but the truth yes please proceed mr whalen hello mr montabano uh you are the registrar architect
for this project? Yes. Please, the board, I'm happy to go through with Mr. Montabano his
extensive credentials, but I'm also happy to stipulate if the board will accept him as an
expert. Please stipulate to your architect as being an expert. And is your intention, Mr. Whalen,
to walk us through all this? Or I'm just wondering, it might be easier if we have any questions from
the board uh i i will have uh adam just describe the project uh briefly and then we'll ask for any
questions thank you um and then there's just one diagram i will be walking through with him
um so mr montalbano uh you see here what you've designed um the board if you could just give a
brief synopsis of what your your overall thought and plan was here uh sure just uh in brief uh as
as you mentioned, Sean, that these homes are two signature style designs for the Northern
Liberties neighborhood. One is a corner facing property and one is more of an infill condition,
but the owner tasked us with developing a project that would have a significant,
you know, sort of lasting design on the neighborhood in the community,
um specifically northern liberties being a progressive uh and uh influential um architectural
neighborhood um and that this was uh something that um uh seemed uh considerable and appropriate
there um as uh mr willin mentioned uh we presented the board or presented the project to the northern
Liberties Neighborhood Association. It was met with a very good response. The design features
large windows along the north and the east facades, both street-facing facades.
In the floor plans, yeah, you can go back just one page, Sean. Great, thanks. In the floor plans,
And you can see the ground floor has the parking, which has been reduced from a two-car garage
to a one-car garage at the request of the Neighborhood Association.
The project itself is built essentially slab on grade due to certain soil conditions that
are in this location.
And that pushes the general planning of the house up a floor.
So we have the main living space on the second floor and then additional bedroom space on
the third and fourth floor the building has roof decks which again have been set back at the request
of neighborhood association they were at the standard five foot setback along both
Oriana and Wilde we've reduced that size to be eight feet to be respectful to you know concerns
about sightline or you know anything that the neighborhood had again that was at their request
one other mention is that the pilot house design on this project is as small as we
uh as small as we could possibly make it uh the pilot house itself the roof deck access structure
could possibly make it the pilot house itself the roof deck
is only there to uh enclose the elevator and in a small uh sort of lobby space just to uh weather
protect that door the uh the stairs uh themselves are open uh and that was intentionally done as
well to just make that as small as possible to be as unobstructive to anybody's views as as possible
And Mr. Montalbano, just to help this along, I'm showing the last page here, which has
the sight lines of an individual standing across the street.
And as you've indicated, there's no ability of an individual on the street level to see
any of the roof deck activities or the pilot house in this location, correct?
That's correct.
And that's what this drawing specifically indicates.
It shows the width of Wildey and both Oriana at the city plan widths and shows a simple
line diagram just to indicate that anything above the main cornice line would not be visible from
the street. Okay. All right. At this time, I'm just going to walk you through one diagram that
I asked you to prepare for us. And if you could just give a description of what this document is
and its importance uh sure this this document is uh just a diagram uh across willie street
uh with respect to and sean you can fill in on the address i apologize i i don't uh remember that on
the top of my head um sure so i'll jump i'll jump in mr montalbano to get some context and you can
fill in where i missed so uh board members what you can see here is an atlas image satellite view of
an overlay of our two properties here. That's the center line. This dark gray here is what
would be the roof decks. And what we wanted to provide in this lower diagram schematic
is any indication and the extent to which we attempted to prevent sight line issues with
other homes. Obviously, anytime somebody has a new home being built, sight lines are going
to change um but here uh specifically uh 331 west wilde uh would look uh southernly and look
directly at sort of the the far western edge of this uh this property this one would be i think
332 and this one will be listed as 330 i believe when we get new property addresses um so mr
Montabano, could you describe what the diagram on the left shows? The diagram on the left just shows
essentially a comparison of a by-right typical standard row home at 38 feet with a 42-inch
parapet wall around the perimeter, which is fairly standard, you know, by-right construction
in the city, basically just showing both of those roof surfaces being in line with each other
across Willoughby Street. Right, and so as you said that the, and as we discussed, we're getting
into one of the refusals here. We had a roof line of 43 feet, three and three quarters inches,
and we've reduced that down to 41 feet in coordination with the neighborhood,
but our 41 feet, we have no parapet, is that correct? That's correct. The design of these
homes was intentionally not to have a parapet to minimize the the overall mass and and while on
paper a building maybe 38 feet once you actually see the parapet on there which could be at least
42 inches in some cases higher depending on where the roof deck is set that parapet can be quite
high so the intent here was to actually have the roof deck be the roof surface and to minimize any
parapet obstruction as much as possible, specifically on this project by having an
open railing and setting it further back. And we actually agreed with the neighborhood to
make the railing no longer open, but actually make it more opaque, actually 75%, correct?
That's correct. We initially had a completely open, transparent railing. It was actually at
the request of the Neighborhood Association to make the railing more opaque, which seems
counterintuitive to building massing and having it be as minimal and invisible as possible. But
it was something we accommodated at their request. Okay. So right now we have a 41 foot overall
height, which is also going to be the height of our roof deck, as you stated. And what is allowed
by right, if you had a 38 foot height by right, how high off of that could you build your roof deck
by right? You're allowed an additional 40 feet, I'm sorry, four feet above the
You're allowed an additional 40 feet, I'm sorry, four feet above the roof structure,
according to the zoning code 14-6045B.
You're allowed at four feet above the actual structure surface of 38.
So that would put the surface of the roof deck at a maximum of 42 feet.
That roof deck then could certainly have a parapet or some kind of solid railing,
um certainly up to 42 inches high so that that could put a by right building with a roof deck
with a general mass of approximately 45 foot six inches okay so now looking at the the view angle
on the right hand side this is showing our proposed building and uh this is actually 331
west will do across the street uh what is the distance between the two uh roof decks
it's a little small on this but I believe it's close to 50 feet it's about 48 foot seven I
believe it is if I can see yeah I have it zoomed up on mine so yes I'm wearing my glasses too so
so at this at this distance with these sight lines do you in your expert opinion see any
demonstrable uh impact of the slightly higher overall roof height on our proposed building
as to what could be done by right no and and and frankly i think they're they're really very
similar and in some cases as just mentioned the by right it could potentially be even higher than
this so i think at a distance of 50 feet there's really minimal minimal difference in sightliner
view if anything at all all right thank you very much mr montobano that's all i have for you at
this moment. Sure, thank you. So to finish up for the board, you know, we've walked through most of
the issues. We have three refusals, one of which being front-loading parking. That is a condition
throughout the neighborhood. We actually believe it's beneficial to the neighborhood because it
is removing cars that would otherwise go on the street, and it is also not removing any
currently accessible street parking spots we also walked through already the so the rear property
line that we were talking about is actually if you're looking at it here this would be the rear
property line so we will have a back deck here but again that wall that we were showing is a solid
wall on the property line that can't have any windows so the only impact of light and air
is to ourselves in our own project and therefore negligible and then finally we just walked through
in maybe too much detail the refusal with regard to height we did lessen it per the requirements
and the requests of NLNA, I think quite reasonably, they wanted it a little bit reduced.
We came down below what is otherwise allowed by Wright, so I would argue that it is
negligible height difference and or de minimis. And not insignificantly, everyone in the city
knows all of the issues going on with underpinning and the safety concerns. One of the items that
the owner was considering in doing this is if in order to be by right on height at 38 feet which
would really only be another three feet we'd have to dig down a basement and put the parking
underground that puts a ramp which carves up the pedestrian walkway and it also would require
underpinning the entirety of that condo development at 944 North Oriana Street which
just seems like a risk not worth taking weighed in light of a three-foot increase in height,
which, again, we would argue is de minimis and or negligible.
So at this point, I'll rest for now. I would just ask, Mr. Montalbano, did you hear all of
the testimony that I provided today? Yes, I did. And in addition to your own testimony,
obviously, was my testimony true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief? Yes.
and would you adopt it as your own yes thank you well how many pages revised plan
the revised plan is four pages thank you questions from sorry chairman i cut you off i was just going
to ask if the board had any questions for mr montalbano no no questions no anyone else who
would like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand and i'll swear you in
Mr. DeChico just very quick our chairman DeChico just very quickly I'd like to introduce Steve
Rodriguez on behalf of the ownership group please bring him on Mr. Rodriguez when you get on
Mr. Rodriguez, when you get on, please spell your first and last name and I'll swear you in.
please spell your first and last name
Hold on a second, Mr. Malekki, you're looking, uh,
Mr. Rodriguez, hold on a second.
mr rodriguez you have been uh promoted to panelist
amy i'll mute your microphone and let the chairman sway you in
hello my name is stephen rodriguez uh spelled s-t-e-p-h-e-n-r-o-d-r-i-g-u-e-z
and i'm going to affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Mr. Rodriguez, you're here on behalf of the owner today?
And you are the owner and the applicant, I should say, correct?
Correct. I'm the managing member of the applicant.
All right. And you heard all of the testimony that I presented today?
And was it true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?
And would you adopt it as your own?
uh finally is there anything else that you think i might have missed that you would like to add
no i think you covered it pretty thoroughly um i think adam did a great job as well
all right thank you very much uh chairman uh i offer mr rodriguez for any questioning that
the board might have questions from the board no no anyone else would like to testify in this case
if so please raise your hand yes chair we have two hands raised
alexander you can now unmute yourself in alexander please identify yourself with
a record name and address spell your name for us please
you have to unmute yourself
you need to unmute yourself
apologies for that
please spell your full name
and spell it it's uh it's a l e x a n d e r m e l e c k i and your address it's 331 west
willie street that's right you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
yes sir so does that barking dog in the background no problem please proceed perfect uh so so thank
you for thank you for the time and I I've actually submitted a bit more robust argument so I'm happy
to walk through any points of that which the board has questions on but but at this point as a as a
future neighbor of the development I'm actually the occupant of along with my wife of 331 West
Bloody Street, which is the house that was reviewed in such detail with regard to the
sight lines in the last section of the prior presentation, wanted to voice objection to
the roof height-related variance on a few grounds. First, I think, as we've heard through the
testimony, the desire for a 41-foot roof height is reliant on the notion that the variance is
de minimis. I think, you know, based on my understanding of common law in Pennsylvania,
this is meant to be an extraordinarily rare exception that should be approved, and not just
approved due to the fact that there's been a design choice by the architect that drives the
desire to build a tall house or the tallest house on the block. So I think it's worth
registering that there are no hardships that are contributing to the high inflated variants
and that this is, in fact, a request for a diminuous variance, which, again, my sense
is from Pennsylvania common law should be seen as quite rare. So maybe I'll dive into
why I don't think this variance is in fact a minimus in just a moment. But before doing so,
wanted to touch on the fact that we had reviewed just now, Mr. Whale and Mr. Montalbano had
reviewed a diagram of what the, I guess what I should presume a stick figure standing on my
A stick figure standing on my my rooftop would look like looking across the street at the at a 41 foot rooftop.
rooftop would look like looking across the street.
Actually, after after corresponding with Mr. Whelan, I've been promised I've been promised a diagram like this on, I believe, October 1st and had followed up a number of times asking for it and received it this morning.
And in fact, the diagram is not accurate. It shows my rooftop with a setback of 10 feet, which is inaccurate.
I provided information that my rooftop has a setback of five feet.
And so at a minimum, I think it would have been, at a minimum, I would say that it should be a requirement for neighborhood residents to be able to receive timely responses and help understanding what the design will look like.
and also to receive accurate drawings
before we go ahead and approve
any sort of major construction projects
in variance to the local code.
But I think relative to the height of the dust.
Mr. Malika, I need to interrupt.
Were you in attendance at any of the RCO meetings?
I was able to join the first one,
but I was not aware of the second one.
I have corresponded back and forth with,
or I had a phone call with Mr. Whalen on October 1st to voice my opposition and then followed up
the email a number of times, only receiving one response in that process and then one email this
morning. So I don't mean this to be critical. So you did not attend the second meeting where I'm
assuming, Mr. Whalen can correct me, where the modifications that took place or were agreed to.
Let me one at a time, please. So you're not aware of those until today. Is that what you're saying?
So I am I am aware that they reduced the proposed height based on feedback from the zoning board.
I am not a member of the Northern Liberty Zoning Board and so did not have a voting matter in the same.
But I did not join the I did not join that meeting.
Mr. Chairman, I think I can clear this up for you pretty easily. I'm not sure if a member from the NLNA board is here to present and support their letter. There was one public meeting that was duly noticed.
Mr. Malaki was in attendance at that meeting. All the issues were raised. What is presented now was presented. The original project was presented. The NLNA process is then that it takes that public meeting and gives it to its board.