Most of them, at least.
Here's the letter that went out to all the individual households.
We have 150 households were mailed.
We actually attempted to meet with folks twice.
We actually also have a tax cert.
We have an updated tax cert that was sent to you under separate cover, as was the non-opposition of the RCO.
But we did, in fact, meet with the RCO twice.
Very limited immediate neighbor response.
But luckily, the leadership was able to hear us, and that's where we are.
Because of the property's unique physical condition and its very long history, as the use of a two-family dwelling,
we ask respectfully that the board grant the variance to legalize the preexisting use.
Thank you.
Vern, is your client here?
Eve, can you please raise your virtual hand?
I hope she's still here.
The last one was a long one.
I have a hand up by Evelyn Belisere.
Okay, I will allow her to speak.
Thank you.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court sonographer?
Hi, my name is Evelyn Belisere, Y-V-E-L-I-N-E, last name B-E-L-I-Z-A-I-R-E.
Right.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth?
nothing but the truth yes please proceed counsel thank you miss bella's ear did you hear my
presentation to the board yes i did it's a true and accurate to the best of your knowledge
yes and do you adopt it as your own testimony yes thank you i have nothing further questions from
Yes. Thank you. I have nothing further.
Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
the board
No, Mr. Chairman. No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience? Yes, Chair. I have Charles Richardson with the stand up. I will allow him to speak.
Mr. Richardson, you've already been sworn. Just state your name and please testify.
Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, Charles Richardson, Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass.
From 508 City Hall, the Councilwoman has no objection to granting the variance.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No more hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Board.
This is Greg Waldman, Philadelphia City Planning Commission staff.
This property is indicated for residential use on the city plan.
Given its documented use history and physical condition of the site, we recommended the requested variances be granted.
Thank you. MI 2023-000781-6123 East Worcester Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes. Thank you.
We'll have your votes, counsel.
Thanks.
Number six, MI 2023-002-686-3700 Lancaster Avenue.
Brett Feldman is the attorney.
Letter of non-opposition from Pound and Village Civic Association based on revised plans.
Sorry. Oh, you said Brett Feldman? Here he is. I'm going to promote him now.
Hi, Mr. Feldman. Could you please state your name and spell for the court sonographer?
Hi, Mr. Feldman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Scherzer and the board.
Yeah, please state your name and spell please for the court stenographer.
Yes, Brett Feldman, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Do you swear or affirm the total truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to this property?
Yes. I'm on here on behalf of the owner, GMH and 3,700 Lancaster property owner.
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. 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 have.
Thank you. I see you shared your screen. Please proceed.
Great. Again, good afternoon, Brett Feldman.
In the virtual universe should be Charles Artilio on behalf of the owner, as well as Danielle Amund, who is on behalf of the sign company.
I'll get right to it. Exhibits 1 through 13, which I'd ask to be incorporated into the record.
3700 Lancaster Avenue is a large apartment building as part of the U-City Square mixed-use large redevelopment plan project in University City.
And let me just give you a sense of the context here of why we need this sign.
This is the apartment complex. It's actually on multiple streets. It's on Powhatan. It's on Lancaster. It's on, I think it's Walton in the back, excuse me, Warren in the back.
And not all these buildings are there, but some of them are there now and some, many are on the way.
This is an accessory sign for the apartment building. We are already having significant problems with people knowing that our building is residential versus the significant Penn-Presbyterian medical complex that's all around us, the different U Penn medical buildings around us, the Drexel buildings around us, the lab space that's around us.
So what we came up with this sign package was it's CMX4.
It's, you know, high density commercial.
You know, here's the buildings that are going in.
Most of these already have many of these buildings, the ones that exist already have these large signs on.
Many of these buildings, the ones that exist, already have these large signs on top that are building identification signs.
Ours is actually much smaller than those.
We came up with this fairly moderate sign package in order to, for wayfinding, for the deliveries that we receive,
and to make sure that folks know that we're not residential, that we are residential.
We're not the school down the street, the new school, because there's a lot of confusion.
So here is the building. There's actually buildings that have went up since these pictures went up. Here's the building. That's 38th Street here. Again, on Lancaster and on. Here's the building here. And there's a street back here now, Warren, Powleton and Lancaster.
The original proposal, and you'll see, was we have a sign in the rear that faces south,
and then we had a sign on Powhatan near the top of the building.
We met with the RCO, and you'll see at Exhibit Top 3, the Powhatan Village Civic Association.
They completely understood the wayfinding issue and the confusion with all the different frontages we have here
trying to figure out that our building is residential.
But what they asked us to do was, they had no problem with the sign that faces south,
that I'll show you. But their concern was the sign facing north, because that faced more into
the Palatine Village residential. And they said, if you could just take the sign, and if you can
see my cursor here on Palatine, and just slightly move it to this just around the corner facing
north on towards 38th Street and on Palatine, we have no objection. So we relocated the sign.
That's what the revised proviso plans are. And we had to actually, I think, slash the size of the sign in half because the frontage on this on the corner here is significantly smaller than on pallet.
And so we couldn't you couldn't put the same size, the same size sign on that.
So let me just go through these quickly here. This picture probably captured, right? The sign is now at this corner, not so facing east, facing west, not straight here on the street here.
So I'll show you. Let me just go through this as quickly as possible. The refusal, the sizes, the size of the signs are completely below what's allowed.
And this would be allowed as a building identification sign in CMX4, which is the district we're in.
However, our building is not tall enough to be allowed to have a building identification sign, unlike the other buildings in the area here.
Because for the original approvals, we need to make our building smaller because of its location.
So that's that's kind of the zoning challenge that we have here.
This is the letter of non-opposition from the Civic, talking about that change of plans.
Here's some more pictures of our, and this was the original, the original application
was these two red, one faces south and then one face north. The sign that faces north has now
just been moved around the corner to face west here, and I'll show you that.
That was the sign facing north and it's just been moved and made smaller onto this corner that faces west.
Those were all the original plans. And that's the sign in the back facing south.
And here's the revised plans.
Now showing the red facing west and then the same sign facing south here, instead of facing north.
And here's the renderings. That's that small relocated sign now that I believe went from, it was 62 square feet.
It's now down, I think, to about half of that size.
that's the relocated
and that's the sign in the back
facing south
and there's a rendering of it facing south
those are the changes that we made
just showing the context here in this area
area. These are all within a block or two blocks, similar signs all throughout this
area. Again, this is CMX4, so this is not out of context. And these are right in our
immediate neighborhood. And again, there's this concentration of mixed-use buildings
It's important for wayfinding that we're trying to deal with as well here.
uh as well here here's other signs right in this immediate area that's across the street at the
There's other signs right in this immediate area.
pen presbyterian medical complex uh which again we're we're getting deliveries for them too
uh because of our location here's other here's the other pen medicine buildings right in our
immediate area so the zoning map showing the cmx4 these were the zoning notices that we put on i
think we have four frontages all over the different frontages of our building
the proof of mailing
And then at the back here was our change of proviso, change for tax certification, and then our proviso plan, which explains exactly what I did.
went from
16, 137 down to
13. And we
have revised plans and revised
renderings attached here.
So with
that, I would ask if there's
any questions, and then
I can ask... Do you have a client?
Do you have your client here? Yes.
Mr. Artilio, can you
raise your hand?
Hello, Mr. Artilio speaking.
I could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer.
Name is Charles Artilio,
last name is spelled A-R-T-I-L-L-I-O.
I swear affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Yes, Chairman.
Please proceed.
right can you uh provide for the board your uh uh title uh and position with uh gmh uh project
manager for the project great and uh you were at the community meetings and uh heard the request
of the community group to make that sign smaller relocated from the facing north uh to facing west
correct that is correct uh and we went ahead and made that change yes sir yes and did you explain
to explain to the community group, these signs are important for wayfinding and in order to
resolve some of the confusion that's increasingly happening with this location and folks not
knowing whether we're part of Drexel, part of Penn, part of the lab space, but we're in fact
residential and mixed use, correct? That is correct. Great. Mr. Chairman of the Board, I would
I'll stop there with my testimony and presentation, unless there's anything further.
Questions from the board.
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Right.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair.
I have a person named Natal, last name beginning with an L. I shall allow them to speak.
Okay, sure.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yeah, hi.
Yeah, my name is Ms. Loda, and my lawyer is on the phone, Augusta O'Neill.
Ms. Loda, this is, excuse me, Ms. Loda, this is Hillary Emerson, board counsel.
Your case will be called shortly.
We are just running a little bit behind on the 2 p.m. list.
Okay, because you guys called me, that's right.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, sure, you can unmute.
No problem.
Thank you, thank you.
All righty.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No hands, Cher.
planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg walton from the city
planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map change from commercial
mixed use four to commercial mixed use three of this location the dimensional requirements
of the zoning code do not create an economic detriment for the appellant that would necessitate
the variance from the maximum height requirement for accessory wall signs
the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board deny the variance
MI 2023, 002-686-3700 Lancaster Avenue, I vote yes.
With revised plans, three pages, stamp by ZBA, September 20th, 2023.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shahi, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you. Thank you, counsel.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Be well.
Number 7, MI-2023-002-598-2236 North 16th Street.
Augusta O'Neill is the attorney.
Letter of support from the Uptown Entertainment and Development Corporation.