Ma'am, please unmute yourself and please wait for the chair.
Please state your name and spell it for the court reporter.
I'm sorry, Chair.
Can I just interject for one moment, please?
In the virtual audience, is there an interpreter for this applicant?
Please raise your hand if so.
Okay, you can go forward, Luz.
Monique.
Monique, please state your name and spell it for the court reporter.
Luz, I know I'm.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Vice Chair, do you have questions?
Oh, I'm sorry.
This is Tanya again, if I could interject.
I believe Luz was asking for a continuance.
Luz, are you still doing that?
And could you state the reason for your continuance?
Yes, I request for the continuous case because I am not ready with the lounge to represent today.
Okay. So, Chair, she had previously asked for continuance in the Q&A, and I was waiting for her case to come up. So, as you wish, if you're going to grant the continuance.
Excuse me, this is Sharon. Can I get her to Ms. Anoa? Can you confirm that you are the property owner?
Yes, I'm the property owner.
And your name is shown on the deed as an individual?
No, no. The deed is in my company name.
and you understand that that means you would have to be represented by an attorney
at the next year thank you thank you this is the reason i need the
the continued case because the the lounge leo leo the uncontracted the the lounge leo
is the name and today he is not not can represent okay so cheers a couple things i believe we need
to have um the attorney as well as an interpreter um in the next session if you agree to continue
this case i agree to continue the case and we should look for an interpreter okay lose you can
reach out to the RCO email box or to Tanya.Sunkett at Philly.gov for any questions about this matter
being rescheduled, okay? Thank you. All right, bye-bye. MI 2021-002286-5346-Angora-Turris,
Joanne Hemingway
no exhibits
first listing
Chair we have Shoshana
Bricklin would you like to hear from her
Ms. Bricklin
please unmute yourself and please wait for the chair
you can promote her she's an attorney
she's coming back as a panel
morning state your name and spell and and spell it for the court reporter please
good morning uh shoshana brickland s-h-o-s-h-a-n-a the last name is brickland b-r-i-c-k-l-i-n
i am the attorney for um the applicant on 5345 angora street right i believe you had the packet
no wait a minute first do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth uh yes i do and um miss brickland can you this is sharon saletta can you tell me um
when it was submitted and whether I was copied?
I can't tell you that offhand. The person I work with, Patrick Jones, who I believe you're all familiar with, was in a car accident morning. So he's usually the one who shares all these documents.
I can't tell you that offhand.
The person I work with,
i have them available to share with some um but i'm i'm not so technically expert as mr jones is
and i do have the applicant with me but i'm hearing that you don't have any of these
documents um at all i don't personally but if we could move this back one case i will talk with
and see if the rco mailbox received them thank you and the and that we do have the rco i think
believes has sent the letter in support. So we have everything. Okay, Ms. Brooklyn, I'm going to
ask you to turn your video and audio off and we'll move forward in another case. We'll check
and make sure we have the documents before you can go forward. Thank you so much. All right,
please hold on all right and my 20 21 00 2902 617 locust street no rco letter on file ryan bowlin
esquire mr bowlin is coming back in as a panel
Good morning.
Good morning.
And could you say your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Ryan Boland, R-Y-A-N, B as in boy, O-L-A-N-D, 1801 Market Street, Philadelphia, PH19102.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
The vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good morning.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
I see that you have submitted most of what is needed, but we don't have an RCO letter to date.
Excuse me, Madam Vice Chair, I received a message from Charles Richardson that we did get a last-minute submission of the RCO letter.
Thank you.
Okay, great.
So we do have an RCO letter, and you may proceed.
Terrific.
So my name is Ryan Boland. I'm here. I represent the applicant Apex Hospitality Group. And I'm also here. I'll be having the architect Lee Elsie briefly take you through the plans. And I'm here with the owner. Before I take you through the presentation, I just want to give you a really quick background.
So we've had two meetings with the RCO here, which is Faith, the Community Development Corporation.
We had a four to two vote in favor of this project.
What we're seeking to do is take a longstanding vacant corner property, which had a variance back in 1951 for a three-family.
We're seeking to gut this dump of a house and turn it back into a three-family house.
and there'll be a one-bedroom unit on the first floor
that the owner is going to live in.
Excuse me, counsel.
Do you have some pictures?
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, I can.
I'll share the screen in a moment.
And then it's just going to be a two-bedroom unit
on the second, two-bedroom on the third.
Let me just share my screen.
So I'll take you through some pictures here.
So as you see, I'll just have up here first, the first document here is the refusal.
And as you'll see, this is a multifamily, and one of the things we're doing is we're
going to add a trash room off the back.
Here's the photographs.
So here's just the general area where it is.
It's in East Germantown Avenue.
This isn't Locust Street in Center City. There's another image of it. Here it is. It's the one on
the right here. As you can see, corner property. Here you can also see it. It has very tall ceilings.
The basement level is actually mostly above ground, and we're not planning on having any
dwelling units, although it's mostly above ground. It's just going to be mechanicals and
shared laundry. Here it is from the back, as you can tell, the building's falling apart. You have
the brick pointing, and there's actually ferns growing off the side. Here you can see it from
the side here. This is it right here. There's a shared little alleyway in the rear as well.
Here's just images across the street, looking at some of the houses. Here's looking down the street,
looking at some of the houses. Here's looking down the street, another one across the street,
another one across the street.
and here it is here, and you can see what the other houses on the block look similar to it.
And so here, the hardship here, and I'll have the architect take you through the plans,
But the hardship here relates to the condition of the building, the nature of the building.
It has two front doors.
As you can see here, there's a front door here and a front door here.
The first front door takes you up to the second and third floors.
So this is a large family.
It's already set up as a multifamily.
As I said, it's in terrible condition.
And if I could have Lee Elsie raise his hand to walk the board through the plans very briefly.
d esley you've been unmuted thank you good morning you state could you state your name
and spell it for the court reporter sure lee lc l-e-e-e-l-s-e-y do you swear or firm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank you
okay so sorry off to the plan right you can see east locust street plan north you can see stokes
street so we're a corner lot we've got two frontages uh which allows lots of windows into
the building off to the the the left side you can see the rear with a rear easement that allows
extra access and then you can see we're attached towards locust street with a building directly
plan south and then there's a little side yard which is common among these houses. The top plan
here is the first floor. You enter through a covered porch which allows two doors. The door
to plan south takes you directly into unit one. Unit one is roughly 600 square feet. It's one bed
one bathroom. Back to the covered porch, the door to the north takes you to a shared stairway that
goes up to Units 2 and 3 on the second and third floor, respectively, as well as down to the cellar
level. Cellar level, you can see we've got meters, mechanical equipment, common laundry equipment,
and storage space thanks ryan headed up to floors two and three floor two on the bottom
we've got a two bedroom uh one bath that's 775 square feet you can see we've got a bedroom in
the front bedroom in the rear lots of light coming in through multiple windows and a projecting bay
is in a, you know, decent sized living area in the middle. As you, as you circle around the stairs,
you proceed up to the third floor, which is unit three, 800 square feet, two beds,
two baths, very similar layout to unit two. Terrific. Thank you, Lee. And I'll just continue
just briefly walking you through. I won't go through all of the documents we submitted. We
have the deed, tax clearance, photographs, posting. I just wanted to show you at least
the zoning records here that in 1951 there was a variance here for a three-family, 1951.
three-family. Full disclosure, there is a permit in 1971 saying this was converted back to
a two-family. I also have at the end here, I have records from the house eight doors down.
It's the corner unit on the other end of the block. That was granted a variance by the zoning
board in December of 2017. Nearly identical property. And here's the Atlas record here,
601 locust 12 2017 this was a three family and that one actually has a door going into the
basement and has the basement living um and i'll present to you that um pursuant to um the well
established case law such as um vd versus the zba of the city of philadelphia the city of pittsburgh
when you have a dilapidated building such as this this building's in terrible condition
I'll have my client confirm that there should be a slight relaxation of the variance criteria.
And this building, according to the city's records, has been vacant since at least 2012.
My client recently bought it.
And we want to put this building in good use.
And the way to do it economically is to make it back into a three-family.
the way to do it economically is to make it back into a three-family.
If Peters, Peño, Pierre, Louis can raise his hand, please.
He's coming back in as a panelist.
please state your name and spell it for the court reporter sir
good morning chair good morning members of the board my first name is peters
the name pierre lewis uh middle name penneau last name pierre lewis um
you want me to spell it yeah could you please sure first name p-e-t-e-r-s
Another name is P-E-N-O
Last name P-I-E-R-R-E
Hyphen L-O-U-I-S
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Did you hear the testimony I gave today and see the exhibits I presented to the board?
Yes, I have.
Are they true, correct, and accurate, and do you adopt them as your own?
And briefly, can this project work as a two-family?
As a two-family, it's quite difficult due to the amount of work, what I pay for it, and the mortgage wouldn't be a bit of covered because doing the math as a two-family,
I could probably rent, if I have it as a three or four bedroom, the most I get is like $1,300,
$1,500. So then downstairs, I could probably get $750 or $8 to that price or maybe $900 max.
So that's going to be very tight in terms of making the mortgage. Let's say if someone wasn't
able to go upstairs or wasn't able to make the payment, then I would be on hold to basically
make that $2,600 a month type of payment. So the best feasible is to have the first
bedroom, which I'm in the first unit, which I'm going to be owner-occupied, which let's say was
800 hours and then the other two between 900 to 1100 that would be more feasible um to basically
manage this um this property terrific terrific um and and do the members of the board have any
questions for the owner questions for the from the board no mr chairman no questions
comments from the virtual audience
see no hands chair planning commission thank you mr chair ian haggerty for the philadelphia city
planning commission members of the board the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
existing single family zoning for this property however the proposed use does correspond to a
documented prior use of the structure the city planning commission recommends that the board
grant the variance. MI 2021 002902 617 Locust Street. I vote yes. Carol Tineri, my vote is yes.
Professor Plaza, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you. Chair, going back to number 18, Angora Terrace,
i have looked through both of my email accounts i found no exhibits and i think miss sunkett can
you confirm that you weren't able to find the exhibits either actually we yes we did find the
exhibit package i am sending it to you now if we could again here move forward to the next case
yeah so mr letter can review this i also have the letter that was sent to us as well okay i'll send
that now. Okay. Thank you. MI 2021 002903 6724 North Smedley Street. RCO letter in opposition.
Lenandra Hanfield.
Ms. Hanfield is coming back in as a panelist. Thank you.
WOULD YOU STATE YOUR NAME AND SPELL IT FOR THE COURT REPORTER, PLEASE?