jared do you have any uh comments closing remarks i would like to speak if i could
uh i i i unmuted things now i i signed up to testify who are you i'm adam ornstein i was on
the list of of people to give testimony and had trouble before with my microphone but it's working
name and address for the record spell your name for the stenographer and hopefully it's new and
different yes uh my name is adam ornstein it's spelled a-d-a-m-o-r-n-s-t-e-i-n
you swear to firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do
yes hi uh i'm a homeowner at 431 east durham street where i've lived for over 12 years
the applicant's apartment complex is located at the end of my block at the corner of East Durham
Street and Arley Street. The applicant's requesting a use variance and zoning code section 14-303-8E1
enumerates four findings, all four of which they must satisfy before a variance can be considered.
However, the applicant fails to satisfy even a single one of them, which are having a hardship
arising from a unique physical circumstance is peculiar to the property.
I apologize for interrupting. I believe we heard that testimony earlier.
Okay. Then I'll jump ahead to testimony that you haven't heard, which is that Mr. Klein,
as well as the applicant in their application for a variance, is misrepresenting the surrounding
context of the 318 East Durham Street. They're making an audacious claim that the RSA3 zoning
of 318 East Durham is, quote, inappropriate, unquote, because they say it is, quote,
surrounded by this apartment complex. I really wish that the board could see what the 300 block
of East Durham Street looks like, because 11 of the 12 blocks' parcels are single-family
homes. At the corner of Ardley Street is one apartment building, and all the remaining
homes on that block are single-family homes. So the notion that the apartment complex is
surrounding 318 is the opposite of what the situation is. In fact, Sedgwick Farm era single
family homes surround the applicant's one apartment building at the end of the block,
not the other way around. And in fact, it's one apartment building that is out of context with
the rest of the 300 blocks, single family residential homes. And what the intention
of the applicant is trying to do here is very clear. It's to buy up and pick off the single
family residential homes on the even side of the 300 block so that they can change facts on the
ground, add more apartment buildings, and commercialize and destroy a quiet residential
block for their convenience and profit. What's more, there's no hardship here. And even if
for the sake of argument, they could show hardship, it would be self-created. And the
zoning code clearly states that a variance cannot be granted if the hardship is created by the
applicant. They didn't have to buy this property in the first place in 2010. And frankly, they
probably shouldn't have. I urge the board to reject the applicant's variance
request. Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony.
thank you for your testimony
anyone else tanya no chair you can move forward
okay mr klein thank you mr chair i'll be
extremely brief as i know this has gone on a long time
i just want to touch on a couple points that we heard a lot about
um during the last few minutes the first is this
concept of parking and traffic i just think it's important for the board to
keep in mind that there are already 57 cars and a already configured driveway parking situation
so what we're doing with this application is adding four cars to the parking total it's going
from 57 spaces to 61 spaces we're not reconfiguring the existing ingress and egress we're not creating
any new traffic patterns so to suggest that this application is going to increase the traffic
burden beyond which that already exists, I think is a bit of a red herring.
The other comment I will make, just I know I mentioned this earlier, but in terms of
the stormwater management, you know, we did what the city asks us to do.
We submitted our conceptual plans to the water department.
They gave us the conceptual approval.
They didn't ask us for an earth movement or a stormwater management plan to be developed.
And, you know, while I certainly understand some of the comments, you know, we did what the city of Philadelphia asks us to do in terms of providing for stormwater management on the site.
And I want to thank all of you for your time this afternoon. It was nice to see you all again.
Thank you.
Questions from the board.
Tom you had raised something earlier you okay with the response I assume yeah I'm okay with
the response thank you planning commission good afternoon chair member and members of the board
this property is indicated for residential use on the comprehensive plan this property is in an
island surrounded by an existing garden style apartment and rm2 zoning which makes developing
as a single-family home a bit out of place we would recommend that the applicant work with
the district council member to update the zoning of the property to be more in line with the abutting
properties accordingly we have no objection to the granting of the variance
i'm just going to take one more shot at this uh i know everybody wants to save that little
white house and all that that that is there today there's no guarantee that someone may buy that
house and decide to tear it down and put up a new structure a single family so the uh uh you know
The concern about the aesthetics remaining the same, there's no guarantees that that will occur.
Somebody can decide to buy it, tear it down.
I appreciate your concern for that.
I live in a row house neighborhood in South Philadelphia, which is a lot different than your neighborhood.
But I also want to just remind everybody before I make a decision on my vote, without knowing what the rest of the board is doing,
if there's any consideration based on what i just said that there's no guarantee that that house
will continue to remain there in the unforeseeable future is there any appetite to go back to the
table and see if there's an opportunity to provide for maybe lesser units assuming that the developer
would even consider that so uh having said that and listening to what the planning commission
uh what they just said about going back to the district council person and
making some adjustments to the current zoning uh i i would suggest that we take this under
we the board uh that we take this under advisement and vote on it uh for next uh
next tuesday i'd like to have some further discussion about it
is there any objection to that or you want to vote it now
i don't have any objection to your taking under advisement mr chair well i know i'm missing the
board i didn't i wasn't sure if you're asking me but i i figured i would sign on here i was
i folded that into my suggestion that maybe you and your client go back to the community and talk
to them maybe it's something about the design of the building that could be changed and not be as
offensive to them in terms of the aesthetics that they're used to having i don't know i don't have
I operate I tried to give everybody an opportunity to try to work things out
especially when a case like this because again I'll repeat myself there's no
guarantees that that single-family home is going to remain there and look the
way it does a year from now five years from now or whatever it could but
there's no guarantees the board is it anyone on the board opposed to continuing
the board is anyone on the board opposed to continuing this for further discussion
i'd rather have further discussion i'm okay with it i'm on board with it frank
okay so we will uh as we said earlier um i'm looking for the case we will discuss this and
we will vote on this next tuesday morning and in the between time mr klein if you can reach out to
the RCO. If you think there's any merit in what I've just said, you guys can talk about it and
notify us if there's any change. If not, you know, we'll just take that as what today's testimony is
and we'll stand. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will reach out to Natalie from the RCO after we
conclude today's meeting. Thank you for your time, everyone. Thank you. Hey there. Excuse me. My name
is Maeve Zeleniak. I am
17 years old. I grew up here.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. You can't just jump in.
Hello? Go ahead, Chair.
We're done with this.
Okay. Thank you.
All right.
This case is going to be held for further discussion.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
Are we ready to move on?
Yes, we're ready, Cara.
Okay, calendar number 39299, 337 South 18th Street.
The attorney is Zen Jen.
are you here okay i'm going to promote you to a panelist and then unmute you and then you'll be
able to speak and present your screen as necessary thank you mr jen do you agree to wave the reading
refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. Thank you.
Xen Jin, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1838 Philadelphia PA 19103.
Here on behalf of 337, I believe it's Enterprise. Let me pull up the
presentation pack. I will share that with the board.
video hello good afternoon
and everyone
we can't hear you okay good afternoon
good afternoon mr jen please uh identify yourself with the record
yes i'm sorry um it was sound was not coming over clearly earlier i think uh my system has
reloaded um good afternoon uh do i need to be sworn in at this point yes you swear a firm to
tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank you carol did you ask about
stipulation? Yes, I did. Okay, thank you. Please proceed. Thank you. Again, I'm here on behalf of
my client, which is 337. I believe it's Enterprise. I'm pulling up the DD information right now. I'll
also share the information with the board regarding the plans as well as the documentation.
I have a exhibit package here. So this is actually an RM1 property. I'm going to go ahead and put the information up onto the screen. It's a 337 Holdings LLC. My client, Brian Bellis, is actually here with us as well.
so I'm going to go ahead and put the plans up first for the board's view we
also submitted photographs letter of non-opposition from the RCO as well as
deed and tax clearance
So what I have here is the plans for this property. This application is to use this
property as a six dwelling unit. There's a reason why my client is asking for this.
This is actually an existing structure. It is in an RM1 district and the only
variance is the dimensional one based on the lot size because the size of the
lot only allows up to four units. What is shown here is essentially the existing structure on
the interior. And one key thing to note is that the stairwell, which leads up to the highest level
from the ground floor, runs through the middle of the building. This is an existing stairwell that
runs straight up the middle. Because of this stairwell and because the front floor level of
the floors and the rear are actually offset. So there's actually a drop in height between the
front floor and the rear half of the building floor. It just makes more logical sense without
having substantial structural changes to simply split this front and back unit on each level,
which actually came up with the six units. This building originally was multifamily
and the community was aware of that it's also surrounded by multifamily and it's in a densely
multifamily area of the city so when we met with the RCO we had no opposition partly because of
the neighborhood as well as the expected use is consistent with what they were expecting
and the number of units itself it was not an issue so as we provided trash storage that is
going to be inside and the pickup will be a commercial pickup. One of the advantages of
this building in a sense is that it does have the ability for all units to access this trash storage
as well. The building itself is one of the largest on the block. It runs from the street in the front
all the way to the street in the back. If you look at the view from here, you can see that
it's one of the deeper buildings on the block that runs
between 18th Street and Bouvier or Bouvier
Street. So it is one of the larger buildings.
Each of these units will ultimately end up over 500 square
feet as well. And there'll be a front and a back and there'll be six total
units based on the stairwell location and the
split of the design. These are not meant to become
a heavily dense use. My client anticipates most of these will be inhabited by maybe one individual
at most two. So that is why we are asking the board to permit a dimensional variance for lot
size in this case for the use of six total units whereas four is normally permitted.
There would be a financial hardship if my client would have to convert
to a full unit here, this stairwell would have to be removed in some way and relocated.
The depth of the property probably would cause us to have to do two stairwells in its place,
one in the front, one in the back, to allow egress and actually complicate matters when
it comes to design. Thank you. Do we have anyone, Tanya, to testify?
I believe my client is available to affirm my testimony.
Please, sir.
Yes, the client is able to speak.
Hi, Mr. Bells, you're with us?
Yes, I'm here.
Great.
You heard my testimony to the board.
Would you affirm that everything is true and correct and adopt it as your own testimony?
Before you answer, Mr. Bells, would you please spell your name and name and address?
My name is Brian Bellis, B-R-I-A-N, last name Bellis, B-E-L-L-E-S.
My address is 711 Paper Mill Road, Erdenheim, PA, 19038.
We swear to firm to tell the truth, all truth and nothing but the truth.
Thank you.
Again, you heard my testimony, Mr. Bellis.
would you um uh confirm that is true and correct and
adopt it as your own i do thank you
thank you do we have any other witnesses tanya
yes we have a wade albert you have been allowed to speak
hello can you hear me identify yourself for the records by your name please
sure uh my name is wade albert w-a-d-e last name is a-l-b-e-r-t
and i am counsel for the civic association the center city residents
and i am counsel for the civic association the center city residents association
Association.
okay thank you and do you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth i do thank you so i would and and i would just echo um that the rco considered this case
and uh voted to not oppose the application um provided uh requesting for a proviso that all
trash from the building be stored inside the premises and collected by a commercial trash
holder. And our understanding is that the applicant has agreed to that proviso. And we
would request that proviso be listed in the license.