Thank you.
Chair, and there's 47 attendees, and you can start as you wish.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's EBA hearings.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Thomas Holliman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our board member, James Snell.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director, Tanya Sunkett.
Here's our virtual format.
Be advised if proceedings are being recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkett at philip.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify
themselves before testifying. If you're participating by phone, if you wish to testify,
press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. To an appearance statement, call
267-270-5548. Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question-answer box on the screen is now for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett.
Let's take a look at our continuances for this morning's hearings.
Number three, MI 2022, 000397, 2005 South 4th Street. That case is continued. Mark must be tried.
number 11 mi 2022 004 899 2236 mount vernon street with mr pagano the owner and applicant
please come on along with mr ryan bowen the council for spring garden civic association
good morning mr chair this is jason hand i will be the co-host this morning thank you
jason mr ronald has raised i've allowed him to speak sir all right is mr pagano on
mr bigano if you're in the virtual audience please raise your virtual hand
i do not see him sir
calls in one more time for me please
mr joseph pagano if you're in the audience please raise your virtual hand
no hands or response sir
Wait a minute, sir. I have a hand raised from a number ending in 9-6-6-0. Do I allow them to speak?
Please.
Sir or madam, please unmute and wait to be sworn in.
Star six to unmute.
Could you state your name, please?
Hold on, Chair.
Sir or Madam, please unmute.
Star six to unmute.
Yes, thank you.
My name is Grabe, G-R-A-B-E.
First name is Thomas.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Do you have an interest in this case on Mount Vernon Street?
No, I'm sorry.
I'm for the mastery picket.
Okay, good.
We'll pull your case in a little bit, sir.
I'm sorry.
Mr. Pagano has not put his hand up?
Mr. Pagano has not put his hand up.
No, he hasn't, sir.
Mr. Boland, are you on?
Yes, I am.
Please state your name and spell for the court reporter.
Yes, Ryan Boland, R-Y-A-N-B-O-L-A-N-D,
1801 Marcus Street, Suite 2300, Philadelphia, PA-19103.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
You had comments relative to this case today, sir?
Yeah, I'll keep it very brief. I sent a letter into the board and Ms. Emerson on Monday. I represent Spring Garden Civic Association, who is the RCO here. There was strong opposition to this project, which was joined in by Council President Daryl Clark.
There was a continuance granted back in October on the basis that the applicant was going to confer with the neighbors and the RCO.
Nothing has happened in those approximate six months.
We oppose a continuance and we want this dismissed because all that all that these serial continuances are doing is really disenfranchising people that want to appear to oppose this.
And this isn't a complicated project here.
they're trying to convert an RSA 6 legal non-conforming duplex into an Airbnb. It's
really take it or leave it, you know, not anything to discuss here. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr.
Bold. Appreciate it. Hillary, do we have exhibits for this case? We do not, Mr. Chair. Only the
requests for continuance from the property owner, Mr. Pagano. MI 2022-004-899-2236 Mount Vernon
Street. This is second listing. We still don't have exhibits. I vote to dismiss.
Thomas Holloman, I vote to dismiss.
James Snell, I vote to dismiss. Ishmael Shaheem, my vote is to dismiss.
Thank you, counsel. Thank you. All right. Number 13.
MI-2022-003-171-3421-35 Richmond Street. This case is continued. Are there any other cases,
are there any other requests for continuance?
Good morning, Mr. Chair. I do not see any hands.
Thank you. I have several cases with no exhibits. Number four, MI 2022-006-735-4031 Spring Garden Street. No exhibits, first listing. This case is continued. Mark must be tried.
number seven
excuse me Mr. Chair
this is Hillary we had a hand go up
and maybe in relation to that
case okay
I'll let that person speak
hello this is
regarding 4031 Spring Garden
is that correct
yes it is sir could you state your name
and spell it please for the court report
yes yes I will
hello my name is
Yanis Sidnor, Y-U-H-N-I-S, last name S-Y-D, as in David, N-O-R.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Your Honor, yes, I do.
Proceed relative to this case.
I am a longstanding resident of the block and community taxpayer.
I am opposed to this property.
I'm opposed. I'm sorry. So so we're we're continuing this case and the cases mark must be tried. We're not going to hear this case today because it's the first listing. We don't have exhibits. So we're going to give it one more time to come in and we'll look for the case to happen the next time it's called. OK, well, thanks for your courtesy and you have a good day.
You too, sir. Thank you. Number seven. Did I get the seven? MI 2022-006-734-2402 Spruce Street. First listing, no exhibits. Continued. Marked must be tried.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Can we just see if anybody is here for that case? 2402 Spruce Street. Thank you.
sir there's a hand up by mr thomas de lorenzo do i have him to speak
sure understood good morning sir could you state
Sure. Understood. Good morning, sir. Could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
Thomas DiLorenzo, first name T-H-O-M-A-S, last name DiLorenzo, D-E, capital L-O-R-E-N-Z-O.
All right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Are you having an input for 2402 Spruce Street, sir?
Yes, and I'm a neighbor.
I just wanted to understand, did you say this was being continued?
Yeah, it's being continued.
It's being continued.
We do not have exhibits for this.
I'm going to continue it, and Mark must be tried the next time the case comes up.
Okay, and if I registered, will I get a notice?
You should be notified, sir.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you for taking the time, sir.
number 10 mi 2022 006 737 619 north 39th street no exhibits first listing is there anyone in the
audience chair i see no hands at this time okay um this case is continued mark must be tried
That's MI-2022-006-737-619-North 39th Street.
Number 12, MI-2022-000-290-56-51-63 Walnut Street.
No exhibits, third listing.
gci construction as a third party professional involved in this
again mr chair no hands at this time so so mi 2022 000 290 56 51 to 63 walnuts street
there are no exhibits this is the third listing i vote to dismiss
Thomas Holliman, my vote is to dismiss
James Snell, my vote is to dismiss
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is to dismiss
Thank you, and number 15
MI 2022-006-736-2129
Pine Street
We have no exhibits, this is the first listing
sir mr charles goodwin has his hand raised i've allowed him to speak at this time okay
hi yes my name is charles goodwin c-h-a-r-l-e-s uh goodwin is g-o-o-d-w-i-n i live at 2127 pine
street uh i'm here do you swear sir let me swear you in first do you swear or for him to tell the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Absolutely. Okay. So this case is for 2129 Pine
Street. And I gather we're continuing it. I will. I'm the immediate neighbor. I don't know if any of
my other neighbors are here today. I will just note that I reached out to counsel for the applicant
asking if he was going to seek continuance and never ultimately got a response. Okay. Okay. So
this is the first listing. We have no exhibits. I'm continuing the case and Mark must be
tried. So MI 2022-006-736-2129 Pine Street, this case is continued. Mark must be tried.
Thank you very much, Mark. Mr. Goodwin, thank you so much for calling in. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Okay, and then I'm going to go to case number one. MI 2021-004-902-5858 Woodcrest
Avenue. This case has been withdrawn. We're going to go to our regular list. Number two, MI 2022-000-406-5947
North 13th Street. Our counsel, Hillary Emerson, has recused herself. Ryan McShurry will be the
attorney filling in for her. This
application is for two
family household living in an existing
structure. The proposed
use two family household living is
prohibited in the RSA 3
zoning district, whereas two
parking spaces are required
and none are proposed.
Unique Cooper is the owner
applicant.
They've been promoted
to panelist, sir.
good morning
Good morning. Could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter?
could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter
My name is Unique Cooper, U-N-I-Q-U-E, last name C-O-O-P-E-R.
my name is unique
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has a few questions for you, but I would take note, we have a letter of support
from a concerned community association and letter of support from Council Member Phillips.
Now our vice chair has two questions.
Good morning, ma'am. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
There'll be the green button at the bottom of the screen.
Here it is.
okay so tell us what you want to do man i am going to present um just all of the information
to everyone here today and i'm going to put it in presentation view
i'm sorry one second okay so first i would like to say my name is uni cooper i'm the homeowner
of 5947 North 13th Street.
Here is the provided documentation
of the actual deed
as well as the tax clearance
to the property.
The provided blueprints
as requested for the unit.
One is to the left.
Unit two is to the right,
the furthest right.
And the middle display
would be the basement of unit one.
i want to provide some images to show you guys the front of the property the side of the property
where the trash will be held for both the two units here's just another angle of the side view
and this is the structure of the back of the property
when you first open up the door to the front there are two separate entrances the unit one
in Unit 2. The upstairs is the Unit 2. And when you walk up the steps is the living room access
to the Unit 2 as well as the kitchen.
I'm providing the hallway as well as the bathroom for Unit 2.
here's the um entrance to the bedroom and there's another view of the bedroom
walking into unit two i mean unit one there's the living room space and there's a front sump room
to the unit. This is the basement entrance and as you can see in this image there is a door
a door in the left I mean in the right image where the utility the utility room is
for the water heater. This is a half bathroom in the basement as well as the gas utility closet.
there's another closet area and this is just to show that this is the gas utility and the
half bathroom in the basement just another view
and this is the access to the water heater and the gas I mean the hot water tank
here is the storage room in the basement as well and it provides the electric panel
displaying the separate unit, separate units, panel.
This is the kitchen of the first, the unit one, and the bedroom.
There is a hall that leads to the bathroom and the back area.
It also has a laundry room, and this is the back porch.
And I also just wanted to provide a view of across the street, there is an additional property that displays two, I'm assuming that it's displaying two units.
And I just wanted to conclude with the letter, with the support of the 9th District Office of Anthony Phillips, with the RCO, who are in support of me getting this approved.
um, me getting this, uh, approved and as well as showing that I had the support of neighbors
who had attended the public hearing in support of me, uh, proving the property as a duplex.
Ms. Cooper, let me ask you a question. How long has it been a duplex?
Um, it's been a duplex for multiple years, um, decade. There's been, uh,
But the tenant that lives upstairs has actually been there for 30 plus years.
And I moved in, I purchased the property in 2020 of October.
And I was not aware that the property wasn't correctly zoned.
And you had all the separate utilities there and things of that nature.
Okay. All right. Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I have a Melvin Sharpe with her hand raised.
Or it was raised, but they put it down.
No further.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Wait, I'm sorry.
Mr. Sharpe put his hand up.
I've got them to speak, sir.
Sharpe, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
first of all can you hear me yeah i can okay my name is melvin t sharp jr m-e-l-b-i-n
middle initial t s-h-a-r-p-e right jr swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do you have testimony for this 59 47 north 13th yes i oppose it um
Are you a neighbor, sir?
Yes, I am a neighbor, 5924 North 13th Street.
All right. Proceed. Go ahead.
Yes, I did receive the mailing from Ms. Cooper.
Right.
I'm just not familiar.
Well, not that I necessarily need to be, but I'm not familiar with her.
And there was a Zoom community meeting.
I usually participate in all the community meetings directly, not virtually.
So I was not able to participate in that meeting.
My primary concern is that block is composed primarily of homeowners, elderly homeowners at that, and very few apartments.
My concern is that I don't want to change a designation because it then will allow for apartments to proliferate in the future and then potentially change the composition of the block.
That is my primary concern.
I did not have a chance to express that to Ms. Cooper with all due respects to her, and I appreciate what she's done in her application.
It seems like she did a good job, but at the same time, potentially it will change the composition of the block, and I am not in favor of that.
Okay. Thank you for your input, and we appreciate the fact that you called in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No further hands at this time, sir.
Hi, Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission, S-A-R-A-H-B-A-N-H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single-family zoning.
However, the proposed use is consistent with documented prior use of this property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2022-00406-5947 North 13th Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holliman
James Snell, I vote yes
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes
Ms. Cooper, you have your vote
Thank you
You really did do a nice job
in your presentation, thank you
Thank you so much, I appreciate your time
Thank you
Number five, number five, MI2022-003-505, 1500 West Tioga Street.
Alan Nockamson is the attorney.
Letter of support from Nicetown Tioga Improvement Team.
Good morning, Mr. Nockamson.
Mr. Nockamson?
Mr. Nockamson?
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Alan Nockamson, A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-R-N.
Right.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is W. Tioga Holdings, LLC.
they're the owner of the property, and then in the virtual audience is Brian Wise, its member.
Okay, and our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, we have.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Oops, wrong one, let's not share that one, let's see, one second, let me just get back
to that, let's do that one more time, all right, full screen mode, all right, I'm here
to present 1500 west tayoga street uh in my presentation we'll first review the notice of
refusal the letter of support from the nice town tayoga improvement team uh the a use permit
showing that this property has a long-standing history of multi-family use of five units plus a
commercial and that's what we're seeking here to legalize that use uh nearby multi-family variances
the board has granted in the past showing that's not out of character for this board to grant
similar type of multi-family use by way of variance, maps of the area, photographs of the
property, interior photographs of other projects that Mr. Wise's companies have done in the past
in the Philadelphia region, our plans and drawings. Basically, again, all we're doing
is legalizing five residential units in one commercial boat. We can go through the floor
plans that exist. Our RCO meeting notice at a well-attended meeting, we met with the community
and by unanimous support, they supported this project of this corner property for mixed use.
Our application for appeal, our deed to the property showing that W. Tioga Holdings LLC
is the owner of the property and our certificate of tax clearance showing that my client with
respect to real estate taxes is a good standing with the city of Philadelphia. Again, in the
virtual audience is Brian Wyeth, one of the members of the corporate entity that owns this property.
At the conclusion of my presentation, I'll ask Mr. Wyeth to virtually raise his hand,
be sworn in, and to then adopt my testimony as his own. So the notice of refusal. So this is a
CMX1 property. It's a corner property at the corner of 15th and West Ioga, not too far away
from the broad street line.
And all we're seeking to do
is have five units plus commercial
because we're seeing a maximum on property
that's not allowed as a right.
But we met with the Nice Town Tioga Improvement Team
and at a well-attended meeting,
they voted unanimously in support of that.
The only proviso they asked is,
and I don't know if this is an enforceable one,
to essentially put Jacob Ladders
on the second and third floors of this property,
which we have no objection to,
just don't know the enforceability of that proviso.
But that's our intention during the construction
or renovation of this property that we plan to do that.
Again, it's not out of character
to have the use that we're requesting.
As you can see, there was five units
plus a commercial as of 1955.
That use was discontinued for some time
and that's why we're in front of the board.
Again, not out of character for this board to consider multifamily use on this block.
1518 West Tioga Street, this board granted six units in that property, and that was in 2021.
And then maps to the area, as you can see, we're in the corner of Tioga and 15th Street, and we're a few blocks west of North Broad Street.
And then you can see here from a Google Maps perspective as well.
And then you can see the front of the property in its current condition.
It looks like at some time it was a church as well on the first floor.
And then this property has been vacant or not in great use for as far back as we can see on Google Earth.
This is a picture in August of 2008.
So for a good 15 years, this property hasn't really been fully occupied.
And then this is just 1500 West Tioga Street from the 15th Street side.
And then this is just 1500 West Tioga Street from the 15th Street side.
And you'll see in the floor plans, there's an entrance for the residential units.
There's an entrance for the commercial unit on the corner.
And because we're a corner property, we'll be storing trash in the rear where all the unit occupants will have access to that.
And then this is just a zoning hearing poster.
As you can see from this angle and this angle, we posted the property well in advance of today's hearing.
And then this is West Hoga Street to the right of the property, West Hoga Street to the left of the property, North 15th Street to the right of the property, North 15th Street to the left of the property.
And then again, Mr. Wise is well-versed in renovating properties throughout the city of Philadelphia.
And this is, I always try to give examples of kitchens, bathrooms, things like that, so the board can see the quality of craftsmanship.
And then there are plans and drawings. So we're going to be taking this as a vacant commercial space and hopefully we'll be able to get a tenant to occupy that space.
But as you can see, all we're doing is restoring the natural beauty of this property. We're not trying to tear it down. We're not trying to add to it.
we're repurposing this property for its previous use. And you can see the renovation is hopefully
going to make it a really beautiful structure again with the community. And this is just our
floor plans. A couple of things. There's no residential basement use at all. The basement's
only accessible to the commercial space. But this is, again, Tioga Street. This is a commercial
space right here you know they it's existing everything's existing um and you know one of
our hardships is the fact that we have this common hallway that's coming along 15th street
and that kind of divides the floor in half on each floor so we have the commercial space in the front
on the first floor and then we have the residence residential state space in the back on the first
floor again no basement use whatsoever for the residential unit but every single floor is kind
of the same where this staircase kind of divides up the um the um the building in half where there's
a unit in the front and there's a unit in the rear and that's also that's on the second floor
and same thing on the third floor all again we're not changing the configuration in this building
From an interior perspective, we're just, again, legalizing this five-unit structure plus commercial on the front.
So, again, at a well-attended meeting, we had on December 20th of 2022, we sent out notice to 98 addresses.
These are listed addresses.
Proof of mailing to those addresses.
Proof of email to the RCOs.
the uh the cba the planning commission as well as uh the council members uh zoning aid
our application for appeal showing that w tiger holdings llc filed this application for appeal
with the zba our detail property showing that w tiger holdings llc purchased the property in early
2022 and then finally our certificate of tax clearance that we pulled off the website uh
within the past week or so, showing that my client owes no real estate taxes with respect
to this month. With that being said, I'm going to unshare my screen. I would ask that Mr. Wise
virtually raise his hand to be sworn in. Before he testifies, I noticed the properties that were
approved. Is the majority of block of 15th Street there multifamily? I don't know. Very large
properties right yeah these are all large properties our lot our lot size is almost
2 000 square feet um our building size is over 3 500 square feet right right so majority of that
block is majority i haven't looked to see the majority of the block is but we're not that far
from uh broad street so okay all right okay bring your bring your recline on yes
he's been allowed to speak sir i could you state your name please and spell it for the court
reporter bryant wise good morning um everyone bryant wise b-r-i-a-n-w-i-s-e do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do proceed counsel
oh yes mr wise you heard everything i had to state about your zoning matter today
yes i did and is it true and correct yes it is and do you adopt it as your own testimony
yes i do all right great questions from the you want something yeah i just looked online too we
Questions from the, you want something?
Yeah, I just looked online too.
We are also next to like CMX 3 as well.
are also
We're pretty close by.
Yep, yep.
All right.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I have Mr. Charles Richardson with his hand raised.
I have allowed him to speak at this time.
Good morning, Mr. Richardson.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Your name, please, and spell for the court reporter.
Charles Richardson, C-H-A-R-L-E-S-R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N, Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, room 508 City Hall.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, sir?
Proceed.
Councilwoman has no opposition to granting the variance.
Thank you for taking the time to call in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No further answer, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map change to residential single family.
The proposed use is consistent with documented prior use of this property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2022-003-505-1500 West Tioga Street.
I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid.
You broke off, Ishmael.
Ishmael Shahid.
Ishmael Shahid.
My vote is yes.
You broke off again, Ishmael.
Can you hear me now, Chair?
Go ahead, try now.
No, Shahid.
My vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nocklinson.
Thank you very much.
Next one is number six and 16.
We'll hear together.
MI 2022-003-196-232 West Penn Street.
Richard DeMarco is the attorney.
um there's a letter of support from the 12th Ward Democratic Committee letter of opposition
from Solo Germantown with some suggestions for provisos and Councilwoman Bass has not
opposition to the granting of this and 16 is MI 2022 003 195 230 West Penn Street
um same issues with the opposition and support mr demarco uh good morning mr chairman uh members
of the board uh my client is yair friedman who is the owner of both lots all right could you
just for the record spell your name for the court reporter mr demarco last name d-e-m-a-r-c-o
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Right.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
I do on both cases.
Thank you.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits to proceed with this case in five days in advance of this hearing?
I did on both cases.
Thank you.
Please proceed to share your screen.
Thanks so much.
Mr. Chairman, while I was joining, I missed part of what you said.
We do have a letter of support from the coordinating RCO and a letter, an email of no opposition from Councilwoman Cindy Bass.
There's a letter of opposition from another RCO.
A solo Germantown, but the letter opposition also has recommendations for, in case it's granted, provisos.
Yeah. So, I mean, this, so I'll get to the opposition in a minute, but the cases, let me go ahead and share.
my screen. The case is really a single, let me shift this bar, the joys of virtual. Okay.
The single variance, these are twins. It's two lots. You're hearing both cases together.
The properties mirror each other. The sole variance being requested, as you see here,
is a side yard variance, five feet versus eight feet. I want to be clear that, and I'll have my
client verify my statements at the conclusion, but the five yard side variance is consistent
with the properties on the block. Okay. All right. The homes, if we were to have
OK. All right. The homes, if we were to have complied with the eight foot side yard, you would basically have a less than 12 foot wide house, which is unlivable and unbuildable.
Thank you.
Therefore, we feel obviously that this is one of the strongest cases for a dimensional variance and unnecessary hardship, as you will see.
and the Hertzberg case announced by the Supreme Court years ago was clearly applicable since we
are only proposing that which is permitted, which is a single family home. So we did meet with twice
with the community. We made some alterations to the facade at the request of the neighbors
and we did extend the front porch. Let me see if I can show you that.
Here are our photos we posted. It's a vacant lot. Currently, let me rotate my
clockwise. This is the revised plan. We're showing both properties together.
Let me go ahead and expand so you can see exactly what we're dealing with.
you can see here the five yard side variance here and here on either side i'm indicating
with my portrait we are matching the neighboring property side yard um we did extend the front
porch we have a revised plan proviso form we'll ask you to stamp one page on both cases the
parking is required and the streets department has approved the curb cut we did try to address
a concern with the neighbors. They wanted us to put the parking driveways on the outside of the
lots. That was untenable because if you see the turning radius here, we would have a problem with
placing the driveways at the outside on the 230 West Penn lot because it would impact our neighbor's
sidewalk. So that was deemed to be untenable. We did consider it, but that was a request. We were
unable to do that. But we did extend the front porch and we included a mansard roof and some
more brick on our facades. And that is where we are and why we got a letter of no opposition from
the coordinating RCO and the councilwoman. I guess, lastly, the opposition concerns
a argument, which is really not appropriate, that the property should be combined and do one house.
That is untenable. The lot exists as two houses. The property, the block is developed as predominantly as twins.
There are multiple twins on the block. So this development is in complete context with the neighborhood.
So subdividing the lot is not combining the lots of not appropriate argument that would result in a haphazard approach to development.
and you have to take your property as it is
with regard to zoning law.
So really that's about it.
I'll call, hopefully Yair Friedman is on the call.
I'll ask him to raise his hand virtually.
Hopefully he's with us.
He didn't respond to a text,
but if I could ask if Yair Friedman is on the call
to raise his hand virtually, please,
to verify testimony.
I'm allowed to speak, sir.
Sir, could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
My name is Yair Friedman Ben-Hurid.
Yair, Y-A-I-R.
Friedman, F-R-I-E-D-M-A-N.
Right.
Do you swear?
Yeah, I swear.
All right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Friedman, did you hear my factual testimony to the board today?
On both cases. You are the owner of both 230 and 232 West Penn, correct?
Correct.
And are the statements that I made true and accurate?
And are you actually a licensed architect in the state of Israel?
Exactly.
Okay. You're qualified as an architect in that country, correct?
Okay. And do you agree that if you were to comply with the side yard requirement on each lot, you would have an unbuildable property? Is that fair to say?
Yes, yes. It's going to be too narrow inside.
Too narrow, right. And do you adopt my factual statements as true and accurate for your testimony in both cases?
Okay. So, Mr. Chairman, with that, we would ask you to grant both variances. We have revised proviso plan forms, one page on each case.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, sir. I have a hand up from Alethea Irwin. I've allowed them to speak.
Sure. Good morning. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Certainly. My name is Alethea, A-L-E-T as in Tom, H-I-A. My last name is Irwin, E-R-W-I-N.
right um hold on do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth yes i do are you a neighbor i am a neighbor i live at 214 west penn street proceed okay so
i had not seen these revised plans this is the first time i'm seeing them so i had a couple of
questions and one is is that i understand that the owner is an architect did he draw these plans or
Or were they drawn by an architect certified in Pennsylvania?
Do you want me to answer, Mr. Chairman?
Why don't you answer that, Mr. DeMarco?
Yes, it was.
It's right here on the corner here.
Glenwood Engineering.
And then the, and I realized there are some houses on the block that don't have the exactly
that eight foot clearance, but almost all of them do.
I don't know what you were measuring because I went out and measured.
It's just not accurate.
Well, do you have your measurements?
Because what happens is when you make that alleyway narrower,
and I don't understand how three feet makes the difference in the tenable width of the structure.
If there were two structures there before, and they complied with those side walls, then it meant that those were the sides of those houses. And there are houses in Philadelphia that are 12 feet wide, and people live in them.
So I don't quite understand what makes that untenable.
I don't know how you would live with it. Well, look, I'm not going to cross examine, Mr. Chairman.
So, ma'am, here's the issue. Are you for or against the project?
I am against it.
Okay. Thank you for taking the time to call in. We appreciate your input.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Mr. Charles Richardson, with his hand raised, I will now speak, sir.
Good morning, Mr. Richardson. You've already been sworn. Just state your name for the record, please.
Good morning again, Mr. Chair. Charles Richardson from the Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass in 508 City Hall.
Proceed, sir.
So, we had a couple different meetings for this property. And the consensus was that there was something that's going to be built there, looked at the context of the properties in context with the other properties on the block,
and came up with what ended up being a decision
by the RCOs, two of the, three of the RCOs
as opposed to the fourth one, which is in opposition.
This is one of the better designs
that could have come out of this
based on what was already put forth.
So the councilwoman really has no opposition
to granting the variances for these properties.
Thank you, Mr. Richardson, and thank you for taking the time to call in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The proposed side yard dimensions are consistent with nearby properties.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the variance.
I'm going to vote on both. We'll vote on both of these.
Number six, MI 2022-003-196-232 West Penn Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Revised plans, one page, stamped by ZBA, April 19, 2023.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes to both with provisos.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with provisos.
So number 16, MI 2022, 003195 230 West Penn Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Revised plans, one page, stamp by ZBA, April 19, 2023.
Thomas Holliman, James Snell, my vote is yes with provisos.
James Snell, my vote is yes with provisos.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time, everyone.
Have a good day.
Number eight, MI 2021-005-282-3257 North 16th Street.
Darlene Threat is the attorney.
letter of support from the Nicetown
Tioga improvement team
with Provisos
it's sweet to be rejoining as a panelist sir
Good morning, Ms. Threatt.
Good morning.
Good morning, Commission.
I can't hear you.
Sure, I can't now.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
My name is Darlene Threatt, D-A-R-L-E-N-E, Threatt, T as in Thomas, H-R-E-A-T-T as in
Thomas. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do. Could you identify your client in the relationship to this property?
The client in this matter is Ms. Wendy Ray, and I believe Ms. Ray is on the line.
Okay, and our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy. Yes, I do. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed
with this case five days in advance of this hearing? Commissioner, I had a conversation
with Ms. Emerson. My client entered into a tax agreement with the city of Philadelphia, but we
haven't received a copy. I was advised we could make the presentation and you will hold the vote
awaiting the tax agreement.
Thank you.
May I proceed?
Good morning, commissioners.
I presented a presentation package
to you today,
which contains nine exhibits. We have the refusal, the appeal, property information form, the deed,
plans, pictures, community letter support, proof of mailing, and a letter of support.
I'll start out with showing you the refusal. This property is our RSA 5 and we were refused for
multi-families are not allowed in this district. Commissioners, this property was purchased in
2018 it was already fitted out into a multi-family but it wasn't legal my client sought in 2021 to
legalize this property so she could renovate it i'm just going to flip down to some of the
more relevant exhibits here commissioners i just wanted to show you the deed whereby
It indicates that my client did purchase this property in 2018.
And then I'd like to jump to the plans.
Commissioners, we like to develop this property consistent with the other properties in the neighborhood.
Basically, we would like to develop this property into a three-family plan.
we would like to have no basement use and then we would have one a two-bedroom apartment on
the first floor uh there's a bedroom in the front kitchen living area and a bedroom in the back
give me one second please
I apologize. My dog was going crazy in it. On the second floor, it's the same layout and I could make it a little bigger if you like so you can see the plan a little better.
It's also a two-bedroom apartment. We have a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom area
and a bedroom. And on the third floor is the same exact identical layout with the two bedrooms and
two back rooms and two back we have a rendering for you which will show you
to that.
maybe what the finished product would look like just reduce that a little for you
basically we're going to clean up the brick in the front we did agree with the civic association
that we would remove this structure here
since there isn't adjacent structure currently
on the side of this property to connect that to.
I took various pictures of the properties in the community.
Just to watch that a little bit for you.
Speak up just a little bit.
You're kind of low.
Okay, I'll speak up a little bit.
Let me enlarge this photo for you.
See if I could bring it down a little bit.
Here we go.
So this is the property currently as it looks and as it sits on the block.
Basically, today, there are only three structures on this block.
There's a vacant lot to the left of this property.
There's a vacant house to the right.
That's where I'm sitting, of this property.
And this property is occupied.
Commissioners, further down the block here at the address 321 to 3247, the board just approved a 33-unit building apartment complex that will go up shortly.
You can also see the posting on the property that we did.
Here's just another close-up look of the property so you can actually see what it looks like.
I have various perches. This is the side of the property. You can see it's a very, very large structure, consistent with most of the structures in this neighborhood. And I will tell you that this is a changing, transitioning neighborhood. I just took another picture of the end of the block. So this is the second house from our house. And right here is where the big apartment complex, which was approved by the board and is scheduled to begin construction soon.
i gave you a picture of across the street and looking north this is a multi-family this is a
multi-family and this is also a multi-family this is a very changing neighborhood they're very very
large structures and most of the development or the conversions have been to multi-families
i just want to give you a picture of the block across the street back down here used to be a
big church and now you have another apartment building scheduled slated to be constructed
in this area this is almost directly across the street down the block just going to flip
down a few more houses for you give you another picture this is diagonally across the street
also multi-family currently
this was the old existing church down the street that has been knocked down already and this is
where a new apartment building structure is scheduled to come up
just other various pictures of the neighborhood it is transitioning it is changing to just give
you a look at what this neighborhood looks like.
Commissioners, we did meet with the Tioga Association.
We actually met with them on two occasions.
We met with them on February 21st, 2023,
and we met with them again in April of 2023.
We were able to, here is the actual mailing,
and down here, we actually have a lot of support
uh from the uh tayoga rco uh with some provisals um in it we did indicate that we would help
maintain the lot next to us we did not indicate that we would be totally really responsible for
keeping it clean we also indicated that the buildings would be code compliant in regard
to a sprinkler system i mean with that um commissioners i'm willing to answer any questions
that you may have of me or my client want to bring your client on and adopt your testimony
miss ray are you on the line
miss wendy ray this ray has been allowed to speak ma'am i'm here hi good morning hi good morning
could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter wendy ray w-e-n-d-y last name
ray r e y do you swear or affirm tell the truth the whole truth is nothing but the truth i do
Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Ms. Ray, are you the owner of 3257 North 16th Street?
Ms. Ray, have you heard my testimony today?
Yes, yes.
Ms. Ray, if you were to testify, would you be able to adopt my testimony?
And Ms. Ray, did you, in fact, just enter into a tax agreement with the city of Philadelphia?
I did, yes.
And you will provide that to the board?
that's all i have commissioner questions from the board
questions or comments from the virtual audience
mr charles richardson has his hand raised i have allowed him to speak at this time
mr richardson just for the record state your name please certainly charles richardson r-i-c-h-a-r-d-s-o-n
office of councilwoman cindy bass from 508 city hall the councilwoman has no opposition to
granting the variance. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, sir. I have a hand raised from a number ending in 3552. I will allow them to speak.
Okay. Could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, this is Adrienne Fernandez. My last name is spelled F-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z for affected RCO
Swampoodle Neighborhood Process Association, RCL?
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes. Proceed.
Okay. I would just like to request one proviso that the trash be stored indoors in the building
because of the extensive littering and trash problems that we have in the community.
Thank you for your suggestion. We appreciate that.
You're welcome.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no further hand at this time, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single-family zoning.
However, the proposed use is consistent with documented prior use of this property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance.
Thank you.
We're going to hold the vote on this until we receive the tax agreement.
Hillary, we'll set that date once we receive it.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Yes, Mr. Chair.
We will put it on an add-on list once we receive it.
And the record is otherwise closed except for the tax agreement.
Thank you.
Number nine, MI 2022-003-311-1023-27, West Susquehanna Avenue.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from the 37th Ward.
and we also have the applicant has also produced a letter from a real estate firm
good morning mr chair morning good morning mr savering could you state your name please and
spell it for the court reporter for the record yes my name is brandon savering that's spelled
B-R-A-N-D-O-N and then S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R-A-N. Right. 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, the relationship to this property? Yes, my client is the property owner of record. All
right. Just curious, could you tell us? The entity name is Temple space I-I space LLC.
see all right our vice chair has a few questions for you uh yes mr vice chair have you emailed
all the required documents and exhibits to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this year yes i did please proceed introduce me thank you
okay um good morning members of the board so um i am going to show you the refusal in one moment
i thought it would be useful to just show you an aerial uh image of the property first um so this
is 1023-27 west susquehanna avenue um what you're seeing here is susquehanna uh towards the bottom
of the screen below that is the temple university football training and practice complex um which is
a lighted outdoor facility um and then uh like a dull butter knife um the
And then, like a dull butter knife, the SEPTA mainline train traps are on an elevated embankment to the right, which go south of here to Center City, north of here to Wayne Junction, and then Cheltenham Township and beyond.
So the proposal is, as the refusal will say, to develop a 20-unit apartment building with ground floor space that will be occupied by a permitted use in this zoning district.
So that that's typically going to be commercial or like light industrial.
The fact that this property is zoned I-2 meant that the dwelling units are not permitted.
No dwelling units are permitted at any number in this district.
There's also a requirement for bicycle parking, covered bicycle parking, which we did meet.
That's why you see that up here in the scope text, but not in the refusals.
We did not meet a requirement for off-street automobile parking on a two-to-one ratio.
So just to give you a quick image of our zoning plan and the elevations.
I'm sorry.
Hold on one second.
Oh, this is the zoning plan.
I'm just zoomed in way too far.
Pardon me.
So this is the zoning plan.
On this, Susquehanna would be on the right side. So, you know, the goal is basically to fill out this triangular parcel, leaving an appropriate buffer, I believe that says six feet between the train track and that side of the building.
And that side of the building will be built with sort of exceptional materials that will provide extra insulation from noise and vibration from passing trains.
I'll also show you a couple of elevations real quickly of the proposed building.
This is the side that I believe is the western side, which is interior to the block.
This would be, I think, on the corner here, the main entrance to the residential lobby.
And then this is the Susquehanna Avenue elevation as planned.
Just want to go back to that aerial image for one second.
So one of the sort of hardships in this case is that we have discussed with SEPTA that there is a piece of structure,
and I have a close-up of it in our zoning poster photo here that is actually in our property. It
is beyond SEPTA's property boundary and SEPTA has agreed that we may remove that structure which is
comprised of some metal and some stone. I'll tell you that it is there because this before the 80s
was a coal storage house and we believe that this was a service track into the facility.
But to this point, SEPTA has said that we must pay for the removal of this, which is going to add to construction costs, because anything affecting a passenger rail line is hyper-regulated under the FRA and other agencies and has to be done in a very sort of precise manner.
I just want to speak for a moment about other aspects of why we believe there's a hardship and that some residential must be developed on this site of over 5,700 square feet.
So this is the zoning map. It's just a zoomed out version of what I've provided in the packet on Atlas.
And what you'll see here is that the light blue is the master planning district for Temple's campus.
the remainder of the map is yellow orange and red mostly those are different residential
districts with the red being mixed use commercial residential and then you've got some purple and
the purple are various types of industrial designations and what you'll see is that those
industrial properties mostly exist in a ribbon that follows the septa train track and what I've
discovered from research in this case and other cases in the past is that while the planning
commission may, I don't know genuinely, but may support pushing for industrial uses on these
parcels, this zoning is not new. It's really a, it's a, it's a holdover from many, many,
many decades ago. These properties have not been rezoned, but the reason that they're industrial
These properties have not been rezoned, but the reason that they're industrially zoned is no longer relevant.
What is that? Well, before SEPTA owned this rail line, it was owned by the Reading Railroad Company.
You may know that. This is the track that used to terminate at Reading Terminal.
And they allowed private users of this line. The Reading line was famous for coal transport, among other things.
So it's purely a passenger line now. The presence of the railroad does nothing to attract industrial users to these parcels.
And the railroad itself makes a lot of these parcels really oddly shaped.
So while the rail line maybe was a benefit and a reason for the zoning, today the zoning is outdated and the rail line and the zoning both present a hardship.
I'll quickly note, and this is in my memo of law that I offered to the board, that this board has recognized this exact issue in the past.
Two years ago, the zoning board on another triangular, I believe, parcel a couple blocks from here along the same rail embankment allowed 35 dwelling units to be developed on another I-2 zoned parcel.
I also found a case, although this was 10 plus years ago, a much larger parcel where
that property was zoned G2, which I think is the predecessor to I2. That project ended up with 92
dwelling units. So there is a sort of well-established pattern of zoning relief being
reasonable and necessary for industrial parcels in this area.
One of the things that's sort of nice about this block is that there is only at the moment one single family home on this block, at least on our side of the train tracks.
So we are not disturbing sort of a developed block.
And beyond that, you know, I just want to show you the letter that the chairman mentioned.
Let's see. There we go.
So what we did is we asked a commercial real estate consultancy that's based here in Philly called Scope.
There's their letterhead.
To take a look at this and basically analyze whether this could be developed without residential use.
And the answer was no, particularly because as this gentleman sort of helped us figure out, you know, the market on a parcel of this shape and this size for a ground up new building that is only going to be commercial or residential, that market just isn't there.
And he encouraged my client to put in commercial or industrial space on the ground level, but
explained that to finance this or to attract a future buyer for it, it's going to be necessary
to have residential units upstairs.
And that's just sort of an explanation of the hardship from hopefully what you'd see
as an objective source. This guy at the bottom wrote that he'd want us to call him if we ever
wanted to sell the site. So suffice it to say, he's sort of a broker as well,
not someone who's a part of our project team. What else can I tell you quickly?
um the um i mentioned that septa piece that we're going to have to remove um and i mentioned the
extra quality of um uh sort of the the right side of the building that because we're going to have
windows on that side so that way the the residents have um you know sort of a peaceful atmosphere
There's going to be various types of units, I believe, ranging from two bedroom units up to four.
So that way, sort of everybody has a shot to live here.
It's not specifically targeting any audience.
And, you know, as far as the parking situation, it's difficult.
So that would basically mean that we're going to have to put parking inside the building because there's just really no space for a significant number of parking spaces on the ground, given the shape.
It would have to be in the front. That means our building would have been wedged into the back.
So to keep sort of the development reasonably sized and not have to build even more units to make it work, we skipped the parking.
You know, we skipped the parking. We presented all of this to the ward, who was the coordinating RCO. The ward basically explained to us that this property, to their knowledge, has been vacant for at least 25 years. And before that was either a junkyard and coal storage.
We presented all of this to the ward who-
So there hasn't been a structure on this property in a very long time.
They were very pleased, the leadership of the ward, that somebody took an interest in dealing with SEPTA and turning this into something productive.
They are, you know, they are hesitant about displacing existing residents.
But what they liked about this project is it doesn't do that.
This is how you accommodate new residents in the greater Temple area without affecting existing neighbors.
And the RCO letter speaks specifically to the fact that that one single family homeowner who I did mention, who I believe is here on the map where my cursor is, we worked with her.
We actually have assisted her in making some repairs to her home that were needed.
So, you know, my client's done a really nice job engaging with the community, in my estimation.
So that's my presentation.
I do have the architect here who has additional plans and information if the board has questions.
And I have Tamaria Davis, who is the client's representative today to adopt my testimony.
Why don't we have your client come on?
Thank you. Ms. Davis, could you raise your hand?
She's been allowed to speak, sir.
Thank you.
Hi, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
Sure. Tamaria Davis, T-E-M-A-R-I-A-D-A-V-I-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
um tamaria were you able to hear my testimony in this case this morning yes was it true and
accurate to the best of your knowledge information and belief yes it was would you therefore adopt
it as if it were your own testimony yes i will and are you authorized to speak on behalf of the
property owner you work for them yes thank you questions from the board no mr chair
Thank you, Chair. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I have a Mr. Robert Cashin with us, hand raised. I have allowed him to speak at this time.
Sure. Hi, sir. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes. Hi, my name is Rob Cashin. C-A-S-H-I-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, Your Honor.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, I own 1013.
okay proceed sir okay uh so uh i i am hoping that a building like this will get built there
so i'm not i just want to say i'm not opposed i went to a community meeting uh the person
presenting indicated they also built the units that are under construction now and the one
across the street and that they're helping entrepreneurs with a community space so that
part i like um on the other side of that train track it was just mentioned here 2132 north 10
that building was on one of these calls with no parking but the this this team this board asked
that they find a way to make underground parking. So my main thing is, instead of giving up all 10
spaces, I think that there is definitely a way to put probably two to five spots underground.
That's one. I work both in an office and part-time as a builder myself. So I have a car with tools I
need to drive around okay the other part is uh for trash um right now the other building that's built
which was presented as from the same developer has garbage dumpsters outside because which is
nice for clean keeping it clean because otherwise people would throw garbage bags that's what
everyone else does but there's while it's being built there should be a place to store garbage can
or dumpster inside the property so that's the other and then also there were no trees put
on the one across the street and i'm hoping that tree pits can be left
at this site so that there can be street trees and then the last part is when the uh
and then the last part is when the uh you might have seen that the signal and the traffic light
I'll show you my
caved in at the corner because the ground was excavated without the uh shoring of the walls
and this is presented as by the same developer so i'm concerned that if it's done that to the
train tracks um that there could be a commotion similar to a cave-in and i just want to make sure
somebody is taking more care this time than on the previous project at the adjacent site all right so
you you have your suggestions but you're in favor of the project if if it can have parking i'm in
favor of it okay thank you sir we appreciate you taking the time to call in is there anyone else
in the virtual audience i see no further answer mr chair planning commission
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond,
Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing industrial zoning at this location.
The appellant has not shown with respect
to the number of units that dimensional compliance
would cause a significant financial burden.
The city planning commission recommends
that the zoning board denied the variance.
However, if the board is inclined to grant the variance,
the commission suggests a proviso
for one bicycle parking space for each dwelling unit.
Mr. Chairman, I'll just add, the building is in compliance with all dimensional requirements of
the zoning code. We have no dimensional refusals. So, Brandon, I'm going to take this to the
executive committee, and we'll vote on this next Wednesday at 9.30 a.m. Sure. And one other
comment, there is, and you have the floor plans in my submission, there is an indoor trash room.
um there there this developer did complete uh a project on the the western side of 10th street
much smaller and i believe there's a photograph of that in my packet as well that all right all
right thank you very much for your presentation thank you okay we're going to move on to
number 14,
MI 2022-003-316-5700
Wayne Avenue. Jeffrey Stacy is the attorney
for the tenant. Letter of support from
West Germantown neighbors. Letter of support
from Councilwoman Bass and a letter of support from State
Representative Stephen Kinsey.
Good morning, Mr. Stacey. Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Sure. Jeffrey Stacey, J-E-F-F-R-E-Y, S-T-A-C-E-Y.
Right. 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, the relationship to this property?
Sure. My client is Mass 3 Charter School Pickett Campus, which is a tenant to a lease with the
school district of philadelphia and our vice chair has just a few questions sir good afternoon
counselor do you agree to where the reading of the refusal is stipulated to its accuracy
yes i do have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed
with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes i have thank you please proceed
and share your screen
we see it you can see my screen yes sir great um good morning mr chair and members of the board
my name is jeffrey stacy from the firm o'donnell stacy uh with me here in the virtual audience
It's a couple members from my client's team, and I will be calling on Matt Troja, the Chief Operating Officer for Mastery Charter Schools, a little bit later on this morning.
the um the appeal that is before you here today um is the result of an application filed in
february 2022 by my client at the 5700 wayne avenue site which is the site of the former
school district school clarence pickett school now run by mastery there is a large field in the
back. And my client's desire is to turn that field into an athletic field, a synthetic turf
athletic field, by making various improvements to the land and putting some fences around it
in order to ensure the safety of the players and the community. And in doing so, must also
And in doing so, must also move some land or disturb some land that has grades at a level greater than 25 percent.
move some land or disturb some.
So we put together an exhibit package here for you today, which I'll go through in short order.
But just as a measure of background, as I mentioned, Pickett is a school district school, a former school district school.
5700 Wayne Avenue is owned by the school district of Philadelphia, and my client leases that property from the school district.
The Pickett School was first opened in 1970 and has been continuously used as a school since that time.
My client took over the school in 2007 and has been operating a public charter school at that site since that time.
Currently, students in grades 6 through 12, over 800 of them are educated at the property.
And the purpose of the plans set forth by my client are to give those students an opportunity
to compete, to take gym class on a more modern athletic facility and athletic field.
first i'll jump down just sort of give you an idea of what we're talking about
um so the picket school is located in the germantown section of philadelphia um looking
at the map view the property runs uh along wayne avenue rittenhouse street on the north side
and Pulaski Avenue on southwest side. And it is close to Shelton, the intersection of Shelton
and Wayne Avenues. That is, that's the location of the property. Looking at the aerial view here
where my cursor is hovering, that is the school building that is used by my client
and the big green space below it is the field that they're seeking to improve.
Down here below, this is Pulaski Avenue, and up top here is Wayne Avenue. There is also a
community garden, which has been continuously in use for at least the past 12 or 13 years,
which we'll talk a bit more about in a moment, but that is a continuing use here at the property
and also very near and dear to many of the community members' hearts.
So the reason that we stand here before you today is that the improvements sought by my client
would require the erection of fences greater than four feet in height,
which is not permitted in the RSA3 zoning district in which the property sits,
and also that there's a disturbance of slopes greater than 25%.
Mastery Charter Schools, for those of you that don't know, is an organization and a network of over 24 charter schools in Philadelphia and in Camden, New Jersey, and the organization has a track record of excellence and quality.
And actually, Mastery Charter School was selected by the School District of Philadelphia in 2007 to operate a charter school at the picket site.
Mastery is run by a very highly competent leadership team, and that leadership team brought all of its skills to bear over the past two years or so in order to get to this point.
even prior to any zoning permit application there were various meetings in the community
regarding the proposed project by my client who from the community wants what various meetings
with stakeholder groups in order to get an idea of a feel for the community's needs and wants with
respect to the space the end result of that after going through the zoning process and meeting with
the RCO twice in two formal public meetings is that we are here with revised plans. We've
submitted a proviso plans form, which I'll go through in a moment. We have a letter of support
from the West Central Germantown neighbors. We have a letter of support from Councilwoman Bass.
And we've also entered into a community benefits agreement with the West Central Germantown
neighbors and that has been fully signed and executed. So turning here to our exhibit package,
here's a copy of the refusal from April 26, 2021.
here's a copy of the refusal from april 26 2022
copy of our application filed last may
along with project information form
we included uh the lease agreement with the school district of philadelphia this lease
is coterminous with the term of the school's charter. Under Pennsylvania law, a public charter
school is permitted to operate for terms of five years, which is then subject to renewal by its
authorizing school district. And my client's charter has been renewed several times. And it
is the intent of the charter school to remain at this site for as long as its charter remains in
operation. Pursuant to this lease, we were required to obtain the approval of the School
District of Philadelphia to come to this hearing essentially and ask for the relief that we're
asking for. A copy of that letter dated September 22 of 2022 from Nicole Ward from the School
District's Office of Capital Programs is included on page 58 of our exhibit package.
Mastery Charter School Piggott Campus is a non-profit corporation.
Our certificate of tax clearance is in our exhibit package.
We submitted site plans.
And what I will do first is go to our photos of the site and then return to those site
plans.
here is the map view of the site again aerial view of the site
this is a view of the property looking from the corner of Pulaski and Rittenhouse streets
up toward the property as you can see there is a large stone wall
that runs along Rittenhouse Streets and Pulaski Avenue. That was pre-existing prior to my
client's occupation of the property. You can see here, we'll see more of it in a moment,
looking down Pulaski Avenue, there's a large berm that runs part of the length of the property.
There is a fence on top of that berm that runs the length of that berm. Right here by this first
This light fixture is where that community garden area sits.
There is existing fencing on two sides of that garden.
This photo is from Pulaski Avenue, looking down towards Rittenhouse here and back towards
the school.
This is the other side of that berm.
The vegetation is relatively dense in this photo, but that fence runs along the top of
that berm here.
Looking at the property from the Rittenhouse Street side, you can see part of the fence
that's along the community garden.
Property sits up several feet here.
The playing field is in this where you see this open area.
Another view of the property from Wayne and Rittenhouse Streets.
The proposed project would be on the other side of the building from this vantage point.
Finally, getting to the field itself.
So from the parking lot area, this is looking west or southwest toward Pulaski Street.
Here is that berm.
You can see the fence running along the top of the berm.
Another photo of the field, this one looking towards or along the back of the school building.
And this is essentially the surface where the synthetic turf fields will be placed.
This is a view of the garden. Now this photo was taken in the fall, so this is sort of at the
at the very tail end of the growing season. Clearly looks like it was a relatively verdant year.
A little bit further back, with your back towards Rittenhouse, looking east-southeast toward the field,
this is the area we were looking at previously where the proposed field would be placed. Where
my mouse is hovering here now is the bulk of the steep slopes that would be affected by the
the current plans for the project so what is proposed is essentially bringing this grade out
not digging into this slope but bringing this grade out and having a retaining wall
Not digging into this slope, but bringing this grade out and having a retaining wall with a small fence above that wall at the end of the northwesterly end zone of that field.
Going to the other side, this is a shot of the existing eight foot fencing that runs along the parking lot.
Under our revised plans, this fencing is to remain.
There's also a shot here of the end of the fence that runs along the top of the berm.
Another shot from the garden. There is a defunct, no longer used foundation for a light pole here
and here. This is approximately how far the field would come out so that retaining wall would run
along where my mouse is hovering then.
Another view of the field, this is essentially the steep slope.
I'm going to cut back to our plans, just to give you an idea of where those slopes are.
The existing steep slopes are as follows.
So if we're looking at the site with Pulaski Avenue running along the bottom,
You see the berm where there are significant slopes. And then also in that area that was behind that soccer goal in one of those photos, that's the area where there's also grades steeper than 25 percent.
As I mentioned, there were original site plans. The original site plans called for a large field
that could house not only football and soccer, but also lacrosse. That was scaled back. My client
originally had intended to put in a walking track, a bituminous walking track six feet wide
around the entire field around the perimeter of the field that was in response to initial
engagement with the community the initial plans called for 21 or so feet of encroachment into
that community garden space as well as tall fencing around the perimeter of the field
So the original vision, as shown here, would also have completely eliminated down to grade that berm that's along Pulaski Avenue.
So all those trees would have been gone. That berm would have been essentially leveled.
And those plans have changed after going through the RCO process to get us to this point today.
So cutting to the chase in terms of our current plans, we submitted a Proviso plans form,
and I'll detail a couple of these changes in a minute, but what the new plans entail
sort of are as follows. The berm remains intact, and as a result, 8,000 fewer square feet from about
13,600 to 5,500 square feet of steep slope area will now have to be disturbed.
The primary reduction is because we're no longer having to level that berm.
That fence is going to remain on the top of the berm.
The fence is going to remain here along the parking lot.
The field was moved in a couple of different ways.
It was moved six feet to the north and also six feet to the east.
And as a result of that, as a result of removing the walking track, my client is now able to fully preserve that community garden use that was very important to members of the community.
The, because the walking track has also been eliminated, that's about 15,000 square feet
that was taken off the total footprint of the field. And the current square footage of this
actual synthetic turf field is about 72,000. So that's reduced by 15 to 18,000 in comparison with
the earlier plans in connection with our revised grading plan or with the revised plans pursuant
to the proviso plans this is our revised grading plan we still need to bring to add phil here and
bring those steep slopes near the soccer bowl and the end zone up to grade but no longer need
but no longer need to have the full disturbance of that berm along Pulaski Avenue.
to have a full disturbance of that berm along Pulaski Avenue.
There were two formal meetings with the West Central Germantown neighbors.
Our hearing was originally scheduled for back in October.
At that time, we had posted the zoning notice.
Here's a copy of the notice.
here's a copy of or pictures rather of where those notices were posted the first
picture show along Wayne Avenue these on the Rittenhouse Street side of the building
these along Pulaski Avenue
for today's hearing we did the same thing here's a copy of the notice
and in those same locations posted this notice several weeks ago
The original RCO meeting in this case was held July 6.
We sent out a notice to near neighbors on June 14, 2022.
A copy of that is here in the exhibit package.
We also attached a copy of the refusal.
The notice was sent to approximately 94, 95 nearby properties.
and the canceled Certificate of Mailings can be seen here.
A second meeting was held prior to this meeting today.
That RCO meeting was held March 1, 2023.
Prior to that, my client also arranged for a less formal and informal presentation
that it conducted on February 22nd,
we included that in our notice as well.
And that we also attached the refusal
and that mailing went out to those same 94, 95
nearby property owners.
In our exhibit package, we also include,
I also included the applicant's presentation
at that RCO meeting, just to give you an idea
of part of the engagement that my client did with the surrounding community.
And what's important there is that, you know, the, as seen here,
the original vision for the field behind the picket school, you know,
was, was like Lincoln financial field essentially, right?
We had originally planned for seating for over a thousand spectators,
a number of outbuildings, a much larger field, walking track, leveling that berm along Pulaski
Avenue, encroaching on the garden significantly, and even having stands along Pulaski Avenue.
That's been significantly reduced. And essentially, there's three main areas of that reduction.
the proposed project now will preserve the entire community garden use, preserve the Pulaski Avenue
berm and the trees thereon, and there was a reduction in seeding by over 80 percent in order
to alleviate traffic and parking concerns of the community. At the RCO meeting my client also
proposed a number of promises and it said we will make these promises real and we will
enshrine them in a community benefits agreement. The community benefits agreement was signed this
week. So just yesterday, along with the RCO letter of support and explanatory letter,
I provided that to the board. A copy of that can be seen here. This is the executed community
benefits agreement. And just to give you an idea of those promises that were made by my client,
they're essentially bringing the community into the fold regarding all of the logistics regarding
construction. They're going to preserve the use of the garden during construction as much as
possible. They're going to pay for the engagement of a gardening consultant regarding best practices
for not only use of the garden during construction, but restoration of
the complete garden after completion of construction.
My clients agreed to not only restore the garden, but also provide for storage of soil,
for example, during construction. Following construction of the field in response to
Following construction of the field in response to some of the concerns of the community, my client has agreed for the entire year following completion of construction that no football games will begin after 5 p.m.
has agreed not to rent or license the picket sports field for non-mastery high school
interscholastic events. And we'll put up signage to indicate to the community when they're able to
freely use the field. Turning back to our exhibit package,
Following that March 1st, 2023 meeting, we did obtain support from the RCO in conjunction with the CBA. A copy of that is seen here. That was provided yesterday.
And in addition, another item that was presented by my client at the March 1 meeting was Master
Charter Schools has obtained $500,000 in redevelopment assistance capital program funding
that will be able to be used for the project and the completion of the field.
The project enjoys support not only from the RCO, but also from Councilwoman Cindy Bass, State Representative Stephen Kinsey, Dr. Alan Waller, Senior Pastor at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church.
We included those letters with our exhibit package as well.
We also included a number of letters from student athletes at Mastery Charter School,
their coaches, several parents, and then last but not least,
a letter from an individual in the garden group
who had been participating at several of those public meetings.
In addition to those letters of support, we have in our exhibit package petitions of support for the project from near neighbors that were obtained by my client prior to that March 1st, 2023 meeting.
And those can be seen here.
So I'm endeavoring to go through this as efficiently as possible.
So essentially, in summary, you know, this is a project that is an accessory use for an existing educational facility.
We're simply aiming to bring to our students the opportunities that are afforded to students in the suburbs and students at private schools in Philadelphia regularly.
You know, less than a mile away, the Penn Charter School has several fields of synthetic turf for its students, and this would be an incredibly valuable opportunity for mastery students and their surrounding community.
And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions from members of the board.
Why don't you have a representative of the master school adopt your testimony, but I guess just one real quick suggestion for you. I didn't hear, you might want to stay on the record why four foot high fence would not work for you. Is that one of your refusals?
It is indeed.
You might want to say why you think you need the seven foot fence.
That is great advice.
so the reason that the uh the fence sites and and let me go to the revised site plan so that we can
see so there's several areas where the fencing um oh where the fencing is relevant so let me go
through each of them um there is existing fencing along here along the parking lot that's existing
fencing of eight feet in height, that is to remain. There is new proposed fencing where my
mouse is hovering here. That is bordering the community garden. There is existing fencing here
and the proposal is eight foot chain link fence there. That is to maintain the safety of that
community garden um there is no fence here currently where my where my mouse is hovering
yeah um to the extent that you know the the garden crops are are used uh by the community and in fact
i think in one of the meetings it was quoted that you know over ten thousand dollars in produce is
You know, over $10,000 in produce is essentially given to the neighborhood churches every year.
is essentially given to uh
That's something that we're seeking to protect.
Along the field here, on the top of the retaining wall, is another, it's five-foot high fencing.
And that is to maintain the safety of, you know, the individuals playing on the sports team,
whether that's in gym class whether that's members of the community there will be retractable netting
as well so that you know when field goals are being kicked or soccer balls are being kicked
you know they're not flying into the garden or worse flying onto the street so essentially the
requirement for the fencing whether it's five feet in height or eight feet in height ultimately is
safety. Okay. How about why don't you bring on a representative from Mastery School and adopt
your testimony? Sure. Matt Troha, can you raise your hand? He's been allowed to speak. Hi. Could
you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter? Matt Troha, M-A-T-T, last name
t-r-o-h-a right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do proceed counsel mr troha did you hear my presentation to the board this morning
yes i did do you believe it to be true and accurate to the best of your knowledge
information and belief uh yes it is and would you adopt that testimony as your own testimony
Yes, I do adopt it.
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I see one hand raised from a number in 9660.
Do I speak?
Okay, I'm just done.
Hi. Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
My name, can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
Okay, my name is Gray, last name, G-R-A-B-E. First name is Thomas.
Should I proceed?
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sir?
Proceed.
I've been a resident right up the street on Rittenhouse Street for almost 55 years.
I was one of the original gardeners that set the garden up at the suggestion of Mastery,
as they said back in 2007. I'm very disappointed. I've had interaction in terms of comments and
passing remarks about expanding the playing field northwest, which means it's going to go
towards the garden. And there is no way that the garden is not going to be disrupted
for at least a year and if not two years. And that's a very valuable community resource.
Over two tons of food is produced, half of which goes to the crisis ministry at Germantown
and Shelton Avenue, a food distribution program.
And the argument I have presented internally and in person,
expanding the garden into the parking lot.
And it makes much more sense.
It is a cheaper alternative.
There is an existing retaining wall,
which i don't understand why there's any interest in in not using all right i i'm this is this is
valuable time for you and everyone i'm requesting a continuance i would like you to refer this back
to the community to assure that the existing parameters of the garden be maintained and
whatever expansion they want they take it into the parking lot they have over 150 parking spaces
off-site behind Planet Fitness and the, and the Einstein Clinic. And, and that's, that's my request
that there'd be a continuous. I hear your comments. I'm going to continue with taking comments
from other people first before I roll on that. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time and calling in.
Thank you for your time and calling in. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, sir.
Renee Porter Sanders with her hand raised.
I've allowed them to speak.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Hello.
Can you hear me?
I can.
Thank you.
My name is Renee Porter Sanders. That is R-E-N-E-E-P-O-R-T-E-R hyphen S-A-N-D-E-R-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Christine, ma'am, are you a neighbor?
I am actually here in the capacity of a parent leader of the Mastery Parent Action Team.
I am here appearing before the board today to give my full support of the renovation of this athletic field.
I wanted to express my full support of this renovation because this will be a value added addition to this institution and to the Germantown community.
I am asking the zoning board to consider approving the go ahead of this renovation project.
The students at Pickett will be greatly impacted in a positive way by providing a safe space and place to have physical education outside and to support the athletic organizations of Mastery Pickett to perform at their absolute best.
Thank you for your time.
Now, thank you for taking the time to call in. We appreciate your input. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no further answer, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The proposed fence height is commensurate with existing use.
The proposed variance for slope disturbance is minimal and does not conflict with the purpose or spirit of the zoning code.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance.
Thank you very much.
So MI 2022, 003-316-5700 Wayne Avenue, I vote yes with proviso.
Revised plans, two pages, stamped by ZBA on April 19, 2023.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes with provisos.
James Snell, my vote is yes with provisos.
Ishmael Shaheib, my vote is yes with provisals.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose 930 case has not been called?
Mr. Chair, I do not see any hands.
All right.
Thanks, everyone.
See everyone at 2 p.m.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearings.
With me is Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
We will be shortly joined also by our vice chair, Ismail Shahid.
Also present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director, Tanya Sunkett.
Here's our virtual format. Be advised, proceedings are being recorded.
The video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkett at phila.gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographers, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548. Leave your email address and the
property in question. And finally, the question and answer box on the screen is not for comments
or testimony. Any comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sunken.
Let's look at the continuances we have for this afternoon. Number four, MI 2022-007-248-2441
Montrose Street. That case is continued. Number six, MI 2022-006-991-559 Ryder Street. That case
is continued. And number 11, MI2022-007-453-301-23 Spring Garden Street, that case is continued.
301 to 23 Spring Garden Street, that case is continued. Is there anyone who has comments relative to any of those three cases?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. This is Jason Hand. I do not see any hands at this time.
Thank you very much. We're going to go to, is there any other requests for continuances?
once again no hands raised at this time sir thank you we're going to go to our add-on list
number one on our add-on list mi 2022 006 904 7353 oxford avenue
I vote yes with provisos. Temporary variance for personal vehicle repair and maintenance use, expiring 5-1-25, and tires must be stored indoors.
Tom, James, James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso, Tom.
One minute.
are you back on okay hold on a minute mr howlin's having a hard time with his internet
I don't know.
Mr. Hallman is calling in on his phone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll be one to you in one minute.
Mr. Chair, I have a hand raised from someone
with the number ending in 9176.
must be him
let's see if that's Mr. Holloman
Mr. Chairman
yes sir
can you hear me Mr. Chairman
so Tom we took the first one
in the Adelan
and that was
7353 Oxford Avenue
I voted yes with temporary proviso, temporary variance for personal vehicle repair and maintenance use expiring 5-1-25, and tires must be stored indoors.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
And we already had Mr. Snells.
And we already had Mr. Snell's.
Number two for our add-on.
Number two for our add-on.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, Chairman, it's for Tanya.
Can we promote him so that he can be on the panel?
Most certainly, please.
Thank you.
Because he's on the phone, we cannot promote him to panelists.
Right.
Understood.
Can he get the...
Zoom on his phone?
Yeah, I'm still on the phone.
Tom, can you get Zoom on that?
I don't think so.
Okay, we'll try to make it work.
Okay, we okay, Tanya, to go on?
We'll try to make it work.
You can go ahead, Chair.
Thank you, Tanya.
So number two on the add-on list, MI 2021-005-024-1776, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Stell, my vote is yes.
I'm going to go to our regular list.
I'm going to start with number eight. MI 2022-007-250-1732 Catherine Street.
Jameen B. Shaw is the owner applicant. It's a pro se. Letter of deferral from Councilman Johnson.
letter of deferral
from South of South
Neighbor Association.
Ms. Shaw.
Mr. Chair,
they have been promoted to panelists.
They will be rejoining shortly.
Okay, thank you.
hello chair bergman can you hear me how are you could you state your name please and spell for
the court reporter absolutely my name is jamin shah j-a-i-m-i-n last name is shah s-h-a-h
you swear or for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do. Okay. Have you provided all appropriate materials to the zoning board five days in
advance? I have with one update that was provided. Councilman Kenyatta Johnson's letter of deferral
was added. Okay. Sure. Okay. So this application is for new interior parking space accessory
to the existing single family household living. Size and location as shown on the plans.
There's one use referral. Off-street parking should not be provided for any one-family or two-family use located in a residential parking control area, except for parking assessed by shared driveway or rear alley, which is permitted but not required. The proposed access from the main street is not allowed. Could you please share your screen with your materials?
all right cat
thank you green button on the bottom green button yep uh give me one second to find the
right materials and then i will share coming up
okay i see you mitchash why don't you start great tell us what you're trying to do
so let me just give me one second here sir uh so good afternoon and thank you to the chair and the
members of the board for your time my name is jamin shah and i'm the owner and applicant for
the project at 1732 catherine my wife and i are longtime residents at 1734 catherine the home
adjacent project and have loved living and raising our two children in graduate hospital in sasna
neighborhood our children go to school in the city my wife and i now work in the city and we
we love. During the 14 years we have lived here, we have made friends with our neighbors, both
longtime Philadelphia residents and newcomers, and have become deeply involved in the neighborhood
and the various city-based programs and institutions. We've added to the blend of
diversity in the neighborhood and have similarly benefited from being part of this community.
We purchased the adjacent and vacant property at 1732 Catherine with the hopes of merging the
homes into our, quote, forever home, thereby continuing to live, work, and contribute to
the positive growth of the city of Philadelphia. The property of 1732 Catherine has been vacant
for over 20 years, the entire duration of our time in this neighborhood. It is a blight on a
beautiful, vibrant block here in the city, across the street from the wonderful Marion Anderson
Recreation Center. Over this time, various investors have tried and failed to make any
Over this time, various investors have tried and failed to make any viable economic use of this property.
viable economic use of this property.
I personally have been shoveling the snow, weeding in the backyard, and generally looking after the property, including by sending in requests to L&I almost every year and other agencies to deal with the rodents and raccoons that have made their way into the property.
There are clear and unique challenges with the physical structure of the property that have prevented the conversion of it into a more suitable economic purpose.
On your screen, you can see a couple of outlays and pictures.
The property that we were speaking of is the one that looks like it has a greenish gray dilapidated paint facade with temporary windows in place that were put in by prior investors.
You can see my current home just to the right of that from the street view, which has a red door and a beautiful cherry tree in front.
we took ownership of this property in november 2021 and worked quickly by mid-2022 to resolve
various make-safe issues with the city and make the property safe for the community our hope now
is to turn this property into a part of our home with a new facade that blends in seamlessly with
the neighborhood the vast majority of this block and the broader neighborhood have been renovated
within the past 15 years the project home is one of the last blighted properties remaining
Our project will add immense taxable value to the property and resolve a terrible ISO for the neighborhood.
The denial of the variance will result in an unnecessary hardship on the property, and it will remain a dilapidated blight in the community, something we want to avoid seeing.
The unnecessary hardship has existed for over 20 years and has shown, as shown by the prior attempts to rehab the property, and since we took ownership in late 2021, we have tried to make a better use of it.
Sitting as a vacant, dilapidated property is not in the best interest of the neighborhood from a safety, economic, or aesthetic viewpoint.
Our plans for this renovation involve the inclusion of a garage, and therefore a zoning variance for a curb cut, which is the subject of the conversation today.
We have worked diligently with our architect to ensure neighborhood safety and maintain the aesthetics of the block.
Alan, our architect, will go into those details separately.
There is precedent for a similar curb cut a few doors to the west of this property.
You can see that in the visual in the top left. The garage is shown in the far right, about four houses to the west.
Additionally, and to mention, that curb cut has not caused any harm or danger to the neighborhood.
There have been no reports of pedestrian issues or any other concerns.
Additionally, the depth of the sidewalk and the projection of stair landings on this street cause a natural walk path away from the housing line.
enabling visible sight lines enough and enough safety away from cars exiting garages again alan
will go into that detail but the picture at the center of this board shows the stairs to
my existing property and a tree box and a natural line at the center of the sidewalk
with a about a five foot or six foot buffer away from the housing line
our design for the property includes a single width garage with a car lift
allowing us to trade off our two street park cars for one curb cut dimension already reviewed by the streets department.
This dimensional assessment shows that we are asking for the minimum necessary for the variance
and that this dimension would not cause any loss of any phantom parking spots,
essentially amounting to only one car length removed from the street parking by the curb cut variance.
Again, it would be our two cars off of the street in exchange for the one dimension of the street cut.
Additionally, merging the two properties would effectively remove three or more potential parking permits from the neighborhood, which would readily be granted to 1732 Catherine Street, should it be converted into a single family home or rental property.
In speaking with our neighbors, many in the community would welcome a break from the continuous line of parked cars to enable safer access to board a paratransit or a CCT vehicle, temporarily pull in to load or unload children, groceries, and the like, or allow other similar use and access mid-block.
This concept was also previously raised in 2011-2012 from SOSNA's own efforts with the Better Blocks Philly program, and we would be happy to work with the Neighborhood Association and City to support further safety measures.
safety measures such as a bump out or a crosswalk designation at either end of the curb cut to make
this block even safer for neighbors and those visiting the very active basketball court or
pool at Marian Anderson Rec Center. That visual is shown in the midline left which was taken from
the Better Box program initiative that shows in fact a dimensional a crosswalk mid block the street
that we're referring to is at the bottom of that visual and you'll see that approximately halfway
down I'm sorry it's at the top of that visual across from what's the blue area of the pool
and that's exactly essentially the line where our home property is.
is that essentially the line where our home property is allowing for that dimensional cut there
we had ample discussion of all of what i've just mentioned at our rco meeting at sasnang in february
2023 many of our neighbors attended and together with several of the committee members voiced their
own opinions in support of the proposed zoning variance for a curb cut we have included several
letters of support from our immediate neighbors for this proposed plan in the exhibits these
These neighbors spoke passionately for their own reasons why this project is in the best
interest of the neighborhood, and that was reflected by the letter from SOSNA deferring
the decision to this zoning board.
The project design considers and does not endanger the public safety, health, or general
welfare of the population, and the immediate adjacent neighbors are in support of this
project.
To wit, we have a letter of support from the immediate adjacent neighbors as part of the
exhibit as well.
We similarly have a letter from our councilman, Kenyatta Johnson, deferring the decision to
this board.
Approval of our variance request in this project would not set an easy precedent for other
seeking garages, because it involves consolidating two properties, removing five plus cars and
permits from the street, and has overwhelming neighborhood support, including letters of
support from our near neighbors.
Frankly speaking, it's our opinion that it's projects like ours that will address the remaining
blight in our otherwise thriving neighborhood, as the easy renovation projects have already
been completed. And many in our community agree. We hope to have your support for our
forever home project and in helping to keep our family in the city of Philadelphia.
How many, how many, how many garages on the block? One? There's the one existing garage
correct. And across the streets of the playground? Across the street of the playground. There are
adjacent, there are other curb cuts on adjacent blocks. Is there parking on both sides of the
street there? Yes, sir. Okay. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chair. Questions or comments from
the virtual audience? Mr. Chair, I have two hands raised. The first one is from Alan Henderson. I
am allowing him to speak. Okay. Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court
reporter? Sure. It's Alan Henderson, A-L-A-N-H-E-N-D-E-R-S-O-N. Do you swear or affirm to
tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Are you a neighbor, sir? No, I'm
the Shah's architect. Okay. There are just two things I wanted to reinforce that Jamin brought
up. The first is sort of the existing conditions of 1732. We're actually a design build outfit and
And we did the make safe work out there in conjunction with Ingram Engineering, who's done assessments of the building structure, the front facade, kind of giving us the overall sense of this structure and building.
We rebuilt the south and west walls in the rear, removed an illegal pilot house, patched the roof, took out a structurally questionable stare and are kind of monitoring the front facade, which is in deteriorating shape.
So just to speak to this is a very unique condition on the block.
It's the only only lot left that hasn't been lived in continuously and and maintained.
And it's in bad shape and deteriorating.
Even in the last two years that we've monitored it.
And then the only other point I'd want to make is the the stairs that come out at 1730 and 1736 come directly out of the front doors and protrude.
at least four and a half feet into the sidewalk, effectively moving the path of travel off those
facades at least five feet, which gives a much better sight for a driver backing out or for
pedestrians going by the proposed garage entry. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your comments.
Thank you. Who else in the virtual audience?
Chair, I have a Greg Newman with their hands raised. I have a lot of them this time.
State your name, please, and spell for the court reporter.
Sure. Good afternoon, everybody. Gregory Newman, G-R-E-G-O-R-Y-N-E-W-M-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, sir.
Good afternoon, everybody. I'm a neighbor here. I live at 801 South 18th Street,
which is on the corner of 18th and Catherine. I'm actually the house that you can see in the
photograph here that has the other garage on the block.
Yes. And I just want to state my overwhelming support for this project. I think that it's an unusual use case because, again, this is combining two houses into one. And I do want to highlight the advantages of having a break.
into one. And I do want to highlight the advantages of having a break in the parking
along this particular block, which I think does add some significant safety into our block.
Because of the vibrant basketball court scene, as well as the pool and the rec center,
we have quite a bit of parking congestion on the block here, including frequently in crosswalks,
in the middle of the intersection, and it can be a dangerous spot. We have a number of neighbors
who have young children, as well as some elderly neighbors with mobility issues. And having a break
like mine in the block, which is just a little break in front of our garage, as well as a few
doors down for the proposed break, gives a place where people can safely pull in for a minute or
two, drop off groceries, get folks who have mobility issues into the building without having
to either literally be stepping out of vehicles in the middle of a busy intersection or walking
for, you know, blocks where there is another break. So I really do support this. And, you know,
in addition, again, just want to highlight with that congestion of parking, I'm able to take my
vehicle and my former work vehicle off the street and free up those spots combined into one without
any, you know, ghost loss of further spots for my garage, and Jamin would be doing the same,
which is taking two vehicles off the street for the cost of one spot.
Thank you for your comments, and thanks for calling in. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, sir. Richard Summon, I've allowed him to speak at this time.
Could you stay your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
Mr. Salmon, if you're still available, please unmute and wait to be sworn in.
Mr. Salmon?
Mr. Salmon is not responding.
Okay, is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
um yes i have a mr charles peruto with the hand raised i've allowed him to speak okay
sir could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter
yes my name is charles peruto c-h-a-r-l-e-s p-e-r-u-t-o do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do mr prudo are you a neighbor
I am. Okay. Rasheed, sir. So I live opposite street from this project, but for 16 years,
I lived at the corner right there. I've only moved one block and I have three children and
they frequently use this rec center and the playground and the basketball courts. And I've
been interested in this project. I have noticed that it's not really going to lose more than one
car of parking. But the other thing is that even though there's a high fence by the basketball
court, balls do like come over that fence fairly often. And in that little area, we have kids and
teenagers kind of running out to get balls a lot. And I feel that having the like less cars on the
street right there is a very good thing. It really does improve the sight lines. And I just think
that it's definitely a variance that should be granted. We're all for it. All right. Thank you
for calling in, Mr. Prudhoe. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience? Yes, Catalina Loveman
with their hand raised. I have a lot of them to speak at this time. Could you state your name
and spell, please, for the court reporter? Yes, my name is Catalina Loveman, C-A-T-A-L-I-N-A.
The last name is L-O-V-E-M-A-N. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor i am i live in the in the
graduate hospital neighborhood along with the shahs okay a couple blocks away on waverly are
you in favor of this project i am in favor of this project we've seen similar projects um happen on
our street it's been a wonderful addition to the neighborhood um i think seeing uh buildings like
Like the one, like the property at 1732, someone take the time, the effort, you know, make the investment to renovate properties, which have sat for years and years blighted, make them a part of the vibrant community.
I think it's a tremendous asset to the neighborhood overall, and certainly from an economic perspective supports the continued growth of SOSNA and the graduate hospital area.
All right. Thank you for taking the time to call in. We appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else?
All right. Thank you for taking the time to call in. We appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else?
Yes, sir. Jonathan Katzenbach with the hand raised. I have allowed them to speak at this time, sir.
Could you say your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Certainly. I appreciate the opportunity. My name is Jonathan Katzenbach. It's spelled J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N. The last name is K-A-T-Z-E-N-B-A-C-H.
Right. Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
We've had quite a bit of testimony about this. Are you in favor of this project or against it?
I'm in favor. I'll keep it short and sweet. I live just a couple of doors down from Jamin and Mina.
I've known them since the day they moved in. I'm in full support of the project. I have no
problems with it whatsoever. I wrote a letter to that effect to the Sassana meeting back in February.
I just want to make mention of Jamin and Mina and their family as individuals and what they
add to the neighborhood. And I think it's seen in the care with which they've approached this
particular project. And I'd just like to make note of that for the public record.
I thank you for calling in. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else?
Yes, one more chair. Gabriel Torres. I've allowed him to speak at this time, sir.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Gabriel Torres, and that's G-A-B-R-I-E-L, and last name T-O-R-R-E-S.
Right. Do you swear if I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor, sir?
Yes, I am. I live about three doors down from Jamin.
Are you in favor of the project?
Yes, I'm in favor of the project.
Okay. We've had a lot of testimony as to why. We appreciate your calling in, and we have you on record as being in favor of the project. Thank you. Is there anyone else?
No further hint at this time, sir.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman David Fecteau, F-E-C-T-E-A-U, with the City Planning Commission.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do. Proceed, please. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single family zoning at this location. The applicant is applying for a parking space accessed via the front of the lot, which sits across the street from the recreation center and a block of row homes with only one garage. There is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code. The city planning commission recommends that the board deny the proposed variance.
Thank you. Mr. Shaw, we've had a lot of testimony on this in your presentation. I really want to take some time and bring this up at our executive session next Wednesday, and we will look to vote on this project next Wednesday at 2 p.m.
And thank you for your time, and I appreciate the presentation you made, okay?
Thank you, Chair. If I could add the Planning Commission's comments, we did dig deep efforts to try to make this a project that was worthwhile in conformance with the existing zoning laws.
As I said, had this property been able to do so in an economically viable manner in conformance with the zoning board, it would have been done as it sat vacant for the past 20 years.
There's been investor after investor that's tried, and it's not possible.
Alan had made mention about the incredible amount of concern and issues with the property,
and we've now uncovered as many of those as possible and already worked to account for
those in our make-safe efforts.
The property is safe, and that's because we made it so.
I understand your comments, okay?
So you will know where we stand next week at 2 p.m., okay, after we have some time to
talk about it.
Thank you, sir.
All right. Thank you. All right. Let's go to number two. MI 2022-006-184-242 Callow Street.
And this will also be in conjunction with number 13, MI2022-006-182-242 Callow Street.
This is a resumptive hearing.
Alan Nockamson is the attorney.
We do have a letter of opposition from the Wissahickon Interested Citizens Association,
but this is a resumptive hearing. Mr. Nockmson. Just state your name for the record.
Yes, Alan, A-L-A-N, last name Nockmson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.
Hold on one minute here.
Hold on one minute here. I'll be right with you, sir.
I'll be right with you, sir.
Hey, Chair, I'm back.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
So, Mr. Nockmson, this is, as you know, a resumptive hearing, and our notes show that we would look for comments from the RCO, public testimony, planning commission, recommendation, and then a response by you.
Yes. So, yes, we did meet with the community after our hearing. And I'd like to just briefly go over it. I'm going to kind of share my screen.
okay thank you
so we have these two vacant lots here and here um well here and here um as you can see there's
an existing curve cut uh there um and what you can also see from the photographs here which i
probably didn't do a great job of there's off street parking uh excuse me to the left of us
um so it's not uh and there's also off-street parking across the street from us or here's
actually a good photo showing all of the off-street parking right next to us so left
so what we're proposing is not enough character for the property itself its history is to have
off-street parking and if you saw the original refusal that we had one of the two properties
um with the the off-street parking was recognized i don't know why um and we didn't receive a
refusal for off-street parking for one of the two properties uh it's the um let's see it is
essentially uh 242 klo street where if you look at the original refusal there was no refusal for
off-street parking because this L&I recognized the curb cut. For whatever reason, what is now
known as 240 Kalo Street, they did not recognize that. But it does have a long documented history
for the property itself. And then you can see in the neighborhood itself, on that side of the
street, there's at least like four or five houses to the left of us, which also has off-street
parking. This is probably what was probably there previous to the demolition. So we're
not doing anything that's also out of character in the neighborhood. We did make substantial
changes to our presentation to the community at their behest or request. We provided a
porch. We got rid of the front-loading garages. We made it to seem more so like it was a property
that fit within the fabric of this community. And it was a close vote, although I don't know,
I don't remember having that many people attend the meeting. It was a vote of 15 in support and
24 opposed. So it was a somewhat split vote of the overall community. And in their letter,
they referenced the fact that they proposed front-loading garages under that front-loading
garages. But off-street parking in the past, those are different blocks. Those blocks don't
have the type of off-street parking that you're seeing here. So for those reasons, we would request
to allow us to continue that long-documented use of off-street parking for this property.
Is there a representative from the RCO there, here, in the virtual audience?
Yes, Daniel Flesher is in the audience with his hand raised. I've allowed him to speak this time, sir.
Mr. Pressure, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yep, it's Daniel Flesher, D-A-N-I-E-L-F-L-E-S-H-E-R.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Are you from the RCO, sir?
Yes, I am.
Okay, proceed.
Yes, so the developer did meet with us twice, which we appreciate, and they made adjustments to their proposal.
Many of their refusals are related to the neighborhood conservation overlay,
And that also accounts for why the parking was allowed in the first proposal, which had a front loading garage and was denied in the second refusal because they switched that out for surface parking and front surface parking at the front of our RSA five housing is prohibited per the neighborhood conservation overlay.
So that's why that showed up in the second refusal. The neighborhood's main opposition to this is the front loading parking and the curb cut. We are strongly opposed to surface parking and removing street parking and effectively privatizing it.
uh surface parking and removing street parking and private effectively privatizing it you know
one car from the street for one privatized parking space in the front we also feel that
having a parking buffer along the street is safe for pedestrians as it provides safety a you know
two-ton vehicle is very good protection for people on the sidewalk and we feel that removing
cars and having them drive through the sidewalk is inherently more dangerous than that
So we feel that overall, many of these refusals are due to design decisions made by the development team, and they do not represent a true hardship in terms of, you know, of needing this.
It's more of an investment want.
So we're happy to recognize the existing curb cut for one of the properties, but just also recognize that the surface parking at the front of the house is prohibited per the NCO.
and we are strongly opposed to granting a second curb cut for the second property.
Mr. Pessler, quick question. The property is on the other side of the street. Are there garages there?
Or is that just surface parking too?
It's all surface parking. There are no garages.
Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
And Mr. Chair, before you take any more inquiries, we are providing surface parking in the front
to mimic these other properties
to the left of us. We got rid of the garage
for loading garages.
Is there anyone else
in the virtual audience?
No, sir.
I see no hand. Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Okay, two hands went up.
Carlos Ritado.
Sir, could you please state
your name and spell for the court reporter?
good day sir if you're still available please
unmute and wait to be sworn in
Jason is there anyone else there
I'm Mr. Veronica Montez with her hand raised
I have an author to speak. Sure. Hi. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court
reporter? Yes. My name is Veronica Montes. V-E-R-O-N-I-C-A. Montes is M-O-N-A-S-A-N-C-T-E-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I am. Are you a neighbor? Yes. I am the next door neighbor of this.
Okay. All right. So proceed, please.
Yes. We appreciate, first of all, for the developer, so they have been training to accommodate to the request that we have been doing in the association.
But since we are the next door neighbor, so we are going to be the most affected in terms of what they are proposing, particularly in terms of the way in which they are planning in terms of, for example, the front door that is going to be very next to our.
So right now, for example, first of all, when they put down the wall that was next to our property,
so they never, never, never sent any noticing.
And also we would like to request if they can move the entrance and the stairs,
to the main door so at least one and a half feet from our um you know our property because it's
going to be very close to according to the plans so it's going to be very close to our uh um
property and we wanted to i mean the right now so the the property our property so doesn't have
any fans so we were wondering what they are planning to do in terms of uh the diminution
of our property so and we appreciate that four fits in the front is is what they have been you
know like uh moving uh but we were wondering what is going to be in the back part of the property
um thank you for your comments um
let me listen and let me go to let's see if there's anyone else in the audience
then i'm going to go to planning and then if you would i'll give you a chance to
comment on that, okay? Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Carlos Surtado had his hand raised again. I've allowed him to speak.
Okay. Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Thank you. My name is Carlos Hurtado. Can you hear me?
Thank you. My name is Carlos Surtado. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
Yes, I can.
Thank you.
Thank you. Carlos, C-A-R-L-O-S, last name Hurtado, H-U-R-T-A-D-O.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, I am one of the owners of the house next to this 242 and 246.
That's similar to the person who just testified?
Yes, that's right.
Okay. Do you have the same feelings?
Yes, what happened last week when they meet with the association is that there was a
misunderstanding about when is really that their house is going to start in relation with our
house. Because our house has a 28 front setback and theirs has 24 feet front setback. So that
means that their house is going to start four feet ahead of our house. But they were showing
drawing saying that it was going to start one feet behind our house so we want to clarify that
so because it got confused for everybody uh so i don't know if they want to share that because
they showed a drawing showing that our house the size is more than 36 feet and our house the
building is only 28 feet so i want to get confirmation if the house is going to start
four feet ahead of ours
or one feet
behind the beginning of our building.
Mr. Nackamson is going to have
a chance to respond in a couple of minutes
to that, okay?
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Mr. Nackamson,
do you want to say something?
No, I'm trying to look at the drawings, so I figured
while you're taking questions, I'm trying to figure
it out myself. Is there anyone else
in the virtual audience?
I see no one else, Mr. Chair.
Okay, Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman and Board Members, David Effecto, City Planning Commission.
We'll testify on both properties at once.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
Planning staff believes the applicant has met their burden of proof, showing that the required front setback prevents viable economic use of the property.
We recommend that the Board grant this variance with a condition that matches the setback of 238 Kalos Street.
However, there is no unique physical condition or circumstance of the lot that would justify the applicant's height variance.
So the Planning Commission recommends that the Board deny that variance, and we also recommend that the Board deny the parking variance.
Mr. Nagamson, you want to respond?
Yes, let me take a look at the refusals again.
i don't believe we have a height variance but i could be wrong i i i didn't i didn't see that
that's why i was like um yeah so i don't believe we have a height variance here david could you
check that again i see a front setback and i see stairs to the ground level to the deck
yep you're absolutely right i apologize i'll withdraw that part of my recommendation thank
And thank you, Mr. Dawkinson, for pointing that out.
Oh, of course.
No worries.
In terms of the property that's closest to 238, again, previously, L&I, when we proposed
a front-loading garage, did not issue a refusal, and good for a reason, it has a long-documented
– that property has a long-documented history of off-street parking.
The same can be said to the property to the left of us if we're facing Calo Street, which would be considered 242 Calo Streets.
Also has a long documented history.
I do not understand why we are getting a refusal for that, because as you can see from the field conditions, there's a curb cut there.
And then those curb cuts continue to extend along that block as you go further and further down the block.
So what we're offering is not out of character to the neighborhoods.
But, you know, the individuals who own 238 Kalo Street, it sounds like they don't have any issue with respect to the off-street parking, which is the crust of our request.
I think it has more to do with construction-related materials or matters.
And, you know, we can obviously, you know, if they don't have our information, I, you know, I can share my information.
They can go on my website, knockamson.com, and I can put them in touch with the owner of the property.
but none of their issues are zoning related they're all building related uh you know and
you know for the reasons that we stated previously we would ask uh that this board uh grant our zoning
request thank you um number two mi 2022 006184 242 calo street i vote no
I vote no.
Thomas
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no.
Number 13, MI 2022-006-182-242, Tallah Street, I vote no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no
Thank you, Mr. Nakamson
Thank you
Here we go, let's go to
Number
I'll be right with you
I'll go to list
Nakamson
MI number three
MI 2022-007
067 707 North 2nd Street. Justin Crick is the attorney for the tenant. Letter of support from
Northern Liberties Neighbors Association. Letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Mr. Crick will be joining as a panelist.
Good morning, members of the board.
Hi, Mr. Crick, could you please state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Yes, Justin Crick, J-U-S-T-I-N-K-R-I-K.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and your relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is Waggy Camp Limited Partnership.
They are the proposed tenant of the property, and I have its principals, Agnes and Oriana, on the line to confirm testimony.
All right, and our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, council. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his ex?
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits to prove five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have, with the exception that the tax clearance was recently, but everything has been provided.
Understood. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much.
Members of the Board, thank you for hearing the matter today. We are here for the property located
at 707 North 2nd Street in Philadelphia. The applicant is seeking to lease the property
to open up a doggy daycare and provide animal services at the location. This is an allowed use
but for requiring a special exception and has been brought before the Board for a referral
for the animal services in the existing structure.
Geographically, as you can see, it's a referral and it's just the special exception for animal services.
Geographically, the property is located at the corner of North 2nd and Fairmount.
And as you'll see in a little bit, this alley of North Hancock Street behind plays a key role in some of the operations that are intended.
from an aerial point of view you can see we're kind of off the highway and the
intersection shows that the street is quite wide with ample parking on both
sides of the street and what is zoomed in you can see has been a street eatery
whether or not it's still there as of this photo but there's also a blocked
off area on the street where no parking is allowed that also plays a role in
kind of how this business may operate we are looking at the front facade of the
building and another view from the corner again you can see nice wide
sidewalks and areas for for traffic for drop-off and I'll talk more about
momentarily about the operations as you can see this is North Hancock and while
it's small in one way it does still fit a car and down it although we've been
advised by neighbors to just be mindful of when cars are going down it because trash trucks can
kind of log jam the alley and so forth. So before I go into some of the design, the idea being is
that this would be a dog daycare. There is no boarding, no grooming, and no bathing of any sort
at the location. However, the unique part of it is that it is a 24-hour dog daycare, meaning that
they do intend to have dogs in the property for day care services or night care overnight from seven
the property for day care services or night care overnight from 7 p.m. to 7
a.m. but what is different than a boarding facility is that there are no
kennels and no crates these overnight services are provided with staff whereas
normal typical boarding dogs are kenneled or crated and the staff leaves
for the night this is just the same programs run during the day but run at
night because there happens to be a need in the area which I'll go into in a
little bit uh that the applicants have discussed and discovered uh the the plans in front of you
show the layout and dimensions of the first floor basically or of the general overview of the
building and as you can see we have quite a bit of depth in the building this was a sketch that
was taken from something issued for the building long before this applicant but we believed that
the dimensions shown were representative enough to give the board an idea of the scope of the
building in the space this is only a first floor and a basement property just to give you a little
bit about who the well actually this is more for location purposes but the main room clients and
customers will enter through the front doors and there's some reception and open space as you can
see and this is it from the other perspective there will be some renovations done to the
property as well this area is going to be used for what the the applicant calls
Zen pods and they are these just kind of specialized areas for dogs to relax
and spend some time with the caretakers and staff that's on site also you know
large amount of space and back here you can see what is considered the back room
of the of the facility to you be used as kind of a dog run it's actually bigger
than it looks when you look at it from here versus from this perspective and
that's where they can kind of play a little bit more. This is the overnight time daycare
space. It will essentially have similar services to what's upstairs, but the idea of bringing
it downstairs at night is to minimize any noise that is generated. Although again, dogs
will not be barking as if they were crated. So hopefully the staff, not hopefully, but
this is practice that the staff interacting with the dogs, keeping them happy and catered
to keeps the noise levels down there is an outdoor space in the rear this is to
be used only for dog play here and there during the day we've we've heard from
the neighbors as you'll see some provisos regarding operations and hours
outdoors and we're prepared to accommodate those hours dog waste will be
stored in a container on-premises but dogs are not using the outside area for
bathroom purposes so it will not become i guess inundated with dog doings so the dog walkings
will take place throughout the neighborhood and all the staff will bring back anything with them
to the facility to dispose of on site you'll see that the uh here's the gates for the van
so the company offers uh some pickup and drop off services uh the neighborhood has discussed
again the use of the van zone and what they have asked for basically is that
the the van the the van drop-off be done and conducted in the back on on North
Hancock Street and that generally customers walking in coming off North
Second Street so about the company they're trying to create basically a
nice service to the community understanding that dog daycare is a much
growing need in Philadelphia in areas like Northern Liberties and so is
overnight care for the dogs but not boarding again this is some statistics
that they found about almost 50% of the people in Philadelphia own pets and so
forth hours of operation the daytime hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. nighttime 7
p.m. to 7 a.m. there are staggered drop-off pickup times I guess these are
somewhat interchangeable depending on what shift you took but the staggered
drop-off accounts for everybody to have less traffic congestion and that is
managed by the staff in terms of logistics. Keeping the dogs occupied
keeps behavior problems down and the the applicant has agreed to manage ratios of
having one staff for every five to seven dogs even though there's a little bit
more lenient standards at the state level they're willing to go a little bit
lesser smaller ratios there is some limited soundproofing or additional
soundproofing I should say inside the building and there's limitation of
amount of time for dogs outside plus the frequent walks and mental stimulation
should keep sound at a minimum and again dog poop will be collected and brought
back and disturbed you know stored and disposed of at the premises the Northern
The Northern Liberties Association supports the program.
Liberties Association supports the program there are some provisos about
There are some provisos about hours of operation and limits to the number of dogs.
For instance, we've agreed to maximize capacity at 30 dogs, whereas 40 is the legal limit
for this facility.
And again, staff ratios, entryway suggestions, but we're agreeing with them.
And in terms of the outdoor space, there's a limit on number of dogs and how we walk
them so also limiting the number of dogs at 10 at night time so to the extent that the the board
can or or is able to impose any of those provisos we are prepared to accept and agree with it with
them um very quickly here is the two pages pro forma pages of the lease agreement between the
owner and waggy camp limited partnership the execution page copies of the posting
notice to the neighbors of the zoning hearing and RCO meeting and then at the very end as
I indicated we obtained the tax clearance certificate.
We believe that the use will not cause any detriment to the neighborhood or cause any
increase in congestion, overcrowding of the land, burden public utilities, injure any
neighboring parcels endanger public health or is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan.
Why don't we have your testimony adopted? Thank you. If Angela Agnes can raise her hand.
She's been allowed to speak. Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Hi, my name is Angela Agnes, A-N-G-E-L-A-A-G-N-E-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Angela, good afternoon. Did you have an opportunity to hear my statements to the board today?
And were those statements true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
And do you adopt those statements as if they were your own testimony?
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Questions from the board.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
No further hands, Mr. Chair. Okay. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. David Vecto, City Planning Commission. The comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the commercial mixed-use zoning at this location. The applicant has shown
that the proposed animal services will have no detrimental impacts to the neighborhood
beyond what might be expected. The City Planning Commission recommends the board grant the special
exception for animal services. MI 2022-007-067-707 North 2nd Street. I vote yes. Proviso. Use limited
to first floor and basement.
Thomas Holland, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You stay one more time, Ish.
Thank you.
You have your vote.
Thank you very much, members of the board.
Number five, MI-2022-007046-2978 Richmond Street.
Al Nockmson is the attorney.
Recommendation support from Southport Richmond Civic Association.
Letter of non-oppositional council member squill.
And also, applicant has provided a letter of support from the adjacent property owner at 2976 Richmond Street.
Mr. Nockamson, you have already been sworn in. Could you just state your name for the record?
Yes, Alan, A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.
Right. Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
So my client's a property owner. It's Rose Garden, Phillip, LLC. In a virtual audience would be either of its members, Kerry Borish or Bob Shaw.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
I'm going to ask the mail counselor, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal of the stipulating to his act?
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed in this case, probably as in advance of this hearing?
yes we have thank you please proceed and share your screen
pretty straightforward project at 2978 richmond street we're in the
port richmond section of philadelphia we'll review the notice of refusal this is a cmx2 property
We'll review the notice of refusal. This is a CMX 2 property as a mixed-use property for commercial and residential above.
be alone.
We're merely seeking an additional residential unit to help support the commercial corridor.
There are some dimensional variances as well, which are not out of character to what you would expect in this part of the neighborhood.
Because of that, we have a letter of support from the Southport Richmond Civic Association at a well-attended meeting.
the community supported our project. We also have a letter of support from the nearby neighbor at
2976 Richmond Street. Again, one of the individuals that would be most directly impacted by our
project is in support of our project. We also have a letter of non-opposition from Council Member
Mark Swilla. Then we'll review nearby CMX properties with full or near full law coverage.
The reason why we're presenting this in front of the board, two of our variance requests deal with open area as well as rear yard setback.
And what we're proposing in terms of variances is not out of character for this part of the neighborhood, as you'll see.
Then we'll review maps of the area, photographs of the property, our plans and drawings, our RCO meeting notice and proof of mailing of that notice.
Our deeds of the property showing that Rose Garden Villa LLC is the owner of the property and their certificate of tax claims.
Again, in a virtual audience, it should either be Perry Borish or Bob Shaw.
I would ask one of them, virtually raise their hand, be sworn in, and then they can adopt my testimony as their own.
All right, so first things first, this is our refusal.
It's a CMX2 property.
What we're looking to do is demolish the current building structure there, put six dwelling units on the second, third, and fourth floors, and put a commercial space on the first floor.
We have several refusals as a result.
First, because of the lot size of 2,400 square feet, we're asking for six units while only technically five is allowed.
It's not uncommon for this board to grant variances in this part of the neighborhood.
Again, this is a commercial quarter that needs the density that's been struggling for years because the trolley has been inoperative.
Luckily, it's going to start operating, but that commercial corridor needs density in order to survive.
And then the other, then we have two other refusals, dimensional refusals, one for maximum allowable occupied area, where 75% is allowed, and we're proposing 87.58%.
But you'll see as we go through our presentation that that's not out of character.
The same thing with the rear yard depth, where 12 feet is required and 10 feet of rear yard depth is proposed, again, not out of characters, but what we're asking for, whether it's five units or six units with commercial use of the ground floor, we need that extra depth for the building to provide a functional floor plan.
And as you can see, time and time again in this part of the neighborhood, these building structures do go deeper.
It also provides a roomier residential unit as well.
And then we have one other refusal about the balconies facing the rear.
We want outdoor space for every single one of the residential units, front and back.
And so we have front balconies. We would like to match that in the rear with rear balconies.
Our letter of support with the Southport Richmond Civic Association, our letter of non-opposition from Councilmember Mark Squilla, our letter of support from the neighbor right next to us on Richmond Street.
And then, again, non-alph character, we're dealing with some of these dimensional refusals in terms of law coverage and rear yard setback.
but we're here and you can see that other properties in the neighborhoods
also run afoul of those issues regarding block coverage and then where we are uh we're at 2978
richmond street again all cmx2 um we're you know we're not that far from 95 we're between indiana
and Anne Street. Again, what we're asking for is to help support that commercial corridor.
This is the current building structure, which we hope to knock down. Proof of notice of the notice
poster being posted to the property prior to today's hearing. And then you can see this is
the trolley line here. There's ample public transportation nearby, the Cleon bus line.
Here's Richmond Street to the left of the property.
And then our plans and drawings.
Again, these are four-story building.
Again, these are a four-story building.
This is a four-story building, commercial.
This is a four-story building, commercial, completely on the ground floor, built on a slab, so there's no residential use in the basement.
And you can see the balconies are for the front and rear of the property.
We're trying to provide all unit occupants on the upper floors that additional outdoor space.
and then just to quickly go through our floor plans uh the commercial unit you can get through
uh the the front of the property um and then you have two and then also by the way there's
a garbage room that has this accessible to all unit occupants as well where we'll have commercial
pickup um you can go up the flight of steps to the landing for the second floor where there's a
unit to the left of us, a unit to the right of us, you go to the third floor, there's a unit to the
left of us and right of us, and then the fourth floor, again, a unit to the left of us and right
of us. The second, third, and fourth floors are identical in nature, and again, there's no
residential use in the basement, and there's a very responsible garbage maintenance plan
for this property. Again, we met on March 8th at 7 p.m. There are 110 addresses which were
notified of that meeting list those addresses proof of mailing to those addresses our application
for appeal that rose garden and philly llc filed with the zba along with the notice of refusal
and the product information form our deeds of property showing that rose garden philly llc
is the owner of the property and then finally our tax clearance showing that there's no money
owed to the city of philadelphia with regards to uh real estate taxes with that being said i would
ask that either Mr. Borish or Mr. Shaw virtually raise their hands and be sorted.
Mr. Borish has been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Certainly. It's Cary, C-A-R-Y, Borish, B-O-R-I-S-H.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Proceed, counsel.
Yes, Mr. Borish, you heard everything I had to state about your zoning matter.
that is correct and is it true and correct of what i stated correct yes it is and do you adopt
that testimony as your own i do thank you questions from the board no mr chairman
that was jim stillton ish
questions or comments from the virtual audience
no chair i see no further answer okay planning commission thank you chair bergman david facto
city planning commission mr chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends a
change in zoning at this location to residential multifamily the applicant could use the mixed
income housing bonus under the current zoning to achieve an additional unit that they are
requesting. Since balconies are not a required feature for any building, there would be no
economic detriment to the applicant if they were to eliminate them. City Planning Commission
recommends that the board deny the requested variances. MI 2022-007-046-2978 Richmond Street.
I vote yes with proviso. Use registration required prior to occupancy for vacant commercial space.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Number seven, MI-2022-007-303-1637 South 49th Street.
Neil Sklaroff is the attorney.
It was a meeting held on 330-23 at the Southwest Philadelphia District Services.
Council Member Gauthier strongly supports the requested special exception.
Mr. Sklaroff.
Hi, counsel. How are you, sir? Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Neil Sklaroff, N-E-I-L-S-K-L-A-R-O-F-F.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client in the relationship to the property?
Could you identify your client in a relationship to the property?
we're pleased
We're pleased to represent today Bartram's Garden and the John Bartram Association.
The property is owned by the City of Philadelphia, and we bring this application on behalf of and in cooperation of the city.
Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Sir, good afternoon, Counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I did, with the exception of an authorization letter from the city
clarifying the relationship between
the John Bartram
Association and the property.
That should have been sent directly.
I have shared it. Can you see
the first?
We don't see it, no.
I'm sorry. Would you please hold on
as I try to make this...
The green button at the bottom?
Yeah, I did.
And something's come up that maybe
wasn't
Give me a moment, please.
I'll take your time.
Don't quite know why this is not coming up as I expected.
Try this.
Here you go.
It's coming up.
now you're going to hit your exhibits open your exhibits am i into it now do you see it well
you're i we don't see it yet your your your files are there now you got to tap in
the bartram exhibits for not final i thought i just did that sorry why am i back to zoom
now do you see it
let me do it a different way
I'm sorry to
hold everybody up
it doesn't seem like it wants to open
could you go on to the next I apologize we'll go on Sharon we'll we'll we'll double we'll be
back to you in about a half hour. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. No, no, no, it's fine.
Number nine, MI 2022, 007-003-2144 East Norris Street. David Orfanides is the attorney.
Recommendation of support from East Kensington Neighbors Association.
letter of non-opposition from Council Member Lozada.
Neil, could you go out, please?
Mr. Sklaroff?
okay i think he's off right now sorry okay
all right mr can we get mr orphanetes in mr orphanetes has been promoted he'll be good great
hello hi mr orphanetes could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
certainly my name is david orphanetes the last name is spelled o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do sir could you identify your client in relationship to this property
Certainly. My client is the owner of the subject property, LK Investments, LLC.
Okay. And our vice chair has just a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I waive the reading. I do not stipulate to its accuracy. There's one refusal that I believe should not have been issued, but...
Understood.
Understood. Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits?
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing?
I forwarded everything except for the letter of support from the coordinating RCO
and the letter of non-opposition from Councilwoman Lozada,
which I believe the board received separately, but I've incorporated into my exhibit materials.
Okay, no problem.
Thank you.
Please proceed to the screen.
Thank you.
firming you can see my screen we're fine great okay so uh good afternoon uh chairman bergman
and members of the board again my name is david orphanetes with orphanetes and toner llp
and again i am here this afternoon on behalf of the owner of the property lk investments llc
the property is 2144 east norris street it's located at the southeast corner of norris and
Trenton Avenue. Here I have an aerial image of the subject property. You can see it here clouded.
As I scroll in, you can see that East Norris Street, as I toggle back and forth, you can see
that East Norris runs between Front Street and Frankfurt Avenue. I mean, it extends further to
the west and east of that, but for our purposes, that's what we want to focus on. You can see
Trenton Avenue. It's very wide to the northwest of us until it reaches Norris Street at the south
end. And then it becomes a very, you'll see a very narrow street with no parking on either side that
then goes around, swings around to East Houston. And then it connects with Blair Street that can
either come out to Norris or swing back around out to Frankfurt Avenue. Oops. As you can see,
our property from the aerial as a vacant lot. You'll see from the pictures that I've provided
at tab nine that the property is, in fact, a vacant lot. Per the documentation that I have
pulled from Atlas, it looks like the subject property, excuse me one minute,
was the last Sanborn we have is from 2002,
and it shows the property being used for non-residential purposes.
You can see here from Atlas, shows in 2004.
You can see up in the upper right-hand corner,
and this is included at tab 10.
There was a building located at our property.
And then as of 2008, it was vacant.
So the property has been vacant for approximately 15 years.
Again, going back through the years, the Sanborn maps, you can see that it's been this property along with the property abutting it to the, I guess, to the east, which is now utilized for residential purposes, were both utilized for commercial purposes or non-residential purposes.
Here it shows the storage and then other warehousing and other uses going all the way back, repair shop all the way back to 1917.
You can see from the photographs, and right here you can see on the left, the upper image here on page one of Exhibit 9, the buildings that have a history of non-residential use that are being utilized, our understanding for residential uses now.
You can also see the remainder of the block is a mix of converted non-residential structures, non-residential structures that have been converted to residential use.
Here you can see at 2162, a multifamily dwelling.
I believe there are four units there,
total four units that were approved.
Multifamily down at, I'm sorry, I'm scrolling too fast.
Down at Blair and Norris.
Other post in commercial use of properties in the area
and some residential developments
that have come in over the years.
I think I actually came to the zoning board for the one that's at the top of here, page 7.
You can see at the bottom of page 7, that's the wide Trenton Avenue, parking on both sides, perpendicular to the curb.
And then views back to the west, looking towards the L and Front Street.
And then the very large multifamily structure that's located on the other side, the west side of the park.
and the park you can see here you saw in the aerials to the west of us so that park is elevated
that green space is elevated without access from our property and you can see there's about a 20
foot wall masonry wall somewhat deteriorating with chain link fence and overgrowth above it
which is directly across from our property so it creates and you can see this is the monolithic wall
So it creates, and you can see this is the monolithic wall that faces the long portion of our property.
that faces the lawn.
We believe that the longstanding baking condition of the lot creates a hardship here.
We believe that hardship may have been in part created by the intersection of Trenton Avenue and East Norris and how they interact with one another,
as well as this very large looming wall directly across the street from it.
And here's another view of that as it swings around.
And here you can see the park where it drops in elevation ball fields off of Houston.
There is a mix of multifamily use and parking off of Houston just to the west, I mean to the east of our property.
Our application is for a three-family dwelling.
It's presently zoned RSA5.
We believe that this use, even though this property is zoned RSA 5, more than likely part of just an overall blanket remapping,
probably didn't take into account, may not have taken into account the past non-residential use,
as well as the other uses on the property and directly across the street from it.
The refusal, four refusals were issued in addition to the three-family dwelling that we're proposing,
which creates the refusal at the bottom, the use for refusal.
We are proposing two off-street parking spaces. Again, there's no parking on our side of Trenton Avenue where it narrows down. So we're not taking any cars on-street parking off-street.
I disagree with this refusal. If you take a look at tab 12, technically, when you have two frontages, by definition in the zoning code, the side street where one is deemed to be a front, which our property was deemed to be a front at East North Street,
that that side street is actually technically a rear street.
And since there is no parking on that side of the street,
we believe that that refusal should not have been issued
and that parking should be permitted
as to respects of how it's being accessed,
that it's not in violation of 148031C.1
about attached buildings only being accessed
by a shared drive alley or rear street.
Again, if you go through those provisions at tab 12, you'll see that by code, we are parking from a rear street.
It doesn't seem to be a rear, but by definition it is.
We are providing two off-street parking spaces.
When you do not have a one or two family dwelling and you're providing parking with this number of units, we're provided to have one ADA van space.
We discussed that with the neighborhood.
We said we could have one van space or two without.
This is a building that does not have an elevator.
It is not because it's fewer than four units.
It's not required to have a type B ADA unit.
And so given the fact that the buildings, because of the number of units and because
of the smaller lot size, which you will see with the zoning drawings, isn't laid out
to accommodate that. We did not provide the van space. And the main reason for that is a van could
park in one of the parking spaces, but with the ADA van space for parking requirement, there's a
loading space that needs to be next to the parking space, which is basically the size of another
parking space, a regular eight and a half by 18 parking space. And then the other thing is that
are um and you can see this in our zoning drawings is that um that we are just parking in what rear
yard open area that we have and you can see that right here um that rear yard area is along and
you can see again from the photos that i showed you um is we'll be back in this area to the rear
looking at tab 9 page 1 and that rear yard area is to the east is a solid wall the abutting
property to the east of us. And then there is a alley to the south of us, across from which is
the rear of the properties on Houston Street. So the cars will be parking with their headlights
facing into the sidewall of the abutting property. So there shouldn't, and there is an existing, as
you can see, there's an existing fence that separates the properties behind us or abutting
us on Houston Street from our property. So they should be shielded from any headlights for cars
coming in and out. Could you do me a favor? Could you explain the parking again?
Sure. Look at three in the refusal. It's talking about rear yards. Explain why that's not a rear
yard. This is a rear yard. What I was saying is we are parking in the rear yard.
this is a rear yard. So we are, what I was saying is we are parking in the rear yard.
Okay. So that, that refusal, I'm not disputing. It was the fact that they're saying we're not
parking from a rear street. I think rear, you think opposite the front, but the way the code
is written. And again, if we go through that provision, it was that, that one that I was
objecting. Okay. That's fine. Okay. So, so, but so you understand, and as I believe, you know,
in RSA 5, off-street parking is not required. We have two more units than our residential
dwelling units that are technically permitted here. So the idea was for those two additional
units to get two cars that they might generate off-street. So in the end, you're kind of left
with one unit not having off-street parking, which would be the same if we just did an RSA 5
single family without off-street parking. So the reason we did this is for that
to maintain a net impact that would be similar to a bi-rate building without off-street parking.
And again, the rear yard, you know, it's not, and this also serves as our open area,
and the refusal is not for parking in open area, but for parking in the rear yard.
This is a multifamily.
There are steps, as you will see from the design, that lead up by the rear yard.
It's not really a space that's open.
It's just not like you walk out the back of the ground floor unit into the rear yard area.
so it's not something that even if we weren't parking there would be readily utilized by
you know naturally utilized by any of the units and again you can see the three-foot alley
which even we can't that's not part of our property we can't count it as open area or
rear yard space but does provide an additional buffer between our property and the houston
street properties behind us okay um here is a rendering of our property you can see this right
here. We've created bay windows all around, lots of air and light. We have two entrances. We've
tried to make it look like a single family dwelling as much as possible. So you have the
one entrance off of Trenton Avenue, and then the separate entrances, and you can see outdoor space
for each of the units, ground floor units, even with the parking in the rear yard. We have a
kind of a deck off the back of the ground floor, back of the second, that's a flat. Third floor is
a flat. They have a rear deck or balcony, and then the roof deck for their own personal use.
Based upon our meeting with the community, we enclosed the trash. Trash will be stored exterior
here, but there is a trash enclosure to shield it from view. But we designed this, the architect
designed this specifically to have it, even though it's not a single family, to have it read or feel
like it looks and look like a single-family dwelling by having the entrances, two separate
entrances, and this will read like the main primary entrance to a single-family dwelling.
Real quickly, our floor plans, you have a bi-level at the ground floor and the first floor
totaling over almost 1,500 square feet, over 1,400 square feet, so a nice size unit,
and then the second and third floor flats are almost 1,000 square feet. So we're not cramming
a lot in here in terms of making a bunch of 500 square foot units. Each of the units is a decent
size. One of the things we discussed at the community group meeting was the lack of and was
brought up by some members at that meeting, some members of the community at that meeting,
was a lack of market rate, more affordable housing. I'm not using affordable in the sense
that we often see it used with the affordable housing bonus in the zoning code. But if this
were to be a single family dwelling and looking at the property values, the homes that are selling,
let's say across the street or further up Trenton Avenue, you're talking $600,000, $700,000
homes where the prices that we're looking at for these units are more in keeping with somebody
who's trying to buy something, their first home. Again, we went through the Sanborn maps.
My client, here's a copy of the deed at tab 14 showing that my client owns the property,
the tax compliance certificate at tab 15 a copy of the hearing notice that was posted at the
property is at tab 16 the photos of posting along both frontages of the property is at
tab 17 and a tab 18 is the 14 303 notice that we sent out uh in advance of the community group
meeting and you can see a certificate of first class mailing and all the addresses that it went
out to about 87 well went out to 87 addresses and again we have a letter of support from ecna the
east kensington neighborhood association you can see that there was 19 in support only one opposed
and one um and not up non-opposition so effectively 20 to one and then we have the um letter of
non-opposition from councilwoman lazada's office so we believe that there is uh there's a hardship
appear long-standing vacant property with some unique surrounding physical conditions some man
with some unique surrounding physical conditions some man mostly man-made across the street our
parking is not taking any on-street parking across the street even though we're parking the rear yard
because of the surrounding buildings the alley to the rear of us the orientation of those buildings
the impact should not be what is anticipated in having that provision of the zoning code and again
And we feel that the number of units, even though it's not permitted under zoning code for the current zoning classification of the property is RSA-5.
We question whether this property should be zoned RSA-5, particularly when you take into account its history, as well as the non-single family uses of a lot of surrounding properties to the subject premises.
And with that, I would have the architect and my client quickly adopt my statements.
So Alex Duller from FUSA Design.
sir could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter
hello hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
alex duller d as in david u l l e r right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel thank you mr bergman um uh alex you heard my statements
today? I did. And are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge? They are. And would
you adopt them as your own? I would. Thank you, Alex. And then I have Lawrence Kalasauskas,
who's here representing, who is the property owner or here representing the property owner,
the LLC. Okay. Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Lawrence Kalasauskas, L-A-U-R-Y-N-A-S, last name, K-A-L-A-S-A-U-S-K-A-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Chairman Bergman.
Lawrence, did you hear the statements that I made to the zoning board today?
I did.
And are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
And would you adopt them as your own?
I would.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
Mr. Chairman.
Do you have a question?
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
No further hands, Mr. Chair.
Okay. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. David Vecto, City Planning Commission. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location. There is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code. City Planning Commission recommends that the Board deny the proposal.
Thank you. MI 2022-007-003-2144 East Norris Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holland, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Mr. Orphanidis, we'll see you, I guess I'm hoping in about 15, 20 minutes.
I will be here awaiting.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Bergman.
Number 10, MI 2022-006-981-1435 West Gerard Avenue.
Alan Notcomson is the attorney.
letter of support from the United Neighbors Alliance Civic Association.
Mr. Nockmson, just state your name for the record, please.
Allen, A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is 1435 W. Gerard Associates, LLC.
And in the virtual audience is its member, Steve Shobleski.
Okay, our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exited to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, we have.
Thank you. Please proceed to share your screen.
Thank you.
All right, so a straightforward project, hold on, I'm in full screen mode, I'm not going
I'm not going to full screen. All right, well, we're not doing full screen mode today for this one. So 1435 West Gerrard Avenue, corner 15th and Gerrard, a little couple blocks away from the Broad Street line, has been a vacant lot for some time, and we're looking to put a 13-unit apartment building on this CMX4 property.
to full screen mode.
So we'll review the notice of refusal, a letter of support from the United Neighbors Alliance Civic Association.
One of our refusals has to do with a requirement of off-street parking, and we'll show you that it's out of character for this part of the neighborhood,
especially since we're on the Broad Street, adjacent to the Broad Street line, a trolley line, and a bus line to have off-street parking in the neighborhood.
And one of the reasons why we received so much support, I believe, is because the neighbors didn't want us to take parking lot for the street by way of any curb cuts.
We'll then review maps of the area, photographs of the property, our plans and drawings, our RCO meeting notice where we had a well-attended meeting.
I believe 20 people voted in support of this project.
our application for appeal that we filed with the ZPA, our deed to the property, and our
certificate of tax clearance. You know, in the virtual audience is Steve Shobleski, who I will
ask to virtually raise his hand, be sworn in, and to adopt my testimony as his own. First things
first is the notice of refusal. Again, this is a CMX4 property. We could, you know, build higher,
but we chose not to because we built it as out of character with the Niagara Heights.
So we're looking to do a 13-unit apartment building.
One of our refusals actually has to do with the fact that we're building less than six stories.
Because we're building only five stories, we're required to have an open area essentially of 10% of the lot.
We have 100% lot coverage here.
Again, if we were six stories, we would be allowed to do that as a matter of right.
Even though this is a CMX4 property, given the dynamics of the neighborhood and the scale of the neighborhood, five stories is more than enough.
And you'll see through our design, we're very cognizant of the fact where we are in the neighborhood.
We even sat back a little bit on Gerrard Avenue to kind of mix well with the neighborhood.
it. So the first refusal has to do with the fact that we're being mindful of where we're in the
neighborhood. And we would ask for that variance as a result. Second refusal has to do with off
street parking, where technically, and we oppose this section of the code, we think that the
refusal should be three off street parking spots, not four, but neither here nor there. We believe
that um having off-street parking on this corner uh would you know not would be a dangerous
situation first of all from a traffic point of view and i personally live not that far from this
part of the neighborhood so i i drive down gerard avenue quite often and it's at a snail's pace so
having parking off-street parking turning into our property would make the traffic a lot worse
Second, requiring curb cuts, where essentially it would be on a curb cut by curb cut basis where we would lose a parking spot on the street to provide a parking spot off of the street with something that the neighborhood did not want.
And again, in this part of the neighborhood where we are, just off of the Broad Street line, the trolley service, and bus transportation, it would be really out of character to have off-street parking of this sort.
Most properties in this part of the neighborhood do not have off-street parking, which are CMX4 in nature.
So we did get a letter of support from the United Neighbors Alliance Civic Association.
This is the updated letter of support.
The other letter of support that I believe you received earlier last week shows the vote count, where it shows 19 votes in support and none in opposition.
So again, unanimous support for this project.
Then afterwards, in my presentation materials, we did an analysis.
We looked at the nearby CMX4 properties, which are multifamily in nature, which have no accessory off-street parking.
And you can see here, there are 10 other instances, essentially within a block, that are of the similar accord.
So 1420, 1431, 1422, 1427, 1425, 1416, 1426, 1424, 1430, 1432 West Gerard Avenue are each CMX4, each multifamily in nature, and each of them do not have off.
Each multifamily in nature, and each of them do not have off-street parking, which is technically required under the code.
So what we're proposing falls in line with what do we expect in this part of the city.
And then this is just the backup permits that we looked up public records as well for each of those properties.
And then the maps of the area, again, we're on West Gerard, 15th and West Gerard.
you can see we're blocked off from the broad street line here and the photographs of the
property this has been a vacant lot for some time so this is from 15th street this is in 2007 that's
as far as google earth goes back for this property and as you can see it's been a vacant lot for some
time and then just a proof of bar hearing notice postings from both 15th street side and then
Girard Avenue street side. And then Girard Avenue to the right of the property, Girard Avenue to the
left of the property, North 15th Street to the right of the property, North 15th Street to the
left of the property. As you can see, there's really not much off-street parking that's dead
from an accessories standpoint. And then our plans and drawings. What we really did try to do,
even though we're five stories, as you can see, we are set back on the fifth story, even on
uh gerard we just wanted to really fit well within the the height of the community in general again
if we did a six story we would be allowed 100 lock coverage but we thought that was inappropriate
because it would just hover over those other properties and then this is just our elevations
and site planning and then here are some more renderings of the elevation
and then this is just our floor plans um every floor uh has anywhere um uh every floor has two units
and then um our our hearing excuse me community meeting notice we had a meeting on may excuse me
march 8th at you know at 6 p.m 114 addresses were notified of that meeting those addresses
proof of mailing to those addresses or application for appeal that 14 35 w gerard associates llc
filed with this board the notice of refusal the project information form our deeds of property
showing them the client owns the property and finally the certificate of tax funding showing
And then my client owes no money to the city with respect to real estate taxes as to his property.
With that being said, I would ask that Mr. Shobleski personally raise his hand.
He's been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Steve Shklovsky, S-T-E-V-E-S-H-K-L-O-V-S-K-Y.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do proceed sir uh yeah steve uh you heard everything i had this uh uh state about your
zoning matter today i did and is it true and correct it is and do you adopt as your own
testimony i do thank you questions from the board no chair no mr no mr chair questions or comments
from the virtual audience.
Mr. Chair, there is a Toastman postman
with their hand raised.
I'm going to speak at this time.
Hi, could you state your name, please,
and spell for the court reporter?
Hi, yes.
My name is Sean Smek, S-H-A-W-N-S-M-E-C-K.
I do apologize about that.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth is nothing but the truth
yes and you're
you're are you live in the
area 1435 West Broad
yes I live just adjacent
two doors down to the left at 1431
proceed
proceed okay
yes for that
letter that they said they sent out
on May 18th for the neighborhood
for concerned citizens
or concerned neighbors
I would have been somebody to receive that and I
I did not receive anything like that because I would have went to that
meeting to object it.
I want to state that about the parking issue.
If the area that they are trying to take multiple units,
use that as a non non sanctioned parking lot.
I know that because I had an issue where I had tools stolen from there one
day and the police really weren't going to do anything because they know it as a lot
The police really weren't going to do anything because they know it as a lot used for parking in the area.
If you also look in the area itself, right on the corner of Girard and Broad, they're planning to build a 400 apartment unit, which will clutter the area, as well as one block back.
I cannot remember, but it's towards the back facing of 1435 West Gerard Avenue.
There are two brand new apartment complexes that haven't even opened up yet that are going to create more clutter.
So, by putting those apartment units in there, I understand it's been open as a space, but it is not a good place to put it because it will put more congestion in the area that is already there.
Mr. Chair, can I respond?
You can.
you get uh uh so as far as sending out notice uh to the community uh we take that very seriously
uh you know we just blindly get whatever the state planning commission tells us the addresses
we mail those addresses and we get a certificate of mailing so um if you know i i haven't taken a
look but if 1431 should have been there it should have been mailed there and we do send our notices
is at least two weeks in advance. And this was a well-attended meeting. As far as the density
that's being created by this property, that's not the refusal we're seeking. We can actually
build something much larger. And we're choosing not to. This is a CMX4 property. So we're not
taking an RSA5 property and trying to increase density. This is a CMX4 property, which has no
height limitation. We can add as much density as we can put in there. And we're choosing not to.
we're trying to be responsible. And I believe that's why we received unanimous support from
almost 20 people at that community meeting that didn't attend it. All right. Thank you, sir. And
thank you, sir, for calling in. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair. Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman, David
Fecto, City Planning Commission. And I can take a moment if it's okay to clarify. For the letters,
they go to the property owners so if the person was an owner they would have gotten a letter but
if they were a tenant they might not have it could it would be up to the property owner to
give it to the tenant so just to let the gentleman know that if he's if he's actually a tenant he
might not have gotten that letter um so regarding the case uh the comprehensive plan recommends no
change to the commercial mixed use zoning of this location the comprehensive plan also recommends
broad and gerard as a transit related development node so the parking variance is supportable
However, the city's occupied area standards are a basic health and safety standard, and staff has heard no justification for not complying with the occupied area requirement of the code.
So the City Planning Commission recommends granting the parking variance, but denying the variance for occupied area.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, may I just shortly respond to that?
Yeah, so we go street to street on, and let me just share my screen really quickly.
um we go street to street on uh from from gerard avenue to uh flora street
and as you can see here this is our property so having this occupied area of 100 is really
going to do no harm uh to any of the surrounding properties in terms of light in there of having
that 100% because we're actually building to a public street, which, you know, from a safety
perspective, probably makes more sense. If you have a gap in there, especially if it's not fenced
off, may cause like some type of nuisance value for the neighborhood. And again, we're allowed
to have 100% square of lock coverage if we built more than five stories, which we should elect
and not to respect the height of the nearby properties.
So that's, you know, our response to the lot property issue.
Thank you.
MI 2022-006-981-1435 West Rod Avenue.
I vote yes.
Tom Holland, I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Number 12, MI 2022-006-990-1030-40 North 2nd Street, Denver Bazzalo is the attorney for the tenant, 1030 North 2nd Street, for use as a takeout.
for use as a takeout. Okay. Letter of support from Northern Liberties Neighbors Association
Okay, letter of support from.
with one enforceable proviso.
Let me just start my video here. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Could you state your name and
spell please for the court reporter? Sure. Jennifer Bazidlo, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client and the relationship to the property
sure my client is uh essex squeeze uh is there how they do their business it's 1030 north second
street llc technically and they are the tenant of uh the of one of the units in this property
um our vice chair has just a few questions great good afternoon counsel do you
agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, I do. Have you
emailed all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five
days in advance of this hearing? Yes. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen. All right.
let's get to all right so um like i said i'm here today representing essex squeeze
um and i also have on the line uh gonzalo de la cruz who's one of the owners and operators of this
business um they are currently already operating two of these types of stores it's a um smoothie
and a Kybo takeout restaurant. They already have two stores that are successfully operated in New
York City, and they are proposing to open up another location in Liberty's Walk in Northern
Liberty's. So I have submitted a packet, and I'll just go through this briefly. Let me just move
this so I can scroll more easily. We have, it's a referral. It's a special exception. There's one,
And it is just for having an eating and drinking establishment in the North Delaware overlay.
We submitted our project information form.
Here's their lease.
They have a three-year lease on the property.
And you can see our tax clearance.
The letter of support from Northern Liberty's Neighbor Association.
Zoning map will come back to this.
some aerial photographs so you can see where we are.
We're dealing with Liberty's walk across from Piazza.
I'm sure most, if not everyone on the call
is familiar with that area.
Here's our postings.
And you can see this is the outside.
It's just a small unit right here.
It's only about 340 square feet of rentable space.
This is the basement for storage.
This is the interior.
As you can see, it's a very small space.
um here you can see north and south on on second street it liberties walks backs up to
north americans so there you go um this is this is the owners um here's uh the plans i just wanted
to show so while it's 10 30 to 40 north uh second street we're just talking about this one little
unit right here this 101 unit uh we're not talking about a really large operation here you can see
the floor plan with an ordering area and a prep area. And this is the sample menu. We'll come
back. But I just want to go back to the zoning map here. And I'll try to keep this short because
I know we're running late. But this property is zoned CMX3. So it's a commercially zoned property.
It's across from the Piazza. It's on the 2nd Street commercial corridor. And as you know,
in this area we have many restaurants shops stores um this is this is kind of a hub of activity of
that kind of uh business um which is part of the reason that they were so excited to find this
location um so i we believe that this um a smoothie and a kai bowl store takeout store
will be a great fit with the neighborhood um and i just wanted to say yeah so um we'll go to the
menu, just so you can see this. We have juices, we have smoothies, we have bowls,
great nutritious food. As I've already mentioned, they already have two successful locations.
In this location, their proposed hours would be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and trash is going to be
coordinated with their landlord at Liberty's walk for commercial pickup, and there is no
commercial kitchen here. It's blenders. So there's no stoves, fryers, that sort of thing.
So this is a special exception. In CMX3, a takeout restaurant would usually be allowed by
In CMX 3, a takeout restaurant would usually be allowed by right, but because we are in the North Delaware Avenue overlay, it is required to get a special exception.
The standard is for a special exception, as you know, that it will not cause specific detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what normally might be expected for that use.
So I just kind of want to go over how we're meeting those criteria.
In general, like I said, this is a small takeout store. It's only approximately 341 square feet.
So any impact that this might have just by the nature of the size is going to be smaller than expected when you're dealing with the same kind of use category or perhaps a large restaurant with, you know, 50 or 60 seats.
Also, the location, we expect to have this sort of business on this commercial corridor in a CMX3 zoning, surrounded by other restaurants. In fact, this business is going to be located between a Starbucks and Set No Libs is on the other side of it.
So, you know, we're in between other food service businesses.
And also we have experienced operators who know how to run this type of business, as well as the fact that we are going to be, the Liberty's Walk has extensive criteria for maintenance of property, trash collection, noise, smells, all that sort of stuff, which are enforceable through the lease that will make sure that this business has very little impact.
So why don't you call your client, we'll adopt your testimony.
Sure. Wonderful. I'll just put on the record also that Northern Liberty is Neighbors Association.
Okay. Sure.
Okay. All right. So can I call Mr. De La Cruz? Can you raise your hand?
Mr. Chair, I have a hand raised from a number in 4-0-7-0.
Okay, let's take it. Let's see who it is.
sir or madame star six to unmute hi could could you state your name please and spell for the
gonzalo de la cruz g-o-n-z-a-l-o de la cruz d-e-l-a-c-r-u-z right do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do you're the owner of the property
the building all right he's the tenant of the property right go see
sure uh mr de la cruz have you heard my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful and
accurate yes and would you adopt it as your own yes great thank you the questions from the board
no chair
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary.
I just had two quick questions for Jen.
One, the provisos in the Northern Liberties letter, one of them is hours of operation.
Is your client in agreement with what was recommended there or no?
I believe so, yes.
And then the refusal didn't specify the location.
And I believe based on the tenant, I mean, the, excuse me, based on the lease that the, the, this is specifically in suite LW1-A.
Which is, it's 1022, yeah, there's several designations.
1022 North 2nd, number 101.
In addition, it's also identified in the lease by the tenant suite number that you stated.
So I think either of those or both of those in a proviso is acceptable.
Okay, thank you.
Anyone in the virtual audience?
Yes, sir.
I have Ms. Belinda Harrison with her hand raised.
I have a mic at this time.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
I'm Belinda Harrison.
I believe I'm here for the next meeting for 640 North 40th Street.
It told me we were going to start at 330.
okay uh we'll we're going to get to that um um is there anyone in the virtual audience
for okay no one left no sir okay planning commission thank you chair bergman david
effecto city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed
to use zoning at this location, the applicant has shown that the proposed eating and drinking
The applicant has shown that the proposed eating and drinking establishment will have no detrimental impacts beyond what might be expected.
establishment will have no detrimental impact.
The City Planning Commission recommends the board grant the special exception for eating and drinking establishments.
MI 2022-006-990-1030-40 North 2nd Street.
I vote yes with provisos.
Hours of operation 8A to 8P seven days a week.
use limited to suite
James Snell yes with Proviso
my vote is yes with Proviso
Ishmael Shaheed
my vote is yes with Proviso
you have all your yeses
thank you so much
thank you by the way
okay we're going to go back
to number six I believe
Mr. Chair I believe that was number seven
Mr. Sklaroff could you come back
one please
Mr. Sklaroff
Mr. Sklaroff, take your time.
I think we should be good here.
You've already been sworn in all appropriate questions, so please share your screen.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary. Can you just read the case into the record again?
MI-2022-007-303-1637 South 49th Street.
Can you see my screen?
We can.
Good afternoon again, and I appreciate the delay that you've granted me.
As I said earlier, we represent Bartram's Garden and the John Bartram Association.
A little context before we go through the exhibits. The Concrete Cowboys of Southwest Philadelphia, which is wishes to relocate its horses to a stable on the Bartram's Mile located on property owned by the city.
You may have seen the movie about the concrete cowboys from Philadelphia, widely acclaimed.
The city of Philadelphia will enter into an agreement with concrete cowboys of southwest Philadelphia to operate a stable at this location.
The John Bartram Association operates Bartram's Garden in association with the city of Philadelphia.
On behalf of the city, as the owner, Bartram's Garden makes this application.
This application seeks a special exception to allow animal services, including boarding, and other services at the stable.
The stable is located in I-2 General Industrial District.
With me to answer any questions, Trey Roy, the Executive Director of Bartram's Garden and the Landscape Architect of Summer Now, as well as Leroy Divers, the Director of Concrete Cowboys.
Could we go to the next slide? I'm sorry, I have to do that.
Why is it not doing it now?
we have a list of exhibits yep why it's being slow
exhibit one is our tax certification exhibit two is just a portion of the agreement that
the city will enter into when it's revised with concrete cowboys
exhibit three is a copy of the zoning notice as received exhibit four gives us some context
as you'll see from this overhead map the area in green is Bartram's garden approximately 50 acres
it dates to 1728 and is the oldest botanical garden in the United States you'll note here
there is an orange line that goes from Bartram Gardens proper along Botanic Avenue, and then
this place with the star begins the 1637 South 49th Street property.
begins the 1637 South 49th Street property.
And that orange line is part of Bartram's Mile Trail.
And about halfway up, parallel to the Schuylkill, is the proposed site for Concrete Cowboy Southwest Stable, Southwest Philadelphia Stable.
uh we posted the property there's only one street frontage so you'll see here the posting of the
notice as well as the required notice of referral is posted
uh this is a photograph uh looking south from the posted notices i believe that's botanic street
and uh most of this area is owned by the city uh this is a photograph within the area near the
Bartram's Mile Trail, and it is one of the sites proposed for the placement of the stable.
This photograph illustrates the Bartram Mile Trail.
This is the zoning site plan.
this kind of pale pink here. The rectangle to your right is a 20 by 50 stable. The rectangle
to the left will be a 20 by 50 roof. These are shown here. Here's the five stalls for the stable
and you see here is the roof overhang.
That's the stable.
And I think this is being delivered.
And the next photograph is of the stable
as it waits to be moved to Bartram's Mile Trail.
This is our notice of referral.
As likely noted the first time we tried today, we need a special exception because this is for animal services, which includes the boarding and care of the horses.
Our application for special exception, along with our project information form, our accelerated review form, and our notice of referral was there.
This is a copy of our letter to the Identified Coordinating Registered Community Organization, the Southwest Philadelphia District Services. It held a meeting. And well, first of all, here's the letter that went to the addresses shown on the Planning Commission's website.
And we have the proof, along with the notice of referral, and the proof of mailing, and a resume of Executive Director Roy.
And then what I don't have here, but the board has received, is the letter from the Commissioner of Parks and Rec explaining the relationship between Parks and Rec and their support for this application.
Also, the board should have received a letter of support from the RCO, Southwest Philadelphia District Services, as well as a report on the meeting at which there were 19 attendees and three RCO board committee members, all of whom voted in favor of our application.
We'd be glad to answer any questions. I'm trying to shorten this by invoking section 14303-14F without any objection from any other parties. I ask that the statements I've made be attributed to our client, Bartram Spartan.
That's fine.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is Hillary.
Mr. Schler, the board did not receive the letter from the RCO,
so if you could please forward that after the hearing,
that would be greatly appreciated.
I certainly will do that.
I will do that within the hour.
Question, comments from the Planning Commission?
i'm excuse me mr chair mr craig maladosian has his hand raised do i allow him to speak
yes understood sir could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
Craig, C-R-A-I-G, last name Melidosian, M-E-L-I-D-O-S-I-A-N.
craig c-r-a-i-g last name maladosian
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed, sir.
Speaking on behalf of Award 27 Republican RCO, which supports this application, you may also be familiar with me as the leader of Award 40 Republican RCO.
So we have a significant problem with stabling of horses throughout Southwest Philadelphia.
This opportunity would be extraordinarily beneficial to all of Southwest and the university area to be able to move some of these horses into this outstanding location.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to call into your input.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No one else, Mr. Chair.
All right, planning commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. David Fecto, City Planning Commission. The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning in this location to light industrial. The applicant has shown that the proposed animal services will have no detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what might be expected. The City Planning Commission recommends the board grant the special exception for animal services.
Thank you. MI 2022-007-303-1637 South 49th Street. I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheen, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Sklaroff.
Thank you.
Listen, before we start our case, we're going to take a five-minute break.
We'll come back, we'll do the case, and then we'll just – I don't think we have as many things left on the 3.30 list, and we'll get to the 3.30 list.
Well, let's take a five-minute break, give our court reporter a chance to get ready for the next case.
Thank you, Chair.
Case number one from, we're going to go to case number one.
That was on the 2 p.m. list.
MI 2022-006-988-1124-28 Dickinson Street.
David Orfanides is the attorney.
Also, Joel Rosen represents the Protestants.
um we have a letter of non-opposition from the passion square civic association
and a letter of non-opposition from council member squiller
Mr. Orphanitis
excuse me sir
Mr. Orphanitis will be coming back in as a panelist
and how about Joel Robbins
Mr. Rosen
if you're in the virtual audience please
raise your hand
Okay. All right. So Mr. Rosen has also been promoted to panelists and will be rejoining us shortly.
Mr. Orphanides, you've already been sworn. Could you just state your name for the record, please?
Certainly. Again, my name is David Orphanides, O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Mr. Rosen, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Joel Rosen, R-O-S-E-N.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And you represent the Protestants in this case?
Leslie Elder, Dave Fortino, Kevin Rosen, and Anya Rosen.
All right.
Mr. Orphanides, could you identify your client and relationship to this property, please?
Certainly.
My client is Dickinson Partners LLC, that's D-I-C-K-I-N-S-O-N Partners LLC, and the owner at LLC is the owner of the subject property.
All right, and our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
If you are referencing the refusal dated October 25th, 2022, I stipulate to its accuracy and waive the reading.
Yes. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I submitted all the required documents five days in advance. I do have some additional exhibits in anticipation that I've added to my that I will may use and present today that I've added to my exhibit book in response to the email that I just received.
that i've added to my exhibit book uh in response to the email that i just received i think it was
yesterday um from where former toning board solicitor sharon saleta had forwarded an email
that she received from mr rosen with his exhibits um and so i um added some exhibits to possibly
address those but the required ones that you are referencing the lion's share of my exhibit book
was submitted five days in advance if you're going to if you're going to share any of those
additional videos please share those with our attorney yes i will yes i can send those yes
and david if you don't mind could you if i give you my email could you shoot them over to me too
please yeah i can send you a link dropbox link it's a huge file so i hear you uh yeah i'm at
jrosen at cprlaw.com so okay and just so so we start mr orphanages mr rosen we're going to go
to 5 15 at 5 15 we're going to if we're not done we're going to order a resumptive hearing okay
understood i got it all right can i can i just ask ahead of time because i we have been waiting a lot
of the afternoon david do you think you're going to be going that long because if that's the case
I would release my well they probably want to watch it anyhow that's fine let's just go let's
just go I mean I I don't believe I'll need to go that long I think part of but it'll depend on how
long you go and what your clients get I mean I think my presentation is relatively straightforward
okay well that'll be interesting okay why don't we uh why don't we share your screen sir and we'll
start? Sure. Can you see my screen? I can. Okay, great. So again, my name is David Orfanides. I'm
with the law firm of Orfanides & Toner, LLP, and I'm here this afternoon on behalf of Dickinson
Partners, LLC, the owner of the subject properties 1124 to 26 and 1128 Dickinson Street.
I have a photo, which is a cover photo for my exhibit books, showing on my screen right now.
You can see the subject property is an existing two-story structure.
It has a history of, a long history of non-residential use.
It is presently zoning classified RSA 5.
In this photo, and I'll get into a little bit more, you can see a three-story building to the right.
If this looks a little bit familiar to you, it's because back in the fall, we were in front of you for 1122 Dickinson Street, which is the abiding property just to the left of this photograph.
And with that case, we were calling for the demolition of an existing two-story structure and to rebuild that.
um the zoning board did approve issue um it approved to draw the revised drawings for that
and um i just want to go to the zoom so it's down at page level okay you can see here um
on october 19th they approved the drawings approved the revised proviso plan form
uh and the zoning permit was issued uh here's the renderings for that project that were presented
To the left of, so this is also owned by my client. And like I said, we came through for a variance for that, that was supported by the community and supported by the zoning board.
You can see to the left of our building, 118 to 20 Dickinson Street, two-story existing structure in this rendering that I believe that one of Mr. Rosen's clients, Leslie Elder, owns.
You will see in my exhibit book, the additional exhibits, that that property was granted a variance for use as a two-family dwelling some time ago.
So it's a two-unit building that was granted a variance by the zoning board.
So if any of this looks familiar, these photographs, you've seen this block and you've seen this property just a little under six months ago.
The proposal is to demolish this existing structure and in its place to construct a dimensionally compliant.
And it's a dimensionally compliant, not as in if it's maxed out to what could be built here,
but something less than what could be built on this property, and to utilize that as a three-family dwelling with two-car accessory parking, utilizing the existing curb cut.
You can see there's an existing curb cut and a garage door, relocating the existing curb cut.
Our only refusal, and I flipped this, I think, accidentally in the exhibits.
What I asked is we had an original refusal that was issued.
What I asked is, we had an original refusal that was issued, there was some back and forth with the examiner, and he issued a revised or updated notice of refusal on October 25th, and the only refusal is for the three-family use on this RSA-5, these RSA-5s and properties.
There was some back and forth.
um the two properties in question and let me just go to that are you can see here on the survey plan
as part of the application um the the architect or the project had to uh originally uh submit an
application and a permit to consolidate the lots in order to proceed with this current application
But you can see, and that's not been acted upon other than in context of this current application and matter before the zoning board.
But you can see that there are two existing lots, or were, and would be if this were not to be approved.
One is 1124 to 26 Dickinson Street, which is a very oddly shaped, obviously, triangle, 538.1 square foot lot.
The other parcel is 1128 Dickinson, and as you can see, also extremely irregularly shaped in the sense that the front portion is angled, it's not at right angles, and that it extends extremely deep.
It's only 14 feet at the rear across, so even though it's 20 feet of frontage on Dickinson Street, if you cut perpendicular across that, it's approximately 14 feet wide, and you can see that it's very long.
It's 2,290 square feet.
So the one, it's kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
2, 2, 11, 24 to 26 is way too small as far as RSA 5 properties or surrounding parcels.
It's smaller than anything else around in the area.
And it's obviously regularly shaped when you're looking at the minimum lot area.
We used to be 1440.
It's now, I think, 960 or 980.
So much smaller than that.
And then you have 1128, which is much larger at over almost 2,300 square feet.
I would say that 1118 to 20 Dickinson Street is a lot that is similar in size.
I have some OPA information in my exhibit book that I've added, a little bit smaller than 1128.
and that, as I indicated, has already been granted a variance for a two-family dwelling.
My clients evaluated whether or not they could construct a single-family dwelling on each of
the parcels. Under current building codes, 1124 to 26 is virtually impossible. You end up with
a trinity with all kinds of strange angles. It just isn't constructible. It's not marketable.
And then 1128 Dickinson, because of its long shape, its large size, also has construction issues and marketability issues. And my client will testify as to the performance he ran regarding the use of them and the architect as well, Rick Miller, regarding developing them for single family, each of them for single family use.
And then the ability to either sell them as well for a single family use or to combine the lots for a two family use.
So we've spent a lot of time, my client and the architect, I think my client first came to me with these properties, I don't know, four years ago, maybe longer, five years ago.
There's been a lot of work that's been done with engineers, with architects to try to figure out if it could be done as two single family dwellings.
And we're here rather than having two single family dwellings, having two separate parcels, two separate structures, having a consolidated lot with one additional unit, and that would be three units.
You'll see from our floor plans, which I can go to, that the square footage of each of the units is what the OPA indicates to be the size or the amount of the improvements for the properties that abut our property on either side on Greenwich, Greenwich Street, and on Cross Street, Greenwich Street.
of these properties over here and cross these properties back here and we'll go through that
as indicated earlier um we did meet with uh passing passing square civic association um they
did issue a letter of non-opposition they did reflect that the community straw poll was seven
and one in opposition and that the committee there's only committee voted in favor of it
five to four and then we have the letter of non-opposition from councilman's school's office
We do have revised zoning drawings at tab two. Those letters, the position letters, are at tab three of my exhibits.
of my exhibits. Tab two shows revised zoning drawings. We listened. My client, I think,
Tab two shows revised zoning drawings.
despite some communications that we've seen over the last day or two, as well as the petition
that was submitted by counsel by Mr. Rosen there, my client has attempted to engage,
has engaged and attempted to engage the immediate neighbors, particularly those neighbors on
Greenwich Street regarding the project for quite some time. And, but based upon the comments that
we heard, the main one being issued by the owner of 1118 to 20, Ms. Elder, regarding a window,
as you can see, and let me go to the survey.
So as you can see, the existing building that's there right now, it's two stories and drops to one in the back, extends almost to the back of her building, which occupies 100% of a lot.
It's a nonconforming structure with a use that's been granted by the zoning board.
Apparently, there are windows or a window in this wall that's on the property line, I think, which most of us know is not permitted under building codes.
so it's in the legal window and there were concerns or windows there were concerns expressed
by miss elder regarding uh air and light going into uh her property um and what we tried to do
and well you can see with the original design let me find the original design um we were
we were we were approximately five feet deeper um we were unable because of the layout and the
configuration of both lots to pull the building back to where it is um past so it didn't exceed
past her building um but we did pull the building back five feet um removed rear decks at the upper
at the third floor reduced the depth of wing walls so we took a building that was already
dimensionally compliant and far below the requirements for the zoning code both in terms of
occupied area and in terms of rear yard depth i mean not oops nine feet is a required rear yard
depth because of the lot being so deep we have a 73 foot rear yard all that open area right now
that's being uh that's located to the rear of the existing building and i'm taking to the aerials at
tab 8. you can see the long open area to the rear uh portions of that are presently being utilized
by miss elder um by lasel williams at 1118 dickinson which is part of miss elder's property
um Mr. Portino at 1124 and Mr. Rose and Mr. and Ms. Rosen at 1122 for gardening at the present time
uh with my with my client's permission but uh we pulled the building back but you know we still
have this issue because of the layout that we're blocking the illegal windows that are on the party
wall or party line right here um we attempted to address reduce the light impact linear and light
to 11.24. Again, even though there are no dimensional variances, my client did what he
could do to reduce the impact. And you can see at the shadow studies that we have at tab seven,
again, this is, you know, I'm talking about dimensional issues here, which was what we heard
a lot of at the community group meeting. And if you look at tab seven, you can see it's really
an arrow back there. You can see with the existing structure, they're shadowing by the
buildings on Cross Street and the buildings on Greenwich Street at different times of the day
into their rear yards. And, you know, we can go through these, you know, a greater length
based upon questions that you may have. But we then showed the difference between this is our
original proposal and you can see that other than the building extending past the rear of 1118 to
20 and blocking those rear windows the building does not extend very deep as it was originally
proposed and then this is as it was revised where we pulled it back it only goes before the original
proposal extended almost completely or three quarters of the way behind 1124 which is mr
Fortino's property right here and we were able to pull it back so it's only about halfway but
the shadowing that happens back there is still as you can see largely I mean there's no shadowing
created here and they're shadowing already created by the buildings on the on cross street on the
backs of their buildings later in the day I wanted to show you this we also did a shadow study and
I wanted to show you this.
We also did a shadow study and provided that.
provided that that shows
That shows this is what a buy rate building looks like at this property.
With the 75% lot coverage, it not only extends past 1118 to 20, 1124, 1122, but extends all the way to 1120 and close to 1118 Greenwich Street.
And then the other properties over here on Cross Street.
That is not what my client had originally proposed anywhere close to that.
But, you know, again, we're not here for dimensional variances, but that seems to be, from what we heard, the lion's share of the concerns that were expressed at the community group meeting, which, again, we attempted to address and provide it to the Passing Square Civic Association.
We do have some letters of support from some parties on Cross Street, 1127 and 1133 to 35.
Here you can see where those properties are in context to our property. Mr. Rosen did provide a petition that was signed by a number of people. I think there were about 27 signatures on them.
I would like to point out that 1127 Cross, even though their note is as somebody who's opposed to the project, signed a letter of support for us with a lot more detail in it.
And my client can speak to his interactions with Mr. Spichowski.
In addition, that petition, and we can go through this when the time comes, I've also provided this to show you that other than Mr. Rosen's clients at 1118 to 20, 1124, 1122,
at 1120, all the other properties, if we go through those addresses, I think there's 27
that have signed. Some of them are at the same property, but they are not properties that
abut. There's only, I think, four properties that abut. I think the other one being 1139 cross,
And then I'm not sure where Teresa DiOrio lives, whether it's 1129 cross or 1124 cross.
I can't tell if that's a nine or a four, but we can go through that.
But you'll see, you can utilize this map that I provided at 4A of my exhibit book to see that the, other than Mr. Rosen's clients and maybe one or two other property owners,
that everybody else either doesn't abut the property or is located across Dickinson Street,
across Greenwich Street, across Cross Street, and aren't impacted at all by this property.
I did include some, you know, as a follow-up to what we heard, some claims regarding lack
of communication by my client, some text messages with him and Mr. Fortino, Ms. Elder,
efforts to try to reach out to them. I can get into those later with my client if need be.
Here's the renderings that we have of this project. Again, it's very much in keeping with
the renderings that were approved previously by the community and the zoning board for 1120.
You can see those here. And again, I'll talk about this in a minute. One of the things that
was discussed. We did mention to the zoning board at the time we came in for 11-22 because we did
have a refusal for not setting back the third floor because at the time we had, or even now,
we have two-story at 11-18 to 20, Ms. Elder's property. And then we had the two-story at the
property we were before you today about. But we did mention we'd be coming back with a three-story
which doesn't generate, wouldn't have generated a setback for the third floor, a requirement for
that because we have three-story buildings to the west of us at 1130 and 1132 and 1134 all the way
down to Cross Street. You're going to see in a couple minutes that in terms of the use,
again, let me just go through the renderings. We've designed this to look, have the look of
two single-family dwellings. You can see, you know, two doors with the curb cut accessing
two-car off-street parking. This door to the right will access the two units that are going
to be over on the upper floors. And then the door here will be accessing the ground floor,
the bi-level unit that goes ground floor and cellar. So our hope is that even though we have
three units here that it's going to read as if it's two units similar to the two properties that were there.
as if it's two units similar to the two properties that were there
part of our revisions you can see the pilot house that's up here the one of the other revisions
you can see in our revised proviso plan form is that we did reduce the size of the pilot
house and then shifted it ever so slightly as a result further away from the front of
the building that pilot house is not going to be visible from the street
uh in terms of the floor plans um these are we had original floor plans here which had the
uh deeper building you can see uh it extended further and deeper oops sorry about that um
showing the deck up at the there was there's an existing deck at the ground floor which will
remain even in the building pulled back a little bit and you can see that here in the revised floor
plans. The second floor will have a deck off the back that will be its outdoor area. We pulled back
the wing walls on either side to reduce the massing that the building, the properties either
side of us see. And then we completely, and you can see on the original plan, the third floor had
a deck off the back. And then we've completely eliminated that with the revised design. And again,
pulling the building back you can see over here it's showing at 30 feet currently and
on the original design it was you know going all the way back what they saw was 35 feet
and the pilot house at the reduced size there you go
again so those floor plans were tab six the renderings for the original design
we used the renderings from the original design because the front facade didn't change
There was no reason to go and redo them because the front facade didn't change.
But all the changes we made were to pull the building back at the rear to, again, to reduce the impact, the dimensional impacts upon nonconforming and other properties to the rear of us, even though we don't have a dimensional variance.
Again, the aerial images showing the two lots together as they would be if this project is approved.
Very erect, both of them, again, as you saw in the survey plan, extremely irregularly shaped, particularly 1124 to 26 being a triangle, but, you know, very bizarrely shaped.
And again, you can see here, here to the left is 1122, which had the variance.
Here's 118, to the left of that is 1118 to 20 Dickinson, which is right at the corner of Dickinson and Greenwich.
And then Mr. Rosen's other clients at 24, 22, and 20 Greenwich are all right here.
Again, running along the side of the lot.
You can see, if I go back to the aerial, Dickinson Street is, you know, a block and a half off of Pass Yonk Avenue, which obviously is a busy commercial corridor.
and different views of the property from north, south, east, and west in three-dimensional
imaging. The property is, again, zoned RSA 5. There's no doubt about that. It does look from
the zoning archive for the subject property, which date back to only back, I think it dates
back to about the 80s, or yeah, back to the 80s, that showed at that time it was mixed residential
and commercial. C2 commercial and R10 residential. R10 allowed for multifamily. I'm guessing 1124
was probably the R10 and the building itself was the C, the commercial. But you can see where
it was permitted for car storage and an office for a contractor, which basically it's remained
until this day. So those zoning archives are tab 13. The Sanborn maps we have for Mr. Holloman.
show the property going back to 1923. You can see back in those days with building codes not being
what they are today, 1124 was utilized for what looks like a single family dwelling
structure possibly, then auto repairing at 1128, 46. And then you can see by sometime,
I can't make out necessarily what was going on in 46. Obviously, 28 was remaining auto,
But then by 51, you can see that the properties were being utilized for non-residential purposes.
And through the years 1986, 1988, you can see here it says office up here, 89, 92, and 96, 2000.
I did include one thing to take note in terms of the use.
Again, we're only about a block and a half off of Dickinson Street.
So the properties, let me go to the zoning map. So here's 1124, here's 11, well, it's 1124 to 26 and to 28. The next two properties to the west of us on Vickinson Street, even though there's zoned RSA 5, you can see at tab 16A that 1130, if you were to read through those, is zoning classified for a three-family,
The properties, let me go to the zoning map.
or it's only classified, permitted for a three-family.
1132, the next property to the west is also a three-family.
The next property to the west, which is at Cross and Dickinson,
is a residential and non-residential animal services.
and then the properties on the opposite corners of cross and uh or south 12th and dickinson at
1501 south 12th and at 1441 south 12th and if i go back to the zoning map those are
that's this property here and this property here are also zoning now there are the one
down here at um 15 one south 12th is zoned for commercial use but the rsa five portion uh
property up here at 1441 uh is not and that obvious and that has a commercial residential
mixed use i did include an ad um to my exhibits uh following uh information i received regarding
the opposition uh after friday uh this week um early part of this week i put included the zoning
archive for 118 to 20 which is one of Mr. Rosen's clients and it's the property with the
window on the property line showing that it was granted a variance back in the 90 back in 90 for
a two-family dwelling. Now again that lot area is about the same as the lot area for
our 1128 and that was obviously granted for two.
you can see that there i've included a copy of the opa's printout for this property
showing that it's lot size 2289 per the opa and the improvement area of 1900 square feet
again if we go back to um and i pulled i didn't include it i have time to include it but in
looking at you know miss elder's property in terms of improvement area reflected by the opa
probably the largest of Mr. Rosen's clients
and those properties that abut us.
The properties that abut us are property from 1124
running all the way down to 1116
or only just over 1,000 square feet
or up to about 1,140 square feet.
And those are on cross street
are just a little bit over 1,000
or just a little bit over 1,100 square feet.
And again, going back, the idea here
is that if we were to build, you know, one large structure on 1128 or even for two residential
dwelling units, the size of them is going to be, they're going to be brand new as compared to
everything else. And they're going to be far larger than anything else in the area. And again,
if I go to the floor plans, you can see that the unit, the ground floor and cellar unit
is going to be 1,930 square feet,
950 plus 880, if my math is correct.
And that the second floor and the third floor unit
are each 1,370.
This little thing's crossing,
but you can see over here on the left.
So even though we have three units on this property,
they're in terms of the square footage,
they're all going to be the same size,
if not larger than the existing single family homes
that abut our property.
uh tab 17 tab 18 i have uh our zoning board appeal and the project information form tab 19
is the deed showing my client owns a subject property tab 20 is the tax compliance certificate
um tab 21 is the zoning board hearing notice for today's hearing that was posted at the subject
property in conformance with the requirements of the zoning code you can see the posting photographs
at tab 22. And then at tab 23 is a copy of our 14303 notice for the January 10th meeting with
Passing Square Civic Association, the addresses to which the notice was sent by first class mail
and the certificate of first class mailing. 191 mailings were made. And I think, again,
as you look back at the letter from Passing Square, looks like there were eight people in
the audience and and then the committee members if you give me one minute
and um and then the committee members uh if you give me one minute let me just take a look
um back to the floor plans real quickly we are only proposing uh two bedrooms per unit
uh it is the same that's a revision that we made following the community group meeting
um it's the same number of bedrooms if you were to develop a single family and they were
unrelated people living in each building or each unit on the two properties as they presently
stand. If you build a single, if you were able to build and sell a single family dwelling on the
489 square foot, 1124 to 26, and they were all unrelated people living there, you know, you can
have more than three of them. So you would have three bedrooms and then 1128, again, in a very
massive oversized lot and building, you could only have up to three unrelated people living. So we
wanted to make the density in terms of occupancy the same as a two family. You could see from the
renderings. We made it look like two single families. When I said two families, two single
families. We were able to utilize the existing curb cut and work it into the design of the
project to get two-car parking off-street. Obviously, without that existing curb cut,
and if it were two separate parcels, you would have one unit with parking and one unit without.
So we are able to get two cars. It is stacked mechanical parking, just to let you know, there are some weird because of the angle of the front of the building.
There's some difficulty getting more than two cars stacked or mechanical lifted parking in.
We tried, ran through a lot of iterations to get side by side parking coming in.
But because of the way that the building and then the interior is laid out, we weren't able to make it work and get the full depth for the parking space.
We spent a lot of time with Cornerstone Engineering going through that.
But we believe that there's a hardship given the size of the lots, the configuration of the lots.
When you take into account the surrounding properties, the size of those properties, the size of the improvements on those properties, the three-family use of the two properties beside us, the two-family use at 118 to 20 Dickinson, the limitation on the number of bedrooms, not putting three bedrooms in each unit, but only two, providing two-car off-street parking.
um the fact that you know 11 18 to 20 is not a dimensionally client compliant building had a
variance granted for the uses there that the other existing structures very well may not be don't
look to be dimensionally compliant in terms of open area which really really only be a consideration
if we were looking for a dimensional variance here uh regarding the impact on air and light
and then my clients efforts to reduce the impact upon air and light even though not required to do
so to take a building that was already below the dimensional standards and further reduce it shows
his interest in trying and you look at the design and trying to make a building that works and fits
in the neighborhood you know works with the building that was approved at 1122 and and his
interest in continuing to work with the neighbors even if it's you know utilizing his property as
the garden until the time comes that this development is finalized. So with that, right
now I would rest. I would reserve the right to rebut. And I don't know if you want me to have
my statements adopted by my clients now, or perhaps when we're done at the end.
Do it at the end. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Rosen, how long do you think your case will take to present?
My case will take some time. And frankly, my cross-examination, I'm going to want to ask
his architect questions they want to ask so so so let me say this much to make it cleaner so that
you don't start for 15 minutes then we cut it i think what we're going to do is we'll we'll go
now for a resumptive hearing so that when we come back mr rosen will start he'll put on his case
and then we'll do what we normally do but i i don't i don't want to i don't want to cut it now
I don't want to cut it 15 minutes from now.
I'd prefer to do it now.
Would you agree to that?
I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.
Yes, I would agree with that.
David?
Yeah, I don't have an issue.
I think you would agree.
I think you know how I tried my best to be sure.
Well, I think you did.
I think you did.
For me, that was brief.
Can I ask a couple?
I apologize.
I have not done these type of hearings before,
so I'm not sure of the procedures moving forward.
Can we get notice ahead of time of what the proposed resumptive date is going to be so I can include?
We are.
I think, just so you know, Hillary, didn't we look at this already?
Yes, I believe so, Mr. Chair.
Yes, I believe so, Mr. Chair.
Lakeisha?
Lakeisha?
Yes, and the resumption date was...
Just give me one second.
The parties would all receive notice if they filled out the...
I think we have a date.
Let's see if we can find it, David.
Just for Mr. Rosen.
And they would also, they would get all notification to log into this if you provided the address and your address and email.
And it's June 13th at 930.
Say that again, June 13th?
At 930.
Oh, great.
Could we be the first case call, Bernard?
That works for me.
Can I just do a quick text with my people?
Because I know they're listening.
This is Hillary. I'm Mr. Orphanides. Would you want to have the architect adopt your testimony now if Mr. Rosen's presentation will include cross-examination? He could start with that?
Sure. I can have both him and my client, and then, I mean, as far as what I've said to date, and then anything that gets said after that, I mean, they would probably be…
You could call them rebuttal.
I would call them as rebuttal witnesses at that point.
Yeah, I think it would be good just now and then we can start with cross-examination by Mr. Rosen that he could get to the rest of his presentation and then any rebuttal that you had you can do.
Sure, and I just want to make it clear, I did kind of, you know, in hopes of trying to make, I didn't know how long Mr. Rosen was going to take, but I did compress, you know, my presentation in the effort to kind of make this go faster.
So, yeah, there will be some additions.
What are you going to do with the architect now?
It'll just adopt your testimony and your client will adopt your testimony.
Yeah, that's fine for what's happened thus far.
Yep, not a problem.
Let's wait until Rosie gets back on.
I'm on.
And yeah, that date works for me and for my clients as well.
Okay, so what our attorney just said is we're going to bring the architect on.
Right.
He'll adopt his testimony.
His client will adopt his testimony.
And then when we start, you can start, okay?
The next time.
That works.
Okay, let's call the architect first.
Rick Miller, please.
He's been on the speak, sir.
Hi, Mr. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Rick, are you unmuted?
It's Richard Miller, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-M-I-L-L-E-R.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Miller, did you hear the statements that I made to the board today regarding this matter?
And with those relating to the architectural aspects of this project, were they true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
And would you adopt them as your own?
Thank you.
And then Micah Zimmerman.
Okay. He's one that's been working with Rick on the different iterations, ran the financials regarding the financial aspect of the hardship that I alluded to, and we may need to have him speak more to that at the resumption hearing.
Mrs. Zimmerman, if you're still in the audience, please raise your virtual hand.
He's been allowed to speak, sir.
Okay. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
John Micah Zimmerman, J-O-H-N-M-I-C-A-H-Z-I-M-M-E-R-M-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Micah, good afternoon. Did you hear the statements that I made to the board this afternoon?
I did.
And are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
They are.
And would you adopt them as your own?
Thank you.
Okay, so we'll be back June 13th at 9.30 a.m.
May I just add, before we all leave, hey, Dave, reference financials.
Are they part of the packet extra exhibits that you submitted?
No, we didn't have time to actually print any of those out.
He was going to testify verbally to those.
So we may supplement, depending on what your cross is, we may need to supplement the record with those.
I think you may, let me just in anticipation, my guess is you probably will, because I am going to ask.
My guess is I'm going to ask questions that's going to make you want to get into it.
And so you'll probably be doing it.
So, again, same email address.
If you could send that to me, I would really appreciate it.
I'll share everything with everything I have.
Thank you, David.
I appreciate it.
Thank both of you.
All right.
Take care.
All right.
All right.
Have a good day.
Thank you, Dan.
Everyone, we're going to go right to the 3.30 list.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, this is Hillary.
Let's just make sure there's nobody remaining on the 2 o'clock list.
We should be good, but let's just double check.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience from the 2 p.m. list?
I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
So, good afternoon. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing the 3.30 scheduled ZBA hearing.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also here is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our Executive Director, Tanya Stonke.
be advised the proceedings are being recorded the video will be available by contacting
tonyasunkett at phillip.gov for the benefit of our court sonographer we ask attorneys and
witnesses to identify themselves before testifying if you're participating by phone if you wish to
testify press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute to enter appearance statement
and call 267-270-5548. Leave your email address and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question answer box on the screen is not for comments or testimony. Any
comments should be directed to our executive director, Tanya Sundin. So here's our list.
Let's look at continuances first. Number six, MI 2023-001-876-2315 Parish Street.
the case this case is continued
number eight mi 2022 006 742 725 bybury road this case has been continued is there any questions
relative to the two cases i've just called
i see no hands mr chair okay are there any other requests for continuances
i have a hand from mr justin crick i have allowed him to speak
good morning mr crick i see you have case number two am i correct
MI-2022-006-740-538-North 10th?
That is correct.
This is first listing.
We don't have an exhibit yet.
You would want to continue in, sir?
The RCO is in transition of their zoning committee and are unable to really render a decision for a little bit.
All right.
So MI-2022-006-740-538-North 10th Street, that case is continued.
Any other requests for continuances?
Yes, sir.
I have a hand up for my Mr. Richard Gliniak.
I have allowed him to speak.
Thank you.
This is Richard Gliniak from SOSMA.
could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter sure it's richard r-i-c-h-a-r-d
gliniak g-l-i-n-i-a-k right i'm uh here today for the south of south neighborhood association
sasna and we do we have could i could i swear you in first do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Yes. And what case, sir? It is MI-2022-006-715.
What's the street location? 1725 Bainbridge Street. Right. Okay. So this is the first listing.
We do not have exhibits. I'm going to call to see, in fact, if the person that owns the property is
here. So MI 2022-006-715-1725 Bamer Street. Yes, we submitted a letter of continuance,
request for continuance, and I believe also you got one from Councilman Johnson's office as well.
Okay, I'm waiting, I'm going to wait first to see if we can have, if the owner's here or not.
All right. Thank you.
No hand share.
Okay. So MI 2022 006 715 1725 Bamer Street. This case is continued. Mark must be tried.
this case is continued. Mark must be tried. All right. Thank you so much. Excuse me. This is
Hillary. Mr. Gliniak, we did not, the board did not receive any requests for continuance on this
matter, either from SOSNA or from the councilman's office. So if you have, if you can please resend
the letter from SOSNA, that would be appreciated. Thank you. Yes. And just to be clear, I'm a
volunteer. Is that the RCO, the ZBA RCO email address? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you so much.
The request for continuances. I have a hand up from Jeffrey Cohen. I've allowed them to speak
at this time, sir. Okay. Thank you, members of the board. Jeffrey Cohen. Could you state your
name, please, and spell it for the court reporter. Of course. Jeffrey Cohen, J-E-F-F-R-E-Y-C-O-H-E-N.
This is actually in regards to the 1725 Bainbridge Street matter, which I understand has been
continued. My request is that... Can I just swear you in first, if you don't mind? Of course. Do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I so affirm. And do you
do you own that property sir no i'm the across the street neighbor okay on the other side of
main bridge street yep uh and the only request i have for the board is this property is currently
operating as an airbnb without the proper zoning in place i would ask that the board at the next
hearing which is a must be tried take into account that it is continuing this unlawful operation
thank you very much thank you for your comments any other requests for continuance
i see no answer mr chair so so case number one mi 2022 003 845 2822 south simpson street
i have no exhibits for this this is the second listing the owner applicant is valentine bennett
no one appeared on 12 722
I don't see any hands for the aforementioned person, Mr. Chair, but I see Mr. Melodosian's hand raised. I see Mr. Craig Melodosian's hand raised. Do I want him to speak?
Excuse me.
Good afternoon, Chair and Board. Craig Melodosian.
you've already been sworn one today am i correct yes sir okay just state your name for the record
that's all i mean you did so are you interested in this case yes sir i'm the coordinating rco
we've heard nothing from this applicant okay i know thank you i'm trying to see if the owners
in the audience valentine bennett
no hands excuse me mr i don't i don't see to see the aforementioned person in the audience at all
either okay thank you mi 2022 003 845 28 22 south simpson street second listing no one appeared
first first hearing I vote to dismiss
Thomas Solomon I vote to dismiss
James Snell
my vote is to dismiss
Ishmael Shahid my vote is to dismiss
thank you
number seven MI 2022
22-004-469-401-South 22nd Street.
No exhibits, second listing.
Pine Investments LLC is the listed owner.
I have a Patty Fox with a hand raised.
I've allowed them to speak at this time, sir.
Hi, could you state your name, please,
and spell for the court reporter? My name is Patty Fox, P-A-T-T-Y-F-O-X. Right. Do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Are you involved
with this property on 22nd Street? I live directly behind it. Okay. All right. So I'm
trying to right now get the owner okay okay wait what what is the address 401 south 22nd yes oh
oh okay all right all right pine investments listed owner
okay all right all right pine investments listed owner
no hands for answering to that uh so this is second listing no exhibits
there has not been an attorney also hired mi 2022 004 469 401 south 22nd street i vote to dismiss
Thomas Holland my vote is to dismiss
Jane Snell my vote is to dismiss
Ishmael Shahid my vote is to dismiss
number three MI 2022 003-829-629-North 40th Street
this case has been dismissed by the redevelopment authority
uh mr chair just to clarify that there was a request from the redevelopment authority to have
this case dismissed because it was improperly filed by a third party can you please vote to
dismiss it right okay to dismiss it right yes all right mi2022003829620 north
40th Street, I vote to dismiss. Thomas Hellman, I vote to dismiss. James Snell, I vote to dismiss.
Ishmael Shaheed, I vote to dismiss. And number five, MI 2022-001-116-2410
North 19th Street, this case has been withdrawn.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case from the 3.30 list has not been called?
I see Mr. Alexander Narita with the hand raised.
Do I allow him to speak, sir?
Understood.
Mr. Narita, please unmute.
My apologies.
Good afternoon.
Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Yes, Alexander Narita, N-A-R-I-T-A.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
What case are you involved with, sir?
I am the attorney for the applicant for MI 2022 006742, pertains to 725 Vibray Road.
Maybe, yes, maybe I have a request there for a continuance.
Yes, I put in a request for continuance back in April. I'm sorry.
April 10th. And I believe the Somerton Civic Association also sent a letter supporting my
continuance request. Yes, that case has been continued. Oh, it's been continued. Okay.
Yeah, I call that first. Oh, fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
Any anyone else in the virtual audience?
No further hands, Mr. Chair.
I think that's a day, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a good night.
All right.
Thanks, everyone.