Yvette Young, Y-V-E-T-T-E-Y-O-U-N-G.
Are you a neighbor?
I am a neighbor and I am opposed, but I would also like to say what the attorney said was disingenuous about the community not being opposed to the gas station.
He made it clear that the convenience store was by right.
It was opposed because it was so close to a CVS, but we understood it was by right.
But we were in we were uniformly opposed to the gas station.
All right. Thank you very much. We're done. Right.
OK. So, Vern. Yeah, I'm going to do a brief closing, Mr. Chair.
Wait one minute. You'll be brief with this?
Of course.
All right, go ahead.
No matter how long it takes. I promise. Yes, I promise.
Nobody's laughing, Bernie.
All right. Okay. Mr. Chair, first, I appreciate the opposition testimony, of course.
I do want to make sure that we're clear that the second witness said he's been in the petroleum business for many years,
and he had, quote, no concerns about the tanks. Also about these waivers, someone testified that
there were so many waivers. These waivers need to be understood in context. These requests concern
landscaping, screening, and planting requirements by the Planning Commission, and the code
expressively authorizes the Planning Commission to modify where site constraints make compliance
impracticable. That's all the waivers were. There's nothing else to that. Will this proposed
use impact the area any more than which would be normally expected? The clear answer based on
several expert testimony, 275 pages of material, including a detailed traffic study,
The answer is no. We have met our burden here. This question that needs to be decided, unfortunately, is not subject to community popularity. It's not subject to speculation or opinion or conjecture. It's not subject, respectfully, to so-called councilmanic prerogative.
none of that could be taken into account. It's subject solely to proper legal analysis.
It's subject solely to proper legal analysis.
The Department of LNI has already deemed this use as compatible.
The Streets Department has already deemed our traffic flow as a good one.
We actually mitigate the dangers based on the expert materials that we've submitted.
We actually address the bus stop issues in the materials that were submitted.
So the burden has shifted.
And although it was voluminous, the opposition testimony offered zero site-specific evidence or testimony as it relates to how it would impact the area more than which would be expected.
And with that, I'm going to rest my case.
Thank you.
Planning Commission.
It's still morning at 11.59.
We're having a hard time hearing you.
Sorry.
I was saying it's still morning.
Oh, now it's noon.
Good afternoon.
is liz fuselay from the philadelphia city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends a
change in zoning at this location from the current ca1 auto-oriented commercial to cmx2 neighborhood
commercial mixed use district the fueling station is not a permitted use within the cmx2 recommended
zoning for this parcel the city planning commission recommends the board deny the requested
special exception for a vehicle fueling station. I respect that position, Mr. Chair. It is not
zone CMX2. If the Planning Commission thought it should be, they should have done that by now.
Thank you. MI 2025-002-347-6200-206 Fish Street. I vote yes. No, no, I'm sorry. No,
No, no, I'm sorry. I looked at the paper. A vote is no.
Am I looking?
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is no.
Tana Graham, my vote is no. Ty Owen, my vote is no.
Layla B. Layla B. My vote is no.
Layla B. too.
Okay. Thanks, everyone, for coming.
No, no, no. We've got to move on.
Number five, MI 2026-003-001-6236 North Broad Street. Darlene Threat is the attorney.
Counsel, could you please state and spell your name?
Good afternoon, board members. Darlene Threat, D-A-R-L-E-N-E, Threat, T as in Thomas, H-R-E-A-T-T.
Darlene Threat and Associates, 45 East City Avenue.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
So this is a reconsideration hearing.
The testimony and evidence from the March 4th, 2026 hearing in this matter are incorporated by reference into today's reconsideration hearing.
The scope of today's reconsideration hearing is limited to the change made by the appellant to the proposed plan, proposed plan that originally is the original hearing.
So the change and we take testimony from you, right?
Yes, Commissioner.
And so I, this is, why don't you just start?
Commissioners, thank you for hearing our reconsideration petition.
I think we have made some significant changes to the design that the board could appreciate.
If I could share my screen?
Here we go.
Here we go.
This is the new presentation package that I submitted.
I won't go over all the details of it.
The only testimony would be the changes.
So here was the original refusal.
We requested 31 units.
We did change.
We reduced the units count by three down to 28 units.
Also, there was some outdoor space that was presented in the last project.
I'm just going to go to the outdoor space directly. Yep.
Before we had a minimal amount of outdoor space, we've increased the outdoor space to
over a thousand square feet. This is the space where the residents may come outside.
This is the space where the residents may come outside, smoke, barbecue, or have outdoor space for their children.
I have an analysis of the outdoor space changes and the changes to the whole project that we'll go over.
So this was our previous site plan, and this is the updated site plan.
If commissioners will recall, before in the back here, we had a very minimal amount of space for outdoor activities or outdoor sitting or smoking.
We have increased the space exponentially.
Here is the site plan for before on the left and the changes to the right.
As you can see, we made significant changes in the outdoor area and the outdoor space.
We also took away three units.
I have the architect with me, Chris Sothiatini, today.
And he did a height analysis for us.
There was some question at the previous hearing in regard to the height.
And he actually did a study.
And Chris, I'll ask you to start with this diagram here and tell us the comparisons between the height.
Could you please state and spell your name for this phonographer?
Yes, Chris Sopiantini.
That's C-H-R-A-S.
Sopiantini is S as in Sam, O-F-F as in Frank, I-E-N as in Nancy, T as in Tom, I-N as in Nancy, and I again.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Mr. Sofiantini, can you tell us what we're looking at on the diagram right now?
Yes. So what you see on the screen in front of you right now is a comparison of the building that
was previously existed on this site, which had since been destroyed in a fire. As you can see,
the height of the previous building, to our best knowledge, is similar in the scale of the height
of what we are proposing it is in fact also the same number of units which is 28 um uh however
these units are sort of have been uh updated to the more standard uh the 2026 living standards
these were much smaller units mr sophie and tini how many floors did the prior building contain
um the existing building you could say it was three and a half or four stories the first floor
is sort of a basement that is half out of the ground.
And depending on how you interpret it,
you could see it as a four-story building,
which is equivalent to what we're proposing.
And is it correct that our building is a four-story building?
And is it correct that we have no basement use
in this building that we're proposing here?
We have no functional basement use.
We have some, I believe we have a small utility space, but...
I'm sorry, I should have said no living...
No occupiable spaces in the basement.
Mr. Sofiantini, did you do a median height analysis of the properties on Broad Street?
Yes. We conducted a, well, if you want to start with this diagram right here.
What you're seeing in front of you right now is a section cut of the proposed building
in comparison to the existing building that is behind it at the present day.
And the height is relatively similar.
So what proposing is not out of character for this site position.
Okay, I'm going to go to the next diagram. Actually, I'm sorry, let me just hit one ahead
of that. Mrs. Sofiantini, can you explain this diagram to the board for us?
Yes. So on the site plan document you see in front of you, along with photographs,
these are existing buildings within the context that are of a similar scale or larger than what
we're proposing. As you can see, our site in red, right behind it is the building identified as C
in the photograph onto the side,
which is, in fact, the rear building,
and it is, in fact, right behind us.
Some of these buildings are identified with photographs.
Some of them that are shown in photographs
are slightly further down Broad Street,
but there exist quite a few structures
that are of a large size
that was part of the concern in this case.
Mr. Sofientini, I'm going to go
to the height analysis diagram,
which has A, B, C, D.
and E on it. Can you explain this analysis to that board?
Yeah. So, and there are a few pages of that are,
of these diagrams within this package. What these are,
are 3d points up 3d point cloud scans that we conducted
of this area of broad street to kind of really show what the
character of the street is because it varies so much.
Because it varies so much, and what you tend to see are a lot of single-family, multi-family, civic buildings, and car-oriented businesses.
And what you tend to see are a lot of
So you have a very different, wide range of scale building types.
But something that's worth noticing is that you have a very high tree canopy that's very consistent from 6,000 to 7,000 Broad Street.
um quite a few of these buildings do exceed or or meet the proposed height that we're proposing
this is this red line you're seeing on the the diagrams here um so for example on the 6400 block
you have this d section um that's a building that is larger than in height than what we're proposing
um for example and i believe there are four pages of this in the document that i'm just gonna go
oops that's a duplicate to the next page here yeah so similar to what i just described so we
have the west and the east um within this range kind of described some of the single-family
residential homes even exceed this height because of a strange sort of burn condition that exists
on these sites um on north broad street um which creates kind of an interesting kind of urban
variation. And there's just more of the same kind of diagrams where you're
seeing that the tree canopies are quite, quite high and beyond our, our proposal
height in this case.
And then there's some more examples. 6400 block is probably one of the most
characteristic of our building
scale. And then at each of these
section locations, we present what
these, what the cuts
through these streetscapes would look like.
So we have one
for each of those tag locations.
And you have setbacks that have quite
a bit of variation. But
at the very end, you'll notice
the bottom right, this is the proposed street section.
Very typical kind of
scaled street.
Nothing unusual
going on in fact matches the character of some of the some of what you're seeing above in these
other cut locations and uh commissioners i just really want to go back to the renderings to um
show you uh the building on that we're proposing here so um as part of our effort to make the
building fit the context as best as possible what we'd like to do is what we're proposing to do is
to match the existing material character of what exists in this area.
So we would like to use, I believe, the materials Wissahick and Schist
for the first level, a rustic brick material that's kind of aged in a way
to kind of play into the age of the buildings that are on this site.
And then maybe the third floor is a standing seam that's a light color
to kind of downplay the height.
And here's another escape street.
Yes, just to give you a sense of what the tree canopy looks like on a street like this, there are very mature trees, and they have a very high canopy, and they do obscure much of the building, so some of that height won't even be perceptible from the street.
And then I have a final night-looking rendering of the building.
Commissioners, thank you again for hearing our case again.
I'd like to say that I did meet with the community associations and the councilman's, excuse me, woman's planning person, and I did submit an updated letter of support from Councilwoman Cindy Bass.
I did meet with ACCA and Oak Lane Worcester again, and unfortunately, they both seem to no longer be operating, and I was unable to get them to write another letter, although they all support the project.