just holding it for a week there's not really time to hold a meeting so and if i could just be clear
That is for both 59 East Clapier and 61 East Clapier?
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Number eight.
Number eight.
MI 2025-004-514-3922 Mellon Street.
Henry Clinton is the attorney.
um this is a resumptive hearing there is support from mantua civic association
they'll be back in as a panel shortly mr chair
morning mr chairman members of the board good morning council could you please state your name
and spell for the stenographer sure henry clinton h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n and my client
Leffler-Dema, L-E-F-T-E-R-D-H-I-M-A is also on the call.
Right. Do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
This is a resumptive hearing. We'll have an update from you regarding revised plans.
There'll be questions from the board, there'll be public testimony and possibly planning commission.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Why don't you start, sir?
Sure. By way of background, I was here, we were here back in December. It's a request for a three-family dwelling on a 3,900 block of Mellon Street. We're across the street from two, three-family dwellings, albeit that's their own Union Street, to be perfectly frank.
The subject property is the end of a row adjacent to an alley.
It's long been vacant.
I couldn't really establish how long it's been vacant, but I believe in excess of a decade.
It is one of the two largest lots on the block.
It's 78 feet deep.
We have the unanimous support of the Mantua Civic Association, and there's been no attempt
to build on it from anyone that I talk to in the neighborhood.
And if I could share my screen, I will walk through the presentation.
Show the board all the changes.
Show, show the board all the changes.
Is his screen shared?
Not yet.
There we go.
Let me see.
Is that visible, Mr. Chairman?
It is.
All right.
So I'm not going to go through all the table of contents because we have it all.
Right.
The key issue here is we've eliminated one of the two refusals.
We had an overuse of the dimensional aspect of the property.
We had 83 percent, 84 percent rather.
We've reduced that occupied area to 75 percent.
So the sole issue before the board today is is the use a triplex in a single family zone residency.
There's a letter, unanimous support of Mantua Civic.
Photographs, which I showed before, it's a vacant lot off the corner of Union Street.
The two properties here are three-family.
This is an adjacent two-story property, and one of the concerns was the elevations didn't match,
and I think if you see all the changes that we made, hopefully the board will be somewhat satisfied.
This is looking eastbound, vacant lot.
This is the two-story adjacent.
This is another three-story on the block at the end of the block, 3902, with a mansert roof, which we are mimicking in some way.
So here are all the seven changes we've made.
So we've eliminated the dimensional variance, as I said, reducing it from 84 to 75.
So we increased the rear yard from 9 feet to 18 feet.
We've added spiral stairs in the rear yard for an egress well.
that larger yard permits us to do that for the basement egress. We've eliminated the balconies
on the second and third floor of the front and the rear because really they don't match the block
as one member of the board said back in December. We matched the window sizes and location of the
adjacent property on the first and second floor elevations. We also carried the cornice line of
the adjacent property onto the subject property, the second floor level, and it's going to be wood
to match next door. We added the mansert roof at the third floor level rather than going straight
up, and we installed trash closets in units two and three. So here is the new elevation.
Again, the windows match up, the corners line matches up, the mansert roof, and here's a side
view of the mansert roof. I'll blow that up a little bit so you can see it's on a 45, so it's
setback a little bit, taking away that canyon look that you often get when you get three
stories straight up on a small street.
We've eliminated the balconies on the front as well as on the rear.
And over toward the left side, and I'll blow this up, is the egress well in the rear yard,
able to enlarge the egress well.
Actually, not really enlarge it, just install spiral steps to get out of the basement in
the event of a problem.
We also have an egress well in the front of the house.
In terms of the floor plan, it's basically going to be the same as it was prior,
except in the rear, I have a sliding doors to go out to an egress well to get out to the rear yard.
The bedroom in the front, there's also an egress well there.
Unit one will be the basement of first floor.
Excuse me, there's access to the rear yard from the rear bedroom.
Go up to the second floor, bedroom in the front, bedroom in the rear, washer, dryer, trash closet adjacent.
going up to the third floor really didn't change
let me go down one page really didn't change anything from the last time except the elimination
of the balconies we still have two bedrooms uh and two baths on the third floor with a
rooftop deck that is only accessible uh by the unit on the third floor um that's it mr chairman
and basically tried to take all the comments
from the board into consideration.
And I really think the issue obviously is use.
It's a single family zone.
We're looking for three families because a lot's large.
It's at the end of a row, not the end of the street,
but the end of the row,
because there's an alley between the west side of the property
the west side of the property and the homes that the rear yards are on union street
and the homes that the rear yards are on you.
and there is another mansart roof on the block so i'll entertain you have your client come on
and adopt your testimony mr leffler leffler dima can you unmute yourself
leffler he's on the call they'll be coming back in as a panel shortly
good morning good morning could you please state your name and spell for this thought
my name is lefter l-e-f-t-e-r and last name is vima d-h-i-m-a you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i swear please proceed mr demon were you on the
call when i presented your revised project yes and if you had the opportunity to testify would
you adopt my testimony as your own and it's true and correct yes thank you sir questions from the
board yes um well one i just want to say that i think classifying this as a large lot when it's
1100 square feet and 1400 is the minimum in philadelphia is a little bit of a stretch um and
i do want to understand the hardship for three units i also think this is a lot of construction
for all of the bedrooms to be seven feet wide,
like they're under eight feet wide,
which isn't even like a decent-sized bedroom.
And I think at this point that this is just,
it's dense to try to squeeze in a lot of units
on a block that's mostly two-story
and mostly one family.
Miss, when I hear you,
I was not trying to misrepresent anything.
I'm just saying it's a large lot in comparison
to the rest of the block.
And I said, it's one of two.
here's our lot and here's the adjacent lot and you know they are quite it is quite larger than
or deeper than the other lots on the block so no no misdirection meant uh at all okay i understood
and and your comments basically reflect what my notes were from december uh you made similar
comments and also commented about the elevation uh we we did address the elevation but you did
I think all of the things that you guys addressed were positive.
I think it still stands that there's still these things that aren't quite working.
And I think a duplex would make more sense here.
I think understanding that it's deeper than the other lots on the block,
they are not typically, those are undersized lots even for that neighborhood.
So I do think that looking at that property, I think a duplex would make more sense.
i understand any other questions any other questions
questions from our attorney not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the audience
of the virtual audience i do not see any hands raised mr committee commission do you already
take a position um yes i don't think we have any additional comments okay um henry we're
to vote on this next week wednesday morning at 9 30 a.m okay thank you very much very much
thanks for letting us come back to the board i'd really appreciate it appreciate it so number four
So MI 2024-006-832-4238-4283 Viola Street, TA-63838.
Meredith Ferliger is the attorney.
There's a letter of opposition from the RCO,
the letter of opposition from Council Member Gauthier,
Meredith Ferliger, and also Steve Masters is the attorney for the Protestants.
Good morning.
Good morning, counsel.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Meredith Ferliger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R.
Great. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Mr. Masters, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-E, M-A-S-T-E-R-S, with the law firm of JustLaws.
We represent the Viola Street neighbors and other objectors.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
murder could you identify your client a relationship to the property my client
is Haverford Square Viola LLC which is the deeded owner of this property and
and our vice chair has a few questions good morning have you submitted your documents and
our vice chair has a few questions good morning have you submitted your
exhibits five days in advance of this hearing yes and do you waive the reading of the refusals and
stipulate to the accuracy uh yes except this is a referral our referral okay thank you you can
share your screen proceed with your case so for both councils um you know we have several cases
and that this is one of the cases
that's going to be a little bit more protracted.
And the way we stand now,
we have L&I review board coming in here at 1230.
So we have to be done by then.
So, Meredith, how long do you think
your particular presentation would take?
Mr. Chair, I think my presentation
is no more than 20 minutes.
I can't, yeah.
So here's what we're trying to do
is we're we're trying to hold this to 20 minutes steve and then she'd make her presentation and
we'd back and you could start with a presumptive hearing when we come back okay i mean there's just
no other way we can do this so uh meredith why don't you start yes mr chairman if you give me a
moment? Sure. Just to make sure, can you all hear me okay? I have a new microphone. I just want to
make sure that it's working. I can hear you. We can hear you. Okay, great. Thank you.
All right. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, the request before you today concerns 4283
Viola Street. You have an exhibit packet in front of you up on the screen that contains 19 exhibits,
which as always we do request be moved into evidence at the conclusion of the presentation.
I do also have representative from Haverford Square Viola, Mr. German Yakubov, who will come
on at the end of my presentation. To summarize the basis for today's request, and I'll bring up the
or the referral, this application requests a special exception for a group living use
in the RSA 5 zoning district.
Much of the background information I will provide today may seem familiar to this board
in light of a prior case that you heard, so I will try and move through it quickly, but
I do need to repeat everything for the purpose of preserving our record in this particular
The deed is included at Exhibit 3 and is up on the screen, and we did also include tax clearance as well at Exhibit 2.
The aerials of this property at Exhibit 7 show that the property is a vacant lot on Viola Street, just east of Belmont Avenue.
And you can see here in this photograph, the context, this is the fire station that fronts on Belmont Avenue.
From the rear of the property, you'll see that this property directly adjoins structures which front on Parkside Avenue.
And then by way of a more complete context, in the next aerial up on the screen,
you will see an outline of the applicant's recently approved development on Parkside
Avenue, which received a building permit in the spring and is currently under construction
for 48 units.
And we show you this just in terms of the context because it is highly relevant in terms of
management of the property.
At the zoning map at Exhibit 5, you'll note that the property is zoned RSA 5.
Current street view photographs of the property are shown at Exhibit 8.