the floor of the third level which is where i guess the parking that is incorrect
i don't okay but again even even in turn and turns and well let me maybe oh it's an it's an
interpretation that's been used is that the common interpretation that you can answer that yes you
see yeah yes just one clarification curtain wall construction does have a windowsill all windows
have a windowsill it's a part of the actual frame of the window it would just be on the floor
in a curtain wall construction where the mullion connects to the building all right so why don't
we wonder why don't you finish up with your witness and i think um mr labor wants to have
a couple follow-up questions too all right so uh i'm gonna hopefully without too much difficulty
uh share my screen one more time
all right uh now do you see what i'm showing here on the screen mr kulk yes okay uh do you agree
that this was part of the permit application yes okay now in this uh and i believe this this would
also be the elevation that you took you showed a section of the elevation in the email exchange
that you had yes okay so in this uh elevation you have the ground floor you have a thing that's marked
level two and then you have another marking above that that's level three do you see what i'm
talking about there yes okay and again forgive me if i'm wrong but was is it your understanding at
least that in the interior the what's shown as between ground floor and level
three that that's just an open lobby in the interior we would have no way of
knowing when a zoning application that's why the examiner asked for level two and
level three to be identified okay and based upon the identification that was
put on the plans that were submitted as part of the application
the plans examiner made a determination that the proposed sign was above
what would be the second floor windowsill as determined by 21.2 of the rules of measurement
yes okay um i have no further questions of this time
Mr. Lever.
Unfortunately, I have quite a few, but I'll try to do this quickly.
Mr. Culp, can you provide, you mentioned that the department has used this same interpretation for other properties, that this is not the first.
Can you please provide the board with a couple other specific examples of this interpretation?
No, I review thousands of applications a year. I don't recall specific ones.
I understand. Okay.
I would like to screen share for a moment.
There we go.
on the screen before the board is a elevation plan that was submitted and is in the records
On the screen before,
of the department of licenses and inspections this was submitted following uh comments by
lni and confusion by zoning examiners regarding the levels of the property the plan that mr reuter
shared with you was an initial plan that was submitted, and this was an updated plan. Both
of them are correct, but let me explain for the board, and then I have a few follow-up questions
for Mr. Colt. As the board saw, there is a lobby that has a high ceiling at this corner of the
building. In other areas of the property, there is, as I had described at the start, perhaps
indirectly a garage that has had existed so you have ramps that wrap around the lobby in the back
and there are there's parking there so in other we're not saying that there aren't other levels
of the building incidentally side note it is not relevant to the code section which speaks to
windowsill but for purposes of clarification of the examiner looking at this one issue that was
ultimately raised revised plans were submitted this could be found in the file so i wanted to
state that for for the record i'm going to stop screen screen sharing um is it your position
mr culp on behalf of the department that regardless of whether or not there is a windowsill
the department should take the most restrictive provision uh most restrictive interpretation
and act as if a windowsill is present at this property that's not what i said i said we would
interpret it up to the roof or the ceiling of the second floor in lieu of a windowsill
specifically identified so you take out the word windowsill in in coming to that interpretation
correct? Yes. Thank you. Ms. Gaston mentioned earlier whether there was a definition of
windowsill in the code, and you answered that there isn't, and I agree with you. That was one
of the first things I looked at, and I remembered my early days in this field of going down to the
concourse level at l and i and meeting with amazing uh uh city employees like claire gatzmer
and jean klinger who would take out their dictionary their webster's dictionary and say
we have to turn we have to turn to this um yeah i i i think you're just a little bit of far field
and i i do appreciate you i'll i'll hone in then why don't you focus on i'll focus and say this
Okay. Mr. Culp, would you agree that the plain English definition of windowsill is generally defined as a ledger sill forming the bottom part of a window?
Yes. Thank you. No further questions. I'm prepared to offer some concluding remarks at the appropriate time.
Just a quick follow-up. Go ahead, Leonard. So, Mr. Culp, and I'll show this.
I'm sorry to share my screen one last time.
Now previously it was stated that there was some discussion about an earlier permit application
for the sign that was that was proposed um by the that was submitted by the applicant do you
recall that yes okay and at that time uh the plans examiner was uh richard chen is that right yes
okay um and ultimately a uh refusal was issued for that the initial permit application is that right
yes okay and why was that refusal issued because the applicant asked for it and said the owner was
aware of the refusal okay and i'm gonna show uh a document up on the screen do you can you tell
the board what this is this is a letter from the applicant on that application saying that the
owner is aware that the proposed signs require zba approval for the placement on the facade and
request the examiner issue the refusal as appropriate which he did objection irrelevant
uh mr mr paul does this at least uh
Mr. Paul, does this at least indicate that the applicant, which, let me back up, the applicant on the second application was also form and sign company, is that right?
Correct.
And does this indicate that they were aware, or they believed, at the time they submitted the initial application, that it should get a refusal?
If I may, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to speak to this.
You're going to speak to what he just said or summarize?
I'd like to say one thing about this exhibit, and then I'm prepared to summarize.
Sure, I may do that.
Mr. Ward, are you done with your redirect?
Two more further questions for-
Do you have more?
I have no other way to-
Okay, all right.
Just wanted to make sure we're finished.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Rather than cross-examine, I'd just like to make this statement, and thank you again,
Mr. Culp, for coming.
I just like to state regarding this document that it really is irrelevant. It's not the zoning examiners do not do what an applicant says, particularly an applicant who's not first in the law.
So I don't know the background of this document. I don't know what exchange there was back and forth. But similarly, if a form and sign company were to say, we believe that everything should be given to us over the counter and an examiner disagrees, as they did actually here, they don't just do what an applicant says. So I don't think anything more needs to be said about that.
Okay. So, and you'll have summaries too, Leonard?
All right. So, this has been a fairly complicated issue, right? What I would prefer is that you both have written summaries and put down what you think. And I know it's a little bit more work for you, but I think it's so everybody would understand.
And Ford, have any questions?
I'm going to go back again to the idea of statutory interpretation.
And I'm just going to read from, this is, I think this is Merriam-Webster, but it says that a windowsill is the horizontal surface or structure at the bottom of a window that supports and holds the window.
in place. And it also protects the window frame
from water and what have you. So I guess I'm
having a little problem with the idea that
you're saying that
the windowsill, whether there's
that you're interpreting the code to say
that even if there is no windowsill, if this is above
the second floor then the um refusal was validly issued is that is that the argument that i'm here
i mean based primarily upon 21.1 of the rules of measurement which essentially and again i don't
know why they didn't just define windowsill now that would have been helpful lots of things that
are not defined in the code that you would think would be obvious things that you would want to
defined windowsills not one of them but what they did do is they did indicate where the wind where
the quote-unquote windowsill is for purposes of measuring the sign height and that is where the
window is associated with the floor so they submitted plans showing level two there's glass
there that's where we interpreted now again our interpretation is more generous than what we
believe a strict reading would require, which is the bottom of that second level, because
of the ambiguity, we specifically said they could have it up to the bottom of the third
floor, rather.
So there is a window associated with the second floor, but we will, or glass, and we will
interpret that as, you know, the sill being sort of anywhere in that second floor, second
level.
And again, this is level two that they submitted in the permit application.
you know and again it's the city's position that their interpretation would effectively allow
an accessory sign anywhere at any height whatsoever on a curtain wall building and
we believe the rules statutory one of the rules of statutory interpretation is that you don't get
an interpretation that leads to absurd results and we don't think that it was the intention of
council to allow accessory signs on current law structures anywhere all right but in this specific
case yes the windows according to the documents that have been presented are like at the sixth
floor the third floor correct right i mean whatever that other what's i don't know what
that other structure is between the glass and the where I see windows
structure is between the glass and the where i see windows where there might be a
but that's the parking garage ah okay so i'm not seeing windows there what i'm seeing is
the glass up to where we're seeing this parking garage piece and then we see windows
Yeah. Well, it wouldn't be that you could put the signs anywhere. You'd have to put the signs somewhere. Right. The idea. What did you say? I thought it said.
What is it? The what is it between the second floor windowsill? Right.
and the roof line so there's no second floor windowsill right
so what this idea yeah how are we yeah i'm just having a problem with the interpretation
because of the lack of definition of windowsill as we as you would hope it would have been in
the code but then you have to use um the regular definition of that term and i'm not seeing where
you can do this and just say substitute floor and windowsill that's where i'm having a problem
yeah i'm okay so why don't you put that in your summary tya do you have a question yes i have so
I have a few questions. One, is this sign illuminated? Yes. Is there going to be any
signage on the JFK Street side or only on the Market Street side? This application is only
regarding the signage to enter. And then for this building, are there any other residential structures
facing the facade that you know of i'm sorry miss when i'm trying to understand the question
um are there any other residential like buildings facing this sign no not uh the closest building
is what i still think of as the mellon bank building uh and across john f kennedy boulevard
are uh office buildings um to the south of the office buildings the closest would be
the william penn house at 1919 chestnut street and i don't believe that there would be visibility
of this sign which is uh facing westwardly okay and then um my last question is with this
this building's residential conversion of the office building um sort of landmark because it
was the first of its kind in center city are there any changes occurring to the facade
because it's a residential structure to add windows
well i've toured the i've toured the property myself and uh the residential
apartments i do have some operability to windows that i'm not sure was there when morgan lewis was
there. Uh, and there's different cladding, uh, I'd argue more attractive cladding, uh, for the
garage, uh, for example, but, uh, no, uh, nothing beyond what I've described that, that I'm aware
of. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So excuse me, Mr. Chair, just a quick question. Um, Mr. Reuter,
did you, I didn't know if you had a, a presentation or if you had gotten all of the information in
that you had intended through your questions to Mr. Cole?
He said, yeah, that you were done.
Yeah, I have no other questions.
I mean, we were just going to do closing arguments.
Okay, I just want to, I didn't, okay, so you had submitted a packet.
I didn't know if you wanted to walk through that further.
No, no, no.
I don't think there's really anything in our packet that was different than what Mr. Labor
had already presented, other than the letter from the signed company asking for the refusal.
Okay, all right.
Thank you. Thank you. So written summaries. We're back October 1st. Am I correct?
Yes. Could we have it before that? Is that possible? Absolutely. I don't want to see this
delayed any longer. This this is an important project for the city. Yeah, well, we have no
objection to that. I do want to address one point just administratively in his initial submission
His initial submission to the board for this case, Mr. Laver said, in effect, and correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, that you would ask for a variance if at the conclusion of this you were denied.
to the board for this case and Mr. Labor said
The city would have no objection to that.
I don't know that I would have to defer to the board whether that's even, whether they could do that, but we wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have any issues with that.
uh in effect you know asking for a variance in the alternative but kind of delaying that until
the conclusion of this that that's i don't i don't have a position on that we would uh just
defer to boards so we we do not have a variance appeal currently on file for this case um so that
would need to to be filed if this appeal was not was not granted well i guess what we could say is
that i wouldn't i wouldn't object to that being on its face untimely like it wouldn't necessarily
require them to submit a new application and get another well we that has to go through a separate
process has to go through the rco process property has to be posted all of that i just meant the
timing to take the appeal to the board i understand okay thank you okay so october 1st we'll be back
and what what date do you want it in our hands um would friday the 26th be okay by close the
business absolutely by 5 p.m you want those simultaneously um yes yes so so we can that
way we can vote on this at 9 30 on the first so friday the 26th 26th yes next friday that's right
okay would you like mr kern to adopt and affirm um sure mr kern would you please step up to the
microphone and state your name hi jared kern could you spell please for the sonographer why don't you
sit down a minute um k-e-r-n right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes sir leonard thank you uh good morning mr kern you've been present for the
entirety of this zoning board of adjustment hearing correct yes and would you adopt and
affirm the testimony that i've offered as your own yes thank you sir all right thank you both
okay and thank you both and thank you to uh thank you my business all right thank you okay
who's next
okay um we're gonna go number four mi20240067484283 via ola street tl63838
Meredith Furliger is the attorney for Haverford Square,
and Steve Masters represents the Viola Street Residents Association.
Steve Masters and Meredith Furliger have been promoted to panelists.
Good morning.