I have a new setup, but we're all in this together.
So Madam Chair, this is I think the third time we've been at the zoning board.
We initially came back in January 2020 after having met with the Eastmount Area Neighbors Association, I believe, three times in person and then multiple offline conversations.
Effectively, after we presented, Chairman DiCicco had asked us to effectively go back to the drawing board, see if we could address some of the neighborhood's concerns, which we have done.
And the last time we were on the calendar was January of this year.
We'd sent the updated plans to the RCO and near neighbors, I believe, about a week before the hearing.
They had asked us to request a continuance, which we did to give them some time to review the plans, and here we are today.
So basically, I just want to run through the exhibits that I have.
We have the deed at Exhibit 1, the refusal at Exhibit 2, the application for appeal at Exhibit 3, the RCO letter and notices with certificate of mailing, and then along with that, we also sent out notices to everybody who had entered their appearance previously in the case for this hearing.
We posted the notices, and we have photographs of that as well.
there's an extensive zoning archive though I'm not going to be going into that
we have the original plans which I'll show for comparative purposes
along with the updated plans in elevations which if if the zoning board approves the plan
and we and we hope you will we do have a proviso sheet and updated plans that we would request
that the zoning board stamp for permitting the tax certification is good which is always good
did you re-meet with the rco and come to an agreement we did not re-meet with the rco we
sent them the uh updated plans and we did not get additional feedback so um but that we did
we sent the plans in advance of the last hearing and it was uh uh that was the reason for uh we
requested this continuance and are on the calendar today um just so we know what we're talking about
I'll just show the board our original plans. So basically 265 East Horror Street right here
is a very long, narrow strip of land that has not been used basically for anything legal
in recent memory. There was a, in the 1960s, there was a short-term variance granted for
a bike shop with a proviso that it could be used for one year. There was a request to convert the
property to a retail use, which was denied by the zoning board also back in 1965. So to the extent
that there's any question about whether there's a hardship on the property, I think it's reasonable
just to take a look that it has never been used. What you're looking at right here is this narrow
strip of land and it's for the most part entirely asphalt. I mean there's some cracks in the asphalt
but it's it's broken up and things are growing up but it's just a big slab of asphalt. Back here at
the rear is a Napa auto parts store which has been operating for a long time. Chew Avenue is a street
road I'm sorry it's a state road and right here you have an existing curb cut. Nothing has been
going on here. The past owner before my clients, Marcel Donahue Properties LLC, purchased the
property. Nobody was really taking care of it. A lot of the opposition that we heard initially
when we went to go meet with the neighborhood group back in 2019 was, you know, concerns about
parking, which usually come up. But some of that was also based on some near neighbors who had
been using it for parking, but it was a neglected lot. It hadn't really been taken care of, and
my guys came in and cleaned it up and secured the lot. So here's the context. This is what it
looks like, the existing curb cut. The original site plans that we had called for six units,
and let me just pull it back, I want to make sure you can see.
Um, call for six units and it's a really, well, it's a really narrow deep lot. It's, it's pretty
big. It's close to 9,000 square feet. When you consider the, uh, minimum, and there's an RSA 5
property. When you consider the minimum lot size of 1,440 square feet, um, my clients initially
looked at developing something that would have, if it were laid out well, if it were
appropriately zoned, how many homes could they fit on there?
And the answer is six.
If there were six separate RSA-5 properties, they could put six single-family homes attached
there.
Because while they were not required to provide parking, they did opt to because they had
this existing curb cut, which had been used as a curb cut for the better part of the 20th
century and the beginning of the 21st century. They wanted just to make sure that the new
homeowners for this development, which would be a planned unit development, a PUD, would
have dedicated parking. And we had multiple, like I mentioned, we had multiple meetings
with the Registered Community Organization. And they raised concerns which were reiterated
at the zoning hearing. And just to kind of go through some of them, the concerns were
that this would substantially increase congestion in the public street, that it would impair
adequate supply of light and air. Those are terms gleaned from the code, but I think what they were
getting at was, and really what it came down to was their concern about density. And so while we
had proposed initially six units, or my clients had, after the January 2020 zoning hearing,
my clients decided to go back to the drawing board and to see if they could make
fewer units work they determined that they could and you know basically based on increased
lumber costs and material costs that have really substantially gone up over the last year
they they've come up with a plan that they believe can can pencil out at four units and that's what
they're they're proposing here so the updated plans would are changed to have four units
so this is the plan at exhibit eight that we've submitted uh that's done a number of things one
it has reduced the number of units from six to four two um they've widened the dry vial um from
by an additional three feet. That was another concern that the community raised. They thought
the dry vial was too narrow and that which would create a safety hazard, which was never really
clear how it would create a safety hazard, but that was one of the issues they raised.
And another was that somehow this would increase impervious surfaces. In actuality, it adds a
significant amount of pervious surfaces because as I mentioned before the the whole lot is basically
just a slab of asphalt this is going to break that up and we're going to add a lot of pervious
surfaces by way of the yards you can see here and so we've gone down from six to four units
I just also want to point out the tax search figure that's good and you've not and you've
not re-meet with the RCO? We did not re-meet with the RCO. We did, as noted before, we did
provide them with the plans back in January. And I think, you know, that was it. When we did,
they didn't ask that we meet with them again. They asked that we provide with them with the
plans and with additional time to review the plans. Okay. I want to interrupt. Does the board
of any questions? No. No. Planning Commission?
Board, Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission. Chair, I was wondering if you could ask the
applicant about the feasibility of trash collection and emergency vehicle access and the proposed
site plan. Okay. Can you answer that, Mr. Monroe? Sure. As far as trash collection goes, I believe
it's going to be a planned use, a PUD, as I mentioned. If commercial trash pickup is required,
If commercial trash pickup is required, if it were to be deemed a multifamily unit, my clients will absolutely require that commercial trash pickup be implemented.
if it were
If these were treated as single-family homes, I think that they would simply just put their trash out at the curb on trash day.
um that would be uh number one and i'm sorry uh mr bernard uh i i didn't catch the the second
question the second question was about the feasibility of emergency vehicle access
uh this is a single single lane in and out accessing four properties behind multiple
other buildings sure okay um yeah and let me just uh see if we can get a jp donahue uh if you could
raise your hand, Mr. Donahue. Mr. Donahue is an owner on the project. He's also the architect
on the project. Mr. Donahue, you've been unmuted. Please unmute yourself and wait for the vice chair.
Mr. Donahue, can you put your name and address on the record and spell your last name?
Joseph Donahue, D-O-N-O-H-U-E, 1901 Washington Avenue, 19146.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Thank you. You may proceed. Matt.
Okay, in terms of fire safety, we went and spoke with the planning commission previous to our first submission for the project and discussed with them the one drive aisle and were told that the width that we had originally provided,
which i believe was 14 feet um was enough for would be adequate for the uh for the for the
as a fire lane and with this revised plan we are widening the existing lane by another by another
three feet so you know based based on that conversation and the the additional space we
feel that it's adequate for an emergency vehicle to access.
Peter, anything else?
Those were my only questions, board.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Mr. Bernard,
but I just wanted to, since we have JP on the line,
Mr. Donahue, did you hear the factual statements that I made in my presentation?
Please unmute yourself, Mr. Donahue. You can unmute yourself.
I did. I did hear what you said.
And was it accurate to the best of your knowledge?
And do you adopt it as your testimony?
Excuse me, Counselor.
I'm not certain. How many units is in this total project?
I think four.
Four total.
Each building?
I'm sorry?
There's four single family residences.
Single family residence, correct. Yes. It would be for a PUD. That's right. We went from six to four.
Okay. Thank you.
is there anyone else with any questions in the virtual audience
madam vice chair we had jeffrey hayes you may unmute yourself mr hayes and wait for the vice
chair yes hi can you put your name and address on the record please
yes this is jeffrey hayes j-e-f-f-e-r-y-h-a-y-e-s
and your address 73 15 boyer street okay do you swear or firm to tell the whole truth and
nothing but the truth yes i do you may proceed hello um my name is jeffrey hayes um i'm the
chair of the land use development and zoning committee from east man area neighbors and i
I have a prepared statement, but I can't read that statement yet because I have to tell you that these drawings that you've been presented have never been shown to us.
The attorney's description of the events is pretty much right in terms of the, you know, asking for the continuance and giving.
the, you know, asking for the continuance and giving us drawings, but the drawings that we're
looking at, and I can share my screen if you want proof of this, they show a twin unit building
on the left side of the page, and then two singles. So it's the same number of units, but
a completely different design. Okay, so that's my first point. Second point is, as was described,
This project did start quite some time ago. There was a ZBA meeting in January of 2020.
The direction from Chairman DeChico was very clear.
They were to meet with the RCO and meet with council as well.
Immediately after the meeting, at the ZBA meeting, a meeting with the RCO was scheduled for February 4th.
And bear in mind, this was pre-COVID or early COVID.
The meeting was canceled by the applicant.
That was the last we heard from them.
331 days later, I think on Christmas Eve, I got an email from a near neighbor showing us a zoning poster that had gone up for the original six-unit proposal.
um we uh we emailed uh maddie to say what was going on or jp i guess to say what was going on
um they said they'd be in touch with new drawings so 15 more days elapse um and we finally do get
drawings and they are um they show the four units but it's a completely different design than what
we're looking at now okay this is what i think since you've not had an opportunity to see these
drawings you're going to have to be given that opportunity so i'm considering continuing this
case because we can't vote on it planning commission can't make a recommendation
i mean does the board have any thoughts on that
i'm in agreement we should continue it yeah this case is going to be continued and you'll
have to talk to Ms. Sunkit are you there? Yes I am. Okay and Mr. Monroe can speak to you?
If I could the case was presented would it be approved by you chair for a resumption hearing
for this one after they present to the community? Absolutely. It could just be feedback from the
community and then the final word from Mr. Monroe if that's okay. That's fine. It's okay so can
we give it a month maybe and I can give a date for yes May 19th at 2 p.m. That's fantastic.
Thank you kindly. Thank you. Yeah and and to be clear so Jeff so you'll you'll have an opportunity
to weigh in on that as well just okay next case calendar number zero four six seven
three six one three north 16th street the attorney is rachel pritzker
ms pritzker has been promoted to panelist
ms pritzker can you yes you can name and address uh on the record and spell your last name
Sure. Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, 1635 Market Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia, PA-19103.
You're still under oath?
Yes, Madam Chair.
Do you also agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, referral, photos, plans, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes. You may proceed. Thank you. We are still on the two o'clock hearing, so
however you can condense this, we would appreciate it. Absolutely. So this is 3613 North 16th Street.
This is a large RSA 5 property located in Tioga in North Philly. The lot is 25 by 100,
so 2,500 square foot lot. We are only looking for relief for multifamily. I will go into
a little bit of detail just specifically about the significant amount of multifamily on this block
and also the comprehensive plan. The biggest thing to note again is this is located in RSA 5, however,
thing to note again is this is located in RSA 5. However, it's been vacant since 2007 and the prior
use was multifamily. So I don't believe that there was a lot of single family use prior to that.
Just going to bring down the deed. So this is the lot, as you can see, as I had mentioned,
it's 25 by 100 as you can see there's other similarly sized properties it's too wide and
to subdivide as far as by right as the board clearly knows you need 16 feet in width this is
25 even if we were to half it you'd have like 12 and a half foot or yeah 12 and a half foot in
width once you put walls up you're looking at like maybe 10 9 feet wide which is not viable for
any building, let alone a single family. A single family on this lot would be out of character for
this side of the block in particular, the surrounding, a couple of the surrounding
blocks, and also would be unmarketable in this neighborhood given the current climate,
in addition to how large this lot is. I know better than to say that we could build an X amount
of size house because we don't have to build it that big, but just even on a small house meeting
the dimensional requirements of the code it would be it would far exceed anything that's um in this
neighborhood and that has uh ground up new construction um i just want to point out um also
that uh our proposal which is a three uh story semi-detached structure only has one refusal and
that's for use um here are the zoning posters on the property which we reposted a number of times as
they were ripped down as that you know tends to happen as it's important to note as well for this
site once I get to the this is the code sections this is the RCO meeting I'm going to just bring
up an aerial if I can let's see sorry it's a little hard to do with all these tabs I have
A lot of vacancy in this neighborhood, as you can see, we're sort of bound by Erie Avenue,
16th Street, Benango Street, just a few blocks off of Broad, North Broad Street here, which
obviously there's, you know, a need for additional density to help support some of the goals for
North Broad Street, according to the comprehensive plan. And as you can see, this lot is one of the
bigger lots on the block and again has been vacant for quite some time. I also want to mention for
the board that there are a number of properties that are zoned RSA 5 that are actually multifamily.