Well, we already got the letter from the RCO today.
So, I mean, if the board wants to have discussion in an executive session and vote later, that's fine.
But I don't think we need to keep the record open anymore because we already received the letter.
Well, then we'll vote.
I mean, if we're going to close the record, we'll vote and use what's there.
Okay, sounds good.
MI 2021-003-957-3440 North 18th Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Revised plans, one-page, stamped by ZBA on July 20th, 2022.
Also, no basement living, no bathroom in basement, no bay windows, trash stored in basement, garbage disposal in all units.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes with provisos.
did you say if the maximum four units or no i'm sorry maximum four units i'm sorry okay
thomas toloman my vote is yes with provisos
james snell yes with provisos
mr knockinson you're so long yeah i mean the only thing i would say mr chair the only
unit that has access to the basement is the first floor so um that provides i know but what i'm
saying that's the last thing she sent us and she spelled it out pretty clear in the letter i i don't
she spelled it out pretty clear in the letter i i don't know what more to say
know what more to say okay
okay uh number nine mi 2022 002 129 44 30 chestnut street mr knockamson
letter from spruce hill community association indicated an agreement with applicant proviso
maximum three units. Could you identify your client, please? Yes, my client is Bae Ling and
Song Chang Chang. Okay, and our vice chair has a few questions. Hi, Mr. Nockmson. Do you agree
to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. Have you emailed the exhibit
packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under
plans to the property five days in advance of this hearing have you met with the rco and do
you have a letter uh yes we do and as the i believe the chairman indicated uh we would request a
proviso maximum three units yes that's that's correct you may proceed and begin with sharing
your screen all right thank you sure
Alright, so we're here to present 4430 Chestnut Street, a pretty straightforward project. This is on the 4400 block of Chestnut Street, which is a somewhat commercial corridor, you know, and that's the issue. We've been in front of this CBA before, really need to help support this commercial corridor by increasing density for this portion of the neighborhood.
A few years ago, this property was actually an RM1 property, and my client purchased it as an RM1 property, anticipating to have multifamily living here.
And this variance request is to legalize that use.
So we'll go over the notice of refusal, the correspondence from the Spring Hill Community Association.
As an accommodation, instead of having the four units, by the way, one of our units is vacant.
So having four units that we currently have with one of them being vacant, we agreed to change our plans and have only three units and to combine one of the units as a larger unit for someone else with a family in the community.
We have letters to support from nearby neighbors, including the property owner right next door to us.
I have the listing, which indicates that this is an RM1 property, along with unrelated zoning permits for nearby properties, just showing that this was RM1.
There's no permits of record for our property on Atlas in any respect, showing that this was an RM1 property at one point.
But I have nearby properties just to confirm that this was an RM1 portion of the neighborhood.
um then we would we're going to go over photographs of the 4400 block of chestnut
street showing that nearby rsa 5 multifamily properties maps of the area photographs of the
property in the surrounding area our plans and drawings our rco meeting notice our application
for appeal that we filed with the cba our d to the property and our certificate of tax clearance
along with miss lee one of the owners of the property who's in a virtual audience who's going
to evaluate testimony.
Notice refusal, this is now an RSA-5 property.
When they purchased it, it was an RM-1 property.
Unfortunately, they went through that transition
and they're here today to legalize it.
It's a significant size lot of 2,200 square feet.
Again, if this remained an RM-1 property,
they would be allowed five units as a white.
Cars by minutes from the Spruce Hill Community Association
i would say that they gave a rather fair form um obviously you know there's a you know a friction
between you know what it was and what they want it to be but i feel like they came to a fair
accommodation understanding that we detrimentally relied on the zoning when we purchased the
property but on the flip side of how they see their you know neighborhoods going forward so
three units i believe was a fair compromise under the circumstances and that's why they
issue that letter of support and that's why we ask that if this board is so inclined to grant
our variance request they would do with a proviso maximum three units and then letters of support
from nearby property owners as you can see 4428 chestnut street next door supports our project
4414 chestnut street as well and then just a you know a listing i try to find something online to
kind of verify you know what we're talking about as you can see i just put it in red i took this
off the internet, but I highlighted in red, this property was advertised zoned RM1.
i highlighted red this property was advertised zoned rm1 and then just again just zoning
permits not ours but neighboring properties 4432 you can see in 2017 this was an rm1 property
nearby same block and same thing with 4428 RM1 in 2012 and then in 2016 4420 also known as RM1
and then nearby properties that do have multi-family use 4412 Chestnut Street
and then also the backup data 4418 chestnut street again the backup data and 4428 chestnut street
again the use permit and then our zoning map here yes we are yellow um and there's yellow on the
other block as well but you can see we're in the commercial corridor in west village and here we
are and you can see we're on uh chestnut street and there is much activity there the photographs
of the property um one of the things to highlight is that because of how the property slope not
there's no uh underground uh living everything's above grade chestnut street to the right of the
property chestnut street to the left of the property we do have one parking spot in the rear
but you can see the the entrance uh one of the units is in the rear and it's above great
and then our plans and drawings uh you have uh the one unit where there's there's an entrance
actually was two ways you could go to the rear but there's also steps in the front which i didn't
point out the first time when we went to the photos they come down uh and that is a one bedroom
one bath on the first floor then you go up to the front of the property up the porch and that's
i mean i guess that's the lower level but this is uh the first floor level one and that is a two
bedroom uh three bath and that's where we're combining the two units from the level one and
level two and then there's the third floor or level three which is a one bedroom one bath
and then our meeting notice our last meeting was june 15th we met with this community on
multiple occasions and we they also had a site visit as well to confirm the site conditions of
the property and i don't know barry grossback or brett feldman are in the virtual audience
those are the representatives we dealt with with this community organization that can verify the
site conditions 106 addresses were notified of this community meeting with the addresses
proof of mailing our application for appeal
our notice of refusal our project information form and our deed to the property
and our certificate of tax companies with that being said i'm going to unshare my screen
I'm going to ask that Ms. Lee virtually raise her hand to adopt my testimony.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Good afternoon. This is Bailing Lee, B-A-I-L-I-N-G, and last name L-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Yes. Ms. Lee, you heard everything I stated today.
And is it true and correct?
And do you adopt as your own testimony?
And do you agree to the community's request to limit the amount of units to three?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Jim.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no handshare.
planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg waldman planning
commission staff in 2017 the zoning map was amended from residential multi-family single-family
residential at this location and the council led remapping the planning commission supported
however the proposed multi-family is consistent with adjacent and nearby properties on the block
including 4428 Chestnut Street, which has three units, same unit count that has been proposed
to this property in the revised plans. The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning
Board grant the variance. Thank you. MI 2022-002-129-4430 Chestnut Street. I vote yes.
Maximum proviso of three units. Carol Tenere, my vote is yes with proviso.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thomas Hollowman.
James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We're going to do one more case and then we'll take a quick five-minute break, okay?
And then we'll start the 3.30 list.
MI 2021-003-712-4628, Wayne Avenue.
Rachel Pritzker is the attorney.
Letter from 13th Ward in support with revised plan for three units.
Good afternoon.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yep, it's Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, 1521 Locust Street, Street 605, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yeah, my client is Ram, Phila Community 3 LLC. I was the owner of the property.
All right, our vice chair has a few questions.
Hey, Rachel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance,
refusal, referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing,
and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter? Yes. Thank you. You may proceed
and begin sharing your screen.
Thank you.
Can you see my screen?
Just about. Here it is.
This is 4628 Wayne Avenue.
We have the refusal in front of you.
And as I mentioned, I represent Ramfilla Community 3 LLC,
which is the owner of the property.
The project was proposed for the erection of an attached structure for use as multifamily household living for six dwelling units with two accessory off street surface parking spaces, one of which was van accessible.
We received five refusals for the project. The plans have been revised and submitted to the board that will eliminate a few of these.
And I'll just kind of go through what we are proposing and what has been changed.
Basically, this is a 2,694 square foot property located on Wayne Avenue and the corner of Abbotsford.
It was given refusals for multifamily use for an attached building, dimensional refusal for surface parking,
dimensional refusal for proposing no yard along the side street and for not providing enough
parking spaces, even though surface parking is not permitted. We have a history on this property
where basically for the last 75 years, the property has been at least five units. It has
never had single family use on this lot since at least 1945, where it obtained a variance for four
units and then after that five units over a commercial space um and adjacent to this structure
at 46 26 wayne avenue also has four multi-family for four units and most of uh the 4600 block
and across the street are all multi-family i think directly across the street is also rm1
which would make this project by right again this is almost a 3 000 square foot lot 2 694
for the longstanding history of multifamily, in addition to, again, this being on Wayne Avenue.
I do believe at the last hearing we had, as this was a continuance, the Planning Commission,
oh no, actually, I think I reached out to the Planning Commission who mentioned that they had
targeted this block for RM1, given its location on Wayne Avenue, and that had we been remapped to
RM1 at the six units we originally proposed would have been by right. Again, Wayne Avenue is a
commercial corridor and so we do believe that multi-family is appropriate to help support
the goals of the plan increase housing and things like that in addition to providing for rm1 which
is something that the city had indicated i would like to see on this block as a result of the
meetings that we had with the community which i'm about to bring up those notice again as the board
can see it's also a corner most of the block is on rta1 which is a two-family use and across the
as you can see in the orange at multiple pieces
of Wayne Avenue are zoned RM1,
which would permit this type of use by right.
This is just aerial photos of the lot. This is the front photo with the zoning posters.
This is just air.
This is the corner of Wayne Avenue and Abbotsford here.
Different shot of it from the side. As the board can see, it's a very pretty large lot
compared to Abbotsford. But again, we'd be able to support multifamily given the size
and location. Although we did receive a refusal for multifamily, we were able to work with the
community group, which was the 13th Democratic Board, in order to get support from them. We had
met with them January 6th and a few other subsequent meetings in which they had changed
their position from opposition to support with proviso reduction of three units and the removal
of the parking spaces which we had changed as well. I believe we have Jimmy Hare from Design
Blends Architecture who can go through the architectural plans or maybe Scott Murphy
in the audience who can go through our plans and again we did submit a proviso plan form
reducing it with support for three units with no parking on the site.
who do you want to come on our architect uh is jimmy hair in the audience
mr here is coming back in as a panelist okay thank you
i could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter
jimmy are you there yeah sorry about that i'm here could you state your name and spell for
the court reporter yeah my name is james harrah h-a-r-r-e right do you swear or firm to tell
truth the whole truth is nothing but the truth i do thank you counsel yeah jimmy can you please
go through the revised plans and also if you could also explain to the board just dimensionally based