Thank you.
Okay, Chair, we have 43 attendees and we can start when you wish.
Good morning. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's ZBA hearings.
With me is Ismail Shaheed, who will be functioned as our vice chair.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our ZBA hearing supervisor, Lakeisha Dandy.
Before we begin, here's our virtual format. These proceedings are being recorded. By participating,
you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded. The video will be available by contacting
tanyasunkett at phila.gov. For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and
witnesses to identify themselves before testifying. If you're participating by phone,
if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
to want an appearance statement call 267-270-5548 leave your email and the address of the property
in question and finally the question answer box on the screen is not for comments
any comments should be directed to our executive director tanya sunken
so let's look at our continuances that we have for this morning's meeting
Okay, number six, MI 2022, 004-553-9855-89 Busselton Avenue.
That case has been continued.
And number 10, MI 2021, 003-880-610-40 High Street, that case is continued, attorney moving party.
Are there any other requests for continuance on this morning's hearings?
Good morning, Chair. This is Fatina L.
Well, today we have Belinda Doty, excuse me, Belinda, last name ending with a D.
Ma'am, please unmute yourself.
Hi, good morning.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Belinda, B-E-L-I-N-D-A, Doty, D-O-U-G-H-T-Y.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do could you tell me what case um uh wait one second i had to get it up on my system
um as in regards to 1143 west somerset street philadelphia pennsylvania 191
Is that your case?
Okay, so you want to continue your case?
Okay, so case number two, MI 2022, 004-558-1143 West Somerset Street, that case is continued.
Thank you for calling in.
Thank you.
Any other requests for continuances?
yes chair we have daryl black okay
good morning chair good morning could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
yes daryl miller d-a-r-r-y-l-m-i-l-l-e-r right do you swear our phone to tell the truth the whole
truth and nothing but the truth yes i do what case sir 3832 north 18 street let's see here
832. I'll be with you in one minute.
Hillary, what case is that?
I'm trying to find it, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Miller, what is the address again?
3832 North 18th Street.
Was this a case that was heard previously and held for a vote?
Okay, so that is not on our add-on list today.
We're still waiting for letters from the council office and the RCO.
So we will not, so that case will be voted on at another time.
Thank you, Mr. Miller, for pulling in.
We appreciate it.
Are there any other requests for continuance?
Well, Chair, we have Charles Richardson.
good morning mr chair good morning mr richardson just state your name please and spell for the
court reporter charles richardson r-i-c-h-a-r-d-s-o-n you swear our firm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do office of councilwoman cindy bast okay just
checking with 714 east shelton avenue uh understood that the applicant had written to the board a
couple of weeks ago and requested a continuance. I just wanted to make sure that that was the case.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary. I did not see the written request, but I do see the applicant's
hand raised, so I think she's doing that now.
She's been allowed to speak. Carla Pagan, please.
Good morning, board. Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Carla Pagan, C-A-R-L-A, last name Pagan, P-A-G-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you want to request a continuance?
Correct.
Yes, I sent the email request for continuance on January 6th.
Okay, fine.
Okay, okay.
So, number 15, MI 2022, 004-560-714 East Shelton Avenue.
That case is continued.
Thank you for calling in, both of you.
Is there any other requests for continuances?
I see no hands, Chair.
Okay, so we have a few cases that we do not have exhibits.
case number one mi-2022 004-559-634 park avenue
perry bowers is the owner we do not have exhibits for this it's the first listing
i see no handshare so case number one mi 2022 004 559 634 park lane this case is continue it was
the first listing. Number nine. MI 2022 001 110 6619 Musgrave Avenue. Ahi Magarod is the owner.
No exhibits. Second listing. I see no handshare. So MI 2022 001 110 6619
2619 Musgrave Street.
This case is continued.
Mark must be tried.
Number 17.
Wait a minute.
Number 17.
MI 2022
004-563
2005-07
East Sargent Street.
John Santiago is the owner.
No exhibits first listing.
i see no handshare so mi 2022 004 563 2005 07 east sergeant street that case is continued
in case number 18 mi 2022 004 588 6336 algard street collins shawcraft is the owner
no exhibits first listing chair we have the owner okay sir please unmute yourself
justin thank you good morning everyone good morning could you state your name is spelled
please for the court reporter hello yes thank you my name is colin shawcross that's c-o-l-i-n
s-h-a-w-c-r-o-s-s all right do you swear or affirm
S-H-A-W-C-R-O-S-S.
All right.
Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Absolutely.
All right.
So this is the first listing.
We do not have the exhibit, sir.
Oh, that must have got lost on the emails with me.
I did forward over.
I had my local township send over emails, and I also just sent them to in supporting my variants.
It was really just to put a small fence up so my dog and my neighbor's dogs wouldn't fight,
and it would just be peace for the neighbors and neighborhood.
So I think what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to call the office, and we're going to continue the case because we don't have the exhibits we need, right?
Call the office.
They will help you figure out what you need for the next listing, okay?
You'll be notified of the next listing, all right?
I'll get an email, or I'll get actual mail.
There will be an email, but, sir, please reach out to our office.
You'll receive an e-bill, but they prefer if you could call the office and they'll make arrangements for you, okay?
So MI 2022-004-588-6336 Algard Street, this case is continued.
We're going to go to our add-on list.
M.I. 2022-003-793-1003 West Dolphin Street, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Thomas Holloman, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
James.
ishmael shaheed my vote is yes to reconsideration
all right thank thank you uh we're going to start with number seven on our regular list
uh hillary emerson is recusing herself ryan mcsherry will be filling in as it filling in
as our attorney. MI-2022-001-087-103 Widener Street. Douglas Stern is the attorney.
We do not have an RCO letter as of yet.
Mr. Stern
I'm sorry, can the board hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Yes, Douglas Stern
D-O-U-G-L-A-S
S-T-E-R-N
for the applicant
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Do you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
Caitlin Doe.
She's the owner.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed all the exhibits that were required to proceed with this case five days in advance to this hearing?
Thank you. You can proceed and share your screen.
Okay. All right. Let me get to...
Okay. Can you see these exhibits?
We can. You're in.
Yeah. All right. So this is an application for...
It's a single family dwelling house. We want to make it a duplex.
It's 103 Widener Street. That's the corner of Widener and Front Street. It has two entrances.
So I just want to go over some of the documents here. So it's the refusal, the deed,
proof that the taxes were paid. Let me see if I can get the pictures.
Wait a second. I'm having an issue getting my other file open. It was open.
Okay. So here are the pictures. Can you see them?
Yes, we do.
that's not sure all right so here's a view you can see the side
This is the side entrance. This is on Front Street. This is where if it was a duplex,
this is the side entrance this is on front street this is where if it was a
you would enter through the side. Another view with the side, with the rear alley,
because it comes in by the rear alley. Another view, just looking up Front Street to the corner
where it intersects with Widener. Same picture. All right, now this is the main entrance to
Widener. See it's a twin. That would be the other entrance for the first floor. The other entrance
I showed before in front would be for the second. Just another picture of Widener Street showing it
intersecting with Front Street and it's the corner property. Just another picture of the front.
Okay so those are the pictures. There's a couple inside pictures that it's still
vacant right now and subject to further renovations if this was approved.
and it's just a typical row home um let's see
inside pictures um that's really um it unless you need to have any other questions you need
to see any other things it's just basically a two-story dwelling and the owner has it it's
always been rented out and she just wants to convert it to a duplex at this point
is it a current duplex no it's it's a single family dwelling it's just the way it's set up
you can have two entrances so it's just been rented out as a single
are there other multi-family units in the area i'm not really too sure about that um
most of them are just twins around here there are some but it's a corner property that's sort of
But like I said, Unique has the two entrances, one on the side, one on the front.
All right.
Do you want to have your testimony adopted by your client?
I'm asking that.
Well, she should be here, but I'm asking that, yeah, you adopted.
And every question and answer I gave today would be the same that she would say.
Your office of the court will take it.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Dylan Mahoney.
Hi, Mr. Mahoney.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
It's Dylan Mahoney, spelled D-I-L-L-O-N, last name, M-A-H-O-N-E-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
With respect to the RCO letter, I'm reaching out to the organization, just a request to the board to hold its vote for however long the board would grant so we can get that letter in and also from our office.
Thank you, Mr. Mahoney.
He spoke to me about that today, no objection.
Okay, is there any other questions from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Hi, Planning Commission.
Good morning, Chair Bergman.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Last name spelled H-E-G-A-R-T-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
Thank you.
Good morning, Board members.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing single-family zoning
on this block um this appellant's property is a corner property that is more than twice as wide
as the minimum lot width for the rsa5 zoning district um and there are examples of two family
use uh being typical on the end of row structures in this neighborhood so the city planning
commission recommends that the board grant the variance thank you um mr stein we're going to
hold the vote until we hear from the RCO. Thank you. Record is closed except for a letter from
the RCO. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Let's go to our regular list again here. Let's see. One, two.
Number three, MI 2022-004-552-134 West Luray Street.
Hector Diaz is the owner.
No RCO letters of yet from Esperanza.
Mr. Diaz.
Chair, we have two hands up for Badesa Cadillio.
for badisa cadillio okay would you like for me allow her to speak please
Would you like to...
ma'am you're free to speak hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
yes hector diaz h-e-c-t-o-r d-i-a-z i'm sorry d-i-a-z right do you swear or firm to tell
truth the whole truth is nothing but the truth yes this application is for a use as a two-family
household living in an existing structure whereas the proposed use two-family household living
is expressly prohibited in this rsa 5 residential zoning district our vice chair has a few questions
for you mr diaz okay good morning council do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal
to stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed all the exhibits that are required
for this case five days in advance before this hearing?
Thank you.
Can you please proceed and share your screen?
He's coming back in now as a panelist.
Thank you.
I don't want to do that.
you should now have that uh share screen option available to you at the bottom of your screen
Mr. Diaz we would need to see you too right so do you have your camera on
Mr. Diaz, sir, you have to unmute yourself.
Thank you.
We see you now.
So would you start sharing your screen?
um yes can i please let batista cadillo explain mine to show your presentation to show my
presentation i'm sorry no you well you can put the you have to you're it's your testimony
she can show the screen and you testify off the screen okay okay is that all right yeah i'm just
just trying to bear with me i'm uh speak a little bit of english and spanish okay we're fine we're
Fine, fine, just let her put the screen, give her the screen, let her put the screen up
and you talk along with it, okay?
We'll take you through it.
All right, thank you.
So that's your application, right?
Thank you, board.
Yes, that's my application.
Okay, proceed.
It says that's an application.
um we're moving this she's moving keep going the refusal that's the refusal
we have the refusal okay yeah i'm good with the refusal
that's the appeal we're good okay excuse me this is hillary mr ds needs to be the
the one who's testifying i hear someone else also testifying in the background thank you
I'm sorry. That's your project information form. Yep.
You had a community meeting October 18, 2022, right? Yep.
It's your deed. Yep.
Okay, that's the back of the house.
Lower it down.
Let's see.
Go back up.
Okay, can you turn that picture for us?
That's the back of the house, you're saying, right?
Yep, that's the backyard.
Proceed with the pictures.
I have some new updated pictures inside too.
No, no. Hector's got to speak. Go back. I want to see the front of the building.
Mr. Diaz, is this currently a duplex and you're trying to legalize it?
That's the first floor kitchen.
That's the front of the house entrance to the top, to the second floor.
I'm sorry.
okay yep
that is the bathroom from the second floor
that's the entry to the second floor right
and then yes
turn this next form so I could we can see the form
could you turn this form for us it's upside down
okay that's your mailings okay proceed
you have a picture of your posting um yes
Move it please.
Certification.
move on
tax clearance certification yeah i see i see that
is there a picture of the house being posted
yes all right let's let's see the posting
Can you give me one minute for the picture, please?
all right so that's i see you okay
those are the plans
Okay, take me to the posting, pictures of the posting.
Is that your picture or your posting?
Are there other multiple family houses on your block?
How many?
It's like three of them or four of them, if I'm not mistaken.
And how long have you had your house as a multiple family dwelling?
Like about three years.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Sloan Folks.
Good morning, Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Folks.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, sir.
my name is sloan folks s-l-o-a-n-e f-s and fire o-l-k-s office member i'm sorry i'm representing
Office member, I'm sorry, representing the Office of Council Member Ketzi Lozada, Room 316 City Hall.
the office of council member uh
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do, sir.
Proceed, sir.
On May 27, 2022, former Council Member Maria King-Elena Sanchez submitted a letter in non-opposition for this various requests for the June 1st variance hearings held by the ZBA.
Presently, Council Member Lozada concurs with her position of non-opposition for this various
requests. The applicant has met with the coordinating RCO and has received a letter of
support. Thank you very much. I'm available for any questions.
Thank you. Could you have that? Hillary, we don't have a letter, right?
No, Mr. Chair, we did not receive a letter.
Sloan, could you send the letter over to our office?
Sloan?
Yes, sir.
Mr. Folks, could you send the letter to our office so we have a copy?
I will be sure to send a letter from Councilwoman Lazada, the original letter from Councilwoman Sanchez, and a letter from the RCL.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Anyone else from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA 5 single-family zoning at this property.
We believe the predominant land use on this block is single-family.
The appellant has not supported their hardship claim with evidence of unique physical circumstances that would make single-family use infeasible.
and so the city planning commission recommends that the board deny the variance thank you mi
2022 004 552 134 west loray street i vote yes thomas holloman my vote is yes james snell my vote
is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Number
four, MI 2022
004-557-6013
Vine Street.
No RCO letter.
Gabay, Lionel
Abram Ginsberg, attorney for
owner good morning chair good morning board this is lionel artem ginsburg in place of ellie goodbye
for i for uh zy pro the owners of 1613 vine street uh we provided the board with an arson
wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute do me a favor state your name and spell please for the
court reporter lionel artem ginsburg l-i-o-n-e-l last name a-r-t-o amazon mary hyphen g-i-n-z-b-u-r-g
right do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do um could you state uh who the owner is and their relationship to the property
The owner of the property is ZY Properties, LLC.
I have one of the co-owners here with me, Mr. Noah Ziv.
Okay, and our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good morning, Counselor.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed all the exhibits that were required to move forward with this case within five days of this hearing?
all but the tax clearance which was emailed to council yesterday
okay thank you please for sheet and share your screen
uh the
share screen green button at the bottom
nobody uh nobody has attended nobody attended the rco meeting
uh the letters were sent out uh my client will testify that he even went to the port to the
point of knocking on doors in the neighborhood in order to uh get anybody interested but people
were either not interested or did not answer their doors. This is for legalization of a
of a garage door on a vacant lot. I should note to the panel that this appears to have been a
vacant lot since the early 1950s. It is not a it's it's an unusually shaped property.
Shaped property.
I'm showing, are you seeing?
I'm showing, are you seeing now the posting here?
No, we need to see.
You're still on the first page.
Could you send us what the property looks like?
Here is the posting.
The issue is this is a 10-foot wide lot.
The door is necessary because of the situation you see here
because people, when there was no gate, were dumping garbage there.
It has been used since the 1950s.
It was originally a plumber had kept his trucks there.
I have a 1954 use permit to that effect that I'll show you in a minute.
But the situation was as the trash was being dumped onto the property,
And he just simply wanted to limit the amount of trash that he had to clean up or could be fined for.
It was a commercially used property prior to it becoming rezoned as an RCE 10 when it went to sheriff sale in 2015.
Now the block is listed as residential.
However, this property is very probably too small to even have a house built on it without
a variance.
As you can see, there's a small garage in back, which is used for parking.
I have a mechanical engineer's report saying that the door was put up properly.
the door is not unique for the neighborhood this is directly across the street you can see the same
gates on the on the food truck next door you can see from the drawing that there is 10 feet six
inches across the open doorway and the overhead lot view there is 110 feet of open parking space
but again it's only 10 foot six inches wide and then there's a garage that is 35 feet deep
here is the use permit from 1954 uh giving a allowing a plumber shop housing truck tools and
material legalization we've been able to find no other record indicating there was any construction
on this property since it has been a vacant lot and really all we're trying to do is improve the
quality of the neighborhood by reducing the amount of trash being dumped there my client wants to use
it to park vehicles. He will testify and he will answer any questions that you would like.
I'd like to call Mr. Noah Ziv. Good morning. Could you state your name, please, and spell
for the court reporter? Yeah, Ziv Noah, Z-I-V, last name Noah, N-O-A-H. Right. And do you
accept the testimony that I've just given as true and correct? Sir, sir, wait a minute,
wait a minute. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth yes i do speak up just a little bit you're a little hard i'm sorry i'm coming a little
closer no that's fine all right go ahead counsel do you uh do you uh accept the testimony i've
just given is true and correct absolutely uh does the panel have any questions for mr zip
questions from the board for counsel no mr no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments
from the virtual audience mr chair this is hillary i just i just want to jump in um i had
had some conversation i was going to ask you before i got there before i got to planning but
go ahead yeah no let me let me just have it i just wanted to clarify this is an application
and i've had this conversation via email with the applicant this is an application for a change of
use or establishing um the use um of the property the the gate is not part of the application um
It's only use. There's no construction as part of this application.
I've advised the applicants that they do need to apply for a permit to the gate and given them the instructions for how to do that.
There is an issue on the refusal where the use that is listed as what's being requested is storage.
That is not a use category in the zoning code.
I've been in touch with LMI to try to get clarity on this.
and what we determined this morning was that we will discuss at the hearing today exactly what
this use is and it sounds like vehicle storage is what it is and then I will go back to L&I
and find out what use category this should be and when we vote on this case if it is granted
we will include a proviso that clarifies the use for this property.
we will include a proviso that clarifies the use for this property.
So, Hillary, do we want planning to take a position,
or do we want to wait to see what they'll be voting on?
Yeah, I think planning can take a position based on the testimony today,
unless they would like to defer.
But I do want to just clarify with either counsel or the applicant,
what is being stored here is solely vehicles, right?
Is there anything else being stored at the property?
Is there anything else?
So it is a garage door, like a little space garage, as you saw in the pictures.
I assume I'm going to rent it out.
It's not going to be solely mine.
I just own the property.
I just cleaned it up and made sure that it's safe and secure, like you saw the engineer report.
I assume because of the size, it's only 10 by 35.
It's going to be used when I rent it to either a van storage for safekeeping so nobody can break in and steal whatever tools they got inside the van.
And then since you have another 100 foot, I would say you can maybe store another van outside or maybe two until you get to the end of the garage door.
But my idea was safety.
That's why I closed it in.
And same thing with the garage door in the back.
Same thing.
It's closed in and it's safe.
So it's going to be for storage of a vehicle.
And I assume if they have tools or ladders and stuff on top of the van, it will be secure inside of that building as opposed to just outside on the street.
All right.
So I will discuss that with L&I and find out from them what category or categories under the zoning code that should be listed so that the use is clear.
Thank you for that clarification.
Thank you.
Is anyone in the virtual audience who has a comment?
I see no hands, Chair.
Ian, do you want to take a position on this?
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you, Chair.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA 5 single-family zoning on this block.
However, as the appellant has demonstrated, this is a very narrow lot at about 10 feet wide.
So we agree that residential use is not feasible on this site.
And the proposed uses as described by the appellant are consistent with the physical configuration of the existing structure on the lot and the lot itself and its prior legal use as a plumber's shop.
so therefore the city planning commission recommends that the board grant this variance
thank you uh hillary we'll wait to hear and we'll come back with this yeah mr chair we did not sorry
we did not open um up to public testimony so we just need to do that quickly um sorry i jumped i
jumped in we did chair and i did i did do it hillary oh okay okay all right okay so we're
going to be back in touch with you okay yeah we should be able to have this um voted on next week
okay thank you very much thank you number five mi 2022 004-564-412 bainbridge street
alexander barth is the attorney a letter of support for free village neighbors
There's a letter of non-opposition from Councilman Squilla.
There's a letter of support.
We also believe there's a letter of opposition.
Mr. Barth.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Alexander Barth, B as in boy, A, R, T as in Tom, H as in Harry, of Cohen-Seglius, on behalf of the applicants Carlos and Adrienne Rogers, the owners of 412 Bainbridge Street Unit I.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning, Counselor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed all the required exhibits to our office within five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
You have? Thank you. Please proceed to share your screen.
Again, good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Can you see my screen?
We can.
All right. So we are here this morning on behalf of the owner's applicants of 412 Bainbridge Street.
It should say Unit I, not Unit 1. I apologize for that. It's Unit I on the refusal.
This is a single-family home located on Bainbridge Street, obviously the 400 block of Bainbridge Street.
On Bainbridge Street, obviously the 400 block of Bainbridge Street, and we are here today in the Queen Village neighborhood.
and we are here
We're here today seeking a variance for the grant of a visitor accommodations permit for this property so it may be allowed to be used for short-term rentals.
Just as the preliminaries to go through of the exhibits that were previously submitted, we have, there was no application because it was an Eclipse application for the license itself or the permit itself, but Exhibit B is the refusal for this, for the application for a visitor accommodations permit.
Going on, Exhibit C is the application for appeal to this board.
Exhibit D is the project information form that was submitted with the application time-stamped.
I apologize, this goes on.
Exhibit E would be the deed
to the applicants
as you can state while the
refusal states that this is
412 Bainbridge Street Unit I
as a unit
this is an off-street courtyard-based
development
412 Bainbridge Street Unit I
let's see
We have Exhibit G, which is the Certificate of Tax Clearance.
Exhibit J is the photo posting or poster photos showing posting for more than 21 days
continuously prior to this meeting.
And Exhibit L is the RCO notice together with the proofs of mailing.
I can see if I can just skip ahead to those quickly.
to get away from the, there is Exhibit G.
So we have proofs of posting.
This is a courtyard-based development, so the street frontage is obviously on Bainbridge Street.
That is where posting occurred for both the notice of refusal and the poster itself.
Various dates leading up to the hearing.
There it is.
Tax clearance certification.
And then further down is Exhibit L.
So we are here today requesting approval to secure a visitor accommodation license.
This is not an owner-occupied property.
It is a single-family home owned by the applicants who operate a business in Philadelphia.
They are Mr. Rogers.
I believe Ms. Rogers is here, are here today and are capable of testifying.
They purchased this property before the institution of the current laws or ordinances regarding Airbnb or short-term rentals.
And they wish to use this property as a short-term rental.
It is a single-family home.
It will be used. The proposal is to use it as such. And they have previously rented this property as well as others.
They have a four star rating for their rentals in the past. This will only be used as a single family home.
There's no decision, no plans to expand the property, expand the number of bedrooms, bathrooms.
It is a smaller unit, so it is not some kind of expansive rental property.
And they have met with the RCO previously in meeting with the RCO.
The RCO provided a letter of support with certain provisos, those provisos being the addition of a security camera.
The applicant was willing to and complied with that request.
And just so you guys can have an understanding of kind of the nature of this courtyard-based dwelling,
these are the external photos of the home.
They all face onto a courtyard coming off of Bainbridge Street.
These are kind of looking up and down the courtyard at the premises.
The premises here, premises I, is on the right with the bushes.
The applicant, this is the front door to the unit.
As you can see, it's very well maintained.
Windows have been replaced since they've taken ownership of it.
They maintain the property in peak condition.
These are the interior photographs showing you or depicting the relative size of the property.
Again, this is essentially a trinity, I think, as most would be seen, or just a smaller single-family unit.
a trinity i think as most would be seen or just a smaller single family unit this is not some kind of
large rental property it's meant for a small number of renters and has been used that way
and that's the intended continued use the rco requested or supported the application for a
visitor accommodation license provided that there was the installation of a security camera this is
a rooftop deck that it has. A ring doorbell has been installed at the premises to provide
security camera footage. The applicant has provided the near neighbors and the condominium
association with contact information so that he can be reached or anybody can be reached if there
are any issues. Council, why don't we have your testimony adopted by the owner? Mr. Rogers, are you
here? Carlos? Yep. Hello. Can you hear me? Hi. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the
court reporter? Yes, sir. Carlos Rogers. C-A-R-L-O-S. R-O-G-E-R-S. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Proceed, counsel. Mr. Rogers, have you heard
my testimony here today and do you find it to be truthful? I do. Do you adopt that testimony as
your own before this board? I do. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience? I see no hands, Chair. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RM1 multifamily zoning at this location.
For use variances, we're typically looking for evidence that the proposed variance is necessary to enable viable economic use of the property.
We don't believe that the appellant has shown that in this case, and we don't believe that there are unique physical conditions that prevent this property from being used as a single-family dwelling.
City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny the variance.
MI-2022-004-564-412 Bamer Street, number I, I vote yes with proviso. Use limited to unit I
and temporary variance expires 2-1-25. Thomas Hallowin, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell my vote is yes with proviso
Ishmael Shahi my vote is yes with proviso
Thank you sir
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman and members of the board may be excused
Yes you can thank you
Number 8
MI 2022
004 551
6232 Pine Street
Olof Sokoloff is the attorney. Letter of non-opposition from Third Ward Executive RCO.
Also, there's two foreign letters of support.
Mr. Sokoloff.
Yes, good morning. Am I able to be seen and heard?
We hear you. We don't see you yet, sir.
Okay, it's telling me my video is on.
Okay, so state your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
Sure, it's Oleg Sokolov, Rabinovich Sokolov.
I'm sorry, Oleg, O-L-E-G, Sokolov, S-O-K-O-L-O-V.
Rabinovich Sokolov Law Group, 1700 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Chair.
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Yes. The actual entity that owns the property is the ENJ Enterprises LLC. A Mr. E. Manow
SIPO is on the line as member and representative of the entity.
All right. Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Hi, Mr. Shahid.
Good morning, counsel.
Good morning.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
All right. Thank you. Have you emailed all of the exhibits that were required to hear this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I do. However, admittedly, the RCO letter was only received over the weekend.
So that was added as a supplement on this Monday.
uh this monday i believe i believe we we received it as well um please proceed and share your screen
I believe we received it as well.
thank you
are the exhibits visible yes okay wonderful uh i'll quickly take the members of the board
through the exhibits here is the refusal the property is located in rm1 district which
much like the previous applicant and proposal also precludes the use for visitor accommodation
this property this request is for a visitor accommodation permit so as to use the property
as a short-term rental the property was also purchased prior to the institution of the
new regulations regarding short-term rentals and the requirement for visitor accommodation
application permit to be issued for such. Here is a deed of the property from 2021.
Our tax clearance certificate.
Photo of the exterior of the property.
The location of the property within the RM1 zoning district. It's,
as everyone can imagine, between 62nd and 63rd Street on Pine.
our project information sheet.
There is no construction and no addition being requested.
This is a request to legalize a previously existing use.
The applicant has been using this property
for visitor accommodation or as an Airbnb
prior to the institution of this new regulation.
Here's our application for appeal.
I'll quickly take us through our certificates of mailing.
Zoning poster placed at the property, zoning poster placed within the property, a letter
of support from a nearby neighbor and an additional letter of support from a nearby neighbor.
we held our rco meeting on december 12th and here is the letter which we previously discussed
and quickly some pictures from the actual listing of the property
exterior deck living room
At this time, I'd just like to quickly call Mr. E. Manow Sipo to adopt my testimony or
add anything. Mr. Sipo, can you just raise your hand down at the bottom?
Sir, you're free to speak. Please unmute yourself.
Hi. Please state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter.
Yes. First name is Emano, capital E, period, space, capital M, as in Mary, A, N, as in Nancy, O, W.
Last name is Seapo, S-E-A-P-O-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Seapo.
Good morning.
Mr. Seapo, you were on the line and heard my testimony, correct?
Okay. And do you agree with my testimony and adopt it as your own?
Is there anything you would like to add and make the board aware of?
Yes. Just want to emphasize that short-term renting is secondary to the purpose of this home.
I frequent Philadelphia once a month to visit my son that lives at 50th and Walnut Street,
and I needed this property to be able to comfortably reside in Philly when I visit,
as I do have another son and my wife. And so I just wanted to also add that point.
thank you use this property to all to have your family together in it while you're in
philadelphia correct correct yes thank you thank you mr cedar thank you questions from the board
no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no handshare planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia
City Planning Commission. Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map
amendment from RM1 to RSA5 at this location. I just want to clarify for the board that Bill
200-081 that's been referenced here did not change the basic rule prohibiting
full-time use of a dwelling unit as a short-term rental. Doing so has been illegal.
Full-time use of a dwelling unit as a short-term rental. Doing so has been illegal since the first short-term rental zoning regulations became effective in 2012.
The only new regulation that became effective last year was that to require a license, which requires the owner to show that the use is legally permitted.
Again, in this case, the proposed variance, it's not clear from the appellant's presentation
that it's necessary to enable viable economic use of this single-family dwelling, and there
do not appear to be any unusual physical conditions that limit the property's use as a single-family
dwelling, and so we don't believe that there's a valid hardship claim here.
We recommend that the Board deny the variance.
Thank you. MI-2022, 004-551-6232 Pine Street, I vote yes with proviso. Temporary variance expires 2-1-26.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
okay number 11 thank you council number 11 mi 2022 005 932 217 to 53 north 9th street
jared klein is the attorney letter of support from the philadelphia chinatown development
Corporation, letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla, CDR required and completed.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Jared Klein, it's J-A-R-E-D, last name K-L-E-I-N,
from Black Rome, 130 North 18th Street. All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Could you identify your client in relationship
to the property certainly my client is uh 800 vine senior housing which is an affiliate of
penrose development okay our vice chair has a few questions good morning counsel do you agree to
waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his act good morning sir yes i do have you
emailed all the exhibits that are required to proceed with this case today five days in advance
of this hearing. Yes. Thank you. Please share your screen and proceed. Thank you very much.
So we're here for 217 to 53 North 9th Street. As you can see from the refusal, the proposal
is for 51 senior affordable dwelling units. This is going to be age-restricted and income-restricted
housing for low-income seniors who would like to age in place in the city of Philadelphia.
The refusals that we received focused mostly on the parking because this is a challenging site
in terms of its configuration and location. But as you'll see as I go through this, we have
support from all the relevant entities and do not think particularly with a senior living building
that an influx of cars will be an issue due both to the location and the demographic of the residents.
And just to orient the board, this is our location here.
There is, as you can see, it's currently a parking lot with next to the 676 Expressway.
There have been a number of development proposals that have come forward for this site.
But again, due to the challenging location, none of them have been built.
But we are optimistic that this one will proceed to completion.
Just to give some context, here's the neighborhood maps to give the board a sense of where this project site is, and contextual photos of the immediate surrounding area.
Again, just basically an open parking lot at this site.
Photos of posting on the various corners of the property on the fencing, and a view from the site taken from the sidewalk.
This is our site plan. Again, it's just going to be a single structure on this lot.
This is the proposed aerial view or rendering of what the building will look like in context
once it's completed. And there are a variety of landscaping and site design plans that were
included in our CDR packet that I'm sharing with the board now just for some additional context.
General floor plans of the building. There will be a mix of units. There's a studio,
one, two bedrooms, and then a trash room and a mech room on each of the floors.
And some renderings on what the building will look like when complete.
Views from the various courtyards. Views from 9th and Spring Street and from the adjacent lot.
Views from 9th and Spring Street and from the adjacent lot.
And some elevation views, again, to give the board context on what is proposed to be constructed here.
As I was joining the meeting, I thought I heard the chair reference a letter of support.
We did meet with the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation.
Their letter of support is here before you.
I believe Councilman Squilla also sent a letter of non-opposition for the board's file.
And as I heard the chair note, we did complete the CDR process, and their letter of noting completion is also in the packet.
I would like to ask Lindsay Sampsey if she could raise her virtual hands so she might adopt my testimony.
Hi, could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
Sure. Good morning, everyone. Lindsay Sampsey, L-I-N-D-S-E-Y, last name S-A-M-S-I.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you.
Lindsay, did you have a chance to listen to my presentation this morning?
Yes, I have.
And do you adopt my statements as true, correct, and your own testimony if you've been given a more fulsome chance to speak?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
We have Ms. Sampson available for any questions, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The proposal here completed Civic Design Review in December 2022. Just wanted to note, as I always
do, Civic Design Review Committee's recommendations are not an expression of the recommendation
regarding the zoning variance.
In this case, the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing CMX-4 zoning.
The proposed variances here are minimal
and do not conflict with the purpose and spirit of the zoning code.
We therefore recommend that the zoning board grant the variances.
Thank you.
MI 2022-005-932-217-53 North 9th Street.
I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Okay, thank you.
Number 12, MI 2022-004561, 100 East Galwin Street.
Kate Geller is the owner applicant.
Letter of support from East Mount Airy Neighbors with the proviso for a three-year temporary
variance.
Ms. Geller.
Yes, I'm right here.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Kate Geller, K-A-T-E-G-A-L-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
All right.
So this application is for visitor's accommodation and existing structure.
The proposed use visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RSA 2 zoning district.
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, okay?
Good morning, counselor.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
council now she's she's the she's the owner she's not the lawyer oh yeah
oh it's just me yeah yeah it's okay i'm like
have you emailed all the exhibits that will cry for this hearing five days in advance of
this hearing today i emailed them all the only thing the um support letter was just emailed
yesterday because they just voted it on monday night okay yes no problem no problem um please
proceed and share your screen
green button at the bottom yeah
Okay, that's the interior. Can you see this?
okay that's the interior can you see this i can okay
I can. Okay, that's the interior of the house.
It is a three-story twin in East Mount Airy.
It is where I grew up. And we acquired it
from my father in 2015 when he moved into an
apartment. These are just the bedrooms.
Second floor
hallway bathrooms dining room first floor bathroom kitchen
um tv room living room um i have other things to share let's see do i need to here's the
this is the exterior
sorry they're in different box
this is from the side it's on a corner it's on the corner of Boyer and Gowan
And we're street and now an avenue.
This is from the corner.
There is a zoning notice posted on the kind of the side back with the letter of refusal
and this is the front of the house.
It's right on the sidewalk so people can see it.
This is the letter of refusal for visitor accommodations.
This is the letter to the near neighbors that I sent out.
The RCO meeting information, this is the deed, I acquired it from my father, this is the
application for HEAL. Sorry, it's okay with the check. That was important for me to get that on.
Here is the meeting summary from the RCO of the support for the three-year variants.
Here is their letter of kind of summing up the two meetings.
The first one we had was on December 6th, where we had many near neighbors and the Board
of East Mount Airy Neighbors on the meeting, most with support we had to just find out
about the three-year proviso um and then when we found that out they rescheduled the meeting just
for this past monday and we voted they voted on that to support the variance with the three-year
proviso um i don't have anything else to share right now why don't why don't you so here's a
question. How long have you been using this? So we acquired it in 2015 from my father. We started
to use it in 2016 as an Airbnb with the Democratic National Convention coming into town. But we,
our idea is to be able, since the house has been in my family for 50 years, the idea is to be able
to um maintain it for use for our family as well um the extended family um so that's why we chose
airbnb using as airbnb so we could block out times when we are able to use it like holidays
or our own graduations or um celebrations um all of the money that we have earned and when we've
taken losses as well the first couple years, have been put back into basically getting the
house improved and maintained. So we've had all of the knob and tubeless, we had the whole place
rewired, brought up to code with all that. We've had a lot of exterior work done. So the money we
Um, so the money we make is basically just put right back into the house.
make is basically just put right back into the house.
Um, and we, um, only hosts, we only host like one group at a time, even though the house
is large, we don't break up the rooms or anything like that.
Um, and usually the people coming into town, our families coming in for weddings, celebrations,
um, baby showers, uh, graduations.
um so we are just looking to keep the same use as we are existing we're not looking to make any
physical changes to the property or change anything about okay all right good questions
from the board no mr chairman questions questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair we have charles richardson good afternoon good morning mr richardson i thought we were in
the afternoon already. You've already been sworn. Just state your name, please. Charles Richardson,
Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, R-I-C-H-A-R-T-S-O-N. Councilwoman has no opposition
to granting this variance as long as it has the three-year proviso. Thank you very much.
Anyone else in the virtual audience? Yes, Chair. We have Natalia, last name ending with S as in Sam.
Okay. Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
I'm sorry, Chair. She has an older version of Zoom, so I'm going to have to promote her to a
panelist to speak. Okay, fine. Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. It's Natalia. It's N-A-T-A-L-I-A, last name Seriko, S-E-R-E-J-K-O.
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes proceed i'm the executive director of east mount area neighbors who is the rco um for the
area of the property and i just wanted to state that the uh community wasn't
for in the variance as long as it had the provider for a year okay thank you so much
for calling in. We appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands-on. Hi, Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty for the
Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no
change to the existing RSA to single-family zoning at this location. Again, for use variances,
is we're looking for evidence that the variance is necessary to enable viable economic use of the
property or unique physical conditions of the property. We don't believe that the appellant
has shown either in this case, and so the City Planning Commission recommends that the board
deny the variance. Thank you. MI 2022 004 561 100 East Gallon. I vote yes with proviso. Temporary
variance expires 2-1-26. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso. James Snell, my vote is yes
with proviso. Thank you. Number 13.
mi2022 006124 1453 north 4th street verne anastasio is the attorney
letter of support from south kensington community partners
good morning mr chair good morning could you state your name please and spell for the court
reporter sure it's verne anastasio a-n-a-s-t-a-s-i-o 2016 spruce philadelphia 19103
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client a relationship to this property yes my client i represent the
lc pelosa who is the owner of the property in question okay our vice chair uh ismail shaheed
has a few questions good morning council do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal
good morning yes i do have you emailed all the requirement documents five days in advance of the
um i did email all the required documents
Thanks.
We are looking at 1453 North 4th Street.
This is the legalization of a non-conforming existing two-family dwelling, and it's one-use refusal.
This is the legalization of a non-conforming to
We have plants here, storage area in the basement.
Then we have studio, living space, second floor unit.
I'm sorry, unit two is on the third floor.
as well this is it's a corner property directly across the street from two cmx ones
uh and right behind it a ton of rm1 this property has been historically uh two units
at for a very long time it was commercial on the first floor uh and an apartment above
this property was marketed listed sold and presented as a two-family dwelling
it has separate uh electric meters separate everything as you can see here separate
entrances it's already two mailboxes on there my client purchased the property believing it to be
in fact, illegal to family dwelling. Here's some interior photos.
We did, in fact, meet with the RCO.
164 individual households were mailed. And this is the flyer that went out.
And as a result, South Kensington Community Partners offers a letter of support for the variance because of the decades of this property serving two units, either first as a commercial mixed residential use and then ultimately as a two-family dwelling because the property was listed, marketed, and sold as a two-family dwelling and presented it.
itself is so, and because of the separate meters and utilities, I do respectfully request
that the board grant this variance. With that, I ask Kelsey to raise her hand.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
So, her name is Kelsey Peliza, K-E-L-S-E-Y, last name P-E-L-O-Z-A.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Kelsey, did you hear my presentation to the board this morning?
Was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair.
All right. Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, we have Sloan Foulkes.
Good morning, Mr. Foulkes.
You've already been sworn.
Just state your name, please.
Sloan Foulkes, Office of Council Member T. Lozada,
Room 3, 16 City Hall.
The applicant, having met with the coordinating RCO,
South Kensington Community Partnership,
and receiving elitational support,
the council member had no opposition
to the various requests. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for calling in. We appreciate it. Is
there anyone else in the virtual audience? I see no hands, Chair. Hi, Planning. Thank you,
Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing single-family zoning at this location.
However, the proposed use is consistent with the physical configuration of the existing building,
which has two separate entrances city planning commission recommends that the board grant the
variance thank you mi 2022 006124 1453 north 4th street i vote yes thomas holloman my vote is yes
james snell my vote is yes no shaheed my vote is yes thank you council yep thank you
Number 14, MI-2022-001-059-1830 West Erie.
Dofus Geraldino Sosa is the owner.
Letter of support from 13th Ward RCO with proviso trash stored in rear.
with provisional trash stored in rear?
One moment, Chair.
I'm trying to promote them to panelists.
Sir, please unmute yourself.
You're free to speak.
Good morning, Chair.
good morning everybody hi could you state your name and then spelled for the court reporter
yes my name is dofis geraldino sosa d-o-f-i-s-g-e-r-l sorry g-e-r-a-l-d-i-n-o sosa s-o-s-a
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, I do.
This application is a multifamily household living, three dwelling units in an existing structure,
whereas the proposed multifamily household living is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good morning. Have you emailed all the exhibits that were required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I did. The only thing I sent on this past Monday was the last pages for my deed.
That was the lady asked me to submit it in order to complete my exhibit, but I submit everything.
Okay, thank you. Hillary, I believe we did receive that, right?
Yes, we did. We're all set. Thank you.
All right, thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
did you see that not yet did you hit this green button at the bottom oh hold hold let me see
one second oh sure share screen okay let's see sure did you see it now yeah you're just
going to have to hit on each one for us okay okay let me go first let me go back here to the
let's see
sorry give me a second
okay that's what i said i already submit the last pages on my deed this is the email i sent let me
go back uh no this is the application
So I think, I think we have your forms, let's see what the property is.
Yeah, yeah, please, I will appreciate it because I can't find over here.
Pardon me?
yeah did you have the the form well we're okay with the forms i want to see what it looks like
the property oh okay let me just go back to here head over here the picture okay this is my property
sorry i speak spanish and my english my second language so i'm gonna try to do the best i can
and this is my let's see let me move this from here
that's the front of the property right yeah that's the front of the property
that's where you posted it yeah i posted it let me go yeah this is another the font
as you can see these are the basically the front with the posters
that's the side the house is in between you know that's the 19th street on the corner
and that house right there also has a I spoke with the owner and they wait the one on my right
and the one on my left they also has the the three apartment building zoning approval I speak with
then and they say you know just submit it and pretty much this is the front of
the house sorry I just made a lot of pictures this is the other side so you
can see the sidewalk let me go back to the to the inside picture
okay this is the inside picture let me go i send it like
this is the inside picture let me go I send it like a lot of picture over here
let me start from the first floor which is this one right here well I'm going to start with
whatever picture come over here so you can see sorry for the unorganized pictures
So pretty much this is the second floor. This is will be the kitchen with the open
kitchen with the living room and dining room.
This is the the hole that the hole for the from the back of the second floor.
This is the stair in this side right here going down. This is the first let me just go over here.
oh this is the back of the house as you can see there's the door in the back for the first floor
and there's a little like i don't know how you can say that like a little porch or crampage
right yeah and this is the third floor the third floor is not when the the day when the inspector
came we were about to cleaning and removing all the debris but we couldn't because he say
we had to close the house within two hours so it was impossible so everything was you know we leave
everything as clean as possible at least from the outside so this is the second floor the third floor
you see it's not even finished and this is one of the room of the of the second floor
this is the the second floor back uh back bedroom you see yeah yeah
yeah that's another picture right there okay this is yeah this is the second floor
with the open kitchen here will be a like a little close a closet
and this is the first floor as soon as you get in that will be the first floor where you go
around there and you found the bathroom over there i cannot so let me ask you a few questions
so the property is vacant right no no no no nobody yeah yeah it's back how long has it been
vacant oh it's been vacant since i bought it like maybe like three years i got the house in
night in 2019 all right so so let me ask this what was it used for before it was used for like
like a single family house like the whole house around there and the reason the main reason why
about the house and me and my family was to make it like a three nice little apartment so we can
live there we are three three different family so we can live together by the same time have our own
space both sides of the house are are triplexes yeah both sides and basically or a almost everything
around the around the corner they all went to the same the remainder of the block is multi-family too
sorry the block the block that this is on are a lot of multi-family yes yes yes it is
questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments
from the virtual audience i see million share planning commission thank you chair bergman
ean hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission board members the comprehensive plan
recommends a zoning map change on this block of erie avenue from rsa 5 to rm1 multifamily
this proposed use conforms to the recommended zoning district in the comprehensive plan
We therefore recommend that the Zoning Board grant the zoning variance.
Thank you. MI 2022-001059, 1830 West Erie Avenue. I vote yes, Proviso. Trash will be stored in the rear yard.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Thank you, sir.
So everything is fine?
Everything's fine.
So that's my own grant.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a great day, everyone.
Right, right.
Number 16, MI 2022-001-065-131 West Walnut Lane.
Steve Masters is the attorney.
There's no RCO letter from the West Central Germantown neighbors.
members, we do have a letter of opposition. Mr. Masters.
we do have a letter of opposition. Mr. Masters.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
Hi. Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
My name is Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-E-M-A-S-T-E-R-S. I'm with the law firm of JustLaws,
and I represent the applicant. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do.
Quick question.
Are there any other attorneys in the audience who are involved in this case?
Chair, we have Mr. Harry Cook.
And I'm not sure if Mr. Bob Lane.
Mr. Masters, do you know if he is an attorney?
Mr. Lane is part of the RCO.
I just need Mr. Cook.
Mr. Cook is coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman?
Good morning, Mr. Cook.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Good morning.
I just happened to be on assisting Mr. Anastasia earlier,
And I heard before I get sworn in that, Mr. Chair, you would advise there was a letter of opposition.
I had limited representation for near neighbors on Tipalt Street, and we had submitted a letter brief regarding this property.
I just want to make sure that is part of the record.
I am not here to testify or actively represent in this matter.
Thank you. We do have that. We did receive that. We have it.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Masters, could you identify your client and a relationship to
the property? I represent Luke Smith, who is the property owner. Okay. And Mr. Shahid has a few
questions for you. Good morning, Mr. Masters. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy? Good morning. Yes, I agree. Have you emailed all the exhibits
and documents that were required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, we did.
Thank you. Please proceed. Share screen.
Thank you. Share screen.
Good morning, again, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
We're here on a property located at 131 West Walnut Lane.
It's located in a nationally recognized historic district known as the Topalhawken Station Historic District.
It's a very large and historic property that was constructed in the 1850s.
The lot itself measures close to an acre.
It's one of the largest and oldest in the neighborhood.
and it has a very high cost to live in and maintain as a single-family residence.
We are here talking about a proposal to convert the carriage house into a dwelling unit and an
in-law suite and the cost to renovate and preserve this historic carriage house will run
close to $400,000. The main house is over 6,000 square feet in size, and the carriage house
is roughly 2,000 square feet. The property owner, Mr. Smith, is seeking a variance to allow an
in-law suite, as I said, for his mother to age in place near her children and grandchildren
on the first floor of the carriage house. She's not able to climb stairs, and there is going to
be a small one-story addition on the side where there is an existing large opening in the historic
building envelope. There's not going to be any change to the existing historic building envelope.
And then that will be providing that new addition will provide a bit more space for his mother,
as well as provide stairs to access a second floor rental unit, which will be the accessory
dwelling unit created by this variance. There are no dimensional variances in the application,
so the only variances that we're here for relate to the new accessory dwelling unit.
Why does this zoning project make sense? For a bunch of reasons. It's going to maintain
a very low density in the neighborhood because of the extremely large lot size.
It's going to have a lot of adequate off-street parking.
Between the main house and the carriage house, there will now be a total of two dwelling units spread across 8,000.
there will now be a total of two dwelling units spread across 8,200 square feet.
So it's going to be an average, if we include the in-law suite with the additional dwelling unit at the carriage house,
of about 3,000 square feet per unit, which is a very low density.
There's going to be minimal impact on the neighbors, and we're going to see in a moment
uh the a lot of um plans and and and um and depictions of the property um the carriage
house is located in the very rear of the property and it's not close to any other homes it is close
to several other carriage houses and those carriage houses that it's close to have already
been converted into multifamily uh that's why this project is consistent with the pattern of
development in the surrounding properties. All of these properties, as I said, are part of a
historic district. They're all very old, and many of them have been converted into multifamily
use to preserve the historic structures.
The house of this project is also consistent with the historic use of this particular carriage
house. As we'll see in a moment, photos of the carriage house show evidence of a prior small
room and a stove on the second floor which was used by what were called the grooms and drivers
of the carriages that were stored in the first floor of the carriage house. So this is a very
long time historic use that predates the zoning code and we're asking the board to allow us to
restore this historic use to meet the crisis in rental housing and provide housing for the owner's
mother so she can age in place. Finally, this project aligns with the recently enacted historic
preservation goals of the zoning code, which authorize the creation of accessory dwelling
units in historic carriage houses that are located in historically significant districts,
such as this nationally recognized Topohawken Station Transit District.
There is strong community support for this project. The RCO vote went narrowly
against the application, but this was only because of confusion and technical issues that we'll hear
from some witnesses about. There was a brand new voting system that was put into place,
and four near neighbors who supported the project were not able to cast votes, and we will have
testimony concerning that. Had all of the supporters' votes been properly counted, the result
would show that a narrow majority supported the project. There was one primary opponent of the
project, and that was apparently the former client of Mr. Cook and Mr. Anastasio. That's an adjacent
neighbor who we will see lives, their house is quite a bit far away from this carriage house,
but they are adjacent in terms of their yard. Our client attempted to meet and compromise with
this family many times without success. We will show you 31 letters of support. Many of them are
individually written letters of support. They're not identical at all to the others. There was also
a petition in opposition of 21 signatures living in 14 addresses. Notably, two of those opponents
who signed that original petition against the project have changed their mind and have now
submitted letters of support for the project and we're going to show you a map uh where everybody
is located uh so uh at this point i am going to uh call uh mr luke smith um to to raise his hand
and then we he and i will walk you together through the exhibits mr smith you're free to speak hi mr
mr smith could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter yes it's alfred
luke smith um a-l-f-r-e-d-l-u-k-e-s-m-i-t-h right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel uh mr smith let's get uh one
thing out of the way first um you've heard uh my testimony so far today do you adopt it do you
agree with it and adopt it as your own i do with one minor correction which is that um you had
stated that all of the nearby carriage houses have all already been converted um and actually
there there's one very close to it that hasn't but there are two others that are um they're the
nearest occupied structures and they have both already been converted but with that correction
And yes, I agree and adopt that.
Okay, thank you. Thank you for the correction. All right, so we are just going to go through the exhibits together. This is the notice of refusal. We have two refusals for more than one principal building and multifamily living.
OK, thank you.
Thank you for the correction.
All right, so we are just going to go through the exhibits
together.
The original proposal was for three total units. We have revised plans today, members of the board, that are only calling for an additional one dwelling unit.
And the building, as we know, the carriage house is pre-existing, a non-conforming structure, so it predates the zoning code and predates much of the history of Philadelphia.
you have. Luke, what are we looking at on this diagram? So this is a map that I highlighted
to indicate the addresses corresponding to the 31 letters of support that are enclosed in the
exhibit package. Those are indicated with green highlighting and those that signed a petition
in opposition um are indicated with the uh orange-ish reddish highlighting and the property
that's in the hash marks hatch marks these are that is your property correct correct that's that's
the subject property and then this red um narrow uh zone here that is the the neighbor that uh was
working with Mr. Anastasio and Mr. Cook in the past, correct? No, that is a neighbor that signed
their petition, the one fronting on Topohockin Street. Yes, right where your cursor is right
now, that it's 158 West Topohockin. That is the primary sort of opponent. Okay.
so we have 31 letters of support is that correct correct and you i believe had wanted to highlight
a few of these letters of support uh we have one from uh mr lane who is uh the the head of the
zoning committee for uh the rco is that correct that's correct um i do want to be clear that
you know, this was submitted in his capacity as a neighbor, not in his capacity as chair of the
zoning committee. And the same goes for Mr. Russell Fulton, who is the chair of the WCGN
History and Heritage Committee. And he also submitted a letter in support with, you know,
based on his values of preserving the historic structures.
But again, that was also, you know, not in any official capacity, but just as in his personal capacity.
Okay, so we'll just go briefly through these.
This first letter at page six of the exhibit is from Roberta Moore.
And is she a near neighbor to you?
um she may be most of these are near neighbors that are on the list from the planning commission
i believe she may be just outside of that um at 51 west walnut lane so she's the the next block up
this letter is from william marsh i believe he also he lives in the same address okay as miss moore
and this is a letter from robert lane that we spoke of and he uh
he's on the uniblock of west topahawken street
this letter is from guthrie ramsey at 100 west topahawken and that's just on the through the
through the um it it basically is quite close to your home is that correct well yeah all the
100 block of um west tolpehawken are those houses that front on tolpehawken it's the next block up
so the carriage house as we saw on the map is at the very rear of my property so it's um you know
a similar distance from the uh a couple hundred feet really from the houses that front on tolpehawken
as well as on walnut lane okay this is a letter from stephanie and kyle moore they're at 105 west
Walnut Lane, which is just a few doors down from you? Correct.
This is a letter from Ryan Kafer at 106 West Topalhawken. Yes, and he is actually one of the
signers of the petition in opposition, but, and he is a near neighbor, and as you can see here,
as you can see here he he um you know has changed his position
he, you know, has changed his position.
after hearing you know the details of the plan and not just someone at his door
this is a letter from kimberly clotman
in this letter she's she's located quite close to you and she
is is one of the um the supporters who had difficulty uh casting a vote in support at the
RCO meeting correct one of the four such people this is a letter from Lewis Klotman
300 feet away from your property he I think he's actually he they their address is within 250
okay so he's on the near neighbor list as well and another one that attended the RCO meeting
and would have voted in support but for, you know, confusion around the voting
or technical issues with the new system.
This is a letter from Dennis Medina at 113 West Walnut Lane.
In support and appreciating the historic preservation of your project.
This is from Beth Emmett at 116 West Walnut Lane.
And as you see in the last paragraph there, she is a third person who attended and was eligible to vote as a near neighbor, but due to technical confusion, was unable to vote and would have voted for it.
This is Robert Emmett at 116 West Walnut Land.
And he is the fourth person in that similar situation who also attended and was eligible to vote, but did not do so within the voting window for reasons that, you know, we may be discussing or I think one of the witnesses will get into.
Susan Willie Bank at 124 West Walnut Lane, directly across the street from your property?
Correct.
support letter from
Joseph Vitryal.
I wanted to focus on the second page of his letter
because he goes into some detail
on the various other carriage houses
that have been converted in the neighborhood.
Could you read
can you read starting here at the besides? Besides many historic homes in the neighborhood
that were demolished or aggressively subdivided many decades ago, one, the much smaller property
at 119 West Walnut Lane was granted a variance permitting three family living in 2003 to permit
renovation of the carriage house into a separate dwelling. Number two, the adjoining property at 143
West Walnut Lane. The main house has been converted into five units and the rear carriage house has
been converted into one residential unit and 11 artist studio units approved in 2014. In fact,
many properties and or carriage houses in the surrounding community have already been renovated
into separate dwellings either by variance or subdivision. Number one, the smaller property at
154 West Walnut Lane was granted a variance for use as a three-family household living units
in an existing structure in 2020. And the carriage house to that property was previously subdivided
into a separately deeded property. Number two, the smaller property at 120 West Topohockin Street is
a seven-unit apartment building with a unit in the carriage house. And number three, the property
at 112 West Topelhocken is an 11-unit rental property with units in the carriage house.
And number four, the property at 239 West Walnut was granted a zoning permit for six-unit
household living following subdivision in October of 2020. And he says these are a few of the
examples of large historic properties within one block of your property that were constructed as
single-family residences and have been preserved by permitting the multi-family use and these are
all in single-family zoning districts correct correct the next letter is from julie stapleton
carroll 130 west walnut lane and she is a strong supporter
Emily Demarest
She's at 132 West Walnut Lane
Yep, she and Julie are both directly across the street.
Yep, she and Julie are both directly across the street
Michael Drelling in support.
This is Karen Stevens and Thomas Schwartz.
And they reference the proviso, the revised plans, is that correct?
Correct. And this letter is significant because they share the majority of the rear property line, which is closest to the carriage house.
And as you can see with those provisos, they also support the variance.
And the provisos are that we're putting a trellis and a landscape buffer to block people inside the carriage house from being able to view the yards of the neighboring properties, and we're reducing the number of dwelling units total on the parcel from three to two.
Is that correct?
it the the proviso is to provide a trellis with landscaping buffer to block view of the rear yards
from the second floor patio okay um which is something that the 158 neighbors had expressed
at the rco meeting um and even though they're uh still not supportive i i you know as a near
neighbor i would want that probably myself so i am happy to include that proviso
Gloria Del Piano, 138 West Walnut Lane, writes and support.
Padilla Morgan at 143 West Walnut Lane, writes a long letter of support.
Alicea, 149 West Walnut Lane.
Yes, these are all near neighbors within 250 feet.
Right, and she discusses other properties in the close vicinity that have been converted into multifamily.
Umi Howard.
Long letter of support.
um you have a letter from the executive director of the ebenezer maxwell mansion
uh which is a 200 west topohawken uh how close is that to your property uh it's uh i think just
outside of the um planning commission radius um and she writes to support your your plans to
preserve the historic structure
of your carriage house.
Correct.
My house, actually,
Ebenezer Maxwell
lived in my house for a time
back in the 1800s before
moving into what is now
the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion.
Ah, okay.
This is Lillian Taylor Hightower,
217 West Tobahawken.
They write a very long letter
in support as well.
Steve, how many more letters do you have?
We can dispense with more of the letters.
I think you're making your point.
They're all starting to blend together here.
And I think the map you showed in the beginning of who was for it and against it was very helpful.
All right.
This is our slate plan.
uh in our in our this is our revised site plan and we have highlighted the the changes to
uh the original plan in um in yellow we are converting what is called an existing garage
but it really is a historic carriage house um with a with a small addition into one residential
unit and one in-law suite and we are creating a landscaped trellis buffer to block views from
second floor of the carriage house onto the the yards uh of the properties off of top of hawkins
street this is um this is the main house uh of that is uh uh 6 000 square feet is that correct
mr smith i think it's 6200 okay and then the driveway is um it goes you know to to the main
house obviously this is these are these are all kinds of accessory parking spaces that are created
These are all kinds of accessory parking spaces that are created, including some accessible parking places.
including
And then the driveway goes all the way back to the carriage house, which is, as you can see, located very, very close to the corner of the property, the two of the property lines.
That's how it was built back in the 1860s.
This is a floor plan.
first floor will be the in-law suite and that's located that's i'm sorry noted in um in yellow on
the floor plan uh and uh there's a porch um the living dining room and um uh bedroom uh kitchen
area kitchenette really um and then we have um the second floor uh unit would be the the dwelling
unit that would be the rental um there are the stairs going up uh there is the trellis uh
landscaped buffer and um these this is the the floor plan for the two-bedroom apartment on the
second floor um luke tell us what we are looking at here for aerial view one this is the 131 west
walnut lane property and you can just see it in uh relative to the surrounding properties it's
much much larger um and you can see 136 um west topohocken uh they're labeled that is um the
letter of support that we referenced earlier okay which has a which has a large um it shares a large
part of your property of the property border correct and you can see 143 at the bottom which
shares the entire west um boundary of the property and there's a we have the letter of support from
that address as well as 125 in the on the right hand side there's also a letter of support from
that address as well as the properties directly across the street a number of them as well as
you know, everything else you see in the map at the front. Okay, now this aerial view too,
this is showing us the nearby homes that have been converted to multifamily,
where the location is of a high-density apartment building and existing converted
carriage houses. So the rectangles that are orange, these are converted carriage houses
that are now that now have dwelling units correct okay so there's three that are in very very close
proximity to your property yes and i mean relative i mean everything's relative there because it's
such a low density neighborhood they're still you know in some cases uh you know 50 to a couple
hundred feet away but yes they are among the closest structures yeah and there are other
carriage houses that have been converted and then the homes that have been converted i'm sorry
Steve, while this map is up, could you show me 128 West Topohockin?
That is the kind of L-shaped one.
Yeah, right there.
All right.
This is the opponent.
Right.
His house is all the way back here.
This is where the carriage house is, but his yard is obviously right abutting the carriage.
Thank you.
Area view three.
What are we noting in this photo?
Um, really just that, uh, I don't know if these, the lot depth here is entirely accurate, but, um, there's a dense, you can't really see it, but there's dense vegetation already on both sides of the property line with the 128 West Topohockin.
and i'm just ensuring that the view from the patio will be blocked um but the it's just to
give a sense of the distance of the dwelling at 128 west topohocken from the carriage house that
is proposed to be converted yes okay which appears to be in the you know 170 to 200 foot away range
for that the rear addition to that property the rearmost part of the 128 west topohocken
uh-huh is it is right here and this is where the carriage house is right um here are some street
views so this is on the other side of walnut lane um and this is your main home is that correct
correct okay and then this is your main home and this is the driveway that eventually goes
all the way back to the carriage house can we see the carriage house here not really right
have not really and this is in winter um you know it'll be even less visible when they're the foliage
is um on the trees are zoning posters uh members of the board
these are zoning posters uh members of the board
all right looking west towards 143 uh west walnut lane looking east towards 125
um and this is your house here right correct
this is the immediately adjoining property and this has five family living uh the dwelling units
in the main house and a converted carriage house? Yes, with an addition to the carriage house that
houses 11 artist studios. So there's a residential, there's five residential units in the front
main property, which is of comparable size to my house. And the carriage house has a
residential unit, and then it has a very large addition to the carriage house housing 11
offices and artist studios and that has a lot of parking spaces i remember from a photo earlier
yeah the entire yard is is paved i believe their lot is a bit smaller than mine which has no paving
on it all right now we're going to look at the carriage house itself um this is the south side
of the carriage house um so the south side is the side facing towards walnut lane correct okay
um this is the north and east side uh and this is you said it's photographed from the 120 west
top of hawken uh carriage house so we're basically um now this is this is your yard and and this is
this is the top of hawken properties yard no um the carriage house is in the top sort of left of
this screen and then the immediately to the right of that is the rear yard of one one uh 28
and then below that is the next door neighbor to them's rear yard i believe
so is one of these 126 west topohawk yes right um
Um, yeah, I think that's correct, which would have, which I believe is, um, one of the ones
that was converted, um, with the converted carriage house and multifamily in the main
house.
This is the, the north side of your carriage house, which is, um, dense vegetation and
inaccessible.
Right.
This is west of your carriage house looking towards your property line with 128.
So, you can't really see anything in 128 from the ground level, it looks like.
Right, certainly not from the ground level.
Okay, this is west-facing from your carriage house.
Yes, and it just gives you a sense of the existing low density with these structures.
Southwest-facing.
is this the property with all of the the five units yeah five in the front and where you're
yeah that's the the artist studios and residence in the back of it okay
um this is your carriage house all the way in the in the rear here correct
yes and i'm standing this is the vantage point here is the edge of the other edge other corner
other rear corner of my um property okay
all right this is a wide angle of your carriage house which is here
and this is your main house yep okay and this is your carriage house and a shed yes
the shed is is not on your property though right no it it is it's a part of the property okay
this is your main house and this is your carriage house from the southwest of the rear yard yes
this is from the third floor of your main house looking to the carriage house yeah you can't
actually really see the carriage house there it's hidden behind the tree but I just wanted to give
a sense of the size of the lot okay and this is
sort of from the other end of the edge of the main house the back of the main house where you
can see the carriage house okay um so now we have some interior photos for members of the board
uh obviously this is not uh occupied uh uh it's it's um well how when's the last time you know
that the inside of the carriage house was actually cleaned up or used for anything.
um cleaned up or or or or used for anything not in at least the last 10 years um since we've owned
it i think it was used previously um as some uh some kind of uh commercial use because the
um there was electricity and um a contractor i think maybe it was renting it there's been some
more modern, um, architectural windows and, uh, French doors installed. Okay. This is the photo
where you, um, identified certain, um, indications that there was a historic residential use on the
second floor, right? Correct. Um, so in the bottom three pictures, what we're looking at
is a small room that has plastered ceilings and walls unlike the rest of it and a closet
and a little hutch and it seems very clearly to be what would have been the groom's quarters
a living space for the groom for the horses in the stable and or the carriage driver and then
And then just outside of that room is the other two pictures we see on the bottom.
And there's this wall penetration there that is evidencing a previous heating and cooking
stove location, which is further indication of this historic, you know, pre-existing use
as a living space.
Right.
All right, so then we have renderings from your architect here.
so this is the porch and the carriage house and then this is the the addition that you're
constructing correct um one caveat to this is these renderings were not updated with the proviso so
they're they don't depict the trellis and the landscape buffer which is going to be not just
on the patio um but is also going to um be surrounding the addition itself to try and
not, you know, make it more beautiful and not
distract from the historic nature of the original structure.
So this is from the west side
of the carriage house? Mm-hmm. Southwest. Yeah.
We have our tax
clearance uh we have um the deed in our exhibit binder uh the application for appeal the project
information form uh our rco letter and proof of nailing
i have some additional witnesses i wanted to call
how many witnesses do you have steve um well we have an architect um as needed if if members of
the board have uh questions on the the design i think he did i think he did a good job describing
what the carriage house is going to look like okay uh we have the um applicant's mother who's
going to be residing in the in-law suite okay um molly smith can you raise your hand
Good morning. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Ms. Smith, please unmute yourself. You're free to speak.
Okay. Okay. I got it. Molly Smith, M-O-L-L-Y Smith, S-M-I-T-H.
Sure. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. Proceed, counsel.
Sure. Ms. Smith, can you tell the board where you currently live?
5925 wayne avenue and that's relatively close to the property yeah that's a few blocks
um your family has lived in germantown for quite a while is that true well i've lived in germantown
40 plus years but my ex-husband grew up in germantown ah okay yes i knew it was one of
your son's parents and his father before him three generations or so right at least yeah
um so um tell us what what your um what your needs are in terms of of moving into uh the
in-law suite at the carriage house well i live in a really big old house and uh just me and my
um husband my second husband and it's way too much house for us and uh so we
And it's way too much house for us.
And so we have been downsizing.
Well, I've been downsizing for 15 years, but I'm really slow at it.
Anyway, yeah, I need a smaller place and preferably without stairs.
And it's nice to be close to family, closer to family.
Okay. Is there anything else you wanted to share with the board about your vision and why you are looking to age in place at the carriage house?
well um truthfully I live on a corner Wayne and Haynes and uh there's lots of traffic and lots of
neighbors who can see into my backyard and uh anyway I would like to live in the country and
I feel like that's what I would be doing if I move into Luke's and Rama's backyard it's very
it's very quiet back there except for the drummer next door
um okay i have um no further questions
next witness next witness is julie stapleton carroll
ma'am please unmute yourself you're free to speak could you state your name please and spell for
the court reporter. Hello? Is she unmuted? Yes, Chair. Okay. Could you state your name, please?
Yes, Julie Stapleton Carroll, J-U-L-I-E, Stapleton, S-T-A-P-L-E-T-O-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Ms. Stapleton Carroll, can you tell the board where you live in relationship to the property?
Yes. I live at 130 West Walnut Lane, which is directly across the street from 131 West Walnut Lane.
And can you describe why you are in support of these variances for the conversion of the carriage house?
Sure, yeah. Our neighborhood has really long struggled with the challenge of having very large houses and the cost of upkeep. There's a balance between having single-family home options and being able to maintain large properties.
We've seen, you know, we've been very careful and deliberate as a neighborhood in terms of deciding what density is best.
And I truly believe that Luke's option and Rama's option is in line with that.
I think it will give them the opportunity to maintain a property in our neighborhood that is very valued and beautiful and also a community asset.
Every year they host a community neighborhood picnic, and it's become sort of a mainstay of
our history. And so to be able to allow them to continue with that is great. And Luke's a very
active community member. He's been the head of our zoning committee for years. Not now, of course,
but he's also the president of the board of, I believe, Ebenezer Maxwell Museum. He's a board
member of germantown united cdc he's a very good neighbor and their family is a very valued
members of the family and you yourself are a civic activist would that be correct to say
yes yeah i'm the board president of germantown united cdc i'm a committee person in our neighborhood
as well and didn't you also work with west minority neighbors i did not oh okay sorry
i was on the board previously of the west central germantown neighbors association okay that could
be it okay um all right thank you um next witness is how many more witnesses steve well we the two
witnesses that i have next are around the voting irregularities uh voting irregularities well the
the at the rco meeting there was a slate there there all right yeah the tally showed um a slate
and we had letters do we have letters from both of them too i believe we do yes from emily yeah
So, let me go to Karen Stevens, who is the neighbor who shares the largest boundary with the coach.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Excuse me, Chair, there's no one with that name who has their hand raised or in the audience.
or in the audience uh karen stevens or thomas schwartz
Karen Stevens or Thomas Schwartz.
mr schwartz you're free to speak please unmute yourself
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
Mr. Schwartz, you will have to unmute yourself to speak.
Hi, could you state your name, please?
He's free to speak, Chair.
He's still muted.
What would you like to do?
Do you have another witness, Steve?
Yes, Emily Demarest.
Do we have a letter from Emily, too?
We do.
Hi, Emily, could you state your name, please, and spell for a court reporter?
Emily Demarest, E-M-I-L-Y-D-E-M-A-R-E-S-T.
Right.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
All right.
Hi. Can you tell us where you live in comparison to the property?
Sure. I live at 132 West Walnut Lane in the twin with Julie, or like next door to Julie, who just spoke, and directly across the street from Luke and Rama and their family.
Okay. And you are a professional architect. Is that also true?
I am, yes.
So in your evaluation of the project and from your professional background, why is it that you support this project?
I support it because, I mean, I think that it's important for the preservation of a space that existed prior to any of us living.
Um, but also, you know, I think it's intentional growth and, um, and density in the neighborhood
that, that's important for the upkeep, as Julie said, of these large properties, but
also, you know, just, just because otherwise it would be a vacant space.
You were, um, you were present for the RCO meeting that happened, uh, last year.
Is that right?
I was, yes.
Can you describe the issues that apparently occurred with the tallying of the votes and the availability of the technology for voting?
There are a handful of things that happened.
So the meeting was testing out a new voting system.
A lot of the members of the meeting were unfamiliar with it.
you know, obviously, we all are still struggling with hurdles of Zoom and virtual meetings.
And the votes were taken electronically via link. And we were told at the beginning of the
meeting that it would be circulated the day after the RCO meeting. The meeting was, you know,
there was some levels of contention, a lot of levels of support as well, but the meeting
concluded with an informal vote of the people that remained at the end, stating that we weren't
going to vote then. And then we had, which was contrary to the original instructions at the
beginning of the meeting, a lot of people at that point dropped off of the call because we weren't
required to stay on um i remained on the call until it the meeting ended um but at the end of
the discussion the neighbor discussion where you know the smith family had dropped off the call
and everyone involved in the project had dropped off um another informal poll was circulated and
we decided to have the vote. And so then the link was sent, I think, two days after the RCO meeting
via email. And so half of the attendees probably weren't expecting it because I think that I don't
have the exact numbers, but at the end of the call, there were only like a dozen or two people
left on the call, but there had been, you know, 70 people on at one point. So there were a large
part of a large portion of the call had dropped off and understood that there was not going to
be a vote and then there was a vote that was circulated not within that time frame um
i think there were um did you notice um at some point that there were supporters who were not
actually casting votes and did that did that um cause you to to take notice of that yeah i think
cause you to take notice of that yeah I think there were there were several people um you know
there were several
near neighbors to the property that had been in attendance in the meeting um earlier that did not
end up casting a vote um you know I can't tell you whether they were supporters or not but I
I assume you know a lot of them were supporters and they um they were they were listed as eligible
voters, and they didn't end up casting a vote, whether that was because they didn't know that
there was going to be one, they didn't see the link come through because it wasn't timely,
etc. So the window of voting just wasn't as expected. And that was Beth and Bob Emmett and
Lewis and Kimberly Klotman among that group, right? Yeah, those are four that I know explicitly
didn't vote yeah and they have provided us with letters of support that we showed earlier today
um do you have anything else that you wanted to share with the board about um why you feel that
this project is important to to be approved um i mean i i'll keep it short um but i think that
it's just i mean i think it's very thoughtful um and you know providing you know a place for
family and you know we we love the smith family they're they're excellent neighbors and you know
excellent stewards of the community and everything like that and i i i don't feel like this is um
bad density in any way shape or all right thank you can i just ask one clarifying question before
we let emily go and i'll be very brief of course so just to um be clear and thank you emily for
for being on um the voting platform allows you to see um a list of the near neighbors that were
listed as eligible to vote correct yes and you could see of that list which of them had cast a
vote um yes by name not which way they voted but that they had or had not casted a vote correct
yes that is true and there yes i i meant to add that there were duplicates for some
folks in the voting system. And who were those duplicates? Specifically Fausia and Gustavo
Garcia. Okay and I think that the that they were eventually um you know excluded from the count but
um I is is it your recollection that there was a total of 20 um eligible near neighbors to vote
if you exclude those duplicates i believe so yes and that there were at the close of the window
exactly four near neighbors that had not casted votes within the time frame that is true yes and
those were the four that um steve mr masters listed a moment ago is that correct yeah beth
bob lewis and kimberly okay thank you you're welcome um i just want to circle back um luke to
question for you. So in the beginning of my presentation, I spoke about the cost estimate
for renovating the carriage house at $400,000. Can you tell the board how that number came about
and what your research, what research you did in order to determine that that cost was a proper
cost and, and, uh, and then explain why it is that you, that you are asking for not just an
in-law suite, but for a rental unit that could provide you with some, with some income for the
property. Sure. So the, um, that figure is based on, um, square footage, uh, and a calculation
that my architect kind of put together i i my understanding is that uh renovating a existing
historic structure with all that's involved in in that is more expensive than probably constructing
something from the ground up but i felt it was important to preserve um preserve the structure
um and yeah so that's uh that figure is just kind of i've had contractors come out and look at it
and that the ballpark that seems correct and it was also something that that figure was obtained
prior to the pandemic and I know that costs have just gone up and up for materials and labor and
all that in the meantime Steve we're comfortable with the cost we understand it okay all right
thank you all right so then we rest with the option for rebuttal if there are questions
questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience? Chair, we have Bob Lane.
Chair, we have Bob Lane.
Hi, Mr. Lane.
Hi, Mr. Lane. Could you give us, state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Yes, my name is Robert Lane, R-O-B-E-R-T-L-A-N-E.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
And I remember we have a letter from Mr. Lane, too. Am I right, Steve?
Yes, we do.
Proceed.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I was just wanted to comment that I believe at the beginning of this hearing, you noted, I believe I understood you to say that you had not received the letter from the RCO on this matter.
That's what our records had indicated at the time.
Well, I am the co-chair of the zoning committee and the secondary contact for the RCO for WCGN.
And I just wanted to inform you that, indeed, a report and letter was submitted to the ZBA on January 12th.
and and that's all uh i wanted to say thank you mr lane for calling in and tell us that i appreciate
it chair we have gustavo garcia sure
mr garcia please could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter
Yes, my name is Gustavo Garcia, G-U-S-T-A-V-O, Garcia, G-A-R-C-I-A.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, sir.
I have a statement that I would like to read, but I'd like to first indicate that it is a surprise and news to us that our votes were not counted at the RCO.
meeting we have proof from the voting system that our votes were submitted only once not twice
and if we can need to provide that we will we got an email verification and a pdf from that so
we've heard a lot of testimony about the vote but i think the key thing is why don't you read your
letter all right so um i'm gonna read a summary because i submitted a letter for to the zba
that was written on behalf of harry cook um and i'd like to enter that as my testimony but i'd
like to summarize that because it's you know pretty lengthy um so um as it was noted uh my
my wife who's here with me um you live on 128 west wallot lane and um sorry west topo hawkins street
and our property shares that the rear property line with the applicants and their garage we saw
that on the map sure we did. So we first were notified of this proposed development in February
2022 five days prior to the scheduled RCO meeting. We had no prior notification from the neighbor
submitting the application and it was really a shock to us to find out that with such little
time we had to review the intended plans and be prepared for the meeting at the RCO.
In addition, the plans that were presented today are not the same plans that were presented to and voted by the RCO on the March 2nd meeting.
And as far as we know, we just saw the plans, the revised plans, two days ago that were forwarded to us.
As far as we know, aside from the Tom Schwartz and Karen Stevens, I don't know if anyone else saw those plans, but we definitely did not until two days ago.
So, Mr. Garcia, here's the question.
You saw the plans two days ago.
Have you changed your mind?
You have to look at the plans or you still have objections?
No, my mind has not changed. I still feel that our opposition is based on several reasons.
One, the applicant has not fully shown that there's established a legal hardship under the Philadelphia Zoning Code for the parcel.
It's a single family with a garage and not a residential use in the garage.
And also that granting the requested variance will have an adverse impact on all adjacent neighbors and is contrary to the public interest as evidenced by the RCO vote, which is being questioned.
RCO vote which is being questioned and also the 21 near neighbors
and also the
whom I spoke to individually who signed the petition submitted with our letter.
And I did have plans that were provided to us when I spoke to the neighbors and
we spoke about them and reviewed whatever information we had provided by the applicant
to us. The existing footprint of the pre-existing non-conforming garage also may not be expanded for
a new use under relevant case law, and that's important because the addition is completely
within the 25-foot rear yard setback, which is currently also not compliant with the current
zoning code right um and from what we understand um in order for the board to grant the variances
the applicant must show that um you know he meets all the requirements per the philadelphia zoning
code and um we feel that when he purchased the property he knew it was a single family
dwelling in the zoning district that forbids multi-family use we knew that he knew that
there is no hardship that it's only created by him because he's expressing the desire to
put multiple dwellings on the property and convert the long-standing garage into
to residential dwellings and secondly I think we granting the requested variances would increase
the residential use on that parcel by 66 percent and expand the footprint of the pre-existing
non-conforming garage while the applicant cannot provide credible evidence that this
proposed variance are required to avoid any unnecessary hardship not created by him
and they represent the least required variance
from the code to avoid any unnecessary hardship.
It is assumed by us that the hardship amounts
to landowners near desire to increase profitability,
which he's stating is needed for him to maintain his home.
This then does not meet the criteria required for variance
and therefore the variance should be denied.
thirdly um i have quite a bit here i'm sorry i just they got a lot of time and i think this is
a really important issue for the neighborhood and we you know um based on the the um master plan for
the district philadelphia 2035 master plan the planning commission um has recommends that the
100 block of West Walnut Lane remain low density. Therefore, the applicant's desire to increase the
density from one family dwelling to three units is inconsistent with the master plan and not
consistent with the spirit of the zoning code and the adopted plan for the neighborhood, and therefore
the variance should be denied. In addition, we did, as noted before, the RCO did vote in opposition
and it's news to us that our vote was not counted but that's because we understand there's certain
issues there. The opposition petition is also was submitted and from the map that was represented
earlier in the presentation a lot of the red which were the people in opposition were
adjacent or near neighbors where a lot of the green and a lot of the letters the addresses
that were presented were not directly near neighbors or adjacent neighbors and so and a
lot of the names and letters that were written were by people that are on the RCO or members
of the RCO, of which Mr. Luke Smith is currently the Vice President of the RCO. And so we feel
that these points make it clear that the burden is on the applicant to show a legal hardship,
and that has not been shown. Mr. Garcia, Mr. Garcia, I don't mean to interrupt you,
But you've said that several times now, and I understand it.
So could you give me some new testimony?
Because you've talked about the burden several times.
So could you try to gear down where you want to be with this?
Okay, no problem.
So the last thing is, I mean, the other items I wanted to confirm is I wanted to reiterate that the existing garage is noncompliant.
And it is currently, they're seeking to expand the use.
And it is currently, they're seeking to expand the use.
You've told us that, and I understand that.
And then the other item is that with the provisios that have been submitted, it seems that what they're trying to do is indicate that they were only asking for one additional dwelling unit.
From my understanding, what is currently in the zoning code, accessory dwelling units are only allowed on lots that are occupied by a single-family use, and they have to meet the criteria under section 14604.11.D.
And they also have to be located within the interior of a detached accessory building with the existence of a building that's been in existence before the date of the zoning code.
What we see here is that the applicant is seeking an additional drawing unit as an accessory drawing unit.
And this lot will then no longer be considered single-family lot.
The other item I wanted to bring up is that under the same code, the accessory dwelling units are allowed in areas that meet the requirements outlined by the Philadelphia Historic Commission.
and they have to be either an historic building recognized by the Philadelphia Historic Commission
or a large lot in RSA 5 or CMX 1 zoning the applicant's property needs neither of those
because the the building is not recognized by the Philadelphia Historic Commission
and on their registry and also the Topohockin Station District is only recognized by
the department of state not the historic commission and the law is rsa1 and not rsa5 or cmx1 okay
and then um and and also i wanted to note that the other mr garcia mr garcia let me say this much
we have the letter from mr cook that he right everything you're saying is coming from the
letter. Am I correct? This part is not because I just saw the provisio two days ago and I'm just
speaking now about the provisio. The other information shared in the provisio, in the
revised plans with provisio is that they are seeking to place a trellis with some landscape
to buffer the neighboring's properties. But from my understanding, as it's noted in their plans,
The patio, which they know on the second floor, is not technically a patio.
It's a roof deck per zoning code definition because it's on top of a roof framing of a building.
And per the section 146045 of the zoning code, roof decks are prohibited on excessive structures.
Are you reading this from the letter, sir?
no this is something that's not from the letter because the letter was written prior to me
knowing that there were any plans with provisius
i i'm just to clarify i'm also familiar with the zoning code because i am an i am an architect i'm
here representing myself as a homeowner i understand i understand i understand um and so
there is no the the roof deck shouldn't even be allowed the addition shouldn't be allowed
so the provisions for a trellis to buffer from the roof deck isn't even valid in my opinion um and
then also um the applicant is proposing windows that are facing the property our property um
directly and any tenants in that building would then be looking directly into our property and
therefore the trellis would do nothing to protect our property from being looked upon um the the
applicant's mother stated that you know in her house people are looking into her backyard well
now the applicant is trying to do that to my backyard and even if my house is further away
that is the backyard where my child plays and I don't really want that and
it's not even allowed because it's less than three feet from the property line
so for the building code the IRC the IDC you can't even have windows along the
You can't even have windows along the property line that close.
property line that close it's not
It's not legal.
Okay, are you done, sir?
What I wanted to finally add is that we feel that with a house that's over 6,000 square feet
and a lot that's over an acre, we believe the applicant could create a by-right project
without any hardship required for variance.
and therefore the proposed and revised plans with proviso should be denied because
we never saw any alternative plans aside from wanting to add an addition and occupy the carriage
house okay thank you um steve let me ask you are you gonna question then mr uh um i i'm not gonna
of question um the witness but i do have um a like a brief closing for you let me let me just
for before steven is there anyone else in the virtual audience excuse me chair we have charles
richardson hi mr richardson good afternoon yeah we're in afternoon now mr chair thanks for reminding
me that's the afternoon charles richardson office of councilwoman cindy bass room 508 city hall
The councilwoman is not going to make an official decision on this one, but just want to make note that I did attend the RCO meeting.
It seemed like there was all kinds of opinions that were being bandied about.
And I made the suggestion that they hold the vote, which it seemed like they had agreed to.
And, you know, as they had been discussed earlier, and I was kind of surprised that they went forward with the vote for a little later on.
And then I heard from other people that there was a bunch of confusion with regard to the votes.
And unfortunately, it seems as though that, you know, the RCO went with the opinion that was rendered with those votes, which was in opposition.
There seemed to be a lot of room for conversation to take place.
And I have suggested that to Mr. Smith and also to the RCO board in order for this to kind of play out a little better than what it has.
Do also want to make note that Mr. Smith has since done a lot of work, did speak with him and noted that he has a lot of letters of support.
and you know so therefore you know making note that that is the case uh we're leaving it in
the hands of the board to make a wise decision on this on this property thank you thank you
mr richardson anyone else in the virtual audience chair let we have a hand up uh first name again
and an f last name garcia um hello hi could you state your name please and spell for the court
reporter uh fazia f-a-u-z-i-a last name s-a-d-i-q space g-a-r-c-i-a right do you swear a firm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes are you associated with mr garcia yes um so
i agree with the testimony the one thing i wanted to add was that the first hearing for the zba was
supposed to occur in July. If the applicant had any issues with the RCO vote, he could have decided
to have another vote that was never presented to the RCO. And so that is kind of interesting that
he's now trying to say that people had issues with the vote. The project could have come back
to the RCO and it was never brought back to the RCO. And we never received a meeting with the RCO
to review the provisios and the new drawings um so i wanted to thank you thank you for pulling in
i appreciate it is there anyone else i seen chair we have one chair we have three several hands up
it's about four hands up um next in line we have bernard wilson okay okay mr wilson i am here
All right. State your name, please. Spell for the court reporter.
Bernard Wilson, B-R-N-A-R-D-W-I-L-S-O-N.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Wilson, are you for the project or against it?
I'm against the project.
Okay. Could you tell us why in a short period of time?
um our resident is 146 which uh the west top of the southeast corner of our property
is at the corner of luke smith's property we were dismayed at the onset of this because
mr smith never came to us to speak to us about his intentions as a former president
came to us to speak to us about his intentions as a former president of West Central Germantown
Neighbors. I'm very familiar with the process, and I would have loved to have engaged him in
conversation about his desires, but I never got an opportunity. The other thing that is also
interesting is that this proviso came out, and the revised drawings were never submitted back
to the community for review. So it was interesting to me that there was a sort of non-sequitur
here that the RCO letter, the provisional letter, got admitted and it did not go back
before the community group to discuss it, to vote on it, etc. The last thing I'll say
very quickly is that the only carriage houses that have been converted to use in the immediate
vicinity is the one to the east of Luke, the large property which has been commercial for many years
and the one at 120 which according to the records online it is not permitted as a use for a family
dwelling. The final thing I want to say is that if you look at the graphic the red which denoted
objection to the plan in closest proximity to the property is stronger than the ones on the outline
in the green which are farther away from the property than any of us who object thank you
thank you all right how many more hands do we have i see no excuse me thank you every time
every time i say i see no hands hands pop up we have thomas schwartz well okay you want to
that's the last one there's no other hands no okay come on yes please i'll let my wife
karen stevens speak she has something to say okay uh state your name please and spell for the court
reporter karen stevens k-a-r-e-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s right do you swear for him to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth i do we also have a letter from you yes and i i apologize
for not being able to unmute myself before i but i'm saying we have a letter also from you right
you do you do yes okay we'll proceed uh well we are in favor uh i feel that it is a reasonable
request we are located right right in back the impact would be the largest on us right it was
our carriage house in all the pictures and we do not have it developed uh we have been
friends with the smiths for over 30 years we know them very well they are good people they
are community minded and uh i i thank you very much but i stand at 12 30 i have to we have to
end it completely so we have a letter from you everything you said we know where you live we
saw it on the map and we appreciate it are there are there any questions from the board
no mr chairman okay um no mr chair uh hillary do you want to interject anything here
yes mr chair um mr masters in your presentation you noted that the additional dwelling unit um
the that was being sought now is uh they're seeking to have an uh adu an accessory dwelling
unit there along with an in-law suite is that correct um yes the the carriage house will the
first floor would be an in-law suite so that would belong to the same family as the main house and
then there will be a separate accessory dwelling unit on the second floor okay um because an
accessory dwelling unit is under the code is different than a regular dwelling unit and
doesn't necessarily well it doesn't render the property of multi-family use because it's
accessory. It's not considered an additional dwelling unit. And so if your client would like
to have an accessory dwelling unit, we will have to have the refusal go back to L&I for review
under the accessory dwelling unit criteria. The board can't vote on it as the plans are right
now because they they don't match what's in what was originally requested um and it's a different
criteria that the the plant the the uh lni has to review for an accessory dwelling unit than just
for an additional dwelling so we we do not want that to happen um miss emerson uh we we would stand
with with just a separate dwelling unit and and we we our argument is that it's very similar
to an accessory dwelling unit it doesn't meet exactly the criteria because we don't have the
exactly the criteria because we don't have the historical commission designation we have the
historical commission designated
national you know historic register but it was basically within the spirit of the code around
accessory dwelling units but we're we're looking for a separate dwelling unit that would be able
to be voted on today okay i i think that we will still need to to hold this because
the going from two dwelling units to one dwelling unit plus an in-law suite i need to make sure
that we still don't need to change the refusal for that with L&I. So I know that if you were
seeking an accessory dwelling unit, that would need a separate review and absolutely an amended
refusal. But I need to have further conversations with them about the in-law suite and if that is
something we can do via proviso. Hillary, can we take a planning commission?
yes we can take the the planning commission's recommendation and we can we can have this
matter voted on next week that's that's not a problem i've already had some conversations
with ellen i about this around the adu but not about the in-law suite planning commission
thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission members
of the board um the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing single family zoning on
this block. However, the proposed conversion is consistent with a specific recommendation
in the comprehensive plan to promote the use of existing accessory structures as additional
dwelling units on large lots such as this. Proposed use is also consistent with conversions
of carriage houses in the surrounding community and with the physical configuration of this
specific accessory structure. Therefore, the City Planning Commission recommends that the
board grant the variance thank you leon um hillary can we um can we close this other than what yes
yes we will we will close this for a week um i'll close sorry the the record is closed we will hold
this for a week because i need to consult with l and i to make sure there are no changes that need
to be made to the refusal um based on the revised plans that have been submitted and we'll vote
next week yes okay at 9 30 okay um yes um i i um i appreciate um miss emerson's thoroughness and
making sure everything is done correctly i i appreciate everything she does every day
thank you we appreciate it thank you is there anyone else in the audience from the morning
list whose case has not been called? I see no handshare. Everybody at two o'clock. Thank you.
All right.
And you can be no one to go with, Lakeisha. You can begin, Chair. Okay, thank you. Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearings. With me is Ismail
Shahid, our board secretary. He's getting on right now. Thomas Holliman, our board member.
And James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is our attorney, Hillary Emerson, and the ZBA hearing supervisor, Lakeisha Dandy.
Be advised that proceedings are being recorded by participating in your knowledge agreement
to be recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkett at phil.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question-answer box on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
Any comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sump.
Let's look at continuances for this afternoon.
Number one, MI 2022, 005-336, 2000 North, 20th Street, that case is 18.
number four mi 2022 006892 2202 204 wesley high avenue that case is continued number nine
mi 2022 005 364 2537 north 32nd street that case is continued and number 11
and number 11. MI 2022-005-365-4001-03 Kensington Avenue. All four of those cases
and my 2022
are continued. Does anyone have any comments about those four cases?
I see no hands, Chair. Are there any additional requests for continuance?
chair we have sean ward okay good afternoon mr chair sean ward s-h-a-w-n-w-a-r-d
right thank you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i most certainly do what case uh 2600 west montgomery avenue i don't know the n-line number
off the top of my head hold on a minute here i submitted an email request to continue that case
because the RCO has not met with a fit.
One minute.
Here it is here.
That was number five.
I actually called it, Sean.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I missed it.
Number five, 2022-001-797-2600 West Montgomery Avenue.
That case is continued.
Mark must be tried.
Thank you.
Is there any other requests for continuance?
I see no handshare.
Any requests for withdrawal?
no no hands at this time chair okay we're going to go to case number two
MI 2022 005 147 23 West Coulter Street Eileen Quigley is the attorney
um we have a uh we did have not received a letter from the coordinating RCO
and we have a letter of opposition from an affected RCO
Ms. Quigley is coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you.
Hi, how are you?
Yes, hello Chairman Bergman.
My name is Eileen Quigley.
I am here also with my colleague Matthew McClure, who will also be handling the appeal.
I got a little cut off when I was joining as a panelist, but I know that the coordinating
RCO did forward a letter to the ZBA? We do not. I do not have a letter as
of yet from the coordinating RCO. Am I right, Eileen, Hillary? Yes, that is correct. We do
not have a letter from the coordinating RCO. Eileen, just for the thing, let me swear you in
first. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter? Eileen Quigley, E-I-L-E-E-N,
Quigley, Q-U-I-G-L-E-Y.
Right. Do you swear to the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do. They also recognize Matt McClure as a
panelist. Sure, sure. Could he state his name for me, please?
Matthew McClure?
Matt, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please? He's coming back in as a
panelist. Okay.
Mr. McClure, please unmute yourself.
Thank you so much, Ms. Administrator.
Mr. Chairman, Matthew McClure, M-A-T-T-H-E-W-M-C-C-L-U-R-E
with the law firm of Ballard Spar with Ms. Quigley.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Ms. Quigley or Matt, either one, for the record, could you identify your client, your relationship to the property?
Our client is the Germantown Friends School, which is the owner of the property.
And we met with the community both on December 6th as well as January 9th.
And an email, which we received, was sent.
And are they in favor?
They were opposed.
All right. So our vice chair, Ms. Mel Shaheed, has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I will waive the reading of the refusal. However, we do have alternative grounds of relief.
We do not believe the variance relief is required because we believe we're a legal nonconforming use that existed well over 100 years.
so subject to me being able to put on that argument yes we'll go over that we'll go through
the case have you emailed all of the required exhibits and documents five days in advance to
this hearing all the documents were sent to the commission yes five days all right thank you
All right. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
please proceed and share your screen sure and uh
Sure. And so I'll confirm our witnesses are here. I know, Eileen, if you can confirm while we're here.
Again, my name is Matt McClellan with the law firm of Ballard Spar.
The property is 23 West Coulter, as well as 5443 Green Street, which is located in the Penn Knox or Germantown section of Philadelphia.
The zoning district is a combination of RSA 1 and CMX 2.5.
The vast majority of the site is RSA 1.
The witnesses and representatives that we have here today are Jeff Goldstein of Dixal.
He's an architect, a project architect.
Fred Tavini, who is a traffic engineer.
He's with us here today, as well as David Feldman, who is the chair of the school's board.
And then last, who would not be testifying but is available, is Dana Weeks, who is the head of school for Germantown Friends.
A little bit about the project before I call witnesses.
The project is a three-story addition to the existing Loeb and Smith buildings to house a new cafeteria that is necessitated due to changes after COVID and all kinds of requirements for space spaces.
previously there was a cafeteria that was in the basement pre-COVID and for all kinds of
ventilation reasons it is not appropriate also the the building will give us space for other
academic functions of the school the requested relief is that we believe a variance is is not
necessary I'm going to go into length of that and have some testimony of that as well this is really
a modernization of a leaking non-conforming use the the Germantown meeting of friends as well as
school have existed on this property for well over 100 years well before a zoning code alternatively
we asked for a height variance of 44 is what is being proposed of 38 feet is the maximum allowable
and as well as a variance for multiple buildings on the lot however right now there are dozens of
buildings in the lot that's a condition that has existed for decades and additionally we are not
actually doing a new building we're doing an addition to an existing building so we don't not
believe that it isn't we're not adding to the variance because adding to the non-conformity
because it's not a new building it's an addition um however to the extent the board believes um
a variance is required we ask for that and then last but last but not least a parking variance
23 spaces are being provided uh that's a required because of the uh the size of the new addition
and uh i mean 31 required and we are proposing 23 and lastly a special exception for an expansion
of an existing uh existing school use uh as as mentioned to the chairman we met with the rcos
on december 6th and 9th we have a modified facade of the building which is identified on exhibit 20
that modified facade was put into evidence not five days in advance because it was a late
request of the community, but that's on Exhibit 20. I'm going to read our exhibits in a second
to the record. But notwithstanding our efforts, we have been unable to obtain the support of the
RCOs. That being said, we believe that we merit the relief that we requested, especially because
if you look at the classification of this property, RSA 1, which is a residential single
family classification. It totally ignores the fact that this property has been institutional
for a very long time, well before zoning. And we believe that that situation creates
requirements and conditions that are impossible to meet and makes dialogue sometimes with the
communities not as easy as if the property was remapped. For example, down the street is Green
Street Friends, which was recently remapped to CMX3. And that property, the new building is
same size as the the addition that we're showing today um the square block bounded by germantown
avenue coulter street green lane and schoolhouse lane have been used by the germantown quaker
community i said for well over 100 years and and this is gives you an example of how how old uh
the first germantown meeting was established on this site on long germantown avenue in 1690
Again, the site is a square block between Germantown, Schoolhouse, Green, and Coulter.
The first meeting was built in 1697, and the school itself started on the property in 1858 and has grown ever since.
And like it, I mean, I'm Catholic in my personal life, but think about a Catholic parish if you don't know about the Quaker community.
But this is all the uses of the community were there, the school, the, the, the, the.
All the uses of the community were there.
The school, the place of worship, the meeting house, all this stuff has been on the site for long and all integral to the Quaker community in Germantown.
Notwithstanding all that history, the property is zoned RSA 1.
Its zoning classification ignores well over 100 years of history.
The Planning Commission has recognized this and has recommended remapping of the property to the SPINS district.
See tab 14 of our exhibit, which is the Upper Northwest Plan that they recommended this property should be in the SPINS district, which is an academic or institutional district as opposed to a residential zoning district.
And we believe the Pennsylvania law does not really permit the city to kind of ignore this history.
that goes back well over 100 years and impose RSA-1 to the existing use without any sort of
relief being granted. Rather, the proposed addition we're also being presented is a
modernization of this legal non-conforming use. All the changes we believe are modest,
designed to complement the neighborhood, and are consistent with the modern school buildings
throughout the city and you'll hear about the setback from uh green lane um and alternatively
we again we request uh we request a variance for leaving but with that i would like to bring up
our first witness which is david feldman who is the chair of the board of the school and with that
i would ask the david could i could i can i make a recommendation could could you throw some photos
up or something so that when people are talking we can see what it looks like no problem mr chairman
i'll do that right away matt i'm on can you hear me yes mr feldman could you state your name spell
for the court reporter please certainly david feldman d-a-v-i-d last name feldman f-e-l-d-m-a-n
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do thank you okay i'm going to put up a picture of the school proper right now
And then if you go down on Exhibit 9, you will also get to the renderings of the proposed structure.
And this is the alternative facade that was requested by the neighbors showing red brick instead of white brick or gray brick.
Okay. All right. Fine. Please proceed.
Okay. Mr. Feldman, can you please state and spell your name for the record?
Sure. David Feldman, David, D-A-V-I-D, Feldman, F-E-L-D-M-A-N.
And you're here in your capacity as a chair of the board of the school?
That is correct.
What is the role of the chair, Mr. Feldman?
Well, the school is governed by the school committee, which is equivalent to the board of trustees.
I am the clerk of the school committee, or in essence, the chair of the board of those trustees.
My role is to run the meetings of the governing body and oversee the long-term growth and
health of the school.
How long have you been affiliated with the school?
Well, I started there in kindergarten in the early 60s.
So since then, my mother was actually a graduate of the school in 1948.
I graduated in 1976, and I have two children who graduated from the school in the 2000s.
And how active of a chair are you, in your opinion?
I would say very active.
In addition to this project, we manage the finances of the school.
As I said, the long-term health of the school.
We've done a campus master planning exercise, which has resulted in this building being built and future phases of the modernization of our campus, which is very old.
So we have a lot going on.
I've been very active.
And prior to retiring, you were in the title business, correct?
That's correct.
I started my career as a real estate attorney at Wolf Lockshore and Solis Cohen here in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia after about three and a half years I went into the title insurance business and I
just retired from the title insurance business after 35 years. Would you consider yourself an
expert in real estate title matters? I would. Can you explain the relationship between the school
and the meeting? I kind of I probably said it too simply but could you explain a little bit?
Well it's a historical relationship. The school was founded by the meeting originally to teach
Quaker children in the 1800s. And the governance of the school was done through the school
committee of the meeting, which ran the school. We are today a Quaker school. Our bylaws require that
We are today a Quaker school. Our bylaws require that we are currently majority Quaker on the board, and we are under the care and very long and deep relationship with the Quaker meeting itself.
the Quaker meeting and the school for various reasons in the early 2000s separately incorporated
so we are a separate non-profit corporation as is the meeting but still very closely tied
and have a long and deep relationship with the meeting. For how long has the square block
bordered by Germantown, Coulter, Green, and Schoolhouse Lane been used by the meeting and
or the school? Well, as you stated, a meeting was established here in the late 1600s, 1690. The
school was actually created in 1845 and I think moved to this block in 1858. So the school has
existed here for well over 150 years uh although our history is over 175 years um and uh you know
the school has expanded the meeting house which is the meeting uh manages the meeting is the
religious uh organization that governs everything that we do um so the school has been here for
well over 150 years. It has grown by acquisition and additions of properties from Quaker families
over the years and other third parties to the size that it is now, which is virtually the entire
square block. There are several pieces that the school does not own, but we are the majority of
the block. Regarding the site of the addition to Loeb and Smith buildings, when was that land
first acquired by the friends? Where the Smith Gym was acquired in 1924, and the gym was built in
1925 uh the where the the the lobe was originally built as the uh um what am i the words i'm missing
oh yeah the second church of christ science that's where you're showing your cursor was
was built by the second church of christ scientists and was acquired by the school
in 1985 where the cursor is now is the smith gym
all right uh and good do you want me to go for it okay and the piece behind the swift smith gym
going towards green street where your cursor now is the pensbury lot
the pensbury was a uh lack of a better term a and home for elderly quakers uh on that site
and uh which ran which i think was established in um blanking on on the date
anyway the pensbury existed on that uh until 1966 when it deeded the property to the school
so that property has been controlled by the school since 1966 but in using your analogy
that you made before to a quaker school this was all quaker usage uh in among all these properties
So it was somewhat affiliated with the meeting.
And in preparation for your testimony today, who did you speak with?
I've spoken with the school's archivist, Tim Wood.
And just for the record, I've been using the – Dr. Feldman has been referring to Exhibit 9.
there is a site plan for the record, which is a site plan of the campus map, so speak.
As a school's board chair, can you explain the importance of the addition to the school
and the provision of its educational services to the students?
Sure. Well, as I said, I've been associated with the school since I went to kindergarten
garden in the early 60s. The school had a lunchroom in the main portion of its existing building and it was below grade and small.
And it was below grade and small. And with the advent of COVID, because it had inferior ventilation in the basement, we were no longer able to use the cafeteria to have the number of children in it that we needed to to serve lunch.
So it was no longer usable. So as part of our campus master plan exercise that we went through that was from pre-COVID where we had planned for a building on this site, we decided that we needed to create a lunch, a dining facility for our children, which, among other things, had been given the size of the prior lunchroom, created a block in our schedule.
We couldn't feed all the children on campus, division all at once, and therefore it created a problem with scheduling of classes because different people ate at different times, and it was a roadblock to scheduling the courses that we needed to provide to our children on campus.
So the necessity for a new and modern lunchroom and a larger lunchroom was apparent.
And also, as part of our campus plan, our goal is to consolidate different divisions of the school together.
We plan to consolidate our lower school in one section of our building.
And in order to do that, we need the classrooms where the current art classrooms are to be vacated.
And so we made a determination that along with a dining facility, we would locate our art department in this building as well to create a center for the arts.
Mr. McClure, could you show on the map where it's going to be?
With your cursor?
Right here.
I am pointing to the proposed site plan.
Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions for Mr. Feldman.
Do you or any of the board members have questions, Mr. Feldman, before I call our next witness?
Anyone from the board with a question?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClure, we're fine. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to call our next witness, Mr. Goldstein, Jeff Goldstein.
Could you elevate Jeff Goldstein as a panelist, please?
I am here. Thank you.
Hi, Mr. Goldstein. Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
Sure. This is Jeff Goldstein, J-E-F-F-G-O-L-D-S, as in Sam, T-E-I-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. I'm going to reference the resume of Mr. Goldstein on Exhibit 17 of our packet
right here, and then we're going to be going through the plans that are on renderings on
Exhibit 9, which I'm going to show momentarily. Mr. Goldstein, can you briefly discuss your
educational background and work experience? Yes, I received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology
and Environmental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. I have a Master of Architecture
from Yale University. I've been practicing here in Philadelphia since 2001, as well as teaching
architecture here in the city. I'm a founding partner of the architecture firm Digsaw. We
started in 2007 and do a wide range of architectural projects, including schools.
And you're here today as the architect for the edition, correct?
Yes, Digsaw is the design architect and architect of record for this project, and I have been serving as the partner in charge.
Excellent. Can you explain your own experience with designing schools briefly?
Yes. I've worked on the design of 15 schools in the last 20 years, including this one.
We do a lot of work with private schools like Germantown Friends.
We've also done charter schools like Russell Byers Charter School here in Philadelphia.
Great. I'd like to offer Mr. Goldstein as an expert in architecture with a specialty in school design.
That's accepted.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We're going to use Exhibit 9, Jeff, right now.
Can you familiarize the board with the subject property and the surrounding area?
And tell me what page to slide down to.
Sure. Two more slides, I believe, is the site plan of the school. This is one that we just
Two more slides.
looked at, and you, Matt, and David both did a good job of explaining that red line shows the
area of campus that this project is being proposed for. On the upper part of the page
within that red dashed box, you see the Loeb building that David described. Toward the bottom
of that, within the box, is the Smith building that David described. They're both fronting Green
Street, which you see running top to bottom of the page on the left. If we go just to the page
south of that red box, I just want to orient everyone that is the Meeting House, which has
frontage on Coulter Street, and then to the right of the meeting house is what's known as the main
building, and that's the primary academic facility on campus, and that is currently where the dining
hall is located. Can you briefly identify the role and use of the Smith building as well as
the Loeb building? Sure. Smith is currently a gymnasium. It has a basketball court on the
main floor, which is several feet above grade. And the basement has fitness, training,
and locker rooms, all in support of physical education and sports. The Loeb building is
a performance hall. It's used for theater productions, as well as all school assemblies.
It has the normal supporting spaces, both in the basement, changing rooms, dressing rooms, storage rooms.
It also includes several classrooms that are used by several departments, and those classrooms are currently – several of those classrooms are currently inaccessible.
They do not have access via elevator.
There is an elevator in the building currently, but it only serves a portion of the second floor.
Will this project solve some of those issues?
This project is intended to solve some of those issues, correct.
Using Exhibits 7, 8, and 9, can you walk the board through the proposed construction and changes to traffic circulation?
um and if you can direct me which exhibits you would like to look at um sure i think uh
seven is the zoning plan yeah uh i don't know if uh we can certainly use that although i don't know
that i need it um i think the uh is eight the uh
Eight is the revised elevations, and nine is the renderings.
Right.
I think actually the traffic, which is 10, is the easiest to demonstrate the flow of traffic, which I know will be discussed at length.
Go to that next one, Matt.
Sorry.
This, which, again, will be described a little bit more at length, but this shows the current traffic.
a path of traffic through the campus during drop-off. You can see vehicles enter from
Coulter Street making a right-hand turn. There are two possible entry points onto the campus.
Those vehicles move through the campus, which again is primarily a pedestrian zone,
drop off students in proximity to where this project is proposed, and then continue on and
re-enter traffic on Green Street with that right-hand turn. That's currently what happens.
This project will disconnect those two campus entry points, so half of the drop-offs will happen
on Coulter Street, both entering and exiting the campus from Coulter Street, and the other half
will enter and exit the campus on Green Street. This building will serve to receive, this addition
to Smith will serve to receive those who are being dropped off from Green Street. And we're
referring to the last two pages of Exhibit 9 for the record, and we'll also have later on, Mr.
Tovini will be giving traffic testimony. Do you want to go up to the photographs of the existing
street view right now and explain to the board what they're seeing and what the changes are going
to be? Yes, thank you, Matt. This image shows a view from Green Street. We see the Loeb building
on the left. It is slightly more than 100 feet from the public right away, just about 110 feet.
slightly more than 100 feet from the public right away, just about 110 feet setback.
On the right is a paved area behind that fencing, and you see that the property is bordered by a
series of retaining walls as the grade changes throughout the campus, as well as
some landscaped areas with several mature trees.
this is essentially the same view we're just back a little farther to give a wider context
again really to to demonstrate the setback and the the effect of setting back the these buildings
from the street and if we jump forward a few slides we'll see that this proposed addition
to Smith intends to maintain the same setback that Loeb has. That was done very consciously
in order to maintain the stature of Loeb as viewed from the street. And that setback's about 100 feet
from the street? It's slightly more than 100 feet, correct. And by the way, Mr. Goldstein,
this is no longer the look, right? This change with red brick? That is correct. The general
massing the size and the shape of the building have not changed but based on conversations
with local neighbors we have proposed a a revision to this image and then the brick that is being
proposed now is more along the color that currently exists on live thank you for pointing that out
and mr chairman the the red brick is shown on exhibit 20 i know yep thank you yeah thank you
And if we go to the next slide, you'll see again, Mr. Chairman, we have not updated this image with that color.
But again, it just shows the relationship of this building to the existing.
They share the setback, and you can see the new entrance to the school, which is kind of nestled in between those two taller portions, the one currently in place on Loeb and then this new addition.
Can you briefly describe the landscaping that's being added to further buffer this from the street?
Yes. The landscape that we're seeing in this image, we are supplementing that. Existing right now are trees and a lawn. Portions of that lawn are being converted to a more native host of plants that flower and are ecologically productive and are part of a comprehensive stormwater management plan.
It will also increase on the right a deeper landscape buffer between the sidewalk and the paved area.
We are, as we'll describe, we are taking a currently paved area of the school and converting that into a formal parking area.
Jeff, what's the tallest building on campus currently?
um the tallest building on campus is the uh main building that i described earlier and that is
approximately 52 feet to the ridge of that building and the height of our uh proposed
addition is that lower than that yes our proposed height is 44 feet nine inches to the roof okay
and how about the smith building smith building is approximately 43 feet four inches to the ridge
and that's pretty similar to the lobe building as well uh can you explain the need of for the
proposed addition and and what it will be used for i mean you explain what would be used for
but really explain the need of need for it additionally especially related to ada and
other requirements yeah and david did a good job i'll i'll just piggyback on that so that this
this building has several primary functions this addition has several primary function
one is to allow Smith and Loeb the two buildings that it touches to have a continued use into the
future that is of the kind of in line with modern expectations so Smith is being converted from a
gymnasium into a dining hall that's going to allow the school to move their dining program from the
basement of main building, which does not have adequate ventilation or space for food preparation.
It doesn't have a large enough seating capacity, as David described, for the current student body.
Furthermore, that space has a low ceiling. It has no views and very limited natural daylight,
and that makes the space unflexible and hard to use for other functions. So it's very limiting.
So this will be at the center of campus. This will be a dining hall, a great
So this will this will be at the center of campus. This will be a dining hall that a grand hall that has windows in a in an important space in a building that has been on campus for a long time.
The the project also will serve as a center for visual arts on the campus, and this includes classrooms and labs and studios, along with student and faculty support spaces.
Currently, those spaces exist on campus, but they're spread across several different buildings.
The addition will serve as a pre-function space for events at Loeb. There's currently no gathering space before and after performances, so the lobby of the addition will serve as a pre-function space for events at Loeb.
And then finally, this addition will make several spaces in both Smith and Loeb for the first time accessible.
So the basement of Smith, as well as the…
When you say accessible, you mean ADA accessible?
Accessible by anyone who is unable to use the stairs, correct.
Great. Excellent.
And you said the addition is 44 feet 9 inches, correct?
To the roof, correct.
In your professional opinion, how does the height of this addition compare with the buildings, other buildings on the campus, but more importantly, new school construction on other academic campuses, public or private, that you've worked on and what you know about in the city?
How does this height compare?
This height is in line with what would be expected of an academic building of this scale.
The floor-to-floor heights in these buildings are really shaped by the needs within classrooms and the ceiling heights that provide proper acoustical performance in those spaces, as well as the requirements of modern mechanical systems.
And so these tend to be much deeper than residential floor-to-floor kind of distances between floors, and this is in line.
In fact, Green Street Friends has a building that opened a few years ago that's almost the exact height as what's being proposed here.
Okay. And in your professional opinion, does the fact that this addition must be integrated into two existing school buildings, coupled with the ADA requirements, constitute an unnecessary hardship related to the land?
And is the proposed height of the addition the least minimum necessary to afford relief, in your opinion?
It is.
And in your professional opinion, would the height variance in any way be injurious to the public health, safety, or welfare?
Does the underlying RSA-1 allow for multiple buildings in the lot?
It does not.
Are there currently numerous buildings on campus?
There are.
Has this condition existed for decades, and has it predated the zoning code?
it has existed for decades and yes it does predate the zoning code is there any way you
can house the uses that you need for this addition in other buildings currently on campus
no is the proposed addition a new building or do you believe this is an addition to two existing
buildings well technically by the building code this is an addition to the smith building
but it's connected to lobe which is a separate building they're separated their fire suppression
systems are separated and they have a fire separation between them but they are connected
and accessible through openings so technically it's an addition to smith it's an addition thank
you but however if considered a new building the way the l9 has construed it would the variance
for multiple buildings be the minimum variance that would afford relief yes um and if considered
a new building and a variance was granted um would that in any way be injurious to the public health
safety or welfare no does l and i believe that parking is required under the zoning code
yes it does okay how many spaces uh does l and i believe is required and how many are provided i'm
to bring up the zoning plan on Exhibit 7. Sure. Parking area. The zoning code is requiring 31
parking spaces. We are providing 23 and again we have provided those spots on a
portion of the of the campus that is already paved and serves in some way as informal parking.
and serves in some way as informal parking will the construction of the proposed addition result
in an increase in student body at all no okay so you don't and you don't envision more trips
due to the fact that you're building this addition because there's no additional student body
correct um and it's going to serve the current it's going to current serve the current student
body at current enrollment levels and you said correct on that have you confirmed this with
school leadership yes we have okay can you explain the complications of identify the complications
with identifying parking areas on an academic campus for children like this especially a campus
mr mcclure can i ask the question or you're going to have a transportation expert to come in
we are yes and you're going to repeat the same issues about cars and parking oh he's not going
to talk about cars and parking he's just going to talk about the the traffic circulation to the
extent the board wants to hear it uh okay i mean i i think i think your architect's doing a dc he's
going over the whole thing now so okay we'll be we'll be very brief to the extent you the board
all right thank you um and i'll just ask him to i'll just do an offer of proof with him if that's
all right to speed it along it's fine thank you mr chairman uh can you explain just briefly the
complications of trying to find parking on a campus like this with many old buildings as well
as circulation by children throughout it yes uh well this is a unique uh campus for sure it's much
like a college campus where students are moving between buildings over the course of the day and
of course students are uh are typically shorter we have we have a wide range of grades here
and can, you know, I think vehicles pose a great, the greatest danger for students who are moving
between classes. And as a result, the school has made a large effort to reduce and or eliminate
vehicles moving through the center of campus. So as a result, it means that the ideal locations
for parking lots are those that are proximate to the adjacent roadways. We have one here which
already has a curb cut. As I noted earlier, it's already paved, and it has been used as an informal
parking lot. So this was really identified as the ideal location to fit the maximum number of cars
that we could fit, and we were able to fit 23. And in your professional opinion, are there any
other appropriate locations to find the eight additional uh parking spaces on campus uh no
in your professional opinion does the parking requirement impose an unnecessary hardship
uh yes if granted would the parking variance for eight spaces be the least minimum required to
afford relief yes it would the parking variance any way be injurious to the public health safety
welfare no uh and regarding um the traffic circulation um that we changed is that does
that change does that uh in any way um require any zoning relief those changes no okay in in
your professional opinion does the proposed change in traffic circulation improve the current site
ingress and egress issues and otherwise improve the traffic situation on colter and green yes it
us okay in your professional opinion if the board granted all the requested relief today
would such action be consistent with the public interest yes it would i have no further questions
uh for mr goldstein unless the board has any questions anyone have any questions for mr
goldstein no mr chairman no mr chairman we're good matt no thank you mr chairman i'm going to
call Mr. Tavini, and we'll get him done in two minutes, I promise. We'll be very quick.
Could someone please elevate Frank Tavini?
Frank, tell me when you're on the line.
Mr. Tavini, you have to unmute yourself.
I am unmuted, I believe.
Could you say your name, Ms. Fella, please?
my name is frank tavani t-a-v-a-n-i you swear to firm to tell the truth the whole truth is nothing
but the truth i do proceed i'd like to all um mr davani's resumes on exhibit 19 is an expert
in traffic engineering would i can i offer him as such that's fine thank you thank you uh mr
davani you you uh you prepared a report today correct i did and that report is exhibit 10 correct
And that report is Exhibit 10, correct?
yes and what did your study read
And what did your study briefly conclude regarding the changes in traffic that was described by Jeff Goldstein?
And right now I have the two last pages of Exhibit A, which is the existing morning drop-off.
And then I'm moving to the after the project, the new proposed morning drop-off.
Can you explain very briefly what this does and why it's a good thing?
Yes, there are three benefits that this project offers in terms of traffic, parking, and circulation.
Since what we're looking at here is only one of those three, I guess I can start with that, and if I'm permitted, I can talk briefly about the other two.
What you see on the screen presently is sort of the after slide of what the project proposes to do.
The previous slide shows the existing conditions, which, as prior witnesses mentioned, involve all of the traffic for the lower school and kindergarten entering the site from Coulter Street, and then all of that traffic exiting onto Green Street.
And one of the things a traffic engineer always tries to avoid, if possible, is having focalized points of traffic loads because they are obviously more difficult to be accommodated as opposed to sort of dividing and conquering and putting some traffic on one street and some traffic on a different street.
So here we have all of the entering traffic coming on one street, so if there's any backup that occurs as that traffic is waiting to be processed internally, it backs up onto that street from which the traffic is entering, and of course all the traffic exiting onto another street just puts all the volume on that one street, which is something to be avoided.
Now, as you can see on the slide presently on the screen, what this does effectively is take these six grades in question, K through 5, and put half of them entering and exiting onto culture and half of them entering and exiting onto green with the obvious benefit of distributing the load equally over these two streets rather than focalizing it.
So that was the circulation benefit. And just really quickly, in terms of the traffic and parking benefit, as you heard from earlier witnesses, what this project contemplates is not adding additional instructional space, it's not adding a net increase in staff, it's seeking merely to create an amenity improvement, which will better serve existing populations in both cases.
And you may ask, why does that matter from a traffic perspective?
And the answer is it matters quite a bit because it means there will be no increase in traffic that will result from this project,
either as a result of additional parents driving or as a result of additional staff driving.
So that was the first point.
And then the last point regarding parking, I know that some of the existing residents are concerned about parking,
as any existing resident is, and the available parking supply on public streets.
So one might consider, does this project offer a benefit, if any, to the surrounding neighbors?
And the answer is yes, because as we just said, there's no increase in traffic related to the project.
That means there is no increase in parking demand related to the project.
However, there is a proposed net increase in parking supply to the tune of approximately two dozen additional on-site parking spaces that the project will provide, not only to itself, but to the benefit of the community if, in fact, the plan is approved.
So, if anything, there should be less on-street parking if this project is approved.
Thank you, Mr. Devani.
um i would like to if it's all right i'll just um move from my our exhibits to be into evidence we
have exhibits one through 20 mr chairman and i would note specifically um on exhibit eight which
are revised elevations for sheet z001 with the proviso form noting that we're increasing the
height by nine inches uh it was due to a mistake on on our part so the nine inch increase in height
as proposed we submitted the form but it would not result in a different variance to the extent
the board uh so elected to grant the relief that we are requesting today we would ask that
uh the sheet on uh exhibit nine i mean exhibit eight be stamped as well and with that i would
like to close mr bergman i mean but mr chairman bergman and members of the board is by saying
germantown friend school is not going anywhere they've been here for a long time and they've
been a member of this community a long time and we wish we had uh the support of the neighbors
obviously we did a good amount of outreach and we will continue to do a good amount of outreach
we believe that these changes are really related to the use that has existed on this campus for
a very long time and that are modest and are reasonable and can compare to what happens to
compared to what happened to other schools as well as the testimony you heard from mr goldstein that
other schools as well as the testimony you heard from Mr. Goldstein that that is
that is is accurate additionally um the building addition is set back quite a lot
a hundred feet from the street um it is not the tallest building on campus
um and it will we believe with the new uh change to facade uh uh be be more harmonious with green
green street and we ask the board uh for the relief with that i'll close our case thank you
questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments
from the virtual audience chair we have charles richardson hi mr richardson
mr richardson
mr richardson you have to unmute yourself please i am sorry i thought i had hit unmute and i'm
steady talking charles just just state your name that's all charles richardson from the office of
councilwoman cindy bathroom 508 city hall uh calling in to just let let you know that the
councilwoman is supporting the rcos in the situation they have voted to oppose uh there
was a faction of folks that were at that on that last meeting that did vote to oppose and she is
supporting the community. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Other comments are from the virtual audience.
Chair, we have someone with the name Andy, the last name ending in K, like hi.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. Can you hear me?
Yes. My name's Andy Van Clunen. It's A-N-D-Y-V-A-N space K-L-E-U-N-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
So I'm one of the neighbors that lives across the street from the Loeb building.
And while I was not able to participate in any of the RCO meetings, so I won't speak to that, although I would say as somebody who is going to look at the new building, I appreciate that the fact that the facade has been changed.
I think that's a that's a good addition. I am more concerned about the traffic.
So and I think that the part of the traffic analysis has been kind of been lost is Coulter, which is the current street that all the cars line up on to go on to campus is a one way street.
And so most mornings when you go there and you see a line of traffic parked on the left, a line of traffic either parked or waiting to get onto campus on the right, and then you can pass through.
Green Street is a two-way street.
It is also one lane of traffic going each way and then just one parking lane, which is along the frontage of the Germantown Friends property.
And my concern is that that is our only parking.
We don't have parking on essentially the west side of Green Street.
We only have parking on the east side of Green Street, on the northbound lane in front of the school.
We share that parking with the staff, and that is all parked up by staff as well as residents over the course of the day.
But there's going to be no way for cars that are waiting to get into the campus where they're going to sit.
On Coulter Street, they can sit essentially in an empty, open lane that's not being used for parking.
It's basically just being used as a queue for folks to go onto campus.
This is a street that every, it's a bus route, like every time a bus stops, every time a truck makes a delivery, every time anybody, like cars are always going in and out of the ongoing lane of traffic.
We've had lots of accidents on the street.
We've had fatalities on the street for those reasons.
And I'm concerned that I've not heard anything that's kind of telling me what's going to happen when there's cars that are queuing up to go on to the new parking and drop off area on Green Street if there's going to be other cars that are going to be going in and out around them.
So my concern is that either we're going to have more traffic problems or we're going to lose an entire lane of parking visits now going to become the queue area for Germantown friends and those of us who use that to park are going to lose that.
So that's the part that I've not heard in any of the traffic analysis.
Okay. Thank you very much for your call and your input. Other comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Karen Singer.
Okay. Hi, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
Yes, Karen Singer, K-A-R-E-N-S-I-N-G-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
So I am Andy Van Clunen's next-door neighbor. I live at 5436 Gr.
Andy Van Clunen's next door neighbor. I live at 5436 Green Street directly across from the Loeb
building and I am concerned. I again appreciate that the architects have changed the color of
the addition but I am concerned because the new building doesn't seem to fit with the architecture
of the Loeb building as we see it from the street.
I have not seen what the interior of the building is doing. I'm sure there are reasons why
the building has been designed the way it is, but it does not feel to me like it's
in keeping fitting with the other buildings on campus and the neighborhood.
did you did you did you attend the rco meetings i attended the second one yes did you raise that
issue we did talk about that issue it came up over and over and i did not feel that there was
is that when they changed the color of the brick that is when they changed the color of the brick
that was a response to criticism from the community okay all right thank you for your input we
appreciate it. Anyone else in the virtual audience? Chair, we have Rosalind, last name ending in M as
in Mary. Hi, could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter? Hello, my name is
Rosalind Garrett McCovey. Hi, could you spell it please for the court reporter? R-O-S-A-L-I-N-D,
last name McKelvey
M-C-K-E-L
V as in victory
E-Y hyphenated Garrett
that's my maiden name
G-A-R-I-E-T
Do you swear affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth
nothing but the truth?
Yes. Please proceed.
I thank you for letting me
speak today. Oh sure.
Due to COVID and issues of health
have not been able to participate
and I'm also a community
involved person. Okay.
I just wanted to say that Germantown Friends School has been open for community funerals through COVID, through all these different events, community basketball tournaments, allowing the school for the deaf to use it when they don't have anywhere to have their projects.
they've always welcomed the community in and a hindrance for the community to be in there
were these issues that you bring up safety accessibility for the handicapped and Germantown
for instance always long to be more accessible to the community so we just want to thank them
and all the improvements that they're saying will also help the community because they've
never close their doors for any needs of meetings, gatherings, funerals, and tournaments that the
neighborhood needs. So I wanted to thank them and tell you that over 36 years of associating with
them, they need the improvement in order to allow the community to have access to more help. And we
know the neighbors have concerns too, and we agree that there are concerns. But I wanted to leave
with a note of they are always and any improvements they get will be passed on to my knowledge as
they've always done to the community. Thank you. Thank you very much for your phone call. Is there
anyone else in the virtual audience? I see no hands, Chair. Planning Commission. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon. David Fecto, F-E-C-T-E-A-U with the City Planning Commission.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes sir i do please proceed thank you sir uh mr chairman and members of the board the
comprehensive plan recommends no change recommends i'm sorry a change in the zoning of this property
to special purpose institutional to match the historic use as a school campus the applicant
requests three variances and one special exception regarding the special exception the applicant has
shown that the proposed expansion of an educational facility will have no more of an impact than such
an expansion would be expected to have and the proposed special purpose zoning would allow the
use to expand without a special exception so the city planning commission recommends the board
grant the special exception regarding the variances for parking principal buildings on the lot and
maximum height the proposed special purpose district would eliminate the height limit
that exists in residential single family one as well as the prohibition for multiple buildings
on a lot and we thank the applicant for changing the traffic circulation pattern for the campus
uh for the campus to create what we believe is a more intuitive and safer traffic circulation plan
to create what we believe is a more intuitive and safer
safer.
under the special purpose institutional district the applicant would still not meet their off-street
parking requirements however the applicant has shown the additional parking spaces required by
the code would run counter to the safe operation of the campus and so the city planning commission
recommends that the board approve the variances for height multiple buildings on a lot and required
parking spaces mi 2022 005 147 23 west culture street i vote yes revised plans how many pages
hillary one page mr chair revised plans one page stamp izba january 18 2023
thomas holloman my vote is no
James Snell my vote is yes proviso
Ishmael Shaheed my vote is yes proviso thank you thank you council
number number three
Thank you, Chairman.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Hug.
Thank you.
Number three, MI 2022-005-312-2609 East Tioga Street.
Henry Clinton is the attorney.
Letter of support from ProPAC, Fort Richmond, On Patrol, and Civic.
mr clinton is coming back in as a panelist thank you good afternoon mr chairman i'm mr clinton
harry could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter sure uh henry h-a-n-r-y
clinton c-l-i-n-c-o-n right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth i do um could you identify your client and their relationship to the property sure my
My client is Ralph Loiello, L-O-I-E-L-O, and he is on the call.
All right.
Our Vice Chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, Counselor.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal stipulate to his accuracy?
Have you emailed all of required exhibits and documents five days in advance to this
hearing?
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
So Jeremy can you see the screen is loading yeah it's still loading
we're up
is that visible mr chairman large enough yeah that's fine okay uh good afternoon mr chairman
members of the board i'm henry clinton here for the applicant uh the llc is way wiser llc but mr
loello is the principal owner and he's on the call so i'll work through the presentation package for
the board this is the table of contents concerning exhibits aa through a10 which i asked be admitted
into evidence appearance statement and this is the refusal uh so this is a lot line relocation
basically taking one large lot and subdividing it into two individual lots. On one lot will be a
single-family home, and on the other lot will remain an existing commercial garage, which is
used for vehicle repair and for maintenance. That's currently an allowed use, as the refusal
indicates, if personal vehicle repair and maintenance was previously approved by the board.
We have an RCO letter of support from ProPAC, Fort Richmond on patrol and civic.
They're in support of the project.
This is an aerial photograph to give the board some perspective on the block.
This is Toyota, Tioga Street, directly where my cursor is.
And the building we're talking about is currently three garages to the left of this property on the corner.
The two-story property on the corner is RSA, excuse me, is a single-family residence, as is the rest of the block is zoned RSA 5.
But as you can see, it is used as a commercial, so there's a number of pre-existing non-conforming uses.
The three garages are here. That's the subject parcel. It's going to be split into two.
The three garages are here. That's the subject parcel. It's going to be split into two.
This is a commercial space to the west as further west and on the corner is residential.
Directly across the street is a commercial enterprise across Tioga Street, that is.
And then to the east of the subject properties, there's additional commercial use and car repair establishments.
This is a closer view looking east. This is Almond Street in the forefront,
Tioga directly in front of us. The three garages are to the left and the commercial entity and
building is to the right as well as to the left. Closer view of the three garages. These two
garages will be demolished. This larger garage will remain. And then on the site of the two
garages that will be demolished will be the single family home the plans i think what i'll do is go
to the site plan first so the lot is a rather large lot it's about 49 feet wide
right there on the left hand side this so this is existing and then on the right hand side this is
the proposal. The home on the corner will remain. The smaller lot, which will be about 17 feet and
change, will still maintain with the garage on the front. As there is one right now, there's a
curb cut there and two curb cuts to the left. And then the other garage will remain on the other
parcel. This is a photograph of the property. So what the idea, the design intent was, is to
maintain uh the roof line of the house next door so it wouldn't overpower the corner step it back
the property on the third floor uh then have a nice detailed arch here with an entryway leading
into the living space in the rear uh and there's a there is a deck here on the front which has
resulted in another refusal floor plan will work from the top down this is a rooftop deck
just to the rear of the property not toward the front on the second floor there are two bedrooms
with two baths that's the third floor excuse me Mr. Chairman on the second floor another bath
bedroom with a full bath kitchen living area and dining area and on the first floor again there's
existing curb cut and a garage basically if you want to reuse that curb cut for the parking
and then there will be a bath, full bath, and kind of an office area in the back or living.
It's really not going to be a bedroom and there is no basement.
Again, I'll just show the board not to be too redundant, but basically one lot will be 31 and
a half feet. That will be the lot A, which is the vehicle repair. And then on the right-hand
side, as I said, the lot is 17 feet and chain 17 and a half feet. And that's where the single
family home will be. And there's a single family already on the corner? Correct.
So the rest of the documents, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, are the typical documents
you would see in a zoning presentation such as this, tax certification, notification to the
community, our application for appeal. And as you can see, I included a zoning map to show you that
it is zoned RSA 5, but it's commercial, half commercial and half residential on this block,
and then directly across the street is actually an industrial use.
so mr chairman that's pretty much a straightforward presentation uh again we're
is your client here henry can you raise your hand and be unmuted
sir please unmute yourself you're free to speak hi uh my name is ralph loiello uh it is r a l p h
l o i e l o right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do proceed especially all were you on the uh the call when i made my presentation
i was and you saw the entire presentation i did and if you had the opportunity to testify
would you adopt my testimony as your own and as true and correct i would adopt your testimony
yes true and correct thank you very much questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
David Fechtow with the City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
The applicant is proposing to bring the proposed off-street parking closer into compliance with the code than currently exists.
However, the applicant has failed to show that a hardship exists requiring a variance from the required roof debt setback.
So the City Planning Commission recommends the Board grant the variance for accessory parking, but deny the variance for the roof deck provision.
Mr. Chairman, I can address that.
If you'd like.
The way that the house is constructed,
it was constructed to keep in mind
the elevation of the house to the east.
So we were trying to maintain the same roof line
and have the house step back.
And when you step the house back,
there's gonna be an entry area on the front
to come out to the roof deck.
And if you go back and you look at the aerial photograph,
Tioga Street is a very wide street at this point. There's no residential homes across
the street. It's a parking lot across the street with a large commercial building,
so we're really not impacting anyone's light or air or looking over into someone's rear alley
or the rear of their property. So because of that and unique circumstances we have with regard to
this block. I'm going to ask the board to move forward with the proposed variance. MI-2022-005-312-2609
East Tyoba Street. I vote yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahi, my vote is yes. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Number six, MI 2022-005-305-4631 Primrose Road.
Sean Ward is the attorney.
Letter of Opposition from East Targsdale Civic Association.
applicant provided petition and support signed by 22 neighbors from the 4600 block of Primrose
and the 9600 block of Tarsdale Avenue
good afternoon Mr. Chairman Sean Ward on behalf of the owner applicant Eric
that's K-I-T-E you've already been sworn you've identified your client
Mr. Shahid has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Ward.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I agree to waive the reading of the refusal.
However, I have issues with two of the refusals.
I believe they were issued in error as these are non-conforming pre-existing lots.
We'll go over them in a moment.
have you emailed all the exhibits and documents that were required to
proceed with this case today within five days of this hearing yes i did all right thank you
please proceed and share your screen very good okay sure
all right can we confirm that everybody can see my uh we can awesome thank you
you went wait a minute you just went dark
you're dark hold on
there you go you're back i'm back okay it's on i'm working with two screens that's why so okay
uh mr chairman i've submitted my typical exhibit packet on behalf of uh eric kite the owner and
applicant for the property located at 4631 Primrose Road at calendar number MI-2022-005305.
Pardon me. A1 is the notice of refusal. This is a permit for a permitted use for the erection of a
new two-story detached single-family dwelling with a cellar, interior garage, in-ground pool,
and cabana, and a proposed six-foot fence. It resulted in four refusals. One is the fence four
feet high is permitted versus six feet proposed the original application called for a a solid
vinyl fence pursuant to an agreement reached by mr kite with the adjoining property owners
He has agreed to request a ornamental fence six feet high as opposed to a solid white vinyl, as there are basically no solid white vinyl fences in this particular neighborhood.
he has agreed to request
The front setback, 30 feet is required, whereas 20 is proposed.
The lot width, 75 is required, but 69.4 is existing, as well as the lot area, 10,000 is required versus 7,754 existing.
We submit that these are existing non-conforming lots, and their refusals for those two were issued in error, as this property was subdivided in 1961, two years before I was born.
So accordingly, we seek two-dimensional variances, one for the front yard setback and one for the height of the fence along the side of the property.
A2 is the Zoning Application of Appeal, A3, Project Information Form.
A4 is proof of ownership, a copy of Eric's deed, having purchased the property in November of 2022.
A4.1 is an OPA block search to establish that these properties were subdivided, have their own OPA details and account numbers.
So A4.2 is the OPA detail for 4627 Primrose.
OPA account number 6521-82900.
and A4.3 is the open detail for the subject property of 4631 Primrose Road account number
6521-8300. A5 is proof of tax clearance. A6 is the zoning site and elevation plans that accompany
the application. A7 are development plans for the property that have just since been developed.
They don't change any of the size or dimensions of the property. That's just more detail for
building permit purposes and approvals. A8 are photographs to posting, subject property, aerial
views, street views. A9 is the RCO letter from East Tarsdale expressing opposition to this
application. I'll go through that letter. I did prepare a rebuttal letter, which I submitted to
the board last week to counter the suggestions made by East Tarsdale and the neighbors present.
A11 is a petition of support personally circulated by Mr. Kite amongst his near neighbors.
A12 is the relevant zoning history.
A13 is a zoning map.
A14 is a setback comparison map I used from Atlas to estimate the setbacks of the houses
from the front property lines on the block and on Tarsdale Avenue.
And then A15 is, again, an aerial photograph.
So in the refusal, as stated, the fence can't be more than four feet nor more than 50% opaque.
So we are now requesting a six-foot ornamental fence.
We're doing the way with the solid white vinyl.
With regard to the front yard setback, 35 feet is required under RSV1, and we are proposing 20 feet.
And I'm going to address that in some permanent history.
This property was remapped probably in 2012 when he adopted the new code, and then I believe several times after that.
So the remapping or the adoption of the new code created the non-conforming launch because at the time they were created,
we have zoning permits for other properties showing what they were zoned at various times over history.
So we submit that the 75 feet is not applicable to this property.
And the proposed 69.4 feet in the refusal should be permitted to continue as a non-conforming measurement of the property.
Same thing with the 10,000 square foot minimum lot size, whereas existing is 7,753.9 square feet.
So moving on, not to belabor it, it's the application of appeal, our project information form.
My transmittal letter to the board, a copy of Mr. Kite's deed at the aforementioned BRT number.
Board of Premises at 4631 Primrose Road, consisting of 7,753.9 square feet.
Then you have the, this is the OPA block search.
As you can see, there's about 11 properties on Primrose Road from the 4600 up to 4634 Primrose, 4627 being the property to our adjacent left, and 4631 being the subject property.
Again, 4627 Primrose has its own OPA account number, therefore is an existing non-conforming lot.
has its own OPA account number therefore is an existing non-conforming lot same thing with 4631
primrose the subject having again its own OPA account number therefore it is an existing
residential lot however the zoning creates a problem with dimensions proof of tax clearance
the balance of four thousand four hundred ninety seven dollars is not due till the end of march
but as you can see all other periods are paid in full with regard to the site plan as you can see
it's an irregular shaped lot it's more narrow at the front than it is in the back
eric proposes the erection of a single family home with an interior drive a garage approximately 17
by 21 feet deep accessed from primrose road he also proposes a 15 by 26 foot pool in the rear yard
with a small cabana for some shade and respite and then again we referenced the six foot vinyl
fence in the actual original zoning plan however agreement with the neighbors we are going to
replace that with a ornamental fence 50 percent wide and they agreed that that would be a long
Tarsdale Avenue, not along the rear of the property, so this is the rendering or the
architectural elevation of the subject. Let me reduce that a little bit. So as you can see,
it's a nicely appointed house with a mixture of a stone facade with vertical siding and
carriage doors for the garage, so it'll be a nice amenity to the neighborhood.
this is a side elevation showing these the cellar
this would be the other side elevation facing tarsdale avenue
and then of course the rear elevation which would face the back towards the pool
so in the development plans again this is the original site plan uh filed with the zoning
application. There are four existing mature trees at the front corner of the property.
Two of those trees will have to be forsaken given the fact that this tree here
would be in competition with the footings of the new structure and this tree would be located in
driveway so we're going to make every attempt to keep the other two existing mature trees
the plan does call for sidewalks along Tarsdale Avenue which do not exist at this point and it's
going to replace the sidewalks along the front of the property at Primrose Road in addition to the
complete streets improvements to the corner with the handicap ADA accessible ramp
with the truncated domes crosswalks etc. Additionally he proposes three new street
trees along the sidewalk of Tarsdale Avenue so while we might be losing two trees over
here we're going to gain three over here so there's a net change of one.
um here is an aerial photograph this property is located at primrose where the red dot is primrose
road and tarstelle avenue right off of grand avenue and this would be the holy family college
campus area over here so as you can see they are all single family detached dwellings
here's a google street view of the corner again looking at the this tree would have to be
sacrificed as well as this tree over here for the driveway the trees were a concern of the
neighbor across the street and you know we are going to try to maintain the two mature trees
that we don't need to remove so again another shot showing the trees from the tarzal avenue side
this neighbor at this house back here had the concern about the most concern about the solid
white vinyl fence and we have since reached agreement with her she signed a petition of
support based upon eric's representation that he would install an ornamental fence
along tarsdale avenue as opposed to solid white vinyl we have a copy of our hosting
this picture here represents the outline or the the markings where the pool would go in the rear
yard we also have it staked out whereas the very front portion extent of the house where the garage
doors would be basically lines up with the the true front of the
basically lines up with the true front of the house directly next door to us.
They do have a little pent roof covering a small patio surface for entry into their door.
This measurement from this pent-ish street is about 13 or 14 feet,
and we submit that the measurement from the true facade of the front of the house
is approximately 20 feet to the front property line
in line with where we propose the front of our home.
Again, this would be the property stakes
showing the furthest extent to the rear yard.
This would be the property line along Tarsdale Avenue.
This area over here would represent where the sidewalks
and other amenities would go in.
another shot of the this would be the front little porch area with the driveway again
lining up with the existing home right to our left so you'll see these are the existing sidewalks
on the primrose roadside they will be replaced and improved as will the corner with the trunk
updated dome, ADA accessible ramps.
Just another shot of primrose.
I tried to get this to show the board the extent of the front yard setbacks for the
existing homes along primrose.
Again, just another corner shot.
Another additional picture of the stakeout where the property would be built.
This is the home directly across the street. We would be over here to the right.
Again, I tried to show a picture from the sidewalk on Tarsdale Avenue to show the extent of the
setbacks of the homes along the opposite side of Primrose. And I would submit that they are
pretty much equal to what we are proposing for our structure.
Again, just a Google street view of Primrose.
a google street view of Tarsdale Avenue and there are several homes on the other side of
Tarsdale Avenue that all similarly enjoy a 20 foot plus or minus setback from the property lines
so in Tarsdale's letter they had 16 members opposed with one non-opposition and of all
meeting attendees the vote was 22 to 1 in opposition so um you know keep in mind that
at least two of those uh in opposition have since signed a petition of support for this project
given the concessions by mr kite so in their letter uh they identified the four variances
as contained in the refusal and then they raised the following issues they talk about stormwater
runoff, the size of the proposed structure in proportion to the lot size, concerns relevant to
a six-foot opaque vinyl fence, which we have since conceded. The proposed home, pool, and
cabada are too large for the property. It was noted that no nearby neighbors supporting the
variance were in attendance, no letters of support provided by council, which none were requested.
And it says in the voting session after the presentation, not one of the 16 members nor
16-year neighbors supported the variance however again at least two of them have changed their mind
given the concessions so in our rebuttal letter i just indicated that the stormwater is not a zoning
issue and that should be addressed during a building permit approval process the size of
the structure the structure itself complies with the zoning dimensional regulations with
the exception of the front yard setback no other refusals were issued again the final fence has
been is being withdrawn and the adjoining neighbors support the six-foot ornamental fencing that would
be at least 50 percent opaque again the home the pool the cabana comply with all dimensional
requirements no refusals issued as a result of those again other than the front setback
and the petition of support was signed by 22 near neighbors including the two most vocal neighbors
in attendance at the RCO meeting and they reside at 9630 and 9636 Tarsdale Avenue so
again they did not request or ask us to bring a petition of support to the meeting
we you know we complied with all the requirements of notification of the meeting
and you know one other vocal neighbor or member of East Tarsdale who resides all the way over by
Glenn Ford, simply said they opposed the variance because it doesn't comply with the zoning code.
And I said, well, that's why, you know, there is this process to obtain variances
and the board is empowered to grant such relief. So based upon that.
and the board is empowered to grant such relief so based upon that we did get the petition of
support signed uh mr kite wrote in that less than 50 percent opaque along tarsdale avenue
and he initialed it and again you have the adjoining neighbors at 46 27 primrose who signed
46 21 primrose 96 30 and 36 tarsdale were the two neighbors that opposed at the rco meeting
but changed their minds given the concessions.
And additionally, across Tarsdale Avenue, you have 9623, 9619, 9611, and 9631.
And they are all homes that share a similar type of front yard setback.
So in the zoning archive, this property was zoned D4 residential back in 1973.
There is a zoning permit on file from 1961, as you'll see here, for the proposed subdivision, outlined or highlighted in yellow here, creating two lots from one.
And back then, that permit was issued for the erection of the new single-family dwelling by the Caron family, who recently sold the property a couple of years ago.
So again, we submit that these are existing non-conforming lots that don't comply with the zoning code and therefore are permitted to continue to exist.
Now the property is zoned RSD1 as opposed to what it was zoned in the past.
so again using the atlas map and the measurement tool on there coming down from
Dittman and Primrose you can see 4601 you know it's estimated to be about 22 feet
across the street 4600 24 feet 4603 is 26 feet
uh 04 is 23 feet 31 feet at 07 uh we're shirking down to under 19 feet at 46 30 or 20 i'm sorry
um you got 20 26 feet at this property this is the house next door again the pent roof sticking
out over the front entry is probably about 14 feet from the property line the two houses across
the street are well under the 35 foot requirement at 22 and 23 feet our property being here on the
corner and these are the six homes that were built more recently on Tarsdale Avenue and as you can
see they all are about 20 feet set back from the property so so we're not looking to build anything
that's out of the nature and character of the community it's a nicely appointed single-family
home, and we're looking for the small relief of a front yard setback of 20 feet as opposed to 35.
If he were to set it back 35 feet, that would reduce the rear yard such that he would not be
able to enjoy the rear yard to the extent that he would like, and he would not be able to direct a
pool. As further support, I have some other exhibits. Under the old zoning code, I did
actually find the regulations on the table. R2 had a 50-foot lot width with a 5,000 square
foot minimum lot area, as did R3, 50 and 5,000, and R4 was 35 feet wide and 3,150 square feet.
So I offer this in support that these properties, as being subdivided in 1961, were clearly
legal and, you know, conforming at the time they were created. Here's a permit from 1988 for 9611
Tarsdale showing that it was R3 residential at that time. A permit for 4627 next door to us
showing that it was R4 residential in 1973. 9630 Tarsdale Avenue showing that it was,
you know, upgraded to R2 on or before October of 2009. This is 9623 Tarsdale Avenue, you can see.
I don't know if that's R4 or R3, but either way, in the year 2000, this property was not RSD1.
9619, this was issued in 2017, this permit, and here you clearly see that they're now zoned RSD1.
Here's another RS3 for 9631 Tarsdale from 1988 and finally I have one for 4607 Primrose issued in 1972 indicating that it was R4 residential.
So again given the zoning table dimensions we submit that these properties are existing non-conforming lots and in order to build a enjoy reasonable use of the property.
And in order to build a, enjoy reasonable use of the property, we're asking for a 20-foot setback on the front of the house, along with a variance for a six-foot ornamental fence along the Tarsdale Avenue side.
I believe Eric Kite is in the audience. If he could be allowed to speak, he can verify and adopt.
Eric, if you can hear it, he's got his hand raised.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Eric Kite, E-R-I-C-K-I-T-E.
Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Eric, you've heard my representations today to the board?
Are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
And would you adopt them as your own testimony?
I would.
And Eric, this is going to be your primary family residence, correct?
Okay, and you did, in fact, speak to those adjoining neighbors regarding the fence,
and their issue was the white vinyl fence, not the ornamental fence?
Correct.
And did any of those neighbors say that you spoke to express any concerns
or objections to the 20-foot setback of the front of the home?
They did not.
all right that's all i that's all i have for mr kite uh mr chairman uh we did have a site visit
with councilman uh driscoll out there uh and i believe given the uh you know the close vote
between the petition signers and those that attended the meeting okay uh he's he's taking
no position on this application questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no handshare planning commission thank you sir good afternoon david vecto with the city
planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single
family detached zoning at this location with regard to the dimensional variances for lot
width and lot area the house lot already exists so the applicant does have a clear hardship
that necessitates these variances to enable viable use of their property however the applicant has
failed to show that a hardship exists requiring the variances for fences and parking so the city
planning commission recommends that the board grant the variances for lot width and lot area
but deny the variances for parking and fence height mr chairman can i address that if he doesn't have
You can, you can.
You know, he'd like to have an interior garage, so you park his car.
And in order to access that, you need a driveway from the front.
Okay, sorry.
So, MI 2022, 005305, 4631 Primrose Road, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shadi, my vote is yes.
I'm sorry about that. I was trying to hit the button there, a little technical difficulty. My vote, James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you very much. Have a great day.
Okay. No, thank you. Number seven, MI 2022-005334-7120 Montour Street. Alex Goldberg is the attorney. Let's see here. Recommendation of support from Burholm Community Town Watch and Civic Association.
The applicant also provided a petition of support from neighbors, the majority of which live in the 71-on-block of Montour and Claridge Streets.
Mr. Goldberg?
Hey, Mr. Chairman.
Hi. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Alex Goldberg, A-L-E-X-G-O-L-D-B-E-R-G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
Sure. My clients are Sarah and Leo Juwanmall, and they're the owners of the property at 7120 Montour Street.
All right. So our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
have you emailed all the exhibits and documents required for this case five days in advance to
this hearing i have thank you please proceed and share your screen thank you
are you able to see my screen mr chairman we can okay so again i'm alex goldberg of
So, again, I'm Alex Goldberg of the law firm Nockamson PC.
of the law firm, Nockamson PC.
The owner and applicant, Leo Jawanmall, is in the virtual audience, and I'll ask him to raise his hand and adopt my testimony after my presentation.
The subject property today is 7120 Montour Street that you can see on the screen.
we are asking for a few variances to legalize an existing rear deck that you can see in the image
on my screen we met with the burholm community town watch and civic association december 8th
and received overwhelming support for them so here's a table of contents we have a notice of
refusal showing our three refusals the letter of support from the coordinating rco that we met with
the petition uh leo and sarah have been living in this home for over 15 years so they have a great
relationship with their neighbors many of which appeared at the rco meeting and signed the
petition that you'll see in exhibit three number four is a couple of nearby properties with similar
rear decks that we are we are proposing to legalize to show it is not out of character
in this part of the neighborhood a few maps some photographs of the deck and the property itself
and the surrounding area the architectural plans and drawings the rco meeting notice showing we
notified the community in compliance with the city's requirements of that december 8th
community meeting the application for appeal the deed of the property and this and proof of tax
clearance so here is the first exhibit it's our notice of refusal that was issued late august of
last year you can see in the application we're proposing to legalize a rear deck of a semi
detached structure we've got three refusals the first one is because the rear deck encroaches
in what is by code considered the rear yard of the property although it's really just encroaching
on their existing driveway. The second refusal speaks to the rear deck sort of spilling over
into the side yard. There's a portion that you'll see on the plans that wraps around the side of
the house to give the owners access to the deck from their kitchen through an existing side door
because they opted not to sort of create a new opening at the rear of this property.
It encroaches 4 feet 4 inches into their compliance side yard, which leaves 5 feet 6 inches to the neighboring lot line.
And then the last refusal speaks to the vertical support beams for the deck.
You'll see a nice image in the presentation.
The beams are by code, supposed to be a foot and a half from the lot line.
Our beams are right on the lot line, just because that made the most sense, you know, during the construction of this.
And as you'll see, and I'll mention again, the attached neighbor at 7122 is in full support of this presentation, the most closely affected property, as their families have sort of grown up together.
they spend time together on that deck uh and um and yeah so here is the uh a letter of support
from the coordinating rco you can see here it's a letter of support uh and the vote count was 18 to
one the petition we have about 20 signatures on our petition and we've mapped them out here so
you'll see a lot of montour street addresses you'll also see a lot of claridge street addresses
Claridge Street shares a sort of drive alley with Montour Street, so the backyards of those two streets face each other.
So, you know, it was important for us to not only get the people on Montour, but also to speak to the people on Claridge Street because it sort of affects their backyards.
Here's the petition.
Just to highlight, 7122 is that attached neighbor, Robin Frames.
She spoke at the community meeting, sort of expressing what I've already said, that they're great neighbors, speaking of my clients, and they spend a lot of communal time on that deck together.
And if anybody should really care about this deck, in her words, it should be them, and she was fully in support.
More petition signatures, and then nearby properties with similar decks.
we just looked at where some other legalized rear decks in this neighborhood that are similar to
what we're proposing and there are a couple right across the way in you know Claridge Street like I
said sort of the backs of both Claridge Street and Montour face each other and those are sort
of just across the backyard here's a zoning map it's RSA 3 we're not proposing any
Here's a zoning map. It's RSA-3. We're not proposing anything use-wise outside of the confines of the RSA-3 code. It's a single-family home.
And then here's another map showing that drive aisle between Montour and Clerge.
And now some photographs. This is the front of the property, and here is notice posters.
and to the right of the property on Montour to the left of the property and then web street
web street is that drive aisle street this is to the left and to the right here's some photos of
the rear deck again my clients have lived here for a decade and a half they're not developers
they built this deck not knowing what process they were supposed to be going through as soon
AS THEY FOUND OUT THAT THIS WAS AN ISSUE AS FAR AS PERMITTING GOES, THEY RETAINED OUR
LAW FIRM AND WE SORT OF GOT ON THE ZONING CALENDAR THAT LED US HERE TO THIS HEARING.
THIS IS A USEFUL PHOTO TO POINT OUT THOSE VERTICAL SUPPORT BEAMS THAT ARE THE CAUSE OF ONE OF
THE REFUSALS.
THEY'RE RIGHT ON THE LOT LINE.
THAT GARAGE IS NOW JUST USED FOR STORAGE AND AGAIN THAT PROPERTY AT 7122 HAS NO OBJECTION
to this deck. A couple more photos. You can see the wraparound portion that I mentioned that sort
of extends for four feet four inches into the side yard is right there and in this next photo you'll
see where the access is. So you can see the door frame here. This leads to the kitchen. This was
an existing door. This was the design they went with to sort of wrap around the side to give them
access to that deck here's the plans and drawings very simple i'll zoom in um you can see that at
its deepest the deck is 21 feet 11 inches um the the main portion is 9 feet 10 inches wide
um and that sort of leaves a buffer of 10 and a half feet to that web street um drive aisle
zoom back out this next uh this next plan is just showing an elevation no changes to the
building structure itself um and this is again just showing sort of an outline of where the deck is
here's the meeting notice um zoom in a little bit it was sent out um in a timely fashion uh
FOR THIS IN-PERSON COMMUNITY MEETING, WHICH HAPPENED DECEMBER 8TH, HERE ARE THE PROPERTIES
THAT WERE REQUIRED OF US TO NOTIFY, AND A LIST OF THOSE PROPERTIES, THE PROOF OF MAILING,
THE APPLICATION FOR APPEAL, THE DEEDS OF THE PROPERTY, AND THE PROOF OF TAX CLEARANCE,
SHOWING THAT THEY ARE UP TO DATE ON THEIR TAXES.
With that, I will ask Leo Juwanmol to virtually adopt my testimony.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. It's Leo Juwanmol, L-E-O-J-I-W-A, N as in Nancy, M as in Mary, A-L-L.
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes proceed counsel hi leo did you hear my testimony today yes and was it true and correct
yes and would you adopt my testimony as if it were your own yes thank you questions from the board
no mr chairman no mr chairman
no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
Chair, we have Dylan Mahoney.
Good afternoon.
Hi, Mr. Mahoney.
You've already been sworn.
Just mention your name, please.
Dylan Mahoney from the Office of Council Member Anthony Phillips.
Proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board.
Again, Dylan Mahoney from the Office of Council Member Anthony Phillips.
We've received the letter of support from the Burholm Civic Association,
and the Councilman has no opposition to the granting of the variance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no handshare.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
David Fechtow with the City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
The applicant proposes to legalize a deck built without benefit of permits.
Although rear decks over parking areas do exist on this block, the applicant has failed to show that an economic detriment would accrue if they were required to conform
with the standards in the zoning code.
The city planning commission recommends
THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMENDS THAT THE BOARD DENY THE PROPOSED VARIANCES.
that the board deny the proposed variances.
Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN, MAY I RESPOND TO THAT?
SO, YEAH, JUST TO REITERATE, THE PERSON THAT'S MOST CLOSELY AFFECTED OF THIS AT 7122
WAS IN FULL SUPPORT, THAT BOTH FAMILIES HAVE GREATLY BENEFITED OFF OF THIS REAR DECK.
AND, YOU KNOW, MY CLIENT, AGAIN, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE NOT DEVELOPERS.
THEY DIDN'T SORT OF UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS AS SOON AS THEY WERE MADE AWARE OF IT.
WE'VE BEEN RETAINED, YOU KNOW, AND WE ASK THAT YOU GRANT THESE VARIANCES.
MI 2022-005-334-7120 Montour Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Mr. Meshahi, my vote is no.
Thank you, Counsel.
Thank you.
Number eight, MI 2022-005-310-531 Turner Street,
Shannon and Norma Martin are the owners.
Letter of support from Old Kensington Neighborhood Association,
although some neighbors do express concerns about oversight and management.
Ms. Martin is coming back in as a panelist.
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
miss martin you have to unmute yourself
yeah hi i'm shannon martin s-h-a-n-n-o-n and my wife norma is here as well
Hi, I'm Norma, N-O-M-N-O-R-M-A, Martin.
Do you both swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
This application is for the use of visitor accommodation in an existing structure, whereas
the proposed use of visitor accommodations is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Did you email all the exhibits and documents required for this hearing five days in advance to today?
We didn't.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay. Would you like to see photos?
Yes. Photos and exhibits of the entire plans and your appeal of notice.
Green button at the bottom.
Share screen.
And start your video, please, also.
Oh, okay.
Sorry, I lost the button to share.
Oh, there it is.
Start my video.
Okay, there we are.
We see you.
Now, hit share screen if it's there.
Here you go.
So this is the outside property.
It's a 800 square foot property.
This is inside the front door of the living room, another shot of the living room.
This is walking into the kitchen, another shot of the kitchen, this is a master bedroom,
another view of the bedroom, the second bedroom, there's a bathroom.
Another shot of the bathroom, the laundry in the basement.
I just took a picture of the trash cans.
We are putting a plan in place for the concern with litter.
So, we have a trash can in the back along with the recycle bin, which we plan to take
care of.
Here's a screenshot of the notices that we posted.
and then also there was a concern with noise disturbance
we do live next door to the property and so we plan to monitor it
and we're not allowing more than six overnight guests
and you say you live next door we do we're right next
you say you live next door we do we're right next door and we also wanted to we're planning to um
this is some info from airbnb's website um some support and we want to make the neighbors aware
of these um tools if they have concerns or there's an issue with noise um there's instructions that
can go to Airbnb. We plan to have our paper with our phone number to hand out to the neighbors
here on Turner Street so they can reach us with any concerns. And there's a neighborhood
support link as well that we'll want to make available for people that have concerns. We're
doing this as for our family. We have two children. They like to be able to earn some
money cleaning and we want to be able to provide the opportunity for people to have a comfortable
spot to to stay while they're visiting our city how long have you had had you had the airbnb
we've had this property since 2005 it was our first house we lived here for several years
before we were able to buy the house next door and we had it as a long-term rental before our
last tenant was here for approximately 10 years and since she moved out um we just wanted to uh
try the airbnb so we have not have you have you been renting it with airbnb
no we have not yet you're just starting correct okay all right questions from the board
no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands chair planning commission thank you chair bergman david fecto with the city planning
commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single family zoning
at this location the applicant has failed to show that a hardship exists that would prevent them
from deriving value from the home without the variance for visitor accommodation the city
planning commission recommends that the board deny the use of variants so mi2022-005-310-531
turner street i vote yes with proviso temporary variance expires 2-1-26 thomas holloman my vote
is yes with proviso james snell my vote is yes with proviso ishmael shaheed my vote is yes with
provisals. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Number 10, MI 2022-005-337-2226
North Reece Street. Henry Clinton is the attorney. Letter of support from Nara Square Civic Association.
Mr. Clinton is coming back in as a panelist.
good afternoon mr chairman
henry you've already just state your name for the record you've already been sworn
sure henry clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n could you identify your client and the relationship to
the property sure joe ativan a-t-a-v-e-n he's the principal of the applicant and he's on the call
Okay, and our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Thank you.
Have you emailed all the required documents five days in advance to this hearing?
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Is that visible, Mr. Chairman?
Yes, it is.
All right.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, member of the board, Henry Clinton for Philadelphia Developments,
LLC, principal of which is Joseph Ativan, who is on the call.
This is my presentation package, which contains table of contents AA to A11, which I ask to
be admitted into evidence.
and you'll see at the end of the presentation that I've been in before the board over the last
two years for the same request with regard to other properties already on the street
appearance statement this is the refusal the refusal is we're asking for a two-family dwelling
in an RSA 5 zoning district that's the main use variance request and then there's a dimensional
issue. We don't have any issues with rear yard depth or height, but there is a 5%
de minimis issue with regard to the open space area. We do have an RC.
an issue with regard to the open space area.
We do have an RCO letter of support
with certain requests that my client has agreed to.
We're gonna provide child safety windows,
no compressed wood or rust corrosive siding.
We will attempt to hire local within the community
and we will prevent any damage to the adjacent property
if necessary and we've given our contact information
to the RCO.
So we have a full support of 3 and full support of 10 with the conditions as referenced in the RCO's letter.
These are the photographs of the block.
You can see there's many vacant properties on the street.
And I've listed the other addresses where we've been before the board and asked for two family dwellings on the block.
And I believe that this block in this area has been recently remapped.
And it's now, the request for two-family will be consistent with that remapping, but I think the Planning Commission will address that.
This is the notices that we placed on the front of the property.
This is the site plan, again, indicating an ample rear yard, although we do have a 5% variance issue with regard to the open space.
Floor plan, basement or first floor would be one unit.
Second and third floor would be another unit.
The first floor and basement has one bedroom.
The second unit has two bedrooms, both of which are located on the third floor.
And there is access to rooftop deck so that both occupants, the first floor and basement, will have access to the rear yard.
And the second and third floor will have access to a rooftop deck.
consistent with other properties on the block to try to maintain a red brick look,
large windows, metal siding on the front. That is not corrosive, but it is metal siding.
So again, Mr. Chairman, it's a pretty straightforward presentation. The rest of
the documents are your standard documents we usually present to the board, tax certification,
appeal zoning map
indicating an RSA-5, but again, I believe the remapping
is going to be multifamily deed, and then
I want it to at least run by the board the prior
properties where we do have zoning
permits for 2214
to a family dwelling
22-25, two-family dwelling, 22-33, 22-37, all two-family dwellings that have been all
approved within the last year, year and a half.
Do you have your client to adopt your testimony?
Mr. Atavani, are you on the call?
Joe, can you unmute yourself?
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, the Joe, J-O-E, Ataseven, A-T-A-S-E-V-E-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do, sir.
Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Ataseven, were you on the call when I presented your project?
And if you had the opportunity to testify, would you adopt my testimony as your own, and as true and correct?
thank you thank you mr chairman questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience chair we have slong folks
mr folks you've already been sworn just state your name please
slong folks office of council member ketsi lazada in 316 city hall uh the applicant having met with
the community rco uh coordinating rco and receiving a letter of support the council member supports
this uh famous request thank you thank you mr folks uh anyone else in the virtual audience
i see no hands chair any commission thank you chair bergman david fechta with the city planning
commission mr chairman and members of the board in 2022 these properties were rezoned from
residential single family to residential multifamily in accord with the comprehensive plan the proposed
use conforms to the newly enacted zoning district and so the city planning commission recommends
that the board grant the proposed variances thank you mi2022-005-337-2226 north 3 street i vote yes
2226 North 3 Street, I vote yes.
thomas halliman
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have a great day, everyone.
Thank you. Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been called on the 2 p.m. list?
I see no handshare.
And so we're going to take a five-minute break, let Mr. Kelly get re-situated there,
and then we'll come back and we'll move the list as quick as we can.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
i am back thank you chairman hey mr kelly thank you lakeisha how are we looking
we're looking good chair i i'm ready to start anytime you are yes you can begin okay good
afternoon my name is bill bergman and i will be chairing this afternoon's eba hearing with me is
Ismael Shahid, our Vice Chair.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our Board Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
James Snell, our Board Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is our Board Attorney, Hillary Emerson, and our ZBA Hearing Supervisor, Lakeisha Dandy.
Before we begin, here's our virtual format.
Be advised that proceedings are being recorded.
By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkett at philo.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating in my phone, if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand, star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address for the property in question.
And finally, the question and answer box on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
Any comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett.
Are there any requests for continuances on the 330 list?
I see no handshare.
Thank you.
We do have a case that we do not have exhibits for.
MI 2022-004-623-2143 North 32nd Street.
Kendra Newman is the applicant.
No exhibits, first listing.
I see no handshare.
So MI 2022-004-623-2143 North 32nd Street, that case is continued.
We're going to start, we're going to go out a little out of order here.
Number five first, please.
MI 2022-003-295-230 East Ringhurst Street.
Matthew Monroe is the attorney.
Let's see here.
Letter of opposition from the coordinating RCO, Wakefield 49ers.
Letter of opposition from the affected RCO, Solo Germantown.
Both attached.
Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the board.
Mr. Monroe, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. Matthew Monroe, M-A-T-T-H-E-W-M-O-N-R-O-E, 30 South 15th Street, 15th Ward.
Could you do me a favor? Could you just get a little closer or take your volume up, please?
Sure. I'll do my best.
Thank you.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Yes, Marilyn Clark, who is on the Zoom call and is also the principal with the...
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Have you emailed all the exhibits and documents into our offices within five days of this hearing?
yes with the exception of a petition which we sent by email today to supplement
okay uh please proceed and share your screen
excuse me mr chair sorry this is hillary um mr monroe do you were you able to obtain proof of
posting or has someone that's able to testify that the property is posted to today's hearing
Yes, Ms. Emerson, and I will just go ahead and scroll down.
Yes, Ms. Emerson, and I will just go ahead and scroll down.
The property was originally posted in advance of the prior meeting, as shown in the photographs.
I spoke with Mr. Mulvihill, and he confirmed that his office did, in fact, repost the property.
Unfortunately, the photographs he took were on a phone that is now missing while he was out on medical leave.
All right, thank you.
So, Chairman Bergman, this is an application to turn the property at 230 East Springhurst
into a dedicated electric charging station.
As the chair knows and as the board knows, the city of Philadelphia has what's called the Clean Fleet Plan, which seeks to focus on turning the city's vehicles to electric vehicles and converting that into having cleaner energy and better, you know, for electric vehicles.
In this case, my client purchased an electric vehicle, but she got really interested in the fact that there's not much infrastructure to support electric vehicles in the city.
And so she is by profession a real estate agent, but is seeking to expand the availability and affordability of charging stations for folks in the city who don't have it.
well. I understand that there was an opposition letter from the RCO. Ms. Clark did, after the
meeting, have an opportunity to walk the block within, and she spoke only with near neighbors.
We submitted a petition with 30 signatures, which I would ask that the board consider, and
two of the members, or two of the folks who signed in support of this project, all of whom
live nearby, both have electric vehicles and said that they would be thrilled to have this
type of infrastructure nearby. The property is zoned as RM1, which means that as of right,
Ms. Clark could build a multifamily development there, and that would require no parking under
the zoning code. So there would be a net benefit insofar as taking some electric vehicles off the
street uh with this uh dedicated parking space and allowing them to charge um would have a better
benefit to the community that's you know fighting for parking spaces for on street parking like we
all are all over the city uh there would be a net benefit to them uh and there would be an
opportunity for folks who live nearby with electric vehicles to to charge at the station um
Here you can see the plan. It's a simple plan that just shows, you know, the turning radius of the vehicles, layout, you know, how vehicles would enter the property from East Pringhurst.
You could have four charging stations, or actually you could have five charging stations, but I think the application was for four.
um Ms. Clark can uh can uh correct that uh at the end of my uh presentation um
come on Rob try to get a little closer you're fading out oh sure no problem uh yeah so here
we have yeah you know just the uh the site plan showing that you know vehicles turning in from
East Bringhurst Street uh an important thing to note is that the immediately it's currently a
vacant parking lot. The immediate adjacent property is an existing parking lot for Covenant House
which is across the street and serves the community providing important social services
but you can see in this photograph there is an existing parking lot. So with the improvements
that Ms. Clark is proposing it would effectively appear to be an extension of the next
door the next door parking lot um and again the idea here is that if you were have a multi-family
uh development you would invariably bring a lot more people a lot more vehicles
and create more of uh of a bottleneck in in uh searching for uh on street parking
that you otherwise wouldn't have here.
Now, I am filling in today for Mr. Malthahill,
I was, I am filling in today for Mr. Mulvihill, who is out on medical leave currently. So I know that he knows a lot more about the history here with the, with the community and the notices. Everything was properly noticed.
who is...
I did want to note, though, that while there's not a tax clearance that appears to just be administrative glitch, there is no property tax balance on the property, and we do have that in the packet.
And the only tax balance showing for the property online is for the property tax, and that's not due until March, and that's right here.
Mr. Monroe, does your client live next door?
she does not live next door so she's just buying a vacant lot yes and she's going to create five
spots for people to charge their cars to charge vehicles right the idea they would have some kind
of money yes they put money in and she'd make money or yes yeah so so there would be they pay
for like a membership uh that sort of thing so yeah so instead of having to go and gas up at
the station which you can't do with an electric vehicle you would just go in and plug plug in your
vehicle. You know, arguably, you know, there's currently a vacant lot there. You're not going
to be dealing with a lot of high traffic coming in and out. It's, you know, probably not really
have any material impact on the surrounding neighbors. And while I think that, you know,
again, while I think that there was some opposition, from what I understand, Ms. Clark
tried to make a presentation, but I think that there was some heated exchanges between Mr.
Mulville and the RCO and she kind of stepped into a hot room and didn't really get an opportunity
to present her case. But with that, I just want to say, I'll conclude. And Ms. Clark,
if you could raise your virtual hands on the Zoom so they can let you in.
Ms. Clark, please unmute yourself. You're free to speak.
Good afternoon to the zoning board.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Marilyn Clark, M-A-R-I-L-Y-N, last name C-L-A-R-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Ms. Clark, did you hear the factual statements I made on the record?
I did.
And Ms. Clark, we both know I'm new to this case, and there might have been a couple of things. How many parking spaces or how many charging stations are proposed for this property?
There are four stations proposed for the property.
Got it. And then aside from that glitch, were the remainder of the statements that I made true and accurate?
Yes, they were.
Okay. And would you adopt them as your testimony?
Yes, I did.
questions from the board no mr chairman yeah yes mr chairman uh exactly how many parking
spaces on the outside of the lot is this station going to use for the vehicles going in and out of
this a lot and uh and let me just ask um is the question related to how many uh on-street
parking spaces are um going to be impacted by uh the creation of a dedicated uh driveway
yes i i i believe it's just a single space okay all right no mr i'm good
questions or comments for the virtual audience
chair we have rosalyn last name ending in elma the mary okay
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter good afternoon
I'm Rosalinda McKelvey, President of the Wakefield 49ers Community Improvement and Development Association, RCO.
Okay, so you've already been sworn today, so you can just start testifying.
Thank you for the time to present to you.
First statement I'll say is the lawyer who was stepping in for Mr. Mulvihill, we were not notified of any change in counsel.
that would be represented today. Two, the last meeting that we did have scheduled,
Ms. Merlin had to represent herself. Mr. Mulvihill came on in the Zoom, but then left.
Mr. Mulvihill came on in the Zoom but then left. We had asked him to give us information on any feedback because he put his fax number in. He didn't testify. He didn't say he left the meeting.
So that's statement one. But we have all our overlapping RCOs that have said no. And the close overlapping or adjacent to said no, virtually because we have not been able to get above board information.
There was no presentation of any certification of mailing.
There was an email with an attachment that the man said someone had sent them out, and we asked him four times, can we please have proof of mailing?
Just send us a picture.
I have documents where even the city council office sent him an email asking for proof of certification that you've mailed it.
This is following after they hand-delivered the wrong address and the wrong date for the first meeting for this.
The second letter, after you asked them to notify us, they sent a letter out certified, they said, to people with the wrong date, January 13th, and we asked them again, can you please send the neighbors the correct date for your court hearing?
then they sent out another letter that the RCOs did not get for January 18th. With all those
errors, the neighbors have been feeling quite uninformed, and when we did have the meeting,
Ms. Clark wanted to present. The meeting was canceled because, again, we had no notification
officially to the neighbors, but the neighbors called me because they wanted to know what
happened. Ms. Clark did come on and wanted to present. And we told her, since we had no
notification to city council or all the RCOs of this meeting, we're only here to tell the neighbors
we're sorry, but she wanted to present. So it wasn't a hostile meeting. It was the fact that
they had not duly notified the neighborhood. Unfortunately, their postings, the first one
he showed that is orange, he posted that on Halloween, the deadline of us notifying before
the November 2nd meeting, and it was put by hand in neighborhoods front yards. The second posting
I have online, I can show you the picture, is from October and from November. They have failed
to post today's meeting. I took the picture this morning. The neighbors went out every week for the
last two weeks. They have not posted today's meeting for the neighbors on Bringhurst Street.
We have those that I've gone out to, and trying to wrap this up, the agreement with Mr. Mulvihill
was that if people could not come on zoom we presented a paper form to him that he emailed
out and said he certified mail to people that they could give it back and send it back to us
and they if they have signatures today if they have any approval they have bystepped the entire
community by not even telling us they had signatures off another block, not off Bringhurst
Street. So with all these things, we have said we are opposed. The neighbors have said they're
opposed. They took a lot that the neighborhood has spent the last 20 years cleaning and putting
flowers on and said that they're going to put for her parking, electric parking on Bringhurst Street,
which is one block from a school the crossing guard said she has enough loiterers we said where
are the people going to go while they have to go to the bathroom or let their car charge they said
that wasn't their concern they did not know and the neighbor said they'll be peeing in the bushes
and how do we know these people are in the front of the house also they could not provide us that
night any pictures of the fence. The fence is a privatizing fence. They said they will not
landscape or put any flowers on the block. It's going to be black topped. And when we again asked
them, they referred to Covenant House. Covenant House has sent an objection to this because
they can't use their bathrooms. Covenant House works closely with the neighborhood from Broad
from Broad Street to Chestnut Hill. And these people have not talked to us. They have not
street to Chestnut Hill. And these people had not talked to us.
conferred or talked to any RCO. If they got signatures, they haven't informed us of any.
I believe someone said, well, we've been on 10 minutes ago, an email.
Ms. McKelvey, so it's to say that you're against the project?
Five RCOs and all neighbors. We have not one yet.
Thank you very much. We appreciate your time in calling in. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Charles Richardson.
I'm Mr. Richardson.
Good afternoon again, Mr. Chair.
Charles Richardson, Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, room 508 City Hall.
uh it's just just a few minutes ago prior just a couple minutes prior to the uh to the beginning
the proceedings uh mr monroe sent a email showing a pdf of of this uh petition that had been
circulated uh showing some 29 or 30 signatures um and i did a quick did a quick you know because
of the fact it came up literally but during that five minute period that you had given us to
during the break. So I did a quick download of the of the of the addresses that were that were
required by the Planning Commission. And then I compared them to what they have on the on these
on the petition. They have addresses on Queen Lane, 14 addresses on Queen Lane, there are no
addresses on Queen Lane that were required or included in the Planning Commission. They had
seven signatures from Penn Street, which is not included either. They have two signatures from
Sheldon Street, which is not included, and also one from Baten Street, which is not included.
On Brighurst Street, which is the only street that actually was included, they have five
signatures. So out of that 29 signatures, they only have five valid. So, you know, I can only
say that, you know, the Councilwoman is definitely against this proposal. It doesn't have any context
for the community in there.
And it's kind of a waste of resources
for something that she's trying to do as a money grab.
And that's pretty much where we are on this situation.
Okay, thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no answer.
Wait a minute, Chair.
I was going to say,
if I could just address some of the comments that were made.
Sure, sure.
Just to clear up the record.
Number one, with respect to, Mr. Mulvihill has had a medical emergency.
That's the reason, and I did not know I was going to be taking this case until last night.
There was no subterfuge and changing out in counsel.
This was addressing a medical emergency.
Number two, I have open my screen the letter.
And just to clarify, Mr. Mulvihill did, in fact, send out notification.
And as noted in the RCO's letter, materials were sent out to 110 neighbors.
I think there was an error with respect to date and time, and then that was corrected.
The only documentation I think that they were looking for was the certificate of mailing form.
uh but there was in fact the the um the mailings were set and mr moldhill provided uh proof that
he paid for the uh the postage um okay and in absence of that and then i i think finally i
think a lot a number of the concerns are simply just related to the notice um the the meeting was
attended and um uh the uh the concerns about the projects that have been raised have been based on
speculation related to whether or not people would need to use the bathroom and that's a
gross misunderstanding about how the uh the project would work all right planning commission
yes excuse me chair we have mr richardson and another a member of the audience all right
mr richardson again go ahead just to rebut uh there were no no no no there was no mailing uh
Mr. Mulvihill hand-delivered everything as far as that was concerned.
And there was no mailing.
And we went back and forth on this, you know, in a very protracted way.
So just to clear that up, there was no mailing.
All right.
Thank you.
One more person in the audience.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
That's Charnay Ratchford, that's S-H-A-R-N-A-Y, last name Ratchford, R-A-T-C-H-F-O-R-D.
All right, do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Are you in favor of the project or against?
I'm against.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
and thank you for taking the time to cause planning commission so this is uh ron bednar
And thank you for taking the time to close.
Planning Commission.
city planning first name ron r-o-n last name bednar b-e-d-n-a-r
do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do proceed uh this property is indicated for multi-family residential use
on the city plan to establish a hardship for use the applicant must demonstrate that there's
no possible possibility that the property can be used in strict conformity with the provisions of
the code and that a variance is necessary to enable a viable economic use of the property
we do not believe that this applicant has met that burden the refusal for landscape requirements
fence height and drive aisle width represents a self-created hardship stemmed from the
applicant's choice on establishing the non-conformity use on a residentially zoned
property. Therefore, the City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny all the variances.
Thank you. MI 2022-003-295-230 East Springhurst Street, I vote no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no.
Thank you.
Number two, MI2022005451, 1000 Cotman Avenue, Vern Anastasio is the attorney for the owner.
No RCA letter at this point.
Meeting was held 12822 Burr Home Community Town Watch and Civic Association.
mr chair this is hillary um i just noting that i'm recusing from myself from this case and
ryan mcsherry is filling in thank you okay okay mr chair i was uh being logged on when you were
announcing uh but we do have a vote tally from the rco okay all right so we'll cover that and
make sure that you send that to hillary please when you get a chance um i believe they did but
i'll be happy to do that again already been sworn um could you identify your client and the
relationship to the property is dr sabri ibrahim is uh my client for the subject property and
this is a bit of a bit of a sticky wicket because well before we get to the sticky
wiki could you uh could you answer a few questions from the vice chair sure
good afternoon counsel do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his
accuracy sure have you emailed in all of the documents that were required to proceed with
this case five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you please proceed and share your screen
Leonard, do you want to be sworn?
Yes, thank you.
State your name, please, and spell for a court reporter.
Leonard Reuter, L-E-O-N-A-R-D.
Last name is R-E-U-T-E-R.
And I'm senior attorney for the city of Philadelphia.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, Vern.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I stipulated to the accuracy at the time, August 30th, that my application for a pharmacy at this location would have triggered a referral pursuant to this bill number right here.
However, since then, the bill was vetoed by the mayor, and therefore, there really is no special exception to get this.
If I were to submit something tomorrow, I would get this as a matter of right.
But we're here.
So after speaking to Attorney Emerson and Mr. Reuter, I think it might be best, unless you think otherwise, to just put this on and get through this, knowing that this relief does not need to be granted because it's already as a matter of right.
Does that make sense?
Leonard?
Hi, thank you.
uh first i apologize there's a glare coming off my screen so i look um a bit ghastly right now
but anyway um uh and my office light is behind me so then i would just be in darkness anyway
And my office light is behind me, so then I would just be in darkness. Anyway, yeah, so the bill was vetoed by the mayor, and it was close to the end of the session. The sponsor of the bill actually resigned her position, and council did not subsequently vote to override the veto, and they only had seven days to do that.
The position of the city, though, is that at the time the permit application was given a referral, that was good because pending ordinance doctrine did apply.
So L&I is without a means to just simply issue the permit now because once the referral was issued, it basically boots it out of the system.
But I'm indifferent. If Mr. Anastasia and his client want to just go forward and get it as a variance, it would still be considered a variance, even though the underlying zoning classification hasn't changed.
or you could potentially uh refer it back for uh an amended application um but then that would
take like 20 days i don't know i'm again i why don't we just technically they're still seeking
a variance and that's the only thing before you it's not an appeal against l and i but we do agree
that it's just one of these weird things you know maybe you want to see which way the variance goes
and just uh so why don't why don't we go ahead yeah i mean this is not a variance it's just a
special exception i'm sorry special exception yeah uh which sort of but yeah i i think the
best way to go is just to present we get the relief here hopefully and move move forward
otherwise it'll just be further delayed so uh the application is for a pharmaceutical of
sundries and convenience sales at 1000 cottman avenue this is the property in question
right here. It is zoned CMX2, which, as we just explained in depth, this use is now as a matter
of right. However, at the time, the pending legislation, which was subsequently vetoed,
would require a special exception. My client is a pharmacist. He runs Pharmacy of America.
He started this himself. This is going to be his ninth pharmacy in the area,
all without incident, without any sort of problems or security concerns. He has a
Bulletproof glass, camera surveillance systems.
The systems actually connect with the local police department.
And he's very high regarded and well received in every neighborhood that he's ever been in.
We did meet, in fact, with the community.
By the way, this is some of the exterior shots.
There's a parking lot there.
and then we have some interiors
so you can see
there's a site plan
I want to move
into evidence
interior layout
drawn to scale
we have our deed
as part of our exhibit packet, our proof of posting, our letter that went out to 57 individual
households. It was fairly well attended. I'm going to stop sharing this and I'm going to share
if i can find it there's another
just give me one moment
pearl home community town walks and civic association meeting was held
it says they did not reach agreement on the application but seven folks in attendance
voted to support it another seven voted to support it with provisos those provisos were camera
lighting and eventual fencing of the adjacent parking lot or lot so that there would not be
any sort of folks hanging out there and my client was okay with all of that only one of the 15
And my client was okay with all of that. Only one of the 15 people in attendance voted to oppose.
So I think that's a pretty good indication as to, you know, my client's operation, our presentation.
And because of this is a special exception with any and all plans for safety and security, because my client has a record in the city of Philadelphia, opening up now his ninth pharmacy without any incident ever, 311 or 911.
one and because as of today this use is now considered as a by right use i'm respectfully
requesting the granting of this relief and with that i'd like to have dr sabri ibrahim
raise his hand and be recognized
doctor could you state your name and spell for the court reporter sabri ibrahim s-a-b-r-i-i-b-r-a-h-i-m
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Doctor, did you hear my presentation to the board today?
And is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
questions or comments from the virtual audience
I see no handshare
planning commission
Ron Bednar city planning
the property is indicated for commercial
mixed use on the city plan
in the physical circumstances of the site
by right use
we recommend that the requested
special exception be granted
MI 2022
005451
1000 Cotman Avenue
I vote yes
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes.
Ish Belshahi, my vote is yes.
You have your three votes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We're going to have to do number one now, MI 2022, 002-947, 340 Domino Lane.
I mean, Eileen Quigley is the attorney.
RCO meeting was held 6-14-22.
Confirmed by email by Eileen Quigley.
Ms. Quigley is coming back in as a panelist.
Yes. Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman, members of the board. Eileen Quigley on behalf of
the applicant, Fox Television News Stations. We're here on behalf of 340 Domino Lane.
You've already been sworn. Just a few questions from our vice chair.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal and stipulate
to his accuracy?
I agree to waive the reading of the refusal, but I don't stipulate to its accuracy with regard to the refusal based on Title 14-4014B, the multiple principal buildings on a lot in residential district.
we believe as a legal non-conforming use that we would not be required to come here for a
a variance but because it's in a residential district and it still remains in a residential
district we have been refused on that grounds and that would be my only objection. Okay we'll go
through that as we work our way through the case. Thank you. Have you emailed all have you emailed
all of the required documents are these available to this hearing yes with the exception of um we
provided to miss emerson this afternoon an affidavit of mailing as proof of mailing of
the notice letters uh for the rco meeting that took place before ballard spar and before i and
Ballard Spahr were engaged as counsel to the applicant. There was a meeting on June 14,
2022, and they mailed out the notice letters on June 1. And as I said, we did forward to
Ms. Emerson an executed affidavit of mailing as evidence of that mailing. We would like to add
that to our exhibits when we move them into evidence. In addition, we added additional
In addition, we added additional photos of the surrounding area at our Exhibit D,
photos of the surrounding area at
and we also included a bio for Ruggieri and partners, Philip Ruggieri and Steve Garwood,
who will also be answering questions testifying at today's hearing.
Okay, thank you. Please proceed and share your screen and we can work through the
case. Thank you. Can everybody see the screen? Yes. Great. So we're providing these exhibits
and would like to enter them into evidence at the end of our hearing and we have the necessary
requirements. We have portions of the lease, the tax clearance certificate, photos of the posted
zoning notice and photos of the site and surrounding area in addition to the other
exhibits that we'll get to as we move through the hearing. So just for some context
this site is leased by it's owned by the city of Philadelphia and Fox television stations and its
predecessor entered into a lease with the city of philadelphia in 1966 and that lease has since
been renewed and we have that as part of this exhibit so fox has been here at this site
for over 50 years
so what is happening is they are constructing a garage in order to house
a very well-equipped van that will be for mobile production and newscasts in event of emergencies.
And I will have a few people lined up to answer questions about that,
but I just wanted to give everybody some context as far as where it is,
because in addition to the multiple buildings on the lot there,
They were also refused for the steep slope regulation under 14-704-2B.2.
So this is the station off of Domino Lane.
Here's the existing building.
This is a site of Domino Lane and the other commercial industrial businesses around the area.
this is the site again
i'd like to stop at this one because this pardon me where's the garage going to go so
this is where the garage is going to go it's in the rear of the property okay and
i'll find you a photo that this is another surrounding area um this is part of the area
that they're going to be cutting into a small portion of this steep slope here.
And as I said, this is a good map to really show
the context of what is happening around this area. These are all the properties that we,
there are only eight or nine properties that we had to send notice to and they're all along this
commercial carter on domino street you can see residential is over here and is um far outside
the 250 feet so here's the site and with that i would like to ask um that mark top be elevated as
a panelist mr toppy could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes my name is mark tobe t-o-u-b right spelling of the last name i do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed my apologies mr tobe for
mispronouncing your name i'll call you mark if that's okay that's fine so um mark we have here
the the visual where your site is but i'd like you to offer some background in history as far
is the use of the site and as i mentioned fox has had it and at least with the city since 1966 so if
you could just explain what the site is used for how many employees work there yeah sure the um
the site is a is a transmission facility we have a television transmission tower and a transmission
mission building where we house all the equipment for the transmitter for what was is WTXF now
was WTAF and WIBF in its prior ownership on a daily basis we
ownership on a daily basis we have one employee who is permanently assigned out there
and you know at certain times we may have an additional employee who comes out to the site to
assist we want to add a garage to this facility to house this vehicle as part of our disaster
recovery plan and the reason we chose this site was because we we own the van already it's a multi
camera production van that should our facility our studios which are located at
4th and market street in old city should those studios become unusable for some reason
we want to have the van away from that site and close to our transmitter site where we can
you know immediately take action to to get back on the air our concern with the uh the market
street site is we're adjacent to independence national park and there are several uh federal
and governmental buildings in the area including the u.s mint and because of the historic uh nature
of the area and the nearby federal buildings we've we've got a concern that you know that there could
be a terrorist activity or some activity that would make our studios at market street
unusable so is it safe to say that this is a quite a technologically advanced van quite expensive
this is this van is uh in the range of a quarter of a million dollars um it contains like i said
a multi-camera switching system uh communications equipment satellite communications equipment
um all those needed to to cover a news event such a you know a major news event in such a
situation where you know the old city area would be uh not usable
and when having this van and you'd have to have the garage which is really what's happening here
You have to construct a garage back here, and that's to keep it safe from the elements and secure otherwise?
Yeah, we want to have it behind the building and to keep it out of sight, so to speak, and to keep it safe from the elements.
And, Mark, what is the hardship if you are not able to construct this garage to house this vital van?
Well, we would we would then have to probably build a facility where we could do the same type of emergency work and probably on this property as well.
So it would be the same.
We'd have to build another studio is what you're talking about.
Yes, we would.
This is essentially the least modification of the zoning regulations
because you're actually just building a garage, a house, a mobile van
that would do the same as if you had to build another building.
Exactly.
You know, as broadcasters, we are, you know,
responsible to provide emergency information during, you know,
events where the public could be impacted,
And this will allow us to do that under circumstances that are beyond our control.
And this generally will not change the nature of the one employee.
This won't increase traffic in the area.
It won't put a burden on the property or any utilities.
No, it will not.
All right. Thank you, Mark.
Thank you.
Is Phil Ruggieri on?
Sir, please unmute yourself.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Give me one second.
Phil Ruggieri, P-H-I-L-I-P-R-U-G-G-I-E-R-I.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth is nothing but the truth
I do proceed thank you Phil I would just like to add that we have the bio as I said at exhibit H
if you could just give a brief background and establish your credentials for the zoning
Give a brief background and establish your credentials for the zoning board, Phil, so we can have you recognized as an expert in architecture and planning.
Yeah, sure. First, let me apologize. Steve will not be in attendance at this point.
He had to leave early to go pick his children up. So y'all are stuck with me.
i am a licensed architect in the state of pennsylvania i've been in the business of
architecture for well over 45 years uh my company is well established and uh we've testified
at zoning boards of this nature uh a multitude of times
that's fine eileen thank you thank you chairman um so mr ruggier you have uh been at this site
correct yes ma'am and in your opinion is there any viable location on this site where you could
make this path and build this garage for this van uh we've studied it pretty closely when we
first got involved and where the building is located is the only practical spot that it can
be located. The majority of it is on pretty level ground, except for the area outside of the drive-in
door that cuts into the man-made bank is required for us to get enough turning radius, if you will,
to get the van into the garage.
And that was handled, I thought, quite nicely
from the civil engineers with the kind of V-shaped wall
that you'll see in this exhibit right here
to try to minimize the impact on the man-made berm,
if you will, to the worst-case scenario
is right at the point where you see that dark,
Dark, that's it. Thank you. That's the worst impact on the slope. And quite frankly,
I wish we could cut into the slope even more because it's still tight getting the van in
and out of that door. But we figured that this is the best we're going to be able to do.
and our client is is accepting this this is a as a as an okay solution
Mr. Ruggieri do you believe this this is the you did mention it so this is really a de minimis
very very de minimis impact on the high on the slope of the on the adjacent slope
in my in my opinion also the other rationale for the location of the garage is that there's a
need to get into the existing building
and that we have some existing double doors
that are accessible to us
adjacent through that little connecting link there, if you will.
And that's kind of a must to be able to get back
and forth between the parking garage and the existing building.
Thank you. Now, Phil, there are other structures
on this site as well correct and equipment satellite dishes yes lots of other equipment
and and other buildings is there an opportunity or could you join these two buildings so we
wouldn't have multiple buildings or what was the issue with that yeah no we could certainly join
them uh by by putting uh connecting them with a roof uh i think that might be considered uh one
building then if they're connected with a roof. But like any project, we were on a budget and
connecting with a roof is just more dollars. And, you know, we didn't see necessarily the need to
do that. And this is a more secure location for the van with the garage located back here to the
rear the property yes and um phil in your opinion um will this have any impact on any traffic or
utilities any congestion in the streets none whatsoever and in your opinion with this garage
back here to house this van and cutting into uh slightly cutting into this slope and having an
additional structure on the lot. Will it injure any of the adjacent properties?
Not at all. I think it's very well tucked back there and concealed to not be visually harmful in
to, you know, not be visually harmful in any other way.
any other way.
Thank you, Mr. Ruggieri.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no handshake.
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar city planning. While this property is currently indicated for residential
on the city plan given the long-standing surrounding site context ancillary to existing
legal non-conforming use recommend we have no objection to the granting of the variance.
Mr. Chair may I also note that we did receive an email from the RCO today. Her aunt passed away so
she was not able to um submit a letter but i forwarded both her email i saw it hillary showed
it to me yep we're good and the councilman's office is in support mi 2022-002-947-340 domino
lane i vote yes tom solomon my vote is yes james snell my vote is yes yes
thank you chairman bergman that concludes my business may we please be excused you you most
certainly can thank you thank you have a wonderful day all right number four mi 2022
zero zero four six one six thirty nine oh seven to eleven north three street john taylor is the
attorney the meeting was held on 117 23 at esperanza we're waiting for an rco letter
mr taylor mr taylor is coming back in as a panelist okay
mr taylor
Good afternoon, Commissioner. John Taylor, J-O-N-T-A-Y-L-O-R. I'm fixing my camera.
Okay. Do you swear in front to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
I represent the tenant and the owner of the property located at 3907 Reese Street.
Okay, and our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed all of the required documents five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes, but with exception to the tax certificates, which we received yesterday, we also did have an RCO meeting yesterday.
I did receive today the RCO letter of support, which I will show in today's presentation.
and we also sent the proof of the mailing as a supplemental exhibit, along with the tax
certificates as well, which were sent yesterday upon receipt. Okay, great. Please proceed and
share your screen. Excuse me, Chair. Lynn Nichols has her hand up. Is she relevant to this case?
linda wolf she may or may not i don't know why she would be but if she raised her hand she could
have a reason um mr chair this is hillary lynn nichols is an attorney in another case on the
330 list i don't know if she has a question or i guess that we can address it's lynn nichols
you're saying? Yes. Yeah, let her in, please. Ms. Nichols, please unmute yourself.
Ms. Nichols, state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter.
Lynn Nichols. L-Y-N-N-N-I-C-H-O-L-S. I'm so tired, Chair. I heard 2022-004 or some number,
and I thought it was my case. Okay, that's okay. We're going to get to you. I promise.
I know. I know. We'll be to you soon. Go ahead, Mr. Taylor.
thank you sure not a problem um may i share the screen please
whoops excuse me
whoops excuse me
um let me apologize i think um i was moving my exhibits around
okay this is the zba presentate um we don't have we don't have anything up you have to share your
screen here it's coming it's coming now it's up yeah this is the zba presentation for
3907-11 north reese street included with this package are the exhibit the application for
repeal, the poster, the exhibit for the deed and lease, photos, area photographs, plans.
We also have supplemental exhibits, which were submitted later, which we would like
to show to the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
I'm going to, this is a copy of the refusal.
We don't see it.
We're not seeing anything now.
Oh, that's because I.
You got to, you got to have it put up on the screen.
All right.
It's coming up now.
Make it.
That's it. You're good. All right. So this is the refusal.
I represent a car dealership. There is a garage connected to the car dealership.
As is often the case when cars are sold, they must have certain repairs in order to be sold.
And it's a necessity that the garage, they'd be allowed to have a garage.
It was an existing use for many years. Only recently has the owner, I believe, only recently cited for a violation.
So what they would like to do is make the proposed use for a personal vehicle repair and maintenance, which is prohibited in the district.
This is a copy of the application.
as it shows the car business was already established
the copy of the poster
this is the deed to the property there's the owner
how long has the garage been in business there you know it's i believe it's been over 10 years
i'll ask my client that question in testimony all right thank you here's the lease
What I'm going to do is I want to skip to the aerial photo.
I figured out in the RCO meeting that was actually a better way of showing this presentation.
It was a better idea.
Aerial map.
Okay, so this red dot is the structure.
It is the garage right here.
Now, the whole parcel, the whole dealership, is really this portion of the block.
It's actually multiple properties.
You can kind of see that in the numbering of the parcels.
My client, the tenant, owns this property as well.
He owns this property, but Mr. Colon owns these properties.
And this is the property we're trying to make into a personal, you know, a garage.
So if the car is here, it can be fixed here.
I'm just going to show really quick, briefly, there's other garages in that neighborhood.
There's a garage there.
There's a garage there.
it's kind of a commercial industrial site there list of garages in the area
i'm gonna go if if i may i like to go back to the um uh pictures of the building itself okay here it
is so here is the reese street this is the portion of the property that faces reese street
Okay, and this is the garage. If you notice, there's polls in the street during the RCO meeting last night. There was expressed concerns about if my client parks vehicles on the sidewalk of his customers. And my client testified during the RCO, and he can testify tonight that no, he doesn't park his customers' cars on the sidewalks.
okay and this is the garage if you notice there's poles
With that said, other people do, and my client will work with the neighborhood to try to keep people from parking on the sidewalk.
So here's another picture on the Reese Street portion of the lot.
Again, here's the side lot.
Cars are parked.
Another picture.
Another picture.
All right, so this is across the street from the garage we saw.
This property is not owned by my client, but it shows that a garage and car dealership does fit within the character of the neighborhood and the existing uses.
This is the inside of the garage.
It's a very clean facility.
I don't see any, you know, gas or oil spills.
Very clean facility.
There's another picture of the garage.
Garage.
This is the inside.
This is where customers can come and talk about the cars they want to buy.
This is the lavatory for the facility.
So, Mr. Taylor, I think where we should be is I think you should bring your client on and have your testimony adopted.
I mean, what you're basically saying, he's been in business for 10 years and he recently was cited.
Correct.
You're trying to get a variance.
So why don't you bring him on?
All right.
I like Mr. Nefertil Leonardo.
Could you please introduce yourself to the Zoning Board of Adjustment?
Could you state your name, sir, and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
there are no hands raised at this time chair okay i'll let me make a quick well mr taylor mr
taylor you're an officer of the court and we will accept your testimony thank you okay um
and we still don't have a phone number from we don't have a letter yet from the rco
we do if i may i'd like to show the letter that came this afternoon
please are they in support yes they are this is the letter it came this afternoon okay
I will just make sure we receive a copy of that please yes sir yes chairman okay
all right questions from the board no Mr. Chairman no Mr. Chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no handshare high planning commission i run bednar city planning this property is
indicated for commercial mixed use on the city plan given the physical circumstances of the site
it's documented use history we recommend the aggressive variance be ready thank you mi2022
616-3907
to 11 North 3 Street. I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman.
I vote yes.
James Snell.
My vote is yes.
Ishmael
Shaheed. My vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you. May I be excused?
You most certainly can.
Number 6. MI
004-618
850 East Madison
Street. Lynn Nichols is
the attorney.
There was a zoning. There was a
RCO meeting when 1026
22. We don't
have a copy of it as of yet.
Good evening. Hi. Could you
state your name please and spell for the court
reporter? Lynn Nichols.
L-Y-N-N. Last name
N-I-C-H-O-L-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
His name is Chris, C-R-I-S, last name Kier, K-E-A-R.
And our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his
accuracy? Yes. Have you emailed all the documents five days in advance to this hearing?
Have you emailed all the documents five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes, except for the RCO summary.
Okay, please proceed and share your screen.
Good evening, members of the board.
Can you see my screen?
We can.
Here we have the exhibit packet for 850 East Madison Street.
This project is to legalize an existing structure.
The applicant purchased the property, and when he did, there had already been a deck
attached.
He did some renovations, and during that time, he was made aware that he had to get a zoning
permit to continue the renovations, which is why we're here today.
His project that he seeks represents the lease modification of the code to provide relief.
No action on his part will increase the congestion in the public streets or in any way endanger
of the public, nor will it substantially permanently harm the neighbor's use of their
properties or impair light or air. It will not increase the traffic congestion in public streets
or place undue burden on the water, sewer, or other public facilities. It will not create an
environmental damage, pollution, erosion, or increase the danger of flooding. And in this
case, it's a hardship economically for him because this structure was already attached to the
property. He had been renovating it, as I stated, when he was made aware that he had to get a zoning
permit to legalize it. And here I'm going to show you the deed for the property.
The tax certificate, which we obtained and sent to Hillary yesterday. These are the neighbors that
were notified. We have the proof of the community letter that was sent in October for the meeting
that we had with the RCL. We still haven't received a summary. This is the proof of mailing.
This is the proof of the notice for zoning for this hearing today that's posted. Here
you see the front of the property which is sitting by itself on the block with no neighbors
connected to it beside it. This is a view looking to the right of 850 East Madison.
This is a view looking to, I'm sorry, this was the view looking to the right. This is a view
actually looking to the left. I mislabeled it. I apologize. This is the rear of the property. This
is the side showing the structure that existed, but it's been renovated. This is a new wood here
that the owner had put up when the renovations were done.
This is, again, looking at the rear of the deck.
And these are the steps that go up the side of the deck.
And here we have the plans.
I'm going to show it in this screen.
As you can see here, these are the pictures of what it looked like
before the renovations actually happened.
And so there already was this existing wood deck attached to the house when he purchased it.
And this is looking at the rear.
The deck itself on the back is approximately 14.25 feet wide.
And on the side, it's about 16 feet 6 inches.
It doesn't encroach into the rear alley.
It only takes up the property that the owner has here in the back.
and it doesn't impact any neighbors because there are no structures attached to it
on either side. At this time, I would like to call my client. Is Chris Kier in the audience?
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Christopher K. Kear
Mr. Kear
Please call your name please for the court reporter
My name is Christopher K. Kear
K-E-A-R
My last name
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
The whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes chairman
Please see counsel
Thank you Mr. Chair
Mr. Kear are you the owner of this property
850 East Madison Street? Yes. Have you heard
the testimony that I gave here today? Yes. Do you adopt
it as your own? Yes. And Mr. Chair
before I let Mr. Kiara off, when we had the RCO meeting there was
no opposition to this project. Okay. Okay. Is that correct
Mr. Kiara? Yes. Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
no no mr i'm sorry thank you um tom well we have two that's enough um questions or comments
from the virtual audience chair we have sloan folks okay
hi mr folks sloan folks office of councilwoman ketsy emlazada 7th district room 316 city hall
uh i record i'm sorry i'll go again i reckon state that there was a community meeting held
with the coordinating RCO in October, I believe the date was the 12th, we just asked the record
be held open. And I have reached out to the RCO in the past two days requesting a letter for the
record so that it could be on the record. We just ask that the record be held open for one week so
that they can get a letter in to you um and then the record be closed thank you um planning commission
this is uh ron bednar city planning uh the property is indicated for residential on the
city plan given the physical circumstances replacement of the existing structure on the site
recommend it we have no objection to the granting appearance thank you um the record is closed except
for an rco letter and we will vote on this next week thank you uh chair and members of the board
thank you number seven mi 2022 004-647-1248 day street lisa pitnick is the owner pro se
there's a letter of opposition from the fishtown neighbors association
Ms. Pitnick is coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Board. I just need one second. I'll pull up my video.
Could you state your name first and spell for the court reporter?
Certainly. My name is Lisa Pitnick. It's spelled L-I-S-A, the last name P-L-I-T-N-I-C-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And just a few questions from our vice chair for you, okay?
Good afternoon.
Did you email all the exhibits and documents that were required for this case five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes, I did.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Share your screen.
Okay, so first I'd just like to show that this is a copy that I provided that shows
the application that I made for a visitor accommodation at my home in Fishtown.
This is a copy of the refusal letter and the justification for that is that I'm in a RSA
a five zoning district and visitor accommodations are not permitted in that zone. And so I did file
for an appeal. And this is a copy of the application for the appeal. This is my proof
of posting. This is a photograph. It's dated December 28th. And also as the documents I
provided this as a copy of the deed in my name. I showed proof that my taxes are all up to date.
And this, as you mentioned, is a letter from the community meeting, from the neighborhood
association, indicating that they did oppose. They preferred to have the home either owner-occupied
or for a long-term rental use.
I did actually speak with a couple of other neighbors
who were not able to make the community meeting
and they, I know it doesn't matter, right?
But they would have been in support.
So there's a person in the, it's a row home
and the person in the home attached to mine
has never had any issues with any of my guests.
And another gentleman down the street a little bit
indicated that he actually thought I lived there
because I'm there often enough that,
And he's obviously never had any issues with any folks staying in my home.
Can you show us pictures of the property?
I sure can.
So I have some pictures here.
So this is the exterior.
This is the front and the rear of the property.
There's a little deck out back, and I've prettied up the back, and I put siding on the back there.
prettied up the back and I put siding on the back there. This is the kitchen, which
has egress to the back of the home and to the basement. These are photographs of the living
room, which is the main living area in the home. The master bedroom, which is a three-level home,
and this is the third floor, the master bedroom. There's a second bedroom on the second floor.
This is the bathroom also on the second floor. Then also there's a basement, not technically
finished, but better than it was. So I just want to speak really briefly about my hosting history
and how I consider myself to be a responsible host. I would agree to a proviso
I put five years, whatever you feel is appropriate, I would agree to.
All the guests are screened.
I avoid parties by not renting to any local guests.
I only use official websites to book guests.
I have strict rules regarding parties and quiet hours.
I don't allow anyone younger than 25 to rent the property.
I've got front and rear security cameras.
I am my own property manager, and I only live about 45 minutes away.
I come to the house between guests to check on things and make sure everything is in order.
And both the adjacent neighbors have been provided my contact information.
And as I mentioned, I'm there often enough that the other neighbors also know me and know that this is my home.
And we handle stuff.
How long have you had it as an Airbnb?
I had started, I thought I put a slide in here. I must have missed it. I started in, let's see, 2020, April of 2020. And I had it open for a little over a year.
And then back in July, this past July, I decided that, you know, since things were getting complicated with the zoning and the permits and the licenses, that actually, after actually having Ellen and I come to the house and they gave me a $600 fine for having an Airbnb, I decided to just not poke the bear.
and so i i shut it down in august and so it's been shut down since august but i do have
a year and a half worth of history and there's never been any parties and the home is pretty
small okay sorry i've never had any voice complaint calls to the police okay all right
questions from questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no handshare by planning
so ron red inner city planning the property is indicated for residential use on the city plan
and the adopted district plan recommends no change the existing residential single family
at this location the applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical
circumstances or condition of the property that were prevented from being used in conformity with
the code. Therefore, we recommend a request for variance not be granted. Thank you. MI 2022-004-647-1248
Day Street. I vote yes with proviso. Temporary variance expires 2-1-26. Thomas Holloman, my vote
yes with proviso. James Snell my vote is yes with proviso.
You you you have your three votes. Wow oh okay I'm sorry I didn't know that was it.
All right thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. Take care. Number eight MI 2022
202-004-621-625 West Cumberland Street.
Zen Jin is the attorney.
Recommendation of support from 37th Ward RCO.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I think, did I already swear you today?
No, this is my first time.
Oh, that was yesterday.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Spell your name for the court reporter, please.
Sure. My name is Zen Jin, Z-H-E-N, last name J-I-N, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard,
Suite 1838, Philadelphia, PA 19103, here on behalf of the applicant.
here on behalf of the applicant thank you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and the whole truth?
and nothing but the truth i do could you identify your client in the relationship to this property
sure my client is 625 west cumberland llc uh mr joseph gitterman is here representing the llc
today uh they're the owner of the property okay and our vice chair has a few questions for you
Tom, want to pick that up?
Good afternoon, Counselor.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes, I have.
uh thank you please receive and share your screen thank you i will share with the board the exhibit
we have previously submitted um it is up on my screen can everyone see it yes great thank you
we have submitted copies of the refusal to support letter from 37th ward executive democratic
committee photos plans and related required documentation previously the property is a
CMX2 zone property that is on the corner of Cumberland and North Marshall Street. It's worth
noting that although it is zone CMX2, we are requesting the board to permit its use as
essentially a REM1 property of residential multifamily. Part of the reason this request
is being made is that this property has been a vacant corner property for some time. It is
actually surrounded primarily by REM1 uses. In fact, the district around this property is all
REM1 within a block or two. In addition, this property is actually on the corner of two rather
smaller-sized streets. These are not really commercial corridors. Even though corner
properties historically are used in commercial ways, the community also agrees with my client's
assessment that this particular corner would actually be better used as a pure residential
RM1 style property. As a result, we did get support from the RCO. I want to point out that
out of 13 attendees, everyone supported the application as presented. The site is again a
vacant lot on the corner. However, it is a standard size 16-foot white lot. It has been
vacant for some time. It was actually owned by an estate prior to ultimately being acquired by my
client. The plans proposed is to build a triplex setup, essentially converting the CMX2 portion of
the property to a REM1 use. The property would be a standard three-story structure. It would be
set up in a way to essentially have one unit on each floor. The basement would be attached
to the first floor unit. Because this is a corner property, we are able to manage trash in the rear
yard area. There is a rear yard. We are requesting a small variance with regard to the overall
coverage of the property in relation to the overall lot size. The idea here is to give
a nice amount of space within for the use of the individuals who would actually be using the
property once it is placed in place. It will be a new construction and will essentially be the
pointer piece that will hopefully help restart part of the rest of the block that does have some
additional vacant lots. Again, the community had no issue with the proposal with regard to the size
and design. We do submit that there would be some hardship here for any commercial use on that
particular corner, given the surrounding uses and the lack of commercial activity otherwise in the
area. I do want to reiterate, actually amend my testimony that there were actually 19 attendees
and 13 supported and six did oppose the the proposal so my client is here with us to verify
my testimony and i'm happy to show the board any part of the exhibit that you would like a closer
look at thank you what's the rest of the block look like uh so the rest of the block um i i can
put the let me let me try to get to the photo of the block i believe we do have that
so i'm going to go ahead and re-share that with the board
with the board so this is the okay look of the block um there are some there's a vacant lot next
so this is the
door there's some fillers and then the rest of the block are residential in use i do also want to
find multi-families here yes well the entire area is zoned the rm1 multifamily all right good fine
fine fine good thank you um if if there's no further questions i can have mr gitterman uh
please clarify my testimony uh joseph can you raise your hand to be identified
yes i did thank you hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
my name is joseph gitterman j-o-s-e-p-h and the last name is gitterman g-i-t-e-r-m-a-m
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do to see counsel thank you uh mr gitterman did you see my uh presentation and hear my
testimony before the board? Yes, I did. Can you verify what I have represented is true and correct
and adopted as your own testimony? Yes, I do. Thank you. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no handshared. Planning Commissioner.
This is Ron Badnar, City Planning. This property is indicated for commercial mixed use on the city
plan and our adopted district plan recommends no change to the existing zoning at this location
the applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or
condition of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the code
therefore we recommend the request for vanance must not be granted and by 2022 004 621 625
5 west commonland street i vote yes thomas hollivan my vote is yes james snell my vote is yes
thank you thank you have a good evening number nine mi 2022 004 648 7492 oxford avenue
lua's son is the uh owner
miss um use yourself
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
Kwan Sun, please unmute yourself so you could be free to speak.
Is she in the audience?
yes this person has the last name son and their their hand was upstairs
lua sign
currently there's no other hands up in the audience nobody no no hands are up right
That's correct, Chair.
All right.
So MI 2022-004-648-7492 Oxford Avenue, this case is continued.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose 330 case has not been called?
Chair, now the person with the last name ending in son, the hand is up now.
I'll promote him to panelists.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Hello?
They're unmuted, Chair. I don't know what's going on.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
law son
all right all right so we're going to have to continue that maybe there's a language issue
that we don't know about so mi 2022 004 648 7492 oxford avenue this case is continued
this case is continued. Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose 3.30 case has not been
is there anyone in the virtual audience
called? I see no hands, Chair. Thank you, everyone. It was a longer night than I thought it would be,
and I appreciate everything everybody's done. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. All right, guys,
see you guys next week. Thank you, Chair. Take care. Bye, y'all.