the brick is an interesting rendition of a pride of lions. This is the showing from the playground
area. The playground equipment is all natural materials, wood and the like. Some of the
playground is man-made materials so that it's soft. What we're looking at is the side of the
classroom. You'll see there's some color added to make some interesting parts. This is where
the students would enter the building. This is I believe this is the Atwood side
showing an interesting rather than blank set of windows.
This is a copy of our Notice of Refusal and Referral. I'll go through them briefly,
starting with the second one down. This is, as I said, an RSA zoning district. However,
the school that was here was here for 100 years, and we believe that one, we qualify
for a special exception if a new one were required. But having been a school and there
had been no abandonment of that, we were entitled to a pass on this as a non-conforming pre-existing
lawful use. One of the first one listed here has to do with the size of the fences.
our fences are six foot in height the state type fencing and for security reasons they
must be six feet in height the third listed refusal has to do with the height of the building
as a residential district as you know the maximum height is 38 feet and we have proposed 45 feet
However, the original building was 55 feet in height, and so this is actually bringing it more into conformity than it has been.
With regard to parking, technically 83 off-street parking spaces would be required, but the school district has determined that 33 spaces are sufficient for staff, and therefore we're not going to provide any more.
There's no reason for more macadam than is necessary.
In addition, the code requires two electric vehicle parking spaces, and the district has chosen not to provide those.
Lastly, eight bicycle spaces are required.
While there are none on the plans, there will be a handsome number more than those provided when the building is built.
So we filed our application for appeal along with our PIF.
We sent notice to the RCOs that included our refusal.
Then we sent notice when the neighbors of this area were chosen as the RCO.
we sent a letter to the neighbors as required. We have a letter of non-opposition from the
Neighbors of Overbook Association 19151 and we also attached for your interest the comments from
the CDR committee staff which we think are very positive of the design here and of the
functionality of the building. We have completed the CDR process and I imagine a letter will be forthcoming.
process and I imagine a letter will be forthcoming. Mr. Chairman that concludes my presentation.
We ask that we be granted the variances and the special exception
as outlined in the notice of refusal and we're prepared to answer any questions.
uh questions from the board no mr chairman no no no questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair i see no hands at this time planning commission thank you chair bergman members
of the board ian hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the existing zoning on the site however um as council has demonstrated
the proposed use and dimensions are consistent with the long-standing use of this property as
an educational facility in this community city planning commission recommends that the board
grant these variances thank you mi 2022 002 824 65 23 to 43 lansdale avenue i vote yes
Thomas Tollman, my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes
Thank you, Mr. Sklaroff
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board
Have a great rest of your day
Thank you
Number 15, MI 2022-003-158-89 Bethlehem Pike
Henry Clinton is the attorney
letter of support from the Chestnut Hill Community Association.
Good morning, Mr. Klemens. You've already been sworn. Could you identify your client
and the relationship to the property? Sure. I have two clients, husband and wife,
Amanda and Arthur DeBruc, that's D-E capital B-R-U-C, and Amanda is on the call with me.
okay um our our board secretary has a few questions
yes do you agree to weigh the refusal to stimulate to its accuracy i do did you email the exhibits
and documents required such as proof of insurance approval ownership tax clearance copy of
refusal or referral pictures and drawings of the property within five days of this hearing
did you meet with rco and you have your letter yes to all the above please proceed please proceed
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Henry Clinton, on behalf of an LLC,
Maison Bouc, owned by Arthur and Amanda de Bruc, and Amanda, as I indicated, is on the
call. This concerns the installation of a freezer at the rear of the building that they
intend to lease for an authentic French cafe. Mr. Mrs. DeBrooke moved here to the States about 10
years ago. They had a successful authentic French cafe in Georgia and they want to replicate and
duplicate that model here in Philadelphia. This is my presentation package containing exhibits AA
through A12. I'll walk through each document. Certainly the key document here is the refusal.
We really only have one issue.
We don't have any issues with regard to use or zoning.
We have one dimensional issue indicating that the minimum rear yard depth is nine feet and it's proposed three feet.
It's really a bit of a misnomer here.
We still have a nine foot rear yard, but as I will show you with photographs, because the size of the freezer is six feet by six feet in dimension,
Obviously, the L&I examiner looked at the length that the box is protruding from the
rear of the property, and since there's only three feet remaining between the end of the
box and the fence line or the property line, it resulted in the refusal.
But as you will see from the photographs, the box, the freezer box does not take up the
entirety of the rear yard.
As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, Chestnut Hill Community Association did vet this project
in three different public meetings, and they have a letter of support in the package.
We also have letters of support from 11 individual property owners, which are the majority of
the individuals who surround this property, as well as a letter from a large property
as well as a letter from a large property owner in the neighborhood Berman properties who own
the owner in the neighborhood.
10 properties near near this site as well as 12 buildings near the site so I'm not going to go
through each letter but they are all attached and then I'll go move on to the photographs
the top left you'll see a photograph an aerial photograph the yellow area is the outline of the
parcel itself you can see within that is situated uh the proposed cafe the front of the building
is to the right the side of the building is the next photograph where my cursor is and then the
key photograph is right here where my cursor is now located the rear of the building uh this is
the delivery door and an employee access and the the freezer will be basically where uh the window
opening is right now or jealousy window in this location that's what it looks like now where my
cursor is and the proposal is the walk-in cooler location will be right here so you can still see
that there is distance between the edge of the cooler and the fence as well as to the side of
the building and to the other side so it's not taking up the entire dimension of the neighborhood
of the yard. One thing I neglected to mention is
one of the provisors that Chesson Hill
Civic Association requested is that the applicant, Amanda
and her husband, Arthur, make their best effort to find a cooler unit with a
detached compressor. And if this is not available, that a baffle
should be installed on the unit so that the noise level is acceptable
to new neighbors. And my clients are certainly willing to do that. They hired
an acoustical engineer who looked at the sound levels and the frequency of operation.
He basically determined that the operation of the core is about the same noise level
as a typical HVA unit to serve this property.
So what follows is the letters of support from the majority of the near neighbors,
more than the majority, frankly.
that's the letter from bowman properties the majority landowner
in these letters of support this is our notice to the community and again just some photographs
to give you some perspective on bethlehem pike as well as the other surrounding properties
and again the unit will be installed to the rear of the building
and this would be the key photograph again here the rear of the building this is the employee
entrance the delivery entrance and where the glass blocks are I said jealousy but glass block
this will be covered over and the unit will between be between the HVAC unit
AND THE DOOR APPROXIMATELY SIX WIDE BY SIX DEEP.
SOME INTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHS TO SHOW YOU THAT THE PROPERTY IS UNDER RENOVATION AND HOPEFULLY
THE BOARD WILL LOOK KINDLY UPON THE APPLICATION AND THEY GOT AGAIN ONE ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPH
THAT YOU JUST GIVE THE BOARD SOME PERSPECTIVE ON HOW THE FREEZER WILL BE SITUATED THERE WILL
BE A DOOR HERE SO IF YOU COME OUT THE REAR DOOR YOU'LL EASILY BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE FREEZER
box which is a necessity for them my clients to move forward with their cafe i want to show the
board the plans this is the site plan bethlehem pike cafe entrance is here on the side of the
building and then again the walk-in box will be in the rear of the building the majority of the yard
is certainly still available and there's a walkway here opening on about three feet to access the
HVAC unit and any other necessities on the other side of the freezer box
again some dimensionals on the rear of the property so you can see that we do have space
ample space to walk behind the unit to get to the 10-foot area on the other side
and just to show the board this is the interior rendering of what the cafe will look like and
And again, we did not get any refusals for use or for occupancy or anything of those
The rest of the documents are the typical documents you would see in a presentation.
Tax clearance, the application for appeal.
We also have a copy of the relevant pages of the lease, our project information form,
the zoning map indicating that it is in the CMX2 district.
Here's a lease indicating that my clients are ready, willing, and able to move forward
with that cafe uh if the board again looks kindly upon this application uh the hours of operation
are 8 a.m to 7 p.m we have ample storage in the back for trash um and
we have ample storage in the back for trash um and we do need this cooler so we can get our
permits in place and move forward with the cafe so mr clinton do you want to have your testimony
adopted sure uh mr brooke can you uh unmute yourself and i'll ask you a few questions
mr brooke can you please unmute yourself and wait for the chair
hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
sure my name is amanda de brook and it's spelled a-m-a-n-d-a-d-e-b-r-u-c
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do proceed mr clinton thank you mr chairman mr brook were you with a call when i presented
your project yes and if you had the opportunity to testify would you adopt my testimony
testimony as your own and as true and correct? Yes, I would. Thank you very much. Questions from
the board? No, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Questions or comments
from the virtual audience? Mr. Richardson, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr. Richardson. Could you state your name and spell for the court
reporter yes sir charles richardson from the office of councilwoman cindy bass richardson r-i-c-h-a-r-d-s-o-n
room 312 city hall do you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth i do proceed councilwoman has no opposition to granting the variance
thank you very much any other comments from the virtual audience
planning commission no other hands at this time planning commission thank you chair bergman ian
hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends
no change to the existing cmx2 zoning at this location the proposed accessory structure supports
the primary use and uh we believe it has been designed to minimize impacts on adjoining
properties so the city planning commission recommends that the board grant this variance
Thank you. MI-2022-00315E, 89 Bethlehem Pike, I vote yes.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Clinton.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have a great day, everyone.
Okay. Number five, MI2020-002-336-2222 North Front Street. Leo Mulvihill is the attorney.
And a letter of support from NARS Square Community Alliance.
Chair, Mr. Mulvihill is coming back in as a panelist now.
okay good morning chairman members of the board hi mr mobile state your name is spelled for the
court reporter please certainly it's leo l-e-o last name mulvihill m as in michael u-l v as in
victor i h-i-l-l right right do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth i do uh so mr mulvihill before we start um you're you and you have another case which is
mi2022-001-061 2322 north district mr mobile hill we're going to continue that case
oh what's the reasoning for that one well i i we did not get the documents until yesterday
i see my apologies for that that's not a formidable so we'll continue that you'll
be in touch so let's let's go back to this case that you have here on 2220 north front
all right so members of the board i'm here today on behalf of the applicant 20 could you identify
who the applicant is oh of course so the applicant in this case is 2319 amber street llc
principal of that mr chair i'll get you and our vice our our board secretary has a few questions
Go ahead, Ish.
So do you agree to waive the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Did you email all the exhibits and documents as required, proof of ownership, tax clearance,
copy of refusal and referral, or referral, pictures and drawings of the property for
the five days of this hearing, and did you meet with RCO and you have your letter?
Yes please proceed great thank you so members of the board I should be showing my screen
great thank you so members of the board i should be showing my screen i'm here today on behalf of
I'm here today on behalf of two three
2319 amber street llc for the property at 22 22 to 24 north front street in my table of contents
which i have on the screen now i have our original application refusal on appeal at page one our
petition for leave to amend as we changed our application at page seven letter granting leave
from the board at 8, a revised refusal at 9, area zoning maps at 10, deed at 13, commercial activity
at 21, tax clearance at 22, notification at 24, letter of support from the RCO at 27, photos of
the property at 29, plans at 41. So members of the board, we had originally, as you see, this is a
rather old application under the Hanson system back in 2020. We had originally submitted an
application and i'll go to the prior refusal as you can see it was received march 11 2020
we have received we had received the refusal because we initially put in an application
for this property which is zone cmx 2.5 at the time we were seeking to have 10 dwelling units
at this location after meeting preliminarily with the community group which in this case
was not square. They made the specific request that we actually make this project denser to make
it more affordable for folks who may be living in the neighborhood. So then what we did is submitted
an amended application. Again, here's that letter. And we can see also the letter dated May 10, 2021,
granting us leave to amend the application, at which point we received the attached refusal here