Ms. Magrini briefly and then allow the architect to jump in. We would have to promote her to panelists
if the chair allows and have her promote her screen. Yes definitely promote her. Okay what is
your architect's name? Adrienne Swetoja. Okay, if she can raise her hand, the ZBA administration
will promote her, and she can share her screen after you begin your presentation.
Thank you.
Adrienne Turner will be coming back in as a panelist.
good evening could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter please
yes and i have a correction i use weataka as my um professional name but my legal name is turner
so my name is adrian a-d-r-i-e-n-n-e last name turner t-u-r-n-e-r
and also sometimes known as Adrian Swiataka.
I can also spell that if you would like it for your records.
S as in Sam, W-I-A, T as in Tom, O-C-H-A.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you so much for hearing our case tonight.
We appreciate it.
um and thank you also for letting me uh speak on behalf of Ms. Magrini um I would like to
start by giving an overview of the property um Kim resides at the residence um at 1714a
and it's a pretty unique property for Philadelphia in that it doesn't have the typical depth that you
see. Um, and the reason why is that the property is, uh, so this is Bainbridge street running this
way and you have, it looks like typical, uh, attached row homes, but really, uh, Kim's property
is the front of the Bainbridge facing side and her neighbor has the back. So it says,
the Bainbridge facing side and her neighbor has the back. So essentially her property is about
a 25 foot by 25 foot footprint as well as the neighbor and all of these buildings along this
block of Bainbridge are broken up in that way. The units in the front have a garage which has
an easement for the owner in the back and then the resident in the front has the second and the
third floor. So Ms. McGraney currently has a ladder that leads up to a roof hatch to her
roof deck. She had a roof deck which got badly damaged in a storm and it was unsafe so she took
it down herself. And what she would like to do is build a code compliant stair with a pilot house
up to, um, a new roof deck that she would build, um, you know, for, for safety and convenience
reasons. Because the footprint of the property is so small, um, other neighbors along the same
block have built their pilot house right on the back of their property line. And the reason for
that, and I'm going to skip ahead with some of the additional drawings that we presented after
the neighbor meeting that we attended for additional information. There is a stair
underneath, and that's the stair of her home. So underneath the roof deck is her bedroom,
over in this corner is the bathroom, and then there's her egress hallway. And so because of
space constraints what she would like to do is build her stair on top of an existing stair
because there's really no other place within the footprint to build a stair um so going back to our
refusal and i'll just zoom in here a little bit so you can see this better um so there's a required
five-foot setback for the pilot house and we are proposing zero feet and putting that pilot house
right on the lot line in order to build the new stair over the existing stair.
This is our application for appeal. Our argument is that there's a hardship because right now the
ladder that she's using isn't safe and she would like to have a code-compliant stair and there's
no other place in the footprint um to build that stair um so kim sent out all of her letters um
we attended our neighbor meeting and we have our letter um which was not a part of your packet
because it didn't oh it didn't come in on time so i have to go to a different tab that i have this
letter of support. And what they say is that the zoning committee member says he walks by the row
of houses every day and he's never noticed a pilot house roof deck before. So impact is minimal.
It was agreed amongst the committee and the applicant that it would not be necessary to
slope the roof of the pilot house. That's something that we talked about because the visual impact is
low and there are limited neighbors whose view would be obstructed. So we had five supports from
SOSNA in support, seven supporting votes from the community at large for a total of 12 to abstain,
no in opposition. And then going back to the exhibits that we emailed, we just had
um an updated drawing because we were asked about the finish on the outside of the pilot house and
um excuse me yes can i ask um i'm looking now at your revised plans form is it only the materials
that are changing yes okay and that would not require revised plans um and they if the board
were to approve revised plans it couldn't be contingent on pricing and availability
so the revised plans probably aren't necessary okay okay that sounds good we do have a letter
of support from south to south neighborhood association yep thank you um and then the rest
of our materials um project information i don't know if you want me to go through these
um, proof of ownership, um, tax clearance, and the, uh, proof of posting of the zoning
signs at the property um and that's all i have so uh we would gladly take questions um and i don't
signs at the property. Um, and that's all I have.
know if we need to ask uh ms mangrini if she agrees with my presentation uh we can do that
i do thank you
i have no questions
Professor? Professor? No, I'm okay, Mr. Chair.
All right, good. Any questions by anybody in the virtual audience?
I see no answer, Mr. Chair. Planning Commission.
From Bednar City Planning, property is indicated for residential use on the city plan.
Given the existing site conditions, we recommend the cross-reverance be granted.
MI 2021-002884-1714 Bainbridge A, I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Professor Plaza, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
MI 2021-002887, 311 Reiter Street, RCO Wissahickon Interested Citizens Association Letter of Support, with revised plans on two pages.
Daniel and Chelsea Flesher, Pro Se.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Flesher has been promoted to panelists.
Mr. Flesher, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Daniel Flesher, D-A-N-I-E-L-F-L-E-S-H-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Start your presentations here.
Oh, wait a minute. Talk to our vice chair. I'm sorry.
Hi. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, 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 of the above.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Great. My name is Daniel Flesher. I'm the owner, architect and applicant for 311 Rider Street.
it's currently a two-story row home built in the 1950s located in the Wissahicken neighborhood
it's roughly 950 square feet of finished interior space my wife and I bought the property in
December of 2015 and have lived in it for the past six years we live in it with our two kids
age seven and nine they go to Cook Wissahicken which is just two and a half blocks up the street
here my wife volunteers at the school regularly including their green committee and scholastic
book fair, and I also volunteer in the neighborhood. So we would like to stay in the neighborhood
rather than move, which is why we are pursuing variances. And so the proposal is for a third
story addition, a rear deck level with the first floor with steps to grade, and a pilot house with
roof deck. The proposal generated two refusals. The first is for the steps to grade.
from the roof deck I mean not from the roof deck but from the rear deck
rear decks for fully attached structures are not allowed to have steps to grade
and so that generated refusal the second one is for maximum height 38 feet is allowed whereas the
proposed is 46 10 and a half but I like to put a hard asterisk on that which is that the height
refusal is really based on the pilot house location it's really the same as what you just
saw for the previous applicant because the pilot house is not five feet off the rear of the building
the height of the pilot house is considered in the total height of the building
so really the third floor itself is actually 36 10 and a half whereas the 10 feet of pilot
house makes it 46 10 and a half for that rear five feet and I'll show you that in the plans
here's my application for appeal project information more project information
the deed showing that my wife and i own it
the tax clearance and an authorization for my wife just in case you needed it that she's you
know allowing me to do this we had 105 near neighbors and here's the certificate of bulk
mailing that I sent to everyone, the address list that I sent, photos of the posted refusal
that are dated, these have been posted since November 9th,
And the most recent before I sent this package to all of you, showing November 22nd, I met with the RCO, and I did not have their letter at the time I sent this, but they had, after I sent this, sent it out.
and the most recent before I sent this package to all of you showing
This is their meeting summary.
On the matter of the height variance for the location of the pilot house, they have an official position of non-opposition.
There were two near neighbors who opposed it.
but for all meeting attendees it was nine in support so a slight majority and then for the
matter of the steps to grade from the rear deck 14 were in support with the two near neighbors
being in support of that. I did submit proviso revised plans I think I'll just talk about the
differences between them uh between submitting this and uh this hearing there was uh i sort of
worked on the plans a little bit more and there was the uh reduction of the size of the rear deck
itself from 13 11 feet to 10 feet there's an addition of a uh cantilever at the third floor
at the rear that does not generate any new refusals it would otherwise be a by right
cantilever. And I forgot what the third change was. Oh and I added a metal shade awning and I wasn't
sure if shade awnings aren't normally covered in zoning but I figured I would just add it and show
it so that it would be covered just in case. Here's the proviso plan so you can see at the rear there
is a cantilever and that that cantilever would you know overhang at the rear deck in the rear yard.
One thing I would like to note one is again that refusal is really about the location of
the pilothouse. If this pilothouse were five feet off the rear of the extreme rear of the building
it would not generate this refusal for height and the other thing I would like to note is that
my current lot coverage, even in this Proviso plan, is less than 50%. In the RSA 5 zone,
I'm allowed 75%, and I could avoid this refusal simply by adding five feet to the rear of my
building for three stories, but that would be prohibitively expensive. And so I think that
represents the hardship of not granting the variance. I do have a buy-right way of essentially
keeping the pilot house exactly where it is, but it's more expensive, creates more bulk and less
access to light and space for all of my neighbors than if the variance is granted. Here's some
side elevations so you can see what this looks like as well with the cantilever here. It's a
three foot four cantilever just for the third floor. So why is the pilot house where it is?
I have a really small house. It's about 35 feet in depth total. It's currently living room,
dining room, kitchen. There's a bedroom in the front and then there are two small bedrooms in
the back. Since COVID, I've had to kick my daughter out of the smaller bedroom, and so my two kids are
sharing an 8 by 13 bedroom, and I'm currently, where I'm sitting right now, is in this office
here. It's 7 feet by 11 feet, and my kids, who were 1 and 3 when we moved into the house, are now
7 and 9, and we're really outgrowing the space. We need more space. The demolition would include
the dining and kitchen would be combined. This has really no effect on the zoning. The upper
floor with bedrooms two and three would be demolished and turned into a single bedroom
and you can see the proposed floor plan so those two bedrooms become one bedroom here
as you come up the stairs you come to a landing at the second floor and then continue straight
up to the third floor up here will be a new office for me which will function as my office
as it is now another bathroom walk-in closet master bedroom so it's a three bedroom will
remain a three-bedroom. And then the steps come up again, and we get a roof deck here.
I tried many variations to not generate this refusal. There were really no design considerations
that met the needs. This really is the minimum variance. I'm seeking the minimum variance and
really the most efficient way to get what I need for my family. Here's the proposed elevations.
Again, in the revised plan, there is a metal shade here because this is a west-facing window.
It's a vertical shade and it's kind of a box shade. I think it ties kind of the top and bottom
together. I also have a petition of support from my near neighbors. These are all near neighbors,
so I sent letters to 105 properties and I was able to get 80 total signatures from near neighbors
only. And this is a map of all the properties that signed that petition. With that, that's my
properties that that uh signed that petition um with that that's my presentation
presentation.
questions from the board
question from the virtual audience
i see no answer mr chair planning commission uh ron bednar city planning this property is
indicated for residential use on the city
plan. Given the
existing site circumstances
and based
on the revised plan, we
recommend to request a variance to be granted.
MI 2021
002887
311 Ryder
Street. I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Excuse me, Mrs. Sharon, that's
with revised plans, two pages.
okay my vote uh carolton airy my vote is yes with revised plans consisting of two pages
professor plaza yes with proviso
thank you good luck with your project thank you so much great presentation thank you very much
mi 2020 003 149 41 14 cambridge street no rco letter
No deed yet, so we'll have to check on that.
Michael Lambert is the attorney.
Mr. Chair, I do not see Mr. Michael Lambert in the audience at this time.
Is there anyone in the audience from 4114 Cambridge Street?
still no answer okay let's let's move on chair this is at least the second listing and perhaps
the third listing for this property so we dismiss it uh i i think we dismiss it i mean we just can't
keep doing it yes do i do i say that you want me to i make a motion we dismiss this project
Yes, you can vote to dismiss it.
Right.
I vote to dismiss.
Carol Tenere, dismiss.