Thank you.
Les, can you raise your hand virtually to be identified?
Les Grasowick.
There they are.
Les Grasowick has been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Sir, could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court stenographer?
hello can you hear me yes yes i can sir could you state your name and then spell it for the
court stenographer my name is les grisevich first name les l-e-s last name g-r-y-c-e-w-i-c-z
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do proceed counsel thank you les can you uh verify to the board that you
were present during my presentation
and will adopt my testimony as your own.
Thank you.
Questions from counsel.
Did you see the provisos?
I actually did not get the copy of the detailed.
It says Monday to Friday, just so you know.
Monday to Friday, 8A to 6P.
Les, I don't believe that would be an issue.
Can you verify?
On Saturday and Sunday.
Yes, I believe they are closed on weekends.
Les, are those provisos okay?
Les Garcewit, please unmute yourself.
Yes, closed on weekends.
And 8 to 6 p.m. should be good operating hours for the business, correct?
Yes, correct.
Thank you.
Thank you.
questions from the board no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from hillary emerson our
attorney just a quick note mr chair uh mr jen i think what what happened with the rco like i
initially we received the meeting summary form and the letter and then we just received a revised
summary form so i assumed the letter which requested the
summary form so i assumed the letter which requested the hours operation proviso that was
from the it was also part or well it wasn't part of the previous variance but it was i think
mentioned at that time i think the prior letter still stood but they just revised their recommendation
on the meeting summary form okay um yeah that's that's what i think happened initially they asked
for a temporary again but it looks like they removed that request right we we discussed that
with them yeah okay okay thank you thanks questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands chair planning commission uh ron bednar city planning the property is indicated
for commercial mixed use on the city plan given a physical circumstance of the site
documented use history, we recommend the
question parents be ready. Thank you.
23, 002
4727 to 37
North Front Street. I vote
yes. Proviso. Hours of
operation, Monday to Friday,
8A to 6P,
closed on Saturday and Sunday.
Thomas Holloman.
My vote is yes with
proviso.
So, James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
You have your votes.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.
Right.
Number six, MI 2023-002-335-1121 South 18th Street.
David Orphanides is the attorney.
No RCO letter.
that we see but there was a meeting held 820 823 by the point breeze community development
corporation mr chair actually a brief a brief update on that um we did um just recently received
uh the letter um it's in support from the coordinating rco um we also received a letter
in support from um council member johnson and we also have the tax clearance so this
this case is all set. We have it all, yes. Mr. Orphanides, please. Yes, sir. I'm here.
Mr. Orphanides, you've already been sworn. Could you just state your name?
Certainly. David Orphanides, O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
And could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Certainly, sir. 1711 Carpenter Properties, LLC, LLC is the owner of the property. They're my
client. Okay. And Mr. Heilman has just a few questions. Sure. Good afternoon, counsel. Do you
agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy? Yes, sir. Did you
email all the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance of this hearing? We emailed,
as Hillary mentioned, we emailed all of them except for the RCOs, coordinating RCOs letter,
which we received on Monday. The councilman's letter, and then the tax clearance was not
forward until today. There was an outstanding balance, which was paid, I think, earlier in the
week. It didn't hit the tax clearance system to show up as a clearance until yesterday.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Certainly. Can you all see my screen?
We can, sir.
It's terrific. Again, my name is David Orphanides. I'm with the law firm of Orphanides & Toner, LLP, here in Philadelphia.
And again, I'm here this afternoon on behalf of 1711 Carpenter Properties, LLC, the owner of the subject property, which you see here on your screen.
It's an existing two-story structure that's located on the east side of South 18th Street
between Washington, below Washington Avenue and between Washington Avenue and Ellsworth Street.
Here you can see an aerial image, which is at tab three of the exhibits that I forwarded.
You can see where directly across the street from the Chu playground,
This aerial image was taken when the playground was being renovated.
It's since been fully rehabilitated into an operational playground, a football field and baseball field.
In addition to the children's playground, you see here in the northwest corner of Ellsworth and South 18th.
And then the basketball courts over at South 19th on the southeast corner of South 19th and Washington.
You'll see at the southeast corner of Washington and South 18th, you have an auto zone.
store. You have other commercial properties on Washington Avenue, as I think we're all familiar
with. One of the reasons I bring up AutoZone is that they have a parking lot that my client
makes available to people that stay at their property, which is unusual.
to people that stay at their property, which is unusual and unlike many other
applications of this nature. So they have an agreement with AutoZone to utilize their parking
space. Here's a little closer aerial image of the property. Again, you can see our property here on
the east side of South 18th. We have a small backyard patio. You'll see photographs of that
in my exhibit book. The property that's abutting us to the north, which is 1119 South 18th Street,
I have zoning archives for that property at tab 9A of my exhibit book. You can see over here
that property has been granted a variance for a daycare on the first floor with two residential
dwelling units above. It is similarly zoned RSA 5 as our property, as you can see here.
So the whole block at the south end between Ellsworth and Washington between 18th and 17th is RSA 5.
Then we have the I-2 properties up here on Washington Avenue, and then the recreational city-owned property across the street.
But back to the aerial.
So the property to the north of us, again, was granted variances in 05, 08, and 09, and was permitted, originally permitted back starting in the 50s as a nine-family dwelling.
There is another property here at the south, northeast corner of Ellsworth and south 18th, 1131, that is presently permitted for a four-family dwelling.
So it's an interesting block, Alter Street here. I'm not sure if it's on the city plan or not per the zoning archives, but you have the commercial property up here just to the north of us. You have a mixed-use property right next to us to the north. You have the city park across the street, playground across the street, and then you have a multifamily at the end of the block.
So pretty unique.
This property has been utilized as a rental property since dating back to 20, at least to 2011.
Included rental licenses from the city's Atlas website that you can see right here.
It's a tab five of my exhibit book, 2011 to 2012, 2012 to 21, which was the prior owner.
Then my client took over the ownership of the property and they secured their rental license.
And that's still active.
Exterior photos of the property, you can see here again, the property that I had right
at the beginning of our presentation, a budding property to the south of us, a one story.
You can see the view to the south on South 18th Street.
Further down here on the left is the four family structure.
And then you can see the on the right here, part of the playground.
And then as we swing around to view across the street, you can see the two playgrounds.
There's parking that's available on the street.
There's also up on the southwest corner of 18th and Washington, there's one of the bike depots for the Blue Cross bikes.
And then here at the bottom, even though it's showing under construction at the time, there was still parking available.
Then and now at the parking lot, you can see the AutoZone and then the beginning of what's known as Alter Street.
at the bottom right of that photograph at the bottom of page four of that tab.
And then here you have the photograph of the daycare with the two units above,
which abuts our property to the north again.
Here are interior photographs of the building, of the property.
I think as I scroll through, it may not be everybody's taste, it's my taste,
but it's a beautifully appointed building.
It's like the interior is right out of a magazine.
If my clients were to testify, they would say that the Airbnbs that they have, again, this is an app, not again, but to be clear, I don't think I was specific when I started.
This is an application to document the use of this property as an Airbnb or as it is known under the Philadelphia Zoning Code when the building is not owner-occupied, its visitor accommodations.
but they would testify that all of their properties are beautifully appointed inside and out.
Real quickly, you can hear the back patio area, the reference Mezzel Quintiero,
but that the upkeep on them, on the interior of them,
is far less than their properties that they do for long-term rentals.
For however long that they've had them, they've not had to repaint them,
not had to repair them, that the people that stay there are quiet.
They screen all of their possible residents or occupants for a high rate.
All of their possible residents or occupants for high ratings on whatever the online booking system is that they use.
So they don't have any problems.
They don't want any problems.
As a result, the neighbors don't have any problems either.
They are very highly rated as well themselves on the online booking systems.
You can see that there's an alley behind us that creates space between us and the building to the east of us.
And again, back to the interior, as you head up to the second floor, you can see, again, I mean, beautifully designed, beautifully upkept, kept up.
And this is the second, oh, the second floor.
And then the ground floor is just storage washing machine.
Here's the floor plans for the first and second floor that are available for rental.
And again, the notice of refusal is for having visitor accommodations.
That's the only refusal we're here for to document that use.
I did include the provision of the table from the zoning code that's referenced in the notice
of refusal.
Here you have the table that shows that visitor accommodations are not permitted in RSA 5.
We do have, as indicated, and it wasn't made available to you beforehand, the letter from
point breeze was sent to rco's eba but wasn't forwarded to hillary or tanya but you can see
we did have the commute we had a virtual community group meeting and we have a letter of support from
them people came to by the way people came to that meeting and spoke highly of both this particular
property as well as my clients and some of the things they do for the neighbors they provide
discounted rates for people that live in the neighborhood that contact them and whether it's
through Facebook or otherwise and let them know that they need a family coming in to stay or
need it for whatever reason. They provide discounts to people in the community. And again,
they provide very well-maintained properties. And in regards to people in the neighborhood that
need this, I would say, need these type of uses in their neighborhood, we mapped out as best we
could. Here you can see our property. And then you can see where other existing hotels are
in the neighborhood, short-term stays. You can see there's one over here, down here,
the Clover 2900 apartment and rooms, the Philadelphia Hotel, Bella Vista, which is all
the way, it's fairly far away over Bella Vista, different neighborhood, across Broad Street.
And then it's not till you get almost up to Rittenhouse Square, then Rittenhouse Square,
and then further towards Market Street, that you actually have places where people can come and stay
when they're visiting people in this neighborhood. I actually live in this neighborhood as well.
And it's not great that people have to either take a cab or take a car or walk pretty far
distance to where they may stay if they're staying in the area and want to visit people.
And what's interesting is, and this came up at another one of our meetings, one of the residents
in the community spoke how he was down at one of the civil rights museums down south
and happened to look in the Green Book, who we've heard of the movie, those of us who are familiar
with it. And you can look and you can see that in the Green Book itself, there were a number of
hotels that were in our neighborhood in the past, places or places for people to stay short term.
I've attempted to, I've reached out to the Historic Commission and tried to see if they had any other records other than these records regarding short-term places, places to stay short-term in this neighborhood or other neighborhoods in the city.
I remember when I moved here to Philadelphia in 91, that there were places like this.
I know that some of them were not always used for the best purposes, some of them were, and that they've all kind of been either legislated out of existence or, for one reason or another, no longer exist.
But you can see we plotted these out, and you can see at one time, there were plenty of places for people in this neighborhood to stay without having to go all the way downtown to Walnut Street, Chestnut Street, Market Street, JFK to stay.
and then we overlaid those two together and you can see right here and here again in the purple
is our property so we feel that this this proposed use although it requires a variance
satisfies a very important need if it's done the right way the way that my clients do it
for residents and without causing any negative impact that might be contrary to the overriding
principles of the zoning code a copy of our appeals at tab 11
And then our project information form that we're submitted to the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
and then our project information form that were submitted to the zoning board of adjustment
Copy of the hearing notice that was prepared by our office for posting at the property.
You can see here tab 13, photos of the posting, along with a copy of the notice of refusal as required by the zoning code.
Copy of the deed.