Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do also have you heard my testimony today?
Yes, and wasn't true and correct to the best of your knowledge.
Correct. Yes, and would you adopt as if it were your own? Yes, I would.
Okay, any questions for questions from the board?
Yes, I have a question just understanding that you previously had visitor accommodations approved.
also understanding that we're in an ongoing housing shortage and crisis in the city
i guess i'm just wanting to understand and what's the justification for keeping the property as a
short-term rental instead of renting it as a traditional of course um so currently i've moved
you know with my boyfriend i lived at the home for five years um so i still obviously own the
property um i would say it gives me the flexibility i do have you know family and friends that do come
in and i still am a resident of philadelphia um and obviously just the the financial aspect of
that i would say that um you know for me i think this is probably the last round that i'll be going
through uh the just the variance um obviously as you know just you know with the you know rental
markets um you know there's been a lot of up and down so um i would say that those are the two
reasons right now is just you know flexibility of use of the home uh for personal use and then also
um you know from a price perspective okay and then uh what's the average sort of number of
times a month that the unit's been occupied in the past three years um so the first process actually
took a full year so i unfortunately only got to release it for the the two-year term out of the
three most of my bookings are long weekends and then during the summer during the week so i would
say typically i would say probably march through november i would say mostly every week like long
weekends friday through sunday i do not allow single night bookings um you know i try to make
sure that i'm really screening my my candidates and most of them are returning families or people
that have family that live in philadelphia so i would say probably three to four times
each weekend during those months i mentioned and then are you managing this directly by yourself
are you working with a property management company or like a co-host i know airbnb now
has the co-host option right i know i actually manage it myself and i have for the entire
duration and plan to continue okay i don't think other questions questions from our attorney no
questions at this time questions or comments from the virtual audience i see no hands chair any
commission thank you thank you for your time anna cimiterra planning commission staff the
Thank you for your time at a cemetery planning commission staff. The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from the existing arm 1 residential multifamily to RSA 5 residential single family.
comprehensive plan recommends
The appellant has not demonstrated that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances of this property that will prevent conformance with the zoning code planning commission recommends the board deny the requested variance for visitor accommodations.
MI 2026-002-835-1835-South 18th Street. I vote yes. Temporary variance that will expire 9-24-29.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, guys.
Okay, so number, let's see here, it'll be number 11, MI 2026-002-856-824-26, South 18th Street, A Street, Richard DeMarco is the attorney.
I was just unmuted, I didn't get invited to be a panelist.
Okay, we'll take care of that for you.
there we go
sir demarco could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
good afternoon mr chairman
could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer sir yes richard demarco last
last name spelled d-e-m-a-r-c-o do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. Mr. DeMarco, could you identify your client in a relationship
with this property? Phil Harvey, Mr. Chairman, and him and his daughter are in the Zoom together.
Okay. And our vice chair has a few questions, sir. Good afternoon. Have you submitted your
documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing? Yes, I have. And do you waive the reading
your refusals and stipulate to their accuracy yes i can waive and stipulate all right thank
you you can see your screen and proceed with the case okay thank you and you do have letter
of non-opposition from um bella vista yes we met with them i'll get into that in a minute let me
make sure thank you okay you should have my exhibits on your screen they're coming up right now
and i also have so what i'll do mr chairman the the plans and the renderings um were of scan
quality so i actually have the powerpoint that was incorporated directly i'll use that so it's
easier for everybody to see our architect is also i believe in the room um rich villa he he just
waved to us okay great so he's there to answer questions as well so i'll let me go through this
I'm going to start with the PowerPoint, if that's okay.
So this is the final product on your screen.
You should have a rendering on your screen.
That is how the building will look.
The next page is pretty important.
So there's an existing structure there.
You can see it.
I'm circling it with my cursor.
It's on the left side.
And then you can see very faintly superimposed R building, which is as it would appear on the right.
and it's kind of imposed over it, so the existing structure, that is.
The original structure was not conforming as to height.
It was 40 feet high.
You can see it here.
Our building will be 42 feet high.
So even though our variance is a four-foot height variance,
I would argue that it's only a de minimis increase over the current building,
which, for reasons that I'll get into, is obsolete.
um actually let me jump to the refusal I'm going to jump back so let me zoom in
so we got a refusal refusal for having six units instead of having seven instead of six units this
is a CMX2 property you see it here uh the seventh unit we were about a half of a unit short the
calculation resulted in about six and a half units we're asking for seven I'll explain why
in a moment also we have a rear yard variance request uh it says four feet proposed where nine
feet is required we actually do have a nine foot rear yard and i'll get again get into that in more
detail in a moment but we got a four foot uh refusal because of the existence of balconies
which were considered a structure but most of the yard is open and is nine feet and the rear yard
But most of the yard is open and is nine feet, and the rear yard itself, the area of the rear yard, is compliant.
itself
So let me, so you can see, here's the height variance, and then here's the maximum occupied area variance.
Let me go back to our chart here, and let me zoom in.
Let me zoom out a little bit.
There we go.
So the original structure was over 96% lock coverage.
so it was a non-conforming yacht lot both for height and for occupied area while the requirement
is 65 we are proposing 84 but it is as you can see a significant improvement over the original
structure which occupied most of the lot this first floor is a restaurant now let me say mr
chairman that we're going to be submitting to you that there is a hardship presented by this property
The restaurants have failed. There's been five different attempts to operate the restaurant on the first floor of this structure. It was Michael's way back, and then my clients had bought the property in 2016, inherited it as a non-conforming structure.
The restaurants have continued to fail at this property.
It is currently vacant.
It's an unusual site.
It's a little tricky for a restaurant, and no one has been able to maintain the business there.
There are two apartment units above on this property.
My clients, for years, have attempted to get a certificate of occupancy.
They inherited those two units as occupied units, but they were unable to get.
they went to the city to try to get rental license and certificate and were told that
there's no certificate of occupancy for those units. The requirements to convert those units
to code involved completely tearing out all the walls, fire rating the walls, and fire rating
the flooring, and also sprinkler systems and other mechanicals. So the cost of getting a
certificate of occupancy for the existing units was so extreme it made no sense to do it they had
and of course the difficulty with the rent with the first floor space this decision was made that
was compelled them to seek a new structure which would be fully code meet all code comply and be
compliant with all current codes so let's get to that um this is the site plan i'm going to zoom
in on the right here so you can see the rear yard issues here and i won't belabor the point we do
have no opposition but let me just want to get some stuff on the record by the way here's the
cross section mr chairman and members of the board you can see uh the the two feet added to
the height over the current structure it's this little line here and then this is the the outline
of the current structure so there's not a huge increase in massing over the current structure
this is the and i'll show you on on a elevation you can see the balconies
this is the real balcony here i'm indicating with my cursor that's why we got that four foot
refusal but it's actually a nine foot deep rear yard and it's a lot a lot of open space this
dotted line here is actually the current uh structure so you can see how it's it's practically
100 occupancy um and so the current this is all new open space here with the new structure so
it's a vast we would argue obviously it's a vast improvement over the current structure um
um this is the first here's more renderings lots of glass which the name the neighborhood group
was very happy to see we do have a commercial space there is a refusal for not being deep
enough but it's de minimis it's basically about 28 feet deep I'll show you over here
this is the floor plan of the first floor I'll zoom in here so you can really get a sense of
that first floor. And so you can even read it. Let me zoom in again. So this is our trash room
here. It's got an entrance from the street and it's got an entrance from the interior. There'll
be a container and there'll be a commercial hauler to take trash. All tenants will have access to the
trash room and trash storage. There's a bike room here. There's an elevator here. So the reason why
we want that seventh unit, Mr. Chairman, instead of just sticking with the six units, is discussions
with the neighbors. It was clear that they did not want commercial in the back. Some of these
neighbors here and here were at the meeting, were very concerned about the construction, but
in conversations with my clients, they indicated very strongly that there would probably be
in conversations with my clients they indicated very strongly that they would probably be opposed
if we attempted to have commercial along the entire first floor so this was a critical um
having a residential unit on that first floor was a critical aspect of working with the community
working with the rco and most importantly working with the near neighbors so they were very clear
they wanted residential rather than commercial so there's a single unit on the first floor
And let me show you those. This is, there is a roof deck which will be fully, which will not be abused. There's not going to be any type of party use. Let me zoom in a little bit. There we go. Here's a more detailed look at the first floor. Let me just show you those balconies.
These are the balconies here on this cross section.
You see them here.
This is our rear yard fenced in.
And I think that's the most of the, oh, here it is, this is a little better.
So you can see this was deemed the structure, so we did not get credit for the full rear
yard depth.
Let me show you some photos.
So we would say as follows, Mr. Chairman, the current structure is obsolete.
it's a hardship to redevelop it. You cannot get a certificate of occupancy with the current layout
without an extensive amount of investment. And the first four commercial space has been very
difficult. It looks weird. Let me show you some photos. Actually, that was the last thing I wanted
to show you. It's an odd layout for a restaurant. There's windows. Let me rotate. There's odd
Windows. This is the last restaurant that was operating there. It failed within a couple of
years. Here's our posting. And it's an unusual structure. So we would send it as follows. We
believe this is a permitted use. We have designed a mixed-use structure, which we have no opposition
from the neighbors. The neighbors were happy to see that. Let me go back to that later. This is
the RCO letter. There were a couple people who were in opposition, but their concerns
were mostly with the construction. It wasn't really with the use. I would think it's fair
to say there was near unanimity as to the use itself, having a smaller commercial space
with residential units. There wasn't a lot of opposition to the density. Part of the members
of the RCO board liked the extra density. But again, six is as of right, and the seventh unit
really allows us both to protect the rear of the first floor and have a residential quiet use for
the neighbor neighbors in the rear um and so that is why we want that seventh unit so um let me go
ahead and get my clients on board our architects in the room to answer questions why don't you get
your client first then we know your architecture very good uh so phil and allison if you can unmute
mute or raise your virtual hand. Are you with us? Should be a Phil Harvey or Allison Harvey
Hindenman? Do we see a heart of anybody? Allison had been promoted to speak. Thank
you very much. Hi, this is Allison Harvey and I'm here with my father Philip Harvey.
Hi, this is Philip Harvey.
Okay, who's going to testify?
If it's okay, sorry, go ahead.
I'll testify.
Okay, good.
Okay, fine.
Please state and spell your name for the stenographer.
Spell your name, Phil.
Philip Harvey.
That's P-H-I-L-I-P-H-A-R-V-E-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Mr. Harvey, did you hear my presentation to the Board today?
Yes, I think you gave a very accurate and complete description of what the situation is on this
property. Okay, terrific. And can you also adopt everything I said as your formal testimony in
this zoning case? Yes. I want to just ask you one additional question before we turn it over to
questions um was this proposal the seven units and the structure as proposed is it the minimum
development that you can propose in order to feasibly develop this property yes
mr chairman i i'm done with the owners and uh if the board here's what i'll do is we'll take
questions from the board and there's questions relative to the architects your architect
sitting right here okay perfect all right so questions yeah yeah i have a question
Yeah, I have a question about the commercial space and sort of what's the long-term plan for that space.
about the commercial space and sort of what's the long
So I'll answer before Phil does.
This was discussed at the neighborhood meeting.