owner's information that was posted at the property in compliance with the requirements
of the zoning code. You can see here the posting both on 74th or Andrews Avenue and then here on
74th Avenue. Tab 15 is a copy of the deed showing my client as the owner of the property TD Holdings
NY LLC since 2020. Our tax clearance at tab 16 and then at tab 17 the email from the planning
commission designating the 10th democratic ward as the coordinating rco the list of addresses to
which we uh sent the 14 303 notice copy of the 14 303 notice and a certificate of first class
mailing 167 mailings went out on august 28th of 2023 um so with that i would have my client uh
who is present, Isaac Twizor, promoted to a panelist so he can adopt the statements.
Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
They've been about to speak. Please unmute.
State your name and spell for the court stenographer, please.
is a court reporter did you did you get that
yes sir i did okay thank you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel certainly thank you mr chairman uh isaac did
hear the statements that i made to the board today yes are they true and correct to the best
of your knowledge yes and would you adopt them as your own yes uh thank you isaac mr chairman
with that i i rest um i introduce i would like to introduce my exhibits into the record yes i'm here
to answer any questions that the board might have questions from the board no no no chair
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Hillary, we have the tax clearance?
Yes, we did get it. Yes, we did.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Okay, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single-family zoning.
However, the proposed use is consistent with documented prior use of this property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the variance.
Thank you. MI 2023-003-155-7401 Andrews Avenue, I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
So you have your votes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That concludes my business.
May I be excused?
Most certainly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Number 13, MI 2023-003-183, 538-40 Spruce Street.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney
Letter of Non-Opposition from Society Hill Civic Association
A letter of non-opposition from Society Hill Civic Association. A letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Letter
Hello, Mr. Chairman.
Council, you've already been sworn. Just state your name for the record.
Brandon Saverin.
Could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
Yes, my clients are Zachary Frankel and Alexandra Olsman, and they are husband and wife and own the property.
Okay, and our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do agree to waive the reading, but I do not stipulate to its accuracy, which I'll discuss in a moment.
okay uh have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to
proceed with this case uh yes i have all right thank you please proceed to share your screen
thank you mr vice chairman um good afternoon again members of the board um i am here to um
discuss the legalization of a parking space at a single-family residential property at the corner
of 6th and Spruce in Society Hill. And before I get into the details, I just wanted to present
the documents that the chairman just mentioned, which are a letter of non-opposition from the
Society Hill Civic Association, which followed a unanimous vote of non-opposition at the RCO
meeting which zach and i attended um i i think that um paul who um leads their zoning committee
may be on the call and if he waited this long and i really have to buy him a beer but if not
i'll understand um and then here is our letter of non-opposition from councilman squilla um so
the details of the matter. This is our notice of refusal. We have three purported refusals.
Two of them basically say the same thing. The third, I believe, was issued in error. That's
why I didn't stipulate to the accuracy of the refusal. The one I believe was issued in error
is the middle of the three refusals. It states that vehicular ingress and egress are prohibited
to and from Spruce Street within this overlay district.
What I'm going to show you in a second is that the subject curb cut that serves the
parking space does not come off of Spruce Street.
It comes off of 6th.
So I believe that one was issued in error.
The other two appear to be accurate.
They say the same thing, which is that while accessory parking is not illegal here in and
of itself, what is not permitted is accessing a parking space directly from a front or a side
street. What you're supposed to do is access the space from a rear street or an alley or a shared
driveway. We do not have any of those features serving the property. So if we're going to have
parking, which I'm going to take the position as a necessity here, if we're going to have parking,
it is impossible to comply with those zoning sections. And that is one of the bases of our
hardship. I'll get into a little bit more about the hardship in a second. So this is part of
Exhibit 2, the refusal. Also in Exhibit 2 is our zoning plan, which we submitted to the
Department of Streets and L&I. Actually, really quickly, I'll just jump to, I think it's Exhibit
10 at the end of our binder, we have the zoning stage approval letter from the Department of
Streets. So they took a look at our zoning plan and felt that it met streets department requirements.
Going back to that plan in Exhibit 2, so this is a site plan drawn by Mr. MacArthur, our architect.
Essentially what's going on here is, and Mr. MacArthur included a few photos in his plan,
And this is the side of the home on 6th.
You can see to the right, there is a long-standing gate and a parking space there.
When we went to the RCO meeting, no one at the RCO remembered a moment in time where
this parking space wasn't present.
What sort of happened here is that my clients purchased this property as a newly married
couple about a year and a half ago.
And when they did so, they discovered that there was work on the property that had been done without permits.
When they set about trying to legalize that work, one of the things that L&I pointed out is that there was no zoning permit for parking.
One of the things that Ellen and I pointed out is that there was no zoning permit for
parking.
So here's a little site plan showing you.
It's pretty uninteresting, but you have a depiction of a car turning radius off of 6th
over the sidewalk into the property.
There's ample space for one car back there in the rear yard, which is largely paved,
has been for, again, as long as anybody can remember.
And, you know, the proposed parking space meets the dimensional requirements of the code. So we're not, no dimensional refusals here, just the use refusal, again, for accessing the space off of a main street.
I will jump to the zoning plan. Sorry, zoning map, which is Exhibit 5, just to show you the location of the property. Again, southeast corner of 6th and Spruce Street. This is Exhibit 5.
I'm going to jump to part of Exhibit 1.
So Exhibit 1 is a memo that starts here that I drafted to the board.
As I usually do, this lays out sort of the full scope of my argument for why I believe we satisfy the standards for a variance under the zoning code.
I will not read through all this, but I did want to point out that at the end of the memo, I attached a screenshot from a week ago of the property from atlas.phila.gov, and it just shows you here some of the permits that my clients have pulled in their effort to legalize the previously unpermitted aspects of the property.
So this is just to show you that my clients are making a good faith effort to comply with every regulation and law of the city of Philadelphia.
And that this variance is a part of that effort.
If, you know, they're trying to do things above board.
If they weren't, they wouldn't have bothered to pull permits to legalize what the last donor did.
I'll just show you an exhibit six, some photos from Atlas of our surroundings.
This is a parcel map. This is a parcel map zoomed out, just showing our location. This is an aerial
photo from Atlas. So this one's actually more interesting. What you kind of see here is Spruce
Street has a bike lane on our side of the street. And there are now plastic delineator posts in
front of our property. So what it means is that it's physically impossible for a car to pull over
in front of our property on Spruce. On 6th Street, there's similarly no parking on our side of the
street, although there's no posts or anything like that, like there are on Spruce. But again,
I would say, although it's possible to pull over next to the property on 6th, it's not safe given
that 6th is the main artery from the Ben Franklin Bridge and the Vine Street Expressway down into
Society Hill in South Philly, if you get off of 676, which is those roads I mentioned,
your sort of default first option is to go down six. So not really safe for someone to pull over
on this arterial street. There is parallel parking opposite our property on both of these streets.
But as you can see in this aerial, which is by the city itself, those spots are usually occupied.
And the general George McCall Middle School is a very old public school is right here. This is across from us on 6th. So during the day, what you have is faculty taking a lot of these spots in this area.
You also have people visiting Pennsylvania Hospital, which is a block away, taking these spots.
I should know because that's what I did for three days when my son was born.
So that's all just to say it's hard to park in this area.
There's no parking available directly adjacent to the property.
And I believe that that necessitates parking.
So that's a part of our hardship as well.
um i think that um that that really is my presentation um i'm happy to take questions
and um uh actually sorry before i conclude i'm gonna i'm just gonna show you a close-up of the
parking spot itself here it is on 6th so this is what it looks like a little more up close
but that that's it happy to take questions or have my client adopt my testimony
And then is there already a curb cut there?
Yes, there is.
You can kind of see it there.
Why don't you bring your client on?
So that would be Zach, Zach Frankel. Are you available in the audience?
So that would be Zach, Zach Frankel.
Are you available in the audience?
Please, I'm allowed to speak.
Hi, Mr. Frankel, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court's sonography?
Zachary Frankel, Z-A-C-H-A-R-Y-F-R-A-N-K-E-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth?
please proceed counsel thank you um zach uh did you hear my testimony in uh your and your wife's
zoning case today i did um was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge information and
belief it was um would you therefore adopt it as if it were your own testimony i do thank you
questions from the board
no chair
no chair
questions or comments from our attorney
Hillary Emerson
not at this time Mr. Chair
questions or comments
from the virtual audience
yes Mr. Chair
I have Paul Bonney on the line
I've allowed him to speak at this time
Counsel could you state your name please
and spell for the court stenographer
yes my name is paul bonnie b-o-n-i right do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes i do please proceed sir uh i'm the uh chair of the zoning committee for
the um societal civic association i just wanted to reiterate that we do not oppose uh this
application and i want to thank the applicant and his attorney for you know making a great
presentation to us and uh for the record i will have a beer with you but i will not accept a
donation of any kind thank you thank you council thanks for waiting for on the phone um is there
anyone else in the virtual audience no sir there are no further hands okay planning commission
Thank you, Chair Bergman. Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential multifamily zoning. The proposed use will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what might normally be expected. The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance.
Thank you. MI 2023-003-183-538-40 Spruce Street. I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman
James Snell my vote is yes
Ishmael Shahid my vote is yes
Thank you counsel you have your votes
Mr. Chair can you have Mr. Holloman vote again
I didn't catch what his vote was
Thomas Holloman my vote is yes
Thank you, Tom. Number 14 MI 2023-003-189-724-26 Dickinson Street. Sean Whalen is the attorney. Letter of non-opposition from Passion Square Civic Association with a proviso.
and Letter of Non-Opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Mr. Whalen.
he is coming back in as a panelist sir okay thank you
good afternoon chairman hi uh counsel could you state your name and spell please for the court
stenographer? Certainly. Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N. Right. Do you swear to firm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Could you identify your client,
a relationship to this property? Of course. I'm here from Vintage Law on behalf of ACG724
Dickinson, LLC. That is the owner and the applicant here. And our vice chair has a few
questions for you, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Wellington. Do you agree the way the reading
of the refuse to assimilate to this accuracy? Yes, I do.
May the reading of the Refugee assimilate to this accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I did.