Revised plans, two pages.
Two pages.
Yeah, because I have that crossed out on here. And revised plans consisting of two pages.
Confessor Plaza, my vote is yes with provisos.
James Snell, my vote is yes with provisos.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with provisos.
I think that's it, Mr. Bertil.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have another matter, so I won't ask to be excused.
Okay. We're going to go to calendar number 1951, 226 South Street. The attorney is David Orfanides.
Can you hear me?
I can hear you. Can you put your name and address on the record and spell your last name?
Sure. David Orphanides, Orphanides & Toner, 2 Penn Center, 1500 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 800, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19102.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I've emailed an exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos and our plans of the property five days in advance of this meeting.
And have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
We have. We have. We do.
Okay. I'd like to say that South Street Headhouse District and Queen Village Neighborhoods Association both have submitted letters of support.
councilman squilla has sent in a letter of non-opposition so you're up probably with a
very brief presentation uh yes i could make it brief may i share my screen sure
can you see it yes we can great it's great so um again my name is david orphanetes um
from Morphinides and Toner. We have two properties at issue here, 226 and 224 South
Street. 226 South Street is located on the southeast corner of South Street and South
American Street. If I show you an aerial, you can see right here. So there are two properties.
This is 226 at the corner, and then 224 is just to the east of the property.
right now what was last used is a real estate office and some apartments it's been vacant for
some time as for those of you who've been up and down south street south street is suffering from
quite a bit of commercial vacancy right now that was we had information that was provided by south
street headhouse district documenting that there's considerable vacancies on on up and down south
Street, which in and of itself is one of the bases for our request for the variance. The application
is to treat the two lots as one lot, utilizing the establishment of a unity of use to create
the one from the two existing for zoning purposes. Our ground floor will be a retail sales of consumer
goods, and then we'll have one visitor accommodation unit on the ground floor, and then six on each of
the second and third floors. That use to visit or accommodation is not permitted in the underlying
zoning district. We do have two projecting signs, one on South Street and one on South American
Street. And because of their location above the second floor windowsill, they require a variance
as well. And that was set forth in the notice of refusal that was issued by LNI on the 24th of
March. And here you can see a copy of that. That's exhibit for setting forth those two refusals.
in terms of the signage we did take that to the art commission we do have a tab exhibit
We do have a tab exhibit eight of my exhibit book.
eight of my exhibit book you can see you
You can see you have, we did go before them
for a virtual meeting and they did approve it
based upon any type of revisions
that may come out of our meetings with the community
or the zoning board.
And thus far, at least out of the community,
there were no changes to the projecting sign.
These are pictures of the signs.
They are projecting, but they're small.
they're not internally illuminated fabric signs and you can see one here on south street
and that's a signage for the retail establishment and then one on south american street that's the
access for the hotel or visitor accommodations and as i said that's one of the refusals and as
you indicated we do have the support of both the south street head house district june 30th
we have their letter of support there were approximately 30 people in attendance that are
meeting back on may 19th and then july 19th queen village neighborhood association is not the
coordinating rco south street headhouse district was a coordinating rco participated in the meeting
that we had with the community and they issued their own letter of support that was based upon
a revised elevation dated July 12, 2021, which is essentially the same as the elevation that
we provided with our application with the addition of some lighting. It's not a zoning-related issue.
We are going to follow through with that. It doesn't require, in my opinion, the stamping of
revised plans by the Zoning Board because, again, the lighting change or depicting confirming the
location and the type of lighting that they wanted to see on South American Street is not
a zoning issue. Here are the interior floor plans that we're proposing. You can see here's the
corner here South American Street here would be South Street. Here's the retail design office
and there's a possibility of a cafe over on the front of the 224 side and with the ADA
a type b unit at the rear of 224 for the visitor accommodation so you have two uses here that are
going on you have but they're all involving the same people so the the retail establishment
and i have her with me today shannon maldonado presently operates yaoi at 17 716 south 4th
street the intention is to move her business from there into the ground floor of this of this new
operation she is also involved in the hotel she's involved in a hotel with two other people one of
whom is here with me today everett abbott ball and um bill vessel who's he has the agreement of sale
with the existing owners of the property if you recall they were the they're the owners and the
operators and shannon was actually involved in the design of the deacon at 16th and christian
which i brought before this board um for a visitor accommodation there and shannon was involved in
that you can actually see uh here are some examples of her projects in the bottom right
hand corner is the common space of the deacon there at 16th and christian in the above the
first american baptist in the first american baptist church building above the daycare
that's located at the in the rest of the building so chanon has uh extensive design experience you
can ask her all about it stop in her store anytime that you want she's smiling right now she will be
relocating to this location and she will be also involved in one of the owners of the hotel along
with everett bill gets approved we we i mean here's a picture of the existing building as you
can see it's vacant partially boarded up again it was a this existing signage that's there or was
there for the real estate office is going to be removed as part of the application and again the
two existing signs are what we are going to be adding to the facade side alley and and you can
see on south street the type of signage that we're proposing exists up and down south street with
higher located projecting signs. And this is just on the neighboring buildings to the east of us.
We have a tax clearance at Exhibit 22. Our posting, both on the South Street side and on
the South American Street side, of the notice for today's hearing and the copy of the notice
of refusal are included in Exhibit 23. And then our mailing to the coordinating RCOs
for the Coordinating RCO meeting.
Again, the Coordinating RCO was confirmed
by the Planning Commission on April 30th
as a South Street Headhouse District
and a copy of our notice
for the community group meeting
that went out to the list of addresses
provided by the Planning Commission
that we accessed through the Planning Commission's link
that we access through the Planning Commission's link is included at Exhibit 25,
is included at Exhibit 25.
along with the Certificate of First Class Mailing.
So with that, we have, as you indicated, full community support.
We have the non-opposition of the councilmen.
We have extensive commercial vacancy up and down South Street,
which I think warrants whether it's under Hertzberg or.
Well, I'm going with the support from Head House District
and Queen Village Neighborhood Association
and Councilman Squilla's letter.
Does the board have any questions?
No, Vice Chair.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience with questions
about this project?
if so please raise your virtual hand
i see no hands madam chair okay um mr orphanetes does your client want to adopt your testimony
are you frozen
i think he's frozen
is everybody else still on no i'm sorry somehow my my internet just
popped off. You just froze. Does your client want to adopt your testimony? Yes. So, Shannon,
would you like to identify yourself for the record? You'll have to be sworn in.
Yes. Raise your hand. We can't hear her, David. No, I think she has to be...
Hi, this is Shannon. Hi. Name and address, inspire your last name, please.
recording in progress
can you hear me yes i can great i'm sorry this is tanya um mr orphanetes um is your client in
the office with you yes so here's the problem two devices on causes feedback for us would it be
possible for you to mute yours while she while she gets sworn in by the chair mine is muted
okay okay so why don't you just mute yourself okay now if you can speak shannon hi this is
shannon maldonado okay okay can you spell your last name sure it's m-a-l-d-o-n-a-d-o
Your address? 2420 Trenton Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19125. Thanks. Do you swear or affirm to tell
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Okay. Mr. Orphanides, you can ask her to adopt
your testimony. Sure. Question is, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. Shannon, did you hear
what I stated today to the zoning board? I did. And was it true and correct to the best of your
knowledge? Yes, it was. And would you adopt it as your own statements and your own testimony?
Yes, I would. Thank you. Is there anyone else
out there with questions in virtual world?
I see no other hands, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Planning Commission? This is Ron Bednar, City
Planning. Property is indicated for commercial mixed use on the
city plan. Given the proposed unity of use plan, we recommend that the request for variance begin.
Calendar number 1951-226 South Street, my vote is yes. This is Carol Tenere.
James Snell, my vote is yes. Professor Plaza, my vote is yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Okay, good luck. Calendar number 1921-3145 Grace Ferry Avenue. The attorney again is
Steve Bertil.
Mr. Bertil is coming back in as a panel.
Okay, great. Thank you.
good afternoon again madam chair i name and address for the record spell your last name
and you're already sworn in uh steve bertill b-e-r-t-i-l claire harris
Steve Bertil, B-E-R-T-I-L, Claire Harrison Harvey in Brandsburg, 1835 Market Street, 14th floor, 19103.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, to all of you both.
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with 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 uh yes and um again i'm not sure if the letter it is part of
our exhibit packet but i'm not sure if that was independently sent to the board or miss um seleta
if not i could forward that along as well uh we have residents organized for advocacy and direction
that's correct and it's there's a letter of support that's correct okay so you may proceed
thank you
uh as was stated my name is steve bertill i'm here representing um the owners um and applicants for
3145 grace ferry avenue um we're here requesting variance relief to allow for the erection
The five-story structure for use is moving and storage facilities with 11 accessory parking spaces and two loading spaces.
As you can see from the zoning map here, the property zone is I-3.
It's situated on Grays Ferry Avenue.
Here's the area of the property so you get a better sense of the context.
This is long in an industrial corridor.
of Gray's Ferry Avenue is another 3D shot so you can see the property itself is near the corner of
34th. This is 34th here and Gray's Ferry, this triangle line is the property or kind of curved
triangle is the property. Part of it is under the 76th overpass as you see here. And so the
The refusals that we have for this property is for the amount of parking and loading that we have.
As you know, the parking ratios are dictated by the zoning code utilizing the lot area, or excuse me, the ground floor area of the proposed structure.
we're proposing a use of moving and storage facilities and the zoning code doesn't really
contemplate parking ratios commensurate with the storage facility. Ratios determined by square
footage is obviously problematic for that because for storage facilities, typically there's no daily
users. There's a low employee number count, typically one or two individuals. And essentially
the spaces will go greatly unused as you can see from the refusal if we're just going based off
the ratio calculations this project will require 79 parking spaces and six loading spaces
and again it really just looks at the fact that it's i3 and not the actual sub use which for many
other industrial uses maybe this amount of parking might make sense but as you know from
for moving and storage facilities, it doesn't.
And so that in conjunction with the unique shape of the property,
the addition of those, as you can see, the property is pretty unique
that it kind of points, it gets narrower the further you go back.
You'll see in a second the proposed facility to add the required amount of storage.
we'd either have to do some sort of underground parking at the very least we have to add an
additional floor um to accommodate that um so essentially we would have to make the building
a floor at least a floor taller to accommodate parking that would never be used um
and so just so you get a sense of the project that we're proposing um here is a site plan
as you can see we have the 11 parking spaces at the front this gray structure is the uh
Let me zoom in a little bit.
That might be tough to see.
Is that better?
Okay, great.
The proposed facilities for self-storage use, about 26,000 square feet, over six stories.
As you see the entrance and exit of the properties off of Grace Ferry Avenue, the parking is in the front and the loading is also in the front because that's what accommodates with this lot.
here um we didn't meet with the community group um in addition to a coalition we've met with the
In addition to a coalition, we've met with the coordinating RCO, but we also met with the coalition of area RCOs that are affected.