but I was not aware.
Thank you, sir.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Sir, I have a Perel Geray-Semons with their hand raised.
I have allowed them to speak at this time.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Perel Jure Simmons. It's spelled P-E-R-R-E-L-L, capital J-E-R-A-E, and my last name is Simmons, S-I-M-M-O-N-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Proceed.
I also live in the neighborhood as well, around the 2156 block of Diamond Street.
And I also would like to second what Mr. Deitch has stated that we did not know about this community.
We're unaware of this information, and we did not know that APM had took a vote.
We have been contacting APM in regards to this property,
as well as trying to get directly in contact with the owner of this property,
because that property was once a single family home
and we wanted it to continue to stay a single family home.
And we also had questions of how the property was obtained
from PHA to this developer as well, sir.
Thank you for your testimony.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the Planning Commission?
I'm sorry.
Thank you, Chair.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Board members, this comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX2 mixed-use commercial zoning on this site.
This proposal requests the substitution of one dwelling unit for the required ground floor commercial use that would otherwise be required in a CMX2 zoning district.
However, given the surrounding context and the site's location away from a commercial corridor or a concentration of commercial activity, City Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2022, 004-395-805 Diamond Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Howell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Number five, MI 2022-004-426-1528 Nardine Street.
Stefano Bernardino, Bernardini, and Allison Dobowski are the owners, pro se.
letter of opposition from the center city residents association
mr bosky will be rejoining as a panelist
hello hello hi how are you hi could you state your name and spell it please for the court reporter
Yes, my name is Allison Dubovsky. It's A-L-L-I-S-O-N-D-U-B-O-V-S-K-Y.
Right. My name is Stefano Bernardini, S-T-E-F-A-N-O-B-E-R-N-A-R-D-I-N-I.
Right. Do you both swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes. This application is for visitor accommodation at the first floor in the same building with single family household living above an existing structure. The proposed visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RM1 zoning district. Our board secretary has a few questions.
Good morning. Have you emailed all of the required documents to proceed with the case five days in advance?
Please proceed and share your screen.
Oh, share screen.
Share screen.
So here we have the address, 1528 Naudane Street.
It is RM1, a duplex, and we do live.
We are owner-occupying the unit above,
And it's for the first floor unit to be used for visitor accommodations, which is the short term of 30 days.
to be used for visitor accommodations which is the short term of 30 day or less stays
known as airbnb to most people um this is a map showing exactly where we're located between 15th
and 16th in the middle of the block uh this is just a shot of our street it's no parking street
So there's no issues with any kind of cars, parking, anything like that.
This is the outside.
You can see that's the entrance inside.
It goes into a small vestibule where there's two doors, one which goes into the ground floor unit and the other which goes upstairs into our unit.
And then this is the unit that we have used for Airbnb for the short term rentals.
It's fully furnished, small living room, kitchen.
and then it has two full bedrooms and a bathroom with a small outdoor patio space
this is the entrance that my wife was talking about like it's a shared entrance
this is the door of our apartment that's where we are living and this is the rental unit so it's
actually down here and uh it's a shared entrance these uh these are pictures of uh the zoning
notice that we um hosted that we posted as per requirements and um this is another view of uh
of uh our building like with the two buildings that we have close and uh yeah the entrance is
shared between the two between the two apartments and um so basically uh we have been you know using
this as an Airbnb. And it's been, you know, it's been really great for us as the owners for,
you know, income, helping us pay for our mortgage and everything like that. But it's been really
great to having people come for people that are in need of these kind of short term stays,
a lot of people coming to visit people at the hospitals or coming in for work for conferences
that are looking to stay in a furnished apartment
as opposed to just, you know, they need,
they're staying for longer than a night or two.
So they need more availability
than what you would get in a typical hotel.
You know, we've been, we're upstairs.
We make sure it's, everything is extremely respectful.
This is not a party place.
We're the first ones to hear it if anything were to happen.
and also absolutely we take care of everything making sure there's no garbage that's left out
on any days that are not you know garbage collection days we you know we keep we keep an
eye on it it's you can see it's very close it's almost as if we're living there ourselves we're
not you know an LLC for coming from out of state that's you know managing remotely you know hundreds
of short term rentals in the area. This is very just much small thing for us. And the thing that
is really that we love about having the possibility to do the short term is that we can also
have access to the unit. And we can also have family from abroad come and stay where as opposed
to having a long term renter, you don't have any access to the apartment. So when his mother or
brother and nieces come to stay we have a place where we can host family and friends um and use
it yeah we understand questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments
from the virtual audience sir mr wade albert has his hand raised i haven't allowed him to speak
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
hello hello can you hear me yeah quite could you state your name please and spell for the
court reporter way you're you're you try to get closer to the mic if you can
can you hear me now that's hard but try again hello yes okay i'll give this a better wade albert
w-a-d-e last name a-l-b-e-r-t right do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do proceed thank you so i am with the law firm of stevens and lee and i am
Council for the Central City Residence Association. I'm just here to explain that the reasons why CCRA
opposes this application is that... Excuse me, Chair. This is... I know. This is the court
reporter. I apologize. Wade, we're really having a hard... We can't hear you. I'm so sorry. I think
there's a problem with my computer. Can you hear me? We hear you now. Okay. I'm very close to my
computer, and I apologize. But I was just going to say that CCRA opposes this request.
But I was just going to say that CCRA opposes this request for variance because the property at issue is located in a very residential part of the neighborhood, and CCRA opposes the request for visitor accommodation status here, as we believe that that use is not compatible with this portion of the neighborhood.
Okay. Thank you very much for your call. Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Do not change any further hands, Mr. Chair.
No other hands, Jason?
No, sir.
Okay. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RM1 multifamily residential zoning at this location.
In this case, I think we feel the visitor accommodation unit is related to the primary unit and connected to it, and so this effectively would function as an in-home short-term rental use.
The State Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the variance.
However, we do also recommend adding a proviso to limit the term of the variance to two years so as not to allow this use in perpetuity on this block.
Thank you.
So MI-2022-004-426-1528-North Dane Street, I vote yes with proviso.
Temporary variance expires 115-26.
Thomas Howellman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, yes with proviso.
Sahih, yes with proviso.
Thank you. Thank you for your time.
Number seven, MI-2022-004-439-1010 West Arizona Street.
Recommendation of support from the 37th Ward.
Eric Carroll is the attorney.
He'll be rejoining as panelists, sir.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
My audio and video link got cut off for a couple seconds while I was joining as a panelist.
Okay, we're okay.
We're okay.
Did you read the refusal?
Not yet.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Good morning.
My name is Eric Carroll, E-R-I-C-C-A-R-R-O-L-L.
I'm the attorney for the applicant T. Chris LLC.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Our board secretary has a few questions.
Good morning. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Have you emailed all the required documents five days in advance to this hearing?
Yes. December 28th. Great. Please proceed and share your screen. Thank you.
Okay. Can you see the refusal, Mr. Chairman? We can. Okay. Thank you. As I said, I represent
T. Chris LLC. They are the owner of 1010 West Arizona Street. That property is currently
a vacant lot it actually is a vacant lot on an end of a block that is all vacant lots
it is zoned rm1 we are proposing to erect a new construction two-family dwelling unit
this overlay area is and this property is rm1 which requires 425 square feet per unit we want
to build two units and given our lot size, we're about 66 square feet short. So we're seeking a
variance just to overcome that, that what I would call a de minimis shortage and allow a variance
to allow us to erect a two store, I'm sorry, the three story, two unit residential property.
right here is a picture of the lot uh our lot is kind of in the middle and as you can see there's
two or three vacants on either side of it here's a little bit of a closer you can see
towards the back of the property you can also see how we posted the property
um i'll show you the plans as you can see it is a going to be a three
i'll show you the plans as you can see it is a going to be a three-story building
with a roof deck and with the basement uh each of the two units would have its own entrance
um the one unit would be the basement and the first floor the second unit would be
the second floor and the third floor and then obviously the roof deck for the upper unit
Each unit has two bedrooms, two bathrooms. Each floor is roughly 588 square feet of living space.
We went before the 37th Ward RCO back in November, and we presented this project to them.
We got unanimous approval, the vote of 21 in favor and zero opposing.
So we ask that the board today vote yes, approve this variance, and allow us to move forward, build this property, and bring some much-needed development to this end of the block.
Is your client here?
He is. Chris Tomasco is here. He is a member of T-Chris LLC, I believe. I believe he's on the Zoom.
Chris, can you raise your hand?
Can you hear me?
Yes, you can.
Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
Kristen Tomasco, K-R-I-S-T-I-N, last name Tomasco, T-O-M-A-S-C-O.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Good to see you, counsel.
Mr. Tomasco, you are a member of the applicant T. Chris LLC, is that correct?
And did you listen and watch my presentation just now?
If you were to testify, would you certify that everything I said was true and accurate?
And would you adopt my testimony as your own?
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?