property is owned rsa 5 single family we are proposing a single family home
here's the what the front of the property looks like there's a whoops there's a sliver of that
carport we're as a part of this development project we'll be adding a sidewalk here
so it'll have be a little bit more pedestrian friendly there's our notice of appeal
Here it is in 2008.
Here's the property towards Fleming.
So this is the side of that Fleming property.
And then this is up Terrace Street.
So you can see here the parking that we are proposing and we will be seeking a refusal for is not out of character as many of these homes have parking as well.
And there's no street parking allowed directly in front of our property.
So we're not taking a publicly available space off the street.
Here is the rendering. Obviously tons of natural light, a garage door. The RCO asked for a couple
Here is the rendering.
obviously tons of natural light.
things. The sidewalk, which I referenced, which you can see on this rendering, kind of additional
landscaping at the front, which we will be doing. We show a garden bed here. They also asked for an
opaque garage door, which we complied with. Here's the rear of the property. There's no
roof deck just the gabled roof so in lieu of that we obviously have a significantly large rear yard
measuring 24 feet as well as a large deck that's coming off of the main living space
and then the side yard which you'll see on the site plan is this staircase side yard that runs
from front to back and here it is on the plans you can see at the front it's four feet 10 inches
In the middle here, because of the shape of the building structure, it's 3 feet 11 inches.
And at the back, at its widest point, it's 9 feet 9 inches.
And you can see, my apologies, the garage here with a flex area.
Obviously, the building is built onto a slope.
So, you know, the garage enters at grade, and you saw sort of what the massing looked like at the rear of the building structure.
On the second floor, you have a large living space, dining room, kitchen, and balcony at the front and deck at the rear.
Third floor, you have three bedrooms and three bathrooms and some skylights you can see on the roof plan where there is no roof deck.
we met with the rco september 10th we mailed notice to 111 properties
here's the application for appeal
deed to the property is owned by an alex ramos i have our agreement of sale and our materials as
well that is contingent on the approval of this zoning matter
with an addendum
and then tax clearance with that i'd like to call my client to adopt my testimony
what's your client's name again justin mendez okay
hey uh can everyone hear me yes i can could you please
Please state and spell your name for the stenographer.
My name is Justin Mendez, spelled J-U-S-T-I-N for my first name, and my last name is Mendez, M-E-N-D-E-Z.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Justin, did you hear my testimony today?
Was it true and correct?
And do you adopt it as your own?
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
questions from our attorney um just one question well two questions um if you're doing a sidewalk
i would assume streets has to be looking at it also kind of surprised also are you building a
fence or does that fence already exist the fence that we're showing is illustrative if we you know
if it wasn't contemplated in this permit application if we build a fence obviously
it has to be by right or we have to come back for further approval that's what my but the fence on
rendering is just for illustrating purposes okay thank you questions or comments from the virtual
audience mr clark they will be allowed to speak questions or comments from the virtual audience
hello hello can you hear me yes i could please state and spell your name
my name is james clark spelled j-a-m-e-s-c-l-a-r-k my wife is present also all right all right just
what you're going to testify sir yes all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told
truth nothing but the truth yes please proceed sir are you a neighbor i am a neighbor this
property that is proposed to be built is directly behind our home okay and we got to look at the
plans it says it's going to be 40 foot high four stories that's going to actually we're going to
be looking at a wall now we're looking at trees and everything like that but we'll be looking at
the wall. That's one issue. The second issue we have with it is the fact that you have to dig
to get to your sewage. And you have to have a pitch to do that.
from, and you have to have a pitch to do that. And I believe the fourth story is kind of like
going to be the reason you have the fourth story is so you can be able to get that pitch.
That's why you have the house so far up. We're concerned about the digging as far as
messing with the foundations of the houses behind it and on the side of us and did you have lyceum
avenue because the deterioration of the the uh soil around there it it every time it rains you
lose soil it runs downhill so how how is that being dealt with and last but not least that
picture that's rendered from the rear that's not our fence our fence is four foot back and we own
the four foot up to the wall so you are you planning on tearing that wall down to match the
fence our fence line with our neighbors match but it does not match on that rendering
so if i could mr goldberg do you want to respond to some of this i'll respond to a couple things
and then fortunately my client is in the construction business and i had to ask him
to respond regarding the foundation and the the plumbing and sewage stuff but regarding the massing
of the building structure it's 33 feet to the roof line and then we have the gable which is
an additional seven feet which ordinarily would be 40 feet on a flat lot but this is not a flat
lot we're measured from average grade so by code which has been reviewed and stamped by lni
this is a 38 foot high building or 33 foot high building excuse me um and you know so
from a height perspective we're code compliant i understand that you know the gentleman is
not thrilled about losing his view but this is a buildable lot here and this is a single family
home that is in character with the neighborhood and none of the variances were that we're asking
for have anything to do with the effect of his natural light and air um i would and by the way
with regards to what the rendering is showing from the rear of the property you know i would
just say again just like the fence at the front the the building structure and the sort of
surrounding illustrations are from an illustrative perspective so i apologize sir if your fence was
not accurately represented um but i would i would just ask justin my client uh yeah sure um to my
knowledge sir i think your home is two stories high correct questions yeah justin can you there's
no reason that just tell us tell us about the foundation what you're going to do for his
retaining wall things like the things that we spoke you spoke to him about at the community
meeting all right go ahead yeah and i'm sorry if uh the question was definitely in preparation to
answer the thing about the sunlight and blocking his view and all that so if you don't want me to
answer that i can just move on but if you want to address it okay um yeah i was a little bit confused
about your um your kind of inclination on the digging with the pitch and because it's four
stories high i have to dig um deeper in in my experience the height of the building
doesn't really affect the depth of your trenching for your utilities because all of it goes to a
lateral plumbing in the basement and then that goes into the underground so um to my knowledge
the height of my building doesn't really affect that that trenching and then i will say that
usually we do have um like a project like this will require a very detailed excavation plan
especially because this is in a steep slope area so you know as far as that that plan hasn't been
made yet because we're still at this at this stage in the process so my inclination and knowledge
would be that that plan would be fully approved passed and make sure that all these details are
addressed and ironed out at that point um i will say that when you're working on a steep slope
there are additional precautions and there will be definitely significant shoring and um shoring
in regards to i-beams going into the ground and and wood post um to protect your retaining wall
if, um, if that's the goal there. And I'm not sure if it is, but when we discussed it, um,
at the RCO, I did say that anything that is, um, that is damaged or as a result of the
construction would be replaced with brand new, brand new materials. So, um, the way that I see
it is, uh, I guess the best thing that could happen is you get a free retaining wall out of
me, which, uh, for that, for, for that length is definitely over six digits. Um, as far as a cost
that would be associated if you had to do it yourself and um and and the one thing i will say
is the condition of that wall is not is is not great anyway so i think it would be um advantageous
you know to have me build a brand new retaining wall uh there for you as well so
to have me build a brand new retaining wall uh there for you as well so um can i can i speak
sure first and foremost i was not invited to that meeting that you claim i was at so i this
i found out when it was posted okay second as far as the retaining wall is concerned
you wouldn't have to rebuild one because the one there is wall built third i know
that the height of the building has nothing to do with the pitch of the pipes
nothing to do with it the hill has everything to do with the pitch of the pipes
so my question is where were you going to start digging to go into the ground because you had to
have your pitch to get into the sewage and you also mentioned the fact that you was going to build
put i-beams and stuff into the ground you have to dig to do that i'm my house is directly
behind and actually your that house will be directly behind ours so therefore that digging
will affect it'll cause a chain reaction because it already has in this type of neighborhood okay
all right justin you don't justin you we're gonna go ahead no i was what do you have anything else
no i was going to say what we're going to we'll address all his issues if and when this gets to
the building permitting process i have a clarifying question is steep slope under 25
or is that also something that was i don't believe that we're ex that that it is over 25
i have a steep slope plan but i can check in with ellen i about that as well because yeah yeah can
you that was going to be my question and i have another one um and i missed this in the beginning
i apologize um who is mr mendez because we have the deed listing you're showing it right he's the
equitable owner he's under he's under agreement um not have that we only have a deed for alex ramos
that needs to be provided to us we're holding it anyway yeah i i have it in the presentation
materials i know i resubmit these materials many times you might have in i think it's been
resubmitted but i would suggest okay put it on the record when little things like that are added
at the end if it can be put in an email or something identified because sometimes we get
we just got one that was 145 pages well something was added we can't tell so totally fair there
can you just let us yes absolutely indicated was alex that's why understood thank you planning
commission good afternoon liz fuselay on behalf of the philadelphia county planning commission
comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa 5 residential single family zoning at this
location there has been recent three-story development on this street in the recent years
the refusals are de minimis and will have little to no effect on this block face the city planning
commission recommends that the board grant the proposed dimensional variances okay so
if i could just and i this isn't in our materials but i do have a steep slow plan that shows that
we're not disturbing portions of the lot which are greater than 25 percent grade why don't you send
has got sure i can do that all right so how are we going to hold this am i correct we're going
to hold it for a corrected refusal so we can hold it uh we can hold it as quick as i can get the
refusal oh yeah i mean we can hold it if it isn't for next week but we'll hold it for the the seventh
right now okay on the seventh we'll look for the seventh okay yeah okay so we'll vote on the seventh
yeah sure thank you very much thank you
all right so our next
i i thought i did ask for comments all right come on come on i did i said go ahead hey what's that
she'll she'll take it okay and whatever he has taken all right
i think he's the next door neighbor i think he's the next door neighbor on fleming
which is who i thought the guy on the uh come on up no no you don't don't don't worry about
that's okay one ups come on take a seat i've trained in 20 minutes oh okay all right well
then you've got five minutes yeah i do all right so could you put oh wait a minute please state
and spell your name for the sonographer michael robinson m-i-c-h-a-e-l-r-o-b-i-n-s-o-m do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth and mr robinson your neighbor
yes i am please proceed i'm a neighbor adjacent on 4360 fleming street sure um i just want to say
i'm not opposed to development on property i understand that's something a house is going
to be built there um i i do have concerns with the designs and making sure that the designs
correspond with the actual lot available because what james mentioned earlier in terms of the way
it's it's shown on the plan it's that that's directly adjacent what the speaker on sorry
it's directly adjacent my fence which would mean that it was three to four feet over from where
their actual property lines are so just to make sure that that is taken care of before it goes you
so just to make sure that that is taken care of before it goes you know i don't want the some of
the three-story properties that they refer to as being already there were built incorrectly on over
their proper signs so i don't want that to happen um then um that's the first one and then the second
question is how the average ground level was calculated on this because it shows three three
stories plus the gable roof and that would add up to be about 37 feet 38 feet which is what they're
saying but it's that i'm questioning what the average ground level is being calculated out
because it's a the ground level of the structure that declines significantly uh given the uh the
so i want to make sure that that is being correctly calculated in getting arriving at that 38 feet
um and then um sorry just make sure i have everything here uh
i think those are my he also covered the you know the steep slope concerns um but those are
two concerns i want to make sure that those are mystical are you okay with that i'm fine with it
you know you'll agree to it to my understanding i know there's architects on the board i believe
average grade is measured from the four basically the four corners of the building structure
did i butcher that explanation you're close
and averaged yeah right all right all right thank you by the way thank you for waiting and get your
train thank you okay all right so we're moving on thank you we're now going to do number five six
and seven together so five is mi two two five zero zero seven five seven three fifteen forty one north
franklin number six mi 2025 007 577 1543 north franklin street and seven is mi 2025 007
five seven eight fifteen thirty seven north franklin street um could um
uh net netana levy or sh or uh sharon levy please come forward
we're going to hear all three together and we'll vote on them one at a time
good afternoon good afternoon could you please state and spell your name
netanelle levy n-e-t-a-n-e-l last name l-e-v-i all right do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do um let's see what we have here
um our vice chair has a few questions for you
good afternoon um have you submitted your exhibits um documents and exhibits for i guess four five
six and seven uh cases uh 14 days in advance of this hearing i did ma'am okay so and you understand
that you're here um because you want to uh uh for the erection of an attached structure with roof
deck and roof deck access um structure about about balconies at front and rear and one off
street garage parking space for each of yes okay and correct that go ahead uh if i can join uh my
brother is the architect on the project just to share the screens i'll i'll testify we'll do that