My struggle when I opened up my first restaurant in Southwest on 65th and Elmwood was that there was no like unique kind of breakfast or like, you know, homemade breakfast.
I always ended up in Center City or ended up in South Philly.
So I took a chance on an inner urban community to bring a more unique brunch style sit down restaurant.
Unfortunately, the pandemic wiped out that sit down component and sit down component.
I haven't gotten back to that yet, but it is and it is in my scope.
I feel like a lot of our children, a lot of our adults are underserved in this community.
and I'm just overseeing I mean if you walk up Umwood Avenue you walk up all of our major
avenues you're going to see you want to see beer delis you're going to see corner store bodegas
and you're going to see these new uh emergence of smoke shops and there's almost I mean
from 69th and Chester to my restaurant on 65th and Umwood you'll pass at least eight smoke shops
You know, before you get to either end of that mileage. And the benefit to the community is a healthier option. It is a benefit that our kids that, you know, frequent with these corner stores can tell you every bag of Doritos, every little Debbie flavor, every cake flavor, but you put them in a room full of produce and they can't name a rutabaga or they can't tell you what a zucchini is.
So I'm simply trying to break the monotony of the corner store bodegas, the bear delis that our neighbors seem to like have no problem with allowing to open up.
But we get to a nicer pocket of Southwest going into Cobbs Creek, going into Delaware County that is being part of the Southwest master plan, part of the Schuylkill master plan of, you know, renovating and rehabbing our roads of Cobbs Creek.
And, you know, going into Island Avenue, you see a lot of new developments coming on Island Avenue, which is around the corner from the subject, from the subject, from the subject property.
So, again, go ahead, go ahead, Hal.
Great.
Which, how many restaurants have you opened and how are they doing?
I've opened three.
I lost one to the pandemic.
Cheesy Vegan is ever growing.
um that's my plant-based concentration in Delco and 65th and Elmwood Chef Ricky's Cafe and Juice
Bar has been open for seven years and um it's sustainable it's profitable at times but you
know that's the restaurant business it's up and down like the stock market uh so um I'm just game
to be in Southwest I'm game to help an underserved community be more served and have healthier
options in the community and you know that's my aim that's my goal. Okay Tariq so this location
is triangulated between the. So Mr. Sherman listen Mr. Sherman listen a minute
there's a lot there's several things that are we need to see what the plans look like.
there's a lot there's several things that are we need to see what the plans look like
we need to see pictures of what the lot looks like like you got to be able to show us something
so that we understand it I mean I appreciate what what Tariq wants to do but you know you got to
say like here here's here's the plans this is where the parking is going I don't see anything
I will hand it off to Bart.
To who?
To Bart.
To the actual architect.
He's coming in as a panelist.
My name is Bart Bida of Toner Architects.
Hi, sir. How are you? Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Bart Bida of Toner Architects, spelled B-A-R-T-B-A-J-D-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Well, Mr. Sherman, this is your witness, so proceed.
Bart, could you please explain why this property fits on this site?
Sorry, Hal, can you repeat that?
Could you please explain why this property fits on this site?
Sure, I'll present the plans, and that'll kind of explain to everybody what is happening.
So let's look at the zoning on Philatlas here.
As you can tell, it's a 32-foot-wide property that has already been subdivided into essentially two 16-foot-wide properties.
Now, if we go to our proposed...
Excuse me.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're still seeing your refuse.
It's switched now.
Yes, thank you.
Sorry.
So this is Chester Ave at the bottom here and South 69th Street on the left here.
As mentioned, this was once a 32-foot-wide property that's now been subdivided.
This existing building was part of the original property, and that is going to remain. What we're proposing is a three-story building with the juice bar, smoothie bar use at the ground floor, and then two two-bedroom unit apartment units at the floors above with a roof deck.
roof deck setbacks comply with zoning code to the best of our knowledge or to the refusals
indicated the only refusals noted are for the use of the commercial use of the ground floor
for two unit where we're in an RSA zoned area and for parking which is prohibited in this zoning
designation as well as the parking dimension but this is essentially what we're looking at
Now I'll go to, I might have to stop sharing and reshare.
There we go, Chrome.
Here we go.
There we go.
So this is kind of what I was mentioning earlier.
This is the view on Atlas.
And in terms of what the site looks like, this is what we're looking at.
This is our lot right here.
This is the existing building that is going to remain.
And then let's go into 3D view.
And I'll drop you right in.
let's look around and this is our property right here and so we are proposing parking
to enter right through here and then the front of our building would be
as such let me go back and i will share one more additional thing
there we go
No, this is what I wanted to share, and this was our proposed rendering of what the project would look like.
Now I'll leave it at that.
All right. Thank you. Mr. Sherman, do you have other witnesses?
We have, I don't think we have much more from what we have explained now.
I would want to mention that the property does have a couple of interesting restrictions,
that it is the smallest of the properties which were set out by the initial subdivision.
properties which were set out by the initial subdivision it does have a
it does
fire hydrant in the front which prevents parking it does have the
bus stop right there for the 108 and it does have a bicycle lane right in front of it
uh which we think which actually would be a benefit because we have a great location
for anybody who's waiting for the bus for the bike to sit there and have a great location
uh i think the uh engineers have explained the initial uh project one of the things which we
do have is that the property or the street adjacent to us is extremely wide and we've
heard a bunch of complaints from the neighbors that a the property is going to be a
source of additional parking however what we've heard from the neighbors is that the parking
congestion is after 5 and before 7 a.m and the property this business will not be operating
during those times so we're getting hit with questions about parking during times that we
aren't going to be open are you done sir no i'll move forward okay uh mr chair yeah sorry i was
just gonna um say um mr jinn should be given an opportunity to process him and be the architect
and the property owner sure go ahead mr jinn who do you want to talk to first or do you want to
you want to open up with a statement. I will open up with a brief statement and then I will
like to ask some questions of Mr. Beja. I'm sorry, Bart. It's probably easier. So my client is the
40th Republican Ward RCO. They're the coordinating RCO. Heard their letter to the board.
They're part of a consortium of RCOs that includes the other registered RCOs in the area.
my client's taking a position of opposition which was actually set forth in their detailed letter
but i'm going to repeat them briefly here essentially the rco's position is that based
on the feedback of the local neighbors this particular lot has always been as far as they
know a residential zone lot they in fact had the area zoning changed rsa 5 because majority of the
surrounding uses are RSA 5, single family houses. I will concede that corner properties throughout
Philadelphia are in fact in many cases CMX1. However, this is not a lot that is zone such
and basically what we're being asked here is to accept a use that is substantially
beyond what the scope of the zoning permits and is in fact something that the owner has not
considered other uses that are more consistent or less of a variance for. There was discussion of
potentially keeping the property completely residential at the RCO meeting, which is not
what the owner would like to do, which we understand. But again, asking for a variance
both for one, a commercial restaurant-type use, and two, two residential units above
in a lot that was originally larger single-family use that was subdivided to lower the size,
and yet we're adding three uses in.
If I can have the plans put back up, please, Bart, if you don't mind.
um bart can you point out to us where the fire hydrant that was mentioned um is located on this
plan yes right here thank you now if you could uh show us uh where is the expected driveway for the
off-street parking to be right here at the rear of the property and at that location is there
anything preventing a vehicle from parking on the street uh no currently no thank you uh so chair
one one piece of this that was um a big concern to neighbors and my client will verify my my
A big concern to neighbors, and my client will verify my representation to this effect, is that you're taking away on-street parking for an off-street parking space.
Beyond that, having a commercial use in this location, Bart, could you go back to the 3D view for me?
I'm sorry, not the rendering, but the actual street view. Thank you.
I appreciate your help in this.
I don't know if you can answer this
or maybe this is an answer for Mr. Shermer's client.
Out of the properties in this surrounding view,
if we were to circle this view,
are there another commercial use
within visual distance of this?
I will, I'll defer to Chef Ricky for this.
He's from the neighborhood.
Mr. Shermer, could you call your client back?
I'm here.
Can you guys hear me?
Thank you.
Yes, I'll repeat the question.
I heard the question.
I heard the question, counsel.
Yes, that's an affirmative.
They're on the corner of 70th Street.
The proposed property is 69th Street.
If you go up to 70th Street, which is one block up,
Bart, can you go up to that Google map view to 70th Street?
so on the corner of 70th street there is a crab uh a blue crab shack i think it's called crab
daddy's um and there is i don't know if this is a real commercial use or if it's an illegal
commercial use but right on 68th and cobbins creek if you there is a a horse stable um that's
crab daddy's i don't like i said i don't i can't speak to the legality of the horse stable but
it should be a commercial use but there's like five or six horses in there um if you go uh
adjacent to crab daddy's there is a dunkin donuts there is a food truck um it's a caribbean food
truck there is a tire shop and an auto body shop all less than a quarter mile of the subject
property bar if you can go down to 68th street um you will see some cmx1 you'll see a corner
store bodega that serves uh fried food cheese steaks um you know snacks candy um they serve a
plethora of like uh you know pretzels and juice and stuff like that um and then right across the
street from the bodega there is a cmx one zone property that um his sign says that he's selling
produce or i guess he's about to open up a store that sells produce and he has two uh existing
apartments on top of his and i know that owner very well his his name is um ian no i'm sorry
his name is not his name is uh hisham um and he's the owner of that property uh and the reason i
know him is because that's where i first proposed to put this juice bar was at the bottom of his
property um but he decided to you know go his own direction but so yeah there is a bunch of cmx1
there's uh restaurants food trucks um horse stables again a body shop and a tire shop all
within the quarter mile radius of the subject property.
Thank you.
Now, I'm looking at the zoning map,
so I think this is a good time to point it south of the board.
If you look at the property in question
that we're centered over on the map,
everything surrounding this property is RSA 5,
but Chef Tariq is right.
There are ICMX properties nearby.
There are CMX 1 further down.
And as the chef testified just now,
he has looked into the option of trying to put it
in a commercial property rather than having to put it here on a residential property so is there
have you uh sheriff i mean i'm sorry chef have you considered or had any um have your design
professional have done any studies on a residential use on this property a residential
I unfortunately will come in and object because it's not relevant to the issue
because this is 6900 Chester Street.
There is commercial use at 7000 Chester Street.
There is commercial use at 6800.
Mr. Shermer, I think he should answer the question.
And I'll take note of your objection.
The other four intersections have commercial uses, but not this one.
So I'm just concerned about the representation.
I heard what you said, but Mr. Jin, repeat your question.
I heard what you said, but Mr. Jenry.
So my question is, have you investigated or looked into a residential use at this particular location outside of your proposal of a commercial use?
Can you guys hear me?
Yes, go ahead. Proceed.
Okay. No, our design team has not looked into anything residential at this juncture.
Um, we were, you know, open to, you know, trying to come to a agreement with the neighbors.
Again, as, as my, as Hal stated, we've met three times already about this property.
And a lot of the issues that are coming up has nothing to do with we, with what we were
refused for.
Um, a lot of it is, you know, that the juice bar slash movie shop is going to bring criminals