distribution, dating back to 1965 and more recently as of the early 2000s. But the uses
seem to have been abandoned periodically by those previous tenants. As you can see from some of the
interior photos, again, it is designed essentially for the delivery, interior delivery. So there's
no issues on the exterior of the property for anybody to notice. No odors or anything like that
are expected. And here is a rough plan of what is intended, where the building is separated into the
appropriate compartments, so to speak, for processing and storage of the meats, and then a
front retail section for customers of the neighborhood to buy the meats as fresh as
possible. We have, here's a copy of the lease agreement or the indicative pages of it. Sultan
Ali is the principal of Roulade Poultry Inc. And he is here to testify as to the statements I've
made today. We do have tax clearance. The property has been posted. And we also have several letters
of support from near neighbors that were obtained by my client directly. We have about
five to six of them, and I can go through them just briefly, but generally, local religious
organizations are represented here. They believe that this will be a benefit to the community to
be able to have live fresh meats, as well as just generally the neighbors in the area. While we do
not have a letter of support at the moment or any letter at all from the RCO. That meeting went
extremely well and was positive. We addressed any of the concerns that they had regarding how this
operation would work. But again, we believe that the location of this and the hardship being that
where intensive industrial is meant to protect public interest from things like hazardous
chemicals and substances and even the byproducts of things such as a slaughterhouse uh this being
limited to the the poultry uh meat we we don't believe that it rises to the level of of concern
that other intensive industrial uses would and so we are therefore asking for the variance in order
to be able to process the meat and provide fresh meat to for retail sale to the consumer
I do have Mr. Ali available, if he could raise his hand.
Mr. Ali?
Is Sultan Ali available on the line?
If you could, please raise your hand.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Sultan Ali, S-U-L-T-A-N-A-L-I.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, please.
Thank you.
Mr. Ali, have you had an opportunity to hear my testimony and statements to the board today?
And do you believe my statements to be true and correct?
And would you adopt my statements as if they were your own testimony?
Yes. And I have one other question for you. Can you, do you own and operate other businesses similar to this?
Yes, I own one in the Bronx, New York at 966 Worcester Avenue. And I own one in Philadelphia for 938 North 50th Street.
And are you fully aware of the regulations necessary to
And are you fully aware of the regulations necessary to operate this type of business?
What do you mean?
As we discussed the health department regulations, you're familiar with all of the regulations in order to operate this business?
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have no further questions for Mr.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
No, Mr. Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Hi. Planning Commission?
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX2 commercial mixed-use zoning at this location.
The proposed use does have the potential to affect the use of adjoining property, which is why it's not permitted in the CMX2 zoning district.
However, given the relative scarcity of industrially zoned land in this community, the configuration of the existing structure, the limited impacts of the proposed use and the adjacent non-residential land uses, we recommend that the board grant this variance.
Mr. Crick, here's what I'm going to do.
We're going to hold the vote until next week for the RCO letter.
One way or the other, we're going to vote on this next Wednesday morning.
Very good.
I appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
Okay, here we go.
MI 2021-004-990-5619 Winfield Avenue, Sean Whalen.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary Emerson.
So I have received the exhibits.
I'm reviewing them now.
It's fine if Mr. Whalen proceeds.
I'll let you know if there's anything that is missing.
Thank you.
Mr. Whalen.
Could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
Certainly.
Rich Kishkejian is on the line, and he is the owner of the property.
Thank you.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Whalen.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet consisting of proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal, 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, to all.
Thank you.
You may proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So Sean Whalen here on behalf of Rich Kashkijian, the owner of 5619 Winfield.
Right now, hopefully you're seeing an aerial view, kind of just of a map of showing the general context of this property.
You can see this is just south of St. Joe's. We're about a block off of City Avenue, and we have a large Samuel Gumpers public school across the street from us.
And this might give a better example. So we are the left side of a twin along fronting on Winfield Avenue with most of our frontage actually on North 57th Street.
So we are a corner property. The entire neighborhood here is zoned RSA 3 and RSA 2. These properties in this area sort of along Winfield and then going up North 56th, up North 57th and 54th over here are predominantly St. Joe's rentals for undergraduate students.
If anyone is not familiar with these homes, these are very large homes.
You're talking about four or five, six-bedroom homes throughout this entire neighborhood.
And generally speaking, they're all rented out to St. Joe's residences, undergrad.
And then as you go south away from the property and further away from St. Joe's, you do get into a single-family-style environment.
So we have two refusals. The first one is two-family household living is prohibited.
Essentially, our request, Mr. Kishkejean bought this property some number of years ago. It is
now and has been at all times a legally licensed and rented home for St. Joe's undergraduate
home for St. Joe's undergraduate students. And what he is seeking to do is to take
graduate students and what he
basically half of the first floor and turn that into a separate one-bedroom apartment.
The basis for this request is that it will stabilize the property. As we all know and
are aware, there are certainly upsides, but certainly a number of downsides to having
undergraduate students as renters. They're a little difficult on the property. They're
difficult on the neighborhood. And we are looking to stabilize the property and the project
by having a smaller one-bedroom unit, which would have its own outdoor space that I'll walk through
in a minute. And that would be an adult member of the household of the neighborhood or a graduate
student or adjunct professor or something of the sort from St. Joe's, given the context,
or even a teacher for that school right across the street, basically to calm the property
and to have a long-term resident at the property and not just new undergraduate students year
over year. So that's the basis of this first property. The second refusal is required number
of accessory parking spaces, saying that we have two required and only one is proposed.
To be frank, I'm not sure where this came from. We have two-car parking in a driveway in the rear
of this house. Like I said, these are very large properties with rear access driveways.
We also have essentially the size of two-car parking in a basement-level garage.
um we park only one car there so we actually have three car parking on site in an existing building
um so it's unclear to me where this second uh variance request or demand came from
but i do believe that it's inappropriate so just to give you some context again we are this uh left
side property here, you can see there's a large Porsche, which is the feature throughout the
neighborhood, a front door here. There's actually another walk-in door right here. And then as you
continue around the property, so here's the front door on Winfield. You have another front door to
a lower level room. Actually, that's a direct walk-in based on the grade change here. You have
another essentially front door here and a third front door here. This is now the schools behind
me, St. Joseph's to the left, and this is North 57th Street. As you can see, these two cars I
purposely had parked in our driveway. They are completely off street on entirely private property
and I'll show you a photo in a minute to show that they're not even touching the
rear access alleyway so again I'm unclear where that second parking refusal came from but I do
believe it's inappropriate and again right behind this truck there is an exceptionally deep 35 to
40 foot garage that actually goes all the way back to essentially where this lower window is
um so again the request is relatively simple the way this property is structured uh there would
be one interior wall here and one interior door structured this portion of the property including
the outdoor sizable outdoor patio and a kitchen would have its own front door uh would have one
bedroom right here and would have the kitchen is back behind this window that would be the one
bedroom apartment with its own parking and access. And again, the purpose of this would be to,
these are exceptionally large homes that are all rented out throughout this neighborhood to
St. Joe's undergrads. And the purpose of the variance is to seek a smaller one bedroom unit
that would bring in kind of an adult presence, a long-term resident, hopefully that would rent
there for years, either from the neighborhood or someone affiliated with St. Joe's or the school
across the street from us. And then just the last, these are again, numerous doors all walk-in level
based on the grade change. This is the school to the left and here's St. Joe's in the distance as
you look up the block. And here's the, here are two car parking that are those cars that were
parked in the driveway. So as you can see, we're still this is still about seven or eight feet.
So as you can see, we're still this is still about seven or eight feet from the alleyway.
So there's there's plenty of space there for those those rear access parking.
We met with the community and they did oppose the project.
Their opposition, they actually appreciated the basis for our request.
We presented last month and then they had us come back to present again, actually just last night.
So I very much appreciate their quick turnaround on a letter. And they opposed the project based on the fact that they did not want to set a precedent for multifamily use, even though they did appreciate why we were trying to put in the one bedroom.
but they did not want other houses to have separate bedrooms
where you could actually then end up
with more people living in them
as opposed to fewer like we're trying to do.
With that, I would answer any questions
that the board may have
and I would ask that my client, Rich Kashkijian,
raise his hand and be elevated as a panelist
to adopt my testimony.
Hi, Mr. Whalen, it's Carol Tenere.
uh this area has been a problem area with st joe students and um i'm not surprised that the rco has
opposed it and further i don't think that you could get a professor to move into a small unit
in any of these twins and act like an ra um st joe's built additional dorms to prevent
homes from being abused by the students. I'm a big fan of St. Joe's, and that's all I have to say.
No, certainly, and if I could just respond quickly, I think it's a very valid point.
I actually live not even maybe half a mile from this on the opposite side of City Ave.
I used to live a half a mile on this side of City Ave.
Yep. So I'm very familiar. Yeah, my church is actually one block this way. I personally walked Winfield Avenue off of 57th in both directions, up 56th, up 57th here.
Again, based on city records, I don't want to suggest that all of these homes are being rented or subdivided legally, but almost, or I should say not almost all, most of these homes show the telltale signs of being rented to St. Joe's students.
So that is the predominant context of this area. I didn't mean to suggest that we're trying to get just a professor. I wasn't trying to be exclusive. I simply meant, you know, if you can get, you know, there are a lot of possible people, A, you know, adults who work at the elementary school across the street.
Uh, we have a lot of residents in this area who would be looking for a more affordable
one bedroom use that actually has a large back door.
Um, also, you know, there are, I don't think you'd get a tenured professor, but you certainly
could get an adjunct professor who's, who's in just for, for a year, um, or you could
have, you know, uh, graduate students or workers, you know, groundskeepers and other workers
that may work at St. Joe's. So the only point that I was trying to make by referencing who
might the rental be is that there's quite a large group of, or groups of individuals who may be
appropriate to rent that one bedroom. And again, my client is not interested in, this is not really
a, the argument was made last night and discussed and accepted by the community. This is not a
increase in income play with the property. It will actually not increase the value of the
property as far as monthly rentals. It is simply just trying to get a calming influence into that
property and cutting out sort of the larger building as it exists today. And I didn't mean
to imply that you only suggested professors, but I do know that the City Avenue Services
District is opposed to this. I know the neighbors are opposed to it. There's been nothing but
trouble, and St. Joe's has gone to the great expense of building dorms up and down City Avenue,
so that's all I have to say. Your presentation was good. Yes, and particularly on the old
Episcopal School site on the north side of City Ave for sure. Mr. Whalen could you show the letter from the
the RCO? Yes.
40 opposed yes okay all right why don't you bring your your owner on and uh we'll adopt
40 opposed?
this testimony you're a testimony sure uh mr kishkeji and if you could raise your hand
sir you can amuse yourself you're free to speak i'm here sean hi could you state your name and
spell for the court reporter, please? Richard Keshgagian. That's R-I-C-H-A-R-D. Last name is
Keshgagian. K-E-S-H-G-E-G-I-A-N. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Proceed, sir. All right. Thank you. Mr. Keshgagian,
you are the owner of the property correct yes and did you hear all of the testimony that I