And the trash for both units is held in the rear yard, and there is nobody occupying the basement.
Each unit does have a kitchen, bathroom.
Each unit does not have a washer and dryer, though.
This area is mostly RSA-5, but there is some RM-1.
This is just the tax clearance for my client.
This is a copy of my client's deed, showing they purchased it just last October.
this is the notice of the refusal copy of the appeal and the project information form historical
zoning this actually was a commercial this is just an old from the zoning archives there
actually was a this was a part residential part commercial historically before the the area was
rezoned. Here it is on Atlas. The orange area is the RM1 in the area. This is a corner property
as well. There's a copy of the zoning appeal that was posted. These are actually some of the
photos my client has made cosmetic and aesthetic improvements to the property without having to
um without having to increase the footprint at all so these are some of the um these are the
first floor some of the for and afters and these are the conditions when my my client bought the
property last uh last october and some of the improvements made um on the first floor and then
on the second floor which is the second unit this is these are these are the conditions existing
last October, and my client has made some improvements, as you can see, the non-aluminum
flooring with the bedroom, and I believe the bathroom has also been done.
My client actually has a rental unit, a rental license for one unit.
We're obviously trying to get two units, and the current tenant there does pay $11.25 a month.
This is a copy of – well, I'll get into that.
We attempted to schedule with the RCO. We sent out letters on July 7th. As you can see, we were told that the meeting was on Zoom. I was contacted on June 9th by Pastor Tyrone Williams. He gave me the Zoom link for June and told me it was the same link for July.
Sent me a form. We did fill out the form. This was the form. These are the attempts that we did make to email April 17th, the first email to get scheduled. Then again on May 25th, and then on June 9th, I received a call, and then I received the Zoom link for the meeting.
These are the – and the end of this presentation is just all of the certificates and mailings for both.
We actually did learn that that meeting that was scheduled in person was actually ultimately canceled.
There were two other hearings on the agenda, and none of the people appeared, so they did cancel that meeting anyway.
We had already gone through the hardship of having to do both mailings for today's hearing as well as the RCO meeting.
And they were nothing but scheduled with the first 45 days of the filed appeal.
So with that, I would ask my Stephanie Tarkenton to be sworn in.
I don't see anyone in the audience by the name of Stephanie.
Or Kevin.
Okay, I see Kevin. They put their names together.
Kevin and Stephanie will be coming in as a panelist.
Thank you.
Kevin and Stephanie please turn your video on
and come off of mute please and thank you
Kevin or Stephanie
Kevin or Stephanie. Yeah, we're here. Good evening. It's who would like to testify?
yeah we're here good evening
I can testify. Stephanie, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Sure. It's Stephanie Tarketon is S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E.
Tarketon is a T-A-R-K-E-N-T-O-N. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do um please proceed counsel thank you uh good evening
stephanie the uh did you hear my my testimony and review my presentation before the board tonight
yes i did okay and do you adopt my testimony as if it was your own i do adopt it yes okay
and you saw the foot and the photos that i presented um the before and afters were the
before the condition when you purchased the property yes okay and when you purchase the
property were you aware that it wasn't um while the property was a physical duplex it just wasn't
legalized it was sold to us and presented to us as a duplex and that's how we purchased it okay
okay I have nothing further questions from the board
questions from our attorney um just a quick question mr dean and thank you for your patience
i know you're running into another rco meeting um do you did you end up rescheduling a meeting
with the rco or um are have we done are we done trying to set up a meeting at this point
I just tried to determine whether the board should vote on this matter today or do a hear and hold if there's something scheduled.
There is nothing scheduled.
Yeah, there's nothing scheduled.
All right.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman.
Good evening.
David Fechter with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5, residential single-family zoning at this location.
the city rezoned this neighborhood in 2014 in accord with recommendations in the comprehensive
plan at that time this block had been zoned single family since 1967 this property has a documented
history as a single family dwelling with a ground floor commercial space this appears to be a
legalization of an existing dwelling unit converted before the appellant acquired the property the
city planning commission recommends the board granted proposed use variance for two dwelling
units mi2026-001-093-1968 north 31st street i vote yes michael johns my vote is yes
cheryl gaston my vote is yes ryan mcadams my vote is yes
thank you council thank you all have a great night all right thank you thank you we're gonna we're
going to hear two and seven together but we'll vote separately am i correct okay so number two is
mi2025-006-114-550 west willow grove avenue and number seven mi2026-002-190-550 west willow grove
avenue uh sean whalen is the attorney good evening board how are you could you mr whalen could you
please state your name and spell for the stenographer certainly sean whalen w-h-a-l-e-n
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do i see the chestnut hill community association has sent a letter of support
um our vice chair has a few questions thank you evening have you submitted your documents
and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing yes i did actually starting to do it 14 days in
advance right oh aren't you special okay sean i think i think that's our new rules we're
And you got some taskmasters over there in administration.
Well, they didn't tell us.
September.
All right.
And do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
You can share your screen and proceed with the case.
All right.
Thank you so much.
And I do apologize.
I couldn't be with you in person tonight, but I was supposed to be picking up my son
who's coming into town.
And unfortunately, that didn't pan out either.
So hopefully not waste any more of your time.
So this is 550 West Willow Grove.
The owner is actually Springside Chestnut Hill School.
I represent Wissick and Skating Club, which I'll refer to as WSC, which has a 99-year lease for this property.
which I'll refer to as WSC, which has a 99-year lease for this property.
This is where you can see it right now on the screen,
essentially bounded on three streets by West Willow Grove Avenue, Valley Green Road,
and Cherokee Street. It's an existing skating club that's been in place as is for decades,
And it actually is, I am told, the oldest continuous ice skating and hockey rink in the country.
So essentially what we're doing right now, you can see this is just to give you a little more context.
Here's Springside Chestnut Hill, S.E.H., and this is our existing building over here.
There is no addition to this building in height or overall massing.
Again, here's kind of a better zoom in of what you're doing. What we're talking about today is this small little 987 square foot existing roof piece, and then this one-story locker room that's being replaced in kind, and then we have two signs, one right here and one up here on Cherokee, that we're also seeking to replace in kind.
So those are the two applications. The signs are on one application and the roof deck and locker room are on a second application. So again, this just gives you a better view of that deck right there and this first floor locker room.
So essentially, this property is zoned RSD1.
Surprisingly, it's of little relevance in this hearing, unlike most hearings.
All of SCH property is zoned RSD1, as you can see, everything around us.
So again, here, and I don't think they're hugely helpful in context,
So I will go through the site photos a little quickly unless someone asked me to stop.
I'm standing here in the intersection of Cherokee and Willow Grove, and you can see the existing building as it's situated currently.
This is, again, standing in the parking lot just to show you the existing building.
What you see here will be unchanged.
Again, there's no increase in height proposed.
So, again, this is just looking down the street. And now I'm up on West Willow Grove. You actually go down a little grade. So, from West Willow Grove to Valley Green on the other side, very highly relevant to this application, there's about a 30-foot elevation change from one street to the other side.
So as you come in off of West Willow Grove, you go down a little bit.
The parking you're seeing here is for the Wissigan Skating Club.
This is one of the signs that we're seeking to replace.
And again, they're just sort of old and outdated signage, difficult to read at vehicle speeds.
And we're seeking to kind of match and become a better part of the overall SCH facility.
So again, this is just looking out this way.
Now, what this is, is I'm at Valley Green.
And again, this is that height difference.
I'm standing in Valley Green right now.
This is the existing conditions.
Here's where we're planning to put a balcony out here, essentially put a door right there just for people to go.
The locker room is behind here.
And again, you can't see the locker room now.
You will not be able to see the locker room before.
It actually, it's a one-story locker room that ends up being below grade at this portion of the site.
So again, here's the existing rooftop of the one-story locker room.
It's sort of outdated and needs to be modernized to bring the club into this century.
And so what we're doing is seeking to remove this existing first floor, one story first floor locker room addition and replace it.
It'll be expanded a little bit out towards where this photo is taken from and towards the edge of this building.
The building you see on the left here is actually the squash court building for SCH.
Again, this is the SEH Arts Center, which is actually what's on the other side of Valley Green from us.
And then you can see kind of a generally wooded condition.
We did, in very surprising fashion for most of our applications, we, of course, sent the RCO notices.
I think I had to send it to 12 addresses, and only eight of which were homes.
So a little different than our usual RCO notifications.
a little different than our usual usual rco notifications um so again this just kind of
gives you the context um but i'll get now to where so here are the you know these are the addresses
to whom i sent it out um so we have uh two separate refusals to discuss i'll walk through them
each as appropriate. This site overall is 109,000 square feet. Again, this first refusal that we're
talking about here, this is with regard to the roof deck, and I'll show you the site plan in
just a second. It's actually a balcony, not a roof deck. It's mislabeled, but the balcony and
the first floor locker room. Firstly, we have a minimum of a 30-foot rear yard is required in
RSD1. As you'll see and as you may have already seen, this is an existing condition. There's
essentially no separation between us and the existing SCH building behind us and that condition
is going to continue. And secondly, we have a steep slopes protection violation. We are disturbing
steep slopes of 25% or greater. Essentially, what we are doing is we're proposing to disturb
1,499 square feet of lot area. This is essentially 1% of the total land. And what you'll see is,
let me zoom in on this for you.
So again, what you can see is Cherokees on the left-hand side here, Willow Groves at the top.
I'm going to zoom in. Both of our proposed improvements are on this side of the property.
So this solid black line is the the property line in between where our existing facility sits
and then what you can see here hatched is the existing SCH building. So as you can see there's
already no rear property line setback in place. So what we're doing first is this is the
one-story existing locker room. Again, just seeking to modernize that. It'll be
torn down and replaced in kind in the same place, although it will be a little bigger to
help modernize it and basically allow for separate women's locker rooms and the like.
Again, from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen is approximately a 30-foot elevation drop.
And so what you will actually see, and I'll show you a rendering in a minute, is just going to be a fence line here.
You won't actually see any of this locker room from either direction.
The other thing that you'll see here is this is that small roof.
Essentially, this is the Wissick and Skating Club.
This is for members.
there's a members area up here where you can sit while lessons are going on or games are going on
and they wanted to create a bit of an outdoor space right now the only outdoor space that
people use is the parking lot that was thought of as is not really in keeping with how nice SCH in
this area is and to be a little bit more contained and sound contained we're building out this deck
And then what you can see here, this is the disturbance that we're talking about.
This is a retaining wall that we're suggesting be built in there.
It does not exist currently.
So right now, the water runoff just goes straight down.
This retaining wall would be put in, and what you see here would be a new fire escape egress from the roof deck.
um so again here's this is the limit of the disturbance that you'll see this area right
here and this area right here is the uh the 1499 square feet of of steep slopes uh these i know
the code doesn't make a distinction but the engineers do these are all man-made steep slopes
in this location between the two buildings when the buildings were originally built.
So what you see here, this is the elevation, and I'll show you a better rendering in a second,
but this is the new proposed balcony with its exit footpath here.
sorry let me zoom out a little bit okay so now to get into better specifics again this is the
locker room not visible from the valley green side it also as i already showed is not visible from
not visible from the Valley Green side. It also, as I already showed, is not visible from the West
Willow Grove side. As you can see, in a bit of a dilapidated situation, very much needs to be
modernized. Again, this right here is the existing condition of the SCH squash building.
So what you're seeing here is a rendering from the architect. Again, you've gone down. West Willow
Grove is behind this image. You've gone downhill a little bit. You're now in the parking lot.
The SCH building is on the left. This is the existing Wissahickon building.