ZBA Hearing - February 12, 2025

We'd like to hold as well.

Okay, thank you.

No further answers, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Hillary, do we need a resumptive hearing for this?

We do if Planning wants to wait to give their position.

and we'll have to resume so right so we'll have a result of hearing on 4 30 25 at 2 p.m

thank you mr orphanetes thanks

and my 2024 006 706 29 21 east thompson street all lock sokoloff is the attorney

there's a letter of unanimous support from the southport richmond civic association also

58 letters of support

they'll be coming back in as a panel shortly mr chair thank you

Good afternoon chair members of the board.

good afternoon chair members of the board council could you please just state your

name is spelled for the court sonographer yes oleg sokolov o-l-e-g-s-o-k-o-l-o-v

on behalf of the equitable owner adrian solea

do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth

i do i have a list uh william and beatrice brooks now

uh the the property is currently under an agreement of sale with the equitable owner it

isn't included in the exhibit packet good thank you um we just we put the deed in the packet as

well just for reference board person uh graham has a couple questions for you sure good afternoon

uh did you submit your documents five days in advance of this hearing uh miss graham hello first

of all, yes, we did a slight caveat that the tax clearance proof of payment was just omitted,

but we have that here for you today. Okay. And do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal

and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, we do. Okay. Thank you. You may proceed.

Thank you very much. I will attempt to be brief as the board can see that there is

overwhelming community support for this. And I think once I explain what particularly we're

trying to do here. You will see why. And unfortunately, the neighborhood has not had

a chance to taste the products that are intended to be made at this location. But I think that

once they do, they would even further support it. So Mr. Suleya is a baker, has been a baker

from Eastern Europe for a very long time. He is seeking to use this property, which is zoned RSA

5, but is a unique property located within this neighborhood that has been a garage as far back

as I can see, although there isn't much publicly available zoning history on the property. So

this would be classified as a takeout restaurant, as an eating and drinking establishment.

This is a small-scale bakery. There may be some wholesale sales, but nothing of the mass variety

to give you a sense of how small scale it would mostly be for retail use.

You know, Mr. Suley did incredible outreach in the neighborhood because his position was if the neighborhood does not want us there,

that's not a place that we want to be. But after hearing the community's feedback to having a bakery in this location,

it's clear that the community does want this type of business and specifically Mr. Suley's business there.

Okay. So currently the property, and I'll just run through it. This is the D just to show you

the current owners and then the agreement of sale with Mr. Solea. This is the property. It has been

a garage, as I said, for as long back as we can see in both photos and any kind of property history.

The intention is, and we don't have a rendering of this, but to turn this garage door into a glass

garage door so people can kind of see the answer do you think you should i apologize yeah why don't

you put your documents up seems to be a trend today no it's okay it's okay

all right we have all that we're good with that great okay so as i said the deed showing the

current owners as you stated chair and then the agreement of sale with the brooks to purchase the

property. So this is what we're talking about here. As you can see, it is obviously a commercially

built property that happens to be in this residential neighborhood. And the intention

is to change this garage door here into like a glass garage door that would allow people to see

the operation. Then I'll take you through what it is we're looking to do. So you can see that there

are some other commercial properties on the block. And it is just a very empty rectangular box that

has been used as a garage. And that is it. Let me just zoom out here a little bit.

So the intention is to put a small retail area in the front with a separator, a bathroom, which would be located here for operational use, and then a small wash basin that would be here for the people actually selling.

this would be like a sales counter here, this would be a prep counter, and then over here you

have some ovens. And it does have two forms of ingress and egress for any kind of emergency

evacuation. And as you can see in the plans, there have been a number of evacuation routes drawn.

So once again, it is just a bakery. I'll have Mr. Sulea explain a little bit about what kind

explain a little bit about what kind of bread he bakes but it's basically just artisanal bread

of bread he bakes, but it's basically just artisanal.

i'll try to run through these quickly as i know they're they're standard documents

so once again there is a cmx2 property located immediately adjacent to it uh another cmx1 on

the corner which is a multi-family dwelling it you know it is square in the middle of a

of a residential neighborhood. We understand that, and hence the incredible outreach to make

sure that the neighborhood is supportive of it, which I think the board can see both from the

letters of support as well as the unanimous, I believe if I saw that correctly, support during

the RCO meeting. So we met with the community on January 8th. It was an in-person meeting,

incredibly well attended. As the board knows, SOAP of the Southport Richmond Civic Association

is, you know, quite an active RCO and takes a large role in developments or projects coming

into their neighborhood. So, we were very happy to have their support, and everyone was

overwhelmingly excited about this type of use. So, once again, here's our letter of support.

And then, I didn't count them myself, Chair, so I'm going to take your word for it, but that it

it was 58 letters.

What I do wanna point out just,

there is a letter of support

from the directly adjacent residential neighbor at 2919.

And I just wanna pan to that quickly for the board.

so there it is

so this is Mr. and Mrs. McShane

both of them who signed these letters

and I don't think I need to belabor the point

I'd love to bring Mr. Soleil on here

just to give you guys a brief idea

of what kind of bread is going to be baked there are why don't you bring them one please our notice

letters and if i can just quickly because it wasn't included in the original packet the tax

balance and the balance currently existing for 2025 as the board well knows is not due until

the end of march at this time mr so that can you raise your hand virtual hand please

you'll be rejoining the panelists shortly

I'm Mr. Saleha

Adrian there's a mute button there

if you can hit that

and there's a camera button as well that would turn your camera on

can we see him

he's been promoted and he's unmuted

thank you Mr. Saleh

could you please state your name and spell for the

court stenographer

Mr. Saleh

he's still muted

Adrian Saleh are you still present

I see him on here

he's just not he's muted

he's been unmuted

he's been unmuted but

he may be having technical

difficulties

counsel will accept your testimony

if there's anything you want to add

extra

I don't think I need to belabor

the point here

it's a

simple baking business that's going to have some retail

to it just for reference

because it did come up at the RCO

MEETINGS, ANY KIND OF DISTRIBUTION BEYOND THE RETAIL SALES WOULD BE DONE IN SUCH SMALL

BATCH THAT IT'S GOING TO BE DONE BY MR. SOLEIA HIMSELF.

SO WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT TRUCKS PARKING IN FRONT, NO LOADING DOCK THINGS, ANYTHING

OF THAT NATURE. OKAY. QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD?

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM OUR ATTORNEY HILLARY EMERSON?

Just briefly to note, Mr. Sokolov, if you could send the proof of tax compliance in to complete your exhibit packet, that would be greatly appreciated.

I will do that immediately following this. Thank you, Hillary.

Questions or comments from the virtual audience?

I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.

Questions or comments from Planning?

Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.

the Comprehensive Plan recommends no change in zoning at this location from the existing

single-family residential RSA 5. The Appellant has not demonstrated that there are unique physical

circumstances or conditions of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance

with the zoning code. The Planning Commission recommends that Board deny their proposed

The Planning Commission recommends a board to deny their proposed variants for a takeout restaurant.

variance for a takeout restaurant.

MI 2024-006-706-2921 East Thompson Street, I vote yes.

Michael Johns, my vote is yes.

Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.

Tannetta Graham, my vote is yes.

Iowyn, my vote is yes.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, Members of the Board.

All right. Number 11, MI 2024-006-715-8200-208-Caster Avenue. Henry Clinton is the attorney.

There's a letter of opposition from Law and Herce Civic Association, and I believe we now have a letter from Council Member O'Neill's office. Am I correct?

Yes, that is correct. It is a letter in non-opposition.

Okay, in non-opposition. Okay.

I'll be back in as a panel shortly, Mr. Chair.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.

Henry, I think I swore you in one state, didn't I?

Correct.

So could you just state your name for the record?

Sure, Henry Clinton, C-L-I-N-T-O-N.

And could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?

Sure, my client is the Allegheny East Conference Seventh-day Adventist,

and in particular, the Philadelphia Brazilian Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Okay, and board member Graham has a few questions for you, sir.

Good afternoon. Did you submit your documents five days in advance of the hearing?

I did, Ms. Graham, except recently the RCO Rorne Hurst Civic weighed in and also Councilman O'Neill weighed in with letters, and they're included in my package.

Thank you. And do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal, and do you stipulate to its accuracy?

I do.

Okay, you may share your screen and proceed.

Thank you, Ms. Graham.

Is that visible, Mr. Chairman?

It is. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm here on behalf of the Allegheny East Conference

Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists, and in particular, as I said, the Brazilian Seventh-day

Adventist Church, which has been worshiping at this location since 2019.

My table of contents, A1 through 810, which I will ask be admitted.

and this is the refusal. So just by way of background, I was before the prior board in 2019

and asked basically for the same thing that I'm asking for today. And we got a zoning permit for

what I'm asking for today back in 2020. But because of the pandemic and the struggles that my

my client was going through economically, they did not build what they got approved in 2020.

So we're back. The zoning permit expired. And so I'm back now asking to basically

grant again what was once granted. And what we're asking for is a one-story rear addition

to an existing building, which we use as a worship center. The building used to be a Wells Fargo bank

for about 20, 25 years or even longer, and it was converted into a church in 2018, 2019.

So we have two refusals.

One is parking, and ironically, five years ago when I was before the board, there was

no issue with regard to parking, and also there's an issue in rear yard depth.

We have since increased the parking because it was a real concern.

at Rowanhurst Civic this time around.

The first time we were before them five years ago,

I actually had their letter of support

from that timeframe in my package,

but there really wasn't any concern about parking.

Five years ago, now there was.

So we increased our parking from 18 to 20.

We had the RCO letter of non-support.

There really wasn't that many people there.

It was a rather close vote, four to two.

And the reason they said was because of parking.

I mean, it certainly pointed out that directly across the street, there's another house of

worship that has no parking.

And then the Resurrection Catholic Church, which is about 10 blocks away, and it's a

large congregation that has no parking.

We only have 60 members, or my client only has 60 members at this church.

We did get a letter from Councilman Brian O'Neill, which Ms. Emerson referred to, indicating that he has no objection to the granting of this variance.

So here's photos for context.

So this used to be a bank, and you had a drive-in area here, and you would go behind the bank, and there's your drive aisle, and you would go to the teller and then exit on the Solly Street.

This is Castor here and Solly Street here.

so you can see there's a lot of parking when the bank was in existence there were 24 spots

and because the addition that we're proposing is going to come out this way we're losing

And because the addition that we're proposing is going to come out this way, we're losing four spots.