escape all right so if you look here this is frankfurt avenue this is the commercial space
right so it's its own space right here this is the trash room that has direct access to the street
This is the utility room.
You get into the unit number one, direct access to the street.
Units two and three that's on the first floor comes through this common hallway that's on Unity Street.
You get into that unit, that unit.
You go up a flight of steps.
And by the way, there's also a separate entrance here too on Frankfurt Avenue.
But you go separate flight of steps.
You have units three and unit four coming off Unity.
Same thing for the third floor.
Instead of going off of Unity, you have Frankfurt Avenue.
You go up a flight of steps.
You have access to this unit.
And the same thing holds true for, oops, same thing holds true.
Try to get back there.
Next page.
Trying to get to the next page.
The same thing holds true for the third floor as well.
The unit composition is eight studios and three one-bedrooms.
All right.
All right, let's continue the presentation.
So we met with the community on June 12th.
It was a very well attended meeting. For whatever reason, no one was allowed to vote at the meeting other than the board themselves. But we'll reach out to the board and we were actually really surprised by what we got in terms of a letter. That's why we want to kind of come back, see what happens, see if we hopefully can answer their questions about construction a little bit better than what we did.
again we met with we sent this notice out to 50 members of the community or 50 properties
proof of mailing to those properties this is our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of
4363 frankfurt ave llc along with the notice of refusal and the project information form
the deed to the property showing that they own the property and then finally our tax clearance
certificate um i want to have mr brundon be sworn in i have a few questions for him
sir could you please state your name and spell for the stock for keith brunding k-e-i-t-h
b-r-u-n-d-i-n do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
all right i might want to stay close that way i'm just i'm pull the mic a little
you're good now you just gotta keep it on move that it'll move right to you okay all right so
okay all right so keith what's your role with uh regards to this development project
So Keith, what's your role with regards to this development project?
the owner and uh developer okay uh and then tell tell the board a little bit about the local state
and federal affordable housing funding you're getting for this project i have a an rcap uh
grant from the state which has been you know very helpful um trying to do affordable housing i've
been doing it for many years and it's really hard to build something of this size without that um
So we have this grant, and, you know, really looking to construct it.
And it's just not feasible to do a building of this size without it.
Can't make the numbers work.
Okay, and is it because of the condition, the current building structure there?
The building, the current structure, we needed a make-safe permit just to even get in there.
I had no idea what I was buying because it was just it was it was 12 dumpsters I had to take out of there.
And so we we we did our best to sort of shore up all of the brick and create an empty shell for the rehab design.
But then further analysis and further reviewing this, it's just especially with the design aspects of having a basement.
that we didn't want, and we had to actually deal with that space
and pay for the renovation of that space.
When you compare the two analysis, it's less money to build it new.
It's a better building.
It's better in every single way.
It's better for the community.
It's better for me.
It's better for the tenants.
So we'd really like to do it as a new building.
yeah and and like you said just to reiterate it's not feasible for you to build it the way that was
previously approved i'm i'm not going to be able to do that okay thank you um i would ask that jesse
smith the architect for the project virtually raise his hand and be sworn in
do we see mr smith's hand i'm yes they'll be coming back in as a panel shortly thank you
good afternoon mr chair members of the board could you please state your name and spell for
the stenographer jesse smith j-e-s-s-e-s-m-i-t-h you swear affirm tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel uh yes mr smith uh what's your role with regard
to this project i am the project architect all right and then what you're experiencing in designing
residential multifamily development projects in Philadelphia?
Quite a bit, a few hundred.
And then what are the benefits of this proposed new construction as opposed to the renovation
project that was previously approved by the board?
So as mentioned, the existing conditions were worse than we originally thought.
Over 60% of the framing needed to be revised, which would therefore trigger requirements
for new construction regardless.
list. The new design doesn't have a basement, so we don't have to worry about taking the current
basement condition and digging it deeper to make it a habitable space. This also helps alleviate
some of the construction concerns from the adjacent neighbors. Interior spaces inside the
apartments themselves are now nicer. Eight of the 11 units became slightly larger. We've relocated
the trash room to the interior of the building rather than tacking on a dumpster behind the
property. And now that the trash room is at the interior, it has direct access to the street,
and we don't have that smelly dumpster situation outside.
From the exterior, the building looks nicer.
It fits in better contextually.
And from a building code perspective,
it's now considerably a safer building.
We now have two stair towers
to service the upper floors instead of one.
And again, one of those units
has direct access from outside.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Is that your case?
That is my case.
Questions from the board.
I guess a question I have is, could you shed some light into some of the concerns that RCO had?
I think the letter kind of spoke for itself.
It was really the fact that having any type of demolition project is an annoyance to the community.
And they preferred not to have that happen in their community.
Ultimately, that was it.
And as we indicated to them, there are measures in place, especially the last few years City Council passed in terms of making sure that demolition projects are done responsibly with ample notice and new construction as well.
I think, Keith, am I correct to say that the lot to the right of us is vacant?
am i correct to say that the law to the right of us is vacant right so that again we wouldn't have
Correct.
an issue where we're tearing down a structure with an adjoining property even so we try to
explain that but it again the meeting didn't seem like oh we're against it nodding their heads
this board approved it for 11 units this is a better project we were surprised um and that's
why you know i think it's best to always talk to the community i mean and we promise that too but
we think that that's the appropriate thing to do is to try to reach out to them and see if there's
anything we can put in writing to make them feel better honestly if i can add um they mentioned
there's a school a few blocks away and there's a post office a few blocks away okay and um yes we
We would love to work with them on a plan to mediate any traffic, things like that, and, of course, make this demo be about as short as possible, right?
But we never got a chance to work with them.
They had concerns.
We said, we're happy to work with you.
They went away, and they voted no because we hadn't addressed the concerns.
So that was the surprising part.
Was the RCO in favor of it the first time?
I wasn't the attorney the first time, so I don't know.
The same RCO approved it.
They approved it.
So the vacant lot you just mentioned next door, are you the owner of the lot next door?
I am not.
So as far as that building not being rectangular per se, is there any plans for like a fence
for that lot or anything next door to it?
I know you don't own it, but is there any plans to shield that building from the side
with a vacant lot?
uh so there's our building a lot and then another building but yeah we we we were not going to get
anywhere near the building on the right um and but we're going to be yeah i'm not saying that i'm
just saying you're going to have an empty space right next to your building structure yeah right
and i'm just saying it's not square so you're pretty much eliminating anything being built
next door right with the way the way to the way that it's shaped so is there any plans to
maybe purchase the lot next door and maybe make it something else at some point in time
i'd like to control that lot and we're in contact with the owners of that yeah i have one more
question um how i know you said that this is a rack fee grant rack fee grant is capital grant
for construction how is this building going to be affordable um my target rents are 900 to 1100
dollars a month okay it's really a naturally so no gotcha yeah exactly so um and that's that's
what we're going to get right there okay any other questions questions or comments from our attorney
not at this time mr chair comments from this audience or the virtual audience
here i have a hand up from sloan folks i will come up them and they will be back in shortly
uh good afternoon uh chairman bergman and board can you hear me we can and we haven't heard from
you in a while mr folks could you please state your name is bell for the sonographer yes my name
is Sloan Fuchs, S-L-O-A-N-E, F-S-O-F-I-R-O-L-K-S. I am representing the Office of Councilmember
Ketchy Lozada, and most of the cases have been pretty straightforward, so I haven't had
to add anything to them. Do you swear we're referring to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes, sir, I do. Thank you. Please proceed. Okay, I'm calling in
today just to confirm a few things. The first thing I want to confirm is we did our office
on behalf of the applicant to reach out to the board of directors of the Frankfurt NAC
RCO. Last Friday, we met with their board president, Thomas Garland, and two of their
members, Christine DeJesus, who was an RCO chair, I'm sorry, the NAC chair, and a regular
board member um um carl murray um uh we pre we based on uh the um letter of submission to the uh
cba um we understood there was only one uh prevailing issue um and that prevailing issue
was that um was the was the was the demolition of the property and we requested that if the
applicant were able to come up with a suitable response to allay their
to allay their concerns um would they be willing to meet with them again um and they stated that
concerns, would they be willing to meet with them again?
they would so uh we recommended that the applicant uh request that the cba uh unity
hold their vote until uh after we can after they had their meeting and we were hoping they would
have a meeting with the um with the rca within the next couple of weeks i just want to make
One other point, and it is that regarding the vote with the RCO, there were 24 members in attendance for that meeting, but none of the members that were in attendance were affected members.
They were there for a subsequent meeting, which was approximately half a mile away.
So the vote really fell to the discussion and determination fell to the RCO.
Now, that's basically what we canvass them.
Our office is too late on this case.
Thank you very much, Mr. Fogues.
We appreciate you calling in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Whether or not, Mr. Chair.
Will the Planning Commission take their position now?
Planning Commission?
Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.
The Comprehensive Plan recommends – sorry, I'll start over.
The Comprehensive Plan recommended no change to the previous CMX2
commercial mixed-use zoning.
However, the parcel was remapped to ICMX Industrial Commercial Mixed Use since then.
Under the recommended CMX II, multifamily would be allowed, but only four units.
The proposed 11 units is an overuse of the property and not the least minimum.
We know for the board that absent participation in any state, federal, or city program or city zoning initiative,
affordability mentioned in the appellant's testimony cannot be enforced by any city agency.
The Planning Commission recommends that the board grant their request of variance for multifamily with proviso max four units.
Thank you.
Hillary, we're going to hold this and they'll get back to us?
It'll be closed also other than where we stand with the RCO.
Right.
So we can do one of two things.
We could have a brief resumption or we could close it except for a letter from the RCO after another meeting and then and possibly the council office.
Let's close it except for the letter.
And his chance to respond?
The RCO, council office, they want to weigh in as well and response from the applicant.
Can we get a date, CERN, just because he has funding issues, he really has to have this heard pretty quickly.
Well, he just said it's three to four weeks, right?
Yeah, so let's do it
if we can do four weeks and it
puts a date on the RCO as well.
I don't see this as an RCO that holds