you're recording
thomas can we do a quick audio check please yes tanya is this okay you sound great thank you
kindly thank you tanya
Chair, we have 27 attendees.
You can begin as you wish.
Good morning.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's EBA hearings.
With me is Carol Tenere, our vice chair.
Carol, unmute yourself.
Present, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
Ismail Shahid, our board secretary, will be on shortly.
Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkit, and our Board Attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Our virtual format, be advised these proceedings are being recorded by participating in your knowledge agreement to be recorded.
A video will be available by contacting Tanya Sunkit at phila .gov.
For the benefit of our court sonographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating in my phone, if you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand
and star six to unmute. To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548. Leave your email
and the address of the property in question. And last, please note the question and answer box
is not for testimony or comments. Any comments should be directed to our Executive Director,
Tanya Sunkett. So before we begin talking about our contingencies, we spoke about this yesterday.
The board wants to take a moment of silence for the tragedy, the untold hate and the use of
semi -automatic weapons in Buffalo over the weekend. So the board would just want to start
this with a moment of silence.
thank you very much everyone and thank you board members for
your continued interest in this just terrible tragedy our continuances for the day number nine
Number nine, MI 2021 -005282, 3257 North 16th Street.
Number 13, MI 2022 -000401 -6022 Altman Street.
both these cases are continued is there any comments in the virtual audience relative to
these two cases good morning chair we have miss tina marie russell with her hand up
miss russell you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair
good morning miss russell good morning good morning you swear for him to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed i'm just calling in to say we agree with
the continuance for 3257 north 16th at north central philadelphia cdc thank you so much for
calling in. Thank you. And case number, case number eight is, here it is here, is Victoria
Scarpato in the audience.
Ms. Garpato, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
Good morning, Ms. Garpato
Hello.
Could you state your name and spell it for our court reporter?
Could you state your name and spell it for our court reporter?
Victoria Scarpato.
It's V -I -C -T -O -R -I -A -S -C -A -R -P -A -T -O.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
So the attorney for license and inspection has requested that this case be continued.
We just wanted to make sure you're aware of that.
Do you know when it's going to be?
Our office will be in touch with you to give you a different date.
Thank you.
Are there any other continuance for requests for this morning's list?
Chair, we have Dylan Mahoney with his hand up.
Mr. Mahoney, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please.
Thank you.
hi mr mahoney could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter
dylan mahoney first name d -i -l -l -o -n last name m -a -h -o -n -e -y you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do what case sir
um 59 47 north 13th street excuse me 58 47
i'm sorry i had it right the first time excuse me chair 59 47 um
mr chair that's number um okay are you requesting a continuance for that
what's your relationship what's your relationship to the property are you attorney
um i'm the no sir i'm the representative of the councilman parker's office um the applicant i'm
not sure if she's here today miss cooper um but it's not yet met with the community and we're um
we're gonna be having an rco meeting in the in the coming month okay all right so let me get that
again here is she on the line by the way
would you like me to unmute her i would i would miss cooper please unmute yourself and wait for
the chair hello hi miss miss cooper could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
my name is unique cooper u -n -i -q -u -e last name c -o -o -p -e -r all right do you do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes okay so miss cooper
your case has not went to the rco yet for a meeting so we're going to continue to your case
okay you will be notified when the hearing is is that okay uh do you guys have my uh direct
contact information um we will we will find it our office will find it and be in touch
can i can i have like an estimated date of when to hear back from you guys what i what you should
do is call the office and they will give you an estimated date uh what's the all we'll make sure
we get back to you okay what's the office direct number tanya could you someone will assist you
offline. You can continue, Chair. Okay. MI 2022 00406 5947 North 13th Street, the cases continue.
Any other continuances? Chair, we have Ms. Allison Weiss with her hand up. Ms. Weiss,
you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please. Hi, Ms. Weiss, could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter yes thank you allison weiss a double l i s o n weiss w e i s s
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth is nothing but the truth
yes i do what case um i'm calling uh about 401 west queen lane uh solo germantown civic
association we're an affected rco and we were told of this case was being withdrawn
Ma 'am, ma 'am, give me a couple of minutes.
You're going to hear that I'm going to announce that that case is withdrawn.
Okay, thank you.
Let me get through the continuances first, okay?
Thank you.
Are there any other requests for continuance?
Chair, we have someone with the phone number ending in 7740.
Please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
Diane Manning, D -I -A -N -E -M -A -N -N -I -N -G.
diane manning d -i -a -n -e m -a -n -n
You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
What case?
For 2086 Haines Street.
I need to continue it.
Thank you.
MI 2021 -005 -284 -2086 Haines Street. That case is continued.
Any other continuances?
Chair, I see no other hands at this time.
Case 11. Hold on a minute.
Case 11.
it's here
m m i 2022 000 405 401 west queen queen lane the case is withdrawn
any other requests for withdrawals
we're going to go and no hands at this time chair we're going to go to the add -on
list. Adeline number one, MI 2021 -002 -648 -1001 Chadwick Street. I vote yes with proviso. Her
amended refusal dated 5 -10 -22. Carol Tenere, my vote is yes with proviso. Thomas Holloman,
my vote is yes with proviso. James Snell, yes with proviso. Ishmael Shahid, yes with proviso.
Second add -on, MI 2021 -004742, 2017 Auburn Street, I vote yes for reconsideration.
Carol Tannery, my vote is yes.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, for the record, please indicate yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
And rehearing.
Yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
My vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
James Snell, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
So I'm going to go to case number five first. MI 2021 004041, 1820 West Venango Street. This is a reconsideration hearing. Council Member Bash is the appellant. I want to first certify that I've watched the video of the 9 -1 -21 hearing.
And, Mr. Chairman, this is Carol Tenere. I also watched the video of the September 1st, 2021 hearing.
Mr. Chair, I watched it as well. This is Ishmael Shaheed.
Thank you very much.
We're going to incorporate testimony and the entire record for the original hearing on 9 -1 -21.
At this point, I would like to call Councilmember Bass and also the attorney Pritzker to be sworn in.
Rachel Pritzker is coming back in as a panelist, Chair.
Good morning.
Good morning.
uh rachel r -a -c -h -a -e -l pritzker p -r -i -t -z -k -e -r 1521 locust street suite 605
philadelphia pa 19102 you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes council member bass council member bass should also be coming back in as a panelist chair thank
you good morning this is councilman bass good morning do you swear or affirm to state your
name and spell for the court reporter please my name my name is cindy bass c -i -n -d -y -b -a -s -s
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
So we've taken all the testimony, all the records from the last hearing, and we've incorporated it into the record.
Council person, we're going to go to you first.
You're the appellate in this case.
And what we want to concentrate on in the hearing is your position and also the position of the RCO.
Correct.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning. I am requesting reconsideration and a rehearing in this case because the majority of members in the surrounding community were disenfranchised in the process.
I am requesting reconsideration and a rehearing in this case because of the RCO.
In June of 2021, my office received an RCO meeting summary regarding 1820 Venango Street from the former co -chairs of the Tioga United RCO, Ms. Veronica Holman and Ms. Charisma Presley.
The summary reflected that the near neighbors and other attendees had opposed granting the variance, and the RCO was opposed as well.
The ZBA hearing for this property was scheduled to occur on September 1st, 2021 at 2 p .m.,
and I was opposed to granting the variance based on the meeting summary and instructed and agreed with my staff member, Charles Richardson,
who had been very much involved with the community on this matter.
Approximately 45 minutes prior to the beginning of the hearing, Ms. Pritzker, the applicant's attorney, called Charles to inform him that Mr. Jihad Ali, one of the RCO's new chairs, had conducted an additional RCO meeting the week prior.
And that now the community was supporting the project, and as a result, Tioga United was also supporting granting the variants.
I will note that no one from my office was ever informed of or invited to this new meeting and no written summary or correspondence was ever produced.
Since Mr. Richardson could only take Mr. Ali's word as fact, he told Ms. Pritzker that Mr. Ali would have to appear on the Zoom hearing and testify to that fact.
Mr. Ali did appear and affirm under oath that he had conducted a meeting the week before where the attendees supported granting the variance.
That affirmation prompted Mr. Richardson, with my guidance, to shift the office position from opposition to non -opposition.
Subsequently, the variance was granted, and immediately the residents living in the surrounding community went crazy ballistic with rage in response to the results.
Between September 1st and September 27th, my office received numerous phone calls and emails, observed negative social media posts, and negative commentary on public radio and radio stations, attacking my office for what the community felt was a betrayal, especially given that the original Tioga United summary was in opposition.
Most of the constituents stated they were unaware of the additional meeting that had been scheduled, which is completely plausible since my office was also not notified about this meeting.
Additionally, on September 9th, 2021, we received some information from Tioga United, from Ms. Verna Tyner, the president of Tioga United, which is also a part of the record, stating that they had erred and were now withdrawing their support for the project and urged us to seek reconsideration and a hearing for the project.
Had the new position not been interjected regarding Mr. Ali's new position in the proceedings, my position would have remained in total opposition of the project as it was originally.
we don't know the nature of the negotiations between tayoga united and the property owners
or what caused the reversal and re -reversal of the rco's position but it is clear the community
was left out of the final equation and deserves to have their opportunity to be heard the actual
residents of the first rco excuse me the actual results of the first rco meeting need to be
considered and i ask that you grant a reconsideration of this case thank you mr chairman
with. Thank you. Ms. Pritzker, do you have any comments? Sure. So thank you, Chairman,
members of the board. By the way, but when you're done, I'm going to call to see if there's an RCO
member here too. Okay. So as you can see from the record of this case, it's quite extensive
and the packet that we provided is over 100 pages. This case, I've been doing zoning and land use
since 2012, I have never not once in my entire career seen a case go this wrong. I'm personally
involved in this project along with two partners as a certified women -owned business. We followed
the process to a T and relied on the RCOs to submit letters, ask for additional meetings,
attend additional meetings, make revisions to plans, door knock, submit letters and petitions,
and even were informed from the beginning of this project that members from the RCO or members from
the community were going around explaining to people that we were trying to build a battered
women's shelter on the site, a letter of which was sent directly from a neighbor to the council
office, further kind of muddying the waters in this case. We not only attended a meeting with
the RCO on the 24th of June as a result of that meeting as the councilwoman stated they were in
As a result of that meeting, as the councilwoman stated, they were in opposition and asked for some revisions to the project, which we then did a second meeting on 830 and made.
If you look at the meeting summary from that first RCO meeting on June 24th, you'll see that the near neighbors that showed up don't live on the 1800 block of West Benango, but live on the behind block of Gratt Street.
They basically stated that the reason they were not supporting the project was because we didn't speak to them ahead of time.
I've been told in many cases not to speak to people ahead of time.
We did do door knocking and reached out.
And then at the other meeting, we said, OK, well, we're willing to meet with you guys now.
They said, no, we don't want to meet with you and we don't want to meet about this project again.
at that RCO meeting there was also the directly adjacent RCO another affected RCO in attendance
as well in addition to other developers and property owners in the area we then had another
meeting which was conducted by Tioga United and as the applicant in the process we attended that
meeting in good faith to help try to address the concerns if you look at the history of this
property. It's always been multifamily property. This lot is 16 by 130. It's over 2 ,000 square
feet. And what we were proposing for this project is directly in line with everything over on that
block, mostly multifamily units. We went back, we made revisions. We were asked to sign a community
benefits agreement. We basically saying that if they were going to allow us to put units in the
neighborhood that they wanted our help to build units as well, we agreed in a CBA that was
provided to us that we would provide time and expertise, but we're not going to put anything
financial for that ask. We then received a different CBA, which I did provide to the
council office through multiple emails throughout this process. And I can understand if the
correspondents back and forth were confusing. This was an unbelievably complicated and convoluted case
in which we were asked to do things in a community benefits agreement that we did not believe were
ethical or permitted. We then went to the next meeting and made multiple revisions, relocating
trashed, reducing density, changing the location of doors on the property, changing up some of the
aesthetic, providing an ADA unit, providing an affordable unit. And multiple people attended
the meeting. We flired for the meeting. There was posters, as you can see in the packet,
multiple rounds of zoning posters posted on the property. At that meeting, it was stated to us
that there was a vote. It was taken on record of support of given all the changes that we made.
We agreed we would sign a CBA, but it had to be in compliance with what the city allows in their CBA rules that have now been promulgated.
We then provided all of this information to the board.
My team copies everyone that's supposed to be copied in these submissions and then came to the meeting on 9 -1.
and the former chair and the members of the board, some of which are here today,
heard out maybe over an hour of testimony, 30 minutes, whatever how long it is,
in which the near neighbors were well aware of the case, well aware of the posting. And most
of their concerns were just about not wanting anything there or thinking the notice was done
wrong with the zoning posters, not germane to the case at all. And like we had mentioned,
we had asked to meet with them, they had said, no, it's actually contained in the RCO meeting
summary that they would not meet with us. We provided revised plans. The chairman and members
of the board heard all of the testimony provided and decided that given Mr. Ali's testimony,
who was responsible for conducting the meeting with Ms. Bernatiner, who was actually also at
that meeting, that the RCO had switched their position after the now, I think it was that
second or third meeting at that point. So that was all stated on record. The chairman heard all
the testimony and granted in support of the variants. There was also another case that went
with us at the same time that had the same comments, same considerations, and was also
approved. We then went back, had another meeting in which we tried to negotiate in good faith.
Again, we were asked to meet with the directly affected near neighbors, which we did.
We actually provided in the packet, there has been a significant amount of vandalism done to this property.
We put fencing around it, which was ripped out. We filed a police report in this case.
And again, still we're trying to negotiate in good faith.
And again, still we're trying to negotiate in good faith.
At this point, when the motion for reconsideration was granted, there was a lot of information
At this point.
provided to the council office that was not verified by us as the applicant.
Things like that multifamily properties cause gun violence.
And that's one of the reasons that they did not want us to build what is a workforce housing
project here.
There is also other information, if you read the documents that were submitted for the motion for reconsideration, essentially saying that the RCO errored, and that although Mr. Ali conducted a meeting at the request of the RCO, that he errored in some way, and yet us as the applicant have penalized the entire process due to things outside of our control when we've continually come to the table,
offer to re -meet with people have requested that a different RCO be assigned if they have an
inability to provide a fair process or if they don't have an ability to be organized and issue
meeting summaries. I did speak with the council office about this and was told that that would
be considered, and then I never heard back on that account. And most of the information that
was provided, which granted this motion for reconsideration, are not based on any new
information that was provided to the board, was not based on a lot of accurate information that
was provided to the council office or the board, and more importantly than anything, was not
verified by the applicant who has attended all of the meetings in good faith and tried to work
through this project. This is a corner lot on the 1800 block of West Venango. It is one of the most
uninvested neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia. It is a neighborhood that is
in desperate need of quality housing and affordability, all of which this project
offers. And it has been astounding to me that there has not been more support to try to get
a project like this approved, especially given that our city continually talks about wanting
to have affordable housing, especially in disenfranchised neighborhoods, and especially
to support certified women -owned businesses and certified minority -owned businesses that act in
good faith continually through this process. I can belabor the point of hardship. You can see
that from the 9 -1 hearing. I can explain how many times we have shown up in good faith for this
project. I can explain to you that the chairman, prior chairman, and this board already heard this
case at length and agreed that this case should be granted, and that I do believe wholeheartedly
the motion of reconsideration, if it was read in detail, should never have been granted because
nothing new came about. It was not the applicant's failure of the RCO or anything that the applicant
did. And this was mismanagement on behalf of the RCO. And again, we were willing and are willing
to make revisions to the project, but we want to be met with fairness and equality on the other
side of it, which has not happened from the beginning of this case. From day one, this case
has been a mess. And like I said, in 10 years of doing this, I have never experienced something
like this. So I would ask the board if they're going to allow for a full rehearing of the matter
where the neighbors can speak, that I would ask that a new RCO be assigned so that we can actually
have a fair process and can make sure that we have all of our ducks in a row before we're making a
decision to shut down an affordable project in the city of Philadelphia near Temple Hospital,
which if you've driven over there, you would know this is well needed, given all the things I've
discussed, all the news you've read, and the reality of economic development in the city of
Philadelphia. So that would be my ask of the board, and that the board fully read the motion for
reconsideration. Because I do believe that if you had in detail, this current board would not have
approved the motion for reconsideration based on the facts that were presented to it.
Thank you. Is Tioga United in the audience?
chair we have i don't know if they're with tayoga united we have tina marie russell
and don stevenson both of them have their hands up
bring out tina marian
miss russell please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
i'm waiting for the chair hi miss russell just state your name for the record you've already
been sworn i'm tina marie russell um don represents tayoga just want to give you a
heads up on that he's representing tayoga united okay so i can wait so after he proceeds no why
why don't you go first go ahead okay so we are one of the rcos assigned to this case um i've
never received anything except for an RCO notification. I've never gotten any information,
any emails, or any data from anyone our RCO has not received. I am under the impression that
um our rco has not received i am under the impression that swamp pool rco sent in a
letter of denial i don't know if that's in the packet um i didn't have any i would have i think
that not only am i one of the rcos but i actually live three blocks away from there i'm not that
would not have been immediately affected but it affects me because in my neighborhood we are so
inundated with group style housing that my car has literally been shot up not once but twice
and because they don't give them their meds correctly etc and it's a lot of activity going
on and i kind of feel resentful that someone is saying that what is good for my neighborhood
because i live here um so i really think that we do need to have a content another meeting i think
the community, from what I've heard, we are not happy because they feel that they've been
duped. And I feel myself the same way because I did not get any notification and I should have.
And therefore, our CO was not able to weigh in on this matter. And we also would like to
have this matter be reconsidered to the community. Thank you.
Chairman, am I able to just address? You can, you can. Okay. So I just want to make it clear,
this is not, we're not providing group style housing. What I had mentioned before was that
there had been folks going around stating, and this is from a near neighbor that submitted a
letter to the council office to this effect, that they were, people were going around saying that
it was a battered women's shelter. This is a multifamily building of originally proposed
six units. So I just want to put that clear on the record. It's not group style housing.
Additionally, Swampoodle is not an affected RCO. So I just want to make that clear whether they
submitted a letter or not. Yeah, they're not an affected RCO. Right. Who's the representative
for Tioga United? Yeah, his name is Don Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson, you can unmute yourself and wait
for the chair please hi mr stevenson could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes donald stevenson d -o -n -a -l -d last name stevenson s -t -e -v -e -n -s -o -n and i'm a representative
of tayoga united you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do did you testify at the original hearing uh yes okay so i want you to keep your testimony
tight here you know it's you know if you're representing tayoga united please tell us your
position okay right now my position is a co -rco uh at the time of the original hearing uh i was
in a process of becoming an rco i currently wasn't the rco then so when i spoke on record i actually
spoke on record about the community not being informed of that second meeting that was a week
prior to the hearing um but i have i did attend the first meeting and there was also another
meeting we had with miss pritzker and the owner that was november 18th that was also emailed to
uh council and the zba as well there was a meeting that was conducted november 18th of 2021
with the community as well after the reconsideration so basically that second meeting
that Mr. Jihad Ali signed off on,
none of the community members were even notified.
And there are some things that Ms. Pritzker is saying
that the community doesn't agree with.
And like she said, we have met
and we're told time and time again,
there was never no negotiations
of what the community want.
We were just basically told six units, anything less.
We cannot make any money.
So we're not willing to come down on the units.
the community also had concerns about the structure uh not just the trash but there
was balconies we wanted to keep the community uniform to how it is historically there are no
single family or multi -family dwellings here that have balconies but they insisted on keeping
balconies in their structures they insisted on keeping i think commercial space in a basement
and the community was not for it also i want to comment on miss pritzker saying that her that
this property has been vandalized this is a lot i also mr stevenson listen what's your position
on the project you're against the project yes we are in opposition of what she proposed
the community they're not against an erection of a dwelling there but what she proposed they
are against so okay fine i understand it thank you well we do have your testimony from the
original hearing too. That's why I recognize your name. Ms. Pritzker, go ahead. Thank you,
Thank you, Chairman. I would just, there's no commercial proposed on this project. Some of the features that Mr. Stevenson mentioned, I think, just are not accurate.
Chairman. I would just, there's no commercial proposed on this project. Some of the
Additionally, there, we were open to many conversations around the balconies or removing items and things that was not really been the focal point of most of the meetings, but I appreciate those sentiments. And as I mentioned, we came to the table, you know, in good faith.
And so far as the vandalism is concerned, we have submitted the police report and photos in the packet so the board can look at that at its leisure.
Is Mr. Ali in the audience and does he want to testify?
Hi, Chair. This is Tanya. I just want to acknowledge that the councilwoman has her hands up.
Okay. Councilwoman, go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to, you know, I know that you have a lot of hearings and I'm not going to believe the point,
But I do want to make some acknowledgement around some of Ms. Pritzker's comments regarding the community's position and I guess her disappointment that they don't have community support.
And I just wanted to remind Ms. Pritzker that with all due respect that, you know, the folks who live in the community live there.
And so time and time again, we hear developers come in and say how great their development is going to be for someone else, for someone else who lives there, for this community.
They should be grateful to have it.
And so I just really wanted to, you know, really make sure that we are respectful and thoughtful of this community, like every other community in the city of Philadelphia, and that just because there might be some issues and challenges in the community doesn't mean that the residents are not entitled to their opinion and to say that they don't want something in their neighborhood.
I don't believe that people should have anything in their neighborhood that they don't want.
And that doesn't matter whether you live in Chestnut Hill, which I also represent, or Tioga, which I represent.
So people should be able to have a say and be respected in terms of the things that they want in their community and not be somehow vilified as if they're speaking out against people who need help or, you know, people who want to do development or whatever it may be.
So I just I just really felt very strongly about that, Mr. Chairman, and wanted to speak on that matter.
Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman, I appreciate your sentiments. I'm by no mean trying to state that anybody is vilified or anybody is in the wrong for how they feel. I'm just simply was stating that the way that the process has gone has made it quite difficult to work through some of those concerns, as you know, from the kind of the back and forth.
I think what I'm just asking is for a fair process so that those negotiations can happen. And if those result in people still not wanting a project, I mean, I do this day in and day out as you do. So I'm well aware when people don't want things.
I think my my the challenge that we faced in this project was that I didn't believe it was a fair process.
And I did believe that we were being penalized from just some disorganization that occurred not on behalf of your office, but on behalf of just the RCO and RCO process.
But I appreciate your sentiments and have taken them.
Well, I would, I would agree with you that, you know, in your statement that, you know, this, this, you know, you stated that you believed as well that this should be reconsidered because of the, you know, as you put it, the unethical request from the RCO and their involvement, which was really not representative of the community.
So I think that we are in agreement on that matter that a reconsideration should be considered.
Thank you.
Or should be granted.
Thank you.
So the prior hearing had a lot of testimony from local neighbors. Is there anyone from the RCO leadership that's in the audience wants to testify?
Yes, I would like to testify. Hello, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, sir.
Can you state your name, Mr. Ali, and spell it for the court reporter?
My name is Jihad Ali, J -I -H -A -D -A -R -I, and I am the current co -chair of the Tioga United.
All right. Do you swear, Fern, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I think, first of all, I'd like to apologize to the councilperson and to the community, and even Ms. Pritzer.
Because when this first, I was a new chair, I'd asked to come in because our current chair, Vernon Tyner, was relocating, and she needed someone that had some experience to come in and help hold the meeting for her.
We hadn't recruited Mr. Don Stevenson yet, which, as he testified, he joined by November the 18th to be a co -chair from the local perspective.
When we had that initial meeting with Ms. Pritzer, because I was the new chair and I had known Ms. Pritzer from before, but I had asked her about the attendance at the meeting, and she had gave me her word that the notice had went out, and she would send me the mailing.
At the time of the meeting, she didn't have the mailing.
When I was at the chair, there were people there that I wasn't aware of, so I asked her had she been in the mailing.
So I asked her, had she been the mailing?
She said she hadn't, and I asked her to send it to me.
She said she hadn't, and I asked her to send it to me.
She never sent me that mailing.
The meeting went forward, and then later on, after I was informed by the council person's office of the pushback from the neighborhoods,
because I didn't know who was neighbors and who weren't.
And there was another co -organization there at the time, but I had no idea what was going on.
But I do want to point out to you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board,
The key word that Ms. Pitzer said is that she was an interested party in that development deal, as a woman -owned business, a disadvantaged business.
That didn't come out to us as a community until the November 18th hearing, when one of the community members who had did their own research asked Ms. Pitzer that question and her co -investor.
So all along, we were misled because we didn't know that she was actually a participant in the project, which I believe it should have been revealed.
But then the issue was about the density. So, you know, the community and fair right, as this pointed out, it's on a corner lot.
But the community was concerned. There were some neighbors behind that lot where the trash was going to face their their building.
So that was that. And the issue was the density. As Mrs. Don Stevens said, we weren't against development.
It was just that the density at one time they were up to seven units. That's the last that I recall.
And I do want to say I do want to push back on that unethical slur.
The only thing that I had asked for was for her team to give intellectual assistance for developers.
They asked for no money, not in the CBA that we talked about, and Ms. Pritzer and them never produced that CBA in the time manner that they said, so that was discarded.
Anything else since then, I'm not aware of.
So I do want to just say to the chair that the most significant part was the only reason we're in this position because of Ms. Pitzer, because she was never forthcoming with the truth to tell us that she was an applicant and a representative and an interested party in the deal.
And the issue was about density, and it is confusing, but I support the councilwoman, and this really needed to be a reconsideration because the community members really weren't informed.
And I, as the chair at the time, did not know the members in the community to know that they weren't in attendance.
Thank you, Mr. Ali.
I'd like to respond to that, Chairman.
So, first of all, I wasn't involved as an investor in this project until later on.
As you may know, you don't just jump into projects with clients.
So it wasn't until quite later on.
And so by the time that Mr. Ali is speaking to this, I actually wasn't involved.
And that's why the first couple of meetings were as such.
And then it was sort of like a meeting where they asked about my all my financials and things of that nature, which I didn't feel like was appropriate or within the scope of an RCO meeting to ask about my personal financials.
And I believe that meeting was recorded by Tioga United.
So there may be that may be able to be seen.
Additionally, I did provide the notice.
I put it on the screen at the meeting and I did email it because we talked about 3323 in addition to 1820 West Venango.
So both of those were included because 3323 needed to have a second meeting as well.
And those many, a couple of blocks away on 18th Street.
In addition, we did provide a CBA and we sent it via email.
So there's proof of that after that meeting, because as you may know from an RCO meeting,
you kind of want to take back what people are saying, then put together a written document
and then shoot it out.
Additionally, the new regulations for the CBAs had come out and we wanted to kind of
cross -check with that as I was not as familiar with what the new rules were around CBAs. The
last piece of that was then a CBA was provided to me from the RCO that had additional requests in
it that I did not feel comfortable with. And all of that, again, is in writing and has been sent
both to the council office as well. So they are in receipt of both the one that we sent out and
the one that we received. So I just want to put some clarification on that as well, as I don't
appreciate my character being demeaned at a public hearing.
So the purposes of our hearing this morning was to get on the record
where the council person was, where the RCO was. What I want to do
now is I have tons of testimony that we went over the
FCD relative to near neighbors and things of that nature. The Planning
Commission, where's the Planning Commission standing on this now?
Morning, Chair Bergman. Thank you very much. My name
is Ian Hegarty. Last name spelled H -E -G -A -R -T -Y. I'm representing the Philadelphia City Planning
Commission. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir. Proceed. Thank you. So members of the board, it's our opinion that the additional
information provided at today's hearing doesn't have any impact on hardship or impacts that the
board would be considering according to the code. And so therefore the City Planning Commission
And so, therefore, the City Planning Commission stands by its testimony from September 2021, which is as follows.
stands by its testimony from September 2021,
The property is indicated for single -family residential in the comprehensive plan.
We feel the proposal represents significant overuse.
Additionally, there is no hardship to vacant land, nor for having a property that is too large.
I'm sorry.
Accordingly, the City Planning Commission recommends that the Board deny the variance.
Thank you.
so uh we've had a lot of testimony and i appreciate everybody's time we're going to
reconsider this next week in our executive session and we will vote next wednesday morning
where we stay with this project thank you thank you thank you everybody
mr chair um this is hillary i just want to note um and tanya correct me if i'm wrong i don't
believe we have session next week so this would be voted um june 1st okay is that correct is that
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Number four. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sure. Thank you. MI 2022 -000 -447 -1732
Spruce Street. Henry Clinton is the attorney. Letter of non -opposition from the Center City
Residence Association. Chair, Mr. Clinton is coming back in now as a panelist.
morning mr chairman good morning mr clinton could you state your name and spell for the
court reporter sure henry clinton c -l -i -n -t -o -n and i'd like to thank the chairman the board
miss emerson and miss sunken for taking me out of order i do appreciate that accommodation
do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client and the relationship to the property
Sure. The owner of the property is 1732 Spruce, LLC, and the principal is Yuri Terenko, Y -U -R -I -Y -K -U -C -H -E -R -K -O, and he is on the call.
Our advice chair, Carol Tenere, has a few questions for you.
Hi, Mr. Clinton. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax clearance, photos, and or plans of the property, a copy of the refusal or referral five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all of the above.
Thank you. You may proceed and begin to share your screen.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you.
Oh, my, what is that?
Is that visible?
uh good morning mr chairman members of the board henry clinton for 1732 spruce llc
uh this is my presentation package which contains a table of contents aa to a11 which i will walk
through and ask be introduced into evidence this is my appearance statement and this is the refusal
it's a pretty straightforward matter this is an rm1 zoning district on the 1700 block of spruce
Street, and the existing situation is a doctor's office and five dwelling units. We are asking that
the doctor's office be converted or be allowed to be converted into another residential unit
so that we would end up with six dwelling units in this property, which was the historic use of
this property. Since it's RM1, the doctor's use was a previous non -conforming use, and we're
basically asking that that doctor's office be now a residential unit. We met with Center City
Residents Association and they provided us, as the chairman indicated at the outset, with a letter
of non -opposition. Again, just to give the board some perspective, you're well familiar with the
1700 block of Spruce Street. This is an aerial view. It's three properties off the corner of
18th and spruce again here's another aerial photograph of the four -story structure a closer
view of the front entrance and showing the entire front facade of the building we're not changing
the exterior we're not changing the footprint of the building the height the open space or the
rear yard this is just simply a question change of use we took photographs of the basement to show
the board that in fact there are six meters for the six uses of the building and one extra meter
for the common usage. The same thing with gas meters. There's five gas meters. Some interior
photographs just to show the board the quality of construction that's going on. Again, another
photograph of the basement indicating six hot water heaters. This is the existing plan. I was
just want to concentrate on the first floor, Mr. Chairman, but that's okay because the other
are not going to change at all. So basically you walk in the front door and immediately to the left
and immediately to the left was the doctor's office. So you can see it's a vacant commercial
was the doctor's office. So you can see.
space now because the doctor has left and we intend to convert this into an apartment,
which I will show you with the next slide. So now you will come in the front door,
walk down the hallway and enter, excuse me, enter through basically through the same area
and have, this will be a bedroom
and we're going to have a kitchen in the rear
with a bathroom.
So it's a pretty straightforward request,
Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
The rest of the documents are tax certifications
and the other pro forma documents
that one would see in any presentation before the board.
I'll just show you the zoning map,
which confirms what the refusal indicates
that this is an RM1 zoning district.
So we're asking that the entire property now become what it was ages ago.
And I'll show the board that back in 1975, this was all apartments.
Also, there's a permit in the file from 2011 indicating it once was, this is 1732 spruce, it once was a six -family dwelling.
So we're asking to return to that six -family use,
eliminate the doctor's office,
and now have this building conformed
to an RM1 zoning district that it be all residential.
So we're not altering the essential character
of the neighborhood.
In fact, the neighborhood is all residential.
This proposal or variance would be in harmony with the code.
It's not injurious to the health or safety
or welfare of the neighbors.
It doesn't impact light or air,
and it's in harmony with their previous use.
And with that, Mr. Chairman,
I'll entertain any questions for myself or for my client.
Mr. Clinton, would you want to have your testimony
adopted by your client?
Sure. Yuri, can you unmute yourself so you can testify?
You'd have to raise your hand, Yuri.
Uri. All right, Mr. Clinton. Well, you're an officer of the court. We will recognize your
testimony. Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Uri Kucherenko, Y -U -R -I -Y -K -U -C -H -E -R -E -N -K -O.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes. Proceed.
Mr. Kucherenko, you heard my testimony just a few minutes ago while you were on the Zoom call,
correct?
yes and if you had the opportunity to testify would you adopt my testimony as your own and
as true and correct yes thank you very much sir much questions from the board no mr chairman no
mr chairman no mr jim no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair i see no hands at this time planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty
for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the RM1 zoning at this location.
The proposed conversion of the office space
to a residential unit is substantially similar
to the prior use and to the existing interior configuration
of the building.
City Planning Commission recommends
that the board grant this variance.
Thank you.
MI 2022 -000 -447 -1732 Spruce Street, I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Clinton.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thanks for the accommodation. It's well appreciated.
Sure. MI 2022 -000 -399 -1027 South Fairhill Street.
Letter of opposition from Queen Village Neighbors Association.
Calvin Graham is the owner, pro se.
Mr. Graham, can you please raise your hand?
He's coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Graham.
Good morning, Michael.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Calvin Graham, C -A -L -V -I -N, Graham, G -R -A -H -A -M.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair, Carol Tenere, has a few questions for you, sir.
Hi, Mr. Graham. Are you an attorney?
Hi, Mr. Graham. Are you an attorney?
I am not, no.
I am not, no.
Okay. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
The company that I'm working with, the contracting company, they emailed all of this stuff across.
if by the letter I think you mean this stuff yeah my understanding of all that is yeah
okay great you may proceed and begin to share your screen
am I sharing you we're good yeah okay so this is uh the existing house um where I'm in just
now um it's predominantly a well -designed house it's about 10 years old um but it has the eight
foot setback which is now required in modern construction it's um as such it has a number
of issues that are kind of quite unique to it uh what we're proposing is to add a third floor on
top of it uh to cover the existing deck and bring it in line with the other houses on the street
The deck I submitted through has a lot of the detailing on this, but essentially the deck is a collection vessel for all the water, all the detritus, all the snow, the ice, both falling on top of my house as well as the other houses next to it, which do not have a setback.
um it's been going on for but both myself and the previous one have had issues with this we've both
spent cumulatively thousands of dollars on maintenance from pairing leaks uh constant
flooding in the winter it freezes over the snow builds up and melts into the inside of the house
it's actually not possible to clear it sometimes in the winter because the doors open outwards
again it just collects two feet of snow and freezes um the actual drain itself all the water
from the roof runs down the deck itself is an angle which actually makes it quite dangerous
i don't let my children go on there for a number of reasons uh when there's a heavy storm um as we
were almost getting two nights ago my children are upset my oldest son cries because this water
will flush down overflow the deck uh because the pipe physically cannot take enough water away and
this is not the first pipe it was already redone by the previous owner um it's especially bad if
collects all the sort of leaves from the neighboring trees, ice, snow, etc. We're opposite a neighborhood
garden. You can see there's an awful lot of trees in this part of South Philadelphia and the irony
is that although the setback is for houses where the street is less than 20 feet wide, it's actually
nearly 50 feet to the next property. The other houses on the street, they don't have an eight
foot setback um some of the houses that's because they're older uh for instance my next door the
neighbor here um they also have decks which have sort of open sides so you could blow the leaves
off or brush them off or the water can run off it doesn't collect in what is essentially a cup
and fill up and freeze and block and jam um but actually there's modern houses on the street as
well none of which have an eight foot setback uh what we're actually proposing would be
architecturally far more in line with the existing street uh you can kind of see the property i mean
actually it it drops off uh suddenly by sort of 12 feet and is a real outlier um
so i mean the i'm very aware that most of the the hardship terms that are put forward for these
meetings are talking about new developments that might not be financially viable and that's what
the term is normally used for but in in our case it is um it's just constant maintenance um uh
running to you know thousands of dollars and I've only been in the property a couple of years
but ultimately I think that the kind of water damage will cause structural issues
with things like the beams and the members both on that deck level itself but also further down
I mean like you can actually see my roof there's a line going across the ceiling where the water
ran in the other week and it really cannot be good for a property in the long run to do that
so essentially not having that output setback requirement would allow us to extend the roofline
forward it would bring it in line with the rest of the street architecturally it would put an end
to the constant cost of maintaining the property and also long -term structural viability as far as
we're concerned I'm very aware that the Queen Village Association put forward a letter suggesting
that it was not it was not to the it would be to the detriment of the community that people
were opposed to it and that really cannot be further from the truth we sent out nearly a
thousand letters to every house within a half mile radius or whatever the requirement has to be
we didn't get a single complaint nobody showed up at those meetings to voice any concern
we didn't get a single complaint nobody showed up at those meetings to voice any concerns
we're on a first name basis with everybody on the street everyone's kids knows everyone's kids and
they all wanted to happen um there's really no objection to this at all um you know they've
obviously both myself and the previous owner have to deal with this uh situation um what we're
proposing is not you know lime green sort of plastic it's a sort of a sandstone effect exterior
so it would be within keeping of the building certainly it would also be a improvement from
the current setup where the top floor is for whatever reason made out of a kind of gray
plastic uh which i don't think is terribly nice but it is what it is um you can kind of see here
this is the sort of the drain coming out as it currently stands uh we got the site completely
surveyed and this um angle is kind of in line with where the property is our property extends
kind of halfway down the easement between the two buildings um so there's no issue of building
outside the property line here um the rest of the deck is uh sort of architectural engineering plans
these were drawn up by sra which is the company that i've been working with uh they're all stamped
off uh by a registered professional in the state of pennsylvania um this is a company that's done
thousands of projects in the Tri -State area, this sort of stuff.
I'm probably not at liberty to discuss.
I actually have a master's degree in engineering,
but you can tell from my accent that I'm not from this country,
so any of my credentials are worth nothing, really.
I'm not sure at this point if you want me to transfer over to Tom Mazza.
No, we're fine. We're fine. We understand.
We're fine.
But, yeah, essentially, the details are kind of here.
i think one of the questions raised was about the uh the loading and the wind concerns um this is
again kind of all sort of stamped off here um again i'm slightly more used to the metric system
rather than the foot pans um but again this is all sort of stamped off um and it's a company
with a lot of experience of doing projects just like this okay questions from the board
no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no heads at this time chair planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty
for the philadelphia city planning commission members of the board the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the existing RSA 5 single -family zoning here. And as the applicant
has explained, the Queen Village NCO overlay is specifically intended to prohibit structures over
two stories on narrow streets without a setback, such as a section of Fairhill Street. However,
we believe the applicant has demonstrated an economic detriment related to this code requirement,
and the proposed enlargement is consistent with the three -story height of buildings on either
side of it and further down the block so the city planning commission recommends that the
board grant this variance thank you mi 2022 000 399 1027 south fair hill street i vote yes
carol tanari my vote is yes my vote is yes james snell my vote is yes ishmael shaheed my vote is yes
thank you Mr. Graham
MI 2021
356 1309
North 22nd Street
Jared Klein is the attorney
letter of support received from
Brewery Town Sharswood Civic Association
although
committee had concerns about
bedrooms in the basement
Mr. Klein is coming back in now as a panelist
Good morning Mr. Klein could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
Certainly it's Jared J -A -R -E -D last name is Klein K -L -E -I -N
Go ahead you proceed I'm sorry
130 North 18th Street in Philadelphia 19103
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client in a relationship to the property?
Yes. My client is Shardswood Estates, LLC. They are the current owner of the property,
and I'm joined online by one of the principals, Mike Randolph.
Our vice chair, Carl Tenere, has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Klein. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
see? I do agree to waive the reading. Ms. Emerson and I had discussed some administrative
Ms. Emerson and I had discussed some administrative confusion over which refusal is applicable.
So I stipulate to the accuracy of the one that we're proceeding under, but I can explain that when we get started.
Okay, great.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet consisting of proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
Yes to all of the above.
Okay, great. You may proceed and begin to share your screen.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So again, we're here for 1309 North 22nd Street. The application is to erect an eight -family dwelling on this lot. And let me just briefly address the refusal issue that I mentioned a moment ago.
The original refusal that we received through Eclipse is on the screen before you, dated September 11th, and it outlines the applications for an attached structure for use as an eight -family dwelling.
It lists two refusals.
Subsequent to this, but without an email notification from Eclipse, the refusal was updated to the one that you now see.
This one's dated September 17th, so it was issued just a week later.
The refusals that it identifies are identical to the September 11th refusal.
The only change was in the narrative description where the examiner now notes that there's a lot adjustment as part of the application.
The lot adjustment is by right, so it would not have generated an additional refusal.
And this refusal is the one that is currently in the Eclipse system.
After speaking with Ms. Emerson, I think we all agree that we're proceeding under this refusal.
But in the event that the board is inclined to grant the variance, we just ask for a proviso clarifying that it's September 17th, 21 refusal, just so there's no confusion down the line.
Turning to the project itself, this is our location here.
It's located on a corner lot, and it is located across the street from a multifamily housing complex that I'll share more detail in in a moment.
The other lots on our side of the block are primarily vacant here, and there's residential uses here and to the south.
One of the issues for the development of this parcel, I mentioned it, it is a consolidation of these two lots here.
The end result of the consolidation leaves us with one lot that has sort of an odd triangle shape to it that creates a physical condition that is unique to these lots once they're combined.
So the variances that we're seeking are allowing some additional density on the lot to make up for the weird shape that we're going to have to build around.
Showing you the base zoning, it is zoned RM1, so multifamily use is permitted here.
The refusal that we received is for the unit count. We are about 800 square feet short of the necessary lot square footage.
The other refusal that we received, the height refusal, we have revised plans that were submitted to Ms. Emerson in advance of the hearing that removed this refusal from the application.
We've reduced the height of the building to a code -compliant 38 feet, and so those are the revised plans that I'll share with you momentarily.
Currently, the lot is vacant. This is what it looks like in its current condition with the zoning notice posted.
And this is the block itself. These photos are older in that it shows this structure as standing. It has since been demolished.
And this is a view from the street frontage looking up and down that block.
I wanted to mention this set of apartment buildings here that are located directly across the street from our lot.
All of these homes were erected decades ago, but each of the structures on the lot has zoning approval for eight residential dwelling units.
So looking into this complex here, each of these buildings has eight residential style dwelling units in it.
These are more affordable housing style units.
So we are not proposing affordable housing.
It is a market rate project.
But what we were trying to do was match our requested density with the density that was located immediately across the street.
So all of these buildings have eight. We're proposing eight for our building for some consistency across that street line.
Turning to the plans, this is a rendering of what the proposed structure will look like.
this is a rendering of what the proposed structure will will look like again if you've reduced it
down to 38 feet these layout of the various units the smallest unit size that we're proposing is
710 square feet and the largest is 1495 square feet the floor plan as you can see we had to take
into account for some of these angles so that's driving the configuration of this building as it
proposed to be constructed and the floor plans mimic each other as they rise up through through
the building um we are uh at as i mentioned 38 feet to the top of the roof line with the power
pit and pilot house we've reduced the elevation to be uh 38 feet so it is a code compliant height
excuse me counselor yes is 50 of your building out of the ground
is is 50 of the building out of the ground correct i i believe that it is yes
can you show the your basement plan please basement plan let me look here uh this is the
yeah this is the basement floor plan here
can you enlarge it i can give it a shot yes
we we are as i'm sure you're asking about the board member holloman we are showing
bedrooms in this basement um again we're doing that to try and make an accommodation on the
height by bringing the building down from 45 to 38 to keep the same unit count we are proposing
some some bedrooms in the basement area so you're using area wells yes so you're building it's not
50 percent out of the ground well it it you mean in terms of the basement level no it is it is not
more than 50 percent out of the ground there are wells here and here thank you
um turning to our meeting with the rco we did meet with the brewery town sharswood civic
association uh we initially got uh just the vote count which i'm sharing which was 18 in support
seven opposed, and then they followed up with a letter of support that I believe was also
shared with the board.
And they noted that we did make some reductions in the height to resolve that issue that the
community had in terms of the size and massing of that building.
With that, I'd like to ask Michael Randolph to raise his hand so he might adopt my testimony.
mr randolph please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
can you hear me yeah mr randolph could you please state your name and spell it for the court reporter
yes it's michael randolph m -i -c -h -a -e -l r -a -n -d -o -l -p -h
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you.
Mike, did you have a chance to hear my presentation this morning?
And do you adopt my statements as true, correct, and your own if you've been given the chance to fully testify?
Yes, I do.
Thank you very much.
I don't have anything further, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends single -family zoning at this location.
However, under the existing RM1 zoning applicant is allowed six dwelling units by right, as we've seen in the refusal.
This is a vacant triangular lot.
We agree that the property is physically constrained.
and that the degree of the variance is in keeping with the hardship presented by the irregular lot.
City Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the use variance for eight dwelling units
with the proviso to conform to revised plans reflecting the revised code compliant height.
MI 2021 -004 -366 -1309 -North 22nd Street, I vote yes with proviso.
her refusal dated 9 17 21 revised plans two pages stamped may 18 2022.
carol tenery my vote is yes with proviso thomas holloman my vote is no gang snell my vote is yes
Ishmael Shahid, my body is now.
my vote is no
was that 2 -2
or was that 3 -2
thank you Mr. Chair
appreciate it
enjoy the rest of your day
MI 2022
000413
South 6th Street
no letter from Dickinson Square
West RCO
Corin Weiss is the attorney
Chair Mr. Weiss is coming back in now as a
panelist
Good morning Mr. Weiss
could you state your name and spell for the court reporter? Yes, sir. My name is Corrin Wise,
spelled C -O -R -E -N, last name W -I -S -E, office address 150 Monument Road, Suite 207,
Bala Kinwood, PA 19004. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes, sir. Could you identify your client and the relationship to
this property? Yes, I have the pleasure of representing Maria and Robert Herring, and they
are the owners of 1431 South 60. Thank you. Our vice chair has a few questions. Mr. Wise, do you
agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. I'll have some
comments about the refusal, but I do waive the reading and consent to the accuracy. Okay, great.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
Yes, ma 'am.
I emailed my documents in advance of the hearing last week.
We did meet with the RCO February 15, 2022.
That's Dickinson Square West.
I do not have a letter, despite several requests. My contact at the RCO's name is John Disley.
He has been emailing me that a letter would be sent. I actually just was on the phone when I
was called for the hearing, and he has told me that he is drafting it now, and so a letter has
not been sent, but I can also comment on that in my case in chief. Okay, great. You may proceed,
and please begin to share your screen will do then thank you thank you so um
thank you everybody uh i am quran wise this is uh an application of 1431 south 6th street which
is a townhome owned by my clients and i'm just gonna um can you i'm showing you the plan i hope
everyone can see that yep okay so here's here's uh some photos first i want to start with let me
just go down to the exterior. Here we are on 6th Street and the cross street here is Wilder.
That's a picture of the rear, some interior shots. Interior is not too relevant here because the
application we have before us today is regarding only the roof, I'm sorry, the pilot house.
And I just want to go to the drawing that is most instructive.
there we go sorry okay so here we are looking down bird's eye view down onto the top of the
building and you see stairs here if you can see my cursor and this is the pilot house and these
parallel lines or the roof deck the roof deck where you see parallel lines the steps where
you see the stairs here, are already approved. The zoning permit has been issued. You see the
writing on the architect's plans, roof deck and pilothouse as approved permit ZP 2021.
And that letter, the number I can't read, but the date is October 21st, 2021. The application
we're here about today is simply this cross -hatched section to enlarge the pilothouse.
So this pilot house is approved where the steps are.
As we know, the zoning code permits pilot houses and roof decks under a certain size, up to a certain size.
But these applicants want a larger pilot house.
For what reason, you might ask? Plants. Plants, the green kind, right?
They have reevaluated their living situation as a lot of us during this pandemic and times subsequent
and realize that this would be great to to extend this area a little bit so that they can bring some of their summer.
to extend this area a little bit so that they can bring some of their summer plantings inside
for the winter. And the applicant may be able to tell you a little bit about that, but essentially
this is 100 square feet of additional pilothouse that we'd like to obtain a variance for.
And I did comment on the refusal because when we have, I'm sorry, let me show one more thing.
Here, the architect on the plan has shown us that we're approved for 112 square feet of pilothouse.
The code provides for 125, but as proposed, the total pilothouse would be 218 square feet.
So we're asking for an additional 80 -some square feet of pilothouse on the third floor to add on to what's already been approved
for the by -right pilot house here.
And the reason I wanted to reference that refusal
was because it is a little confusing
in that we have here,
the refusal is actually for the height of the building
because we're expanding that pilot house
outside of that by -right code of 125 square feet.
In the language of the L &I code,
they call that a fourth story
And we're hitting up against the height requirement. But the height of the approved pilot house versus the height of the proposed pilot house is not changing. So the pilot house height is staying the same.
The front to back depth, if you will, is not changing, just the width so that the pilot house is going to extend from one party wall to the next.
And the architect has given us some sight lines where we see where the sight line, you're not going to see that setback pilot house unless you're standing across the street up against the wall.
So from the street, from the sidewalk here, that sidewalk is not going to have any impact on the sidewalk.
And here we also have a shadow study showing, as approved, this crosshatched area with the shadow onto the neighboring property's roof.
And as proposed, the only new shadow we gain is this portion, which actually falls on the applicant's home.
And nowhere does it even reach the sidewalk or the street.
So that is the application.
with regard to the RCO. We did meet with the RCO on February 15th. The notice was sent out
regarding the, and I'm sorry, I'm switching between documents. Are you still seeing my,
I'm showing the RCO notice now? Is that what you're saying?
No, no, we see the plans.
Okay, I'm sorry, then I have to reshare.
Okay. So let me show you. Okay. So this is the approved plan. You can see here we have an approved stamp for the, this is also including a roof deck and there's an addition back here and the pilot house that's that that is approved.
You see the steps here. That's the approved plan. So the roof deck and the pilot house are already permitted. Let me share. Let me share the refusal so we can look at that.
So, this is the RCO notice that was sent out regarding the meeting on February 15th with Dickinson Square West. And this is the refusal that I was talking about. I'm sorry, I thought you could see it, but I was waving to this section where the refusal is actually for the height of the property being 46 feet, not 38 feet. Can you see the refusal I'm referring to at this point?
yep okay um so the height of the building hasn't changed from the approved pilot house
uh to what we're proposing to widen the pilot house it's just that when you widen the pilot
house l and i is calling that a fourth story so now they're using the height of the pilot house
instead of um the permitted height of a pilot house they're calculating it as the height of
the main building, which I think is confusing because it's still a pilot house.
There's no living space in the pilot house.
With regard to the RCR, we did meet on February 15th. It was a well -attended meeting. It was neighbors in attendance as well as the committee. The neighbors, they did overwhelmingly support this. Neighbors spoke in support of the applicants.
With regard to the RCR, we did meet on February 15th.
It was a well -attended meeting.
They are longtime neighbors in this area.
They volunteered the neighborhood garden, as well as other organizations, and the neighborhood supported this application.
There were a couple concerns raised by the committee chair, Mr. Disley.
his questions were, how will the materials get to the roof, to which our architect that was
present, Graham Baylor, stated that they usually crane those up to the top. And the question also
was raised, will the alley be blocked in the back of the house? And again, the architect stated that
he didn't see any reason the alley should be blocked. But since this is a zoning permit,
and the applicants haven't uh retained a contractor yet he can't speak specifically to
that but we would make every effort and we don't see any reason why they would be blocking the
alley it's it's a it's a it's a three or four foot alley not down the street or parking access
at all um i reached out to mr disley about a month after the hearing um to find out if a zoning if an
rco letter had been drafted he said well i haven't received your plan regarding the crane
and i said i don't have we don't have a plan but i can write you a letter what concerns you have
and restated these concerns about the alley and the crane and i wrote the letter i will share
with you now on march 28th and where i state in the last paragraph the homeowners have not yet
retained a general contractor but will most uh the project will most likely the the contractor
It will be retained most likely after a zoning permit is issued, but they've confirmed they're going to make every effort to keep the alley clear, to prevent damage to adjacent properties, and to minimize any disruptions during deliveries of materials with a crane.
I emailed Mr. Dizzley on Friday regarding the RCO letter, and he emailed me back and said that he was sending it.
I'm sorry, his response was on Monday, and he responded that he was sending it today, Monday.
i hadn't received it so i called him this morning and he voiced again his concern that he hadn't
received a plan regarding the crane and i tried to explain i don't have a plan for the crane because
i one i'm the attorney i don't have the crane two the delivery company would be retained probably
by the contractor but they'd be parking the truck drop you know craning it up to the top
dropping it off and moving along so there might be some disruption but not talking
they i don't i don't think more than hours um but uh at that point uh i confirmed he hadn't
sent the letter and that was the uh that was the concerns that were held by the rco um so i i would
hope we can uh i don't know if mr gisley is attending or some representative of the of the
RCO is with us. I hope someone can confirm these comments. But with that, the application is a
fairly straightforward one where we are seeking to add approximately 80 square feet to a pilot
house, not changing the height of the building or the depth of the pilot house with no impact
on neighboring properties or the streetscape
and only shadow being placed on the applicant's own property
where this is only in addition to already approves
pilot house and roof deck in addition.
All right, Mr. Weiss,
would you want to have your testimony adopted by your client?
Thank you, sir.
If either Bob or Maria can raise their hand
and identify themselves,
I'll ask them to confirm my testimony is accurate
and adopt it.
Mr. Wise, is your client's last name Herring?
Yes, that's correct.
Ms. Herring, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Hello.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
My name is Maria Herring, M -A -R -I -A, last name Herring, H -E -R -I -N -G.
I'm also here with my husband, Robert.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you.
Maria, how are you doing?
Thanks for joining us.
Did you hear my testimony during this presentation?
Yes, I did.
Was my testimony correct and accurate?
Yes, it is.
yes it is do you mind would you adopt it as your own uh for efficiency i would thank you okay thank
Would you adopt it as your own for efficiency?
you questions questions from the board yes mr chairman uh counselor no mr chairman for the
record you're stating at the building height is 38 feet well so the building height is 38 feet
The pilot house is above 38 feet.
The refusal refers to the height of the building as 46 feet,
including the pilot house height.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
Any other questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Planning Commission.
thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing rsa 5 single family zoning here
the code has pretty clear limits on the size of a pilot house above which it's considered another
floor and so this is a hardship for dimensional variance hardship for dimensional variance
depends not on house plants but on evidence of economic detriment and consistency with the
surrounding neighborhood the applicant hasn't demonstrated either of these conditions in our
opinion and so the city planning commission recommends that the board deny the variance
mi 2022 000413 1431 south 6th street i vote no harold tenary my vote is no
thomas halliman my vote is no james snell my vote is no
it's no shaheed my vote is no
thank you thank you
let's see here where was i four three
here i think on 10 unless that's wishful thinking think how about seven
M .I. 2022 -000412 -2208 -16 North 2nd Street.
Sean Ward is the attorney.
Letter of support from the Norris Square Community Alliance.
Letter of non -opposition from Councilwoman.
Chair, Mr. Ward is coming back in as a panelist now.
good morning Mr. Chairman Sean Ward on behalf of the applicant good morning Mr. Ward could you
spell your name for the court reporter please yes first name is Sean S -H -A -W -N last name Ward
W -A -R -D representing Jose Garcia who is in the virtual audience today thank you do you swear
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I most certainly do our
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning, Mr. Ward.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents consisting of proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, or referral, photos, and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all of the above.
thank you you may proceed and please begin to share your screen
thank you very much thank you very much okay let me
okay can we confirm i'm sharing yes excellent uh mr chairman i've submitted my typical exhibit
packet on behalf of Jose Garcia for 2208 -16 North 2nd Street. A1 is the Notice of Refusal.
It was an application for the relocation of lot lines to four lots to four lots for the erection
of four attached structures with roof deck and access structures for use as three family dwellings.
It resulted in two refusals. The property is the CMX's own property, so it requires commercial
use on the first floor. And the lot area for the reconfigured lots, 1 ,440 square feet is required
versus we average about 1 ,250 square feet plus or minus average per reconfigured lot.
So, accordingly, we seek variances today. A2 is the application of appeal. A3 is the project
information form. A4 is proof of ownership. A5 is proof of tax clearance. A6 is the lot line
relocation survey plan. A7 is our site and elevation plan. A8 are proposed floor plans.
A -7 is our site and elevation plan. A -8 are proposed floor plans. A -9 are the photographs of the property. And as the chair mentioned, we do have a RCO letter of support at A -11, as well as a petition of support at A -10.
A9 are the
I don't know if the district council person submitted a letter, but if it has been, I would ask that it be marked as A -12 for the record.
And as far as relevant zoning history, these lots together have been used for auto sales since about 1953.
A -13 is the zoning map, and A -14 are aerial photos.
So, again, with regard to the refusal, we're proposing three units.
Two would be permitted as per the lot size, and again, with regard to lot size of the reconfigured lots, 1 ,440 is required.
However, we average, again, I said about 1 ,250 each.
So if we were to put commercial use on the first floor, the two other units would be permitted by right.
However, we still have the lot size issue to work with.
I also included the application of appeal, as stated, the project information form, my transmittal letter to the board, copy of the deed.
One deed includes all of the subject premises, as noted in the refusal.
As you can see, I highlighted the addresses.
Um, with regard to tax clearance, uh, we noticed last week that there was still a balance due for 2022, but Mr. Garcia, uh, upon my notification immediately, uh, paid that online on May 11th.
So he is current with regard to the actual plan.
currently you have uh four lots promises a b c and d uh we are looking to relocate these lot lines
to more or less make them even sized lots uh four total so the proposed lots uh would be
a little over 17 feet wide, pretty much wider than what's next door. It's 14 feet
and pretty much consistent with what's on the corner on the block. So as part of the
proposal, Jose intends to construct four identical attached structures for use as
three family dwellings. The floor plans, as you can see, the three colors represent the three
different units. You have the first floor and basement are one unit complete with code compliant
emergency egress window wells. The blue would be the second floor unit and the rear of the first
floor. And then the the tan color would be the third unit, all of which would have common access
through a common stairwell to the roof deck. Okay, as you potentially could see the air conditioner
units would be contained on the roof out of sight from the public view. The property was
The property was posted in accordance with the code.
Here is a picture of the front of the property with the zoning poster on the fence.
Again, another picture of the auto sales lot, an aerial view of the sales lot, an overhead shot, street views.
this is our petition of support consisting of one two three four pages this was a uh a mailed in
ballot uh in favor of the project submitted by one of the neighbors and then we have the letter
of support from uh nara square they voted to support 12 in favor one in favor with
some conditions. And three were opposed and three requested a continuance. There was a total of
19 eligible voters, 12 of which, or 13 of which, voted in favor of the project.
With regard to the zoning map, I've highlighted the area. Here's the four lots. As you can see,
it's zoned CMX2. Another aerial photo. And when we met with Norris Square, they wanted some
reasoning for the residential use on the first floor. And I did a survey of all the properties
on the block. And there is very, very, very limited commercial use on this block, despite
uh the cmx zoning uh there are three as i found 2329 north second was a takeout restaurant two
the CMX zoning. There are three, as I found.
apartments 2233 was auto repair and 2207 was a bar restaurant so we submit there's no demand
for commercial use at this location and commercial space would likely remain vacant for some time
so we're proposing all residential use for new construction and all would be two bedrooms two
baths. And they were curious as to the estimated rental rates. And we submitted that was approximately
$1 ,100 a month. And finally, we just indicated that vacant commercial results in zero rental
income for that unit, which affects the ability to pay for the other construction mortgage and
mortgage, and that the project could become financially unfeasible. So I would ask that
Jose raised his hand virtually in the audience so he can be identified.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Yes, good morning. My name is Jose A. Garcia, J -O -S -E -G -A -R -R -C -I -A. Good morning.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes sir proceed sir proceed sir okay jose you've heard my representations to the board today
yes sir are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief
that is correct sir and would you adopt them as your own testimony yes thank you very much
if the board has any questions we'd be happy to answer questions from the board yes mr chairman
uh counselor can you go back to the floor plans yes sir
can you see him top yes thank you are there apartments in the basement
yes and again they have code compliant uh egress wells
what percentage of the building is in the ground
basement apartments is okay if 50 of the building is out of the ground
yeah so uh it appears that nine i don't know you're better at plans than me
time it looks like nine nine feet two inches is below grade and then
so 50 of the building is not out of the ground
oh more than 50 of the building is out of the ground correct
more or less
the building the building measures 35 feet eight inches uh to to the roof line and nine feet no
is no we're only referring to the basement level and the grade level
well it would appear that
it appears that nine feet two inches is below grade
And that's not 50 % out of the ground. Thank you.
Joe, a real quick question. Right behind here, they look like new development back there. Are they multifamily?
Right behind the project, right behind the place, there's new buildings back there.
Yes, that's correct. There is. Let me get that up picture.
Yes, right there. Is that multifamily?
i am not sure i don't know if jose knows
yeah i i don't know mr chairman yes um there are actually rsa a5 their single family dwelling
their four houses actually i own those properties and i developed them last year and the answer for
the apartments in the basement actually there's not a full apartment in the basement it's actually
the the one bedroom is in the basement for the one apartment going back to the previous question
so um those houses in the back yes we did uh develop them last year uh completed them last
year uh but they are for a single family they are rsa five okay any other questions from the board
no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, I see no hands at this time.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
In 2021, the zoning map was amended in this area, but this parcel was intentionally left at CMX2 at the request of the community.
We agree with the appellant that the neighborhood conditions do not support commercial use on the ground floor of these properties, and the four additional dwelling units overall throughout the lots effectively would replace that required commercial space in terms of overall space.
So the City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant these variances.
MI 2022 -000 -414 -2208 -16 North 2nd Street, I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Allen, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishqar Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Counselor.
Thank you very much.
MI 2022 -002116 -3618 Wallace Street, Lot 20.
and a letter of support from a coordinating RCO
Mantua Civic Association.
Darwin is coming in now as a panelist here.
mr chairman good morning good morning could you say your name and spell it for the court reporter
darwin beauvais at dealworth paxton darwin d -a -r -w -i -n beauvais b as in boy e -a -u -v as in
victory a -i -s as in sam again i'm at 1500 market street at the law firm of dealworth paxton and
Meredith Merlager as my law partner.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, please, in the relationship to the property?
If we can promote Charles Lomax, who's also on the call. He's of the Lomax companies, and he is the developer of this project.
It's a response to an RFP put out by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.
And this particular project is part of a larger scheme that is supported by the RDA as well as the community.
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good morning, Mr. Movede. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, we do.
You may proceed, and please begin to share your screen.
Great.
Thank you.
Okay. So, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, again, my name is Darwin Beauvais, and we also have here on the call Mr. Charles Lomax.
What we did file with Hillary was an exhibit package with approximately 15 exhibits, including our refusal, tax clearance, all the way down to our appeals, aerial views, a memorandum of law, and the letter of support, as well as photographs.
Now, we also did submit revised plans, which focuses and is the essence of our appeal today.
So, our project takes about two blocks from Wallace Street to half of 3rd Avenue, between 37th and 36th Street.
um the project in turn it it's part of a large -scale process project that complies with
the mantua transformation plan which was also accepted by the philadelphia planning commission
back in 2013 this particular project uh before you today includes 32 low -income tax credit
residential dwelling units. The project sits within the promise zone and that promise zone encourages
The project sits within the Promise Zone and that Promise Zone encourages job opportunities,
economic activities, improve education, and reduce crimes. After decades of blight,
the structures that were originally on this project have been demolished as far back as 2015.
I would like to bring the board's attention to Exhibit 15.
So let's just start with some photos.
This is our location.
that's view from 37th street view from mount vernon another view from out vernon looking west
um this is in essence a map of where the property is located and evidence of our posting this is
across the street standing in front of the post and that's where we are so let's just start with
our refusal if i may um our refusal is simple we're short for a side yard by less than three
feet. We are providing 9 .62 feet of slide yard when the code requires 12 feet. And the essence
of our discrepancy is it's clear. And if we go to page 18, which is exhibit five,
see if we can get here you'll see exactly what's going on some earlier this year we actually got a
relocation permit which is part of the exhibit package with that and i think the plans will
better illustrate what our intentions are can can everyone see this let me just zoom in a little bit
further. Above, this was the original lot as contemplated or as taken by the Redevelopment
Authority. Since then, we divided the lots into three. This lot is an open -air parking lot that's
going to serve commercial usage, which is part of, it's all the same development, all the same
scheme but this is going to be an open -air parking lot. The lot before you today is here in the middle
and this lot we will probably be coming back in the next few months to address this but that's
not before you today. Now we did receive a permit for this project as you can see here's the open
lot. Here's the lot that's before the board today. Here's the lot that we're going to come back
in a few months. This lot, we decided to, we originally wanted to put our bicycle parking
in another location. But as we sat down and discussed this and reviewed the program,
We thought it would be best to provide the bike parking in the open alleyway, which in the side yard, which is 12 feet originally, but now it ends up being only 9 .6.
So, let's go to page 25.
Here's our elevations.
We're just providing three -story buildings.
There are no bedrooms in the basement.
These are two -bedroom apartments.
and they're all dedicated for low -income tax, low -income families.
With that, let's go to our zoning map, which is page 31.
as you can see we're sitting in the middle of our rm1 district rm1 is throughout a
and although we are keeping in essence with uh providing multi -family because our lot will
provide two buildings, a total of 32 units, and it is for low income. The only variance that
The only variance that we're seeking is the side yard.
we're seeking is the side yard.
We're submitting that our variance is de minimis as a result.
Let me just provide a closer look at the lot.
So, here's our first building identified as multifamily building A. Our second building
identified as multifamily – oh, it should be multifamily B. But this is in question
the side yard here and this should be 12 feet and again we submit that it's de minimis because
the use that is provided along this slot is an open air parking lot so if as the issues
of light and air are are are what's being addressed with the with requiring a side yard
we are still accommodating that.
Having said that,
let me just go back to the beginning.
Having said that,
uh we our our permits with the several lots adjacent to the project given the fact that
it's all under one development we submit that that that all accommodate and fall in line with
with the Mantua Transformation Plan.
This particular phase of the project
is just a side yard requirement,
and it does lend itself to the broader design
and lock orientation,
which we are presenting before you today.
Although we don't have,
we're unable to provide a 12 foot side yard, right?
We're still suggesting that the light and air
is still being provided we're still suggesting that as a result we're not can there's no signs
of congestion because this is an overall scheme project with one development one developer there
are there's no burden to water or utilities and as a result when we presented this to the community
They actually supported our idea because they've been supporting other variants that we've been seeking so far with this project.
And let me just go.
So here's our letter of support.
We did sit down with the community and the developer directly.
There was an open dialogue.
They were very much in support of the project. And we see that as a result, there's no negative impact. And therefore, we ask that the board supports our project today.
Let me just present the revised plans for you. And I don't know if I have to reshare my screen.
Again, we are now looking to add bicycle parking outside, as you can see with the bubbled area.
um again the lot to the right of your screen will be coming back later that is a different
phase of the project and the lot to the left of your screen has already been permitted
um with that said i would like to call mr lomax um and if he could be promoted or be allowed to
speak at this time.
Mr. Lomax, can you please raise your hand?
Mr. Lomax?
Hold on.
Here, I see no hands at this time.
He is here.
He is here.
Thank you.
Mr. Bovet, you're an officer of the court.
Your testimony is fine.
I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Members of the board, Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
In 2021, the zoning map was amended from RSA 5 to RM 1 in order to facilitate construction of affordable multifamily housing on this site.
The proposed dimensional variance is minimal and does not conflict with the purpose and spirit of the zoning code.
City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2022 -002 -116, 3618 Wall Street, Lot 20.
I vote yes.
Revised plans, one page, stamped May 18, 2022.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
James Snell, yes, with proviso.
Jamil Shaheed, yes, with proviso.
good luck thank you thank you darwin uh mi 2022 000 402 7251 algon street joseph consul is the
attorney um letter of opposition from take back your neighborhood and we have our attorney for
this representing us is amy galler who will be filling in for uh hillary coming back in now
as a chair as a panelist chair okay mr chair what happened to number 12
continued thanks
hi mr console good morning board hi could hi could you state your name and spell for the
court reporter? Yes, it's Joseph Consul. That's C -O -N -S -O -L -E. Do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Could you identify your client in
the relationship to the property? Yes, board. My client is Sandra Rodriguez. She's the owner of
the property. All right. And our vice chair, Carl Tenere, has a few questions. Hi, Mr. Consul. Do
agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do have you emailed
the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance a copy of the refusal or referral
photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing and have you met with the
rco and do you have a letter yes count okay you may proceed and please begin to share your screen
is my packet up i had clicked this the share it is up okay all right good morning board again
joe console here on 7251 algon avenue the property owner is sandra rodriguez as mentioned
she purchased the property in august of 2016 here is an external shot of the property
The property is a 6 ,129 square foot corner property with a two -car garage.
It is important to note, and I can show you on this atlas here, that this property is twice as big as the other RSA3 zoned properties in the area, and the only one that contains a two -car garage.
My packet contains the refusal, the letter from the RCO, photos of the interior and exterior of the property, and plans for the property, as well as the other required documents.
So turning to the refusal on page four, the refusal here is for a two -unit approval on an existing duplex.
As I said, the property is zoned RSA 3.
the property is set up as a duplex one one bedroom and one two bedroom unit and according to the city
archive has been approved as a duplex since at least 2001. i am showing you now the first two
unit rental license that existed on the property from 2001 until 2010. now i'm showing you the
second two -unit rental license that existed on the property from 2010 until 2015.
Going back to my packet, I'll briefly skip ahead just to bring this point home a little bit.
In our pictures submitted in our packet, you can see the meters and the heaters showing the setup for two units, as well as a common area.
In our pictures submitted in our packet, you can see the meters and the heaters.
These are not new pieces of equipment, and there's two of everything.
Okay. Okay. As I mentioned, from 2001 until 2015, the property consistently had two unit rental licenses.
However, in 2012, there was an approval to use one of the residential units as a family daycare.
That application is part of what has resulted in the problems Ms. Rodriguez is having today.
As my client will attest, Ms. Rodriguez bought the property in 2016 and was very green to the Philadelphia process.
She will attest to the fact that everything involved in the purchase process confirmed to her that the property was a legitimate two -unit building because at the time of the purchase, it was.
it was after this purchase that she made some errors that are causing her the problem she is
having today most importantly she did not realize how important it was to renew the two -unit rental
license after the purchase she moved her son into one of the units with the intent that she would
move down to Philly and keep the tenants in the other unit the intent was to have her family live
in one unit for an indefinite period of time after which she would rent it out again so she thought
she only needed one rental license since she was only renting one unit. So as you can see on the
screen, shortly after she purchased it in December of 2016, she pulled a one -unit rental license.
Her next mistake, the property had been receiving from the city mailings and tax bills for the
daycare that had been licensed in 2012. And to try to fix this problem, Sandra hired an expediter
to file something to remove the daycare designation from the property. So in 2018,
what he ultimately filed was a mistake. This is a use permit, which functionally reduced the
unit count to one. However, my client will attest that this was likely a mistake brought on by a
language barrier experienced by the person that she hired. Again, the property is and always has
been laid out as a duplex. And I'll show you some pictures of the property now.
Just scrolling through them.
There are outstanding violations on this property that my client is trying to fix. However,
we're stalled at the two -unit approval process we are seeking right now. And once we get that
approval, she can address those code violations that need to be addressed. We met with the RCO
twice. The second time, they asked for a walkthrough, which we provided. The RCO,
it was dismissive of approving the project from the get -go, despite them seeing the layout in
person of the two units, the older rental licenses, all of the meters and such. They
we're not willing to consider this request. We are hopeful that the evidence we're providing
and the testimony my client will just provide will help sway the board's opinion here.
The fact is, it's a 6 ,000 -plus square foot corner property with a two -car garage.
It's twice as big, clearly has been approved for two units for many years in the past,
and has not been converted from such. With that, I'd like to call my client,
Ms. Sandra Rodriguez to raise her hand.
Ms. Rodriguez, please
unmute yourself away for the chair.
Can you hear me?
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
You're breaking up.
Okay. My name is Sandra Rodriguez.
Could you spell for the court reporter?
Oh, yes. S -A -N -D -R -A, last name Rodriguez, R -O -D -R -I -G -U -E -Z as in zebra.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Proceed.
Good morning, Ms. Rodriguez. First of all, have you heard my testimony so far?
Do you agree with what I've said and adopt it as if it was your own?
I have just a couple of questions for you that I'd like you to just make some things
clear for the board.
Could you please describe everything that indicated to you when you purchased the property that
it was a duplex at the time you bought it?
Yes. Well, so the house was on the website, Realtor, Redfin, Zillow, everywhere. It was a multifamily property. Also, my Realtor showed me rental licenses for two units.
Well, so the house was on the website Realtor Red...
When I saw the house, I saw, you know, the meters, the layout was for two apartments, two kitchens, you know, two car garage.
Everything indicated it was a two family house.
Thank you. Could you explain to the board why you pulled a single family rental license in 2016?
Well, the intention, whenever the house, the intention was for it to be like a family house for me and my son.
I couldn't move as I planned at that time, but my son was in the house for many years.
So I didn't need a rental license for that because he was my son and I've been going, you know, back and forth to the house.
So it was only one unit that needed the rental license.
Okay. Did you understand at that time that that could have some detrimental effect in the future, you trying to get the two -unit license?
Okay. And could you explain to the board finally what the expediter did in 2018 that you had hired? What was your intent and what was the result?
You're breaking up a little bit.
Oh, sorry. Can you hear me now?
so when I realized the house was like a business and it was not really because it was a daycare
there uh that you know that was from previous and I had no knowledge of I you know I asked my
contractor to go and take away that because obviously it was a family house and um like you
mentioned like I guess the language barrier because my contractor speaks mostly Spanish um
Um, so, you know, it made a mistake that, um, you know, to convert the house to a single
family was never the intention when, you know, uh, upon my request.
Did you do, did you do anything physically to alter the, the, the layout of the property?
Uh, is there anything else you'd like to add to the board before we close your testimony?
No, I think we've covered pretty much everything.
Thank you, Ms. Rodriguez.
Questions, questions from the board.
no mr chairman no mr chairman no mr chairman no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or
comments from the virtual audience
chair we have dylan mahoney with his hand up
mr mahoney you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair
thank you mr mahoney didn't i swear swear you earlier today yes sir okay just state your name
and proceed um dylan mahoney uh from the office of councilman sherelle parker um we received a
letter of opposition from the coordinating rco take back your neighborhood and also some outreach
from other near neighbors who attended the meeting and frankly we're concerned about the um about the
maintenance of the property and um would prefer to see the the house move forward as a single
family home and accordingly we are in opposition to the to the granting of the variance thank you
thank you um planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia city
planning commission members of the board the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
existing rsa3 single family zoning at this location however as we've seen in the testimony
here the property file shows a prior legal use as a two -family dwelling and the configuration
of the existing building is consistent with this use the city planning commission recommends that
the word grant this variance thank you mi 2022 000 402 7251 algon avenue i vote yes
carol tennery my vote is yes thomas hollowan my vote is yes
ishmael shaheed my vote is yes thank you board thank you um is there anyone in the virtual
audience whose case has not been called
this morning?
Chair, I see no hands
at this time.
Thank you, everyone.
A lot of good work done this morning.
See everybody at 2 o 'clock.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
We're recording.
And we live, Chair, so you can continue
with your speech. Good afternoon. My name is Bill Bergman and I will be chairing this afternoon's
EBA hearings. With me is Carol Tenere, our vice chair. Present, Mr. Chairman. Ismael Shahid,
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Ismail Shahid, our Board Secretary.
our board secretary.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our Board Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And James Snell, our Board Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkit, and our Board Attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Before we begin, here's our virtual format.
Be advised these proceedings are being recorded. By participating, you acknowledge your agreeing to be recorded. A video will be available by contacting tonyasunkett at phillip .gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying. If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548. Leave your email and the address of
the property in question. And fourth, please note the question answer box is not for testimony or
comments. Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sunkett, our executive director.
So let's look at continuances for this afternoon's case.
Number one, MI 2022 -001571 -1300 North 24th Street.
Number two, MI 2022 -001 -091 -1112 North 24th Street.
3, MI 2022 -002 -204 -1317 North 25th Street, and number 4, MI 2022 -001 -158 -1424 Pemberton Street.
And I will note that that case is continuance for attorney moving parties.
excuse me mr chairman on on the um mi 2022 001091 number two it's 1312 north 24th street
what did i say 1112 okay 1312 north 24th yep all of them are right in the same area
and number 16 this is a joint request from the civic association and the and the applicant
MI 2022 -001088. Those cases are continued. Are there any comments from the virtual audience for
those particular cases? I see no hands. Just a moment, Chair. We have Aaron Weston with his hand
up. Mr. Weston, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair. Hi, could you state your name and
spell for the court reporter please hi my name is aaron weston um a -a -r -o -n w -e -s -t -o -n
right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do what of those cases which one are you calling about so first of all i'm looking
for clarification as to why these lots
are being
combined into one when they're also
being combined into one.
No, no.
The only question I have is, do you
have any questions about the cases we've just
continued?
Thank you.
This is about the cases that you're talking about.
Sir, I'm sorry,
sir. This is only for continuance,
not for testimony.
here we can move on okay um case number 15 mi 2021
zero zero one one two two 68 14 old york road mr ward could you come on a minute please
mr ward
okay we'll get to that that case is going to be continued we'll get that then when mr ward's
available
we do have another hand chair bernard studevin if you wish sure absolutely
yes sir could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
bernard studovan s s -t -u -d -e -v -a -n you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth is nothing
but the truth yes i do are the cases we called which one do you want to talk about um i don't
Um, I don't have a paper. I don't want to talk about cases. My case is I have a I was scheduled for a meeting today with the VA with you guys, but my RCO never gave me a public meeting date.
have my papers for me oh my god i'm my uh
Okay, so so what what what case is that, sir? Where's your location?
Uh, three to two West Coulter.
it's number 10 mr chairman so this is the second listing um
we have no exhibits yet either on this case can i ask you a question
sure when when you give me the date for my zpa meeting is it my responsibility or the rco's
responsibility to set the public meeting deep that that's between you and the rco that's between
you and the rco listen this is the second listing we have no exhibits okay you have have you turned
any paperwork in at all to us no i haven't from from my conversation i i need a zoning adjustment
listen to me listen this is what we're going to do this case is going to be continued next time
must be tried and you're going to have to get a hold of your rco yourself thank you sir
mr chair this is hillary um i just wanted to interject um sir if you're having difficulty
getting in touch with your rco um you can reach out to your district council office
so that you have that option um as well so that you can move forward with your case
i don't even know if he's still on mr mr ward yes sir
Number 15, we have a request from the RCO to continue this case.
Is that Old York Road?
Yes, 6814 Old York Road.
Yeah, we have no objection.
The RCO indicated that overall they support the application, but they have some concerns they want us to address.
So we've got to make some tweaks to the plans and get them back to them.
Thank you, Mr. Ward.
You're welcome.
Right. Are there any other requests for continuances?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
All right, we're going to go to the first case we have on our list, which is number five.
MI 2022 -001 -089 -15 South 52nd Street.
Robert Careless is the attorney.
Walnut Hill Community Association sends letter of support with Proviso.
Mr. Careless is coming back in now as a panelist, Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Hi, Mr. Careless, how are you?
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Robert Careless, C -A -R -E -L -E -S -S, Cozen O 'Connor, 1650 Market Street, Philadelphia, EPA.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
yes i do would you identify your client the relationship to the property yes sir uh i
represent jp morgan chase bank uh chase is the equitable owner of the property uh we have
submitted with our exhibits um the first and last page of the agreement of sale for the property
thank you our vice chair has a few questions hi mr careless do you agree to wave the reading
of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof
of ownership tax compliance or referral photos under plans of the property five days in advance
of this hearing and have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter? Yes to every question but one
in the submission of our exhibits in the chase is closing on the property at the end of the month
taxes will be paid at the end of the month but we do not have not been able to obtain a tax
clearance certificate because it has to be paid at closing um we did confer with uh the the zba
administrator and the solicitor and i i'm here to add request um that we'd be permitted to proceed
with the testimony today um and evidence and then if the board's so inclined either to condition
approval upon submission of that letter of the certificate or uh continuous for a resumption
hearing for the limited purpose of me coming back to put the tax clearance certificate into the
record and then the board could take its vote that if it's so inclined okay and that'll be up to the
chairman chairman that's fine that's fine thank you mr chairman for that one one one question
um your plans have changed or amended yes sir okay uh how many pages uh i believe it was three
pages let me just check that real quick
Thank you.
uh three pages sir okay so our attorney has this question that we want to put to you
in the amended the change is the sign bigger uh the dimension of the sign has changed it's
not gotten any larger dimensions have changed. So where it was, we're not generating another
refusal, right? No, sir. In our exhibit packet, we went through the process with the board to
for leave to obtain a new refusal. We have the new refusal that untied the buy right signage from
the signage that needs relief. That's part of our application in exhibit packet. Okay. Hillary,
were you okay um yeah just wanted to ask on one additional question this is hillary emerson um
mr carol just to clarify so there was an amended refusal and and then on top of that there were
also revised plans i just want to make sure i have that clear yes okay the revised plans happened
after the amended refusal they happened in connection with it but we did not we submitted
the amended plans with the request for the amended refusal but my understanding of the way that we
received the refusal is that it was not a brand new application so out of abundance of caution
we submitted the proviso plan so it's clear um if the board's so inclined to grant our variance that
the plan that we're sending back is the plan the final plan that we're going with um and then just
for the record we did discuss that with the rco the rco did see the amended design and that's
noted in their letter of support to us okay i will just um since we're not voting on it today
we have time to to check on it but i will just check with ellen i to see which version of the
plan that they reviewed to see whether we need to do a proviso plan or not so i don't want to
i don't want to cause confusion and add proviso plans and an amended refusal if they had already
reviewed the plans for the amended refusal so that makes sense okay thank you you're welcome
uh thank you um again bob carol is on behalf of jp morgan chase bank as i noted we are the
equitable owner of the property um we are here to before you on a roof sign uh for the property
which is the philadelphia savings fund building of west philadelphia in the walnut hill section
um jp morgan chase bank is proposed a and as of right financial use for the property
uh in connection with that use they obviously mean signage for the property
all of the signage for the property is as of right um that they are proposing um with the
exception of the roof sign that's subject to the that's before the board today uh the zoning code
prohibits roof signs in in all districts um just to give the board an orientation as to where we
are here we're in the as i said we're in the walnut hill section of the city uh the property
is bounded by 52nd street and ludlow street um in our as i as i was indicating earlier in response
to the questions the initial application that chase filed to the board included all of the signs
um due to the the fabrication schedule that chase has to get its signs um produced we untied the
buy right signs from this sign which is the reasoning that we went and proceeded to get
an amended refusal so that the refusal that's in our exhibit packet today uh is just pertaining to
this um roof sign um so just to show the board what we are uh before you today this is um a north
and south -facing sign illuminated double -sided on the property. We did meet with, and then
Citizens Bank is a former user at this site. They did have a roof sign up there before. The sign
that we're proposing, you know, largely traces the shape of that former Citizens Bank sign right
there um we did meet with um the walnut hill civic association and as noted in their letter we do we
agreed um that the south facing side the sign that faces ludlow street um the illumination of that
sign will be limited to um business hours uh and chase is agreeable to that um and in the um
revised plans that we have in our exhibit packet we did add that note um to the uh drawing so that
if the board is inclined to grant it that if there is a plan on there that notes the restriction of
the illumination for business hours on the south basic sign um you know we respectfully
the purpose of the sign obviously is to signal the building the chase use to motorists uh coming up
down 52nd street many of the uh the signage that is on the building is is sort of
Many of the signage that is on the building is sort of pedestrian -facing, street -onward -facing.
So motorists coming up and down 52nd Street will be able to identify the building with the signage.
Also, we are proud to be in the Walnut Hill section of the city.
And in addition to signaling our building to motorists,
we'd also want to signal the building to those on the 52nd Street regional
somewhere else, the Market -Frankford station here so that people, commuters also know that
we are present in this community. The pictures that I'm showing here to the board are just
different orientations of the building. This is a view from Ludlow Street. This is a view
looking southward on 52nd Street. And as you can see, as I mentioned, we have that Citizens
Bank sign there. With respect to the variance, we believe that this is
um a sign a that's replacing nearly in kind the sign that was there before so therefore we don't
believe that there's any alterations to the character of the community of the neighborhood
here um we don't believe that respectfully that that we wouldn't there be any endangerment to the
public health safety or welfare in fact we think providing adequate signage for the property would
be a safety benefit to motorists to pedestrians um and you know providing adequate signages in
the best best healthy safety and welfare of the community um i'm joined today uh by todd sams who's
the vice president of jp morgan chase bank mr chairman if i could just have him adopt my
testimony i know we're talking about today yep okay mr sams could you raise your hand and come
off mute mr sams you could unmute yourself and wait for the chair please
all right sir could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes sir todd samms t -o -d -d -s -a -m -m -s representing jp morgan chase thank you do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed sir mr sam did you hear my
testimony to the board yes i did and would you adopt and affirm that testimony as if it were
your own today yes i would mr chairman i have nothing for mr sams thank you are happy to answer
any questions the board might have questions from the board no no mr chairman no questions
or comments from the virtual audience i see no hands at this time chair planning commission
good afternoon this is greg waldman from planning commission staff uh last name is spelled w -a -l -d -m -a -n
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
Yes, sir.
Proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map change from CMX4 to CMX3 at this location.
The proposed sign replaces one that had previously existed and does not expand an existing nonconformity.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
Mr. Karelis, I just talked to our attorney.
We're going to close the record on this, and all we'll need is the tax information, and we'll do it then, okay?
That sounds fine, Mr. Chair.
Is that okay?
Yes, Mr. Chair, that's fine.
We'll close the record except for receipt of the tax certification.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Have a good afternoon.
Thank you.
MI 2022 -001 -142 -1831 -33 Frankfurt Avenue.
The attorney is Ryan Bolin.
Letter of support from Fishtown Neighbors Association.
letter of support from Fishtown -Kendington neighborhood business improvement plan.
Mr. Boland is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Boland.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Ryan Boland, R -Y -A -N -B -O -L -A -N -D.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes, I represent the applicant, Frankfurt Square Foot LLC, who's the record owner of the property.
Thank you very much.
Our vice chair, Carol Tenere, has a few questions for you.
Mr. Bolland, you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
You may proceed and begin by sharing the screen.
certainly so we're here today with the support of the coordinating rco fish town neighbors
Certainly.
So we're here today with the support of the...
association and the other local rco and we're seeking a special exception for a new location
of an existing wine bar and they also do production as well called mural city cellars
and this special exception it was triggered due to an overlay in fish town that requires
all eating and drinking establishments to to obtain a special exception.
And as the board saw, there is a forty two to zero support by the coordinating RCO in support of the project.
And Fishtown Kensington Area Business Improvement District notes in their letter of support that the tenant has a sterling reputation throughout the community
and that they're thrilled that they remain within this district when they move from their existing small location to a larger location.
Just to be clear what we're dealing with here, if the board sees the building we're looking at, we're only seeking a change in use.
It's just a little one -story building here in a CMX2 district, and we're only here for one of the two uses.
We're only here for the restaurant use.
and at this for this project approximately one third of the building will be the back half here
the back third this will be for wine production and two thirds of it will be for a wine bar and
I'll just really briefly briefly show you uh what we're talking about here so it's a corner property
at the corner of Frankfurt Ave and Berks Ave right here at CMX2 here here's another image of it
here it is from above you can see it's a corner property it has a couple of roll -up garages
we're going to have trash on the side here here's another shot of it down burks avenue
um here's just an image of what the facility looks like now in fishtown it's a it's a very
small as you can see there they're crushing the grapes by hand um it's just just a very small
quaint wine bar um also here's just the the board can see that the general layout it's going to be
the the production area is going to be a third and here's going to be the rest um i won't take
the board through the rest of the exhibits that we submitted but this is presently it's presently
a um it was being used as an auto garage um and and the use now the the tenant they um are allowed
under their liquor license to have sales until 11 p .m., but they actually, they're a good neighbor
and they close at 10 o 'clock. It's generally a 4 p .m. to 10 p .m. business. And I believe we meet
all of the legal elements necessary to establish a special exception. Again, this is only two -thirds
of the property that's going to be used, and we're talking about a one -story building, not an
expansion. This is a very transit -oriented area. We're very close to the L stop at Berks,
and there isn't going to be any issue with congestion. There isn't going to be an issue
with overcrowding the land, impairment of light. Again, we're not changing the building. It's not
going to be burdening any of the public systems. It's not going to be impairing any of the
neighboring uses, and it's also not going to be a hazard. And I just have two witnesses to swear
and I have the owner and then I have the current tenant if I could uh swear them in just to adopt
my testimony sure if Mr. Winnig and uh Ms. Ducos can um raise your hand please
chair we have Mr. Winnig Mr. Winnig you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair please
hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter sure it's jason winnig w -i -n -i -g
right do you swear a firm that's all the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do proceed jason i just have two questions um what's your relation to the project
i'm the owner of 1831 -33 frankfort avenue okay and did you hear the statements i made today
I did. And were they true, correct, and accurate? Yes. And do you adopt them as your own?
Yes, I do. And if the board has any questions for the owner, he's a...
Questions from the board? No.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon Chair and members of the Board. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing commercial mixed -use zoning at this location. The proposed special exception for an eating and drinking establishment will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what normally might be expected for this use. The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the special exception.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Board.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change.
Thank you. MI 2022 -001 -142, 1831 -33, Frankfurt Avenue, I vote yes.
Harold Tenneri, my vote is yes.
Thomas Howell, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
MI 2022 -001 -067 -2100 -12 East Rush Street.
Attorney is Brett Feldman.
Letter of Opposition from Somerset Neighbors for Better Living.
Mr. Feldman is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Vote was 8 for support, 10 opposed, 1 non -opposition.
mr feldman yes mr chairman sure could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
sure sure uh brett feldman 1835 market street philadelphia pennsylvania 19103 i represent the
applicant property owner 2100 to 12 russ street llc do you swear a firm to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth i do our vice chair has a few questions for you
Hi, Mr. Feldman.
Do you agree to weigh through the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes to all.
Okay, thank you.
You may proceed and begin with sharing your screen.
Great, thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, is my screen up here now?
Starting.
Great, great.
Again, Brett Feldman, 1835 Market Street.
I represent the applicant and property owner.
With me today is Andrew Friedman and Yossi Abraham, who are principals of 2100 to 12 Rush Street.
We also have architect Logan Dry, who has testified on numerous projects before this board, as well as our export land planner, Nancy Templeton.
I passed up exhibits, virtually passed up exhibits.
Excuse me, Brett, the screen's just not up. It's spinning.
Okay, let's try it again.
Okay. Sorry for the interruption.
No, I'm happy you told me.
okay let's try it again here we go okay so i've virtually passed up uh our exhibit package uh
with uh exhibits one through 14 uh i just want to i'm going to go i'm going to go through most
of these exhibits but i did want to bring the board's attention um uh at exhibit tab 13
there is the letter from the RCO. I guess it's characterized as a letter of opposition. It was
our understanding that the group was counting the votes within 250 square feet, which I think under
this letter is considered all meeting attendees. If that's the case, we actually had a strong
letter, a strong vote of support. It looks like what they did was they then, I don't know if it's
overruled or had the board then vote. And those were a vote in opposition. In any event, if you
add the two up, it's like it's 10 -9. And I think that's why you see at Exhibit Tab 14, the
Councilman Squilla, who I don't know if the board has this, but we just got this. They noted it was
10 -9 if you count both. There were 60 meeting attendees. There were a lot of people whose votes
weren't counted. And they ultimately just said, hey, it's up to the board. So I've been doing this
for a long time i've never i've never been in this situation i don't know how to characterize
this letter uh but i think this is you know what the councilman's office was trying to uh you know
you know here we are so let me just go to the let me go to the uh uh concrete exhibits here um
here is the here is the project um and i'll come back to this but it is i would characterize this
as a uh boutique uh multi -family building it's five stories uh masonry uh with on the first floor
uh off street parking uh and active spaces on the on on the first floor um there is it's a
very irregularly shaped lot i know people say that but it actually is as you'll see
there's a small finger that extends to a third street uh that's currently vacant and we've done
There's a small finger that extends to a third street that's currently vacant.
And what we've done there to try to fit in with the character on that third side is an even smaller six -unit building on that side.
there to
And I'll show it to you in plan.
And then this is the view at the main corner of Rush and Amber Street, wherein I would characterize this as the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Here are the photographs.
And I think it's a crucial part of the story.
This is the property in red, as you see here. It is mostly fronts on Rush Street here, Amber Street here, and then Somerset here.
And there's that little finger that we have that second building that's vacant. The property is entirely vacant.
And one of the main refusals we received was multiple structures.
There was really nothing to do here other than create a curb cut in the middle of the block, which we didn't think made sense.
We utilized an existing curb cut and put a small building to kind of fit this gap here.
We are surrounded. The property is zoned RSA 5. It was rezoned at some point in the last, we believe, 10 years.
But we are across the street here. This is a active auto repair sales facility with all the, you know, significant use that that goes on there and traffic.
Below us here is a vacant parking lot. And then this is a large Pico substation. These are those big electric generating facility that you see in Chinatown and all throughout the city. We have one right below us.
And then the other corner here is, I think it's just recently closed, but this is the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang Headquarters, which is our other neighbor here. So let me just go through these aerials. But we think it's important to orient yourself.
Again, here's our property. Here's that finger. Here's Cary Motors. Here's the parking lot below us. And then just going through here, giving you a sense of the area. Cary Motors, the Pico substation below us.
And then here is what it looks like actually on the ground. This is, as you approach our property, you know, barbed wire. You can see what it looks like. This is as you go towards our property. This is right below us. This is that PICO substation with all the power generating facility there and the barbed wire.
This is Cary Motors across the street from us.
And I'll just kind of, this is as you go to our property, Cary Motors again, Cary Motors
across the street.
There's cars, there's a repair facility.
That's our property right there in the fenced area.
That's the former Outlaws Motorcycle Gang.
That's their sign there.
I think it's closed now.
And that's at Amber.
And then this is that little finger here that's vacant.
That's the motorcycle gang right there. Property has always been industrial. We did a lot of research on this. A lot of it was because of the environmental legacy that's there that you'll hear about.
It's a brownfield. There's underground storage tanks, we believe. But this was actually a very famous aluminum factory here, which we, you know, if you look at the Sanborn maps going over the last 120 years, going back to, I think, what, 1900, here's our property.
This was a big foundry here right at the corner. And again, this is the reason why this was important to us is we did a, you know, we've had to deal with the environmental, which is part of the hardship on this property.
That's the foundry in red and just going, these are going, you know, every 10 or 20 years, the foundry, the other surrounding industrial uses here as you go through, going through here, the industrial part of, as we did this research,
We found out that our property was actually this was the aluminum factory back in the 1890s that created the capstone for the Washington Monument, which was apparently we were the only aluminum factory in the country.
And this was a significant project that came out of this this property at this corner.
And if you go through and look at the Frischmuth Aluminum Factory, you'll see article after article talking about how this corner produced the capstone for the Washington Monument.
It's pretty significant. And I'll show you pictures of what it used to look like.
That's what the Aluminum Factory used to look like at the corner.
Again, this being important because of the environmental legacy that continues to remain on that property and our needs to come up with a way to do a project that takes into account the environmental and also makes sense.
We zoning notice, we posted the property, here's all the postings on it.
I'll just go through this very quickly and make sure we get to the actual renderings themselves.
Deeds.
deeds real quick here tax here's our tax tax certificate uh the zoning refusals as i
mentioned uh and we're going to get into this the um one of the first refusals is there's two
there's two buildings um because of the irregular shaped law we have the second small building
again we're rsa5 we thought for a number of reasons i will outline um that multi -family
here made the most sense um we we actually got a refusal for providing parking rsa5 doesn't
require parking but we reutilized that curb cut and that created a refusal um and then we have
a refusal for the height and as we'll explain uh we think the variance for the height uh is
necessary in order to address the environmental as well as to create a project that had the
required parking and active first floor. This is our property over here, zoned RSA 5 across
the street with a motorcycle gang. That's also RSA 5. And then this is the industrial looping
all around us here. There are no residential on our block. As you saw, there's actually nothing
on our block. But that's the rezoning that was there. So with that, I'm going to ask
Logan Dry, our project architect, if he could be, if he could join our call right now, our
hearing. Mr. Dry, can you raise your hand so we can discuss the project?
Mr. Dry, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please.
Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. Logan Dry, L -O -G -A -N -D -R -Y, KCA Design Associates, 6525 Tulip Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19135.
You swear, affirm, to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
I do. Proceed.
Great. Mr. Dry, I don't know if you want me to start on the renderings or the zoning plan,
But what I'd like you to do is I know you've testified in front of this board on countless projects, many, many single family, some multifamily, actually for this exact client.
I'd like you to give the board a sense of, you know, the considerations that went into into developing this corner property for the multifamily, specifically the irregular shapes, corner property, the industrial history and the surrounding uses, as well as affordability.
So if you could take the board through how you came with the client, determining that really single family did not make sense here because of the hardships that were on this property, if you could take us through that.
Well, sure.
Mr. Feldman, wait one minute.
So then you're also going to bring a land specialist in?
Yeah, yeah.
If the board's so desired.
I mean, if he's going to talk about why he did not single properties, I think that we'll be fine with that, okay?
Okay. Well, yeah, we just wanted to make sure we had done our homework on this.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah. And I'll try to be, you know, as concise as I can be. If you want to start with the site plan, we'll just kind of give a sense.
And then, you know, we can hop right back to the renderings.
I know it's a little bit blurry here, but here's the zoning plan.
Right. That's the little finger here, Amber, Rush, right?
Right. So, you know, as Brett mentioned, you know, one of the big things we had was the, you know, sort of irregularly shaped site, the little finger that extended out on the Somerset Street.
You know, so we looked at this and said, you know, how's the best way to orient the site that, you know, sort of completes, you know, the vacant tooth, so to speak, on Somerset Street, you know, provides some shared amenity spaces for both of these buildings, provides some off -street parking, and also sort of addresses, you know, the existing environmental issues on the site.
So, you know, what we came up with was basically two buildings, you know, on the right side of your screen, you see the larger massing that we put, you know, sort of closer to the industrial context being on the corner.
We do have this separation from the biker building behind us.
And what we figured was because there was that existing curb cut there off of Amber Street, you know, we'd use that as access.
Right here, Logan, correct?
We'd use that as some access for off -street parking for both the buildings.
Because, again, you know, we had that there. We didn't feel it was appropriate to do, you know, curb cut or drive vile through Somerset Street because it's a mainly residential street over there.
So we figured it made more sense to do a smaller, you know, building on that side.
you know, building on that side. You know, that way, both of these had some shared green space,
You know, that way, both of these had some shared green.
they had some shared parking spaces, and it gave an opportunity to put all of the
trash and sort of building utilities and things like that sort of out of sight, out of public
view, kind of tucked in that little finger -shaped corner between the two buildings.
But that created a refusal, correct? Correct. So because it's in the RSA -5, we did get
uh the refusal for parking because in this case we're accessing it off of amber street which is
considered a side street uh versus a you know rear street or private drive which would you know allow
us to do the parking as of right there so that's why we have the refusal for the parking um if you
want to go back to the renderings we can get to um you know sort of the building design and
and the refusal for the height um again briefly um so you know here uh we have the five -story
building um you know what we did when we designed this was you know we wanted to take into account
you know what makes a successful multifamily building so here you know a lot of buildings
don't have parking we felt parking was important to integrate um as well as some support space for
the multifamily units so your ground floor instead of having you know residential units it's a
combination of parking plus you know your building your mail spaces amenity spaces active uses that
you know belong on a street front which as opposed to residential units that you know a lot of times
would have their blinds drawn um you know not really a whole lot of eyes and ears on the street
so you know because we have sort of our common um amenity spaces as well as the parking on the
ground floor you know and we're not using the basement for any sort of residential the basement
is just for uh storage utilities the pico vault things like that would need to support the
multifamily building. You know, we felt that justified the additional height since we're
not using that ground floor and basement like you typically would. And we're surrounded by
industrial that allows at least 60 feet height, correct? Correct. So it's not uncommon compared
to some of the other buildings that are around the area in those industrial and mixed industrial
districts. You know, so you can see here, we have a building that sort of pays homage to that
industrial style in terms of the masonry in terms of the stone the black iron work you know what i
would note here just briefly is each of these units is designed to have their own uh private
outdoor space uh in addition to um a roof deck that's shared by everybody uh fully handicapped
accessible of course the elevator in the building and we do have a partial green roof on the building
as well um excuse me excuse me sir yep my understanding is that the site is on rsa5
correct correct so you're limited to the height of 38 feet correct correct so what's the hardship
of this site that you can't maintain to 38 feet well so the the reason that the reason that we
felt that we necessitated the hardship was because we wanted to do the additional parking
and amenity spaces that you typically wouldn't have in a multifamily build.
So we felt that...
But excuse me, but the cesspool parking is not required.
Correct.
And again, you know, a lot of times when we go to the RCO groups, we hear, you know,
that there's a need for parking almost any project.
So we figured because we had that curb cut and had the ability to provide it, you know,
we felt that that made sense to integrate as part of the project rather than just leave it out you
know but but also it's not required for this project absolutely it's not um you know but but
we also have the environmental issues as well to speak about can you talk about that because
um i mean that was a primary issue if you whack this up and did single family and had backyards
versus um you know paved it for parking right and and and again you know you can look at it you know
several different ways. And there's, there's numerous ways to address environmental issues,
but generally speaking, what we, you know, wanted to achieve here was rather than do single families
that would have, you know, living space in the basement that would have, you know, yards that,
that presumably, you know, people might have kids in and things like that. You know, we,
we felt that it was a better usage to have the building that had all of sort of the mechanicals,
all of the non -occupied spaces down in the basement, then further on that ground floor,
You know, almost capping most of the site with that accessory parking in addition to these, you know, sort of support spaces over top of that basement.
You know, that's sort of a couple of the things that kind of came together and, you know, added that additional story to, you know, the building.
Excuse me.
Listen, architecturally, you could not accomplish all of this within a 38 -feet limit?
um no we would basically make the the ground
um no we would basically make the the ground floor would have turned into full residential
then at that point without you know the parking spaces yeah and we're talking about the environmental
um i haven't we haven't gotten to that but at exhibit nine we have our environmental report
talking about it being characterized a brownfield the underground storage tanks um which you know
we think it's ultimately going to be a significant redevelopment obstacle which we're going to need
to figure out how do you how do you justify you know the cost and that's why in this as
Logan explained in this direction we thought this made the most sense for the for the neighborhood
and for the project itself. So my understanding would be that because of the environmental
of course you increase the number of units to pay for it is that is that a question well i'm asking
you is that a possibility is that what you're trying to do well well there's a couple different
yes i mean so what we did was and and we designed this as if it was rm1 um and we took advantage of
the uh assuming if it was rm1 we would have qualified for the mixed income bonus um as
you'll hear. We actually do provide a number of units that we've said that we would provide
at an affordable rate, which would satisfy the mixed income bonus.
Excuse me. You're going to provide the forms?
We don't qualify it because it's RSA 5. But what we said was we have 13 % of our units
to require 10 % that we would do at that affordable rate.
And we've explained that to the council person,
we've explained that to the community.
And then the green roof bonus that Logan was explaining
would provide the additional units
to get us to the 30 units that are here total.
So again, what we've tried to do here
is look at what makes sense,
try to respond to the environmental,
the fact that we're a corner,
the fact that this has always been industrial,
it was never a single family.
and use this as a, you know, we looked at the 2035 plan that says, what do you do typically
when there's, you know, a former environmental site, multifamily is a preferred approach.
And that's what we've looked to do here.
And to sort of summarize, you know, Brett, like what you were saying and like Mr. Holloman
pointed out, you know, the issue really became, you know, doing single -family homes here, A,
kind of didn't get us to where we needed to be to address the environmental issues.
Secondly, it didn't give the community who has an extreme, you know, need for affordable housing,
you know, doing six single -family houses here kind of puts that out of a price point of somebody
immediately in the area. And then, you know, lastly, you know, we felt that this was a good
opportunity to kind of serve as a buffer between, you know, single family, which is certainly up
more north, and kind of have this, you know, multifamily serve as a buffer between then
a lot of those heavier industrial uses that you have sort of to the east and the south.
So, you know, those three sort of things kind of steered us in the direction of why
multifamily, why, you know, a higher multifamily than you typically see, you know, in the sense
of addressing the environmental, creating that buffer, and, you know, integrating some things
like parking and amenity spaces that, you know, a lot of multifamily buildings don't have these
days. So that's at least sort of where we, you know, took our cue from, and that really sort of
informed the overall site planning and, you know, requested refusals that, you know,
we ended up getting as a result. Before I go to the next witness, is there anything further for
our architect, Logan?
No, thank you.
All right, who's the next witness?
Great. Our next witness would be
Nancy Templeton, who is
our expert land planner.
If I may, I can call Ms. Templeton.
Ms. Templeton,
please unmute yourself and wait for the
chair.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, it's Nancy Templeton, N -A -N -C -Y -T -E -M -P -L -E -T -O -N.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And, Brett, we want testimony that's different than what we just heard.
Yeah, absolutely.
Ms. Templeton, I'll first ask you this.
Ms. Templeton, I'll first ask you this. You have testified in front of this board, I think you explained to me 20 times, at least 20 times over the past 10 or so years?
You have tested
Approximately, yes.
Okay. And you've been in the exhibit package at Exhibit Tab 8. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Templeton's resume CV is in there. I would ask, like she's been in the past, be accepted as an expert in land planning in Philadelphia.
That's fine.
Okay, great. So let me just go to your report. Ms. Templeton, can you just, you know, I know we've gotten a lot of testimony already about the challenges of this site, but please, if you could just explain what work you did to come to your hardship and your land planning conclusions regarding this site, and then I'll ask you some questions about those specific conclusions.
Sure. Well, I visited the site. I reviewed all the plans and renderings, the correspondence from the RCO, looked at projects and multifamily projects in the pipeline and the history of the site, and finally, the phase one environmental report.
Okay. And I know we've talked a lot about the different considerations at the property in terms of environmental, in terms of the regular shape, the corner property, the history, affordability.
Did you look at those considerations vis -a -vis the Philadelphia zoning code as far as what is required to establish hardship and a variance in Philadelphia?
Yes, I did.
Okay. And can you explain what those conclusions are?
Well, first and foremost, I believe there's a hardship because of the environmental. And I
know we've discussed it before, but it is really remediating a site is expensive.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Templeton. Here is your conclusions on the environmental,
correct? I don't have the environmental engineer here today.
Oh, that's okay. So in the phase one environmental, they did find the presence of
leaked underground storage tank. And it was identified as a local brownfield site, both of
which can be concluded as being heavy, heavily contaminated site. Yeah. And what is what is a
common um you know residential way to treat those type of properties uh is multi -family such a right
right we you asked that question to the last person too so i i think you've already established
that okay okay um as far as as far as traffic in the area on this templeton um we are close to
multiple SEPTA routes, correct? Correct. Okay. And you also looked at the city plan, correct? As far
as how to address these types of situations with industrial, correct? Correct. And what is the
primary way to do that? The plan does talk a lot about converting industrial uses that really are
not viable for industrial, uh, practices anymore into, um, mixed use commercial and residential
higher density residential. Like, like, like we're doing in this case, correct? Correct. Yes. And I,
I know, uh, the chair wants us to move on. Can you provide your opinions as to, um, uh,
satisfaction of the use and dimensional requirements, uh, under the zoning code?
uh yes i think uh again the the proposed dimensional the height and the um use
and the density are appropriate in this area specifically because of the transit the
environmental conditions and that um it fits in with this area better uh we talked a little
bit about transitional and buffer uses between the industrial and the single family and the
pico substation. And there's also a number of newer multifamily being constructed. A lot of
these are on corner properties. Corner properties are more appropriate for why you see a lot of
corner commercial stores and multifamily on corners because there's heavier traffic on the
corners. And again, those provide sort of a buffer between that higher traffic potential for traffic
accidents and single family residential. So there's nothing that is inconsistent with
So there's nothing that is inconsistent with this project within that neighborhood,
this project within that neighborhood, that block?
that block or specifically that area, correct?
Correct.
I have a question.
With all of the environmental problems with this site,
why is it zone RSA 5, single family?
You know, Member Holloman, it's a great question.
my understanding is that this was part of a larger community -wide, it wasn't just this property,
it was a whole range of other properties in this whole neighborhood that were rezoned
back in, I think it was 2017 or 2018. And this was one property that was rezoned to RSA 5.
um hey it's it's you know it's it's it's it's it's a good it's a default to go to rsa5 um
it's i think it's i think it's on this case it was kind of off the rack and and that's why we're
here because uh when you do block after block after block which i think this is what this was
um you can't account for every situation every area um there's blocks around there that this
makes sense. On the other block, on Rush Street, on Somerset, it makes sense. But here, we have a
very different history. We have an environmental legacy. We have environmental Pico substation
below us. Across the street, we've got an active industrial use. But yeah, it was, you know,
that's why we're here. Because in this particular case, we don't think that makes sense. And it
just isn't, we don't think it's good planning, as Ms. Templeton stated.
but the community and the planning commission consider it rsa5 as good planning
it is it is it is the district i it is the district i don't i don't i don't know why
um as i said at the beginning we we actually went to the community and the vote of the immediate
neighbors uh was strongly in support of this um so you know i take it for what it's worth but uh
But, you know, we've got an applicant here who is looking to this has been empty for a number of years, is looking to redevelop the property, do the work to return this to the tax rolls and provide the density that will help support the corner stores in this area.
So, you know, we think when all things take into consideration, there is hardship here.
It makes sense. And this would be really ultimately a great addition to this neighborhood.
and it also helps support the other block with you know that there's a vacant lot there
to fill in that block and the number of units makes sense it's it's it's got a rhyme or reason
it's you know based on rm1 it's based on um uh you know that's exactly the type of density that
you would allow if rm1 um so as far as any least minimum variance we believe that is the case the
number of units uh we didn't we didn't try to over over pack this we tried to come up with a
a rational um number of units so as you know the vote the community vote was eight to ten
in opposition yeah i think it was i think it was it was nine to ten um the vote of the immediate
neighbors and i don't want to get you know i think if you look at the councilman's letter
he said hey it was super close uh you know typically we all know the council person goes
with you know what the vote is this was a case where there was 60 people there they counted 19
um it was basically a wash and the council person said hey um you know in this case uh you know i'm
going to leave it up to the board uh to make its its decision based on the facts and circumstances
of this matter so thank you yeah so okay where do you want to go now bright um that's that's that's
it that's it for right now um have your testimony adopted yeah i'm gonna i'd like to ask um andrew
friedman uh principal of 2100 to 12 uh rush street uh to to join us now
mr friedman you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair please good afternoon mr friedman could
you state your name and spell for the court reporter andrew friedman a -n -d -r -e -w -f -r -i -e -d -m -a -n
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Freeman, can you give your specific title with the ownership entity?
I'm the president or owner of 2100 -12 Rush, LLC.
And I know we've heard a lot of testimony about the decision to go multifamily versus
single family.
I've worked with you on a number of projects where we went single family, where it made
sense where it was the right thing to do. In this case, can you again explain why you just did not
think that this made sense to go single family on this property? Well, Brett, let me ask this.
Well, Brett, let me ask you this. Can he adopt your testimony?
Can he adopt your testimony? Yeah, I'm going to ask him.
I'm going to ask him to. It's just, you know, they spent a number of years looking at this, trying to figure out what made the most sense.
Go ahead. I'll try to keep this short. Mr. Chair, I apologize.
So we just we looked essentially at the environmentals.
We at one point owned other single family lots in the area and we had friends that ended up buying them and developing them.
And we kind of saw the numbers that those properties sold for.
And honestly, what they were listed for rent at one point, they were close to four hundred thousand dollars that they sold for well over two and a half thousand dollars in rent per single family home.
And that wasn't our goal in this area. Our goal wasn't to, you know, gouge price that area.
We know what's going on there. We know what the neighborhood wants and to keep the prices relatively low and affordable.
So our goal was to take into consideration the environmentals, build a building that we can produce each unit at a lower cost.
That way, when we do get to the end goal of renting them, we can actually keep them as affordable as humanly possible to be hopefully less than 50 percent of what they're asking for for a single family home, even at 60 percent off of those numbers.
So that was essentially our goal is to keep the affordability aspect there and have the affordability be as close to rock bottom as possible to make sure that the people that do live in the area, stay in the area, can hopefully afford these properties and enjoy where they've been and continue to live there.
Mr. Friedman, I've got a chart that we put up that we presented to the community.
I presented this to the council person talking about that 13 % of our units would be within this low -income band as per the city's low -income, mixed -income bonus.
Do you see that in front of you right now?
So we talked about 13%, which is four units.
Again, just for reference, there was three single -family homes that are three -bedroom, three -bathroom, approximately the same that we have.
I know one on William Street, 2200 block of William, about a block and a half away, was listed at like $2 ,700 a month.
We're trying to keep it at $1 ,476 or $1 ,228.
If we can get even lower than that with, obviously, construction costs and increased costs of construction, all that, if we can hopefully have that lowered over time with interest rates going up and hopefully material dropping, we're going to reassess and hopefully lower those prices as well.
Obviously, like I said, our goal is to have our rents as low as possible and just keep everybody in this area.
Yeah. Excuse me, sir. I appreciate you trying to do low income housing, but what enforcement
is there with this agreement or list that you have? We are absolutely willing to put this on
the record and then provide any type of documentation you want. We, again, I presented
this to the community. I presented this to the council person. But there's no enforcement.
correct there isn't there isn't right now on there isn't right now um i think you'll hear
planning say the same thing yeah yeah there's there's no way for us to we we we didn't qualify
for the bonus because we're rsa5 um and and the we asked we asked the community i asked the community
to work with us to put this down on you know in some type of binding there was no response
but the people who showed up at the meeting voted to support us uh who lived in the immediate
neighborhood so we're kind of between a rock and a hard place here um um but i will tell you you
this was what we put out there uh and we stand by it and we would be uh you know andrew you know
we would be willing to you know put this in writing as far as you know those those 13 percent
of the units absolutely uh if it if it would satisfy the board do you agree andrew yeah for
sure. We have no issues with that. Again, you know, regardless of those four units or the 13%,
our goal is not to just have, you know, low income housing. Our goal is to have more affordable
housing across the board. You know, like we said, with the environmental and everything, if we end
up building single families, the numbers are just through the roof to even for outsell or for rent,
the numbers are just way too high to keep that area affordable. So our goal with environmental
was to, you know, build something a little bit bigger, build something a little bit more dense
and be able to break everything up per unit and have those numbers, even for the standardized
rents, be a lot lower than expected.
Brent, are you done?
Andrew, I know the affordability was critical and I wanted you to...
Andrew, I know the affordability was critical, and I wanted you to talk about that.
We put a lot of other testimony.
I put a lot of other testimony on the record as far as the other challenges of this site.
I know you heard those, correct?
Correct, I did.
And do you find that true and accurate?
I did.
And do you adopt it as your own?
Thank you, Mr. Freeman.
Questions from the board.
No, Mr. Chairman.
board no mr no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission
good afternoon chair members of the board my name is greg waldman planning commission staff
in 2017 the zoning map was amended from i2 to rsa5 at this location in the court of
recommendations from the comprehensive plan and with the support of the community which matches
the row home character of the surrounding neighborhood. The applicant's proposed 30
units in five stories is an overuse at this location which at present is a paved lot. While
the planning commission staff appreciates the investigation into its industrial history,
the applicant's hardship claim is not supported with evidence of unique physical
circumstances of the property a financial hardship does not merit consideration for
variance in the code additionally the city has no ability to enforce portable units without
the deed restriction the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board deny the variance
mr feldman we've heard a great deal of testimony and i appreciate all the testimony yes what i
want to do with this i want to take this back to an executive session of the board and if i'm not
mistaken tanya that's in two weeks um yes chair if you want to deliberate and vote on june so
what we're going to do is in two weeks we'll be back on wednesday morning i'm not sure the date
but i want to have a chance for the board to really sit and listen to all this again and talk
about it okay and if i just may i appreciate that if if if you know we could put this down on on
you know enforceable as far as the the affordability um again i'd love to i have other
projects where i i mean i think i think there's a lot more besides affordability when i want to
talk about sure okay so what we'll do is we'll be you'll you'll hear from us you'll know it'll
be two weeks to today and um connie will we do that in the morning yes chair you can vote it
would be june 1st at 9 30 june 1st 9 30 will be okay mr chair this is hillary i um i assume you
would like to close the record at this point? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. And thank you to
everyone for your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the testimony. Thank
you. Uh, case number eight, MI 2022 001 237 2137 Bryn Mawr Avenue. Vern Anastasia. Stasio is the
The attorney, letter of support from the Winfield Residents Association.
Mr. Anastasio is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board of Bern, Anastasio, 939 Montrose Street, Philadelphia, PA, 191047.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client?
I represent.
In relationship to this property.
Excuse me.
I represent Crystal Bell, who is the representative of the decedent's estate that is holding title to the property.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
I'm Mr. Anastasia.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
I do to all of that.
Okay, great.
You may proceed and begin to share your screen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I am sharing it.
Can you see the packet or do you see a file instead?
A file instead.
Here we go.
There it is.
There it is.
Thank you for your patience.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, this is a legalization of a pre -existing non -conforming
Legalization of a pre -existing non -conforming use, five -family dwelling in an existing structure.
use, five family dwelling in an existing
structure.
My client has taken this property on pursuant to the death of her father, who owned this property for a very long time.
And it was, in fact, a legal five -family at one point.
As his age progressed, the license for rental was not renewed.
and as such at some point the underlying zoning classification of rsa5 kicked in
i do have this these are as i said uh legal i mean a pre -existing non -conforming use here are the plans
for each of the units
The property itself.
Here are the gas meters, all five electric meters.
There are the mailboxes that have been around for quite a long time.
We did meet with the folks of Winfield.
Here was the RCO letter that was mailed, not only inviting folks to the meeting on April 19th, but inviting folks to today's hearing.
We had proof of 48 unique pieces of mail that went out to everyone who lives within the 300 -foot boundary.
boundary. It was very well attended, over 30 members of the immediate community,
overwhelming support, 28 -6 in support. I've also included a copy of the deed,
the last deed on record, and the tax clearance as well. Given the fact that this property is,
in fact, a pre -existing non -conforming use that my client inherited and would just like to
legalize in order to settle her father's estate given the fact that we have in fact five separate
not only gas meters but electric meters and the physical breakdown of the property shows that
this has been a five -family dwelling for quite some time for all those reasons and the fact that
converting this back to a single family home would be impracticable and with the community support
we respectfully request that this variance be granted. And with that, I ask Ms. Crystal Bell
to raise her virtual hand and be recognized. Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court
reporter please okay hi sorry my name is crystal bell my name is spelled c -r -y -s -t -a -l last name
b -e -l -l do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i swear proceed mr chair thank you mr chair miss bell did you hear my presentation to the board
for this afternoon yes i did is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge
yes it is and do you adopt it as your own testimony i do thank you i have nothing further
questions from the board no mr chairman no mr no questions or comments from the virtual audience
no hands here planning commission please
good afternoon chair and members of the board my name is greg wallovan planning commission staff
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to existing residential single family zoning at
this location the proposed use is consistent with documented previous uses on the property
the city planning commission recommends the zoning board grant the variance thank you mi2022
001 -237 -2137
Rimar Avenue. I vote yes.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you all. Have a good evening.
Thank you.
MI 2022
001 -238 -2247
North A Street. Henry Clinton is the
The attorney, 37th Ward RCO, has a letter of support.
and he's coming in now as a panelist here
And he's coming in now as a panelist here.
good afternoon mr chairman hi mr clinton we've already sworn
you um could you identify your client in this case
and the relationship to the property sure my client is azul holdings a -z -u -l holdings and
the principal is rafi r -a -f -i bulk b -a -l -k and he is on the call via telephone all right our
vice chair has a few questions. Hi, Mr. Clinton. Do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership,
tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in
advance of this hearing? And have you met with the RCO? And do you have a letter? Yes, to all
those questions. Okay, great. You may proceed and begin to share your screen. Thank you. Sure.
thank you. Is that visible enough? Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Henry Clinton here on behalf of Ansel Holdings LLC, and I'll walk through my presentation
package. These are a table of contents, including exhibits AA through A11, which I ask to be
admitted into evidence. Appearance statement, this is the refusal, the key document. This area
is zoned cmx2 when i get to the zoning map you'll see this side of the street the east side of the
street is all cmx2 which as the board knows is commercial on the first floor and typically two
units above when i show you photographs of the street there are no commercial properties on
the same side of the street as this vacant lot across the street there's a large factory but
on this side of the street it's all residential this property has been vacant lots since 1977
And I'll show the board photographs,
excuse me, zoning records at the end of the presentation.
This is a letter of support as the chairman referenced
from the neighborhood group in support of the project.
It's been unanimous support.
These are photographs of North 8th Street.
So these are all residential properties
that my cursor's going back and forth over.
Across the street is a factory.
i believe this is emerald windows they make uh replacement windows and storm windows and this
is the the lot here that has been vacant as i said since late 1977 at least or prior this is looking
north on a street there's the existing factory which is zoned in the zoning district i2 and cmx2
district is across the street again another photograph just showing the rest of the
residential structures on North A Street. The plans are for a triplex on this property,
three families. So instead of having a commercial on the first floor and two residential above,
we're asking to swap out the commercial on the first floor because it obviously will not work
on this block as there are other residential structures on the 2200 block of North A Street.
We'll have a unit, first floor and basement,
unit on the second floor,
and then a unit on the third floor.
So basically, one three -bedroom unit with three baths,
one two -bedroom unit with one and a half baths,
and the third unit on the third floor
will be two bedrooms and two baths.
We have a tax certification,
but I wanted to get to the zoning map,
I'll show the board. This is the subject property. As you can see, the east side of A Street is all CMX2, although in reality, they're all residential.
And it does adjoin an R &M1 zoning district. And across the street is the factory I was telling you about, which is I2.
Again, these are the zoning records. Let me blow these up a little bit.
this is a vacant lot this is 1977 and then the next photograph we're playing i just went back
a little bit further this is 1941 we're really going back far back then it was a commercial
area this was the monroe black company and they had some offices and showroom there but over time
properties were demolished and that whole side of the street ended up being residential so i think
we have some unique circumstances here where the zoning district does not match what is existing
on the block the proposed development of three family does not impair the weight or air of any
adjacent property it's not detrimental to the public welfare it's in harmony with the code
It's in harmony with the code,
in harmony with what the neighborhood wants because they gave us
in harmony with what the neighborhood wants
because they gave us a letter of support.
And we're not asking for any relief
with regard to height, open space, or rear yard.
And with that, I would rest, open the questions,
open up for questionings for the board
or virtual audience.
And my client is on the call also.
Mr. Clinton, do you want to have your testimony
adopted by your client?
Sure. Mr. Ball, can you unmute yourself?
Mr. Balk, can you please raise your virtual hand?
Mr. Balk, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Yes, my name is Ruslan Balk, R -U -S -L -A -N, last name Balk, B -A -L -K.
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes proceed uh good afternoon mr ball did you hear my testimony uh on this zoom call before
the zba yes if you had the opportunity to testify would you adopt my testimony as your own and as
true and correct. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Volk. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chair. No, Mr.
Chair. Questions or comments from the virtual audience? I see no heads at this time, Chair.
Aye. Planning Commission. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the board. This is
Greg Wallachman, Planning Commission staff. The comprehensive plan recommends a change to
RM1, residential multifamily
at this location. The use
variance conforms to the proposed
RM1 zoning district in the
comprehensive plan, which would permit up to
three units by right. The city planning
commissioner recommends that the zoning board
recommend or grant the
variance. Thank you.
MI 2022
001 -238 -2247
North A Street. I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
MI 2021 -003851, 5328 Wakefield Street.
Attorney is Stephen Pollack.
Letter of support, non -opposition from the RCO 12th Ward Democratic Committee.
Mr. Pollack is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
I think I clicked the unmute and part of the video.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court report?
Steven Pollock, S -T -E -P -H -E -N, Pollock, P -O -L -L -O -C -K.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth?
nothing but the truth. I do, Mr. Chairman. Hi, could you identify your client in relationship
to the property, please? Yes, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I represent the Smith Group
Elite Properties LLC, which is the corporate entity for a husband and wife team, Leroy and
Kim Smith. They are on the call with me today so that we will be able to have them affirm our
testimony at the end of the presentation and we also have Mr. Andy Barrios with us who is our
project designer and as always I at some point will to share the screen I need to allow Nicholas
Realbuto my associate to have privileges also as a panelist so he could put up our screen for you
and all our exhibits. All right our vice chair has a few questions. Hi Mr. Pollack do you swear
You already did that, Mr. Chairman.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do, Madam Vice Chair.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, we have, and yes, we do.
Okay, great.
You may proceed, and please begin sharing your screen.
Okay, if we can have Nicholas Rialbuto be able to share the screen, that would be great.
Here we go.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, this is a request to restore the status of the, that's a twins semi -detached building.
We're trying to restore the status of the left side to a three -family dwelling.
The right, I mean the right side, I'm sorry, 5328, the one on the right.
The one on the left side, and could you raise that picture just a little bit, Nico?
Um, go down, you know, go back down, show the yellow. Okay. When my client, uh, the, the left
Go back down, show the yellow.
side is already a three family dwelling. It has, uh, they have a rental license for it in our
packet of exhibits, which are, uh, a one through a 17, which I will request that, uh, they, since
they've been submitted already, that they all be included in, uh, and introduced into the record
and accepted into the record, but that has been documented as a three -family dwelling.
What happened is Roy and Kim bought this property on October the 5th, 2020, as you can see from
the deed that's part of our exhibit package at A1, and this is what the building looked like.
It needed a lot of renovation, so since buying it, they have done and transformed it into
this building modernized the front, modernized the mailboxes, cleaned up the front look,
changed the whole color to make it so it doesn't look discolored and out of place.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, we have in our exhibit package, especially at A14 and A15,
And Nico, maybe you can get to the A14, A15, that what happened here is the left -hand side was granted a variance in 1951 for a three -family dwelling.
And let's go down.
And this is the variance that was granted.
Keep going because we'll see that the zoning board granted a variance for this as a three family dwelling. Go back, go down. Yeah. And here, go there. That, you know, three family dwelling, the condition each apartment will have its own bathroom. That was the condition. And that was what has happened with that property.
They are connected. They are separated out because they're a semi -detached building.
And then if you go to our next project, next paper, you will see that in 1955,
a property across the street, 5325 Wakefield, went in the same thing for a variance to establish
that they wanted to be a triplex as part of their representation to the to the zoning board at the
time they listed all the properties at that time that had that were three family dwellings as you
can see highlighted in yellow are different properties but the the ones to the very bottom
5326 and then the subject property 5328 Wakefield have the notation all these properties have
three family apartments. So this, now if you look at the site plan or floor plan, if we can get to
the floor plan, this is, I don't know if we can turn that around so it can be seen rather than
be on its side. Is there a way to twist it? Yeah. This is the existing structure. So our hardship,
Matt, Mr. Chairman and members of the board is that the physical characteristics of this property,
both the left hand side and the right hand side that are before you today, lays out as a three
family dwelling. It wasn't the creation of my clients when they bought it on October the 5th
of 2020. It was represented to them as a three family dwelling. It looked like, smelled like,
and looked like a three family dwelling. And as you can see, if you go, if you lower that a little
bit, you'll see that the first floor is about a thousand two square feet, but that includes this
laundry in the front patio or porch is that we can go back to the physical photo for you.
The second floor is 857 square feet. Third floor is 804 square feet. So they're not after,
the third floor is not an afterthought in terms of being a lot smaller. Somebody's trying to,
as one former chair used to say, David Auschwitz squeezing 10 pounds of sugar in a five pound bag.
It's been existing for all these years. But as I said, the documentation has gone missing. So Kim and Roy have renovated this. If you want to go to the pictures and show us, before you go to that, though, one of the other things is, although this is zoned RSA3, RSA3 says you need to be 25 feet wide, and you have to have 2 ,250 square feet of lot area.
So it's a zoning character. Zoning district does not fit to the current use of this property on either half because either half really is only about 1900 square feet.
So we've got an already zoning characteristic, which we feel or zoning district we feel, which does.
uh a zoning characteristic which we feel or zoning district we feel which does not capture
what the prior uses were in the neighborhood so if we go and show you maybe show us that map
um that is the um atlas city atlas map because we want to show you that adjacent to this property
especially the left hand side the 5326 property there are uh and maybe nico can show it on this
one if you can show where we are on little wakefield uh right over up a little bit up up up
up you're almost there over see this vacant space and go to your left a little bit go to the left
and down no go go back i wish i was in control here but uh keep going to the left and up it's up
no go to the right one more house all right that's our house that's where we are the next
things are the vacant lots they are lots 53 24 22 53 20 and and they are all owned by the city of
philadelphia they remain vacant since the 1970s according to the uh what i we were able to find
in lni's files so it's there's a vague there's a big tooth or big hole in this area as you can see
from that prior application back from 5325 back in the day in 1955, this area was replete with
three family dwellings. So we believe that, and they have commercial trash pickup.
They've been able to, as I say, renovate this so that, and we could go show the photos now of the
property very quickly to give the board a sense of what we're dealing with.
so that's it from looking uh up the block there's our property uh there it is again with 28 on one
side uh that's across the street and that shows does show a vacant property keep going that's
across the street still across the street here's on our right hand side this is our side where our
5328 the side of the property that's uh up before this honorable board for review uh that's the
side yard that we maintain with the fence. That's looking from the rear yard back towards Wakefield
Street along that same corridor, and again, getting a little bit closer to the rear, and that's the
fence that's maintained. That's again from the rear. Here's the rear lot of our property, so that
maintains the rear look of the property. We're not destroying it. Now, that is looking on the right
hand side, which is the side closest, or really the left hand side. That's the 5326 side, but the
foliage that you see on the right -hand side along the fence is where we start having those vacant
properties that I advise the board about at 54, 24, 22, 20, and 18. So go to the next photo.
And there's a, we're coming along the 26 side again, keep going. Another shot of the 26 side
coming towards Wakefield. And all this maintained, as you can see, there are four meters on that side,
And that's a three family dwelling. This is our rear yard, the rear of the property. Again, keep going. Nico, show the rear. Here's our front. That's the front of our side of 5328. Here's an interior shot of 5328 as you go. And we'll show you going up.
5326 is to the left, 5328 is to the right, and you can see there's smoke alarms and internal
pull stations and a fire extinguisher to start the fire protection. This is that common laundry
room that you saw on the drawing site plan done by Mr. Barrios that is part of our proposal here.
Next is there's the tighter view of the pole station. Now we're going to go up the interior stairs and that's up to the second unit that's been there and go ahead.
And now we go up to that third floor unit to show you that from the way the landing and staircases are and everything like that, you can see that this is not something that was just put in willy nilly.
it dates back as we say and we believe to at least 1951 probably at least 1951 and I was in
amazement to see something that goes back to 51 because I was born in 51 so this building is
probably as old as I am and then this is the third floor apartment that they did do some
you know interior renovations to but they have not rented it it remains vacant because they got
stopped on um that they didn't have uh proof that uh ellen i was not willing to give them a
three -family license go ahead show the next photo so um that's looking towards
Wakefield Street going back into the building. And they're all two bedroom, one bathroom apartments
wakefield street going back into the building and they're all two bedroom one one bathroom
that Kim and Roy have created here. And so that's what the interior looks like. As I said,
they have not rented it. And if you go to our exhibits A16 and A17, you will see that right
now we do currently have a three -family rental unit license for, that's our letters to the
owners and occupants. We do have a three -family rental license for the 26 side, and Roy and Kim
were able to get a two -family rental unit license for the right -hand side, the 28 side that's in
front of you. So we believe that the only way we could ever comply to make this a single -family
home, which is what RSA 3 would be, would be either extensive interior renovations and demolition
that would, as you saw from the way the staircase is, would destroy a lot of the
architectural context of this property on the inside. And also, if we were to not be able to
use the upper floor, we'd either have to do something to just barrier it and say no more use
or actually physically take it out. So we believe that since this property, we believe has been used
as a three -family dwelling for since the 50s, that there is a physical hardship. There is a
hardship created by prior uses. We understand that we, you know, we can't, I can't, I couldn't
find, if you go to the L &I City Atlas file, I can't find anything on the 5328 side. We have found
stuff, obviously documentation, and we've included it for 5326, and also found the documentation
for properties across the way that shows you that this was a three -family dwelling neighborhood.
I know it's been rezoned to RSA 3, but it hasn't been used as RSA 3, this building. It's not
physically laid out. And also we have, as I said, we have those buildings, right, properties next
door that are owned by the city of Philadelphia and have remained vacant since the 1950s. So
So, and if they're Andy Barrios, can you just, he's our design professional, Andy, will you just tell us a little bit about.
Mr. Pollack, Mr. Pollack, I think you've done a really great job of talking about the design and the way it's laid out.
I think maybe you should have your testimony adopted.
We will. Mr. Chairman, if I may introduce and have Mr. Roy Smith or Kim Smith or both of them.
we'll make it a family event
and have them
raised to that level
Mr. Smith could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter
Roy are you on I know you're here
I know he's we've been I know
they're here
and I told them to raise their hand
his hand was up chair but it
disappeared
There it is.
It's back again.
Mr. Smith, can you unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please?
My name is Leroy Smith, L -E -R -O -Y Smith, S -M -I -T -H.
Thank you.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Roy, I have two questions.
You've heard what I've stated on the record.
Do you believe that it is truthful and accurate?
And Roy, do you adopt that as your testimony, as if it came out of your own mouth today?
All right.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments?
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Charles Richardson with his hand up.
Mr. Richardson, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Hi, Mr. Richardson. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, sir. Charles Richardson, R -I -C -H -A -R -D -S -O -N, from the Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, room 312 City Hall.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Councilwoman has no opposition to granting the variance for this property.
Thank you very much. Thanks for calling in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
i see no hands at this time any commission
good afternoon chair members of the board greg walden planning commission staff the
comprehensive plan recommends no change to existing residential single -family zoning
at this location proposed use is consistent with documented long -standing uses on this property
and is not out of character for the block the planning commission recommends the zoning board
grant the variance. Thank you. MI 2021 -003.
Thank you. MI 2021 -003 -851 -5328 Wakefield Street, I vote yes.
Carl Tenere, my vote is yes. Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Pollack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. That concludes my business.
May I be excused? Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. So for the board and the staff, I'm going to take this next case, which is two together, and then we'll take a quick break.
MI 2022 -001 -274 -567 -Van Kirk Street and MI 2022 -001 -703 -565 -Van Kirk Street.
attorney is uh jared klein letter of non -opposition from the coordinating rco
longcrest community association mr klein is coming back in as a panelist chair
good afternoon mr chair members of the board hi mr klein you've already been sworn could you
identify who your client is in the relationship to this property? Certainly. It's actually two.
567 Van Kirk is owned by ASU Properties, LLC. 565 Van Kirk is owned by 2024 East Hazard, LLC.
Both have the same principal, Carlos Giraldo, and I am representing both.
Thank you. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Klein. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents for both of these properties,
consisting of proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral,
photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing,
and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all.
Okay, you may proceed, and please share your screen.
Thank you, Ms. Tanari. So here for both 565 and 567 Van Kirk, the applications are identical for each. So I'll speak of them together, but they are separately deeded properties with separate applications.
The refusal for each is identical. We're seeking to re -legalize these properties for duplex use.
The base zoning is RSA 5. The history of both these properties is the same. They have been
duplexes for a long period of time. Prior to my client's purchase of them, the rental licenses
that had been issued had expired. So after it went for three years without active rental licenses,
the zoning that had been in place was considered abandoned and both properties reverted back to
their RSA 5 based zoning, although the use inside and the layout inside had remained the same.
Just to orient the board, this is our property here. I'll try and flip this around. Sorry about
that. These are the properties here located on Van Kirk Street right next to each other.
the zoning map of the area you can see is predominantly RSA 5. Despite that zoning,
there are a lot of multifamily, primarily duplex uses on this block of Van Kirk Street.
And so what we're proposing to do, we believe fits in with the character of the surrounding area,
won't pose any burden on anyone on the surrounding area, and is consistent with the uses that some
other properties have. Showing you some photos of the property as they exist most recently from
Google Images, you can see they're very standard row home style homes. And the application proposes
one unit on the first floor, one unit on the second floor. The only comment we received from
the RCO was that they did not want any residential dwelling in the basement. And they suggested that
a proviso could be entered stating it would be for duplex use only. We're absolutely fine with that
and that matches the intention of the applicant. You can see very standard residential style street
photos of the zoning notices that were posted in the windows of the properties.
To give the board a sense of the interior layout, we do have some sample photos
And you'll see there's relatively modern kitchen that's been installed in each of the units, along with stair stairways to the upper floors and reasonably spacious bedrooms.
And the this is the current layout of each each parcel.
And this is the current layout of each parcel.
They are.
They are, as you can see, currently vacant because the property did not have zoning for multifamily use.
But the units are in good condition and we think will be a positive addition to the surrounding area.
As the board noted in its introductory comments, we did meet with the Lawn Crest Community Association.
Their letter for each of the two applications was identical.
and they noted that there was overwhelming support to not oppose the granting of the
variance. The vote was 40 to 1 for each of the properties. And as I mentioned, there's a note
here that says it provides the building only to use as a two -family dwelling. That is the use
that we're seeking and we have no intention to expand that use. I'm going to ask if my client
Carlos Giraldo is here. I know he was on earlier. He may have had to leave for another commitment
And if he doesn't raise his hand, I'll be happy to adopt on his behalf.
No hands are up at this time, Chair.
Mr. Klein, you're an officer of the court, and we will take your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Happy to address any questions the board has.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
chair we have dylan mahoney mr mahoney you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair
thank you mr mahoney you've already been sworn before to state your name
and we'll take your testimony yes sir thank you mr chair dylan mahoney office of councilwoman
cherell parker we received the letter of non -opposition from longcrest civic and we
are also not in opposition to the to the granting of the barriers thank you mr mahoney anybody else
from the virtual audience there are no other heads at this time planning commission
afternoon chair members of the board this is greg walden planning commission staff
the comprehensive plan recommends no change the existing residential single family and zoning at
this location the proposed use is consistent with documented previous uses on the property
this continued use of the duplex will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood
um city planning commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance with the proviso
that you know um that the uh agreed upon proviso with the community group the no blowing unit in
the basement um so before i vote i would say that our attorney is saying that we don't need to
proviso because if you went to a third unit you'd have to come back anyway that's right mi2022
001274 567 van kirk street and mi 2022 001 703 565 van kirk street i vote yes
harold tenere my vote is yes on both on both on both okay thomas holloman my vote is yes on both
james snell my vote is yes to both
okay you that you have your votes you have your votes thank you all very much enjoy the rest of
Okay, thank you. So I have one more left on this group, and then we're going to move right into the, to the 330.
So why don't, thank you, as you're breaking up. So what I want to do is let's take a five minute break. So Mr. Kelly can be straight and things like that with his, with his notes. So let's take a five minute break. We'll come back. We'll do the one case, then we'll move right into the later.
Great. Thank you. Sounds good. Thank you, Chair. All right. Thank you, Chair.
We begin recording. All right. Case number 14 from the 2 p .m. list. MI 2022 -001 -068 -601
Gall Street. Daniel Reisman is the attorney. Letter of support from the Fishtown Neighbors
Association? Mr. Reisman? He's coming back in as a panelist, Chair. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. How are you? Could you state your name and spell it for the court
reporter, please. Yes, Daniel Reisman, R -E -I -S -M -A -N, to Liberty Place, 22nd floor, Philadelphia, VA.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
My clients are Jonathan and Nicolette Dubrow.
My clients are John
They are the owners of the property.
Thank you very much.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Carol.
Muted again.
Sorry, Mr. Reesman, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed a exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO?
And do you have a letter?
Yes, to all.
Thank you.
You may proceed.
And I apologize.
I think this mute button is my enemy, Mr. Chairman.
You may proceed and please share your screen.
Thank you.
Can you see my screen?
I think I'm sure.
You are.
You're fine.
So, again, my name is Daniel Reisman.
I'm here with my clients, Jonathan and Nicolette Dubrow.
Our architect, John Weckerly of Boxwood Architects, is also here.
I've handed to the board, and I'm showing on the screen, exhibits A1 through A10.
They include photos with descriptions.
I'm not going to go through each one, but they include the photos.
As the chair mentioned, there's a letter of support from the Fishtown Neighbors Association.
That's Exhibit A -2.
They also include plans.
And I'll just state for the record that the plan is an amended plan that I submitted in
advance of the hearing with an amended proviso.
And I have been in touch with Board Counsel Hillary Emerson regarding that.
and she told me she felt that it could be reviewed by the board.
Just to give some general background,
the application is for the demolition of an existing home at the property
and the construction of a new single -family home.
We'll discuss this in more detail,
but the refusal only relates to two proposed on -site parking spaces
in front of the property, the single -family home that would be constructed.
all right now i'm pulling up um google maps to show you the location and general orientation
of the property so this is the property it's located it's a corner property located at 601
gall street it's at the corner of gall and east montgomery avenue
here's an overhead um google photo google maps and again property at the corner
and then here's another aerial view and you'll see this is the property
again at the corner of gall street and east montgomery avenue the zoning classification
is rsa5 and just straighten this out there's the property at the corner and that's rsa5
now for some photos of the property
you'll see the property again at the corner where my cursor is and then what you'll notice
is that the properties on this portion of the block there are eight twins eight homes four
twins they all have garages in the front of the property and this is these are the twins
right here in this photo you can see. Now, what you'll notice is most, and I think as a general
matter, cars are parked in front of the homes. And you'll see in this picture, you can see the
cars that are parked. In the aerial view that I showed you for Google Maps, it showed the same
thing, which is the front driveway is used in front of the homes for parking. The other thing
you'll notice is that there is virtually no street side parking. So if you look at this
photo of Gall Street, you'll see all of the street parking is taken. Same thing. If you
look at this angle from Gall, there's another one. And the photos, I'm not going to go through
each one, but the photos of Montgomery Avenue, they show really the same thing, which is
There's virtually no street parking.
As I mentioned, the proposal is the construction of a single -family home.
And here are the plans.
So there's the home.
But we're not really going to spend any time on that because, again, the home complies with all zoning requirements.
the home complies with all zoning requirements all the dimensional requirements all use
It's all dimensional requirements.
requirements all front yard requirements and so on the only reason we're here is because
of these two parking spaces right in the front we presented the proposal to the RCO and they
they liked the proposal and there are two aspects of it that they like number one they feel that
parking in the front is consistent with the parking already on the block and as i showed you before
the homes on the block generally have their use the front of the property for parking number one
number two they like the fact that the property uh and the proposal will have two on -site
parking spaces because of the concerns about parking in the neighborhood that i that i showed
you in terms of very, very limited street parking. So the community likes the fact that there are two
parking spaces that are being proposed on the property. Additionally, there's hardship for this
because any construction, this property is non -conforming at this point in terms of the
parking because any new construction, parking is prohibited in RSA 5 unless it falls in one of the
an exception. One of those exceptions is that there's a rear alleyway in the rear
and that there's a driveway that goes to the rear of the property. Shared driveway is another
exception. But as you can see, no shared driveway, no alleyway to the rear of the property. So
under the code and under RSA 5, to have any onsite parking for this property,
the code just does not permit it and we believe that the hardship standard is satisfied as well
so just to sum up excuse me excuse me council yes i'm not understanding what you just said
that the code permits you so the code the code the code prohibits an rsa5 parking
um i can pull that code section up no i i agree to that yeah so the parking there's no feasible
way to install parking on -site parking on this site so so therefore you don't do it
well and we think we think that's that's not number one not consistent with the neighborhood
Everyone in the proper neighborhood has parking. Number two, we think that's a hardship. We think that not having on -site parking is a problem, both for the owner, but also given the conditions of the neighborhood where there's virtually no street -side parking.
But they have one parking.
I'm sorry?
They have one car.
well they actually have the ability to put two cars on it because if for example where my cursor
is you'll see there's a garage which is the way these homes were constructed and then there's also
parking on the driveway right in front of the garage so they actually the block actually
was built with effectively two parking spaces on each lot but but that's stacked and you're
in your site plan you have them side by side yeah that's correct but again we don't think that's
we um we we don't think that's significant or or a negative we think that at the end of the day
um the community wants the parking i will also point out that when these were built in the 1960s
they have what are called front -loaded garage and at this point these are generally frowned upon as
planning commit from a planning point of view to have these front loaded garages
excuse me do you have anything from streets department for review of your site plan
so the streets department reviewed the um the initial plan and they they approved it and our
architect he's here and he can walk you through more but we're we're going to need to um certainly
need final streets approval for the plan which we don't expect will be an issue
so so what do you have the street department stamps drawings or a form so from the streets
department when i filed the application i filed it for both um the zoning and then i filed a
streets department application as well the streets department approved the application
Which is why the zoning L and I then issued the refusal to proceed to the zoning board.
to proceed to the zoning board so you have evidence of that yes i mean the evidence is
So, you have evidence of that.
that i could not the the refusal would not have been generated without preliminary streets
department review of the plan because it required a separate streets department application that we
completed. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm happy to answer other questions, but again, you know,
the community supports this. We believe it satisfies the provisions of the zoning code
in that it certainly doesn't have a negative impact given the way this portion of the block
is laid out. And the community in their letter actually pointed out that they felt it would
otherwise be inconsistent with the parking on the street. So there are no negative impacts.
And again, we believe that because this is a corner property, we satisfy the hardship requirements.
The reason you're going to wind up moving the plug to
the um i'm sorry the hydrant the jacket moved so my understanding that the architect can speak to
this but the curb cut does not move towards east montgomery avenue the the wider curb cut
it goes to this goes to the inner portion of gall street so we're not expecting there's going to be
any changes required with the uh the fire hydrant because the curb cut doesn't move closer to it
Excuse me, council. There's a regulation for distance from the corner for corner property. Also, I think that handicap curb cut.
May not allow you to put another car there on site. Thank you.
So, the again, I can pull in the architect and maybe we should do that. But the distance, as I understand it is.
sufficient from the corner
because we're not moving the curb
cuts any closer to the
corner. John Weckerle, are you available
to answer that question? If so,
please raise your hand.
In the meantime, can you go to the site plan?
Mr. Weckerle, please unmute yourself
and wait for the chair.
What's going on here?
Sir, could you state your name, please,
and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, John Weckerle, Boxwood Architects. Weckerle is W -E -C -K -E -R -L -Y.
Thank you. Do you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes. Thank you.
So as Dan said, we do have zoning approval from the streets department and they did not comment at the at the zoning review regarding the fire hydrant.
However, they did say that they would like for us to reconfigure the truncated dome associated with the ADA accessibility on the corner.
So we expect to work with them in the building submission process to address any reconfigurations or replace new locations for the hydrant.
If they choose to do so, we're agreeable to that.
And as Dan said, our proposal on the curb cut is to is to move that in the plan east direction, as it shows on the on the existing site plan.
You can. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. The handicap has standard dimensions.
I don't know how you want to change them.
I believe that the existing condition is not consistent with the current streets department ramp requirements.
So they've identified that they will look for us to modernize that ramp to comply with their current guidelines.
Usually the street department get contractors to do that and not individual homeowners.
You know, I'm responding to comments we receive back from streets directly.
And whether it's streets or our client, the homeowner that does it.
I mean, we expect to have disruption to the sidewalk as part of our new utilities coming in.
So we will comply with all of the streets department's requirements.
And if it's a streets department team that does that ramp, we're certainly supportive of that.
Your utilities don't come in the rear?
the utilities are programmed right now to come in on montgomery you know based on the
based on the existing conditions of the utilities and that's in process right now on the building
plan development working with the engineer of record to determine that based on the
utility plan and the existing conditions and and things of that nature
utility plan and uh the existing conditions and and things of that nature um but you know the
expectation is we will we will need to you know with that with that exit for example the existing
sanitary line is is going to be almost 70 years old our expectation is to replace that sanitary
line uh and that's what i that's what i was referring to that type of situation relative
to disrupting the existing sidewalk according to your plan you don't have a side yard correct
so so you occupy 100 of the lot uh we have a a front yard requirement uh in in place and a rear
yard uh requirement in place however the side yard given it uh being a corner lot we are proposing to
the that the property line and the uh building footprint on the side yard is one and the same
so again just to confirm we're compliant with all dimensional requirements that is correct yes so we
satisfy all open air requirements all uh yard requirements the only issue before the board
is the uh is the two parking spaces that is correct yes thank you
you want to have your testimony adopted mr reisman uh yes thank you mr chair
I'd like to call Jonathan Dubrow.
If Mr. Dubrow, you could please raise your hand.
Mr. Dubrow, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Mr. Dubrow.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Yes, sir.
This is Jonathan Dubrow.
His last name is D -U -B -R -O -W.
you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed
uh mr dubrat did you hear my statements today i did and are they true and correct to the to
the best of your knowledge information and belief yes and do you adopt them as your own i do thank
you questions from the board no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no other hands at this time chair planning commission
this is ron bednar city planning first name ron r -o -n last name bednar b -e -d -n -a -r
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do
proceed ron the comprehensive plan uh recommends no change to the existing
residential single family at this location standing policy of the city planning commission
is not to support front -loaded parking therefore city planning commission recommends that their
requested variance not be granted mi 2022 001 068 601 wall street i vote no
Thomas
Solomon my vote is no
James Snell
my vote is no
Ishmael Shaheen my vote is no
Thank you
Thank you
Is there anyone
still have a case pending
from the 2 o 'clock
meeting in the virtual audience.
Chair, I see no hands at this time.
So we're going to move to the 3 .30 meeting.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing the 3 .30 meeting of the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
With me is Carol Tenere, our Vice Chair.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Ismail Shahid, our Board Secretary.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Hamas Holloman, our Board Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also, here is our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett, and our Board Attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Before we begin, here's our virtual format.
Be advised if proceedings are being recorded.
By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
A video will be available by contacting tanyasunkett at phil .gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, please note the question and answer box is not for testimony or comments.
It's not for testimony or comments.
Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sargent.
Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sunkett, our executive director.
I'm going to take a look at our continuances for this meeting.
Number six, MI 2021 -003 -192 -6610 Hashbrook Avenue.
This is a joint request of the attorney and the Long Crest Community Association.
that case will be continued does anyone in the virtual audience have any comments about that
particular case chair i see no hands at this time are there any other requests for continuance
off the 330 list chair we have mr demarco with his hand up mr demarco please unmute yourself
and wait for the chair hi mr demarco could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Yes, Richard DeMarco, D -E -M -A -R -C -O. Good afternoon.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Which one of your cases, sir?
Well, I have two cases today, Mr. Chairman. There's a continuance request from the RCO
for 4147 Girard Avenue.
We had our neighborhood meeting last night. They asked for a continuance.
They were very late, though, to make the formal request to the board, but I am constrained to let you know that I did agree to the continuance, and we do need to continue this case because they do want a continuance for another RCO meeting.
Thank you. MI 2022 -000 -455 -4147 West Rod Avenue. The case is continued.
Thank you.
Is there any other requests for continuances?
Chair, we have Justin Crick. Mr. Crick, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Thank you. Hi, Mr. Crick, could you spell your name for the court reporter?
Yes, Justin Crick, J -U -S -T -I -N -K -R -I -K. You swear for him to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. What case, sir? I am here on the property
address 4241 Boone Street, MI 2022 -000451. I represent the applicant, and we are requesting
a continuance to revise plans and possibly resubmit after speaking with the Neighborhood
Association. Thank you, sir. MI 2022 -000451 -4241 Boone Street, this case is continued. Are there
any other requests for continuance? Chair, we have someone by the name of Joyzel Mont.
Ms. Mont, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, sir. My name is Joyzel Mont, J -O -Y -Z -E -L -L, last name M -O -N -T.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Your case is 3019 North Marshall Street?
Correct.
You want to continue that case?
That case will be, Mark, must be tried, okay?
So the next time you're going to have to try it, have the exhibits in, okay?
All right.
MI 2022 -001 -370 -3019 North Marshall Street.
Cases continue and must be tried.
Chair, I see no other hands at this time.
Our regular list we're going to go to MI 2022 -000 -458 -1711 Jefferson Street.
Mr. DeMarco is the attorney.
Council President Clark's office acted as the coordinating RCO on this.
They have not taken a position.
Mr. DeMarco is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
oh hi let me just fix my uh camera
okay hi mr demarco you've already been sworn um could you identify your client and their
relationship to this property yes it's yuan da construction the client is michelle
who is uh should be up with us on the call okay thank you our vice chair the owner our vice chair
has a few questions for you sure rich you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate
to its accuracy yes i can have you emailed the exhibit packet with required documents consisting
of proof of ownership tax compliance refusal or referral photos under plans of the property
refusal or referral photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing
five days in advance
and have you met with the rco and do you have a letter yes we have you may proceed
and um please share your screen thank you thank you uh so this application uh members of the board
concerns this curb cut this existing curb cut right here and this property at 1711 jefferson
It's a corner property. I wanted you to see this vista, this view, what we are proposing.
And the reason why we were refused is we are redeveloping this property.
And what we are doing is utilizing this existing curb cut, which fits two cars for the new use, which is a permitted use.
The only refusal is for this curb cut, which will not be a new curb cut, but we will be utilizing the existing curb cut the way it is being currently used, which is for two accessory parking spaces.
The reason why we were refused is even though the use is permitted, because there's a change of use, because it's the side of the lot, it is prohibited under the RM1 zoning classification.
But I wanted to point out that we are not changing anything.
We are really requesting to utilize the curb cut that's existing for two cars as it is currently being used.
um the neighbor's complaint was about the density of the project but the lot and let me go to my
exhibit the lot is extremely large uh it's almost 4 000 square feet it's a double lot um and
um it's an as of right project so as you can see from refusal right in front of you that is the
only refusal and it is for existing conditions to utilize that existing lot but the neighbors were
upset um and they didn't they're not opposing the application i think it's for the reason i'm about
to state which is that the if you don't allow the variance the um there will have been there'll be
no parking for the for the new multi -family use on the block on the on the property excuse me and
And let me show you our site plans. By the way, that's our poster. Let me collapse this a bit here.
If they were, their objections were more to the use, which is permitted, rather than to the parking. They actually want more parking for the units. So I think we're actually consistent with their concerns for that reason.
uh there's plenty of rear yard space for um the units we will store trash which is accessible to
all tenants uh in the rear yard you can see the turn in here um
see what else and you know that's really about it um mrs michelle huang is with me on the call
We would just say that we're not displacing any on -street parking, as you saw from the Google Earth image.
And there actually are other curb cuts.
There's one right across the street.
Let me go back to that.
There's one here.
There's curb cuts down here.
There's no parking on our side of the street, so we're not displacing any parking.
And as a matter of fact, we are just utilizing the existing curb cut that's there now for the two cars.
It is a nine -unit apartment building.
We meet the code and then some for the nine units.
It's an RM1 property.
There's a number of RM1.
Let me show you the overhead so you can see that.
There is some RM1.
There's a lot of RM1.
There's a little carve out there, but our properties here, the entire block is RM1, and that's why we're, our project is as of right, but for the curb cut.
That's all I have. I would ask Michelle to raise her virtual hand so she can adopt my testimony. Happy to take questions. Michelle, please raise your hand virtually.
Ms. Wang, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
good afternoon uh can you hear me yes could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter
please yes michelle huang m -i -c -h -e -l -l -e last name h -u -a -n -g do you swear a firm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do proceed mr demarco miss swang did you
miss swang did you hear my factual statements and can do you adopt them as true and accurate
hear my factual statements and do you adopt them as true and accurate
and as your own testimony today yes happy to take questions mr chairman and members
questions from the board no mr questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission ron bednar city planning uh this
property is indicated for residential use on the city plan given the surrounding context of parking
we recommend the quest for vans be granted thank you r mi 2022 000 458 1711 jefferson street i vote
yes carol tennari my vote is yes thomas holliman my vote is yes james snell my vote is yes
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Have a good afternoon.
Thank you.
MI 2022 -000450 -5100 Chester Avenue.
Darlene Treat, letter of support from the Southwool Philadelphia District Services.
This three is coming back in now as a panelist.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Commissioner, can you hear me?
I can.
Good afternoon.
It's Darlene Threatt from Darlene Threatt and the owner, Ms. Fusia Moussi.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Darlene.
Do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all questions.
Okay, thank you. You may proceed and please share your screen.
I'm bored. I'm going to apologize. My service is a little short.
There we go.
Ms. Three, turn your video off, and maybe that might help.
All right.
Thank you.
Let me see if I can do that video.
Right now.
Commissioner, can you hear me?
We can hear you.
Here we go.
My commissioners, I submitted a package today, which can several exhibits.
I'm not going to go through all of them, but I have submitted the refusal, the appeal, the property, project information sheet, the tax information.
Zoning history, plans, pictures, community flyer, as well as specific of mailing.
Commissioners, we put in an application to use this project that had been used in previous years.
I'm just going to flip down first to the photos.
This is a part of the entire building.
It is a four -story building.
The first floor has been used as commercial as far back as 19.
I'll show you some evidence of that.
The top three floors are a legal.
You're breaking up.
Council?
Hello?
Ms. Treat?
She's completely knocked out.
The street.
She's probably going to try to come back in.
I hope.
You don't have a Tanya that you can just pull on a panic.
what'd you say chair I said she don't have a tanya that you can call in a panic and say
get me back in let me see if I could call her good thank you
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
no chair i was unable to okay so look this happens to all this
what you know when she's when she signed on she already indicated that she was
why don't why don't we do this well tanya try to get her back in whenever you can
and uh because it happens to all this i mean there's nothing we can do okay and you know i
meant that like a couple times a lot too long ago i'd get locked out and i was stuck so
is there any other body in the in the virtual audience whose case hasn't been called on the
330 list. Chair, we have Minister Enoch L with his hand up. No, I think he was for that case.
Okay. Chair, if you could, officially continue Ms. Threatt's case and I will
schedule it for next week. Okay. So MI 2022 -000 -450 -5100 Chester Avenue, the case is continued.
is there anybody else are we um are we announcing the specific date for this one
because otherwise it would need to be reposted are we going to do for six time you can we fit
are we going to do for six tanya can we fit it in on six one um yes we it will still go out as a
in on 6 -1
reposting oh it still will go out okay all right thank you tanya i'll work with her i'll take the
the date off and work with her and her schedule to um put this on again okay thank you mania can
i ask you this question which week do we have off this coming week or the week of june 1st
this week i'm sorry the coming week next next wednesday okay thanks mr chairman
so is there anyone else in the audience has a case that wasn't heard
chair i see
chair i see no heads at this time okay thanks everybody thanks it's a good day's work thank
you a lot done thank you and everybody enjoy next week off i'm not sure why we're off but
but we're off.
Have a good night, everyone.
See you later.
Good night, all.
Good night.