My name is Frank DiCicco. I'm the chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
We have a quorum calling this session to order. Attending this zoning hearing also
is our vice chair, Ms. Carol Tenere, Mr. James Snell, our board member, Mr. Thomas Holloman,
our board member, Mr. Confessor Plaza, our board member and secretary. As you probably are aware,
today is actually our third day of having virtual hearings. Excuse me, also our city solicitor,
Sharon Saleta is on
and our
staff member, Ms. Tanya
Sunkit, they were also in attendance.
And while we may have some difficulties, adjustments along the way, our plan is to call each case and basically proceed as we would have in a live hearing.
While we may have some
difficulties, adjustments
along the way, our
We ask that attorneys for applicants or other interested parties identify themselves for the record when their case, when the case they'll be participating in is called.
We will then hear the applicant's presentation, followed by a presentation by attorneys representing other parties.
Interested parties and members of the public, not represented by council, will then be given an opportunity to testify.
We would ask that your testimony be within three minutes.
We will finally hear the recommendation from the Planning Commission.
At the end of the hearing's conclusion, the board will either vote the matter immediately or hold it for discussion in the next executive session.
Any case held for discussion will be voted on the record at the scheduled July 28th morning session.
A couple of changes related to the virtual format.
First, we will be administering oaths individually to participants prior to their testimony rather than to the room as a whole since we have no room.
Second, for the benefit of everyone participating by phone,
we ask that attorneys and witnesses identify themselves prior to speaking or testify.
Third, we'd like to advise everyone that this proceeding is being recorded
and that participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
And we would also ask, if you wish to testify, that you please raise your hand.
That way, our Zoning Board Administrator, Ms. Tanya Sunkett, could identify you and pat you in.
Tanya, do you want to, at this time, give them the call-in number if they don't already have it?
Yes. If you wish to testify and you have called into the Zoning Board meeting, in order to raise your hand to be noticed for testimony,
you have to press star nine and then your hand will be raised and you'll be recognized at that
time. If you called, if for some reason you wish to put in an appearance statement, we have a number
that you can call. And the idea is that you will call a Google voice line at 267-270-5548 and you
will record on that line the information requested in order to be considered of
putting in an apparent statement and then we will be able to attach you to
the case that you wish. Thanks Frank.
Thank you Tanya. Any questions from the board before we begin? Any
Okay, Carol, please call the first case, Ms. Tenuri.
Okay, calendar number 39058-318-East-Durham.
The attorney is Jared Klein.
Can I just say that before we start, can we read the list of continued cases?
I've got ahead of myself, yep.
Can we do that, Carol?
Mr. Klein, would you hold off one second, please?
Carol, would I read the continuances?
Calendar number 38265-4154 North 7th Street.
Calendar number 39300-4951 North 5th Street.
Calendar number 39298-1216 West Lycoming.
There's an additional continuance, 39129-6906,
caster avenue and there are two withdrawals calendar number 38634 2825 parish street
and calendar number 39292 1421 hope street those are all the two o'clock continuances
thank you and if there's any interested parties listening in please contact our board administrator
Miss Tanya Sunkit for a date. She will have dates for you on the
continuation. Thank you. And I'm just waiting for Jared to be entered in by
Tanya. Can everybody hear me? Jared do you agree to waive the reading of the
refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes I do. Jared you're kind of low.
can you hear me now yes thank you sure um good afternoon everybody uh mr chair members of the
Good afternoon, everybody. Mr. Chair, members of the board, it's nice to be seeing you again.
board it's it's nice to
A little louder if you could, please.
I will. I will speak up as loudly as I hold the microphone right up to my mouth here.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Okay, cool.
All right. Good afternoon again, everybody. It's nice to see you again.
uh jared klein from from blank rome 130 north 18th street philadelphia 19103
on behalf of the property owners for 318 east dorham street and the property behind it 351
east mount pleasant um i do have some exhibits i don't know if i can share my screen or if the
members of the board have had everything sent to them already if you could share it that would be
helpful? Okay. Okay. So this application is for 318 East Durham Street. And just to orient the
board, the lot that we're talking about is this lot on the aerial photo that you can hopefully
see on the screen that I've shared. The subject property is 318 East Durham Street. It's an RSA
3 zone property. The property around it, as you can see on this aerial photo,
it's surrounded by the Sedgwick Apartments, which is an existing apartment complex,
which is located at sort of it's surrounded by Sprague Street, Durham Street, Ardley Street,
and Mount Pleasant Avenue. This application is essentially to combine the 318 East Durham Street
parcel with the remainder of the Sedgwick apartments that entirely surround the subject
parcel. The way that this property has developed over time, the Sedgwick apartments are all zoned
RN2, and there is a total within there of 93 units and 57 parking spaces that are existing.
The 318 East Dorham Street lot is zoned RSA 3.
And so it has created sort of a peninsula of odd zoning.
And I've moved my screen to the zoning map.
You can see 318 East Dorham is this little RSA 3 piece that's entirely surrounded by the RM 2 parcel that it backs up to.
So what the application is for is to demolish this existing structure that's on 318 East
Dorham Street that you can see on my screen, and to build in its place a new structure
that would be folded into the Sedgwick Apartments.
So we would be replacing this single-family house with another building that would become
part of the Sedgwick Apartment complex.
The number of units to be in the new created structure is eight.
And so the refusal, the only refusal we receive is for the multifamily use on this RSA 3 parcel.
We're proposing eight units and seven is allowed by right.
One of the initial challenges that we had from a development standpoint is it is very difficult to have this property exist independently as an RSA 3 lot.
For a family to buy this as a single-family house, you would be living in a situation where you are completely surrounded on three sides by a parking lot and other residents of the apartment complex.
And it just really makes common sense to include this front parcel with the rest of the complex that entirely surrounds it.
We did have a prior version of this project that went through.
And I have to briefly mention it just for context.
So back in 2019, a similar application was put in, and we had a meeting with the East
Valley Area Neighbors Association about that.
And we revised this application in response to those comments from the initial meeting
with the community.
And just to mention some of the things we've done that are in this application that are
different from the initial version. We've increased the setback. The initial proposal was to have the
Durham Street parcel be constructed with an eight-foot setback. We've increased that to 14 feet
three inches. We also reconfigured the building because some of the neighbors had concerns
about having ingress and egress to the building fronting on Durham Street when the remainder of
the complex doesn't really have entrances and exits that are on Durham Street. So we rotated
the design of the building so that the ingress and egress for the for the tenants happens on the
side of the building and we and we move the parking spaces to the side of the building as well
to better reflect that one of the other things we did was we
We have, as part of our packet, a unity of use agreement.
have as part of our packet a unity of use agreement
Some of the neighbors at our initial presentation had a concern about the fact that the parcels were owned by different entities and, you know, what could happen between those two as situations changed.
So we have the unity of use agreement.
It's part of our application.
And as the zoning board knows, that will ensure that these parcels will be treated together for zoning purposes.
And if anybody wants to remove that unity of use, the project will have to come back through the zoning purposes for whatever outcomes removing the unity of use has.
The last thing that we did that was different, and that is something that we're advising the board of today, is we've removed the proposed office use from our application.
The initial application contemplated having a leasing office for the complex within the new structure that we're building here at the front of the parcel.
The neighbors had some concern about whether it was an accessory office or whether an office was appropriate.
And so we've removed that from our application.
So if the board is inclined to grant the variances, we're asking for a proviso that says no office use, which is consistent with the understanding we reached with the neighbors.
In terms of how this will relate to the community that surrounds it, you know, the apartment complex has been an ongoing use for decades.
It has not, to our knowledge, been a burden on any of the surrounding neighbors. In fact, in terms of parking, which is always a hot button issue, if we're following the RM2 code, which is what we're trying to achieve with the unity of use, that would require 31 spaces for the 101 total proposed units.
the site is offering 61 spaces. So we have double the amount of off street parking to reduce any
burden that these additional eight units may have on the surrounding community. And I would also
point out that this is a very transit friendly development. If I go back to the aerial photo
where we started the presentation, you can see right here is the Sedgwick train station for
Receptors Regional Rail. It is literally across the street from the Sedgwick Apartments. And so
even though we have an abundance of parking, there's still a very easy and viable mass transit
option for people who are living at this complex. And I know also I'm aware, obviously, that the
neighbors still have some concerns in the letter that they submitted. The last thing I'll mention
is we did go through the Philadelphia Water Department conceptual approval process.
We are under 15,000 feet of earth disturbance,
so we are not required to have a full stormwater management plan,
but we did receive conceptual approval from the Water Department for what we're doing.
And the amount of new impervious coverage that we're creating is approximately 1,800 square feet.
So it's a very small area of new impervious coverage.
And we do not believe that any impact to the watershed will come from our very minimal change to this line.
With that, I would like Brian Paul to adopt my testimony if he is online and able to do so.
Brian, are you on?
Brian Paul, I don't see a name on the hand up.
Is he on the phone or Zoom?
He was on by Zoom.
If Brian is not on, maybe
is Jerry Slipikoff on?
Could you ask them to raise
their hand?
If they could raise their hand
just to be recognized.
Are either of you gentlemen on?
Yeah, I'm on. Jerry Slipikoff.
Okay, Jerry, do us a favor,
please. Spell your name.
Identify yourself. Name and address.
Okay, it's Gerald, J-E-R-A-L-D, Slipikoff, S-L-I-P-A-K-O-F-F, as in Frank.
And I'm a principal in the ownership of both properties.
Are you swearing a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Jerry, did you hear my testimony, and do you adopt it as true, correct, and your own?
Every word of it, and yes, I do.
Thank you very much.
Members of the board, I have with me, hopefully on the Zoom, members of the engineering and architecture team, if you have any specific questions for them about the application.
But at this point, I will turn the floor back over to the chair.
Thank you.
I noticed as far as the complex is concerned, there are a number of buildings.
Are they, are those buildings, all right.
You're proposing eight units in this building, correct?
units in this building, correct? Yes. What is the occupancy in terms of number of units in the
What is the occupant?
other buildings? Do they range from different ranges or what? Are they all the same? The buildings
are of slightly different sizes, but there is a total of 93 existing units across the eight
buildings. So you have roughly 10 or so in each building, roughly. Yes. This is pretty consistent
in terms of the number of units to the surrounding buildings. Yes. And the idea here is to have it be
as consistent with what's there as possible. We're really trying to blend it in. And one of the
things the neighbors did ask us about back in the 2019 version of this was changing the aesthetic.
We had initially proposed a glass front, and in some of the renderings, we now have it returned to be a brick, which you can see on my screen now.
That is more consistent with the coloring of what's already in the complex.
All right, could you do me a favor?
Did you put up the letter from the neighbors?
So it's a little bit easier for me to read on here than on my phone.
It should be up on your screen now, Mr. Chair.
I have it now.
All right.
Is there anyone else who wishes to testify in this matter?
If so, please state your name and address for the record
and spell your name for the stenographer.
So, Chair, we have Kelly O'Day up first.
We have quite a few.
Kelly, I have allowed you to talk.
You can unmute yourself.
And I would ask the witnesses to limit their comments
to between two and three minutes, please.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and board members.
I am Kelly O'Day, that's K-E-L-L-Y-O apostrophe D-A-Y,
and I live at 301 East Dorham Street