to the back where you know you have 4498 livingston is premises d 4498 living 98 and a half livingston
is c somehow a built a warehouse was put in the back that spans both properties so what we're
trying to do is basically cut it into three yeah kind of two three okay okay other questions
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, I have a hand up from a number ending in 4500.
I have allowed them to speak.
Why, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yeah, Greg Palmier, G-R-E-G-T-A-U-L-M-I-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I affirm.
Greg, are you a neighbor?
I'm here for the Midvale Avenue zoning issue.
Greg, we're not there yet.
We're sold this one case.
You'll hear it when I get to that case, okay?
But thank you, and we'll get to you shortly.
Any other questions or comments?
I do not see any further answers, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman, and good evening.
David Fechtow with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA 5,
residential single-family zoning at this location.
The city last rezoned Bridesburg in 1970.
The appellant received a letter of MAP amendment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
removing the property from the special flood hazard area.
The appellant requests dimensional variances for three proposed lots.
The appellant proposes a lot adjustment that would result in three non-conforming lots.
The proposed lot adjustment would not have a negative impact on surrounding properties,
and the duplex is legally non-conforming.
The City Planning Commission recommends the board grant a proposed use and dimensional variances.
MI 2024-007-294-4498 Livingston Street. I vote yes. Proviso. Permended refusal dated 2-25-25.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Tannetta Graham, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ty Owen, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nockamson.
Thank you.
Sorry you were here, sir.
number 12 mi 2024 007 038 1000 to 32 chestnut street rachel pritzker is the attorney
there's unanimous non-opposition from washington square
letter of non-opposition from command council member squilla
good afternoon good evening yeah good evening you're right all right could you please state
your name and spell it for the court stenographer sure it's rachel r-a-c-h-a-e-l pritzker p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r
you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes you agree to the
a reading of the refusal, and do you agree with its accuracy? Yes. Okay. Why don't you share your
screen and proceed? Could you identify your client also? Yeah. My client is John Betts.
His entity is the licensee for Starbucks, which is the tenant of this property, which is owned
by Jefferson. And this is the case you had a couple of months ago. Am I right? No, this is
the signage. No, no, no. I said, but then you do the Starbucks inside. I did. And this is for the
sign. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, exactly right. And I'm going to keep this very, very brief.
Okay. Can you see my screen? Okay. Awesome. So this is a CMX five property, a thousand to 32
Chestnut Street. As mentioned, this is just for one sign on the property. It's a blade sign or
projecting sign on the 11th Street side of the property. Because of the location in the center
city commercial area, as you can see on the refusal, this sign is prohibited except on
properties facing Market Street between Front and Fifth Street. This has been already approved by
the historic sorry not historic art commission pending zoning board of adjustment approval so
we do have our commission approval for this as well as the other by right signs
this basically and as you can see just on the refusal this board has approved other signs that
have been you know needing a variance as well so it's not out of character and there's plenty of
other signs on this block like at the taco bell across the street that have a projecting or a
blade sign. I'm going to skip down to page 98. Most of this packet includes the lease, which
takes up the majority of the documents. But just to give you a feel, this is CMX 5. This is a
Jefferson building, takes up the entire city block. And where the Starbucks is located
is basically on the corner of Chestnut Street. Here's a sort of front view of the building
with the zoning posters it's the gibbon building
and the need for the blade sign is really because given the size
And the need for the blade sign is really because given the size and scale of this, the other signage kind of all over the building and the one to help pedestrian traffic to locate the Starbucks, given the long apron on the 11th Street side, a small blade sign with the Starbucks logo emblem just helps identify the location of it and is also in character for every Starbucks you see around the country.
So we were amenable with the Art Commission to not put one on Chestnut Street, but they were supportive of one on 11th Street.
And here's just the part in the code that says you can't have these signs without a variance where we located them.
We met with the Washington Square Civic Association back in January 28th, and they issued us a letter of non-opposition.
There were 12 votes not opposed to the sign.
They also supported our application when we went for the variants for the Starbucks.
This is also Councilman Mark Squilla's letter of non-opposition as well.
I have our sign designer, Max Major, on if we can have him go through the signs, or I
can show these and bring them on if the board has questions, whatever you prefer.
Why don't you show us, and then if we have questions, we'll bring them on.
So this is just, again, the sign.
This is on the 11th Street side.
It's the C where you see just the Starbucks emblem.
If you've been to any Starbuckses in the country, they have just this small blade sign.
Again, on the 11th Street side, it's just where the apron is for the back side of the building.
So it just makes it more easily identifiable.
The other Starbucks signs are by right, and they've already been approved.
So literally just that sign.
It's just showing the location of it.
Just again, it's a very large building.
So on 11th Street is where we wanted to just have some additional signage to make it easy for pedestrians, people in the building, anybody passing by, employees to be able to see.
And here's just the, if you can see on the right here is just where the sign is going to be in comparison to the 11th Street sign in Chestnut Street.
And this is just a closer up version of what that sign looks like and the dimensions of it.
this is the interior so we're getting started on on that um other than that i have nothing else to
add um and we didn't have any opposition for this project i'm happy to bring john
bets on who's um the tenant for this when i bring him on and he'll got my testimony
is there a john betts in the audience there we go they're coming back in as a panelist now okay thank
you mr best could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer yes sir uh john
Betz, J-O-H-N, B-E-T-Z.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Please proceed, counsel.
John, have you heard my testimony today? Do you believe it to be true and accurate, and do you adopt it as your own?
Yes, Rachel.
That's all, Chairman.
Questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
i do not see any further answer mr chair planning commission thank you chairman and good evening
david effector with the city planning commission chairman and board members the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the cmx5 commercial mixed use zoning at this location the proposed
projecting sign is in keeping with the character of the other buildings on this block face the city
planning commission recommends that the board grant the proposed used variants for a projecting
the sign. Thank you.
MI 2024-007-038-1032
Chestnut Street, I vote yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you, counsel.
Thank you very much, everybody. Have a great night.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. Number seven,
MI 2024-005-790-3625
North 16th Street.
Olak Sokoloff is the attorney.
unanimous opposition seven votes over two meetings from the 13th ward RCO
RCO would be okay with two units
we're coming back in as a panelist now Mr. Chair okay thank you good evening chair members of the
board Mr. Sokoloff we got to you so late could you just state your name and spell for the court
sonographer. Sure. Oleg, O-L-E-G, Sokolov, S-O-K-O-L-O-V.
Sure. Oleg, O-L-E-G, Sokolov, S-O-K-O-L-O-V.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you agree to the waiving of the refusal, reading of the refusal, and also do you agree with its accuracy?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is Dion Hart. I know he got kicked off of the call, Mr. Hand.
i don't know if you're seeing anyone come back on but i i would like he was trying to re-register
and then it was only letting him re-register for the 12th for some reason so i asked him to call
in i'm not 100 certain if he'll be able to make it why don't you start sir yeah um this is going
to be really long i'm just kidding i just at six o'clock i want it to be probably not a funny joke
i apologize funny okay if i may address a lot of people in the audience don't see it as funny
either. I apologize. I tried to bring a little levity. It was misguided. All right, Mr. Bergman,
I'll go through my whole exhibit packet, and I will be as fast as possible. You hear me speaking
quickly. I want to address the letter of opposition over two meetings. Firstly, let me start here.
We scheduled a meeting that was held in November. Mr. Karn, who runs the 13th Democratic
Democratic Ward asked us to reschedule that meeting because there weren't enough participants.
We said, of course, no problem.
We managed to reschedule the meeting for February, and what I want to do is just show the board
if you can see that these are our certificates of mailing, and if you can see there's an
October date.
So let me just flip that for the board here.
So we sent out 139 notices for October.
We showed up, we were asked to continue because there weren't enough participants. We continued the meeting until February, where we once again were asked to continue because there were not enough participants.
And my communication during the meeting with Mr. Karn was that, you know, we obviously kind of object to another continuance.
We saw this as an issue in November, and we asked what would happen when we come back, and we still don't have enough participants.
Mr. Karn was going to reach out to Mr. Richardson from the councilperson's office to just get some advice as to how to proceed.
he was supposed to cc me on an email that never happened so i i do i eventually wrote an email
to mr karn saying after attempting for the second time to hold the rco and your insistence that we
need to continue the meeting um not enough participants you indicated that you would
reach out to mr richardson i didn't see any emails you know please send either the email
to mr richardson to myself or you know uh this will this will serve as that email as i'm copying
Mr. Richardson, and everyone from the ZBA, including Ms. Emerson, was copied here.
You know, just to give a little background, my client purchased this property in July of 2024.
We filed this appeal in August of 2024 because Mr. Hart, who resides at the property, is not a
real estate professional, bought this property to live in it, and only after attempting to get
rental licenses for the property understood that it was nonconforming. So Mr. Hart himself,
is living in a nonconforming property. And this was obviously of grave concern. So, you know,
we wanted to get before the board to not continue it again, as this has been going on since
August. There were only two people at the February meeting. And then we received this
letter of opposition after an email from Mr. Karn, you know, basically discussing that we
didn't hold the hearing and some other issues. And then apparently our packet was presented to
seven members of the RCO offline and they voted offline. I represent to the board that I did not
present a single package other than what the submission that we made prior to the RCO.
No presentations were given to the board. And our original intent was to have, you know,
appear before the ZBA today, and we assume that you would perhaps hold the vote until we were
able to meet with the RCO at subsequent times. So that's kind of the background of the RCO
situation. So just to cap that all off, we certainly did not present to seven people,
and whatever seven people voted on was offline without a presentation and just the packet
that we had sent them. The other thing I would like to point out, per the letter from the RCO,
so again, this is a legalization of use. Mr. Hart purchased this property
in this renovated three-unit condition. Mr. Hart lives in
in this renovated three-unit condition. Mr. Hart lives on the third floor of the property,
which is a three-bedroom, one-bath. The first floor is a three-bedroom, one-bath,
and the second floor is a two-bedroom, one-bath. Apparently, the RCO would support a two-unit,
so the multifam issue is not one. I'll also say that this property has been this way since 2020
in my research. And there were no problems with density. There are no complaints, no L&I
violations issued on the property from any neighbors complaining. So I'm a bit remiss by
the unanimous opposition after there was no RCO held. And I hope that makes sense. I tried to
speak very fast to get that before you guys. And at this point, I'll go through my packet. So
as I stated, you know, July 3rd, 2024 is when Mr. Hart purchased the property.
It was in completely renovated condition. I also just want to show the board, if I may,
the listing for the property, which you will see here again, sold in July of 2024.
And represented, this is from, I believe I pulled this from Redfin or Zillow, I can't recall, but
you'll see rehabbed ultramodern triplex that can be yours. So Mr. Hart is a postal worker. He is
by no means a real estate professional, you know, as the board knows and has seen these cases many
times. Unfortunately, consumers sometimes purchase things based on a Zillow listing and