good afternoon mr chair this is charles richardson from the office of councilwoman cindy bass
uh you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Thank you.
Please proceed.
I am in receipt of emails this morning that have been exchanged between Mr.
Mulvihill and Charles Kahn, who is the head of the 13th Ward RCO.
I'm going to read into the record.
Good morning, Mr. Leo Mulvihill.
This is from Mr. Kahn this morning at 7.37 a.m.
You guys were very, very busy this morning.
very early. Per our previous conversation, please note a requested RCO community meeting
has been rescheduled for 3649 and 51 North 15th Street. Please confirm your applicant's
attendance with an email to the undersigned. Please note this meeting location is close
proximity to the directly affected residents and business owners. Please ensure your office
informs the directly affected residents and business owners as required by mailing a
notification goes on to note that it's going to take place at the Hero Center and the date the
day being the 28th of this month at 5 30 p.m. in closing please forward a copy of the forwarded
meeting notification to the coordinating RCO mailing address which is the post office box for
the RCO if you have any questions please can or concerns please contact me directly in response
Mr. Mulvihill responded thank you Mr. Karn and this was 10 minutes later uh thank you Mr. Karn
Thank you, Mr. Karn. And this was 10 minutes later. Thank you, Mr. Karn. I respectfully request that we be allowed to present first this evening, as I have another RCO meeting to attend at 730 p.m. Best Leo and Mulvihill Jr.
I respectfully
With this, the Councilwoman is asking that you guys hold any vote, although it was requested that you possibly vote or hold.
She's requesting that you hold because we're waiting to see what the response is going to be from the community to the variance requested for the RCO.
I'm not quite sure that Mr. Karn wasn't aware that Mr. Mulvihill was going to be presenting today other than actually requesting a continuance.
So, you know, based on their exchanges this morning, we're going to ask that you hold, even though you've heard, we ask that you hold until after the RCO meeting, and then the councilwoman will weigh in based on what the response will be.
That was mentioned in the earlier testimony of Mr. Mollerville as well.
Anyone else who would like to testify in this case?
No, Chair, you can proceed.
Thank you.
Planning Commission?
Chair and members of the board, this is Greg Waldman from the Planning Commission.
Should I go ahead?
Yes, please.
This property is indicated for commercial mixed use on the comprehensive plan.
It's located one block from the Erie Broad Street Line station.
Accordingly, we have no objection to the granting of the variance.
Thank you.
okay at the request of the councilwoman's office the rco and mr mobile hill this hearing will be
resumed tanya i need a date and time um are we talking about the date what's the date for the
meeting october 28th the after the 28th so we can do the third
okay does that work yes i'll be on hearings anyway so i'll be okay so we can do november 3rd
at um 9 30. okay this uh let me start this again
calendar numbers am i i'm sorry tanya i just wanted to put on the record that it's a resumption
hearing so um all involved there's no posting requirements thank you mi-2020-000551
3649 north 15th street and mi-2020-0006863651 north 15th street this hearing will be resumed
on november the 3rd at 9 30 a.m at which time we will consider any feedback related to the rco's
position and the councilwoman's position great thank you members of the board and
keep an eye out for my next halloween costume appearance
I don't want to worry, we'll be watching.
I will.
Have a good afternoon.
MI2020-000684801 East Willard Street.
I don't have hands up. Is anybody here from Willard Street?
801 East Willard Street.
No hands, Chief.
Thank you. MI-2020-000684801 East Willard Street is continued.
Okay. Next one up is MI-2020-000162701 West York Street.
The attorney is in June.
good afternoon good afternoon zengine you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do do you agree to wait the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy i do also have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents proof of
ownership proof of tax compliance copy of the refusal or referral photos and plans five days
prior to this hearing? I have. Also, have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
We do not have a letter from the RCO. I will explain to the board.
We do not have a letter from the RCO. I will explain to the board as part of the presentation why that is the situation.
Okay, please identify yourself for the record.
Xenjin, Z-H-E-N, J-I-N, here on behalf of the applicant, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1838, Philadelphia EPA 19103.
I'm sorry, may I proceed?
Yes, please proceed.
Okay, thank you.
My client is Mr. Naritan Kanoli.
He is the owner of 701.
I'm going to go ahead and share our presentation package with the board.
board. We have submitted to the board the following exhibits, a copy of the refusal,
our email records for request of the community letter, certificate of tax clearance, deed,
ZBA application, project information sheet, photos and plans. I will first address the
RCO situation. We met with APM but this project being the size that it is also drew in the
other RCOs that were in the area including Zulu as well as 37th Ward. So what we ended
up with is a request from the community to work out a community benefits agreement which
which the latest draft was sent over to Mary Jones at the councilman's office this morning.
So she asked that I would present the case but ask the board to hold the case for a week
because we're trying to finalize the community benefits agreement.
There's a little bit of disagreement as to the amount of the benefits between my client
and what the community is asking for, which we're trying to hammer out with the community.
We had two meetings with the RCO. At the second meeting, it was generally not opposed so long as a CBA was worked out between my client and the community.
That was the agreement at the end of the second meeting. However, APM indicated they may have lost the voting sheet, which also is part of the reason why we don't have any letters as of today.
This refusal is relating to minimum lot area for the proposal.
To understand why we face such a large lot area difference for the number of units,
we really have to look at the actual building, which is shown here in the photos.
So this used to be a Catholic school at the corner of York Street, 7th and York.
the footprint of this building is about 8,900 square foot. The building itself is currently
shown as four floors total, but the first floor actually is about 20 foot high. So the proposal
is actually to divide the first floor into two so that there are 10 feet floors rather than a 20
foot first floor because to heat and manage heating of such a high roof is really not
viable with the building of this age. My clients have repaired the exterior facade and we do plan
to keep it but the work will be done on the interior to essentially separate this into
five floors. What that does is not counting the basement which will be left for storage
mechanicals only. Not counting the basement, we're talking about 45,000 or so square foot of
space that is being filled up with residential units. The lot size by right would give us about
29 units, and this is an RM1 zone district. So we are given about 29 units by right,
But with 40-some thousand square foot, that would average each unit out to be almost 1,500 plus square foot, which would mean that these are going to be large units and higher price units if rental, which is the ultimate goal, is considered.
So the proposal is to take the interior and divide it into smaller units, which is where the 50
count came from. The plans shown here is the best way to understand kind of how
we're trying to divide up the space. Each floor will be divided almost essentially the same,
we're trying to divide up the space.
which is why this is the floor option B design. And each floor would contain three two-bedroom
units, including one in the corner, one here, and one here, and the rest will be one-bedroom units.
That'll be a total of about 10 units per floor, five floors, with a total of 50 units.
My client is flexible on the idea of unit total, but if we were to do 29 units with three bedrooms,
it comes out to be about 87 bedrooms versus this layout, even though it's 50 units,
actually comes out with about 75 bedrooms in total. So it's actually a reduction in bedroom
density versus larger units. The other piece is that of course parking, because it's RM1,
is not officially a refusal. However, we are converting based on our site plan,
we do have a space here as part of my client's lot. And I'll try to zoom into that again
to give a better idea. This is about 4,900 square foot of open area, and we are looking into
requesting the city to allow this to be used as additional parking spaces or off-street parking
spaces. The street parking will be maintained. My client agreed to talk to the street department
the city again about permitted parking for the street parking around the building. In addition,
we're proposing lighting around the building as well that would help keep the corner lit up
at night, security cameras and other things added for security of the building. The community of
course is very concerned with the construction process. That is part of the community benefits
agreement along with possible local hiring and as well as some kind of use program assistance
from my client. So that is the primary reason we're asking for this variance with the total
number of units. Again, the floor, each floor as set up is about 63 and this is the existing
16 footprint I'm sorry 61 feet width and 143 almost 144 foot in depth and that is why this building
when you really consider the overall footprint is much larger than your typical construction that
would be on a lot of this size which only permits the 29 units and that is why we're asking the
board's consideration for the additional units. Again the refusal is for
specifically the lot size as per the units requested so it is a dimensional
variance only that is before the board and this is again an RM1 residential
district. I'm happy to answer any questions or redirect the presentation
towards any page the board is interested in looking at.
When is that next community meeting?
So we're not having another community meeting.
We have already had two.
What we're really doing is now emailing back and forth with the help of the
councilman's office, actually, a draft of a community benefits agreement.
And we're trying to finalize that hopefully within the week through the
help of Mary Jones from council president's office.
She may be on actually.
Do you have anyone else?
do you have anyone to bring on? I believe my client is here. That is Mr. Naritan Kanoe.
I don't see anyone with that name. If you're here for 701, can you raise your hand? I don't know.
He also had the project manager, so I'm not sure if he's the one that's here today. I have someone
with the hand up named Kripa?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, Besmir, that's the manager.
Besmir, excuse me, sir, is that a man or what?
Besmir?
Yes, good afternoon.
Please identify yourself with a record.
Spell your first and last name.
Sure, first name is Besmir, B-E-S-M-I-R.
Last name is Kripa, K-R-I-P-A.
I'm a partner
You're swearing for him to tell the truth
The whole truth and nothing but the truth
Thank you
Mr. Mayor, you heard my factual presentation to the zoning board as well as the representations
You heard my factual presentation
To the zoning board
I made.
Can you verify that they are true and correct and adopted as your own testimony?
Yes, they are.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any questions from the board?
Anyone else would like to testify in this case, if so, please raise your hand.
no hands oh here's mary jones mary jones yeah good afternoon ms jones identify yourself you're
still on the roof from earlier today hi good afternoon mary jones from council president
daryl clark's office city hall room 496 um yes uh i just wanted to confirm that i have been
assisting the community and um misters in with uh uh their talks and negotiations around the city
excuse me around the community benefits agreement and yes uh our office is um an agreement that this
the vote should be held uh for a week so we can um so the community has time and the community and
the the applicant have time to uh finalize the agreement excuse me thank you um sharon and or
tom do you think we'd be better off doing attorney moving party uh no because we heard the case
already so um we can do the same a resumption hearing to allow input from the community
okay thank you all right anyone else um can i ask do we have a specific date for that
sorry yeah okay let me get the planning commission we'll get the date all right
planning commission good afternoon this is Greg Waldman from the planning
commission this property is indicated for residential multifamily use on the
comprehensive plan. The building is the old St. Edward the Confessor's School. While not listed
on the local register, the church complex has cultural value for the neighborhood. The proposed
conversion to multifamily is a viable reuse for the property. Accordingly, we have no objection
to the granting of the requested variance with the proviso that the existing structure may not
be demolished. Understood. Thank you. Anyone else who would like to testify in this case,
please raise your hand no hang do we have a date tanya and time uh well it's
i don't know do you think in a week is enough time yes i believe uh a week um yeah that's
why i was saying i know you can't do attorney moving party but i don't know if your week's
going to be enough so what we can do to let's do the tour about the 28th as in at 9 30 28th and 9 30