Thank you.
thank you what questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no handshare planning commission
Thank you, Chair Bergman and Board Members.
Sarah Bond with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing commercial mixed-use zoning.
The appellant has not shown that the property cannot possibly be used in strict conformity
with the zoning code and that a variance is therefore necessary to enable viable economic
use of the property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board deny the variance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
So MI 2023-005-995-808 South 18th Street.
I vote yes for a temporary variance that will expire 124-27
and proviso
three units
on floor two and three only
Thomas Holloman my vote is
yes with proviso
James Snell
my vote is yes with proviso
Ishmael Shaheed my vote is yes with proviso
thank you sir you have your votes
thank you
okay here
All right, we're going to number one, MI 2023-006-107, 3935-61 Germantown Avenue.
Clemente Amazon is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from the 13th Ward RCO with provisos.
No roof decks and height of addition not to exceed 60 feet.
Applicant provided a petition and support signed by 19 people.
Ms. Amazon is coming back in as a panelist.
Council, could you state your name and spell for the court sonographer, please?
Of course. Clementa Amazon, that's spelled C-L-E-M-E-N-T-A. The last name is A-M-A-Z-A-N, and I'm an attorney at Garland Ball.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Of course. My client is Olympia QOZB. I also have the principal who will be speaking, Ken Weinstein.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wait a reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this year?
Yes, I have.
thank you please proceed and share your screen of course if i could also have the architect
for the project harris ford be included as a panelist
mr ford is coming back in as a panelist
and if it's more convenient for the board if they would like to throw him in as well i will
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer
yes of course harris ford h-a-r-r-i-s f-o-r-d and i'm an architect at digsau right do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed council
thank you i'll go ahead and share my screen
Again, my name is Clemente Amazon, and I will be presenting 3935-16
So this building has a very interesting history.
It was previously owned by Ira S. Davis as a moving and storage facility.
Mr. Davis actually participated in the Olympics in 1956, 1960, and 1964.
So although it is not designated as a historic property, it does have an amazing history.
so although it is not designated as a historic property it does have an amazing history and my
client is looking to not only honor the history of the property but also the structure that
currently exists so this building that you see currently and we are just looking to add a seven
story addition so during my presentation i will go through the notice of refusal the property is
zoned IRMX. A lot of the reviews that we have are as a result of us looking to maintain that
existing structure and simply add on to it, and I'll walk through that in further detail. We did
receive a letter of support from 13th Ward RCO with provisos, which I will go into further detail
as well. We met with the Planning Commission on January 9th in an effort to get as much information
as possible regarding the proposal and how it fits the character of the neighborhood.
We have a map of the area, exterior as well as interior photos, the site plan and elevation,
the notice that we sent out for the January 11th committee, excuse me, community meeting,
our application for appeal, project information form,
seeds to property, and our certificate of tax clearance.
So, as I mentioned, this property is zoned IRMX. The refusals that we have in large part
are because of the fact that we are looking to maintain the existing structure which is not in
conformance with the current code so the first refusal that we have is for the roof steps we
are looking to have office space here and we're looking to revitalize the germantown corridor
we believe that providing roof steps is something that would be beneficial
as competing office spaces within the city have roof steps and it does not have any negative
impact or detrimental impact on the surrounding area as it relates to the height and as you'll
see in the plans there is currently an existing structure on the roof that will remain and it
would look similar to the inclusion of the roof status the second refusal that we have is for the
signage and again we're looking to maintain the structure of the building along the front facade
you will see that we are including the signage within the two arches so it doesn't quite meet
the height requirements by IRMX. It is 20 feet and 8 inches from the ground. However, they are
small signs. They would not really impose upon anyone. Our third refusal that we have here is
for the height. So you'll notice that the refusal is because 60 feet is allowed by right. The
existing structure is actually 84 feet. So as it is, the building is not in conformance with the
code what we are looking to do is match the height of the existing structure and thus we have a
refusal here for that as well as off-street loading we are required to have four off-street
loading spaces this is accessible for the use that we have we are looking to only include office
spaces here and we prioritize including more parking spaces for tenants and their guests as
opposed to providing loading spaces which is more in the spirit of industrial use the loading
space that we currently are offering will only primarily be used by commercial trash pickup we're
not really using this property in a heavily industrial way it's more of a commercial use
so we felt it more important to prioritize the parking spaces for tenants and their guests
so we did meet with 13th ward rco and they did provide us a letter of support
our meeting was on january 11th overall the community was very supportive of the proposed
used and felt that it would be beneficial to the neighborhood. I would like to point out that the
RCO did mention they had concerns regarding the height because it would block, as you can see here,
natural light and airspace, and that the property is surrounded by residential properties. As you'll
see in my presentation, the property is adjacent to a residentially zoned block. However, it is not
primarily residential properties excuse me also they expressed concerns regarding the roof deck
as we will go through the plans we believe that the roof decks are important and beneficial as
we are looking to compete with other office spaces in the area that also provide this
amenity to tenants and the board has also previously granted similar uses in the past
for roof decks on long office spaces specifically 21 south 11th street which is known as the yard
as well as 1901 South 9th Street, which is known as the Bok building.
So having a roof bed on a structure of this sort is not uncommon.
It provides a great amenity for the community and as well as for the individuals who are
leasing the spaces.
I would also like to highlight that during the meeting, not all attendees were part of
the conversation of the request for the provisos.
There were various attendees as well as RCOs who did not have the opportunity to truly vote on the provisos.
the opportunity to truly vote on the provisos the provisos i believe were included as
The provisos, I believe, were included as
the stance of the rco not necessarily cohesive of everyone who was in attendance of the meeting
so here we do have the vote as you'll see we do not have any votes in opposition
of the project we have the unanimous support from the rco board committee
attendees were also given were not given the opportunity to vote specifically in favor instead
they were listed as having a position of non-opposition but again it was a positive
meeting we believe they were very excited about the proposed use for the property although we have
the request for the provisos that i mentioned previously as a result of not all of the rcos
of being able to express that they are in support
with the property as listed.
We did receive a letter from TLB United,
who is an effective RCO.
As you will see, they provided full support,
including the seven stories,
as well as the roof depth of the property
and of the project,
and that they believe that it would be beneficial
to the Germantown business corridor.
We also wanted to make sure that we took into consideration
the community's concerns regarding light and air you'll notice that we have a letter of support
from the chairman of the trustees of nazarene baptist church nazarene baptist church as you
will see in my presentation and in this image right here our property is located right here
if everyone can see my cursor nazarene baptist church owns the properties which are highlighted
in red so excuse me specifically they own the property adjacent along 39 35 germantown avenue
here this property in the rear as well as the property which is actually a parking lot and
you'll see in my presentation as well it is zoned rsa 5 however it's a parking lot owned by the
church who is in support again as i mentioned we did meet with the planning commission as well
and this is a summary of our meeting so to highlight a few points the planning commission
noted that we presented evidence of the unique physical circumstance or conditions particularly
for the property which enable which are necessary to enable the viable use of the property specifically
that we are looking to add the seven story edition harris will go through this in the
presentation as we go through the plans the property as it stands is not up to code part
the reason that we need to add the seven-story addition is to bring it to code and to address
some of the concerns of egress and ingress and that the property was harmonious with character
excuse me characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood it's consistent with the adopted
plans and that we showed evidence that it's unlikely to cause a specific detrimental impact
within the code section 14303 8e.1c through f and h so as i mentioned previously the rco stated in
their letter of support that the property was surrounded by residential as you can see here
on this overlay of the zoning map we are right here we're going to irms this is the existing
structure that we're looking to maintain we are looking to demolish these two portions
and the rear addition would be here to match the height of the existing structure.
Nazarene Baptist Church is located here along the corner of Germantown Avenue and West Life
Homing Street. As you saw previously, they own this property as well this property to the rear
of it, which is also a parking lot. They also own this entire parking lot that is zoned to RSA 5,
but is not used in a residential manner. And we also have the properties along Curbock Street.
The residentially zoned properties along Kerrbox Street are 40% vacant.
We did send out notice.
To my knowledge, individuals who were along Kerrbox Street were not in attendance.
On the other side of Kerrbox Street, the portion that is zoned residential use is not used in residential way.
It is actually used for commercial use.
There is an auto repair shop that is located there.
so although the letter states that the property is surrounded by residential yes there are
portions of the property that are zoned residential however there's only i believe 60
along kerbach street and as you'll see they are not impacted by light and air in any way
that are in fact residential and we also have the post office which is across the street
so here we have photos of the front of the property again the signs would be located
here along the arches and these to the side we are demoing those blue structures that you see here
there are two existing curb cuts where we'll be placing parking we did post notice of these eba
hearings and here we have an aerial shot i'll also highlight that the shadows as you see reflect
And here we have an aerial shot. I'll also highlight that the shadows as you see reflected here primarily impact our parking lot and the church's parking lot along here, which is owned residential. It does not impact these properties along Kerbock Street, which as you see is also 40% vacant.
Again, you'll see the church parking lot along here and the church is located here as well. This entire parcel with the exception of this section right here is owned by my client.
And here we have sample interiors. Again, one of the pillars of my client's company is that he looks to repurpose structures that have good bones, maintain their integrity, instead of allowing properties to become blighted and a nuisance to the community.
So with that, I will have Harris go through our plans and discuss in detail the necessity for the variance and why it does not, we cannot move forward with this project with the five-story addition. Harris?
Thank you, Clementa. This really just restates what's already been shown in the aerial views. In the orange is indicated the property line. The bold solid black line is the seven story Olympian building to remain. And the structures which are dashed in the dashed black line are to be demolished.
um this is the zoning plan uh as as uh submitted i think actually if you just go to the next
slide clementa this is simply highlighting the zoning plan for e for convenience
uh number one is the existing seven story building number two is the proposed seven
story building addition with roof deck so uh roughly you know very similar in size and and
proposed to match in height uh number three is just the footprint of the um warehouse building
and the one story rear building to be demolished uh did both of the number fours are the existing
curb cuts to remain entries to parking um both north and south of the building uh from germantown
avenue number five is the surface parking again north and south the as stated it exceeds the
required number of parking spaces and exceeds the current number of parking spaces on site
the loading dock is shown in the rear so you can you can see the drive lane for on-site loading
loading at this building is currently from germantown avenue actually one of the bays
in the front is a loading dock so this would be reducing an encumbrance from the street
and the proposed interior landscape in fact exceeds the code required minimums in terms
of coverage planting requirements etc go to the next please this is a view of the
existing building to remain from the front from germantown avenue you can see the building height
called out at 84 feet that's the height of the roof clementa mentioned there are two tenant signs
shown at the arches the glassy arches which are reasonable for seeming seemingly reasonable for
the the use there's also indicated building signage which would be paint so that 39 39 that's
at the center of the building in an homage to the
historical signage that was on the building. You saw in some of the photos, it's faded
at the broad facades. The arch on the right
is currently loading from Germantown Ave. That would be infilled and become
tenant space, ground level tenant space.