Mr. Everett, could you please state your name?
Yeah. Could you come back to me at the end since I'm on the zoning committee for our CEO?
I can. I can. Next hand, please. Next hand.
Gerald Grupp.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
There you go.
Do we see that hand?
Give me one second.
He put his hand down.
Okay, good. Next hand.
Mark Harris.
Hi, Mr. Harris, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
my name is mark harris m-a-r-k-h-a-r-i-s i affirm hold on one minute um do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i affirm mr harris are you a neighbor
i am not okay uh mr harris are you for this project or against it i'm against it okay so
mr harris you're not a neighbor but we've had quite a bit of testimony from the prior person
Is there anything different you could offer?
A little bit, yes.
And I'll state it very briefly.
It's commendable that the developer here wants to provide supposedly housing for restaurant workers.
But at this price point, it doesn't seem to be something that they could afford.
And from what I'm hearing, there doesn't seem to be any certainty that this will actually happen.
And it seems like they may just be using this as an excuse to get what they want.
But in actuality, it may just be rented out on the open market to anybody.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Could we have the RCO person?
There's another hand up.
I take the other hand.
Ann Marie Gibbons.
Hi, Ms. Gibbons.
Could you please state your name and spell for the core sonographer?
A-N-N-E hyphen M-A-R-I-E.
last name gibbons g-i-b-b-o-n-s you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes i do are you a neighbor i am a neighbor yes okay so um miss gibbons we
you heard the testimony we've had we was pretty lengthy testimony are you for this project or
against oh i'm against and is there anything different you could offer them what we've
already heard yes all right first of all the median household income in fishtown is 284 000
not 900 000 like the attorney said well now okay all right go proceed all right commercial trash
pickup is no good we have commercial trash pickup across the street and the trash sits out three or
four days a week and it affects we can't keep our doors open because of the smell thank you another
thing is parking three more units means six more cars even though the attorney likes to say oh no
these people drop these people don't drive they ride bikes or take septic no that's not true we
are over parked now as the addition that he that they filed that they're allowed to build if you
grant this they will build that addition and that addition then is going to impinge on our light
and our air over all of our yards over all of our yards they most likely will not build that
that addition because it might not be cost effective if you don't if you don't approve it
they probably will not um it changes the fabric of the block
again we've we've had testimony about that already about the number of homes that are all
so i appreciate that and the addition that will incur if this is approved we'll add to
basically an urban desert where our yards will now be plunged into shadow most of the day
without any cross breeze all right and that's really well well thank you for taking the time
to call us we appreciate it could you please put the rco one um chair gerald grubb has his hand
back up okay he's allowed to speak hi sir could you please state your name and spell for the
court stenographer i apologize for not no that's okay my name is gerald grub j-e-r-o-l-d my last
name is grub g-r-u double p as in peter i wanted to swear hold on hold on do you swear or firm to
tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do are you in favor of this project
or against i am opposed i wanted to thank you for acknowledging my letter from june 22nd right um
from june 22nd right um and i wanted to make myself available to answer any questions based
and i wanted to make myself available
level.
on what i had written in a letter regarding the number of units immediately i saw the number of
units and i saw the the parking issue um we appreciate very much your your time you spent
with this and thank you very much very good thank you okay is that our and can we now have the rco
yes chair that rco i'm sorry that was robert everett
Yes. Okay. His hand is back up. Okay. Hi, Mr. Everett.
Hi, Mr. Everett.
Robert Everett, you're allowed to speak now. He just muted back.
Okay. Hi, Mr. Everett. Hi, Mr. Everett. Could you just state your name for the record and spell it, please?
Certainly. Good afternoon. First name is Robert. Last name Everett, E-V-E-R-E-T-T.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Everett, you're with the RCO.
I am indeed. I am on the zoning committee.
Please proceed, sir.
I just want to confirm that Mr. Nackamson's description of the meeting was correct.
and back up the immediate neighbors who testified here this afternoon with their concerns.
And just to the point regarding Mr. Gruff's letter,
there does seem to be an issue with the way the city sends out the notifications for addresses
that if there's a large apartment or condo complex, they only list one address,
and there probably should be one for each individual unit.
But that's something that I guess property linking to that page will have to address.
Yes. Okay. Mr. Everett, thank you for the time, and we appreciate you calling. Mr. Nockamson, do you want to respond to the different people who've testified? You're muted, Mr. Nockamson.
yeah i started uh with mr gruff's letter i'm at a disadvantage don't know what the letter is about
so i can't really respond to that but i just want to clean up a couple things and or clarify a
couple things um i didn't say that the property be limited to employees of of like say fabrica
it's just you know in general we have a nice driving commercial quarter in fishtown and many
of those people who work there, including managers who could afford some of these rates
just on their own, can't find housing.
So I think that's an issue.
I didn't say that the average income was $950,000.
I think that was, if I did, I apologize.
But I thought I said that the average house price for sale is $950,000.
In terms of the commercial trash pickup, typically, we hear from communities that they don't want the landlords of multifamily structures to rely solely on the city of Philadelphia trash pickup.
That's why where we can, I encourage my clients to have commercial trash pickup as a proviso for multifamily structures.
If the community feels disinclined to have a proviso for commercial trash pickup, I leave it to them. I just put that as an option.
And I think the final matter is just a lot of the issues that we're hearing from the community have to do potentially with the addition, which is not the subject of this zoning matter.
That was a by-right Sony permit that we received.
And whether it's single family or multifamily, I think my client will avail themselves of that.
But I just wanted to bring that up, too.
We talked about that before the meeting today.
Yeah, thank you so much.
I appreciate your time.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Berkman.
And good afternoon, David Vecta with the City Planning Commission.
The Chairman and Board Members, the Comprehensive Plan recommends no change to the RSA-5 residential single-family zoning at this location.
The City changed the zoning maps in Fishtown in 2015 in a community-supported map change.
At that time, the zoning on this side of Eyre Street was left unchanged.
There is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
The City Planning Commission recommends the board deny the proposed use variance for three dwelling units.
Thank you.
Brian, can we make sure that Mr. Knocklemson receives a copy of the letter that we're talking about?
Thank you.
So MI 2024, 002-035-1613 East Air Street, I vote no.
Michael Johns, I vote no.
michael johns i vote no ishmael shaheed my vote is no
Thank you.
senator graham my vote is no tyowin my vote is no
james snell my vote is no
mr knockamson is jared going to handle the next case
jared will handle the next case i need a break thank you very much
MI 2024-002-044-612 South 57th Street.
Jared Kline is the attorney.
Letter of support from the 46th Ward Democratic Executive Committee with unenforceable proviso.
Jared Kline is coming in as a panelist.
good afternoon mr chair members of the board hi mr klein just for the record could you state
your name and spell for the court stenographer certainly it's jared klein j-a-r-e-d last name
is k-l-e-i-n from knockamson p.c one south broad street in philadelphia you swear a firm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Could you identify your client
in a relationship to this property? Certainly. My client is Mr. Milton, Milton Mary, who is the
homeowner. Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir. Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to
either read another refuse or stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, I do. 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, I have. Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much. No problem. So, yeah, we're here for 612 South 57th Street, which, as I
mentioned, is owned by Milton Murray. He has been in the neighborhood and owned this property for
a very long time. He purchased it when he was 19. I'm not going to give away his age, but he is
considerably older than 19 now and has been a longtime member of the community and the owner
of this property. There were, the way that this matter came into our office is there were a number
of violations that L&I issued against the property. And in the process of helping Mr.
Murray cure those violations, he expressed a desire to add the second residential dwelling
unit to his property. And the easiest way to make that change and address all the violations
was to go through the zoning process first. So, as I was coming in, I heard the chair mention
there was an unenforceable proviso from the RCO. I don't disagree, but our intention is to make
sure that all these violations are cured as part of this process. So, we're going to be honoring
that, even if it's not an enforceable proviso. Our standard table of contents that you've seen
from Mr. Nockmson, a couple projects in a row, and I will take you through these materials.
Just to start, this is our refusal. It's just for the addition of a second dwelling unit in the
existing single-family structure. As you'll see in a minute, during the course of Mr.
Murray's ownership, the property was remapped. So when he bought it and during a lengthy period
of his ownership, it was zoned RM1, which would have allowed the second unit. It was then remapped
to RSA 5.
This is the ordinance that was done in 2019.
I think this is the same ordinance
that you saw a couple minutes ago
related to another project.
But it remapped the parcel from RSA 5
or from RM1 down to RSA 5.
To give a little bit of context
about where we're located,
this is our zoning map.
There's a mix of RM-1 and RSA-5 in the immediate area.
This is South 57th Street here.
So it's RSA-5 on this side, primarily RM-1 in the areas to the west of us.
Again, that's our property there.
And these are some interior photographs of both the existing inhabited portion of the property,
that was the existing single-family dwelling, and some photos of the to-be-converted space.
So these are photos of the existing interior of the home
going out towards the front door and back door areas.
going out towards the front door and back door areas.
And then these would be photographs.
This is the current space that would be converted into the additional living unit.
This is not in any way intended to be a display of the final product.
Obviously, without permitting, he has not done a lot of work to this area,
so it will be rehab.
Mr. Klein, that's the basement?
Yes, it is.
So that he's got a house here, and then he wants to take the basement and make it an apartment.
Correct. It's the existing basement, which is laid out like this, and he will make this into a more comfortable living space.
These are photographs of how it exists now in the basement.
And again, just another view of that existing space with the entrance door to the outside.
side uh this is the front of the property our our property here looking uh these are our our
zoning notices and then looking to the left and right of the property down 57th street
um turning to some of the floor plans and site plans which i i think question do you have a
picture of the rear where that door in the back entrance at exits too is there a garage is there
garage back there? No, there is no garage. It opens out into a rear yard. And I think that the
floor plan I'm about to show will give some additional context there. So I thought it was
helpful for the board to see what we are calling the life safety plan for this new unit. So this
is the proposed basement unit here, 849 square feet. And the dash line is showing the egress
paths so there's an egress door out the front and then another egress door at the other side coming
off of the kitchen so there's there's um access and exit at both ends of the of the unit uh as
well as some natural light some of the window wells um these below here this is the existing
um remainder of the structure none of this is going to be changed the first floor and the second
floor um we're in this plan we're calling them both unit two as a combined unit um so that that
these two floors together would be the second unit and this this basement unit would be the