a lot of traffic, so you can't park
in front of the house.
I just worry that it's like th- this is the kind of
situation where I could say, "Oh, guess what?
Someone could have a driveway extension or something."
So the issue I have is about taking something
that is a residential neighborhood and allowing a non-residential
use in a residential house. So that's my
concernAnd, Mr. Safayas, did you have a comment?
I echo the same concerns. I am a little bit relieved with
the pretty specific
description. Perhaps we could put a caveat that there's just one...
I guess the question from the petitioner is, the driving the
vehicle you use for business, is that also your personal vehicle?
Yes.
Okay. So there's just-
Yeah
... one vehicle.
Just one vehicle. And by the way, if you'll allow me,
my driveway, I think, holds about three, four cars
if you line them up, just like my neighbors.
But like I said,
only friends visit me, and I never had any problems.
But like I said, in my business, there will be nobody visit me-
Your-
... for this.
Your household just has one vehicle?
Does anyone-
Yeah, I have only one vehicle.
Does anyone else live with you, other vehicles?
No. I live by myself.
Okay.
Yes.
Then perhaps we could add just that there's one vehicle
related to the business.
I think with that, then you start getting into the
fact of actual property towards the business.
I think Steve worded pretty creatively-
It's pretty tight already
... and good, yeah, to tighten that up.
I figure if we
could put one car
on it, but I just think it kind of defeats the purpose of what you tried to
accomplish, Mike.
Actually, Brian did it. I got to give him credit when he does something good.
So, I mean-
With that, I'm okay with it as written. It is pretty specific.
Just for your information,
if you had a business and you only
did work at home bookkeeping-wise, whatever, and nothing was
brought there, that is an allowed use under the ordinance.
The fact is that he's got the car there now, and
he also needs the state approval, which we have to sign
off on for that business. So if the restrictions
are there,
it makes us be able to sign off as well as puts
it on for enforcement.
It's really no different. I have an office, but I take my work home.
I work in a bedroom I have set up as an office.
There's no clients there, just administrative stuff. So that's a good point, Mr.
Washburn.
Mr. Chair.
If there's no other comments, I'd like to make a motion.
Mr. Chair.
There is Mr. Green.
I think there is a difference in the sense that the ordinance is
pretty clear. Operating a business from a residence is not a permitted
use in R1C. And I think that
the definition is different than me or you or someone, in
my mind, working at home as opposed to running an actual
business out of there. And the fact that it's a rental and the fact that it could
sell
means someone could come and be aware of the fact that you can run a used
car thing out of there. Not used car, a
driver's school thing out of there.
I'm uncomfortable with
allowing people to run businesses out of their residence.
So I'll be a no vote.
Thank you.
Any other comments from the board, or...?
I was going to make a motion, but I think Mr.
Safaya, you were going to, so please do.
I'd like to make a motion to grant permission to operate a private
business office within the home exclusively for the
administration and record-keeping purposes of a driving
school with no employees or clients visiting the properties,
due to it not being a detriment to the area.
Support.
So we have a motion by Mr. Safaya, support by Mr.
Lindsey, to approve the request for the reasons stated in the motion.
Okay.
Can I ask a question on the motion?
Yep.
So where do we go with enforcement from here?
He adds a car or students start coming to the
location. How do we deal with the enforcement?
It would be a violation of the ordinance granted, and we would
do it as we do other enforcements.
Okay. Thank you.
If he adds a car,
I don't know if he's married or multiple-
No, I get it
... people there, but if there are two vehicles there, that would not violate
it. If there-
Understood
... was two vehicles and they had the signs on it and they're advertising there,
obviously he can't advertise there either.
There's certain restrictions with that as well.
Okay. I just want to be sure. Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
The roll call.
Mr. Safaya?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Lindsey?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Perry?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Assessor?
Yes, for the reasons stated in the motion.
Mr. Watts?
No, I think we're on a
wrong path.
Mr. Green?
No, it can be used as zoned.
Mr. Jersey also votes no. I believe it can be used as zoned.
And Chairman Stovitch?
I don't like having businesses in residential neighborhoods, so I am going to
vote no also.
So unfortunately, the request did not
pass
with a four to four vote.
Correct.
And he needed six.
Okay. Thank you.
Takes us to item 15.
Home Depot, HD, Development of Maryland Incorporated, Representative George
Ostrowski. Account description 25879 Hoover.
Grantee's requested permission to operate seasonal outdoor sales in the following
area. One, area two of the approved site plan measuring 40 feet
by 130 feet,
5,200 square feet from
5/1/2026 to 8/31/2026.
Two, area three of the approved site plan
-... measuring 20 feet by 125 feet,
2,500 square feet from 5/1/26
to 12/31/26. Total of
7,700 square feet of seasonal outdoor
sales per the site plan, per the plan.
Thank you. George Ostrowski, I'm a landscape architect excuse me, with Nowak and
Paras Engineers, 4677 Woodward Avenue, Pontiac,
Michigan. With me also is Mr. Dennis Sanders,
the Home Depot store manager,
available for questions should anything come up.
Clearly, the application pretty much states it.
I know there's been an ongoing approval
process with Home Depot requesting outdoor sales
areas on site. It's a function of
today's large retailers.
This store, as old as it is, I believe the first
outdoor sales dates back to
2009, and subsequently, the store has been coming in to
re-up those uses seasonally every year.
The seasonal consumer demand for plant and landscape materials in the spring and
fall,
these demands exceed the store's capacity to
house these goods, both the plant materials and then the larger
landscape materials like mulch, soil,
and concrete, and the like. Very
specifically, the request
sets a time frame
within which the goods would be stored outside.
I think item two or area
two is an area that's sort of cordoned off in the parking lot.
The other area, area three, is an area up close to the existing
garden center that would be primarily used for outdoor plants.
With that, I would be happy to answer any questions.
Audience?
I'm sorry, if I could just add quickly.
On behalf of the planning department, we just, as a matter of fact,
yesterday, submitted a revised site plan.
I know the plan that I believe is in front of you was done
so long ago. The planning department requested that we submit a
current site plan-
So where is it?
... which identifies some-
Where is it?
... potential additional areas that the store would be looking for
to maybe store in the future. If the planning commission
approves that, there is a potential that we could be back before this
body for a similar use permit. But again,
we just submitted the plans yesterday.
It has to go through the whole planning process, so.
All right. Thank you for that explanation. This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone from the audience wishing to speak on this item?
I'm not seeing any. I close the public portion. And Mr.
Jersey, do you want to read the impact statement from planning?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Per Ram Worth, the planning director, after review of the
request, no issues were found to impact the abutting local or general public.
The variance request matches areas number two and number three of
the approved site plan that the petitioner received for a minor amendment
to the site plan for permanent outdoor sales area to Home Depot
on February 25th, 2019.
Mr. Chair.
Okay.
Turn it over to the board. And Mr. Green, you want to start?
Yeah. I have a couple of questions.
So
if you look at,
I've got the minutes from the last go-around with Home Depot, and there was
one, two, three, four.
And at the end of the day, nothing happened.
And my question is, what I would ask Mr. Waterpan about...
No, I don't need you. I'm talking about the minutes from last year.
We didn't have the ability to enforce because nothing
got
done.
So we're back up here again today, and
my first question was,
I want this to be temporary, not permanent.
I would like whoever makes the motion to add that as a condition.
That's my opinion. And secondly,
with all due respect, you knew you were going to be here today,
and you applied for a new site plan
yesterday.
So you get my-
I understand.
Okay.
The season currently is a huge
economic driver for Home Depot.
Actually, it probably started in the beginning of April,
but to not allow outdoor sales
now, our planning commission date isn't set until July
13th. So assuming, we're two or
three months from that, the
money that is lost in that window because you can't store
outside is the primary driver. I discussed
it with planning staff prior to submitting this
application. We just want to be transparent with the board that
we are submitting the site plan revision.
It very well could happen that the plan could get
approved and they don't decide to act on it until the following year.
But that's not my decision.
I know.
That's their corporate decision.
Again, for us, for me, does that put us in a situation again where we
have no enforcement,
what's the word I'm looking for, no enforcement
options?
What?
Do you get what I'm saying?
I understand you completely.
All right.
So I'm going to try to clear it up for everyone
What they are coming for today is what they had a site plan
approval for in 2019, I believe-
I saw that
... for the seasonal temporary sales in those two
locations. They go beyond that, enforcement can happen.
And I've talked to the manager who's here, and he's well aware of it.
He actually has done a great job and cleaned up a lot of the stuff
that was there when we first sent a notice to reinforce it after you
guys denied it last time. So he is working on
that. He's relatively new there.
He wants to work with us. That's why they're going through a new site plan,
because they would like to have some storage in the back, some racks back there
and stuff like that. Which, if they do, they'll have to come back in front of you.
This is only for the temporary storage in the two locations
that basically had been there
before they expanded and created a lot of that, that you had
seen in the last couple of years.
And again, I guess my concern is that we went four
schedulings last year. In my brain, I would've
applied for, I don't know the process, a site plan,
different site plan, way previous to this, because it would
appear then when this new site plan's approved,
are you going to come back for more outside sale area?
Possibly.
That's what
it seems like is going to happen
because we've done this. So I'm a little bit concerned about-
Well, when-
What's the right word? Intent.
I can tell you this. When it was denied last
time-
Uh-huh
... we started the enforcement, and this gentleman cleaned everything up.
He didn't think he could go back, and that's probably
why some of that was delayed. He met with me at the office shortly
after. I said, "Yeah, you can go back for a site plan.
You were denied for that, so it'll have to change
what your request was. But you can go back
through the site plan process. I know that they didn't want to do
the permanent stuff, so if you go for the temporary, you can go for that now too,
based off the last site plan that was approved."
Yeah. That's me.
That's-
I prefer temporary. Dennis, can I ask you a quick question?
Yes, please.
So,
in the back of the building last year when this all stalled out with Home
Depot, one of our concerns was there
were storage containers back there
behind the building.
Yes.
And that was outside storage that wasn't approved.
Are there still-
So there was one of two. So number one was they had a
storage container they would keep assembled grills in. We no longer have that.
I turned that off. We're not getting those.
I know at one point, too, our break room got remodeled, that back area, so for two
weeks, there was a storage trailer which the people doing the work
there were supposed to get a permit for. We did not know they didn't.
Was it the brown one?
Yep.
Okay.
Yep.
That answers my question. All right.
If I may, I've been with the company 31 years. Home Depot is a great company.
We have a great partnership with the community.
That's why I was brought to the store. I've been there a year.
When I first got there, I saw the condition outside, what it looked like,
everything,
working with the city, with Steve and everybody.
We did get it cleaned up, and that is our goal going forward.
What we're proposing
hopefully keeps it more clean and organized, but realistic.
I'm in the peak of my season. So our Memorial Day ad breaks tomorrow.
I'm in the thick of it, and I cannot maintain what I have inside.
Customers are getting upset like crazy because we cannot keep enough
trucks because the turns, it burns so quickly.
It's a weather-driven business. We've been getting rain and cold.
We got 80 degrees this Sunday. Who knows what it's going to be like?
The reality is, with the plants and stuff we sell,
I have to have some kind of outside storage. No other company doesn't.
You look at Lowe's, go drive to them. You look at Menards, Walmart.
Yeah, I mean everybody. So we're trying to do it.
My commitment is I will continue to work with you guys, follow whatever is put in
place, keep it clean, keep it organized going forward.
We want to have a good partnership.
There's been something in the past between Home Depot and this.
I want to fix it, and that's what I'm here for, and I've done everything I can so
far in one year to try to fix that-
I'm just so glad to know
... so that we're both successful.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Lindsay.
I would just make a comment to the board.
I totally get it. I was here last year seeing
this specific store playing some sort of games, who
knows? But we never really got to see the request.
I'm actually very happy that you're here, sir, that we have
something in front of us.
I drive by this every day. I work down the street, a ways
down, but I drive past this Home Depot.
It looks a lot better than it did a year ago, so thank you for that.
I would definitely be in favor getting something on the books that said, this is
what the plan is. They have to stick to it. If they come back, so be it.
We'll hear that request. But at least this gives zoning something
to follow too. You guys have to have some sort of
outdoor space, so I'm definitely in favor of this
request.
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Jersey.
I
have to say the same thing that
Mr. Lindsay said.
It's really cleaned up,
especially on the east side of the building, which was an absolute disaster.
There was multiple pallets and stuff. To me, it was a big eyesore.
I think the sticking point last year was, I think Home Depot came to us, and it
did have that permanent language in there, and that was the biggest sticking
point with us,
making sure that the way it currently looked, which was a disaster,
didn't permanently exist. So
this is, I think, one of the
newer site plan when I got
on the board.
As long as you can adhere to what you're saying in areas two and three,
I think that's a good thing.
I know a point of contention, too, was the residents behind you.
So when you're doing your site plan, when you're doing your revision or whatever
with planning,
just taking into consideration the property owners to the west of you
I know storing on that side of the building too, depending on what you're storing,
became a problem in the past.
But yeah, I could
get behind this plan,
and as long as it does say seasonal outdoor storage, we
can
just put seasonal and not permanent into the motion
to satisfy some-
It's got dates in it.
It does have dates.
But yeah, I think this is a very good plan, and thank you for
cleaning up the debacle that it was.
So,
I'll yield the floor to that.
Mr. Chairman?
Yes, sir, Mr. Safaya.
I agree with Mr. Jersey. I think this is a very nice site plan.
The only thing I see missing, maybe you don't have this, I haven't been to your
Home Depot this season yet, but aren't there usually plants and
hanging baskets and lawnmowers by the entrance to the-
So right now we don't have any of that.
That is part of the site plan that we're looking at maybe in the future.
We've cut back. We stopped carrying fence panels.
We stopped carrying tractors. There's a lot of things.
We don't carry our bikinis. It's hurt us quite a bit in sales, I'm not going to
lie, customers also, they're going to other locations.
But to be within ordinance where we're supposed to be, we've had to cut
back. We don't have any lumber outside, no concrete.
We do have some mulch and soil out there right now.
I
saw probably two truckloads today, easily, of soil and two truckloads of
mulch. So it's got to rotate in, but it's all been rotating.
None of it's sitting out there for a number, a lot of time.
So we're taking that all into consideration.
My goal is to keep a good clean soil outside all year round, get it in by
Fourth of July is my goal. I know we asked for a little bit more, but
that's my personal goal to have it all inside here.
Okay. Thank you for clarifying.
Mr. Chair.
I have no other comments.
Okay. Yes, Mr. Watts?
So
I know that that store is a small store,
and
as much as you're trying to do there, it kind of overpowers
everything that you've had out in the lot.
I've seen all that, and I know the size of the
property. Is there any thought that perhaps you guys could build another
building in that out lot back towards...
That's kind of over my head. It's been brought up a couple of times-
Me-
... by some people, and we have submitted that.
There's been talk about a lot of things to do with it.
It's an odd layout, that second lot. Very odd.
I don't know what the thought process was a long time ago.
I don't see it happening, truthfully, but that's beyond me.
I mean, we submitted it in.
It doesn't have anything to do with approving it.
Yeah, no, no.
I'm just thinking out of the box because what I don't want to see
is Home Depot say, "We've had enough and we're moving."
Oh.
I don't want to see an empty building.
We're a facility of Warren and the people. We're not going anywhere.
And I know you guys support a lot of stuff, so I
haven't been by there lately, but if
these guys say that it's been cleaned up, I'm good with this.
If I could add one other thing we've done.
So when I got to the store, we didn't know the process, and that was the general...
Oh, I'm sorry. One of the things we've done, when I got to the store, we didn't
know the process, when to apply. There was other people working on permits.
We've actually went through and worked with our regional team to set up calendars,
times of when we need to do things. So we're keeping track of all this, so next
year we know when to come up, when to apply, what to do.
I think that's the biggest thing. When looking at the paperwork, you see all these
different store managers over the last 30 years. There's 30 different names.
We change. We do, we rotate. I'm not planning on going anywhere.
But if I do, the person that comes in next time will know what to do.
I think that's a big part. Thank you. Thank you.
Fair enough.
Any other questions or any motions?
Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Watts.
I'd make a motion to approve the
variances to operate the seasonal outdoor sales
in the following areas. Area one, area number
two of the approved site plan measuring 40 by 130,
5,200 square foot from 5/1/2026 to
8/31/26. Two, area three of the approved
site plan measuring 20 by 125, 2,500 square feet
from 5/1/26 to
12/31/26. Total of 7,700 square
feet of the seasonal outdoor sales per the
plan. And the reason is I don't see where any of this is a problem.
It's not a detriment, so support.
Support.
Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Watts, support of Mr.
Jersey to approve the request for the reason stated. Mr.
Watts?
Yes, for the reason stated.
Mr. Jersey votes yes for the reason stated in the motion. Mr. Perry?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Assessor?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Green?
Yes.
Mr. Linzey?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Mr. Safaya?
Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
And Chairman Stovitch. Yes, for the reason stated in the motion.
Your request has been approved.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Have a good evening.
Takes us to item 16, which is new business, and we do have three things to
discuss. First one's simple. Who's going to the appreciation
dinner on Monday?
I will not be attending.
I'll be there.
Okay. I plan on being there too, so.
Okay. That was the easy one.
Second,
Mr. Green earlier tonight talked about us wanting to have a
letter sent regarding the
driveway expansions.
Mm-hmm.
And so,
Jennifer, got a question.
Yeah.
Could you assist with the wording of that letter?
That maybe we could then be able to review something at our next meeting on the
27th or so.
Because-
So-
I'm thinking-
Yeah
...
because what we want to do is state to the council, this is a
problem that we're seeing. It's not going to be going away
And to maybe get some
direction or-
Because, yeah
... well, what I'm thinking is if we send to
council explaining that we've had many driveway complaints, and Steve told me he'd
get a number for us from last year.
I do not have that ready today.
Oh, I know.
Mm.
So,
okay.
So with the number that says how many we've had,
because there's a couple ways to deal with problems like this.
One of them is to let what happened today keep on happening, and
then somebody's going to have to do something, because it's
already become a problem for the administration.
So that's one way to solve it. The other way to solve it is
to send a letter,
look at the ordinance to see if there's anything that needs to be changed.
I'm not sure
that there's a lot of wiggle room on changing it in ordinance, but that's just me.
And ask why there are no
permits for driveways and things like that, that we discussed, that we thought
about. And then hopefully they will then
send the letter over to planning. I don't
know if that's the procedure or whatever it is.
But it needs to be done before we
have a lot of mad people at us for whatever reason, but it's
become a problem.
If there is an amendment to the ordinance, that would have to go to planning.
Right. So whatever the process is, but I think we need to be proactive and send the
letter
sooner than later.
I guess in my opinion, I think you should go on what you would...
You guys can hear me.
Okay.
In my opinion, I think you should vote to send the letter with the items
that you want included.
The zoning board of appeals has seen X amount of petitions regarding the
specific ordinance.
Can you please
direct whomever planning to review it-
Put a moratorium on enforcement until-
Yeah
...
Can you direct planning to review it and possibly
require permits for the driveways,
too?
That's not the... So, Mr. Chair.
That's the last thing I want.
Yeah. So
I thought that's what you just, and maybe I misunderstood.
I-
No, it is. I'm just talking about when
Dave said a moratorium.
I don't know that...
When you say a moratorium, so we're doing enforcement right now.
So let's talk this out so we can figure this out.
So we're doing enforcement right now,
and some people think that everybody has different opinions up here based on what
they see in the ordinance, so we're doing enforcement.
So these people that were here tonight,
they going to be tearing their driveways out?
That's what we voted on, yes.
Okay. So there's two ways to get action.
One is to make action happen by denying everybody who comes up here, and
we didn't create that.
I heard the comment that we, we didn't create this.
People paved their entire front yards.
That created it, and then neighbors turned to neighbors and created the issue.
So
I'm just not sure the moratorium thing is-
I think the moratorium would be on the enforcement
because I would hate to have somebody while this is going on being hit by
a thousand dollar fine.
We've already done it, though.
Well, that's just-
You don't see... This is what we're in. We've already done it.
We've got people who have spent thousands of dollars tearing driveways out already.
So we tell them,
"This is what we..." That's why we have to expedite kind of quick.
I think the letter should say,
and I'll make a motion that we send the letter to council,
and then we can have more discussion after my motion.
But send the letter to council explaining that we've had many driveway complaints
since Steve will give you a number in the last year.
Please look at the ordinance to see if there's anything that needs to be changed
or are there any ways to help solve this problem.
And possibly, implement permits for
the driveway portion to eliminate confusion because that seems
to be a big part of it. I think people are confused.
They think when they get the one thing...
And anybody else add to the letter, go ahead.
I mean, if you think-
Yeah, I-
I'll try to get something up here-
If you think a moratorium's a good idea, add it to the letter.
I don't like the idea of requiring a permit for the driveway, though.
I think that just makes it more complicated and burdensome and costly for the
homeowner.
Well, it's not very clear.
I think-
Actually, it's not clear for a homeowner because when you think-
It's not
... what they're asking for a variance against is the yard use thing, and if
you read this, nowhere does it talk about a driveway in it.
Oh, I'm sorry. You mean the
original ordinance?
Yes.
It's as confusing as it talks about ornamental, and it's really kind of-
I know
... believe me-
... kind of goofy
... I have mixed emotions about the permits because I just did my roof, and I got
a permit for the roof, and the only inspection they did
is he came out, and he walked around.
I mean, he did give it a good look,
and that was the inspection.
And so be it. I mean, I've played by the rules. I did a shed years ago.
I played by the rules.
Did siding, windows, all that stuff, I always played by the rules on that.
But here's the problem,
and Ms. Bertha was here that we had who we turned down the
last time.
This is where the people are playing the games with everybody's mind.
They go to the city, and they say, "I'm replacing my driveway.
Do I need a permit?"
And they say, "No."
You don't need a permit between the
sidewalk and the house,
but you do need it for the approach or the sidewalk.
So
they go and they do it,
and they widen their driveway
And that's not replacing their driveway when you widen it.
That's not replacing it. You're adding to it.
And I think this is where the permit plays in.
And in particular, the guy that turned everybody in, he had a
stop order,
specific stop order, he was told, and I think she had a stop order too, if I'm
not mistaken.
I'm not sure.
You know-
He did
... and
I don't like the game these people are playing.
And here's what else I don't like, is everybody's going to move into the
neighborhood and they're like, "Oh, Mr.
Safaya, he's got a nice little extension on his driveway. I think I'll do that.
But I'm going to add another foot."
And in my particular situation, I might add 50 feet for
my fifth wheel.
And
it's just people are just going to continue to do this if
there's no permit and there's no enforcement.
And it's obvious we have no enforcement in this city at
all.
I mean, all these driveways should've been caught if we had the...
All due respect, Steve, if we had enough inspectors.
But at the same time, the letter we're
penning to council is, "Hey, find a solution for this," or one
size fits all
rule.
I don't think I said that.
Well, that's... I mean, council has to vote on
a rigid rule or an ordinance update.
Well, what do you think we should do, Dave?
I think that this board should evaluate-
Okay
... each one-
And approve?
... and determine if it's tastefully done, if it's oversized, if part of it
has to come out.
But that opens up the problem. So the new ordinance is tasteful?
No, I'm saying that we have an ordinance now.
Anytime someone goes over and above the ordinance, the purpose
of this board is that they come to us, and we decide if it's justified or not.
So-
But see, the issue I have is like, the ones that are so old,
like put in 11 years ago and stuff,
part of me would like to be able to say certain ones, like past a
certain time had been, I use the term grandfathered in,
because it's been in there. I know one in my neighborhood that was out
there 40 years ago.
I have it in my neighborhood too.
And I'm like, "It's been like that for 40 years." If you go and tell that
person that they have to tear it out now you know.
So let me give you an example of something that's going on.
You guys probably heard about this because I turned it in.
I don't know yet.
But on Hayes, between Common and 14 Mile,
as long as I've ever lived there, some people have graveled
or cemented between the curb and the sidewalk and parked their car there.
And I get it. I hear those accidents on my street, and that's not a pretty
sound.
I get it. Nobody ever complains. Now, with the population
is changing, people are moving in, and now we got people parking their
Jeeps on their front lawns, I mean, up by the porch.
There are ruts in the front lawns. It's a mess on Hayes over there.
Nobody's added any concrete. They no longer
keep the gravel clean. It's just grass growing up through it, and they're parking
in it, more ruts. This is the problem you have when you let people do this
kind of stuff. It's never been a problem in all
the years that I've lived here, and in the last five or six years,
it started changing, and it's a mess.
The city is a mess. I go out and I look, me and Mr.
Green and Mike, we've been out many-
We've been on this
... a couple times together. And I've been doing this when I was on council.
I go look at all of this stuff.
I can't stop saying that.
And I see all of the stuff going on, and it's like if...
And this is what causes the problem.
You give a variance
because, oh, it was okay. But then the guy down the street, he sees it and he does
it. Well, his is not so tasteful. I mean, I had this,
not you guys, it was when Karen Purdy was on it.
But a guy put up a fence. I thought I was living in a pig
farm. It looked like a fence on a pig farm, and I couldn't
do anything about it. There was no enforcement because the
ZBA passed it. And guess what? It made the neighborhood look
horrible. Everybody was complaining.
I think that one guy made a good point, that one person that
came up and said that it's not 1955.
I never really thought about that, that people have more cars now.
Well, they're wider too. Think of-
Well, yeah. I never thought of that.
They're bigger.
I thought that-
SUV's are wider
... I thought that was a good point.
They're wider.
All the more reason for the ordinance maybe to get re-looked at, but...
When I started in the zoning division, we
only allowed it the same as engineering, to the edge of the-
Door
... garage door.
We've expanded that as a policy to go to the edge of the
garage. So we gave that extra room because of these cars being larger.
Couple other things I want to clarify.
Grandfathering is not a clause used in
zoning. It is non-conforming. No one would ever tell
them they should be grandfathered in.
I've heard that from many other ones out there.
Grandfathering is not a term used by zoning inspectors.
I can't get that law.
There was one other point. Oh, permits.
We have a fence permit that's $25 for 100 feet.
It's our cheapest permit. It is basically a
internal review
to allow that. We do not do outside inspections, and I think
this would fall under something like that.
If we had a driveway permit, it would be an internal
review and go that way. And the cost is not up to
us, it'd be up to the council. But it-
I totally missed what you said.
Uh.
What?
We have a fence permit right now.
It's our cheapest permit. It is an internal review permit.
So we review it when it comes in.
It's $25 for the first 100 feet.
If we approve it, they have their permit, they put it up, nothing
elseIf there's a complaint on it, we go and do an inspection like we do on
any other complaints, but we do not go do a physical inspection
on that.
So, if we did something like that with the driveway permit,
that it's an internal review, it should be a minor cost
because I know I heard cost up there,
just a nominal fee, that it gets internally
reviewed to meet whatever ordinance if
they change the ordinance going forward.
That way, it would require the permit and everything else.
Administratively, we do work on it.
So, $25, whatever,
$50 fee, whatever gets charged would be charged, but that'd
be for council to do it. But that would be a way
where there would be no scheduled inspection,
but if they don't comply with what is drawn,
it's in violation just like anything else that's out there.
So, you bring up a good point, Steve.
So, when I was there and seeing you when I got my permit, lady in front of me was
getting a permit for a fence.
And she was all about, "There's no way I'm putting the good side
outside."
So, if she gets a permit,
there's no guarantee that she'll do it right.
There's no enforcement, unless there's a complaint
or-
Or someone drives by and sees it inspector-wise
... and now, and this is not your guys' fault because somebody made the rule of no
inspections. So now here we are. That's why we have all these fences that look
like they are.
Well, that ordinance went into place in 2013.
Before that, it was legal to have it the other direction.
Yeah.
So.
Okay.
So I just want to do what the ward wants.
If you guys don't want to send the letter, Nicole, you guys-
I'm trying to write something up now. I'm going to give it to you guys.
Well, but we can use the other technique, and
I'm fine with using the technique of letting it fester to a boil, and then
something's going to have to happen. It's almost there.
You can...
I mean, one guy over there was not a happy camper.
My suggestion is if
we don't want to do anything in haste, bring back the ideas for the next meeting.
I mean...
The only problem is there'll be four people here at the next meeting that we're
going to
. You know what I mean? And I felt-
I think the next meeting's a shorter meeting, so.
I-
I hope so
... my apologies.
No problem at the next meeting.
Sorry. All you're doing,
no one's acting in haste. This is just getting the ball rolling.
Send the letter,
start looking into this because it's a problem, and the details
can be worked out later.
It's for council to work out. It's for planning to work out.
They're the ones that have to vote on it.
The attorneys to write if the ordinance changes.
Whatever you say.
So no, if you guys want to get the ball rolling, I think vote, send the
letter, and the details will be worked out later.
I think the letter should be very simple, that's all.
I got something for us. What do you-
I think it
should say-
Okay
... that we've had a problem. Look at the existing ordinance.
I've gotten something written up. You want to hear it?
I guess.
Yeah. No.
Then that means it's a no.
I guess it's a no.
I've lost my motivation because-
Okay, guys. This is what I came up with
to send to council.
Going to send them a letter, Ms. Pierce, stipulating review ordinance section
4.06 regarding yard use to include review of the
issue of driveways being poured without a permit and requiring a permit to pour a
driveway and making clear the restrictions about pouring into the front or
side setbacks.
Perfect.
Period.
Sounds good.
I like that.
I don't think it says what we
want.
We want them-
What do you want to add to it?
Well, I want them to know that in the last year, we've
had 25 driveways come to us, and it's something
that needs to be looked at, and that's pretty much it.
I mean-
We've been kind of all over the map as far as granting them and not
granting them, even before you guys were on the
board.
I wasn't aware of that, so.
I can get that.
Yeah. The letter should state, "Hey, let's look at this,"
and just state, not a specific, "Oh, we
had 50 over the last year." We've had many over the last year, and we've still got
many to come. Please look at this.
And maybe ask,
"While you're looking at this, can we put a moratorium on
these inspections or..."
I'm not for a moratorium on anything.
You know.
I don't think it's the right move. I don't think it's the right move.
If we do asking for a moratorium, maybe put six
months until
something comes about.
That could be for council to decide.
Yeah.
Mr. Chair.
That's something the council could decide. Yes, Mr. Rutz.
So,
where are we on enforcement? Because I know a lot of things have been turned down
in the last year, and I'm going to start keeping a record
because I don't see anything changing.
Where are we? What are we doing? What's happening?
As far as enforcement, we got to, again,
go through the process. They do have an appeal process, everything else.
Who's it appealed to?
Circuit court.
Okay.
So, if it starts there,
it could stay the process, and I believe we had one.
I'll ask our city attorney. I believe we had one
that did go through the appeal process with
circuit court and was denied at that point.
That is correct.
And then we started enforcement by
giving them a 10-day notice again because that had passed,
to give them time to reach out to us and give us a time
period. So, if they reach out to us and sayYou know,
we're going to change it, we're going to do this, but we need a
month to do it.
We do a letter of responsibility with a hard date,
and if it's not taken care of by that time, tickets are issued.
We go to court.
If they failed to do it by that time, a second
ticket would be issued. We would continue the process.
I have not gone to a misdemeanor yet on this,
but it is possible that it could climb all the way up to a misdemeanor.
So, like these people tonight,
they're not in fear of this immediate $1,000 a day-
No
... fine?
No. That is our standard letter.
For the most part, people do come in
and are worried about it and come in and talk to us.
The
first ticket
per offense would be $200.
Okay.
Second offense would be $400, and then the third offense
would be $1,000 as far as our
blight violations. Now, if they have multiple
offenses, it'd be $200 for the first one-
Okay
... and so forth.
All right. I'm not heartless when it comes to these people, but they have to
understand that somebody created the problems,
and at some point you either stop it or you just let it run rampant.
So,
I appreciate you explaining that.
Yeah, I think I got something.
I added a couple things, or add one little thing.
So,
I came up with
to send the council over a letter. Ms.
Pierce, I'll rewrite this with you because my chicken scratch, you probably can't
read this.
I'm just typing it right now.
So, we'd like to-
Thank you. So, per ZBA
members, I'd like to make a motion to cast a vote
to send a letter to
review ordinance section 4.06 regarding yard use to include
review of the issue of driveways being poured without a
permit and requiring a permit to pour a driveway and making clear the
restrictions about pouring into the front or side setbacks.
In addition,
would respectfully appreciate any additional suggestions or recommendations council
may have.
Perfect. Can you catch all that?
If you can read this.
Good luck.
She's got your email.
Yeah.
I'm recording it
right now.
I know. I kind of went... Yeah, hang on.
No, I can read that. We're good.
We good?
Mm-hmm.
Okay. So,
that's my recommendation letter, and I
submit that to the board to vote on.
I make a motion to accept that.
Is this just kind of the motion, or? Okay.
Motion to send that letter I just read into the record-
Oh, yeah
... over to council.
Yes.
Support by Mr. Sess.
They're not going to do anything.
All in favor?
Aye.
Anybody opposed?
No.
So, the motion was approved.
Unanimous.
And before we get a motion to adjourn-
Oh, we have one more item.
Oh, okay.
Oh, I'm sorry.
No, go ahead. Did you have-
Nicole has three kittens in the office back there if anyone is interested in a
kitten. They're all very cute.
No, thanks.
Wouldn't-
I owe you one or something?
Wouldn't that come under announcements? We don't have announcements.
I guess it does.
No, we don't have announcements.
Okay.
Motion to adjourn.
The one other item f-
Oh, Jim. Go ahead.
The one other item for new business is last
meeting we received
the, I guess the-
Bylaws
... bylaws addition for what we talked about, about
postponement and adjournment and stuff.
I don't know if everybody had a chance to review this.
Yeah.
Well, Mr. Chair?
Yes, Mr. Green.
So, when I brought this up, I think we need to look at this real
close. So, what's the process here?
When will this come, we'll have to vote on it.
Are we just hashing through it right now for a while or?
Because for example, when you guys read through this,
we asked for
seven eight and seven nine, things that
were in reference to adjournment
of scheduled hearings. And what we got was
two pages of ethics
stuff that we didn't ask for. And if you look at the ethics when you get a chance
and go home because it's getting late and we won't have time to do it,
I find 10.11 offensive.
The ZBA and its members shall not intrude into the
management of the City Planning and Development Services Unit, whatever that
is.
Members of the ZBA shall communicate with the city staff through the
ZBA's designated staff liaison, whoever that is,
unless otherwise authorized by the city administration and shall follow
applicable city administrative policies.
I don't understand where that came from and
why we would... Keep in mind, these are our rules that we make
for ourselves.
So, we're going to neuter ourselves by passing a bylaw that says you
can't-
I think that already exists
... We didn't ask for any of those.
The only thing that's changed is the stuff in green.
No.
Go to your book of bylaws, buddy. All this is different.
The only stuff that has changed is the stuff in green.
No.
I went to the bylaws online. This whole thing is different.
Nowhere in the bylaws online does it say, "The ZBA and
its members shall not intrude into the management of city planning."
Or show it to me.
There was a request from council.
Jennifer, please stop screaming at me.
I'm-
One time you stood... Point of, excuse me, Mr. Chair.
One time you stood up today and screamed at me in the middle of a meeting.
So please stop raising your voice at me. I'm just trying to get this figured out.
My apologies. I was told that no one can hear me.
Well, how come you stood up?
This document was sent to council at their request for
things that are missing in rules of procedure and bylaws, and
the attorney's office reviewed every single commission.
Ultimately, there is nothing in your rules of procedure
dealing with conflicts of interest.
These particular provisions were taken from a
sample document drafted by Michigan State
University. So-
Well, that's obvious
... ultimately, this was requested by council.
I didn't-
Okay. Whether council requested or not, I appreciate that
designation, though. So I want board members to look at this because these are
not council's rules. They're our rules.
They're the rules that we live by, and I'm uncomfortable with 10.11.
How about this one?
Like 10.12, for example. "Members shall conduct themselves in a fair and courteous
manner." Okay, I agree with that, but to...
And to go on, you have to read it because
I think that you, too, will think that these are a little bit of a
stretch.
I think people should read it close and,
again, these are our rules, not city council's or anybody else's, and I'm not
looking for a p*****g match with you, Jennifer.
I'm just trying to make sure that the documents that we do are finalized.
I'm not looking for a p*****g match with you either, David.
I just want to make sure that everybody understands each other, and I do not
appreciate that you stood up in the meeting and screamed at me.
No.
So, and you're going to hear about it. I don't appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair.
Yes, Mr. Watts.
I got one item. I watched the planning commission meeting as I always do
because there's a lot of things that goes on at that planning commission that is
going to end up here. So I always want a clear picture of what's heading towards
us.
And the other night, there was,
on the agenda, letter to the ZBA about comments that were made at
our previous meeting. So I sat there and I watched that meeting for three
and a half hours,
and they received and filed it. I want to know what that letter said that they
sent to us.
Do we know who or where that letter is, or
any idea? They're told that it'd come to our office?
I mean, I went back and watched our meeting, the part that
they had originally said it was going to in
regards to, and I couldn't see anything in there that
was a problem. And all they did was receive and file a letter, so I don't know what
it says. They said they sent it to us, and I'd like to know what they're
accusing us of.
I'm thinking would they have sent it to the council office or-
Yeah. I don't know. It came to my email, and I didn't
know what it was for.
Fair enough.
Thank you.
So I had one question going back to this
ordinance proposal.
Yeah.
Under 7.8, where "the petitioner's entitled to one adjournment for
good cause shown. The petitioner can request one adjournment of a scheduled
hearing. No more adjournments will be granted." So in the
case of use variances, where we don't have a full
board,
and they have the right to have a full
board for their thing,
is that a conflict with this? Or is it-
The use variance, I mean, everyone's
entitled to have a full board.
Okay.
And forgive me, because I'm not going to remember the
particular section of the bylaws, but
that is one reason if the board
fails to give
the petitioner notice
that they could adjourn it because we don't have a full board.
That's one reason for reconsideration by this
board.
I mean, am I making any sense?
Mm-hmm.
You are.
I mean-
That's it
... we don't have to let anyone have an adjournment.
It's just one, it allows the board to reconsider
and undo what they did.
I mean, typically the board's decisions are final when made.
Yeah.
If we failed to give notice to someone that we didn't have
a full board for a use variance, that's a reason to say,
"Oops, it's not final. We're going to redo this."
Okay. Thank you, Jennifer. So for, and just as an example, this is why I
think we need to look this over very closely, people.
7.8, I think it should say, "For good cause shown, the
petitioner may request one adjournment of a scheduled hearing.
No more adjournments are granted,"
period.
But nowhere in 7.8 does it say,
do we put it on the next agenda,
or do we
remove it, or do they have to reapply?
So we just need to
have this be a working document, kind of work through it and make sure it says what
we want it to say.
That was my only point. I wasn't trying to-
I agree.
And the other stuff, it's new to us because it's not in our
bylaws right now, so.
So do we want to take the time between now and our next meeting-
It could take a long time
... everybody can just review it again.
Yeah.
And then for the next meeting, we can come-
I don't think it's anything we have to solve in
two weeks, but-
No
... haven't had this in a while
... I think we take our time and do it right, make sure it's what we want, so
That's all that I had. Did anybody else have any other new business or...?
Just one thing. There is part of those sections in the conflicts of
interest that I think
would be very beneficial, directly related to a
situation which many of you are aware that
occurred, where ZBA members went out and identified
themselves as members of the zoning
staff,
identified themselves as people who didn't have authority to be
there and do what they were doing.
I'm not aware of this. When was that?
We can talk after. I don't-
Was it our board?
Yes.
Okay. Interesting.
And also,
there was another instance where a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals
was sitting on the front porch with a petitioner
and got into a p*****g match with the neighborhood.
So,
a lot of these rules are necessary so that
you maintain a-
And you doc-
... the appearance of impropriety
And you documented all this through investigation or...?
100%.
Yeah.
Really?
100%.
Good to know. So it was a secret to the rest of us?
She'll talk to you.
I will talk to you after.
Okay.
Mr. Green, I believe it was before you joined us.
Okay. I'm just curious. I'm like, "What the heck?"
I want to say, "Gary, you've got to stop."
Mr. Nostarvich, if I may?
Yes.
Can I request that the attorney send a copy of the
draft as it's proposed to administration, my
boss, Evert, and to council office, so they have a copy of
it to review as well?
The rules of procedure?
Yeah.
Yes, and again, I want to make myself clear.
This board asked me to do something.
I understand.
Council asked for a review of every single commission to see maybe
what was missing and what could be updated, and I tried to-
And I appreciate all that
... so look at it
... but I'd like to look from the administration part if there's anything
that I could suggest-
You need to be- Absolutely
... or be aware of. So.
Absolutely.
That's all.
But they're our bylaws, not the administration's.
Yes.
We're a vote on them.
But if there's something that conflicts with ordinances, we've got to make you
aware of that.
In a bylaw?
Yeah. There could be.
Really? God, I'm learning every day.
See, you're never too old to learn.
You're never too old.
Motion to adjourn.
Support.
All in favor?
Aye.
Anybody opposed?
Okay. Meeting
adjourned at 9:59.