Thank you, Taya.
For me?
Number nine.
She was, yes, I've got it.
Great.
three yeah i started with it now yeah all right number nine mi 2025 000 463 2015 south fish
street henry clinton is the attorney there's an amount unanimous support from the dickinson square
west association and a letter of non-opposition from council member squill the applicant has also
provided 29 signatures from from neighbors seven from the immediate block
morning mr chairman good morning mr clinton could you please state your name as bell for the
stenographer sure henry clinton h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n you swear or affirm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Do you waive the reading of the refusal
and do you agree with its accuracy? I do. Could you identify
your client in a relationship to the property? Sure, I have two clients who are on the
call, Christina Sam, S-A-N, and Michael Kahn,
C-H-A-N. Would you please proceed, sir, with your presentation?
is that visible mr chairman
you might want to make it just a little bit bigger henry
just a little bit better
better yes all right thank you i got again good morning mr chairman members of the board
of Henry Clinton on behalf of the homeowners of 2015 South 5th Street.
This is a request for a single open-air parking spot at the rear of the property on 5th Street,
5th and Emily in South Philadelphia.
And the corner of 5th and Emily has three other parking spaces,
two at the rear of the homes on the corner, which I'll show you, and one in front.
So it's consistent with what's been happening on 5th Street.
And I also have some other examples to show the board of parking spaces and or garages in the rear of properties in that general vicinity.
Table of contents A1 through A10, which I ask to be admitted into evidence as I walk through the project.
This is the refusal.
It is an RSA 5 single-family zoning district.
And as the board knows, in this type of district,
accessory parking for any single family use has to be from a shared driveway
or a rear street abutting the lot.
We do have an RCO letter.
This is the way it came to me.
It's not that legible, but the chairman summarized it at the outset
that we do have unanimous support from Dickinson Square West.
And these are just emails where Mr. Disley sent the letter to me.
Here's the letters of, excuse me, the petition from those nearby.
And I highlighted the individuals who were on the block and closest to this parking spot,
basically at the west end of the block on the 400 block of Emily Street.
So let's get to the photographs.
So we're looking at Fifth Street here. My cursor is McKean Street is here. To my left, to my right, again, highlighted in yellow is Snyder Avenue. And this is Fifth and Emily. The highlighted roof is my client's project.
And as I walk through this, I'll show you that there's a rear parking space on this property, on this property directly across the street, and there's a front loaded curb cut parking on this property, as well as several others, which I'll show you.
So now we're looking east on Emily Street.
This is my client's property at the corner.
the closer view this is a property directly across the street with a garage the proposal
is to have an open-air parking space with a curb cut at the rear of this property
again looking in the other direction now we're looking west i'll show you this photograph here
there's a it's really not that relevant only due to the fact that there is parking on this corner
but it's a front-loaded garage single-story from 5th Street.
So it's really not apples to apples other than it is a parking space.
This property in blue also has a garage at the rear.
The new review of closer view of the neighborhood.
So there's a parking space here, parking space here,
and also a parking space at 2001 South 5th Street.
And I'll show you closer photographs of each one of those.
So this is 2001 South 5th Street. Now granted, this is McCain Street. It's a wider street than Emily Street, but I show it to the board just to show that there is some use of rear.
I show it to the board just to show that there is some use of rear yards for parking.
The one on the right, which would be the south side of McKean, has a garage, as does the one on the north side.
Now, this is 2012 South 5th Street.
Just a few houses, excuse me, just catacorner to our lot.
So now we're looking west, and our property is in yellow.
This is 2012 South 5th.
This is a closer view of that.
that's the property that was painted in blue and again there's a parking garage at the rear of this
property next is 2024 south 4th street which is the same 100 block but on 4th street there's
two garages in the rear yard on both sides of 4th street and that's the close-up view of 2024 south
4th Street with the rear yards eaten up with the garage. 1925 South 5th Street. Again, our property
is to the right closer to Snyder. The block further, 1900 block South 5th Street. There's
also a garage at the rear of that property. This is a close-up view of the property indicating the
posting of the notices for the ZBA meeting with the community as well as
with the ZBA. Again, some more photographs.
This is a closer view to give the board a perspective. The idea is to have a gate
that rolls from the rear to the front and then it's going to be used for a
compact car you know just to give you the board an idea of the the length of various cars you know
a highland excuse me a honda pilot is about 16 and a half feet long a prius would be 15 feet
and we're right in the middle like a toyota camry would be 16 feet in length
here are the plans i have to shrink these a little bit so they're
I went too far on that.
So here is 5th Street.
Emily Street goes west to east.
So the turning radius is adequate.
We have signed off by the streets department as well as a letter from the streets department.
And then this will really just be for a compact car.
I'll blow it up a little bit to show you what the corner dimensions are.
so at the corner from the corner to the curb cut is 60 feet there is a fire hydrant here and as we
know you can't park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant so you have 45 feet to be a legal spot
even though you can see from some of the earlier photographs people are parking closer to the
hydrant, but 15 feet is the regulation, as Chairman well knows. And so we have 45 feet
between the area where you can't park until the curb cut. And then the car would basically
have to maneuver, frankly, to get into the space and do a K-turn to be able to adequately
fit inside the parking space.
I just wanted to show the board the streets department approval, if I can get this up
a little bit.
This is the approval letter from the streets department for the space.
And the rest of the documents are the typical documents you would see in a presentation
like this. The application
for appeal.
Project
information form. Tax
clearance. The zoning map.
Again, it is an RSA 5 zoning district.
We're right here on the
southeast corner.
The deed of ownership.
A notice letter to
everyone in the surrounding area.
And these are the corner lots that I showed earlier today.
And in full disclosure to the board, my clients currently are renting this property.
The lease ends in August.
Their intent is to move to this property with a parking space in the rear.
That is my presentation, and I will certainly ask my client to unmute herself
and adopt a testimony
and entertain any questions
that the board
or the members of the public have.
They're doing it,
then they're going to sell?
Is that what you're saying?
no no they're going to do it then move there okay good thank you yep i got it miss miss
No, no, they're going to do it,
then move there.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
Yep, I got it.
sam can you unmute yourself
miss sam christina sam has been promoted to panelists hi thank you good morning christina
miss sam are you on the call now yes okay were you on the call when i presented the project for
henry hold on one minute i christina could you state your name and spell for the stenographer
yes it's christina sam c-h-r-i-s-t-i-n-a last name is s-a-m right do you swear or affirm to
tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes please proceed counsel thank you mr
chairman uh miss sam were you on the call when i presented your project for an open
air parking space at the rear of your property yes and if you had the opportunity to testify
would you adopt my testimony as your own and as shown correct yes thank you very much
questions from the board yeah i'm i'm kind of can you go back to that parking plan
i'm trying to figure out how how in the world uh someone is going to park essentially parallel
in the yard when i look at the google map everybody's parking on the street i'm on a
pavement number one correct across the street have bollards i didn't even if you have a compact car
You're going to take out three parking spaces to try to get into this this spot.
It just seems it seems extreme to impose this on the rest of the neighborhood when there's very little parking on the neighborhood in the block already.
I mean, just look at the turning radius that the streets department approved and why they approved this parking space.
I don't know. But clearly, you're going to take out two parking spaces just to get into the to the place.
So this is just it's just not a good situation for the rest of the neighborhood, in my opinion.
Right. And Mr. Johns, I hear. Yeah. And that.
Can we go back to the picture of the current situation?
There's a shed there, too.
Yeah, I know, but
No, you had a picture where it had all these
different, I don't know what they call them, but
No, no, no, no, no
What do you call it? I don't know what you call them, but they
basically are little
poles. They're half-like poles that
across the street
right here's one of them
and I'll get a better shot
there was another one where
it really showed
there were two right here
there's some and then you had
one where it
showed people parking
and then there was more of those
kind of poles
I think it was in the beginning there
I was back earlier, I think, in the previous.
Let me find that.
Here it is right here.
This is what Mr. Johns was referring to.
Yes, yes, yes.
So, yeah, I mean, how is this going to work in terms of, you know, and then you've got this poll here.
It's how I understand that the streets department may have approved this, but as a practical matter, how is it going to work in terms of turning radius with these?
I don't know what you call them, but we had one on my street and we only had parking on one side and it made it incredibly difficult for anybody to try and park near this house because you can't, you know, you can't back up or get up enough on the sidewalk to be able to, you know, back up and do this.
I just think, as a practical matter, the turning radius that was approved, maybe on paper works, but I don't see how it works in practice.
Look, I recognize what you say.
Yeah, those two, the two cars right there, which are basically, they would be, you couldn't do that anymore, right?
You couldn't do that anymore, right? Because this is where this fencing is. That's where we're talking about, correct?
Because this is where this fencing.
Correct. And I agree with you and partly with Mr. Johns. I guess the only thing I could say is I think you're going to lose one spot for the curb cut and one spot for the turn.
and again not that past uses make make this right or correct but you know the garage on the left
hand side is used all the garages that i showed you on the smaller streets but but mckean street
i mean it works and people are pulling in now granted this is a garage and this is an open
space so it is different but you know with the compact car uh the turns are not going to be as
significant as as we're making them out to be and i think that's probably right henry i think when
you look at the other side of the street the garage too i you know if cars are parked on this
side how do they get out of that garage right well i mean you know i mean unless it's a garage
you don't use but i mean i don't know how you you get out of that garage right and i hate to say
this but it is south philadelphia and people no i i totally understand that i understand that
henry i i mean you know that i lived on a block like that but i just i just don't know how you
could turn well yeah and the other thing is even if even if even if somebody could get in there
which which is highly you know doubtful that they can without somebody without with people
parked across the street it's still a straight-end pull this site you've got a pull in you've got a
back end you got and you didn't show in your plans the turning radiuses that you would need to do
to get to back into that space right so all we have is the streets department um approval of
the turning radius um into the space but it doesn't show you how you actually park
what what are the what is the k k turns that you have to do to get into the space