complaints at any point from neighbors historically. So currently out in Berks County, we have two
Airbnbs that we just help my in-laws with an old farmhouse that they have. So that way they can,
you know, upkeep the property and it's a way for them to make income. So I just help them manage
that and then we also run one out of our own home out in Brooks County since we moved. So I would
like to just continue that option here and I've historically always had a very very good experience
with it. Some other concerns were you know how many there's always a concern of parking in
Maniunk. It's a two-bedroom home so there would never be the option to have more than two cars
there i can make that part of the listing if that's a concern and requirement um and that
was really everything that was expressed um i think one of the larger oppositions i had in that
was from one of the board members of the rco that he himself is a landlord um and he owns multiple
properties around the city of philadelphia and his thing was well um if we let you do this then
everybody can do it um and it's you know everyone would do this and it's an easy process when really
i've been trying to do this process for over a year so i don't think it's an easy process
that anyone could do um and that's okay you know i understand needing to go through all of this
um it's just very very hard to coordinate with with hick and rco uh they would not give me a
meeting date until a couple days before so therefore i would never meet the requirements
of owner notifications um so it is not an easy process but all right quite other questions from
the board questions so you you said that you run you've run these before yes is that at this
property before the regulations came into effect and you said yeah before the regulations came
into effect we lived on the property so we just rented out one of the rooms within the property
oh okay and then you said that you did this for outside of the city as well
okay and you said you have a good reading with yeah 4.98 stars 180 reviews
Okay. So that's a lot of rentals. Okay. So you've, you've done this for some period of time then,
is that? Yeah. Okay. I honestly really enjoy it because I've made some really,
really good friends. Especially when we had people that were within our home.
home. Some people have become longtime, longtime friends. And actually one of them got engaged to
Some people have become long time, long time friends and actually one of them got
my brother's best friend when they were staying with us for two weeks and they met and had a good
relationship and went from there. Oh my. Okay. I actually have one. Thank you. I do have one
more question. So it does look like you already have a limited lodging approval for this apartment
and you have a rental license. So I guess I'm just trying to understand why do we need the
additional visitor's accommodations approval for the same property if you already have limited
lodging and a rental license? I guess I, well, I mean, maybe you could help me out with this
on the difference between the limited lodging and the short-term rental, because I thought
with the limited lodging, that doesn't allow us to do short-term rental, and I, what'd you say?
so limited limited lodging is short-term rental but you reside in the property
okay visitor accommodations you do not reside in the property and it's a short-term rental
okay by the way that that was that was our attorney just so you know oh okay thank you
yeah i mean so i don't i don't live there anymore so that's why i would like to do the short-term
rental and to be honest i was a little bit confused at the beginning of the process and
And I believe I mistakenly got the limited lodging license at first and did not actually
need it at that time because we weren't doing Airbnb after the regs change.
So I've got a quick question.
So you're going to be in Berks, are you in Berks County?
And so what's your plan to deal with issues as issues come up at this rental?
Because Berks County takes a minute to get.
Yeah, my husband's self-employed. So it's something that he can help with. He's a handyman by trade
and mechanical engineer. So whenever we have any issues at the property in general,
whether it's from a handyman situation or tenant situation, he's able to go down and help whenever
that's needed. Also, my work schedule is very flexible. So I can do that as well. And like I've
said, you know, I have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. I've been living in and around
Maniunk since 2013. So I know multiple people on Sharp Street, on Vassar, Salignac, Terrace. So I
also have a lot of other community members around me. And I am very close with both of my neighbors
as well. And we all have each other's phone numbers. So if there is ever an issue, you know,
with our tenant, there was a trash can issue the other day, someone took someone's trash can
accidentally and that got resolved immediately so she was just able to to text me
um questions or comments sorry attorney have anything else
not at this time mr care your comments from the virtual audience
mr chair i do not see any hands raised for the matter planning commission thank you chair and
good morning david fector with the city planning commission chairman and board members the
comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa5 residential single-family zoning at this
location the city rezoned this neighborhood in 1974 in a council-supported map change there is
no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that were prevented from being used
in conformance with the zoning code a 2020 zoning ordinance passed by city council which regulated
short-term rentals did not change the basic rule prohibiting full-time use of a dwelling unit as a
short-term rental this type of absentee management where the owner does not live in the unit has been
illegal since the first short-term rental zoning regulations became effective in 2015.
what's changed since the passage of the 2020 ordinance is there is now a licensing enforcement
mechanism the city planning commission recommends the zoning board deny the proposed use variance
for visitor accommodation mi 2025 001 551 120 dawson street i vote yes temporary variance that
will expire 319-29 michael johns my vote is yes with proviso charl gaster my vote is yes with
proviso sonetta graham my vote is yes with proviso mcadams my vote is yes with proviso
i win my vote is yes with proviso thank you thank you everyone i really appreciate your time thank
you number eight mi 2025 001 556 53 14 to 24 north history darlene treat is the attorney
there is a recommendation of unanimous support from logan civic association
10 to 2 votes they're coming back in as a panelist thank you
good morning commissioners and members of the board darling free on behalf of the applicant
julia bridges just just for the record darling could you please spell your name for this
julia bridges just just for the record darling could you please spell your name
stenographer uh darlene d-a-r-l-e-n-e street p as in thomas h-r-e-a-t-t all right do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do our vice chair has a few
questions good morning um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of
this hearing yes i have and do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
yes i do okay thank you you can share your screen and proceed with your case
uh good morning commissioners i'm here uh representing uh julia and katrina bridges
They would like to open a childcare center called Bridges to Learning. I submitted a host of documents approximately 50 pages. I'm just going to go through the relevant documents. I'm going to start with the refusal.
This has a dual zoning resignation. It's a TA-1 and an I-1.
A TA-1 would actually allow for the child care center.
I-1 prohibited the child care center. Since it's the most restrictive zoning, I-1 is adopted and we were given a refusal.
This area, I filed an appeal and basically my appeal states that this is really a commercial area.
There are a couple commercial businesses on the lot and the building has been used for commercial businesses in the past.
The applicants entered into a lease in 2024 and renovated the building only to find out at the end that it wasn't zoned and they've been waiting for the building to be zoned for like a year and a half.
I'm just going to go down to the property information form.
This is a huge lot.
It's about 41,000 square feet, and there are about five or six businesses on the lot.
I'm just going to go to what we propose with the child care center.
Here is a brochure.
Ms. Julia Bridges has previously owned two child care centers and has much experience.
Ms. Katrina Bridges currently works with an agency associated with DHS for collaborative
umbrella agencies, and they've been providing services for children through DHS for about
15 or 16 years.
Both of them currently now would like to open up their own daycare child care center.
They would like to be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The ranges of the children that they would like to service is from six weeks to 12 years old.
They would like to have a child care center, an after-school program, before-school program, as well as a summer day camp.
They have currently some certifications.
They have the, Ms. Julia Bridges has her SafeServe certification, and they both all have their, there's a food prep license.
They both have the child background clearance.
They have the first aid certifications, the child abuse certification, the criminal background check, and the sexual abuse clearance.
clearance i'm going to go down to the plans now and i'm just going to enlarge it and go through
it a little bit more closely so
i'm going to start on the bottom here and i'm just going to enlarge just the bottom part
right now so you can see it a little bit better so this is the layout of the whole entire premises
The whole lot area is about 41,910 square feet.
This is the section over here, which we would like to put the daycare in.
I'll show you better pictures later, but this is Fifth Street here, and you would actually enter the premises here.
This is a whole open area, like a parking area where you can actually park your car, walk out and go into the child care center.
In the front here is a large commercial building.
There's currently like a Chinese food store in here and there's also a grocery in here.
And even though it's not drawn on the plan, there is an existing dumpster or dumpsters that sit on the lot right here.
right here. In the back are more buildings. I believe there's a commercial construction company
In the back are more buildings, I believe there's a
that stores some equipment way back here in the back of the lot. Again, this is the area that we
would like to use. This is the building area, and this right here is the outside area that we will
use for the play area. Now I'm going to scroll up a little bit more so I can actually show you the
layout let's see if i could enlarge it a little bit more so you can see it a little better okay
so this is actually the um area for the daycare that we would like to have so this is the ground
level you will walk into the daycare here and we actually have four different uh areas i'm just
Going to move the phone over a little bit and up a little bit. Here we go.
So you'd be able to walk into the daycare here. Here is the first open area to the side. Here is the reception area.
okay so this is the first our child care area there's the kitchen area here we have the bathroom
area here we have a handicap bathroom here which the staff will use um and we also have a large
restroom here with six different facilities for the children to use over here we have the daycare
area two over here we have the daycare area three and this is the daycare area four but we do have
some stairs here where you can go upstairs and there's a area upstairs it's like half area i'll
show you some pictures later and that's for the staff to have meetings and or to sit on their
uh breaks and there are also a few computers up there i'd like to show you how you get in the
building here and i also would like to show you that there's another exit on the ground floor
through here now the all of the space together that we'll be leasing is approximately 1800 square
feet if we did a raw calculation according to the state guidelines for the number of children
Aurora calculation would be about 45. If you take out the non-usable area, it's about 40,
but ultimately is the Department of State who will come in and indicate to us how many children
maybe had. I'm just going to keep scrolling down now and I'm going to reduce it a little bit more
again so you can get a better picture of it. This is the actual building and this is the actual
area and the lot. This is the building that we would like to have the daycare in and there's
a fence. This is an older picture. There's a fence and lot on the side that we have converted
to a play area. This is the upstairs area where the staff can come and do their work
and congregate or be on break. This is the kitchen area.
That's the handicapped bathroom area. This is to the left is the children's with the six commodes in the bathroom area.
This is one classroom.
An additional classroom.
Another classroom. There are four different classroom areas. Another classroom.
and that's really the opening first classroom when you walk in the building
that's the side view that you can look out into the yard directly from inside
some additional classroom it's just more on interior pictures that's a picture of the lot
upstairs picture
uh infant room picture
side yard picture
this is actually the driveway where you actually enter the premises and you would drive back that
was where we originally posted it and this is uh currently i believe a chinese bakery
society with a picture in the windows where you can see directly out into the yard
inside that's the picture of fifth street
another picture of the original posting and that's a picture of the second posting uh we did meet
with the Logan Civic Association on May 12th.
Logan Civic Association on May 12th and we did have a meeting I thought I sent out 118 notices
uh I thought it was a great meeting uh that the addition of the facility would be welcome
and there were 15 members in attendance um and 10 members voted and we had a uh letter of support
and that's really all I have today
you want to bring your client on Darlene
yes Ms. Julia Bridges would you raise your hand please
Ms. Bridges
do we see her hand
um yes they'll be promoted as a panelist thank you very much thank you
please accept invite to be panelists
darling do you know how many uh students um aurora calculation uh commissioner would be uh 45
okay all right here she is now hello i'm here hi julia could you please state your name and
spell it for the stenographer julia bridges turner j-u-l-i-a b as in boy r-i-d-g-e-s space
turner t-u-r-n-e-r do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do counsel please proceed uh good morning uh miss julia uh is it your intention for you
and your cousin katrina to run bridges to learning on 5324 north fourth street yes
north fifth street excuse me yes i knew what you meant and do you currently uh have a leasehold to
um conduct that business there yes and have you heard my testimony as presented to the board this
morning yes and if you were to testify in this case julia would you adopt my bye excuse me my
testimony as true and correct yes uh that's all i have commissioner questions from the board
yeah i have a question about what else is happening at this location um like it's a
really big complex and i see lots of gates and lots of cars and so i'm just trying to get a
sense of like what else is happening on site okay i'm gonna go back to the plan and try to show you
what else has happened it's a um when you cut great a landscaping company they come in in the
morning and go inside of their gate and they park their cars and they go out and do landscaping
for the day and then there is a chinese bakery up front when you pull in so their customers pull in
and park their cars and go into their bakery but that's like far away from the child care center
so basically my parents and my staff have parking to park in a lot because it's a big empty lot
there's nothing else going on yeah and there's 41 000 square feet it's a really a huge lot
it's not about the size of the lot it was just like what are the adjacent uses i got concerned
children in cars and trucks are usually not things that i think go together very well um also just
looking at like aerial photos of it it seems to be a lot of security fences so like do you have