these lots, this was not an attempt to jam additional density in here. This fits nicely
in this lot, and you'll hear from Logan too, the lot is more narrow and doesn't have the
same dimensions that other lots do in the area to give them the dimension that would
fit the ordinance by right.
So we just...
So we, let me just, give me one second.
Mr. Malloy, if you could summarize, and then we can see if there's anyone here to testify in opposition.
Yeah, sure. I mean, that is my summary. I mean, I can go into some of the RCO comments.
We met with the RCO, the executive committee first.
They pointed out a couple of things like a tree on Ross Street, add additional windows
on the Springer Street elevation, which we added to the design and is shown in the elevations
that we're showing as exhibits here.
The community had other opposition to things like the parking, which was frankly a mixed
reaction from the community.
So we think the parking is allowed and there are roof decks planned, the community objected
to those, but we felt that that was too far afield with respect to zoning comments. So
here we think that, you know, we're taking a blighted, you know, current use that's falling
down and we're creating, you know, what we think is a very reasonable and attractive three-unit
building. Okay, why don't we do this? Before you bring on any of your witnesses, I'm going to ask
if there's anyone here to testify in this case please raise your hand if there's anyone from
the council person's office please raise your hand as well chair we have jeffrey hayes please
unmute yourself mr hayes and wait for the chair good afternoon mr hayes please identify yourself
with the record spell your full name and i'll swear you in yeah this is jeffrey hayes j-e-f-f-e-r-y
h-a-y-e-s i'm the uh the chair of the land land use development and zoning committee for east
manair neighbors thank you you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth yes i do thank you please proceed yeah thank you uh for hearing my testimony today um
yes um we as um the attorney uh presented we um we we did have two meetings with the applicant
and uh the the first meeting was very constructive um and i i would agree that um yeah we have seen
this uh this development group in east man area before and that um some of the things that were
issues with this with previous project on pleasant street uh in terms of the the just the aesthetics
of the building um have been improved and we we actually like the aesthetics of the building uh
we did have um we did have suggestion we're very concerned about storm water um we have
overburdened storm sewers and and we thought this was opportunity to um create green space
rather than driveways in the back.
So we had proposed that.
We've also recognized that our neighbors,
for various reasons, are opposed to roof decks.
And we asked that those to be removed.
We also talked about windows,
which I do see in this rendering.
The windows have been added on spring receipts.
That's a nice detail.
But we were very disappointed when we met with them a second time at the RCO meeting that our changes were not integrated into the design.
And I think that was, in some part, reflected in the vote against the project.
What were the reasons? What was not incorporated?
the we'd ask that the um rear paved yard the rear paved yards that are essentially the driveway to
the garage that those be um made a pervious surface uh just a yard and there's there's plenty
of on street parking um in this area um we we'd proposed that um instead of having a paved driveway
that they could have a rear yard provided instead, a planted yard with grass and trees.
And the other suggestion that wasn't included worthy was that we wanted the roof decks to be
eliminated. All right, so correct me if I'm wrong, the position of the community was to eliminate
the garages. Correct. I have no disrespect to you. I think it's probably the first time I've heard that
In the four years or so I've been here.
in the four years or so I've been here.
We do things differently in that area.
Since you don't have any parking problems, I may want to move into that neighborhood.
All right.
Anything else?
Is there anyone else to testify?
Chair, we have Logan Dry.
Please unmute yourself and please wait for the chair.
mr chairman logan is uh is the architect on the project okay yeah i don't think we need him yet
yeah we'll get to him in a minute i just want to know if there's anyone else to testify any
neighbors or anyone from the council person's office i see no other hands chair all right
is anyone on the board do we need to see any of the floor plans no
all right so the outstanding issue of what the community is the driveways I assume that's an
amenity for the project and Mr. Malloy is that correct the driveway is directly behind the
the parking and um we actually said in the community we would we would look we we're not
committed to porous paving but we would look to create some sort of pervious uh coverage back
there um you know by way of pavers or or something like that to to get the effect but frankly we
thought the community was mixed on the driveway we we got complaints about parking and then
complaints about the parking, the garages. So we think it's a big amenity for our buyer
and something they want. Understood. Thank you. Am I still unmuted? I'm sorry.
Who's speaking? That's Jeffrey. I muted you. You were done.
Okay. All right. Any questions from the board?
No. No.
Planning commission.
Good afternoon. David Fecto, City Planning Commission. Mr. Chairman, members of the Board,
the Comprehensive Plan recommends this property for residential single-family zoning.
There is no unique physical condition of the lot that would prevent meeting the minimum lot
size dimensions required by the code. We recommend that the Board deny the requested variances.
It's the Board's, it's the Planning Commission's position to have one house built there?
that we we would prefer that they meet the minimum dimensions required by the code yep that's correct
all right MI 2021-000961 101 East Springer Street my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes
my vote is yes my vote is yes
calendar number excuse me this is sharon may i just one more time apologize mr malloy
um miss mariano not only supplemented the record with the letter as soon as you received it but
she sent an email today reminding us that she had supplemented it so please apologize to her for me
thank you very much i appreciate everything thank you thank you carol okay calendar number 0959
1640-48 North
Hancock Street. The attorney
is Hercules Griegos.
Just promoted
Mr. Griegos to panelists.
Hi, Mr. Grigos. Can you put your name and address on the record and spell your first and last name?
Good afternoon. Hercules Grigos, H-E-R-C-U-L-E-S-G-R-I-G-O-S, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, representing Candace, LLC, owner and developer of the property located at 1640 Hancock Street.
Do you swear a firm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
i do do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
uh i will waive the reading we did make um some changes which uh resulted in a reduction in one
of the variances and i will explain that in my uh testimony okay have you emailed the exhibit
packet with proof of ownership tax compliance refusal or referral photos under plans of the
photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing
property five days in advance of this hearing and have
and have you met with the rco and do you have a letter yes yes okay thank you you may proceed
i'm going to share my screen sure we like screens
great um this i'm representing uh candace llc owner developer of the property located at 1640
Hancock. We're here today with an application for construction of a mixed-use multifamily building
with ground floor retail, accessory underground parking. I have today with me Kelly Fox
from the ownership and development team, as well as Rustin Ohler, the project architect.
Property is approximately 20,700 square feet, located at the corner of Turner Street.
Turner Street, Hancock, Cecil B. Moore, and Pallethorpe Street in the city's South Kensington neighborhood.
Site is zoned ICMX, however, it is surrounded by a mix of IRMX, other ICMX, and similar type projects.
um here you can see the site um currently um or formerly home to it's currently home to
uh stables or stables that service the carriage industry in philadelphia um and um the design
was essentially um designed to an irmx type standard which is consistent with um the
surrounding properties. When we, you know, looked at this property and looked at the surrounding
context, you'll note the two mill buildings on either side. And then to the south, this same
development team developed a similar large mixed-use multifamily project with townhomes.
So we really wanted to incorporate this use into the development.
On the northwest corner, there's also a project, similar, 89 units, ground floor retail.
So we really wanted to make sure that we had a couple important points.
Number one, we wanted to put the parking below grade.
And obviously, as you know, it comes at great cost, but it allows us to have a lot more flexibility with the ground floor.
At the ground floor, here's the site.
So we put the parking below grade, and then at the ground floor, we wanted to create a large retail space, over 14,000 square feet of retail.
And the hope is that we can have one large commercial tenant, but we'll have the ability to break it up.
And then another important, as we went up, another important aspect that we wanted to include was affordable housing. And as is consistent with this developers, other projects, they've reserved 10% of the units for affordable housing at 60% AMI, which they're not getting a bonus for as they would in other districts, but we wanted to make sure that that was included and that was important.
So that really drove those three aspects drove a lot of the design. Here's a section of the building. I'm just going to lay it out. This is Palthorpe Street. This is the building coming around. And one of the big issues that we had in really working with the community and trying to get consensus as we had the typical push and pull was how do we create public outdoor space?
and we really looked at how do we create public outdoor space yet maximize the underground
parking and the commercial space on the ground floor so as we work through the process we added
this open space here which would have typically been a private amenity deck and we public made
it public and we hope to incorporate that with some of our retail or the retail to the south
here's another shot at the corner of Palthorpe and I believe Turner Street
and here's sort of the area now the goal is here's the project to our south I think we have
a fresh grocer going in this adaptive reuse and retail and Palthorpe Street to the south is
completely uh a pedestrian street so the hope is that that this uh use flows with the project to
the south and that open space along with the open space that was created on the project of the south
all flows and is programmed together um project was really designed as i said in an irmx
Spirit, 110 units, 10% affordable, 44 underground parking spaces, 14,000 square feet of ground floor retail.
spirit 110 units 10 affordable 44 underground park
This slide really shows the existing project on the bottom right and then how it, the context and
how it interacts with the Project of the South. The Project of the South, this project, you can
see my mouse, is an existing building. It's an adaptive reuse that would be commercial. We
expect it to be a fresh fruit, fresh food grocer. This is retail space and
multifamily and townhomes. So you have open space here that was created as part
of that project and this whole pedestrian walkway we expect to continue
up and the hope is that people will also interact with this commercial space and
this open space.
this is just some of our
and then let's get to our refusal so the site is owned icmx as i mentioned
as a result multifamily is not permitted but as i showed you the zoning map
and the context multifamily exists to our south to our north and really it's pretty consistent in
this neighborhood you know icmx we don't think is is really a viable use at this site
the refusals in addition to those refusals there's a refusal for loading spaces
because it's ICMX and it's 100 to over 100,000 square feet of GFA would require
six loading spaces but that's really on a industrial one for 2000 if the site was CMX3
or IRMX it would require one loading space and that's what we provided that's what we think is
appropriate additionally the far um this is showing it as 517 we actually reduced the building
we're at 506 percent um it's a one percent um you know overall on the site um we think it's really
the minimus um increase of the far and and you know in in a cmx3 or irmx we would get a bonus
for our affordable housing um or in other districts we get a bonus for our underground
parking and we're not getting that um and then maximum height is 60 feet we're at 69
but i just call your attention back to the context here um these buildings are um i think at uh
close to 69 the building there's a building under construction caddy corner that was approved by
this board at 69 and i believe the building to the south is closer to 70 and irmx as you know allows
a maximum of 72 under certain conditions and we think that um you know the uh it's in context
and the massive amount of retail and underground parking and affordable really makes sense here
um the project went to civic design review um we had one meeting unanimous consent um
we tried to incorporate um we pulled the building back widened the sidewalks maximize our tree count
I think all of that was appreciated by the Civic Design Review Committee.
We met with the community on four occasions, two public meetings, plus the committee meetings.
And really, you know, the committee doesn't vote anymore because of COVID.
So it's really, they don't take a neighborhood vote.
The committee sort of makes a decision.
and really what it came down to and the issue that we sort of reached in pass off was
was really the the open space and how this open space and the request from the committee was that
we do more open space at grade and not just open space public open space and you know we looked at
it, but if you can see here, if we took this chunk out of the building at grade, it affects
our ramp down to the garage. It affects our retail space and our loading space, or I guess
it doesn't impact our loading, but it could, it impacted sort of the retail space below
and our ramp down to the garage. So we thought that the second level public open space could
be very successful well programmed and I think the Civic Design Review Committee agreed with that
so that was really where we had impasse. You know they mentioned in their letter that
we don't have you know the open space at grade however we're almost 20 percent from the second
floor up which is consistent with IRMX you know and really what drove the design is again
Again, the underground parking, the large amount of
the underground parking the um the large amount of retail and then the affordable housing so
we have spoken with the councilwoman's office and i think sloan is here um and our goal is to see if
we can work with the community or work with some other stakeholders in the neighborhood
to try to support additional public open space in the neighborhood this developer has a history
of supporting the TUI Rec Center and supporting events there and really being a partner of the
community and a partner of open space. And I think you can see from this, you know, in the last
project, they gave up two townhomes to make additional open space. And our goal was to
really have this all incorporated. So we're willing and we've agreed to continue to meet
and try to achieve that goal, but that seemed to be the crux of the opposition from the community
was really not having at-grade public space. And just a correction, I think we had three public
meetings. I will, here's our civic design review, and here's the letter from the community.
I will offer Kelly Fox my client she's able to be here to answer questions but I'll just ask Kelly
if you can promote her if she heard my testimony and she adopts it as her own