we're looking forward to restoring this 10 000 square foot mansion uh the game plan
is to make it into two condos, a four, excuse me, a five bedroom, four and a half bath condo
and a four bedroom, four and a half bath condo. So two very sizable units. We've been working
closely with the Philadelphia Historic Commission to plan the restoration and work within their
guidelines. Improvements will include all new systems, HVAC, electric, plumbing, security roof
and other, and careful restoration of the interior and exterior.
As Steve mentioned, the mansion is historically designated, so we understand it's closely
regulated, and we have done many historic renovations over the years and, in fact, have
won six historic preservation awards from the Preservation Alliance.
So we look forward to this kind of work.
The mansion is currently badly deteriorated
Wind and rain
Which are entering the house
Through openings in the roof
And windows have taken a real bad toll
On the house
And it's now in serious jeopardy of demo
If we don't start renovation soon
We estimate the improvements
To the house to be in the
One to one and a half million dollar range
Does not make sense
Financially for us
So to help pay for those expensive historic improvements to restore the house to its former glory, we plan to subdivide the rear of the house into four additional lots that, as Steve said, we will be selling off to Chris Murray, who is a near neighbor, and her partner and builder, John Thomas, who are here.
Let me stop you there. When you say, I think you might have misspoke when you said we're going to divide the back of the house into four lots. You mean the back of the property, right? Not the house itself.
Yes, excuse me if I misspoke. The rear lot, which is sort of a plateau that faces Pelham Road while the mansion faces Cresham Road.
And yes, here's a site plan to give you a better idea.
You can see that the mansion faces Cresham Road and the driveway to the mansion is off of Cresham Road.
and we're taking this rear plateau area that faces Pelham Road that sits about half a block from
the commercial corridor on Germantown Avenue. And the proposed four new development houses,
which are a set of two sets of twins, sit adjacent to five row houses. So
to five row houses. So from Germantown Avenue, there's five stone row houses that would be
followed by our four twins before getting to the corner of Cresham and Pelham. So we tried to
design something that we felt would fit in to the density and the nature of the neighborhood.
in terms of the mansion unlike previous developments who wanted to carve up the
mansion into six apartments we decided that dividing the house into two units was a much
better way to go in order to cause as little damage as possible to the interior of the property
we're not proposing any additions to the house nor are we making any changes to window or door
openings. So from a community perspective, other than seeing the fully restored house
and finally landscape property, there's not going to be any noticeable changes to the house. So
there won't be any difference from what it looks like now from the street when we divided into two
condo units. The Bedouf family with their 23 adopted children were the last occupants of the
mansion. They left five and a half years ago, January of 2015, and tried to sell it through
a realtor for around two years before it was eventually sold twice through an auction.com
site. The developer who purchased it the first time couldn't make the project work financially,
and then, of course, we purchased it the second time, and there was only one other bidder
when we eventually purchased it. At 10,000 square feet, there's very little demand for a property
of this size. And as a real estate professional for more than 30 years in the Mount Airy area,
I keep a close eye on residential housing market in Northwest Philly. There's clearly a movement
away from owning and occupying mansions. People just don't want the astronomical utility bills
associated with owning a house of this size.
So that's all I have for now,
and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Weinstein, you said you guys, you bought it.
Has that been settled,
or is it contingent on the zoning variance?
Mr. Chairman, we have purchased it.
Okay, thank you.
Tom you're breaking up
Can you hear me now
It's a little better
Am I better now
How many refusals is on the
Historical property
How many refusals did you get
For the historical property
ah here you go so we have 20 uh 27 uh so we have one use refusal which is that two family household
living is prohibited in in the mansion because it's a single family zoning um it's rsd3 uh we
have we're dividing into five lots um so we have some dimensional variances um we have in terms of
maximum area for accessory structures because of the the garages that we're putting in the back
of each of those lots we have some dimensional refusals for all five lots and then for the for
the new uh the new lots that are going to be subdivided lots for the new four single family
homes we have uh dimensional variances for each one around the minimum um width the minimum lot
area as you can see the the setbacks for rear and front then we have two very two refusals that
we're going to address with our site engineer Rondo Mobley and momentarily in her testimony
we've addressed both of those so they no longer exist but they but at the time that we applied
there was one refusal for section 14-510-8 around soil erosion and
impervious cover and then one for steep slope protection which you seem like to
me you have a lot of a lot of refusals you can't design that with less
refusals? We did. We now, we have revised plans that definitely have less refusals. So can I put
my, let's put my architect on so maybe she can address that with you better. Rondo, could you
Rhonda could you could you raise your hand for the for the panel these are
could you raise your hand for the panel?
revised plans yes these two that we have in in the in the revised exhibit binder
are revised plans and and we and they're notated with they're annotated with and
and circled with the areas that are changed so I wanted to have Rhonda go
through that with you let me ask you were the revised plans uh uh were showing to uh
to the community at the rco uh meeting
at the time no we met with the planning commission um after i believe after the rco meeting and and
as a result of our um several meetings with the planning commission we revised the plans after that
So to confessor's question, the RCO has not seen the revised plans.
The revised plans are not, they don't address, they address the steep slope and the impervious cover issues that the Planning Commission raised.
But it addresses some of the refusals, correct?
They address the last two refusals around watershed and steep slope.
the refusals where the planning commission wouldn't uh wouldn't put their stamp on the
on the plans those are the the two that these that these address so frank um paula from planning
commission is raising her hand would you wish her to speak at this time yes yes before that though
we just want the director to reflect that james snell our other board member is in attendance
as well thank you paula chairman and members of the board i'm looking in because we're working
remotely i can't run down to the office to pull any old plans but i am looking at our database
from before march 18th and i am not finding a signature on any indication that we reviewed a
plan after january 10th 2020 and we still disapproved slope and watershed so i don't have a copy of a
revised plan that we've signed off on that doesn't mean it doesn't exist but we don't have it
in hand understood could you help us with that mr masters yes i'd like to have my my site engineer
come on and testify about that oh excuse me and are you revising your plan for at the hearing did
you submit in the plan revision because this is not what you applied with we did we we've submitted
the revised plan form and the revised plans um appropriately to the to the zoning board
uh rondo are you out there i yes okay rondo mobley please spell your name for the record
identify yourself please yes mr chairman rondo mobley first name is r o n d o last name m o b
as in boy l e y and do you swear and affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes thank you please proceed um rhonda maybe we should go first
through the expert report from from you and your colleagues at
um ruggiero plant um i believe that is uh exhibit
so walk us through this report please i'm sorry steve oh just walk us through
this okay so one of the refusals that i addressed
at the beginning is the Wissahickon Watershed Overlay. That was a refusal based on incorrect
information shown on the submitted plan. We initially showed the watershed impervious cover
as category three, which was at the direction of PWD. I, since then, have revised those plans
to show that it's Category 5. And this was a correction after meeting with Paula and Sarah
that confirmed that it is, in fact, Category 5 and not Category 3, and therefore, we have no
percentage limitation of impervious coverage. So I believe with this correction that we're showing
on the plan that would eliminate the refusal which is 14704 i'm sorry 14 5 10 8 and planning
and planning commission would have signed off on this um we also
commission would have signed off on this
uh have a approval from uh for erosion and sediment control plan from the water department
is that correct yes excuse me excuse me mr chairman i'm concerned that we're spending time
going through plans that has been revised that the uh community group haven't seen well that was my
that's that was your question obviously my question is there aside from the watershed
and the pervious soils issues were there any other revisions made to the project there were not mr
chairman the only revisions are those directly related to the impervious cover and steep slopes
Mr. Chairman, I go back to why there's so many refusals, and it's all new design, except for the historical building.
Yes, I have another witness, Mr. Holloman, to address the dimensional variances for the four new homes.
But I just wanted to finish with the site engineer to have her testify as to the second, how she addressed the second refusal for the open space and natural resources, if we could.
And then I'm happy to put on Mr. Thomas to describe to you why the dimensional variances are necessary for the four new homes.
Well, I think that goes to Tom's question.
I could be wrong.
You're asking us, we're hearing the case.
are asking us to possibly vote on this without but the rco is not aware of some of these changes
is that accurate um no mr chair the the only changes that we're talking about are the ones
that address the planning commission's um refusals around the impervious pavement and the steep slope
and the whole what the community was focused on was the use of the mansion and the construction
of four new homes so there's been no change to the design and the placement of the any of the
dimensions of the new homes or the placement of them at all it's just it's just how we are
addressing the soil erosion the impervious of space and the steep slope aspects mr chairman
my concern is where's the hardship for so many uh refusals for the five lots
well we haven't put on that testimony yet i i can do that i just wanted to make sure that my
my site engineer testimony all right well let's finish finish with uh this portion of the testimony
sure so ronda could you could you then we'll get the time after thank you sorry could you go into
the next section on the open space and natural resources and explain how we address the planning
commission's issue sure sure so for uh natural resources 147042 um it's our belief that with
a minor disturbance of the steep slopes to parcels A and B, that we do not adversely
impact the community as well as any degradation of the environment. Our thoughts are is that
because the maximum height is five feet and it's a limited contributing area,
drainage, not much drainage exists currently. What we're proposing is to go
in and remove the steep slopes to 12 percent, which would obviously not cause
any hazards of soil erosion, any accelerated storm runoff, and furthermore just reduce
the runoff from the steep slopes that currently exist. In addition to the percent slope being
reduced to 12 percent we would also we want to point out that we do have our soil erosion program
that has the ns plan that has already been approved we will follow the best management
practices and also we will include a steep slope work plan which i have outlined below
And with this work plan, we'll just go take into account all the various from.
take into account all the various, from soil types to inclemental weather, the issues we
would deal with, we would take that all into account and we will already have our soil
soil erosion controls in place to ensure that we do not provide any erosion to the existing
area. And I want to point out it is a small area that we are disturbing and that area
is just for the footprint of the two homes and to also if you look below and to also install the
utilities so let's look at the map rondo and you can show us what we're talking about
so parcel a and b which i have clouded is the area of steep slope disturbance that
that we are going to disturb for the footprint of the building as well as the proposed utilities.
And that area, as I just stated, is a very small area and it does not have much drainage
area that we have to contend with anyway.
So by reducing the steep slopes, we further reduce the contributing drainage area, and we have very little water runoff directed over those slopes.
So when our original plan, is it correct to say that our original plan, we had a steep slope that was more than 25% in that area?
So the steep slopes as marked on our plans are 25% and more, depending on the area.
And now, under these revised plans, we are reducing those steep slopes to...
To 12%.
Okay. And did you change the design of the steps on the walkway?
What I did was showed completely the sidewalk and the steps that weren't previously shown.
Before, the plan did not include the sidewalk and the steps to the sidewalk.
So the walkway wasn't shown and the steps entering or exiting to the sidewalk.
we always show the footprint of the building and the steps leading into the uh the residence okay
was that change made made known to the rco at the time of the hearing
it was not because it was not shown on the plan okay no i'm trying to get to tom
mr holliman's concerns here sure that wasn't shown it was just basically a
layer not turned on that was not presented on the plan however we did
show to indicate that from the front door steps you would of course enter to
a sidewalk I mean a walkway with steps to the sidewalk so the disturbance area
hasn't changed because the footprint of the building remains in the same location and the
existing utilities. Thank you. Okay, so Rhonda, for the first impervious
covering refusal, is that indicated somewhere on this map that there's been a change in the
category? It is. If you go to the very, go up to the top of the plan, just go down at the very top
of the plans you'll see the section with the category right there and that's been clouded so
before the plan showed that as category three and now it's been revised to category five
okay all right um thank you so uh do do we have any more questions for this witness uh around the
the two planning commission uh refusals any members of the board have any questions no