and that's Falls Ridge, the existing building.
These are existing homes back here.
And this is Palisades, the road that comes off
kind of catty corner from us.
And I think, let me show a better.
so where i'm showing right now is right here so falls ridge is right here with its parking lot
and our property starts just past palisades and cuts this way
so this starts to give you an idea i'm walking up merrick these are the existing conditions
with the growth on our side, the existing building, the medians, and this starts to
show you the significant incline that goes back up from Ridge Avenue.
This is still all of our property. These are the homes at the top of the hill
that are existing and occupied, and again, just sort of working our way up the hill to see the
full site conditions. And here's the final property. I'm standing essentially to my right
is the exact property line where our property ends. And then you can see the elevation change
from ridge, which is down at the bottom. Now, it should be noted. It is not clear if you're looking
at the site individually, but there is this, again, the serpentine property that circles back
behind us. Our property, essentially right from our property going up, this is a significant
elevation change. The existing townhomes are built up here. That's what will be referred to
as the Westrom development. That was also developed in coordination with PHA, as were the houses over
here we are approximately 75 feet away up a hill from those properties at the nearest point
so moving along we have submitted a traffic and planning report which our traffic planner will
get into here are simply photos of the second posting this property was posted for the original
hearing back in June. This is a continued hearing and you can see it was posted twice
on both street frontages along Ridge and Merrick. So here again this is a slide here
which I'll leave as a placeholder for Ronald Glenn our engineer for the project. You can see again
here's the kind of trapezoidal shape of our property coming back here. These are the two
steep slopes that we're talking about. There's a band right through the middle here and a band
right here. And to jump to the final conclusion, this is a CMX3 property that because of the steep
slopes, any CMX3 development would require the disturbance of those steep slopes and therefore
create a hardship for the property. I would object to that. That's just attorney speaking.
I'm an attorney, too, so I don't say that figuratively, but I think that would really...
I'm sure Mr. Whalen will bring in an expert witness to testify to that.
Of course, Chairman Dejico, and I purposely prefaced my comment by stating that it would
be testified to and by my engineer for that purpose. I think it's important to note that
this property was previously zoned RM2, and actually in 2016, bill number 160328 actually
remapped this property. So you can see here, part of that bill, we had CMX 2.5, CMX 2.5 across the
street, and RM2. So this is Kelly Drive, and this is Ridge, RM2 property right here, and this whole
RM-2 property right here, and this whole large property, both the one we're talking about today
large property, both the one.
and that Serpentine property behind us, were RM-2. However, through the public process
and the adoption of this bill in 2016, you can see that the two properties across the street
from us, CMX3 and CMX3 up from CMX2.5. As I said, you'll hear testimony later that those two
properties are already approved for significant development. The Falls Bridge development that
is existing did get upzoned to CMX2.5. And most notably and significantly, our property
right here got up zoned from RM2 all the way to CMX3. You know, this was obviously done as a
public process to rezone large sections of the area. It's not just this area, it's significant
portions of East Falls and Maniunk. And, you know, obviously seeking a certain type of development
or allowing, rather, a certain type of development by upzoning it to CMX3.
That is done in follow-up to what you're looking at, I will represent, is page 86 of the Lower
Northwest 2035 plan that was created and adopted by the Planning Commission in 2014 through another
public process. And again, here's the property that we're talking about, 4401 Ridge. The dark
red is the color in the Philadelphia zoning code of CMX3. And you have the two CMX3 properties
next to us. And then this sort of lighter red pink color is CMX2.5. This is the Falls Ridge
property. So in line with all of this, I will now go back to what we proposed.
So our project originally started as, and I will say, suggest the density and massing. The massing
has changed but the density has not. This is a project for five stories along Ridge Avenue
which will actually be shorter in height than the existing Falls Ridge property or either of the two
new buildings that are already approved across the street and we did that purposely. What you
can see quite significantly is we have approximately 420 feet of street frontage along Ridge Avenue
and approximately 220 feet of street frontage along Merrick Road. Now the design that you see
here, and I'll get to a better rendering of it, leaves open a significant portion of the Ridge
avenue street frontage and that was done on purpose because what you could do is create a
large cavernous effect here as the board is aware in the cmx3 zoning district there's no height
restriction and the only limitation to development is really floor area ratio of 500 percent that
would allow on approximately the 82 000 square foot property that we have this extremely over
large property, over 400 apartment units by right. My client didn't think that that was an
appropriate development for this site. Is that considered the steep slopes requirement?
And back down from the totality of allowing it. Again, no development of any CMX3 commensurate
project can be built on this site without disturbing the steep slopes they actually
that banner that I showed that runs through the project is right about here right through the
middle and runs all the way down angling towards Ridge Avenue so this project is purposely tried
to be tiered like plates stacking on each other going back and what you can see here so this is
the first project design that EFCC and the community saw in January of this year.
They, at the zoning committee, they made some comments to us, requested us to make some changes.
We did so, and we came back for a second meeting, which was explained to me was our voting meeting
by EFCC Zoning Committee President Hillary Zank.
EFCC Zoning Committee President Hillary and Langer. I'm sorry, I said Zanger, didn't I?
I apologize, Hillary. Hillary Langer. And so we then went and we had actually a pretty good
meeting, both good turnouts. I would guess about 30 to 35 people at the second EFCC meeting that
we had. I understand and I don't want to misrepresent. The vote here, the official vote
comes from the committee itself, not from the general public. I know a lot of RCOs do it that
way. But there was a general public vote taken at that time. Not a vote, sort of a temperature of
the room taken at that time, which was 12 to 8 in favor, as is for support, with another 14
individuals who were on the Zoom meeting saying that they would support the project if certain
aesthetic changes were made, but they didn't like this aesthetic change. So what has happened
since then is, again, multiple meetings. EFCC thought it appropriate to have another meeting
with more neighbors that they thought might not have attended the first meeting.
We did that, got generally the same feedback that they wanted aesthetic changes
and had other density parking and traffic questions here.
We are doing 185 units with approximately one-to-one parking.
um we actually only have a parking requirement of 56 parking spaces basically one third of the
units it's a three to ten parking ratio required uh however we are providing um approximately a
one-to-one ratio and we're doing that specifically because we recognize that in east falls uh this
will be more of a commuter neighborhood than say something in south philly where more people may
be walking or fewer people using cars. We are working with the other new developments on a
kind of group system to shuttle people to the trains. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I have an
objection. Mr. Whelan has witnesses. We should get to those witnesses. I am not stipulating that he
can just give this case and then ask his witness, do you agree with everything I said? This is a
a hotly contested matter and I would like us to rely on the witnesses. I don't mind giving him a
little bit of leeway, but he's now discussing our processes and all sorts of things. I assume his
client is on the call and I would suggest that we move into the substance and that this opening
argument be wrapped up. I'll meet you halfway. I'd suggest to Mr. Willing that if you can summarize
because we will be hearing a lot of your testimony
or folks who are testifying in support.
Of course, and I've certainly been
trying to go as quickly as possible
in order to get to the witnesses.
Let me just see what else I can check off.
Oh, I do apologize.
I didn't show.
We do have the letter.
Madam Chair, I forget if you stated
that you saw this letter or not.
this is the EFF, East Falls Forward letter in support with 86% in favor. And we do have a
support letter from, granted, not an RCO, but the East Falls CDC that was resoundingly in support.
And my understanding, just for the chairs, is that both of those entities have representatives
who will be attending today to state whatever their positions are.
Mr. Whalen, I believe this is, correct me if I'm wrong,
Councilman Jones' district?
Yes, it is, actually.
Do we have any correspondence from the Councilman's office?
To my knowledge, there is no correspondence from the Councilman's office.
Maybe they'll weigh in verbally.
Yeah, my understanding was they would weigh in verbally if they had a position.
But that actually was that you bring me, Chairman, to the final point that I wanted to make, which was the councilman, Councilman Jones, actually seeing a bit of a logjam here and had a meeting.
Again, we're purchasing this property from PHA, and PHA is selling this at an open bid process and selected our bid.
But the councilman hosted a meeting between...
But the councilman hosted a meeting between ATAPCO Properties, EFCC, and PHA, at which I thought we really turned a corner and saw some of the movement you saw.
um this chart is relevant in that this is the indication asked for by pha and the councilman's
office for us to show as of the end of april all of our communications with the various community
organizations um just so that you can see the extent to which we were attempting to do this
um so with that i will uh call my first witness unless uh the board has any questions for me
any questions from the board at this time no no no no mr chairman uh in that case i would request
that i can call uh michael brawler from umbra mr chairman would would you rather i give my opening
now or at the beginning of my presentation i think we're maybe at the beginning of your presentation
thank you thank you
mr parlor you can unmute yourself and please wait for the chair
okay i unmuted myself good morning sir please identify yourself spell your full name and i'll
swear you in my name is michael brailler last name spelled b as in boy r a h l e r
We're firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Thank you.
Mr. Whaler?
Yes, hello, Mr. Braylor.
You're associated with this project, correct?
That's correct.
And you are the project architect, is that correct?
That's correct.
Mr. Braylor?
Yes, that's correct.
I'm sorry, you're very quiet on my end.
I'll turn up my volume.
And just as a preliminary matter, did you hear all of the commentary and testimony that I already provided?
I did.
And do you believe it to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?
I object to this bootstrapping.
That's normal.
That's normal.
I mean, we do that with all witnesses.
Objection is overruled.
As long as it's noted for the record.
Thank you.
And Mr. Braylor, would you adopt the testimony as your own?
And thank you, Mr. Braylor.
Now, I'm showing, and I believe hopefully everyone can see a rendering showing Umbra Architects in the bottom left corner.
Do you see that?
And this is the rendering of the project that you designed, correct?
Yes, it is.
And now, as I was stating previously, you can see the first, this is the very first rendering that we presented to EFCC back in January of 2021, correct?
That's correct.
Mr. Breller, excuse me, you're breaking up. Do you have any other devices on?
I do not. I only have...
Now you're clear.
We can now hear you.
That was much better.
I did have my phone on my laptop, so maybe that was his. I apologize.
I think the chairs do have magic powers. You guys should start saying some things that you need.
Maybe if you wish me to, you know, stop talking, you can get that done, too.
So, Mr. Braylor, could you briefly describe for me the design process and number of revisions that you made to get from this project to this project?
Again, we'll leave individual details aside for now and ask the board if they have those specific questions, or Mr. Bonney may have those questions for you.
But just kind of in summary fashion for the board's edification, how we got from what I'm first showing here to what is now before the board.
If you can make that a brief response as possible, because I think, Mr. Whalen, you covered some of that when you said that the community had issues with the aesthetics, and you guys went back and redid some of it.
So if you can summarize that, that would be helpful.
I certainly agree, and Mr. Braylor, if you could, be as brief as possible.
And, Chairman, I do apologize for obviously belaboring this point, but I think Mr. Bonney made clear that, you know, if he appeals this case, he's going to be as brief as possible.
But I think Mr. Bonney made clear that, you know, if he appeals this case, he's going to appeal it on that issue of me testifying instead of Mr. Braylor.
Thank you.
That's correct. But if we win the case, I won't be appealing.
Okay. All right.
Let's move on and you guys will handle the appeals.
um just in in general i like you mentioned sean mentioned a lot of it and a lot of it's obvious
from this view compared to the the first view from back in january um but it was really about
kind of warming up the building and the the site or the building responding more to the site and
kind of the public realm so everything follows from that the stepping in the massing the warming
of the building with more uh more masonry materials the balconies adds more of a residential