So staff, you could just give him audio.
Thank you.
Mr. LaVadera, you can unmute yourself or wait for the chair.
can you state your name and spell for the court reporter sir
my name is gregor y l a v as in victor a r d as in david e r a do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do thank you proceed great thank you very much
i'm just going to share my screen really quickly um all righty so sorry if you saw the pictures
um so to start i'm just going to show this is the deed for our property showing that we purchased it
on september of 2020 um this is our application for appeal which was submitted
uh we have our project information form which was also submitted our certificate of tax clearance
and then our initial zoning permit, which was denied through the Eclipse system.
I'll now take you through a few slides and I will pass it to Greg when we get to the point
of sharing some of the design work that he has done on the property. So this is our home here,
3930 Fittler, just a picture with the posting outside at the curb. This is our request for
an RCO meeting with our coordinating RCO. These are just examples of the mailings that went out
to all of our neighbors that live within 250 feet. And this is the receipts that show that we mailed
to all of the neighbors. I believe it was 36 neighbors at two RCOs and the district six
councilmen. And then the true reason for our hardship and why we're here today,
um we are in rsd1 zone which has a minimum lot width of 75 feet and a side yard setback dimension
of 15 feet based on that lot width um however our property is undersized with a 50 foot wide
um lot which when you add the two 15 feet side yards actually only leaves us with about 20 feet
of biddable space in the middle of our lot. And so our current house actually today already
oversits the setback on the left-hand side by nine feet, leaving only a side yard of six feet.
And we are looking to add an addition to our home. There is already a rear one-floor addition
off the back of our home, and we're looking to add a second floor above that. And to add that
second floor, we'd be over the side yard setbacks by nine feet, which is consistent with the
property, our full property. And we'll have some pictures that Greg will walk you through that
I'll visualize this for you as well. So today we are seeking relief of that hardship to add the
addition to our home. Here's a picture from the street view. Here's an aerial view of our home.
You can see the existing one floor addition rear here.
And now I'm going to pass it to Greg, who's going to take you through our plans.
Hi, everybody.
This is a site plan that we actually received from the city, which we believe was drawn up the time these houses were built.
Catherine's house is the most on the right.
And in this drawing, you can actually see the indication of the one-story portion of the house at the rear.
The two adjacent houses are also in 50-foot lots.
Their houses are similar in design, and we'll see that they've also been added onto in the time since they were initially built.
Go ahead to the next slide, Kevin.
Here's our site plan.
um it's uh losing a little bit of the bottom but there's just open yard space to the back
for the full 200 foot depth you can see the 50 foot width we have these dash blue lines which
represent our side yard setbacks on the left hand side we have a driveway and the house is set back
sufficiently to be at the setback line but on the right hand side you can see that the setback line
courses through the house and leaves the existing portion of the house into the required side yard
setback. We have this indication in yellow that is the area of the second floor addition which
will be over the setback line into the side yard. On the buildable side we have a portion of our
On the buildable side, we have a portion of our addition is just on the second floor.
edition.
And then to the leftmost side, the addition is actually two stories.
But again, that portion of the addition is within the setbacks.
In terms of site coverage area, although the lot is undersized, the RSD1 district requires
10 000 square foot minimum lots and this 50 foot by 200 foot lot is only 5 000 square feet
despite that because of the modest size of the house um it is uh well under uh the the uh
required open area um 65 is required open um the existing house is only 78 uh um open and
with the additions it will still be 75% open. So even though the lot is half of the required size
because of the modest size of the house we're still well within the area restrictions. It's
only this nine foot of the second floor addition which is over the side yard setback which has
triggered the refusal for the the side yard. Let's go to the next image which will give us a look at
what the addition site is like. Perhaps not quite so clear here but we're looking at the one-story
portion of the house in the back and then the second floor is set back. Go to the next slot
that will be really apparent. So here you can see how this one-story portion of the house actually
has a flat roof over it so we're going to be building over that following the profile of the
existing house and if we look towards the neighbors a little bit you can see that their original
houses have already been expanded in the same location with their additions already over their
side yard setback as well so this condition has come up in the past those additions may have
predated the current zoning restrictions, but my point is that what we're proposing is consistent
with what is already going on in the immediate neighborhood. Okay, well, the next slide. Okay,
here we can see both of the adjacent houses have been extended into floors similar to what we're
proposing to do with Katherine and Joe's house.
Terrific.
Here we have elevation lines showing the new addition.
The new addition is going to be clad in a siding
versus the original house is all clad in brick.
So you can see very quickly the areas that are being added.
In the lower right-hand corner of the rear elevation,
you can see the two-story portion facing the driveway
and how that wraps over the existing one-story portion.
follows the profile of the existing roof and then we have a slightly shallower roof that extends out
over the portion that faces the driveway side and to the left of that you can see the elevation
facing the driveway the existing door at the third portion of the house is a door into directly into
the kitchen for the driveway and the new door at the back we're establishing a door into a mud room
a place to come and go, goes into the existing family room at the back of the house.
And the space between those two entrants will be an expansion of the kitchen.
Upstairs, we have, we're adding an additional bedroom,
which will take the house from three bedrooms to four bedrooms.
I think that's it.
I'll hand it back to you, Kevin.
Great. Thank you, Greg.
And then I just wanted to close out our presentation with sharing the support from the East Tarsdale Civic Association, which is our coordinating RCO, who we presented to and had support.
And at the board, as well as our non coordinating RCO, who is actually the president is also a neighbor that sits within 250 feet, who is also supportive based on the ruling at our coordinating RCO meeting.
And then lastly, we were able to garner 15 letters from the 35 neighbors notified within 215 feet.
You can see here I just tried to put together a very quick little map where there are green
check marks or where we've actually received an email and your office has also received an email
that there are no objections and that they are in support of adding our addition to our home.
Thank you. Questions from the board?
no mr chairman no mr chairman questions from the virtual audience
i see no heads at this time chair planning commission
Planning Commission.
thank you chair bergman
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Members of the Board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing single-family zoning at this location.
However, this proposed dimensional variance does not conflict with the neighborhood character or with the purpose and spirit of the zoning code.
City Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2021 003737 3930 Fittler Street. I vote yes. Harold Tenere, my vote is yes. Thomas Holloman,
my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much everybody. Good luck. Okay. MI 2021 0017
7752-5136
Wayne Avenue.
Jermaine Harris is the attorney.
Germantown Civic Association, letter of
opposition.
Mr. Harris, if you're in the virtual audience,
can you please raise your hand?
Chair, I see no hands at this time.
Okay. Case continued. Must be tried.
MI 2021-003724-6328 Vine Street.
Justin Crick is the attorney.
RCO letter of support with provisos.
Chair, Mr. Crick is coming back in as a panelist now.
Thank you.
Good morning, members of the board.
Good morning.
Good morning again.
Just state your name.
You've already been sworn.
Yes, Justin Crick, K-R-I-K.
And the vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Crick.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
It appears you have all of the required documents.
Is that correct?
You may proceed.
Thank you.
Members of the Board, we are here today for an application for variance for the property.
It's 6328 Vine Street.
I'm going to share my screen and presentation.
application. The application that we are seeking asks for seven units at the property, but it is
not the number of units of residential units that is in question. It is the fact that the property
is located in a CMX2 district, which requires commercial use on a substantial portion of the
first floor of the property. So we are seeking a variance to not have the commercial use on the
first floor of the property, but rather entirely residential. Based on the footprint of the
building and the property, which I'll show you shortly, there is actually enough land for
appropriately up to 10 units here, but that is not what we're seeking. So again, because we needed
to have some commercial use along the first 30 feet, we are seeking the variance from that
requirement. The property is situated uniquely at the corner of Vine and North 64th Street.
And in the past, several decades, almost over 40 years ago, it did have a commercial purpose,
as you will see. But the property consists of one large building with somewhat of an addition
that'll be more relevant from the street view, as well as a rear separate structure building,
which is a garage and an upstairs that consists of one of the units.
This is a frontage view of the building, and as you can see, the right-hand portion of the building is a one-story building that used to be a bank decades and decades ago and has since been residential of some form or another by previous owners.
And so we are now coming as the owner of the building to essentially legalize the fact that the prior owner had stopped using the side of the property as a bank many, many decades ago.
The character of the building also shows us that in order to obtain a commercial purpose for any portion of this building, this is really set back from the street in such a way that we don't believe it is appropriate or convenient for liability purposes and otherwise to try to put a commercial use in either side of this building.
in either side of this building but because they are together as you'll see this would actually
But because they are together, as you'll see, this would act.
extend to a depth of first floor on both buildings um but the property is very unique and as you can
see it's actually been fixed up quite a bit by the current owner um who uh it's owned by some
entities but miss leanne paris is on the line uh representative and owner of the entity um we've
spoken with the neighbors and they've indicated a desire to see this residential use we've made some
agreements with them for it. But what they do understand is that the neighborhood, as I can show
you, this is an older view of the property. Here's the rear building in the back. This is actually
part of this property in one of the units. Even though it's a separate structure, there's a little
rear courtyard here. For an intersection, our building is on the left. The other two corners,
which have CMX and other commercial uses, are what you typically see in a commercial district
or a commercial structure with a corner store and access right off the street and so forth.
From a plan's perspective, the first 30 feet of these buildings would encompass both
structures, even though it was this side structure that was originally commercial back in the
day, we could have residential in the back of this portion and this portion if we had
commercial up front along Vine Street, which we again believe is not desirable for the area
any longer and also not really situated for this property. The layout of the building as such would
result in a common vestibule area, two apartment units in the former bank space, and a single unit
on the first floor. And really to do commercial would set back this initial first floor residential
and may leave little to no room for a unit in the bank portion.
But again, we don't believe that it's a desirable use.
The property has been configured in such a way that each of the units,
the majority of the units, anything touching the first floor
has independent access to the outside.
And second and third floor units, as well as the space above the garage,
Per discussion with the neighborhood, we are providing escape, fire escape ladders, but there are pull stations in the building as well as compliance with all fire suppression or fire codes that are necessary.
So for that reason, I would like to ask Ms. Perez to join. And before I do that, I'll just go through the rest of these. As you can see, the second floor is one unit. We're not looking to squeeze more on top of others. And the third floor is the same.
There is no change to the number of units. It's just, again, first floor, not wanting to have commercial.
I do have some photographs of the inside of the different apartments.
Very, very typical of apartments that you'd find in the area, but there is a lot of space in these units.
These are not crammed in, so to speak, even on the second and third floors, but the first floor units as well.
And we have a unit above the garage structure.
This is the rear of the building, courtyard, commercial trash pickup has been agreed to, and there is adequate street parking for this number of units.
Again, density is not our concern at the moment, but rather the lack of commercial use.
We did receive, again, support from the RCO with provisos that the board can review, being the latter, as well as a proviso concerning the nature of tenancy for one of the units.
Here's a copy of the deed.
Leanne Perez, who will join on momentarily, is a member of the Good Neighbors Development LLC.
She's one of the partners here.
And Oliver Wischmeyer, who is also on the line but is not going to testify, is the member of the second entity owner.
Here's photographs of the posting.
For the hearing, posted on the front and sides of the property.
as well as tax clearance certificates for both entities involved.