To the right of the image is a house that my client built on a property.
We don't have anything.
Oh, really?
Hold on one second.
I thought I shared.
Sorry about that.
he's at the building behind you no that's not his all right how's that better
yeah it's yeah got it yep okay so long story short um there was a wider parcel uh 100 feet wide
um the the parcel couldn't be subdivided as a matter of right into two lots it's extremely
large. Even now, as two lots, it's much larger than any other property surrounding it, both
properties. They go very deep, and it was very wide. The lot that he subdivided off back in the
early 2000s, he built a house, a two-story house, the side of which you can see in the photo that's
up on the screen. He's come back, and on the lot that's slightly narrower than what is permitted,
he wants to build a house, the same size house, the exact same house, the same plans, the same
market that um it's generally the same and uh they had he had because a lot is slightly narrower
um than the lot next door 841 uh he had a side yard refusal and then because of and you can't
see it you know in but through the trees but there's a slope a steep slope that kind of goes
up to the back of a pet boy's um parking lot and um i could really i don't need to i don't know if
I need to go into all of that right now.
But essentially, you can see that here.
There's our property.
Here's the house that he built at 841.
And here's the Pep Boys.
And then all through here, there's a steep slope.
It kind of goes up, slips up, and it gets steeper going up to the higher grade of the parking lot where the Pep Boys is located.
So we have two refusals.
I went through the whole presentation last time showing.
I believe we believe that the slope was manmade, although the planning commission doesn't say that that necessarily matters.
But we in order to accommodate the neighbor at 841, the original zoning drawings had his house is 15 feet off the common property line.
The original zoning drawings had our house located closer to his house than his house is closer to the common property line than his house is.
That was an unintentional oversight when the drawings were initially prepared.
My client wanted them to be mirror images of each other the same distance off of the common property line.
So what we've done is we shifted the building towards Pep Boys, the back of their lot.
And instead of having seven and a half feet to a bay next to the off of the common property line on the one side and 11 feet to the property line where Pep Boys is,
We shifted away, and now we have 13 feet to the bay, 15 feet to the main house, which is the same as 841, but we reduced the side yard from 11 feet to 6 feet on the other side.
Overall, we've increased the overall side yard from 18.5 feet, the total, to 19 feet.
to 19 feet um when we were here last time the question became uh was raised regarding whether
When we were here last time, the question became,
or not there might be a question for the planning commission to look at because we've shifted the
building um towards the steeper slope um running up to the pep boys parking lot however the zoning
code the that provision of the zoning code that we were cited in the notice of refusal simply
deals with, it doesn't say, it's not like a height of a structure. 38 is the max. I'm at 41.
And then I come back with a revised plan that says, now I want 44. I've increased the refusal.
Or if I decrease the overall side yard, which is not what I did here, it'd be a different story.
There's no kind of quantitative measurement. You're either in the steep slopes or you're not.
And whether you're in the steep slopes by one square foot, or if you're in the steep slopes
by a million square feet, it's a refusal, and it's not a question of degree. With that being said,
the original plan that we had, the ENS plan that was submitted and reviewed by the Planning
Commission, had an area, had a limit of disturbance shown on it, and I can pull that up right here.
So this orange, let me zoom in.
So it has this, what's shown as this area of disturbance, which goes from side property line to side property line.
And I think the reason the question was initially raised is that by shifting the building over, we had a, originally had a retaining wall that was off the side property line.
And within the revised drawings that I can show you in a second, we moved that retaining role right to the property line.
So I think the thought was, hey, we're now going more, we're disturbing more of the slope, even though, again, the refusal doesn't say how much you're going into or disturbing.
But in reality, on the original submission, the area of the limit of disturbance was right up to the property line.
And then on the revised drawings, which I have here, and which I presented at the last hearing, also shows it's the exact same.
It's the same area.
It's 8,600 square feet.
It's the same dimensions, sideline to sideline, the same depth.
There's no change.
So, you know, we went through this afterwards.
I received an email from the Planning Commission yesterday raising some concerns about this.
They can obviously get into it. My position is that it's been two months or so. I would suggest, and Hillary and I had some conversations, and she can obviously speak for herself, but I think the idea of having the board vote this case and then having a proviso, we do not believe that a new ENS plan needs to be submitted.
Our engineer has stated that the water department wouldn't require it because the limit of disturbance is exactly the same. It's not required. But if Planning Commission wants it, we'll submit it. We don't see there are not going to be any issues in doing that.
And we think that the case should be voted today with a proviso, again, if the board so decides, that there be a new ENS plan submitted. Even again, we don't think that it's necessary in this case.
We have shifted the driveway a little bit and are talking to the engineer who prepared the plans. And my own experience is that streets department, because this is the zoning review, doesn't require another look at the curb cut. We're far enough away from the telephone pole that's located to the left of the property. There's no issue there. The distance is five feet.
So for these reasons, you know, we believe that the case should be voted today. I will say that at our last hearing, scheduled hearing, we did not yet have a support of the owner of 841.
Since that time, we've entered into an agreement with them regarding what's how the not zoning related issues as much as kind of quality of life issues during the construction process.
That agreement has been executed. We now do have a letter of support from Carl Primavera on behalf of his client showing that 841 does now the abutting property does now support our our application.
In addition to that, before that, we had the letter of support from URCA.
We have some other neighbors, particularly the neighbors that live behind us on Northwestern Avenue.
You can see here, 842, 848, 850 Northwestern.
There's even one here that says, this property is directly backing up to my backyard.
I fully support, would love to have Mr. Borthwick as my neighbor.
I would love to have Mr. Bortwick as my neighbor.
He's actually going to be moving into this house.
He's actually going to be moving into this house.
He recently got married.
He and his wife are going to be moving into this house that he plans to build.
Again, the exact same house as he built on 841 that is now occupied by the Molinares, who I think are the second owner.
So, again, we feel that the criteria for the granting of the variances for the two refusals that were cited in L&I's notice of refusal, I did point out initially in the original hearing, there were some questions.
they cited the wrong section regarding steep slopes. Their math was wrong in regards to the
total side yards off by half a foot. They didn't reference that there were two-car parking in the
garage. Those things have been clarified on the revised drawings that were provided before the
last proceeding and are included in my exhibit book that I was just pointing to, just showing
the board along with the revised proviso plan form. But again, we went through all this last
time i'm not going to rehash it i know the board has a list that they still need to get through
but i think we were here expecting to hear from the planning commission as to the impact of shifting
the building to accommodate the desire of the neighbor at 841 and the original intention of my
client um and at this point i think there's a mechanism for for everybody to be satisfied
for this matter to be voted. After all this time, my client started this process, came to me last
summer, and we're almost there again to just build a house exactly like he built next door.
You would have thought it would have been a little easier of a process than this. But
at this point, we would respectfully ask that the board vote. We think that a proviso that states
an ENS approval
condition or a proviso that there be an amended or
a revised ENS plan submitted to Planning Commission and approved
and if everybody wants, we can submit one to streets even though we don't think it's necessary
we'd be happy to do that as well and we feel that should take care of everybody's
concerns. Hillary, we have Mr. Mavera's
letter. Yes, we do, Mr. Chair. I wasn't sure if anyone
was going to appear, but we do have
the letter. Mr. Primavera or
Mr. Patterson?
I did not speak with them before the proceeding
one way or the other, but
I think they would have told me if they were going to be
appearing. Good. Thank you.
I was going to say, I do see
Mr. Primavera on Zoom,
but he's not raising his
hand, so I don't know if he feels
the need to speak. So our next step
is planning. Am I correct?
hi amy boyd with the planning commission planning is actually going to hold testimony and submit
in the form of a letter while we complete the review of the revised plans
and again mr chairman we submitted these revised plans two months ago um and no offense i know
everybody's busy um sometimes things get lost where are we going to be with this well two things
first Mr. Primavera now has his hand raised so why don't we take sure why don't we take one
Mr. Primavera Mr. Chair has been promoted to panelists he'll be coming back in shortly
Mr. Primavera
you're muted please unmute
uh sorry this is carl primavera could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer
yes it's carl primavera p-r-i-m-a-v-e-r-a uh claire harrison law firm and i'm attorney for the
Molinaries who live at 841 Airedale Road. I just wanted to confirm. Hold on a minute. Hold on a
minute. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Thank
you, sir. Please proceed. Yes, I just wanted to confirm what David said is accurate. You know,
our clients have been meeting and discussing the issues on this. We had a meeting way back when
attended by the community and also a representative of the Friends of the Wissahickon.
And there was a lot of discussion about stormwater management and all those issues, which included David's presentation of the revised plan.
And everybody was, you know, confident and comfortable that this was going to be workable.
You know, if you go to the site, the bottom line is that the area in question is the rear, the very rear.
The bottom line is that the area in question is the rear, the very rear of the Pep Boys.
And it's it's not Fairmount Park land. It's not anything. It's really just an overgrown area.
So pushing the house closer to my client and leaving more room for the Pep Boys dumpster doesn't help anybody.
And also, Mr. Boothroyd's. No, Worthwick. I'm sorry.
Right. I remember Mr. Boothwick. Mr. Boothwick, you know, his house is actually going to be a nice buffer between the Pep Boys and my client and the other neighbors in the area.
So everybody's very supportive. I don't believe that there's any stormwater issue. I think it's all been engineered.
So we have indicated both our letter and in this presentation, you know, our full support for the project.
okay thank you council who me no no no I'll say our council how's that just um just want to ask
the planning commission when when they think they would be able to have the letter to the board if
they're if they want to submit testimony via letter Amy from the planning commission um I
can estimate that we could have a testimony
letter by this time
next week, provided that we
get the ENS plans as well.
Okay, so Hillary will
continue this the next week?
It sounds like they would have the letter
by... Well, I
can't speak right now how quickly
it can update the ENS plan. I'd have to
talk to the engineer.
I mean, we could
I hate to have it scheduled for...
I mean, we could schedule it for next week.
And if we don't have the ENS plan in time for them to review it, I mean, how many days
do they need to review it?
I guess that's the question.
Do they need to get the ENS plan today, tomorrow?
Or if they get it by next Monday, will they have enough time?
I mean, to say we want it, we need it now, it's just not realistic to say we have it
already because we didn't even think we needed to do it.
So our typical timeline to stay in plans is seven days.
I know that we do already have the revised plans, so it should be a little bit longer. I can't say exactly because it's not my work team that that does that.
all right so why don't we hold on hold on hold on why don't hillary how about two weeks
um yeah i think i think that that should clear that should clear everything up and um and if
the um if the revised um ens plan is already submitted then we don't need to i just note
we don't need to add that as a proviso then for for um the decision if the board grants
That's what I'm trying to clarify. The representative from the Planning Commission says they have this drawing, which is the revised zoning drawings. So let's be clear. Is it the revised zoning drawings they need to review, or is it the revised ENS plan that they need to review? Because the revised ENS plan we do not have yet. We have not prepared it because, again, we don't believe it's necessary. So do they need both, one or the other?
It's my understanding they already have the plans and those are under review. Is that correct?
zoning the zoning plan we have the site plans we don't have the ens plans
so are we talking that they need both plans and the letter their response
the ens plan is what they the revised ens plan because that has not been done yet
correct but she was saying that they've already reviewed the plan but she's talking about zoning
not the ens so i want to make sure we're clear what they need that no it's the it's the revised
ens plan because the revised plans have not changed since the last hearing correct right
but they haven't reviewed them even though they haven't reviewed these plans either the zoning
plans they haven't reviewed these they do have them they have them they've had i mean well i mean
they were submitted to the board at our last hearing in february okay all right so i mean
we'll we'll they can let us know what they need weeks we'll give it to them we'll see you in two
weeks all right so this is continued to 5 14 so that so we'll just we'll just hold the i know
yeah right so you don't have to do a resumption it's just a vote right you don't have to post
correct no right so we're going to hold this to 5 14 at 2 p.m that will be our vote we're going to
do is we'll vote then and yeah so the record the record is closed except for the revised earth
moving plan or ens plan um as well as the letter from from the planning commission with their
testimony and any response from the applicant okay okay mr ford yeah as long as i get everything
their letter in advance of the hearing so i can respond i mean all right yeah not the day of amen
yeah not the day of amen okay thank you all right thank you
okay thank you all right
Notchamson.
Eventually.
Eventually.
What did I say?
So this is number eight, MI-2025-000321-4461 Silverwood Street.
You've already been sworn to state your name for the record?
Allen Nockamson.
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is Ivan Hernandez Sanchez, the owner of the property.