Do I have any other requests for continuances?
Sure, I do not see any further hands at this time.
Okay, so number four, MI 2024-006-752-4518 Old York Road.
Martin Boyd is the current owner applicant.
There is no exhibits.
This is the second listing.
I do not see any hands, Chair.
This last time we can continue this because of medical reasons.
But we're going to continue this one more time. So MI 2024, 006752, 4518 Old York Road. This case is continued to 12, 10, 25 at 2 p.m.
We'll go to our add-on list.
Mr. Trey, I just want to note for the record, Board Member Wynn has joined us.
Oh, thank you.
number one mi 2024 003 727 535 rawn street
i vote yes amended refusal received dated 6 17 25. michael johns my vote is yes with proviso
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Canada Graham, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
I win, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Ryan here?
I'm here, Bill.
I didn't think I was voting on that.
Thank you.
You're right.
So, number two, MI 2024-006-733-4045 to 61 Main Street.
Wait a minute.
I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Michael Johns, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Carol Gaston, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Tynetta Graham, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Iron One, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Number three, MI 2024-004-320-6550 North Bouvier Street, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Michael Johns, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Cheryl Gaston, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Tynetta Graham, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Tywin, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Number four, MI 2024-001-644-2135 West Venango Street, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Johns, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Gerald Gaston, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Senator Graham, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Tywin, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Number five, MI 2025-000-457-1434-36, Federal Street, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Michael Johns, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Earl Gaston, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
Number six, I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
I vote no to reconsideration and rehearing.
And number six, MI 2024-001-169-10914, Nadina Court, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Nadina, Nadina Court, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Michael Johns, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Augustine, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Natta Graham, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Iowyn, I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Number two, number two on the regular list.
This is a vote only. MI 2024-004-738-401-203 Queen Lane. I vote yes with proviso. Maximum three dwell units, interior mailboxes, interior trash storage, and also per refusal dated 1-25-25.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with provisos.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with provisos.
The grammar vote is yes with provisors.
And when my vote is yes with provisors.
Brian McAdams, my vote is yes with provisors.
Number three, MI 2024, 006243, 90 Rochelle Avenue.
Ryan Bolin is the attorney.
Wissahickon interested citizens associations
submitting a letter of non-opposition
we're back in as a panelist Mr. Chair
good afternoon are you ready for me well most certainly sorry i i it went it went silent for
a second all right yeah sure why don't you state your name and spell for the stenographer yes ryan
boland b-o-l-a-n-d right um do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth yet uh could you identify a client narration relationship to the property yes i
represent the equitable owner, Andrew Langsom. He is the equitable owner pursuant to an agreement
of sale. Right. Do you waive the reading of the refusal and do you agree with its accuracy?
Yes. Please start your presentation. Yes. So I'm here today with a letter of non-opposition
from the RCO Wicca, as well as a letter of non-opposition from Councilman Jones. I'm just
going to give a very brief summary of the long written submission I made to the board. I'll try
to keep this as brief as I can. As was explained in Wicca's letter to the board, this project has
been going on for many, many years. There have been countless meetings with the community and
this has changed from a 60-unit apartment building to a 48-unit to a 38-unit to 12 units to 11 units
And we're here today with 10 units, and we reached an agreement with the RCO yesterday, which is why there were some last-minute submissions.
So I'm going to pull up the plans right here.
Terrific.
So I have here a rendering, and as you can see here, we have a 55,000 square foot parcel.
It's unusually shaped because there are two different triangles.
There's a triangle in the front and a triangle in the back.
We're seeking the variances here to build these five twins, a total of 10.
as you can see in the front here, we have a building that houses a doggy daycare. Under the
RS3 zoning, which this was switched to in the past decade, the only use we're allowed to have
is one use. And so we're not allowed to have anything other than the single use or the single
building. So one of the reasons we're here today is because of the RS3 zoning. The applicant is
going to present evidence as to the following elements needed to grant a variance. We're going
to be presenting evidence that the hardship here relates to the unique physical conditions of the
property such that it cannot be used for any permitted use. And that because of these physical
conditions, we need a variance we cannot build within the code, that this is not a self-inflicted
hardship, that the granting of the variance will not alter the essential character of the
neighborhood, and that this variance is the minimum relief necessary to afford relief under
the code. I'm going to briefly walk you through the written presentation. I'm just going to
the written presentation i'm just going to quickly scroll here's a another angle looking
quickly scroll. Here's
looking down the tracks you can see the steep slopes here on the right
i have the amended refusal i submitted the letter from the councilman's office
of non-opposition i have wicca's letter of non-opposition
i have some aerial photographs showing exactly where this is it backs into the
Wissahickon Creek essentially. Some more photographs just just showing you can see
how it backs into the residential. This is the existing warehouse I'm showing on the rear of the
property. Here's the doggy daycare. Again here are just some some of the required views looking up
the driveway towards Rochelle, looking out the driveway to the left, looking down the driveway,
out the driveway to the right. Some views of what the houses look like in front.
We have our photographs of, I will, I have the plans here. I will have our engineer
walk you through those very briefly. I also have our application for appeal,
which attaches some other ones that has a lot of background.
Project information form, we have the agreement of sale.
TAX CLEARANCE PROOF THAT WE MET WITH THE RCO WE ALSO ARE SUBMITTING TODAY WE JUST SUBMITTED
ABOUT AN HOUR AND A HALF AGO REVISED PROVISO PLANS FORM THAT PROPOSES TO CHANGE THE FENCE
THAT IS ALONG THE DRIVEWAY FROM FIVE FEET TO EIGHT FEET THE PLANS CALL OUT FIVE FEET
However, the existing fence is eight feet, pursuant to a previously granted variance.
I'd like to call first Kyle Dowdy, a member of the design team, if you can raise your hand, please, for the board.
We were joining as a panelist.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Hi, sir.
Could you please state your name as spelled for the stenographer?
My name is Kyle Dowdy, K-Y-L-E, last name D-O-W-D-Y.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Please proceed, counsel.
Did you hear the testimony and the argument I gave before?
I did, yes.
And to the best of your knowledge, was it true, correct, and accurate?
And do you adopt it as your own?
Can you just really briefly explain to the board what your qualifications are to testify today?
Sure. I have a degree in landscape architecture from Philadelphia University, and I've worked as a project manager with Regiro Plant Land Design for the last 13 years.
Terrific. And can you just for like 30 seconds, just kind of briefly orient the board just really quickly as to what is in these plans?
Absolutely.
Shown on the screen now, the proposed layout for the development, 10 units in the rear,
shown in dark gray.
And then on the left side of the screen is the doggy daycare that was mentioned.
In between, we have the proposed driveway with access to Rochelle Avenue and leading
back into the site.
It's a minimum of 18 feet wide, and in some locations, it's 24 feet to accommodate on
street parking.
We have raised crosswalks shown for enhanced pedestrian access.
Terrific. Can you tell me a little bit about the site constraints here?
Sure. The biggest site constraint, as mentioned before, is the configuration of the lot.
The two triangles really restrict the available development area and the pinch point really restricts access to the site.
We're required to have emergency vehicle access due to the length of the driveway, which would either require a T turnaround, as shown here, or a cul-de-sac ending.
Cul-de-sacs would be prohibitive to this due to the 40-foot radius that's required.
That cul-de-sac would take up the entire rear triangle, which would effectively make it useless for development.
So this is the design that we went with.
We also have constraints dealing with the water Wissick and Creek buffer to the right-hand side of the plan.
We need to maintain the 200 feet away from the center line of the creek.
We also have steep slopes, as mentioned, on the southern side of this plan, which we are impacting, unfortunately.
We could find no other way of providing a viable development without impacting those steep slopes.
Perfect. And I'm just going to try to expedite this as much as I can.
Were you involved in countless meetings with the community to try and find new designs?
Were you involved in countless meetings with the community to try and find new designs?
Is that right?
I was.
I attended two meetings personally, and I know the development team attended others.
And I also met with a local community member, Daniel, who was an architect with the RCO.
And this is the best design you were able to come up with considering the site constraints without creating more variances?
Yes, this is the best design we can come up with that the developers need as well as desires from the community.
Can you walk me through some of the changes you made as a result of the engagement with the community?
Of course. As you mentioned earlier, the unit count was reduced from 12 down here to 10.
We have increased the rear yards of the units that are closest to Rochelle Avenue.
They have more than a 20-foot rear yard from the rear of house to the property line.
That is to accommodate an existing fence line there.
um as well as provide more space for the homes we've also done the same on the eastern property
line there which with even more space uh we have included sidewalks for pedestrians on both sides
of the street where available there is one portion where we don't have it uh mainly where the steep
slopes are we have included the raised pedestrian crosswalks as mentioned uh something to slow
traffic uh to prevent you know high speeds going through here while pedestrians are walking um
what else have we done and are you also aware that the agreement with the community um does not
permit there to be any roof decks or pilot houses uh i believe that was discussed but not something
that i was directly involved with okay um and i i want to just keep this moving um so in some you
did it whenever you could in order to find a way to not generate more refusals and work with these
10 units that the community wanted? That is correct, yes. Okay. I want to point you to the
refusal. What can you tell me about the steep slopes refusal? So the steep slopes are effective
on the southern side of the site. We have a retaining wall that is necessary to be installed
to keep the driveway in a drivable condition.
The slopes would otherwise call it severe cross slopes.
That is necessary to be installed to allow emergency vehicles to make a safe turn around there with enough sight lines.
So is it correct then that the steep slopes variance primarily relates to this unusual shape
and this pinch point that I'm showing right here on the plans?
That is correct.
We couldn't avoid that steep slope via any forms of development in the site.
And can you also, I'm showing with my cursor here, Unit 9, which is the one closest to the tracks.
Can you tell me about that dimensional variance there?
Yeah, so the rear corner there encroaches into the side yard ever so slightly.
It is my understanding that the configuration of the units had to be uniform,
so we were not able to cut that corner of the unit off to avoid that encroachment.
And the layout changes here, they all relate to this pinch point and how you get access to the rear of the property.
So that the reason for that dimensional variance, would you agree, ties in with the unusual shape of the property?
It does. Yes.
And you agree that there's a hardship to build these 10 units compliant with the code without these variances that are required?
I would agree. Yes, that pinch point is very impactful on designs for the site.
And is your testimony here today given to a reasonable degree of professional