Lori good afternoon just identify yourself with the record you're still under oath from earlier.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Hillary Emerson, on behalf of Councilwoman
Sherelle Parker. As Mr. Reuter stated, the Councilman is not opposed to the granting
of a variance for the fence or fences. Actually, in this case, we appreciate that they will
aesthetically match with the neighborhood, and we understand that they are important to protect the
upgrades that is being made to this essential facility. The community also voted in
is being made to this essential facility the community also voted in support i just forwarded
the letter to to sharon and to mr reuter i didn't realize that mr reuter had not received it it was
sent i think just to the zoning board as well as our office but the the community was unanimously
in support of the requested variances thank you thank you anyone else would like to testify
I just want to thank the members of the RCO and obviously council member Parker's office and
Hillary for working with us on this and obviously and the members of the team who did a lot of work
on this and we are hoping to get moving on it pretty quickly so if there's not anything else
that's it for us mr reuter do you need to hear from mr olisco or miss brown no not unless anybody
has any specific questions uh based on what we presented but i think you have everything you need
i think it's covered yes uh planning commission good afternoon david effecto f e c t e a u with
the city planning commission do you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
about the truth yes sir i do thank you mr chairman members of the board the comprehensive plan
recommends residential single-family use for this property this is an existing philadelphia
water department pumping station we support granting the variance thank you mi 2020-003-131
1913-2568th avenue my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes
calendar number 1333-2027 Ellsworth street
Anyone here for 2027 Ellsworth Street?
Chair, we have someone by the last name Kane, first name Derek.
Mr. Kane, you can unmute yourself if you're allowed to speak.
Are you in regards to this case?
Yes, you can promote him to panelists.
He's the attorney.
Excuse me, Mrs. Sharon.
I believe he's actually the property owner.
He's been promoted to panelists.
good afternoon board can you hear me yes are you an attorney i am i am an attorney but i am the
owner applicant for this project would you please spell your first and last name yes i can my first
name is d-e-r-e-k and my last name is k-a-n-e do you swear in the firm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth yes i do thank you thank you carol please good afternoon board members
and thank you for your time um as i said before my name is dara kane the owner we have some we
have some questions carol has to read them off to you oh i apologize okay have you emailed the
exhibit paculate to require documents including proof of ownership tax compliance refusal or
referral photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing and have you met
with the rco and do you have a letter uh yes to all okay you may proceed thank you so much carol
Sure. Again, good afternoon, board. My name is Derek Hane. I'm here as the owner and applicant for this project. This project is to put solar panels on top of the home that I own with my partner.
And we want to put those panels on in the form of a solar canopy. And we are here to request a variance to allow that solar canopy to be two foot closer than is required.
and we want that so we can have a house that is a fully solar powered and a project that is
economically feasible. Representatives from Solar States, our contractor, are here today who'd be
able to answer very technical questions if posed. But for now, I'll begin by sharing my screen and
showing the L&I refusal letter.
Here's the LNI refusal letter and just to summarize it says that associated solar collectors shall be set back at
And just to summarize, it says that associated solar collectors shall be set back at least seven feet from the extreme front building line, whereas the structure proposed is to be set back five feet from the extreme front building line.
So to make that as simple as possible, what our variance is about is two feet.
We want to put the solar collectors five feet from the front of our house as opposed to the required seven feet.
Let me show you some images so you better understand what we're asking for, and I can better explain it.
What I'm showing to everyone now is the solar collector, solar canopy that we are proposing.
You can see that it sits on four legs that split to allow for maximum surface area on the ceiling, on the roof that is of our house.
You can see that it doesn't go any higher than our already existing pilot house, which is that red structure to the left.
And you can see that it supports 12 panels.
It's a little bit hard to see, but if you were to count, you would see that there's three rows of four panels.
And finally, you would see that the solar collector lines up with our already existing five-foot setback.
So again, this is what we are looking to do.
What we could do by right is seen here.
As you can see, it looks almost exactly the same.
still has the same sort of look appearance still has the same height but now it is set five feet
back seven feet back from the front of the house it's a little bit hard to see but those first
panels would be two feet back from our existing five foot setback and it only now supports eight
solar panels and that really is our issue the reason why we want a five foot setback as opposed
The seven is because with eight solar panels, we would only be able to generate 70% at best of the energy that we use at 2027, and we want it to be 100.
And just to be clear, we are already a low-energy household.
We're the kind of family that turns lights off as soon as we leave a room.
So that 70% really isn't a lot of energy.
pilot house currently exists
um can you repeat that question chairman you have a the orange is a pilot house yes that is
just the pilot house that already there were also concerns uh initially we did propose commercial
space on the ground floor uh and the community was concerned about um had mentioned some concerns
about traffic in and out of there given the school nearby. So the original proposal was
slightly modified and then we actually ended up switching architects given the pushback that we
got in order to sort of try again over the last year and a half to provide a different product,
smaller in scale, more community input was incorporated in the project. I'm going to have
Scott specifically go through the changes that were made for the most recent project that we
have. But just kind of want to talk about the hardship of this lot before he goes into that.
Obviously, not only is it obviously ICMX, it's only 6,812 square feet. Well, most lots that are
zoned ICMX, you know, are in this area are in the range of 40,000 square feet to 100,000 square
feet. And again, it is across the street from RSA 5, which is a single family zoning district.
We did look at the option to provide single family. The ability to do that on a corner here
didn't make any sense. In addition to the fact that the odd shape of the lot would make for sort
of very weird, irregular looking homes with no parking and would not really be something that
matched the industrial side of the street, which was what we were trying to really mirror.
In addition to the odd shape of the lot and sort of the fact that the industrial zoning and commercial zoning is not feasible from a market perspective or even for what requirements those types of businesses would have,
um the comprehensive plan for the city specifically addresses um that this property
should be rezoned or should have been rezoned or previously was zoned as rm1 uh specifically
page 80 of the plan which i'll bring up um one second
this is the environmental stuff which i'll get into in a minute but the comprehensive plan um
And I've spoken with the community planner here, David Fecto, who I know is on this call as well.
The community planner here, David Fecto, who I know is on this call as well, you know, the community, this plan for it specifically calls out a residential multifamily use.
It doesn't really call for commercial or industrial, although that's what it's currently mapped as.
It also doesn't seemingly seem to make sense or be called out for single family.
It's also not something that the school at this point is able to afford to turn into a parking lot for the school.
I don't think that they have the funds and I don't think the city was willing to purchase
it either to donate it to the school either.
It's also worth mentioning that this comprehensive plan specifically discusses that the city
should be considering variance relief or zoning relief for properties that are off of the
North American street corridor that are vacant industrial sites as it understands and contemplates
that a location like this is not typically appropriate for industrial commercial use.
Additionally, this property sits across 29th Street from a Commonwealth-designated Keystone
Opportunity Zone. These zones are in specific areas of the city that have been identified as
in need of infrastructure and development investment due to high poverty rates, large
amounts of vacancy, and significant population or job loss. This specific KOZ has a high amount
vacancy and its surroundings have been significant population loss in recent deckways as well as
median incomes significantly lower than the city-wide average so this project that we're
proposing which Scott will go through which was reduced from 23 units to 20 units to 16 units
and removed the parking as there were concerns about putting a curb cut uh which where people
could walk and where there is a bus station um was also removed and a sort of a pocket park was
created in order to separate the school from this building, in addition to adding a community benefit
feature for people who may be waiting for the bus and things of that nature. This specific
proposal helps support the revitalization of this corner, which hopefully will then drive
maybe additional investment, which would actually help within the limits of the KOZ itself.
So, again, the other change we did make was to the height, and I would like to see if
Scott could share his screen so that we can go through the most recent proposal, and as
I think the board will see, we've made significant changes from what I also agree was a little
bit too ambitious of an original proposal, and once this other developer got involved,
we sort of made a lot of adjustments over the last year and a half.
So, Scott, if you could present your screen and just briefly go through the plans and
the changes that we made, specifically addressing the size and scale of the project and sort of the
open space that we now have in order to sort of address the concerns that the community had about
the location with the school. And then I wanted, would like to have Phil Sharrow be on to just as
a real estate expert who specializes in commercial and industrial brokerage and sales to kind of
opine as to sort of the ability to do commercial
or industrial on a site like this.
So Scott, you could share your screen,
that would be great.
Could I be promoted to screen-check?
You've been promoted to panelists, Mr. Woodruff.
Woodruff, please identify yourself,
spell your last name and I'll swear you in.
Chair, I think Vice Chair Tenere swore them both in.
I think we're both sworn in.
Oh, yes.
Thank you.
I apologize.
You're right.
Scott, you can go ahead.
While we're waiting, are there revised plans and how many pages?
Yeah, they're not revised plans. We actually went back and resubmitted
through the administrative leave of the board to amend the application.
Sorry about that. As Rachel stated, we kind of took this project, completely wiped everything
that was previously done and re-looked at this in a new light based on the community feedback
that was provided. So what you see in front of you is a three-story building and aesthetically
takes a lot of cues from the surrounding neighborhood being the row homes as well as
the school and really tries to be very cognizant of that school and kind of the relationship of
the project to that. The height was dramatically reduced from where it was
uh with the main cornice line being at 35 feet um and
with the main cornice line being at 35 feet and actually slopes back up on this 29th Street side to be even less.
We'll zoom in a little bit, Scott.
So here you can see the proposed site plan.
As Rachel stated, there's a pocket park that we're proposing in a large amount of green space that is adjacent to the nearby school.
again important for us to pull away the building from the school as much as
possible to kind of separate those uses as well as direct any views kind of away
from the school necessarily as well as Rachel stated we're at 16 dwelling units
there's a bike room as well as indoor trash that's completely enclosed and not
exterior um and then there's a lobby that's located towards the corner um to give more eyes
on the street and also kind of a the best entry point for the building as this is the you know
most traveled corner per se um and close to the bus stop at that point it's also important to
point out as well um that we one of the concerns was having any windows facing the school and so
we specifically adjust you know adjusted the plans to make sure that there are no windows
on the school side of the of the building as well i want to point that out
okay um so this is the the glenwood elevation um again you can see the the cornice line here is
about 35 feet there is uh access to the roof via stair tower and elevators um which you see
you know top of the penthouse itself is around 49 pilot house around 45 but again just a small
portion of the building that is not very visible from that Glenwood elevation here on the 29th
street elevation again similarly you can see the building does step up so at this elevation
we're roughly 27 28 feet to the top of the cornice line again reducing the height
produce a similar feel in the neighborhood that isn't overpowering uh and we have an axon just
showing basic massing of kind of what that school is at which is around 35 feet um again based on
the the community comments uh it was important for us to try and match that by all costs and
again kind of create a feel uh that made the building fit in um with the surrounding context
and wasn't overpowering for the neighborhood um just to note too kind of our thoughts on
the pocket park was to provide uh some vegetation buffer along the school um and some nice landscaping
benches so that the community could use this space as a benefit um as well as the the apartment
building to provide some value add uh for the the overall community as well
um happy to go over any any other specifics rachel that uh you want me to or if there's
any other questions let me ask are there any questions from the board for this witness
no no we can move on rachel thank you chairman um phil if phil could raise his hand um i just
to bring him on i know he has somewhere to run to and just want to have him on the record mr
sharrow you should be unmuted you can speak now hi everybody hi good evening mr sharrow please
identify yourself spell your last name for the record yeah phil sharrow s-h-a-r-r-o-w
where to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do rachel thank you mr chair uh
Phil, can you just give the board a little bit of information on your professional background,
where you work, how long you've been doing what you're doing, and to sort of establish
your expertise in the real estate space?
Yeah, so my career began in commercial real estate roughly seven to eight years ago.
I ran a leading team at a national publicly traded investment sales firm.
prior to starting Scope Commercial Real Estate Services about two to three years ago.
Our main scope of work is representing sellers in the sale of either multifamily commercial
or development properties. Majority of our business is done right here in Philadelphia.
Thank you. And Phil, are you familiar with this area and have you had a chance to review the
plans that we proposed? I have and I have. Could you explain to the board from your expertise and experience why commercial or
Could you explain to the board from your expertise and experience why commercial or an industrial use, it might be difficult on this site from a sales perspective or a buy perspective, given your experience?
Sure. So I'll just back up for a second and give you guys a little bit of clarity into how I or we in the business approach a site like this or any site for that matter, being it being land or a site that is suitable for some sort of development.
So for us, the first thing we want to understand is, okay, well, what is the highest and best use?