for multifamily residential use in the comprehensive plan. The property has a long history of being
used as multifamily. Accordingly, we have no objection to the granting of the variance.
Thank you. Ms. Hamill, is that a revised plan?
yes what i had attached in the previous hearing how many pages
uh two pages two pages thank you this is sharon slutt ms himmel if you haven't done so could you
please send me the revised plans and the proviso plans form as two separate pdfs sure so i can
stamp them and return them to you thank you yes thank you mi 2020 that's zero zero zero zero three
seven three one one four frankfurt avenue my vote is yes with the proviso revised plan two pages
approved today my vote is yes with proviso yes with proviso yes with proviso yes with proviso
MI 2020-001290, 428 Monroe Street.
Thank you everyone.
Have a nice holiday.
Thank you.
Stay safe.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you as well.
I don't have no one hand raised for this one.
Do you know the attorney?
Excuse me.
The attorney is Neil Sklaroff.
yeah he's coming in as a panelist now
This is Sharon's letter we received a letter in non-opposition from Councilman Squilla
Mr. Neal, you can unmute yourself, say your name, and wait to be sworn in.
Neal, can you put your name and address on the record and spell your last name?
Certainly. I'm just trying to get this. There we go. My name is Neal Sklaroff. The last name is spelled S-K-L-A-R-O-F-F.
my business address is 1500 market street suite 3500 e philadelphia 19102
do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing about the truth
yes i do and you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
yes i do have you also emailed your exhibit packet with the following documents proof of
ownership tax compliance refusal referral photos and or plans of the property five days in advance
of this hearing and have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter? Yes I think we sent the
exhibits in longer than five days ago but a slight revision was sent within the last few days
and that's what I'll be showing on the screen. Okay I do have to tell you you look like a federal
judge in your chambers. You may proceed. Well, I probably would have some good cases then.
I'm pleased to represent the School District of Philadelphia today with regard to a modular
Classroom Project at the William and Meredith School. Joining the hearing remotely today,
I believe, is Nicole Ward and Gamil Hall, who are from the district's Office of Capital Programs,
as well as Omar Rosa from Stantec, the civil engineer for the project, and William Colette
from OZ Collaborative, the project architect. I'm going to invoke 14.303.14F, and if there's no
objection, I will make statements that will be on behalf of the client and can be used by the board
to make conclusions of law. The Meredith Elementary School, let me just go through some of these.
initially a list of exhibits
our tax clearance
there are a number of deeds here
the Emeritus Elementary School
is an assemblage of eight parcels
that were purchased and developed
in 1929
and we have a
a consolidation plan that has been approved as part of this application and we'll show some of
that in a moment. This is a copy of the zoning notice. The property has frontages and not only
on Monroe Street but also Fitzwater and Fist Street and so we put up six posters as well as
copies of the refusal as is required and these are photographs of the postings as well as
the neighborhood directly across from the postings.
This exhibit shows the area in which the modular classrooms are to be placed. Now let me explain
why we need to have these modular classrooms. The catchment area, that is the geographical area
from which students are supposed to come to Meredith, would produce 680 school children
in classes from kindergarten to eighth grade. The current building is operating at 120 percent of
capacity. But because there remains a lack of space, there are 130 students from the catchment
area that must attend school outside of the catchment area. So in order to meet the need
So in order to meet the need and to return the screen.
and to return the students... Hi, I'm sorry.
Hi, I'm sorry.
If I could just ask a quick question.
We had a question about whether there would be share of your exhibit package on the screen.
Isn't it on the screen?
No, Mrs. Sklaroff, we don't see it.
I did get a question of the audience.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
No worries.
What am I not, I did ask you there.
you click the share screen button and then click on your documents to share
i did do that seem to continue to have this so try to unshare and then do it again if you wish
and i need to get to that um
screen
is that working it's coming mr square got it thank you so very kindly all right i'm sorry
i'm sorry to take all of your time let me just get this so it's
that should be better
these were the the last of a long series of deeds again this are the posted zoning notices as well
as the posted refusals there were six of those and we showed the property
that were opposite in the neighborhood. What you're looking at here on the top
is an area that was used for several rows of parking. You'll see there's an existing fence
to the left and some really nicely redone homes along Monroe Street, which is also to the left
there in the there's a mural at the I think that's the north end of the building that will
not be affected by that that's part of the mural arts program the piece through imagination is the
name of it to the right you see the long-standing Murrith elementary school building
shot from the other end is view number two at the bottom as a mixed-use building at the end
it's a restaurant on the fourth floor and the first floor and a multi-family I believe on the
second and third floor these are some additional views of the school and the area again that was
a parking lot that will now be partially parking and the modular classrooms. This is a rendering
of the four modular classrooms that were proposed and the area between that set it back 30 feet back
and the area between that and the fence will be used for 19 parking spaces.
this is rendering a site plan of that elevation this is a top view showing the classrooms there
are four classrooms each of which has a restroom toward the bottom where it says floor plan
you're going to see in a moment that that's an elevated deck where the students will enter and
leave and and they'll have a short walk till they get to the main building this is our application
for approval this is the site plan the zoning site plan that went along with that
and we have some better plans as we go along Mr. Sklaroff excuse the interruption I think we can
get past some of those plans that you were ready to present and summarize. This is similar to what
we've done in other cases when it comes to modular to provide additional space for students.
I'll go over the refusal I think and we could wrap it up. Thank you. This is RM1 zoning district in
which educational use is permitted by special exception. I think the record shows that we are
in fact in educational use and I believe the plans and all the records will show that there's
no adverse effect to the community. The next four items have to do with plantings and setbacks and
and setbacks and the like. The first one has to do that the setback can't be any deeper than the
the like, the first one has to do that.
setbacks on adjacent properties. The adjacent properties have a zero setback. As a matter of
practice, recently we do not put the modulars at the street front as a matter of safety,
and here we want to keep it as close to the main building as possible, and therefore we have a
larger than permitted front yard setback. The second issue is they wanted landscape buffering
to the north and south and toward the rear of the lot. Well, the rear of the lot is really
Fitzwater Street, so we have two frontages. But we're not going to put any plantings toward
the mural, so not to obscure that, or toward the mixed-use building, which has some
lower windows. We don't want to obscure those. The third item was that the fences are supposed
to be either wood or metal, not a chain link fence. We do have a chain link fence. We need
to have people be able to see through it. But we have agreed that is the community,
that is the school community, as distinguished from the school district, will work with the
local community to see what they can do to improve the image from the Monroe Street view.
And the last that they're supposed to be landscaping before parking in the street,
If we were to do that, we would reduce the number of available parking spaces, which is something that we don't think anybody wants.
Let me just, we had a temporary zoning permit, and so here is the elevated steps and the modular building from the existing building, Meredith's school side, and the top photograph is from the, showing the fence along Monroe Street.
And we did meet with some time ago with the Queen Village Neighbors Association, as well as an additional RCO, well attended with 83 folks.
And for the most part, they're in favor of this with the one condition that we, that the local school district parents and whatever work in the future with regard to beautifying that fence.
That completes my presentation.
Again, we have some folks who could answer questions, but I think that it's for the most part our position.
do you need anyone to adopt your testimony no i'm using 14 303 14 just wanted to double check
thank you thank you questions from the board not a single one uh anyone else like to testify in
this case if so please raise your hand no hands at this time chair thank you very much planning
Commission. Good morning. This is Greg Waldman, Planning Commission staff. This property is
indicated for multifamily residential use in the comprehensive plan. We have no objection to the
granting of the requested variants. Thank you very much. MI 2020-001290, 428 Monroe Street.
My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. Thank you,
Mr. Squarrow. Thank you. That completes my business before
the board. You all stay safe and well. You do likewise. Thank you.
You too. Calendar number 1296 4425 Baltimore Avenue.
i have a gregory
yes you can present um gregory as a panelist he's the attorney good morning board
good morning sir please identify yourself with the record spell your first and last name good
morning my name is gregory heleniak h-e-l-e-n-i-a-k address of 2005 market street 16 4 philadelphia pa
Address of 2005 Market Street, 164 Philadelphia PA, 19103.
And do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Please proceed.
Ms. Denary, our either Secretary Plaza, can we have the questions asked of this here attorney?
Yes. Name and address for the record, please. And can you spell your last, oh wait.
I'm sorry, Tanari, if we could ask the questions regarding the exhibit package, so forth and so on.
Have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, including proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, and photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, we have emailed the exhibit packet five days in advance.
We met with the RCO, Spruce Hill Community Association, and have provided a letter in our packet.
They are offering their full support.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Good morning to the board and all those assembled.
My name is, as I said, my name is Gregory Heleniak.
I represent Eric Grau and Carol Ann Muller-Grau, who I believe are on the call today as well and available for testimony.
They are the owners of the property here, 4425 Baltimore Avenue.
We're in the RTA 1 zoning district.
I would ask that our submission packet be incorporated into the record.
And we're here today because a refusal was issued by L&I when Mr. Grau applied for a
zoning permit for the continued use of this property as a three-family dwelling. What happened,
there was an issue with the rental license that Mr. Growl was going to resolve and was informed
by L&I that he needed a zoning permit. When he applied for the zoning permit, a refusal was
issued for the three dwelling units. This property was converted in 1955 to three units. At the time,
it was a doctor's office and two dwelling units. In 1984, through variants from this board, it was
converted to three dwelling units and has been in continuous use as three dwelling units
since that time. I'm going to share my screen here.
This is our exhibit list. The refusal I was mentioning
and the Spruce Hill Community Association letter.
We met with them outdoors.
Mr. Helleniac?
I'm sorry.
I'm always pestering.
Would it be okay for you to enlarge it a bit for the attendees?
Absolutely.
Thank you kindly.
That's good.
Thank you.
We met with Spruce Hill on September 30th outside of the restaurant school.
And I'd like to note that this sentence here, where Spruce Hill normally conveys a position of non-opposition if they're in agreement, but in this instance, they are more direct in asking that this board vote favorably on this application to restore the zoning for this property.
As I said, this is a longstanding use of the property. My clients have owned the property since 2005 and have maintained the use of the property as three dwelling units since that time.
Copies of the tenant list from the closing documents and the leases for the period of the last 15 years has been provided to the board as part of our exhibit packet.
this no alterations have been made to this building nothing has been done like I said
this came up as an issue with the rental license that we're trying to resolve and I need to resolve
the underlying zoning records with L&I this entire block except for this is the property here
As you'll see, this entire block is these brownstone twins.
All but one of them has been converted to multiple dwelling units, several of them far denser than the three units that exist in this property.
This property exists with one dwelling unit on the first floor, one dwelling unit on the second floor, and one dwelling unit on the third floor.
As you'll see, here's the back of the property. These are the meters for the property. There are three meters, one for each unit, one for common features as in public lighting and common space lighting.
And the fifth unit is for the basement, which is just used as storage by the owners of the property, not dwelling or living space. As you'll see, this is the feature.
dwelling or living space as you'll see this is the these are pictures of the property here's
evidence of the mailboxes and the units inside there's a kitchen on the first floor and bathroom
here's evidence of the second floor unit with a kitchen third floor door and kitchen space
And this is the examples of the block where the entire block, this is across the street,
is multifamily in these old brownstone buildings, as you can see.
So what we're asking for, as I said, is for this board to correct the error of L&Is in
issuing a refusal for this use as it has been maintained continuously since the previous
variance is granted in 1984 or in the alternative we would ask that a variance be granted. It would