She is licensed with the state at this facility and at her other facilities, and will maintain
compliance with all state requirements to have a facility such as this.
At this time, I'd like to call Ms. Salisbury to raise her hand to adopt my testimony.
Ms. Salisbury, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Hello, can you hear me?
State your name and spell.
Go ahead.
Catherine, K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E, Salisbury, S-A-L-S-B-U-R-Y.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Proceed.
Thank you.
Ms. Salisbury, have you had an opportunity to hear my statements to the board today?
and were those statements true and correct to the best of your knowledge yes would you adopt
my statements to the board as if they were your own testimony yes i thank you i have no further
questions for the for the witness and we would request that the board grant variance questions
from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission good morning david vecto city
planning commission mr chairman members of the board the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the single family zoning at this location while the applicant has failed to show that a
hardship exists that would require the expansion of the daycare center the presence of that daycare
center would not have a negative impact on surrounding properties so the city planning
commission recommends the board grant the use of variance thank you mi 2021 005 237 69 59 tulip
street i vote yes our alternary my vote is yes excuse me mr chair we don't have the rco letter
we need oh i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry so yeah that's my mistake we're going to hold this vote
for a week mr correct let's see if we can get the letter and and whatever the day it is one way oh
we do have the rco letter yes i believe i believe that i did attach it i don't i was uh unfortunately
separately but it is part of my package it is page 21 of uh 21 and 22 of the package yeah he
showed her on the screen i'm sorry okay sorry i missed that no that's okay so my vote is yes
Thomas out
Thomas Howell, my vote is yes.
Thomas
My foot is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you Mr. Crick.
Thank you very much.
Anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been called in this morning's list?
Chair, I see no hands at this time.
Thank you everyone.
See everyone at two o'clock.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearings.
With me is Carol Tenere, our vice chair.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Ismail Shahid, our board secretary.
he should be on shortly thomas hallman our board member president mr chairman
james snell our board member president mr chairman also here is our executive director
director tanya sunkett and our attorney hillary emerson our virtual format here i'm here now
Okay, thank you.
Be advised, these proceedings are being recorded.
By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
The video will be available by contacting Tanya Sunkett at philo.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify
themselves before testifying.
If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your
hand and star six to unmute. To enter appearance statement, call 267-270-5548. Leave your email
and the address of the property in question. And lastly, please note the question answer box is
not for testimony or comments. Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sunkett, our executive director.
Let's look at continuances for this afternoon.
Number four. MI 2022-00658-3440 Messina Way. Number five. MI 2022-000659-3442 Messina Way.
Number eight, MI 2022-000-642-5312-18 Ridge Avenue.
And number nine, MI 2022-000-662-5637 North 10th Street.
All four of these cases will be continued.
Does anyone in the virtual audience have any comments relative to the cases?
Chair, we have Mr. DeMarco with his hand up.
Mr. DeMarco, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please.
I'm Mr. DeMarco.
State your name and spell it for the court reporter.
Good morning.
Excuse me.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Can you hear me okay?
We're okay.
Oh, great.
Yeah, Mr. DeMarco, D-E-M-A-R-C-O.
I only wanted to offer a comment that I would ask for the, we are on the agenda for the
next RCO meeting on June 7th, and I'm just going to ask for a hearing if possible after
That was my only comment.
We agree otherwise to the contingent.
You broke up a little bit there.
So why don't you do this?
Why don't you contact the office?
They'll take care of you.
Okay, that's fine.
I can do that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Any other continuances requested?
chair we have jared klein mr klein you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair please
thank you good afternoon mr chair members of the board hi mr klein could you state your name and
spell for the court reporter certainly it's jared j-a-r-e-d last name's klein k-l-e-i-n
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, I do. What case? 6701 Callow Hill. It's MI 2021-004044.
Is that number 10 on the list? Number 10, yes. Number 10, yes. We need some additional time to
meet with the RCO. My client here is an educational institution. So with the school year being in
session, their attention was a little bit diverted. So we would appreciate one additional.
It's fine. We will continue that case. Thank you for calling in, sir.
we will continue that case thank you for calling in sir thank you very much mr chair any other
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
continuances chair i see no other heads at this time okay we're going to go to our add-on list
we have one add-on we're going to do this afternoon
MI 2021 004462 150 to 64 West Berks. This case was continued from April the 6th,
waiting on a letter from the council person. I have a letter I'm going to read into the record
from Councilwoman Quinones Sanchez.
The project is 150 to 64 Berks,
also 166 to 80 West Berks.
A brief description of the project is 152 dwelling units,
accessory off-street parking for 42 vehicles,
additional parking including van spaces for three electric parking spaces 77 first class
bike spaces here's the councilwoman's letter this applicant has met with the rco and has garnered
a letter of support which concludes includes a community benefits agreement our office is very
concern about these agreements because they don't give enough specificity for how the payments will
impact the neighbors. Additionally, we have worked for the past two years with six RCOs in the
community to address, correct, and update zoning and non-zoning related issues. We are seeing a
trend of developers that are requesting changes that violate the spirit of the planning. As for
our office, we have requested mandatory affordability in specific opportunity zones and the American
Street zones, and have obtained 10% affordability with almost all new housing developments.
Here again, this project did not include and refused to include affordability. While the
developer did try to accommodate our request for affordability concerning commercial spaces
For local residents, it is not enough given the scale and impact of the project.
Our office will officially oppose this project, this agreement.
We try to maintain a consistent policy that affordability is needed and only high-impact neighbors should be the beneficiaries of CBAs.
The introduction of cash payments in the future create problems that I believe the Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment are not prepared to manage.
For this reason, we officially oppose this and future agreements in this format.
Diverse mixed income neighbors are created with intentional policies, not project-by-project agreements.
Our office has worked for 14 years with our residents and will advocate that their RCO honors our public process.
If you have any questions or need anything further information, please call Sloan Folks, 215-686-3985.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Councilwoman Maria D. Quinones Sanchez.
So, Project MI 2021-004-462, I vote no.
Carol Tenere, my vote is no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is no.
Thank you.
Case number one, MI-2022-000651-1031 Germantown Avenue.
Sean Whalen is the attorney.
Letter of support from Northern Liberties Neighbors Association.
Chair, Mr. Whalen is coming back in now as a panelist.
Thank you.
hi mr whalen could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
certainly sean whalen s-e-a-n-w-h-a-l-e-n do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the truth yes i do could you identify your client and a relationship to the
property uh certainly my prop my client is the property owner and we submit
Certainly, my client is the property owner, and we submitted a deed, or is the equitable owner of the property, and we submitted a deed along with the project, and closing is upcoming.
Do you have his name?
Yes, it's an entity, and I'm looking for the entity name right now.
I knew you were going to ask me for it.
I'll just have my client text it to me. I'm sure he's okay. All right. So our vice chair has a
few questions for you. Hi, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? Yes, I do. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents consisting of
proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the
property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have
a letter? Yes to all. Okay, you may proceed and share your screen. Thank you very much. Thank you.
So yes, I'm here on behalf of 1031 Germantown Avenue. I can't see what you guys can see, so
the property the entity is 1031 germantown avenue ocf llc that is the equitable owner of the
property and the property itself is 1031 germantown avenue hopefully right now you can see
a rendering okay perfect so this is a rendering of what the project will be townhomes i will come
back to it, but in an effort to put the cart as far in front of the horse as I can, here is a
support letter from NLNA. We met with them multiple times in a public meeting and also had numerous
conversations and communications with their boards and their members. They supported the project.
Here is a letter from Councilman Mark Squilla's office. They gave a letter of non-opposition
in support of an LNA and the project, and here is a letter of support, a petition of support,
notably from what I will show you. This yellow highlighted property is a large triangular
piece of property. This is 1031 Germantown, best known as the former swim club in Northern
and Liberties, and each one of these dots that you see along West Allen Street and Pollard
Street here are single-family residences that signed the petition of support here in
front of us.
So, again, to kind of back up now that I've gotten all the support out of the way, this
was an extremely collaborative process.
um i assume the board has already received notice but if you have not this project also
went through the cdr process uh it concluded yesterday so i'm sure the board does not have
a conclusion letter yet but um i'm not sure since i'm surprisingly case number one i don't know if
i've ever been case number one before the uh i'm not sure who the planning commission member is on
the call today but i'm sure that they can confirm that we completed cdr yesterday and again actually
Actually, the primary takeaway here, which was nice with CDR, was extremely appreciative of how collaborative planning commission staff, the developer, the near neighbors, and NLNA were in coming to kind of a resoundingly supported project here.
So, again, here's Germantown Avenue, West Allen Street, and Pollard is right here, and we are this large triangular portion of this block right there.
Just to give a little context, this is I-95 right here.
There's a large existing church right here.
This is the Piazza building on this side.
There's a large parking garage over here.
And you will see, I think, in the next slide.
So here's a slide, again, just gives a little more perspective.
This is the project right here.
this basically 100% built out commercial swim club, which had become quite a nuisance for the
neighborhood. We received a lot of support for getting rid of it and moving forward.
All of this will be demoed, and we will be building the townhomes that you saw in the
first instance. Here's a contextual rendering. These townhomes in orange show the 20 townhomes
that we have proposed.
It also shows this building right here is outlined. This is already approved, and our understanding is construction is imminent. This is immediately across the street, a 15-story tower, so obviously much higher than ours.
It also shows this building right here is outlined.
This is already approved.
and another large building being approved, was approved right here. And actually one of the
things that CDR specifically noticed yesterday, notified everyone of yesterday, was just the