Okay. Why don't we put her on?
Harriet Franklin has been promoted to panelists.
Hello?
Hello?
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the course stenographer?
Absolutely.
Harriet Franklin, H-A-R-R-I-E-T, F-R-A-N-K-L-I-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
Yes, absolutely. My client is Delaware Valley Community Health, the owner of the property.
Delaware Valley Community Health is a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation and a federally qualified health center
that provides comprehensive primary care medical services
to communities located in both Philadelphia and Montgomery County.
All right, thank you.
Mr. Holloman has a few questions for you before you start.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Did you email all the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing?
My client did, yes.
Thank you.
please proceed and share your screen um i'm sorry but i'm not in a position to be able
to share my screen but the architect who was also on um is able to share uh share the screen her
screen um why don't we do we'll bring her on she'll share the screen you'll testify
So why don't we do? We'll bring her on. She'll share the screen. You'll testify, okay?
Well, again, I'm not really in a position to testify. I'd like her to be able to explain
the exhibits because they are the ones that prepared them.
Excuse me, ma'am. Two issues. One, because the property is owned by a nonprofit, they have to
be represented before the board by an attorney. That means the attorney needs to give the
presentation you can call witnesses but you need to be the primary driver of the presentation
um the other issue is the deed that was submitted with the exhibit packet lists the owner of the
property as spring garden health organization a different entity than you just listed so if you
could provide clarification on that point that would be appreciated thank you yes okay well i
mean if um if the if the architect can share her screen then i could try my hardest to okay sure
the documents. As far as the owner, many, many, many, many, many years ago, Spring Garden was the
owner. The Spring Garden changed its name to Philadelphia Health Services and subsequently
changed its name to Delaware Valley Community Health. So it is the same owner. I suspect that
the problem is that the deed was not updated. We have documents in the record, I believe,
And I'm deferring to Brenda Robles-Cook, who is also involved on this presentation and available to speak, has provided in the materials the copies of the changes, amended articles of incorporation over the years.
Yes, I did see those in the presentation.
Thank you for connecting the dots there because I wasn't clear on the relevance.
Thank you.
Yep, absolutely.
So at this point, what we'll have is Amanda will go through it, and you'll testify off that.
And then if we have to, you'll call Amanda later as a witness, okay?
Okay, I'll try my hardest.
Well, I think you could do fine.
Amanda, could you put up the presentation?
Yes, I'm just seeing where to share my screen here.
Okay, I see it.
All right, well, we see you, but we, okay, thank you.
It's fine.
Perfect.
All right. So we are applying. No, no, no, no, no. Amanda. She has to testify. Oh, absolutely. I'm sorry. And if she has to, she'll call you later. Okay. Thank you.
So the idea behind this exception, as I best can explain, is that the building, there's a renovation to the building to accommodate its administrative staff.
The renovation hasn't happened for many, many, many years, and as part of the renovation, there's a special exception needed for purposes of creating a rooftop deck, which will be used and limited to its employees during lunchtime and breaks during normal business hours.
It's going to be approximately 750 square feet, and again, solely used by the employees of Delaware Valley Community Health.
It was, there are currently no outdoor space for its staff of approximately 110 people, and the deck was reviewed and approved by Spring Garden Civic Association.
Exactly what's on these plans, not being an architect, I'm not in a position to explain the detail, but I think there was one, if you go to another, the next slide, Amanda, if you don't mind, I think that you can see.
well that's the okay at the very bottom i think is where the um outdoor deck will go it will it
will be in between the the two buildings which delaware valley community health now owns and
connect them um again for the staff it won't be visible from the front of the building and uh it
this and apparently meets all of the setback requirements again i apologize because i'm not
the architect i i think you're doing well okay you're fine so the basic is you're redoing the
buildings you want to build a deck that people go out to at lunchtime and things like that
exactly sit between the two other buildings that you already own yes right oh okay um and no one
will be able to see it from the front and uh you know yeah i see a setback and things like that
okay yeah yeah questions from the board
Yeah, questions from the board?
No, Chair.
Thomas?
He's there.
Here, Tom, questions from the board.
You're muted, Tom.
Tom, you're muted.
no mr chairman thank you questions or comments from our attorney hillier emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience yes chair we have three
hands up justina navarro has been allowed to speak hi could you please state your name and
spell it for the court stenography good morning good afternoon mr chair my name is justina navarro
J-U-S-T-I-N-O-N-A-V-A-R-R-O.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you live in a neighborhood?
I live actually on 15th, right around the corner.
Please proceed.
I'm in representation of the Spring Garden Civic Association, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
And we met with the applicant and we met with the architect virtually and the contractor.
They made a presentation.
The presentation was professional in nature, and the applicant answered all questions that the community had and members of the neighborhood had, as well as the zoning committee members of the project.
So as a result, we are in support of the project and we urge the panel, yourself, Mr. Chair, and the zoning board to approve the request as, to grant the request as submitted to the city today, to the ZBA today.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you for taking the time to close.
We appreciate it.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Brenda has been allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Brenda, please unmute yourself.
I'm sorry.
No, it's okay.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Brenda Robles-Cook, B-R-E-N-D-A-R-O-B-L-E-S-C-O-O-K-E.
I am. Hold on. Do you swear or affirm that tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes. Please proceed. I am the senior vice president and chief administrative officer
for this organization, and I'm here representing the owner of the property. I have been with the
organization for 28 years, along with using the use for having our staff go out. It's also a
retention um around um we have 20 vacant spots and we're hoping to get this outdoor space um to
give our staff a little bit more um offering more as a benefit to make them stay with dbch
thank you thank you thank you very much for taking this kind of calls we appreciate it
Is there anyone else in the audience?
I see no hands.
Planning Commission.
Greg, can you unmute?
Sorry.
That's okay, Greg.
It's okay.
Good afternoon.
This is Greg Walden, Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing commercial mixed-use zoning.
Proposed use will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what normally might be expected.
City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the special exception.
Thank you.
MI 2023-006-615-1412-22 Fairmount Avenue, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel. You have your votes.
Thank you very much. We really appreciate it.
Number eight.
MI 2023-007-020-508-14 Moore Street.
Darwin Beauvais is the attorney.
Also, Steve Masters is the attorney for the Protestants.
Garwin?
Darwin. Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Bovet. Could you state your name, please spell for the court
Good afternoon.
sonographer? Yes. Darwin Bovet, B-E-A-U-V, as in victory, A-I-S, as in SAM,
counsel for the applicant, 3R Ventures, LLC. I'm located at 1500 Market Street, 34th floor.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Masters, could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-E, M-A-S-T-E-R-S.
I'm here for the objectors, neighbors for responsible development.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
So before we begin, Mr. Bovee, how long do you think you need to make your presentation?
And how many witnesses do you intend to call?
Actually, I intend to call our expert first, who I just need several minutes,
and because she actually has another zoning hearing to appear in front of.
Um, then I will call Bridget Daly, who is looking, who will lead up our, our, uh, operations.
And then, uh, we do have the head of the RCO, John Disley, uh, and we have the applicants who
will actually just adopt. Mr. Beauvais, you'll make a presentation yourself too.
Yes. I intend on making the presentation. So give me, give me an idea how much time you think
you need and then i'm going to ask mr masters you know maybe just i'm trying to estimate what
what's the time of your case and that would be including mr masters crossing i know you can
answer that but give me an idea where you how much time you think you need i i can make a presentation
in less than 20 minutes with all your witnesses or yourself with with at least with the witnesses
is to discuss the operations and our expert. I think the board should note that this is not
an addition to or new construction. It is just a use variance. So we can discuss the uses
in a streamlined fashion. I think Mr. Masters and his so-called clients are just looking to just
to stop the use.
What I want to try to do
before we get into what people
may want to do is the time.
And then I'm going to ask Mr. Masters
the same thing, okay?
So what do you think?
20 minutes you think you have all your witnesses?
I can speed things up
and do it in 20 minutes.
So Mr. Masters,
he mentioned experts.
He mentions people who are going to operate.
Just try to estimate for me
what you think the time of cross would be for you uh for the cross for his experts um
just one expert well and then you have people who want to talk about the operation of the place
right and then the owners right and then also the rco head so it could i was um i was thinking about
the time for my witnesses mr chair so i'm thinking i know but i want to figure out him
first it could be 15 to 20 minutes for for across of all of of all of darwin's witnesses okay
all right um what what we're trying to figure out mr masters we know that you have five witnesses
we're trying to think if we if we're going to get to them today or not and what what i what's
the matter mr povek um one the couple of things with with that line of thinking i think in a
normal situation, I wouldn't mind. But I think I have to object to him presenting any witnesses,
especially as expert. But two, one of the reasons why we were this add-on was that
this project will not happen if we don't get a decision today. So we were just trying to figure
out what would be the best way. If the board could recall, we appeared in front of the board
on March 6th, and at the request of the councilman, we agreed to a continuance, and we did discuss
how quickly we can get back in front of the board because of our deadline. If we cannot get a
decision by the end of the month we uh that we might as well withdraw our application and that's
And that's and I hope we I don't I don't know that we're going to get to a decision today.
and and i hope we but well i