A few minutes.
Let us know when you're ready, Lakeisha.
Thank you.
looks good right keith yes i was just about to say chair we have 36 37 attendees we're ready to
start when you are very good thank you and uh everyone's on board good morning everyone my name
is Frank DiCicco. I'm the chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. I'll be participating in
today's hearing, along with our board secretary, Confessor Plaza, and board members, Mr. Thomas
Holloman and Mr. James Snell. Board Administrator, Ms. Lakeisha Dandy, and our board attorney, Ms.
Sharon Saleta, are also in attendance, as is our zoning board administrator, Ms. Tanya Sunkett.
For those of you who haven't yet participated in one of our virtual hearings, I'll go through some
the basics of what you can expect. First, we will be administering oaths to individual participants
prior to their testimony. Second, we'd like to advise everyone that this proceeding is being
recorded and that by participating you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded and that the
recording will be made available to the public on the web or otherwise. Third, for anyone participating
by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand by hitting star nine and then star six
to unmute yourself. I'll repeat. For anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify,
you must raise your hand by hitting star nine and then star six to unmute yourself.
Finally, to enter an appearance statement, call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address
and the address of the property at issue.
I'll repeat, to enter an appearance statement,
call Google 267-270-5548
and leave your email address
and the address of the property at issue.
And I would also like to remind everyone,
please do not attempt to testify in the chat.
If you have any concerns or comments
that you wish to relay,
please relay them to our board administrator,
Ms. Lakeisha Dandy. With that, I will read off a list of requested continuances and withdrawals
for the 930 list. Number four on our list, MI 2021-002421, 1720 North 59th Street.
applicant is requesting a continuance number five on our list mi 2021-000739 1714 north
22nd street is withdrawn number six on our list mi 2020-001856 1715 north 59th street is
continued. And number 13 on our list, MI 2021-000738. 638 North Peach Street is being withdrawn.
If anyone disagrees with the cases that I've read into the record to be continued or withdrawn,
please raise your hand at this time. Only if you disagree with those cases I just read in to be
continued or withdrawn. Please raise your hand.
Chair, we have Steve Masters. Mr. Masters, you want to mute yourself?
Good morning, Mr. Masters. Please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Steve Masters, M-A-S-T-E-R-S. I'm with the law
firm of JustLaws. You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth i do thank you
Thank you, sir.
sir please proceed um yes mr chair i heard you read one of the four um appeals that i'm going to
be um objecting to today 1714 north 22nd street mi2021000739 you stated that that one was withdrawn
but there are three associated appeals with that are those also withdrawn are those not withdrawn
today uh are you talking about 1720 1744 and 1750. oh here's where we are 1720 north 59th no
my mistake hold on um chair i can tell him that those are going forward it's only the one of the
forward but it's withdrawn yeah thank you okay thank you i have no further questions anyone else
anyone uh disagrees with any cases that are being continued or withdrawn please raise your hand
no more hands chair at this time i will ask if anyone would like to request
a continuance or withdrawal please raise your hand at this time only if you're requesting a
continuance or withdrawal? Please raise your hand. No hands, Chair. Okay, thank you. Sharon,
did we find out from Leonard if he wants to go on first or later? Yes, if you could call those
three cases first, Chair. Okay, so for those of you waiting, we're going to go a little bit out
of order. We have someone from the law department who'll be joining us, and that'll be case
Cases 3, 7, and 8.
Correct, Sharon?
That's correct, yes.
Okay, so these cases will be heard all together.
MI 2021-000242, 1720 North 22nd Street.
MI 2021-000784-1744 North 22nd Street, and MI 2021-000242-1750 North 22nd Street.
Mr. Masters, I believe, is the attorney of record.
Excuse me, Chair.
No, Rachel Pritzker is the attorney for the applicant.
Mr. Masters is representing the protestants.
Yes, and Mr. Reuter is representing the city.
He is here only should there be questions about the accuracy of the refusal.
Thank you.
So we'll get Ms. Pritzker on to identify yourself.
I'll swear you in.
Mr. Masters has already been sworn in, and then we'll go to Mr. Reuter and swear him in as well.
So, Rachel, if you're out there, please identify yourself, spell your name, and I'll swear you in.
good morning rachel pritzker r-a-c-h-a-e-l pritzker p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r 1635 market street
street 1600 philadelphia pa 19103 you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but
the truth yes rachel before you begin let's get leonard sworn in and then we can start we can
proceed okay mr reuter uh thank you may please the board leonard f reuter for the city of
philadelphia your last name please i'm sorry r-e-u-t-e-r these swear from the tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth i do thank you uh steve you've already been sworn in so
rachel please proceed um just one thing mr chair um i had requested a copy of the exhibit binder
be shared um with me as the opposing counsel and i have not received it excuse me mr masters i
don't think you let anyone know that until yesterday afternoon is that correct i don't
have any emails from steve i didn't even know he was opposing it or who he was representing
i received exhibits from you after five yesterday i will gladly send you
ms pritzker's um exhibits now i don't believe you copied you her on yours but i will send you hers
now i was told that jeffrey young was the attorney for the applicant so that's who i was um corresponding
with well my name is the applications so we ready to proceed with these cases yeah i i'd like to
receive a copy of that too just in case um sharon when if you get a chance i will send um or steve
you can just send them directly i'll send them to you later okay thanks
all right okay yeah so i'm just gonna share my screen um just to go through the refusals and
i'm just gonna share my screen um just to go through the refusals and then we have our
And then we have our art.
architect on the line who can go through the plans um this is just about for parking um
everything all these properties are zoned rm1 so all we're trying to do is put accessory off
street parking um on these properties um as you can see this this property uh 1720 is rm1 so is
1744 50 um and 50 uh north 22nd street um these buildings are already built so um and they're
multi-family by right so essentially all we're here is for parking um i know that jeff uh young
who's on the call as well um was there for the community meeting and that most of the people in
opposition don't live on the 1700 block of north 22nd street um and we're are more so opposed to
the units in general. But again, these are by right, and we're just trying to accommodate
parking. We hear nonstop that parking is an issue in the city. And when we go to provide it,
somehow now parking is not an issue. So the only way to provide parking on these lots is parking
access by a front street. We can't do anything, no other sort of accommodation for the parking.
One of the reasons the other property was withdrawn is because we figured out a way to do a buy-write option there.
It's not available to the other properties.
So again, we're just here for parking on these sites.
I'm going to have our architect, Logan Dry, present the plans.
I'm happy to take any questions.
and jeff young is also on the call um if if there's any questions as he was the one who did
the community meeting and sort of attest to the fact that most of the concerns were
not related to why don't we just get jeffrey sworn in now just in case all right so jeffrey
if you're out there he's raising me he said he's having trying to get zoom working
hey rachel this is logan if you want to swear you know have me sworn in you can do that while
we're waiting logan please spell your full name sure logan dry l-o-g-a-n-d-r-y uh kca design
associates 65 25 tulip street philadelphia pa 19135 you swear a firm to tell the truth the
whole truth nothing but the truth i do thank you rachel we're having uh jeffrey's having
technical difficulties yes okay let's proceed yeah you catch up with this we'll swear them in thank
yeah rachel uh logan uh would you present your screen and just go through the plans for uh
parking for 17 20 44 and 50 i i actually i actually don't have screen share at this point
So if you have it, I can walk through it,
but I don't have the ability to share at this point.
I'm on a mobile.
Okay, give me one second, please.
Sorry about that.
Yeah, it's okay.
I just didn't have it up ready to share.
Can you see my screen?
So, you know, basically what we have here, as Rachel mentioned before, you've got a three-story multifamily building.
You know, when we initially designed this, everything was as a right in terms of coverage, setbacks, building height, unit count, et cetera.
What we did when we did this initial design, we initially had designed a front recess of the building.
um we were we were going to try to do something with uh perhaps some some covered outdoor space
um so you know we designed all of this with that existing void in the front of the building
initially it was going to be a covered terrace um you know so so you know once we got through
and did some of the construction um you know looking at what the dimensions were of the
building and looking at some of the other sites around the area we thought it would be a good idea
to provide some accessory off-street parking.
Again, as Rachel had mentioned,
these streets don't run street to street.
So unfortunately, if it was a rear-loaded street,
we could get that parking as of right.
But because the nature of this only having one street,
the front-loaded parking from the main street
was the only way to get access to that parking.
And so as a result, we got refusals for front-loaded parking on site.
We got refusals for front-loaded parking on site.
And every one of the ones, 17, 20, 40, 40, 40, 50,
are all trying to accommodate three accessory off-street parking spaces.
It's also worth noting, just as I have this chart,
I'll show the letters of support we have from the property owners
and developers that are actually on this block.
but uh most of this block is vacant that's why we mentioned that there's very few people who
actually live on the block because most of the block is vacant um this church is owned by our
client and then most of these vacant lots are owned by um the city so uh there aren't really
any directly adjacent neighbors as you can see the block is mostly vacant and while parking is not an
issue at this second um this is some of the units that we know to be in process at the moment um
some of them are also owned by our client and some are not owned by our client but you have
about 138 units coming on either under construction or with zoning submissions all of which would not
be providing parking because you'd have to get a variance for them as they don't have an ability
to have parking access by a shared driveway or a rear alleyway. So we're just trying to accommodate
three parking spaces per building in order to help alleviate the constant concern of parking
in our city, specifically in North Philadelphia. And also the fact there's about to be 130 units
coming on this block, either under construction or rezoning submissions, and none of which would
have off-street parking. Other than that, I'm going to show the support letters that
we have. I'm just going to find them. I'm happy to hear, take any questions from there.
Bring it up, the support letters? Yeah, I'm just trying to find them. I'm just trying
to not give everyone a migraine while I look for them.
So this is from the owner of 1724 North 22nd Street, actually on the block.
1704-12 north 22nd street and 1711 north crosby street
1726 north 2nd street
and 1738 and 40 north 22nd street
pretty much the extent of the properties that are occupied um yeah correct
thank you like i said there's no other properties on the block yeah i mean your visuals show that
i just was curious if that there's any others on that block but it doesn't appear to be
okay um anybody have any questions for miss pritzker or uh mr dry at this time the board
the board have any questions yes mr chairman mr hollivan yes let me ask you this prisoner
could you uh develop these buildings by right without accessory parking yeah they're already
built no that wasn't my question i said could you build them without accessory parking because
they're already built with accessory parking no they're currently built without accessory
parking right now what we're looking to do is add parking to them so the answer is yes uh
mr halliman we could build them without accessory parking and they are already built with
out accessory parking they were set back in a way to allow for the accommodation of parking in the
event that um it it was it was important which it now is um but yes let me try it another way
the buildings are already built with accessory parking that's done correct no they do not have
parking right now well you don't have these spaces for parking we have the room for it but they're
not built because we need to get a variance to do that that's why we're here no no not the room to
build them it's a space one site designated for state for parking no well currently it's just
land it's currently just no no no it's more than just land it's a space is there a
it's currently just no no no it's more than just land it's a space is there a roof over it no
and two walls that's not true i'm sorry i'm confused what you're asking me is it a carport
logan i don't believe there's a carport there so so to clarify so we initially designed the
building with a recess on the ground floor that was going to be used as an outdoor terrace area
for the building and then after the the owner took a look at some of the other developments coming to
the block we decided that we could use that space for parking so currently on site like there's no
curb cuts there's no there's no anything related to parking only because we're converting what was