good evening mr chair members of the board steve masters s-t-e-v-e m-a-s-t-e-r-s
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do um could you identify your client in relationship to the property
my client is right here uh ross hennessey and he is the owner of the property and i will note that
have unanimous support from the 12th war democratic committee they do list a proviso but uh our vice
chair has a few questions good evening counsel do you agree to wait to read another refusal or
stipulate towards accuracy i do agree have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits
as needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes we have thank you
council please proceed okay um i need to get you promoted let's see if i share my screen
great there it is amazing to be here after five years of universal
although we have seen you a lot in the last five years i mean yes you have we've seen you a lot we
just never in person. That's true. We are here today to legalize a communal house use,
and we're going to focus a bit in a short while about what this aspect of group living is all
about. This property is a 4,000 square foot building with seven bedrooms and five bathrooms
building with seven bedrooms and five bathrooms along with one bedroom and bathroom in the
along with one.
carriage house on the property for a total of eight bedrooms there was no there was no enforcement
action brought against this property but mr hennessy wanted to just put his property into
proper alignment with the zoning code the people who live in this property are living
as any other single-family dwelling,
but there are more people that are unrelated
than are allowed for our zoning code with single-family,
what the definition of single-family is.
This project went before the 12th Ward for the RCL meeting,
and there were, I believe it was 19 near-neighbors
who all appeared and voted strongly in favor.
There was no, not only was there no one voting against,
but there was not a crossword
or any kind of misgiving at all.
The people who live in this house
have been just a stellar
and an amazing asset to the neighborhood,
which was just attested to by all of the neighbors.
So it's a wonderful place.
And that is confirmed by the unanimous support of the RCO and the neighbors.
Let me put to, are we, oh, I'm still sharing, but I'm not.
Great, all right, exhibit one is our referral.
We're not asking for a variance here,
we're asking for a special exception.
Group living is a special exception approval
in the RSA 3 Residential Zoning District.
Exhibit 2 are the petitions that were brought around
by Ross to his neighbors explaining
that there are seven off-street parking
spaces that are for the use of all the
housemates in the house. There's no change at all
to the building or the current tenants, and it's just to legalize. We have
31 petitions of support out of 66 total addresses. So that's a very impressive showing of support.
I wanted to highlight, though, two of the letters that were sent in for support in addition to the
petitions. One of them is from Lindsay Stokely, who says in her letter in the highlighted section,
the house itself functions somewhat like an organized family. Each person or couple has
their own room in common areas like the kitchen, living room, dining room, and yards are shared.
Everyone adds their touch. There are regular house meetings, systems for communication and chores,
and often regular sharing of meals and other expenses. In an increasingly isolated world,
this type of living provides community and connection. I lived with people who spent 10
years or more there, and I made lifelong friends. The next letter that I wanted to just call your
attention to is from Amanda Staples. She says that when she moved to the neighborhood, she lived at
5318 Bainton, and that was where Ross Hennessey lived before he moved into the other communal
house next door. 12 of us carved out a life together in that enormous house, enjoying our
private spaces, coming together in common areas, sharing food together, celebrating milestones
generally existing as individuals with a strong sense of mutual care and support. Other friends
have moved in on the block in the years since, and together we've created a sort of village,
really a semi-shared lifestyle centered around the notion that none of us are alone, that pooling
resources, financial, emotional, spiritual, practical, makes us more resilient and enriches
our day-to-day lives. Why am I highlighting these passages? Because what I want to focus on now is
the proviso that we are suggesting to the board and why we don't support the proviso.
suggesting to the board and how and and why we don't support the proviso uh the the the temporary
zoning uh proviso that um the council member bass um is proposing with with the rco so uh
this um this page is is it doesn't seem like it's there it is okay i guess there's a little lag time
Our proposed proviso is to ensure the neighbors that this group living will never become anything other than what it is now, which is communal living use.
So we are excluding explicitly fraternity, sorority, personal care home, and temporary overnight shelter uses.
Those are all specified as subuses under group living in the zoning code.
and we want to limit it to a group of persons living as a single household unit using housekeeping
facilities in common. And why we are using that exact language is because of the next section
here, the zoning code's definition of family is a person living independently or a group of persons
living as a single household unit using housekeeping facilities in common. It goes on to add in that
definition, but it can't include more than three persons who are unrelated by blood,
marriage, adoption, or foster child status, or are not life partners. Now, the courts have been
looking at this question over time. We've had an evolution in our society about who is part of a
family, who can get married to who. When the zoning code was made in the 1930s, and then even
updated in 2012, we still have had an evolving notion about it. Rathkoff's Law of Zoning and
Planning is one of the major treatises for zoning, and I'm going to be talking about a Supreme Court
of Pennsylvania case called Albert versus Zoning Hearing Board. First, they quote from Rathkoff,
And they say, many courts have used the so-called functional family standard by considering whether the group who's living in this house possesses a family-like structure of household authority, functions as a relatively stable and integrated housekeeping unit, and whether the living arrangement is consistent with or likely to impact negatively the residential character of the neighborhood.
That court, our Supreme Court back in 2001, said that when they looked at this definition of who is a family, we conclude that in order to qualify as a single housekeeping unit, a group of individuals in a single household must not only function as a family within that household, but in addition, the composition of the group must be stable sufficiently and permanent so not to be purely transient.
What this Supreme Court case was talking about was that it's going beyond the definition
of people who are married to each other with children.
There was a court case before that where there were foster kids who weren't considered part
of the family because they weren't biologically related to the parents and they weren't officially
adopted.
And the court said, no, they're being treated like a family.
In this case, and Ross will testify shortly, this house acts as a family much more than
many other families that would always be considered a family where just because people are married
and have a family doesn't mean they actually are connected in any kind of positive way.
It just happens that hopefully that happens more often than not.
In this case, we believe that this really does constitute the definition of a single
family house and putting a temporary variance on something that is essentially a single
family house is a complete overreaction, we believe, to a situation where 100% of the
community loves this house, loves this project, and they're just an asset in many, many ways
to the community.
So let's look at the photos.
We had photos.
uh ross took photos and it wasn't necessarily um uh some people weren't weren't um this is
candid photos they're they're not they're not staged in terms of being completely pristine
um ross will you show us uh tell us what we're looking at here oh yeah sure so why don't you
state your name. My name is Ross.
Spell it for the stenographer, okay?
Thank you, Tim.
Keep right from the mic.
All right. State your name and spell it for the stenographer.
My name is Ross Hennessy,
R-O-S-S-H-E-N-N-E-S-Y.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth?
Great. Do you swear
or affirm the tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? I do. Please proceed,
I do. Please proceed, Steve. Sure. Ross, what are we looking at in this first photo?
Steve.
This is the third floor bedroom. It has a sort of L shape. So it has like a little living room.
And then we'll see the bed. The next photo, I think. This is the bed here.
No, that's his couch. Oh, OK. Keep going.
There we go. Excuse me. I'm sorry. This is the court reporter. Could you please keep your voices up a bit? Thank you.
you just got to get closer to the mics oh okay sure
is this a different room no that's the third floor bedroom okay sorry if i took too many photos here
all right
this is a second floor bedroom um there's a there's a couple a partnered couple and this is her studio
uh and then they have one of the larger master bedrooms together
what kind of a studio is that uh she's an artist that makes fabric art mostly um but also dances
it still can still can barely hear you
is it me or ross i think it's just kind of stay close all right yeah and and this is just one of
the one of the bathrooms on the third floor again um that one is no that's the second floor okay
one of the second floor bathrooms what are we looking at here um also in a bedroom
oh that actually there's the care this is the carriage house sorry okay so this is in the
carriage house um the bathroom also yeah the bathroom was okay and then the bed is on a loft
above the first floor living area
This is Joey from the...
This is the carriage house.
It's still the carriage house, okay.
And this view is...
They have like a large
front porch and then you walk in and it's
living room and kitchen kind of area.
This is the carriage house.
That's the front of the house.
That's the side of the house with the
parking lot.
There were all the parking spaces right here.
and this this um structure here
um that's the carriage house from the from the backyard okay and this is the rear porch of the
main house sorry there's just a lag so oh okay yeah that's the the rear porch of the main house
okay there's actually two porches there's a screened in porch on the right and then there's
an open porch on the left okay yeah there is a live time
how many people live here there's um there's seven of us in the main house and then there's a
there's a couple that lives in the carriage house so nine total right essentially one one per bedroom
plus the what's the total square footage of the property four thousand square feet that's the
kitchen i actually yeah the kitchen is sort of designed to both host you know people hanging
out and and cooking and at the same time it flows pretty nice for a shared kitchen
this is um the living room
this is the main staircase there's actually two staircases
in the house that's the the grand staircase i guess
that's the first floor foyer when you walk in all the bicycles are stored there and
that's some of the art on the right that i was saying that she makes oh okay
Steve, I think we don't have to identify
every room.
There's a musician who has a lot of great
music.
There's a lot of art that goes on in this house.
I'm sorry. You said there were seven people in the main
house and how many in this carriage house?
There's one couple that lives together in the carriage house.
What's the largest amount of people that lived in the house at one time?
This is the most that's ever lived there.
Is there any more you plan on moving in?
And are there children in the home too?
There was when it first started.
when it first started uh it was it was a two couples with kids that started the house um
It was two couples.
but they uh bought the house next door to it and so they moved into that um so right now it's all
people without children and you share one kitchen one yeah one kitchen well there's a kitchen in the
carriage house too so i guess so there's two kitchens you're saying there's yes one kitchen
in the main house one kitchen in the in the carriage house only the people that's living
in the carriage house is using the carriage house though right or is it correct folks coming over
okay no the people that live in the carriage house it's sort of a separate it's like their
separate house is a unit of itself i don't know how to i don't talk about that we we we describe
it as it's all it's all one shared okay shared house so so we're not it's we're not saying it's
a separate unit the the people in the carriage house spend no they spend time in the main house
You just said they don't go to the carriage house and utilize the facilities that's inside
of the carriage house. The people in the carriage house come to the main house. Nobody else used the
carriage house and the carriage house has a restroom and a kitchen. The carriage house has
a restroom and a kitchen. And no one else used that but the folks that lived there. Am I correct?
That is correct. But it's one lease. It's not a lease as a separate unit.
yeah okay i guess a couple questions i have one uh is mr hennessy living in the house currently
yes yes and have you lived in the house continuously the whole time so that there's
two communal houses side by side okay there's also a large farm um that is attached to it
i lived in the other house next door um i had to sell that one and then i moved i moved into this
house um and i've been there four years five years i want to say and how long have you owned it and
how long has it has i guess how long has it been operating as a group home since 2011 since 2011
okay um and then for the other people that live in the house what is the structure that ties them