ZBA Hearing - March 19, 2024

There was no refuting of the issues with the RCO meeting.

There was no refuting the fact that there were actually probably well over 100, if not more than 100, people that weren't able to vote at the meeting itself, even though they were clearly from the neighborhood.

Or that there were people who may not even be from the neighborhood, let alone the city, that got to vote because they were able to pay 25 hours.

Obviously, that's not how we're supposed to be running civic meetings, or at least we disagree with that approach.

um comments like we don't need people more people coming into the neighborhood we we find are very

sad obviously it's important these these fields are close by to public transportation which this

field is uh as a kid i used to go to fdr park and i didn't live in south philadelphia so i think it's

wonderful that we're having this opportunity um toxic issues regarding poisoning kids and pfas

Again, that has nothing to do with the issue at hand. And obviously, we refute the characterization, whether the fields are grass or whether they're artificial turf does not affect the issue of having to remove the trees in order to have the fields in order to deal with the plain need.

And the Parks and Rec Deputy Commissioner testified at the last time.

And then just to kind of remind folks here, because there's been a lot of stats that have been thrown out,

and maybe it's misinformation or, you know, a lot of things go out on the Internet that just aren't true.

The park's about 348 acres.

42 of those 340 acres are going to be used for fields in court.

105 acres are going to be used for wetlands and meadows.

64 acres actual water and again over a thousand trees are going to be planted so we rely upon

the testimony and evidence we prevent presented obviously we support the planning commission's

decision and thank councilman council president johnson for his support as well as the administration

thank you thank you um we're going to take this to next wednesday in our executive session

and uh in the next day or so all the letters that we received all the emails our council's

going to have them sent all the board members so that we can all review before next week's

meeting and we will vote on this next wednesday at 9 30 a.m and thank you to everybody who

all the time you spent waiting and um and council we thank you too thank you everyone

thank you mr chairman members of the board thank you

Thank you.

Thank you to the staff today for all the time you spent here.

We appreciate it.

Our pleasure, Chair.

Have a good night.

Okay.

Good night, all.

Good night, team.

Good night.

Good night, everybody.