next hand please
um yes i have a hand up from lisa monique jenkins hayden i have allowed them to speak
why could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer my name is lisa monique
Q-U-E, Jenkins, J-E-N-K-I-N-S, hyphen, Hayden, H-A-Y-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
I am a neighbor.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
I am a neighbor and also a business owner.
I own a well-being agency that does psychotherapy, education support, and coaching.
My concerns are the dense cluttering, the overburdened corridor, the sanitation, the social adjustment, the educational focus, and the emotional well-being of the current residents, as well as the proposed residents to come.
These properties are also taking up green space, which is concerning for all the reasons that have already been stated,
but also because it's towards children's ability to have Montessori learning,
to have learning inside of a green space with green community.
I also have concerns about the management of Pembro's and the collaboration of PHA.
I am a three, I have existed in this community under the offices of two generations on my
maternal side and three generations on my paternal side. Home ownership and the ability to have
generational home ownership has been greatly compromised because of the projects that
continue to be ushered here without any outreach to the community. I have specifically asked the
community, the CDC, and others about the pocket parks more than one time, and no one has presented
an opportunity to have a community discussion about said matters before.
Thank you very much for taking the time to call us. Is that the last hand?
No, so there's three more, there's three more hands, Mr. Chair, or four more hands just to say, all right.
Okay, Hillary, we're going to stay with all four of them before Steve does his presentation.
Mr. Masters, how long is your presentation?
um we're gonna i'm gonna go through the the exhibits that we have um i'm gonna read the
answer the question i mean you have an idea how long i would say 30 minutes okay um i think we
should let steve do his presentation hillary then go back again to the the audience okay i just want
to note that i believe a representative from pha has their hand raised in the audience okay um
Steve, please proceed.
I'm going to briefly walk through our exhibit binder,
Then I'm going to read the letter from the professor who is providing expert testimony on this matter.
It's part of our exhibit binder.
So, we have...
So, Mr. Chair, I would object to the introduction of this alleged expert witness.
of the this alleged expert witness so first of all they have to be qualified as an expert well
So, first of all, they have to be qualified as an...
look give me a chance to see what they are first okay okay and we'll go from there i appreciate
mr dockham's enthusiasm yeah steve do me a favor don't go over i mean we have everything you've
turned in so you don't have to cover each thing cover what you think is it pertinent to your case
Sure. My client from Strawberry Mansion Community Concern will be addressing her community's
concerns. They're going to focus on a number of areas, the concentration of affordable housing
in a profoundly Black, low-income community, specifically the violations of Title VI and
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act. But I mean, you've covered that already,
right? Am I correct? Yes. And she's going to repeat what you said?
She has her own take on it, Mr. Chair. Okay.
The lack of an authentic
planning process, one of the things that's happened in this community is that
the Planning Commission, the city, has abandoned this community and not done
an actual comprehensive plan so that what we
have is everyone thinks, oh, let's just throw a lot of affordable
housing into an area with with saturated with with everyone who's low income as opposed to
coming up with ways of planning to create a viability and a thriving community like all
the middle neighborhoods that our mayor is so proud of why can't strawberry mansion become a
middle neighborhood it's not going to become a middle neighborhood if we continue to to throw
them to throw them only uh only affordable housing that that doesn't allow for even a home ownership
the size of the units are a concern to the community they're they're not big enough to
actually have families and for that reason they're not even big enough to have a comfortable
living space for one person the the community benefits agreement is for a different project
there is no community benefits agreement that that actually is valid here and so that's a
concern to the community that there is that there's potentially no community benefits that are possible
from from this project and then there's going to be specific information uh and critiques that
that our client is going to give you on the pocket park um because it's it's um it is uniquely part
of the model cities uh redevelopment plan from the 60s and it was specifically uh restricted
only for park use um so we believe that uh this has not actually been done correctly
I'm going to testify today, so why don't you let her do that?
Yeah, sure.
So I'm going to, and also there's petitions that were done.
I saw the petitions.
They're very specific.
They have dates.
They're contemporary as opposed to the petitions that our opposing counsel puts forward, which
have no dates and not even any information about what it is they're doing.
All right.
I'm going to look at now Professor Hyde.
So Professor Cheryl Hyde is a PhD in MSW.
I'm going to object to the introduction of this evidence, unless Ms. Hyde is in the virtual audience where I can cross-examine her.
And I do have questions.
Excuse me.
I mean, Ms. Hyde is out of town, and I had hoped that she could come in on the virtual audience, but we could see if she is available.
She's traveling, is what I've heard.
um so you this is this is um this is a letter that was written to the zoning board and there's
no precedent we're not if she's not available we're not going to read this in steve you you
can't do that i mean it she's not here and she's not on the virtual audience either
i respectfully disagree with you mr chair we we tend to disagree once in a while so i i totally
agree with you but i i don't i don't think we can allow this please well the there is there is no
requirement there's actually no basis for the zoning board to turn down any written um submissions
well we took it but i i i'm not gonna i'm not gonna you don't want me to read it and i don't
want you to read it into the record i mean it's just and mr chair he's making an allegation that
she's an expert witness which is different than i understand whether she's an expert she's well
available. She states that she's a professor of
software and her practice and research
focuses. Steve, listen to me.
We're not going to have this today.
What's your next?
The next thing will be the petitions.
We have the petitions.
Right, but I would like Ms. Cummings
to... Sure, part of her testimony.
Sure, okay. Ms. Cummings?
Could you give her the mic?
Sure. Ms. Cummings, could you
please state your name
and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Bonita Cummings, B-O-N-I-T-A, C-U-M.
My name is Bonita Cummings, B-O-N-I-T-A-C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Ms. Cummings, please proceed with your testimony.
I just want to say, Mr. Bergman, that you make us feel very uncomfortable in our own skin in this process,
because you're not allowing us to even speak, like you're rushing people along.
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, it's hard to listen to me. I'm not, I'm not trying to rush anybody.
I'm trying to do what's well. That's, that may be your feelings, but I'm sorry about that.
So why don't, why don't you start your testimony? Well, in reference to,
um, there's a lot of misconception about this process and this, this plan because it started
years ago. But just for a point of reference, Penrose and PHA walked away, abandoned our
community with a 69-unit project that has now become this 57-unit project. So this project
was withdrawn because of the opposition to it from the community. And particularly as we
came together as Strawberry Mansion
Development Coalition.
We worked together as a community and opposed, and they
decided that what our community felt were our needs was not
acceptable to them, and they walked away. We have correspondence
that's Kelvin Jeremiah, PHA's president,
sent to Tonetta Brown. I'm going to object to the testimony.
the testimony. If she's going to cite any correspondence, we should have a copy of that
correspondence. Thank you. That's not required. The zoning board doesn't have strict rules of
evidence. And Mr. Nachamson knows that. And that is, he's trying to intimidate the witness and
he's trying to harass her. I would hope he's not trying to intimidate the witness. I don't see
that so continue with your testing so we can't really get a proper reference here because this
is being treated the way many of the housing program programs go as business as usual and
it's like you know this idea that uh we should be overwhelmed i'm not overwhelmed but overjoyed
with being able to get affordable housing is this is not a fight or argument about affordable
housing it's actually about our rights our rights are being violated we research this information
to see that we are 90 it says oversaturated this is information that people can look up about
our community of store baby mansion and see that that that this is a neighborhood where you would
not even want to move into if you were just moving into it based on looking for housing because it's
oversaturated with the same socioeconomic group. There's no upward ability. There's no opportunity
to purchase homes. So this program is continuing to enforce onto our community conditions that
does not allow our young people to have a quality of life that they can go to college.
They're coming up in conditions that are not conducive to normal conditions based on being in these small properties, being in these dense community conditions.
And because we can't tell our story, we can't talk here, you're being rushed.
So we're just trying to help people understand that this is we're not saying we don't we don't want to do affordable housing.
We're saying the type of affordable housing you're trying to do, we are saturated with it.
There's no need for it, and particularly to remove a green space.
Why would we remove?
Our neighbor here is from that 100 block.
Nobody went in that block and asked her how her oxygen saturation is and how she would be heated up if we remove the green space from the corner of her block.
Nobody's talked to her about that.
We have the neighbor right next door, and they're all on the petition for evidence of this situation, that these people have actual medical long conditions.
I'm going to object.
Wait a minute.
So the point is, you're against all three of these projects.
Am I right?
I have my own testimony, but because you're rushing us.
I'm not rushing anybody.
I don't know if I can take the time to read from what I have as my notes.
Listen to me, then if you can't take the time to do that, then what you should do is, do we have copies of that, Steve?
Then give us a copy of that.
If you can't get through it, that's fine.
If you can't get through it, that's fine.
We'll make it part of the record.
We'll make it part of the record.
She just said she can't get through it, Steve.
No, I can get through it, but are you going to give me time to get through it is the question.
You're not giving us time.
I am giving you time.
Now, please stop it.
Go ahead.
It's just not fair.
It's just not.
It's good afternoon.
Today's proceeding represents more than just a zoning matter. It is a moral, legal, and historical inflection point. When zoning board member William Bergman and others already granted the majority of this 57-unit rental-only development across multiple parcels, it felt like a disregard for our rights and community voice.
we are reminded and this is just a quote so I want people to see it as what it is it's something
that's quoted in our history we are reminded of the shameful 1857 supreme court decision
and dress Scott versus Sanford where it was declared that black people had no rights which
the white man was bound to respect while that decision has long been overturned the actions
was bound, the actions, I'm sorry, while the decision has long been overturned, the actions
today, if this development moves forward, echoes that same disregard for the rights, voices, and
dignity of Black communities. And yet today, Taya Nguyen, Cheryl Gaston, Michael Johns, Ishmael
Shahid, Toneta Graham, Hillary Emerson, and the Philadelphia City Planning Commission are being
asked whether they will discredit their own lower north district plan, violate public trust,
and move forward a plan that clearly contradicts civil rights and fair housing principles.
To do so would make June 4, 2025 a betrayal of public duty and the legacy of leaders such as
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Reverend Leon Sullivan, and countless principled union
leaders who fought for justice and dignity. If this development is approved today, it will
represent a throwback to segregation era policy. It will kill the progress achieved by civil rights
giants and community champions. Furthermore, we raise grave concern about the legal representation
supporting this development, which stands to benefit from public dollars while engaging in
tactics that dismiss ethical obligation to the community and sidestep both zoning integrity and
civil rights law. This development removes open space. It disregards public health. It disrespects
the community and violates legal protections. Even members of the press have failed to uphold
their role. When headlines trivialize our cause with comments like how many meetings does it take
to build a house. They perpetuate the falsehood that our resistance is excessive. But when it's
not their park being destroyed or their home being boxed into poverty, their privilege shields them
from the harm they helped justify. And to labor organization backing this project, we must say