see that in the rendering that I showed at the very beginning. This is what it will look like
from across the street. You'll see a third story. We're maintaining the cornice. The properties to
either side of us have cornices. We're trying to maintain that. We're not modifying that. We're not
raising the first floor or the second floor. We're keeping that exactly where they are. And then we're
having similar floor to ceiling heights at the third and fourth floor level. You'll see some
photographs that I have. With the height being increased to 38 feet, when some people do just
the third floor, they either push the ground floor way out of the ground with new construction
or they put a taller third floor, which creates almost like a top hat effect. What we're able to
do is by keeping the floor to ceiling heights consistent throughout all the stories to the
So the rest of the block, so it's interesting you say that, so the rest of the block has a large number of non-three-story or non-two-story structures, and you'll see this right here.
I pulled that up before.
So the red, so this right here is St. Albans Street, if you can see my pointer.
and this is our property right here. And what you can see is that there are, I can tell you,
there's 23 properties with frontage on the north side of St. Albans. 10 of them have more than two
stories. And I have those marked with red Xs. Does any of them have four stories like you're
doing? None of them have the four stories. But again, our fourth floor is set back very far
from the front. It's not visible. And it's actually basically effectively like a larger
pilot house okay but and it has far less occupied area than would otherwise be permitted so and then
you can see on the south side what i've marked with green are two properties that are presently
under construction they are three so many of these have three stories with decks with pilot houses
above them so again they don't have a fourth floor but they have a deck and they're not set back like
our fourth floor is set back they're more towards the front of the building um either right all the
to the front you can see i'll show you some photographs or at the eight foot setback
but essentially throughout the through the process what we did is we revised
the zoning plans as i mentioned and what we were able to do now is we and you can see here pretty
clearly is that we have pushed everything back so everything is out of line of sight so we pushed
the deck back from the third floor we pushed the fourth floor back and then we pushed the railing
above that back and deck above that so none of that is visible from across the street um and we
actually did um we did some renderings and as you can see this is what i showed you before
and so my client started um my client started with a buy right design and this is the buy right
design this is safe back eight feet at the third and fourth floors um and what happens and that's
they would go and they would get a by-right permit for that.
They didn't particularly care for that.
Like a lot of people, they don't like this requirement.
And so what they ended up, excuse me, sorry about that.
And so what they ended up doing is,
we know that in graduate hospital,
we see a lot of these, and I have photographs,
these third floor mansards throughout the neighborhood.
And many of the proposals I've seen
that have come before this board have a fourth floor,
but don't have it pushed so far back
where it's essentially like an enlarged pilot house
at that level. But if you can see here, let's scroll down. And here's, there's a comparison
between the two. Sorry, from across the street, you can see what the two, the two different views
would look like. We did shadow studies as well. And in our shadow studies, what we showed is a
comparison between the bi-right with third and fourth floor set back eight feet going straight
third and fourth floor set back eight feet going straight up with the pilot house on top of that by
up with the pilot house on top
right pilot house and roof deck on top of that and what you see here is what you see is in the yellow
areas indicate where the shadow of the by right structure would exceed the shadow that's cast by
our building and as you can see i'm going to try to get this zoom this down further
there are very very limited times where the proposed um shadows more and actually just so
the board knows in in the by right drawings that we have they they don't fully maximize what would
be permitted in a in a by right situation because they they've reduced it to some degree at pilot
houses and up to 51.6 the deck isn't built up above the existing structure but what you can see here
is um there's contextual site plans then the zoning elevations is what i wanted to show you
is where this is the comparison of a by rate building and again this is a little shorter than
what could be by right i think it's showing a height of 47 feet to the pilot house where the
pilot house can be up to 51.6 um and this is the what we're proposing here and as shown on the
rendering most the top of the third floor and all the fourth floor is visible with a by right design
and my clients wanted something they've lived on the neighborhood in the neighborhood for a
considerable period of time um younger couple there they should have been they should be here
on to adopt my statements and um they they want it to look in uh like that it it satisfies and meets
the other uh the designs of the rest of the block and that's why they want to push it back lower it
down and push everything to the rear they do need more space for the growing family which
isn't a basis for the granular variance but between these two options they end up with a
little less square footage with what they're coming in right now but it's something that they
would prefer to look at and they think that it fits in with the block much more than a buy right
scenario would um we there in the letter from sasna if you've reviewed it um at the community
group meeting, there was some questions regarding structural concerns. That generally tends to come
up at the building permit phase, but we did have a structural report that was done based upon
pre-construction surveys of the property as much as they could of the surrounding properties.
And if I go to the last page, which give me one minute,
The summary is that they don't believe that they would need to do any underpinning or structural reinforcement to the structure that exists. And as a result, there should be no structural implications to the properties to either side of them, other than what normal construction might impact them.
But the addition themselves, having the additional port floor, which, again, it could do as a matter of right, but having it be smaller than what would otherwise be permitted as far as the overall square footage further reduces the impact and the need for structural support.
And if I could just get there for a minute, I just have to scroll through. My PDF seems to be a completely slow.
There's the conclusion.
they say this is our preliminary opinion that the existing foundation supporting walls can
be retained for the proposed additions and no strengthening the existing foundation is
presently anticipated i have um the one of the the principles with the construction company
that's going to be doing this work is online that's online with tb here today i'd like them
i've promoted to panelists because he can not only adopt my statement tell me what he's going
do is testify he's going to adopt my statements regarding the design but i'd also like to have
him testify as to his experience he's done about 50 to 60 of these additions when we knew before
because we do have is that information just had right no no no no so that does this is the engineer
i know we just literally this just came in right right all right we don't have a lot of this
information i don't mean to be you're pretending who do you who are you bringing on down zach
Zach Winters is a contract.
And he's going to testify to what?
He's going to testify that he's done 50 to 60 of these additions.
All right.
15 to 20 of them include fourth floors to talk about lack of structural issues when they put these.
But he's not a structural guy, right?
No, but he's, but he, but he has built them.
He's never had an issue.
Please bring him one.
Bring him one.
His name?
Zach Winters.
zach has been promoted to panelists thank you
hello can you hear me we can sir could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
we can sir could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
Zachary
zachary winters z-a-c-h-a-r-y w-i-n-t-e-r-s do you swear i'm referring to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing about the truth i do that could you turn on your video please
uh yes sir one second david yes zach real quickly you've seen the structural report
that I'm showing right now that was submitted to the board today, correct?
And you've been doing these types of additions here in Philadelphia for how many years?
Nine years.
And about how many of these additions on existing two stories have you done in Philadelphia?
50-plus of vertical additions, so third stories or third and fourth.
And how many of those included third or fourth stories?
Third and fourth stories.
Around 15.
And during the construction of those, have you had any issues?
I mean, every property is different, but you haven't experienced structural issues with the properties to either side
when you put a third and fourth floor on these existing older two-story buildings in Philadelphia, correct?
And what's your background?
I'm a general contractor.
builder my background is uh i grew up in a family that uh practices historic preservation in in
germantown so of a deep love of old homes and protecting the architectural heritage
it's all around the city and this design of maintaining the two-story at the front the cornice
and adding the fourth third and fourth floor push back from the front i mean the third floor with
the mansard and the fourth floor pushed back is that in keeping do you feel with the with the
fabric of the block? Yes, it's really important for us to keep the original lines at the top,
which basically cornice lines. And we feel that the mansard adds a gentle sloping at the top and
looks appropriate on some of these historic homes, as many of them were built with mansards at the
time they were built. Okay. I don't have any more questions for Zach. Next witness. I'm just going
to bring my clients on. Bring your client. It's either going to be Dave Mathewson and or Allison
Charles. While we're waiting for them, just so you know, following the ARC meeting, they wanted
to have the mansard, make sure the mansard was at at least a 15 degree or seven and a half degree
angle. With our setback between the difference between the top and the bottom, it's at 15%.
So you don't get the fake mansards where it's basically a vertical wall with windows in it.
It's a true mansard.
Allison has been promoted to panelists.
Allison?
Yes, this is Allison and Dave.
Who wants to testify?
I'm happy to testify.
okay i thought you would make the baby testify the baby can testify allison could you please
state and spell your name for the stenographer yes allison charles a-l-l-i-s-o-n last name
charles c-h-a-r-l-e-s do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes david allison real quickly um you and dave uh live at the property correct correct and
And you're making these renovations not to rent the property, but to expand your living space and for you and your family to live there, correct?
Correct.
And did you hear the statements that I made today to the zoning board regarding your property, the block, and the design of the property?
The project?
And are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
And would you adopt them as your own?
And also, did you secure a number of letters of support from a number of your neighbors and provide them to me?
And I've included those in the first tab of our exhibit. So there's, we don't have 2117, the abutting property owner was included with the original submission. And then it was definitely wasn't. Okay. Okay. And then, then there were three other three or four others that came in later. This, I think I added that for today, which I will upload after today's hearing.
Right. And then just real quickly, deed for the property at tab by showing my clients on the property tax compliance.
It's good through the, you know, you have all that, everything that everything is everything is taken care of.
Okay. So again, we, we feel that there's two, there's two variances.
We're filled to open area, occupied areas to is the same as what the other properties on our side of block have.
And the only refusal we have regards the lack of a setback at the third floor, and by providing the mansard, we feel we've satisfied the criteria for the granting of that variance.
And the only refusal we have regards the lack of a setback at the third floor.
And by further pushing the fourth floor back, further than when we even need to under the zoning code, we've addressed other impacts on light and air surrounding properties.
All right. Questions from the board?
Did you say you kind of went, you got kind of loved.
you said both neighbors on either side support this we have a letter from 2117 which is the
property to the east and then i could have allison and dave speak to regarding other neighbors that
they've spoken to 21 21 and other people on the block yes um 2121 is a rental property we've been
working on getting in touch and going back and forth with the owner who we've never met uh and
And then we also have support from homeowners as well on our block and in the greater neighborhood.
And they showed up at the community group meeting, which led to the vote that's reflected in the letter from SOSNA, correct?
Correct.
They were there in force.
Thank you.
Other questions?
I see no hands, Chair.
Our attorney?
I just wanted to clarify.
is parking involved in this application it looks like you have a parking spot in the back um they
have a concrete area in the back and i don't know how i mean do they i don't know right now how to
use it okay but that's not included right now no and if there was something with parking it'd have
to be a separate application oh yeah there's no legal parking at the at the property right now
right correct there's no legal parking when i've been out there there's been no car in the back
Okay, I took the pictures that are there and there's no car when I was there.
All right. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands. Oh, wait a minute. I do see a hand.
Oh, no, no, no, no.