MI 2024-000791-1215 Wood Street.
Murr Verlager is the attorney.
no rco meeting there no rco letter but there was a meeting held
letter of non-opposition from council member squiller
i'm back in as a packet council just state your name for the record please
Meredith Ferliger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R.
And could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
My clients are both Haverford Square by Metropolitan 3 LLC, as well as one of the members of that LLC individual, individually, Josh Lytle.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reason or to refuse or stipulate to his accuracy?
uh i agree to waive the reading i don't stipulate to the accuracy which i will address
Thank you. Have you emailed then all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
thank you have you emailed then all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed
Yes, I did.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Mr. Chairman, I was coming back in as a panelist when you were giving an introduction. I'm not sure if it was corrected, but we do have letters from the RCO and from the Councilman's Office.
We do not have. I do not have the letters. So you're going to have to, if you would, send it over to Hillary, please.
I will certainly do that. I'll also bring them up. But before we.
I did say I did say there was a letter of opposition from Councilman Squilla and that there was no RCO letter from Cal Hill Neighbors Association.
Well, I will send that over. But just to start the presentation, as you will see, all attendees voted unanimously to approve the zoning variances.
So I'll make sure that she has this if it is not already in her possession.
thank you all right mr chairman members of the board the request before the board today
is for a new 21 unit loft style apartment proposal in the city's callow hill neighborhood
which has as i just showed received unanimous support from callow hill neighborhood association
we have a variety of refusals to walk you through today which are despite the number of refusals
fairly straightforward in terms of the requested relief due to the property's history, physical
constraints, and neighborhood characteristics. And I hope you can see my exhibit packet now.
We can. Great. The property before the board today is located at 1215 Wood Street.
As shown on the zoning map at Exhibit 8, zoom in a little bit, the property is a rectangular parcel
located on Wood Street with dual frontage extending back to Carleton Street. It sits
between North 12th Street and North 13th Street, just north of Vine and just east of Broad Street.
I'll come back to this a little bit later in the presentation, but the board may notice the
unusual zoning of a portion of this block as compared to the surrounding properties,
which are all zoned either CMX 4, 3, or RMX 3.
In comparison, this property, as well as those around it, are zoned IRMX.
At Exhibit 9, the board will see a few aerial views of this property.
As I present, please take note of the general massing of surrounding buildings.
In these views the board will see the existing two-story building that currently occupies 100%
of the lot. As is shown in these photos this is a dense area surrounded both by some old
and some newer structures of significant massing. In fact in this view you can see
that the existing building is hidden behind the buildings that surround it.
in the next exhibit at exhibit 10 the board will see the wood street frontage of the existing
building which has historically contained six condominium units although it does not sit on the
philadelphia register of historic places the existing building was erected around 1900 and is
over a century old this fact will be highly relevant to a few of the requests for relief
before the board today. The next view is facing towards North 13th Street and the one following
it looks the other direction towards North 12th Street. If we switch to the rear along Carleton
Street, you'll note there are currently two garage entrances into this building.
And the next photo shows how precariously these garages were accessed from the extremely narrow
Carlton Street. We did also, and this is just another view facing the other
direction, and at Exhibit 11 we did also include several photographs of the
required posting on both of the frontages.
At Exhibit 12, I've included a few photographs of the current interiors of
this building. As I noted, this building currently contains six condominium units.
Josh has owned several units in this building for over a decade and lived here some years ago.
As fellow unit owners expressed a desire to sell over the last decade, Josh implored them to allow him to purchase the units, with him purchasing the bulk of the units last year.
All six deeds are included at Exhibit 3, and tax clearance for each is provided at Exhibit 2.
As the board may see in these interior photographs, this is an incredibly unique building that retains considerable historical character.
this is an incredibly unique building that retains considerable historical character from
the industrial use that existed in this space back in the early 1900s. On the ceilings you'll
even notice the really unique gears that are likely over a century more or older.
These units all have a unique loft design which is shown in the current photograph up on the screen.
The board may also take note of the large steel beams that currently traverse the ceiling of some of these units.
And again, this is just another view showing the current loft design of the units in the building.
The zoning site plan is shown at Exhibit 5.
Should the board be inclined to grant today's request, we did submit a revised plan and revised plan proviso form
to reflect one very small change which is the addition of more bike spaces which was a change
that came out of the meeting with Callow Hill. In light of Josh's commitment to preserving this
existing building the project is designed to preserve the building while building a new
three-story addition on top of the existing building. Including the six existing units
which will remain, the proposal includes a total of 21 units. Uniquely, although the building
itself will only be five total stories, the height of the building will be just over 83 feet to the
roof, which is not proposed to have a roof deck. The height is driven by the fact that each story,
and let me zoom in while I explain this, each story will be 17 and a half feet tall in order
to accommodate the loft design that has defined this building since its conversion to residential
units in the early 2000s. At Exhibit 6, we have included some preliminary renderings,
which have been modified based on discussions with the community. The first image shows the
original design, which was modified on this second rendering based on community feedback.
The aesthetics of the project will, of course, continue to be refined.
Importantly, a more clear transition from the original building to the new building is provided.
There are additional renderings provided in the packet showing other views, but they were not updated at this point to reflect the more articulated design.
So, these additional views are really just included to establish the reasonableness of the massing that's proposed for this site in relation to surrounding structures.
So, I'll just skim through some of these views as well.
The floor plans are also included at Exhibit 7.
There are a few different one- and two-bedroom unit types that are proposed, which vary between 658 square feet all the way up to 1,343 square feet.
The commonality of all these designs is that the loft's functionality have been significantly improved from the current conditions.
The lofts have independent bathrooms, some even with offices, and are situated to avoid
conflicts with the living spaces below.
The property will be managed by the owner and will be serviced with commercial trash
pickup.
With respect to the refusals, I will work down the list and address each individually.
The applicant submits to a hardship in complying with the code requirements, as I will explain
as it relates to each refusal.
We submit that each of the requested variances is the least minimum for reasons that I will describe.
First, the board will note that there are two refusals relative to the application's failure to include the required six vehicular parking spaces.
As an initial matter, the number of parking spaces required should have been four and a half, rounded to five, not six.
This is the first error in refusal, since the six existing residential units within the building would have been exempted from the parking calculation pursuant to Section 14801.2b.2, since the existing building was built prior to the 1933 inception of the zoning code.
calculations aside as the board probably noticed in the photographs there are a there are currently
a few existing parking spaces within the building however those spaces are accessed from the 10 foot
wide carlton street creating an ingress and egress point that is potentially hazardous to the
creating an ingress and egress point that is potentially hazardous to the community and
community and surrounding
surrounding structures. Given that the zoning code requires a minimum parking spot width of
8.5 feet, the board should be able to glean just how narrow Carlton Street truly is as it relates
to ingress and egress. Most importantly, the existing units in the building are serviced by
electrical and other interior utilities that currently sit within the basement, which is
little more than a crawl space that is subject to constant moisture infiltration and other
conditions that significantly degrade the important electrical equipment. Given that the existing
first floor units are slated to remain, the only feasible location to relocate some of the
electrical and other utilities is into that existing small garage space. Some mechanicals
will be placed on the roof, but any equipment that requires an interior environment will be
accommodated inside, rendering it infeasible to provide any new parking within the building.
Ultimately, the existing building would need to be demolished to accommodate any viable parking,
and that would be significantly counterproductive towards the owner's goal of preserving the
century-old building. Alternatively, a large bike room is provided at the first floor,
and the number of spaces has been increased to further encourage residents to take advantage of
this building's convenient transit-oriented location.
As it relates to the refusal for insufficient accessible parking spaces, that refusal was
also issued in error.
Accessible space requirements are only triggered at 148025A, where off-street parking is provided.
No parking is provided, so this refusal should not have been issued.
Second, the project received a refusal because the IRMX district requires an industrial or commercial use in the building.
As the board has seen, this property has contained a solely residential use with zero industrial or commercial component since at least 2003.
The building's conversion to a solely residential use was granted by variants following the accelerating trend of this immediate area moving away from industrial and commercial use, particularly for a mid-block property on this small street.
As outlined in the Memorandum of Law at Exhibit 14 and shown in the Zoning Permits at Exhibit 15, the properties surrounding 1215 Wood Street are used almost exclusively for residential uses, including hotels, single-family dwellings, and large multifamily apartment complexes.
Many of the newer projects listed in the exhibits were granted variances for similar reasons.
The only properties with a commercial component sit at corners.
As the board saw early on at the zoning map, this is the sole strip of land bearing the IRMX zoning classification,
with everything surrounding it containing a zoning classification, which would not require this commercial or industrial component.
Similar to the parking, incorporating an industrial commercial component into this building would only be remotely viable if the existing building were demolished,
to better accommodate better access and design for industrial or commercial users.
The 21 units proposed are similarly or less dense than surrounding complexes, which contain as many as 160 units.
the project also received a refusal for exceeding maximum floor area ratio which is limited to 500
percent of the lot here the gross floor area proposed is 665 percent even though this building
only contains five stories the gfa here is driven by the internal mezzanines which you can see up
in the elevation here, these internal mezzanines that are necessary to accommodate this loft
design. Even though they are not full floors, the zoning code treats mezzanines as additional
gross square footage, even though this is an entirely internal design consideration
and not one that has any exterior implications, height aside. Two of the mezzanines are already
existing, and the proposed design is intended to respect the historical and unique character
of this formerly industrial building. Finally, the project received two refusals related to height.
First, a refusal was issued for exceeding the code maximum height of 60 feet. Just over 83 feet is
proposed. Furthermore, the code imposes a slight setback requirement that would only
Furthermore, the code imposes a slight setback requirement that would only apply to the Carlton Street frontage.
Essentially, the code would require that the first 8 feet of lot depth from Carlton Street would be limited to 38 feet,
which in this case would be to the middle of the third floor.
The second 8 feet of lot depth from Carlton would be limited to 60 feet.
Not only would the setback render the loft design of the entire third floor unviable, but the conditions of Carlton Street are inconsistent with the goals of the setback requirement.
If I flip back to the photos, you will note that the building across the street on Carlton Street is significantly higher than the proposed building and has no setback at any level.
Furthermore, none of the newer buildings constructed in the immediate area have provided this code-compliant setback.
Finally, as I pointed to earlier in the presentation, the existing building has structural beams that exist across the entire ceiling.
Providing the 8-foot setback above the third floor would render the addition more difficult and require additional structural support that is not necessary by equally distributing the addition across the full envelope of the existing building.
Similar to the GFA, the additional height proposed is driven in large part by this loft design.
While a five-story building would normally fall within the 60-foot height limitation,
the loft design requires significant additional interior floor height.
If you look at the elevation, which I'll bring back up on the screen,
the board will note the overall floor heights of 17.5 feet,
with the floor-to-mezzanine heights remaining a more traditional roughly 9 feet in height.
Additionally, the structural characteristics of the surrounding block
would render a slightly smaller building out of character with surrounding structures.
For instance, the Zoning Board has recently approved several buildings nearby
to exceed maximum height limitations, such as 323 North 13th Street, 1238 Callow Hill Street,
and 1200 Callow Hill Street, which are all roughly 125 feet high. Mid-block, 1231 Wood Street was
also approve with a maximum height of 105 feet, over 20 feet more than this application proposes.
These newer developments, plus some of the older buildings on this block,
have fundamentally altered the massing of this area. The aerials demonstrate this very fact
with this block of Wood Street fading into the mass of the surrounding structures.
Many of these structures are zoned CMX3 or RMX, which does not impose a maximum height.
The applicant submits the proposal will not increase congestion, endanger the public, or impair light and air.
The property sits in close proximity to ample parking facilities, as well as the vast public transportation network in this immediate area.
The property is uniquely situated to accommodate auto-free tenants who will have access within walking distance to significant area amenities, including Center City and several streets with dedicated on-street bicycle lanes.
Furthermore, the proposed addition to the existing structure is consistent with the scale of developments that has occurred in and on this immediately surrounding block and will not adversely affect adjoining properties.
The proposal will not burden area infrastructure or facilities, nor will it create environmental damage or other impact.
A more thorough analysis of the proposal's compliance with Section 14.303.80 of the code is provided in the Memorandum of Law submitted to the board at Exhibit 14, and I'd be happy to touch on any particular point in more detail.
At this point, if the administrator could look for Josh Lytle and have him unmuted.
They've been about to speak.
Mr. Lytle, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Mr. Lytle?
Do we see his hand still up?
his hand is up but he's not on mute
Mr. Lytle could you on mute please
can you hear me now
I can't sir
I hit on mute and then I was immediately muted again. I apologize.
I hit on mute and then I was immediately
All right. All right. Thank you. So could you state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Sure. Josh Lytle, J-O-S-H-L-Y-T-L-E.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Josh, you own five of these six units individually and one of these units in your LLC, in which you are a member of, correct?
Correct.
And have you heard all the testimony and evidence that was offered before the board today?
I did.