Hello, everyone. This is Ross, the most influential blog on education in the UK here at Teacher Toolkit today. I'm on a three-way podcast, very exciting as the first for me, and I'm delighted to be joined by Sean Quinn, head of psychology at King's Eli Senior School in Cambridge at England, and also Dan Giesen from LessonUp, who is the founder and CEO of a fantastic EdTech product. So we're going to see how we get on with bouncing questions both are away, but let me just bring them both in first one at a time, just to introduce themselves to our listeners. And I've got a couple of questions for you, Chaps. So, you know, who are you? What do you do? And give us one interesting fact, non-educational about you and your life. Okay, so let's start with Sean. Hi, I'm Sean Quinn. I've been head of psychology at King's Eli for 10 years now. Prior to that, I was a prep school head in Barkshire at Baywood College, and prior to that I taught for seven years in America in a school for kids that have been pretty much thrown out of mainstream education. Okay. Interesting fact, I was once sent to Hawaii to stop a group of coaches complaining about the conditions out there. Right, well, the Americans teach and things quite interesting, but so is that. So I might come back to that story later. Right. Thank you, Sean. Dan, how are you? Good. Good, Roslyn, yourself? I'm very well. Yeah, I'm excited to catch up with you. And I know we're doing a bit of work later today and see how lesson up is reaching teachers all around the world. Before I kind of spoil your party, tell us who you are, what lesson up is and something interesting about yourself. Yeah, very cool. Well, I'll start with the super interesting fact about myself. I originally come from a more retail business. And actually at a certain moment in time, I developed and designed and produced my own shoes. Oh, what punishments? Well, the neat gentlemen shoes, I would say. All right. Well, I'm a size 12 and a half, a size 12, if I could get put in an order. OK, let's get out of here today, everybody. We're going to unpick the principles of Rosenstein. So one or two people will be very familiar with that. Maybe it's new to you also. But it's a piece of research from 1982 by a chap called Barrett Rosenstein, who recently passed away and published a great piece of research, which was drawn upon his 40 years of working in the education field. And I'm going to particularly pick on Sean in terms of his insights and how he's used the principles in his work. So I guess I'll start with you, Sean, with a quick, quick fire question. I suppose, when did you first discover Rosenstein yourself? And how did it make you think as a teacher? So it's been a school initiative for us for probably just the last two years. And prior to that, I wasn't really aware. And like all teachers, perhaps another initiative, another bit of research, another new idea. And on the surface, it initially seemed quite straightforward. But I think when you dig beneath the surface and start actually accounting for the principles more concisely in your lessons, there's a lot of merit to be gained from sticking with it and building your lessons around the principles. And so my next question was on the kind of off the fence, skeptical or optimistic. So you mentioned that the usual with teaching were very busy time for people and there's another initiative. So how long did it take you to kind of veer away from initial skepticism towards this is really refreshing? And how is that, I guess, Rosenstein dialogue playing out across the staff with other colleagues? I guess, you know, a lot of it's a little bit like my position, really, that, you know, some people, as always, really buy into it and some people won't buy into it at all. And then there's that gap in the middle, that space in the middle. I guess for me, it was kind of, you know, we broke it down into the principles. So each few weeks, we would introduce a new principle. And kind of when you see the headline, it's like, well, of course, I do that. And then the next time, of course, I do that. But actually, when you start to really unpick your lessons, how often are you doing that and how much in the lesson is that happening? And then then I think you really start to see that, yes, you do do all of those things on occasion, but can you honestly kind of put your hand up and say, you do all of those things most of the time?  What are your colleagues kind of reporting in terms of how they've kind of absorbed the research? I would say similar to me, as in all schools, that there are people that are that are really buying into it and really trying to change with an open mind.  Of course, I do this. There's nothing wrong with my teaching. It all works. And I think no matter what you try and introduce, that always seems to be the position for me. Yeah, and I guess in your role, you know, head of psychology and being immersed with that kind of cognitive science, I guess this piece of academic research kind of confirms or validates what you do as a teacher, which is, you know, the kind of art of teaching in some respects. Yeah, absolutely. And you do see, you know, it's a simple use of psychological research that's accessible, you know, to all teachers. It's not overly complex. It's broken down and it's presented in a very usable tool like manner.  So we'll come back to the principles in a moment, but I'm going to bring Dan in here. Dan, now in the ed tech sector and, you know, outside the UK, I guess a couple of initial questions. Do you have familiar eye? Are you with Rose and Shine? And how of if you are aware of Rose and Shine, how of those principles are they in to lesson up? And maybe just tell us quickly what lesson up is. Yeah, so to begin a bit with lesson up, I think pre-COVID 2015 by Kars and Janneker, Kars from a tech developer perspective and Janneker more from the educational perspective. And they literally created, together with two other teachers, they created a lesson up over the years, of course, because their first product, their MVP, was literally not working that well. So in 2017, they really decided to go more into the back of the classroom to really see what they could add value to. And lesson up was actually the end result of that. So I think in 2019, we really had a good product that could serve as a lot of teachers, specifically here in the Netherlands, where we're based. And since our platform was immediately available also in English, we got sign up ranging from South America until Japan, literally. Of course, COVID really enhanced our product and our services and our platform. But initially we were used or designed to be a product really to use in the classroom. And that's what there still are. I think Rosenschein was immediately, since we had two teachers aboard, Rosenschein was immediately part of the whole process of the platform to make sure that all of the 17 principles, but at least we could connect certain types of questions or certain features of our platform really to the Rosenschein principles. Great. So that's good to know. So we'll unpick that and how that works, I guess, mechanically, if that's an appropriate term to use in terms of the software. Sean, I'll come back to you. Now, I'm going to assume that people listen to this podcast and maybe watching this video version are familiar with the Rosenschein. And if you're not people listening, we'll include the links. But I'm going to show you most people are who are connected with Teacher Toolkit. But Dan, sorry, Sean, on my travels, I visit a lot of schools and probably a good half to three quarters are familiar with the work of Rosenschein. But very few teachers can they understand the value of the 17 principles, but very few can recall what they all are. So I guess my question is, how have you broken them down into a kind of memorable teaching loop? Are there any key themes that you can return to that make it a bit more of a memorable sequence? I know that's a tough question, but let me see what your thoughts are. So we're basically operating on the amended 10 10 principles. And I don't really have a have a trick or an acronym or a way of grouping those together. And I don't really kind of feel that I should or have to. I just have grids available to me and all the time. And then when I use the product, the lesson of products, I just cross check that I'm meeting those requirements. And if they're not there, I'm building them in. So I don't think there's the need to kind of memorize them. I think there's engagement elements, there is pre-planning elements. There's scaffolding and modeling elements. And beyond that, I think that it would be not good use of time just to kind of be recalling them. Sure. Oh, so let me just go. I'm just going to refer to the 10 principles. And these are from the 2010 paper from Rosenstein. So number one is the daily review. So the kind of do now or the retrieval from last lesson. Stage two is to present the new material using small steps for people listening. Stage three is ask questions. Then we move on to provide models. Stage five, guide student practice. Number six, check for understanding. Seven and eight is obtain a high success rate. So if you're posing a question and checking for understanding, make sure you have lots of students responding rather than one. Then stage eight is offering the scaffolded resources for your differentiation. And then stage nine and 10 is the independent practice, the guided practice with a weekly and a monthly review as you move through the material. So Dan, I'm going to come to you now. So Sean talks about how he uses lesson up where appropriate to embed some of the Rosenstein principles. If I choose one kind of maybe stage where a teacher could ask a large number of questions and get a higher response rate. How does that work? I said mechanically early. How does that work practically in lesson up for teachers to pose lots of questions to the students in the class through your software? I think the best thing is with lesson up which you can do, you create a lesson and in lesson you can add different types of slides. So to begin with the first one, the short review, what we advise a lot of teachers to do, for instance, is to start with a mind map. So you can recall immediately on to activate the prior knowledge of for instance of last time and actually last week or this week I applied it in Belfast myself. I was teaching a master class on lesson up for 50 teachers and the first things that I was trying to apply was indeed that mind map to get that first prior knowledge immediately active and starting up the interactivity. And due to the fact is that we have quite some different types of questions that you can add throughout the lesson. Of course, that is really the way how a teacher throughout the lesson can really test out if students understand what kind of information or knowledge the teacher provides. OK, fantastic. So I know lesson up fairly well for people that don't know the power lesson, I guess, is Daniel, I'd like to remind me how many teachers are using your site, but I know there's over one million lessons available, isn't there? There are. Yes. And how many users? So that's quite a phenomenal number, isn't it? You know, that's a huge bank of resources a teacher can access straight away. How many? Yeah, there are indeed. Currently, I think we have over 35,000 teachers that use us actively on a monthly basis. So they really come back like every day or every week. And those are primarily based in the Netherlands, Belgium and in the UK.  Also small companies who are really trying to focus on teachers individually and really helping them further. So far, I think over 100,000 teachers have signed up. Yeah, and as I said, over 35,000 actively using us on a on a daily, weekly basis. And Sean, how long have you been using lesson up for? It's hard to say exactly. I would I would guess around 2019 around that time. Right. It's the fourth pandemic. OK, great. Yeah. And just on that, I think it kind of future proof me for the pandemic. Because yeah, sure. It was a great thing to I was ahead of the curve, I felt. Yeah, you were in terms of online learning. It was I guess soon as the pandemic hit with lockdown, you just flipped over straight over. Yeah. And it was really nice to be able to say to my students, look, his business is normal, guys. You know, we're just going to be meeting online. But our lessons aren't going to be necessarily, you know, we do other things.  It's going to stay a big part. And I think my students found a lot of reassurance and comfort in that. So I'm going to go back to Rosenstein, Sean. I guess this is the money question for me is how has the Rosenstein principles changed the way you teach? Um, so I guess it's intertwined with lesson up again, really, because I think what what I found I was previously doing is I was creating resources, I was presenting, I was over-presenting students were being allowed by me to be a little bit too passive. And then when it came to assessment, we would be learning for the assessment. And I think using Rosenstein and lesson up together, has made the focus more on the here and now and learning in the lesson, reinforcing in the lesson and building knowledge rather than, you know, here's a presentation, we're not going to think about it for a month. And then somehow there's going to be a task. And I think I'd got quite lazy in my approach, you know, as, as a lot of teachers perhaps do, and not, not through being lazy, but just not maybe thinking about outcomes enough. So I think, you know, breaking things down, assessing knowledge, and really increasing massively the contribution of each person in the class.  Yeah, it's a great point that checking the understanding. So for anyone that's listening, it's read the original paper by Rosenstein. So it was actually produced on a typewriter in 1990. The, the, the coincidences, the, the phrase check for understanding features 17 times. I don't know if that's a coincidence that it ended up becoming 17 principles, but I'll find it, um, Interest of that's the most used phrase throughout the whole original research paper. Um, the next key question then, Sean, is how has it changed the learning of the kids in your classroom, the principles? I think it's that idea that, um, I think it's that idea that, um, we, we learn in the moment that the, I, I got used to students kind of, if you sprung a surprise test, I didn't know we needed to know this or I didn't know we needed to learn this. And I think it's made them really focused that the learning is every minute of that, that lesson through, uh, the daily practice, the reminders from the lesson, the small steps, the practice, the checking, the understanding. I think all of that is made the lessons like very active, very focused and with clear outcomes. I know where everyone is and the student themselves know. Yeah, that's my next question actually, because you mentioned earlier, you know, not lazy per se, but, you know, being a bit more rigorous with the outcomes, how do you now know what's that kind of concrete evidence you have that the Rosenstein, the lesson type stuff is making a difference to teaching learning. And here's the data to back it up. Um, so I build all my questions, um, whether they're multiple choice, slightly longer questions, my maps, I build them all in. So all the questioning that's going to happen is there. And then you can access those results, not only in the lesson, but any point afterwards. So I had a lesson today, we did a task, there was 60% accuracy. That's straight in my favorites. That becomes a starter question tomorrow or the next lesson. Because that's not hit that 80% sort of accuracy rate. So, um, and my students know, all right, we can, we can park that one now for a while. We've hit the 80, 100%. And if we stay below it, you're going to keep seeing that question. And where does that 80 come from? Is that just what you're happier with? Or does it something that comes from lesson up or? I think that comes from the Rosenstein. He talks about 80%. I use that as a, you know, it's a fluid sort of thing. But once, once I think most people have, have got something move on, move on. But even today, at one point, it was 100%. We happen, I happened to have that one again later on and it had dropped because, you know, memory ebbs and flows it in a lesson. So we need to revisit that next time. And then once we've got mastery, we move on. So there you go folks and people listening. And, you know, it's really reassuring to hear how you can kind of recite, I suppose, how, what a difference has made to your teaching and learning. And you mentioned that outcome. So Dan, I'll come to you now. Sean, teacher in the classroom, lots of kids around him, busy, busy classroom environment needs data fast, rapid to use in the moment and to plan the next lesson. I guess in this audio context for a podcast, how can you describe the kind of screen data that a teacher would see behind lesson up? What, what would I be seeing, what data would be in front of me? How could I use it in the busy nature of a classroom to work out what to do next? A really interesting question, Ross. I think what we have since a teacher creates a lesson, teaches that lesson in the classroom or has the ability to share this homework. And the moment actually immediately that students join or in the life lesson or are busy with creating their homework or finishing their homework, those results are immediately put into, into the lesson up platform and are visible for the teacher. And basically what the teacher can see are three different areas. One is on a student level. So how did the student go through the lesson? Which questions were right or wrong, accuracy, but also timings. So how long did a student, for instance, check out a specific slide and also know that if there, for instance, was an interactive video there that lasted for three minutes and the slide was skipped into like two seconds, then immediately, of course, know that the slide. Yeah, yeah, literally. So that is basically on the student level. You can also see it more on the lesson level. So slide, you can see, hey, how did my students process this? And what was the accuracy level that Sean was talking about? I'm going to pop back to the store now and check. So Sean, in the classroom, when you're on your lesson up, that's the software. What are you seeing on your teacher dashboard in the moment?  Tell us, give us an insight into what you can see and what you can do in that moment. So I think it works perfectly for me in that moment. So if it's a multiple choice, they all enter it.  If you want a slightly longer answer, I'll post some thought provoking answers. Sometimes they'll type their answers in. They all appear as almost like cue cards on my screen. And I can keep her records, take screenshots of those. I compare people up to contribute together. You've got a record of their answer, whether it's something you want to look at or whether it's just right or wrong or a drag and drop exercise. You've got a record of all of that in real time that you can kind of say, right, I need to talk about this right now, because we've only got 20% right. I must have not been clear. Or like I said, you could say, right, it's not quite 80. I'm going to add that. Or you might pick out a more extended answer that was really good and say, right, I'm going to talk about this answer because it's exactly the sort of thing that we need to do. Or we can compare answers if the children are a bit more brave. You know, here's an answer that's kind of right. Here's one that's slightly more refined. So you're getting access almost to their answers, but also their thought processes, those kind of metacognitions. You'll see what's going on in the moment. And it tells you and enables you to react in the moment, not a week later when you've marked... You're just going back to that point, you know, where you marked books. It's two weeks later. The data online gives you that hard, concrete, scientific evidence, which you can use immediately. Dan, I'll pop back to you then. What's next for lesson up? So you've mentioned where you are, the number of users. Give us a sense of what the plans are for lesson up and how a teacher listens to this podcast or a school leader. You might want to introduce it into their school. How could they get involved? But tell us about the hopes first. Plans. Well, hopes and plans first. And I think what we have currently is a very good basis. You know, teachers can create lessons. They have all types of questions. They have the reporting. They can share homework. They can conduct tests. And they have a huge library of already content ready to use. I think currently or the upcoming steps for us are very important is that we can suit or serve teachers better on their topic. So for instance, Sean is more into the psychology part. How can we serve Sean with content? Interesting content that has been created by other teachers or professional content creators that we also have on our platform. How can we serve Sean with better content? So he can also be inspired again with everything that is created on the lesson up platform. I think that is one thing. The other thing is for us is really important to see is that teachers really like to try out lesson up, you know, as a first step. But we also see that this is basically, this is kind of a different approach, especially if somebody is normally used to teach with a regular book or with just a simple quiz somewhere in between his or her lesson. This is really a different approach. And as I was telling earlier, this week we were in Belfast with a team to give master classes also to other teachers over there. And I was comparing it there with going from an earlier Nokia to a brand new one. It's a different way of like using your phone at the opportunities it has and you have to explore that. And it isn't like a change from day or day overnight. And I think what we need to do in the upcoming time is really support teachers in that change. COVID of course has learned us a lot regarding teaching and regarding the importance of teachers in the whole spectrum. We're never going to say digitalization is going to take over. No, but it can really enhance teaching, support teaching and really get the kids back engaged into the classroom. And that's what we try to do. So the aim for us is also really on creating the lesson of academy to make sure that we can really support the teachers in the first few months of using the lesson up to go that next step. Sure. So the next step in that engagement, Dan, you mentioned, Sean, if I pop back to you, I've got a bit of a multi-prong question here. What advice would you give to teachers that are familiar with Rosenstein who might be working in a primary or in an FE setting, something different to your current role or someone who's a tutor or something like that? I guess that, you know, how could I use lesson up in those types of skills? Or if I work in those types of skills, how could I also use Rosenstein? So there's a kind of a six-pronged attack there, different types of settings using the software and using Rosenstein. What would be your advice? So I think that the software lends itself to any setting, really, I think, because what I found that's really helped for me that I think is very transferable is getting away from that kind of hands up. So somebody answers, so you get that one answer. So across an hour lesson, you might hear each kid speak or contribute once or twice. And what lesson up gives everyone a voice. You know, so you have a class of 30, you pose a question, you get 30 answers right away. So 10 questions and last you've had 300 answers. So I don't think it matters on the setting or the age because what we do is kind of the same in that regard and it doesn't need to be a private school with small classes. It's giving every child the opportunity to answer and for you to see where that child's at. And it just lends itself so perfectly to that and the way you can build lessons yourself or there's so many available now and that would just increase, you can just then adapt. You know, a lot of them have the content and then you can put your little flavor with the sort of questions. They're very quick and easy to create. So, you know, all of a sudden, you've got a version of taking lollipop sticks out of a glass that just works so much better and so much more. More efficient, isn't it? More efficient because you get time.  You're checking the understanding of everyone in pretty much every moment of that lesson. So people are engaged in their focus because you're not reining people in because you've not really lost them by over-presenting in the first place. It's such a good point. And what about the Rosenstein? People are not familiar with it. And if I was in a primary setting or an FE, is it a transferable set of principles in your opinion? Yeah, I would think so. And I think like all initiatives, it can be a bit overwhelming. You know, how am I gonna do all this on top of what else? And I think it's just to see it as a journey. As I have, I haven't tried to kind of write all tenor in every lesson every time. I've tried to build in daily review without fail. I've tried to, you know, ask more questions, think of the quality of the questions. But I've still, you know, in my targets I've got here, provide more models. That's for this next bit in the summer holiday and to build more scaffolds in, that's the next step. So you pick the two or the three that you think, right, that's my goal for this term. Every class is just gonna have this daily review. And that kind of daily review seems such a simple thing. And I think we kind of take it for granted that, you know, I've taught it, the kids know it, but you have to teach something three, four, five times, you know, because we forget that everything's new to them. It's not new to us. So why aren't they getting it, you know? So that, you know, just pick two or three simple ones, get used to that, and then build. Some good advice. So on the word build, I suppose, down back to you. And kind of similar question to what I posed just to Sean, you know, have you got primary teachers using your site? I know you've got people at Belfast Met College using it. So we've got an FE kind of context. I shouldn't assume, because that's what Rosenthal doesn't recommend. So I'll check. Are secondary teachers using it too? Give us a kind of broad demographics of people that aren't using lesson app. If you've got loads of primary teachers using it, then if I'm a primary, then I should sign up too. Yeah, but basically, I think Sean mentioned it before as well. It doesn't really matter what type of teacher you are, but really what you can do with it. And as how Sean approaches the Rosenthal as well, you can easily also apply lesson app in that sense. So what you can do as a starter, you can easily have like your PowerPoint uploaded, add some first interactive questions in there, and boom, you go. In terms of demographics indeed, what we see a lot is that primary teachers start with lesson app, but mainly from a thing age nine or 10, because if you want to really have the interactivity with a device by a pupil or a student, yeah, you literally should have that age. We see a lot happening in secondary education and further education. And have you got a sense of state, school, independent sector, or is it kind of a big mix? That's a big mix. It doesn't really matter actually. Okay. Yeah, so there you go folks, lesson app and Rosenshine. So the links will be included in the podcast and the video for you to check out a little bit more. Now I mentioned that was your last question, Chaps, but as we get past half an hour in my podcast, we move over to a little quick fire quiz, a bit of retrieval practice. And I'm gonna pose lots of quick fire questions to you know, I don't want you to pause or hesitate. I'm gonna see if I can catch you out, but I'll start off with some easy ones. So let's just start easy. So Sean, what's on your desk today? What's on your to-do list? My to-do list, walk the dog. Okay. It's been a long week. Good. Dan, how about you? What's on the to-do list? I think spending some time with my son this evening because I have been away traveling a lot. So I think that's the most important one. Have dinner with the family this evening. As far as, David, we can hear in the UK. So good message for myself. Good reminder for myself. And yeah, we're off for an open wall to swim tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. Okay, next question. Sean, what book are you reading? I'm reading a book about what happened to Freud's patience. All right, fantastic. Ever the Psychologist. Dan, how about you? Yeah, it's a bit business-related. I'm reading Fast Scaling. How to scale your company fast but not go into hyperscaling, you know, that it becomes a disaster. But I'm listening to an audible book which I believe still counts as reading. It's called Connect by Simon Lancaster. And it's about, he writes public speeches for lots of big, important people. And he's just going through some of the kind of hallmarks to tell in stories, which I think is interesting from a psychological perspective. But also useful for a teacher because we tell stories all the time.  Okay, next question, Sean. Piece of advice for a teacher wanting to get into Rosenstein. Slow and steady wins the race. Okay, Dan. Oh, we've lost your sound there. I would say this is a marathon, not a sprint. Marathon, not a sprint. Okay, Sean, I'm going to assume you're doing your dream job. But if you weren't a teacher, what's that wacky career, you know, that you never had or never tried? What would it be? Coaching, soccer, and American university. Okay, fantastic, Dan. Teacher. Teacher, okay, Sean, back to you. If we went to Hawaii for 24 hours, what would we do? Surf. Okay, fantastic, all 24 hours. Dan, if we came over to the Hague or to Amsterdam, what would you do for 24 hours? Well, actually, you can surf here pretty good. I did it last week, so that's for sure. No, I would say we explored it downtown Amsterdam and the Hague for sure, but I would prefer the Hague because it has a bit more of a culture. Bit more culture. Sean, finish the sentence. If I was Education Secretary of State, I would. Change examinations. Dan, we can do the Dutch or the British or the English, I should say, Education Secretary. Do you choose? If I were the Dutch Ministry of Education, I would, that's a good one. Oh, I've got you, I've got you. Yeah, indeed. Okay, back to Sean, back to Sean. Biggest, what was your career achievement most proud of? Let's give it a shout out. Creating a prep school from scratch. Wow, fascinating. Dan, how about you? I would now say creating a company from scratch. That's really something. Right, I'm kind of creating something from scratch show off here. Sean, a couple more. Who would you recommend the interview next and why? Oh, gosh. In education, ideally. Williamson. Okay, let's see if we can get hold of him. He's done a runner at the moment, doesn't he? Dan, how about you? Yeah, I think that the person you were referring to, so the Secretary of Education or the Ministry of Education. Okay, and final questions. Sean, what's your favorite memory of a teacher that inspired you to teach? Yeah, I got in trouble for saying to set an interview once because it is a teacher that was maybe not the best practitioner, not the best technician, but was just a really nice guy that kind of helped me out at a really different time. I emphasize the importance of relationships in schools, doesn't it? Not necessarily be on top of your game in the classroom. Dan, how about you? That teacher, do you remember? Well, my history teacher for a secondary school, which really helped me to pass my exam. Hey, and that's important as well. So there you go, folks. Ross here at Teacher Toolkit, joined by a delightful Sean Quinn, Head of Psychology, and Dan Geeson, Founder of CEO of LessonUp. And I've got one last question for you to put you on the spot. Sean, what would you hope to be your legacy? People thought that I cared. And Dan? Legacy in terms of business, I would say helping as much teachers as possible to really get engaged kids, even if it is without LessonUp. Okay, so there you go, folks. Thanks for listening. I hope you've learned a few insights about Rosenshine, the wonderful tech software, LessonUp, and some interesting facts about Sean and Dan. Thanks for joining us. I'll be on the podcast soon. Bye for now.


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I have stuff to do today, and I figured I would take you along because it's all part of the job. So welcome to another Day in the Life of a Freedom Employee video. If you've missed previous Day in the Life of an Employee videos, go ahead and check them out over there, by with the icon with the star and the thing. So yeah, let's go ahead and do this. Every single time I do one of these, it seems like it involves me driving in my car, which is not intentional.  However, I'm pretty sure that you guys don't really want to see me mucking about in spreadsheets and things like that. So I will admit, this stuff that I do in these videos is probably the more glamorous stuff, which doesn't say much, because yeah. So this is probably an awkward place for me to put this, but if you'd like to work for freedom, there is a link down in the description so that you can be able to do things like buying buckets and ice as part of your job. Yeah. It's really more fun than it sounds. So we are here at the hardware store. Is it me or hardware store parking lots?  I've never really seen one full, but I don't know. Just something I noticed. Yeah. So I'm on the clock, so I should probably go and buy a bucket. Alright, so it looks like we have found a stack of buckets. Now the question is which one? Which one? Which one? Which one is the lucky bucket? Let's go ahead and pick the third one down. Okay. Okay, so there's two. And the third one. This shall be all buckets. I wonder if I can get the wife to do this with me. That would be awesome. Do not place your children in buckets. That is dangerous. Buckets everywhere, not a one to use for the challenge. What up with that? Look at all these buckets. While we're out, we should check the gear locker. Locker. P.O. Boxy Locker.  So we have the gear locker key, and we are going to go ahead and see what we got. So let's do this thing. Drum roll. Let's see if anyone sent us anything interesting. We got letters. We got one letter from a company that does uniform cleaning called Sintos. That's not for us. A letter from Statesville Roofing. Pretty sure that's not for us either. Complete and utter junk mail. Addressed to, what is this? Kermit. And, oh yes, that's exactly what I needed. Hospice care. Freedom, is this a joke?  What's going on here? Freedom, I've got good news. I've got bad news. The good news is that I can still do the ice bucket challenge. The bad news is, apparently, so that we don't ruin the outside stuff here at my apartment complex, we had to scale it down a notch. So, I'm going to go ahead and do this. Doesn't seem that bad. Hey honey, George called and he said he would pay the bill. What bill? Oh my God! Oh, that's cold! Oh! Lou Gehrig's disease. Donate or you're doing this. Gaming, you're doing this. And, um, I can't think of anyone else who hasn't done it. That's not going in the bloopers. Let's discover freedom. Click the first video to learn what is freedom and how it helps you grow. Click the second video to learn about sponsorships for all freedom partners, even if you have just 10 subscribers. And click the other videos like How Do I Leave Freedom to Learn More? Click Get More Views to learn how to build your audience faster on YouTube. Click Get More CPM to learn how to make more money from your channel. And click Get More Music to learn where to get more music to spice up your videos. Click the first playlist to watch The George Show on Freedom. That's my show. Or watch the Anthony Show or the Alex Show also on Freedom.


Good morning everyone. Welcome to the June 11th, 2019 City of Columbia Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. My name is Chuck Sally and I serve as Chair of the Board and at this time I'd like to introduce the other members of the board. To my far left is Josh Speed, then Gene Deakins, then Jenna Stevens to my right, immediate right, followed by George Shaffer, and then finally John Gregory. I would also like to introduce the staff that will assist the board, Rachel Bailey, zoning administrator and Hope Hasty, the deputy zoning administrator, and also assisting them is Andrea Wolfe, the 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 may 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 and 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 of group of three or more. The applicant then has five minutes for rebuttal and 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. So if you're here as an applicant or to speak in any case, please stand at this time and raise your right hand. Do you affirm or attest that testimony that you will give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? Thank you. At this time, I'll turn the meeting over to Miss Bailey. Good morning. I first want to announce that there were three cases that were deferred by the applicant over the weekend. It is item number 9, 10, and 11 on the agenda for 2530 and 2520 Divine Street. Those cases will go forward in July. The consent agenda is used by the board to approve non-controversial or routine matters by single motion and vote. If a member of the board or the general public wants to discuss an item on the consent agenda, that item is removed and considered during the meeting. The board then approves the remaining consent agenda items. The first item on the consent agenda this month is the approval of the May 14th, 2019 minutes. Item number 2, which is case 2019, 0028 for 1622 Carousel Circle. It's a special exception to permit an in-home daycare. Item number 3, case 2019, 0029 for 520 Green Street. Special exception to expand a drinking establishment. And item number 4, case 2019, 0033 or 6041 Garnes Ferry Road, a variance to the buffer transition yard requirements. Thank you. Just to be clear, the board is about to vote on 1622 Carousel Circle, 520 Green Street, and 6041 Garnes Ferry Road. So if anybody here or on the board or in the audience would like any of those properties removed from the consent agenda, raise your hand now. In that case, I don't see anyone that wishes to do that. So these items will be considered in the consent agenda, and I will accept a motion. Make a motion that we approve the consent agenda subject to staff comment. Have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. The first item on the regular agenda is item number 6. This is 2019 0025 for 2222 Rembert Street. This is a variance to the maximum lock coverage requirement for a detached garage. If the applicant is present, they're welcome to come forward to the podium. Do you want to, um, can we take a vote to defer that, um, and then let, give the applicant time to arrive and move on to the next thing? I think that's, do we need, I don't think we need to vote on that. Let's, let's just postpone this until later, and then if he doesn't come, we'll decide what to do then. We'll revisit at the end of the meeting. Yeah, we'll do it at the end of the meeting. So just remind me at the end of the meeting. Okay. So, um, then the next one, please. Item number 7. It's 2019 0026. It's for 1205 Oak Street. Special exception to permit a parking lot in a residential district. See the applicant for this one either. Move on to item number 8. Yeah, let's do that and see if they, if they show up. You cannot, you may not speak from the floor. You have to come to the podium. Would you like to be, um, uh, like to address the board? Please come to the podium. Just stage your name and you can address the board. Thank you. Frank Houston. I am president of the historic Waverley community, and I signed up to speak, um, in regards to that particular motion. Mr. Houston, we are going to, we're just postponing. We're going to go to the next case just to give the applicant time to appear. If the applicant doesn't appear, then we will take this back up at the end of the meeting, and then you'll have a chance to, um, address this again. Just pushing it to move to the next item, and then we'll revisit it before the end of the meeting. I see. Thank you. Of course. Appreciate it. All right. No worries. Thank you. We've been right along. Item number eight is case 2019 0027. It's for 6820 North Main Street Unit O. It's a special exception to expand a drinking establishment, and I do believe the applicant is here, and she's welcome to come forward. Hello. My name is Shakia Wilson. Speak first. Okay. Yes.  If you have them, um, it would be, uh, grateful if you just kind of go through those as to why you're, um, for your, your case and to present your case. And that way, um, you know, we can keep the dialogue on the actual criteria of the special exception, if you don't mind. Thank you. Yes, ma'am, go ahead. All yours. So I am the owner of Icon Barn Lounge, and I'm basically looking to expand into the adjoining unit. This will allow us for more seating for our customers. It would also allow us to have space for a live entertainment such as live jazz, live bands or poetry night. This will not have an adverse impact on vehicular traffic or vehicular and pedestrian safety because there is a very large parking lot that offers more than enough spaces to accommodate the entire plaza, as well as, um, the extra customers that we're trying to make space for. We currently have no issues or adverse impact on adjoining properties. Music is played at a respectable noise level. We haven't had any complaints thus far. We have no added lights, glares, vibrations, fumes, odors, obstruction of air or light or litter. We have someone that cleans the parking lot at the close of business every night. No changes have or will be made to the aesthetic character of the area. Security is used as needed. Basically, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, we have security outside. No one under 30 is allowed. We do not allow white t-shirts, hoodies or athletic gear to be worn inside of the establishment. We will limit customers intake of alcohol, their peer to be excessive drinking. We have a camera system in place as well. I'm able to see the inside of the business, what's going on at any time, any day, any hour. There are no other establishments near or around our current location with the similar type of special exception use. We fully follow the zoning district description. There are no zoning overlay district goals or requirements. It is appropriate. Okay, describe how the proposed special exception is appropriate for its location and compatible with the permitted uses adjacent to and in the vicinity of the property. It's appropriate because our customers are in need of more space. I get asked every day, when are you all going to expand into the next unit? When are you going to? And I say, I have to wait until I go in front of the zoning board. All of our current neighbors are patrons of our business. We have patrons from the Pepsi plant that's across the street, from the fire department that's behind us, from the neighborhood that surround us, and the other businesses adjacent to us. We currently do not adversely affect the public interest. The extra space will just give us the opportunity to further provide our customers with a relaxed upscale adult atmosphere. Very good. Any questions from the board? Thank you very much. Thank you. How long has your existing business been in operation? We've been open since about the middle of February. Didn't we give a special exception for this? For one unit now they need to expand, right? Yeah, I couldn't afford the second unit. But now that business is open and and doing well, I'm able to now hopefully expand. Very good. Thank you very much. Is anyone else here to speak in favor or against this application? I don't see anyone. Any further board discussion? Yeah. Business that we've already approved before and they met the criteria for special exception. Working. I like to make a motion that we approve this request based on the applicant's testimony and written application and subject to all comments of staff. A second. On favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? That brings us back in the beginning. Erica just reached out to the applicant for number six. They are on their way. So the applicant for number seven is here. So we'll move forward with that if the board is all right. So item number seven, that's case 2019-0026 for 1205 Oak Street. Special exception to permit a parking lot in a residential district. Just to clarify on this case, it is not a standalone parking lot. It is a parking lot that is an extension of a proposed commercial office use that will be accessed only through commercial parcel. The applicant is here and they're welcome to come forward. Good morning. I'm Charles Brooks. The purpose of this request is for the construction of a small somewhere 15 to 2000 square foot building. And in order to make everything work, we need to have parking that is outside of the C3 lot that we're going to put the building on. I don't believe that this lot, the way it's shown is exactly what we're doing. Are y'all looking at the same thing that I'm looking at? That subject property is RG2. But we're only using the back half of that. In other words, the building is going to go on that lot at Front Sturve where you see the C3. And what we are doing is buying the back lot, which you show as subject property. And we're going to swap with the owner of the C3 property behind our property, which is 1203, maybe Oak Street. And he's going to end up with 46 by 80, 46 by 135 foot lot. And we're going to end up with a 48 by 135 foot lot. So there'll be two parallel lots side by side. So we're only using the back half of that lot for this parking. We're not using the front part, which fronts on Oak Street. You're gonna take that rectangle and make it into two squares, basically. Right down where that alleyway goes up from Gervais Street. Kind of the middle of that will split the property line. Right. Can you say you're going to be using the back half? Do you mean the one on the west side? Western back half. So we're not going to be entering or exiting on the Oak Street at all. And I don't know if the community understands that. So the that front lot I'm looking at your I'm looking at your diagram. Now that says 82 feet from Gervais Street switch to that diagram where I can see what he's talking about. Right there. Back up. Back where you see that parking is that the back part of 1203 and 1205 1203 is it exists right now is the C3. 1205 is RG2 and we'll be using the back half of that. So you're creating looks like 1234567 parking spaces on that back on the back half of that RG2. And to the far right, in other words, to the right of that 1205. All that is existing parking to the Richland School District one building, which is also RG2. And to the back of it. In other words, I'm surrounded by RG2 on that half lot. And it's all being used as parking paved improved parking. Do you have your application with the requirements for the special exception? Perhaps you could just run through those requirements for us as you fill them out when you made the application. For what's required in order to get this. Okay, starting with number one permission to use RG2 is a commercial parking area for 2225. And I think that's what I just laid out before the panel that will be using the back half of that 1205 Oak Street. The second item parking will be behind the proposed building facing the faces Jervay Street at 2225 and will require seven parking spaces. All unloading or loading or parking will be to the rear. The northern end of that proposed building, which that layout shows all the surrounding property is either vacant commercial existing parking lot, which is RG2. And one seldom use small warehouse on the corner of Jervay and Oak, known as 1229, which is the warehouse for verb decorating people. It's RG, excuse me, it's C3. There are no buildings on any of the joining lots with exception to the verb building on the corner. Most of that property along there is owned by the first Nazarene Church first something first Nazareth and potentially would be used for parking, you know, if they can get past. It's all C3 for the most part. And as you can see on this layout that's before us right now, who's improved parking there for the school district is all RG2. So I'm not really asking for anything that's not already there. Since I'm not in there in Oak Street or exiting on the Oak Street, I'll be doing it on Jervay Street, through a 24 foot right away. For that purpose. On that sketch that you provided that driveway, is that where that right away is? That includes that 10 foot 9 inch, right? But it's larger than that alleyway. That's a no man's alley. And I will have access to it and verbal have access to it because we're the two adjoining property owners. But it dead ends into that C3 property. So I'm just capitalizing. As a matter of fact, if I couldn't use it, I couldn't even do the project just not enough, enough land. The way I got it laid out, the only thing I'm asking for is the use of that back property, everything else meets code. I'm not asking for any other exceptions of any kind that I'm aware of or maybe stand to be corrected on anything. So I guess number four, I don't know if you did the proposed bill will have you said it will have a low impact on the traffic and use as there's only 2000 square feet. It appears that so the only access will be on your base tree in and out. So it's, I guess you're proposing then basically a right turn in right turn out access traveling. Exactly. And, you know, we cannot ever and none of us could ever say what a building is going to be used for 20 years from now. But our purpose is to build it as a law office and a real estate office. My son is a one main law office and I'm a one man real estate office. And not typical real estate is some of y'all know. I'm just really a private investor and I could count. Nobody ever comes to see me. I put it that way. So I don't know why I need seven parking spaces except for code purposes. And so from as long as we're in that building, there's not going to be very many cars anywhere. Just our own two cars and an occasional client that might come in. So it's going to be very, very minimal impact on anything. The only reason I need it is just to meet code. I could design it to be parked. You know, without that law, I just, you know, have to have seven parking spaces. That's the only purpose. I don't know that. So I see you got kind of combined five and six together. There do you want to kind of go through those by being while the proposed by section does not create a concentration of proliferation of the same or similar types of special exceptions? I don't know how to interpret what that says. Well, I think that the idea is not, you know, a special exception. I don't think it's as opposed to, in this case, create a lot of different, a lot of the same stuff going on is in the same in the same area. So that would read what you're trying to say to me. There isn't any other opportunities. I don't believe that someone would ask for the same thing I'm asking for. Because of the uniqueness of this backing up that that RG to if you go to the left going towards town, all that is C three. And it backs up all to that same parking lot that the school district has. So there's, there's not really going to be another opportunity for this request to come before your panel. I don't believe that that that I'm about that works for me. I don't think we're going to have much of an impact on anything. And then our in the future. So let's let's talk about the next one. Then the proposed best section is consistent with the character and intent of the underlying district as indicated in the zoning district description with any applicable zoning overlay district goals and requirements. I don't see a changing character because what's back there is the school district parking. And we're just going to have seven parking spaces that will potentially be used on the back of that lot is not going to have any impact on Oak Street. You mentioned in your application that the proposed building will meet all all requirements for the Waverley Historic District and the project and surrounding property is largely vacant commercial, which puts to the school district one property. So that's your intent that you'll meet off the plan development will meet all of the requirements of the overlay district. Right. In other words, the only thing I know about the old overlay is just what the building is going to look like. Is that correct? And we're going to make it, you know, fit. It's a neighborhood number eight. I write that I believe I have the support of the Waverley Property Owners Association and upon receiving a letter that where they do not support me comes as quite a shock to me because I had met with Frank Houston, who's in the audience, and he assured me throughout our meeting that we would have the support. So the fact that we don't quite understand what the change in heart was, but that's not my point. My point would be that if if their opposition is represented by the letter I got, then there's maybe eight people that would be against it. And two or three of those eight people are married to each other. So there's maybe four or five families that might be against it. Now, I don't know whether it really that really is germane. I think that that question is really more about, you know, will that special exception adversely affect the public interest? I think that's really the the gist of it. So well, that's what we've got to decide as a board is whether or not that is not a popularity contest. It's a matter of, you know, does this development adversely impact, you know, the neighborhood? I understand. And my position is that it would not surely be by the fact that I'm surrounded by parking that is already or and still is RG2. So I'm not asking for anything that is not already there. I don't know what else I could add to it. And there's no hard feelings with me in the community. If they object and y'all rule against me, you know, it is what it is. So it's not it's not the end of the world. So the lot appears to be what in one of the dimensions of that lot? The proposed lot, there's commercial lot. The existing commercial are the one that the lot the existing commercial lot that the commercial the front's on Jervay. Yeah, it's 48 by 80. And it backs up to a C3. That is 26 by 104. Is that 48 include the it doesn't alleyway? That'd be 58 feet nine inches, including the alleyway. So it'd be hard to do anything on that property at that. It's an impossible scenario just about. I don't see it as developable. Tell you the truth. I mean, I'm putting a minimal building on there. And it's all the building I want, which attracted me to it. Not building anything I don't need. That's for sure. Is that right? Is it only 26 feet wide? Well, no, it's with the driveways 26 feet because of the driveways taking up additional space. So see that. That's the alley. That's the new driveway. It gets to the back. That narrow commercial lot is quite small. I don't know the dimensions. Commercial not the greatest architectural work I've ever seen, George, but I think I can here's what I'm thinking, you know, RG to residential district. What do you have a five foot minimum side building setback? Is that right? Okay, so you have a five foot minimum side building setback. And if you have a 26 foot wide lot, you're left with you left with about 16 feet of possible buildable area at the most. I just think that's important to consider as we're discussing this. residential zone property. But it's effectively unbuildable. Okay, well, let's do this. Let's let's hear what everybody else has to say. Thank you very much for your presentation. What anybody else in the audience like to speak in favor against this application? My name is Frank Houston. I'm the president of the Historic Waverly neighborhood. And I would like to thank zoning board for allowing me to stand before you. Also Mrs. Bailey and also respect to Mr. Brooks printed my statement so that I will be on point at all times. But I want you to know that the opposition that we oppose is not against the person Mr. Brooks, whom I have known for many years, but it's about the protection of the Historic Waverly Protection Area guideline overlay granted in 2016 by the city of Columbia Planning Department. This overlay gives the neighborhood oversight and protection over its neighborhood. There are two types of residential real estate, two types of real estate, I should say in the Historic Waverly neighborhood. They are commercial and residential. There are no loopholes for a special exceptions or stand alone exceptions on our map. It is owned for commercial business purposes or residential for individuals and family daily living. The sale of residential property is highly regarded and regulated. Mr. Brooks and his son and I had conversation a few weeks concerning the building of his law office on Gervais Street on the Gervais Street parcel. But it was not mentioned in that conversation the request that was made to convert residential space into parking space. The applicant has applied for special exception for parking space on which it is zoned residential parking at 1205 Oak Street. With the resident, some of whom are here with me today of the Historic Waverly neighborhood strongly oppose granting special exception for a parking right at 1205 Oak Street, which is zoned residential. Granting this special exception will have a negative effect on the Waverly neighborhood and not only the Waverly community, but surrounding neighborhoods wherein other commercial businesses may want to convert residential real estate into parking lots. This request for special exception would create a contradiction and or a proliferation of some of the same or similar types of special exception use. This concentration can be and may be detrimental to the development of the area in which the special exception is proposed to be developed. We cannot allow businesses to change the landscape of our neighborhood by using loopholes expressions such as standalone or parking exceptions to change our neighborhoods. There are ample parking space in the block of Gerway street between Oak and Pine that can be marked for parking by the city of Columbia for his clients. This request has been made in other neighborhoods such as the Wills Garden with the master cleaners property on Blossom Street and the looter near the corner. The zoning board has made a president that it is not possible to convert residential into parking space so we are asking the same that you use the same president not only for Waverly but for other communities also. It is a matter of protecting the integrity of our community. It's a matter of principle. We are joined today by other communities in a correlation of communities for support of each other. We have with us today members of the Wills Garden community, Low Waverly community, the Lion Street community, and again members of the Historic Waverly community. Here with us also. Thank you. Again I want to reiterate that this is not about the person Mr Brooks but about the overlay protection of Historic Waverly granted to us in 2016 by the city of Columbia for the protection of our neighborhood. Thank you and I don't know if anyone else wish to speak from Wills Garden. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Houston. Thank you. Mr Chairman, Lady and gentlemen, my name is Kit Smith and I am president of the Coalition of Five Points Neighborhoods. There are really just two points I'd like to reinforce that Mr Houston made very clearly to you. One is to do sort of a back up and do a flyover of what we're facing in these neighborhoods around Five Points. There are 2,500 rental properties just in that box. Waverly is not in the box nor or another nor um I don't think Lion Street and maybe some other neighborhoods Melrose are not in there. The predominance of those dots are student housing. So we have a real real estate tilt situation going on and the camel's back is about to be broken. So we are fighting as hard as we can to hold on to the residential integrity of our neighborhoods. A decision to convert another residential property to parking would be one more straw on that camel's back. We appeared, I think it was before you, to stop the conversion of a duplex backyard to a parking lot for the property at Masters Cleaners some time ago in the Wells Garden neighborhood because we know that there's a desperate need for parking in this area if it's going to develop. So the main thing, the point number one is this is a dangerous precedent that we are really fighting because if you do this for one property on Gervais Street what happens next door and on up the road? The second point is we need a plan. I'd love to see law offices on that strip. Hardin Street is starting to develop and taking off going north from five points. There are developers working for a hotel that you may have read about. Parking is an issue there. They are working with the MLK community to develop that strip going up to Gervais on the east side and they're working with the neighborhood there to develop some parking that would be that would fit into the neighborhood and I know that we need desperately a plan for Millwood Avenue development. It's starting to take off. This has been a neglected strip by the city. There needs to be a comprehensive plan for how we're going to develop that part of Gervais Street from the railroad trestle to Millwood Avenue and maybe even on up past Lion Street. How are we going to park cars and how are we going to support egress and ingress and pedestrian traffic there? We've got 700 students living on that corner and they have a hard time getting across the street to get down to five points. They cross the street at all the matter of hours of the night very dangerously. So we are working with Old Shandon and a number of other neighborhoods to ask the city to come up with a comprehensive plan for how that area is going to develop without detriment to the neighborhoods. So I would ask you to deny this but think Mr. Brooks' idea is great. Love to see a law office in there but not at the expense of the neighborhood that would set a precedent to take away the residential integrity that we're trying to preserve. Well, let me ask you a question. So how does it necessarily take away from the residential integrity if he builds a office building on the front? The office building does not. The parking conversion of a residential lot to commercial even by special exception is a dangerous precedent. We don't know what's going to go in there in the future once the special. I know you can tie a special exception to the use but we don't know what would come in the future so we do think there needs to be a plan for how you're going to develop that strip. If you'll notice on the map all of those lots were residential at one time there were steps going up to them and they've been wiped out so that's okay. I mean it's Gervais Street maybe that should be commercial it should be if it's not going to be multi-family or something in there or another we don't want another student housing project I tell you that but it's but this is not a student housing project. No it's not but and it's not um it's a vacant residential lot it's not likely to be developed as residential. It can be if we preserve it and come up with a plan to encourage development in that neighborhood. We're desperate to hold on to the housing that we've got. Once a use goes in that has a negative externality that's a zoning term that means you know you're not getting apples off the tree you're getting limbs and leaves then it diminishes the value of that property for that use and we're seeing that throughout this area once six kids move in next door to you you don't want to live there anymore so once a law office in a parking lot goes into that residential house what happens to the lot next door to it nobody's going to want to build a house there. Well the lot behind it is the it's the Richland County Administrative Nation Building and then you know the lot next door to it is a warehouse and I would I would just submit that if you want that to become a commercial parking lot area zone it. Don't fool us by saying it's residential and has historic protection and then grant a special exception. Well that's allowed under the zoning ordinance. If it doesn't have a detrimental impact there are standards for that and we're arguing that it would have a detrimental impact because of the precedent it would set in the neighborhood. There are tons of properties that are owned in that neighborhood now by developers who want them to become parking. The church being the main one the church doesn't have enough parking they're desperate for it. Once you grant a special exception for one I think it makes it much more difficult to not grant a special exception for another with the same arguments what harm is it going to do. It's not developable. Let's make it developable for residential and protect this historic neighborhood. Look at MLK our most historic black neighborhood in this city white student housing being bought up every day by what we call predatory developers for a small amount of money converted for six students and thank you very much for your testimony. I appreciate your questions any time. I'm Daniel and I'm a real estate broker with October properties. A couple of things. I agree with their concept that if you cross the line and start going into residential property for non-residential uses then you set examples all over the city but another issue I'd like to make is is this is a historical residential line. I have a client right now who has asked me to identify properties like this in a particular neighborhood with the purpose of buying and putting on small houses. 1200 square foot house that would fit on a lot like this. Keptic built two houses like on a similar lots like similar lots like this on Law Street sold them for three hundred and seven thousand dollars different neighborhood but you know the lots there were less than 30 feet wide so you'd have to get some special exceptions but I mean I have somebody having me actively looking for small lots to build small homes on in that in another neighborhood because they are historically resident they were residents at one time. Under the present city zoning if you tear something down you or want to rebuild you've got to have at least a 50 foot lot. I just recently was involved in a development like that where the perfect use of that property was a 40 foot or 30 foot lot with small homes but under the present regulations when they tear down that project it's going to have to be 50 foot lots unless they go with townhouses. So that is a buildable lot. You can work with the city on that I would say and I'm actively trying to find lots in another neighborhood that are historically small lots and the concept is to build small houses on those. Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak? Good morning my name is Sylvia Deso and I'm with the Weaverly Neighborhood Association. I want to mention that well I will reiterate some of the points that you heard already and first I applaud Mr. Brooks for his willingness to invest in the neighborhood and bring a law office and definitely having something built on Jovey Street will be an improvement but having parking and residential lots is definitely not an improvement and you say well this parcel is not developable actually it may be for a building small enough and the other thing if we look across Oak Street all this property is empty it's own residential and the owner which is a church wants desperately to use that as parking. If you grant this special exception to make 1205 Oak Street a parking then of course the next meeting the church is going to come in and say you did that for 1205 we want all this residential land that we own on the other side of Oak Street to become parking and that would be an issue for the residents. Mr. Brooks doesn't live in the neighborhood neighbors do and we are basically under a lot of pressure from institutions to well basically have less houses and more of everything else that's not residential but if neighbors live there it's because they want to live there and we want other people to live there so these are some of the reasons why I'm asking you not to grant this special exception thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Would anybody else like to speak that hasn't been heard? Mr. Brooks would you like to come back to the podium? One more comment and now it is Ms. Bailey to correct me if I'm misrepresenting anything but as I understand that there is a plan for the future for that area particularly that strip that I'll be building on in the property behind it which is currently RG2. As I understand that the urban plan and I'm not sure if that's a five-year plan or a 10-year plan is that that property is going to be converted to C1 anyway so you know the whole point might be just incidental whether it's me if you grant it from me or down the line it's going to be end up being commercial anyway like commercial nothing out of the way so I just want to make sure that the panel understands that that seems to be in the works anyway. Rachel can you give us a little bit of clarification on that please? So I believe he's referencing the future land use plan that the city adopted several years ago. It's not a regulatory document it's a guiding document and it does show parts of dervay and it does include that narrow residential lot within kind of an activity center corridor which is a mix of residential and some light office institutional uses. So I do not have the land use plan with me so but that's just the basic rundown but again that's just kind of a guiding document. Would that be the same plan that the planning commission would use? It's discussed when we look at rezoning but again as for any future remapping I can't say for sure whether that would remain residential or. Rachel can you tell us a little bit about the required parking spaces for this office? I know some of the neighborhoods that we talk about or the vests or other places get 50% reductions and things like that. This is outside of the city center overlay the DD allows for a 50% reduction you can pull from on-street parking. This is within the design preservation there are no parking reductions unless it's a landmark building so with this it's the set 3 per 1,000 square feet across four area. How about some of the spaces on your Bay Street? Any chance any of those can count towards the 70s being asked to provide? Those would not count towards the off-street should a variance request come before you all that's something that may be discussed but just for our basic off-street parking requirement we're not able to pull from the street. Mr Brooks is there any have you is there any other way you can configure your proposed site plan to contain your spaces on the existing parcel you're planning to build on? I thought I heard you mentioned earlier that you might be able to do something without this additional lot behind it. Well anything I do would require me cutting the building from 2,100 square feet you know down to probably 1,300 square feet which would pretty much defeat the project. That doesn't sound good I'm just just thinking because of the fact that you um the kind of real estate that you do you don't have very many visitors and because your son would be operating a a one-man law office maybe maybe the compromise here is it might be more appropriate to approach the board for a variance to parking requirements or something to that effect to avoid encroaching into this rear lot that does appear to at least have some opposition from the public. I don't I don't think with these existing space I think the spaces on Jervay even though they they don't they can't count towards you I think they help so I'm not convinced that you can't do what you want to do own your lot fronting Jervay and not encroach into this lot maybe with a little assistance from the board or the city or I just wonder if there's a creative way to explore that if you consider that. I have um I've developed probably 20 different variations of what conceivably could work but I would say that require a soft heart on the board somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe three parking spaces to make that work whether that comes on the street or just you know just a variance I don't know if the proper terminology but I would be remiss if I said it's not conceivable seems to be you may not need seven spaces and that's the whole reason that you don't approach in this lot need them but if you know if I could build what I need to build and not have them that would be fine too and and to be candid there was some question as if I should apply for that first rather than this and you know it was just a decision made to do this first and either way I end up in front of y'all but in that case we wouldn't be encroaching into the residential neighborhood and we might get grant you some relief from parking spaces that at least in my opinion that you don't need seems like that might be a good compromise. One thing I'd like to point out is that you've got two lots that are very long right now and one of those lots is not likely to be developed all unless they're combined so essentially what you're probably going to have to do to actually develop this is somebody's going to have to combine those two lots as a residential and what mr Brooks is proposing is to divide them and still have one lot that would be used for residential and one lot that would be continuous to the back of his office building to be used for for for parking so I don't really believe that there's a really net loss of of ability to build a residential structure there and I believe that Jim's property he could have that he could he could buy that he still has a more developable piece of property now if his client wanted to buy a lot in the Waverley district on Cook on Oak Street it's more developable as a square than it is as a long skinny rectangle so I I believe that that this is actually a pretty clever solution that doesn't that does absolute bare minimal that impact into the Waverley overlay district I just because of the the circumstances that you have here you have a lot that's a commercial lot that fronts on your Bay Street it is too small to develop and will likely never be developed you have a residential lot behind that that is too narrow to be developed and will never be developed and so this plan takes that and creates a one one residential lot that can be developed as a residential structure and then on the back not fronting on any street but contiguous to the commercial property is a small parking lot with six to seven parking spaces on it that would would be part of the I think it's a brilliant design I think it's absolutely the best design he could have done for being able to develop the commercial lot on the front and and it doesn't it has the most the least impact on the on the the Waverley overlay design district that he could possibly have one thing Chuck I think I agree with you in principle most of those points but one thing that sort of swayed me was Mr. Daniel's testimony because I stated it earlier that I didn't believe that this lot was a buildable lot but Daniel's been doing this a long time and certainly knows a lot more about real estate than I do and he testified that it is a buildable lot and I think if you cut it in half I mean we already know it's not it's very narrow I would just dispute the point you made that if you cut it in half that Celtic or sunlight builder could still build on it I don't think they could I think you need to it's two lots it's that lot and that it's not one this is the one I'm talking about see that skinny little lot right there so that's we have two parcels right and now I thought it was one still gonna have two parcels no it's two parcels so there are two commercial parcels and then the residential parcel the one we're discussing the subject property is one parcel it's residential applicant has proposed that he intends what he's doing is he's going to take this long skinny lot and then he's going to divide it in half and now he's got this square lot and a perfectly developable lot still on oak street I see what you're saying but that lot is not that if you took that area of that lot it would equal what he's doing behind him and I clarify it's not developed so I know the applicant discussed changing up lot lines but I do want to say no plat has been approved and land development has not signed off on the new subdivisions so it's hypothetical and he's got some trees to worry about too right now the subject property is one residential parcel so you know I would I'm sorry you can't you have to wait until you can come to the podium uh well mm-hmm so so you arrive late would you come to the would you come to the podium please so we have this all right so look at look look look at it what y'all okay all right so here's what so you have two lots a very narrow skinny lot that's a lot of record it's a lot of record it's a lot of record with a separate tax number that's my understanding that's a separate tax number that's two lots that are right there together and the one above it is another same lot right owned by the same owner right a separate tax map number now what is what he's planning on doing there is so he's got these two lots now he's going to put a line in the very middle with that see that alleyway if you take that alleyway and put a line in the middle and go straight to the back now he's got two perfect squares I don't remember that being in the application come on the application dealt with that whole lot being part of this this empty lot on Dervay street did you see anything about cutting it in half let me clarify something the subject property is the parcel that is shown as the subject property that is what it was for the applicant testified today that he only intends to use the back half of that parcel for actual parking purposes the parking is not going to be right on oak street it's not going to have an entrance or exit onto oak street he's only intending to use the rear parcel it does not make me comfortable that we are completely discussing where new lot lines are going to be drawn just because the land development administrators not here we don't have a plat before us but the testimony of the applicant is at least that parking will just be on the rear of that parcel and that's what the record will reflect as well but the subject property is that 1205 oak street relative to that I'd like to ask a question so if we approve this special exception today the applicant could develop the entire property for parking as long as it did not have access off of oak street unless we restrict it I'm not going to own the other half I'm just asking so yeah let's not get into ownership here but he has testified that parking would be on the rear part so that would be a part of the record and then also there are requirements that are within section 17 344 3a that screening on the lots has to be established so I'll have to screen along oak street and there can be no curb cut on oak street so it's going to be locked off from that actual residential street as well so the only ingress the egress can be off of the gervais street through those two commercial parcels well I had I have a question mr books and it's also relying on your testimony and it's sort of building on what gene asked you earlier you did say when you test in your earlier testimony that you could do the project without using this lot could you tell me what you meant say that I can because but you said that's what you said in your testimony that I control what you would approve and I don't know what you would approve so I don't know I guess what I'm saying is when you said that when you said that what did you mean when you said that what I mean is that instead of building a 2172 square foot building I could build a 1300 building square foot building okay and have less parking requirements but also would still need out of five spaces I would still need two to be to get a parking variance somewhere so what you meant is that it would you could do the project but it would require us a building of a smaller square footage a project could be done is what I'm saying I'm not saying that I would do it because I haven't what I'm presenting and asking for is to build a particular size building I prefer not to build a smaller building than it and likely would not but is it possible for somebody to do it I would say that it's possible probably not me I'm not sure if I'm talking about ownership I'm only going to own the the back half of that lot that where the I'm parking cars on the other half is going to still be retained by the guy that owns Verve so I won't ever be able to encroach on that other portion of that lot all right I need I need a clarification then all right so there are two lots shown behind um the building two RG2 RG2 lots and the subject property shown on this map is only one of those lots the other lot is not shown as part of the subject property but it still exists is that correct it does sure and you um you have your your intention is to combine those two lots and divide them in half is that what I'm hearing you say so that so that one half would face Cook Street and be divided by the centerline of the alley and the other half would be directly behind your lot would be the same width as your lot and go all the way to the top of the where the where the black line is shown on that hatch mark black line yeah those are two lots are not part of the development so it essentially leaves a fully developable RG2 lot that is not encumbered by it would not be encumbered by and you would agree not to have that lot um as part of the special exception only the the lot the area right behind your office building that's shown on the site plan that you uh provided I would not go beyond the black line I would say that you would agree that you would not go beyond the site plan that you presented to the um was I think it's the same thing to be limited to the area provided by the site plan Chuck if I may let's let's back up a second that I don't see where that leaves a fully developable RG2 lot because half of it is commercial is C3 zoning is that correct both of those are G2 why is one designated as C3 the skinny lot right behind the sub the where the building street it is one commercial lot a second commercial lot and then a residential parcel right the other residential behind that is not part of the the subject property is 1205 correct and then the C3 the one's heading towards der vey street I see that I'm so I stand corrected I now understand that the lot between the RG2 lot and the the lot owned by the applicant is zone C3 as well correct that's the only way he's able to apply for this special exception in a residential district to have a parking area on a residentially zoned parcel has to be you can only access it through a commercial project I think this matter knows needs to go to planning commission if it's a subdivision of a lot because you're taking a lot that's what let's just say 30 feet wide by 100 feet deep and you're making a lot that's 30 feet by 50 which stays residential and then you have a lot that's 30 by 50 which is contiguous to what mr brooks wants to buy on der vey street and that becomes his commercial right is that what's happening doesn't this go to planning commission a sub it would not go to planning commission a subdivision is staff review and that's why I said we don't have the land development administrator here we cannot be drawing property lines this is not a plat review but is this a border zoning appeal matter they can talk about a front or a rear of a property drawing property lines and splitting a property is not within their purview but discussing the rear only the only only the only to the extent that the board needs to understand the intention of what was going to happen so i think that that that i i apologize earlier i misspoke i thought that both of those lots were residential and one of those lots is actually commercial so um what we own oak street or der vey street oak oak street there are two lots facing oak street one is commercial and one is residential i thought they were both residential i don't think that's correct well you you've got the alley you've got the warehouse on the corner you've got sort of an alley that runs there behind the warehouse and then you've got two residential lots owned by the same person from Charleston and then the one owned by the school district the zoning map is correct it's a commercial parcel a second commercial parcel which is quite narrow which is at the top of it tees off at the top of that alley and then the subject property which is residential the chair had misspoken and had moved one more lot past that to the residential that is not part of this the red the commercial strip is that small alley that runs behind the verb warehouse but he's not buying that because that's an alley yeah let me soon as read on this map is commercial the brownish is residential can i just summarize i think what i understand mr brook's intent if you look at the two commercial properties that are orange der vey one is where the warehouse is one is what he wants to develop then you have the alley in the middle of that he is only talking about a rectangular piece he wants to develop that goes on the western side of the alley back north that would cover this c3 lot to the north and also the rg2 the issue is is those two parcels are owned by different property owners so he's going to be doing a potential property swap to basically own the back half of those properties so that the new property owner would own the front half so that's the intent i believe behind all this is that correct yeah correct so there's a few issues trying to be handled here at once this is the way i see it yeah the case before us today is not about where lotlands are going to be drawn the cases can parking be on a residential that is all understood mr brooks could you address the podium one more time please so it was your testimony earlier i believe that you have both of these lots under contract the lot the two lots the rectangular lots behind the property that you own on your bay c3 lot known as 2225 jervais street under contract if you skip to the black surrounded rg2 lot i have that on the contract i also have a contract with the verve fellow who owns the c3 lot also facing oak street to where i will swap the front half of the black line lot for his back half of his lot so that he will end up with a line going from jervais street 46 feet wide by 135 feet oak and i'll have the other half i will not own property as far as these lots are concerned on oak street and would not have access to oak street he would own the entire parcel right and so that lot how how wide is that lot that c3 lot between the fronts on oak street and goes behind the two other parts six feet wide the commercial c3 lot is which is 1203 i think is uh 26 by 104 and the black line lot is 29 did you um did you look at the possibility of taking the existing c3 lot this 26 feet wide and creating parking there without encroaching into the residential area i think that's what somebody was asking me earlier to clarify that and and my answer to that is that would give me 106 feet it would be the 80 feet and the 26 be 106 feet deep rather than 135 feet and someone could build a building on that lot like i similar to what i propose it would just be around 13 12 1300 square feet as opposed to 2000 no no but you mean you would have to incorporate the long lot and the and the lot that you're going to put the building on i'm not sure i understand okay so you've got the 26 foot wide by 100 and 104 104 that's the lot you already you're already building on that and your site plan my building is only going to be on the 80 foot lot that that gridded that black grid is will be will be where the parking is okay so if if you have you entertained it the the idea of just buying the the 26 by 100 some odd foot commercial lot cooperating that with the other lot that you have and trying to get the parking in that l shape configuration the fellow would not sell me the whole lot he would sell me the back half gotcha in other words your question is could i buy the 26 foot lot and have access out to oak street understood okay so you can't sell it to me that would solve the problem and i could park on it without even being up here but he'll only sell me the back half so so he really probably doesn't intend to create a residential lot there well it's a c3 lot i if he did anything he would expand his warehouse yeah i still think that seven spaces is too many for what you're trying to do what i still feel believe seven spaces just seems too many for this office or i don't know about too many not required i understand that so i just it brings me back to something i said earlier just seems like the more appropriate request would be a variance for the parking requirement for this parcel i think you'd have a easier time arguing that than arguing you know essentially effectively doing away with this residential parcel i think the neighborhood would be better i think the neighborhood would be fine with that and i think i would be more comfortable with that and i don't think practically speaking you need seven spaces so we we have a couple options here we can either vote to defer your request we can vote to approve it or deny it and you know i kind of agree um you know uh but what gene just said which was that perhaps this needs a little bit more thought before we actually do put a vote on it that's my thought um but we'll do whatever you um whatever you would like what does the deferment allow me well it allows you to think about what you're trying to do there um you could withdraw it at that after that point and then resubmit a different um uh proposal um or you could you know say well this is really what i want to do and come back and i mean we vote on it again or we can vote on it now if we vote on it today and it gets turned down Rachel and he wants to get a variance for the parking without the other thing that that wouldn't affect it would be a different request different request so it wouldn't be it wouldn't be affected by if you wanted to come out a different angle it wouldn't be affected by a no vote today that's that's the way i understand it as well um whatever you all want to do since me now you may approach mrs jason sorry i do would like to reiterate the fact that we strongly oppose parking in this area that mr brooks is speaking of parking there would open the door for other entities to then turn residential spaces into parking lot the space that we are concerned about today or that we're talking about today is commercial and residential the area that is that is uh wanting to be changed is a residential parcel of land we oppose that residential parcel of land being converted into parking that is the position of the community and so we strongly ask that you do not grant this uh variance or this exception for parking according to the map we are the only community that has a protective area that is protected and we as a community have a right to say what happens in our community and we would like for you to respect the fact that this community opposes a parking facility on a residential parcel of land we strongly oppose that because it will open so many doors that will destroy our community we have the right to say that and we ask that you please acknowledge our requests that just do not be granted thank you sir okay um let's see what happens um why don't we defer it and not worry about it uh and I do that out of respect for the community I make a motion that this this uh matter be deferred second all in favor say aye aye all opposed no leave that motion carried we're back to item number six which is case 2019-0025 for 22-22 Rembert street the variance to the maximum lot coverage requirement for a detached garage if the applicant has arrived they're welcome to come forward how you guys doing um I'm planning to get please uh state your name oh DeQuincy Edwards Quincy Edwards DeQuincy Edwards I'm planning to um I'm like three percent over the lot allowance for my home and I'm trying to build a two-car detached um on my property and and we'll park on 22-22 Rembert street and I've been working with the zoning downstairs and I'm working with the design apartment upstairs and I made it basically with the two-car garage as far as for parking it's not really parking on my street I was taking away like a street park for me to park every night and the neighbors used that a lot so I'm trying to build a two-car garage so I can have personal parking on my lot also the storage upstairs just for me to store things because I made the garage as small as possible so I take as much lot of space as I need so two cars could fit in there so it's just a 20 by 20 that's the minimum I can do according to my architect for a two-car garage so I don't have any storage in the first floor that's why I asked them for the second level to be some storage for me to put some things in my garage so I don't have to put it on my lot it's not visible it makes them not junk up to the yard the neighborhood still looks beautiful people still use the street parking during the day and I don't take away from that I'll talk to the neighbors around me nobody had any problems with the two-car garage I think some people that work farther up the street use the street parking so they was really happy that I will take some of that street parking away and I've have like reduced the stoop the deck to a stoop as small as possible to make it work I narrow the house as possible to design a center to make it work I've done everything possible to get this get this much lot used as I can to get the building on there any questions of me about the project I'm glad to ask them so what are the uh on your application um described the extraordinary and exceptional conditions um that are here we'll talk about number two yes so you mentioned that it was uh rates uh narrow rectangular corn a lot on Elmwood Park yeah when I when I first bought it they presented me as much bigger so I didn't even run into this problem till after I closed um then when the my server came out there it cut a lot in half they they uh marketing that's point two two so after I had plenty area then he came back and said no that's the point one one so that's when I ran to all this struggle and narrow lot um that's why I had to change the whole design as much as the city allowed me to change the design on it and that's what I'm saying they was kind of there because I think I have the smallest corner lot on that on that block so I you're written application is very well done and I think it really explains um your position on all of those I'm not to go through all this with you um is there anyone else here speaking favor against this application see none or any questions from the board any discussion I'd like to make a motion that we approve this uh request for um a variance subject to all comments of staff uh all in favor say aye aye all opposed mention carries thank you very much thank you there is no other business today other than just welcoming our newest board member mr. Gregory glad to have you aboard John and thank you very much thank you man all right I make a motion that we adjourn don't favor say aye