ZBA Hearing - May 6, 2026

they had he has the corner there um he doesn't you know i don't think he wants to use it

for people to rent apartments that's just okay you're concerned with the airbnb that

that's right all right all right thank you ma'am we we do appreciate you coming in and give us your

voice anyone else in the virtual audience sure come on up could i wait to respond

respond everybody yeah okay but real quick al do you have a uh rendering in your render

does it show the alleyway there is no alleyway

She lives at 1208 and her building structure is not built to the lot line, right?

so there's there's it's not an alleyway it's her her lot there's open space between her lot

and 1206. okay we're two lots over there's no alley there's no public alley or easement

servicing her parcel from ours it is in the back not a public record that we're aware of yes it

is a public record because he tried to build that there and i called license and inspection

and they stopped him. It's two alleyways there. It's one next to 1206 and it's one that he's

already blocked off. I have a picture of it. We don't believe that to be the case.

To Peter Street. The one that he blocks off goes out to Peter Street and the one that's there

that's next to 1206, whoever built on Peter Street, they took the alleyway to go all the way through

to the street. But I can come from my backyard. There's an alleyway there that leads all the way

to the one you blocked off. All right. Thank you. Why don't we let your associate come up?

the the the atlas doesn't show an alley the the city on atlas it doesn't show an alley

I've had that help.

All right, let me hear.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

I just want to say my my grandmother bought that house in 1947 oh and I've had it since 1965

congratulations that's beautiful could you uh please state your name oh we we just state your

name because we've already sworn you in for that other case yes my name is Mary Stumpf M-A-R-Y-S-T-U-M-P-F

now mary you still live at 12th and ellsworth and how close i do well i live at the i my property

goes from uh 12th and ellsworth through to peter street 1240 peter street which is the next little

street south of altar so what's your testimony okay well um when during the um the zoning meeting

with the civic it was brought out that the entire south side of altar street was erroneously changed

to cmx three it should be rsa five and supposedly the planning commission knows that that's true but

because it was changed and it's allowing people to to build what they're building now like the

giant yeah and the person that owns that's that's here um to present this building um this it's the

same owner as the one right on uh 12th street the 10 units that he's using six of them as an airbnb

be and then there's a he's got a and you know this was brought up at the civic that um the dumpster

really should be he's creating this precedent of having the dumpster but that's not relative

to this case in other words you're saying he's doing it somewhere else you're concerned about

what he's right next door to this well okay yeah 12 alter and yeah sure as well so um yeah

and i agree with you that he should get rid of the dumpster we we don't disagree about that and

that came up with the community meeting and i i believe to my memory he said that he would and

he's on the call now so i think we're in agreement about that this is different property but i agree

and um the other thing was uh the size of some of these units uh they're sort of like a hotel room

they're very small some of them like 300 some square feet definitely thank you very much by

rate he's allowed to do it yes thank you very much can i ask alex a quick question sure was

Was the owner of 1206 at your community meeting as well?

Because I know it looks like they own a considerable amount of the rest of the block as well.

You may have more information than me, but I don't think they were there.

They just signed a letter.

I don't think they were there.

Honestly, they may know who that person is.

I can just note on the Airbnb thing.

That was clearly a reason why that came up in the letter.

and and you know what my client testified to at the community meeting was that he has tenants in

that building on the corner that are subleasing their their units through airbnb it's a cmx3

property which you're allowed to obviously you need the permits and the licenses to do that

um but that is not his intention and we were agreeable to a proviso like eliminating that

possibility all right what what one more one more time you can come up but come on up but

but concentrate on this property that he's talking about go ahead thank you

uh 1208 1206 the people that live in at the people that own 1206 live in new jersey

so they never come to the meetings and i always remind them of it but they own the property but

they live in jersey but that the point is i said it has nothing to do with 1202 am i right yeah

that's the neighbor yeah thank you that's my question thank you very much

um all right anyone else in the virtual audience

no hands at this time chair it is built

it is or at least as of july it looked almost done i'm looking on cycle media

planning commission amy boy with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends

no change in zoning from these existing cmx3 commercial mixed use the appellant has not shown

that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances that would prevent the property

from being used in conformity with the zoning code the planning commission recommends that

the board deny the requested variance for occupied area can i just briefly respond so i think there

is a unique circumstance here in that the six units are allowed and the option that would not

put us in front of this board was was a worse option and the community agreed with that and

and that's why we're asking for the variance that we are today so so council

and that's why we're asking for the variance that we are today so so council the uh limited lodging

and um the um uh visitor accommodations they'd have to come back in for that anyway am i correct

right so right right we don't we don't need a variance for it that's why yeah i'm i'm yeah cmx

3 allows it so that was why it was an issue for the community because they didn't want us to pull

a by-right permit we don't want to make that a we're agreeable to it

mi 2026 000 179 1202 altar street i vote yes with with proviso revised plan one page

stamp by cba on may 6 20 26 and uh hold on here no another proviso no live-in lodging or visitor

accommodations i would say michael john agreed to by the um the applicant agreed to by the applicant

michael johns my vote is yes with provisos

Cheryl Gaston my vote is no

uh it's another ground my vote is yes supervisors thank you council thank you for coming in ladies

number nine MI 2026 00000214 1946 grad street

henry clinton is the attorney good afternoon mr chairman members of the board mr clinton

could you please state your name is spelled for the stenographer sure my name is henry clinton

h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth

nothing but the truth i do could you identify your client their relationship to the property

The client is capital P, capital A, capital B, capital K, S, Properties, LLC, and one of the principals is on the call with me. His name is Saad, S-A-A-D, Chaudhry, C-H-A-U-R-I.

I see there was a letter of support with proviso from the RCO, and there's also a CBA. Am I correct?

Correct.

Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions.

good afternoon have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing

i have miss graham except for the cva agreement which we submitted yesterday okay thank you and

do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to the accuracy i do all right thank

you you can show your screen and proceed with your key thank you mr graham

is that visible mr chairman it is all right good afternoon everyone again i'm

I'm here for, it's actually a legalization of an eight-unit apartment building.

Table of contents, A1 through A10.

This is a rather very unique circumstance.

My client purchased the property in March of 2024 as an eight-unit apartment building.

He has rental licenses, and I have them here in the packet that go through the whole history.

But basically, this property was a two-family zoning-approved dwelling in 2010.

Sometime between 2012, if you look at the rental licenses here, and 2021, the property was converted to eight separate individual studio apartments.

And I'll go through the permits and really explain what happened.

But bottom line is, my client buys it in 2024, inherits eight tenants, all of them happen to be students, except one who was a senior citizen.

And then in November of 2024, he got a sticker slapped on the front of the building by L&I saying, cease and desist and vacate the property.

And I have a picture of that.

So he had to get everyone out of the property at the same time.

And ironically, the client purchased this property right near Temple and another property on 18th Street at the same time frame.

And both of them are eight units and both of them receive violations from L&I that is not zoned properly.

And I have filed an appeal, an application, try to legalize both.

Today's hearing is on Gratt Street.

I have another hearing.

I just wanted to tell the board that I have another application like this next week on May 13th.

And it's the same issue where it's been used as eight units for over a decade, but never, ever legalized.

So I'll walk through this.

So I'll walk through this.

So we are an RM1 zoning district, so multifamily.

So we are in RM1 zoning district, so multifamily is permitted.

By right, and when I show you the photographs on the street, by right, you can typically get a triplex on this block.

Now, I wasn't able to find out, you know, those triplexes, are they three, two bedrooms, you know, four bedrooms, I don't really know.

But when you see the photographs, you'll see it's a multifamily block, duplexes and triplexes.

Our refusals are, you can't have eight units when you're only allowed three, and you need parking spaces, and we have none.

We do have a letter of support from Beach Community Services, and we went through the same discussion with them.

They just couldn't understand how you could have a property operating with eight units for over 10 years, and now all of a sudden it's discovered.

We don't know why it was discovered.

My client really didn't dwell on that.

He was really focused on trying to fix the problem and come up with a solution.

So one of the things that we said to the community is, look, we know this block is full of students.

You don't want students. So we will agree only to rent to senior citizens.

And my client will testify how he went about the process of trying to find a company that would be able to put ambulatory seniors, and by seniors that's being defined as anyone over 60, ambulatory, who has a history of doing this.

And he was able to find somebody and have a lease with that particular senior provider at the end of this document.

So the community was concerned about only renting the seniors and also trash management.

And you'll see that we have a master lease with a company that's going to be in charge of trash as well as preparing meals, et cetera.

And I'll go through that at the end.

Henry, just for a point of information, I'm going to recuse myself from this.

I try to avoid voting on these Temple cases because I was there so long.

So Tenet is going to take this case over, OK?

OK.

I was hoping I could call you as a witness, Mr. Chairman.

So this is 1946 North Gratz.

We're on the even side of the street, which is always the west side.

And here's the property.

Beautiful elevation.

You can see next door is a triplex.

On the other side is a triplex.

There's a duplex here.

Again, we're looking south to Center City.

Here's another triplex here.

We're looking in the opposite direction.

We're looking north.

Again, mostly multifamily on the block.

There are some single family, but mainly multi.

Again, more photographs just per perspective.

Here's the front of the building.

Here's the placard that was put on the front door.

So each, basically what we have is each floor, starting with the basement, and it's a three-story structure.

Each floor has two apartments or two studios.

And when I show you the floor plan, you'll see how it's laid out.

I have interior photographs.

We're actually taken by my client who's going to testify today.

So we have, you know, nice decks on or balconies on each floor.

We have a entrance to the basement units.

There's a set of walk down steps in both the front and the rear of the property.

I'm just showing you other triplexes on the block.

All right.

This is the cease operation, November 3rd, you know, 2025.

Just happened about four months ago.

So, Saad, who's on the call, went through and took photographs.

So, this is A1.

This is in the basement, first unit in the front of the building.

So, everyone has a kitchen.

Everyone has a bathroom.

And it's a studio ranging in square feet from 278 square feet up to 408 square feet.

It's still the front.

What was the upper limit?

Again, please.

Pardon me. Attorney Clinton. What was the upper limit, again, in terms of the square footage?

You said 278. 278. That's the smallest. There's two units, 278. And then there's three units over 400 square feet.

And it's my understanding from the. Is that good?

is my understanding from yes i'm sorry i just didn't hear what you said okay i was just asking

you to you know repeat all right so this is a1 this is the front unit in the basement this is a2

rear unit in the basement which has a means of egress from the rear just like the front i'll

show you that on the floor plan again a2 closet every unit has a split unit so they have their

own individually controlled heating and air. Now we're on the second floor front, V1.

Now we're on the second floor front, V1.

Looking out through the front window there.

Now we're on the second floor.

All the bathrooms are relatively the same.

I mean, there's a lot of photographs, but I thought it was, you know,

We're asking for eight units.

I just thought it would be best to show you photographs of every unit

rather than just say this is what one looks like and apply that to all of them.

So now we're on the third floor, front, D1.

Just to switch back steps leading from the basement all the way up to the third floor.

closet that's going to be a trash closet by the way but when you see the master lease the agency

that's going to be involved with this building they're going to do all that they're going to

collect the trash uh they're going to service the clients that are in here