What about the setback issue that that you're building is the only one that is right on the set that has no setback from the street?
Yeah, I would disagree with that. Most buildings along Germantown Avenue are built right along the street. I know that's.
And buildings along Germantown Avenue are built right along the street.
I know that's required in CMX to build right along the sidewalk, and we're consistent with that.
And the last one was, was everyone who showed up to vote in favor of this at the RCO meeting, were they shills for you and your tenants, or were they just also neighbors?
Yeah, there was residential neighbors who supported us.
There was business owners who supported us.
commercial property owners who supported us. Maybe two out of the 12 were tenants who I also
happen to know and who believe deeply in revitalization, but certainly not nine out of
12 now. Thank you. Thank you very much. And we'll vote on this next Wednesday. And thank you,
Mr. Weinstein. Thanks for your consideration. Sure, sure. So number six, MI-2025-006-270,
9701 busselton avenue dylan beltrami is the attorney
they're being promoted to panelists here okay he's here
good afternoon council
is your mic on the mic the light can you hear me yeah yeah it looks like it's on all right could
you sure could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer sure my name is
dylan d-y-l-a-n and my last name is beltrami b's and boy e-l-t-r-a-m-i right do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do could you identify
your client a relationship to the property yes so our client is an authorized member of the llc
um aesf real estate llc which is the owner of the property oh and by the way welcome
thank you all right okay and our vice chair has a few questions sure good afternoon um have you
submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing yes we have and did
you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy yes we do okay all right thank you
can show your screen and proceed with your case hi chair is the appellate logged into the zoom
it looks like it kicked me out so i'm just rejoining right now okay all right
it ain't no good
Thank you.
all right I should be in now I apologize sure no it's not a problem
no problem you're being promoted to panelists thank you
it takes you a couple minutes once you get in there
don't worry Alan always has a problem with this too if you're interested
all right i'm going to share my screen now
there you go
great so the property that you see um before you is in oh i'm not sure why the uh full screen
views popping up there with that little can everyone see it on the zoom no no i'm gonna
try it came to disappear yeah i'm gonna all right okay give it one more go
let's back up great there we go so the property you see before you is um
an rsd1 zone property that has been used as a professional business office for many decades now
um as far back as 1994 the property that you see has remained substantially unchanged from the
outside it was used as a doctor's office and an accountant's office and we're looking to continue
with the zoning peel before you today to continue to use this as a business and professional office
and i could i could tell you too that the uh greater busselton civic association
the unanimous support of 25 votes and councilman o'neill is also in favor yes so as you can see
unanimous support of 25 votes and councilman o'neill's also a favor yes
the refusal here um as we just stated the refusal was for the attempted use as a business and
professional office in an rsd one zone property um as the chairman just noted there was unanimous
support in favor of this project um 25 to zero and councilman brian j o'neill also um sent in a
letter of non-opposition to this project so it's a little difficult to see here but right where my
mouse cursor is you can see that in 1994 as far back as then this property was being used as a
business and professional office so as I noted it was being used by a doctor and his wife his wife
was an accountant and the property was being used for their professional offices directly across the
street from the parcel on 9637 bustleton av is another rsd1 zone property which is being used
as a business and professional office for a personal injury law firm right around the corner
on 9636 bustleton avenue another rsd1 zone property that's being used as a law firm
on 9630 bustleton av another rsd1 zone property being used as several business and professional
offices and then there's new construction on the main thoroughfare on 9614 through 22 busselton
avenue since this construction is new we're not yet certain what this project will end up entailing
but it's very likely they may be before you as well for a similar type of variance here's an
aerial view of the property of 9701 busselton avenue so i would indicate that the off-street
parking is all legal and will remain unchanged. There are 13 parking spaces there. There's one
handicap spot, which is available. Our client, the individual who's seeking to open the law
firm here, runs a small practice. She has about nine support staff. There are three full-time
attorneys. They're typically not all going to be in the office at the same time, and they don't all
drive to the office on a given day. Very frequently, they will use public transport or other means to
get to the office and notably her office only accepts appointments so there won't be clients
to showing up and coming and going and when they do show up for an appointment a lot of times
they're just there to sign documents and leave so they're there for short intervals and for those
reasons we suspect that the parking lot will never really be at full occupancy but there is street
parking available on fulmer right there if that does end up proving necessary and you can see
right here my mouse cursor is to the rear of the property that's where the trash would be taken out
and picked up by the city she indicated to us that she usually will only ever have two receptacles
picked up once a week one for office supplies and then one for waste from her employees
here's another view of the property and the zoning map you can see it's rsd1 zoned
a google maps view and then here's a picture of the front of the property i would point out
again where the cursor is a sign so the sign is still out in front of the property today
and it shows the last use of the property as a business or professional office that's the sign
for the doctor's office and the accountant's office that was previously in the building
and then going as far back as august of 2007 you could see the same sign you could see the property
looks substantially unchanged and i would also note for the board that our client does not
plan on performing any type of construction or modifications to the exterior of the property
then here you can see the parking lot with an entrance from falmer street so you can see there
is one way in over here and then you can't see it in this image but to the right of where those
trees are located there's an exit so people will not be coming and going out of the same
means of ingress and egress here is the multiple pictures of the notice posting here
this is to the right of the property on busselton to the left of the property i would point out you
You can see the law firm in the RSD1 zone property directly across the street, then to the right of Fulmer Street, to the left of Fulmer Street, and then the interior photos.
So you can see it was last being used as a business and professional office.
And talking to our client, she indicated that, of course, there's going to be some small cosmetic changes that will be made to use this as a law firm.
You can see the break room here that I'm sure the employees will put to use.
And you can tell in this top picture here, an exam room.
So, as I mentioned, there's going to have to be some slight conversions made and some cosmetic changes to turn this from a doctor's office into a law firm.
So, here is the basement level.
I would point out that there is an elevator, and then there is a staircase leading to and from the basement.
The break room is located down here, and there is some overflow available if need be.
Here is the first floor.
So, over where my mouse is is an ADA accessible ramp.
This is where the clients will be accessing the building.
Again, since they are appointment only, they would be met in the reception by one of the
Again, since they are appointment only, they would be met in the reception by one of the support staff.
support staff and then they would be brought in to the main portion of the office over
As you can see, there is the waiting area over here, a conference room for meeting with
the clients, an office available for the attorneys and support staff.
There's actually a means of ingress and egress that leads directly out to the parking lot
over here where the porch is written, and then there is an elevator here as well.
Going to the next floor, there's some additional overflow.
as you can see there's multiple office spaces available there's a cubicle room for the support
staff and then there's also elevator access to this floor as well and then the top floor will
mainly just be used for overflow and there's a couple office spaces available up there
and here are some renderings some virtual renderings of the property from all different angles
the RCO meeting notice as we mentioned and as the chairman mentioned on December 18th we met
with the greater busselton civic league and there was unanimous support of this project
the rco notifications
here's our application for appeal
here's the deed for the property in the name of aesf real estate llc and it's authorized uh
representative anna ferreira's in the virtual audience and we'll ask her to speak in just a
few minutes here's the tax statement and then here's the tax clearance for the property
and then i'd like to call yeah sure anna ferrera from the virtual audience please sure
could that person raise their hand
i don't know right let's see her
They're being promoted to panel. Thank you. Thank you.
Good afternoon. Hi, could you please state your name is spelled for the stenographer Anna Ferreira a n a f e r r e i r a.
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes please proceed counsel ayanna did you hear my testimony here today yes and was my testimony
true and correct yes and do you adopt my testimony as your own i do all right questions from the
board questions from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time watching for comments from the virtual audience
no hands at this time chair leading commission amy boyd with the planning commission the
comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning at this location from the current rsd
one residential single family the proposed use is consistent with documented prior use which
dates back to at least 1993. the planning commission recommends that the board grant
the requested variance for business and professional office thank you mi2025-006-270-971
bustleton avenue i vote yes michael johns my vote is yes cheryl guest and my vote is yes
tenetta graham my vote is yes ryan mcadams my vote is yes tywin my vote is yes dylan thank you you
did great by the way thank you very much thank you chairman and members of the board okay number
Thank you, ma'am. MI-2025-006-439-7701 Busselton Avenue. Brandon Savarin is the attorney.
They're being promoted to panelists here.
Bless you. Who was that?
hello everybody hi counsel could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
yes uh brandon saverin b-r-a-n-d-o-n s as in sam a v as in victor r-a-n as in nancy right do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do could you
identify your client in relationship to the property? Yes, my clients are the co-owners
of the property, and that would be Northeast Apartments Associates LP along with Bassman
Family LP Northeast LLC. Right, and there's a letter of unanimous support from Roanhurst Civic
Association and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member O'Neill. Our Vice Chair has a few
questions brandon uh good afternoon um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days
Have you submitted your documents and exhibits 5 days in advance of this hearing?
in advance of this hearing yes
Yes, I have.
And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I waive the reading. I think there's 1 very, very minor error on the refusal that I'll point out during my presentation. Okay. All right. Thank you. You can share your screen and proceed.
Okay, thank you. All right.
Okay. All right. Hopefully you can all see that. That was the deed I was looking at to reference the owners. I have submitted 16 exhibits, and I'll go through some, but probably not quite all of them.
The first that I'd like to show you is Exhibit 7, which is one of the aerial photographs of the apartment complex. So I'm here to speak about 7701 Busselton Avenue.
This is a complex with two apartment buildings and a shared parking lot between them on Busselton Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia.
There is a funny situation with the property that we are here to address today.
We are not proposing any physical changes to the complex.
It's purely sort of a technical records matter.
The issue is that although OPA already considers each building separately for property tax purposes, and to this point, L&I has also considered the buildings separately for permitting and licensing purposes, they were acquired by the owners under one shared meets and bounds legal description.
And what happened maybe about half a year ago is that Freddie Mac, who ultimately holds the mortgage loans on these apartment buildings, decided that it was not acceptable that they were described together under one legal.
And it asked my clients to record a new deed by which the buildings would be described separately.
So as you may know, members of the board, in Philadelphia, even when you're not changing the number of lots in OPA's eyes, if you change the legal description of a property, you still need OPA's approval.
And when we went to seek OPA's approval, they said first we needed a lot line relocation zoning permit from L&I.
And when we went to L&I, I'll go to the refusal here, we expected L&I to issue the lot line relocation zoning permit as of right under the theory of legal nonconformity or grandfathering, given that L&I had issued permits as though these were two separate properties since the 60s.
Unfortunately and surprisingly, L&I decided that it was going to evaluate the application
as though it were one property being subdivided for the first time, and that drew the refusals
here on the notice of refusal.
So I'm going to skip back and forth a couple times between the zoning site plan and the
refusal.
So what we've done here is propose new legal descriptions that will draw the boundary between the properties as close as possible, if not in an identical location to where the boundary between the two already exists for tax assessment purposes.
So, you know, that allowed us to do two things. It allowed us to go to OPA and say, we're really just trying to maintain the status quo. Also, this is what Freddie Mac demanded. It said to us, we don't care if it would help you through the zoning application process.
If you drew the line in a different place or if you made certain changes to the property, Freddie Mac said there will be no changes to the property and there will be no adjustment of that boundary until you legalize the current boundary.
That was really Freddie Mac's edict.
So that is exactly what we're attempting to do with you today.
Putting the boundary in that really same location in which it already exists in some sense drew the following refusals.
One of the two buildings, which is the one known as 2300 Hartel to OPA, is too close to that boundary line, which I'll show you in a second.
It's just under eight feet away from it.
So that's a dimensional refusal. There were refusals issued for insufficient accessible parking spaces. Those are these two refusals. And there was a refusal issued for the number of parking spaces.
So that's a dimensional refusal.
There were refusals issued for...
This is where the error came up right here. As far as I'm aware, the RM2 district requires
parking spaces for apartments on a 3 to 10 ratio. There are 25 permitted and licensed units in the
2300 Hartel building, which this refusal references. I'm not sure how the examiner
came up with a requirement for 21 spaces when there are 25 units that has no resemblance to
the 3 to 10 ratio, but it's really neither here nor there because, as I'll show you now,
we were going to get that refusal regardless. It's purely a question of what the correct
requirement is. We think the requirement is less. It doesn't really matter. Anyway, that's the error.
So just to focus on the parking lot a little bit, you can see that because Freddie Mac required us
to mimic the existing boundary, this puts all of the shared parking on the same lot as one of the
two buildings. So we have technically zero on-site parking spaces for 2300 Hartel. Now in reality,
we have a shared parking lot that under the 3 to 10 ratio provides more than sufficient parking
under the zoning code for both properties believe there is uh 42 spots or 41 um in any event um
technically we're providing zero spaces for one of the buildings although through usage rights
that's not really the case um in addition there are spaces adjacent to a pedestrian aisle on each
lot um i know that with certainly with this particular set of spaces here these were not
counted by the examiner as accessible spaces because of the narrowness of that aisle again
by re-striping the lot which requires pulling a site work permit from l and i we could have
addressed that probably gotten around that refusal freddie mac said nope no permits no work
legalize the conditions before you do anything else and then just to quickly run through a few
of my other exhibits um as the chairman mentions we we have a unanimous support from those who