That's a carport to the left of it. I wish I would have had a better picture to the left and right of it.
But that's a carport.
And yes, that's a carport.
Thank you.
And I may want to go on Google Earth just to show you a fair and accurate description of the property.
Mr. Chair, I know that you know this part of Philadelphia very well.
It's one of those smaller streets, South Villa.
So I don't want to misstate that this is a normal-sized street.
But as you can see, one individual who lives on the street parks his car on that street by accessing Phillips Street as well.
But I want to make sure that the board has a fair and accurate description of what that street looks like, because I don't want to, like, you know, misstate anything.
Okay, then show us the picture.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
Let me, yeah, let me, let me do that.
Hold on a second.
Let's see.
Hold on.
South.
computer slouch
I apologize for some reason
my computer is rather slow um all right so i'm going to share my screen again
if you can see and i'm having just problems with my computer a little bit
but this is the street uh to the right of us is we only see a blank screen there you
came up now all right yeah so i apologize i'm having problems maneuvering this on google
but i i got at least to the point where i'm at is you to the right of us is the um is that parking
head and to right here to left of us is the our our our uh lot but you can see this is not the
widest of streets admittedly but again someone else uses this for parking as well and my
understanding if memory serves me right from the community meeting is the individual who parks at
1420-22 it may even be an SUV that they parked there just for the width I'm not saying you know
the width of the street so to show that an SUV can go down there so I'm just going to hit stop
share, I'm going to continue with my presentation materials.
Okay. Can you see my screen?
yes all right all right so you can see here this is where the attorney radius is
no we can't see we can only see i'm sorry you're you're okay i see it now all right i'm sorry
I'm sorry you're okay I see it now all right I'm sorry I'm looking at the frontal view but
i'm looking at
I was gonna make this rather large so it's easier that would be helpful
oops and again technical issues here
But as you can see, and these are plants that are actually stamped by the streets department.
But this is our, you know, showing the proper turning radius to get into our garage. So again,
this is the only variance request, I would be more than happy to go through the floor
plans and everything else but this is just a traditional single-family home um but you know
in in you know in terms of time i know that where we'll be proceed with the parking issue yeah so
um in terms of the letter that's the only thing that's left
is this is the letter from pensport um i thought that you had it but you know
yeah and we could just and we could just you know quickly read it so
um so the board knows exactly where things are um but i said the i'm just reading the bottom part
of it uh you know the applicant met with the penn sport civic association and penn sport community
on june 7th to present this design for this parcel in addition to our board the meeting was
attended by emilia jason neighbor and the neighbor across the street phillips street from the subject
lot our understanding from the presentation materials provided is that the only variant
sought is for a curb cut for interior parking space.
Our board and the attending neighbors ask numerous questions mostly focus on accessibility
in general construction the neighbors and the tenants express opposition to the proposal
So based on a concern that because Phillips Street is very narrow, vehicles traveling down Phillips to access the proposed interior parking would inevitably damage their property.
They believe that vehicles would need to drive on their curbs to access the interior parking and that vehicles would strike their steps or homes while pulling into and out of the interior parking space.
although one of the what you happen to know pardon the interruption again would you happen to know
the width of the street curb the curb i i do um you know what i would just ask it may be helpful
because i'm having technical issues is for uh the architect uh chris can you virtually raise your
hand it may be easier for him because he probably has the drawings in front of him rather than me
going back and forth because my internet is rather slow today for some reason chris can you virtually
Mr. Hockamson, do you know the width just off the top of your head?
I don't.
That's why I don't want to.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, so.
Just to be promoted.
It's really narrow.
Hi, this is Chris Karakoff.
Chris, hi, Chris.
Please spell your full name.
I'll swear you in.
Chris, C-H-R-I-S, Karakoff, C-A-R-I-C-K-H-O-F-F.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Chris.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I was just going to speak quickly.
The street width, six foot nine is the actual cartway area.
Curb to curb, right?
Curb to curb, correct.
Thank you.
And Chris, you prepared the site plan, is that correct?
That's correct.
And you received that street letter approval, is that correct?
Yes, that is correct.
And it's your understanding that that site plan meant all requirements from the streets department to have an interior front loading garage, right?
Correct.
Yes, they approved. They require a turning radius be shown on the plan in compliance with the AASHTO standards for a passenger vehicle, which is what we show on our plan, and they approved it.
Okay, and then you also prepared revised plans today to increase the width of the garage opening by three feet. Is that correct?
That's correct.
Okay, and that will even help further the turning radius matters with respect to that garage.
Hi. Mr. Chair, the other thing that I do have, we did take video. I had my client. This is a vacant lot. There's no curb cut there. I have video of them taking one of their smart cars as well as a sedan to show that they could go into their lot.
All right.
Now, Mr. Chair, the other thing that I do have,
try to keep the width as the width of the nine feet, not the 12 feet.
And again, it's hard to, you know, turn left onto, you know, a property where there's no curb cut.
And there was, you know, it was elevated and not flat, and it wasn't too great.
And even then, you know, they had obviously challenges because of the elevated sidewalk.
But they were still able to show that they were able to maneuver their cart in and out of the spot.
Now, I can show the video.
I know that Mr. Toner has a similar video.
So I would ask the board if they want to see the video now or they want to wait until Mr. Toner makes his case.
Let's get Mr. Toner on with his case and then we'll figure that out.
All right.
Thank you.
Mr. Toner, please identify yourself and I'll swear you in.
Thank you very much.
Paul Turner with Orphanese and Turner.
We're counsel for a adjacent property owner, Jacqueline Heffron, who's the owner of 1421 South Phillip Street.
Spelling of your last name is T as in Tom, O-N-E-R, correct?
That is correct.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do, yes.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Chair, could we please pause for one second? This is Tanya.
and could we please promote
Mr. Toner as he will be
presenting
he's going to promote
it ma'am
Paul you have to unmute yourself
thank you Mr. Chairman
since Mr.
knocklinson left off with reference to the video i think it'll probably be helpful we just show the
video um may i share my screen please do
we can make that screen wider i can't this is the best quality we have i actually have this
the whole video mr chair that go down phillip street into the parking uh into onto the property
and then to get out of it that may be a better and fair that might be better this is a little
bit difficult so i would ask that the um board promote uh clementa amazon to a panelist just
so she can share her screen and to show the video i mean i cannot um comprehend this and there's a
fire plug. Yeah so this is actually the most important part of this video and I'm done playing
the video right now but the fire plug is right within the rear backing out turn from the garage.
The other really important aspect of this video was when the property was initially starting to
back out of what would be the parking space. You'll notice that it actually hit the wood column
that marks the edge of the property line.
So this video I can represent to you
is of the actual applicants directing a car to move out.
And even with three people directing
this relatively small hatchback,
he still hits the side fence wall
and he's essentially backing right up
into the fire hydrant at the end of the block.
And ultimately ends up on my client's sidewalk at 1421.
yeah mr chair what i would state as to that that's my client's house right there that he's
up driving on yeah well mr chair as i would state as to that we are backing out of a property which
has an elevated sidewalk uh out of a dirt lot um and you know if we would have a curb cut
And, you know, if we would have a curb cut, you know, we would be able to do that.
you know we would be able to do that
Additionally, we have videos of two types of cars that would back out.
One is a smart car, which would probably be the one that would actually back out.
Because, you know, given the size of that street, what would be reasonable and appropriate for someone who's buying that house would be a car of a smaller quality, like a smart car.
We have no way of memorializing that.
But, I mean, they can buy any kind of car they want.
Oh, no, I agree.
You make a valid point if they have a small car, but that's a big if.
Yeah, I'm not saying that, obviously, there's restrictions on this.
But, you know, reasonably, someone who's going to buy this house is going to have a smaller vehicle.
But I think it would be fair to show, you know, the entire – I don't think that angle gave it justice.
Like, again, we have the same type of video that goes from beginning to end, which shows both the smaller car as well as the bigger car.
Again, most importantly, the streets department, under their own guidelines, approved this garage conceptually with no conditions.
If I could just move on with some additional points.
I'm going to try to keep my presentation.
Mr. Turner, please.
So this on the screen right now is the applicant's Z1 plan, their zoning plan.
you can see the zoning radius it comes out of the proposed curb cut goes from south to north
what's not shown here are two important things one is not shown how the property backs up as
we just saw in that video there is no indication of the radius to back out of the proposed parking
spot and also significance there's no reference to the fire hydrant that we saw in the video that
the hatchback was essentially hitting and so uh even their own zoning plan has a couple complications
in it, namely that it has no depiction on how a car will ever exit the garage, and it
doesn't include one of the most important physical elements of this block, which is
the fire hydrant, which is going to block any car moving out.
In terms of the type of car that's being proposed, Mr. Knucklesom fairly stated that any car
could really be parked here.
What they chose to include in their floor plans was not a hatchback or a smart car, but an SUV.
And I note that the dimensions for this parking space, this interior parking space, is 10 by 19, which is a very large space, certainly much more than you would ever need for a smart car or a compact car.
And if I could move on to a couple of documents that I presented to the Board in advance.
The record reflect I've now put on the Zoom Neighbor Exhibit A, which is a series of pictures.
A-001 is a picture of the subject property, the two parcels that are proposed for development
on the right hand side where my cursor is. On the left hand side is my client's property.
This is from the open air parking spot across the street that was referenced in Mr.
Knockamson's presentation looking at the proposed development.
This is a picture of Phillips Street looking down from Reed Street. The dimensions for the
width of Phillips Street from the architect's plans. It's actually a variable width street.
It goes from six feet seven and a half inches to nine feet or six feet nine inches. So it's not
just six feet nine inches the entire way. It's a variable street. And this is a picture of the
property looking from south to north, north being Reed Street. And you can see the car that's coming
off of the perpendicular street which is Garrett Street any car that makes any kind of turn here