letter of non-opposition from Council
Member O'Neill.
Craig Lewis,
could you please raise your virtual hand?
He's coming back in
as a panelist chair. Thank you.
good afternoon hi good afternoon mr lewis could you hi could you state your name please and spell
for the court stenographer i will craig robert lewis c-r-a-i-g-r-o-b-e-r-t-l-e-w-i-s
you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client the relationship with this property
Yes, thank you. I actually represent the owner of the property, Pennypack Shopping Center Investors LP, and they are represented today by Metropolitan Management, as well as their contractor, Diane Quigley of Custom Finishers, Inc.
I believe Diane Quigley is available in the audience, as is Peter Berman of Metropolitan Management.
Okay, thank you. Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
good afternoon counsel do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his
accuracy i do have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required
to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing we have there was i believe a
corrected deed that had to be provided just a couple of days ago but the remainder of the
documents were provided the councilman's letter of no objection was actually just received by our
office today but i i understand that has uh been forwarded to your council and it sounds as though
it has been made part of the record understood please proceed and show your screen great thank
you very much so good afternoon uh again i'm craig robert lewis from kaplan stewart i represent the
applicant and owner in this matter. We've been retained by the owner and their manager,
Metropolitan Management. As I mentioned, I do have in the audience with me both Peter Berman,
a representative of Metropolitan Management, as well as our contractor, Diane Quigley,
from Custom Finishers. She's our signed contractor. She's the one who had filed the
permit application that brings us here this afternoon. This matter is an appeal from a
notice of refusal dated April 17, 2023. That's Exhibit A1 in our packet. We appealed that on
May 5, 2023. That's Exhibit A2. And then you can see on my screen the remaining exhibits,
including the project information form, Exhibit A3, and Exhibit A4 being the deed to the property,
tax clearance A5 and then I will skip to A6 which
And then I will skip to A6, which is what truly brings us here, which is our proposed sign package.
As you heard, this is property 8200 to 8222 Roosevelt Boulevard.
The property is certainly unique in a number of ways.
It is surrounded by roadways on all four sides, and although the property fronts on the boulevard, we actually provide no access directly to the boulevard.
All access to the shopping center and the individual tenants are from the side streets.
The property currently, in addition to being improved with the multi-tenant shopping center, has a legally non-conforming existing sign.
You can see in that lower right-hand corner, that sign only identifies our current anchor tenant, the Acme grocery store.
Our client is proposing, in addition to numerous upgrades to the shopping center, to remove that existing non-conforming sign
and replace that sign with a single freestanding pylon sign out along the Roosevelt Boulevard
frontage, identifying not only the grocer, but a number of the other tenants within the shopping
center. The sign itself, all the details have been provided. It's approximately 20 feet tall.
sign panel in total is approximately 100 square feet. The property being located in CMX1 zoning
district actually does not permit freestanding signs of any sort, thus our existing sign being
lawfully non-conforming. We presented our proposal to the Ronhurst Civic Association.
We received a nine to zero vote in favor. In fact, I believe they worded their recommendation as happily support our project.
I believe that's a tribute not only to the signage, but also the work that has been done in the shopping center to improve it over the last several years.
We received, as I mentioned today, a letter of no opposition from our council person.
We are thankful for that. And if the board has any questions other than that for me, I'm happy to answer them.
As I mentioned, I think Diane Quigley could be elevated and would adopt my testimony this afternoon.
Counsel, just out of curiosity, do you have a picture of the existing sign?
I do. And if I may, I'll scroll through a couple of these in case you have not seen them.
This is a rendering trying to give you a perspective of where the sign would be.
And along the boulevard, it's worth noting we are set back sufficiently from the corner so as to not obstruct any view sheds for pedestrians or vehicles.
In fact, we don't own the very corner.
PennDOT condemned a little sliver at the corner of the property.
Again, just one more view shed there.
And then here's the overall shopping center.
And if you can see my cursor, I'll give you an identification.
The existing sign is here along the side of the ACME.
And there you can see the existing sign, which is approximately four feet by 10 feet in size, so approximately 40 square feet today.
And again, you can see it here in a view from Soliave along the side of the ACME.
All right, why don't you have your testimony adopted?
Great.
can we find diane quigley in the audience please diane if you're there and can raise your hand i
appreciate it there's no one in the audience with that name but we have craig lewis and craig
meladosian let's let's try craig meladosian i don't recognize the name but hopefully that is
He must hold Elfie, isn't he?
Well, his hand is down now.
All hands are down.
It's not Craig Bell.
I know that we were having some technical difficulties with our team.
So, counsel, counsel, you're an officer of the court.
We will accept your testimony, okay?
I appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
questions or comments from the virtual audience here we have craig lewis that is just me thank
you okay we have no one else here okay i'm here is alice there
who's there diane quigley oh hi diane hi i've been here i don't know
Diane Quigley. Oh, hi, Diane. Hi. I've been here. I don't know why it wasn't working.
Okay. All right. Okay. Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
Diane Quigley. D-I-A-N-E-Q-U-I-G-L-E-Y. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Proceed, counsel.
Diane, you were here to hear my presentation to the zoning board this afternoon.
Yes, I was.
And if you were called to testify, would you adopt my testimony as I presented it to the board this afternoon?
Any additions, corrections?
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Additional input from the virtual audience, please.
Anyone else?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good afternoon.
David Vecta with the City Planning Commission, Chairman and Board members.
The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from commercial mixed use 1 to commercial mixed use 2.
The property was rezoned in 2022 to commercial mixed use 1 in a council requested zoning map change.
The City Planning Commission recommended against that bill.
The proposed replacement sign would be allowed in the CMX 2 zoning district.
the city planning commission recommends the board grant the proposed use variants for a
freestanding sign thank you mi 2023 002 733 8200 to 22 east roseville boulevard i vote yes
ishmael shaheed my vote is yes
Thomas Holloman my vote is yes thank you counsel thank you very much okay so number six we're
going to hear six and ten together so MI 2023 002 699 1931 West George Street and number 10 which is
MI-2023-002-698-1933
West George Street. Matthew Monroe is the attorney.
Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman, members of the board.
Matthew, one minute, please. Let me see here.
Recommendation of support from United
at Francisville Civic Association.
Counsel, state your name and spell
please for the courts to not record.
Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman, members of the board, Matthew
Monroe, M-A-T-T-H-E-W-M-O-N-R-O-E.
Do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth? I do. Could you identify your client in relationship
shift to the two properties? Yes, I'm here today, happy to be here today with Deborah Solo and
Alex Franke, who are a mother-son development team. They own this property, both these properties at
1931 and 1933 West George Street, and that's what we're hearing about today. Our vice chair has just
a few questions, sir. Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to his accuracy good afternoon yes i do have you emailed then all the required
documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of
this hearing i did thank you please proceed and share your screen thank you and uh chairman
bergman if um if the board votes in favor of these uh applications uh we do have proviso plans that
we submitted to the board with just some minor changes to the site plan.
Chairman Bergman, there's these are two applications.
They're very similar.
So I'm going to go through the 1931 presentation.
But the differences between the 1931 and 1933 differences are truly de minimis.
In most cases, they're identical.
So what we have is effectively two very small lots.
Each of them is about 560 square feet. These were created pre-zoning code lots. And so the reasons that we're here today are strictly related to dimensional variances, with the exception of one accessory parking variance for each of the properties, which, for reasons that we'll get into in a second, are reasonable and warranted under the circumstances.
But preliminarily, we've submitted documents, and here's the table of contents.
We're asking that the board accept all of the exhibits into the record
at the end of this hearing.
on at the end of this hearing,
we've got the deed and the refusals.
We'll just go over these quickly.
As I mentioned, they're primarily
with the exception of the parking refusal,
dimensional refusals that are directly related
to just creating a livable space on a livable homes
on both of these properties.
And this is not a case where the developer is seeking
to build something that's a way out of whack with the uh conditions of the existing neighborhood and
lot uh they're just trying to deal with what they have which is a very very small lot so um the the
variances that we have are for rear yard um that is you know obviously directly related to the the
depth of the lot um and uh for height of the building this is just a a few feet above uh
the 38 feet permitted, but with the proposed clear railing, and they're not going to have a solid parapet.
The intention here is to allow for light and air to pass through.
And as the chair is aware, you can build a parapet wall up to, I believe, 42 feet.
So the roof line, when you have a see-through railing, should effectively have no difference between that.
So the architects have been making attempts to minimize the visual impact on surrounding properties.
Here we have the petition for the appeal.
And I'll just go quickly through some of the photos.
I think that there's such a clear hardship for, based on the small size of the lot and the need to get in a livable space, but I will just show the context of the lot itself is, it's located on this block of West George Street, which is a former cartway.
And as you can see, there's already dedicated parking. Understanding that's not necessarily a reason to add accessory parking. But as you can see, there are some additional safety concerns. This is in the Francisville neighborhood.
and um just as with any neighborhood in philly when you have uh there's parking is really really
tight um and here it's impossible to park uh on the street so we're not be taking any parking
spaces away from uh anybody on west george street by adding accessory parking we're actually
giving an opportunity to take uh two cars away um from competing for other parking spaces within
the neighborhood and uh it's warranted here you can see there's uh existing and legal curb cuts
and although it's not part of the package uh there's an adjacent property it uh it's a 1929
west george street this board did grant uh variance for uh accessory parking and that's
immediately adjacent to these and that's uh just another indication that um the requested variances
for parking are not out of whack with the character, existing character of the block
in the neighborhood. The property itself, we did get the support letter. We do have the tax
certificates. And the property itself, my client is looking to use unique materials. And here you
can see the changes in the plan were effectively to remove a pilot house. We did not have a refusal
for the pilot house, because it's an exempt structure under the code. But when the architects
were considering, again, that visual impact of the massing in bulk on top of the building,
they decided to remove that. And the structure you can see here on top, these are actually
proposed solar arrays. My client is hoping to build a building that does not rely on the grid
for electricity, if at all possible at all. And so this is both of these homes would have a
would have a solar array on on the top. They're proposed for a roof deck. And here's the parking
stall. So the parking stalls would not just be like a front loading garage type situation. It's
designed to sort of keep it open and airy. So that way, you know, it's not just like having
a canyoning effect on the already narrow west george street um we did present uh the proviso
plans uh which i will show you when they are very similar to each other's um at the uh at the rco
meeting which was well attended um and you can see uh here uh this revision cloud shows that the
here uh this revision cloud shows that the pilot house was removed and um uh there's also some uh
pilot house was removed
items that don't really impact zoning like uh removal of a um crawl space uh and then they're
going to be adding an interior stair um spiral staircase to access the roof deck um that is uh
again not going to be changing the envelope of the building at all but that was one of the changes
that was made in the proviso plans um but this is uh again just effectively the the the hardship
here is that it's necessary to um have the uh the height and depth variances in order to have
these more livable spaces the modern building code requires uh in order to have the uh pairs
sorry the stair uh passages and uh the passways through the um the home uh in just in order to
have a viable new construction livable home these are necessary variances to get for the
very small lots and with that if the board has let me go let me go back the cartway you showed
is that george street yes and yes so the so so the other side of the street is also
facing the cartway yes yes so on both sides of the street this is uh this is a pass through so it's