Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

In the absence of our current chair, who is now Julissa, I'll start the meeting and then we need to kind of vote on a vice chair to run the meetings while Julissa is on maternity leave. But to start with tonight is The Board of Zoning Appeals public hearing for Wednesday, July 8th, 2026. It's just after 6 p.m. I guess, is there a motion on a base chart? Or any discussion? I think the idea is just that Jalisa, I think, has said she expects to be back In the fall? Yeah. And she will take over at that point, running the meetings, signing decisions and stuff like that. I, it was just there, I don't mind, you know, taking care of things, but if you wanted to, but I also know you just had a ton of new responsibilities as well, starting tomorrow. I wanted to, but you also had a baby. I don't want to come back. But I guess that's kind of the quick discussions. I don't think we've heard anything on the fit board yet. So those are kind of, yeah.

I mean, I feel like I need to get through the winter. Yeah. Then I would definitely consider it.

And I think we can reconsider at any time. Yeah, and I guess we can turn around as babies come.

That's what I was thinking. I'm like, we're all going to be scheduling it.

So I think, so anyway, I don't know if someone can make a motion to nominate Adriana as vice chair.

I move to nominate Adriana as vice chair.

Second.

Second.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Okay. With that order of business out of the way, there is one big project to make on the agenda, and that's it, with multiple variances. Is it five? Six. Six variances. Project, there's no more project number. Okay, I think that's fair. Area variances range from 2026-6 to 12. The property address, there's a couple of different properties, 307, or 295, 297, 299, 301, 305, 307 Hamilton Street. The applicant is R.M. Hamilton, LLC, represented by Sophia Lane from Baylor Riley Wilson Architect and Conservation. The zoning district is mixed-use neighborhood edge, and the proposal is conversion from office space to previous residential apartment configuration with proposed volume unit ratio of one unit per 475 to 490 square feet. GFA, where one unit per 750 square feet GFA is required in the MUNE district, the district in question. The applicant is here tonight, and so we'll hear your presentation. Just come on up.

Okay, so Sophia is not, wasn't able to come.

We have another city hearing and a different municipality at the same time.

So she took that and I'm taking this. My name's Dan Wilson. partner at Taylor, and I don't know, we submitted a PowerPoint presentation, I don't know if that was brought up. There you go. So, if you're not familiar, these are the buildings that are in Hamilton Street, except for 303. We don't, our client doesn't have possession of that, so it's the It's two buildings on the other side, 305, 303, and the four buildings on the other side. Currently, all the buildings are either vacant office space, soon to be vacant office space, and then some of the basements are either office or commercial spaces. The applicant is looking to renovate the buildings and have apartments due to the nature of the buildings, them being quite small. It comes out to be a mixture of about nine studios and 12 one-bedroom apartments in this block. All the parking for the residents will be in the back, because they will own the parking spots. Same thing with all the dumpsters and stuff like that. Since some of these buildings are quite small, the studios range from 350 to 470 square feet, depending on each building, and the one bedrooms range from 560 to 780 square feet. They are also going to be doing this as most like a historic tax credit project, so we're being very sensitive about the historic fabric of the building and trying to actually Some of these buildings were, the floors were all connected, being one big office space, we're trying to go back to the original townhouse, row house look as part of that. So that's kind of what we have. I don't know if we provided floor plans, the preliminary floor plans that I have set here. Not in the Park Point. No, okay. I don't know if it was part of the application.

Maybe that's in Virginia, it just wasn't in the Park Point.

So that's basic. I don't know if anyone has any questions.

Do you have any renderings of what the facade would look like?

It's in the package. They're photographs because we're not changing the facades. All we're doing is there's some windows that have to be replaced only because they are vinyl in bad shape because we also know all the historic And then there's some back windows that need to be replaced, and the parking lot side isn't in that shape. But essentially, we're not doing anything to the exterior.

I mean, I personally love density, so this is a great project, my personal opinion. But what was the minimum square footage? I just want you to repeat that for me. What was the smallest apartment?

A studio, there's one apartment that's 350, and that's a studio. Most of them range in the 400 range for studios, and most of them range in the 500 to 600 range for the one. Can you stop the recording for a moment?

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, the idea on this is also one of the big clients for the applicant. and this is their second house with their Sierra. They're renting it for the legislative session.

But they don't want a big space.

They're supposed to be really small, but they're there for the night.

Yeah, and again, it's a limitation of that one building.

Two buildings, right? What's that? There's two buildings that are shorter.

Yeah, and that's 295 and 297. For some reason, the second floor is significantly smaller. I'm not really sure why. And then 299 has a small unit, too, on the second floor. It's the way it really is.

When you give the square footage for the studios, are you including the bathroom or just the...

It's included in everything that's within the unit, but it's not including common space like the stairs and stuff like that that are served by the entire use for the whole building. And actually in that plan, we show what each floor plate square footage is and then what each unit square footage is. Yeah, there you go. Things break it up by each different

And so just confirming, you're doing one apartment per floor. You're not splitting any floors in the apartment.

Yeah, we actually did look at duplexes for some of those smaller ones, but the economics don't work on maybe what they would have to charge for a duplex. And the margins in the work for the client, the 21 unit total is right where it needs to be.

Yeah, I was curious, like at 350, you might as well just kind of gobble it up for, like as a duplex, but no banks, that kind of sucks.

You know, we didn't go that far. We were just looking at those small buildings of saying, taking all the small buildings and turning them into duplexes or townhouses, and that didn't work. Maybe in the end, they do decide to do that for that one that's really small. I'm not sure.

And these will be purely rentals? Or will these actually be for sale? These are rentals.

They are apartments, yeah. There's less floors on 297 and 95, is that correct? Yep. There's one left?

Yep.

It drops off. Okay. Or there's, I guess, a third floor for three of them.

Right, so 295 and 297 have a basement and two floors. 299, 301, and 305 have a basement and three floors. 305 is basement and two floors.

Oh, and it's not the full row. There's one property in the middle.

Yeah, in the middle of them. They do not own. It's not for sale.

Okay.

I think that's a single-family house, if I remember correctly.

Have you been in touch with the neighborhood association and maybe with the neighbors, notably that property?

No, we haven't. partly because where the client is current or the applicant is currently going through their due diligence they don't own the property yet and this is one of the steps they're going one of the first steps are going through on that due diligence process I didn't have a chance to read the public comment that was sent this afternoon that we got this afternoon and that was from

I believe the gentleman signed up to speak as well, so.

Yep. That may have been the one I signed. Okay. Okay. So we can get to that later.

I'm still looking at the plan. Sure. And those aren't carvings down. It was just the initial thing to show how we can lay it out, see how it works. It doesn't work.

What is the timeline? the desired timeline if this were going forward, do you know what the timeline would be?

I don't know specifically, because like I said, who knows how long it takes to close. It's a pretty big deal, closing this. The one thing the client is interested in is on its historic tax credits to do this work. process for that. They might rule it out if it becomes too expensive, because time is money. So that's the big unknown on how quickly this could move. But from a standpoint of renovations, we don't think there's a huge amount of renovations. A lot of it's cosmetic. We got the bathrooms and kitchens in that we're trying to maintain as much as the original fabric. So other than the fact that it's a lot of tick-tacky stuff, I don't think it's going a huge amount of time to actually do it.

Can you speak to how the proposed project, I guess, I think I read, and I think there was a mention that like, I guess that going to this, each floor unit, is taking the properties back to how it was used before, we think?

Well, we don't know. All we're saying is they originally were residential, and then at some point, the big chunk of them, on every floor, they were combined.

The buildings were combined as one big office place.

We're going back to putting them back as individual buildings. What I can say, and you know this from this downtown Albany, there was this period of time where people hacked up all of the townhouses into small apartments. Maybe that was the case. but we don't know because it's all been turned to big office plates. All we're saying, we're going back to the townhouses and we're putting in apartments in each level.

So it was residential, but there's a high likelihood, I would say, that initially they were one family.

Oh no, I'm almost certain they were townhouses, one family. Initially, and then got split up and If I was to guess without doing research, they got hacked up into tiny little apartments in the 70s and stuff like most of the buildings in that area were.

Which ones are the ones that are currently connected?

You know what? If you go in there, it's really difficult. You get lost in what building you are in and stuff like that. I believe it's The ones that are, the two that are... Actually, Dan, I could answer that.

Oh, do you? If there's any assistance. I am actually the listing broker for this property. It's buildings 295 through 301, the four to the left of Mochizmo Cheesecake, all right? that have the connecting floors that, I mean, you walk through it, there's no office tenant that's gonna lease that space as it is in today's.

It was a dentist's office, wasn't it? There was a dentist's office, because it's still there, yeah, so.

We tend to have a bad issue with people not clearing snow or sleet. I know these are just words, but I know you can't say like, will you promise, but who would be in charge of snow removal, spreading salt, especially that's on a hill, all these state workers, five days a week, we grow by over 100,000 residents five days a week for the entire year. So to make sure that the people going to state campuses will be able to have safe egress to the offices.

I can't speak to that, but I'm assuming that the applicant would have a property maintenance.

He owns multiple buildings in the city.

I just want to make sure, we have a lot of landlords that own a lot of properties that do not.

I know, because I walked through the snow in front of their buildings.

Yeah, all of us deal with it. I just want to be like, are they going to be responsible? Are they really going to hire somebody who's going to really actually do the proper maintenance.

And the plan, I guess, to that, like, the current plan is for the, he doesn't own, the applicant doesn't own the property yet?

Nope, going through due diligence, and one of the reasons was since we had to go through this, wants to make sure that before he closes on the property that what his limitations are and stuff like that.

Interesting. And so the proposed plan currently is to rent all of the units, just not to sell the properties afterwards. Not that I know of, yep.

One of the reasons is if he does historic tax credits, then everything has to be locked in for five years after completion anyways.

In preparation of this, can you speak a little bit, just kind of going through the characters of the neighborhood, especially on this, I think focusing on the smallest units, have you been able to find examples of other, I mean, there are other weirdly shaped buildings in the neighborhood, I'm sure, with like small, you know, small baths and stuff like that. Have you been able to find examples of small units like that?

No, but I did used to live in the neighborhood for a long time and know of places like that. I can't speak of them specifically. In fact, I used to own 83 Dunn Street and I rented the first floor. It was one of the bigger ones. It was a two bedroom though, but it still was pretty small. I know it's not an anomaly in downtown.

I think that'd be helpful to supplement the record for the next meeting, you guys could provide examples of like, I mean, I would agree with you that I think it might, it's probably not impossible, probably like they haven't had planning looked, if there are, if you know, if there are similar units sized. We know that tax records show, it's hard to tell how accurate it is, but it shows for footage often, but it won't, and we could go through your records on how many units, but we wouldn't be able to say, I feel like you'd have to be looking at rental listings, looking for the studio rental listings and see if there are comparable ones. I think that'd be important to complete the application regarding the criteria that we need to consider for the variance.

And we say in the application that typical rules of thumb for studios range between 400 and 500 square feet, just across the board. And in one bedroom, forget what the number is, it's like 500 to 750 or whatever. Are we talking about all ones that are under 750 or just the ones that are particularly small?

I would focus on the smallest, but the rest of the board thinks, but I think it'd be, important to, especially focusing on the smallest ones, on the two that are at around 350. If you are able to find examples that are also under the 400 mark, I think that would be very helpful.

So it might predate zoning of what we currently have, too. That would be interesting to know.

Anything that we're talking about is old stuff. I'm sure it's grandfathered.

That's my assumption.

Am I allowed to say anything?

Should I wait until... Yeah, let's wait until public comment at this point, but thank you for pitching in. Yeah. Like kind of going back over, refreshing my memory on like, you know, the response currently provided for the character of the neighborhood. I personally think that you need to kind of get deeper into the criteria and get, and focus on the smaller units.

So can you repeat the first part?

Just, I think like looking at like what you've submitted so far in the application, I think in your, the information you provided on character of the neighborhood is high level about the buildings and doesn't get to the core issue of the smallest units. So, just repeating again what I've been saying for two minutes. Okay.

And just so you know, what I was just looking at, I have a list, so it's a little easier to understand. There's only two units that are under the 400 square feet and out of the 21 units, so.

And which units are those?

It's the second floor of 295 and the second floor of 299.

For some reason I have on this, but maybe we have a typo.

Maybe we can just confirm. I think the staff report has a typo. Okay.

Like, yeah, on the staffing it says third floor unit for $299. So you're saying that's second floor? Wait, sorry. Say that again.

Sorry. It depends. Sometimes people call the ground floor unit as one unit and then So I think it's a nomenclature thing.

So there's ground floor, second floor. First. Okay, so tell me again which ones are.

I guess we have to be clear. What do we want to call the basement or ground floor? Because, so. Ground floor works. Okay, so in that case, I have it down as a second floor of 299.

So you have ground floor, second floor.

Ground floor, first floor, second floor, and a third floor in that unit.

The first floor is missing in the staff report, so I think the second floor should be first floor, and then the third floor should be second floor.

The reason why the second floor is smaller, it has to do with the existing stairway in the floor plans. So it's an anomaly that... 295 ground floor. And we're talking about 299. So we've got to keep... 299. And this is the next floor. Yeah, and then that's, we'll go after. So keep going, you have to go way, no, you have to keep on going. Oh, those are different slides. But you know what, if you can kind of read it, it's just great.

Yeah, so this one's the 350.

Yeah, and you see how big the stair is because how it wraps around. It's not a switch stair like some of them. And so the stair eats up a good portion of it. It's just one of the anomalies of just how the existing layout is.

Would any of these have HVAC considering it's going to be 90 degrees tomorrow?

This just is garbage. It's all going to be taken out and they're probably going to be doing electric heat pumps so that each one has individual control on the units.

Just going back, and then at 295, it's also the second floor.

And that was at 395.

Yeah, okay.

So you said that was 395?

Yep, 295 Second Floor Studios, 395. A lot of numbers. And then? 299 Second Floors, 350. Each of the floors.

Okay, and then what about 297?

297, they are above 400 square feet for studios in that one. And typically that is an okay size for a studio. It doesn't meet the zoning requirement of 750 per unit, but that's not a bad size for a studio.

So it looks like 10, 11, and 12 are the biggest, require the biggest variance in terms of size, right? So area variance project 2026, number 10, right? 299 Hamilton Street. 578.75 square feet, where one unit is 750 square feet.

Right, the one basement bedroom unit is 750 square feet because there's an existing addition, so it's much larger than the rest of the building. The rest of the building, the floor plate's around 400 square feet. The other floor's about the basement.

I think that's an average, so that's why it's trying to put the average of all floors together.

Okay, the flat 78 is the average?

yeah so basically you take all the floors you divide it by the units and that's what it comes out to be so it's a little not it's a little kind of not really telling the whole picture and yeah you're just gonna have a couple big floors whenever you do that yeah um

So, wait, so thinking about that, so just thinking through, and I guess I'm just realizing that there are 21 units and there are six variances because there are six buildings. So it's a variance per building, not per unit.

True.

Yep. Yes. But the lowest they're looking for is 43. But so the code requirement... Can you pull up the code thing with the 750? Let me do that again.

Because in the... Oh, you mean the slide or the... Yeah.

The way it's interpreted is that it's an average not per unit. It sounds like it's accepted as 650. It's two building units. Yeah, this is the right area.

One dwelling unit per 750 square feet gross floor area. Do you mind pointing out this for us?

That's what you're doing?

But you're saying that health planning has been doing it across the board, across the city, is doing it with the average of all the floors or a building and not looking at each unit.

Correct.

Even though the language says Unite. Well, the table also shows maximum when it meets minimum because it's showing it throughout all zoning districts.

So it's, yeah, the context of it.

Okay. Is there a reason nine is not included in your requests?

Well, it might just be on the other page.

Okay, let's see if it is on the, let's discuss on page two further down.

It should be noted on page nine that the staff has recommended that we deny 299 Hamilton, 297 Hamilton, and 295 Hamilton. So 299 and 295 were the ones that were really, really small.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, like I said, we did look at those small units to turn them into duplexes. Well, it depends on what you mean by deny, because by the current code, those two buildings would have to be one unit. And that's a three-story building, and trying to rent that as a one unit is gonna be pretty difficult. And so now, So I don't know if it means that having three units is bad, is not acceptable, but two units, you're still not at that 750, because what we did look at was having a basement apartment as a studio, and then the first and second floor was a duplex. The client or the applicant didn't like it, he ran the economic numbers and thought it wasn't working out for him, so that's why we were trying for this. It's one of those things where the three studios are really tiny, but the duplex actually comes out to be a really nice, high rent building, because it's a pretty good size, so, high rent unit, so.

If the, for the smallest, the two smallest properties, if they were,

being rented or as a like as one as a whole right like as the building does that give does that meet the code yeah well i guess if the whole building is one unit so someone's renting the basement first and second floor then yes it does but it should split basement and first and second is what you were saying then it doesn't it does it still doesn't if you have like a you know like the typical They rent the basement and they live upstairs. Well, if you're going to follow this code, that won't work.

And then for the 299, which has an extra floor, did you consider doing two diplomas, I guess?

I don't remember if we did do that scenario. We might have. Yeah, and that one, two, if I'm doing my math right, two units does follow within that 750. But I think economically, that was a hardship for the applicant. Yeah, the ground floor is really large on 299. Yeah, I think it was kind of just, the problem was just fortunate, because then somebody has, or whatever. I actually think we looked at, if I remember correctly, one bedroom on the ground floor, a duplex between the first and second, and then the studio on the third. I think that was one of the scenarios we ran. But it still, the 750 requirement to do that.

It gets better, but... Because, you know, by code, we're required to grant the most minimal variance necessary to achieve the goal. And the second picture is making sure, you know, alternatives have been considered to the granting of the variance. So I think that's why we're talking through all those. And I think when you're looking at examples for the character of the neighborhood of other smaller units in the neighborhood, I think you could also tie that to the substantiality, which is the third criteria we look at, which staff provided us calculations with the percent of variance requested for each application, which I guess range from 35, 56% variance from what the code requires for 297 to 2.3% variance for 307.

Yeah, that makes sense because they get bigger as they go up the hill.

the other two criteria are impact, the final criteria is impact to the environment. You kind of talked about, are you changing anything for the, like are you connecting the parking lots? Is it currently? They're already all connected. It's all connected.

Because when it was a business and offices, they had to provide parking.

So you're not changing anything in the back. We're not changing anything, no. And so all the, most of what is expected is all the work inside.

Yeah, I mean, There is repairs, like one of the stoops is falling down and the handrails. So there's stuff on the exterior. It's more on the repair end of things. But everything is primarily focusing on the inside. And it's primarily just adding some partitions and the plumbing and stuff that we need for bathrooms and kitchens.

I guess just a thought, still thinking through everything we've been discussing about the proposal. I feel like one of the things you mentioned as an explanation of why some of the units end up having to be smaller is that how the staircases in the smaller buildings are set up. Since you're doing, I would say, fairly extensive work inside the buildings, it might be worth for you to add to the application any information you may be able to have about whether or not it's feasible as part of alternatives considered to change this staircase to give more space to the units greatly.

If the client decides to do historic tax credits, we will not be able to change these historic staircases. They are a major character defining feature of the building, even when they're a pain in the ass. So it's a trade-off. You know, so I can't answer that because maybe they're like, well, if we can get all these units, then the economics work versus getting the tax credit. That's kind of not my call on that. But I can tell you, if they do go through the HTC well, then they do look at the interiors and let us change any character-fying features.

And if their cases are in good

They're one of the only few things that is really, well, you know, the buildings up the hill, 307 and 305, actually really intact with all their plaster moldings and everything. Those other buildings lower that were gutted for the offices, there's the only thing that's really left is the staircases, unfortunately.

You know, if your client went forward, is half the project where it moved and the other half where it denied?

I have no idea. Yeah, because again, that comes down to the economics of it. They have to run their numbers, you know?

I was just thinking that, Serena. Like, if they still go forward, because... That's a major consideration.

Don't know. Again, this is one reason why they're doing it as part of their due diligence for buying the properties. Because as an architect, clients buys a building. Says, oh, I didn't want to do this. You should have talked to me before you bought the building because as soon as you change this, you lose your grandfather clause and now you're not, and sometimes you're never gonna get a variance for whatever you want to do. So in this particular case, I'm glad they called me before buying the properties or in contract.

Yeah, I think you're like, I think for me, There's definitely additional information that's needed to supplement the application. I would recommend reaching out to the neighborhood association, potentially to that one property that's in the middle. If they're not opposed to the project, then that would be good to know. And I think it would be a good neighborly thing to do anyway, to reach out to them since you're surrounding their property projects. I guess like the notice obligation, like they're on notice from the meeting. But yeah, the neighborhood association, talking to them about it. And then yeah, like I said before, kind of getting more deep into the character of the neighborhoods on examples. And I think maybe getting a bit deeper on those alternatives considered, I think, I don't know, Anna, if you want to explain a bit more, like the recommendation from staff, but I assume that a lot of it is due to the substantiality of certain . So I don't want to speak for you, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I think if you fleshed out a bit more alternatives considered character of the neighborhood, it would potentially help your application.

It is specifically related to, like, smaller buildings because we do have issues with the bigger buildings.

I think it's harder to consider the variances on the bigger asks. But what the law requires us to do is, one, grant the most minimal variance possible to achieve the goal, and two, to balance out the five factors, right? They're not, unlike for a use variance, they're not cumulative. So although there's a strong negative impact on some of the variances as to the substantiality of the request for the bigger requests, i.e. for smaller buildings, I guess you could balance that out.

We're all separate applications, technically.

Yeah, but you could balance that out with essentially I think fleshing out a bit more the character of the neighborhood and fleshing out why no other alternatives function for those properties. Everything that's discussed here is on the record, so you don't necessarily need to paper everything, but having supporting information about the staircase that it can't be moved, any additional information as well about just renting the whole property or doing the one unit and the other two units just doesn't work and providing some supporting information to that should help. The application, I would think, but I don't know if you want to add anything on that.

I would like to hear from staff, if possible, regarding your recommendations.

All righty, how we doing? Is there a request for comment, or do you want to do that first?

Alright, so we kind of went over this. Today's the first meeting. We're talking about six parcels. We're located in the mixed-use neighborhood, Edge 7 District, which is relevant because of the 750 square foot minimum for the dwelling units. As far as we know, the original building were built in the mid-1800s. There's one that's from the 1960s, I believe.

the buildings are in good condition. Public utility connections already exist, and the basements are finished. And also from the tax records, as far as we can tell, it's been non-residential since at least 2013.

But the residential history before that is a little bit murkier to get into. And I also did want to note that the requested variance is applied to the average square footage, like we were talking about.

So any approval could result in changes to the specific floors, if that makes sense.

They're just going based on the average of all the floors together. So that's something to consider too. They could conceivably go lower as long as they meet the average. So as far as the USDO regulations go, these would be considered, the proposed uses would be considered dwelling townhouse or dwelling multi-unit. So these both are permitted in the district and there aren't any notes or anything that would conflict with turning them over into this use as far as seeker goes we have a type 2 action so no further action is required it was referred to the Albany County Planning Board and they deferred to local consideration on all properties they will eventually need to change a use permit and then it is an historic district but that also means that any changes to the facade would have to go through certificate of appropriateness

And as far as I know, there was already six applications submitted and approved for the proposed work, and they'd have to go through that process again if anything changes to the proposed facade. This I just included. It's sometimes helpful to understand the district purpose. Also, there was previous questions about the intent of the district and why there was a density minimum set. So what we were able to find from our records is that the project committee intended

project committee of the zoning update in 2017 intended for the MUNE along with MUNC district to be moderate density which allows for it to serve as a buffer zone between lower and higher density neighborhoods. So kind of comparing that into the neighborhood this is just the screenshot of the block as you can see most of these properties are 0.05 zero five acres and then if you see the building footprints but they all essentially cover about half of the property so generally speaking it seems to be in keeping especially since there are other higher mixed residential density buildings just from an initial account there are on the same street on the same side of the block there are three two unit buildings seven three unit buildings and four multi-unit And then as far as environmental impacts go, they accounted for trash and traffic. So snow removal would probably be another thing to add to that. And then, yeah, as far as internal changes to the buildings, it's likely going to have a low impact. So for the surrounding neighborhood, I think it's also important to mention that we have three other zoning districts within 250 feet of the project sites.

So here you can see this is the 250 feet buffer. And these are all the properties that get notified with the legal noticing letters.

Oh yeah, and so these are also the district purposes for each of the surrounding ones. I don't know if you guys want to get too much into that, but I think the important thing is that NUCI does not have a minimum.

RM does have the same minimum, and RT,

doesn't have a minimum, as long as you have one unit per floor. This is one of the footnotes, which is why residential buildings are allowed to be up to three units, as long as each unit has its own story.

What if you have a four-floor building, which does happen?

R2, which would not be allowed. It's a max of three units.

I think that if they're in there, that's an existing grandfather cause. You're not gonna be able to build a new one. We've had issues where people had an attic and they wanted to convert it, and we're like, we can't, because now you're four stories. There's also a building code issue. Once you get that high, you have to sprinkle the residential building, too. So there's a lot of things that screw that up.

Right. And we were talking about base kind of estimates for what would be considered. This is the 2025 Housing and Community Renewal Design Guidelines. So I just went in screenshots for studio dwelling unit, one bedroom and two bedroom.

You can see it outside of New York City.

Do you anticipate, I guess, any other concerns with the historic committee that has to approve the tax credit and stuff like that on the smaller size of just smaller students? They don't care about that.

They don't care. Yeah, so you're going to just broke out the measure of the variance, which is literally just how far away the proposal is from what's permitted. So as you can see, it ranges from 2.3% up to 3.4% or 3.5%. I think that's the correct action. Sorry. And then I also considered the magnitude of the variance. Technically speaking, we could get way more statistical about making this actually reflective. I think this is just more like a snapshot. But what I did was compare the number of units proposed for each building

And then here's the dwelling GFA that they're proposing for the variances. And then this is what would be permitted. So they are proposing four units, which under the code would be times 750. So it ends up with this. So this is what would technically be permitted for the buildings.

So then if you just, or this is the difference and just compare these two. So this is essentially how much

requesting not to include and I think you know this PowerPoint is and the staff notes are available after the meeting but again going back to I think it'd be helpful to address some of these points and like you know how you know Keith Lee you know could not just phrase it as this is what is lost but from what I'm hearing you say there's nothing to be, like, there's no way of gaining that. Like, the score footage cannot be gained.

I mean, the only way you're gonna do that is additions, and A, we can't do that because of the individual properties and the property boundaries. B, then we have to go through the HRC, which is gonna be, tax credits don't, they can't get tax credits for additions, so all that work would be, they wouldn't be getting credit for that. And also, it takes away our parking. The only way we can do that is to go out into the back. It's pretty expensive. That costs a lot of dollars.

Right, because you are using all the space available in the existing building. Yeah, yeah. And how does that make sense for you?

Yeah, I mean, the building is what it is. It's just kind of, this is how the numbers break down.

Yeah, yeah, and this is a helpful breakdown, So just wanting to put it in context.

Yeah, so if you were going to build a new building out here and you had it for units, you had to make sure the building was at least 3,000 square feet to be covered.

Yeah. Yeah, so given those factors...

Anyway, just one more second. So I guess going back to the concept that the way this variance is proposed, which is also based on how the city's department has been interpreting the requirement, even though it's stated as a per unit requirement, the variances are currently proposed and set up as an average per unit for the building. And so, those numbers on this table here are about the buildings, square footage, not each unit.

No, sorry, this is for the dwelling. So this doesn't include hallways for each unit. This is literally just what is regulated by the code, which is the dwelling itself.

Yeah, but it's the total for the building. For example, for 307, it's the total of the four dwellings for that building.

So if they get the variance and they're approved for four units, and they do it in the plan is what they would have heard.

Yeah, and so I think just, I think, you know, we were talking and asking information about, like, the smaller, you know, specific units. I guess those are specific units. I think there's a point to be made that although there are specific units that are quite small, the way the regulation and the variances are set up is looking at the building as a whole, not at each unit individually.

So based on those factors, this was our interpretation, and as you had correctly guessed, the substantiality is the bigger catch.

because of the percent change.

So this is where the board might disagree with me, but I thought 15% would be kind of the cutoff, maybe that's a bit more of a conservative estimate, but using that as the cutoff.

That's just where that 15% comes from.

It's just personal stuff.

Okay, no, I mean, that's fine.

Which is why I say it, so the board might disagree. But at the very least, 50% is what would be considered very substantial. So all of that to say, area variance 10, 11, and 12 would be considered substantial. Eight would be somewhat substantial, and then six and, or sorry, I think these are, yeah.

Sorry.

That would be minimally substantial.

And it also says that under criteria,

Yeah, sorry, I think that's what this should be. This is the number. So this is 22. It's all of these. These are like the majority. The small ones, yeah. Yes, so they're requesting the higher variance, which is why they would be somewhat more substantial. And then it's just, yeah, whatever the board agrees with my interpretation.

Great, and it sounds like we found sufficient, their submission regarding criteria one and two, correct alternatives deciding layout were considered, have minimal impact to the surrounding neighborhood character.

That's also, I mean, all of these are up to your, I guess how you look into it. So that's another thing where, as Adriana requested, if the board would like to see more detailed information, that's totally.

Yeah, and I'm just saying based on the analysis that you're walking us through, that that was something that you concluded, or based on your interpretation.

I don't have any other questions for you at this time. Process-wise, I'll give everyone a second if there's any other final questions for the applicants. But otherwise, you can sit back in the room. and we'll hear public comments and you'll get a rebuttal and public comment if you wish.

Okay, great. Thank you.

So just level setting on public comment, we did receive, I guess, your written comment, Mr. McLaughlin.

Sorry, which is your last name? Everyone but public officials get three minutes. It's time for public comment. I guess we'll start with you since you're signed up, if you would like to come up and just provide your comment at the end. Sure.

So, I'll read my letter. My name is Felton McLaughlin. I'm a city resident. I live in the Buckingham Bond neighborhood, 180 Lenox Avenue. Full disclosure, I happen to be the listing agent here, so I do have a dog in the fight. I represent the seller of this portfolio. I also happen to be a property owner in the neighborhood. I own two historic townhouses on Lancaster Street, literally three blocks north of this location, same block. And I fully support the applicant's plans to convert these mixed-use office retail buildings. There are no apartments any of the buildings that we're talking about now. Mostly empty, primarily consist of obsolete office space. As a practicing commercial realtor, I'm keenly aware of the housing crisis afflicting Albany, and not just Albany, it's the entire nation. We desperately need more housing, and converting these mostly empty buildings into apartment is a no-brainer in my opinion, and one of the best things we can do as a city to breathe new life into this neighborhood. To speak specifically about the 350 square foot concern that everyone has, my buildings on Lancaster, one of them is strictly studios. The floor plates are 900 square feet. Those studios, it's all studios on the upper floors. There's six of them.

Excuse me, six units, three floors.

They are never vacant. There's a lot of demand for small units. in that neighborhood, I would say across the entire market. And the benefit to the tenants in the market is that it's a lower entry point price-wise. So my studios over on Lancaster rent for anywhere from $900 to some as much as $1,300 a month. But that compares with $1,500 to $1,700 for one bedroom. Now the benefit for the developer and for financing this kind of project is that those smaller units, even though it's a smaller rent, 900,000 bucks, that averages out to about $3 per square foot per month. That's the metric that bankers look at and developers look at. So it makes it a more profitable venture to allow smaller units if the developer is getting a maximum rent per square foot, even though the rents themselves are a lower price point for tenants in the marketplace. So that would be my pitch for saying yes to this area of variance. Thank you for your time.

Anyone else would like to speak tonight on this project? And I forgot to ask if you could, if you can just provide your name and address, or it doesn't have to be Polaris, but just an idea of where you live in Albany. Hi, my name is Griffin Bengrad.

I run an apartment on Hamilton Street. I work at stake, so I know Hamilton Street very well. I don't really have anything super written down. I was happy to hear that it would be kind of historically represented. I think that's what makes Center Square really strong as an area. One of the most owner-occupied blocks in Baltimore is that kind of section. I know Hassan very well on Urban Aftermath, who's on the bottom floor of, I think it was 295, I believe, Hamilton Street. I think it's Fanns, too.

So just, you know, having him get like, you know, basically kicked out and I was like, you know, I kind of liked that little commercial spot at the bottom.

It was like a nice little bookstore. People kind of made it their routine. Like after work, they'd come in, you know, see some books, talk to locals.

So I guess I just wanted the voice as like someone who's very active in the community that there's some like, you know, folks up there, and I don't want it to just be like all residential. Even though I do agree that we do need residential, just seeing that space kind of like go is a little bit sad for me.

So I just hope that they consider like the neighborhood, 12 people really liking the neighborhood, and that's about it.

Thank you. Would you like to put a comment?

Hi, my name is Jen Bullington. I own a condo on Hudson Avenue, 252 Hudson. When I heard about this project, I was just a little concerned because the back of my unit, my house, is in the parking lot. where all the residential people will be parking from Hamilton. So we have all this extra traffic coming in. It's only one driveway into this big parking area. It's already kind of dangerous. So that's my main concern with adding 21 more units. And they're all going to be parking in the back there. Also, this neighborhood is so busy. With all the state workers, I'm afraid of all the congestion and traffic added with adding so many new units because I know there's also a proposed residential building in that parking lot on Hamilton as well across the street from these properties. So you're gonna add all these people with all these extra cars. It's just gonna be a little insane. So that's my main concern with this. And I also like what that gentleman just said. It's really nice to have a few businesses in the neighborhood that we can walk to, not just all residential.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I don't know if I want to come up. So any rebuttal should be addressed before, but you're welcome to provide any comments.

And I don't, it's not really germane.

There's no one online, right?

Just sorry. No, it's okay. I don't think this is germane to be actually a variance request, but to address the public comments.

I don't know for sure, as the architect, what the end goal is, whether existing commercial tenants are staying or going.

So that's kind of outside of my review on that. And then the other thing I can say about the parking issue, maybe it's parking is not a problem now because a good portion of this block is empty with the business and the office being gone. So typically residential parking has a lot less impact than commercial parking. So if you're concerned about parking and traffic,

what's the option that you don't occupy those buildings?

So it's unfortunately a problem that we have that you gotta make room for cars. So that's my only two issue comments on those two issues.

I think, listening to the public comments and stuff, just some additional thoughts on like, I guess maybe for next meeting, kind of if you can provide, like the goal is residential for all the units. If you can just confirm that and that the owner is not looking at some kind of mixed use. Okay.

I mean, because that might, for my owner, could change.

Yeah, and I feel like you earlier, you mentioned that like commercial that you guys didn't think the commercial had like some, or at least commercial in the current state would not be realistic. Going back to the criteria of alternatives considered, I think addressing that leaving the buildings as they are and trying to rent the space as it is, it's just not realistic in the current marketplace. But maybe because of the public comment just also addressing that.

They're all combined into one floor plate. And because Felton talked about people don't want that type of office space anymore. They want class A office space. And so it's actually really not great shape. So trying to keep that as its current state of all commercial renting is a tough thing to market.

And like we talked about, we do have a housing crisis. And so these do lend themselves well

be put back on the rules as viable you know housing units and since you've mentioned the housing crisis again has there been any discussion about affordable housing um no not that i'm aware of and then i also had a question about um the recommendation regarding the neighborhood association so this is uh for staff as well just following up on each other's questions if the notice went out to the 250 feet radius, right, are applicants still expected to go directly to the neighborhood association if they theoretically already got the notice? Like, how does that work?

Legally, they're just required to do the noticing.

So depending on the project, it's the posting, the mail of letter, and the legal posting at the time.

So any other work that they would be doing is either requested by the boarder. So I have a question. you guys reach out to the neighborhood associations when there's a something like that?

Not unless asked.

Okay, no, I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't know.

Agendas are posted and often at least somebody on the neighborhood association needs to find out to get that. Hamilton or Center Square?

Hudson Park. Hudson Park. Yeah, because I used to live right there, so, years ago.

I have a question for the planning staff. Is there any precedence for parking lot maintenance? I'm thinking about snow removal, safety, maybe even lighting. It's a little dangerous back there. Just trying to avoid any easily avoidable conflicts in the back parking lot.

Do we have precedence for that? Well, there's no site plan that would be required. This is just interior rehab. Obviously, the city does have something on books that snow must be removed in 24 hours to the end of a storm. So occasionally, if something is really beyond the failed and GGS will cite and clear. And lighting.

Just safety to and from your car. Yeah, we don't miss that kind of thing.

And I mean, speaking out of turn, the thing you gotta be concerned about lighting is that we do have residential units too. I know, I know. And we don't want lighting. It's a balance, a tricky balance of not disturbing the residents and also having enough.

But also like safety too. Yeah, exactly. There's just some basic, totally get your point. I didn't see, there wasn't any luminosity on those night plans, seeing the lighting from my house.

I just want to, because I don't think I realized that until the public comment, so the parking lot is accessed through Hudson, like that weird, which I see.

There's a, we see that, where there's some parking cars there.

Yeah.

They kind of meanders through the whole area. well there's other it's shared by everyone yes every day I had no idea how big it was I think the driveway see how it's dangerous well I guess when this was fully occupied his offices they probably had a lot of employees that used it it's been a while since

Does anybody know how long these buildings have been on the market? I have curiosity. Sure.

We've had them on the market, we listed them in the last number. Okay. And the parking lot in the back, I mean, you're not going to add parking to the street. parking spaces that come with these seven buildings.

Parking's an issue throughout the whole city.

Oh yeah, so it's not going to create a burden on the street. I mean, I would think that would be viewed positively.

And how is the parking lot managed? Who's responsible for the entrance to the parking lot and stuff like that?

Is that the city? Yeah, the current owner is responsible.

The current owner, I mean, since it's shared.

The seller is currently maintaining that, plowing it, all of that.

So that responsibility would fall on the shoulders of the new owner.

Because they're the majority owner of the buildings surrounding the lot?

The driveway that you saw on the street view and the parking that was kind of parallel going up the hill, that's all part of his property.

These properties are being conveyed. So whether he owns all the parking, which I don't think he does or will, he owns that part that connects it, right?

The driveway and the parking going up the hill. The condos own the parking directly behind

And then, so the city's responsibility takes over after the sidewalk, where it connects to the street? No, the city's not responsible for turning sidewalks. No, no, I know. So yeah, the city's only responsible for the street and has no responsibility as to the driveway. I think hearing that, I would highly recommend you get in touch with the city engineer as well, the traffic city engineer, Bill Trudeau, and kind of pull him into this. I would recommend you do it, but...

In what regards, because this is a private driveway, and what would the city have anything to say about a private driveway?

I guess to have a discussion with him about just safety concern raised by the community that we just heard on public comment tonight.

Okay. I'm not sure the city will even weigh in on something like that in a private line.

I would say because it's existing. Again, it's not going through site plan review. If it was going through site plan review, it would go to traffic engineering, but there isn't a site plan review that's meeting any of the thresholds. So we don't refer it to other departments.

I think if we were making a change, we would. You'd have to get out of the driveway for a minute.

There being a level of service change, 21 apartments, in terms of that driveway, in and out, because South Swan, I was double checking who owned the jurisdiction. I think it still might be, I think South Swan is still city maintained. So, I mean it's something, I think it's something or maybe a brief conversation with Bill Trudeau in terms of level of service, specifically with the driveway.

But we're not changing the amount of parking spots.

No, but it's been vacant since last summer. There's such heavy foot traffic. There's such heavy foot traffic.

Like I said, what's better? That we put an office building back there, and now every unit is filled? There's a lot of them. I'm just saying it's an existing condition and it seems like we're not changing the amount of cars parking in there. And if you have a problem with the existing conditions, it's grandfathered the issue. And I don't think changing, typically, I don't want to speak, I'm an architect, I'm not an urban planner, but typically, residentials have a lot lighter use than commercial use. Commercial use got people coming and going all day, residential you tend not to.

Bill might want to look at, though, if you're going to be marketing specifically for assembly members and people that are in and out, they're going to be crossing a lot, and it's already a pretty tough area.

Well, they're going to be walking a lot, too.

Yeah, I mean, it's just like the crash.

Like, I run some of the numbers. I put this in the back. Like, who owns what? And I think, you know, I understand what you're saying about the fact that you're not changing anything and, like, you're not increasing the number of cars. But as part of the variance, we do look at environmental impact of the project and the requested variances. And so as part of that and as part of the balancing factors, there's no harm in looking at is there anything that needs to be done or should be or could be done, not an obligation, to ensure that this is a safe driveway for everyone to use.

That's minor, to just like reach out and see if you're available for a brief conversation. If not, then you did your effort.

I think it's overstepping the balance of this group.

This might also be a refresher for Bill Trudeau to double check and make sure that we have enough bike pad facilities there, that this is like what I do day in and day out. I think that they put in an RRFB, a Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacon, not even a beg button, where you literally beg to cross. There's not even that. So there's some problems there. And it's just like, yeah, not even like, it's servicing and protecting your potential customers.

Well, I used to live up the street and I'd go out to work and have to cross that road every morning.

The paint's fresh, the paint's fresh. Yeah, so I think that there's a, Let me zoom in a little bit. Yeah, that's an RRFB to the left. Yeah, so that's an RRFB, that's MUTCD, that's standard. That's the Municipal Uniform Transportation Design Manual. That's not, in my opinion, enough. I've had conversations with Bill about needing to beef up. It's not because of you, it's just like, we need to do more.

All that does is just light up. That's all.

And people still don't even understand this stuff. it will blow through those constantly, and it's like, you're supposed to stop.

I do just want to reiterate, this is outside of the consideration. Yes, 100%, but it's like a conversation for Bill to put on his radar. That's a proposed project that is proposed. We don't have an application. There is a proposal that's out there for the parking lot across the street that would incorporate actual traffic changes, and they would be required to make those if needed.

Yeah, it would be a full site plan interview.

Yeah, yeah. There's the project that was mentioned that's also moved along. We don't have an application for it. That helps.

Thank you. I wonder if this goes through. I want Bill to take note that, like, there's going to be more foot traffic. And I want to see safety beefed up. Like, this is part of the long-standing terminal. Like, we need to do more. And it's expensive. Utilities infrastructure is very expensive. And I get that. Just one quick FYI in that parking lot, half of it is owned by the Robinson Square apartment complex a little further up the hill.

So those folks are already using that driveway coming in and out. Yeah, there's other people using it too.

I just don't want to be safe, especially going, people fly down, right, trying to zip into 787.

Yeah, and no one is saying this is your, like, the owner's necessarily responsibility, but at the same time, you just said that they do own the parking lot, including the driveway, so I guess there is some responsibility.

They own a portion of the parking lot that their property boundaries are on. They don't own the whole parking lot, but they do own that little sliver, whatever it's called there, the driveway with the parking, where there probably was a building there at one point. Yeah, right there. Or they will if they purchase the property. What's parcel 256 of that?

One last thought and comment from me is, I guess, would the owner make make some commitments and I'm curious on getting feedback on if we were to grant all the variances but condition that the smallest unit cannot be smaller than what's currently proposed, is there any concern with that? So to the point, I think planning staff earlier made a point that since the variances are set up per building, not per the units, if we grant the variances as they're currently proposed, technically you could decide to redo, once the variances are granted, you could split things up further somehow. Maybe does not make practical sense, but legally entertain the thing, you could potentially I think split up the buildings further and I guess make some of the units even smaller. So if we consider granting the variances but condition that no unit can be smaller than the smallest units proposed currently, I guess is there any concern with that?

I don't think so. And maybe the question is can you say we're granting a variance at this percentage? You know, so like you added that percentage chart, that they can't go any lower or something like that. I don't know. That's more of a... Yeah, actually the gross floor area. The variance would be granted for the average gross floor area. Right, it's not a blanket variance. It's saying you can have it lower than that.

So we can't go lower. If you reduce the apartments more, then it would reduce the gross floor area per square. Unless you like divided them up or something. But then the G would be smaller and the average would be lower. Oh, because it's an average.

Yeah.

Of all the units.

Okay. Yeah, so if you created more, the average would decrease and you wouldn't need the variance. Okay.

Yes, not a blanket variance that you can only go. I got confused because it seemed like you were saying you could go lower.

Oh, well, I feel like you could condition it

No, like if there's... Because again, it runs with the land, right? So, you know, granted it, the contract falls through, someone else could come and do that, because I think they meet the requirements. Can we just look at that, like, for next meeting, like staff and legal, just... I guess I just want to make sure that what you're saying is correct. And I'll think about it, definitely, too. But that, like, if we agree on forbearances as currently proposed, no units can be smaller than what's currently proposed.

Are we tabling? Should we motion to table since it sounds like we're requesting additional information from you? That's what it sounds like.

I mean, that's been my recommendation, but yeah. So I moved to table these projects.

Yeah.

I second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. So we'll see you next week.

So can I ask a process question? So does that mean, do I have to then submit something by the deadline for next meeting, or just submit it whenever? Am I back in the process of that?

There's much more wiggle room than the application.

Yeah, okay. So we'll get the information and just submit it to you guys as long as it's a certain amount of time before the meeting.

I think probably by the end of the week we communicate the specific request. Oh, great. So you and Sophia or whoever would bring them up and give a general timeline of when you can get back to be on the agenda.

Good. Okay.

I mean, everything we said are suggestions. was the exact same and saying we ignored you, but then you're likely getting certain decisions.

Like I said, I don't make those decisions. I'm just the communicator. Alright, well thank you.

Adjourn, adjourn.