floor space even more. If they keep the old stairwell the same, it still reduces the first
floor space because you have to add four inches for wood framing, the wall plus drywall in the
hallway inside the apartment, basically the property, 386 square feet first floor, that they
are squeezing in a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. Due to the breezeway,
the bedroom would be very tiny, like being in a small box or jail cell, based on the information
that is presented. The property does not have enough adequate space. We have expressed our
concerned with keeping single family use as we have a market for it in this area. This property
is small at 3335 and it fits perfectly as a single family home. The second floor kitchen
living room are small and they are not one bedroom so they are presenting more like efficiencies 400
square feet approximately or similar 386 square feet. Even with the vented closet trash
has trash even with the vented closet for trash it has to come out of the unit possibly before
trash day where it ends up on the on the corners we would appreciate you upholding the refusal
as this property is not adequate in space to be to apartments and there is no demonstrated
hardship and there's no need to burden or have hardship to the community that we put this kind
the density on families living in this square space of just barely being able to turn around
with all of the things, kitchen, living room, et cetera. If they do the stairwell to at least
code the 36 inches, that makes that first floor unit even smaller. So this house would be a
perfect home for, you know, a family and there's no reason to change it from a single family
property. So thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else? Can I respond, Mr. Chair? Yeah. Why don't we
do this? Why don't we see who else is out there? Okay. Right. Is there anyone else in the virtual
audience yes chair um the next hand is uh phone number ending in 3552 and they will have permission
to speak okay i could you state your name please yes can you hear me okay we can just state your
name for the record i think i swore you once today already um yes you did this is adrian
Fernandez. Please proceed. Okay. My testimony was sent in late today. However, we are opposed
to this variance and we're asking the board that you please vote to deny it. We did list
seven provisos that if the board will not deny this variance, that we need those provisos
because of the conditions of the house
that was illegally transformed against the permit
and also the fact that there are, I think,
at least three empty lots next to it.
So the seven provisos, including the no pets,
are related to nuisances that we are increasingly experiencing
from multifamily properties.
Excuse me for a minute.
I just have to look at my testimony.
The notice of refusal for this property is incorrect.
In the beginning of all hearings, you asked if the notice of refusal was correct.
In the beginning of all hearings, you ask if the notice of refusal...
And this one is not correct because it should say legalization.
The property owners, the LLC owned by the, I believe, the couple, it says, they said that they spent $100,000 and they did not know that a contractor or a general contractor that they hired
And the subs underneath them converted their building they owned from single family to multifamily.
And that is pretty much impossible when you have written documents for construction of something costing $100,000.
So they were fully aware and also guided the services that they brought from the general contractor.
And they were trying to make this building multifamily without the neighbors being involved at all.
And that is not permitted in Philadelphia. So if they have so much problem following the rules to convert the use of the building, we're not confident that they can manage a multifamily occupancy or a multifamily structure.
in this area too the strawberry mansion the strawberry mansion overlay is either present
or being extended by proposed bills so that we can preserve the type of single family living
that we are accustomed to we are again having increasing problems with pets for some reason
when people rent a property they will not walk their dog to the park they will not walk their
dog to the larger park, which is right near all of us in Swampoodle and Strawberry Mansion.
They will not walk their dogs to the smaller parks that they pass by in between.
And we literally can barely walk down the street straight because of the amount of dog
feces that are recently increasingly on our sidewalks in the street.
And we have many people that work at night.
And this is a huge hazard and nuisance.
um so that's why the one of the seven provides those if it's approved but we are opposed
is that there's no pets on the lease because we can't take any more of these pets um i've had
pets all my life and it's not my neighbor's responsibility to take care of my pets next door
down the street on a commercial district none of that that's my responsibility and um we're
finding they're not taking responsibility for their pets. Also, they now have six open violations
because the property was changed against the permit where they signed, they and or their
hired contractor signed that they would not make any low bearing wall or low bearing interior
structure changes or external low-bearing wall changes to this property or walls, beams,
anything like that, they completely disregarded that.
That's not a landlord that I would want to have on my block or next door to me.
um we did tell them that um if they rented property out a single family that um in most
cases most of the neighbors would not be opposed to that um however the provisos would still need
to be placed there so we can um try to get back to our standard of living um you know as long-term
residents in north philadelphia well but i i'm not sure i'm not i'm not sure if you if you did
a single home you'd have that provisos right i'm sorry that's right yeah i mean all right oh that's
that's okay all right all right all right well thank you very much right it is i'm not i still
have a little bit more to say if you'll let me finish sure um if it's multi i'm sorry if it's
i did write it correctly though if it's multi-family that um we're asking for provisos
um and i said it was conflicting with the overlay i said the refusal is misleading and incorrect
on purpose and the refusal omits legalization that only came out because of questions that i
asked the property owners who admitted to only renting more than 20 properties
when i did ask and somewhere in our conversation they admitted that they changed this property
before going to zoning.
However, the neighbors already knew,
and Danita Cummings found out more information
about how the neighbors knew,
but we were convinced the neighbors
were the ones that called in the violations.
We're also saying that this will be an overuse of the variance
if it's multifamily because they would be able
they would be able to put too many occupants in the building, which is next door, across the street, down the street from single-family residences.
to put too many occupants in the building,
which is next door.
All the provisals that we listed, if it's not denied, we're asking for, once again, because of the environment
and the increasing problems that we're having with multifamily occupants.
and more and more we're getting existing residents complaining that when they try to just talk to
these multifamily occupants that they're threatened so now they have to call the police just if we're
saying for example will you please put your trash out on the right day if you're not sure will you
ask someone will you watch what others do neighbors are being threatened many of them elderly and they
just don't appreciate this they'd rather just have a single family by right than have to deal with
someone who doesn't watch what everybody else is doing, who's doing it correctly, and wants to
create a new situation that's going to increase negative impacts. So hopefully you were able to
read our testimony. I think I've heard everything you said. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Sure. Is
there anyone else in the virtual audience? Yes, Chair Joetta Johnson will be allowed to speak.
Ms. Johnson, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
My name is Joetta Johnson.
My name is spelled J-O-E-T-T-A Johnson, and I am the block captain of the 3300 block of West Sargent Street.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Are you in favor of this project or against?
I'm against.
Is there anything that hasn't been said that you could offer?
No, sir.
Well, thank you very much for calling us and telling that.
We appreciate it.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
There are no more hands here.
Planning Commission.
Oh, wait a minute.
Alan, do you want to respond?
Thank you.
Thank you.
There's a lot to unwind here.
But so, first of all, I would implore you to look up Carlos Perez of King and Queen Construction.
That's the contractor that we've used on previous projects.
And for whatever reason, he didn't do well by my clients and went to jail.
I don't know if it was just my clients or other individuals, but, you know, we fell victim to this.
And, you know, again, we're not there's indications about an overlay and us trying to change the zoning.
That's the point. We're not.
We're not even trying to get a variance of RM1.
We're saying this is a non-conforming lot.
It's slightly smaller.
We're asking for de minimis variance here.
You know, we had actually discussions with my clients.
We can go up a third story as of right.
We wanted to respect the community by not having a roof deck, by not going up on a third
story on a two-story block, by not having any window wells, because that's always been
an issue of strawberry mansion by keeping the building the facade the same way without having
any bay windows there we're doing the least modification possible under the philadelphia
zoning code in terms of the petition again you know these meetings i believe are taped i would
you know miss cummings as an officer of the court you have told me in the past that you did not want
us to present petitions at the community meeting that's why i don't present them i would be more
really happy to share them in future community meetings, and I will. And I would say in terms
of the petition that they had no one on First Street against this project. We have the person
to the left of us and the right of us. And by the way, the person to the right of us is building a
multifamily structure. This is not out of character to have multifamily here. Our lot
size is just slightly off. And my clients didn't know, trust me, they did not know that they
couldn't do this as if right. They relied on a professional, or at least they thought a
professional to handle this. So there's nothing indicated. They never admitted during a community
meeting that they knew this and they were doing it illegally. Trust me, they would not be here
if they did have to be. So again, to prevent a financial catastrophe, please allow us to use
this RM1 property for
two units in the existing
structure, no changes
to the building envelope, and
we're in agreement with
Swamp Poodle's provisos
with regards to trash,
with regards to
I forgot all
the others, but any of those enforceable
provisos, no basement living,
because we
want to move on and finish
this development project. Thank you.
So, Alan, as you started
respond. There's a lot to go through here.
What I'm going to do is hold this to next week.
What I'm going to do is hold this to next week.
We'll vote for this next week at two o'clock,
We'll vote for this
next week at 2 o'clock.
but I want a chance to talk to the board and really get ourselves where we
want to be with this. Okay. Thank you.
Can we get the recommendation from the planning commission?
Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Planning commission.
Good afternoon, chair. Peter Bernard for the planning commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RM1 multi-family
residential at this location we feel the requested variance for open space is de minimis accordingly
the planning commission recommends the board grant the variance thank you very much uh but this case
is closed and we'll vote for it next tuesday at 2 p.m thank you alan that'll be next wednesday
mr chair wednesday wednesday it's okay number 13 mi 2023 005 748 33 35 west first street
No, I'm lying. I've got to move the thing down here. Hold on.
Number 14, MI 2023-005-669-3655 Market Street.
Stephanie Boggs is the attorney.
Letter of support from West Poulton, Saunders Park, RCO,
and letter of support from Poulton Village Civic Association.
Councilmember Gauthier has also taken a position of support.
Stephanie Box has been promoted.
Hi, counsel.
Did you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Stephanie Magana, S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E.
Last name's Magana, M-A-G-A-G-N-A with Claire Harrison.
Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
My client is Wexford, S-C-E-C, 3675 Market Street, LLC.
They are the owner of the property.
We also have the tenant for the building here as well.
All right. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wave the reading of the review to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.