I don't want people to rent on.
here we have about 23 attendees you can begin as you wish thank you
Good morning. My name is Bill Berggman, and I will be chairing this morning's EBA hearings.
With me is Ismael Shahid, our board secretary.
Present, Mr. Chair.
Thomas Holloman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chair.
And James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is our executive director, Tanya Sunkett, and our board attorney, Hillary Emerson.
So before we start, here's our virtual format.
Be advised these proceedings are being recorded.
By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
The video will be available by contacting tonyasunkett at phila.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand
and star six to unmute. To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548. Leave your email
and the address of the property in question. And finally, please note the question answer box on
the screen is not for testimony or comments. Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sunkett,
our executive director. So let's start by looking at continuance, continuances in this morning's
hearing. Number nine, MI 2021-005-319-610 North 11th Street, there's a request for continuance.
number 11 mi 2021 004545 636 north 11th street and number 12 mi 2021 005318 649 north 11th street
is there anyone in the virtual audience has any comments relative to these three continuances
good morning mr chair this is jason hand um mr zen jin has his hand raised i will allow him to
speak at this time thank you good morning could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes zen jin z h e n last name j i n uh 1617 john f kennedy boulevard suite 1838 philadelphia pa
19103 here on behalf of the applicants do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the trees i do case number 11 12 uh yes 11 12 and the third case as well uh the
north 11 properties yes um i'm asking for continuance because i was just retained i know
one of the cases have been continued once before but uh because i was just retained i am asking
again one more continuance so we can meet with the community and present to the board that's fine
sir thank you thank you all three three of these cases are continued are there any other requests
for continuances sir i do not see any hands at this time okay i also want to list two withdrawals
Number five, MI 2021-003-087-2244 North 26th Street, and MI number six, MI 2021-003-088-2242 North 26th Street.
Both of these cases have been withdrawn.
We're now going to go to our add-on list.
First case and only case on our add-on list. MI-2022-000-643-1836 South 28th Street. I vote no on this case.
First case and only case in our add-on list.
MI-20.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no.
We're going to go to our regular list and we want to start with number two.
M.I. 2022-000-398-1504-South 6th Street, Attorneys Matthew Monroe.
Letter of non-opposition from the Pachon Square Civic Association.
Mr. Monroe, thank you for joining as a panelist, sir.
Thank you.
Good morning, Chairman Bergman, members of the board.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please, sir?
Yes, Mr. Bergman.
It's Matthew Monroe, 2030 Pemberton Street, 19146 with Monroe Law.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and relationship to this property?
uh yes mr bergman um my client is masonry tattoo and i'm here today with my client uh daniel mason
they're the commercial tenant and at 1504 south 6th street um they they have a five-year lease
and uh on this property okay uh mr hallman has a few questions for you good morning counselor do
you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy i do
Did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required, such as proof of ownership, tax
clearance, copy of the refusal or referral, pictures or drawings of the property, five
days in advance of this hearing, and did you meet with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes to all.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Absolutely.
All right, Chairman Bergman, members of the board, as noted, I'm the attorney on 1504 South
6th Street. This is an application for variance for a tattoo shop at 1504. My clients are two
long-time tattooers. Dan Mason is here with us today, and his business partner, Wrong Ma'am,
is from the block. He's been tattooing since, I believe, 1992, and Dan has been tattooing since
2011. They're both highly sought-after professionals who effectively book out
their schedules months, sometimes years in advance. This is not going to be the type of
high-volume shop, understanding that this is in a neighborhood. It's very low volume.
They take clients by appointment only, but they will have posted hours of operation of 1pm to 9pm.
Activity in the stores could be very limited, but I'll just go through my exhibits for the record.
The property is currently zoned CMX1.
It was on a traditionally mixed-use block, and I have some context photos that I can show you.
here i'll show you at exhibit one we have the lease and as noted by ms emerson the the lease
we have currently was signed in 2020 but went month to month we will have my client has signed
a five-year lease in in march and we'll be able to follow up and provide a full copy of that
and should the board vote in favor of this project i believe we're going to be requesting that the
vote be held open so we can produce a copy of the signed five-year lease at the conclusion of this
hearing. Exhibit two, we have the refusal. Exhibit three, we have the application for appeal, which
was timely filed along with the public information sheet. At tab four, we have our notice letters to
the RCO and all of the near neighbors, which were all sent out. And as you can see by the
certificate of service, bulk mailing as required by the code. It was properly posted 21 days in
advance of the hearing. And here we have the letter from the East Pass Young Civic Association,
I'm sorry, the Pass Young Square Civic Association, which accurately reflects what
happened at the meeting and is a non-opposition position. And here, just to provide a little bit
of context for the property. We are down here in the highlighted blue area. And as you can see, these
um uh we are down here in the highlighted blue area and as you can see these are both um currently
cmx1 uh properties on the corner it's been rezoned as rsa5 um but and as you can see here this is the
commercial storefront where and this is a mock-up not a sign that's currently there but um there was
no sign on this application um that passing square civic association requested that they put a sign
on there as reflected in the letter. So this was just a mock-up to show what a potential sign could
look like. And on the storefront, the property itself was previously used as a market. It was
with 1502. It was a single building and it was later subdivided. So into two separate properties.
So the commercial area that they're currently proposing to use as a shop was used in the past
as a commercial lot here you can see um looking down sixth street and i believe it's from dickinson
uh at the corner there's two active businesses the laundromat and a uh in a market uh food store
uh down here is a former commercial storefront that used to be the market that was split with
what is now currently proposed to be mason reed tattoos and down here is the building itself
So it's pretty close to the corner. There have been and are currently active businesses on the block, so it's not out of context.
These are just some interior shots of the proposed space. They're just cleaning it up and getting it ready.
um the uh the the hardship here is uh the fact that we have a um uh the zoning code treats tattoo
shops like regulated businesses and it's been our position for uh some time that the businesses that
they're regulating are that it's outdated in how it deals with tattoo shops in fact the city council
recognized that and included this in it's an amendment of the code last year um so uh so
So tattoo shops can open in CMX, in certain zoning districts, they opened it, but there
were simply none available.
And as this property is on a block that wrong man grew up on in his, in his neighborhood,
this is a, it's a family friends property.
And this is something that he had access to and a lot of relationships and they had full
support at the RCO meeting from near neighbors, from people who wanted to see them come operate
and open shop in the neighborhood.
We have the tax clearance as noted at tab 8.
And here's just a sample of some of their work.
Because this is a non-controversial project,
I'm obviously open to questions from the board.
But before we do, or you can tell me
with the order you want to handle it in Chairman Bergman,
but my client can adopt.
Why don't you adopt your testimony first?
Mr. Mason, can you raise your virtual hand
so Ms. Sunkit can let you into the hearing.
Daniel Shurnoff has his hand raised by Debbie Himm?
Yes, it could be.
I'll allow him to talk right now, sir.
Please.
Could you state your name and spell for our court sonographer?
Daniel Shurnoff, D-A-N-I-E-L,
last name shernoff s-h-e-r-n-o-f-f do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do proceed okay uh uh dan did you hear uh the factual statements i made in
to the board i did to the best of your knowledge uh were they accurate they are do you adopt them
as your testimony i do thank you thank you questions from the board no mr chairman no
Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair. Planning Commission. Good morning, Chair Bergman. Ian
Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. That's last name spelled H-E-G-A-R-T-Y.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir. Proceed. Thank you. Good morning, members of the board. The comprehensive plan
recommends a zoning map change from RSA 5 to RM1 at this location. This existing structure as we've
seen includes a commercial tenant space on the ground floor and this proposed personal services
use is consistent with the historical use of that ground floor. So the City Planning Commission
recommends that the board grant this variance. Thank you. We're going to hold the vote on this
until we receive the updated lease. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And Mr. Chair,
This is Hillary. If you could just note that the record is closed, except for the release record is closed.
All right. Except for the lease. Yes. Thank you.
MI 2022, 000049, 1326 West Somerset Street.
MI 2022 0000.
Sean Whalen is the attorney.
Letter of support from the coordinating RCO 37th Ward, RCO.
Okay, Mr. Whalen has been promoted to panelist, sir.
Thank you.
Mr. Whalen, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
You'd think after two years of this, I'd remember to unmute myself and turn on my video.
Good morning, Chairman.
Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N.
You're from Vintage Law.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
can you identify your client please in the relationship to the property certainly i'm
here on behalf of the owner of 1326 west somerset that is avali a v a l i llc right and mr hallman
has a few questions sure good morning good morning counselor do you agree to waive the reading of the
refusal and stipulate to his accuracy yes I do did you email all of the
exhibits and documents as required such as proof of ownership tax clearance
copy and refusal or referral pictures or drawings of the property five days in
advance of this hearing did you meet with the RCO and do you have a letter
yes to all thank you please proceed and share your screen thank you
all right so you should be seeing just to put it this is a letter from the rco we had a well
attended meeting with them and they voted in support 14 to 0 in favor of this development
they were actually quite excited to see development here and i'll walk through the reasons
for that so again i'm here for 13 26
Let me zoom in on this for you. 1326 West Somerset, right here at the corner of Somerset
and North Park. We're just one block off of North Broad Street here. This has been a very long
vacant corner, essentially. There's vacancies at three of the corners. So again, here's a better
are showing an aerial of large vacancy over here, vacant here and here. And this kind of outlines
the basis for it. So in this neighborhood, you have our property is zoned CMX2. This property
is also vacant CMX2, and the RM1 properties are vacant. Essentially, CMX2 is not viable at this
location because, again, we're only one block off of North Broad Street. And given the size of this
property, we are 1,056 square feet. We actually have 16 feet on West Somerset and 66 feet on North
Park. Essentially, the only viable possible commercial use of this property being only a
block off of north broad with all of the commercial that we know is there is a corner store and
somewhat ironically the only corner at this property at this intersection with
a commercial use or with any use rather is already has a corner store at the bottom
and if we were to include a commercial use at our property it would be limited to about 450 square
feet which is really not viable for any real commercial use so again here you can see the
vacant lots around each each side of this corner again that one corner with the
ground floor commercial use is the only one that has any building or development on it
and we received two simple refusals. We are proposing a four-unit building right at the
corner. We are only allowed by right two units and we are proposing not to use the first floor
as commercial. So we would have one residential unit and a commercial unit. That commercial unit
will be converted to a residential unit if this board approves. And we would then have a fourth
we would then have a fourth residential unit, which helps make the project viable and gets
residential unit.
financing and moving this forward. And I certainly understand that a financial hardship is not in and
of itself, cannot substantiate the granting of a variance. However, under the Marshall standard
from the Supreme Court, it is a viable factor that this board can consider in granting a variance.
So, again, we just have those two variant, those two issues for refusals. We have a 14 to nothing in favor vote by the RCO. And I know somebody will ask me, so we have four units. They range, three of the units are approximately 600 square feet, and one is 750 square feet.
There is a roof deck for one of the units, and there are two two-bedroom units and one bedroom unit, or one one-bedroom unit with a den and one regular bedroom unit.
And here are the zoning plans, and I don't want to belabor the point with anyone.
Dimensionally, we are in compliance with the code and have no other issues, so I'm happy