Please proceed, Alan.
Mark, you heard everything I stated today.
And is it true and correct?
And will you adopt it as your own testimony?
yes okay thank you any um any questions from the board you're welcome anyone anyone else wish to
testify in this matter if so please raise your hand
here we have um no one at this time thank you planning commission mr chairman and members of
the board this is mason austin representing the planning commission this property is designated
for multi-family residential in the comprehensive plan the proposed use would be permitted but for
an overlay that the Planning Commission did not support. Therefore, the Planning Commission has
no objection to the granting of this variance. Thank you. ZP-2020-0000961707 North Gratz Street,
my vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. Okay, it is now, what time do we
have here let's uh four o'clock we'll reconvene at four o'clock yes sure sounds good thank you very
much thank you good afternoon everyone uh tanya i'll give you two or three four minutes uh no
we're ready when you are that's okay in the beginning in the morning okay uh having said
that abby we're ready to go live oh yep you're good to go thank you good afternoon everyone my
name is frank d chico i'm the chair of the zoning board of adjustment i'll be participating in
today's hearing along with our board secretary mr confessor plaza and our board members mr
thomas holloman and mr james snell board administrator tanya sunken and board attorney
Sharon Saleta, are also in attendance. For those of you who haven't yet participated in one of our
virtual hearings, I will go through some of the basics of what you can expect. First, we'll begin
this afternoon session by reading a list of cases to be continued. If you believe any announced
case is being continued in error, we will give you an opportunity to respond. After reading the
continuance list and receiving any feedback we will then take any
We will then take any additional continuance or withdrawal requests.
additional continuance or withdrawal request
Then once we've confirmed which hearings are being continued, our Board Secretary will begin calling the remaining cases listed for this session.
When a case is called, we ask that attorneys representing applicants or other interested parties in the matter identify themselves for the record.
We will then hear the applicant's presentation, followed by any presentation by attorneys representing other parties.
Interested parties and members of the public, not represented by counsel, will then be given an opportunity to testify.
We will finally hear the recommendation of the Planning Commission.
At the hearing's conclusion, we will either vote the matter immediately or hold it for discussion in executive session.
Any case held for discussion will be voted at the next Wednesday morning session.
Please note the following changes related to the virtual format.
First, we will be administering oaths to individual participants prior to their testimony.
Second, for the benefit of anyone participating by phone, we ask that attorneys and witnesses
identify themselves prior to speaking or testifying.
Third, we'd like to advise everyone that this proceeding is being recorded and that by
participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
Fourth, for anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your
hand by hitting star 9 and then star 6 to unmute yourself and I'll repeat anyone
participating by phone if you wish to testify you must raise your hand by
hitting star 9 and then star 6 to unmute yourself finally to enter an
appearance statement call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email
address and the address of the property at issue. Pardon me, I'll repeat. To enter an appearance
statement, call Google 267-270-5548 and leave your email address and the address of the property at
issue. With that being said, we can begin, but before Confessor Plaza reads our first case,
we'd like to announce the following matters are being continued.
Calendar number 38981-1827, Kinsey, K-I-N-S-E-Y,
MI-2020-000857, 2523 Waverly Street.
Calendar number 38987-4455 Hurley Street, H-U-R-L-E-Y.
Calendar number 38986-182 East Shiller Street.
Shiller is S-C-H-I-L-L-E-R.
And if there are any other requests at this time for continuance,
please raise your hand or if you believe we called a case to be continued in error please
raise your hand also
we have pietra gamble pietra you can speak to a continuance yes hi this is pietra gamble i'm
calling i'm asking for a request for continuance on the property 1836 wilder street
um i'll cheer if i if i may i have the attorney of rucker for this case if i can put her on
yes please
okay rachel we're promoted to panelists okay uh rachel pritzker r-a-c-h-a-e-l-p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r
1635 Market Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA 19103. We are asking that this case be heard,
as I can explain to the board during if I get to do this presentation. We filed an appeal in
October of 2019. It's now, you know, September of 2020. And this is an unfortunate matter in which
the private lending institution that I that I now represent uh has taken over this project from a
developer that they were helping finance this project and who went or and racked up I think
there's over 19 violations um to to move this forward if we hold a continuance this is now
would now be the second continuance um this project is just going to sit it's in deteriorating
um this project is just going to sit it's in deteriorating condition as you can see
condition as you can see um and we
and we can't do much with remediating the site while it's well could you share some of those
photos we don't want yeah please thank you so i can't so this is the um as you can see it was
received October 15, 2019. There was a continuance in February for, I think it was like a June
hearing that got rescheduled. So now here we are in September. Additionally, I have the violations
on the property. As you can see, there is 11 here, most of relating to building stuff and
architectural services and work that was done inappropriately by the stop work order that was
done by the prior owner of the property not our client we can't do one thing to resolve any of
these until the zoning is approved again this is the other violations is another seven here
the community is concerned with the project is that it's not set back to eight feet again
already existing and already wired up and everything like that so we had tried to explain
to them sort of the severity in this there was a lot of complaints at the community meeting about
the unsafeness of the structure um we're hoping to get an engineer out there tomorrow but again
we can't move forward without um without being able to to do something with this property and
get the zoning approved it's just for a setback um do you have any photographs of the property
is that you just yeah so this is what the property looks like it's the front of it
as you can see
this is sort of the state of it is right now nothing's been done since the stop work order
on the property and now additional violations have accrued this month as well
so going back to that february uh 20th i think it was a meeting was held with the rco
no it wasn't that's why i had i had gotten involved right when that happened i told the
clients that they needed to meet with the rco the original so we continued it um they wanted
you know they didn't understand the process because again they picked up for the prior
delinquent owner um and we did hold a community we had two of them with the first it was supposed
to be south philly homes we couldn't get a response from them it was uh redistributed to um
the to pietra gamble and petra gamble and her group um at the point for ucdc we met with them
twice first with their zoning committee and then with the full um community group so you know
again pushing this off with these violations pending on this property and the unsafe condition
of it what was the uh discussion at the two meetings and what was the reason we haven't
moved forward um the discussion was basically this is a block that has on both sides mostly has
two uh story homes there are some that are on the other side of the street have been um have the
setback has been waived and there's some that have the actual setback on them so it's not really out
of character if i would just show you the and we couldn't get they they were not understanding or
they weren't sympathetic to the damage that could be caused if we try and demo it and do a mansard
roof or demo it and do this because of the condition it's in and uh so we they wanted us
to come back again to discuss the same thing again although i don't know that if we were going to
have the same conversation that would result in a in a different sentiment um there was somebody at
the meeting who was kind of uh wanted photos of standing on wanted us to get on the roof and stand
on the property to send pictures of the neighboring roofs we were not able to do those so she didn't
feel like she got the picture she needed um i'm trying to remember what some of the we had said
that we're happy to move this cornice line down here because one of the things that they mentioned
was they really like when the cornice line so we were happy to to do that it just wasn't a very
productive conversation about um ways to move forward they wanted us to furnish them an
engineer's report which again we're happy to do but we weren't going to be able to do that in
three days before this hearing and again if we we don't have guidance on how to move forward as far
as the zoning of this it's it's hard to get an engineer to come out there to give us you know
a step a proposal to move forward hey counselor counselor can i have a question yes sir had a
feeling you were going to go ahead please proceed uh do you have a building permit did you get a
building permit um we don't have we didn't file for a building permit they originally i think
had filed for some permits but they did work outside of the prior owner did work outside of
what the city allowed so that's kind of why we're we're here we can't move forward on a building
we're here we can't move forward on a building permit when the zoning is wrong
permit when the zoning is wrong so he built it with
so he built it without a building permit he got a building permit but he built it different than
i think what he got approved that's my understanding of it and again i now represent
the financial group that had lended on this project that then had to take it over because
he didn't meet his financial obligations the current owner is not responsible correct correct
and i have their construction manager as well here are the vice president of construction here as
well um who they have hired to help remedy this um so he could probably speak better than i could to
what was pulled and what wasn't pulled but it's a new contractor a new everything because again
this wasn't done by the by the current clients if you can see i'm sorry tom you finished you know
is it conceivable if this board were to grant this variance that
l and i or somebody can may come by come come along and not issue a permit or order that that
upper floor that third floor be demolished because it may not be in safe condition
and that's what you're trying to get right you're trying to get an engineer out there is that
correct the goal for us would be to get the the zoning approved so that we could then at least
have a way to move forward and then that way yeah if l and i or the uh engineer comes out and says
that the third floor needs to be adjusted or removed and we're happy to do whatever it is we
just need to move forward you can't move until you get to anything all right yeah because i'm
looking at this and i see a drain spout coming out that shouldn't have been there and we yeah
i don't know what's i don't know where that rain that rain what is coming from i guess what kind
of yeah and i can go into the details of why things look the way they look but again we just
wanted a path to move forward i think you made your point and again no disrespect to miss gamble
I think that we got to get somebody out there to check the structural
integrity of this property. The longer we delay it,
the more problems we're going to have.
And it may conceivably be that the third floor has to come off anyway.
So I respectfully declined to continue this case.
Thank you.
Pretty much gave us your whole case already, Rachel, but please go continue.
Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. We had other people.
yeah we'll let Rachel finish it if you're finished Rachel if not we'll let Rachel finish and then go
into the other folks okay yeah I mean again uh Rachel uh do you agree to waive the reading of
its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy yes thank you you was already sworn in okay okay um
again to your point Mr. Chairman uh and members of the board this is an existing structure the
only refusal we have is for the setback uh over the second story i can tell you and they would
probably put on the record that if they had they had been involved with the actual construction of
it we would not be here but again we are remedying something that was not done by the financial group
that was financing this again just the eight foot setback um again there's 20 violations on this
property and we would ask that the the variance uh be approved so that we have a path moving forward
I can bring Kurt on the line as well.
He can say it on the record so that anybody listening from the community
and the board can understand that actually the engineer is coming out tomorrow
so that we can at least get their eyes on it.
We were hoping that we would have an answer from the board today
to at least start to move that forward.
So we are really anxious to move this forward.
We're not sitting on our hands with this.
And again, we're willing to make compromises to make it so that
if if we are able to keep the third story that we can change the facade at least for the cornice
line to make it you know not as um obvious that it doesn't mesh with the block that's assuming
that there's no structural the integrity of the third floor is intact that may not be so it may
have to come off and you'll be down to that cornice level anyway correct and we let the community
know that if we were going to make any significant changes that we'd be right back in front of them
anyways so we're not trying to do anything outside of what what's allowed
understood um can i just bring uh i guess either peter or kurt on the record to state their name
and adopt my testimony
tanya do you see either peter christians oh here we go okay peter
you say your name and spell your name for the record please
sure peter christensen p-e-t-e-r-c-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n-s-e-n
do you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do and your involvement in you you are a lender i'm one of the managing partners of
Ashmore partners we were the lender to the to the owner thank you Peter have
Peter, have you heard my testimony and do you adopt it as your own?
you heard my testimony and do you adopt it as your own yes I do
Yes, I do.
Is there any statements you want to make to the board?
You know, I think maybe just putting on the record that, you know, our every intention is to make this building safe and to provide something that works with, you know, the neighborhood and their concerns.
Yes, absolutely.
We appreciate any cooperation that we can get.
You know, we're in a little bit of a tricky situation in that we're kind of taking over something that we didn't do.
and we realized that it was done, you know, outside the parameters of what should have been done.
We really want to try to make it right, both for the property and also for the neighbors.
We want to make it safe and we want to get it done as soon as possible.
It obviously doesn't look great.
So we really, like Rachel said, we have an engineer coming out tomorrow meeting with Kurt
and we're looking to just get this done as soon as humanly possible.
Thank you.
Do you have anyone else, Rachel?