particular questions. I'm looking at their letter, basements are common and however
you scroll down i'm only could see up to number three yours there four all right four
they'll be for sale a little further this will be for sale yes that's the end of the questions
from the community and is there any is that it on the letter yes number four and it ends okay
yeah uh is there any letter from the district council person in the file
we never received the letter from the district council office
um we got the um letter from apm some time ago before things shut down for the pandemic
uh questions from the board you know
anyone here wishes to testify on this case please raise your hand if you haven't already done so
i believe my client is here you can bring your client on um it's uh mr mr michael haddad here
I don't know if he's
and you said what what was his name again
Mike Al-Haddad
yes I'm here
I'm sorry
oh is that
is that who it is
I don't know if the name is
yes I am
please ask your client
to identify himself
Michael
go ahead
please give the board
your name and address
Michael Al-Haddad
1000 West Gerard Avenue
Philadelphia PA
please spell your last name
Al-Haddad, A-L-H-A-D-A-D.
You swear in front to tell the truth, all truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Sorry.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
Mr. Al-Haddad, you heard my testimony before the board.
Can you verify that it's true and correct and adopted as your own?
Yes, it is.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else who wishes to testify in this case?
Please raise your hand.
no hands chair you can proceed thank you Planning Commission mr. chairman and
members of the board this property is owned residential single-family the city
changed the zoning maps for this neighborhood in 2017 however the nature
of this block has changed since then it is now primarily a multifamily block so
we have no opposition to the granting of this variance thank you very much
calendar number 38422
North 7th Street
my vote is yes
my vote is yes
my vote is yes
my vote is yes
my vote is yes
thank you
thank you very much
good luck
thank you
the next case is appeal number
5, and the address is 1550 Lardner Street. The attorney is Frank Turner.
Before Mr. This is Sharon Saleta. Before Mr. Turner begins his presentation, I just wanted
to explain that this is on remand from the Court of Common Pleas. In December 2018, the board
denied a use variance for a business and professional office in the basement of an existing
to family dwelling at the time the planning commission and the rco opposed the use that
was appealed to the court of common pleas and in july of 2019 it was remanded to this board
the court order and i'm quoting from it's after oral argument on the appeal by the appellant
from the decision of the zoning board of adjustment this matter is remanded to the
Zoning Board of Adjustment for reconsideration. The Zoning Board of
Adjustment shall provide supplemental findings, facts, and conclusions of law
as appropriate. There was no more detail in the order. It's unclear whether the
appellant was to be provided with an opportunity to present additional
information. I would therefore, I think Mr. Lardner then can explain procedurally
where we are, and if the board would then like to hold close.
if the board would then like to hold close the record but hold the case for decision for at
least two weeks in order to review the record that was submitted to the court and for the
board's counsel to present to prepare supplemental findings if required thank you thank you and when
was the when was the board decision to uh it was in 18 you said 2018 it was 16. december 2018.
uh mr turner yes uh please identify yourself with a record certainly um my name is frank
turner i'm the uh attorney for joshua bonagre who is the uh owner of the property 1550 lardner street
Sir, do you agree to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?
I do. I'm an attorney, but yes, I do.
I would ask, too, Mr. Turner, if you can come closer to the mic.
You're a little low. Thank you.
Okay, sorry. I'll try and speak up.
That's perfect. Thank you.
Great. And so if you guys are ready, I can give you guys a little bit of background here.
Please proceed.
Great. So this is a semi-attached RSA 5 building. It's situated on the corner of the street next to, and it abuts against Roosevelt Boulevard.
If you can share any, I do have some documents that I can share, and let me look at how exactly to do that. Bear with me, share screen, and let's see, sorry, bear with me one second, files.
This is a, oh, they're not here, okay.
Give me one second here, hang on, come on.
You guys can't see that.
I'm just pulling up the correct document.
Okay, can you guys see that? Okay, here we have the plans for the building and let me make this
little bit smaller so you guys can see the whole plans and I'm trying to
rotate this but you should be able to see this is the property itself and what
we have is a this is a violation for a an office being a basement in a
residential property being used as an office
and my client also put up a sign for his insurance office that he opened
there out of this basement that's
under normal circumstances that might be a little odd but based on the
you know this shape and orientation of this property it actually is the it's
actually the best use economically for my client when he purchased the property
and to in the year 2000 the basement was already finished out with separate
rooms as you can see here with like a little break room and existing offices
and there are two uh egresses right next to each other uh going directly from uh the um alley
which uh feeds out onto roosevelt roosevelt boulevard here uh this alley right here is
actually um there's parking here uh all along the back of the alley the the rest of the properties
along this block of Lardner Street here. But these two doors face Roosevelt Boulevard kind of an
oblong way, really making the property very well suited.
way, really making the property very well suited for commercial use and for signage
that would be visible from that major commercial accord or Roosevelt Boulevard.
Mr. Turner, I'm going to have to interrupt you for a minute. The notice of refusal that
was originally issued for this note to ZBA, no sign on this application. So that application
is not before the board.
No, I understand.
Sorry, it's not.
I understand.
I understand.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sharon.
Right.
Our second application for appeal
included the,
I believe,
included the signage.
So putting the signage aside,
the use of this property
as an office,
in this case,
an insurance office,
it does abut a major thoroughfare it's on the corner of the of the block here of this RSA 5
block it's a uniquely large property for that block and also if you can see all this area around
the property is actually the side yard so there's a lot of extra side yard space here
there was a question of parking to have a an office an insurance office where clients visit
there actually are two parking spaces directly behind the building in front of these two egress
doors there's street parking on lardner street and the very street over behind this on the other
side of this alley um which would be around here uh on the map um there's street parking there as
well and that parking feeds and uh it's a one-way street this street here is a one-way street um
burke street i think is a one-way street that feeds uh from roosevelt boulevard um so
So they're parking here where clients would be able to park on this street here and just walk along the sidewalk to my client's office.
Mr. Turner, I apologize. I have to interrupt again.
This is not the original hearing on this matter.
Right. Oh, okay.
Are you, are you?
It was remanded.
Remanded to the board is appropriate when the original record was incomplete.
were you able to present these same arguments at the original hearing? Were you somehow
prevented from making a full record? I apologize about the confusion,
I was not the attorney. My client was unrepresented in the original hearing.
The record was incomplete at the original hearing in that there were not plans presented.
my client then had plans drawn up and then appealed to the Commonwealth Court
and that came back I'm sorry I see the quarter common pleas and that came back
remanding back to the zoning board to review the same argument with with the
plans is that's I mean the order as you mentioned is there's not a lot of
detail in it so it my understanding is that because there were no plans the
last application for zoning variance was denied plans were drawn up taken to
quarter-con please and sent back down to ZBA thank you for the explanation but
again I would recommend to the board that we held for two weeks so that's you
can we're just for discussion and review of the original record great that's I do
not bear with me for one second while I consult with my client
and thank you for your patience there I spoke to my client um one issue with
And thank you for your patience there.
this um case is that it's been pretty excessively delayed my client the file
was originally denied in a 2018 in July of 2019 it was remanded back we put in a
new application in on November 18th of last year and I actually remember having
to call the zoning board and try to try to contact the administrators there to
see the status of the RCO notice or the notice of hearing which never occurred
that was still being delayed I believe in January or February I managed to reach
Miss Souleta who's very helpful in getting the starting to get the the
ball rolling on the hearing and figuring out what the what the issue was and where it got stuck after
the remand um and then the uh pandemic happened um and now it's six months later um my client has
been unable to uh run his business um since uh he applied for a variance um in 2018 uh he had not
received any violations until um uh september of last year uh actually that's me because uh he
after he um made his initial application for a variance it was denied because of the missing
plans um went through the appeals court and was remanded back uh the he received violations and
cease work orders um and was uh has been uh effectively out of business um since that time
uh the an additional two weeks like any additional delay um my client uh would um object to
respectfully mr turner i understand that my concern here is that because the court order
references supplemental findings I really think that the board should that I should draft them
that the board should adopt them at the same time we can't do that today and in order for it to be
the vote to be complete I think that will have to be done okay we will guarantee it will be done in
two weeks from today thank you that's my client and I certainly appreciate that guarantee thank
you thank you Sharon thank you thank you yeah are there any questions from the
board no no no anyone else here wishes to testify in this case please raise your
hand. Chair, we have Sloan Foulkes from the council person's office. You can unmute yourself