Do we have another hand up there?
Here she is.
My name is Mary Griffith, M-A-R-Y-G-R-I-F-F-I-T-H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Mary, could you please turn on your video?
Mary, are you a neighbor?
My mother is directly next door to the property on 1912 South Front,
And I live directly in back of her on a diagonal.
Are you in favor of the project or against?
I oppose it.
And is there anything you could offer that's not been offered by the two private people?
Well, one thing that I wanted to bring to your attention was since the new owner has owned the property since 2021, there has been 14 investigations, nine violations with L&I.
There has been 14 investigations, nine violations with L&I.
He doesn't take care of a lot, the weeds, the bugs, the trash.
And then in the wintertime with the snow, the whole payment going down to Hoffman Street to my mother's house on 111 is a sheet of ice.
So you can't get by.
I asked him this at the Pennsport meeting and he said he called his worker and his worker said it was done.
And I said, in my eyes, that is an absentee landlord. So if you can't take care of a vacant lot, how are you going to take care of a three-story triplex that can occupy up to 12 people, 14 people?
Mary, thank you so much. Mr. Perry, do you have any questions to Mary?
Mary, did you provide any documentation about the trash or letters or photographs at the time?
Yes, I did.
And did you bring those with you today?
I don't have them on hand right now, but I can send them in.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Thank you.
One more hand.
Am I correct?
There's two more hands.
The next one is Allison DeAngelis will be allowed to speak.
Could you please state your name and spell for the sonography?
okay hi can you hear me hi allison would you please state your name and spell for the
stenographer hi my name is allison a-l-i-s-o-n last name is deangelis d-e-a-n-g-e-l-i-s
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth
i do and are you a neighbor i am i live at 126 hoffman street okay are you in favor
this project or against? Very much against. All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate
you taking the time to call us. We have one more hand. Yes, Michelle Rand will be allowed to speak.
Hi, Michelle. Coming in shortly, Chair. Sure.
good afternoon hi michelle could you please state your name as bell for the stenographer
sure this is michelle rand m-i-c-h-e-l-l-e r-a-n-d right do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do yes um are you a neighbor yes i am i live 70
feet from the all right do you are you in favor of this project or opposed i oppose it all right
thank you very much for take go ahead sure i'm sorry i just wanted to mention um two things that
haven't been mentioned before one is that as they were listing addresses that were duplexes or
triplexes. I did look up 2040 South Phillip Street. I couldn't get, you know, all the
addresses down. That is zoned to CMX too. So I just want to note that there are properties
in the area that are mixed use. The other thing that I would like to mention is that
the neighbors who are in opposition to this were also registered for the previous appeal
and recently this week received continuance notices for April 23rd.
So there is a second appeal for this for a TRIPLEX for the same address,
which is MI-2023-002125.
I did message the zoning board offices.
They said it hadn't been withdrawn yet.
And I put that out there to say that you're going to see us again in April
if it's not off the docket.
Michelle, thank you so much for taking the time.
We're done.
Hands?
Planning Commission.
Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning at this location from the existing residential single-family RSA 5.
The appellant has not shown that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances that would prevent the property from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
The Planning Commission recommends the board deny the requested variance for multifamily household living.
Thank you. MI 2025, 000683, 1912 South Front Street, I vote no.
Michael Johns, my vote is no.
Thank you.
Carol Gaston, my vote is no.
Tynetta Graham, my vote is no.
I would, my vote is no.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
number four mi 2024 007 287 80 15 to 21 frankfort avenue joseph consul
is the attorney there's a letter of non-opposition from the holmesburg civic association
Joseph Consul will be rejoining us shortly.
Okay, I'm here.
Mr. Consul, you've already been sworn once today.
Could you just state your name for the record?
Yeah, it's Joseph Consul.
That's, I already spelled it.
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yeah, my client is Gada Majud, the owner of Oomsaba Childcare LLC.
Right.
Do you waive the reading of the refusal and do you agree with its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
And has all your documents been in five days prior?
Please start your presentation.
So Joe Consul here for 8015-21-Frankford Avenue.
So my client is seeking to put a child care facility in this property.
If you look from the top down here, you can see that the vast majority of the property, including that which fronts Frankfort Avenue, where the actual child care space is, is on CMX 2.5.
But the very rear and apparently enough of the parcel, I know this discussion was being lobbed around earlier in a different presentation, but enough of the parcel is in an RSA 3 zone in the back that it triggered a set of refusals for seeking to put a child care facility in an RSA 3 property.
Incidentally, the space that's zoned RSA 3 is just a parking lot for the properties that are the CMX 2.5.
So it's not as if there's actually even any kind of single-family home directly behind the commercial properties.
So the refusals we've got are – well, the first one just explains how it works when there's split zoning.
Um, and then, um, because we're split zoning, we have to go with RSA three and we get the refusal for child care center being prohibited in the RSA three residential zoning district.
My client signed a lease, I mean, a while ago, September of 2023, and coincidentally, she's the CEO of a facility right next door to this property, so she thought it would be nice to have a childcare there that would complement the other work that she does.
Anyway, she signed that lease, couldn't get operating, and eventually came around to understanding that a variance was required, and we're here seeking the same.
We went in front of Holmesburg Civic Association.
There was no, there was nothing negative.
It was all, you know, they understood what was going on and were, seemed to be willing to welcome her as a child care center in the neighborhood.
And the lease comes with parking in the back where folks can drop off their kids. So it's not even as if there would be any issues with dropping kids off on Frankfurt Avenue or that sort of thing.
this is the plans that we had submitted just showing where the proposed daycare is relevant
to frankfurt avenue on the left and the existing parking lot in the rear our tax clearance
and i'll just scroll down and our photos just showing the exterior bit that faces frankfurt
avenue application for appeal um and the lease which i already showed you uh all right well
i'm not going to belabor that too much i'll call my client gada it's gha
inside location has she set it up already as a daycare center
I can ask her. I don't believe she has. Hold on. Let me see something real quick.
Some exterior photos here.
Let's see what else we got. Oh, yep. Yep. Here we go.
Oh, yep. Yep. Here we go.
Okay. Why don't you bring her one?
Are you available to raise your virtual hand?
Our hand was raised.
Could you please state your name as spelled for the sonographer?
She did decline the promotion.
okay i'll try there she is okay thank you oh no she's still declining chair i'm sorry
is she coming back on yes i'm promoting her again miss gada could you please accept the promotion
Hello?
Chair, she seems to keep declining to be promoted.
Okay. All right.
Mr. Counsel, do you know enough about it to, I mean, you're an officer of the court.
questions from the board for council
yes um how many kids what ages uh i don't know the operating hours um uh she will be open monday
through saturday i believe part of her um plan was to um serve the community on the hours that
she believes they're being unserved there not being a lot of child care centers
in the immediate vicinity of this property.
I'm not certain on the ages and the number.
She had some sort of, and again,
a calculation run based on the allowance
per the actual code for the square footage,
but I'm not positive what it was.
I have a question.
Is the child care center only on the first level?
And are there upper levels of the building?
and I couldn't tell by the photographs.
Are there other levels of the building?
Stores?
Be great.
She's very knowledgeable.
Be great if she could figure out how to get in here.
See if we can tell.
Thank you.
Other questions?
Questions from our attorney?
Two brief things.
One, because this is an RSA3 property,
it would require parking.
it appears there is some parking does she have spots that are designated for this particular
unit yeah she's got i think two spots come with release okay do you know what the square footage
of the unit is uh i'm not hold on let me see if it's on the
it doesn't look like it's designated on the plan okay do you know what unit this is i couldn't
it wasn't specified in the lease they haven't they don't even have it labeled on the on the
landlord site plan okay uh but if we need to follow up with that information we can um
there there are other uh commercial uses at the property right i actually i'm not sure look i i
do remember seeing in the lease it said this was 8021 but that's not an existing separate address
yeah the the space next door that's crossed off here i believe would be the other piece of it
we're just here for the proposed daycare area okay all right how are you dealing with a drop
off pick up and drop off oh uh the back is is a lot it's all existing parking behind it and so
no one would have to pull over on frankfort avenue there would always be available spaces in the back
for folks to pull out is there a designated temporary loading zone for parents that are
just dropping kids off and then calling i don't know i know that she had built
I don't know. I know that she had built a nice, I don't know if I have a picture of it, sort of exterior area. No, I don't think I have a photo.
That kind of gives you like some idea, but again, it'd be great if she was able to answer the questions.
this is this is a back the back entrance again labeled as 8021
all the questions does this this uh what's the plan for signage uh there's no signs applied for
it this time um saying it out loud though i'm assuming that because of the rsa5 rsa3 issue
despite the fact that it's 77 cmx 2.5 she'll have to come back if there's signages that's requested
that's seems like any kind of signage would require it at that point is the parking lot at
the rear for the entire building or just for the daycare facility the entire building i heard her
to raise her hand maybe hopefully should we see her hand off again yeah i just tried to promote her
again maybe it's just not letting me her hand is up and i'm trying to promote her
she's declining okay
i'm here i'm here hi hi could you gotta could you please state your name and spell for the
stenographer god i'm g-s-a-d-a-m-a-s-j-o-u-v right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel hi gana um so i testified a bit
uh on stuff i wasn't 100 certain about regarding your property the pickup and drop off would you
clarify all that for the for the board yeah the drop-off gonna be through the
back where is a bucket lock is and we're supposed to have like when we get the
blue we have to have a stop sign because the back of luck was sharing with as a
because the building
we're losing you closer to the microphone wherever of your phone start again
I said we have the we have a stop sign supposed to be put on and lying for people to just watch
and slow down for the safety for the kids
when they drop back through the bag.
So they're going to pull into the parking lot?
Is that what you're saying?
No, there's an area in the front.