environment for the older people that live here who have no option to move, for the younger
people that are coming in here, and for just the people who would be residing at these
residences. They've talked about social services. However, they didn't mention any of that in the
presentation so there's these concerns as well as more concerns again that my my my the people
in the neighborhood will speak to madam can i ask him one question absolutely um mr tajou when did
you purchase your home excuse me uh dr tajou and i purchased my home um in april of 2019
2019. So is it safe to assume that you were not involved with the year's worth of planning
concerning this area? I fail to see the relevance of that, but also the onus is not on me to ensure
that low-income individuals in the city of Philadelphia have safe places. Okay, okay.
Is there someone else who wants to speak? I'm not going to listen to this. I find it a little bit
offensive. Vice Chair, we have Michael Shea. He's been unmuted. Please wait for the chair.
Hi. Yes, can you hear me? I'm sorry. If I could maybe interject this to sort
for those that are on the line. The attorneys are presenting the cases and they have a right
to cross-examine witnesses. Please respectfully answer their questions so we can move on.
We have a lot of cases today. Thank you. Thank you. We sure do. Michael, is that what you said
your name was? Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you put your name on the record and
spell your last name? Yes. My name is Michael Shea, S-H-E-A. Do you swear or affirm to tell
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You may proceed.
Yeah. Thank you for recognizing me. I'm a resident on the 2400 block of Ingersoll Street. I'm
speaking today on behalf of myself and my wife. We're homeowners here. I share some of Gabriel's
concerns about this development a little more broadly, but I also want to underline that,
you know, again, just speaking for myself, that we are, you know, totally in favor of low-income
housing and affordable housing being built in our neighborhood. You know, if you walk down
Ingersoll Street, you can see it's, like, totally blighted, empty lots, there's filled with trash,
and the construction of the properties that PHA is talking about in general will absolutely
improve our neighborhood. So I just want to underscore that from the outset that we're not,
this isn't sort of like a NIMBY, you know, not in my backyard. We don't like poor people being
around sort of argument, right? These are homeowners who have concerns about some of the
specific aspects of the project, or at least again, I'm speaking for myself. But that overall,
like what we want to see come out of this meeting is some of these refusals to be sort of upheld
so that we can have a further conversation with PHA
about some of these finishing touches details.
So one of the things I really want to highlight
is that the discussion around the parking lot at 24-21,
I mean, I know we just heard from the attorneys
that technically it is accessory parking.
I think that's really a debatable point.
And I think it sort of depends on sort of the spirit
versus the letter of the law here a little bit, right?
I mean, we're talking about a parking lot
that is used by the residents of the PHA properties, but that can include the properties over on
Master Street, right? The 2400 and the 2300 block, which means that this is sort of an open
parking lot. This isn't like right next door to your house, right? This isn't the sort of the
spirit of what accessory non-accessory parking means. And so I can say from our perspective,
you know, we're looking at, we bought a house that was across the street from property that was
zoned for a residential district. We did not expect to be looking out at a parking lot. And
And so to have it come in and say, well, technically, in the spirit, it's accessory parking because there's going to be a parking lot right there, that doesn't reflect what the spirit of the zoning ordinance meant for us, right?
And again, that's, you know, accessory, non-accessory, really depends on who we imagine is using that parking lot, right?
And to what extent it's going to be sort of disruptive to our block.
I mean, again, we're on Ingersoll, it's an older block, it's small, it doesn't have, you know, a lot of space.
It doesn't have, you know, a lot of space. And you're talking about bringing in 14 parking lots, a huge increase in street noise, right? And that can certainly have a negative impact on property value. So the parking lot, in its inclusion here, also speaks to the sort of density concerns that we're thinking about, right? I mean, the introduction of all these multifamily homes on this small block.
And you're talking about bringing in 14 parking lots.
You know, I mean, we heard earlier that 58 of the 450 rental properties are going to
be built on these three blocks.
That's over 20%.
And so, you know, again, we want affordable housing to be built here.
We want Ingersoll to be revitalized.
Absolutely, 100%.
But the construction of the parking lot in the way it's been presented today is a little
misleading.
And it is absolutely not what it's provided for in that zoning, right?
I mean, this is accessory parking for bringing in people from blocks away who can park their cars here.
And it's not what we expected when we bought our house.
And it's not what we should have to expect, given the zoning of this street.
Mr. Shea, when did you buy your house?
I fail to see how that's relevant, because when we bought our house, the parking lot, it was not zoned for a parking lot.
Mr. Shea, when did you buy your house?
You're welcome to look that up online.
That's not relevant.
Next witness.
Madam Chair, public records would show that Mr. Shea purchased his home within the last three
years and was not involved with the extensive planning that went on for this area, so that's
that's why my question is relevant. Okay, thank you. Madam Vice, I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead.
We have Mary Jones, please unmute yourself and please wait for the Vice Chair.
hello can you hear me hi mary yes i can can you put your name on the record please and spell your
last name yes um mary jones j-o-n-e-s council president daryl clark's office city hall room
494 thank you do you swear for him to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do okay you may proceed yes um the council president would like to go on record
as supporting this project and the associated variances.
He agrees with the, of course, the inclusion of affordable housing,
but also this is a part of a much larger project
that promised to revitalize this area
and give the original residents of the Bloomberg Towers
who were standing there for over 50 years
the right to return to their
neighborhood. As such, he
asks that the experiences be granted.
Thank you.
Meredith, anything else?
Yes, Madam Vice
Chair. We have Eric. Please
unmute yourself and wait for the Vice Chair.
Eric, can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
hi put your name on the record and please spell your last name sure my name is eric hope
i reside at 2417 ingersault street uh obviously thank you do you also agree to wait the reading
of the refuse never mind strike that do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and
nothing but the truth yes i do thank you you may proceed all right
we cannot hear you okay now we can hear you yeah good afternoon everyone i think i've spoken with
most people personally from this call but let me just start by saying that we as a collective group
on ingressol are somewhat surprised at the letter of non-opposition from the uh neighborhood
association given that uh the actual vote that was taken was 50 percent of project
there was a 22 approval rating so i'm very surprised at that we did get a little bit of
pushback from council member clark's office on the letter that was sent out but i do feel like
it should be accurately depicted in the record um in terms of the project as michael had said
we don't have problems with affordable housing in fact we just saw a dump guard initiative that was
just um you know spearheaded in philadelphia giving a lot of homes to people that are have
affordable salaries as an option that was just recently uh you know highlighted in the news here
and we we think that's a great idea but for Ingersoll specifically the project is not
in any type of mixed format um and it's as we represent the
I'd like to refer to Mr. Bemis's assertion uh on the CNN housing plan that the goal of this project
is actually to catalyze community-wide revitalization
to actually catalyze community-wide revitalization and new investment.
and new investment.
But on our side,
But on our street, 36 units proposed with 60% AMI,
which I was told to have a minimum, a no minimum in pursuit.
And as Ms. Jones just mentioned,
the idea is that those residents that were in the field Bloomberg Powers,
there was crime, and we know that about 100% of people
that were in that development
where we're involved with crime
are going to have
the first right of refusal
on these.
Not necessarily a new investment.
It's definitely not revitalization.
It's just bringing,
it's just kind of,
this is not the other area
that we think there is
no real plans
for market rate investment
or affordable units.
And I think if we just had
at least half of the units
being proposed on Ingersoll as affordable units for people to buy and it would be a lot more
of a willingness for us to accept the proposal because we would see that there would be added
value in people that cared about the street in the neighborhood. In terms of actual denials,
the infrastructure on Ingersoll Street, I don't know if you remember the street, it's narrow.
Your voice, you're breaking up. Okay. I can't hear you.
It is an extremely narrow street, Ingersoll.
And we really, really believe that putting, like flipping a light switch and putting in 150 new people on the street will have a major impact on the infrastructure, not only the water and sewerage, but also all of the other resources that we have here.
And we also think that the clustering of all of these units in one small street, where there is a lot of residential private investment, is just irresponsible and lazy, really, to be on behalf of the planning company.
Do you think, excuse me, so you think that the density is going to be created by people who are poor?
No, no.
If you're in the poor range,
they would still be using water.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that.
Well, explain what you're saying.
The last time that Philadelphia,
you know,
what was the last infrastructure upgrade
that we had on Ingersoll Street?
Probably wasn't any time recently.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'm not talking about poor people.
I have poor friends.
My grandmother lives in public housing.
So in terms of this,
I'm saying it's a...
to just check off a box and fill a quota in a neighborhood that can be revitalized with many
different elements to make it more appealing to everybody, including those people that are poor
or disadvantaged. So when it comes to all of these challenges, I think, Michael, we need to have some
kind of, we need to have another conversation. And in fact, 11 residents were left out of
communication from the neighborhood association um in terms of a letter of non-opposition
means that we are not heard and we need to be heard and we think some of these the parts of
this project could be enhanced we're not saying that we need to go back to the project i uh
actually the vice uh the general counsel's office of pha knocked on my door uh about a year ago
to tell me that there were all of the land sold to developers and they were going to be building
various mixed-use facilities just as Mr. Granderson mentioned to me said this would be mixed
use market rate affordable and rentals but now what we see is an absolute switch and it's all
rentals and that's where the problem is a parking lot and creates another issue we've had a serious
crime on this street. We've had a shooting on the top of our street. There were days we'd get home
and we had 40 people on the top of our street hanging around and not letting cars pass by.
And it was not really great. And I bought my house in April 19th of April 2019. There were days that
I didn't want to drive home because I couldn't. I had to drive up the street in the opposite
direction so I wouldn't get into the way of all of the people congregating at the top of the street.
so in that case and with this parking lot proposed parking lot i see there being a huge huge
opportunity here for even worse circumstances for the residents that do live here um and i do
want to applaud because i actually uh have served in public service myself in uh office and i will
say that i applaud the design efforts i think the design efforts are really good i mean i have to say
I'm not opposed to necessarily the design.
i'm not opposed to necessarily the design i'm opposed to mixed use part of this project
I'm opposed to mix.
and of course the space issue and what it could create for for types and um other uh structural
issues that the owners of the street will have to deal with thank you very much thank you very much
i have nothing for him madam vice chair how many other witnesses are there and we
need something new and different. Madam Vice Chair, we have three hands up. Next is Ms. Doris
Aldridge. Ms. Aldridge, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Do you have something new and different
to share with the board? I do. Okay, can you put your name on the record and spell it?
Yes, my name is Doris Aldridge, D-O-R-I-S-A-L-D-R-I-D-G-E.
And do you swear if I'm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Okay, you may proceed.
I represent the Brewerytown Charleswood Civic Association.
We are the organization that submitted the letter of non-opposition.
I am here to say that we are excited about this project.