at issue in this case. Thank you. Do you swear a firm to tell the whole truth and nothing about
the truth? I do. Do you also agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? I do, but as we'll be telling the board, several of the refusals due to revised plans are
no longer in place now. We've corrected several of the refusals and the remaining refusals we've
actually brought closer into compliance. So we do have revised plans that we would ask be approved
as part of any ultimate Zoning Board approval.
Okay. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal
referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing? And
have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
Yes, we have provided the Zoning Board with the necessary materials. We've had three or
four meetings with, there's nine civic groups here. We have letters of support from some of
those civic groups, some of those RCOs, others are not in support. But yes, we've had a full
and robust community outreach process. Okay, great. You may proceed.
Thank you. If I may share my screen.
Yeah. Before you begin, Mr. Feldman, with your exhibits, the board is in possession of numerous
letters regarding this case. Based on the material that I received, and I'm sure the other board
members have the same experience, I see that there are a number of letters in opposition.
I have nine. I counted. And then I see there are eight letters of support with conditions.
Conditions meaning finalization of a community benefits agreement.
uh so i'm just trying to get a better understanding are you prepared to go forward today
uh and you have any comments as it relates to the uh community benefits agreement because my
concern is if there's still a window of opportunity for a community benefits agreement to be drafted
that that would meet with the approval of those who say they would only support it with that.
I don't know how much testimony we will need today because it may change.
It may or may not change your presentation.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I would say this.
We are absolutely in support of that community benefits agreement that you've probably seen referenced,
whether it be the Cedar Park Neighbors Letter of Support or some of the other RCOs or some
of the other neighbors. The challenge that we have here is that agreement regards affordable
housing. We are in a district that doesn't allow us to qualify for the mixed income bonus,
but we have decided at the urging of neighbors, community groups, and the council person
to have probably the most aggressive affordable housing program for a private developer that
I'm aware of at an AMI level that is below what the city requires for the mixed income
bonus, as well as a percentage at 20%, at 40% AMI.
So we are working very closely with all those groups that I just mentioned to work with
perhaps having the city as part of the mixed income bonus. There's paperwork that they use
to enforce that, to have that as part of what this documented agreement on affordability is.
But it absolutely is, I think, important that we present this case. We have all of our witnesses
here and we've made clear that we would ask the board to hold this vote.
Uh, and we've made clear that we would ask the board, you know, to hold this, hold this
vote, you know, whether you have a, uh, you know, bring us back in a couple of weeks to
report back.
We've, we've made that representation to the council person.
Uh, we've made that to everyone.
Um, but, uh, we do need to present, you know, the project, um, because I don't, this is,
I don't think this is going to be a situation we work desperately hard to, but, uh, there
is ultimately going to be folks that, that are, uh, in opposition.
um even if we enter into um you know this binding agreement on the affordability so
we do need to get testimony on the record understood thank you but they're also and
it's hypothetical that there are those who oppose it today who may event may decide to support it
if the cba meets their their requirements so again i just wanted to say that it's probably
more for the benefit of the folks who are waiting uh to testify those in particular who are
waiting to testify in opposition i just want them to understand uh we will probably not take a vote
on it today pending uh a resolution hopefully on the cba so keep that in mind to those folks who
are calling to oppose that there may be some things in the cba may or may not be things in
CBA that made this decide you to change your vote to the affirmative as opposed to opposing.
So I just want to get that on the record before we begin. And now you can proceed. Thank you.
Okay, let me uh let me just get this
Okay, are you able to see my screen here?
Okay, great.
So again, Brett Feldman, I represent the property owner.
There's two property owners.
There's five lots at issue in this matter.
One lot is owned by King Sessing Realty.
Four lots are owned by Chester Realty.
And I represent the principal in both of those, Mr. Mayor Gelley.
uh i'd ask that uh mr gelly um raise his hand and be unmuted he is not only the owner of the
five properties um as a principal but he actually owns um four of the lots are vacant um and the
other lot has the uh a nursing home the renaissance um straight right here this these are the
properties here. We're at 48th Street, Chester, King Sessing, South 47th Street. The lots that
we're talking about here, there's five of them make up, it's all within this orange area here.
So there's actually four street frontages in this neighborhood. The vacant lots that are
directly at issue today are right along here on Chester and on 48th Street. And Mr. Gelley is the
owner of the nursing home here which has been a community institution for a number of years
employs a lot of people in the neighborhood as well as takes care of a lot of the residents
who are our seniors in the neighborhood i'm also joined by jerry roller who is the founding
principal of jkr partners i'd ask also that mr roller that he'd be unmuted because he'll be
testifying. We also have Nancy Templeton, who is our professional land planner, who we asked
to come and to take a look at this project and its compatibility in the neighborhood. And we
also have Nick Krause, who is our historical consultant. There was a lot of historical work
done on this site to document the way it was previously used. So with that being said,
In a nutshell, this project, what we're proposing is to construct a three- and four-story multifamily building on this site right here.
A portion of it will be three stories.
A portion in the back will be four stories.
It will be 76 units.
We have made a number of changes to the project.
I think we're on plan number five on this.
And we've reduced refusals for parking, we've removed refusals for setback, we've removed refusals for landscaping, and we have refusals for height.
We started at 47 feet, the building has now come down to 42 feet, and a big portion of the building is now at 32 feet, which is actually below even what the code requires.
um the remaining refusal is for um multi-family this is a uh rta one rta one district which is
um i don't know how often the board sees it it is a um duplex multi-family district
it is a um duplex multi-family district um i'll show you right here these are the properties
these are the properties right here it's rta1 it's got multi-family on it too rm1 which is
you'll hear from miss templeton our planner probably is the correct uh district and it
also has cmx too so we've got a hodgepodge with five lots one here one here one here one here
and then this is the nursing home lot. We filed this as a unity of use, so all five lots are taken
together for zoning purposes, and as you'll hear, even though we're providing a significant amount
of off-street parking, we thought the best way to be as economical in terms of providing parking,
environmentally friendly um was to also include the nursing home lot because they have three
separate parking lots and their their availability for parking uh is significant after three o'clock
four o'clock in the during the day and on the weekends um so with some shifting of parking
back and forth we could we could we could do that and it'll see i passed up exhibits one through
19 which i'd ask uh be incorporated into the record um we've got all the all the regular
materials here, but, you know, tax clearance, deeds, and as like, and I'll get to that right
now. As I mentioned, we do have a letter of support, again, contingent on the execution of that
community benefits agreement with Cedar Park neighbors. They're not the coordinating RCO in
this instance. There are actually nine RCOs, but they are well-established in the neighborhood,
and we've tried to work closely with everyone, but we've worked closely with them and a group
of near neighbors who have worked with us on this CBA idea. So with that, let me take you through
kind of where we are, and then I'm going to turn it over to Jerry here. Here's the deed. Here's
the tax clearance. When Mr. Gelley, the owner, I guess about a year and a half ago, started looking
at this development um you know one of the first things we did was kind of look at the history of
these properties and here here are the four properties let me just waiting
so we've got and this really you know this goes to the hardship but this goes to the challenge
of the site um we've got these five properties here along 48th street and these are these are
big lots. We're talking about 10,000 square foot lots right here, 1119, 1115. That's another 10,000.
4720 Chester is 5,600. 4724 is 11,900. So just the vacant lots are at about 40,000 square feet.
The nursing home lot itself is another 70,000. And that's when we looked at what had been out there.
And it was really interesting. We found that what had been out there, I'll just pull this up here, Heritage, our historical consultant, did some work on this.
And there was three, there was actually four multifamily buildings on this site that were built in the 20s, Winston Hall, Wycliffe Hall here.
And as you'll see, there was about 130 dwelling units on this site at this corner until about the mid-90s,
when, as this area, you know, suffered some decline like the rest of the city, they actually were demolished as they fell into decline.
but i just want to just give everyone a context of you know how we got to this project um
and here is you know here is mr kraus will talk about this but on the site itself
you'll see it started off on these smaller buildings and then over time by the 20s and 30s
these big these big apartment buildings came onto the site and that's right there which you see
um we actually um had neighbors who provided us pictures uh of these buildings um and they're
actually the buildings that were there uh were probably were larger as far as taller in height
um here's picture here's the articles from the philippine inquirer um when these opened up in
the 20s wycliffe hall at 48th and chester efficiency apartments um with uh all the bells
and whistles that were in the late 20s and this is the other building other big building with
another 60 units, Winston Hall, and interestingly, back then, they were already promoting transit-oriented
development. You take the number 13 trolley, which runs right along our property line on Chester,
our property lying on chester take the number 13 trolley to the buildings so um you know that's
take the number 13 trolley to the buildings.
that was out there here are here's here's the pictures of what was out here um this this is
this is one of the buildings that was on facing on to uh 48th street which as you'll see is very
similar to our our layout in terms of a courtyard in the middle and here's the picture uh of uh
what was on Chester Avenue, one, two, three, four, five, five plus floors that were out there.
So with that background, we looked at what was around us. This neighborhood here
is an eclectic mix, but much of what is out there, it is zoned this RTA1,
but it is a mix of twins but a lot of these the twins are have now been are now being used for
multifamily there are there are a couple single family you know here and over here but for the
most part up and down Chester Avenue and on 48th Street you'll see you'll see the
multifamily buildings and that this is a contextual view again for the board on Chester Avenue
Here is our building, and these are all large multifamily buildings up and down Chester Avenue,
predominantly at the corner.
There was actually one right at this corner here, right across the street from us,
that came down at some point.
And as the board might remember, a couple years ago, there was a hard-fought case
with some of the same RCOs at 47th in King Sessing for a Frank Furness church building
where there was opposition to multifamily.
The board approved it, and it is, I think it's been a Preservation Alliance winner
right down here. So this is, you know, we looked at the context of the multifamily,
the large multifamily historically, and then a lot of the other buildings that have been converted
into multifamily. We thought that the proposal for a multifamily building, here's what those
buildings look, you know, this is right up and down Chester Avenue, right nearby, a lot of these
four or five-story buildings. So that was kind of the mission that we gave Mr. Roller and his team
was to fit in with the corner, to be pedestrian-friendly.
And as I'll get to, here is the zoning postings.
You saw the development here.
It really started – we've had now five sets of plans that we have went through.
We've been fortunate.
there has been a group of immediate neighbors and nearby neighbors who from the beginning
said hey we don't like your first plan we need a lot of changes but we want to work with you and
I just want to briefly you know I want to thank them because where we are today is the work of
their their efforts you know it started off here's the corner it started off with a big building with
multiple curb cuts to get in to get out on chester these are new curb cuts here
they didn't they neighbors thought we should you know have more green space we should the
building should be less and over time uh mr roll and his team this is the original building
four stories new curb cuts um it wasn't as much of a setback over time after meeting after meeting
we've worked this was the plan number two we got rid of the curb cut that was here on 48
we got rid of the curb cut that was here on Chester we combined our parking with this nursing
home parking lot again utilizing the unity of use concept here and a lot of the neighbors were
appreciative we were able to save a lot of these trees but we got a lot of feedback so plan number
Plan number, I guess, two at this point, or three, was we changed the materials.
And here's plan number three now.
We converted.
We took the green space that was going to be, you know, to be frank, it was going to be private, fully private.
You know, our residents were going to be the only ones that would have physical access to that.
We flipped it to the front.
We came up with pervious pavers.
We added car share spaces.
We added electric car spaces.
We added bike spaces.
We added pervious pavers over here to continue to green this.
We added more landscaping. But again, the big change here was to add in this green space here.
We worked very closely with some of the neighbors right across the street on 48th Street who were dead set in opposition and who are now supportive to work on this setback.
Chester and 48th, I mean, these are big streets, but we continually try to make this as good as possible.
We went to Civic Design Review. Civic Design Review was very pleased.
and here's the rendering. You see this big setback here, the green courtyard.
you see this big setback here the green courtyard we did go to civic design review we we had a very
We did go to civic design review.
positive reception civic design review approved this on its first uh go around which is uh
increasingly rare especially with a project like this with the number of
folks who were involved both pro and con um but um you know here's you know here was the the next
plan um here's the next plan but that group of immediate neighbors um said to us you got to do