had a history of industrial use. This is actually an I-2 property. We're proposing to put a 26-unit
apartment building in here. We're not changing the physical dimensions in any way. This is the
truce of hardships out there because one of the refusals has to do with the use, which we can't
The use, which we can't change, but this is clearly a use for residential purposes.
change, but this is clearly a use for residential purposes.
And then the second refusal has to do with parking, where you can't put parking if there's no ground to park cars on.
So we're going to review the notice of refusal. We have a letter of support from APM.
My client, Jim Maransky, like he loves doing adaptive reuse.
And we've, you know, we've done projects with him before. And it's great that, you know, there are clients out there who just don't want to tear things down. They want to keep the history of a neighborhood and enhance it. And that's what he's doing here. This is actually historic property. And that kind of goes to one of our refusals, which we'll talk about.
But I gave an example of the Gotham, which is another project nearby where he took a warehouse building, added some square footage to create another building.
But like he really just made it beautiful and preserved the history of this neighborhood.
He's trying to do again here in 1906-12 North 6th Street.
We'll review maps of the area, photographs of the property, our plans and drawings.
We had a well-attended meeting, overwhelming support.
We have proof of that notice going out for the meeting.
Our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of 1900 North 6th Street LP.
DTIP property showing that they own it.
And our Certificate of Tax Clearance.
If collusion my presentation, I would ask that Jim virtually raise his hand.
Notice of refusal.
So, again, this is an I-2 property, and it's a substantial building structure.
And we're looking to put 26 units here.
they're going to be a mix of studios 14 studios 11 one bedrooms and one two bedrooms so what this
community lacks is a lot of these like smaller units right there are people who live in the
community who want to downsize there are people whose family members live in the community they
need a place to be and so there's definitely a need for this type of project here and I think
that's what the community really appreciated. And it also keeps it very affordable, which I know
is not zoning related, but it's a practical consideration of people who live in any community
in Philadelphia. So we have two refusals. First, because we're I-2, like there's, you know,
you know, by providing residential use, we're being refused for that. But again, not out of
character. We are on a residential block and having a building structure, an apartment building like
this make sense from a zoning perspective. And then the second refusal has to do with the fact
because we're I-2, we're required to provide a certain amount of off-street parking spaces.
But we have essentially 100% lot coverage here with the existing building structure,
so we couldn't fulfill that requirement. Regardless, this is a historic property.
Now, it's not a historic property on the Philadelphia Registry, but on the federal
registry. And under section 14-8012D, if we were repurposing this property, or we are repurposing
it, there should be no need for parking here. So under that technical refusal, we would object to
it on those grounds. Now, I think the zoning examiner looked at it from, well, is it on the
historic registry for philadelphia it's not it's an historic registry for the you know on the
federal level and that's why we're here today for that refusal but regardless we the hardship here
is that we can't put parking where there's no ground to put cars and again we met with the
you know with the community uh overwhelming support no one opposed this project
And then, again, the Gotham, which is nearby. This is what Jim truly loves to do. He likes to take these older properties that have a history within the community and repurpose them for residential use.
So this is what the property looked like afterwards. And then this is just the type of apartments that he put in there. He's hoping to do something similar here.
He's calling this project the Pringle factory because this property was originally housed or previously housed by Eaton Electrical Manufacturing Company from 1903 to 1963.
And they created this switch called the Pringle switch.
It's a patented switch and switchboard for high current applications and is still well known.
So he's trying to preserve the history of this property.
um by naming it uh the pringle factory and then this is again what he did at gotham and you can
see he he really tried to preserve the history here specifically of the common areas um of that
um of that building and then as you can see here you know we're close by to multi-family use
building and then as you can see here you know we're
um we're not here um you know for this property that's i2 um but we're near the commercial
corridor of germantown avenue and this project will help increase the density in this part of
town which will help support the commercial corridor as well and photographs of the property
As you can see, we're only half of this. There's another portion that is another building.
But you can see like this property needs some significant TLC.
And Jim has already started doing work in terms of stabilizing the structure because there have been some issues with that.
But we want to preserve this historic property.
Proof of our posting for today's hearing.
And this is North 6th Street to the right of the property, North 6th Street to the left of the property.
You can see we're in a residential neighborhood. Across the street is a shopping center, which includes Cousin Supermarket. Again, this type of multifamily use is going to help support that shopping center and Germantown Avenue as a whole.
So as you saw, the building structure in actuality, this is the rendering. We want, I mean, it's just going to liven up that part of town.
and again you can see here we have full lot coverage here so we really can't do anything
about the parking and I don't even think that refusal should apply given the historic designation
of the property but you can see here there's a trash room in the basement and there's a trash
room on every single floor there will be an elevator service here which is going to help
like the elderly section of town, because we're not stepped up. So, you know, people are,
it's going to be accessible units here. And yeah, there's no, there's no basement like living.
He does plan to have someone dedicated to a degree to this building. His offices are nearby as well.
So it's self-managed, essentially owner-occupied building structure.
And he's putting a green roof on the top as well, which doesn't matter from a zoning perspective, but from an environmental perspective.
We met with the community on November 9th at 530.
105 addresses were notified.
These are the list of the addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses, our application for appeal, our detailed property, and our tax clearance certificate.
Again, there is a balance due, but the reason why is because that's for 2024 taxes, which are not due until the first quarter of the year.
With that being said, I would ask that Mr. Maransky virtually raise his hand.
Hi, sir. Could you state your name and spell it for the court stenographer?
James Maransky, J-A-M-E-S-M-A-R-A-N-S-K-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Yeah, Mr. Moransky, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
And is it true and correct?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, no, Chair.
questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends a change to rsa 5 single family residential at this location
However, we feel the applicant has a demonstrated hardship for both parking and multifamily use, given the adaptive reuse of an existing industrial building.
Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends the Board grant the variance.
Thank you. MI 2023, 004635, 1906-12, North 6th Street, I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Number five, MI 2023-004-623. 2022 Glenwood Avenue, Mr. Nockamson is the attorney. We have a letter of opposition from all the family CDC. Applicant has provided a petition and support signed by 16 neighbors, along with six form letters of support.
can you knock again yes
again yes uh good afternoon alan knockamson of knockamson pc i don't even think i need to
say you know everybody just say your name for the record you're on the road today man i think
we all know who you are already could you identify your client please and that relationship to the
property yes uh sjc real estate llc is the owner of the property and then the virtual audience
should be shati cooks who is one of its members our vice chair has just a few questions
do i uh do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate towards accuracy
i do have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and
required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you please
the street. Thank you.
All right, so 2022
West Glenwood Avenue. As you can see, we're on the edge of a, I don't even know
how you would say it. Are we in the edge of a residential neighborhood or the beginning of a residential
neighborhood? Either way across the street is some industrial use and some shopping
centers. And typically from a planning perspective,
you don't go straight to RSA 5. But this is an RSA 5 prop.
So history is this.
We propose to have a two-family structure with an addition on top.
The addition on top, there was no refusal for that.
It was just a use as an RSA-5 property.
We presented to the community, I don't even know, like almost a year ago.
They said, listen, we have no problems with the use.
We just have a problem on the fact that this is mainly a two-story block.
We like to preserve the character of that block.
We don't want you to go up a third story.
We would have no objection if you expanded the building structure in the rear.
We're like, okay, fine.
Unfortunately, given the size of the expansion that we needed to do, we couldn't just rely on the zoning appeal that we had with the first refusal.
We had to now, and we couldn't do an authorization letter and get the opportunity to amend the zoning appeal.
We had to do a whole other filing, which my client did.
You know, he spent the additional time and additional money on, you know, doing that, detrimentally relying on the assurances of the community that they didn't have a problem with the duplex.
They had a problem with how the duplex looked because they didn't want us to add a story.
They wanted us to continue in the rear.
We met with, you know, the all in the family group associates.
We're like, okay, we did exactly like you told us to do.
you know i i hope you you know i hope you support this project now and then we were told oh no we
don't support this project at all we we we don't want any type of use other than single family use
and then we're like well that's not what you told us basically a year ago and we're gonna go through
this whole process and start a whole nother second appeal so that's where we are so you know
know, we solicited neighbors, neighboring properties, and we got a petition in support
of that. But I will say this, like he really detrimentally relied on assurances from the
community, community group. And it sounded like if memory serves me right, a lot of the same
individuals that were in the first meeting were in the second. So, but it's not enough character
to have duplexes. We have pictures of a couple of duplexes nearby. We'll show you maps of the area
Again, across the street is ICMX, so I don't know if you equate this to the beginning of a residential neighborhood or to the end of a residential neighborhood, but it's not like we're in the heart of a residential neighborhood where it's all single families.
It's not. Then we have photographs of the property and surrounding the area.
Architectural plans showing the first filing to see the addition up top.
And then the second filing where we just extend in the rear.
Then our RCO meeting notice or application for appeal.
Our deed to the property showing the SJC real estate LLC is the owner of the property.
And our certificate of tax clearance. At the conclusion of my presentation, I would ask that Mr.
Cook virtually raises hands. So notice of refusal, again, this RSA-5 property,
as you can see, originally it was for the erection of an addition above an existing
attached structure and for two-family dwelling. That was in February of 2023. So the beginning
of this year, we were told, no, we don't have a problem with the duplex, but you got to extend
in the rear. Because of the change in that concept, we had to go through a whole nother process.
And here's our secondary fusel, which we got in the summertime of 2023. And it's for the erection
of a rear addition to an existing attached structure for use as two-family dwelling.
And again, you know, we went in front of the community, you know, they were they were against it and they just want single family use.
Again, you know, we went in front of the community, you know, they were
And from an economic point of view, it's just we can't do it.
And they knew that they made us spend more money and time to get through this process.
So we did meet with members of the community.
My client is, you know, is from, I believe, the North Philly area, and he got, you know, had solicited a petition of individuals who are in support of this project, as well as letters of support.
And then nearby duplexes on this block, 20, the next door, so duplex, 2445 North 20th Street around the corner is a duplex.
And then again, we're across the street, and you'll see this better from a Google Maps perspective.
Where we're on Glenwood right here are, you know, non-residential properties, ICMX properties.
So you got a linen factory, a warehouse district, a couple of auto repair places.
So it makes sense not to have single family here, maybe to have some duplexes, also to help support this commercial use as well.
And then photographs of the property, again, it's in shale condition.
We bought it that way.
you know my client takes properties you know he's you know from north philly he takes properties
um that you know are in desperate need of some tlc and he fixes them up um proof of post of
posting for today's hearing and then west glenwood to the right of the property again
nothing you don't see anything here there's all this commercial behind this west glenwood avenue
to the left of the property. You can see some warehouses here, the ones that I pointed out
on Google Earth. Architectural plans and drawings. First filing, we did propose a three-story
structure. Did not generate a refusal because even though it's a two-story structure to the
right of us, there was nothing to the left of us. And then this is just, again, the drawing,
what we made as a submission. Second filing, all we did was do this two-story addition,
which was asked of us. And again, these are our floor plans, pretty basic. Unit number one is the
first floor on lower level. Unit number two is on the second story. And by the way, we do have a
slight variance for occupied area. We slightly exceeded. We're at 76% of occupied area where
only 75% is allowed. We wanted a functional floor plan. Again, this was asked of us.
And then, you know, we mailed notice to 123 addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses, or applications for appeal.
We filed on behalf of SJC, deed to property, showing that they own the property.
And then finally, our certificate of tax clearance.
Again, it does show a balance of $825.88, but that's for 2024 taxes.
I would ask that Mr. Cook virtually raise his hand.
Hi, Mr. Cook, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Shati Cooks, S-H-A-T-E-E, last name Cooks, C-O-O-K-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sir?
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes, Mr. Cooks, you heard everything I had to say today about your zoning matter.