just might be something you want to look at okay other questions questions from our attorney um i
just wanted to to clarify because i was a little confused so the address of the property includes
yours your space as well as the space of the cafe correct like you own the whole thing correct okay
so you're just using a part of it you're proposing a part of it for a takeout restaurant yes one
property okay yes it's all one property 81 29 to 31 and the cheese steak proposal used to be a
barbershop in that separate space right is is there a particular like does that is that you
have like a unit a unit b if there's two spaces or is it that just not uh it does it doesn't have
like a separate designation so it doesn't it yeah it doesn't have a separate designation it just has
uh 81 29 to 31 stanton okay all right so if i had separated it would be 29 would be the proposal
portion of the building right but they exist as one property right now so yes even though it's
like two separate areas correct all right thank you you're welcome questions or comments from the
virtual audience i see no hands at this time chair planning position yes um from the planning
commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the cmx2 commercial mixed-use zoning
at this location in 2022 the city issued a permit at this property for a sit-down restaurant
the appellant has shown that the proposed takeout restaurant will have no detrimental impacts beyond
what might be expected the city planning commission recommends that the board grant the proposed
special exception right so so council we're going to vote on this next wednesday at 9 30 a.m we're
We're going to discuss the conversations at the executive session, and we'll vote at 930 next Wednesday, okay?
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
So we're going to move on to number three.
MI 2024-006-071-328 East Rittenhouse Street.
Sherman Toppin is the attorney.
Sherman Toppin will be joining us as a panelist.
Good afternoon, members of the board. Good morning. Council, could you please state your
name and spell for the stenographer? Yes, my name is Sherman Toppin. T-O-P-P-I-N
is my last name and I'm here representing the owner of the property, Gadesh LLC.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. Could you tell me what happened with the RCO, Sherman?
Yes, just starting out there.
So typically, you know, RCOs, you write them, and they schedule for you.
In this particular case, we had a very unusual situation with this particular RCO.
In the first meeting that we had with the RCO, the gentleman who operates it, you know, I'm gray and aging myself, but he was having some difficulties with understanding in-person versus live.
He gave us an in-person address, but at the day of the hearing, he said that he, that one of his other board members told him that he needed to do it on Zoom.
I told him he couldn't make that adjustment on the day of.
So we asked for a continuance in the hearing for that reason.
in the next the next time around we told him that we needed to get his zoom information early
he gave us zoom he gave us zoom information zoom credentials but
He gave us Zoom information, Zoom credentials, but he was having technical difficulties on the day of the second RCO meeting.
And he said, well, I'm going to have to send you new credentials to do this meeting because no one can get on.
I don't know how, I don't know what the mix-up was.
I said, sir, it doesn't work that way.
We published a certain Zoom credentials, and we can't change that the day of the hearing because of these difficulties.
So we requested another continuance. And this went on into the third continuance for this particular case. And in this, I don't know quite what, I think he needed help, maybe another board member got involved, but at some point he decided that his RCO was not to do this, would not to represent us and would not schedule a board meeting.
we wrote the board we wrote we called him we wrote the council person's office we don't understand
why chewing pelfield uh community organization is not allowing us to schedule an rco meeting for
this particular property when it said when that's who we were dealing with he referred us we went
to the website we did see that the website did not indicate a a web that chewing bellfield was
there but then when you go to atlas chewing bellfield was there so we tried to tell him that
He says, I don't think I'm the one you need to work with. We have to point to someone else. Perhaps he was seeking to retire his position. I'm not really sure. But for almost a year, we have been working with this RCO to try to get the simple presentation.
And that's what happened.
All right. Sherman, our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
I do waive it and I stipulate to its accuracy. All right. Thank you. You can share your screen and proceed with your Sherman. Did we get your tax? Did we get the tax? Yes. That is the last exhibit on this presentation here. All right. Thank you. Right down to the bottom of it. Please proceed, sir. Please proceed with your presentation.
Okay, great. So the property that is before you in the image that you see is currently the structure that we're here to talk about. That's 328 East Rittenhouse Street. And I'm proud to represent the owner and the owners of Gadesh LLC.
see I believe that the owner should be there he is in Israel now coming out of prayer I believe
he's he should be on if he isn't will when at the time to make sure that he is hearing my
presentation I'd like him to be advanced to panelists to agree to it but as Joseph Weinstein
so but let's let's see if he's here on my typical package contains a series of exhibits here as you
You see refusal deed application project information street form, the information photographs, the properties, plans, notice of the hearing proof of presentation of that.
The art CEO addresses that we sent for certificate of mailing the tax cert, and we also have in this particular case, a petition signed by a few of the neighbors and let's talk.
Let's let's scroll through some of these things here we have all your documents.
why don't you take us right to your plans and or your photos okay we have all the documents all
right perfect so coming right down this property as you can see here in the before highlighted the
property is in a very in a neighborhood whose character is pretty much resident rental um our
our property here is was originally built in 1915 it's a single family four three-story home
This white ceiling that you hear is a four storage facility.
There's a church immediately behind the property here.
These four short structures next to the property immediately to the left of this property are all rentals.
All of these structures here, all these buildings here at the end of the street are all rental.
It's apartment complex. These four at the end of the street are all rentals.
immediately across the street are two single family homes. One is rented. One has an owner
there that resides. And then immediately in front of the property is also rentals and with one or
two owners there. So this particular, the character of this property lends to a rental and multifamily
use. These are the four, these are the four two-story structures immediately to the left of
property these are the other structures at the corner that was saying all these properties are
rented the immediately across the street it's a development so all these are rented
and these are the two single families immediately across the street one is an in has an occupant
who operate lives and there's a single family the other is rented and immediately in front of the
property there are several um all of these are rented and um going looking to the i guess the
the west of the property you have the storage facility the rear of it is what is the rest the
west of the property you have the storage facility the rear of it is what is the rest
the remainder of the block and a few single-family homes at the end of the block so going to what
are and immediately next door is a vacant is a vacant lot that is owned by the storage facility
and it will be in this condition pretty much forever so long as the storage condition is there
so looking at the building this is the building as it is almost to the end of the construction that
was preceding this the client stopping work for this process as you can see here on this picture
there's a front door facing the facing Rittenhouse street but then there's a door midway towards the
building with two units you can see the service for a separate unit separate electric services
was right there on the side of the building this is an earlier stage this is a visual from the
other side of the building as you go into the front door you see that it's basically a one
bedroom this is a living room area when you walk into the front door this is the reverse of that
same shot it's got a small kitchen and it goes walks to the back and this is a reverse of that
same kitchen another angle of the kitchen and it walks to the back to this is the bedroom
in the rear of the first floor. One bathroom for the first floor unit. Midway into the first floor
unit, we'll see the plans. It walks downstairs, and it has an egress only for light. It's just
utilities down there, nothing more. The service for the house and the three units are already
worked out. Hot water heaters for each, and then that's all that's downstairs in the basement area.
brand new mechanicals throughout were put into this house throughout. Walking back into the
first unit, only the first unit has access to the basement and it is basically just as you can see
utility area. The side door in this particular property, when my clients purchased the property
as a sheriff sale, they bought it at a sheriff sale in 2017, of course they had an opportunity
to walk through it, but they walked on, opened the door and it walked upstairs. There were stairs
erected in so his prior to them purchasing from the sheriffsdale it was configured as two units
that's what led them to start the construction for three units because they thought and they
they did not consult they were not keen on the code and things like that that's why they got
us involved to legalize what it is now a three unit building uh configured but it's that the
hardship is that it was already two units going into purchase and walking up the steps this is
the first this is the door to the second floor unit when you open up there's the kitchen bedroom
in the back um this is a two-bedroom unit in this on the second floor this is uh this walks out to
the front floor area that can be either a living area or bedroom and going backwards towards the
kitchen this is the bathroom for the unit and this is the rear bedroom reverse of that rear bedroom
going back to the hallway the steps takes you up to the third floor the third floor
has the same configuration same layout except one bedroom here two bedrooms on the second floor and
one on the first floor this is the bathroom for the third floor bedroom reverse picture of the
bedroom and then we this is again the door going out and walking back downstairs outside the
property to the to the street so that is the long and short of the building the rear of the property
has no rare uh windows at all it sort of faces a a brick area back there so there's no window view
looking at the plans let me make this smaller this will give a better idea of what we have just seen
so what we see in the plans i'm sure maybe make this a little bit bigger for the board to see
So downstairs, of course, there's nothing there. There's just stairways leading down with a small front cellar area with a window to the front of the property. This is that angle where the front door is on the first on the first floor. But below, it's just there's nothing there but just an egress window. It should actually be presented here on the first floor.
when you walk into the covered porch to the first floor you see that we just saw this in pictures
there's the bed there's a living room area and it goes back to the kitchen and in the bath
bed the the bed bathroom and then the one unit bedroom is in the rear of that first floor layout
going into the second floor which is from the side
it the stairs walk up see these these stairs walk upstairs no access to the first floor
only down but going up you have you you get into the second floor unit where there's a bedroom here
You have, you get into the second floor unit where there's a bedroom here in the back, living in the front, in the middle with the kitchen, and then a bedroom in the front of the, and then when you go to the third floor, that is where, that unit is small.
There's a bedroom in the front, in the rear, but the stairs takes you to where it's just two sides, bedroom on one side with the kitchen and bath on the other side.
and then this is in the rear of the building the second the top floor is shorter so there's some
egress from the third floor unit onto the roof of the of the second floor but not egress all
the way to the bottom it's the one the one issue with this particular site
and going into the rest of our presentation
we sent all of our our you know certificate available things we saw posted the sign on the
door for this appeal and we have our new certificate this is the the tax the tax cert
it was obtained today in fact while the board was hearing other cases we may we had a previous one
but this is the new one so for the same entity valid through April 4th of 2026 so because we're
having such difficulty with the RCO, we did run a petition out around the community we had, and the
owner went and got a few signatures from folks that lived in the near neighbors who lived within
the affected area. And we just three, it's been very cold, people haven't really been willing to
talk much at the door. So they got just a few signatures. But that is, quite frankly, our
presentation for today. It's our experience with the RCO that is most challenging in the situation
we have today but charm what happened you started he started to work on the property then l and i
stopped him and told him to get a variant yes what happened here is he got he was he went to get his
rental license for three units and they said you this is single family but he he told him this is
configured as two but he says no you need to go to ellinai you need to so he went to it was already
done and he went to get the thing and then they sent him back right yes they stopped him here
they stopped right you want to bring him on and adopt this have this testimony adopted yes so if
the uh just text him oh you think he's in israel he is in israel and there's a prayer time that he
said he gave me his wife's number um but i and i text him right before you called me
i'm wondering if they're watching and if he's let's see
can you long
Um, yeah, I don't, if you can't get insurance, you're an officer. The court will take your testimony questions from the board.
Yeah, I have a few questions 1. I, I hear you say that when your client purchased the property, there were 2 units here. When did he purchase the property?
In 2017, so he didn't rehab it right away. He let it sit for a bit and then the ownership of the of the dash changed.
And so that's kind of giving you more background detail. That's why we're only now, two years ago, them starting this process.
Okay. And then, so you said at purchase there was two units, but now you're proposing three. It looks like the work's been done for three. At what point, so your client, the work that they got caught was the conversion to three units?
Well, they never had to stop work here, but they were seeking a rental license for the three units.
That's what happened there.
They couldn't get three units as a rental license, so they stopped for this process.
Okay, understood.
Who has access to the rear yard?
Okay, the rear yard, the only property that had none of the units have access to the rear yard.
Let me go to another picture.
It's open to the rear, but it's a solid wall on the back.
Like there's a, you see, there's this little breezeway, walkway.
So the first floor units out of these windows can access the rear.
The other top two floor units, what they do is they come out here and they put their trash in the back.
This trash can that's actually in this picture on the front belongs to one of the tenants.
It was blue in the wind.
and you can actually see it says 339, but you can't see it too well, but it's 339.
So they actually store their trash on the rear of this particular building,
but all of them have equal access to go back there.
It's like wooded and not really anything to speak of back there.
The access is through the breezeway, just because when you showed the first floor plans,
it did look like there was a rear exit.
Oh, I'm sorry. No, there is not.
There's no rear exit, and then only the first floor unit has access to the basement.
Yes, that is correct.
yes that is correct okay i mean i will say just as like a layout the kitchen
Okay. I mean, I will say just as like a layout, the kitchens and living rooms are very small for there to be two units.
And I don't know that I still understand what the hardship is that necessitates having three units.
Well, in their particular situation here, the market of homes selling, it's more of a market-driven hardship that he has indicated.
When he realized that this step walked upstairs, it would create a three-bedroom scenario upstairs, but most of the properties that rent along are two bedrooms or smaller, so he felt that the market would be more receptive to a studio, two-bedroom, and one-bedroom configuration to support this.
and I think that's what but the bigger issue with the refusal is that coming into purchasing a
property in an area zone for single family when it's configured is two that is the hardship that
initially brings us to the board his construction beyond that is something that we're proposing to
the community is but we've had difficulty interfacing with the RCO okay
so i'll just echo i'll echo uh um uh thai's comments regarding the layouts i think the
the layout on the first floor is a decent one bedroom the two bedroom units that's on the
second floor is it's not a living dining room kitchen scenario there's nowhere you can put
furniture so it's just a bad layout um and and same with the third floor to to you'd have done
better as an efficiency on that third floor to try to call that a living kitchen dining room space
so those are my comments just in general but then you have a one bed you got a nice size one
bedroom on the first floor yeah it makes no sense i i agree with you on the first floor the second