One more thing, Mr. Chair, if Mr. Masters does submit anything, I just would like an opportunity to respond as well.
Sure. Okay. Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no further answer, Mr. Chair.
Hi, Planning Commission.
Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. David Fecto with the City Planning Commission.
Chair Bergman and members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
single-family zoning at this location. There is no unique physical condition or circumstances
of this 1,032-square-foot lot that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning
code. Since 2018, the ZBA has granted variances for several multifamily buildings on this block.
However, on balance, there are still more single-family homes than multifamily homes.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny the use of variance.
Thank you. So, Hillary, can we close this except for a response from Mr. Masters or his client and also a response from Mr. Nockamson?
Yes, Mr. Chair, we can we can hold the vote for two weeks. Record is closed except for a letter from Mr. Masters and any response by Mr. Nockamson.
OK, so we will hold this for two weeks and Mr. Masters, you'll have a chance to respond and Mr. Nockamson, you'll have an opportunity.
Okay? Thank you. Thank you. All right. Asia, I want to go back to the add-ons.
Let's see. Okay, sure. Let me see. We have one, I think, here. Here it is here. So number three in
add-ons. MI 2022, 005393, 2546 Page Street. This is a vote for you, Thomas and Jim Snell.
uh thomas and and jim snell
thomas holloman my vote my vote is yes hold on one second thomas was there any proviso
hold on a minute i do not see proviso okay
thomas holloman my vote is yes
james my vote is yes james snell my vote is yes
thank you is there anyone in the uh the 2 p.m audience virtual audience whose case has not been
called sir i have a hand up from mr daryl miller okay i have allowed him to speak at this time
i share could you please state your name and spell it please for the court reporter
yes daryl miller d-a-r-r-y-l-m-i-l-l-e-r do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes i do could you tell me the case you're interested in 3832 north 18th
street 3832 mr chair this is hillary this was an add-on from last week um then the board granted
the uh variance requested in this case mr miller you and your attorney will be re-receiving a
notice that the board's decision being email. I'm sorry, Ms. Emerson, I didn't hear what the
first part you said. This case was voted last week on the board's add-on list, and it was granted.
Oh, wow. Thank you. All right. I didn't know. They told me it was the 24th. I appreciate it.
When will it formally be on the docket? It was last week. I mean, excuse me, not the docket.
If someone was researching, like I have an appraiser reaching out to the city, it's already, I guess, confirmed.
Mr. Miller, once the notice of decision is issued, then it will be publicly viewable on the board's calendar as well as the Atlas website.
Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm sorry for your time.
No, thank you. Thank you.
Anyone else have anything?
Okay, we're going to take a five-minute break, and then we'll be back for the 3.30 list, okay?
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, Chuck.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Kelly, are you ready?
Yes, Chair.
Thank you.
Lakeisha, is everybody back?
Yes, Chair.
and we are recording. I'm ready to go.
You can begin. Good afternoon. My name is Bill Bergman and I will be
chairing this 330 ZBA hearing. With me is our Vice
Chair, Ishmael Shahid. Present, Mr. Chair.
Thomas Hollman, our board member. Present, Mr. Chairman.
And James Snell, our board member. Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Hilary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director, Tanya Sunkett.
Here's our virtual format. Be advised the proceedings are being recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkett at philip.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating in my phone, and if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
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. All comments should
be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sumter. Let's look at our continuations for the
330 hearings. Here's three cases that are together. Number one, MI 2022-005-626-830
North 40 Street. Number two, MI 2022-006-089-847 North 40 Street. And number three, MI 2022-006-090-818
North 40 Street. All cases are continued. Turning moving party. Number five, MI 2022-005-718-2231
North 4th Street. This case is continued to Wednesday, March 1st at 3.30 p.m. Number six,
MI 2022-005-716-1027-1029 Spring Street, that case is continued. Number seven, MI 2022-005-715-1801
Ritten Street. That case is continued. Number nine, MI 2022-005-717-3517 North 18th Street.
That case is continued. And number 10, MI 2022-004-352-3743 North 18th Street. That case
is continued. Is there anyone has comments relative to the continued cases?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. I do not see any hands at this time.
Are there any other requests for continuance?
Once again, sir, I do not see any hands at this time.
Okay, we're going to go to case number eight first, MI 2022-005-694-1029 Mountain Street.
Reagan Weldy is the owner-applicant.
There's a letter of opposition from East Pashunk Crossing Civic Association.
There's a letter of opposition from the neighbor behind the subject property and a letter of
opposition from council member squilla the applicant at the applicant provided a petition
of support from approximately 22 neighbors 20 of which live in the 10 hundred block of mountain
street reagan one weldy he's promoted to panelist okay could you state your name please and spell
for the court reporter? Reagan, R-E-G-A-N, Weldy, W-E-L-D-Y. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. This is for the erection of an
addition above the existing attached structure with two roof decks for use as a single family
household living size and location as shown in the applicant's plans. You are the owner, am I
correct yes okay and our our vice chair has a few questions for you sure good afternoon have you
emailed all the exhibits and documents required to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this hearing yes thank you please proceed and share your screen
excuse me mr chairman do we need a video yeah for some reason it's not coming on
your camera's not working i don't know why because i use this for video all the time
yeah i don't know why i can't have somebody on who could help
oh um i probably need to like get out of zoom and come back in why don't you get out and start
over and see all right i'll do that
I'll do that.
Thank you.
Regan.
She's not on chair.
Wait a few minutes.
So I use this all the time for Zoom
meetings and for some reason your platform isn't letting me it's not recognizing my camera
okay um hillary
that's a nikki question i there's nothing that i can do on on the phone yeah figured um
what are you seeing like are you seeing any errors the problem is you have a mac
Yeah, I do have a Mac. And I do use Zoom all the time on this computer. It just has a little triangle with an exclamation point in it.
Is your Mac like an older model?
It's a mid-life model.
Okay, you might have an update. There's nothing I can do to force the...
I'm going to push the reload button that it's showing me.
I don't know what it'll do.
Mr. Chair, if she cannot get it to work, I think you've already sworn her in.
We can proceed without the video.
Reagan?
do you want to move on to the next case and then come back to mind we're going to move
we don't need your video at this point okay you've sworn in start your presentation sure um
you can see my screen
um i see
oh there it is okay okay um so yeah residential property um i moved to the city 24 years ago
and after running my way through the various neighborhoods in my 20s and 30s east pass yunk
was by far my favorite and where i did my search 10 years ago um i've owned my house for the past
10 years and I have no plans on just doing this remodel, flipping it and selling it like this is
my forever home. So I just want to preface that before we get started. Pandemic has brought my
husband and I both home for full time now with our jobs. And so I sit in the living room. My
husband has the back bedroom. So having more space for us as a family and for work is part of the
goal of this renovation. The second one would be at this point, we really have no room for
family and friends who come to visit. So that's another goal that we would like is just to add
some more space for us. So as we get into it, going into this project, I thought I was only
going to need two variances, but turns out Ellen and I found two additional ones. So that's why
But it seems like a lot for such a regular, seemingly regular remodel addition.
My deed, which I'm sure you guys have already looked through.
That's clearance.
So Mountain Street is a small side street that is in between Morris and Tasker. And it also is has Fernon behind it, which is also a small side street. So the one weird thing about our side of the block, the north side of the block that I'm on, is that our backyard space doesn't have the three foot alleyway, which makes our backyards smaller than most.
So Mountain Street is a small side street that is in between.
So that's one of the variances that came up. The other thing is, because our lots are not as deep, they still built the houses as if they were. So it's like all of our houses are beyond that 75% lot capacity threshold that is one of the other variances that was found with L&I.
um i can show sorry it's your face again um
it's a two-story
block of houses aside from
why is it street view guy
we do have um this multi lot across the street that is a three-story but also sits higher than
the front facade but for the most part aside from the one there's a multi-family three-story
down the street with a setback but for the most part we are a two-story block
I would be the first on the block to be going down this road of adding an addition. This is my property right here.
So getting into nuts and bolts, the first two stories are going to remain relatively unchanged in that the only thing that we're going to really be doing on the second floor is widening the hallway to
account for the new stair, the new wider stairs that have to go in and bringing the laundry from
the basement. Bedrooms, the front bedroom and the back office bedroom and the bathroom are all going
to remain the same. So we're trying to minimize the amount of construction that happens in the
current formation of the house. The third floor, going to the front on the third floor will allow
us to keep, just to have a master suite, bedroom, bathroom, walk-in closet, a bathroom that actually
has a bathtub, which we don't have today, and just added closet space, which we don't have today,
and that additional second small office, which if it's not an office, it could probably be a small
bedroom or den or something, and then going up to the roof deck, instead of just having a roof deck
that can only be used in the warmer months, we decided to add a small living space in the middle
that sits back more than 11 feet from the rear of the house and eight feet from the front of the
house. So while we're asking for an additional 10 inches, it's not something that you're going to see
from the front of the house or the back of the house. So it's kind of move from that vantage
point this is where we get into the odd property size um so you can see here um this dotted line
this like wider dotted line is the actual what would be the center of the alleyway which we
don't have all of our fences kind of just split our yards so when you take into account the my
portion of the three foot alleyway it makes my backyard on only six feet deep and then um
so that's that variance
and then going in on the actual like height of the addition my my goal with the height of the
addition is to really only add one visual third story from the front and back so that it doesn't
seem like it's this big thing, but also keeping some use of space on the what would be the fourth
floor roof deck that can be used as an all year round thing. So just kind of trying to maximize
the cost per square footage. Going with a more traditional look instead of going more modern,
and just to make it seem like it was something that was built for this neighborhood is also one
of the goals. I didn't want something that looked out of place. I do realize that with the variances
I do realize that with the variances and us going by right on the variances that we're going to start creating all these setbacks and our goal was to use the footprint of the house so that we could have straight clean walls so that we don't have issues down the road with water intrusion or animals nesting in weird little nooks and crannies.
I think it'll be a clean a cleaner look at the end of the day which will lend itself better to
the neighborhood as opposed to having like a tiered cake looking structure so today like you
saw on the google it's a two-story house in the summer spring summer fall this tree basically
blocks the whole front of my house. I know that trees don't last forever, but for the foreseeable
life of the tree, that will be something that will block the house. The front parlor is where
I'm sitting now. This is my office shared with two barky dogs that are in the same room during the
day. Straight through into the kitchen, typical South Philly, was renovated before I bought the
house 10 years ago. Front bedroom, main bathroom, middle bedroom, which would become the new
laundry. And then the tiny back bedroom, which is my husband's office. Basement is laundry and
storage. The half bath. So the back, I just wanted to show, so just the back facade. There's a three
story that has gone up within the past couple of months on Fernand Street so the it's starting to
come the the third stories are actually starting to really come into our area our blocks um just
view from the back view from the back window as you can see all of our all of our shared
backyards with no easement I did get um so while the RCO decided decided against
supporting the project I did have the majority vote for that one of those votes was my neighbor
who I share a party wall with so I just wanted to make sure that's noted also this letter this
petition that was signed by the majority of my neighbors that I could that I could round up in