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