All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have a great night, everyone.
Number six, MI-2022-002-541-1400 East Mount Pleasant.
Michael Hanley is the attorney.
Letter of support from the 50th Ward RCO.
Mr. Hanley is coming back in now as a panelist, Sheriff.
Thank you.
Hi, Mr. Handley. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes. Good evening. Michael Handley, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-H-A-N-D-L-E-Y.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in a relationship to the property?
Yes. My client is the owner of the property, Andrew Neville.
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Mr. Hanley, do you read away the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance, refusal referral,
photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met
with the RCO?
And do you have a letter?
Yes, to all of those.
Okay, great.
You may proceed and begin with sharing your screen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So good evening, Council.
Thank you for hearing us so late this evening.
Hopefully we can be quick.
First, I'd like to bring up the receipts for mailing of the notice to the community members.
You can see all those here.
They were all stamped out.
Next, I'd just like to show you the photos of the posting.
You can see here postings in the front yard.
Council, Council, there's nothing up.
It's not coming up?
No, you've got to share your screen.
I did hit share screen.
It's coming up now, but now you've got to get your list out.
Can you see it now?
I think you've got to go into the email now.
We now have your postal.
Okay, that's what you can see?
We see that.
Okay, great.
So this is just the, these are the proof of mail and the notices out to all of the 180
some neighbors.
Next, we have the photos of the posting of the property, front yard and side yard.
I next have the zoning permit refusal.
And if you'll notice here where the cursor is, the property was previously granted a
variants to allow for two family dwellings and a doctor's office on the lower level.
I have here the tax certificate issued August 18th.
We have here the RCO opinion in support of the variants requested.
and i have here some photos of the property you know to go through these quickly um and just for
some background what we're looking to do here is basically convert the the lower level doctor's
office into a third apartment and have this unit be uh grant of airings to have three residential
units as opposed to the two residential units and the doctor's office that it was previously
You can see here on the photos, the front door here to the middle floor and top floor apartment.
You can see over the right here, this is the door to the lower level apartment.
The next photograph here is from the rear of the property.
You can see here is a back door to the lower level apartment.
These are windows going into a shared living room and kitchen space.
There's also a parking spot back here for the resident of the lower level apartment.
Again you can see here this is from the side of the building. This is another door to the
lower level apartment as well as a window to the bedroom and a window to the kitchen.
You can see here in the interior here is the lower level kitchen window we saw on the outside
which provides plenty of natural light to the kitchen. You can see here in this photo to the
right you can see the light coming in and that's from the other window at the back of the lower
level unit this is the window you could see on the outside on the side of the unit
window allowing light in this is the bedroom and this is the separate entrance to the bedroom
this is just some other pictures here and here's a picture of the interior looking in looking out
of the front door so this is the front door here the door to the middle floor apartment is here to
the left and up these two sets of stairs the door to the top floor apartment the property from what
we can tell has has at least since 1990 been three separate units when my client purchased the
property you can see here there's three water heaters in the basement one for each unit
there's three separate heating units this is the heating unit for the the lower level and then the
top floor and the middle floor had their own separate heating they run off boilers this is
a brand new boiler that my uh the applicant just put in and those are the photographs of the
property um you know basically we're looking to like i said have this property uh variance granted
so that we can turn it into three apartments the building is already set up as three separate units
It would cost a lot of money, and basically you'd have to gut the whole building if we wanted to change it back to a single-family residential area, a residential building.
It's going to have – it's going to lessen traffic in the area as the prior use of the lower level was a business as opposed to now would be a residential apartment.
It's also going to bring less people into the neighborhood.
It's a residential neighborhood.
The doctor's office that was in the lower level was one of the only businesses in a few
The doctor's office that was in the lower level was one of the only businesses in, you know, in a few block radius there.
And certainly on that block, it will not be detrimental at all to any of the neighbors.
There's a long term tenant that lives upstairs on the top floor.
He's been there for 20 plus years.
He spoke very kindly of the current owner and he was at the RCO hearing.
And in his opinion, I'll bring that back up.
um you know he testified that the new owner is a good landlord who takes care of any issues if
and when they arise um you know my client has already put thousands of dollars into this
property as you saw he put in a new boiler um he has been working on redoing the basement there
was some water damage in the basement after the doctor moved out so he has had to uh you know
more or less redo the entire basement all new appliances all new floors all new paint new doors
everything was ruined by water damage we had to redo all that uh so basically is your client
here available to take your adapt your testimony yes he is here why don't we have him sworn and
take let him do your testimony sure andrew are you here
mr neville please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
hi could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter please
certainly chair my name is andrew neville a-n-d-r-e-w then n-e-v-i-l-l-e you swear
for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed and andrew
did you hear my testimony this evening i did yes was my testimony true and correct it was yes would
you adopt my testimony as if it were your own i would yes thank you uh sure that's all i have for
you all right thank you questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments
from the virtual audience there we have dylan mahoney with his hand up mr mahoney you can
Now, mute yourself and wait for the chair.
Hi, Mr. Mahoney.
You've been sworn before.
Just state your name, please.
Dylan Mahoney.
I'm the Office of Councilwoman Parker.
Proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We've received a letter of support from the 50th Ward Democratic RCO,
and we have no opposition to the granting of the variance.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
There's no other hands at this time.
Any commission?
Ron Bednar city planning property is indicated for residential use on a city plan our adopted
district plan recommends no change to the existing residential single family zoning at this location
the applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or
conditions of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the code
this application represents an inappropriate overuse therefore we recommend the request
to advance not be granted. MI 2022-002-541-1400 East Mount Pleasant Avenue. I vote yes.
Harold Teneri my vote is yes. Thomas Solomon my vote is yes.
James Snell my vote is yes.
thank you thank you council number seven have a good evening mi-2022-002-225-7430 state road
sean ward is the attorney letter of non-opposition from the holmesburg civic association
mr ward is coming back in as a panelist now chair
good morning mr chairman is it is it thursday yet
could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
yeah sean ward s-h-a-w-n last name ward w-a-r-d uh here as applicant's attorney
My address is 331 E Street Road, Trevos, PA 19053.
You swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
I represent Zalzman, that's Z-A-L-Z-M-A-N, Properties LLC, the owner of the property,
as well as the tenant, Lee Zimmerman, Z-I-M-M-E-R-M-A-N, who is the tenant for the proposed
tenant space, subject of the application, and he is the operator of Counter-Strike.
And he is the operator of Counter-Strike, it's a physical therapy or, I mean, a physical fitness operation.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Ward.
Do you agree to wave through any of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, referral, photos, plans, five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all of the above.
Okay, great.
You may proceed and your screen's up.
So that's good.
Awesome.
Mr. Chair, members of the board, I've submitted my typical exhibit packet, which is displayed on the screen.
Let me blow it up.
I represent Salzman, Properties, LLC, which is the owner.
We were here on an application for them.
They were relocating the gun range from Northern Liberties up to the Helmsburg section.
The board was gracious enough to grant that application with the support of Helmsburg
Civic last year or the year before.
And they have a tenant space within the building that Lee Zimmerman, operating as Counter-Strike,
is the tenant. The property is a 7430 State Road. And A1 is the notice of refusal. The application
was a permit for personal services, which is a fitness gym. There was one refusal. Personal
services are not permitted in the district, and therefore a use variance is required.
a2 is the zba application of appeal a3 project information form a4 is the deed a5 proof of tax
clearance a6 is the site plan a7 is the key plan a8 are photographs of the subject property aerial
view street views as well as posting a9 is the rco letter should say non-opposition sorry from
Holmesburg Civic. A-10, if submitted, I would ask that Councilman Driscoll's letter be marked as
A-10. I don't know if they submitted one. A-11, as far as the relevant zoning history, again,
in 2020, we came to the board with an application for a firearms training facility and retail sales
gun shop. That application was branded with the supporter non-opposition of Holmesburg Civic.
Prior to that, the use in the property was a document shredding and construction warehouse
and storage with accessory offices. And dating back to 1936, it was a lacquer and stain
manufacturing facility. A-12 is a zoning map. A-13 is an aerial photograph.
So not to belabor the board's time, we have the deed.
We have the tax clearance.
We'll reduce these.
As you can see, all taxes are paid.
On the site plan, you'll see this was used in the previous application.
We provide 45 parking spaces off-site, which is well in excess by 15 spaces.
that which we're required to provide with regard to the uh the site plan or floor plan
uh this basically square area here that you see uh is uh currently basically a storage garage
which would be converted into the counter strikes uh fitness center it is serviced by an overhead
door plus a pedestrian door right next to it the rest of the first floor as you can see
in this section is occupied by the gun range currently still under under renovation and
progress with regard to the photographs this is a copy of the posting on the fence a close-up shot
The property is located on State Road with the CRX tracks to the upper left in the photograph
and 95 to the lower right.
It's located just below the Cotman Avenue exit of I-95.
You come up Blythe Street to State Road and the property is right here.
If the board recalls, we were here last week in support of a neighbor's application.
for Sweet Lucy's, which is located directly next door.
Here's just another aerial shot.
This is a dated photo from Google Earth, obviously, when it was more of an industrial site.
But the location of the fitness center would be right around this location here, right
under the red dot.
This is a picture of the front of the building from State Road. This, if I was standing in
This is a picture of the front of the building from State Road.