Thank you.
Here we have 31 attendees, and we can start as you wish.
Thank you.
Good morning.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's EBA hearing.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Member, Thomas Holloman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Hillary Emerson, our Attorney, and our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett.
Here's our virtual format.
Bevised proceedings are being recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkett at phil.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property question.
And finally, the question-answer box on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sumpkin.
Let's look at our schedule this morning and continuances that we have.
Number eight.
Number eight, MI 2023-000-507-2172 East Firth Street, the case is continued.
Number 10. MI 2023-000-499-536 Green Lane. This case is continued.
Are there any comments relative to the cases that I continued?
Good morning, Chair. This is Yvette Benton. I'll be your co-host for today. I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Thank you. Any other requests for continuance?
Chair, I see no hands up at this time.
Okay, thank you. And I also have two cases that we have no exhibits.
Number three, MI 2022-004-799-1711 Spruce Street.
Kawana Curry is the illicit applicant.
We have no exhibits.
This is the second listing. No one appeared at the first hearing.
Chair, I have no hands up at this time.
Thank you. MI 2022-004-799-1711 Spruce Street. This is the second listing. We have no exhibits. No one appeared the first time. I vote to dismiss.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is to dismiss.
Thank you.
Number seven, MI 2022 004-677-7256 Saybrook Avenue.
This is the second listing.
Chair, I see no hands up at this time.
A minute.
Chair, just a moment.
We have Craig Melodosian with the hand up.
Craig Melodosian.
Good morning, sir.
Could you state your name, please?
Could you state your name, please, for the record?
Craig, C-R-A-I-G, last name Melodosian, M-E-L-I-D-O-S-I-A-N.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Chairman Bergman.
Proceed.
I'm the coordinating RCO for this.
I know that we had a previous continuance.
I'm not sure if there's a language issue here. The woman is a foreign national and did not seem to comprehend the necessity of having a legal counsel as she was an LLC.
I'm not sure if there's a language issue here.
The woman is a foreign national.
She has an outstanding violation for having erected a porch on the front of the building. We've looked at it. It obviously can't be demolished.
We normally would approve it if she could just, I guess, coordinate whatever she needs to meet with us.
So perhaps we could give her an additional opportunity rather than dismissing it at this time.
Thank you for taking the time to call in.
We appreciate your comments.
So MI 2022, 004-677-7256 Saybrook Avenue.
This case is continued.
Mark must be tried.
We're going to go to our add-on list.
Number one, MI 2022, 001058, 332 Delancey Street.
At the request of counsel for the applicant and the Protestants,
the vote in this matter has been postponed to Wednesday, August 2nd at 9.30 a.m.
Number two, MI 2022-006-988-1124-28 Dickinson Street. The resumptive hearing in this matter
has been rescheduled to Wednesday, July 26th at 9.30 a.m. We're going to go to our regular list.
We're going to start with number five.
MI 2022-003-749-261 South 24th Street.
Robert and Jessica Burke are the owner applicants pro se.
This application is for use as a visitor accommodation in an existing structure.
The proposed use of visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RM1 zoning district.
Chair, Jessica Burke is coming back in as a panelist now.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I apologize.
I entered.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Take your time.
could you state your name and spell please for the court my name is jessica burke um j-e-s-s-i-c-a
b-u-r-k-e my husband is also on the call um we're on different video cameras he's in philadelphia
and i'm in denver and where i'm in i'm in denver and he's in philadelphia now so can you can you
handle it yes yeah okay sure do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth. I do. Our vice chair has just a few questions for you. Good morning, ma'am. Have you
emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five
days in advance of this hearing? Yes, sir. And I've corresponded with attorney Emerson. I believe
she could confirm that you've received everything. Okay. Thank you very much. Please proceed and
share your screen. And just for a note, there's a letter of opposition from the Center City of
Residence Association, but we also have eight letters of support from neighbors, four from the
200 block of South 24th Street. Okay, proceed. Thank you. And I share, okay, let me just get my,
I had this pulled up. If that's okay with you, I'll share my screen here shortly.
see the green share button on the bottom yes yeah there you go got it coming up coming up
proceed perfect let me see if i can expand that a little bit for you my husband and i um own a
property at 261 South 24th Street. It's this white one here. It's near the corner of 24th and Spruce.
My husband's a physician at Penn. He travels back and forth from Philadelphia to Denver. I'm here
with our three kids. He works there. We moved back to Denver to be with family during COVID,
and we've been using the property as a place for him to stay. When he's required to be in
in Philadelphia twice a month.
We've been, prior to the legislation being passed,
Prior to the legislation being passed, we had been short-term rental using the property when
we had been short-term rental usage
he wasn't staying there, but we are on site or were until this legislation changed twice a month.
My second slide just sort of shows that timeframe of us purchasing the home. We renovated it.
We moved to Colorado. We've been involved in the concept of trying to legally and
appropriately regulate short-term legislation and short-term rentals in Philadelphia from the
beginning. I met with Representative Squilla back in October of 21 when he was proposing and thinking
through the way to move forward with all of this. We've attempted to move through the whole process
legally applying as appropriate. We don't qualify because we're a unique situation where our primary
residence with our family is in Denver, that route that is available in Philadelphia is not
available to us. We must have a zoning variance in order to continue to use our property
to rent it short term when Bob's not there. Oh, that went all the way to the end. Sorry,
I'd like to go back through. Okay, so then my next slide. The intent of the legislation,
this is a statement that Representative Squilla gave us back in October when we were first
supposed to testify before you guys, is that the intent is to address nuisance properties
and to weed out bad actors. Not only do we have this statement from Representative Squilla,
but I did submit and can show we've been super hosts. And I only bring that up to say that we
We're not a bad actor.
Our neighbors like us, we like hosting.
We have a kind of historic, very tiny,
but historic property that's cool for people to see
as part of Philadelphia's history.
There is nothing in the legislation, as I pointed out,
about owners who have a property
as a secondary residence and use it.
This is not supposed to be an investment property for us.
We're just trying to let Bob stay there
and rent it when he's not there.
Um, if we don't get the variance, our property won't be owner occupied. We would have a renter
there. Um, we have two neighbors who've been there for more than 30 years, but we're the
longest homeowners other than that. Um, and what we're doing right now is 30 day rentals because
that's longer than 30 day rentals. Um, which is because that's what is allowed legally,
but it does effectively eliminate our ability to use our home. So Bob is staying in a hotel right
now. I also wanted to point out sort of where we are on a map and sort of the support that we do
have. I would note that none of our neighbors oppose. We did have a couple who didn't submit
letters of support, but we had many who did submit letters, most who did submit letters of support.
And you'll see how close we are both to existing sort of CMX 3 and other CMX zones.
We're on a sort of smaller street when we're one of four row homes on our side between us and this CMX.
That purple section on the map kind of in the upper left corner of the picture is actually a parking lot.
So we're not I don't we don't change the character of the block in any way.
certainly that nothing changes if we look at it. And the homes between us and the existing
zoning that works for us support. The third one, we just couldn't get. They don't oppose. They just
didn't come. And then this is sort of that same map just shown on a street level to give you a
sense of how close we are to zoning that works for short-term rentals and how you see that.
I see MX on the left is that parking lot that I mentioned, and that tall building is already
CMX3, and then they're just those were one of those little row homes on the right.
It's a lovely block.
So I hate, I'm reluctant to show this slide.
I'll move on because I did submit the statement that the RCO gave.
Dave, the reason I moved past that slide is that that's my opinion of their view, and
they did not provide a reason for refusal in our first refusal, and I corresponded with
them over the last month asking for their reasons for refusing, and I submitted that,
I believe, and I know I submitted that, and my view of summarizing that is that they basically
My view of summarizing that is that they basically said their policy is to refuse all of them in the zone and that the legislation says there shouldn't be any.
said their policy is
But there was nothing specific about us that was they're doing no, they just aren't doing it.
It's everybody that they're treating this way.
So in summary, we're responsible homeowners and residents.
We have a lot of neighbor support for our zoning variance requests.
We're very responsible as short term managers.
we've been there a long time it's a variance is consistent to zoning around us and our situation
is unique because while we aren't primary residents we do live in the property very regularly and the
intent of the legislation is not to exclude homeowners and residents from renting your home
in the short term. Questions from the board? No Mr. Chairman.
no chair thank you questions or comments from the virtual audience
yeah we have france pierre okay
france pierre please unmute yourself and wait for the chair good morning mr pierre could you
state your name please and spell for the court sonographer yes good morning mr chairman fellow
board members that's france pierre that's f-r-a-n-t-z last name pierre p-i-e-r-r-e
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do and you're from the rco am i right no i'm here from the council member johnson's office
Oh, good, good, good. Proceed.
Yes. So given the RCO's letter of opposition, as well as the near neighbors, almost unanimous support, the council member does recognize that.
And due to that, he will defer to the ZBA board members to make the best decision.
Thank you very much for your taking the time to call us. We appreciate that.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, I see no hands at this time.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission, S-A-R-A-H-B-A-N-H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, please.
The comprehensive plan represents no change to the existing residential multifamily zoning at this location.
The appellant has not shown that the property cannot possibly be used in strict conformity
with the zoning code and that a variance is therefore necessary to enable the viable economic
use of the property. The Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board deny the
variance. Thank you. MI 2022-003-749-261 South 24th Street, I vote yes for a temporary variance
That will expire 8-1-27. That's 8-1-27.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you for your presentation.
Thank you.
Okay. Number nine.
MI 2022-004-780-4712-Ella Street, Noel Garcia, this is pro se, this is for documentation and legalization of two non-accessory parking spaces and a mechanical rolling door.
No other use is prohibited at this lot. Sizes and location are shown in the application.
The proposed use non-accessory parking is prohibited in the RSA by residential.