ZBA Hearing - April 8, 2026

This is the Wahbin marketplace that will be fully demolished on the left-hand side.

We did receive a refusal here.

There was some discrepancy about the number of trees.

However, we are putting in as many trees as physically allowed.

It was just a difference in the calculation between the two properties with the Planning Commission.

um and uh specifically again this this is the wwa overlay district that i just referenced

non-accessory parking is not allowed as we presented back in 2025 this there are 39 parking

spaces underground that will be part of physically under these 10 townhomes that we're presenting

today some of those parking spaces are all going for the townhomes that they have off street parking

The remainder of the parking, about half and half, will be for the use of the previously approved building, its retail tenants, and its existing residential tenants.

So that's where we get the non-accessory parking.

These aren't rented out spaces.

Therefore, this building, this was all being developed as a single unit.

and then again the main issue we have which we're all familiar with

multi-family household living is prohibited in the i2 industrial zoning district

so again to make clear this is chadwick street right here with the large trees on it

these are the existing homes on chadwick street many if not most of the homes which i'll show you

a minute actually have close to if not fully 100 lot coverage so they do not have existing rear

yards again there is an existing in paper three foot alleyway in between the rear of these yards

and our property and what you're seeing here this black line that i've installed

that is how far back from the alleyway that we're going to set back these houses so you can see

the dramatically improved condition of the chadwick homes which right now have you know that

fully built hob in uh i'll show an image of it in just a minute existing marketplace there

uh i'll show an image of it in just a minute existing marketplace there right up against the

back of their homes with no rear yards we are setting back not only do we have the three foot

alleyway we're setting back our homes another 12 feet so even more than the required nine foot

rear yard that normal home would be required this is part of the negotiation with the community last

year we're setting them back an additional three feet so you're seeing a

12-foot setback in addition to the three-foot alleyway what I'm showing

here is actually the same line of what would happen if you put all of the

Chadwick homes and had them have by right setbacks and what you can see is

just from the overlay image that you can see in atlas most of the homes violate that setback

and have again either 100 lot coverage or something close to there so here are the zoning plans

again the easiest thing that you can see we have 10 townhomes that we're setting up

they will be fronting onto the interior courtyard

um stopped one short of that so i'll go back here these are the images that were presented to cdr

and were presented to this board back in the fall again everything in green basically is

the previously approved building you see this very large courtyard that we had a

a lot of discussion about and then in here in blue are the 10 townhomes that are going in

And, again, all of the parking and access will occur from the same single ingress and egress point on South 16th Street.

And so there will be no additional curb cuts.

Again, we're going from, you know, essentially a dozen curb cuts here to a single curb cut at this property.

And then there will be additional parking.

I'll show you on the next page.

So here's the ramp down.

and then these are all the parking spaces that are now being added to this project

again that were presented previously but they weren't technically part of the prior application

because they're under this portion of the property so the property that you see is essentially this

rectangle in black with the dividing wall in between them

And again, here's these are the front of the this is just a rendering of the front of the 10 townhomes facing into the approved courtyard.

And then here's this White House is existing on Chadwick, and then you have the back of the existing homes, and this is shown just to see how far back we're setting these homes.

so no

you will ask the

home is going to be

the four it is going to be 43 feet to the utmost floor however again the right hand side is the

courtyard the left hand side is the rear yard to Chadwick the fourth floor

there is no pilot house or anything additional above this the fourth floor

is being set back an additional 10 feet from the rear again doesn't need to be

but that was part of the negotiations with the community and those immediate

neighbors on Chadwick to try to you know not only are we setting it back we're

trying to set back the fourth floor even more to prevent any real loss of light

and air into their homes so again what you see here on the right hand side in that rendering

is that uh white house that i just showed you on chadwick this is the existing i'm standing right

at the on the sidewalk right at the beginning of that three foot alleyway and what you can see is

all of these homes are going right up to it and the the former hua bin marketplace was essentially

just a 20 foot brick wall cinder block wall right there at the edge um again the this set of photos

is just looking both south and north from the wa bin uh marketplace to show the existing condition

of where these homes are and you know the existing height of the homes i know there was some going

to be some discussion about these homes are you know shorter homes you know there are a number

shorter homes you know there are a number of larger homes here as well and so again

of larger homes here.

this is a 14 850 square foot lot fully supported and we believe meets all of the requirements for

a hardship or not only a hardship but for a variance in that sorry

There we go. I'll just stay there in that first and foremost, as the board knows, a C chain, essentially the way the courts say it, a C change in the uses and the surrounding uses to a single property or a neighborhood can constitute a hardship in and of itself.

here there's ample evidence and my client can testify further to you know the inability to

use this property really in any manner commensurate with i2 zoning district i walked through and here

it is again the wwa overlay district not only is are the i2 uses not viable you can't build to

those uses you know truckers can't get off the freeway into the freeway things of that nature

But then the overlay district that is in place takes away virtually all of the uses that might even be possible on Washington Avenue.

So I know there is some dispute back and forth going, you know, over the last 10, 12 years that I've been doing this on Washington Avenue.

And unfortunately, there's just no way to put new industrial uses.

The industrial uses that are there are only the longstanding ones.

And what you see here really is, as part of the least minimum variance requirement standard, we have single-family homes.

And what are these doing?

These are specifically designed to act as a buffer between the new mixed-use heavy-intensity buildings that are going up and the existing low-intensity single-family uses.

Now, here it happens to be Chadwick Street.

this has previously been done by my client to great success both at 2101 washington the top

former chocolate factory and 2201 washington where you know there's there's very large

redevelopment happening along washington avenue but then in an understanding with the immediate

neighbors who live there and have lived there they get a buffer of new townhomes so they're dealing

with and fronting new townhomes and not large um uh large heavy intense buildings with all the

trucking and everything else that would happen for those deliveries and things like that in the rear

here we've already went through this build this large building won't have any of those issues

there's no uh there is one loading zone at the request of sasna at the large building but that

is really just for uh move in and move out and uh you know the daily deliveries that will happen to

the individual residents not the um not the commercial uses um so again going through

all the sea change of uses here uh and inability to build um you know i've already addressed the

least minimum variance we get to any potential detriment to the health safety and welfare

this is the third prong under the marshall test for a variance there's really no hardship here

because there could be this is an i2 use that we could have a 60-foot building with extremely

intense noise and um you know smell and noxious odor uses right here at the backs of these

existing single-family houses instead of trying to do that instead of trying to force some kind

of industrial use out of place into that location we're instead taking what the law recognizes as

the least intense use under the under ending zoning code in pennsylvania a single family house

and putting single family houses back to mere single family houses while at the same time

giving up a significant portion of land that we could otherwise build on thereby increasing our

own profitability and here decreasing our own profitability by setting back to be even more

commensurate to what a real neighborhood would act like in the rear of these homes so we see no

detriment to the health safety or welfare this is quite obviously the least minimum variance

and for the multiple to multitude of reasons i've already set forth we have a distinct

hardship at this property so with that i would call my client sure well you can sit over there

could you please state your name

Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?

I'm sorry. I cannot hear.

I'm so sorry. There's a faint green light. Now there's a bright one.

Ori Fibush, O-R-I, F as in Frank, E-I-B-U-S-H.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

I do.

Counsel?

Yes, thank you. Mr. Fibush, you're here on behalf of the owner and

developer of this project? I am. Did you hear all the testimony that I presented already today?

Yeah, I was zoomed in up until walking in the door here, so I heard all of it. And do you believe

it to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief? With one

small correction, the existing building is 26 feet and not 20, but otherwise, yes. The existing

Wah Bin building? That's correct. Okay. And would you adopt that testimony as your own with your one

correction i would thank you very much and uh could you please just for the board explain to

them the you know as you attempt to rent out and develop along washington avenue here the ability

to put in industrial uses in in this i2 district sure uh did not state the obvious for a moment

but that this is an industrially zoned property an area with an overlay prohibiting uh every

industrial use that would be marketable for a quarter like this. But we've leased now to 20

different businesses over the last 14 years, our involvement along Washington Avenue. None of them

would be considered traditional industrial. The last five, for example, Bagel & Co., a yoga studio,

Planet Fitness, an Aldi, a CVS, much more pedestrian scale transitional types of uses that very much complement the residential neighborhoods, but don't in any way reflect turn of the century Philadelphia, which is obviously the I2 designation that sort of prevails here.

There have been none, no industrial applications or uses along Washington Avenue in the 20 years that I've been involved over there.

And I can't think of any industrial use that opened the last 40 years just from knowing when businesses would have opened there.

And I very much believe that the businesses that we have been bringing have been hugely beneficial and complementary to the neighborhood.

And I've had no negative externalities and just they're packed.

if you walk into Aldi or CVS they're mobbed they're serving a huge need there and obviously

this is a small part of a larger development but very excited to have this piece really continue

to support that continued growth and the providing of dignity and opportunity to to residents that

just have lived in both food deserts and opportunity deserts for many many years

Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Questions from the board, but I have one quick question. So how tall are the proposed townhomes in relation to the homes, the addition existing townhomes in the rear of it?

So the I apologize I intended I still talked about the height and didn't actually about that. Yeah. And then I got tangentially I apologize. Um, so the rear height to the 3rd floor is 32 feet, 9 inches and it is 43 feet to the 4th floor.

But that's only on the courtyard side. The rest of that height is set back 10 feet from the Chadwick homes. So they would not see any of that. Um.

Do you answer the question of the height of the Chadwick homes?

Sure. It's a mix of two and three-story homes, predominantly two-story.

And so just from experience, I would suggest those are anywhere from 22 to 38 feet, with the bulk being in the lower 20s.

Other questions?

so this is about this parking for the most part is that what we're well that town home but also

about the parking so this parking is going to be for the 10 units you said or is this going to also

serve the other part of the development no and i apologize if i didn't if i neglected to mention

that each house will have dedicated parking so there are 39 spaces going in under what is the

townhome property they will have ingress and egress access as will all of the other parking access

for the larger building to those 39 parking spaces the each individual home will have dedicated

parking in those locations the remainder that is of those spots that are not dedicated to the homes

will be incorporated into the larger building as additional excess parking and that's why we

received the non-accessory parking. So we received a refusal for it because you know again about half the

So we received a refusal for it because you know again about half the parking spaces will be accessory to the existing homes, so those are allowed by right.

The other half of the of the parking spaces are considered non accessory because they're not for the use of the single family homes.

They're for the use of the larger building and these are underground.

Is that what you said all of them? Yes, I apologize to cut you off there for a second.

Yes, they are all, they are entirely underground. There is no surface parking here now, which is the majority of the lot as it exists today.

All right. Thank you.

One more. Could you explain the tree issue again? Because that's a refusal. Why don't you talk about the tree issue? Because I think what we see here is 23 are called for, and they're saying you only have 12. So why don't you talk about the tree issue?

Certainly. Go ahead.

Sure. Sure. Did you mind pulling up the. Oh, yeah.

I know how to zoom in. I just don't know how to zoom out.

So that's particularly indicative here, but we have proposed to place trees as frequently as we possibly can all along the call it the buffer between

the townhomes that we're proposing as well as the rear of Chadwick. Similarly, if we go to the

south here closer to Washington on the previously approved parcel, there is a continued rhythm of

street trees as well there. So we're fitting as many as we possibly can on this idea. Just out

of curiosity, what do you think that is? Because I'm trying to get at the number. They're saying

it's only 12 that you that that feels generally correct roughly one behind each home is in the

ballpark so that that generally computes to to what i would expect with respect to the canopy

and whatnot here okay so so 12 and their zoning was 23. when you say zoning you mean the the

required uh yeah they said required am i right hillary yeah just yes sir i don't know mechanically

where they would physically fit but but yes okay all right other questions

and you can actually see them up here the the rhythm is almost exactly one tree per right

questions or comments from our attorney not at this time mr chair questions or comments

from the the audience here yes mr chair first i have a handle from medical and

chacumba i promoted them i'll be back in shortly sure

anyone in the audience here by the way okay thank you

hello hi how are you how are you doing could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer

My name is Madeline Shacumba, S like in Sam, H-I-K-O-M like in Mary, B like in Boyd, A.

All right, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but

the truth?

I do.

Madeline, can you turn your video on, or?

I have my, oh.

Yeah, oh, okay.

Yeah, there you go.

There you go.

Yeah.

See my beautiful face?

I agree.

I totally agree.

why don't you start your testimony? Okay. Marston Avenue has the capability of one of

being the city's strongest employment cities. Replacing industrial zoning with market-rate

housing will destroy this potential, displace long-term residents, and result in a loss to

provide affordability in housing in the area. Housing alone does not bring sustainable long-term