We're actually diffusing the light that, well, not diffusing, diffusing the sound that you would see
from 95. And where we are in 95, we run almost in line with 95. So they're already, the people who
are in that part of the neighborhood already losing light and air. So having 100% building
capacity over there is actually under the circumstances, something that we think is
appropriate. And then finally, the rear yard kind of goes with that where you have 100% occupancy.
Given that where we are, you'll see a 95, I do think it's appropriate under the circumstances because they already have a shadow effect on 95.
Given that where we are, you'll see in 95, I do think it's...
What we're doing is no different there.
And in some ways, it's going to be more helpful because you're going to block the sound that's coming from the cars on 95.
So the correspondents from the Fishtown Neighbors Association, right, they're in opposition in this project.
And as you can see, they're in opposition for 13 apartments and 10 parking spaces.
Again, we had a meeting with the community on a more informal basis before the certified community meeting where we presented 19 dwelling units and 10 parking spots.
We heard from members of that from that meeting, community members from that meeting, that it sounded like if we did a one to one ratio, that would be more amenable to them.
spoke to my clients. It's, you know, the market has definitely shifted where they spent a lot of
money on this lot. At that time, they were only prepared to do 13 dwelling units and 10 parking
spots. You know, after the meeting and really discussing this situation, you know, and I said,
you remember in the first meeting you had community members say one-to-one ratio? I think
that makes sense. And again, do they want to do 10 units and 10 parking spaces? No, they would
prefer to do 19 units and 10 parking spaces. They understand that's not going to happen.
They would prefer to do 13 dwelling units and 10 parking spaces. Again, practically, that's not
going to happen. But I do believe that 10 units and 10 parking spaces is a reasonable accommodation
under the circumstances, especially as you see where we are in the neighborhood and the
configuration is shaping a lot. So these are the concerns of the people in the neighborhood,
right? Community members we're opposed to are concerned with the following elements, density,
surrounding context is single family homes. Well, again, you'll see where we are in relation to 95.
Our property is as close to 95 as anything around on Salmon Street, even though we have
a Palmer Street address, it's really salmon is the one where everything's facing and that's
where everyone's facing essentially. This type of density, given that we're in the surrounding
areas to the right of us is RM1, again, I would have stated to my client, follow what's close by
the RM1. That would have given us 11 units. But given the commentary from the community,
instead of going 11 units and 10 parking spaces?
Because I said, can you squeeze another parking space for me?
Can you find another parking space?
They said, no, we can only do 10,
especially in light of the fact that the community wanted
in a large mail room, in a large trash room,
in a large lobby, like we only had 10 parking spaces.
So I said, do a one-to-one ratio of 10.
So the density is not out,
it would not be out of character
to what's nearby next door to us, that's RM1.
Also, we're not that far from East Girard Avenue, which is a commercial corridor.
Again, let's support those commercial corridors with increased density, which also has public transportation, with us still providing one-to-one ratio in terms of parking.
And across the street, there's a ton of parking across the street.
The second commentary by the neighborhood was they expressed the preference by a buy-ride option of three single-family homes.
Trust me, if we can build three single-family homes, we would.
My clients, based on what they paid, based on the market conditions here, they can't build it.
It would be a losing proposition.
And, you know, again, economic feasibility is a small fraction of undue hardship.
And you would look at the configuration and the shape of the lot as well.
These are regular shape lots.
I will say this, too.
When my client, you know, solicited signatures for the petition, some of the neighbors were talking more so, well, let's do four units then, you know, if that's not feasible as the three.
Well, four units would require all the variances plus more other than the parking that we're seeking here.
And again, it wouldn't be economically feasible.
And we have our architect who can tell you that, that not just economic feasibility, but from a practical standpoint, those lots for single family use would be so small.
It just, you couldn't even like live in that.
The next thing has to do about the height.
You know, they state that they have issues about the height and the casting of shadows. Again, we're not that far off from the height limit. We're doing the, you know, because of like what's across the street, it's really hard to have first floor.
Because of what's across the street, it's really hard to have first floor anything over there.
Because of where we are, we're hugging the 95.
There's Salmon Street, and there's Palmer Street, and there's Ayer Street.
We border three public streets.
There are some single-family homes on Palmer.
There are some single-family homes on Ayer.
But they're set back, not us.
We're the ones that are going to get the full brunt of the lighting that's there because of the activities down there for safety purposes.
Plus, we're the closest to 95, and 95 does already cast a large shadow over some of these properties.
So in context, having a various request of 40 feet 8 inches, where we originally went 51 feet 5 inches, we locked off a whole floor of the building, I think makes sense under the circumstances.
And then finally, the community stated that they didn't feel that we expressed our hardship. We do have a hardship here. Given the shape of the lot, the unusual shape of the lot, and given what is right there now in terms of 95, we can't move our property.
The conditions have gotten worse since we've owned that property in terms of the lighting and such.
So we believe that there is a hardship under the circumstances.
Now, what did the community find that they were receptive to?
The community members felt this proposal represented an improvement over the original proposal presented in December.
Height and unit count were both reduced.
They weren't just reduced, they were significantly reduced.
We almost reduced our unit count by 50%. We reduced the height by over 10 feet. So we have done significant modifications to this project at the behest of the community, in addition to the other things that I stated.
And then the other thing that they stated was they were receptive or supported to potential for more activity for area under I-95, which is not always safe at night.
They recognize that.
And the thing is, having eyes on the street on the second through fourth floors is only going to make that part of the neighborhood safer.
It's going to block the lights that are coming from the underpass over there as well.
So we do believe that if you look at the letter as a whole, there should be a lot of support for this project because of the circumstances that we are facing today.
Now, here's the vote. And again, there were some people supportive of this project.
So it wasn't like a complete unanimous opposition to the project.
It was a well-attended meeting. And, you know, we always respect the Fishtown Neighbors Association.
They always provide a fair forum and there were questions and there were some tough questions and, you know, difficult answers to, you know, to make as well.
But again, I do understand that some of the neighbors, you know, want to have this single family neighborhood.
They're not facing Salmon Street. We're facing Salmon Street. And that's the issue.
We're so close to the overpass. And unlike them, we have this irregular shaped lot. So again, they fall into the simple rectangular shaped lot. They can build something. Given the market conditions today, given where we are, it would be impossible for us to build this single family.
And then I took the article from the Philadelphia Inquirer. I-95 reconstruction is really a widening project that will hurt Philly neighborhoods. If you read that article, you will see that they specifically referenced that it's causing hardship on row homes that border I-95, that it's rather difficult for them to live.
And we'll see from the pictures of how close we are to 95.
I think our property is the closest of any of those in that close proximity on Salmon Street.
And if this board feels so inclined to grant the variance, we do have revised plans to reduce the unit count from 19 units to 10 and to reduce the building height from 51 and a half feet to 40 feet, eight and a half inches.
And then this is the revised plans.
But you can even see the building. This is our lot. You can see it's very narrow on this side and widens, but it's really all Salmon. Even though this is East Palmer Street, this is a Salmon Street property for all intents and purposes.
all right and the petition like you know again we're not here to say the community meeting
doesn't matter you know we try to do outreach to the community um just a little bit of background
Just a little bit of background, especially about Cary Borish.
especially about carrie borish you know carrie you know
Cary and his company has invested heavily in the Fishtown neighborhood.
He is the one who redeveloped the Mulherin building.
He is the one who has developed many parts of not just Fishtown on the commercial corridor, but also Port Richmond.
When he can, he likes to do it, whether it's adaptive reuse or complete renovations of properties to preserve the character of the neighborhood.
When he can't, he tries to do responsible projects like this to encourage not just a sense of community where there's none because in this on this lot has been vacant for some time, but to help to support the commercial workers.
So recently I visited at the end of the year, Chicago, and they have a part of Chicago called Fulton Market.
Reminds me of what Fishtown hopefully will be in 10 years.
You know, they had not just, you know, a residential neighborhood, but they had this amazing commercial corridor of two main streets.
But on top of that, you saw the Google headquarters.
You saw other office buildings being built up.
In order to have Fishtown be a secondary center city or maybe a complement to center city, you do need to increase density to the point where there is a thriving commercial corridor, not just at nighttime, but throughout the day, which will hopefully encourage businesses to invest to maybe have offices down there rather than everyone's going to center city.
this is the type of project that hopefully will encourage that type of use and then here's the
petition and here's we do have you know a letter of support from someone on palmer street so again
as you can see here and you know we are um you know we're right here we're right next to rm1
there's icmx like that borders you know us on on um salmon street and across you know 95
there's ICMX. So are we at the beginning of a residential neighborhood or at the end of the
residential neighborhood where, you know, you see non-RSA5 use? You know, that's for the board to
decipher. But again, we hug 95. And again, East Girard is a commercial corridor that, you know,
again, every commercial corridor needs a little bit of a pick-me-up. And we're hoping that this
increased density will do that and then photographs of the property this is our property from east
palmer street this is uh the intersection of east palmer and and salmon and as you can see we're
hugging 95 and then this is the from the intersection of east air and salmon and then
these are the zoning hearing notice posters and then this is east palmer to the right of the
property. East Palmer to the left of the property, you can see we're right on 95.
Salmon Street to the right of the property, again on 95. Salmon Street to the left of the property.
And then East Air to the right of the property, you can see we're right on 95. And then East Air
to the left of the property. These pictures were taken last night. So my client wanted to take
pictures showing the extreme light that is emanating from the underpass where all this
parking is and you can see there's a ton of parking as well but you can just see the lights
it's like a bright light again i can only equate it to like if you're on the temple campus and
temple does it for security reasons and they probably do to a small degree here for security
reasons as well but it's not something that you want to see you know at night if you're living
on a single family house and then this is our you know rendering that we had for the property
And then this is what you can see. Like you can see, like this is Salmon Street, right? You see
there's parking lots. You see there's setbacks. You see there's some industrial use here. This
is our site, right? No one else hugs 95 like our property hugs 95. It's not appropriate to have
single-family use here. Multifamily is more appropriate under circumstances. And then this
is a rendering of showing how we would look if you're driving by going south on 95 right so
we're we're building ends the top of it it's kind of like the same thing you would see with the with
the you know with 95 you're blocking 95 you're blocking the sound of 95 in a way that's helping
some of those residents and then this is just our site plan which you've seen before
which shows the parking down here again
you'll see there's a more pronounced lobby area lounge area track
You'll see there's a more pronounced lobby area, lounge area, trash room, bike storage spaces, and 10 parking spaces.
So, again, we try to do a responsible use of this property.
There's no basement living.
You know, again, we think that this hopefully, you know, we're taking 10 cars essentially off the street by having all these curb cuts, which, again, there's no parking on that side.
and then this is just the elevation showing that we went down from 51 and a half feet to 40 feet
eight inches it's elevation from a different angle from the air street side and then the
salmon street side and then the building section showing confirming our height and then this is
It's the first floor plan, 10 parking spaces, a much bigger lobby area, trash room, mail room, bike storage.
And then the second floor and third and fourth floors equate to all of the units that we have.
But again, you can see just the shape of the building structure would make it rather difficult to have single-family use here.
and there are rco meeting notes we could say you know again i think you know from the you know
letter shows that you know people did show up to the meeting it was this january 2nd this is proof
of our email the notice to the fna and other organizations 81 addresses were notified of that
meeting, those are the addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses or applications
for appeal that we filed on behalf of our client, the notice of refusal, the project
information form, the deed to property showing that my client owns the property, and then
finally the certificate of tax clearance.
The only reason why there's an arrearage is because that's for 2024, and that's not
due to until the first quarter, the end of the first quarter of the year.
With that being said, I would ask that Mr. Borish virtually raise his hand. I'll ask him a few questions, and I know he has a statement as well.
Mr. Borish has been allowed to speak.
Mr. Borish, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court stenographer?
Certainly. It's Cary Borish, C-A-R-Y Borish, B-O-R-I-S-H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes, Mr. Borish, you heard everything I had to say today about your zoning matter.
Yes, I did.
And is it true and correct?
Yes, it is.
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
And do you have anything to add to what I stated?
Thank you, Alan.
I think you captured the spirit of the new project well, and thank you, Borish, for your time.
I think I just want to highlight a few things and and reproach a few things as well. I think we, you know, I regret first presenting 19 units. I think we underestimated the reactivity of the neighborhood.
and um you know i i regret doing that i think we ruffled a lot of feathers and i think we
really tried to do our best to hear the community respond to it and come up with an appropriate
project to scope and scale which i think we've achieved i i also have no interest in doing a
project that is not going to be a net positive for the community and i just want to you know
distill it down that we're taking a lot right now that's oversized, that's blighted, that's a
nuisance, that's causing problems that I don't believe anybody, including us, can develop into
single-family homes given the conditions and turn it into a project that will be contributing to
the neighborhood, certainly by creating safety and additional activity on that street. When we
first acquired the property, I think we made some poor assumptions. One, that whatever construction
was going on underneath I-95 would be more conducive and landscaping to a residential
property. We had time that they were going to be putting in these blinding LED lights, they were
going to be putting in parking, and putting in an area that is supportive of, you know, illicit
behavior. If you look at the adjacent blocks, certainly going south, it's protected, it's
landscaped, there's walls. Like you've said, Alan, this is a convergence of this parcel right on I-95.
In addition, a lot of people that are resistant are on Palmer Street.
And I want to speak to that in a few ways. One is, the address is
And I want to speak to that in a few ways. One is this the address is on Palmer Street, but the property is on Salmon Street.
Thank you.
It's overlooking I-95. Not only not only is it on Salmon Street, but the only way to access the property is to come off of Columbus Boulevard.
As you come off of Columbus Boulevard, in order to park at this property, you are required to make a right onto Salmon Street.