or to see what is smelling over there because it is a smell out of this world.
But in the same token, I did speak to the gentleman that was at the meeting,
and he was telling me about all the lime that he has put out there.
But the lime is really going away, I guess, because some days I can smell it.
I can smell it all through my apartment.
And that's not fair to me, and it's not good for my lungs.
And it's also not good for me to pay rent somewhere where I'm not comfortable in.
And that's how I feel about that.
I don't know if he put anything up there or the roof or whatever,
but right now it's dark
you can't hardly see anything now
thank you for taking the time
to be with us today
okay chair we have Taylor
Taylor you can
unmute yourself
and wait to be sworn in
first name
my name is Taylor
White Welchen
T-A-Y-L-O-R
last name White
as in the color w-h-i-t-e hyphen w-e-l-c-h-e-n address um address is one seven five five
north 26th street we're in the firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes please proceed sure um so my husband and i recently purchased a newly renovated
home on the street. It's towards the other the end of the other side of the street near I believe
Montgomery Avenue. Our new home has a rooftop deck which we really appreciate and like and we
just have some concerns regarding the addition of the unit potentially obstructing all of the views
for our rooftop deck if we could potentially get more information about
the floor plan regarding to the the extent to which the new addition would
obstruct the center city views that would be great or yeah yeah that's all
I've said thank you anyone else
no more hands up chair mary jones i see mary jones i don't know if she's still here from the
council president's office she didn't have her hand up to okay and mr jen to explain i think
there's some note i saw that said the community did not reach an agreement yes as i indicated in
my initial presentation part of the issue here is that the community's concerns focus on this
addition portion of the application. I'm going to reshare the screen of the application itself. So
this is the addition that is being discussed at length with the testimony of the neighbors.
One of the key points here is that these buildings, when they were built, and we're
maintaining the existing footprint of the existing building, when they were built,
They were built with a side court and nine foot rear yard. So they do actually meet code requirements for open space, as well as rear yard depth, which means it did.
code requirements for open space, as well as rear yard depth, which means the addition itself does
not trigger a refusal. So there's no refusal for this. While this is part of the application,
and I know my client tried to explain this to the neighbors, anyone who acquires this property
can choose to do this addition, and it is not really a zoning refusal item to be-
Right. It is by right. The only issue here is the number of units.
Correct. The only issue here is the number of units. And again, we understand that everyone's concerned about light and air with regard to this.
And again, there is a side court already in existence, both on 1709 side.
And I believe looking at the aerial map on the 1711 side, their side court is on this side.
So yes, it is only about six feet, because these courts tend to be three foot wide. But 1711 can also do the same extension that we're asking for by right. So it is, we're not taking away their right to have that space utilized.
I understand they don't, but this addition in and of itself is not going to cause a refusal item in the future.
Even if we were to accept not to do it at this point and this building transfers hands, someone who comes along can still make the and build the addition at that point.
So I just wanted to make that clear.
And again, I also want to point out that I don't believe there was an objection at all from any of the witnesses as far as the use, because it is consistent to the next door's use. Thank you.
Anyone else, Tanya?
No, that's all.
Questions from the board?
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, board.
Peter, did we swear you in yet?
I forget.
Not today.
Okay, so please spell your name.
Give us your title.
Peter Bernard, Community Health Planner for PCPC.
My name is spelled B-A-R-N-A-R-D.
we're confirmed to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes thank you please proceed this property is indicated for a single family residential
on the comprehensive plan this application represents an overuse of the property
accordingly we object to the granting of the variance at this location
Thank you.
Calendar number 38406, 1907 North 26th Street.
My vote is yes with proviso, maximum two units.
My vote is yes with proviso.
Yes with proviso.
Yes with proviso.
Yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Calendar number 39651, 1932 North 4th Street. The attorney is Rachel Pritzker.
Good afternoon.
Hi, Rachel.
Can you put your name and address on the record and spell your name?
Rachel Pritzker, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, Pritzker Law Group, 1635 Market Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA, 19103.
Thank you.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?
And do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
you may proceed thank you okay so i wanted to i want to bring up um ron dibiase who is the
owner of the property i believe he's also on this call and scott woodruff who's the architect for
Does this matter?
Hello, is this Scott Woodruff?
Only Scott has his hand up.
Okay, we have Ron and Scott available to speak.
Okay, can Scott be promoted to a panelist
so that he can show the plans when relevant.
when relevant okay scott has been promoted to panelists thank you so much
okay can you put your name and address on the record
scott scott that you have to unmute yourself there we go
Scott Woodrow. Thank you. Can you put your address on the record as well? Sure. Design Blends
Architecture, 4001 Main Street, Suite 203, Philadelphia, PA, 19127. And do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Okay. So before you go
into the plans, I'll just briefly discuss the project. This is an application for the construction
of a three-unit, three-story multifamily residential building on a long-standing
vacant lot at the corner of 4th Street and Houston Street. As you'll see, it's sort of a
triangular-shaped parcel, about 1,088 square feet, and we propose two three-bedroom apartments and
one three-bedroom apartment. I think the plans were slightly changed floor plan-wise. Scott can
go through that after meeting with the community. Our application requires relief for two variances,
a variance allowing multi-family use in RSA 5 zoning district, and a variance allowing no rear
yard at the shallower side of the property. You'll see it's oddly shaped, so we are actually providing
a nine-foot rear yard. So Scott, if you want to go into the details of the project, and then I can
talk more about the refusal and our hardship in addition to other elements of the project.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Rachel. As you can see, we're at the corner of 4th and West Houston Street.
We have vacant properties on either side of us. I believe there's one that's built down
down the road here a little bit. The Planning Commission designated North 4th Street as the
frontage for this property uh given that as the frontage our rear yard is technically classified
as this line um that's on the opposite of north 4th street uh we uh felt it was important given
that the vacant you know vacancy really on this block to hold the corner um and produce a building
that was more rectangular in nature as opposed to a really weird triangle leaving this big gap
that's kind of open towards the rear. We are still providing relief towards the back of the
property. There's a 13 foot 9 and 3 eighths inch yard that kind of stretches towards the point of
the actual lot. We do comply with open area calcs of 80%, so we're only occupying what we need to
at 80% of the lot. It's just the rear yard, again, which is calculating from 4th Street,
whereas here in this nature, obviously, we're still providing a good portion of that.
I can go into as well. So this is the exterior of the building. We worked and changed a few
things based on some community feedback, which Rachel can go into here further. But really,
again, trying to create something that kind of held the corner and visible on all sides,
had materials that would be complimentary and visually appealing as there is a bunch
of vacant lots obviously around in this area.
As you can see from the plans, we have one unit that is basement first floor and then
there are flat units on the second floor and third floor.
the first floor has its own private entrance and then the two units above
have their own entrance on 4th Street again one of the things you wanted to
try and stress is that these these residents would be more long-standing
at least so providing separate entrances trying to create a little bit
more space obviously are things that we want to have for the residents so it
feels much like an apartment building necessarily. And then again just looking
at the height of the building, we are
the height of the building we are under 38 feet in height three stories and comply with any other
regulation that way we don't have any roof decks proposed just front balconies
to provide outdoor space for each unit as well as the rear yard
thank you so um just to get into again the hardship and the variances that we're requesting
first again um is the just to keep it simple is the rear yard setback again um because the
oddness of the shape of the lot um we weren't able to and and having fourth street be designated
sort of the frontage and this being a corner property it made more sense to put the rear
yard to the back right of the property. So again, we are providing a rear yard actually, as Scott
said, over 13 feet instead of the nine feet required. Additionally, as far as the multifamily
use, although this property is zone RSA 5, this property is on a corner. It's quite large compared
and oddly shaped compared to the other properties. And it also has a significant amount of multifamily
that has been approved by this board over the last couple years, specifically 1338 North 4th
Street's a duplex, 1946 North 4th Street's four-room unit with a commercial space, 1947 is a
duplex, 1949 is also a duplex, 1952 is a duplex, 1955 is a duplex, and 413 West Houston is a duplex.
One of the reasons that we did not provide for a duplex was because we do have a larger corner lot
And also we were asked by the community and in conjunction with sort of the council offices
planning for this area and initiatives on affordable housing, we wanted to provide a
mixed income housing development. Specifically, these are three affordable condo units, given
the community was very interested in homeownership. And that was something that our owner was
willing to do either rentals or homeownership. Just to give the board an idea of the price point,
the first unit, I believe, is at $175,000. The second is at $190,000. And the top unit,
which is the largest, it's double the size of the two, is at $325,000. So two of them are really
well under even the workforce housing price point for the city of Philadelphia. And that was
important. Just to get into the 2035 district plan before I speak about the community,
I'm just going to share my screen as we actually pulled directly from the 2035 plan.
Okay, so basically the 2035 plan shows that the property and surrounding blocks be used for high
density residential development. This is right near 4th Street, is on 4th Street and next to
Biss Street and Near American Street. As you can see, page 57 of the plan kind of describes,
you know, their ideas for residential development and higher density in this area in particular,
in addition to the amount of vacancy in this area alone, as you can see from Scott's
aerial. As you can see, the star is sort of where this project is, and it's really surrounded by a
of RM1 on a lot of the neighboring blocks. It also has some of the highest vacancy in this area so
as you can see trying to construct something that can provide for a little bit more foot traffic
and buying power to support the goals of North American Street and Fifth Street in addition to
providing enough density to help with the sort of vacancy and blight that we're seeing in this
neighborhood. Again, we believe this project, in addition to the mixed income housing component of
it, aligns with the city's comprehensive plan and the goals of sort of mixed income housing
development in the city. As you can see from the Atlas aerial, this is the amount of vacancy just
on these surrounding blocks. I think that's probably why the board and neighborhood have
been relatively supportive of multifamily in this neighborhood, again, to help support the
goals of Fifth Street and North American Street. Just to talk about the community meeting just
briefly, we actually met with the community twice, which is the North Square Civic Association.
We met with them not only at a board meeting that they held, but then we also did a full
community meeting in which Sloan from the council office was there as well. We probably only got in
to speak for like not even five minutes. They were not open to hearing about the project. They were
not open to discussing much about the project, although we did make changes and submitted
to discussing much about the project, although we did make changes and submitted changes that they
changes that they requested.
requested related to homeownership and related to the side facade of the wall facing Houston Street.
They were worried, given the amount of vacancy, that they wanted that wall to be made of a lot
nicer material than we had originally proposed, so we made that change. We were then asked a week
before this hearing to come back again in front of them. They acknowledged that sort of the meeting
didn't really go in a in a fair manner and that they wanted to kind of reset with us that they
worked up new protocols however at this point we've been waiting um and we we did more than two
we did two meetings with them we felt like it was more important um at this time given uh sort of
the features of this site that we try and move it forward if possible to not have another meeting in
which uh it may not be productive so um we've reached out we've made the changes that they've
asked for. We've spoken ad nauseum to the council office to make sure that we're kind of going