You know, as you saw in the end, you know, when Mr. Phillips has, you know, he showed some views of Pastoria Street, you could see that, you know, the sidewalks are not continuous.
you saw in the, and, you know, when Mr. Phillips has
And they're also there are telephone poles actually in the sidewalk.
Basically, most of the Tulpahak and one lane properties actually get their electrical service from from Pastoria Street.
So all the telephone poles are back there and not not along Pastoria Street.
You'll notice on our side, there's maybe one telephone pole on Topohocken.
So the sidewalks are very narrow.
You have to walk in the street.
I think it's only maybe 30 inches, some of these sidewalks where you can get up on them.
And there's been instances where, you know, my wife and I had to pull the carriage out of the street because a vehicle refused to yield.
You know, sometimes even when they drive slow, they refuse to yield.
And cars don't even yield to each other, actually, when they are going trying to pass by. They, you know, will force another to drive up onto the curb or something. I mean, these are conditions that we don't necessarily need to exacerbate, you know, especially when there are other options.
so how often would you say that you've encountered vehicles like that where where you haven't you
you um you had a vehicle where you had to move the carriage out of the way
um i mean in the past year probably eight or nine times uh most recently i think was uh in june
uh when a uh when we were down close to wayne avenue a car came up to uh off of wayne up
pastoria street uh and you know the carriage was sticking out uh so we pull had to pull them up
uh onto the curb which is at that point down there maybe like 18 inches had to pull them up
uh just to get out of the get out of the way um so yes i mean cars sometimes drive fast there but
even when they're slow uh they don't uh uh behave so to speak have you recently heard cars driving
very quickly down pastorios i have you can hear them at night time um uh and during the day uh
some of the trash trucks do go go go pretty quick uh you can hear them rumble by um and uh so so yes
um the uh you can hear the traffic you know in an old house my windows leak pretty bad so i can hear
what's going on back there and and you can hear the vehicles yes um have you ever seen disabled
or mobility impaired people using pastoria street uh yes um i've seen uh you know persons in
wheelchairs i'll walk down pastoria uh and i think it was this past weekend i did see somebody
hearing impaired, or not hearing, who appeared to be visually impaired, but somebody leading
them around on Pastoria Street, pointing things out and such.
All right.
Mr. Ramos, are you also a leader of the local RCO?
I am a vice president of West Central Germantown Neighbors.
And are you on the zoning committee as well?
can you share the comments that you made at the RCO meeting for this application and and the
concerns you had about some of the issues dealing with the definition of near neighbors and some of
the other concerns you had sure so yeah I mean there were some questions about the history you
You know, there's been, you know, this this issue has been painted as, you know, the for, you know, as as an opposition to parking, to the creation of parking.
And that's not true at all. You know, we don't want anybody to lose their parking.
It's just this is about where the parking is. You know, there's, you know, with two point two acres the applicant has, you could pretty much fit fit every vehicle on the block.
You can create you can create quite a bit of parking without without these variances.
Um, the, uh, you know, somebody made a question, somebody questioned, uh, I think about, you know, uh, why the spots were there and unusable and, and I think some, I think I might've gave some history, uh, there, um, because some people might've been new to the neighborhood and didn't, didn't know what was going on.
um yes and the concerns um were also in the definition of near neighbors uh there are sick
there were 16 16 uh residents of pastoria street who should have been by the normal city convention
uh who should have been considered near neighbors uh but they they live on they live on uh pastoria
street even though their addresses say tolpahokan or walnut lane um so uh yeah they should have
Yeah, they should have been considered near neighbors. And also the other issue was, you know, the RCO and all of these things were or have been sent and many of the neighbors have sent letters to this effect.
been considered near neighbors um and also the other issue
So I'm not saying, you know, anything really new here, but the neighbors said that the residents of the property as residents of, you know, as residents of subject property were allowed to vote.
And normally that's not necessarily the case.
You know, if you have a conflict of interest, you don't you're normally not allowed to vote.
this is a somewhat interesting scenario where the subject property is inhabited. And I imagine a lot
of the cases that come between, you know, like this come before the zoning board is before
construction began, begins. So, you know, we thought it necessary, you know, and a lot of us
wrote letters to that effect that, you know, pointing out that a lot of the support that was
described uh in the neighborhood association's letter uh a lot the about half of the applicant
support came from his own tenants um so the so taking so the actual neighbor the neighbors
opposed it much much uh uh more strongly than than those numbers suggest um
Um, would you, um, uh, are there times that you're not even able to access your driveway
on Pastorius because the, um, Pastorius street is being blocked?
Yes, that happens, uh, quite frequently.
Um, there's, uh, um, a few houses on the street that are still served by oil.
So at certain times of the year, they get their oil deliveries.
Um, the, uh, you know, the mail trucks, uh, stop deliveries. Um, also, uh, you know, uh, I think residents of, of, uh, the Apkins property do park, uh, like halfway onto, you know, since, since there's barriers blocking the, um, uh, blocking the, uh, parking spaces.
um uh you know there are um like these little white blocks there uh so cars are actually
parking halfway onto onto the street uh like they're doing here like these like yeah like
you're doing here they do it on both sides of the street even where there's no aprons too sometimes
and yes there's work going on um and uh yeah you could see here in this photo um you know this is
what it looks like when you have vehicles that are you know oncoming uh vehicle and you could
see vehicles can fit but you know side by side but they got to be small not not uh you know not
trucks and such yep yep there's a little truck have you noticed um have you noticed any impact
from uh the the new tenants and in mr bilby's properties in terms of blocking the the street
i have um there's proper there's uh moving trucks have blocked the um uh the street uh they park
right up uh they back up right against the building um and uh uh block the street uh
block block pastoria street so yeah i mean that's really unfortunate and you know shouldn't be
necessary um along with the of course the other deliveries and trash and such but the you know
the moving trucks blocking in that way especially egregious especially when it's you know some are
proposing that it be a one-way uh that would be impossible um do you also have any concerns about
the parking spaces themselves whether they're large enough to accommodate the um the tenant
vehicles so there are i do have concerns about that you could actually see in our in our chp
plannings uh study uh the the google i think it's google you know the street view they used showed
a vehicle park in the spot with the back part of it into you know over the over the uh over the
sidewalk or it's not real sidewalk it's an apron um you know so uh these spots uh there's not a
whole lot of uh margin for for error there and and uh i imagine no one's going to pull right up
to the building because you want to walk in front of the car along the building all right i'm not
able to pull up that photo but we will we will show the the board that in the future um all right
thank you do you have anything else that you wanted to share with the board at this time
uh yes uh one thing that has gone on mentioned is the you know uh the property damage that gets
caused uh by by the traffic um you know it's been you know we've heard testimony saying the street
can handle additional traffic and such and and you know i think um
And, you know, I think, you know, since there are other options, since this property has frontage on two other streets, you know, I think it's a very, you know, very easy to not create the kind of issues that we're discussing.
One thing is the property damage.
You know, I think you can walk up and down Pistoria Street, and I don't know if you ever see it in any of the photos, but there's a lot of damage.
A lot of the curbs are damaged from vehicles driving up on them.
um there are um uh the sidewalks are all broken all from and actually in that picture in one of
the pictures you just showed the you know people were parking uh outside the wallingford's um
outside the wallingford's uh um garage uh they put those parking um bollards there because people
were parking up there that curb is broken uh because people are parking along uh there uh
And here you could see that, yeah, you could see on that, all the, you know, on this picture, you could see the bricks with, you know, there's a telephone pole block and you're, you know, blocking your walking and a fire hydrant on the other side.
um but um and you could see um you can't see very well here but a lot from from the parking
uh the curbs the curds the sidewalks are damaged because when cars drive up on them they you know
the weight of the wheels pushes down the sidewalk and a lot of these brick walks are very um you
know sunken um and uneven uh and my own sidewalk is uh cracked because a vehicle drive up on it
And I have a cast iron fence that's 140 years old that somebody hits, and I haven't fixed it yet. And my neighbor has actually a stone wall that somebody drove up over the curb into the stone wall, and they had to get that section of the stone wall rebuilt, all this on Pastoria Street.
So, you know, I know there's an assumption of good behavior when, you know, you make policy decisions, but you have to think about, you know, when they're not.
I mean, that's why we have traffic lights and such.
All right. Thank you, Mr. Ramos. I think we're ready for cross.
Mr. Phillips?
Mr. Ramos.
all right i can see your screen yep and so uh what i have highlighted that's your property
is that correct it is all right and you know with the frontage on both uh topo hawking and on
pastorius uh-huh and in the bottom this is uh the uh the parking uh the eight spaces that uh
you know i believe you have four and miss uh professor uh willard has as far as well is that
correct correct okay and again you use pastorius for um all of your ingress and vehicular ingress
and egress right yes and uh pedestrian often and pedestrian often but you know you could also use
top of hawkins street for pedestrian as well right um not if i have a carriage or any type
a wheeled vehicle um because the the uh there's it's terraced you can't see from here but there's
uh you know a lot of these houses have on tulpak and on my end of the block have retaining walls
so if you have anything wheeled uh you really can't go out the tulpak and uh without driving
it down steps you often you said you you often use pastorius uh to walk a stroller and to to walk
your child
with your wife? Correct.
Okay. So you must
at least feel somewhat safe that
you'll walk your
child along Pastorius?
Right. And
some of us,
it's also
a lack of option.
A lot of these properties
are landlocked along Pastorius.
We've also
walked uh uh our child uh to the doctor's office um or to the dentist office which is right around
the corner um you know doesn't uh make sense to drive um and you're not the only one who has a
curb cut you and miss willard are the only ones with curb cuts on on pastorius right other neighbors
have that too correct okay including the walling for departments way down you know um down here
where my cursor is correct um there's you know i believe a new curb cut here directly across from
the property so there's other curb cuts um and other you know cars that use pastorius right
there are okay um and and how many can you just clarify do you have two parking spaces or four
uh it is it is uh i think it's four okay and and you
It is. It is. I think it's four.
OK. And you is your home. Is it a single family use or do you have also an apartment there, other tenants or is it just you and your family?
No, it's me and my family. The parking spots were created actually in 1973 when it was a group child home.
So so they put that in. I can get the calendar number when it was created.
So, yes, that's been there for a while. My property and Carla's property were one property, and it became a child group home.
When you have guests, they can use your parking spaces to visit you, right?
uh yes but i generally um uh yeah if it's one um one or if it's two cars uh yes uh otherwise uh
they just go and park in front of my house on topohocken
one of your house in topohocken
yeah um and and you're a member of of as you said uh west germantown uh neighbors it's no
you know it's no uh secret that parking is in in uh high demand in germantown is that correct
fair to say uh yes um and one way to alleviate uh the uh the the lack of on uh on-street parking is
for properties to provide off-street parking isn't that right yes yep and and like i said i
don't oppose the creation of any off-street parking it's just it can be done you know
without variances you know on the interior of the property um uh i don't object to the creation of
more parking spots don't want anybody to lose it but lose parking spots either but um do you
nobody can say with a straight face that that this parking could be made on the interior of the
property you see you know this existing interior parking and then these these spaces are are the
ones that are at issue right now um and the ones that you're objecting to right correct
Right. And also the one, there's one sole one, there's a caretaker cottage there. There's one there too that we're objecting to.
You're objecting to the sole, the single one here as well. So you're objecting to any parking along Pastorius and any use of Pastorius for the parking of vehicles accessory to the multifamily use, right?
Yes, I'm objecting to
Pastorius, but not to
Topohokin or Green Street usage
Across the street
I believe there's
Parking that was just created for Ms. Wright
And her son, you didn't object to that
Did you?
I'm pretty sure
I'm not aware
What was created for Ms. Wright
Built by Ms. Wright
and it will have this parking that comes right here you object to that or were you fine with
that um no i don't um object to that it's it's not uh a motel style parking arrangement as uh
your client's proposing uh it's one car one car that's out of the way um and not not a whole line
of them you know in direct view of like directly in front of the building there's no contention
that the parking the the dimensions and the size of the the parking spaces themselves
fail to meet the the standard set out by the the zoning code is there
i'm objecting if it calls for like a legal conclusion that's not that's not something
that that he's testified about well he did testify that they were he believed that the
spaces were small so i'm just trying to clarify if he believes that they're undersized for the
code no question can be answered um i'm not contending that i'm not saying that they're
too small per regulations i am saying that cars will hang over the street as you as we
will shown in in our planning in our planners reports um you know uh what works on paper and
what works in reality are two
different things.
The low volume
street for traffic.
street for traffic uh you broke up a little bit say again would you classify uh west pastoria
You broke up
a little bit. Say again.
street as a low traffic street um no i wouldn't because i don't know what the
traffic patterns on all the streets are i mean compared to you know walnut lane i would say so
um but i don't know like if it would be comparable to mccallum street or whatever i i don't know and
I don't know what the standards are, you know, as far as what's considered high and low volume, especially in this neighborhood, which is a lower density neighborhood.