you there was a community meeting there's posters on the property and
again you know both the client and the architect were both at that meeting and
again a traffic impact study was and we did go back and forth and I said to
Tanetta we would try and reconfigure the site but given the discussion with the
water department that she was aware of because she knows this neighborhood
extremely well, we weren't able to move that sewer line. So any redesign is not feasible
because of the water department needs a 30-foot easement. And again, we've provided that. We've
provided the correspondence from the water department. There's no real ability to redesign
the site at all given that. So we're really just here to discuss, can we provide accessory
off-street parking to help limit additional congestion caused by a by-right site? So
that's kind of where we are. And I think it might be helpful to have Keith, the owner,
and our architect who were actually at the meeting because again like i said i wasn't there at the
meeting but i do know that one was thank you understood let's get your client on please
keith you've been allowed to speak please unmute yourself and wait to be sworn in
and uh keith would you please spell your first and last name
Keith, you're unmuted, you can speak.
there's must be some technical difficulties Rachel's trying to okay all right if why don't
we go to the architect while we're at it because the architect according to your testimony Ms.
pritz attended the meeting yes ian smith should be on the line
i'm going to try and have um keith call in tanya so that because i guess it's not sure
i gotta find the number ian you've been allowed to speak you can unmute yourself and wait to be
sworn in good morning mr smith please identify yourself with the record good morning my name is
ian smith uh my um my address is 322 east thompson well 340 west duval street um 19144
and i'm the architect for uh this project do you swear and firm to tell the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the truth i do thank you please proceed okay um the the meeting that uh i was
present at back in 2019 did occur. I don't remember the exact title, but I would presume that
based on how RCO meetings go, this would be, you know, our first RCO meeting sort of reviewing the
project and its scope, identifying the refusals, which was the parking in the rear of the lot and
the access from the main street, all other items being compliant with the zoning code.
I think this project has been seen in front of the Strawberry Mansion CDC multiple times
with different owners, me being the architect for it, and there's been some, you know, history
of having concerns outside of what the refusals are presented.
I think it has been a challenge with regard to coming to terms with the Strawberry Mansion
CDC, and, you know, we've done everything within our power, I think, as far as a designer
architect outside of actually just reducing the density but the density is
approved you know based on what I mean what we've done prior and I believe
there's some zoning approvals with regard to that and the the only conflict
is the idea of providing parking which in this particular case seems unusual
and but at the same time this has been the the main sticking point with regard
to the strawberry mansion cdc
thank you any board members have any questions for the architect
no no anyone else going to testify in this
i think keith is calling in if the board thinks it's relevant to hear his
testimony i'd like yeah i think so because there's been some
comments or statements made that there was no meeting and i i'm a little
there was no meeting and i i'm a little bit confused on that yeah he said he's on tanya
confused on that yeah he said
he called in so um the last four of his or last three of his phone number are uh 8698
good morning sir please spell your first and last name for the record
sure k-e-i-t-h last name aliats a-l-l-i-o-t-t-s and you swear to firm to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Please proceed. You know, just to add on to what
Rachel and Ian, my architect, has said, we had a meeting with the community back in 2019. I don't
have the date in front of me. I believe it was sometime in August, September area, roughly a year
ago. At that time, the community seemed to be focused heavily on the density. I bought the
project fully approved by Wright for the 17 units. As Rachel said a few times, I'm just going in for
the parking. I'm familiar with the location, familiar with, you know, neighbors and people
who live in the area. There seems to be a parking issue there, as there is throughout a lot of the
City. And we had reached out to Tanetta. I had a different attorney, Michael Phillips, who
represented me at that meeting at that time. I've since changed attorneys. We've reached out to
Tanetta, or I've asked Rachel to reach out several times regarding the letter. We've not been able
to receive it. I sent Tanetta three emails within the last 10 days following up on the letter,
knowing we have this um you know meeting this morning or hearing um i didn't get a response
um and again based on the meeting we had and the communities had a few meetings i believe i
shouldn't say that i i'm told the communities had a few meetings prior to my meeting with the
previous owner i purchased it from um so that the community is very familiar uh with the project
i had said to rachel i'm not certain anything productive will come out of another community
meeting um i went in there with good faith you know um tried to you know appease them and i want
to do some some low-income units for the community so people in the community can live in the in the
building um but they seem to not even really want to talk about parking it was all about density
and that's when rachel explained this morning i did go back spent thousands of dollars with it
with architects and everyone else to try to figure out if we can do a redesign there based on the
easement that's there the sewer easement it's pretty much impossible to change the layout of
that building and how it how it was designed um i'd spoken to rachel again multiple times regarding
this um and based on the community's um feeling of of the density was more than what they were
happy with um we didn't really spend much time at the meeting on parking because i tried to explain
to them that i bought it approved it's a buy right job and i think at the time you know i again to
show good faith i'd said to the community you know what kind of density would you guys be looking for
here and if my memory is correct i was told about five units which obviously is not based on what
i purchased for the property it wouldn't be economically viable the project um so that's
kind of where we're at at that point i made the suggestion when rachel got on board let's let's
go to the zba because um as i said i didn't think meeting with the community uh but he would be
productive but keith didn't i say to you that we needed to try and reach out again to the community
after we went did some research with the water department and with Ian and with another architect
and we did reach out multiple times we submitted a traffic study and we still were not able to
you know get anywhere yeah and I guess and again from my perspective and this has now been a year
as Rachel had just said we've reached out to community countless times we don't even get
responses from them so at this point you know not to sound selfish but I feel we've acted in good
faith, I can't wait around for another six, nine, 12 months for someone to respond to an email or
schedule an appointment or a meeting of any kind. So that's kind of where we're at and why we're
on the call today. I just want to, again, for clarification on my end, to be clear,
the project as a buy rate was allowed for how many units? 17. I bought it with, I purchased it
in July of 2019 sorry to interrupt you with those approvals in place okay and
with those approvals in place okay and the only real issue is parking is parking okay
the only real issue
to provide 13 parking spaces on this lot um and can i can i tell you guys you guys talking about
meetings there was never an official rco community meeting for this project you guys
miss graham what is it you keep saying and there was not an official meeting
was there a meeting there was a meeting with me and my development committee there was not in the
meeting where you have to notify the residents of the area right so why wasn't why wasn't that done
because my understanding was that initial meeting the architect we would we did not appreciate we
did not agree with the design of the building and the architect said okay i will go back to
the drawing board and we asked for a traffic study because that's one of our primary concerns is that
the uh the building is at the end of a bridge so coming over the bridge would make parking kind of
dangerous for that intersection so that's why the community asked for a traffic study that was it
that i mean not the community that that development committee it was then supposed to be brought back
to us with the new design um and the schedule uh uh the zoning here so that we can go follow the
RCO process. This does not have the full RCO process. Were you made aware of the traffic
study? I can't say that I have been because, you know, it's COVID. We've got a lot of things
going on. Ms. Graham, Ms. Graham, Ms. Graham, Ms. Graham, Ms. Graham, Ms. Graham, with all
due respect, I asked a question. All right. And just give it an answer. Yes or no. That's
i'm going to ask please do not unmute yourself to speak unless directed by the chair thank you
you can speak now okay are you aware of the traffic study were you made aware of the traffic
study i did not read a traffic study i'm gonna pull up the email i'm not saying you didn't send
i said i didn't read a traffic study oh but it was sent to you you have a choice to read it or not
read it okay that's fine but then they were supposed to send also a new design a design of
the building all the information all right here okay here's here we go here's the deal okay uh
we're going to hold this until next wednesday's executive session
okay one week from tomorrow we're having an executive session correspondence between the
applicant applicant's attorney and the strawberry mansion folks whatever you guys need to do
between now and then get it done we will vote on this next wednesday morning mr chair i have a
question uh miss prisker when did you send the traffic study i'm going to share my screen so
that you can see um when i sent the traffic study which was march 11th and then i followed up on it
with her I called Tanetta I've worked with Tanetta on a number of projects so I you know have
luckily been able to reach her many times and we've worked together on a number of things so
just like all those other projects I specifically understood the concerns here spent an hour on the
phone or 30 minutes on the phone with her and made sure that she got the traffic study and even made
sure that the traffic study was done because it's a little atypical on a site this small
So it was sent to her on March 11th, and I followed up, and she said that she would look at it.
I don't know that she got a chance or didn't get a chance, but it was sent back in March.
You've had months and months and months, and I've sent emails in May and June and July, and Keith sent several in the last 10 days.
So, again, it's not for lack of wanting to cooperate.
It's you can only do so much, and we're all dealing with COVID and things of that nature.
We're just trying to do our best to move this forward.
And we do think it would be more detrimental to have a site with 17 by right units with not one stitch of parking on this very important block.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Carol, I've lost my list of the hearings this morning.
So would you please call, you know, read the case.
Chair, I'm sorry, but there is other people who have their hands up, if you wish.
or it's your call something new and different if it's not new and different we're going to move on
i'm going to have francis you can be sworn in hi i'm here good morning sir please spell your
first and last name for this record my name is francis f-r-a-n-c-i-s magobot m-a-n-g-u-b-a-t
Your address?
It's 1444 North Myrtlewood Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19121.
uh is that in close proximity to this uh where this uh to this application yes it's about three
Is that in close proximity to this application?
blocks okay please proceed so uh on my block there's about 17 new construction homes all
without parking and i'd say it's a mess there's uh you know people that are parking on the sidewalk
people that are parking in vacant lots people bumping each other's cars and what i would say
on 33rd street is immediately north of 1501 north 33rd there's 40 units approved by right i don't
know if there's parking or not so what i would say i mean this neighborhood absolutely needs
more parking as it's just becoming a mess having all these homes without parking and i would think
that it logically makes sense to take one street spot away to provide parking for 17 other people
okay thank you for your testimony anyone else here we have strawberry mansion you can unmute yourself
hello morning please identify yourself with a record bonita cumming strawberry mansion
community concern i just wanted to add that um we're in a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do please proceed it may be safer to do it by right like the type of
traffic jam and blind spots that is a part of this present design and already right now we're
experiencing bottlenecks and that particularly come across that bridge right in that location
so the and then the changing back and forth of people we were dealing with ian smith was no
longer the architect and i'm not sure when rachel became the attorney so some of the confusion may
be and that this building has changed hands a couple of times and different people may have
been communicating back and forth so you don't really know who you're dealing with. But I do
think that one week is really not enough time and that that site is very dangerous for the
community. It's not like, you know, parking is going to be made easy. That's going to make a
major congestion in that space. That's going to cause people coming home from Center City
um to be really held up uh depending on the times of day people pulling in and out and even with
parking uh depending on how many people are visiting people you're still going to get on
street you know on street parking so so i would say that it's it's a better buy right project
than it would be to put a parking lot where people would be coming off of that property
into the street causing accidents and maybe even so it's your testimony that the buy right
which would provide no parking is better than providing well it's safer I would say it's safer
well they did a traffic study so I don't I mean that that's debatable okay I got we heard you
thank you I have um none of the affected RVCOs were uh I muted you for a reason thank you
Sir, Chair, we have Max. Max, you're going to mute yourself and speak.
Thank you. My name is Max Karasik.
First name, spell your last name, please.
K-A-R-A-S-I-C-K.
You swear to firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And your address, sir?
1510 North Hollywood Street, Philadelphia, 19121.
Good proceed.
Thank you.
so i live a few blocks away from this development um parking in the neighborhood is obviously a
concern of everyone um and i think this plan adequately addresses um the needs of the
community i mean to provide parking versus no parking it seems like a no-brainer and the traffic
study shows that it is safe um so that addresses that concern so i would just like to voice my
support of this thank you thank you we have one share we have one more andrew you can unmute
yourself and wait mr herman mr herman please spell your first and last name and give us your address
Andrew you can unmute yourself
can you hear me yes uh a-n-d-r-e-w-h-e-r-m-a-n and I live at 1533 north 33rd
which is on this block where and from to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes thank you please proceed um so i live probably like maybe 10 10 houses down from this lot
um i've experienced many issues with parking on this block already
Um, I've experienced many issues with parking on this block already.
Uh, currently most residents of my building and the neighboring buildings park double
wide on the sidewalk.
So in many cases or many instances, there's not a five foot pedestrian walkway down the