and we are live
we okay time
Chair, if we can just give one minute for the attendees to come into our virtual room.
okay chair we have 51 attendees presently you may begin as you wish good good morning everyone
my name is bill bergman i will be chairing this morning the dba hearing with me is
Carol Tenere, our vice chair. Present. Ismail Shahid, our board secretary.
Here, Mr. Chair. Thomas Holliman, our board member. Present, Mr. Chairman. And James Snell,
our board member. Present, Mr. Chairman. Also here is our board administrator,
Tanya Sunkit, and our attorney, Rebecca Cole. Before we start, let me go over the virtual
format. Be advised, these proceedings are being recorded. By participating, you acknowledge your
agreement to be recorded. The video will be available by contacting tonyasunkett at
philadelphia.gov. For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses
who identify themselves before testifying. If you're participating by phone and you wish to
testify press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute to enter an appearance statement
call 267-270-5548 leave your email and the address of the property in question and lastly
please note the question answer box on your on your screen is not for comments any comments
should be directed to Tanya Sunkett, our board administrator.
I'm going to start with continuances.
So the continuances for the day.
Number four, MI 2021-003525, 2214 North Reece Street.
Number five, MI 2021-003526, 2215 North Reece Street.
Number six, MI 2021-003530-2237 North Reese.
MI 2021-003529-2233 North Reese.
Number eight, MI 2021-003528-2231 North Reese.
Number nine, MI 2021-001959-2349 North 20th Street.
Anyone have any comments about these continuances?
Only those continuances.
I did not see any hints, Mr. Chair.
They will all be continued and marked must be tried.
Case number 14, MI 2021, 003561, 908 North 63rd Street, and case 15, MI 2021, 003557, 906 North 63rd Street.
Could the representatives for those two cases step forward or raise their hand?
As a representative for the two aforementioned cases, once again, please raise your hand.
Both cases are continued and Mark must be tried.
We have an add-on case of 1910 Chestnut Street.
We will put that towards the end of our list and we'll hear the morning list and then go to that.
We will put that towards the end of our list, and we'll hear the morning list and then go to that.
Any other continuances requested?
Mr. Chair, we have North Central Philadelphia CDC with their hand raised.
I will allow them to speak at this time.
Please wait to be sworn in, sir or madam.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Please state your name and spell it for the court reporter.
Tina Marie Russell.
T-I-N-A-M-A-R-I-E-R-U-S-S-E-L-L.
Good morning.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
What case, Ms. Harris?
23-49 North 20th Street.
I'm not sure if the attorney was represented to continue this matter.
Is that this morning?
Yes, at 930.
Is that 23-49 North 20th Street, Tina?
Yeah, that was already continued, Tina and Bill.
Thank you so much.
I wasn't sure.
I just caught on.
Okay, thank you.
All right, thanks, Tina.
Any other cases?
All right, we're going to go to the regular list.
MI 2021-001897, 1313 South 23rd Street.
Paul Toner is the associate attorney, Point Breeze Community Coalition in Opposition.
Councilman Johnson opposed.
Mr. Toner.
Okay, sir, I have a NNCDRN LLC with their hand raised.
I can allow them to speak at this time.
Okay. So they can just be allowed to speak to make sure that they should be an attorney for this case.
Right. Mr. Bergman, can you hear me?
Yeah. Could you state your name for me, please, and spell it?
Yes. Paul Toner.
Oh, good, good, good. Good. All right.
Okay. For future workers, can you please have your name so we can identify you? Thank you, Mr. Toner.
Mr. Toner, spell your name for the court reporter, please.
E-O-N-E-R.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, yes.
Our vice chair.
I'm sorry, Peter.
This is time that we would need to pause.
Jason, could you promote Mr. Toner to the panelists, please?
Yes, ma'am.
Understood.
Mr. Chairman, may I begin?
our vice chair has a few questions
good morning Mr. Toner
do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy
we do yes
it appears that you have everything required
submitted in the exhibit packet
is that correct
that is correct
okay you may proceed
thank you very much
Mr. Chairman and members of the board
I'm happy today to present
an application for a variance
for 1313 South 23rd Street. What we're proposing today will bring this property into greater
compliance with the RSA 5 zoning districts. It is an existing two-story property that has 100%
lot coverage that not only covers the entirety of the existing rear yard of the property,
but also a four-foot public alleyway at the back of the property. The proposal is to eliminate
the non-conformities and build a 100% conforming structure according to all the dimensional
provisions of the RSA zoning district and we will be in effect be down zoning from the commercially
approved use of the property and this property has a documented history of a variance being granted
for a first floor grocery store with a projecting sign plus a residential rental unit on the second
floor. With me today, we have our architect team, including Colin Rupp from Nome Architects.
Partnered with the current owner of the property, Quan Mac, is Nick Gianti. He is a local resident
and known developer in the community who has extensive experience with this particular
community. And then with that, I'd like to go through my zoning packet. As I mentioned before,
we're seeking a single variance and before you on my screen and can everyone see the screen
this is exhibit three this is the existing conditions in the property and you'll see the
existing structure and in the back you see the approved edition that has 100% blocked the rear
yard and the public right away
and the public right away.
A single refusal was issued for this property,
and that being in the RSA 5 zoning district,
a single family is permitted,
and we're proposing three dwelling units.
Notable on the refusal itself is
referenced to the prior zoning history
with its approval as a grocery store
and delicatessen with
with the residential rental unit and also included in our packet is the zoning archives
so this is this is what my client is proposing to develop at 1313 south 23rd street a three-story
structure that is specifically intended to comport conform with the surrounding uses
this is an all brick structure with detailed brick work that was modeled after a property
on the corner of Wharton Street that's included with Exhibit 13 to bring back some of the
style of bay windows that are seen in the neighborhood, the brickwork that is seen in
the neighborhood, all with the idea of adding a long-term asset to this community.
This property is at the corner of South 23rd Street and Sears Street. Here's a visual,
and this is Exhibit 2, page 2, of the renderings that show the angled bays on the side, Sears
Street side. There'll be two separate entryways, one entry on the Sears Street where my cursor
is, and then one entry atop the stoop onto South 23rd Street. And the third rendering
is a visual that shows the rear yard area that not only shows the restoration of the
open area, the rear yard open area at the rear yard, but also a dedicated custom built trash
storage unit that will allow all the unit owners to store their trash safely and behind the fence
with swing open gates to allow them to put the trash out only on trash day, which was a specific
request of the community that we are happy to provide. Going back to the existing conditions.
On page two, there is a visual of Sears Street, and again, our property is on the corner of
South 23rd and Sears. As you can see, going down Sears Street, there are a number of existing
two-story structures with new construction. In the middle of Sears Street, you see two
three-story new construction homes. And this is a visual going, looking west on Sears Street,
our property on the right side of this image. And then in the immediate foreground is the Wharton
Square. Page four shows the properties to north of our property and again some new three-story
homes that have recently been approved and constructed. Moving to exhibit four.
So this is an aerial of Wharton Square showing our property at 1313 South 23rd Street.
There are a couple notable issues here that I'd like to draw your attention to.
First of all, you can see the blue SEPTA station markers on South 23rd Street.
This property is literally on the SEPTA bus route.
Its front door is going to open up onto the SEPTA bus route.
This is an area that we believe is appropriate for a multifamily use for many reasons,
but one of them being that it is ideally situated within easy access public transportation in the center of the city.
And then on 21st Street, which is the next street, on 22nd Street, which is visible on the right side of this picture,
you can see, again, the septum marker showing the bus route leading into center of the city.
This is certainly within the Point Brace community, an easy walk and bike into the neighborhood or into center city.
So we think this is a property that, because of its situation within and on bus route, has excellent access to public transportation.
On the second aerial view, there is a good image of the existing buildover on the rear yard.
This, again, is 100% existing lot coverage.
This is the rear yard where my cursor is, or the four-foot public alley where my cursor is right now.
And that's situated between 1313 South 23rd and 2247 Sears Street.
This is not accessible at this point.
And we're going to move later on onto some shadow studies.
And just to note at this point, the existing 100% lock coverage is causing shadows as the sun rises from the east and sets in the west.
As the sun rises from the east and sets in the west throughout the day, this addition, which we propose to remove, is currently impacting the air and light of the property at 1311 South 23rd Street, as well as 1309 South 23rd Street.
moving to the zoning plan and we have uh mr rupp from no more architectures here who can
walk the board through some of the particulars of the zoning plan but most important is this
property is 100 in compliance with every dimensional provision of the rsa 5 zoning
district the only refusal and the only variance being sought today is to allow for the three
units where one unit is provided in terms of the floor plans and this is exhibit six in our packet
what we're proposing are the three units and these are all of significant size unit one has a total
gross floor area of 1,590 feet. Now this is in fact larger than every one of the homes on Sears
Street that has a gross floor area closer to 1,400 square foot. So this is going to be in terms
of size fully in line with what we already see for the homes on this immediate block.
The second and third units, the third unit has a square footage of 1,066 and the second
of 866.
So again, none of these are efficiency units.
These are all two-bedroom, two-bass.
In terms of the height, as the board's aware, the RSA 5 allows for my client to build up
to 38.
Working with the neighborhood to reduce air and light issues as much as possible, this
was planned at 33 feet in height so we're a full five feet below what the zoning code permits by
right some other notable notable provisions so the unit on the bedroom on the basin level and den
these are both have dedicated stair access at the rear of the property
So easy secondary access, as well as the egress well at the front of the property.
And then on the second page, which is the first floor plan, we can see again the trash
enclosure, which is planned.
This was a specific request of the community, which we were happy to provide, as well as
the separate entry on the upper left-hand corner.
each one of these units as you can see on the second page our second floor plan
large living spaces large kitchens large bedrooms
and on the roof plan you can see you'll have a dedicated roof deck for just the third floor unit
the one zoning plan that's part of our proviso plan or proviso form
is when we changed the bays from original box bays to an angled bay, we had to revise
our zoning plan. So, this is the limited change from our original as-submitted zoning plan,