represents an inappropriate overuse not consistent with adopted district plan accordingly we recommend
that both the requested variance not be granted would you have any knowledge uh whether there
are up beside 3856 brown are there any other multi-families on that block the 3800 unit block
give me two seconds
Most of the housing on the block has a single mail slot.
There are a number of other vacant properties on the block.
Thank you. MI-2020-000152 3854 Brown Street. My vote is yes with the proviso. Maximum two units.
Yes for proviso. Yes for proviso.
Excuse me is that for both properties? No we're going to do 3801 now because 3801 is six units.
i'm sorry okay yeah 3801 quarter my sheet the application is for six units
3803801 is that is that correct
yes it was my mistake no problem no problem thank you no uh good afternoon again uh mr chair members
of the board and you are correct um regarding 3801 brown um isaac slepner again of matione limited
100 north independence mall west suite 5a northwest philadelphia pa 19106 on behalf of
3858 gerard llc owner of 3801 brown street uh and with me um on this zoom is eugene nadevich who
is the principal of 3858-GERRARD-LLC. I will take the board through our documentary exhibits
and then I'll get into the discussion. So I'll share the screen here and we can look at everything.
i'll i'll um share the screen here and and we can can look at everything all right so all right
that's our table of contents this was another one that had been held over due to the whole
shutdown coronavirus and now we're back so here we are um this is our notice of refusal dated
february 11th of 2020 and um i believe i waved and stepped to this reading as well but i just
want to be certain that i did if i didn't i'll read it but if i did we can move on um you do
i did okay thank you then we'll move on uh all right exhibit two is our date stamped application
for appeal of 2 2020 um date stamped see with three our site photo uh our site i'm sorry our
plan. And I believe, well, let me twist this so everybody can see it. Now 3860, I'm sorry,
3801 Brown is a vacant lot. So if you can see, and I'll enlarge it a little bit. If you can see
here, this is our proposed construction right here. And it's vacant. It's not actually attached
two 3803 brown which is an existing two-story and it's there at the corner of 38th and brown
this is brown and then this is uh 38th over here and these are the rears of mostly vacant on 38th
street well there's two existing and some vacant some existing some vacant on 38th and this is a
a side kind of alleyway here. Over here is the elevation. It would be a three-story with basement
and roof deck. This is a current view, current street view here with a large tree-like weed,
I guess you could say. This is 3803, which is a standalone single house. And there's kind of
looking eastward, I'm sorry, westward back on Brown Street, and then the site, Google
map kind of plotting of the site.
I'm going to turn this back so we can see the photographs.
Oh, I turned that completely upside down.
Hang on.
There we go.
Exhibit 4A, these will be site photos, and in fact, that's the photo of the site itself,
and you can see this giant green tree wild tree growing out of there and that grass that's our
site 3801 um and then you can see the rears of the houses on 38th street and that wooden fence
those are the that's the existing um alleyway space the rears of those and then right here
about is the alleyway space or would be future alleyway space this is another another shot of
bars, and you can see the rears of the houses on 38th Street and the proposed alleyway space.
Exhibit 4B is kind of the surrounding neighborhood, and I'll show you that in a second.
So this is looking across Brown Street. This would be, I guess you would call it 3800 Brown
Street, and it's a large green lot lawn that I believe is the side yard of the church. And yes,
There's the church at the other corner of 30th and Brown on 38th Street.
And then this is the other corner of 30th and Brown.
That would be heading eastward.
I'm sorry, not eastward.
That would be the other direction on 38th Street.
um 3803 i believe is is not a single but is a four unit if i am not mistaken i may have been
mistaken earlier uh these are a view of the orange posters that we posted at the site at 3801 brown
um at least 21 days ago there's orange poster photo number one it's posted to a pole at the
end of the uh wooden fence there so it's right there at the sidewalk line there's somebody got
their finger in the shot, but there you can see the orange poster. We got it about as close to
ours as we could without really endangering anybody or obscuring the sign. Exhibit 5 is our,
sorry, bear with me. Exhibit 5 is our project information, and that was printed up and filled
out initially in February when we filed the appeal, so this would have been on February 12th
this year that we filled that out exhibit six is an affidavit of service uh back in
that we filled that out. Exhibit 6 is an affidavit of service back in August.
August 6th we noticed the neighbors by mail and this is our affidavit of service
and with the letter of notice to the neighbors at that time we presented both 3801 and 3860 Brown
which are both projects of my client and I'll get into that detail a little bit again
uh in a minute we also included the notice of refusal and we included the list of neighbors
that we did in fact notice and i would say it was about a hundred or so addresses that were
noticed by mail possibly a few more it's a pretty dense neighborhood over there um exhibit seven
is uh the letter from mantua civic and they did oppose the um the project uh
And this is a letter of explanation of the opposition to the project, and their issues seem to be they're in favor of single family versus multifamily.
They seem to have an issue with the rental rates that my client was going to rent these out at.
He had assured them that if they were able to build six units there, and he'll get a little bit more into this.
But my client had assured the community that three of them, he would be able to make three of them, put them into the affordable housing range,
possibly even the low income housing range, if he were able to build a total of six units.
My client also, the community took issue with my client in hiring out of local community neighbors.
My client often hires local neighbors to work on his projects, both on full time and project bases.
But those were the three real main issues that the local neighbors had had, and that and renting to college students.
And, you know, our response to that was he rents to whoever's going to sign a lease on the place and pay him the rent.
So they did outline their concerns in a letter to the board, which was, I believe, sent over to the board in August in advance of this hearing.
And Exhibit 8 is a copy of the deed.
Again, this was purchased at share of sale, and the deed was recorded on January 15th of 2019
in favor of 3858 Girard, LLC, the current owner of the property.
And this is the deed documents and the tax certs, et cetera.
Here's the legal description.
And Exhibit 9 is a tax clearance for 3858 Girard run on October 8th of this year.
And I do have my client, Eugene Nadevich, and if I may, I would like to present him to adopt the testimony and offer anything else.
Did I miss anything, or did you give us some floor plans?
If I may, I'm going to unshare for a second and pull those up.
So I'm going to unshare this for just a moment, and I'm going to pull those up.
3854 brown, 3801 brown. I'm sorry I appreciate the board's patience on this.
I should have them.
Yeah, thank you.
Eugene, are you there?
Yeah, I'm here.
Do we have floor plans for 3801?
I believe you just went over them.
We have site plans for 3801.
And I believe that on – I believe that if we – let me just double check.
We may. Yeah, my apologies.
I do not see them. We can certainly amend our filing with them.
It's a bit, I mean, you're talking six units and I don't know, we just don't see the layout.
i don't know we just don't see the layout yeah it'd be helpful if we saw the layout
it would be helpful
we saw
and i understand um let me see
because i i could swear that we have had them
If I have them, all right, yeah, I don't see them here.
I don't know how this board can make
a judgment
without seeing what the floor
is on. My client
says he's just sent them over to
me so let me
get those up on the screen
and I can
walk the board through those.
Okay. My apologies for the delay.
all right let me let me fire those up and
here they are
here they are
okay i'm going to return to screen share here and i will show the board these these plans for
3801 Brown Street. So, and I'll enlarge them a little bit more. Now, as my client described,
it's a six-unit proposal. So, you've got your first floor and basement. Each of them would be,
there's three units each to the front and the rear of the stairs, and these stairs are kind
of in the center and divide between the front and rear units here so unit one and unit two
are first floor and basement combined with bedrooms on the ground floor level
with access to the rear yard space and kind of living room areas in the basement level
Um, second floor is, uh, one bedroom on each, uh, is one bedroom on each, uh, side of the stair tower, um, front and, and rear.
And then same for the third floor.
And the third floor has access to the roof deck.
So the first floor and basement, they're bi-level units?
I would actually call my client, Eugene Nadevich, to give a little bit more in-depth description of these plans.
what's the height of the building uh the height would be 38 feet
we did not we did not get a refusal for height yeah just was curious yeah
well no would it be helpful if i uh went over a little bit yeah the question i have is and
and we'll ask the other board members, is the first floor and basement, are they bi-level units?
Yes, it's two bi-level units. The building is actually five feet out of the ground,
so the basement is not really a full basement. It's a partial basement.
This building is actually identical, almost identical, to a building that was approved last week at 712 North 34.
This building also, the trash storage is in the back of the house, not the front of the house,
Even though, like I mentioned last week, we have trash pickup in addition to the city trash pickup.
We do our own trash pickup twice a week in all of our properties.
This building has trash pickup in the rear of the building.
As you can tell, the first little hallway for tenants and private trash companies to be able to get to the trash through both the building and also the alley that's on the side of it.
And the other thing is, so this is 3801 Brown.
3803 Brown is a two-story, four-unit building, so this one is not asking for that much extra.
so this one is not asking for that much extra. We're still under the height requirement. The
roof deck, it's not a roof deck, it's utility access only, the pilot house, that's where we're
going to store all the condensers so that, you know, so it's not allowed for the neighbors,
whatever utilities we can have up there. And again, like Isaac mentioned,
having, you know, layouts like this, it's extremely helpful to be able to have as many of them
low income as possible because a foundation costs as much of the cost, a roof costs as much of the
cost, and at the very least we'll be able to have half of them at the $800 per month price range
thanks to that. And even though the partial basement does not have any sleeping quarters
in it, the sleeping quarters are all on the first floor. So we try to provide the neighborhood with
as many affordable units as possible, but it's very difficult to have $400 a month
in construction apartments. It's just not feasible. All these units, they're going to
have partwood floors. They're going to have full kitchens, bathrooms, HVACs, in-unit washer and
dryers, the work. So we're not skimping out on anything, and we're trying to make it work for
everyone. What is the means of ingress and egress for the basement?
The basement has the egress well at the rear there and then at the front.
In terms of getting down to the basement from being inside, there are stairs in both units going from the first floor level to the basement level.
I get that.
I get that.
Mr. Novotovic, did you say that 3803 is a quadruplex?
Yes, 3803 is a quad.
Thank you.
okay any other questions from the board yes counselor what's the hardship it's new construction
the hardship is known for us to be able to provide any low-income units we need to be
able to have more units in there otherwise because what the community won't ask us to
have as many low-income units as possible if this was a single family house we would not be able to
price it at eight hundred dollars a month it would be a house that would end up costing
four to five hundred thousand um and there's just no way around it because we don't use any federal
funding or state funding we're completely self-funded so in order for us to be able to
provide low-income dwelling units we need extra units per building otherwise it's just not
financially feasible and this would end up being a single family house is going to go for sale for
half a million bucks um this way you know we have six units in there but we don't sell it we keep
everything we have uh we provide as much work as we can to local community which one of the things
that a lot of people in the community do know is for the last seven years in the neighborhood we
had an open door employment policy which if you want a job come to us and we will get you a job
a lot of people in the community do work for us and we try to do whatever we can but having you
know the hardship is it's not feasible to do with a single family you know to have a low income
single family dwelling on a new construction house. So we try to make these units. Sorry.
I understand your analogy you're making as it relates to Mr. Holloman's question,
but you're talking one unit single family versus six. Doesn't necessarily mean that this board
might not consider more than a single family. I think it's the six units.
well this is the six units thing is that adding extra units in the dwelling does not end up
costing that much more per unit so with every extra unit we have that increases the number of
uh in the number of units we can provide to low-income individuals that are affordable
and not at fifteen hundred dollars a month but at eight hundred dollars a month i mean a lot of
these lots were vacant for decades
without any development, and
on 34th Street, on the 700 block
of 34th Street, which is just, I believe,
0.3 miles away, last week