Thank you.
and chair we have 64 attendees you can start as you wish
good morning everyone my name is bill bergman and i will be chairing this morning's eba hearings
with me is our vice chair ismail shaheed
President, Mr. Chairman, our board member, Thomas Holliman, Mr. Chairman, our board member, James Snell, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and also Ryan McSherry are also will be representing us today.
Also present is our executive director, Tanya Sun.
Here's our virtual format.
The advice and proceedings are being recorded.
Video will be available by contacting tonyasunkett at phil.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter the period of statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question and answer box on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sunke.
Let's look at today's schedule.
Number four, MI 2022-001-110-6619 Musgrave Street.
There's a request for continuance.
Is Abe Morharad in the audience?
Good morning, Mr. Chair. This is Jason Hint. I will be your co-host for today. Mr. Maldirad has been allowed to speak.
Good morning.
Good morning, sir. Could you please state your name? It's spelled for the court's sonogram.
Ape Mujerad, M-O-J-A-R-A-D.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
I understand you wanted a continuance here?
Yes, please.
Okay, so this is the fifth listing.
This case will be heard the next time it's called.
Understand this case will be, is marked, must be heard.
Appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Number five, MI2023 00404617 South 7th Street. Julie Damius is the applicant. This is the
third listing. We have no exhibits.
Are we sharing the audience?
I'm sure I do not see that individual in the virtual audience.
Thank you.
Okay, so this is the third listing, and we still do not have exhibits.
So MI 2023, 000404, 617 South 7th Street.
I vote to dismiss.
James Snell, my vote is to dismiss.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is to dismiss.
Mr. Allman?
It appears he dropped out here.
Okay, thank you.
So MI 2023, number eight, MI 2023, 000784, 263 East, Upsil Street.
This is the third listing.
We are still waiting on exhibits.
Miranda Darden is the owner applicant.
Thank you.
We still do not have all your exhibits.
There's been no RCL meeting.
Yes, that's correct.
And I understand you want to continue?
Yes, please.
This case will be continued, will be marked, must be heard the next time.
So MI 2023, 000784263 East Upsall Street.
Cases continued.
Mark must be heard.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So number 10, MI20...
Excuse me, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Richardson has his hand raised.
I think he wanted to speak on the last case.
You've been allowed to speak.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Richardson.
Just state your name, please, for me and spell for the courts and honor.
Charles Richardson, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N, Office of Council on the Cindy Bass Room, 508 City Hall.
Several of these cases—
Hold on one minute, sir.
You can swear at me.
I'm just getting ahead of you.
Oh, sure.
That's okay.
Do you swear for the whole truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, sir.
Several of these cases that are being continued today have been assigned to East Mount Airy neighbors as the coordinating RCO.
Unfortunately, they've experienced a leadership change.
So a lot of these cases that are coming before you this morning may not have had an RCO meeting because of the fact that they've had some difficulty in the turnover with the old leadership versus new leadership.
So that's what I was just trying to share with regard to Ms. Darden and also, you know, one of the previous cases as well.
I appreciate that, sir. Thank you very much. We'll take that into consideration.
So number 10, MI 2022-005-434-5953, Master Street, Linda Thay.
Also, Linda Thong, Lisa Thong, and Linda Thay.
Mr. Chair, I do not see either in the virtual audience at this time.
Okay, so this is the fourth listing.
MI 2022-005-434-5953 Master Street.
I vote to dismiss.
This is the fourth listing.
Thomas Holloman
my vote is to dismiss
James Snell
my vote is to dismiss
my vote is to dismiss
thank you
number 11
MI 2023
002125
1912 South Front Street
Donald Benedetto
should be in the audience
you've been allowed to speak sir could you please state your name and spell for the court
stenographer good morning members of the board donald benedetto b-e-n-e-d-e-t-t-o attorney for
1912 south front street llc do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth is nothing but
the truth i do i understand you've had several conversations with our attorney this case is
going to be continued sir is that the um recommendation miss emerson that we continue
it for now uh that's yes that yes no that is the recommendation that that we continue it at this
time yes okay that's miss emerson's recommendation i agree as well thank you very much thank you
very much mi20230021251912 south front street case has been continued
number
excuse me Mr. Chair
we have Michelle Rand
with her hand raised
you want me to allow her to speak
well in what case is that
Michelle Rand please unmute
Yes. I just wanted to speak on the last case.
Could you state your name and spell, please, for the court stenographer?
Certainly. It's Michelle Rand, M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E, Rand, R-A-N-D.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I did.
And this is 1912 South Front?
That is correct.
Please proceed.
Okay. I just wanted to mention that there are four neighbors here as Protestants.
And, you know, we accept the continuance, but just that we are interested in having this case heard.
And, you know, we accept the continuance, but just that we are interested in having this case heard.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, let me just clarify the record.
Ms. Rand, there are issues with the refusal, and it is most likely that a new application will be filed and that this appeal will need to be withdrawn, and it would come back at another time.
So, if whatever happens with this case, ultimately, because you have entered your appearance, you will get notification.
But I just wanted to explain the reason it's being continued is because there are issues with the refusal, which will likely result in a new application needing to be filed.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Number 13, MI-2023-004-563-2005-07 Sargent Street.
Rania Major is the attorney for the owner, Jonathan Santiago.
There's no exhibits.
This is the fifth listing.
They have been allowed to speak.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Rania, R-A-N-I-A Major for the record.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told the truth, nothing but the truth?
I'm counsel, but yes.
I know, I know. I'm more of your counsel. We still don't have all your exhibits?
We submitted everything prior to the last listing, Your Honor. At the last listing, I was on a cell phone and couldn't do the sharing.
So, Hillary, this is ready to go?
so we have the exhibits from last time but miss major in order to proceed this time we need proof
that the property was posted for today's hearing we also need an updated tax clearance certificate
do you have those documents okay those i don't i just returned from i've been on medical leave for
a month okay well if we do not have proof of posting we cannot proceed yeah what my client did
my mistake was brought me a copy of the posting i don't know if you can see this i don't think my
video is on um it is not at this time yeah i'm holding up just for the record the orange some
extra orange sheets of the notices that they made but i asked um them for a picture of it
i have not yet received that so like so we're going to continue this case but it's mark must
be heard. So MI 2022-004-563-2005-07 East Sergeant Street. Case is continued. Mark must be heard.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Number 15, MI 2023-006-3405401 Regent Street.
The case is continued. Are there any other requests for continuances?
I'm guessing. We have a hand up from Negeti. I've allowed them to speak. Negeti G, you've been allowed to speak.
Hello. Yes. Thank you.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Negesti Gabriel Hewitt. N-E-G-H-I-S-T-I-G-H-E-B-R-E-H-I-W-E-T.
You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
What case do you want to talk about continuing?
The case just mentioned, 5401 Regent Street.
Okay, that case should be continued.
Do you have anything to add to that?
Yes, I respect the court's decision on that.
But as I tried to explain with Hillary, that I had a problem reaching out to the coordinating RCO.
And as Richardson mentioned early on.
could not be held but i do have everything else i need all right as soon as we get the rco meeting
we'll go on with the case okay may i ask how do you recommend i go about that because i have not
i think what you should what you what you should do is call the office and explain to them where
you stand and we'll go from there okay sir and you so sir you um just to clarify you did not
reach out to the RCO until this month. So there was not sufficient time to hold a meeting before
your hearing. Also, you do have the email address and did get at least one response from the RCO
already. So I would follow up with that email address. If they do not respond, I would reach
out to the RCO notification email and ask for additional contact information.
Thank you. All right. Is there any other requests for continuance?
no sir i do not see any further hands at this time i have a few cases with no exhibits
Also, I do not see any further hands at this time.
number two mi 2023-006-343-9901 frankfort avenue this is the first listing we have no exhibits
the listed owner is trinidad tires and augustina marina is a listed applicant
third-party professional.
Agustina Moreno has been
allowed to speak, sir.
Hi, hello.
Good morning.
Could you state your name and spell, please, for the
court sonographer? My name is
Natalie Ramos,
N-A-T-A-L-Y
Ramos, R-A-M-O-S.
all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i swear all right so we don't have the exhibits and we believe you may need an attorney
that we need an attorney you may need ramos sorry miss ramos are are you affiliated with
a and j trinidad tires llc yes i'm the um owner wife but um we're waiting for someone um that
was going to handle this but she haven't traveled to get into the meeting i don't know if you can
leave this case for the last ma'am we did not receive any exhibit so we cannot move forward
with this case and because the property is owned in the name of an llc only an attorney can present
this case to the board oh i understand so um so um can um can they postpone it but we um we don't
wanted to be so far
so we can get an eternity and
proceed.
Ma'am, please.
Go ahead, Chair. We're going to continue
this, and what you could do is call
the office and talk to the office
and just see
where you stand and when this will come back.
MI 2023-006-343-
9901-9901
Franklin Avenue. This case is
continued. Number
three mi 2022 006 737 619 north 39th street spin moon llc is the owner
i do not see any hands for that matter mr chair so mi 2022 006 737 619 north 39th street
This is the third listing. I vote to dismiss.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is to dismiss.
James Snell, my vote is to dismiss.
Dishabh Yashid, my vote is to dismiss.
Thank you.
So, number six, MI 2023, 002-181-362 Claremont Road.
Marcus Belcher is the owner applicant.
There's no exhibits. This is the second listing.
Once again, Mr. Chair, there are no hands for that matter raised.
So MI 2023, 002, 181, 362 Claremont Road.
Case is continued. Mark must be heard.
So, number 12, MI2023, 000507, 2172 East 1st Street, no exhibits, third listing.
Corey Valby
They've been about to speak
Hello can you hear me
Yes we can
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
Sure this is Corey Bolby
That's C-O-R-E-Y
Last name Bolby
B-O-W-L-B-Y
You swear for him to tell the truth
The whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes I do
We do not have your exhibits
so i i had sent in the oh is that hillary i was gonna say yes but i'm just sorry mr chair just
after i sent you the summaries we received the exhibits late last night they were incomplete
and i i let mr bulby know that that um you know they were late and and also incomplete and so
unfortunately we cannot proceed today so i yeah i sent them a few months ago and
So, yeah, I had sent them a few months ago, and the only thing that I added last night was the picture of the latest posting of the orange poster on the garage door.
And I understand, Hilary said, however, that the RCO information was missing.
So I had followed up several times with Daniel, who's the chair of RCO, and he indicated that he would be providing the meeting minutes.
and evidences um so i believe that that's the only thing that's missing at this time
unless you were able to mr yeah mr bolby you're you're the tax clearance you need an updated tax
clearance and you did submit the photos but you only submitted them this morning so there was not
time to review them so those are the other the other things that need to be resolved so so mr
mr bolby what i'm going to do is i'm going to continue this case and it must be heard the next
time. So MI 2023, 000507, 2172 East 1st Street. Cases continued. Mark, must be heard.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. And number seven,
MI 2022, 006736, 2129 Pine. This case has been withdrawn.
let's go to our
our add-on
thesis
number one
MI 2023
006162
Patterson Avenue
I vote yes
Thomas Holloman
my vote is yes
James Snell
my vote is yes
Ismail Shahid my vote is yes
Thank you. So, number two, MI 2023-005-930-9456 Woodridge Road, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ismail Shahid, my vote is yes.
Number three, MI 2023-005-139, 626-30 North Delaware Avenue.
The vote in this matter is being rescheduled to Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024, at 9.30 a.m.
We'll go to our regular list.
So, number one, MI 2022-004-553-9855-89 Busselton Avenue.
Bernard Anastasio is the attorney.
There was a meeting held by the Greater Busselton Civic Association on 425-23.
Is counsel here?
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning.
Could you please, just for the record, state your name and spell for the Quartz Linography?
Vern Anastasio, A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O, on behalf of Gregory Kloos.
All right.
Do you swear to Vern to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Thank you.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
Thank you, counsel.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, we're here for 9859 Busselton Avenue.
And the application is for an event space.
The property is located in Northeast Philadelphia Shopping Mall, Plaza, across the street from President and Morrell Streets in the Presidential Plaza Shopping Center.
The reason why we have to come to the board, even though it's zoned perfectly, is that there is an overlay that requires us to go before the board for this particular use.
And that's why we're here today.
The property in question, as I said, is there couldn't be a better place to put an event space because it's completely removed from residential area.
uh it's in a as i said a strip mall uh and this is the interior layout my client actually signed
It's in a, as I said, a strip mall.
the lease uh and began to occupy it unaware of the overlay uh and as a result when that that was
made uh notice to him he decided to go this route and asked me to to legalize the pre-existing use
But as you can see, it's already built out. This is never used as a nightclub or for live music sort of concerts. This is for birthday parties and weddings. Here's the strip mall. Birthday parties and weddings, showers, graduations.
And in the time that the operation has been in place, there hasn't been 1-3-1-1 or 1-9-1-1 phone call.
They've been operating without incident.
And here's the additional interior layouts and photos.
As I said, my client did, in fact, meet with the RCO.
And here's proof of mailing.
there's the proof of mailing and there's the proof of posting and we have the lease that
shows that uh the my client's term ends in 2026 so if if this board uh is inclined to grant
this variance uh based on the pure fact that the man saw that saw the zoning classification
signed a lease, has been paying rent, has been operating thinking that it was compliant,
only to find out that the existence of a relatively small overlay prevents the use
without getting this relief. Perhaps, if not a full variance, then at least one that would
sunset with the termination of his lease in 2026. So with that, I'm going to ask my client,
Gregory Kloos to raise his virtual hand.
I've been about to speak.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Gregory Kloos.
Hi, could you please spell your name for the court stenographer?
Gregory, G-R-E-G-O-R-Y, Kloos, C-L-E-U-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Thank you. Gregory, did you hear my presentation to the board this morning?
Yes, I did.
Is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Did you review this property, sign the lease, engage in rental payments solely on the belief that this was an approved use at the time?
Okay, very well. I have nothing further.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
This is Ryan McSherry, yes.
No questions or comments, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I had a hand up, but okay, the hand's gone up. I have Jack O'Hara with the hand raised.
Okay. Good morning, Mr. O'Hara.
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, if I put it down, you can proceed.
Mr. Chair, I want to make sure that as additional provisos in the event that this is granted, my client agrees to commercial trash pickup and exterior lighting and security cameras.
planning commission thank you chair bergman and good morning david fecto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with the
city planning commission you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes sir i do please proceed thank you sir chairman and board members the comprehensive
plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from commercial area one to commercial
Area 2. Assembly and entertainment is what a reasonable person would expect to find in a
shopping center, and it matches the character of the block. The City Planning Commission recommends
that the board grant the proposed use variance for assembly and entertainment. Thank you.
Councilwoman, we're trying to, it's only going to be for the one property,
It's only going to be for the one property, so this would be 59, am I right?
so this would be 59, am I right? Did I see that?
Did I see that?
98.59?
That's correct.
So MI 2022, 004-553, 98.55 to 89 Busselton Avenue.
I vote yes.
With proviso, limited to 98.59 and commercial trash pickup.
Thank you.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Kishmur Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel. You have your votes.
Thank you, sir.
Okay, number nine, MI 2023-006-338-5178 Parkside Avenue.
Tameka McCoy is the attorney.
Recommendation of support from the Parkside Association of Philadelphia.
Vote was unanimous.
they're coming back in as a panel of that okay
good morning counsel thank you good morning good morning could you state your name please
and spell for the court stenographer yes tamika mccoy mc capital k o y right you swear or firm
to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes could you identify your client
the relationship to the property yes uh the client is both the centennial village who's represented
by troy hannigan and david lafontaine and the tenant in the property uh is darlene jones
our our vice chair has just a few questions
good morning counsel do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to
accuracy yes have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed
with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you please proceed
thank you uh the application that we're looking at is related to the property at 5178
Parkside Avenue. The proposed use is for a restaurant. It's primarily a takeout restaurant.
There were 69 affected neighbors that were mailed information relative to the application
that's being heard today. There was overwhelming consent. It was unanimously approved by the RCA
Parkside Association. The intended use for the property will cause no congestion to the public
streets or transportation system. There will be no overcrowding. It does not impede light air to
any of the adjacent properties. There's no burden regarding public facilities, including water,
sewer. There is no special exemption that will impair or injure any use for any of the adjacent
and properties. I have attached copies of the lease together with the deed, establishing
ownership of the premises. We had also affixed here the information relative to the tax clearance
for the property. The neighbors that had been notified are all affixed as well to the submissions
made to the board with all of the addresses. As I said, there was unanimous support for
the premises. Attached here is a photograph of the Star Fusion Express restaurant. That's the
frontal view. Looking to the right of the property is the Parkside Avenue area. And
important to note is that the Parkside Association, the RCO, is actually just a few doors
away from the establishment and the fact that they overwhelmingly supported this project
speaks volumes because they are directly next door to the
speaks volumes because they are directly next door to the property. This would be facing the
opposite direction. Across the street would be the entrance for Fairmont Park and the Mann Music
Center. This is a photograph showing the notice that had been posted on the front entranceway of
the premises. And we also were able to insert interior photographs of the property. What you
have here is essentially a hallway with kiosk available for patrons to be able to enter their
orders. And those orders will be then fulfilled. This is the other direction that shows the back
of the premises, the restroom area. There are the kitchen area, and this is a photograph of one of
the kiosks. Fixed is also the actual architectural plan for the property and a summary of the RCO
meeting that was conducted on march 2nd of 2024 as i said it was unanimous consent
uh from the parkside association and with this submission i'd like to um present miss darlene
jones okay miss jones
do you see darlene in the office audience
i'm sorry mr chair i do not see that person in the audience but a michael tucker has their hand
raised. Do I allow him to speak?
Thank you.
You better not to speak. Mr. Tucker,
could you state your name, please, and spell for the
court's stenographer? Michael
Tucker, M-I-C-H-A-E-L
Tucker, T-U-C-K-E-R.
Do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? I do.
Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Tucker, did you hear the information
that had been presented to the board today yes i did and do you have any um exceptions
modifications or corrections that you'd want the board to know about no it was it was stated as
fact um that was an excellent presentation uh thank you mr tucker uh is there anything else
that you'd like to advise the board of that would be helpful for them to know yes uh miss jones had
an event today and couldn't be here. I help her in a consulting capacity, and she's working very
hard and doing well, and we've done a lot of work with the attorney and with Dennis Weed to make
sure we're in compliance with everything needed and, you know, doing everything to work with the
rco in the community okay thank you very much and with that we would submit sure questions from the
board no chair questions from our attorney ryan mcshary no chair questions or comments from the
virtual audience i do not see any further hands with planning commission thank you chair bergman
and good morning, David Fecta with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the commercial mixed-use zoning at this location.
The appellant has shown that a takeout restaurant will have no detrimental impacts
beyond what might be expected.
The City Planning Commission recommends the board grant
a proposed special exception for a takeout restaurant.
Thank you.
MI 2023-006-338-5178 Parkside Avenue.
I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Counsel, could you stay on, please?
So number 17, MI 2023, 002-076-5109 North 13th Street.
Counsel, could you state your name?
You've already been sworn, just for the record.
Tameka McCoy, MC, capital K, OY.
Okay. And you have the recommendation of support from the Logan Civic Association. Could you identify your client in relationship to their property?
Sure. The owner of this property is Moore Property, who's represented by Kyle Moore.
Okay. And our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to leave the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to leave the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed them all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case?
Thank you. Please proceed.
Thank you.
And close with the package that has been submitted for the property located at 5109 North 13th Street is the petition together with the information that had been mailed out to 48 affected neighbors.
The property is zoned for a three-family apartment.
It's been zoned that way since 1962.
It's my understanding that it had been vacant for some time, and the application is to have
it go back to the three-family apartment building.
I included in the packet information relative to the neighbors that have been notified of the proposed change.
As I indicated, there are 48 affected neighbors.
All of them have been notified.
The Logan Civic Association conducted a RCO meeting and had subsequently approved the request to have the property zoned for a three-family apartment building.
Enclosed also is the tax clearance certificate.
It appears that the use from 1962 is a three-family apartment building.
there's no detrimental impact regarding the transportation system there would not be a
overcrowding um expected from the anticipated use nor would it impact the light and air quality to
any of the adjacent property or the water sewer park usage there would be no impairment um to any
other owner uh property owner that is in the area um
I'm going to go to the photographs, it's a semi-attached row, we're looking at the frontal
view, and the next photograph is looking toward the right of the building.
the next photograph depicts the left of the building
it appears to be ample off-street parking and this is a view of across the street
this is another photograph it's an oddly shaped intersection and so this is the other
location so that you could have a full understanding of the surroundings of the property.
Enclosed is also the architectural plan for the three apartment dwellings. One would be a two
bedroom apartment, the other a one bedroom and a studio. As I said, this initially was approved
by the Zoning Board in August 23, 1962.
And we're just asking to have the use properly reflected
that it could be used as the same intended use today.
The Logan Civic Association conducted a RCO meeting,
held votes, and all of the meeting attendees
supported the desired request.
With that, I would like to introduce Mr. Moore.
Good morning, Mr. Moore.
Do we say him?
Hi, good morning.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court's demographer?
Kyle Moore, K-Y-L-E-M-O-O-R-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Mr. Moore, did you hear the testimony that had been provided to the board today?
Yes, I did.
And was it accurate in its representations?
Yes, it was.
And were you to testify, would you testify in accordance with what had been provided?
I have no further questions.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
questions from our attorney ryan mccherry no mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr planning commission
thank you chairman and good morning david effecto city planning commission chairberg
thank you chairman and good morning david effecto city planning commission chair bergman and board
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential two-family zoning at this location
this zoning dates to 1975. this property has a documented history as a three unit building
dating to at least 1962. the appellant has shown the proposed legalization of a three dwelling of
three dwelling units is the minimum needed to afford relief the city planning commission
recommends the board grant the proposed use variants for three dwelling units. Thank you.
MI 2023-003-076-5109 North 13th Street, I vote yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Shemil Shahid, my vote is yes. Thank you, counsel. Thank you. Have a good day.
Number 14, MI-2023-002-232-5162 D Street.
Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
They'll be rejoining as a panelist, Mr. Chair.
Good morning. Vern, you've already been sworn. Just for the record, state your name, please.
Yep, it's Vern Anastasio on behalf of Tangela Turner.
Okay, and our vice chair has a few questions.
Counsel, do you agree to ways of reading out of refusal or stipulate towards accuracy?
Yes, sir.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits as needed to proceed with this case?
Are these in advance of this hearing?
Yes, sir.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed.
Counsel, just for a point of information, there's a letter of support from the 42nd Ward, Democratic Ward, but they're looking for a two-year, they're looking for a proviso for a two-year temporary variance.
Yeah, I wasn't on, we don't know where that came from.
Okay, sorry. I just want to mention that.
Yeah, we don't know. I mean, there was overwhelming support for the project. We never discussed, and nor was it ever brought up by the members that voted for a temporary, and given the nature of this particular business and where it is, we don't necessarily know what benefit it is.
But nevertheless, our application is for grocery store, consumer goods, retail sale in the property that has a history of commercial use.
Pull out here for you so you can see the interior layout that's drawn to scale.
You have the store area, you've got the customer area here, you've got a large ADA compliant
restroom, there's additional plans, and here is the space.
you can see it's been used for commercial use for quite some time. It's got ADA ramp,
fully accessible. Here's the interior right, as you can see. There's the public meeting
notice and proof of mailing. This was done by former counsel. And then we have the proof
of posting our deed and the tax compliance. I'm going to move all of this into evidence.
Mr. Chair, because of the long history of commercial use on this property, because
of the nearly unanimous vote to grant the variants. With never a mention of sunset provision,
we ask that the variants be granted with the proviso of commercial trash pickup and exterior
lighting and cameras for safety. And with that, I ask Tangela Turner to raise her virtual hand.
they've been allowed to speak good morning could you state your name please spell for the court
stenographer hello my name is tangela turner tangela t-a-n-g-e-l-a turner t-u-r-n-e-r
you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes please proceed counsel thank you mr chair miss turner did you hear my presentation to the board
presentation to the board yes it's true and accurate to the best of your knowledge
so true and accurate
to the best of your knowledge
yes and do you adopt it as your own testimony yes were you present at the rco meeting uh that
resulted in the letter of support yes uh at any time during that meeting was it brought up and or
agreed upon or even discussed a sunset provision to this variance no thank you i have nothing further
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Ryan McSherry?
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not see any further answer, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good morning, David Vecta.
With the City Planning Commission, Chairman and Board members,
the comprehensive plan recommends no change in the residential single-family zoning at this
location. This property has a documented history of use as a three-unit dwelling
since at least 1960. The comprehensive plan recommends concentrating commercial uses in
existing commercial corridors and away from residential areas, and the appellant has not
shown any economic detriment would accrue if they were not granted the use variance for commercial
use so the city planning commission recommends the board grant the proposed use variants for
two dwelling units but deny the proposed variances for food beverages and consumer goods and multiple
principal uses on the lot mr chair there are no viable safe uh drug-free commercial corridors
anywhere near d street this is why the neighbors want it so badly at this location someplace where
they can go, where they don't have to climb over folks who are having difficult times
on the sidewalks than nearby.
So with that, I rest.
MI 2023-002-232-5162 D Street, I vote yes with proviso commercial trash pickup.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell.
My vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheen, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you, counsel.
Number 16, MI 2023-006342, 2026 South 3rd Street.
Joseph Consul is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition from Penn Sports Civic Association,
a letter of non-opposition from council member's school.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Consul. Could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, it's Joseph Consul. That's J-O-S-E-P-H. Last name's Consul, C-O-N-S-O-L-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
Yeah, my client is Jason Kluska. He's the owner of the LLC that owns the building as of November,
which is sb524133 llc our vice chair has a few questions sir good morning council do you agree
to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy i do have you emailed in all the
required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this hearing i have thank you please proceed and share your screen okay
All right. That should be in my packet. This property has, as far back as I can see in the zoning records, been a cafe, bar, or restaurant along the first floor and residential along the top floor.
That's going back as far as 1950. The most recent iteration of this was Cookies Bar. Cookies Bar is no longer there. This is a photo showing this is the photo that the city has in their records showing the for sale sign.
The property was sold in November of 2023. The new owner has been working towards rehabilitating the property and making it into a what's going to be a nicer sort of cafe that serves breakfast and lunch and early dinner.
their intent is to close around 8 p.m. This photo gives you an idea of where they're at in the
demolition or not the demolition process the rehabilitation process you can see in Atlas
they have approved permits for the work that they're doing and their goal as I mentioned is
And their goal, as I mentioned, is to rehabilitate both the living space as well as the restaurant and make it into a nice spot for the neighborhood to eat and for a family to live.
to rehabilitate both the
We have a refusal because it's RSA 5 sit-down restaurant is expressly prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district.
So we need an approval to continue using the property as it, as far as we can tell, has always been used.
That's another photo shown in the poster.
We submitted building plans that are part of the city's records in terms of the rehabilitation work that's being performed.
You can see the top floor is two bedrooms.
That's the unit.
sorry there's the unit second floor and the first floor is the restaurant space
the atlas zoning history here's something from 1987 that clearly shows a bar and an apartment
going back into the 50s there's items that mention you know fixing the front steps and
this and that and it appears to be for a cafe but this is the first instance where you can
see in the record that it was approved for a bar and a department.
We included the deed, showing it going to SB 5-2.
Here's the mailers from the RCO and the tax balance showing money only due for 2024.
My client is working to get the clearance certificate, but he's paid up, I think, because
he just bought it in November.
He's having some issues getting the certificate, but we're working on it and we will have
that um past that as the board mentioned we um have a letter of non-opposition from both the rco
and the zba i mean and um and councilman squilla pardon me and we're hoping that the board
sees fit to approve this variance request with that i'll call my client jason klosko
they've been enough to speak hello morning sir good morning could you please state your name
and spell for the court stenographer hi good morning sir my name is jason klauska j-a-s-o-n
k-l-u-s-k-a do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes sir please proceed counsel good morning mr klauska did you hear my presentation just now
about your property at 2026 South 3rd?
Good morning.
Yes, I did.
Do you adopt it as your own?
Yes, I do.
All right.
Nothing further.
Mr. Consul, you say the taxes are paid?
Yeah, Mr. Consul, could you speak to that?
I see you're paid up a balance for 2024,
but that's not late yet, just showing up on the thing.
I don't know if you have anything to add, Jason,
but okay questions questions from the board no mr chairman no chair no chair
questions or comments from our attorney ryan mcshary no chair questions or comments from
the virtual audience i do not see any further hands mr chair planning commission thank you
Chair Bergman, and good morning, David Fecto, City Planning Commission. Chairman and board
members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning
at this location. This property has a documented history as apartments with a ground floor bar.
The building could not easily be converted into a single-family dwelling. The City Planning
Commission recommends the board grant their proposed use variants for a sit-down restaurant.
Thank you. MI 2023-006-342-2026 South 3rd Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you.
Number 18, MI 2023-006-341-1300 Warfield Street, Vernon Anastasio is the attorney.
letter of support from the Grace Ferry Community Council.
They're coming back in as a panelist.
Could you just state your name for the record for this case, please?
You've already been sworn.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board,
verne anastasio uh representing mr mahari gabriel salis our vice
Uh, representing Mr. Mahari, the Gabriel Seles.
Our vice chair has just a few questions. Thank you.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to wait the reading of the refusal or stipulate to the accuracy?
Yes, sir.
I've emailed them all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case.
Five days in advance of this hearing.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed.
Thank you.
uh mr chair members of the board 1300 warfield uh is for uh an addition
second story addition uh to an existing structure the size and location is shown
on the plans and this is what we're working with it's already a one-story dwell one-story property
that takes up a very unusual lot right here on Warfield.
The building itself is 100% covering the lot already.
Right there is, as you can see, it's an old.
Last was a Ruth's Express Cafe, and it took up the entire parcel.
That's the rear.
There's just some small outdoor space in the back.
that will be used for trash but the lot itself is overwhelmingly built out to the point where
in order to do this we need to get a variance because of open area
the minimum rear yard is nine feet and we have really none that's provided that back space is
not actually part of the rear yard. And then because of the dimensions and the way the property
is set, and then the occupied area, of course, we're not going to meet that as well. So because
it's pre-existing non-conforming dimensional use, and because the neighbors overwhelmingly support
the reuse of the property as a cafe and a restaurant, we respectfully request the granting
of this variant. And with that, we'd like to have Mr. Mahari Ghebrellasaliz, please raise his virtual hand.
I've been allowed to speak. Good morning, sir. Could you please state your name
and spell for the court stenographer? Yes, my name is Mahari Ghebrellasaliz,
and M-E-H-A-R-I, last name is G-E-B-R-E-S-E-L-A-S-S-I-E.
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Do you swear or affirm the tall truth, tall truth?
Nothing but the truth.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gabriela Lasse, did you hear my presentation to the board today?
Is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Do you adopt it as your own testimony?
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the Board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not see any further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good morning.
David Fecto with the City Planning Commission. Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the commercial mixed-use zoning at this location. The appellant seeks
relief for not providing a rear yard and for providing an open area of only 10%, while 20%
is required. Both dimensional variances result from an existing site condition and have not been
created by the owner. The appellant has shown an economic detriment would occur if forced to
comply with the dimensional requirements of the zoning district the city planning commission
recommends the board grant or post dimensional variances for rear yard depth and occupied area
thank you mi 2023 006 341 1300 warfield street i vote yes thomas thalman my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you all.
Thank you, thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience who their case starting at 930 has not been called?
There are no hands raised, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, everyone.
See everyone at 2 p.m.
All right.
Thank you, Chair.
You too.
Great job, everyone.
Great job, everyone.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman.
I will be chairing this afternoon ZBA hearing.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Member, Thomas Holloman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our Board Member, James Snell.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Ryan McSherry, our attorney, and our executive director, Tanya Sunkett.
Here's a virtual format.
Be advised the proceedings are being recorded.
A video will be available by contacting tanyasunkett at phil.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question and answer box on the screen is now for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett.
Let's look at our schedule for this afternoon.
Number five, MI 2024-000162-4346-48 Grissom Street. That case is continued.
Number nine, MI 2024-00314-9745R, East Roosevelt Boulevard, this case has been continued.
Are there any other requests for continuance?
Chair, we have Vern Anastasio.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Vern.
You've already been sworn.
What case are you looking at?
I hopped on maybe a little late, but I just want to make sure that you had heard my request for 6930 Ardley Street.
what number is that
oh i see okay okay uh i have to listen yes okay we'll continue that thank you
thank you i appreciate it mi2023 002 750 6930 ardley street that case is continued
thank you any other requests any other requests for continuances
no handshare okay thank you and number two mi 2023-003-244-5558
crowson street this is the third listing we have no exhibits
um delicit owners andrew yes jason yeah i'm sorry to interrupt you sir
mr richardson has his hand mr richardson has their hand raised okay sure
good afternoon chair all right sir mr richardson you already been sworn what case are you interested
it in? The one that you're speaking of now. Go ahead.
Croson Street. Unfortunately, they've been unable to meet
with the RCO. And there have been some snafus that
have taken place. So I thought Mr. Menlo was going to be coming on
to request a continuance. I don't know that he knew that he needed to
necessarily do that. But I'm making a request for a continuance for them so they
can meet with the RCO. All right. Thank you. So
So MI 2023-003-244-5558, Crosstown Street, that case is continued.
Thank you.
Okay, we're going to go to our add-on.
Number one, MI 2024-000149-2350 East Albert Street.
The vote in this matter is being rescheduled to Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024 at 2 p.m.
Number two is a re-vote from last week, MI 2024-00328-6109.
MI 2024-00328-6109 Market Street.
I vote yes for a temporary variance that expires 327-27.
Mr. Snell, could you certify this, that you saw this video?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
There you go.
I was trying to get on the video screen.
Yes, for this case, I certify that I watched a video and am able to vote on this case.
Could you vote, sir?
My vote is...
I apologize to interrupt.
I just want to confirm it's...
You're certifying that you watched the video of the October 25th, 2023 hearing in this matter?
That is correct.
Just for the record.
Thank you.
And my vote is yes.
With proviso?
With proviso.
Right.
Mr. Holloman?
Thomas Holloway, my vote is no.
Thank you.
Ishmael?
Ishmael Shaheen, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Okay, we're going to go to our regular list now.
Number one, MI 2024-000257, 2401 Aramingo Avenue.
Leonard Altieri is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition from Old Richmond Civic Association, a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squillard.
They're coming back in as a panelist, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
How are you, Mr. Chairman?
Hi, how are you? Good. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
My name is Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D, Altieri, A-L-T-I-E-R-I, and I am with the law firm of Claire Harrison.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Chairman.
Could you identify your client and relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is P.N. Restaurants, and they are the tenant at 2401 Aramingo Avenue.
Okay, and our vice chair has just a few questions for you.
good afternoon counsel do you agree to wait to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy
i do have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to
proceed with this case spot needs in advance of this hearing i have thank you please proceed
thank you very much uh again for the record my name is leonard out here with the law firm of
claire harrison representing pn restaurants who are the tenants at 2401 aramengo avenue
We're here for a very simple matter before the zoning hearing board, specifically a special exception to allow eating and drinking establishments and a takeout restaurant in the zoning districts.
24-0-1 Aramingo Avenue is located in the Fishtown Crossing Shopping Center.
This is an aerial just to orient the board.
The property is zoned CA2 auto-oriented commercial too.
It's also located in the NCA North Delaware Avenue Overlay District.
My client is a Popeye's restaurant that is proposing to construct itself on this existing pad site, which is shown right here.
A 2,447 square foot restaurant with a drive-thru.
As I noted earlier, eating and drinking establishments, takeout restaurants require special exception approval in the NCA North Delaware Avenue Overlay District.
Now, what's interesting about this property, and this is where it's going to be right here again, here it is again in this pad site.
The board, this is just the schematics of the proposal and again, some renderings.
The reason why I say this is an easy case for the zoning hearing board is that the property owner previously received zoning approval for the same use in 2018 for matters that were outside of the client's control.
they never moved forward with construction of the Popeyes. So essentially, the relief has already
been granted once before, and then it expired. And so we went through the process, again,
because of the expiration of those permits. As was noted by the chairman, we did meet with the
old Richmond Civic Association on February 27, 2024. There were no members of the community who
attended the meeting. No one who was in the affected area attended. And so the RCO has
provided a letter of non-opposition.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I have no further
comments
for the board.
I do have, again, the notice
letter and then also the
postings, which have all
been admitted and accepted.
I do have the Director of
Construction for PN Restaurants, Ed Bash,
as well as Jeremy Danley,
who's from Albert Tross, if you want to call Ed on
to promote him as a panelist, sir.
Ed, if you can just raise your hand.
and if you can just raise your hand
They've been allowed to speak.
Thank you.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Certainly.
It's Ed Baksch, B-A-K-S-H.
Great.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
one. Ed, were you on the call when I went through the presentation? Yes. Okay. And did you hear
everything that I stated on the call? I did. And is everything true and accurate to the best of
your knowledge, information, and belief? Yes, it is. And you were authorized to speak on behalf of
PN Restaurants? I am. And if I was to call you to testify today, would you adopt that testimony
that I provided as your own? Yes, I would. All right. I have no further questions. Thank you.
questions from the board no mr chairman no chair no chair questions or comments from our attorney
brian mccherry no mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr chair planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
Peter, just for the record, could you spell your name for the stenographer?
My name is spelled P-E-T-E-R, B as in boy, A as in apple, R as in Roger, N as in Nancy,
A as in apple, R as in Roger, D as in dog.
Right.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do, Chair.
Please proceed.
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing ca2 commercial at this use
commercial use at this location we feel the proposal would have no more impact than
what can reasonably be expected accordingly the planning commission recommends the board
grant the variance thank you mi 2024 000 257 2401 aramingo avenue i vote yes
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Dishmiel Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Number three, MI 2023-004-915-843-North 40th Street.
Darwin Beauvais is the attorney.
There's a recommendation of support from the Mantua Civic Association
and Councilmember Gauthier has taken a position of support.
They're coming back in as a panelist, sir.
Council, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Good afternoon.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, my name is Darwin Beauvais.
I'm at 1500 Market Street, and I represent the applicant, North 40th Street LP.
I believe that, yes.
You swear a firm told truth nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the read and other refuse or stipulate it to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
yes and while i'm in the midst of pulling up my uh mr michael thorpe could raise his hand in a
virtual ordinance audience so he may be called on later okay so mr chairman members of the board
We're pleased to put before you what's going to be the final parcel on a comprehensive low-income tax credit plan that's approved by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, and as well as, as you stated before, the local council person.
We have submitted Exhibits 1 through 16, which includes our refusal, as well as our deeds, plans, letters of support, and photos.
I would like to start someone on Orthodox to.
Someone unorthodox to give the board an inkling of where we are.
Can we see this Google image?
No, we're still looking at your first page.
Okay, let me just probably reshare because I think it's the essence of our
okay we can't see it now we do see it okay so
the point where the trees are
Darwin, you're breaking it. Darwin, you're really breaking it up a lot. It's hard to hear you.
Let me see. Does this work?
That's a little bit better. Yeah.
okay the this is the essence of our refusal we have we are abutting this lot and this lot
sets back 22 feet we are proposing to set back only six and and less just under six and a half
feet let me just show the rendering if I can stop sharing and go back to the presentation
Thank you.
Okay, here's a rendering of what we are proposing.
The structure that I showed you earlier, sitting back 22 feet, and we're looking to build a
three-story, three-unit residential structure, an RM1 residential district.
Our position is that, and we're hoping that the Board accepts this, is that we're looking
to set back only just under six and a half feet to align ourselves with other approved parcels
that was part of our package to receive the low income tax credits. To align ourselves with this
structure, which was a commercial structure that is 22 feet, we think that would take away
from the livability as well as the nature and intention of having residential units.
If I can show you our site plan.
So if I can zoom in, this should give you a better sense.
So here's 40th Street along the left of your screen.
Here is what we're proposing, and here is the structure.
The structure is completely, is set back almost half the length of the building.
If we were to set back to the most western part of this building,
we would still lose so much livable space.
Now, just to show the board what our intentions are, here are our floor plans.
We can start here.
We are looking to build a three-story, three-unit structure, all one-bedrooms.
Each structure will be a little bit over 750 square feet.
This, again, it's an affordable housing project that's being spearheaded by one of the local CDCs, Mount Vernon CDCs.
Now, as a result, we are, if we can just go to the refusal.
step back
as I described
to you
earlier
and as a result
therefore
and our
you're breaking up
hi Darwin this is Tanya
would it be okay to turn your video off
maybe that might help
alright
I'll do that
so are you
I'm sorry
your video not the
presentation
are you
are high all compliant with an rm1 zoning classification and result when we present
this to the community the community accepted our use and supports the project and as a result
the councilwoman also supports the project um given the technicalities i just want to call up
Mr. Michael Thorpe
at this time.
Mr. Thorpe?
Mr. Chair, I do not see
him in the audience, in the virtual
audience. Anybody with their hand
up at all?
No, sir. No hands raised.
Darwin, I think we understand what the issue is here and what you're trying to do. So you're an officer of the court. We'll accept your testimony. Questions from the board?
No, Chair. No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Ryan McShurry?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
again no answer planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing rm1 multi-family residential at this
location we feel the applicant hasn't demonstrated dimensional hardship and that the commercial
parking lot is not an appropriate uh setback for establishing the required setback at this location
accordingly the planning commission recommends the board grant the variance thank you so mi2023
004 915 843 north 40 street i vote yes thomas holliman my boot is yes james snell my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel
Thank you, Mr. Chairman
Take care, everyone
Okay, number four
MI2023
006-621
1919 North Oriana Street
Alan Nockamson is the attorney
There's a letter of support
from the Nara Square
Community Alliance
and the applicant provided three form letters
from the 1900 block of North Oriana
they're coming back in as a panelist okay it's a chair
good afternoon mr chair members of the board alan knockamson a-l-a-n last name knockamson
n-o-c-h-u-m-s-o-n do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client their relationship to the property
Yeah, my client is Ibika Singh, the owner of the property, and she should be in the virtual audience.
And our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the written of a refusal or stipulate towards accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Oh, yes, we have.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share the screen.
Alan, did you have the proof of tax compliance?
Yeah, you know, I realized after the fact that I forgot to put it in there, so I updated it, and I just sent it.
All right, thank you. Appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Please proceed.
I was like, come on.
This is not our first time at the rodeo here.
All right, so I'm here to present – I don't know why I can't go full screen mode, but that's so big – 1919 North Ariana Street.
so from the outset my client's not a developer she owns the property next
So, from the outset, my client's not a developer.
She owns the property next door in 1921.
She lives there.
And she, you know, for safety purposes and just honestly for convenience, she owns 1919 North Ariana, and she wants to use it as non-accessory parking.
And so, we'll go through our presentation packet.
There you go.
Where we'll review the notice of refusal.
And, you know, we're here just because of this non-accessory use.
on an RM1 property, which is undersized at 605 square feet of lot size. We'll then review the
letter of support from the Norris Square Community Alliance, where there was overwhelming support
within the community meeting. My client also got letters of support from the nearby neighbor,
the one that's next to where this non-accessory parking would be, and the person most directly
impacted, where they're in support of this project. Again, she's a neighbor, my client's a neighbor.
you know she's lived there a few years and she just wants this non-accessory parking and we have
a few letters to support from people across the street then we have maps of the area you know we
have a zoning map but i don't think it matters here we're not trying to change the density of
the property in any way we just want to show you that this is an arm one property that's undersized
to 605 square feet and we are in the north square section of philadelphia aerial view of the
property you'll see just in the aerial view it's hard to see but other people are using their lots
as off-street parking not legally we're trying to do it legally and we're parking on the sidewalk
not legally and we're trying to do this legally photographs of the property in the surrounding
area our plans are drawing very simple like we're just showing you like there's a good turning
radius every you know we comply in all respects uh with regards to uh parking regulations um our
RCO meeting notice. Again, a pretty well-attended meeting. Again,
overwhelming support. Our application for appeal that we filed
on Ms. Singh's behalf. Her deed to the property, and most
importantly, the certificate of tax clearance. And then at the conclusion of my
presentation, I would ask that Ms. Singh virtually raise her hand
and be sworn in, and now I'll have a few questions for her.
Notice of refusal. Again, this is an RM1 property. We're trying to
have uh non-accessory parking uh two parking spaces with a roll-up gate um and we're here
you know for that particular purpose because this is a residential property uh letter of support
uh from the north square community alliance as you can see support um you know for this project
uh you know again we had overwhelming support there and then you know more importantly the
people who are most directly impacted by this use are in full support of this use of the
property. 1917, North Ariana. 1914, North Ariana. 1916, North Ariana. And then maps
to the area, again, you know, we always try to give the board an idea of where we are
in the neighborhood and what zoning classifications we're dealing with. And again, you know, we're
between Berks and Norris, and, you know, we're on Oriana, which is between 3rd and 4th Streets
North. And then just aerial view of the property, and you can see here that there are cars parked
on different lots here, not legally, I suspect, but it's not out of character to have such off-street
parking. We're trying to do it legally. And then photographs of the property, my client kind of
jumped the gun. She found out that she couldn't just put a roll-up gate there, but there was no
ill intentions here. And once she realized what she needed to do, you know, she hired Harman
Deutsch, a well-known architecture firm in town. And then, you know, we're here to assist in this
endeavor as well. But again, this is 1917. They're not against this project. And then, you know,
this is just the only picture my client gave me was a picture of her dogs, like running around
in this area but this is used for par and then just again the orange notice poster so everyone
knows what's going on here and then here are pictures so left and right on north ariana
and then our plans and drawings again very straightforward uh you know and by the way i made
a misstatement here uh 1917 is to the right of 1919. i did the inverse facts so um but we just
roll up into this parking spot or
hopefully parking spot or parking spots. There's two of them.
What we're trying to do is what many people do in this
neighborhood, unfortunately, illegally. We met on March
13th at 6 p.m. This is proof that we emailed that notice a few
weeks beforehand and showed proof of mailing to
121 addresses. These are the addresses we actually physically
these are the addresses we actually physically mailed it to and then the proof of mailing to
mailed it to and then the proof of mailing to those after
those addresses our application for appeal on missing's behalf
her deed to the property and the certificate of tax clearance as you can see i think this is the
last time i'm going to be able to say it for at least this tax year but you know technically taxes
are due. Well, they've chosen a rare age of 1280.82, but technically they're not due until
April 1st. So, you know, we're cleared from a tax perspective. Ms. Singh, can you virtually
raise your hands? Is there parking on that block, counsel? Yes, that's what I'm saying. Yes, there
are other people who park on that block. That was their point. In the street, they can park,
what I'm saying, are they parking in the street there? Can you park in the street? Or is that
yeah it's a small orion is between third and fourth streets so it's a it's a it's not that
it's not a street that you know people would pocket of course all right good thank you you're
welcome yeah they've been allowed to speak i could you please state your name and spell for
the court stenographer hello my name is ambika sang it's spelled a m b i k a s i n g h right
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
I guess, Ms. Singh, you heard everything I had to state to that.
And is it true and correct?
And do you adopt this as your own testimony?
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I just wanted to confirm.
I did look at the pictures when just confirmed what I stated was correct.
There is no parking.
That's true.
That's right.
Okay, thank you.
questions from the board no mr chairman questions or comments from our attorney
ryan mcsherey no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i don't see any further hands mr chair hi planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing rm1 multi-family residential
at this location we feel the applicant has failed to demonstrate a hardship that would prevent the
property from being used in conformance with the code accordingly the planning commission recommends
the board deny the variance thank you mi2023 006621 1919 north oriana street i vote yes
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel
Number six, MI 2023
005047, 209 West Chestnut Hill Avenue
Adam Laver is the attorney for the owner
David Feynman is also, should be
will swear David Feynman into. He represents
Protestants. There's a letter of support
from the Chestnut Hill Community Association with a
proviso. There's a letter of support from the Chestnut Hill
Business District. The applicant provided 10 letters of
support from neighbors, along with four form letters of
non-opposition. Chestnut Hill Landmarks
provided a petition and letters in opposition.
Mr. Laver, could you state your name
and spell it for the court stenographer?
Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman and members of the board.
Adam Laver, L.A. V.S. and Victor, E.R., Blank Rome, 1 Logan Square.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.
Could you identify your client, a relationship to this property?
Certainly.
Blank Rome represents Greylock Development Partners, LP,
the owner of 209 West Chestnut Hill Avenue, the subject property. With us today is its managing
member, Lavi Schenkman. Okay. Our vice chair has just a few questions. Thank you. Good afternoon,
counsel. Do you agree to leave the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Good afternoon, Mr. Vice Chairman. Yes, I do. Thank you. I'll have you emailed them all the
required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this hearing yes mr shahid we have thank you council please proceed and share your screen
but mr fineman could mr fineman come identify himself please yeah s david fineman um 100
north 18th street philadelphia pa with law firm arroyer cooper cohen and braunfeld
We represent a series of Protestants, including the Krefeld School, which is located within 15 feet.
including the Krefeld School, which is located within 15 feet of the property.
Okay. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. Leiber.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
As stated, Blank Room represents the owner of the subject property.
It's managing member Lavi Schenkman, L-A-V-I Schenkman, S-H-E-N-K-M-A-N.
is with us virtually today as well. Levy and his Philadelphia-based boutique real estate company
Rhombus Properties have appeared before this board several times over the years.
I'd like to screen share for a moment. On the screen before you is the Corn Exchange National
bank building, which is not the subject of this hearing, but it is one of Levy's properties
located at the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets. It's the headquarters of Rhombus
properties. And the stewardship of this historical gem is but one testament to the ownership's
commitment to successful adaptive reuse of Philadelphia's historic treasures.
In addition to Levy, the owner, Matthew Millan of Millan Architects joins us virtually as well.
The proposal before the board, Mr. Chairman and members, while relatively modest in terms of the variance relief requested, has sparked strong emotions throughout the Chestnut Hill community in which the subject property is located.
On the screen, you can see an archival image of the Greylock Estate, the property in question.
It is an approximately 18,000-square-foot, 22-room mansion.
It was built in 1901 for Henry Laughlin, a steel magnet.
Here you can see some photographs as the property exists today.
The original main entrance to the Grand Estate was via a driveway from Creffield Street, which passed through a gate lodge at 8838 Creffield Street, which is now part of the neighboring Creffield School, one of Mr. Feynman's clients.
The Greylock facade, which is seen from Chestnut Hill Avenue, is actually the mansion's original rear facade.
So you would come into this Grand Estate from a different entrance.
Here, you can see an aerial image outlined in red of the existing conditions.
Where my cursor is located is the Grand Mansion.
I'll refer to this property as the mansion, as most of the neighbors do.
And over here on the side is the carriage house, originally an accessory structure.
And then you have the Creffield School Beyond, a bit of which was part of the original estate.
So the only public right-of-way today is Chestnut Hill Avenue, this wide thoroughfare here.
That's quite significant, and it will be quite relevant as we move forward with the review.
I've honed in a touch more with that aerial so you can get a sense of the grand expanse at the front of the property.
Both the mansion and the carriage house existing structures are set back approximately 485 feet from Chestnut Hill Avenue.
No new structures are proposed within this incredibly deep expanse, which is slated for a landscaped meadow.
And this entire property itself is approximately six and a half acres.
Outlined in blue or purple, if you will, is the subject property that we were just looking at through the aerial image.
It is located within an RSD1 residential single-family detached zoning district, which is the same as all of the beige zoning that surrounds the property.
Although it's zoned RSD-1, promoting single family, this wonderful grand estate has not been used as a private residence since the Second World War.
The Greylock Estate was actually once even larger, originally comprising a portion of the next-door property that's now the LEET Prefield School,
which is a non-conforming private college preparatory school located next door,
located next door, also in the RSD1 single-family residential zoning district.
also in the RST1 single-family residential.
Krefeld School opposes our request for variance relief,
although the school itself, as public records will attest, has pursued and obtained several
zoning board of adjustment variances over the years right next door. Since its last residential
use some 75 years ago at Greylock, a series of different owners and different institutional
and commercial uses have been present at the property. And it's taken a toll on these historic
structures. Levy, the current owner, acquired the estate in late 2022. The Chestnut Hill community
in which Greylock is located is arguably among the most exclusive, privileged, beautiful areas
in the city of Philadelphia, replete with grand private estates, family lineages that date back
to the 1700s and the 1800s. Among some, however, change of any type is not welcome,
nor are differing opinions, unfortunately. The proposed adaptive reuse and redevelopment of
the site has elicited passionate opinions throughout the community. And over the past
five months or so of dialogue and discussion, it has become evident that it's impossible to satisfy
every voice, every individual sometimes competing wish lists. I'd like to briefly review, Mr.
Chairman and members of the board, the significant community engagement process that has taken place
in this matter. The coordinating RCO, Chestnut Hill Community Association, CHCA, has devoted
countless volunteer hours to creating a forum for all voices to be heard. As the board knows,
CHCA's zoning review is among the most detail-oriented throughout the city, to their
credit. The zoning application that is before you was filed nine months ago in May of 2023.
Council Member Bass designated CHCA as coordinating RCO.
And accordingly, we engaged with CHCA in the greater community in several meetings since that time.
But in addition to meetings with CHCA leadership and six public meetings with CHCA over the course of several months, there have been other meetings, particularly near neighbors.
LaVie has made himself completely available to those who are willing and interested in engaging.
LaVie agreed to continue the previously scheduled December 2023 ZBA hearing in this matter
to allow additional discussions to go forth, not to mention site tours. Many people in the
community have been welcomed onto the site to look at it, to better understand it.
During the course of this very intense involved process, development plans were refined, several
refusals were eliminated, I'll go into that specifically, and that led to the coordinating
RCO support which you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, at the start of this year.
In advancing this current proposal, Greylock Development Partners submits that there is
absolute historical value, community value, to this significant estate that's worth preserving.
That the proposed adaptive reuse and redevelopment respects the surrounding area and meets the spirit
and intent of the zoning code in the plans presented. And that the record shows that over
the decades there have been many proposals for the site, all of which have failed to come to
fruition, this plan is viable. This plan is believed in by the coordinating RCO and by,
as you'll hear, the most directly impacted near residential neighbor.
Turning to the specifics of the proposal before you, Chestnut Hill local Matt Millan, the
architect of record, has designed a plan that would preserve the existing mansion and carriage
house while providing much needed additional residential housing in chestnut hill as well as
lush landscaping throughout the extensive open grounds via acclaimed viridian landscape studio
part of the design team and you see their name on the plans as well
on the screen before you is the existing site plan existing conditions which will look familiar
from the aerials that I showed.
You see the Chestnut Hill Avenue to the right.
You see the Chestnut Hill Avenue to the right.
You see the
You see the expansive front lawn, which is nothing to look at right now, but the plans are incredible for it.
You can see the mansion, the original mansion in the center, and the carriage house, the driveway, etc.
The mansion is three stories.
The carriage house is two stories.
The site itself is protected by conservation easements, which have caused arguably the greatest amount of consternation among certain neighbors.
However, we recognize that these agreements are private and require appropriate review through private means, through judicial review, not through the zoning board.
For purposes of zoning, what is relevant is that conservation easements, by their very nature,
restrict potential developability of the site. I'd like to move to the proposed development,
and on the screen before you is a plan that has been shared in public meetings with the community.
It is the plan that was reviewed by CHCA's board most recently, resulting in a position of support.
It is a plan that also has gone through PCPC review very recently, thanks to Matt Millan for making that happen, and has the prerequisite PCPC stamps on them.
What you see in this plan is that the proposed total residential density is 15 homes.
You will see, and I'll go into greater detail, that the plan calls for restoration of the grand public-facing lawn, a 435-foot-deep meadow, that the mansion structure is proposed upon revision to be adaptively reused for six residential dwelling units,
that the carriage house structure is proposed to be rehabilitated into two residential dwelling
units. All proposed new construction beyond the restoration of these two structures
is at the far rear of the property. You can see it in the dark structures at the back
calling for two sets of twins each two stories where my cursor is showing
A1 and A2 for a total of four residential dwelling units, a triplex here in the corner
being three residential units, and the combination of accessory surface and tucked in garage
parking being the smaller structures for a total of 40 spaces.
I'm moving now to elevations. For purposes of full transparency and comparison,
we have here mansion elevations. However, there are no changes to those structures in terms of
height bulk area. But for context, the height of the mansion is 44 feet 2 inches,
and it will remain the focal point for the entire property.
Similarly, with the carriage house, no change is proposed to that smaller structure.
The proposed triplexes, new construction, are shown before you.
In keeping with their lesser role on the estate, in keeping with respect for the historic structures and the nature of the estate,
they are proposed at two stories plus an attic showing at 33 feet 4 inches tall
with the proposed twins and you'll recall there are two sets of twins those are proposed at two
stories plus an attic 30 feet tall there are no height issues at all none have been raised
by L&I or others. On this screen, you can see that the site plan calls for an in-ground swimming
pool, and we wanted to show that it's been carefully designed to recede into the landscape.
Earlier iterations of the plan called for a pool house structure, and following discussions with
community members uh local architects who are community members and others that has been removed
to be as uh as invisible as possible to blend into the landscape uh to not be seen in any
discernible way from the public right-of-way i'd like to move to the proposed floor plans
I'd like to move to the proposed floor plans.
This shows the mansion floor plan.
This shows the mansion floor plans and the adaptive reuse of the grand mansion, calling for six gracious residences within the mansion itself.
I've looked at this and I've thought they're gracious by today's standards.
They're not gracious by gilded age standards.
And that's because times and lifestyles have changed and needs have changed.
That's part of the problem, right, with the 22,000 square foot structure, which just has sat vacant for all these years or hasn't been able to work in the residential context.
So in this instance, Matt has designed a very gracious by 2024 standards.
The carriage house, also an existing structure, calls for two units.
And you can see the proposed plans as well in these instances, which respect the property
and allow it to carry forward in the 21st century.
and the twins similarly each of them with two car garages at the back of the property
as shown previously
the triplex is the last new structure showing floor plans as well and please recall and I'll
show it to you again that there is far in excess of one-to-one parking there is
ample parking throughout the entire estate proposed. I'd like to move into some conceptual
renderings, which I think are very much the heart of the sensitivity with which Milan Architects has
approached this site. In these first two conceptual renderings, the viewer is positioned along
chestnut hill avenue at the public right of way at the driveway into the estate and matt has
looked at this with full plantings and without plantings due to seasonal variations because we
understand that uh weather will and season will change views so this gives you planted and
unplanted looking preserving the view of that grand mansion which is so important within the
community. Here you can see some additional renderings as well from the public right away
from moving into the driveway with and without the plantings just acknowledging that winter weather
will look different than spring, for example.
At the rear of the property is a walking trail
known as the Lavender Trail, part of the Wissahickon.
And these photographs are taken from that trail
looking towards the site, looking towards Greylock.
It's not a public right-of-way.
That would be on the city plan.
That would be under streets department authority, but the development team, the design team has been very sensitive and aware of community interests from within the Lavender Trail, even though the trail itself is set back at considerable distance from the subject property.
But this gives you a few instances of photographs looking in.
In this particular property, you can see a touch of the structure of the existing subject property there at the very back.
And these conceptual renderings give the viewer a sense of the proposed new construction, the proposed existing construction, and what views might look like from the trail if plantings varied, etc.
et cetera. I'd like to go through a series of additional views from other vantage points
from the trail and conceptual renderings, and I'll go through them relatively quickly
to give the board a sense of vantage points. Matt Milan has worked very hard always to
preserve a sense looking into the estate, which is really a community treasure, even though it's
private property. And then we're looking from within the driveway just to get a sense of the
the driveway, just to get a sense of the proposed new construction and how it respects the materials and the grandeur of the existing structures.
Moving to landscaping, which is a very important part of the proposed reuse, if you will,
of the Greylock Estate.
On the screen before you, you can see existing conditions.
It's overgrown.
it's in need of some TLC if you will. A proposed landscape plan has been
prepared by award-winning Viridian Landscape Studio under the direction of
Tavis Dockweiler and it takes into consideration all aspects of the site
and in particular the appropriate plantings for for this area what will
live and thrive best on these grounds.
So the images of plantings are the inspiration for the meadows and plantings that Tavis has suggested
and what we have submitted to the Philadelphia City Planning Commission for this proposal.
Ending with some notes that are important regarding controlling invasive species, removing
the trees that are no longer alive, limiting disturbance, et cetera.
I had touched upon earlier traffic impact, and I'd like to speak to the proposed density of 15 residential units here and the traffic and vehicular circulation plan into the estate.
From that driveway that we've referred to several times is the one entrance into the estate that can take all vehicles in around the circular driveway into garage spaces, into surface parking spaces.
Levy commissioned traffic planning and design, and this was shared with the community as well, to prepare an assessment study.
And this is nothing new to those who have been following the proposal through the months.
Traffic planning and design performed a full assessment study and as shown in table five on the screen before you,
the proposed development traffic is anticipated to contribute less than 1.5 percent.
You can see this in the far right column of the total traffic volume along West Chestnut Hill, resulting, as stated in this report, which we've submitted, no discernible, quote, no discernible difference in traffic operations to the public.
So, the development proposal before you has been redesigned to balance the residential
intention of the RSD1 Zoning District while balancing the challenges of the historic estate.
There are changes in topography, the impact of the conservation easements, and the public
benefit of preserving treasured historic structures all comes into play.
I'd like to address the refusals specifically for the board and note, as community members
will recall, that a corrected notice of refusal that predated the public community meetings
was issued by L&I on November 3, 2023, and that's the one that's been posted at the site
and discussed all through these presentations and engagement with community.
As I've shared and revised proviso plans have been presented to the board, as shared at the last community meeting, the overall plans have been updated.
No new refusals have been created.
Actually, there is a reduction in refusals.
The first and last refusals are related, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
being multiple principal buildings on the lot require board review, as do multifamily dwellings in the RSD1 district require board review.
The existing buildings consist of the mansion and the carriage house.
The estate was last used as a single family residence during the Second World War.
The estate was last used as a single-family residence during the Second World War.
Maintaining the carriage house as an accessory building today is simply no longer viable.
And the fact that this property has sat in the state that it has for so long speaks to that.
The minimum variance to afford relief would recognize that preserving a legacy structure and repurposing it for principal residential use,
in the case of the carriage house, meets the scope and spirit of the zoning code as a whole.
Similar applies to the mansion, of course. The RSD1 district specifically, but also to other
provisions in the zoning code that encourage adaptive reuse of historic structures. Although
this is not designated on the Philadelphia Historical Commission's list, it's been quite
clear that all who have spoken in support or opposed recognize the importance of history
in these structures. Taking an RSD-1 property from commercial, the last approved use, to
residential is in keeping with the intent of the code. The preservation and adaptive reuse of two
historic structures and a historic landscape within a residential context is of benefit to
the public. Preserving a significant private but publicly visible open space is a benefit to the
public. Furthermore, adding residents for both vitality and providing for the ongoing
responsible maintenance of the estate cannot be underestimated. We need a viable plan in place
for the future the second refusal and i've highlighted the refusals that remain after
the revision of the plan so the second refusal concerns steep slopes which is very common
throughout chestnut hill and other areas of the city the site is challenged by its topography
in very limited instances i've shown on the screen before you in um shall we call that a
peach color or a red color. In very limited instances, the slope of the land is greater
than 25% and earth moving activity has been proposed in these limited instances which require
board review for the greater purpose of revitalizing this property. These areas of
disturbance are extremely limited. Balancing the viable reuse of a challenge site with the
minimum disturbance necessary to permit benefits such as allowing for a landscaped meadow and
reasonable complementary development has been recognized by this board previously.
The proposed restoration of a landscape in decline with meadow, mature trees, and plantings
is of benefit.
And a huge improvement at this site is adding stormwater management on a parcel that is
adjacent to the Wissahickon and currently has completely uncontrolled stormwater management,
which was not even something that was discussed at the time, of course, that the property
was originally built. Going back to the refusals, the third refusal concerns tree replacement.
This has been satisfied and is stricken. It no longer is part of the plan. The fourth refusal
here is for failure originally to meet minimum rear yard dimensions. This has been satisfied
through redesign as shared with the community and is stricken. And the remaining refusal that I have
not addressed always was intended to be addressed and it has. It's been satisfied concerning
provision of on-site ADA parking this has been satisfied and is has been
stricken prior to thank you members the board for bearing with me I do hope to
wrap this up shortly I just have a little bit more to to share prior to
Thanksgiving of last year a small group began to go door-to-door in an effort to
block this project petitions and letters were signed in some cases even before
the initial presentations were made by Levy and the development and design team. The language
contained in several of the submissions appears to conflate easement and zoning issues. Furthermore,
most of these documents predate the many iterations of Evolve plans that took into consideration
as much community input as possible. This is regrettable. What is more regrettable is that
that several community members have expressed concern
about voicing their support due to backlash,
as noted by the coordinating RCO, for example,
as noted by the Coordinating RCO, for example, in recent Chestnut Hill local press.
in recent Chestnut House.
I've brought up on the screen the Coordinating RCO's letter of support,
which is very thoughtful and extensive, dated March 22nd.
It notes that there were several meetings.
It notes that committees of CHCA requested several modifications,
which resulted in changes involving reduced square footage of new construction by nearly 18 percent,
omitting the multifamily use in the new construction, adding more parking well beyond what's required,
removing the pull house structure, which I mentioned when I showed you the conceptual renderings,
A commitment to full replacement of removed trees through a combination of on- and off-site
means, emitting the rear porches that touched into the rear setback.
And both of the committees leading to the full board of the CHCA voted to support.
I won't read the provisos which speak for themselves.
And there are the provisos and the attached agreement to which we certainly agree and have signed.
I mentioned that Chestnut Hill Civic Association issued a statement in the Chestnut Hill Local, which has covered a great deal of press regarding this matter, which is so emotional in the community for understandable reasons.
And the statement mentions, in relevant part, the uniqueness of Greylock, that it was converted from a private residence so many years ago, that the series of owners over the years has resulted in some degradation of the property.
And unfortunately, it's been, in the words of this statement, a trapped and deteriorating.
The CHCA goes on to recognize the difficulties of construction as an inconvenience,
but notedly notes that the neighboring property of Creffield School is a nonconforming property.
It's RSD-1 and actually is an exception to the single-family residents.
Of concern is what I mentioned, that the voices of protest, as CHCA notes in the statement,
were much stronger than those of support.
And it notes that there were those who were not comfortable speaking up, unfortunately.
I'd like to move to the next letter of support from the Chestnut Hill Business District,
which supports this proposal. And the following letter from the neighbors at 203 West Chestnut Hill Avenue who are directly adjacent notes that they have lived at this residence for 17 years, have been eyewitness to the disrepair and disregard over the years.
They view this proposal as a solution and support the next door use that has been proposed.
There are numerous other letters of support that are in the record.
And I know that there are some neighbors who will certainly wish to speak and support at
the appropriate time.
time, there are petitions as well. I'd like to, in terms of exhibits at this time, end
with sharing the December 16, 2022 Chestnut Hill Conservancy correspondence to Mr. Schenkman,
which offered conceptual approval, as I've highlighted, of the proposed development plans
presented going back even further than the CHCA community meetings that I've mentioned.
Why Chestnut Hill Conservancy? Because they have an interest in the easement. And I would also,
out of respect for the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, also be remiss if I did not note that there are
more recent letters that they are not participating officially in the zoning process on the advice
of counsel, and their letters speak for themselves.
and their letters speak for themselves. Mr. Chairman and members of the board,
Mr. Chairman,
the permissible uses in an RSD1 zoning district are extremely limited, as demonstrated here by
the troubled history of a functionally obsolete beautiful structure structures. The Chestnut Hill
Conservancy confirmed with us that it has reviewed approximately 18 proposals for this site since
2006, and yet the site remains in limbo. The last 75 years have proven that continued use of a six
and a half acre estate as a private residence is not practicable in Philadelphia in 2024.
The proposed plan is most consistent, however, with the residential character of the surrounding
neighborhood as distinguishable, for example, from an educational use, an institutional use
that could come in at this property in theory. The authorization of variance relief will not
alter the character of the district or the neighborhood or be detrimental to the public
welfare. The proposal fits into the surrounding neighborhood as evidenced by the coordinating
RCO's support in addition to other expressions of support. This speaks to the granting of relief
being of benefit to the public and within the spirit of the zoning code. The proposed variance
would represent the minimum variance that would afford relief and will represent the least
modification possible of the regulations at issue. A practical concern at this site is also the
ongoing upkeep and stewardship of the property, and this has been thought out in a careful way.
The grant of variance relief will not substantially increase congestion in the public streets,
increase the danger of fire, or otherwise endanger the public health, safety, or general welfare.
And you have the traffic report that speaks to that. The refined plans present the highest and
best use for the site. The proposed development appropriately respects Chestnut Hill's legacy
while making inroads at diversifying Chestnut Hill and opening it to new residents, which is
something that has been a challenge. This will not adversely affect transportation or unduly
burden water, school, park, or other public facilities. There are no environmental issues.
I would like to call at this time Mr. Matthew Millan, the chief architect on this project.
please. Mr. Millan, would you raise your virtual hand to be recognized by Chairman Bergman?
Yes, I've done so. Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court stenographer?
Yes, Matthew Millan, M-I-L-L-A-N. You swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I do. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Millan. Thank
you for joining us today. Have you been present for the entirety of the virtual hearing in the
in this matter so far.
Yes, I have.
And during the course of the presentation
and the exhibits that I have shared
with the Zoning Board of Adjustment,
I've relied upon many exhibits that you prepared
showing existing conditions
and also a proposed development of the site.
Would you adopt and affirm the testimony
that I've offered as your own as architect of record?
yes i do and having heard the testimony would you like to uh add anything further for the
board's consideration right now not at this time but happy to respond to questions as they may come
up thank you mr milan i'd like then to call the uh owner of the subject property uh its managing
member lavie shankman this is mr oh sure is mr feyman trying to speak yes mr chairman yes uh may
i ask mr at this point can i ask mr milan a just a few questions it won't take long sure thank you
very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Milan, you've been sworn, am I correct? And you've testified
previously before various committees of the Chestnut Hill Community Association. Am I correct
about that? Yes. And at those meetings, tell me if I'm wrong, but you told us that the developer
made a decision to come before the zoning board before going to the conservancy to change any of
before going to the conservancy to change any of the easements isn't that correct
yes is it yes it is with the caveat that we had met with the conservancy prior to
uh submitting the zoning uh package which we knew would get a refusal to get uh conceptual
approval and to get their feedback on the proposed plans and you and if i may if i may
Mr. Laver, please, please respond. What were you going to say?
You're muted, Mr. Laver.
Your pardon. Thank you. I would just like to make a respectful objection to the record as
to relevancy of this line of question thank you proceed again Mr. Feynman
Mr. Feynman you're muted I apologize apologize Mr. Millan I understand and I think you understand
that some of the um that some of this plan does violate some of those easements is that correct
the plan i mean the easements are going to have to be changed aren't they
if you allow me to speak mr fineman the plans would require some amendments of the easements
thank you um have have you read over you've read over these easements is that correct in some detail
i assume am i right uh yes can i ask what the relevancy is and um i'll ask the questions and
i think your attorney can object if he needs to i i have a standing objection for the record mr
chairman okay thank you would you agree with me that the easements do not allow for residential
dwellings new residential dwellings to be placed on that property
it neither expressly allows or prohibits it
And just two more questions. Two more questions. How many people do you anticipate living in these properties?
That depends on the buyers.
oh i mean you're an architect and you've drawn these plans would you suspect that there's two
or three people living in each one of the dwellings and could you then multiply that
for us since you are the architect objection speculation so you you're at this point you
can't tell the chairman how many people will you you can't anticipate how many people will
be living there is that correct there's 15 dwelling units okay and and the answer the answer
to my question as i understand it is that at this point you do not want to tell the chairman
how many people you anticipate living there isn't that correct no okay that's not correct
i just don't see the relevancy of it well um mr mr chairman you can make that decision for yourself
let me just ask one more question um and then mr chairman i'd like to make one statement if i can
to you um the creffield school how far away is that school from the uh proposed development
it shares a property line with the the side yard property line with uh the graylock property and
And as I understand, the headmaster of that school also lives in a dwelling that's in
the same area sharing that property line.
Is that correct?
I'm not sure which dwelling, which structure that the headmaster lives in.
I have nothing further.
Mr. Chairman, can I just make one statement, if I can, to you, having that cross-examination?
Go ahead.
and and um i want to apologize to you
and to the full board um and i did not want to do that i wanted to do this early on
and i did not want to interrupt mr laver
my belief is that as a matter of law
this board does not cannot hear this matter and that is because the developer at this stage
this board
does not, cannot hear
does not have the appropriate standing to come before this board let me just put it to you in
another way. Mr. Chairman, if you and I saw a property out in Center City, Philadelphia, where
I am right now, and we said, let's buy that property, then we determined that there needed
to be zoning. We would have to have an interest in that property. We couldn't come before this
board and asked them to make a zoning change without having appropriate interest in the
property at this point in time this developer is basically coming to this board without having done
what they needed to do they are basically saying to the zoning board here here our case
hear my case now, hear my case now, and then I have to go to the Conservancy and ask them to
change it. And you'll hear Mr. Laver's testimony. Mr. Laver's testimony was indicative of what
might happen before the Conservancy. Let's assume for a minute that the Conservancy with this
developer agrees to some sort of changes. What happens next? Well, let me tell you what happens
next. Conservancy easements are not granted for the benefit of the landowner and cannot be changed
by benefit of the landowner. Rather, they are granted for the benefit of the community.
So what might occur, and I don't know if it will occur, I have no idea, is that a, and Mr. Laver made reference to it, is that a lawsuit could occur and it goes to the Orphan's Court.
So what might happen next? This developer very well could change the development. And he indicated that before the RCO. They changed the development.
Why? Because they have a new agreement with the Conservancy, or the court says something to them, the Orphan's Court, and maybe the Commonwealth Court afterwards, says something about how you have to adjust these easements.
Then what happens?
They come up with a new plan, and they come back to this board.
This matter is premature.
this board should not be hearing this case until such time as the the developer has dealt with the
conservancy conservancy in regard to multiple easements on that property and we have submitted
to the board copies of those easements and i'd say this is just premature mr chairman i i really
don't think this matter should go forward okay mr labor do you want to respond absolutely mr
chairman and members of the board um i'm actually surprised that uh so much time has been been given
to this discussion the department of licenses and and inspections has consistently held that
private agreements are private agreements this zoning board of adjustment has consistently held
that a private agreement is private agreement, not the purview of the zoning board. In full
transparency, the developer has gone forward with the more difficult path, actually, of engaging
with the community, engaging with the process, getting feedback. If we were to start with the
courts and the easements, it's very likely that we would have been asked about moving forward.
It is the right of the property owner to proceed as we have.
And this should not even be a question at this moment in time.
So we're going to.
Mr. Chairman, if I could just respond one sentence, two sentences, maybe.
They do not have a property right.
They do not have a property right in this property because it is burdened with easements.
They do not have a property right in this.
Easements are not.
Mr. Laver wants to shake his head as if I am some sort of fool.
This is not.
I'm telling you, these are not something that are private in nature.
They are public in nature.
You get an easement because the community benefits by the easement.
they do not have a property right. I think you said that. And I think we're going to,
listen to me, Mr. Laver, we're going to continue. Mr. McSherry, we're going to continue with this
process. The question I have now is, Mr. Laver, how much longer will you need for your presentation?
I would like to at least have Mr. Schenkman adopt and affirm the testimony that has been offered
today for the record and uh i was ready to move forward with uh community members who wish to
speak uh the council member's office etc so my my the the extent of uh of of this hearing would
be based on uh what is said further what is asked further mr chairman um mr feyman how long will
you need for your presentation um i i would try i will try i i noticed let me just say this
there are a few people um including the headmaster from the cretfeld school whose testimony i i would
give to the board and ask him to adopt and there are a few other people but i do notice that there
There are 107 people in the audience, and I can't guarantee, Mr. Chairman, as to what
would occur there.
So Tanya?
Yes, Chair.
So we're not going to be able to do this whole thing today.
I mean, we still have another 12, 13 cases.
What we're going to have to do is have a resumptive hearing for this.
Yes, Chair.
um and uh what we'll try to do is we'll do what we've done in the past and try to have a little
bit more time set aside for this because we just can't get through all this today
it's just we have no we have no objection mr chairman in fact i i did speak to mr laver about
this probably happening yes sure i can arrange for it offline and then we'll be we'll have to
send out information. Okay. So, Mr. Laver, we just, we're not going to get through what we
need to get through today. No, I completely understand and respect that. May I just have
Mr. Shegman adopt and affirm the testimony from this afternoon, Mr. Chairman? Why don't we do
that? And then if Mr. Feynman has questions, what we'll do is we'll start with that when we come
back for the next hearing, okay? No objection to that. Okay, all right, proceed. Mr. LaVie
Shankman, would you kindly raise your virtual hand to be acknowledged by Chairman Bergman?
I have. Thank you. Sir, could you state your name as spelled, please, for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is LaVie Shankman. It's spelled L-A-V-I-S-H-E-N as in Nancy, K-M as in Mary,
All right. Do you swear, affirm, to tell the truth, whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. Labor.
Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Shankman. Have you been present during the entirety of this virtual hearing?
Yes, I have.
And would you adopt and affirm the testimony that I've offered as your own?
Thank you.
um mr feinman when we come back we'll have you have a chance to talk uh across mr shankman okay
so we're going to move on for a resumptive hearing we'll be in touch um we will try to get
this as quick as we can and we'll try to find some more time that we can do it and you know
because apparently there is a lot of people in the audience interested and i'm sorry for anybody
that's in the audience waiting but the fact of the matter is we just have to we just can't
get through this today okay we respect i've certainly respect thank you okay thank you
mr chairman and members of the board thank you very much thank both you right thank you
okay number seven mi 2024 000 151 55 20 whittaker avenue jenner bazillo is the attorney
There's a letter of non-opposition from the 35th Ward Democratic Executive Committee.
I'm coming back in as a panelist.
All right, very great.
All right. Very great. Hello.
Hello?
My counsel, how are you?
My counsel, how are you?
Could you just state your name?
Great.
Could you just state your name and spell it for the...
Sure. It's Jennifer Bazidlo, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Sure. It is Stephen Ewan, who is the tenant, proposed tenant, of Unit 9 of the building for a milk tea shop.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waver reading of the refusal or stipulate to exact consent?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed them all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I did, and I sent a few supplemental exhibits this morning.
Understood. Please proceed and show your screen.
Great. Let me get to the right screen here.
All right, so I am going to try to keep this quick for you guys. I think this is pretty straightforward.
So my name, like I said, is Jennifer Bezidlow, and I'm here on behalf of the potential
tenant of 5520 Whitaker Avenue, Unit 9, Yomi Milk Tea, that is going to be owned and operated
by Stephen Ewan. So we're just going to briefly walk through our exhibits here. We have the
refusal. The only refusal is for a takeout food establishment in an I-2 zoning district.
contract. We have a copy of the lease here. It is a five-year lease with a five-year
option, so a really long-term lease. It's also quite lengthy, so I'm just going to
step ahead to the end to show that it is a signed lease. You can see it's signed by
both parties. Property taxes, trash taxes are all paid on the property. We have a letter
of support from the 35th Democratic Executive Committee.
We have a zoning map showing that this is an industrial area, zoned area, bordered by commercial.
And this is furthered by, you can see the industrial area of the property here.
And then photographs, there's our posting.
This is the shopping center.
We'll come back to these two, but this is the shopping center.
it's in this right here where it says i'm sorry my my pronunciation is going to be bad but dm chow
is the location it used to be a beauty salon uh this is the interior of the store right now
again it used to be a beauty salon which is why there's a shower there
uh and here's whitaker avenue that you can see is a fairly um it's not a residential street
And then here are our plans. It's going to have an area for people to come in, a counter for
ordering, and then in the back is the prep area and storage. So let's just go back here
to the photos. All right, so 5520 Whitaker Avenue is this large shopping center.
um it is uh it has many other sit down and take out restaurants in it salons a grocery store
and other service businesses like salons i think there's an insurance agent in here
uh but it's your typical uh auto-oriented commercial shopping center i think we can
all agree that that's what that looks like uh unit nine itself here is a little under 1300 square
feet. And as you can see, it's just a small part of this larger shopping center. And as I mentioned,
it used to be a beauty salon. So the proposed use is to have a isyomi milk tea, which is going to
be a takeout only food establishment serving coffees, teas, pastries, and other similar items,
kind of like a coffee shop. It's going to be a coffee shop serving specialty coffees and teas.
The hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and for right now, it'll be Tuesday through Sunday.
It is going to be a family-owned and operated business, which starts off, hopefully, if things take off,
they'll be able to take some days off and have some more employees.
But right now, it's going to be mostly the family members working there.
It is a large shopping center, and there are dedicated dumpster areas with commercial trash pickup.
So there will be commercial trash pickup.
it won't be a big deal. Honestly, in the scale of the shopping center, the waste this
is going to generate is relatively small. And like I said, there was a commercial business
in there before. So let me just get to the zoning map again.
So let me just get to the zoning map again. So you can see here that we are in a industrial zoned
area but when we looked at the overhead and you can see this again when you look at the overhead
we have a a fairly high intensity uses. We have some manufacturing, we have trucking yards,
We have some more warehouse type spaces.
We aren't in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
But so, yeah.
And so in an I-2 zoning district, uses that are allowed by Rider Medium Industrial, which
is light to moderate, which have light to moderate impact on the community and allow
uses that may generate noise, odor, vibration, after hours activities and traffic impact
well beyond the property line. Our proposed use for a takeout restaurant coffee shop here
is significantly less intense than what would be allowed by right here
and has almost no impact. I can't actually see how this impacts any residential property
just because they're simply not that close by. This is the address notification list.
All of these, when I look them up, are all commercial or industrial properties.
there's no impact at residential properties. So as I was mentioning, this property is clearly
a shopping center, strip mall, auto-oriented commercial. And if we were going to zone this
property, how it's being used, it's a CA2 commercial, auto-oriented commercial,
where this would be a buy-right use.
So this is exactly where we would expect a takeout restaurant to be
in this honestly pretty thriving commercial center right here.
So I just wanted to go to the previous, this portion of the shopping center,
so this side of the shopping center was approved in 2005
to be constructed with numerous commercial uses.
um so this while each in since it's zoned industrial the new uses require zoning variances
uh it has been this spot has been used in some sort of commercial capacity and not an industrial
capacity for almost 20 years um and and our proposed use keeps in line with the spirit of
this previous approval um obviously we have a shopping center like i said uh and as a shopping
center this is not an appropriate space for an industrial use to go into if we look in there
1300 square feet this is not a place where we're going to be manufacturing things distributing
things it's a commercial space so it would really be a hardship to use it for um
to not to get the approval for a commercial business at a commercial space uh let's go to
we didn't have a site visit with the 35th democratic executive committee they came out
to the proposed location, took a tour, talked with me and my clients, and they are in non-opposition
and say that the RCO feels that the establishment would be a positive addition to the neighborhood
and have no concerns about the impact of it. So in the light of trying to summarize really
quickly here, we have a takeout coffee shop that's not going to have any negative impact
on any residential properties or any of the surrounding communities. The RCO is in support
and believes it'll be a good addition to the neighborhood and it'll be a wonderful small
business family business as an addition to the striving commercial space. So if I could have
Steven come on and adopt my question, that would be great. Steven?
they've been allowed to speak i could you please hi could you say your name
yes could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer
uh yes my name is steven winn s-t-e-v-e-n last name is h-u-y-n-h right do you swear or firm
tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i swear please proceed counsel
All right, Steve, but I just have a few questions. Did you hear my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful and accurate?
Yes, ma'am, I did.
And would you adopt it as your own?
Great. Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from our attorney, Ryan McSherry?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
i do not see any further hands mr chair planning commission
i do not see any further hands mr chair
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing i2 industrial use at this location
we feel the applicant has a demonstrated hardship accordingly the planning commission recommends
the board grant the variance thank you mi 2024 000 151 55 20 55 20 whitaker avenue i vote yes
with proviso use limited to unit number nine thomas holloman my boot is yes with proviso
James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with Proviso
Thank you so much
Number 8, MI 2024-000227
1000-1018 West Sedgley
Henry Clinton is the attorney
I'll be back in as a panelist
good afternoon mr chairman mr clinton mr clinton could you state your name please and spell for
the court stenographer sure my name is henry clinton h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n right
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do
can you do both your cases together 8 and 13 at the same time i think i can mr berg when i
I have a system where I can do the first one and just do topics for the second.
So let me read in to number two.
So MI 2024-000276-1020-30 West Sedgley.
There is a letter of support from the 12th and Cambria advisory groups.
And Mr. Clinton, could you identify your client and the relationship to this property?
Sure, Mr. Chairman. So the first property is 10,000 to 1018 West Sedgley Avenue, LLC.
And the principal of that LLC is to my right, Mr. Joe Wilson, Williams, W-I-L-I-M-S.
And then the second property is 1020 to 1030 West Sedgley Avenue, LLC.
And Mr. Williams is also the sole member of that LLC.
Okay. Just a few questions from our vice chair.
Good afternoon, County. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Except this morning, we got a letter of support from 12th and Cambria on both projects,
and we also have a letter of support from another RCO that just came in within the hour,
and I have included that in my presentation.
You'll make sure that you send a copy to us, Henry.
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair.
We were still waiting for proof of tax compliance.
I just would like to confirm when that was provided to the board.
And that's in my package, too.
We have a clear real estate taxes that were paid March 22nd, and I have proof.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And you'll send this to us, too?
Yes, I'll send that separately by also having it in my package.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
Can I share my screen?
Please.
Mr. Chairman, is that visible?
It is.
All right. So with me is my client, Joe Williams. He's having some technical difficulty. So he came to my office and just thought it'd be easier to do it this way. So, Mr. Chairman, there's two properties, as you mentioned, that they outset before the board today.
They're side-by-side properties, two separate addresses,
but I'm going to present them, as you suggest,
at almost at the same time,
I'll run through 10-100 to 10-18 West Sedgley first,
and then the second project will be abbreviated
because I'm just going to incorporate a lot
from 10-100 to 10-18 West Sedgley in the second property.
The second property is 10-20 to 10-30 West Sedgley.
So this is the table of contents
for property number 1, 100 to 1018 West Sedgley,
including my table of contents,
refusal A1 through A10.
This is the refusal.
And basically what we're asking the board for
is multifamily use and commercial space
and commercial space on the first floor with 100 units above the first floor on a lot that is about 30,000 square feet
on the first floor with 100 units above the first floor.
and historically has been used as a oil storage facility for Atlantic Richfield, otherwise known as ARCO.
We're also asking for 42 parking spaces, which includes two accessible and two auto share vehicles,
as well as four electric vehicles, and then 40 Class A bicycle spaces.
This is the RCO letter of support.
There are some requests that were made.
One is that we have an environmental report done.
My client purchased this property in 2008,
along with the adjacent property at 1020 West Sedley Street.
At that time, it had numerous above and below ground storage tanks,
All of those storage tanks were removed.
We have a phase one and a phase two, and we've also had monitoring of the dirt and the soil
there for the first couple of years.
Mind you, Mr. Chairman, it's about 15 years forward, and the ground has been used simply
for storage of trucks or automobile and truck repairs.
You'll see from the billing that we present, we do not intend to have a basement, so it's
going to be slab on grade.
So there's not going to really be any significant disturbance of the soil.
The community group also asked us, my client, to set aside 20 bedrooms at $200 below the market rate for use of people in the community.
He's standing right next to me or sitting next to me, and Mr. Williams agrees to that.
And I guess, again, they came, the community was concerned about any toxicity on the ground.
And we basically cleared that up.
And certainly when we go to build any toxic materials that have to be hauled away will be hauled away.
So I want to spend a little bit of time on the photos just to give the board an orientation of what's going on here, because it applies to both properties.
So 100 West Sedgley is where the red mark is.
1020 West Sedgley is where my cursor is.
They're literally side by side.
In 2008, Mr. Williams purchased the property where my cursor is now, and he developed that into a charter school, which is still in play and still a well-recognized charter school in the neighborhood with several hundred students attending.
These two parcels, 100 and 1020, were used, as I said, by ARCO, and they were environmentally distressed.
They've since been cleaned up, and Mr. Williams, who worked for 10 years as an attending physician at Temple Hospital just a few blocks away, has retired, and he thinks this is the time for him to develop this parcel.
He sees positive changes going on in the city.
The charter school is thriving.
And this ground is really not usable for industrial or commercial.
It's in a very odd location.
My cursor is on the train tracks.
This is the West Trenton line that runs from 30th Street Station all the way to Trenton.
But it also is the line that carries most of the Amtrak travel back and forth in and out of the city.
So it's a heavily traveled route. And as you can see on both sides of the trains, you really have industrial uses.
Down to the right is a Pico substation. On the other side of the tracks, you can see there's just storage, trucking companies and large buildings.
Across this street from our project, there is a laundromat and there's a commercial building that houses decor.
There's only 12, and I don't mean to diminish it,
there's only 12 residential structures within earshot of the property.
And if you go to left, you can see this is Allegheny Avenue.
Allegheny Avenue comes down, and because the train tracks are here,
Sedgley Street is really just a means to go down the block,
hang a right, and then pick up where Allegheny is.
So if I ran my cursor straight through the train tracks,
you would pick up Allegheny Avenue.
So Sedgley just kind of hugs the train tracks here.
Three blocks to the west is Broad and Allegheny.
We're only a seven-minute walk to the Allegheny stop on the subway.
We're about a 10-minute walk to the north foot off your station where you can take the R6, the R7.
And then if you walked up Germantown Avenue, we're only about 12 minutes from another subway stop on the Broad Street line.
And again, this layout of the geography and as well as the transit routes would apply also to 1020 West Sedgley Street since they're adjoining properties.
Just a closer view to give you an idea of the width of Sedgley Street here.
And this is a photograph that was taken this weekend looking.
And this is a photograph that was taken this weekend looking eastbound on Sedgley.
The two properties, 10-100 and 10-20, are to the right.
You can see this is a wide boulevard here.
There's a bike lane on the right side, and there's also vehicular parking on the right-hand side.
A barrier has to curve around Sedgley Street.
And then you have another parking lane on the left-hand side with a bike path and with parking.
So there's parking on both sides of the street.
Since there's only a few residences, there's maybe four or five cars typically parked on the opposite side of Sedgley.
And then the laundromat here has about 40 or 50 parking spots.
We actually have approached them to see if we can rent some of their spaces.
That has not happened yet, but that's certainly in the works.
Another photograph on Sedgley, and again, these photographs apply to 1020 Sedgley Street.
This is the charter school on the left-hand side.
That's not going to be disturbed or bothered.
And again, the two parcels are where my cursor is to the left.
You can see the homes that I spoke about across the street.
There's about five or six here, and there's four or five as you make the turn.
But there's ample wideness on the block, traveling in either direction with parking in front of the structure.
And that's why I'm pointing this out and kind of belaboring this point, because on 1020 Sedgley Street, when I get to the refusal for that particular property, you can see we have a refusal for parking.
But some of that parking is going to be alleviated by on-street parking.
So I want to go back to the refusal.
So we only have one refusal, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
This is in an I-2 industrial zone, I-2 medium industrial, and the only refusal we have is that a residential multifamily use is not permitted in this zoning district.
We don't have any issues with parking, height, open space, rear yard.
It's simply one of use.
These are our zoning notices that we've posted throughout both properties.
Again, these postings apply to both properties.
And this is the plan, and we're calling it Phase 1 and Phase 2.
The lighter color building is the subject of property that I'm presenting now,
which is 1,100 to 1,018 West Sedgley.
To the right, the darker building is the Phase 2.
Again, they're two separate properties.
That's why I have to do two separate presentations.
But on the right is 1,020 to 1,030 Sedgley Avenue.
know. What's unique about this facade is we have a drive aisle in between the building. So we don't
have any parking in front of the building. As you drive out Sedgley, you're going to see this,
you know, beautiful structure where it once was an eyesore, and you're not going to see any
parking. It's all going to be in the rear. This is our zoning chart. Again, I just, I'll go over
this briefly. We are conforming in every aspect, lot width, lot area, occupied area, front yard
setback, side yard setback, rear yard setback, building height. And the only thing that we're
non-conforming with is in the second project with the parking. On the first project, we're
conforming with parking and bike storage at the same time. And you can see the whole area is zoned
I-2, medium industrial. This is a site plan to give you a better idea and better feel for the
project. Again, there's one curb cut on Sedgley, so you can see that there's numerous areas in
front of the building for additional parking if it's needed. I'll ask the architect at the end
what he's calculated in terms of the number of parking spaces that are available on Sedgley
Street. The idea is that you would come through the drive aisle, under the building, under phase
one, which is 1,100 West Sedgley, and come in the back and park. So where this dividing line is,
to the right-hand side, there's 42 parking spaces that will be used for 1,100 to 1,1018 West Sedgley.
And on the left side, 1,20, there are 16 parking spaces. They're not all demarcated. I'll show you
these in subsequent photographs. Here's a better layout that's more detailed. That was kind of a
general site plan. So here you can see we have four spaces for electric vehicles, two accessible
spaces for regular vehicles, and also one for a van. And then we have additional parking spaces
to total the 42. Here's the drive aisle between the building. You would enter the building through
the front into the lobby. We have a mail room, trash room, two elevators, and bike storage.
And then we have this wide open commercial space on the first floor. Mr. Williams doesn't
And then we have this wide open commercial space on the first floor. Mr. Williams doesn't know what type of tenants from a commercial vantage point he'd be able to get for these spaces. We've reached out to the community, let them know the availability. We mentioned it during the community meeting. If they have anybody in mind, we certainly are going to be open arms for anybody who would want to come in and rent the space.
The other thing is part of this commercial space on the right-hand side, it's about 7,500 square feet of commercial space at 1,100 West Sedgley and a little bit less on 1,020 West Sedgley.
But the idea is part of the commercial space, it's going to be flex space.
So we're going to have an officer, a manager's office in the commercial space along with the superintendent.
And also we've offered to the community for their community meetings.
They could also hold their meetings in one of our commercial spaces.
Since I had this planned up, Mr. Chairman, I'll also talk about 1020 West Sedgley, which is project number two.
Again, there'd be an entrance into the lobby area.
We have a mail room, a bike room, two elevators.
And there are also two fire stair towers on 1020 and also two in in 100 in the event the elevators aren't operating.
The other thing is we do have streets approval for the curb cut, for the drive aisle, and streets insisted on having a loading bay for both projects so that commercial trash can be taken away, people who want to move in and move out, and also for deliveries of larger bags or boxes that won't fit into the mailroom.
So we have loading bays in the rear. We also have a privacy fence around the rear of the property, including landscaping, adequately landscaping to give some buffer between the rear of the building and the train tracks, railroad tracks, which are behind the building.
Mr. Clinton, just a quick question. Is there much industrial activity around there?
Not really, Mr. Chairman.
If I go back to the aerial photograph, this is the charter school here, a laundromat across the street.
This is a big storage facility for some type of a home decor company.
There's a Pico substation here, and there's like an early learning center here.
So there's really no industrial, unless you want to call on the other side of the train tracks.
You know, there's some trailer parking, but there's really no industrial that I was able to see in the area.
Thank you.
So this is the typical floor plan for 1,100 to 1,018.
It's a combination of studios, one bedrooms, and two bedrooms.
And this floor plan repeats itself on floors two through six.
It's a six-story building with a large commercial space on the first floor.
So it's a good mixture that we can really appeal to various types of people.
But again, the bulk of the bedroom, excuse me, the bulk of the apartments are one bedroom.
So I don't know if it's necessary, if the chair wants me to go through the floor plans, but, you know, pretty straightforward.
In one bedroom, you're going to have a bathroom, one bedroom and living area.
How about the second property, same?
Same thing. So this is your typical floor plan for the second property at 1020 to 1030, essentially.
The same thing, we're going to have a mix of studios, one bedrooms, and two bedrooms.
There'll be 16 units on each floor, floors two through five.
And the floor plans are not straight across as in the 100 West Sedgley.
It's more of like an L shape with a hallway coming down and dividing the area.
But the bedroom layouts are going to be very similar to the first project.
So this would be a typical one bedroom layout.
Pretty much self-explanatory.
And this is your typical two-bedroom layout, two bedrooms, two baths, living, dining area, as well as a kitchen.
Another rendering of the project.
Here's an indication that taxes were paid for 1018 Sedgley.
And here's the receipt that we paid on March 22nd, $12,000 for the real estate tax, even though they're not due until April 1.
But we just thought it'd be in everyone's interest to share the board.
It's a significant amount of money.
We thought it'd be best to pay it before we came before the board.
Again, this is a zoning map outlining everything in the area is I-2.
uh so i i can briefly touch on the other project but if the chairman thought that it was covered
in this project i understand i think i think i think we understand what what the project
understand what the project, both projects are.
both projects are all right i just want to conclude
All right. I just want to conclude, if I can.
So we think this is a situation that warrants a hardship view because of its location and its inability to be used for over 15 years.
As I said, Mr. Williams sees this as an opportune time to move forward and really brighten up this area,
bring something of a high-class nature into the area that would complement his existing
charter school. We're not altering the essential character of the neighborhood. I mean, it's an
I-2 zone. There's no residential around. It's really going to be a focal point for the area.
We're not impairing the lighter air of any development, certainly not of the railroad or
the laundromat across the street. As I said, it's a wide avenue there.
We're basically in harmony with the code because it would be a good residential use.
We're certainly in harmony with what the community group has asked for.
I don't want to say they asked for it, but they're supporting it and they're standing behind it.
And I do think it's a unique physical circumstance that requires an alternative use rather than industry.
rate. So with that, I would, I would close and I would ask that my client be sworn in, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Williams, could you, Dr. Williams, could you please state your name and spell it for the
court stenographer? My name is Dr. Joseph Williams. Just for the record, could you spell
your name for the record? J-O-S-E-P-H-W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Please proceed, counsel. Mr. Williams, you sat
to my right during the entire presentation, correct? Correct. And you heard what I said?
Correct. And what I said about your desire to start to develop this project since you retired
is true and correct correct and what i outlined in terms of the bedrooms the access space
the height the prior industrial use your ability to clean it up all that information is true and
correct that's correct and if you had the opportunity to testify would you adopt my
testimony as your own and that's true and correct yes i would okay mr chairman i had the two
architects standing by if you need to hear from them uh questions from the board no chair
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Ryan McSherry?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing i2 industrial use at this location
we feel the applicant has failed to demonstrate a hardship additionally variances of this scale
and significance are better addressed through the rezoning process accordingly the planning
commission recommends the board deny the variances um mr mr clinton what i'm what i'm going to do
with this is I'm going to take this to the executive session for next Wednesday and we're
going to vote on this at 2 p.m. That way I'll have a chance to talk to all the board members. Okay?
Okay. And then I do have the presentation for 1020 and 1030, which I guess has to be admitted
into evidence. That's right. But I recognize that both of them have been completed and we'll vote
on both of these next Wednesday at 2 p.m.
All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you.
And thank you, Dr. Williams.
Thank you.
Hi, Chair.
This is Tanya.
May I ask a question?
We have a case that's scheduled for later,
but because we had to get an interpreter,
we don't want the interpreter to be standing by
until the late case.
Would it be okay?
Tell me what.
I'll do it whenever you're ready.
That's in the 3.30 section?
Yes, I believe so.
Lakeisha, can you continue to inform the board and the chair?
Thank you.
Lakeisha, do you want to bring that person on now?
Are they here?
Yes, and the interpreter name is Mike Wong.
Let's see.
I remember that case.
They've been allowed to speak.
Mike Wong's been allowed to speak.
Okay, let me just get the case up here.
Okay, so it's number eight.
So that's off the 330 list. MI 2023-002-377-2655 South Hutchinson Street. Mr. Wong.
He's the interpreter, so interpreter.
He's the interpreter. So interpreter.
And also Ming Sen Hong and Chiyo Ming Cheng, listed owners.
Can we bring the interpreter on and he could call them for us?
Yes, the interpreter is present.
After we swear him in, he can transfer for us.
Hi, could you please state your name, sir, and spell for the court stenographer?
Mr. Wang, we cannot hear you, and you appear to be on mute.
Sorry, I was, my speakerphone was muted.
Sorry, my name is Mike Wang, M-I-K-E-W-A-N-G, a Mandarin interpreter.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you call, please, our two witnesses? First is M-I-N-G-S-E-N-H-U-A-N-G and C-H-I-A-O-M-I-N-G-C-H-E-N-G.
And they're available, Chair.
Could you have both of them state their name for us, please?
This is the first time I'm joining your session.
So you want me to interpret everything between the witness and anybody?
Yes, right.
好的,我是翻译,这个有两位,一位是黄先生,黄明山先生,或者是郑巧明先生,请问你们两位在吗?
或者是你们没有打开话筒?
Whoever is going to testify, we need to swear them in.
你回答,他翻譯在跟你說了,回答。
請您第一位先講名字,好嗎?
No one is responding to me.
Some gentlemen said that they need to answer.
I don't know, first of all, who the gentleman is.
It has to be you speaking to the two of them.
I did, and no one responded.
Okay, that should be the applicant who was speaking.
Sam, is the applicant?
Hi, can you hear me?
Okay, so I have listed owners.
so what can they speak through my phone i'm i'm on the phone with them um can't can't they call in
here yes they would need to be able to either they got it they got a call in here to call
and they they also would have to be able to present their documents right correct
what what's your number here
No, they're hearing board phone number right now.
No, we'll post the Zoom information in the chat, staff.
So, Chair, if you would like to just come back to this case.
Yeah, we'll come back.
We'll come back shortly.
Okay, let's see if we can get back to where we were and move some of these cases along.
I'll make them the number one on the 330 list.
Number 10, MI2024-000261, 5022 City Line Avenue.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney.
They'll be coming back in as a panelist, Mr. Chair.
good afternoon mr chairman brandon howard good to see you could you state your name and spell
please for the court stenographer good to see you too um brandon saverin b-r-a-n-d-o-n
s as in sam a v as in victor r-a-n as in nancy all right do you swear for him to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Could you identify your client
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
in relationship to this problem?
So my client is the tenant of suite B on this property, and that's Tare Enterprises, LLC, spelled T-A-I-R.
All right. And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Do you agree to read the email of the refusers to relate to a gag person?
Yes, I do, Mr. Vice Chairman.
Have you emailed in all the documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of the hearing?
Yes, I did.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
And I note there's a letter of non-opposition from the Winfield Residence Association with a proviso for another five-year temporary special exception.
Okay, thank you. Let me see if I can get my screen going here.
okay um so uh what you should see on your screen is um a photo of the front of the store this is
one of 17 exhibits that i have submitted to the board and would ask for all of them to be moved
into the record at the conclusion of the hearing okay as i mentioned my client is tear enterprises
which is run by a gentleman named Joe Mater, who is here to adopt my testimony.
This store is a franchised location of the Philly Pretzel Factory chain.
And I will show you some more photos, including the inside of the store in a moment.
So this is a copy of our notice of referral.
It's actually not a notice of refusal. There are no refusals.
It's purely a referral for a special exception, and you can see down here, I'll try and make
it a little bigger, it says the proposed use takeout restaurant requires a special exception
from the zoning board.
So members of the board, you've seen already today several applications for takeout restaurants.
In some districts, they require a variance.
In some districts, they require a special exception, which is a slightly easier legal
standard.
We are in a district where we require a special exception.
And as I'll show you through documentation in a moment, the board has already seen this
exact business in this exact location in 2019 and approved it.
As it actually states right here, the L&I examiner wrote this, applicant seeks to permanently
extend the temporary variance that was granted by ZP938175 in 2019. The only error there is that
what was granted was actually a special exception, not a variance. But that expires in June. So Joe
hired me to make sure that he can extend his special exception before it expires in June.
and that's what we're here to do. So the subject property is in a strip mall on City Ave. The
nearest light is Bryn Mawr Avenue, which you might be familiar with. It has both a CVS and a Rite Aid
across the street from one another, which is kind of funny. To the southwest by about a quarter mile
is St. Joe's University. To the northeast by maybe half a mile is Ballakinwood Shopping Center,
which has a big LA Fitness and an Acme. This is a photo of the strip mall from Atlas,
the city's website. So here's city line, four lanes of travel and a center turning lane.
Here's a parking lot that is shared with us and some neighboring businesses. And I'll show you
what that looks like from the street. So this shopping center is technically two properties,
but they're owned by the same landlord, our landlord. This T-Mobile is technically a distinct
property. I believe the address is 5026 City Avenue. It's occupied by this T-Mobile.
Our property is like sort of this building and the parking in front of it, which is 5022-24
City Avenue. And the Philly Pretzel Factory, my client's business, occupies Suite B in that
building. But my client's clients, his customers, are allowed to use any of this parking, even on
the neighboring property. It's sort of built as one fluid shopping center. It's like a first-come,
first-served system. In practice, I happen to live pretty close to here. There's always parking
available. As you can see in this photo, there's cars present, but they're only taken up about half
of the spaces um this is a key map that we submitted to lni when they reviewed this
application and we would ask you to enter a proviso today that specifies that the use
enter a proviso today that specifies that the use pertains only to space B or suite B.
We did ask L&I to put that on the referral. They did not. But I think that kind of proviso would
just reduce confusion going forward. And this shows the location of the suite in the context
of the whole shopping center. That's the photo you've already seen of the storefront. Here's
what it looks like on the inside. So actually, I'll skip to the next one. This is the customer
ordering area. Nice big space, lots of natural light, no seating. So you basically place your
order. It's mostly soft pretzels with a couple other items like pretzel dogs and pretzel pizza.
And no customers are allowed beyond the counter. So this is a working kitchen. They actually bake
a lot of their pretzels here each day starting bright and early in the morning. So pretty simple
layout uh here are some photos showing our notice posters so we put one set in the window
which is shown here and then to make sure that we comply with the code which requires that these
signs be visible from the street we put a second set on a post in these hedges right on the city
have sidewalk um just want to address really quickly the fact that um as the chairman mentioned
we obtained a when i say we i should be clear um joe purchased this business from a prior tenant so
the we who obtained that special exception in 2019 was a different person with a different lawyer um
but same exact business it was a philly pretzel factory then as it still is
um and you can see here according to this file page on li.phila.gov
a uh it again says variance it should be special exception but a five-year temporary was granted
in 2019 to expire june 1st 2024 um and this um is a copy of um joe's uh food prep and serving
license. So when people that own, say, apartment buildings come before the board, if there's
already tenants in the building, they're supposed to have a rental license, as you know. So sort of
the equivalent of that, sort of, for this kind of food business is a food prep license. That's
the type of business license that L&I requires a business to have. And Joe has that license.
He got it right after purchasing the business. So you'll see his name there, Joseph Mater. And
there's a business name, Tear Enterprises, and here's where it says it's active. So just to say
from a business licensing standpoint and from a land use permitting standpoint, we have all of
our I's dotted and T's crossed, and we are here basically just to continue that forward since
one of these items happens to expire in June. I will quickly show this map that I made. I hope you
agree with me that I'm quite the artist. So the code actually requires a special exception
applicant for a takeout restaurant used to include this in their exhibits. It shows a couple things.
One is the blue box, again, is Joe's Space. That's the Philly Pretzel Factory and its kitchen.
This blue box highlights the parking area that's part of our property. So we are sort of committing
on this map as the code requires to keep both of those areas clean, basically our indoors and our
outdoors. The red dot indicates where the trash cans are that service this shopping center. They
line up in an alley between the two buildings, but they're not like dumpsters. I believe they're
plastic trash cans. And the one that's sort of the front most can is easily available to customers
to sort of walk by and throw something into.
So just to say that we have opportunities
for people to throw away little papers
or take out containers to assure you
that we're not sort of generating litter
for the neighborhood.
And we're also committing here on this map
to monitor even the rest of the shopping center
and the sidewalk,
which are not technically a part of our property.
Some of it's owned by the city,
some of it's owned by our landlords separately,
But the point is, we're calling that our off-premises cleanup area.
So we're assuring that we're going to participate in this entire little strip mall being kept clean.
I will not walk through it, but in the back pages of our application for our special exception,
by which we reserved this hearing, that's where I answered sort of all of the code questions
all of the code questions about, do we deserve a special exception under the law?
about do we deserve
And I'll just summarize by saying the gist of those questions is that one must prove that you
will not harm the public in a manner that goes beyond what would be expected from a takeout
restaurant. And that map is sort of one piece of illustration. We feel confidently that we will
cause no such harms. And that's more fully explained in our application. The last thing
I'll highlight is that I've included in our packet the lease from the landlord to the original tenant
and then Joe's business's formal assumption of that lease, which the landlord consented to.
If I scroll down, here's Joe's signature. Here is the original tenant's signature. Here's the
landlord's signature. This lease gives Joe with extension rights that are guaranteed the ability
to have a business here until 2037. So while we appreciate the RCO's concerns and had nothing but
sort of a friendly dialogue with them, you know, I would note that this is already the second time
this business has been through this process. It's very time consuming and expensive for a small
business operator. And we would certainly welcome the opportunity for this time, the special
exception to be permanent or at least longer than five years, given that this business under this
lease will be there longer than that, most likely. And it's Joe's intention to be the one operating
it himself. So why don't you bring your client on and go after your test? Okay. Joseph Mater or
Joe Mater should be in the audience. And please raise your hand, Joe. They've been about to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Joseph Mater, J-O-S-E-P-H-M-A-T-T-A-I-R. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hey, Joe. So firstly, are you authorized to speak on behalf of Terra Enterprises, LLC?
I am. And that's your business, correct? It is. And that business operates the Philly
Pretzel Factory in Suite B of this property? It does. Okay. Did you hear the full extent of
my testimony in your zoning case this afternoon? I did. Was it true and accurate to the best of
your knowledge, information, and belief? It was. And would you therefore adopt it as if it had
been your own testimony? I would. Okay, thank you. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney? No, Mr. Chair. Questions or comments from the virtual
audience i don't see any further hands mr chair sure planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing cmx 2.5 commercial mixed use
at this location we feel the proposed will have no more impact than what can reasonably be expected
accordingly the planning commission recommends the board grant the special exemption
thank you MI 2024 000 261 50 22 to 24 city avenue I vote yes proviso use limited to space b
Thomas Holloman my vote is yes with proviso
James Snell, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you. Thank you, counsel.
Thank you very much.
All right. So, number 12, MI 2024, 000373, 1949 West Norris Street. Henry Clinton is the attorney.
um there was we do not an r file yet have an rco letter there was a meeting held on the 28th of
february mr clinton you've already been sworn just for the record could you state your name
sure henry clinton h-a-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n and could you identify your client
and their relationship to this property?
Sure. My client is Curtis Coates, C-U-R-T-I-S, Coates, C-O-A-T-E-S.
He is the owner of the property, and he is on the call.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, Counselor.
Good afternoon, Counselor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to attack for sir?
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to attack for sir?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibit that is needed to proceed with this case?
Except we got two letters of support, one earlier today and one a couple hours ago, which I've now put inside my booklet.
Okay, please send them over to our counsel as well.
Please proceed.
Mr. Clinton, do we have a tax compliance?
Yeah, we have proof that the real estate taxes are paid.
Okay. Thank you.
Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
I'm here concerning 1949 West Nara Street.
My client, Curtis Coates, is the owner of the property, and he is on the call.
The table of contents contains Exhibits A1 through A10, as well as some past zoning records indicating prior use as a candy store in two-family, ice cream store in two-family, and a food establishment.
Refusal.
The request is for a takeout restaurant in this CMX1 zoning district, so it's a use refusal.
And I'll show you that the past history has been a store restaurant with two apartments above.
So we have two letters of support.
One is from St. Elizabeth's Registered Community Organization, basically six to zero in support of the project.
And this letter from Heritage Community Development Corporation, which we just received, like I said, a couple hours ago, indicating that they certainly support Curtis for his diligent work.
And this location actually was abandoned for many years.
But prior, like in the 70s and 80s, it was used by Curtis's grandfather as a corner store where sandwiches and candy were sold.
So Curtis is going to duplicate this.
He's going to have basically a sandwich store selling cheesesteaks, hoagies, french fries, and drinks on a takeout basis.
Photographs of the corner property right here, 1949 West Norris Street.
It's almost 100% lot coverage.
It is 100% lot coverage.
This is what the building looks like now after Curtis renovated the exterior of the property.
We were before the board several years ago to get approval for this property as a vacant commercial on the first floor with two apartments above.
So Curtis moved forward and renovated the second and third floor and then hoping to get a variance for the first floor.
This is what it used to look like, obviously in very, very great disrepair.
Curtis, using a lot of his own sweat equity, fixed it up and this is what it looks like today.
view of the back, stucco in the rear, front entrance, side entrance, proof of zoning notices.
Here's the plans. So this is the front of the building, and I'll try to blow that up a little
bit. This is the front of the building that you would enter here, counter areas here. Everything
Everything is going to be brand new from ground up.
It's going to have air intake ductwork here going outside.
He has his wash areas, sink areas.
In the rear of the property, handicapped bath.
Also, here's the entrance to the apartments on the second and third floor.
There really will be no seating or minimal seating.
It's really a takeout area where you can come in, get your sandwich, and take it home, take it outside.
The rest of the plans are the kitchen hood detail.
I don't think the board is interested in that, but this is all required for Curtis to move forward with his dream of basically recreating a sandwich shop that his grandfather had there many moons ago.
This is our application for appeal.
the rest of the documents are the pro forma documents you would see in a presentation
like this here's the tax information indicating that zero real estate taxes are due again they're
not due until march 31st but we thought in the interest of uh being ahead of it we would pay
the taxes in advance and prove that to the board here's a receipt indicating that they were paid
on march 21st uh two thousand dollars and change
zoney map indicating a cmx1 you can see it's a rather large lot again i said it was almost 100
lot coverage this is the deed to the property and what's interesting you can see that since 1976
this property has been in the coats family uh so again it fell into disrepair
This property has been in the Coates family.
So again, it fell into disrepair.
And that's why the neighbors were pretty energetic about Curtis taking over.
They knew his grandparents.
They knew his parents.
And to come back to your neighborhood and recreate what was there many moons ago is a real feather in, I believe, Curtis's hat.
Certification of mailing, all the notices that went out to the neighbors.
And then I just want to go briefly over the zoning records from the past. This is a zoning record from 1967, indicating this is a two-family retail candy store zoning permit for food establishment, which has since gone inactive, obviously, because the building is vacant.
but that was in play in 1996. And as I said, in several years ago, in 2017, Curtis and I appeared
before the same board, and we asked for approval for a vacant commercial on the first floor
with the two family dwelling, one on the second and one on the third. And fortunately, that was
granted then. So in summary, we're asking to basically rekindle a use of a property
that was in Curtis's family since 1976.
He's going to have a sandwich shop here,
have about four or five employees.
His hours of operation on the weeknights
will be about 10 to 10.
On the weekends, a little bit later,
10 to beyond midnight.
And just hoping to recreate
what was there at one point.
He's in harmony with the prior uses.
The uses in harmony
with what went on there in the past.
The neighborhood is really excited about it.
He actually had a tour conducted for people in the neighborhood to come by, go through the property, and get a glimpse of it.
So with that, Mr. Coates, can you raise your hand and unmute yourself?
They have been out to speak.
Hi, Mr. Coates, could you state your name and spell for the court sonographer?
yes my name is curtis coates c-u-r-t-i-s c-o-a-t-e-s right do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes sir please proceed counsel uh mr coach
you were on the call this zoom call when i presented your project yes sir and i know this
project is a labor of love for you and if you had the opportunity to testify would you adopt
my testimony as your own and as true and correct yes sir thank you mr coach appreciate it
questions from the board no mr chairman no chair no chair questions or comments from our attorney
ryan mcsherry no mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair i have a hand raised by a ruth birchard i have allowed them to speak at this time
could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
yes my name is ruth i burchett b-i-r-c-h-e-t-t right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do i we've we've your letter has been read to us
Ms. Burchette. Thank you. I'm very excited about this. And on behalf of our neighbors who
aren't in the virtual sphere, I really wanted to come on personally and just say
how very thrilled we are about this project and the diligence of this young man.
And being from a family that's been on that block for 73 years, who knew not only his grandfather, but also his mother, his uncles, his great grandfather as well.
We've known them to be just an upstanding, one of the best families in our community.
And it is literally a cheer jerker to see what Curtis has done there.
We have been in and out of the building throughout the construction phase and encouraging him and lifting him up.
And and even now we're just still in his corners.
We shop there at that store, had big laughs with his grandfather and appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit of that family.
And so we urge you to support us in having the restoration of another African-American owned business in our community.
We lost quite a few of them during, you know, the riots.
uh during uh you know the riots and so we really don't have a lot of black businesses in our
And so we really.
community at all okay thank you for taking the time to call us we appreciate it is there anyone
else in the virtual audience um yeah there's um a number ending in zero one three one
why could you please state please state your name and spell for the courts
number ending in zero one three one please unmute and wait to be sworn in
you may be having difficult okay thank you uh planning planning commission stop
Hello?
Good afternoon, Chair.
Please proceed.
Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the CMX-1 commercial mixed use at this location.
We feel the applicant has a demonstrated hardship.
Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends the Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
M-I-2024-000-373-1949-West Snorris Street, I vote yes with proviso.
Limited use to first floor and basement.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Number 14, MI 2024-000161-5918 North Park Avenue.
Alan Nockamson is the attorney.
Let's see here.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Alan Ockmson.
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Herman Real Estate Holdings, LLC, and a virtual audience should be Michael Belder.
For a point of information I see here, have you talked to Hillary about this case?
Not at all.
So I see the. What really wasn't a. An RCO meeting, am I correct?
No, there was an RCO meeting. I was going to I want to hold this. I want to present and hold this.
That's what I'm saying. Well, listen, listen to me. It's what I'm saying is I want you to present and we're going to hold it for a resumptive hearing.
Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I didn't even talk to Hillary about it, but that's what I was planning to do.
OK, yeah, yeah. There's a note here. We're going to hold the vote for a resumptive hearing.
and then contact the zba staff when you're ready okay that's right okay all right um our vice
chair has a few questions good afternoon counsel do you agree the way the reason of the refusal
or stipulate towards accuracy i did have you emailed in all the required document
and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case accept the rco letter five days
advance for this hearing now yes thank you please proceed if you use them all right great
all right so i'm here to present 5918 north park avenue um this board has heard this matter before
a decent time ago before all of us but and granted the same relief so we'll i'll first
presented notice of refusal and the correspondence from a concerned community association was a
placeholder um you know we did have a certified meeting no one showed up unfortunately we were
asked to have another meeting which we will after this hearing um and we'll you know present this
and we asked the board to hold it which we did um property history you'll see the you know the
zoning permit which granted you know the the relief that we're seeking today which is three
units maps of the area by the way this property is the lot area is 4 699 square feet so it's a
rather large lot maps of the area you know the photographs of the property in the surrounding
area or plans and drawings or rco meeting notice for you know the past meeting we'll have a new one
when we present again the results of that community meeting our application for appeal
our deeds of property, showing that Herman Real Estate Holdings LLC is the owner, and our
Certificate of Tax Clearance. Again, in the virtual audience is Michael Belder, one of the representatives
in the virtual audience is michael belder uh one of the representatives from the corporate
from the corporate.
property owner uh and i'll just ask him a few questions uh so he can adopt my testimony
pretty straightforward project this is an rsa3 property
which is you know rather large in size almost 4 700 square feet i looked at the property history
according to Atlas. This property speaks nothing of a RSA 3 property. In 1987, this was a daycare.
In 1989, this was a boarding house with seven rooming units. And in 2014, this board granted
a variance for a three-family dwelling. So, what we're asking for is a three-family dwelling
is in conformance with, you know, this long property history of non-single-family use.
Again, my client previously obtained this use, started doing some of the renovation work,
and unfortunately with COVID happening, stopped, you know, that work, and now is trying to, again,
get, you know, the zoning permit to revive it and then to get a CO eventually.
So, again, we met with a concerned community organization, but, you know, we did not have anyone attend that meeting, so we're having another meeting.
Property history, as you can see, this property has had a three-family use, you know, approved by the zoning board.
And then maps to the area where, you know, again, while we have a sliver of single-family use,
And by the way, we're just off of North Broad Street.
So, you know, while we have a single family use here, we're near the commercial corridor of North Broad Street.
So it's not out of character to expect to have multifamily on the same block, essentially, as North Broad Street, just a block east.
And then photographs of the property.
Again, this is a rather large house, too, in addition to the property itself.
This is proof of our notice that was posted on the property for today's hearing.
And then this is our property from North Park Street from both angles.
There is other multifamily properties on that block as well.
4912 and 4902 are also multifamily, even though they have a RSA 3 zoning classification.
These are our simple floor plans here.
But if you walk through the front door, you make, you know, there's a vestibule area, you make a left, there's unit number one, which is one bedroom, one bath.
The lower level, there is no access for the residents themselves, so there's no living in the basement, there's no access to the basement, and just as a side note, trash is stored in the rear, and everyone has access to that rear yard through the side yard.
You go up a flight of steps, then you have units two and three.
Unit two is right here.
Oh, actually, I guess unit two is here, which is a two-bedroom, one-bath.
And then unit number three is a bi-level, where you have the kitchen and you have the dining room,
and you go up a flight of steps, and that's an additional two bedrooms and one-bath.
uh we had an rco meeting we were even asked to do additional work which we did so we're asked to
provide an additional notice or change our notice somewhat from what's the typical rco notice which
we did show the picture of the property provide more description than we typically do
screen is stuck let's see i'll try to do this one more time
uh my program crashed on me my acrobat adobe crashed on me so i do apologize
um let me go and share my screen let me get back into this
Let's try this one more time.
So, you know, we've provided that additional notice.
So, you know, we provided that additional notice.
We emailed our notice to the community organizers, the coordinating RCOs and all other RCOs with proof of mailing of the notice that we sent out.
We sent that notice to 83 addresses, proof of mailing, I mean, those addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses, our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of our client, the deed to the property, and most importantly, the certificate of tax clearance.
Again, we embrace the fact that we'll have another community meeting.
Hopefully, we'll get some people there and we'll have some input.
But with that being said, I would ask that Mr. Belder virtually raise his hand.
sir i'm sorry chair i don't see a builder in the virtual
audience i have a hand raised by uh sarita brown
well let's double check to see double check to see if that's him
I believe that's Sandra Brown, who's the representative of the coordinating RCO, if I could be wrong.
You've been allowed to speak.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Sarita Brown, S-Y-R-E-E-T-A, last name Brown, B-R-O-W-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
So we're going to have a resumptive hearing so that the RCO can have another meeting.
Okay, so that's the question I wanted to ask.
Would that date be provided?
Also, regarding his March 11th date, this is the first me and several other people who are actually in a virtual audience is hearing of this.
that mailing list. I was trying to screenshot to see if the right addresses were on it
to make sure because we did not get any notices in the mail regarding any notices about this
property. Well, that's why we're going to do it again. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sure.
That's great. You can email me at alan.nockmson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N at N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.com
so I can reach out to you.
Nockam, I'm sending you an officer of the court, so
we don't, there.
Questions on the board?
No, Mr.
Chairman. No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney?
Ryan McSherry?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual
audience?
i'm sorry brown's hand is up again okay let us speak hi miss brown
just the one question um for this the um your your client who's uh who wanted to make the property
the three unit apartment um for the property the question would have been uh i know we're
in your uh your filings was your client willing to do the we're gonna sarita we're not going to
talk about that now but there's going to be another hearing and you can have a conversation
with with them at that hearing okay thank you um planning commission do you want to uh there's
going to be an additional resumptive hearing do you want to take a position today or do you want
away for the hearing. Peter? Chair, as the district planner, I would like to wait until
we're able to. Okay, sure, sure. So, the applicant should contact the ZBA staff once the RCO
meeting has been held. Resumptive will be for feedback from the RCO, additional public testimony,
and recommendations of the Planning Commission. Thank you, Mr. Nockelson.
hi chair tanya again is do we do we have our interpreter yes i believe so and we would like
to okay let's do it let's let's get please um lakeisha you have some promoting um people now
all righty thank you kindly chair sure interpreter first please
this is mike uh the mandarin mike you've all mike you've already been sworn yes i did
they're they're coming on and um what what we're going to do is uh we're going to ask whoever's
going to testify to state their name and spell it for the court stenographer and then we're
court stenographer and then we're going to square them in okay so could you do that first get them
going to swear them in okay so could you do that first get that
to state their name and spell for the court yes and i'm sorry um chair before that um i'm trying
to promote them but it's keep saying that they're declining uh please accept the uh invitation to be
promoted
Mike, do you hear what they said, Mike?
Okay, I thought you were talking to some other people.
No, they want you to tell them to stop declining the invitation.
现在会发邀请给您,就是把您的案件往前移,您需要选择接受,不要一直拒绝,拒绝的话你就没有办法加入。
this interpreter should i turn on my video yes your video or theirs
we need their video okay i turned it on and was uh turned off but anyway okay so
mr chair i'm also attempting to uh promote the two panelists but they are declining again for
some reason. I'm not sure. Okay. All right. Could you ask them to stop the client and Mr.
What are they saying?
I hear no response.
Okay. They'll be rejoining, sir. I'm sorry to cut you off, but they'll be coming back in as a
panelist. Okay.
Mr. Wang, could you ask them to state their name?
请问您听得到我们的声音吗?
听到的话,请您告诉主席您的名字,然后把它拼出来,书记官要把它记录起来。
Disinterpreter, I repeated the question, asked them to state their name and spell it out.
I got no response.
Jason, do we have any contact where they are?
Wait a minute.
Say it again.
Ming-Sung Hong.
hi m-i-n-g-s-e-n-h-u-a-n-g
mike mr wang is that them talking or is it sam talking
there is a gentleman then earlier when it shows yeah i saw it there's a lady it's the same phone
number again i am her husband okay all right um does does
Just to make sure that they have a computer that they can present on.
Do they have a computer to present their documents?
Okay, I'm sure you have a computer that can show you the information you want to present on the computer.
I'm in the computer.
I am in front of a computer.
Okay, turn on the video one.
请你们两位要把摄像头打开。
摄像头打开的话,等一下。
One second.
你们要看我们的摄像头吗?
So you need to see our video?
Yes, I want to see the video.
是的,我们需要看到您的摄像头打开。
While he's trying to get that on, could you get her to state her name and spell for you?
My name is Chao Ming-Chun.
My first name is C-H-I-A-O-M-I-N-G, last name C-H-E-N-G.
Okay, and could you tell her this?
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could she start sharing her screen?
And excuse me, Chair, can we read the refusal into the record?
Sure, I will, yes.
This application is for the addition of a third floor with roof deck and roof deck access structure to an existing attack structure for use as a vacant commercial space on the first floor and two-family living above.
The proposed use two-family living is prohibited in the CMX 1 district when adjacent to the RSA 5 zoning district.
Chair, excuse me, this is the reporter.
I had a request to unmute.
Say that again, John.
I got a notification on my screen to unmute.
Did someone have a question for me?
No, not that I know of.
Thank you.
Excuse the interruption.
Sure, sure.
Mr. Wang, could you tell her to share her screen and show us her documents?
请您分享您的屏幕,把您要展示的资料展示出来。
你们可以看见我的屏幕吗现在?
Can you see my screen now?
No, we only see her face. We want to see her documents.
The documents that she's got to present to us.
我们现在只看到你们两个人的脸
我们需要看您今天要呈现的文件
什么文件你没有跟我讲
你要我给他什么
在我的email里面吗
What kind of document?
No one told us that we need to prepare any document
Is that in my email?
So let's listen
Here's where we are with this
She has to be in a position
to present all the documents that we need for the case.
Pictures, drawings, etc.
And that should be in her computer to present for us.
If she doesn't have it, we're going to have to continue the case.
Do you need to show all the information you want to show the information you want to show the information you want to show the information you want to show on the screen?
如果您没有这些文件的话,我们今天这个案件就没有办法进行,必须延期。
But no one has told us we need to prepare any document. Do you have the documents?
so here here's what we're going to do um all the documents she's going to have to find a way to get
in touch with our office call the office and they will explain if she has to have an interpreter
or she has a family member she doesn't have that we don't have to swear anybody in calling the
office and the office will tell her everything she needs to be able to present to us all the uh
I would also suggest that the gentleman that you had to assist you, we're familiar with him.
If you want him to help you with the process of getting scheduled to be heard, that's fine.
But he can't represent you at the hearing.
That's right.
首先您需要跟我们的办公室联络
如果您需要带上翻译也可以
基本上就是您要跟我们办公室联络
他们会跟你说明您需要准备什么样的文件
在这个听证会里面把这些文件来展示给我们看
这个是第一件事情
第二件事情您旁边那位先生他帮您安排了这个听证
可是他没有办法在听证会当中来代表您
Thank you. Interpreter, thank you very much. The case will be continued. She needs to have someone help her get in touch with our office, okay? Thank you very much.
get in touch with our office, okay?
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
You need to contact us with the office
to understand how to deal with this.
This is the interpreter.
If there's nothing further,
interpreter will disconnect now.
Thank you so much, interpreter.
We appreciate your help.
Thank you so much.
Okay, thank you.
So number 15, MI 2024-00312-931 North Broad Street.
Catherine Missimer is the attorney.
Um, there's a letter of support from 14th community RCO with one proviso.
They're coming back in as a panelist, Mr. Chair.
I cancel.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
You're muted.
You're muted.
You're muted.
Okay, there you go.
Catherine Missimer.
It's M-I-S-S-I-M-E-R.
Right.
At Claire Harrison, 1835 Market Street, Suite 1400, 19103.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
931 Broad LLC, equitable owner of the property.
and our vice chair has a few questions sure good afternoon council do you agree to wait
to read another refusal or stipulate to a black person i do have you emailed in all the required
documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing
i have thank you please are you seeing our exhibit package it should be a letter from
the 14th community organization yes great thank you we're here today with an application for the
relocation of lot lines to create one lot from two existing narrow parcels and the new construction of a building for use as 40 dwelling units.
I have with me today equitable owner rep Harrison Feinberg and our project architect.
We've met with the coordinating RCO for this matter, the 14th community organization RCO, and you have their letter of support on the screen in front of you.
We do agree to waive the reading of the refusal, but I will note we do have revised plans to be stamped today should the board be so inclined.
They are the plans that were presented to the RCO, and they do reflect the requested two-foot setback at the request of SEPTA.
Property is located on Broad Street.
It's this narrow oval that I'm showing here with my cursor between Girard and Poplar Streets.
It runs all the way through to Watt Street in the rear.
it consists of two deeded parcels the main parcel being 931 broad and a smaller rear parcel
which is known as 933 b to the rear and you can see that here behind the black fence
the stairs to the broad street line are directly adjacent or at the front door of this property
circling them here for your reference and this property is located about a half a block from
nearest trolley station as well the site is on cmx4 there's no real existing structure here
as you can see from the site photos on your screen there's a wall to the front and a fence
to the rear but no structure in the middle there are several vacant and dilapidated lots on this
on this block i'm just showing you a few photos for context while there is some development
happening. And this lot is ripe for similar development. What you see now on your screen
is the lot line relocation plan. Again, it's this small portion to the rear is currently known as
933B. It's not separately assessed. And this is the larger parcel at 931 broad. So the proposal is
to create one single lot straight through. And now you're seeing the zoning site plan for the
proposed construction of 40 multifamily dwelling units with designated interior bicycle and trash
storage. In connection with this project, we met with the coordinating RCO, 14th Community RCO.
The neighborhood stressed that they were looking for a responsible neighbor to take over this site
and concerns about illegal dumping and security issues. We were able to incorporate the neighborhood's
context into our design by, among other things, maintaining that internal trash room and hiring
a private trash removal service, installing security cameras and lighting, and providing
tenant incentive. The result is a cohesive project that we feel really responds to the
community's needs at this location. Proposal does generate two use, two refusals, and while
we're getting to the refusal, I just want to scan through the layouts. We can go back to them to
extent you have questions these are a few photos the building in question is this brown brick
These are a few photos. The building in question is this brown brick building. It's really infill development. Again, there's a wall on the site today, but nothing behind it. And these are the existing buildings on either side. This is Girard to orient you, and this is North Broad.
building it's really
Again, this looks like from the front, and this is the refusal. Because this property is zoned CMX4, there is a parking requirement here.
It's a 3 to 10 ratio, which would require 12 spaces. As you could see from the site layout, it's an extremely narrow lot, as well as being in the CMX4 designation, which does not permit surface parking.
It would likely have to be below grade. And again, here we would run into the subway directly at the front of this property.
The 26-foot width of the property itself also does not really provide sufficient room to provide spaces as well as a drive aisle to access them.
Location is entirely transit-oriented, again, with the broad street line specifically steps away from the front of the building and the trolley located at the next corner.
We also do create a refusal here for FAR. Again, this is really due to the unique nature and context of this lot in particular. Given its narrow nature, it's difficult to construct a building that would meet the requirements here.
The proposed building is consistent with neighborhood context, as you can see from the surrounding area photos with the building directly next door and the large billboard above the neighboring building, as well as the proposed density is appropriate, we feel, for a building that's fronting on Broad Street, again, with the septal location directly at the front door.
We've met with the coordinating RCO for this matter.
You do have their letter of support in your packets.
The granting of requested variances as evidenced by that letter of support as well as the neighboring context will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood.
In fact, neighborhood supports projects like this because it's bringing new development and housing stock to the area.
It will not impair the appropriate use or development of adjacent property, and it's consistent with the multifamily character of this neighborhood.
Finally, requested variance is the minimum needed to afford relief and is in harmony with the purpose and spirit of this code.
With that, I'll just ask that my client, Harrison Feinberg, be allowed to speak.
They've been about to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
i am harrison finberg um h-a-r-r-i-s-o-n f-i-n-b-e-r-g you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth is nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel thank you harrison have
you heard my testimony today yes would you agree that it's true and correct yes and would you
adopt it as your own yes thank you we have questions further questions from the board
no chair no mr chairman
questions or comments from our attorney ryan mccurry no mr chair
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr chair
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
First name Ron, R-O-N, last name Bednar, B-E-D-N-A-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Ron.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX4 commercial mixed use at this location.
We feel the proposed density represents an overuse of the property,
but the proximity to high-frequency public transportation lines justifies the variance
for parking. Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends that the Board deny
the variance for the additional FAR, but grant the variance for the parking.
With respect to the Planning Commission, we would just note the neighborhood supported the density
because, again, it allows us to offer units of this size which are in short supply in the neighborhood.
So, MI 2024-00312-931 North Broad Street, I vote yes. Proviso. Revised plan, one page, stamp by ZBA on March 27, 2024.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with Proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ishmael Shaheen, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Great, thank you.
All right. Number 16, MI2023-00596.
All right, number 16, MI-2023-005-964-5101, Germantown Avenue.
Vern Anastasio.
So there's a letter of opposition from the Wakefield 49ers community,
letter of opposition from Solo Germantown.
Applicant as a petition signed by 37 people.
Coming back in as a panelist, sir.
Mr. Anastasio, you've been sworn in several times a day, I believe. Could you just state your name for the record?
Yes, sir. Vern Anastasio on behalf of Helene Santiago and HS Creative Studios.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
yes sir have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed
with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes i have thank you counselor please
proceed and show the screen thank you okay bear with me for one second mr chair
there it goes okay 5101 germantown avenue this isn't a variance we're not seeking a variance
we don't have to show hardship this is just a special exception that's all this is which as
you the board knows means that what we are proposing which is event space uh is consistent
with the code. And we just have to demonstrate in good faith that my client, HS Creative Studios,
has the reputation and the ability to provide a commercial space that will not impact the
neighboring community any more than a typical space of this kind would. And we can do that.
We have evidence of that. And I've even under separate covers submitted 36 separate Google reviews over the last five years.
My client has been an event planner and a special events planner in other sites.
And she's got 4.5 stars out of 5 and 32 reviews, all stellar, explaining the clean, safe, and secure environment that she produces at these birthdays, at these luncheons, at these baby showers, and very small weddings.
So anyway, the table of contents here is we have the referral.
We have the photos of the property.
Exhibit three is the floor plan.
We have exhibit four, which is the RCO letter and the proof of mailing.
We have the zoning poster and the proof of posting.
Exhibit six is our lease.
Exhibit seven is a landlord letter of consent because it's actually a sublease.
We have a signed petition of 37 individuals from the neighborhood in support.
We have the tax clearance and then some overhead views.
Additionally, my client went to business school and created an executive summary for H Services Studios.
So it details her business plan, which is well thought out, well fleshed out, has been doing well for five years, and a financial plan that we submit today as well.
So she is by no means a fly-by-night operation, and it's for the use as special assembly and entertainment.
Of course, we went to the community group and obliged that there would be no nightclub activity, no third-party promoters, no funeral lunches,
because I think some of the folks in the neighbors that met felt that funeral lunches could actually be places where there could be problems.
So we've said no funeral lunches. We'll stick to birthdays, showers, graduations.
There'll be commercial trash pickup. There'll be security lighting and cameras on site security during each and every event, which will be required by contract and booked by the owner.
My client, Ms. Santiago.
This is I mean, if there was ever a place to have a special an event space, it's it's a strip mall.
right uh right off germantown avenue which is a massive commercial corridor there's no impacted
uh community members necessarily here so i mean it shares a strip mall the strip mall is shared
with a hair boss with a wine and spirit store uh with
with a hair boss with a wine and spirit store uh with a thrift shop so and it's a you know in a
very large parking lot by the way which here's the interior layout drawn the scale and and here's
here's a close-up of here's the build here's the strip of buildings here's germantown avenue which
you know is full of commercial uh activity right off of germantown avenue is the curb cut into the
very large parking lot. This is a vacant commercial space here, but then you've got the hair cuttery
place, the wine and spirit shop. You've got the halal restaurant in addition to the thrift store.
And then you would have on this side, this corner right here would be the event space. The event
space, of course, would be in the evening mostly, which means all of these shops, most of these
shops are closed, which would free up all this parking that could be absorbed by any of the
folks who attend the parties in this space. So it was very important to show you the proximity
not only to free off-street parking, but also the proximity to Germantown Avenue.
here is a here is it again here's germantown avenue again full of commercial space here's
the parking lot for the strip mall and this is this this is the unit behind there are no homes
facing uh the back of the property these are all very deep 30 and 40 foot deep yards uh and the
back of people's homes uh where there's a senior center right here on the corner my client's already
engaged with the folks who work there uh they're going to be donating decorations and balloons
and and get involved in the community service there as well so um yeah she's doing everything
she can to ensure that um you know that it's it's run correctly and it's run well the hours
of operation will be no later than 11 pm most of the activity will be on the weekends and um
With that, I just want to show you another aerial view so you can see.
And this is this is during the day. This isn't even a night shot.
This is during the day and there's plenty of available off street parking.
So, again, my client with four and a half star reviews at Google, 32 reviews of her five years of experience,
all submitted into evidence here in addition to the restrictions on the permit that she's
volunteered. I'd like to call her now so that she can demonstrate lastly in her testimony that
this use is A, consistent with the code. That's why a special exception is the only
bar we have to meet and that her history, her reviews and her business plan and financial
pro forma all speak to a business that will be well run, clean, safe and secure and have
no greater impact on the neighboring area than any other use like this one would be
expected to have.
And with that, Helene Santiago, please raise your virtual hand.
I'm here.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Helen G. Santiago, H-E-L-E-N-Y-I, last name S-A-N-T-I-A-G-O.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Santiago, did you hear my presentation to the board this evening?
Yes, I did.
Is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Did you personally circulate that petition and getting 37 immediate neighbors to support this special exception?
Yes, I did.
Thank you very much.
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair.
There may be some witnesses.
They did log on earlier this afternoon.
I'm not quite sure if they're still there.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
no chair questions or comments from our attorney ryan mcsherry no mr chair questions or comments
from the virtual audience i miss i have a handout from charles richardson i've allowed them to speak
okay good afternoon mr richardson just state your name you've already been sworn good afternoon
again, Mr. Chair Charles Richardson, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N, Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass,
Room 508 City Hall. The Councilwoman is opposed to granting the special exception. This is an
The councilwoman is opposed to granting the special exception. This is an absolutely horrible location for them to try to locate that. That is not a senior center. It's a four story, actually five story senior home. And, you know, just trying to buy them off with regard to, you know, giving them decorations and this type of thing and whatnot.
That is not a reason to grant a special exception. That's a horrible place in that location. There's all kind of gang activity that takes place right there across the street at what used to be the Sugar Shack and right at that location and within that block there on Germantown Avenue.
So, you know, really, there's no real way for her to be able to say how things are going to go because she really doesn't know.
And whatever she's presenting is from other locations and which are not not not this location.
So the councilwoman is opposed and joins with the two RCOs and opposing this special exception.
Mr. Chair, I respect, of course, Mr. Richardson's testimony.
I just need to make sure that it's crystal clear. This is not open to the public.
These are events that are booked through my client, as they are now at different sites.
And her reaching out and building community with the residential facility across the street
was by no means anything more than trying to build a relationship with her immediate neighbor.
Again, I understand that folks are concerned about other criminal activity in the area,
But the standard here is, do the Protestants provide evidence or testimony that demonstrates that this particular use would be a detriment to the community?
And there's, in fact, there is not only no evidence of that, but it's to the contrary, that she's actually going to be improving a site with the work that she does.
What other comments from the virtual audience?
I had a Tori and a Zadie Haag who were supposed to testify.
I'm not quite sure that they are on.
Do we see any other hands?
I have A. Weiss with the hand raised, Allison Weiss.
I haven't allowed them to speak.
Okay, sure.
Ms. Weiss, state your name and spell for the court stenographer.
Allison Weiss, A-double-L-I-S-O-N-W-E-I-S-S.
solo germantown civic association you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes please proceed uh yes uh well you have our letter of opposition and i wanted
to add further to that um that we don't see that the property owner has a active rental license
nor do we see in this case that it's supposedly a sublease and we don't have a letter of permission
from the actual property owner that a sublease is acceptable so we don't know
as opposed to the pretzel company where they have all of these documents we don't see that
that these documents are available for this particular business to be legitimately at this location.
The other thing is we are unsure the way the referral was issued, which space is being rented.
It doesn't identify a space number.
Usually when there's a shopping center, you have space one, two, three or ABC or something indicating that it's not referring to the entire center for the referral.
So that would need to be clarified.
Thank you for calling, Ms. Weiss.
Is there anyone else?
Mr. Chair, I just want to point.
Hold on one minute.
Ms. Weiss, do you have something more?
Well, I'm bringing it back.
I'm sorry.
Do you have anything else to add?
We have not had an opportunity to look at the petition that was presented to see where these people are in relation to the proposed business.
And this letter from the Nikki group that's being displayed gives permission to the sub, to the current lesser and not the sub lesser.
It gives the permission to the tenant that supposedly Nikki group.
permission to the tenant that supposedly nikki group has and not to the halal
meet which is proposing the sublease so again there's no uh active rental uh that we could
find or on the uh atlas or eclipse that's available to us to look thank you
Could I, Vern, let me see if there's anyone else in the audience.
And then you can respond.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yeah, Pamela Bracey has been allowed to speak, sir.
Good afternoon.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, Pamela, P-A-M-E-L-A, Bracey, B as in boy, R-A-C-E-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
I'm a near neighbor. I'm about one block away.
Please proceed. Are you in favor of this or against?
No, I am against this. I don't think that we can not say that the senior citizens that live next door, and they really are next door neighbors, would not be impacted by this.
There's also a sign in the parking lot that says that if you're not participating with those businesses, your car will be towed. That came up at the meeting, community meeting that we had. One of the 49ers mentioned that.
Also, if we want to talk about the violence, we've had a young man who was killed right on that wall with four other young people killed and someone else.
So we know that violence is here, but I don't think that this is a great place.
I'm not saying this young lady has not done great things elsewhere.
I just don't think that this is the place for her business.
But I wish her well.
Thank you, Ms. Bracey.
Thank you.
Do we have any more hands up?
No further, Chair. No further hands, Mr. Chair.
Vern, do you want to comment before we close the planning?
Just a couple of things. The letter that was submitted, I have to object to because it was full of misunderstandings, I'm going to chalk it up to.
The tenant, my client, is the subleasy. She rents the space from the larger tenant of both the restaurant and the empty space.
that's all documented it's submitted here we even submitted a lease to the rco so there is
no question about that not quite sure what kind of rental license they're looking for but you
don't get a residential rental license for commercial space once it's full of course
uh there needs to be you know everything in place for that and she does have to be
she will be subject to a certificate of occupancy again the parking lot is available to the 20 or
so folks or however many people who would be going to a private event at that space it's not
open to the public and the parking lot is available to folks occupying all of the stores on a strip
it's it's a strip mall off of a commercial corridor two doors from a wine and spirit shop
if there was ever a better place to have a small event space it's this space
where it will not impact or overflow from the residential community.
Again, I think based on the financial performa and the executive summary and the reviews and the 37 signatures in support,
I think we have met our burden showing that we would not impact the neighborhood any more than a typical place like this would.
But I do think that there is still zero evidence that this specific applicant, this specific appellant, would operate in a way that would be detrimental to the community.
In fact, no one can make that claim.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The adopted city comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX 2.5 commercial mixed use at this location.
The proposal will have no more impact than what can reasonably be expected.
Therefore, the Planning Commission recommends that the board grant a special exception.
So MI 2023-005-964-5101 Germantown Avenue, I vote no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
thank you counsel thank you all right number 17 mi 2024 000 310 1100 south broad street
1100 South Broad Street, Unit 303C.
unit 303 c there's a
There's a letter of opposition from the South Broad Neighborhood Association
and a letter of opposition from Council President Johnson.
The applicant has had the condo association authorize him for short-term rentals.
Hi, Mr. Nockmson. Just state your name, please.
Alan Ockmson. Right. And could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
David Milano, the owner. Okay. And our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wait to read another refusal or circulate to his accuracy?
I do. Have you emailed them all the required documents and exhibits that is needed
to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing? I did.
Thank you. Please proceed to share this from you.
Thank you.
All right. So I'm here to present.
1100 South Broad Street, Unit 303 C.
So this is a unit in the Marine Club, which is a condominium building at Broad in Washington.
So not too far off from Center City, Philadelphia, depending on your definition, Center City, Philadelphia.
It could be even deemed Center City, Philadelphia as we move further and further south.
This is a pretty straightforward project where all we're trying to do is get visitor accommodation use for this property,
which is a residential property and a rather large condominium development.
We have off-street parking.
So we met with the South Broad Street Neighborhood Association. One person, one affected property showed up. They voted in support of this property.
During the meeting, we were told that if the neighborhood group saw proof after the meeting that this is not against the bylaws of the association and the condominium to have visitor accommodations, and they received a letter in support from the condominium association, the group would support it themselves.
ourselves so you know it did take us you know we had the meeting last i believe last week it did
take us a few more days than we you know we hoped but you know we're dealing with the condominium
board so everything takes a little bit longer so um i believe this weekend maybe we got a letter
in opposition but again and one of the indications was that we didn't provide that letter and proof
of you know that this is not against the governing condominium documents we got that letter since
We do have in our presentation packet a portion of the declaration showing it's not against the condominium rules and regulations to have Airbnbs.
And, you know, I believe for those reasons alone, we, you know, this board should support this matter because it's a very straightforward matter.
And again, the people who did show up in the meeting, one person was in support of it.
So we do have that correspondence from the Marine Club Condominiums Management.
It's also not uncommon to have visitor accommodations within the Marine Club.
And we have we showed a couple of listings of that, as well as across the street where the apartment building, which has the target, also has an Airbnb unit.
We also have our listing, which shows that, you know, we're a well-regarded, you know, Airbnb operator.
We also have reviews showing that as well.
Maps of the area, photographs of the interior of the property as well as the surrounding area.
And then just simple floor plans.
Our RCO meeting notice along with proof of mailing of that notice.
Our application for appeal that we filed on Mr. Milano's behalf.
The deed to the property showing that Mr. Milano is the owner of the property.
As well as the certificate of tax clearance for the property.
Again, well, the zoning classification is I-2, so the use that we're asking for is just visitor accommodations.
This is a residential condominium building, and we would ask for a proviso for three-year temporary variance, which I think is reasonable under the circumstances.
And then, again, the South Philly neighborhood group indicated, too, that everyone who was in attendance outside of the board itself voted in favor of that.
That's that one person.
They, the board themselves, all voted against it.
They, the board themselves, all voted against it. And, you know, here's the letter explaining such. And then again, in this paragraph here, they said, well, we don't believe that visitor accommodations would be allowed in this condominium building.
and you know here's the
If you show us that and you show and give us proof that the board is in support of that, you know, that would go a long way.
You know, in the letter, they said that during the meeting, they said if their board is OK with it and, you know, it's not illegally used by based on the condominium bylaws, they would be fine with that.
That's what we did.
We have that letter and it's from the Marine Club Condominium Association.
The following unit has approved to rent short-term through Airbnb or materially similar platforms.
This approval does not need renewal subject to state and federal laws, as well as the declaration, bylaws, and regulations of the HOA.
And then I also included, which is a recorded document, the declaration of the condominium building, which is the Marine Club.
and specific i only gave a portion of it because i didn't want to have all the pages thereby do
have its you know section or article 7 talks about restrictions on use and alienation and
lease of units and i grant you typically when you see these condominium uh you know rules and
regulations it does limit the amount of time typically that a unit owner can lease a property
usually it's at least 180 days. Here, there's no mention of that. And actually, this condominium
regime has no such prohibition. And again, from the letter you see, they confirmed that. But if
you look at 7.1 and 7.2 of the declaration, there's no such prohibition or limitation.
So all we have to do is give notice that we're leasing the property out. And it's so long
as this is approved it's approved that's what happens here and then nearby airbnb listings so
again people don't want to always you know get you know have a property you know you know have
a hotel room at the ritz you know they want something a little bit more unique and here
again this is a you know north you know south broad street this commercial corridor and um you
know we have a parking space and someone you know wants a little bit different flavor and that's what
But, you know, our Airbnb offers and many, many Airbnbs in this vicinity.
And you can see here, they're like, you know, again, I took these, you know, from the Airbnb site.
But this is where the, you know, where the new target is on South Broad Street in Washington.
There's an Airbnb there.
There's Airbnbs in the Marine Club as well.
So not uncommon.
And then here's our listing.
You know, we have stellar reviews. My client takes it very seriously. He actually stays many nights there. Not many. He probably stays there when he when, you know, there are events in downtown that he goes to or, you know, maybe at the stadiums.
He probably does like maybe seven nights. I think he said maybe seven nights and maybe he affirmed that he only does so many nights a month to just basically pay the mortgage and the condo fees of Airbnb use.
So it's not overusing the property, but regardless, there's no effect on the community because this is an enclosed condominium building where people have off-street parking.
And, you know, again, just having that letter of support shows that he's not causing a nuisance within his own condominium.
And then the reviews are, again, we just took off of Airbnb.
You know, they're very good.
and then maps of the area here um we're not in the heart of a residential property we're
we're on south broad street and there's only in this property is i too
so um not that that should matter um but i think it does
and the interior photos from you know from the airbnb website
and then photographs of of the uh the marine club building
and then proof of you know posting for that uh for today's hearing
and then perspectives from both south broad street and washington have
and then there's some accommodations within the marine club
and then again simple drawings it's you know it's it's you know a simple floor
It's, you know, a simple floor plan. You walk in, you have two closets, you have a bathroom, you have a kitchen, you have a living room, and you have a sleeping quarters.
point you walk in you have two closets you have a bathroom you have a kitchen
And then again, it really was not that well attended the meeting, but the one person who did show up was in support of it, but we had it March 19th, which I believe was last week.
598 addresses were notified to that meeting list of the addresses that received notification
of that of that community meeting
and then proof of mailing
and there are applications for appeal
on Mr. Milano's behalf, along with the deed to the property, and then a certificate of
tax clearance.
I would ask that Mr. Milano, if he's still in the virtual audience, virtually raise his
He's been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
david milano d-a-v-i-d m-i-l-a-n-o do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes i do please proceed counsel uh mr milano you had every you heard everything i had
to state today yes about your zoning matter is it true and correct yes and do you adopt
as your own testimony yes and then by the way the couple one question you know you live near
near the property like you live closer to the stadiums but you don't live far from it right
correct and then just to confirm you probably rent this property on average six to seven nights
a month is that correct correct and that's just paid your mortgage and your condo fees right
yes correct and then you're also a super host meaning that you know you get because of the
good reviews you get you get a special designation right correct yes thank you questions from the
board no mr chairman questions or comments from our attorney
questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes i have a hand up from a peter zutter i have allowed them to speak sir okay
hi sir could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
uh yes can you hear me yes i can yes okay my name is peter zutter p-e-t-e-r zutter z-u-t-t-e-r
all right do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do. Are you a neighbor? I live about three blocks away. I'm also president of the South
Broad Street Neighborhood Association. Please proceed. I live 40 South Broad Street.
Certainly, you don't have to tell me. That's fine. Please proceed.
So, yeah, we were at that meeting and I hope there wasn't miscommunication. When we asked
for the letter from the condo association, it was not like a definite approval. And we have a lot of
concerns about these Airbnbs that are popping up. We have a lot of them that are popping up on South
Broad Street that are not legal. And we are just concerned that if we open the door to legalize
this in a facility like the Marine Club, where there are several hundred apartments that we're
going to have more and more of these popping up and it's going to amount to a somewhat disorganized
hotel. And our concern would be that not all of the applicants would maintain their properties
as well as the owner of this unit. It's also, we did not have the information about either the
letter from the condo board or the little excerpt from the condo documents at our meeting. I don't
know that it would have changed our mind because the other concerns are rather significant, but if
you look at 7.1a and about two-thirds of the way through there, it says no residential unit owner
shall permit his unit to be used or occupied for any prohibited purpose, nor may they seek a variance
to permit such use. Now, I'm not an attorney. I don't know how much power a condo association
president has, but it does say in there that the owners of the units are not allowed to apply for
a variance. And I would kind of think that that takes precedence over a letter from the
uh condo uh chairperson um and this was the first two i don't recall hearing anything
And this was the first, too. I don't recall hearing anything about a three-year temporary license. I don't know if that would make it more palatable, but that's the first that we were hearing about that was at today's hearing. So, thank you.
about a three-year temporary license
can i just respond to you can't you go ahead go ahead sure yeah so we we can't seek a variance
for the prohibited use within the con within the condo building itself so airbnbs are not
a prohibited use within the condo building itself that's that's what the language is stating not
that you know we can't seek a variance at all um anyone else in the virtual audience
zoning codes. Anyone else in the virtual audience?
No further
hands, Mr. Chair. Planning Commission.
Ron Bednar, City Planning. The adopted
City Comprehensive Plan recommended a change
from existing zoning to CMX3,
commercial mixed use of dislocation. Under that
recommendation, recommended zoning, the
proposed use would be permitted by right.
Planning Commission recommends the board grant interference.
MI 2024, 000310, 1100 South Broad Street, Unit 303C, I vote yes.
Temporary variance expires 327-27.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheen, my baby's yes list, the proviso.
Is there anyone in the, thank you, counsel, by the way.
Is there anyone in the audience from the 2 p.m. list whose case has not been called?
All right, we're going to take a five-minute break.
Okay, we're going to take a five-minute break.
We're going to come right back and finish up.
Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Berger.
Good afternoon. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this evening's EBA hearings. With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Member, Thomas Holloman.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Our Attorney, Ryan McChurray, is with us, and also our Executive Director, Tanya Sunken. Here's our virtual format.
Be advised the proceedings are being recorded. A video will be available by contacting
tanyasunket at phil.gov. For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and
witnesses to identify themselves before testifying. If you're participating by phone and you wish to
testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. To enter the appearance statement,
call 267-270-5548. Leave your email and the address and the address of the property in
question. And finally, the question answer box on the screen is now for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our executive director, Tanya Sunken. Let's look at our schedule
for this evening. Number three, MI-2023-002-401-1941-North 32nd Street. That case is continued.
Number seven, MI 2023-006-399-5044 Westminster Avenue.
That case is continued.
And number eight, MI 2023-002-377-2655 South Hutchinson Street.
that case was continued earlier are there any other requests for continuances
good afternoon mr chair this is jason hand again i will be your co-host for the session
okay i do not see any hands raised for further continuances okay thank you and number two mi
MI 2023-002-366-2251 South 23rd Street.
We have no exhibits.
This is the second listing.
There are no hands for that matter, sir.
Dennis and Barbara Prater, the owners.
Okay, so that case, MI-2023-002-366-2251 South 23rd Street, that case is continued.
Mark must be heard.
We're going to go to our list. Number one, MI 2023-006-398-1301 North 52nd Street. Bruce Harmon is the owner applicant. The application is for a takeout restaurant on the first floor of an existing structure with other existing uses in the same structure as previously approved.
We're going to go to our list.
Number one, MI-2023-002-366-2251 South 23rd Street.
The proposed use takeout restaurant requires special exception approval in the CMX-2 zoning district.
Mr. Bruce Harmon.
Mr. Harmon will be rejoining as a panelist, sir.
Thank you.
Mr. Harmon?
Hold on to him.
I'm having some difficulty promoting him.
Coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you.
mr harman uh yes sorry could you i'm sure could mr harman could you state your name
and spell for the court stenographer bruce b-r-u-c-e harman h-a-r-m-o-n do you swear
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do could you please turn your
video one okay our our uh our vice chair is uh going to ask you a few questions
good afternoon mr harman uh have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that
are needed to proceed with this case probably in advance of this hearing yes i have thank you can
Please share your screen and you can proceed.
Let me apologize because of my ignorance and lack of due diligence of the virtual format.
I am not prepared.
I do not have exhibitions.
The last time I came out, did this, I came in, I guess, when you had the court live.
And so I wasn't aware of this process of presenting documents, but I apologize for that.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to have to continue the case.
And the next time, call the office.
They'll walk you through everything.
They'll get you straight.
And the next time, we'll make sure you get on, okay?
I'm sorry again.
No, thanks for your honesty.
We appreciate it.
So MI 2023-006-398-1301-North 52nd Street.
Cases continue.
We'll be in touch.
Okay, sir?
Thanks a lot.
All right.
Number four.
MI 2023-006-417-1047 Darn Street.
Sean Corey is the applicant.
The applicant is for a use as a visitor accommodation in existing attack structure.
The proposed use visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district.
There's a letter of opposition from the North Washington Avenue Coalition.
There's a letter of opposition from Council President Johnson.
There was a vote that came out 8 to 8.
Mr. Corey, could you unmute, please?
Could you state your name and spell it for the court sonographer?
Sean Corey, S-E-A-N-C-O-A-R-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, sir.
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case?
Probably as an advance of this hearing.
Yes, with two exceptions.
One, on Monday I received a notice that there was not a picture of the exterior of my building,
which I responded immediately and mailed on Monday.
And then also today, I have a conversation with my next door neighbor, as I never got Sansa's letter back, and he was present and voiced his support for that.
So I just have documentation from him.
I'm just going to proceed with his name.
Well, that's your refusals.
That's right. So I will go through this. I apologize. I am I representing myself. So I'm not a lawyer. I know there are some.
That's your refusal.
So I will go through this.
I apologize. I am I representing myself.
No, no, no. We don't. All we want you to do is just roll through. So we have this. Go to the next document.
Yeah. So here is the letter of refusal. Just a notarized document. My sister is a co-owner of this property. So she is also on the on the deed.
We did send out the certified mailer to all of the, I believe it was 144 necessary people around us.
We did post the signs in our property required for the hearing for the Sansa and for this.
Again, here is just a copy of the deed that was sent over and also our tax clearance that we are in issuant with the tax properties up to date.
And here is our application for the appeal.
Even though I did not get the Sansa's letter back, I just wanted to show that this was on their February meeting.
And we did have it because, as you noted, there was the letter from Nowak.
And here, Murray on the Sansa board did send me this file.
I believe it was on March 14th, asking if I would be open to a proviso for three years of issuance, which I did sign.
I'm fine with that, and I know that is standard for some of the visitor accommodations.
We've been running this Airbnb for-
Sean, where did that come from?
So this was sent to me by Murray, who is the chairperson of Sansa.
Okay, good. Thank you.
So we've been running this Airbnb for years.
However, on January 1st, 2023, we stopped all operations of this Airbnb based on the new laws that were passed.
We think that's a great data point for us.
Sansa kind of just shrugged their shoulders with us, but we really wanted to follow the law and the process.
hence the reason we are here today. As we know, there's a lot of great events coming up in
Philadelphia with the World Cup, the 250th anniversary, and even things like Penn graduation
and Drexel graduation. We try to host families. This is not a party house. And we actually make
sure that people agree to our rental rules, that there are no parties permitted in the house.
that includes bachelorette parties, bridal showers, any of that, as we do strictly enforce
our house limit of eight guests. In the Norwalk letter of non-support, they said that there was
letter, there was complaints from neighbors, letters of things about maintenance. The only
neighbor that was at the meeting was our next door neighbor, Justin at 1045 Dorns, and he was
actually in full support of this. So I don't know if the Norwalk was just a boiler template that
they recommended, but there was no discussion at Sansa from neighbors concerned about noise,
maintenance, et cetera, for the property. Here is the exterior of the property. It is very well
maintained. We just got new siding put on in the last three years. When we look at the internal
of the property, it is very well maintained. It's a beautiful property. Families love coming here.
Here is the living room and just one of the bedrooms as well when it was an Airbnb.
This was a screenshot of the Airbnb.
It is now deactivated because we don't allow anyone to rent.
As I mentioned, we did stop renting on January 1st, 2023.
But I do just want to highlight down here that when we did operate it,
we had a 4.92 rating with almost 175 reviews.
It's a very well-maintained property.
It's a property that, you know, families love to come and visit Philadelphia because we really do cater to families or business people looking for a place to have team meetings in our contracts and our house rules and our listings everywhere we state that bachelor, bachelorette parties, bridal parties, large birthday parties are not permitted and will be, you know, evicted.
I think the thing that's important to note in our contract, you know, we do have people sign this contract and we also require them to submit their government ID so we know exactly who is renting from our place.
So that way we know it's just not a fake name, a burner account.
That person is held accountable and we talk about eviction if they violate a single one of our rules.
i know one of the previous uh people that were looking for visitor accommodation the broadway
uh property um this is just a screenshot i just did a random search on airbnb for february 18th
to the 20th which is actually a tuesday to thursday so it's of next year so it's very
unlikely that anyone has is renting properties at this time and you can see that there are very
is renting properties at this time and you can see that there are very few properties in the
few properties in the Graduate
graduate hospital area i know some people are concerned that airbnbs are taking over uh housing
and there's dozens and dozens of airbnbs but for our properties that host you know six to eight
people there are very uh minimal uh you know properties that are um uh in this uh area
um i do just want to show the screenshot of this is uh from uh february 10th uh from justin my
dorn's neighbor next door as i said i don't have access to the sansa document but i wanted it to
be known that he did testify at the sansa in full support uh of it and you know i just asked him
like hey we have the sansa meeting you know we'll be in a 10 and to quote him he's like hey sean
yes definitely we'll be there to support it was actually talking to rich on sansa and i told him
you've been a great professional as an Airbnb operator. He knows I own 1045, which is the one
next door. So I think it's really important for y'all to know that my next door neighbor
is in big support of this. He knows that we run it professionally. He knows that we don't have it as
a, you know, a party place. We really use it for families coming in. We advertise to local
businesses, whether it's, our house actually borders right up with Chick's restaurant right
there on Washington Avenue. And they are our tenants, not tenants, but people that visit our
Airbnb are there on a very, very regular basis for that. So with that, we think we're very
professional and very responsible owners by shown by our amazing reviews. And also our next door
neighbor is in full support of us getting this visitor accommodation to that, which I think is
extremely important when our next door neighbor does not have any problems with us and that's why
i was disappointed to read that in the no walk letter of refusal as there was not a neighbor
that uh stated that during the sansa meeting actually the only neighbor that that did discuss
it was my next door neighbor who was very supportive uh of this um that is all i have so
okay all right questions questions from the board
no chair
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Ryan McShurry?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, we have a Madeline with their hand raised and they have been allowed to speak.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Madeline, can you hear me?
Oh, Madeline, M-A-D-E-L-I-N-E, Shikumba, S-H-I-K-O-M-B-A.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
I belong to the, I'm not a nearby neighbor.
I belong to the NOAC, Washington Avenue Coalition, RCA.
Okay, sure, proceed.
all right he is quite mistaken because one of the members of the sasna board sent you a letter his
name richard gleniac and he showed that there were trash cans outside the property and so forth
and he even sent a letter to uh representative uh to our council uh representative uh kenyatta
johnson opposing this i'm opposing it because one uh just looking at the previous presentation
on 1100 South Broad Street, we noticed that this one man had almost nine Airbnbs.
These Airbnbs are wreaking havoc throughout our country
because they are depriving people who are homeless or maybe want to buy a house
and can't buy a house because of all these Airbnbs.
You have my letter on it concerning this,
and the documentation that was provided by Mr. Gliniak shows you the impact, the negative impact
that it's having on people being able to even rent, let alone buy. And you have these people
coming in who are temporary residents, who are not, how do you say, donating anything to the
community per se, because they're only here for a few weeks. And we have people who've been here
for years who can't even buy a property because a lot of these properties are being pushed
up at Airbnbs. We have to find a way to reduce people's ability to increase people's ability
to buy homes and to rent places. We can't be giving them to Airbnbs. Okay. And we are
If you look at Mr. Gunniak's letter, he sent you a letter.
He also sent pictures attached to it, okay?
Okay. So if you, I think you have his letter because I have it here.
So I think you have his letter,
because I have it here that he sent me a copy of.
Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it.
Chairperson, just for the record, I just went on the record. I do not have nine Airbnbs. That is a false statement.
I think she meant the person prior.
Oh, my apologies. Okay. My apologies.
Ask me what happened with the letter. Did you receive a letter with trash cans and all?
It was brought up at the sunset that there was a picture taken of on a snow day that our entire block, no one had their there. It was still snowing. No one had their snow cleared. So that was the the issue. But with the trash cans, our people right now take the trash in and out on on trash days. They put it out the night before after 5 p.m.
bring it back in the morning all right um anyone else in the virtual audience
planning commission sir ron bednar city planning properties indicated for residential use on the
city plan or adopted district plan recommend no change to the existing zoning at this location
there's no unique physical circumstances or condition of the property that would prevent
it from being used in conformity with the zoning code. City Planning Commission recommends that
the board deny proposed use variants for visitor accommodation. Thank you. MI 2023-006-417-1047
Doran Street. I vote yes for a temporary variance. That will expire 327-27.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you.
Number five, MI 2023-006-394-700 Rodman Street.
This application is for the erection of a rear fencing gate on the rear property line of an existing single-family attached structure,
size and location as shown on plan.
No RCO letter, but there was a meeting held on 227-24
at the Washington Square West Civic Association.
Letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squillet
and the applicant provided a letter of support
from a neighbor on the block.
Maria or Michael Pfeiffer.
maria peiffer has been promoted to panelists good evening
hello hi could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer uh sure thing i am
dr maria peiffer m-a-r-i-a p as in paul e-i f as in frank e-r right you swear or affirm to
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I do. Our vice chair has just a few
questions for you. Good afternoon. Ma'am, have you emailed in all the required documents and
exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this
hearing? Yes. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen. One second. There'll be a green
button at the bottom of your screen? I think I got it. Can everybody see their screen? Yep, it's up.
Yep. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for hearing this appeal. Here is the notice
of refusal. Yep. The project is about mechanical fence, and we seek the exception to be able to
have it be more than six feet because it is a rolling gate that rolls upwards and
it needs to allow cars and people to be able to go through it. Here is the
application for the special exception and then the project information form.
The deed, I'm gonna skip this. This is the proof that our taxes are up to date.
the balance that is seen here is for the following year. It just shows what we will owe for 2024.
And I wanted to quickly read the project descript- oops,
one second. These are the posters
that we have put on the front and on the side of our house that are street-facing.
This property is at the corner of 700 and Rodman Street.
700 and Rodman Street and the maybe I should go straight to the press
okay so here's the picture of the gate the property has the corner of 7th
Street and Rodman Street Rodman Street is between Lombard and South Street so
it's in Washington Square West. This is a view of the back of our property with
the gate in question and then this is the view of our street and we can see
that there is another there is another gate on the first half of our street
that is exactly like ours and if we look from the from 8th Street we see that
there are another three, can people see my pointers? Yeah we see it, yep. Okay so
So one, two, three, which are all about the same height, which is about nine feet.
So we believe that there is precedent for our gate.
And that's why we seek the exception.
And you went to the RCO meeting, right?
They have not sent a letter, I understand.
but Council Member Squilla has sent a letter of non-opposition.
Is that correct?
Not to me.
Did he send it to you?
Yeah, we have a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Mr. Chair, this is Board Counsel Ryan McSherry.
We did just this afternoon receive a letter from the Washington Square West Civic Association
indicating they did not impose the requested variance.
Oh, good.
they made a decision on the uh march 12th meeting of the board of directors thank you very much
all right so washington square west is not against you and the council members are not
opposition to okay so questions from the board oh no miss no chair no mr chairman
questions or comments from our attorney nothing further mr chair okay questions or comments from
the virtual audience. I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair. Planning Commission. This is Ron Bednar,
City Planning. Property is indicated for residential use on a city plan. The applicant's
hardship is self-imposed with no evidence of unique physical circumstances that were prevented
from being used in conformity with the strict fence height code requirements of the code.
we recommend the request of variance not be one thank you so mi 2023 006 394 700 rodman street
i vote yes thomas holloman my vote is yes mr mal shaheed my vote is yes you have your votes
thank you for thank you okay number six mi2023 006 410 63 23 vine street tamika mccoy is the
attorney um letter of support from hmc squared community association
so we were joining as a panelist okay thank you good afternoon hi could you just
i swore you earlier this morning all right we had a couple yes okay so just state your name
for the record sure tamika mccoy mc capital k o y and can you tell us who your client is
the relationship to the property? Yes, sure. I represent a Ms. Salam, who is the tenant for
the property. The property is owned by Jose Cruz. I also represent Mr. Cruz. They're consistent with
this application. Okay. And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wait to read another refusal or stipulate to his accuracy?
Yes, I agree.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have.
All right. Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you. This is the application for 6323 Vine Street.
The property has always been used for commercial purposes.
It had previously been used as a medical office.
I am showing you the zoning refusal, and on it, it shows a history of the use.
zoning refusal and on it it shows a history of the uses for the property previously so it looks
as if it was always a commercial space at one point it was a retail store converted to a family
medical practice and then continuation for a doctor's office from 93 through 2003 to the
present. The request is that the use remains commercial, however, be used for a child care
center. A photograph of the property depicts that it's a corner property that is a one-story unit.
There are views that shows basically the frontal view. This would be looking across
Vine Street. The next photo is a photograph looking to the right of the building,
looking down Vine Street going towards 63rd. The next photo shows Vine Street going back towards
61st. This photograph depicts the rear of the building, and the next photograph basically
shows the side view of the building. If we were to zoom out, what you would see to the far end
would be essentially a exit door that's depicted here on these drawings. So this is a first floor
plan. It has a entrance and exit here. There's also an emergency exit on the one level structure.
essentially there's an open area and it's contemplated to have a handicap accessible
sized bathroom for changing tables and so forth. Ms. Salam who is the tenant and would be the
proprietor for the daycares called Auntie's Care Garden has been in the care service industry
since 2004, first working with Nelson's Academy and then with Aaliyah's Little People and has
been basically in this industry for several years where she has several certifications
for daycare kinds of services. Her daycare is going to be essentially focusing on children
with developmental disorders, including autism. She does have special certifications for taking
care of children with those kinds of afflictions. The ages for the children that she will be taking
care of is six months to five-year-old, and she has not done any of the renovations or
basically customizations yet to the property because she was waiting to get through
and approved for this zoning process, but what she does contemplate is using a lot of paint,
getting a new sign, and essentially making it kid-friendly in terms of its appearance and
appeal. The required space of use is one that would not impinge or have a detrimental impact
on any of the neighbors. There would be no negative impact regarding parking, overcrowding
in the area and there would be no impairment regarding light or air to any of the adjacent
property and it would not impact the usage for any of the adjacent properties. I'm going back
to the actual drawing because the drawing shows an area in the rear of the building that right
now is essentially a yard. You can see a part of it here that ultimately would be fenced in
so that it could be an outdoor play space for the children to be able to utilize right now
there's no fence around the garden area but there is contemplated a fence would go there
the garden area though is surrounded by a cement um i guess barrier or step and so that would be
basically used as a demarcation of where the fencing would ultimately go. With regard to the
other submissions, I have here a copy of the deed showing proof of ownership by Mr. Jose Cruz. This
is a copy of the lease between Mr. Cruz and Ms. Salam. We also have notifications that went out
to all of the area residents that would be impacted. There were 64 that were sent out.
The addresses are here.
There was also an RCO meeting in which there were no oppositions to the requested use.
There were no oppositions to the requested use.
The RCO essentially is HMC squared, and they do support use of the premises for the daycare.
We also have proof that the taxes have been paid in full, which I'm showing here,
that the location essentially
has satisfied all of its
tax obligations.
And with that, Your Honor, I would like to
present Ms. Salaam
to adopt the testimony
presented.
They've been
allowed to speak.
Ms. Salaam,
Ms. Salaam, could you state
your name and spell it, please,
for the sonography?
Rekai,
sorry excuse me rakaia and do salam r-u-q-a-y-a-a-b-d-u-s hyphen s-a-l-a-a-m
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes please proceed counsel thank you miss salam the information that had been presented to
THE BOARD. DID YOU HEAR IT IN ITS COMPLETENESS? YES.
AND WOULD YOU ADOPT IT AS YOUR OWN TESTIMONY IF YOU WERE PRESENTED WITH QUESTIONS THAT
PERTAIN TO THOSE ITEMS THAT HAVE BEEN PRESENTED? YES. DO YOU HAVE ANY MODIFICATIONS, ADDITIONS,
OR CORRECTIONS FOR THE BOARD? NOT ADDITIONS. I WOULD SUBMIT WITH THAT.
Thank you. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from our attorney, Ryan McSherry?
Yes, Mr. Chair, I just have one note here just for the record regarding that this may be missing refusal for accessory parking spaces.
One space per 1,000 square feet is required in the RSA 3 zoning district.
And that's just for the record, am I correct?
That's correct.
Okay, thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
You do not see any further hands, Mr. Chair.
Hi, Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
While his property is currently indicated for residential on the city plan,
given the physical locations and site use history,
we recommend the request of management grant.
Thank you.
MI 2023-006-410-6323 Vine Street,
I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
You have your votes.
Thank you very much.
Have a good evening.
Okay, good.
So, number nine, MI 2023-006-418-4855 North 9th Street.
Thomas Kenney is the attorney.
uh councilwoman bass has taken a position of non-opposition recommendation of support
from the logan civic association vote was unanimous
coming back in as a panel sir okay
good evening council good evening
as chairman and esteem board.
Could you state your name
and spell it for the court stenographer?
Yes, it's Thomas Kenney,
bar number 77611,
K-E-N-N-Y.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth,
the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
I would also ask
my paralegal, Jacob Reeder,
who's on this session,
if he can be allowed access
so he can pull the documents up for us.
Yeah, we'll do that.
But first of all,
is, could you identify your client and their relationship to this property?
Yes, sir. My client is also present. He is Dr. Adebemiro, and he is the owner of the property.
Okay. And our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to read the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its
adequacy? I do, sir. Have you emailed in all of the
required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case
by being the offense of this hearing.
Well, yes, I thought I had, but your esteemed board sent me a note today
we had to resend over.
We gave the wrong deed.
So now today we sent over the actual deed,
and we also have a letter from Honorable Councilwoman Bass
saying there's no opposition.
We submitted that as well.
But otherwise, we've sent everything last week.
I believe our ZBA council have received that as of now.
I believe our ZBA council
has received that as of now.
Please proceed to share your screen.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much.
Can we make sure that his paralegal is promoted so that they can work, I guess, the computer screen?
Is that what you want?
Yes, sir.
They've been promoted as well.
Thank you.
We won't swear him because all he does is do the screen for you.
You do all the testing.
And he's quite, he's quite helpful for us since I, I'm an old person.
They believe the honorable word. We, we believe this case should be pretty straightforward,
but what we have here is going through it first or the deed showing my client owns the property.
He is the 100% shareholder of Phoenix LLC. I should say, I should say member.
He purchased the property.
He's actually also a physician down here at Jefferson Hospital.
He is a graduate of Yale University.
I always like to tease him about that since I'm a city college boy.
It goes to LaSalle.
At any rate, he's trying to do better things here for the community.
This is not involving any work.
There will not be any structural changes.
we're just asking really to legalize the use that was already put in place what had happened was
our client thought this was a duplex it was marketed to him as a duplex i have when i went
to meet with the community group uh just to give a couple other addresses we have mr kenny one of
the things i why don't why don't you why don't you have the photos put up yep sure uh that way as
you're talking we can see like when you're saying what it was we'll see the photos okay
So after the deed, we have the notice of refusal.
We filed our application for appeal.
Right.
After that, we set up a public meeting with the community group, the RCO.
After that, we have our certificate of tax clearance.
Vowed through April 20th, 2024.
There's a tax clearance. Great. And now here's the picture. So we have the property posted and all the, as we go through it, you'll see everything has already been done. There's, this was work that was done before my client purchased the property. There are two apartments with different, keep going.
they have everything has been everything has been sectioned off there's two there's two uh
electrical systems there's two heaters there's two uh everything has been broken off as it would be
a duplex uh the breakers are different in different services there's different electric
bills like different water bills and the like these are these are two different gas meters
already installed and they're metered and and functional if we go just down a
little further and so going through it as you'll see this is these are marketing
property pictures from the marketing of the house but you see there's two
different apartments two different bathrooms two different kitchens two
bedroom areas and the like and again all this all this was done when my client purchased the property
and that's how it was marketed to him as well so again he was of the belief that this was already
a two unit see the kitchens that they're separate separate everything okay uh why don't you bring
why don't you bring your client on to adopt your testimony yes doctor can you join raise your hand
they've been about to speak sir could you please state your name and spell for the court's
stenographer at a dutton at the bamiro a d e d o t u n a d e b a m i
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do sir please proceed counsel thank you sir uh doctor i know you're the client but uh thank
you for taking time out of your busy uh schedule here today to be with us you heard everything i
said so far sir yes all right and is that everything i said true and accurate to your
believe yes sir okay uh question yes sir are you are you you wanna are you done with your client
Yes, sir.
Are you done with it, your client?
Okay. All right. Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Ryan McSherry?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not see any further hands, Mr.
Planning Commission.
Sir, Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The properties indicated for residential use on the city plan are adopted.
District plan recommends no change to existing zoning at this location.
Applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique circumstances of the property
that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the requirements of the code.
Therefore, we recommend a question for vanity and opportunity.
Thank you.
MI 2023-006-418-4855 North 9th Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Counselor, you have your votes.
Thank you.
Thank you, and have a good day, everyone.
All right, thank you.
Is there anyone in the 330 list whose case has not been called still in the audience?
i do not see any further hands mr chair thank you um thank you everyone a little late tonight but
but i appreciate everything everybody did and got a lot of work done today thank you very much
thank you chair no problem no problem and tanya tanya thank you tanya for for working with that
the person who was trying to interpret for us that was no problem no problem lakisha's amazing
You guys are the best
Thank you
We're welcome to do anything you need
Thank you
Have a good evening everyone
Have a good night
Good night
Good night all
Good night