of 6th Street to the extent that pedestrians are walking up and down 6th.
This site is currently zoned CMX 3, while self-storage is...
This site is currently zoned CMX3. While self-storage is not permitted in CMX3 by
right, it is complementary to several CMX3 uses. And we feel that since there's been a long-standing
use of self-storage on this site, it makes sense to accommodate the expanding demand for this use
here. What we like about self-storage, and I'm sure that the board has heard several self-storage
use cases recently since this is a growing area, there's little effect on the surrounding
neighborhood. It drives little traffic to and from the site. There's little demand for
neighborhood resources such as schools and other improvements, and it does provide not only
a large footprint of UNO tax revenue for the city, it also provides, in a new addition like this,
good family-sustaining construction jobs to build such a large addition, where otherwise it's a
vacant parking lot that sits and remains undeveloped. In addition to the use variance,
this proposal generates a few technical variances, and that's what we want to discuss.
based on the current reading of the code, the calculation for parking on a self-storage
building is based on square footage, not necessarily the actual use of the building.
So in many of these cases, we do generate a parking refusal because we don't have the
commercial parking associated with the square footage of the building.
In our experience in operating these types of facilities, and my client can speak to
this, the proposed 12 parking spaces is certainly sufficient for an operation of this size because
as you're aware, many of our lessees aren't visiting their property on a daily basis.
You know, you have one or two customers come in a day, maybe pick something up, drop something
off. You have a new lessee come in to open a unit, but you don't have people coming in and out
throughout the day to access their belongings on our location. Additionally, another technical
variants that's similar in nature is that bicycle spaces are also required based on the commercial
use here. Again, we don't see too many of our customers riding their bicycles to drop off their
belongings in the building. So we do provide two bicycle spaces, which we feel would be sufficient
in the event that we have staff members that are maybe riding their bikes to work, or maybe one or
two lessees that are just visiting to pick up something small or drop off something small to
their unit. But we have found that this is really sufficient for our type of operation.
And then lastly, as I mentioned, the reviewer did not issue a refusal for signage above the
second floor. That's an existing condition on site. And as you could see from the aerial,
in the event that our signage was located below the second floor, it would be blocked by the
Vine Street Expressway because it sort of cuts off, it's raised in that location. So it sort of
cuts off the view of our building. And as you can see there, if we had signage at the second floor
level, you wouldn't be able to see it because it'd be blocked by 676. So that is the last of our
refusals. I do want to speak briefly to our interaction with our RCO. We did meet with
Northern Liberty's Neighborhood Association. We had two full public community meetings,
And we did also agree to participate in a design review committee thereafter. A lot of the comments
we received were about the design of the building. While that's not really a zoning issue, we wanted
to sort of accommodate some of the requests the neighbors did have. And this view sort of shows
you the changes we made from our original proposal based on all those comments. You'll note that we
added the brick banding. We added several more windows and glass materials. We also added a
punch-out panel system, which imitates the look of windows to sort of, you know, accommodate some
of the requests the neighbors had, while keeping in mind that, again, we are a self-storage company,
so we do have a national branding that we have to maintain on our buildings that looks consistent
that you would recognize, obviously, that it's a CubeSmart location. So that's really what we
tried to do there um these are our posting pictures you can see on the existing building
and then this is a view sort of of the parking area where the new building would be located
this is the surrounding area we're next to the philadelphia ball bearing factory
this is the target location that's to our north this is a good side view this is 676 cutting
through. This is where the new building would be situated. This is the front along Callow
Hill. You'll note that Callow Hill is four lanes of traffic here because this is where they're
entering the expressway. So again, it's not really a walkable retail corridor. This is more, you know,
So, again, it's not really a walkable retail corridor. This is more, you know, appropriate for a benign use like self-storage because, again, we're right up against the expressway.
Again, our refusal, we spoke about the three refusals that were issued as well as the signage refusal we believe should have been issued in this case.
And then lastly, this is just a summary of sort of the communication we've had ongoing with the RCO to date.
Again, we initially met back in September of 2019 with their leadership. They felt the proposal made sense at that time because, again, we were operating already over 20 years of self-storage at this site. We owned the property.
um we did have several meetings with them thereafter before having two full public
community meetings they asked us in february to participate in a design review to see if we could
design our building to be more you know camouflage of the neighborhood if you will or
accommodate the context of the neighborhood um we did participate in that process we did make
all of the changes that were bubbled on those renderings um but we still couldn't reach a
consensus here and you know typically we don't like to move forward absent a neighborhood
consensus but really our hands are tied it's either we're able to continue operating and
accommodate the demand here or this remains a parking lot and we'd really like to see it become
a useful useful aspect for the neighborhood because the demand here is so high and we've
really had good success in this neighborhood and we'd like to stay so with that I will sort of
you know, and my testimony here, I'd ask that Ryan Dougherty, my client, be promoted to panelists to
confirm my testimony.
Ryan, are you available?
Yeah, just give me one second.
Thank you.
And this is Sharon, if I can interrupt for a minute.
we did now receive a letter from the RCO, which I am forwarding to the board by your email.
Can everyone hear me? Yes. This is Ryan Doherty. Mr. Doherty, please state your name and address
for the record, please. Sure. Ryan Doherty. Address is 5 Old Lancaster Ave, Malvern, Pennsylvania,
one nine three five five okay do you swear to affirm do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes okay great uh please proceed ryan have you heard
my testimony today yes i have would you agree that it's true and correct yes would you adopt
it as your own i would great so ryan remains available should there be operational questions
as well as our architects to speak to the design
in the event that that would be helpful as well.
Does the board have any questions for Mr. Daugherty?
Is there anyone in the audience
that would wish to speak on this property?
We have a Larry Friedman.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, Mr. Friedman.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Yes, I am Larry Friedman, the Northern Liberty Zoning Chair, and located at the Northern
Liberties Community Center at 700 North 3rd Street.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Okay, Mr. Friedman.
Great.
Please proceed.
um well first i was a little bit taken back but you didn't receive my letter which i sent in
yesterday morning and i did receive a response from tanya but anyway you got it right
mr friedman this is sharon if you could i prepare the summaries for the board
just going forward if you could copy me on any letters okay thank you absolutely and i apologize
I did not have it, but I have now forwarded it.
All right, can I share my screen?
That would be helpful.
Okay, how do I do that?
I think I have to stop share, so I'll do that, and then Larry should be able to share.
Okay, so if I hit you, hi, Catherine.
So if I hit share screen.
yes if you hit share screen after you have the document open that would work best yeah i do have
the document open i got i got a bunch oh boy um i got a bunch of uh exclamation let me see
hold shift to select multiple
Goodness, I can't wait, files.
goodness okay
It's definitely, it's on my desktop.
Desktop, I have an exclamation point and like a triangular sign.
When you hit share screen, is that where you're seeing the exclamation point?
Say that again, please.
When you hit the share screen button along the bottom of the screen, is that when you see the exclamation point?
Yeah, I hit share screen.
Let me close it.
I mean, I share my screen all the time.
I don't know what's going on.
I'm seeing a bunch of the iPhone, iPhone cable.
Oh, here, let me close my eyes.
Let me see if that sounds like this.
All right, look, I...
What's on your mind, Mr. Freeman?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
I'm sorry, I'm delaying everything here.
Well, because what I, my, my, all right,
if you have the letter there
with all the pictures and everything,
then I'll proceed and I'll just refer to mine
so I know what I'm talking about, okay?
Yeah, sure, go right ahead.
Great, thank you so much.
our position is that
we oppose this project
basically
there's no hardship
for building what they want to build
but I want to tell you
what's going on down there in this neighborhood
and then I also want to talk about
our compromise that we
proposed to them which we felt was
totally reasonable
and in 2015
2015, when we met with the Planning Commission to talk about remapping this entire neighborhood,
the neighborhood I'm talking about is called Northern Liberty South, which goes from Spring
Garden to Callahill, 6th Street to 2nd. We had a couple of meetings and we agreed that CMX3 for
the entire neighborhood would make the most sense. Kind of a commercial, residential, mid-level,
uh not high rises but mid-level um for the for that look uh this is kind of the cmx look
um and that was in 2015 nothing much happened between then and literally may of this year
we saw four projects in may four cdr projects and i i went uh we could skip my letter it doesn't
matter i'll get the point if you look at that first picture it says 200 spring garden street
yes um all right that i'm just i'm just not going to discuss these projects if that was the first
project that we saw in may uh that's right at second is spring garden street that's a cmx3
by right project behind that is this all open space for the community very cool project
the second one is at 412 north second basically that's at second and tallahill so that's right
down the street there. That's another project that we saw reviewed. As a matter of fact, the
CDRs are going on right now. Obviously, I can't make it for that. The next project is at 5th and
Spring-Gordon. And actually, you can see right across the street yards is right across the
street here. So that's the third project we saw in May. And finally, that bottom project there
is at 4th and Tallahill. These are the CMX3 vision that we discussed that day in 2015
as actually coming into play right now. We're seeing all these projects that are going to be
built. The problem that we're having and that we had in our discussions with the applicant's design
and, you know, we've been doing this a long time. We would never come to a ZBA meeting and say,
we would post something on design. However, the use, which is not allowed, is about the only use
that we could come up with that would translate into a multi-story building with no windows.
And we just keep describing this project that they're presenting as a fortress.
It's, you know, from every which way. So we also agreed with Catherine that it's, look,
as far as the use goes it's not like there's trucks and smells and all kinds of weird stuff
we're not opposing saying this is the terrible use we're saying because of the use it it gives
us this building that doesn't fit into the character of what is a cmx3 zone so i wanted
to tell you what our reasonable compromise was we said if you could give us something
We said, if you could give us something, you're building from scratch, that looks kind of like a CMX3 typical building, we'll support you.
You're building from scratch that looks kind of like a.
And so I want to take you down to the next picture, I think it's number seven, and eight.
And here are two CubeSmart buildings that look like CMX3 buildings that would fit in to this corner and into that neighborhood that we said, give us something that looks like that.
We'll talk to you about it.
You know, we have to have enough parking in case you're up and go someday.
And, you know, somebody can move in here and convert that into a residential commercial use.
So you don't have to tear the whole thing down, which is a total waste of money.
And we can work together on this.
And they kept coming back with the same white building.
They added a window here, a little bit there.
But really, look at that building and look at what we're doing here in this neighborhood.
That's why we're opposing the use.
Because what other use could you have where you don't need windows in a five-story building?
And I'm not sure why, but this building would work in an industrial zone someplace.
We're not denying that people use self-storage.
I use self-storage.
But it's going to be a deal killer for what's starting to happen in this neighborhood.
This vision is awesome.