Mr. Meyerson.
Mr. Deshefsky, please unmute yourself.
Good afternoon, sir.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Sir, you will have to unmute yourself.
Okay, Mr. Chairman, can you hear me now?
I can.
Just state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter, please.
Yes, Richard Dashefsky. My last name is spelled D-A-S-H-E-F-S-K-Y.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, sir?
Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Dashefsky, you've heard me testify, and I'd ask you whether or not you would adopt my testimony as your testimony, and it's true and correct to the best of your knowledge.
I do adopt your testimony as mine. Might I make one comment that might be helpful to the commissioners?
The view of the sign does not clearly indicate that the numbers are not on 6th Street. The numbers are on the side of the driveway to the plaza. So the only signage on 6th Street is the stacked Independence Place name.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Can I ask Mr. Meyerson if he could appear as well?
Mr. Meyerson?
Mr. Meyerson, please unmute yourself.
Okay, I'm unmuted.
Hi. Hi, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
Sure. Stanton Meyerson, S-T-A-N-T-O-N-M-Y-E-R-S-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Proceed, counsel.
Mr. Meyerson, you've heard both myself testify and Mr. Dyshefsky take a couple of comments regarding the sign.
Would you adopt both of those as your testimony?
And it's true and correct to the best of your knowledge and information, I believe.
Yes, it's true and correct.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Questions from the board.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chairman.
Right. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Paul Boni.
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought Mr. Boni might not be.
That's fine.
Mr. Boni, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
My name is Paul Boni, P-A-U-L-B-O-N-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
I see you, counsel.
Mr. Boni.
Thank you.
could you inform the board as to your support of this project yes uh i'm the chair of the zoning
and historic preservation committee of the societal civic association i apologize for
i'm sort of walking through an appointment right now um i hope you can hear me um yes we
very much support this proposal um you know we want to thank the applicant for working with us
uh we thought that the letters were too big um and we asked that they make them smaller and they
agreed um so we're really happy with that and well we are in full support of this project thank you
thank you thank you very much for taking the time to call in right and i thank you i would like on
behalf of my client to thank him as well mr thank you thank you mr fine all right any other one else
an adverse audience? I see no hands, Chair. Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman,
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman, Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City.
In 2020, the zoning map was amended to split commercial mixed-use and residential mixed-use zoning at this location with the support of the community.
The proposed use will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what might normally be expected.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance.
MI 2022-006-980-241 South 6th Street.
I vote yes.
I vote yes.
Proviso.
Revised plan, one page, stand by ZBA, April 12, 2023.
Thomas Howellman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Okay, we're going to go to number 14, MI 2022, 007-101, 934-44 Pashonk Avenue.
Stephen Pollack is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition from the Bella Vista Neighbors Association, and there's a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squill.
There's also approval received from the Streets Department.
I think I hit all the unmutes and video.
I'll have the video.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Mr. Powell, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Stephen, S-T-E-P-H-E-N-G, Pollock, P-O-L-L-O-C-K.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Chairman.
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
I am representing the Asian bank that is the owner of this property at 934 to 44 East Pass Yonk.
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulating to his accuracy?
I do, Mr. Vice Chairman.
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case, five things in advance of this hearing?
We forwarded everything but the tax clearance, but we're able to get the tax clearance yesterday and forwarded it to counsel Hillary Emerson.
And I hope that was that is sufficient and that would complete everything that we would have needed to have as a prerequisite to be heard today.
Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please proceed.
Okay, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I have with me today, Mr. James Wang, who is the CEO of the Asian Bank, Mr. Chris Nardo, who is the COO of Asian Bank, Philip Rogers, who's our project architect, and also, if I may, Mr. Chair, as I always do, I have my associate, Nico Realbuto, if we could get him promoted to panelist, because he's going to share his screen for us.
Nico, I think raise your hand.
He's coming back in as a panelist.
Great. Thank you.
The overview is, this is an aerial view.
We have pre-marked exhibits A1 through A13.
It's about 145 pages, Mr. Chair.
We do have a letter of non-opposition from the Bella Vista Civic Association.
We also have a letter of non-opposition from Councilman Squilla.
They say that there are several conditions they want, and we will show you that we're applying and going along with everything.
But this is a, it's a, it's a piece, it's a, it's the old Napoli pizza place.
And as you can see, the property is, has a building that's a pizza slice.
But we're replacing the pizza slice with a bank. The Asian Bank has two other locations. One, their headquarters is in Chinatown at 1023 Race. They have another branch up in the northeast on Castor Avenue in the 6500, 6800 area. And this would be their third branch in the city of Philadelphia.
you um if you could go to the pictures that are um and this is napoli pizza and if you go through
these pictures one through our a1 through uh 20 show you um the pass young that's the this is the
seventh street side of the building and we also have a pass young side of the building this area
in the back just stay in that area in the back nico uh go back one more this is where we want
to put parking um for many many years uh napoli pizza i guess parked there with their pizza
with their pizza pizza vehicles delivery vehicles and allow patrons to park there
pizza vehicles delivery vehicles and allow patrons to park there but they
but they didn't have the benefit of an officially approved um parking space so mr chairman what
we're driving for is this and if you could get the refusal nico up for us
if you get the refusal up for us uh we're being refused for two things that are we can impact
they're impacted by the hardship of the property.
It's an irregularly shaped pizza pie sliced lot.
We are preserving the existing building and converting the existing one story
building into the bank.
We already do have approval of cause of for a bank and we already have a,
and your board will be happy to know we already have a approval with the sign
permit for signage that will allow us for signage within the limits of the
zoning code. So we're not dealing with signage.
We're just dealing with the parking. We are unable to accommodate having the space that is required for an aisle space of 18 feet. We only have 15 feet, six inches. If you want to go to the parking lot plan, we'll show you that parking lot plan.
there's the streets approval here's the plan so that as you can see right where the big arrow is
in between the two cars we only have 15 six uh the only and i'll have phil rogers our architect
testify to this or affirm my testimony uh the only way we could ever comply with the 15 six
would be to have to tear down at least two feet six of the building uh and to make way just for
accessory for accessory parking spaces the other refusal is for that we only be also again because
of the regular shape of the lot we only have we have a an accessible space but what we aren't
able to provide is a aisle width of 96 inches we are providing 60 inches so again we are limited by
the requirements of the and dictated to by the physical characteristics of the property as an
improvement if you want if we could show you again the pictures of the lot but you can see that we
have landscaping along 7th to the left and landscaping along pass yonk as approved by the
streets department parking will you'll have to come in off of pass yonk and go out 7th also it's
a function of how the streets are one way, you know, that direction.
So this is the best way to flow it.
We have provided for sufficient aisle space and walking ability.
And if we go to some of our pictures again, you can see that's along the 7th Street side.
That would be where the cars would be coming out, and go ahead, keep going.
You can see there's keep going.
Now, this is also that side.
This is looking back towards 7th and Carpenter.
This is coming towards along 7th Street where we'll be going out.
This is also along 7th Street.
Keep going to our other shots of that.
That's the library across the way.
Go ahead. Now, this is the parking lot view from along Pass Yonk. Go back, go down.
That mural is not the mosaic that we're going to preserve this mosaic because it's not on our wall.
It's on the adjacent properties wall. Then if we keep going, you'll see that on our side, that's also part of it.
We had asked for a drive-thru, which was going to compel a variance because we didn't have enough stacking.
We totally gave up on the drive-thru because of the concerns of the neighborhood and the Nebinger School principal because Nebinger School is right around the block.
We have gotten rid of the drive-thru, as you can see.
We also were going to demolish the old existing building and build a two-story.
We've done that.
We've limited ourselves to using the existing.
Also, we had showed an ATM on the outside where people had to stand out on the sidewalk.
the community asked us to make it so it would be an internal vestibule where people would have to
come in to go to an ATM. We've done all that. That's shown in our plans that we have at page
66 and 67 of our segment two. Segment two, you have to go to segment two, I think, not on,
here you go. If you go right here up the top on Passy Yonk Avenue, or I think that's where it is.
Phil, you can correct me if I'm wrong. We have the where it says Pass Yonk Avenue is going to be a walk in for the for the ATM.
So we've addressed all those concerns. And so we do have it as part of our package, the already existing permit for the bank, the already existing permit for the signage.
And that is where our days and hours are going to be Monday through Friday, nine to five, Saturday, nine to three.
We will be closed Sunday. Another concern of Bella Vista was controlling the parking after hours. We're going to use a chain just to chain it off so that we won't have people trying to park there or use it for any purposes other than when we're open.
Again, so we believe that we are in keeping with the neighborhood and the development scheme and not ordering the essential characteristics of this neighborhood because we're zoned CMX2, and a walk-in bank like this is permitted as of right, as shown by our exhibit A2 that we have, or A, I get my list out.
the permit as a right is A3. The permit as a right for the signage is A4. So with that,
I'd like to call up first, Phil. Why don't we have your client come on, Mr. Pollock?
Okay. And adopt your testimony. That's good enough. I would appreciate that. So if I could
have James Wang, who's the CEO of the Asian Bank. Mr. Wang, please unmute yourself.
Hi, Mr. Wang, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes. Hi, my name is James Wang, J-A-M-E-S, last name W-A-N-G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sir?
Proceed, Mr. Powell.
All right, James, you've been on and listened to all of my testimony before the board today, is that correct?
Yes. And do you attest that it's true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?
I do. And do you adopt what I've stated as your testimony as to the hardship that would befall
on your necessity for parking for the bank? Yes, I do. Okay. With that, Mr. Chairman,
I would move for the admission into the record of all my exhibits. I would have had Mr. Rogers,
Our plan architect just testify again that the necessity of having to tear down the building.
All right.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands at this time.
Plain and Commission.
Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. I apologize for that delay. Sarah Bond, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Okay, in 2015, the zoning map was amended to commercial mixed use at this location in accord with recommendations from the comprehensive plan.