So that means each of the unit owners would get two parking spots. And you'll see from the floor
plans as well, it's very comfortable. We're not trying to add so many, you know, units and we're
not trying to add so many bedrooms. And the property owner actually plans to live in one of
them. But one of the issues was like, what, you know, what effect would it have on?
But one of the issues was like, what, you know, what effect would it have on the light and air of the neighboring property owners?
And, you know, I take fault for this, that we didn't have a shadow study because that was one of the things they were demanding.
And in this letter, they actually stated that they're like, well, you know, we believe that this is going to cause undue hardship or harm to the light and air of the surrounding neighbors.
So after that, after our community meeting, we actually conducted a shadow study.
And, you know, John Newecker-Lee of Boxwood Architects is going to show you that in actuality, what we're proposing is in a lot of respects better than what would be allowed as of right.
Let me interrupt you for a minute. I think I heard you say earlier that the proposal is 40 feet, 8 inches.
That's right.
2 feet, 8 inches over what is a by right, correct?
That's right, Mr. Chairman.
Yeah, the issue is, and John will mention it, is just the fact we can't lower the building.
And we can't reconfigure the height of the floors given that there are steel beams going across.
It would be almost practically impossible to do that.
And you'll see from our revised plans, we actually lowered the height of that third floor as reasonably possible.
So that one portion of it is 39 feet, and another portion is 40 feet, 4 inches.
So we even lowered it even more.
But he'll go through that.
But again, the biggest thing was, what would be the impact in the neighboring properties from a shadow effect?
There would be none.
Some of the comments at the community meeting was this, build as a right.
And we stated, well, if we build as a right, we can put two single-family homes really big, which may not be practical.
But then we wouldn't have parking for these individuals.
Here we have a sufficient amount of parking of six parking spots for three properties.
And I can see the flip side of it.
If I was going to propose hypothetically to ask for a variance to destroy a historically significant property in South Philly and try to put some new construction, I would have been killed at the community meeting.
here we're trying to repurpose something where it has off street parking and a significant amount
of it for only three units so that's that's where the group came out in terms of that so
I'm going to like leave it now to John Weckerle who's on the call so John can you virtually raise
your hand is the intention of the owner to leave ralph de amico and brothers up the signage up
there um i would defer i i'm not going to answer it doesn't matter to me i just was curious i mean
it looks like at least from the rendering
probably yes
but I would ask
the owner
it's not a big deal I just was curious
Mr. Chair
Mr. Albert Alburgo
good afternoon sir
please identify yourself with a net record
name and address by your last name
Mr. Alburgo you may unmute
can you hear me now sir yes okay my name is andrew albergo i am the next door neighbor to
the property i live at 1226 annon street your last name please a l b e r g o um mr firm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do sir you're not the architect are you no he's
that's what i was going to say if we can make our presentation and then we can have any comment from
the community yeah mr alberger you have to just wait and give us a few minutes we have to get the
i understand the architect on we'll get back to you thank you thank you just for a refresher who
is the architect again mask john weckerly all right excuse me mr reckonly has been allowed to
speak, Mr. Weckin-Lee. Can you guys hear me now? Yes, please identify yourself.
John Weckin-Lee, Lockswood Architects, 1315 Walnut Street, Suite 1614, Philadelphia, PA.
By your last name, please. I'm sorry, Chair, W-E-C-K-E-R-L-Y.
We're and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes. Please proceed. Thank you for everybody's time today. Alan, if you wouldn't mind,
just scrolling as we talk through the images we'll be able to present here.
I think as Alan described, here we're looking at the site plan as you can see in the upper
left the property is 34 feet wide on the width, the length of the building is
On the width, the length of the building is 108 foot two on the east side and 91 foot on the west side with a stagger in the back, you know, based on the dimensions that are shown.
The rest of this drawing goes over the requirements that Alan described in the refusal.
We include a building section, which we have a more explanatory section, which we'll share
in a moment. First floor, second floor, third floor, elevation that you saw on the rendering.
Go ahead, proceed, Alan. What is the current height of that building?
I'm sorry, the current height is 29 foot seven. Thank you.
So here you can see on the ground floor, just based on the parking analysis, we're proposing
to reuse the existing garage door that is there.
It's got an existing 15-foot width door there now.
We're showing the kind of configuration for six parking spaces that nestle between the
existing columns that provide the structural framing for the left side right side of the
of the property it was discussed that kind of in between those double banks of of of parking we
would have an opportunity to provide storage for the for the units above above the parking you can
see the stair the lobby and the stair that would access the residential units above which is similar
Similar to where the existing stair is for the access to the second floor now, adjacent
to the stair on the right is where we're proposing our internal trash storage and utility area.
Additional trash storage as needed would be within the building in that ground floor common
area between the garage door and the first parking space.
Moving to the second floor, you can see as you arrive at the top of the steps entrance
into the first unit, which, as Alan said, the intent is Tim Barling, who is the owner of the
property, is also on the call. This will be his primary residence. You can see living space on
the ground floor. And then I'll get to the third floor in a moment. And then below Tim's unit would
be two rental condo units with access, as Alan is pointing there and there, with internal stairs
at each unit to get to the third floor. Moving to the left image, you can see there that
upon access to the third floor at Tim's unit, it's a large one bedroom with a roof deck
north of the proposed facade wall. We're proposing an 11 foot six deep deck that would be set back
five feet off of the existing exterior storefront wall as the code requirement would require.
And then in the back, you can see the additional two units were proposing a one-bedroom and a
two-bedroom based on the layout shown. Both of those units, as Alan said, would have their rear
rear wall, the existing, the proposed rear wall would be north of the existing building wall and
offer more of a setback than the minimum nine foot requirement. I believe that based on the
rear decks, our total open area proposed for this third floor is 35% as opposed to the required 25
on the, on the, on the, on the standard delivery. So Alan, go ahead, proceed. Okay.
So, so, and I don't know, Alan, if you can zoom in any further on this, on this image.
Oh, hold on a second. Sorry. Try it. Hold on a second. Let me, actually, let me unshare my screen
and then kind of, then actually, hold on a second. It probably would be best for you to, I might
be harder at uh i don't have this on my computer so it'd be better if you can continue moving if
you don't mind no i'm just going to say i'm going to share it a different way so then you can
see it a different way and we can expand out
let's see okay
oops maybe that's too big
Okay. Is that better?
Yeah, that works. So we spent a lot of time, you know, based on the development of the design and then subsequent to working with the RCO to kind of understand the physical footprint that we're proposing here as part of this.
as you can see in section, the ground floor has a ceiling height of approximately 14 feet
and the second floor has a ceiling height of approximately 13 foot 7.
And the second floor has a ceiling height of approximately 13 foot 7.
All of that is framed in by a series of steel columns with a beam that runs north-south through the middle of the building.
And in that context, reconfiguring the floor-to-floor heights to work with the allowable 38 foot would, for all intents and purposes, mean removing everything except the walls to bring that down.
So our initial pass was to kind of propose a design that was consistent with the ceiling heights that are present in the building now, and that's what we ultimately presented to the RCO, and the feedback from that was that the ceiling heights seemed, the building, the proposal for the third floor and the building overall building height seemed larger than it needed to be or should be.
So subsequent to the meeting, we spent a lot of time working on how to address the scale of the addition and the impact of the addition, both from a physical presence as well as the SUN study, as Alan mentioned earlier.
So what this section represents is that the red indicates the allowable, what would be the allowable 38-foot height of the building, and then the add at the back wall there, what we're showing, what would be allowed as a 42-inch parapet, you know, at the perimeter of that, would yield a 41-foot-six overall height to the top of the parapet.
So what we ended up doing then was use that as our datum to say that our proposed roofline would be the top of what would be the allowable top of parapet with the pitch headed downward and within that slope to achieve a slope that would allow the water to shed within the property and out of the building.
So another point of note is if you if you notice there at Allen, I don't know if you can see the sink there in the in the to the to the right of the master bedroom in Tim's unit.
You can see the dimension. If you just go to the left a little bit there, keep your right a little bit further.
there's a dimension there of seven foot two that would be the ceiling height based on a 38 foot
height you know for the building at a 38 foot based on these very high ceilings that exist on
the first and the second floor so I just just wanted to point that out and another thing to
note is you can see here the sight line is such that you know based on the existing top of parapet
and the proposed setbacks of the of the addition there there really is no impact from the street
level in terms of visibility um or very minimal you can you can see and we'll show you renderings
perspective views down the street line uh that for the most part the building is set back far
enough that it it doesn't impose on the uh fenestration of the of annon street uh you know
in a proper form. So with that, Alan, I don't know if you want to continue through the package and
and we can share. So here you can see these are our rendering showing the proposed
project. You can see the upper right image, you know, there you go. And Tim did respond to me
via text, we are proposed, the proposal is to keep that sign, yes, on the storefront. Our goal was to
bring that storefront back to as close to a previous era as possible. The windows now
were infilled to an extent to create smaller windows. Our proposal here is to make those
windows go back to the width of what you can see in the original masonry as the original
width of the building. You know for the most part there's an existing hoist beam there we're
proposing to leave that as part of the character of the original building. A Juliet balcony proposed
just to kind of have an opportunity to let some light in there you know if Tim is able to open
those doors to just provide access there. You can see as Alan's moving to the rear we're proposing
the rear decks for those two residential units and then and then perspective view from the kind of
northeast looking at Tim's roof deck and then the view on the lower left is a view from the
utmost western edge of Annan Street and you can see a very small amount of the proposed
proposed facade wall of the addition there at the setback, which would be 11 foot 6 for the
facade wall of the addition there at the setback which would be
deck and then 5 feet, so 16 foot 6 back from the existing facade of the building.
And here are just some interior renderings we just wanted to share. You can see the
existing steel columns and beams and what's shown as white is drywall would be the existing
joist above there. The lower right image is a stair up to the third floor,
and then the upper left image is the view from the master bedroom towards the northeast.
And these images are images of the two apartments. You can see lower right is apartment two living
space and upper right is apartment three living space. View three on the upper left is the bedrooms.
Okay, so then here, as Alan mentioned, we did not have these sun studies as part of the RCO meeting.
We worked very hard to kind of understand what impact the sun study, the sun and the shadow,
the proposed addition would have on the adjacent properties. And I believe Tim worked to communicate
with the neighbors as such. What we're, shall we have, we can go through this at length or I can
give an overview and we can speak specific as needed. What we did is create the sun study for
spring, summer, fall, and winter at March 19th, 2021, which is just after the vernal equinox,
I believe, is March 14th. So the time slated would be the actual times as of March 19th. And you can
see on the upper row is the existing building and the existing shadows as they would go from 9.30
a.m. hourly over to 2.30 p.m. The lower images then show a combination of both the existing
line, as you can see, the cyan or blue line that transfers down from the upper image.
That is the line of the existing shadow. And then we, and Alan, if you don't mind,
can you please zoom in on the 930 or anyone? So scroll down, yes.
So here what you can see is what we're proposing there is if we, there's two points of note to
mention here. The green line represents what would be a, if we were to tear down the building and
build a residential unit at 38 foot with a 42 inch parapet. The green line represents where the
shadow line would fall based on that proposed structure if it were to be built. The hatched
lines that are dotted in perimeter there, there, there, and there are the impact of the addition
as it relates to what we presented in this section.
Point of note, just to note, Alan, if you can just scroll up just to that.
No, no, I'm sorry.
On that, your hand, the middle rectangle there,
if you could just hover over that middle rectangle,
to the right of those shadows between the blue line and the wall
that's immediately to the right of your hand
represents the shadow of the existing deck
that is on top of the property that is there.
You know, in talking with the property owner to the west, who I believe I heard is on the call, that those rectangles that represent themselves just above Alan's hand there, there's one, two, three, and then one to the left of that.
Yep, those are our five existing skylights that are on the existing roof.
So as you can see from 9.30 moving across, you know, our understanding based on this is that the proposed addition somewhere between 11 and 11.15 a.m. would then take the addition out of shadow.
And you can kind of see that as you move from 1130 to 1230, you can see that the green line, again, representing what would be the allowable shadow versus the hatched line goes from on top of the skylight to at 1230 being all of that being completely outside of the line of the skylight.
And we can go through each season as needed or open for discussion or questions as you see fit.
open for discussion or questions as you see fit.
Here's the chairman, Mr. Chairman.
Can you hear us, Mr. Chairman?
Frank?
So, Frank, you might have to go out.
I think he's indicating it.
He's sick.
You can continue.
Would you like us to go through each season with the shadow study?
No, that's not necessary.
Okay, so again, what we tried to do was to have a thoughtful and creative project, repurposing
a historically significant building, reusing and repurposing.
Counselor, is it clear that you're only going two feet eight inches over the allowable
height?
Well, now it's 40, like the average now, my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, John, the average on the one building is 40 feet, four inches, and the other one is 39 feet. Is that correct?
That's correct. That presents itself in the section, yes.
I'm back. Can you hear me now?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, excuse me one minute, Tom.
Alan, I didn't get the beginning of that last question that the architect answered.