Allison okay now try speaking Ms. Weiss just talked
Planning Commission
Good afternoon board Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission
this property is indicated for single family residential use in the comprehensive plan
it is clear from the materials submitted by the applicant that the property has a history
of being used as a multi-family property we do not feel that the property proposed use would
have an adverse impact on the surrounding community accordingly we have no objection
to the granting of the variances for use and parking thank you mi-2020 this is um sharon
saletta i know ms weiss has emailed about this case if she would like to put something on the
record she can call me and i will put her on speaker phone tanya do you have any way of
what's that sharon of contacting miss weiss no okay
do you want me to try her i have her look like she hung up
so she's probably going to call you okay so she hung up
i'm happy to try and call her as well well we're not going to hold this case up
I mean, with all due respect, we have other cases to hear.
I appreciate your offer, but...
and they sent the letter right yes ma'am so we're good
And they sent the letter, right?
Yes, ma'am.
So we're good.
okay thank you all right mi-2020-000799 160 manheim street my vote is yes um she's calling
right now my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes allison are you there
Yeah, I'm here.
They just voted the case?
Yeah, I'm the only license that was on record that we had access to had single-family rentals.
I hear what she's saying, and she's not under oath.
Maybe you can have a conversation with her, Sharon.
I will.
Yes, I'll do that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next case.
You're welcome.
Medium item MI 2020, 001009, 809 Diamond Street.
Attorney is Jeffrey Young.
What number is that, Professor?
The first one on the 330 list.
Mr. Young, you have been promoted to a panelist.
You can share your screen and unmute yourself and wait to be sworn in.
Great. Can everyone hear me?
Yes, and I believe you've already been sworn in, Mr. Young.
Thank you.
Yes. Good afternoon.
You have some other questions. Confessor?
Yes. You agree to wait the reading of his refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
yes have you emailed an exhibit packet within with the required documents proof of ownership
proof of tact compliance copy of the refusal or referral photos and plans five days in advance
of this hearing so the exhibit packet was emailed i'm not sure if it was received
okay it was received it was received i don't believe until yesterday but it was received
okay okay have you met with the rco and have a letter yes we have met with the rco and have
a letter of non-opposition okay mr chair
mr young you're swearing we're a sworn man he's sworn in already yeah yes please proceed
Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the board. Again, Jeffrey Young, 3900 Ford Road, Suite B, Philadelphia PA, 19131. I'm here today representing the applicant, 800 Diamond LLC.
800 Diamond LLC owns the subject property located at 809 West Diamond Street and 811-13
West Diamond Street. On or about May 12th, the applicant filed an application with L&I
seeking to consolidate the lot lines for the properties to develop 11 multifamily apartment
units. Three refusals were generated and I will go through those refusals in a
second. Here are the D's for the property.
The next slide should be the Philadelphia tax clearance. And here is
an overlay of the zoning for the property. The property is located on the northwest corner of
Darien and Diamond Street in North Philadelphia section of the city, and the property is currently
zoned as CMX2, which, as we all know, is a commercial mixed-use zoning district.
Now, if you take a look here at the map, you see everything in the orange is a residential
multifamily. And everything in this light pink color here is CMX2. And our property is where
this black arrow is, situated on the northwest corner. As you can take a look here from Germantown
Avenue pretty much to the east, to 10th Street, to the west, most of the north side of Diamond Street
is zoned with the CMX2 classification. However, there are very, very little commercial uses
on this stretch of Diamond Street. This stretch of Diamond Street is primarily residential
outside of your traditional bodega corner store.
um outside of your traditional um bodega corner store which primarily are
situated on the south side of diamond street
again as i mentioned the proposal is to uh to build 100 residential use for 11 units
as you can see from the rendering uh the design combines traditional red brick
of the neighborhood with some modern elements um by right uh the applicants are able to build
uh six units um however i'm trying to conform uh the project with the neighborhood
has generated our refusals.
The, again, three refusals were generated by Illinois.
The first refusal was issued after the department determined
that a residential use on the ground floor is prohibited
in CMX2 zoning districts.
the second refusal was generated because the department determined that only six
residential units could be built on the site without the requested relief
and the third refusal was issued regarding the proposed open space
of the development uh lni has determined uh that we do not meet the the open space uh requirement
here. So I'm going to discuss the project. Again, so the project, we're asking for 11
multifamily units. The unit will consist of, excuse me, on the first floor through basement
level one by level two-bedroom unit in the first floor uh rear there's two-bedroom two-bathroom
units and from floors two through four there will be two-bedroom two-bathroom there'll be
one two-bedroom two-bathroom units excuse me and two one-bedroom one-bathroom units
uh here shows the breakdown um i can zoom in if there are any questions of the breakdown
on what the unit sizes are but you can zoom in that would be helpful yes
large moment to swing yeah yes I will zoom in here should be one unit will be
about the first floor units will be about a thousand square feet and the two
bedroom units will be about 700 square feet i will scroll down the floor plan on the right is on the
left excuse me is the first floor plan um and on the right or floors two through four i'm have the
same design i'm going to scroll back out here just going to show you some pictures of the property
Currently, the property is a vacant lot. There previously was a church on 811-13 that was
dilapidated, underused, floors collapsing, roof collapsing, so there was no potential rehab or
use of that particular building. The property at 809 was previously abandoned property owned by
the Philadelphia Housing Authority here you can see this is the current view of
the property again it's a vacant lot the previously these are the previous
structures on the property as you can see a boarded up property at 809 was
Philadelphia Housing Authority was not using and again a church here that was
underutilized with major damage to give you a feel for the neighborhood this
neighborhood has a lot of vacancies and therefore as is right for development as
you can see in this picture there's new construction going on this is the this
is Darien Street looking north this is also Darien Street to the north of our
project um with uh 9th street looking straight through this vacant lot here
this is the south side of diamond street this is directly across the street uh from our uh property
and this is the south uh excuse me south west southeast corner um of eighth
and diamond this is the eighth and diamond playground um and also the
um and also the another property across the street from ours is the uh a neighborhood deli
again more vacancies in the neighborhood this is directly to the east of our property
uh more vacancy in this this neighborhood this neighborhood um is pretty much blighted and is
of need of some major uh redevelopment um in order to to be sustainable and so support um you know
the city services and things as such here's an overview of the neighborhood uh if you look to
the left you'll see a yellow star that is where our property is um and if you can see much of the
green that's here again just to give a picture of the amount of mass vacancy in this neighborhood
and the amount of development it would take to get this neighborhood back to a productive use.
Here is a property that is directly south, one block south of our project,
just to give a sense of the size and scale of the types of development
that are coming to this particular neighborhood.
This is on Darien and Norris, which is exactly one block south of our project.
here is a property that is three blocks away at 11 in sesquahanna again showing you the size
um and scale of the types of development that is happening in this particular neighborhood
um our proposal is not um outside of the the size um and scale um of this particular neighborhood
and here is a view of the front of that particular building again our trash will be stored in the
basement as well as a bicycle storage our client is committed to building
affordable housing the neighborhood this is a rendering of project that our
client is building I'm at 11th and diamond in this particular neighborhood
also on the 1900 block 2000 block 2100 block of North 8th Street they're
currently developing 30 affordable housing units and currently have more
affordable housing units in this neighborhood then they have market rate units in this neighborhood
um so my client is committed to developing in this neighborhood not just market rate units
but also affordable housing units um as well
and you know with that um i in my presentation and ask the board do they have any questions
do you have any witnesses mr young uh yes um the one of the principals uh max krankel
oh could you please uh identify yourself spell your name for the record and give us your address
max you can unmute yourself and wait to be sworn in perfect
all right max please again uh spell your name first and last name for the record
max frankel m-a-x-f-r-a-n-k-e-l uh 1401 spruce street apartment 1306 philadelphia pa 19102
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank you please proceed mr young
Max have you heard my testimony I have can you stipulate to the accuracy of my testimony
it is 100 accurate do you adopt my testimony as your own I do thank you Mr. Chair thank you
uh any questions from the board no that's true anyone else wish to testify in this case if so
please raise your hand no hands sure thank you planning commission good
afternoon board Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission these properties are
zoned for commercial mixed-use the applicant has not demonstrated a
sufficient hardship for the ground floor commercial additionally we feel the
density of the residential component represents an overuse of the property
accordingly we object to the granting of the variances for use open space and
height thank you mr chair may i uh address the the height issue we are not refused for height
um on this particular project um our only refusals are for the use of the properties
um i understand the planning commission may say uh feel that it's an overuse um however if you
look at this particular neighborhood um commercial uses are not viable on this diamond street um
Quarter so all we're asking is to replace the commercial uses that are required on the first floor with a hundred percent residential uses
Which match the entire neighborhood primarily so noted. Thank you
MI-2020-0014
mi-2020-001406 809-13 diamond street my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes
my vote is yes thank you mr chair that clues my business i may excuse yes you may have a good
have a good day thank you okay uh meeting item mi 2020-000702 3401 tampa street
this is Sharon um we didn't receive exhibits for that Mr. DeMarco is listed as the attorney
but he he was unfamiliar with the case if you could continue it he's going to look into it
Yeah, because earlier you said I'm done for the day. I was curious. Okay. MI-2020-000702, 3401 Tampa Street is continued.
Okay. Medium item MI-2020-001-214-531-Live Z Street.
that is l-i-v-e-z-e-y street mr black you've been promoted to a panelist
you can share your screen as necessary and wait to be sworn in okay we're can you hear me okay yes
okay good evening sir uh you swear to affirm to tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but
the truth yes i do uh and do you agree to waive the reading of his refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy yes i do okay have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents proof of
ownership proof of tax compliance copy of the refusal or referral photos and plans five days
in advance of this year yes yes i have okay it was only one thing if i can comment the letter
from the RCO, they forgot to do it, and she sent it to me on Saturday with an oops, oops.
No problem.
Did you meet with the RCO, though?
Yes, I met with them.
I have the minutes.
This is Sharon.
I can confirm that we received a letter from the RCO, and they support the application.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Can you please identify yourself for the record?
William Black, 507 Old Forge Road Media PA.
Would you like me to spell?
W-I-L-L-I-A-M, Black, B-L-A-C-K, 507 Old, O-L-D, Forge, F-O-R-G-E, Road, Media, M-E-D-I-A, P-A, 19063.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Okay, we are going to begin by sharing screen.
What would you like to share?
so who's presenting who's presenting uh my daughter's helping me on a computer
i'm uh i'm not that familiar with it so she's just no problem neither am i
so you can present and she can do the screen yeah she's not going to say anything i'll tell
you what comes up on the screen all right mr black thank you okay uh just to start off i'm
not a lawyer and after listening to these meetings i don't know maybe i should have gotten a lawyer
But it's a family house that has been in our possession since the early 40s.