and we'll give tanya a few minutes if she needs it yes they're coming in slowly
Thank you.
okay chair I'm ready when you are
thank you good morning everyone my name is Frank DiCicco I'm the chair of the zoning board of
adjustment I'll be participating in today's hearings along with our board secretary confessor
plaza and board members Mr. Thomas Holloman and Mr. James Snell board administrator Tanya
Sunkit and Board Attorney Sharon Saleta are also in attendance. For those of you who haven't yet
participated in one of our virtual hearings, I'll go through some of the basics of what you can
expect. First, we will be administering oaths to individual participants prior to their testimony.
Second, for the benefit of anyone participating by phone, we ask that attorneys and witnesses
identify themselves prior to speaking or testifying. Third, we'd like to advise everyone
that this proceeding is being recorded and that by participating, you acknowledge your agreement
to be recorded. Fourth, for anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise
your hand by hitting star nine and then star six to unmute yourself. I'll repeat. For anyone
participating by phone. If you wish to testify, you must raise your hand by hitting star nine
and then star six to unmute yourself. Finally, to enter an appearance statement, call Google
267-270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at issue.
I'll repeat that also. To enter an appearance statement, call Google 267-270-5548 and leave
your email address and the address of the property at issue. With that said, we can begin,
but before Mr. Plaza calls our first case, we'd like to ask if anyone is requesting a continuance
or withdrawal of an appeal that to be heard this morning if so please raise your hand
and i'll have a further announcement about continuance once we get past this
i have no hands up chair okay this also was brought to my attention this morning
by Ms. Saleta that a number of city council members
may be requesting continuances.
So if there are any members of city council,
representing any members of city council,
would you please raise your hand at this time?
Chair, I do have a request from the RCO
for number two, 1407 West Grange Street
and um a letter from councilwoman best saying that she supports the request
rachel pritzker is the attorney for the applicant is rachel long
good morning good morning rachel uh you swear for him to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes please state your full name rachel r-a-c-h-a-e-l
p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r 1635 market street suite 1600 philadelphia pa 19103 you uh have you heard did
you hear sharon uh i did so we'd like to at least put our case on we have reached out to the rco and
the council office a number of times over the past couple months and not gotten anything in
return we then finally got an answer from the RCO I think was last week and
then yesterday about the continuance we've met all the posting requirements
about the continuance um we've met all the posting requirements and everything so we would
like to see if we could put the case on and then um i believe we have worked out with them a date
for an rco meeting but we've we reached out to them an incredible amount of times and don't want
to have to push this you know forward more than we have to if possible so are you suggesting that
they are aware that the continuance was going to be requested and that you were going to ask us to
go and hold here and hold we I just heard from them yesterday so we had been we had been asked
to send them documents we did we didn't get a hold of them until last week so I wasn't able to even
speak with them about any of this because they didn't respond to any of our emails and quite
frankly neither did the council office so I'm happy to have the RCO meeting but we don't want
to continue this for a couple more months given that we did everything on our end and would like
put the case on and then can happily have the community meeting you know and and within a
reasonable time period hopefully anyone from the councilwoman's office no hands okay we'll hear
the case and that will hold all right thank you mr chair any other requests for continuances or
withdrawals no hands chair thank you um let's see let me get my notes here uh all right uh
Okay, Mr. Plaza, please call the first case.
Sure. Meeting item MI 2020-000318. Address is 108 North 57th Street.
This is Sharon. Also, the attorney for this case, Joe Consol, is also the attorney on the first add-on on the list.
so I got that I'll call that next thank you thank you yeah we'll hear 57th street
north 57th street first and then we'll do the uh Sprague street after that okay
Mr. Counsel good morning good morning Mr. Counsel do you agree and wait uh do you agree
to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do and do you affirm a swear to
tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth i do and have you submitted an email
the package with the required documents including proof of ownership proof of tax compliance
a copy of the refusal or referral photos of the property in advance five days in advance of this
hearing i have thank you have you met with the rco we did meet with the rco thank you you may
put your name and address for the record please uh first of all am i sharing my my uh my zoning
packet or did i did i do that correctly yes yes great uh for the record my name is joseph
console. My address is 1 West 3rd Street, Suite 204, Media, Pennsylvania, 19063.
I'm here on meeting ID MI 2020, 000318. Property is 108 North 57th Street. That's 57th between
Arch and Sherry. The property goes straight through from 57th Street to Alden Street.
The owner is Invest Realty 2, and Representative Sidney Shaw is on this call.
It's a 1,245-square-foot property.
There is an application and a refusal for a two-family dwelling on an RSA 5-zoned property.
The zoning archive contains an application for a two-family dwelling from 2006.
There's no permit or refusal that I could find in the archive.
However, the property was turned into a two-family dwelling at that time
and occupied by two families until recently.
At some point, the property fell into disrepair.
However, my clients bought the property four years ago
and have since, let me pull it up,
been able to pull two-family rental licenses
and uh fixed the property up and had two families in the property um so we've they where is it
so there was a vacant license issued in 2015 the year they bought it they
So there was a vacant license issued in 2015, the year they bought it.
They were able to get two-unit rental licenses after they fixed it up and had rented it out.
They got those for 2017, 2018, and 2019.
In 2020, they were packaging the property for resale and figured out there was no use permit on file.
So these are all two-unit rental licenses.
uh so they uh contacted me in february we applied and um we now here here we are obviously because
of the delays that that we had um the property i've got a little bit of a floor plan and some
pictures property looks like this according to the neighbors that came to the rco meeting
The property has been a two-unit since 2006.
Some internal photos from when they were trying to package it.
And a floor plan exists up here.
We met with the RCO on July 29th.
We got unanimous support.
That letter came in this morning.
uh we sent it actually i believe the rco sent it over to you guys directly i also put a copy
into my packet which is page 36 i'm sorry
which is achievability and miss tempest carter
uh that that's really the the whole project i don't believe uh i have anything else to say
on that if there's any questions let me know witness you want to put on uh is mr sydney shaw
available putting his hand up
hello good morning sir please uh identify yourself for the record spell
your first and last name hello oh hi yes uh my name is sydney
shall we and uh i represent the uh yes it's sydney is s-i-d-n-u-y s as in sam s-i-d-n-u-y
and my last name is s as in sam h-a-u-y we're in front of tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth yes i do good morning sydney good morning
good morning joe good morning have you heard uh my testimony this morning
uh yes i just i just heard now right yes yes correct do you do you adopt that uh as your own
as representative of invest realty llc exactly on behalf of of some of my partners correct
okay great uh do you have anything you'd like to add to to this discussion regarding anything that
i said yes i just wanted to um to to to just summarize real quick um uh you know it's when
we bought the property we bought it as a two unit as when we um you know we applied for uh for rental
licenses as just joe showed you know for all the years that we owned the property always as a two
unit so uh you know we legally uh rented that as two units you know as two families you see number
number of units two right that's right there and and you if you look at the
dates that's 2017 to 2018 right so we we had this all the time so for us we
never we never thought this this could have a problem with with renting as a
two-unit and then into 2020 I don't mean to interrupt but your
your counsel has already explained that okay all right yes yes to have something new and different
fine if not we will accept his testimony thank you no that's good that's good i just wanted to
stress this point out all right thank you sir thank you thank you questions from the board no
no no anyone else wish to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
answer this time thank you planning commission good morning mr chairman and members of the board
david effecto f e c t e a u with the planning commission
you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes sir i do thank you david please proceed thank you sir mr chairman
yes sir i do thank you david please proceed thank you sir mr chairman and members of the board
this property is indicated for residential single-family use on the city's comprehensive
plan this appears to be a pre-existing duplex we do not believe that continuing this use
will have an adverse impact on the block accordingly we recommend the variants be granted
thank you mi-2020-000318 108 north 57th street my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes
my vote is yes thank you board and i'll stay on for sprake street yeah confessor we're going to
do the ad on Sprague Street next. You have that one? Yes. Okay. MI 2020 00067, I'm sorry, 0767 5625
Sprague Street. Mr. Counsel, you agree to waive the region of its refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy i do yes okay and have you submitted uh the packet your exhibit package uh with the
required documents including proof of uh ownership uh tech compliance and a copy of your refusal or
referral yes sir prior to this hearing yes sir this is a follow-up to a presentation that we put
on on september 16th gotcha okay great uh we put on the uh the presentation on september 16th uh
without having had an rco meeting uh this is uh the 12th board democratic
committee uh coordinating rco at the time told us
they could not host us um that that morning of the zba meeting
mr richardson from cindy bass's office appeared on here and stated that the
board um that that uh he would work say to the
board that he would organize an rco meeting for us
uh we heard the case um but it was to return today pending the rco meeting
Mr. Richardson and I spoke that day we emailed that day but since then I've
sent him I can't I can't tell you how many emails and calls and I haven't got
gotten any kind of response we don't believe this is a controversial
variance we're asking to I'll show you the picture to not include commercial
space on a CMX2 property in this row of properties that is all residential it's
near the intersection of East Shelton and Worcester in East Germantown.
So I have nothing to add except for my RCO information.
What was the position of the RCO?
The 12th Ward said they could not host us.
The Anthony Bass's office said that they would help, but they haven't called me or responded
to any of my calls since that day.
Thank you.
Here we have Charles Richardson.
The Richardson.
good morning good morning charles richardson councilwoman cindy bass's office
please excuse me you swear to firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do please proceed uh yeah you know i don't recall having heard from mr consul and you know
to be quite honest and we haven't received a whole lot of calls or anything along those lines
just to make sure that the record is clear. We have not received those calls or a lot of emails
other than possibly one. I cannot speak to the fact that this 12th Ward has not responded to
the request at this point in time. We will cede to the board to whatever you guys would like to do
with regard to this case but please be be clear we have not had a lot of communication back and
forth okay thank you thank you um questions from the board no no planning commission
good morning uh mr chairman david effecto with the city planning commission
this property is indicated for residential single family use on the city's comprehensive plan
We do not oppose the proposal for not including commercial space on the ground floor.
However, we would like to see a reduction in the proposed number of dwelling units.
Any recommendation on the number of units?
We would like to see it reduced to two units.
No number.
Excuse me, this is Sharon.
Do we know if there was a refusal for the number of units?
at that
mr council you're you're muted
the hi um this was not a refusal for units this is a cmx2 district
um i have the refusal refusal had to do with the commercial on the first floor
um i have the refusal refusal had to do with the commercial
yeah let me uh oh my sharing stopped let me get that back up
can you guys see that yes
okay all right um
um actually the refusal does reference the number of units um saying that three dwelling units
pardon me right yes all right i see it now okay all right we'll submit to the board's wisdom on
on on the number of units understood uh mi 2020 dash zero zero zero seven six seven
five six two five sprake street my vote is yes with proviso maximum three uh residential units
yes for proviso yes with proviso yes with proviso thank you board good luck okay
Calendar number MI2020-001230. Address is 1407R-09 West Grange Avenue.
Rachel, good morning. You agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy no so we i'm gonna have my colleague brandon saverin one moment uh do you uh submitted
the required documents uh proof of ownership tax compliance a copy of your refusal uh or referral
photos uh five days prior to this hearing yes thank you do you swear and affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes thank you um i'm gonna have my colleague so