It does say strong. I did not put that,
but the person who put it, I would believe.
Okay. Well, I'm sorry. It says strong. It says strong. Yeah, it does.
Yeah. I don't know if I sure has a couple of questions for you. Sure. Good afternoon. Have
you submitted your documents in exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing? Yes. And do you wait
to read now your refusals and stipulate to their accuracy? I do. All right. Thank you. Show your
screen and proceed. So I saw the prompt go on my screen and disappear to make me a panelist. If
someone can hit uh do that again please help alan get back there we go
all right so in the virtual audience i have matt rider the owner of the property i will say this
is that um why does it do that sometimes hold on let me just stop sharing my screen and then
re-share again see if that blocks all right now it's good uh yeah so matt rider uh is in a virtual
audience he owns a property in his personal name um he lives in the brewery town shardwood section
of philadelphia so he's a nearby neighbor he's not one to go after variances just because of
variances he'll do buy right projects okay this is one that justifies it we have 12 exhibits here
um i have matt in the virtual audience i would ask him to virtually raise his hand and be sworn in i
also have chris johnson the architect's representative here from 24 7 design so
we have three refusals for this rsa 5 property we're trying to put a duplex there the use the
community has no objection to that you'll look at the letter um they have no objection to that
They have no objection to the occupied area where we are proposing 88% of occupied area
where 75% is required.
Their issue is the rear yard setback.
We are required to have nine feet.
We originally proposed to have six feet.
We talked to the architecture team at 24-7 design.
We have revised plans for seven and a half feet.
They want us to comply.
It just wouldn't make sense.
whether it's single family they want they want us to comply with the code and you know so after the
community meeting we talked to the architecture team and realistically whether it's single family
or multi-family um you know we really do need that that extra length and seven and a half feet
uh so again you could see it was a split vote i mean yes more people you know voted uh not in
favor of this project as opposed to in favor of this project but it wasn't i wouldn't characterize
isis as strong opposition so um you know they were no it says strong well but if you look at
the letter itself all right i'll read it why don't we move on yeah but residents generally
welcomed the development of a long vacant property and found the proposed two-family dwelling use and
building design compatible with the surrounding neighborhood however residents raised concerns
about the reduced rear yard which we're addressing um but they acknowledged that this made sense as
a two unit it made sense for the occupied area it was just a rear yard that they wanted modifications
of i don't know where the word strong is but you know i take offense to that so uh all right um but
we'll we'll leave it at that um so we made two modifications i'm sorry you know that we're
proposing we're trying to increase the rear yard depth to seven and a half feet um it's not a long
lot to begin with if this was a shorter lot we would have only seven feet rear yard so we're
actually above what those requirements would be and we decrease the occupied area
and then so my client we were a little bit surprised because i thought i did the community
meeting i well i felt it was a divided room i didn't i thought it was more people in favor of
than not in favor of so i asked my client to reach out to the community and his nearby neighbors
he has nine people between a petition and letters to support who are in support of this project
again this property has been a vacant lot for literally 30 years and it's not out of character
either. So again, we have multiple instances.
So, again, we have multiple instances of RSA-5 properties that are multifamily in nature.
We have a few here, 1642 North 26, 1635 North 26, Oxford, which is an intersecting street
to 2602, 2621, and then maps of the area, there's mixed zoning nearby here, and on our side,
there's a vacant property to the left and right of us, so it's been hard to develop single-family
use here. Dimensional variances under Hertzberg, economic feasibility is actually a determining
factor for a variance.
So this is our photographs.
Since been a vacant lot in Google Street View since 2009,
but we have documented history since 1996
that this has been a vacant lot.
Our orange notice posting,
North 26 to right, to left,
are our plans and drawings.
So we're six and a half feet out of the ground,
and we're, excuse me,
we're six and a half feet below ground,
three and a half feet above ground and i think one of the things that we did not have available
um i looked on that list during the community meeting it does not show this three foot wide
alley we confirmed that so that goes further to like the light and air effect where they were
afraid of the people on 26th street but we in addition to having seven and a half feet rear
yard setback we have a three foot wide alley which we confirmed in the deed so in all of all
intents and purposes we meet that nine foot rear yard setback having 10 and a half feet which was
not something we discussed at the community meeting in terms of the floor plans we walk in
we have a common kitchen area dining room we have a bedroom with a bathroom nearby we do have a door
with a you know that's you know leading to the outside we have a lower level with a washer and
dryer again we're six and a half feet into the ground three and a half feet out of the ground
with respect to that we walk up to a second floor unit which is a bi-level we have an open floor
plan we have a kitchen area ventilated trash closet we go up to the upper floor we have two
bedrooms each near a bathroom to respect brewery town shardswood we did not propose to have a
roof tech roof deck access structure we met with the community on october 15th at 6 30 p.m proof
of email of our proof of posting is going to be proof of mailing to the addresses which are 111
addresses these are the addresses proof of mailing to those addresses our application for zoning
variance along with the notice of refusal and the project information form deed to the property
showing matt is the actual owner he's not hiding behind an llc he's near he lives nearby he just
thought that this would be a good project to add some some needed density and affordable housing
to his neighborhood and our certificate of tax clearance where we showed it's 970 balance
but you know matt paid that recently um with that being said i would ask that matt virtually
raise his hand and be sworn in okay hello matt ryder sir could you please state and spell your
name for this stenographer uh matthew spencer ryder m-a-t-h-e-w-s-p-e-n-c-e-r-r-i-d-e-r
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do counsel yeah matt you heard everything i had to state today about your zoning matter
i did and is it true and correct it is and do you adopt as your own testimony i do and and
specifically you would agree to increase the rear yard depth by uh one and a half feet per the
revised plans yes sir and also that you're a resident of brewery town shortswood section of
philadelphia yes sir at 1629 north bay the street a block away and you have developed properties
without variances in the past right yes sir all right thank you questions from the board
uh you know my my comment is i just it's just having to go through a bedroom to go to the
backyard is just a non-starter for me it just it's just a bad bad bad bad uh situation and
And that makes absolutely no functional sense for a property.
Yeah, I can say we try to, you know, have, you know, exterior access outside of a bedroom, but there's no opportunity to do it otherwise.
Just a bad design.
I mean, to have you again, I'm going to repeat myself and I probably just just don't put on a tape, having to have people walk through the most private place in your apartment to utilize an outdoor space.
I mean, to have you, again, I'm going to repeat myself and I'd probably just put on a tape.
It's just not good design and good practical design just isn't.
Could you explain the trash plan for the units?
We would store the trash outside for unit number one in the backyard,
and for unit number two, there was a ventilated trash closet inside.
I think there were a lot of comments in the RCO letter about things and provisos they would want to see,
and I just want to, like, do you have an opinion or a comment about any of those?
Let me take a look and see what those, I didn't see any provisos, but let's address them.
one of them was to shorten the building three feet to come into compliance for the rear yard
for the nine feet yeah so that's what we did we not three feet but one and a half feet we
talked so the this plan that we're looking at has a seven and a half foot rear yard that's right
that's that's the provide saying we try to do as much as we can reasonably do um it's a small lot
to begin with and we wanted to have nice floor plans and clean size of the bedroom so we did
to address that again we have three refusals the letter states that they're okay with the duplex
they thought it was appropriate and compatible with the surrounding area they thought that the
open area or occupied area however you would think about it was compatible which kind of goes to
complementary to the rear yard setback but we did scale back that back at their request just
could not accommodate the full three feet and then is the owner also going to live on site or
is this going to be an investment property he lives on north valley street which is around the
corner so it would be an investment but he typically develops in brewery town because
he manages to self-manages the properties and lives nearby so that's why he typically develops
in brewery town are the utility hookups for the second floor unit and going to be in the basement
let's take a look because it looked it looked like they were but yeah i think they are but
because then i think the only other question i have is then what's going to be the property
maintenance plan that allows someone to have access to those given that only the first floor
unit has access to the basement and the yard yeah i mean i can only tell you that our intention is
always to put utilities like you know the front-facing utilities and like you know you
know complete access you know for you know you know whatever maintenance but um i think that
you're probably going to have some utilities like hot water heaters and stuff potentially share that
your picometers your pg all of that's going to be in the basement yeah you don't get a choice
yeah i mean so we would work diligently with uh you know the you know our tenants in that respect
other questions questions from our attorney no questions at this time questions or comments
from the virtual audience i see no hands chair planning commission good afternoon liz fusely on
behalf of the philadelphia planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
rsa 5 residential single family zoning at this location the city changed the zoning in this
neighborhood in 2014 and a council requested map change the appellant has not shown that there are
unique physical circumstances or conditions to keep from using the property in strict conformity with
the zoning code. The Planning Commission recommends the board deny the requested variances for two
family use. So I would say we look at the surrounding area in terms of economic feasibility
given these dimensional variances. Again, the community spoke in the letter stating that the
use is compatible with the surrounding area. We showed multiple examples on 26th Street in Oxford
where it met similar type of multifamily use for RSA-5 properties.
And they're in agreement as to the one of the dimensional variances
with respect to occupied area.
In terms of the rear yard setback,
we did as much as we could responsibly
by decreasing the rear yard or increasing the rear yard to 7.5.
And we have a three-foot alley in the back too,
which in in practical terms it makes it 10 and a half feet to respect the people on 26th street
for those reasons i would respectfully request it vote next week yeah fourth we will report it at
2 p.m um what's the matter we're closing the record then oh yeah yeah just give me a chance
and we'll close the record and we'll be with you on the fourth i appreciate it more for you here
right yep so mi20260040102013 east ontario street um
2013 east ontario street um letter of opposition from council member lazada
is it ontario or orleans orleans orleans orleans i'm sorry i'm sorry from council member lazada
and also the rco
could you just state your name please yeah alan occamson so not gonna say can you identify your
client a relationship to the property yeah my client is focused construction llc the owner of
the property and to my left is torian connor its member okay our vice chair has a few questions
good afternoon have you submitted your documents for this case 14 days in advance of this hearing
yes we have and do you wait to read know your refusal and stipulate to us accuracy i do right
thank you you see your screen and proceed with the keys all right thank you so i also did this
community meeting i was a little bit surprised by the letter in the sense of the unanimous opposition
because we i think everyone acknowledged that this was previously a duplex and there's a it
was previously a duplex and and there were you know and there were you know other duplexes on
the block i mean i think some of the focus had to do um with there was violations against the
property we had no idea that you know that our contractor did not get permits for the addition
and also at the time my client was in the process of paying his tax bill and you know which we told
him we would pay at the time you know obviously before the hearing and there was again more so
like you have to pay your taxes and like yes we we will and and we have never had that issue before
so i think it was more so those issues um but i don't think anyone disagreed that again this was
a two unit before so we have 11 exhibits and then i have torian to left of me we'll discuss the some
of these matters but we're not seeking any dimensional you know refusals here right we we
have a another zoning permit a file which allows us to have an addition of this property which we
intend to do um but i i didn't even remember nine people in the room so i don't know if the the
people that voted you know in this room were close neighbors or where they lived so all i have is not
attendees of nine people and by the way i i don't know if i was one of the attendees um so i can't
speak to that um we had to continue this matter because there was a lack of attendance in the
first meeting again very good group you know i i don't begrudge you know they they're very organized
um but i would just say that if you look at here 2005 east orleans is two units
um you know you have 2001 east orlean is uh two units uh 2024 east orlean is two units
i also have i think i don't know if i mentioned 2026 but there are like multiple instances of
multi-units here and then photographs of the property is a two-story structure
um you know we you know this orange notice posting we were asked to stop doing work at one
point we do have a zoning permit to allow for the addition we have not gotten the building permit
for that we're waiting for these proceedings to conclude um but this is east orleans to the right
of the property to the left of the property and these are existing utilities um if you if i zoom
in here it even set shows i can't i think it does at least i saw on my screen that the utilities are
it's not like stuff that we just inserted these are like i think it says 2014 in here so these
multi you know you know utilities have been in this property for some time my client bought it
this way so he bought the property in june of 2025 and then there are plans and drawings let's go
Oops, let's go to the floor plans.
All right, floor plans.
You walk into a common vestibule area.
You have a living room, a kitchen.
You have three bedrooms here.
Two of the three bedrooms have bathrooms right next door to them.
There is no living in the basement.
We would agree to a proviso.