and our as-filed zoning plan is included in our packet as Exhibit 16.
Exhibit 9 is a depiction of the zoning plan and approvals and areas for this immediate
community.
And the center is Wharton Square.
And I want to draw the board's attention to the significant amount of multifamily zoning
that is permitted along and around the perimeter of the square.
To the north is extensive amounts of RM1 where my cursor is right now.
On the corner at Reed and 23rd Street, again a significant amount of RM1 zoning.
Each one of the corners in pink is CMX1.
And then we also have extensive CMX2 zoning at the corner of 24th Street and Reed.
Exhibit 8 is a depiction of all the multi-families that are within the RSA 5 zoning provisions as well as
the CMX 1 and 2 that we just referenced. So in the upper left-hand corner at the corner of
24th and Wharton Street this board recently approved a five-story
and Wharton Street. This board recently approved a five-story, 50-unit multifamily development.
There are triplexes and duplexes. Triplexes located within the three-story structures,
as indicated. The duplex is located in two-story structures, as indicated. As you can see,
the square itself has seen quite a lot of multifamily development approved and developed
around its perimeter. All within general conformity with the Zodiac Code provisions.
Exhibit 4, we saw the build over and I mentioned the shadows that were cast. So Exhibit 10 is the
actual shadow study. And as the board can see, right now we're essentially covering all the
rear yard of 1311 South 23rd Street with a shadow caused by the legal 100% law coverage that exists
at 1313 South 23rd Street. As indicated, we're going to open this up. So what we're asking for
today, as indicated in the shadow study, will undoubtedly, unequivocally increase the air and
light to the surrounding properties.
Exhibit 11 includes the prior zoning history for this property, including the variance
granted in 1992 for the commercial use on the first floor and the multifamily residential
on the second floor.
One of the requests made by the Board is that we do whatever we can to address stormwater
management that's generally concerning the community.
We are happy to include a rain barrel design, and we'll make this as part of our ultimate project.
Exhibit 15 is our letter from the Point Breeze Community Development Coalition.
Now, my client appeared before Point Breeze Community Development Coalition two times.
The first on June 28, 2021, and the second time on October 25, 2021.
As you can see from this letter of not support from the Point Breeze Community Development
Coalition, there are a couple important things to take note of here. First of all,
this is essentially a split vote. The position in the community that voted on this project were
seven in support and ten opposed. So this is certainly not a project that saw broad opposition
to it. And then in terms of the number of people who showed up at the property,
this was a very well attended meeting where only 17 people from the community itself voted.
So there were a total of 43 attendees with only 17 actually voting on this project. As my client,
Mr. Gianti and Mr. Kwamek can both testify too. The meeting itself was very heated. We were third
on the agenda and there was quite a lot of contention beforehand and many of the individuals
who had wanted to come and make an appearance and testify unfortunately had left just because
of the length of time of the meeting lasted and the amount of contention. But to show that
there really is more than simply the seven people who made it through the meeting and were allowed
to go to support. My client has secured a letter of support from the immediate surrounding near
neighbors, including the ones that live within the immediate properties right to the east of 1313
on Sears Street, 2247 and 2248, property owners on South 23rd Street, and then property owners
to extend down through Sears Street. This property in our proposal is not only accurately
and clearly depicted on the top of Exhibit 14 in terms of its rendering, but accurately
and correctly described within the pros of this letter of support. And we have a total
of 12 individuals who were not included within the seven who voted at the RCO meeting, but
again also support this project.
Going down through our zoning application, we have for both our June and our October
meeting complied with the requirements of 14-303.
We have accurately posted the property as seen in Exhibit 19.
We have included the last deed, which is to my client Quan T. Mack.
which is to my client Quan T. Mac. We have our proviso form and our tax documents.
We also at the end have Sam Morton's that show that, in particular, that 1313 South 23rd,
its lot dimensions are significantly large. They're 18 by 63. The average property on,
or all the properties on Sears Street are much smaller at 1430. At 18 feet wide and 63 feet deep,
we have a total lot area of 1,134. Or in terms of existing gross floor area, 2,268 square feet.
What we're proposing in terms of total gross floor area for the new proposal, the three-story
structure is 2,713 square feet. So by eliminating all of the overbuild on the rear yard area
that is found at both the first and the second floor existing structure,
we're essentially replacing it with a third storage structure that total gross floor area
will not be identical but will be very close and certainly the units will be of very comparable
size to everything that's seen on Sears Street and then with that I would like to
I'd like to call Mr. Nick Janty to just briefly explain his experience and his concept for this
particular proposal is he the architect no Colin Ruff is the architect Mr. Janty is the partner
with Mr. Mack on this development project.
Sure, Paul.
Nick, if you could please raise your hand
and I'll allow you to enter the room.
Mr. Giante has been allowed to speak.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, sir?
Please unmute yourself, sir.
Do you hear me?
Yes. State your name and spell for the court reporter.
Yes. My name is Nicholas Giganti. First name, N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S. Last name, G-I-G-A-N-T-I.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Go ahead.
Mr. Janty, first of all, can you explain to the board your role with the development of 1313 South 23rd Street?
Yes. I have known Kwan for some time.
And basically, this property has been sitting undeveloped, kind of an eyesore.
and um based on my knowledge of of developing he he approached me about helping him out with
with uh building something on the property since the property is is kind of structurally not sound
at this moment and um that's that's basically where we came to coming up with this this design
mr can you see the rendering that's depicted on the screen now yes i do and can you just
briefly explain to the board how you came to this aesthetic? Absolutely. So, and to give you a
little background about myself, I am a Point Breeze resident. I lived in Point Breeze for 12
years. I'm very familiar with the neighborhood, the fabric of the neighborhood. This property
is across the street from Wharton Park. I bring my children to Wharton Park. It's a beautiful park
that's not really that known to many people.
So personally speaking, when I build things,
I like to design them with the proper aesthetic
that you don't see anymore in Philadelphia.
A lot of these builders are budget builders.
They don't build things to fit the aesthetic
because of course it costs a little bit more.
So this type of design, I want to use all brick on the building because it stands the
test of time as we see the brick buildings in Society Hill and the federal style buildings
that are hundreds of years old.
And I also wanted the bay windows to reflect the bay windows that you would see on those
older style buildings with the old tin bays.
So, of course, that would be additional money that would need to be spent, but it would, you know, I always say part of the experience of going to the park.
It would, you know, I always say part of the experience of going to the park is not only the park itself, but the buildings that surround it.
And it would really just be a disservice to see somebody who doesn't put something up that really aesthetically fits the fabric of the neighborhood.
Because unfortunately, especially living in particularly Point Breeze, I've just seen a lot of really horrible construction go up.
And unfortunately, as a citizen of the neighborhood, you have to deal with it for the rest of your life until the building falls apart or whatnot.
So that's kind of the background of how we designed it and the look of it, which I think really came out nice.
Going to the letter of support.
First of all, did you personally security signatures?
Yes, I personally knocked on doors, spoke with neighbors, spoke about their concerns, had conversations. I mean, this was a multi-day thing right here. I mean, I had, you know, some people you're having half hour conversations, they're getting to know me, I'm getting to know them.
really at the end of the day figuring out like do you have any concern with this project like
this is the type of person I am this is the type of look I'm going for and ultimately we had a lot
of positive support um most people wanted what's there which is just an eyesore there's you know
Ronan's coming in and out of it and you know what I mean it's just it's it's just an eyesore at this
point um mr toner mr toner i think you described the building to us really well
how you came to that conclusion so i i want to try to skip over what how he designed it because
you went over that in detail for so yeah i'm really just going into the support from the community
yeah and to be brief i did speak with the neighbors the neighbors on the block overall had
support it was either they had support or i i couldn't get a hold of them because they were
you know it was a vacant building or whatnot but majority of people i spoke to were in total
support of this property being redeveloped excuse me sir excuse me sir yes where was the community
in opposition i i truly feel that the nature of that meeting because it we were um uh not the
first people to speak and the other projects that they were debating were so heated and people were
very contentious about it that we lost a lot of positive votes coming our way because I spoke with
the neighborhood. I got positive feedback from the neighbors I spoke with. We had people hop on
for the RCO meeting and then we waited literally three weeks to get the vote back and then the vote
was in opposition which i i that hit me by surprise because i mean a lot of work went
into this we made changes we spoken to people this we're not you know i'm not trying to say
that i'm just like going around just building things not talking to neighbors like these are
my neighbors i you know i've been living in point breeze i know what this neighborhood you know is
and what it needs and um i truly believe that was a result of that excuse me this is carol
Did they say anything about why they didn't like this? Any, just one word, anything?
The RCO?
They had some pushback on the, it being a multi-unit building.
But we're trying to, yeah, go ahead.
is it fair to say that one of the demands was that you build a
a two-story all brick single-family home that would be affordable housing selling for less
than 150 000 no no that was not one of the requests of the community oh i'm sorry yeah
no that was one of the requests and it's not unfortunately not feasible and one of the other
individuals who spoke in opposition at the R2 meeting, did he ask that you perform work at his
property at 1311 North 23rd Street? Yes. Did they also ask that you eliminate street trees from the
proposal? I don't remember that. And just finally, Mr. Janty, can you basically summarize for the
board or compare the comments that you heard at the RCO meeting with the community input
With the community input you received when you walked the neighborhood, spoke with neighbors on their stoop in their block?
you received when you walked the neighborhood, spoke with neighbors on their students.
Yeah, I mean, overall, there was a negative response to the development, as in my experience, especially in Point Breeze, is usually how it's seen, unfortunately.
But when I'm face-to-face with the neighbors and kind of going over the plans and spelling it out
and showing them what we're doing and what we want to do, it's like night and day.
I mean, no one really had any type of negative feedback.
Really, they wanted to see this blight be fixed.
Thank you. Board, I have Mr. Colin Ruff. I think from the chairman's comments that
details of the zoning plan have been covered, but if the board has any questions concerning
the layout of the units, we do have the architect available, too. So with that, I'd like to
open the board. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman. No.
No, Mr. Chairman. Questions from the virtual audience or comments?
Mr. Chair, we have Demetrius Richardson with his hand raised.
I can grab you at this time, sir.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, sir?
Yes. Demetrius Richardson, D-E-M-E-T-R-I-U-S.
Last name is Richardson, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you. Proceed, sir.
Good morning. Thank you for having me on here.
As this client is presenting his building for 1313 South 23rd Street, we had several meetings with him, with the community.
One of my concerns was those bay windows that he keeps trying to push.
everything on 23rd Street between Wharton and Reed
is flat, including all new development, that those
developers work closely with the community and they came and they agreed
to keep it in conformity with the rest of the block by making
the buildings flat, even the new three-story constructions, which we all
have, and I have one next door to me, at
1327 South 23rd Street.
So in previous years, in 2018, the ZPA board also voted against 1301 23rd Street, which is the very first house between Sears and Wharton because they wanted to do multifamily and they didn't get the approval.
And the house sold as a single family. It sold for a quite lengthy amount, but it sold as a single family.
And the house that he sold on Wharton Street with the bay windows is a structure for Wharton.
There are three-story houses over there, and they replicate the houses on Ridge Street.
23rd and 24th Street houses are all flat, lined walls, and this is what we wanted in the community.
We're all for new development.
We don't mind the new development.
We don't want the multifamily.
We want a single family.
So we're not opposing him building.
We ask him to build single family.
he had the bar right by 38 feet which we can't stop so build that and then build single family
and then build take away those bays that's all we asked him to do and he would not do that so
and I've talked to them several times at the meeting about those bay windows and I thank you
for having me thank you thank you for your call sir thank you any other comments from the virtual
audience mr chairman so should we understand that the main objection is the um multi-units