Philadelphia. Okay, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth? Yes, I swear, sir. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? Yes. Also, have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of
ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, and plans and photographs
five days prior to this hearing? Yes. And finally, have you met with the RCO and do you have a
letter? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Please proceed. Mr. James, let me ask something. I asked for
the translators. Did you guys have it? If you're not, I got my daughter and with me,
he can talk. I was unaware of that. Lakeisha, do we know anything about a translator?
No, we do not.
Okay, sir, I'm sorry about that.
Maybe a mix up there, but you say you have your daughter present?
Yeah, my daughter, he can translate it to me, whatever I explain to you.
Okay, that's good.
Excuse me, this is Sharon.
Do you believe that you can, you will be able to understand and participate because otherwise
you will be able to understand and participate
because otherwise we would need a court certified interpreter.
otherwise we would need.
If it's not my wife, Maricela,
she's in the owner for the house too.
She can tell later for me.
She is also on the deed, so that's fine.
All right.
Could your, excuse me,
could your wife, if she's going to be partake in this,
translate, could she give her a name and address for the record? Yes, my name is Maricela Barberena.
I live in 3871 Jasper Street, 19124. Okay, and do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, proceed.
Buenos dias a todos, primeramente. Good morning to everyone.
The reason why we tried to make this meeting
is because we are trying to do a parking lot in our space.
When we had the RCO meeting,
they didn't approve of our meeting.
our plans, but they told us that they didn't want to get
involved in this.
That's the reason why we're here.
We did our best of getting everything you asked for
in order for us to be approved to our plans.
I'm going to show you on the computer pictures.
This is the part in front of our house.
3871 Jasper Street.
Our plans are to do our parking lot in our space.
As you can see, that's the front of our house.
and that uh where you see the garden that will be the space where we wanted to use to do the
parking lot these are the plans this is our property that's the front view
that's the part we want to make the parking lot we have like 26 feet
as you can see
give me one second please
La otra parte del plan, donde se puede notar cómo el auto entraría en este espacio.
That's the plan that it shows you that the car will go through with no problems.
Y si ustedes pueden ver, el espacio que queremos hacer no va a interferir con el sidewalk.
There's no interference with the sidewalk.
Y esa es la razón por la que queremos el permiso, porque se tiene que hacer una rampa para que el carro pueda entrar.
The reason why we're asking for your permission is because we need to do a ramp so the car can go through the street lamp.
Y para eso nosotros hemos pedido permiso no solamente a ustedes sino también a los neighbors.
uh we ask not only for your permission or the rbc but our neighbors let me show the list for the
people
okay this is the list of our neighbors that
sign as a proof that they have no problems with us making the parking lot in our space.
in our space in every meeting we have sent this list to to you
because we want to make sure that they agree and um you as you can see they all sign up this list
nobody has um reject our plans and nobody thinks that it's going to affect uh our community or our
area. Mrs. Moreno, may I, since you are not a court, you're not a certified court reporter,
but you are an owner of the property, could you just confirm that you adopt all of the
statements you have made on your husband's behalf as your own testimony? Yes. Thank you.
Could you go back to the, I believe, the first picture that you had shown of your
front lawn there, the front of your house? Sure.
Here's one. Okay. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. Okay.
so my you know just looking at the picture one of my concerns would be
you know the car hanging over onto the sidewalk at all
is your is the street uh one way or or is it both directions yes both directions both directions is
there parking on the opposite side of the street do cars park on that side uh yes they do they do
on the street on the street right on the street yes yes
let me show you again the the plan uh the reason why we show the plans to um the construction is
because we wanted you to see that there is no way it's going to interfere with that's coming
out and inside the parking lot see that will be the way we'll go in
yeah and in front of our house there is a
like a business so there are no houses in front of our house like dealer car yeah so we don't
interview for nothing are there any other uh homes on your on your block on the street that have
something similar to this?
No, we're the first
to solicit this
because the other neighbors
don't have the space to make it.
So we have the space to
we got the space to make this.
But the reason for doing this
is because in the last year
the city is not safe.
We got, we sang in the document
the picture, the car is vandalous.
you know and now it's not safely so that way we try to make this permit to make the parking in the
house is there anyone else uh in the audience that wants to comment about this case please raise your
hand? Yes, Agustina? Yes, Chichir, the applicant. Agustina, you can unmute yourself. Yeah, I'm here.
okay and the applicant i support this okay please state your name and address for the record
agustina moreno 31 38 71 jasper jasper street philadelphia pa 19124
and and you said did i hear you say you are the applicant
and and you said did i hear you say you are the applicant i'm the applicant yes
i'm sorry but the applicant is always considered to be the property owner right
would you like to say anything on this matter
no i support those because i see the house i see the play and i see everything as well for
the parking lot because they have enough space um he shows me the photo when the
when the car was vandalized we go when the architect to do the playing i i support to
to take the measurement and everything um i check and i think i i don't know how the city
no approval i think everything is worth for the for people the the parking lot from the house
okay thank you
is there anyone else i'd like to make a comment about this case
no more hands no more hands thank you lakisha uh does the board have any questions
yeah no i have two questions uh do you have any uh photographs of the rear of your house
with you
um i can't show let me show you i have one but i don't know if i can help you too much
let me see i guess what i'm trying to figure out is there's an alley behind your house
yes we have it in the back in the back we had the alley because the other okay let me try to
And I guess I could ask, you don't have to spend a lot of time looking for it, but is
there?
I know.
I'm sorry.
It's okay.
Is there parking in that alley?
We do have the space to make it in the back, but there is a light pad that it's preventing
us to put a driveway in the back from the city.
okay the alley would not look like a public right-of-way but um they you know could have
been at one point yes um and my other question is whether or not you have streets approval
because there's a zoning aspect to parking on property but the streets department approves
curb cuts to allow essentially the dip in the curb to drive over it for a business or
a residence or for whatever.
And so I'm wondering if you have had any conversations with the streets department?
No, not when the street department, we got some company, you know, when we got some professional
people to make the, because we know, you know, that's what we have to make the permits.
We can do by ourselves.
so we got some company he's coming to see the project he know what is the pie you know for
the water pie for the gas pie and we check everything you know but we don't talk it when
the department okay i don't have any other questions okay tom any questions no okay
it. All right, let's go to the Planning Commission. Ron. Ron Bednar, City Planning.
This property is indicated for residential use on a city plan. The applicant's hardship is not
supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or conditions of the site.
Our adopted district plan does not support front-loaded parking without access to a rear
yard. In this particular case, we believe that there is ability to do that. Therefore, we
recommend that the requested variance not be granted. Okay. Calendar number MI-2021-000-376-3871
on Jasper Street.
My vote is no.
My vote is no.
My vote is no.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
uh excuse me this is sharon i did um i called mr lambert's office he is trying right now to
Excuse me, this is Sharon.
I called Mr. Lambert's office.
log on he was getting a message saying that they were waiting for the host to let him in
if there is another case remaining and that you could call before his okay no that's fine sharon
we'll we'll go on i believe we might have uh one more case left and then we can go back to
Mr. Lambert. Okay. All right. Let's go down to number nine. Calendar number MI-2020-003521
400 to 418 North 5th Street.
Is there anyone here from North 5th Street? Morning. Good morning. How are you?
Good. Catherine Missimer, M-I-S-S-I-M-E-R, 1835 Market Street, Suite 1400, 19103.
Okay. Thanks, Catherine. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth? I do.
All right. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do. I'll just make one note. We believe that L&I should have additionally issued a refusal
for signage above the second floor. So we did notice that in our RCO notice, and we advised
the RCO as well that we would be seeking relief for that as well. Okay. All right. Also, have you
emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax
compliance, and the copy of the refusal or referral and plans and photographs five days prior to the
hearing? Yes, I have. Okay. And finally, have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
We've met with the RCO. I'm not sure whether the board received a letter. We weren't copied on a
formal letter. Right. I don't believe we received an RCO letter. We did meet with them in two full
public community meetings. We also had several committee meetings thereafter. We've been working
with the rco on this since september of 2019 who who is the rco northern liberties okay excuse me
this is sharon we did not receive the rco letter directly but we do have um a letter from councilman
squilla in opposition that refers to the rco opposition letter i don't have a copy of it
we weren't copied either so but i do have sort of a timeline of all of our interactions with
RCO I can share with the board. I did submit that in advance as well. Okay, thank you. All right,
please proceed. Thank you. If you allow me to, I will go ahead and share my screen.
Can you see our exhibits? Yep, yes we can. Okay, great. So as I mentioned, I'm here on behalf of
the property owner YSI2 LLC and CubeSmart self-storage. With me today are Ryan Dougherty
of CubeSmart, as well as George Marks and Eric Gehring, our project architect, and Chris
Danoulis, our project engineer. Just to briefly orient everyone, this is an existing CubeSmart
self-storage location fronting on Callow Hill Street between 5th and 6th Streets. And as you
can see we are south of the Target Center on Spring Garden and directly adjacent to the Vine
Street Expressway. This application is for the construction of a new addition to accommodate
the expansion of the existing self-storage operation. The current property owner purchased
the property about 20 years ago with the existing self-storage building located and operating
there on. The current building is at 90% lease rate, and we're anticipating that the demand in
this neighborhood for self-storage is only going to continue to grow, and that's really what's
driving this proposal to expand our footprint here. The proposed addition would be situated
on the current vacant parking lot. As you can see here, that would activate 6th Street. Right now,
that's just blank parking, and here's our zoning plan to sort of give you a closer view of what
we're proposing. We would accommodate in this new building, we would be able to relocate
our existing leasing office from the existing building to the new building. We'd also be
able to bring our loading to the interior, our loading and unloading for cars, box trucks
of customers, etc. We'd also be able to move the current trash storage on site interior
to the building, which I think will really improve the landscape and the walkability