you're saying
she's assuming
that something else
will be built
but she's assuming wrong
from my understanding
and the law
the attorney
can correct me
if I'm wrong
we thank you
for your call
is there anyone else
that would like
to comment on this
i see no other hands at this time chair planning commission
thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission
members of the board the comprehensive plan recommends no change from the existing rta1
zoning district here which for the record allows for two family use on each lot
the proposed dimensional variance here is minimal and does not conflict with the purpose and spirit
to the zoning code furthermore um the proposed lot configuration is equivalent both to the other
lots on this block face and with the prior documented configuration of these lots and so
the city planning commission recommends that the board grant this variance thank you mi 2021
0 0 4 5 2 4 4 4 0 west 4 4 0 west queen lane i vote yes carol tenary my vote is yes thomas
holloman my vote is yes james now my vote is yes ishmael shaheed my vote is yes thank you mr
clinton thank you mr chairman thanks for letting me uh do this via video and audio i appreciate it
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been heard?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Thanks, everyone.
See everyone at 2 o'clock.
Thank you.
And we are ready to begin, sir.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearings.
With me is Ismael Shahid, our board secretary.
Here, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
And Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also, our executive director, Tanya Sunkit, is here, and our board attorney, Sherman Topkin.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Before we begin, here is 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 our Executive Director, TanyaSunkett at phila.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating by phone, and if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand, and then star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
and lastly please note the question answer box on the screen is not for testimony or comments
any comments should be directed to our executive director tanya sunk so let's look at continuances
i have no continuance listed is anyone for the 2 p.m list have a continuance
For the 2 p.m., let's have a continuance.
Chair, we have Neil Sklaroff with his hand up.
Chair, we have Nielsen.
Mr. Sklaroff, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Thank you, Ms. Lanket.
Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Sklaroff.
Could you spell your name for the court reporter, please?
Certainly.
It's Neil, N-E-I-L, Sklaroff.
S-K-L-A-R-O-F-F.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth sir yes i do go ahead good afternoon mr chairman members of the board
on behalf of the school district of philadelphia i'm asking for a continuance
in in the matter of excuse me i'm sorry in the matter of 3201 ryan avenue abraham lincoln high
School, CBA calendar number MI2022000931. We have a meeting scheduled with the RCO on the 21st of
March, and they have asked us to ask for this continuance, and we would hope to be listed as
soon after March 21st, as is practicable. We don't think our application, which is
very minor in substance, will take very long. Mr. Clarice, thank you. We will continue it,
and our executive director will look for a date for you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much. Anyone else with a continuance?
chair i see no hands up at this time okay
uh i have one mi 2021 004984 1932 moore street that's withdrawn that's a withdrawal
And I have one add-on today. MI 2021-004832-3135-49 West Montgomery Avenue. That will be continued for one week. The vote on that, as we're working with L and I about an issue relative to that. Thank you.
now we'll go to our regular list
case number one mi 2021 003720 1436 south 12th street
passion square civic association letter of opposition rachel pritzker attorney
Chair, Ms. Pritzker is coming back in
as a panelist now
Good afternoon
Could you state your name and spell for the
court reporter please
Yep, Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L
Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R
1521 Locust Street, Suite 605
philadelphia pa 19102 right you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth is nothing but the
truth yes mr hallman has a few questions for you good afternoon counselor do you agree to waive the
reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy yes according to our records you have
submitted all of the required documents is that correct yes please proceed i just want to make a
quick correction chairman we have a letter of support um from past young civic association
and we also have a letter of support from councilman squilla so i'm not sure if you have
that's great i don't i don't know how that got on the list but that was on the list but thank you
very much yep so this is the subject property right here this is uh 1436 south 12th street
as you can see it's a very large corner property it's about uh the building is actually about 30
150 square feet, and the lot is about 1206, which is much larger than the 960 required for single
family. This is an existing, longstanding, non-conforming use. The interior of this
building is already built out as multifamily. It has been for probably 40 plus years. My clients
are the current purchasers. We have the property under agreement currently. They're the equitable
owners and so we're working through the legalization of this in order for them to
actually close on the property as i had advised them obviously to make sure that this is legalized
zoning and from a building code perspective before they purchase anything
basically we went through the process given the existing non-conformity
um and just bring up uh we met with uh the past young square civic association who voted nine to
and just bring up we met with
zero and non-opposition um we originally had applied for four units which is what's currently
in the building um and also accessory off-street parking as uh the site has a garage on the
side of it, as I'll just show you, that had been utilized for off-street parking or for storage.
However, when meeting with the Civic Association, they had asked us to remove the accessory parking
space, just use the garage for trash and garbage removal, and also to limit the multifamily from
four units to three units which we would agree via proviso we do have revised plans but given
this is an existing structure we don't have like typical plans as we're not adding on to the
building and so we're willing to do that via proviso with three units with no accessory off
street parking space just to quickly touch on also have councilman mark squilla's letter of
non-opposition as well for this project given the provisos that we agreed to and lastly just to go
over the hardship argument for this project as you can see from this these photos it's a very
large large property 3,150 square feet in order to convert this into a single family per the code
as the base zoning is RSA 5 we've had to demo like demolition and the entire interior reconfigure
the entire interior of this old building and it would probably be one of the largest if not the
largest single family home in this neighborhood. Additionally the multi-family is not out of
character. Not only again are we looking to have this legalized but there are directly adjacent
structures. 1410 South 12th which received a variance from this board for four units. 1430
South 12th which received a variance for duplex from this board. 1434 South 12th also received a
variance from this board for two units. And there's a whole list of others in addition to
some other properties on the corner, similar to this being zoned in the CMXs, making it that
multifamily on corners is not uncommon. Again, we're just looking to legalize the existing use,
three units, no accessory off-street parking, and happy to go through the plans if the board
is interested in seeing them. Why don't you have your client adopt your testimony?
sure is there um an alexia or uh avi
lexi or avi okay you're an officer of the court the testimony is fine thank you questions from
the board no mr chairman no mr chairman question or comments from the virtual audience
planning commission good afternoon chair bergman david vecto f e c t e a u with the city planning
commission you swear from the tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes sir i
do proceed thank you sir mr chairman members of the board the comprehensive plan recommends no
change the residential single family zoning for this parcel however given that this is a
legalization of a long-standing use and the reduction in the proposed number of units from
four to three the city planning commission recommends the board grant the use variance
limited to a maximum of three units mi 2021 003720 1436 south 12th street i rec i vote yes
with proviso three units no off-street parking uh thomas holliman my vote is yes we provide so
yes we provide thank you counselor thank you mi 2021 004976 161 the 71 west allegheny avenue
RCO, HACE, letter of support, Jarrett Klein.
Mr. Klein?
There he is.
The board.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Certainly. It's Jared, J-A-R-E-D, last name is Kline, K-L-E-I-N, with Blank Rome, 130 North 18th Street, Philadelphia.
Certainly. It's Jared, J-A-R-E-D. Last name is Klein, K-L-E-I-N.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Mr. Holliman has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, Counselor.
Good afternoon, Mr. Holliman.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Yes, I do.
according to our records you have submitted all of the required documents is that correct
yes sir it is please proceed thank you I'll share my screen make sure everybody can see that
this is a fairly uncomplicated application and it should be a pretty quick presentation
161 West Allegheny Avenue is is currently the home to Asay's offices and the reason this
application was filed was for some identification signage for the office as the design of the
building mimics a residential uh building and so people who were visiting the site for office use
were experiencing some difficulty knowing that it was uh the location of of assay's offices
so the only refusal that we have uh is because the proposed wall sign doesn't comply with the
height requirements of the I-2 zoning district. Again, the property is zoned industrial, but is
used for office purposes for ASE. Just to contextualize the location for the board,
this is our property here. You can see we're in this cluster of I-2 buildings, but surrounding
us is primarily multifamily residential and some commercial mixed use. Here's the property here.
and a closer shot of the building as the board can see it does mimic a residential apartment
building and there's no exterior signage in the building to let anybody know that this is
an office-based use so the application is fairly straightforward over here is the proposed sign
as you can see it's a it's an acrylic logo sign that will be backlit and the refusal was because
it's located high enough off the ground to generate a refusal on the I-2, but this sign
here is all that we're talking about. It's a logo and identification sign for the ASAI offices.
As the chair mentioned, we did get a letter from the Civic Association, and I have it
here on the screen. The meeting was held February 9th, and everybody who attended was in support of
the application. And you can see in the little summary that they provided the community association
and the members agreed with us that they know people who had challenges identified in the
offices because of the residential style and that the signage was appropriate for that purpose.
I will ask if Maria Gonzalez can raise her virtual hand so she might adopt my testimony.
Then we can answer any follow-up questions that the board may have.
maria gonzalez you can unmute yourself or wait for
hello can you hear me yes could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes maria gonzalez m-a-r-i-a gonzalez g-o-n-z-a-l-e-z i'm the president of base
which is a development corporation in eastern north philadelphia right do you swear or firm
to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do proceed
Thank you. Maria, did you have a chance to hear my brief presentation this afternoon?
Yes, I did. Thank you so much, Jared.
Sure. And do you adopt my statements as your own testimony as if you've been given the chance to speak yourself?
Yes, I do.
Thank you very much. If the board has any questions, we're here.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the virtual audience or comments?
Chair, we have Sloan Fulks with his hand up. Mr. Fulks, you can unmute yourself or wait for the chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Fulks. State your name and spell it for the court reporter.
Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman, TBA Board. My name is Sloan Fulks, S-L-O-A-N-E-F-S,
FIRE, O-L-K-S, representing Councilmember Maria Quinone Sanchez, 7th District, Room 508, City Hall.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do, sir. Thank you. Sure. The applicant having met with the coordinating RCO and receiving a letter of support, the Councilwoman has no opposition to this various request. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Folks. Anyone else in the virtual audience have a comment? Planning Commission.
good afternoon chair bergman david vecto city planning commission mr chairman members of the
board the comprehensive plan recommends this property for residential multi-family zoning