ZBA Hearing - October 22, 2024

yes chair i did promote them to penalists i do see leonard booter has joined

it looks like it may be um hercules grigos that is um presenting the case on behalf of the applicant

okay i see he has his hand raised oh he lowered it

afternoon members of the board thank you very much

um could you please sure please state your name and spell for the stenographer thank you

hercules gregos h-e-r-c-u-l-e-s last name g-r-i-g-o-s you swear to tell the truth the

Hercules Grigos, H-E-R-C-U-L-E-S, last name.

whole truth and nothing but the truth i do mr reuter please uh thank you may please the board

leonard f reuter r-e-u-t-e-r senior attorney city of philadelphia sure

Do you prefer to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing about the truth?

I do.

This is the complaint against LNI Council.

Hercules, you start your presentation, please.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Hercules Griegos, Claire Harrison, representing BRIC, 1901 North American LP, owner of the property located at 1901-75 North American Street.

uh this case is is uh fashioned as an appeal against lni but essentially we're here today

asking the board to extend a zoning permit for this project on september 16 2020 uh the board

granted approval to construct a mixed-use building with ground floor commercial spaces

and 286 multifamily units uh the project is presented in 2020 had input of all interested

community stakeholders and uh i guess i would say it was it was sort of designed by committee

during 2020 a design process took place we got feedback from hispanic chamber of commerce apm

assay uh went through cdr um norris square community action network councilman maria

sanchez's office and the norris square community community association um you know this was in the

throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. We moved forward to try to bring in an investor to help us construct

the project because this was the largest project my client had ever attempted. As we went through

the process, what we realized was a lot of design rendered the building inconstructible. It just

wasn't feasible to construct. So I would say in the beginning of 2023, we engaged, I guess it was

late 2022, we engaged Rustin Oller from Harman Deutsch to help us with the design to make this

building feasible. We basically reduced the size of the building, decreased the occupied area from

96% to 88%, decreased FAR slightly and GFA slightly, decreased the height from 77 feet

to 73 feet, decreased the number of multifamily dwellings from 286 to 285, and increased the

parking spaces from 93 to 98 spaces, and increased the open area from 3.8% to 11.3%, as well

as increasing the commercial space from 10,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet.

this was all done basically value engineer and make the building constructible and be able to

bring in an investor. We had gone down the road with one investor and as the market began to turn

they pulled out of the deal and then we started the conversation with others and if you remember

that's when interest rates went sky high and deals began to just not make sense.

So my client, you know, went back and basically went dormant for a bit,

tried to figure out what to do.

And recently we got a new investor that is prepared to move this forward.

The investor has built 1,500 units in the city, 40 different projects.

is committed has put the dollars necessary to bring this and permit this uh this project um

i want to raise a couple important things um we worked really hard in 2020 to get a community

benefits agreement with the community um of the 285 units um we had 28 affordable units uh 10

at 40% AMI, 10 at 50% AMI, and 8 at 60% AMI. We worked really hard with the neighbors and with

the community to get to those numbers. So our new investors were committed to moving this forward.

We have the community benefits agreement still in place. And we worked with the RCO part of other

terms in the community benefits agreement, agreeing to work with the RCO for the affordable

units to offer them to residents in the existing zip code, consulting with the Hispanic chamber,

the African-American chamber, and the RCO to make sure that we hire community members for

construction-related positions and have an inclusive construction process, target 40%

of post-construction positions at the building for local residents, and then among other things in the CBA.

Um, and then, uh, uh, among other things in the, in the CBA, um, uh, we're going to look to lease, uh, commercial spaces on American street to small private businesses.

Uh, we met with, uh, Norris square, uh, action network.

They're in support of the extension, um, councilwoman Lozada.

Oh, I guess I should be presenting.

I'm giving you the story, but I'll give you, it's been a minute.

I'll give you the, uh, let's see.

if i may share thank you um here's our letter of support from councilwoman

um our letter of support from nara square action

and then here's just the site context project is a north american street between burks

and west nara street um here's some site photos um and this these are site photos from when we

through cdr um and then just here's the permitting history um and this is the site plan and i'll just

show some some of the uh these are the highlights of the community benefits agreement as i just

described this is all in the packet um and then uh here's some just some of the older renderings

the building so um we asked the board um uh grant us an extension um we uh we have we're we need

about a year plus to get the building permit issued but the project is um ready to go and

i have my client scott baldassera here who can answer any questions or respond

but again in discussion with mr reuter we fashioned this as an appeal against l and i because

The zoning board under the code has authority to grant extensions.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions or turn it over to my client, and he can adopt my testimony.

His name is Scott Baldessare.

It should be in the audience.

Why don't we let him adopt your testimony, and then we'll go to Mr. Reuter.

What's his name, Baldessare?

Baldessari, yes, sir.

Mr. Baldessari.

Hey, good morning, Mr. Chair.

This is Scott.

Hi, could you please state your name and spell it for the court stenographer?

It's Scott, S-C-O-T-T, Baldessari, B-A-L-D-A-S-A-R-E.

You're affirmed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I do.

Please proceed, counsel.

Scott, you heard my testimony today.

Do you affirm and adopt it as your own?

I do, yes.

Mr. Chairman or Mr. Reuter, we're available to answer any questions.

All right.

Mr. Reuter, would you present your case?

Sure.

So just to clarify the process here, the procedural status of where we are, as Mr. Griegos pointed out in his presentation, back in 20...

so this was a permit that was originally issued in 2020 there was amendments uh there was another

actually another attempt at an amendment uh that that didn't go through uh because it didn't get

approval of the streets department so i don't think that's really relevant here but in 2023

the zoning board did grant a one-year extension so this permit was already going to expire

around i think september 2023 they granted the one-year extension already as back then

which means that the actual expiration is well now was September of 2024 so they came in and

they asked for an additional extension this time asking for three years which isn't you know

frankly isn't even contemplated in the code to extend a permit by three years and again what

we're talking about is extending the board's approval because again as we understand this

we all understand this project was a board approved project because it needed a variance

excuse me so they came in and asked for a three-year extension after one year had already

been granted that was ministerially or administratively denied by boards council

uh i agree they have a right to appeal from that the question was how do you

how do you do an appeal from something like that and so we agreed that they could just uh

Because they received a letter from L&I, which essentially repeated the administrative decision to deny the requested extension, we agreed to just treat that letter from L&I as the quote-unquote decision that could be appealed here to the board.

So where we are is that, again, they're asking for an extension, a three-year extension.

uh a three-year extension you know technically the code doesn't even contemplate the board

you know technically the code

extending an approval by three years there's some exceptions not really exceptions but there

are different types of prop uh projects called you know where there's phase development and

things like that where permits can you know essentially uh go on for up to seven years

i do note that i think earlier i think about the same time that the original permit was issued

if Mr. Grigos can correct me, there was a separate zoning permit that had been applied for to do the lot consolidation and demolition.

Presumably, although it wasn't actually addressed in 2023, it's a little bit ambiguous.

If you look at the 2023 letter from from from L&I or the board, presumably that demolition,

The zoning permit for the demolition and lot consolidation also was extended.

Again, lot consolidation just took place.

I think that was by right.

The demolition, technically that demolition, that zoning permit to authorize a demolition

also would have expired after three years.

Presumably that had not been marked expired.

And I believe, and Mr. Grigos can correct me if I'm wrong, but just within the last

couple weeks uh the actual demolition permit has been uh applied for uh and that's the kind of

thing uh had that demolition permit been applied for in september uh or early september i think

there would have been a stronger argument that that vests the new construction the zoning permit

for new construction so you know again uh on its face the code doesn't really authorize a three-year

extension um but you know given that i think there's some timing issues here there may have

also been a fire i'm not sure about that um i know that there have been a history of violations

at the property the city clip has had to go out to the site i think five times in the past few

years uh to remove weeds uh i think there was also a clean and seal of the existing building

that was there um i'm not sure about that leonard what clean seal yeah i mean i don't know whatever's

out there but uh i think there again i think there's multiple structures that were still out

at the site. But there was definitely clip work that had been done at the site. Anyway, that being

said, you know, we'll leave it to the discretion of the board and board's council, whether the

board even, again, let me put it this way. We're not objecting to an extension on principle or any

of that. I'm just simply pointing out that it's not clear to me that the code provides the board

this kind of authority uh to grant an extension of this length i think again you know given the

timing of everything had the project started and even if even the demolition itself had the

demolition started um just a couple months before today uh this probably would be moot um so we'd

leave it to the uh to the board's discretion whether or not they want to grant this extension

uh certainly i don't think the city's we're not going to appeal it uh a decision by the board

that way and i would just you know uh basically defer to to the board and board's council i just

wanted to point out that the code doesn't really provide for this um for what they're asking for

that's is which is i mean i appreciate that and i think um really what we i think we have

applied for three years really what we need is 18 months i just want to be clear i'm sorry

Right. We need 18 months what we need to get through a building permit and get to that point.

So, you know, we we we apply just to re-up as part of our application.

But that's what I think is everyone was aware to get through the building permit process.

We have design streets department, et cetera. Sure.

And and again, I like I said, we'll defer to the decision and the discretion of the board.

Again, our only concern is that where it would be nice to be able to tie an extension to specific actions in this type of appeal, I don't believe the board has the authority to grant the request with provisos.

They can either grant it or not, or presumably they can grant a shorter extension.

I mean, if they can grant an extension at all, I guess it's up to them how long they want it to be.

But I don't know that they can add additional conditions like as long as you get your building permit by X date or something like that.

so again i'm just gonna i just wanted to point out what the code provides and leave it up to the

leave it up to the board i would say if you extended it for you know 18 months we have

that time to get a building permit you know under the code is typical so um we're prepared to move

We're prepared to move forward.

forward. They said we've met with the neighbors. We have a

We've met with the neighbors.

We had a very robust CBA that we spent a lot of time to negotiate, and we were constantly

getting calls from the community asking us, when can we start?

And for reasons that my client will take responsibility for some of them, but really

the reasons out of his control, interest rates and things, we're looking to develop this

property.

Our partner is able to build all the affordable units and we can get some strong affordable units in this neighborhood at 40 percent, 50 percent of AMI, which I don't think that's been done on American Street yet.

So happy to answer them.

All right. Thank you to both of you.

What we're going to do with this is we're going to vote on this next Wednesday at 930.

I want to take it back to the executive group when we meet our executive meetings and we'll also talk to our council.

So we'll vote on this next Wednesday at 930.

Thank you to both of you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right.

I'm going to go to number one.

MI 2023-005-047-209 West Cheston Hill Avenue.

This is a resumptive hearing.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.

Adam Laver, Blankrow.

Just for the record, spell your name, please.

Adam Laver, L-A-V-E-R.

You're affirmed. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.

David Feynman, available, please.

Chair, I see no one in the audience by that name,

but I do have two hands up.

Yeah, the RCCB Philo litigation,

because I believe that that will be their conference room.

Okay, thank you. They have been promoted to panelists.

Mr. Feynman

I think I am on at this point Mr. Chairman

Mr. Chairman David Feynman

we represent the Protestants in this matter

my understanding

just for the record Mr. Feynman

spell your name for the stenographer