And I certainly thank the board's time, my struggle in providing the documents necessary.
And again, Mr. Geraldo is available, I assume, on standby.
Should the board members have any particular questions that they seek to ask that I may not be able to answer?
he has been unmuted so he's available to speak if he or he has been allowed to speak if he wants to
unmute himself i am unmuted uh good afternoon the board um sir excuse me please identify
yourself with the record spell your name my name is sergio gerondo a president of philadelphia
Would you please spell your name for the stenographer?
Sergio S-E-R-G-I-O
Last name Geraldo
G-I-R-A-L-D-O
Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you. Mr. Cole?
Sergio, have you heard all of the information that I have provided the board here this afternoon?
Yes, I have.
Do you agree with everything that I've said?
Has everything I said been true and correct to your understanding and knowledge?
Yes, it is correct.
And you also saw how badly I offered the documentation that you provided me to the board member?
Yes, I did.
And I can offer myself to provide all the documents as I have them also in my, I can share it if the board allows me.
Thank you, but I don't think that's necessary.
Can I interrupt for one minute?
This is Sharon Soledda again.
Mr. Cole, I actually should apologize to you.
Generally, when we receive documents as individual exhibits, I write to the attorney and ask that they merge them into a single document.
I checked.
I didn't do that with you, and I apologize.
No, none.
My fault for not understanding the system.
My apologies.
Thank you.
Thank you both.
Questions from the board?
Anyone else wish to testify in this case?
If so, please raise your hand.
chair i have sloan folks from the council person's office sloan you have been able to speak you can
unmute yourself and testify good afternoon chairman of the board uh and uh zoning board
my name is sloan folks s-l-o-a-n-e folks that's an i-r-o-l-k-s councilwoman maria canina sanchez
Mr. Sloan, do you swear and affirm that the testimony you're about to give is true to the best of your ability?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Being that the applicant has met with the local RCO and has garnered a letter of support from the RCO,
our office also offers our support to this various request.
Thank you very much. Planning Commission. Chair and members of the board, David Fecteau, F-E-C-T-E-A-U for the City Planning Commission. This property is zoned residential single family. The comprehensive plan of the City of Philadelphia recommends residential multifamily, and the property is only one block from the market Frankfurt lines Allegheny Station. We do not believe the proposed use will have an adverse impact on the block, so we have no objection to the granting of this variance.
Thank you very much.
Planning Commission.
Chair.
thank you very much and could we chair please if i may ask that we swear mr fecto in for the
rest of the afternoon i i fail i thought he already did i apologize so will the stenographer please
identify yourself again sure david fecteau f-e-c-t-e-a-u for the city planning commission
you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes sir i do thank
you very much calendar number three eight eight zero zero seven five five east allegheny avenue
my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes
thank you very much board members and chairman thank you thank you
if i may indulge the uh the board's time for about 10 seconds um is the board conducting
executive sessions i have another matter that's almost a year old that has been delayed
would you send that to the board administrator please
just send it to ms sunket and she'll she'll work things i shall thank you i'll send an email and
i apologize thank you for your time no problem thank you thank you very much would i be able
would i be able to leave the uh would i be able to leave the uh the meeting now yes all right
thank you very much you guys have a good day thank you all right calendar number 39536 3310
welsh road the applicant is antonio hatch this is an application for a takeout restaurant in the
same building with existing two-family dwelling as previously approved in an
existing structure. This proposed use is refused because the take-out restaurant
is prohibited in this zoning district.
Mr. Hatch, you've been promoted to a panelist so you can speak and you can
share your screen as necessary. Thank you all very much. Hello. Good afternoon
everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. Mr. Hatch, please identify yourselves by your name for the
stenographer. Yes, sir. My name is Antonio Hatch, A-N-T-O-N-I-O, last name Hatch, H-A-T-C-H.
And my name is Dana Hatch, D-A-N-A-H-A-T-C-H.
Do you both swear and affirm that the testimony you're about to give is true to the best of your
ability? Yes. Please proceed, sir. Good afternoon, everyone again. Excuse me for being a little
nervous over this. This is a little odd as everyone sees it. We're seeking a variance
for the property at 3310 Welsh Road. We filed the appeal for the variance on December 24th
in 2019. And unfortunately, due to COVID, time in May was backed up until today.
We're looking to bring an ice cream parlor, a hand-dipped ice cream to a community neighborhood
that we've lived in for the last decade. The property was, well, and before I go there,
We have the support of the community, full support of the community.
We've met with RCOs on several occasions.
We have their support as well.
And we're not making any structural changes.
We're just bringing in some refrigerators and freezers
and just trying to make an ice cream parlor
and bring the community some smiles.
And jobs.
And a few jobs.
Mr. Hatch, are you looking for a takeout window since we don't we don't have any plans in front of us?
No, sir. And that's primarily because our the way that our building, if you if I can bring up some of the photos, that would be helpful.
Thank you.
Okay, um, would someone be able to help direct me how to share this photo, this screen?
At the bottom of the screen, you'll see a little green box that says share screen.
Okay, give me one second.
You're going to hit that box, but then you're going to go to the actual file or document
that you wish to share?
So do you have your file open already?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, now hit the little green box at the bottom
that says share screen on the Zoom.
Unfortunately, Ms. Sunkett, it doesn't show us that option.
Okay, now when you submitted your documents to the ZBA,
did you have the pictures and all in there?
yes ma'am okay I'll see and I'm sorry to get back to your point I got council
members is that I know it was not as far as all take out there's no sitting so
at capacity there's about maybe three to four people that will be able to fit in
there with social distancing safely at a time and the average time that a person spends in the ice
cream shop is about five to seven minutes not to excuse anything we have everything that's going
in place with COVID-19 and all our sanitation restrictions but as far as building the takeout
window we wanted to look at that down the line once we were able to achieve possibly you know
be granted the variants to open. We have put quite a lot of heart and hard work into,
you know, a lot of things that the community wants and sees there and totally supports. And
also that the zoning was changed on that a few years back, but it has two windows,
as you guys can see from the photos hopefully that is uh two huge windows where it was already
a hair salon and from 1957 to 1992 it was a uh it was a takeout deli um it serves the children
of uh i'm sorry to high school seniors a father judge high school um it's in a highly highly
communal area and uh we just looked into uh about a year ago prior to covid my wife and i said the
world is not smiling and we said uh what can make the world smile and we decided you know
old-fashioned hand-dipped ice cream cones and and flavored waffle cones and flavored
i scream you scream we all scream for ice cream okay any uh thank you any questions from the board
no no and no don't wish to testify in this case please raise your hand at this time
no hands are raised at this time thank you tanya uh planning commission
uh chair and members of the board this property is zoned for residential single family the city's
comprehensive plan recommends residential single family when we go out and do zoning map changes
we always check with the community associations when a use like this has gone out of business
and evidently in this case the neighborhood association asked for the use not to be able to
be continued we have nothing against ice cream but we do believe that takeout restaurant would
be better suited for frankfort avenue which has several vacancies on it so we are going to ask to
oppose this variance but this is on welsh road right but frankfort avenue is a nearby commercial
corridor right okay maybe the number the calendar number 39536 3310 welsh road my vote is yes
my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes good luck thank you
much. Thank you all so much. Good luck to you. Thank you. Make sure you stop by and get some
ice cream. And make sure you charge us. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Calendar number 394061019
Arch Street. Attorney Zeng Jin.
Mr. Jin, you've been promoted to a panelist. You can share your screen and
speak. Hi, Mr. Jin, can you please put your name and address on the record and
Hi, Mr. Jin. Can you please put your name and address on the record? And then I have two more questions.
then I have two more questions.
Zen Jin, Z-H-E-N, J-I-N, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1838, Philadelphia PA 19103.
Here on behalf of the APKIN 1019 Arch Street LLC.
And do you swear to affirm?
Yes, I do.
To tell the truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
You may proceed.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm going to share the information regarding this application.
This is an application for an existing partially built structure in Center City CMX4 District.
There's a lot of history to this property, so I think it's important to understand how we got here with this particular variance request.
This building was at one point approved for a five-story structure, 72-foot height, and a 400-plus percent floor area ratio coverage.
However, when my client hired the contractor to build the building,
the actual building that was built contained seven total floors. My client is an accountant.
He basically has his own business in Chinatown and he was not really aware of the construction
in the things, he was told by the gentleman that was running the construction, Mr. Tony
Ren, that everything's fine. We're going according to plan. Don't you worry. He started worrying
when the city came and shut his construction down. At that point, he started investigating
into it and working with the city on the court trying to lift the various violations. And
And there are more problems to this building than just what we're here for zoning.
But they're all slowly but surely being addressed.
What we're actually looking at here is a building that was originally built.
And what I'm going to do is scroll down to the original permit.
The original permit from years ago said that it would be built according to this plan,
which as you can see, they're actually multiple floors looking like seven, but they're actually
design said there's only going to be five floors within the building so when the building was put
together structurally there ended up being seven actual floors as you can see each of the floors
are only partially completed but that brought us to essentially a 700 percent floor area ratio
When my client started working with new architects, the plan is to reduce as much as possible the floor area ratio back towards 500.
What prevents us from going completely to 500 and under is that this is essentially set up like a seven-story structure height.
and some of the building floor area in the plan has to be left in order to make sure that the
structural integrity of the building stays. So what the architect did is he cut out parts of
floor 6 and floor 2 and made them into what is essentially mezzaneums which allows the space to
still maintain structural integrity, but they're demoing part of the floors. They're demoing part
of the stairs and moving the staircases. Everything is done in a way to make this building
as structurally sound as possible. After we did the reductions based on the architectural
recommendation, there are parts left that are essentially a mezzanineum point in the floors
where the second floor used to be and further up which led to the 590% that
we're asking for before the board. If the board looks at the refusal carefully
you can see that the calculation for 500 to 590% for this building is about a
2,000 square foot difference in total. Also the original plan actually called
for 12 residential units. The new plan, my client wants to use second floor essentially as his
office and the mezzanineum portion as his office. So we reduced the total residential usage to nine,
maintaining the restaurant use on the first floor. So density standpoint, that extra 90%
standpoint, that extra 90% is not going to impact the neighborhood in any significant manner. What
is not going to impact the neighborhood.
it does allow him to do is to not have to demolish the entire building to rebuild it
in a structurally sound format. We presented this to Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation
and we understand why they ultimately issued an opposition. Their opposition essentially is saying
that they don't feel there is enough hardship based on the fact that the building was not built
originally according to plan and that it would be a bad precedent for them to support it in that
in that case again we explained to them that my client himself is not a developer this was
one of the first times he's invested in a building like this I mean he's a successful
our accountant and he's done very well for himself but he is as much a victim in this situation
as anyone else that was involved with this building and again he's doing everything he spent
almost double his budgeted amount into this building to try to get this building into code
and into compliance so there is hardship to him in that sense for this request and again
we're asking for a coverage of about another 2,000 square foot in an over
15,000 square foot of floor area. So I would ask the board to take into