good day uh good afternoon again uh mr chair members of the board allen state your name
you've been sworn. Alan Nockamson, A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N,
123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA, 19109. Could you identify your client
and their relationship to the property? Yes, I represent James Insurer Hodges,
the owners of 1740 Wiley Street. Our vice chair has a few questions. Thank you.
Mr. Nockamson, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I assume that you've sent in all the required documents timely?
Yes, I have.
Okay, you may proceed and you may share your screen.
Thank you.
You know I say that.
I know.
Well, we have to do the dance.
First, before I begin, I really do want to say that I just want to acknowledge the years of service that Sharon Saleta has given to the board.
When I started many years ago and she was counselor to the board, I didn't know much.
um many years ago and she was counselor to the board i didn't know much i probably still don't
know much but um i know a little bit more because of sharon and her kindness in terms of just
facilitating just the administration of this whole zoning variance process so i really do appreciate
her and she will be sorely missed um her knowledge and kindness is above all um going to be missed
so thank you thank you Sharon thank you thank you so hi um let's try not get too emotional here and
get some uh so we'll go through this uh this is a pretty straightforward project
uh 1740 Wiley Street it's in the Francisville section of Philadelphia um I'm going to go
through the notice of refusal or letter of support from the United Francisville Civic Association
the support which unanimous a permit showing that you know this has been two building structures
since the beginning of time the showing that this board has granted just multi-family projects on
the 1700 block of Wiley Street where is one building structure here we have two building
structures one each facing Wiley and then the corresponding street on Erdman a petition my
clients, Jim and Shira Hodges, do not live far from here. They have an expanding family,
newly expanded family. The reason why they purchased this property is to have a single
family home facing Wiley. And there's a carriage house there, which has to be demolished as part
of our refusals. And they're rebuilding a carriage house as an in-law suite. And I'm glad to say
that they have given birth just past day or so to a little baby girl, Penelope. So I'm not 100%
sure they're on the Zoom call because they're in the hospital right now. But they met with
their neighbors. They have a petition, nearby neighbors, letters to support by nearby neighbors.
We'll go through maps of the area, photographs of the properties around the area,
Our plans and drawings, if you wish, our meeting notice showing that we sent out a notice to the court to effective properties, as well as proof of mailing or application for appeal or deed to the property showing that Jim and Sherrard do own the property, 1740 Wiley Street, and our certificate of tax clearance as well.
So this is an RSA 5 property. There's a building structure currently facing Wiley Street, a single-family home, and there's a carriage house with a garage facing Erdman.
So what we're trying to do is renovate the single-family home and to demolish the carriage house because of its structural integrity issues, and then just completely rebuild it almost the same.
And we have three refusals, not more than one principal building is allowed per lot in RSA 5 or RSA 5.
What I would say to that is that we're not changing technically the physical conditions of the property.
And if we split this property in half, and you'll see there's other properties on this block,
we're not doing anything that's out of character or different than what's on that block, essentially.
The second refusal has to do with the fact that instead of subdividing a lot like every other lot that's between Wiley and Erdman, we're just keeping it as one lot, having a building structure facing Wiley, which is there as a single-family home, having a carriage house, single-family home, one bedroom, one bath with a garage for Jim and Jura's parents.
And so that refusal is explainable.
And then the third refusal is the fact that the rear yard shall be nine feet, whereas plan shows zero feet.
Again, if we kept the existing carriage house, we would not have that refusal.
But because of structural integrity issues, we have to demolish it and to rebuild it.
And that's why we have that refusal.
We have a letter of support from the United Francisville Civic Association.
No one was opposed to this project.
We had 14 people in support, one person in non-opposition.
And again, just showing from the L&I file for this property, this has always been essentially a two-family dwelling for all intents and purposes,
where you have a single family in the front on Wiley, and in the rear, you have an Erdman carriage house.
and then again not out of character for the zba to grant multifamily use different circumstances
where the multifamily use was in one building but 1722 wiley 1724 wiley 1734 wiley 1739 wiley
1745 wiley and 1746 wiley and then we did a petition so i want to give a map to show where we
And then we did a petition. So I want to give a map to show where we are and where we got the addresses. So the green is number one is our address. And you can see there's an outlier here. But out of the 21 signatures or the 20 signatures we have, most, if not all of them, are basically a one block radius.
and then just here are our signatures that's the basis of that map and then just letters
to support we have both next door neighbors in support of this project as well on Wiley Street
and then just showing you from a map perspective where we are here's Wiley Street
here's Erdman and here you can see faintly but every one of the properties other than the one
that's right next door to us is subdivided essentially in half. And ultimately, that's
what we're trying to do. And you'll see from the pictures that there's properties facing
Erdman as well. And it makes sense to have eyes on the street. And here's the front of our
property from Wiley. The rear of the property for Erdman, it's a really tight angle, but that's the
carriage house. It's in really bad condition, but it has an existing curb cut, which we're going to
use for the new carriage house, hopefully. Wiley Street to the right, Wiley Street to the left,
Erdman to the right, Erdman to the left, and then our plans and drawings.
And I'll quickly go through these, but it's a very handsome home. The Architects Noam Architecture,
which is well known in the Philadelphia area for taking, you know, that modern twist but keeping the traditional feel as well.
So we have the brick facade, no bay windows, nice light and air with the windows,
tall windows to give as much light and air as possible to the occupants.
There's Wiley from the south.
And then here's a view of Erdman from the north.
Again, we're using an existing curb cut.
We're keeping character in terms of scale and height and look to the neighboring properties.
And then here's just our survey.
And again, our site plan that we submitted to L&I.
And the elevations.
We have no dimensional variances.
And then it's just a single family plan.
You walk in, open floor plan.
lower level is just some more living space you go up a flight of steps there's there's two bedrooms
a little office area and then you go up a third flight of steps and it's the third floor it's a
master bedroom and then they have a nursery attached to the master bedroom as well
and then just the carriage house again simple you have a garage on the first floor you go up
to a flight of steps, there's an open floor plan,
and then the third floor is a one bedroom, one bath,
really an in-law suite.
And then just more elevations, contextual to photographs.
And then our meeting notice,
we met on March 9th, 2022 at 6.30 p.m.
We notified 150 addresses.
These are the addresses
that were within the affected area.
here's proof that we mailed that notice to those addresses in our application for appeal
um and uh you know we have the tax clearance certificate and everything else in the deed and
i'll leave it to the as to that um i don't know if jim or share on the line like i said they got
their hands busy uh they're one of the local hospitals who just gave birth to their daughter
um but if they're not on if they're on virtually raise your hand if you're not
on, I would ask as an officer to court, you accept my testimony is true and not correct.
We accept your testimony is fine. Thank you. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
Chair. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have James Hodges. Oh, okay.
hi everyone uh mr mr hodges we're we we first of all congratulations yeah i don't know if you
heard the baby um oh yeah congratulations we've already moved forward mr knockerson's doing a
great job and we're getting to where we need to be but thanks for calling it yes thank you for
having us we're looking forward to this project uh we literally walked in the door uh about two
minutes ago and i was on the phone so i just dropped from the phone and rejoined via zoom so
if there are questions we are here and thank you for your consideration thank you anyone else in
the virtual audience i see no hands chair planning commission
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair.
Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Chair.
Proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA 5 single-family residential at this location.
The refusals on the application are related to having multiple buildings on one lot and the
demolition of the existing buildings results in the elimination of any existing hardships.
There is no unique physical condition to this 1827 square foot lot that would prevent it from
being used in conformance with the zoning code. Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends
the board deny the variance thank you mi 2022 00052 1740 wiley street i vote yes harold
tennari my vote is yes thomas holloman my vote is yes yes my vote is yes thank you three mi
2022 00051 1914 north 22nd street no rco letter listed here mr knockamson
he's coming back in as a panelist here
Mr. Nockamson?
Sorry about that. I took my headphones off when I was demoted. I assume I wasn't the next one. And then I heard something, Mr. Nockamson. Sorry about that.
Just state your name. You've already been sworn.
Alan Nockamson of Nockamson, P-C-A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yeah, I actually minimized my screen for a second. So now I'm like at a loss here. Hold on. And my computer always is slow. Hold on one second. Well, my clients are Adam Kane and Kelly Koch. I don't have their presentation materials up because I actually minimized my screen. So I do apologize for that.
Let me.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Okay, great.
And then I'll guess.
Mr. Nockamson, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And I assume you've sent in all of the required documents timely?
I have.
Okay, you may proceed.
And yes, you may share the screen.
Okay, great.
All right, well, I think we updated our materials, but I don't think I have that version of it.
So the only thing that's different than what we submitted, other than the letter of support from the council member's office, is I found online that there is a rental license that did expire for four units.
And that's what we're trying to do here.
So it's not out of character.
So let me just get my screen to get back up.
Let me just get the screen.
All right.
Let's do this.
I'm here to present 1914 North 22nd Street.
In my presentation materials, we'll go over the Notice of Refusal to Letter of Non-Opposition
from the 5th Council District, a permit showing that this most previous use of the property was
four units. And again, as an officer of the court, I would state that if you go on that list right
now, you would see that there's an expired rental license for four units as well. And that's why
we're essentially here is to revive that rental license and that zoning permit as a matter of
public record by way of variance. A zoning map of the area and other maps of the area. Photographs
of the property in the surrounding area. Then we'll show you plans and drawings. We have proof
that we met with the community as well as mailing the notice to the community of that community
meeting. Our applications for appeal and our deeds to the property as well as our certificate
a tax clearance. As I indicated, Mr. Cain and Ms. Koch are the owner's representatives,
and they're available to take any testimony. All right, so this is an RSA 5 property, significant
All right, so this is an RSA 5 property, significant a lot. It's over 2,400 square feet.
in a while.
It's over.
So it would be out of character for a lot of that size to only allow for single-family use.
And we're asking for four units. And again, it's not out of character because that's what
this property has been used in the past. So we did meet with the community. The coordinating RCO
ultimately became the council president, Daryl Clark, and his office issued a letter in non-opposition
given the comments from the community members that did attend the meeting. The only provisos
would be no roof deck, which I don't believe our plans have a roof deck, but I would not object to
such a proviso. I don't know if it's enforceable given that we don't have a roof deck as part of
plans and commercial trash pickup and we would have no objection to that as a proviso as well.
Again our permit to the property again showing that in 1964 this was licensed as a four-unit
dwelling and again as an officer to court if you go on to Atlas you will see our
expired rental license I think as late as 2010 for four units.
maps of the area
so you'll see that where we are in the area
I think that's a better map but you know shows where we're between Norris and Berks on north 22nd
street and we back up to Krosky photographs of the property the front of the property again this is a
pretty dilapidated property that is in desperate need of repair my clients want to do that and
they're well versed in renovating properties of this sort. So North 22nd Street to the right of
the property, North 20th Street to the left of the property, and then nearby multifamily. So 1906
North 22nd Street is also a five unit, similar size, and also RSA 5. 1942 North 22nd Street,
also RSA 5 property, multi-unit.
And then example interiors of their properties, they really try to put a lot of heart into
their properties.
And this is a sample of a renovation job they did of a bathroom.
And then again, just showing you marketing materials for one of their apartments where
you can see their kitchen and their living room, they really try to renovate them very
again you'll see further photographs hardwood floors throughout central air when possible
and then our plans and drawings a couple things to note uh there is no basement living everyone
has access to the basement so basement can be stored uh excuse me trash can be stored in the