good morning everyone my name is frank excuse me chair we just have to wait until they come in
oh i thought we already did i apologize i'm sorry i was confusing sorry
okay chair we have 42 attendees you can start when you like
thank you good morning everyone my name is frank de chico i'm the chair of the zoning board of
adjustment i'll be participating in today's hearing along with our vice chair ms carroll
Tenere, Board Secretary, Confessor Plaza, and Board Members, Mr. Thomas Holloman and
Mr. James Snell, Board Administrator, Lakeisha Dandy, and our Board Attorney, Ms. Sharon
Saletta, are also in attendance.
For those of you who haven't yet participated in one of our virtual hearings, I'll go through
some of the basics of what you can expect.
First, we will be administering oaths to individual participants prior to their testimony.
Second, we'd like to advise everyone that this proceeding is being recorded
and that by participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded
and that the recording will be made available to the public
by contacting our board administrator, Ms. Tanya Sunkit, at tanya.sunkit at phila.gov.
For anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify,
you must raise your hand by hitting star 9 and then star 6 to unmute yourself.
I'll repeat. For anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand
by hitting star nine and then star six to unmute yourself. Finally, to enter an appearance statement,
call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at issue.
I'll repeat that as well.
To enter an appearance statement, call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at issue.
I would also like to remind everyone, please do not attempt to testify in the chat.
Any comments, concerns, or questions should be directed to Ms. Dandy, our board administrator for today.
Having said that, I will now read off a list of requested continuances on the 930 list.
Case number two, MI 2021-002-893-312 West Coulter Street.
Case number four, MI 2021-000426-3639 North 19th Street.
Those are the two cases that we've received requests for continuance.
If anyone disagrees with those two cases being continued, please raise your hand at this time.
No handshare.
Thank you. I will now ask if anyone would like to request a continuance or withdrawal for the 930 list to please raise your hand.
Only if you're requesting a continuance or withdrawal on the 930 list, please raise your hand.
no hands chair thank you with that uh we can proceed with our first case uh mi 2021-002
892 2132-38 north 10th street rachel pritzker is the attorney of record there is a letter of support
from 8 p.m.
And she's coming in now as a panelist.
Good morning, Chairman.
Good morning.
Good morning, Ms. Pritzker.
Please identify yourselves by your name.
I'll swear you in.
uh sure rachel r-a-c-h-a-e-l pritzker p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r 1635 market street suite 1600
philadelphia pa 19103 you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i think ms tenere has some questions for you all right good morning do you also
I think Ms. Tenere has some questions for you.
Hi, good morning.
Do you also agree to weigh the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the
refusal, referral, photos, and or plans of the property five days in advance of this
hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
You may proceed.
Great. So, Chairman, members of the board, Brandon Saverin from my office is going to be handling my cases for this morning. So he's on if we could promote him. Thank you.
Yeah. Brandon, please spell your first and last name and I'll swear you in.
good morning members of the board um brandon saverin b-r-a-n-d-o-n um saverin spelled s as
in sam a v as in victor r-a-n we're for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the
truth yes i do thank you we may proceed okay um i'm gonna share my screen just to
show the location of the property and the refusal. Can everybody see this zoning map?
Yes. Okay. So the property is approximately 9,300 square feet. It is almost triangular. I don't know
if you can see it. It's hard because the background is purple, but it's this almost triangular parcel
zoned I2, which is between Susquehanna and Diamond on North 10th Street.
Essentially, the proposal, which I'm going to have the architect walk through, and maybe
we can work on locating him in the meantime. His name is Chris Class, C-L-A-S-S.
The proposal is a multifamily residential project with 35 dwelling units, 14 automobile
parking spaces, and 21 indoor bicycle parking spaces. And the two refusals here,
are for residential use in the I-2 district and for falling four parking spaces short
of the requirement, which given the number of units would be 18 spaces.
I'm going to let Chris really explain the hardship with regard to the parking.
There's really no way to get more parking on the site than we did without taking some
extreme measures given its shape, he can walk through that. With regard to the use, just to go
back to the zoning map for a quick second, you know, if I zoom out here, there's sort of this
ribbon of I1 and I2 parcels that follow these train tracks. That's the SEPTA passenger rail line
between Center City up to, you know, Wayne Junction and beyond. And there was probably a time where
there were industrial uses off of that track. But at this point, that's a passenger-only line.
There's no freight service there, to my knowledge. It's also an elevated embankment now, so it's
pretty difficult to get rail cars up there. And when you look at these properties, they tend to
either be vacant land, vacant structures, or some have been rejuvenated into residential use.
There just really isn't the market for most of the uses that are contemplated by I-2.
on a property of this shape and size. And, you know, we all know the industrial market is very
hot, but this is not the kind of property that industrial developers are looking for. They're
looking for much larger, you know, parcels with truck loading onto highways and that sort of
thing. So, for instance, our neighbor directly to the north is the old Globe Metal Manufacturing
company that's a hollowed out vacant building and that's you know we're vacant land but we're
trying to sort of avoid that that same fate um you know we think the community is behind the project
because the uses most of the uses contemplated by i2 really wouldn't be appropriate here um there
are there is a row home neighborhood directly across the street all these rm1 blocks so
residential just sort of fits the context better um so that's the hardship and the refusal
um we did get a letter of support from apm um i can talk about that more if you have any questions
but i think at this time um i will allow uh chris class to take over and share the plans if if he
can be located chris are you out there he would have to raise his hand yes okay
Okay, let me know.
Will he need to present his screen or just speak?
I think it would be best if he can present his screen.
and chair he's coming in now as a panelist thank you mr class when you get on would
And Chair, he's coming in now as a panelist.
Thank you.
you please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
good morning uh my name is christopher class chris class representing design blends architecture
uh 4001 main street philadelphia pa 19127 tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do
okay chris um do you want to put up the plans or do you want me to um show them
i yes i have the i have the zoning plan in front of me i can share them thank you
are you able to see my screen clearly yep maybe just zoom in a little bit
it's widescreen it kind of yep so I'm going to zoom in just to provide additional information
on the ground floor plan as Brendan mentioned the the site is rectangular in shape and fairly
narrow as you get to the southernmost portion of the site we are currently utilizing this area to
provide frontage with lobby and common lounge space and also an entry point to some of the
utilities. We went through a number of configurations to try to find the optimal amount of parking
spaces and really came to this configuration at a maximum of 14 spaces. We really found
no possible way at grade to provide additional spaces with adequate clearances um you know the
the client is certainly interested in providing as many as possible and if we have the ability to do
so or provide more we would have but uh you know 14 is where we where we landed
um chris do you have any elevations or renderings just to show the word
quickly yeah so um within the zoning sheets themselves um as an overview here uh you can
see in this elevation this is making reference to the existing retaining wall and i'll show you in
a clear rendering in a second along the site it's approximately uh just shy 20 feet tall
and we're setting back the building to make sure that we're not
in direct proximity to the rail line above. The facade is looking at more of a modern
paneling system which I'll show in a second and with open parking at the ground floor.
Here's a rendering that we produced to illustrate the materials to the community.
uh ground floor stone really looking to mimic some of the wall uh of the rail line that's in place
now and as i mentioned before a combination of modern panels and uh and wood cladding to
uh fit in the context of the community
thanks chris um does the board have any questions about the plans or the rendering any questions
from the board no mr chairman no no yes sir you uh mr savran do you have your client
yes so there there are two principals to this company i'm not sure which if is on but their
names are uh roy shemesh and uh mayor badush um uh they might also be on finch is the name of their
company if that's what it says either of those two gentlemen raise your hand i'll
swear you in that way you can adopt the testimony of mr savran
mr mayor is available yes morning mr mayor please spell your first and last name
first name is mayor m-e-i-r last name badush b-a-d-u-s-h do you swear a firm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you, Mr. Saverin. Mr. Raduch, were you
able to hear the entire for the board that it was true and accurate and would you adopt it as your
own? Yes, I do. Okay, thank you. If anyone would like to testify in this case, if so, please raise
your hand. Chair, we also have Roy. He's the other principal in the company, unless the board
wants me to. No disrespect, we don't need to hear from him, but thank you. Anyone else?
Chair, we have a Mr. Rob. Mr. Rob, you can unmute yourself.
mr rob you can unmute yourself hi good morning everybody morning sir please spell your first
I agree.
and last name it's rob rob last name cashen c-a-s-h-i-o-n you swear for him to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes thank you all right well thanks for hearing me
i'm interested in having new development in my neighborhood i live at 1013 west susquehanna
which is the four houses on the other side of the red building to the right of this new building
so my one concern is that the building is going to cast a shadow over that building where I plan
to put solar panels on the north side my house is on the north side of that intersection and
it's taking away all the greenery. So if it were staggered on the sides or had a green space behind
it, I think it would be a lot friendlier to the community, seeing how it's so tall.
I'll respond to those comments if the board would like. Please, briefly. Thank you. Sure. So hi, Rob.
I don't know if I met you during the RCO meeting. The site is a little constrained for a couple
reasons. One, it's very narrow and sort of the southern half of it in terms of pushing away from
the rail line. It becomes difficult. Secondly, and I won't get into this in big detail, but because
of the presence of the septa tracks, you really sort of need that podium. You don't necessarily
want people staring at that, you know, retaining wall. So we don't have units on the ground level
that causes everything up to be everything to be sort of pushed up a floor. Those are sort of the
basic site constraints. There's also some additional safety issues with putting, you know,
units next to a rail track, which I think we fully addressed. And I'll save the board from
those concerns. But, you know, there were, you know, thoughts that were fleshed out during the
RCO meeting I think we sort of um you know the the vote which was I think 13 13 in support one
in opposition I think reflect that generally the community is comfortable with the design we landed
on thank you thank you uh anyone else to testify in this case no handshare thank you planning
Commission. Good morning. David Fecteau, F-E-C-T-E-A-U, with the City Planning Commission.
I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Yes, sir, I do. Thank you.
Please proceed. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, the zoning in this neighborhood
dates back to 1933. We've never gotten a request from the council office to change it. So the
comprehensive plan recommends that the property be rezoned to light industrial and commercial
zoning to enable its reuse and because it is next to a high-speed rail line. Because of the odd
shape of this lot, we understand that there is justification for not including the maximum
required parking spaces for any new development. However, for a proposal where the use varies this
drastically from the underlying zoning, the correct remedy is a zoning change, not a zoning variance.
We also note that if this lot were zoned residential multifamily like the surrounding
lots the applicant would be allowed 20 units by right so 35 units would far exceed the least
variance required to use this lot even under that scenario so we recommend that the board deny the
requested use variance and i'd just like to briefly respond to that as well um so the the
zone and i understand the planning commission updates these sort of away from public view but
the sort of proposed zoning page of the lower north district plan indicates proposed land use
rather indicates the property for transportation use which that's kind of what we went in thinking
about and if you sort of see the elevated nature of the rail line the rail line doesn't really
contribute meaningfully to being able to use the property for transportation use as far as sort of
multifamily versus light industrial. The Lower North District plan says that, and I'm going to
quote here, the greatest mismatches occurring in the district with CMX2, I2, which we are,
and RM1 multifamily districts. Land use changes have accelerated in the last 10 years where land
has transitioned away from industry to residential and the current zoning does not reflect this
change. The plan goes on to say it encourages relevant agencies to allow vacant, industrially
zoned parcels to transition to other uses. So I think Mr. Fecto and I are on the same page that
the site is not zoned appropriately. But I think the text of the plan, you know, promotes what
you know promotes what we're trying to do here or at least sort of generally aligns with it
we're trying to do here, or at least sort of generally aligns with it. The
the i don't have an expert to speak about market conditions but i can assure you there is a very
scant market for industrial uses on a property of this shape and size that just was not an option
here thank you thank you thank you for your explanation um mi 2021-002892
2132-38 North 10th Street. My vote is yes.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes.
Professor Plaza, yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thomas Harleman, my vote is yes.
Thank you. We will now go to case number three, MI 2020-000119, 3442 North 18th Street.
Darnell Cedric Mekon and Patrick Jones there's a letter of
from Tioga United and Councilwoman Bass requesting this case be continued
excuse me chair this is Sharon I think my notes weren't clear
this is the fourth listing for this case at the last listing there was a request by the council
and tayoga united that it be continued um the
but that did not apply to this case i i don't have new exhibits but if we could see if the
attorney is here okay is there anyone here for 20 excuse me 34 42 north 18th street
if not then again this is the fourth listing yeah understood i have a few hands i don't see
um any attorneys i see uh patrick jones and charles richardson let's get mr richardson on
please oh oh chair i'm i'm so sorry this is sharon again i'm confusing this with another case
if you could go forward we do have submitted exhibits i believe this is the
third listing but we do have exhibits okay so mr jones no no worries no worries i believe
mr jones uh no chair we would have to have um the applicant or either an attorney for this one
And Mr. Jones, I believe, is the expediter.
Is Patrick Jones you referred to?
He is, Ms. Sunkett.
And the property owner is Darnell Cedric Micon.
He is here.
He can testify.
All right.
Okay, he's been promoted to panelists.
Cedric, please spell your full name.
and sorry you're muted you just have to unmute yourself yeah my name is Cedric Nixon that's C-E-D-R-I-C
M as in Mary I-X-O-N do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the
truth yes are you prepared to present your case today yes i'm prepared uh patrick houston patrick
jones was going to uh uh share his screen to show the slides okay is he going to be testifying or
just showing the exhibits uh just exhibits here i can promote them and share those i'm going to be
the one doing the bulk of the speaking. Mr. Mikan, though there was a request for continuance
or by United Tioga at the last hearing, did you ever meet with them? Do you have a letter? I did
not receive a letter. So we had a couple of meetings with them. They did not schedule a
third meeting that we were supposed to have. All right, no, let's go back to Mr. Richardson.
and he may be able to shed some light on this.
So we'll go to Mr. Richardson
of Councilwoman Bass's office.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Charles.
Please spell your name and I'll swear you in.
Charles Richardson from the Office of Councilwoman
Cindy Bass, room 312, City Hall.
For him to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Can you help us out here?
Can you shed some light on the status
of the hearing meetings
and are we prepared to go forward today?
I know that they had a couple of meetings prior to that request for continuance.
We had received a request from Tioga United to support their request for continuance and we and
tayoga united uh to support their request for continuance and we and we did um my understanding
is that they were supposed to be meeting with the applicant uh a third time and um to my
understanding nothing has taken place as yet um i believe that uh verna tyner or uh mr jihad ali
or maybe veronica holman might be available to speak to that as well i don't know i've received
no further information. And I do not have any record that any meeting has taken place. So
we're kind of left in the dark with this as well as you guys.
So is there anyone out there from Tioga United who could
shed some light on the status of this application?
Chair, I have Ms. Verna Tyner. Could you please give us a moment? Thank you.
okay our chair we have verna tyner from the i'm sorry the community yeah hi good morning mr
chair good morning miss heiner please spell your full name and i'll swear you in my name is v-e-r-n-a
last name t-y-n-e-r you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do thank you please proceed so we did have a meeting with mr patrick and the owner
and we had discussed the fact that no neighbors were on the call because they had not received
any notice. We asked them to continue the zoning hearing to put a request in, which was in June.
They did request the zoning continuance. However, they did not come back to us for a meeting.
neither have they met with any of the neighbors so when we spoke to the neighbors as an extra
precaution we went around and talked to some of the neighbors and they said that they were in
opposition due to the parking and the density and it's already a little congested around in that
area so they were opposed but we were willing to give Mr. Patrick and the owner another chance
to get onto an RCO meeting, but we never got a request from them.
Is that still the position that you would agree to a continuance?
We would, yes.
All right. Mr. Jones and Mr. Mixon,
there's obviously some housekeeping that you guys need to follow up on.
Can you hear me?
yeah so um i'm i'm talking to uh to patrick jones he's been uh handling this this situation
for me and um he said he reached out to uh miss uh veronica holman and did not get a response
no he i instructed him to reach out to me yeah i don't know miss who miss holman is so when that
what we're going to do is try to streamline this as best we can we're going to continue this and
to a must be heard date and i think miss sunken will try to her best to get you a hearing sooner
rather than later so miss sunken will work with you offline so mi 2020-000119 3442 north 18th
street this case will be continued must be heard case number five six seven eight and nine will
all be heard together they are cases number mi 2021-001314 3841 wallace street mi 2021-001315
3839 Wallace Street, MI 2021-001-259, 3845 Wallace Street, MI 2021-001-317, 3837 Wallace
Wallace Street and MI 2021-001-260-3843 Wallace Street.
Mr. Mattione is the attorney of record.
My notes indicate we have not yet received a letter of, I'm sorry,
letter RCO, oh, I'm sorry, there is a letter of support from the Mantua Civic Association.
so Mr. Mattione if you're out there please raise your hand identify yourself spell your full name
and I'll swear you in good morning Mr. Chairman Michael Mattione that's M-A-T-T-I-O
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Michael Mattione. That's M-A-T-T-I-O-N-I, Federal Reserve Bank Building, 100 North Independence Mall, Suite 5A Northwest, Philadelphia, 19106.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Canary has some questions for you.
Good morning. Do you agree with the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal referral, photos and their plans of this property, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all.
Okay, great. You may proceed. On all.
Thank you.
and again i'm representing 38 37 to 45 wallace street llc and robert sherman the principal is
here as well and i have presented exhibits including a refusal tax clearance zoning site
plan floor plans renderings the support letter from uh mantua civic association according rco
and information regarding market value of nearby single-family homes
and affidavits of service for the two RCO meetings that were held.
Presenting plans for the proposed redevelopment of what are now four vacant properties
and one soon-to-be vacant property were five contiguous lots.
We had two community meetings regarding the proposal
and numerous meetings with the Emantua Civic Zoning Committee.
As a result of all of the meetings, MCA has agreed to support the project and the requested variances.
The applicant and MCA have also entered into a community benefits agreement, reflecting provisions for supporting the Mantua community that applicant has agreed to, including providing 20% of the units as affordable units.
And the affordable units will be developed in conformity with the same finishes, amenities, et cetera, as the non-affordable units.
The obligation to provide the affordable units and other community benefits are set forth in the community benefits agreement that was completed recently.
The project itself calls for a total of 30 units, six units in each structure in five contiguous lots.
The R-Zoned RSA 5, we believe this creates a hardship to the land.
When you look at the refusals, we have a height refusal, but that's because we have a pilot house.
The building itself is about 36 feet tall with a pilot house on top.
Because the pilot house is only for mechanical access, it creates a height refusal.
We also have an open area refusal.
We have 20% open area proposed and 25% is required.
Again, we believe the refusals are created by the unique location of the properties.
If we were to develop this as single-family homes as shown in the exhibits that we attach,
We would have to sell them for an excess of $400,000.
We have a list of properties at Exhibit 8 that show homes selling between $4,000 and
$550,000 in the area.
Exhibit 9 shows the existing homes on Wallace Street are valued at $125,000 to $150,000.
The new homes would not be affordable to long-time residents, and this creates a hardship to
the land.
And the community recognized this, and they asked us to not build the single-family homes, but have those kind of prices.
So we met with them numerous times, as I said, and came up with this multifamily proposal.
And just to note, the most recent new construction on the block, 3815 and 3817 Wallace, is also multifamily.
When I look down and show some site photos, this is the area, that's the one vacant property
that's still left and all around it are the other lots that are all vacant, and you can
see both sides of the property, and then down Exhibit 10B are the only recent new construction
and on the block are also multifamily 3815 and 3817 Wallace Street and again we're proposing
six units in each building and if I pull up the floor plans, we have bi-level units in
So bi-level units in the basement, you have the living area, and then bedrooms upstairs, two units, one front and back, front and back.
the basement.
and you have the living area and then
And then upstairs, there are four one-bedroom units, two units on each floor on the second and third floors.
So that's the layout.
And then, as you can see, we have front porches that match the front porches of the other properties on the block.
We worked extensively with the Mantua Civic Association and entered into the Community Benefits Agreement.
They clearly support the project.
I believe the vote at the last meeting was 10 in support with two abstentions.
Yes, 10 and 2.
And that was on September 23rd, but we also worked and entered into the Community Benefits Agreement.
The variances, we believe, are the minimum necessary to develop the property.
residential use is proposed it's similar to the other residential uses on the
property the variances don't help avoid any environmental problems by
developing these lots and not having illegal dumping and again multifamily
residential is on the block we're seeking residential use residential is
what's there and again we worked extensively with the Mantua Civic
association and i do have a community benefits agreement just up on the screen now did not
include in the exhibits but have it up on the screen and uh just coming down to the uh and it
shows it was signed by both dwayne drummond as president of mantua and mr sherman the uh
principal of the development group and what i'd like to do is call mr sherman robert sherman
is he available
if we're not able to reach him we'll stipulate you being an officer of court your client would
have adopted your testimony okay just know he sent me a text message saying he was available
side is any questions from the board no mr chairman no anyone else would like to testify
in this case please raise your hand and did you say robert sharp chairman yes
hello mr sherman please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
Robert Sherman, R-O-B-E-R-T, Sherman, S-H-E-R-M-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you, Mr. Mariani.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Robert, did you hear my statements?
Yes, I did.
And are they true?
And did you enter into a community benefits agreement with Mantua Civic Association?
Yes, I did.
And do you adopt my statements as your testimony?
Thank you.
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair, with you.
Anyone else to testify in these cases, please raise your hand.
Yes, and we have a Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis, you can unmute yourself.
Good morning, Mr. Curtis.
Please spell your full name, and I'll swear you in.
he's available for swearing in
please spell your name and i'll swear you in
is there anyone else beside mr sherman
no other hand sir we're having technical difficulties so uh planning commission
good morning mr chairman members of the board david vecto city planning commission
The comprehensive plan recommends no change in the existing residential single-family zoning for
these properties. The requested open space variance is de minimis. However, the use variance for five
more units than allowed by Wright and for eight feet in additional height are not supported by
the applicant's claim of hardship. Neither the height nor the requested number of units
Neither the height nor the requested number of units represent the minimum variance required to allow the applicant to derive value from their land.
represent the minimum variance required
These are all 1,300 to 1,400 square foot lots.
There is nothing unique about any of these lots that would prevent them from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
We also note that the claims of affordability cannot be enforced by the city and so should not factor into consideration of the appropriateness of these proposals.
We recommend that the board deny the requested variances.
excuse me chair this is sharon we received an email from andrew goodman this morning
saying that the councilwoman defers to the rco on this matter thank you
MI 2021-001314, 3841 Wallace Street. MI 2021-001315, 3839 Wallace Street.
MI 2021-001259. 3845 Wallace Street. That's 3845 Wallace Street. MI 2021-001317. 3837 Wallace
Wallace Street and MI 2021-001260, 3843 Wallace Street, my vote is yes to all five.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes to all five. Professor Plaza, my vote is yes to all.
Jane Snell, my vote is yes to all five. Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes to all five.
I don't think there's an open mic. I'm getting some feedback.
That's Tom, Chair.
Oh, okay. All right. We're good now.
Now we'll go to the add-on list.
MI2020-001120, 348 Green Lane.
Michael Malloy, representing the applicant.
Corin Wise for the RCO. This is a resumption hearing originally heard on August the 3rd of 2021.
Due to time constraints we had to cut off some of the remaining witnesses. So Sharon is the record
closed we're not taking testimony or are we? Oh no you are taking testimony. There were eight
people still to testify including Celeste Hardister and John Carpenter. Okay I just want to make sure
my notes were correct. Thank you. So Roxborough Civic Association sent a letter of opposition.
Mr. Wise, Mr. Malloy, I think we were at that point where we were getting testimony
from witnesses correct me if I'm wrong and again as I said there was a time constraint so we had
to cut off there were eight witnesses remaining at that time I assume that goes to you Mr. Wise
that's correct your honor I think yeah before you begin just spell your full name and I'll swear
Thank you. Corrin Wise, C-O-R-E-N-W-I-S-E, 100 North 18th Street, Suite 300, Philadelphia, PA-19103.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you. So do you have witnesses that you're calling up?
Yeah, I do. I am here on behalf of the Registered Community Organization, Central Roxborough.
Civic Association, as well as concerned neighbors.
At last check yesterday, eight neighbors
had indicated they wanted to appear and give testimony
and be heard.
I'll ask them to raise their hand.
Mr. John Hunter should be with us,
and Celeste Hardister from the Zoning Committee.
um they don't know ever the name of every everyone else that's on the call uh i know we noted on the
record uh at the last meeting in august there were also eight neighbors with their hands raised
when we had to uh break i would ask those witnesses um when you testify uh if you can
be of assistance to us and not repeat what the prior witness is testifying to.
We'd rather not have repetition if possible.
and and mr chair if it's helpful maybe i can just um kind of set the scene a little bit
And Mr. Chair, if it's helpful, maybe I can just kind of set the scene a little bit.
mr mulloy's application is uh on this this uh this property um on green lane 348 green
that is fronting on actual three streets green man young and dupont it's a centerpiece in this
neighborhood uh its base zoning is rsd residential single family detached which calls for detached
single-family freestanding homes it is on a approximately 14 000 square foot lot very large
lot and the house sits uh in the front on green and the application uh that was heard in august
from the small way and his client is for the the portion fronting on dupont the corner of dupont
and manny young avenue um to construct two semi-detached what we call a twin so two homes
attached with one wall between them
where the base zoning calls for a single detached home
and with us our neighbors that are near neighbors
and representatives of the zoning committee
in Central Roxborough.
so that's are you are you ready to go i am yes before i begin uh mr malloy let's swear you in
just in case you have uh the raise objections or anything so please spell your full name and i'll
swear you in. Sure. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L, Malloy,
M-A-L-L-O-Y, that's 1500 Market Street, Suite 3400, Philadelphia PA, 19102. Thank you.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Thank you. So we can proceed now with the first witness, Mr. Wise.
Yes, thank you. Celeste, state your name, tell us your capacity while you're here, and tell us your
what comments you want to put on the record regarding this application.
Good morning, thank you. I'm Celeste Hardester, C-E-L-E-S-T-E, Hardester, H-A-R-D-E-S-T-E-R.
I'm the president of the Central Roxborough Civic Association.
I am also a neighbor of 348 Green Lane.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
At the August hearing, there were about 20 community members, mostly neighbors, attending,
and I believe they're close to that number here this morning as well.
This house sits at one of the most prominent intersections in Roxborough, contributing significantly to the character of the community.
With the help of the community, the entire parcel, including perimeter walls, was designated by the Philadelphia Starock Commission in 2018.
There was no objection from the current owner, which the neighbors greatly appreciated.
today's hearing is our 12th meeting regarding this property the overall perspective of the
community is to oppose this variance at the crca rco meeting on july 8th the vote was 44
to 4 in opposition some people oppose it because they feel two houses is an overreach in scale
mass and height. It is certainly not a least variance. Many people, perhaps most, oppose it
because they feel no house should be built at all. They want the yard in the back to remain
open green space and the fantastic old stone walls to be left intact, as was intended with
the historic designation. Many city people are drawn to moving to Roxborough because we have
trees we have yards but as one of the hottest development markets in the city green space is
under more and more pressure zoning code supports this pressure in many circumstances and so as a
community we try to negotiate the best outcomes we can with diminishing returns of green space
developing this property is not supported by the zoning code no house can be built here without a
variance. There is not a hardship here. The property has five good rentals. It is a handsome
house on an important corner. We would like the owner to view his role as a steward of a meaningful
property that can be preserved as is into the future instead of having his name attached to
attached to a property to which he did harm. That would become what he is known for.
a property to which he did harm. That would become
We understand he is a developer and so his inclination is to build and that this is why
he bought this property. We encourage him to think about it differently. He would make great
strides with the community if he did. Thank you. Thank you. Next witness.
chair we have john carpenter john carpenter i'm sorry john good morning mr carpenter spell
your full name and i'll swear you in good morning this is john carpenter my name is
spelled john j-o-h-n-c-a-r-p-e-n-t-e-r we're affirmed to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes i do thank you sir mr tachiko and members of the board thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today i'm a member of the crca zoning committee and a trustee of the
manny yonk neighborhood council but most importantly for this case i live across green lane from this
important property and i'm here today to oppose the subdivision of the property and the development
of new homes on the resulting small parcels for the following reasons the site has been occupied
by one outstanding structure for more than 140 years it is one of the most prominent structures
on this major gateway to Roxborough, visible from all directions. It is sited on a large lot,
as are the adjoining homes on this block on both sides. There are four additional homes located on
this block directly across Green Lane from this property, one of them is mine, that are also
located on larger-than-usual parcels, reflecting the prominence of these structures in the
neighborhood at the time that they were built. On this block, these large homes and large lots
are the rule, not the exception. It is my understanding that the applicant cannot build
anything by right on this site, as the existing structure is sited in such a way that an RSD3
compliant subdivision is impossible without significant variances. The site is already
more densely occupied than the zoning would normally allow due to long-standing variances
for the five units located inside the apartment. It should not become even more dense as a
result of this proposal. The applicant has pointed out nearby properties that are zoned for denser
uses, but that is irrelevant. Roxborough has a very diverse housing style, and housing styles
vary greatly from block to block. The structure in question is one of the very first to be built
here, one of a small handful of gracious structures on this block of Green Lane that has become a
landmark that should not be compromised just to suit the ambitions of this owner. There is no
relevant hardship that requires variances to mitigate. The neighborhood sees the backyard
of this property as a critical element of the existing building and grounds, a valuable green
asset in the community, not a burden to be mitigated. This structure and the surrounding
retaining wall are also recognized by the Philadelphia Historical Commission as an
important historic property. The city and the surrounding neighbors have taken considerable
trouble to protect this site and the structures on it. We also spent a great deal of time with
applicant and his design team over the last two years. Over more than a dozen meetings with our
zoning team and two long and angry community meetings, our skilled and thoughtful volunteers
offered numerous suggestions to refine their proposal to fit our community's needs into
their desired outcomes, but we could not find a mutually agreeable solution.
Finally, I think it is important to point out the larger context of development in this neighborhood.
In 2014, the zoning map for Roxborough was revised to allow greater density for development
along Ridge Avenue and other major transportation corridors.
At the same time, zoning was tightened in our residential areas to protect the quality
of life in these already highly developed neighborhoods.
In the following years, though, close to 2,000 new units of housing have been proposed or
built here, mostly by Wright, along our major corridors and inside our residential neighborhoods.
We are clearly not opposed to development.
but it should be planned and cited in a thoughtful manner as was agreed in the comprehensive plan
less than 10 years ago we wish we did not have to fight so hard to protect the historic homes
and last little pieces of green space that surround them and we need the zba and the
planning commission to help us protect the residential areas of our neighborhood from
ever denser development that fundamentally changes our neighborhood's character and quality
i'm opposed to this proposed development and ask that you reject this application thank you
If we have someone else, oh go ahead, thank you in a second.
Next chair we have Julia.
Good morning, Julia, please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
there you go you're breaking up
there you go you're breaking up
can you hear me now we can thank you terrific thank you um julia j-u-l-i-a
heberley h-e-e as in boy e-r-l-e you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
about the truth i do thank you ma'am please miss julia this is tanya i'm sorry the board
administrator as you give your testimony could you stay right in that spot so we don't lose you
yes is this a signal problem thank you very well thank you thank you so much
literally for hearing me today I'm a home homeowner on Green Lane across the
street from 348 Green Lane I strongly object to the proposed variances Henry
Bailey presents himself as a caring neighbor with the interests of the
neighborhood foremost in his planning Henry Bailey was a neighbor many years
ago. He has since moved out to
Narberth, but unfortunately for our
neighborhood... Objection.
Henry Bailey has nothing
to do with the variances
and the application, and I'm
not going to listen to
Thank you.
May I speak to his projects, his prior projects?
Objection.
I think
stick to this project would be the right
way to go, ma'am.
All right. Well,
The neighbors, as well as the CRCA and subcommittees, have been very cooperative.
I've been to many of those meetings and given Mr. Bailey and his colleagues lots of our time and effort, many times, each time being profoundly disappointed with his subsequent plans.
He and his colleagues have not listened to the neighborhood.
They have not been cooperative, and he is attempting to crowd our already crowded neighborhood for his own business gain.
So I object strongly to the proposed variances.
Thank you.
Next witness.
Next chair, we have Elizabeth.
Morning, Ms. Fisher.
Please spell your full name.
I'll swear you in.
E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H-F-I-S-C-H-E-R.
Please swear, affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
My testimony is regarding the parking that would be impacted by this project.
Currently along Maniunk Avenue, there is a flat level area along the side of this proposed
development.
Many of the neighbors park there because there is very little off-street parking already
in the neighborhood, and with the proposed curb cut there, I believe that there will
a negative effect on parking because that will take away parking spaces. The addition of the
garages in the proposal for the houses, I really don't think it's going to be used for parking in
my experience because there are not basements in these houses. They are going to be used for storage
and parking is already very difficult in the neighborhood and I am concerned about the curb
cut and that the garages
will not actually be used for parking.
Excuse me,
Chair, this is the court reporter.
May I have one minute of
a pause in place? I need to change the batteries
in my machine. Yeah, let us know when you're
ready. Take your time. Thank you.
Excuse the interruption.
Thank you.
thank you chair thank you next witness and no more hands here thank you um mr wise yes uh briefly
mr chair um this is an application uh in the refusal that was issued um the original refusal
application was for, I believe, four properties. A subsequent plan was submitted, stamped, and
second refusal issued for the two properties that are proposed. But it's important to understand
that this is one lot, one large lot, fronting on the three streets prominent in the neighborhood.
fronting on the on the three streets prominent in the neighborhood the refusal
referenced steep slope because they're piercing a retaining wall it referenced parking which is
essentially prohibited in the overlay district and it's referenced the multi-family nature here
in this residential single detached home zone when we talk about variances we all are familiar
with 14.303.8.E.1 that actually has nine criteria that an applicant must satisfy as its burden
that the denial of the variance would result in unnecessary hardship and you'll all recall in
August at the initial hearing in which Mr. Bailey, the developer, stated that the hardship was the
maintenance of the existing building, a large property fronting on Front Street, and the
architect testified that a hardship resulted from the unusually large size of this lot.
These are not hardships considered by the zoning code. Hardships are typically physical
characteristics of the lot preventing adherence to the code. But hardship's not the only
criteria that an applicant has to satisfy. But in the absence of a hardship, a variance normally
would not, cannot be granted. But the 303.8.E.1 goes on to state that if a variance is requested,
denial, I'm sorry, that the variance must be the minimum variance necessary to afford relief,
and it must be the least modification possible of the regulation at issue. The regulation is
that this is an RSD block. These are detached homes, grand in scale, because the dimensional
I'm sorry, the dimensional requirements and provisions of RSD call for larger lots, 5,000 square feet buildable, minimum buildable lot size, 25-foot front yard, 7-foot on a corner lot of 7-foot side yard, 25-foot rear yards.
um it's not uh so as you heard earlier the lot itself while being very large the existence of
this this existing there's there's an existing building on the lot already and the way that
building sits on the lot doesn't it makes it so that the applicant can't just subdivide and have
a buildable lot in the back so they would even building one house as as one of the witnesses
has stated uh the code doesn't provide any uh buildable area so the applicant when he bought
this uh property recently was aware that there was no buildable expansion provided uh available
to him without a variance um the application is here before the board today seeking two homes
down from four homes. When the zoning code under 3038E1 says that a variance must, if there is a
hardship, the variance must be the minimum and the least modification of the home, well, it's common
sense. Two homes is not the minimum. There was testimony from the architect that one home would
require variances also. Of course, because these are grand scale homes that are contemplated in
this RSD zone. But the applicant could surely apply for a variance, and one ohm would be the
minimum variance. Two ohms is not the minimum variance. So for that reason also, this variance
is not, should not be granted. It also goes on to require that the applicant show that the
variance sought should be in harmony and spirit with the purpose of the zoning code.
Well, the zoning code seeks grand homes on large plots, not twins.
It's right in the zoning classification.
These are detached homes, single freestanding, not attached homes or semi-attached twins.
So for that reason, also, the applicant is unable to satisfy its burden for this variance.
um we also haven't seen any uh information photos layouts otherwise of what's going on in the
existing building on the structure which is normally required by by the zoning board and
i did want to raise just one issue about the refusal because the refusal does reference
the existing structure on the property um is in use as a five apartment five family dwelling
and whenever that was granted, that was provided to include a
And whenever that was granted, that was provided to include a doctor in residence with his office in the property.
We heard during the initial testimony that there is no doctor residing there.
And there was an office that sounded like it needs some repair.
It's not in service.
But I am not sure if that was referenced in the initial application or why the non-compliance of the front home is not noted or part of the refusal.
I would I would have expected that the refusal in understanding that the five units are no longer including the doctor's unit, the doctor's office with a doctor in residence, which was, you know, one of those historical paths to multifamily back in the day when doctors and dentists sort of lived above their offices.
but we don't know what these units are in the in the um in that front building but we did hear that
we do know that this uh property is already a five-family dwelling on this lot contemplated
by the code to be a single family home um so uh with uh with all that um i don't believe the
applicant has satisfied the burden in the absence of any hardship and putting the hardship issue
aside, not bringing the minimum lease modification forward in this application. And you heard from
the representatives of the neighborhood and the community and the zoning committee at the RCO
as to their observations and feelings and statements on that. And for that reason, the RCO
opposes it and asks for this application as presented to be denied. And I thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Malloy? Thank you very much. And let's take the last point first. The office
remains an office. It's just vacant. There's been no move to make it another residential unit.
And so it was not discussed in the application.
It's five residential units, not including the former doctor's office.
There's no intention to move it at this point to a residential unit, but it remains an office.
Second, let's put this back in context.
This is not a large lot with a large house on it in a sprawling neighborhood of similar lots.
This is a lot that when my client bought it, the same neighbors who came and testified tonight that he didn't cooperate over 11 meetings were the ones who placed it on the historic register right after he bought it.
That placed extra burdens and extra levels of complexity and levels of work and quality that needed to be done on the exterior of the building.
He's placed $179,000 of improvements into the building and testified about that during the first hearing.
The maintenance and upkeep of this building, which everyone acknowledges is a grand historic building, five residential units does not support the upkeep of the building.
That creates a hardship in the vein of the Hertzberg decisions, and this is not a variance motivated by pure profit.
Everybody's acknowledged we did not come in here seeking four residential units or three residential units.
We were whittled down over since 2019 to two residential units in the back.
The reason that the developer cannot go to one is because one creates an impractical size unit that will not sell in that marketplace.
Two units is the minimum variance required.
It's the minimum variances required to create the revenue stream that will be necessary to allow for the upkeep and maintenance of the residential building that's on the property in a way that is respectful of its historic nature and the neighborhood.
The residents are planned for the rear of the property along DuPont, where there are numerous twins and, as everyone testified, residential styles of various and different types.
residential styles of various and different types surrounding this property. This property is a white
elephant given its size. Once you subdivide, as proposed, the houses and the lots in the back,
the property still remains compliant in its current zoning. So what we're asking for,
I think, are reasonable variances to allow us to create two residential units, which is far less
than where we started and where, contrary to what everyone testified, we bent over backwards,
changing designs, changing roof types, going to historic commission, you know, and dealing with
the community and changing the design and altering the design right to the end to try to provide them
with the best development possible.
The fact of the matter is they don't want any development,
and that's what's necessary to continue to maintain
the level of upkeep that's necessary
to have that historic property.
So this is a restoration and a maintenance
and an upkeep issue.
It's based on requirements that were not in place when the landowner bought the property, and since it's not an effort to create pure profit and is an effort to maintain this structure, we think the variances are reasonable and should be granted to allow a very reasonable development of an otherwise unused portion of the property.
extremely large property thank you thank you um are there any other witnesses
no hands chair thank you planning commission
good morning mr chairman board members david fecto city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends this property for single family residential use
the applicant's hardship claim is not supported by evidence of unique physical
circumstances or conditions of the property the applicant already appears to be deriving value from
their property the need to maintain a building is not a hardship the applicant is the application
is also not consistent with the central roxborough neighborhood conservation overlay which was created
in 2015 in a collaborative process with the community therefore we recommend the board
deny the requested variances. Thank you. Since our vice chair was not available for the first
hearing, the record will be closed in this case. The vice chair will have an opportunity to
review the testimony that was given at the first hearing. I believe the last hearing was
August the 3rd. So the record is closed. The board will be discussing this at next Wednesday's
executive session thank you all thank you mr chair thank you members all right number two
on our add-on list mi 2021-000336 4401 ridge avenue sean whalen is the attorney for the
applicant mr bonnie represents the rco east falls community council which has stated opposition to
this development this is a resumption hearing uh i know we've had two prior hearings on this
mr bonnie i believe is uh going to present three remaining witnesses and the board will also hear
from other members of the public who wish to testify and from the planning commission
Once we complete that round of witnesses and questions and comments, the record, we will then ask that the attorneys for either party submit written closing statements to the board no later than noon this coming Monday, October 25th.
Is that clear to Mr. Whalen and Mr. Bonney?
Yes, it is. Thank you.
Yes, there's one slight correction.
Let me do this, Paul, before you begin.
Let me swear both of you in and then we'll start.
Mr. Whalen first.
Mr. Whalen, name and name.
Name and spell your name.
Sean, W-H-A-L-E-N, 6 Coulter Avenue, Suite 1000, Ardmore, PA, 19003.
Where if I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
Mr. Bonney?
Yes, my name is Paul Bonney. My address is 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 110919106. I represent East Falls Community Council.
Yes, my name is Paul Bonney.
My address is 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 11.
Bonney is spelled B as in boy, O-N-I. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do, and I thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay. Who's first? Who's up first here?
I think I am. I also just wanted to just make a very minor correction. We have four witnesses. We've identified all those names, and one of them is very short.
so um excuse me this is Sharon and Mr. Bonnie I did advise the um the board of that at executive
session continuing with you have four witnesses to present you have a number of documents you want to
identify um that are being included in the record the witnesses include um
Hillary Langer link I'm sorry I keep getting that wrong it's Hillary Langer an architect who will
be testifying as to his opinion that the property can be developed without variances. Is that right?
Yes, and also with least minimum, much more minimum variance.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, were you going to list all of the witnesses? Because he was not our first.
Oh, no, I understand. You did submit the resume for your witness, who is going to testify to environmental issues, to some extent.
Okay, well, do I have the floor?
Yes, you do.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to try and speak really quickly.
So, you know, just as you know, our overall position is that we are pro-development, but that this project should be smaller.
And we have evidence of that from various witnesses and including a lot of evidence from documents, as was agreed to at the last hearing.
And I think, Mr. Chair, you weren't there, but I'm sure you'll review the transcript before voting.
so thank you for that. It was agreed that I, on behalf of East Falls Community Council,
would circulate all of our exhibits, which I have done, and so the board solicitor has
reviewed all the exhibits, I believe, and so I think, and then I was granted the ability to
walk the board through many of the documents, especially the government-related documents
and some of the background documents, in order to speed our presentation. So I will not rely
on the witnesses to say, is this what page six says? Yes. Is this what page seven says? Yes.
I will just walk the board through those documents on the screen.
So without further ado, before I call our first witness,
which is Cynthia Kishenshand, who will testify to some of the environmental aspects here,
I would like to share my screen and just show the board a few of the documents
that we've submitted. I'm going to jump in real quick because I think while Mr. Bonney's looking
for documents, this is a good time to keep this moving. I'm going to object to Ms. Kishinchand,
I hope I said that correctly, testifying as any kind of an expert or to environmental issues
as an, quote, environmental witness. She can certainly testify to her own experiences and
her own personal situation and hardship caused by this development. However, the resume presented
by Mr. Bonney does not present any basis for Ms. Kissinchand to be presented as a witness
on environmental issues generally before this board. Has the board had an opportunity to see
that uh her credentials chair i did email you the resume um and and again it this is a close
question i think that she does have experience um in dealing with some of these issues and
addressing some of the issues that she wishes to testify on but as we said at the beginning it
be limited testimony um she can well we'll let her go forward and and um limit it as necessary
okay can i make a suggestion that first i have some documents um to present and then we can
put her uh resume up as as we introduce her personally but
uh resume up as as we introduce her personally but you know certainly we have um documents here
from basically the city of philadelphia that um you know no one can argue that those aren't are
inadmissible so i'd like to sort of set the table for her testimony again i apologize sharon you
said you you sent me that um yes i said that to all the board members i can re-send it now it's
That's the entire exhibit packet and it includes the resume.
Mr. Bonney.
Should the board please.
I'm happy to stipulate to many of the documents that Mr. Bonney wants to show their public
record.
We already included maps, if not this precise map, additional maps exactly like this are
already in the record.
They've already been testified to.
This board set a one-hour time limit to complete this hearing today.
this is obviously the third hearing already for this case after two continuances to further meet
with the community which we did so this matter needs to get completed today and can't be
unnecessarily delayed by retestifying about matters which have already arisen so we're not
Correct. Can I continue please in the interest of time?
Please continue. Okay. Showing on my screen, just to remind everyone what this site is,
it's this large wooded area in the middle, this green area. And that's where the site is.
I want to go over the zoning code that protects steep slopes in 14704, section 14704 of the zoning code.
Could you enlarge that, Paul?
Absolutely.
The city has first a section that's called intent.
That's good, thank you.
intent that says the open space and natural resources standards of this section are intended
to promote safe and compatible development throughout the city of Philadelphia that avoids
adverse impacts and degradation of the environment through, among other things, protection of steep
slopes. And to jump to the zoning code has a map that shows where the steep slopes are
in the city. And in this sub map number one, I highlighted in green approximately where
this property is and then of course the prohibition itself is in subsection b where it's where it says
in point one that you can impact steep slopes that are not of a steep grade but in subsection
point two it says on those portions of the lot where the slope of land is 25 percent or greater
no site clearing or earth moving activity is permitted so that's the prohibition at issue
and that's why the applicant is seeking the variance that it is here is a page from the
open maps of philadelphia which shows the very quickly i'm not going to object again i'm i'm
willing to stipulate as to all of this mr bonnie i'm presenting my case to do an opening paul paul
please let's hear Mr. Whalen. Mr. Bonney already had the opportunity to do an opening. I already
had the opportunity to present my whole case. This is already in the record. He can put all
of these documents in. The board can certainly look at them. I will stipulate to all public
records. This hearing was continued to today for only one hour solely for the basis for Mr. Bonney
to present his witnesses because that's where we were in the stage of the case and then for the
community at large planning commission and councilmen to put their positions on the record
so again i'm not objecting i'm just happy to move this along i understood okay could you
not stipulate paul what's the objection to stipulating well i don't want to present my case
by email i want to present my case by zoom i'm presenting my case i'm trying to persuade the
board. I'm walking them through the documents in the quickest way possible. And I'd like to
continue. This is our... Excuse me, Mr. Bonney. I think that what we were expecting as far as the
documents is that you would simply read a list identifying each document and the board would
recognize that they had been accepted into the record. Not any real level of detail going line
by line. Thank you. Well, I'm happy to meet you halfway and go as quickly as I can.
Well, I'm happy to meet you halfway and go as quickly as I can, but this is the presentation
of our case.
Do you know what?
We do have one hour.
I understand.
Did we not have this presentation in the past?
Are you providing us with any information today that we already have not seen?
Well, could you zero in on those issues that you have not yet presented?
I will.
So this is the city plan, the city plan, city comprehensive plan that has a section and I'll just, I won't read all of it, but I'll say that right here in the middle, that deforested development, this is all about land suitability and the protection of steep slopes.
And so the objective is to protect steep slopes from development. I'll continue.
This is the Lower Northwest District Plan, which is obviously irrelevant to this case.
And it, too, speaks of prohibiting earth moving where this slope exceeds 25%.
I am also showing you a map of the Lower Northwest District that shows in rust color, it's this dark orange rust color, all the areas in the Lower Northwest District that have steep slopes.
So as you can see, it's quite pervasive in this district.
And it's not something, you know, so I'll continue.
Just to be clear, Mr. Bonney, the 2035 plan was already presented in full and accepted by the board as an exhibit.
So you don't need to walk through anything that the board already has before it.
Thank you, Your Honor.
um i'd now like to go through um a document a new document from the um
from the city of philadelphia called the tree canopy assessment report and um this talks about
the benefits of trees i will keep going this talks about here on the upper right that a lot
the tree removal is the clearing of large patches for new construction. I won't read
everything I was going to read because I'm sure the board will read this when it reviews these
documents and of course the recommendation is to preserve the tree canopy and the analysis
of this particular zip code is that there's three percent loss a relative loss in tree
canopy over the past 10 years in this particular zip code. I would now like to call Ms. Kishenshand
as the witness, and I'm showing her resume on the screen, and I'm going to talk about her
qualifications, and then I'll give Mr. Whalen the opportunity to cross-examine on qualifications.
Excuse me, Mr. Bonney, the board has her qualifications in front of them in the resume.
could you just briefly describe what you are intending to have her what you expect her to
testify to okay uh well i expect her to testify the of the benefits of these forested steep slopes
that supports this urban forest and she's going to talk about the benefits um to nature the
benefits to human beings um and that's what she's going to talk about sort of the benefits of trees
to nature and human beings and wildlife and sort of generally speaking and also that the
um tree canopy in east falls has been decreasing east falls in particular has been decreasing over
the years that is what she's going to testify to she's not going to talk about you know e equals
mc squared or any sort of um high degree of scientific analysis she's talking about things
that she's learned and uh advocated for and taught other people about um over her over her 25 year
history of being involved with um preservation and um increasing the tree canopy in the city
of Philadelphia. She's participated on a city committee right here, the second bullet under
a civic position, I'm sorry, towards the bottom of the page. She's been on the steering committee
for a Philadelphia Parks and Rec effort. We're looking at that and we'll accept that.
uh effort but we're we're looking at that and we'll accept that um so if we can get
miss uh kishenhan i'm pronouncing that right i swear her in and begin with her testimony
so so chair if i may just very quickly obviously i'll just i think now's the appropriate time i'll
reassert my uh objection that the board already heard to miss kiss and chance i think you can
limit her testimony as you need uh simply again i'm willing to stipulate to uh whatever the the
tree canopy plan or show proposal that Mr. Bonnie just presented it appears to be a
civically created document or a city document that's fine I'm happy to stipulate that trees
have been lost or taken down throughout East Falls in the city along with additional development
but I don't see how any of that is relevant to this project and this particular property where
there's already been significant testimony that the only trees on the property are overgrowth
and that actually the trees at which the community is concerned is old growth trees that are actually
behind our property we do not we are not the entirety of that greenery that the board was
just shown in fact we're only the frontage along Merrick and Ridge which was previously completely
cleared by PHA, had three towers, and since being demolished by PHA has simply been left to go
fallow. So those are not old growth trees nor any specimen trees and we will be planting as
testified, I don't have the number in front of me, 15 to 20 street trees. So with that I'm happy to
stipulate to whatever it is Mr. Bonney wants us to agree to as to trees being important and necessary
and should be kept at all costs, we will be doing so.
And Ms. Kissinchen can testify to whatever harm she sees at this property,
but not generally in the city.
Mr. Chair, I'd ask you to instruct Mr. Whelan to cease interruptions.
Well, you have the right to object, don't you?
That was a little more than an objection, I think.
Well, a little, but you will admit that you at times go a little bit more
than your objections as well.
So let's get back on track.
Thank you.
Ms. Kusinchant, can you raise your hand please
and be recognized?
Just hit the raise hand button.
And will your witness be just testifying specific
to this project?
Because I think what we're looking at does talk about
her 25 years of experience.
Both, both, both, both, yes.
Both what?
Both what?
The value of trees and the value of trees, these particular trees.
Well, I think Mr. Whelan agreed that there is a value to trees.
Well, let's hear it.
Look, Mr. Chairman, this is an environmental case.
Mr. Whelan has belittled the environmental value of what is on the property.
We have an opportunity to describe it in our way.
he's he's he's belittled it the first time by himself he's not an expert I'm not sure I saw
his resume can we can we hear gets the witness yes Ms. Gishenshin do you have a I'm waiting for
her to be recognized I'm not sure is she here yet may she raise her hand Cynthia can you raise your
hand on the press the button uh ms sunkett can you help her tell her where it is yeah i said
she's available to speak she just had to unmute herself can you unmute yourself cynthia
i raised my hand okay can we okay now you're in please spell your full name and i'll swear you
in ma'am cynthia c-y-n-t-h-i-a kishin chand k-i-s-h-i-n-c-h-a-n-d do you swear or affirm to
tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do thank you mr bonnie okay miss kissin
chand if you want us to see her face you have to undo your video or turn on your video um it's up
to you but uh we'd like to hear her testimony she doesn't have video control so just audio
thank you it's not necessary miss okay okay please explain the value of these steep slopes
and the habitat they support and why they should be protected uh steep slopes are part of nature
They have been there for a few decades. The area has always been sloped, generally,
Generally, though I can't speak to any past specific alteration, they now support a wonderful ecosystem.
though I can't speak to any past specific alternatives.
I was there yesterday.
Of course, the slopes in the trees handle stormwater, and I think everyone can agree with that.
This is a beautiful natural forest.
It's not purposely planted or curated, but it is natural.
There is value in that.
It has been around for at least 20 years.
Their trees are quite large, and some of them are very tall.
I think some of them are more than 60 feet.
I walked it just yesterday, and I observed impressive elm, maple, hackberry, and katsura.
What was that last word, please?
Katsura. K-A-T-S-U-R-A.
And that's a type of tree?
Okay, and hackberry was the one before that?
H-A-C-K-B-E-R-R-Y?
Correct.
Okay, and of course we all know elm and maple. How do these forested steep slopes benefit the environment?
Well, I mentioned stormwater. There is also habitat. This forest is habitat for deer, groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks.
It also is habitat for a wide variety of birds.
How many years have you lived in this neighborhood?
50 years.
I'm sorry, five zero?
Five zero.
Thank you. Continue.
And the trees also have a cooling effect on the environment.
That is important to combat climate change, something I think we are all aware of right now.
How do these forested steep slopes benefit humans?
Well again, first and foremost, they help clean the air. Clean air is vital for all of us.
This is especially important in an area like Ridge Avenue that has so much traffic, and that will have so much new traffic from all new development.
All those cars will be generating more pollution in the neighborhood.
Trees are also stress relievers.
Studies show that simply looking at trees can lower someone's blood pressure.
Finally, I want to mention the inherent value of nature.
It is something we should preserve.
It's just not me saying that. That's what the city of Philadelphia says, or Ben Franklin with his green country town goals.
And it's not just the tree canopy assessment report, but also it is in the zoning code as explained a few minutes ago.
Is the tree canopy in East Falls in particular increasing or decreasing?
As you mentioned in that report, over that 10-year period, by the way, the report was published in December 2019.
The relative decrease was 3% over the past 10 years.
And this is despite the efforts of East Falls tree tenders of planting hundreds of trees during that period.
So even with our planting trees, there has been a decrease in the tree canopy.
okay that that was going to be my last question that that the tree tenders you've been planting
numerous trees every year in east falls isn't that true yes we've done as of this year we've
done about 1400 trees on 47 streets plus at local schools but you're saying that even more trees are
lost and so that there's been a net negative right we're not able to keep up with the loss
i have no further questions for this witness i want to thank you
thank you ma'am miss uh mr whalen yes thank you board i will be extremely brief um miss
kiss and chant and i hope i'm saying that last name correctly you are uh thank you um do you
mind putting your address on the record please oh of course not it's 31 14 west coulter street
Right. And is that about a mile away from the property?
That's about right. Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Now, Ms. Kissen-Chand, are you aware that the steep slopes existing on the property were man-made by PHA?
I have heard that said. Yes.
Okay. But you don't have any personal knowledge about that?
No. May I ask you a question? And so what year did they have established them?
unfortunately that's not how this works but uh miss kiss and chander are you aware of any
stormwater management uh facilities currently on the property no okay um and miss kiss and chand
i believe you you mentioned four different types of trees and i will admit i didn't even know two
of those were names of trees on the property is that correct yes did you walk the property yes
Did you walk the property?
and how many of
And how many of these types of specimen trees did you identify?
I couldn't count them all because it would be rather treacherous if I had really walked over every area there that had trees.
So I'm unable to do that, but it was just crowded with trees and shrubs.
okay now uh miss kiss and chant have you reviewed the proposed project plans yes and uh did you
review the street trees that will be planted at the project yes and did you count how many street
trees will be planted i did at the time i don't remember right now would you agree with me that
it's roughly on the order of 15, I believe?
Yes, yeah.
Okay, thank you very much.
I have no further questions, board.
Thank you, Ms. Kissenchant.
You're welcome.
I have a next witness, if the board is ready.
Yes, please.
Okay, my next witness is Mr. Hilary Langer.
And she's available to speak, Chair.
Mr. Langer, please spell your full name
when you get on and i'll swear you win can you hear me okay yes please spell your full name
hillary h-i-l-a-r-y langer l-a-n-g-e-r you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do thank you mr bonnie thank you uh mr langer good morning what title do you hold
at the East Falls Community Council. I am chair of the East Falls Community Council's Learning
Committee. What is your occupation? I am a registered architect in Pennsylvania and some
other jurisdictions. Also a member of the AIA, American Institute of Architects. But board and
Mr. Bonnie, I'm willing to stipulate to Mr. Langer and his expertise. We don't need to walk through
qualifications. Thank you. Okay. I do have one other question, though, in this category. Do you
have experience with residential development? Yes. Okay. Do you have experience with cost
estimating and determining feasibility? Yes. In the course of my work, I do deal with cost
estimates, cost estimates on a daily basis, really from the review of budgets for
proposals, GMPs, guaranteed maximum price. Okay, thank you. And also review and approval of
change orders during construction. Shifting gears, Mr. Lanker, how do you look at
slopes or steep slopes as an architect? You know, I think particularly in this neighborhood,
I see them as an asset. They can inspire creative, interesting, and very dramatic site
layouts. That's a feature of this neighborhood. And one reason why I moved into this neighborhood
because of the hilly landscape. What do you mean, asset? What do you mean? I'm sorry, I cut you off.
What do you mean by asset? Well, East Falls, Maniank, and Roxburgh, it's a very hilly part of
Philadelphia, uniquely defined by large hills, rocky outcroppings, and as you know, previously
occupied by a lot of many water driven mills and streams we're used to walking up hills we cycle
up hills we park on different elevations my house I come in at street level and I go to the back and
I'm looking down 15 feet onto my backyard and these are kind of natural features of our of our
neighborhood i'm showing some pictures of your neighborhood and how it um involves steep slubs
just going to scroll through a couple pages what's the one we're looking at here this is actually
elsewhere in lower northwest is that correct um yes this is actually uh one one of the accesses
of the uh adjacent proximity to the site um schoolhouse lane um and uh it shows an embankment
there between the parking area and the lane. I'm going to show the other side of it, so
I'm going to show the other side of it. So tell us just briefly, what are we looking at? Is this
tell us just briefly what are we looking at.
the second floor here? Mr. Bonney, I'm going to have to object. I mean, Mr. Langer can certainly
testify to all the projects in the neighborhood if we want, but we all know that there are steep
slopes in East Falls. I fail to see any relevance, Chairman, with regard to what other projects look
like. Certainly there are other projects and other developments in the neighborhood, but that's not
relevant to ours and whether we meet the steep slope i tend to agree with you i mean anyone
knows anything about roxborough knows it's very steep right but but the point but the point we're
making mr chairman is that not only is it steep but that architecture can coexist with the steep
slopes as is shown on the current page you could show that's an example but i'm sure
if you can limit the number of examples that would be helpful. Okay this is the last one what
are we looking at here Mr. Langer is this another well go ahead. This is a bridge entry the main
entry into an apartment building in Mennyonk and this shows a connection across an old mill
development where actually Ridge Avenue up on the right actually looks down on the roof of this
development uh but he is a a a development that is a a unique to our kind of neighborhood and and
is you know can become the the kind of feature and defining character of any development we do on
on a slope such as 4401 okay so skipping over a little bit um i want to show you the base plan
um which is uh for steep slopes this is from the applicants exhibits this area in the green
is the steep slope of greater than 25 on the subject property change excuse me the the picture
is didn't change there we go oh do you see it now yes okay um before we get into your bases
and your reasons, please tell us your headline or your conclusion. Can this parcel be developed
reasonably and still avoid the steep slopes? Yes, yeah. Okay, well, can you elaborate briefly?
So there's sufficient area on this site that you're looking at right now, above and below the main steep slope area that was previously occupied by 30 units that were demolished off the site.
So basically, the area at the back, the area in the middle, and the area down there on Ridge Avenue are all three zones that can be, are available for development.
okay and then generally also thank you and then also generally do you do you know before we get
into your reasons your specific reasons just as a matter of conclusion do you think that there
is a hardship here no i don't believe so okay um uh you know that you know the steep slopes here
It can be completely avoided with a different scheme.
But even if you needed to impact them, there are minimum variance options that would be in order.
But there's definitely no need to eliminate all the steep slopes on the site.
The applicant talks about the need to be, as you remember from the first hearing or two,
the applicant talked about the need to be quote-unquote cm or the desire to be cmx3 commensurate
and points out that they are still not using all of the available far um what is your reaction to
that well you know i disagree with that you you can't just look at base zoning uh you you know
you have to look at it at the site holistically and the entire zoning code including the
environmental prohibitions, such as the steep slope provision. The FAR is an upper limit that's
provided. It's not a requirement. You're familiar with the CMX3 provisions of the zoning cut?
Yes. Does CMX3 allow for multifamily dwellings that would read or appear?
Does CMX3 allow for multifamily dwellings that would read or appear as townhomes, townhouses?
Yes, CMX3 has a lot of different uses that can go into it.
And multifamily would certainly look like a traditional apartment house, or they can be designed to look like townhomes, whether it's attached row or in clusters.
Does CMX3 allow for multiple buildings on a single lot?
Does CMX3 allow for other uses other than residential?
Yes, there's a very handy matrix issued by City Planning and Zoning.
You could have an adult care facility.
I think there was a previous scheme to build a 100-unit independent living facility.
you could build a child care center you could build a community care center office building
grocery store hotel a community garden i mean there's there's a lot of different options
but let's stick to residential for the time being are there examples of nearby residential
types of buildings that are different and more modest than that proposed by a tapco
and I'm going to show a document here
that shows the subject site in the middle
and what are we looking at to the bottom left?
The roof of a car.
There we go.
I'm sorry.
Do you see now the HL3?
Right.
So actually, you know, looking above and below the site,
Right above overlooking the site is the hilltop development, which is, I think it's Condominium Association, I think. I'm not sure.
And then down on the bottom there, you have the Overlook project, which is 13 townhomes nestled in behind some other existing townhomes.
um so that's an example of uh some prototypes that could absolutely be developed uh on the site
okay and still large entirely if not largely avoid the steep slopes uh yes you've explored
different ways to uh well oh the next the next one is um showing a little different angle which
shows on the right-hand side the Penrose building. Is this the 50-unit senior housing living above
one floor of retail? There's a little bit of a lag. Okay, sorry. Pictures change over.
Well, you're familiar with the, Mr. Chair, can you see HL4? Yes, there we go. Okay.
So you see the Penrose building on the right-hand side.
I think we all agree it's a 50-unit senior housing building above one floor of retail.
That's right.
Yeah, it's a 50-unit senior housing development with commercial on the lower level.
Okay, is that awesome?
It's a great concept.
It's something that could fit on this side along Ridge Avenue.
okay um let's get into your um you've you've explored as an architect different ways to
develop this property let me get your um document up here may take a minute that
you've explored different ways to develop this property and avoid the steep slopes either
entirely or with much less impact than the atapco proposal is that correct that's that's right
Okay, let's look at the options that you've generated. Can you see the page that says conceptual option number one?
Okay, first off, you've done some measurements here, and I'd like to confirm with you the measurements that you've measured the square footage of the steep slopes, and that the lower band, I'm going to make this a little bit bigger for the chairman and the members of the board.
that the lower band of steep slopes is 2,245 square feet and that the upper band of the steep slopes is 11,265 square feet.
And can you confirm that my math is correct in that the lower band represents
Math is correct in that the lower band represents 2.7% of the full property, and then the upper band represents 13.7% of the full property. Is that correct?
That's right.
Okay. I'm going to plow through this diagram as quickly as I can for the board's benefit and ask you, Mr. Langer, if I'm doing it correctly.
So you are showing in purple what you describe here in this box as a 30-unit apartment building.
there is a smaller rectangle in the extreme corner that shows the where the area of the
first floor retail is um but all three levels above it are residential and also the left-hand
side is four levels of residential so i think in this zoning district you know you have to have 50
percent of your first floor with with retail and that's sort of what you've done here
and also so for 30 units you've you've put a driveway that goes a one-way driveway that
enters onto Merrick right where my where this arrow is goes all the way through the site and
then discharges onto Ridge Avenue and that am I correct that on either side of that driveway
you've situated 30 uh 30 parking spaces is that correct that's right okay now i don't want to
take a step back for a second um this is just an idea is that what you're putting out here
yeah this this is just a one strategical approach um not necessarily design it's one of what could
be many okay was this was this hypothetical we'll call it whatever you want presented uh to the
developer at any of the rco meetings no it was not we're seeing this for the first time yes right
well on saturday but yes yes um and you have here situated uh a um a bridge to connect the
parking area to the second floor of the building is that correct that's right and so let me pardon
the interruption again i i understand i think i understand where you're going mr bonnie that
you're going to demonstrate to the board that there are alternatives to the plan that's being
presented for us to look at and decide on wouldn't this be better to have this conversation
with the rco i mean we're not going to we're not going to be the we're not going to be planning
we're not i'm not going to sit here and say this is the plan that you should do no of course not
yes i'm happy to respond to that no and this isn't we're pointing out here for the board
and we only have a couple more pages but we're pointing out here for the board that um the
the steep slopes for which they're seeking a variance do not present a hardship to the
reasonable development of this property. And so we are showing here an idea, a strategic idea
to demonstrate to the board that the applicant has not met its burden, that these steep slopes
are in fact a hardship and that they, you know, need to be impacted, certainly to the extent that
the developer seeks to impact them. So that's the nature of what we're doing here. We're not trying
to negotiate an open court here about this is what we think they should build. That's not what we're
saying. I understand your explanation. Chairman, if I may quickly, just because this has been a,
this is now a third hearing. I'm happy to stipulate that, you know, there are a dozen
different ways or more that this could be built. The board chair has already identified that we
could build significantly taller. We could build a much larger project than offering two. That
would also be by right. However, there was expert testimony regarding the disturbance of steep
slopes, and that testimony was backed up by the planning commission stating that any disturbance
of steep slopes during construction, footers, foundations, anything does trigger a violation
of this zoning code. So even just putting this bridge across does not, you know, clear this
issue. So yes, there are dozens and dozens of ways I can ask Mr. Langer, and I'm happy to,
all of these issues, or we can stipulate that there are lots of different ways that this could
be built. However, there's extensive testimony already in the record that we could build much
However, there's extensive testimony already in the record that we could build much larger as well, and that that's not the project in front of the board.
I'd like to plow through. I think we're making good time. It's only 1135 and we're nearing, you know, we're getting to the end of this. May I continue?
Please do.
okay so in your opinion mr langer would this bridge involve any alteration of the steep slope
or would you be going entirely over it no we'd be going entirely over okay and if you did and
if you did need to put a column or a post um it would be a smidgen i know that's not a technical
term but a smidgen of variance yeah a smidgen or or you know that support could be uh completely
off the steep slope um you know that's an engineering solution thank you uh just to round
out this exhibit you're showing the penrose building here just for purposes of um you know
content comparison that maybe it could look like something like this albeit a bit smaller
and on the right hand side you're showing something that we're going to see a little
later this morning which is from a pha document showing a little diagram i want to go to the next
page um and i'll go to the next page quickly here um this is a slight variation uh am i correct
um it's i'm i'm sure it's loading okay it's option two this is a slight variation correct
yeah i'm not seeing it yet don't about anyone else okay with a little help from xfinity you'll
see it let me know when you see it i'll i'm gonna
here we go okay this is a 50 unit apartment building it's a little bit more elongated than
the one we just saw that's right and you're showing still 30 parking spaces which is code
compliant is that correct uh that's right but you have a note yeah with an option to put additional
space is up there on the upper part of the lot. Okay, so you have a note on the top that says
parking can be added on rear terrace to get even more parking spaces if you want. And that would
require either a bridge or a small alteration for a bridge over this larger band? Some steps.
Okay, let me know when option three populates on your screen.
am i correct that option three is yet another variation right that utilizes the rear of the site
for development okay so so you're showing stays away from the steep slope at the high end okay
so you're showing a 40 unit apartment building in the back that's right are you showing are you
So you're showing a driveway that goes under that building, and that is there parking for each of those units under that building off of that driveway.
That's right.
I'm going to show option four, which is the last option that you've shown.
um and this you've shown you've titled you've titled it the subtitle is minimum variance on
steep slope and and i think am i correct that the major change here right here we go
that the major difference here is this orange area and this orange area is a alteration of
the lower band of steep slope where you're actually flattening out you know you're altering
and you're flattening out, almost removing two thirds of the lower band of steep slope. Is that
correct? That's right. Now, you've been very hopeful in that you put the rear of the Penrose
building, the 50 unit senior housing building, the rear of that building in the bottom left,
and I photograph, and I think what you're showing, correct me if I'm wrong, that that parking lot
is filled in is fill that slopes right up to the second floor of this building is that correct
yeah that's right okay so that's what you're showing here that um in orange that instead of
using a bridge which may or may not require a variance whether it's a smidgen or not you're
really just flattening out this whole area so that everyone in this parking area can waltz
walk or waltz right into the building as if they're doing it here in the Penrose. Is that correct?
here in the Penrose. Is that correct? That's right. Okay, and everything else is pretty much the same,
That's right. Okay and everything else is pretty much
but you're getting one-for-one parking here, even though the code requires less. Is that correct?
Yes. Finally, you're showing on the bottom right. What are you showing on the bottom right?
These are some other TAPCO projects, three, that were pulled out of their portfolio from their
website uh that that looked like they would be um uh appropriate uh to this location uh with
balconies um and uh a smaller scale um you know we're overlooking the river here we're overlooking
trees uh next to kelly drive um so you know this kind of prototype which atabco familiar
would be applicable to this situation also.
Mr. Bonney, with all due respect,
how many more exhibits of ideas and possible...
This is it.
This is it.
This is it.
This is it.
We have this rendering that chose option four,
and that's it.
Did you prepare a conceptual rendering of your option four?
okay are you looking at it now we are okay uh how was just how did you get to this rendering
well um well we we built a three-dimensional model based on the topography um on the um
zoning zoning plan submitted by the tapco uh sheet one of one uh you can't really see it um
But the side itself here underneath the buildings is accurately sloped.
And I can attest to that.
So you have first floor retail here on the corner?
That's right.
You've also put in a bunch of other features that I think were discussed at the CDR.
um for instance materials and the height and um chairman i'm going to going to object to
the further continuation of this it's been asked and answered we we have all of this testimony we
know that there are other options none of these options have been reviewed by l and i they're all
entirely hypothetical we're not talking about the project itself at all at this point sustained and
Mr. Bonney, I think you've made your point.
Okay, thank you.
I want to continue.
What are we continuing with?
The rest of the testimony for this witness.
I'm going to switch gears.
Could you generate additional options, Mr. Langer?
Definitely more options in terms of the way the building looks.
We will stipulate that there are numerous other options that could be developed on this site.
Okay, how about, okay, thank you.
How about cost feasibility as to whether these types of things are feasible?
Wouldn't that depend on the size and scope of the project?
Well, I wanted to ask the witness, but if you...
It could be less, it could be more.
I mean, depending on which project you decided to develop.
Well, look, you know, and this is residential construction of three, four, or five stories.
It's a cheaper construction prototype than one that builds on steep slope that's eight, nine stories tall with elevated decks of parking.
understood there are again it goes back to there are other options and we will stipulate to that
council for the applicant has even stipulated to that okay i want to move on to the last part of
the last category i want to
show that in the lower northwest plan they have a section called planning recommendations
and in that planning recommendations section first they talk about this area which is more
the Wissahickon area and then on the next page they have a very particular section here that
has what I call a red lasso the the property that we're talking about is this is that the
The Planning Commission is showing in this diagram a sort of long, narrow building in yellow, and it says up to 250 multifamily houses.
yellow and it says up to 250 multi-family housing units possible near the falls bridge
and uh this is ridge avenue and the planning commission is saying there's up to 250
multiple multi-family housing units possible right they're also showing uh in mr bonnie i'm
going to object are you asking a question or are you trying to testify here i'm like a closing
argument isn't i mean you've been making what sounds like to me like a closing argument
that there are options and all i was told that i was able to present these um documents lightning
fast and i'm almost done okay and it says it says here on page 24 that the major recommendation
is perfect is maintain low density development in these falls and finally um that is what
is being discussed relative to the change to CMX3. That is the plan. Now I'm going to go back to
Mr. Langer, and I'm going to show him the comparison chart. First, I'm going to focus
on the bottom part of the chart of this diagram. Was this document generated by a member of your
committee under your supervision um yes okay this is what we just looked at the red look this image
is from the lower northwest plan and it shows the 250 possible units being recommended for this area
in the lasso and just to go through your calculations here um there are already 337
units constructed or approved in that red area looking from the bottom up these these annotations
on the right hand side were prepared by you and your colleague on the committee the how project
is 136 units the falls bridge 46 units grasso which just had a which is in the ground um and
currently in under development 142 units and that is the that is the 337 if you would add in the
atapco project that's before us today which would be 185 units you would be at 522 units more than
twice the density recommended by the city plan that is my did i did i did i go over that correctly
That's right.
And also I'd add that the 4442 Ridge is also well under construction.
Thank you.
Which is the 136 units.
Right.
At the top of the page here, this is really just to respond to the applicants' questioning
of our witnesses about that we're in support of the HAL project and we were in support
of the Grasso project.
Am I reading this correctly by your tabulations that the ATAPCO project is taller, significantly taller than those other two projects?
The ATAPCO project is more density in terms of number of units and also in terms of number of beds when you add up the one bedrooms, two bedrooms, etc.
Okay. Finally, I want to ask you something about the section of the zoning code for variances.
And isn't it correct that under the section for variances, about what you need to get a variance,
there is a special section for steep slope variances.
And under this section for steep slope variances, it says where any earth disturbance were to occur on a steep slope of 25% or greater, the zoning board shall approve a variance only if the applicant demonstrates that the application meets the following criteria as certified by a professional engineer.
and that point one point a says that any requested variance for the property will not result in an
increase in stormwater runoff i'd like to ask you mr langer have you you've reviewed the materials
submitted to this board by the applicant has the applicant made a showing by a professional
professional engineer um that this project in other words that this variance that this project
will not result in an increase in stormwater runoff have you seen that i'm going to object
now because mr bonnie's own question certifies that mr langer is not appropriate witness to
witness to testify to that. Mr. Bonnie's question said, an opinion of a professional engineer,
testify to that mr bonnie's question said an opinion of a
this is not the scope, stormwater management is not the scope of a work of an architect,
you know, expert documents have already been presented, they've already been stamped and
approved by the planning commission for stormwater management and this project.
And so, you know, the earth moving plan and everything that Mr. Bonnie is pointing at has
already been presented to this board. And Mr. Langer has no ability to make an opinion as to
that. Yes, he does. Mr. Langer, I have a question, Mr. Langer, going back to some of the hypotheticals
that you and Mr. Blani spoke to. Would any of those hypothetical projects add an increase to
the stormwater runoff? No. No? No. I mean, you know, what you've seen there are conceptual
proposals, and obviously it would need to be further developed beyond the scope of a zoning
hearing, beyond the scope of a community proposal with engineers appropriately to take it to that
level, but the goal would be absolutely no increase in stormwater runoff, complete filtration
on the site, pervious surfaces wherever possible, underground retention basins, and if it were
me, I would say we would exceed the code and average maximum rainfall per hour, 4.5 inches.
we wouldn't know any of that until you really drill down on the plane
right well what other work would you need would an engineer need you've worked with engineers
doing stormwater plans is that correct right yes absolutely but that's a process that takes
place over many weeks and a lot of meetings with a lot of calculations you need to do a technical
survey. I understand that, sir. I understand that. I just was curious that it's possible
that those hypotheticals might not be able to be developed because they may adversely affect
the stormwater runoff and other items that we're looking at on this slide that is up now.
We just don't know. Well, I don't think that's his testament. I think he said
absolutely i think he said yes or absolutely but you'd have to do the work
right got to do the work yeah yeah and all right and has that i don't want to belabor that but i'm
just you threw a lot of hypotheticals in there i'm just curious absolutely but but but my final
question is that has that work has that homework has those calculations of those measurements
It's been submitted to the board by the applicant in this case, Mr. Langer.
I don't know if I've seen those in the exhibits or in the final zoning application.
Okay, thank you.
All right.
Mr. Bonney, are you complete with your witness?
Yes, I am.
No other witnesses from your side?
chairman i have we're up to five minutes to 12 which is way past the hour on one side yes mr
whalen uh i i just wanted to state that i do have unfortunately some extensive questioning
for mr langer on cross as uh yeah that was i hate to say inappropriate on a number
number of accounts but also factually incorrect on many
Mr. Bonney, are you still sharing your screen?
Someone is scratching their microphone or something.
Try that again, Mr. Whelan.
I'm sorry, Mr. Bonney, I was asking if you are still sharing your screen.
I stopped.
Maybe it'll take a second, but I stopped.
Does the court reporter need a break?
uh chair i'm okay to continue if you are okay we'll proceed okay um i don't know if anyone
else has but i have completely lost zoom on my screen and i can hear you but i can't see anything
we can see i can see you uh but nothing else other than you and paul and the names of the
folks that are uh pauline so mr what mr wellin mr wellin if you could um maybe go out and come
maybe go out and come back and we will pause accordingly so why don't we do this let's take
back in we will pause accordingly so why don't we do this
five minutes let's take a break all right let's do that let's take five minutes and get that straight
now thank you mr whalen this is calling from it um i can also see you so i'm wondering if your um
zoom is just minimized and you can see like the website but not the zoom application so if you
scroll along the bottom does any of it there you go i i brought it back up it was actually um
it had actually closed i just okay
Mr. Whalen.
Yes, Ms. Sunke.
I think we have where you are maybe shuffling papers or something, and it affects the audio.
We can hear it, and it's a little disturbing in your mic.
I will attempt to not see that.
Just be conscious of that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Whalen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
are we ready uh are we back online is the court reporter available first john
i am chair thank you thank you and tanya and pauline are we ready to go
yes chair we can continue yes mr wellin yes thank you chairman um and i understand the
timing issue here for today and that we have to finish so i will be as brief as possible
um is mr langer still on
mr langer please unmute yourself
how's that perfect thank you very good i can hear you now mr langer
okay mr langer um i'm not going to try to be curt but i'm going to try to get to the point because
we have some time constraints today um mr bonnie began your testimony by asking you about
looked like six, seven, eight different projects that also involved potentially steep slopes in
the East Falls area. Is that correct? I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you saying
existing buildings? He showed you a number of site photos. The last one stopped on yarn factory
lofts and i was not sure what the other ones referenced okay um for each of those uh site
photos shown in those proposed projects that are existing uh did you do a uh a similar zoning
analysis as you've done here about any steep slopes that were uh affected or variances that
were required uh no i did not okay so you don't know what situations happened for each one of
of those matters shown by Mr. Bonney
that led to the either existing building being redeveloped
or which would not be the case here
or a new building being constructed, do you?
Actually, I'm familiar with one of those
mill redevelopment projects,
but in terms of the same detailed analysis, no.
Okay, thank you very much.
So moving on, you, again, trying to speed things along here, you testified that there were multiple smaller options that could be built on this site, correct?
That's right.
And would you also agree that multiple larger options or taller buildings could be built on this site?
That is allowable within CMX3.
Okay. Now, are you aware that we have this proposed project has 185 units?
And offers essentially one-to-one parking?
That's right.
Now, EFCC has objected to not having enough parking. Is that correct?
okay i i would suggest to the board that it's in the rco letter i don't need to go back to it
so noted um the now mr langer would you agree with me that each of your options shown one two
three and four uh show approximately one-to-one parking that's right okay now also for each one
of your options shown, options 1, 2, 3, and 4, each option would also require the clearing
So each option would also require the clearing of the site, at least to some extent, if not entirely, correct?
On the buildable portions of the site, yes, upper and lower.
So you would be removing significant growth in trees there, correct?
Yes, we would.
Okay. Now, have any of your four options been submitted to and or reviewed by
the City Department of Licenses and Inspection?
No. Okay. And you said that none of your options had had any analysis done for stormwater
management, correct? That's right. These options are not engineered at this point.
now uh mr langer you've uh i believe were you at both of the prior hearings
yes and you heard the testimony that there was uh there is currently no stormwater management
system or facilities on the site correct
i i don't recall i'm i'm sorry um okay well if i represented to you
that there is currently no stormwater management on site other than the natural conditions that
exist. Would you disagree with that? The existing site. The existing site. As it exists. Yeah,
there's no, it's covered in trees. Right. And Mr. Langer, you are not a licensed engineer in the
state of Pennsylvania, correct? That is correct. Okay. So you would not perform any stormwater
management analysis on the existing site with regard to the proposed project correct I would
not do that but as a lead project coordinating architect I would certainly be involved in those
in that engineering and that coordination okay now Mr. Langer Mr. Bonnie asked you if you had
experience with residential construction and you said you did is that correct that is correct
Do you have experience with large mixed-use commercial residential projects like the one proposed?
Okay. And have you taken any projects with regard to steep slopes through the review process with the Department of Licenses and Inspections in Philadelphia and or the Planning Commission?
Okay. So you would not be aware of how the Planning Commission determines whether steep slope variance is required, correct?
Correct.
Okay. Would you disagree with me if I suggested that prior testimony and corroboration from the Planning Commission in this matter, in the prior hearings, stated that any disturbance during foundations, footings, or even during construction or materials of steep slopes would require a variance?
i i don't understand the question okay i'll move on
mr langer a couple of your options uh showed hypothetical uh curb cuts and uh driveways
at along ridge avenue correct that's right um did you propose any such driveway or uh curb cut
along ridge avenue to either pendot or the philadelphia streets department no okay uh did
you hear the prior testimony from uh our witnesses the developers witnesses that is
that PennDOT and the Streets Department would not approve any curb cut or driveway along Ridge Avenue?
I do not recall that part of the testimony.
Okay, thank you.
I will quickly just ask you a couple questions.
about. So I'm going to share my screen.
Mr. Langer, can you see my screen? I believe I'm showing conceptual option number 370 units.
That's correct. Okay. And up in this top corner that I'm
circling right now with my cursor, you show a driveway.
uh circling right now with my cursor uh you show a driveway uh for potential parking
that's right okay now uh that driveway would actually disturb the steep slopes in that
corner of the property correct according to the topographical plan there is some slope there but
it's not above 25 percent. Have you analyzed the site survey or the existing conditions for this
project? I looked at the zoning drawing submitted by TAPCO. Okay and you're aware that there's
currently existing a driveway from back from the PHA development that exists essentially in the
location that you're showing now right there's a there's a small little driveway that goes in and
a small flat area now do you understand that that driveway is actually only half on uh the property
that is 4401 ridge and is actually half on property that is not subject of this project
um i i think uh i'm i'm not sure of the intimate details of exactly what's on or what's off
Okay. Now, I think we've already shown that in your options three and four here, and even option two, you are proposing development immediately abutting 25% grade or higher steep slopes. Is that correct?
uh yes um so in order to immediately there's a buffer there's a buffer but but in order to
immediately abut uh similar to the photo that's showing up here i think it's called cotton hill
there would need to be some kind of retaining wall or other uh shoring or foundation work
to prevent the steep slope from sliding.
Is that correct?
The intent would be not to provide
build retaining walls.
Now, Mr. Langer, you testified
as to a determination of feasibility
with regard to this project, right?
as far as yes absolutely now feasibility necessarily depends on the price paid for
the land correct yes it does and this project this property was sold or are you aware that
this property was listed for sale at an open bidding by PHA yes okay and are you aware of
what the final purchase price was for this property?
I think so, but I wouldn't want to say if my memory served me 100% correct.
Understood, but that would obviously affect feasibility as you testified.
That's right.
Now, Mr. Langer, I've just clicked to show you a zoning map that was previously entered
in this matter um you have you see highlighted here this is the property 4401 ridge avenue
correct yeah and you understand that there's a a very large uh snake-like property behind us
that's also cmx3 between us and the hilltop uh project correct correct okay and uh this where
i'm showing the cursor right up here this is what you've been just you have described as the hilltop
project correct that's right and the zoning for that property is actually rm1 yes okay and the
property uh the two blocks over here with homes and again continuing over here on the other side
of palisage drive um that probably property is also zoned rm1 correct right and then you go down
to the what mr bonnie described as the penrose building uh senior building that's zone cmx2
that's right 2.5 sorry yes you're correct mr bonnie 2.5 um and and you're understanding that
the underlying zoning districts of RM1 and CMX 2.5 have widely disparate zoning characteristics.
widely disparate zoning characteristics in the code than CMX3, correct?
They have different limits.
Now, again, Mr. Langer, you testified with regard to 4442 and 4300,
these two projects over here, colloquially called the Howe and Grasso projects.
that's right and those are both cmx3 properties as well correct that's right okay and
getting to the end here but uh ultimately you or someone under you prepared uh this document
that's not labeled but it says the tapco is taller and more dense that's right all right
Now, beginning, you say a TAPCO at 4401 Ridge, the height is 92 feet 4 inches.
Mask, where you calculated that from?
From the documents presented to zoning on your documents.
uh would you uh disagree with me if i said that those documents actually reflect
a height at the highest point along the uh along the ridge line of uh 82 feet
uh we we can go look at the documents um but if you go up to uh the height of your parapets
um i believe there's a number in there um which states 92 feet four inches
i i will uh just disagree but move on but you know uh let's now mr mr langer if it's 88 feet
or 92 feet then uh mr langer i'm asking you questions right now you need to answer the
questions that i'm asking you um he's trying to answer with regard to the how 4442 ridge
uh project you show a height of 70 feet 10 inches correct right and that height is actually the
effective height along ridge avenue correct that is the effective height above average grade
but at ridge avenue you're talking about this project over here uh yes oh um and similarly
the grasso project the 92 foot 4 inches is actually the height of your building above
average grade it's on one of your documents um so mr langer i'm asking you the grasso project
at 4300 ridge is uh you have listed as 68 feet 9 inches that again is down along ridge avenue
correct with uh no steep slopes uh that's right okay and uh do you recall what the height of
the proposed project is along ridge avenue uh that that is considerably lower because
right there you're only i believe it's uh four stories above retail
okay so so the height here reflective against the the height shown here reflective against the ridge
and the two other projects on ridge are not measuring apples to apples they're actually
measuring a height significantly measured up along the uh slope as opposed to uh two slight
two um heights measured at grade along ridge avenue correct that's right this height actually
reflects the height opposite two-story homes okay now uh mr langer are you familiar with the size
of these three projects by square footage uh land land size of these three projects um
i would have to go to a cheat sheet uh to be able to speak accurately about square footage okay and
And this information is in the record already, but I will represent to you just for the purposes of moving forward, the Atapco project and our project is approximately 82,000 square feet.
The Howe project is approximately 31,000 square feet.
And the Grasso project is approximately 70,000 square feet.
um so would you disagree that the atapco project has a much larger land size than the other two
projects i'm sorry i can't attest to the data you just presented i don't have that in front of me
so i can't agree or disagree okay so where you show where you calculate total
Okay, so where you show, where you calculate total number of units, that is not adjusting for any kind of density per square foot or the number of square feet on the site for the units provided, correct?
We'll be right back.
No, but I do know you can do more and you can do less.
Understood, but you would agree with me, correct?
that if you put a hundred units on a small property that density would impact the neighborhood
differently than a hundred units on a very large property correct that's right okay thank you um
and now here this uh chart right here references um you know page from the lower northwest district
plan, correct? 12-9-2014? Yes. Are you aware that this property, and actually the properties
across the street, were upzoned from CMX 2.5 to CMX 3 in 2016? There was the process that produced
that result, yes. Okay, so there was a public process to bring about the Lower Northwest
district plan and then actually two years later there was a process to upzone the project
uh the property rather um to cmx3 that's right okay now uh it's been previously testified to by
uh the efcc president both the howe and grasso projects were supported by efcc correct
that's right okay um so is is this just a first come first served
issue that the neighborhood is now feeling like it's agreed to too many units objection
he can't i don't think he's a he's the right person to ask for that he can't answer on behalf
of all the community respectively he's here not testifying as mr hillary langer individually he's
here testifying as the head of the Zoning Board for EFCC, the community.
Mr. Langer, can you answer that question?
Sorry, with all the interjections before that, I can't remember the specifics of the question,
but is it first come, first serve? Absolutely not. The way we're looking at this site is that
it's adjacent to two-story homes and neighbors who will be directly affected by this development.
It's a different site, it's a different situation than the Grasso or the Hauer Projects down there
on Kelly. Okay. It's on its own merits. Understood. I have no further questions,
chairman all right uh here's the game plan gentlemen it is now 12 24. uh mr bonnie i think
we were much more generous than we anticipated with you uh earlier i mean that respectfully
well beyond the one hour i understand you may have two witnesses left well one that they're
but they're both pretty short one is extremely short okay and what I was going to want to say
next is there may be other people from the community want to testify so uh without any
objection Mr. Whalen we will go to Mr. Bonney's witnesses uh no chair I would love to do that
because by all means we this must this project must finish today exactly right thank you Mr.
Bonney my next witness is Raymond Adams it was going to be extremely brief can you raise your
hand Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams please identify yourself for the records spell your last name and I will
swear you win. Do you see him Ms. Hunkett? Yeah he's at I see his name here he is. Mr. Adams
Spell your full name and I'll swear you win.
Okay, my name is Raymond Adams.
Mr. Adams, Mr. Adams, there's an echo.
Do you have another device on?
I know I don't, but I do have it here.
Maybe I'll take that off and just let me turn that off and see if that helps.
Okay, can you hear me, is it better now?
Right now again.
Hello?
Is it better now?
Is it better now?
A little bit better, yeah.
A little bit better, yeah.
Spell your name.
My name is Raymond Adams.
That's R-A-Y-M-O-N-D Adams, A-D-A-M-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Mr. Bonny?
I just want to show the picture with Mr. Adams' house on it, but I'll just really turn it over to Mr. Adams.
I'm putting my cursor.
Let me know when you see the aerial, Mr. Chair.
You see it.
Okay, I'm putting my hand right here.
He's at the end unit right here on this lighter shade of roof.
Mr. Adams, Mr. Adams, the floor is yours.
Okay, again, my name is Raymond Adams, and I live at 3709 Fall Circle in the Hilltop area.
And I am definitely opposed to the building of this home, this establishment down there on 4401 Ridge Avenue.
My house is basically right there.
It's right there.
And one of the reasons why I purchased this home was the location.
and how the neighborhood was actually formulated.
We have a very nicely diversified community where there are several homeowners
who really enjoy being able to take small walks and things of that sort.
But one of the things I really enjoy the most is in the morning times
when I actually go up to my deck or either looking out on my third floor or second floor
and just look over the greenery, looking at the river
and looking at almost like a Rockwell painting, when I look at that, it gives me such a soothing
feeling. I'm able to sit out there and have my cup of coffee. I watch the dew as the sun comes up
and overshadows the place. And it's really a lovely community. It really is. My neighbors to
my right, they actually live on a street called Riverview. If this building was actually built,
they would no longer have a view of the river. And that's one of the main reasons why I, along
with my neighbors, had built this. I went along and worked along with other people in our community
to put a petition together to try to get people to sign on. And the response was incredible.
There are so many people in our area that really oppose this large building. We do not oppose
growth and moving forward. We just oppose the large building that they're deciding to build
down at the foot of our homes. Prior to the pandemic, and even during the pandemic as well,
the driving down there is very, very hard. You have to negotiate yourself to come out into the
roadway. And it's surprising to me, after hearing on some of the previous calls, that they had
a traffic survey and it came out to be a good survey i just found that impossible prior to
them coming on there was another group that came through that sat down with us and tried to work
through it and then one of the things they asked me asked us was some of the problems we had and
and traffic was one of them but like i said i live out here and the i live up in a beautiful area a
beautiful neighborhood with greenery
and things of that sort. Just
Saturday, my wife and I was looking
outside the window and we watched
a poor deer
come. I mean, deer just walked
up to our homes on the other side of the gate
and one was a buck
and it was so nice and I
told my wife, where would they
live if they built this place
in? Will we see this ever
again?
I don't think we will.
this building is just too large we're not opposed to the building we're just opposed to having
this large building we would like to have something maybe a little smaller something
thank you mr adams thank you have any cross uh sean or should i can i go to the last witness
uh no i have no further i have no questions for mr adams thank you mr adams thank you my last
witnesses is Roseanne DeStewitt, but before she testifies, and I'm just going to encapsulate this
in the interest of time, we've submitted documents from showing that, of course, there used to be a
public housing development on this 20, I think it's 28 acre site called Schuylkill Falls that
It had high-rises and low-rises, and that in the late 90s, it was by federal financing,
by a grant from federal financing, demolished, and a new...
by a grant from federal financing demolished and a new vision was agreed to by all the stakeholders
including this sort of phase one this phase two where Mr. Adams lives and then the phase three
which is where the subject property is and a smaller building was proposed. I'm not even
going to go through these but I'm just gonna flash to in the late 90s when all this redevelopment
planning occurred there was a lot of community engagement mr bonnie the job has been accepted
into the record it was it was discussed extensively at the prior hearing if you could call your witness
please thank you charlie all right well i'll i'll assume that the board will have reviewed these
documents. We will review. Pull your witness, please. Ms. DeStuart, can you... Yes, and she's
available to speak. Okay. Ms. DeStuart, I think you have some testimony prepared, so the floor
is yours. Ms. Mann, please spell your full name. I'll swear you in. R-O-X-A-N-N-E-D-E
capital s t o u e t you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
you can you can proceed okay thank you and good afternoon i have attended every zba hearing
for the 4401 Avenue proposal by ATAPCO.
During the last ZBA hearing, I heard the word harm used.
My personal experiences have been harmful
throughout the revitalization process of my community,
along with the population of residents
that were supposed to benefit from the development,
the redevelopment of the Schuylkill Falls community.
There was plenty of harm caused by the experiences of living through this process of revitalization.
I was moved around the revitalization process.
When the high-rise buildings were demolished, they pounded on my door early in the morning, ordering me to evacuate.
Ma'am, with all due respect, we've been through this. We understand what previously existed on
this site. I apologize for any inconvenience that it posed to you and your family, but could you
speak to the issues as to why you're opposed to this project? I think I should be allowed to
finish because as i said i've sat through each one of these zoning hearings so what i am saying
is very important to me and i think it needs to be heard and i need to be listened to okay we're
willing to hear it i'm sorry this is the zoning board administrator tanya please be advised the
chair requested testimony regarding zoning of this project only thank you very kindly okay
Okay. So I feel like I'm being looked over. I feel like there was no communication, no notification given to the Falls Ridge community neighbors about the 4401 sale of the property to build 185 apartments.
PHA has not involved the community and at this point, neither has a TAPCO.
Today I am remembering and I'm reminded about all the memories those promises made to my community
of the Schuylkill Falls by the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the City of Philadelphia.
At this point, I need to share a quote from the President of the Residence Council at Schuylkill
Falls, Mrs. Trelly Jonkin. She is no longer with us, but in her past she said, decisions are made
about us without us. It sure feels this way again. It seems the 4401 project was headed in the same
direction, and today my community is better informed because we are now listening. We have
plenty to say about the 4401 Ridge Avenue proposal. The harm to the community we will suffer by
developing this Ridge Avenue corridor. There is a list, the density, the whole purpose of the
revitalization was to lower the density on the former Schuylkill Falls site. This is what was
promised and this is what we currently have because of that revitalization and the part that
because of that revitalization and the part that ATAPCO is trying to develop is phase three
and that was promised to also be low density. Our traffic, I can tell you from my own experience,
peak hour traffic is already congested in this area on Ridge Avenue daily. Adding drivers and
parking for 185 plus cars will add to the stress travel by commuters. The proposal will create an
increase of problems for drivers on Merrick Road. It is already difficult to navigate to Ridge
Avenue from Merrick Road, especially during morning peak hours. Vehicles are always entering
and exiting the community from every intersection surrounding East Falls.
This community is aware of those issues.
We have traffic gridlocked daily when other arteries in and around the city have problems.
Next, I want to say the characteristics of our community.
By adding this very large 185-unit apartment to this area will not help the section of
the city in any way.
It will cause more harm to our daily lives for many years to come.
The images of our community will change.
Looking at the size, the density, and the atmosphere of the Tapco building will not enhance the community's attractiveness.
This design building just does not fit here.
It is not accepted by neighbors in this neighborhood.
The personal harm caused for me that is the reminder of the broken promises made by the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the developers for redeveloping the Schuylkill Falls community to the residents that lived here during the Hope Six project.
I still have those thoughts and many of the memories which are hard to forget.
The ATACCO building is a big step backwards for our neighbor.
This large structure, ATACCO 185-unit apartment building, reminds me of the high-rises, which sat on the top portions of the site years ago.
Those high-rise buildings were imploded because of many problems.
They were eyesores to the city of Philadelphia from Route 76 East and West.
In addition, those buildings were unattractive to the East Falls community.
That's why they were imploded.
All these reasons led the Philadelphia Housing Authority, the city government, the East Falls community, along with the Schuylkill Falls residents, to decide and agree to remove those buildings with funds from the federal government.
All the promises were low density and they would be built in low density.
Falls Ridge and Hilltop are the experience of those works.
An unsafe and unhealthy public housing development from the 1950s was transformed.
Now we are a community.
We have some units that are subsidized and some are homeownerships.
We are not perfect, but we are a successful community, thanks to all of the work, the hard work that was done.
We all know each other.
We have small streets, we have front lawns, we have barbecues, we have graduation parties, and many other events.
The Tabco building should be in another area.
It has nothing to do with us.
it will fundamentally change the character of our neighborhood.
Mr. Stewart, have you circulated a petition in Falls Ridge and Hilltop?
I'm showing on the screen a location map of all of those signatures.
The tally that we counted up that has been submitted to the board
shows 131 signatures, and the blue dots on the right-hand side show all the households in your
area, the Falls Ridge area, that have signed the petition. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman,
the hilltop development is condominium development, so our good friends at Google Maps are not able
to put a red, a blue pushpin in the 20 homes in Hilltop that have signed.
But there should be 20 blue.
We'll stipulate.
We'll stipulate.
And this has been submitted.
So, you know, I don't have to go through.
Well, I guess I should just read the, it says, I live in Falls Ridge or Hilltop.
It says, I live in Falls Ridge or Hilltop.
We'll stipulate, Mr. Bonney, I'm not.
Mr. Bonney, I'm not trying to be rude.
We'll stipulate that this petition was circulated into the, whatever the meaning of it is.
We're at 4-12-41.
I'm finished.
Mr. Whalen, do you have any cross-examination?
I have no questions for Mr. Stewart.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
Are there any other witnesses?
Not from me.
I would note that
I'm asking the general public actually
if there's any other witnesses
I'll get back to you
I just wanted to mention that I did receive
the chair we'll get back to you
Chair we have Michelle
Michelle you can unmute yourself
hi can everyone hear me yes please spell your full name ma'am and i swear your name
yes michelle feldman m-i-c-h-e-l-l-e f-e-l-d-m-a-n we're affirmed to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed um i have a statement today
on behalf of the Board President of the East Falls Development Corporation, and I currently serve as
the Executive Director of the East Falls Development Corporation. And so unfortunately,
our Board Chair had to leave the Zoom call early, so this was the statement that she had prepared.
I speak today as Board President of the East Falls Development Corporation. The EFDC's Economic
Development Committee and Board strongly support the proposed plans by ATAPCO for the site of 4401
Ridge Avenue. I've personally been a resident of East Falls for 15 years and on the EFDC board for
nine. This particular PHA block of Ridge has been vacant for years. This greatly hinders our
neighborhood's ability to build a safe, walkable commercial corridor that connects to the northern
end of East Falls, a key goal of our district's Philadelphia 2035 plan. We believe ATAPCO has
been attentive in responding to the majority of the neighborhood's aesthetic concerns over time
and to those that address stormwater management and safe transit.
In addition, ETAPCO's plans include much-needed mixed-use space along the East Falls Business Corridor.
The larger, more flexible commercial space is needed to retain existing growing businesses
and to attract new businesses to serve our community.
The development we are discussing today could not be better time for positive impact.
This project is slated to occur within the same time frame as other positive CMX3 parcel developments along that block.
EFDC stands ready to make sure this new potential development leads to a stronger corridor that supports our community, serves as a destination, brings additional public investments to our infrastructure, and provides new opportunities to connect residents to streetscape design improvements on the Ridge Avenue Corridor and the Schuylkill River.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Can I ask a question or two?
Just to confirm, Ms. Feldman, your EFDC is not an RCO, although it is a CDC, is that correct?
That is correct.
Okay. And was there anything in your statement that spoke to specifically 185 units?
No, nothing specifically that spoke to the number of units.
Okay. Thank you very much. No further questions.
Mr. Whalen? Yes, thank you, Chairman. Ms. Feldman, I would simply ask your statement that you just read and the letter that you previously submitted, or that EFDC, not you personally, but EFDC previously submitted, were both in support of this project as presented, correct?
Correct.
Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone else to testify? We have less than five minutes.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
I'm sorry, Ms. Dandy. I was just going to say, my understanding is Mr. Steve Fillmore was going to be on on behalf of EFF, the other registered RCO who is in support of the project.
I don't know if he's here or not.
I'm not seeing anybody by that name, but I have Ms. Bell. Oh, and he'll be next.
are you speaking to me uh it's yes you can unmute yourself okay i uh you can hear me then
yeah okay thank you my name is joanne bell and i live at 3701 fall circle in the hilltop community
and um and ma'am just one second um you're going to get squirted
and um and ma'am just one second um you're going to get swerved miss bell i'm sorry i need to
swear you in do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth
yes i do please proceed again my name is joanne bell and i live at 3701 fall circle
in the hilltop community and i come from a position that you don't put something in a
community that the community doesn't want. Nor do you take your advice from people who do not
live in the community that is going to be affected by it. I bought a home in 2008
in the Hilltop community because it was a part of a Hope 6 project that was experimental and
that is working. And it's something that could be duplicated throughout the city. And that is that
you have affordable housing mixed with high-end housing in a neighborhood that makes it work.
We live in a city with almost 30 percent poverty, and the projects like this is what we want to
support. But what we don't want is developers cramming lots and lots of projects into an area
where it changes the characteristic of the area. And that's what this project does.
When I moved here in 2008, I could exit the development within a minute. In the mornings,
it takes up to 20 minutes to get out. Each project that we have been told through a zoning process
that we're not going to be affected in that way. Cars are now jamming into the neighborhood.
This isn't fair to the people who made investments in this community. It is unfair to us,
and our voices should be heard. And I, again, I'll end with, when we say that we don't want
something we ought to be heard and we ought to be we ought to be listened to we are the ones who
live here not the investors who come to make a profit thank you thank you um we are now at 12 48
uh i just wanted to let the record or know if i if i didn't mention this earlier that a letter
came in from councilman jones um i'm going to read it quickly in the last several months i have
had numerous conversations with all the stakeholders regarding the project at this
location i appreciate the advocacy of all those who have an interest in this development i support
the neighbors who wish to see this project scaled back to a building that is less dense
and which will better coexist with surrounding developments i am committed to working with the
neighbors, the project owner, and all advocacy groups on a project that is suitable at this
location. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Having said
that, Mr. Whelan, that last witness, did you have a question? You got less than a minute.
No, Mr. Chair, he's not my witness. There's two registered RCOs in the neighborhood.
East Falls Forward is the other one, and Mr. Fillmore is the president of that.
And we have a letter of support.
Fillmore, could you briefly give us your full name, I'll swear you in, and then briefly describe what your testimony would be.
Yes, can you hear me?
Yes, please spell your last name.
Last name is Fillmore, F as in Frank, I-L-L-M as in Michael, O-R-E.
Do you swear to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed.
I don't mean to rush you, but we are bound by regulations to close this hearing down at 1 o'clock.
It'll be very brief.
I actually am the secretary of East Falls Forward, and I was the one who actually drafted the letter,
which showed that membership was in support of the TAPCO project.
we had actually two meetings with them one was a joint meeting with the efcc and the second one
they were uh they were more than uh willing to discuss with us in february of uh 2020 uh where
we met with uh several community people including the former chair of the east hall development
corporation uh ron bednar who i'm sure you're all familiar with and other people with uh significant
experience in traffic and so forth, and 67 people attended that meeting, all of them East
Falls residents, and the tenant of that meeting, they were in support of this product as well.
Thank you.
I have one question. Can I have one question? Mr. Bonney? Mr. Bonney? Mr. Fillmore, thank you.
I have one question.
Can I have one question?
Mr. Barney, Mr. Barney?
Your organization, sounds like your organization took an official vote in that vote. How many
votes were in support? I believe it was at 31. Is that correct? I don't have the numbers at hand.
It was 84% of the voting tabulation. Does 31 to 6 ring a bell? It does not. I don't have those
thank you no further questions you're welcome chairman thank you uh very much for you and the
board's time i'm happy to end here uh without any further ado because uh closing arguments are due
in writing not in person uh by next monday at noon i'm happy to do that and i wait anxiously
await your vote next wednesday i agree and i want to thank the board for its time uh chair and and
and Ms. Vice-Chair also, and the rest, thank you.
Excuse me, I believe we still have to get
the recommendation of the Planning Commission.
Yeah, Planning Commission.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board,
David Fecto, City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends this property
for commercial mixed use.
The zoning map here dates to 2016.
The proposed uses, or I'm sorry,
the proposed use is in keeping with that designation.
In addition, this project completed
civic design review process as a result of that process the applicant made multiple revisions
including to the loading dock layout given the hardship generated by the grading associated
with the site's previous use we recommend that the board grant the variance for steep slope disturbance
okay thank you again gentlemen uh we're waiting your uh closing statements uh to be submitted by
monday october 25th by noon on that date by noon chairwoman i just have one quick question um do
you have any limitations on the uh page limitations that you would like to set on our closing
arguments i just want to make sure i'm doing what you guys excuse me mr whalen no there are no page
limitations um if we could announce that the record is otherwise closed yeah the record is
closed and uh as to your question remember there are trees that have to produce paper that produce
paper of course a little levity helps at times all right thank you uh so the record is closed
uh board will uh render a decision discussion next wednesday at the next wednesday's board
meeting executive board meeting thank you again thank you tanya we have any unfinished business
no chair okay well thank you all see you back at two o'clock thank you very much
thank you we'll give staff a few minutes you'll let us know when you're ready
i'm here i know right
i forgot this morning when i call your name out to the board members just please say present
oh yeah we forgot too all ready to go chair thank you i'm here i'm i'm here mr chairman i apologize
i i stepped away for a second no no no worries and again you know the reminder if you need a
break, just let us know. I certainly will. Thank you. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is
Frank DiCicco. I'm the chair of the zoning board of adjustment. I'll be participating in today's
hearing along with our vice chair, Ms. Carol Tenere. Present. Yes. Board secretary, confessor
Plaza. Present. And board members, Mr. Thomas Holloman. Present, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. James
snell present thank you board administrator lakeisha dandy and our board attorney miss
sharon saletta or also in attendance as is our zoning board administrator miss tanya sunkett
first we excuse me for those of you who haven't yet participated in one of our virtual hearings
i'll go through some of the basics of what you can expect first we will be administering oaths
individual participants prior to their testimony. Second, we'd like to advise everyone that this
proceeding is being recorded and that by participating you acknowledge your agreement
to be recorded and that the recording will be made available to the public by contacting
our Board Administrator Ms. Tanya Sunkit at tanya.sunkit at phila.gov.
for anyone participating by phone if you wish to testify you must raise your hand by hitting star
nine and then star six to unmute yourself i'll repeat for anyone participating by phone
For anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand by hitting star 9 and then star 6 to unmute yourself.
if you wish to testify
Finally, to enter an appearance statement, call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at issue.
I will repeat that.
to enter an appearance statement call google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address
and the address of the property at issue i'd also like to remind everyone please do not attempt to
testify in the chat any comments concerns or questions you should be should be directed to
our Board Administrator, Ms. Latanya, excuse me, Ms. Lakeisha Dandy. Pardon me, having said that,
I will read off the list of continuance requests on the two o'clock list. Number eight on our list,
MI 2021-002-885-3350-3350-North-22nd-Street.
There's the only continuance I have as fully being requested.
I understand there may be a comment or concern regarding 1910 Chestnut Street.
But I'll ask if there's anyone objecting to the continuance for 3350 North 22nd Street before we move on.
No hands, Chair.
Thank you.
Let's go back to number four.
Excuse me, Chair.
This is Sharon.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
But because that last one, we also had no exhibits and the continuance request was submitted by the RCO.
Could that please be a must-be-heard?
Absolutely. So MI 2021-002885-3350, North 22nd, is continued, must be heard. Thank you.
Go to number four on our list. We want some clarity as to whether or not there will be a request for continuance.
It's MI-2021-003213, 1910 Chestnut Street.
Mr. Patterson, I believe, is the attorney of record for the applicant.
Mr. Matteoni, who is representing the William Penhouse.
So, Mr. Patterson, if you're out there, would you please raise your hand?
And he's allowed to speak, Chair.
Thank you.
please identify yourself for the record and I'll swear you in. Sure good afternoon Ronald
Patterson Claire Harrison Law from 1835 Market Street Philadelphia PA 19103 on behalf of the
applicant. We're affirmed to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do.
So Chair you may have already been going to do this but could you promote
I was calling him up next.
Thank you.
Mr. Mattione, please identify yourself for the record, spell your last name.
You're still under oath from earlier today.
Michael Mattione, M-A-T-T-I-O-N-I, Federal Reserve Bank Building, 100 North Independence
Mall, Suite 5A, Northwest, Philadelphia, 19106.
Accurate, Mr. Marlione, that you've requested a continuance.
We requested a continuance, yes, we did, on behalf of the William Penthouse, and I have
spoken to Mr. Patterson and received an email from him where we talked about the possibility
that he could, and I don't want to speak for him, but present his witnesses today and allow
us to come back at a later date and cross-examine his witnesses and present our opposition at
a later date.
Do a resumption hearing.
Yeah, here's how I viewed it, Mr. Chairman.
I believe we're close to settling on the issues, and so rather than present a contested case
today and continue it at another time, I'd like to present the case today as if it were
unopposed.
But with Mr. Mattione reserving the right to return and cross-examine my witnesses, and for me also to add additional testimony, either new witnesses or same witnesses with additional testimony.
And so I'd ask that we proceed with the case.
You hold the vote.
Maybe set a special hearing date and time.
but if it gets resolved in advance of that date, which I believe it will, then we can send a
letter saying resolved and vote the case and we don't need the second special hearing.
resolve and vote the case and we don't need the second special hearing well yeah let me ask Sharon
Well, yeah, let me.
uh normally we would handle a resumption case but if there is no agreement uh would a resumption
hearing be appropriate or would we need a continued a fully continued case um chair if if both sides
are willing to um do it in two parts then it's really your call you can do it either way there's
especially with the possibility that it will be resolved before the second hearing
okay so the gentleman if that's okay with both of you we'll proceed that way
okay thank you and i and i appreciate mr patterson's optimism i am not quite as optimistic
as he is but we will we there is a meeting coming up and and uh it will be discussed i will leave
bit at that um yeah and when we get to the end of mr patterson's presentation or we'll just
find out when the next meeting will be taking place mr mattione so that way we can schedule
a resumption hearing right and mr chair i just want to make it clear i do get my full rights
to object to if it's appropriate to his testimony tonight understood no objection to that right
Mr. Patterson? No objection. Okay. All right. So sit back and we'll get to you shortly. Great. Thank
you. All right. Are there any other any requests for continuances or withdrawals for the two o'clock
list? Please raise your hand. If you'd like to request a continuance or withdrawal, please raise
your hand. Chair, we have Michael. Michael, you couldn't meet yourself. Thank you. I did. Mr.
chairman my name is michael yanoff and i know you've already addressed this it's mr yanoff
slow down please i'll spell your last name y-a-n-o-f-f and do you swear for him to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do and what case are you speaking to that case
that you've just already continued but i just wanted to correct one thing so your parent would
know it's 3350 north 22nd street okay okay i had also i had also sent in a request for a
continuance for the same reason as the ZBA. And I just want to make sure we are scheduled for a
rescheduled RCO meeting on November 18th. And I just want to make sure that the rescheduled
hearing on this case will be after that so we don't run into the same problem again.
Why don't you, you can have that conversation with Ms. Sunkett offline, okay?
I will do that. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Anyone requesting a continuance or withdrawal, please raise your hand.
yes chair we have a cecile
stelzer cecile stelzer yes hello please spell your full name ma'am c-e-c-i-l-e-s-t-e-l-z-e-r
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do in which case are you speaking to ma'am i'm talking about the case of downey's restaurant
at 526 south front street correct yes that's a case number 10 on our list yes well i didn't know
we were uh which case we were on when i put raise my hand for a continuance i was referring to this
uh case not the previous one where the last speaker was addressed you're requesting continuance
for 526 out front yes i don't know what the result is of our last zoom and uh i'm here to
listen to what's going on are you representing either party no i am a concerned citizen yes
very close neighbor to the property well no one as of yet has asked for a continuance so that's
what i'm waiting for now if we don't get a request we'll continue with the case uh it'll be i don't
know what time it's going to come up but it's case number 10 on our list well i meant after today's
concerns that uh i didn't know if everything was uh settled or not so we don't we all know that
the board hasn't heard the case yet okay well then i take away my request for the continuance
of this current meeting okay thank you thank you uh any requests for continuances or withdrawals
please raise your hand no more hands here thank you with that we'll proceed with our number one
on our list, MI 2021-002833, 1200 Ellsworth Street. Meredith Felger is the attorney of record.
Meredith Felger is the attorney of record.
Sharon, have we gotten to receive the letter from Pasang Square?
I haven't, Chair, but I am not always copied, so it's possible.
Okay. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Meredith. Please spell your full name and I'll swear you.
Meredith Ferlger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R of Delworth-Paxson, 1500 Market Street, Suite 3500E.
Do you want me to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Ms. Tendry has questions for you.
Hi, Meredith.
Do you agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yep, I sure do.
Have you also emailed an exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy
the refusal or referral photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing
and have you met with the rco and do you have a letter yes to all the above i think i joined at
the very tail end of your conversation we do have a letter from the rco it was just sent i believe
yesterday i have it in my packet it is a letter of non-opposition and that's from passion square
civic it sure is great you may proceed thank you uh mr chairman members of the board my client
here today is Leibco Properties and I have with me Lee Berman who represents Leibco Properties.
Leibco is the equitable owner of the property who's under an agreement of sale
to purchase the property before you today which is located at 1200 Ellsworth Street.
Now the lengthy history of this property is ultimately what brings us before the board today.
I'll walk you through some background and then I can quite efficiently sum up our clear hardship
as it relates to the use of this property. As I mentioned, we did receive a letter of
non-opposition from Pass Young Square Civic. I also included a petition of support from
near neighbors at Exhibit 13, which has nearly 20 signatures on it. This request relates to
1200 Ellsworth Street, which as you know, is in the city's Pass Young Square neighborhood.
As you can see on the zoning map I have up at Exhibit 6, this property sits at the corner of Ellsworth Street and South 12th Street and is zoned RSA 5.
I'll bring up some photos for you which are included at Exhibit 15. So you can see here it's this corner property.
You can see that this is an existing three-story brick structure that sits on a quiet residential street.
Now, the permit history that we've been able to gather from the property shows that since at least 1955, which is the earliest permit that I was able to find, this property contained two apartments with a ground floor commercial space.
And I'll put up one of the permits here, which I've included at Exhibit 10, which is really quite a fascinating flashback into history, where the city issued permits for apartments, labeling them as a woman alone apartment.
So I was really quite amused to see that permits were issued this way.
But you can see here, based on this permit, the first floor was used as a luncheonette and then there were two apartments above.
The last available permit that I was able to find here was in 1976.
And this, as you can see, it was still the two family with a ground floor luncheonette.
Now, at some point between 1976 and 2009, the ground floor commercial space was converted to a third residential unit.
There's no permit history to suggest when this was done, and the current owner of the property was unable to give us any clarity.
However, as you can see in the photo here that I was able to pull off of Google from 2009,
you can see that the first floor commercial entrance had been bricked up by this point.
I suspect that there was an entrance right here at the corner that at some point was filled in.
You suspect correctly.
Yeah. So I did include some photos of this first floor unit. You can see it has been in existence
for quite some time. The property has three separate gas meters and I have photos of those
as well. Three separate gas meters, three separate utility meters, three water heaters,
three separate washer dryers. I did also include floor plans at Exhibit 5 here just to show you
what the current layout is of the existing structure. Our application does not include
any physical changes. So of course regarding the refusal, because the property zoned RSA 5
So, of course, regarding the refusal, because the property zoned RSA 5, the application was refused for the multifamily use.
However, as you've seen from the evidence presented, the two dwelling units that have existed since the 1950s would be considered legally non-conforming units.
The only dwelling unit at issue today is that ground floor unit.
So the hardship here is quite simple.
because the ground floor has not been used as a commercial space in decades, it would require a
variance to have a commercial use in this location because it's zoned RSA 5. Conversely, there's no
feasible way to have a single family use in this location, nor would the code require it for the
two long-standing non-conforming units. If the board is interested, I did include several cases
in my exhibit packet at Exhibit 14 that would confirm it would be unreasonable and by no means
the least minimum variance to ask the property owner to convert this structure back to either
a single family use or to a solely duplex use after the long history of multi-family use.
It also goes without saying that this is not a self-imposed hardship as my client is purchasing
the property and is undertaking this process to ensure the property has all the necessary permits
in place. Just as a note, the proposal is in fact consistent with the area which does include a mix
of single-family homes and some long-standing multi-family uses. I did include permits in the
exhibit packet of other multifamily uses on this block, which includes 1217, 1221, 1238, and 1246
Ellsworth Street. We do submit the proposal will not increase congestion, harm neighboring
properties, or impair light and air. Full analysis, as always, is included in my memo of law submitted
at Exhibit 8. Now, with respect to the community, Passion Square's letter, let me bring that up for
you so this was the uh petition of support that we had signed because we had not received a letter
and after we received the petition of support we did end up getting the letter of non-opposition
from passion square which does in fact corroborate the long-standing multi-family use their letter
suggests the ground floor may have been converted around 20 years ago so at this point i will bring
up my client to adopt my testimony and then take any questions you have. If the administrator can
unmute Lee Berman we would ask that Lee raise his hand
he's available to speak hi lee name and address please
uh lee berman and the address for the property or my current address your address
634 pine street and spell your last name berman b-e-r-m-a-n you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes thank you marie lee you've heard all of my
testimony that was given before the board today yes and would you agree that that testimony was
true and accurate and would you adopt it as if it were your own yes thank you we're happy to take
any questions thank you any questions from the board no mr chair no no anyone else like to
testify in this case if so please raise your hand no hand share thank you and i'll for the record
I'm very familiar with this property.
It was a luncheonette for a long time
and maybe more than 20 years ago
it was converted.
And there was a single woman who lived on the second floor.
Having said that,
Planning Commission?
Peter, we're having a hard...
Peter, excuse me.
We're having a hard time hearing you.
and maybe try without your headphones
right this way all right perfect thank you that was great
uh peter bernard for the planning commission
nice name peter and i swear you went
uh b as in boy a as an apple r as in roger and as a nancy
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.
Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Please proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change in the existing residential single-family zoning for this property.
This property has a documented use as two apartments and a ground floor commercial space.
We believe the applicant has demonstrated that a hardship exists that would prevent the ground floor from remaining or being in commercial use.
We recommend that the board approve the requested variance.
Thank you. MI 2021-002833, 1200 Ellsworth Street, my vote is yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Professor Plaza, yes.
James Snell, yes.
Thomas Holloman, yes.
Thank you. Case number two, MI 2021-002384. 1227 Belmont Avenue. Rachel Pritzker is the attorney of record. East Parkside Residential Association submitted a letter of support.
chair if i could interrupt for a minute um we also this morning received an email from
uh andrew goodman saying that councilwoman uh got the a wholeheartedly supports the variance request
thank you very much that'll be part of the record miss pritzker please identify yourself
earlier this morning good afternoon mr chair it's brandon saverin again oh sorry about that
Yeah, that's perfectly okay.
Tell your full name.
And you're still under oath from earlier today.
Thank you.
It's B-R-A-N-D-O-N.
Last name is Savarin.
S as in Sam.
A, V as in Victor.
R-A-N.
Thank you.
And Ms. Tenere has some questions for you.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you also emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes to all of the above.
Okay, you may proceed.
Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
and while we're at it I'll just mention I'm also going to be filling in for Rachel on 417
Manton Street which I think is much further down our list today. Number nine. Thank you. Okay
I'll share my screen. Let's see. So the property in question is 1227 Belmont Avenue. Here's the
zoning map. It is zoned RM1. The block next to it is zoned CMX2. Above it is CMX3. And I believe that
prior to a 2019 remapping, this block was also at least along Belmont Avenue, CMX.
And that brings us nicely into the hardship here. So my client is Stephanie Smiley.
she is someone who purchased this property a few years ago was not aware that it was sort of
in the process of being remapped there are already two apartment units on the upper floors of the
building because the property is now rm1 conformity with the code would require her to convert
the downstairs unit away from its current vacant commercial configuration into another dwelling
unit, and she does not wish to do so. She actually wants to reactivate this vacant commercial space
as an assembly and entertainment space for 50 people or fewer. Stephanie,
well, let me go. I'll just give the board a sense of where we're at here. So this is the property,
1227 Belmont. The two apartment units are on the upper floors there. It has a separate entrance for
what will be the commercial unit. And there's the entrance for the apartments with the mailboxes and
address marker. This is the block. I actually am under the impression that one of these two
storefronts has also been reactivated as a cafe recently. And you have an auto repair place next
door or a couple doors down. Here's Belmont. There's commercial uses directly across the street.
uh there's gerard avenue so um it's sort of a mixed block commercial versus residential
um in terms of our uh property the um the space has been a commercial space since at least 1994
The space has been a commercial space since at least 1994.
There was a zoning permit and a CO pooled for a laundromat.
there was a zoning perm
So really the hardship is the money and the effort it would take to convert this into
a residential space when that's not the recent history.
It's also not the recent zoning.
The property was living by its former commercial zoning in the past.
so it's really the remapping that uh brought us here um so um i do have although uh this being
a change of use i believe they're optional the client did have an architect prepare
floor plans and a site plan and i have the architect here so if the board is interested
i am happy to have her walk through those i'll also just add um as you heard we have a letter
of support from the east parkside residential association and support from the councilwoman's
office um does the board need to see the uh plans would you like to say we're okay
all right thank you okay um well i can bring stephanie on to adopt yeah let's get your client
on to adopt your testimony so stephanie smiley would be her name stephanie raise your hand if
you're out there. And she's available to speak. Stephanie. Very afternoon, ma'am. Please spell
your full name. Yes, my name is Stephanie, S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E, Smiley, S-M-I-L-E-Y. You swear
affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? Yes. Thank you. Hi, Stephanie.
Stephanie, so were you able to hear the entirety of my testimony this afternoon?
And was my testimony true and accurate?
And would you agree to adopt it as if it was your own?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Any questions from the board, I think I asked.
Anyone else like to testify in this case?
no hands chair you planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
this property is indicated for commercial mixed use in the comprehensive plan but was remapped
to multi-family in 2018 the proposed use would be a special exemption under the recommended zoning
and we feel the proposed use would not create a larger than expected impacts in this location.
Additionally, we feel the applicant has demonstrated sufficient hardship.
Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends the Board approve the variance.
Thank you. MI 2021-002-384.
1227 Belmont Avenue, my vote is yes.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes.
Professor Plaza, yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Number three on our list, MI 2021-002853, 1736 Ellsworth Street.
Mr. Orfaniti is the attorney of record.
East Point Breeze Neighbors sent a letter of support.
And he's coming in now as a panelist.
identify yourselves by your last name and i'll swear you in certainly david orphanetes orphanetes
and toner 1500 john f kennedy boulevard suite 800 philadelphia pennsylvania 19102
and i have with me today uh wendell holmes please spell your last name for the reporter
certainly o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s we're from to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth
Thank you.
The Vice Chair has some questions for you.
Do you agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
Working backwards, we have a letter from these Point Breeze neighbors who's a coordinating RCO.
That's number one in our exhibit book.
The letter is dated August 18, 2020.
We did meet with them, and hence the letter.
I did forward my exhibits.
The one thing that is missing from the list of items that you stated is the tax clearance.
My client is working to secure a tax clearance, and I have communicated that with the zoning board attorney in advance of today's hearing.
And I have communicated that with the zoning board attorney
in advance of today's hearing.
And we will request we be permitted
to present our case today, but the matter be held
pending the provision of the tax clearance,
at which point the board could issue its decision
in this matter, if that's agreeable to the board.
Yes, agreeable, so noted, thank you.
And may I share my screen?
can everybody see
larger if you could get larger not a problem how's that that's good thank you again my name
is david orphanetes and i'm here this afternoon on behalf of wendell h holmes who's the owner of
the property uh 1736 ellsworth street as i indicated mr holmes is should be on the call
i'd ask him to raise his hand and at the end of my uh what i would hope would be a very brief
presentation, for me at least, we would, I would ask him to adopt my statements. As indicated,
as referenced at the beginning, and as I mentioned, we do have a letter of support
dated August 18, 2021 from the East Point Breeze Neighbors, who you would see later at my exhibit
21, was designated on July 9, 2021 as the coordinating RCO for this project. As indicated,
it as a letter of support. We had a Zoom meeting back on August 18th, and as they indicated,
there were 10 people in support who were on the call and one who was opposed, and hence their
position. We did reach out to Councilman Johnson's office to see if they had a position in the
matter. I'm not sure if France or anybody else is on the call, so they can maybe chime in later if
they are um we do have um revised and i'm going to have to shrink this up again this is a um it's
an application we do have revised plans and i did forward the uh revised proviso plan form to the
zoning board attorney uh this is an application to subdivide two parcels that were historically
two parcels but back in uh i guess it was in 2008 my client submitted an application which
went before the board at calendar number 4057 to consolidate into one um and so what mr
i have to interrupt you for a moment i didn't have this one as having revised plans did you
send those recently yes i did uh yeah i mean it was indicated that there were revised plans here
and i forwarded the uh form earlier today how many pages david uh the plan is just one page
it's just a survey plan okay and there are minor alterations it's simply adding there was an issue
regarding the width of the alley behind the property and the encroachment of the existing
encroachment of the front stairs on the footway um noted um and some other minor minor alterations
but nothing of substance that would affect the zoning variance so sharon i apologize i emailed
we were working on the tax clearance and trying to get that in under the wire so i didn't send
Okay, I'll check it now. Thank you.
Yep. But again, so this is a revised survey from the one that we originally submitted.
Their refusal has to do with the fact, and again, the original survey plan is at Exhibit 4.
And that plan was rejected by the Planning Commission because it was the lots that we're creating,
which are the same size as the lots as they used to be, are 1,280 square feet each.
And as you know, the property is zoned RSA 5, the minimum lot site requirement for RSA 5 is $1440.
So again, the refusal, which was issued on May 26, makes note of that L&I shall not issue any zoning permits for a lot adjustment unless a lot adjustment is shown on the plot plan has been first reviewed and approved by the commission.
And again, as I stated, the City Planning Commission disapproved the plan because of the size of the proposed lots.
The current deed, which Mr. Holmes recorded, was dated May or August 12, 2008, recorded on August 14, 2008, was the deed of consolidation, whereby the two parcels that had been separate were consolidated into a single 32-foot wide by 80-foot deep parcel.
As I indicated prior to that, Mr. Holmes purchased the property in April of 1999. Here is the deed dated April 28th. And as you can see at that time, they were two separate parcels, 1736 Ellsworth Street, which was 16 feet wide by 80 feet deep, and then 1738 Ellsworth Street, which was also 16 feet wide by 80 feet deep.
That math, if you do the two, is 1,280 square feet.
That math, if you do the two, is 1,280 square feet.
The reason Mr. Holmes applied to consolidate the lots is, as you can see in Exhibit 10,
before that, going back, I pulled prior deeds.
And even before the deed where he acquired the property, the properties were always separately described.
They were two separate described parcels.
Here's a deed for the two parcels back in 85.
and we have deeds that go back before that also at Exhibit 9.
In the zoning archives that I have at Exhibit 10,
you'll see that dating back to 1974,
the property was approved,
even though they were still two separate parcels,
as you can see from the deeds that I've shown you,
for eight rooming units with one apartment per 20 people.
What happened around 2008 is that, according to Mr. Holmes, and who will adopt my statements, the state came along and said, you can't have this rooming house.
And they apparently went throughout the city and hit a number of other rooming houses were requested to make this change.
You can't have the rooming house on two separate parcels. It needs to be on a consolidated parcel.
So in order to maintain a state license for the rooming house, he went ahead, consolidated the lots, as I indicated, in 2008.
Until recently, he continued to utilize it, run it along with his wife as a rooming house.
The desire now is to subdivide it.
The use would be two single family dwellings.
The existing breaches in the party wall that were created when this was used as a rooming house would be refilled, or they could be demolished and single families could be built at that point.
We don't know whether Mr. Holmes is going to develop the properties as two single families or whether he'd sell them and somebody would develop them after the fact.
Here at tab 11, we have the existing floor plans for the rooming house.
Again, it's permitted.
That use has not been abandoned or discontinued, so it's still legitimate and valid use.
At current photographs of the interior of the property at tab 12, photographs of the current exterior of the property at tab 13, historical images.
Going back, this is through Google Street View, again, showing the facade.
Basically, in its current condition, there have been some changes to the front steps.
They've been modified.
It went from a single step to back in 2011.
You can see 2009, 2007.
And then more currently, it went to two steps.
And again, they needed two doors that had to do with the second means of egress and what have you.
And those are those historical photos.
For Mr. Holloman, we have Sanborn maps that show the parcels going back all the way to 1918 as two separate parcels, 1736 and 1738.
In terms of the other properties on the block, if you take a look at the zoning map at tab 17, here's our property as a single lot.
You can see there's an alley that runs behind them from east to west.
And the parcels are all, as you'll see, we have a summary.
We went through all the deeds, pulled all the deeds.
They're all approximately the same depth until you get down here.
This one jogs a little into the alley.
And then you have the four parcels at the end, which are substantially shorter.
And here, again, at tab, let's see, 16, here's a summary of what we put off the OPA,
all the properties on the block.
And then for those that are on the south side, our side, we went through HD, and you'll see all the single families are either the same size, 1280, as what we're proposing and what these properties previously were before Mr. Holmes had to consolidate them into a single lot to maintain the rooming and boarding house.
and you can see as you go further to the east 1230 and then you can see those smaller ones all
the way at the east they drop down to 700s and 800s and those are all single families
so the the again the proposed lot size is the same as it was before the consolidation
and is clearly still in keeping with the conditions of the other single families and
other properties on the off side of the 1700 block of Ellsworth Street we did post the property
and photographs are tab 20 and then at tab 21 again the email from the planning commission
designated East Point Breeze neighbors as a coordinating RCO copies of our 14303 notice
that went out noticing the August 18th zoom meeting noticing
Noticing the August 18th Zoom meeting, noticing today's Zoning Board hearing, providing the Zoom links for those, included our project information form, the notice of refusal, instructions on how to appeal, the list of addresses we received from the Planning Commission heading on their link,
and then the certificate of first class mailing of our notice of the meeting and the hearings are also attached at the end of tab 21.
And again, August 18th, a letter from East Point Breeze Neighbors, the coordinating RCO, supporting this return to the properties as two separate parcels, and then the use of them, as indicated in our application, of the permitted RSA-5 single family from the existing rooming house with one apartment.
And with that, I would ask Mr. Holmes to raise his hand and be allowed to speak and that he be sworn in so that I may ask him to adopt my statements.
Hello, Mr. Holmes, you can unmute yourself.
I'm sorry. Can you hear me now?
Yes, sir. Please identify yourself. Spell your first and last name.
wendell holmes w-e-n-d-e-l-l h-o-l-m-e-s do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth i do thank you mr holmes uh did you hear the statements i made to
the zoning board yes i did are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge
yes they are uh particularly that you've owned that how long you've owned the property
which was is back um and also that you consolidated the lots uh due to a state requirement that the
boarding house be on a single parcel as opposed to two separate parcels yes and would you adopt
my statements as your own yes i would okay um does the board have any questions of my client
thank you any questions from the board no mr chair no one else like to testify in this case
If so, please raise your hand.
No hands, Chair.
Thank you.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair.
Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
This property is indicated for single-family residential in the comprehensive plan.
The proposed laws are consistent with existing lots on the block.
accordingly the planning commission recommends the board approve the variance
thank you MI 2021-002853 1736 Ellsworth Street my vote is yes
you have to hold the vote sorry I didn't want you to go too far
I'm sorry I thought that's where you were going but I didn't want to jump in
my mistake that's why I was jumping in to announce that the record
is closed, except for receipt of the proof of tax compliance. And Mr. Orphanese, when you send that
in, could you copy me and also note in your email that the date of this hearing today, that it was
heard today in 2019. Absolutely. You will get all the information and more. Thank you. Ms. Saleta's
testimony is in the record. Thank you. We'll now move to case number four. MI 2021-003.
1912-213-1910 Chestnut Street. Mr. Patterson and Mr. Maglioni, you've both been sworn in.
We'll begin with Mr. Maglioni.
He's coming in now as a panelist, Chair.
good afternoon mr chairman good afternoon mr matione
mr patterson yes i don't know if you heard you're still under oath from earlier so correct please
proceed thank you uh my name is ron patterson again 1835 marker street for the lbpa 103.
i represent the applicant at this address which is 1910 chesna street i believe ron
not to interrupt i believe the vice chair will have some questions for you oh sure sorry
Hi, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
i do agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents consisting of proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal referral, photos, and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO?
And do you have a letter?
Yes, to the above.
Okay, great.
You may proceed.
Thank you.
Are you viewing my screen?
Sure, we see everything.
with that brown cap. Beautiful. So again, this regards property 1910 Chestnut Street. It is a
Pearl Properties property. It fronts here on Chestnut Street, which is the Boyd Theater,
the Harper Apartment Towers here, and the entrance, which is facing Sanchez Street,
and the entrance, which is on 19th Street. A few more pictures. So this regards, application regards
the reuse, renovation, rejuvenation, what's called the Boyd Theater, and its expansion into this
building here, which was last used as the Gap Retail Apparel Store. Across the street, and just
for relevance, because Mr. Mattione's here, this is the William Penn House. It's located actually
two streets behind, but it has an entrance and exit right here on Chestnut Street. So
they would view this restaurant.
Okay, can you see the next rendering?
Beautiful.
So this particularly concerns the Boyd Theater Space,
and it's an application for an eat-in restaurant with accessory signs.
The property is located in the CMX-5 commercial zoning district,
as well as in many Center City overlays, but the pertinent one being the one that requires for any restaurant located on Chestnut Street, Walnut Street, or South Pro Street to go to the zoning board for special exception approval.
This restaurant will be a new Stephen Starr restaurant, one of, I guess it's number 21 in
Philadelphia. And as we know, each one is new and different, and this one is a sports-themed
restaurant. The name is entitled Bankroll. The project, as you can see from these renderings,
will involve substantial preservation and renovation
of the Boyd Theater, both inside and outside,
this being the lobby here that you're looking at now.
Again, it's themed on sports,
but with an array of modern technology
throughout the building to create
a new and different sports experience
in that main room that's on the screen.
There was a combined refusal referral letter issued.
The referral, as I mentioned, was for the eat-in restaurant.
Proposed restaurant will have a capacity of approximately 400.
People know dance floor, know live music.
We've agreed to all the standard conditions that are set forth, usually by the Center City Residence Association, CCRA, along with a detailed side MOA that's not part of this application, of course.
but it's very substantial and adds an array and layers of non-zoning related protections.
No outdoor seating, for example, no roof deck, security and the like, and indoor stories of trash.
We've also met, of course, with William Penthouse, and we've been in correspondence with them,
and now with our esteemed Mr. Mattione, hopefully we'll work this out.
Now, we believe that our use and our protections with the restaurant will create no adverse impacts, including to the entrance to and hopefully the William Penhouse, but we're continuing discussions.
The refusal regarded signage, and I'll show you the signage here.
The application was comprehensive for reuse of this historic marquee.
Of course, the Boyd Theater is designated as historical.
And so the signage would bring and resurrect this marquee back to life,
bring and resurrect this marquee back to life including some reuse of these menu or movie
including
panels here. We did have and by the way these signs complied as a matter of right with the zoning code
both in terms of total area and sizes of each sign. Not depicted here but on the original application
there were two digital signs that screen. Excuse me, some noise. We're getting background noise.
I handle the chair. Please keep your mic closed. Thank you. Thank you, Tom.
Mr. Patterson, please proceed. Thank you. And these signs are straddled in front of the former
gap building. We did go present to the Art Commission because the Art Commission has
jurisdiction over signage on Chestnut Street, they were going to vote against that sign
because of its location and nature. So we withdrew those signs from our application to the Art
Commission, and we are withdrawing them from this application. So our application now defaults to a
simple special exception referral for this restaurant. And my Art Commission approval is
attached to our application uh we did meet as I mentioned with CCRA official meeting was September
28th and had some expansive and numerous calls and emails and correspondence so with that said
I just want to call two witnesses just to you know confirm my testimony and the like
and I think we'll be finished for now so if you could promote Michael Palermo
He can unmute himself and wait for the chair.
Do you hear me, Ron?
I do, Michael.
Okay, I'm good.
Good afternoon, sir.
Please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
My name is Michael Palermo, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-P-A-L-E-R-M-O.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you, Mr. Pat.
Good afternoon, Michael.
Could you please tell the board what your job position is?
I'm the Director of Development for Star Restaurants.
I've been employed with Stephen Starr and Starr Restaurants for 23 years.
And you've heard my testimony so far.
Would you agree that it's true and accurate and you would adopt it as your own?
I would, Ron.
All right. Thank you.
So as I mentioned, Michael, this is a Stephen Starr-run beverage and food concession restaurant here.
It's an eat-in reservation only. Is that fair to say?
we will accept reservations yes okay and it's a sports based themed restaurant if you want to
elaborate on that that's that's fine i can elaborate on it i mean sure uh philadelphia
is is a great sports town uh probably one of the best towns in america all four major sports
franchises are located here and we are building and designing a really a kind of unique upscale
boutique restaurant that is sports focused however it is also comfortable for guests
who are not primarily interested in sports this restaurant will complement our other
Rittenhouse restaurants like Bark and Barkley Prime, The Love, Continental Midtown, and Dandelion.
We've been working on the project for quite some time to make sure that the technology for the
televisions is integrated well into the dining experience. And last, I just want to add that
this particular building has a variety of venues if you will inside the building there's a 140 seat
more formal restaurant where tvs and the sports viewing is a little bit more in the background
there's two private dining rooms on the second floor one for approximately 40 guests and one
for 20 guests on the second floor overlooking the marquee that it also is a more intimate
speakeasy type bar uh and last but not least there's the the great room which is the old
historic void lobby which you're looking at right now and uh and that room is the kind of
And that room is the kind of, I call it the great room in the center of the space.
i call it the great room in the center of the space
Peace.
We really believe this is a one of a kind dining experience, including dining and beverage and where guests will be able to enjoy the entertainment of sports.
And so, Michael, if I could, so it's a sports space.
This is not a use that would have a gaming license, correct?
Just to put that on the table.
Absolutely not.
This is not a sports book.
This restaurant is a restaurant that appeals to sports enthusiasts.
And the seating capacity is 400 persons.
Is that correct?
Yes, if you add up all those venues, 140, 60, 40, 50, and 110, it's 400 seats.
And as far as the storage and removal of trash, as I mentioned in my opening, that these spaces are part of a larger development that spans back to Sampson Street.
I'm looking for a site plan here.
And so your storage of trash and removal would be where, Michael?
This is our space here.
The building is a part of the Harper complex.
And on the 20th Street side, between Chestnut and Sansom, the Harper has a loading dock and a garage.
Within that loading dock and garage is a quite large trash compactor for wet trash.
as well as a area to receive recyclable trash.
So it's all inside.
It will be picked up seven days a week.
And Michael, as typical, you have numerous staffing
and Mr. Chairman, if I had more time,
I would have someone testify about our security plan
and report, which I did attach to our exhibits.
If there's any questions for Mr. Palermo, then I'll move on to our architect quickly.
Any questions from the board for Mr. Palermo?
No, Mr. Chair.
Okay, Ron, we can move on.
Great.
Robert McCall, MCCALL.
Would they be able to raise their hand, please?
and he's been unmuted
can you hear me yes yes please spell your full name and i'll swear you in uh robert mccall r-o-b-e-r-t
m-c-c-a-l-l j-k-r partners architects where you swear if i'm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do mr patterson thank you uh mr recall uh you're the architect uh on
this project fair to say that's correct and you've heard my uh presentation and testimony
uh to the extent you know that it's relevant to you would you agree that it's true and accurate
and you would adopt it as your own i do and you worked on the design of uh of the building
in whole or in parts both inside and outside is that fair to say that's correct and if you briefly
want to just tell the board about uh what the proposal is for the marquee sign even though it's
now as a matter of right i think it's important to hear that the marquee is being preserved is
that correct that's correct um and so i'm sorry go ahead okay so the marquee uh it is physically
there but it has never been restored back to its original um we have pictures of it from the 1950s
and the goal was to essentially recreate it to look like it did in 1950 um which this rendering
portrays with the exception of three things the first thing is where it says bankroll on the
scrolling faceted enamel panels in 1950 that said cinerama uh so obviously we want to have the name
of the business and then the sort of crown scroll on the top said void in 1950 and we removed the
void but aside from the the crown script spelling out boy we just kept it running around the top
and finally is of course in 1950 this was all neon which we are uh going to replace with led
to mimic the neon um and and and robert uh so we did you didn't mention scrolling but the
And, Robert, so you did mention scrolling, but the banner, they'll call it, well, not scroll, it's stationary, correct?
Yeah, that's correct.
Okay, and also...
I was going to ask that question. Okay, thank you.
And also, just to reconfirm that we did remove the digital display signs on the GAP building, correct?
That is correct.
And the windows that you see here, quite expansive, so you can view inside the property.
They are not operable, correct?
That is correct.
I have nothing further.
Yeah, I have a question.
Could we go back at 20th Street, the area where the, I'll call it the loading dock or where the trash will be stored.
Do you have a rendition of what the gate or whatever the enclosure will look like?
uh i believe it's i'll show you a photograph i believe it's behind this door
is that accurate robert okay okay all right yeah i got it that's samson street yes yeah
that's saying i thought you said 20th street well yeah it does spandle 20th street but right but
but you enter and it's ingress and egress off of sanson i believe so correct is that correct
thank you sure so that's all i have mr chairman again i appreciate it you know reserve the right
to bring the witnesses back and additional witnesses should we not resolve this case and
of course mr matty only would then participate okay thank you um i don't know if anyone is here
from CCRA, but as I had mentioned, we do have their letter of support, which I believe was
unanimous. Yeah, we saw the letter. Is there anyone, let me ask this, Mr. Marioni? Yes.
How do you want to proceed? Do you have questions now? I don't know. I would like to ask questions
at the next hearing and present testimony if need be at the next hearing.
in opposition if, in fact, we are continuing our opposition.
Is there anything else the board needs before we...
This will be a resumption hearing, correct, Sharon?
That's correct, Chair.
And do we...
I guess, Mr. Marioni, do you know when your next meeting will be?
I do not, Mr. Chairman.
We would not be prepared to go ahead until at least the end of November.
Tanya, will you suggest we hold off on a date or I mean how do I I can't leave this open-ended.
January 18th at 9 30. January the 18th.
Thank you.
If I may, one more thing just so I put it on the record.
In conclusion, we believe that nevertheless the project, the eat-in restaurant, now that
it is solely a special exception, will have no adverse impacts and therefore it meets
the criteria, the special exception criteria, which is also evidenced by CCRA's position.
I don't know if anyone from CCRA is here to talk about their letter, but that's all I have to say.
I'm going to ask you if any other witnesses are out now.
Okay, is there anyone here to testify on this case?
Chair, we have Wade Albert.
Mr. Albert, you can unmute yourself.
Good afternoon.
Hello?
Please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
Sure. First name is Wade.
Wade, you muted yourself.
Sorry about that. I'll start again.
First name is Wade, W-A-D-E.
Last name is Albert, A-L-B-E-R-T.
You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Thank you, sir. Please proceed.
Thank you. So I'm counsel for the Center City Residents Association, and I'm an attorney with the law firm of Stevens and Lee at 1500 Market Street, East Tower, 18th floor.
um on behalf of the center city residents association as the letter indicates we held a
public meeting for this project and the vote of the ccra zoning committee
uh with regard to to that to the institution particular was to not oppose with a number of
to that to the issue particular was to not oppose with a number of standard provisos that we ask
um with regard to any restaurant applications that come before us so um i'm sorry which we
agreed to i just wanted yes yes we agreed to and then um the i know i can see that uh mr patterson
posted those provisos onto the screen. So with regard to them, when there ultimately is a
decision, I would respectfully ask that any of the provisos that the ZBA would be willing to
include in the license, I would respectfully ask that you include them. I also would like to point
out that as a side issue, and I think I heard Mr. Patterson reference this, is that CCRA and a bunch
of other neighborhood stakeholders have been in negotiations with the applicant for to
enter into a side agreement that would include a number of provisions that would provide
for basically quality of life issues and most importantly a basically a deed restriction
that there that the applicant would not be seeking a gambling license for this property
other provisions dealing with security um and uh trash and traffic management and so while i
understand that that would you know not be really a part of this case um understand that there are
i guess like some moving parts to this um i think that we've pretty much reached an agreement in
principle there there may be some minor changes uh but the the bulk of that agreement um has been
um agreed to by both sides um and so i know that as of right now that agreement the stakeholders
are ccra they are um 1920 chestnut street and a property owner that owns um a a residential
apartment building on that block.
As of right now, the William Penn House,
which is represented by Mr. Mattione,
is not a part of that agreement.
I don't know if that's going to change or not.
Perhaps it will not.
But that is where we stand at this moment.
So thank you.
Excuse me, Mr. Albert, this is Sharon's letter.
If you have not yet sent me a copy of that letter,
could you email it to me, please?
I'm sorry.
It's attached to the
to the uh to the vote letter here yes okay thank you it's part of my exhibit okay uh
is there anyone else who wishes to testify
no hands at this time chair thank you uh sharon do you suggest we hold off on the planning commission
until uh um they could you could give them the option but it would probably be better for them
to hear all of the testimony before making a recommendation yeah that's right i would request
i would request that mr chairman if in fact we do oppose it i would like for the planning
commission to hear our testimony in opposition yeah before they okay all right well so noted
And again, Tanya, it's January.
What was that date?
January?
MI 2021-003213, 1910 Chestnut Street.
This hearing will be resumed on January the 18th, 2022.
At what time, Tanya?
9 30 a.m. chair. 9 30 a.m. at which time the board will consider any feedback
from the RCOs and the district council person's office. Mr. chairman of course if we reach a
resolution in advance we could submit by letter to ask the board to vote
before January 18. Excuse me no that wouldn't be possible because we will still have to hear
from the planning commission yeah yeah that's interesting that may not that really wasn't what
i had planned i really was hoping that we could you wanted i know you guys want to get it done
before the end of the year yeah i hope because of timing i like for example if we reached an
agreement in two weeks and i'd submit a letter then it could be placed for vote so um mr patterson
given that perhaps we shouldn't schedule it for a specific date okay fair enough to do an attorney
moving party yeah i like that that's better is that okay michael that's that's that's fine with
that's that's that's fine with me okay thank you because you're looking at uh what three months
me okay thank you because you're looking at uh
almost tanya we're going to do attorney moving party okay
sounds fine chair okay thank you let's go back on the record again mi 2021-003213
1900 chestnut street attorney moving party thank you thank you for you all thank you
Okay, number five and six on our list, MI 2021-002845, 1921 Montrose Street, and MI 2021-002844, 1923 Montrose Street.
Mr. Orfanides is the attorney of record.
SOSNA, South Neighborhood Association, sent a letter of support for both applications with a proviso of revised plan.
Mr. Orfanides, please identify yourself.
You're still under oath, and our vice chair will have some questions for you.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Oh, okay. I didn't see a flash up that I had been promoted.
David Orphanides, last name spelled O-R-P-H-A-N, from Orphanides & Turner, 2 Penn Center, 1500 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 800, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19102.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet for both cases with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, referral, photos, plans, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes to all.
You may proceed.
Thank you.
And may I share my screen?
Can you see my screen?
Can you make it a little bit larger?
I was already on.
All right.
let me just do the single page view there we go all right again uh david orphanetes orphanetes
and toner um here this uh this afternoon on behalf of um the owners of the property of both
properties um which is base camp property group llc um they came to own these properties in 1921
they came to own in December of 2017. 1923, they came to own in April of 2018.
We're going to present both projects together. They do have two separate application numbers
and two separate calendar numbers. As indicated, 1921 Montrose Street has a calendar or a meeting
ID number of 2021-002845. In 1923, Montrose Street has a meeting ID of MI-2021-002844.
The reason we're presenting them together, because they're mirror images of each other. They're
abutting properties, separately deeded, separately described, separately deeded to my clients,
and separately described, but they are the same project.
They are two existing two-story buildings.
If you give me a minute, I'll show you what they look like, and here they are.
This is tab 9 of our exhibit book, and you can see 1923 on the left and 1921 on the right.
Two existing single-family dwellings.
Our proposal is to maintain the single-family use.
We are proposing a third-floor addition and then a three-story addition to the rear that will be dimensionally compliant,
except for the fact that the proposed third floor is not set back eight feet from the extreme front building line,
given that the properties to either side have two buildings on them with only two stories of habitable space.
However, if you take a look at the remaining site context photographs that I've included at Tab 9,
You'll see further to the east, on our side, there are existing three-story buildings that come, have the third story all the way to the front.
This is the view to the west, where you have two stories until you get down to the end of the block.
But then you can see across the street on the south side, and this is the second part of our Tab 9, on the south side of the 1900 block of Montrose.
You can see all three stories, including directly across the street from us, going straight up from the sidewalk all the way up.
And you can see at the top here was to the east.
The bottom is directly across from the properties.
And then to the right is to the west.
Again, the application, as you can see in our notice of refusals for both properties, was the partial rear demolition of the existing structures and for the erection of a three-story rear addition and a third-floor addition over the existing two-story portion that was to remain for use as a single-family dwelling.
Again, the application, as you can see in our notice of refusals for both properties.
Each of them, they had different examiners, same examiner, same refusals.
the original zoning drawings we do have revised zoning drawings are included at tab four
and as you can see from the drawings it includes um the uh the existing structure portion of the
existing structures to be demolished um and then what's to be erected in their place uh so in in
in both cases you'll see that our building is actually shorter uh not as deep as it originally
was and not as deep as the buildings to either side. And then here is the original drawings.
This is for 1921. And what you'll see what we're doing at the third floor is while we do not have
the eight-foot setback, we do do what's called a mansard roof. We're maintaining the existing
cornice at the front of the building. I'm going again, going back. You can see the existing
cornices these have been covered and you'll part of the meetings that we had with sasna are to
restore remove the vinyl covering and to restore the cornices so we'll be maintaining the cornice
line here at the second floor level and then going above that again with this mansard roof that
slopes back with windows in the front this is a an architectural design that's been utilized
time and time again in the graduate hospital area as opposed to providing the eight-foot setback,
particularly on blocks such as this, where there are other existing three-story structures
in close proximity to the property, but not abutting to either side.
And here again, you can see here's the existing two-story at the front,
and then it drops down to the rear, and you can see that we're actually not as deep
as the existing structure for 1921 roof deck above with the pilot house set back to five feet
here's 1923 the original plan again showing the original footprint
showing the existing building beyond um or the existing building could be demolished
our revised plans are at tab two did provide uh they here in our exhibit book and we did
forward then again today separately the both the revised plans and the revised proviso plan uh form
uh to um to the attorney for the zoning board ms toletta and we made a number of changes based
upon the comments that we received from sasna following the architectural review committee
they have two separate meetings first we meet with the art their architectural review committee
And then we have the full coordinating RCO community group meeting.
You referenced the letter of support dated October 6th.
That referenced both.
They handled them both together, just as we're handling it today.
And here are the comments, just as an example, that we received on September 7th following our architectural review committee meeting with them.
And, again, those have been addressed to the satisfaction of those who were in attendance at the community group meeting.
Here's renderings of the front facade, as you can see.
We'll be restoring the front steps, restoring the facade.
You can see how the cornice line is going to be maintained, restored, beautified.
And then we have the third floor addition mansard roof with the roof deck beyond and the pilot house beyond.
Existing floor plans are included at tab five for the single-family dwellings,
from cellar all the way up, media room in the front.
storage flex space in the rear, common living space on the ground floor. And these are mirror,
again, the two units are mirror images of each other going back or the two properties going back
to the revised zoning drawings. You can see how both of them are reflected here. The pilot houses
are located in the middle of the properties, budding each other, not to the outside, imposing
upon the properties to the outside, to the east and west of the two properties in question.
But, again, going back to the floor plans, two bedrooms with a bathroom on the second floor, pretty standard master on the third floor.
Then the deck with the pilot house above, set back as indicated.
The roof deck does have a change.
It's a little higher in the rear than in the front, but, again, it's dimensionally compliant.
Here's an aerial image of our existing buildings, and as you can see, there's some other pretty deep buildings on our side, and we're actually going to be shallower than what's presently existing.
Here's an aerial image of our existing buildings.
And as you can see, there's some other.
Dimensionally compliant, again, are only refusals for the proposed third floor not being set back to eat feet.
And we have plenty of additional aerial views at Tabby.
I already went through the photographs.
We have interior photographs at 10.
um you know the properties have not been upgraded in a very long time sorry so um zoning archives
simply showing the single family use the deeds that's a tab 11 tab 12 are the deeds for the
property showing my client base camp property group llc owns both properties there's 1921 and 1923
1923 and 1921 our tax clearances are tab 13 and you can see for 1921 and for 1923
copies of our appeals and project information forms are tab 14 photographs of the posting
from conformance with the zoning code requirements at both of both the notice
and a copy of the notices of refusal this is 1921 here you have 1923
And then at tab 16, again, as in my last presentation, we include the email from the Planning Commission designating SOSNA as a Coordinating RCO from the project.
Our 14303 notice that went out for both the SOSNA Coordinating RCO meeting on September 15th, as well as the Zoning Board hearing notice today.
The list of the copy of notice refusals, the project information form.
uh sasna does have their own zoning meeting notice uh that we also include with the mailing
and a copy of uh that was all also all forwarded to um to the people uh that received the mailing
of our uh of our notice and then we have our certificate of mailing included as well
for you to view here's a list of addresses that it mailed to and our certificate of first class
mailing of the notices of the community group meeting and the zoning board hearing and again
we have the support of sasna here is a vote 14 in support one in opposition no abstention
and with that i would just call uh one of my clients uh to uh identify themselves either tal
or yes okay you could raise your hands one of you hi yes here okay yes great um yes uh please
spell your full name sir i swear name is y-i-s-r-a-e-l last name t-gay spelled t-i-g-a-y
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do thank you mr orphanetes yes um are you uh are you base camp i am okay and um you live in
close proximity to the property don't you uh yeah i live a couple blocks away okay and did you hear
the statements that i made to the board today regarding both of these applications and both of
these appeals i did okay and a true and correct to the best of your knowledge they are and would
you adopt those statements as your own i would okay thank you um with that you rest and uh we're
here for any questions that the board may have any questions from the board no no chair no would
anyone else like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand oh and real quickly by
the way i did reach out to ms shakumba noack is involved in this i asked her if she had a letter
for us and uh and she said even though we had sent her all the materials i don't believe she
was going to forward one um and again i made sure she was aware of today's presentation
and uh i don't know if she's on the call or not anyone to testify in this case please raise your
hand no hands chair mr marfanidis and would you like us to uh continue this case until we hear
from uh no i would not like you to do that okay every opportunity i think if she really you know
you know how she knows how to find she knows how to find you all so i know okay planning commission
that's how to get here to a hearing
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
these properties are indicated for single family residential in the comprehensive plan
while the proposal does not include the required eight foot setback the third
for the third floor it does incorporate a mansard roof accordingly the planning commission has no
opposition to the board granting the variance thank you MI 2021-002845
Thank you. MI 2021-002845 1921 Montrose Street and MI 2021-002844 1923 Montrose Street. My vote
is yes to both. Excuse me, Chair. How many pages? Yes. One page. Is that correct? Yes,
just one page for each one thank you my vote is yes to both with the proviso uh revised plan one
page to both carol tennari my vote is yes with proviso professor plaza yes with proviso to both
james snell yes with proviso to both thomas holliman yes with proviso to both thank you we
We go to case number 7, MI 2021-002-834, 300 Rouse Boulevard.
Stephanie Boggs, I believe, is the attorney of record.
There is a letter of non-opposition from Veterans Stadium Neighbors Association asking if we approve, that we approve with four pages of revised plans.
yes good afternoon hi stephanie please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
stephanie magania actually there's been a change um m-a-g-a-g-n-a 1835
that a recent change i just finally got around to it oh okay okay thank you do you swear a firm
to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do thank you mr vice chair has some
questions for you. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? Yes, I do. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance,
refusal referral, photos under plans of the property, five days in advance of this hearing,
and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter? Yes, I do. Okay, great. You may proceed.
So this application is for a new signage proposed at 300 Rouse Boulevard. We are proposing one new
roof sign at the property as LNI is classifying it along the Normandy Place frontage of the building
and another monument sign along the Constitution Ave frontage of the building. We did have a meeting
with the Veteran Stadium Neighbors Association, and their letter of non-opposition is included
within our packet. Stephanie, excuse the interruption. Do you have any exhibits you can
share with us? Yes, I'm sorry. I thought I was sharing them. Now you can see it. I'm sorry about
that. Yep, this is our refusal. We'll stipulate to its accuracy. And as I said, we do have a
letter of non-opposition from the RCO in our packet. We did meet with them and present the
signage. The signage that's being proposed here is second additional versions of what's already
existing at the building. This is within the Navy Yard. This is 300 Rouse Boulevard.
The sign, we're proposing one additional kind of building ID sign, which LNI is classifying as a
roof sign along the Normandy Place frontage, so it's viewable from the central green, and as
passengers are traveling down Rouse Boulevard, and one additional monument sign that's proposed
along Constitution Avenue in the rear to mirror what's already existing, both the building ID
sign and the monument sign along Rouse Boulevard. The Navy Yard is quite expansive, and the
buildings within the yard have kind of developed a cohesive signage package,
including ID signs that are located at the top of the building and monument signs that direct
passengers and vehicles who are traveling down so that they can see it. The space of the building
and kind of the scope of that has required that additional signage in the area. And what we are
proposing is not only consistent with the scheme that's there for other buildings, Navy Yard, but
also what's there currently. You can see here there's an existing building ID or roof sign,
as LNI is classifying it, at the top of our building along the Rouse Boulevard frontage.
What we are proposing is the exact same copy along the Normandy Place frontage. There's an
existing monument sign here as well that will be replicated along Constitution Avenue.
These pictures just show you different views. Here you can see where the sign
at the roof will be placed, so it's viewable from the central green.
And what the existing monument sign will look like, which will be the same as what we're
proposing along Constitution Avenue. This is the location of the new monument sign at the rear by
the parking lot, identifying the parking lot in the entrance to the building.
We do have revised plans that were submitted, very minor changes to simply show the location
location of the existing signage in relationship to what's being proposed so those are included
of the existing signage in relationship to what's being proposed.
So those are...
within the packet but here you can see the plans that were submitted here showing the new building
id sign along normandy place the copy of the signage which again i said is the same as what
was previously proved here on the property and is existing along rouse boulevard definitely i think
no interruption but i think you could summarize it would be helpful absolutely so these signs are
consistent with what's already at the Navy Yard. It's consistent with the size and scope of what's
located on the building. We do believe that it's necessary to properly identify the building
to passengers in vehicles and pedestrians who are walking through and don't anticipate any
negative impacts to the general welfare or adverse impacts to the character of the Navy Yard. And as
I said, it's consistent. I do have Stan Newman from Iovance, who's the tenant at the building here.
If Stan, you can raise your hand. I'd like to have him adopt my testimony.
and he's available good afternoon sir please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
yes um i'm sorry stanley newman s-t-a-n-l-e-y last name newman n-e-w-m-a-n i'm director of
facilities engineering for iovance biotherapeutics have you heard my testimony here today i have
do you swear excuse me do you swear in front of me to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
about the truth i do thank you stephanie please proceed yeah um stand just again to confirm have
you heard my testimony this afternoon do you believe it to be true and accurate yes it is
thank you would you adopt it as your own i would thank you um we do have jared walk here from city
sign if there are any questions about the signs uh questions from the board no mr no no anyone
else to testify in this case please raise your hand no hands chair thank you planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
this property is indicated for commercial mixed use in the comprehensive plan
we feel the applicant has failed to demonstrate sufficient hardship and do not feel that the
existing roof screening should be used to expand an existing non-conforming use accordingly the
planning commission recommends the board deny the variance thank you uh stephanie their revised plans
four pages yes they were submitted in a separate email okay i just want to make sure i have it
correct mi 2021-002834300 rouse boulevard my vote is yes with the proviso revised plan four pages
approved today harold tenere my vote is yes with proviso confessor plaza yes with proviso
james now yes with proviso thomas holliman yes proviso we go to case number nine mi 2021-002
831-417-Manton Street.
Mr. Sovran, Brandon Sovran is the attorney of record.
There is a letter of support from Dickinson Square West Civic Association.
Mr. Brandon, please identify yourself, spell your name.
You're still under oath.
Brandon Sovran, Pritzker Law Group.
It's B-R-A-N-D-O-N.
Last name is Sovran.
S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R, A, N, 1635 Market Street, Suite 1600.
The Vice Chair has some questions for you.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax, compliance, refusal, referral, photos, plans, five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, to all of the above, Madam Vice Chair.
Okay, great. You may proceed.
Okay. I'll just alert the board that we have submitted revised plans, one page, and a proviso change form.
So I would ask you to incorporate that into your potential decision.
I will share my screen.
so um my clients are uh doug and brenda howell um they purchased 419 and 417 manton street
um i believe they closed on their purchase in march of this year uh these are two vacant lots
that are standard size more or less for manton street um and the um refusal is that they would
like uh to consolidate the two properties and build a duplex so they're gonna get two
the two properties and build a duplex. So they're going to get two units out of that.
They could get two units by right, just by building two separate single-family homes.
They instead chose this plan of attack, I think, for the ability to customize the home
architecturally. And also, they felt like it would be easier to comply with the code's open
area requirement of 25 percent with this scheme than by um building two separate units so as such
they have complied with the open area requirement that's not the refusal the refusal is merely
the uh use of two units in one structure on that consolidated lot um we did meet with the dickinson
west uh dickinson square west civic association um have a letter of support um see what else i
can tell you. I have a zoning sheet here. I also have the design professional who made it. If you
want to hear from him, he can talk through it a bit. But here in the bottom left is an image of
the home from the Manton Street Elevation. That's really it in a nutshell. I'm happy to have Curtis
come on and talk through the plans if you'd like, and also happy to take any questions.
um mr uh sovereign um unless i missed it i got distracted are there any i think there are other
homes on that block that have garages on am i correct in saying that i'm happy to um let's go
on google so it's the northern side of the street which does not have parking on that side of the
street uh let me see if there's other i don't know if i see i'm probably confusing with the
empty lots there. Okay. Yeah. So Mr. Chair, we did discuss this at length at the community meeting
and the community was not opposed to the garage. They wrote in their letter, and they may not be
wrong here, that a refusal should have been issued for the curb cut, but if it had been,
they would have been in support for us seeking a variance. That being said, I'm not an L&I
examiner and I, I, maybe I'm wrong and maybe they're wrong collectively that the refusal
is accurate. So I'm not here to, you know, really pick a fight over that. The bottom line is they
support the garage. Okay. Understood. Do you have a client to adopt your testimony? Yeah. So, uh,
it may be, uh, Doug Howell or it may be Brenda Howell. Are either out there?
yes chair we have a douglas howell
good afternoon mr howell please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
douglas howell d-r-u-g-l-a-s h-o-w-e-l-l do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do i swear thank you mr sovereign hey doug um were you able to hear the
entirety of my testimony today? Yes. And do you find that it was true and accurate? Yes. And would
you therefore adopt it as your own? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Questions from
the board? No, Mr. Chair. No. Anyone else to testify in this case? If so, please raise your hand.
no hands here thank you planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
this property is indicated for single-family residential in the comprehensive plan
the proposed front-loading parking garage creates a hazard for two bicycles and pedestrians
accordingly the planning commission recommends the board denied the variance
thank you uh mi 2021-002831 417 manton street um my vote is yes
carol tenery my vote is yes confessor plaza my vote is yes james now my vote is yes
excuse me um board members it was with revised plans one page i believe
Thanks, Ms. Salata.
I apologize.
I didn't see that in my notes.
I'll go back over it.
MI 2021-002831-417, Manton Street.
My vote is yes with proviso.
Revised plan, one page, approved today.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes with proviso.
Confessor Plaza, yes with Proviso.
Confessor Plaza, yes with proviso.
James Isnell, yes with Proviso.
Thomas Holloman, yes with Proviso.
Sorry about that.
I'm going to go out of order and hear case number 11.
My sense tells me number 10 might be a little bit lengthy.
So we're going to go to page number 11, excuse me, item number 11, MI 2021-002.
837-5805 North Front Street.
Mr. Nockmson is the attorney of record.
Councilwoman Parker's office submitted actually a letter.
I'm not sure if Hillary is out there.
And the councilwoman supports this legislation of the existing duplex,
but not a third dwelling, meaning a maximum of three units.
so uh sharon do you have maximum of two units maximum two units uh
sharon oh clementa is available okay miss amazon please identify yourself spell your name and i'll
swear you in of course clementa amazon c-l-e-m-e-n-t-a last name is a-m-a-z-a-n
123 South Broad Street
Suite 1600
Do you swear to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes, I do.
Thank you.
The Vice Chair has some questions for you.
Do you read away the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do. Have you emailed
the exhibit packet with proof of ownership
tax compliance, a copy
of the refusal or referral,
photos and plans, five days in
advance to this hearing and have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
Yes, we actually met with the Councilwoman's office because there is no RCO for this area
and we have a letter from the Councilwoman's office. Okay, great. You may proceed. Thank you.
I'll just share my screen. So again, I will be presenting 5805 North Front Street. As the
chairman mentioned, this is just the legalization of a duplex. We were originally requesting three
units, but we have since determined it would be more appropriate to have two units. I will go
through the notice of refusal, the correspondence that we have from Councilman Cheryl Parker's
office, maps of the area, photographs of the property, our plans and drawings, the application
for appeal, the notice we sent out for that meeting, as well as the deed and certificate
to get a tax clearance. So the refusal is for the triplex use that we were initially seeking,
although we now are requesting just the legalization of the duplex, which is how the
property is currently configured. The area is zoned as RSA 5. However, there are other multifamily
homes on the block that have been there for some time now. And as you can see, we do have a letter
from the Councilwoman's office stating that their position is that of non-opposition for a duplex
and that the community would not be taking a position.
So here we have a view of the maps of the area,
the view of the side of the property here.
And as you can see, this is the front of the property with two entrances.
And this photo just indicates those entrances a bit better.
There is one entrance for each unit, so it's easily accessible.
There is also a rear exit.
And as you can see, there are multiple meters.
So, this is a long-standing use that we are looking to legalize here.
So, here we have views to the right of the property on North Front Street, views to the left of the property on North Front Street, and our proposed site plan that we have here.
Again, it's an existing structure. We're just looking to legalize the use here.
The basement is going to remain available to the first floor unit. My client actually lives there currently.
They are a couple, so they're just going to keep the basement for themselves as one unit.
And then the second floor is the unit that they would be maintaining as the second unit.
And again, that would be what they would be renting out.
And currently, they have their nephew there.
So it's more or less a family home at this point in time.
And as I mentioned, there are two separate forms of, excuse me, two entrances.
So the entrance that's closer to Front Street, you enter, you can make a right, and you can
get access to the bedroom and eating kitchen area.
and the other entrance you can go to excuse me go through here and you get access to the
upper level unit on the second floor here we have the application for appeal again this is just the
legalization of a duplex and the notice that we sent out for the community meeting on september
30th with the zoom information date and time as well as a copy of the refusal 79 properties were
notified in total. And here we have our certificates of mailing as well as the deed showing that my
client owns the property and a certificate of tax clearance. So if I could actually just have
and a certificate of
tax clearance. So if I could
actually just have my client,
it's either Santi or
Sanfei Faxong.
If they could just come on
and adopt my testimony, that would be great.
And they can have...
Yes, hello?
Hi, Samai.
hi please spell your full name for the record it's um s-a-m-y-t-h-o-k-h-a-x-a-n-g
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do thank you miss amazon so did you hear my test my presentation today
yes i did and was it true and correct yes and would you adopt it as your own testimony
yes i will thank you thank you any questions from the board no mr chair no no anyone else
to testify in this case please raise your hand yes we have miss emerson thank you
good afternoon miss emerson please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
good afternoon mr chair members of the board hillary emerson
e-m-e-r-s-o-n on behalf of councilwoman sherelle parker
where from to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do please proceed thank you um as as ms amazon noted um our office served as the rco for this
case because unfortunately we don't have one in this part of our district right now we held a
meeting um and did not have any neighbors in attendance and tried to follow up with another
neighbor who had come to another meeting recently did not get a response so we weren't able to
provide a position from the community. But the proposal for the third unit raised some concerns
for the councilman because it was located in a basement and had a rear access adjacent to a
common driveway. So after consulting with her clients, Ms. Amazon, they were just seeking a
legalization of the duplex, which we have no issue with. There's multiple properties on the block
that were converted to duplexes decades ago so that's we don't have an issue with the duplex
thank you thank you planning commission
good afternoon board peter bernard for the planning commission
this property is indicated for single family residential in the comprehensive plan
we feel the applicant has demonstrated sufficient hardship for a duplex accordingly the planning
commission recommends the board uh approve the variance thank you mi 2021-002-837-5805
north front street my vote is yes with proviso maximum two units carol tenere my vote is yes
with proviso professor plaza yes with proviso james snell yes with proviso thomas halliman
yes supervisor thank you thank you we now go to case number 10 mi 2021 that's zero zero two
eight five five five two six south front street verne anastasio is the attorney of record for
the applicant. Paul Bonney is the attorney for the Protestants, I believe, Society Hill Civic.
There's a letter from the coordinating RCO South Street Head of House District
and a letter from Queen Village, Queen Village Neighbors Association
and Society Hill Civic all opposing this project.
thank you mr anastasio you're first up
thank you sir identify yourself and i'll swear you in sure verne anastasio 1315 walnut
suite 1006 philadelphia uh 19107 we're affirmed to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but
the truth? I do, sir. Before you begin, let's get Mr. Bonney. I'll swear him in, and then
Ms. Tenere will have questions for you, Vern. Mr. Bonney, actually, you are sworn in from,
you're still under oath from earlier today, but just identify yourself, and Mr. Anastasia will
begin. My name is Paul Bonney, B-O-N-I. I'm not only the zoning chair, but also the attorney for
societal civic association thank you uh verne miss uh our vice chair has some questions for you
yeah mr verne do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate
Mr. Verne, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal referral, photos under plans of the property, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Mr. Chair, do I go right on to Mr. Bonney now?
No, I think Mr. Anastasia will present his case, and then we'll hear from the Protestants.
Mr. Chair, could I mention something?
I just want to make sure you understand the landscape is that, you know, QVNA is also an RCO.
They may not have an attorney, but they have a representative who would like to participate.
I know you very kindly give the attorneys, you know, sort of a special elevation here,
but I think it might be appropriate for Mr. Piven to be elevated, if that would be your...
Yeah, and QVNA did send a letter of opposition.
I mentioned that earlier, but we'll get Mr. Piven.
Let's start with the case, and when we ask for other parties to join in,
he'll be, certainly we'll recognize him.
Thank you.
I want to start with the letter dated 18 October 2021,
which is the coordinating RCO, the RCO that Councilman Squilla has designated as the be-all and end-all of this particular issue.
They have sent in a letter of support for what we're about to present today.
And I know you have this in your packet.
I sent this to my attorney, Soleta, and also to other interested parties.
So I just want to make sure you have that.
Again, the redesign project is lower in height and lower in density in response to the community input.
Pardon the interruption, Vern, but could you identify that RCO that you just brought up?
mention them by name please the coordinating rco uh the uh the one that council person
squilla has addressed as the uh the rco on record is south street head house district
uh which can be told here at the uh top of the letter but the uh they are in full support
of this application. And I want to now stop sharing that, and I will share my binder.
Hope you can all see it. I'll go as quickly as I can. I know it's been a long afternoon,
and I know you have other stuff going on. So before I get started, I wanted to just say that
there's a fundamental truth, and I know the chairman understands this, that even a moderate
density with residential helps commercial corridors. And a gateway parcel, such as the
one that we're about to talk about creates a sense of space of importance and advantage of
a natural position. This is a particular corner property at front and south that overlooks the
Delaware River. Again, pardon the interruption, just for clarity, is this the former Downey's
restaurant that's correct yeah okay that way i think that would be yeah and you know and most
of us are very familiar with it uh it's you know it's been uh dormant for quite some time
uh but what we're proposing is you know a development that is modest uh in its size and
scope uh and not from an outside developer but a long-term resident a member of our
of our community you know max weiner the weiner family has been around forever
and i i just want to make sure that you understand that what he's proposing
is in fact um uh you know a moderate uh redevelopment for this corner so that um
it becomes viable finally and with that uh what we applied for there's it's actually
and you know no one knew this but it's uh five separate parcels that sits on downies
and we're what we're asking for is uh creation of one particular property uh for you know out
for, you know, out of five lots, and we're going to attach a structure that has commercial on the
of five lots and we're going to attach it
first floor, consistent with Downey's. There's been many folks in our several meetings who've
asked my client to ensure that there would be a restaurant there, and he agreed to that,
even without having any prospects he agreed to, making sure there would be a restaurant there on
the first floor, and then for use for multi-family household living. Now, he initially asked for 18
units. We've gone down from there, and you'll see what I'm talking about
just about in a minute if I can
just want to make my objection for the record Vern that I'm not stipulating that you're allowed to
present facts and then just have your client adopt it all by reference that I think facts
should come from witnesses not from lawyers or exhibits of course but you know you're
you know i also want to mention that what factor you're speaking to i'm not quite sure
i mean well he says it's modest i think it is what it is so um but any event you guys do that
all the time yeah that's my classification i just want to mention also that i'm not aware that
councilman squilla said that the south street head house district was the end all be all
as verne says but i think actually could the councilman submitted a letter oh no that said
he's not taking a position on this case due to the fact that two of the rcos are opposed and one is
and since you mentioned it for the record councilman squilla's letter said that although
he cannot take a position, the coordinating RCO actually supports this project. But, however,
because the other two tertiary RCOs are maybe in opposition, he acknowledges that we've gone
through the process several times, that we've actually reduced and amended our application,
and that he's leaving it up to the board at this time.
So I just want to make sure we have that on the record.
Let's proceed. Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Tertiary.
Byrne, please proceed.
Thank you.
So this is the plan that architect Rich Villa will get into.
But essentially, it's a six-story building.
You know, we went, we asked for 18. We've come down based on our community meetings to 13. We've done studies on the impact of, you know, sun impact.
and he's also going to talk about the exterior property being all brick, which I think is
important to a lot of folks. This is what the property would look like. It's completely
consistent with a property that would be an anchor to the front and south. Right now,
Front and south is a bunch of small buildings and some really, you know, decrepit sort of property on the corner, which is old Downey's.
By the way, all of these properties here on Front Street are RM1, all multifamily.
So I just want to make sure that you understand that.
And I want to make sure you see some of the, some of the, you saw the proposed conditions
and now I want to show you what's been there for quite some time.
Downey's unfortunately has been there for quite some time and it's not done very well.
We have proof of posting, of course, and I want to pull out a little bit, and I want
to go to a synopsis, if you don't mind, and then we can talk about the particulars.
Talk about the particulars, just, and I do this synopsis just to make it quicker for you, because I understand that this is the last case of the, you know, the two o'clocks.
and I do this synopsis just to make
The original application was for 18 units. We met with the RCOs three separate times. We've reduced it to 13.
original height was over 65 feet we reduced it to uh just under 61
um mr chairman are these facts presented by a lawyer
well i'm an attorney and he's the attorney who represents the the applicant this is what
what do you mean by that question i'm not clear on it well attorneys attorneys make argument um
witnesses who can who can be cross-examined i'm not arguing i'm just letting you know he's laying
out what the proposal is which is typical i mean i'm just stating my objection i'm stating my
objection for the record thank you we initially asked for 18 units we've come down to 13 we
initially asked for over 65 feet. We reduced it just under 61. We reduced the lot coverage.
Per the request of the community attendees at the first two meetings, they wanted to ensure
the first floor tenant would in fact be a restaurant or an eating establishment because
we have that special ordinance in council that allows them to do that bump out on the sidewalk,
and we agreed to that as well. We've added red brick to the western wall per the request of
the residents. We also secured 13 private off-street parking spots to be folded into the
And again, we have not been refused for those 13 spots, but we're going to offer that, you know, offer that to them, build it into the lease. So if they have cars, they need to use those, you know, particular parking spots.
We have a letter of support from the RCO, the coordinating RCO, the South Street Head of House District.
Councilman Squilla also believes the leading voice on the zoning projects, you know, supports the appeal.
So that's why he's not getting involved.
The primary hardship for this, and this is where it goes, is the by right development of the 100 block of South Street.
And we have plenty of evidence that we will put into evidence today.
The 100 block of South Street has several vacancies, a nail salon, a check cashing place, which, by the way, is the most viable commercial space on the block.
We have a trinket store for Irish memorabilia, and we also have more than two unfriendly front-loading garages that kill the streetscape and walkability.
Now, by right, we can have a tiny, unmarketable commercial space with low-rent, student-style housing above, which we believe will be worse.
However, we could also have five trinities, and that does not welcome anyone.
We're at front and south, and we believe it attracts no one.
All of South Street, all of it, east of 6th Street is zoned CMX 2.5, which would allow a revised height.
But for the block we're talking about, this block, the 100 block of South Street, or at least this particular property on the corner, is a gateway property overlooking the Delaware River with unobstructive views and the South Street pedestrian bridge.
Now, I know this chairman was integral in making sure that that pedestrian walkway was something that could help increase the number of folks who, you know, actually visited South Street.
It's literally designed to attract people and lots of them.
How it goes now, if we were to build as a right, five trinities, five duplexes, which I don't even think we can get, it attracts no one.
how it goes now if we were to build as a
There is a threshold that, for the hippest street in town, offers nothing on Delaware Avenue, and walking up to those steps means nothing when you get to South Street.
Now, one block to the north, just one block to the north on the corner sits a 65-plus foot tall Toll Brothers building, far more into Society Hill than we are.
To the west at Abbott Square, also exceeds 60-plus foot tall at its entrance to Queen Village at 2nd and South, and we all know that.
QVNA, a secondary RCO, sent a letter of opposition, but readily admitted in an email sent 18th October to my office.
And I'll quote it. As I stated in my introductory remarks, we do not take a vote from the community. The committee makes its decisions based on judgment and experience.
And when I asked for a vote tally of the neighbors, QV&A said none was given, but that it was unanimous.
Well, the unanimous vote was from the actual board members, not from the neighbors.
When asked for the addresses of those board members, nothing was for coming.
We electronically captured all the comments made in the QVA and Zoom chat, and an overwhelming majority of these comments, all from immediate neighbors, indicating tremendous support for the project.
And I'm going to get to that in a minute.
The owner agreed to commercial trash pickup stored in the rear, soundproofing, exterior lighting, a local project manager team, and hiring locally.
To not take advantage of the unique river view of this particular property would, in fact, be developmental malpractice.
And I then want to go to, excuse me while I get there, I saw the project summary, excuse
Excuse me for one moment.
So in addition to having, so here we are, this is what we're talking about.
here's head house uh that new development that happened right there that just you know recently
was built here's our property right here on the right overlooking i-95 in the river
to the right we have 90 uh 67 foot tall uh building in society hill uh which is far into
you know the neighborhood than we are and one block over 65 tall 65 foot tall abbott square
uh just west of our block so we believe these corners need to be um uh gateways and something
that folks can actually see when they come up over that iconic walkway of South Street.
They see something that means something.
And that's where we are with that.
Mr. Sean, correct me if I'm wrong, along Front Street going from South to Lombard, doesn't
Doesn't the Toll Brothers, didn't they have recently built a condo project there in the last 10 years or so?
Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.
You're pointing to one further north.
The one that affronts the condo development that affronts Front Street.
the one that affronts the condo development that affronts front street between south and lombard
i believe is that accurate or no that's correct and it's over 60 feet that's that's that's what
it was the height of that do you happen to know the height it's in excess of 60 feet okay in
exit and i think rich and the and the architect is going to go through the pro you know the
I have some questions for the architect.
Mr. Bonner, are you about to say something?
I was just going to say, I think it's between Pine and Lombard, not between Lombard and South.
Okay, you're probably right.
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
There were some concerns about parking, even though that's not even an issue with the refusal.
So we went ahead and engaged with parking folks at Abbott Square, and they have committed the 13 spaces monthly for parking that we will build in for Target Park.
Certainly build in to the leases.
If they need a parking spot, here it is.
They've got their 13 parking spots.
Again, not a part of the refusal.
But my client, Max Wiener, has been willing to do this and going above and beyond.
And we have a letter here, just a random letter from someone who is at 115 South Street in complete support of the actual application.
Again, I did say that here's our letters that we sent out. We went to actually three separate RCOs. We went to two at the coordinating where they supported us fully, one at the tertiary RCO, which was QV&A.
the board sent a letter to you without any vote tally saying they opposed and they did not
take the vote of the folks who actually attended by the way we mailed 144 letters to near neighbors
in queen village they're my neighbors they're the architect's neighbors they're max's neighbors
We asked them to attend and weigh in. But QVNA sent you a letter of opposition. But here's the deal. 80% of the folks who commented support the project. Here you go. Immediate neighbor comments from the QVNA RCO meeting.
I was able to, with the help of Rich, who's the architect, capture every comment that came in from the meeting.
Here's Deborah, front and south.
It's a handsome design.
We'll add value to our neighborhood and the local economy.
Here's William Knapp.
Near neighbor, lives on Naudane.
I think the project adds shoppers, workers to the neighborhood.
It's great.
I'm a real estate investor.
He loves it.
Robert Schaefer.
I would also like to express support.
William Knapp.
I add that we make Mike Harris' job easier by reducing the amount of vacant retail.
Mike Hazard is, for the record, I know who he is, but you just identified.
is the south street head house district uh coordinator chair or uh executive director
mr chair i want to object to mr anastasio reading the comments for a zoom meeting
by people who not all of whom we know where they live and i just think this is not
But I would ask that we move on to more germane matters.
All right, Mr. Anastasia, we have all this on record.
So just...
And I would also ask Mr. Anastasia, were these comments that you're looking at, as well as the sheet that had your letterhead on it?
So, Bonnie, do you want him to answer that?
Because then you're recognizing these documents that you're asking us not to have them read?
I wanted to ask him if all these documents were submitted to the board five days prior because
the board sent me a copy of his exhibits and I don't these were not in them this looks like to
be. Excuse me if I can explain this is Sharon. Mr. Bonney requested the exhibits that had been
submitted. I sent them to him as I do to anyone who requests exhibits. If I thought that I had
And if I thought that I had sent him everything that I had, if I'm mistaken, maybe Mr. Anastasio can clarify that these were or were not submitted.
sent him everything that I had, if I'm mistaken.
I will check my...
They originally submitted, Vern?
They were only...
Were they submitted in time?
They were only procured after the fact. But they were procured and they were submitted, but not necessarily five days before, only because the letter from QVNA only came after that.
But one of them a few pages back was purported to be sort of like a fact sheet on your letterhead, which I objected.
I'm talking about immediate neighborhood comments that came in after I got the QVNA letter, which was subsequent to the deadline.
I asked.
Excuse me, this is Sharon.
Mr. Bonney, I think if there's fault here, it is mine.
I may have just sent you what I originally received.
I get sometimes hundreds of emails with exhibits attached in the days before the hearing.
So I apologize for that.
I think that this was not Mr. Anastasio's fault, but mine.
No worries.
And again, Mr. Chair, as these letters come in, QV&A says that they oppose.
i then proffer that could you please let me know who actually voted and they say well we don't
actually take into account the the residents we're going to get and then when we get mr rip yeah so
then i have to be able to present the residents and and that's all i mean that's all about that
excuse me if i can just add one more thing um applicants often submit
letters, whatever documents that come in from the RCOs after the five-day deadline. And because
they have no control over when they obtain those documents, we do accept them.
Thank you. And the initial application did, in fact, include all required documents. If there
are supporting documents afterwards, I submit them right away. These, of course, were done
at the last minute because QVNA decided to send a letter of opposition that's apparently based on
no actual tally of the folks who actually attended the meeting, which is why it had to
send supporting documents, if that makes sense. I hope it does.
It does not. And this rent roll, was that submitted five days before? Because I didn't
see that either no uh no we're actually gonna it's not a rent roll uh but it is a pro forma
to show that this is the least uh uh you know in uh minimum
variance that my client can you know perform and by the way and yes or no was that submitted five
days before yes or no no because it wasn't prepared mr chairman mr chairman i know mr
bonnie represents a tertiary rco in this whole thing not a primary not even secondary
uh but you know a uh an outlander outliner uh rco and that's fine i respect his input and his uh
you know his you know his his you know his stuff however Mr. Mr. Bonney represents
Society Hill Civic Association which this property does not sit in the you know in the area of
society hill civic association however if he is about to oppose this on the record i must say
he represents the one society hill resident who lives the closest to this property right
and that one society hill resident who lives closest to this property happens to live adjacent
just north of the subject property on front street i don't understand what you're saying
okay there's a there's a uh a property owner adjacent to our let me let me let me let me do
the let's let me pardon the interruption again mr bobby are you representing the side hill civic
or an individual who resides in society hill within the boundaries of ideal civic the former
I'm not representing any individual. I'm representing the organization. I don't know
I'm representing the organization. I don't know what Vern is talking about.
what Vern is talking about. Well, I'm asking the question. So
Well, I'm asking the question, so we can move on from there.
Thank you, and I'll move on.
The proposal for this property from a Society Hill resident prior to this one was a 120-foot tower hotel on the very same corner.
More than twice the height and size of what we're proposing.
So all I'm suggesting is if Society Hill Civic Association is going to get involved in this particular matter,
then they need to make sure they understand that a Society Hill resident who owns this property right here on my cursor
does not live here but owns the property and would be a member of society hill civic association
was in fact proposing a hotel that was twice the size of what my client mr wiener was proposing
so mr chairman you can't be tolerating this nonsense um he is telling are you i mean
And because somebody in our neighborhood proposed something, that somehow our neighborhood association does not have the wherewithal to participate in this hearing on our own two feet?
i think what he's saying is that the near neighbor uh may not be uh happy with this
proposal because whoever that near neighbor is had a uh a business plan in place that may not
have gone the way he would have liked and how is that and how is that relevant well i he's just
pointing it out that maybe that's the only reason he's opposed to it well first maybe i don't know
we'll see if that if that if that individual is it calls in we'll we'll have those questions for
that individual so if we can move on uh with the presentation mr anastasia because i'd like to get
to the architect if we could uh great idea thank you mr chair i just i mean this was just for the
record that if Society Hill Civic Association, which is, you know, kind of a far from the
actual development, is going to weigh in on this, that they need to make sure that they understand,
and I know they've seen this before, and you understand that a Society Hill neighbor who's
actually the adjacent property owner was proposing a proposal that was twice the size
of what we're proposing that's all it was over 110 okay i think you made that point
mr chair for the record i first saw this when miss zuletta sent me mr anastasia's exhibits
i've never seen this i don't think he's suggesting that you saw it i think he's making a point that
the next door neighbor uh may have it may have a axe to grind who knows i'm not going to get into
the cat fight we're not going to get into a cat fight we're just going to with that i'm going to
ask you have a proposal in front of us and we're going to go through that and then mr bonnie you'll
have an opportunity and i appreciate that and with that i'm going to ask mr villa to weigh in if he
can be uh uh promoted as a panelist he can walk you through the proposal which you know again we
believe the RCO who's in charge of, you know, the coordinating RCO believes, and a large majority
of the QVNA residents believe, is really good for this spot. Mr. Miller is coming in now.
I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, this is the court reporter. Would it be appropriate for me to ask
for just a short break? Yep, we'll be back at 4.30. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Kelly return yes I have chair thank you very much okay you're ready to go right okay
All right. I think, Vern, the last thing I mentioned was, could we move along and get to your architect?
All right. I think Vern, last thing I mentioned was, could we move along?
Do you have anything to add before you get your architect on?
Vern, you're muted.
You're still muted.
mr bonnie mr anastasio you could both unmute yourself i've muted you so that nothing would
be on the record during the break my apologies for being muted i'm i'm fine uh with that uh
right now i'd just like to be able to share my screen so that the architect can go through the
project again i've already shown you the uh rco support i think you i think you see that yes we've
seen that yes okay and i'm gonna stop i'm gonna actually what i'd like to do is just go to the
plans so our architect can get to uh do what he needs to do and he's available chair you can swear
him in hey rich uh please identify yourself spell your full name and i'll swear you in
Richard Villa, V-I-L-L-A, Ambit Architecture, 412 South 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19147.
And do you swear for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you, Mr. Anastasio.
Thank you.
Rich, you understand that we've gone from 18 units to 13 units, is that correct?
That is correct.
Reduced some of the open air and rear yard depth to the best that we could?
Yes, it was from 95% to 91.5%.
Very good.
And maximum height has gone down as well.
Is that right?
From 65 feet 9 inches to 60 feet 9 inches.
Awesome.
So I'm going to scroll just because it's easier, I think, unless you decide otherwise.
i'll scroll through the through the plans and then you could let us know uh what our client's
vision is for an anchor and you know an iconic building at front and south go ahead sure uh the
proposal again is for a 13 unit 60 foot nine inch tall building with uh around an 1800 square foot
commercial space. Actually, Vern, if you go to the next page.
Tell me when to stop.
Just at the bottom
where the floor plan is
at the bottom. Right here?
Page two. No, keep going. Right there.
That's fine right there.
An 1,840 square... Back up one.
Right there.
That's fine.
We're showing an 1,840 square foot
commercial space on the ground floor. To the west is a residential entrance. There is interior
garbage, so trash is fully inside the building on the ground floor, accessed through the rear yard.
There are two stairs and an elevator. The elevator is only for residential, not for any
commercial tenants to go to the top floor, so it's solely for residential use. In the basement,
there are utilities. There is some more interior commercial space, including a walk-in area.
And then on the west side, there is residential storage for the tenants and bike storage, or Class 1A bike parking, I should say.
In the commercial space along Front Street and along South Street, there is a five-foot bump-out, which the existing bump-out on Downey's is six feet.
We were coming in five feet, and the existing bump-out on Downey's goes farther on both sides.
We were reducing that, and then we were rounding them off first, sort of filleting them on the ends.
And then the commercial entrance is on South Street on the corner, which you could see in the floor plan.
Go to the next page.
There are nine roughly 700 square foot one bedrooms on floors two, three, and four, and
that's what you're seeing there.
So there's a front unit that looks out to the river or to front street.
There is a unit that's solely on south street, and then there's a unit that looks west, and
those units have decks on them on the back side.
There would be interior decks, as you can see in the second floor plan on the front
street unit, but those decks do not protrude out beyond the street line.
One more, one more Vern, one more right there. There are four roughly 1100 square
foot two bedrooms right here that Vern is showing.
All the units have interior HVAC, hot water heaters, and washers and dryers.
That's the roof deck, it is set back five feet on three sides, and the HVAC condenser
that's the roof deck
units and mechanicals are set to the northern side.
These are some studies that we did that show it at the summer solstice and the winter solstice.
In the summer, you know, there is slightly more shade than is there now, the existing
Downey's building is 45 feet tall, and the 45 feet of the building occupies the eastern
half. It is about 38 to 40 feet to the western side. But that existing Downey's building
does cover 100% of the site. And then in the winter, we do cast more shadows because we
are taller than what's there now. Keep going. Just keep going down, Mer. These are the building
elevations. Let's go to the next page with the brick just shown which will be
a couple more pages. Right there. The one yeah up, back up, back up to the page
showing the brick burn. Right there. We're using a like a dark deep red brick
from Glengarry. It's actually used a lot in town. It is very reminiscent of the St. Stanislaus
school, former school at Third and Fitzwater, which is the inset photo just under the bricks.
And then we are using what's called shadow. It's a cast stone, and that would be the horizontal
lines between the windows on the building. Then there would be a bent metal cornice that wraps
the top of the building, and then there is a pent on the front street side and a pent on the west
side and within the pent it would say the surveyor's building which pays a small amount
of homage to the fact that the corner of south and front is where the mason dixon survey began
so the server the mason dixon line starts there which a lot of people don't know even though there
is a historical marker we have agreed in the last meeting to uh put as much brick as we can on the
northern side of the building which is shown in the lower right as gray uh cement board we would
do more brick there um and uh if you go to the next uh yeah go to the next page we also put it
here too as well right uh rick uh that yes yes that's what i was getting to uh that's the western
elevation um it was priorly in the earlier renditions it was cement board but we did extend
the brick all the way over and then shrunk that elevation by adding decks on the northern side
but then we did keep the pent uh as you see it on the west side on the south street side we have a
residential entry with an arched uh fillet opening at the top uh you're almost there burn uh yeah
yeah yeah you don't necessarily need to zoom in but i can't get right there uh i'm a little behind
on you uh so that's the residential entry it would be uh there would be no doorman but it would be
digital doorman with a buzz in system. And then if you go back, back two more pages, I guess.
Right there. Right there's fine. This shows it in, you know, we're using a nice red brick. We're
using, we're putting muttons in the windows. We're actually making a really nice
uh uh sort of square detail of the windows at the base in the commercial space
um and uh there it's actually the the metal cornice at the top uh is in in sort of keeping
with the way saint stanislaus is um with its pen roofs um and then some plantings on the roof as
well. I'm going to show you the existing conditions, if you don't mind.
This is where we have been for far too many years.
Not only I and many of the folks who are here today know this.
I'm sure the chairman knows this as well.
This is where we are.
More existing block.
So there's a streetscape.
There's a proof of posting.
Vern, could you go back to that, pardon to interrupt,
could you go back to that first photo
that's showing the front view on Front Street?
Right, I think right there.
Thank you.
um i want to that's it right there uh mr villa two questions did i hear you say that the existing
height of the at its highest point of the the building in question is 48 feet no no downies
is but the existing building is the existing building down is 45 feet to the p actually has
a sort of a low pier middle roof it's 44 feet to the edge of the cornice on downies would you
happen to know what the height of the building is two over from the downy project that one right to
the north i don't know what the height of the of the ridge of that roof is but um uh i have in my
notes that the neighboring cornice uh on four and on 528 or sorry 524 which is the building next to us
is 33 feet to the dentals in the cornice so well that's here but over here that's not the
neighboring building yeah i'm saying i i there's really no way for me to get that height all right
just curious all right mr chairman mr chairman mr chairman a good guess would be 30 a good guess
would be 38 feet probably probably a little bit taller a little bit taller i would think
based on the one in the middle yeah this seems this seems to be more 38 feet with a dormer
uh i think this might be closer to but all right we don't know we don't know okay
and at ceiling heights of the the residential units mr villa uh they are just under nine feet
yeah and the ceiling height of the restaurant it is uh just under 12 feet
and we're taller in the previous scheme we brought them down to minimum heights
so and mr chairman as you know and i'm sure the board knows any viable commercial space
if it's under 12 feet tall it's going to be really difficult to get some i understand i i just want
clarification that's all right and residential uh you know typically as you know i think the board
knows nine feet is like a minimum usually yeah and these are all under nine feet tall understood
thank you thank i appreciate that thank you before i go any further anyone any board members have any
questions for the architect while we're going through this no no all right um i want to bring
my uh client on if if uh if that's okay that's fine thank you mr wiener
if you could please raise your hand mr weiner please spell your full name and i'll swear you
in max weiner m-a-x-w-e-i-n-e-r do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do thank you mr anastasio thank you mr chairman uh mr weiner did you hear my
presentation today by the board uh to the board yes i did it was it true and accurate to the best
your knowledge yes it was and will you adopt it as your own testimony yes i will i want to object
to the i want to object to the incorporation by reference i don't stipulate to that i believe that
the zoning code says you can only do that with stipulation and i am not stipulating for that
what was the uh objection i i don't even know what he's talking about at this point
Mr. Bonny, I didn't hear what you said.
I believe under the zoning code, attorneys are not allowed to present the case and then just have the client adopt it all by reference, unless all parties agree and stipulate to that.
I'm totally confused. Every case I've heard in the last four and a half years, the attorney asked the client, did they adopt their testimony?
Excuse me, this is Sharon, and you accept it because I have researched this issue, and the court has held that a client may adopt the attorney's representations.
Even if not everyone else agrees?
Well, I think our zoning code says differently.
I think that if it were simply the attorney without his client adopting it, that would be a different matter.
so if i have questions if i have cross-examination questions who do i cross-examine the attorney or
the whip or the client you can of course the the client is here he is here to adopt
the testimony you can cross-examine him if you'd like have questions thank you then you can sure
sure thank you thank you all right miss i'm sorry for mr anastasio did we come i know we swore him
thank you thank you all right miss i'm sorry for mr anastasio did we
completely
in mr wiener in and he adopted your testimony anything else i'll be real quick mr chair i just
want to um you've uh adopted my testimony you you heard it to be true and correct and i just want
to bring up this exhibit uh of your pro forma uh max can you tell me why you believe that this
This proposal that we are proposing currently is the minimum relief that we need to make this project viable.
And I'm going to put the performer up, which I will insert for evidence, so that the board understands that in order to make what has been empty forever, what's been vacant forever on a very dead street,
what you can do to make this viable, and is this the minimum amount of relief you need to make it
viable? Please explain. So with the help and direction of Michael Harris, who I met probably
five or six years ago, he approached me. We talked and said, you know, what do you want to do with
this corner? And I said, well, what do you think we should do here? And having input from him and
from the neighborhood they wanted to build something that was not just an ordinary four
story seven unit building but they wanted something that was going to activate the corner
and make it better and make something that could support a restaurant below
not something like downies but something nice high end so this is what we came up with you know
building that's an expensive land it's good land it's expensive to build right now if we build
seven units um the money just doesn't seem to work um but it's not that it's more about building
something on that corner that makes it special that brings the neighborhood back to life that
that corner's been dead for a long long time none of us want to see it stay like that um so i'd like
to build something up and if is it your uh understanding that to to build anything less
with respect to the number of units they would be lower rents more transient and a detriment to the
community is that right that's correct okay and i'm going to uh mr chairman i'm going to uh insert
this as well as all my exhibits in my packet into evidence with the testimony this evening so thank
you thank you and just uh again for the uh the board's clarification when mr weiner referenced
uh mike uh harris he was referring to the executive director of the south street head
house district that's right who's already come out uh in full support yeah we got that earlier
i just wanted to remind the board of who was thank you okay uh does the board have any questions for
mr anastasio mr villa or mr wiener no mr chair i have no so you're saying that if you lower the
height it'll attract transient people no no my client's saying if we lower the height
we have to lower the number of units and if we lower the number of units they are no longer
going to be a viable project to make sure that this building completely with the commercial space
viable. And by the way, the fact of the matter is that this property is uniquely situated on the
corner of front and south with the view of the Delaware River. To not provide a product that
allows folks who live there to enjoy that view is akin to developmental malpractice because
this is a wonderful spot for folks to enjoy the vista of the Delaware River and he believes that
that's based on everything that we've seen this is where people would like to live but stay we
could make a shorter building with smaller units that are more transient and actually take away
from the value of the immediate community what we're looking for is larger units most of the
many of them are two bedroom um where folks stay long term so they so that they can actually enjoy
living on the waterfront for the most part so that's that's his position excuse me this is
sharon again um i just wanted to be sure since mr bonnie asked the question about cross-examination
has if has he been able to cross-examine
Has he been able to cross-examine Mr. Anastasia's client
and would he like to?
Thank you.
We haven't moved on to that yet, but we will ask.
I apologize.
No problem.
Mr. Anastasia, if you're finished,
we'll move on to Mr. Bonny.
I am definitely finished with my client.
Thank you.
Mr. Bonny.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Before I proceed, I want to really urge you,
Mr. Chairman, to elevate Mr. Piven to the panel. He is the zoning chair for Queen Village,
and it is in their footprint. Mr. Boddy, I thought I explained myself earlier,
he will be elevated. We're going to ask if anyone has anything, anyone would like to
have any questions regarding this case, and he will be recognized.
okay i just feel it's a little unbalanced that way then that's how we always do it
we always do all right all right i had i want uh let's i'll move forward as instructed thank you
um mr wiener is it is that right that's correct thank you um have you ever uh developed new
construction you know from the of this sort of you know entire entirely new building i object
there's no relevance to that he's not he's not a builder he he's a property owner that's right
okay that's what i was trying to establish um thank you um uh could i see um verne the
page 70 which is on your letterhead yes sir thank you okay can you just hold for a moment
i just want to look at this to maybe ask a question or two sure okay um uh mr weiner the um
about seven bullets down it says letter of support from the coordinating rco
And it says that Councilman Squilla believes the headhouse district should be the leading voice on zoning projects in this location.
Is that your understanding, that Councilman Squilla thinks that the district should be the leading voice on zoning projects at this location?
I object. My client doesn't know how this works. I do.
If a district council person acknowledges one organization to be the coordinating RCO, they, in fact, are the keeper of the community as respect to that.
My client doesn't understand politics.
Which is standard practice, Mr. Bonney.
Yeah. So my understanding of the code and the process in this city of Philadelphia is that the council person can designate the coordinating RCO and that that coordinating RCO has the obligation to arrange for and host the meeting with the community.
but that the participating RCOs which are the other RCOs of course can participate and that
the mere designation of an RCO as a coordinating RCO does not in and of by itself grant that
coordinating RCO with any more strength or vigor or leadership other than setting up that meeting
and hosting that meeting and being the coordinator if if that is different then i think um you know
this board needs to needs to say that it's not my understanding that it's anything different than
that mr chair there's a reason why it's generally acknowledged that the coordinating rco although
they don't have they're not the be-all to everything they preference is given to them
to conduct the meetings and give its support or non-support.
That doesn't exclude the other RCOs from having taken a position.
I mean, Mr. Bondi, you've been dealing with this stuff a long time.
I'm not sure where you're going with this line of questioning.
The RCO, the building sits on front and south.
This building is within the boundaries of the South Street Head House District.
I can't imagine it saying, no disrespect to my friends in Society Hill, that they would be the coordinating RCO.
No, no. I'm not suggesting anybody else should be the coordinating RCO, although it may be the case.
In fact, my understanding is that Councilman Squilla usually says that for residential projects on South,
that Queen Village
Queen Village is the coordinating RCO. I'm not aware of that. There's no evidence of that.
is the coordinating RCO.
I'm not aware of that.
I'm not aware.
I don't, I don't, Mr. Anastasia, let me go, please. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bonnie, I'm not aware of that for the four and a half plus years I've been here.
You might be right, but I don't ever recall that statement being made by Councilman Squill.
I'll move on. Please do. The next bullet, Mr. Weiner,
Did you have input into preparing this next bullet?
Primary hardship is the 100 block of South Street itself.
Mr. Chairman, I object.
The job of his attorney, my client's attorney, is to put together legal arguments pursuant to hardship.
My client is not burdened with that.
So now there's some insolent on between a rock and a hard place.
i have facts being put into evidence by an attorney and he's prohibiting the client from
from being cross-examined i don't think he's prohibiting him she said he's just stating a
fact look mr weiner has testified that he has not done any major development he has an architect
he has an attorney i'm sure he conferred with them on the options for this property what will
make sense economically and and that's how it's done you do it with your clients
mr wiener mr wiener do you have knowledge of other existing open restaurants on this
side of the block that you're i object what the relevance of that question what and by the way
the disrespect to the chair for not even answering the chairman's question to mr body thank you but
I'll handle it. Thank you. What relevance is it that there may be another restaurant or
restaurants on that block that are currently operating? Are you suggesting that we don't
need any more restaurants on that block? No, I'm suggesting that the evidence being put into the
record here is that there are vacancies, nail salon, check cashing, trinket store, and then
garages and that uh it's pretty clear to me and i think to the chairman that there are other
businesses on that block um and that uh indeed there's a wedding gown store that i believe is
in operation and i am asking i'm trying to get that into the record and if verne is allowed to
cherry pick i'm allowed to fill in the other cherries sounds like you're cherry picking to me
with all due respect but continue i i don't i don't understand the line of questioning
my client is not responsible for what i present to this board secondly okay okay okay secondly
to be clear what i said was hold on vernon vernon vernon please hold i'm sorry i'm sorry yes can i
interrupt. Mr. Bonny, it is common for protestants to point to surrounding conditions, surrounding
uses. Those are a matter of public record. They can be found in the zoning files, the
atlas files. So if you would like to identify other businesses in the immediate area, I
don't think there's anything prohibiting you from doing that it wouldn't necessarily have to be from
this witness you can identify them yourself and if i heard of mr anastasio's opening statements
somewhere in the opening statement that mr weiner is basically accommodating the desire of the south
street head house district and some of the near neighbors to activate that first floor as a
restaurant. That I assume, I shouldn't assume, but that may not have been Mr. Wiener's first
intention. Well, I could speak to that. I don't think that's actually accurate. I don't think
what Mr. Anastasia conveyed was accurate, but let's, let's go to the next page, please.
Could I see the second page of your letterhead, please?
Vern, yeah.
Okay, I don't think I have any other questions on that page.
I guess I'll just ask Mr. Wiener, is he aware of any hardship other than the arguments put forth so far?
um put forth so far seems that the neighborhood has a hardship that it's missing an anchor tenant
for a nice restaurant and people to live near that restaurant and patronize that restaurant
so just trying to add the restaurant and some more nice people anything else
that's it thank you mr anastasio you're muted
it. I have no further questions for this witness. Thank you. Thank you. Who else do you have,
Mr. Bonney? When you get Mr. Piven on? Well, yeah, but I didn't know it was our turn.
I believe Mr. Anastasio, I thought, have we completed the testimony with your architect?
yeah max is uh max and i believe uh rich has given everything rich have you given everything
you needed to give to the board yes i have yeah again you know mr wiener should not be
taxed with having to identify a hardship we've been through that we've been through that well
mr chair i have some documents to present but i would you know suggest that mr piven should go
first and that I could go second. That's fine. Mr. Piven, please identify yourself with the record,
spell your name, and I'll swear you in.
Chair, he's coming in now as a panel. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, respectfully, I need to, of course, for the record, object to anything Mr. Piven says
with respect to the position of QVNA.
They did not follow the rules
and or regulations of the code.
You can ask Mr. Piven that question
as to why that material is not submitted to you.
Thank you.
Once he gets on.
They are coordinating RCO in close proximity.
And I think it's fair that Mr. Piven
get the opportunity to testify.
I agree, sir.
But they did not count the votes of the people
who are in the room.
I'm going to ask that question.
You'll ask that question.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Piven out there.
Sir, you can unmute yourself.
Unmute.
Peter, please spell your last name
and I'll swear you in.
My last name is spelled P as in Peter,
I, V as in Victor, E, N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Thank you. Mr. Piven, please begin. I am the chair of the Queen Village Neighbors Association
Zoning Committee. We are delegated with responsibility to address all but a few
zoning matters that come before Queen Village Neighbors Association. We were a designated,
we are a designated RCO with South Street Head House. They were designated coordinating.
They and we understood that we were equal in authority and responsibility. You can ask Mike
Harris that. I am sure he will agree. In fact, we hosted the community meeting on October 13th,
And we control that meeting. As to Mr. Anastasio's very eloquent presentation today, I don't hope to be nearly as eloquent as he is, but I think I do intend and expect to be honest and not to withhold information as he did.
I'll reiterate
something that he said
that we did not take a vote
we have learned
that taking a vote is
not in the best interest of the community
because the meeting gets stacked
and we expressed
at the beginning something
that Mr. D'Anastasio
quoted we make our
decisions based on
our decisions
decisions based on our experience in dealing with these things and what is in the best
interest of the neighborhood. We overlap responsibility for South Street. We overlap
it with South Street Head House. That's why we are both RCOs. However, they are a business
district, not a neighborhood association. Our interest is the entire community, particularly
including residences, because there are more of that than anything else. Now I would like to
Now I would like to advise you all something that you probably read, at least I hope you read, why we are hearing this project in the first place.
advise you all something that you
It is because the applicant asked for variances, and they were refused.
And I would like to tell you what those variances are requested and why, because we haven't heard that yet today.
The proposed use is refused for the following. Maximum multifamily household living units, seven. What they proposed were 18, and they came down to 13, thinking they were doing us a favor.
The proposed zoning is refused also for the following, and I'll give you the most important. Maximum height in feet, 38. Proposed, 65.75. Again, they felt they were doing someone a favor by coming down to 60 feet and three quarters, not 38 feet.
So they are against the code that is required in this district.
When the code, the RM1, was enacted, it was enacted for a reason.
And although I am not one of the people that was influential in that enactment, there are people who appeared that said they were involved and it is the appropriate code for the district.
I don't recall Mr. Anastasio mentioning that. So yes, they lowered the height from 65 to 60 feet, and that presented, when complete, a height that was 85% beyond what was allowed, right?
The height exceeded by 65%, excuse me, and the number of units presented exceeded by 85%.
So I think I will leave that.
That is fact, folks, fact.
It's not opinion.
The opinion we've heard is that this is going to present, this project as designed, will
present a gateway and an anchor.
If you look up the definition of gateway as I did, you will find this is not a gateway.
An anchor is ill-defined. Will it bring more people to the neighborhood? I hope it does.
We are as anxious for South Street to be successful as the business district is. We want a complete
neighborhood and our record in helping the neighborhood achieve it is exemplary. I think,
I think I'm going to leave it at that. The zoning is there for a reason. These people are,
they knew what they were buying when they bought it. And so their hardship is not the result of
what they bought. It is the result. They bought it hoping, I guess, that they could get the zoning
changed. We in the business, and that's the attorneys and the realtors and the neighborhood
people, we know what the other word for that is. It's spot zoning. Thank you for your attention.
Piven, would you agree, your statement was, we were anxious, we'd like to see more people.
Wouldn't you agree that a higher number of units would actually help increase the number of people
who will be, you know, walking and going back and forth from this apartment building and the
restaurant? Wouldn't that achieve the goal that you said you'd like to see achieved?
It might be inevitable, but I suppose you could build it to 100 feet and that might provide a
few more. We're not going to 100. I understand where you want to go. The question is whether
it's appropriate to do that. There were neighbors in the audience that were against this proposal,
primarily for reasons of height and mass. There were people in the neighborhood that were for it,
many of them simply to replace a decrepit building. No one can fault that. I won't fault that.
But to overbuild the site to the detriment of the neighborhood for perfectly valid reasons with
respect to height limitations and density limitations, that's just a step too far.
Understood. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Piven?
Any questions for Mr. Piven?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Byrne, you're muted.
No questions.
Mr. Anastasio, you need to unmute yourself.
Byrne?
let me ask is mr weiner still on
okay i'm sorry uh mr chairman i i think i was i was i was unmuted by the i think the
administrator but thank you i had a question for mr weiner uh how long have you owned this property
uh it's a loaded question but i believe it was 2017 um and just to address mr piven i did not
buy this property we were actually the bank we loaned money to mr centipante in 2012 and then
after a long long stint with him we finally foreclosed um so it's not that i bought this
property to rezone it and build something massive here it's that i'm trying to fix a problem that i
inherited. And I do have a question for Mr. Piven, Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind. Yep, Mr. Piven,
that's why I'm here. Thank you, Peter. Thank you so much. And again, thank you for hosting us
the other evening. On behalf of my client and the architect, I do appreciate your hospitality
and the way in which you ran your meeting.
Sir, are you aware of the comments that I presented to the board today
of the vast majority of the Queen Village Neighbors Association members
who support the redevelopment of this site?
I will acknowledge that there were people in the audience that expressed support.
I will not acknowledge that it was the vast majority.
Okay, that's very good.
If you didn't care to count, you didn't care to count.
That's fine.
But could we put on the record that you and your board decided to make a decision irrespective of the very many expressions of support to redevelop this particular parcel?
Is that right?
No, you may not do that.
That is not why we did it.
We took all of the comments into account. We always face the fact that we are going to have neighbors for and neighbors against. And we exercise our good judgment. We are professional on that committee. So it is not material that there were more people making supportive comments than negative comments. I don't know how many there were.
okay so you never really actually took a vote you've said that before mr anastasio i just
want peter i just want to make sure we understand for the right for the record and i don't it's
not disparaging i just want to make sure we have it for the record again i respect everything you
do uh having known qvna for a very long time and your process you never really took a vote
on how the immediate neighbors would feel
about the redevelopment of this particular parcel.
Is that right?
Mr. Anastasia, why are you grilling me?
You presented that.
I'm just asking you, sir.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Just to ask you a question.
This is Tanya, the administrator.
Can you please just answer the questions
so we can move on?
It's 5.15.
Question again, please.
Vernon, you're still muted. Vernon, you're muted.
Mr. Anastasio, he has confirmed several times that they did not take a vote.
And the reasons why. Vernon, you're still muted.
Vernon, you're muted.
Could anyone hear me? I can hear you. Yeah, I can hear you.
I was unable to unmute myself, but now I am, and I thank the administrator for that.
Just for the record, you did not take a poll or a tally of the vote as to who supported
the redevelopment of this revised plan as opposed to who did not.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
Thank you.
And that's all I have, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Peter.
Thank you, Peter.
I'm ready.
Mr. Bonney?
I'm ready if Vern can relinquish control of the screen please. Sure.
I'm ready.
If Vern can relinquish control of the screen, please.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, I'll be as brief as possible. This is our letter that you've seen.
This, whoops, I think we have, let's see here.
This is our form. This is our footprint. And as you can see, the property I've tried to circle in green touches our footprint. It's the first property next to our footprint.
We have just a context photo put together by our association that shows the sidewalk dimensions with the extension bump outs that I think are still there from Downey's.
As the chairman may know, it gets awfully narrow walking on that particular stretch, especially with the streetlights and whatnot.
I thought I heard Mr. Anastasia or the architects say they were reducing that, they were pulling it back in closer, if I heard that correctly.
I think the length, but the record will be what it is.
I think so. I just want to show also the board on the bottom of the screen, the block. This is the north side of the first block of South Street.
And as you can see, all of the, it looks to me, you can draw your own conclusions, but all of the buildings on the north side of this block of South Street seem to be three stories.
Maybe there's one with four stories at the other corner, but it is what it is, and I think the photo sort of speaks for itself, and so I'll let it speak for itself.
I think you also know, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the board chair and other members of the board know that there's, I think, a thriving Pietro's pizza restaurant on that block.
There's a Thai food restaurant on that block that does pretty well.
And then here, I'm going to ask you to ignore the bottom drawings because those were before the applicant took off five feet.
So the bottom ones aren't really accurate in that they're five, five and a half, five feet, maybe five and change too high.
But the top ones, including, let's say, the top middle one that shows existing buildings from the east.
So that is the, you know, more of the block of Front Street, which is the context for this property.
To the extent that Mr. Anastasio made a argument that this property is zoned incorrectly, I don't think there's any evidence to that.
This is the City of Philadelphia's central district plan talking about the need to rezone a lot of properties in Center City, but not this stretch.
In fact, just along South Street, there is right here, across the street, some rezoning might be appropriate to align the uses to the existing land use.
So I think it's fair to say that if the city of Philadelphia thought that this block of South Street on the north side should be rezoned, they would have flagged it in this district plan.
Finally, well, not finally, but next, I want to say if we're looking for a gateway to this end of South Street, we have a gateway, literally, to this end of South Street.
I don't think people coming across this bridge, which there's going to be a lot of people coming in the future across this bridge from the river to South Street are not going to know which street South Street is.
And just very quickly, I want to show that on this particular block, there's a wedding gown store that is currently being renovated and redeveloped with two stories above the first floor retail.
This is the buy right approved plans from the city Atlas materials showing that they are 38 feet high at the rooftop right.
materials showing that they are 38 feet high at the rooftop right here. Next, I'm going to show
just very briefly Bridget Foy's, which is exactly one block away, which is 38 feet high at the
cornice line. And then there's a parapet, I'm sorry, 30, well, let's take a quick look.
32 feet to the cornice line, 39 feet to the parapet, to the top of the roof, 43 feet.
This is also, by the way, by the same architect that's in front of you today,
ambit architecture. I think that we can all acknowledge that Bridget Foy's, which with its,
this indicates three dwelling units, three dwelling units above the restaurant,
is a going concern. And that's, I guess, just in closing, I'd say there's been zero hardship
demonstrated. To say that you can't make the numbers work on this zoning classification
is not a hardship. That's nothing unique to this property. That would be attributable. That argument
would also go to any of the zoning classifications on this block and in this area. That is a
disagreement. That is a complaint about the law. That is not a complaint about the property. That
is a complaint about the law and that complaint does not belong here at the zoning board because
it cannot support a claim of hardship that complaint goes to city council and to the
planning commission and to ask for a rezoning of the property which i would doubt the city of
philadelphia would do but if that discussion is to be had at the planning commission or the city
council we're happy to we're happy to be part of that discussion i'm sure queen village i don't
and speak for them, but they may want to be part of that discussion also. But at the end of the
day, once the old down is demolished, this will be a vacant, perfectly rectangular parcel or
combination of parcels in the city, in central, in center city, Philadelphia. And there's zero
hardship. Zero is a nada, zip, squat, bupkis, the big goose egg. I don't think that a variance
granted in this case, let alone variances for way over the height, way over the number
of units, I don't think that that's a sustainable decision. And I want to thank you for hearing
me out and uh uh i hope you deliberate um and come to the right decision thank you mr chair
madam vice chair thank you everyone okay mr chairman i only have a couple uh items to
counter on that i'll be really quick i promise you don't break your promise
you know i won't carol i never break from mr anastasio since i believe there are other people
waiting to testify. Would you rather hold your comments until they've been heard? Yes, that's
fine. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else would like to testify in this case, please raise your hand.
It's so sweet. We have Naomi, please unmute you. Naomi, please spell your full name and I'll
I'll swear you in.
Ms. Naomi, you need to unmute yourself.
We have Sam, we can move on, Chair, we have Sam.
Move to the next part.
Sam, please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
he's been allowed to speak sir
anyone else out in the audience while we're waiting
we have mike harris i'll allow him to speak yeah mike harris please spell your full name
identify yourself and i'll swear you in um thank you mr chairman um mike harris uh m-i-k-e-h-a-r-r-i-s
uh i figured since my name's been invoked a few times i should at least uh let you know i'm here
yeah just for the record uh tell everybody who you are yes sir yes i'm the executive director
of the south street head house business improvement district you swear a firm to tell the truth the
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir. Please proceed.
Thank you. I just wanted to clarify a couple of things or answer any further questions.
To Mr. Piven's point, I believe I'm looking at the refusal.
The zoning district for this property is CMX1, not RM1.
There is RM1 on the block, but this parcel is a CMX1 zoned lot.
Also, to Mr. Bonnie's point, the wedding shop has closed.
They moved and closed, so they're not a viable business on the block anymore.
The block currently has about eight viable businesses and five vacancies,
so we're sitting at about a 30% vacancy rate on that block.
I just wanted to make that a point of fact.
The third is we have had three as the coordinating RCO, along with QB&A and Society Hill.
We have had three hearings, as articulated in my letter, August 4th, September 9th,
and October 13th. I think all that was detailed in my summary letter. And so we have met three
times and plans have adjusted according to those hearings. So I will leave my testimony at that
since it's getting close to 530. No worries. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Harris?
Just one briefly. Mr. Harris, you do in fact support the granting of this variance. Is that
right the can you hear me uh the uh board of the society south sorry south street head house
district voted unanimously to uh support this as our indicated in our letter and yes i i do support
it i've worked with mr weiner since 2017 i've been through the building multiple times uh after he
acquired it uh you know to get people out of there to secure the building to deal with the building
and um uh yes and and i did want to point out i'm looking at my notes i did want to differentiate
the difference between a gateway and an anchor building um i think that uh to mr bonnie's point
the this would be an anchor building yes the gateway coming across the pedestrian bridge
is a gateway but when you land and start the corridor downies always served as an anchor
building it it was a gateway and it was also a uh you know an entry way to the corridor and
i would and my board feels the same way about this proposal that um with a restaurant there
it is more of a an anchor building than and you know a literal gateway to the district
thank you any further questions mr anastasio none for me sir may i ask a question please
mr bonnie mr harris would you agree with me that for the middle middle community meeting
hosted by your organization that only a few hours notice was given to qvna and i think
no notice given to society hill civic which is why we held the third meeting mr bonnie um
at QB&A's request. We held the official meeting on August 4th, and there was notice given out to
all the affected neighbors. The September 9th meeting was a standing committee meeting of the
South Street Real Estate Committee, and so where we were going to discuss what took place on August
4th, but it is all of our meetings, our public meetings, and as a result of the low turnout for
september 9th we did agree and and request along with you and along with uh queen village to host
a third meeting um to and and i will say cuban a did a great job of getting notices out and getting
60 people there um but uh it was the same plans as presented on september 9th yes but your but
your answer did begin with a yes is that correct yes my answer is it was a public meeting and uh
anybody could uh attend at any our public meetings okay but by the way i'm problem with the word yes
but okay okay yeah thank you by the way mr harris uh are you not aware that uh my office on behalf
of my client engaged the professional mailing company to invite all uh relevant participants
to each and every community meeting is that right we we start our meetings with a confirmation that
uh the applicant has done the appropriate mailings and uh that uh before we begin the rco meeting
that's standard practice for our organization but that wasn't that wasn't done for the second
meeting because let me clarify that was a standing committee meeting that is open to the public
at which we discussed and anyone can join at which we discussed the matter that was discussed on
august 4th so it did not require a separate mailing it was a standing real estate
forth so it did not require a separate mailing it was a standing real estate committee meeting of
the board but anyone from the public can and did join us but it did not require a separate mailing
but the initial meeting sir and the subsequent meeting the qvna all of that was mailed to 100
to folks is that right um well that's the best of your responsibility but that's my understanding
yes that's correct yep okay thank you okay mr bonnie no more questions thank you uh anyone
else to testify in this case thank you mr harris no more here sir thank you planning commission
those other hands went down yes okay planning commission good evening chair peter bernard
for the planning commission this property is indicated for commercial mixed use in the
comprehensive plan we feel the existing cmx1 zoning is out of date and not reflective of
south street which is predominantly cmx2 2.5 and 3 the current zoning dates 1974 the district
plan was adopted in 2013 this proposal supports redevelopment of the waterfront and south street
while serving as a gateway connection between the two via the south street bridge the revised plans
complement the character of the neighborhood and scale of recent approved development
accordingly the planning commission recommends the board approve the variances
fern are there revised plans we do have revised plans that we sent to attorney how many pages
how many pages uh rich rich uh who's the uh architect can tell you how many of the
actual pages are revised i think rich is here mr villa still available
are these new revised plans or revised plans that we've already seen um mr anastasio did
you send this as a separate email to me and is there a um proviso plans form it's been i did i
I emailed you the revised plans, and then I emailed you the proviso form that's signed by Mr. Villa.
The Z1 and Z2, the two first plans, they're all representing what we discussed today with the revisions that were over the first three meetings.
But the first two sheets were the only sheets that were sent to zoning, so Z1 and Z2 would be the appropriate pages.
So two sheets dated today, Rich, 10-19, is that right?
I don't have them, I'd have to look.
Excuse me, this is Sharon, but I have not reviewed these.
I did not, sorry if I missed them,
but I do like to check the proviso plans form
before it's voted on.
So if you can give me just a minute.
If I make sure that the RCLs have the current plans
that are being voted on yeah i mean uh these were the ones presented at our last meeting but
yes we can make sure that you have them but they're dated today you said no they're not
dated today no they're not dated today the proviso form was stated today could we see
the proviso form i'm not even sure what that is it's a form that it's a proviso one at a time
gentleman mr villa the proviso form i emailed to verne and i believe he emailed it to sharon
um i can't pull it up but uh that just transmits the transmits the drawings is that correct that's
correct but it also lists the three differences between the initial refusal and what was in the
last meeting so that would be the lot coverage the height and density
could i ask that the board hold the vote until next week until we can assure ourselves
we're voting it today we're voting it today thank you excuse me i received them at 12 59 today
um the three changes listed are reduction in height from 65 9 to 60
feet 9 inches reduction in density from 18 to 13 unit and reduction in lot coverage from 95 percent
to 91.6 percent. Thank you. Is that three pages, Sharon?
Sorry, the pages, the plan pages are a separate document.
I think it should only be two pages, Sharon.
i'm sorry attorney saletta
i know we're all going with first names ever since we were called out on it
i know we're all going with first names ever since we were called out on it yes um who's
not called out on that well that's a whole other story i don't even want to know two pages two
pages okay thank you all right mi 2021-002851 526 south front street my vote is yes with the
proviso revised plan two pages approved today. Harold Tenere, my vote is yes with proviso.
Yes with proviso. James Snell, yes with proviso. Thomas Holloman, yes with proviso.
Thank you all. I believe that concludes our list of hearings for today.
If anyone has been left out, please raise your hand.
Chair, I'm sorry, but there is one thing that announcement that needs to be made.
If I could just stay on the record, there was a case that was to have been resumed today strictly
for the reading of an RCO letter and the district councilwoman's letter if there was one submitted.
that's mi2020-002205 1413 west pacific street the attorney is leo mulvihill
um mr mulvihill has agreed that this can be done tomorrow i will put it on the 9 30 add-ons list
okay that'll be fine thank you good night everyone good night everyone
tanya anyone any unfinished business no chair we all done okay thank you again everyone
folks make this all happen we appreciate your time
alright have a good night everyone
good night
good night
good night