Ah, okay.
All right, SD.
And then all the conversions are within a block radius.
They're all here in Nervon.
So we're at the corner of Nervon and Linola.
So you have 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 15.
they're just down the street on Nervon and then you have some of these on homes which are down
the street right here. So they're all within the block radius and then there's one on Winchester
that's right here. Cheryl, Cheryl, you, you, oh yeah yeah there you go. Okay um and how many
bedrooms are in this house um i'm not 100 sure this was not to increase the amount of bedrooms
this is just to create a more pronounced living area because they have a like a child now so
they're spending a lot of times in the living room but i believe it's i can't how many people
are living in this house just a couple like husband and wife a couple who've now had baby
and they need all this much more living space.
all this much more living space yeah i just need more common area space not the bedrooms but more
Yeah, they just need more common area space.
so you know as a father myself i know that i didn't spend i spent a lot of time in a living
area just letting my kids crawl around and then eventually run around and so i think that's what
they were looking for was just a little bit more common living area space for their kid okay but
it's nothing that's been built above below ground this is you know you know front door essentially
and they just want additional living area space for themselves.
And they didn't, you know, they're not developers.
They didn't know what they were doing in terms of having to get the zoning
approval. And then obviously once we're done here,
we're going to have to get a CO for that additional space as well.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Any other questions from the board?
I have a question about the surface parking.
Was the asphalt pad already two lanes wide?
And was any vegetated area or grass reduced in the expansion of the house?
My understanding, talking to them, is that the only change that they made was to convert the garage.
Everything else was the same when they purchased the property.
And then, you know, obviously, as part of this process, we had to submit a drawing with the streets department that they had to stamp off.
and that if there was any increase in the size of the parking pad,
that probably would have been noted as part of the refusal.
The questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
yes we had a hand up by patricia i'm gonna i'll know the speaker
hi um this is patricia i think i swore you in already am i correct you started to but then we
got a little okay sure so then i'll then i'll swear you in um could you spell your name for
the court stenographer sure it's patricia p-a-t-r-i-c-i-a last name is guarna g-u-a-r-n-a
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do please proceed are you a neighbor i am yes and i have never received any kind of notification
in the mail uh about them making any modifications to the house i just so happened to notice the
zoning notice one day. My fear is that no one lives in that house. So I'm not exactly sure
what the attorney was saying about a couple and a child. I walk by that house probably three times
every day. The house has been vacant for months. Our concern of what they want to do is they want
to run it out and make it a multifamily home. And this neighborhood is not zoned for that.
We moved into Winchester Park because it's a nice neighborhood and to avoid rentals or, you know, transients moving around and into and out of our neighborhood.
And that's our fear with this house.
So I'm not sure what he's referring to when he says that there's a family who lives there, but there is no one living in that house and has not been for months.
They are, I believe they have very intention to turn it into a rental.
Now, do you have any questions?
Yeah, I mean, so the only thing I could say in terms of whether she received a notice,
we're required to mail notices within a 250 square foot radius.
I believe when I gave my presentation, there were 54 addresses that were part of that notification requirement.
We have proof of mailing.
I know that this is in the Northeast where the properties tend to be a little bit larger in size.
So I don't know where Miss Gurna lives in relation to that.
So maybe she's outside the 250 square foot radius, but I'm not, I am not.
I am actually on Hargrave street.
My corner is Hargrave and Linola. So I am definitely within that rating.
Yeah. And I don't mean to pry, but like I have the addresses here.
I can tell you which, if you give me your address and I don't mean to like ask,
like on public forum,
But whatever those addresses are is where we mail those notices.
I saw your notifications.
The list that you provided, my address was not on there.
All right.
Well, that's fair.
So, I mean, again, we're just giving those addresses by the Philadelphia Planning Commission.
So we just blindly send them out because that's our requirement.
As far as, you know, converting it into a multifamily, there is no intention to do that.
and if we did i mean at least according to my clients but if we did you know we would have to
come back here because this is a i didn't even look it's just a rsa2 property and we would have
to get additional zoning approval for that there's no intention there's no division of the property
interior into two units. I know that my clients
interior into two units. I know that my clients have been overseas somewhat lately.
They're in Asian descent. So I think they're Vietnamese and they've been seeing family. So
I can't speak to how often they've been to the property lately, but I know they do live there
and they have a child. But my concern is just the rental. We don't want to live in a neighborhood
where we have people moving in and out.
We've, you know, pay a lot of taxes.
We've paid a lot for our homes
and we just don't want to be exposed
to that kind of environment.
Thank you.
No, I hear, we had a very well attended meeting.
I think a total of like,
I think 20 people at least voted
and they all voted either in support
or in non-opposition.
My understanding is that the district council members,
Zoney Aid, Stan was also at the meeting.
I don't know if he was, you know,
he's in attendance here,
But, you know, he would verify, too, that there was great support for this project and it's not out of character to have this type of additional space for the conversion of the garage.
If there's 20 people that showed up to the meeting and there's about 300 houses in our development, I think that's a pretty poor turnout.
I didn't even know about the meeting. This is the first I ever heard about the meeting.
So I'm pretty confident that a lot of our neighbors did not know about this meeting.
Thank you. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
no further answer mr chair planning commission thank you chairman and good afternoon david
vecto with the city planning commission chairman and board members the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the rsa2 residential single family zoning at this location
the appellant seeks permission for parking spaces in their required front yard the proposal will
not injure the use of adjacent properties and matches the character of the block face the city
planning commission recommends that the board grant or post variants for parking in the required front
yard my 2024 005 968 8000 linole street i vote yes john my vote is yes charles gaston my vote is no
tennetta graham my vote is yes i own my vote is yes ishmael shaheed my vote is yes
knockamson could you please stay on please so number seven mi2024-006-023-2201 south third
street mr knockamson just for the record could you state your name alan knockamson could you
identify your clients and their relationship to the property? Yes, my client is Stephen Benna and
Stephanie Oliar, who are the equitable owners of the property by waiving the agreement of sale.
There's a letter of support from the Whitman Council, which has a proviso of interior trash
storage, and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla. Our Vice Chair has a
few questions for you, sir. Council, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate
towards accuracy we do have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits as needed to
proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes we have thank you council
please proceed and share your screen thank you all right so this is 2201 south third street
this is an exciting date hopefully for my clients who are small business owners who are looking
to use this property as their first office space, dedicated office space.
Currently, they have a home office where they live in South Philly.
So they're under-contracted by 2201 South 3rd Street, which is 3rd and Jackson.
And it's previously been used by one of the unions as their offices and classroom.
So, you know, we filed a zoning permit application specifically, you know, as office use, business and professional office use within an existing structure for two floors.
And it has a long hit, even though this property is an RSA 5 property, it's never been used as single family use.
We have history as far as 1954, where it's been multifamily and with commercial on the ground floor, as a furniture store, as a private club, and most recently, like I said, as offices and classroom for one of the unions in the city.
So during my presentation, we'll review the notice of refusal.
Again, the letter of support from the Whitman Council Incorporated.
It was a very well attended meeting.
and actually the council member was there too and they were enthusiastically in support they
actually even voted in front of me i think unanimously we also have a letter of non-opposition
from the council member's office as well we have a petition of nearby neighbors in support of this
of nearby neighbors in support of this we can show you the property history here
we can show you the property history here
and then it's even though this is rsa5 property it's a corner property it's not out of character
to have non-residential uses on these corner properties for rsa5 properties so we'll show
you that a little bit about viva environmental health and safety the company uh who's going to
go in there for office use maps of the area photographs of the property in the surrounding
the area our simple plans and drawings we're not changing anything up really again it's office use
already i think maybe we'll change some i don't even we're changing walls inside but nothing
structural uh and our meeting notice again probably have like 30 40 people there our application for
appeal our agreement of sale which is conditioned our purchase condition on the board's approval
and as soon as we can you know get the board's approval we'll hopefully close on this property
and our certificate of tax clearance for the previous or the current owner.
And then at conclusion, my presentation, I'll ask that Steve,
one of the members or people on the agreement of sale as the buyer,
will virtually raise his hand and be sworn in.
Notice refusal, RSA 5 property.
And, you know, you can see here that, you know,
that this is for proposed business and professional office use.
I do think that they did try to get a, they did get also approval in 2023 for group medical practitioner, because I think someone else was going to buy the building to do that. And maybe the sale fell through, I don't know. But again, the most previous use of the property were offices in the classroom for the electrical union.
Letter of support. Again, we don't disagree with the proviso. We have no intention to store trash outside or any dumpster. It's office use. And then the letter of non-opposition, the petition that my client circulated nearby properties, as well as form letters to support.
property history again i guess this was the last known actual use of the property and it was
offices in the classroom for the electrical union and then again not out of character to have
rsa5 properties corner properties have commercial use and we have nine eight other instances other
in our own. Number one in green is us. And then we have two through nine, which are basically in
a two block radius. So almost like every corner is used for commercial use. And again, the history
of this property, long history of this property for 70 years has not been single family use.
So 2149 South Third Street, you can see is non-residential use. 2200 South Third Street
across the street from us, non-residential use. 2240 South 3rd Street, non-residential use. 2241
South 3rd Street, non-residential use. Actually, I think this is where we had our meeting too
for the community meeting. 2301 South 3rd Street, non-residential use. 2300 South 3rd Street,
non-residential use, and so on and so on. And then a little bit about my client. They do
environmental consulting, they actually do clean up. I think they do testing for the school
district. I think that's one of their major clients. Again, no environmental use, you know,
for, you know, within the premises. That was a discussion point that we said, no, we're just
using it for our offices. My client has a total of 17 employees. Most of them are off-site doing
the testing. They have like three or four employees that are going to be in the offices themselves.
And just a little bit about Steven, you know, certified, accomplished, been doing this for almost 20 years, has had his business for a few years, and now he's ready to, like, get a dedicated office here, and he's excited about this opportunity.
and then maps of the area again we are rsa5 but um i don't think the history would say that this
is a single family uh zoning zone property in essence again maps of the area again we're at
the corner third and jackson photographs of the property we're not changing the building footprint
in any way this is a two this has been a two most used most recently used as a two-story
commercial property. Proof of posting for today's hearing. South 3rd Street to the right of the
property, to the left of the property, Jackson Street to the right of the property, to the left
of the property. You can see even the commercial use here at this corner. Architectural plans and
drawings, pretty simple. You walk in, there's a little meeting conference room, there's a break
room, a bathroom, a little storage. They have their garage here. They have a basement area, I guess,
for more storage and then the offices are really on the second floor they have like one two three four
and then the offices are really on the second floor they have like one two three four office
five offices on the second floor with another bathroom on the second floor as well rco meeting
notice we had our meeting on november 20th at 6 30 p.m we emailed that notice a few weeks beforehand
to the rco relevant parties and while we emailed them we showed them that we mailed that notice to
186 addresses. These are the addresses. These are the proof of mailing to those addresses.
Our application for appeal that we filed on my client's behalf. Our agreement of sale
showing that the equitable title my clients have as well as that it's still good. And again,
this deals contingent on my client getting his owning approval. And there's no taxes even though
even though they're not, they weren't technically due until March 31st of 2025, the payment.
With that being said, I would ask that Stephen virtually raise his hand and be sworn in.
Stephen, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Stephen Venna, S-T-E-V-E-N-V-E-N-A.
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes please proceed councillor yeah steven you heard everything i had to state about your zoning
matter yes is it true and correct uh one one correction the most recent use was a doctor's