tennetta you didn't have your mic on i'm sorry tennetta tennetta graham my vote is yes
Iowan, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel
Thank you
All right, number five
MI 2023
005 621
254 South 54th Street
Joseph Consul is the attorney
There's a letter of non-opposition
from Cobbs Creek Neighbors
Chair, I don't believe
that I see Joseph Consul
in the virtual audience.
About P.S.
Investment.
No, Chair.
I do not see them in a virtual audience as well.
All right.
So MI 2023-005-621-254 South 54th Street.
Cases continued.
Mark must be heard.
Thank you.
Number seven, MI 2023-007-092-789 South 2nd Street.
Harry Cook is the attorney.
Harry Cook has been promoted to penalist.
Good morning, Counsel.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Harry Cook, H-A-R-R-Y-C-O-O-K.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Mr. Cook, could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
Yes, my clients are Vince Papale and Janet Papale, the owners of 789 South 2nd Street.
Vince Papale and Janet Papale, the owners of 789 South 2nd Street.
It is.
It is their principal residence.
Our vice chair has a few questions, sir.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to his ex?
Yes, I do, Mr. Shahid.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed and required to proceed with this case?
Five days in advance of this hearing.
Yes, I did.
Thank you, Mr. Cook.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Mr. Cook, just for a point of information, we do have a letter of opposition to the Queen Village Association.
And I understand you've had conversation with Hillary relative to this case and that this case will be held until we get revised plans. Am I correct?
That is correct. We have revised plans, but they have to be in the Z100 form for Hillary in order to be sent back.
Please proceed, sir.
Thank you. And as a point of clarification regarding the QVNA letter of opposition, it's an opposition to the eight-foot balcony, but they are in non-opposition to the as-built four-foot balcony, and we'll get into that as we proceed.
Thank you. Please issue.
So, good evening. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm here on behalf of the Papales. They live at 789 South 2nd Street. It is their marital home.
They engaged a contractor to build an addition in the rear of the property with a balcony,
previously had a balcony, and they were represented.
It was represented to them that all permits were appropriate and all the work was within scope.
And as it turns out, it was not.
And we are seeking relief for what we consider a few de minimis dimensional variances.
and we'll get into that. First, I want to just go through an overhead of the block face.
On this block, you have about 10 properties facing 2nd Street. Eight out of 10 of them
are non-conforming lot sizes, including our property. We have about 1,100 square foot
property so that's going to impact um the open space uh refusal irrespective of what would be
built on this parcel um as you can see a lot of these properties have almost complete lot coverage
our property uh here at 789 uh has this balcony here but otherwise underneath the rear yard is
preserved. We're in the RM1 zoning district. So here are the plans that were reviewed by L&I
and refused. As to the eight-foot balcony, as you can see, it extends all the way to the property
line. In the proviso revised plans, nothing else has changed except this balcony is cut in half.
to show the as built condition and we'll go into some context of how that happened um if the board requires it but just know that the four foot balcony and the addition is nine foot six inches uh the neighborhood coordinating RCO is in non-opposition to that
um here's a rendering of the uh of of the property as you can see uh and from the overhead the lines
of sight to this balcony are very um not open by neighbors it's very private not going to be
peering over into people's properties, et cetera from the side. And again, we will get the proper
format proviso plans in. So as to the specific refusals, with the reduction in size of the
balcony from eight to four feet, we assert that the first refusal, the balcony extension will
disappear, but you'll still have the three remaining refusals. Balcony at rear yard,
balconies are prohibited in the rear front side and rear yard. Maximum occupied area shall be 75
feet, whereas we're proposing 83.7 percent coverage, and the rear yard shall be 144 square
feet whereas we're proposing 134.74 square feet um so you know again lni for the purposes of zoning
code measurement measures the rear yard encroachment from the exterior of the addition
even though it's not on the first floor the rear yard functionally is preserved it's usable
The rear yard functionally is preserved. It's usable.
The occupied area refusal, again, this is a non-conforming lot.
the occupied
Any addition that would be consistent with the other builds on the block would likely trigger this sort of refusal.
And in addition, there are other properties on the block that have greater coverage than this property.
And again, as you saw from the overhead, there are roof decks, there are balconies on this block.
The rear yard area refusal, we contend, is rather de minimis.
It's a 9.26 square foot variance from the code, and we would love the board to consider that in terms of how de minimis it is.
Here is a photo of the property from the outside.
It's a beautiful home.
Here is an angle shot of the as-built balcony.
balcony, and the area underneath that is private and usable rear yard.
Here's a side shot.
This addition is really to provide some additional storage space and a veranda, you know, to enjoy coffee in the privacy of
the backyard. Just some more shots of the house. This is not a rental. This is their home. They
take pride in it. They are an elderly couple who relied on a contractor to do what was right.
And now they have been left holding the bag. It's not like they were putting in additional units
and trying to make additional money.
This was just a straight-up dimensional issue.
In the packet, the deed is available for view,
our letters to the RCO, notification for our meeting,
proof of mailing, tax payment,
good through December 31st of this year.
And as to the specific letter of opposition from the Civic Association, I just want to go through a letter sent by one of their chairs.
On October 10th, we've attached our letter of opposition of the applicant's request for variance to construct a new eight-foot-deep balcony.
As you will see in our letter, the owner already had a balcony constructed that the zoning committee found acceptable, but is not shown on the drawing which generated the refusal.
Hence, we have the proviso plans in process in the Z100 format.
Here is the letter, again, highlighting while it's opposition, they consider the as-built.
provided that the owner has the work inspected, accurately documented, legally permitted.
All of those permit applications are pending the zoning approval. Without that, we can't
finish out updating the building permits, et cetera, in order to get the certificate of
completion on this project. With that said, I think under the circumstances, my clients meet
the condition of hardship that they did not create it under 14303. This is not going to
impact the neighbor's light and air. This is not going to burden infrastructure in the city of
Philadelphia. It's in harmony. Generally, you're allowed to have balconies. You're allowed to have
additions. And furthermore, under Hertzberg with the relaxed standard, this board is free to take
into consideration the context of the block. And again, these are all non-conforming. 80% of them
on the block base are non-conforming lot size. Most of them do take up either the same or greater
amount of coverage. And that's an important context issue. And furthermore, in order to
bring this into strict compliance with the code, that addition would have to be deconstructed by
about a foot and the balcony removed entirely, which would be a great expense to a couple who
reasonably relied on a contractor who are not developers who are just regular Philadelphia folk
and got caught up in the system with this so with that
And got caught up in the system with this. So with that, I'd like to, unless the board has questions for me, I'd like to call on my clients to adopt my presentation as their testimony.
Why don't you do that, Mr. Cook?
Thank you. Vince, Janet, please raise your virtual hands.
Vincent Peppel has been allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Mr. Papali.
Unmute yourself.
Hi, sorry about that.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the course stenographer?
Here we go. Vincent, V-I-N-C-E-N-T, Papelli, P as in Paul, A-P as in Paul, A-L-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Please proceed, Mr. Cook.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Papelli, did you hear my presentation to the board today?
Yes, sir, fully.
Was it true and accurate to the best of your understanding?
Yes, it was, sir.
Do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Absolutely, sir. Thank you.
Questions from the board.
Yes. Can you go back and show me where the entrance to the balcony is from the interior of the property?
Is it from a dining room? Is it from? I'm not sure if I can tell.
To the rear yard or to the addition?
To the addition?
The addition's on the second floor, so it's off the bedroom.
Oh, okay.
It's off the bedroom.
So this is the addition here.
You still have the space underneath, fully usable rear yard underneath, and it comes
off of a bedroom.
It's got closet space, and it's functional that way.
Okay, so can you show me the pictures?
Thank you.
Nice to see the pictures.
so is this a main bedroom yes this is off the master bedroom oh okay
so then to get to what you're coming to from the bedroom through these that's right
bank of closets that's right and then you can go out onto your your your balcony okay and
um all right and then uh the support through this is yes am i seeing
support for this because this is like second floor right yes so we had two meetings uh the
first one was in april and then the next one was in august uh the board from the uh oh there are
beams underneath, yes.
Oh, okay.
Yes, I'm not talking about support for community.
I'm talking about support for the...
I'm sorry.
Let me see where that is.
Just a minute.
So you can see.
They're still beams.
They're supported by steel beams
for the mission,
and the balcony is cantilevered.
Right there.
oh okay okay i see where the support system is okay here here here yeah yes yes all right okay
thank you thank you all the questions from the board can you confirm what year the edition was
completed the edition was completed in 2020 i want to say 2022 in june or august of june around
June-ish of 2022, and during that time period, there was a lot of interaction with LNI and
the contractor, and we do have open violations that in order to clear, we need to first get
the zoning, but in conversations with Inspector Robert Keenan, you know, he did feel that
the balcony and the addition will fit the context of the block.
and then can you expand on the nature of the of the failed inspections
sure so they all related essentially to um building permit beyond scope and so on and so
forth there you know that i don't know if that's necessarily a specific zoning question it's going
to have to be you know through the through the inspection process assuming this is granted uh
Through the inspection process, assuming this is granted, the building permit will have to be updated.
There will have to be, you know, inspections to make sure it's up to the building code before the department issues a certificate of completion, which is akin to the certificate of occupancy for a new structure.
And then I'm just curious, was a structural engineer used to?
and that's all you know there's no unsafe order here there is no please you know we didn't have
to get a make safe in order for the department to to make their determinations it's just a straight
up don't have zoning don't have building permit but otherwise it looks good they were in there
throughout some of this process so yeah i'm not concerned and the department i don't think is