we'll get on with shower okay okay any other unfinished business tanya no chair we're dismissed
Okay, see you everyone at 145. Be safe. Okay, great. See you later.
Uh, you let us know when we're going.
We're ready? We're going? Yes, we are. Okay, good. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is
Frank DiCicco. I'm the Chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. I'll be participating in today's
hearing along with our Vice Chair, Ms. Carol Tenere, our Board Secretary, Confessor Plaza,
and Board Members, Mr. Thomas Holloman and Mr. James Snell. Also, our Board Administrator,
Ms. Tanya Sunket, and our Board Attorney, Sharon Saleta, will also be in attendance.
For those of you who haven't participated in one of our virtual hearings,
I'll go through some of the basics of what you can expect. First, we'll begin this afternoon's
session by reading a list of cases to be continued. If you believe any announced case
is being continued in error, we will give you an opportunity to respond. After reading the
continuance list and receiving any feedback, we will then take any additional continuance request.
Then, once we've confirmed which hearings are being continued, Vice Chair Carol Tenere will begin calling the remaining cases listed for this session.
When a case is called, we ask that attorneys representing applicants or other interested parties in the matter identify themselves for the record.
We will then hear the appellant's presentation, followed by any presentation by attorneys representing other parties.
Interested parties and members of the public not represented by an attorney will be given an opportunity to testify.
We will finally hear the recommendation of the Planning Commission.
At the hearing's conclusion, we will either vote the matter immediately or hold it for discussion in executive session.
Any case held for discussion will be voted at the next scheduled Wednesday session.
Please note the following changes related to the virtual format.
First, we will be administering oaths to individual participants prior to their testimony.
Second, for the benefit of anyone participating by phone, we ask that attorneys and witnesses
identify themselves prior to speaking or testifying. Third, we'd like to advise everyone
that this proceeding is being recorded and that by participating you acknowledge your agreement
to be recorded. Fourth, anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your
hand by hitting star nine and then star six to unmute yourself. I will repeat, if you wish to
testify by phone you must raise your hand by hitting star 9 and then star 6 to
unmute yourself finally to enter an appearance excuse me finally to enter an
appearance statement call Google pound 267 270 5548 that's Google pound 267
270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at issue
with that said we can begin but before vice chair Tenere calls any first it calls our first case
we'd like to announce that the following matters are being continued
calendar number 39624 9425 busselton avenue calendar numbers 39351 39416
let me start that one again calendar numbers 39351 and calendar number 39416
four six four nine and use me again
four six four nine and use me again three six four nine and three six five one north
15th street let me do that in its entirety so there's no confusion calendar number three nine
three five one and three nine four one six four four three six four nine and three six five one
north 15th or being continued also calendar number four zero zero six four four two zero zero chester
avenue if the reading of it if anyone believes that we call the case in error to be continued
please raise your hand at this time no hands chair thank you at this time we will take any
other requests for continuances or withdrawals please raise your hand
no hands chair thank you tanya uh madam vice chair you can please call the first case
calendar number 39417 6367-73 lancaster avenue the attorney is rachel pritzker
rachel you've been promoted to a panelist you can unmute yourself and share your screen as
necessary okay please identify yourself spell your name for the record sorry carol
okay rachel r-a-c-h-a-e-l pritzker p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r pritzker law group 1635 marcus street suite 1600
philadelphia pa 19103 i'm the attorney for this matter and we have um thank you one second do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth and nothing but the truth? Yes. And also do you agree to waive the
reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes. You may proceed. So we have Aaron
as well who is part of the owner's representation and then Scott Woodruff from Design Blends who
are our architects. So I'd like to have him be sworn in as well as I go through this.
are they both on it'd be
all right so they would have to raise their hand okay
well while we're waiting for them I'll share my screen and start
okay we have a scott woodruff thank you mr woodruff do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth and nothing about the truth one minute carol i have to get oh okay tanya
Okay, Scott, you can unmute yourself and speak.
Mr. Woodruff
You've unmuted yourself
Can you speak?
Yep, I'm here
Mr. Woodruff, do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth and nothing but the truth yes can you put your name and address on the record
please scott woodruff 4001 main street philadelphia pa 19127 thank you okay rachel
so we're here today on uh 6367 lancaster avenue which is on the northeast corner of overbrook
avenue and lancaster avenue this application is for an existing structure that is currently
laid out as eight four-bedroom units. The proposal we have is to increase the multifamily household
living from 59 units to 67. However, as you'll see through our plans, we're actually going to be
converting the four-bedroom units into two-bedroom units. As you can imagine, four-bedroom units make
it pretty difficult to rent out to a variety of different types of individuals and have made it
hard to keep this building going as far as the mark
um, to keep this building, um, going as far as the, uh, market is concerned and providing, uh,
a better mix of housing. What is the name? What is the name of the building? It's called Lincoln
Court. Okay. It's right on the corner. If you're familiar with that area. I am. Yeah. Yeah. So the
other, uh, refusal we have is for, um, in multifamily household living, you have to have
eight additional units. Um, we're adding eight additional units. We need eight additional spaces.
However, as you'll see from our plans, this is an existing building with existing parking,
and there's really no way to provide any additional parking spaces.
Otherwise, they'd have to go on the front lawn, or we'd have to come up with some sort
of an underground structure or parking garage, which is not really feasible for this site.
I'm going to go into the plans.
Scott, do you want to share your screen to show the plans?
Rachel, while he's pulling up the plan, how many are existing parking spaces now?
I think we have nine. No, more than that. Scott, do you remember how many parking spaces?
Currently 17.
Thank you.
okay scott you've been promoted to a panelist you can share your screen
okay so the renovation uh in question is this front building um there's a larger building
that's kind of behind here the parking is situated between the two buildings as you can see
so that the scope of what we're proposing is to basically split the units in this building
instead of two units on each floor plate into four units on each floor plate.
And I can share the proposed unit plans as well.
so on the first floor we are proposing three one-bedroom units and one two-bedroom units
and we're also proposing an accessible ramp to the first level to bring the building up
to accessibility code for current code standards which is currently not there so these dwelling
units would also follow um type b accessibility as well as needs to for 2018 code standards
as we go up buildings the levels two three and four are all typical um pretty standard two
bedroom one bath units again these are existing four bedroom uh units so our goal is basically
to split these units uh in half really same bed count we're actually lowering the overall
bed count in the building um as we have three one-bedroom units and 13 two-bedrooms as opposed
to the eight four-bedroom units now i can also just to give an aerial for everyone uh this is
the apartment complex currently so again this is the building um that we're proposing the
change in units to and in the back here is kind of you can see the existing parking
so just to go through the the refusals um so we have a refusal for um increasing from 59
units to 67 although again this is currently located in rsd3 um although it's been a long
multi-family building and property for at least since 1986 if not earlier than
that the other refusal is for and again like Scott said we're actually going to
be reducing it from 32 bedrooms to I think 29 so a net reduction of about
three bedrooms so lowering the density actually and then for the parking again
they require new accessory parking spaces be added for each dwelling unit
however again this is an existing structure and we did look into the
ability to do parking it was one of our concerns in addition to the community
however Scott can explain to you and as you can see on this plan there's really
no place for any additional parking to go it's also probably worth noting that
within the comprehensive plan although this property is designated as RSD 3 it
is in the Overbooked Farms Historic District and sort of speaks to wanting additional density
speaks to wanting additional density and higher density in this area
and higher density in this area.
specifically so this use although we are reducing the density the use for
multifamily and the level of density is actually supported by the 2035
comprehensive plan I don't know if the board is interested in hearing any more
about our inability to provide parking I know we met with the community group
they were very overall supportive of the project specifically understood the need
to decrease the unit sizes. Their only concern like ours was was the parking, although again
we kind of talked through all the ways that we we looked at providing additional parking. It's just
really not feasible on this site and putting it in the front of the building or on the like on
the front yard doesn't give us it gives us generates more refusal and also it's probably
not a safe place to put parking on this front yard. Otherwise there really is nothing else
as far as additional parking is concerned.
Who is the RCO?
Is it Overbrook Farms Club?
Yes, it's OCF.
Overbrook Farms.
OFC, yeah.
OFC, my apologies, yeah, OFC.
So they wanted more parking, is that accurate?
Their only concern was parking.
They really were just saying that,
you know there's not enough off-street parking they believe and they didn't you know they were
concerned with if students come back or if you know if people continue to move into this neighborhood
that you know there's going to be parking issues and we've we agreed with them but we were not able
to come up with other mechanisms to add additional parking and this is also an extremely uh it's it's
Lancaster Avenue and Overbrook so you can see there's there's on-street parking available um I
I think the church has parking as well, but we weren't able to work out anything where
we could provide additional off-site parking.
The church does not have parking.
Or I guess that's parking next to the church.
My apologies.
Is that a public parking lot back there?
In back of the building.
It's a tremendous density problem there.
but the neighbors are okay with the density correct or correct me if i'm wrong
correct they're they had no issues wanted more parking correct
because as i mentioned we're actually going to be reducing the density although we're going to
have 16 units instead of eight they're going to be two bedroom units instead of four bedroom units
four bedrooms yeah yep so that's uh sort of where we stand and uh again we did look at parking and
you know not dissimilar to most a lot of other neighborhoods parking is a continual concern
but we're hoping with the reduction in the size of units um and that hopefully less people will
need cars and you know we're also located near to some uh public transit as well
all right um do you have anyone else rachel i think aaron's on the call but unless the board
has any specific questions related to ownership i don't i don't know that i need to bring him
does the board have any other questions no
no okay is there anyone who wishes to testify in this matter if so please raise your hand
no hands at this time chair thank you planning commission
this property is indicated for residential use on the comprehensive plan we feel that this proposal
is in character with the existing condition of the property and does not pose any negative
impacts on the surrounding area accordingly we have no objection to the granting of the variance
Calendar number 39417-6367-73, Lancaster Avenue.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Calendar number 40.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Can I interject, please?
We do have a case, and the attorney, Mr. Clinton, is here.
that he wishes to request a continuance for.
Okay, Mr. Clinton, please identify yourself with the record.
Give me one minute to bring him on.
Mr. Clinton, you can unmute yourself and speak to the continuance.
Thank you, Ms. Selkett. Appreciate that. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Thank you, Ms. Sunkit, appreciate that.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Henry Clinton for the applicant, Twyman Builders, concerning 16 North Salford, S-A-L-F-O-R-D Street.
This original hearing was scheduled in early March. We got a continuance at that particular time.
We're still trying to sort out a few things with the community group.
So I'm asking for a continuance of this matter.
Henry what's that address again? 16 North Salford, S-A-L-F-O-R-D Street. I don't have it on my list.
Sharon, Tanya? Yes it is on the hearing list. It's not on your documents but it's scheduled for today.