Okay, great.
Thank you.
Good morning, sir.
Please identify yourself with the record.
And we'll swear you in.
Your name has already been spelled into the record.
So just.
Good morning.
My name is Janati Kapkinov.
I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth.
Nothing but the truth.
Thank you, Mr. Jin.
Thank you.
Mr. Kapkinov, you heard my testimony before the board and saw the presentation.
Can you verify that the information I provided is true and correct and adopted it to your own?
It is true and correct.
Thank you.
Thank you. Any questions from the board?
Anyone else like to testify in this case? If so, please raise your hand.
Mr. Sloan, folks, has his hand raised. I will allow him to speak at this time, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Foulkes. Please identify yourself and I'll swear you in.
Good morning, Chairman DeChico, ZBA Board. My name is Sloan Foulkes, S-L-O-A-N-E-F-S and Fire, O-L-K-S, Office of Councilwoman Maria Quinonez Sanchez from 508 City Hall.
We're in the firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
I do, sir. Having received a letter from the coordinating RCO in opposition with a vote of 6-1 against, the Councilwoman does not support this various request. Thank you.
Anyone else to testify? Please raise your hand.
no further hands at this time sir you planning commission thank you chair to chico members of
the board ian hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission board members in 2017 the
zoning map was actually amended here from rm1 to rsa5 in accord with recommendations from the
comprehensive plan and with the support of the community and the council office
we don't feel the applicant has demonstrated that development is restricted by any unique
physical circumstances or conditions of the property and so the city planning commission
would recommend that the zoning board deny this variance thank you mi 2020-001-293-2154
north randolph street my vote is no my vote is no my vote is no my vote is no
thank you
Jen's case I believe is next
number 6
calendar number 1834
2445 Martha Street
you're still under a name and address on the record
and spell it please
Zhenjin, Z-H-E-N-J-I-N
1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard
suite 1838
19103 here on behalf of the applicant
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
thank you
do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Do you?
Do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, referral, photos, plans, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all questions.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Thank you very much.
I am going to be sharing with the board the information relating to this case.
We have submitted an advance refusal, RCO letter, photos, rendering, plans, certificate
tax clearance, deed, and other documents in support of this application.
This is an application for the combining of a lot to build a, my apologies, I'm actually blocking my own view here on this.
It's a single family household living with a roof deck and roof deck access structure and an accessory private residential garage.
So the refusal primarily is because the accessory garage cannot be accessed from the rear,
whereas we are seeking it from the front, and that the open area is 18.6% rather than 25%
as required by code. We have met with East Kensington Neighborhood Association,
who actually came in non-opposition with 20 in support on the vote, three non-opposition vote,
and one opposed. The primary reason we receive non-opposition in this matter, Martha Street
is a relatively small street. However, Martha Street itself, as the photograph shows,
doesn't really allow parking. And therefore, having garages as off-street parking is only
a benefit to this block. There's no real negative impact to on-street parking. As a result,
the neighbors are overwhelmingly in support of the idea of additional garage with this development
because it would help alleviate parking issues, not trigger more. Because of the
existing garages already among neighbors, we did not have any issues with the neighbors as far as
our design. Our design is going to be lined up with existing properties both in height, design,
and size and therefore even though we're asking for a little bit of additional depth as you can
see on one side of our property is the rear yards of other properties facing a different street
so that there's no real impact on that side even because the other side of that rear yard is
actually additional rear yards of other properties many of which are used for parking so the overall
feedback from the community has been supported in this matter and we would ask the board
for a favorable disposition of this request i'm certainly happy to share any additional
plans or other information if the board wants a closer look at anything
thank you do you need to have your client yes i will have my client
to testify to the accuracy of my representation should be Mr. Dima, D-H-I-M-A, last name,
Lefter, first name, L-E-F-T-E-R.
Just don't appear to be in the audience.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I didn't realize you were there.
No worries.
As an officer, the court will stipulate
that your client would have adopted your testimony.
Any questions from the board?
excuse me allergy season uh anyone else like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
no further hands at this time mr chair thank you planning commission thank you chair to chico
ian haggerty for the philadelphia city planning commission members of the board this applicant's
property faces a narrow street that primarily serves garages and parking pads for the
adjacent property. So the additional garage front will not cause significant adverse impacts.
And so the city planning commission would recommend that the board grant the variance.
Thank you very much. MI 2020-001.
Thank you very much. MI 2020-001-834-2445 Martha Street. My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Thank you. Carol, I think we can go to number one. I believe Leo's in.
Okay, great. Calendar number 2206-1270 South 46th Street.
mr mulvihill has been promoted to panelist thank you you sure did can you put your name
and address on the record and spell your last name yes absolutely leo mulvihill that's m-u-l-v
as in victor i-h-i-l-l address is 1441 east oxford street philadelphia pennsylvania 19125
five. Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing about the truth? No. Was that
a yes? Yes. Oh, okay. Do you also agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? Yes. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance,
photos and or plans of the property, refusal, referral five days before this hearing and have
you met with the RCO and do you have a letter? Yes, the letter's not on my packet as it was
sent in rather late um however i can pull it out from my email okay you may proceed all right good
morning chairman members of the board i apologize for my technical difficulty earlier today
i'm here today on behalf of cedar park properties llc my client knee nhi is on the line um our
Our contractor, Sasha, that's S-A-S-C-H-A, Alexander Edelkaut, I'll spell that for you
too, E-D-E-L-K-R-A-U-T.
He was present earlier, but he's getting his second vaccine today and had to leave, unfortunately.
So we're here today for something pretty simple.
It is an existing structure, used to be a grocery store with an apartment above.
My client wishes now to take an adaptive reuse of this structure.
and turn it into two apartment units.
What I'm showing now on my screen
is the presentation packet,
add the refusal of appeal and project information
form of page one, area zoning math at seven,
deed at eight, tax clearance at 12,
notification letters and proof of mailing at 13,
photos at 15, both interior and exterior,
and plans for the property at 52.
I'm moving now to page, I believe it's three,
yeah, three of my packet.
I'm going to zoom out a little bit, but fit visible.
All right.
So here we go.
We've received our refusal 318-2020.
It is a single family district, RSA 5.
We're proposing two family living.
Hardship here is essentially the way the structure is laid out.
We want to do an adaptive reuse and rehabilitate the structure.
In order to do single family, we'd have to more or less gut the entire building, redo
everything from scratch and the building itself is going to lose a lot of its charm. I'll get into
the specifics of that in a moment. I will now proceed to the area zoning map. So members of
the board, you can see now what is page seven of my packet. To the top now is the zoning map that
I pulled from Philadelphia Atlas. This is on the corner of Linmore and 46th. It's that triangular
shaped property that you see. It's a little bit irregular compared to the other homes on the
street which tend to be two-story single-family homes either brick front or the air light style.
The purple area that you see to the bottom of the map, that's the train line which runs right
essentially right at the end of the block. The block that ends into Linmore Avenue.
Moving to the bottom of that page seven, here is now the overhead photo that's been taken
off of Philadelphia Atlas. You can see specifically what I'm talking about. Our property is indicated
in that blue pin. You can see the other properties again mainly two-story single-family homes.
maybe some multifamily, but I couldn't see legal multifamily in the area perusing Philadelphia
Atlas. And then the train tracks that run behind. You'll notice as well that it's a mix of RSA 5
and I-2. Why some of the homes are zoned I-2, that's a question for city planning.
I'm not quite sure, but it's mostly residential. There's our deed.
The tax certificate website has been acting up again. So what I have here is a copy of
the outstanding balance due from the BRT site showing there's no outstanding balance.
Here's our second community notice meeting that went out. We actually had two meetings for this
project. At the first meeting it was well attended. We explained what we were hoping to do with the
project. The immediate adjacent neighbor to the north was present and everyone had some questions.
was present and everyone had some questions after further discussion with them we decided to hold
after further discussion with them.
the second meeting so that first meeting did not take a vote at that second meeting we ensured that
the contractor and project manager mr edelkopf was there he explained specifically what would
be done to help limit noise specifically explained that we would be operating even within the general
hours of contracting less than that so we'd be starting later ending earlier to ensure that we
would minimize noise for the properties adjacent. The immediate adjacent neighbor who may be on the
line and I wish I could remember her name but I cannot, she expressed concern because the previous
owner of this structure used it as an art studio and you'll see the really cool kind of artwork he
was doing in there and she could hear anytime that somebody was going up and down the stairs
she could hear noises through the wall because it's just a standard brick party wall between
two row homes in Philadelphia. Mr. Edelkraut explained to her that as part of the process,
we do have to remove the staircase to make it code compliant, as it's an old staircase and
is out of code. And as part of that, we'll be doing sound-reduping measures, including
installation of firewall materials, drywall insulation to help dampen the sound.
Ultimately, initially, we had a favorable vote after speaking with Mr. Ross.
That changed at some point subsequent to the initial meeting.
I believe these were folks that, for whatever reason, did not attend our meeting, which was held over Zoom.
I hosted it.
And the specific objections, I'm not entirely sure.
At the first meeting, our immediate neighbors requested things like a deed addendum, pardon me, a lease addendum to ensure that every tenant knew what the trash storage policies were.
We do have outdoor space, which will be accessible from the street, and we ensure that every tenant will have to use that, otherwise they face not just a fine from the city suite program, but from us as well, my client.
There are also questions regarding parking.
We specifically noted to everybody that there's no way to include any parking on this parcel.
We would have to demo the building, and then there's no point.
However, we did include in our lease, which we shared with the community, an addendum to require that any owner, pardon me, any tenant at the property were to have one car, that they would be responsible to have any necessary permits or anything else for their vehicle to try to limit the effects of the neighborhood overhaul parking.
Now moving to page 15 of the packet.
This is my reposted zoning notice.
to page 16. This is the original zoning notice along with the community meeting flyer that I
put up there myself. I'm just going to go through those photos so we can get a better idea as of
the surrounding property. So here's our property. As you can see, it's triangularly shaped. It's