homes or low density twins. And we'll look at those when we look at the maps with you
and the diagram, but literally there are no multifamily large structures on this big square
block. They are all small, small structures that are single family homes or very small
twins. So why not develop the parcels as of right? The testimony in the record before revealed that
Gelli never wanted to develop the property in compliance with the RTA-1 zoning classification.
So instead of planning a project that complied with the zoning, he chose to design a project
that would require his property to be rezoned RM-1. He chose to design and build it for his
own reasons, not for any hardship, not for any inability to do the right thing. He was
committed to changing the zoning to RM1, so he first proposed 83 apartments in one large structure.
That was probably his opening bid so that he could maybe have some room to maneuver. The community
pushed back hard on that design. He lowered the number of apartments down to 76, and then he
committed to designating 20% of the units as affordable. The two zoning hearings that you
held back in 2021 were devoted to Galley making his case to the zoning board that the existing
RTA-1 zoning class for the whole neighborhood, not just for these parcels, but literally every RTA-1
zoning for the whole neighborhood, that's what his witnesses testified, was wrong. They called it
alien. They called it all kinds of names. If it didn't have such a thick skin, it would have
very offended by all the names that his experts were calling it. His architect, his land planner,
His architect, his land planner, his project historian, and his lawyer all presented a variety of arguments that justified rezoning RTA1 to RM1. The problem here is that even though he makes some interesting arguments, he took it to the wrong place.
his project historian, and his lawyer all presented
Instead of making this argument to district council member Gaudier, who was the only person who can rezone these properties through council legislation, instead of going to her to convince her to introduce that legislation, he took the case to you.
You can only issue variances when there's an unnecessary hardship that is unique to that property, and you are legally barred from awarding variances when it has to do with a zoning class that is for a wider area and not just for those parcels.
Now, Gellie's witness never established the legal basis for unnecessary hardship.
In this appeal, the lots to be developed are all vacant.
We're not talking about preserving any kind of history here.
These are blades of grass that did not exist back in the time where there were multifamily dwellings on this property.
The primary issue identified by Gellie's witnesses is that the RTA-1 zoning class itself is the problem.
And this by law, by all the case law that we have in Pennsylvania, cannot be the basis of a hardship claim, but not just the case law. In our zoning code itself, it says that the hardship has to be not related to the zoning class. It literally says that it has to be related to something physical about those buildings.
Now, in addition, we have a neighborhood here, the immediate neighborhood, it's uniformly
residential, and there's literally no barrier to developing duplex housing amongst the mix
of single and multifamily housing.
Our testimony and the cross-examination that we're going to do of Gelly's witnesses will
show that any hardship that exists at these properties is either not unique to the property
itself, or it was self-created by Mr. Gelley's decision to combine all the parcels into one
ginormous parcel instead of subdividing the parcels to an appropriate size for a large RTA1
development. The zoning board failed last time to discuss and evaluate Tom Ewing's buy-write plan
for RCA1 compliant home. So I'm going to share that so that we get a little preview of that here.
We're going to go to
there we go. We're going to
So, we, members of the board, we have presented back in 2021, but it was never looked at, never shared with the board because the objectors didn't have the ability to share their screen.
I see that. That was submitted to the board.
Mr. Feldman, Mr. Feldman, let Mr. Masters.
You have plenty of time for your testimony of your case, but let Mr. Masters finish.
Mr. Ewing, we're going to be presenting him as an expert witness today, and I believe that Mr. Feldman is going to be in agreement with that.
He is a trained architect with a master's degree in architecture, and he's the former senior director for planning at the University of Pennsylvania for nearly 40 years.
He oversaw all major capital real estate projects for the university, including the $600 million construction of Wharton School's Huntsman Hall.
Mr. Ewing's by right design does not require multiple curb cuts. We agree that multiple
curb cuts would not be the ideal situation for this development. Here we have one additional
curb cut on 48th Street, not on Chester. And with this one curb cut, we have alleys that can feed
the cars that belong to these. Mr. Masters, let me ask you, you're going to present this later,
right yes yeah so why don't why don't we you know sure i think we understand what you want to do i
just don't want to i have just a few more a few more words so um even if mr ewing's design requires
a variance his testimony will show that it is without question the least modification necessary
to overcome unnecessary hardship finally i want to address the applicant's affordability arguments
Galley claims that he can't create affordable housing by developing the duplexes under RTA1, but he never took any of the steps a developer would need to take to develop affordable housing here.
He never applied to the Housing Trust Fund in Philadelphia for funds. He never sought low-income housing tax credits from the PA Housing Finance Agency.
He never sought low-income housing tax credits from the PA Housing Finance Agency.
The federal, state, and local governments all provide subsidies to create affordable housing because without these subsidies, it's very hard to do an affordable housing project, especially in an RTA1 district where you don't get the bonuses that you can get from some other districts in the zoning code.
His argument is that he can't create 20% affordable units at an RTA1 development, but it has no credibility.
It's not that he can't develop affordable housing using Mr. Ewing's plan.
It's that he never bothered to try.
Finally, we're going to be presenting testimony of the RCO leaders and near neighbors who were not allowed to present their testimony at the previous hearing.
And these witnesses have been instructed to direct their testimony to the issues of hardship and minimum variance.
Thank you, Minister Masters.
Mr. Feldman, could you start the presentation of your supplemental evidence, please?
Yes, I'm going to need to.
Yeah, I'm coming out here.
Here we go.
Let me come back in.
I'd ask.
By the way, Mr. Masters, you'll have a chance to cross-examine his witnesses.
Yes, thank you.
All right, proceed.
I'd ask that architect, Jerry Roller, managing principal, J.K.R. partners, be promoted to a panelist.
Mr. Feldman, this is Tanya. Does he need to be a panelist or audio only?
I think a panelist would be helpful if possible, but we could do audio too.
Okay. Staff, can you please unmute him? Thank you.
Mr. Roller, please raise your virtual hand.
Mr. Roller?
Mr. Roller, can you please raise your hand?
He's unmuted.
Jerry, are you there?
In the essence of fairness of time, Jerry, we can continue.
Let me just...
Jerry, are you out there?
mr feldman could you go to your next witness here we go here we go okay good mr mr merler
could you state your name and spell for the court reporter uh yes it's jerry roller r-o-l-l-e-r
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Proceed.
Good morning, Jerry.
How are you?
Good morning.
You had me worried there for a second.
Sorry.
So, Jerry, I even hesitate to ask you some of these questions, but can you give the board a little of your background?
How long have you been an architect in the city of Philadelphia?
I'm going to stipulate that he's an architect, and this is for supplemental testimony.
He's already testified before.
I don't think we need to.
I was going to ask that he actually be accepted as an expert in architecture in the city of Philadelphia due to his longstanding experience and testimony.
What specifically do you want him to be an expert to testify to?
To the hardship under his understanding of the properties, the code and architecture principles.
Hardship is a legal concept that isn't something that an architect is an expert at.
them. So why don't we do this, Mr. Feldman, let him testify, and then we'll weigh what we think
about his testimony. I mean, I think that's where we should be. Great. So, Jerry, when your firm
was hired by the owner... I'm sorry. This is Tanya again. I might have missed it, but did he get
sworn in? Yes, I was sworn in. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, Jerry. I'm trying to follow everyone.
That's all right. That's okay. Proceed.
Great. So, Mr. Roller, when your firm was hired by the owner, Mr. Gelley, to redevelop the properties, what did your office do as far as an initial review of the property?
Mr. Gelley approached us with the idea that he wanted to develop housing on the property.
We reviewed the underlying zoning, which is RTA1, which contemplates twin duplexes on
which contemplates twin duplexes on 2,250-square-foot lots.
We looked at that as an option, and actually, there should be a slide showing what that looks like.
Yeah, and we'll get to that shortly.
So you looked at the zoning.
As I know your office does, did you look at the context?
Did you look at the context? We looked at what was around there. We looked at the existing nursing home building on the site and what might be a yield for the lots in question.
I have an objection at this point. It looks like Mr. Roller has testified to all of these questions before and his testimony today is supposed to be supplemental.
all so i'm wondering let me i hear what you're saying mr feldman i agree i think we're i think
what we want need to hear right now is because we have all the testimony before that's in the record
what is his supplemental information sure sure but i i think at the same time that we need to
have some latitude here um i agree you have to have some latitude but i think what he's testifying
so far is already in the record. Sure. So, Jerry, when you talked about the zoning,
here is the zoning for the property, correct? Correct. And the property is split zoned. Can
you explain? The property is partially zoned RTA1, partially zoned RM1, and there's a small
piece of the property that is zoned CMX2. And RM1 is what? RM1 is a multifamily zone.
uh cmx2 is a commercial ground floor uh residential above zone okay i'm i'm just
subjecting here that the use of the term the property implies that it's one property but
there's actually multiple parcels and none of them are none of them that are you're developing
are on one so i i feel that what you're doing is okay we're going to be from the that that's that's
not true this is mr feldman mr feldman listen mr masters i hear your point mr feldman we're
going to move on and try to get to the point of what the supplemental issues are again this is
this is why this is why some latitude is necessary there is there are five properties here that i
wanted to but mr mr mr feldman i understand there's latitude but i think in your opening
comments you covered all that for us so why don't why don't we have mr roller
So, Jared, you looked at the RTA-1 zoning that's on four of the five properties, correct?
And can you explain to the board what RTA-1 looks like in terms of first dimensionally, and then we'll talk about physically?
I'm objecting, again, that this is literally the same questions that you answered, and it's in the transcript.
Perhaps we can clarify what you, in fact, Mr. Masters, alluded to in terms of the previous testimony, in terms of what you could and could not do with the property.
Terry, does RTA 1 require two card cuts?
double rta rta1 it requires on-site parking for two cars for the two duplexes assuming that we're
we're developing it um under the standard art rm1 rta1 which is a 25 foot frontage 200 2250
50-square-foot lots with twin buildings and two units. If we use the lots that are shown,
there are four vacant lots as part of the overall five-lot parcel that's being included.
Those lots are 6,000 to 12,000 square-foot lots. They are way larger than the standard RTA
one lot so that and just just to orient the board that's the slide that you see in front of you
the five the five vacant lots and the nursing home lot correct correct correct and those
these sizes of these lots are between 6 000 and 12 000 square feet they are and and we did we did
look at could we put duplexes on them and and yes in fact you could but it's a ridiculous use of
property. If RTA-1 contemplates a 2,000-square-foot lot and these are 9,000-square-foot
lots, it is not an appropriate or efficient use of land to put four buildings on this property.
four buildings on this property well beyond appropriate or reasonable is it viable have
Well, beyond appropriate or.
you do you know if I mean you've been doing this for 40 years do you know of any developer that
would put one duplex on a 12 000 square foot lot uh and call it a day and be able to be able to
finance that that would not occur excuse me council excuse me council I I believe your
question was does each property require a curb cut was that your question uh i was going to get to
that that was that was your question but he didn't answer it he he answered it in the negative well
i was going to address that in cross-examination but there's definitely nothing no requirement in
code for a front okay thank you well okay um let's why don't we get to the rta one plan that we did
produce and and the the reasons why it probably isn't viable and then the rta plan that was
proposed and why that's sure as you said at the beginning you looked at that you looked at this
for the owner, a bunch of different scenarios. This is the RTA-1 layout that your office put
together to try to come up with a viable number of units to make this project possible, correct?
Correct.
And can you describe to the board what you've shown here?
As was previously presented, this has multiple driveways, 36-foot wide curb cuts,
multiple sidewalk crossings, parking cars in the front of the buildings, and losing street parking.
It also is on Chester with the parcels that face Chester in conflict with the ordinance prohibiting curb cuts completely on Chester in deference to the number 13 trial.
so one one of the things which we didn't testify to but i should and and want to add here is
um in in preparation for this hearing we looked a little a little bit more closely
as to whether this in fact could be done as as an upright plan and um
what we didn't look at at the time because we didn't think it was viable this
this plan would require stormwater management. Stormwater management would have to, given the
size of this development, be done in some sort of common facility. It could be done on the
unusable land that is behind there. In order to manage stormwater management under the regulations
in the city of Philadelphia. There must be an entity to do that. In this situation, this is
typically a homeowner's association, and this becomes what is commonly known as the PUD or
planned unit development. The wrinkle here is that when you do a planned unit development,
the city of Philadelphia now considers this multifamily, and we've done numerous developments
like this, where it's essentially single houses or duplexes or whatever the underlying zone calls
for. But because of the common facilities, the city permits this as multifamily. So essentially,
even if we were to present this plan to L&I, they would refuse it for multifamily. And we'd end up
with the same refusals that we are sitting with here now, i.e. multiple structures on the lot,
multifamily use, none of it permitted in RTA1. So while the plan looks like it complies with RTA1,
in fact, digging into it a little bit more closely, it will not comply with RTA1 in that
L&I will refuse it for the same reasons. And when you talk about this pod or plan unit
development. Can I show you a picture of something that you've done previously?
I just think, I know you understand what that means, but this is a project that you're offering.
I mean, here is an example of one such property. This is a series of townhouses.
I'm going to object that there's no relevance to comparing this property with any other project
or property i don't see how how whatever mr roller did in another parcel has anything to do with
whether there's hardship or minimum variance issues so so mr feldman i i i'm going to agree
with mr masters i understand what you're trying to present and i understand very well what he
what he talked about with the last one but i don't think we need to comparison to
talked about with the last one but i don't think we need to comparison to a townhouse development