everyone my name is frank di chico i'm the chair of the zoning board of adjustment i'll be
participating in today's hearing along with our board secretary mr confessor plaza and board
members Mr. Thomas Holloman and Mr. James Snell. Board Administrator Latisha Dandy and
Board Attorney Sharon Saleta are also for those of you who haven't yet participated in one
of our virtual hearings, I'll go through some of the basics of what you can expect. First,
we will be administering oaths to individual participants prior to their testimony. Second,
Second, we'd like to advise everyone that this proceeding is being recorded and that
by participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded and this recording will be
available to the public on the web or otherwise.
Third, for anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your
hand by hitting star nine and then star six to unmute yourself.
I'll repeat.
For anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand
by hitting star nine and then star six to unmute yourself.
Finally, to enter an appearance statement,
call Google 267-270-5548
and leave your email address
and the address of the property at issue.
Pardon me, I will repeat.
To enter an appearance statement,
To enter an appearance statement, call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at issue.
call Google 267-270-5548.
I would also like to advise everyone at this time to please do not attempt to testify in the chat.
Any comments should be directed to Ms. Lakeisha Dandy, our board administrator.
With that, I will now read off a list of requests for continuances.
Number two on our two o'clock list, MI 2020-000692, 1739 West Oxford Street.
MI 2020-002336-2222 North Front Street.
MI 2020-000058, 3021 Amber Street, and MI 2020-00351, 400-18 North 5th Street.
Those are requests for continuance that we receive. Does anyone dispute any of those continuances?
If so, please raise your hand at this time.
Chair, I have received a continuance for 321 East Worcester Street.
That's number six on our list.
The attorney's engine of record has requested a continuance.
Okay, so MI 2020-001262.
321 East Worcester Street is added to the list of continuances.
anyone disagree with the continuous list that is right into the record please raise your hand
no hands at this time chair thank you are there any other requests for continuances
or withdrawals on the two o'clock list if so please raise your hand
chair we have sloan folks you good afternoon mr folks please identify yourself for the record
good afternoon chairman chico members of the zba board my name is sloan folks s-l-o-a-n-e f as in
fire o-l-k-s office of council one maria canada sanchez in 508 city hall do you swear and affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i am thank you mr folks please proceed
Thank you. We are requesting a continuance for case number 8 on your list. Case number MI2020-0001214290 North Penn Street. They have not met with the coordinating RCO. There is a meeting scheduled in early March, I believe the first week of March, March 4th, and we'd like to request that the case be continued until that date.
that's that date thank you uh mr sabatina i'm not sure if you're on is your attorney of record
if so please identify yourself and i'll swear you in john sabatina here representing uh 4290
north penn street uh paul street real estate llc you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth i do you heard mr falks here's a request from councilwoman sanchez's
office for a continuance uh we'd like to do this here in a hold uh we have been trying to uh deal
with the uh rco on several occasions we don't do here in holds we we would have to either continue
it uh that's the only really way there's no other way right tanya no chair that's the only option
And if we give you a resumption hearing, it's just like us giving you another hearing date.
And it sounds like the Councilwoman's office will work to get a meeting put together with the RCO.
Yes, sir. It's already the RCO's books for March the 4th.
Mr. Sabatina, my suggestion would be we continue this.
We resume this hearing, I should say.
I'm sorry, Chair, you were correct the first time.
This would be a continuance where reposting would be necessary and the continuance will be in June.
We've reposted this thing like five times.
We can't seem to get a hearing date in front of the RCO because we cannot meet their requirements.
because we cannot meet their requirements that they have set up which
so let me ask this question since Mr. Sabatine is testifying that they have in the past
as posted on numerous occasions we now have the councilwoman's office who has a date
would we does it make sense for us to have the hearing
hear all the testimony and but resume it uh for feedback do a resumption hearing i should say
chair it really doesn't because the resumption hearing would likely be the same time as the
original hearing and the rco members wouldn't have an opportunity to participate in the entire
hearing um they would only be coming in after their meeting and they wouldn't necessarily know
that they had an interest in appearing today because they haven't seen the project yet
requirement that they do meet with the RCO and if we could try to be consistent and fair
to the RCO and the community and then we would go ahead and schedule it for a continuous date
However, if Mr. Sabatina does have any kind of issues or concerns with the project that they need to start sooner than later, I can work with him offline to give him a better date.
I think that might be the best option.
So, Tanya, what do I say right now?
We're just going to continue to...
Correct.
continues, date to be determined, and will be posted on the ZBA calendar online.
Okay, so you're so noted for the record. Thank you.
Hello. Yeah, can we get a quick date? I mean, we know that you'll work that out with Tanya offline.
Okay, thank you. Okay. All right, thank you. And let the record show that our vice chair,
Ms. Carroll-Taneri is also in attendance.
All right.
Any other requests for continuances or withdrawals?
Yes, Chair, I have Zin Jin.
Thank you.
Yes, good afternoon.
Good afternoon, sir.
Please identify yourself with a record and I swear you in.
Zin Jin, Z-H-E-N-J-I-N, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1838, Philadelphia PA 19103.
i'm actually um i raised my hand because i heard a continuance for a whistler street
um i do not have that as a case i currently represent so i just want to clarify yes i
apologize it's mr clinton sorry then mr clinton is margie is requesting the continuance from
mr clinton's office okay that's fine thank you thank you i have no further uh questions thank
you you any other requests continuances or withdrawals on the two o'clock list
no more hands chair okay so carol we're going to go to the add-ons you have that list
to carol you're muted
that's why i hate to mute um do i have the add-ons no i'll read it okay i'll read the yes yes i do
for two o'clock um three three zero eight nine one three two four frankfurt avenue
this is a resumption hearing limited to feedback on the revised refusal
and excuse me this is sharon saleta i believe mr leonard reuter might be in
attendance to explain the process by which the refusal was amended
thanks sharon
And the attorney is Sean Whalen.
They're both available for you, Chair.
Name and address.
Yes. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone.
Sean Whalen from Vintage Law, 6 Coulter Avenue, Suite 1000, Ardmore, PA, 19009.
Mr. Chair, is he already under oath from previously?
I am not.
No. Do you swear for them to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are we waving and stipping on this?
No, actually, the refusals, there's an original refusal, a first refusal, and a second refusal, and that's sort of the only issue.
At this point, I think form over function, we were just waiting to find out what the Fishtown neighbors wanted to say.
Okay, so you may proceed.
Hold on one second, please.
Carol, if you weren't here this morning, for purposes of the record, we can no longer just ask you to wave and stip.
It has to be read in its entirety, that statement.
Okay, good.
but you can read it in its entirety and then we can proceed okay do you also agree to waive
You can read it in its entirety, and then we can proceed.
the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy again no i do not and i i think i can
make that pretty clear as to why not uh going forward but if i could i'm sorry if i could
interject a thought chair and mr whalen um i do have a corrected refusal recently issued
by the examiner of record based on Elizabeth Baldwin's information we do have a corrected
refusal and I just wanted to make sure I put that on the record. And excuse me Ms. Sunkit but we also
have Mr. Reuter here who was going to explain in more detail. All right I'll cede to Mr. Reuter for
now um hi thank you leonard f reuter a senior attorney for the city of philadelphia
leonard and do you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do and do me leonard please spell your last name for the court reporter
sure r-e-u-t as in tom e-r thank you please proceed so i i i wouldn't i wasn't you know
going to get into like the details of the specific uh review by l and i on this matter i know that
there were several stages that the review took place, and I think there were two, maybe even
three revised refusals, and I think they involved primarily, you know, again, technical sorts of
things, but I think this has come up in a couple other cases. I believe Mr. Whalen has, and he can
speak for himself of course uh his position is that um the refusals are still uh there are still
errors in the refusal and you know my position is with respect to some to what the authority
of the board is is that as long as everything is on the record you are reviewing the application
and plans that are now before you so if you were to say grant the variance um you're great you
are approving what is being submitted to you now so if there were errors in the prior refusals
it's it's basically irrelevant it doesn't matter you're approving the project as submitted to you
at this point and as long as it's on the record what the you know specific you know alleged
discrepancies are i think it's it's the record will reflect that you were aware of those potential
discrepancies and nevertheless decided to make the decision that you make so i think it's not
necessary to really um at this point for the city to get in to you know explaining what the various
details or the refusals are because the the only thing that really matters at this stage is what
is on the application and what is being granted it might be different if we if there were questions
about the use um like you know we we would have like an application for a particular use that
didn't fit into any specific category and then trying to figure out how to limit the use but all
of this, I believe, and Mr. Whalen can correct me, all of this stuff in this case, we're talking
about what would be considered essentially dimensional issues. So the plans speak for
themselves. And as long as I don't think anybody or even Alan I suggested that there's errors in
the plans or the calculations, again, you have the plans, you have the application, you can approve
whatever you want to. And if there were things that were missed in the refusals,
that it doesn't matter i mean and back in the day just very quickly um it wasn't that long ago that
l and i would often not issue every refusal they had to they would issue the few big ones
and then other things that would be either subsumed within those refusals
um would just be understood because it was understood that the board basically
at the end of the day just grants a variance whatever the variance is that's being requested
and and this is i believe new construction or well whether it is or it isn't i mean you have
construction plans site plan that's proposed and that's what you're approving and the variance is
to basically allow that and again maybe Ms. Saleta would be able to you know follow up on that but
again the point being is that under the code you have all the authority that L&I itself has
so that includes you could just approve you can approve the plan or not I mean I'm not suggesting
we're not taking any position whatsoever on on on the variance we're just saying that
it would take forever to go through all the refusals and then have another review and all
that. It's not necessary. You have that authority. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Whelan? Yes. So if I could, I'll share my screen and give you
a little bit of this background. Excuse me.
background excuse me
Thank you.
so um what you see hopefully you're seeing i can't tell what you're seeing so hopefully
you're seeing a philadelphia atlas map with an outline of a project
this project was purchased by the client several years ago it is address 1324 frankfurt avenue
you'll see frankfurt is right here obviously a well-known commercial corridor the project
on what we're calling parcel a this is being subdivided basically right down the middle like
this is a large rectangular property parcel a along frankfort avenue that building was fully
approved it is actually probably just a month or two away from a co and occupation um the original
plan was to on this back half you can see it's a large trapezoidal property that front the back
half would front then on Lee Street was to build a number of townhomes, which would have been by
right, fronting on Lee Street with parking. In coordination with the RCO and the public,
they are hoping to make Lee Street basically a pedestrian-only throughway. They don't want car
access here. So the developer agreed to scrap the townhome plan and instead construct an apartment
building. The apartment building would have also been by right under the affordable housing bonus
because we paid under parcel A the original building as to the entire square footage of the
entire property. But in a matter of first instance, the city took the position that the bonus could
not be applied, even though it was for the whole part, that once the payment was made, that was
final and could not be further applied to the rest of the property so uh here we are now and
we're proceeding with again here's a better shot basically right where this line is we'll have a
trap a large trapezoidal property on lee street um the issues with the refusals are i will just go
this is a second revised refusal dated February 11th, 2021. We have just two issues with this
refusal. At this point in time, everything has come around full circle. And I should note,
most importantly, with regard to issues that Leonard raised and whatnot, as far as notice,
this application was submitted last May. We then spent six months working with LNI in
this examiner and his supervisors to get what we believed was a correct refusal. And L&I's position
was when they issued this first refusal, 11-16-20, you can see six months after our first application,