ZBA Hearing - March 18, 2026

or by the staff the main exit is through the double doors at the rear of the room

the nearest stairwell is to the left outside the doors in case of the evacuation the rally point

is love park directly across archery please remain here so we can account for you

so let's look at our schedule for this afternoon

so um mi 2025 004 033 1608 to 14 walnut street that case has been continued to 5 13 26 at 2 p at

2 p.m number two mi 2025 006 726 5900 drexel road that case has been continued attorney moving

party mi 2025 006 sorry i think that the first case i'm just trying to pull it up i think that

was also yet number one was supposed to be attorney moving party as well not given

specific dates okay so 1608 to 14 walnut street mi 2025 004 033 that case is attorney moving party

mi 2025 006 774 63 40 musgrave that case is continued to 5 13 26 at 2 p.m

MI 2025-006-908, 1500-04 at Germantown Avenue, that case is continued to 513.26 at 2 p.m.

And MI 2025-007-020, 2408 West Lehigh Avenue, that case is continued to 513.

2408 West Lehigh Avenue. That case is continued to 513, 26 at 2 PM. Are there any other requests for continuance?

I do not see any hands raised for continuances.

I think Mr. Jindis had a comment about the last case that you continued.

Sure.

Good afternoon.

2400, and you've already been sworn to sworn. 2400, 2408 Lehigh?

Yes, I will be taking over this matter from Mr. Ward due to his health issues he has had some

difficulties moving the case forward. I'm okay with the continuous. I was actually going to

request one. Okay. Ian had put it all down earlier this morning. Oh, okay. All right.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good one. Okay. Okay. Let's look at our add ones.

MI 2025 004 512 757 South 5th Street I vote yes with proviso revive plans one page

stamped by ZBA March 18th 2026. Michael Johns my vote is a yes with proviso

Cheryl Gaston my vote is yes with proviso Tanetta Graham my vote is yes with proviso

Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Hi, Owen, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Number two, MI 2025-005-850, 416 East Woodland Street.

I vote yes with Proviso.

Approved use is a lot line adjustment to create three lots from lot 416 East Woodland

with one dwelling unit single family living on each lot no roof decks on roof or roof deck

access structures I'm not on this one oh I'm sorry uh Cheryl Gadsden my vote is yes with provisos

Tanetta Graham my vote is yes with provisos Ryan McAdams my vote is yes with provisos

I know I vote is yes with proviso.

Number three, MI 2025-006-964-3136 Melville Street.

I vote yes with proviso per refusal dated 3-16-26.

Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.

Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.

Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.

Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Hi, I win.

My vote is yes with Proviso.

Number four, MI 2025-007217, 3043 Miller Street, I vote no.

I'm not on this one also.

Sheryl Gaster, my vote is no.

Tanetta Graham, my vote is no.

Ryan McAdams, my vote is no.

Hi, I win.

My vote is no.

number five mi 2025 000 492 65 15 ridge avenue i vote yes

michael johnson my vote is yes charles gaston my vote is yes ryan mcadams my vote is yes i win my

vote is yes okay let's go to our regular list number one twenty twelve fifty four to fifty

166 South Asia MI 2025 006 632 Mr. Orphanides good afternoon good afternoon again uh Mr. Chairman

members of the board I just wanted to point out that this case is listed in the chat as being

continued attorney moving party my my client just called they called me a little little worried so

I I just want to make sure that everybody knows that's not the case and nobody jumped off I think

the case before it was attorney moving party that uh that uh error has been fixed sir excuse me

david

mr orphanetes

mr orphanetes yes

all right so 1254 to 56 south 18th street correct it's your case right yes state your name because

you've already been sworn correct uh david orphanides last name is spelled o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s

and could you identify your client their relationship to the property

certainly my client is mhjl holdings comma llc which is the owner

certainly my client is mhjl holdings comma llc which is the owner of the property and there's

a letter of unanimous support from point breeze of cdc correct um our vice chair has a few questions

for you sir certainly good afternoon um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days

in advance of this hearing i did and do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their

accuracy uh i'll stipulate to its accuracy sure okay all right thank you you can share the screen

and proceed with your case sure and the re the reason that i i half chuckle is um because uh

this case was previously or a case very similar to this was previously before the zoning board

you have a picture of the property up in front of you this is uh 12 um as you can see um it's

to 1254 to 56 South 18th Street.

My clients purchased the property back in the late teens

and we actually went to the zoning board

for an addition to the property,

which you can see here at the rear,

to utilize the upper floors for residential units,

for residential units,

and for the ground floor to be utilized as an architect.

The architect for the project put this application in

back then. And I'm going to pull that up right now. And you can see this right here. It was

application 770030. The architect put the application in for the addition plus four

dwelling units and a vacant commercial space at the ground floor. And you can see here that it

was indicated on the plans. I was brought in when the notice of refusal was issued in April of 2017.

Again, you can see the ground floor indicated vacant commercial space.

Back at that time, some people were applying,

and L&I was issuing permits for vacant commercial spaces.

I never felt comfortable with that.

I reached out to the examiner back at that time and asked for that to be changed,

that I wanted a use that was to change the application to a use that was either uses permitted in CMX1 or CMX2,

MX2, what have you. Something that was more specific. Didn't make the change. We went through

the zoning process. And you can see here that a zoning board variance was granted at 30484.

And that variance included the vacant commercial space, which was what got permitted.

My client went ahead and redeveloped the property, pulled building permits. I have copies of the

construction drawings, pulled building permits, finished the building, got a CO or certificate

of completion. The residential units are all finished. You can see your photographs of them

that I've included. Really nicely done. Each of the units, they're occupied. They're having

problems getting a tenant at the ground floor commercial space. As you know, as I mentioned

just before on South Street, brick and mortar commercial spaces are difficult to rent right

Right now, they did get a tenant, and it's the specific use that we're coming in for

today along with general CMX1 uses.

But what happened is when I applied for the use of basically personal services, yoga studio

and other classes, enrichment classes, which we'll get into a little bit, Ellen and I said,

no, we're going to issue a refusal.

And I said, well, wait a minute, we got approval for a vacant commercial space, and I had an

exchange with Hillary about it. Hillary's aware of that. And it ultimately, it was decided that

that variance that my clients got back in 2017, the permit in 2018, for vacant commercial space

apparently wasn't worth anything. And which is why I brought it up with the examiner when I first

got to notice the refusal. Needless to say, we're back to actually do what we tried to do back in

2017, which is put in an application for uses that are permitted. And you can see here uses that are

personal services and other uses that are permitted in the CMX1 zoning district. And you can see

because of the property is owned RSA5, commercial uses under CMX1 are not permitted. In this

situation, we have a specific use because we have my client as a tenant. Again, they went in and

occupied the space. Everybody was under the understanding that this was going to be allowed

given the prior zoning permit. But personal services, while allowed under CMX1, is not allowed

in RSA5. And under RSA5, you're not allowed to have more than one principal use. In CMX1, you are

allowed. So these are the three variances that we have here. So we're basically going back through

the process to redo what was done in 2017.

to redo what was done in 2017.

And I think just as we had the support of the community

back in 2017, and you can see here,

here's a letter of support.

It was another community group down there

that we had full support back then,

there was seven in support.

And as you've mentioned,

we have a letter of support presently

from the Point Breeze CDC.

And again, now it's up to 14 people that were present that voted in support, unanimous support for the project.

The current application, again, is all uses that are permitted in CMX1.

Specifically, the ground floor use is a personal services.

The business is called Social Beings.

And here's a little bit about their business.

It was founded by Jennifer and Sebastian Hernandez.

I believe at least Jennifer is on to answer any specific questions you may have regarding social beings.

But different classes, different movement classes, they have – I've checked their current schedule.

They have between one and four classes a day.

The yoga movement type classes tend to be 45 minutes to an hour.

The workshop type classes can be several hours depending on what they do.

They also do private training, as you can see here.

And back here are some examples of some events that when I pulled this, which was when we had our community group meeting, were some things that were scheduled.

So it's very much community-based.

It's not just a yoga studio.

They have things that try to pull in members of the community, which I think when we were presenting to the community, those in attendance found to be greatly beneficial to the community.

here are some interior photos you can see here of the space of the ground floor

you know multi-function multi-use multi-functional space you can see that it's set up with things for

yoga studio movement classes and then on this particular day they were i believe they were

doing a workshop um and you can see it was right around i think christmas time back then

um you can see here's a copy of the deed showing my clients owning the property

tax clearance a copy of the posting photographs we posted both on the

south 18th street side of the property as well as on the wharton street side you can see here

and a copy of our 14-303 notice that went out.

There are, just so you know, on the other corners,

on the southwest corner, I took that property to the zoning board

and the variance was granted.

I'll get to that in a minute.

Variance was granted for a restaurant at the ground floor,

and you can see that right here, and they're up and running.

and then on the southeast corner i did the original variance for the conversion of this

church into a multi-family dwelling my clan ultimately sold it to another developer who

i believe completed it and there might have been some modifications to the application so

you have four you know four corners here and three of them have been two of them have already been

granted well three of them have been granted variances including this one previously and

again we're just back here to uh activate the commercial use at the ground floor and to allow

for the zoning permit, for the current use, and not to require, given how difficult it is

to lease brick and mortar commercial spaces, the idea is allowing the least impactful commercial

mixed residential zoning classification for the property, and that is the CMX1 zoning

classification, so that in the future, hopefully, social beings is here for a very long time,

But in the future, if the space ever becomes vacant, finding a tenant and then making them or asking them to wait several months to go through a variance process in order to be approved is a very difficult sell for a landlord, which is why we wanted this specific accommodation and this variance granted, the CMX-1 uses, all CMX-1 permitted uses, and then specifically here, the personal services.

Okay.

and i have my client on the line and i also believe jennifer hernanzas is on to adopt my statements

yeah mark hammerberg

he's the mh of the mhjl

mr chair council they will be rejoining as a panelist shortly

hi there hi sir could you please state your name is bell for the sonographer yes mark hammerbird

Hi, sir. Could you please state your name is spelled for the sonographer?

Yes. Mark Hammerberg.

Could you turn your volume up, Mark? We're having a hard time hearing you.

Sure, sure. Is that better?

All right. Try to just go as loud as you can.

Leaning closely, maybe that's better.

Mark Hammerberg. M-A-R-C-H-A-M-M-A-R-B-E-R-G.

Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

i do counsel um mark um what is your position with mhjl holdings llc i'm one of two partners

i'm the 50 owner okay great and did you hear the statements that i made to the zoning board this

afternoon i did and are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge they are and would

you adopt them as your own i would yes thank you all right do you have another client up there uh

Yes, Jennifer Hernandez, who is one that she and her husband, Sebastian, one of the partners that run social beings and I believe she's on as well. And I'd like to just have her adopt my statements. And then between the 2 of them, they, and the 3 of us, we can answer any questions that the board has Jennifer.

We were joining as a panel of short, Mr. Chair, thank you.

Hi, hi, Jennifer. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?

yeah jennifer hernandez and that's h-e-r-n-a-n-d-e-z you swear or affirm to tell the truth

the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do also uh jennifer um you are one of you and

sebastian your husband are one of the owners of social beings yes and did you hear the statements

that i made today uh regarding social beings i did yes and were they true and correct to the

that's your knowledge hopefully i did a good job yes and uh would you adopt them as your own yes

okay thank you all right questions from the board

questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson

um i didn't know if we wanted to to clarify this but the commercial uses on the

first floor and then the already approved residential uses would be on above that