It's 420.
That means we're going home 8 o'clock.
Did you identify your client?
Yeah, so my client is Ultimate Real Estate Investment LLC.
To my left is Ghazi out of the 7.
its principle. Right. And you have a letter of support with provisos from the 12th Ward Democrats.
Is that correct? I do. I do. And I also believe I have a letter of non-opposition from Solo as well.
Oh, okay. Sure. All right. Our vice chair has a few questions. Good afternoon. Have you submitted
your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing? I have. And do you waive the
reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. Okay. Thank you. You can share
screen up a seat thank you hold on what i'm doing here sure
all right so we're here to present uh 167 west seymour street uh it's a property at the corner
of seymour and kaiser uh streets as you can see here it's a vacant lot we do not take the full
portion of this vacant area we only take a the more corner portion of it just so the board understands
what we're looking to do here is put a duplex here where you'll have one front door on seymour
once front door on kaiser we'll review 11 exhibits with the board and at the conclusion
of my presentation i would ask that mr out of seven be uh uh sworn in and you know adopt my
testimony uh first thing is is what you're seeing here is the notice of refusal as you can see this
is an RSA 5 property. It's rather large in area of 1124 square feet. You can see also that we have
no dimensional variances. We're only seeking to have multi-unit structure here, which requires
a variance for RSA 5 zoning classification. Again, this is a corner property, not out of character
from a planning perspective to have multi-family or multi-unit on a corner property, and there's
one across the street as well as multi-unit we did meet with the community um there was one person
from the community that showed up who was a nearby neighbor who was in support of this project she
actually commented originally she was upset she was like oh my god you're doing a multi-unit
structure here and when she found out it was only two units because they had another project where
it had five three three five unit project uh properties on her block she was upset with that
project when she saw our project that we're only asking for two she's like oh that's a reasonable
use of the property and so she you know supported that and i have to say that the both community
organizations as well supported with provisos uh some of them are and well there's one that's
enforceable right so do we want the trash inside do we want it outside we have a split decision
here we have the 12th democratic ward or 12th ward democratic committee that believes that the trash
should be stored outside we're a corner property we embrace that we actually showed that as our
part of our presentation you know that's their that's their policy to store it outside when
necessary or when possible the solo organization who also sent us and this is their letter of
support for uh 12th ward democratic committee the solo organization on the other hand wants to trash
stored inside i defer to the board all i would say is this um when you have a corner property
take advantage of the fact that you can store the trash outside in a responsible manner
you know for myself today is wednesday so it's trash day for me and you know we have a breezeway
we store it outside to force us to like actually store the trash inside you know there was a whole
discussion about rats and that you always find a way to work your way into the well it's the
scenario well it's practical it's but it's a practical thing right i mean so where do you
notice how you work your way into something i try the corner exactly a doggy daycare walks
best there every day you know i do hey if ian's on if he ends on the on the online once in a while
not this weather i live in fairmont i'll walk into the office and i'll pass by this building
and ian told me one day like not dressed up but just and he was like surprised but you know i do
do a lot of walking i try to be a man of philadelphia and i also try to be to be practical
and so the question is do you store the trash inside and outside you have two groups one wants
an inside one wants an outside and you know there was a discussion like well what's going to happen
with the rodents and and and things like that which is practical right like and and you know
cheryl smith of the 12th democratic wards like i want my rodents outside i don't want them inside
And solo, we're like, no, no question about rodents, but we want the trash stored inside.
We're like, no, we, and no question about rodents, but we want the trash stored inside. So you have to decide. So anyway, here's Solo's thing. And then he asked for other things. Like Solo was like, we don't want outside mailboxes. Well, we're going to have two doors. So don't worry about outside mailboxes. It's not a forcible proviso, but we're going to have mail slots, right? You know, for each door. So for mail, I'm just saying, you know, that's a practical solution.
we have revised plans here the other uh thing that you know we're very mindful of is about
having like egress for the lower level unit we do want basement use um you know for living in the
basement uh we provided not just we did the egress walkout and i think illustratively you'll see the
difference oops and then it's not out of character to have multi-family with uh rsa5 zoning and
we're only asking for two. Again, there are multiple instances of three plus 4907 Knox
is three, 4903 Knox is four, 4905 Knox is three, 175 West Seymour Street is two, West
51 West Logan Street is three. You get the picture. It's like a lot. And there's a lot
more addresses on Seymour Street that we include as part of our presentation. Again, we're
corner property again from a planning perspective usually you have multi-unit there whether it's
mixed use or just straight residential that's the question we also have a mix of zoning
classifications here cmx two and a half we also have rm1 so again you would expect to have some
type of density here to help support some commercial corridor here photographs of the
property again this is a lot that was not taken care of well like my client has tried their best
There was a discussion during the community meeting about trying to do a better effort of that.
So, like, we really are trying to make this an anti-dump site by developing it, because that's been an issue.
But we've tried really hard, and we've made a commitment, and we're going to continue making a commitment to do that.
This property has been the vacant lot since 2008, as you can see from Google Street View.
Proof of posting for today's hearing on both public streets.
This is 167 West Seymour Street from Kaiser Street.
west seymour street to the right of the property from the right of the property from west seymour
to uh you know i guess right and right but uh kaiser street to the left of the property
kaiser street to the right of the property our plans and drawings so this is a porch neighborhood
so we're respecting respecting the architectural integrity of the neighborhood by putting a porch
here with a bay window of that's curved that would be more in line with what you would see in this
neighborhood the porch kind of mimics the porches nearby you also have a cornice line you have
lentils you see you have the two doors we put a little bit stone component and a brick component
to kind of have a mix of materials have a little architectural interesting detail you also see
there's a ton of windows uh you know in the lower level we're four feet above ground five feet below
ground in the lower level and then you can see well actually i thought we oh well we had the
area i thought of rendering where we would store like the trash back there so maybe we don't but
what was important to the community was to show responsible use of the basement so again we have
a walk out here with sliding glass doors and there is a ladder here well it's just not wide enough
for us to do like a physical step walk out we have a ladder here but it gives it makes it very safe
this is not an egress well so we're very mindful of the board's position regarding this and then
just in terms of floor plans uh you just walk into depending on the unit unit number one is on
kaiser street direct access it's a one bedroom one bath you have a living room a kitchen a bathroom
a bedroom lots of light and air with all the windows down there you go down the flight of
steps there's a lower level and then here's the egress walkout but you see there are windows
interspersed throughout as well for the lower level and we are deep enough out of the ground
to kind of give that light in there and I know the board you know finds important instead of
unit number one which has one entrance we go to unit number two which is a separate entrance on
Seymour Street this is a three bedroom three bath again open floor plan lots of light in there with
all the windows there's a living room kitchen bathroom bedroom then you have to and there's
bi-level as well. You have two bedrooms and a bathroom. And again, we would prefer to have the
trash stored outside. That's how we designed it. But if the board feels so inclined, we would put
a ventilated trash closet on, you know, unit number two. And then there's a roof deck access
structure. So each party has a small outdoor area. Unit number two is the roof. Unit number one is
the outdoor area. And then we met with the community on July 7th. Actually, this was the
second meeting the first meeting no one showed up so we're lucky to get one person here and
from my you know feelings is this if it's a controversial project people will show up
you know feelings is this if it's a controversial project people will show up if it's not controversial
if it's not controversial
no one will show up and so here we had one person show up a little nervous at the beginning because
she was against it and then when we kind of went through the project i think she understood this
was a reasonable use of the property and i don't know if cheryl smith or allison weiss who are the
representatives of these the rcos were there online i'm sure they are they'll kind of verify
what i'm saying oh and then the other thing is we made a point of like putting in our
mailer like on the outside saying this is to community members important community information
this is not junk mail it affects your neighborhood please do not discard without reading that's been
a problem with a lot of the communities so and we are more than welcome welcoming of modifying our
materials to make sure there's many people show up to the community meetings uh this is again this is
a little bit before you know joe cleaned up the yard but they also wanted a picture to show proof
of posting for the community meeting not just for the hearing itself and we sent
that community meeting notice to can't read it down here 116 addresses these
are the addresses we sent it to proof of mailing to those addresses our
application for zoning variance our deed to the property showing that ultimate
real estate investment LLC is the owner of the property and Joe is its member
and our Certificate of Tax Clearance.
So, that being said, I would stop sharing my screen for a moment,
and then we can always go back.
And I would ask that Mr. Ades...
If you please, sir, state your name and spell for the stenographer.
My name is Gazi Ataseven.
G-A-Z-I-A-T-A-S-E-V-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Gazi, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
Yes, I did.
And is it true and correct?
Yes, correct.
And do you adopt this as your own testimony?
absolutely and whatever the board decides in terms of where the trash is stored you would abide
by whatever proviso they have i will thank you questions from the board
so for that unit two where when you say the trash will be stored outside that would be on the roof
deck no if we have outdoors if we have trash there's the outdoor backyard there will be a
separate like so if you think of the back let me go here and i thought we had but nobody nobody's
from nobody from that second floor unit is going to walk around a corner to put trash in the yard
there's just it doesn't that doesn't that's not like logical
i know if you live if you live on the second floor well because you walk in the neighborhood but no
the typical person is not going to come out their front door go around the house go to the back and
put their trash that's just like so i hear what the board's saying and again then i think i hear
the board's going to say in terms of proviso so we'll put the trash you know in their ventilated
trash closet where we have room in in the kitchen area okay other questions so the basement within
the basement for that first floor unit is going to be used for what it's just an open floor area
it's just it's just open floor area a lot of people work from home like you know and they
want just a separate area to do things um and i think it's just a lot and you can have it as a
family room down there you can have it as a secondary living area of some sort just it gives
a lot of options optionality a lot lot for one bedroom yeah i mean you also have a lot of stuff
people have stuff and they're they need to put that stuff somewhere questions from our attorney
no questions at this questions or comments from the virtual audience or the audience here
yes chair i have two hands up first hand is from allison weiss i'm going to allow them to speak
hi allison thank you hi could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
allison a double l i s o n twice w e i s s you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes please please start your testimony yes um we did send a letter um
and we also asked the um applicant owner of the property to consider switching the three bedroom
unit to the first to the lower floors so that a family could have access to the rear yard as
opposed to the family having access to the roof deck because we felt it was um a better opportunity
for the children to play safely outside instead of on the roof and we were i don't believe aware of
living space in the basement at the meeting so that um is of concern but again we would prefer
that the three-bedroom unit be upstairs and the single-person unit be upstairs.
three bedroom unit be upstairs and the single person unit down the one bedroom unit excuse me
downstairs um mr chair we do have the one bedroom unit downstairs i think i think she
i'm sorry i meant the that's okay single on the rooftop we we hear you yeah and mr chair we this
is the first i'm hearing about the switch in terms of unit configuration i honestly do not remember
and ask of us to put the three bedroom downstairs um yeah i don't remember that and we did show
living in the basement you know and i make a big deal of this anything we show the community we
show we tell the community we're showing the board unless there's modifications and then we tell the
board that i mean the other hand please yes chair i have a hand up by the name of cheryl smith i'm
wanted to allow them to speak. And this is the last hand. Thank you. Good afternoon. Hi. Could
you please state your name and spell for this photographer? Cheryl Smith, C-H-E-R-Y-L, Smith,
S-M-I-T-H. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Are you a neighbor? I'm representative 12th Ward RCO. I wrote the letter. Very good. Thank
you um i agree with allison um the living space in the basement and that butt out where the
in the drawing that the person was standing was not presented to us um so we he did um
allen did talk about you know using the bottom or the lower level or the basement for like um
office space or something like that but no you know we never talked about it being a living space
in fact we were you know adamant that it not be um well not for bedrooms anyway or anything like
that and um so that that wasn't discussed i agree with the um the um the member who's just said that
you know nobody's going to walk around the front to take their trash to the back um um so um and
And somebody else mentioned about it being stored up on, you know, if it was going to be put up on the, you know, on the roof deck until I guess trash goes out.
Either way, we would like it to be outside.
So I guess it's going to change with the person living there.
And it was never mentioned during my meeting about switching the apartments from third floor.
I mean, you know, double apartment downstairs and single apartment upstairs.
But, you know, that's going to be a logistical thing. But that outside small area in the back, that was never that was never shown to us or even mentioned.
and mr true actually i am thinking about it we may not have i just want to be factually accurate
thinking about it maybe we did not show that that's why we did the revised plans
but but but i wanted to make sure because understanding that we do want to have lower
level living and we did explain to the community i did do that that we wanted to have lower level
living not bedrooms down there but lower level living okay all right thank you uh any other hands
there are no more hands at this time chair any commission michael gall with the philadelphia
city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing rsa5
residential single family attached zoning at this location while the property does have a documented
history of use as a three unit residential building that building was demolished there
are several examples of two family use on this block face therefore the city planning commission