So the way we had it set up was obviously the first floor and the basement was for Ms. Clark.
We have a bedroom in the back of the house and we have a bedroom in the basement.
We do have a egress window that we're putting in the side, which will have a grate over it that is a poppable grate that is an egress grate so that they can get in and out if there is, God forbid, a fire in the house.
um if you go in the other side we have on the second floor we have a two bedroom uh one bath
and on the third floor we have a one bedroom one bath everything's going to be fire separated um
two-hour fire separation for the stairwell and two-hour fire separation on the ceiling on the
first floor and the second floor which is explain what's in the basement again uh yeah in the
basement's just basically a if you could say a family room and a master bedroom
and on the first floor first floor there is a bedroom in the back of the house with a kitchen
and a living room okay um is there anything else you want to add um i've lived there my whole life
i inherited the house from my dad well he sold it to me for a dollar my neighbors are in support
I uploaded seven neighbors signing a letter in support of the plan.
I see that.
Tell me the rest of the block.
What's the rest of the block look like?
I don't have pictures of it.
You don't have pictures.
I guess I'm curious as to how many multiple families live on that block.
I can do that.
So when we went to the RCO, I prepared little pictures.
So her house currently is single family.
um next to her which would be uh 20 2028 is a single family but next to that is a building
which would be considered 20 22 14 west ontario which was approved in the beginning of 2024 for
63 dwellings with 40 parking spaces um and everything else on it is single family except
for on her right hand side the last house is considered it's not even considered a house
for automotive sales and then next to that is a like probably i would say about a 10 000
square foot automotive building so it's a variation of buildings on that a lot all right thank you
questions from the board uh the same issues i generally bring up on other um plans like this
um depth of basement uh slab to the uh grade outdoor grade there's no section so
So what's that? There's only one sort of small window out of the master bedroom.
There's another little window out of the, I'm talking about the basement now,
and there's no window in the sort of open space, which is a concern.
And then there's, then for the first floor, you've got to walk through a bedroom to get to the backyard,
which is always a big concern for me.
do you want to respond to that before we move on um i mean the only response i could say is
in the basement as per code we do have it's per code we need a 5.2 square foot opening
when we do clear opening we have an 8.28 i believe square opening to be able to get in
and out for egress purposes god forbid there is a fire and in the back the bedroom it's
basically just the way the house is set up because there's a breezeway so the only way
to not create the doorway with a hallway you're going to create such a small bedroom you're not
going to be able to use it other questions that create a walkway out of the breezeway
out of the main living area yes the plan before um what was your plan for trash for the three units
oh there will be one of those trash closets for the um actually for each of the living units and
i'll also put cans in the backyard as i need to can you point that out on the plan yeah we
put cans in the backyard as i need to can you point that out on the plan yeah we this plan
didn't have a change we are going to put trash reviews in each apartment so they have a door
they can put the trash in it's going to be a louver's pantry um excuse me where's that trash
pilot no it's not on the set of drawings we we did change them but obviously i sent a old i brought
an old set so where do you think it would be um in the back in the kitchen area probably in the
kitchen area on the first well first floor she has the back to back backyard so she can put it
in the backyard for the second and third floor um i was assuming close close to the kitchen area
um probably on the third floor to the back of the steps and just shift the stuff around
second floor probably same scenario to the back of the steps so at least they have an area for trash
oh i've noticed that there's two entryway door door entryways so i guess one of them is for the
first floor unit and the
one is for the second and third floor unit?
Yes, ma'am.
Other questions?
What made you pick three units instead
of two?
Oh, my house is a three, it was a
three-story family house. We were a
family of nine growing up.
I thank God it's just me.
Yeah, but what I'm saying, you decided
to make it three apartments instead of
two for financial reasons or yes yeah you don't think you could have done this with two units
yes but it's a three-story okay house so i felt three separate apartments one for each floor
questions from our attorney hillary emerson not at this time mr chair questions or comments
from the audience or the virtual audience no hands raised at this time chair planning commission
thank you chairman and good morning David Fecto with the city planning commission
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the i2 medium
industrial zoning at this location the city rezoned this neighborhood in 2006 and a council
requested map change this property has a documented history as two dwelling units however there is no
unique physical condition or circumstance we'll prevent it from being continuing to be used as
two units city planning commission recommends the board grant the proposed use variance for
multi-family dwellings but limit it to two dwelling units um we're going to vote on this two weeks
i want to take this back to the board and in the executive session so two weeks that wednesday
will be here at 9 30 a.m and we'll vote chair i'm sorry to interrupt we do have a hand that uh
One up for caller, call-in customer.
You're allowed to talk?
You're allowed to speak.
Phone number 267-271-3552.
You're allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please say your name is spelled for the stenographer?
Yes, Adrian Fernandez.
My last name is spelled S-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z.
Adrian, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
I just want to ask if this can have a provisor of a limit of two units, no basement living, and that the trash be kept indoors.
Thank you very much.
So we're going to vote on this in two weeks, on Wednesday, and we'll take it to executive session.
You'll hear the results on 930 a.m., two weeks.
Question.
Do I need to be present?
You don't have to be present.
you can listen on the phone okay okay thank you both thank you thank you
Number one on our normal list, MI 2024-003731-2617-25, Grace Ferry Avenue, Zen Gin is the attorney.
they're being promoted to panelists a letter of support from residents organized for
advocacy and direction six in support one abstained good morning good morning counsel
could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer yes my name is then jen z-h-e-n
J-I-N, here on behalf of the applicant.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is a property owner, Fortune Property LLC.
Ms. Chelsea Huang will be available to verify my testimony.
And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Have you submitted your document?
Have you submitted your documents five days in advance of this hearing?
And you have a couple of refusals.
So do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?
We have an amended refusal and we do stipulate to its accuracy.
Thank you.
You may share your screen and proceed with your case.
Thank you.
I'm going to share with the board what was previously submitted.
Can the board see my screen on theirs?
It's coming up right now.
Yep, we're good.
Great, thank you.
So this is an application for a project that is at the address 2617 to 25 Grace Ferry Avenue.
This is an interesting project in the sense that this property is a semi-triangular shaped property that is zoned in an I-2 industrial district.
However, even the existing building that is there now is used as a kind of a restaurant.
and it has not been developed in addition to that in the past.
And what we're proposing is a kind of a development
that would be similar to what has been happening a lot
on Washington Avenue near Grace Ferry.
This particular property being rather unique
in that it's kind of at the intersection of Grace Ferry and Washington Avenue.
So the proposal originally was to build on top of an existing structure, but after meeting with the community and trying to meet their desire for parking spaces for the residential units, we've decided to go back and make this a complete new structure by demolishing the existing structure, putting in underground parking, and building above.
There are multiple refusals, mainly due to the I2 zoning.
The eating and drinking establishments are prohibited.
That actually exists now at this space, and this would be a continued use.
Multifamily household living is obviously prohibited in I2.
However, there are very similar projects nearby that are already built.
In fact, one apartment-type structure not far from us across the street on Washington Avenue
Minimum yard requirement is an eight-foot or five-foot proposed.
The household living requires parking.
Wait, I'm sorry.
This might be the old refusal.
My apologies.
I think this is the amended refusal here.
So we are providing the parking, but there's also parking required for the eating and drinking
establishments, and there's no parking provided on site for that.
and there's a aisle width issue with the 90 degree parking space where it's 18
foot required and we have 17 foot 6 inches. The best way to better understand
this project is to actually look at the plans, the revised plans that we have
that is the current project. As you can see here's a photo which is a little
hard to see on the screen, but I will show the photos as well in a second. This is a rather
uniquely shaped parcel that is sandwiched between different streets, Grace Ferry, Washington Avenue,
and it is an existing structure that is kind of leading into both the South Philadelphia,
Sosna area as well as the Point Breeze area of Washington Avenue. So this is kind of a unique
corner where it's located. Our proposal is a multi-floor design using the existing footprint
which leads to the backyard refusal that was listed on the refusal itself. Because of the
shape of the property, the design for the first floor commercial is divided into a restaurant
and a cafe area. I'm going to zoom in a little bit. I think it's a little difficult to see.
So you see that there's a restaurant and there's a proposed cafe area, which would be the commercial
pieces of the property with a street front that will be shown on the rendering in a second
that gives a lot of glass surfaces to make it so it's more visible and more appealing on the street
level. It also includes the entryway to the residential area, which would be here, with an
elevator, bicycle storage room, meter room, entry residential vestibules, and stairway. There are two
stairways to this overall structure. There's another stairway also on the other side of the
the building for code requirements.
It is also suggested that we make sure there's a mailing area within the
There's a mailing area within the meter room that's not marked on the plan, but that is something that is being designed in.
meter room. That's not marked on the plan, but that is.
The commercial unit has its own separate vestibule entry for the commercial space and would not be sharing the entry space with the residential units.
So that is the basic idea of the first floor.
This is the layout of the units.
they're basically replicated in the upper floors. So what you have is you have the stairway, the
elevator, a common corridor, and then the secondary stairway on the other end, and the unit count
would be the same on every floor, which is how we reach the total unit count in this particular
project. So you can see here that this is a two-bedroom design here, two-bedroom design,
two-bedroom design. Here we have a one-bedroom unit. On this side, again, we have two-bedroom
and two-bedroom units. So primarily, there are five one-bedroom units and the rest will be two-bedroom
units for the remaining four floors above. In addition, as part of the underground proposal,
So this is the parking that the community requested that we make available in this project.
This was originally not in the project design.
The original idea was to keep the slab design and build upwards.
However, the community asked for us to do an underground parking.
And that is, I'm sorry, I didn't expect it to zoom that much.
Here we go.
the uh so so the underground parking would be accessed through the uh what's essentially a
little side street coming off of grace ferry uh they would come in and the parking would be
underground there's there are a total of 13 spaces and the elevator also reaches all the
way to the underground parking this essentially uh provides residential parking uh for the
residents. This will not be generally used for the commercial parking. Now, there are on-street
parking on Washington Avenue. There used to be on-street parking on Grace Ferry, but we were