1930s um we believe that by converting this uh particular property into a parking lot
sets a very kind of bad precedent for for the oak road and uh in terms of this would be the first
time there is a kind of really kind of institutional you look on commercial use of the
street and uh i think it opens given the precedent i kind of have to point out that the oak road
On the east, it actually borders with the Germantown-France School, athletic fields.
And the Germantown-France School does not have a single parking spot there.
So what parents do and students do when they have to come to the athletic fields,
they actually use Oak Road and the surrounding streets to park there.
So there are also two very large apartment complexes to the north and south of Oak Road
that also occasionally have a need and we've been witnessing that to to use the oak road as
for parking in addition we have a nearby train station that also like increases demand and
Drexel Medical School and Thomas Jefferson University so I just want to say this is
literally just a very isolated street on East Falls that you know occasionally it has kind of
bursty traffic and burst demand for parking.
So I think that's kind of one of my points.
I just want to make a couple more.
If you can go back to slide, let's see, seven.
So just to repeat something that I think is very important,
it's connectedness.
So currently those parkings that are labeled as M and K, which is majority of these 294 spots, are accessible.
So once you get inside of the campus, you can reach both parking lots from the inside of the campus.
So you don't need to exit to those red lines, which are the outside streets.
And if you go to the next slide, what happens here is that now we have five disconnected lots.
So what I want to point out, a case study, for example, you have somebody who wants to park at the parking lot T, which is this new proposed parking lot.
If they don't find a parking spot there, what will they do?
Well, certainly they have to go outside.
Unfortunately, if you go to the slide number 10, there is an example of what happens then.
It's not allowed for the cars to exit this Timmons parking lot to the right, to the Coulter Street.
So that's where I put the cross sign.
In fact, they need to continue driving and then coming to the Midway Avenue, which has a stop sign.
So it doesn't have traffic light.
And then their option is either to go right on Midway Avenue and their fastest way through is to go to Henry.
avenue which is a major street and then again make another turn go to the schoolhouse lane this
avenue which is a major street and then again make another turn go to the schoolhouse
is 1.3 mile road and then if actually they want to have a shortcut they will have to do the left
hand turn on this very busy midway avenue street where the speed limit is 30 and in fact
people are driving very often 50 miles an hour with not very good visibility and then they would
need to make another left turn to go through the oak road and another left turn to go to the
school house lane which is another busy street and then finally try to find the parking spot at
the parking lot k so it's kind of a 0.8 mile trip through the oak road we are assuming that
many students will not end up in in parking lot k they will actually stop and park at the oak road
tomorrow when they want to do the same thing they will not even try to go to park at the parking
lot t they will just directly park either on oak road or some other way of the other streets
so what i want to say this is the consequence of having disjointed parking lots and not being able
to access different parking lots easily and then that's why we have the i have a table on the if
you can go down one more and one more yeah this one so so you know i studied really the the the
Peer institutions, some of them are urban, some suburban, some are a little bit suburban. I wanted to point out that these comparable schools have about the same number of students.
All of those schools have less parking spaces on campus. All of those schools have either one or two disconnected lots. So some of them have just single connected lots, some of them have two.
What this new proposal is actually doing, it's proposing basically five separate lots that all require going back to the street.
And I think also it's important to point to the last three columns here, which counts the number of green fields, sports fields.
I want to point out that pan charter doesn't lack space. So they have, again, compared to all the other than rural schools, they have more sports fields. So I don't think this might be a reason why they need to seek to build this new parking lot on a residential street.
um so just probably one more point um so if you go to slide 10 sorry 23
uh so in in my mind this is a summary really what what we want to we want to point out too
uh so the on the left hand side you have what actually the current plan is proposing uh on
right hand side is one option so we are not as as as neighbors of pen charter we are not
asking for them to do this it's just an alternative and i wanted just to to see kind of
how this alternative compares there is also another alternative that i'll mention at the end
so as you can see here this timon's lot really creates 36 new parking spaces um while on the
other hand there is an opportunity for school to to build uh if they wanted up to 150 new spaces
i'm not claiming it's needed um then uh we with timon's lot you have seven residential properties
at less than 250 feet from this this new parking lot on the other hand if they expand the kurtz
lot there are no residential properties in the neighborhood timon's lot is at the heart
of a residential street.
It sets really bad precedent.
Again, you know, the other schools
and other entities will try to kind of repeat
what is done here.
It happens also that Timo's property
is a historical property,
as mentioned by Mr. Miller,
also on separate parcel.
And, you know, increased traffic and safety concerns.
Again, I'm thinking about even a student
who wants to park in Timo's lot
and starts and having to do all those left turns not just increasing traffic it's really dangerous
we're talking about teenagers who are rushing you know to school and want to kind of park as as soon
as possible um and uh you know as a minor point this timon's house lot has been used for uh social
events several times a year i remember first time when we came because our our son goes to pan
When we first time had a social event at Pancharder, we lived in a townhouse in Roxborough.
To us, this was a very big event, seeing this kind of historic place,
kind of almost being transported to a different era.
And I think it kind of serves some good purpose for the school.
So right now, actually, we are kind of almost removing that opportunity.
so right now actually uh you know we are kind of almost uh removing that opportunity uh so again
uh i think there is a third option and then finally i'll kind of stop there
um the third option is actually we have to realize that if you go back to uh one of the first slides
yeah with the with the maps so there's a slide seven so uh based on on on our count and what
what pen charter is saying currently there are 294 parking spaces and pen charter itself the
representatives mentioned that actually there is no planned increase in student body and there is
no planned increase in the number of staff members and as you can see the current plan is suggesting
351 parking spaces so another option might be actually not to actually add those 334 new parking
spots. In this case, we are going down to 200, around 215, which is still about 10% larger than
the current parking availability at the parent charter. So with this one, I would stop. And
again, thank you very much for your patience. Okay, I would offer him for cross.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I have no cross-examination of this
Thank you. Is that the end of your testimony
Mr. Miller? I don't know, Giovanna wants
I know she wanted to address one minor point about the
Okay, sure
Giovanna, are you there?
Yes, I'm here
If you could speak to the proposed landscaping and other visual screens that the school has proposed with respect to the proposed development of this lot.
Yeah, I would like to acknowledge that the school did propose kind of a visual relief to the parking spot, to the parking lot, but we think that, and my husband and I think and a lot of the neighbors think that the landscaping is not sufficient and it's kind of just a visual barrier that's not going to really hide that the historical character and the value of the house and the Oak Road is going to change permanently.
and definitely. And then there are specific issues that will definitely not be alleviated
just by the landscaping and by the berm that's proposed. I mean, one, it's the visual impact.
First, the berm and the greenery is not going to be at the level when it's planted, and it's going
to take really a long time, and it won't block the view. It will block the view just from the
roadside but it's not going to um alter any um detrimental visual impact from the higher elevation
we have a house that has a second and a third floor and definitely the parking lot is going to
be visible and observable both from our living room and our um in our bedrooms um we also worry
that the continuing maintenance of the landscaping may not be there so long term we don't know how
that will look. There is also going to be an impact of, as we said, the light pollution from
the 20 new lanterns that have been proposed on the 0.5 acres of the space, and that will
definitely change and, you know, have a detrimental effect on our lives. And we can see that the light
from the Athletic Center building is on 24-7, 365 days, although it's a school. We do see that
across the year. And then we haven't talked about, you know, the noise of the, you know,
60 plus cars and people getting in and out and just definitely loss of the green space and the
pollution that comes with it. I would offer for cross. Mr. Kelson? No cross examination. Thank
you. With that, in submission of the documents, I would have nothing further. Okay. So what I'd
like to do right now is open it up to the see if there's anyone in the virtual audience
i'm going to go to the board first questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions from the virtual audience or comments okay mr chair i have a mr stephen peitzman with
his hand raised i won't lie hi sir could you state your name please and spell it for the court
reporter? Of course. I'm Stephen, S-T-E-V-E-N, Peitzman, P-E-I-T-Z-M-A-N. Right. Do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Are you a
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
neighbor? Yes, I am. Proceed.
Yes, I am.
Proceed.
I'm a neighbor.
I live in the Carlton Park Apartments right across from Midvale Avenue and the Oak Road.
But more specifically, I'm president of the East Falls Historical Society.
And in fact, I wrote the nomination to place what we refer to as the Timmins House on the historic register.
Now, I realize that this is zoning, not historic, that they are separate, but they can't be entirely separated, really. And even in at least in one of the previous cases I was listening to, history was invoked.
So I believe that a house which is now over 100 years old and a very handsome one and a historic one, the Oak Road has a very, very remarkable history, not to go into here, of course, that bringing so many cars close to the house is really not appropriate.
And I'm not going to amplify statements already made concerning the neighbors on the Oak Road itself.
I would like to shift just a moment. And thinking about the parking, at the earlier part of this deliberation, there was a presentation from a parking and traffic expert, a Mr. Hyder.
That's right. And there's a paragraph within his report to the Penn Charter School that I find really puzzling and worth exploring or at least paying attention to to some extent.
And I'm going to read that quickly. Based on observation of current parking demand and the results of the driveway traffic counts, a parking accumulation curve can be established for a typical day at William Penn Charter School.
The results of these observations reveal that the maximum number of vehicles on campus for a typical weekday is about 315 vehicles, which will occur at about 3 p.m. during the height of the afternoon dismissal time period, when as many as 80 vehicles are on campus in the queue, waiting to pick up students, of course, and not occupying parking spaces.
Accordingly, only about 235 of the currently available 319 parking spaces will be physically occupied, even during the period of maximum parking demand for the campus.
And that's from the parking consultant engaged by the school.
And I know one of the considerations is that the city codes require even more parking.
So we're the paradox of Penn Charter wanting to increase parking, but not up to the level.
And they gave good reasons why the existing codes for parking per square foot are not applicable.
Right. So it seems that there really should not be need to add parking to the small lot that is already adjoining the Timmins House.
OK. And in keeping and just avoiding that would allow the house and the Oak Road to retain their beautiful and historic qualities.
OK. Thank you very much. Mr. Peitzman, thank you for your call and we appreciate it.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
Nancy Pontone with her hand raised.
I have allowed her to speak at this time.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
My name is Nancy Pontone, N-A-N-C-Y, last name P-O-N-T-O-N-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
I'm a neighbor.
i'm a member of the church on the oak road okay i do the gardening there i'm on that okay good
proceed with your testimony so i just want to comment about the um the put you know the the
idea of putting a berm and kind of uh covering up or changing the front uh property of in front of
the timmins house it has always been uh you know a level garden there and it gives a good view of
that house and i think to put a berm there and to sort of cover up the house would would really
change the the nature of that historic property it's the entire property that's it's on the
register not just the house itself so i i'm opposed to having a berm and extra landscaping
there i think that keeping it as is with it with the parking that is there right now would be the
most appropriate okay thank you thank you for your call and thank you for your input anyone else in
virtual audience um yes uh paul alia with their hand raised i've allowed them to speak at this
time sir okay proceed sir state your name and spell for the court reporter uh good afternoon
Hi, good afternoon. My name is Paul Aaliyah, P-A-U-L-E-L-I-A, and I'm the acting chair for the East Falls Zoning Committee.
my name is paul alia paul
Okay, sure. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, sir.
Well, I was just dialing in to express our support for the project.
The parking, yes, is always an issue in East Falls, but the school has also recommended and agreed to support permit parking on the Oak Road should the neighbors want to have that happen.
We submitted our letter, we had a vote with the zoning committee, and we had full support for the project.
Okay. Thank you very much for your input and your concern. Anyone else in a virtual audience?
Do not see any further hats, Mr. Chairman.
Hey, Planning Commission.
Mr. Chairman, might I just make one?
You can.
Just one quick statement.
And I'll give Mr. Miller a one, two.
That's a deal. That's a deal. I just want to point out to the board and to all listening in
that the Timmins parking lot is subject to the historical commission review and approval.
And that process will occur subsequent to zoning, but it is fully within their jurisdiction.
We've had numerous meetings with them, but I think it's important to note that their approval
is a prerequisite to the proposed improvements thank you mr chairman thank you mr miller you
have anything i don't have anything on that no thank you planning commission
thank you chair sarah bond city planning commission s-a-r-a-h-b-a-n-h
the comprehensive plan recommends no change the existing residential single family detached zoning
at this location. This proposal was reviewed by the Civic Design Committee, which concluded its
review on September 7th of this year. The CDR Committee offered mostly positive comments,
but noted the overly autocentric nature of the campus design, encouraging greater transit and