Yes, John Marshall, first name J-O-N, last name Marshall, M-A-R-S-H-A-L-L.
I'm an attorney.
Yes, go ahead.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client, their relationship to this property?
The client is LJG Group Incorporated.
It's a corporation that owns the property.
All right.
And Tenetta Graham, our board member, has a few questions for you, sir.
Hi, good evening.
Have you submitted your documents five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, you're right.
Yes, Tanetta, although I may.
Sorry, I'm used to saying that.
Excuse me.
You may not be upset, I know.
The thing about it is that we did get a letter of non-opposition from the district councilwoman also.
I believe it might have been put in afterwards, though, the five days.
We have it.
You have that.
So you have both of the non-oppositions.
The one was pretty much due to the fact I think people asked for affordable housing in the area, and that was their reason for non-opposition.
It's in the letter there, I think.
I have one other question.
Do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Definitely, yes.
No question.
Okay, yes.
All right, so you can proceed with your case and share your screen.
Yes, I would also ask that Alberto Perez be allowed to participate.
He has my photos and the meaning, can you bring him on so he can put them in?
Yeah, I can bring him.
you'll just have to make the presentation right exactly yeah i i can't say i'm as quite as tech
savvy as he is so he's putting them in for me mr perez
They're coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
they're coming back in as a panelist now
Thank you.
I want to make sure everybody can hear me still.
Obviously the property is 170 East Sterner Street.
Let me tell you where that is. Lehigh Avenue and A Street meet. It's a small street just north of there on A Street. It faces A Street, and across the street from it is a large parking lot, which is zoned ICMX.
The other side of it is a property at 163 East Lehigh, which is zone CMX-2-0.5.
It was a drugstore, which is currently closed.
Let's hold on that screen for now.
The CMX-2.5, that was a drugstore, but it is now closed.
We're talking about the property right here, which the first floor faces A Street.
Across the street's a parking lot, and obviously just the other side of CMX 2.5 there is Lehigh Avenue.
The first floor, we have a person that wants to open up an insurance office as an offshoot of another office currently located, which has been there for a while, at 3727-29 North 6th Street.
Sort of a block or so from Little Flower High School.
and they have an ongoing insurance office
and they'd like to put a second office
in this neighborhood here in this community
for the community
where people could get auto insurance
and homeowner's insurance, that type of stuff.
If you look at the property,
the second floor is an apartment.
It has two bedrooms and a bathroom and a kitchen.
The first floor on the other hand
is only commercial space
and one restroom in the back corner.
There is no kitchen or anything of that form for rental.
So we need a variance to give them the right to use it for commercial space in what will be a, shall we call it a very quiet commercial space?
You're not getting a lot of traffic.
You're not getting parking.
You're not getting people with takeout food.
You're not getting alcohol.
You're getting nothing there.
But people coming in to make financial transactions and buy insurance.
And even then, once they get the insurance, they don't come back every year.
They come back when there's a concern or a problem, or they have an issue where they have to put a claim in of some kind.
If you're familiar with them, they're all over the city, and I don't know where there's one in this area,
but I tell you, I think it can use it because people in the neighborhood do need to buy insurance.
If you look down the street on Sterner also, there's another commercial property right on the other corner.
The address would be on Front Street, though.
It's the northeast corner of Sterner and Front.
Now, but wait, let's go back.
Let's go back.
This is another.
Okay, go forward.
Okay, here's the property.
Let's go back one more.
Okay, there's the current property.
That's the Sterner Street frontage.
The A Street frontage, however, the second photo,
that is the doorway for what would be a commercial business.
All the ingress and egress for the insurance office would be on A Street, period.
There's a small yard to the left of that photo where there's a trash can,
and obviously the drugstore is right behind it, which, again, is now closed and is commercial.
If you look in the neighborhood, there are a number of nonconforming uses for different,
I think they're called bordegos, different stores that open up, like this one here.
That's at A in East Somerset, a couple blocks down.
Now, if you go back again, let's look at the floor plan again.
Okay, here's the, let's go for the interior now.
Okay, here's the interior. If you look at the first floor, it's been redone. Obviously, it has some snazzy carpeting. The second floor, on the other hand, is residential with a one-two bedroom apartment with a small living room kitchen combination.
We talked to the zoning, sorry, the RCO, and they asked that we offer them a separate metal collapsible fire escape that can be kept in the property.
We agreed to that, and it will be put in there.
As we go forward, here's our zoning drawing, obviously.
So as you look at the drawing on the bottom left bottom, there's the frontage on A Street and there's the frontage next to it on Sterner.
Again, it's an insurance office, very quiet in the neighborhood.
They really had no concern about that.
The only concern was the affordability of the second floor.
uh otherwise they were for it and there is no opposition
Otherwise, they were for it and there is no opposition.
i believe we have a tax clearance i see it on there yep okay there's nothing owed
uh obviously there had been probably a decade ago some lni violations uh they're long gone
the place has obviously been fixed up the color of it has been changed obviously on the outside
So, Mr. Marshall, our attorney wants to explain something to you first.
Ryan McSherry.
Thank you, Chair.
As the proposed use here is an insurance office, it's not a personal services use.
It's a business and professional office use.
Right.
An amended refusal is going to be needed if this is the use, you know, personal services and business and professional office service use are in different use categories.
We can't make this change via proviso.
So, again, we will need an amended refusal.
Can that still be incorporated today?
So what we're going to do is we're going to hear your case.
We'll ask the particular questions.
Planning will make a recommendation, but then we'll get back to you once this is done.
All right.
All right.
All right.
So how about, do you have your client available?
See if Iris Contreras is on.
Yeah, to adopt your testimony, right?
Right, correct.
I believe I asked that she tune in, but I asked her about 15 minutes ago.
All right.
What's her name?
Iris Contreras.
First name spelled with a Y-R-I-S.
She's the insurance agent.
Do we see anyone?
Iris Contreras, please raise your virtual hand.
They're coming back in as a panelist shortly, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
hello everyone i'm here hi how are you could you please state your name and spell for the
stenographer sure it is contreras y-r-i-s contreras c-o-n-t-r-e-r-a-s right do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel
yes could you explain what you want to do on the first floor of that property
Basically, an insurance agency.
I do already own an insurance agency.
Here, it will be a small space where two, three individual masks will be employed.
And it will be for personal and commercial policy, like U.S. data, homeowners, renters, life insurance, and things like that.
Do you think there's a need in the neighborhood for that?
Definitely.
Yes, I do get a lot of customers from there, and I know that within the Kensington Corridor and the NKCDC or New Kensington Community Development Center, we get a lot of referrals for customers that they get that are in that area, and they are commercial customers that are willing or hoping to have someone close to them.
So it's your opinion that it will make it more convenient for people to come see you for insurance needs?
All right. So, Mr. Marshall, you might want to have your testimony that you gave earlier adopted by your client.
Yes. Did you hear what I testified to earlier?
Yes, I did. I did.
Right. Would you adopt that as your testimony in this matter, too, regarding the insurance office?
all right thank you mr marshall questions from the board yes what can we talk about the use of
the basement the basement right now is for storage that's the only thing in there and does the is the
commercial unit the only uh place that has access to the basement let them tell you i'm gonna have
to ask my client here miss contreras does she know if the front first floor has access to the
basement it would be only the commercial units here that have access to that basement okay thank
you and where are the meters located for the residential unit that one i don't know uh
iris do you know where the meters are i'm sorry the meter for that building um i believe that
I believe that they are in the basement, but I am not 100% sure that I recall at this moment.
What is your plan for the property management, given that the commercial space is the only place that has access to the residential meters?
What is your plan for the property management, given that the commercial space is the only
Are you planning to rent the second floor unit or live in it yourself?
We were planning to rent it if possible, but I mean, if we need to occupy it ourselves, that won't be a problem.
But the initial thought was to rent it.
okay that was my understanding also other questions from the board
questions from our attorney ryan mccurry uh no chair
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands chair planning commission
the planning commission will provide its comments in the form of a letter
regarding the future um rolling on this case
we have a letter for that
hold of it we're gonna have
okay um okay um we're we're gonna it's just an internal thing that we're looking at
when uh would the city planning commission be able to deliver written testimony on this matter
or within the um within um seven business days okay thank you why don't we put this on for
october 1st then we'll bring us back mr marshall we're going to bring this back october 1st planning
is going to have a recommendation for us and then after we get the recommendation we will vote on