use variance for a second dwelling unit mi-2026-001-675-1925 east ontario street
i vote yes with proviso interior trash storage certificate of occupancy to be obtained michael
johns my vote is yes with provisos charles gaston my booty chefs with provisos tenetta graham
my vote is yes with provisos ryan mcadams my vote is yes with provisos i win my vote
is yes with provisos layla bb my vote is yes with provisos thank you sir thank you you have your
votes number 11 mi 20 26 002 659 601 east uh ansbury street on diane perez is the owner applicant applicant
Could you please come up?
Take a seat.
Could you state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Diane Perez, D-I-A-N-N-E-P-E-R-E-Z.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits for this case 14 days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I did.
Okay. And so we have a lot going on in this case.
I know.
And it involves decks and parking spaces.
So you do understand that you've been refused because a lot of the decks are prohibited in certain areas and parking spaces.
You've been refused because a lot of the decks are prohibited and there's certain areas and parking spaces are limited in certain areas for your, in regards to your case.
I mean, there's a lot of technical stuff I can read, but I'm just summing it up for you.
You understand this while we're here about those issues.
All right.
Thank you.
You can begin your case.
I think you are active for assistance.
So I'll just tell us what you're trying to do.
Why don't you tell us what you want to do first?
I wanted to do the front driveway.
I have the corner house.
i'm on the caddy sack i'm antsbury when you turn the corner like this it becomes way months all
right i got pictures all right so uh we have all your documents we know you have all your
documents ian could you go to the photos so she could tell us yes sir i'll bring those up give
one second okay so in front of my house there's a fire hydrant and a sign that says no parking
anytime so when you turn the corner around this way a quarter of the block it says oh
this parking right there where the where that sign is that no parking anytime and everybody
always parks in front of the fire hydrant and that's a no parking zone anytime right here is
another no parking anytime people are parking all the way around where we don't have the sanitation
department can't turn the block uh the fire department um the ambulance the so what so why
tell me what what you're trying to do because that's what other people are doing okay right
and you have no control over that right school buses can't turn because yeah but tell me what
is you want to do okay what i want to do is do a driveway in front of my house right there in
front of my house doing the fact that there's really no parking in our block people have so
where where tell me where you would come under you have other photos of that ian yeah i do have it
with me well right in front of me right on the side like that when you entrance like that with
no parking so you want to pull right up there yes yes absolutely um at this point right now
the reason why um 2000 i've needed this driveway 2024 we had our car we had a camaro which was
stolen from the block um there's plenty of cars getting theft on that on the other side of the
street people are parking on the sidewalk because people can't turn that block when the past
okay see there could you give us an idea what your how many parking places do you want
my front driveway is that one well the driveway will fit two cars so it's a two-car drive yes
yes because of the is that what she's no okay all right so so before we go on tell me what
Yeah. I had sent you an email yesterday asking how many parking spaces. I didn't get a response
from you because we were just trying to figure out your request indicates one parking spot.
It appears though that there's really three now because you have one under the deck that has not
been approved. Okay. And then now you're saying that I thought from the pictures that the parking
in the front, you can fit two. So you're really asking for three. I'm sorry. Let me rephrase
myself yeah just if that's true if you can just clarify that then we can do something and then
you're going to have to do something else but we can still hear what you're talking about just
needed to that's why i reached out to you to try to figure out i didn't get into that all right
let me clarify that that's okay that's in the front driveway two cars can fit there
so it's only one driveway but the two cars can fit right there side by side that would be
considered two spots and then you also have the spot under the deck correct the one under the deck
it's not really the reason why we got that one under the deck where we have um my husband's car
there the fact when they stole the car our 2000 but it's still a parking place it's still it can
be still a parking place but it can be the still that can be eliminated put the facts no but that
is a parking space so that's the issue that's why i had tried to reach out because what you have in
your refusal meaning what is the language in the application part of the refusal you said one
parking space really it looks like you have three so what you're going to need to do one the two
well you have three well you have three right so so what we're going to need to do we can hear i
mean i'm not speaking for the board but the board can hear it but what you're going to have to do
is submit an amended refusal okay you can email us and we'll explain some of that but we can't
vote on what you're asking for today because what was looked at by license inspection was just
one spot okay so you're actually asking for either three spots or two spots it looks like
three spots because you do have another spot there right so my main concern is doing the
the front one because this way i can park the two cars that we had but you still have a
because this way I can park the two cars that we had.
But you still have a third spot.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
The third spot, that can be eliminated, couldn't it?
Well, right now you have a spot.
It's a legal spot right now.
So what I'm saying is the board can hear,
but what you're going to have to do is request an amended refusal
because what L and I, again, looked at was they did not look at,
they thought it was maybe just that front spot.
they didn't know about it because your your application didn't mention one also you might
need to get streets approval also because it looks like there were illegal curb cuts but right now
why don't we we can go forward and listen the board can listen to it but they can't vote
we're gonna have to hold so it's called hear and hold so we're gonna have to hold it okay that's
why i tried to reach out yesterday so we could try to avoid all this stuff that's okay that's okay
So tell us what else you want to do.
When I hired my lawyer, he retired.
I've been with my lawyer for four years.
After that, he decided to retire.
I've been fighting for this since 2021.
I hired Steve Madden on April, I think, of 2022.
two within me getting um expediters and um to architect because they made the first one it was
the second one i'm up to 4 500 with that so everything that it comes out steve just filed
off on me close to five thousand dollars then we send the refuse i had a lien which um i pay the
city, 3,550. 2,500 went to the city to put down the lien and 1,050 went to L&I. And I have papers
of that, that they submitted to me. Hey, okay, we're going to take the 3,500 from you and we're
going to do this and we're going to do that for you. So then I got the certificate stating, okay,
hey, woo-hoo, we got that taken off the lien of your house.
So once that was taken out, then I had to get another.
Steve calls me, hey, I got you another expedited, $900.
Well, I know that, okay, that's not part of it, right?
So the RCO was against it?
There's a letter of opposition here from the RCO, right?
The RCO, I saw them last week on the 15th.
Right.
A letter of opposition from the council member?
I didn't get that.
Okay, we have a letter of opposition from the council member, correct?
Correct.
Actually, the council member is opposition.
Everyone's opposed to the parking, but they're okay with the decks.
They split the two.
Right.
Because my main concern also is I have that corner, like I said, that one corner, and
it's no parking.
come between four after four people are getting hit on the other side of the street because the
sanitation last week we had a fire going on on the other block the fire department couldn't even move
i got pictures of that them taking pictures giving tickets ready to move cars out the block but that's
but so that's not about you right no you want to know where you put your cars but there's still
other cars going to park like that so that's not really okay okay so questions from the board
yes i have a question about this curb cut that you have to your driveway uh is that a legal curb cut
which which which curb cut are you are you referring to the one that's under the deck
or the one the one that they've done in the front i'm referring to the one that's going to the
driveway because okay um that was my contractor who supposedly had took out permits after i gave
him $10,000 down, $14,200.
Then he said, oh, we got to get the permits. No, you
told me you had permits for this. Okay, so just to clarify,
you thought there were permits. There aren't permits, so this is
not legalized. Right, that's when they shut me down. And for the plans
for what you have proposed, have they already gone to be reviewed by the
streets department? No. No, not that I'm aware of.
Okay. So I think the first concern I have is that, one, you cannot put a driveway in the curve of a turn, and that is a really tight space.
I don't think you're going to get a turning radius. I mean, I can't tell you for sure, but that is not going to be a legally approved turning radius into the driveway.
So I do think that, like, it's probably unlikely that that's going to be able to be a driveway and a parking pad the way you want it.
but also that's technically the corner and it should have an 88 curb ramp so I think I'm
questioning if like did your contractor remove the city's 88 curb ramp like was there
he did remove some of the curb area there so what happened was
He did remove some of the curve area there.
So what happened was when I spoke to Ms. Davis,
she said that was a variance.
The fact that that was not a no parking zone,
people shouldn't be parking there anyway.
Sure, but that's technically not a variance, but yeah.
I'm just like, whatever else.
Other questions?
questions or comments from our attorney other than what she's already said um i've already
said it but you're gonna you can reach out to us or reach out to me after this with regard to what
procedures that you need to do i guess i do have one more question you said you hired an architect
what what did your architect tell you when they were drawing the plans when they were drawing
the plans i i had to get two of them two architects yes because the first one when when
And Steve Mattis said, no, this is not the right architect.
The printouts of the architect, whatever, he said, no, it's not this.
This one has to be additioned onto it.
So then I had to get another one, which was, you know, another fee that I had.
Did you check to make sure that these people were licensed to East Pennsylvania?
I have their names and everything, and they are licensed.
I have a question.
So your preference is for the parking, if you granted, to be in the front, not the rear.
I guess that's the concern that I have, right?
Because you've got a curb cut and you've got parking underneath the deck already.
So you've got an off-street parking space that, whether it's illegal or not.
Michael, that's, yeah, it's illegal.
It's illegal.
But I'm just saying there's a curb cut and it's there, right?
So but you're saying you're going to take away that and just want the two in the front.
But you already got one. You know, that's that's illegal.
So I don't know. Right. That's a come. I never put up the fence or anything.
I didn't do nothing else that I wasn't supposed to do because my goal was to put the fence.
We're going to have to move on. Yeah, we're going to move on.
Questions or comments for the virtual. Yes, Sloan folks will be allowed to speak.
Hi, Sloan.
I'm going to try again.
Sloan has declined the promotion.
Sloan?
He's coming in as a panelist.
Sure, thank you.