I see no hands.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Sarah Bond with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing commercial mixed-use zoning.
the proposed use will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what might
normally be expected. The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the special
exception. Thank you. MI 2024-000-498-1516-18 Walnut Street, I vote yes with proviso. Ventilation
through sidewall to Sydenham Street, interior trash storage. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes
with proviso name snell my vote is yes with proviso thank you sir moving on to number 15
mi 2024 000 500 1400 to 38 north howard street michael phillips is the attorney
a letter of support from south kensington community partners based on an amended mou
Hi, Mr. Phillips. Could you please state your name and spell for this stenographer?
I'm Mr. Phillips.
Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman, members of the board. Michael Phillips, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-P-H-I-L-L-I-P-S
with Claire Harrison Harvey Bransberg. On behalf of the owner of the property, AP 1400 North Howard
Street, LLC. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Mr. Hallman has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, Counselor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
I do. Did you email all the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance of this hearing?
I did not email it five days in advance due to my associate went on an early paternity leave and there was confusion.
However, we did get everything over to Ms. Emerson this morning, and we did meet with the community, and the property has been posted, so all of the exhibits are in need.
Thank you. Pre-proceed and share your screen.
so good afternoon everyone michael phillips on behalf of ap 1400 north howard street llc
we are here today seeking special uh some special exception approvals for this um already uh
constructed one-story building in South Kensington. By way of background, in 2020,
we received variances to allow the property to be treated as if it's CMX2, so retail and office uses
and general commercial uses in line with CMX2. Here, I'll just orient you with...
why it's not going beyond
page 10. so here just give me a moment
so here's some more uh quarters of the property this property takes up um four blocks total
um why i'm having all these issues
and here is a site uh a site plan so the reason we're before uh the board right now is uh over
the past few years we've been uh our client has sought to lease out um the spaces as you'll notice
on the plan there are two spaces right now that have been leased this is a space for celebrate
which is a school, a daycare school, and we also have recently leased out this space for a general
office use. But a number of prospective tenants have approached our client who are either in the
food industry or group medical offices, and there's been particular interest from the group
medical office section. However, the tenants are not willing to go through the special exception
or variance approval process themselves, and so any prospects have died on the line.
So knowing that, we have reached out to South Kensington and have engaged in discussions about
expanding the current CMX2 uses that were permitted at the end of 2020 and for which we are still
utilizing to include three specific uses that normally would be allowed in CMX2 by a special
exception. The first is animal services with no boarding expressly noted, and that would be to
be able to lease to a veterinary clinic or a doctor. The second is group medical health
dental practitioner, and the third would be a takeout restaurant. Now, all of those uses
require special exception approval and CMX2, and we believe that they are all community
benefits and amenities at this space. We specifically, I want to make note, are not
seeking other special exception uses, including assembly and entertainment, and that is not within
the expanded scope and was something that was important to South Kensington community partners.
It appears that my cursor is working again. Here is the property. You'll see it is it's large
bounded on all four sides, zoned RSA 5. And here, this is a copy of the
And here, this is a copy of the 2020 variants that you'll note was for business professional offices, vacant retail sales and commercial uses as permitted in CMX2.
We had discussions with the community and there were a number of provisos that we were willing to agree to.
Now, some of the proposed provisos from South Kensington Community Partners are not zoning issues.
and have been memorialized in a community benefits agreement, but there are some that
are specific zoning issues, and I'll talk to those.
The first is hours of operations, which we agreed to limit to 10 o'clock on Monday through
Friday and until midnight on weekends.
We also agreed to not lease or use any portion of the property as a drug rehabilitation center
and to not lease for medical marijuana sale and uses.
Beyond that, the other provisos that we did agree to regarding security measures,
parking validations, and agreeing to not seek special exception approval
for either a nightclub or casino use,
I do not believe are either pertinent or can be part of a proviso with respect to the special
exception use. Again, it would require special exception approval. We'd have to come back
anyway, but we've agreed that for nightclub and casinos, we won't even try. We'll also just show
some interior photos. As you can see, these are all vacant shells that we're waiting
for tenants. So we believe that this would be a benefit and would alleviate the difficulties
that we faced in finding tenants for these three units specifically. I have Kimberly
Venata with Asana Partners available to adopt my testimony as of her own.
Kimberly has been allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, Kimberly, K-I-M-B-E-R-L-Y, Venata, V as in Victor, O-N-A-D-A.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Please proceed, counsel.
Kimberly, have you heard my testimony a moment ago?
I did.
And would you agree that everything I stated is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
That's right.
And do you agree to adopt my testimony as if it were your own?
I have no further questions for Ms. Bonata.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Anderson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
We have two hands up.
Nick Lombardi has been allowed to speak first.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Hello, yes.
My name is Nicholas Lombardi.
That is N-I-C-O-L-A-S-L-O-M-B-A-R-D-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
Correct.
I'm actually smack dab in the middle of this building.
Please proceed.
Please proceed.
So I really want to provide just some color around some of these provisos, if that's the
correct term, learning the language here.
So kind of from my perspective, being this close to it, in full disclosure, I am supportive
of this with the appropriate measures that ensure that there's no adverse impact to folks
such as myself who are in such close proximity to this building.
So the first of which being those uses around specifically takeout restaurants.
So I think if we look at it from a traffic perspective, restaurants that are delivery
centric. So thinking about on an extreme end, ghost kitchens or kind of down the scale to Uber
Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash, so forth, that would probably cause, I could certainly say it would
cause a undue burden around traffic in the neighborhood. There's no place to pull over.
There is no place to park short term. The garage, if that would be utilized in that capacity,
turns onto residential Howard Street, which there's a very short or tight turn radius,
I should say, as well as that turn being relatively blind and frankly being in front of my house.
So I see this all the time. I've seen vehicles be, you know, be struck because of those conditions and so forth.
So that would be one thing just around that sort of usage language in there.
The second being around hours.
So I know that the letter, the initial letter from South Kensington, I believe, stated a little bit shorter or a little bit earlier rather on.
I believe, stated a little bit shorter or a little bit earlier, rather, on those weekends.
However, I think if you look at it from the perspective of similar, well, I guess of the
proposed uses that Asana is mentioning, if you look at those sorts of uses, are those hours till
12 a.m. on weekends even necessary? If you look on Howard Street itself, you go down the street
to 1300 Howard Street, where you have Laser Wolf, that closes at 10 p.m., right? So I think having
that be until 10 p.m. on all nights is certainly in alignment with the location, as well as the
types of uses that they're proposing. And if it were to extend until 12 a.m., I think that there's
potential for additional burden from a noise perspective, from a vehicle traffic perspective,
again, parking garage and on the street, as well as foot traffic, where there really is not already.
From a monitoring maintenance security perspective, I know security was listed on there,
just to provide some color. There is no on-site presence today. There's some interior cameras.
There's no exterior cameras. Asana did state within this community benefits agreement to
provide commercially reasonable efforts to mitigate security concerns. That is something
that they've told us. They haven't actually done it. So I think that's something at minimum
installing those cameras as they've kind of stated that they would be needed. However,
I think when you kind of look past that, some of those photos, I think we're a little bit
illustrative of the lack of maintenance around the building, which again is something that we
as neighbors have really had to push them to engage with their providers on to ensure they're
keeping up with that, right? And I think if you could keep going down from a security perspective,
their existing tenant has been burglarized, vandalized numerous times, excuse me, as well
as their construction sites being burglarized numerous times as well. And that's not something
that's their problem. However, I think it is their purview to be able to actually do something to
mitigate that, you know, as far as the surrounding neighbors go. In addition, around the loading dock
for deliveries and contractor access, I believe it's already in the community benefits agreement
that they would limit their hours of deliveries from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, I can say as
earlier, as recently as this morning, there was two large trucks making deliveries at 7 a.m.,
so obviously I'm concerned around their adherence to these terms to begin with, as well as, you know,
moving forward if we were to add additional ones. And I think from a trash perspective,
probably the last one on my end, that is something where I believe they have, I'm not positive about
this. However, I can state that they in the past had not had contracted trash services for their
daycare tenants. That tenant was putting those trash bags, you know, you can imagine the daycare,
the types of trash that you have loosely on the sidewalk, piled up, so forth and so on. And of
course, they were open, gotten into blocking Masher Street on that sidewalk there. So I think
those are some of the concerns in color. I just wanted to add from my perspective around these
provisos, if that is the correct terminology that are written up here. Okay. Thank you very much.
But you are in favor of the project? Provided that there are adequate, I guess, stipulations
that I just, I added some additional color to what's already here. Yes. All right. Thank you.
anyone else in the virtual audience rory sweeney is allowed to speak i could you say your name
please as bell for the stenographer absolutely rory sweeney r-o-r-y s-w-e-e-n-e-y do you swear
a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor i am please
proceed uh i'd actually like to first start with a question for clarification is it the applicant's
testimony that they are accepting all of the provisos in uh skcp's uh letter um if not explicitly
uh through the this the the this zoning request but in general in some form or fashion either
through the uh the community benefits agreement or some other way or is is it more this letter
that you are now showing in front of us this letter which of which of those are you accepting
We are accepting all of them. The reason that they were actually more on this letter is because this actually, there were provisos that were initially granted back in or stipulations from December when the CMX2 uses were approved. So these were in addition to that. And yes, we have agreed in writing to all of, I'll pull it back up, but all of South Kensington Community Partners requested provisos.
Okay. So, because I have read that letter that you just showed, and I disagree that it is more, it is significantly less, and specifically, for example, does not include the parking validation concern, but what your testimony is that you are accepting all of these requests that they put into the letter.
requests that they put into the letter that is correct okay uh well i i suppose with that um i
That is correct.
i am also supportive in the same way that nick is uh i i don't i don't object to the uh to the uh
to do the the usage requests um on the grounds with the proviso that all of the things in the letter
are stipulated to and used.
Thank you.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
No hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Berkman, Sarah Bond
with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing residential single-family zoning.
The property was previously granted a variance
for commercial mixed use.
There is a documented history of non-residential uses at the property, and the proposed use is consistent with that documented prior use.
The appellant has shown that the proposed uses will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what might normally be expected.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the special exception.
Thank you.
Hillary, you know, obviously they have that MOU.
I mean, did you hear anything at all that we'd want to put in a proviso?
um i honestly have to go back and look um because there was the letter and then there was the
agreement um and they they were um they were lengthy i know there was an hours of operation
um proviso in there that did stand out to me i can't remember if there was something related
to trash that was um enforceable um but if if it's the applicant's desire or the community's
are that we incorporate some things into the provisos, I would just have to take
a week to just look back over and see what's able to be incorporated.
The one that stands out on the top of my head is the hours of operation. So, Mr. Phillips, that's what
we're going to do. We're going to hold this until next week.
We will vote on it on