Yes, Madam Chair, members of the board, Brett Feldman, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103.
I represent the applicant and property owner, King Sessing Realty and Chester Realty.
Do you swear a firm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you also agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I just would, as I made clear at the first hearing on this back on April 7th, I believe three or four of the refusal items have now been corrected and are no longer in place.
Okay. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO? And do you have a letter?
Yes, to all.
Okay, thank you. You may proceed.
If I may share my screen.
Again, good afternoon.
This is a continued hearing, or a follow-up second hearing from the April 7th hearing, at which time we put on most of our case.
And what I would ask the board, in fairness to, I know there's a lot of people on the call who are in support.
I know there's a lot who are in opposition, including a number of RCOs, that I will give a, I don't know,
cliff notes, five or six, seven minute recap of the project.
And then also some of the developments, the relevant developments since April 7th.
And then I would leave it up to the board to, I assume at that point, reach out to the RCOs, provide their opinions, as well as the many community members who are on this.
So if that's acceptable, I'll begin.
Please share, Sean.
Great.
So again, this is a second hearing from April 7th. These were the exhibits that we passed up
back in April, in April, exhibits one through nine, which I'd ask also, again, be incorporated
into the record. As you'll hear, this is a multifamily project at the corner of 48th and
Chester in West Philadelphia. We've had five or six different plans, and we now have revised plans
that the Cedar Park neighbors are in agreement with, are in support of. We also have
Cedar Park neighbors are in agreement with, are in support of. We also have a binding recordable
community benefits agreement that's been reached with Cedar Park, which would govern not only the
development, but also really kind of the groundbreaking precedent-setting affordability
that we're providing in this project. This will be, I don't think there's almost any other project
I've ever seen that's provided this level of affordability in a completely private project
with no subsidies and we don't even qualify for these cities bonuses for affordability and you'll
see that I'll get right to it these are the refusals that were issued we've reduced most of
them we've removed most of those and the ones that remain either they can't be they can't be
removed or we've come closer into compliance. Just to reorient the board, here's 48th,
here's Chester Avenue. These are the five properties. There's four on 48th and Chester
that are vacant, completely vacant. And then there's a fifth lot, which my client owns. This
is the Renaissance Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center. For zoning purposes, we're keeping these
lots together. And the idea was that we have our own parking for this multifamily building,
But Renaissance has significant overflow parking that's not used primarily in the evenings.
And we would gain access to that to better handle the parking that's at this location.
We don't think parking is a primary issue because 48th and Chester, there's actually
a trolley stop right basically at our front door, as you'll see.
Here is the context of the project.
This is our building here.
It's a three and four story multifamily building.
up and down Chester Avenue there are multi-family three four or five story multi-family buildings
all up and down Chester Avenue this is just a small sampling that are that are close that are
close to the location including the nursing home that is right there here are what those buildings
look like all around us this is the one of the predominant housing forms in the area
ms vice chair you can see you can see my screen correct
yes okay these are the uh zoning notices uh that we put up uh as the board uh might remember from
our first presentation uh we had a uh historical uh consultant to testify we did research on the
location uh these properties were formerly used as multi-family buildings uh until recently until
mid-90s. There was about 150 units of multi-family on the location and these were the Sanborn maps
show a multi-family building after multi-family building. We actually had some neighbors who
showed us pictures from the 90s what those buildings looked like before they were before
they were demolished that you'll see here. So what we're proposing again here's the here's
a building on on Chester Avenue that was actually on our location. So here is here is the the project
after many months of close cooperation with the neighbors and with the RCO.
It's a three- and four-story building along 48th Street.
It is a three-story portion with a setback four-story portion.
The three-story portion is actually now below the zoning code 38 feet.
We're at 32 feet.
And this is what it looks like on Chester Avenue at three stories and four stories.
Here is a rendered site plan.
Probably the best way to see it.
Here's Chester Avenue.
Here is 48th Street.
The light blue that I'm pointing to is at 33 feet, and it's actually 32 feet.
Light blue, we set back much of the building, anything that was approaching the height requirements.
So it's 32 feet here, all in this light blue.
And then a four-story portion that's actually only at 42 feet that is in this darker blue.
large, generous landscaping. We created a large courtyard in the area to accommodate
the residents across the street. We had this setback, you can see here in the green,
to accommodate the neighbors across the street on Chester Avenue. And then again, we set back
and we reduced the height of this portion to less than what would be code compliant.
The other part of this is we have our parking in the rear here, and we have 76 units. And again,
And as we'll explain, 20% of these units are affordable at 40% of the AMI.
Again, the city, even its own bonus program is at 50% or less.
This is well in excess of what even the city bonus program is.
We have seven one-bedroom units.
We have eight two-bedroom units, 15 total units.
So there's 23 bedrooms of affordability.
And this became very clear as we worked with the neighbor.
And this became very clear as we worked with the neighbor, we worked with the district council person and the community groups that we had to come up with a project that worked not only from a design and operations standpoint, but also had a significant give back on affordability.
We work with the different
And we were able to do that.
And we now have a binding community benefits agreement on that.
This is the full site with the nursing home.
Our 34 space is here, but again, we were able to use additional parking that the nursing
house home has here, here, and here, and that's why we decided to have this all-in-one zoning
We're now code compliant in terms of parking, but two of the refusals that remain are multiple
structures on a zoning lot, as you can see, our building and then the nursing home, and
then multiple uses, again, our building and then the nursing home.
So those are two of the remaining refusals with multiple structures and multiple uses,
which wasn't possible if we wanted to take advantage of the parking that was out there.
Here's what the building now looks like. Three stories. This is the corner of 48th and Chester
with the four-story portion here. It is very contextual with, you know, the four-story building
across the street and you saw those other multifamily buildings in this area. It was
reviewed by Civic Design Review. Civic Design Review passed it on and approved that after
After only one meeting, looking at the context,
looking at the way we related to the built environment
around us, spoke very positively of this project.
And here is the remaining views.
Chester, 48th Street, landscaping.
You can see the four-story portion.
You barely can see, but most of it is just three-story,
actually at 32 feet below the code limit at 38 feet.
Here's some additional views of the site.
Back in April, we presented the testimony of Nancy Templeton, who is a certified Pennsylvania land planner, who prepared an extensive report on why this was compliant with the zoning code, why the current zoning code imposes an unnecessary hardship on the property,
why this project was not was consistent with the area did not have any negative impacts
and we can certainly get more into that here but this is her report again we put this on the record
but she talked about the history of the site the multi-family history of the site
the way it is contextual with the other multi-family buildings that are that are in this
neighborhood the location of mass transit right at our front door the availability of
parking for those who do require parking. And also, and this is, you know, I think really one
of the most critical issues of this project was the as of right, despite the fact that this property
has always been used as multifamily, the as of right on this site is something is a kind of
strange animal named RTA1. RTA1 is a district that is a duplex twin. So you have two on this side,
to on this side. It is four units. It requires parking, which in this configuration would require
that there'd be curb cuts all up and down 48th Street, all up and down Chester Avenue to satisfy
this parking requirement. Here's actually some pictures in the neighborhood where this alien
life form has been imposed in the neighborhood, which I think most would agree is not something
that we want to see in in this in this area um and nancy talked was templeton talked about how
that was not something um that was consistent with the neighborhood uh and imposed that type
of hardship uh in this area here are the remaining zoning refusals uh we removed the refusal for
landscaping um uh front yard depth we removed in the revised plans we now comply in the parking
spaces as i explained there's only one building allowed per lot only one use allowed per lot
and again that's because we are on the same zoning lot as the nursing home which allowed us to take
advantage of the parking resources that that has and again that the multi-family is not allowed in
this district the history of multi-family on the property these are massive lots we're talking
about a total lot size of a hundred and twelve thousand square feet with um each one of these
lots being 10 15 20 000 square feet not appropriate for the rta1 many of the multi-family uses around
us um and uh as it was important for the community and uh and for my clients um to do those types of
rta1 would result in a situation where there was uh no affordable housing provided uh in a
code compliance situation which again was a value that the neighbors
again was a value that the neighbors the council person wanted was this provision of affordability
the council person wanted was this provision of
that became so important and as all we all know is so important in the city
this is the matrix of the affordability that we're providing and is now documented in a recordable
form 20 of units of the 76 15 affordable units at 40 ami and that's the bedroom breakdown
this was at the time back in april was our proposed community agreement which has now been
codified and in writing, like I'm happy to say, there are massive numbers of letters of opposition,
massive numbers of letters of support. This is the most contentious project I've ever been part of,
but we are so pleased, so proud that we now have a letter of support from the Cedar Park Neighbors,
which is the very well-established group in this neighborhood of support.
and that I believe has been shown to the board.
This is the letter itself.
And I have to just point out a couple of points
that they've made here.
And I'll just read a couple of points.
There have been multiple community meetings
regarding this project.
Neighbors voiced their concerns regarding affordability,
regarding the height and appearance of the proposed building
and regarding parking.
The applicant has been willing to negotiate
with the community, has made significant changes
to the original design in response to those concerns.
The current project respectfully fits in with the existing fabric of the neighborhood and is located just steps away from public transportation where the city should be encouraging development.
During the process of the redesign based on negotiations with the community, the applicant was able to eliminate four of the variance requests.
The remaining variances are true hardships that should be granted.
And then finally, and I think you'll see this play out as the hearing goes,
there is a group of concerned neighbors who regardless of the concessions the applicant has
made do not want to see any development on the property this is simply not an option the property
owner has made it clear that the property will be developed the question before the view is whether
the property will be developed in accordance with the current inclusionary development application
or in accordance with the by right development of the rta zone which allows for 14 buildings with
two units in each building in front loaded garages facing the street thereby eliminating
existing on-street parking the current project allows for 15 units of affordable housing
for 50 years the buy right option includes no affordable housing units and that was that's
from cedar park's letter and they can certainly elaborate further on on that again we had numerous
letters of of support and here's just i'm just flipping through it but i could have just put
countless letters in here. As I go through, we passed the Inga Safran test, I would call it.
She did an extensive write-up on this project, was very supportive of it, talked about how it
fit in, and actually drew a comparison with other projects in the city that should have been as
made the same efforts to work with the neighborhood on a project that is
consistent with the neighborhood sympathetic and also has this level of affordability which we
all know is a value in this neighborhood i would i would i have to mention that we had worked
closely with the district council person really almost from day one on this
however she did issue a letter of opposition it is despite the conclusion of cedar park
despite which we thought was the encouragement of the direction that we were taking
on this project but just like cedar park her letter is is really a it's one of the strongest
endorsements for why this project makes sense and why this board should strongly consider approval
and she says i understand and philosophically agree with the push for 100 affordability
that many of those opposing this project have repeatedly made but we also must consider the
alternatives building nothing at all or building only what the zoning code will allow which in
this case is 28 duplexes with no affordability affordability restrictions on them to me these
do not feel like viable solutions to the challenges our district faces regarding housing affordability.
So fortunately, we continue to work with Cedar Park, and this is the binding community benefits
agreement that we executed last night with Cedar Park for the affordability on the 50 years,
the 20% of the units at the 40% AMI, these 23 bedrooms. And we want to, again, just thank
Cedar Park. And thank you, thank so many of the neighbors, and other people in this neighborhood
who worked with us to come to a project that we think really could set a framework for how
a, you know, framework for how development can be done privately, because there simply isn't
development can be done.
enough public money to provide all the affordability that we're going to need. We're going to need to