And we do have a letter of opposition from the Manioc Neighborhood Council.
Yes, we do.
There's 11 opposition, one in support.
That's correct.
And just for record-keeping purposes, behind me is Ivan's parents who would be living in the property.
So, Nick.
All right.
One of my vice chair has just a few questions.
Yeah, sure.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to either read another refusal or stipulate to his ex?
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?
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed. Thank you. I'm a little off my routine because I'm used to actually being in front of my computer, so I apologize for that. All is good. Nick, can you put up the notice of refusal? Thank you.
So this is an RSA 5 property with a lot area of 1,500 square feet.
And as the chairman stated, well, this is in the Manioc area of Philadelphia.
And what my client's trying to do is put a duplex here for the first floor and lower level will be for his retired parents.
And the upper level unit will pay for the mortgage for some other renter.
There's two entrances you'll see from the pictures.
We have two refusals here.
One, because this is an RSA 5 property, it's multifamily in nature, that's refusal number two. And then second, we are expanding a non-conforming use where we're building on the second and third stories so we don't meet the minimum setback requirements of nine feet, where instead we're proposing seven feet, six inches.
Next Nick. So we did meet with the Manlyon neighborhood council. As the chairman stated, there was opposition to this project. Continue.
My client did solicit nearby neighbors, which include an address at 4472 and 4474 Silverwood Street. You also see addresses on the cross streets as well.
that is on Maiden. And I feel like there's another Green and Carson Streets. So these
are all nearby neighbors who are, you know, conceptually in support of this, of the two
unit use. Next. Next. Yeah. So and it hasn't been used like this in a while, but it does
have a multi-unit past um i believe that this says that it was a bar and a single family above so
it's not uncommon you know given its history to have uh you know multi-unit use next
and again not uncommon in the neighborhood to have multi-unit use there's 4462 silverwood
44-74 Silverwood
44-33 Fleming
and 44-44 Silverwood
maps of the area
both from a zoning map
and a Google Maps perspective
and then photographs of the property
so just from this picture
you're going to see the front of the property
like there one
can you just slow down
can you go back
the one unit you'll see in the front door
and then where that would go lead up a flight of steps to unit number two for the second and third
floors. And then there's that side entryway path where unit number one would be. Next.
And that's our orange notice posting for today's hearing. Next. And this is just the rear of the
property. Again, you can see it's a non-conforming use right now. All we're doing is building on top
of that and that's where we gain that second variance request next and then silverwood to
the right of the property till left of the property and then our plans and drawings
fill after the property and then our plans and drawings that's just the site plan next nick
not the easiest plans to see so i'm gonna try my best here um if you go thank you nick
i go a higher uh so if you the other way i'm sorry go down to the floor plans so
if you go to look at the second set that's level one that's the first four if you go in the front
part, you'll see those steps like they're going up to that, you know, the second unit, which is
level two and level three. And then if you go on the right side, there's a separate door on level
one. That is, you know, these are my understanding pre-existing openings, but we can confirm with my
client, but let's just go to unit number one. That's where his parents would be living. You
come in um there's a kitchen there there's a bedroom in the rear and then if you go closer
to the front of the property that's where the the living room is and the dining room and you can see
there are a lot of windows because of that side path like there's a lot of light in there and then
if you go down in the basement lower level there's this a there's a laundry room down there it's
unfinished so they're not planning to live that like have any real living down there it's just
storage instead of going to unit number one you go up to unit number two on the second floor where
you see that landing and you know it's a it's pretty nice it's it's uh it's three bedrooms
two baths and um you know there's a kitchen there is a living room there's a bathroom in the middle
and then if you look at the gray boxes on the second and third levels that's kind of where the
the additions are and what's added is a new sunroom on the second floor with a new deck
and then on the third floor is where we're not going like we're not going it doesn't look like
the building structure is going completely back there in some in some respects because it looks
like there's another opening for that deck but there's a bedroom and then a new deck there and
then it's just additional bedroom so it's three bedrooms two baths for unit number two and then
two bedrooms one bath for the parents in unit number one next and then our rco meeting notice
i see mr hunter in the audience like he'll he'll confirm that you know we did have a meeting
obviously through the letter but we we mailed this notice for the march 5th uh community meeting to
nick uh how many addresses we sent it to 117 addresses and the addresses follow and proof
of mailing those addresses and then we have our application for appeal that we filed on ivan's
behalf next along the notice of refusal in project information form deed showing that he owns the
property next and then certificate of tax clearance uh with that being said i would ask that
Ivan virtually raise his hand
and be sworn in.
They have been promoted.
They will be coming back in shortly.
Hello.
Hi, this is Ivan Hernandez.
S-I-V-A-N-H-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes, Ivan, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
Correct.
Is it true and correct what I stated?
And do you adopt as your own testimony?
And then specifically about your parents, the intention is to renovate this property,
create two units and have your parents live in unit number one yes that's correct and then uh
for the second and third floor either uh rented out or me and my wife are also considering uh
to move there and to your question about the existing doors uh in the first floor on the side
yes those are uh have been there since before we moved all right thank you i don't think you
go to the rco meeting um no mr goldberg did do you know what happened well i think well mr hunter's
here so i i yeah no i think i see other people okay yeah i think that there there was you know
obviously this is the the zoning classifications rsa5 yeah sure and i do think though that given
the history of the property um and given that there's other use similar uses on that block and
nearby um and given the large size of the lot i think okay questions from the board
um and given the large size of the lot i think okay questions from the board the only question
i have is just looking at the way the bathrooms were designed are those all assuming that they're
going to have stand-in showers i would defer to ivan about that i know there's probably limitations
with the parents so i it looked like there was a bigger bathroom i don't know almost like an
an accessible bathroom to a degree didn't look accessible yeah i will i'll leave it i i'm just
an amateur uh so um ivan can you answer that question yeah the additional bathrooms that we
propose would also include uh showers there is one that we were proposing on the third floor
uh in that place where we have currently uh a room so we will almost lose that room uh when
we add that bathroom and that's why we are adding an additional one and then we propose to also add
another bathroom in the basement since that's a substantial space that we're not using as much as
we would like to. So then my follow-up question though that is what's the depth of the basement
below grade? Because the egress wasn't super it looked like the basement wasn't really being used
for principal living but so i i think the architect that handled this um main i don't
remember if we got a site plan well we did we had to have a site plan because we're doing the
addition there we go there we go go up uh nick did uh yeah where the floor plans is the upper
level of the that page there you go so let's see what we got here uh i can't see it uh it's like
six feet it looks like it's a bilko door to the front yeah the note says six feet below grade
yeah so i just wanted what's the egress from the basement because it's not noted on the point
gotcha in the section yeah so yeah we have to take a look at that um thing that shows is the
bilko door yeah right but that's not light or air oh no i'm dumb to saying that's me yeah no i know
you say initially it's unfinished in the sense of there right now it's unfinished there's no
intention to like again ivan can you explain are you planning to finish this off or are you planning
to have it keep it raw like it is now other than the bathroom uh yeah other than the bathroom i
will keep it uh raw the the objective is just to have an additional bathroom to make things easier
and right now there's one way to get to the basement from within the house and then also
from the outside so it has these two uh entry and exit points so ivan would you have any objection
if there was a proviso no bedrooms or i guess bedrooms in the basement or living in the
basement i think the bathrooms count as living yeah so i think other than having like a washer
and dryer um and storage would you have any objection to no other living no okay so we could
i think they would agree to that i think it does honestly if it's going to be raw down there it
doesn't make sense to put the bathroom anywhere anyway that also didn't facilitate aging in place
i mean yeah that's fine yeah thank you all the questions from the board how many bedrooms is
the first floor unit two so i probably uh it looks like if you go in the rear there's i think
it's the front and the rear so if that that's that that's the one that looks like a primary
suite right with a bat of sec their own bathroom and then if you go to the front it looks like
that's an it's another bedroom right there because there you see there's a door right above you get
into the unit? You get
to the unit in the middle
on the side? Off the side
if that else? That's a pre-existing
door. That's correct.
Gotcha. Okay, so you enter into
the kitchen. Yeah. Right.
Okay, other questions?
Questions from our attorney?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the audience or the
virtual audience? Mr. Hunter?
Yeah, why not? Sure.
Are there neighbors back
there too well those those are my clients but they're your clients okay good the parents who
are going to live there right okay hopefully mr hunter could you please state your name and spell
for the court sonographer you might want to get closer or pulled closer to you all right that
okay that's fine that's fine um john hunter h-u-n-t-e-r do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do mr hunter please start your presentation
I'm sorry excuse me this is the court reporter could mr. hunter pull the
microphone even closer all right how's that testing thank you sir
all right how's that testing thank you sir okay um we are the uh coordinating rco uh we did have
the public meeting just a little background amplification of what mr notcherson said
this property use was last used as a bar first floor bar and a rooming house in 1987
The property was a larger overall property with a vacant lot to the west, and a driveway and a separate garage to the east in 1987.
It was then bought, renovated, and turned into a single-family dwelling, and it was the same owner from 1987 until 2023.
During that period, the properties of the West, the vacant lot was sold, and a new property
was built by Wright on that house, on that side of the property.
In 2023, that same owner sold the driveway and the accessory garage to the opposite neighbor
on the east, and they came before this ward for a variance for that because it was a non-conforming
lot it was too small and it was a non-accessory garage use so the property as of 2024 was
an attached row house with a side yard which was about three feet wide the remainder of the driveway
and a solid six foot high fence was built the rear yard is non-conforming it's seven feet
something or other with a single story edition so that's the condition of the property
we are aware that the property was bought in 2024 and the family moved in we were happy that they
moved in if you look at the photographs there was some renovation work done and you can see
from the photographs that the um the property seems to be used used on all three floors or
air-conditioned units placed in to the third and second floor, so it was used as a single-family
house, which we all applauded and think that was great. The proposal, therefore, is problematic
for the neighbors because it subdivides an RSA 5 house into a duplex unnecessarily, we
believe, particularly as it really compresses the existing family that are living there
at the moment to the single floor the first floor in order to expand the upper two floors into a
totally separate dwelling unit so really it's a trojan course for an rsa5 being converted into
a duplex with no parking on the side other than that just raising parking parking is a problem
Not as always in anywhere in Philadelphia is parking is a problem, but just across the street into the south is the St. Mary's redevelopment of the whole estate as a campus.
So the property was sold five years ago and still under construction, converting the school, the convent, the church.
and more significantly there was an 80 parking space open space that was used by local residents
and that was lost so there's a lot of pressure for parking so um going to the adjacent use uses the
mr notchinson side one of the properties across the street also came before this board it's a
triplex from 1930s and it's always been the triplex and it's an airbnb and you the board
granted them a three-year extension there's another one on fleming street that was cited
which is also an airbnb but other than that as you can see from the photograph the street on
silverwood street is predominantly single family use and stable and therefore introducing a duplex
conversion into a housing stock which is pretty similar all along that street is not seen as being
beneficial three-story property next what is that single single family yes and i don't know if the
the owner is um here in the audience to give testimony but he did at the public meeting
he was particularly concerned because his property is a lot shorter than the adjacent
house with these proposed additions and he would lose obviously any possibility of sunlight and