more so here is really the plan and you know i'll have jerry walk us through this architect but just
in in in short we have now taken a dramatic step we took this whole all the light blue here
is now down to three stories from 47 feet down to 32 feet, three stories.
So everything wrapped around on Chester, everything wrapped around on 48th Street
is now down to this three stories, 32 feet, which, again, is six feet below what the code requires.
The four-story portion in the back, we reduced that from 47 to 42.
we kept we kept the green space in the front uh one of the refusals that we had received here was
this front area um that we now are fully compliant because we've got the eight foot
setback um and then you know the biggest you know let's go back here the biggest part of this um was
was the the affordability component um we knew from day one um that affordability at this location
was critical. We were told that, and we made the decision. We hired a consultant to help us with
the affordability and with the financing. We went to 20% of the units to be affordable at a 40% AMI.
Again, the city's mixed income bonus is 10% units at 50% or 60% AMI. We went well beyond that,
even though we don't qualify for the program because we're RTA1. If we were RM1, we would
qualify for that. So we have 76 units, but we have 15 of those units that would be affordable at this
super affordable level. There are some people who don't think it's affordable enough,
but I will tell you, I don't know of any private developer without any subsidy who has went to this
level um and that was you know i think the the that's what we're looking to now codify uh in
writing uh with uh the parties uh that you've uh you know you're seeing the letters from there
um so with that um jerry are you on the line here
jerry roller
yep i'm here good morning or good afternoon mr roller please identify yourself for the
records by your full name uh i'm jerry roller uh founding principal of jkarp architects uh
j-e-r-r-y-r-o-l-l-e-r and do you swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth? I do. Thank you. So, Jerry, I know we've been living this now for six months or seven
months, but do you want to, I guess just briefly, when your team got the assignment to start
working on this, can you just give us a sense of what you were looking around in the neighborhood?
We've talked about all the many corner multifamily buildings, many of the twins that have been
converted now to multifamily, the historical use of this property for multifamily, multiple
multifamily buildings, how that informed your design and the materials. And then we can talk
about what we're now proposing. Certainly. When we started this project, we looked at what was here.
Client asked, can we build some multifamily on this site? It's a large site. It's multifamily
in the past, and we also looked at what the underlying zoning is, which is RTA 1, which is
a zoning that provides for 20 to 50 square foot lots, and they are twin duplexes. It's a stranger
zoning. There's nothing really in the area that conforms to that. The existing buildings in the
area are generally twins or row houses. The twins were originally built as single-family houses,
but they've been largely converted to multiple.
But they've been largely converted to multifamily.
There are some existing singles that remain singles, and they're large, lovely old houses.
But the vast majority of the houses along 48th, 47th, King Sessing, Chester, have all been converted into four, five, six apartments because they're large buildings.
Hey, Jerry, I just want to – because I don't think a lot of us are familiar with what RTA-1 looks like.
You've got a good picture here.
Yeah, so this is what Steve Planning, when they put out what RTA-1 looks like.
We're talking about a duplex twin, so there's two on here, two on here.
It requires parking, correct?
Yes, it requires one-for-one parking.
And typically, as you can see the way the Planning Commission proposes it, it would be a double driveway, a 20-foot driveway into parking slots either in a garage or open air with a two- or three-story building behind it.
And I guess each unit, it's actually, each unit, each building has four units, so each unit would need, it's a double-wide parking, too.
Right, each of those buildings is two units, so you get two units next to two units, there's a side yard on one side, and they're duplexes, so they have their own parking.
It did not seem to match what's there on the site.
And as a result, we looked at this and said, we also looked at what's adjacent, what's up and down Chester Avenue.
And we see that there are a lot of four and five story multifamily buildings.
This is pretty typical in West Philly.
There is a real tradition of these apartment buildings, much like what was on the site, which are, these are examples, these are a bunch within three or four blocks of the site.
And they're all, they tend to be a particular brick with limestone cast stone trim.
And they're, as you can see, they're generally four story, four and a half story.
They're tall buildings.
They're not short. They don't fit in with the 35-foot height limit, but this is pretty typical in West Philadelphia.
So what we did is we looked at the site, and we then laid out the building, as Brett showed you.
We went through a series of iterations.
We started putting the building on the street, which is generally how we would plan it, working with the neighbors.
We flipped the building to put the courtyard on the street side.
We tried to reduce the parking.
We tried to add landscaping.
We finally reduced part of the height of the building.
So this is the original version.
And why don't we go to the current version?
Yep, yep.
I'm just...
Keep going.
I'm getting there.
Sorry.
And this is the plan.
and now this is the latest version with a part of the building being four-story, part of it being
three-story. We've overall reduced the four-story height so that the variances we have at this point
are for the multifamily itself because multifamily is not permitted in the RTA-1.
um we've no longer have a setback variance uh we no longer have a land that's right here
right that right this eight foot right here we require right that eight foot is is the required
setback for rta on both streets um we've provided uh landscaping in the parking which was a refusal
uh we thought we had before but we've agreed to do that this is the building as it looks now and
as you can see, it's now shorter than the building on the opposite corner, which is one of these
existing multifamily buildings. We still have a refusal for multiple buildings on the lot because
we have this building and we have the nursing home, and it's a result of the unity of use.
The same, we have two uses, which is also a refusal because the nursing home is obviously
one use, and the multifamily building is another use. So those are technical refusals. We've cured
the parking refusal. What we've done here is by reducing, we've reduced the number of units. We
originally applied for 83. We're now at 76. Correct. So, and what we've done is the parking
And what we've done is the parking comes down because of less units, but it's one for one plus the nursing home parking.
comes down because
So we now have, we would require 80 spaces under the code.
We have 21 spaces and we've worked in agreement because of the unity of use where the nursing home will allow the residents of the apartment building to utilize spaces, particularly off hours, which is mostly when people might be home and need to park.
There are 34 spaces which are going to be solely used by the apartment building.
And that's right here, Jared, right behind the building.
And just as a corollary, if this were RM1, there would be no spaces required.
If it were any of the other multifamily zones in the zoning code, residential requirements are typically three spaces for 10.
So we would need 24 spaces.
We have 34.
and and we firmly believe that that will most likely be utilized by the residents I'm not even
sure they'll need it but we have it there and then we have the additional 24 adjacent plus the
additional 23 on other lots so that nobody in from this building should be parking anywhere
other than on site and again the unity of use allowed us to gain access to these other parking
lots um that that are used during the day by the nursing home but again are available off hours
right which created the refusal for multiple structures and multiple uses on the same zoning
lot right now you also um i know prepared a series of shadow studies yes we did and with the
reduction um of uh the height that final change to getting us to 32 feet um on a big portion of
building. I know you had a shadow study here. What did you find as far as any impacts on adjacent
properties, whether it be on 48th Street or on Chester Avenue? Both 48th and Chester are fairly
wide streets. The building has a setback in addition, and with the step back, this is another
view from the corner of the building. You can see the courtyard. And this is a view along Chester.
You can see the parking lot on the left. And do we have the shadow studies in here? Yeah, hold on here.
There we go.
so as you can see the building uh looking at it in the fall and the winter
um you're you're really just partly shadowing the street uh in the winter solstice um other
than that there really are no impacts the main impact is on our parking lot itself
uh do we have the other two here the other shadow studies yeah is that i think that's all i think
that's all we do okay that's the worst those are the worst cases the sun of summer obviously is a
higher sun and has less of a shadow but the shadows impact nothing other than the streets themselves
uh they do not impact any of the neighboring properties um in any way yeah so let me let me
to ask you this question jerry i know i suspect we're going to hear a lot about you know why
don't you just do this rta one um you know the as a right option um you know there's many neighbors
who said hey we don't you know we we don't want to see those front-loaded garages um it's completely
incompatible with the neighborhood but there's a there's a bigger issue here um that we you know
you identified is that because you know it's it's a it's a massive we're talking about a massive
of the area here but because you need street frontage um the as of right rta wants you know
even if you're going to put up with the curb cuts and losing all the on-street parking and
you know the curb cuts next to the trolley on chester avenue which which it makes you know
which is terrible but there's not a lot of units that you can actually generate out of the art out
of the the ads of right because these are just these deep non-conforming lots um where there's
just huge swaths in the back that are kind of landlocked can you just briefly talk about that
here i'm just going to try to pull up that the um the zoning map here um because you know we we've
tried to do affordability um but at the end of the day there would be no affordability because
But at the end of the day, there would be no affordability because there's very few units you could, you know, a handful of units.
there's very few units you could
What you would end up with is.
I'll get you it, Jared.
Yeah, here it is.
I just want everyone, it's an interesting situation here.
You see that, Jared?
You've got deep lots.
you've got big lots i mean again the the rta one envisions a 2250 square foot lot these are
10 000 square foot lots but they don't have the frontage to where you could create say to take
the 10 000 and make five lots out of them um if you use the frontage as these exist you have five
lots so you get 10 units um if you turn the corner maybe did a did a different subdivision
maybe you can get a fifth couple. So those are double the units. I mean, theoretically, if you
built 15 buildings, you could get 30 units. And if each of those were three-bedroom units,
you'd have 90 bedrooms, which is probably more than what we have in the multifamily buildings.
It's not a density question per se in terms of number of people. It's less units. They would no doubt be much more expensive because they would likely be for sale rather than rent. You can't really build that kind of building and rent them.
and you would end up with 15 curb cuts along 48th and Chester,
I know some people have suggested,
well, why wouldn't you put a back driveway in?
Because, in fact, that configuration would require a planned unit development,
which under the zoning code is, in fact, multifamily.
So you could not do that of right.
So they'd be back here where we are now.
Yeah, we'd still be back here, even if we came up with multiple duplexes, assuming we didn't want to do front driveways.
So the only way to comply with the RTA1 zoning is exactly what the Planning Commission shows you,
which is a 20-foot curb cut per building, and they're 25-foot frontages.
So you'd have, you know, lots of curb cuts, lots of cars on the street, lots of loss of curb parking.
Those curb cuts would eliminate a curb space.
It would be a really weird way to develop this.
And again, if you look at what's adjacent to it on any of the streets, this is not the way this neighborhood is developed.
And it would, in fact, even though it would comply with the zoning, it is alien to whatever you see in the neighborhood.
Not sure where that zoning came from, but it really is not reflective of what's built in the neighborhood.
Most of the houses are twins or row houses, and they don't have curb cuts.
They don't have driveway parking.
And as you said, if it was – so when you look at this, you probably think a portion of our property is owned multifamily as well.
That probably would be the most appropriate district, correct?
Yeah, if the lot was zoned RM1, you could probably make this project work of right.
Yeah, a full portion of it is.
Using the low-income housing bonus, you could probably build this building as shown.
Yes, yeah.
You actually, even without the affordable housing bonus, this would be as a right, I believe.
So as far as the number of units.
The number of units would be. The height would still need a variance, and that's why you would use the bonus, but we don't have that option.
That is, Jerry, I think that's all I got for right now. I'd like to reserve the right to come back to you, depending on what questions come up.
Brett, before you move on, any questions from the board for Mr. Roller?
Okay, Mr. Feldman.
Yes, we have a land planner, Nancy Templeton.
I don't know if she's available right now.
I know she had some childcare issues.
Nancy, are you available out there right now?
Or should I come back to you?
Ms. Templeton has two devices logged in. Could she please raise her hand?
Ms. Templeton has two devices logged in.
Could she please raise her hand?
Please unmute yourself.
Good afternoon, Ms. Templeton. Please identify yourself, name and address.
Could I actually please request that you come back to me?
Yes. Okay.
Okay. Thank you.