proceed with your case okay can we swear him then also yeah mr bertill please identify yourself
and i'll swear you in uh steve bertill um from clare harrison harvey and brinsburg last name
spelled B-E-R-T-I-L. Address is 1835 Market Street, 14th floor, Philadelphia PA, 19103.
We're affirmed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Have you agreed to waive and stipulate to the accuracy of these cases?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, including proof of ownership,
proof of tax compliance a copy of the refusal or referral and photos and or plans of the property
five days in advance in advance of this hearing uh yes to all of you have met with the rco that
yes that is correct thank you
Okay. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. As I stated
earlier, my name is Steve Bertil and I'm here on behalf of the owner and applicant for this
property. Let me just begin sharing my screen. The properties in question are 42.23 and 42.25
Powhatan Avenue, which are adjacent. These are under two separate applications, but they are,
it is the one project of joining properties, contiguous and same owner.
And so just to give the board some context and some procedural background before we get into
specific property, as was stated earlier, the RCL, the coordinating RCL assigned for this project
is the West Powhatan Sanders Park RCO. We've been in continuous contact with them
up until the community meeting. I've been communicating with Ms. Pam Anderson,
or excuse me, Pam Andrews, who is the zoning chair and I believe the president of the RCO as well.
Ms. Andrews was very straightforward and honest with me and informed me on the onset when I
became involved in this matter, that the West Powhatan Sanders Park RCOs essentially has one
main mission, which is to preserve single-family housing in the West Powhatan neighborhood.
You'll see in a moment why we believe, generally speaking, we agree with that
standpoint, but while we believe that sort of hard line should not and does not really apply
to these specific properties. And in the context of this conversation that is going throughout
this application, it's essentially we're told that if it's not single families, essentially
a non-starter. Now, I did, after our RCO meeting on June 10th, we did have, I did have a phone
call recently yesterday or the evening or with Ms. Andrews that basically stated that
the RCO was willing to listen to a proposal of a lower density multifamily, which didn't
seem to be on the table prior to.
And due to that change, what we agreed to do was request that the board hear our presentation
today and hold their vote pending the possibility that the RCO would hear a lower density
proposal, which, as I stated before, wasn't really on the table before.
And so what we would ask if the board would grant is that we can put on our presentation,
you can hear the testimony of our application and whoever wants to testify to this case,
and then close the record except for hearing the results of a possible second meeting
to be held hopefully before a I'm not sure if it would be categorized as a resumption hearing or
how the board would categorize it but we would hope that we can hold the vote for a few weeks
so we can reconvene again with the RCO and see if they're even if they would consider a lower
density from our proposal. Correct me if I'm wrong Sharon this would be considered a resumption
hearing correct? It would be um unless the RCO is willing to agree that there will be no
no testimony and it would still be a resumption hearing but if you could limit it to um reading
their another letter into the record. That is what we um they originally uh asked that we uh
continue this and we informed them that we could not agree to that due to as I think everyone here
is aware how on the backlog of cases um and therefore this is what um we uh stated that
we would agree to if the board would allow us to do so um if not we're here to go forward today
could we check to see if any representatives of the RCO or any attendance um just to confirm that
they understand that doing it this way would mean no one would testify. It would simply be
their letter being presented.
Is there anyone here from West Pelton slash Saunders Park to testify?
No hands at this time, Chair.
okay why don't we do this then sharon correct me if i'm wrong again i'm sorry i have a hand now
Okay, why don't we do this then, Sharon? Correct me if I'm wrong again.
I'm sorry, I have a hand now.
oh okay i believe miss andrews is on the line
i have a miss connie
i don't know who that is
arlene
you can unmute yourself are you here for this case
why don't we do this uh well let's go forward with the case and then we get to the mls for any
if anybody has any uh wishes to testify and we'll then consider a resumption okay all right thank
Thank you. As I stated, we're here for 4223 and 4225 Powleton Avenue. We're presenting
a proposal for an erection of a three-story residential structure for use as multifamily
for three units. Before we get into the specific site, I wanted to just talk a little bit about
the context of the neighborhood in the area in question. So as you can see here from this zoning
area, we front the property in question is in this area here. We front on Powhatan Avenue. As I
stated, the main purpose of the RCO that was assigned as the coordinating RCO is the preservation
of a single family within the West Colton community. Now, we, generally speaking, don't
have a problem or don't disagree with that sort of mission, but we do believe that for these
specific properties, we think that hard line is misguided and actually works against what that
mission is and against what the sort of area zoning shows. As you can see from this area,
basically every property that fronts on Powhatan Avenue is either zoned as multifamily or mixed
use, whether it's RM1, RM2, CMX1, CMX2. And I believe there's some industrial use a little
further up on 40th or 41st. And so as you can see, for some reason that I haven't been able to
figure out, the area where our property is carved out of that and zone is RSA 5.
As you can see from this area here, the section where our properties are located,
this green, excuse me, this blue rectangle is 4223 and next to it is 4225.
But there's one residential property on our side of the street, and that property is essentially used as short-term rentals, as Airbnb and things of that nature for professors and graduate students.
And so that was confirmed by both the owner of the property and the occupants.
And as you just said, pardon the interruption, do you know how many units are in that property?
I haven't been able to confirm the unit count.
It's sort of a hodgepodge in this specific, in this property.
I'll have a better shot of it on the street view.
But as you can see on our side of the street, this is a church here.
And then everything else is the athletic sort of complex and basketball courts that are owned by Drexel University.
I know in the zoning area, it looks like it's, you know, different parcels here, but these are all, this is the basketball court, and this is the church.
Across the street, you'll see, again, it's mostly zoned ARM1.
There's a few that are zoned RSA5s as well, but as you'll see in my presentation, across the street is almost exclusively multifamily.
It was actually there, whether it was done by ride or via variants in the past.
And that includes a large multifamily complex in the middle of the block.
But I'll get to that in a second.
So, again, this is just an aerial of our side of the street where you can see, again, there's one home there.
And that's an Airbnb.
There's another aerial for the context.
And here's the street view.
As you can see, right now, the parcels are both vacant lots adjacent to each other.
We're proposing a three-story multifamily on both parcels, identical uses, identical floor plans, which we'll see in the second.
on both parcels. Identical uses, identical floor plans, which you'll see in a second.
This is the church in the residential structure that's there. This is the church in their
courtyard. This is sort of looking up Coweton Avenue. You see the basketball courts to the
right, and you'll get a better shot of this multifamily sort of courtyard-style structure
on the left-hand side. And this is looking in the opposite direction, down Pelton Avenue.
You'll see again that everything on the right-hand side of this photo is outside of maybe one
property. It's all multifamily. That ranges from duplexes, triplexes, and up the block there's a
quad. And this is the athletic facility, as I stated. So let me just jump to
some more photos of the area context as you see this is directly across the street
with triplexes uh that's a zoom with duplexes more duplexes another quad um triplexes um duplexes
um again it's almost essentially multifamily and this i haven't been able to confirm the unit count
on this building. We know it's at least eight units, but this sort of multifamily complex
that's more of a courtyard style is directly across the street from the proposed, from
our proposed site. And so we believe in addition to maintaining multifamily, we believe the
zoning sort of, excuse me, maintaining single family within the community, we believe what the
zoning attempted to accomplish here is to concentrate multifamily along the main thoroughfare
in the West Powhatan community, which is Powhatan Avenue. As you can see, everything behind the main
throughway of properties that front on Powhatan Avenue is RSA 5, which makes sense. Powhatan
Avenue has, you know, bus routes. There's the 30 and the 40 running along there, and it's also a
main thoroughfare, and if you want to limit the amount of multifamily that's peppered throughout
the community, one of the best ways is to concentrate it in one area, and therefore
concentrating it along Poulson Avenue, as we're proposing, actually goes in line with the zoning
context of what's actually there on the zoning map, but even further than that, further than
what's on the zoning map, what's literally on the ground there is almost exclusively
multifamily up and down Townsend Avenue.
Now our proposed project, as you'll see, let me zoom out a little bit here.
has no dimensional refusals. We refuse only for the multifamily use. As you can see from our
proposed elevation plans here, we're matching almost identically the materials that it's used,
the style that is used in the existing structure, even up to the historic sort of cornices that are
popular and well known for the West Powhatan area. As you would imagine, this is all at
an additional expense, but we wanted to match the existing homes there in terms of style material
as much as we can up into the front porch and the brick all the way up to the corners.
So what we're proposing in terms of the density is three one-bedroom apartments, as you can
see from this floor plan entrance from the beginning, from the front, sort of a galley
style kitchen straight back to a bedroom and restroom to the rear.
And so the floor plans are identical on 4225 and 4223.
And so the floor plan that you're looking here will be the same, just kind of a mirror image.
As you can see, the second unit, which is on the second floor and the third unit, which is on the third floor, are also identical.
Michael?
So when we met with the community group, we informed them that, well, I should say, before
we met on June 10th, we did have some preliminary meetings.
The applicant met with the RCO leadership and informed them of their intentions to build
multifamily here. At that point, that's when they inform them, look, we really only want
At that point, that's when they informed them, look, we really only want to see single family anywhere in this community, and that's kind of the line was sticking.
The applicant did go back and talk to some lenders and brokers, and it just wasn't a feasible option.
In fact, he couldn't even get lending for single family for these two sites.
the market for new build single family in this area, the price points that they would have to
sell at would just have to be astronomical. Not only that, in addition to that, we explained to
the RCO that from the time that the applicant purchased these lots, which wasn't that long ago,
from now, the cost of construction exponentially increased, which even if single family was sort
of on the line of feasibility when he first acquired it, that sort of was blown out the
water when the cost of construction changed. And so we thought considering the context
and the context of what's actually there and the specifics of these lots, that this would
be something that the RCO would look at and see, like, there is enough sort of delineation
from what's normally being requested for multifamily in this area to normal sites and these two
sites. In addition to that, we agreed to and we proposed and agreed to include 24-hour
exterior cameras. We agreed to add bike storage on the inside, interior trash storage. We
proposed working with the church on the corner to source local artists or young artists to
put a new mural on the other side of 4225 because, as you can see, there is a mural that's there
on the existing Airbnb home. And we even agreed to have a perpetual easement for that home,
4221 Pilton, to cross the rear of our yards as a way for them to bring in and out trash
from the rear of their homes. With those proposals, we thought that the conversation
was fairly balanced. There were some people that generally were just like, we don't want to see
any type of multifamily, it doesn't matter the density, whether it's affordable or anything like
that. And there are some people that asked questions regarding some of the things I just
described and that we agreed to do. And so leaving that meeting, we were under, as I stated,
we're under perception that nothing that's multifamily is a option for them. And so we
elected to go forward so we can explain to the board why we believe multifamily is appropriate.
We suggested an alteration of density, but that conversation was not able to be had at that time.
And so considering everything that we are proposing now and our availability and our openness to lower the density to units in the structures, we believe that there may be a path forward with the community, which is why we ask in the onset if we can, you know, close the record at the end of everyone's testimony,
whoever wants to testify, and hold it for a possibility that they would agree to the two units.
That said, we came here today believing and strongly believing that multifamily is actually
the most appropriate for the site. And so, our application is for the three units,
so that's what we're presenting today. If the board does not want to grant us the opportunity
to have that conversation regarding the duplexes versus the triplexes.
Two things.
Do you have your client available to adopt your testimony?
Yes, I do.
Let's do that.
And I understand there is someone from the community waiting to be heard.
So we'll do your, swear your client in first,
and then we'll get to the questions.
Okay, great.
My client's name is Saki.
I don't know if he can raise his hand if he recognized.
I'm sorry, can you say that name again?
Saki, S-A-K-I.
Okay, sir, you can unmute yourself.
Please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
Saki Karamitopoulos, S-A-K-I, last name K-A-R-A.
M-I-T-O-P-O-U-L-O-S
p-o-u-l-o-s you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
thank you mr uh saki did you have the testimony that i provided to the board
this afternoon yes do you adopt and affirm the testimony is true and affirm it is your own
sure do thanks and is there anything that you would like to add to the board i think you uh
nope okay okay any uh any questions from the board no no
is there anyone else who would like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
yes chair we have a judith peters thank you miss peters please spell your full name and i'll swear
you in i'm judith j-u-d-i-t-h peters p-e-t-e-r-s i'm a member of the church and i do not agree
with the hold on please do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the