Squilla, and 17 form letters of support signed by neighbors.
Counsel, you've already been sworn, just state your name for the record.
Brandon Saverin of Pritzker Law Group.
Okay. And could you identify your client and your relationship to the property?
Okay, and could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes. My client is 2100-12 Rush Street, LLC, the owner of the property.
Our place here has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, Counselor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that were needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
yes thank you please proceed and share your screen okay
all right good afternoon members of the board so on your screen is exhibit 10 from our exhibit
binder i would ask that all of our exhibits be included in the record which i submitted
last week by email to the board this exhibit 10 is a google maps aerial image of the property
The property is shown in red.
I'll zoom out a little bit here.
So we're in like the southeast sort of corner of Kensington, near-ish Port Richmond.
And the property is a property of just under 10,000 square feet that is at the corner, most of it, of Amber and Rush streets with sort of like a dog leg that extends to Somerset Street.
and most of the property used to be a metal foundry. In fact, this was the first foundry
in the United States that produced aluminum at the turn of the last century. So this is a parcel,
most of which has a history of heavy industrial use. We are proposing to develop it as a mixed
use building and a smaller residential building, which I'll show you in a minute.
You know, essentially the development team had to figure out a use of this property,
which can support the fact and attract financing, despite that it has been vacant with no built
structures since 2004, and that per a phase one environmental study that we obtained,
Um, there is likely, um, some degree of, uh, contamination of the soil. Um, the, uh, environmental consultant believed there were, uh, underground storage tanks on the site and that there might be additional, uh, pollution that was caused by the metals foundry.
Um, so that all being said, you know, that that's sort of the basis of the hardship of
how we got to where we got, we needed to propose something, um, that, um, was substantial enough
to, to sort of overcome those obstacles. Um, and I'll just scroll up. That again was from
Google. Um, here are the city's official images from Atlas at exhibit nine. That's the parcel map.
And then these are particularly useful. I'll zoom in a little bit. These are sort of street level photos that the city had taken. So here's the main part of the property at the corner of Amber and Rush behind this fence. We actually replaced this fence, which I'll show you in a moment.
But, you know, it's it's a big vacant lot has been for almost two decades on Rush Street, which is the largest frontage to this property across the street.
There is only, to our knowledge, one occupied built structure, which used to be a paper manufacturer, but is a mechanic.
now. This is an indoor car garage that works on cars. So not residential on that side of the
street, despite our zoning being residential. And then the other two frontages are Amber and
Somerset, which do have residential uses. This is that dogleg that comes out to sort of the middle
of the block of Somerset Street. And we are proposing a small secondary building to fill
this gap rather than sort of gash this block with a driveway or leaving it vacant, which would sort
of be unsafe and bizarre. I'll show you in a moment what we're going to do with it. So here we
go. In exhibit three, I have renderings of what we're proposing to build that the architect
prepared. The architect is with us in case you have any questions for him. So this is the chief
of the two buildings that we're proposing for this site.
This one is on the corner of Amber and Rush.
It would have a cafe on the first floor,
sort of here where my cursor is,
as well as a rentable office space next to it.
So two commercial uses on the first floor,
as well as nine parking spaces,
as well as nine parking spaces, which you can see are accessed off of Amber Street into the rear of
which you can see are accessed off.
the first floor. There's nine of these proposed. And then there'd be 24 dwelling units above in
this building, many of which have balconies shown in this rendering and a green roof proposed.
And then in so far as that gap on Somerset Street, here's how we're proposing to fill it.
This is a four-unit building that would have substantial green space in the rear, which I'll show you in a moment.
I do want to address just real quickly, a different attorney in a year prior took a different iteration of this project through the board
and did not succeed to get variances because there was not support from the RCO, which we do have for this proposal.
I just want to mention that so you don't think I'm hiding the ball on that.
It was a little while ago. It also is a different project in that it had more dwelling units and lesser commercial space.
So I bring that up because I'm going to jump into the notice of refusal.
like here. Sorry. So the notice of refusal is, I'm sorry, my computer. Oh boy. Here we go. One
more time. Okay. So the notice of refusal has a lot on it. The top part is just the description
of the project, which is lengthy because it includes multiple buildings. In the recent past,
This parcel had multiple addresses, some other sort of technical info.
But some of these refusals are for the commercial uses that the community in that last process requested.
So despite the fact that they triggered additional variances, we included them this time.
And so the other thing I want to mention, and I'll tick through the refusals quickly, is that most of the other large parcels in this neighborhood, particularly on the end of blocks like ours, which is on the end of a block, are zoned IRMX.
That's mixed use industrial residential. And to my knowledge, we would have only triggered two of the eight refusals that we triggered if we likewise were zoned IRMX.
The problem is that we're zoned RSA 5. So that's, as you know, a single family designation, the most common one in the city. And it's just not designed for anything but row homes, essentially.
And, you know, because of the size of the site, the shape of the site and the likely likelihood of some degree of environmental cleanup work needed, we cannot develop single family homes here.
So just to tick through these, I did offer a memo to the board at Exhibit 1 that gives the fuller description of why I believe we meet the zoning code's requirements for a variance for each of these refusals, but I'll give you a brief recap, very brief here.
So the first refusal is for the fact that we have multiple principal uses, as is the fifth refusal is also a used refusal, and so is the seventh refusal.
So those refusals, numbers one, five, and seven, are all because we included those commercial uses in the project.
The second refusal is for multiple principal buildings. That's because we aim to do something productive and aesthetically pleasing with the building on Somerset Street.
the balcony refusal, I would consider a refusal that is de minimis in nature and does not even
require the showing of a hardship. This pertains to balconies only on the southeast side of the
site, which encroach not over the property line, but into the side yard setback area.
There are no buildings beyond our property line on that side of the property. It is and has been for a long time an outdoor car storage yard.
So we are, as I detailed in my memo, not negatively affecting any particular people. I don't think we're sort of violating the policy concerns of the code by having balconies on that side of the main building.
But we did draw a refusal for it. The balconies on the other sides of the building did not draw refusals.
Because we're RSA 5 and because there's no alley servicing the building, we have no legal means to have parking on this site.
We have no legal means to have parking on this site for this refusal, the fourth refusal, but the community wanted us to have some parking.
We have nine parking spots.
I believe if we were zoned IRMX, like the other large parcels in this area, we would not have drawn that refusal because we would have legal access to parking.
um and um the sixth refusal is for multi-family use because what the code wants us to do is carve
this up and again develop single family homes um but we're not doing that and then the final
refusal is for height um that the height of the main building um is uh almost 53 feet that is
necessitated by having parking on the ground level as opposed to underground, which we didn't want to
develop because of cost and potential environmental factors. So we raised the building in order to fit
that parking there. And that also provided space for the commercial units. If we had a 38 foot
tall building there with all that other stuff, we couldn't develop enough units to attract the
financing necessary to build anything. So that's enough on the refusal. I'll show you the zoning
plan quickly at exhibit two. So this is one page of the zoning plan, Z3. You do have the entire
zoning plan in the pack that I submitted, but this one's probably the most interesting one because
it's the ground floor level zoning plan. So what we have here is an illustration of how the main
building has the cafe here in the corner and then the rentable office space facing Rush Street. Each
has its independent entrance and windows onto Rush Street. And then the residential portion
of the building has a really nice lobby with a seating area that has large doors off of Rush
Street. And then in the rear of that main building is a drive aisle that serves the nine
car parking spaces, one of which is ADA accessible. There is sort of non-paved or sorry,
non-drivable walking space between the two buildings on the, I believe it would be the
southeastern edge. And what that leads to is a green space. And again, you can walk from building
to building and to the green space without any danger of interacting with cars. And this green
space is going to sit basically as a buffer between that small four-unit building that I
showed you on Somerset Street. On Exhibit 13, we have our notice posters for this hearing.
And actually, it's just a useful opportunity to show you that my client has attempted to make
the site, since they purchased it, a little bit more attractive from the street than shows on
atlas so there's new screening on this fence um on all sides it's kind of the only point i'm trying
to make with this exhibit but it does happen to feature our notice posters um and then we have our
rco materials at exhibit 15. so um here is the um mailer that was sent to near neighbors concerning
the rco meeting which was held by somerset neighbors for better living here's the proof
of mailing showing that we sent 116, sorry, 166 copies of that notice to nearby properties as
directed by the planning commission. Here is an email that we sent about the project to
affected RCOs, the other RCOs. And then here is the coordinating RCOs decision letter.
So express the support for the project. I really enjoyed working with this group and give them a
lot of credit for the way they conducted themselves on this project. If you look at the vote count,
the folks who supported the project were the attendees who do not work for or volunteer
for the RCO. That's the 16 folks who voted in support of the project. They want to see this
site developed. As I mentioned, it's been vacant for a very long time with a chain link fence
around it. The board itself of the RCO had mixed feelings, which is also reflected here. But the
total vote, you know, was more pro than con. And the board respected the fact that outside of
themselves, the folks at that meeting really voted in favor of this. So they offered us a letter of
support. And I'm very thankful for that. We also have a letter of non-opposition. Oh, sorry, here
it is, as the council mentioned from, as the chairman mentioned from the councilman, and
as the chairman mentioned from the councilman, and my clients did in this whole process gather
my clients did.
17 form letters of support signed by neighbors who, according to my client, live within about
a two block radius of the property. They did not gather letters further away from the property than
that. As I mentioned, I'm not going to go through it, but my exhibit packet does contain
the phase one environmental report. It contains an assessment of the property and sort of what
development options are available under the circumstances that was authored by a professional
planner, Nancy Templeton, who is an American Institute of Certified Planner. And both of
those documents factor into the memo that I wrote. And again, the memo attempts to explain why I think
we meet the standards for the variances we're requesting under the code. So I have my client
here to adopt my testimony. I have the architect available for questions. I want to do your
architect first. I mean, I'm sorry, not your architect, your client. Yes. So it's Andrew
Friedman who's here to testify on their behalf. Mr. Friedman, could you state your name, please,
and spell it for the court stenographer. Good evening, Mr. Chair. My name is Andrew Friedman,
A-N-D-R-E-W, Friedman, F-R-I-E-D-M-A-N. Right. Do you swear or affirm and tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do, Mr. Chair. We'll see you, counsel.
Thank you. Andrew, are you authorized to speak on behalf of 2100-12 Rush Street, LLC?
I am. Did you hear my testimony in your zoning case today? I did. Was it true and accurate to
the best of your knowledge, information, and belief? Yes, it was. Would you therefore adopt
it as if it had been your own testimony? I will. Thank you. Thanks.
Questions from the board? No, Chair. No, Mr. Chairman. No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
there are no hands chair planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board
my name is greg walton wealthy city planning commission staff in 2017 the zoning map was
amended for medium industrial to residential single family accord with recommendations from
the comprehensive plan there are no unique physical circumstances to the existing vacant
lot that present a hardship for meeting code requirements. Furthermore, the proposed variance
would significantly alter the character of the block by introducing dozens of new residents
much more than what would be allowed under the single-family zoning, substantially or permanently
injuring the long-term viability of adjacent conforming industrial properties. City Planning
Commission recommends that the zoning board denied the variances. Can I just offer a very quick
rebuttal to that mr chairman please okay you may be on mute mr chairman i couldn't hear you
um you hear me now yes yes sure okay um yeah i mean i i think that i i respect the fact that
the property was remapped at some point from industrial to residential use but the the
century-long heavy industrial use of this property means that that history is not behind it. And
that's what the phase one environmental study indicated. You know, that means that there's
a hardship here and we can't proceed with this property and treat it as though it's just any old
RSA 5 zone lot. And I think the neighbors at the RCO meeting would like the area to transition more
to residential use and away from industrial use, and therefore, I don't think they would describe
what we're doing as injurious to them. I think that they genuinely view this as beneficial.
Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Saverin, we've heard some testimony. What I want to do with this
is take this back to the executive committee, and we're going to vote on this next Wednesday
at 2 p.m. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Kelly, how are you holding up there?
Mr. Chairman, I'm fine. Well, what I want to do is one more case, then we'll take a break. Okay.
Thank you, Chair.
MI 2022-007-281-430 West Burke Street.
David Orfinides is the attorney.
Um, letter of no position from South Kensington and community partners, community vote in favor of a project with unenforceable provisions, but the RCO decided not to take a position.
Letter of no position from South...
David Arfanides has been promoted.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Mr. Arfanides, please state your name and spell for the court stenographer.
Certainly. My name is David Orphanides. O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes. My client is Gladwell Properties, LLC, and they are the owner of the property.
Okay. Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, Counselor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I did. Thank you.
Thank you. Please proceed. Share your screen.
You'll see my screen now.
Great.
Just reduce that.
Again, my name is David Orphanides from the law firm of Orphanides & Toner here in Philadelphia.
On behalf of Gladwell Properties, LLC, the owner of the subject property, 430 West Burke Street.
What you have up on your screen right now is an arrow image showing the property in question.
As you can see, it's a largely vacant, non-residential industrial lot.