recommended by CDR. CDR's general position was that they were overall approving of the idea of
townhouse development but that we had designed it improperly for this location so a good swing but
a swing and a miss and therefore we you know completely reconfigured it and I think what we
can do here these are the renderings and I think these are most telling so here's the rendering of
was originally proposed um you know with the the single block in the back um and everybody was
opposed to this i'm not going to lie and the middle period uh this is what our new proposal is
so you can see again you know we go from a large massive development with a small green space in
middle to row homes that meet the height and dimensional requirements of RSA 5 match in line
with everything else that's on our block and then we put two rows in back or a row in back
that's actually broken up and leaves most of the area open. We also maintain most of the vegetation
behind us pull away significantly from the rear lot line. Again, here is the original plan. You
can see a lot of internal parking. The CDR in particular didn't like that we had kids on bikes
traversing the same location with the vehicles. And so this is what our new open area looks like.
huge expansive essentially yard space we are going to be planting dozens of trees and actually have
a net positive of more than 20 trees at the conclusion as you'll hear from the owner most
of the trees on the property at present are diseased or damaged the as you could tell from
the state of the house pictures that you could see the properties just not well
The property is just not well kept and has not been for years.
kept and has not been for years
So, again, here's the original plan that we looked at, and there's the revised plan.
We're actually pulling it back.
CDR recommended that we pull back 10 feet for a widened sidewalk.
We're actually pulling back more than 12 feet from the cartway to create.
There is no sidewalk on our side of the street at this time.
So we are increasing the sidewalk here.
You will see that we have one curb cut.
Currently at the site, this is one of our refusals.
We have a 24-foot curb cut.
Currently at the site, there are two separate driveways, one for each of the houses.
Each of those driveways is slightly over 20 feet wide.
So we are actually significantly improving the pedestrian and bicycle walk pathway here
because we are taking away 40 plus feet of curb cut and only putting in one single curb cut for everything.
Again, because of the traffic, the reason why we wanted to do that was this way we will have private trash collection
and all deliveries and trash and whatnot will be done internally.
I know there's a lot of issues in the neighborhood with the breaking up of Delmar Street,
and the last thing we wanted to do was having deliveries on the front avenue of Delmar.
Again, here's kind of a side cut, and these are all images that were taken directly from
the CDR presentation.
You know, here's our middle building, and then you can see we are taking out a significant
portion of the rear property and again we've now removed this location. What you can see up here
and what we attempted to do with the this large green space in here is that
up and down Delmar as you saw all of those row houses right here while it's not their backyards
there is no development in behind them. So what we did was we tried to maintain that open
that open line where we've pulled away significantly from the steep slopes
here again obviously not necessarily that important for this board the materiality was an
issue and the coloring was an issue so we changed dramatically in in favor of what cdr wanted
and then here just a few renderings of of what we had so mr will i'm just interrupt for a moment
What you're showing us now, the revisions, the RCO has not seen them?
Chairman, the RCO is represented by Ms. Sarah Alderfer.
She was presented with the revised plans.
She has seen them.
The head of the RCO, it was represented to me, has, she communicated, well, Ms. Alderfer
is on.
She can obviously speak for herself.
I understand that she spoke with her client and that her client reviewed the revised plans
and determined that they were still not interested in having any further communications with us or
meetings, either informally or formally. We have offered every which way, you know, informal,
formal, however they wanted to do it. You know, we obviously, it was a big swing and a miss,
and that's on us on our first project um here and what happened was you know we made you know
obviously you know this was our first presentation and the RCO hated it um and that's why we you
know dramatically reduced uh everything about what we were doing um so with that and the revised
plans either get rid of or make us make our plan um significantly more in compliance with
the uh the requirements in fact our new plan this plan um comes even just shy of meeting
the open space requirement for an rsd3 project there's currently no stormwater management
on the property so i understand that these homes down here have complained to the neighborhood
about getting water in their basement because again this is extremely steep slope
we have a you know preliminary approval for a pwd approved stormwater management which we will do
for the entire parcel and you know feel like we've we've greatly enhanced and this is a situation
where quite honestly even though the rco refused to participate that the project or the process
worked you know cdr really uh put us through the ringer um so did planning commission staff
and we bent over backwards to try to meet and did meet every single issue that they raised
and did meet every single uh issue that they raised um so again obviously it's a it's a
meaty project i know there's going to be some opposition here um i'm happy to uh to kind of
stop here and call my witnesses quickly so i don't belabor any issues unless uh the board has any
questions for me any questions uh as of now for the from the board no no all right no let's get
your witnesses sworn in and then we'll move on all right thank you chairman um miss sunkett
you should see a david di rienzo i would like to call him yes he can unmute himself and wait to be
sworn in oh good morning can you hear me yes please identify yourself sir first and last name
spell your last name for the record and i'll swear you in david di rienzo last name d-e-r-i-e-n
N-Z-O.
We're in a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And your interest in this property is?
I am one of the developers on the project.
I'm a partner.
I also live on Delmar Street, and I'm also a member of the Civic Association.
Thank you.
Please proceed, Mr. Whalen.
All right.
Thank you, Mr. DiCicco.
So, Mr. DiRienzo, you said it already, but you're here on behalf of the equitable owner
and the developers of the project, correct? Correct. Okay. And I think you said you also,
you are in the real estate business. You're a broker as well, correct? Yes, I am. Okay. And
I think you mentioned it already, but you're extremely familiar with not only this neighborhood,
but with Delmar Street, correct? Yes, correct. I've been on Delmar Street for close to 13 years
now. And by Benon, you mean you've lived on Delmar Street, correct? Yes. And you have
developed other properties on Delmar Street as well? I have. And how would you describe
the immediate nature of, or immediate neighborhood in Delmar Street as far as
characteristics and development? Yeah. What happened was when I first moved here 13 years ago,
It was not as dense as is now on the 200 block of Delmar Street.
It's basically a hodgepodge of row homes, twins, back to row homes, twins, row homes, twins, with these few single families at the end of the block.
But it's predominant. It's almost predominantly row homes at this point.
All right. Now, would you, do you think that the existing nature of the row home, sorry, of the existing homes, even if redeveloped into, you know, obviously large stately homes on 5,000 square foot lots, would be characteristic of the neighborhood at this time?
uh absolutely not uh it would it would be completely out of character to have those
houses now it's just it would be it would be a 180 from the row homes that are on the 200 block
right and i think you said that basically all of those homes on the 200 block have been built
since you moved to um delmar street correct correct yes when i first moved on to delmar
Street, it looked nothing like what it does today. If you had told me Delmar Street would look like
this 13 years ago, I would have laughed and called you crazy. I appreciate that. Now, obviously with
you living on the block, I have our rendering up. This is your house, correct? Correct, it is.
So you live personally immediately across from this property?
Yes, I live across the property.
That's still under construction, but I do live across from the property.
And I know there's been a lot of discussion about traffic and issues raised about traffic
throughout this process.
Could you describe what you find the traffic to be since you've lived there?
It is very, very minimal.
There's a couple cars pass by each day.
It's mostly Amazon, UPS, delivery trucks.
A couple of the adjacent neighbors, you know, go to work in the morning and come home.
And you might get a couple cars a day that swing around from Lamont.
But by and large, there's very, very minimal traffic.
And now, Mr. DiRienzo, you mentioned the delivery trucks, UPS, Amazon.
on um do those snarl the the Delmar uh driving path while they uh when they stop and make their
deliveries no no I mean generally uh they're they're really good about it they'll pull off to
No, no. I mean, generally, they're really good about it. They'll pull off to the side. And, you know, there's plenty of space to go up and down Delmar Street. It is 16 feet wide. But the reality is there's not much on-street parking because everybody has front-facing garages and front-loaded driveways.
the side
I'll see you then.
So you really have a full width on the majority of Delmar Street.
Okay. I will offer Mr. DiRienzo for any questions that the board may have.
Any questions from the board?
Thank you. I'd like to move on if we could with the...
Of course. I'm just going to... I neglected to have Mr. DiRienzo adopt my testimony.
Adopt your testimony. Yep.
Mr. DiRienzo, you heard all of the testimony and representations I made in this application?
Yes, I did.
And do you believe them to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
And would you adopt them as your own?
Thank you very much.
Mr. DiRienzo, did I hear you say initially you're a member of the RCO?
Yes, I'm a member of the Ridge Park Civic Association.
Are you a board member or just a member because you reside here?
Yeah, just a member because I reside there and paid my $20 due fee.
So I have a couple other witnesses that I will move through very quickly.
Are they going to give us anything new and different than you've presented in your testimony?
Yes, they will.
I understand, Chairman.
I know it's not your fault we may have to I'm not sure how we're going to get through this we
have about 15 cases still to go on the morning list uh Tanya were you going to say something
yes chair um on that note um if at any time you wish to continue a case I could work with the
date with the applicant slash attorney uh or continue a case I also have the attorney
for the RCO, Sarah Aldefer, I'm here waiting, who also has to put a case on regarding this,
just as a FYI. We're going to just, I think we're going to, we're almost forced into having
to continue this, but so Mr. Whalen, just wrap up on your end, and then we'll figure out what
we're going to, we're going to have to continue this, so let's wrap up your side. Okay, happy to.
Thank you. Ms. Sunket, you should see an Alex Trunk.
Well, actually, it's over 100 people, so I won't see anyone unless they raise their
hands.
I'm sorry.
Mr. Trunk, please raise your hand by clicking in the bottom center of the Zoom meeting.
He has been unmuted here and ready to be sworn in.
you're on mute good morning sir please identify yourself for the record name and address
alexander trunk a-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r-t-r-u-n-k that's 919 north 19th street philadelphia pa
thank you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes please proceed all right mr trunk you're here from uh ruggiero plant and you're associated with
this project, correct? Yes. And you helped prepare the plans? Correct. And did you also hear all of
the testimony and representations that I made in this matter? I did. Okay. And did you understand
them to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief? Yes. And would you adopt
them as your own? I would. Okay. And just very quickly, since this was not information that I
presented uh what was the original square foot of green space in the plan 1057 square feet
okay and what what was the uh green space in the in the revised plan square five thousand eight
hundred and fifty six okay so you know we we multiplied it by a factor of five correct
Yes, it's a 554% increase.
All right.
And Mr. Trunk, we obviously didn't receive any refusals with regard to steep slopes,
but we have no issues with steep slopes of greater than 25% in this matter, correct?
Correct.
We have over a five-foot overdig around every single thing that is being proposed,
whether it be a building or a retaining wall.
And then finally, are you aware of any stormwater management on the property as it currently exists?
And then finally, are you aware of any stormwater management on the property as it
There is none on record.
All right.
And however, we have prepared and received preliminary approval for a full site stormwater management plan with PWD, correct?
Yes, for 100% capturing of all impervious surfaces that are being proposed.
All right.
Thank you very much, Mr. Trunk.
Chairman, I offer Mr. Trunk for any questions that the board may have.
Questions from the board? No.
Do you have anyone else, Mr. Whelan? Yes, I do. Two more and I will be very brief in both.
Ms. Sunket, Matt Huffman should have raised his hand. Matt, if you haven't raised your hand,