together hillary yes yeah do both together okay the comprehensive plan recommends no change in
zoning at this location from the current rsi 5 presidential single family this block face is
mostly single family and the appellant has not demonstrated that there are unique physical
conditions of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the zoning code
The Planning Commission recommends that the Board deny the requested variance for a multifamily and occupied area.
For both?
All right, so I'm going to do both.
Number eight, MI 2025-007-700-1953-North 31st, and MI 2025-007-702-1955-North 31st.
I vote yes to both.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes to both.
Cheryl, yes, and my vote is yes to both.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes to both.
Tywin, my vote is yes to both.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a good day.
All right.
We have a five-minute break in the schedule.
We'll go out and come back, and we'll get rolling.
Number 10.
Thank you.
Number 10, MI2025, 007734, 611 South 7th Street.
Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition from Bella Vista, a letter of support from South Street
head house and a letter of non-opposition from council member squilla
good afternoon mr chair good afternoon council could you please just state your name because
you've already been sworn uh yes uh verne anastasio on behalf of uh the
Yes, Vern Anastasio, on behalf of the occupant of 611 South 7th Street, Ang Campar.
All right, and I read while you were getting on, you got three letters of support.
Yes, sir.
All right, and our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Thank you. You can show your screen and proceed with your case.
611 South 7th Street. The application is for a third floor addition. They're calling it that
because, and I'm going to show you in a moment, the rear wall is already, the existing rear wall,
the first and second floor are not compliant with the open open air uh requirements for the
per the code so any extension of that rear wall uh of course generates a refusal and and that's
why we're here so i'm gonna share my plans also david whipple is here in the audience too
if he could please be promoted in the he's the architect on the project
and he may in fact uh be able to answer some questions uh that are design related
how to get that space bar out of the way excuse me
this year could you show us a photo first i just sure just see what it looks like now and where it's
that this is Camp R and the third floor wall would come up there and Mr. Whipple can be
sworn in and walk through the plan if he if he'd like Mr. Whipple
do we see the architect in the audience all right thank you very much is he is he on he
said they share him in the audience he's getting on thank you I couldn't hear I'm sorry
hello hi sir could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer sure my name is david
whipple w-h-i-p-p-l-e do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth i do counsel please proceed thank you so david do you want to explain the third floor uh
the extension there of the wall sure um so as everyone was saying the um existing structure
uh was taking up the entire site uh there's also a a frame roof on the front third of the structure
um so our our only option without completely redoing the structure was to push the addition
into the center into the back of the existing structure um there were a number of uh i'm not
sure if you know the history of the property so there was recently a fire um and there were a
number of code issues that we discovered um inside the property so upgrading that kind of uh had a
cascading effect um so the reason that we had to push it all the way back
in order to maintain our distance separation between the two egress stairs off of the third
floor. There's really no way to not build into that rear area and still provide two
compliant stairs. And this here is what we're talking about, right, David? Correct. Yeah.
Mr. Chair, we met with the Bella Vista neighbors. Also, South Street Headhouse was present at that meeting. As you read it to the record, we've gotten two letters of support and Council Member Squilla's letter of-
Is there a rendering showing what it's going to look like when it's done?
I'm just trying to get a picture in my mind what it's going to look like.
No, just the sketch. No color rendering.
No color rendering, right? Okay. So that's what it's going to look like when it's done. Correct. Correct. Okay.
Okay, so that's what it's going to look like when it's done.
Correct.
Correct, correct.
Questions from the board. Did he adopt your testimony? Who's going to adopt your testimony? I don't think Angie is here to the court. Thank you questions from the board.
Questions or comments from our attorney. Not at this time, Mr. Chair questions or comments from the virtual audience.
i do not see any hands mr chair planning commission amy boyd with the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning at this location from the current cmx2
commercial mixed use the proposed addition will not well sorry the proposed addition will have
minimal impacts on surrounding properties the planning commission recommends that the board
grant their quest experience for the extension of the non-conforming rear yard setback thank you
M-I-2025-007734-611 South 7th Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes.
Ty Owen, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Number 11, M-I-2026-001-198, Fort Leverington Avenue.
it this is a resumptive hearing
reconsideration oh that's right
Rachel Pritzker will be coming back in as a panel shortly, Mr. Chair.
All right. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. Council, could you just state your name and spell for the sonographer?
yes rachel r-a-c-h-a-e-l pritzker p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r right do you swear firm to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth yes all right so this is a um we're going to have a
testimony from you updates on where we stand yes questions from the board um public testimony and
and then planning commission if they want to do it again here's our preaminal the evidence
Evidence and testimony presented at the January 7th, 2026 hearing in this matter are incorporated
into the recordings for the hearing on reconsideration.
The scope of this hearing is limited to the presentation of supplemental evidence and
testimony only.
So why don't we start?
Great.
I'm going to share my screen.
Do you see my screen?
Yes, you might want to make it a little larger.
That's better?
So this is for Leverington Avenue.
As mentioned, it's a reconsideration hearing.
I represent Matthew Grossman and Stephen Kramer on behalf of Watermill Lofts Acquisitions LLC.
And we have here today also the architect, Scott Woodruff, and our civil engineer, Matthew Kurse,
This was our motion for reconsideration that was granted, basically in granting of the motion for reconsideration established that the prior denial reflect either a misapplication of the variance standards, reliance on considerations outside the board's jurisdiction and or procedural irregularities arising from late introduced testimony in this matter.
A lot of the legal precedent is incorporated herein and also was reviewed by the Zoning Board
and is included at length in our memo of law. In order to be sort of brief in going through this,
I just want to provide another copy of the refusal. Please note that we originally sought
to include four new units and an existing structure that already has 20 units already.
We are reducing that from a request for four units to a reduction for just a request for three units on the ground floor, where there are also already two units there.
And there, again, are already 20 units in this building, which was approved many, many, many years ago, I think 2011 via a variance.
Just for the record, and I spoke to Ms. Emerson about this, there was a request to try to reach out to the plans examiner to get them to update the language in the refusal because it makes it seem like it is for 24 units total.
for 24 units total it's not it's there's already 20 units it's just just an additional now three
It's not, there's already 20 units.
It's just as much.
units however they were not able to modify the refusal so we include the correspondence in the
record but just wanted to acknowledge that the request was made it just wasn't able to be
satisfied by lni as they don't allow for revisions to the refusal once it's been issued just to
orient yourself with the site again. This is a property that's zoned I-2 Industrial on Leverington
Avenue. Just an aerial, sorry, street view of the structure. It's a 150-plus-year-old historic
structure, which is listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. It has no commercial
currently in it, just vacant ground floor space and all residential units, and is sort of at this
intersection on Leverington Avenue, and sort of, as you can see, a pretty unique building,
which makes it difficult for industrial uses under I2 or really any commercial uses. I used
to hold an animal hospital that left a while ago, and so there's about 3,000 square feet,
if the board can recall, that have been standing vacant despite longstanding efforts
and hiring different brokers to try to get tenants in the space.
This is just a front view of the structure as well.
The entrance in the rear of the building.
Some of the parking.
This is that vacant space that we're looking to fill with just three units.
I just want to go through some of the updates. So after the last hearing, we undertook substantial efforts to address the concerns raised on the record and engage with the Registry Community Organization, specifically John Hunter at Maniunk Neighbors Council, and consulted also with the Department of Licenses and Expressions through an official preliminary meeting that we had with them.
in addition to meeting with some other members of the city on the flood management side of things
and environmental side of things. So this is just a summary of the different revisions and
iterations that we went back and forth on to address all of the concerns that were satisfactory
to those stakeholders that I just mentioned. This is in collaboration with our civil engineers,
our architects and their team as well, in addition to, like I said, a preliminary meeting with L&I,
we will have to undergo, if we get through zoning to the building permit phase, we will have to
undergo mandatory meetings with them as well as we developed building permit plans for this project.
But this was helpful into laying out what we were thinking and the different revisions that we
wanted to make in order to update the revised plans this email number six just states basically
the notes that were taken at the meeting the things that we discussed we reviewed the additional
bulletin that weighs in with some of this flood plan scoping meeting that we have to do with
l and i once we get past zoning and almost all if not everything and then some of their suggestions
were, as best we could, added to the zoning floor plans, which, because this isn't a new
structure, you know, they're incorporated as part of the record, but we'll have to submit
floor plans and building code compliant plans as well. These comments, in addition to the
conversation and the review of the bulletin, were incorporated into our revised plans, which
our architect will go through it's just worth noting through a couple months of this work
we ended up getting a letter of non-opposition from the rco manioc neighborhood council and
their zoning committee as long as we agreed to and incorporated these elements so the first
the floor level for the first floor we raised 30 inches to the bfe plus 18 so it's 46 and a half
which is required for new buildings. Again, this isn't a new building, but for the new
three units to make sure that they meet the new building standards. Proposed apartments
were reconfigured from four units to three units, which will be connected via a new corridor
to a newly restored entrance and exit on the Leverington Avenue side of the building above
above the base floor elevation the bfe this will allow safe execution and entry to the
the base floor elevation, the BFE. This will allow safe execution and entrance.
evacuation entry to the apartments during any flood event and then one of the egress stairs
which serves the 18 apartments on the upper floors of the building will connect with this
new corridor to also provide safe evacuation for the building occupants in the event of a flood
and so with those modifications after a few months of back and forth um basically gave us a letter
the mnc board was not opposed to our application i'm going to ask scott to go through our actual
floor plans to kind of show those changes and then bring on our civil engineer as well
who helped with this project scott woodruff
they'll be coming back in as the panel
Hello, good evening more. Hi, could you please state your name is spelled for the stenographer?
Sure, Scott Woodruff, a C. O. T. T. Woodruff. W. O. O. D. R. U. F. F.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth to hold truth? Nothing, but the truth.
Council?
Scott, do you have the plans up or do you need me to share my screen?
I can share my screen.
Okay, so if you can see my screen, I'll zoom in here just to orient everyone to the
plan uh on this left hand side this is the leverington avenue face as rachel had shown
before the primary entrance is via a ramp here in the rear off the parking lot which has access
to an existing elevator and there's an existing log entry over here the proposed area that we're
looking to infill with new residential units is kind of highlighted in these colors as you can
see there's we're proposing three units down from the four units there is one two bedroom and then
two one bedroom units some of the changes that rachel had gone through was raising the floor
level so we're doing that via two ramps which would be accessed via the corridor here for
ada accessibility purposes with the entire area that's shaded in this color being that 30 inches
above the base flood elevation or 46.5 feet above that datum pretty standard one bedroom
open loft style units as we get over to the leverington avenue face one of the changes that
in coordination with the rco in the neighborhood that was very important was to provide access to
leverington avenue there's an existing staircase that is there that is can be accessed via these
stairs which has been shut off for years we are proposing to reopen this entryway