right that's your prerogative like whether wherever you live like where i live i get to decide
where someone else lives they get to decide and there's no hard feelings right you know these are
you know impactful for a lot of people but you can't create a forum where it's one-sided when
i talked to mr nelson there was things that were misstated and he was misinformed and that's a very
frustrating process and you know while you know acca is a very involved group and i respect the
work that they do, they're also problematic in the sense they don't provide a fair forum,
which is very frustrating. So anyway, I'm going to present this.
All right. So we have 11 exhibits. We'll go through them. We do have the letter that was
submitted to us a little before 5 a.m., and we did go through it. And, you know, Mr. Nelson
actually gave a lot of flavor, too, to show there's some things that weren't stated in the
letter that were discussed, including but not limited to the community organizers stating,
well, they're providing parking. Most apartment buildings of this sort, they don't provide
parking. That's a good thing. That could be used against us. So let's not discuss parking in front
of the ZBA. So that's, you know, very frustrating. So again, this is a 22,000 square foot building
and a lot. And we're proposing to have 42 dwelling units on slab
accessible with an elevator so this is completely accessible building with 21 parking spaces
uh and a garbage room a mail room like this is a very sophisticated building a very nice building
um and we're hoping and which is not also out of character to the buildings that are surrounding us
there are multiple examples of apartment buildings with no parking which are not accessible which
don't have elevators and which are not affordable where we we believe that the affordability would
be like a 60 percent ami and especially for an agey population within this neighborhood this is
a good alternative which was discussed at the community meeting they wanted us to make a
commitment to make this completely senior housing we said we can't do that we don't know the market
but we do envision a lot of people who want to age gracefully in the neighborhood will have an
but we do envision a lot of people who want to age gracefully in the neighborhood will have an
opportunity to rent these nice units that are accessible. So let's just go over the ladder,
right? They're against it. Now, first thing is they talk about the height. There's no height
variance. We're 38 feet high. And you'll see in the pictures, again, the site plan. And by the way,
we have Scott Woodruff of Design Blends who'll walk through those plans as well as necessary.
we're set back 10 feet on the left and there's a there's actually a common driveway for residents
who the rear of their properties on the intersecting street which i would assume the driveway
is another 15 feet or more so we're set back 25 feet from their building structures we have a curb
cut within you know we have a curb cut currently in front of our building we're repositioning it
so that we're 18 feet driveway where we're separated from the building to the right of us
and then we're 50 feet set back you want to go over this yeah it'd be nice if we could see yeah
all right that's fine yeah yeah and then we can go over the letter i mean i'm we'll go over i know
you're a little hot with the letter but let's just do the normal presentation all right all right
well i just want to say these are the things we heard from the community
no i'm talking about in terms of revised plans what we did hear from the communities they wanted
us to remove the balconies from the left and the right of the building which we did we didn't want
to like oversee people's houses which also allowed us to reduce the occupied area to 52.6 percent of
the building of the lots which is again for an rsa 5 property that's more like an rsa 3 type of
coverage perspective and we increased the side yard because we eliminated the balconies so now
our side yard is essentially 10 feet to the left. So again, is it out of character to have apartment
buildings nearby? The answer is no. There's a 50 unit right to the side of us on the other side
of 17th on Church Lane. There's one at 6001 North 17th Street, which is 36 units. Again,
no parking. And then there are multiple other instances nearby. Like we're just off of,
you know, Broad Street, you know, 6301 Old York Road, 40 units, 6302 Old York Road, 69 units,
6300 Old York Road, 308 units, Conlin is 88 units, Grange is 36 units. So there's many other
instances. Are there single families and smaller multifamilies? Yes, but it's not out of character.
Again, what is out of character is the size of our lot, which is 22,000. Well, we're combining
three lots which are rather deep in size to combine it for 22 000 square feet you can also
see there is a mix of zoning classifications whether cmx2 two and a half and rm1 nearby as well
and you can see like we're not that far off from like again uh old york road here again to help
support the commercial corridor you usually do have multi-family nearby and then photographs of
the property again a pretty massive vacant lot these this is the driveway of the properties on
17th street we're going to even be set back another 10 feet here you can see this is the
curb cut that currently exists for this property we're moving it closer to you know adjacent to
this building structure to provide windows to the left and and to the right of this building
our building and also to provide us a setback you know in terms of looking at people's light
in there even though we're only 38 feet high this is the property since 2015 so it's been a vacant
lot these are orange notice posters you know proof of posting we've tried to do a tighter shot of
that church lane to the right of the property to left of the property and then our plans and
drawings this is a four foot structure so you can see there's a front door here we actually have a
ramp here for to make it for accessibility purposes as well we got rid of all of the
regular balconies and juliet balconies here we do have balconies in the front of the building
we added trees in the front of the building and there's a ton of landscaping to left and and
and to into the rear of the property as well and it's just different angles of seeing that
you can see here's the driveway i was talking to it's a two-lane drive driveway a two-lane
driveway going in and out of 18 feet wide trying to see what else no no roof deck access structure
other than for mechanicals again you know we can always put a roof deck on there because
they were complaining there's not enough um outdoor space which we think there's ample but
you know you can see this is the rear of the property this is the retaining wall we're talking
about here kind of because there's a huge drop um and you know we we again talked to mr nelson
And, you know, we, again, talked to Mr. Nelson and we've said on three occasions separately, we'll work with him and collaborate with him on that. You can see a lot of shrubbery to provide natural landscaping and a buffer to the nearby properties. And again, we're 50 feet set back here, 49 feet, six inches, I think, directly.
and we've said on three occasions
And again, this is the rear axis to the building as well.
And then there were questions about sloping. Let me just see. I guess this one would be the one that talks about sloping here. There are questions about our sloping of the property that we're not giving an accurate sloping of it.
Apparently, there's an architect who says, who stated our plans are not correct, which again, we have a survey. We have design blends, which is a known well known architecture firm.
um you know everything's been blessed by the survey district by the planning commission by
l and i um but we actually slope from front to back we go have a slight slope not much so we
actually go shorter in in the in the uh back as compared to the front but again we're 38 feet high
and then if you look at it here's the front door for this property this is the ada accessible ramp
here. And this is the area, which is the outdoor area, which again, we have bollards here because
what we envision is for trash. Again, Alan owns Liberty Bell Management too. So he self-manages
his properties. And I think he has hundreds, if not over a thousand properties in the Philadelphia
region. He's well-versed in handling these types of apartment buildings for himself and others.
like what he envisions is a minimum of two days a week potentially three days a week of commercial
trash pickup and you know what he envisions too is probably not even a trash truck that's the big
trash truck that you wouldn't envision but that trash truck would come here we have bollard set
up where it would raise you know when when the when it is trash day and it would do basically
come in you know like make the turn and then come out with a three-point turn and come out this was
all blessed by the you know streets department too um but like you know here's the trash room
right here we try to be responsible about having the trash room towards the rear we don't want to
block anyone's traffic like the street in any way here's the bike storage and we'll go through the
floor plans as well um but you know and here's the outdoor area where even this area right here
is 21 by almost 40 so that's almost 800 square feet right here and then in addition to you have
this little area here which is another 30 by 21 so that's another 600 square feet so other than
trash day where you may have to like block this area for the trash truck like you know this will
be an open area for all the residents and you can see there's a huge buffer here um that we have
for landscaping as well again to make sure that with the people that it's the rear of their
properties in 17th street like they have some nice landscaping a nice buffer as well you can see the
buffer back here as well and then again this is the area that kind of is a huge
drop-off and mr. Nelson can kind of tell you a little bit about that but you can
also see that there's a you know this drive aisle which is not ours that's
for the properties on 17th Street and then they're even set back further
because it's the rear of their houses on 17th Street this is the site plan let's
see let's go for the floor plans let's try the floor plan all right so floor plans i think maybe
we'll go back one all right floor plans okay so you walk in you have a common lobby area
you have a leasing office because we're going to have someone dedicated there
you have a trash room there's a mail room that's going to be right here as well so a common mail
room and you have the bike area and the trash room you have four units here like so basically
the breakdown is um 20 excuse me 15 two bedrooms which range in size from 896 square feet to 1015
square feet one 26 one bedrooms which with the range of 636 square feet to 200 677 square feet
and one studio which is 569 square feet so all good size and then by the way here's the elevator
to the common elevator and we'll go through the floor plans i think more so just showing you the
different versions of it right so this is the studio right so speaks for itself all washer and
dryers that are in there um and here's you know a unit type of b floor plan so you walk in right
here's you know a unit type of b floor plan so you walk in right you have a closet you have a
8 yab o'clock.
kitchen a living room and dining room right you have a bedroom and this is the washer and dryer
bathroom not too far away from the bedroom this is a unit a type of floor plan where you have a
living room in the kitchen right here you have a closet area you have a washer and dryer and then
you see the bedroom here and the bathroom's not too far away and again we there's no basement level
which is going to be used for living there is you know no one's going through a bed like a uh the
back of their their you know in a bedroom they're not going through like the outdoors this is a very
responsible apartment building and then if you look at here this is the two bedroom right so you
walk in you have the living room and the kitchen area you have the bedrooms near the bathrooms here
and you have the washer and dryer here here's another floor plan which is another two bedroom
you can see both bathrooms are next to the bedrooms you have an open floor plan as well here
and then the washer and dryer's there and then here's another floor plan where you walk in you
have the kitchen and the living room you can see this there's two bedrooms two baths and the
bathrooms are right there and here's the washer and dryer and then finally you have the two bedroom
here you walk in you have the washer and dryer here you have a bathroom right next to a bedroom
you have a kitchen with a living room and open floor plan and you have the other bedroom next
to the bath the other bathroom and this is just a survey of the property so one of the things that
the community group asked for was the was you know that a survey which we did do and we did a site
plan so we met with the community once right so we actually had to send a 45-day letter where they
wouldn't get to us we were like please we have a meeting you know so we sent out a notice on may
22nd to the community basically saying hey we have this project here like we would like to present
to you we eventually got a meeting on june 24th at at 6 p.m we didn't present till 7 p.m they
presented with our poster boards at 6 p.m for an hour um then we were supposed to have a hearing
on july 8th and they asked for a continuance because they wanted to have further discussions
we said of course we'll do further discussions we've been begging for a meeting since then now
we found out there were three separate meetings that we weren't involved in you know so i i can
only that's why i'm a little bit heated up about this notice yeah so we mailed to 102 addresses
nearby um and i don't know if mr nelson received it but you know we we always are more than happy
to talk to community members you know during you know during the community meeting after the
community meeting and before the hearing proof of mailing
our application for zoning variance our deed to property showing germantown
acquisition llc allen's llc owns the properties 22 000 square foot property
and our certificate of tax clearance for each of the properties 1631 33 and 35
church lane let's go now to to the letter
let me get let me just go maybe just move this up a little bit's a lot
okay let's just go over the petition right which by the way mr nelson signed because he didn't
know we're in communication with uh with with the community organizer but if you look at even the
petition we we do these petitions too and we keep it up front we're like we take the notice of
refusal language and say this literally track and say per the attached notice refusal i don't
flavor these at all right you know and we have someone walk the neighborhood and you know we
do have bullet points for them to say this is what the project's about if they have follow-up
questions but oh geez i gotta get my my computer's about to die but it's it says the undersigned
neighbors, the 1631-1635 Church Lane, state to the ZBA that they oppose granting lock
consolidation and zoning variance to allow the erection of a proposed four-story, 42-unit
apartment building at this location due to the numerous overlooked, ignored, and unaddressed
burdens shall the, I think it says shall, the proposed building will place on the surrounding
neighborhoods well when you have inflammatory language like that of course someone's going to
sign that we're being overlooked ignored and unaddressed that's not a proper form that's not
that's not a proper form that's not the way you do it like if people are against it that's fine
the way you do it like if people are against it that's fine like let's
like let's have a conversation and maybe we never convince them that's fine too like you know it
happens I think this is a responsible project though so let me uh well hopefully my computer
doesn't die um but here height right the proposed property is oddly configured on a high elevation
that towers over residential blocks below well we talked to james about that i said you know james
do you have any issue with the height and you know we're i just want to let you know we are 50 feet
setback and we're set back on the sides as well but the what would be the most important to him
is is the back he's like no i'm not gonna be able to see your property what i'm concerned about is
the retaining wall and you know we haven't gotten a straight answer from the group that you're going
commit and i said james we spoke the day of the community meeting we spoke when he came the first
time the first hearing and we expected to have future communications with him when we never did
but i said so make sure you understand we're making that commitment he's like oh okay you
know a light study was requested at the meeting at as multiple blocks will have their air visibility
surroundings obstructed by the enormously elevated building it's only elevated towards the people in
the back. To the left and right, we're in the same plane as everyone else. And we're set back 25 feet
to the left and 18 feet to the right. And we're 38 feet high building. An independent architect
advised that the blueprint circulates. The rear elevation extremely lower than actuality. All we
do is rely on professionals. Again, we have design blends. I think, what was it, Cornerstone that did
the the civil engineer that did this the survey everything was blessed by the survey district
everything was blessed by the planning commission and lni blessed in the sense of okay this is
appropriate not that they support this um so i don't know what they mean the topography is actually
we're a slightly higher in the front than in the rear at the rear of the properties an elevator
rear drop that's unaddressed in the applicant's plans we told them the first meeting like we're
going to address that. And we told James three times we're going to address that. Applicants
rendering show a neat finished wall at all around the rear of the cliff where the parking lot ends,
but that's not the actual plan. And again, I'll ask Scott to speak and, you know, Alan to speak
as well. In actuality, there's an existing crumbled retaining wall being uplifted by tree
roots, accumulated earth with massive overgrown towers over the wall and extremely elevates the
property in the rear we don't disagree with that and we told them we're going to address that
obviously it's a responsible thing to do and it's a fair ask water runoff drainage flooding erosion
unattended growth in a child in all caps child falling off the cliff are among the concerns
we have fencing right there's no children are going to fall off a cliff and you know we have