And that's all we're asking, that that be respected.
And I understand there are different aspects to this in terms of these new property owners and what they want to build.
but I ask that they respect them obviously they wanted to be in this neighborhood because of the
beauty of it and and how it's been upkept in the area and the and the love of it that the community
has but um it will impact the aesthetic of this neighborhood and it's not like you know Mount
Airy is big and there are a variety of houses the big old stone houses um and the house is different
but that's not our concern okay that's not our concern um but it is going to be it is going to
stick out because it's going to be different but the the offset in terms of the the um symmetry
of the neighborhood the peacefulness in terms of the neighborhood it's it's going to be irreparable
right um so i really i i'm speaking from the heart here and i ask that you take that consideration i
ask you taking into consideration the respect that old homeowners have had and also the new
homeowners who have built in this area there are a number of different homes that have been built
in this area some more recently and they respect the offset um and thank you very much for coming
down do you um did you receive my letter we no we did not okay i did i do have copies of i did
submit it why don't you give it to our turn and thanks for sitting here i know you've been here a
long time if i could i did download it okay the um website did say that it was received but i would
ask that you take into consideration what i've said in my letters thank you thank you is there
anyone else in the audience i see no hands here planning commission dina solomonic the planning
commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsd1 residential single family
detached zoning at this location the appellant's property is irregularly shaped which creates a
hardship for the side and front yard dimensions and their crusted variances are de minimis
furthermore the front yard and side yard depth is comparable with the other homes on the cul-de-sac
the appellant complies with the wissican watershed overlay and the steep slope protection area and
And preserves the heritage trees by proposing to build on the front portion of the lot the planning commission recommends the board grant the requested dimensional variances and the location of the required on site parking. Thank you very much. I see a hand chair by Clarissa McInnis.
What's that? Oh, she's like, she.
Hello.
Carletha McInnis is allowed to speak. Well, I just wanted to say that. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer? My name is Carletha McInnis. That's C-A-R-L-E-T-H-A-M-C-E-N-N-I-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Are you a neighbor? Yes, I am.
and you're are you in favor of this project or against i'm against the project as far as the set
back okay to build a home fine but the setback that's great thank you very much for taking the
time to cause i mean i'm sure you just heard um our planning department we're taking this
under consideration we're going to hold this lynn would two weeks be okay i think two weeks why don't
do uh wednesday at 2 p.m two weeks it's actually going to be i'm sorry chair that will be actually
has to be the 16th because we're not going to be sitting the ninth really okay yeah is that what
you're going to say ian so no we're off in yes that's correct chair the next meeting after next
week will be september 16th okay all right so this but that's just so the the appellant knows the
case is closed right except except for either the amended refusal or the
corrective okay all right thank you sir for coming in we
appreciate it yeah you may you may want to consider some stone I'm looking at
them just looking at the street and all the houses have some stone on it so at
least there'd be some sort of not to the existing stone character of the rest of
houses on that to call the sec but but thank you for your presentation we appreciate it all right
so we have one more on the two clock list number seven mi2026 zero zero two two four one one zero
0-0-2-2-4-1-1-0-1-5-9-Rareve Road.
one five nine
Peter Gonzalez is the attorney.
Oh, here we go.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mr. Gonzalez. Could you please, you're Mr. Gonzalez, right? I am. Okay. Could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer? Certainly. My name is Peter Gonzalez. It's P-E-T-E-R-G-O-N-Z-A-L-E-S. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Mr. Gonzalez, could you identify your client and the relationship to this property?
Certainly. Sitting to my left is Pastor Tony Hsu. He is my client, and he's also the lessee of 10159 Varee Road.
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good evening. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
I have, yes.
And you have one refusal, but so do you either know your refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
All right. Thank you. You can share your screen and present your case.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And make sure you get close to the microphone.
Thank you.
You can pull it.
Get it near you.
Just pull it.
Get very comfortable with this.
There you go.
Right.
I have to re-enter the password.
How are we doing?
I am here and now the next thing is for me to raise my hand.
Is that correct?
Well, she wanted you to raise your hand in the machine. Am I right?
I believe so. Okay. All right. So you've done everything.
He has been promoted to panelists. There you go. No, that's not it.
it should come any minute we're hoping
there you go
um i'm all set okay why don't you start uh so we are here for uh 10159 free road it's an rsd3
zoning um and the proposed use is for religious assembly the only reason we are here is for
that one use variance there's no dimensional variance there's no changes to the property
it's simply the use and i have on the screen um some information i think would be very helpful
that this property while it is zoned rsd3 it has not been used as a single family home for 60 plus
INITIALLY IT WAS BUILT IN 1946, 1961 THE ZONING BOARD GRANTED A VARIANCE ALLOWING THIS PROPERTY TO BE USED AS A VETERINARIAN HOSPITAL AND A SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING AND THERE WERE NO CHANGES TO THE BUILDING, BUT IN 1971 THERE WERE PERMITS ISSUED FOR REAR DISSION AND NO CHANGES TO THE USE, BUT IN 1999 THE PROPERTY CAME BACK BEFORE THE ZONING BOARD GRANTED A VARIANCE FOR A PHYSICIAN'S OFFICE.
And the existing or then existing residential use was eliminated.
As a result of the 60 years of this use, there is now a property that has 20 parking spaces and a circular driveway, which I'm showing on the screen, with an ADA compliant ramp.
and it has just it's not been used as a as a residence primarily so our request is that the
zoning board grant of use variance to allow pastor Zhu to move into the residence with his wife Lucy
who's here in the audience where they would reside on the second floor and use the first floor for
And use the first floor for religious assembly. They currently operate out of their basement in Bucks County, a virtual religious service that Mr. Xu conducts online and has people participating from as far away as China.
religious assembly. They currently operate
and his hope now is that we are recovered from recovering from COVID some of us are still
struggling with the technology but that he move into a space that would allow him to do both
continue virtually conducting his religious services but also have a space that would
allow people to come in and join him and his wife for those services and the request is really to
use that first floor as a very limited capacity that Sundays they would continue at 8 30 in the
morning to provide virtual services only and at 10 30 a hybrid which would allow people to join him
and his wife in the in the room while he continues to do his his preaching that would go from 10 30
to 12 on Sunday. And on Wednesday evening, he's proposed to use the space for Bible study, I
believe it is Wednesday's prayer meeting. And that would be from the 7.30 to 8.30 or 7 to 8.30.
And then on Friday would be Bible study, and that would be 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.
That is the only use that is being requested. Those are the services that are being proposed. And at the moment, the only people that show up in person are Pastor Tony and his wife, Lucy, but they would like to welcome others into the space.
um we did go before the rco uh which uh happened back on june 9th and in the packet there is a
letter of opposition they had a vote that evening after we presented and there were some why tell me
yeah sure um i'll tell you what the letter says i'll start there i have different maybe you could
tell us what you think but go ahead sure tell me what the letters i think that's really most
important and it's factual so the letter states that the community has had experiences with
other properties being used for religious assembly and parking becoming an issue
and that in fact i don't know what the property was but i think they referred to a bank at one
point being used as a as a church and then what happened was that church grew so big that people
started parking in the neighborhood and residents started to get very upset about that this property
is very different and that it already has 20 off street parking spaces um and the uh
i'll leave it at that i mean it's it's built with the 20 parking spaces mr or pastor shoe did not
build the um that's already there in the property so the issue of of uh parking is
is sort of solved by the same reason that we're here because it's not uh with 20 parking spaces
This is practical for it to be used as a residence only. Okay.
There was, I believe, some question in the letter also about tranquility.
I think the term was it would be disruptive to our tranquility, and the property, as I will show you, has pardon me.
I'm going to see if I can share the right screen this time, has a tremendous amount of trees surrounding the property bordering the neighbors.
um and i'll just have to pull up the okay so back to zoom sharing again yes all right i believe that
worked yeah um so the property it is situated here in the trees um where the red dot is or no
uh right where the the uh the pointer is yeah where the red dot is now exactly that's the church
or that's pardon me that's the the the property and why don't you tell me what's around it sure
um right next to it on on i believe that would be the northeast side is a large medical complex that
jefferson hospital operates and that is also rsd3 um but clearly got some uh use variances in the
passed on the other side is a residence that it says bianca's health and beauty essentials
um on the on the screen it appears when you when you click on that that
on the on the screen, it appears when you when you click on that, that it might be like a home salon that's operated by the neighbor across the street.
It's very interesting, and I'm going to just show you that across the street are neighbors that live in RS.
RTA 1. I'll just pull up the zoning map real quick. Yes, RTA 1. So the purple right here
is our property, 10159. RTA 1 is directly across the street, and I'm just going to show
you what they look like, right? And all of them have off-street parking in front of their
houses. The neighbor that lives in this property here was unable to come to the RCO meeting,
But in response to the vote that happened at the RCO meeting, we thought it would be really important to invite people to really understand what it is that is being proposed.
So we sent the same letter that was sent out to everybody announcing the RCO meeting.
We announced an open house.
This happened a couple of weeks ago.
And Pastor Tony and his wife invited the neighbors, the same ones that were invited to the RCO meeting, to come and meet Tony and ask questions.
um and get to know and get to know his wife and see the inside of the space so that happened and
the neighbor that lives directly across the street who's unable to be here today but submitted a
letter of support has been a resident for 11 years and came over when they saw the sign and received
the letter and said they were so excited that there was a place in the neighborhood that they
felt welcomed uh where they could meet other people in the community and where they wouldn't
have to go so far to for bible study frankly for praying um they drive down into i believe it was
masher street in north philadelphia so they were very happy and that was a they stayed for over an
hour and it was a very good experience um why don't you do this why don't you show us the
property what's in it and how it's going to be laid out what you're doing with the property
excellent i will do that if i can figure out how to get out of here
oh boy
okay all right
again this is the layout yep i'll show you the inside this is what the inside
of the property looks like um it as i said for 60 years it was a veterinary and physics
physician's office right so it's been sort of public facing uh this is the first room that
you would walk into um and this is the proposed uh use for the room is to gather for religious
services um i will just this is different configurations of the room right um these
some of the people that came to the event, the open house. This is a Bible study room
on the property. It's in the back room. You can see the sink is left over from a physician's
office. That would be used as a regular office, administrative office. There's hallways with
clearly marked exit signs. And this is a room that would probably be used for fellowship where
or a pastor might meet with somebody in private for counseling.
There's bathrooms.
Oh, so the second floor, right?
This is the stairway.
Yeah, take a look.
A separate private entrance that goes directly to the second floor.
And that's where he's living up there?
That's where he'd like to live with his wife.
Oh, okay.
They currently live in Jamison, Bucks County.
There is a kitchen on the second floor.
there is a bathroom on the second floor there are three bedrooms on the second floor this is one of
them second and a third and let's see so exterior this is the parking lot in the rear so how many
spots do you have there are 20 parking spaces with two uh that are marked as handicapped or
ADA. There are also an ADA compliant ramp that was clearly built for patients that were coming
to visit, but would be ideal for anybody who needed assistance. That's the back. Yeah,
it's coming right from the driveway. You can see the houses on Varee over here on the far right.
yep okay uh this is the side entrance uh
pictures are a little blurry but this goes back to the uh to the drawings that are that are
enclosed i'll show you the uh the floor plans if you'd like to see the the way things are laid out
I'll show you the floor plans if you'd like to see the way things are laid out on the second floor.
on the side.
There's the three bedrooms, the kitchen, the bath, and the stairwell.
On the first floor, it is configured.
It's much larger.
There was this addition that was built in, I believe that was 1977.
I can't remember.
It was in the packet.
The main house is here.
um the public entrance here is facing towards varie um and that ramp in the back is over here
on the on the far left uh and comes right from the from the driveway the bible study room is up in
the top right facing the driveway or pardon me facing the parking lot same with these uh what
what were like medical examination rooms but would be used essentially as offices so you got bible
study and places where the minister can meet with people alone. Yep, exactly. That's the
fellowship room here for a personal one-on-one conversation, private. And you can see it's away
from the congregation if they were together. I want to just point out that they're doing this
virtually. There's nobody yet, but they would like to have people join them. What else can I
show you what what else would you like to know um why don't you finish up are you done everything