additional living unit uh and again just to give you a sense of some of the way the space is laid
out there's a kitchen in the rear with a bedroom area living room area small bathroom and then the
various exits that we that we touched on and obviously the plans for the remainder of the
house which again are not not being being changed uh i can go back to the floor plans in a minute
if there are questions i just wanted to show our rco meeting notice that was mailed uh we also
emailed it to all the uh involved parties and mailed it out to 162 different addresses
um the at the rco meeting and i think the rco rco's letter here is very instructive so i'm
going to turn to that now as the chair mentioned when i came in there was a vote uh in support of
the of the application uh from from the rco but they wrote a letter of explanation that i think
is important context for the for the board um there was only one near neighbor who attended
but there it was a substantially attended meeting um there in addition to our mailing the rco also
circulated their own their own flyers um the main concerns from the neighbor who lived immediately
in the area uh who i believe ended up supporting the application um was that the existence of the
violations and who who was the intended user of this basement basement unit um mr mary confirmed
for the community in testimony that was very well received that his grown children have returned
home, and his intention is to have his son residing in the basement. And again, that he
purchased the house when he was 19 and has told everybody he has no plans to move. He's intending
to leave this property to his children, creating generational wealth, and that is his intention
here. We confirmed for the community that we had the two means of egress and two windows
providing natural light, and that we're going to be using construction materials that will
avoid or abate any basement dampness. And again, the chair, you mentioned that the
proviso about curing the violations, we certainly agreed to that, even if the board can't put that
as a formal proviso. So at the end of the meeting, the board voted in support of the
So at the end of the meeting, the board voted in support of the application.
There were multiple RCOs present, and that was the letter that was received.
With that, I'm going to ask Mr. Mary, who is actually sitting with my colleague, Alex Goldberg.
So if you could look for Alex Goldberg.
Mr. Klein, Mr. Klein, Mr. Klein.
Certainly.
What's the rest of the block look like?
So the rest of the block is made up of similarly sized residential dwellings.
And I will go to those photographs just to show some context.
But are they multiple, multiple families?
Some of them are multifamily. Some of them are single family.
I would I would say that it is a a true mix of housing styles.
I know that when the area was remapped and the planning commission will probably share this as well.
this is one of those that was remapped at the behest of the of the community um we discussed
that during the rco meeting and they understood that while they prefer single family that this
particular applicant in this particular situation was worthy of their support okay please bring him
on. Alex Kohlberg is on to speak. All right. Milton, are you there? Yes, sir. Please state
and spell your name. Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the stenographer?
Milton Murray. M-I-L-T-O-N-M-U-R-R-A-Y. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, sir. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you.
Milton, did you have a chance to hear my presentation this afternoon?
Yes, sir.
And do you adopt my testimony as true, correct, and your own if you've been given a longer chance to speak?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney?
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
There are no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good afternoon.
David Fechta with the City Planning Commission.
Chair and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5,
residential single-family zoning at this location.
The City rezoned this block face from RM1, residential multifamily, to RSA-5 in 2019.
and a community-supported map change.
A duplex would be out of character with this primarily single-family blockface.
The City Planning Commission recommends the Board deny the proposed use variants for two dwelling units.
MI 2024-002-044-612 South 57th Street, I vote no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Senator Graham, my vote is no.
Ty Owen, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Number nine, MI 2024-002-077, 3940 Baltimore Avenue.
Mara Ferliger is the attorney.
Meredith Furlager is coming in as a panelist.
Mr. Chairman, you've already been sworn once. Just for the record, state your name.
Sure. My name is Meredith Verliger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R.
And for the record, could you identify your client?
Certainly. My client is the Southeastern Transportation Authority, otherwise known as SEPTA.
As you know, we're going to hold this at the end. We will not open it to the public until we have a resumptive hearing.
So our vice chair has a few other questions for you.
good afternoon council do you agree to wait to read another refuse or stipulate to its accuracy
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 i have yes thank you thank you
council i see you've already shared your screen wonderful all right uh mr chairman members of
the board uh as i mentioned my client today is septa which is a tenant of the property at 3940
Baltimore Avenue. Today with me from SEPTA, I have Daniel Lyons, who is a project manager.
Today with me from SEPTA, I have Daniel Lyons, who is a project manager.
I also have various representatives from our design team from STV, who I will introduce during our presentation.
As I mentioned, before the board today is a proposal concerning improvements to SEPTA's 40th Street Trolley Portal, located at 3940 Baltimore Avenue.
The 40th Street Trolley Portal is SEPTA's busiest at-grade rail station in the city.
As previously discussed, we are asking the board to hear the vast majority of SEPTA's testimony and presentation today, but to schedule a resumption hearing.
Given the lateness of the hour, we did end up losing one of our planned witnesses, who was our landscape architect and arborist.
As a result, I'm going to recommend that I will hold her very brief testimony for the resumption hearing, as well as my closing argument.
During the resumption hearing, SEPTA will also present updated renderings, and we will also reserve the opportunity to present any testimony and evidence that would be necessary to rebut any evidence offered by the community.
Does that sound acceptable, Mr. Chairman?
It is.
Thank you.
Administratively, the exhibit packet includes 21 exhibits, including tax clearance at Exhibit 2, and I just bring that up real quick for you.
Exhibit 3 includes a redacted 2014 agreement between the City of Philadelphia and SEPTA, which leases this property to SEPTA to facilitate its 40th Street trolley portal operations.
I'll start first with some general property overview.
I have included aerials at Exhibit 8.
From the north aerial that's up on the screen, the board will note that the 40th Street Trolley Portal is a large, triangular-shaped parcel that runs along Baltimore Avenue, as I'm pointing to with my cursor, comes to a point, and then continues southwest along Woodland Avenue.
Running along the center of the property, you'll see the trolley enclosure.
At the westernmost point of the site, the board will recognize the trolley gardens and the tracks which lead underground.
Excluding the gardens, which actually are a separate parcel, the property before the board today is 51,927 square feet.
I will come back to this, but the portion of the site that is at issue today is indicated with the arrow,
and you'll see it's the area that's predominantly green.
Flipping to the east view, the board will notice that on the opposing side of Woodland
Avenue is the Woodland Cemetery.
And from the southern view, the board will see that there is an existing structure on
the northern side of the trolley, which contains a restaurant called Renata's.
That structure and use were granted by Variance in 2016, and those documents are publicly
available on Atlas.
I have also for final view from the west, which is consistent with the prior aerials that I showed.
Also at Exhibit 8, I've included a zoning map, and the board will see that the site is zoned RTA1,
which is residential, two-family attached, despite this property's use as a transit facility since its construction in 1955.
Next, I'll walk you through a couple of street-level images at Exhibit 18.
This first photo shows the relevant frontage of the site from Woodland Avenue.
I will call the Board's attention specifically to the two trees that are shown in this image,
as I will come back to that when I discuss the refusal and the referral,
which I am intending to do during the resumption hearing.
As you can see, this portion of the site is currently unimproved, with the trolley
enclosure shown in the rear. The next photo is angled towards Baltimore Avenue,
where you will begin to note the extremely irregular shape of this property. You can see
it begins to angle as you head up towards Baltimore Avenue. This next view is looking
towards Woodland Terrace which is over 350 feet from the westernmost point of the property.
And the next image that I'm showing is from the point of the property at Woodland Avenue
and Baltimore Avenue and again this is just a view of the front of that trolley enclosure.
The board will note in this photograph that the closest residents to the property are on
the opposing side of the trolley enclosure along Baltimore Avenue. I'll scroll through the next
couple of photographs quickly, as they are generally similar to the few that I already
showed. They are just zoomed out a bit to give a little bit more context. So again,
they are just zoomed out a bit to give a little bit more context.
So again, this is from Woodland Avenue looking towards Baltimore Avenue.
And again, this flips the other direction towards Woodland Terrace.
And I have also included a photograph shown up on the screen, which is a bit further west on
Woodland Avenue, which shows the trolley gardens and the entry to the trolley.
These next photographs are from Baltimore Avenue and show the existing two-story restaurant, which is roughly 25 feet high, according to public records.
And again, this final photo here is looking towards 39th Street.
And one more on Baltimore Avenue looking down towards 40th Street.
And again, this is the restaurant.
The zoning posters were timely posted on June 18th on both Woodland Avenue and the Baltimore
Avenue frontages. In terms of a brief overview of SEPTA's application, this application involves
the design and construction of a new DC power substation, which is required as a part of SEPTA's
trolley modernization program. At Exhibit 10, which I'll zoom out in case you want to read
through it while I'm speaking, the board will see a general overview of this program.
To hit on a couple of important points, a substation is required in order to power transit
services.
Substations like this one convert the required electricity voltage from its original source
into a voltage that can power the trolley system.
In this case, the new larger trolleys have different power requirements than SEPTA's
current older trolley fleet. Before I turn into the details of the request, I would like to call
up Daniel Lyons from SEPTA to address a few background questions. So if the administrator
could look for and promote Daniel Lyons. Mr. Lyons. Daniel Lyons has been promoted.
Mr. Lyons, could you state your name and spell for the sonographer?
Mr. Lyons
should be coming in now
okay Daniel Lyons is here
hi could you please state your name again
and spell for the stenographer
my name is Daniel Lyons
D-A-N-I-E-L-L-Y-O-N-S
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
proceed counsel
thank you
Daniel, could you just share with the board your position with SEPTA?
I am a project manager in the power engineering department.
Thank you.
In terms of selection of a property for the substation, can you briefly explain to the board how this property, meaning 3940 Baltimore Avenue,
how is this selected versus others that are within SEPTA's control or others that may even be along the trolley line?
And I'll bring up our Exhibit 21 while you speak.
All right.
So LTK Engineering Services was contracted to perform an independent third-party power supply and distribution study on the existing trolley system with the existing trolley cars and the existing trolley system with new trolley cars.
It should be noted that the new trolley cars are twice the size and close to twice the weight of the existing trolley cars, and thus will require more power than the existing trolley cars do.
If the new trolley cars were to be integrated into the existing trolley car system, the study found several areas throughout the system that will require a boost in power supply.
When DC power is transmitted long distances, line loss degrades the voltage available to the trolley, decreasing performance.
This is especially evident along sections of the 34, 13, 11, and 36 trolley routes by the portal due to the large number of trolleys exiting the portal.
The portal location was chosen as it provides a lot of unique engineering attributes that would not be possible in another location without incurring significant additional costs.
primarily the ability to connect to all trolley routes west of the portal.
Additionally, placing the substation in this location would allow SEPTA to perform required maintenance
and upgrades at Market Street substation and the Woodland Street substation.
Now, if you look at this picture that we have blown up here on the screen,
the Market Street substation is the little four circle, and the Woodland Street substation is the L with a square.
finally to perform the required improvements to market street
Finally, to perform the required improvements to Market Street Substation as part of our Super Subs program, this substation is required to be completed prior to construction starting on market.
To summarize, this location provides the power boost to all the trolley lines throughout this area of the city, but also provides additional redundancy to the system that allows SEPTA to perform required maintenance and improvements and to provide a better overall customer experience.
Thank you.
Now, in terms of selecting a location on this property, why was the location selected on this property?
Or how was it selected on this particular property?
As can be seen in Exhibit 8 there, there is not a great deal of developable land left with this parcel.
the existing trolley portal, the trolley roundabout, trolley bypass lane, Renata's kitchen,
and the passenger waiting areas all take up a significant amount of space. As such, there is
only one location left on this parcel to place this substation. Additionally, this location is
ideal as it provides SEPTA easy access to the existing communications hut, easy access to
PICO power connections, existing underground duck bank systems, and power connections to the 34,
13, 11, and 36 trolley routes. Based on SEPTA's experience operating other substations