so if they're 38 feet again i don't know are they are they right squared off is it
are they set back at the upper levels i'm just trying to get a sense of they're they're not
squared off i mean they are squared off they're they're not set back in any respect
just taking a look at it
so if you're you said your client would be willing to discuss reducing each of the units by one
what does that do with the height does it bring it down it could it very well could i mean he
you know he he could probably i would think that he would try to reduce that the height in some
respects it may reduce it by a story we had that discussion we didn't have an opportunity to talk
to the architect but it may very well have you know either have a fun setback or something to
that to that degree so i i mean he says he doesn't want to build something that doesn't make sense
either right if you reduce it by a unit each then you're not going to have all that square footage
in the building i get that i get that again but looking at the artist rendition that you show of
your client's property and looking at this houses on olive street again we're looking at photographs
i'm not there in person it just seems to be way out of scale that's all i'm saying well i'm not
trying to be critical it just it looks like this big box sitting next to these houses that kind
houses that kind of look like semi-suburban type houses with the front porches.
of look like semi-suburban type houses with the front porches no and i hear
No, and I hear it. That's why we try to do the suburban houses. I mean, the front porches as
well. So we're not adding height. That's how the building is, like in terms of the foundation.
But across the streets of school, which again, I don't want to misstate it, but like I believe
is much higher than ours. So yeah, so across the street. So I just showed you Olive just to
show what we were trying to match but across the street is a school um i believe because i remember
being there and seeing it and i feel like it was at least five stories looking at what you're
showing us now in the bottom right hand corner you look at your client's uh your client's property
and then look at the one to the left of it there's like a shadow of a house it looks like next to it
it seems to be much, much more out of scale. Again, I'm not trying to be critical. I'm just
trying to say if I live that next story to the house that you're seeing on the bottom right-hand
corner, to the left of your client's property. Yeah. And that's why we try to not take advantage
of the 38 feet. Yeah. And there's a sprinkling of both three-story and two-story houses
surrounding the neighborhood, mostly three stories.
But again, across the street, there's a school.
Again, this property has been a vacant lot for at least six years.
Because if you go on Google, it shows that like in 2014, it was a vacant lot.
So I don't know what it was before then.
But since 2014, at the very least.
So we want to develop it.
We want to develop it responsibly.
And given what the board has approved in the past,
Again, if you go on atlas.philo.gov, it looks like the board did actually grant it with no porches, which is out of character with the neighborhood, and built it to 38 feet high, which is higher than what we're proposing.
I think this actually fits within the model.
And four units, which probably the fourth unit, if it's four stories, was in the basement, while here it's in the lower level, and we're only doing three units here.
And I think, again, we don't want to do it, but we understand because of the opposition, which we don't believe is fair because it was not zoning related, and we did make changes based on previous discussions, we would do three and two, you know, to make this project work.
I don't want to belabor the point. I'm sorry.
You want to get your client on?
And then we'll ask the board if they have any questions.
Yes, Mr. Atasevan, can you virtually raise your hand?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and board members.
Sir, please spell your name, first and last name for the record.
Yeah, my name is Joseph Atasevan.
uh my address is 24 24 east york philadelphia
your last name please alta seven a-t-a-s-e-v-e-n thank you swear and affirm to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth i do sir thank you alan please uh mr alta seven you heard
everything i stated today yes and is it true and correct yes and would you adopt it as your own
testimony yes okay thank you questions from the board i agree with you i do yes i think
reducing the number of units would put it into scale with the jason building
thank you anyone else on the board no anyone else wish to testify in this case if so please raise
your hand here i have andrew goodman andrew you can unmute yourself and wait to be afternoon can
you hear me yes mr goodman please identify yourself for the record andrew goodman last
name spelled g-o-o-d-m-a-n here representing the office of third district council member
jamie gaudier we're in a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
absolutely do please proceed
great thank you i'm here on behalf of the council member to oppose the variance applications for
these two addresses um so standing with the coordinating rco as we have for many similar
applications in the Manchua neighborhood for a few simple reasons. They poke holes in a
for a few simple reasons. They poke holes in a community-led remapping effort that is very
recent with no demonstrable hardship or community benefit. While I appreciate the extra effort taken
by Mr. Knockamson to research some of the ZBA case history here, our argument would be that is not
how zoning and development decisions should be made for the future of a block. Those entail
comprehensive planning, community conversations, and remapping as a result, which is exactly
what happened in the Mantua community in recent years. For all of the cases that he listed where
there is a history of the zoning board approving multifamily in single-family areas, there are
probably just as many, if not more, from this year where similar cases were either denied,
continued, or delayed for this exact reason. Mantua community is seeing a
significant number of these sorts of applications, and because of all the
time and effort that neighbors put into this remapping effort, they are opposing
it, and understandably so, and for that reason we stand with them.
My only comment to that is that we did actually work with, try to work with the
community on this one. So pre-COVID prior to, you know, earlier this year, we actually met with the
community. And, you know, again, with all frankness, we did not hear the density issue. We heard more
about how the property actually looked and fit within the fabric of the community. That's why
we went back to the drawing board and we terminated our previous zoning appeals and then
re-presented this one with the understanding that this would be something that would be more
palpable to to the community so that's we wouldn't have done that but for the fact
that we heard from the community we had a community meeting and that's why we're presenting
this today so it's a little bit it was a little bit surprising to us i know it's a different
environment like you know six you know seven eight months ago from like you know today but
it was actually surprising to us the pushback more in general but again if you look at their
letter none of them were zoning related it it you know again if we would have had a zoning
you know conversation that would be a little bit different all of it were not zoning related and
some of it was was not correct in in some ways so like we're trying to develop a property reasonably
with community input and you know where it eventually you know because more likely not
that's gonna that's gonna be we're gonna get a building permit after january 1st
more likely not where that's going to be a a tax producing property on so many levels
let me just ask mr goodman where where is your office in in terms of the remapping process where
where does it stand right now for this area? It was done very recently. I think it was passed,
the Planning Commission staff member might have the more updated data, but I think it was
Mantua neighborhood-wide remapping was passed 2018, maybe 2019. And so for this reason,
we feel it's important to kind of defend the merits of that process. So whereas I know there's
many other areas of the city where the zoning has not been updated in decades and decades and decades,
this is not one of those areas.
Thank you.
Yeah, Alan.
Yeah, again, I know you have other matters,
but again, if you look at that,
again, the Planning Commission would know better,
but these are all recent decisions by the ZBA.
We're not cherry picking something
that happened 15, 20 years ago.
These are all within the past year or so,
other than this one, I guess.
Maybe, or I don't even know if there's a typo.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Anyone else wish to testify in this matter?
please raise your hand no hands chair thank you planning commission
hi good afternoon ian litwin with planning commission staff these parcels were remapped
in 2017 as part of the management neighborhood remapping with the purpose of preserving single
family homes planning commission staff worked with the community through multiple community meetings
to address growth that did not match the goals of the community.
There is no hardship preventing the use of the property
in accordance with the zoning.
Therefore, we are opposed to the granting of the variances.
All right, thank you.
MI-2020-000860
and MI-2020-000888.
8 8 7 1 2 and 7 1 4 north 36th street my vote is no my vote is no my vote is no my vote is no
seven one two and seven
thank you
Calendar number MI2020-001054, 1901-75 North American Street. The attorney is Herc Grigos.
Mr. Grigos you've been promoted to panelists. You can share your screen and open your mic
to speak. Thank you very much. Mr. Grigos, can you put your name and address on the record
please and spell your last name? Good afternoon. Hercules Grigos, G-R-I-G-O-S, 1835 Market
Street, Philadelphia, PA. Okay. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth and nothing but the
truth? I do. Do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? I will waive the reading. We have revised our plans in response to the community,
so I will just go through the changes to the refusal, how they've been reduced, and I believe
the solicitor has our revised plans that we will go through. Okay, you may present your case.
Share my screen again. Good afternoon, members of the board.
Share here. Okay, can everyone see that? I'm here today representing Brick Capital Real Estate LLC,
equitable owner of the property located at 1901 North American Street. We're here today with an
application for construction of a mixed-use multifamily project with ground floor commercial
and parking. I have with me today Scott Baldessari from Brick Capital as well as Stuart Rosenberg of
SGRA Architects, the project architect. The property is approximately a 60,000 square foot
property at the corner of North American, West Burks, and West Nara Street through to Phillips
Street. It's currently used as a granite and marble site, and that business is moving away
from this location further north, somewhere else in the neighborhood. Just to give the context,
you'll see to our north, we're catty corner to the Schober building, which was recently redeveloped
into 120 unit mixed use multifamily building. You see that here. And as you know, North American
Street is going through considerable change. The North American Street industrial corridor, that
vision never really materialized. And if you're familiar, to the south, a number of
mixed-use multifamily buildings on North American Street are either under construction or in
approval. And further exasperating the pressures on the industrial use in this area was the
redevelopment of North American Street and the development of the bioswale, which is a 120-foot
wide street, and it was reduced with a large bias way on the middle to a two-lane from a four-lane
to a two-lane. Really doesn't make it conducive to truck traffic. Excuse me. So
this process has gone about almost a year. The project started as a 319-unit
multi-family building with approximately 60 parking spaces, seven stories with 10% of units
reserved for affordable housing at 60% AMI. After considerable community engagement,
I'm really proud to say that I believe we have support of the local RCOs and we've really worked
hard to modify the project just to give you some procedural history. We originally started this
process um working with um getting going on a listening tour and speaking with a number of
different stakeholders in the community um understanding affordable housing needs
um understanding affordable housing needs understanding local hiring local contractors
understanding local hiring local
local businesses that could potentially uh be tenants in the um in the commercial
as a result of that the project has morphed and gone through um a number of changes and really
pushes and pulls to how to respond to all of the community concerns and all the stakeholders
Today, we're here with a revised plan at 286 units, 93 parking spaces, and a reduced height of 66 feet to top a building, with a small portion at 76 feet on building one, plus some pilot houses.
um we have about almost 10,000 square feet of ground floor commercial
and we're very proud to be leaders uh in affordable housing on north american street
where we've committed 10 of our units 28 units at levels of affordability that we're not sure
what we've seen private developers do we have four units at 60 percent ami 12 units at 50 percent
AMI and 12 units at 40% AMI. Additionally, we're putting together, and this will be reduced to a
community benefits agreement, but we're putting together a fund to support, to be administered
through a third party to support basic assistance for long-time home residents. So with that, I just
wanted to orient everybody with the procedure and I'll try to walk through the plans. This is some
shots of North American Street and of the site, and you can see the bioswale under these shots
was under construction. This is Phillips Street to our rear, sort of a back street, and some houses
back up, but I think there are some homes that may be proposed for a portion of Phillips Street
that front on Phillips Street, so we wanted to be sensitive to that. Here's a shot of the bioswale
that you can see under construction in the building across the street. This is another shot of the
bioswales so you can see how North American Street 120 feet wide was
reduced from four lanes to two lanes. Here's a zoning site map just to orient
everybody the site is zoned ICMX. The project was developed you know sort of
in the spirit of IRMX or CMX3 and we think that's the right zoning for North
American Street this just gives you a sense of neighborhood amenities I'll
skip through the zoning site planning elevations and so the building is
basically broken up into into six different buildings and what the goal
was was to make sure that we had openings between the buildings to allow
for more light and air to flow through, have lots of open areas. We went up. At the bottom right
corner, you see that open area, the ground floor level. That is public open space that we hope to
program as a public park. Ground floor, commercial, parking, etc. Up at the top right is the tallest
portion of the building. The cornice line as you go across is 66 feet, and then there's one small
amenity space it's about 1300 square feet of building one uh that rises to 76 feet
this is the ground floor and you know there was a lot of effort and a lot of discussion with the
neighbors on how to uh resolve this ground floor um you know for every parking space um you know
came at the expense of the public space commercial space um so we we feel that we got the right mix
of retail and parking. We really pushed our parking levels to not reduce the commercial
and really find that right mix. At 286 units, we're well above a 3 to 10. And actually,
if you do the parking calculations, the allowable reductions for car share and bike share,
we actually meet the code and eliminate that refusal. This shows the courtyards above and