Zoning Hearing Board - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Afternoon everyone. We'll call the meeting to order. If you would join me in the pledge of allegiance, please.

I pledge algiance 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. Thank you. Amy, if you could call the role, please. Absolutely. Mr. Seabolt, present. Mr. Johnson present. Uh, Mr. Dawson has been excused. He had messaged me earlier. Uh, Miss King present. And Miss Gunshin present. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you. All right. Moving on to new business. We'll go to the approval of the March 10th meeting minutes. Is there a motion? So move Johnson. Second. Second. Second, Miss King. All in favor?

I I All right, moving along. We have no outstanding decisions today. We have no continued hearings today. And before we move to the hearing of cases, just a couple items of housekeeping. If you are here to speak today either in favor or opposed to any of the appeals, we will ask that you come forward when it's time. When you come forward, we'll have you state your name for the record. You'll need to be sworn in with the court reporter who hopefully is online. Amy can confirm that with us. When the testimony is provided, you will also hear me ask, "Is there anyone else to speak in favor of?" I will ask that three times. That way we get through anybody who's here to speak in favor of. I will also ask, is there anyone here to speak opposed to the request? I will also ask that three times. So, if you've already spoken, you're good. You don't need to come back up. Sometimes that's a little confusing for people. So, again, when you come forward, please state your name and your address. Be sworn in by the court reporter. Be sure that you're speaking into the microphone. The court reporter is online. This is also being livereamed, so if you're not directly into the microphone, it's very difficult to hear you. There may come a time where the board may go into executive session to deliberate further. If we do that, we'll make that announcement and then we'll retreat to deliberate and then we'll come back out on the record. With that, court reporter.

Uh, yes. Could I please confirm there's a court reporter?

Okay, they are available. Thank you. They don't need to be promoted. Oh. to be able to speak? No, they should be able to do that in the back. Okay. All right. With that, Amy, if we could go to the first appeal, please.

Uh, absolutely. The first one we'll start with is number 13330. This is by Timothy Hoover. Taylor Hoover is here to speak on his behalf of his father, which has been confirmed and approved. Um, this is of equity trust company custody custodian FBO concerning a property located at 302 Cherry Street. Index is 174021-107. It's located in an R2 medium density residential zoning district. The appellant is requesting a dimensional variance for a proposed two family dwelling with a garage door to be added for the storage area. Per section 205.14 of this ordinance. The minimum distance between any street property line and any garage doors facing the street or facing the same shall be 20 feet with a clear unobstructed clear sight area extending 5t on either side of the driveway at the property line and 5t deep proposed proposed is a 12ft setback instead of the 20. Taylor

yes good afternoon. Thank you for having me. My name is Taylor Hoover. data swear in or uh yes the court reporter can swear you in now.

Okay. She can talk. She's just raising. Okay. So, I'm going to raise my hand or Okay.

We'll get them taken care of. Okay. Ready to be sworn in?

Yes. Could the court reporter please swear the the appelanin? Could the court reporter if you cannot unmute yourself, could you please raise your hand in the chat? I think

Hello. Can you Can you hear me? This is the court reporter. We can hear you now. We can hear you now. Thank you. Is everybody able to hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. Yes, you can hear me now. Yes. Go ahead. Okay. I apologize for that. So, sir, Mr. Hoover, I know you can't see me. I'm Katherine and the court reporter. I'm going to swear you in. I apologize for the delay. So, could you please just raise your right hand? Do you swear from the testimony you give today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Thank you. May I proceed?

Yeah. So, I I can show you this. We were here uh two months ago originally to get uh the zoning changed from a res well to a three-unit, but we've now changed our plans. So, we would like to proceed with just turning this into a residential two-unit first floor apartment on the first floor and a second floor apartment on the second floor. And I have more plans. There's there Oh, let me Here's the full plans of everything. but it hasn't been updated. But it's kind of the same thing of layout of the first floor has the first floor apartment storage area and then same with second floor is going to be just one giant second floor apartment. And we're not putting a Make sure you speak.

Oh yeah. So what we're what the new plan is the first floor and the back of the back of the building or to the west will be a a two-bedroom uh one floor apartment. The front where the actual church part was. So, this building used to be a storefront and then it was turned into a I think it was turned into like apartments and then it was turned into a church. And the whole front part of the house it's like 25 wide by I'm going to say like 30 deep and we uh want to use this as general storage for us for us. So, we want to put two garage doors 10 x10 on the front of the building. Uh there is a lip there. So, we don't plan to put any cars there but we do a lot of uh we own quality rentals. We have over like 250 units. We have we need more storage of stuff. So, being able to store construction materials there, that's what we plan to use it for. And then the second floor will just be like a I think it'll be a three-bedroom apartment is the plan. So, is there any questions, concerns? Yeah.

So, one of the criteria for this variance is to document the hardship. So basically for you to explain to us why this property cannot be developed in strict conformance with the zoning ordinance.

Well, so the the front of this apartment's already it's already been ripped open and I don't have any pictures of of that of where the this church was. It's already set up as like a general storage area. So for for us best use case it's it's too b too big, too tall and for what how we want to set this up as an apartment. And honestly like we we think this is the best use of space. We're remodeling this building and I I can't move the building. We're existing what it is, right? But like like literally was set up as a commercial space in the front of the building. It's already ripped out. Everything's it's already set up like that. And then in the back of the house, it's set up to be more residential and same as upstairs. I don't necessarily disagree that you can't move the building back in order to get the 20 ft, but you could also not put in garage doors.

Okay. Correct. What' you say? I said I don't necessarily disagree that you can't move the building back in order to get the 20 ft necessary, but you could also not put in garage doors. Yeah, we're just putting garage doors in for ease of access to be able to get stuff in and out. Right. I need to move cabinets. they need to move doors like this is the easy way be able to back a truck right up be able to unload and unload and this is how we see use of that space so a garage door makes sense and I I understand why you guys have this of actually storing cars and being garage but that is not the intent of this this is purely just storage is what we're planning on doing understood on the use side of it your request today is for a dimensional variance yes

right for us to basically forego the 20 foot that is required Yes. So, ease of use doesn't necessarily explain. Okay. I I I I I guess I I don't know what more I can say about this, right? Like, so in the event that this variance is not granted today, y what happens to the project?

It it's going to stall out and we're going to have to go back into the drawing board of how we actually use this space. Like I I don't know where we proceed with this. And we're we're trying to do this as a reasonable of re remodeling this old this old storefront house. So I I I honestly I'm speaking on behalf of my father right now. He he's out of town, out of country right now, but like this is this is our plan and how we want to do it. And I guess trying to get appeasement of being able to do this to correct something. So if that makes sense. There there there already is a large door in the front of the the building right now, right? It's like a 60inch door going in there, right? So, what if I like it's just we just want to modify and change that entrance point by putting two doors. Give you that one.

Sorry. I would click on the street view, but my mouse is taking over and I can't get it to click. So, I apologize. This is the front door that you're referencing. Yeah. Yeah. Which is not a garage door. It's not a garage door. Correct. It's a entry door. A man door. Yes. Okay. Any other questions from the board or the solicitor? So, you said you're going to use it as sort of a base of operations for your rental business? No, just just storage of dry goods. Like, how often would you be coming in and out of there? How are you going to use it on a daily basis?

On a daily basis. It's really not going to be daily use. It's like a monthly, you know, hey, we we bought a kitchen. for me to pop it in here for the next part. We're going to put it in there. Like I have garages spread throughout town. One a door garage, shingle garage. Honestly, I see this as a good dry We see this as a good dry good storage garage for us to be able to operate our business. So, we already have Yeah, I do need to I do need to note that there is not a use variance applied for for the storage area. It was simply for a door only. Yeah. Is that another zoning? Well, it's a two unit with storage. Yeah,

the storage is kind of existing as it is in the building. So, if we needed to do a use, that may have been part of what we need to look at. But the fact that he just wanted to switch doors, that's what was given is just dimensional at this point. Yeah.

Other questions? I just wanted to walk through quickly so that you understand for variance purposes there are in the case of the city's ordinance about eight factors but some of them don't really apply to your situation. Um but there's nothing that there in order to be granted a variance under the city's zoning ordinance as well as the municipality's planning code. There has to be unique physical circumstances or conditions including irregularity, narrowness or shallowess of the lot shape or size um or peculiar conditions relative to the property that make it unnecess unable to develop it in conformance with the zoning ordinance.

Two, that because of those you can't possibly develop the property in conformance. Um that the unnecessary hardship is not created by the applicant. that the variance, if authorized, will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which the property is located. Um, and that the variance, if authorized, would be the minimum variance that would afford relief and represent the lease modification. Um, is this a residential neighborhood? Sort of. No, we're commercial. It's R2.

It's R2, but there's commercial. There's a commercial building right next to me with a parking lot right to the south. In the previous variance that your dad was here for, was that for a three-unit? Yes. Apartment. And so it's no longer going to be a three-unit. No, we're not going to go down the three-unit process. We was it three units? There was one on the bottom and two on top second floor. Yeah,

it was deemed it was too costly to turn into a threeunit after we got started going down the actual architectural plans. So, it killed that plan at fourth and Jerry, there is a plaza on a Yep. northeast corner. Yep. And then on the south side of right here, there's Is it It's an electrical company. Is it that? There's like an electrical company warehouse garage with a big uh like big parking lot right there. Right. So, it's all mixed use in this neighborhood. Is that adjacent to your property? Yeah. Right. Right. Right next to it on the south side of the property. Corman. Yeah.

Yeah. Honestly, we're trying to make sense of this and like pretty much how this building was laid out in the front the church area. It's all the walls are torn out. It's all raised. It looks it looks like a garage. And so originally when we did this planning for the three-unit, that plan was still the idea to have a garage there. We we approved it, but we didn't actually get the approval for the set back for the garage door. So it was a that's why I'm back coming here today because we missed that. But honestly, like we think this is like the best use of space so we can provide two apartments out of this old this old building and also provides an opportunity for us to have a place to store materials. So that's that that that's what we're honestly trying to do. We've we started remodeling the outside. You see what it looks like. We've remodeled not I don't know 10 tens 50s houses in the city of Erie. So it's going to look nice. It's going to look sharp of how we decide to do this. It's just this is what we want to do and trying to get the variance for it.

Okay. Thank you. I think what we'll do is we'll hear your next appeal since you have two and then we'll do a brief executive session and come back. Okay. Okay. Anybody else here to speak in favor of this request? Anyone else in favor? Last call. Anyone in favor? Okay. Anyone here to speak opposed? Mr. Hoover, you can have a seat for just a second just in case. Okay. Anyone opposed? Last call. Anyone opposed? All right. Moving on to the next appeal. Amy, if you could read that for us.

We'll do. Let me get you down there. can function now. Okay, we have appeal number 13331. This is a uh by Timothy Hoover. Again, Taylor Hoover is here representing him concerning a property located at 319 East 2nd Street. Parcel index is 17-40- I'm sorry, 4012-219. It's located in a WR waterfront residential zoning district. The appellant is requesting a dimensional variance for a proposed one family dwelling. Excuse me. Per section 205.2 of the ordinance. The the required depth of the front yard for the proposed structure shall be the average depth of the existing struct structures located between two intersecting streets with a tolerance of plus or minus 5 ft. A front yard setback of 69 foot is proposed. Um I do have a couple markings up there. Before Jake Welsh had retired, he had given Mr. Hoover the number of 38 feet from the sidewalk. So you'll see 38 from the feet from the sidewalk crosses over the property line and that's where I had obtained my numbers at that time for 26 ft is his actual where he would be required to build and he is requesting 69.

We were told to 38 your curb does not include your property line. Okay.

Okay. of the house he wants to build and this is the actual actual layout.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to take your 302 back. This is northeast and second floor. Okay,

let me know when you guys are ready or I can Is there a site plan for the new one of where where it's going to land? It's that big it's that big drawing he put on where the layout. Sorry. Sorry. My father's old school. He likes to draw everything out. He's an interior designer by trade. So, are you ready for me to speak or? Okay. Sure. Go ahead.

Okay. So, uh, the property we're talking about is 319 Eastn Street. It's like 41 feet wide by like 165 feet deep. Um, that the house is actually located right across from my father's permanent his primary residence. So, he lives right across the street from it and we do own a lot of properties on that block and neighborhood. Have been investing in this area for the last 25 years. Uh, so what he's proposing to do is he would like to set the house further back. And if you look at the site plan of the house, it is kind of a I call it a garage dominium. So the first floor will be all garage space and storage. And then there'll be an elevator going upstairs and it's going to be a one-bedroom apartment. His thinking is uh for himself as an older retirement house here in the city of Eur. He wants to be able to store his his vehicles as well as being able to have elevator access up and down is is what his plan is. Uh so right now we proposed the 38 ft and he's looking to do the 69 ft. Uh so in this neighborhood all the houses there is no like set depth of where they're all set at. They're all kind of varied and I call it it's the old Russian Poland neighborhood. There are houses set further back behind houses. So the house right here on the right on the west hand side that's set back at 45 ft. If you go to the next house to the right there's a there's another house set back behind that. Uh yeah that green one. Yeah.

I'm going to take you down this street. A little bit too far. Yep. Yeah. Right there. Uh the greenhouse. Greenhouse. Yeah. If you go a little bit more. Yep. There's a house set back that that's set out. Uh hold on. West. That one's 38 ft. He's back there.

No, it's it's second house. Yeah, I think it's like 116 ft back. Oh, and that one's set back 45. known if you turn around the other side, the north side of the street, this is my father's personal house, and the house is uh right there to the right. Right. So, we have a garage set back there to provide parking. His biggest concern is, and this is like actual uses, where does all the snow go? Right? We live in the city with the plow and everything like that. So, one of his plans is to be able to have parking for vehicles and storage in front of us with this garage, but where does the snow go from either side of these of the thing? So his idea of having this space and having this setback is the ability for for winter snow can be piled off on the side from his house from that house and actually have an efficient way. And if you keep going down the street, uh Amy, so like we'll keep going down, they're all they're all kind of very different, but uh one more. If you keep go keep going one more, there isn't like a set. They're all kind of towards the front of the house. Uh other side, the north side,

sorry.

Yep. There's a house set back at like 100 feet. So it's not abnormal in this neighborhood. And it kind of fits the book of fitting in of houses set back and not all in the street. So, uh, if you look at the plan, it's going to be like a 1500 I think it's 1500 feet. Uh, I see it. Yeah, it's like 1500 feet of the house. We still have, I think, like 48 ft off the back of the property line. So, in his mind, we still have plenty of yard in the back of the space, but it really provides an opportunity for the front of the house to kind of have that ability to park cars. The big thing with this lot is it's only 40t wide and with new building code you have to be 5 feet off I think. So the house can only be 30 feet wide and where does that put the garage? Where does that put that? Like the ability to get cars off the street I think is something value and that's needed in this like that is needed. So any questions concerns? So, as the solicitor mentioned in your previous appeal,

previous for this one, the one we just talked about. Oh, yes. Yes. Same criteria apply here, right? Yep. So, if we're looking at East Second Street, Yep. This is very helpful. Thank you for putting that together. You look at the dimensions of the lots, they're all pretty much the same, right? In terms of width, they're all like 40. 40 is kind of the standard down there. And then Yeah. So I guess the question remains on the table then, right? What's a unique characteristic about this property?

Well, the the property is be the ability to have parking in front of the house and not be on the street, right? Like like so now we go to new building code, right? So it used to be three feet, we're losing you're los it's now five feet. So you're instead of six feet 10 feet. You kind of lose your ability to have a driveway go around the house or parking in the back. If you look at all these houses, that's a lot of them how they have. So my neighbor, his house is set back further 46 because he can park in the front, right? Look right to the west. That's Bob lives there. So the ability like I I think with this new building code, you've really lost your ability to have driveways like so let's say let's say I put a driveway, I need a 10 foot driveway and then five feet, that's 15 feet. That only leaves me 25 feet for a house. That's a very narrow house if you look at all the other stuff. So this new building code on these old series lots are pushing us like I I think being able to push the well we think the ability to push the house back further and have more parking in the front is the way we have to do. If you go down the street uh like uh it's Marissa's house. She just built it two years ago uh other way towards Hammet. So I I I think they they they got suckered in putting their house too close to the street. They have no parking. Keep going. Keep going down. It's on the next block over.

It's that white house. Yeah, right there. Yeah. So, this is a perfect example. So, they barely they have like two cars, but they have no parking and how their lot was and they're forced to be at the front of the street. They have no ability to park the cars, right? Like like like honestly like they can they can kind of pull what you have one car garage like I most people have multiple cars. if you want to pull pull your cars off the street like the what we're trying to do is and what we think is the ability to get the cars off the street be a place for the snow to go and that's kind of what we want to do but like I I think a big thing is this building code on your lot lines these old lots you're you're losing the ability to have like driveways around because you're going to shrink the house down.

So I think to Chairwoman Gungeon's question though is there anything about the physical dimensions of the lot separate? It's it's it's too narrow. It's too narrow to build something like could you could you but you could build something though is I think what you said well depending on your your use case like 25 is a narrow house. I understand that but you could you're supposed to you have to demonstrate a hardship but you could develop this law in conformance with the zoning ordinance. Correct. Well we could do you could build anything anything this is the plan. this is what we would like to go do and just asking for aance to push the house further back in the yard, which is not uncommon of anything else on that street in that block. It's not like a one-off. They're all pushed back different places, different locations,

and I understand that they're all pushed back different dimensions, different location, but because of the what the neighborhood looks like isn't like necessarily the criteria that we're going with. Okay. So, I I I I think the problem is you're going to have like like there isn't going to be enough of the house of how we want to do this. you're shrinking the house too much to include a driveway

to if you want to put driveway and parking. If you want parking, if you push pull the house forward, there's going to be like not that much parking. So, a lot of these houses put the driveway around the side of the house. But now we're losing that dimension. So, that's what we want to do. I don't know how to explain it more of showing more of a hardship like if you're here in like you're here in the city of the winter, there's nowhere for snow. Having more space in front of the house isn't a bad idea. Where where does the snow go? Miss Francis, is there a parking requirement for single family dwellings like number of spaces? Um, yeah, it's supposed to have one per unit dwelling according to our parking code 303.

So, in a rental situation, if there was a two unit, we would require two parking spaces. In a single family, one two off streetet or two in general? Uh, two off streetet, not on street. and some of our areas have been exempt from parking and driveways alto together. So, we are kind of correcting that as we go. As you can see, some old stuff was in our old code. Um, hence the setbacks on some of those. So, new code is changing some things.

Yeah. And I I think this is a good opportunity to articulate that for the board. We don't get to vote whether or not we think this is a good idea or it spurs economic development or it grows the tax base or whatever. If we could, obviously, we could be more amendable to what you're asking for. We are bound by the criteria for the ordinance. We are also a quasi judicial board such that we make case law for the rest of Pennsylvania. So, if we get something right, that's great. If we get something wrong, that's not necessarily great for the rest of the Commonwealth. So, that's the reason that we're asking all of these questions that may seem a little bit over the top. We have to make sure that the rulings that we make are in conformance with the law. Okay. Any other questions from the board?

No. Okay. Thanks. Anybody else here to speak in favor of the request? Anyone else in favor? Anyone else in favor? Hearing none. Anyone here in opposition? Anyone in opposition? Anyone in opposition? Okay. Also hearing none. We're going to take a brief executive session. We'll be back. You can have a seat. Okay. Thank you. Heat. Heat. Hey everybody. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey

everybody. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. All right. Thanks for your patience. We're going to come back on the record. We are going to revisit uh 302 cherry. Amy, will you call the role for the vote?

Yes, absolutely. On 302 cherry to approve the dimensional variance. Mr. Seabald, um I'd be a no on that. Uh Mr. Johnson, uh yes, Miss King, no. And Miss Gunin, also no. Okay, that um has been denied for the 12oot setback for the garage doors. All right, moving on to 319E second. Uh Mr. Hoover, if you could come to the podium.

Thank you. You do make a strong case about the setbacks being all over the place in that neighborhood. They are. They are indeed. And to the solicitor's point, one of our criteria is if it will or will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood. Right. To your point, all over the place. All over the place. So, the board is willing to offer you a compromise. Okay. Your neighbor's property is 46 ft back. Yep. If we were to go to 46 feet, not the 69 that you requested, but 46 feet, would that be amendable?

I I'm pretty sure he wants the 69 ft is where he wants it back. That's that's what we requested. That's what we said. That's where he wants to put it. So, okay. So, you're saying no. No. No to that. Okay. All right. We're going to move forward with the vote, then. You can have a you can have a seat. Y Okay. Um, voting on the 69 proposed uh, front yard setback. Mr. Seabald, no. Mr. Johnson, no. Miss King, no. Miss Gunin, also no. Okay, that has also been denied. Taylor, I'll make sure I get you all the copies back. We'll give you a call. We'll get those into the record.

I'm sorry. I just make a comment. That's up to the board at this point. Yeah, I'd like I'd like to explain to him about the 46 ft that we would that we would approve, but is it 46 from the sidewalk? Is it 46 from the curb? I've been we've been getting multiple things of where it is. It's always your property line. And if you don't know where your property line is, we highly re recommend you survey the property. Okay. So, uh, can I can I make make a comment real quick? Sure.

So, we've been down, uh, trying to say this politely and effectively. So, my we have a family business here in the city of Equality Reynolds. We own about 200 different properties here in the city of Erie, mostly all downtown, and we've been investing our own money money privately. It's a family business. My father, who isn't here right now, he's he's out of town on vacation. He wants to spend like $300,000 building his garageinium across the street. Wants to improve the neighborhood. We own seven houses on this block in the street. And if you look at the ones we own, look how they look, how they're taken care of. We want to spend money in the city of Erie. He is only going to spend money of how he wants to build it. And I know he's not here and we can come back and we can kind of figure if like the 45 or 46, but literally like we want to do good. We want to improve there. He literally lives across the street. He's be looking at this house of the house that he built. So I I just don't understand why. And like if you're here in this and when we get the four feet of snow, the snow goes, all the cars are on the street. The reason he wants to push the house back, get cars and vehicles off the street. We have a fleet of cars that we have. I know that's our own problem, but like we need ability to park and put them and live there. Like my brother lives downtown. We we're we've moved we used to live out in West Springfield. We now live downtown in Erie. So, we want to be a part of the city. We love Erie. It's just we want he wants to go do this. And if he's not going to do this, he's not going to do it. So, it's just going to sit another empty lot in the city of Erie that we don't develop. We don't do anything with it because they're all like in normal construction. They're all too small.

And Mr. If I may interject here, the board here does not make the rules. That's the issue with city council and the zoning ordinance. We are bound by what's in the code and the variance requirements we have to meet. In order to get into variance, you have to be demonstrating a hardship. I don't understand how hardship the the lot is too narrow to build something that we want to build. So the ability to get it's what you want to build. That is the question. Not because you couldn't build it in conformance with the ordinance. It's what you want. It's your preference. So we we we want to develop an empty lot in the city of Erie. If you go lower east lower, how many empty lots are sitting there that nobody does anything and it just collects trash? So, like literally like we we we need we need we need to change the zoning to help improve and help developers go develop it.

And I'd encourage you to speak with city council regarding that because we don't change those rules. I just it's just frustrating. So, I I I don't mean to get but like we we want to go spend the money. We have the money to go spend it, but if he doesn't get it, it's not going to get spent. So, I just I I I just think we're missing an opportunity and I and I'm just the voice. I'm just the messenger trying to communicate it. But, but thank you for your time and we'll go from there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And and the hardship with the 3ft cherry, we approved the plan. I had to spend another $300 to come back to here even though we already had that plan with the garage doors there. So, I don't understand why that that's a that's a big no because we approved it when we first again.

So, I just I I I literally like I I'm getting my money's taking taken advantage of and we're not getting Mr. Hoover. The previous approval was for a different design and use and was not indicated for storage purposes. So, and this is I think we'll just sit on Okay, we'll go go from there. But we want to do good. So, thank you. All right, moving on to the next appeal.

Okay, Mr. Hbert, if you can come to the stand. Thank you. This is appeal number 133, sorry, 133 32 uh by Steven Herbert on behalf of Janet Gowen, who we did receive communication for. This is her brother. This is concerning a property located at 322 Shiakqua Boulevard 14-1127-202. It's located in an R1A lowdensity residential zoning district. The appellant is requesting a dimensional variance for a proposed shed. Per section 205.9 of the ordinance, detach accessory building shall be located in the side or rear yard of the of the building. The front yard area is what's proposed. All right, Mr. Herbert, if you could raise your right hand to be sworn in by the court reporter.

Sure.

Mr. Hbert, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Do you swear from the test? We lost you. Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. I can hear you now. Okay. Do you swear affirm the testimony you gave will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Thank you. If you could state your name, spell your last name, and give us your address, please. Steven Hurlebert. My last name is spelled H U R L B E R T. And do you want my sister's address or my personal address?

Your address. My personal address is 1446 West 45th Street Erie PA. Thank you. May proceed.

Um my sister's lot at the time and I know the sheds are supposed to be in the backyard, but the way they built that house, uh there is no room. And presently there's an old shed on the front of it that is an eyesore that I'm removing. And that is the same area that I'm going to be building the shed back into. But the for the dimensions, it's going to be protruding past the front of the house like the existing one is, but not as far. The existing one, if you measure, it's like to the end of it is like 18 ft. The shed I'm proposing the 12x 24 will actually set back further and only protrude probably 5 ft beyond the very edge of the front house which right now is uh would be a lot less than it is now. Um, if you're looking at that picture right there, uh, if you can kind of see where the ridge line of that of the existing shed is, the peak of it, that's probably within a foot of where the new shed proposed would be protruding out past. So, it'd be actually sitting back further and it'll be a whole lot nicer aesthetically. and built better. Um, that shed was I don't know when that shed was built there, but to be able to put take that down and put a new one in there, the only way to do it is have the variance.

So, you are confirming that you are to demolish the existing shed. Yes. Okay. Yes. I got to take that out. And then I'm going to level the land property cuz there's a slight grade to it. So, it's nice and level. I got a lot of to-do projects there. What's to the right of that by the red square there? Is that just a park something parked or is that another structure? No, that is a truck. Okay. Which I'm trying to get that taken care of, too. Um, it hasn't moved in probably 10 years. Okay, that better than you. Sorry.

If anybody's interested in it, it's an old Dodge with a Cummings engine in it. And uh, those are both. It does run. Well, I did le last time