street okay and what we were told at that time was that oh well the we're going to clean up you
know at the venue but we don't have any control of what goes on on bristol street and they try
to put the onus on uh another um place of business that's a block away and we
place of business that's a block away. And we were just trying to say, this is what we've seen
from the type of people who have rented out this venue. And it takes away from our block where
we're senior citizens. We have to come up and clean up after other people. And when we express
all of our concerns. If we go out, we come back, we don't have anywhere to park. And what was said
was, you know, this venue would be available to the community. And what we were looking to hear
is that, okay, we hear your concerns, residents. Let's see if we can come together and, you know,
come up with a solution. And they didn't seem to really care about how we felt as residents.
You know, the noise and things like that. We have a lot of sick people, too.
You know, and they didn't seem to care about us.
So let me ask you this. So you're against the project.
OK. And we thank you for calling in and giving us your input.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have
Ladeen Dutton
Hi, could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter, please
Ms. Dutton
please unmute yourself
Ms. Dutton
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
Ladeen Dutton
L-Y-D-I-N-E
That and there's a David
U-T-T-O-N
Thank you. Do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth? Absolutely.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, I live on
Crystal Street. And are you against
or for the project?
I am against it.
Okay. For the reasons
that we just heard?
The main being
the problems with these people
at 2 o'clock in the morning that
lay around, the trash,
the parking.
a nuisance.
I understand it's commercial,
but it's also residential.
Okay, so we appreciate
your call, and we appreciate
the comments you've made to us.
Thank you. Is there anyone else in the
virtual audience? I would like to ask
Ms. Dutton a question, if I may.
Proceed.
Ms. Dutton, you mentioned loitering at 2 p.m.
And you do understand that the event center closes at 9 p.m., correct?
Ms. Dutton, you have to unmute yourself.
Okay, what I'm saying is whatever time you close, they're already parked on Bristol Street.
So they come around Bristol Street.
They're sitting in their cars and doing whatever.
Ms. Dutton, how do you know that those people aren't from the bar on the corner?
Positively, I don't.
But when it's late on in the night and the quietness, it's either around here at the other club.
I don't think you're open that late.
so between the two of you
it's a nuisance for the people
on Bristol Street
I have no further question
thank you very much thank you for calling
is there anyone else in the virtual audience
I see no handshare
planning commission
Charles Richardson
just put his hand up
hi Mr. Richardson
just state your name for the record
you've already been sworn sir
Charles Richardson, Office of Councilman, Cindy Bass, room 508, City Hall.
Just wanted to weigh in.
Yes, there were some problems with getting that meeting scheduled, but you did get a meeting schedule.
And it was on February the 16th, the meeting did take place.
It said they don't know what the vote was, but the vote was this, because I'm the one that took the vote.
There were 18 opposed and only three in favor. Okay. The young lady opened illegally after the fact, when she discovered that she wasn't going to be able to make money further with the daycare at that point in time, because all daycares were pretty much shut down.
with regard to Ms. Rasheed and, you know, the 20 times or however many times that it took
to get the meeting done, it got done. Unfortunately, that meeting that they
to get the meeting meeting done it got done uh unfortunately that that meeting that that they
they are talking about uh took place miss rasheed actually was out of town and she had forgotten
about the meeting and uh then they called me from from from uh nice town i told miss three and
everybody that really you cannot state that what happened at the meeting because there's no no
credibility there because you're the ones that that actually did your whatever presentation and
possibly invited the same people to come to the meeting as well. This was an in-person. The second
one was a Zoom meeting. The folks that were on that call actually had spoken about the fact that
they were experiencing problems already. There was no 9 p.m. That's a new proviso. That wasn't
what we were talking about on that meeting. There was no corroboration of the fact that it was
ending early at that point in time.
So 9 p.m. is a new thing.
So, you know, there were a whole bunch of folks that were against this.
And, you know, as it stands, the councilwoman supports the near neighbors.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair.
We have Yolanda McFadden.
Hello.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Yolanda McFadden, Y-O-L-A-N-D-A, capital M-C-F-A-D-D-E-N.
You swear or affirm, tell the truth, tell the truth, nothing but the truth?
I affirm.
Are you a neighbor?
I am the block captain of the 1700 block of Bristol Street.
Are you in favor of this or against it?
I was against it.
So they were open during COVID, first of all.
and second of all um the business uh was opened after 10 o'clock because we had no parking on the
block and 216 was the first time that i have received anything to be on the zoom call i was
on the zoom call the biggest problem that we have in our community is the density that the attorney
said that it wasn't no the density was the most important part we always look out after
the disabled people um the senior citizens as miss colbert stated we that's all that's on our block
um because i'm dealing with someone right now who is disabled i deal with it every time i come on
the block am i going to have parking to get my groceries at least from the corner or block over
and we don't want to wait till monday morning and have to remove our cars or late sunday night
so just because your club or your place closes up at a certain time the people still linger about
they're all we can't tell them stop smoking your marijuana please and now go to your own
neighborhood so it really caused an issue and a problem for all of us neighbors who've been up
here over 30 years and we really pay attention we really clean up our street on the block captain
the two ladies elaine colbert and miss ladene dutton suffer from disabilities and they get
out there and when i put up a sign and they will help me clean and we've been cleaning this block
for the last over 30 years and so we are we know what's going on we see it we're the only ones who
come out here and deal with it's about six people to come out and clean thank you ma'am you're
welcome thank you very much for calling in is there anyone else in the virtual audience
i see no handshare planning commission ron bednar city planning this property is zoned for
neighborhood commercial uh mixed use on the city plan the proposed use will have no more of an
impact and wouldn't be expected to have for its location. Therefore, we recommend the board grant
special exception. As we stated earlier, we do not have a signed lease. We will hold the vote.
The record will be closed other than receiving a signed lease. We will vote hopefully by next
week, okay? Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Number four, MI 2022-005-085-4611
Spruce Street. Zen Jin is the attorney. Letter of support from the Garden Court Community
Association. Mr. Jin is coming back in as a panel. Okay.
Good afternoon.
Hi, Mr. Jin, we've already swore you once today.
Could you just state your name for the record, please?
Zen Jin, Z-H-E-N-J-I-N, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1838, Philadelphia PA, 19103, here on behalf of the applicant.
And, sir, could you identify your client relationship to the property?
Yes. My client is CLW Investment LLC, the owner of the property. And Mr. Wu, he goes by Sam, should be here to...
And Mr. Wu, he goes by Sam, should be here to verify my testimony.
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to exact receipt?
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
I'm going to share with the board the documentation we have previously submitted.
So I'm going to go ahead and move first to the refusal.
This application is for the use of this property, which is an existing large building for multifamily use as a four dwelling unit household living.
The area is zoned RSA 3.
Interestingly, though, this particular side of this block is RSA 3, but everything surrounding it is RM1.
And when we met with the community, the community actually gave us feedback with detailed feedback of support.
Also, while asking for some items of change on our floor plans, which we believe can be done through provisals.
Essentially, while this building is historically a single-family house, this entire block of these rather large three-story, four-story structures are predominantly multifamily.
In fact, the twin to our building, 4611, 4613, is five units.
Next door, there's additional ones that are six units, nine units.
Throughout the block, they're almost all multifamily.
And in fact, the neighborhood supported us converting these two apartments because, in their view, it would require someone rather affluent to be able to come and actually remodel this home back to a single-family use.
And they would rather see the building be used in a multifamily way to increase the neighborhood's vitality and diversity.
In doing so, they did have a few requests.
Our original floor plans had more bedrooms and no living rooms that were shown clearly.
So the community said limited to two bedrooms, provide us a nice living room so that we see these apartments and they're one per floor.
So this is these are sizable apartments would have a look of a living space that would welcome people and have more than just bedrooms.
And we did that. And we're willing to limit every unit to no more than two bedrooms in this case.
We also converted what used to be a rear storage area specifically into a trash room.
And we're willing to make sure that is done so that trash will be stored at the rear.
And finally, the community would like to keep the beautiful facade of the building, although they do understand that the facade will need some refreshing, such as paint.
But they ask that we do not change the facade in any way to keep the nature of these houses, to keep the look at the houses, which are quite nice and classical.
So we are in agreement with all of their requests.
What is shown here is the floor plan.
And how it works out to be four units is that this building has three floors, but actually a fourth floor that would be called an attic.
but it is actually tall enough that it's almost eight foot in height and therefore by laying out
each floor with the structures at about eight feet and a half to nine feet we're able to get
the four units design and it is not unusual for this part of the building to be used as a
residential portion of the building and in fact is in many of the other ones that are on the block.
So these would be two bedroom designs with the first floor only being, wait, I'm sorry, this looks like the, my apologies, these are the original plans.
We have, so the limitation is to remove one bedroom from each of the unit, and they would actually end up being two bedrooms.
I believe I have revised floor plans. My apologies. Let me see if I can share that with the board.
I'm not sure why these were not submitted with the revised floor design. One second.
I'm going to share the plans now with the board.
So this is the actual revised plan that the community eventually approved.
As you can see, I'm going to zoom in so it's easier for the board to see each floor.
as you can see the design has been limited to two bedrooms on each floor to provide
open living space for each unit and that was the agreed redesign and here is the public trash