have another meeting scheduled for this Thursday.
I am optimistic, cautiously optimistic,
that they will work out the final details so we can resolve this uh case so that is why there is
that they will work out the final details
so we can resolve this.
no packet and that is why we are asking for continuance thank you so without any objection
mi 2021-001115 7037 ogons avenue is continued thank you very much enough of that i will leave
you thank you anyone else requesting a continuance or withdrawal please raise your hand
chair we have paul curtis please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
good afternoon mr curtis please identify yourself with a record and i'll swear you in
hi this is paul curtis i'm the uh applicant for 4363 the attorney for the applicant i mean i mean
i am the attorney for the applicant for 4363 pain street last name please
Curtis C-U-R-T-I-S
Do you swear if I'm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth
This is the fourth listing sir
What is the problem we're having here
I apologize
This has basically just been an issue
and I will be forthright
it's been mostly on my end
as far as just coordinating things
though I do have a better handle on it
And I do under think, I am very cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to handle things for the next listing.
I don't anticipate any other continuances if I get this one, sir.
This is rather unusual.
We'll continue this case as a must be heard.
MI 2020-000299, 436 Street, Main Street is continued.
Must be heard.
Thank you, sir.
Anyone else requesting a continuance or withdrawal?
I see no handshare.
Thank you.
First case, number one, MI 2021-000979.
2003 North 9th Street.
Daniel Auerbach is the attorney of record.
we have not at least as of yet i believe not received a letter from the rco
he's not in attendance at least not under his name chair and there's no hands
Oh, hands are up. MI 2021-000979-2003 North 9th Street Street. Continued. Must be heard.
Number three on our calendar. MI 2020-0002957-2442 North 20th Street.
ms pritzker is the attorney of record
and according to our notes we've not yet received a letter from the rco
ms pritzker i'm sure will explain that to us
good afternoon hi ms pritzker please identify yourself and i'll swear you in
Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, 1635 Market Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA 19103.
You swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Confessor?
Rachel, you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership,
proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral of photos and plans five days prior to
this, Harry? Yes. And have you met with the RCO and have a letter? We did meet with the RCO. I
don't know if they ever issued us a letter. Okay, thank you. Proceed. Thanks. I want to share my
screen. If also Jeff Owen could be promoted and Brandon Saverin. Jeff is the architect and
Brandon is my colleague who's worked with me on this matter. So basically this is 2442 North 20th
Street. It's an existing structure and basically what we're here for is a refusal just for
multifamily use for three units in an existing structure. I'll go into it in more detail but
this property is 2700 square feet with an existing structure of almost 2200 square feet according to
the Office of Property Assessment. It's also directly adjacent to multi-family uses at 2240
and 2438 North 20th Street. There's also about 15 vacant lots
38 North 20th Street. There's also about 15 vacant lots on this block. So
the most of the community that we spoke to after two RCO meetings that we had,
we're happy to see something done. This property was zoned RM1 up until 2014. As you can see on
your screen. This is an extremely large, deep property that's oddly shaped in the back.
As I mentioned, this is an existing structure. There was a fire in 2014 that damaged a significant
amount of the interior of this property, as you can see from the photos. My client purchased
this property in 2020 in an effort to rehab this existing structure, add on to the back
of it as it again doesn't take up even close to anywhere near the lot coverage ability
for even RSA 5 and to restore this existing structure to its former glory as again it
had operated and is laid out as a three unit building since at least 1961.
one. The only reason that the permit lapsed or that it's we can't do this by right is because
given the fire that occurred, I believe a vacant structure license was put on the building and that
the use was not, you know, rehabbed or renovated up until we our client purchased it in 2020.
So again, the proposal is to restore this existing fire, fire damaged building and put three units.
Again, it's almost a 2,200-square-foot building on an almost 3,000-square-foot lot.
And as you can see, the existing structure is quite large.
The comprehensive plan for this area had this zoned as multifamily up until 2014.
So had that remained in place, we would not be in front of the board today.
Again, I had mentioned there's 15 vacant lots on the block.
and the comprehensive plan highlights the fact that there is scarcity of new rental units in
this area. I just want to show the history I'd mentioned to the board that the building had
been utilized since 1961 as three-family, and that's the zoning permit that you have in front
of you here. We met with the North Central Philadelphia Susquehanna Community Development
Corporation at actually two meetings. The first meeting was March 1st, in which we had a pretty
good conversation with the community. There were a lot of folks that were concerned about
crime and trash and blight and really wanting to see something done with this property.
Most of the conversation subsequent to that was really about construction and whether our GC had
had experience doing renovations and additions, so much so that our GC met with the head of
the community group to show her projects that he had done. And then ultimately we got, we
were told that we didn't have support for the project. We had another meeting that I
believe my colleague and I split up attending each of them. And then we had tried to reach
out to Ms. Tina Marie a number of times as evidenced in the packet and on the screen
to try to set up another meeting to try to obtain, you know, a more, I guess, favorable vote
insofar as when we had actually talked to those who lived on the block, you know, they were
concerned about having this property cleaned up and were excited to see something being done with
it. And obviously knew from its history that it had been multifamily. A lot of what we received
from Tina Marie, which I believe is here, which is the letter she provided, was two in support,
one on the committee opposed nine, five were affected, not affected. And again, like only 12
people had showed up for the meeting. And a lot of the conversations and concerns, as you can see,
was related to the addition of the building, which is completely by right as we go through
the plans we're not asking for any dimensional refusals we're not asking to add on to height
we're just asking for three units and the addition of the building in order to make it
a little bit more conducive to how large the lot is and for some modern living space for
some more affordable or price conscious housing again basically a lot of the conversation was
around the addition of the property, which is why we sent out our GC. So I appreciate that,
you know, they want to have single family housing. I don't know that there was a lot
I don't know that there was a lot of consideration to the fact that this was a triplex for decades and also that other concerns related to parking.
of consideration to the fact that this is what
If you do a, you know, 2200 square foot single family home with five or six bedrooms, there's no guarantee that you're going to have any less issues with parking.
I also don't think that that's really even viable in this neighborhood.
As you can see, there's 15 vacant properties in the block.
I just also want to bring to the board's attention that when you request the variance,
obviously we're not required to establish the property is useless without the variance.
Basically, we are asking the board to consider the prohibitive costs of redeveloping the
property, the configuration of the property, the surrounding uses, the state of disrepair,
the length of vacancy again this property has been vacant since at least 2014 when there was a fire
there's significant costs associated with bringing it up instead of just demolishing it trying to
keep this structure in place and also again it was formerly three units so trying to utilize
some of that existing structure on the inside and the layout of it as well so that's what we're
we're here asking the board for is just a use variance for three families so it can continue
the same use that it's had since at least 1961. I have Jeff Owen here who is our architect or
sorry I think it's Alex Deller on this project I apologize. Alex Deller is the architect here who
can quickly go through the the plans and then I believe there are some folks from the community
to speak on this project as well.
Mr. Dollar has been promoted to panelists.
Mr. Dollar, please spell your full name
and I'll square you in.
Alex Dollar, A-L-E-X, D as in David, U-L-L-E-R.
And FUSA Designs, 622 North 3rd Street,
philadelphia pa 19123 do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do thank you miss pritchard alex if you want to share your screen i just want you to go through
the plans with the board and specifically the unit sizes um i obviously had mentioned this is a
20 120 square foot lot which obviously can hold way more than three units um but just want to
show what we're proposing and um you know the sizes of the units that we're providing which
I believe are very generous um given how large the property is yes so so Rachel kind of went
through all of the that fun stuff um when we met with the owner Byron he he wanted to make
actual livable units. He had another architect do some plans based on utilizing the existing
building, but the existing building is kind of hatched out here in gray, and the new addition
is kind of with the triangle pattern. But the existing building, you would wind up with very
small units um very minimal living space minimal just minimal everything um it was very very tight
and he wanted to actually wind up having units that would be rentable and usable and you know
access to the outdoors so we had us put decks on the rear things things along them those lines um
i think rachel already showed this lot is unusually large it's pretty much twice the size of
any of the largest lots in the neighborhood so putting on this addition isn't really
yeah it once again it is not a dimensional you know variance um little shots of the street that
we showed to the neighborhood here excuse me mr dollar could you go back to that other there's
other photographs uh yeah where the empty lot is that's where you're proposing to
no it's directly adjacent to it it's the uh chairman it's the existing structure directly
to the left that vacant lot um is is just a vacant lot it's actually owned by our client as well but
it's not uh it's not relevant to this um appeal thank you but do you the existing building that
you're looking to uh renovate into a triplex how does that compare in terms of square footage to
the adjacent properties in its existing state um it's it's of similar size to the existing
it's of similar size to the existing properties there are a few i think if we
properties there are a few i think if we
rachel earlier pulled up like the uh google shot there are a few buildings that are larger than
our building and there's ones that are basically the same size as our building all right thank you
um across the street you can see there those are two-story structures but this entire block
It was all three-story structures, bigger buildings, pretty much completely consistent.
Some other shots, you can see the building is not in good shape at all.
Basically we're only able to keep the brick walls, which Byron wanted to do.
So here are the plans themselves.
the idea is basically to utilize the existing building so we come in long hallway and then
provide a nice large unit here on the first floor with kind of some office space in the basement
kind of playing off of the demands currently with COVID and things like that a lot of people
working from home we have direct access of that space to the backyard go up a floor and
we have a nice two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit with a nice-sized living room. If we zoom in here,
basically 193 square feet, 13 feet long, 14 feet wide, all of which, like, basically wouldn't be
old existing building. It was a very, it was a tight one-bedroom. The kitchen was on top of
the living room and we didn't wind up with like a delineation of space um so each unit
is over a thousand square feet um you know oftentimes i've had clients with units of this
size try to squeeze the third bedroom in that is not our intention like we have nice nice two bedroom
two bath units so third floor is identical pretty much identical to the second floor
sections elevations nothing and then back to how big how big is our rear yard just so the
board can understand how far away we even are from the rear property line with with the addition
so so our rear yard on the shallow end is almost 68 feet deep
um the actual coverage of this lot is proposed building footprint we're only covering 46.8
percent of the lot so we have 53.2 as our open space so the addition that we're proposing isn't
even as large of an addition or it's large of a building as the lot of this size would allow
We just basically want to rehab this building, put it back to its former use with a modern, you know, usable apartment on each floor.
Excuse me, this is Sharon. Can I ask one question?
Mr. Deller, the revised plans that you submitted include the addition of rear decks at two levels.
Do you have an opinion as to whether those would generate any additional variances?
those would not because the they are by right you're allowed to have a deck in the rear yard
um as long as it isn't within the nine foot setback minimum setback of the rear yard
we obviously are in that case 62 feet from the rear yard and that updated
So we have a four foot a four by ten roughly deck on the second and third floors. Four foot by nine
foot seven and that's because the first floor unit obviously can walk out into this backyard
the upper floors do not have direct access to the backyard. And one more question if the board
should approve um should grant the variances the revised plans are two pages is that correct
um should only be this one page okay thank you
thank you
mr dollar do you have you uh concluded yes um i think i've gone through if you guys have any
questions i can flip to any of those pages and get to that miss pritzker you have anyone else
Yeah, I have the client on, Byron Watson, and I believe there are members of the community.
um i just wanted to go ahead let's get your client to adopt your testimony then we'll move on but