Okay. Start video.
Okay. Thank you.
Good morning.
At least proceed, counsel.
Yeah. Hi, Connie.
Two things. One is, did you hear my presentation in terms of?
Yes, I did.
Okay. And if you testified, would you be able to testify substantially and adopt my testimony as truthful?
Yes, I will.
And you wanted to add something. Let me jump in there and see if you wanted to add something.
I was just going to say, we've been actually, this July will be 19 years that we've been operating Frankie's Road.
And this indeed is because you essentially have to move from Poplar Street and you did a long search with your board of directors and everything.
And this property seems to be ideal for what your needs are?
Yes, it does. With the open space in the offices, we will actually be gaining about 4,000 square feet,
which is desperately needed okay thank you mr perney what are the other uses in the building
uh there's a rather limited uh but there is there are three uses that i noted there's a recording
studio on the second story uh there is a storage area here that's used primarily uh there's an
italian american club that uses it uh for storage and there's also some mummers storage i didn't
include the photographs, but there are photographs of mummers' costumes and so forth. This is down
in the area, Pennsport mummers, Italian-American, and so forth. So it's really light use now.
The people, as per the letter that the owner noted, it's up here, okay, indicated and so forth,
as of right industrial, but they have not
pursued industrial. They were in music
recording studio storage tenants,
bouts of properties with Frankie Worlds
and a professional office tenant.
So we asked the owner
as to what their plans were
and they provided that information.
They attended Whitman Council
and so forth and everybody seems to be
happy with
having Frankie's World move into
this space.
Questions from the board?
Yes. Can you show me again how the children, particularly those who might have a wheelchair or something like that, are going to access the ramp and actually get into the space?
Absolutely. And Connie, as she indicated, has been dealing with disabled child, children who suffer disabilities for 19 years now. This has been designed by.
I know Ms. Lockwood.
Okay, so here is what the plan is.
This is a private access way.
Vehicles, including handicap accessible vehicles and so forth,
would be able to come in off of Water Street.
It's a wide, I'll show you that, but it's a wide gated area here.
They will come in here and be able to turn around.
And the proposed new entry is right here.
There's an ADA compliant ramp, and there's a dedicated entrance right here that pre-exists right now.
It's an old loading dock area and so forth.
So this will all be upgraded to an access ramp and so forth with a drop-off.
So if they drop off children here on the ground level, there's a slight rise up to the first level with a large entrance here that's going to be pre-existing.
and this it's already pre-existing and then a ramp up and then we will come into the Jackson
Street area which is area here so you see here where they come in and go into the space separate
from the staff area okay and then is there a separate entrance for um those who are using
the second floor and is that completely separate from the space that will be used by
the center? Yes, there are multiple entrances in terms of access. There's a right here
is the former main access where this comes in. This is sealed off from the center and then there's
where this comes in this is sealed off from the center and then there's stairs
stairs.
or wide stairs to go up to the second floor here there's also going to be a separate entrance for
staff this is primarily a staff area here so i'm not i'm not worried about the people that are
working within the facility i'm work i'm worried about the uh that there's a separation from those
who might be using the other commercial spaces within the building on the second floor.
There's a main entrance right here so that those people who want to access the second floor come
in here and go up the stairs. There'll be essentially a sealed doorway here that goes into
the Frankie's World. So this is a common area here.
okay and then my last question what were the hours again for this um facility sure connie
what are your normal hours going to be frankie's world operates from 7 a.m children start leaving
at 3 30 and we close the doors at five and that's that's five days a week five days a week okay
thank you all the questions for the board yeah could you just clarify for me
um you said that the front entrance where people go to get on the second floor you said there's a
door that they can access to get to frankie's world right there is that where your second
cursor is that will be a fire door with a um exit only from frankie's world there'll be no
entrance allowed where's the emergency egress for those with wheelchairs
where's the i'm sorry where's the left there another emergency egress or fire exit for
those with wheelchairs we are talking to our um architect about the door that we just discussed
being the fire door having a um i'm not sure exactly what they call it but it there's a
storage area right there where we could put down a, it's a portable ramp. It's made by Rubbermaid
and it's made to go right on top of stairs. You've seen them a lot in churches. The ramp
is one foot per two inches, which is not quite what is recommended, but it's still within the
reasonable way of getting the children out a second entrance there on the other side there
is another exit pardon me do you know if that's going to meet your fire code requirement for
legal i believe it is and there is another entrance if you look to the opposite side of
the screen you'll see some dark areas and there's an entrance there that goes into a very large
courtyard that's shared by um uh another building on the other side which i i believe is a um it's
like a cash and carry type place for groceries but there is um a large area out there and there
will be yeah right over the right you can see right where you are there roger that that goes
into a courtyard and there's no stairs that goes right out onto another yes gotcha okay
any other questions for the board
yes one more um is there a play area for the children the okay um a lot of our children
are heat and sun sensitive so what we have if you look at the dark area where we were just
discussing is what we have in this building we call tricycle alley there's there's a swing set
there's bicycles um we are going to have some type of jungle gym indoors um we also have um these
rolling carts that you
can put children in. I'm sure you've seen them at daycares. There are six
in a rolling cart. And there's a playground
at 2nd and Jackson that we have access to. So it's
a block and a half away.
For the children that can go outside. A lot of our children are not allowed to.
Understood. Thank you.
Question from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience or the audience here?
I see no hands.
Planning Commission, do you want to change your position?
No, sir. We'll stand on our position that we gave the last time.
Stay with your position.
Yes, sir.
Okay. So, Council, we're going to hold this and talk about it in an executive session.
And Hillary, what's the date? We're not here next week. It'll be the following Wednesday.
And, Hillary, what's the date?
We're not here next week. It'll be the following Wednesday.
Yes, that sorry. Yes, that will be April 23rd, 930 that we would vote.
April 23rd, we will vote at 930, Mr. Perry. And thank you, Mr. Perry.
Thank you. I'll note that. Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.
Number five and number six, we'll hear it together. MI 2024-005-664-7213 Edmond Street and MI 2024-006-093-7211 Edmond Street. Alan Nocklinson is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from Taconi Civic Association, and they're both resumptive hearings.
all right mr knockamson just for the record please state your name
alan knockamson and as we stated mr knockamson this will be a result of hearing and we'll be
looking for an update from the applicant about revised plans you'll have questions from the
board public testimony and the planning commission yes why don't you start and we're going to do both
at the same time thank you um i did create combined presentation materials for purposes
of this hearing i did make separate submissions for each of the testimony appeals uh may i share
my screen yes just make sure I have the right one all right so let's just get to the heart of the
matter, the revised plans. So just as again, as a reminder, we're here to take these two separate
zoning appeals where there's two separate properties and we're essentially dividing it up
to four duplexes. It's not out of character to have duplexes here where 7224, 7226, 7228, and 7230
are also duplexes on that block.
I'm just going to go through quickly through the refusals.
So that's the first refusal.
The second refusal has to do with the maximum occupied area
where the refusals are generally the same
in terms of the refusals.
Maybe the percentages may change a little bit,
but that's a diminished refusal
of where we're requesting to have an occupied area of 52.2%.
We're trying to have nice floor plans for these properties.
Second refusal is the front yard depth, where eight feet is required and we're proposing six feet 11 inches.
Again, not out of character and I'll just quickly go through those drawings.
The fourth refusal has to do with side yard width.
So just quickly to just show you just that what we're proposing is not out of character.
in terms of those dimensional refusals. As you can see here,
we have nearby properties with non-conforming front yard depths.
And then we have nearby properties with minimal or no side yard depths. I will say that the
properties that we have that are unrelated to us, to left and right of us, have significant
side yard depths in that it helps us in terms of our smaller side yard depth. So we're not
affecting the people to the left and right of us. And in terms of our side, your depth of three feet,
eight inches. If you combine it, it's seven feet, six inches. So there's ample side your depth.
Now, in terms of our revised plans, I have them here. So there were several comments that were
made to us at the initial hearing. First was about egress in the rear for the for the lower floor
unit. So what we suggested at the hearing and what we have done here is we have created
egress steps. Like instead of just having an egress well, we have a staircase to the rear
yard so someone could just walk out. And that was something we proposed at the original hearing.
We also increased the height of the lower level by two feet, eight inches to provide more light
and air, which was very important, um, discussion, um, during our last hearing. Um, and we also
eliminated the egress well in the front. Uh, so we're not going to have to living in the,
in the front in the basement. Um, but we have, because that was a concern because where the
egress well was going to work was inside the, uh, the front porch. And it was concerned about like,
and it was concern about like what if someone puts patio furniture there someone's not going
what if someone puts patio furniture there, someone's not going to be able to
to be able to get it in there so we eliminated the the living in the basement in the front we
Thank you.
by raising the building where we got the extra light is we put windows underneath the porch as
well so now we have windows all around the perimeter for windows more light in there for
the people downstairs we have egress in the back we've eliminated that concern of the board with
the porch. And we also there was one thing with the side, what
did we do with the side? Oh, we provide exterior ramp inside
yards to access side unit entry door. So again, providing more
entry access for the that lower level units. So we have two sets
of revised plans, one for each project, given, you know, you
unanimous support from the community which is well documented the petition and our efforts to
conform in more towards the philadelphia zoning code we respectfully request that the board grant
these variances thank you do you want to bring your client on to adopt uh yes so we should have
Admir Bihari, who should be in the virtual audience.
Admir Bihari, please accept the panelists.
Hello?
Hi, could you please state your name as Bell for the sonographer?
Hey, my name is Admir Bahari. It's A-D-A-M-I-R, and last name is B-H-A-R-I.
Stonographer, did you get that?
Yes, Chair. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes. Admir, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
And is it true and correct?
and do you adopt this your own testimony yes sir thank you questions from the court
can you pull up the floor plans again sure
and it looked like there's a reduction in stories is it it's now two stories um i don't
from the rendering i think the rendering doesn't give it justice but let me just let me see what
we have here. Yeah, I think it was a setback in the front, by the way. And that's why it looks
like it again to mimic the architecture on the block where you see a lot of two stories. So from
the front, it looks like a two story structure. Again, it's a porch neighborhood, we mimic that
architecture as well. But let me go through the floor plans.
That's the inspiration behind, you know, the design.
Okay, so you have like an entryway for the upper level unit in the front of the building,
and you have an entryway for the lower level unit on the side.
So as you can see here, there is an open floor plan of a kitchen and a dining area.
there's a bathroom and there's bedrooms there's an open floor plan down here for additional space
and there's one additional bedroom and with a bathroom down there but now we have direct access