Next, we have Matthew Underwood.
You can now speak.
My name is Matthew Underwood, M-A-T-H-E-W.
yes only one t u n d e r w o o d and i'm a resident of 2020 kimball street
mr underwood do you swear and affirm that the testimony you give today is truly the best of
your ability yes i do thank you i would uh firstly like oh sorry we're trying to limit this um so we
don't go over things that have already been rehashed several times uh your position support
or non-support uh yes i am not in support i would like to uh just uh second and third uh dimitri
kushner and dave hall's positions um and i think that's it if we need to keep time
thank you appreciate it thank you so much matthew the next person we have is diana
sowinski you can unmute yourself and speak hi am i audible yes okay my name is diana sowinski
d-i-a-n-a s-o-w-i-n-s-k-i i am i live and own 2021 kimball street i live here with my fiance
and i am 100 opposed to this project and second what david hall stated
well thank you very much and i didn't swear you in so let me do that right now the testimony you
gave you swear and attested it was to the best of your ability yes it was thank you thank you
okay next we have meredith gilroy you can now unmute yourself
Hello, this is Meredith Gilroy, spelled M-E-R-E-D-I-T-H-G-I-L-R-O-Y.
I reside at 2013 Kimball Street, and I also oppose this project, and I agree with Dave
Hall's statement, and I also agree with Spencer's statement about it being challenging working
about it being challenging working with um the lawyer and the clients at at at the uh proposed
with the lawyer.
property thank you mr gilroy miss gilroy thank you we now have last nicole you can unmute yourself
Hi, this is Nicole Kodeiker, N-I-C-O-L-E-K-O-E as in Edward, D as in David, Y-K-E-R.
I'm the executive director for South of South Neighborhood Association, and our office is at 1901 Washington Avenue.
I wanted to, because I don't have a vote in the project, I don't technically live in the neighborhood.
I wanted to clarify a few things within three minutes that Mr. Orphanides had said earlier.
So in reference to the corrected refusal information in the letter, the letter was written and referred to the corrected refusal sent to me by David Orphanides on February 19th.
So the documentation that we had was in that letter.
And then also following emails and in-person conversations with Mr. Orphanides between April and present day about turning over Sazna's letter earlier, between now and then.
I spoke with our zoning committee who stated that we would continue to follow our own existing protocols and send our letter closer to the ZBA hearing date.
Usually that letter is sent the Tuesday before the Wednesday hearing.
This time, to follow the protocols, it was sent five days prior, and it was sent to Tanya and
Karayama, because that's where I thought it was supposed to be sent, but then it was confirmed
that it was supposed to be sent to RCO ZBA instead, so that may be where the day difference
And the April email that Mr. Orphanides referred to in his testimony was when we didn't know
when the ZBA was going to reopen, and so saying that I was going to send it the week
after, the ZBA had pushed back their reopening date, and the zoning committee again stated that
we wanted to send the letter closer to their hearing date. And lastly, to clarify, it was made
very clear at SASMA zoning meeting in February, the last meeting that they had with us, it was
made clear to the applicant that our zoning committee would prefer that the applicant revise
and come back to represent this project, because there were still further questions. So the idea
that this was out of nowhere, this letter of opposition is untrue. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Whelan, do we have anyone else? Tanya? No, Chair, that's all.
Mr. Whelan?
I'm muted. All right. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Board. I will make this as quick
as possible because this is still going on. Very bluntly, residential use is appropriate and even
desirable on Washington Avenue. You've heard me make that statement and make it forcefully
any number of times before. You'll hear it again next week on 2101 Washington.
While I recognize that as Mr. Orfinites has represented, that is the sole remaining refusal.
I think on this call, there have been a couple of issues about whether or not there are additional refusals with regard to the industrial use because of the addition of the residential use.
Unfortunately, you know, the residential use is a bit of a Trojan horse.
This comes with a lot of additional requirements and considerations beyond simply saying, is residential good or bad at this property?
and you know to be very blunt we made it clear to Mr. Orphanides in advance and we would make
it clear again I think he would enjoy full support if he agreed to no parking whatsoever
at this project. You know the you've heard a lot about Washington Avenue this is also backed up
by the latest Otis plan which restriping is supposed to start shortly that's to make
Washington Avenue, particularly on the north side, they have a dedicated bike path and extremely
walker friendly. That's where all of this is going. And what you heard today was sort of an
ill-conceived parking plan. It arguably has 15 parking spaces for the residential, which is a
requirement. So again, residential units here are not objectionable, not to my client and I don't
access point from Washington down to Kimball is problematic at best. I think you heard from the
testimony of Mr. Orfaniti's witnesses that there's going to be a lot of backup onto Washington Avenue
across the sidewalk and into the street and the soon-to-be-there bike lane per the Otis plan and
restriping that you're going to have customers parking on Washington Avenue trying to come in.
You have some customers or commercial-related vendors, industrial-related drop-offs, deliveries, pickups that are going to come in.
They're going to block the one-way access.
There's no stacking involved, and so they're going to be in a situation where you could easily have a truck that pulls in off of Washington Avenue.
You have two other cars trying to get in behind them.
That truck then has to back out.
You heard the same thing with regard to the ADA plan, the ADA, the plan with regard to the ADA space. This parking space is not final, as Ms. Juan testified. And so you have a significant amount of confusion and backlog going on at Washington Avenue and into that internal corridor, which, you know, is one way given the width.
and you know it's it's admirable as the you know Mr. Orfinides is trying to present
that they're going to give cut through access um the uh you know just trying to go here I'm happy
to answer any questions you have but I don't want to waste any more of your time um again the curb
cut itself is the major issue in the parking um those are requirements of the residential use
So yes, while you have a residential refusal and that's it, these other issues cannot be, you know, set aside. This plan would actually activate for the first time in many years. I believe one of the neighbors testified at least six or more years that rear access Kimball curb cut.
So you're reactivating a curb cut on a narrow residential neighborhood and activating a curb cut with additional burdensome use on to Washington Avenue.
And with that, I promise to be short. I will be as short as I can.
Again, that backup, the Washington Avenue, there's really no offer of parking for the industrial use anyway.
So if the parking was pulled away and the curb cut was taken away with regard to the residential use, we would certainly be in support.
And I believe from what I heard today, the near neighbors would also be in support.
For those reasons, I don't believe that the variance tests under Marshall was met.
and I will conclude.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
No one else is on, right?
Oh, I'm sorry, Chairman.
If I may just say to,
I forgot to do this earlier.
If Ori Fibush and Jose Hernandez
could just jump on
and if you would just agree
to adopt my testimony as your own
and it was to the best of your knowledge.
this is this is jose hernandez i do thank you jose and ory
ory five is here yes i do adopt it all right thank you very much i have one question one
question for ory i know you have a real estate office uh on washington avenue and it was
brought out in testimony earlier i think mr orphanese raised it what are the upper floors
are that building used for? Yeah, it's Roma Windows. Jake Gulley has a window manufacturing
facility. He's retiring at the end of this year, and we're converting it to a softer commercial use.
What kind of use? It's going to be a daycare. That's going to be converted to a lobby. The
curb cut will go away, and the dock will go away. You answered my question about the curb cut. Okay,
thank you um yeah close earlier uh i believe when mr spencer spoke from for sasna i believe i heard
him say that they might want some additional time to work through any other issues i don't know how
you resolve the parking to be honest with you but is that something that would be amenable to the
community if mr spencer if you're still on and to mr orphanetes i mean for me you know
again i've said this from the beginning from the very beginning of this project i knew this
was going to happen as soon as mr fey bush reached out to me about his opposition to a
that i was going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place you have existing and david it's not
just that i think it's the kimball street because i thought earlier there was supposedly a meeting a
meeting that took place with the residents and supposedly things were worked out but i didn't
hear that today i don't know that they were completely worked out we had we adopted listen
i think what you're hearing is you know people some people still don't like the building not
here for a building refusal but and we've modified it in a way that it's better than a bi-ranked
building. I think it really comes down to the parking and any change to this building, unless
it's, you know, we're going to say that any buy right doesn't require additional parking if it's
industrial. There's going to be, there's an existing parking impact. There's an existing curb
cut need for the existing operations and anything in the future would as well. And the problem is,
is that we're going to be back here. You're going to be back to the side. We're happy to continue.
and we tried over the last couple months to hear what non, I guess, refusal related issues there
might be, or even refusal related issues. But we're still going to be in this position where
you have Mr. Whalen and his clients who don't want a curb cut on Washington, maybe don't want any
parking at all. And then we have other neighbors, let's say neighbors behind that either they want
the curb cut out on Washington, not back on Kimball at all, no access to Kimball, and or
no parking, although many people then complain that people are going to be parking on the street
and taking their on-street parking. So I hope you can understand that from the beginning,
I've been in a position, we've been in a position of picking our poison in a way,
because no matter what happens after today, what happened before is that some people are going to
say only parking. Some people say you have to have parking. Some people are going to say we don't
want you to have any parking. Some people are going to say if you have parking, it's got to be in and
out of Washington. Some people are going to say if you're going to have parking, it's got to be in
and out of Kimball. And that's my only dilemma with having further meetings. I mean, if there's
further things to be done with the building, you know, I mean, we'd be happy to continue those.
but even some of the things that Mr. Spencer brought up regarding the side balconies and whatnot.
I mean, none of that comes into a play with a buy-right industrial building, with a buy-right
IRMX building, buy-right ICMX building. And then some of that becomes a matter of preference. And
I understand that it all comes into play when you're in front of the zoning board and talking
about variances. It's kind of, you open up everything, even if it's not related to the
refusal but you know they're they're you know we've made a lot of changes as you can see
and it seems that some people are just going to be unhappy with any development project
and i just don't know what and we're still going to be left with people anybody depending where
with parking without parking where the parking's coming in and coming out you're still going to
have people opposed to and i'm never going to satisfy everybody with that i don't know what
else you know me i think i made reference to working to work with people but i just don't
know how we get past that. I don't know. I said that. I think I said that myself. I don't know
how you get past the parking issue. I just don't know. All right. All right. Any questions from
the board? Can I close real quickly? I didn't get a chance to close. Oh, I apologize. I thought you
just closed. No, no. I was just, well, kind of. I was answering your question. But in closing,
I think as Mr. Whalen said, it is closing. You know, he believed residential was appropriate
and even desirable in Washington Avenue.
We're left with one refusal here.
And that refusal,
even though there is a parking element to it,
we've complied with that.
Nobody stated today an objection to the resident,
the one refusal that's in front of you.
I have an issue with 30 residential dwelling units
at this property.
Nobody, not a single person.
Not a single person raised an issue
with that sole remaining refusal.
And I think that's telling.
And I think that that is very key here in terms of the board rendering a decision.
As you know, there are always all these other issues, as I was just referencing, that might
be related to a refusal, might not be related to a refusal, that we try, as part of this
process, both the board does a great job and attorneys like Mr. Whelan and myself try to
deal with these issues that are raised by the community, that are raised by the zoning
board, that aren't listed in a refusal to try to come up with a good project.
Here, nobody raised an objection.
Mr. Whalen's testimony, the testimony he elicited was about the industrial use of my client, of Chelsea Huang, of Jenny Wan, both in talking to Mr. Feibush and Mr. Hernandez.
They focused on the curb cuts.
There's three existing curb cuts.
Forget about whether Kimball has been active or not.
There's two on Washington.
We're getting rid of one of them.
We're reducing it.
There are curb cuts everywhere.
If I come in, if this does, Southside gets remapped, you know, the ordinance has passed already, I'm not sure.
But this does, Southside gets remapped. I, you know, that ordinance has passed already. I'm not sure. You have to beg my pardon for not being up to speed on that.
Southside becomes IRMX. Somebody wants to do, first of all, they're going to have to provide parking if they have residential.
And if it's mid-block, they can do a buy-right development project with parking, but buy-right with a curb cut in parking on the Washington.
They're going to have to do it in order to do it by right. The idea that they're, first of all, there's a ton of curb cuts right now.
The idea, we have one and we use it and we want to continue to use it. That's not going to change as long as it's there. And the idea that somehow in the future, Mr. Five Bush's vision for Washington Avenue, which as far as I know, isn't specifically laid out by the planning commission in terms of, you know, we have an overlay or even city council, no curb cuts on Washington Avenue.
There's none of that.
That's his vision, and it's not realistic.
Because when this gets remapped, it's going to allow for curb cuts by right.
They're never going to go away.
So to focus on that is a red herring.
It's misleading, and it's not even part of the variance.
It's not.
It's regarding the number of residential dwellings, which we've reduced from 37 to 30.
In terms of whether or not we need parking for the industrial, whether or not we need loading for the industrial, I emailed the examiner about that question several times, and I haven't received a response.
I read and I provided you with those sections that it's reasonable to interpret the code that with the existing use that you don't take that into account.
In addition, the current use was approved without a parking requirement.
So that is actually, and that's full two floors.
So the zoning permit, the use permit that's on file with the city of Philadelphia calls for the current use without parking.
And that's been in place for several years.
So we're now reducing the amount that's going to be used.