This is an 1,199-square-foot lot.
Under the recommended zoning, the applicant would be allowed three dwelling units.
The applicant is only proposing two.
So the city planning commission recommends that the board grant the use
variants for those two dwelling units.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
We're going to hold this to next Wednesday.
thank you we'll see if we can't have the letter if not we're going to vote on this next wednesday
Thank you.
We'll see if we can't have the letter.
If not, we're going to vote on this next Wednesday.
i appreciate that i will be present thank you mr chairman for the two o'clock meeting
thank you very much i'll be there thank you sir thank you
mi 2022 001 388 2414 east boston street
for the erection of a deck at rear second floor of an existing attached building
for the use as a single-family household living,
side of the location as shown on plans.
Jeremy Lott is the owner.
Letter of support from the Old Richmond Civic Association.
Mr. Lott is coming back in as a panelist.
uh good afternoon mr chairman my name is jeremy lott l-o-t-t
um do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes sir our vice chair has a few questions yes sir hi mr lott have you emailed the exhibit packet
with the required documents consisting of proof of ownership tax compliance a copy of the refusal
or referral photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing and have
you met with the rco and do you have a letter yes ma'am okay and i'd like to read something else
this is an application for the erection of a deck at the rear second floor of an existing
attached building for the use of single family household living the zoning refusal is the minimum
rear yard depth requirement is nine feet three feet is proposed you do have a letter of support
from old richmond so you may proceed and share your screen yes ma'am thank you thank you
uh one second please having a little bit of a technical difficulties
uh well ma'am i'm actually having a problem with my computer it's not loading that
uh i did however send a copy of the presentation to the board uh i can give you a rundown if you'd
like ma'am wait wait a minute i think wait a minute yeah so are you hitting share screen at
the bottom? Yes, sir. I'm having some challenges with my computer. Well, here it is. Oh, here we
go. Sweet. Yes, sir. So here's my presentation. Okay. Wow. So I'm requesting an exemption from
the zoning board to build a deck off the second floor of my home. So to get into it, here's the
refusal notice I received from LNI when I submitted my zoning permit here about six months ago.
And so for the pictures, here's the front of my home.
Here's the rear of my house where my proposed deck is going to be built off the second floor of my home.
This is an excerpt from the plans that I submitted to L&I, and I included a copy of the full plans that I had from the architect in my submission to the zoning board.
Standing in for my proposed project is my neighbor's house who gave me the plans.
This is what my project is going to look like when it's finished.
So the plans that I have were originally given to me by my neighbor.
This is his house here, and his deck was constructed using a three-foot setback from the communal driveway here, as you can see in these pictures.
And then also my neighbor is one of 11 other homeowners in our development who has built a deck with this same setback criteria, as you can see here.
For your reference, this is a Google screenshot of overhead of what the back of it looks like.
As you can see, the 11 of my neighbors who have also built decks off the second floors of their homes.
And then here's a list that I pulled from the L&I Atlas of all my neighbors who completed these projects in the past.
Finally, I'd like to say that I have a letter of support from the Old Richmond Civic Association and my local homeowners association.
And if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no handshare planning commission good afternoon mr chairman and members of the board
david effecto city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to
the residential single family zoning this location uh so we're going to uh review this uh saying
Although the applicant has not shown a hardship exists that we would require a debt to enable a continued use of this property as a single family home, the intention of the code is
continued use of this property as a single-family home, the intention of the code is to enable
usable open space in the rear of the property. Now the rear yards on this block are all used
for parking so it's not really usable open space. So for that reason this deck is not going to
to frustrate the intentions of the code. So the City Planning Commission recommends that the
board grant the variance for reducing the depth of the of the rear yard by by building a deck.
Thank you. MI-2022-001-398-2414 East Boston Street, I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Hallamann, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Number six, MI 2022-002995-2628 North Broad Street, a reconsideration hearing.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney.
Brandon?
Brandon Saverin and Rachel Krister is coming back in as panelists. Okay. Mr. Chair, I am going to present a later case today, 4,700 Stanton Avenue. So in a way of that, Rachel will handle this. Okay, fine. Thank you. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Chairman of the Board. Rachel, you've already been sworn. Can we identify your client here and the relationship with the property?
Sure. I represent Philadelphia Suburban Development Corporation, who is the applicant and owner of both of the properties, 2628 North Broad and 1412 through 24 West Lehigh.
I also represent Starbucks Coffee Company, who is a tenant and developer of one of the properties specifically of 2628 North Broad.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Ms. Prisker. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Okay, you may proceed, and please share your screen.
So, as the board may remember-
Excuse me one moment.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary.
I just want to note for the record, since this is a reconsideration, hearing that the testimony and record from the prior hearing is incorporated as we move forward.
Thank you.
We're good.
Thank you, Hillary.
So as Hillary mentioned, this is a reconsideration.
As the board may remember, we discussed this case before.
and essentially I'm just going to go through the reasons for reconsideration and then happy to go
into like more specifics about the case. This is the property here. I'm going to bring up the
zoning plans just a little bit easier to see. So this is the property specifically 2628 North
Broad Street, as you can see, it is this parcel here fronting on Broad, comes back towards 15th
Street, kind of has this weird leg out here, and then kind of comes over and up. Essentially,
this was two properties side by side, 1412 to 22 West Lehigh Avenue. As you can see,
the property is the corner of Lehigh and Broad with 15th Street in the rear, and 2628 North
Broad Street, which is this property here where the Starbucks is actually going to be built.
Essentially, we proposed a lot line relocation to make the Broad Street property larger to be
able to accommodate parking in addition to the new structure that will house the Starbucks,
which is approximately a 2,500 square foot structure that's going to be the first
Starbucks community store in Philadelphia. It will provide a lot of benefits to the surrounding
community including training and things of that nature um we do have a representative of starbucks
as well on the call who can go into detail if the board wishes uh essentially we're going to be
demolishing this uh small small strip mall structure on the broad street property and create
a new building for starbucks um the lot line relocation is by right but the use of the property
requires two special exceptions um it's this is not a variance they are special exceptions so i'm
not going to spend time on hardship. The Broad Street property will have the Starbucks with a
drive-thru and accessory parking and a takeout restaurant, which is the use that requires a
and a takeout restaurant, which is the use that requires a special exception.
special exception.
The Lehigh Avenue property will have non-accessory parking, which is going to be used
for overflow or rented out for other purposes. The owner of the property, PSDC, may use it for
other things as they desire, but it's not part of the Starbucks facility. Again, the non-accessory
parking use requires a special exception here. In this new configuration, both of the properties
will be partially zoned cmx3 and cmx2 um given the city's rules and the code related to split
zoning districts the cmx2 is what controls and that's essentially what has triggered the need
for the special exceptions um we attended two community meetings for this project um back when
this was originally heard i'm just going to pull up date of that here's all the tax clearance
Again, aerial photos of the property, this thing structured, I think we have included
a lot of photos.
So we had a community meeting back in February 8th, and we met with the coordinating RCO along
with the affected RCOs as well.
um both the coordinating rco again the second meeting was held on we've won on march 8th
and as you can see we had unanimous support for the project um one vote of non-opposition but
both the um 16th street democratic ward and swan poodle neighborhood parcels association attended
the meetings um and uh basically provided non-opposition to this uh uptown entertainment
and Development Corp, UEDC was the coordinating RCO that provided support for the project.
And again, provided this back at our first hearing that we had unanimously supporting
the project. Again, so did the Swampoodle Neighborhood Parcels Association as well.
And as you can see in your packet, there's a detailed explanation of their satisfaction
with the matter. We also had mentioned that we have a letter of support from city council
president Clark, who's also the fifth district council person. When we had originally gone
through this project, the board, I don't know that it was mentioned that Starbucks is going
to be using union labor for this project. To quote their director of store development for
the Mid-Atlantic, we submitted a letter from them basically stating, be sure that the Philadelphia
city officials are aware that for all new store construction and renovation projects within the
city of Philadelphia, Starbucks receives bids and awards for construction contracts only to full
union general contractors that also require full union subcontractors. In fact, Starbucks has done
a couple other projects where they've only used full union construction, 2401 Aramingo, 10th and
mark at 12th and one and 18th and spruce that wasn't something that was mentioned in detail at
the last meeting but it's important that we mention that on the record for this motion for
reconciliation we also as you're seeing on the screen went through a pretty detailed traffic
study and have included the details of that in the applicant or in the packet in the event that
that's interesting to the board happy to bring up uh anybody from starbucks to discuss that but
again, it's, as you can see, included in quite detail in your packet. I'm trying to just get to
the other support letters that we have. This is quite a long appendix. Hold on.
Also, I believe talked about trash management. There's a litter cleanup plan as well, which was
important, especially given this site is fronting on Broad Street and Lehigh, which is important.
And again, just so the board is acclimated with the site, the site really doesn't have any residential uses nearby.
The use of the site as a Starbucks with the corresponding drive-through takeout restaurant and the non-accessory parking on the Lehigh Avenue side will not propose any risk to the life, safety, welfare of anybody as there's nothing but mostly industrial buildings.
It is located on Broad Street and is sort of in kind and accompanying uses for a site like this.
Again, happy to go through anything in bigger detail.
I just, again, want to emphasize that we will be using union labor, that we have support from the coordinating RCO, the affected RCOs, and the council president as well, which was included in the motion for reconsideration.
Why don't we do this? Why don't you have somebody from Starbucks adopt your testimony?
Sure. And then move forward. Do you see Sam?
And then we move forward.
Do you see Sam?
Sam, are you able to raise your hand?
I don't know if I can see it.
You're an officer of the court.
We'll take your testimony.
Her hand is up.
Sam DeLiberty.
Thank you.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Samantha, you can speak.
Hello?
She may be having technical difficulties.
All right.
So you're an officer of the court.
We will take your testimony.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair we have mark nicoletti no mr chair
mr sure mr uh nicoletti let let me let me swear you in state your name for the court i know he is
spell okay state your name is spelled for the court reporter please mark nicoletti n-i-c-o-l-e-t-t-i
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Chairman, Madam Vice Chair, members of the board, I want to personally apologize.
Despite the fact that I'll suggest this application checks every box.
And it's a great job working with the community, get calls from the RCOs.
we have the support of the councilman but here's where we fail and I'll take full responsibility
I think we failed in giving you a broader context of the importance of this project