ZBA Hearing - February 25, 2026

so how will the children be separated right between the two spaces so the children you said

how will they be separated yes the council person wants to know who will be in each side and how

are you going to manage that okay so i would do from zero to three years old on one side

And then on the other side, I would do from three, from five and up.

What about the four euros? So zero to four?

I'm sorry, from zero to four on one side and then from five and up on the other side.

okay and there would be certified staff correct there will be certified certified personnel on

each side yes okay do you have other questions uh not count not a council person

I don't want to do that that way, but no, that's what's to come.

Other questions?

I'm sorry. I'm picking my grandkids up.

Okay. How many, how many bathrooms are on each side?

It's one bare foam on each side. On one side,

um it's two um it's one bare foam with two toilets and on the other side where I will put

the smaller children it's a bare foam with just one toilet okay so it'll be three

commodes shall we say yes 30 children yes well it wouldn't be it wouldn't be 30 all in one space

and on the one side where the smaller children are they'll be the children as just um pampers

and potty training then once they move to the other side that's where the two toilets are

okay and that's okay with this statement yes yes the state approved it it's 15 children per toilet

it's 45 really yes wait one interesting okay but again as we said there's not you know obviously in

the one space you're gonna have you know you have a lot of younger children most of whom are right

in diapers for pampers and you said 24 hours so that's seven days a week yes um some some parents

require overnight it's not every day that they get it but some um like um some hours change for um

different nurses um they have um the six to two and then they have the three to eleven and then

they go from the eleven to seven so it it switches up so it's not like it's every night or and it's

not seven days a week either and i rotate my staff gotcha so you you operate basically like

operate basically like three shifts as well is that what yes yes and how many staff members do

three shifts as well is that what yes

you have right now i have three okay and were you planning to have more when you have more

yes i'll have i'll i'll have um actually right now i work with a program from um you may have

heard of volks middle school they have um a volunteer program once the children once the

students getting to the 12th grade um they have them volunteer and um they can actually stay on

with you but i actually have some of those volunteers as well and they you can um keep

them on you know for work as well but they are there now training and they volunteer and they

work with my staff now so i have three of those as well oh okay thank you yep one quick question

So the RCO, one of the RCOs, one of the proviso that you will have the dumpster service at least minimum five days a week.

Is there any issues with that?

No.

We've done that.

And this has been because of the location of the property.

Trash, you know, not going to shy away.

Trash has been an issue because, you know, it's close to the bus stop.

there's a lot of um a lot of people dumping who don't aren't at the shop at the apartment complex

but we have trash pickup five days a week we have a gate with a lock and we've also um

engaged a resident at the apartment complex who is also now um

monitoring the trash and notifying the building engineer if there's an issue or if it's overflowing.

So we're trying to attack it on all fronts to make sure that we're keeping it in check.

Okay, thank you.

I have a question about sort of layout in the space.

I saw the general spatial layout of the building itself, but are you going to need to do any construction or any partitions?

to set the space up for operations no it's actually oh go ahead Erica feel free oh no every

everything is all set up and I can separate areas like with um bookshelves and stuff like that like

the little bookshelves I can separate the areas so then what's going to be the plan for overnight

shifts when you if you have I guess kids are that are going to be going to sleep at different

times or you might need to have lights on for the staff to be able to sort of operate

while the little people are sleeping well we can dim the lights so we can still have light on

and um we do have like for the children that do stay the fold up mattress and um have some um

some more lights they can tap on the tap lights so i have several of them as well

okay so all of the just to clarify all of the actual fit out work was done at the time the

first space was open the landlord just did all the work at the time and that's how you can see

why all the, you know, carpeting, painting, bathrooms, all of that

was done. So there's not additional work that has

to be done to the units, either unit at this point.

Questions or comments from our attorney?

Hillary, what would we use for a temporary date?

Well, if the lease goes to 20, 30,

yes, that would be four years, just because she's two years

into her six-year lease I think if I could mr. chairman I believe that when

we met with the pen knocks and the other communities organizations they had

requested that the variance be limited to six no actually what they had said

What had come up in the meeting is that the variance would be limited to only so far as Erica Miller operates in the, operates the daycare center.

So somebody else.

No, no.

We can't.

We can't tie a variance to a business.

We're going to come with a date.

Yeah, variance.

Variance is run with the land.

They can't be tied to leases or businesses.

I totally get it.

three one okay all right uh questions or comments virtually

31 okay all right uh questions or comments virtual audience

planning commission

amy boy with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change

to the rm1 existing zoning at this location i'm sorry rm4 the proposed child care center

would be compatible and complementary to the current use and would not likely enjoy the use

of adjoining property the planning commission recommends that the board grant the proposed

use variance for child care center okay so mi2025-005-105-5427 wayne avenue i vote yes with

proviso temporary variance which will expire 3130 and trash picked up uh six days a week

Michael Johns, my vote is yes, with Proviso.

Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with Proviso.

Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes, with Proviso.

Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes, with Proviso.

Iowyn, my vote is yes, with Proviso.

Thank you, counsel.

Thank you.

So number three, MI 2025-005-234-6740, Germantown Avenue.

Steve Masters is the attorney.

they're being promoted to panelists okay

sure

mr masters could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer

good afternoon mr chair members of the board steve masters steve ma s t e r s do you swear

or firm that tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do could you um identify

your client a relationship to the property uh my client is um a a part of philly office retail

it's called cajun properties llc they are the owners of the property and we have letters of

support um from uh several rcos and there's also a a petition but i do see there's a a letter of

opposition also from someone okay so our vice chair would like to ask you a few questions

okay sure good afternoon um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance

of this hearing yes and we've um had some amendments so that we just submitted those

earlier today. Okay. Thank you. And do you waive the refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?

I do. Okay. Thank you. You can show your screen and proceed with your case. Okay.

All right.

good afternoon again members of the board uh we are um we are here for a uh a project that was

is very thoughtfully created uh by uh philly office retail ken weinstein as the principal

owner of the firm. This is two parcels that were separated. One parcel is a historic designated

former bank. It was recently the Santander Bank, but it was a bank from, I think, almost 100 years

ago uh before and this area that we're that we're addressing today is was just a empty parking lot

um the much of the um of the issue that we're going to be discussing today has to do with the

the zoning designation of this uh of this parcel which is ca1 ca1 is a parcel is a designation

that is considered by the planning commission to be outdated in along the the corridor for

in Mount Airy and in Chestnut Hill there are very few CA1 districts still left in in northwest

Philly but this is one of those so I'll start with our refusal

uh our the the lot subdivision was done by right um we're here um for just premises b and what

we're doing is we're we're we're um converting the empty um space to 10 condos with

converting the empty um space to 10 condos with seven parking spaces um the number of parking

spaces is a is consistent with the ca1 zoning district but um if it was a cmx 2 or cmx 2.5

it would only be three parking spaces so it's quite a generous amount of parking spaces

they're also the size of the of the condos are quite a bit smaller than many other condos that

are being built in the monary and chestnut hill area that was designed intentionally to be more

to fit in more with the surrounding area and the character of the of the homes in the area

we have two refusals here one of them is that because it's a ca1 that's only for commercial

high intensity traffic uses you can't put housing you can't put residential in there and the second

is that the maximum allowable area is 60 percent and and we exceed that because we're we're doing

infill for enough of the of the condo so that it would it would make a real difference for the for

the commercial corridor um we have uh these are gonna be hard to look at or to see not hard to

look at but hard to see um we have uh petitions signed by uh it is 82 petitions um in support

and many of them uh because this was a petition format where people could do it online

many of them have very detailed comments

as to why they are so strongly in support of this project.

So for example, we are desperate for additional housing

in Mount Airy, especially in places

that can serve many retirees.

They like the attractiveness and the ideas

and it goes on and on.

This is quite, I've never seen a petition called,

that has this kind of like rich amount of information in it.

The, at the RCO meeting all,

there was a number of different RCOs.

They all unanimously voted in favor of the project.

The main RCO, the coordinating one

was the West Minority Neighbors.

Um, they, uh, they showed support, um, of, uh, of, uh, 23, uh, they had opposition of

seven, uh, 12 are neighbors in favor of seven against, and then all four of the board members

for we man voted yes um and they they go into quite a uh quite quite a a basically what the

concerns that were raised um and and they explain why uh that they that they are strongly in support

of this but in addition to we man we also have a letter of support um from the monterey business

improvement district um and that's important because this is along the commercial corridor

uh and uh and and this shows that uh the the project with with the residential condos um fits

in very nicely to uh to the plans for the commercial corridor to keep it being its vitality and to

to expand on it.

Plus the Mount Airy CDC wrote a strong letter

of support as well.

Then there was an individual who couldn't make it today.

He's traveling by air at the moment.

He's a close neighbor and also an attorney.

And he wrote a very thoughtful letter

going through all the different point by points

that some of the neighbors had raised

and showing why this design is so really,

it's met with so much approval by the organizations

and by the neighbors.

I'm going to show, we have three levels of plans here

and then I am gonna be calling on Ken Weinstein

to kind of walk us through the whole the whole um idea of how he designed this project and and why he

why he's created uh the project in these ways um and but here we have um this is

THIS IS THE SITE PLAN SHOWING THE TWO PARCELS THAT ARE DIVIDED.

the the site plan um showing the the two parcels that are that are

THIS IS PARCEL A, THE HISTORIC BANK, AND THEN THIS IS PARCEL B THAT WE'RE HERE FOR TODAY WITH ALL THOSE PARKING SPACES.

and this is

more of the zoning

plans

for the

These are the elevation drawings for the condos.

One of the things that you'll hear from Mr. Weinstein

is that there was a lot of attention paid

to not putting balconies that would overlook

neighbors on either side.

The balconies overlook the streets,

but don't encroach on the quality life

life of the, of the, of the very few, um, other residential buildings that are, that

are in the immediate area.

This is, um, this is the renderings, um, that, um, we'll, we'll go into some more detail.

So here is the historic, uh, bank building.

This, this is the rendering of the new condos.

So you'll see the balconies are, like I said, facing the street, but not facing the neighbors to the north.

We also do have our design team, our architects from Design Blends that can be happy to answer questions from the panel too.

uh we have the the first is your client going to go over these yes so i guess i should have

but i mean why don't we let him yeah okay does that make sense yeah so let me just

skip ahead briefly just to show you the rest of the of the exhibits

uh this is well we have some some photos um from the exterior since this is a parking lot