consideration this situation and rule favorably in this variance request. I'm
happy to answer any questions. I'm going to scroll back down to the plans as so
it's easier to take a look at them again if needed.
jen just go back over your opening remarks your client purchased the building correct me if i'm
wrong in this as-is condition or he let me clarify my client hired um a contractor builder to build
the original building uh based on plans that were approved at the time which is similar in height
I'll go back to that actually that portion because so at the time the
building was originally built with my client it was approved through a
different architect and it was approved for the same height about 71 feet and
it was supposed to be a five-story structure but if you look at the plans
even submitted then this is the view of this was the front facade view that was
presented with those plans you can see that even though it looks like a seven
story structure it was supposed to have five floors with some with a tall
second-story structure because it's a commercial type building for the first
few floors what was actually built the contractor put in this floor and that
floor after the fact of the approval. This was caught when the city came in and started doing
inspections so the construction didn't really get totally completed and that's when it's all
stopped and it's been in litigation to kind of fix these issues since. As you can see the building
itself is still under construction. There was a there was a bay that's placed in that has to be
removed so the facade will eventually change completely again. I'm going to
reduce the size here so we can see the pictures clearly. So this is right off
of one of the parts of Arch Street that is very active. I'm sorry I just realized
what I'm doing wrong here. So as you can see the building is partially
constructed it's not complete so this has been a multi-year saga to try to get this building built
too cold and completed and filled so this because the way this building is built because it was
built as it's essentially a wooden structure despite the height the structural integrity of
the weight that is being pressed onto the building requires the additional bracing at those floor
levels and that's why the architect, the current architect, wanted to keep what is essentially
mezzanineum type flooring level to keep that structure. So this is how it looks from a design
standpoint. They're keeping some of the flooring as mezzanineum pieces. This is exactly what is
what is causing the additional floor area ratio in this building.
causing the additional floor area ratio in this building.
But it is also important to make sure the walls are pressed out and stays in its current condition.
This will prevent the need for us to, again, look at the engineering and potentially further redesign the building.
Was there a cease order issue?
Yes, there was.
And is it still in effect?
It is, it is, the cease is not in effect in the sense that it's, the court is supervising the lifting of any violations that exist on the property. So there's been ongoing work to make sure it's up to fire code, building code, but zoning is a critical component of moving forward because without the floor area ratio being correct, further construction is not permitted at this point.
And explain to me, explain to the board again, what PCDC's objection was?
PCDC felt that the, when the building was constructed, I'll go back to their letter.
so if you look at PCDC so PCDC actually approved this original building back in 2013 and my client
at that time proposed the building with the prior permit and plan the board I referenced to the
board earlier it was not constructed according to the drawing so the
contractor the gentleman who did the construction is well known in Chinatown
Mr. Wren and he's the one that took the entire project and built the building
but of course he did things that were not within the plans yes it's still my
client's building yes it was my client's project but my client never was involved that directly
with the project until the city came and inspected because Mr. Wren reported to him regularly saying
everything's fine you're doing great this is a multi-million dollar project for my client
so at this point what what he's really looking for is to make sure that he can complete this
project at this point even though he has probably invested another almost the same amount of money
that he originally did to keep this project going. As you can see PCDC primarily feels that
there's no hardship because my client could have built and completed the building as approved
but we did explain to PCDC that the structure of the building is already up. It's not something
that if you want to take it back to that plan we would have to demolish the
building at this point so it's a complete reconstruction for basically a
two thousand square two thousand eight hundred square foot difference in floor
area coverage within the building so if the board were to approve this would we
be approving something of that is not yet still in compliance with the
building code it well if the the plans that is being approved by the board are
the same plans that are being presented to the common police court through the
law department so law department and it is involved with this project heavily
at this point so if the board approved these specific plans and requests that
this be the plans that are built all further inspections and court reviews
would follow that particular plan.
Courts are relying on the zoning board?
Am I misunderstanding that?
Because it sounds to me like there's still an open-ended question here.
Regardless of what we do, that the court may,
obviously the court has more power than we do,
that they may overrule what is being requested of this board.
This is Sharon Stoletta. May I interrupt for a minute?
Sure, please.
Chair, the building permits can't be issued until there is a zoning permit. So you would be the first step.
I get that. But unless I'm hearing it wrong, they're already in court for building code violations.
are they one in the same or are they exclusive of each other meaning are is
the what what would be permitted under the variance is that does that become
questionable in terms of what the code would allow I don't know if that makes
in terms of what the code would allow I don't know if that makes sense I'm
obviously I'm not a lawyer I'm just trying to it seems to be very convoluted
here may what the in my client to do is to comply with if you're breaking up
I'm sorry what the court is asking my client to do is to comply with L&I
requirements, which involves building permits and zoning use permits. In order for the court to
approve that the violations can be complied and lifted, L&I has to accept a zoning design
approval as well as issue building permits based on it and then inspect the actual construction
itself. So do we know if they would approve this building design? Well, they asked us to make this
application l and i actually asked us to and all the dimensional requirements that are in this
are what l and i had suggested no the requirements are what the architect after reviewing what's
existing and what can be done to maintain the structure proposed
god did you have any more to anything else to add
no it's nothing else mr chin explained it
uh question from the board no no no no okay is there anyone else here who wishes to testify
in this matter if you if so please raise your hand at this time uh my client is uh here with
us, I believe. I have a Yu Wu. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Please spell your name for the
stenographer. My name is Yue Wu, Y-U-E-W-U, and I represent RCO, Philadelphia Chinatown Development
Corporation. Right, and do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
about the truth? Yes, I do. Thank you. Please proceed. Thank you. So I'm here to represent
the impacted RCO, Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation. In 2013, we approved
the owner's proposal to build a five-story mixed-use building. But after the zoning violence
was granted, the building was not constructed as proposed. It was built illegally seven stories
and the building was built with wood frame which is not allowed for buildings more than five stories.
So after the owner presented the revised plan to our RCO committee, we believe it didn't
demonstrate the unnecessary hardship and the applicant could have built and completed the
building according to what they proposed in 2013.
And the attorney showed original drawings to us today.
And during the public meeting, we requested,
the RCO committee requested the original drawings
to be presented.
But we never received the original drawings.
and we decided that the this kind of behavior was that a very bad example in our neighborhood in our
community and in the city that if someone the developer can build a illegal building
and then get the approval from zoning board and other city departments just to get away
from the following the rules it will be really bad for future development in the
city and granting the zoning variance for this project is unfair for other
developers who actually follow the zoning rules and regulations. So PCDC's
RCO does not support this kind of behavior. Additionally, we find recently
that there were construction activities going on in this building.
And if I can, I can show some photos, but I don't see option for sharing screen.
Can someone help me to share the screen?
I think it will help you, I'm sure.
Sorry?
Maybe Mr. Oh, I see it now.
I've stopped sharing. I don't know if it would interfere with the...
I've stopped sharing. I don't know if it would interfere with the
Yeah, I can do that now. So this is photo we took in late July, around July 27th. This
is a building we were discussing right now and there were construction activities going
on without zoning or building permits visible to the public you can see there's no building
or zoning permit and there's a video from the back of the building during that construction
activities going on if you if you see the cover outside and again this building
has been instructed to be made safe pending final design so some of we had
actually uh how do you build a building prior to getting final design as well i'm not sure
and you also mentioned that i think you said that a five-story building would have been permissible
and that was part of the original plan original plan had a 71 um building so the building on the
original plan was essentially the size as this one is it okay for a five story five floors right
five floors correct inside so when you you say that this wasn't this isn't approved they'd have
to tear the entire building down because couldn't they just take off the top two two levels or
whatever levels it is to get it back down to compliance without having to disturb the entire
building well it would mr chairman you are correct you just have to take off the two floors to get
the SAR down to 500 instead of doing mesoline right and if I can interrupt for a minute this
is Sharon Saleta again Mr. Jin may have already explained this but the only variance required in
this case is for the floor area ratio not the height not the use it's one dimensional refusal
permit it is a 500 percent floor area ratio as um proposed now it's 590.1 oh if he reduced if he
reduced the by the the nine nine was a 590 got it back to the five
i mean tom i'm i'm i guess i'm asking you tom this so there there's a
What he's trying to do is do mezzolines to reduce the floor area
instead of taking the two floors off to reduce the floor area.
Is it reconfiguration of the interior at the upper floors?
Is that what we're saying?
That's what he's trying to do is reconfigure the interior
instead of taking the exterior two floors off.
so if we look at this um this design uh side view uh if we were so what we're doing is you
have first floor there's a current second floor that's going to be removed so there's one tall
second floor and then there's second floor mezzanine that would have been the third floor
then third fourth fifth floor in mezzanine i understand the board saying what if you just
take floors off by doing believe and this is a discussion again I'm not the
architect expert here but I believe it's gonna be a far greater burden on my
client to take two complete floors off and then reconfigure all the floors
below then to have they because all these floors all seven floors are
currently in so what Jim with all due respect didn't your client cause this
probably this is it he caused the problem he or his architect somebody
caused it well the builder the builder caused the the actual issue here by
building it that way the builder basically built without following plans
my client actually obtained from the architect so that is that is Brad with
the existing building this is a again this is a dimensional variance for about
2,000 plus square foot of floor area. I think the 2,000 plus what is the plus? Well it's about
2,800 square feet. That's almost 3,000 square feet. I'll go with 3,000. So about 3,000 square
foot. This building has over 15,000 square foot total of floor area due to the size of the lot
in the side of the building. When it's a dimensional variance like this, the
dimensional variants like this, the ultimate additional cost to my client in this situation
ultimate additional cost to my client
is in itself a hardship that should be considered. I understand that, but he caused this problem.
That's what I'm saying. I mean, look, you're doing your job for your client. I get it.
But to make it like, you know, we got to be sympathetic towards your client. He caused this
problem in the first place. If he would have stuck to what he should have been doing when it was first
approved in 2013 we probably wouldn't we wouldn't be here today I I think it
might be worthwhile to hear from my client as to what happened is he gonna
tell us anything different I think he can explain a little better his
relationship and how this construction happened without that we ended up with
this building that he because I know the board saying my client is the one that
built the building because he's the owner but ultimately he was being kind of bamboozled as
well by the contractor who's charging him additional money on this building saying I'm
building something for you I'm building something for you but actually what he was doing is building
something that was completely off from the plans. I sympathize with that but I don't think that
we didn't create the hardship the community didn't create the hardship created by his
builder and he's paying him and i can't believe that he had no knowledge of what was taking place
i find that very hard to believe in a building of this size but that's just my opinion so i will
answer any questions from the board no no no yes in my opinion it would be more costly
to reconfigure the interior
to the mezzolines
than to just take off the roof
and the two floors.
That was my first question.
I figured that would be easier.
But anyway, all right.
Appreciate that, Tom.
Anyone else who wishes
to testify on this matter,
please raise your hand
if you haven't already done so.
We have Kenny.