Hi, Planning Commission.
Planning Commission.
Sorry.
That's okay.
Good afternoon, David.
Fecto, City Planning Commission.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board,
the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the commercial mixed-use zoning at this location.
The applicant wishes to combine 2400 and 2402 West Montgomery Avenue into one 2300 and 31-square-foot lot.
CMX 2 requires ground floor commercial, while the applicant proposes none, and the applicant proposes eight dwelling units where four are allowed.
The comprehensive plan recommends concentrating commercial units on Ridge Avenue, so we would argue that commercial mixed use 2 zoning creates a hardship relating to ground floor commercial requirement in the zoning code.
Eight dwelling units is not the minimum variance necessary to afford the applicant relief from
the zoning code.
We also note that the density is not directly correlated with affordability, and affordability
within a benefits agreement cannot be enforced by any city agency.
The City Planning Commission recommends the board grant the variance for not including
ground floor commercial and deny the variance for unit count.
Thank you.
Mr. Nockmson, do you want to respond?
I mean, again, you've heard this argument before from me, but with rising interest rates, you know, construction materials, you know, being at its greatest amount, it's not feasible, you know, to provide only four units.
And it's more than four units. We're closer to five.
Plug for swapping out the commercial units with two residential units on the ground floor.
It was really important for the community that these units be affordable, and we have committed to providing one affordable unit by way of a community benefits agreement at 80% AMI.
So for those reasons, we do ask that the board grant our variance request.
So MI 2022-005-912-2400 Montgomery Avenue, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman. Excuse me, Mr. Chair, there are the revised plans, one page.
Okay, so I wrote yes, revised plan, one page.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes, proviso.
Thank you. Mr. Nockamson, please stay on.
group number nine mi 2022 005 913 1645 north marshall street and could attorney steve masters
also join in mr chair this is ishmael shaheed i'm in thank you
mr masters good afternoon mr chair members of the board i could you state your name please
mr masters my name is steve masters s-t-e-v-e-m-a-s-t-e-r-s i'm with the law firm of just
laws right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do and i represent the adjacent property owner to this location whose name is joshua
Cohen. Thank you. Mr. Nockamson, could you identify your client and the relationship to
this property? Yes. My client is Preston Berkeley, LLC, and they're the owner of the property.
And in the virtual audience would be one of its representatives, either Bill Murphy or
Sanjeev Nadeau. Okay. Mr. Shaheed has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits to our offices five days in advance to this hearing?
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Before you start, the council president's office is not taking a position on this case, and the applicant has also provided a petition of support signed by approximately 28 neighbors.
So just two housekeeping items before we begin.
So we've worked diligently with the neighborhood, as you can see by way of that petition, as well as with the property owner to the left of us.
But we're still having further conversations with the property owner to the left of us, which has nothing to do with zoning-related matters, has more to do with construction-related matters.
But we're still having further conversations with the property.
But out of respect for him and Mr. Masters, we ask that the board hold this matter for two weeks so we can work through an agreement that's non-zoney-related, and then we can have commentary from Mr. Masters and or his clients.
assuming they're showing their support for this project. The second housekeeping matter is that
we are, as part of that arrangement with the neighbor to the left of us, we do have revised
plans of one page. So if this board is inclined to grant the variance request two weeks from now,
we would ask they were granted by way of proviso. Mr. Chair, can I be heard with us?
you can all right thank you um in general uh we agree with mr nokamson's representations
we requested that the board hold off a vote for two weeks so that we could continue
and complete our settlement negotiations we disagree though that this has nothing to do
with zoning um our client who owns 1647 north marshall street was also the property owner at
1645. And those two parcels were owned together. He sold the parcel at 1645 to Mr. Nachamson's
client. And because of the configuration of the stairs in front of 1647, there is no way to
occupy the house next door to this project during the construction until we can arrange for suitable
arrangements. And that's what we've been negotiating. And we believe that both sides
are operating under good faith and that we will shortly reach a favorable conclusion.
But it is completely zoning related because in a request for variances, one of the tests is,
will the grant of variances negatively impact the surrounding neighbors or will it be against
the public interest. And certainly to lock people out of their house for weeks at a time during a
construction project would meet the test of not being able to justify a variance. So we're happy
that that is not going to be the case. We believe that we are going to be able to work this out.
So you both know Ms. Emerson briefed me on this beforehand, and we all agree that this will be a
two-week hold to vote. So why don't we have Mr.
Knuckles from the start? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
All right. So this is actually other than the issue about the fact
of how the neighboring property owner steps are configured.
And as you can see here, this rendering kind of shows it.
Again, there's no record of a proper
permit to build those steps that way, because how the steps are configured, the only way that
the property to the left of us at 1647 North Marshall Street can access it is through our
sidewalk, which is very peculiar. I have not seen that in the course of my career that that would
happen that way, but there's a first time for everything. But other than that, it's a pretty
straightforward project. So we'll go through this, the notice of refusal, the correspondence we
received this morning from the 5th Councilmatic District. Again, there was no recording in the
RCO. The 5th Councilmatic District, all they did was provide a form for people to be heard. The only
person who actually physically showed up to the meeting is Mr. Master's client. But we did do
significant outreach to the community is what you'll see by way of that petition. And again,
through our conversations with Mr. Masters' client, at the very least, we elected to change
the configuration of the steps, which you'll see by way of the revised plans. Again, not uncommon
for this board to hear matters on North Marshall Street, in particular this block, because we are
near a commercial corridor on Germantown Avenue, and basically almost every one of these properties
is multifamily in nature.
So it's, again, not uncommon.
But, and then we give a little layout
of the 1600 block of North Marshall Street as well
to show how many of these properties
are multifamily in nature.
Then we have maps of the area,
photographs of the property,
our plans and drawings,
our RCO meeting notice,
our application for appeal,
our deed to the property,
and our certificate of tax clearance.
At the conclusion of my presentation,
I would ask that Mr. Nadu or Mr. Murphy,
virtually raise their hands, be sworn in, go.
virtually raise their hands, be sworn in, they'll answer some questions for me in order to adopt my testimony as their own.
They'll be more than happy to take any questions from the board.
So first things first is the notice of refusal.
We're not asking for any dimensional variances here.
We're just asking you to use this lot for three as a tri-bless.
And again, it's not uncommon for that to happen, as you'll see further along in my presentation.
The correspondents from the 5th Town Semantic District, again, they acknowledged that the only person that showed up was Mr. Cohen, the next door neighbor.
But there was a significant presence in terms of a petition that was signed.
But because of the lack of physical involvement from any of the neighbors, their office is taking no position and they're deferring to the board to decide this matter.
and then our revised plans all we're trying to do is reconfigure the the um the front steps
so instead of it you know you know basically essentially blocking uh 1647 steps uh we're
we're changing at the configuration so the landing is in common with 16 our landing is in common with
1647s landing where their landing is on our property uh and then you'll see that from right
here. So originally we had our steps here. Our landing was here. Obviously out of respect for
Mr. Cohen, we changed the configuration. Now all we're dealing with is just construction related
issues, which are non-zoning related as well. Because whether you're going to build a single
family home or a multifamily home, you have to put steps on this property. So here's the petition
petition signees, again, we had 23 people sign the petition. And you can see we're number one
in green. And here it's within that affected area. I always ask my clients, just give me the affected
area. I don't need signatures from anywhere else. The individuals are most directly impacted by this
project. Please let me know if they support it. And by the way, my client, when they distributed
that petition, and I think Mr. Masters would agree with this, reached out to Mr. Cohen as well.
And that's, you know, and we started that dialogue starting at the community meeting level N6.
And then here's our petition. And then nearby multifamily variances, you can see 1643 North
marshall street uh this is more north 6th but we're between 6th and 7th on marshall uh between
oxford and c still be more um but here you have 1644 north marshall so just two instances of
variances 1643 and 1644 north marshall street right in close proximity and then you can just
see the block as a whole right other than our property there are 10 instances of multi-family
structures on the 1600 block of North Marshall Street. That's pretty significant. So what we're
asking for is not out of character from what you would see if you walk by the 1600 block of North
Marshall Street right now. And then our zoning map, yes, we're yellow, but as you can see,
there is RM1 here, but there's a significant amount of properties which are currently RSA5,
which are a multifamily in nature.
So, and then as you can also see,
we are close proximity to Germantown Avenue as well.
And then 1645 North Marshall Street,
this is the front of the property.
And as you can see,
these are the steps that lead onto our property
to the nearby property owner.
And then just proof of the hearing notice posting.
You can see that we posted the property.
But again, here are the steps as well, as you can see.
And then this property has been vacant as far as you can document on Google Earth.
So clearly there's a need to develop this property.
Unfortunately, it cannot happen based on the current zoning because of rising interest rates, affordability of cost materials.
Plus, it keeps the units more affordable the more there are.
Plus, we're trying to support the commercial corridor as well.
And then this is North Marshall Street to the right of the property, North Marshall Street to the left of the property.
As you can see, there's multimeters all over that you can show multifamily use.
And then our plans and drawings.
Again, originally, we had our steps, the landing here with the front door here, which would have blocked Mr. Cohen's property steps or the steps to his property.
Again, we're trying to be reasonable here.
again we're trying to be reasonable here um and i would you know again i would ask that at the
And I would, you know, again, I would.
conclusion of this matter two weeks from now we hope to get a letter um from mr cohen in support
of this project as well where he would sign off with the his other neighboring property owners
just another angle of our property um and just so you understand this is a seven foot
property wide property that's owned by the state of philadelphia so there's tons of lightning there
in general for our property because of that basically buffer. And then this is just our
property. Again, this Z100 is revised from what was originally submitted to L&I. So we would ask
that the ZBA, if they do grant this variance, grant it with a proviso with revised plans.
And then, again, just simple floor plans here, but as you can see, each of the floors have its own unit, with the exception of unit number one, which is bi-level.
And here's our meeting notice.
We had it on January 11th.
143 addresses were notified of the meeting, was the addresses.
proof of mailing to those addresses,
or application for an appeal that shows that Preston Berkeley LLC
is the owner of the property,
the notice of refusal or project information form,
or deed to the property,
during that Preston Berkeley LLC is the owner of the property,
and then most importantly or equally important,
is to show we're compliant from a tax perspective.
While it shows that $1,958.32 is owed,
Those taxes are not due until March 31st of this year. With that being said, I would ask that Mr. Murphy or Mr. Nadeau virtually raise their hand and guess we're in.
Mr. Murphy has been allowed to speak. Mr. Murphy, could you state your name and spell it please for the court reporter?
to william murphy w-i-l-l-i-a-n-m-u-r-p-h-y do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel oh yes mr murphy you heard everything i
had to state about this testimony matter yes i did and is it true and correct it is
Do you adopt my testimony as your own?
Yes, I do.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm going to go to the board.
Mr. Masters, do you have anything else you want to say?
I'm not going to make any additional comments at this time, Mr. Chair, but I do want to reserve the ability to submit something in writing at the two-week mark before the vote is out.
We will make sure that happens, okay?
Thank you.
All right.