Number one, MI2023-002-601-201-East House.
Can we start with number nine, please?
Oh, sure.
Thank you.
MI 2023-002-585-612 Catherine Street, Elaine and Joseph Cahill are the owners.
Letter of non-opposition from Bella Vista Neighbors Association and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Excuse me, Chair, who am I looking for?
Hold on.
Elaine and Joseph Cahill.
Thank you.
Elaine and Joseph Cahill, if you're in the audience, please raise your hand.
All I see is Jeffrey Lauffer with a hand raised.
Let's see. Let's see who they are.
Jeffrey Lauffer, you're allowed to speak.
Hello.
Hello. Elaine Cahill's here too.
Okay. Okay. Could you both state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
It's Elaine Cahill, E-L-A-I-N-E-C-A-H-I-L-L.
Mr. Cahill, are you going to testify too?
Mr. Cahill's not here.
My name is Jeff Walker.
Okay, that's fine.
That's fine.
Elaine, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And you're the only one who's going to be allowed to testify, okay?
And could you turn your video on?
We would need to see you.
This application is for the partial demolition at the third floor level of an existing attached structure and for additions at the third floor level with roof deck access by roof deck access structure for use as a single family household living.
Size and location as shown in the plans.
The property lacks the required rear yard and vertical extension of the existing nonconformity requires a variance.
Property lacks the required open air and vertical extension of that existing nonconformity requires a variance.
And the roof deck access structure lacks the required setbacks at the front 10 foot, 4 foot, 2 inches proposed, and rear 5 foot proposed of the property.
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you.
Good afternoon.
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?
Thank you.
Please proceed and you can share your screen.
do you see us we're sharing a partial screen we can but elaine's going to be the one to testify
am I right? Okay. Why don't we start the screen? Okay. So we, we see, we see everything that
you've submitted okay why don't we start going through it um as okay so could did you're not an
attorney are you jeffrey i'm sorry what you're not an attorney no i'm not an attorney he's our
architect and he can answer more technical questions uh who who just said that i that's
elaine hi hi elaine you're the ones going to testify he can ask your testicle questions if
we have them okay okay all right start going down the screen
what do we got to do read all this no i um list of exhibits exhibit one copy no no start rolling
through the screen i see all that i'm fine i'm gonna i'm gonna move it quick for you okay okay
we appreciate that so that's your refusal uh-huh okay proceed
miss cahill this is hillary um can you just explain what what you're trying to do with this
project we are putting a roof deck on we are realigning the interior of the property it's
a really small trinity and we wanted to move the staircase over to the opposite side of the house
so it's not a tight spiral anymore um that's pretty much it why don't why don't you do this
why don't you show photos of the house and then show your plans okay
that's the exterior of the house there okay yep
that's the rear that's the rear of the property okay
the neighbor's rear yard though that's the directly is the neighbor's rear yard there's no
no space between ours and theirs that's your neighbor's um oh that's the terrace next door
to us okay that's my husband on the roof oh okay
that's the location of the property yes okay
Thank you.
This is the existing structure.
This is the proposed structure.
what's a side view
why don't you show the letter you have from the uh the rco
OK, thank you.
The purpose you're doing this is because of the small size of the house?
Yes, correct.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Okay. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the board.
My name is Greg Waldman, Planning Commission staff.
Greg, just for the record, could you spell your name for the court reporter?
Absolutely.
Greg or Gregory, G-R-E-G-O-R-Y, last name Waldman, W-A-L-D-M-A-M.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Chair.
Please proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single-family zoning.
The appellant's property is on a very small lot, which presents a hardship for complying to the roof deck setback.
The applicant's proposed expansion of the existing rear yard and occupied area non-conformities is de minimis.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2023-002-585-612.
Catherine Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you. You have your votes.
Thank you.
We're going to go to number one.
MI-2023-002-601-201, East Alany Avenue.
Neil Sklaroff is the attorney.
Letter of support from the new 42nd Democratic Board Executive Committee, RCO.
Neil Sklaroff has been promoted to panelist.
Hi, Mr. Sklaroff. Good afternoon.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Hi, Mr. Sklaroff.
Good morning.
Hi, just for the record, could you state?
Well, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court stenographer?
Neil Sklaroff, N-E-I-L-S-K-L-A-R-O-F-F, with an office at 1500 Market Street Suite, 3500 E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
For the record, do you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes, I'm pleased to represent the School District of Philadelphia, which owns the property.
Okay, and our Vice Chair, Mr. Sklaroff, has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, Counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
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?
Yes, I have.
Thank you. Please proceed, and you have Barbara to share your screen.
Thank you. Please proceed. And you have Barbara to share your screen.
Great. With me today to answer any questions are Emma Lynn Melvin, Dan Mullen, and Ben Oates of the school district's capital programs.
And engineer Richard Burrell, who is an engineer and manager of the Philadelphia office of KS Engineers.
This appeal has little to do with uses or the structure as there's no change.
This appeal is for the installation of stormwater management facilities at the Grover Washington Middle School at 201 East Olney Avenue.
Again, there's no change in use for expansion of the existing building.
What we have here is a project to install stormwater management facilities and landscaping to disguise those facilities.
However, this results in taking parking spaces in order to install the stormwater management facilities.
We reduced the number of parking spaces to 77.
There is little in the archives about this property, but Ellen and I determined that it needed 148 parking spaces.
77 are quite sufficient for our needs, and I'll go through the exhibits at this point.
If I can get it to work.
There's a listing of our exhibits.
Cibit 1 is the record at the Office of Property Assessment of the current no balance due.
We were unable to pull up the certificate and offer that in substitute.
Next are the deeds.
There are two deeds to the property.
The original deed is from 1931, and there was a second deed in lieu of foreclosure in 1998 with a proviso that the property be used for a school.
Rolling through those, we get to Exhibit 3, which is a copy of the zoning notice that was posted, a key plan showing where those were posted, and then photographs of the postings and the surroundings.
So we'll go through these quickly.
There are a number of postings.
and the lesser questions about those we'll go to um exhibit four which are some aerials
of the uh of the facility uh in the middle here is the uh is the school let's see if this is a
little uh larger well let me make some comments on this the school and the railroad that goes
through the area, which is on, I'll call it the north side of the property, are in an I-2 zoning
district. Across the tracks in a CA-1 district is actually a shopping center. At this point,
there is a window manufacturer also in the industrial area. Then we have this industrial
area, which is used for that purpose. We have a park, a playground, a public playground just
across the street. This area here where I have the cursor, you will see on a close-up has a road,
which is part of the school district's property, and then a buffer before we get to residential
properties. That is, here we show the buffer, which is owned by the city, as we understand it.
Again, a picture of the school showing it's very large. There's almost 500 students in the school
at this time. There's some more photographs of the school. This is on Olney Avenue facade.
And this is a picture of that road that I said that went through the property. And you'll see
that the parking here of vehicles and some of those are going to have to be removed
in order to put in the stormwater facilities. This is a copy of the site plan that was submitted
with the application and now I'm going to go to exhibit six which is a series of plans and ask
Emma Lynn Melvin to be made a panelist so she can show you where these stormwater facilities will go.
So she can show you where these stormwater facilities will go.
Emma, please.
I want to promote Emma right now here.
Emma Malvin is promoted to panelists.
Good afternoon, Emma.
Are you with us?
Can you hear me?
Hi. Yes. Emma, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. My name is Emma Lynn Melvin. It's E-M-M-A-L-Y-N-N.
My last name is Melvin, M-E-L-V-I-N.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
I should have introduced Emma as the project manager for green infrastructure. Do I have that correct?
i'm the green infrastructure program manager
would you please explain the um exhibit six um so this project seeks to manage
all the surface level runoff coming from the school so you will see the shaded in areas
there are um the one in the lower right corner which is um both a surface feature
for stormwater management and a subsurface feature. There are two systems as you drive
up the road, which would be the wrong direction, but in this map I'll talk to you about that. So
there's two surface features on the road in a row. There is a subsurface stormwater feature at the
back of the school. And then a linear stormwater feature, both surface and a subsurface feature
on that long, narrow road. And then right at the left corner is another surface feature and a
subsurface feature. So the surface feature, what we call rain gardens, they're that expression
that has vegetation and plants that manage stormwater.
The subsurface feature is a stone basin,
usually with a series of pipes that is below grade
that you don't see that manages stormwater,
all managed stormwater.
Shall I move the diagram?
Yeah, right.
So you'll now see the surface expression
of most of these features.
They are landscape features.
We have also de-pave areas coming in the front of the school to have better walking access to the front doors of the school.
You'll see, oh, one, two, three, four, three, four, five.
There's five rain gardens that are surface stormwater features.
um in the top of the school or the back side of the school um we have a area that we remove