A letter of support from Somerton and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member O'Neill.
Ann Siegel.
Ann Siegel has been promoted to panelists.
and sequel please turn your video on i'm miss seagull
miss seagull
here she has been promoted to penalist she just needs to unmute and turn
Ms. Siegel, please unmute.
Yeah, I see her over there to the left.
Ms. Siegel, unmute, please.
Ms. Siegel?
Chair, Ann Siegel may be having technical difficulties.
I see that they still have their hand up, even as a panelist.
Okay, so let me go on to the next case, and then I'll come back to her, okay?
All right.
Case number seven, MI 2024-007-288-833 Corinthian Avenue.
Joseph Consul is the attorney.
Letter of opposition from Francisville Civic Association,
and a letter of opposition from Council Member Young.
Applicant provided nine form letters.
hello so i'm mr console how are you sir i'm well how are you could you just state your name for
the record and spell it for the stenographer yeah it's joseph console that's j-o-s-e-p-h
last name console c-o-n-s-o-l-e do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do you waive the reading of the refusal and agree with his accuracy i do
Do you waive the reading of the refusal and agree with his accuracy?
and could you
And could you identify your client, a relationship to the property?
My client is Jonathan Holt, and he is the owner of HP Group, LLC.
Why don't you start your presentation, please?
Joseph Consul here for 833 Corinthian Avenue.
This is a request to use this property as a short-term rental.
So we're seeking a visitor accommodation permit. The property is zoned RM1. My clients purchased this property in 2019 and operated it successfully with no issues with the city or any neighbors until the city cracked down on visitor accommodations shortly thereafter.
The board's aware of how those things went down. What I think is notable on this property is that they were fully operational for years prior to being shut down.
I understand there is opposition, but we believe that that is a general opposition and not specific.
And we'll get to the letter from the RCO in a second, but the vote was very close.
And we believe that the RCO just has a blanket policy of rejecting these requests.
However, we're not asking to start one from the ground up.
this is one that was operating is fully furnished and has been and um because of that we're hopeful
that we can um get a variance to use the property as a visitor accommodation so it's 833 corinthian
avenue it is zoned multi-family however it is a single family home there's our proof of mailer
some external photos of the property
this is directly from the listing showing the property nicely furnished
all these photos were in my submitted packet it's a three-bedroom three-bath
we included a layout so everyone can see the setup of the property
uh additionally my clients are not uh sort of one-off operators of short-term rental properties
they have several in the city and they manage them very professionally uh in a moment my client
will talk a little bit about his business but we included their sort of internal um operating
manual just to give the the board um more of a full picture of of who we're presenting here um
these are very serious uh folks who have a lot of rules and regulations about their property and
because of that there have not been any issues they have trash uh trash rules noise violation
enforcement monitors and things like that.
And again, that's all in the packet.
Here's the actual listing of the Airbnb showing they have a near perfect score.
We included some comments, the project information form
showing they actually have a positive tax balance.
So here's the deed from 2019, showing that my clients took possession of the property in October of 2019.
There's the RCO meeting form.
We had seven in support, 10 in opposition, and one non-opposition.
Still, we received a letter of opposition.
um i believe again that this rco just due to some research it appears to not support these
as a blanket policy which we understand um they are able to do that and they included a letter
again nothing specific to my client's property just at the idea of these approvals generally
We included nine petitions from near neighbors, including, I think, very relevantly, the next-door neighbor, Maggie, the owner of the property, 831 Corinthian.
She has a good relationship with my clients, I think appreciates the work that they do there, and submitted a petition in support.
Uh, this one's just a little, scanned a little weird.
and this one's just a little scanned a little weird
um with that call my client john to raise his virtual hand
jonathan hope has been promoted to panelists and will be rejoining us soon thank you
hello you know could you could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
sure it's jonathan holt j-o-n-a-t-h-a-n-h-o-l-t do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the
truth nothing but the truth yes i do could you turn on your video uh i am trying to you're on
your honor okay great please proceed counsel good evening mr holt did you hear my presentation
right now about your property at 833 corinthian avenue yes i did um and do you agree with what
i said and do you adopt it as your own yes i do okay because we're we're the as a preview we're
going to be presenting a few properties in the next few weeks from my clients group um could
you just give the board a little bit of an insight into your company and how it operates
and the history of this property?
We, you know, started operating, as Joe mentioned, years ago and have fully furnished it.
We do a lot of work to, you know, keep out a lot of people here, Airbnbs, and the first
thing they think of is parties.
then their concerns go to excessive trash noise all that sort of stuff I think we do a great job
in managing our properties we can easily eliminate lots of those issues by
the screening of the guests we do we only allow guests with great reviews and ratings we won't
allow like first-time guests signing up we do have age minimums you have to be at least 25 years and
up we actually collect the ids and um also uh have um electronic devices in the house they don't
record or anything they just monitor sound so anytime like you know noise starts to go up to
we have it set for 75 decibels which is the basically a vacuum running would set that off
So anytime like noise like that occurs in the house, not only does the guest automatically get texts, we get that text, too.
And then we reach out and call the guest directly to make sure, you know, everything's still under control.
We have posted signs about, you know, house rules and quiet hours.
And, you know, again, these are our properties and our neighbors, you know, and respecting them is first and foremost.
Joe mentioned we did have, you know, we lost the vote when we went to the RCO, but some of their concerns were, you know, they really wished we could have brought our neighbor.
Unfortunately, Maggie, you know, Joe showed we have her sign that petition, but unfortunately, she wasn't able to make it.
She's pregnant.
We talk to her all the time because her pregnancy, her parents are from out of town.
So she was hoping that they would be able to come and rent the place from us.
So we do have a good relationship with them.
Next door on the other side is a building.
I believe it's CMX2.
It's been a couple of different things like a laundromat and a yoga studio for a while, too.
So the only neighbor that's actually living there, we do have a very good relationship with.
One of the other issues at the RCO meeting, they asked about, you know, helping the community.
Even though we lost that meeting, I still reached out to Megan Grimm, who is the zoning chair of the Francisville Civic Association.
and ask if there are some charities
we can involve ourselves with
the youth sports programs
that they run so we've been
working with her too
Are you done Joe?
Yeah just maybe just pull up
there's the external
just to show what he was referring to
it's a commercial mixed use
to the left of the property
and we're the little guy in the middle
and the property next door is rm1 um yes we're we're done questions from the board
is there a reason that this was uh decided to be a short-term rental instead of just
renting it out in this particular neighborhood uh we
in this particular neighborhood?
Thank you.
We just kind of decided to do that, you know,
when the opportunity presented itself.
You know, we had the furniture,
so we wanted to kind of make it nice
and do that to bring people into the neighborhood
in kind of a different way, if you will.
Yeah, and like we said, this was done, you know,
And obviously, the planning commission will have an opinion on it, but this was done when it was something that the city was permitting generally.
And so we're hopeful that, you know, the board would see fit, you know, at worst to offer us at least some sort of temporary plan to show that my clients are good actors here.
To your knowledge, how many Airbnbs are there on that block?
or the hundreds adjacent to them.
John, do you recall that meeting
that happening at the RCO where that was discussed?
He was pulling up,
I don't know about the exact adjacent block,
but she was searching that specific area
and I think she had about only like five or 10,
maybe just in the whole Francisville kind of area.
Yeah, we were at the meeting
The RCO was trying to narrow it down to say that there was a lot, but it was certainly less than 10.
I believe it to be around five at the time.
That was on the block or in the area?
No, no, no, not on the block.
None, just in their general Francisville area.
Thank you.
Mr. Holt, do you have any more in the area there?
Do you have other Urbane B's?
Yes, yeah.
There we, as Joe mentioned, we'll be back here in some later months, but we do have
some in South Philly as well as like the Fishtown Northern Liberties area.
How many do you operate?
So we have 10.
Thank you.
Other questions?
Warm welcome by every other RCO.
And again, I know that's not relevant.
Other questions from the board?
questions or comments from our attorney no mr chair questions or comments from the virtual
audience i see no means at this time too okay planning commission thank you chair keith davis
planning commission right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth yes i do please proceed thank you the comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning
and dislocation from RM1, residential multifamily, to RSA5, residential single family.
There is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would
prevent it from being used in strict conformity with the zoning code.
A 2020 zoning ordinance passed by city council, which regulated short-term rentals, did not
change the basic rule prohibiting full-time use of a dwelling unit as a short-term rental.
this type of absentee management where the owner does not live in the unit has been illegal since
the four first short-term rental zoning regulations became effective in 2015 but what's changed is the
passage of the 2020 ordinance that there is now a licensing and enforcement mechanism the city
planning commission recommends that the board deny the proposed use variance for visitor accommodations
Mr. Consul, I'm going to hold the vote on this until the 23rd on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Just want to sit and talk in the executive session about where we want to be with this, okay?
Thank you, Mr. Consul, and thank you to your client.
Okay, let's go back to number 5, MI 2024-007-282-10784 Lockhart Road.
Ann Siegel.
Ann Siegel has been promoted to panelists.
Ms. Siegel?
Ann Siegel, please accept the promotion to become a panelist.
can you hear me i i can now thank you um could you put your video turn your video on please
I can now. Thank you. Could you
turn your video on, please?
Change
way. Oh, start my video.
Okay, I see you now. The program has delays,
I guess. Could you state your name and spell for the
stenographer? My name is Ian Siegel,
a n n e s e a g a l do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth i do have you sent on all your documents that you needed to send five days in advance
yes why don't you start your presentation and i've read i've read before the the you know
this is application and convert existing interior parking space required all street parking space
removed an existing two-family semi-detached structure no plan review associated with this