001electronic meeting of the city of ann arbor building board of appeals here we have a roll call i think we'll let this opportunity um go with the folks on the um zoom to introduce yourself uh we've got catherine hi i'm catherine uh how do i make it louder you're fine hi we're just going to take the roll call of this the board members right now and since you're a guest we'll invite you later so we got katherine we've got uh heart got jeff you'll make it louder how do i make it louder let's see get you yes ma'am [Music] we've got mike gretlin bruce carson are we here i'm here chris mcfarland here mark howell present where's our other staff person uh i do believe we have a quorum and ready to get started so
002after roll call the first item on the attendant is introduction of new board members bruce carson and catherine lavisar pronounced right it is i'm actually i just recently got married so my name is now cousin okay okay congrats thank you also paul if we uh jeff perkins this will be his first board meeting also okay condolences i think since we have so many new board members and existing board members that have been on the board for a while maybe would be good to give a little introduction of each person what their kind of background is so i can start that um i'm paul darling i am an architect by training and i have a background in historic preservation and i also have a forensic architect background so i currently work for the university and i've
003been on the board i think over 20 years now so i've been on the board a while oh [Music] okay catherine hi i'm catherine i am uh an attorney for the city of detroit i've been an attorney for five years my background is in litigation and i work in the freedom of act section currently and i also have a background in property management i have a property in ferndale michigan that i manage okay in spite of the screen name there i am bob hart been an architect for 45 years and retired just this past year and i think i've been on the board now for possibly 13 years and the practice that i've been in i was engaged in was a general one uh covering all different aspects of architectural design all right and that
004takes us to jeff i'm jeff perkins i own perkins construction in ann arbor we've been around for about 36 years i have chaired a task force for the home builders association dealing with problems with the city of ann arbor building department going back to probably about 2000 when we were involved in a lawsuit with the city over building permit fees and then through chairing the task force i met glenn several years ago and uh he's been a very welcome member of our group and he asked me to serve on this board and i got put on in june and this is my first meeting so it's been a pretty easy uh stint here building review board so i'm glad to be here thank you thank you uh hugh fleck i moved ann arbor in 2011
005and i saw a sorrowful article in the paper saying that the board of appeals didn't have enough people to be a quorum if one person was sick so i thought what the heck i would volunteer um i've been retired for about a year now i spent over 30 years in industry working primarily in health safety environment and regulatory affairs and enjoy the meetings and and you're right they don't happen that frequently anymore okay let's see going next one bruce hi i'm bruce carson i've lived here in the city for about 35 years i've been a plumbing contractor i'm now retired and was asked to be on the board by one of the plumbing inspectors so here i am all right i think that takes care of the board members okay and on to new business
006so uh first item on the new business the election of a chair of the building board of appeals so i guess we're looking for nominations is that we're looking for deborah yeah he'll take nominations from the floor for chair all right paul i nominate paul darling only i mean on the basis that that he's been on the board he's a senior member and he's filled in uh for the previous chair on numerous occasions and was you know very well suited um for the job all right any other nominees if not we close the uh nominations and we ask for a motion to appoint paul darling as the chair of the building board of appeals that we appoint uh paul as chairman second second okay thank you you'll vote all in favor all right opposed so
007moved okay thank you paul all right thank you do you have a gavel handy paul well i was locking my desk here oh my my mouse so uh let's see the first item or the second item is um approvally agenda and you want to move to approve the agenda so moved second second was in favor all right then has been approved uh so approval of minutes a question deborah is that it looks like that's already gone to the city um the last meeting was in june of that's that no it has not gone to council yet because we haven't met okay so we still need to look at that and approve that then correct okay anybody have any comments on the minutes from last june no we're attached to the uh packet there if not
008can we have a motion to approve those the move to approve the minutes second was in favor hi my minutes are approved from the june 20th 2019 meeting uh next item is uh appeals actions that she'll cause hearings and uh before i introduce the first appeal i would like to talk a little bit about the format for how this is going to work we'll have the applicant give a brief summary of what his request is and then we'll ask for a staff report from the city and then we'll have a board discussion to the applicant and then we'll have a board discussion internally and a motion from that and then we'll take our vote so i would like to point out the board can't waive any code sections but on the findings that the true
009intent of the code is not being interpreted correctly that the provision of the code doesn't apply or that on equal or better form of construction is being composed so those are the three vehicles that we have to granted variants so in your just in your summary of what you're one of requesting is you're requesting would be helpful so the first appeal um for today is bba a20-002 at one zero um 1101 south university avenue hand over michigan 48104. let's see and we have someone here to speak on that behalf yeah this is this is brad moore with jay bradley moore and associates architects uh we're the architects for the owner of um the 1101 building um when this building yeah brad let me let me let me give some of the background history first if
010you don't mind i think that'll be helpful um my name is sean haver i'm with liberty realty partners we are the owners representative uh for uh the owner at 1101 south university as well as we represent the owner at 1107 south university which is the adjacent property in which this is connecting to back when we did the development for what's called the vic village north building we had worked with uh the owner at 1101 to to come up with a solution that would allow what we saw as a not a great way to treat trash which was being placed in front of the building having to be pulled to the curb and so obviously in other you know locations and things we try to work with the adjacent neighbors to come up with solutions that
011will help beautify and keep the street escape area clean uh and that was why we came up with the with the solution of allowing for a connection from 1101 back to our building to utilize a shared trash service that we have back there for all of our retail and residential tenants within our building so that was how these came about we have a number of easements in place that addressed that that have been recorded uh as brad said they are the architects so i'm going to at this point hand it over to brad because obviously i i don't i'm not an architect i don't deal in the code stuff i just try to build the buildings at times so brad with that i'm going to hand it back to you yeah thanks um so sean
012was stating both both the projects uh that we're um that are germane to our discussion my my project at 1101 um and the project that was built around the 1101 building the student-focused residential high-rise with first-floor retail um the city as as well as the neighbor wanted to make sure that they didn't have unslightly or impractical things at the street level and the neighbor was gracious enough to work with us so as part of our approved site plan uh we were required to not uh have trash uh in the public right away for our our building not have bike lockers uh et cetera et cetera since our building occupies a hundred percent of the site uh the only way to do that is to do that behind the high-rise in the alley and the direction
013or the service corridor to permit that to happen was part of the construction of the high-rise that work was permitted and is completed so um a door exists in their um wall on the property line and the service corridor exists going back to the alley my client's construction of her project was delayed and she wants to move forward at this time which would mean the uh proposed installation of the opening uh in the wall of the 1101 building that lines up with the current door in the wall of the high-rise building um and speaking with glenn on another project with a similar set of circumstances he indicated that he he wanted us to proceed with an appeal because the code doesn't permit openings on walls on property lines so what we've done is we've proposed
014that in both walls both the the existing wall of the high-rise building in our wall we install opening protectives that are the equal of the rating of the wall typically opening protectives would be allowed a reduced rating from the wall if they're installed but since we're on the property line here we're proposing that the opening protectives are equal to the walls so we would be installing a two-hour rated overhead fire shutter in our wall on the property line uh further we're proposing that a localized audible alarm would be installed on the door that is part of the high-rise so that if that door were left unlatched for more than five minutes the local alarm would sound uh the feeling being that with that with those two protectives in place that are equal to the wall
015we have provided a separation uh that is equal to what's required by code further we've we proposed to put a deluge sprinkler system in the interstitial space between the two firewalls um so that in the event uh that one of the opening protectives was not completely shut and any fire were to find its way um between the two buildings it would be extinguished there by the devil's firehead so we we believe we've met the requirement of the code by providing something that is equal or better than the code requirements uh still protects life safety um that is not a required means of egress um exit that we're installing between the buildings it's simply for the movement of people and trash back and forth the 1101 building has all the required emergency egress exits it needs
016directly onto the public right-of-way thank you any more uh comments from the applicant can we get a report from the city yeah what brad morris just went over is um uh pretty much meets would would take care of uh the issues of fire safety i believe um while uh it doesn't meet the code requirement exactly it's possible that it does meet the equivalency or better staff will neither deny or approve either way i believe that's something that the board can decide on thank you fire marshall have any comment concern i agree with glenn dempsey on that just leave it up to the board i included in the application but didn't in my narrative that both buildings have fire sprinklers okay any advocates from the board are any questions from the board of the applicant um
017i have a few questions um brad do the the opening protectives uh all belong to 1101. uh no they're the uh the wall of the existing high-rise which is on their side of the property line uh contains the three-hour door and frame assembly so that's that's part of the high-rise construction and then we we would be installing the uh two-hour rolling overhead fire shutter in the opening we would create in our wall okay so we have back-to-back protectives just like we have back-to-back fire-rated walls okay the deluge system belong would belong to 1101. say that again yes the dollar tristan would come off 1101 correct i'm off 1101. okay is there a reason why um you just have the alarm notification system uh as a local situation it's a local you know alarm as opposed
018to having it connected to you know the broader alarm system uh yeah well the thinking was that the uh you know there there will be times when the personnel from the uh 1101 tenant space which is a coffee shop we'll we'll be you know opening that door and and and having a couple three four bags of trash to to get through that door and we just want to make sure that the staff is aware that they have to shut that door behind them not just leave it open as they go down the hallway uh as opposed to having that alarm system go off in the high rise and create unnecessary alarm with all the residential tenants in the high rise okay and is the deluge system connected to the uh 1101 sprinkler system alarm yes
019okay and then uh my last question is uh uh glenn are there any uh dead end issues associated with the service card or common path of travel or anything like that although you said it wasn't it wasn't required as a service as a i mean it's carter uh it is not for our building okay but that service corridor has two means of exit one is directly to the alley outside and the other is to the uh lobby of the collegian so there are two means of egress from that service quarter okay [Music] brad is the mechanism for the fire shutter a fusible link yes and which side will there be fusible links on both sides or do you just need it on one side we would just need it on our side so it would
020deploy if there was a fire on our side of the wall um the the the door door and frame assembly on the other side or on the wall that's adjacent to our wall would protect us from a fire from the opposite direction okay and as long as you don't paint the fusible link life will be good there'll be clear signage to that effect oh good do these type of rule of shoulders require annual inspections they do and does the city fire department look at those and gets copies of those i would defer to the fire marshal i believe that's true but um not having been a fire marshal on ann arbor i'm going to defer to mr redmond location because it has first floor retail our inspectors would be inspecting there and that would be
021part of the inspection besides fire doors they look at roll down fire doors which of course would go along with the fusible links and the replacement of them the yearly maintenance of them and this part of that means they test them to make sure that they they do function correct they they should have uh a private fire protection firm or company coming out they should be testing the doors usually they'll actually put the door through the motion and replace the links and just from experience typically when we have our fire alarm inspections within buildings we maintain that report typically i don't mike you can correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think those reports go to you do they uh the fire marshal office yeah sometimes depending on which company does it we though
022they may send them to us and then we're also part of eye roll so but that's we don't make it mandatory in the city to be part of eye roll but a lot of companies that do will send reports through eye roll to us so it all depends on which company you utilize for the service okay and will there be some type of signage on the door itself to say the alarm's going to go after five minutes so there's some satisfication of that absolutely both sides of the door okay we also too will also our tenants that are on the the 1107 side we have tenants that come and go through that back area quite often uh and you know we have very obviously good relationships with our tenants so we'll we'll note it to
023them and a lot of times there's there's even self policing if you will of things they keep eyes on stuff so if they see a door open they'll have the tendency to go ahead and shut it when they know that it's not supposed to be open so we also inform our tenants so they keep eyes on it as well so is this door going to be locked all the time or can people from the high rise use this door to get into the into the retail space no so the way that no so the way that our building is set up is that uh that back uh that corridor serves as a corridor for our uh retail tenants on that first floor uh the residential tenants do not have access through into that space um
024we obviously would work with you know the 1101 owner and how that door is specifically handled because more or less it's their door just on our side from an access standpoint so we will work with them on how do they want it locked how do they want to handle that those would be things we would work with them but our tenants would not go through those doors okay so there would be a we can be like a passage lock on that you need a key to get through that from the other side or is it normally unlocked all the time so i imagine i i imagine for security of the tenant there will be a keying system whether it's a physical key or an rf fob um it just they'll have to work it out
025between the the two uh property owners but yeah we don't want it to be unlocked so that anybody can get into the coffee shop from the neighboring building yeah what i could foresee happening is working with her to actually add that door onto our security system because those tenants will need card access to get into the trash room as well as to that door when they're coming from the exterior of the alley into that corridor so it may make the most sense to work with her to just add a electronic strike onto our system either way it'll be locked in some form or manner yeah okay [Music] any other questions by the board not we have somebody willing to make a motion uh i'll make the motion in the matter of bba 20-00 at 1101
026south university i moved to approve relief from section 705 and table 705.8 allowing an opening in the fire rated wall of 1101 south university for access to garbage collection bike lockers electrical transformers and storm water detention this motion is made within the board's authority to approve and or deny on the basis that an equal or better form of construction is proposed as follows a the provision of a deluge sprinkler system between the buildings connected to the 1101 suppression system b a three hour fire rated door assembly equipped with a local alarm notification see an overhead to our rated automatic fire shutter that will be annually tested and inspected and the appropriate signage that will be posted um describing operation of the opening protectives further to this motion the specific condition claimed by the applicant and
027owners that justifies the variance would not would be considered neither general nor recurrent in nature and not be considered a precedent for future similar appeals thanks any comment on board comment on the motion i would finally amend that we include that it um that is not required means of egress with the store okay and i want to confirm with um with um glenn 705 versus 706. 705 is party wall where 706 is um 706 is party wall versus is exterior wall does it make a difference as soon as we're on a party wall more than really an exterior wall application where we're right on the property line with two buildings well that um it really wouldn't be a party wall it'd be an exterior wall i believe under 705. okay so we have a motion
028um give a second all second okay thank you who's in favor aye those opposed seeing none looks like it passes thank you thank you very much thank you next item on the agenda is appeal right page here 20-1207 bba 20 zero three at five four three third street and number michigan forward 104. do we have an applicant here to speak to that appeal hi uh uh i i'm not muted no you're fine now okay okay sorry you had me scared i had the wrong button pushed i'm a newbie at this stuff um so my name is steve kaplan i'm the president of varsity management the company that manages this property we have the owners fred and judy's wass also on the call and we have uh the architect uh for this renovation a leo babcock
029i'm gonna start off with just a quick ditty to kind of get our you know frame of mind uh started and then and then uh gonna defer to leo to answer detailed questions i just want to thank you all for taking the time to hear us first i wanted to say we didn't set out to contradict this code and we would have if at all possible built to the written requirements we were forced by multiple factors the structural elements of the building confusion and the time crunches brought on by the pandemic most importantly our convictions of what creates the safest most usable living environment possible it's this last issue i want to go into a little bit uh there'll be plenty of detail to follow regarding the building structure space constraints limitations of other code
030compliant options first i think it's important to state some generalities uh the two units involved in this appeal if they were stand-alone houses like hundreds of others in ann arbor student housing stock would not be before this board the stairs as they are currently built meet the code requirements set forth for residential stairs which are overwhelmingly the majority of stairs that any ann arbor resident would encounter living here if the premise of any stair code is for purposes of safety and user consistency then we feel this code in our case becomes counterproductive here the dimensions considered safest for building code for the use in over 90 percent of the residential stairs in the city are what we currently have installed the safety of consistency of not surprising the user of a stairway with dimensions subtly
031different from their expectations is best met by the stairs as they are currently installed we're not sure why there's an alternate code for residential stairs merely because they exist in a commercial building the resulting dimensions are neither consistent with commercial stairs or residential stairs and just add ambiguity to the user's experience of any built environment we explored every other option we could envision that would bring these stairs into compliance with this alternate code for residential units located within a commercial building not one of them can be executed without reducing in our minds the overall safety or usability of the units number one we looked at spiral stairs uh spiral stairs though code compliant are objectively less safe than normal code compliant residential stairs they're additionally impossible to implement in our structure because the width of
032the smallest spiral staircase we can find is still wider than the stairwell opening in our units this opening is flanked on each side by steel i-beams that are part of the original structure of the building and hold the two stories of building that are on top of these units descending from grade level with the alternate code stair dimensions this approach leaves us one tread short of floor level in the basement an additional platform to meet the stair deprives us of the necessary ceiling height in the basement to meet a different code so we merely trade one code violation for a worse one adding one more tread to the stair to get to the floor leaves us too little space for a landing at the bottom and expanding that landing in either unit requires the removal
033of an original load-bearing wall in the structure it's been asked why we chose to finalize our current configuration rather than wait for decision by this board we have tenants scheduled to move in three days from now there was time to complete what we started but not enough time to rebuild anything else further we just strongly feel that the current configuration is the safest approach we can build i'm going to pass this on now to uh leo babcock the architect but thank you for your consideration in advance all right yeah i just would like to touch on a couple things that steve mentioned and primarily um in terms of the board and your review and your consideration um i understand there are three criteria you really look at and i believe that we fall under the
034first one um the true intent of the code and so what the the variance that we're seeking or or the reinterpretation if you will is has to do with the building code that allows for an exception of of units uh residential units within say a multi-family unit a multi-family building like a townhouse and the exception is to make the stair more uh compatible more similar more uh what people are accustomed to in a single family home with a separate riser and tread ratio um and giving said that our particular unit like a two-story unit within this multi-family building um the interpretation the way i see it and we've discussed it briefly is that the intent of the code um is to allow that exception within that particular unit not the whole building not the exit
035stairs but the intent is to have that unit as a single family unit which is essentially it is five bedrooms or either know their students other it may not be you know traditional families but the intent is that's a single family unit within this larger structure so our belief is that that portion of the code needs some reinterpretation on your part because it really does address the intent of the code to have that staircase considered a single family unit stair within that dwelling unit so that's sort of our and our request in terms of this board's appeal and that i don't want to get along into a lot of the background uh but um just a real briefly as as steve mentioned um this well this building was built in 1964 and some of the
036original drawings we had were inconsistent which what was built which is often the case as i'm sure you're aware of and upon demolition and right before construction we discovered things like a steel beam parallel to a concrete plank which is unusual but was definitely put there for a reason we explored um the possibility of seeing really where that loading came from but you know in a three-story building there's so much tear-out involved and and and just for the investigation to see if it's even feasible and also the two bearing walls which limited the length of the stair similarly were not quite consistent but with what we thought those those put a lot of different constraints on how we had to fit the stair in so a decision was made on site to build a staircase
037which we believe is in the intent of that exception to build a staircase that meets the one and two family code the residential code within that dwelling unit that's why we're sort of at this junction today and given you know such delays with with uh shutdown and and other issues were a time consideration which steve mentioned also it seemed to be the best decision to go ahead and put something in and then um see what we can what we can discuss and request your reinterpretation of that code section thank you staff report so this project was originally approved it had all the correct information and to meet the building code this falls this is an r2 building it's an apartment building and uh it goes into the building code this staircase we're talking about is
038a new staircase it was uh put in place to add a residential or i believe a bedroom in the lower level at which one time was a laundry room basement laundry room type of setup in the code it says that it's supposed to meet a 7-11 requirement but gives an exception to residential units in the commercial building code for these r2 type of units to meet gives them an exception to allow a ten inch run and a seven and three quarter inch rise we believe and why we we were recommending denial is because we do not believe the eight and a quarter nine inch is equivalent or better than the seven or the um ten in seven and three quarter inch rise and run while it's residential you know when you're in these apartment buildings
039you get used to a certain gate and um date and a quarter nine uh we we felt wasn't uh equivalent so that's that's uh that's our report thank you very much fire marshall any concern no not this time i would do with the building department [Music] thank you staff discussion questions the applicant leo could you explain what's happening on the upper level of these duplex these new duplex apartments sure what's we call the upper levels really the main level of the building you enter grade level and it's a it was a typical apartment you entered through the doorway off the hallway there's a kitchen there's a living area there's two bedrooms in the bathroom we um capture that space on the lower level which was brought up part of it was the laundry and some
040other miscellaneous spaces we created a new staircase from the upper to the lower that staircase happens to be close to the main entry door and also to the kitchen and at the lower new lower new renovated lower level where we have the staircase we have an additional door uh out to the to the hallway where the fire stair is and the laundry around okay so the upper the upper level of these apartments have access to a whole new grass hollow correct we do have some um diagrams and three-dimensional if that's helpful i know if we could upload those at this time or they were in a packet i believe can you share your screen let's see permission to share oh yes permission is do um i'm not sure i have the ability right now is
041that possible the staff you have yeah okay that would be helpful if you could um second question is so all the lower level bedrooms um have eager egress windows and wells absolutely now do they front on a public way no they're in a alley sort of a side almost an alleyway walkway between a parking structure okay i'm looking at your sections is there anything like to keep people from falling into them into the wells yeah yes there's uh covering and screening and i i don't believe we have a photo of that sorry i'm having trouble sharing one second doing me both i know okay that's good so did okay that's the exterior code search all right that one these are the upper level of the two units looking down you see this staircases we do
042have some sections showing the stair too if that's helpful as you can see it's right at the entrance door there to one yeah and here's a cross section [Music] and you'll see the one in in red and this particular section shows the um the stairs put in in the yellowish color that's with the uh residential code rise and run the nine inch and maybe three quarters i believe it is eight quarter and in red is the uh how the uh exception of the code would be laid out given that particular rise and run ratio that's the team is your quarters all right with your quarters okay and that's similar thing in the other apartment they're sort of a mirror image what is the basement ceiling height [Music] i would have to get back to you
043for a minute on that but um if you learn your comments your notes here says you don't have enough ceiling i have to put a bottom landing in there and that's you can usually have one step and still no we could you're absolutely right we have room for a landing however this the there's a steel i-beam that comes right at the corner edge of the landing and that's where we lose the headroom so the ceiling height is fine is that what you're saying the last two inches or something yeah yeah so the i-beam is below the height of the floor elevation there okay correct are you working you're going to turn 90 degrees to that though aren't you though are you gonna yes it's 90 degrees and that's where the steel beam um came into
044play and the width of the stair is three feet wide it's three foot six 42 inches near extra width yeah and this is not a required means of egress because there's not all the stairs in the building that got you to the basement before it is not required means of egos no so actually if you could hold that that photo for a second um glenn are handrails required on both sides i believe so okay if you come down to the next photo uh maybe it's the one after that that's it maybe it was before or maybe it was before then yeah there we go so i only see one handrail and that one is stopping short of the bottom yeah i i'm not sure if the everything has been installed yet or i'd have to
045check on that in terms of the extension of the handrail i can tell you i i um sorry this is steve i i took these pictures uh during the installation process so that the railing installation was incomplete at the point that i took this photo yesterday okay so so there will be there will be handrails on both sides of these stairs yes okay who would be using these stairs as the only person in the basement bedroom would be the only person using it the laundry is somewhere else now yeah the laundry is a public laundry for the entire building so that's in the hallway it has nothing to do with this apartment so it's only the two people or the three bedrooms in the lower level i think one is two and one is three
046bedrooms so it's just those two occupants that is correct what is the actual rise and run that you end up with um we've talked about what the code requires which code requires what but what you you actually end up with but actually you see in this diagram that was built here is the nine inch tread and eight and one quarter inch riser height pretty steep thank you so the bottom of that steel beam is at 68 80 inches off the floor the bottom of the steel beam you need to cross underneath is that 80 inches it's 81 and three quarters okay so it we're putting another riser there doesn't help us but yeah it's slightly over 80 inches and the florida floor height is i guess it's gonna be a multiple eight and a quarter
047then huh yeah but i i think the section showed seven six finished oh well it was poor to ceiling florida floor height is um 99 inches so 3 foot 3. um so is there another other people in the building used to get in the basement and get to the laundry room yes there's a standard stair tower on either end of the hallway and these are completely separate just private stairs within the unit well by my dad there is an exception for a single handrail on that stairway as long as it's inside the unit on one side only but they're planning to put it in i'll put them in on both sides i would have to double check that i don't know if the top of my head but any other pictures you want me to
048keep sharing doing a great job scrolling are you stopping this one for a second okay yeah there you can see um it's sort of there's a red arrow vertically at the staircase um and then above that red arrow you see a gray line across that's the steel beam we encountered what originally we had a landing heading you know perpendicular to the stair but that's how that's how the um the redesign of this came about you don't know what that really what that load the steel beam carries you don't know if you can put a post there at the bottom of the stair no that's what you know we started to look into and one thing led to another just so much demolition to see what was really above coming down on it because it happens
049to be at the basement level you know this is a 3b building wood frame no it's concrete floor structure um and masonry walls basically bearing walls and the flexor core with some with some steel beam parallel receiving it looks like right you took one plank out a plank and a half out correct we took two planks they're two foot wide planks we took two planks out and you can see in the lighter almost wood color because of that we filled it in a wood landing at the top of the stair because that's where the plank went all the way across i'm just like on page 40 it looks like you're limiting that bottom landing because there's a distinct door there right is that true you remove that um we have more landing space which page
050are you looking at forty image on page right there yeah so um originally we had we had the door at a higher level because of the landing the landing extended into the bedroom so yeah once the stair was reworked they didn't see the need to raise the door obviously deborah would you be able to scroll to the floor plan please that one no next one right there so leo could you explain because i the the pdf that i have is so blurry that i can't read anything yeah that is difficult to read so i'm having a hard time understanding how these units lay out could you walk us through what this is okay um i guess to walk it through let's go to the upper level first so there'll be the next sheet up if
051you would debra oh no i'm sorry the other direction no that's the reason why i have such a hard time understanding oh there was only one floor plan right you see those levels that's exactly right well that's understandable i can see your confusion yep that's all we got i i yeah i can try my best to describe it if that's helpful at this point but i'm not sure how it doesn't give you a visual that's for sure is there something you can send me now and i can share um my mom yeah if you if you can uh give me a moment i actually have it on my different computer and i can email that over it'll take if you can take a break or speak about someone else i'll i'll step out for a
052moment and do that is that agreeable or would you rather may stay here you need to go ahead and sign in right i'll be a few minutes then thanks i'm going to stop sharing for right now so i can look for the email to come in okay glenn while they're doing that could i ask you a little bit about procedures since i'm new to this process um one of my concerns was the way in which a lot of this information particularly on this on this one submission got trickled to us over time and the number of times i had to go back to this thing and re-look at it um what is is there a deadline uh when what is the deadline for applications to come into the to get on this agenda so let
053me go and give that to you and then i'll i'll go through some other information um i did not get a chance to send it off to you but anyways the deadline is two weeks prior to on a tuesday we start putting a staff report together and our attempt is always to get it to you as soon as possible we usually get it to you on a thursday or friday um with that being said this is our first zoom meeting and your concerns you have a legitimate concern we don't like to continually send things back over we felt it was a little bit easier than sharing but there's a way that we can do it in a process going forward so that you don't have to review the whole packet again we can we'll we'll
054put something together that'll give you a highlight of what we're sending over to add so that we don't get into this problem of screen sharing like we are right now but um that would be the process and um like i said this is our first uh our actually our first bba zoom meeting and um i'm hoping that down the road we'll be able to go back to a normal meeting it'd be nice to see all in a room where we could chat but we are we are where we are because of what you know the public sector i appreciate that i i it was the end of the day yesterday and i was already irritable and so when i sent that email out it was just frustration over the fact that i you know as
055the material kept trickling in i thought you know what's going to show up next and i kept waiting for the second floor plan to arrive and so that i could understand this thing so i i don't mean to be criticizing you i was just trying to understand the process and i think going forward it sounds like you've got it uh figured out i i think we do i wanted to give the best options to the applicants that they could provide you with what they could that's why we send them over i didn't realize we were going to get a couple of these to be honest but we'll handle it in a different way so that you don't have to go through the whole packet again okay sounds good okay well just sent that i do
056have it up as well deborah if it's easier for me to share um yeah i don't know that externals can share it's a city zoom i'm refreshing my inbox because i haven't gotten it yet all right let me check it here we go all right it's coming okay i thought i hit send well yes and no [Music] there we go okay me okay we also i i just realized that we have david on on also yeah he said he has no sound though all right can everyone see now yes okay so from the you see the main staircase there where the exit is then there's a general hallway the doorway and then right as you enter from the general staircase into the hallway there's two doors into the separate units b and c and as
057you go into those with the clouded areas that's where the new stairs occur at unit b you enter at the right at the doorway enter c closer towards the kitchen they're sort of reversed and i can explain further if you go to the lower unit or if there's questions on this i'm happy to entertain that yeah this is the blurry one i guess but yeah if we can rotate it possibly um the same orientation that's it yes so that's that same staircase the general staircase of which the laundry room is to the left and as you go from the staircase into a shared shared small hallway then you have the the clouded areas where you see the new stairs coming down from the upper units so there's two bedrooms in the unit to the left
058two new bedrooms and on the right there's three bedrooms could you hold on that for a second so i so the unit that's on the uh screen on the right side that that exits directly to the stair no it's it's a little difficult see there's a doorway and then there's a sort of a very small shared hallway and then the stairs okay so there's like a little vestibule yeah it's blue you can't even see the door okay yep like a little vest fuel yes so there's three bedrooms already here served by these stairways as a lower level they go up that stairway correct more than more than i was anticipating you know i may have misspoke because there's two on the one side but there's an additional third so yes three for each unit so
059each stair has three new occupants accessing it so if i understand this correctly if you come down let's take the unit the stairs to the right ever has it oriented right now so you come down those stairs from the unit above and it has a bedroom immediately a bathroom immediately to the right then a bedroom it looks like bedroom three and then above that two bedrooms looks like with a shared bathroom that so for those people that would be living in those bedrooms their means of egress is either up that stairs or their second means of egress is out that doorway going to the public stair that's right all right so basically um okay so then in let's take that little kind of anti-vestibule kind of thing that that goes into to get to the
060public stair then what is that door going into what looks to me like the other unit like uh let's see right where the clouds are on the inside the stair where see where it says siren yep yep there's a door that leads to sort of a common area uh almost a hallway there's some um storage cabinets and things like that it's it's sort of a and then you've got the one bedroom to the left and then below the screen there's two additional bedrooms and two more baths so there's three baths three bedrooms but that where it says bedroom four and bedroom five those bedrooms belong to the unit that's on the left hand side exactly yeah it's a little confusing because they swap over a bit yep yeah so their second means their primary means
061of egress then are up that new stair or into that auntie room where it says siren yes that's correct and well they also have the egress windows but yes those are the two main ways of eagers from these bedrooms so so what is i so what what is the security then between these two apartments um well there's a concrete wall and then there's you know another wall which is a fire-rated wall where we built the new stair right but what if if you leave that door open where it says siren yeah okay those two units are completely communicable with one another well it's like a door to a hallway upstairs it's a locked it's like a hallway door entrance door well i i think i think what was said before is that right to the
062right of where it says siren there's a door there isn't there yes just just be on the stairs it's not showing up in your drawing at least yeah this pdf is hard to read for some reason but yes oh i okay i didn't see the swing yeah okay i see it now yeah it's somehow blurry there but yes there's the door so it's like a mini hallway in their entrance doors to the units essentially so the security shouldn't be an issue i can tell you i don't think the board as being on the board we've never granted a variance to use residential code in a commercial building we've never you know looked at that oh i understand and it wasn't our intent to go that route but as i said when i realized what the
063um you know the criteria of the board is in terms of what they can consider and just the i see it as the interpretation of this the interpretation of this is it's a single residential single-family unit essentially within a multi-family building and because they granted that exception for the the less astringent stair ratio i would think that intent could be interpreted to be used here i mean they already haven't used a higher one right you know ryzen one in defined as r2 in the commercial code and that they were accommodating that to some extent and that's why i agree i think and that's the intent to accommodate that yeah you're going beyond that though you're having a shorter tread well we're going yeah beyond to match with them the residential coders yep yeah so my
064first match again pulse so just give me some guidance then if there's the appropriate time for comments or feedback uh after questions are asked yeah but the board can have a discussion motion and discussion among the board members without the applicant and we can you know we could ask applicant additional questions but we there's a dialogue discussion between board members um about the app you know about the uh application thank you yeah question regarding the stair the comments they're opening that that meets the commercial code in this correct okay so the the two stairways we're talking about are within their units they're just exactly accommodating the residents the occupants okay once for the three new residents in the new bedrooms downstairs in each unit gotcha this is sprinkled built in too right yeah i believe
065so well i haven't looked at that in a while but yeah and the the two new stairways you won't put in are they wood frame are they what kind of their wood frame yes i couldn't point out too that you know the applicant has depending on the outcome of this appeal the applicant does have the right to appeal any decision by the local board to the state i think you have so many days to do that 60 days so many days from depending on what our action is um 10 days paul you have 10 days 10 days okay 10 days does that steel beam continue with the mainstream wall behind below that beam too your your sketch shows that that steel beam even continues in the wall past the bottom of the landing of you
066know the length of the stair is that true yes it goes along the length from uh there's a con you can see a thicker concrete wall goes from that to that yeah does it seem like if you went to you're going to start going straight does that help you make the opening instead of being 29 degrees and then the sharing went straight didn't help you at all to get that last step and you know yeah just we just don't have the width with the landings you wouldn't have a landing there you would go straight well i mean that well even if it's at the same floor level than the width the three foot minimum width you're saying it was it was 90 inches below that or it was 6.8 below that steel beam so your
067three foot can go through the thickness of the wall with the wall out the other way yeah that's quite sure to follow but so just scroll down and back to their rendering i guess your head of the stairway uh let's see is it down i guess just the other other other presentations there we go let's see uh the like in the plan here right now the stairs to the bottom turn 90 degrees and go out if you continue going straight you could take that block wall out or whatever below the steel beam and your landing can basically use that thickness of the wall to have the right wrong stair at least on the one unit right yeah that's and we sort of touched on that briefly but that's where we involve a number of tear
068out and figuring what was uh going to be feasible um given the loads above and things there's a pretty slightly right that would allow more room if that was if that was a possibility yeah well you have the steel beam there so and still being probably doing the work leave the steel beam there you just take another block yeah but right the the steel beam in question is one that's parallel to the stair but you wouldn't want to leave that one anymore not if you didn't have a landing correct [Music] i mean the message with that door there a little bit you have to shut that door and you know another couple inches but your stairway which is is uh three and a half foot wide and you need to have a three foot stairway
069so maybe you balance those two things out any other discussion by the borders by the board i'll stop sharing then okay we have a motion violent on the board yeah i'll i'll make a motion so yeah in in i just want to clarify one thing for the for the new folks that we for the longest time we were instructed that if you make a motion it has to be in the affirmative um in spite of what you might see in our packet so even though that may be a little counter-intuitive at times and is that that is correct yes deborah um i don't know okay no no i wish we had kristin on yeah do you recall that that was that was because that was a practice we've done that and we just vote you
070know appropriately based on what's worded okay so to that so that to that end i mean when i make this motion it will be it will be in the affirmative whether you know it's whether you agree with it or not i i will say this um one thing that did put me off on this particular matter was the fact that the appeal indicated that they were waiting on the result of the appeal to go forward and we're being presented with a fade accompli as far as these two stairs being built um and i personally have a real problem with that sort of thing uh because there might have been other uh measures that might have been introduced uh to you know ameliorate the the stair situation so i just want to put that out there
071that um it's it's irritating at best uh that that you know you you that the applicant comes in with something that's done and you know we're basically you know uh having to deal with that that aspect of it um so on that to that end i'm going to go ahead with the motion um in the matter of bba 20-003 at 543 church street i moved to approve the following variants at 543 church street ann arbor michigan for new stairs located within a dwelling this motion is made within the board's limitations of authority to approve and or deny on the basis that an equivalent form of construction or safety provision is proposed as follows the proposed 42 inch wide stairs with handrails on each side with a nine inch tread and an eight and a quarter
072inch riser function primarily as communicating stairs strictly within each of the single apartment units and as such meet at least the requirements for stair design under the 2015 michigan residential code that was point a point b the limitations empowered for imposed for code compliance are the result of practical slash technical difficulties due to structural interferences that are infeasible to correct even with alternative stair configurations and see that two alternative means of egress are provided on each apartment level to existing common building stairs slash hallways and through egress windows from each habitable room on each apartment level further to this motion the specific condition claimed by the applicant owners that justifies the variance would be considered neither general nor recurrent in nature and are not and shall not not to be considered a precedent for future
073similar appeals give a second a second thank you any discussion about the board okay ready for a motion i mean ready for a vote uh those in favor say aye bye bye those again say hi hi hi so that's three and four that we have you already got the vote there deborah i don't think david can hear us to vote can you raise his hand do we see him if we can only have a picture of him or no let's see his picture's there okay can you raise his head they could hear us he said he's got to sound all the way up and he can't hear us and all right unfortunately i don't see a chat here okay hold on david tap on the screen wake him up yeah so what is the what
074is the percentage we need to pass deborah i know it had to be a majority or it had to be it's uh i believe it's a majority so that's um so i think we've got that let's see we've got two nays three names i thought who's the other okay catherine and jeff who's the other yeah and paul okay yeah and the favor or um robert uh i didn't see their other ones uh can you ask for a count again please i'm gonna roll call though you can do a roll call vote yes please yes jeff no you yes uh david we can't see yes three yes two now well i get to vote right paul didn't yeah yeah oh i voted uh no dad even we need david david now looks like he's unmuted he
075is unmuted can he click the raise his hand well could he put a chat climate question i guess it could be a question two could do that too have a chat okay [Music] i'm gonna send him an email well the other question would be if he could hear what was going on during the discussion you'd be able to participate in the discussion i guess yeah i would be all right text message was sent [Music] you could probably watch us on ctn because we are live yeah i'll send them that too [Music] okay i got a response he says he will vote he we let him know when the voting is taking place tell them we were deadlocked and need his vote his movement i think he's talking huh he voted yes okay that means we
076have four three majority it's like the motion passes okay thank you okay well thank you the nail biter down to the end okay that's the end of uh new business you know no other uh appeals or actions or show cause uh old business there's nothing listed there any other anybody have old business on the board you wanna bring up any public commentary no just thanks again for your time and consideration today appreciate it all right thank you thank you paul can you stand for just a moment sure thank you everybody are you having a german motion to adjourn for everybody else move to adjourn second was in favor all right we are adjourned 301. thank you all thanks bye glenn you're going to have to call paul separately because i'm ending the meeting altogether