I'm coming back in as a panelist, Mr. Chair.
Hello?
Hi, Mr. Orphanides.
Just for the record, state your name and spell for the stenographer.
Certainly.
My name is David Orphanides.
My last name is spelled O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Do you identify your client in a relationship to the property?
Certainly.
My client is 1212 North Delaware Avenue, QOZ, Q0, QOZ, LLC.
Right.
Do you waive the reading, the refusal, and agree with its accuracy?
Uh, it is, the refusals are accurate. Some of the information, the details in it are slightly off and I can go. Okay. Okay. And you've had all of your exhibits in within five days.
Yeah. I've made a submission within five days and then we've added some additional material.
So why don't you start your presentation and share your screen?
Certainly. Let me just see here. Share my screen. Okay.
Animize this. Okay. Can you see my screen?
We can, sir.
Great.
Uh, again, uh, good afternoon. David Orfanides here for 1212 North Delaware Avenue, QOZ LLC,
the owner of 950 Marlboro street. Uh, you have a picture of the property up in front of you on
the screen right now. Property is located on terms of compass orientation, roughly the Southwest
corner of, uh, Marlboro street in East Allen street. Uh, you'll see in a couple of minutes,
It's in a little stretch off of Delaware Avenue, about 160 feet, 170 feet from Delaware Avenue on the one side.
And you can see beyond in the picture to the right here is 95.
That's also about 160, 170 feet away.
It's a very interesting little stretch that's between these two major roadways.
The project that we're here for today is a rendering of the project.
This is a view from the catty-cornered property, which is also owned by my client, that has
presently been approved.
It was a development project that was done by Wright, mainly because the project is that
property was remapped from industrial to CMX3 back in 2015.
We'll be getting to that.
And we'll talk about the connection between those two properties.
But here's a picture of what is being proposed, which is a ground floor for parking and a
lobby.
And then originally we had applied for 28 units, but through the community.
And then originally we had applied for 28 units, but through the community RCO process with Fishtown Neighbors Association, it dropped to 26 units.
These properties, you have three properties or four properties, obviously, at the corner.
Right now, this is a picture of our property.
This is a street view image from 2023.
3. The south, I'll call the southeast corner, has been approved and permitted for a large number of
units, which I'll get to in a minute. The southeast corner, or northeast corner, I'm sorry, which is
1212 North Delaware Avenue, which is my client's other property. I'll get that has been approved,
as I mentioned, by rate after going through the CDR process. There's another property across the
street from us on the corner that is presently zoned to RSA 5, has had non-residential zoning
in the past. And none of these four properties, as far as the city's records, have ever been used
for residential use. Even this property directly across the street from us on the northwest corner
has always been used as offices and accessory parking, dating back to records in 1970.
But going back in time, you could see, again, you know, three corners.
It's a little bit, you know, like Sesame Street, which one of these things is not like the other.
They're all basically the same except for that northwest corner, which, again, has never been used for residential use.
And this goes all the way back in time, 2011, 2009.
And these are street view images.
and then if i go back a little further oops oops i'm not sure what happened there if i go back a
little further you can see back going back in time from 2009 we go back to 2004 where i go to aerial
images and again you can see that the properties on the these three corners to which are presently
being developed in a similar fashion to what we're proposing to do with our project today
have always had this type of use.
And that makes sense
because the properties were zoned for industrial use.
And you could see that again
when I show you some of these other images
going back to 1996, 1975, 1970, 1965, 1959,
and even back to 1939.
This is consistent with the Sanborn maps.
Here you can see in 1916.
you lost your video i lost the video we didn't see any of this we didn't see i didn't you were
just talking and talking and all of a sudden your video disappeared oh hold on one second
so you're just seeing me that's not that's not what we want to do sorry about that can you see
now we can okay so basically i'm not sure when it knocked out but again these are some of the
images, the Street View images that go back to 2009 that show these other corners that have been
since developed, either approved or presently under development for the use consistent with
what we are proposing with the current application. And again, these Street View images go back to
2009. I pulled historic aerial images that go back even further that show, again, these three
corners, including our property, have always been used for, as you can tell from the structures on
them have always been used for non-residential purposes.
I was even able to pull back to 1939, and you can see here that that's very consistent
with the sandboard maps, which we were able to pull, which show our property going back
all the way to 1916, never having any type of residential use on the property.
Sometime in 2015, City Council passed an ordinance, Bill number 15007, which remapped these three corner properties from I-2.
and the two properties across the street from us on the on the other side of east allen went to cmx
three the other property oops the other property at the end of the block that was i2 at the next
block to the north roughly to the north went from i2 to cmx two our property obviously having even
though it had the industrial use or commercial use in the past was remapped to rsa5 and that's
largely the reason why we're here today. Our application was originally for 28 dwelling units.
Again, you'll see that through the course of the community process, we dropped it to 26.
950 has approvals to serve as accessory off-site parking in that existing structure
for the development, the by-right development at 1212 North Delaware Avenue, again located Caddy
corner. But since the property is owned RSA 5, having the multifamily use results in a refusal.
Having the multifamily use results in a refusal.
Having multiple principal uses, which is having the off-site non-accessory parking for 12-12,
along with the multifamily use creates a situation of multiple principal uses.
And then you'll see in a couple minutes that we have some dimensional nuances.
The current building occupies 100% of the lot.
The current building is at a certain height that we, through the course of this project, we want to demolish the building to lower that ground floor, which reduces the height, the overall height of the proposed structure.
To rebuild that ground floor in the same footprint as what presently exists is what creates our rear depth refusal.
And the refusal says it's occupied area at 80 percent, which is correct, but then says proposed is none.
That would mean we have no building on the property.
The examiner, I contacted the examiner.
It should have stated that the occupied area was 100 percent because, again, we're replacing the existing building that occupies 100 percent of the lot, at least at the ground floor level.
The upper floors, floors two through five, comply dimensionally, both in terms of rear yard depth and open area.
And actually, now they do.
When we originally proposed, you'll see in the original zoning drawings, the portion of the upper floors did not have the required rear yard depth.
With that 80 percent occupied area through the community group process, we've increased the rear yard depth at the upper floors substantially to the point where it's no longer at the upper floors is a refusal would result in a refusal.
And then we have an occupied area that's now less than 80%.
It's 79.4% at the upper floors.
And the rear yard depth, while nine feet is required at the upper floors, it's now 24
feet, three inches.
And then the maximum building height, RSA 5, as you know, is 38 feet.
Originally, it was 54 feet, seven inches.
That was to the roof because the parapet height was actually taller than that.
above the roof height. The actual should have been, could have been higher than that, but we've
reduced the height through the RCO process again substantially and set the fifth floor back you'll
see so that to the point where the portion of the structure that's fronting both on Marlboro Street
on East Allen Street is very close to what can be permitted as a matter of rate. Just to show you
some of the existing conditions real quickly. Here is the property. You can see we're sandwiched
between Delaware Avenue and 995. And here's some existing aerial images. This is before the
development of the property at 1130 Delaware Avenue on this corner, which you'll see some
photographs in a minute. And you'll see them here imposed on that same aerial image. So here's our
property in the existing one-story structure. Here is what's been proposed at 1130 and has
not proposed, but has been permitted, both zoning and building, and is presently under construction.
You have 182 residential units. You only have parking for 34 parking spaces. You have over
170,000 square feet of gross floor area. And you have a building height that's at 84 feet,
three inches, which is substantially taller than what we're even originally proposing before we
reduced the height through the community group process. Here in yellow is 1212 North Delaware
Avenue, which again is a project that my clients secured zoning approval for as a matter of right
after having gone through the CDR process. That's 62 units with ground floor commercial space,
13 parking spaces, two of which are on site, and then the 11 other ones which were originally
permitted to be, and the existing structure at 950 with 50,000 square feet, a gross floor area
at a height of 84 feet. There's a converted church here over at Richmond and Marlboro Street.
That building is 60-some feet. You'll see in some elevations, and you see here that it's shown at
62 feet, and that was approved by variance by a prior zoning board for 26 units with zero parking
spaces. Again, I've showed you some picture. I showed you a picture originally from the
intersection, and you can see here some other pictures of both the property and the surrounding
properties. This property located abutting us to, I guess, basically the west is presently
a rental property. There are then five properties further down here at the corner of Richmond
and marlborough street that are vacant lots you can see that here they've been long-standing
vacant lots you can see that in the sanborn maps here's a picture of the church that was granted
a variance for 26 units with no parking a view from richmond street um this property
a view from Richmond Street. This property right here was granted a variance,
height variance. And again, the property that's located here right at the corner has never had
residential use. That's our client's property at 1212. And then this is the properties that
are under construction at 1130 with the higher height. You'll see in the section drawings that
even their lower portions of that structure, so the height I gave you was the portion fronting
on Delaware Avenue, even the lower portion that was set back at East Allen Street is still going
to end up being taller than the height of what we're proposing. Here's a tab 2E. Here's a civil
survey that shows what exists and what was being proposed at 1212, as well as 950.
There is public transportation, a lot of it located in the immediate vicinity of the subject
property, you have bus routes, you have the L, and then you have the SEPTA trolley line that's
located very close to this property. This is the information that we utilize to submit to
the Planning Commission for the CDR for 1212. And you can see there are a number of amenities
located really close to where our property is located. Here is the current zoning map for the
area, you can see, again, our property, which had been I-2, has been remapped to RSA-5 for some
reason, even though, again, it's a larger, it's always been used as a larger parcel, over 6,000
square feet. But the properties across the street from us that were also zoned I-2 at the time went
to CMX-3, which allows for a project that we're proposing as a matter of rate. If our property
with similarly zoned CMX3, we wouldn't have had to go through this process, even though, again,
you had a very similar building to what existed at both of those properties historically.
We did provide zoning archives for the existing properties, as well as other properties that are
located in close proximity. I bring them up because the properties, you have the vacant lots
that are here, a lot of these properties located along Richmond Street are rental properties.
The property next to us is a rental property, and there are a number of rental properties
as well along our side of East Allen Street as it extends down the block.
The current proposal of where we stand right now, these are the original zoning drawings
that were submitted.
Originally, the plan was to have the 11 parking spaces that were targeted and to be utilized
by 1212, with the driveway coming in off of Marlboro, going out onto East Allen. Oops,
you can see here, and this was the height of the structure. You can see, if I zoom in a little bit,
there we go, the elevation of the roof at 54.7, then with the roof deck and the pilot houses
above that up to 65.7, and then with an overrun at 70 feet 7 inches. Here's that same aerial image
with what we were originally proposing. Again, going straight up on the sides of the building,
going straight up to a height that I had shown, up to a height of 54 feet 7 inches plus the parapet.
And again, you can see here's the grade level plan that showed the parking coming in and out
with the corner lobby. The site section from our original proposal that we originally proposed
presented to Fishtown shows the roof height of 54.7 and then the pilot house. It does show,
at least in this view, it shows the converted church actually at a roof height, an overall
ridge height that was greater than what we were proposing. And then here from what we were
originally proposing, again, you have the structures located along East Allen Street
being taller than us, and then obviously much taller when you get to Delaware Avenue.
Here's a rendering that we originally presented to Fishtown. Again, you can see a five-story
building going straight up along either perimeter. If you look at the zoning drawings, you could see
this is the leg of the upper floors the ground floor again is to be rebuilt to the same footprint
the 100 occupied area of the existing building the upper floor is two through five where they
create a type of l and because the planning commission dean marlboro to be the front
we needed a rear yard depth off of this property line and we didn't provide it
and again the occupied area was at 80 percent and this is what the renderings look like from
the different views here's a view looking down marlborough street um from with 95 at our back
here is a picture a rendering of what 1212 would look again taller much taller than
taller, much taller than what we're proposing, but permitted as a matter of rate in the CMX3
what we're proposing but permitted as a matter of rate in the cmx
zoning district. We did prepare shadow studies that we presented to Fishtown at our first
meeting. We had two meetings. One was on the November 12th, 11-12-24. Then after we received
comments, and I'll go through those real quickly, we met with them again on January 21st, 25.
Initially, Fishtown's position was one of opposition, but you'll see with the changes
that we made, Fishtown did change their position to one of support.
And you can see here, and this was the shadow studies that we showed in yellow, you see
how our proposed building was shadowing more than a by-right building.