they may be having technical difficulties okay thank you is there anyone else in the audience
no sir no further hands planning commission sir ron bednar city planning city planning
commission has no objection to a time condition temporary variance thank you um
counsel yes so here's what i'm going to do when i want to have testimony like we've had
i really like an opportunity to talk to the other board members in an executive session
we're going to vote on this next wednesday at 2 p.m okay yes all right thank you very much
for your presentation thank you very much for your time and very much appreciate it sure um
Um, number seven, MI 2024, 000782-2851, Bodine, Bodine Street.
Jennifer Bazzillo is the, um, attorney.
Um, this is a rehearing.
letter of support from impact cdc letter of non-opposition from council member lozada
an applicant also provided uh form letters of support from neighbors um
council um you just state your name because you were sworn sometime a long time ago today so
Yes, Jennifer Pazidlow, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
All right.
Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
My clients are Angela and Michael Bucci, who are the property owners.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good evening, counsel.
Do you agree to read no to refuse to or stipulate to his accuracy?
getting late. 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? I did. Thank you. Please proceed
and share your screen. Great. Here we go. All right. Let me just move this over here.
So, like I said, my name is Jennifer Bezidlow. I'm here today on behalf of the property owners,
Angela and Michael um I've submitted uh exhibits uh which are we'll go through some of them come
back to some of them but we have the refusal uh the only refusal is for two family household living
in an RSA 5 district um here's showing the deed for the property uh the the
Bucci's did buy this property at sheriff sale in 2018
property taxes are paid we have a letter of support from impact services like we mentioned
we also got 47 letters of support from neighbors all of
We also got 47 letters of support from neighbors, all of who were in the notification radius.
So and this is a list. This includes the block captain on the block, the pastor of the church on the block, as well as the block captain of the adjacent property.
But these are all the letters that were submitted. There's 47 of them in total.
so we're just going to go through there
these are the letters that were sent out
we have a zoning map of the current zoning map
showing where we are that's RSA 5
we'll come back to this
we'll also come back to the aerial views of the property
and we'll come back to the relevant portions of Philadelphia 2035 plans
uh and this is a map of uh vacancy around our property both empty lots and empty buildings
we'll come back to that there's our posting um for the hearing closer up this is our property
right here and i'm actually going to stop here because i think this is a good part to go in we
did submit the floor plans and we'll get to that as well um but so 2851 budenot street it's an
existing two-story building on about a 973 square foot lot uh this property is located about a block
and a half uh from the somerset l station in kensington um as i mentioned uh this property
was purchased at sheriff sale um in 2018 and at the time of purchase it was already divided into
two units um there was a door right here when it was purchased so there was a door to the upstairs
unit and then this is the door to the lower unit um you can also see that well this is the bathroom
in the lower unit hold on let me just scroll through we'll come back to these photos but um
there was two water heaters present uh and there was also two uh electrical panels one downstairs
and one actually embedded in the wall and covered with uh uh sheetrock upstairs that they had to
uncover and replace um so our proposal is to fully rent these are just the surrounding area
um so the proposal is to fully renovate the property um inside and out uh to and use them
use as a two-family dwelling this is a rendering of the facade once it's all done
And each unit will be one bedroom, one bath units.
There'll be nice units with central air, in-unit washer and dryers, and really nice accommodations.
The upstairs unit has already been renovated, so I can give you a kind of glimpse of what this is going to be.
So we got a really nice unit here with a new kitchen.
This is the living area up towards the front of the property.
You can see the in-unit washer and dryer.
And we have a nice-sized bedroom in the back.
As you can see, all modern fixtures, all nice.
And these are going to be offered at a price point that's accessible to the existing community.
They're looking for tenants of, you know, maybe especially for the first floor unit,
Maybe someone who's older who can't walk up down their steps anymore or something like that, or maybe just a young couple starting off.
So I just want to go over a little bit of the history of this property to get to where we are today.
So when the Bucci's purchased this property at Sheriff's Sale in February of 2018, this property was zoned RM1.
And so it would have been, it was large enough to be a duplex by right.
However, as you know, when you purchase a sheriff's sale for tax sale, the prior owner has nine months to reclaim the property.
So they waited nine months before they started any work in pulling permits.
And unfortunately, during that time, in June of 2018, this property was remapped to RSA 5.
So once they had waited out the period of time, they had bought an RM1 property from sheriff's sale, divided as two units.
when they waited the the statutory amount of time for the person for the prior owner to reclaim
we no longer had an arm one property um so this was only something that they discovered the zoning
change when they went to go apply for their permits that they thought was going to be
by right and no longer was um i will note that they did apply for a zoning variance back in 2019
um and they were denied at that time for a duplex i do firmly believe uh it's because they did not
have appropriate assistance of counsel given the state of the property and the fact that even then
they had went to the neighbors and garnered 48 letters of support from the near neighbors.
So they did take a moment to reconsider their options
And concluded that the only thing that made financial sense was to use this as a, they couldn't, given the economic conditions of the area, this was not a project that could be converted to a single family unit and the renovations done in any sort of economic way.
and concluded that the only thing that made financial sense was to use this as a they couldn't
So they reapplied in 2022. So you might ask, why are we here in 2024? Why was there rehearing? There was a significant family medical issue that took them out of state for some intervening times.
everyone is okay. I have been retained to help. And that's why we're here today. So I just wanted
to talk a little bit about Angela and Michael right now. They are experienced landlords and
responsible property owners. They own five other properties in the city, some of which are also
multi-units. And I think the best testament I can give to them being responsible landlords is that
they have two tenants who have been in their property for over 15 years. So they are responsible
landlords who look for long-term good tenants to, you know, bolster the community and not to
have any sort of detrimental impact. So prior to the meeting with Impact Services, like I mentioned,
Angela actually went and walked door to door to try to talk to all of the
notified properties and came up with those 47 letters of support. It's worth noting,
and I have over here, 66 of my letters were returned for vacant properties. That's about
39% of the properties within the notification radius are currently vacant, either properties
or land. So there's a significant vacancy issue here. So we did do the outreach. We got lots of
letter support, including 13 on this block of Boudinot Street. And like I said, including
block captains, pastors, that sort of thing. So we went to the RCO. We met with them as well.
They gave us a letter of support. And I just got the letter of non-opposition from the council
woman's office this afternoon as well. So we have that. I did want to just mention a couple of other
things. And this is largely about the existing conditions of the property. So let me just go
back here. As you can see from this aerial view, this is just part of this block. There is a massive
vacancy problem, both of land and of unoccupied buildings in this area. In fact, on this block,
there's 51, on the 2800 block of Boudinat, there's 51 properties, and only about 27 of them are
currently occupied and used as, and only 25 of those are single-family homes, two of them,
one of them is a church, one of them is a commercial property. So we have, again, a really
large vacancy, and when you expand that to the notification address, we look around a little bit
further, we have like, we have about 39% vacancy, which is even higher than for other areas in this
district, which is about 16%. So why this is important, we go back to the issues with the
remapping. Oh, let me just show you the vacancy again. And this was a helpful map that my client
put together orange being empty lots uh purpley pink being vacant built existing structures but
that are collapsing uh because they are vacant and deteriorating um so why this is relevant to
this argument is that um when this property this property was remapped as part of the 2030
2035 remapping process. And this is for the North District. And the North District plan
specifically identifies that vacancy and deteriorating housing stocks are a big
issue here. And so we're trying to address that in our own little way with one property.
We are, this property is located right here in this triangle labeled ABC in blue for corrective
zoning. And right here it says existing RM1 lots to RSA 5. And the important thing is the reasoning
behind this, which is to preserve existing single-family housing SOC and maintain
multifamily zoning along bus routes, major arteries, park peripheries, and most importantly,
in areas where there's areas of large concentration of vacant land. And so I would argue that this is
It's not a block that should have been remapped because we are having a massive amount, you know, over about 50 percent on this block and 40 percent in the general area of vacant land.
And this is something by granting this variance, it will allow the building to continue to be renovated, get some nice people into really great, really great rental space at an affordable price, reactivate this property.
really great rental space at an affordable price, reactivate this property. And I think that's why
the neighbors were so supportive of it was because it is something that they know the area needs.
And I also note that since the remapping happened in 2018 on this block, there have been no new
construction single-family homes, nor has there been any major renovations or rehabilitations of
single-family homes, which shows that, you know, which I would argue just kind of shows that this
is not something that's economically viable in the area. So, granted, so, based on the history
of the property, the history of the zoning, and this massive vacancy, and need to renovate the
existing housing stock, as shown in the Philadelphia 2035 plan for the North District, I think that
this is an appropriate variance that is supported by the neighbors.
And with that, I would like to call my client and try to keep this brief because I know
we're running late.
So is Angela...
Which one are you calling?
If Angela is there, that would be great.
Angela DePrivo.
Angela?
Hello?
All right.
Angela, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Angela DiPrima hyphen Bucci. That is A-N-G-E-L-A-D-I-P-R-I-M-A hyphen B-U-C-C-I.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Angela, did you hear by testimony here today, believe it to be truthful and accurate?
Yes, I do.
And would you adopt it as your own?
Yes, I will.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions from our attorney, Hillary Anderson.
Just briefly, Mr. Chair, I just wanted to note for the record for Zidlow, we, based on the board members who voted on this previously, we will just have to hold this for a week for a board member to review the video before we can vote on this.
did not realize that until later today that we had a different forum that had previously made
decisions on this case so just wanted to know thank you that makes sense all right um questions
or comments from the virtual audience i do not see any further hands mr chair my planning commission
this is uh ryan bednar city planning properties indicated for residential use on our city plan the
The area was remapped in our adopted 2035 comprehensive plan to its present zoning at this location.
The applicant's hardship is not supported with unique physical circumstances or condition of that property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the requirements of the code.
Therefore, we recommend the request of variance on the grant.
So, Hillary, we could do this by next Wednesday, am I correct?
Yes, that's fine. So we'll do this next Wednesday. We'll vote at 2 p.m. after I talk to the other members of the group. Thank you very much for your time. And we'll be back to you next Wednesday. Okay.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been called?
I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Before we leave, is Emily so on?
i'm here mr chair emily we do appreciate your time i mean
between you baron we we work you pretty hard we appreciate you doing it um thomas i picture you i
thank you for changing your schedule today uh we appreciate having you this afternoon um
and uh look we got a little late but i do appreciate what everybody does and
jason um i could hear you had a little bit of a cold today so i do appreciate you coming to work
and work on the whole day.
So thank you all very much.
Thank you.
We appreciate you here.
Have a good night.
Have a good night, everyone.
Good evening.
Good night, all.