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