the fact that we have you have the the builder would have to build out the party wall on 31
west of all street yes you would lose that space for the thickness of that new wall next to the
existing party wall and and what you're suggesting is best practices uh to uh safely attach to 31
west of all street that's correct okay uh the next question has to do with the or the next area of
the notice of refusal for 31 west of all street minimum one parking space is required for single
family household living whereas there is no proposed parking space what why did you design
the project this way well the first priority was to make the building fit in with the neighborhood
apparently this lot did have a building on it maybe i don't know how it was destroyed probably
by fire so the idea was to try to keep the neighborhood streetscape intact with front
porches and a building that looked the same as most of the buildings on the block with the same
setback the same porch and essentially the same width so if if you had to have parking basically
the whole first floor would just be a garage door with a small entrance door next to it which would
be completely out of character with the neighborhood and all of the all the neighboring houses as well
taking away a parking space from the street yeah well why couldn't we just put a parking pad out
front of the property i don't believe that the zoning code allows for surface parking in the
front yard and is that section 14-803 of the philadelphia zoning code you're referencing
i believe it is yes okay and then why couldn't we just have a some type of driveway leading to the
rear of the property where parking would be allowed? Well, then you would have to have,
I believe, 10 feet of driveway, which would basically give you a 10-foot house left over.
Okay. So for the same reasons, given the lack of the width of the property,
it would be impossible to comply with the requirements of a driveway.
Yes. Yes. Okay. That's correct. And is there any parking allowed on our,
is there any parking currently uh for 33 west of all street or twain uh no okay and
No. Okay. And most of those properties on Devolve Street, as the pictures indicated, do not have a parking in front or in any type of garage in front, right?
most of those properties on devolve
That's correct.
okay all right so let's go over to the second refusal 100 west of all streets
um the first refusal has to do about uh accessory parking for any single family
using an attached or semi-attached building shall be prohibited unless it can be accessed from a
shared driveway alley or rear street on which non no on-street parking is permitted on the side
side of the rear street directly abutting the lot.
Is there a reason why we cannot conform to this section of the Philadelphia zoning code?
Well, the attempt was to essentially create a small parking drive essentially in the rear
of 100.
And I'll just briefly go to that picture.
so when you say you you try to conform to the best possible way i don't know if you're in front
of your computer yes this is a curb cut that's coming off the chariot here right that's correct
and you use that common curb cuts to create two parking spaces uh on 100 devolve street
And one's for the benefit of, one parking spot's for the benefit of 100 Duvall Street,
and the other one is for the benefit of 102 West Duvall Street.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
So that was your attempt to have the least modification possible under the Philadelphia
Zoning Code?
That's correct.
All right, so the second refusal is non-accessory parking is expressly prohibited in the RSA 3 district, whereas there is a proposed non-accessory parking in the rear yard. Can you explain that refusal to the zoning board?
Well, I believe it means that that parking space that's going to be used by 102 is basically legalized by easement so that they can utilize that parking space for their use.
It would be impossible to get a parking space behind 102 because of turnaround requirements and things like that.
Gotcha. So because of how the property is uniquely configured and because there's no commonality way, you attempted to comply with the zoning code to provide one parking spot, and this was your best attempt at doing it?
Correct.
okay um now if we eliminated parking on 100 we would eliminate uh the two parking spots on 100
west of all street we would eliminate that refusal correct yes that's correct and then the second
the third refusal on 100 west of all street says minimum rear yard depth shall be 15 feet
whereas the width for the proposed rear yard is nine feet i'm going to go back to the site plan
that is part of our revised proviso plan.
So, if I'm looking at the plan correctly,
here's 100 west of all streets.
It does say the depth of the property
from the rear of the building structure
is 26 feet and two and a quarter inches.
And there is like a rear yard with a fence
and then there's two parking spots.
So why does it say that we're only providing 9 feet rather than the 26 feet 2 1⁄4 inches?
Well, I imagine that the examiner didn't consider those parking spaces to be part of the rear yard.
And that was your attempt to comply with the one parking spot per unit requirement, right?
Correct.
And the fact that we lack a commonality way as well, right?
yes okay and if we eliminated those two parking spots in the rear we would comply by way of by
way of a proviso if the board feels so inclined to eliminate off-street parking that would eliminate
that refusal about the rear yard death right that's correct okay
and then the last refusal from 100 west of all street minimum side yard width for the semi-detached
And then the last
structure shall be eight feet whereas the width for the proposed side yard is three and a quarter
inches uh why can't we comply with the minimum year of your minimum side yard requirements under
the code we take 102 for example which is a 19 foot wide lot and you subtract it eight feet you
only have 11 feet width left for a house all right well we're focusing on 100 um so okay let's focus
on 100 first and then we're going to focus on 102. so i'm going to do the bring up the site plan
for 100 again so how do you remember how wide uh 100 duval street is well it's a tapered lot i'm
just going to zoom in here to so i can see the number i think the rear is 18 feet seven and a
half and then the front is um the front is you can scroll down quickly yeah it's a sound 21 feet
sound correct yes okay so if we met the if we had to meet the eight foot side yard requirement
on a corner property by the way um it would be anywhere from like 13 feet seven in a corner
eight feet would be anywhere from 10 and seven and a half inches of a building structure
hypothetically depending on where the building structure is to as big as 13 feet does that sound
about right yes that's correct okay could you have a functional floor plan on a building structure
which is a little over 10 feet wide no what about would it be functional given the tapering
of the property a unique shape of the property to have something that's tapering from 13 feet
in the front to all the ways back 18 and excuse me like 10 and uh and seven and a half inches
would that be would you be able to have a functional floor plan for single-family use
would not be practical no okay uh now we did uh reduce the width of the building structure
by way of these revised plans to 15 feet wide, right?
Correct.
And that's the least modification, in your professional opinion, possible to have a functional floor plan, correct?
Correct.
and and and that provided a width as you know as of of the building of the side yard of at most
five and i think nine five feet like nine inches to as little as uh four feet four and a half
inches correct 100 we're referring to correct yes yes and and that essentially falls
in line with the width that you're seeing of the side yards for the most part of the properties on
the 100 block of west of all street yes they're all about the same size yes okay he alan he keeps
walking away from them backing up to the mic he's hard to hear could you make sure he's speaking in
the mic yeah uh can you can you uh can you answer that again ray is is that does that fall in line
with the width of the other? Yes, many of the properties adjacent to us have four foot side
yards. Thank you. And then let's go over the last one, the last set of refusals for 102
west of Olive Street. So we're proposing a single family structure with a porch and we have two
refusals. First is a minimum side yard width for semi-detached structure shall be eight feet,
whereas the the width for the proposed side yard is three feet now we have revised our plans to
increase the width of the side yard uh to four feet by shrinking the width of the building
structure to 15 feet is that correct that's correct okay now you did measure the width of
the of the side yard for one on four west of all street right yes i did and based on your recollection
You did this a while ago, so no one can be perfect, but based on your recollection, what was the width of the side yard for 104 west of Wall Street?
Four feet.
Okay, so we're matching 104 west of Wall Street based on your recollection and your measurements.
That's correct.
Okay, so we're mimicking what's there.
Now, how wide is 102 west of Wall Street?
if you're a number 19 feet okay so that's the smallest lot of of of the three lots that we discussed
Okay, so that's the smallest lot of the three lots that we discussed, because 31 west of
Wall Street was 20 feet wide, you know, 100 west of Wall Street was the widest at 21 feet,
but tapered off to 18 feet, seven inch, seven and one half inches. But this one consistently
is 19 feet wide throughout, right? Correct. Okay, so if you had to meet the minimum side
yard requirement of eight feet the building structure would have to be 11 feet right that's
correct 11 feet okay would you be able to have a functional floor plan under those circumstances by
being required to meet the philadelphia zoning character no okay so and the 15 feet that we're
that we're proposing by way of these revised plans is essentially the minimum
uh amount possible to have a functional floor plan under those circumstances correct okay
um and you know again we didn't talk about this for 31 or 100 but can you just explain
you know to the board how you come up with that rationale why 15 feet is the magic number
and it can't be any less can you bring up that floor plan sure which one i guess for like
Like a 102, 100-102 plan.
All right, here's...
Yeah, there we go.
So if we take, for instance, the second floor plan, which is basically, you know, it's a
typical sort of floor plan that you would see in a house that has pretty good depth and minimal
width you basically you have a stairwell that you you basically want to put in the long direction
which is going to be a minimum of three feet and then you usually need like four inches for a hand
rail another three feet for the corridor space to wrap around to get to the third floor and so you're
and you sort of have a dumbbell plan where you have bedrooms on the wider part of the building
front and back and enough space for closet space and so you're left with the toilet rooms the
bathrooms and and the laundry room sort of fit into that leftover space so with 15 feet you're
pretty much at a minimum of like seven feet for for the bathrooms and uh so that sort of is the
determining factor in in in the width of the building and making it practical and conforming
to the way, you know, people use space today.
I'm going to go back to the refusal for NORNO2 again.
Okay, so we talked about the minimum side yard requirement
that we're trying to be in conformance
to nine foot wide
property. We're asking
to have a four foot side yard which
mimics what's on 104
and a 15 foot wide
property. He explained the rationale
behind it that we couldn't have
eight feet wide side
yards because we would have an 11
foot wide structure which
nowhere in the neighborhood is
there such a structure on a lease on that
block. The second refusal
has to do minimum one part
one parking space is required for single family household living whereas there is no proposed
parking space how how do you react to that refusal well there certainly could not be parking space in
the front of the building because of the um again there would just be a garage in the front
with a door next to it leading to the second floor of the building and you couldn't have a driveway
on the side because you'd need 10 feet and uh on the side yard uh would leave you with basically a
nine foot building um so that was the solution was to put them in the rear and i think that's
what the intent of the zoning code was to have parking in the rear in this kind of situations
so you did provide a parking space the parking space is just by way of easement on 100 west of
That's correct.
And 104 west of all.
And you were able to leverage, unlike 31 west of all street, which was landlocked, because this was a corner property, you were able to leverage the access through Cherokee to have the parking in the rear through 100 west of all street, right?
That's correct.
But there's no parking, for instance, at 104 west of all street at all.
Or 106.
Okay. So if having no parking here, if the board feels so included,
Okay. So having no parking here, if the board feels so inclined to have no parking as a proviso,
would not be out of character to those nearby properties on our side of the street?
That's correct, because they don't have parking.
Okay. I'm going to unshare my screen. I am done with the question of Mr. Rola. If the board feels
so inclined to ask Mr. Rola to our questions, we can also reshare our documents.
anyone have questions for mr roller no mr chair no it's not us
the only thing i would ask mr chair is to admit uh the most recently uh uh presented materials
into evidence okay everything we will admit it um so real quick does the planning commission
have any additional comments about this with what's after the presentation uh good evening
mr chairman david effecto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with the city planning commission thank you do you swear
affirm to tell the truth nothing but the truth yes sir i do proceed uh so mr chairman we have
no additional questions in our testimony from the last round stands. Thank you very much. Mr.
Nakasin, the vote on this matter for all three cases is being held for at least 30 days for the
preparation of a supplemental finding of fact and conclusions of law that will be incorporated
through proviso into the board's decision. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you very much,
Mr. Nakasin. Have a great day. Okay.
Okay, so now we're going to go to number 12, I think.
Give me one more.
Yes, number 12, Mr. Chair.