Thank you.
Mr. Voliansky, are you a member of FAM and Co. and authorized to act on behalf of the entity?
Yes, I do.
Did you hear my statements and review the documents in the packet?
Do you adopt my testimony and authorize the truth of the statements and documents?
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Board. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Hi, Planning Commission. Thank you, sir. David Fecto, City Planning Commission,
Mr. Chairman and board members. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential
multifamily zoning at this location, the occupied area variance is less than 10% of what the code
requires. So we would argue that that variance meets the spirit and purpose of the zoning code.
However, the applicant has not shown that two dwelling units would be required for the lot to
be used to gain economic value. So the City Planning Commission recommends the board deny
the variance for the second dwelling unit. Hillary, we're going to wait for the RCO letter.
Mr. Elsie, do you know when the RCO letter is going to come in? The meeting was held in November.
Yeah, I apologize for that. She said she was working on it today. I was hoping she'd get it
to me by now or join the meeting. I don't believe Ms. Shirley Kitchen is on. I hope to have it
available tomorrow okay so maybe we'll hold for one week mr chair that's fine
yep okay we'll hold for next wednesday two o'clock
yes that's fine mr chair and the record is two o'clock thank you thank you council we appreciate
it and the record is closed except for receipt of the rco letter okay
All right, number nine, MI-2022-006-049-3334 North 17th Street.
David Orphanides is the attorney.
Mr. Orphanides is coming back. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. How are you? Could you state your name and spell it please for the
court reporter. Certainly can. My name is David Orpanides. My last name is spelled O-R-P-H-A-N-I-G-E-S.
Could you identify your client? Oh, hold on. I'm sorry. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth, but you look like you're frozen, David?
Oh, I am? Can you hear me? I can hear you, but you're not moving.
i'm a ventriloquist huh uh i'm not sure why i'm not moving that's interesting um okay
could you identify or do you swear or affirm to tell truth the whole truth not but truth
i do uh could you identify your client in relationship to the property certainly my
client is 3340 building owner qozb llc okay mr hall has just a few questions for you sir
yes good afternoon good afternoon council do you agree to waive the reading of refusal and
stipulate to his accuracy i do did you email five days in advance did you meet with the rco
and do you have a letter uh we met with the rco we have a letter i forwarded all the materials
except for our posting photographs on friday which was five days before um i just didn't
have access to them from the person that posts them. And I provided that to the zoning board
staff and the attorney on Monday. They were posted, notice was posted as required by the
zoning code. And then I provided, we were working on some revisions to the zoning drawings and I
provided those to the zoning board attorney today. Thank you. Please proceed to the screen.
Sure. I'm hoping this is going to work.
You see my screen? We do. All right. So that's good. So you don't need to look at me in any way.
So. So good afternoon. Again, my name is David Orphanides from Orphanides and Toner LLP.
And again, I'm here this afternoon on behalf of 3340 building owner QOZB LLC. I have with me
Anthony Miles from 3340, building owner, QOZB LLC, who will then.
from 3340 building owner qozb llc um who will eventually uh make some statements possibly but
none but will surely adopt my statements that i make we have kurt raymond from cicada architecture
and planning who did the original zoning drawings that were submitted to the city of philadelphia
that resulted in the issuance of the notice of refusal that was appealed to the zoning board
and then we have banu allaman from umbra architects who are prepared they revised zoning
drawings and they were just uh not substantially revised but um that we would ask the zoning board
to stamp if uh they were inclined to grant the variances that we are requesting today
so uh to jump right in um 30 the two properties in question are 3332 and 3334 north 17th street
the proposal is to consolidate these two uh properties into one lot um i will get into what
that proposal is in a minute, but to get to some nice stuff, we did meet, as mentioned,
as I indicated, Mr. Holloman with the coordinating RCO, the RCO that was designated by the Planning
Commission as the coordinating RCO for this property and this project, Allegheny West Civic
Association. We sent out two rounds of 14303 notices that are included in my exhibit book
at tab 21. And it was a pretty well attended meeting. And you can see that as a result,
we received their support with their letter dated January 17, 2023, which is the same date
as the meeting. Tab two of my exhibit book includes a number of other letters of support
and partnership. You're going to hear from my client or hear partially from me that this project
has been in the works for quite some time. It's a project that involves a lot of different city
agencies, stakeholders in the community, surrounding the community, national organizations
to provide this much needed use that we are proposing here that does require a variance at
this particular location. So here at Exhibit 2A, you have a letter of support from State Senator
Sharif Street. And then you have a series of letters of support and partnership from different
organizations, including the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, SCI Cambridge Springs
Optical Lab, Satisloe North American, Pride Enterprises Incorporated, iDesigns LLC,
and the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health and Salus University.
I'm not going to go through each of these, but I think this is one of the few cases where I've had this many letters of support
and partnership with such a wide variety and array of different organizations and stakeholders, as I mentioned.
So the application is to consolidate, as I indicated, these two properties.
And I'm going to show you with an aerial image in a second.
Where is it?
There we go.
The two properties in question.
So we're a couple blocks west of Broad Street.
You can see overall, you see in the general area, this is the Nicetown Tioga area, and you could see at a tab that I have later in my exhibit package, an article by a publication or a blog called Road Snack, that this area, this article is from 2019, not a lot has changed, was rated, this area, this neighborhood was rated as, for a couple years running as the worst,
if not one of the worst for a variety of reasons. I hate to say that. I don't like to say worse,
but in need of development, in need of support and in the city of Philadelphia. And you can see
here, obviously, oops, obviously right off of Broad Street, you have temple facilities located
nearby to us. You'll hear either my statement or my client's statement or adopting my statement
that they have attempted to find suitably zoned properties
for their proposed use in the immediate area
on areas or properties that are properly zoned
where they would be able to do it as a matter of right.
But with Temple being so well established in this area,
those properties or those buildings,
buildings that are vacant properties
to build a building don't exist.
But then there's a reason
why we're looking at North 17th Street.
I'll get to that in a minute.
Here you can see our property over here.
The property includes a vacant lot, which is $33.32, and then $33.34, which is a vacant
which is 3332, and then 3334, which is a vacant building.
building.
But you can hear, again, a lot of green, a lot of vacant lots in the immediate vicinity of our property.
In fact, from our property at 3334 North 17th all the way up to West Ontario,
which is a cross street to the north of us, all vacant.
Across the street, all vacant to West Ontario.
So if you go back here, you see there's only a couple of houses, a pocket or island right here, a house here, a couple of houses on the other side.
And other than that, all vacant lots.
These houses are mostly utilized for multifamily living.
The property is owned RSA 5.
And you're going to see why we think this is an appropriate use here.
But here you can see, again, just a lot of vacant land.
um the the this area has been studied uh quite extensively um we have included a tab 7 8 and 9
there's a tioga goals and strategies report from 2016 a tab 8 there's the north 17th street
conceptual design for multicultural multi-use development and then a tab 9 there's a north
district plan from 2018. What these plans, what these different reports and plans speak to is
the history of North 17th Street as a commercial corridor. And here you can see here in a Tioga
Goals and Strategies report from 2016, outlining the 17th Street business corridor. And then right
in the middle, pretty much, is our property located between, again, West Ontario Street to
the north and west west moreland street to the south and here again the 17th street business
corridor we're at the uh you know at the southern end of that um the north 17th street conceptual
design for multicultural multi-use development called amongst other things that the community
indicated oops that they needed in the community were pharmacy medical services and physician
services you'll see that's what we're looking to provide here and the target zone was 17th street
the north district's plan talks about the changing nature of employment in this area
as you can imagine with temple located up in this area there's an ongoing shift as indicated
to health care and education the north district plan also mentions how well connected this
neighborhood is to public transportation one of our refusals is not providing off-street parking
for the proposed use and um the the proposal here is to provide services to the immediate community
one stop um right now um the services that we'd be providing um diabetic and optimal
ophthalmologic i always have problems with that word optometry um but it's more than optometry
um services i just have problems with that word getting it out um we'll be drawing locally mainly
from the community um both in terms of the people that work there as well as the um the patients
and the customers but um there is the area is well connected um to public transportation and
the north district plan talks about the issues with general health and access to health health
care in this issue or in this area and the need for that and this this proposal is designed to
provide that. So I'm going to the notice of refusal. As I indicated, we call for the lot
adjustment, the consolidation of the two lots to erect a semi-detached structure, 63 feet,
two inches in height. Just so you know, the roof height is 53 feet, eight inches. But because the
pilot house, there's no residential component here, but because the pilot house is not intended,
and this is one of our refusals, is not for residential use. And because it's slightly
larger in order to comply with commercial building code requirements than the 125 square foot maximum,
it counts in the height of the structure. That roof deck is intended for the use of not only
the employees of the building, but also for the guests and the patients of the facility.
the the the proposed use is the retail sales of consumer goods medical equipment general
industrial manufacturer medical equipment and medical dental and health practitioner a group
practitioner there's no on street off street parking proposed and hence we got the off street
parking refusal that's based upon the the gfa that we have here and
That's based upon the GFA that we have here. And as I mentioned, there's a refusal for the size of the pilot house and the overall height of that that then gets included. And the uses, because this is RSA 5, we have the uses, the refusals that are indicated.
And...
do. I would like to real quickly bring in, have Anthony Miles promoted to a panelist,
and I'd like him to speak real quickly about what his proposal is.
There is a description of what the project for the, we call this the Tioga Diabetic
Optical Laboratories. And as you can see, this is a tab 14. It talks about the
who the owners are. Dr. Furman, who is directly involved in this throughout the process and will
be there, who's a practicing optometrist and ophthalmologist, is I think also on the call
today and she can answer questions and speak to what we're looking to propose. You can see the
service areas. And then again, you can see the two uses. The one is the optical laboratories
where there'll be manufacturing dress
and safety eyewear lenses.
And then the other are diabetic and optical services.
And I'm not sure if Anthony has been promoted yet,
but I do want to say before he's promoted
that we did meet on February remotely
with the planning commission on February 28th.
We voluntarily requested
a zoning appeal preliminary review meeting that they're having now for various projects
and uh the other day on march 9th actually they issued a summary report where um they agreed with
us that there is an unnecessary hardship here um that there's a need for consolidated diabetic care
in north philadelphia west of broad street that our development team includes health professionals
who have unsuccessfully searched for buy rate development opportunities in the area as i
indicated the proposed manufacturing use is consistent with the incentives provided by
the keystone opportunity zone this property is located in a keystone opportunity zone
the dimensionally we provided them with statements by our team that this property even though we do
have a health refusal or health refusal a height refusal um that mainly for the pilot house but
even to the roof we exceed the permitted height for rsa5 that the the layout is very tight and
very lean there's no wasted space um all the space that we have and the height that we have is
designed with intention to provide these needed services to the community um both you know locally
to where we um where we are located located the surrounding community and other uh citizens of
the city of Philadelphia um we uh in that in that uh meeting as a result of that meeting the the
Planning Commission staff acknowledged uh that the 17th Street quarter which this property these
properties are part of has a history of commercial use and that the proposal is consistent with the
adopted plants to revitalize and re-develop the 17th Street commercial corridor. And again,
there is a hardship in the area related to the need for diabetes care in the neighborhood,
which is an environmental factor that we did not create. I did mention that the
dimensional variances are the minimum necessary. And again, I can have Dr. Furman, the architects,
and Mr. Miles speak to that. And that even though we have a manufacturing component here,
The manufacturing of guy glasses has it's it doesn't produce any odor, any noise will have a minimal of any external impacts.
We plan on proposing in terms of the impact on traffic we did.
I do mention about the great access to public transportation, obviously being so close to Broad Street, but even over into the neighborhood as well.
There are quite a number of bus lines. In addition, will be if you take a look at the photographs that I included.
in my exhibit book, you would see that this block right now with the amount of vacancies
is very, here you have the subject property, vacant lot and the vacant building. But you can see
up and down the block, because there's no development, there's a ton of available
on-street parking, but we'll be proposing loading zone in front of the property to allow during
business hours, not in the evening when people come home, the ability for people to pull up and
drop off patients or customers, and also for the loading of materials and for finished products.
And also for the loading of materials and for finished product to go out.
This is not, even though there's a picture of a tractor trailer, that's, I'm assuming that's somebody that lives on the block.
We don't expect our deliveries coming in or coming out.
There'll be more box trucks, small box trucks, no tractor trailers.