All right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
So, Chris, what I'd like you to do is, you know, walk through the RCO presentation deck in, like, two minutes or so, and then I'm going to ask you one or two questions.
Do you want to share your screen, or should I do it for you?
Sure, if the panel could grant permission to share.
You probably have it since you're a panelist, if you want to give it a shot.
Excuse me, he's been a promoter.
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hand.
Okay, here we go.
Are you able to see my screen?
it's coming up now yep it's here great thank you so as brandon mentioned we do have a ground floor
that consists mostly of parking we did feel that it was important to the street frontage to provide
some active uses along the street and you know in part of the conversation of complying with
the landscape buffers to the rear if we did so that would really limit our ability to provide
activity so we didn't think it was important to promote that all of our
mechanical uses and things like that will be pushed to the ground I get below
ground again to allow for more active uses as we move up through the rest of
the building you'll see that it's predominantly residential units facing
the front and rear and
And Brandon had already shown some perspective views, but you can see that the design is
uh the design is is really looking to mimic some of the scales of the the larger surrounding
really looking to mimic.
buildings but also respect some of the residential scales of the ground floor
uh there will be roof deck access and we'll be setting that bet back quite a bit so it will
almost be unrecognizable from the ground uh brandon are there any other items that you'd
like me to elaborate on um so i'm just going to ask you like a couple questions and then and then
i'll ask the board if they have any questions for you sure christy i mean do you agree with
my assessment that we really maxed out the possible surface parking while still providing
a front lobby yeah i i do we we've gotten every bit out of this that we can and i strongly believe
in my professional opinion that the providing the fence and and active frontages uh is sufficient
for what the code is expecting um are are you um fair to say that if we did introduce the side yard
setback or the landscaping and screening buffers cited in the refusal that that any of those things
would have reduced the amount of parking we would lose approximately seven spaces in doing that
okay thank you um no further questions and and members of the board you're welcome to ask
Chris, why don't we do this? Why don't you have your testimony adopted? Then the board will ask what questions they need to ask. Okay.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Joel Edwards is here to adopt my testimony.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Joel Edwards, J-O-E-L, Edwards, E-D-W-A-R-D-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you. Joel, are you authorized to speak on behalf of Building Holdings, LLC?
Did you hear my presentation in your zoning case this afternoon?
I did.
Were the things I said true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
Yes, I were.
And would you therefore adopt it as if it were your own testimony on behalf of the LLC?
Okay, thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I have Felipe Sevilla on the line. I've allowed them to speak.
Okay. Hi, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court stenographer?
Hey, sir, how are you? My name is Felipe Sevilla, F-E-L-I-P-E, last name S-E-V-I-L-L-A.
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
Okay, proceed, sir.
Yes, I just have comments.
I do agree with Brandon's testimony to residential uses being increasing the area and definitely
upgrading what we have going on in the area now.
But my only comment is I don't believe apartments is the way to go.
I feel like if there would be single to two family properties along the block and we had
property owners instead of renters coming
into the neighborhood, that would
bring a lot of value and also
not affect the affordability of the neighborhood by
too much with that many people coming
into that area.
Thank you for taking the time to call in.
We appreciate your comments.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No further answer, Mr. Chair.
Pardon me?
No further hands, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing industrial mixed-use zoning.
Recent zoning remappings have sought to limit the expansion of residential uses adjacent to I-95 for the purpose of protecting public health and limiting intrusion into established industrial areas.
The appellant has not supported their hardship claim with evidence of unique physical circumstances or conditions of the property, including exclusion of required landscaping.
The proposed development is out of character for the neighborhood.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board deny the variance.
Mr. Sharvin, you have comments?
Yeah, I think, you know, again, I did address some of the things Miss Bond just raised in my memo to the board. It's just not fair to consume your time by ticking through all of those arguments.
It's just not fair to consume your time by ticking through all of those arguments, but I will just say, having visited this site, I do not feel, and I know that my client does not feel, that this block is functioning as a viable, safe industrial district.
It is a nuisance to the nearby residents, and our property would be better served as residential. That's all I'll say.
Okay. I really want to take a couple moments next week and discuss this with the other members of the board to get their input and just figure out where we want to be with this.
So we will do that next week, next Wednesday. We will vote at 2 p.m. on this case.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Number five, there we go. MI 2023-003-065-4241 Richmond Street. Alex Goldberg is the attorney. Recommendation of support from Bridesburg Community Civic Community Action Alliance.
vote was unanimous
the applicant also provided
a petition of
approximately 51 neighbors in support
good afternoon Mr. Chairman
Mr. Goldberg
could you state your name please and spell for the
court stenographer
Alex Goldberg A-L-E-X
G-O-L-D-B-E-R-G
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Can you identify your client, please, and the relationship to the property?
My clients are Thomas and Patrick Goodyear.
They're the owners of the property.
And Mr. Holloman has just a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Did you email all of the exhibits and documents that's required five days in advance to this hearing?
I did.
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay, I'm going to go full screen here.
Okay, thank you again.
My name is Alex Goldberg of Nockimson PC.
I am here with Thomas and Patrick Goodyear seeking two variances at 4241 Richmond Street.
We're proposing the erection of an attached structure with a ground floor commercial space
and two residential units above.
This is the table of contents.
First is the notice of refusal.
Then the property history showing that this property does have history of mixed use with
commercial and residential correspondence from the Bridesburg Community Action Alliance
where we received unanimous support, an extensive petition including signatures from the nearest
neighbors, a zoning map and a Google map of the area, photographs of the property and the
surrounding area, the architectural plans and drawings, the meeting notice, the application
for appeal, the deed, and the certificate of tax clearance. So here's the first exhibit. It's the
notice of refusal, which was issued in April of this year. As I said, we're proposing the erection
of an attached building with a, more specifically, a business and professional office on the
first floor and two units above.
That professional office will be for my client's roofing business, Bridesburg Roofing, which
has been a mainstay in the Bridesburg community for multiple generations, as has the Goodyear
family.
That second, or those two refusals, the first one is for that professional office use on
the ground floor, and the second one is for the two-family household living above. As you'll see
in the maps in the slides to come, you know, we sort of see this property as more of a CMX2 property.
It's a corner lot. There are mixed-use properties like this one directly across the street,
and we're not sort of disturbing the residential neighbor of the block that we are attached to.
we're right on the end of that. And on the other side of the street on Headley, which is our corner
street, is sort of a warehouse use. So we believe it makes sense for what we're proposing here.
Here's the property history. This is dating back to 1959, showing that there was a grocery store
and a residential dwelling in the building structure. Correspondence from the coordinating
RCO. This was a well-attended meeting. 27 people in attendance. You can see that there were 25 votes
in support. Those two votes that were not counted, or those two individuals who did not vote were me
and the applicant. So we had great support from the community group, as I mentioned, the Goodyear
So we had great support from the community group. As I mentioned, the Goodyear family is large. They've lived in Bridesburg for generations. They live close to this property. They will be self-managing it. And they had strong support from their fellow community members.
family.
Here's the petition. This is a map illustrating where the signatures came from that you'll see in the coming pages.
You can see that pretty much every property within that 250 square foot radius is signed in support.
We had over 60 signatures from over 50 individual addresses, including the property that we are going to be attached to and the property directly behind us, which would be in this case the most directly affected neighbors.
Here's those signatures, many of which showed up at the community meeting.
Here's a zoning map of the area. So you can see there's a mix of zoning here.
We're an RSA 5 property. We have a large cemetery directly across the street.
There's a school down the way on our street, and there's a number of industrially zoned properties, which are mostly warehouses to our left.
Google Maps perspective, you can get a better idea of what I just described.
Richmond Street is a commercial corridor.
You can see directly across the street identified as one of those commercial uses.
But there are a number of building structures very similar to what we're proposing here with commercial on the ground floor and residential above.
Some photographs. This is the front of the property. It's currently a vacant lot.
you can see the posting photos here as this is a corner of property it was posted facing both
Hedley Street and Richmond Street to the right of the property to the left of the property there's
the warehouse that I referenced that is directly to the left of us and as you can see in the right
side of this photo there are a number of mixed-use structures which is in line with what we are
proposing to the right of the property on headley and to the left of the prop uh the property on
headley um you know when we were at that community meeting something that was discussed was um how
headley uh street actually in bridesburg was was one of the um the best opportunities for on street
parking in the neighborhood and that the neighborhood was happy to see that there
would be plenty of opportunities for on street parking for the future tenants of this building
structure. Here's the architectural plans and drawings. A couple things that I'd like to point
out, and I'll zoom in here. We always focus on how is trash going to be responsibly managed and
stored. We have separate trash enclosures in the rear yard here, one for the residential units
and one for the commercial unit as well. And we will be willing to agree to commercial trash
pickup and both of those trash enclosures would be accessed from an existing alley sort of separated
off from the rear yard next slide is the elevations both the commercial and the residential components
gain access from headley street you can see there's a gate here that will provide access to
the rear yard which is actually where the residential tenants will enter the building
structure. The commercial portion of the property will have two entrances along that brick facade.
You can see the floor plans here. We have a tenant space for the commercial unit, which again
will be my client's roofing business of over 750 square feet. We have two nearly identical units
above, one on the second floor and one on the third floor. Those are both two bedroom, one
bathroom apartments. My client, Tom, again, very familiar with this neighborhood. He was able to
identify sort of what kind of residential apartments are desired in this neighborhood,
and he felt that doing two two-bedroom apartments would be much more suitable to those looking for
apartments rather than a much larger apartment above the commercial space. Last thing I'd want
to point out is that we do have, in addition to the trash storage in the rear yard, ventilated trash
holding spaces in the residential apartment units for trash to be stored there before it's carried
to the trash enclosure outside in a ventilated and cleaned space. Here's the RCO meeting notice.
We met with the community on September 28th. This notice was mailed in a timely fashion.