the issue in the entire state and that's actually a philadelphia case by the way um and as far as
the change of ownership i i would disagree with mr demarco um in fact what he described is exactly
the way it would happen the person submits a permit application they tell the city that they
have authority to file it the city is not in a position to vet every application for the authority
we get the documents the documents speak for themselves if there is a civil dispute about
that authority that's not that does not affect the validity of the permit unless and until um that
litigation reverses you know and the court finds that you know say mr phillips client did not have
the authority and this that did not happen here it was resolved and therefore it makes there would
be no requirement no reason whatsoever to go back and require them to reapply now that they
indisputably have uh authority the city we the city does not uh just like we don't review deeds
to determine you know specific uh issues and rights and obligations under deeds we don't review
uh if somebody says they have authority we have to accept that at face value and if it turns out
later they don't have the authority then we would revoke the permit but that never happened here
so um you know again i that's it's a it's a non-issue and with respect to the confusion
of the plans i think 90 of the confusion that's been raised involve matters that are not
90% of the confusion that's been raised involve matters that are not zoning matters they are
matters for uh that may be for streets department review in the future although I don't think
given this is CMX one so the streets department I believe would not review the layout of the
interior garage they do in CMX three four and five but not one uh or two I think um so you know
those are building code issues, if anything. The streets department indisputably reviewed
the entrance, the driveway entrance from Waverly Street, and that was approved, and that was all
required to be reviewed or approved by streets as a prerequisite to the permit. So anything else
that involves the garage and the layout is just not a zoning issue. They provide an accessible
space and that's all they're required to do under the code again there I have no idea whether there
may or may not be building code issues later but that's not before this board thank you for that
brief statement and thank all of you for your brief statements appreciate it uh Mr. DeMarco you
can let your clients know that we understand that there some of them must be waiting online uh that
the the fact that they signed the appropriate uh applications to be heard today that they part of
their names and addresses will be part of the record.
N.E.K. Let's go.
Planning Commission.
Chair, this is no way to appeal against Illinois.
I'm sorry, it's an appeal against Illinois, I apologize.
Thank you.
All right, MI 2020-001433, 414 South 20th Street.
my vote is to
deny the appeal against Illinois.
Appeal denied.
Appeal denied.
Appeal denied.
Appeal denied.
Thank you.
Carol, we're going to go to number eight.
Thank you. That concludes my business.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
We're going to go to number eight, Carol, and then
after that, we have a
letter from Rachel
as it relates to the 1402
2 South 5th Street from Councilman Squilla. So let's do number eight and then we'll roll into
the other one. We'll go back to number one. Okay. Calendar number 0447, 646 North 32nd Street.
In your mind, Rachel, she's still under oath.
Please be promoted to El Paniclois again, sir.
Rachel, can you put your name and address on the record, please?
Yep, Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, 1635, Markets, 1600, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.
Okay, you're still under oath, but do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal or referral, photos or plans five days in advance of this hearing?
and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Thank you.
You may proceed.
I'm going to share my screen.
So this is 646 North 32nd Street.
As the board may remember, we were in front of you back in October of 2020.
2020, we had originally met with this RCO, the Mantua Civic Association, back in September
of 2020, and we asked for the case to be continued back in October of 2020 in front of the board
as the RCO and your neighbors specifically requested a number of changes to the project,
which we made, and so then we asked for leave of the board, which was granted in order to
resubmit our application. So what I have in front of me is I just want to bring to the board's
attention the original refusal that we obtained. This was for 16 units as opposed to 10 units.
And then we actually did add in the bicycle spaces. So that refusal shouldn't be there.
I'll go through the plans with the architect, but basically this was opposed by the RCO as
they wanted parking, and that was really the biggest concern. And we had said, well, we need
to resubmit the plans in order to accommodate parking. There still was a concern about the
parking. There still was a concern about the density. However, we had tried to explain,
density. However, we had tried to explain
and I think the architect will do a better job than me explaining that because of the odd shape
and size of this lot, which is zoned RM1, so it allows multifamily by right, 10 units actually
makes it so that it's very large three to four bedroom units, as opposed to 16 units, which is
just two bedroom units. So although it's additional units, it's actually a smaller bedroom count.
Because we wanted to address the community's concerns of making sure that we weren't providing student housing and typically, as the board is familiar, three to four bedroom housing typically is not necessarily for families, although that would be wonderful, but typically it ends up, you know, being a lot of students and sort of obviously there's concerns with the community for that.
the other issue was health and safety issues about trash storage and so we've included that
into the new plans obviously we will have commercial trash before because it's more than
six units and then I want to go through just the site quickly this is the updated refusal so again
we had to resubmit based on the the concerns of the community and the ask to include parking we
let them know that if we include parking on this site given the odd nature of it,
as you'll see the size and shape of it, in addition to the fact that RM1 does not allow
for accessory off-street parking without a variance, that we were going to trigger
variances for height, for open space, and also for accessory off-street parking
accessed by a front street because this is a corner. With that said, here is
indeed the board has all this information so as you can see this is the lot we're talking about
here it's a very odd shaped lot and sort of sits sort of irregularly on this corner and so that as
the architect will explain kind of lent itself to some odd design considerations again it really
provided by right for 10 pretty large units and we had we had thought that in order to help with
the concern of density that's that although it's 16 units is more than 10 obviously it allows us
to provide two-bedroom units and I believe there's a one-bedroom unit as well the architect can
correct me if I'm wrong to make it so that there's less bedrooms and then also in addition again
providing parking and as you can see that was really an exercise we had to undertake with the
streets department as you know it's a sort of an odd location as well but it was really something
that was important to the community so we went back through again here's an aerial again the
board can see this is a really odd shaped lot sort of a location on mantua and north 32nd street so
really locating the parking in a way that was not going to provide any real uh issues was also part
of our exercise as well again here's photos of the lot this uh was used to be a bad shape house
that was demolished um and it's kind of sitting in this kind of awful condition at the current moment
again we met with the rco um it was quite interesting to me that although we had
multiple meetings we provided um revisions the project went back through and specifically
designed it based on the community's concerns that it was still a five to seven in opposition
their letter clearly states they wanted parking trash storage adequate notice to the neighbors
which we did and then still had a problem with the 16 units although again we had had a tried
to explain you know that it's less actually less bedrooms although more units and again we made
all these changes in order to create additional parking spaces that didn't exist and triggered
additional variances in order to meet that need. They wanted a reduction in the size of the units,
which we did, which is why we went from 10 to 16, although maybe that just wasn't
portrayed in the right manner. I also wanted to add that although it was a five to seven in
opposition, we did get support from a lot of the near neighbors, and we have included that,
and I also sent that to the board today. There's about eight, seven or eight letters from the near
neighbors in support. 601 North 34th, 603 North 34th, 644 North 32nd Street, which is directly
next door, 526 North 33rd Street, 437 North 32nd Street, 3215 Haverford, and I believe
312 Haverford. So we did go get near neighbor support because we did not understand why
so we did go get near neighbor support because we did not understand why there was opposition given
either.
we redesigned this entire project in order to to meet the parking needs i'm going to have our
architect adam rogers present the plans and then i also have the property owner lawrence resnick on
the call as well again the hardships for the parking a hardship for the property is due to
the parking requirement by the community obviously that's going to trigger a variance
as for RM1 the board knows you can't do parking if it's not accessed by a rear driveway a shared
driveway a rear alleyway or a rear street we don't have that opportunity on this site so it's
going to be from the front street it's a corner so there's two fronts and then the lot coverage
and the increased height also due to adding parking in and then the building all you know
to stay substantially the same again the 16 units which will show is smaller two-bedroom units
instead of 10 three to four-bedroom units. Rachel could you go back to the vote count
RCO vote count yeah I thought I saw eight eight non-opposition seven opposed or something no it's
it's five it was five to seven this is this I think it's five to seven oh eight non-opposition
so just people who didn't weigh in. Okay I'm just curious because
usually non-opposition is all you know it's another way of saying support that's why I was
curious all right. Yeah and I appreciate the chair making that that distinction I think that's
important and that's also why we went and got letters of support from near neighbors because
we felt maybe some people just didn't feel comfortable you know voicing their opinion
or what have you. And sometimes on a one-on-one basis, it's easier to explain a project to
somebody. So we went into that as well. Do you happen to know if any of those signatures you
received make up part of the eight and non-opposition? I couldn't tell you that. I didn't
keep track of it. No problem. Yeah, the vote was done by text to the head of that zoning board. So
I didn't receive any of the actual votes or who they came from, unfortunately. Thank you. Yep.
But Jason, do you see Adam Rogers?
I'm going to say to you, Rachel.
I'll allow him to speak right now.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Rogers, you've been allowed to speak.
To speak, please wait until you're sworn in, sir.
Good afternoon.
Can you hear me?
Great.
I'm Adam Rogers.
Mr. Rogers, yeah, please spell your last name for the record.
Yep. Adam Rogers, ROGERS, with CADRE Design, 123 Leverington Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, 19127.
Do you want to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Rachel?
Thanks, Adam. Do you have the ability to share your screen to go through the plans?
Specifically, I just want you to discuss the sort of the difficulty of the site and how the 16 units is actually less dense than the 10 units and sort of how we came to that,
in addition to just addressing how we were able to incorporate parking and why that caused
the additional variances that we obtained.
Absolutely, Rachel.
I'm glad to speak to that, though it doesn't look like I can currently share my screen.
Jason, are you able to make it so that Adam can share his screen?
It's already been done.
I promoted him to the panelists now.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Rogers?
Are you on mute, Adam?
There you go.
Apologies for that.
Sorry.
All right. So, Rachel actually did an excellent job kind of explaining the irregularities of this project, but I just did want to share the...
Can you do that in a little bit? It's just a little small, sorry.
Better?
Yeah, thank you.
So, we actually went through a number of iterations on this project, even previous to meeting with the community groups.
And I'll just share this previous zoning plan that actually we did go in for by right zoning before modifying the project.
Some of the constraints were that the setbacks on 32nd Street were frontages that we were trying to match to remain by right.
So we had a pretty unconventional large setback in the front, as well as continuing that around the side of the property.
set back in the front, as well as continuing that around the side of the property.
When we went to the latest iteration, in order to make the parking work, which I will jump over to
in a second, we had to basically cover the entire lot. After talking with streets and because of
locations of utility poles, fire hydrants, and some other existing street furniture,
This Mantua Street cut was really the only location that we could find to get access to
the property and that also limited our ability for turning radiuses in order to
pick up as many spots as possible which was the goal. So in the latest version here
this is that Mantua Street curb cut that we added and we were able to squeeze in
eight spots, including a handicapped spot. We were not able to get anything towards the back
of the building just because of the limitations on the 24-foot dry vial, which we've now heard
a lot about today. And as Rachel said, the other issue with the original design was the density
of the bedroom count. In our 80% allowable coverage, there really wasn't a way to get
10 units that sensibly had less than three bedrooms, and the count ended up being 35
total bedrooms, I believe, for the 10 units. When we went to the two-bedroom units, because more