Chair, we have Alex Udovich. They have been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Good morning.
Good afternoon, Vice Chair.
Members of the board, Alice Udovich, A-L-I-C-E-U-D-O-V-I-C-H, on behalf of Councilman Brian O'Neill.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Councilman O'Neill has no objection to the granting of the variance at this location.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else out in the virtual audience?
vice chair i see no hands at this time planning commission thank you vice chair and good morning
david effecto with the city planning commission vice chair and board members the comprehensive
plan recommends no change to the residential single family zoning at this location the appellant
appears to have built a non-compliant fence without the benefit of permits the city planning
commission recommends that the board deny the proposed variance for a non-compliant fence
okay uh mi-2023-005-710-1405 oakmont street my vote is yes
thomas holloman my vote is yes james now my vote is yes
all right congratulations sir is there anyone else out there the case has not been heard
for the 9 30 list oh thank you everyone i'm sorry
i see no hands at this time vice chair thank you all and look forward to seeing everybody at two
o'clock. All right, baby. Ready to eat? All right.
Chair, we have currently five attendees. You can proceed as you wish.
good afternoon my name is ishmael shaheed and i will be chairing this two o'clock board meeting
with me is uh barton board member thomas holliman present mr vice chairman also board member james
now. Present, Mr. Vice Chairman. And we also have LeBaron Leonard Palmer with us from Department
of Development Services. Also present with us is our Attorney Hillary Emerson and our Executive
Director Tanya Sunken. Here's our virtual format. Please be advised, proceedings are being recorded
and a video will be available by contacting Tanya Sunctit.
Benefits to our, the benefit of our court's cinematographer,
we ask that the witnesses identify themselves before testifying.
And if you are participating by phone and you wish to testify,
please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
to enter an appearance statement and call 267-270-5548 and leave an email leave leave a
message or you can email the address of the property in question questions and answers
questions in the answer box for the screen is testified for all comments should be directed
should be directed to our executive director tying something moving on to our continuances
to our executive director, Tyneson.
Moving on to...
for the two o'clock list
mi-2023-004624 2628 south street it's going to be continued
number 13 mi2023-0057692026 that's a duplicate so let's move on to that one
mr chair there are two separate appeals in that case so please read that continuance into the
record okay uh number 13 mi-2023-005769 2628 south street this is being continued as well
number 14 mi-2023-006919 2301 north 29th street is being continued
are there any other continuances in the virtual audience that I have not called
good afternoon vice chair this is Yvette Benton I'll be your co-host for the day
we have Stephanie Magana with their hand up they have been unmuted and allowed to speak
good afternoon
uh my name is stephanie mcgania here i'm just not here on behalf of 2628 south street um i know the
rco um record please for continuance the letter of deferral i just wanted to note for the record
that as the applicant we have no objection and we look forward to working with them in advance to
the next hearing all right uh if you want to put that on the record you're going to have to state
your name and spell it for the record so we can get that on the phone. Stephanie Magana, M-A-G-A-G-N-A.
All right. And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do. All right. So would you like to restate your statement again for the record?
Absolutely. So I'm here on behalf of the applicant for the new development application and the
signage application for 2628 South Street. The RCO requested a deferral so that we could
continued discussions. I just wanted to note for the record that we have no objection and we look
forward to working with them in advance in the next hearing. Thank you very much. Are there any
other hands in the virtual audience that need continuances? Vice Chair, we have Carmen Avila
with their heads up. They have been unmuted and allowed to speak. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
My name is Carmen Avila. I'm a constituent from here in the area. We just want our voices heard
today? Sure.
Can you please state your name and spell it for the
record? And what property are you calling for?
24-5 North Newkirk.
We're calling about the parking lot. It's supposed to be
a parking garage going on in the garage, in the
parking lot. Okay.
We haven't gotten to that case yet.
I don't even see that.
Excuse me, Mr. Reshirt.
Ms. Avila, can you please state
that case again? I'm not
sure that that's on our list for today.
you said what was the address on new kirk street
miss avila please unmute yourself yes ma'am yes what is what is the address of the property that
you're calling about um it's at 29th and york is actually a parking lot that that case got
continue that's the one that was on 29th okay thank you all right all right anyone virtual
audience that needs the case that needs to be continued vice chair we have keisha usher barton
they have been abuted and allowed to speak good afternoon how may we how may we help you
can you state your name and spell it for the record
yes that is k-e-i-s-h-a last name is hyphenated it's usher like the singer
u-s-h-p-r hyphen martin m-a-r-t-i-n do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do please proceed which the property
Yes, so I'm calling about 26, 28 to 30 South Street.
Okay, that property is being continued.
Correct.
I would just like to get on record, if possible, that I am on the zoning committee for SOSNA as well.
that I am on the zoning committee for SOSNA as well, and we did submit a letter of deferral,
And we did submit...
but we did so because we were unable to get in touch with, get a response from the applicant's
attorney, and so we submitted the deferral, and late Friday is when we received word that this
would be continued, so I'm just putting on record that had they worked with us earlier in the week,
we would have probably requested a continuance as well.
Thank you for your comments.
Anyone else in the virtual audience
that needs a case that has to be continued?
Vice Chair, we have Stephanie Bagaglia
with her hand up again.
They have been abuted and allowed to speak.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I'm here now on behalf of the applicant
for 1200 South Broad Street.
I see that case is lifted for a continuance.
We are not requesting a continuance
and we do intend to proceed.
What's the address again?
1200 South Broad Street.
Yes, that should not be listed as a continuance.
We've received exhibits for that case.
I don't have that as continued.
Okay, great.
All right, we'll call it short.
Thank you.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Vice Chair, I see no hands at this time.
All right, moving on to our withdrawals.
We don't have any withdrawals.
let me see here
we have no add-ons
so we're going to go ahead and
call number two
we're going to call number two and number seven at the same time
MI-2023-006-509-176
counter row street and number seven mi-2023-006945163 counter row street
david orfaniti is the attorney
mr orphanese if you're the virtual audience there he is he's coming back in as a panelist now vice
chair thank you good afternoon council
good afternoon sir uh please please state your name and spell it for the court reporter
definitely my name is david orphanetes the last name is spelled o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s
uh do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you sir
uh what's your relationship to your client i am the attorney representing the owner of the property
american living concepts of mani yonk llc both properties thank you um our board member mr
holliman has a few questions to ask you good afternoon counsel do you agree to waive the
reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy i waive the reading i do not stipulate
to its accuracy either for either one did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required
five days in advance to this hearing yes thank you please proceed and share your screen
can you all see my screen yes okay so um we're present these are two separate cases
um on opposite sides of the 100 block of conorow street um it's part it's proposed signage a
freestanding sign in front of each of the two properties uh 163 conorow 176 conorow i have
up on the screen right now, a rendering, an evening rendering of the proposed freestanding
sign that will be at 176 Connor Road Street. But I'm going to present these both together
because they are part of a, they work together because the properties that are located on
the opposite sides of Connor Road Street, not only are they located on the opposite sides of
Connery Street, but they're part of a larger complex or campus that used to be known. It was
the St. Mary of the Assumption campus, church campus, and eventually I think became the St.
John the Baptist, became part of that parish church. So back in 2018, there was an ordinance
that was passed to take what had been, I think, 16 individual lots to relocate lot lines and to
take this church that had closed, been open from 1849, but this campus that had been open
since the mid-1800s until about 2015, and to adaptively reuse the existing.
and to adaptively reuse the existing church and rectory and the school building.
176, as you'll see, is the existing church or the pre-existing church and rectory.
And then across the street is 163, which is the school.
176 is historically designated.
You can see here in the aerials the two properties in question, the one I'm circling right now,
That is 176. And then across the street, as you can see, is 163. What I circled in red is the rest
of the complex that was permitted through L&I for a total of between these two buildings at 176 and
163, we have 35 residential dwelling units. And then over the rest of the property, you have
21 single-family homes, off-street parking. Part of the original ground that my client purchased
in 2018 was actually transferred as part of this overall project to the Northlight Community
Group, which is located right abutting or across the street from our property up on Carson.
um but uh there was an ordinance that was passed to create uh the saint mary's um overlay and that
was in 2018 and here you go and it was originally ordinance 180101 you can see here because it's a
very large group of uh the overall lot area for all the lots together total i think around 69 000
square feet just over that, which is about 1.6 acres. So going back to the aerials, as you can
see, not far off of Main Street in Maniunk, not far off of Green Lane, but I mean, it's a group
of parcels that has dominated this community in the sense of its size for a very long period of
time. Again, my client is adaptively reusing and restoring meticulously the school at 163 and the
church and rectory at 176. And then with the other open area, again, a number of 21 tasteful townhomes
and off-street parking. Also, there's going to be part of the, for the ground that was transferred
over to North White, I think they'll be provided with 16 off-street parking spaces. Again, this
all went through city council. I believe at the time it was extremely well vetted. There was
testimony to that in front of city council. Our application today is, again, simply two
freestanding signs, one at 163 and one at 176. So this is 163 in the church building, I mean,
the school building. And these are revised plans. We had original plans that had the signs located
in the fencing in the front of the existing structures located in slightly different
places. And based upon the input we received at the community meeting with the Manioc
Neighborhood Council in early January, we took some of those comments and we revised the plans
to essentially for both properties create kind of widen the public space in front of our properties
each of the buildings by pulling the fencing back and in the case of 176 actually pulling the sign
back you can see here is a close-up in the bottom corner for 163 you can see here's the front of
the building here's the proposed fence line we're pulling the fence line back with the gate here was
the original plan for 176. And you can see where the fencing is up here and we have the signage
over here. So to flip back and forth between them, you can see that we've made us change
to create more public space in the area of the properties at 176 or 163. At 176, the original
plan had the fence kind of tucked well in front of but in tucked in front of a jog fencing
replacement fencing here and you can see in the revised plan based upon comments we received
we took the fencing straight across we actually moved the signage back I think it was
six feet and it's gone back to eight and a half feet so we've made some changes based upon what
we received the comments we received at the community here on the plans you can see the
signage each freestanding sign is seven feet by tall by three and three feet wide double-sided
internally illuminated we don't have signage that is shining from an external source onto the sign
from an external source onto the sign, creating a lot of glare. As you can see from this night
creating a lot of glaze.
rendering, it just has a nice type of halo or glow to it to direct people that either,