And our vice chair has a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, we have.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
All right, so we're here to present 1613 Ayer Street.
This is also in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia.
We're essentially a little more than a block away from Frankfort Avenue on a commercial corridor.
And this is an RSA 5 property.
And what we're looking to do is put a three-family dwelling unit here.
And, you know, during our presentation, we'll review the notice of refusal, the correspondence we received from Fishtown Members Association.
Maps of the area, photographs of the inside and outside of the property and then surround the area.
Our plans and drawings, our meeting notice that we sent out to this, you know, to the Fishtown, not only the Fishtown Neighbors Association, but the surrounding property owners and occupants.
Our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of Argo LLC, our deed to the property showing that Argo LLC is the owner, and finally, a certificate of tax clearance, which shows that they owe no taxes for real estate for this property.
Again, at the conclusion of my presentation, I would ask that Mr. Gritsyuk virtually raise his hand to be sworn in, and I have a few questions for him.
so the notice refusal this is an RSA 5 property we're you know a little more than a block away
from a commercial corridor and you know with many parts of the city like you know to develop well
like this in Fishtown it just it gets really expensive to like you know constantly have just
RSA 5 properties you know you know during the meeting it was discussed like you know where
many of the properties now in Fishtown are going for 900,000 and more my client is actually the
900,000 and more. My client is actually the owner of a few restaurants in Fish Town area.
owner of a few
You may have heard of at least one of them, Fabrica. So it's important for them to have
like, you know, individuals in the community who can, you know, diversity of individuals in the
community. It's not just for single family use, but also people for next generation. Usually people
create, you know, their connections to a community by first renting. And that's what they're looking
to do. Instead of having like a $950,000 home at this property, they're hoping that to create
three units and make this rental units because even their staff members can't afford to live
in Fishtown. And they're getting, it's very difficult to, you know, find staff members
and stuff like that so while they would love to you know you know develop this as a $950,000 home
they think that a better way of doing that is to have a diversity of housing within the Fishtown
area for many types of individuals at different income levels to rent properties so we're here
because this is an RSA 5 property it's a rather large lot of 1,453 square feet and we're looking
to make hopefully three units here you know this is where we met with the Fishtown Neighbors
Association and you know they have their opinion some of the neighbors and you know it wasn't
unanimously against it but it was you know they were against you know this and you know they
you know they didn't acknowledge that you know some positives were here they were receptive
First of all, if this board is so inclined to grant this variance, we would agree to commercial trash pickup as part of that approval.
And they were also appreciative of the fact about, you know, about some aspects of the conversion.
But they were not appreciative of the fact that, like, you know, these are RSA-5 properties and they would like, you know, this part of town to remain RSA-5.
So, again, as the chairman stated, you know, this was the vote with the Fishtown Neighbors Association.
I did not receive the other letter, so I can't speak to, like, you know, what complaints that person had.
So on Palmer Street, there is an apartment building across the street, by the way, nearby.
So it's not out of character to have, like, multifamily use, even on this block.
But as you can see, there is diversity of house.
So this is where we are on Frankfort Avenue.
And this is where the property is. So there is a big, you know, you know, non RSA five property. There's a ton of, you know, even back here a little bit. And then obviously there's RM one and, and, you know, CMX, I think it's, I can't read it. I think it's two as well nearby.
So it's not straight single-family, even on that block.
And there is an apartment building across the street, which is the Memphis Flats building.
And there's ample public transportation all around.
So this is our property.
Like, we have not renovated it yet.
We bought it in as-is condition.
And this is just we were asked to give interior photos.
No one lives there right now.
This is the way we bought it.
Photographs of the exterior of the property.
So it definitely needs some TLC from an exterior point of view.
This is the back of the property, too.
It needs some TLC as well.
And you can see it's a rather large building, or at least a large lot.
And not to say that it's RM1, but if it was, you know, four units will be allowed as a right.
But that's not the case here.
But I'm just letting you know it's a rather large lot.
And this is our orange notice poster for today's hearing.
And this is Ayr Street to the right of the property.
until after property. And this is where Memphis Flats is on this block, a multifamily building.
And then these are our plans and drawings. We're definitely trying to clean up the building facade,
a nice renovation to come mixed well with the other properties nearby. And, you know, our floor
plans, we try to respect the fact we didn't have really any basement use other than a laundry room
for unit number one. So unit number one is a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath,
1,183 square feet, and it occupies the first floor and the lower level. The only thing in
the lower level is a laundry room. And then unit number two is on its own floor. That's 860 square
feet. And unit number three is on its own floor, which is the third floor as well. Something also
keep in mind is that there's a breezeway from the front to the back, so every one of the residents
will have access to a rear yard. Also, that's important in terms of trash storage as well
storage as well, and removal.
and removal. In our meeting notice, we
In our meeting notice,
we met with the community on June 4th at 7 PM.
We emailed that notice beforehand,
obviously to the coordinating RCO and relevant parties,
letting them know we mailed that out in proof of mailing.
And that was mailed to 112 addresses.
These are the addresses we mailed it to,
the proof of mailing to those addresses.
Our application for appeal that we filed on Argo's behalf.
our deed to the property, showing that Argo owns the property, and finally, our Certificate of Tax
Clearance. I will unshare my screen, and we can always go back and forth if there's any questions
about the floor plans or anything like that. But I would ask-
Mr. Knopson, before your owner comes on, either side of the property, are they single homes or
multiple? They're sales, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
So, I would ask that Mr. Gritschuk virtually raise his hand.
Mr. Gritschuk has been allowed to speak.
Good afternoon, sir.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Alexander Gritschuk, could you unmute yourself, please?
alexander gritsuk is muted sir could you please on you hello hello oh sure hello sir could you
please state your name and spell for the court stenographer my name is alexander gritsuk
could you spell it please for the court stenographer alexander and gritsuk is g-r-i-t-s-y-u-k
We're a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes, Mr. Gritskyuk, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
And is it true and correct?
Yes, correct.
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
And again, you're the owner of, we're part of the ownership group of Fabrica, which is a restaurant in Fishtown, right?
Yes, yes, I am.
And there was part of the testimony, or at least my presentation, which you adopted, deals with just the difficulty your employees are having finding affordable housing in Fishtown.
Is that right?
Yes, yes, correct.
Yeah, and one of the reasons why you wanted to have this as a rental property and divide it into multiple units is to give them some form of ability to find rental units near places of business in Fishtown, right?
yes correct yes all right thank you questions from the board i have three questions
proceed first question um did you ever consider developing this as a single family home
uh so to answer that question on mr gritchard's behalf yes internally they have
have had internal conversations the problem is is that you're going to be seeing like
The housing prices in the Fishtown area are astronomical, and what they're seeing is a problem of getting their workers to live nearby, and then it makes it more difficult to find good employees.
Okay. My second question is, do you know the number of on the immediate block, with the exception of the large apartment building across the street, how many of the individual RSA 5 lots on that block are multifamily currently?
I believe that the answer is zero.
And then, actually, I'll let Mike go because I forgot my third question already.
other questions from the board yeah question um so this is is this change in use also includes
an addition correct because it looks like yes mr johns say it again i said yes mr john so the
addition is not included as part of that zoning permit because they have a separate zoning permit
they already have approved that's as of right for an addition okay and the addition to accommodate
the apartments essentially. Whether it's the apartments or single family use, they would
prefer to have it as, you know, apartments, but yes. Yeah. Not withstanding the community
opposition, I will tell you that these are nicely laid out units in terms of the size.
So I think- I would agree. Compared to what we see a lot of times, these are nicely laid out
minutes level so yeah i mean we're talking about like 1200 square feet for the lower
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about like 1,200 square feet for the first floor and lower level, and you're looking at not 900 square feet, but close to the other ones that each are on their own floor.
They've got decent bedrooms, decent living space, decent dining space, kitchen area.
They're decent units.
I mean, I understand the opposition, but they are decent units.
Other questions from the board?
I actually remember my third question.
Can you all share what the proposed rents are for the three rental units?
Yeah, so I think they're looking at, like, you know, what's affordable is all relative, but I think they're looking for, like, $1,750 each.
So we're in the heart of Fishtown.
What they anticipate is that most of these people are going to – it's going to be roommates, like, situations.
Questions or comments from our attorney?
no chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes chair there are four hands up the first one will be athena
current kazantas okay hi could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
hi can you hear me right now i can great um my name is athena kazantas a t h e n a last name
M-K-A, Z as in zebra, A-N as in Nancy, T as in Tom, Z as in zebra, I as in igloo, S as in Sam.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
I live right next door to this property.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
So thank you all for the opportunity to speak.
I just wanted to address a couple of things that the owner spoke about.
So, first of all, in terms of multifamily housing in Fishtown, if you go on Zillow right now and search rentals in 19125, which is basically all of Fishtown, there are 596 rentals currently available, 596.
If you look for rentals under $1,700, I have it right open on my screen right now, 250 rentals.
So, I don't think that there is, like, honestly, a shortage of apartments.
There is on Front Street right now. There are over 500 new apartments being built.
That was the latest I saw via Google News. So I don't think that there's really a need.
I don't think there's a hardship. The comment about setting it aside for employees, like, is it going to be specifically employee housing?
like employees will be the only people allowed to live there uh i don't even know if that's allowed
i don't know how that works so um that's not entirely clear to me um and i do remember asking
in the fish town neighbors meeting about like how this is actually going to be set aside for lower
income housing um and it was the answer given then also was that it was all relative which
all due respect, I don't think is really a good faith answer. Everything is relative everywhere.
In terms of how this would affect me personally, and my neighbors, I spoke to many neighbors on
this block. And no one I spoke to is in support of this. They're on this side of the block.
It's all single family homes, young families, I myself have two young children. When I bought
this house. I bought it because I liked the kind of family neighborhood feel that this side of the
block had. True, Memphis Flats is across the street, but it's not on our side of the street.
This breezeway that is mentioned is really an egress for emergencies. It is shared with my
backyard. I really don't like the idea of if there's a roommate situation, three units, what
is that six people um i don't like the idea of six people going back and forth using my shared
alley as a way to access their yard um so i think there's a lot of a lot of things that will really
affect the quality of life the character of the block um for for the people living here um and i
don't really think that true hardship has been demonstrated uh my house did not cost nine hundred
thousand dollars. Yes, I bought it a few years ago, but there are homes right nearby that are
selling for under $500,000. They can be rented out as single family homes. I have rented mine
out as a single family before when I had to move away temporarily for a job. I was able to do that
and I rented it at a very reasonable rate. So I don't really see how this would be fair for anyone
except for the owner to turn a profit.
But I respect that, and that's all I have to say.
That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Nockamson, do you have any questions?
Nockamson, do you have any questions?
Can I address them? Why don't we do this?
We have three other people with their hands up and then why don't you address them all at one time?
Thank you very much for calling. We appreciate your comments. Next hand, please.
Next hand is Robert Everett.