community but they included what they called a statement of denial and requested that the
density be reduced to two units.
Like I said, we've been meeting with the RCO several times.
We have been asking them for weeks now to give us any kind of proposed provisos or any
concerns.
20 minutes before the hearing is not acceptable and we wanted to um
to bring the board's attention to um to two provisions in the planning commission's
regulations which control and regulate the conduct of rcos concerning zoning applications
regulation 12 435 which is on the screen now states that at least two days before
Before the Zoning Board hearing, the coordinating RCO shall complete and submit the meeting
summary form provided by the Commission in accordance with the zoning code, and it explains
what the meeting summary form should have.
Regulation 12.5.2.2 states that if an RCO acts in violation of the procedures of the
Commission's regulations, it can be subject to a penalty, including suspension or revocation.
And the violations include number 0.5 is failure to submit the meeting summary form and a written statement in a timely manner to all required parties.
As we understand it, the council member's office did not receive the summary or the letter prior to this hearing.
We certainly didn't.
We don't believe that the board received it until 20 minutes before the hearing started.
So we are going to ask that the board disregard the letter requesting a proviso that we had no opportunity to consider or talk to them about, and to go with the statement that they sent us on April 21st, where they said the project has our support.
Excuse me, this is Sharon's letter. Mr. Masters, could you forward us the letter that was received 20 minutes ago?
we have not seen it we i sent it to you and the other um email i have i have an email from you
with the um email attached this email and support but oh with this with this um this one email okay
i thought i have it sharon i'll send it sorry i haven't okay great i thought i did i thought i
sent it to everybody yeah yeah okay thank you all right sure um steve is uh you're flying around to
uh adopt this question yes all right um mr borthwick can you raise your hand so that you
can be acknowledged and i'll just go through slowly here's the deed the tax clearances
thank you our application for appeal our argument is that um hardship exists because the three
family dwelling is compatible and consistent with the recent changes to the surrounding
neighborhood. Basically, there are literally no single family homes on the block. There
are virtually no structures on the block because it's been decimated by blight and depopulation.
um and uh and depopulation and this project is really the only feasible way of beginning to
And this project is really
develop this block again and that's why the community is supporting it because it's um
it's a shot of hope in for this block to come back from a fairly devastating population
Our project information form is also attached and the RCO notices that we provided and proof of
mailing. Mr. Borthwick, are you? Can you hear me? Yes. Sir, can you please put your name
on an address on the record?
My name is
Philip Borthwick. My
address is 4002
Peachen Street.
P-E-C-H-I-N
Street.
Go ahead.
Philadelphia PA
19128.
Please spell your last name for the record.
B as in boy.
O-R-T-H
W-I-C-K.
Do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth
for nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Mr. Borthwick, did you hear my testimony this morning?
I did.
Do you believe that it is true and correct,
and do you adopt it as your own?
I wanted to ask you a few questions.
Can you describe the condition of the block
to the members of the board
and how you decided to design the project
that you that you are proposing today so it started uh someone i know is developing
nearby streets down there and he asked me if i was interested in coming down to develop a property
so i was able to purchase a lot on my side of the street there's pretty much only three
properties that i'm aware of there's a five unit on one corner and then there's about
10 houses in between that are vacant land and like steve said they're they're pretty much
short dumping there when you say there's houses in between you really mean just a lot vacant lots
right yes vacant lots yeah and i only know of one single house on the block there's a triplex
and then a church and that's really it across the street um i knocked on every door over there
it's pretty much dominantly triplexes there's two assisted living homes and i told the rco
when i went around to the neighborhood and i went door to door myself and talked to everybody
and they basically said hey you're not building you know uh any type of a halfway house or
you know even they referred to the assistant living it's not really the best looking assisted
living house that i'd imagine they would like and i i explained to them what i wanted to do
and i i said i'm i'm my intentions are to build exactly what the neighborhood already approved
down at 17th and venango and everybody seems pretty content with that so they like the look
of it i thought i was doing the the right thing uh mr borthwick you're you're not um develop real
state development is not your primary occupation, is that correct? Yes. Can you tell the board what
your background is with the building trades and what you do for a living? I'm a union electrician
in Philadelphia. And when we had the meeting at the RCO and they asked you, like, who is your
property manager? Who would that be for this property? I said that I've done it myself
um because i have a rental property so i've always thought it myself and the other rental
property that you have um have you ever had any any issues with the community
around how the tenants are behaving in your properties no
i have no further questions at this time but if but i want to reserve um some time to address
any concerns that the planning commission raises i i reached out to the planning commission several
times over the last week um but was not able to receive any callback from anyone to discuss this
matter thank you uh does the board have any questions uh yes yes do you have revised plans
um yes the revised plans we submitted to um attorney soletta and that was um the plans that
we showed you in our exhibit binder. Thank you. Excuse me. This is Sharon. It's three pages.
Thank you. Is there anyone else here in this matter?
Thank you. Is there anyone else here in this matter?
Sir, Mr. Charles Richardson has his hand up. I will allow him to speak at this time.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Richardson. Can you please identify yourself for the record?
Charles Richardson from the Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, room 312 City Hall.
Do you swear to our firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Just calling to say that since the community overwhelmingly supported granting this proviso at the meeting, we have no objection to granting the proviso.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
sir i have miss tina marie russell with her hand raised i will allow her to speak at this time
thank you good afternoon good morning board this morning can you please identify yourself for the
record this is tina marie russell from north central philadelphia cdc rco thank you do you
who are affirmed to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you.
Please proceed. Okay, great. So yes, this information is received late. I've been having
a bunch of issues and we are a nonprofit that is not receiving a salary. So, you know, I am just,
I have been comforted by a little bit of sickness as well as being overwhelmed by some other
activities that you know we also be holding to so I did explain that to to the applicant attorney
and let him know that as soon as I could it's going to be late that's why I sent him the email
to support him prior to me being able to officially send over a documentation um so it was he was
aware that this would definitely be a late letter um and I made that clear and as he supported
that in the email that he submitted to you as well. I'm apologizing also that I didn't realize
I had connected the wrong letter to this document, but I did send it to everyone this morning and I
resend it a few minutes ago with the correct letters in summary form. So yes, everyone
has in community is agreeing to the project. They are agreeing to the changes that the project
bring to the community because unlike the applicant stated um this there is a homeowner
which he said was a boarding house right next door to that property which is not it's a single
family home that family has been working hard to they purchased the house as is and they've been
working hard to rehab it and bring it back up to compliance which is one reason why it looks the
way it does now across the street yes there is a bunch of boarding homes and yes the community
wants no more boarding homes. We have both RCOs, Tiago and myself who also live in the community
actually down the street from the project. We don't want any more boarding homes. So that's
why we too did not totally deny what we're asking for is less density. Why is that? Because there
are already apartment buildings on the corner that is about I think five or six stories and
on the RCO request, they have already been approved of additional density, high density
apartment buildings in the community. And we feel like the homeowners will be saturated
with all this building coming in the future because these are already approved activities,
buildings, right? So I wanted to put into record that no, that this is not about us
harming or trying to in any way cause harm to the applicant but just to make sure that we empower
our community because we know that the past zoning approvals
which are going to hopefully saturate that community and there's also a church on that
block as well that the applicant forgot to mention so um yeah so anyway and around that area there's
a whole bunch of regular houses regular homeowners so what i wanted to do is just read into the
record my letter so that um oh i see what i did wrong so that um we can ensure that um
um the people get um recognized for um for what they would like to see done
and since i can't read into record because anyway so i'm just going to say it verbally
i'm going to have to make sure the provisals are met
I just wanted to raise an objection again that the letter was not delivered two days before
the zoning hearing under the planning commission's regulations it is not allowed to be considered by
the board because it is it is in violation of the regulation process I think that's really hardship
from this in this case and very biased because i gave you forewarning that this would be late
tina we're losing you you're having a back connection
i was saying can you hear me better now yes now we can okay i was saying that i gave the applicant
forewarning i even told the uh tayoga that i was going to be late because of all the issues that i
was having and that that's why i gave him the email in advance so he would understand what
was going to happen but so i don't think it's wise or i think it's biased for him to say that i
should lose my um rco processing because i'm late with a letter when i just can i ask a question um
thank you mr plaza um please sure miss russell do you remember sending me an email saying that
you were going to have a letter by friday and i did send you an email as well as telling you
did i one person at a time okay i'm sorry do you remember sending me an email saying that you were
going to have your letter by april 23rd at 5 p.m i probably did again i told you i'd also called you
by phone i told you that i'm running late that i'm not going to be able to do everything i commit
myself to because there's a lot of issues going on i was also sick during that time so i'm doing
the best I can as an RCO. And we have a lot of applicants every week trying to uphold my duties.
And I'm just finding out of fronting that you are recommending I get dismissed because I'm late.
Excuse me, Mr. Masters, Ms. Russell, Mr. Masters, your objection based on the late
submission of the record of the letter is noted for the record. Thank you.
okay can i proceed though yes please i'm sorry thank you i am sorry too because um just to
mention uh uh chair that the the document wasn't sent to us timely either so it wasn't before the
board or our council for them to for her to review as well just wanted to put that on record and that
um we do have uh another very lengthy case that we have to get to so i would request that we don't
along this matter i do thank you if i could just actually it is a very brief letter i think if
ms russell is just permitted to read it into the record it would not take much time okay briefly
okay so bottom line is we feel that the case for um a hardship has not been met we feel that um
the density based off of the current um zba agreements with the um high-rise properties
coming into the community causes hard undue heart causes hardship to the existing community
um we would also like to make sure um that um and you guys can read the rest later on i'm hoping but
the main things are that we just feel like we should reduce that density because of the existing
rco approvals for high density apartments coming into the community our 20 35 year plan and the cdc
permission is to create an equal number of housing units that are mixed as well as
single family to keep our historical value.
Ms. Russell, can I ask one question? Is the bottom line that your position is one of non-opposition
if it is limited to two units? Is that a correct interpretation?
that in the provisos and the provisos are simply that the unit stays does not become a bmb
that it is stays not and it's also not a boarding home that the um the trash capacity gets increased
because if you do include three units in our area we have three units already if even though you
have a nice beautiful compartment we find that it's still too much trash for three units so for
that one compartment. So we're looking at the first floor trash in the basement and the second
and third trash compartments, if they keep the second and third, will be with that unit he has
outside the house. And I think the other proviso is that the agreement between the applicant and
the community was that they would stay in touch with the community. They would actually create a
CBA afterwards because we feel like this is too much moving parts they didn't really know what
they wanted as a CBA and this is so I'm sorry to keep interrupting you but that's about it
that's about it okay thank you really the board um there's that was to explain that there's really
okay thank you really the board um there's that was it
no need to add provisors regard regarding it not becoming a housing um a group living situation
because that hasn't been applied for it is in any case prohibited even if this is i agree with you
but we've been finding even though they have no agreements with it we have been having
like these bnbs is popping up all over the place and they're not legally done but so we put it in
record it gives us more grounds to substantiate it when we go toward um trying to remove them from
the community i have a i have another issue members of the board i don't have a copy of
this letter ms russell says that she sent it again she never sent it to me no problem i'm sorry again