ZBA Hearing - April 22, 2026

one unit here which is i mean you're probably looking at anywhere from so you make the other

units a little larger what's the i don't again i don't i don't understand why this is a supposed

hardship here. I don't think making a unit more is going to actually make, you're not going to

have a dollar to dollar thing. The numbers are tight. Developers in Philadelphia are struggling

given market conditions here. We're trying to develop a piece of land here. And I think we're

doing it responsibly because back then they were seeking nine units, which is more variance from

the Philadelphia zoning code they agreed to do seven we're required we're allowed to do 6.8 we're

not taking an RSA 5 property taking an RM1 property you're asking for 0.2 okay I think

i think thank you i know both sides of this uh our attorney hillary emerson

I think thank you I know both sides of this our attorney Hillary Emerson

um i do not have any questions mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience

come on

good afternoon sir could you and porter pull as close to you as you can no problem

Good afternoon, everybody.

Could you please state your name as Belford's sonographer?

Yes.

My first name is Desmond, D-E-S-M-O-N-D.

My last name is Shannon, S-H-A-N-N-O-N.

Right.

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

I do.

Are you a neighbor?

I'm the owner of 2127.

That's the property right next door.

Please proceed.

I just had a question because just the background on me.

I lived in property since 2017.

My parents owned the property and sold it to me in 2021.

i i don't know what rco means but i was at that hearing or whatever it was community meeting

in 2019 when they did propose the nine units with one uh i guess low income that was not low income

rent rates um my concern there uh just living in the property is uh trash being thrown out

over the roof uh and then the the trash being stored in the back um with that garbage stored

there for a uh apartment building i can't enjoy my backyard uh so if i know back then i proposed

maybe putting the trash on the far i guess the left side of the building i don't know i guess

west side of the building and they refused to do that i thought that i didn't know that the uh

zonings were approved in 2019 that's news to me I just thought everything was

you know discontinued and then the lot was being mowed by one and not the other

so I thought the plots were broken up so my question to the owner in the the

lawyer is just one what what demographic are you targeting because we are in

Charles Wood, which is near Temple. And then there's a lot of young people who like to party,

stay up late, things of that nature. So with the rooftop deck entertainment, a concern is just

objects being thrown off of the roof, or my roof, and then also ended up in my backyard. And then

also, why not have the garbage stored maybe inside on the basement or something like that?

yeah so um let me answer the question the my understanding through this project that this is

not for student housing and i would ask that you know dan is is this meant for student housing

no no not at all yeah so the way it's configured these are one all one and two bedroom apartment

um they're not meant for student housing um in terms of the trash typically you know we do try

to store the trash outside in closed containers i do believe that if you look at the floor plans

there is a utility room that's rather large in sides in the basement area yeah um i we could

agree to store the trash inside typically most people want it outside but we have the ability

that all the residents have access to the trash a lower level which have utilities so if the board

feel so inclined to put a proviso trash stored inside in the basement uh we would we would agree

to that and then in terms of the deck like i said you know this is for people that live in

the neighborhood not for students so you know from experience any lease would include rules

and regulations regarding conduct which would include about the deck do all residents have

access to the roof decks no only only the two upper units so again that would be less of an issue

if you had more all of them having the roof decks um but we would agree to a provisor of trash

stored inside and it's commercial trash pickup too so we're not just relying on the city trash removal

thank you thank you sir no problem all right um anyone else in the virtual i'm sorry one more

question i'm sorry just parking um is that a concern by the city or whatever because with

the additional people um oh yeah we look at everything okay all right thank you um

anyone else in the virtual audience

no hands at this time chair any commission

Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.

The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from the existing

RM1 residential multifamily to RSA 5 residential single family.

The additional acquired lot area for the proposed 7th dwelling unit is under 10%

The additional required lot area for the proposed 7th dwelling unit is under 10% of the required area and is therefore considered de minimis.

However, for roof decks, the appellant has not shown that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code.

The Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the requested variance for 7th dwelling unit and deny the requested variance for roof deck.

Can I just shortly respond?

briefly respond to the just in terms uh it confirms you know what i stated about the the

density um it is a de minimis request as far as the roof deck um they even noted that typically

they're against you know having roof deck access structures there but given the history of the

approval by the zba as well as having roof decks with similar properties in the surrounding area

we would respectfully request that the board grant that variance as well thank you so what i'm going

to do is we're going to vote this next week next uh wednesday at 2 p.m we'll vote uh and we'll take

this to executive session on wednesday morning all right thank you very much thank you very much

Thank you.

Number 10. MI 2026 000 766 828 824. I'm sorry, North Second Street. Augusta O'Neill is the attorney.

There's a letter of support from Northern Liberties and a letter of non opposition from Council Member Young.

good afternoon good afternoon counsel uh could you please state your name and spell before the

stenographer sure my name is augusta o'neill a-u-g-u-s-t-a last name is spelled o apostrophe

n-e-i-l-l you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth

i do could you identify your clients in their relationship to the property

Sure. My client is Selkie Lee. She's in the audience this afternoon. She is the president of the lessee entity for the property, which is Genesis Baker's No Lib Inc.

Okay. And you have two people sitting here in the front row.

Selkie is going to be the witness because she's going to be the operator.

Vice chair has a few questions.

Sure.

Good evening. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?

I did.

and do you waive the reading of the referral and stipulate to its accuracy i do all right

thank you you can share your screen and proceed with thanks so much um and apologies my voice

sounds terrible i uh thought i was coming down with something so rather than appear in person

i decided to be remote this afternoon um good afternoon again members of the board uh with me

this afternoon as i stated earlier selkie lee she's the president of the lessee entity um she's

be the operator for the proposed bakery at this location at 824 north 2nd street we are proposing

a bakery in an approximately 3600 square foot space on the first floor of this mixed-use uh

building the building has 78 multi-family units above and that commercial space is

going to be below. The property is zoned CMX 2.5. Included in my exhibit package were some interior

pictures of the space. As you can see, it's just waiting for a fit out. The proposed bakery that's

going to be going into this location is known as Two Le Jour. It's a Korean bakery franchise that

specializes in French-Asian-inspired baked goods. They primarily serve cakes, coffees, drinks,

specialty pastries. They sell cold brew coffees, matcha lattes, unique items such as guava danishes.

Another thing that you might see if you're on social media that's fairly popular are their

cloud cakes. I did include a sample menu in my exhibit package, but I won't labor the board with

going through everything that I provided. They do have a very extensive menu.

Its name translates to all the days, in case you're wondering what to Le Jour meant.

There is one other to Le Jour in University City in Philadelphia. That's the only other

Philadelphia location. It is a very fast-growing franchise. Everything that they bake is baked

on site, so nothing is made in an off-location warehouse and brought to the cafe. Instead,

everything is going to be made at that 2nd Street location.

Their hours of operation are going to be from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. They hope to be able to open

Their hours of operation are going to be from

in late August of this year or September. They are going to have 7 to 10 employees who

will be working each shift. They recently entered into a 10-year lease for the space.

They do intend to hire a local when they're hiring employees. They're only making interior

changes to the space. They're not making any changes to the exterior. They are going to have

signage on the building, but the signage that they're going to propose is going to be code

compliant. Included in my exhibit package at page 17, I did provide a copy of the proposed floor

plan for this location. Just to increase it, this is going to be 2nd Street. As you walk in,

there's going to be a number of display cases the point of sale is going to be off to the right

there are going to be a number of show cake showcases so they will have pre-made cakes

they also have cakes to order and other pastries etc they have approximately 50 seats at this

location so as you can see there's quite a few seats shown throughout the throughout the floor

plan. They do have a trash room. There is a back of house area where they're going to have walk-in

freezers, a walk-in cooler, and an office. They also have a commercial oven, which is going to

be that type one hood, as you can see on the plan. It's going to have a commercial grade ventilation

system so that it will extract all the grease vapors the smoke and and the heat

from the building with respect to deliveries everything is going to be

delivered to the front to that North 2nd Street location they do anticipate

getting deliveries only in the morning the deliveries are mainly going to be

just the ingredients for what they're going to be baking on site. They are going to have trash

pickup three times a week as well. With respect to the relief that we're here this afternoon

requesting, included my exhibit package was a copy of the referral that we received. The referral was

for the eating and drinking establishment, the sit-down restaurant, which was the type of use

that we have due to the number of seats and the fact that they're making everything on site and

customers are expected to eat it on site that qualifies as a sit-down restaurant in the nca

commercial overlay neighborhood commercial overlay district we are required to obtain

special exception relief for this kind of an application

with regard to the special exception criteria in philadelphia i would submit to the board that the

proposal for a bakery at this location the two leisure bakery would not result in overcrowding

the land or burdening of the public facilities. It wouldn't impair the use of any adjacent

properties or present a danger to public health or safety. We did meet with the RCO for this project,

the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association. They did, I'm sorry, they did provide us with

letter of support which was in my app my uh my exhibit package um as you can see they wrote to

the board to indicate that they did support the application it was as it was presented to them

um we met with them in in march of this year so um at this time i would like to call forward my

client silky lee she's i believe she's actually already sitting there um yeah she's sitting right

in front of me could you turn the mic on and then pull it really close to you all right all right

could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer selkie lee s-e-l-l-k-i last name

is l-e-e right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth of nothing but the truth

council good afternoon selkie did uh miss lee did you have a chance to hear the my testimony

this afternoon yes was everything that i said true and accurate yes is there anything that

you would like to add to the board or would you like to just adopt my testimony as your own

uh everything you said was correct and true okay um members of the board if there are any

questions we'd be happy to answer them sure questions from the board yeah quick question

what's the square footage of the restaurant so the square footage of that space is about 3600

square feet and um what was what what was the venting can you go back to the plan yeah absolutely

it's a type one hood is what's indicated on the plan

it's a type 1 hood

is what's indicated on the plan

sorry i'll scroll out a little bit yeah and then and then how is that vented how is that

going to be vented is it vented through the building is it vented how that's it's my

understanding it's vented through the building um but miss lee if there's is that your understanding

as well how are you going to vent the something through out the back and it's going to have the

scrubber so it won't have any grease so it goes through a scrubber first and it goes out the back

okay and what's the now you said bakery so it's a bakery and restaurant i'm not familiar with

the restaurant so i don't know what's that so it's a bakery but in the code because it's got

But I think in the code, the maximum you can have for a takeout is four seats.

And most of the applications I've had for a bakery, it's been qualified as a takeout restaurant.

But because it's got approximately 50 seats and the intent is that everything is going to be baked on site, everything is going to be consumed on site, that puts us in the category of a sit-down restaurant under the code.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Yep.

So is this an expansion or like this is another site for you guys to operate?

So, I'm sorry.

So this is actually the old, so Selkie is going to be the franchisee for this particular location,

but it's my understanding that Ms. Lee is not affiliated with that university city location.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yeah.

The university city location is going to be our second location, actually.

It's not open yet. Oh, I got it. So you'll eventually, you'll eventually open that out there. Okay. All right. Thank you. I wonder, and I was like, no, I know that there's an open. Okay.

Other questions, other questions, and then you're gonna, the idea is that there's not gonna be any, um, uh, distribution, shall we say from this bakery to the other side, or how is that gonna work?

so because the university city location is our second location we're going to distribute this

distribute to that location okay it's only between like if i own this location so i got

only stores that i could distribute to okay all right um but i do think that this is

And how are you going to, when you do this, how are you going to do this?

You're going to use trucks, you're going to use vans.

How are you going to transport the goods from the one location to the other location?

We were planning to use like a small van.

Yeah, just a small van.

I don't think it's going to be a truckload.