On the first floor, we have a garage on the smaller property and a garage on the larger property.
The garages are two of the refusals that we received because they're front-loaded garages in the RSA 5.
Zoning district, again, you have a living area and an office in the smaller house.
Then you go upstairs, you have the main living area and the main living area.
The second refusal is for this deck.
This deck is in technically the rear yard of this property.
You're not allowed to have a deck in the rear yard, but it makes the living area of the house that much nicer.
And that's the second refusal.
If you go upstairs, you have on the third floor, on the smaller house, two bedrooms and a bathroom.
On the larger house, you have two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The fourth floor, you have large bedrooms on both houses, and then you have rooftop decks.
The renderings just show you have a garage and a garage.
This is the larger house.
This is the smaller house.
Some additional renderings just showing.
Some additional renderings just showing how they're located with all the houses on cross
street, all 12 houses on cross street have front loaded garages just like these homes
are proposed to have.
I want to go back to the refusal.
Again, the refusal is for having the deck, like I said, off of the first floor of the
one home and for having front-loaded garages. Now, with respect to the front-loaded garages,
when I bring you down and show you the photographs, this is the site, this vacant lot.
This is Cross Street. On Cross Street, there are 12 homes. All 12 of the homes have front-loaded
garages. We are seeking to do exactly what is on Cross Street, that is have a front-loaded garage.
Now, if you notice, the way the front of this house is, you cannot park here.
So we are not taking away any on-street parking by having the front-loaded garages.
We're just building what's in conformity with the homes on Cross Street.
And again, here's another photo showing the property, an additional photo showing the property, and again, the property.
and here are photographs of cross street so you can see the context cross street has 12 homes on
it they all have front loaded garages as you can see that's cross sleep looking towards the other
end again the property itself and the neighboring properties on silverwood street so
So, what we're talking about doing is, again, just building houses that have the same front-loaded garages as the other home.
When looking at this, we believe that the failure to grant the requested variances would result in an unnecessary hardship.
The location of the properties, they're on the same street where all of the other homes have front-loaded garages.
And the layout of the lots with steep slopes to the rear of the properties does create a hardship for the land.
These physical circumstances make it impossible to utilize the property in strict conformity with the code because everybody else has, again, front-loaded garages.
The variances won't alter the character of the neighborhood.
They will permit us to use the property in conformity with the surrounding properties.
The variances, if granted, will benefit the public health and they'll remove a vacant property from the community.
they will complete permit completion of the row of homes with front-loaded garages that presently
exist they'll decrease the likelihood of congestion because you won't have anybody trying to park
illegally in front of these houses they'll be able to park legally in their garages you cannot
legally park on gate street in front of the homes the front loaded garages will conform with the
front loaded garages on the surrounding homes and the variances are the minimum required we're just
seeking one garage per home in conformity with what surrounds the homes.
I also would like to address the information from the RCO.
The RCO submitted a petition in opposition, and I would like to object to that on the record as being hearsay.
Again, there's no way to verify who signed the petition.
On the petition itself, there's no explanation of the variances sought
and no indication that plans were presented when the petition was presented.
In addition, much of the opposition is to density and proximity to other homes.
The homes are proposed on lots that are larger than the minimum required lot size.
The homes are in the RSA 5 zoning district.
They meet the dimensional requirements for the RSA 5 zoning district.
The zoning district contemplates homes in close proximity to each other.
One of the objections was we're going to build too close to another house.
It's the RSA 5, Single Family Attached Zoning District.
So, you know, we're building what's permitted in the zoning district.
And what's most interesting is the people who claim to have signed the petition in opposition are all residents of Cross Street.
Every house that's signed has a front-loaded garage.
They're opposing exactly that which they already have in their community.
And I didn't see anybody who lives on Cross Street that says, you know what, we don't like front-loaded garages.
we're going to eliminate our front loaded garage they all have front loaded garages
but they don't want to the houses on the end of cross street to have front loaded garages
again we're just seeking to build that one is already in the community in conformity with the
community and in conformity with the rsa5 zoning class again we're over 1440 square feet we have
the required frontage required width we meet the requirements for the zoning class but for
the front loaded garages and the rear deck on the one property so um with that i would like to uh
call on uh mayor badoosh
Mayer Badouche.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Hi, my name is Mayer Badouche.
M-E-I-R-B-A-D-U-S-H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I affirm.
Thank you.
Mr. Matione.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mayer, did you hear my statements?
Yes, I did.
and are my statements true and correct
yes they are absolutely
yes and do you
adopt them as your testimony
I am I do I just want
I'd just like to add
one thing I
you know we went to the RCO
we met with the RCO
with the neighbors
and I truly believe
that they don't have
an issue with their actual
garages but they just don't
want us to build over there altogether and they feel that if we uh if we if you want to get the
garages then we won't build the homes but we will build the home the homes regardless i we just
believe it's going to be beneficial at the end of the day for anybody that lives on the street
that to have less cars parked on the street um and the street the street doesn't have parking
in any way.
So it's just going to be more beneficial
for the homes and for the neighborhood
to have garages to those two homes.
And it's conforming with every single house
on that block,
every single one of them as garages.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
I have nothing further, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Mattione, just to make this clear, you're only submitting to us for parking and a deck in the back.
That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Here we have Abraham Weisbrot.
Hi, how are you doing this afternoon?
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter abraham
yes abraham weisbrod first name abraham a-b-r-a-h-a-m last name weisbrod w-e-i-s-s
b as in boy r o d as in dog um and i'm the neighbor at 4768 silverwood all right you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i affirm
proceed i'm the neighbor at 47 4768 silverwood and um i just want to state on the record that uh
And I think that this project would be a great enhancement to the neighborhood.
And I think the garages are an important component to the project as well, so we could have, so we could, you know, so this doesn't clog up the congestion on the street.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking your time to call in.
Any other questions or suggestions from the comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair.
Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA 5 single-family zoning at this location.
We feel the variances are self-created by the subdivision of the property and that the property could have been developed as a single-family property by right in conformance with the zoning code.
Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends denial of the variances.
MI 2021-005-412-4768, rear to 72 Silverwood Street.
I vote yes with revised plans of one page.
my vote is yes with proviso
my vote is yes with proviso
my vote is yes with proviso
thank you Mr. Chairman
good luck
thank you and good luck Sharon
MI 2022
614 South 6th Street
Rachel Pritzker
Rachel Pritzker, and Mr. Reuters, right here.
and Mr.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Let me swear you in while we're waiting for Mr. Reuter.
State your name and spell it for the court reporter.
It's Brandon Saverin, B-R-A-N-D-O-N, S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R-A-N of Pritzker Law Group.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Mr. Reuter?
Thank you. May it please the board. Leonard F. Reuter, Senior Attorney for the City of Philadelphia.
Could you spell your name for the court reporter just there?
Sure. First name is L-E-O-N-A-R-D, last name R-E-U-T-E-R.
Right. Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. Mr. Shabram, we'll start with you.
Sure. Thank you. I'm here bringing an appeal against L&I, asking the board to grant the appeal
and thus recognize the existing use of the property as legally non-conforming.
I'll thank the board in advance for its time on this.
These cases can be a bit dry compared to variance appeals,
so I'll do my best to get through our legal argument quickly.
We submitted a packet of photographs and other documents,
including past leases on the property.
I will not go through them, at least in large part, unless requested in the interest of time.
I will share my screen, though, just so I can share the couple things I'd like to highlight.
Okay, give me one moment just to straighten this out here.
So thank you again for your time, and thanks to Leonard for coming on today.
Our request is that you grant the appeal of a refusal issued by L&I.
And as I'll explain, we believe that the use of the subject building as three dwelling units began at a time when it was legal under the zoning code or at a time that predates the zoning code's adoption in 1933.
My clients are William Manganielli and Martin Wendell.
They bought this building in 1984.
It was a three-unit apartment at that time.
It has been ever since.
It's been continuously occupied and operated as such.
So what happened here is that last summer, prior to retaining me, Bill and Martin entered
into an agreement of sale to sell this triplex that they've owned for 38 years. They've each
lived in it for a time, that was a while ago, and since then have owned it as an investment property.
Their agreement of sale stated, as many do, that it was their obligation to obtain a property
certificate, or as the realtor community calls it, a city cert, affirming that there are no
open L&I violations on the property, and that it has an appropriate zoning permit.
So my clients ordered their city cert, and this is how it came back. What it says is that right
here, there is no record on file with the department. So I've seen this in my practice
this over the years. And my experience has been that this is an indication in a case like this,
where there's a building that's been in existence for a long time, that the department,
the department being LNI, may have lost the file on the property when the paper zoning archive
files were scanned and converted to digital in the 2000s. So luckily, my client had obtained
a cert when they bought the property back in 1984. And you're looking at it here,
they still have the original. This was taken yesterday on Bill's countertop. And this
certification statement, I'll walk you through real quickly. It gives the address of the property,