i think he said yes
we lose you mr grigos will you being an officer the court will stipulate that your client would
have adopted your testimony yes okay thank you any questions from the board no no no
anyone else like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
mr folks i see no hands sir thank you planning commission good morning david fecto city planning
commission mr chairman and members of the board this property is indicated for residential single
family use in the city's comprehensive plan the zoning changed in 2017 at that time the block where
this warehouse stands was approved for a residential subdivision. We have reservations
about the noise and traffic generated if a proposed commercial use were to move here
since this is not a commercial corridor, but if the neighbors do not believe they would
be impacted by this proposal, then we have no objection to granting these variances.
Thank you very much. MI 2020-001557. 1400-38 North Howard Street, my vote is yes.
my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes thank you very much thank you have a good
this afternoon thank you calendar number 1575 1431 north 15th street
mr mattione has been promoted to panelists
can you put your name and address on the record please and spell your last name
Certainly.
That's Michael Matteoni, M-A-T-T-I-O-N-I, Federal Reserve Bank Building, 100 North Independence Mall, Suite 5A, Northwest, Philadelphia, 19106.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And have you also emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership,
tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and 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. Thank you. You may proceed. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, this is 1431 North 15th Street.
This is 1431 North 15th Street.
This is similar to the applications we had last week.
This is similar.
This is a 28-unit apartment building, legal for 28 units, but there are 29 units in the building.
We have a brand-new owner, Temple Real Estate.
We were seeking to legalize the one unit that's been there.
They acquired it with the 29 units, although the 28 are legal.
We met with the Coordinating RCO Map Holistic on December 7th, an in-person meeting.
There's our tax compliance and the refusal and the plan for the building.
And we met with Matt Polistic December 7th, and they had two people showed up, and everybody supported the application.
And we have a letter.
That's the letter from Matt Polistic.
We have a separate letter from Community Land Trust Corporation, which is another RCO in the area in support.
and another letter from Friends of the 47th Ward, Louise Bundy, also in support of this application
to legalize the one unit that's not legal in this building. This building is, like I said,
an existing building, 1431 North 15th Street, and I have Joseph Byrne. They purchased it with
The 29 units in it, although the 28 are legal.
It was built in 2014 by a different developer.
We are just seeking to legalize the unit that's in there.
The RCOs support this.
The new owner has met with them.
We believe that this is a new owner and that they should be allowed to have this extra unit
because they did not create this extra unit.
That's the way that it was when they acquired the property.
I would like to promote Joseph Byrne, who is the representative or the agent of the owner,
if he could. Is he available?
Mr. Byrne, you're free to talk. You've been unmuted.
Yes. Good morning, Board.
Good morning, Mr. Byrne. Please identify yourself with the records by your last name,
and I'll swear you in.
Yes, Joseph Byrne, B as in boy, Y-R-N-E.
My address is 1516 North 5th Street, Philadelphia 19122.
Thank you.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?
Thank you, Mr. Mattione.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Byrne, did you hear my statements?
I did.
And are they true and correct?
They are.
Do you adopt them as your testimony?
And did you have any further comments about this property that you were involved with?
No, I just wanted to make a quick statement that we, as Mr. Maglioni noted,
that we acquired the building in February of this year.
That unit in question has been occupied since this property has been built in 2014.
We immediately moved to vacate the tenant at our expense until then.
We had the time to go in front of the board to hopefully legalize this unit.
which we hope the board will see get the credit.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Anyone else like to testify in this case?
If so, please raise your hand.
We have one caller with the phone number ending in 6894.
It's Van Story by any chance.
Could be Reverend Nash too, Mr. Chairman.
You've been unmuted, you're free to speak.
Please unmute yourself.
uh good morning mr chairman and all participants of the board um i'd just like to say
excuse me reverend yes sir now please identify yourself
reverend lewis nash senior do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do affirm thank you sir
we heard the uh testimony of mr mattione and uh mr burns and our uh three rcos along with
the community meeting have no objection to that uh and we really appreciated the fact that he
uh moved out the tenants uh at his own expense to tell if he could uh rectify that situation
thank you for your testimony thank you anyone else would like to testify in this case
please raise your hand i see no more hands chair you planning commission
I see no more hands, Chair.
Thank you. Planning Commission.
Good morning. David Fecto, City Planning Commission.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Board, this property is indicated for residential multifamily use in the City's comprehensive plan.
We do not believe that one additional unit will have a negative impact on the block.
We have no objection to granting this variance.
Thank you, sir.
MI 2020-001575.
1431 North 15th Street my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes
thank you Mr. Chairman thank you thank you calendar number 1570 261 South 60th Street
The attorney is Isaac Slepner.
if mr slepner is not here he gave me a call this morning saying that he was having
going through security in his building he's here he's here thank you isaac slepner here yeah they
the the technology had to let me in uh good morning um mr chair members of the board
name and address for the record good morning morning isaac slepner with matione limited 100
north independence mall west suite 5a northwest philadelphia pa 19106 here for the property owner
raphael realty llc and my client uh is with me mayor badouche who is a principal of raphael
realty llc thank you do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do do you also agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
Yes, I do.
And 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?
We have sent everything to the board.
We had a meeting with the RCO and we have a letter from the RCO.
Thank you. You may proceed.
All right.
If I may, I'm going to share my screen and our printed materials.
and oh bear with me here hold on technology ah here we go um i'm going to share my screen
our materials and here we go
all right so we are going to share
right here nope sorry bear with me here
cancel let's try this again ah here we go can everybody see my uh materials here
i'm actually going to go to full screen so uh i can just scroll through them um all right
Exhibit one is our tax clearance which was run on December 1st. As you can see
the owner is compliant with all property taxes. Exhibit two is the refusal which
we've already waived in step two. Exhibit three will start with our site plan and
elevations. So let me go back here and I'm going to turn this so that everybody
can see it now the only uh variance that we are seeking is for open space usage at the property
it is zoned cmx3 so the uses themselves are by right and what my client has planned here is
a mixed use uh building with commercial on the ground floor and three dwelling units above
In order to comply with the building and fire codes, the design of the building was required to have two means of egress, one at the front, one at the rear, accessed by two separate staircases.
In order to do that, the staircases have to be like a scissor-shaped staircase.
So this is our elevation, and if everyone can see here, you'll see the two staircases going, crossing each other, but they don't meet.
And you'll see it better in the rendering on the next page, but 261 South 60th is mid-block on a pretty vibrant commercial mixed-use block of South 60th Street in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood.
in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood. It does have a rear alley access, as you can see by this
It does have a rear alley.
site map, which was pulled from Atlas. This pink is the right of way at the rear. This is a photo,
an aerial photo of the current situation at the site, which is it's a vacant lot. This is 60th.
This is, I want to say Manning Street, and this is the alleyway behind, and this is 261.
Over here is our, this is our kind of site plan, as you can see, the proposed building, stairs, roof deck.
And we'll go on to the next page where you'll be able to see this with a little bit more clarity.
These are the floor plans for each of the floors, starting in the basement.
The basement would just serve as storage for the commercial as well as your mechanical maintenance areas.
So as you can see, there's blue and green stairs.
There's two different stair towers, Tower A, Tower B.
So here's your front, your street level.
This is first floor right here.
And there's your front door.
This side would go into your sizable commercial space over here.
Then this is your first stair tower leading up.
This is your stair tower going up and down from the basement out to the rear yard space and to the rear alleyway.
Second floor is unit one, which is a proposed two-bedroom.
Bedroom here at the front with a bit of a bay window at the rear with access to the roof deck.
and two different doors to this unit with the two different staircases.
Same thing going up to unit two, which is the third floor.
Again, two bedrooms, living space, kitchen, bathroom.
Same two staircases with two means of egress going up to down to the front and to the rear.
and then again unit three which is the fourth floor same layout same square footage and then
the roof deck which is actually accessible by everyone but each unit would have a key to its
own unit would each would have a key to the roof deck so each unit could access the roof deck but
no one else could access each other's units and each unit would have use of the two different
uh staircases for means of egress which is uh pursuant to the fire and building codes
um next up exhibit five oh is our elevation this actually probably is the best illustration of
why we are seeking a variance from the code so here you see a little bit of a rendering
and you can see the blue stair tower which as i mentioned goes out to the front uh door there on
60th street the green stair tower which is stair tower b which goes out to the rear alleyway that
leads out to the cross street and here's an elevation here's your first floor that's 60th
that's the backyard and alleyway and as you can see both towers go all the way from basement to
roof a leads out to 60th b leads out to the rear and this is in order for the new construction to
comply with building and fire codes. Exhibit 6 is our letter from the RCO, Cobbs Creek Neighbors
Association, and this letter was sent to the board on 12-15. We did meet with neighbors via Zoom.
There were five neighbors in attendance at this meeting on Zoom, as well as myself, my client,
our architect the community had raised some concerns about construction but those are I
think concerns that neighbors would would have generally about your timetable your noise your
construction dust and things like that there is a neighbor next door that is a church with a
child care for small kids so there was concern about that but my client I think had assuaged
the community's concerns that they would keep the noise, dust, et cetera, mitigated as far as they
would be able to do, and the pastor of the church seemed satisfied by that. The Neighbors Association
gave us a letter of non-opposition, did CC the councilwoman's office. It's council member Jamie
Gauthier and Andrew Goodman, who may well be on this call. I know he attends a lot of ZBA hearings.
Exhibit 7A. 7 are some photos of our site as it looks currently, and I'll take the board through this.
Exhibit 7A. 7 are some photos of our site as it looks currently.
So this fenced off, this is ours. This is 261 South 60th, and you can pretty much see all the way to the rear.
You can't really see the alleyway just because of the way the shadows are.
But as you can see, this block of 60th is a pretty vibrant commercial mixed-use block.
You have this hair and nail salon directly next door.
This is the aforementioned church and daycare, Falcon Land Tax Center.
Those are all immediately adjoining.
Here's a close-up of ours.
You might be able to see the alleyway, how the alleyway intersects back there a little bit better on this one.
This is ours from across the street.