Parking space is along here, drive aisle.
Rear the building, make a right-hand turn, come back down to the other side.
you know because of the arrangement of the spaces in the building uh of that drive aisle it creates
a dimensional hardship to put that ada space in there but we felt that the benefit of having
spaces versus no versus no ada space probably outweighs that we did have a virtual meeting
with the west central germantown neighbors association and there is a letter of note
of September 21. They're in opposition, but if you read the opposition letter, there's really
no real reason other than that we should have known at the time at the beginning of this process
that we were going to ask for a variance to not provide the commercial space.
And as I mentioned, we thought we would give it a try because as I've been to the board
previously, and if we would have asked for it at the time, we probably would have heard the
comment that why don't you give it a try it's too early to see you know you're predicting the future
my exhibit package does have three letters from the four dip brokers that we use to market the
property and with that said i'd like to uh swear in mike stamm
sure i'm here ron um michael stomm uh m-i-c-h-a-e-l last name s-t-a-m-m both is in mike
address is 1835 market street suite 625 you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do please proceed ron uh mike uh what is uh your position and and uh
connection with the property? We're the owner and managing member of the LLC that owns the property.
And you've heard my presentation and what I've stated so far, and would you agree that it's true
and accurate and you would adopt it as your own? I would, yes. So let's address the commercial
space first. Could you briefly describe for the board your marketing efforts and what the results
were sure so as ron kind of alluded we purchased the property back in december of 2018
we received a buy right building permit in june of 2019 at that time we actually met with the
west germantown rco just in good faith and one of their kind of registered community organization
meetings we presented ourselves we do some other development in the area we also presented
a mixed-use project outlining the commercial space that was going to be built. We fielded
about an hour long questions. There was no kind of interest at the time relating to the commercial
space or anyone kind of seeking a kind of a business opportunity there for say. In result,
we marketed the property with four prominent brokerages here in Philadelphia, Walker Dunlop,
KW, Compass, Delphi Property Group. All four brokerages, you know, for the better part of a
year since June of 2019 sought a commercial tenant at a very moderate price per square foot in the
area. We had no success. As a matter of fact, we had no letters of intents or tours, four of which
these brokerages work with us. We really predominantly do mixed-use projects throughout
philadelphia you know the feedback was there's no there's no street visibility there's no traffic
there in the area from a foot traffic perspective you know you're 300 yards from a business
thoroughway located at germantown avenue even at the stretches there of germantown avenue west
washington lane uh the commercial spaces in place still are predominantly vacant storefronts you
You know, you couple that with, you know, COVID over the last couple of months, and we literally have no interest in the site.
And, Michael, while you're speaking, I've shown the board the three letters that are part of our package, Exhibit 8, 9, and 10.
And so that's what you have provided.
And is it true to state that there are no commercial spaces on either side of the building or across the street?
Yes, it is.
Okay, and let's move on to the ADA space.
we saw the site plan showing the five spaces. Is it accurate? There are parallel parking spaces
with no room to provide a side five foot wide opening to allow for a van door to open. It is, yes.
opening to allow for a van door to open it is yes and uh do you know as a developer a need to
have parking in that area you do yes which is uh why we we weighed inclusion of five spaces
great thank you i have no further questions
you want to ask your client if he adopted your testimony oh i did thank you you did already
thank you yes i'm sorry uh any questions from the board no no no anyone else wish to testify
in this matter if so please raise your hand here i'm sorry if i could add that if anyone wishes
to testify regarding a case it should be done by raising your hand when prompted by the chair
do not put information in the Q&A for testimony. Thank you. Thank you. Here we have Jennifer.
Jennifer, you can unmute yourself and speak.
Hello. Good afternoon, ma'am. Please identify yourself for the record. Name and address.
Jennifer Kravinskas, 36 West Pomona Street. Would you spell your last name, please?
K-R-I-V-I-N-S-K-A-S.
And do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
And your address is, where are you in proximity to this application?
I'm on the next side street over, so not a full block on Pomona.
Thank you.
I would like to just mention that there is commercial within one block north of this property.
which is Germantown Avenue.
There is actually a lot of commercial there.
And there is also commercial block west.
I was unaware that they were renting the first floor as commercial.
I saw no advertisement of any kind on the building.
I understand that they used agents for that.
But just as a resident that walks by every day,
I didn't know there was a plan to put commercial on the first floor until the RCO brought this
appeal.
Yeah, so a block down Cherokee there at the next corner is commercial.
That was actually just renovated and opened about a year and a half ago.
And then north on Washington at the corner of Germantown is a gas station, a church,
Comber paper that just closed, and that's for sale as a commercial development.
Also, in regard to the parking, I think they should not have designed the building that way
if they knew that it was going to interfere with the ADA parking spot.
well it's been it's the structure is almost complete and i believe that was in the application
it's actually a retrofit it wasn't designed initially that way right
this is something you were aware of though right
so um questions should be not asked of the attorney
The other thing I will say is that commercial was part of what the original approval had to do with.
So if there wasn't a sign posted about the commercial space for rent, I'm not defending them.
I'm not saying that wasn't necessary because what they were approved that was for two commercial.
And based on their testimony, they had four agents who are pretty, as far as I know, they're pretty popular agents.
in the city and apparently they came up with nothing i mean my guess is that they would like
to have had commercial because they're going to rent the space it's going to get rented either
as residential or commercial uh i don't know what the benefit is to for them to go to residential
versus commercial um i think they probably would have gotten more per square foot as a commercial
if they rented as commercial than they would as residential is that fair to say uh michael yes it
is yeah so there's no actual benefit to them financially is my is the point i'm trying to make
okay chair we do have charles richardson from the council person's office charles you can
unmute yourself and speak to this case good afternoon mr chair and uh members of the board
uh insomuch that the uh rco had a meeting mr richardson could you just pause for a minute
Could you just pause for a minute?
Yep, yep, yep, I forgot.
Yep, yep, yep.
I forgot.
Square me in.
Square me in.
Swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and love you about the truth.
Thank you.
As I was saying, the RCO did have a meeting recently with the developer, and 16 individuals were there.
We're on the Zoom call, eight of which were near neighbors.
they unanimously opposed the granting of the variance so the councilwoman is
supporting the community on their request that the variance be denied
thank you if you could give I would like to ask if the board if they've seen the
letter from the civic group yeah I don't we don't have it if you can if you have
it yeah I do I want to post it up please yeah I'll pull it up sure
this in an email that was sent to the board but here it is
as I mentioned the last paragraph as you read it it's really more towards
bad feelings that this wasn't raised in the initial stage of the application when we got
our by right permit understood yes anyone else yes here we have lori lori you can unmute yourself
and wait to be sworn in lori would you please identify yourself name and address spell your
name for the stenographer hi my name is lori lichman it's l uh l-o-r-i-l-i-t-c-h-m-a-n
my address is 70 west duval street d-u-v-a-l and i would consider myself a near neighbor
though i don't know if that meets the legal definition uh depends how far away either but
anyway do you swear okay do you swear if i'm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth yeah sure please proceed um i just want to say that um in opposition to what the
developer is saying that businesses are popping up everywhere in this neighborhood. So a question
that I would want to know is how much they were seeking to charge for rent in this property. This
is a neighborhood that is still up and coming. And so perhaps the reason they didn't get commercial
space or commercial renter was because they were looking for too much money.
A little jacked speculation here. That's not relevant.
i sustain i think yeah no i'm sorry i'm i'm just a citizen so i don't know what i'm allowed to say
and what i'm not allowed to say that's it no problem no problem um and i also can say that
i did not see any commercial signage around there and i have i have a number of people
who are real estate agents who i am friends with and didn't see anything posted on any of their
social media so i just want to say that this this neighbor has not been a good neighbor
to our community we are constantly blocking sidewalks with their construction vehicles
and um mr chairman i mean i think this is going beyond our zoning case okay that's all i wanted
to say thank you thank you thank you ma'am thank you anyone else wish to testify in this case
have kt kt you can unmute yourself and wait to be sworn in please identify yourself spell your
full name for the stenographer? Hi, my name is Kelly Traister, K-E-L-L-E-Y-T-R-A-I-S-T-E-R.
And do you swear if I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. And where do you reside, ma'am? I reside next door at 50 West Washington.
oh okay so um and i just want to offer a point of clarification that the email that was just
shared uh that the attorney just shared was actually an email not from the rco from the
registered community organization but an email from near neighbors on washington lane oh my
West and Cherokee Street offering our support to the position of the RCO so
thank you for that clarification that's all I had received so I assume that was
the official letter but thank you for that I believe the West Central
Germantown neighbors submitted a much more extensive letter detailing the
opposition. And so as near neighbors, we didn't repeat any of that. We just were offering our
support. Let me ask you, ma'am, since you obviously live there and you're familiar with it, is there any kind of
Let me ask you, ma'am, since you obviously live there and you're familiar with it,
is there any kind of retail or commercial uses that you think would be beneficial to this community?
I think any kind of coffee shop or small restaurant space, I think it could be used as my neighbor Jen
had said previously uh there is um two blocks away uh a commercial showroom space
is it's vacant no it's um occupied all right again i'm not i don't live in that neck of the
wood yeah but i first from time to time i drive germantown avenue and i do see a lot of vacant
storefront. So that's why I'm asking the question. So I will add that there are
two other developments on the 6300 block of Germantown Avenue. One is I believe complete now.
So there and there is an increase in occupancy of formerly vacant spaces and so
i would imagine and i don't know if this is allowable but that um the vacancy rate of
commercial properties in our neighborhood will decrease well we all hope for the best that that
that does happen can i speak as the owner just kind of you know in defense um you know the space
is just listening to the various uses you have a sunoco a block down the site's not nearly big
enough for a gas station you have a church that's not a permitted use you have a vacant paper store
i can't speak to uh the commercial spaces further up on cherokee i'm not aware of them but quite
frankly you know all of germantown avenue you know up there you know is predominantly vacant
at a thousand square feet uh which is what this space is it's not an overly large space none of
these it's not big enough to have a restaurant that's viable you know in terms of the rent of
what we're asking we're asking a thousand dollars a month you know that's less than a dollar a square
foot a month right you know we're not asking for leaps and bounds here you know i think you hit it
the nail on the head we would do better financially with a commercial space or sorry with a commercial
space rather than a ground floor unit uh on a on a on a busy street if we were putting a restaurant
the community would be pushing back in terms of you know the street and and what what is doing
on kind of a you know a street right there and how we're going to possess kind of people stopping
and such i don't think a coffee shop there's not a coffee shop right there that would do well
there's not enough foot traffic so i i hear you and in terms of kind of the marketing about it
i think we want one step further by by using our relationships with four different brokerages and
the fact that none of them and they're reputable brokers in the city could land any letter of
intent or tours i think that speaks to the market in the area i think it's speculative to say
you know especially in this era with covid and and kind of what you're seeing and see even some
of the nicest areas downtown commercial is doing really poorly you know and especially in an area
like that it's not going to do well you know so i think i would argue that it is extremely not
viable you know in the validity of kind of the different uses in and around the area they're
not realistic in a space like this especially mid block on a unit block off germantown avenue it's
much different than being two blocks north on germantown avenue right on the intersection of
mount airy thank you anyone else anyone else to speak if you do uh please uh raise your hand and
if you can give us something new and different we appreciate that's all we have chair you can
continue thank you um i think i did ask questions any questions from the board planning commission
Mr. Chairman and members of the board, this property is indicated for residential use on the city's comprehensive plan.
The plan does not recommend commercial development on residential streets away from Germantown Avenue.
Therefore, the proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan.
Accordingly, we have no objection to granting these variances.
Thank you.
MI-2020-001094-52-West Washington Lane. My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Good luck.
calendar number mi 2020-000243-2813
000 243 2813 Wharton Street Michael Gaskins you've been promoted to a