 Deputy Zoning Administrator and Sky Robinson Barnes, land use board coordinator. The board is charged with hearing applications for special exceptions, variances, and administrative appeals. All testimony is recorded for the record and anyone wishing to speak will need to be sworn in and come to the podium to speak. No testimony can be taken from the floor. When you come to the podium, state your name and please speak clearly into the microphone because this meeting is being recorded. Applicants with cases before the board are allotted a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicant. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the board or staff regarding the case. Any member of the public may address the board in intervals of three minutes or five minutes if by a spokesperson for an established body or group of three or more. The applicant then has five minutes for rebuttal. The board reserves the right to amend these limits on a case-by-case basis. Those of you who plan to speak must be sworn. If you are here as an applicant or here to speak in any case, please stand at this time and raise your right hand. Do you affirm or attest that the testimony you will give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? Very good. At this time, I will turn the meeting over to Ms. Hastie. Thank you and good afternoon. Get this to move forward. We're gonna start with the consent agenda. Not appear to be working, but we are starting with the consent agenda and the only item on the consent agenda today is the approval of the March 2nd minutes. All right. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right. Very good. All right. It's your line. Moving on to the regular agenda. Try again here. All right. So if we could hear from the applicant, please. Good afternoon. My name is Toby Ward. I'm an attorney here in Columbia and I have the pleasure of representing Zaid Kalani who's seated at the bench next to me. As you can tell, Zaid is a physician. In fact, he's a general surgeon practicing here in Columbia and the reason he's in his medical garb today is that he has the great fortune of leaving tomorrow a trip out of town. So he was seeing a lot of patients before he left. The matter that is before you today is a piece of property that's on Hardin Street. I trust everyone's had a chance to review the hearing packet and you're probably, if you ever go to Five Points or to Rosewood via Hardin Street, you're probably familiar with this general stretch of area which consists of some lots established back during the establishment of the whole area in 1928. I forget the developer's name, but this is one of those smaller lots originated in 1928. And it was not only a small lot, but it was a duplex. And not only is it a small lot with a duplex, but when the lot, when the building was created, there was insufficient space to drive around back to park. Each of the duplex units has three bedrooms. All of those conditions were present when the current owner, Mr. Polanyi, bought the property. And as best I can tell, those same conditions have been present since 1928. That is, it's a small lot. It's narrow, the construction of the duplex made it impossible to get cars around back. And all the parking was in front. So we think that that establishes grounds for the granting of a variance to continue the parking that has been in place for many years, that is in the front yard in violation of the city ordinance, which says you can't park your vehicles in the front yard. There's nowhere else to park the vehicles other than the front yard. If you're familiar with this area, there's no on-street parking. And in fact, there's about a eight to 10 foot change of elevation from the road bed up to the area where the houses, the duplexes are built. And so it also makes it difficult generally just to get in and out of the property because you have to take that sharp turn off hardened if you're turning right and climb up the hill and park. The parking when Mr. Colani bought the property was gravel. He did make one change. That is, he shored up the right-hand side of the property as you look at the building to put up a bit of a barrier because there's a significant drop off from the right-hand side of the lot where the vehicles are parked to the next lot. And he didn't want anyone to drive over that drop off and cause a problem there. Of course, it's not technically allowed for you to consider, but several of the properties in this area utilize front parking for the same or similar reasons. So we believe that under the conditions of the city's ordinance and state law, that there are extraordinary and exceptional conditions that apply to this piece of property. That is the way it was built in the size of the lot and the lack of parking in the back. That these conditions don't generally apply to other properties because this is one of the few that basically cut off the parking in the back by the construction of the building. The other ones you can get around back and park, but people park in the front. This condition didn't result from Mr. Colani's actions cause he didn't build the house back in the 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or whenever it was built. And these conditions don't create any problem outside of this particular piece of property other than when you drive by, you see as many as six vehicles parked there because the duplex, each of them has three units. So two times three is six. And the world being what it is today, everybody wants a car, especially if they're a student and what that's who occupies these units at this time. So I hope I haven't drug this out too long. And if anyone has any questions, I would try to answer them. But also Mr. Colani can answer any questions that you might have. I have a question actually for Ms. Hastie. Is it not correct? Are you not allowed to park on the front yard on a prepared surface? On gravel. Properly prepared surface within a certain, I mean my understanding of the front yard parking ordinance is that you're allowed to have a certain percentage or certain number of square footages. 40% or 500 square feet, whichever is greater. Right, yeah. And we're at 70%. They're requesting a variance from 40 to 70%. Okay, okay, all right. All right, you confused me because you said something like you would not be allowed to do it. Okay, good, all right. So what questions do we have? Board members? I don't have any questions. Thank you very much. All right, thanks. Okay. Do we have anyone who would like to speak on the case? Mr. Daniel. Madam Chairman, members of, those are I'm the president of the Wheelio Neighborhood Association. Our neighborhood along with Wales Garden and the other neighborhoods that surround five points went with supported Dick Carl-Putin in his efforts a couple of years ago to clean up the bar scene in five points to get the Department of Revenue to actually follow the law that we all approved as a constitutional amendment and we were successful. We have undertaken now to try to clean up other things in our neighborhoods, one of which is the proliferation of parking in front yards that exceeds the percentage allowed. If you will look from Haywood Street to Hardin along, Hardin's from Haywood to Rosewood along Hardin, if you would look at Walka Maw from Haywood Street to Rosewood, it's over and over the same mission, is that he wants a 70%, he wants to pay 70% of that lot. Limited green space will remain. There are two others almost within a strong's throw of this same property. You've got 503 Hardin Street, which is a corner lot, which has the same six parking there. You've got 1930 Wheat Street, which has the same issue. If you allow this, you are setting the roadmap for the future in not only Wales Garden but the other neighborhoods downtown. Basically letting the front yards become parking lots instead of a designated parking space for a certain amount of space with the proper gravel or other type of coating. The neighborhood, our neighborhood is not supported and I think I can argue that the other neighborhoods downtown are not supportive of this expansion. Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak on this case? All right, would the applicant like to respond? Rebut. Only to say that the condition that we now have is not the result of anything Mr. Colani did. It's been in existence for many years. He simply came forward to seek permission to do what has been going on for many years. And again, as I said before, it's not something that he created. It was this condition was created when someone built a duplex with two dwelling units and six bedrooms on a piece of property that sits close to the road and you can't get to the backyard. Now we got a letter and I don't have the pictures from the letter. Do you have the ability to put them up at all? You don't, okay. Because we got pictures, we got a letter from a protestant and it included pictures that show that there was not parking. They just stacked the cars on the driveway. There was no other parking issue. I can't, he gives you several different times when this has happened, but that it was mostly green space. So I'm not sure what they did before, but I mean, certainly one can take the bus or ride a bicycle, but I'm not sure what they did. I wish we could get this to you. You wanna look at my phone. I suppose that would be. I would say that that person is not here to present their evidence that it shouldn't be considered. It's part of that. It's part of the package. It's Rich Horton sent us an email and we get emails all the time. That's part of what we get, I guess, is part of the packet. They're showing images from 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2011 show a yard in varying states of care that even at its worst, it was superior to this parking lot. He said that this current situation, he says, I encourage you to deny the variance request for 505 and 508 Hardin Street. I would suggest that the current situation, 508, doesn't make sense. The current situation is exactly what these rules were meant to prevent. You can see on Google Street view that the house had a yard as recently as 2018 and he goes on from there. Front yard fits with surrounding properties and the character of both Wales Garden and Shannon neighborhoods. While I'm sympathetic to the parking constraints, this is an issue that has been present for decades. Tenants of this duplex were able to cope with limited parking for 90 years before this front yard was transformed into a parking lot. Well, Mr. Kalani was sworn in. I was sworn in. Mr. Daniel was sworn in, but the person whose information you just read, they were not sworn in. So I would submit again that it's not confident. Okay. So you dispute that there was, of 2019 in the survey, there were sidewalks in. Right. So if that's the question at hand, as to when the surface was taken from grass inside. Mr. Kalani has photographs of the property when he bought it. Okay. And it was a gravel parking lot. When did you buy it? 2021. As the survey that we have here from 2019 shows, does not show, it just does not show parking lot. Right. It just shows a sidewalk. And we submitted that survey. We're not trying to hide it. Right, right, right. But I mean, the question is that since that's the case, people weren't parking. I guess it looked like what they were doing in his pictures that they were stacking on the cars down the driveway. And that was a less than ideal situation, I suppose. But again, the problem is that you have two residential dwelling units. Each has three bedrooms and you cannot get around back to park. And that condition has existed since a long time. Mr. Kalani did not install the gravel parking lot. Right. That was there when he bought it. He tried to improve it. And he thinks that the current configuration is safer because of the terrain, the incline going up. Okay. So if you, but you'll have to weigh the evidence and decide what you want to do. But again, I would submit that if you consider evidence and some that's not coming from a sworn in source, then you're undercutting the process where you made all three of us swear in and someone who didn't even hear much less sworn in, you're gonna give credence to their testimony. Although, I guess we could probably take judicial notice of the Google Earth. Would you agree to that perhaps? Well, is it in the record? Yeah, it is in the record. Yes. It's attached to the apple, to the packet. Yes, the letter was in there. I'm sorry, it came after the packet, but we forwarded it, yes. So it will be part of the record. We all got in the copy of it. Yeah, we all received it. Right. I'm just saying we could arguably take judicial notice of the fact Google Earth is a neutral source. Arguably. He probably didn't doctor those photos. Yes, you could. And you could go around the block to find a way to stop it. Just ask me to rule based on the evidence of the runner, be it the competent evidence. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. My position is basically you approve this, here open the door for other people to convert a front yard from 40% to 70% of parking lot. Where does it end? I mean, we might as well just pave the whole front yard and move on. I mean, that's, we're trying, the neighborhoods are trying to take our neighborhoods back. This is the bar scene with step one. This is step two, trying to deal with the university and their smoking mirrors and step three, trying to get a town and gown committee with the university again, their smoking mirrors. But you know, we're struggling and we need some help. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Testimony is closed and let's begin board discussion. Anybody want to start? Can I ask a clarifying question? Certainly for the application, just to make sure that we understand what exactly that we're discussing is that are we approving that it maintain as is or is there additional work that's being requested? You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that it's just to maintain as is because it already exceeds the amount that's allowed by ordinance. Anyone want to start? I'll put something out there that I'm curious to see all thoughts on for the discussion and that's the extraordinary exceptional conditions pertaining to the particular piece of property. If you go by it, it's one down from a corner lot. And then on the wheat street side, there's a house that does jut in. So there isn't, although it's set back from Hardin Street similar to the other houses that are on Hardin Street, it's not further back eliminating the parking in the back. There wouldn't be any room to put a parking spot back there, even if there was access to get to it. So it does seem like there's a little bit of extraordinary exceptional conditions that prevent them from being able to park in the back that are different than other houses on the same that are similarly built on the same stretch that if they came forward and said, we want to do 70% of our front yard, we'd say, no, there's room in the back to create a parking spot potentially. So it doesn't necessarily open up the door to grant this to everyone on the street. That's a good point. I think experientially it does a little bit open the door if this is okay, then somebody else who maybe doesn't have as extenuating circumstances thinks it's okay. And we find ourselves in a, people start asking for forgiveness rather than permission. And so while it's not his fault for purchasing a property that had already been compromised, that's kind of the difficult part. I agree with the uniqueness of the property where you can't park in the rear, this being a unique situation and anybody else, it does kind of open the door, but we have to take it on a case by case and examine that somebody else tries to do it, examine it then. Ron? I'm still a little confused because kind of like the question you were asking, are we, because the paperwork said that there was a, they want to go from 40% to 70% with paved or with gravel? It's my understanding they're leaving it as is, which is just gravel. And they're already in violation, which is how this kind of came to be. So it's already in violation? Yeah, yes. So they're asking for 70% to avoid the violation, is that correct? Basically. And did staff help to establish that 70% because looking at it, it looks like it's 95%. One of our inspectors. I mean, as far as board discussion goes, I mean, it's already a part. So, you know, I think if I'm thinking about, if I was a neighbor and thinking about the neighborhood, which is one of the things that we can assist with is maintaining the standards of the area that variances want to be in. It's a property with no grass. I mean, it's not a, it's a parking lot already. And so I think for me, if it was a situation where you had cars parking on grass, where it was an obvious violation of the, when you're looking at the standards that the neighborhood has already set for properties like this, and I think it would have to be a little bit stronger, but we're essentially, sounds like we're slicing the apple between whether or not we want to pay parking lot or a non-paid parking lot, because either way, it's a parking lot. So that's where I'm confused. Well, I think, I mean, I think, I'm puzzled, I'm confused. I mean, just, first place, the conditions on the property were known when the property was purchased. So it was plain to see. It's not like it was suddenly discovered, oh gosh, we can't do this. I'm concerned that, and it does appear that we have some inkling that perhaps it was not always gravels, that perhaps his predecessor in interest put the gravel down. That's just, I mean, it gives a roadmap to the next person to say, okay, well I'm gonna put the gravel down and then sell the property, and then the next person can say, hey, but we've already gotten gravel here. I mean, it is an unusually small property. And it is not like the other properties on that stretch are larger. I think next door is a business. Isn't it? I think next, no, it's not. Two down. Two down is a business. Two down is pretty much all duplexes in that. Well, probably by another block up. Well, no, because there's, at the corner of Wheat and, I mean, at the corner of Wheat and Hardin on the southwest corner of Wheat and Hardin is a very nice house. It's not going south, going up. If you're going up past that duplex, it's all right. No, but I'm saying on the southwest corner, if you're going south, going up the hill, keeping going up the hill, that first house on the other side of Wheat Street is a really nice house with a two acre loft. Yeah, with a fence and a beagle that keeps escaping. Right, I understand. But next to this property, all of those properties are duplexes. You're right, you're right. That's my point. Yeah, okay. I have a point too. If you go up another block from here, street parking starts to come into play. Yeah. So if you go further up, you go, you know, there's less people parking in the front yard. Here, there's really no other place to park unless you're going up into the neighborhood and parking your car on the street. Well, you could park somebody's house. Yeah, you could go up and park on the street. But then you're cutting into somebody else's, you're parking in front of their house. It sounds to me like this is a problem that was created by the person that bought the property and turned into a duplex in the first place. Well, I think it was always a duplex. It was always a duplex. That's what I'm saying. Like that's when the problem started because you're in an area that has no street parking. We got two duplexes that has three bedrooms apiece. Well, but... A six people that were commissioned to stay there. Well, but if you think about it, in 1928 or whenever this was built on 1933 or something, in 1933, it was probably a home and there probably was one car per person, per spot. Right, that's why I said duplexed. At most, at most. Whenever it was turned into a duplex. No, no, it was always, it was built as a duplex. Two homes next week. It's always been built as a duplex. But not students. It's not, it was always built as a duplex. But my guess is that in 1933, when it was built, it was a family, two family homes side by side, attached. And that they were, and the presumption was is that at most you had one car and perhaps none because they had street cars and because also people walk and because you're convenient, you know, a lot of people get around and take the bus and so on and so on. I mean, there are other options, there are other transportation options and there were considerably more. The assumption that you automatically have three cars for three bedrooms only works if you're talking about students or adults, not a family. A family wouldn't necessarily have three cars. You see? Is that what he said? I mean, I appreciate the history lesson, but it doesn't, I mean, we're talking about a place right now that occupies a space for students. There's six people that live in there, six students that are gonna have cars. There's no grass in the lot. It's already a gravel and concrete lot. I'm not sure exactly what is the variance for. For more gravel, for more. No, it's just to allow it to exist. The variance cannot be in violation. Right now they're in violation because they exceed the permitted amount, which is 40%. They now are at 70% or more. And so now what they're requesting is that they be taken, they get permission to do what they've been doing all along. For that extra thing. For giving forgiveness. Yeah, I think that's what my confusion is. It kind of seems like, kind of seems like a no-brainer to me. Like, it's a gravel parking lot. They're asking for it to be okay for them to do something they're already doing. Because what they're doing is not, is in violation of the ordinance. So where are the cars gonna park? Well, to some extent, that's not our problem. Just coming really, realistically, that's not our problem. They're asking for permission to have somewhere to do it. The cars, first place, one of the things we approved the student housing project last month, I believe, that is not providing spaces, parking spaces. They're not providing one space per student, per resident. They're providing considerably fewer with the assumption that the students will in fact take, you know, take public, if you're a Carolina student, you get the, your Carolina card gives you a free comment pass. You can take the comment anywhere. So I mean, it is easily within walking distance of campus. So it's not a foregone conclusion that they have to have cars. And in fact, we approved a project just last month where the assumption was that they were not going to have one car, one space per resident. So not necessarily a done deal. I mean, I agree that this is an unusual, with John, it's an unusual situation in that it is a pretty, it is a unique site compared to the other sites around nearby. So I'm not as concerned about a slippery slope issue, but they did come to the nuisance. They did come to the problem, which is, you know, you can look at it and see, wow, you've got nowhere to put cars. And then they just took it upon themselves to do it. That's a concern I have, but they are trying to ask for absolution. So I suppose we could, that's really what they're asking for right now is absolution, so. I just asked this, if you're not parking in front of this house, first place they're going to go is around the street, around the corner they are in parking in front of some of these nicer homes in the neighborhood that would potentially sit there. I understand that it's public parking, anybody can park there, but it goes back to the point, is that what really the neighborhood wants? Would you rather have them park in front of the property in which they live or? Well, I think the neighborhood, I think the neighborhood doesn't get a choice, it doesn't get to say, but I also think that, can we ask the neighborhood? I think, well, we've heard some from some of the neighborhoods and the neighborhood people and they're not happy with it. I mean, the fact is that, I mean, I have a parking space in front of my house. I live in the university, I have a parking space in front of my house and you know, it's not yours. It's not mine and I know it's not mine, I don't expect it to be mine and when somebody comes to my house they might have to walk down the hill, up or down on a very steep hill too, they have to walk up or down the hill, so that's just the way the world works. Madam Chairman, the 2000 block of Wheat Street is parking by permit. Okay, so they aren't going to park on Wheat Street but they could park up the hill on Hardin Street. I think you could get a permit. Sure, or they can get a permit, exactly. So they could get a permit or they can, yeah, that's another thing too, is you can get permit parking. Because I know Wheeler Hill is parking permit. Permit park, permit parking area. And there's 22 and a half feet between the front porch and the property line. So what they're saying is you could stack cars in line but if somebody, if the guy closest to the porch or girl closest to the porch wants to leave you gotta back two cars out onto Hardin which is potentially dangerous and then. But again, my house has a short driveway that you can park two smart cars in but that's it. And so we actually only have one car because we don't really need one. But yeah, we park one in our garage and that's that. I mean, you live in the city, you can get around, you don't have to drive everywhere. It's one of the nice things about living in the city is that you can walk places and you've got public transit and so on and so on. Or ride share. I mean, I think that's one of the things that we're understanding from the university that there are people using ride share. Can I ask another question? Go away far. If we were starting from scratch on this in some way, if they were coming sort of fresh and they had sort of what's shown in 2019, what would be, are there any other like landscaping factors or material factors or things like that that would play into. Like materials mitigation of, because it's not a parking lot that we would have for a business. You mean to establish the parking area? Right. Yeah, not really for residential. I mean, it's just, we've got in our code, certain things you can use as a parking surface and then you can't park on the grass and stuff like that. So I guess to recap, we've got a situation an unusual unique situation. There are alternatives that would involve street parking or stacking cars and or stacking cars and or getting parking permits, but they're not as ideal. We have a situation where currently, what they're doing is not going to degrade the environment any further than what's actually there on the ground. So I don't know. Do I have a motion from anybody? Euler? I'll make the motion that we approve subject to staff comments. Second. Second. Third. All right, all in favor? All right. Opposed? Nay. Nay. Motion carries. Okay. All right. And we have, returning it back over to Ms. Hasty. Yeah. So we just have one more thing on the agenda today, just a reminder about continuing education. So as board members, you're required to have continuing education and it now will be since with COVID, a lot of it was remote, you know, online and stuff, but it does have to be in person now. So just wanted to make you all aware of that, that it has to be basically proctored by a, I forget what it's called, live facilitator. So just to make you aware of that. So you'll need to come to in person or a webinar with a live. In person, in person. Yeah. Mandatory. Yes. That was before my time. Yeah. Some of you may be exempt from it. I knew Ms. Fenner, you are, but yeah, it's six hours for the first year and then three hours every year after that. Just a reminder and Sky Robinson Barnes will usually send out the emails about with reminders of that as well and we'll have different sessions that you can attend. So I just wanted to let everybody know it will be in person from now on. Will people be able to use their parking passes? I'm sorry. I'm exempt because I'm a lawyer, but I'm thinking like a lawyer here. Come on guys. I don't know. We'll confirm when you guys are. Well, you know, let's go first. All right. All right, thank you. We'll get further. That's all today. Okay. Let's move to adjourn. So moved. All right. Let's go. Bye y'all. Great. Thank you. Now you should go. I got really excited. Let's do that. That's special. Well, he's got his own. I think somebody probably gave it to him.