I'm sorry, it's saying that allow the talk
is not available because the person is using
an older version of the Zoom.
Mr. Hand, for this purpose,
you can promote her to a panelist.
I ask that Ms. Fields keep your screen off
and please wait to be sworn in by the chair
to give your testimony.
Thank you.
Understood.
Is she promoted yet, Jason?
I just promoted her to panelists, Madam Chair.
Polite, can you put your name and address on the record
and spell your last name?
She has to unmute herself.
Seals, if you are still available,
please unmute yourself and wait to be sworn in.
This is really a shame. Something happens in between that getting promoted and us losing them.
Ms. Fields, are you still there?
No, it appears as though she's not there.
Okay. Is there anyone else, Mr. Jin?
Not that I'm aware of, Madam Chair.
Mr. Hand, anyone else?
No, Madam Chair, not at this time.
Calendar number 0183514 North 10th Street.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you. Have a nice day. Calendar number. Thanks. Calendar number 1-862-6717 Chu Avenue.
Madam Chair, this is Sharon again. This is the case that Ms. Hyman was asking that she be promoted
and that she be permitted to cross-examine witnesses and present her own witnesses.
Great. So I'm going to call both of them.
Thank you.
Sure. The attorneys are Herk Grigos and Stephanie Hyman.
Hi, Mr. Grigos. Can you put your name and address on the record and spell your last name?
Hi, Mr. Grigos. Can you put your name and address on the record and spell your last name?
Hercules Grigos, G-R-I-G-O-S, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, representing 6717 Chew Avenue.
Do you swear for him to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with the documents consisting of proof of ownership tax compliance, the refusal, photos, and or plans of the property, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
We do, and we have.
Okay. Ms. Hyman, name and address for the record, please, and spell your last name, and then I'll swear you in.
Stephanie Hyman, H-E-I-M-A-N-N, 7225 Devon Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19119.
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing about the truth?
Madam Chair, if I could interrupt one more time, it appears as though we have Lena Reuter from the City Law Department also available for this case.
okay mr reuter can you put your name on the record and spell your last name uh thank you
madam chair members of the board leonard freuter r-e-u-t-e-r senior attorney for the city of
philadelphia i am not here as a party but my understanding is that there may be some
examination and or cross-examination of a city witness and i'm i'm really just here for that
portion of the case, if it even gets to that. Okay. And do you swear from the tell the whole
truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Okay, great. So, Herc, you may proceed. Great. Thank
you very much, Madam Chair. As I said, representing 6717 Chu Ave, LLC, owner of the property located
at 6717 Chu Ave. We're here today with an application for construction of a multifamily
building with accessory parking i have with me today jonathan thomas developer as well as david
plant from regiro plant land design project engineer i will be calling them as witnesses
if we could promote them at some point or at least asking them some testimony okay
property is uh approximately 14 000 square foot lot located at 67 17 chew avenue and if i may
I'm going to try to share my screen and can everyone see that so this is a zoning map of
the property you can see my cursor the site is on CA1 it is an approximate 14,000 square foot site
bounded by Chew Avenue to the south, Slocum Avenue to the west, the Pleasant Playground
to the north, and then the backs of some homes on Vernon Street to the east.
As you can see, there is a lot of different zoning classifications on this area of Chew Ave,
RSA-5 residential, RM-2 multifamily, RM-1, and then your CMX-2 as you go down the block,
which is, as you're aware, is your mixed-use multifamily.
Here's a close-up of the site. Current condition of the property is a vacant auto repair shop.
It's been vacant for many years, fallen in disrepair. And I think if you note from the
photos of the property.
Properties, as I said, been vacant, I would say, as a blight on the neighborhood.
And really, the goal here is to redevelop the property.
One of the issues that you hear from my client is the existence of considerable contamination
as a result of the historic use, environmental contamination.
My client will testify that estimates are a minimum of $250,000 to remove underground storage tanks, contaminated soil, monitor groundwater, among other remediation, and take the project through Act 2.
This issue, along with the demo, creates an impediment for development.
This is at the site zone CA1.
However, it's surrounded by a number of different uses and zoning districts.
when we were looking at how to develop this property and what made sense um in the first
guide we went to was the philadelphia uh planning commission uh 2035 plan uh which called for the
site to be mapped rm1 and i have that in the packet i'm happy to scroll through that but
in the packet i'm happy to scroll through that but that is in your packet um and the but the uh
that is in your packet um and the
Thank you.
the proposed remapping is rm1 so with that and with the adjacent residential uses and adjacent
multi-family that exist my client proceeded to develop a project consistent with rm1
we originally proposed 37 units with ground floor amenities let's scroll to a plan here
for everybody that sends some photos.
Zoom this out.
so the original plan called for 37 units ground floor amenities a green roof to manage storm
water 21 parking spaces and a height not to exceed 38 feet occupied area was 63 percent
where the maximum rm1 is 80 percent the project otherwise met the dimensional standards of rm1
21 parking spaces which as you know no parking is required norm one so the the project was designed
to meet arm one and did that um you know and really that's that's what we thought made sense
we had set back from the park and one of the original plans was to have traffic come in and
out through slocum and chew as a result of meetings we made some changes but under the ca1
zoning you know variance was really for use because as you know multi-family is not permitted
in ca1 even though that condition exists across the street and the zoning
districts exist on Chu Avenue. The maximum occupied area in CA1 is 60%.
We're proposing 63%. So although it meets the RM1, we think it's the minimus change from the CA1.
No variance for height. And of course, there is a variance for parking because under CA1,
which is an auto-oriented district, you base parking off square footage.
in a residential district like this um as we're designing toward there would be no parking
requirement so there is a variance for parking but that's based on your audio auto oriented ca1
and you'll hear from david plant of how ca1 uses a much more intense um uses are much more traffic
intense and generate much more car traffic trip chat trip generation um so i want to go through
the procedural history, and then I can walk everybody through the plan. But we originally
met with the community in November and December. We had two meetings. Our original zoning date
was scheduled for January 6th, and we were surprisingly met with some pushback.
um the comments were um really concerned about um uh traffic storm water and how we impacted
the park um and so what we did was we looked at um you know how could we how could we redesign
the project how could we meet with everybody how could we look and see what we could uh accomplish
here. So we've had a meeting with near neighbors and a committee, I believe that was in early
February, and the suggestions they made and the feedback was they wanted an expansion of Pleasant
Playground. They believed that this should be public land and should be part of the playground.
And if not, an urban agriculture community garden, farmer's market. We even got requests for
just straight retail, dog park, rain garden. I think I even saw one for a rehab center and a
safe injection site. But nevertheless, we engaged our design team and we looked at the CA1 uses
and we looked at and we spoke to brokers and said, what is viable and what will work here?
um we looked at a number of different iterations of plans in the ca1 um some you know you know
match the height different different iterations and we looked at what what was developable
after reviewing and speaking with brokers and speaking with folks in the market it was
determined that there really isn't a market on this area of chew avenue for um a ca1
for a CA1 use. And some of the feedback that we heard from the community was sort of
use. And some of the feedback that we heard
counterintuitive because they were concerned about pedestrian access, children, access to
the playground. And these CA1 uses that are permitted, which include restaurant, doctor's
office, convenience store, 7-Eleven type uses, would have much more traffic and much more of an
impact. So with that, we tried to engage and looked at the different uses, and we decided to
reduce the number of units. We went from 37 to 34. We changed our traffic pattern to have all
traffic come in and out of Chew Avenue, and we removed our dumpster enclosure from an exterior
to an interior trash room and if i may i'll just walk everybody through the plans
we also added a potential ground floor either non-profit meeting area office or something
but here's here's the plans a number of mixed of multi-family i'll give everybody the elevation so
can see here's the rendering and the massing and really here's here's what we're talking about
you know typical RM1 building up against the street on Chu Avenue all access through Chu Avenue
we added some activity on the ground floor we would consider if there was discussion we could
engaged. We were considering, you know, if retail would work there, we think it would be a loss
leader, but we would try it or see if there was discussion. But really, the neighbors didn't want
to engage. There was discussion of how it impacted the park. We set the building back considerably
from the park and the pool, and see that in the site plan. So all of these things were taken
in consideration. Additionally, what we added was 10% of affordable units that we would add
at 60% AMI. And, you know, finally, because we understand the desire to support the playground,
my client is proposing a donation in the amount of $6,000 a year to the playground, to parks and
recs for the next 10 years. However, at the follow-up meeting, there was no debate or desire
to engage. The sentiment was, it was actually at the February meeting, we were told to withdraw
our zoning case and start over and have a discussion, which we thought was sort of
disingenuous. I mean, I think as my experience is, and as the board knows, my experience
were were often amenable to the push and pull and trying to work through a project but
the the desire and the demand was really to see this as um as really an extension of the park
and while we appreciate that concern um the reality is that in order to viably
develop this property there's a lot of impediments that exist on the site
so you know in order to to do that and figure out a project that works we chose the planning
commission's recommendation of rm1 which we think for massing density and height etc is consistent
with where the neighborhood is going what exists rsa5 across the street similar massing and density
CMX2 down the block similar mass and density so let's talk about the variance and the physical
impediments to develop in the site we've said the main variance is for use multifamily is not
permitted in spite of the fact that there is no CA1 use in the immediate corridor is not part of
a larger plan we think that this was really corrective remapping I mean I think there was
some existing there's an auto repair shop down the block and there's some existing you know old
existing convenience stores or other but this is not a highly trafficked commercial corridor
so you'll note as I said the multi-family across the street and really contemplates you know
retail and office really we didn't believe worked. So I have John Thomas here if you can
affirm and speak. But the first thing that we found was really no demand for users in the CA1.
The first thing that we found was really no demand for users in the CA-1.
That was medical office or convenience store restaurant.
John spoke to at least two urgent cares and said the immediate area was saturated.
If they wanted to come in this market, they'd look for a more vibrant commercial corridor.
But assuming my client was able to build a CA-1 building on spec,
John ran the performance and the cost of construction, cost of infrastructure,
And the cost to remediate the site with the proposed rents, which we received between $12 and $20 a foot, produced a negative return.
And we looked at this on 4,500-square-foot buildings and 9,500-square-foot buildings with various heights, various parking layouts.
Making the building larger was possible.
Theoretically increased the revenue to overcome the large cost of the remediation.
However, it makes it much more difficult to rent in this environment.
um so john is this is john on and he he's been promoted but if he can speak to that
mr thomas has been allowed to speak mr thomas please wait to be sworn in sir thank you
um so john have you heard my my testimony in terms of one second one one second mr
john are you there i am yes ma'am can you put your name and address on the record and spell your last
name and then I'll swear you in yep Jonathan Thomas with an office at 4936 York Road Buckingham
PA 18912 uh Thomas is spelled T-H-O-M-A-S thank you do you swear if I'm to tell the whole truth
and nothing but the truth I do okay Mr. Griegos so John you just want to um you heard my testimony
or my representation of the economic infeasibility of a CA-1?
Do you want to confirm that and elaborate on that?
Yes, I do adopt that.
As Shoe Avenue, the nature of it, it's more of a secondary market for commercial and retail
with the surrounding residential from it.
And as you know, with the pandemic and the world we live in today,
the primary market, such as Germantown Avenue,
which is just a little bit to the south of this, those areas are getting impacted with vacancies
and lowering of rents. And so a secondary market such as this one is just not feasible for
any sort of rental stability. And John, you have a quote from 2019 for approximately $175,000
environmental remediation, and most recent quotes in 2021 were upwards of $250,000. Is that correct?
That is correct. The $175,000 quote came from the environmental firm Brickhouse, which was done
from a previous owner, receiving our quote of $250,000. That has a little bit of contingency
for when we if we run into groundwater issues where we can't clean up the groundwater when