use would be senior housing for this area, along with adding some sort of commercial space that
would benefit the residents and the community, even though the zoning didn't allow it, we
see that they have to go together.
So we took equity that we were supposed to use for Tioga, and we actually purchased this
site in November, November the 2nd of 2022.
Okay. And please describe to the board your overall mission in delivering this particular product.
Yeah, we, as you stated earlier, what we've understood and we've started the process of doing senior housing in Tioga way before this project.
So our goal and mission is to deliver to the city of Philadelphia a thousand of these mid-market senior housing units.
That's our overall goal. And we like you said, there's a bunch of.
Um, and we, but like you said, there's a bunch of seniors in Philly that are aging out of their
houses because of this, you know, because of the disrepair. And so what we ended up doing,
um, to test the market is we established a, uh, a portal, uh, for wait lists. Um, and to our
surprise, not to our surprise, but we ended up having to shut the portal down because we ended
up getting, we're up to 500 people on the wait list now, but we had to shut it down because of
the delays in the zoning. And we intend to open it back up because this zoning process, I mean,
we're over a year and something into the zoning process. But that's our mission is to fill the
gap between low-income subsidized housing that the housing authority provides and also
what people can't afford on the main line or that. And one of the things I do want to add is
I have a lot of experience in senior housing and understand that market very well as I used to be
in charge of maintenance and construction for Chester Housing Authority. And I had
over 500 senior housing units under my direction. So I understand seniors and I understand their
needs. So along with AJ and his group, we designed this based off of what seniors are asking for
today. And that's why we went with the mass timber and also the fully furnished model with
furnishing, giving them all the furniture in the units. Okay. And you heard my testimony
pursuant to the use agreement with the city of Philadelphia that would permanently
place a restriction for 55 plus senior affordability at 52 percent. Are you prepared
to execute that agreement? Yes, we are. Very good.
And again, when we say senior, we mean 55 years old plus. Yes, we're talking about adults 55 and
older. Correct. Okay. Very good. Anything else you'd like to add, Mr. Miles? Only that
we are very excited about the project. We're excited to deliver this project. And, you know,
as a result of this project, we've gotten a lot of, you know, other council people who have
express interest at us doing a similar project in their district. So we're just excited and we're
hopeful that the board will grant the variance. Thank you. Mr. Chair, just to wrap up, you know,
I think the evidence and the testimony kind of speaks for itself. This is a transformative
proposal, a revolutionary 55 plus senior living product that doesn't exist until now, right now,
in the city of philadelphia with commercial amenities while it is nice uh and welcoming
and a blessing to have the support of the rcos and the ward and the state senator uh and and the
like uh we cannot deliver this product without the zoning relief uh and that could only come
from this board and with that i'm going to rest thank you questions from the board no mr chairman
no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emberson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr chair planning commission thank you chair bergman and good
afternoon david vecta with the city planning commission chairman and board members this
This proposal completed its Civic Design Review in November of 2023.
The Civic Design Review Committee's advisory recommendations are not an expression of the City Planning Commission's recommendation or opinion regarding zoning variances, special exceptions, or other discretionary approvals.
Regarding the proposed number of dwelling units, the appellant requests 120, which is significantly more than allowed by Reich.
The previous council president removed developer's option to earn additional dwelling units using the mixed income housing bonus and the green roof bonus in this part of the 5th council district.
However, since the appellant has agreed to include deed restricted affordable units, the commission is willing to act as if the mixed income housing bonus were still in place for this proposal.
the commission is willing to act as if the mixed income housing bonus were still in place for this
proposal with that bonus and the green roof bonus the appellant would have been able to earn up to
88 dwelling units so the planning commission recommends the board grant a maximum of 88
dwelling units regarding the additional height and proposed parking accessed from a primary street
the commission believes these variances are both necessary to enable additional dwelling units and
parking on this site so the commission recommends granting both variances regarding the use variance
for a commercial ground floor we have heard loudly and repeatedly concerns about traffic congestion
expressed by near neighbors potential traffic congestion would come from the commercial
component of this proposal not the residential component and given that neither diamond street
nor 22nd street have ever been commercial corridors the city planning commission recommends
the board deny the proposed use variance for a commercial ground floor thank you uh mr chair
can i actually just add that there was a comment i i did want to make and um mr effecto reminded me
of it so that the request the variance that's listed on the refusal for vacant commercial space
we we can't grant a blanket variance for vacant commercial space um so if there's if there's a
proposal to have commercial at this property in the future it will need to have a separate permit
application and separate variance relief if the property remains zoned at rm1 yep if i may mr
chair the commercial use space i know the rules have changed on this uh we would be seeking
commercial use of consistent with cmx1 and they would be these would be amenities to the folks
who live above them. So, and as far as the 88 unit number, I do appreciate the planning
commission's perspective on that, but we're providing 52% of our units as affordable
under no legislative scheme would we have been required to do that. So, and for that reason,
the 120 units is essential in order to provide a majority of the units to be affordable.
So that's the second point I'd like to make.
And as far as congestion is concerned, again, I showed you the aerial.
65% of the block is prairie.
There's not even a structure on it.
So I don't necessarily think congestion is a problem yet in this, you know, in this block.
And if in fact, I think the number of units and the people who would occupy them would finally bring some long awaited life back to the block.
Thank you. Thank you.
So as we counsel, we spoke earlier, we're going to hold the vote on this until we hear from or when we hear from Councilman Young or someone in his office, their their views on this.
And then what we will do is the testimony is closed other than what the councilman says and possibly response from you.
I would appreciate that. Thank you. All right. OK.
Are we going to put a date on that?
I talked to Hillary about this.
We're thinking two weeks.
I was going to request one week, but whatever you think is best.
We'll look at two weeks, and that'll be the two weeks on the Wednesday there, and we'll go at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and we'll vote.
Thank you very much.
That's Wednesday, March 28th, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, and thank you for your presentation.
permission to be excused you you can sir thank you um mr kelly we have one more case
on the two o'clock list and then we'll take a break you okay with that yes chair thank you
thank you so number 17 mi 2023 003 746 8200 to 22 east roosevelt boulevard brett feldman is the
attorney. There's a letter of support from Ron Hurst-Civic, a letter of non-opposition from
Councilmember O'Neill. Mr. Feldman will be coming back in as a panelist. Mr. Feldman, could you state
your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer. Sure. Good afternoon. Brett Feldman,
1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103. I represent the tenant applicant,
the Rau Group. Just for the record, could you spell your name for the court stenographer? Yes.
Just for the record, could you spell your name for the court?
Yes, Brett, B-R-E-T-T, Feldman, F as in Frank, E-L-D-M-A-N.
Brett, B-R-E-T.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, to hold truth to nothing but the truth?
And our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
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? Yes, I have. Thank you so much. Please proceed and
share your screen. Great. Am I sharing screen now? It's up, sir. Oh, it is up? Okay. Okay. I'd ask
also that our project engineer, Shannon Hayback Park, be elevated to a panelist as well as Mike
Baum, and William DiPrenzio from the Rao Group. So with that, let me get right to it here.
This is an application to convert a former drive-thru bank at a large shopping center.
Here we go. This is the shopping center anchored by a large Acme supermarket, Roosevelt Boulevard,
Solly Avenue here, and then two other streets on the other sides.
This property, we're talking about the tenant space right here on Hofnagel Street to the right.
This was kind of a little bit of a quirky drive-through bank, and I'll just take you through that here.
You would actually drive through the building.
This was the bank space here.
It was this whole entire space.
You would actually drive through the back of this roll-down garage door, and that's where the bank was, and you would do your banking if you were going to use the drive-thru inside that area.
So that was the drive-thru.
The bank left, and let me just give you a little more of the existing here.
The bank left, and the space has been empty for some time.
And surprisingly, this shopping center, which you would expect would be zoned area shopping center or, you know, CA1, you know, some type of robust commercial district is only zoned CMX1.
So any new restaurant needs to come to the zoning board and there's significant limitations on any other uses at the property.
So my clients, the ROW Group, operate a number of Dunkin' Donuts in the city of Philadelphia, and we filed an application to reuse the drive-thru and open up a Dunkin' Donuts at this location.
um the we had an original refusal that was issued um and we begin to have more conversations with
the streets department uh and city planning and the neighbors uh and we had there was some there
were some concerns about the drive-through the way it was configured this is um if you see that
this was the original plan um it was to have the drive-through come right off of uh the street here
And then, again, we come right through the building and utilize that space in the building.
And then the other part of this application was we didn't need the entire space, so there
was going to be creation of two tenants, A and B. A was the Dunkin' Donuts and B was
a vacant space.
So we then worked closely with city planning on landscaping.
We worked closely with the streets department and the neighbors.
And with the board's support, we went back to plan and we took the pretty drastic step here.
And this was my letter to the zoning board asking that the plan be changed.
As I'll show you, the board then granted that approval.
We went back to L&I.
We got a new refusal, which was the same refusal for the takeout restaurant.
But the plan itself here, I'll show you right here.
If you look, we actually are now proposing the demolition of about 1,500 square feet, that a whole chunk of the building.
And instead of running the drive through off of the street here, you now come into the shopping center and then you have a more than code compliant queuing area.
I think it's eight spaces that you now have queuing.
Five, only I believe five are required.
and then you come now through the building
and that's where you would pick up your order.
Or fortunately, and I think the community very much liked this,
you could always go into the Dunkin' Donuts
and this will be an important community location
um to have a cup of coffee uh and to uh you know see your neighbors uh and and have that option in
to have a cup of coffee and to see your neighbors.
the neighborhood but it was a pretty drastic step to demolish 1500 square feet of the shopping center
to reorient the whole shopping center um we with this plan uh we went to the ronhurst civic
association um which issued its letter of support and i believe one of the representatives um the
president of their group was going to be on the call here to talk about their project. And they
were instrumental because this took a while to go through zoning, but their support, we got the
support of city planning on the landscaping. They stamped off this. Streets department stamped off
on this. And now the council minister supported this as well. We'll be doing upgrades to the
exterior. This will be the new Dunkin Donuts prototype here. This is the new exterior. It'll
be all modernized. That area that's kind of a little bit blah right now and a little bit run
down, but we'll be adding a new exterior to our space. It's a real good fit. It works well with
the drive-thru that's there, the configuration that we now have, and the ACME. It's a good
co-tenancy, folks go to the ACME, or they'll come to the Dunkin' Donuts, and then they'll go to the
ACME, and the community very well received that. So I think with that, I will, you know, if the
board has any additional questions, I can have one of our other representatives answer those
questions. Why don't you bring your client on? Yeah, sure, sure. Mike Baum or Bill DiPrenzio,
are you are you still out there
Mike Baum has been allowed to speak
sir could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
yes sir
my first name is Michael last name is
Baum B-A-H-M
as in Michael
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth
yes sir please proceed counsel
thank Mr. Baum can you can you provide
capacity that you
with the RAL Group, the proposed tenant here? Yes, sir. I'm the Vice President of Operations.
Okay. And as I briefly mentioned, the RAL Group, among other enterprises, owns and operates a
number of Dunkin' Donuts in the Philadelphia area and in the suburban areas, correct?
Yes, sir. Great. And you heard my testimony, correct?
Yes. Is it true and accurate?
Yes. And do you adopt it as your own?
Is there anything further you would add?
I know this has been a long process, but I know you're excited to get in there and to open up this new location.
Is there anything further that you wanted to offer to the board today?
Only that, you know, yes, it has been a long process.
But I think, I mean, we did work with both the community and the city to, you know, come up with this new design, which, you know, does take off a considerable amount of the building.
but I think gives a lot better drive-through in general.
And so I think it'll function a lot better.
It'll be better for the community.
It'll be safer for sure
than what we were initially proposing.