ZBA Hearing - March 18, 2026

other floors but my question is what's the width of the building um i think i mean i'm a little

concerned about density i'm looking at the block it does not look like there's a lot of other

triplexes on this block um and i think that these units are are packing a lot of people

into what feels like a very tight space um i mean you're not showing furniture but

i'm pretty sure those bedrooms are only seven feet wide which means they're gonna like barely fit

a standard size bed. I'm confused as to why there's two full bathrooms for a one-bedroom

apartment on the first floor, which to me implies that there's a quiet density that we're not

talking about proposed for the basement. And there seem to be no other roof decks on this

block as well. So it does feel like a very dense project that doesn't fit in.

So it does feel like a very dense project that doesn't fit in with the surrounding context.

And I'm trying to understand the hardship.

So to answer the first question regarding the width of the property, it is 14.98, so

about 15 feet wide, which is the standard size of the lots in the area.

With regard to the other uses density in the area, when we looked at the density in the

area and when we also talk to the community uh for example the 20 while 2503 is a duplex

2501 which is on the corner i believe it's a quadplex and then 250709 uh one i think is a

five unit and one is a five unit uh rooming house in the way it's approved previously

So when we approached the community indicating three units, the feedback was actually that it's not uncommon on that block.

So that's why there was no real pushback from the community on that particular issue.

Other questions?

Yeah, I just have a question about the materials for the front.

that um just me just speaking of the character of the block um what are materials um are you

look like you want to use and why not choose the the brick facing um as the majority of the facade

to match the rest of the block mr bader can you uh touch upon the uh front facade material i believe

it might be break right yeah it's regular black you know like and we put like panel

ways go out a little bit and the rest is is similar what they have on the block as well

you mean brick the rest is brick correct okay so we would it be red brick are you looking to

match the color of the existing buildings i know the next door has gray uh gray color building

that they built we do we do like gray you know whatever in the area normally just what we like

to do like the same design yeah we didn't get any uh specific requests from the community for a color

But generally, my client likes to put a break for the facade with the paneling only for the bay areas.

Okay, thank you.

Other questions?

Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.

Not at this time, Mr. Chair.

Questions from the virtual audience?

I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.

Planning Commission.

Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon.

David Fecto with the City Planning Commission, Chairman and Board members.

the comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from RN1 residential

multi-family to RSA 5 residential single family this neighborhood still carries its original 1933

zoning the appellant could have avoided a zoning variance and earned an additional dwelling unit

beyond the two allowed by applying for the mixed income housing bonus and building one low income

dwelling unit the city planning Commission recommends of the board deny the proposed

use variance for a third dwelling unit mi2025-005-852-2505 north 12 street i vote yes

michael johns my vote is yes cheryl gaston my vote is yes tennessee graham my vote is yes

brian mcadams my vote is yes hi owen my vote is no thank you thank you thank you council okay number

12 here

MI 2025-005-894-2218 South Broad Street. Jennifer Pizzillo is the attorney.

There's, um, we don't have an RCO letter as of yet. And there was a meeting December 16th, 2025? Yep.

sorry i just missed um what you were saying while i was joining us i i i said we don't have a rco

letter but there was a meeting on december 16 2025 correct and a second on february 17th

2026 as well okay and and yeah and and i was about to say it now is four dwelling units and

not six. Is that correct? Correct. Based on the request of the RCO. So I do believe we do. Okay.

Well, why don't I do this? Why don't I swear you in first? Okay. Sounds good. Why don't you state

your name is spelled for the stenographer? Sure. I'm Jennifer Bazitlow, B-A-Z-Y, D as in dog,

L as in Larry, O as in Oscar. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,

nothing but the truth? I do. Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?

Sure. My client is the property owner, Andrew Wynn.

And our vice chair is a few options.

Sure.

Good morning. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?

have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing

Yes, I did say.

yes i did send an additional revised plan with proviso plan this morning as well though

okay thank you for that and do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate

to their accuracy i do okay thank you you can share your screen proceed with your case great

let me just get to the right

hold on one second give me one second i don't have the right screen open i apologize

Let me try this one more time. I apologize for that. Okay. We are at Zoom and we're going to

share. I apologize. I was working at something else when we were waiting for the hearing.

All right. Now we're here. All right. Thank you. So I have submitted a packet with information.

I'll just briefly go through it right now and then we'll come back to some of the important

documents. But we have the refusal, the deed showing ownership. This is a consolidation

deed these did used to be parcels okay proof of tax compliance this is our

notice that went out to all of the affected neighbors the addresses

notified and the proof of mailing we have zoning maps we're gonna come back

to a lot of this this is analysis of the uses on the block we'll come back to

that the previous use record some aerial views of the property we're coming back

to these as well photographs showing our posting I do want to just note that the

board had notified us that sign had come down it went up the same day we were

notified so it was back up that same day and then this is it is a vacant property

right now that's photos the rest of the block and our most current plans so let

Let me just start here saying this property was bought by my client in 2023 and consolidated

into one lot in 2024.

As you can see there's some cars parking on it right now but there's no structures there.

This property and this side of this block are all zoned RSA 5.

It is on South Broad Street between Jackson and Wolfe and across the street there's commercial

shopping centers and banks including the Starbucks, Subway and TD Bank. And we're

going to discuss that there's no single-family homes on this block at all. So just keep that

in mind as we talk about what we are proposing. As I mentioned before, let's just show the

documents of the prior use of these properties so there was two so 220 South

Broad last documented use was a two-family dwelling plus a I believe

dentist's office or doctor's office some sort of medical office and the last

documented use of 2218 was a four-family dwelling what we are proposing is a new

construction on this parcel. The parcel is around 2,900 square feet. It is a double width parcel.

And the proposed use is there's going to be a family-run Vietnamese restaurant on the first

floor. This restaurant is going to be owned and operated by the owner and developer of the

building as well. And then on each of the second and third floors, we are proposing

to have two residential units. They're each two beds and two baths. The unit sizes range from

883 square feet to 1020 square feet. So they are good size units. Like I said, this is a double

lot. So essentially there's one unit per floor per parcel, but because they're consolidated

and to one lot there are two units per floor but it's essentially having the density of one unit

per level I can go into the plans a little bit more let me just zoom in here let's see so we

have on the ground floor like I said is going to be the first floor is the restaurant the only

thing in the basement is going to be commercial storage so this is for use of the restaurant

All venting for this restaurant will be through the roof. You can see on our plans where you can

see the venting going through for the hood. I'm going to come back and talk about the restaurant

a little bit more after I talk about the residential units because I knew that was

actually some of the bigger concerns was the density of the residential units. So originally

we had proposed three units per floor for six units. And the reason we had come up with that

was if it had been a CMX2 zoning, like the block is kind of used, that's what the density would

would allow in CMX2. However, listening to the community group, we've reduced this down to these

allow in CMX2. However, listening to the community group, we've reduced this density.

four really nice, really good size units, two bedroom units, two baths. You can see we have

walk-in closets in some of them, in-unit laundry, good size kitchen, living area, dining area.

You know, the primary bedroom has its own bathroom. So they're really nice units. There's going to be

additional trash storage areas in the hallway,

which will be ventilated so that there's not odor issues.

And there'll be commercial trash pickup

for both the residential

and commercial portions of this building.

There is a roof deck, we'll talk about that.

It's not going to be for the tenants,

it's really just to access the roof.

There's the roof structure, the door,

we agreed that the door will be locked

and the only person who has the key

will be the building owner.

so uh let's talk about the restaurant a little bit um

so this is like i said it's a family owned and operated restaurant it would be open seven days

a week from 9 a.m to 9 p.m commercial trash pickup during the day kitchen ventilated to the roof

this family is experienced restaurant owners they currently have um an operating restaurant in

Delaware, and they've previously operated restaurants in Philadelphia as well. They also

have experience in construction, both residential and commercial. So they know what they're getting

into. This isn't their first time either building, renovating, or running a restaurant or rental

properties as well. If we look at the current facade here, we are proposing mostly brick

facade. The change in roofing here is largely because this is where the cornice line is to the

next door buildings. So by creating this space, we're creating kind of maintaining that visual

cornice line with the adjacent buildings. The RCO had asked us to address some of the aesthetics

to make it a little more compatible with the surrounding buildings. So that's why we had some,

we changed the window shape for the commercial space. We added this bay window in the middle.

we considered other bay windows, but just because of the size of the building, they weren't able to

be code compliant. So we have the one bay window here. We have other windows that are kind of,

you know, more aesthetically pleasing than the original proposed, maybe more modern looking

windows. In the rear, you can see that each of the units in the rear has a little tiny balcony

space, you know, just a Juliet balcony to provide some, you know, outdoor access as well as these

windows um so you know that's you know we try to let's just go to the photos here i can show you

what the surrounding buildings look like so you can see the buildings on either side have those

those bay windows so we just wanted to add some of that um visual interest to our construction as

well to make it not um look you know obviously it's the modern building but obviously we want

it to fit in a little bit better um you can see across the street these are some of the

commercial properties. This is a church, I believe, that's two doors down. But let's talk a little bit

about the uses of this property or our proposed use in the surrounding. So we received three

refusals, two of which were use refusals. Like I said, this is zoned RSA 5. Let's go to the zoning

map here hold on one second um you can see on this block the opposite side is cmx2

this is all rsa5 except for the one on the corner and when you zoom out you can see that the block

to the north of cmx2 to the south is rsa5 however our block of south broad as well as the one below

is largely not single-family homes and are mixed-use properties and the other

side of broad is obvious is is zoned and used for commercial and mixed use so

let's just specifically I'm going to show you this this kind of spreadsheet

that I put together actually let's look at photos first so you can see here like

I said across the street is our Starbucks you can see that these are

office spaces there's a retail store on the other side when you look at some of the other ones you

can see the bank and then on this side you see some of the other commercial properties on south

broad on this block of south broad so i did an analysis of how these properties on this block

are used and i think this is really helpful to showing what we're proposing and how it fits in

both use-wise and density-wise. As you can see, these are all of the parcels on this block.

If you go, the even side is our side,

If you go, the even side is our side, the odd side is the opposite side abroad.

the odd side is the opposite side abroad.

There's not a single family home.

They range from one residential unit plus a commercial space

to a nine residential unit building,

to pure commercial and everything in between.

So there's 11 mixed use,

two multi-family and four

purely commercial properties on this block.

And like I said, it does continue if you go and do

an analysis on the block up and down from Broad Street. Similar is what I'll say. So if this

property were zoned, so what I did here is I looked at the zoning, how it's actually the last

permitted use or what's obviously, I couldn't find the permit for the funeral home, but it is a

funeral home there. They're lot size. And what I did is that I did this analysis kind of, of

the square foot per residential unit and where we fit in with our proposed four units here.

So really just showing that we're in a lower density than many of these other existing

properties. So eight of the properties have less square footage per residential unit,

four have more. The median of all of these is in the mid-500s, and we're coming in at about 720

square feet per residential unit per post. The next analysis here is that if these properties

were zoned CMX2, or in the case if it's just only residential RM1, how many units would be allowed

per their, in those zoning districts, and then versus how many are actually in these buildings.

so if you see zero that's that's you know they have three units they would be

allowed three units in CMX2 if you see a negative that means that they have less

units than would be allowed and a positive number means that they have

more units than would be allowed so in that with that analysis we have three of

these three of these properties have what the number would be that would be

allowed three have more six have less of those six four have one less and two have two get less

we are proposing two less units than would be allowed for our square footage if this property

was zoned cmx2 like these properties are being used and i only bring this up i know that that's

not how it's zoned but you know when you look at the law it's clearly not the correct zoning based