you have to accept um permission to okay here it comes
and if i may share my screen please
You're coming up.
Bear with me, I'm sorry I had it.
There we go.
Well, I submitted the documents as indicated in this index page.
There are a total of 11 documents.
I'm going to focus my presentation on the first six, but I do wish the final five to be admitted into evidence, that being the zoning notice and UPS.
And deed and revenue clearance and the other items.
This is an application to legalize multifamily use in a portion of 120 Shurer's Lane.
Let me skip to the, this is an aerial image.
This is from the Philadelphia Water Department parcel viewer.
The property is outlined in red.
It's the city block.
It's about 36,000 square foot, oops, 36,000 square foot lot between Shores Lane to the south, right side of the image, Jamestown to the north on the left side,
The Crescent Street elevated rail line behind the building to the east and Station Street to the west.
This appeal focuses on the third floor of the building, which is approximately 14% of the 43,000 square foot structure.
And that's in this corner on Jamestown, the third floor of my cursor is now.
I'm going to go through a few photographs.
So this is the Jamestown facade.
You can see there's two floors.
That's actually the second and third floor because of the slope.
station street to the to the west is actually the ground floor which is just
out of view those doors to the left of the image are the entrance to the
building at that level there's a lobby right and left of the elevators are
Right and left of the elevators are commercial areas on that floor.
commercial areas on that floor
The elevator serves the second floor.
This is the second floor lobby.
You can see in the distance one of the two fire exits from this floor.
And then this is the lobby entrance looking with Jamestown on your right, the elevator there in the distance on the left.
this is a hallway looking with Jamestown to your back looking along the the hallway towards
in the direction of Schur's Lane and this is the opposite direction with Schur's Lane at your back
and looking back down at Jamestown as you can see the hallways are well lit they're clean
and they're decorated with art this is a trash room on the second floor that's dedicated for
these five apartments. This is a cycle storage area on that floor, which is being used by the
tenants. This is the second of the two fire exits, and this is the staircase from that exit,
and this is an image of the exit outside.
The final photograph shows in greater detail
the entire floor is as a fire suppression system.
This is an image of that area.
This is the floor plan.
Bear with me while I try to find it again.
Okay, because you can see the floor plan.
And there are five apartments.
They range in size from 790 square feet to a little over 1,000, 1,044 square feet.
Four of the apartments are two-bedroom.
The one towards Shrews Lane is a one-bedroom apartment.
Are these existing?
These are existing.
Each of these have washer and dryer.
They proposed the existing zoning for this building is ICMX, and multifamily is not permitted.
But the surrounding uses allow multifamily, and I'm going to show you this exhibit.
I'm getting there, bear with me.
Video, these are on a laptop.
Okay, so this image shows Scherz Lane, Jamestown, and Main Street.
The property is identified on Main Street A through G.
Have commercial on the first floor and multifamily above a total of 34 units in those buildings on Main Street.
The two properties on Schur's Lane, H, is 11 Schur's Lane, which is also zoned ICMX.
This board granted a variance last year.
That building is now under construction.
That's the one along the railroad.
That's right next to the rail line.
Right, right.
Right. Up the hill. Right. For 42 units. I remember. And then I is a building that zoned I2, which was approved for 162 units. I believe that's going to be reconsidered later in a few weeks. Right.
But it was approved for 162. So this use, and again, the hashed area in the 120 Shores Lane, that's the area of the building that we're talking about. Those five units are in that location. This use is compatible with all of the surrounding uses. And the change from ICMX to allow multifamily has been done before and very recently.
And then this is just a summary of those properties, the number of units in each building.
And then the following pages are all the zoning permits and proof that those numbers are supported by the record.
And that's about it for my presentation.
That's about it for my presentation.
Well, how long are the.
Bill, how long have the units been there?
The units have been there five years.
And explain to me what's...
I can't excuse the fact that they were introduced without permits.
I can certainly explain it.
The building, as I've represented, is large.
It has an extraordinary debt insurance and tax burden.
There was a commercial tenant in that spare area in the third floor who left near the end of 2018.
The owner spent over a year trying to find a commercial tenant to take the space and was unsuccessful.
Soon after the city closed as a result of the COVID pandemic, the owner made a decision.
He had to do something.
So he went ahead and made the change.
He put five apartments.
He put five apartments.
Five apartments.
I will note that it is fully sprinklered. As far as I can tell, it's been built to code.
He did self-report this. This is not as a result of a violation notice.
And if the board grants the variance, the next step will be to file a building permit application to legalize the improvements, which will include complete inspection.
The owner, Mr. Dan Edison, is in the virtual audience. I'd ask him to raise his hand.
And he'll be back in as a panelist.
could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
Daniel Robert Netison.
Netison is N-E-D-U-C-S-I-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Good evening, Mr. Netison.
Are you the managing member of Main Street Properties LP?
And have you been in the virtual audience listening to my testimony?
Yes, I have.
Was my testimony truthful, and do you adopt it as your own?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Yeah, I have two questions.
The first question is, have there been tenants consistently since the apartments have been developed?
Yes, they've been occupied for the last five years.
One of the current tenants has been there for three.
The rest, all the leases are one-year leases.
They currently expire anywhere from April to August of 26.
There is no parking in the building.
However, the owner is a member of the Manningham Development Corporation, which operates four parking lots in Main Street.
And through that membership, there is parking available for a fee.
I did check. None of these five tenants have taken advantage of that.
And could you just summarize the opposition that you received at the RCO meeting?
Well, the opposition was, I guess, a level of indignance because of the owner's self-help. And because of his experience, they thought that that was highly inappropriate.
I will note, if you take a look at the meeting summary, which I think is page two of the materials, it notes that there were 40 members present and there were 15 votes recorded in opposition, which means that 37% were opposed.
and 64% or 63% were not opposed.
So it's a bit of an anomaly that they reported as opposed.
But there was no real objection to the use itself.
It was more indignation that an owner with this experience
would have engaged in self-help.
So there was no concerns with sort of building management,
cleanliness things of that nature it was all just the nature that this was done
off the books and netizen properties has been managing multi-family uses in maniunk for
almost 40 years and have won many awards for their their property management
and then is the plan once approved or if approved and permitted to get a rental license yes
Any other questions?
Any other questions?
Questions or comments from our attorney?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, we have Mr. Hunter.
Mr. Hunter, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Good evening.
Hi, Mr. Hunter, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yeah, my name is John Hunter, H-U-N-T-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, Mr. Hunter?
Please proceed.
Thank you.
If you look at our original letter, it was dated back in January when the meeting took place.
And Mr. O'Brien characterizes our response as being indignation, but I don't think it was.
It was just trying to understand how a property development and landlord-managed company was in such a situation where they allowed this to happen, and without any documentation that, I mean, even Mr. O'Brien's recent photographs, there's no view inside what the residences are like.
And although the building's sprinkled, sprinklers have to be accommodated to the layout.
So the original sprinkler layout would be for an open office environment, I assume.
The building itself, as Mr. O'Brien said, these units only take up 14%.
The rest of the building is taken up with a variety of different ICMX uses,
such as Architect's Office, Landscape Architects.
Temple Health is directly below these units.
They have an office there.
And it provides ICMX uses,
which are useful to provide a broad range of uses for Maniank
and also to be compatible that the parking requirement
tends to be a daytime requirement,
whereas the majority of the surrounding properties
are of residential use,
and therefore the demand is in the evening.
What we couldn't establish is exactly what this proposal to legalize the property, even though the actual refusal talks about proposal, but they are actually, as Mr. O'Brien has said, is that they're already there and they've been in operation for some time.
What happens to the rest of the building? And is this just the first stage of what would be sometime in the future a precedent for converting the whole of the building into residential use?
The actual residential uses for this particular suite is not really ideal.
The building backs up onto the elevated railway line, and so the only windows are on the south side of these units.
And if you looked at the plans a little more closely, those are where the bedrooms are located.
So the kitchen and living areas are internal.
They have no windows as far as we can see from the plans, assuming that the residential units were developed as the plan show.
So all in all, we just think this is not only a curious and unusual situation, but we don't think it's one that's appropriate for the use of the building and maintaining the ICMX use for the whole of the building.
How it's resolved, given that there are tenants with, I assume, leases already granted, we didn't know.
So it wasn't indignation. It was more a level of how do you get out of this situation?
And we don't think that it's appropriate to just legalize these units.
And so that's where the level of opposition came from.
Just to sort of try and explain Mr. O'Brien's question about the vote.
Our meetings are recorded from when they start via Zoom, and at the very beginning, there was a number of people attending.
I can't remember exactly, but I think the January meeting that this occurred in was quite a busy meeting, and it's not unusual for people to leave the meeting, especially when it's a Zoom meeting, because it's easier to do, and they don't vote.
They don't vote, and therefore that reflects a unanimous vote, but less than the 40 people that attended.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hunter.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
planning commission good evening chair and members of the board liz fuselay last name spelled f as
Planning Commission.
Good evening, Chair and members of the Board.
in frank u s as in sam e l i e r on behalf of the philadelphia city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning at this location from the existing
industrial commercial mixed use icmx the proposed use as multi-family residential is compatible
with the commercial residential corridor surroundings and will not cause detrimental
impacts beyond what would reasonably be expected. The Planning Commission recommends the Board grant
the requested variance for multifamily living. So MI 2024-006-112-120-Sherz Lane, I vote yes,
with proviso, certificate of
occupancy to be obtained after
proper
certificate of occupancy to be obtained
after proper inspections.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston,