Planting Commission?
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, Dave.
with the city planning commission mr chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends
no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location the appellant requests relief from
the third floor setback requirement in the zoning code the proposed third floor without a front
setback matches the character of the block which has a healthy mix of two-story and three-story row
homes and the appellant has shown that the small size of each lot would prevent each property's
continued economic use if the dimensional variance was not granted. The City Planning Commission
recommends the board grant relief from the third floor setback requirement in the zoning code for
both 1621 and 1623 Webster Street. Thank you. I'm going to vote these one at a time.
MI, number eight, MI 2023-001-234-1621 Webster Street, I vote yes, Proviso.
Revised plans, two pages, stamped by ZBA on August 16, 2023.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ismail Shahid, my vote is yes with Proviso.
And number 10, MI 2023, 001-087-1623, Webster Street.
I vote yes, with proviso.
Revised plans, two pages, stamped by ZBA, August 16, 2023, and exterior security bars on first floor front to be removed.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you. Counsel, please stay here.
Number nine, MI 2023, 001-088, Chatham Street, Jennifer Bazzillo is the attorney.
Let's see here.
We have a letter of support from Southport Richmond Civic Association based on the vote of all attendants at the meeting with provisos.
Counsel, you've already been sworn. Just state your name for the record.
Counsel, you've already been sworn. Just state your name for the record.
Sure. Jennifer Bazidlo, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
You identify your client relationship to this property.
Sure. I'm so sorry. I'm trying to get this to be bigger.
My clients are Trendy Hall.
The owners and operators are Michelle Sharp and Jadelyn Kanakee, and they are a tenant in Space 1A.
Vice Chair has just a few questions.
Good morning again, counsel. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal and stipulate to exact mercy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Sure. All right. We got it up and I got it bigger again, so we're in good shape to begin.
So again, I'm going to just kind of go through all of our documents, and then we'll revisit
ones that are more relevant to the conversation. So this is our refusal. The only refusal is for
the use project information form. This is a copy of our lease. Before we go any further,
we are just asking for a three-year temporary variance that coincides with the end of this
lease date, which is January 31st, 2026, which is actually less than, it's like two and a half years.
Let's see here. Sorry. And this is our tax clearance for Trendy LLC, which is the tenants LLC.
This is the RCO letter, which we'll also be coming back to, but as you can see, the vote was in
support 26 to 15. We also did go out and this was the notification that went out. I will say I
initially scheduled it incorrectly. I went there that date that was incorrect. I handed out a new
flyer and spoke to all the people that showed up and a new flyer with the correct date was mailed
out with several weeks notice with proof of mailing just in case that comes up. Just wanted
to be clear. And so, um, because after the meeting, we did reach out to other community members
and we got 29 additional letters of support from neighbors within one to two blocks of the
property. Um, I'll come back and highlight some of them specifically, but this is one of the direct
neighbors across the street. Um, and so let's just skip through all these, but there are 29 here.
There are documents of previous zoning variances, which I'll get into in this building.
I'm sorry, I'm having technical problems today, scrolling through here.
Let's see here.
This is the zoning map.
We're not seeing anything.
You're not seeing anything?
We're still at the board meeting.
All right, let me stop here and try again.
I apologize.
screen shared that's i see there's a could you go back to the to the
to the letter from the uh rco sure
is there anything else on that letter that's it yeah so there there is um and i was going to touch
on this. I wanted you to do that. Okay. So, so the me, so they brought up an issue with a raffle
for coming to vote. And this is, this is the, this is the raffle. So let me just get to my
notes about this. My clients have, this is their third time going before Southport Richmond. They
are currently operating another event space in the building in space 1b that had a temporary
variance granted in 2019 and then that was renewed again for five years in 2022. They are from the
neighborhood. They have lots of friends and family who have been avid supporters of their business
and this was not meant to go out in a public fashion. This was for their friends and family
that were already coming in a way to kind of um an appreciation of their support um
what happened uh was they put it on their personal Facebook page not on any sort of
commercial Facebook page or any other commercial social media it wasn't posted on the building or
anything like that um and one of their friends shared it but he shared it publicly um and so I
guess one of the neighbors saw that and brought it to the attention of the community. And I can
have Michelle come on and talk more about it. But no one who came to the meeting who was not
someone who was already their friends and family spoke to them about the raffle. And
already their friends and family spoke to them about the raffle and the 29 letters of support
that came from the neighborhood. They were not, no raffle was mentioned, nothing like that. Those
were just people, again, who from the community were in support of the variants. I also want to
say that previously we had gone to Southport, Richmond twice before. There was no raffle,
appreciation wrap will then uh last meeting for space b we had 46 people in support uh and the
meeting before that there was 20 25 people in support uh so really we have a very similar
outcome uh which kind of backs up that this was um really for the people that were already coming
to support uh the friends and family in the neighborhood um if you would like my client to
get on she can she can verify everything well your client will have a chance to get on right
okay yes all right continue with your presentation sure um so we were at the
uh that was the zoning map uh just when these are just the dumpster the ramps
some certificates the dumpster permit uh these are our posting photographs it is a three-sided
building so there was three sides this is the interior of the hall space
with a proposed hall space and uh this is this is the building here which we'll come back to
and then these are this is cedar street
This is that's Cedar Street. This is Cambria and then this is the still Cambria and then that's
Chatham Street. So and our space is going to be on the the existing one is on Cedar Street and
the new proposed one is on Cambria. So oh and I just wanted to show you the floor plan.
And here's the floor plan. This is on Cedar Street. The 1B is the existing event space that was granted in 2019 and also 2022. And 1A is the smaller space that we're now proposing.
um and then just in context of the whole building this is just a floor plan of the first floor
so as you can see we're talking about a very small space um in relevance to the larger building this
is about a right around a thousand square feet um so let's go to the aerial view when i start
talking here. So 2848 Chatham Street is a very large I-2 zoned, industrial zoned, former ammunition
factory that runs street to street from Cedar to Chatham and then borders Cambria Street here.
And right over here is Cohox Playground, just so people are oriented. And this is Somerset Street
and this is Aramingo. So it is a large industrial zoned building on the block immediately north of
Somerset Street and the Conrail lines. We are proposing about to add another thousand square
foot event space which would be entered the primary entrance would be on Cambria Street.
um so let's just go here one second
so um as i mentioned there is uh trendy hall is currently operating out of 1b which is along
cedar street and that is a space for up to 100 people with a typical event size of about 50
um and this is a smaller space the maximum number of people would be 60
uh with a typical event being around 40 um these it's it's a community oriented event space uh and
most of the people who attend events here are from the community uh and it provides a space for them
to celebrate with their friends and family and a little bit larger space than your typical port
richmond grow home um you know there's birthday parties there are engagement parties baby showers
wedding showers, that sort of thing. But again, it's mostly to service the local community and
to celebrate these sort of milestone events. The hours of operation would be Friday and Saturday.
All events would end by 11, cleaned up by midnight. And then on Sunday, any event would end by 8pm
and cleaned up by 9pm. And usually on Sunday, they find that most events are happening earlier
in the day. Those are your baby showers type things. So they happen in the afternoon. For the
For the most part, there are no events held during the week.
most part, there are no events held during the week. On Wednesdays, they
On Wednesdays, they would be showing potential clients the space, but there would be no events.
The only thing that they've experienced that would be a weekday event would kind of be a reception for a funeral to have like a luncheon or something like that.
But it's mostly just Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Michelle and Jalen are experienced operators and have been in the community operating similar spaces for quite a long time.
for this particular space like i said there are limited hours of operation um we have the dumpster
that's outside that's licensed and permitted where all the trash gets stored and taken out by a
commercial trash holder uh hauler excuse me uh and michelle and jadeline are also on site for all
events uh making sure that things run smoothly and people leave on time uh there was a concern
of the community about people not leaving promptly afterwards. And we have agreed to
take additional steps to make sure that when people leave, they are leaving. So like I said,
they have been running event spaces for over a decade. They had at first a smaller event space
on Richmond Street in Port Richmond. And they hosted private events. They also hosted some
community events like Kids Crafts Nights and things like that. And in 2016, they actually
moved to this building in the 1B space. And this 1A space had been a party store that they were
also operating. However, due to issues with the building, all businesses in the building were
closed down in 2017. And in 2019, they reapplied for a variance in the 1B space and were granted
a three-year temporary variance. There needed to be some additional work for a CO. COVID happened
by 2022 when their three-year variance was up. They hadn't reopened. We went back to the community
and in December of last year in 2022, they were granted a five-year temporary variance for the
space, for the B1B space, which is the larger space, and haven't been operating there since
February. And they are now looking to open this second space. They are not connected. It couldn't
be one large event. They are two separate spaces for up to 60 people, again with a three-year
temporary to coincide with their lease. So let's go to the zoning map because I want to talk about
the zoning of this building. So this building is zoned I2, this purple here, and that is a zoning
district for manufacturing, production of large equipments, auto repair, etc. The main use category
is general industrial use, which by code, by the city code, is an industrial uses that because of
their scale or method of operation regularly produce odors, dust, noise, vibration, truck
traffic, or other external impacts that are detectable beyond the property lines of the
subject property. What we are proposing here as a 60-person max event space that's only operating
primarily on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is a much lower intensity use than is allowed by Wright.
We are not producing odors, dust, vibrations, or constant loud noises, and there will be no truck
traffic and far less parking and traffic demand than a large factory would be in this space.
Furthermore, I do tend to think that this building still being zoned I-2, as if it was still an ammunition factory, is an inappropriate zoning for this property.
If we look here, you have other, this is the Conrail line. And as you can see, the adjacent industrial properties tend to either be ICMX or IMRX, whereas we are still zoned industrial.
um icmx i think is a very appropriate zoning if we were looking to rezone this area as that is
a zoning that instead of being for you know this kind of general impactful um industrial use
instead is a zoning that serves as a buffer between industrial districts commercial and
residential districts so this would be you know the heavy industrial area you have a little buffer
here uh and then you have the surrounding residential areas um and in icmx this would
be a by right use and we wouldn't be here um so uh that was that was uh you know it's i think that
would be a more appropriate zoning uh but in the zoning we have now we're looking for a use that
is much less intense much less impactful um than having some sort of large-scale production uh
manufacturing in this facility, which also, you know, this building sat vacant for a long time,
um which also uh you know this building sat vacant for a long time not being used uh because
not being used.
it wasn't um being finding a new industrial um so in any case uh we did meet with with
southport richmond as we talked about before um let's just go back to here uh and the vote was
in favor uh 26 to 15 um with it was one to six with the near addresses which is why we then
reached out to additional community members who had not been at this meeting uh specifically on
the surrounding blocks of chatham cedar cambria somerset and which is the next street up gall the
next street over and aramingo the next street over the other way and that's where we got these 29
letters of support from either um residents uh and a couple of business owners um lots of people
know cas tires cas has has supported this project as well as some of his residential neighbors
um so i just wanted to get to the letters because there's a couple i wanted to show
so this is uh christy hopkins 2826 which is which is across the street from
um um are proposed and says we live across street this place has never had any issues
that they're talking about our 1b spot um and then i also wanted to show um
sorry there was also support from business owners uh and also uh neighbors who had attended events
in 1b um and found it to be uh you know a wonderful place in the community to celebrate
with their friends and family. We have, I'm sorry, I'm looking for one of the comments that
said that. But if you look through here, here we go. You know, had an event there. It was perfect,
kind people, no trouble, great for the community. You know, and there were several people that were
at the community meeting. They were not there for our project. They were there to talk to,
you know, the police chief and all that sort of stuff. And they're like, yeah, we were there. It
It was wonderful. We support this. There were two issues that were brought up at the community
meeting that I want to talk a little bit more about besides the raffle issue. The main concerns
were parking and also noise generated by guests when they were leaving. So for the parking,
I just wanted to say that, you know, they do their best to encourage public transit, Uber use,
carpooling that sort of thing uh we are located next to the playground which uh if if it is an
evening event um you know there's not as many people at the playground so we do have less
parking demand than you would normally in a tight residential neighborhood i'm not saying it's easy
because no parking in the city is easy uh but i did want to also say that you know we didn't receive
variance, a needed variance for parking. And also, again, by right, an industrial use here
would be allowed to affect parking traffic and that sort of thing. Similar with noise issues.
However, you know, in I2, you are allowed to create noise that permeates off of your property.
But after speaking with neighbors, the owners and operators here have agreed to take additional
measures that when an event would end to make sure that guests are leaving and not gathering.
I do think there has been some confusion about what's going on at this property