sizes for properties on hancock and palethorpe are consistent with the averages for those blocks
therefore the city planning commission recommends the board grant the requested variances for a
front yard setback lot width and minimum lot area mi 2025 001 879 2044 north hancock street i vote
yes michael johns my vote is yes cheryl gaston my vote is yes tenetta graham my vote is yes
i'm mcadams my vote is yes i win my vote is yes
thank you thank you counsel thank you we're going to go to um
number eight
mi 2025 001 895 109 to 11 pine street
um i believe we have three attorneys involved in this am i correct
all right okay okay
Meredith why don't we do this why don't I introduce all the attorneys first okay and
And then you could present your case, and the other attorneys will come up.
So, Meredith, why don't you go first?
Meredith Ferliger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R, of Dilworth Paxson.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And just for the record, could you identify your client in a relationship to the property?
And just for the record.
Sure. My client is Mrs. Sally Katz, who is the deeded owner of the property.
Okay. Paul Boney, please.
Why don't you come and hit the microphone?
Come to the microphone.
paul bonnie uh b-o-n-i do you swear referring to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth yes could you identify your client this is ideals of ecosystem okay thank you and do we have
the third attorney here?
Why don't you come up?
And Paul, why don't you sit right down front here?
We'll keep the lawyers down front.
No, right in the first row,
and then she can put her client up.
Come on up.
Hi, right here.
Good afternoon.
Could you please state your name
and spell for the stenographer?
It's Ellen, E-L-L-E-N, O'Donner, O-D-O-N-E-R.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
And could you identify your client, please?
Yes. Catherine Mulleran, C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E, M-O-E-L-L-E-R-I-N-G.
Okay. So what we're going to do now is we'll let her present her case, and then you'll have opportunity for cross, and you'll also have opportunity to also present your own case. Okay?
Thank you.
Myrna Teneta-Graham has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon.
Have you submitted your documents five days in advance of the hearing?
And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do, yes.
Okay, thank you.
You may share your screen and proceed with your case.
Thank you, by the way.
It's a party.
All right. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, it's so nice to see you in person after so many years. Again, Meredith Ferliger of Dilworth Paxson. I am here today with Mrs. Sally Katz, who is the owner of the property at 109-11 Pine Street.
Despite what's going to seem as an unusually thorough and comprehensive presentation today,
given the nature of this particular request, it is ultimately we would submit a minor request
for a pergola to complement the existing single-family home in Society Hill.
You have an exhibit packet in front of you that contains 17 exhibits.
To briefly summarize the basis for today's request,
The application requests the erection of a backyard pergola to provide shade, entertaining space, and privacy to a historic Society Hill home.
In short, the zoning code limits accessory structures to no more than 130 square feet and 15 feet high.
While this proposed pergola is considerably less than 15 feet high, it is, as the zoning code would measure it, slightly more than 130 square feet.
As we hope the board will see through today's presentation, we submit this as a technical function of how the code would measure an unusual open structure like a pergola.
I would also ask this board to note that the original request did include a decorative trellis along the rear party wall, but that trellis has been removed from this application due to neighborhood concerns.
We did submit a revised plan and revised plan proviso form this morning, and the only change to that was to remove that trellis.
we did also previously to having the trellis removed from the application
ellen i had also previously issued an amended refusal as that very same trellis would have
warranted a refusal that they missed that amended refusal is shown in your exhibits at exhibit one
try and move this out of the way there we go
We do understand, quite obviously, that there is opposition here today, and we would implore this board not to allow unfounded concerns to distract from what we would submit are actual and true hardships that exist in this case.
So we do understand, quite obviously, that there is opposition here today.
And before I go any further, just for administrative purposes, it might be helpful if we have the administrator look for Charlie Kelly, have him unmuted and sworn in so that he's ready to go when I get to him in the presentation.
Why don't you continue as soon as you're there?
Okay, sounds good.
All right, so let me first orient you to the location of the property.
As always, the deed and tax clearance are included in the exhibits at Exhibit 2 and 3.
And again, you can see here that Sally Katz is the deeded owner of this property.
My entry of appearance in this matter is included at Exhibit 6, which was submitted to the board back in April.
In terms of orientation of this property, you can see here on the zoning map at Exhibit 4,
You'll note that this is a double lot on Pine Street in the core of Society Hill, just feet from Penn's Landing, which is just off your screen to the east of this orientation.
There are also aerial views shown at Exhibit 5, which are relatively unremarkable in terms of today's request, except for one main feature that I will call to the board's attention.
You will notice, starting in this photograph, but even more prominent in some additional aerial views on the next page.
You'll notice that these Pine Street homes, of course, back up to other single-family homes on Delancey Street.
There is no central alley that divides Pine Street from Delancey Street.
As you'll notice in this north orientation here, these grouping of homes benefit from a significantly unique condition of a dense tree cover that has grown in this location over many decades.
And from this orientation, if you look around this one particular block here, this is not a condition that is shared among many other blocks.
now before i show you pictures of the rear yard and the proposed pergola that is at issue
i would like to have the designer charlie kelly walk you through the zoning plans first as i
believe it's going to be a bit more helpful for the board to have some context as to what is
actually proposed here before you see the backyard itself uh so at this point uh i i see charlie
here so mr kelly could you please i state your name and spell for the stenographer sir charles
kelly i go by charlie kelly spelling c-h-a-r-l-e-s-k-e-l-i-y do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel thank you uh charlie
can you just identify uh you already identified your name but could you identify what company
you're with and your affiliation and involvement with this project. Yes, Meredith. I own Plant
Design Group. We are the general contractor and also the company that designs this backyard
project. Thank you. I'll bring up Exhibit 7, and I'm going to bring up the revised zoning plan that
we submitted this morning that removes the trellis. Again, you'll see here the original
zoning plan had that trellis. The revised one that I will have Charlie walk you through has no trellis.
Can you just briefly describe to the board the overall improvements that are being proposed for this backyard?
Yes, Mary. So a couple of challenges when we started designing this project.
There was a there was a large birch tree in that top right hand corner that would be the northeast section of the backyard.
And so when we when we started designing this, we knew we had to limit disturbance of that that that tree because it was about 40 to 50 feet.
And we didn't want to mess around with the anchor roots and ultimately create a liability issue.
So what we did there was put an impervious deck. That's an e-pay deck in that area.
So no footers, no cutting any roots. And ultimately, that was actually a second tier to the existing backyard.
So there was limited disturbance to that area. So all we did was install clean stone. Actually, we took out a lot of brick.
But I mean, I'll get to that later, Meredith. And speaking to the design, there's there's a few there's actually a decent amount of raised beds in the backyard.
You'll notice we did that for water absorption. And the reason we did that was there is a.
for water absorption. And the reason we did that was there is a fieldstone foundation on that
house. And we were really concerned with water runoff in the area. So we left all that open
area with the raised beds up against the house for drainage. So it didn't affect the fieldstone
foundation that was up against the house. We were really concerned with that foundation and come to
find out there was an issue um that we just um that sally and and um their other contracting team
um found uh during construction so the the um the there's a new pavers so we we ripped
there's new pavers right behind the house and to the left hand side and that second
tier is the e-pay deck there is a pergola in that left top left hand corner
and there's a couple of retaining walls and raised beds as well there's a grill off to the left hand
side by the shed I'm not sure I'm sorry I don't have a pointer to point you guys all the native
trees that were there were left there and we've added a lot a lot of plants a lot of planters
a lot of mature trees trees that we could fit through a 27 inch alleyway so we did it the best
we could to add a lot of greenery in the backyard. So Charlie, you alluded to some water infiltration
concerns. Were those concerns speculative in nature or were they based on circumstances
that had occurred prior to you coming on to the site? They were speculative prior to coming on.
We were nervous walking around the basement when we were doing the design of actually getting any water near the basement.
So we wanted, everything was pitched, the old patio was pitched towards the back of the house.
And we wanted to get all the water off the back of the house.
So this design allowed us to pitch everything off the back of the house.
murder. And Charlie, were you aware at that point that there had already been a significant flood
into the basement when Mrs. Katz moved in? No. Okay. Okay. Can you describe the proposed
pergola to the board? Yeah. So the proposed pergola is all reclaimed barn wood. We actually
sourced the material from Bucks County, Lancaster County. We went out of our way to make sure that
and matched the area in the district that we were,
or the area that we're putting the pergola up.
And so we're also doing a timber frame pergola
in this application.
So it's not just an off the shelf,
Home Depot, big box store.
It's a custom pergola.
It's a very high end pergola.
And we made sure that we're using premium material
for this application for the cats or for Sally.
And what are the dimensions of the pergola?
Off the top of my head, it's 250 square feet.
i'm sorry i'm drawing blank on length by width right now okay uh charlie if you could look at
the screen and refer to the zoning plans that are up on the screen here does that help refresh your
memory here i'll bring it up over here for you thank you 15 by 16. and it's 240 square feet not
250 correct that's correct okay uh and where is it located relative to the rear property line
uh so two two foot six inches off the rear property line
now you you alluded to some site challenges uh in regards to the existing tree and in regards
to the water infiltration concerns was there anything else unique about this backyard that
you were working within when designing that designing this pergola and the the biggest
issues marideth where that was a big birch tree in that northwest corner i'm sorry northeast corner
and then the pitch towards the the back of the house um the there was an existing grill in place
So we left the grill that we installed in that same place.
So we really conformed the pergola and everything that was there or the pergola to the existing backyard.
OK, at exhibit eight.
I'm sorry, go back one more, Meredith.
Yeah. So there's also an existing tree and a climbing hydrangea along that whole back wall.
By putting the posts where we put them, we did not have to disturb any of those existing trees, mature trees.
That climbing hydrangeas spans the entire width of the west wall.
And then the tree that's pictured near the grill was left undisturbed with this design.
the grill was left undisturbed with this design.
Okay. I've brought up exhibit eight, which are renderings of this proposed pergola. Can you just,
again, reinforce any additional information that you can provide just based on these renderings
that give the board just a little bit more context to what is actually proposed here?
Yep. So the big tree in that bottom left-hand corner, that's the birch tree that I'm talking
was one of the biggest design challenges was leaving that undisturbed and not creating a
future liability in these courtyards and causing that to become unanchored and fall over in the
past or damage it. That's the birch in that bottom right-hand corner there. There's another
tree up in towards the top of the page there. That's a native tree as well that by putting
the pergola there, we would leave that undisturbed as well. There's actually a climbing
hydrangea right next to that entire or that that tree I was just speaking of not the not the birch
the the the tree towards the top of the page so again same thing by putting pergola here we would
not have to touch that hydrangea and did not touch that hydrangea or other trees okay and I'll just
briefly we have several different views this would be a view looking down from the second floor level
into the backyard and again charlie this this corner deck here this deck already existed
previously you essentially uh were just proposing to replace the decking material is that correct
well the the tier existed uh um previously the there was a brick tier um there prior we we took
up the brick and we're proposing to take up the brick and put the deck down in place um
yeah and and cholly what does the image that i have up on the screen here page 23 of our exhibits
what what does this approximate that approximates the the brick wall behind the cats's house that
would be from the the the neighbor behind the cats is uh from delancey street okay and this
wall is approximately 12 to 15 feet high is that is that a reasonable approximation that's reasonable
okay it's a significant drop down from the cats this house uh cats this backyard okay
all right just so i'm sure that's eight foot high the pergola is eight foot six inches high
i'm sorry chair this is the reporter could you please repeat the question i had my question was
is it eight foot and council responded eight foot six is that to the top of the beam or to the
underside i'm sorry head clearance or to the top of the beam it is uh should be on the site plan
let me double check that yeah that is to the very top yep just one more thing so
the yard behind it it goes above the wall the uh yes mr chairman we do have some additional
pictures that'll just literally show you that well that was about two foot the property behind
sits at a much lower grade than mrs katz's so we'll show you that in pictures just so you have
a better sense of that yes no problem um all right and you let us know how much higher the
pergola is above that that wall right i most certainly will but i i can i can tell you that
right now the that back wall is six feet high so the pergola is two feet six inches above that wall
and that that wall has obviously been there for many many many decades okay um charlie you've
testified about the impact of the existing trees on this site in locating the pergola um was this