ways and to preserve culturally historically and architecturally significant buildings sites
structures, and districts. The remaining use and dimensional variances are existing conditions on
the site. The City Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the proposed use and
dimensional variances for this proposal. Thank you. MI 2023-003-716-240 Hermitage Street. I vote yes
with proviso revised plans two pages stand by zba on november 1st 2023
thomas holliman my vote is yes with proviso
thank you counsel please stay on the phone on the line okay so number nine mi 2023
323-003-670, 1801 West Tioga Street.
We have a letter of support from Algady West Civic Association.
Mr. Saverin, you've already been sworn, but just for the record, could you state your name and also identify your client and the relationship to this property?
Yes. My name is Brandon Saverin. I am the attorney for Tioga Gardens LP, who is the property owner.
And Mr. Holloman has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes, I did.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Okay, good afternoon again, members of the board.
So I am here on a request for two variances
to legalize the existing condition
of a garden apartment complex known as Tioga Gardens
in North Philadelphia.
my client did not cause the conditions that require the variances they happened under the
watch of a prior owner and we are not proposing any construction
um a prior owner and we are not proposing any uh construction that um has any uh relevance to
zoning um so again this is an application to legalize the existing conditions as i will show
you in a moment exhibit 2a among the exhibits i've submitted and asked to be moved into the record
is our notice of refusal. You'll see that the application for statement says that we are
attempting to legalize 34 dwelling units in existing structures where only 33 are currently
permitted. And the refusals result from the fact that going up from 33 units to 34 requires a
variance because we're in a single family district, RSA 3. The second refusal results
from the fact that in the RSA 3 district, unlike the more common RSA 5 district, you
have to have parking for each dwelling unit. And there is some parking on the site, but
we're not proposing to increase it because we're adding a, or I should say legalizing
a dwelling unit without adding additional parking, we drew a refusal for not adding
an additional parking space. I will show you our current rental license, which is Exhibit 4.
So you'll see here, this is a screenshot from li.phila.gov that we have an active rental
license for 33 units. And that is because if you look at Exhibit 5, we were permitted or a prior
owner, I should say, was permitted to construct the buildings on the property, or some of them,
I think some of the buildings even predate these permits, and to use the totality of the buildings
as 33 dwelling units I won't go through all of these I think I submitted 20 or 30 some pages of
permits and related documents but you know I hope you take my word for it if you haven't reviewed
them that the property is permitted to have 33 units currently exhibit six shows you the location
of the property using the city's official zoning map from atlas.phila.gov. It is a 35,000 square
foot property at the northwest corner of Tioga and 18th Streets with a small frontage on Atlantic
Street as well. Exhibit 7 has an aerial view of the property from Atlas. And I'll show you
street level photos too, but what you're going to see is that probably a third or perhaps even a
half of the site is dedicated to green space on the sides, in the front, in the rear of the
buildings that comprise our complex, which I'm tracing with my cursor right now. There's a lot
of open green space here. So we have a lot of units, you know, we have 34 units, but we have
over a thousand square feet of land per unit, right? So this is not a, I would not say this
is a dangerously dense complex by any stretch of the imagination. Exhibit eight are some street
level shots from Atlas. So this on the left, and this is the Tioga Street frontage, this is like
one of the older buildings that probably predated the rest of the complex that was incorporated
into it. The rest of the complex was built in the 90s. You can see the side of one of the newer
buildings that faces 18th Street here. And there's a row of about a half dozen of them that go down
18th Street, and they're shown here. They all have front yards. I believe that most of these
units, these buildings on your screen now are triplexes. There's also some duplexes and quad
complexes on the property. All one land parcel. When I say, you know, triplex, I'm talking about
a particular building. And then finally, there's, I think, three structures that are on Atlantic
Street. This is a strip of off-street spots. These are the only parking spaces on the property and
it was permitted as such and they'll continue to be there. We just are not proposing to add
additional parking in connection with the legalization of the extra unit. And what we
think happened is that there was a duplex in one of these buildings that was converted
into a triplex without permits. What we're going to do, if you grant us the variances that we're
seeking, is we're going to get a new CO for the property. And in applying for that CO,
And in applying for that CO, we're going to submit floor plans to L&I, and L&I is going to inspect the property.
we're going to submit floor plans to L&I, and L&I is going to
So it will make sure that all of the triplexes, in terms of their interior construction, are up to code.
And if one of them is not, because it was the one that was converted without permits, L&I will tell us, and we will make safety improvements to make it up to code.
So that's just to reassure you that you are not going to be allowing illegal construction if you grant the variances.
Exhibit 11 addresses the RCO process.
On your screen right now is the letter that was mailed to affected neighbors.
This is proof of mailing here.
This is an email that we sent with the same notice and our refusal to affected RCOs.
I believe one of the affected RCOs did attend the meeting, which was held by the coordinating RCO, Allegheny West Civic.
And this is Allegheny West Civic's meeting summary.
It says that their five board members all voted in support of the legalization of the 34th unit, as did the three near neighbors who were in attendance.
Just one or two more minutes here.
I'm just going to talk about the comprehensive plan and the memo that I wrote to the board.
So I wrote a memo to the board at Exhibit 1, making, I know the board often takes an
interest in, you know, the question of, are there other multifamily properties in the
vicinity?
So yes.
And in fact, in this case, a majority of the buildings that are on our block of Tioga Street
contain three or more dwelling units.
So that sort of matches our level of density. Also, a majority of the buildings on the 3500 block of 18th Street, our block of 18th Street, also contain three or more dwelling units.
And then there are buildings, some of which are right next to us, and some of which are a few more blocks away, that also have a lot of units on much smaller properties, I should add.
So, you know, 2100 West Tioga Street, 40 units, that's more than us on a lot that is, you know, about a quarter of the size of ours.
And there's other examples of that here, you know, 2104 West Venango, 106 units.
And then finally, I believe that I provided a couple rental licenses just to prove what is inside some of those other big properties I referenced.
And then I spoke about the comprehensive plan for the North District and included a screenshot of the plan just to show you where my cursor is here, that our property was at the time this plan was written by the Planning Commission proposed to be up zoned to RM1.
And if the property were in fact zoned RM1, our number of dwelling units would be permitted by right.
So for all of those reasons, we respectfully request that you legalize the 34th dwelling unit without requiring the creation of an additional parking space.
Thank you very much.
Okay. You have your client there to adopt your testimony?
Justin Kaplan is his name.
Justin Kaplan has been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Chair, could you state your name and please spell it for the court stenographer?
Justin Kaplan, J-U-S-T-I-N-K-A-P-L-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Justin, are you permitted to speak on behalf of Tioga Gardens LP today?
Did you hear my testimony in your zoning case this afternoon?
I did.
Was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
And would you therefore adopt it as if it were your own testimony?
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from our uh attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair we have charles richardson they have been unmuted and allowed to speak
good afternoon mr richardson could you just state your name and spell please for the court
an article good afternoon mr chair charles richardson from the office of council
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Charles Richardson from the Office of Councilwoman Vass, room 508 City Hall, Richardson, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, sir.
Councilwoman is not opposed to granting the variance.
Thank you very much for your calling in. We appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, sir, and good afternoon. David Fecto with the City Planning Commission. Mr. Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from residential single family to residential multifamily. Based on the size of the lot, 67 dwelling units would be allowed by right under the proposed zoning. So 34 dwelling units is the minimum necessary to afford relief.
The City Planning Commission recommends the Board grant the proposed use variance for 34 dwelling units and for not including an additional parking space.
MI 2023-003-670-1801 West Tioga, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Counsel.
Thank you very much.
Number 10, MI 2023, 004265, 164 North 54th Street.
Kiwanis Duckett is the attorney.
There's a letter of opposition from Achievability.
There's a letter of opposition from the block captain.
And there's a letter of support from Council Member Jones.
Chair Kiwanis-Duckett is coming back in as a panelist now.
Council?
I see him on the panelist side.
I don't know why he's not responding.
Kiwanis Duckett?
He's come back in as a panelist
because I can see him, but I don't know
why there is no response.
Is he muted?
Chair, looks like he's unmuted.
Kiwanis Duckett?
it looks like he's having trouble with his
audio.
Okay, let's
let's move on we'll come back to that again okay okay number 13 mi 2023 003 704 2200 to 04
locust street justin crick is the attorney
the center city residents association has taken a position of non-opposition
Justin Crick is coming back in now as a panelist, Chair.
Good morning.
Hi, Mr. Crick. How are you, sir?
I'm well.
Can you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, Justin, J-U-S-T-I-N, Crick, K-R-I-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is George Beatty, and he is the owner, record owner of the property.
Right. And Mr. Holloman has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing?
All documents were submitted. They did come in Monday morning in hopes of getting the tax
clearance from the website. We actually got that today during this hearing, but everything was
sent to Ms. Emerson. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen. All right. Thank you very
much. Members of the board, I am here on behalf of the owner of 2200-04 Locust Street. The property
is a large four-story structure with basement and
is a large four-story structure with basement and is zoned as RM1 multifamily. The applicant
is the owner of or partner of a law firm that has been operating out of this property since
2012. Interestingly enough, this application was prompted by the desire for the owner to
convert an unused fourth floor of the property into a residential unit, private residential
unit, which then triggered the fact that his prior previously approved use as a law firm
and an office in this building had actually lapsed due to administrative error on their
They did not obtain the CO after obtaining the use permit back in 2012 for this use.
So, I'm going to jump right to that part because I think it's the most relevant.
You'll see that in 2011, the application, a decision was rendered in favor of this building
being used for a law office on the first, second, and third floor with accessory storage
on the third floor and basement.
There was no use of the fourth floor at the time.
It was left as vacant.
Again, and I'll show you a little bit later on, we have the permit that was actually issued
in October of 2012, but because of a failure administratively to obtain this certificate
of occupancy afterwards, my client only recently realized that the use had expired and lapsed.
So again, for the last, since 2011-12, the property has been used in the current fashion
that we're seeking. But this is an application for the erection of a roof deck and use, as I said,
of the fourth floor as a residence, but we do have to come back before this board to
confirm the proposed business and professional office use in the district.
For geographic purposes from Atlas, you can see that the property is at the corner of