school which will have a maximum of 180 students it won't happen right away you know each class
will follow. It may take 10 years to get to that full capacity. So without further ado, I'd like
Stuart Rosenberg and his assistant Hannah Rosenberg to take over the slides and briefly go through
the design. Good afternoon, sir. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Stuart Rosenberg, and it's spelled S-T-U-A-R-T-R-O-S-E-N-B-E-R-G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Counsel, please proceed.
Thank you.
So, Stuart, you're the architect for the project for both the owner and the rabbi?
And obviously, you've testified many times.
You've been practicing as an architect in Philadelphia for how many years?
Over 40 years.
All right.
So can you tell us, as we go through the slide, generally, what was the original application and talk about the amendment that gave rise to what I'll call the revised refusal, and then what I'll call the settlement agreement, which will be submitted after the hearing, which has, again, revised zoning plan.
as you can imagine over a period of almost a year and a half the building design evolved
initially when we we established a program with the school and basically a wish list we presented
that to the community and got immediate feedback regarding scale height and use and during as
As Carl mentioned, during a series of many meetings, we began to redesign the building
and went through a series of multiple building design revisions that ultimately appeared
a pair down the program to what was essential to run the school. And to sort of summarize it,
down the program to what was essential to run the school.
the project that we are now proposing has been reduced by almost 20 feet, which is almost
two stories in height. The square footage of the original design has been reduced by almost 27%.
went from 42,000 to 43,000 feet to 32,000 feet in area. And the building height has now been
reduced to approximately 45 feet to the roof. And our adjoining neighbors are approximately 38 feet.
That's the zoning limit for this district. Now, this property is across the street from
an apartment building? That is correct. And that previously was the Society Hill Playhouse?
That's right. The Society of Old Playhouse was over 50 feet in height and from what I understand had over 220 seat capacity. So buildings of this nature in this neighborhood are very common. They're in addition to single family residential, the garage uses, theater uses, and countless other uses that our plan planner will describe later in this presentation.
Now, in the course of your work, did you commission or did the client commission a transportation study, an impact study?
Yes, we have a traffic study from Traffic Planning Design, which is a well-known regional and national traffic engineering firm.
And that's in the record.
And can you just generally tell us what the conclusion was for their conclusion on their executive summary?
In general, to summarize, their conclusion was it would have no significant impact on the traffic in the immediate vicinity.
There was no reason to change or upgrade the signalization at 8th and South, which is the closest light.
And that's due to the fact that a maximum capacity of 180 children, at least half of which are going to be walking by foot to the school.
In addition to that, the traffic will be limited to morning drop-offs and mid-afternoon pickups.
And I'm going to refer the board for a later date to Paragraph 7 and 8 and 9 of TPD's report, February 18, 2026, which goes through the analysis.
And am I right in saying that the level of service, which is already a B, will not be impaired by the proposed school?
All right. And did you also have the opportunity to look at a land study, which is in the record, from Janice Woodcock, who was previously the Executive Director of the Planning Commission,
Chair of the Zoning Committee of Center City Residents Association, and a practicing architect and land planner for many years in the city?
And what was the purpose of that report, and what impact did that information have on you?
Well, the purpose of that report was to establish, first of all, the history of Washington Square West.
What are its origins, both culturally and architecturally?
And the report basically summarized that over the last 250 years or more, this neighborhood
has been made up of every conceivable use that you can imagine.
Hospitals, schools, warehouses, factories, residential uses, barns, stables, you name
it over the centuries. And we have an example here where, you know, we have a building that's
probably 80 years old that predates most of the homes in our immediate district. Now, did you see
her conclusions in the report, which is in the record, where she went through the criteria of
both use variances and dimensional variances and said that we satisfied each and every requirement?
That is correct. Is that consistent with your understanding as the project architect?
Yes. She basically demonstrated that the impact of this from a physical perspective and its contextual similarity to the adjacent neighborhood and the structures arrived at that conclusion.
All right. And we're going to go to the refusals and then we'll conclude with you. First of all, you heard my testimony and do you adopt it as your own?
Second of all, let's go through the refusals. You mentioned height. All right. So how much are we over the allowed height?
We're proposing a roof height of 45 feet to the roof deck itself, plus another 14 feet for elevator and stair roof access that would occur in two pilot houses located on the roof structure.
So to summarize, zoning requires 38 feet in height. We're raising it to 45. So it's approximately 7 feet of additional height, which we think is a modest change relative to the use that we're proposing.
which we think is a modest change relative to the use that we're proposing.
All right. And especially if you consider structures on the roof, whether they have penthouse or elevator overrides.
They're very limited in area and focused just in two locations, since two means of egress and elevator access are required by the ADA code.
All right. And parking. You heard that I said that we don't meet the parking requirement.
What type of parking do we have with this project?
we're proposing 12 12 parking spaces on site that will be exclusively used by our faculty
um and we believe that due to the fact that half the students will be coming by by foot on strollers
and so forth um that there is no additional necessity for on-site parking and do you believe
that it's uh impractical to add more parking to this project we do because um you know the
The footprint of the building is limited to approximately 9,300 square feet, and the garage level is already occupying close to a third to a half of that to begin with.
All right. And we talked about the access from the primary street, A Street. Is there any other way to access parking for this property?
No, there isn't because our building adjoins our neighbors to the north and south with a common party wall, so there is no access to the rear.
Furthermore, the rear of the existing building falls directly on the rear property line.
So there really is no existing rear yard.
So we have 100% coverage.
There's no rear yard setback.
We're nonconforming as to both use and as to both structure.
Correct.
All right.
Do you believe that supports the hardship that would support the variances we're requesting?
I have nothing further of this witness.
And then I would call Janice Woodcock.
Hi, good afternoon. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Janice Woodcock, J-A-N-I-C-E, W-O-O-D-C-O-C-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Thank you. Janice, did you hear my testimony? Is it accurate so that you would adopt it as your own?
I would. All right. And your CV and resume is in the record. You've testified and acted as an architect and land planner before this board many, many times. I have. All right. And were you asked to prepare to investigate and prepare a report regarding the proposed uses for this property, which include the parking, the school and accessory activities and the rooftop penthouse for the
rabbi i was all right and what was your conclusion well uh my conclusions are that schools are a
customary accessory use in philadelphia's neighborhoods that the development pattern
that you see on this block is consistent with historic development patterns dating from the
mid-1800s that this block has always been a mixed-use block with churches and social
social-related institutions on it. And finally, this project is consistent with the city's
comprehensive plan because it activates a building that will, that was vacant, is vacant, I should
say, that will, it will be a school that contributes to the ethnic character of the
neighborhood, which is an objective in this district plan for the city of Philadelphia.
now in your report uh you go through each and every criteria of the zoning code which you're
familiar with yes regarding variances both use dimensional yes and what was your uh finding and
conclusion with regard to uh satisfying that criteria for relief well that because we are
dealing with a building that is non-conforming the variances are causing this so the very thing that
is creating the problem is what we have to deal with and by preserving this building which again
not all the time it's not always that your planning objectives can be consistent with
another and we just end up generating these variances further those variances are minimal
and they're the most minimal that you could possibly do and still use this building for
this school i want to mention one in particular which is the building height i think you saw
earlier how much height was reduced from the project's original design now we're only four
and a half feet higher than the surrounding residential development secondly the setback
issue the building itself is creating the zero setback at grade but the design sets back 15 feet
and even further than that on the upper stories to preserve light and air for the adjacent properties
thank you uh with regard to the orange
Thank you. With regard to the RM1 category, RM1 residential, but you heard what I said about the special exception, but we can't meet special exception because our nonconforming coverage and attached on the north and south make that impossible.
But your report confirms the compatibility of this use with the block, the zoning classification, and as a planner and former head of the planning commission, you believe that there's no adverse impact on either the district plan or the neighborhood plan or good planning in general.
Well, I know that this board knows it better than any anyone else that the special exception is is the purpose of it is to allow these uses to be in an area if the zoning classification supports it and were it not for the again for the existing building, we would be a special exception and not a use variance.
All right. And is it your expert opinion, based upon a reasonable degree of architectural and land planning certainty, that the requirements for variance relief are satisfied by this project?
I believe they are.
All right. Thank you. I have nothing further from this witness.
And I would like to have Isaac Ohayan.
Oh, there you go. Am I pronouncing that right? I'm sorry. All right.
good afternoon sir could you please state your name as bell for the stenographer my name is isaac
ohayon is a a c o h a y o n right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
about the truth counsel thank you uh so isaac you heard my testimony uh and you've also heard from
your architect steward and from the land planner janice uh do you adopt their testimony as your
own is it accurate yes all right and can you tell us uh a little bit about masada which is your
company uh you know what your connection with the property is and the project and your experience in
building yeah I'm I'm building in Philadelphia for 36 years I build many
residentials many apartment many commercials and and this property came
to my hand I bought it and and I I start you know to think exactly you know I'm
up I will not sure exactly what you know what what I really wanted to do with the
property until the rabbi um called me one day and he said you know i need to build a school and
and it really really you know i really got my my feeling to the school and and um you know we start
i i start talking with the rabbi and you know to get to more details and then we hired the architect
and we decided to build the jewish school now tell me a little bit about what i've been calling
the masonry garage and the attachments and i don't know if we can get a shot of the rear yard
with the lombard muse to the west tell us about the proximity of the existing building and the
relationship with attached and adjoining structures yes you know as as you see as you see in the
picture right now this is this is the wall of the existing existing wall this is yeah this is the
yes this is the existing wall right now um and this building used to be used to be a garage
um the the the first floor podium is a is a massive concrete building i mean i don't know
if we can see the the picture of the of the structure yeah we have some inside pictures yes
um so you know the the the the reason the reason why we live in this building because
let me see if there is if you go down to the first floor there you go yeah yeah yeah that's
one as you see the beam the concrete beam are can carry can carry a tank so really to to really to
to demolish this building will create a massive vibration all over the neighborhood so you told
me that you would probably need to do hand demolition yes and would that be uh problematic
expensive and how long would that take in terms of creating noise vibrations
dust to the neighbors yeah because you know today we cannot demolish building
with machines we have to demolish it by hand that will take months to demolish
building like that by hand especially the concrete podium so it's really this
is the reason why we keep in the podium and we're going towards the school and
school and not residential. So an adaptive reuse takes advantage of the structural integrity
not residential. So an adaptive reuse.
because it is a massive building, but it also avoids the demolition, which would be potentially
problematic and of concern to adjoining and attached neighbors who are cheap to jail with
our particular building absolutely absolutely to really to demolish this one will really can create
um a serious risk of the building that attached to to to my building now there were also questions
from the community uh this garage had actually been a garage by dr simeon who had the um i think
he started his collection of foreign cars or yes there but uh there were some uh
dep issues and uh as part of your process you resolve them with act two to avoid any uh potential
environmental concern yes yes we've been involved with the with the um with the environmental
company that you know we have we have tanks we have a monitoring wells that it's been uh
And there is no contamination on the water. There is no contamination on the soil. When we get to the construction, there is four tanks that we're going to remove from the site.
All right. So you've been meeting with neighbors on this property for over two years or so?
For two and a half years, yes.
And that included near neighbors, adjacent neighbors, community neighbors, and a variety of meetings, which are outlined in our materials, to the point where we have reached an agreement, as Mr. Bonney mentioned.
Does that agreement contain very specific construction logistical issues?
well you know i i you know i know that mr bunny you know requests uh um all can there is a ways
you know how to you know approach to the construction in term of like even if we're
going to knock partially of the buildings you know we're going to use wet materials to eliminate dust
So there's a lot of details about subcontractors, times of operation, materials, closing of streets or not closing of streets.
So insurance and the like. So that's all been negotiated.
And how long do you think the construction will take to do the adaptive reuse?
I believe 18 months.
All right. And you've also worked out the logistical part, meaning access to properties and crane if you need it or whatever it is to be able to do it. And also, since the party wall that we showed you, both sides need to be addressed and updated, both the side that faces the Lombard Hughes as well as the side that is on the school.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. I have nothing further. Okay, this witness. Sure. All right. And then my final witness is Rabbi Goldman. Sure.
Rabbi, could you sit close to the mic if you would, please? Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Yochanan Goldman, spelled Y-O-C-H-O-N-O-N, last name G-O-L-D-M-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Thank you.
Rabbi, can you tell us a little bit about what you currently have been doing in this neighborhood?
Excuse me. I know you're the rabbi for the nearby synagogue, which will be or is affiliated with the proposed Jewish day school.
Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the board for giving us this opportunity to present our case.
The synagogue that I lead has been in Philadelphia for 150 years in its current location since 1910.
And what is that location?
It's 527 Lombard Street.
And how far is that from this proposed site?
It's two and a half blocks away from the proposed site.
and my wife Leah who's here and myself have been leading this congregation for the past
more than 25 years and we um we have a
And we, um, we have a thriving early education program and for many years, for more than 10 years, we've been searching for a location in close proximity to this to our current synagogue so that the students that come to the preschool can continue their education all the way through through eighth grade.
and we have looked extensively at other properties and have not been able to find a suitable location
thanks to the developer who's who has purchased this property
masada they have been willing to partner with us in this development to serve the community