I'm a neighbor.
Yeah, proceed.
Proceed.
Yeah, I'm a neighbor that's in support.
Very good.
Thank you for taking the time to call, and we appreciate it.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair.
We have someone, Paul, last name, ending MP.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
My name is Paul, Paula Carpo, P-A-U-L-P-O-L-I-C-A-R-P-O.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And, sir, you're a neighbor.
Am I right?
I live five doors away.
Yes, sir.
Are you for this or against it?
I'm for it, sir.
Thank you so much for taking the time to call, and we appreciate it.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair.
We have someone, Mark, last name, ending in G.
Okay, hi.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
M-A-R-K-G-A-T-T-I.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth?
And you're a neighbor, am I correct?
Yes, I am.
Proceed.
I am completely in favor of this.
There's no problems at all with this.
Thank you so much for taking the time to call us.
Is there anyone else?
I see no handshare.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good afternoon.
David Vecto with the City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
There is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property
that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
the appellant has not shown that an economic detriment would accrue if the proposed variance
is not granted. The City Planning Commission recommends the board deny the proposed variance
for rear yard depth. Thank you. MI 2023-00913-2435 South 21st Street. I vote yes with proviso.
Revised plans, two pages, stamped by CBA, July 12, 2023.
My vote is yes with proviso.
Thomas Holloman.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
Could we go back to Neil Sklaroff's case, please?
Mr. Sklaroff, MI 2023-004-71-2829-59-North 23rd Street.
I'm promoting him the panelist chair.
Thank you.
Hi, Mr. Sklaroff.
Hi, Mr. Sklara, if you've already been sworn, how are we doing on our computer, okay?
You've already been sworn.
How are we doing with our computer, okay?
Thank you.
Trying to share my screen.
Ah, there we go.
Thank you for the courtesies of letting me a few minutes to relearn how to work this.
um as i said before uh we represent uh the school district of philadelphia with its application for
signs for the tm uh pierce elementary school um i'm not sure our folks from the district are still
on so i'll ask that my testimony be taken as that of um my clients in accordance with uh 14-313
16 subsections. That's fine, Mr. Schlaroff. Thank you. Our documents here,
if I can get this correctly, this is a rendering of the school. I stopped at this because I want
you to take some note of this extension that comes out toward Cambria Street. I'll refer to
it as a flange. We have a list of exhibits. We have our proofs of tax payments. This is a long
list of deeds, as I said earlier, from 1908 and 1912. This is a copy of the zoning notice that
was posted. There is a key plan for those postings. And I'll stop at these photographs
because they not only show you the posting, but also the context of the neighborhood on the opposite street.
So here we have one corner of 23rd Street, another corner of 23rd Street, Cambria Street.
You'll notice there's a garage across the street.
Again, another garage on Cambria Street, Krosky Street, again, Krosky Street.
to make this shorter we are in a rsa 5 residential district and in on july 30th 1921
this board granted the school district a special exception and variances for the height of the
building and parking at that time and soon after we drew the zoning permit and construction
commenced on the building. What we want to do now is to erect three signs, and if I can get this
turned correctly, worked. This is the Cambridge Street side, and all three signs will be on that
side of the building. You'll notice this TM Pierce applied to this extension of the building,
and there's one on the other side, as I'll show you in a moment. And the original application
called for a digital sign on a monument. That has been changed. But the two signs, the two
rectangles that would have been drawn around the TM Pierce. Each measure 70 square feet for a total
of 140 square feet. Being a residential district, you may know that only 15 square feet of wall sign
is permitted. And so there's a variance needed for that. These are some. This is a rendering.
We were asked by the Civic Association if we could make more plain where we were changing the monument sign for.
There's no difference in the size of the sign that was going to be on the monument, but the monument has been removed.
And this sign measuring five foot by eight foot will be placed on the wall across from that garage that you saw.
it is below the the windowsills of the second floor and therefore only adds to the
refusals by adding the 40 square feet which was shown as a refusal on the monument sign
now is added to the wall signs for a total of 180 square feet we have here's another rendering on
This is the building under construction.
In conversations at the RCO meeting, the district committed to discussing should anybody complain about the amount of light and having the sign turned off in the evening.
But we promise the community will continue, as always, to communicate with them.
And if that's necessary, we'll take that under advisement.
This is not Wi-Fi. This is hardwired from inside. But the purpose of this digital sign is to alert passersby and the nearby community, not only of what's going on inside for purposes of the school and what activities might be there, but also community activities that will take place inside.
This is not Wi-Fi.
This is hardwired from inside.
But the problem is,
The way this is laid out, the public areas are to the entrance side, and in developing the design for this building, we committed to the community to allow community activities to take place, and we would notify community members of those activities on this digital sign.
Here are some additional pictures of the current construction as of a week or two ago.
We have enjoyed, let's see if I can get this to work.
Of course it won't.
we enjoyed we sent out the letters of course to the registered community groups and to the
nearby neighbors we had an RCO meeting and you have received I believe this summary of the vote
and the letter of support.
With that, we also include one of about 40 pages
of mailing certificates.
And with that, ask for your support
of the zoning relief we need to place these three signs
on the Cambria frontage of the T.M. Pierce Elementary School.
I have questions from the board.
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Charles Richardson.
Hi, Mr. Richardson.
Just state your name for the record, please.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Charles Richardson, Office of Councilwoman Bass Room 508 City Hall.
Councilwoman has no objection to granting variance.
Thank you, Mr. Richardson.
Thanks for calling in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair.
We have someone, a calling user, phone number ending with 3552.
Thank you.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Adrienne Penanda, Swampoodle Neighborhood Carters Association, RTO.
My last name is spelled S-E-R-N-A-N-D-C.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
I submitted an additional meeting summary form for this address, and I'm not sure if
you have that or not.
The reason being that the RCO coordinator, there are four affected RCOs for this address
for signage, and Allegheny West Foundation was the affected RCO that was the RCO coordinator
for the public meeting the meeting summary form they submitted has falsified votes on it
there were only four affected addresses attending also there were two affected rcos attending
there's five votes showing for allegating west foundation whenever we have a public meeting each
affected rco including the one that serves as rco coordinator only gets one vote so they were the
only um affected rco that voted um i did not vote for swampwood rco because um allegating west
foundation was putting up physical barriers to me voting so i did i was not able to vote also they
would not um let me examine the four votes from the affected addresses on that are listed on the
RCO notification website. And those four neighbors did vote on paper and turn their votes in, but I
do not know what the result was. The result was not read out at the meeting. Also, under all
meeting attendees, it says nine for support. There could be no more than four because only the
affected addresses have been voting when Allegheny Rest Foundation is the coordinator because they've
had numerous falsified meeting summary forms.
So we resolved that by allowing just the affected addresses
to vote, at which there were four out of 226 addresses.
So overall, Swampwood RCO approves of the two signs
responsible to RCO approves of the two signs with the school name that have no illumination
with the school name.
it was explained at the meeting by Mr. Sklaroff or by the architect that those two signs would have
I guess it's like a down light because we had no renderings and no there were no presentation
handouts given to the meeting participants so we were told that there would be
a down light on the school name so that people could read the sign at nighttime so we approve
of the two signs of the school name and we're just asking for a proviso for those two signs
that they have minimal luminance and light throw provided just enough to read the school name
And no brighter than that, nor does the light throw more than that.
For the illuminated sign, we're opposed to it for a number of reasons that I'll explain.
For the illuminated sign, we didn't have enough information at the public meeting.
We had no handouts.
There was no representative from the sign company to explain the specifications or to answer questions.
We have a similar sign at Dobbins High School, which is two blocks away from T.M. Pierce School, and that sign is on all the time.
Right now, it's summer. The school is closed, and that light is on all the time.
This is a waste of energy, waste of money. It can be used for something else in school.
the sign is extremely bright at night we photographed it the light throws for about
15 to 20 feet however that sign is opposite hope plaza a shopping center and lehigh avenue which
is a three-lane highway two lanes eastbound westbound and attorney lane so the effect of
that light is completely different than on west cambria street where there's just one lane of
traffic going one direction and there's houses about 20 houses would be able to see the led light
the throw of the light um the brightness of the light and also we noticed that when you stand
probably about 10 as far as 10 feet away from a sign that's about five feet by eight feet
that you can feel like radiation on your forehead coming from the light so with three lanes of
traffic you're not going to notice that unless you're standing right in front of it which most
people are not on lehigh avenue there's not a bus stop there or any reason somebody just stand there
unless they just want to on west cambria that's a whole different story across from that sign
directly across at cambria and west crossview street uh north crossview street there's four
five residences in three buildings. There's two multifamily. That's four residences and
one single family house. At the corner on the other side of the garage that's shown in
Mrs. Glaro's pictures, there's a house on the corner of West Cambria and 23rd. Those
houses would definitely have the light from the sign going into their windows be a day or night
we know for a fact that two of those residences are heavy planters and they leave their windows
open all the time for natural light to add to their um to their plant lights so they don't
they don't uh curtain or shade their windows because they live with so many plants um they