to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing i have thank you please proceed
and share your screen and mr clinton just for the record uh we're going to hold the vote on this
for an amended refusal and a new streets department review understood mr chairman
We will not vote on both these today, okay?
And Mr. Chair, I just want to interject.
We did not receive a letter from the RCO.
So Mr. Clinton, unless you've received one in the last day or so,
we can hold the record open for the letter from the RCO as well.
Did you receive any letter, Mr. Clinton?
Yes, I did receive letters at the last minute,
and I have them attached that I can forward to you
and also include them in this presentation.
Okay, great. And do the letters reflect the revised plan?
Okay, great. And do the letters reflect the revised plans that are going to be sent to L&I for an amended refusal? Is that what was presented to the community?
Okay, excellent. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Emerson. Mr. Chairman, is that visible or do I need to enlarge?
Thank you.
Okay. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm here today on behalf of 812 North Uber Street.
And as the chair said at the outset, there's really two cases that are the same, 812 North Uber, as well as 814.
And my client is on the call.
So basically, an introduction.
These are two multifamily buildings, and we're seeking one parking space for each building and the relocation and reduction of a curb cut for net gain of removing basically one car off the street.
And as I'll show you in the aerial photographs, this is a typical scenario on this particular block.
And the other request is for a rear deck on the property for the second floor tenant, similar to the deck at the adjacent property at 810.
This is my exhibit package, exhibits A1 through A10.
And again, Mr. Chairman, for both cases, I won't keep repeating that.
the addresses, but it's 812 and 814. Exhibits A1 through A10, which I ask to be admitted into
the record. This is the refusal. So two refusals have to do with parking. The first refusal has
to do with the rear deck. And as I said at the outset, this deck is consistent with the house
next door, which also has a deck to provide some outdoor space for the tenants on the second floor.
The second and third refusals concern parking, indicating the second refusal is for parking, as the panel knows, you have to have parking for any single family or multifamily must be accessed from a shared driveway, alley, or rear street.
In this instance, the parking we're asking for is in front of the building, consistent with other uses on the block.
And in this third refusal, I believe we've eliminated because it indicated that our space was not of sufficient width or depth.
And we've basically conformed with that because we've changed the location of where the parking space is going to be, which has in turn prompted the fact that I have to get an amended refusal, as the chair mentioned at the outset.
The RCO letters I do have, and I'll show you at the end of the presentation.
This is a photograph of the front of the building.
You can see there's a large apron in front of the building.
and these black spaces below the front of the building are egress well hatches for anyone who
happens to be in the basement to egress from the building. This is the building here. If you take
a line down the middle to the right-hand side is six units. There's three on the right side,
three in the middle, three again to the left of the middle, and three on the far left.
And again, you can see a large apron in front of the building.
And what's been happening, Mr. Chairman, is this is where the curb cut was.
And people, not necessarily residents, but people on the block are parking this way on the space and also parking to the left of the vehicle.
And it becomes very difficult for the management to track what's going on in front of the building, because if you park perpendicular to the building, you are actually blocking the egress wells in front of the building, which we want to eliminate.
So our proposal is to move the curb cut to the middle of the building, reduce the size of the curb cut to about 11 feet, and then have one car parked perpendicular to the building and the other car parked perpendicular to the building.
And I'll show you what that does. You can see if you park in this direction, you basically block the sidewalk, and we're trying to avoid that.
this is the aerial photograph for the rear of the building and i show you this photograph to show you
that on the block there's typically parking in front of the properties on the street not only
directly across the street down the street but also on the same side of the street so it's not
unusual but what each parking space is doing it's taking the car off the sidewalk and moving it back
away from the sidewalk. So there's easy pedestrian use. I also wanted to show the board that
we were asking for a deck off the back of both buildings. That's resulted in one of the refusals.
And you can see there's a deck next door, a little bit smaller than our proposed deck, but
it looks like it projects about the same amount, four feet from the building. And then that refusal
amount four feet from the building. And then that refusal is generated because the code says if you
is generated because
have a deck on the second floor, it's considered really an encroachment on the rear yard and that
lessens the rear yard. We are not lessening the depth of the rear yard. We're simply providing
a deck for tenants on the second floor so they can have some outdoor space. The tenants on the
first floor have use of the rear yard and the tenants on the third or fourth floor, which is
one unit have access to the rooftop deck. So we're just trying to offer another amenity for the
tenant in that second floor. Again, another aerial photograph, just a little bit distant from
the close rub photograph I showed you. Again, just to show the board parking across the street and
parking on the same side of the street. And again, here's the curb cut I mentioned where there's not
enough room to put a car perpendicular to the building. Really, the curb cut has to move to
the center and then have one space in front of the building to the left and one space in front
of the building to the right. This is a photograph looking down the street. Again, the proposal that
we have, the cars will be situated basically perpendicular to these first four trash cans,
and then you would be able to see the rear of the car
if there was a car in this photograph
and that way the egress well is protected
as well as the pedestrian walkway will be safeguarded.
This is the photograph looking the other direction.
Same thing, car will be parked parallel
providing egress for pedestrians
and not blocking the egress well.
This is our revised plans.
If the board looks kindly upon this application,
We're going to ask that these plans be submitted and approved.
So this is the front of the building.
Originally, Mr. Chairman, our proposal was, again, we were going to have cars parking perpendicular to the buildings.
That really is not something that's going to be compatible with easy ease of pedestrian access, as well as the egress wells.
So our plan is to have an 11-foot curb cut, move the existing curb cut down to the middle of the building.
Yes, we're losing one parking space on the street, which was brought up by the neighborhood,
but also the neighborhood realized if we had the curb cut, we're actually having net gain of one car being taken off the street.
Here are just some additional photographs.
This photograph is here we're rendering to show the board the rear deck that we're proposing.
The proposal is to keep the deck railing open, metal rails or something, so that light and
air continue to get through into the inhabitants of the second floor.
Again, the rear yard is not being affected in any way.
It's the reading of the code that resulted in that refusal.
We have our tax certification, application for appeal, all the other standard documents
you would expect to see within a zoning proposal such as this, including the deed.
These are the two letters of support that we received from United Francisville Civic Association.
a pretty strong vote, 12 in support and there were four in opposition and they submitted
two letters, one for 810 as well as one, excuse me, one for 812 as well as one for 814.
And if you look at the ZP numbers, you can see that there are two separate letters for
two separate projects.
So in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say that the application is not impacting lighter air. We're not asking for any relief with regard to height, open space, or rear yard.
It's basically a use that we're moving a curb cut, taking one car off the street, making it safer for pedestrians to walk by, and mirroring the use of parking on other properties on the street, as I showed in the aerial photograph.
With that, I would like to conclude and ask if my client could adopt my testimony and obviously field any questions that the board may have.
Yes, please.
Alon, can you unmute yourself?
Please raise your virtual hand and wait to be sworn in.
Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court stenographer?
Elan Elkayem, E-L-A-N as in Nancy, E-L-K-A-I-M as in Mary.
Ilan Elkayem
N-A-Z-N-N-C-E
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, counsel.
Elan, were you on the Zoom call when I presented your projects?
And if you had the opportunity to testify, would you adopt my testimony as your own and as true and correct?
Yes, sir.
Thank you, sir.
questions from the board no chair no mr chairman
no chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any hands mr chair hi planning commission ron bednar city planning
this recommendation is for both properties are indicated for residential use on the city plan
Our adopted district plan recommends no change to existing zoning at these locations.
The applicant's hardships are not supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances
that would prevent them from being used before with the regulations.
therefore we recommend
requests for various not being ran
we need to hold the vote for an amended
refusal and a new streets
department review
Hillary
it's closed just for those
objects
it'll just be closed for that
and this will
we'll put this on an add-on list we don't need to do
a resumption hearing
so that's for number 3 and number 7
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. Number four, MI 2023-000-126-2105 Ellsworth Street. Michael McElhenney is the attorney. Letter of support from the Point Breeze Community Development Coalition.
hi counsel how are you how are you sir excellent please state your name and spell for the court
sonographer michael mcelhenney m-c-i-l-h-i-n-n-e-y right do you swear affirm tell the truth the
whole truth nothing but the truth i do could you identify your client and the relationship to this
property? Yes, my client's plural is 91C LLC and Maidcon, M-A-D-C-O-N-L-L-C, the owners of the
property 2105 Ellsworth and 2107 Ellsworth, respectively. All right, our vice chair has a
few questions for you, sir. Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of
the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Have you emailed in all the
required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this hearing? I have. I have. Please proceed and share your screen.
Excellent. I just shared my exhibit packet on the screen, which the packet consists of 17 exhibits,
uh preliminarily the at exhibit 12 are our is a copy of our zoning appeal to the board
exhibit 13 are just the photos showing the property was posted with the notice of the zoning hearing
exhibit 14 is our rco notice for the community meeting that we held with the point breeze
Community Development Coalition. And Exhibit 15, there's an additional community flyer that the
Point Breeze community requires us to mail out. We've included that at the property and mailed
out to the neighbors. My client's deeds are at Exhibit 16. As I mentioned, there's two LLCs
involved, 91C LLC owns 2105 Ellsworth, and then Madecon LLC owns 2107 Ellsworth Street, which are
the two properties at issue. Exhibit 17 is just a copy of the tax, Philadelphia Tax Center report
for each property showing zero tax balances on both. As the chairman mentioned when I was zooming
in, rejoining as a panelist. The Point Breast Community Association held a meeting in May,
on May 22nd, and we have full support for this project today. Exhibit two is our refusal.
Exhibit two is our refusal. So my client is proposing to redraw the lot lines, create a subdivision for taking the existing two lots and create four lots from the existing two lots.
So my client is proposing
Thank you.
On those four lots, we plan to construct four new construction attached structures with roof deck and roof deck access structures and for single family use.
and three of the four properties are proposed to have off-street parking.
This application created two refusals.
One, the property is owned to RS-85, and that creates the off-street parking in the RS-85's neighborhood from a front-loaded garage is not permissible by right,
and three of the four proposed houses have off-street parking.
The second refusal is because, as you'll see on the plans, there is a side yard created
with this project, and we are proposing a six-foot fence for privacy at the front of
the properties, and that fence would be a wooden fence that would be more than 50% opaque.
So we have two refusals as part of this project.
And if I can give a quick background of this property, this project is actually back before
the board for the second time.
We were originally before the board in January of 2021.
We met with the Point Breeze community in 2020, and the original proposal was to create
six lots from the existing two lots and create six single-family houses with no off-street
parking.
On January 27th, 2021, the zoning board granted our variances for the proposed six lots because
we had a dimensional refusal for having slightly substandard lot sizes.
After getting the notice of decision and approval from the zoning board, Councilman Johnson's office filed a request for reconsideration and reached out to my office and we consented to the reconsideration.
The councilman wanted additional input from the community and more of a consensus plan.
we did go back and meet with the neighbors back in 2021 in april and i have copies of those letters
from april 6th and april 7th from the point breeze community then where they basically wanted
to reduce the density slightly and they didn't want to lose the off-street parking and exhibit
11 just shows the main unit the main issues they wanted four units three garages and basically
dimensionally compliant houses height wise and open area so that brought us back to the drawing
board to redraw the plan and come back with the proposed plan today for the board, which is this
consensus plan with and which is why we have full community support. Exhibit 3 is just a copy of the
zoning map for the subject property. It is RSA 5 single family. The properties to the east of us
are RM1. The properties to the north of us are I2, which are all the properties along Washington
Avenue. Exhibit four are aerial views of the subject property, just to orient the board into
the location of the property and its surrounding environment. Page one of exhibit four, the
properties at issue are on the north side of Ellsworth Street, which consists of various
single-family houses, many of which have off-street parking, and I'll go through the street view
photos so the board can see that. The properties to the west, as you can see, is the Jehovah's