Anyone else in the first audience?
No further answers, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar City Planning.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA-5 residential single-family zoning at this location.
There's no unique physical circumstances or condition of the property from being used in conformity with the code.
We are aware for two family housing units are on the 1300 block of South 22nd Street, but the remaining area is primarily single family.
City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny the proposed use variance for additional dwelling units.
Mr. Chair, can I just respond briefly?
Oh, thank you.
So if you look at the history of the property, this has been a mixed-use property before, and there are multiple entrances showing multi-units as well.
Thank you.
MI 2024-002-809, 1389 South 22nd Street.
I vote yes.
proviso per amended refusal dated 10-23-24 and maximum two residential units and commercial
on the first floor? That is correct, Mr. Chair. Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Senator Graham, my vote is yes with proviso. Iowen, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso. Thank you, Councilman.
Number nine, MI 2024-004-303, 1924-36 Washington Avenue.
Justin Crick is the attorney.
Letter of unanimous support from Point Breeze Community Development Coalition.
Good morning.
can you please state your name and spell it for the court stenographer yes justin crick k-r-i-k
where are firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do would you identify your client and relationship to the property
yes my client is ocf realty and it is the tenant of the property vice chair has a few questions
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to attack?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much. Members of the board, we are here today for the property at 1924-36 Washington Avenue.
It is a very large property located in an I-2 medium industrial zoning district.
The current first floor of the property has already been approved for, and we are not seeking to change existing uses as an existing bakery, as well as a professional office space.
The request for this application is to use the second floor for personal services to have a fitness center gym located in the second floor of the property.
The refusal that was received is for the fact that this is in an I-2 industrial zone and personal services are expressly prohibited there.
But again, noting that there has been a grant in the past, there's been granting a sit-down restaurant with signs.
But right now, the current uses of the property that are approved and exist are a bakery, artisan industrial bakery, although not industrial in that sense, but professional office uses to remain previously approved.
There is no development of the property, just interior renovation to to create the space that is proposed.
As you'll see along Washington Avenue, and this is at the corner of 20th and Washington, many of the properties nearby are listed as I2 industrial, but many of them also already have commercial uses approved and existing in them.
And that is because there is just a little bit less of a desire for certain industrial uses, whereas there's been a drive for more commercial use in the area, as is noted by the RCO in their sentiments that I'll describe later.
This is just a map view that will give you a little bit more of an insight as to what's here.
some building supply stores, but what is notable, and let me first show you, this is the intended
look of the building as well. The second floor that you see from all of these windows along
the second floor would be this gym fitness center facility. And this is the concept of
what the inside would look like with these really nice open windows and open floor plan design.
Currently, the property is just in development stage and open and actually raw and undeveloped space with the intent of placing this gym there.
You'll notice very small in this picture, and I'll go to another picture shortly, directly across the street in one of the other industrial zoned areas is this other business, Open Box Athletics.
And Open Box Athletics, I will just show you, here's our property, here's the second floor, not saying that this picture is a little old, but this is the second floor of the building that is intended to be used for the gym.
And directly across the street, we have Open Box Athletics, which in April of 2023 received zoning approval to place a gym, a fitness center gym, directly across the street in this same I2 zoning classification.
This is a concept of the open floor plan.
There will be locker rooms and certain other amenity areas that are customary to a gym and fitness center.
The applicant is OCF Realty, and it will act as a sub-landlord for that gym fitness center, but also manages the building under a long-term lease.
the notification had been sent to the Point Breeze Community Development Corporation which
held and here are copies of the RCO notice that was sent and proof of mailing or exemplar of the
bulk mailing certification. Now the Point Breeze Community Development Corporation met
on September 23rd. They issued this letter on October 1st. With 20 individuals present at the
meeting, seven voted. And of those seven that voted, it was unanimous. There were no no votes,
no opposition to this. They did break it down for us to let us know that there was only one person
of those votes that were within two blocks and others were from the RCO board.
of those votes that were within two blocks, and others were from the...
But what's notable is that this RCO is very thorough in providing feedback where it was
given.
And you'll see that people are hopeful for commercial uses and to attract more businesses
to the Point Breeze corridor, starting up a new business, and again, pointing out and
recognizing that this neighborhood and this board has already approved the exact same
use directly across the street within about a year, the last year, back in April of 23.
The applicant posted the property with both the community notice and then with the zoning
hearing notice along the frontages of the property.
We believe that the use is appropriate for the area and that it would be slightly disparate
to and a hardship to the occupant, to the tenant and applicant, I'm sorry, to not be afforded
similar treatment in the area where this type of use is permitted. And it seems to be in the spirit
of the code and the spirit of the plan for the area to allow and address additional commercial
uses. This would not in any way harm the neighboring properties. There's no further
development that would impair the air or light. And it would not be a burden on any of the public
facilities in fact that any more so than a potential industrial use would on things like
water and sewer uses um and with that i would bring on my client um i have ori feibush who is
a principal of ocf realty to unmute and adopt the testimony
they've been allowed to speak mr pine bush could you state your name please and spell for the court
stenographer ory feybush o-r-i f-s and frank e-i-b-u-s-h do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel uh mr feybush have
you heard my testimony to the board today i have and is it true and correct to the best of your
knowledge? It is. And would you adopt my testimony as if it was your own? I would. And is there
anything else you wish to inform the board or advise the board of at this time? Sure. I just
want to share that the gym across the street is incredibly supportive of this concept. While both
are gyms, they see this as complementary and supporting their large vision here as well.
So both are very excited to coexist and support each other on our growing commercial quality here on Washington Avenue.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
um just briefly just just briefly mr chair um the um the board has not received proof of tax
compliance um for this property and there are small balances showed um i believe they have
liens for 23 and 22 tax years so those need to be addressed before the board can vote on this matter
yes and i would uh i would ask that if the board would vote and or and or hold that for those we
are working with the landlord to address those promptly and that is as a tenant that is slightly
out of our hands but we are doing our best to have the the landlord address those uh immediately
questions or comments from the uh virtual audience
i have another hand from calling user number two
why could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
star six to unmute star six to unmute okay thank you uh first of all i want to say that the
developer is this tiffany yes it is uh tiffany you've already been sworn just for the record
uh state your name uh tiffany green concerns today please all right please proceed
Okay. First of all, for the developer and the lawyer, they need to know that all RCOs are equal. You need to respond to all RCOs, not just one.
Number two, there was a concern at the meeting. We asked to see the master lease because we wanted to make sure that the applicant had the power to sublease this property, okay, at the time.
subleased this property, okay, at the time, and it was agreed that they would send out that
and it was agreed that
master lease, which we never received at this particular point, which brings us to mind about
the landlord, because about the owner of the property, because as RCOs, we like to talk with
the owner so that legally we're not in any kind of, you know, situation down the road, okay, and that
we never received the master lease at this particular point, as well as we wanted to know
about the tenant uh the applicant refused to give us the name of the tenant the gym that was going in
because we wanted to you know know the name of the gym that was going and he refused to do that and
i'm not saying this to be to to anyway to uh upset the cba but when we when the when the when cdc
asked the captain if the zoney boy would ask you what the name of the gym was he would you tell
him he said no i will not so with that type we feel that type of attitude is just not uh conducive
really to being supportive.
But I say all that to say we're asking for a proviso on this,
that that space will only be used for a gym.
That's it, okay, going forward, nothing else.
If you approve it, that that space will only be for a gym and a gym only.
Anything else, the applicant will have to come back in front of us
and that he sends us out a copy of the master lease,
that he has the power to rent this property to another business we would like to have that
for the record if the zba would be uh thank you for your call um planning commission uh yeah this
is uh ron bednar city planning while the property is currently indicated for industrial as um
industrial use on the city plan given the physical circumstance of the site we
We recommend an request for fairness to be granted.
We're going to hold the vote, and we'll get back to you when we can, okay?
Yes, thank you.
Okay, thank you very much.
All right, number 12, MI 2024-005-235-3151 Market Street.
unanimous support
from Pound and Village Civic Association
also council member Gauthier
is in support of this variance
okay Mr. Chair
Ronald Patterson will be joining us
Good afternoon.
Mr. Patterson, you've already been sworn just for the record.
Could you please state your name?
Ronald Patterson with Claire Harrison Law Firm, 1835 Market Street.
Could you identify your client or relationship to the property?
Sure, Mr. Chair.
My client is Brandywine 3151 Venture LP, which is a Brandywine Realty Trust entity,
and they have a long-term ground lease from the owner.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have.
Thank you, counsel.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
You can view my screen just to confirm.
yeah so um this application regards um 3151 market street you'll see it's the building on
the right with the arrow of course is it a corner of jfk boulevard and uh jfk boulevard here is a
little peculiar because back it actually occurs from behind the building and then exits out on
market street um the configuration then has two beach street frontages on jfk um almost completed
under construction. It's a 12-story building for use predominantly as a wildlife science
R&D office building with commercial uses on the first floor. Here are some recent photographs.
Three building frontages, as I mentioned, but technically two street frontages because JFK's
configuration uh the location and street are peculiar the building design has in a good way
has no um hardly any parallel uh building frontages with the streets and on the corner here
on market and jfk the building sets back creates a little bit of a court area so um with the
with the building uh brandywine prepared a comprehensive sign package and taking that
building brand new wine prepared a comprehensive sign package
package uh reviewed it and then broke it into a few parts the first part was of the package we
obtained the signage approval as a matter of right and they're predominantly a flat wall
accessory signs identifies the building the second part is is this this sign package
and that's why we're here today and show you a little diagram here
so this is a site plan
to orient yourself this is jfk in the rear around the corner here at the end on the market street
and market street is here what we're here today for our two freestanding signs
one here and one there um
so the package was filed with five signs three of the signs are wayfinding signs directional signs
ellen i issued the refusal saying that these two signs fronted on one street and the code provides
that you're only allowed to have one freestanding sign for street frontage uh the three-way finding
and directional signs uh are not considered freestanding signs for for that purpose uh the
signs do um comply with uh the allowable size here's one sign an area here's the second sign
this is schuylkill yards was one is the name of the building is one of the signs that we obtained
as a matter of right um with that said i want to ask you to promote mr uh christopher franklin
casein do we see his hand um yes he's been loud to speak
there could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
Christopher Franklin, C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-R, F-R-A-N-K-L-I-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Hi, Mr. Franklin. Where do you work?
Brandy Wine Realty Trust.
What's your position there?
Vice President of Development.
And so you're responsible for this building, I take it, correct?
Yes, that's correct.
And the display I'm showing here shows the two signs that we're here for today.
And you see how they're oriented.