Mr. Ward please proceed
so the lab area
Agata do you want to
do you want to
Agata I'm sorry do you want to share your screen
to go through the plans or do you want me to
bring them up as
required
it's up to you Sean
I am fine either way
I can take
I can take the screen over
if somebody can just give me the
if somebody can just allow me
to upload.
All right. I'll stop sharing
and let her walk us through the plans
using her
copy. How's that?
That's fine.
Here we go.
I'm sorry.
I'm not sure. I'm trying
to navigate through here you haven't given authority yet you can give me one minute
um thank you i'm just trying to find the location where i
share screen just one second
do you have someone else with a device or no i think i think we're good no i'm asking sean
yeah the owner the owner is okay so all right so i'm going to meet you okay
the owner the owner is under the show okay so all right so I'm going
and stop your video make sure your video is off
okay i gotta you go ahead
For some reason, some of the exhibits got rotated, I apologize for that, the way the
file was combined.
So our site is 1,570 square feet.
uh the building currently on the site is one story that is proposed to be demolished um the
new building i'm sorry uh were you going to share your screen i i i thought i was no not yet
so hit the green button first and then go to your documents
share screen button at the bottom i i did do that ma'am and i shared screen
Now you're sharing.
Now you're sharing.
I'm not sure.
There we go.
So again,
the building is one story,
Occupy's entire site. We are proposing
to demolish it.
The site is
square feet. We are proposing
to occupy 77% of the site.
We are proposing the first 30 feet of the lot depth to be occupied by commercial element
as the commercial element will carry down to the cellar area.
The rear of the building will serve as residential entrance and also two parking spaces that
are accessory to the single family that is proposed on um first floor rear first floor
also seller rear second third and fourth floor um this single family will also have an access to
roof deck via stair tower and elevator floor plans as you can see in here first floor 30
first 30 feet will be occupied by commercial space. They will have access to the elevator
to access the cellar, residential entry, two-car garage, rear yard in the back. There's also
an egress light and air easement for the next door neighbor. They will be able to exit
under our proposed deck. Second, third, and fourth floor single-family. This unit
will provide four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms total, will be about 4,500
square feet, generous rooms, generous kitchen, lots of natural light, access to
roof deck and the rail is set back on both sides.
The design is in line with the next door neighbor
currently to the east side. The commercial element is addressed with
lots of natural light and also additional
lighting on both sides of the building. The one item I wanted to point out, the
The sidewalk on South Marshall Street is very narrow.
Our client has agreed to widen the sidewalk by one foot by recessing the first floor,
as you can see in here, and cantilevering the second, third, and fourth floor.
The streets department had signed off on the proposed parking, and one item that I would
like to mention is that in CMX2, if the downstairs is used as an educational facility, the parking
would be something that would be actually expected of our client to provide. That is
something I would like the board to take into consideration. We had met with the community
group. They did not oppose to the proposal. They appreciated the fact that the upstairs
was proposed to be only a single family rather than duplex which would be allowed
by ride and that the parking was also something that was considered since that
area has tremendous parking problem. This is view of Marshall Street, this is the
residential entrance, two-car garage and also the deck in the back. Does the board
have any questions.
mr ward have you come uh you finish with your testimony and your witnesses
i want to um uh just uh show the board the uh the letters of non-opposition if they don't have them
already i believe we have those okay yes we did we did meet with bellavista they uh again they
They opposed the original application last year, which called for a two-family dwelling without any commercial space.
We revised a plan to provide the commercial space on the first floor and make it a single-family dwelling.
And I would just point out that the general concept here is that it would be a work-at-home type business, very professional.
They could occupy the first floor and reside in the residence above.
so there is you know currently access is in the design to get from the first floor commercial
space to the residence so attached that as an exhibit is the Bella Vista letter of non-opposition
as well as Councilman Squilla's letter of non-opposition thank you questions from the board
anyone else wish to testify in this case if so please raise your hand now
no hands at this time chair thank you tanya planning commission mr chairman and members
of the board this property is indicated for commercial and residential mixed use in the
city's comprehensive plan the proposed use is in compliance with that
recommendation accordingly we have no objection to
granting this variance thank you mi-2020-000845613
bainbridge street my vote is yes my vote is yes
my vote is yes
my vote is yes
good luck
calendar number
MI 2020
627 East Thompson
Street
attorney is Rachel
Ms. Prisker
the panelists
you can meet yourself
and wait to be sworn in
Rachel you swear to a friend to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
and do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy
Thank you.
Name and address for the record, please.
Rachel Pritzker, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, Pritzker Law Group, 1635 Market Street, Suite
1600, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
Okay, so I represent the owners of 627 East Thompson Street, who I believe are here with
us today, Allie and her father, Robert Volpe. And then we also have Agata, who was just speaking as
our architect from Landmark. And we also have my colleague, Brandon Saverin, who just joined our
firm in the last couple weeks, who I wanted to have an opportunity to introduce himself as well
so that he could, you know, weigh in as well as he's done a lot of the work on this matter.
so I'd like to get those people sworn in so that we can move move through this
those folks that miss Pritchard just mentioned please raise your hand so we
can patch you in
i guess i can start agatha reister landmark architectural design
ma'am please spell your name a-g-a-t-a-r-e-i-s-t-e-r
Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Brandon.
Hi, this is Brandon Saverin, Rachel's co-counsel with Pritchett Law Group.
Please write your name, Brandon.
D-R-A-N-D-O-N-S-A-V-R-A-N, and that's S as in Sam.
S-A-V-R-A-N, and that's S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R-A-N.
We're going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Thank you. Anyone else, Rachel?
Just Robert and Allie Volpe. I think they're on the line as well as they're the owners of the property.
Yes, we're here.
Please identify yourself, ma'am.
This is Allie Wolfie, A-L-I, and then Wolfie, V as in Victor, O, L as in Larry, P as in Paul E.
We're confirmed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Thank you.
Rachel, please proceed.
So before the board today is an application for the demolition of an existing single-family home
and the construction of seven dwelling units on this RSA 5 property
that has a land area of almost 8,000 square feet.
The property, as you'll see shortly,
is a flag-shaped lot with much of the area
in the interior of the block.
The property cannot be subdivided
as only the stick of the flag adjacent to Thompson Street
has direct access to a legally open street.
To account for this, we're proposing a carriage house home
with two dwelling units fronting on Thompson Street
under which a gated drive will pass
that leads to a large interior courtyard.
Rachel, excuse me again, would you be able to share?
Let me just pull this down.
So, just going to show you Atlas really quick.
So this is the lot, as you can see.
It's about an 8,000 square foot RSA 5 lot in the middle of the block between East Berks
and east thompson street in the fishtown neighborhood of the city again it's a sort of
a giant flagship lot and it has an existing two-story structure and the rest of the lot is
vacant as the board may know they recently approved i guess two years ago what is called
the montgomery five which sits back here or on east montgomery which i will can bring up the
plans for that. This is kind of a similar flagship lot. This is the Montgomery Avenue one right here
where five homes were built, I believe. Again, our property has a little bit more difficult
dimensions in that our width is about 33 feet. Their width was only about 12 feet. And we're
almost 8,000 square foot lot in this area. So as far as our plans are concerned, and I can have
Agata go through sort of in more detail. We are proposing this carriage house to front on East
Thompson Street. As you can see, the width of this lot is 33 feet, so more than double what a
typical 15 foot wide or even 16 foot wide is in this area. So we're proposing a carriage house
with two units. And as discussed with the community, there is an existing curb cut here,
but we decided to also, with the curb cut, provide for a gated entry to help with some of the
concerns around lighting and security as there's a school nearby and pedestrian traffic. This is
sort of what the rear of the site looks like with the five single-family homes. Our refusal that was
generated was for multifamily. However, these are all single-family homes except for this carriage
house that's going to be two-family. The rest, again, are single-family homes, pretty generous
in size, as I'll have a guy to go through. This is the rear of the property. Originally, we had
submitted for 40 feet in height to help with the parking considerations and also sort of making
the interior living space more up to modern standards. As we looked at sort of putting a
pilot house and parapets on each of them which would have taken us well over the 38 feet however
as you'll see from the proviso plans that we submitted to Sharon we have reduced the height
to 38 feet on these rear homes so that you know to kind of comply with the request of the community
and again we had thought to reduce it to keep it at 40 feet but again happy to compromise in that
way so that the height of everything is kind of in compliance with RSA 5
standards. This is Sharon. I wondered if the board should approve this would you