not steep slopes they're below 25 percent and similar to 420 mermaid lane much of the construction
activity uh earth disturbance will be managed by silt fence silk socks um eliminating any debris
from spilling over on neighboring properties or the public right of way and that's again
to address that thank you and again um dane jensen who's the owner of the property is available if
there are any questions um but with that i think we can turn it over to any q a from the board if
there are questions from the board no mr jim
jim sorry chair uh no no no i did uh no questions i'm sorry questions or comments from our attorney
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair we have charles richardson they have been abuted at a lab
mr richardson just state your name please certainly charles richardson officer councilwoman
and Cindy Bass, the Councilwoman has no opposition to green invariance.
Thank you, Mr. Richardson.
Thank you. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no heads, Chair.
My Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
Sorry.
technical difficulty the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing rsd1
single-family detached zoning at this location we feel the applicant has demonstrated sufficient
hardship and the proposed various is de minimis accordingly the planning commission recommends
the board grant the variance thank you if i may i think because of the last hearing i forgot to
ask my client to adopt my testimony if i may you can dane absolutely if you are can you raise your
hand, please. Dane Jensen has been unmuted and allowed to speak. Sir, just state your name.
You already been sworn. Dane Jensen. Thanks, Dane. Since we're doing this twice, I almost forgot.
Can you hear the statements I made in connection with this application? I did.
Thanks. Are they correct and accurate? They are. Would you adopt them as your own statements?
I would. Thank you, Dane. Thank you, Chairman. Okay. So MI 2023-005-845-7504-St. Martins Lane,
I vote yes. James Snell, my vote is yes. LeBaron Leonard Palmer, vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel. Sorry for the delay. No problem. Thank you very much. Okay.
Okay. Number four, MI 2023-006-405, 1245 East Roosevelt Boulevard. Stephen Pollack is the attorney. There was a meeting held on 117-20 forward by Parkwood Civic. We do not have that as of yet.
Stephen Pollack is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Hi, Mr. Pollock.
Hi, Chairman Bergman, members of the board.
A pleasure to see everybody.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court's anographer?
Surely, Stephen Pollock, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, Pollock, P-O-L-L-O-C-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Chair.
Could you identify who your client is in the relationship to the property?
My client is the Isaac Newton Foundation operating the Mass Charter School 3, and they are the owners of the property.
Mass Charter School 3, and they are the owners of the property.
Do you waive the reading of the refusal and agree to its accuracy?
And all your documents were in five days in advance?
Yes, they were, Mr. Chair.
Please proceed.
I would like to have the assistance of Ryan Thomas, who is my associate.
Ryan could be promoted so he can share the screen for everybody.
That would be appreciated.
Ryan Thomas is coming back as a panelist.
I hope I can get myself back on.
Here I am.
Quick one, the finger there.
Okay, Mr. Chair, Ryan is there.
Ryan, if you could put up the pictures.
This is the 12345 East Reservoir Boulevard was the former new headquarters of Crown Cork and Seal up near on the boulevard right just below the armory.
It's the boulevard in Southampton Road, a stone's throw away from Steamfitters, local Union 420's headquarters, I believe, Mr. Snell.
um and uh what we're trying to do here mr chair this is the uh this is the space in front of
crown cork and seals building uh and if you go to uh our plan ryan six one um we'll show you
what we intend to do is put a ball field and a track in in the front area we cannot put it
anywhere else in the property. In the back, the rear of the property is all for stormwater
management. Previously, we were granted variances to convert. When Crown left to move their
headquarters out of the city of Philadelphia, we were able to crown the Isaac Newton Foundation,
acquired the building, and adapted this to its school use. Prior, on another occasion,
The board granted, if you see this little standalone building to the left of the main building, the board granted us a variance recently to have a standalone gymnasium.
Now, as part of the program, we'd like to be able to have this ball field that would be for, as you can see, track, field hockey, lacrosse, and soccer.
but and what we have is this the hardship in this case is and I don't know if you can see the blue
various blue lines but we're subject to three different zones this is a 40 acre piece of ground
and we're subject to three different zone zone district the first zoning district is right along
at the top right along the Roosevelt Boulevard which is where Ryan's showing you and that's a
special active special parks active district which when you read what the zoning code says about it
It says it's for use of public space owned and operated by the city, the state or federal government, not a private entity like we are.
But it's been there. The next part is and that's about we have 40 acres, 17 over 1.7 million square feet of space, 115,000 roughly for this SPOA.
The next section, if you can see it in the sort of blue or purple line that's around the field and everything like that and comes down just behind the building a little bit, that is, we're burdened by an RSA 3, which is Residential Single Family Attached, and that's about 700,000 square feet of the property.
And then behind it, anything else is I-1 Industrial. So when it came to the building of even Crown's headquarters, basically what was in the I-1 Industrial became either parking space for Crown or in the rear, if we want to show it, we could show you at 6-2 our existing site plan, but it became stormwater basins to accommodate, accommodate, there you go, that whole area behind the blue down below in the bottom of your screen.
That's where the stormwater basins were to accommodate Crown's corporate use of the property.
So over the years, since 2018, since Isaac Newton and Mass Charter 3 opened up, we've adapted this space for the educational program.
We have K through 9 right now, about 1,300 students.
We would like to be able to have this facility.
We've had the indoor facility for physical education.
now we would like to have this outdoor facility for education we'll be preserving as many trees
as we can in the 40 acres we're not building anything other than you know a bleacher that
will hold about 500 people closer to the building we're going to be having a one-story sort of
Closer to the building, we're going to be having a one-story sort of bathroom facility for people that use the property.
So we believe we're not endangering health, safety, or welfare, and we're not changing the nature of this neighborhood.
We are sort of a self-contained unit facing the boulevard.
We have an outbound area off McNulty Drive named after Tom McNulty, who was the head of the plumbers for many, many years.
And McNulty Drive, we seal it off and it's exit only.
That was something that we arranged at the very first zoning board hearing way back when we got approval to use the property.
So we only use that for outflow and we don't allow people to use it during the day to go in and out, but it is served on an emergency basis.
but we limit and make everybody go out on the boulevard and the interesting thing about this
one is we were the beneficiaries of the fact that that became one crown way it has its own
signalized intersection with its own desal lane to get off if you're headed north on the boulevard
and the outer lanes and it has its own turn lane from southbound however all our kids are from
philadelphia and all our kids are basically coming from other areas of the city of philadelphia not
Not just our area in the Parkwood neighborhood area.
So we are looking to build this facility, the track.
It'll be usable for interscholastic and intrascholastic events.
We already, I saw that there was some, we've already allowed different events to go on at the school that serve the community,
like community days for different elected representatives throughout the Northeast area.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to call John Swoyer, who is our CEO of all the mass schools,
and this is his particular pet project, the Mass 3 and the athletic field.
Could I have John Swoyer raised to-
Let me ask you a question.
Did you receive a letter from the Parkwood?
Did you get it or you didn't?
No, we don't. Oh, you don't have it because it showed Ryan.
Will you show it? We have. I just want to be sure we do have to make sure you make sure Hillary gets a copy of it, please.
Yeah. OK, because it did say he was sending it to.
OK. All right. I see. Yeah. But it was 15. We'll send it right away.
We'll send it right away. Send it to Hillary. And also, hopefully you got Councilman O'Neill's no objection.
I did not see that, but thank you very much. We have it there.
we there we have that too okay we can we could we can forward that right to you so you have it okay
thank you very much sir so with that john hopefully can be raised to panelists or absolutely
because i know you still have a heavy burden here so no no we don't okay
john sawyer has been unmuted and allowed to speak
mr sawyer could you could you state your name please and spell for the court sonographer
Sure. This is John Sawyer, J-O-H-N, Sawyer, S-W-O-Y-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Yes, John, you've been listening to all the statements that I made on the record during the course of this hearing?
Yes, I have.
And do you believe that they're true and correct?
And do you adopt that as your testimonies if you were to if those words were to come out of your mouth today?
I would. OK, Mr. Chairman, I also have Michael Bowker, who is our engineer, who could discuss that we've gone through the water department for preliminary plan approval.
But I don't think we. Why don't we do? Why don't we hold him in case the board has questions?
OK. All right. So questions from the board?
No questions, Chair. OK.
Okay. No questions on my end, Chair. Thank you. I would just move into the record, all our exhibits. Oh, absolutely, sure. A1 through A16, plus those two letters, we will send them right away to you. Okay, right. Questions for our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
No, just thank you for sending us the letters.
Okay. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Alice Udovich. They have been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Good afternoon, Alice. Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. Good afternoon, Chairman, members of the board.
Hello?
Chair, she's disappeared for some reason.
Okay. There she is.
There she is.
Good afternoon, Chairman, members of the board.
Alice Udovich from Councilman Brian O'Neill's office.
U-D-O-V-I-C-H.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Please proceed.
The councilman supports the granting of the variance at this location for Mass 3 Charter.
The Councilman supports the granting of the variant.
Thank you very much.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Michael Bowker.
They have been unmuted and allowed to speak.
All right.
Michael is our engineer.
I don't know Michael.
No, we're okay.
Michael, we don't need you at this point.
Thank you.
Questions or comments are from the Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair.
Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends a change to I-2 industrial zoning at this location.
The proposal is consistent with the current use of the property, and we feel the applicant has demonstrated sufficient hardship.
Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends the Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2023-006-405-12345, East Roosevelt Boulevard, I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
LeBaron Leonard Palmer, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Pollack.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Great to see you.
This is the start of my 48th year in front of the zoning board.
Thank you very much, sir.
All right.
Take care.
Number six, MI-2023-006-256-1001 Watkins Street.
Alec Sokoloff is the attorney.
We have a letter of opposition from East Hachonk Crossing.
Letter of opposition from Council Member Squillin.
Chair Ole Sokoloff is coming back in as a panelist now.
good afternoon members of the board could you state your name please and spell for the court
stenographer absolutely oleg sokolov o-l-e-g-s-o-k-o-l-o-b of rabinovich sokolov law group
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client the relationship to the property yes my client is
There's one zero zero one Watkins LLC and a member of such LLC is on the line here, Antonio DiTomo.
OK, do you waive the reading of the refusal and agree to the accuracy?
I do, but I suppose I'll get into it a little bit there.
There are some amendments made by way of proviso.
So one of the items on the refusal is moot at this point.
Okay. And all of your documents have been sent in five days prior, am I correct?