i do thank you ms tenere has some questions for you
Hi, good morning, Matt. Do you agree to ways of reading the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with 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, although just for some clarification, there was a snafu when we originally sent the package in.
And it got kicked back because it was too large, but we did send the package in.
Okay, great.
You may proceed.
Good morning, Chairman DiCicco, members of the board.
This is simply an application for overnight boarding of dogs in an existing dog daycare park.
They have three locations around the city, and they're very experienced with this.
This is 1715 and 1715 R McKean Street.
It's the same building.
The 1715 McKean is on the refusal and should the board approve this, we'll just ask for proviso, just a state that it also includes 1715 R, because apparently both properties have been used as or treated as a single property by L&I, but just for any administrative clarification, that is what we're going to ask for.
Again, we're seeking the proposed use for overnight boarding of animals to expand within the same location in this I-2 industrial zone building and district.
Again, we're seeking the proposed use for overnight boarding of animals.
We've attached a copy of the lease.
My client is a commercial lessor or lessee, rather.
A copy of the refusal.
It's actually a referral for a special exception, application for appeal, the RCO letters and notices with certified mailing.
um uh and uh the notice posters um we have a copy of the poster within the package and here's
uh copies of the photographs uh which didn't make it into the package
um and uh we have a support letter from the rco um there's not plans but we do have a um uh zoning
uh contact sheet and the um uh and we've got the uh registration of zero taxes owed on the
on the property as the final exhibit. So here, this is a, as I was saying, I think this is a
relatively simple and straightforward application. This is an I2 industrial building and Bark Park
isn't going to be having any material impact by changing from, or by adding as an additional
service legalized overnight boarding. Here, they have an existing permit for animal services as
a dog daycare under L&I permit number 520396. And this is not a use that would add any additional
traffic as the drop off and pickup location of the dogs usually occurs in the morning and evening
drop off. So there's not going to be any additional changes in traffic or anything like that for
overnight boarding. And I can show you some of the property context photos. So you can see here's
the zoning context photo. It's right here on McKean. You can see right in the middle of this
I2 industrial district. And there's a dead end that runs off of McKean down to this area for
these industrial buildings, many of which are vacant. So they're not going to be impacting
their neighbors. The property sits on the corner of South Colorado. Like I said, yeah, it ends on
a dead end street. And the dogs are going to be contained within the building overnight and run
by Bark Park LLC, which is, you know, an experienced dog care provider throughout the city and the
occupancy of dogs for overnight boardings within the existing building. It's already permitted
and overnight it's going to have less impact on the already very little impact that the dog day
care has during the day. All waste is disposed of until containers according to the city code
And, you know, they take dogs for walks in the day, but, again, there's no real material impact on the neighborhood around.
Understanding that, you know, some of the board may have questions about this, happy to respond.
But just to note that, again, we do have a unanimous support letter from the East Point Breeze neighbors,
and the boat included near neighbors who showed up in support of the project as well.
So with that, I believe my client, Mr. Guido, is on the line, but we can respond to questions or anything like that.
Let's get your client to adopt your testimony. I'm going to ask for questions.
Okay. Mr. Guido, can you please raise your virtual hand?
Yep. Hello. My name is James Guido.
James, please spell your last name.
G-I-T-T-O.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do thank you mr monroe all right james um did you hear the factual statements that i made
yes and were they accurate yes do you adopt them as your testimony i do okay thank you
any questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chair anyone else like to testify in this case
please raise your hand chair we have donald sabatini please unmute yourself and please wait
for the chair morning mr sabatina please spell your full name and i'll swear you in
donald last name is s-a-b-a-t-i-n-i you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes please proceed i have a number of issues with this application uh
I attended virtually the community meeting, and council has glossed over the fact that he has the wrong address on his application from the beginning.
There's two separate tax parcels involved here, 1715 McKean and 1715-R, standing for rear McKean.
and 1715R, standing for Rear McKean.
He's applied.
He's applied for 1715 McKean, but he wants to run the business at 1715R, Rear McKean.
There is a material difference.
1715 McKean fronts on McKean Street.
It doesn't really have many neighbors except for mainly 1715 Rear.
1715 rear juts back into the residential neighborhood near the backs of the 1900 block of South 17th and 1900 block of South 4th Weir.
Also, I believe the notice requirements depend on the distance from the proposed project for what neighbors have to be noticed by mail.
So that would be different.
You can't start with one tax parcel and then be granted your zoning variance on a different tax parcel.
Furthermore, on the orange notice, I drove by and into that courtyard on Friday, September 3rd at 5 p.m., Wednesday, September 8th at 5 p.m., Friday, September 17th at 6.15 p.m., and Friday, September 24th at 6.30 p.m.
and i saw no orange notice posted anywhere on either 1715 or 1715 r and i believe he hasn't
supplied a photo earlier of the notice so that the if the request should be not denied for that
reason besides let me pardon the interruption two questions one is we're aware of uh the addresses
and we were going to if this gets approved we would include 1715 r the rare as part of the
approval uh where do you live in relationship to this property my property is at uh bancroft
and moore streets objection based on uh standing
unnoted i would point out that the note the notice is given to the community have said 1715
mckean not 1715 rear mckean so i don't see how that's probably noticed in any part of the
process to notify about one address when you're actually want permission to use a different
address. Furthermore, as far as the damage to the neighborhood, they're talking about boarding
60 dogs overnight, which I assume would be missing their owners. And it's reasonable from
inference that they may be barking in the middle of this residential area between 900 blocks of
17th and Bouvier. And it's also the waste that I understand they would pick up the waste, but
those $60 would be worked on the public streets. Thank you. Chairman DiCicco, may I respond just
to a couple of questions? Number one, we alerted the, we learned of the separate tax parcel after
the appeal was filed, and we did bring this up at the RCO meeting. As far as we've been able to
determine, both properties have been treated as the same by L&I, even though there are two different
tax OPA numbers. It's one building, one property that just happens to be split into with two OPA
numbers. This is not something we glossed over. It's something we raised at the community meeting.
And secondly, I checked the notice lists for both property 1715 and 1715R. They are both the same.
And so any neighbor that would have received notices under 1715-R is the same neighbor that would have received notice under 1715-McKean.
Thank you. Anyone else to testify in this case? Please raise your hand.
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good morning, David Fecto, City Planning Commission, Chair DiCicco, and members of the board.
The comprehensive plan recommends this property for residential industrial mixed use.
The property appears to have enough space to accommodate the proposed animal boarding.
The proposed use is unlikely to have more of an impact than an animal boarding service would be expected to have.
We recommend that the board support the requested special exception.
Hi, Chair. This is Tanya, the zoning board administrator.
If I could just respectfully mention that this discussion has been amongst Sharon Saleta, myself, as well as Ellen and I, and that was why we came up with the remedy of putting the proviso on.
So Mr. Monroe has done his due diligence to make sure that it was reported.
We just came up with this remedy as opposed to him going back to the table to get another refusal.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
MI 2021-002-087-1715 McKean Street.
My vote is yes with proviso.
My vote is yes with proviso. The property includes 1715 Rear McKean Street.
The property includes 1715.
Carl Tenere, my vote is yes with proviso.
Professor Plaza, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, yes with proviso.
Thomas Holloman, yes with proviso.
Thank you, Chairman Michiko, and thank you, Ms. Sunkett, for the clarification.
Thank you.
Number four on our list, MI 2021-002064, 1737 North 23rd Street.
Vern Anastasio is the attorney of record.
As of right now, my notes indicate we have not yet received a letter from St. Elizabeth's RCO.
Good morning, Mr. Anastasio.
Please identify yourself, spell your name, and I'll swear you in.
Thank you.
Vern Anastasio, A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O, Anastasio Law, 1315 Walnut, Suite 1006, Philadelphia, 19107.
You swear if I'm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Thank you.
Ms. Canary has some questions for you.
Good morning.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, referral, photos and or plans to the property five days in advance of this meeting?
And have you met with your CEO? And do you have a letter?
Most of that is yes. There are two outstanding items.
First, we do not I have not secured a tax cert, although my client says she did pay all the taxes.
The OPA is still showing a balance of six hundred dollars.
And we did meet with the RCO. We do not have a letter as of yet. I did speak to Mary Jones from
Esquire from President Clark's office. I did inform her that I had hoped that we would be
able to just proceed and we would need, I guess, a resumption hearing so that the RCO letter could
ultimately be read into the record. And I would have to show proof of tax clearance anyway.
Okay, you may proceed.
If that's amenable to you guys.
Yeah, let's proceed in that direction.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm going to share my screen.
There it is.
I think you all should be able to see that application 1737 north 23rd street is
for a three-family dwelling in an existing structure my client purchased this property
in during the pandemic November of 2020 these plans do show a basement unit we are no longer
interested in that we're going to stick to the three-family dwelling one on each floor it's a
very large property. Again, she just purchased it in November. It had separate utilities. It is
in an area that is in desperate need of some density. And I'll show you in a moment
what I'm talking about. Our property is right here. There's a vacant lot next to it,
next door, it's boarded up. It was a legal rooming house before that. Two doors down is a legal five
family dwelling. And as you can see, there's lots of vacancy, vacant lots around the property.
My client would be an owner-occupant in the property. It's currently being renovated.
Here's proof of posting.
There's the deed.
Proof of mailing to 133 households.
Here is the application that went out again we met on the 29th of September, so I think they need just about a week or so to get the letter out to you.
and with that you know this particular block this particular row of properties
uh it's a very large property uh to have it used as a single family residence to get it back up to
where it needs to be it is in major disrepair
for a single family home would be impracticable given this market in this particular census track
But to have ample apartments, one per floor, first, second, and third.
first, second, and third that offer two bedrooms, a nice open space living, and a full kitchen.
We believe people can meet at the right price point, and as I said, my client will be occupying
one of the units with her husband. As a result, because of the unique condition of this property,
the surrounding area and the vacancies we do believe granting of the three family dwelling
makes good sense practical sense here and as such we would respectfully request the continuance
I also want to add for the record that the property history if you check it you'll see that
it was in fact multi-family dwelling going back to the 50s and 60s at one point it just had been
abandoned. My client was able to purchase it in November of 2020 in that condition.
And with that, I'm going to ask my client, Bernadette Charlton, to raise her virtual hand,
please. Bernadette. She's on there, Mr. Chairman. I spoke to her this morning.
She's available, but her hand is not raised.
i wonder if she knows how she also has two devices so i unmuted the allowed her to talk
on the first device okay bernadette are you there
yes yes yes yes yes ma'am you have you need to shut one of your devices down
mr anasazi on the interest of time you being an officer of the court will stipulate that
your client would have adopted your testimony any questions from the board no mr chairman
no no mr chair what else would like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
I see no other hands, Chair.
Thank you. Planning Commission?
Good morning. David Vecto, City Planning Commission, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board.
The Comprehensive Plan recommends this property for residential single-family use.
However, 11 properties on this block are documented multifamily homes.
These approvals appear to stretch back to the 1950s.
We recommend that the Board approve the requested use variance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
MI 2021-002064, 1737 North 23rd Street.
This hearing will be resumed.