absolutely Mr. Kelly Mr. Stoll could you spell the name please I'm gonna have uh respectfully
I'm gonna have Ms. Johanning's mark so all right go ahead that's a wise move
It's J-O-H-A-N-N-I-N-G-S-M-E-I-E-R.
Thank you.
Are you okay, Mr. Kelly?
Yes, Chair. Thank you very much.
Sure. Let's go to the virtual audience.
Comments or statements from the virtual audience?
here we have christopher smith
hello mr smith could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter please
yes my name is christopher mejia smith that's spelled m-e-j-i-a hyphen s-m-i-t-h
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
Proceed.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
I participated in a number of the community meetings, and I support the variances that are requested for this project.
I don't believe that it's been touched on, but the targeted rents for this property are going to be all below market rate and subsidized, and affordable housing is a major priority for the city.
Now, speaking exactly to the zoning category for this lot, I believe that what we have here is simply outdated zoning and a drafting error.
If you look at the University Southwest District plan for this lot, it is circled and denoted as that the zoning should be I2 as aligning to the existing land use.
And I think that as the applicant has shown, this land has not been used in an industrial form for many years.
So I believe that that was a drafting error.
And in fact, on page 78 of the University's Southwest District Plan, it says as follows.
It is important to encourage commercial uses along corridors with the capacity and density to allow businesses to thrive.
To do this, it is recommended that blocks south of 58th Street, Baltimore Avenue, and Woodland Avenue be zoned for residential uses.
So, given that this property is below Baltimore Avenue, it would make sense to have residential uses be legalized on this lot. So, I believe that the applicant is proposing a project that is within the spirit and the harmony of both the code and then also the district plan.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you. Thank you very much for calling in. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience that wants to comment?
Yes, Chair, we have Diane Settles.
hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
hello hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
good morning my name is diane last name is settles t-i-a-n-e last name spelled s as in sam e-t-t-l-e-s
right do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, I did.
Thank you very much. Proceed.
Good morning. My name, I represent the group of King Sesson Air Civic Association.
I am one of the RCOs that did not write a letter of support for this project.
Early on, Mr. Kelsen had said that there were numerous meetings, community meetings.
I was only privileged to one community meeting, so I'm not sure what when these other meetings did happen.
Also, I didn't support the project because the community was not given the opportunity to review the changes that had been made by the CEREC design review.
And so that was another reason why I didn't support this.
um support this um the community has not been kept in the loop of these meetings um and that
The community has not been kept in
is unfortunate um if i if i miss something i would like for someone to correct me of um
when these meetings did occur and piggybacking piggybacking off of mr stall as far as this
community this community is a solid community with houses now going for 350 000 up to 600
yes it is a blighted area that is true it's been a blighted area for a while but yet and still
this community has still thrived with the raising of their um um property value um so that is what
I wanted to add and to this proceeding. Thank you for calling in, Ms. Settles. Anyone else in the
virtual audience? Yes, Chair. We have Mark Harrell. Please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Mr. Harrell, state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter.
Good morning. My name is Mark Harrell, H-A-R-R-E-L-L.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Proceed. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members. I am the co-chair of the 51st Ward
RCO, coordinating RCO for this application, and also a 50-plus year member of the immediate
community in which this application serves. I, as stated in the previous ZBA and CDR
meetings, hearings, the 51st Ward RCO supports this application and respectfully submit that the
request be granted. Here's an opportunity for, as stated before, affordable housing in our
community and blight obliteration. This property, for as long as I can remember,
has not been used in accordance with what industrial, it's been an eyesore.
For the past two years, we've been meeting the coordinating RCOs and the affected RCOs
have been meeting along with Omni and the residents of this community.
Representatives from Omni have taken it upon themselves to speak with representatives
and near neighbors of this community, and we support in full this application and respectfully
submit that you grant this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Anyone else in
the virtual audience? Yes, Chair. We have Christopher. Please unmute yourself and wait for
the chair.
Hey, could you state your name and spell
for the court reporter?
Hey, this is not Christopher. This is
Alex Schieffer-Decker.
But I was unmuted, so
I will talk. Alex Schieffer-Decker,
S-C-H-I-E-F-E-R-D-E-C-K-E-R.
Do you swear
for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? I do.
Proceed. Thank you.
I'm a resident of the Near My Neighbors. I live two blocks away from the project site, and I've attended at least three public meetings on this project.
This is a complicated project. I urge the ZBA to reject variances related to the site plan.
I'm not totally up to speed on what the new ones are, but there's ample room on the site to design a project that meets these design requirements, and there's no practical difficulty that comes from meeting them.
The developer has simply chosen not to comply with site design requirements basically from the start because they've chosen instead to prioritize a massive surface parking lot over anything else, even additional affordable housing, and the ZBA does not need to endorse that choice.
However, whatever the faults with the design, the ZBA should grant the variance requests for residential use on this industrial zone property.
The existing industrial use on the site is inappropriate, as Chris said earlier.
It's embarrassing that past and present council members have not rezoned the site correctly.
The site is surrounded by residential uses.
It's hard to imagine any future owner of this property being able to economically use it for industrial purposes.
And it's even harder to imagine the community acquiescing to an industrial use at this location in the future.
Historically, the site was a coal yard and most recently was a junkyard.
Neither of these prior uses are suitable or practical today.
The use zoning on the site imposes a hardship on the applicant because it is so incongruent
with any feasible use on the site going forward.
The ZBA should also grant variance requests for height.
The ZBA should also grant variance requests for height. The building site is located within a dense urban area and is nearby residential buildings of comparable height, including the new development directly across the railroad tracks and the Irvine building just two blocks down the track.
The building site is located within a dense...
I also want to, I have to directly rebut the assertion by Mr. Stoll that this project will injure the general welfare of my neighborhood. This could not be further from the truth. My neighborhood needs affordable housing and this site is currently a blighted and polluted site. The implication that new neighbors are tantamount to new pollution is frankly insulting.
This is a complicated site and a desperately needed affordable housing project that is unfortunately marred by a thoughtless design.
Given this, I urge the ZBA to render a sort of unusual split decision and reject the site design variances for the project, but grant all the other variances for the underlying land use and height.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
uh mr kelson do you think you can summarize it in two minutes for me please i can do it in one
and mr stall i'll give you two minutes then okay i can do it very quickly thank you mr chairman
so with regards excuse me i'm sorry mr kelson i don't mean to interrupt but i believe wasn't
andrew goodman going to testify is he available sharon you're absolutely right i forgot i'm sorry
Yeah, I, Mr. Goodman, are you out there?
Mr. Goodman, please unmute yourself.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Goodman.
State your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
Thank you.
Andrew Goodman, G-O-O-D-M-A-N.
Here representing the office of third district council member,
Jamie Gaudier, room 586 City Hall.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, please.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, members of the board, Council Member Gaudier fully supports this application and asks that the board grant the variances as requested.
Given the length of testimony to date, I'll just try to hit some bullet points instead of belaboring particular points.
Certainly, a by-right development scenario under I-2 would absolutely have longer-term negative impacts on neighborhood quality of life, and we would strenuously object to Mr. Stoll's declaration that the previous industrial use was, quote, without issue.
In fact, just in the short time since Councilmember Gaudier took office, our constituent services staff have fielded dozens of concerns from near neighbors for assistance with abandoned autos and short dumping and other issues that were tied to the previous use.
So we believe this declaration to be inaccurate. Further, the declaration that this is, quote,
the most profitable use is also inaccurate. This has already been stated. This application
is only made possible through financing from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. So the claim
that this is some sort of market rate grab is inaccurate also. And in fact, the applicant will
be voluntarily entering into deed restrictions to ensure as such. We can also attest to at least
four open public meetings being held, two of which being held even before Omni filed its permit
applications in order to receive early feedback and input from near neighbors. It's certainly
understandable that there might be disagreements about aspects of the proposal and the design.
that's pretty common for projects of this size and scale and ones for the amount of public
attention they've received. But I think a couple of things we can all agree on is that this is an
important site and this neighborhood needs more affordable housing. Home values have more than
tripled in the census tract since the year 2000. Rents have increased by over 50 percent during
that same time period and the Black population has been cut by a quarter. And simply put, there
is no publicly controlled surplus land in the near vicinity to try to create the type of equivalent
affordable housing to what Omni is proposing to build here. And the design presented today does
include a variety of changes that respond to concerns by near neighbors. So it is this need
to ensure this type of affordable housing in neighborhoods of high amenities that is of utmost
important to our office. And so I will leave it there and thank the board for their time and
consideration this morning. Thank you for calling in, Mr. Goodman. Mr. Kelson, would you summarize
for me. I will, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity. In terms of Mr. Stoll's
contention or assertion, I should say, that this fails to meet the hardship standards
supportive of the grant of a variance, I would point the board to a case that Salette is very
aware of, Mr. Reiter is aware of. It's called Valley View Civic Association. In a nutshell,
So when you have a property like ours, which is an island, it's an I2.
When you have a property like ours, which is an island, it's an I-2 zone property that is surrounded by what Valley View would call disharmonious uses, all residential and transit behind.
That in and of itself creates the fact that there are disharmonious uses, underpins the hardship standard supportive of the grant of a variance.
It's ironic, members of the board, that if you would go with Mr. Stahl's argument and reject the variance, that creates a hardship on the community and on the subject neighborhood.
To deny it would actually create more hardship and more distress to the public health, welfare and safety than granting the approval.
This is a good plan. It's a necessary plan. The plan has been reviewed by the streets department in terms of traffic loading and mitigation efforts.
Those are the experts. They have reviewed it. It's been reviewed by Civic Design Review, which also includes streets design and checklists.
Most importantly, or equally importantly, it will meet all applicable building and fire codes, including water department approval for stormwater mitigation.
Right now, the site has no stormwater management, completely free for runoff.
All of that runoff will be detained and in its place you will see a community itself being built of affordable housing units that will support the community, support the residents, and allow for the community to grow and expand as it has.
So with that, I ask the board's consideration and approval of this project.
Thank you.
Mr. Stoll, can you give me two minutes?
I can give you less than two minutes, Mr. Schoenberg.
Thank you.
So I'll just reiterate and highlight a few points that I've previously made.
Belighted or not, zoning is in place for a reason.
Applicants have to follow the zoning code, and the applicant is requesting that we disregard the requirements of the zoning code.
And this has really turned into how much do we love this project?
How much do we like this?
Again, we're completely, we're being, the board is being asked to totally turn a blind eye to the zoning requirements.
You know, we represent an affected neighbor and we're asking that you follow the zoning code.
And again, like I said, there is nothing in this record, nothing been presented to you as to a hardship.
This is just, this is what I want to do with the property.
There's nothing unusual about this property.
There's nothing irregular about this property.
property. And I get that the applicant wants to say to you and present that this is a great use
of the property. It's not consistent with your zoning code. So with that, I'd ask you to deny
all the variances that are requested. Thank you. Thank you very much. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Members of the board, first to just make a note for the board, Civic Design Review Committee's
advisory recommendations are not an expression of the city planning commission's recommendation
regarding zoning variants or other discretionary approvals associated with this proposal. So I just
want to make sure that those are not conflated in this case. The comprehensive plan recommends a
zoning map change from I2 to ICMX on this property. The intent of that comprehensive
of plan zoning recommendation was to prevent heavy industrial uses adjacent to existing
residential uses. However, the proposed use is residential. And furthermore, the current
development proposal includes rent-restricted affordable units, which would align with the
comprehensive plan goal of providing a wide range of housing types across the city. And so the City
Planning Commission supports the variance for multifamily use. However, we recommend that the
board grant the use variants with two provisos. Our first request is that we believe that
residential use demands meeting residential parking lot landscaping standards, and so we
would request a proviso that the final plan be subject to City Planning Commission approval of
the parking lot landscaping requirements. Secondly, low-income housing tax credits, as you know, are
extremely competitive. We're skeptical that the low-income housing tax credits will actually be
awarded for this project and regardless of any agreements made with the community groups or rcos
the zoning entitlement in question could be transferred to a future owner who wouldn't be
bound to honor the promise to include deed restricted affordable units and so we therefore
request a second proviso to grant a temporary variance in this case to expire march 31st 2025.
to grant a temporary variance in this case to expire March 31st, 2025.
Excuse me, this is Sharon. We cannot include a temporary proviso for this kind of
this kind of use that requires so much construction. Temporary provisos are for
uses in an existing building or surface parking lot. It would not be appropriate here. May also
and Mr. Chairman, as Mr. Goodman indicated,
Ian was not privy to this,
there will in fact be deed restrictions.