Good morning, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this meeting of the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment. With me is our Vice Chair, Teneda Graham.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Secretary, Cheryl L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Board Member, Michael Johns.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
board member taiya when she she should be here any minute and our board member ryan mcadams
president mr chairman also here is our attorney hillary emerson our zoning board director aane
hagerty our board administrator lakeisha dandy recording of this hearing will be posted on the
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Please remain there so we can account for you.
Let's look at our schedule for today.
Number three, MI 2025, 004-069, 5424 Valley Street.
This case is continued until 6-3-2026 at 2 p.m.
And number nine, MI-2025-006-889,
3001 Hellerman Street.
This case is continued until 6-3-2026 at 2 p.m.
Are there any other requests for continuances?
Good morning, Chair.
This is Jasmine, and I will be your co-host for today.
I see no hands at this time.
Okay, thank you.
We're going to start with number two, MI 2025 002 368 4821 Garden Street.
Al Nockamson is the attorney.
alan knockamson will be rejoining us as a panelist okay thank you mr knockam could you please state
your name and spell for the stenographer alan knockamson a-l-a-n last name knockamson n-o-c-h-u-m-s-o-n
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth i do
Mr. Nocklinson, this is a resumptive hearing.
You will give us an update on your presentation of the amended refusal.
There will be questions from the board.
There will be public testimony only limited to the amended refusal.
there will be public testimony only limited to the amended refusal and um planning will
i understand um planning may make a recommendation at a later date um yes i think planning just um
they want a chance to review the revised refusal and they'll just need so we won't vote on this
we'll wait for to hear from planning uh i just need to be promoted as a panelist so i can share
we'll take care of that and you're going to be held to a half hour i'm not going to need a half
an hour okay well we we think there may be other people that's why they're okay to be held to a half
hour um there there are quite a few uh letters of opposition as you're aware um did you recently
had another rco meeting we have not mr chair okay all right okay thank you all right
oh can i just be promoted as a panelist
yeah we'll we'll take care of that for you
Thank you.
it's not going to be before you start you can give us just a two-minute overview where
we were with this and where you are now yeah so mr. chair this is an icmx property on a
30,000 approximately 30,000 square foot lot has a long history of industrial use as a
painting and manufacture manufacture of painting products uh it's currently a vacant property
uh my client is and and we are surrounded with a lot of industrial or non-residential uses we do
have some residential uses nearby which are two-story residential single-family structures
my client originally proposed to have 48 dwelling units in a five-story building
with 54 parking spaces after meetings with the community they have elect and with three
commercial units there on the ground floor after meeting with the community we we downgraded the
density of this project for 24 units got rid of two floors of the of of the five floors so now
it's a three-story structure where the residential units are in the second and third floors the
commercial units on the ground floor there's a lobby there's a trash room and we increase the
amount of units from excuse me parking spaces from 54 to 57 so you have a basically over two
parking spaces per residential unit and then you have a few floating parking spaces for the
commercial unit as well. So in order to properly memorialize that, we received an amended refusal.
So originally our refusal, the first refusal, had a refusal for multifamily living where this is an
ICMX property where multifamily use is not allowed by rights. And then we had issues with our roof
deck and our front setback with our change in plans we also got rid of the roof deck access
structures as well so our revised refusal has now two refusals in it apparently the examiner
originally missed a side yard with refusal where eight feet is required by code where we are five
feet two inches at its smallest point but on the left hand side of the product the property which
has the commercial unit so if you look at the the and we can look at it quickly the site plan
it's an irregular shaped lot on this left hand side where i believe the side yard width at its
greatest point is 12 feet um so you know again from a undue hardship standpoint we believe that
we've met that burden because of the irregular shaped lot uh the secondary refusal again has
all to do with the multifamily living so we did receive you know prior to making these changes
a letter of opposition from the community and they went through the analysis of what
a letter of opposition from the community.
And they went through the analysis
of what would be required of us for undue hardship.
Ultimately, if you read the letter,
I don't think they have an issue with residential use.
They just wanted to have it as single family use.
And again, the lot width is 166 square feet.
Given the size of the lot,
we think it's more appropriate to have this as multi-family again to leverage because they also
said there's a parking situation in their neighborhood where there is you know not
enough parking in the neighborhood so by providing 57 off street parking spaces that would be a
better scenario for the community in terms of the parking situation so that's where we are that so
I just wanted to address the refusals, how we got from point A to point B, and we believe that multifamily use with off-street parking is closer to the zoning code classification of ICMX than single-family, because you can't go from industrial to single-family.
That's like polar opposites, so we think this is one step down in a way.
Thank you.
okay um do you want to bring your client on and adopt the test yes yes i think he did last time
but yes yeah well you change right uh yeah yeah i mean yes yeah okay uh can i have mr cadrew uh
virtually raise his hand he's the principal for 1934 diamond estate llc the owner of the property
hadrew will be joining us as a panelist
hello i'm here good morning good morning could you please state your name and spell it for the
stenographer gentian kadrio g-e-n-t-i-a-n less than k-a-d-r-i-o right do you swear or affirm to
tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do counsel uh yes mr kadro you heard
everything I had to say today about your zoning matter yes as in true and
correct yes and the adopters your own testimony yes thank you all right
questions from the board I have a quick question do we know how many single
family homes would would fit in this space if it were single family units so
So if they would be 16 feet wide properties,
if this was an RSA five zoning classification,
you would get 10 single family properties,
but then the lot size would be almost 3000 square feet,
which is completely, because of how deep the lot goes.
So it would be out of character.
That's what we're dealing with too, a rather large lot.
So it just, it wouldn't make financial sense.
and i would ask mr kadru to confirm that from a from a dollar to cent standpoint mr kadru
would you be able to would it be feasible for you to build 10 single-family homes here
um no and also the parking situation which the community was very opposed of if you put a 16
feet house you can't really put a parking or you're gonna have to make a a big curb cut pretty
much and the parking is actually on the on my lot size side well the parking right now is on my lot
side so we're only using the driveway that's already there the curb cut that's already there
okay um other questions from the board
questions from our attorney hillary emerson not at this time this question from the audience come on
Come on up. Yep. Good morning. Is that on? Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. Could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Michelle Minch, M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E, M-I-N-C-H.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, or nothing but the truth?
Okay, so your testimony should be on the new information that he just gave.
And then the second thing was we're trying to keep it tight so you've got a couple minutes, okay?
Thank you.
So I did submit.
I just want to touch on a few things that he brought up.
It is not vacant at this time.
He's currently running his electrical business.
out of the property so it does have use um i submitted the lni paperwork through the portal
there are nine current violations on the property okay that were just cited in january
so it's not a vacant property um i just want to clarify that also on the
so it's not a vacant property i just want to clarify that also on the record i wanted in our
community meetings and the last hearing no one had any parking concerns just so that's on the record
other than that i just had a statement um that i understand this was an investment and we all know
that investing is risky in my personal opinion this was a high risk investment as a developer
where he knowingly bought this property, zoned ICMX,
and not for what his plans are as residential commercial.
If I was investing this large amount of money,
I would personally would have did more research,
a market analysis, and a community outreach
to see if this project is even welcome or needed
in the Bridesburg community.
It is not the residents nor the community's responsibility
to make sure this is a profitable investment for him.
Our community has voiced that we need houses,
single family homes.
our city has voiced that we the citizens of philadelphia need more homes our own mayor
cheryl parker has stated that she wants homes for our citizens of philadelphia not apartments
so they can invest in their future i understand that this investor might not be able to do single
family homes at this time or as many single family homes so he gets a bigger return on his investment
but again that is not the resident nor the community's burden that is his if he is unable
to do that at this time it is requested that he drops the zoning appeal and leaves the property
zoned as icmx and continues to run his electrical business out of there as he has been doing
since october of 2025. no one in the community is opposed to him running a business out of
there and keeping it industrial as long as he is adhering to all lni codes and standards he
currently has the nine open lni violations which need to be rectified for the community and for
the business's own safety and along with this past week snowstorm the property has not been
properly shoveled we took pictures and submitted that as well so it's not showing good faith to
the community that he's even up keeping the property now going forward it would be more
important if there's going to be more people in cars that it'd be properly taken care of okay
thank you thank you very much do you have any questions no i think well why don't we do this
why don't we see if there's anyone else is there anyone else in the virtual audience
oh come on come on sure
could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
i'm going to get a little closer to the mic that's no that's good go ahead margaret gary
m-a-r-g-a-r-e-t last name is a-g-u-i-r-r-e do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth yes um so with what so the same issue you should testimony should be
on what he presented today not the past and the other thing is try to keep it to a few minutes
absolutely all right thank you so my biggest thing he said that he cannot put 10 properties there
because of parking concerns there's been other buildings built on richmond street which is
around the corner from us that have sorry that have um elevated housing and they have parking
in the back he's worried that the property is too big and he couldn't accommodate and that our
biggest concern in the neighborhood was parking which wasn't brought up at any of the meetings
that i've attended if you truly wanted to put 10 buildings there he could and put parking behind
there that's my biggest thing and i'm still concerned about the epa testing that we haven't
been said anything thank you very much for coming down is there anyone else in the audience the
virtual audience i have two hands chair okay but for now um barbara jackowitz i'm going to allow her
to speak
hello my name is barbara could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
it's barbara jackowitz b-a-r-b-a-r-a-j-a-c-k-o-w-i-c-z do you swear or affirm that tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth right i do um barbara uh we've had two people
testify already could you um please testify to anything different than what what we've already
heard and then give us your short synopsis of where you stand