with some greenery. These are photos of the other surrounding corners and photos of posting
of the property that I will scroll through quickly for the board to see. Let me jump right to the
PLANS. THESE ARE REVISED PLANS THAT WE'RE PRESENTING TODAY AND I SENT MS. SALETTA A PROVISO FORM
AND THREE PAGES OF REVISED PLANS. THESE REVISED PLANS REFLECT SOME SMALL REVISIONS TO THE PROJECT
THAT OCCURRED AS WE WENT THROUGH THE RCO AND THE CDR PROCESS. AS YOU CAN SEE HERE, THIS IS THE
existing site. So zooming in a little bit, we're going to have a parking area that's located both
here and here with the residential that we built above. As we front on American Street, the portion
of the property that immediately fronts American Street is lower than the rest of the property,
and I'll show you a rendering of that. The reason that was done is, as I explained, this property to
the side has the existing warehouse and so we set back the height towards the second street side to
allow for light and air for this existing parcel. There's going to be a pedestrian walkway that goes
through the site. I'm showing that here. That was one of the things that we did as part of our
conversation with the RCO and the nature of the revised plans. The main revision was we reconfigured
the commercial space as it fronts on Second Street and removed the curb cut there and created
this pedestrian walkway through the site that's also adjacent to an open area that will be used
as a general purpose open space. The conversation that we had with the RCL, one of their main
concerns was to preserve the open access of this walkway. This is a very long block of American
Street, and so to avoid people having to walk around a very large rectangular block, we've
opened up this cut through to the public, and we've told the RCO that it has our intention to
leave it ungated, and the plans don't show any gate, and we've set it up in that fashion. Here
are the basic elevations of the site uh these will be more impactful for you as i go to
the actual renderings uh this uh this would be the commercial space along the ground with the
residential units above and this is another view this is towards this is the american street
frontage here second street is to the back this is the lower level portion of the building that
I was referring to that fronts on American Street. One of the other plan revisions we did was to
increase the height of this lobby and entrance structure to add some additional height to the
front portion as it faces American Street. That was one of the things that the community had asked
for and was part of the CDR process as well. And this is just a section showing you the eventual
to be constructed building. As I mentioned earlier, the project went through CDR and we were able to
complete that process with these plans. This is again another rendering showing how the building
will look from the American Street frontage. The RCO in your packet is a letter of
The RCO in your packet is a letter of support from the RCO.
I want to briefly touch on just two of the items that they mentioned because there's been some further conversation with the RCO since this letter was sent to you.
And they may be on the line.
They had asked for a couple of provisos that we couldn't agree to.
The first one was that they asked for the dog park to be made a permanent public addition.
That was the result of some confusion in the way that the diagrams for the space were presented.
We are not proposing a dog park as part of the site.
So that is a moot point.
With regard to the pedestrian walkway, what we have agreed to with the RCO is that we would meet with them
in the future event that we would like to close that gate, we will reach out to them and discuss.
The owner's concern here, you know, particularly in light of recent events around the country,
if there's civil unrest or some other need to secure the property, he needs to leave himself
the opportunity to do that, but is trying to create as welcoming a public space as possible.
The RCO, as I noted, voted to support, and their letter is in your packet.
and with that given the board's lengthy agenda I will stop I will ask my client
to raise his hand so I can have him adopt my testimony and then we'll answer any
particular detailed questions the board may have Adam Lasowski can you virtually raise your hand
please and while he's being recognized Mr. Chair I will mention one of the other points is that 10
of the units in this building will be affordable at 50% AMI. We also agreed with the RCO that we
would offer 2,500 square feet of the commercial space at a 50% market rate discount to enable the
space to be used by a local maker or business. Your client has been unmuted. He's free to speak.
Adam, can you hear us? Yes, good afternoon.
Adam can you spell your name for the record please sure it's Adam Lysuski L-I-S-A-U-S-K-Y
Mr. Chair we're not hearing you I see you speaking but we're not hearing you
could one of the other board members swear in Mr. Lysuski
yes do you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do thank you thank you mr holliman um can you hear me now yes we can okay thanks tom
good um adam did you have a chance to listen to my uh presentation and comments
i did do you adopt my testimony as true correct in your own i do thank you um mr chair as i said
we have the architect on the line if the board has any specific questions but i would rest my
uh presentation at this point thank you questions from the board no
would anyone else like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
that includes members of the rs and rco and any member from the council district office
Mr. Chair, I have Sloan Foulkes with his hand raised. I will allow him to speak right now.
Mr. Foulkes, you're still under oath. Please identify yourself.
Good afternoon, Chairman DiCicco and members of the ZBA board. Sloan Foulkes, S-L-O-A-N-E-F as in
fire, O-L-K-S, Office of Councilwoman Maria Quinonez Sanchez, room 508 City Hall.
the applicant having met with the community and receiving a letter of support the councilwoman
offers no opposition to this gamers request thank you thank you anyone
anyone else would like to testify
thank you uh planning commission good afternoon david effecto philadelphia city planning
commission mr chairman and members of the board this property is indicated for industrial commercial
mixed use in the city's comprehensive plan this proposal went to the civic design review committee
the committee had very few comments on the proposal and believed it was well designed
We did want to note for the record that the affordable units that the applicant proposes
are a nice gesture, but they have not entered into an agreement with the city to provide
those units, so the applicant has no obligation to maintain them as affordable.
Yeah, so just so the board is aware, this application was submitted to LNI just prior
to the overlay that was enacted over this area that made it part of the zoning code
to require affordable units.
Because we submitted just prior to that, we're not obligated to follow it, but we wanted
to work with the community and support the councilwoman's um agenda for for affordable
housing and so we've made that commitment uh to her um so it's part of the record thank you i i
would i would be very surprised if we didn't follow through with that commitment okay that's
part of the record thank you mi 2020-001237 1801-59 north american street is there any revised
plan i'm sorry there are mr chair uh three pages three pages my vote is yes with revised proviso
revised plan three pages approved today yes with proviso yes with proviso yes with proviso
thank you very much any further uh i know we're running late is the sonographer does
there's a sonographer need a break i apologize for not asking we have a couple more cases
mr chairman if i could have a quick bathroom break that would be great
okay we'll see you in 10 10 minutes thank you thank you sorry about that
20-002-482-1916 delancey place
is that you mr notkinson is this your case
yes you're not missing i'm sure he's on mute i believe he's on mute
yes yes mr chair all right mr knockins as you know you're still under oath
uh i have to read off the other stuff here uh you agree to wave and stip i do and have you
emailed an exhibit packet that with the required documents including proof of ownership tax
compliance a copy of the refusal or referral and photos and or plans of the property five days in
advance of today's hearing i have and have you met the rco i have okay mr knockison please proceed
so i have a unique circumstances first time during uh covet 19 and zoom my internet's not working in
my office but i have the presentation materials in front of me and i'm going to have my co-counsel
uh clementa amazon uh if you can promote her to a host she's going to share her screen
and provide the documents and i'll walk you through with miss amazon's help
may i share well good evening chairman and members of the board
if they're new please identify yourself with a record and then say amazon
if you can either raise your volume or get a little closer to the mic that would be helpful
can you hear me better now yeah better and then while you're doing that uh do you swear and
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do thank you
all right so as you can see we are presenting 1916 to lancy place and along with uh miss amazon
on the line is the owner of the property christopher spay uh so mr spay did not
recently purchased this property and he discovered soon after that he purchased the property he had
water issues in his backyard which led to water infiltration into the basement and this was not
an uncommon occurrence. So I'm going to go through the table of contents. Clementa can you go down
one page so along with my table of contents is the deed to the property and you'll see that
clementa can you go down showing that mr spay owns the property
after that is the certificate of tax clearance
which you know shows that mr spay owns the property and then after that is the notice
of refusal. Hold on a second. So this is an RSA 5 property. We're not trying to get any
use variances. What we're merely trying to do is that as part of the process of dealing
is that as part of the process of dealing with the water infiltration issues
with the water infiltration issues,
it was recommended to mr spade by professionals to uh to install a one-story structure at the rear
of his property which will prevent water infiltration into his basement at the time
he hired a contractor with his understanding that he was going to get all permits necessary
you know as part of that renovation project unfortunately the contractor did not pull the
permits did not tell Mr. Spey that uh he needed to get special approval from this board in order
to get the in order to do what he wanted to do or was advised to do so more than halfway through
the project after spending tens of thousands of dollars we're here today to legalize that
structure and continue to get the zoning permit and then eventually the building permit and fix
you know the situation so we have two variances one for open area where 25 is required where zero
is proposed and the other one is for the rear yard setback where nine feet is required and zero is
proposed so after this is our application for appeal which we followed with the zoning board
adjustment. And then after that, you have the zoning map. And you'll see where we are in the
area. Again, we're in the Rittenhouse Square of Philadelphia. If you look at the aerial view,
the next one after the zoning map. So it's actually not uncommon what Mr. Spey is requesting.
If you look at the properties, the property, if you look at, if you're facing the front of his
house, the property to the left of him, it's a double-wide property, but it actually has
full lot coverage. Clemenza, can you go back to the actual aerial view, which is nearby properties
with full lot coverage? Thank you. You'll see that the property to the left of Mr. Spade has
full lot coverage. You'll see another angle of that. And a lot of the properties on Delancey
street throughout the block have a similar situation again again it's not uncommon if we
walk by this property uh built as proposed we're not asking for anything that other individuals on
that block don't have if you we'll go past the other map you look at the photographs of the
property uh first one's to find the property then there's properties on delancey street to the right
to the left
and then the rear of the property so this is us looking out on our second floor
you'll see that the person that's behind us on panama um has a tree that purposefully you know
blocks for privacy purposes um any type of view from our property so our one-story structure by
the way is slightly above our fence uh it would have no effect on anyone's light and air
and you go to the picture after that go back to that picture again just a second
that looking at this the lower portion of the photograph that gray area looks like slate slabs
is that is that the pavement no that's actually the top of that top of that okay that we're trying
to legalize but you can see like that the lip of that structure is much lower than any tree
that board that that's behind us on panama street i thought it was i just wanted to double check
because it's a little yeah okay thank you and then if you go to the next picture this is the property
of the rear of the property as it looked previous to the installation of that structure. You'll see
that there is also, in addition to the tree, there's a lattice as well, which is above our
roof line. And then you'll see the rear easement of the property. There's a setback of three feet
between the properties on Delancey Street and Panama. And then you'll see a picture of an
existing drainage pipe from our property. This is our rear wall. So what we understand it to be
is that at one point it seems like there may have been a structure attached to our rear wall.
That's why there was a rear pipe embedded into it. So the history of this property,
although we don't have any pictures of that structure, shows that there was probably a
structure back there to begin with a one-story structure at one point. Now you look at the
picture of the subject property. So our property as you can see is where the ladder is and you have
the two skylights and then if you look at the property that's to the left of us you see that
it's a two-story structure full lot coverage above us and then you look at the pictures of the two
full lock coverage above us and then you look at the pictures of the two decks that are next
to us or the rear yards that would be 1918 and 1920 we actually have letters of support from
those neighbors so those neighbors will be most affected in a lot of ways from the continuation
of this rear structure and and they are in support of this project after that are pictures
showing interior water damage. Again, this was a significant insurance claim showing the basement
area that was flooded because of the infiltration from the rear yards prior to the installation
of this rear structure. Again, Mr. Spade, upon professional advice, was advised to remedy this
situation, which I guess has been a lingering effect for this property, was to install this
rear structure and his understanding was he was installing it by law and here's
more pictures of the interior water damage and then you can see the rear
yard you know we have they had to rip it off like it says exterior water
damage and when you see the mold there but you see the very yard it was pretty
significant water damage and then you'll see the architectural plans and drawings you know we're
trying to take this really seriously even though this is just a legalization of a structure we
understand that it's in a really nice area of philadelphia and that you know many people are
passionate about you know legalization of structures that went up you know without
government permits so as you can see here you see the two skylights that's our structure
again to if you you know if you're looking to the left there's a two-story structure which goes
straight up full lot coverage and then the other thing i would point out to those pictures you see
the planters on to the rear of our property that's our property owner to the rear of us now this is
a rendering but you know if you we couldn't get a good picture of it but they also have in addition
to a tree they have planters up there and the lattice so and then you'll see the floor plans
of the property not that it matters but the room that we're if you look at the first floor
the room that we're adding is a 14 uh by nine foot uh room
and then you'll see a site plan that we that was created as well
and one additional drawing and you know just the rear elevation the front elevation the most
important thing is the one story structure is is only once it doesn't affect anyone's light
in there in the sense of it barely goes above the pre-existing uh rear uh rear uh wall now we
there was questions during the meeting with the center city residence association is whether the
structural stability of both the wall as well as the structure. So after the meeting, we actually
obtained an opinion from a structural engineer, which states that the rear brick wall