thank you matan have you heard the statements that i made today and do you adopt them to be
true and do you adopt them as your own yes thank you um chairman i do uh i do see uh mr richardson
and the council office and then also carmella bassard johnson um all right mr handling jason
will get to this okay mr mr richardson please identify yourself you're still under oath
good afternoon again mr chair uh charles richardson from the office of councilwoman
cindy bass room 312 city hall um again this was a meeting that we did not have any uh
uh response any results from so uh i'm wondering if mr ali is still on he can uh corroborate the
fact that the that the community did vote for that and then we can give our opinion
based upon his testimony is mr ali uh available
Is Mr. Ali available?
Yes, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ali, identify yourselves by your name.
You're still under oath.
Jihad Ali, J-I-H-A-D-A-L-I.
I'd like to respond to Mr. Richardson's request.
We had the meeting, it was attended by near neighbors.
The neighbors talked about the different adjustments that the design team made.
The concern was trash.
They put in the steps so we could access trash, and trash would be in the rear of the property versus being in front of the property.
The affordability of the unit being for seniors, and that's why we supported the project.
The neighbors voted to support the project.
Thank you. Anyone else to testify?
I think I skipped over someone.
this is carmela vassar johnson ma'am please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
it's carmela c-a-r-m-e-l-l-a last name vassar johnson v as in victor a-s-s-o-r hyphen j-o-h-n-s-o-n
for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes thank you ma'am
I am a member of Upper North Neighbors Association, which is an affected RCO on this case.
I was in personal attendance to both RCO meetings for this property.
The owner and his team were very responsive to all of the community's concerns.
um the trash which has already been talked about the awning so that it blends with the feeling of
the neighborhood as it stands now and most importantly affordability of the units the
developer has promised to set aside one unit at least uh in a very neighborhood affordable
price range for rents. So Upper North Neighbors Association and the community
in general was in support and is in support of this project.
Thank you. Anyone else to testify?
No further hands, sir.
Thank you, Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair, Peter Bernard
for the Planning Commission.
This property is indicated for single family residential
in the comprehensive plan.
We feel the proposal for six units represents an overuse
and the applicant failed to demonstrate a hardship
for either open space or unit count.
Additionally, there is no hardship to vacant land.
accordingly the planning commission recommends the board deny the variances thank you peter uh
rachel is there one page uh yeah i believe there's one page thank you mi 2021-001864
3323 north 16th street my vote is yes with the proviso revised plan one page approved today
professor plaza my vote is yes with proviso james snell my vote is yes with proviso
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
Thank you.
We will now hear cases number 8 and 10 together.
MI 2021-001902, 5008 West Thompson Street, and MI 2021-009.
Excuse me, let me start again.
MI 2021-001901-5006 West Thompson Street. Mr. Notkinson is the attorney of record for both cases, and I understand there are a letter of opposition by the RCO HMC squared. I'm not sure what the letters stand for.
Mr. Notkinson has been voted to panelist, sir.
Mr. Notkinson, identify yourself. You're still under oath.
Yes, Alan Notkinson, Notkinson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.
123, I'm sorry, 123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA, 19109.
Sorry, I got ahead of myself. Mr. Plaza has questions for you.
Mr. Notkinson, you agree to waive the reading of its refusals and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of test?
Have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral photos and plans five days prior to this, Aaron?
We have.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
We do. We actually met with the RCO and the community on multiple occasions, both during official RCO meetings as well as with a representative of one of the other RCOs.
So, so we're here today regarding 5006 and 5008 West Thompson Street. We're in the Cathedral Park section of Philadelphia. If you go on the website of Cathedral Park CDC, it actually states Cathedral Park where you don't need a car because we got great transportation.
So what we're trying to do here is take two CMX2 properties that are mid-block in the area of town, and we'll go through the zoning maps, in the area of town, which is at least zoned multifamily.
And what we've seen and what we've investigated, and we have an expert witness here, it just doesn't make sense to have either of these properties have a commercial component on the first floor.
There are commercial components or properties or mixed-use properties in the area.
And as our expert will state, it's been a few years since there's been really much new leasing activity in this area.
So we hope that the board agrees with us that it would be more appropriate to swap out those commercial units with residential, increase the density on Thompson Street where it's RM1 from most parts of Thompson Street on the other blocks, and to help support the commercial corridor that does exist.
So what you'll see is, you know, in my table of contents are deeds to the property, certificates of tax clearances, notices of refusal, applications for appeal, zoning maps and Google map of the area, photographs of the property, our plans and drawings, and correspondence from the HMC Squared Community Association.
So I'll just make this a little bigger so everyone can see.
These properties are owned by Kumas Homes.
Kumas Homes, as you may be aware, has been in business for the better part of 15 years.
They are a well-known developer, well-respected in the area for their quality of product.
They both sell and rent properties throughout the city of Philadelphia.
They also manage their own properties that they do hold.
These would both be holds.
so certificate of tax clearance showing that we're good standing in terms of our taxes
and then notices of refusal both of these are cmx2 properties 5006 we have two refusals first
we just want to swap out that commercial unit with a residential one the second refusal is
that our lot is slightly smaller than would allow us for the two residential above and
the one commercial below, we're asking to allow us to build three residential to kind of match
what 5008 is. And we'll go through the floor plans. Even though our lot is slightly smaller
than 5008, which allows for three units here, two residential, one commercial, and we're asking to
swap it out. This one is only allowing us for one residential, one commercial, but you'll see from
the floor plans, they almost match identically.
The units are slightly smaller, but not much.
And then here's our refusal for 5008.
Again, here, we're just literally trying to swap out
the commercial unit with the residential unit.
Our application for appeal for both projects.
Could you increase the print size a little bit, please?
Yeah, sure.
Is that better?
and it's just the other applications for appeal with the project information form and then the
maps of the area um and again we can go on atlas but like this is just uncommon to have this much
cmx in the middle of the block um you'll see the other parts across the street well here you know
on this side of the street you'll see mostly the cmx portions would be hugging more the corners
uh and what we're asking for is to help support this commercial the commercial properties that
do exist uh where there hasn't been leasing activity new leasing activity in some time
for a lot of these properties rather than creating a unoccupied commercial vacant space
um here's a google map so again and and you know this is one of the issues that we had with
So, again, and, you know, this is one of the issues that we had with the community. And we try to work through a lot of those issues. One of them was transportation. You know, we were, you know, told, well, we don't want this multifamily here because there's an issue in terms of parking.
Well, as you can see here, we are near the 10 and 15 trolley.
We're a one-minute walk from the closest public transportation.
So there is a significant amount of public transportation.
And other than 5,006, we're asking to go from two units to three units.
Both of these structures are allowed for multi-unit.
It's just the type of multi-unit.
We're trying to swap out the commercial for the residential.
We even tried to work with the community because Kumas Homes owns a lot, not too far away from here, where we were even willing to entertain the idea of going through the variance process and creating a parking lot for this lot, another CMX2 property.
And that, you know, our request to do that or our offer was flatly rejected.
But we really did try to work through the parking issue, even though there is not one.
And even though Cathedral Park on their own website states that they embrace the fact that this is a community for public transportation.
Photographs of the property.
As you can see, we try to really maintain our properties as best we can.
No one's perfect.
You know, it rains, you know, weeds grow.
But for the most part, we really do try.
since we've owned it we've had no violations in terms of dealing with our uh vacant land
you know properties to the to the right of ours on west thompson street to the left and you can
see there's some commercial storefronts here um but you know again it would be helpful to
help this commercial corridor that does exist with additional density oops oh sorry um now
Now I want to give you just like interiors
of other Kumas homes.
Again, this is the proposed, like, you know,
what you would see in a typical Kumas homes,
hardwood floors, you'll see the kitchens,
you know, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances.
You know, they really try to like make their product
as nice as possible.
And then just different, you know, pictures of the kitchen.
You know, proposed interior of the bathrooms, again, granite countertops, subway tiles,
you know, hardwood floors throughout, just more pictures, interior.
And then here are our plans and drawings.
If you don't mind, I'll just like decrease the size a little just to ease it's easier
maneuver and i can always like highlight uh if you need to see a specific section of it uh but
there are going to be three units on each structure uh we're not seeking any type of
dimensional variances with respect to this project um we're not asking for something that's too high
you know no where your setback issues no open area issues we're simply looking to have
a unit a bi-level unit on the first floor which would be two bedroom uh two bath but unit number
two would be two bedroom one bath on the whole second floor and unit number three would be
two bedroom one bath the only difference is that i just want to make sure i get this correct
is that the square footage for unit number one
for the bi-level unit would be 1556 for 5006 west thompson street while the 1812 for 5008
west thompson while unit number two and three will each be 778 for west tom 5006 west thompson
while it'll be 912 for 5008 west thompson street
and that's just the same thing for 5008 the same thing
And again, just our floor plan. Again, the typical bi-level, you know, unit number one, unit number two is on its own floor, and unit three is on its own floor. And same thing for $5,008.
And then our letter with which HMC Square, I like to go over their comments one by one so we can understand where they're coming from. So they did admit that we initially met with them July 15. And there are issues that you enlarge that.
Oh, yeah. Sure. I'll make that really.
I'll make that really. Is that better? Can you see? A little more. Better? That's better.
All right. So we met with them twice. The initial meeting on July 15th, things they wanted us to reconsider.
The building height, which is not zoning related, and we're well within the height limitations.
The number of units, again, other than 5,006, we're allowed two units, right?
5,008, we're allowed three units.
The only thing is we want to swap out the commercial unit as to both.
We are requesting an additional unit for 5,006.
We believe it's appropriate given how it fits within the property, but we would leave it up to the board.
If the board would like us to have a maximum of two units on 5,006, we will defer to the board's best judgment with respect to that.
The other issue was parking.
And again, even though that's their motto that this is, you know, we've got great public transit, we really want to work through those issues.
And again, we had a property which was around the corner from ours, these two properties, where we would have had an opportunity to at least have a serious discussion about seeking a variance for converting that one property into just a small parking lot for some of these units.
That was completely rejected by the community, but we really did try to do that.
The other issue was about trash pickup.
They wanted private trash pickup.
during our second meeting we said we would not only do we would not only agree to commercial
pickup which we agree in the form of a proviso we would agree to commercial pickup twice a week
because it is an issue you know our office deals with a lot of of these similar type of neighborhoods
where uh especially during the pandemic with garbage pickup being sporadic uh with multi-unit
structures on where it's a greater density, we take ownership of that. And if the board
so agrees to grant these variance requests, we would embrace the fact of having commercial
pickup twice a week. The other issue had to do with how the front of the facade looked
in terms of having a bay window we agreed we said listen we'll get rid of the bay windows you want
something that's more traditional in terms of a flat facade we would agree to it they also indicated
they had issues with our roof deck we agreed at our second meeting to get rid of the roof decks
we want you know roof deck you know roof access just for utility purposes because we'll have our
HVAC units in there, but we agreed to everything. So we kept agreeing, agreeing, agreeing. And
ultimately they're like, no, all we want is single family, which would be a greater request
for variance to require a builder or property owner to put CMX2 properties, which allow five
units, and then to essentially ask us for two units. But that's what they wanted. And we said,
unfortunately, we can't agree to that, but we would agree to all the other reasonable
requests that they had so um you know they said that you know they did talk about if you look at
this kumas homes offers another vacant lot at 1301 felton street for parking this would require a
zoning variance but we were willing to do that and even talk about like you know trying to have
that catch up to this but ultimately they still voted against it um they say kumas homes is not
willing to compromise in the number of units but would be willing to remove the pilot house
We have since discussed the matter. And again, if the board is willing to agree to allow these variance requests, we would agree to a maximum of two units on the smaller lot, which I believe is 5,006 West Thompson Street.
uh and the next thing was the owner does does not believe they would be able to find suitable
commercial tenants for the first floor of the buildings and therefore want to make them
apartments which is completely accurate and we'll have gaziata seven testify to that effect uh and
you know the the last one had to deal with how much the rent was
so and then again it's six says the community members continue to express strong concerns
about the building height which is not zoning related because we're far within the code
parking again this is a public transportation uh section of the city where there's 10 and 15