Just make sure you answer the question, that's all.
Yeah, of course.
Is either Carrie
or Nicole from Cano Architects
on the call?
I don't see anyone by that name with their hand up.
Is David Ross with their firm, Mr. Knockamson?
That's also Mr. Terror's business partner as well.
Okay, the two ladies that you mentioned, I don't see anyone by that name with their
hands up.
All right, let me see if I can figure this out in terms of the slope.
I'm going to reshare my screen.
This is going to show the slope.
I do apologize, Mr. Holloman, that we don't have our architect on the call, but the slope is here.
As you can see, it's rather steep.
Can you blow it up a little more?
Yeah, sure, Mr. Holloman.
Let me move it over.
So it's rather steep where the steps are in the rear.
The steep slope is really more towards the back of the property than in the front.
it does look like it is slope like if you look just visually from the street
but i don't think that gets us to sleep the steep slope most of the steep slope is in the rear
where it connects to the 3515 uh midvale street avenue property okay thank you you're welcome
um mr uh terror have you virtually raised your hand
Mr. Ter, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair's instructions.
Thank you. Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter? Jeremy Ter, J-E-U.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Jeremy Ter, J-E-R-E-M-Y.
Last name is Ter, T-E-R-R.
T-E-R-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Mr. Ter, you heard everything I stated today.
And is it true and correct?
Yes, it is.
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
We have Mr. Ross here as well, if you need additional questions or answers related to
steep slope or design development.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, thank you.
Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from the virtual audience?
You can unmute yourself and wait for the chair, Ms. Langer.
Hello?
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
my name is hillary langer h-i-1-l-a-r-y-l-a-n-g-e-r and i'm chair of the east falls community
council all right do you swear affirm do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do thank you very much okay thank you um yeah mr knockinson has uh
accurately described some of the process we've undertaken over the last year. We feel we're
mitigating some of the issues of the parking that is not provided at 3515 on Midvale,
which is why you see the parking accommodated up on this particular property.
so we feel as I stated in my letter of support that we've reached a reasonable scheme here which
we hope that you can support there is one outstanding issue for us in that we had requested
a deed restriction or a proviso contained within this that the 12 parking spaces you see in the
rear which are zone cmx two and a half will never be developed as an apartment building
without parking spaces we haven't really received those assurances
Ms. Nakazim has said that neither proviso or deed restriction is necessary in order to prohibit that kind of development.
So I would like to hear and put into the record assurance that part of the lot cannot be developed.
um as a building and that if there are any proposals uh that indeed it would be a variance
that we would um that we would uh oppose yeah um mr chair members of the board i had a conversation
with mr langer uh i think it was yesterday his concern is that after we received this hopeful
variance approval from the board that we would then try to submit a zoning permit application
to erect an apartment building essentially on 3570R, what is known as 3570R.
As I indicated to Mr. Langer, this application is for a proposed consolidation of multiple
lots. Some of the lots are RSA 5. One of the lots, 3570R, is CMX 2.5. If this board should grant
the variance request for the consolidation and for the use of three single-family homes with
accessory and non-accessory parking, if we elected later on to try to erect a multifamily building
on what was formerly 3570R, we would have to go through the variance process all over again.
That's my understanding. So that's why I indicated to Ms. Langer that no proviso was needed because
you'll need a proviso for something that could happen in the future. And if it did,
we would have to go through this variance process again with community input and ZBA approval
necessary. And the deed restriction would not be necessary either under those circumstances.
uh and the deed restriction would not be necessary either under those circumstances
thank you yeah i would like to know if if if there's any chance that that could be a by right
development there so i would need confirmation that this indeed would be a variance if anything
were to be proposed back there rebecca
i would need to touch base with sharon to address this specific issue would you like me to circle
back to this case at the end of the list yeah we could do that we could do that
i'm wanting to hang around a little bit well and we'll figure it out okay and then we'll go
forward why don't why don't we just so that's the only thing we would have
Is there any other comments from the virtual audience?
There are no heads at this time, Chair.
Okay. Planning Commission, where do you stand on this project?
Chair Bergman, thank you for asking. Members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change in the residential single-family zoning at this location.
The steep slope does present a hardship to using this property in conformance with the code.
and so after discussions with the neighbors and the applicant has revised their original plans
to be more in keeping with the character of the block so the city planning commission is going
to recommend to you chair that the board grant the requested variances according to the revised plans
so why don't we do this let's just hold on to this a little bit we'll check on this in about
half hour an hour and then what we'll do is we'll just take a vote then is that okay alan
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll be here a while.
I have four.
Oh, yeah, I noticed.
I noticed.
So, yeah.
So we'll come back to this before the end of the day.
Thank you.
All right.
All right.
Let's move on to the next one.
M.I. 2021-003-960-40-E Silver Street, Mr. Nockamson, RCO-HACE, Letter of Opposition.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just state your name because you're already sworn.
All right, Alan Nockamson of Nockamson, PC, A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N, 123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia, PA, 19109.
And our vice chair has a few questions.
Sorry for the noise. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
It appears that you have submitted all the required documents?
Yes, we have.
You may proceed.
Hi, may I share my screen? Yes. Thank you.
Hi, so I'm here for 40 East Silver Street. This is in the Harrogate section of Philadelphia.
We have our typical presentation packet. We have a table of contents which includes our notice
refusal. This is an RSA 5 property, but as we'll explain later, RSA 5 property in name only.
I was here last year on a similar project, which the ZBA granted, with the City Planning Commission recommending for its approval of a two-family dwelling, given our understanding is that the City Planning Commission is recommending that this block actually be rezoned as RM1.
I have correspondence from HASE, CDC. Yes, they provided a letter of opposition, but with no zoning-related issues, it had to do all with affordability and matters like that, which are not zoning-related.
I do have a petition, which you'll see in our presentation packet. There are 43 properties on the, I guess, the 0-100 block of East Silver Street.
So that means 42 properties are not related to our property.
Of those 42 properties, we had 13 individuals sign in support of this project.
So more than 30% of the individuals signed in support of this project.
While the HASE CDC, I don't believe there were any people nearby or on that block.
My understanding, too, is that some of the individuals who live on that block are also in attendance in the audience.
again just like last hearing these individuals are going to testify it's really important to
them to have development on this block especially multi-family in terms of affordability which is not
you know on you know a zoning consideration it's more affordable to have more units on
a property than less but they want this developed it's you know this is a problem this is a property
or a block that's had problems with drug issues, drug-related issues, and they want this development to help.
drug issues, drug related issues, and they want this development to help those issues go away.
The next exhibit you'll see is just appeal number MI-2021-001425. It's proof that the ZBA did
grant 12E Silver Street for two units. You'll see in the notice refusal originally my client asked
for three units. I spoke to my client specifically about what the board was discussing on 12E
silver if this was an RM1 property two units would be allowed as a right and that's why I told my
client so you know that he should you know propose and that's why we changed up our plans is to have
three units two units if this board would grant this zoning request a variance request we would
ask for a proviso maximum of two units we have maps of the area photographs of the property
surrounding area. Plans and drawings are proof that we sent out notice of the community meeting
or application for appeal or deed to a property and a certificate of tax clearance.
This property is owned by Forty Silver LLC. I have one of the members, Lenny Chernak, who will
testify and adopt my testimony. All right, the refusal. This is an RSA 5 property
and essentially the you know do we have a use refusal for the multifamily nature or proposed
multifamily nature of this property again I you know told my client that you know this based on
what the planning commission told us this will be converted into RM1 if that's the case based on the
last square footage two units will be allowed as a right and I told my client that the board has
granted this in the past for two units on a similarly situated property. That's why we're
asking for a proviso maximum of two units. And then we have a de minimis request for the occupied
area where 75% is allowed and we're asking for 78.8%. This is a letter that the board should
have seen that was in our presentation packet that we submitted last week. But if the board looks,
There is actually here, they actually did say that three affected addresses were in support.
They indicated nothing about the people who were in the affected area against it.
So there were three in support.
The only opposition is the board themselves who are not in the affected area.
and then further proof of the people on that block
who are most impacted or in support of this project
are the people who are on 88 e-silver,
10 e-silver, 17 e-silver, 43 e-silver,
20 e-silver, 30 e-silver, 32 e-silver,
22 e-silver, 18 e-silver, 17 e-silver,
45 e-silver, 24 e-silver, and 39 e-silver.
Actually, my client didn't even get 12 e-silver,
the one who actually got the variance last time.
So in actuality, we had 14 of the 42, which would be a greater percentage of that block.
And it's really difficult to, you know, get people to open their doors.
This is not the, you know, it's a neighborhood that's going through a transition, but still has a crime problem, plus the pandemic.
But we still were able to get almost a third of the people on that block to sign and support it.
And then here's our application for appeal under ZP-2021-002616.
Again, 20 East Silver, July 20th of 2021, this board granted a similar variance for its two-family household living in, you know, there was an existing structure.
And then just showing where we are in the neighborhood, as you can see, this little pocket is RSA 5, but we are surrounded by multifamily and ICMX.
We're on, you know, we're not that far from East Lehigh, which is, you know, a commercial-ish corridor.
Then just maps it from a Google perspective, and then photographs their properties.
This is a vacant lot, showing that this is a residential property in nature, to the right of the property on the East Silver, to the left of the property, East Silver.
And then here's, again, other properties on that block that have a multifamily history.
16 East Silver is a triplex.
24 East Silver is a duplex.
30 East Silver is a triplex.
34-e silver is a triplex.
And then just our site plan showing, you know, that we're proposing a three-story structure.
And again, if you look at it, we have a significant amount of open area and outside area.
And then what we're trying to do is replicate the traditional brick facade with a modern feel.
with the modern feel, but you'll see that we do have a cornice line with a cornice,
but you'll see that we do have a cornice line with a cornice.
which would try to replicate the old Philadelphia row home.
And then just our floor plan.
Both of them are bi-level units.
Unit one is a one-bedroom, two-bath unit with flex space in the basement.
Unit two, which is on the second and third floors, is three bedrooms, three baths.
So it's a mixture of people who are moving into a neighborhood, the one bedrooms, as well as then the unit number two is for someone who is, like, looking to have a family, not have the responsibility of homeownership who can, like, move into this property as well.
Excuse me, counselor.
Your plan showed two units or three units?