already sent a letter of non-opposition as well. There's going to be commercial trash pickup,
exterior lighting. It's right across the street from a park. It's really ideal for a coffee shop
Cafe, and the neighbors are extremely excited about it. And with that, I would like to ask
my client, Ms. Lu, L-U, to raise her hand and be recognized.
You're allowed to speak.
Good morning.
Good morning. Could you state your full name and spell it for the court reporter?
Sure. My name is Wei Lu, spelled W-E-I, last name Lu, L-U.
do you swear or affirm that tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do proceed thank you thank you mr chairman wait did you hear my presentation to the board
today yes i did was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge yes it is and do you adopt
it as your own testimony yes i do tell the board about your hours of operation roughly sure um
It's going to be open daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Wonderful.
So no evening activity on a regular basis.
Correct.
Correct.
And did you say seven days a week?
And did you say seven days a week?
Yes, seven days a week.
Yes, seven days.
Number of employees or roundabout?
Currently, it's slated to be three, myself, my husband, and a part-time employee.
Wonderful.
And you'll be living upstairs, is that right?
Correct.
Wonderful.
I have nothing else to add.
Thank you.
Thank you, Wendy.
Questions from the board?
Yes, sir.
I would like to just move all of my exhibits into the record as well as the testimony.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any questions from the virtual audience or testimony?
I see no hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
the proposed special exception will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond
what normally might be expected for this use and so the city planning commission recommends
that the board grant this special exception. MI-2021-002846-1700 East Moy-Mansing Avenue,
I vote yes. Carol Tenere, my vote is yes. Professor Plaza, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman my vote is yes thank you all and again thank you for your helping
me get back on today welcome back no problem Tanya I think that was our last case for the
morning it looks like everything to you okay Tanya excuse me would you want to make an
announcement if anyone is here for a case that they believed was going to be called
could they raise their hands yes that's great
anyone in the virtual audience if you have anything that you wish to be heard today that
was supposed to be and wasn't please raise your hand and let us know if not that will conclude the
hearing and we see no hands thank you making the announcement right thank you all right chair
that completes it very well. Thank you
so much. Great job
Chair. Just thank
the IT professional Mr. Bill
for all he does. He does
a lot behind the scenes. So thank you so much
Bill trying to get Vern back on.
No problem.
All right. Bye y'all.
See you at 2. Okay great.
See you at 2.
We're live.
okay we can begin thank you good afternoon my name is carol tenary and i'm the vice chair of
the zoning board of adjustment i'll be participating in today's hearing along with our chair bill
bergman board secretary confessor plaza and board members thomas halliman and james snell
Our Board Administrator is Tanya Sompkett and Jason Hand.
Also attending is our Board Attorney, Sharon Soletta.
For those of you who haven't yet participated in one of our virtual hearings, I'll go through
some of the basics of what you can expect.
First, we will be administering oaths to individuals, participants, prior to their testimony.
Second, we'd like to advise everyone that this proceeding is being recorded and that by participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
This is available to the public by contacting Tanya Sunkett at tanya.sunkett at phila.gov.
That's T as in Tom, A-N-Y-A dot S as in Sam, U-N-K-E-T-T at phila.gov.
Third, for anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand by hitting star nine and star six to unmute yourself.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548 and leave your email address and address of the property at issue.
Four. Wait, let me go back to that. You have to hit star nine, then star six to unmute yourself.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548. Number four. If you're an LLC,
LLP, or a religious organization, you must be represented by an attorney.
Fifth, the question and answer box is not to be used for testimony. Any comments or
The question and answer box is not to be used for testimony.
Any comments are to be directed to Ms. Tanya Sunkit.
I will now turn this over to our chairman, Mr. Bill Bergman.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone.
Before we start the list, number nine, MI 2021-003532, 3114 Grace Furry Avenue, is listed to be continued.
Is there anyone here who would want to make a comment about that?
Mr. Chair, Ms. Kerri Nase-Poust has a hand raised.
Allow her to speak at this time.
Sure, sure.
Ms. Nacepaust, you've been allowed to speak.
Would you please state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Hi, good afternoon. My name is Carrie Nacepaust. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Fox Rothschild.
Address is 2700 Kelly Road, Suite 300, Orrington, PA, 18976.
Here this afternoon on behalf of the applicant, 3114 Grace Ferry Avenue, LLC.
Pardon me, let me swear you in first.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Chair, if I could ask, Ms. Paust, could you please spell your name, please?
First name, Carrie, C-A-R-R-I-E, last name, Nase, N-A-S-E, hyphen, Paust, P-O-U-S-T.
Hi, good afternoon.
We have an appeal that was filed before the Zoning Board back in August due to the size
of this project.
We are also required to review this project with the Civic Design Review Committee.
We received a notice of referral for CDR back in August as well and promptly filed an application
to CDR on August 27th. We've been requesting to be on the CDR committee meeting agendas for
October and November. Unfortunately, due to backlog, we were not included on any of those
agendas. We did receive notice that we are currently on the agenda for next Tuesday,
December 7th. Back in September and October, we did meet with the community and the RCOs.
notice was sent out to the applicable neighborhood participants, I'm sorry, neighbors, and meeting
was held on October 7th at such time that we did receive a letter of support. So we are, we have
met all of our requirements. We are ready to proceed with the hearing today. However, due to
the fact that the CDR has not met to review this, we are asking for a very short continuance until
next Wednesday, December 8th, if available, so that we could continue to have our hearing
on that day after we review the project with the CDR committee.
Thank you.
Tanya, tell us about timing.
No, no possibility at all.
We would ask, again, unfortunately, we did satisfy all of our requirements.
This is a delay that is not of our doing.
We do have certain contractual obligations that need to be satisfied and would request
if a hearing could be scheduled for sometime in December, whether it be the 15th or the 22nd.
So, Chair, what we could do is wait until the CDR is completed, and then I can work
with Ms. Carey to see if we could schedule her by the end of the year. However, the requirement is
that CDR must be completed before I can schedule you. So typically, once the director lets me know
that they've completed it, I can immediately contact you and schedule you. If that works
before the end of the year i can make it happen for you however it must be completed first
okay counsel is that okay uh yes that's fine thank you all right thank you
okay first case oh by the way is there anybody else has continuances or withdrawals
i'm gonna see no hands mr chair thank you we'll we'll start okay number one case
I'm going to see no hands, Mr. Chair.
this is sharon um yes some confusion over number 13 yes that case is actually now scheduled for
tanya please correct me if i'm wrong um december 22nd at two o'clock it's to be heard with a
companion case for a property at 6215 North 13th. Thank you. It would be 930 a.m. I'm sorry.
Oh, okay. 930. Correct. 930 a.m. for that case. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon.
Our first case, MI 2021-00956-13 North 3rd Street. RCO, the Old City District,
meeting shows majority in opposition. Councilman Squillis sent a letter in opposition.
Counsel is Joseph Consul.
Consul is coming back as a panelist, sir.
Hey, Joe Consul.
Thank you.
Could you give your name and spell it for me, please?
Joseph Consul.
That's J-O-S-E-P-H-C-O-N-S-O-L-E.
It's Consul Madison, LLP, 1 West 3rd Street, Suite 204, Media PA, 19063.
You swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Smart, sir.
um briefly did what did councilman squilla weigh in on i i was like so are you asking for a
continuance no no i'm not i'm not i while i was being while i was being made a panelist you said
councilman squilla there's a letter of opposition from councilman school from councilman squilla
okay i believe my client can testify to it that he had spoke to them and they they had
they had indicated support but um that's not the case this is sharon mr council i will forward that
letter to you now. Okay. And Mr. Chairman, I think I have to waive the reading and have him
waive the reading. Yeah, that's right. Go ahead. You go ahead. I know. Mr. Consul, do you 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, refusal, 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 we do yes and we have okay you may proceed after um mr letta i guess you're going to follow
through uh sorry i mean yes i will uh forward that as soon as i pull it up and yeah i will send it
All right. Hello, everyone. Joe Consul here, 13 North 3rd Street. I got Michael Stasek here. He owns two restaurant bars in Old City. This is going to be the third restaurant. We're here for a referral, not a refusal, for 13 North 3rd Street.
13 North 3rd Street is a two-story space.
I'll show you the pictures.
It's a two-story space on North 3rd.
There's the outside.
It's a block.
There's the outside of the building.
It's 900 square feet on the first floor, 700 square feet on the second floor.
Here's the interior.
Obviously, it needs work.
Are these big enough for everyone's screen?
remember last week people are saying like my images were too small okay um and the intent here
is to create not um not like a nightclub or anything like that but a more like a sit-down
restaurant akin to like a bottle bar or a foodery with simple food and a focus on local beers
um here's some proposed uh images for the inside of the property here's a couple of more here
and again the space uh needs a lot of work um michael owns two other two other bars in the
neighborhood none of like i said have ever had a dj or a nightclub which that seemed to be the
opposition of the neighbors. Now, you said we had the letter from the councilman. I haven't seen
that. The RCO board themselves did vote three to two to support it. There was some negative
attendees from the neighborhood, but they appeared to be against any kind of development at all.
We think what's really important for this project is to note that in Old City, there's at least
79 ground-level empty offices and buildings, and Mike has two successful restaurants now,
and we want this to be the third. We think this is an area that needs...
And we want this to be the third. We think this is an area that needs this kind of love and care that he's given.
And he's stuck by this area and he wants this to be his next spot.
And to that end, his idea to have a more laid back restaurant with a focus on local beers, he believes will be what the neighborhood needs,
as he's always getting questions about where like from tourists and that sort of thing where folks