Matthew McClure is speaking.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Our client is National Catholic Bioethics Center, as well as Core Development LLC.
The center has been the owner of the property since about 2004.
And Core Development is the equitable owner of the property since September 2, 2020.
The property, again, is 6399 Drexel Road, which is a 20,000-square-foot facility.
It was originally a mansion, but it's more than that now based upon its prior institutional use.
The zoning permit that was appealed is ZP2020-006800, which is an amended permit.
and the way l and i treats things is they keep the same a permit number and as you change things you
can actually amend the permit and it was last amended on march 18 2021 which i believe is that
is the appeal permit um the project that our client was engaged in at least core was the
historic real rehabilitation of this former complex the this mansion it was originally a mansion of um
um of the founder of something's echoing in the background i don't know if someone's
has can you hear the echo i'm sorry we hear no we hear i hear you fine i don't know about anyone
else okay now the echo is gone okay um there was a reverberation i apologize um it was originally
the uh former mansion of the luden's call cough drops uh founder and then later on was albert m
greenfield all of us in philadelphia know later on it when became a school as stated in the walker
case which we cited in our brief um and the court was absolutely emphatic this was a k through 8
school i mean k through 12 school where kids went on to college some resided there and some didn't
reside there and that whole issue was discussed at length in the court and the court was emphatic
and really wrapped the Overbrook Farms Club
on the snout, so to speak, back in 1955.
And the Chief Justice wrote,
it is a school the same as any other private school
except that its students are physically handicapped.
So it was a school as ordered by the Supreme Court
as confirmed by Dr. Farnham's letter,
which is in the record as well.
So the project is to do an adaptive reuse
of this phenomenal building, a 20,000-square-foot building, not a normal home, and that involves
approvals for the National Park Service for historic tax credits and the like, but it requires
a tremendous amount of work. So City Council enacted an ordinance in 2019, which actually
is the same year that actually the building became on the register, the Philadelphia Historic
Register, that says, okay, if you have a large property, and it used to be used for something
other than residential and you meet these identified criteria and the
historical commission confirms that objection it's not just residential you
have to be a certain section we can get into that confirms it confirms that the
building is on the Philadelphia register and confirms it had a prior one a prior
use one of which would be in the public civic and institutional use category
here's a school you can use cmx3 uses that is the law the city council enacted
in 2019 and that was objection it's a private school that not
and that was objection it's a private school that not public the code does not make a decision
please don't interrupt me overruled thank you mr chairman mr mccarr if he's going to issue as many
objections as he has mr sherman certainly should be afforded the same without a request to not
be interrupted that's ridiculous mr chairman may i go on yeah please proceed well sure
Sure. So the ordinance itself was recommended originally from the Zoning Code Commission.
Not the Zoning Code Commission, sorry, the Historic Preservation Task Force, of which, by the way, I was the chairman of the Regulatory Committee of the Mayor's Historic Preservation Task Force.
And the purpose of the ordinance was to create an incentive to take these large buildings that are on the historic register and give them a chance of adaptive reuse.
adaptive reusing a 20 000 square foot building is quite a feat especially of historic nature
and give it a market way so the market can have something come in there to adapt to reuse the
building and that was the that was the law that was enacted in uh 2019 um going on to the arguments
that are made by uh the appellants if you look at our letter brief that we submitted on friday
our september 17 2021 letter brief it's about six pages but it goes through each and every one of
the arguments uh that uh that that are made by both appellants which are voluminous uh but we
believe them all the all the arguments are without merit and we ask that you you look at them but
just go through to summarize very quickly uh one the property was used as as a school and that is
clear it was used for 50 years as confirmed in the walker case and as confirmed in dr farnham's
letter of october 9th that is in the record um that would also it was um it was mr shirmer's
clients we know do not confirm actually the prior use of school in his papers he may have changed
his mind today but mr shirmer and his papers did not confirm the use as being qualifying under the
uh under the ordinance in his papers as ms selettin knows very well the failure to post a
permit within five days of issuance does not invalidate the permit the only thing it does
is delay the delay the actual appeal period uh it tells the period appeal period uh when it's
objection they're not contesting the time of the permit move along
to object and move along okay they did anyway the relevant section is stated in our brief
section 14 303 15 a.3 on that issue uh as whether or not the prior office for the center was legal
or not is totally irrelevant we're i mean obviously we're not relying upon that we're
relying upon the fact that it was used for school for 50 years as documented by the pennsylvania
the supreme court in a decision that is binding upon the overbook farms club on this specific
property it's egregious that they are just objection that's way before any of this happened
if we can't talk about what happened three years ago we can't talk about 30 years ago and i have
to object mr shermer the ordinance asks you to look back at prior uses that's the whole purpose
of the ordinance prior permitted uses a use which is a use which is allowed by a court is not a
permitted use you know that mr sherman move along or you want to move along mr sherman the statute
reads for itself and you were actually misrepresenting the statute okay mcclore you
have about another minute i'm i'm getting there fast okay uh the october 9th letter from uh dr
farnham was a ministerial act it was already do so as stated in our in our uh brief uh specifically
as well the zoning permit did not expire there is alteration work inside there there are uh code
bulletins as well to code language on that the permit lasts for three years as cited in our
brief moreover there's an appeal of the permit by operational law permit is told at that period as
well and that is clear and this board understands that issue when there's an appeal of a permit
You can't appeal the permit and say, oh, by the way, you didn't start work yet, so it's expired.
No, there's an appeal of a permit.
Objection.
The appeal of the permit started after their deadline ended.
The deadline is three years.
Three years, I should say.
Or six months.
That's what we're here to find out.
The issuance of the permit was in March.
Your filing of the appeal was the following month.
That's not the big part.
No, the posting of the permit is the time that the appeal starts.
You know that.
Mr. Schirmer, please stop.
thank you you started it shirmer uh we were we were actually moving along quite well i knew it
Thank you.
You started it.
Mr. Schirmer, we were out.
was too good to be true all right please okay and in contrary to mr corpin's arguments ellen i had
no discretion to not hence issue the permit it is the language is clear at the discretion of the
applicant that's that's that's our client they can decide whether or not they want to go under
the the the residential uses or whether they want to go under the cmx3 uses the ordinance is
absolutely clear um as for this argument that portions of the property aren't historic the
entire property as confirmed in dr farnham's letter is regulated by by the the historic
district as contributing in fact as significant which is a regulated resource the entire property
and moreover it is actually really absurd for this argument you made saying that the actual
nomination for the property designating the property entirely as significant was made by
the overbrook farms club so that's is really rich to actually make that i have to object mr chico
i did not in any of the briefing on behalf of overbrook farms club suggest that any portion
of the property was less than historic absolutely mr schermer sure as hell did so let's move on
Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, Mr. McCoy, Mr. Shermer, hold on. Mr. McCoy, you did reference Mr. McCoy. The objection is sustained.
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll move on.
And the one of the last arguments they made in their papers is that the entire mansion is somehow not eligible for CMX3 uses because it wasn't deemed as contributing.
I put that point out. Again, the whole thing is pointed out as contributing in the district.
As for the garage, it is not excluded from CMX3 just because it's an accessory building.
That is clear.
It is part of the principle use.
The code is clear.
And as for this constitutional challenge that was put in Mr. Shermer's brief, we believe
that he's without standing to raise that because you can't argue there's an unconstitutional
delegation to the historical commission if you're not directly affected by it, i.e.
you have the property a property interest has been denied uh deny all the permits so we don't
believe that they have standing for that specific issue um however you already waive standing i
waive standing for your appeal not to raise that particular issue i have to raise that issue in
front of the zoning board are you objecting to that comment mr sherman yes objecting overruled
um excuse me mr mr sherman you you you're you may have been making some comments towards me
which is towards the board that we don't maybe care enough about what's being said here today
i can assure you even though i may overrule you it's not because of personal reasons oh no i i
understand the zoning i mr chair i am sorry the zoning board when you get faced with a constitutional
question the zoning board I know you guys have to process it you don't you aren't in charge of it
that's laid down in case law Len is sitting here nodding and understanding but yes I have to raise
it you guys can't deal with it but I have to raise it in front of the zoning board hearing even though
it doesn't get dealt with by you guys I'm not trying to be smart Alec I just have to make a
note and i know that you have to deny it so you can raise it but you can't decide how we're ruling
on it you can raise an objection we'll decide whether it's whether it's sustained or overruled
that's all i'm getting at i know so mr shirmer can i get one thing on the record can i'm not just you
but all of the attorneys would we all agree that the constitutional arguments that have been raised
well it might be necessary to raise them to preserve them for the record that they are not
within the board's jurisdiction to decide yes we agree thank you thank you mr mcclure if you could
summarize we'd be helpful we still have to get to mr reuter yeah mr chairman in summary
our client has invested about our client core has invested about 250 000 hours so far in this project
yeah I don't think that's relevant at the moment in our well let me just finish for purposes of
argument and we relied upon an ordinance those issues that was enacted by City Council and
signed by the mayor and the way it works is it says that if you apply with these issues you get
to use this property for MX for uses now mr. Sherman will say he doesn't like how it gets
the ordinance was applied. He may say that he thinks it was unfair how it was applied,
but is the letter of the law we applied with, Ellen, I agree with.
but it is the letter of the law we applied with ellen i agree with historical commission staff
member dr farnum agreed with we believe the issue the permit was issued correctly our client has
done nothing but complied with the law we would like to proceed it's a phenomenal project in
accordance with national park service standards and we believe the commission should deny both
these appeals they may be now they may be uh well-meaning when it comes to concerns of neighbors
in life the decline has applied with the complied with the law there's been no error by ellen i and
certainly no error by dr farnum thank you thank you mr reuter uh thank you uh chairman members
of the board leonard reuter for the city of philadelphia um we obviously agree with most of
what uh our colleague matt mcclure has said regarding uh the deficiencies in the appeals
that have been filed i just want to highlight a couple points first of all there's been the
suggestion that the prior use of the school was never permitted that it was simply due to court
order if given the opportunity if and when the opportunity arises the city would be prepared to
present evidence that in fact it was permitted in fact and that the zoning board of adjustment
itself ultimately approved the permit in response to the court's decision back in 1954 and we have
88 pages of zoning documents that demonstrate that it had in fact been a school so at least
that many and more with respect to the use as an office again I'm not sure that that's relevant
I do believe that there is also documentation of that, but certainly its prior use as a school is well documented and I think is really, at this point, really beyond any serious challenge.
The issue here is the ordinance in question prior to a post-appeal amendment to the ordinance, and it simply states that any property that is residential that had one of any number of prior uses gets the benefit of CMX3 uses.
And it doesn't matter whether that prior use was last year or 20 years ago, as long as that's confirmed. And it is confirmed by the Historical Commission. It is a ministerial act for the commission to make that determination. It's simply a review of records.
And so we would we would suggest that the appellant's suggestion that that kind of decision has to be made by the full commission isn't really supported.
There's any number of things that have to be decided by various agencies that happen to have boards that happen to meet as have public meetings.
But not every one of those decisions is required to be through a public meeting.
and in this case again it is simply a referral to the department of licenses and inspections
that's made by the historical commission staff in this case Dr. John Farnham so again there's
really no serious question here that the record shows that this was a school there's also no
And there's frankly no suggestion that the property is not historic.
And I'm glad to hear that Mr. Corcoran and the Old Book Farms agrees that the entire parcel is historic by definition.
That's how the Historical Commission designates things, at least since the 1984 ordinance went into effect.
So there's no, again, there's no dispute that the property is historic.
and while there may be non-historic fabric within the property or on the exterior of the property
that's something that would be an issue if and when a building permit is presented to the historical
commission for review which is also something else I want to point out there's a lot that's in
at least Mr. Shermer's appeal that appears to address building permit building permits and the
The first is a building permit, a minor building permit that was issued by L&I for interior demolitions.
Again, interior work as a rule is permitted by the Historical Commission and it's reviewed at staff level because the staff merely makes a determination of whether or not any exterior portion of the property is being affected.
So an interior permit involving the interior of a building where that interior itself has not been designated as a public interior, that's just routinely approved.
Again, I know we're getting ahead of things.
We'll be happy to present the evidence that backs up those assertions if and when the time arises.
those assertions if and when the time arises. So, you know, so much of this has to do with
stuff that hasn't happened yet. The mere fact that the Historical Commission staff, that Dr. Farnham
confirmed that the property is in fact designated as historic, as Mr. McClure points out, it is
listed as significant uh to to the uh overbrook farms historic district uh and that the property
had previously been a school uh again these are just ministerial acts that are performed by by
the commission but the mere fact that they've simply confirmed that for purposes of l and i
uh processing the permit uh as their uh want to do under the ordinance in no way obligates the
Commission itself to approve any of the alterations that are that are proposed
by the applicant so I just want to make it clear that the the changes that the
some of the alterations to the exterior the property that are outlined in the
zoning permit the mere fact that the Historical Commission confirmed that the
building was historic and had been a school in no way shape or form means to
the Historical Commission is necessarily going to approve those alterations they