ZBA Hearing - May 21, 2025

from eight to five as you've heard on at other hearings archwell is very specific and purposeful

about their locations they're in urban settings they're around transportation hubs it's easily

accessible by public transportation other means of transportation these set these sites are set up

to be accessible and easily navigated by their senior population.

There's also an existing parking lot that serves this strip mall,

this shopping center, and they have over 200 parking spaces.

They estimate that 8 to 10 patients are served or seen per hour

seen per hour with an average appointment time of 40 to 50 minutes as we've noted to the rco and

with an average appointment time of 40 to 50 minutes.

As we've noticed,

before this board this is not a drug rehabilitation center it's not a drug rehab center there's no

dispensing of medicine or drugs on site there are no proposed exterior tenant improvements or

improvements to the existing parking obviously failure to grant this variance will present a

hardship, not only to Archwell for not being able to provide primary care services to its

clientele, but to the City of Philadelphia and its residents who may greatly benefit from this

service. As we know, there are 10,000 to 11,000 people a day aging into Medicare,

so this is something that's absolutely necessary in order to serve this patient population.

the proposed use will not impact negatively any adjacent properties it's as it it's right in

character with the neighborhood obviously we're moving into an existing tenant space in a shopping

center a dimensional variance will not cure this because it's a use application and we have we

believe we meet the criteria set forth in the code at title 14 3038 for a variance and with that i

I would request that our two witnesses are sworn in.

Sure.

Thank you.

Can you get closer to the mic, please?

I'm Dr. Charlene Talbot-Moughton,

and I'm the Senior Market Medical Director for R-12 Health, S-H-I-R-L-E-N-E-M-O-T-E-N.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

I do.

Eileen, you want to do her first, then we'll go to the next person.

Dr. Moughton, you've heard my presentation to this board.

would you say that it was accurate and correct yes and if you had the opportunity to testify

would you adopt my presentation as your test i would sir seth dickey s-e-t-h-d-i-c-k-e-y

right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do

please proceed counsel um mr dickey you heard my presentation to the board yes and would you

agree that it was accurate and truthful i agree and if you were to testify would you adopt my

presentation is your testimony yes thank you mr digger thank you questions from the board

yes um i have a question just talking about sort of catchment area i know we've looked at a number

of these i feel like we've looked at maybe one or possibly two but don't quote me in the northeast

and i just want to know if you could walk us through like how you determine catchment area

to location and how will this sort of relate to the other facilities in that region of the city

that we've already approved sure yeah thanks for the question so uh we use a number of third-party

variables that look at a payer mix obviously a medium income and then the age of the population

surrounding the location so you're purposefully not trying to put locations close enough to each

other where they cannibalize and so we believe that the research through our data census uh

Can a staff establishes that this location can survive on its own.

Other questions.

Questions from our attorney.

Hillary Emerson.

Not at this time, Mr. Chair.

Questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience?

Mr. Chair, I do not see any hands raised.

Planning Commission.

To be followed with the Planning Commission, the comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning to the existing CA2 commercial auto.

oriented the proposal will not injure the use of surrounding properties and is in character

with the surrounding neighborhood the planning commission recommends that the board grant the

proposed variants for group medical practice thank you mi2025 001 270 2400 wish sheath lane i vote yes

thank you john i vote yes sir i'll guest and my vote is yes tanata graham my vote is yes

my vote is yes

my vote is yes

thank you very much

may I just move the exhibits into evidence

and I can lose my business

may I please be excused

thank you have a wonderful holiday week

number one

2024-005-358

2026 South 7th Street

Bon Hung

is the

please

could you please

sit closer? Yes, sir. Okay. So please state your name and spell for the stenographer.

Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Bon Heng, spelled B-O-N-H-E-N-G. You swear or affirm to tell the

truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? Yes, sir. So this is a resumptive hearing, right?

So here's the way we want to present the hearing. You will make a presentation of the

present the hearing you will make a presentation of the amended refusal and the revised proposal

you'll have questions from the board and there'll be public testimony we'll take from the audience

and the planning commission will make a recommendation and then we we may vote okay

so why don't you start can mr architect ivano help me with it sir you're you you need to give

the presentation. Your architects can provide information about the design if

you'd like to call him as a witness, but you need to give the presentation as the

owner of the property. Thank you. Oh, yes. Okay.

Oh, I mean, we're here to ask for a variance for the demolition of 2026 South

7th Street for

first floor office, second

floor, no, first

floor commercial, second floor office, and

then third, fourth, and fifth floor

multifamily.

How many

units again? 24 units.

24 units.

Okay.

So could you

talk about how

was this, how did you amend the refusal?

Tell me what happened. How did you change? What's

changed? Before

Boy, I think that I was confused and labeled it incorrectly as a personal home.

But now we changed it that it's not going to be a personal home.

It's going to be a multifamily, multi-use property.

It's not senior citizens either, right?

It's multiple families?

Yes, multifamily, yes, sir.

What are you shaking your head at?

I don't know.

Is this a senior living?

okay so it's apartments are open to anyone yes sir okay um my questions from the board

is this a is this a business owner are you an entity or you're how is this this this is a

business um owner occupy uh i run a home care company that we would try to uh open an adult

daycare, you know, potentially

to move there

and have our office space on the second floor.

So you have history

with these types of facilities?

No, sir. No, sir.

Who's going to run this facility?

I guess, I mean, we'll hire

a property management company or

we would do it.

I would do it.

This is a

significant

can't venture to for someone who doesn't have experience with managing this type of facility

so that's that's concerning but all right can you walk me through just you have a lot of refusals one

for the maximum occupied area if you're demolishing the existing building is there a reason

that there's no, you couldn't stick to the 80% maximum on the site?

Before we had, you know, working with the structural engineering

and Mr. Ivano, we thought that this current structure

is not able to hold, you know, to be built on,

we cannot build the more stories on top of it,

that it will cost more and to try to, you know, with this current structure.

Right, so you're tearing down the current structure.

You're going to put back a new structure.

Uh-huh.

You are.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

So why is the new structure 100% lot coverage instead of 80%?

Oh.

Can you refer to his architect?

Yes.

Okay.

So.

Can I refer to?

You can.

Sure.

Please state your name and spell for the stenographer.

Ivano D'Angela, I-V-A-N-O, D'Angela, D-apostrophe, A-N-G-E-L-L-A.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Get that a little closer to you if you don't mind.

You can pull the mic towards you, too.

Yeah, that's it.

Please proceed.

Basically, the intent was, after conversation with the engineers,

that the front section of the building would require being torn down completely.

The rear section, which is roughly two stories plus, we were hoping to retain,

and therefore on the first floor and the second floor, the intent was 100% occupied area.

As the building ascends, the third through the fifth would become 80%,

with a big focus of our design being that we get light towards Mercy Street and stuff of that nature.

So in reality, the rear section of the building, although you can't see it in the rendering at this point, the majority of the sun.

in the rendering. At this point, the majority of the sunlight would really get the Mercy Street

because how we pulled back the north facade at the upper levels. Other questions? I think that

answered. Yeah, you did. Okay. No, you can go. You can jump in. Oh, no. Quick question. So where

have the bike parking been added on your new plans? It would be internal and it would be towards

It's the Mercy Street side.

If you can see the notation under the north arrow.

Ian, can you zoom in?

Sorry.

I got to do this if I do that.

I'll zoom in into the gray area.

You'll see that's the intention of having two class one bike

storage areas.

We were considering a car share opportunity

in the interest of the amount of cars,

But at the moment, we didn't incorporate that.

Is there a drawing that shows the like the demolition, like the percentage between the current building and what's being demolished?

We've never gotten to that phase.

We haven't gotten that phase.

OK.

Sorry.

Am I coming in?

And then how many how many total units?

Twenty four total units on the third through fifth floor.

And then it's a mix of one, two, three bedrooms?

No, it would be one and two bedrooms.

One and two bedrooms.

OK.

No three bedrooms.

And then I guess, so this is now a multifamily building, not senior living.

That was the first concern that we had in the beginning, which was not senior living.

It was multifamily.

And that was the primary change.

But you're still going to have the adult daycare?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

On the second floor?

First floor.

First floor.