Thank you.
Chair, we have 40 attendees, and we can start as you wish.
I'm ready.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's DBA hearings.
With me is Ismail Shahid, our vice chair.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our board member. Present, Mr. Chairman. And James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman. Also present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director,
Tanya Sunket. Here's our virtual format. The advice proceedings are being recorded.
The video will be available by contacting tanyasunket at phila.gov. For the benefit of
our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand
and star six to unmute. To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548. Leave your email
and the address of the property in question. And finally, the question answer box on the screen
is not for comments or testimony. All comments should be directed to our Executive Director,
Tanya Sunken. Here's today's hearing list and our continuances.
Number one, MI 2022-005-548-1052-54 Roy Street. That case is continued.
Number three, MI-2022-001-638-451-451-Rawne Street. That case is continued attorney moving party.
Number six, MI 2022, 005-589-1320 South Capitol Street. That case is continued.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary. Going back to number six, the continuance request we received was from
the rco can we see if anyone's present um for the applicant listed applicant is laden car
this is the first listing and we also do not have exhibits
good morning mr chair this is jason hand i do not see a mr laden car in okay thank you very much
so mi 2022 excuse me sir yes i don't see his hand raised but there's another hand raised it
it's from a miss okay let the other one see who the other one is uh the other one is for a later
case that we are continuing okay so it's not it's uh that's not for this case okay okay thank you
so mi 2022 005-589-1320 south capitol street that case is continued mark must be tried
Number seven, MI 2022, 005-723-755 South 15th Street. That case is continued.
Number eight, MI 2022, 005-442-3021 Vare Avenue. That case is continued.
Number 12, MI-2022-001-641-451 Ron Street. That case is continued. Attorney moving party.
Number 13, MI-2022-005-549-1500 Winsome Street. That case is continued.
And number 15, MI 2022, 005-434-5853 Master Street, that case is continued.
that case is continued.
Sorry, Mr. Chair, this is Hillary.
Sorry, Mr. Chair, this is
Hillary. It's 5953
Masher Street.
5953 Masher Street.
And number 16,
there's a
request from
the FAFE CDC for
a continuance.
Anwar Wright
in the audience.
yes sir mr wright has been allowed to speak okay mr chair can you can you read the
thank you mi 2022 005 552 36 east culture street uh mr wright could you state your name and spell
for the court reporter please good morning mr chair my name is amwar wright a n like nancy w-a-r
right w-r-i-g-h-t right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing
but the truth yes i do sir we have a request um for continuance from the faith cdc the coordinating
rco they have resolved they want to resolve property line questions yes that's correct
Are you OK with the continuance? That's fine, sir. OK, so am I twenty twenty two zero zero five five five to thirty six East Kohler Street?
That case is continued. Are there anyone who has comments relative to the continued cases?
mr chair i don't see any hands at this time okay we also have three cases that we do not have
exhibits number five mi 2022 005 501 2316 and memphis street brian mccallister um
Um, we have no exhibits. This is the first listing.
We also have a letter of opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Sir, Ms. Rachel McAllister has been allowed to speak.
Hi, sir. Thank you. I'm here with Brian McAllister as well.
Okay. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. It's Rachel McAllister, R-A-C-H-E-L-M-C-A-L-L-I-S-T-E-R.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
All right.
We do not have exhibits for this case.
And we also know there has not been an RCA meeting.
And so because of that, we thought that this meeting was also going to get postponed because
we weren't able to have the RCO.
All right.
The case will be continued.
Excellent.
And then you'll receive communication via email on when it will be continued to?
You will hear from us.
Okay, excellent. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir.
MI 2022-005-501-2316 Memphis Street. This case is continued.
Number nine. Hold on one minute, please.
please. Number nine is
number nine, MI 2022-005-440-5008 Hazel Avenue. No exhibits first listing. Richard Lawrence is the
owner. I see no hands for that case, sir. Okay, so MI 2022-005-440-5008 Hazel Avenue,
that case is continued. Mark must be tried. And number 10, MI 2022-005-554-2320
Reed Street. No exhibits, first listing. Scott Schaefer is the elicit applicant.
Mr. Schaefer, if you're in the virtual audience, please wait, please raise your hand.
Mr. Schaefer has been allowed to speak, sir.
Mr. Schaefer, state your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
Scott Schaefer, S-C-O-T-T, S-C-H-A-F-F-E-R.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
This is the first listing.
We do not have your exhibits yet.
I've submitted them through an email.
So I must have had a wrong email sent in.
Okay. My apologies. Okay. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Mr. Schaefer, what is your relationship to the
My apologies.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair.
property? The owner is Octavia Hill Association, Inc. I am the president and CEO. I am represented
by an attorney, Jake Siegel. Okay. I do see Mr. Siegel on. Okay. I wanted to make sure you had
an attorney yes we do thank you okay thank you absolutely uh and maybe we should let mr siegel
speak as well bring mr siegel on please mr siegel has been allowed to speak sir
i'm mr siegel could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
yes sir jake siegel siegel s-e-g-a-l do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth? I do, sir. Mr. Siegel, we do not see the exhibits. We don't have any exhibits
for your client. I understand. It was our impression that they were emailed. If we had
the incorrect email address, we would respectfully request that the matter be continued and we just
get the email address. Thank you. And what you should do is contact the office and we'll make
sure you have everything that's appropriate, okay? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. So MI
MI2022-005-554-2320 Reed Street. That case is continued. Okay. We're going to go to our add-on
list. Our first case is MI2022-005-216-5110 Haverford Avenue. Our vice chair is going to
handle this vote. Mr. Shaheed. Yes, good morning. So, want me to go ahead and trade into the vote
chair? Sure. So, was there any provisos on this? There is. My vote is yes with provisos, Ishmael
Shaheed. So just for a point of record, the provisors, no trash stored under front steps
and no roof deck. Thomas Tomlin, my vote is yes with provisos. James Snell, my vote is yes with
Proviso. Number two, MI 2022-004-796-815 Forest Avenue. I vote yes with Proviso.
Temporary variance expires March 1st, 2025.
5. Thomas Tollman, my vote is yes with proviso. James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Mr. Snell, this is, sorry, this is Hillary. Can you please certify that you watched the video
of the hearing on January 25th? I apologize for that. Hillary, yes. James Snell, I did watch the
video and I certify that I attest that I watched the video and have full knowledge of the case.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, everyone.
Going to our regular list, number two, MI 2022-0048, oh, I'm sorry, number 14.
We're going to start with number 14.
MI 2022-005-483-1304 Cresce Street.
Brooke Reeder is the owner
letter of opposition from the
Fishtown Neighbors Association
this is a pro se
Brooke Reeder
Sir, Mr. Reeder will be promoted as a
panelist and coming back in soon
OK. Yes. Hello, this is Brook Reeder. Good morning. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes. Brook Reeder. B-R-O-O-K-R-E-E-D-E-R. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
All right.
So this application is for the use as a visitor accommodation in an existing structure.
That's proposed use visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you, Mr. Reader.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I'm sorry, can you repeat?
I'm sorry.
Can you repeat?
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
do you agree to waive the reading of the
Have you emailed all the required documents that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes, I have.
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
and sir can you uh start your video please uh yeah absolutely hold on just a moment
all right is everybody able to see
We can. Yep. Wonderful. All right. So the pertinent details here are about a year ago, we applied first of all for visitor accommodations. That was, or I'm sorry, for limited lodging that was denied because we do not meet the requirements for residency.
So the advice was to revise the permit to visitor accommodations and come before this board for the hearing to get a special exception made.
My wife and I, Shauna, are the original owners of this property, and we're not able to reside there full time at the moment.
And this is our only property, it's our second home in Philadelphia.
And because we can't be there full-time, it denies us from the eligibility for the typical zoning permit required for short-term rentals.
So our desire is to get an exception made either for limited lodging or for visitor accommodations.
Either would be acceptable to allow us to occasionally rent this for short-term guests to just offset income and help us maintain and keep this home.
This is the only property we're doing this for, and we are careful to vet our guests,
et cetera.
We've already reviewed this with the Neighborhood Association, and it's not something we plan
to be running as a business or anything of the sort.
It's simply to help offset our costs because we can't reside there full-time at the moment.
Do you have pictures of your property?
Absolutely.
Just a moment.
Some of those were submitted as well.
We'll pull those all up.
Not sure which ones you'd like to see in particular.
It's a large five stories from basement to roof deck, fairly narrow property.
This is the main room here during some times when we're doing some of the setup.
And we are there whenever we can be in the other times we'd like to allow some guests that are carefully vetted to stay there, including friends and family and other folks.
Do you have the copy of the letter from the RCO?
Yes, I do.
Can I see that, please?
Mm-hmm.
Oh, no, that's the refusal.
Just a moment, let me pause my screen and go grab that from my email here, here we go.
What you'll see reflected here is, you know, as when we first began renting this unit through Airbnb, we had a little learning curve on how to properly vet guests.
There was a couple of incidents, and we've since learned that we're incentivized as anyone to take good care of this and respect the neighborhood and the community and the home, because it's our second home.
my wife suffers from some autoimmune health conditions which is actually one of the reasons
we can't reside there full-time because we have to be elsewhere for her health care
but one of the requirements of that that set of diseases she has is that we have to keep it
very very clean and free of chemicals and free of any sort of issues that would present
dangers for water intrusion or mold and the like so we're very particular how we vet the guests