ZBA Hearing - January 17, 2024

exhibits 9 and 10 of our packet. In addition, we attended three separate

Exhibits 9 and 10 of our packet.

In addition, we attend

meetings with the West Girard Progress RCO, the Fishtown Business District, and

the coordinating RCO, which was or is the South Kensington Community

Partners. The Fishtown Business District did provide a letter of support, which we

have at Exhibit 12, and as I noted, we just received the letter of support from

south kensington community partners which we have submitted to zoning board council we met with

south kensington community partners on two separate dates one with their zoning committee

on december 6th and then again on december 20th at the public meeting the property was also posted

in accordance with the zoning code and we have an affidavit a notarized affidavit of posting

at Exhibit 8. So we are here today, Chairman Bergman and members of the board, to request

zoning relief for the construction of four four-story row homes along North Hope Street.

And I think this will provide some additional context for you. This red rectangle represents

the area where the proposed dwellings will go. This is

Hope Street. Back here is North Front Street.

We would request zoning relief to allow for proposed

decks located at the second level rear of the property

because in the RSA 5 zoning district, you are not permitted to have

encroachments in the rear yard. We're also looking for relief to allow for

off-street accessory parking to be accessed from the front-facing

garage as in the RSA 5 on-site parking needs to be accessed from a rear alley or driveway which

this does not allow for and third we have a request for relief to allow for creation of these

four lots at 825.5 square feet so under the fifth district overlay if the adjacent parcels are

more than a thousand if 75% of the lots are less than a thousand square feet or

smaller you can subdivide this lot into 800 square foot lots however these

adjacent parcels most of them are larger than a thousand square feet so we are

required to obtain a lot area variance also the subdivision plan that was

submitted at this time is not approved by the Planning Commission because those

lot sizes do not meet the code or the overlay. But once we, should the board grant the variances,

then that would eliminate that refusal. With that, I would ask Paul Lorenz to raise his

virtual hand and be elevated as a panelist. Hello, Paul Lorenz here. Hi, Mr. Lorenz. Could

you state your name and spell for the court stenographer? My name is Paul Lorenz. It's P-A-U-L,

last name, L-O-R-E-N-Z. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,

nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you. Paul, could you please

briefly describe your educational background and work experience? Sure. I hold a Master of

architecture degree from Yale University. I have been working in Philadelphia for seven years now,

and for five of those years, I've been a licensed architect in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

And at Exhibit 13, can you confirm that that is your resume? Yes, it is.

Thank you. And can you please describe your role in this proposed development?

Sure. So I've been working with Archive Development really since they acquired the property.

I believe it was in 2021. Alongside Kerry Jackson Yance, principal of Canada Design,

we've developed this concept for row homes with Archive Development.

All right. I would like to offer Mr. Paul Lorenz as an expert in architecture and design.

I think we'll accept him for the work he's done on this project.

Thank you. So, Paul, as you can see, I have control of the slide. So I would like you to go through describing the site location and then the project.

So is there a specific slide you'd like me to go on the zoning plans first?

or would you like to settle on this one right now to do we can start with page six thank

you um so uh chairman bergman members of the board

So, Chairman Bergman, members of the board, as we can see here, the project is located on Hope Street, which is one street west of Front Street in the Kensington neighborhood.

Hope Street is really a quite narrow side street that is occupied primarily by row homes, in addition to the existing use of vinyl goods facility.

As you can see here in these photographs, again, the street is quite narrow.

I would like to note that all of the cars we see here are not legally parked.

Importantly, there is no legal parking allowed on Hope Street, which is a it's only I believe the cartway is 13 feet wide.

And this is just a one way alleyway.

Could you go to the next page, Irene?

All right. As it's been noted earlier, the project is located in an RSA 5 location.

The lots across the street are also RSA 5. However, the lots behind and adjacent to the

project location are CMX 3. And that's really one of the main reasons why a majority of the

lots around the area are above 1,000 square feet. The next page, please.

All right, so this is just the zoning document that we submitted to LNI as part of this

application. We can just go to the next one as well, please. Thank you. All right, we've got a

site plan here. As has been noted before, we are proposing four nearly identical row homes

on parcels that are each 828 square feet. They're really extremely typical row homes of this area,

very typical size. Each of these row homes does include a proposed single car parking on the

ground floor, as well as a deck that extends out of the second floor. And in a moment, I'll get

into why that second floor deck is important. Next page, please. All right, so just to spin

through the floor plans very briefly, again, we're seeing the garage on the ground floor on the left

with a bedroom in the back. We do have a rear yard, which does meet the rear yard requirements

of the district. Going up to the second floor plan, what we would typically see in a Philadelphia

Row Home on the ground floor, we're pushing up to the second floor. And that's really what's driving

this second floor deck. So it offers some outdoor space to the common elements of these families

living in these row homes. The third floor is an extremely typical Philadelphia Row Home with

the bedroom in the front and a bedroom in the back. The fourth floor, again, is extremely typical of

many newly created row homes in this area with the primary suite taking up the floor.

And the roof, again, is an extremely typical roof deck with pilot house, again, typical of a row home in this area.

Each floor, each of these homes would encompass about 2,500 square feet, and there would be four bed, four and a half bath.

So it's really meant to house families with children in this area.

all right so this this building section again describes why we are using a second floor deck

a deck like this would be permitted on the ground floor however since we have

our common elements on floor two we are proposing that on the on floor two

um here i'm just going to extremely briefly describe some of the materiality and forms of

home as we see here these are just very um sort of contemporary contextual row homes we're proposing

a simple red brick facade to uh to mesh really well with the neighborhood um and some juliet

balconies on the second floor um just to offer some uh a good amount of opening to the street

okay thank you um paul i just want to go back to the lot area and yes of course let me know is it

which is easier to go back to the i think the um the the zoning map showing the the rsa5 district

and cmx3 district so if you can explain for the board the adjacent lots and what the sizes of

the lots across the street from our project are and have this project

the lots across the street from our project are and how this project actually fits in more with

the residential dwellings in the area. Sure, of course. So as we can see, the lot fronts onto

Hope Street. However, the zoning is impacted by these larger CMX3 lots that front onto Front Street.

The typical lot size on Hope Street is below that 1,000 square foot threshold.

An earlier calculation that I did came up with 35 parcels that went onto Hope Street.

Of those, 27 are less than 1,000 square feet.

So that is 77% of the parcels are less than 1,000 square feet.

However, given this unique position of our parcel, unfortunately, that CMX 3 lot that surrounds it pushes that percentage of surrounding lots above 1,000 square feet above the threshold.

I also would like to note that many of the rail homes that front Hope Street, especially

the newly developed homes, do have the same ground flow parking that we're requesting here.

13 of the parcels along Hope Street have access to their own private off-street parking.

so can so to be clear without having a rear drive as we saw from the area of aerial photographs

and not have any rear access and being prohibited from parking on hope street

obviously there would be a hardship in trying to park anywhere other than having access on site

Yes, that's my opinion.

And we talked about the lot area, but the width of these homes is consistent with the width of the other parcels, single family dwellings along Hope?

Yes, so both the parcels along Hope Street and our proposed parcels are right within the extremely typical Philadelphia Row home.

I believe we're proposing parcel widths of just about 17 feet, which is very typical of, again,

both Hope Street and a typical rural home here in the city. So these proposed dwellings actually

fit in with the nature and the character of the existing neighborhood? Yeah, I believe so,

and that's really something that has been front and center during the design process here.

Okay, and I just wanted to go back to the photos, too, because I believe that they, well, they do show what you were talking about, where other parcels, other single-family dwellings have access to on-site parking.

correct and really the exact same configuration that we're proposing with the garage on the ground

floor in addition to the entry door and then the second floor has the main living spaces

demonstrated on the in photograph a by the larger window on floor two of that existing adjacent

property okay and with uh with that i would just like to ask you uh in your professional opinion

if the grant of the requested variances will be detrimental or have a detrimental impact to the

surrounding neighborhood or to the health, safety, or general welfare of the neighborhood?

No, I don't believe that they would have a detrimental impact.

Do you believe that these houses will actually engage the street and they

allow for additional dwelling units along with the existing housing?

Yeah, definitely. Again, I'm envisioning four vibrant families being on the street. Once you

have more eyes on the street, more activities in the street, research has found that health

and safety really increases. And as you said, this was a factory here. So with these proposed

row homes, these four four-story row homes, do you believe that the grant of variance will not

cause any overcrowding of the land? I believe it will not cause overcrowding of the land.

And it will not impair an adequate supply of light and air to adjacent properties?

That's correct. We're not really asking for any height or depth variances here,

which could theoretically do that. In this case, we are not really impacting any of the adjacent

properties in terms of light and air. And you don't believe that any of these

variances will impair or injure adjacent conforming properties? I do not believe so.

Thank you, Mr. Lorenz. So, as you heard from Paul Lorenz, we believe that this

So, as you heard from Paul Lorenz, we believe that this project meets the spirit and intent of the code and meets the criteria for granting variances.

We would open it up to any questions.

Eileen, do you want to bring your client on?

Yes.

Adapt your testimony?

Either Henry or Ryan, can you raise your virtual hand?

henry siebert has been unmuted and allowed to speak thank you how's it going this is henry

i'm one of the owners hi sir could you state your name and spell please for the court sonographer

henry siebert s-i-e-b-e-r-t right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth

nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel thank you uh thank you henry uh i just want to

confirm when you are authorized to speak on behalf of the development group and this project

at the property? Yep, confirmed. Yes, thank you. And Henry, you heard my narrative regarding the

project. Would you adopt that as, would you say that my narrative regarding the project was

accurate? Yes, I would. And if you were able to testify and provide a narrative, would you adopt

my testimony as yours as it's accurate i would thank you questions from the board

no mr chairman no chair all right questions or comments from our attorney hillary amerson

sorry not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience

here i see no hands at this time planning commission thank you chair bergman and good

afternoon david fecto with the city planning commission chairman and board members the

comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single family zoning on the hope

street side of this lot the appellant seeks to create smaller lots than are allowed in rsa 5

the proposed lot sizes match the sizes of lots on hope street which range from the low

700s to over 900 square feet. The appellant proposes an off-street parking space for each

home. Hope Street is narrow with no parking allowed on either side. Off-street parking is

common on this block. And the variances for the decks are due to the small lot sizes.

The City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the proposed variances for

lot size, off-street parking, and rear decks. Thank you.

MI 2023-005-778-1424-North Front, number T-B-161104, I vote yes.

Thomas Holloman.

With proviso, her refusal dated 116-24.

Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.

James Snell, my vote is yes, with proviso.

Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with proviso.

Thank you, counsel.

Thank you, Chair. That concludes my business. May I please be excused?

You absolutely can. Thank you.

Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

Okay. Number 11, MI-2023, 005-888-1537 South 6th Street,

Dawn Tangrady and Clementine Amazon. Are the attorneys assigned to this?

There's a recommendation of support unanimous from Dickinson Square West Civic Association

and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squill.

Chair Clementa Amazon is coming back in as a panelist now.

Okay.

good afternoon hi good afternoon council

good afternoon i apologize you guys can't see my video i'm not sure what's happening here

okay all right could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer

of course clemente amazon that's spelled c-l-e-m-e-n-t-a last name is a-m-a-z-a-n

there we go do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth

yes i do could you identify your client in relationship to the property

of course my client is jerry joseph and he's the owner of the property

okay and our vice chair has just a few questions good afternoon counsel do you agree to weigh the

reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy good afternoon yes i do have you

Good afternoon. Yes, I do.

Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?

emailed in all the required documents and exhibits

Yes, I have.

Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.

Thank you.

is everyone able to see my screen we can perfect so again my name is clemente amazon today i'll be

presenting 1537 south 6th street and the property owner is gerardo de joseph he is also on today's

call. During my presentation I'll be going through the refusal. This property actually has a prior

use permit that was issued as I'll discuss during my presentation. Unfortunately my client was not

able to pull all of the necessary permits before the permit expired and therefore we have to present

this project to the board once again. And I will also provide photos of the interior as well as

exterior of the photo surrounds excuse me interior and exterior photos of the property

the surrounding area photos showing that the property was in fact posted the notice for the

community meeting as well as our certificates of mailing the application for appeals

seed project information form and our certificate of tax clearance

so this property is on cms1 it is along the corner of south 6th street and tasker