ZBA Hearing - July 7, 2021

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change in the single family zoning for this property.

This is a 4,281 square foot lot in a unique shape.

While the shallow lot width and odd configuration might have presented a hardship for new construction,

the applicant appears to be deriving value from this lot with their existing buildings.

We recommend that the board deny the requested variances.

Thank you. MI 2021-001193, 3509 Clearfield Street. My vote is yes.

My vote is yes.

My vote is yes.

My vote is yes.

Thank you, members of the board. Have a good morning.

You too. The board members, I forgot. We've got to go back to the add-ons. I left those out. I apologize.

So let's do the add-ons. Number one on our list of add-ons.

calendar number 38805 and 38806 and 38807 as it relates to 2204, 2206, and 2208 North

Franklin Street. My vote is yes with the proviso. There's a revised plan, one page for each of the

three that I just read into the record. My vote is yes with proviso. Yes with proviso. Yes with

proviso. Thank you. MI 2020-002204-104 Pollard, P-O-L-L-A-R-D Street. My vote is yes.

my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes

mi 2020 that's zero zero three one seven four four seven oh one king sessing avenue my vote is no

four seven oh one king sessing avenue my vote is no no my vote is no vote is now

and just to clarify that is no to reconsider consideration correct uh i'm going to skip

yeah if you guys don't mind just go back over and just say uh reconsider no to reconsideration

no to reconsideration no to reconsideration no to reconsideration i'm going to skip over and go

to number six mi 2021 that's 000 460 441 brown street my vote is yes to reconsideration and

rehearing yes to reconsideration and rehearing yes to reconsideration and rehearing yes to

reconsideration and rehearing I'm going to hold off a number five till I have a conversation with

the board after the 930 hearings so now go to our regular list number one MI 2021-001105

2225 Spring Garden Street there's a letter of support from the Spring Garden Civic Association

Mr. Vaccaro, are you available?

Mr. Vaccaro, can you please raise your hand?

He's been promoted to panelist, Chair.

Thank you.

Mr. Vaccaro, please identify yourself for the record.

Spell your full name and I'll square you in.

Good morning. My name is attorney Joseph Maccaro, J-O-S-E-P-H-V-A-C-C-A-R-O, attorney for the applicant. My address is 5918 Torresdale Avenue, Philadelphia, 19135.

Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do.

Thank you. Mr. Plaza?

sorry about that uh do you agree to wait the reading of its refusal and stipulate to attack

heresy yes i do have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents proof of ownership

proof of tax compliance copy of the refusal or referral photos and plans five days prior to this

hearing yes i did and have you met with the rco and have a letter yes sir thank you please proceed

thank you uh may please the board this is an application for a for an led backed light and

sign to an uh to an anticipated hotel mr vicara pardon the interruption if you could share some

of your exhibits that would be helpful uh how do i do that

yeah could you do that

share screen share screen yeah

you have all the documents yeah uh the documents have been uploaded Mr uh Mr DeChico are

I can share the screen and I'll pull it up on share.

Or event, can someone help Mr. Vicarra?

Oh, there you go.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, members of the board, we're just working off of a different computer right now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

not the whole way now. Let's go to the previous email too. Okay, well we'll start with, we'll start with the photographs.

this is a this is an application for a sign to a to a hotel called the badge hotel uh this is the

picture of the of the sign um indicating placing the community on notice of today's zoning hearing

we lost that we lost that okay there you go scroll down

sorry you might have to unshare and then reshare once the document is open

is that it you got it oh

we have the uh photo of the front of the property with the posting correct

Okay, then the previous set that.

Nope, you lost it again.

Open all the documents first and then share the screen.

you have to choose the document when you do share screen and you have to choose the screen or the

image of what you want to share why don't we make it separate why don't i wind up my computer

since I have it all

all ready.

Go back to that last email.

It says show all attachments.

Yeah.

Up here.

Yes.

Yep.

So you want to share all those.

I think we can go one at a time.

We can go one at a time.

if you're having some difficulty we can go to the next case and come back to you

okay if you would that would be much appreciated let's go okay we'll go to the next case and come

back to you, Mr. Vicarra. So let's go to case number three. Thank you, Mr. Chico. Thank you.

MI 2021-001167, 318 Bud Street. Rachel Pritzker.

Ms. Pritzker is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.

Good morning. Good morning. Please identify yourself and I'll swear you in.

Yep, Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, 1635 Market Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.

Where are we from to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Yes.

Thank you.

Hey, Rachel, you agree to wait for the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?

Yes.

And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, photos and plans five days prior to this hearing?

Yes.

And have you met with the RCO and have a letter?

Yes.

Thank you. Please proceed.

Thank you.

Turn the screen.

Okay, this is 318 Bud Street.

this project is for the erection of an addition and roof deck to an existing attached structure

for use as eight family dwelling units and eight parking spaces accessory off-street parking spaces

including one ADA parking space and four class 1A accessory parking spaces for bikes. The refusals

we generated were based on the fact that this is an RSA 5 property. The first one is for

The first one is for multifamily on RSA 5.

multifamily on RSA5. Again, we're using an existing

Again, we're using an existing warehouse.

I'll show you photos in a minute and doing an addition and renovation.

Additionally, we're doing an 18-foot dry vial instead of a 24-foot dry vial, which generated a refusal.

And again, accessory off-street parking access by a front street is not permitted in RSA 5 either.

So that was our other refusal.

um as i'll show you um this is just a little bit of information about the property in general

uh it's almost a 6 000 square foot lot 5 624 square foot lot 300 block of bud street again

we're just looking to uh renovate an existing building do an addition uh that step back and

provide accessory offshoot parking provided a list of other multi-family on the same block

um and close by just to show that uh what we're providing is in character is in character with

other properties on the block um i'm gonna go to

deed

this is the lot as the board can see it's a pretty large rsa5 lot compared to the other

properties again it's an existing structure um that takes up a significant amount of the existing

lot. There's aerial photos of it. Here are the zoning posters. There's also a curb cut and a

garage as well, so we're utilizing the existing curb cut to do parking. This is a better shot of

the front of the building. As you can see, it's a long-standing existing building. Again, going to

utilize the curb cut for parking. This is just part of the refusal that we obtained. We met with

the uh west palatin saunders park rco a number of times um they submitted a letter and supported

the project 22 to 1 and so i believe that there shouldn't be any opposition for this matter

here's proof of mailing um and i'm gonna have uh jason truttner from design blends just uh

provide the board with the plans and then happy to answer any questions again this is an adaptive

reuse. We're looking to do eight multifamily units and eight parking spaces in an existing

structure with an addition. And most of our refusals related to the fact that the property

is RSA 5, even though it's a longstanding warehouse. So I'm going to see if, is Jason

Trutner signed on so that he can share his screen? I see him here. Yep. Great. Mr. Trutner

has been promoted to panelists. Thank you.

Okay, I'm here.

Are you able to share your screen, Jason? Yes. Okay, I believe you'll need to be

sworn in.

Please spell your first and last name and I'll swear you in.

Yep, it's Jason Trutner, J-A-S-O-N-T-R-U-T-N-E-R.

you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth

i do thank you sir please proceed

so just looking at the plans for this uh property as rachel stated this uh the existing building

occupies almost the entire lot um with a small one-story portion in the back and the rest of it

being a two-story we're proposing a third-story addition set back 16 feet from the front of the

building so as to minimize any visual impact from the opposite side of the street

And within the breakdown of this, the ground floor will be utilized for parking, where we are showing eight parking spaces accessed through an existing curb cut and dry vile.

And then the rear one-story portion for utilities or amenities.

And then the other two floors containing a total of eight dwelling units.

um so just give a breakdown from the aerial of the property just just to get an understanding

of what that setback looks like um again 16 feet uh to keep uh minimal impact on the street

and the remaining portions of the facade um staying relative are mostly intact increasing

the the garage size slightly as there was a concern raised from the

RCO meetings about safe access in the existing more narrow garage door, so proposing to provide

a larger garage door. To walk through some of the plans, again, we're proposing residential access

right off of the street, parking and storage, and then the upper two floors are, again, just

four units each and the upper

uh in the addition the front two units do have a post small roof deck again still set back from

in the addition

the front two units do have a

small roof deck

the the front the the primary frontage thanks jason

do you have any questions board for uh jason no no no

rachel um i don't know if my client is on but in the interest of time um

And stipulate you being an officer of the court that your client would have adopted your testimony.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any questions from the board?

No.

No.

Anyone else would like to testify in this case?

If so, please raise your hand.

Chair, we have someone by the name of Psalm Evans.

That's the owner.

That's my client.

Okay.

He's been unmuted.

He can speak.

Good morning.

everyone can you hear me okay yes please spell your first first and last name uh s isn't sam a l m

is a mary evans e v a n s where for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth

uh i do so have you heard my testimony today in front of the board i i just dialed in rachel i

was working and um just had an opportunity to to uh dial in so i didn't hear the content of

okay well we'll assume that based on the fact that i'm an officer of the court that you would

have adopted my testimony as your own yes uh again anyone else would like to testify in this

case if so please raise your hand there are no other hands chair thank you planning

Commission. Good morning, David Fecto, City Planning Commission, Mr. Chairman, members of

the board. The comprehensive plan recommends no change in the residential single-family zoning

for this property. The zoning for this neighborhood was changed in 2015 through a community-led zoning

process. This is a 5,000 square foot lot. Three single-family homes could be built by right.

There is no unique characteristic of this lot that would prevent it from being used in conformance

with the code we recommend that the board deny the requested variances i just want to yeah i just

want to rebut what the planning commission is saying it's an existing warehouse that's been

there for decades so we would have to demolish the entire structure instead of utilizing the

existing structure keeping in character with something that's been on the block long standing

to build three single family homes which have no parking as well which would add to some parking

congestion issues again this is um supported 22 to 1 by the community um so that i would ask the

grant the variance thank you mi 2021-001167318 budd street my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is

yes my vote is yes there were no change in plans correct uh rachel uh we have plans but no they're

not, we don't have a proviso form. Okay, thank you. Before we go on to the next case, I received a

text from an email from Sharon. This should have been on the add-on list, MI 2020-001-841-3469

Crystal Street. Apparently, this appeal was dismissed in error at a previous session.

that vote is rescinded and this case will be continued with that we'll go to the is Mr.

Vaccaro ready yes we are thank you okay we're going to go back to MI 2021-001105