have objection to this right did not guess that one uh mi-2020-001160 2532 west thompson street
my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is no good luck thank you okay
M-I-2020-000-825-537-East-Gerrard-Avenue.
Mr. Monroe.
Good afternoon, Jerry.
Good afternoon, Mr. Monroe.
You swear on the firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Plaza.
Can you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership,
proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral,
photo of your phone five days prior to this hearing?
Yes, I did.
Thank you.
Have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
Yes, we did.
And it's a letter of support.
All right.
Good afternoon, Chairman DiCicco, members of the board, Maddie Monroe here on behalf of Homestead Tattoo and my client, Christian Benton, who at the appropriate time, I will ask Mr. Benton to raise his virtual hand and join us.
This should be a pretty straightforward and simple application.
This is a tattoo or refusal is for a body art shop, a tattoo shop.
Just to introduce the board to the documents that we submitted.
We submitted our entire presentation package, which includes a cover page, table of contents.
The lease, Mr. Benton signed a five-year lease with a five-year option to renew for a total
of 10 years.
At Exhibit 2, we have the refusal.
As I noted, there's a tattoo shop.
This is a pretty straightforward hardship case, just based strictly on the code.
um the tattoo tattoos have gained wide acceptance and i'll go into that a little bit more
uh just shortly but the refusals are based directly on the use it's prohibited in the
existing cmx2 zoning district and within 500 feet of a residential district and uh within 500 feet
of a protected use in this case is a rec center um we've got our application for appeal in exhibit
three uh we did attend an rco meeting with the uh fishtown neighborhood association uh
our notices appropriately went out and we have a certificate of service
property was properly posted you can see here uh the property itself is a um it's right on
east gerrard and a heavily trafficked commercial corridor uh right there you have it's coming
right off of uh 95 uh to the east and uh you know you've got the uh the trolley running down the
line and then a few blocks away you have uh the gerard uh l station um we did have a letter of
support from the fishtown neighborhood association uh they supported the use um and here uh i can
show you some context photos um right here we have the zoning districts cmx2 uh here you can see uh
just some photos of the of the property right here the one in the middle shows
mr. Benton's proposed shop it's just a ground floor commercial space no plans to
change the exterior they plan to keep the the traditional brick out front they
do plan on adding by right sign there's not a sign on this application but it's
not going to say the word tattoo it's just going to say homestead and it's
going to be in Mr. Benton and his artist's traditional style. As noted before, the basis
As noted before, the basis for our hardship argument is that the zoning code treats tattoo shops differently than other types of businesses that would have a greater impact because it's a regulated use in the same way that you have adult-oriented merchandise or porn store, drug paraphernalia, a head shop or a vape shop, I guess these days, a gun shop, payday lenders, et cetera.
for our hardship argument is that the
The reality is, if you look at how tattoos are treated these days, you have acceptance
from something like 80% of the American population has at least one tattoo, doctors, lawyers,
et cetera, and these folks typically charge professional services rates that are in line
with professional practice.
They are, Homestead Tattoo is planning to be by appointment only, meaning there's not
going to be walk-ins if you want to get a an appointment with Mr. Benton or Chelsea Rea who's
another one of the artists who's going to be working there with them and they're also going
to have a third artist. These folks book out months in advance. It's tough to get an appointment
so it's not like the kind of place where you would just go having a couple of cocktails next door
at Lloyd and decide that you want to get a tattoo and knock on the door. You have to do this like I
said several months in advance um certainly not going to change the character of the neighborhood
um mr benton has been tattooing and lived in the area he doesn't live there anymore but he's
been around the area around the scene for for years uh the next door neighbors at lloyd and
right over here on the corner at uh at craft work which are both local establishments they're not
like uh you know typically attracting a big crowd like some of the other places on frankfurt have
These are just like small, local, walkable places.
They're thrilled that somebody is going to be there to have some more eyes on the street.
And Mr. Benton has been in the business for 25 years.
This is the first time that he's going to be opening up his own shop.
So he's looking forward to it.
And I think that, you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't show you some of his traditional work.
This is really highly sought after.
Mr. Benton's honed his craft and is a well-renowned nationally known artist for tradition in the
traditional style and with that I know that sometimes the board will have some questions
and that will inform how we can conduct our presentation but for the most part those are
the high points and I don't want to waste the board's time if we don't have much to go with
So for that, I would ask, Mr. Benton, if you're there and you can hear me, if you could raise your virtual hand or just indicate on your Zoom application that you want to raise your hand.
And you just –
Please identify yourself, spell your full name.
My name is Christian Benton.
Last name is B-E-N-T-O-N.
And your address?
I live at 6546 Irving Avenue in Pensauken.
You're in the firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
All right, Mr. Benton, were you able to hear my presentation to the board?
And did you hear the factual statements that I made?
Were they accurate?
Do you adopt them as your testimony?
And with that, Chairman DeChico, that concludes our presentation unless the board has questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Anyone would like to testify in this case?
If so, please raise your hand.
No hands.
No hands at this time, Chair.
thank you planning commission good afternoon chairman members of the board
ian litwin planning commission staff uh the proposed use supports the commercial
carter and will not have a negative impact on the neighborhood accordingly
uh we support granting the variance thank you mi-2020-000825 537 east gerrard avenue my vote
is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next one up,
it's MI 2020 000806 33 North 22nd Street. This is Sharon, just to let you know that we received an email
This is Sharon. Just to let you know that we received an email from Andrew Goodman from
Now, first,
Councilwoman Gauthier's office saying that she was expecting this to be continued. We
also received no exhibits. Thank you. Is there anyone here who to represent representing
this application?
I have Tony Fort.
Yes, this is
Attorney for this?
I'm the attorney for the one that was just mentioned,
33 North 22nd Street. That would
not be Councilwoman Gauthier's
district, so maybe that's a
different matter. That would be
Clark, wouldn't it? Yes.
and councilman clark sent a letter yesterday uh withdrawing any opposition to the project
i'm sorry did i get this wrong i thought that it was 53 27 locusts that had been called
no that was the next
uh okay so we're going ahead with the 33 north 22nd yes on on that one we received a letter of
non-opposition from councilman clark and ryan bolland is the attorney i believe
no no oh i'm sorry ryan bolland is representing yes i'm sorry mr fort so this is yes
professor do your thing right uh sir you agree to waive the reading of his refusal and stipulate
to attack mercy uh yes sorry you have just one minute confessor yes i have to promote him to a
panelists. Okay. Okay, Mr. Fort, you can share your screen and I'm going to mute your mic
for the questioning from Professor Plaza. Okay. Are you affirmed to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Have you emailed an exhibit packet with
the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal
overflow photos and plans five days prior to this year yes i have okay and have you met with the rco
and have a letter yes we have thank you please identify yourself for the record my name is tony
fort f-o-r-t-e with the law firm of saul ewing at 1500 market street in philadelphia pa
here representing the owner and applicant of the property
I'll share my screen and what I'd like to do is just we submitted a very large binder of materials
so I'd like to just go through those to make sure we're entering everything into the record
and as I do go through that it'll help me give you a little background on the
context and the zoning. Can everyone see my screen?
yes yes okay great so uh the first six tabs are overview of the site we we uploaded our deed uh
tax clearance certificate project information form photographs of the posting uh aerial photograph
and photographs of the property um the next section of tabs uh are the zoning background so
our zoning application is at tab 7, then our appeal to the ZBA at tab 8. We had to request
to revise our plans because initially we would have generated a couple refusals, but then we
worked with planning to revise the plans to avoid any refusals. So that's what you'll see at tab 9
is our request to revise the plans. Tab 10, the ZBA approved our request, and at tab 11 we have
our revised notice of referral with no refusals. Then we get to tab 12, which is our notices to
the RCOs. We actually have two RCOs for this project, two of the most active in Center City
area. We have first LSNA, Logan Square Neighbors Association, and we had a meeting with them
that was in August and they are the end of July actually they sent us a letter of non-opposition
dated August 31. We then later had a second RCO meeting with Center City Residents Association
because they wanted their members to have a meeting of their own and that we have a letter
of non-opposition from them as well. We also had an additional special meeting with the Murano
Condominium Association, which is located right next door to this property. And obviously they
were the nearest neighbors with the most interest in the project. And I believe their attorney will
be here today to express their non-opposition. We also went through the CDR process. And so you'll
see at tab 13 our CDR referral. And we had two meetings, one in August and one in
And we had two meetings, one in August and one in September.
They asked us to come back.
We revised our plans as a result of the CDR process.
And you'll see at tab 14, their final CDR letter, where the Civic Design Review Committee
is very complimentary of the way we embraced the process and the way we responded to their
comments with our revised plans.
the next couple tabs are 15 are original plans and elevations that were part of our application
and then at 16 are the revised plans and elevations that responded to the community
requests and the civic design review requests along with that we have uploaded a proviso plans
form because we would like the zoning board as part of this process to approve those revised
plan pages uh and that's all there um but sharon for your reference uh those revised plans are
dated october 1 uh and their plan pages z-111 z-112 and z-113 um three pages correct yes
and can i just ask if this is approved with the proviso plans could you send me those
the plans and the form as separate documents so that i can stamp them
Yes, we can do that. It was all uploaded last week as separate PDFs, but we can certainly send it to you separately.
Okay, thank you very much.
Then we get into the fact for the special exception criteria, we uploaded both a traffic impact study that is required by Stantec and along with the qualifications of our traffic engineer, Adam Catherine, who is available today to give a summary.
and then a planning considerations and zoning criteria memo from our urban planning expert
Christine Carlisle at tab 18 and then the last two tabs are just our PowerPoint presentation
that our architect has to present to you today in our list of hearing witnesses
so I'm going to stop sharing that and I don't know if I can
okay maybe i'll just show you just this this here is the property so it's 33 north 22nd street
which is located along 20 seconds we don't have the photo of that oh you're not able to fill in
your files oh i i on my screen it's showing up let me see if i can close this you have to go
back and share it. Okay, I thought I did. One second. Stop share and then I'm going to try
sharing it again and now if I open it, can you see it now? So no, you have to have it open
already. Okay. Oh, I see. Stop sharing it, open it. Okay. And then share again, then the red box
should outline it. Okay.
Well, it's not that important that I show that at this point, because it was just the map,
and you're going to see the map in a second when our architect goes through it.
Basically, what we have now, it's a surface parking lot that's located behind the Trader
Joe's grocery store that's at 22nd and Market Streets. So this is behind that. It's a surface
parking lot that fronts on 22nd Street to the west at the lower grade. JFK Boulevard at the
higher grade along the north. And then along the south, across from Trader Joe's, is what used to