close to the accessibility of the food stores and transit exhibit 11 i did include the planning
commissions 2035 plan just for the area and if i turn to page
the fourth page of this which is their zoning to advance the plan
the subject property is kind of above the j area and below the h area on the plan and
colored orange which generally means rm1 um the planning commission for the h area recommended
rm1 to encourage residential uses and the j area was to consolidate zoning and create a master plan
around the campus this is la salle university in the j area and we would submit to the board that
But this area should allow for multifamily use, especially in light of needing residential
dwellings in the neighborhood, having that transit accessibility, and the longstanding
blatant abandonment, this would be a welcomed use for the neighborhood that would be in
betterment to what has been there for the past 45 plus years.
With that, members of the board, I know I went a little longer than I normally do.
I would call Mr. Gary Murray to raise his hand.
Hi, Mr. Murray, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Murray's been allowed to speak, sir.
Gary Murray, G-A-R-Y-M-U-R-R-A-Y.
You swear for him to tell truth, told truth, nothing but the truth.
Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Murray, did you hear the statements that I presented to the board today?
yes i have and were they true correct and accurate to the best of your knowledge
yes and just and i'd like to ask you also as part of the community meeting process
did you personally go out to the near neighbors and door knock to advise them of the meeting and
your project yes uh myself and my partner um on multiple occasions i believe it was four times
that we went out uh to canvas the neighborhood to get some community input um just to see if there
were any concerns personally especially to those that were directly in the vicinity of the project
um which would be the streets that are behind it and adjacent to it and did you receive any concerns
i didn't receive any concerns um a lot of them were excited to to hear that the property was uh
potentially no longer going to be a piece of land vacant.
potentially no longer going to be a a piece of uh land vacant land with uh you know grass that has
to be maintained um with that being said mr murray would you adopt the statements that i put on the
board presented to the board today as your own yes absolutely no further questions mr chairman
questions questions from the board no no no so questions from the virtual audience but i want to
take faith cdc first inez love
miss love has been about to speak sir good morning miss love could you could you just
state your name again for and spell for the court reporter yes inez love i-n-e-s love l-o-v-e all
right and you do swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
Proceed.
You want to testify early.
Here's your chance.
Well, we had two meetings with this applicant, and neither one of them had community participation.
The first meeting, we had no one there.
And the second meeting, we asked that they would use the information from ACCA Volunteer to give them a flyer notification that would get the community out.
They agreed to do that.
They used that information.
But we still had no participation from the community.
We also had, at the second meeting, we decided that since there was no participation, that the RCOs would make the decision about whether to approve or to approve.
Faith Community Development Corporation agreed and approved the project.
And I think that we did, and they did everything that they could do to get the folks out.
Normally, we don't get a lot of people. I lived in that area all of my young life, and it's been kind of desolate for quite a few years, and I think this project might be helpful to bring that community back.
Thank you.
Thank you for standing on the phone and calling in. We appreciate your input.
Other comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Mr. Chair, I have a Mr. David Nolan with his hand raised.
I have allowed him to speak at this time.
Good morning, sir.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
My name is David Noland, S-T-A-V-I-D-N-O-L-A-N-D.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, sir?
I do, sir.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, I am.
Proceed.
I'm a resident of the 2100 block of Cowan.
That's right off of Worcester, a block away from the development.
my family's been in this community
for over 40 years
and as a little kid
I've been playing on that lot
that he's developing on
we were
responsible for cleaning
that lot multiple times
I still don't know
Roger Ebert from Belleville
and we
we're happy to see some
development on that lot
that's been a bayonet for over 40 years well thanks sir thank you for your input and thank
you for staying on the phone calling it is is there anyone else in the virtual audience
yes sir mr stanley graham i have allowed him to speak at this time good morning mr graham could
you state your name again for the court reporter and spell it uh stanley graham s-t-a-n-l-e-y
g-r-a-h-a-m right do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes proceed sir uh good morning ladies and gentlemen uh first of all i live i live on a
block of 23 2163 grange like the second house from the corner where they want to develop
first of all the house that's to the north it's like it's like a big apartment building right
there then the house that the uh the lawyer gentleman talked about that's on the corner
that house is still old there was a fire there but there is another big house next to it that is
that is getting renovated also so my concern is we already have problems with parking on the 2100
block of grain street so with 18 more units that's going to bring like 25 more cars
and and to me like i don't i you know i don't come out at night i want you know i want access
to my car i don't come out at night okay i don't i don't want to park my car you know on a different
place like fresh grocer or you know like and it's elderly people on the block my concerns is parking
you know like and there's elderly people on the block my concerns is parking that's my biggest
concern parking what about the neighbors you know with this the building the big building that's
right at Worcester and Grange that's that's look like it got maybe I don't know how many units in
there now you're talking another 18 units then you're talking another like a triplex or something
like that or Worcester Street like where's where's where are we going to park at like we lose our
parking behind us like that's my concern well well we appreciate you taking the time to call in and
we appreciate your input is there anyone else in the virtual audience yes sir mr charles richardson
i've allowed him to speak good morning mr richardson you you've been on several times
already today just state your name please you don't have to be sworn charles richardson from
in the office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass Room, 408 City Hall.
Councilwoman has no opposition to granting the variance.
Thank you very much, Mr. Richardson.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Yes, sir.
Ms. Allison Weiss has her hand raised.
I have allowed her to speak.
Morning, Ms. Weiss.
could you state your name and spell for the court report? Allison, A-double-L-I-S-O-N-Weiss, W-E-I-S-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes. Are you a neighbor? Yes. Not close, but nearby. I pass by that very frequently,
I go to the shopping center there, and I wish I had known about the meetings, because I, like I said, I go past, I go down East Worcester frequently, and I didn't see any postings on, at least on that side of the property, so I wish I had known, and I would have attended the meetings and been more involved to make it a better project, so thank you.
Thank you very much for calling in. We appreciate your input.
This area, just members of the board, I know Ms. Allison Weiss is part of Solo Germantown, which is not one of the RCOs for this property.
Thank you. We're aware.
All right. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair. Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission, S-A-R-A-H-B-A-N-H.
In 2019, the zoning map was amended to RSA 5 at this location in accord with recommendations from the Comprehensive Plan.
The appellant has not shown that the property cannot possibly be used in strict conformity with the zoning code
and that a variance is therefore necessary to enable the viable economic use of the property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board deny both the dimensional and use variance.
Thank you.
M.I. 2022-006-163-5805 East Worcester Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ismail Shaheed, my vote is no.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Number 12, MI-2022-006-113-4692 Hawthorne Street.
Sherman Toppin is the attorney.
Letter of support from the Frankfurt Neighborhood Advisory Council.
Letter of non-opposition from Council Member Lozada.
Good afternoon.
Just state your name, Sherman.
Okay, yes, I'm back.
Okay, I was just getting myself logged in and unmuted in my video working.
Sherman Toppin, S-H-E-R-M-A-N-T-O-P-P-I-N, address, 1500 JFK Boulevard, Suite 800.
Do you identify your client and the relationship to this property?
Yes. My client is the owner of the property, owner and the member of the LLC. I believe, let's see, I'm looking at the names that are present here. Luca Bogdan is his name, and I don't see him immediately among the names here, but he was on as a participant.
our our vice chair has just a few questions for me sir yes good morning counselor do you
Good morning, Counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate
Counsel, have you emailed all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have. I have.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay. Let me just make sure that my client is available to hear.
He was on earlier. I think he went off when we were doing some of the other hearings.
But I will share my screen now, and I believe you'll log on as I'm speaking.
All right.
So is my screen visible?
That's the screen we had originally before.
Proceed.
Okay, I'll go ahead.
This is the one with the walls and the vacant basement?
Yes. Let me go to the beginning.
Let me go to the beginning.
I have two screens on my computer, so I've got to make sure I know which one.
There you go.
All right. So you should be seeing Bonnie Investments, LLC.
And the property that we're here to talk about is 4692 Hawthorne Street.
This is a property that we are seeking legalization of the use, two units.
The only refusal that we have is to use this property as a two-unit property.
What I want to do, even before I go into my hearing, I'm going to come out one, and I'm going to show you the picture of the property prior to what you see in the picture in front of you is new stucco along the side and siding, which is an improvement aesthetically on the outside.
You also see a ramp that's developed on the property. This ramp is to accommodate a handicapped disabled veteran that lives on the first floor unit.
But let me just come out of this screen one second so you can see a picture.
I'm going to share a screen of a picture of what the property looked like prior to my client's
purchase of the property last year. So if you see this picture, do you see a red brick building?
Yes. Okay. So this is what the property looked like at the time that my client purchased it
last year in March of 2022. As you can see, it's a red brick structure. And notably, there are two
front doors. The front door of the first unit, this first lower front door closest to the street,
margaret street uh is the first unit that runs along the back and the second is the stairway
that goes up to the second unit so this is the condition and the configuration of the property
when my client purchased it from you know from the the previous owner and so let me go back to
my presentation just as a as a way of understanding where we where we are with all of this so
so let's go back so in our typical package the first exhibit we show is the refusal which is
only to use the property as to two as two units to basically legalize its current existing use
and its consistent existing configuration the deed of the property the deed there was an error
in the deed of the property so we put the whole chain of titles of all the deeds that preceded it
so that the board would know that my client is the legal owner, but the name of his entity had a misspelling on it.
And so there was, as you can see here, B-O-H-I, it's Bonnie, B-O-N-I, so the H should have been an N,
but my client is, of course, the owner of the property.
So as we go down to our application, simply to grant the use of agreeing to two-unit household living from a single family, the project information form suggests the same.
On the corner of Hawthorne Street and Market Street is where the property is located, as you can see here.
Most of the homes that are in this area, this area is a RSA 5 area.
most of the homes are either single or multifamily already and the immediate adjacent house immediately
to the left of the house of the property is a single family home but there are several on the
same block that are multifamily two units and all of all of the buildings in this street are two
story as this existing property is so as a way of looking at what's inside when you open the front