Mr. Searty, you know, we actually talked about this and, you know, Mr. Searty, please chime in,
but like most, if not all of his employees use public transportation or live in the city.
So that can change. That can change. No, that could change. No, no. But the point is, is like it's definitely a greater density and use and impact to the community. So when you're looking at like what's the impact to the community, what this witness stated, it's actually a worse impact to force the owner to like look into a multifamily usage.
So, you know, in terms of the slippery slope, like where people get a use and then go beyond that use, that's why there's a mechanism of L&I, right?
You know, we say it time and time again, we're only allowed to use the property based on the use permit that we apply for.
If we exceed the scope of that, there's ramifications to that.
Go ahead. I'm sorry.
No, I'm sorry.
Does Mr. C already live there?
no he lives he lives in the city he lives in the fairmont section of philadelphia uh he his you
know he he vacated his uh a space that he rented in commerce square he wanted to remain in the city
and have his law firm remain in the city that's why he chose that space and again another reason
why he chose the space was he's not like trying to hack up a townhome he wants to like have a
beautiful town home where he doesn't want to have everyone all condensed in there.
It's on purpose.
And in terms of our presentation to CCRA, again, it's been a while, but I believe it
was discussed of how many employees we're going to have and the possibility of subleasing.
And that's why after the meeting, it was broached by us in terms of making sure it was limited
it to law firm use, because we, and Mr. Albin can, I'm sure he can verify this, we did talk to Mr.
Albin and say, yes, we plan to sublease, and he said, that's fine, law firm use only, and we agreed
to that. Thank you. Yeah, we do have one other person, Mary. Okay, thank you. Hi, my name is
mary pinkney wood that's m-a-r-y new word p as in paul i n as in nancy c k n as in nancy e y
last name wood w-o-o-d i live at 1917 spruce street in philadelphia 19103 thank you do you
swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth oh yes sir i do
um sure um you know we've lived here my husband and i have lived here for 15 years um working on
16 i guess now um at any rate um you know the law firm at 1900 spruce street um as far as impact on
the community they aren't part of our community that's here on 1900 spruce street uh they they
don't they're not here during the evenings when people are here um they're not here on the
weekends when people are here and they're just not part of our community um you know as as a result
you know when it snows they don't shovel in front of their building uh or on the side of their
building because you know they're not part of our community so you know litter you know attracts
around their space because you know they're not talking about 1905 i understand that my concern
as a resident is if we uh add say another law firm type uh business to the block we're looking
at another situation where you know we've taken uh community people and turned them into non-community
people and you know you say today that um you know you all look at all of these things
as they come in and look at them individually and that's y'all's stance at this particular
point in time but if we let this building go to 100 commercial who's to say in 20 years that
that will be the stance and that's my concern and that's all i have to say thank you here we have
mary jones from the council person's office miss jones
yes hello can you hear me yes we could have you know i yes i'm on my cell phone today okay
mary jones from uh council president daryl clark's office um city hall room 496
Are you swearing the firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
we're in the firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
uh yes
Yes, I do.
Thank you, Mary.
Please proceed.
um well the council president um has um decided to support the position of the near neighbors based
on um communication from them and just their concern for uh the more business use to be out
of context with um the the residential nature of the neighborhood um so yes supports their
position thank you thank you that's all chair you can proceed okay again i'll ask any questions
from the board no no no no planning commission
uh good afternoon this is dave munson with the planning commission um this property is listed
for residential multi-family use on the comprehensive plan uh at the last hearing
the Planning Commission went on record as having no objection and our position has not changed.
Thank you very much. MI-2020-000772, 1905 Spruce Street. My vote is yes with the proviso.
Limited use as a law firm. Limited law firm is limited use. Maybe I'm not saying that right.
used to be limited as a law firm used to be limited as law firm my vote is no
yes for proviso yes for proviso
thank you
calendar number mi 2020
020-000-976-3248 North Carlisle Street if you're here for Carlisle please raise your hand
mr levy or levy you've been promoted to panelists yeah that's me you can share your screen as
necessary and wait yes sir can you put your name and address on the record and spell your name
Ophir Levy, O-F-I-R. My last name is L-E-V-Y. The address is 3248 North Carlisle, 19140.
Do you agree to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal? Strike that.
This is an application for a permit for a three-family dwelling in an existing structure. You can proceed.
um i'm gonna use uh my uh my guy right here my managerial company he's gonna explain you guys
uh all the thing we do work on it uh we had the permit we like he's gonna explain you better than
me um go ahead yeah hi i'm noah i'm the manager for the property for off your lady erin are you
there? I don't know if she is, but I think you have to. Yes. I am here. Yes. Mr. Levy will have
to present himself. Thank you. Mr. Levy, you need to testify. So, and if you can share any of your
exhibits, that would be helpful. Yeah, we just did that right now. Is that okay if I speak for
him his english is not that great that's the reason i'm here and i'm the manager of the property
no not really uh if if you could maybe when we ask the question okay you can speak to him and
then he can you know translate it back into english for us okay so what i'm trying to say
i bought a property in 2014 when i bought a property uh i hire a guy a company that the name
is matthew in mexico uh they do the permit for uh three family drawing and i was pretty sure
that everything was done um i do have the drawing i do have whatever i supposed to have and i do
have a rental license as like I do know that is a one building I didn't know that
I need to get a three rental license for each for each unit so what happened
So what happened since then, up to today, when I hired this guy to management this building, so I used only one rental license for all of those years. And that's it. I thought it's fine because it's one building. I didn't know that I needed three rental licenses.
since then up to today when I hired this
and then back at the time when I bought it was a tree it was the same thing we
just renovated so it was a tree unit three three apartment and even back at
the time on 19 I think 64 was a tree a unit three unit and then somewhere in the
middle is a change and I know you bought that in 1964 you know I bought it 2014
14 when I bought it it was it was a three a family a family home I got it now okay I understand I
saw 1964 I was curious okay yeah so somewhere in between when I bought it up to up to uh that time
in 1964 and then and then I hired somebody and he did the permit uh for a three family drawing
and I didn't know that is not complete I thought it's fine and uh that's the only property that I
have like more than one unit so what happened I thought for one building is one rental license
I didn't know that I need uh like a permit for each unit right so that's what happened like I
like I fall in between do you see the permit over here on uh when I bought a house I bought it from
somebody with a tenant there was a a mess people then I picked them when I
picked them I'm just doing you everything you know I tried to do that
nice and livable and I hired this guy he did the pyramids he did the the
pyramids for for like a tree unit and I thought it's fine and then he gave me
only one rental license so I didn't know that I need three rental license for one
building so now when i hire him he said that's not right let's do that right so that's that's
why i'm here could you could you show us that the floor plan again please yeah that's the plan uh
from back at the time in 2014 when the guy uh when the guy applied for the permit the three family
draw a drawing totally any questions from the board no no no no anyone wish to testify in this
case please raise your hand um chair we have tina mary russell um miss russell russell meet yourself
hi i'm sorry i was trying to um get back to the screen um i wanted to know that they have a
community miss russell miss russell yes i know you were on earlier this morning please put your full
name on the record and your address okay tina marie russell um north central philadelphia cdc
and rco at 1631 west susquehanna avenue you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i did thank you please proceed excuse me if i can interrupt for a minute
sharon saletta there was a community meeting but the um rco asked the applicant to come back on 10 20.
okay thank you is that your testimony miss miss russell um i didn't have we didn't my testimony
was that neither my RCO or Swamp Pool's RCO was notified of any community
meetings regarding this case. We were asking for a continuance.
We do have proof of all the mail and stuff that was sent out if you want.
Do we have anything in the file?
Yes, we do.
Yes, you do.
There you go.
No, they didn't meet. All right. Anyone else have any interest in this case? If so,
please raise your hand.
I have a call-in user. You can unmute and wait to be sworn in.
Sir, you can take your exhibit down.
hello yes ma'am yes can you hear me yes please identify yourself name and address for the record
this is adrian fernandez swamp little neighborhood process association rco
and we are one of the affected rcos for this address and do you swear and affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth um yes please proceed okay um there was no notice
Okay. There was no notice of community meeting for this address. Mr. Levy had absolutely no contact from his email address with the RCOs. He had someone else contacting us, and she, even up to September 3rd, said that she had not arranged for a community meeting with the RCO coordinator, which was Taube United.
of community meeting for this
Also, I have a problem with the refusal because what Mr. Levy was describing was a legalization
of an existing apartment building, however, the refusal does not mention legalization.
The refusal is presented as if he's taking a single-family home and converting that into
or requesting a variance for multifamily, so the refusal is not factual and not presented
to our community factually or to the planning commission factually.
So we're asking, I understand that he says he had a private meeting,
that meeting was not public because there was no notice to, I guess, more than one RCO.
And he says that now he has planned the meeting for 10-20.
So we're asking if there can be a continuance so that the 10-20 meeting can hold
and then we can communicate with him for bringing the documents that we need to see what's going on.
However, if this is actually a legalization, we would like to ask that he return to the permit office
and either amend or get a new refusal so that we have the facts of what he's trying to do here.
If there's three apartments there already, I think it's obvious.
I think it's very obvious what he's doing.
It's not obvious to us because we don't know his building.
There's nothing obvious to us.
You don't know the building?
No, I don't know this building.
We usually become familiar with it right before a meeting.
That's normally what many of the RCOs do because there's a lot of buildings,
so we don't assume anything.
We definitely didn't know this was an apartment building,
and Tiger United and Tiger Improvement are very familiar with the buildings
around 32nd and Allegheny, and I don't think they knew that.
So we need him to get a refusal that reflects actually what he's trying to do,
And I'm sure the law requires that.
So we need him to get a new refusal or amend the current one.
And we have a right to have meetings and also the zoning poster represent the fact of what he's done.
We got it.
We get the point.
Sharon, in that folder, again, what was the RCO?
What RCO was it?
I'm having trouble reopening the folder, the exhibit pack.
There was a letter from an RCO saying they met, that they did not hold a vote, and that they
requested that he come back prepared to answer questions on October 20th, but he did have the
required meeting. He had a peer. So we'll hold the hearing until the 20th is when he has a,
they're asking to meet with him correct
yes so we'll hold we'll hold the vote until you meet mr levy you're going to meet well he would
have to be more than holding the vote he would have to come back and report on the results of
even though we already have a letter from one of the rcos saying that they did meet
i'm sorry again i'm having yeah yeah i'm just i'm just but if you
excuse me was this purchased as a three-family dwelling
yes yes what do you mean like hold on when you bought the property was it already three
apartments yeah it was the three apartments but when i bought it but not on uh not on uh like on
uh on a paper or whatever like you know no but that's what it's a really about it sounds to me
more of a legalization carol that's what it appears to be yeah exactly itself if you can
see like we showed you at 2000 sorry excuse me and do you have in your exhibits do you have any
pictures of the posting yeah yeah we do would you bring those up please and also
all those years they charge me for a trash removal like twice a year that is
mean that is all I have pulled up the refusal it since the application is for
three-family dwelling in an existing structure that's exactly what a
legalization that's how it would usually read so it was posted so we don't the
so we don't the refusal was is accurate correct
refusal was is accurate correct
it is okay so that issue's been resolved it's been posted there was a community meeting
and we just don't you just having a hard time pulling that one up oh nice town what was that
nice town tayoga
he's got a license he doesn't have the license that's what brought in the talk management
the tenants i'm referring from parking on sidewalk man
the table to vote to allow the order to be better prepared to field questions
all right uh i asked questions planning commission can i add one thing that as far as the requests
that he present a multi-family rental license he can't do that until the um until a zoning
permit is issued this is a prerequisite to getting a multi-family license
i'm sorry repeat that sharon one of the things the rco is asking for is for him to produce a
multifamily rental license he can't get that until he has his own yeah all right planning commission
good afternoon this day months with the city planning commission
um this property is listed as residential single family use on the comprehensive plan