trolley and even cathedral park cdc you know actually proudly states that uh and that they
want this to be a single two single family homes and then that's where they voted against the
And then that's where they voted against the project.
project and they sent two separate
And they sent two separate letters, one for each project.
So, and then this is just from Cathedral Park's own website, CDC.
Again, Cathedral Park, where you don't need a car because we got great public transportation.
So, you know, and that's basically where we stand.
And I do have Ghazi Ada7 on the phone or on the Zoom.
Mr. Ada7, can you virtually raise your hand?
I don't have to speak.
Good afternoon, sir.
Please spell your first and last name, and I'll swear you in.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Ghazi, G-A-Z-I.
The last name is A-T-A-S-E-V-N.
My address is 2424 West York, Philadelphia.
yeah um you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth
absolutely i do thank you mr markinson uh mr out of seven uh you heard a little bit of what i was
saying about the commercial aspects of this neighborhood um what's your experience in the
in the field of real estate yeah uh i have been a real estate agent almost five years i have been
in this business almost at a decade um so i'm a licensed uh realtor new jersey and pennsylvania
and i'm specialized residential and commercial um i check here we use the uh platform that access
the commercial and residential called bride mls um i checked the all the comps uh the commercial
lease comes uh about 540 days um the to see the all the leasing activities but there is nothing
has been going on uh almost i mean or one uh over one and a half years so and i draw by myself as
as well today uh and i mean visually uh saw the street uh the the neighbor component i think has
been drastically changed from commercial to residential. There are just one or two commercial
at the corner, rest of the street, I mean, the turn, I mean, naturally residential. So that's
my experience. And also data, it's supporting that almost 540 days, any kind of lease activities
has not been going on so mr adesev in your professional opinion would a commercial
business at 5006 and or 5008 west thompson street thrive and survive
absolutely i mean the commercial is i mean to my opinion i mean it's 100 clear
here, the commercial is not going to work that black.
Hi, I also have with me Mr. Frank Kumas, the principal of Kumas Homes.
Mr. Kumas, can you virtually raise your hand?
may you please virtually raise your hand so that you may be sworn in, sir.
Mr. Notkinson, we're having technical issues.
We'll just stipulate that you being an officer of the court,
your client would have adopted your testimony.
Is there anyone else to testify in this case?
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. His hand is going up.
Okay. All right. We'll bring him back. Thank you.
Mr. Kumas, please spell your name and I'll swear you in.
My name is Frank Kumas.
You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Maka. Mr. Kumas, you heard everything I stated today.
Yes, I have. And is it true and correct?
Yes, it is.
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, I have.
Would you like to add anything that I may have missed?
I mean, like we said earlier, we try to work with community.
Every step away, we always try to work with community.
And we skates of multiple meetings with community.
We went in the neighborhood and we get some couple petition signs.
We have about, I believe, a lot of petitions and the neighborhood supports on their projects.
but somehow we didn't get enough support that we're looking from our CEO.
But we did meet up with the neighborhoods, we speak with them, we explained to them,
we showed them the projects, we showed them the plans. And like you say, like Gazi says, we made a
And, and like you say, like Gaza says, we made a lot of research and commercial, we believe
and I believe that commercial is not going to work there.
That was the only reason we would like to have some residential units.
All right.
Thank you.
Anyone else to testify?
I'm sorry.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Anyone else like to testify in this case?
Please raise your hand.
Mr. Chair, I have a Mark Harris with his hand raised.
Yeah, Mark Harris with his hand raised.
I will allow him to speak at this time.
Thank you.
Mr. Harris, please unmute and wait to be sworn in.
Mr. Harris, please identify yourself.
I think you were on earlier today.
I'll say you're still under oath, but just identify yourself again.
Jason, while we're waiting, is there anyone else?
I miss.
I have a Mr. Willie Jordan with his hand raised, so I'll allow him to speak at this time.
Jordan, please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
Willie Jordan, W-I-L-L-I-E, Jordan, J-O-R-D-A-N.
Where are from to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you, sir. Please proceed.
Yeah, I just wanted to bring attention to that date.
The attorney for the project keep bringing up Cathedral Park,
but officially Cathedral Park was not the RCO.
So it's not, it's kind of disingenuous to use Cathedral Park as they were, was not the point persons on organizing a meeting or so.
And also on the height, they did agree to take down the height and we wanted to know if it get passed, will they be able to, will they still agree to that adjustment?
me well whatever the plan indicates and mr notkinson could you address that what the height
is uh i believe it's 38 feet i don't believe we agreed to reduce the height what we did agree to
and we would still agree to in the form of proviso is no roof deck but to have access to uh you know
have have access you know to the roof uh so i would leave it to miss saletta to uh propose
a certain language, but we were to be agreeable to not have a functioning roof deck, but to have
some type of structure out there to give us access to our utilities. So we did agree to that.
The reason why I mentioned Cathedral Park CDC, because my understanding, again, Mr. Harris is on,
he was very vocal during those meetings. He was very engaged during the meetings. We met with
Mr. Harris separately. This is in the Cathedral Park section of Philadelphia. So again,
One of the leaders within the community also agrees with us that this is a public transportation area and that there is no parking issue.
Mr. Jordan, you understand that as a by right, the application, the applicant can build up to 38 feet by right.
That's not to suggest that you would support something if it was lower, but they don't need anyone's permission to go to 38 feet.
That's by right.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I understand and I appreciate that.
And just because the right is, sometimes what we're trying to do is keep a community intact.
And it is strongly a single family, mostly single families in there.
And now we see this influx of apartments, and in addition to apartments, these party spaces up on the roofs.
So although people may have the right to do it, sometimes it's not, I don't think, the appropriate situation to have, Mr. Chairman.
Understood. But as far as the roof, you just mentioned the roof deck.
I believe the applicant's attorney said they're not seeking to have a roof deck.
They would eliminate that.
yeah we would agree in the form of proviso mr chair we would agree to that
no roof deck so i guess with that mr jordan i'm trying to figure out um do you have a final
position on this um um yes we we still strongly recommend single homes we're trying to rebuild
single homes we're trying to rebuild the community uh but it's obviously uh that between a
the community.
presentation and and um they may get the support on that and i would yield to if if that happens
well i'm just if so i'm not putting words in your mouth your position is to oppose the project as
it's being presented yes okay thank you thank you anyone did mr harris get ever get on
mr harris
and while mr harris gets on the only thing i would say is to the single family aspect it
would be a greater variant of the philadelphia zoning code to require us to actually have single
family in a cmx2 property where five units is allowed total between the two you know properties
and we are surrounded by rm1 as well besides the cmx2 if you remember from the zoning map
i'm sorry did you say it's about you can do five units combined
no i'm saying we could do five units combined the issue we could do two units of 50 5006
west thompson street we can do three units of 5008 west thompson street we want to eliminate
the commercial component that's one of the variance requests right i mean the other one was
for five to zero zero six west thompson street we're trying to add an additional unit to make
it three on each again if you look at the floor plans it's almost the exact same amount of square
footage we're talking about a little more than 100 square feet in each unit difference between
the smaller uh lot and the bigger lots okay all right um any other questions
chair mr andrew goodman has his hand raised all about to speak at this time
mr goodman please identify yourself you're still under oath from earlier today
Good afternoon. Andrew Goodman, G-O-O-D-M-A-N, here representing the Office of Third District
Council Member Jamie Gaudio. Mr. Chair, members of the board, our office stands with the RCOs
in opposition to the requested variances. We certainly understand that market trends being
what they are, that it is harder, that it is easier to fill residential vacancies than it
There's commercial vacancies, but there are active commercial uses on this block.
And so we do not see that as a hardship.
So thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Thank you. Anyone else to testify?
Mr. Chair, I've got a caller with the number ending in 3458.
I can allow him to speak at this time if you wish.
I would ask any future callers
on this case to give us something new
and different
caller with
3458 as the last four numbers
planning commission
I'm trying again
there you go yes ma'am
no this is Mark Harris
for some reason my headphone microphone
phone appears not to be getting through so i called on the landline are you you're here for
this case yes i am you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do please proceed
number of things we could say here uh first of all uh it was alleged by the uh applicant's
attorney that they've been maintaining the lot they've been actually done no maintenance at all
The city has a contract there with Carroll Park to do a mow of vacant lots, and they will maintain this lot.
And not only that, there's a pile of brush on the west side that has been there for months.
And on the east side, there's some roof material and the like, which has been there for some time.
Mr. Harris, I appreciate your comments and your concern.
But if you can speak to the zoning matter that the board needs to vote on and not.
Well, I take your word that there may be trash there, but speak to the application.
Well, the applicant's attorney made assertions which are false.
He did raise the point that we've excellent public transit in Cathedral Park, which we're very happy to know.
but in fact though many households if not most have cars and in this particular location
And in this particular location, we have a very active bar across the street as well as a smoothie shop on the corner.
we have a very active
It's very tight for parking.
And this additional density that they're trying to bring here is very much in the wrong place.
We don't have a street capacity to accommodate, particularly in the evenings and overnight or late hours, all the additional cars that this high density is going to bring.
Cathedral Park's posture for decades has been a promote single-family housing,
which was noted correctly in the RCO report.
It is quite possible and feasible for the developer to put single-family houses there,
if they chose to do so, but it's understandable that it's more profitable for them to build multifamily.
If these two properties were to be developed as proposed, we'd end up with a very tall, large building looming over the block there and facing right down Farson Street, all the way down to Kershaw Street.
All of those are single-family, two-story row houses.
It really would be visually offensive and annoying to all the people who live there for who knows how long, as long as the bonus would stand.
And a small correction to the attorney, the lot in question is actually across the street. It's not around the corner.
So that pretty much summarizes it. The community would like to see single-family development.
We believe that something as large as this and all these multi-units is maybe permissible, but it's undesirable.
It's not good for our community, and the off-street parking situation is very problematic.
The developer did make a suggestion to use the 1301 Farson Street for off-street parking.
Unfortunately, it's just not big enough.
And in order to use that, you'd lose significant on-street parking.
So we remain very strongly opposed to this.
Thank you very much.
Just in response quickly, I completely understand these arguments.
If this was an RSA-5 property that my client was looking to make into multifamily, this is a CMX-2 property.
We're allowed to build five units.
It's the composition. All we're trying to change is the commercial aspect.