lebaron
no questions chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary
no questions chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission
amy wood with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to
the existing multifamily residential RTA-2,
sorry, RTA-1, zoning at this location,
for-friendly household living
is consistent with prior variances.
The applicant's hardship for deck setback
and occupied area are not supported
with unique physical circumstances
or condition of the properties
that would prevent it from being used
in conformance with the requirements of the code.
The Planning Commission recommends
that the board grant the variance
for four-family household living, but deny the requested variances for deck setback and occupied
area. Thank you. For the record, there are no decks, Mr. Chair. There's two balconies in the
rear and the covered porch. I think they're considering that the flat above that porch
as a deck, but it's not, and he didn't put it there. Okay, thank you. MI 2023-007-212-102 North
50th Street, I vote yes. Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
LeBaron Leonard Palmer, my vote is yes. You have your votes, counsel. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. Number 18, MI 2024, 000644, 1414 South 18th Street. Sean Whalen is the attorney.
letter of opposition
from the Point Breeze Community Development
Coalition. There were two
meetings.
Sean Whalen
is coming back in as a panelist now,
Chair.
Still good morning, Board Chairman.
Almost.
Could you just state your name, please, and spell for the courts that aren't for me?
Certainly. Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Certainly. My client is Andrew Lai and Sin Su, the owners of the property.
And our vice chair has just a few questions.
Certainly.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
I do, and I would simply make a note that we've actually cured one of the three refusals, but I'll walk through that in a minute.
Thank you. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I did.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much.
As I stated, my name is Sean Whalen from Vintage Law, here on behalf of 1414 South 18th Street.
What you see now, I can actually zone this in, this is the Philadelphia Atlas map.
The property in question is a corner property.
It is 16 feet wide and 57 feet long along Garrett Street, right at the corner of South 18th and Garrett Street,
with the major cross intersections being Reed and Dickinson.
This is Google Earth image and I'll show you in a second. This building was recently demolished
because it became unsafe and so there was an existing building here that was 100% lock covered.
what you see here is the zoning map we have this is an rsa5 district as you can see it's
mostly rsa5 but there are cmx1 uh sort of commercial corner uses uh rife throughout
the entire neighborhood and essentially that's what that's our proposal here today
there's even one right at the corner right at the end of our block down at dickinson
so again here's the existing conditions this is the vacant lot here on the corner
we would be proposing what is now a three-story building with one apartment and a first floor
commercial which would be a local cafe owned and operated by the family that's going to be
owning the property you can see this is just the existing conditions of looking up
You can see this is just the existing conditions of looking up and down South 18th Street.
So I'll leave it there.
Again, some additional photos here from the architect.
You can see the surrounding neighborhood.
A lot of multifamily in this area with a lot of the corner commercial uses.
So again, we have four refusals. One refusal for the eating and drinking establishment being
prohibited in RSA 5. Again, we believe that this should be appropriately CMX 1, just like
the numerous other CMX 1 lots that are all around at the corners. We also received a two-family
dwelling unit is prohibited in RSA 5, we have actually cured this refusal. So I'll walk through
in a second what we did, but we are now only seeking one apartment above the commercial use,
not two. So that refusal goes away. And then finally, we are proposing to continue the
prior existing 100% lot coverage use. So we have refusals that 20% open area is required
and a nine-foot rear yard is required. So what we originally had was the first floor commercial
here. This is a view from Garrett Street. South 18th Street would be on the left.
and then we had two apartments with a four-story building. We went to the RCO for an initial
meeting. That meeting was very well attended and the vote was actually
11 yes and 11 no. So it came out dead even with four stories and two apartments.
But the overwhelming statement that we heard from the community in the opposition was the building was just too big and overbearing at four stories and two apartments.
So what we did, we have a proviso plan submitted for one page proviso plan, and we've reduced the proposed structure from four stories down to three stories, and we've reduced the residential number of units from two units down to one.
So this is the proviso plan that was submitted in advance. And again, you can see significantly reduced height here. And again, we will just have one two-bedroom unit, so a larger unit encompassing bi-level unit on the second and third floors with an outdoor space for that unit, both on this balcony roof deck and at the roof deck at the top of the building.
and again we are still proposing a essentially local cafe coffee shop on the first floor.
I should also note you can see the as I'll point out later with regard to any imposition from the
continued use of this as 100% built out. Again this was 100% built out and
generally speaking was abandoned because we had to demolish that
build, but only because the building became unsafe. Otherwise, we would have been by right
at this first level to continue the full build out. This build out, we have a three and a half
foot alleyway in the rear. And as you can see both up here and I think in my site photos,
the rear of our property actually goes up to the side of the adjacent property behind us.
So we are not, and there are no windows or breakages whatsoever in that wall.
So what we have is, you know, we are seeking to continue this 100% lot coverage, but that
100% lot coverage does not impinge or impose upon anyone's light, air, or quality of use
in their rear yard.
So again, reduced it down to three stories.
And here's what you have.
The issue has been now the commercial space. Garrett Street is along the bottom here. You can see this is the three and a half foot wide alleyway, 100% build out. And then this is that side building that I just showed you with no windows.
So South 18th Street is on the left hand side. Again, there will be a separate entry on South 18th Street going up to the bi-level apartment.
separate entry on South 18th Street going up to the bi-level apartment on the second and third
floors. And then there will be a commercial window here, an entryway on the commercial space.
The real commercial frontage here will be along Garrett Street. There's a label as bicycle
storage, but this is intended for the customers and employees to be able to put their bikes
and strollers and whatnot into this area will also be used to, you know, in foul weather to
keep coats and things like that, keep all that sort of stuff off the street and out of the right
of way. This extension also and a proviso that we would accept is to allow us to build out a trash
room. So instead of maintaining the trash outside in an open rear yard, we can have a separate trash
room with a separate door. And we would be using private trash collection at a minimum of two times
a week to make sure that there are no issues with that. And then, you know, this is all ADA compliant.
You would have another entryway right in here. This is a small space. It's only about 400,
450 square feet and so you know we would be limiting this to no more than 20 people and we
would agree to a proviso of that sort the intended use here is for a local coffee shop with limited
simple breakfast and lunch offerings and then we are seeking 7 a.m to 10 p.m hours which again we
would also agree to a proviso of the later hours after the lunchtime so again this would be this
is intended to be kind of a local community coffee shop with those it's not going to have a commercial
kitchen it's going to have a limited kitchen so it'll be sort of similar to the offerings you can
get at your local coffee shop like a starbucks or other things of that nature in the evenings
the owner is hoping to have some small cooking classes or tastings, and those would be periodic
and limited. So there is no intention to serve full dinners, but that is why we're requesting
the 10 p.m. I would note also, and we would accept a proviso, there is no liquor license here,
and we are not serving any liquor here. So none of the standard nuisance issues will apply or be
involved here. So getting into the hardship, we had 100% lot coverage. We are seeking to do that
again only on the first floor. Here we go. You can see that we have the full setback on the
second and third floors. Again, we reduced it in working with the RCO from four stories to three
stories and from two units to one unit. The second RCO meeting we had was not very well attended,
but people were very appreciative of us working with them and kind of hearing their concerns.
We did get a no vote at that meeting, but there were only six people
who voted at that one as opposed to the 22 at the original meeting.
Sean, the basement, is that used by the cafe?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes, the basement will be commercial space storage.
It's approximately 350 to 400 square feet for, let's see, I'm glad you asked that because
I had it up right there.
Actually, if you're interested, Hillary told me to ask, so I didn't think that through
it was Hillary to ask that question, so thank you.
All right.
Well, excellent idea, Hillary, and wonderful execution board, Chairman.
Yeah, so you can see the commercial space, the commercial cellar actually ends.
It's not going to extend the full length of the property as the first floor build-out will.
So, again, it'll be accessed by – it has no access to the exterior.
It will be accessed only through the local cafe going down these stairs.
You want to bring our client on?
Certainly. Can you see if Andrew Lye is on?
Mr. Lye, please raise your virtual hand.
Yeah. And while he's coming on, I would say that this is going to be a family owned and operated building with they have extensive extensive experience in restaurants.
But what they are doing here, this is their first entryway into owning and operating their own restaurant.
uh owning and operating their own restaurant uh so they're very excited to become a part
So they're very excited to become a part of the neighborhood.
of the neighborhood here and and start this small uh small cafe
hello i'm here hi could you please state your name and spell for this stenographer
first name's andrew last name is lai l-a-i right do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes please proceed counsel thank you very much uh
Mr. Lye, you're the owner of the property, correct?
That is correct.
And did you hear all of the testimony that I already presented in this case?
And all of the provisors I said that we would be comfortable with?
And do you believe them to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
And would you adopt them as your own?
Questions from the board.
Thank you very much, board chair.
Sarah, I neglected to state it. As I said, we are seeking essentially to convert this to one of the corner CMX1 uses.
We see no detriment, which we would have to prove for a hardship to the community.
We are going out of our way to make sure there's no nuisance capability here.
We would also agree to a proviso of no grocery sales.
So this is not intended to become a corner store of any sort.
um i believe i've already stated the bases for a hardship and this is the least minimum variance
because we're seeking only the first floor in a continuation of the size that it used to be
and there historically was uh dating all the way back to the 1950s a uh a commercial use
on this first floor and in fact that's why it was built out uh 100 so thank you with that i offer
questions from the board
no chair
no questions chair
questions or comments from our attorney
Hillary Emerson
just briefly
Mr. Whalen so just to
clarify because the
refusal only broadly
refused or refused
the broader category of eating and drinking
establishment you're requesting
specifically a prepared food shop for this location on the first floor and basement.
Is that correct?
Yes, this would be a prepared food shop with limited seating, no alcohol, and no takeout.
It would be just for breakfast, light fare for breakfast and lunch as kind of part of
a local coffee shop.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have a call-in user
Call-in user, please unmute yourself
And wait for the chair
Hi, Tiffany Green
Hi, could you please state your name
And spell it for the stenographer, Stephanie