That is my presentation.
Again,
mr jane please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
sir could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
Sure. It's Sanjeev Jan. First name is spelled S-A-N-J-I-V, and the last name is Jan, J-A-I-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Good evening, Sanjeev. Were you able to hear my entire presentation about your property tonight?
Yes, I was.
Okay. To the best of your knowledge and belief, was my testimony accurate and true?
yes um would you therefore be willing to adopt it here as if it were your own testimony
yes okay thank you very much questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands here i have planning commission this um ryan bednar city planning
uh this property is indicated for residential use on the city plan or adopted district plan
recommends no changes to the existing zoning at this location the proposed subdivision would
create two undersized lots per the fourth district overlay standards and not in conformity with the
code therefore we recommend the request for it's not being random mr chair i just want to quickly
reiterate in like literally one sentence that what we are creating may be undersized per
this special overlay, but it is not undersized in the context of this neighborhood. These are
completely average, in line with the block lots. They're 900 square feet. They are going to be
completely typical Roxborough row homes. Okay, so did you say before, if the board votes,
it's one page, I have two pages? Yes, I apologize. You're right, because what we have is one page
this zoning plan and the other is a survey so you're right it's my 2022 004-949-4800-02 oval
street i vote yes with proviso revised plans two pages stand by cba january 25 2023 thomas holliman
My vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheen, my vote is yes.
With proviso.
So either we lost it or we cut off, Brandon.
What we'll do is we'll take this back into consideration.
in an executive session, Jim will make sure he studies everything, then we'll re-vote it, okay?
Would that be occurring? Well, I'll be blunt. Could that happen not at the 3.30 session?
I think I have a conflict at the later afternoon week from today. Could it
be at the 9.30 or the 2 p.m. session?
Mr. Saverin, we vote the add-ons at either 9.30 or 2 p.m. because the 3.30 session does not
start at a consistent time. Okay. All right. I will, I will be on in the morning next week to
hear. Thank you. Well, this one, because it was an afternoon case, we will put it on the afternoon
add-on list. Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. Emerson. Okay. Thank you, Brandon. Number seven,
MI 2022-004-887-7211 Crescent Road. RCO letter, West Mount Airy. We have received the letter and
it's a letter of support. Wayne and Lee Batches is the owner of applicants. It's a pro se.
Chair, Leah Batches is coming back in as a panelist.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter?
My name is Leah Snyder Batches. It's L-E-A-H-S-N-Y-D-E-R. Batches is B as in boy, A, T as in Tom, C-H-I-S as in Sam.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Right. Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth of nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
So this application is for the erection of a roof deck above an existing detached structure for single-family household living.
Size and location is shown in your application plan.
A roof deck setback of five feet is required from an extreme front of the building, but zero feet are proposed.
so uh our our vice chair just has a few questions for you okay so no problem thank you and could
you do could you put your uh your your uh video on so we can see you please yes i i i meant to
have my video on so just give me a moment and i will try it's okay it's okay yeah i mean i i don't
and i'm not trying to hide from you i thank you for your time hold on one second i think this
might do it there you go you're on you're not hiding anymore okay our vice chair has a few
questions okay thank you good afternoon uh have you emailed all the exhibits that are required
uh to this case five days in advance to this hearing we did email everything but i believe
there were a few things that were emailed um fewer than five days in advance but i i i hope that i
do believe you have everything now. Okay, thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay, so I, unfortunately, I was unable to be at my desk today, and so I'm here with my husband,
Wayne Batches. I myself am actually an attorney, but I appreciate your help through this process
as I represent kids with special needs, so I'm not familiar with this hearing procedures.
And with us also is our designer, Lauren Campuzano.
And I wanted to request if she could actually share the screen, the presentation file that we sent via PDF, because unfortunately, I'm just not able to do that with the technology.
So she can share the screen and you'll do the testimony.
Correct. Yeah. Thank you.
Ms. Campuzano, could you please raise your virtual hand?
Sherry, she's coming back in as a panelist now.
So what we need you to do is to just share the screen for her,
and she'll do the testimony, and she'll tell you when to move back and forth.
So you won't be testifying.
It will be her, okay?
Perfect.
I'll put myself on mute and I will share my screen.
That's very, very good.
Thank you.
Council, maybe make it a little bit bigger.
And Lauren, if you could go to page five and we could start there, that would be great.
so yes so this is our home at 7211 question road um this is our family home we've lived there for
15 years we bought it in 2008 um we've provided the deed and the tax clearance and there are
we're up to date with our taxes uh we live with our there it's just us just our family we have
two children who attend philly public schools um we love mount airy and we plan to stay in the
community for a long time. And so what we had proposed and sought a permit for, it's a little
different than I think it sounds as described. So you'll see there, if you look at the front of our
house, there's a front porch that has been enclosed and we are looking to put a deck on top of that
porch. So it's not a roof deck in that it's on the roof, it's on the roof of the porch. So it's
the second story. And you see there the three windows, those would become like a French door
that would open up onto the deck. And really the reason that we are seeking the variance is because
it's only about eight feet wide, which I'll show you in a moment in the plans. And so if we had to
do a five foot setback, it really would have no practical use for us. And I think also would
really affect the aesthetics um of the of the of the project um uh in comparison with other houses
in in our our northwest philadelphia community in mount area and chestnut hill um so we're here
today to talk about that uh first you know it's a little bit unclear to us whether the um the
the statute actually applies but you know be that as it may we wanted to come before the board and
do this properly so so that's where we're here why we're here um uh lauren if you could go down to
why we're here um uh lauren if you could go down to page seven how much longer is this
page seven
i'm sorry um so uh so um so we um excuse me i'm sorry um so we are asking uh okay so here you can
see what we plan to do here with the railing that comes right up to the edge of the porch.
We're going to preserve all of the existing architectural detail. And we're asking that
the variance be granted because, as I said before, it would be a hardship to us if we had to do the
setback because it really would diminish the enjoyment and the use of that area. There's no
neighborhood opposition in fact we've submitted and in this presentation file there are um
there you know the west mountain area neighbors approved it six to zero and also we have some
some letters of support from our immediate neighbors um there's no safety hazard and there's
no there's no environmental concerns and also there's no infringement on the light and air of
any of our neighbors. If you could go down to page nine of the presentation.
So these are some other similar second story roof decks that we collected from the community so
that you can see that this is consistent with other projects in the neighborhood. Some are new
and some are older um and basically you know that's it if you have any questions like i said
oh one thing that i really want to mention if we could go back to page seven um our house is set
back almost 30 feet from the street so the the railing of the new deck will be almost 30 feet
off of the street it seems to me that part of the purpose for the setback is to make sure that there
isn't a railing or maybe things falling into the street and i just wanted to point out that that
would not be the case in our situation so that's all and if the board has any questions i'm happy
to take them and thank you so much for your uh for your time questions from the board no mr chairman
no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands chair planning commission yeah on bed in our city planning the property is
indicated for residential city plan we have no objection to the granting agreements thank you
um by the way you sounded like a zoning lawyer if you're interested oh thank you so mi2022
004-887-7211 Crescent Road. I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
You have your three votes. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose 3.30 case has not been called?
I see no heads, Chair.
Thanks, everyone.
Good job, Mr. Chairman.
Good job, but we got a lot of work done today, so I appreciate everybody's helping.
We're moving ahead.
You know, that job in West Philadelphia, that new building is going to be another great addition to the University Science Center.
Thank you, everyone.
Good night, everyone.