Planning Commission.
Thank you again, Chair.
Michael Gall with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
There is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
The City Planning Commission therefore recommends the board deny the proposed use variants for an accessory off-street parking space accessed from the primary street.
And as with the last case, we also note for the board that if a space is approved, there is no mechanism that the city has which can limit the owner to only parking a contact vehicle in this location.
Again, we'll actually hold this vote as well until next week at 2 o'clock.
We'll take it to executive session for further discussion.
Thank you.
Thank you, counsel.
and thank you for this the record is closed on both the record is closed on both
i appreciate the opportunity thank you
MI-2024-006922-7801 Oxford Street, Ron Patterson.
282-7801 Oxford Street, Ron Patterson.
Mr. Patterson, good evening.
Your name is Bella for the court sonographer.
Good evening, Ronald Patterson, R-O-N-A-L-D.
P-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N.
You spread the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
You identify your client?
I represent the owner and developer of the property's BG Oxford Avenue, LLC.
Thank you.
Our board member, Mrs. Graham, has a few additional questions for you.
Good afternoon.
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed with this case five days prior to this hearing?
Yes, I have.
And do you agree to wait with the reading
that a refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Thank you.
So, again, good evening.
So this application regards 7801 Oxford Avenue,
and you'll see on the pictures,
it's in the Fox Chase section of the city,
and it actually consists of three parcels.
It's bordered by Oxford Avenue,
and to the right on this photograph,
you see it's a Scepter Rail Train,
Um, tracks, um, let's see here.
So this is important to note because in that parking area, you'll see that the, the train tracks are elevated, but properties to the left.
and as you go to the right of the train tracks the elevation drops severely and this is important to
note as we get into the setback refusals that uh we're we're requesting so just some more photographs
of the area oxford avenue uh property currently consists of three parcels and this part first
part of this application is is to uh combine consolidate the lots to create one lot from three
the current uses are open area here which is used for tractor trailer storage
and auto body repair uh shop here on this building here um auto body and fender and as we go further
down over here open area is a propane refilling facility
This is a site plan survey showing existing conditions, Oxford Avenue below, the train tracks above, and the existing buildings.
so what we're proposing today it's currently it's located in an i1 industrial uh zoning district
um the uses as i mentioned uh that it exists kind of conflict with the area because you saw
pictures there's residential across the street it's a peculiarly shaped property as you see
It's triangular, and it makes it very challenging to develop a building with right angles and to make a building that actually is viable and functions appropriately.
So consolidate the lots to create one lot of 33,679 square feet, about 0.77 acres.
Our proposal is to build, or was to build, because I'll get to that shortly, a one six-story building to be used as a self-storage facility.
That use is permitted as a matter of right, along with six parking spaces and six loading spaces with interior landscaping, exterior landscaping trees and a brick wall fence, we'll call it along Oxford Avenue.
Here's a refusal letter. As I mentioned, the use was permitted as a matter of right. We received three refusals for setbacks, not being able to meet the setbacks.
And again, because the property is triangular, very difficult to meet, and we'll have testimony about that, but we feel that the setbacks provided are sufficient, as we'll hear.
um typically in in an eye zoning district the far is 500 but there's an overlay that
reduces the allowable far to 225 and we were proposing 351 so there was a refusal issued for
that uh 60 spaces were required based on the square footage of the building 118 000 square
feet and we were providing six spaces so we met with the fox chase civic association on january
8th and at that meeting which was quite long we came to a resolution that we were going to
reduce the building by cutting it in half i'll show you a new rendering of that
that was the original and this is the proposed
so uh the three stories uh brought the the height from 60 feet of compliant all the way down to 30
feet um brought the building again to three stories it reduced the far to a compliant far
and what i did for your edification here is i took the liberty to write on
a refusal showing you what the changes would be that the new far would be a hundred and seventy
percent uh the grocery area fifty nine thousand sixty one square feet the allowable the required
parking spaces reduced to 30 but we were still asking for six um because of the square footage
involved which was greater than fifty thousand square feet because there are more residential
a residential district across the street it did had to go to civic design review
which we completed earlier this month um and so based upon uh the comments we received from the
rco and uh civic design review we incorporated that into this new design that i was showing you
and um with that said i would state that the peculiar configuration of the property and
applicable zoning the existing and surrounding uses creates a hardship to design dimensionally
a building that would conform the dimensional provisions of the code and be viable yet we
believe that the dimensional setbacks as you'll see that we're proposing will cause and create
no detrimental impacts on the public health safety welfare and traffic so with that said
that first witness would be mr dan market thanks for having me absolutely please state your name
is spelled for the court sonographer dan market d-a-n-m-a-r-k-e-t you tell you spread the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes thank you dan by whom are you employed
bg capital and what's your position there vice president of uh construction operations and
business development okay so you're intimately familiar with the project yes okay uh you've
heard my presentation would you agree it's true and accurate yes and you would adopt it as if it
were your own. Yes. You want to just briefly describe the proposed use of a self-storage
facility, how many units, how it would function? So right now we're at around 502 units. And what
that allows, it's climate controlled and allow individuals to come into the facility. We have
a loading zone. They'll enter the building, use the elevators to go up, drop off our storage,
come out and leave again. And what are the hours of operation? Generally from around 9 a.m. to 6
p.m okay and it's true we've agreed to reduce the building by reducing it in half size all our new
designs have a stronger building by three four three stories okay thank you that's all i have
for mr market anyone else yeah yes okay thank you sir thank you apologize for holding you up
all day no worries we'll get through this gotta get through it uh kate uh tell the board your name
an address please press that button on good evening good evening katherine weiss with dynamic
engineering located in philadelphia 1515 market street suite 1920 you spell your name for the
court sonographer please katherine weiss k-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e weiss w-e-i-s-s
swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do please proceed counts
thank you okay what's your occupation civil engineer licensed professional civil engineer
in pennsylvania new jersey and you prepared the zoning site plans for this project yes that's
And you prepared the zoning site plans for this project?
Yes, that's correct.
Correct.
And would you say the property has a peculiar configuration?
And challenging to locate a building on the property?
Yes, both based on shape and the grade change throughout the site and at the rear of the property.
Okay. And that peculiar configuration resulted in the challenge of how to locate the building within the property lines, which then created the refusals for setbacks that we saw earlier, correct?
Correct.
You would like to comment on them?
Yes. So walking through the front yard setback, 20 feet is required, and 17.3 is provided. It may also be worth noting that the existing nonconformity includes a building that is at the property line or over it at the front of the property.
In addition, it's not uncharacteristic in the neighborhood for buildings to be at the property line.
And so this left side yard, as you see, it varies. So there would be no way to putting a squared off building to comply with the setbacks for the entire length of the property line. Is that correct?
Correct. And at the back rear corner, we're providing a setback of five feet where 12 is required. But as you move forward towards the front of the property, that setback increases. And again, as Ron mentioned, that's needed to keep a square corner for the building.
And on the rear, we want to comment on the rear setback.
So the rear setback, 12 feet is required and two feet is provided.
And was it accurate?
And those pictures were accurately represented that were boarded by a railroad and then the elevation dropped substantially beyond that?
Correct.
And would that act as a buffer, would you say?
You want to comment on, well, let's talk about the parking.
So, the required number of parking spaces is based on having one space for every 2,000 square feet of, we'll call it, building or warehouse area.
Would that be fair to say?
Correct.
And that's for wholesale distribution and storage uses, which, quite frankly, doesn't contemplate self-storage type.
And is there an industry standard for calculating or choosing how many spaces you would need for a self-storage facility?
so the institute of transportation um engineers known as ite is a national standard
that identifies a peak parking demand of 0.1 spaces per 1 000 which equates to one space
per 10 000 square feet of building area based on an approximate and under 60 000 square foot building
the size of this building six parking spaces would be required in addition we're providing
six loading spaces, which is more than double what the national standard recommends for
this size of a self-storage building. And the parking and loading, as you see in this picture,
are behind this masonry fence wall? Correct. So we're meeting the required screening
as part of the landscape requirements. And the loading spaces are located along the front of
the building? Correct. And they can also be used as parking. How would they be used?
Yes. So most typical storage users, they may be coming to set up a unit, they can use the parking spaces, or if they're coming to bring items or pickup items, they can use the loading spaces or parking interchangeably.
And let me ask you, would these setbacks have any detrimental impacts on the public health, safety, welfare, or traffic, or traffic circulation?
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, counsel. Anyone else?
Yeah, one more question.
Sure, thank you.
i joke tell the board your name and address please uh joe davidson busy architecture uh
10 000 um atlantic drive marlton new jersey state can you spell it for the question yes uh joseph
j-o-s-e-p-h-d-a-v-i-d-s-o-n you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do counts until you were involved in the design of the building yes and up on the screen now is
the original design is that correct that is correct and if you compare and contrast it to
what we arrived at could you could you tell us briefly what the changes were
and that they were in accordance with the rco and cdr comments yeah so the rco um meeting at fox
chase um was uh based on the height of the building was really uh out of character for
the neighborhood so the owner decided to cut the three floors which has been spoken about um
they also had brought up some concern about the materials of the building um and then at this
about the materials of the building um and then at the civic design review there was a request to
try to get some more glazing uh in the facade which is challenging in a storage building and
down this area too we're on yeah so we added at stair towers elevator lobbies we added some
glazing to help break up the facade we also picked materials that were a little more in
character with the neighborhood uh there is quite a bit of mix of materials down um oxford street
but we brought some brick in some some muted tan colors and also varied uh some of the textures
and the materials to create a little bit more um scale of the building
great thank you that's all i have thank you can't let's look and what i'm showing here on the on
the screen are three proviso conditions that the RCO had requested, and that's in their
letter that's attached in our exhibits.
And I believe BG Capital already signed off as the client.
Oh, yes, that's correct.
Oh, and so I would mention, too, that I did submit an application for approval of revised
zoning plans that reflects the three-story building.
Questions from the board?
yeah this are there any retail sales of storage materials at one site say your
name again please day market hey what was the question are there any retail
sales of storage materials moving materials on site no okay thank you
other questions yeah so this is just self-storage this is people who need
extra storage space and they bring things there so i guess i heard that the hours of operation
were going to be like nine to five years yeah it's not it's not open 24 hours correct so you
have to on the door normal business hours and that's when it will be open and not not locked
is that fair to say correct right you can't go in there middle of the night no you have no access
You have access during their operating hours, and that's it.
And operating hours are?
Generally 9 to 6, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
And that's Monday through Friday?
Monday through Friday.
How about Saturday?
Some are open on Saturday as well, yes, 9 to 6.
It depends on the operator we end up dealing with as well.
Oh, okay.