Oh, yeah, sure. We'll send it over to you guys.
If I could just be promoted as a panelist.
You have been promoted to panelists.
1449 north 75th street um we have 12 exhibits here uh we'll go through them uh and we have
uh stanley as the owner of the property stanley is a former firefighter as well as police officer
um and he owns this property uh to live on the first floor um he travels to see his daughter
back and forth in atlanta so the the intention was to renovate the first floor the first floor
was originally a garage and storage area and then the second and third floors were uh just two units
combined in there and um what happened was and you hear this story a lot he hired a contractor
he thought that the contractor was doing everything right found out that wasn't the case
and then he had to go across the street to city hall and deal with you know lni in terms of
violations and and fines and it took a few years for him to deal with that and he finally dealt
with it unfortunately the collateral damage is just not stanley but the neighbors who are upset
with him and stanley's upset just because he's upset because he's had to deal with this for a few
years so you know his demeanor at the community meeting immediately wasn't the best i told him
you know the neighbors have a right to speak and say what they want to say and you can be upset
but they're not the enemy the enemy is your general contractor who you know did wrong by you
um so you know at the very least and he let the rental licenses lapse where it's now for the two
places upstairs for the two places upstairs so and i don't even think that based on the letter
of opposition they even say it's going from two units to three units right so if this board feels
so inclined or to deny the three units which we think is appropriate under the circumstances
at the very least they should grant it with proviso maximum two units at least you know
get him those two units he had previously um so the notice of refusal is for an rsa5 property
is the corner of Woodbine and 75th Street.
It's a rather large lot of 3,124 square feet.
He did get a permit, you know,
the one permit he did get
or his architect got for him
that was to close up the two garage doors
to add that additional space on the ground floor.
And you'll see there's no below-basement,
there's no below-ground living, right?
So where he's going to live is above ground.
But he closed up the garage legally
with his owning permit.
you know getting the building permits and all that that's going to be a chore whether it's
two or three units but he's we've advised him and we told him he needs to do that the good thing
about three units is that if it's three units as the board knows he has to put a sprinkler system
in there so that's going to add some extra safety measures if it goes in that direction
so we did meet with the community it was unanimously in opposition um like i said i
don't think my client presented well because he's just really frustrated and upset you know he again
he was a former police officer who believes in the rule of law you know he's he's not only served
our community as a police officer but as a volunteer firefighter you know everything's
black and white to him and you know he's you know he's like well why am i fighting at all like i
did everything i i thought i was doing everything the right way i hired a general contractor i
assumed i get all the permits and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose and i have to deal with
this for many, many years and spend a lot, our firm didn't represent them, but many hours and
thousands of dollars in litigation with the city. So they did have comments, and I wanted to go
through the comments of opposition. The community has every right to say what they want in the
community, but it does have to make sense too. So the first comment was that the applicant did not
come to the RCO before pursuing the zoning relief. Well, we did and we didn't, right? There's a
process we we apply for the zoning permit application or we apply for zoning permit
we get a refusal which we knew we're going to get and we go through that process and we went through
that process but it's not very often that you go to the community before you even make the
application you know some of my clients we've tried especially for bigger projects to go to
especially for bigger projects to go to the community most communities are not receptive to
the community. Most communities are not receptive.
that you know they're already overloaded so what we did was not anything different than most people
do we didn't try to slip it by them um we followed the process and you know we tried to explain that
to them the second is about the construction noise from the equipment again my client hired a bad
general contractor he admits that he you know i'm going to apologize on his behalf because he's
frustrated and it's you know some people get so emotional about these things it's incapable of
of expressing what should be said and so i do apologize you know on behalf of my client to
the community and i did afterwards too i said i'm so sorry like even some community members was like
i was hoping to support this but your client was really difficult and that's a nice word what they
said so um third thing construction occurring outside of permitted hours again my client hired
a bad contractor he's going to he's he's intending to hire a good one who's going to follow the rule
of law number four which doesn't make sense to us neighbors are receiving trash and sanitation
violations so they're separately receiving trash and and sanitation violations they're somehow
blaming us for that that somehow what we're doing on that site either through trash debris or
something is somehow going to their properties i think we looked on atlas and we did about like
three one ones or trash i don't think anything's been done the last year like there's been no
violations the last year so since we filed so i can't speak to that uh no clear answer what on
what permits have been pulled again we what we're showing you is what we show the community we stated
that my client got a zoning permit to close up the garages. He thought he was getting all these
alteration and building permits to do the right thing. He thought he was getting three units as
a matter of rights. That's the truth. And unfortunately, who he relied on, they didn't
do the right thing. And the last one, it kind of speaks to the relief that we're asking for
and a minimum of two units the variance saw duplex to triplex in the comparison offered right so i
don't think they even dispute that this was previously used as a try a duplex for many many
many years and we have the rental license to show when it expired but the triplex that we're offering
is on the same street we're a corner property in woodbine i think it's martha i don't remember the
cross street on the other side and we have a picture it's the same exact type of building
that's a triplex as well they're like well that that that that zoning permit was granted 42 years
ago it's like anything whether it's granted 42 years ago 42 hours ago 42 minutes ago 42 seconds
ago it's the same thing right so it's apples to apples like that's what we're trying to say it's
not out of character so we're hoping that the board the two units were legal and then he let
it expire he let it expire but when he didn't let it expire the problem is he had all these violations
And as many members of the board know, once we have a violation against the property, we can't renew the rental license.
Yep, I got it.
Property history.
So here you see is the two rental licenses that expired on October.
So it's from August of 2021 to October of 2022.
So we're past the three years.
And then I also have the zoning permit application, or zoning permit, excuse me, where he enclosed the area where the garage was.
And then here's the three units at 1401-03, North 75th Street, Apples to Apples.
And then this is just an aerial view of 1401-03, right, kind of showing that even how it looks from an aerial view is exactly the same as ours.
and then this is the side view of 1401 again you'll see it's very similar to ours where you
have a side front door for unit number one and then you have unit number two and three that go
up those steps and then maps so like here's our property you can see it's really really large
you know compared to the other properties on that street from a lot size perspective
other than the huge apartment building that's behind us so it's also not out of character
to have such large multifamily living behind us.
And that's called Haverford Court Apartments.
And then photographs of the property,
as you can see, similar to 1401,
there's a front door, it's two stories,
really three stories because as you see
how the property slopes,
that would be the first floor unit.
Everything is above ground.
Here's a zoning hearing notice postings
for both public streets.
North 75th Street to the right of the property,
to left of the property woodbine avenue to right of the property until left of the property
our interior photos.
our interior photos and again he was just going to completely cut this place out and then
And again, he was just gonna completely gut this place out.
And then obviously he got stopped in his tracks
because there was an issue with L and I.
But really, this application really is legalizing
all three units, but really two of the units
existed previously.
And then just the floor plan.
So this is really what would be the new use
is here's that side door.
and by the way there's a back door as well you have a living room a kitchen and then you have
you have two bedrooms and you have a bathroom right next to the two bathrooms i mean two bedrooms
which is always good right we try and then instead of going to unit number one you have unit number
two and three and these are the existing ones where you come up a flight of steps you have a
living room you have a kitchen a dining room a kitchen and you have the two bedrooms and right
Right next to the two bedrooms is the bathroom and the same floor plan is for the third floor
as well.
We met with the community on August 11th.
It was a well attended meeting.
We sent that notice to, I can't see how many addresses, 89 addresses.
These are the addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses.
Our application for zoning variance along with the notice of refusal and the project
information form our deed to property showing that stanley owns the property again he's not
a company he's not hiding behind a company he just wanted to buy a property renovate it live
in the ground floor unit and continue and and fix it up it's been you know you know it's it's old
and he wanted to fix it up to to add value to the community um i would ask that stanley virtually
raise his hand and be sworn in and of course we would answer any questions the board may have
danny has been promoted to panelists danley could you please state and spell your name for
the stenographer yeah can you hear me again okay yes stanley mcdaniel uh s-t-n-l-e-y-m-c-d-a-n-i-e-l
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
all right far cancel oh yeah stanley you heard everything i had to state today about your zoning
matter all right is it true and correct yes sir including all the issues you had with the general
contractor you hired correct also may i add something to it as well sure yeah i do have a
licensed contract on standby uh waiting to um complete the project out again like um you stated
already that it was an issue with the contractor that i thought was a licensed certified insured
contractor but when i found out he wasn't i had to go to city hall and again i'm just reiterating
what you just said and took me through a whole lot of process and they stole thousands of dollars
of my money so when i went to city hall i apologize when i went to small claims court
um the situation came about was his mailing address was not um accurate and then with the
whole process not only did he steal my money but he stole the neighbor's money next door as well
which he was he was one of the guys at the hearing as well was he he attested to that in regards to
his money was stolen from that contractor so it wasn't just like i was just trying to you know
not just do things the right way i thought i was doing things the right way by paying
a licensed contractor i need to do because again i'm retired from the city of falafia i did 23 years
of the city of Philadelphia the fire department the police department now I'm in school for law
actually I just completed law school at the same time towards well I'm always trying to obey the
law at the same time as well but I just get frustrated when I feel like um I'm being opposed
against when I'm trying to do something right but at the same time people keep pointing to think I
mean like I'm doing something wrong when they know the situation at hand that um there was
licensed contractor without just robbing people legitimately in regard to the situation I'm
dealing with. And again, I'm not repeating myself, but the neighbor next door of mine,
he hired the same contractor and had the same issue. Yeah. And Stanley, just, and I think you
said this, like your intention is if you do get this variance, obviously not only gain the zoning
permit, but gain the building permit and not only hiring that general contractor to make,
but to also make sure that they complete it to a certificate of occupancy that's correct
right and then there was one thing i did not bring up in terms of trash storage
you will agree to a proviso trash to be stored outside on the side of the property in an enclosed
trash area is that correct that's correct whatever the compliance is for the law i'm i'm willing to
agree upon that i have no issue with obeying the law it's not at all at no point again i'm retired
Again, I'm a retired police officer, retired Philadelphia Fire Department personnel, and actually retired correction officer.
police officer retired philadelphia fire department personnel and actually
So I've been doing legitimate stuff for all my life.
I have no problem being legit.
It's just that I have a problem with somebody that keeps stealing from me.
That's my problem.
All right.
And then everything I said was not only true and correct, but you will adopt it as your own testimony.
Correct.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Questions from the board.
What's the plan for trash?
we would store it outside on the side of the property um in the enclosed area let me just
go back to the picture we have a lot of room on that side and we'll do it discreetly we're not
going to just store trash cans here but i can show you the picture of where it would be stored
right here this little area well that little big area but we'll do it discreetly so it's not an
eyesore to the community and what's the plan for sort of that paved area is it just going to be
open for the all three residents because your property line comes all the way to the sidewalk
correct yeah i think it's an opportunity to you know you know with legal fencing to you know maybe
fence it off and and maybe add an outdoor area for them you know for like a patio area give some