at exhibit they're mirror plans but they're at exhibit
14 and 20.
So apologies for the sideways scan, but you can see here that it is a first floor commercial
space with steps down to the basement and then the interior photos of the property show this as well
you can see it's commercial space first floor open this is another view of the first floor
and then there's a half bath and then this is the basement of the cellar so we're just seeking a
variants so that we can register uses in the previously approved commercial
units this time I'd like to have my client adopt my statements if he if he
can be promoted you know could you raise your hand on the zoom
Hello, this is Guido. My name is Guido Jaramillo, G-U-I-D-O, J-A-R-A-M-I-L-L-O,
address 6129 Delaware Crossing, Coopersburg, PA.
Are you going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Please proceed.
Mr. Jaramillo, have you heard my statements?
I have.
um and you're the owner of um desi properties llc i am and they are the owners of 1848 north
hancock and 1849 north palethorpe that's correct um and you heard my statements i have
uh are they true and correct they are do you adopt them as your own i do
um at this time i'd be happy to answer any questions from the board
questions from the board no no no anyone else wish to testify in this case if so please raise your
hand here we have slum folks from the council person's office good morning mr folks you're
still under uh you're still you were sworn in you're still under oath thank you morning chairman
and zba board sloan fuchs sloane fs and fire o lks office of councilman maria quionez sanchez
room 508 city hall uh regarding the uh reference request for the properties located at 1848 north
hancock streets and 1849 north pale um 1849 pale thorpe street uh the applicant has met with uh
the rcus uh regarding both properties and has garnered a letter of support uh therefore the
councilman is submitting a letter of support also thank you thank you anyone else wish to testify
in this case no more hands chair thank you planning commission
Ryan Munrick, City Planning. This property is zoned for residential use on the city plan,
but due to its previous zoning and previously approved plans, we have no objection to the
granting of the variance.
Thank you. Calendars number MI-2020-000209 and MI-2020-000210. 1849 Pailthorpe Street and 1849 North Hancock. My vote is yes on both.
my vote is yes on both but it's 1848 north hancock street
sorry about that 1848 north hancock and the other was 1849 palethorpe yes
so my vote is both uh yes on both yes on both yes on both yes on both
yes on both yes on both
thank you thank you thank you calendar number mi 2020 000 227 433 pierce street
This is an application for a permit for the erection of an addition
above an existing two-story attached structure with roof decks to be accessed by second and
third floor for use as a one non-accessory parking space at the ground floor and two dwelling units
household living above. The size and location is shown in the application and plan. No signs are
on this permit. The applicant is Neely Tang. We have Vern Anastasio. Oh Mr. Anastasio can you put
your name and address on the record please? Good morning Vern Anastasio that's V like Victor E-R-N
like Nathan, Anastasio is A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O, 1315 Walnut Street, Suite 1006, Philadelphia,
19107. Here today before the board representing owner Neely Tang for 433 Pierce Street.
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
have you also emailed an exhibit packet with proof of ownership proof of tax clearance
refusal referral photos and plans of the property five days in advance of the hearing
and have you met with the rco and if so do you have a letter yes on both thank you you may proceed
okay this is um a long neglected uh property uh on peer little pierce street uh at pierce
street itself is a long neglected street very few homes on the block it's mostly a little tiny
street that's full of either empty lots boarded up properties or garages and what we are proposing
is for the first floor to have a garage there's already an existing curb cut
and then on the second floor we'd have one family dwelling and on the top floor we'd have another
one family dwelling. We'd have two decks one off the second floor rear one off the third floor rear
as we see here. This is the exterior rendering in the garage here once one family dwelling here on
second floor one family dwelling on the top and this is the rear elevation with the two decks
we met with the community group first let me uh let me do this first
we've got our tax clearance our settlement sheet
and this would ultimately be an opportunity for some life to be breathed into this long
neglected property and it'll be you know one of the first hopefully of many new developments on
the street which again is in desperate need of rehabilitation i have as well
i thought i had a dickinson square west civic association letter i believe you have that in
the record they sent that to you directly and they are in support of the granting of the variance
and with that if you can if you can confirm that that would be helpful otherwise i can pull it up
madam vice chair you're asking me to confirm that i can see the refusal if you have no if
you have the community letter that was sent to you i know i certainly have that
it was sent to us subsequent to submitting you should pull it up please very good
just give me one second okay i appreciate that i had it up i don't know where it went but
Just give me one minute.
Vern are you trying to pull something up from a different um yes yes so you can unshare the
screen if it's not in this list here it's not so unshare the screen okay hold on click the green
button I gotta hope I have to open up fully again right I do a new share I'm
to click the green button to take away this year okay do you see it now yes the letter that you
sent yes this is Dickinson Square West do you see it yes wonderful and here it is it's dated
September 17th they met with my client has met with the Dickinson Square West and as you can
see right there, they support appeal number 39899. And with that, I'd like to ask my client
to identify herself. Ms. Tang? Hello, this is Neely Tang, N-E-E-L-Y. The last name is Tang,
T-A-N-G. I live at 820 Bainbridge Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19147. Thank you, Ms. Tang.
Ms. Tang, did you hear my presentation to the board today?
I'm sorry. Can she be sworn in first?
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Ms. Tang, do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Ms. Tang, did you hear my presentation to the board this morning?
I did.
And was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Yes, it is.
And would you adopt my presentation as your own testimony if need be?
Thank you very much.
and with that that concludes my presentation mr chairman any questions from the board no no no
anyone else wish to testify in this case if so please raise your hand now
no hands at this time thank you planning commission
Brian Wenrick city planning this property is indicated for residential use on the city's
comprehensive plan due to the existing block character we do not believe this proposal will
have any negative impacts on the surrounding area accordingly we are not opposed to the granting of
the variance thank you carol when you read this off did you not give me an mi number yes i did
mi-2020-000227 all right because verne has it as the calendar i guess either one does it matter
yes it's fine okay mi-2020-227 433 pierce street my vote is yes my vote is yes
my vote is yes my vote is yes
thank you all tanya i have a question can i read off the appeal numbers as opposed to the meeting
item number yes um actually because of the way i have the vote sheets up set up okay it's either
calendar number or meeting id so if you could if you have one of those that would be better
okay we have both of them and i've been reading the meeting item mi 2020 000 235 445 green street
Is anyone here for Green Lane?
No hands are up, Madam Vice Chair.
Why don't we, just in case they're having technical problems, go to the next case and
and we'll deal with this at the end okay calendar number MI 2020-000-212-4525 Lardner Street
we'll deal with this at the end.
Okay, calendar number.
Madam Vice Chair, I have Jennifer Bazitlow.
Jennifer, you can share your screen and unmute yourself and wait to be sworn in.
jennifer can you hear me i can hear you i'm having trouble with my video so you may not be able to
see me however i don't know what's going on okay i cannot see you okay as long as i can hear you
that's good name and address for the record please sure jennifer bazidlow b as in boy a as in apple
z as in zebra y d as in david l as in larry o as in oscar 4500 worth street suite d202 philadelphia
Pennsylvania 19124 do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do you also agree to waive and step yes do you have you also emailed an exhibit packet in
with proof of ownership proof of tax compliance a copy of the refusal or referral photos and or
plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing and have you met with the RCO and
if so, is there a letter? Yes, I emailed in the primary exhibit packet last Friday the RCO letter
I sent in on Monday, which was when I had received it. Also in my presentation, I did add one
additional photo that just shows the property from 2014. That was not in my previous exhibit
packet. I'm happy to share that later if I need to. All right, let me share my screen.
Okay. So I'm here today with the owner of this property, Tim Borton, who owns 4525 Lardner Street
through his LLC, Philadelphia Heritage Investments LLC. Tim, if you just want to raise your hand
so that they know who you are, you'll be allowed to speak. I submitted a package with a refusal
deed, tax clearance, a letter of non-opposition from the Wissen-Noming Civic Association,
aerial view of the property, and portions of the zoning archive, as well as photos,
and the plans, which I am incorporating into the record. 4525 Lardner is a 2,422 square foot RSA3
zoned property at the northwest corner of Lardner and Dittman, which is directly across the street
from Henry Lawton Elementary, and this is in the Wissen-Noming section of
Philadelphia. I'm going to get to the zoning archive section as a little bit of
background here. In 1962 this property was approved for multifamily use with
four units plus four garages accessed, front-loading garages accessed off of Lardner Street.
The four units here are not at issue. They have been in continuous use and are still approved.
That variance is still in place. What happened was my client, Mr. Borton, purchased this property in
2016 when he purchased this property there was no garages and there were six units in this building
um so what we are here today is to seek to seeking to legalize that use of the building
as it has existed and uh all evidence points to the fact that this building has existed in this
fashion since the 60s for almost six decades and so we're just trying to get that legalized
so that he can continue making improvements for his building
because right now he can't pull building permits
because of this discrepancy.
So let me just pull up the plans.
This is, so you can see, this is the photo of the property.
As you can see, this property never had garages.
There's no place where the garages would have been.
Okay, cool.
Bye-bye.
Just get to the floor plan. So this is how this building was configured when he purchased it.
There are essentially two detached structures, I mean, semi-detached structures, each with three units in it, one on each floor.
There are, it's essentially two detached structures, I mean semi-detached structures.
The ground floor, this first floor, and then the second floor, each are one-bedroom, one-bath units.
They're all roughly the same size and roughly the same configuration.
um so what happened i can show you the current photos of how this is how the building looked
in 2014 before he purchased it it was in need of significant repair but as you can see it's still
in the same um configuration as it was in 2014 before his purchase um like i said there was the
six units already present. What happened was when he went to go improve the building, there was some
moisture issues on these ground floor units. He began the demo of the property. So this is what
they look like currently. No pictures were taken before the demo took place, but you can see that
there was an existing bathroom already in these units. And so there's moisture. He did the demo.
he went to go pull building permits and that's when he learned that in fact there was only four
permitted uses and there were missing garages um to these structures um i want to first i want to
address these two issues with the parking and then the units separately let me first address the
parking issue um based on this construction of the building as and as well as my conversations with
some of the long-term residents and the RCO, as far as you can tell, there was
never garages built. That was the variance granted in the 60s, but it just
never happened. At this point, if he was required to construct those garages or
otherwise provide off-street parking, it would be a significant hardship as it
probably would involve just tearing down the whole building and rebuilding it. So
that's a hardship to the building and also a significant financial hardship. It also wouldn't
make sense because if you see along here, there is parking along this side of the street. And if
we instead replaced, if we put garages or some sort of parking in front here, it would remove
the public on-street parking. So essentially we would have no, we would probably lose more
on-street parking than we would gain by providing those parking spaces. I also
heard something from the Wissendoming Civic Association, which I rarely hear
from any Civic, which is that there's no parking issues in this neighborhood, and
that's because there is good public transit. Many of the residents do not
own cars, including several of the existing tenants in the four units, in
the four existing units. Several of them do not own cars, and the people
that do own cars several of the properties surrounding here do have off-street parking
where they remove their cars from the street um so like i said the the removal of the garages i
i think is kind of very clear that this never existed and it would make sense to authorize
uh the continuance of not having off-street parking at this property as for the legalization
of the two additional units. Again, speaking with the RCO and your neighbors, as far as they can
remember, this has been a six-unit building. And it's configured in the same way as when my
client purchased it. Let's go to the floor plan again. So I actually want to show you this photo,
which is the outside. While these are ground floor units, they have direct
access to the outside through these doors. There's no hallways, they don't
have to go upstairs to go out the door, they have direct access to the
outside. There's also five large windows in each unit. They're configured with
basically the same amount of access as the other units. In fact, if you look at
the egress distance provided in the floor plan, the maximum egress distance in the lower units