as you will see here another uh you know a couple photos of the posting i would point out um
OK, you can see the structures in the rear on where my hand cursor is.
Again, some additional photos of the structure in the front.
These are the marketing photographs, which were quickly available to me, showing the conversions in the rear.
you got dwelling units, you got parking, you know, interior parking spaces.
And then we have some typical photographs of
the interior fit and finish, as you can see.
You have new appliances, new floor coverings,
window treatments,
full stations,
bathroom,
Nice finishes in the kitchens.
So not to belabor that, I think the board gets the flavor of what we're doing inside.
I want to pause on this photograph for one minute.
But as you can see, this is a Google street picture captured in September of 2019.
As you can see, the structures in the rear were formerly stables and garages.
And, uh, garages, uh, you know, the, you know, the, you know, some of the, some of the members of the board might know more than me as to what they were used for, uh, back in the day.
you know
you know the
But, you know, my understanding is they were carriage houses and stables.
But this photograph, I just want to depict that area there because that is what has been redeveloped as an adaptive reuse of, you know, former stables and carriage houses.
This is an aerial photograph, Pulaski Avenue, running from bottom left to upper right.
You can see the driveway coming in from Pulaski Avenue, as evidenced by my hand cursor.
The front structure, which is referenced as Building A, is an attached structure, a twin, to the property next door.
And then in the rear, it was the redevelopment of those stables, which back up to the railroad.
Again, just another angle photo from Google Earth.
These are Google Street Views looking up and down Pulaski Avenue.
Again, the property on the left, this being from Google Earth in 2019.
Again, you can see the fenced off area by the driveway because the property in the rear was still not a safe place to be
And to keep trespassers out.
We have the most recent notice of meeting for the property, which was held on July 11th, you know, just last week with Faith CDC.
It included a copy of the refusal.
It went out to the addresses provided to me by the Planning Commission website.
We have our certificate of mailing.
It went out to 71 different addresses.
Prior to that, last year, we sent out the same meeting notice, which was to be held on April 27th of 2023 and included a copy of the refusal.
We had a certificate of mailing.
I would just add a note that due to a scheduling conflict, Faith CDC did not attend that meeting.
However, Charles Richardson from the Councilwoman's Office attended, and so did representatives from Solo Germantown.
A discussion with Charles afterwards indicated to me that Faith CDC did not participate because of a schedule conflict,
which of which I was not aware otherwise I just would have you know canceled or postponed that
meeting but in any event we had a very brief meeting uh on that eve um a zoning permit was
issued in 2016 pursuant to the board's grant of a variance this is the zoning map as provided by
Atlas. As you can see, it is
we acknowledge it's zoned RSA5, but it is
a very odd configured lot and
obviously not appropriate for one
attached dwelling unit given the
prior uses in the back. And then again,
this is my aerial
photograph via Google Earth.
Again, you have Cheltenham to the upper left,
Pulaski Avenue running from upper left down to the lower right.
So we're between Schoolhouse Lane and Cheltenham,
approximately mid-block, where the red dot is
represents the actual structure at the front.
We have the driveway coming in from Pulaski Avenue.
And then the development of the carriage house apartments is in the rear.
With regard to the RCO meeting, I submitted today via the new document upload app.
I'm still trying to get my arms around that, but I did.
And Mr. Chair, we're looking at my supplemental exhibit, please.
Yep. OK. Yes, sir.
All right. So after reviewing the submission by the RCOs, I was away this weekend.
After reviewing the submission by the RCOs, I was away this weekend.
I didn't.
I didn't get some of them until this morning when I got in.
So I went to work to address those.
The letters, you know, even from the neighbors, had some, you know, objectionable statements
about the deceit, lies, and miscommunications,
intentional or otherwise, which I take objection to.
And I would ask the board to take note of that.
So what I did was I prepared a supplementary exhibit packet,
which includes the notice of decision from the board's original decision in this case.
And I submit that it had no provisos, regardless of what the community requested, what Councilwoman Bass suggested, and I've just asked the board to take note of that, because we proceeded pursuant to that notice of decision, and we obtained a zoning permit.
So, uh, thereafter, uh, at a 16 in my supplemental packet, uh, my applicant and owner, East
Falls, LLC. Excuse me, I need a sip of water.
Okay. I apologize.
So at A16, which
I'll breeze through shortly, we obtained building permits, plumbing permits,
electrical permits mechanical permits and fire suppression permits uh based upon
an amended building permit um and pursuant to that amended building permit there were approved plans
and again this is post you know previous zoning approval from 2016. so uh and in that amended
permit, it clearly identifies 10 units at the rear building.
So when we went to the RCO, I would
point out that, number one, there were
no relevant comments regarding the use of the property
in their letters, and they were all directed towards the process
that we went through. And granted,
this application started in
2022, due to various reasons, which I am sure the chair is well aware of my
predicament, matters were continued, but we were finally able to get the RCO
meeting scheduled with the help of Charles Richardson with Inez at FAITH.
okay so in their letters um you know they claim there's adverse effect uh however there's no
evidence uh raised um with regard to those adverse effects include you know including
increased noise traffic or disruption of quality of quality of life uh to me they're just bold
assertions and they're they're just unhappy with the process not with the actual use
uh again there's unsubstantiated claims of lies and deception by me which i take great offense
to because um you know you know i i take great pride in my reputation working with rcos
and so with regard to the actual rco meetings again the original rco meeting was scheduled
for april 27th notices were mailed and a meeting was actually held i you know i hosted
the Zoom conference at the request or direction of Faith CDC,
obliging them because they don't have the wherewithal facilities to do same.
However, on the night of the meeting, they were unable to attend,
which I didn't know until during or after the meeting.
As a result of that, the case was continued,
And it was probably continued twice due to a medical condition I had.
So a second meeting was scheduled for July 11.
Those meeting notices were mailed.
And the meeting was held.
With regard to that meeting, I want to address the board to near neighbor attendants.
Solo Germantown, in their letter, acknowledges three near neighbors attended, two of which are in the address.
Uh, three near neighbors attended, two of which are in the adjoining property, one, which was not the faith CDC letter has no indication whatsoever as to who is a near neighbor or who was just a, a, you know, somebody within the 250 foot, uh, circumference.
So, again, they claim that the applicant, in those letters, they claim that the applicant owner proceeded basically under the cover of darkness without permits or permission or approvals to do the work.
I submit that the original zoning permit and approval provided for a two-family unit at the front in Building A.
The amended building permit, which I'll show you in a moment, acknowledges that there's 10 units in the rear.
And pursuant to that, we obtain plumbing permits, electrical permits, mechanical permits, and fire suppression permits.
Okay. So here is the decision from 2016. Again, the board granted the use variance. And under further conditions, this is where any provisos would have been enlisted.
okay the permit was issued
and then
April of April of 2018 April 9 2018
for Pulaski Avenue
a building permit was filed for
which included an amendment
and it says to corrected the examiner error
And it indicates building D, which is the very rear building, has six dwelling units.
It included alterations through three buildings, B, C, and D.
Had nothing to do with building A, which is the front building.
It also provided that Building B, two dwelling units, Building C, two dwelling units, and Building D, six units, and they were to be fully sprinkled.
Pursuant to that building permit, East Falls, through their contractors and agents, got the proper plumbing permits to install new water supply and drains for 10 units.
After that, they obtained electrical permits.
Tenants fed off for fire alarms, outlets, switches, smoke detectors, etc.
Thereafter, February of 2020, mechanical permit for the installation of new ductwork, registers, grills, diffusers, warm air appliances, et cetera.
July of 2020, rough-in permit for fire sprinkler system.
Everybody knows, I believe right on this board knows how expensive it is to install fire protection systems.
especially when it involves sprinkler systems.
February of 2021, a plumbing permit was issued for interior and exterior plumbing
in accordance with that original building permit.
I mean, the amended building permit.
Sean, could you try to give us a sense of where you're going with this?
I mean, the issue is we're trying to have one more unit.
Is that what it is?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but I mean, I mean, I see the history, but try to get to the point about, I see that there's a new total of 12 as well. Is that what I'm saying?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's one, right?
Okay, you know, I just need to make a record and get my, my argument.
Sure, but I just want to, I just want to see, tell me about the one extra unit.
Okay. The one extra unit right now, let me go back to, I think this is going to explain our argument in a nutshell.
Coming in from Pulaski Avenue, you drive straight back.
Mr. Chairman, the original plan, we had.
Mr. Chairman, the original plan, we had dwelling units here because we were, you know, we were placing parking in other locations.
You know, upon recollection or reflection, it didn't make sense to have cars driving up, shining their lights into any dwelling units here.
So the parking was reconfigured to the point where, I'm going to go back to, all right, so here, this was the originally approved plan in 2016.
You came up through Pulaski Avenue, through the driveway, and there were going to be dwelling units here.
The parking, you can see the parking spaces in the garages.
So you would have had to come in and turn around.
But the problem was lights would be shining.
Headlights would be shining into building the residential units.
So the result was that they amended the permit.
Let me go back to, it's right here somewhere.
So what we did was we reconfigured it to put the parking here and rearrange the dwelling units.
So the red dots indicate where the dwelling units are.
So you get one, two, three, four in these two buildings.
And then in building D, you have one, two, three, four, and then on the second floor, five and six.
So in other words, rather than having headlights shine into, you know, dwelling units as they're coming into park, we relocated the parking spaces.
And as a matter of fact, the amended permit, you know, approved the elimination of these interior partition walls to make it easier for people to pull in and back out.
We have an ADA compliant parking space, an ADA compliant unit.
So this, you know, this individual can park and then, you know, wheelchair bound or, you know, whatever other amenity they need.
They can leave their garage and get into their unit. So right now, one of these units and I have Brewer Kirchner in the audience, you know, he can tell me which one.
But right now, one of these units is not occupied because we only have a zoning permit for 11.
Right.
So the unit out front, this one, is in fact a two-family dwelling.
Right.
So that's two, and we have nine in the back plus one vacant.
So the original approval was for multifamily use.
There were no provisos.
There were no conditions.
We kept one unit vacant.
And now we're just looking to, you know, modify the variance to confirm that the multifamily use, as approved on this site, as an adaptive reuse of former stables or whatever they were, are now a productive residential community with plenty of off-street parking.
and there's no change
in the wider scheme of things
to the use of the property.
The issue is initially had 11 units
and now there was a vacant unit
you want to turn into another habitable unit.
So that's one unit plus you want.
Yes, and our intention all along
was for 12 units,
two in the front, 10 in the back.
Somewhere along the line,
It became 11.
You know, and then, you know, we filed permit applications, you know, in my supplement, which all references 10 units in the rear.
And we relied on those.
You know, we've installed duct work, fire suppression, plumbing, electrical.
We have an ADA compliant unit with all street parking ADA compliant.
And so, you know, I mean, I could save my argument for later, but let me let me just bring in Brewer Kushner.
I don't know if he's raised his hand yet.
Brewer Kushner has been allowed to speak.
Hi, Mr. Kirschner. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Hi, it's Brewer Kirschner. It's B-R-U-E-R Kirschner, K-E-R-S-H-N-E-R.