Planning Commission.
Mr. Chair and members of the board, this property is designated for commercial mixed use in the comprehensive plan, and the zoning was updated in 2015 to match that designation.
Given the location on a commercial quarter with several other takeout restaurants, and given the support of the RCO, there is no reason to believe that the impact of this proposal will be greater than what one would normally anticipate from that use.
Consequently, staff of the Planning Commission support the request for a special exception.
MI 2021-003556, 1610 Frankfort Avenue, I vote yes.
Carol Teneron, my vote is yes.
Professor Plaza, my vote is yes.
This is Sharon.
Did you want to add any of the provisos
requested by the community organization?
So Sharon, how are you with the provisos?
I would say you can add provisos stating
approved use limited to an ice crane shop and hours of operation limited to 11 p.m sunday
through thursday and 12 a.m friday and saturday that's fine we'll do that
so my vote in carleton area my vote is yes with proviso
Professor Plaza, yes, we're proviso.
James Snell, yes, we're proviso.
Thomas Harleman, yes, we're proviso.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Take care.
MI-2021-001566, 1541 South 24th Street,
Point Breeze RCO Development Corporation
has a letter of support
with revised plans on one page.
Henry Clinton is the attorney.
Mr. Clinton will return as a panelist.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Henry Clinton for the applicant.
Could you spell your name for the court reporter, please?
Sure. H-E-N-R-Y Clinton, C-L-I-N-T-O-N, 1313 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19146 Queen Memorial Building.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Okay, sir.
Do you agree with reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents consisting of 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 of the above.
Okay, great. You may proceed.
I can share my screen.
is that visible yes yes good afternoon henry clinton for the applicant this is my presentation
package which contains a table of contents aa through a11 and i'll walk through
the package this is my appearance statement this is the refusal of the key document
This property is at the northeast corner of 24th and Tasker Street, zoned CMX-1, but because it's attached to an RSA-5 zoning district, the L&I examiner indicated that the zoning of CMX-1 really should catapult into the zoning of RSA-5.
And what I want to show the board is that all four corners at 24th and Tasker are zoned commercial, and we are not proposing commercial in this space, even though it's zoned CMX1, we are proposing three residential units.
I'd like to point out, through our original application, it asked for four units, but as a result of meeting with the RCO, we did provide a letter of support.
We have reduced that to three units.
Here's the Point Breeze Community Development Letter of Support, which the Chairman already alluded to.
And here's photographs. Again, just to give you some perspective, this is 24th and Tasker.
The street down here on an angle is Point Breeze Avenue, so we're basically a block and three-quarters from the commercial district in the heart of South Philadelphia.
This is another photograph looking north. Here's the property. Point Breeze Avenue is over here to the east. And this is the railroad trestle at 25th Street, which runs all the way down to Washington Avenue.
This is a photograph looking west.
This has been a vacant lot for some time.
And you can see across the street another vacant lot.
This is also zoned commercial, but obviously not in use.
And I believe there's a vacant space, a catty corner to our space, which is also zoned commercial.
The other thing about this particular lot, which is again shown here in the foreground,
is that it's one of the larger lots on the block.
It's actually 20 feet wide.
about four feet larger than most lots again just some more shots of the vacant lot so the board
can get an idea of the location so we do have revised plans of one page if the board looks
kindly upon this application this is the presentation package put together by
the architect is on the call with me if we need to have any input from him.
And this is just showing the corner of 24th Street, Tasker Street, going to have three
units, one three-bedroom unit and two two-bedroom units that will be trash storage in the rear
yard with the gate accessing on Tasker Street for use by the tenants.
These are the floor plans, which I can walk through, or Mr. Orr can walk through if the board
desires. This is the elevation. Again, a lot of detail on this corner property, a brick,
mainly a brick facade, nice cornice work at the top, which is turned around on Tasker Street,
and the cornice line continues on Tasker Street with the bay at the second and floor level,
And again, continued brick pattern throughout. We have lighting on the front of the building, and we have basically eliminated the steps on Tasker Street to give the building more of a commercial look than a typical residential look.
And this is the rear yard where the trash would be stored.
So we see this project as being in harmony with the code.
We see it as a unique situation where you have a vacant lot with other commercial corners at the 24th.
you have a vacant lot with other commercial corners at the 24th street and task or location
that are not used. There's another vacant lot across the street. One of the other vacant spaces
is, excuse me, one of the other commercial spaces is vacant. And we didn't want to have a situation
where we're going to have vacant commercial space here. And when my client adopts my testimony,
he can speak to that a little bit more about the inability to find a commercial tenant at this
location. One of the reasons being what I pointed out in the early part of the presentation is
we're not very far from Point Breeze Avenue. Like I said, about a block and a half. We also think
that this is in harmony with the code. It's in harmony with what the community group wants as
evidenced by their letter of support. So with that, I would rest and entertain any questions
from the board or if the board wants to talk to the architect uh we're available
do you want to adopt a testimony yes uh can john can you raise your hand
i'm here hank all right john john did you hear my testimony i did yes john could you state your
name for the court reporter and spell it please jonathan bollier j-o-n-a-t-h-a-n bollier b-e-a-u-l-i-e-u
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, yes.
Thank you, John.
John, you were here during the entire presentation, correct?
You heard my testimony.
And one of the things I mentioned was the commercial space at this location would not be viable.
Can you touch on that very briefly for the board?
Yes, in our diligence for the property, we did speak with a number of real estate professionals who advise us against the feasibility of a commercial tenant in this location and in these market conditions.
And John, if you had the opportunity to testify, would you adopt my testimony as your own and as true and correct?
I would, yes.
Thank you, John.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
no the virtual audience any questions from anyone in the virtual audience
mr chair we have a misha gelfand with the hand raised i will allow her to speak at this time
elfin are you available
misha unmute please
i'm sorry i think i might have uh just pressed that by accident i apologize about that okay
planning commission i'm sorry chair um it might be that they were confused
Misha was here to testify
Misha could you please state your name
and spell the whole name
oh yes of course
yes hi
thank you for inviting me to
the meeting here
my full name is Mikhail
M-I-K-H-A-I-L
last name is Gelfand
G-E-L-F-A-N-D
you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes I do
you may proceed
Misha did you have testimony
that you wanted to present
yes I was
here with
David Orfanides
as my attorney for
i'm sorry i think you're here for the wrong case if you stand by we may get to that okay
uh chair i believe we do have others um jason you can continue yes i'm sorry here
is a geneva with their hand raised i have a lot yeah sure
it's only allowing me to promote them to panavis because they're using an older version of zoom
They're just going to testify, right?
Geneva, are you there?
Please unmute and wait to be sworn in by the chair for your testimony.
and wait to be sworn in by the chair for your testimony.
You state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please.
You state your name and speak.
I'm sorry, they put their hand down.
Next, we have Mr. David Orfanides with his hand raised.
Mr. Orfanides.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Mr. Orfanides, are you here for this case?
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
David Orfanides, last name is spelled O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Do you swear or phone to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
and i just stepped out of my office for a second it's hanks is this still hank's case
or my case on now no it's mr clinton's case what why am i why was i just asked to come on
you weren't sir please stand by okay okay any other hands up planning commission
All right, sir, we have a call-in user with their hand raised. I will allow them to speak.
Sir or madam, please unmute.
Hello. Hi, this is Tiffany Green.
Could you spell your name for the court reporter, please?
Yes, Tiffany Green, T-I-F-F-A-N-Y-G-R-E-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
I must put on the record that this is like the third time we have called in on a case, and the phone has not been answered.
We were not answered.
We missed our testimony on several other cases, which I will send an email in on.
And this is just unfair.
The phone people have to be able to be able to speak, too.
I'm sorry, ma'am.
If you wish to present testimony for this case, please do so.
All issues and concerns, please report to the zoning board administrator.
Thank you.
We do.
but the thing i wanted to just put it on record okay i haven't received anything ma'am but please
proceed just send the email i uh uh 1541 uh south 24th street um we're rco and i just wanted to
speak on this case i know that the block captain is on she's on on on the um on the text me she
texted me she's on and i guess she's having problems getting on to testify so uh hopefully
Maybe you can look for her on there. But in the meanwhile, I'll just make the testimony. First of all, there was a vote glitch regarding this particular meeting that was already reported to Jonathan Goins and regarding the vote glitch.
The block captain let me know that there were other residents on who called in who never received any voting opportunity to vote.
So, therefore, we're saying the summary letter is incorrect because the community, particularly on this block, which is a very nice block, it's a homeowner's block, and most of them are homeowners, and they stated they did not support this particular project.
Initially, they wanted a single-family home.
The developer was not interested in doing a single-family home.
So then at that particular point, he's always asked for to do commercial.
Initially, we asked for first floor commercial to maintain the commercial piece.
If he's going to do CMX-1, to maintain the CMX-1 and have two units to the property.
According to the block captain, he's never talked with the block captain regarding this particular project.
And this was a very strong community.
They made it be known that they wanted to maintain a commercial piece.
For the record, Point Breeze Avenue is two and a half blocks away.