Nothing else, no more testimony.
Would that be acceptable?
I would like to give the community two weeks
if that's possible to have it read into the record.
We can do that, I guess,
as long as we do it before March 31st.
And do you understand that that would be?
and you understand that would be no testimony from any party it would simply be
And do you understand that would be no testimony from any party, it would simply be reading
the letter into the record.
Miss Pritzker if you wanted to write a written response that would be acceptable, but again
no testimony.
Yeah, that's that's fine with me and the community had submitted a letter sort of just
asking for more time to address the parking which the board will see there's no refusal
for the parking and we've agreed to work with them.
I've been working with them for the last couple weeks on this and there's been conversations
late last night and this morning.
And so we have no, we have no problem working with them on that.
I just didn't want this project held up for that.
Let me really, this is, Sunkit's called, Sunkit, would that work for you if it is only reading the letter into the record?
Yes, I actually think that's great.
Okay, thank you.
All right.
So we'll hear the case and do as suggested by Tanya and Sharon.
All right.
Thank you so much.
All right, Mr. Folks.
All right.
thank you thank you anyone else
there are no other hands at this time chair thank you uh carol the next two are together
two cases together calendar number zero zero two four one zero three two south randolph street
Parcel A, and calendar number 00251032 South Randolph Street, Parcel B.
The attorney is Brett Feldman.
Here we have Brett Feldman.
Mr. Feldman, the promoter of the panelists.
and excuse me i'm sorry to interrupt but um i realized we did not give a time on the last case
for so two weeks from now at two o'clock weren't we going to hear the case and hold it oh i'm sorry
yes and we're going to hear the case and then close it only comment exactly exactly i apologize
no worries no worries all right good afternoon mr feldman please identify yourself
yes uh mr mr chairman mr chairman members of the board good afternoon brett feldman
1835 market street philipia pennsylvania uh i represent uh the applicant property owner on
both of these two cases they're both separate cases um but they are uh they back up to each
other it's just uh one faces one street and then the other one backs up and faces the other street
Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
I do for both.
Do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do for both.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents for both properties, which includes proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, referral, photos, and or plans five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO?
And do you have a letter?
uh yes to all um we have um sent revised plans with change plan forms for both uh to miss saletta
and miss sunkett uh for both as a result of uh meetings with the community group uh and we do
have a letter of now support from queen village neighbors association which was in our updated
package that we sent um i believe monday okay you may proceed uh if i may share my screen now
again good afternoon brett feldman i represent uh the applicant property owner in both of these
matters uh with me today is uh logan dry who's our project architect um as well as on behalf of
the property owner yossi abraham both logan and yossi i think have been in front of this board
four or five times on other projects throughout the city.
These are the final exhibit package that exhibits one through 13, which I'd ask to be incorporated
into the record.
You'll see now at exhibit tab 11, we have a letter of now support from Queen Village
Neighbors Association, and this letter reflects a series of back and forth over the past month.
These are two single-family homes that are fully code-compliant, but on very small streets, right north of Washington Avenue between 5th and 6th streets, Fairhill and South Randolph that are going to be streets that have been filled in.
And let me show you the pictures of them right now here.
These are the deeds and tax certification.
Those are the refusals.
U Properties is the owner.
Some of these projects might look familiar to the zoning board.
These are cases that we've actually done in front of the zoning board in the last year or so.
Here is, let me just get everyone bearings here. So this is the aerial. South Fairhill is here. South Randolph is here. Right now, this is what it looks like from Randolph Street. It's a single family block with a hole, a missing tooth. This is what it looks like on Fairhill Street. Similar single family block, missing home.
Here is, let me just get everyone bearings here.
So this is the.
these are two small lots they're both about 600 square feet the main refusal
for both of these is the same you need a seven-foot rear yard we have a five-foot
rear yard and you'll see you know we did an analysis on the block our five foot
is pretty consistent with what the rest of the houses have on the block here
unfortunately that two foot because these are so small these lots are only
you know, only 45 feet deep, that the two feet really makes a big difference.
And certainly, you know, I can have the client speak to that and the architect,
but we wouldn't have went through this whole process if those two feet didn't make a difference.
The other part of this is we really tried to contextualize these homes.
And as you'll see, you can go 38 feet on, you know, we all know an RSA 5.
These are actually only 31 feet.
we wanted to as well as much as possible match these in with the heights on the block so that
that is a big part of what's going on in these cases here here's the view from South Randolph
Street that's our vacant lot again that's on South Randolph Street that's on Fairhill Street
that's that's the lot right here South Fairhill Street South Fairhill Street I think that's
Randolph and let me just get right to the plans here so here is here's the home proposed on
Randolph Street with the revisions with the community again 31 feet and the only the main
refusal here again on this is seven foot versus five feet we lose even we're not going to 38 we
also lose more of the rear yard or the building area because we need to have a breezeway
to meet the building code.
So the helm on Randolph has a breezeway
that goes to the backyard
and connects in on South Fairhill Street.
And here is the revised plans.
We did move around
based off the community negotiations
on South Randolph Street.
There's a roof deck.
We moved the roof deck back
from the front of the building to eight feet.
We relocated the AC condensers
And we were made clear what the facade materials are on the Randolph Street property.
On Fairhill, here's the Fairhill.
This is on the back side now.
This is the home on Fairhill.
Again, the refusal here was the five and the seven.
The other change we made and the other refusal on Fairhill is that there's a Queen Village overlay, which is – and maybe Logan can explain it better.
I'll give it a best shot here. But basically, at the cornice line at 21, at 22 feet, you've got to either do an eight foot setback above where you've got to recess on a plane at a minimum of 45 degrees.
But you can go to the maximum height of 38 feet. So initially, we just kept it at 31 feet.
We didn't have any setback.
You know, in respecting the neighbor, I guess this is to the north, the revised plans now
show a five-foot setback at this third floor.
You can kind of see it here on the plan.
So this is now set back five feet.
So we're real close to compliance, but there are other houses on the block that did it
as of right, that they actually set it back eight feet, but then they went all the way
up to 38 feet.
We decided to not go to 38 feet, go to only 31 feet, but instead of an eight-foot setback to do a five-foot setback.
And as you'll see in the Queen Village, the Bella Vista letter, that was, you know, I think they really appreciated, you know,
the effort we made to contextualize these as much as possible in these small 600-square-foot lots.
I can go through some more, you know, this is the revised plan for Fairhill Street that shows that setback
at the third floor uh we we did some other work with the condensers uh and and and that was an
important part getting the letter the letter of uh support uh these are the floor plans they're
single-family homes um these are more you know we did all these studies uh for the neighbors
and just showing you here some of these other homes on this street they've done a four-story
by right uh which is it it creates these monstrosities that meet the code but now are
way higher than the rest of the block which which our architect really did not want to do
and we thought this was a much better way to to make something that was much more contextual you'll
see this is that this is what you can do 38 feet which is way bigger than us on the block and is
you know really no one on the block i think wanted us to go in that direction these are the code
No one on the block, I think, wanted us to go in that direction.
These are the code provisions.
provisions.
I'd like to just reach out to Logan Dry, our project architect.
Can he be unmuted?
Logan?
Are you on there, Logan?
Mr. Dry, you can unmute yourself and speak.
Yep, I'm here.
Can you guys hear me?
Yes, please identify yourself, personal name.
name? Yep, Logan Dry, L-O-G-A-N-D-R-Y, architect for KCA Design Associates, 6525 Tulip Street,
Philadelphia, PA. Are you swearing if I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the
truth? I do. Thank you. Please proceed, Mr. Feldman. Logan, I gave it my best layman's effort
to, you know, try to explain the changes here, but can you just real quick, you know, the importance
The difference of the additional feet in the rear yard to each one of these homes and how it made these bedrooms much better on the third floor, and also the way that we decided not to go to 38, we went to 31.
Can you just briefly explain to the board?
Yeah, I mean, to be brief, you know, what we felt was, you know, based upon the zoning code and the overlays, you know, we could have built four-story houses that had these funky setbacks.
You know, we didn't feel like that was appropriate based on the other three stories on the block.
So we figured, you know, if we steal two more feet out of each home's rear yard, we'll get a refusal for that respect, but we can at least get, you know, bedrooms that we can fit a bed in and be able to walk around without, you know, being up against the wall.
So we figured it was a decent tradeoff to ask for a little less rear yard in order to keep a three-story massing.
And then again, as Brett kind of touched on, you know, we worked with the community group, especially on Fair Hill Street, and tried to meet somewhere in the middle for that NCO setback.
So again, instead of the full eight foot setbacks, the third floor, you know, we kind of compromised with five, you know, we were able to redesign the floor plans a little bit to still make that work. So, you know, we could incorporate some of the setback, you know, without again, having to add a fourth story on.
So we felt, you know, kind of what we came up with at the end of the day was, was a little bit better to ask for a little less rear yard in favor of, you know, just keeping a three story massing and still having, you know, functional floor plans that met the building code.
when we submit for those permits.
And Logan, on the screen right now
is the Fair Hill Setback, correct?
Yeah, and we're real clear with the materials
and I would just turn to,
let me just go to the other exhibit,
which is the letter of support from Bella Vista here.
That's here.
That's I think all the way up here.
It should be Green Village, I'm so sorry, Green Village.
um i'll never live that one down from the community groups um on on the um on the proviso
letter uh that was right here spelling out the the revised plans and uh in our exhibit package
at exhibit 12 uh we have the change of plan form um randolph street and at exhibit tab 13 we have
the change of plan form um for south fairhill street that match up with what the um queen
village letter references. So I think with that, Yossi Abraham, can you be unmuted?
What is the person's name again? Yossi Abraham.
I don't see anyone by that name. All right. Mr. Feldman, being an officer of the court,
will stipulate that your client would have adopted your testimony yes all right yeah questions from
the board sorry questions from the board no no anyone else would like to testify in this case
if so please raise your hand chair we have a samantha laws miss laws you can unmute yourself
and speak thank you good afternoon ma'am please identify yourself with a record name and address
My name is Samantha Laws. I live at 1033 South Fairhill Street, Philadelphia, PI 19147.
Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes. Thank you. Please proceed.
I wanted some clarity if I could ask for on the depth of the lot
and where the property line is. Is it 38 feet?
Are you talking about the structure or the lot size?
The lot size itself.
Okay, the depth of the lot.
Yeah, Logan, I think it's 45.
Yeah, if you go to any one of the zoning plans, we can pull that dimension.
If you go to any one of the zoning plans, we can pull that dimension right there and zoom in.
Yeah, hold on here.
You can enlarge that. It'll be helpful.
Yeah, just give me one second here.
sorry it's it's it's actually it is 38 feet the property is 38 feet our building is only 33 feet
with the five foot rear yard 33 so okay yeah it's even smaller than i said
well 38 is still eight feet deeper than the adjacent than our house for example so um
The the additional two feet in the yard would make a difference in closing off our completely
closing off our roof deck on the one side, making it feel more closed in.
Is that a question, ma'am, or a statement, I'm sorry?