on a regular basis. Operations are very important to Jason in his reputation and that of his company.
Booking requests are vetted and identities are verified prior to accepting a booking. No same-day bookings or one-night stays are permitted. There are house rules that exceed what's standard and customary, including quiet hours. And there is private trash hauler that has operated for these visitor accommodations.
I should note, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, that Jason shared with me that he has had some instances of neighbors occasionally saying that they've seen trash close to his property.
And as a good neighbor, he has been on top of it always. However, as is common with living in an urban environment, the trash doesn't appear to actually be related to these properties.
But for perception's sake alone and good neighborliness, Jason has addressed that in addition to his commercial trash hiccup, which he has.
The reviews for the use are very favorable.
Many of the users are visiting family members in the neighborhood, have family members who are ill at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia or University of Pennsylvania, health systems, which is a short walk away.
And in this instance, there truly is something unique about this property, as I hope I've demonstrated.
The proposal fits into the surrounding neighborhood. It is used by neighbors and families. This represents an appropriate transition, if you will, or a buffer between the bustle of South Street to the south and the residential to the north.
We did see in the map that I shared with you that surrounding the CMX2 buffer that there is residential. And what's nice about this particular use is that it is off the street. It has the parking. It's quiet.
The proposed variance would represent the minimum variance to afford relief, one unit per property, and the least modification possible of the regulations at issue.
The grant of variance relief will not substantially increase congestion in the public streets, increase the danger of fire or otherwise endanger the public health, safety, or general welfare.
This will not adversely affect transportation or unduly burdened water, a sewer, school park, or other public facilities.
there are no environmental issues.
Mr. Nussbaum is here to adopt and affirm at the appropriate time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
Why don't we bring your client on and adopt your testimony?
Mr. Nussbaum, would you please raise your virtual hand
to be recognized by Chairman Bergman?
I see no hands.
Jason Nussbaum or Tom Hallinan of City Living Philly, please try once more, I know you're present, to raise your virtual hand.
There he is, Mr. Nussbaum.
Good morning, sir. Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Jason, please unmute.
I'm sorry about that
I've been watching all the hearings since the beginning
Mr. Nussbaum
please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
Jason Nussbaum
J-A-S-O-N
N-U-S-B-A-U-M
N-U-S-B-A-U-M.
do you swear or affirm to tell the
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Nussbaum.
You have already stated on record that you've been present during the pendency of these virtual hearings.
Would you adopt and affirm the testimony that I've offered as your own?
I will.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
no chair no chair questions or comments uh from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes chair we have wade albert they have been allowed to speak
morning mr albert could you just state your name and spell for the court stenographer
good morning uh my name is wade w-a-d-e my last name is albert a-l-b-e-r-t
Do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Chair.
Please proceed, sir.
Thank you. So I am counsel for the Center City Residents Association, and I'm here to explain the basis for our opposition to this proposal.
In the outset, Mr. Laver, who I respect very much, referenced a policy that CCRA has. And that policy where CCRA is generally opposed to visitor accommodation variances is multifold.
One is that there are many hotels in Center City and around Center City, and our organization supports them and supports the workers that they employ and the business that they bring to our communities.
That being said, because there are so many hotels that we do not want to see the residential corridors of our neighborhood transformed to other uses, and particularly at a time when housing costs continue to increase and housing stock is diminished as more and more properties are being used for visitor accommodations, that is what encouraged us to adopt that policy.
That being said, we believe that this, the property that is before the board today, this use is out of context for the character of the block and for this neighborhood.
Number one, this is the Fittler Square area of Center City, which is primarily residential.
And the block from which ingress and egress to this property is located on Naudene is a residential block.
I also note that there are no other hotels in this vicinity, which makes this very different from some of the other visitor accommodation issues that have come before this board.
And that being another point that's important to raise is that while I appreciate the arguments that the particular ground floor uses and how difficult that would be to occupy them, I note that this is not a situation where the applicant has brought a request to use them for residential, which would be in line with the other uses in this block.
They have brought us a request to use these for visitor accommodations, and we just believe that there are other more appropriate uses than visitor accommodations, and so we oppose this and respectfully ask the board to deny the variance.
Thank you, Mr. Albert.
Mr. Laver, do you have any questions, or do you want to save this?
I'll give you a chance before we end to comment.
comment i'll save my comment for summations thank you chairman sure is there any um anyone else in
the virtual audience yes chair we have two more hands terry gillen has been allowed to speak
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court sonographer
um yes can you hear me i can it's teresa t-e-r-e-s-a gillen g-i-l-l-e-n you swear or
firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do hi please proceed are you
a neighbor i am a neighbor i live directly across from the entrance to this property so
i am probably the most directly affected neighbor thank you thank you very much please proceed
just want the board to know that we did submit a petition of um about 40 names um to councilman
johnson's office and to the ccra we can make that available to you if that's helpful every one of
the neighbors on my block except for one person i couldn't find um did sign the petition opposing
this variant i've lived on the block for 35 years and for 35 years these
I've lived on the block for 35 years, and for 35 years, these properties have been for owner-occupied properties.
For many, many years, for the pandemic, we had great neighbors in there.
They were people that would sweep the street.
They would come out for block parties.
Two of the neighbors I would leave my keys with when they would look out for my house.
All the sorts of things that you want from a neighbor.
And this, as I said, is a completely residential street with owner-occupied properties.
The applicants started buying up these properties during the pandemic, and it has substantially changed the nature of the block.
I mean, it means that there's a lot of absence during the week.
On weekends, people pile in in cars for the Airbnb experience.
But during the week, there's nobody there.
There's nobody looking out for the law. I've seen people urinating across the street for me, all kinds of stuff that happens when people aren't there. And it has substantially affected the quality of life. And that's why all of my neighbors, I want to repeat, all of them have signed a petition in opposition to this.
Okay, that's fine. So we don't understand why this can't go back to being for rental properties. They are very desirable properties. They have parking, as you saw, and it would be easy to find people to rent these properties and to get people in there all week.
So we respectfully ask that the zoning board turn down this request and acknowledge the
hardship that the neighbors are suggesting exists on this problem.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Cindy has been allowed to speak.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Ms. Edinger, would you please unmute yourself?
Cindy?
It seems like they may be having trouble unmuting themselves, Chair.
Cindy, could you try one more time, please?
Okay. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands.
Mr. Laver.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
Perhaps I can work backwards.
Cindy Edinger, I know, was on the virtual hearing with us through the entirety, and it's regrettable that she was not able to testify.
However, there is a letter of support on record, which you mentioned, Mr. Chairman.
She is the immediately adjacent neighbor.
And as an officer of the court, I would proffer that her testimony would be in line with her letter of support.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Regarding Ms. Gillen, and I thank her for being here.
It's regrettable that Ms. Gillen was not interested in engaging in actual direct dialogue with us because we would be interested in that, and I must object to an unverified petition, which has not been seen.
I would like to state, however, on the public record that I know that Jason Nussbaum and the team at City Living are always open to ongoing discussions, even though there's a difference of opinion.
So on the position of CCRA, we respect CCRA's position as a matter of policy.
Statements were made that this is a residential corridor, that it's a residential block, that
residential should be permitted.
The city plan has these properties as CMX2, mixed-use commercial.
They are adjacent to the bustling South Street.
We completely understand and recognize that we are up against that high intensity busyness of supermarkets and retail commercial and single family residential.
And I would submit that actually for CMX2 with this configuration, this is the perfect transition between the two and that the zoning code itself on its face promotes the ground floor commercial and generally within the CMX2, as the code states, the residential would require.
as the code states uh the residential would require relief with that and in light of all
of the circumstances we believe that the request before the board is the minimum necessary
pardon me to afford relief thank you questions or comments from planning commission
thank you chair bergman and good morning david fecto with the city planning commission
And, Chairman, I'm going to testify for all four units, if that's okay.
All right.
So, Chairman and Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed-use zoning at this location.
The appellant has shown that a hardship would exist if they were seeking to establish a residential use.
But since this use has already been established, commission staff do not believe there is a unique circumstance that will prevent these properties from being used for long-term rental use.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny the proposed use variances for visitor accommodations.
Thank you. I'm going to vote all four of these at one time.
So 13 MI 2023-005-970-2216-Nordain, number A, MI 2023-005-971-2216-Nordain, number B, 15 MI 2023-005-970-2216-Nordain, C.
and MI-2023-005973-2216-Nordain-D.
I vote yes for all four with proviso.
Temporary variants will expire 3-13-27.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes to all four with proviso for all four.
James Snell, my vote is yes to all four, with provisos to all four.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes to all four, with provisos to all four.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
Number 18, MI 2023-005-915-117-21 Cater Street.
Joshua Horowitz is the attorney for the owners.
There's a letter of support from the Queen Village neighbors and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squill.
Good morning, Mr. Horowitz. Please state your name and spell for the court stenographer.
Good morning, Joshua Horowitz, J-O-S-H-U-A-H-O-R-V-E-A-V-E-R-I-T-Z of Armstrong Teasdale.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
My clients are the owners of the property, Jack Levin and Susan Jass.
Jack had to travel today, but Susan should be here in the room.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refuse or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, to both.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I did.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
I'm here to discuss 117 Cater Street.
This property is requesting one variance for two parking spaces.
My clients have owned this property since 2001. It's in the rear of their family home at 114 South Street. You can see here on the aerial photo. It's on a dead end road. Cater Street dead ends and then Howard Street dead ends here.
And as I'll show you in photos, all people do back here is park cars. There's individual parking, individual parcels that are behind these homes, which I'll show you on the zoning map on the next page. And they each have either been approved for parking or park anyway. And some of them are owned by the houses in front of them or next to them or adjacent to them.
And this is the reason why this was supported and there were no objectors at the community room meeting and the council person issued a letter of non-opposition because everybody recognizes that this is what is to be done with this, basically an alleyway, even though they're officially city streets.
So here's a zoning map, and you'll see here that just to the south of the subject property, there are these individual parcels along Howard Street and then also along Cater Street, which are...
along Cater Street, which are also just used to park cars. So here's the subject property
where the two cars are parked. Now, my clients did a lot to beautify this lot and to create a
pathway down to their house, which is behind here. Their house is not the one that's brown,
but to the right with the white stucco. And here's the lot straight back from the city's
website. And here's what it looked like before they did the beautification. It was just a plain
kind of ugly lot. So just to show you the neighboring properties coming in here off of
Hancock Street, you make a right here on Decatur Street, and there's already parking use that's
been approved right here on your right on Cater. It's just standalone parcel for parking. And
actually behind that silver car on the right is a garage. That's here now on the left of this
picture. That's also a standalone parcel that's been approved for parking. And the zoning permits
approving these variances are included in my packet. Here's the Street View car pulling in,
and we see on the left here is the subject property. But there's a car that parks right
to the left here of the street view there's also cars that park straight ahead and moving down we
see here's the cars that park on the adjacent lot and then as you make a right here onto Howard all
that you do back here is park cars on the left there were three garages but even further down
there's more parking and on the right there's just outdoor parking so here are the garages
these all fill up with cars every day and they're all approved for the most part for parking as far
as I've seen, there's 14 total lots back here. And I looked at the zoning on all of them and
everybody parks. Here's on the left, here's a parked car. I believe it's for the front street
lots in front of it. And on the left here, there's more parking. It's a garage spot for
a front street house at 620 front on the left. And that property actually also owns a parking
spot on the right over here, which the zoning board approved for parking for the house on the
left of this street here. And here's some of these older zoning permits. This one's 609 Hancock,
where you first pull in. And here's a page from the one for 620 Howard Street, which 620 Front
parks at. And here's a third one from 618 Howard next to it, which is an approved
variance for a standalone parking spot. So we met with community group, Queens Village
Neighbors Association. And there were a few people that spoke in support of the application
that they were pleased with the work that my clients have done to beautify it a lot.
Everybody recognized that there's really nothing else that can be done with these lots back there.
And just because the zoning code defines it as a street, even though it's very narrow,
rather than an alley, that everybody needs a variance back there to use these lots as parking.
So, the QVNA recognized that there were city approvals of several similarly used lots along the same block of Cater and Howard Street. And like I said, nobody objected at the meeting, and Councilman Squill's office issued a letter of non-opposition as well.
um so um with that being said i'll just summarize um that my clients um have owned this lot for a
long time um we're here because a violation was issued um which which um we're seeking to remove