Thank you.
How do you look, Tanya?
we have 40 attendees you can proceed as you wish sir thank you good morning everyone and well and
welcome to this morning's dva hearings my name is bill bergman with me is carol tenary our vice chair
unmute carol present mr chair ismael shaheed our board secretary
Mr. Chair. Thomas Holliman our board member. Present Mr. Chairman. And James Snell a board member.
Present Mr. Chairman. Also with us is our Executive Director Tanya Sunkit and our attorney
Sherman Toppin. Good morning Mr. Chair. Before we begin we begin here's our virtual format.
One, be advised these proceedings are being recorded.
By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
The video will be available by contacting our Executive Director,
Tonya Sunkett at fillet .gov.
For the benefit of our court snogger,
we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
Three, if you're participating by phone and you wish to testify,
Press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in your question.
And last, please note the question and answer box on your screen is not for testimony or comments.
Any comments have to be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sump.
So let's look at continuities for today. Number one, MI 2021 004590 1331 North 30th.
Number two, MI 2021 -002 -632 -1442 South 52nd Street.
And number 13, MI 2021 -004592 -5901 Latona Street.
Those three cases are being continued.
Does anyone have any comments or statements relative to those cases?
Good morning, Mr. Chair. This is Jason Hand. I am a co -host. I see one hand up from Mr. David Orfanides. I can allow him this time if you wish.
Please.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Morning.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, sir?
Please spell your name for the court reporter.
Sure. David Orphanides, O -R -P -H -A -N -I -D -E -S.
Proceed, sir.
And I just wanted to state for the record that I was present for today's hearing, scheduled hearing, and that was continued for 5901 Latona MI 2021 -004592 in the event there were any questions.
No, that's fine, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Does anyone else have requests for a continuance?
we have andy barrios i'll allow him to speak at this time please hello good morning could
you state your name and spell for the court reporter please yes my name is andy barrios
A -N -D -Y
Barrios
Barrios. B -A -R -R -I -O -S. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing
B -A -R -R -I -O -S
but the truth? I do. Proceed, sir. What's your case? My client, Mr. Charles Holliday, is the owner of
1331 North 30th Street. He postponed his mouth procedure to be here. So he did initially request
to be continued but we weren't sure if it was going to be continued so he's present okay i'll
call i'll call the case shortly okay sir thank you so much all right um any other requests for
contingencies yes we have a mr frank bagley with his hand sorry i'm sorry too please note all in
the audience, only raise your hand if you have a case that you wish to request a continuance.
Thank you. Please proceed. I'm sorry, Jason. Thank you, Ms. Sunkett. We have Mr. Frank
Bagley with his hand raised. I will allow him to speak at this time, sir.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Tina Marie Russell. T -I -N -A -M -A -R -I -E -R -U -S -S -E -L -L.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
What case?
1901 Westmoreland.
I wasn't sure if the attorney asked for a continuance or not.
I didn't hear the beginning.
Is that this morning?
It's the day of the 15th, yes.
today's the 16th okay yeah i must have missed it okay well i believe it was today or yesterday
i guess i was i'm off track for a day okay i i don't i don't see it listed today it must
have been the 15th okay thank you thank you sure anyone else for the continuance
um yes sir i have a ua wu with the hand raised i will allow them to speak at this time
Good morning. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Good morning. My name is Yuewu, Y -U -E -W -U.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Which case is yours?
So I'm an RCO, and I received a continuous letter from 929 Ways Street.
But it was not on the continuous list.
I just want to make sure, just want to check if they are continuing or they're being heard today.
I don't see that on this morning's list.
Oh, what, 929 race?
It's going to be withdrawn by the attorney.
I didn't get a chance to get to that yet, ma 'am.
So it will be...
It's going to withdraw.
The application is going to be withdrawn.
I'll state that in a couple minutes.
so i'm just getting the continuances okay okay any other continuances
i see no further hand at this time i have one case for withdrawal
number 15 mi 2021 002420 929 ray street the case is withdrawn by the applicant
We're going to go to, anybody else have a withdrawal?
I'm sorry, Mr. Ali Abdelaziz, raise your hand while you were in the middle of announcing that withdrawal.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Yes, my name is Ali Abdelaziz, first name Ali, A -L -I.
last name is abdelaziz a b d e l a z i z you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes i swear okay your case is
yeah my case is um for for the for my plan at my house at 4 4500 d street in philadelphia
are you ready to go on today yes i am okay so we're gonna call that
you know okay a little later okay okay but you are ready to proceed yes i am okay we'll call
your case when you hear it we'll call you up okay okay sounds good sure thank you you're welcome
We're going to go to continuances. Number one, MI 2021 -004832 -3135 -49 West Montgomery Avenue. We'll be voting on that at 2 p .m.
okay we're gonna we're gonna go to continuances
Number one
Number two, MI 2021 -005012 -2400 East Fanango Street. I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Carol, that's for Ishmael and Thomas.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, Chair.
This is Tanya.
If I could just correct the record, these are add -ons that were just voted.
I said that.
I went to the add -ons is what I said.
No, you said continuances, sir.
I just wanted to clear the record.
Thank you kindly.
Right. Number one on the regular list. MI 2021 -004590 -1331 North 30th Street.
Brewery Town -Chargewood Community Civic Association's Letter of Opposition.
counsel
1331 North 30th Street
Andy Barrow has his hand raised
I want him to speak at this time
thank you that is the one that
oh okay I'm sorry
so you're the counsel for this
No, I'm the design professional for Mr. Charles Holliday, the owner.
We would like to be heard if it's not too late.
Is Mr. Holliday here?
Well, he's going to have to present it, sir.
Oh, okay.
Okay, Mr. Chair, I have just promoted Mr. Holliday to a panelist.
He will be coming back in soon.
Mr. Holliday, state your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
You have to unmute, please.
To unmute, you need to hover along the bottom and then click the unmute on the bottom left of your
screen. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm Charles.
holiday um could you stick and could you spell your name for the court reporter please uh c -h -a -r -l -e -s
um h -o -l -l -i -d -a -y right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth yes sir our vice chair has a few questions yes ma 'am good morning do you agree to waive the
reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy pardon he's not an attorney carol he's
not okay so have you submitted all of the required documents um that we requested such as proof of
ownership tax compliance refusal or referral photos and or plans of the property five days
in advance of this hearing and have you met with the rco and do you have a letter we did meet the
rco i submitted pictures to them i know i have to submit pictures to you i'm not an attorney
thank you you may proceed i'm sorry this is tanya uh no he cannot proceed he never submitted
exhibits none no mr holiday did you did you submit your forms at all
the forms i did initially yes um i'm going through this by myself i didn't hire an attorney
I'm aware, but did you send it into the zoning board?
No, I didn't.
All right.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to continue your case.
Yes, sir.
And then you're going to have to get a hold of the office and make sure you find out what forms you need to submit to the zoning board.
I appreciate that, sir.
All right.
Thank you.
Case will be continued.
And you have a good day, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah.
Number three.
MI 2021 -003845 -1501 -South 50th Street.
RCO, letter of support, Kelly Lewis.
sir i have mr josh joshua horvitz with the hand raised i can allow them to speak at this time
uh no first we need kelly lewis oh miss kelly lewis okay is kelly lewis available
miss lewis if you're in the audience please raise your virtual
Ms. Lewis, if you're in the audience, please raise your virtual hand.
Ms. Lewis?
I see her name, but she's not raising her hand.
As you wish, we can go forward as your call, Chair.
Let's try one more time to see if we can get her to...
Ms. Lewis?
I don't know I think so we don't see her name we don't see her anywhere
yes she's here her name is there
Miss Lewis
let's let let's let's move on and we'll make a decision what to do with that
a little bit later sounds good if we can get her
Number four, MI 2021, 004628, 1720 North 24th Street.
Lynn Nichols is the attorney.
RCO letter not yet received in our records.
Okay, sir.
Mr. Nichols has been promoted to panelists.
He will be coming back in shortly.
good morning state your name and spell for the court reporter please
good morning members of the board um my name is lynn nichols l -y -n -n -n -i -c -h -o -l -s um
right you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, I do. Mr. Chair, we did receive late yesterday a letter of support from the RCO with a proviso. I wasn't able to forward it. We got it late yesterday.
All right. Thank you. Could you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
Yes. Kim Deerstein, she's the owner representative of the property.
Thank you.
And our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And it appears that you've submitted all the required documents.
I would just like to add the meeting summary from the RCO as an exhibit.
I can forward it.
I can forward it.
Thank you.
You may proceed.
Thank you.
May I share my screen?
Sure you may.
is everyone able to see that
yes okay thank you um madam chair mr chair um as you see in the packet and members of the board
um we have the zoning permit application the application for appeal
the project information form and if i'm going too fast please let me know i just want to get
through this for you um the deed for the property it's in the name of kimberly deerstein d -e -r -s -t -i -n -e
the certificate of tax clearance the impacted neighbors who were served with a notice for the
hearing, the proof of mailing, as well as the proof of posting
on the property for the hearing.
This is the refusal.
We're seeking a variance for an erection of a multifamily
household unit containing six units.
The RCO met, and their concerns were for the roof deck.
So we agreed that we would submit the proposal with a proviso
with no roof deck.
At this time, showing the plans.
Here you see what the plans will provide for six units.
And again, we will submit a proviso with no roof deck.
At this time, I would like to show the photographs.
This is a view facing 1720 North 24th Street.
you see here the property this is the rear of 1720 north 24th street
This is the rear of 1720 North 24th Street.
This is a view looking to the left of 1720 North 24th Street towards Ridge Avenue.
A view looking across from 1720 North 24th Street.
This is a view to the right looking down towards Clifford Street, the 2400 block.
This is a view of 1721 North 25th Street.
this is a property that was similarly developed this is a view of 1737 north 24th street again
another property that has been similarly developed and this is a view of 2410 clippard street this
is a properly down property down the street uh from 1720 north 24th street that has been
similarly developed at this time this is the meeting summary form from the meeting that occurred
on March 16, 2020. I'm sorry. It occurred on March 2, 2022, and there was no opposition except for
the provision of no roof deck. At this time, if there are no questions, I'd like to call
Kimberly Deerstein.
Deerstein has been allowed to speak.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Kimberly Derstein.
D -E -R -S -T -I -N -E.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Good morning, Ms. Derstein.
Could you please state your relationship to the property?
I'm the owner.
Thank you.
And did you hear my testimony on your presentation today?
I did.
and do you agree and adopt the presentation and testimony given here today for the purposes of
the property located at 1720 north 24th street yes i do thank you i have no further questions
questions from the board
no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
we have a handout by leslie um coldwell i will allow them to speak at this time if that is okay
Yes. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Could you unmute? Please unmute if you were to speak.
Hello? I'm sorry.
No, that's okay. State your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
I'm Leslie Caldwell. L -E -S -L -I -E -C -A -L -D -W -E -L -L. Anyway, my sister Kelly -
Wait a minute. Wait one minute.
You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
I was just saying my sister Kelly Lewis is on here, but y 'all, she can hear everything, but y 'all cannot hear her.
That's for a different case, I believe, Mr. Chair.
That's the one that was before this.
That was before.
I'm sorry.
Anyone have a comment from the virtual audience about 1720 North 24th Street?
i see no other hands mr chair planning commission morning chair bergman this is ian hegarty
representing the philadelphia city planning commission last name hegarty h -e -g -a -r -t -y
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes sir i do
all right thank you board members uh in 2014 the zoning map was amended in this area in accord
with recommendations from the comprehensive plan, this parcel was intentionally not changed
at CMX2 zoning. Under the CMX2 zoning, two dwelling units and a ground floor commercial
unit would be permitted on this lot, which is just over 1 ,000 square feet. While we agree
that a hardship exists for strict adherence to the ground floor commercial requirement,
we believe the degree of the variance being requested in this case exceeds the minimum
necessary to make viable use of the property. So our recommendation in this case would be for
the board to grant the variance but to permit only up to three dwelling units.
MI 2021 004628 1720 North 24th Street. I vote yes. Proviso only three units and no roof deck.
Carol Tenere my vote is yes with proviso. Thomas Holloman my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell yes with proviso. Ishmael Shaheed yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, can we go back one more time to that case earlier?
Sure, Chair.
Kelly Lewis, please raise your hand in order to be recognized.
Ms. Lewis has her hand raised.
Do I promote her?
Please.
yes please jason
so we're coming back in as panelists
um miss lewis could yes i'm here could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter
k -e -l -l -e -w -i -s right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth? I do. Our vice chair has a few questions for you. Okay. Good morning. I assume that you've
submitted all of the required documents. I have. Thank you. You may proceed. Hold on a minute.
Isn't there an attorney involved in this case too for the opposition? Yes. Could we promote
joshua horvitz please jason thank you ever so kindly
he'll be coming back in as a panelist mr chair do you want me to re -ask him that
um i i think you've represents the local yeah no he's just a attorney for the opposition yeah
mr harwood state your name and spell for the court reporter please
Joshua Horvitz, J -O -S -H -H -O -R -V -I -T -Z of Feynman, Craxena, and Harris on behalf of the Protestants.
All right.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Ms. Lewis, proceed.
Could you take your documents and put it on the screen, please?
I will.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have them on the screen.
Thank you.
You want me to go through them now?
Please.
Thank you.
This is my notice of refusal for 1501 South 50th Street exhibit, first exhibit.
The next notice is my zoning notice that I put up for March 16th, which is today at 930.
I posted it on February 20th.
The next exhibit is the Certificate of Tax Clarence, which is the Certificate of Compliance from the Zoning Board.
This next exhibit is my deed from Mr. Lorenzo Gorn that was deeded to me, Kelly Lewis, which I purchased from him at 1501 South 50th Street, the address we're talking about right now.
This is the rest of the deed.
And the next page is the transfer tax certificate.
And here are the plans for the property at 1501 South 50th Street.
February 20th is the date I posted for this meeting today, March 16th.
This is a side entrance of 49th and Paschal.
And here is the zoning board notice posted, and on February 20th, the same picture is
posting of the zoning for the zoning board for today's hearing on 49th and pascal
another picture of the area in question 50th and 50th street and this is the front entrance
of 1501 south 50th which i posted on february 20th for today's hearing
and this is another posting for february 20th of the side entrance 49th and pascal
and this is the location 1501 south 50th street this would be the entrance and this is a dead
end block with two houses located next door which are vacant
same picture
and these are the receipts for which i had the mailings sent out they were certified through
the U .S. mail to the RCO community for the hearing, for the meeting for the community.
to the RCO community for the hearing,
with the meeting for the community.
And this is the letter that was sent out
to the RCO community stating the hearing
that took place with the RCO community.
And this is from Southwest Philadelphia District Services,
the letter that was given to me
and also said to zoning that they showed that they were in support of my zoning for 1501 South 50th
Street. And that's the end of my exhibits. Thank you. Questions from the board? No,
Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman.
next. Before I open up to the virtual audience, Mr. Goodman from Councilwoman Gauthier's office
sent an email with the following statement. The council member sees a child care center like this
one as a use that is community serving and complementary to a residential block, similar
to how there is corner commercial uses on residential blocks all over our council district.
There are precedents for this specific use on similar blocks throughout west and southwest
Philadelphia. Our office has received outreach from constituents about perceived impacts of the
child care center should their variance be granted. It is our belief that these perceived impacts
are small enough in scale that we can anticipate and avoid through thoughtful planning and care.
For this reason, our office commits to offer our support in convening or facilitating meetings
between the property owner and near neighbors should the variance be granted
and should there be relevant parties want our help in doing so.
We, of course, believe that the operator would care deeply about the safety of their facility
as the success of this business would depend upon it.
And we want to do our part
to make sure any perceived impacts are minimized.
Mr. Horowitz, do you want to?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
I only have a couple of questions for Ms. Lewis.
Briefly, I just want to mention,
and to Ms. Lewis as well,
I represent the Protestants in this case,
nearby neighbors.
You'll see in our case in chief,
we've submitted a petition
with over 40 close neighbors that have signed their name in opposition,
including many of the properties very close to this one,
and large ones and small ones alike.
And the people I represent are Diane Settles, Estelle Alley,
Bukola Adekoji, and Paschal Partners LP.
I do have some stuff to present, just to briefly preview to the board,
including about the RCO meeting.
we differ with what the result was even on the paperwork that was submitted to you it says that
there was a six to six vote but several of the people and anyway my people will testify to it
but several people left early and recount that anyway um but um with regards to miss lewis um
and then i'll have a case um to present when she's done but if i miss lewis i just have a couple
questions for you. I looked at your materials for the first time today, so perhaps I missed
something, but did you submit a traffic study by a traffic engineer? No, I did not submit a traffic
study by a traffic engineer, but I also know it's an area that... That's fine. So
So I understand that you operate a daycare elsewhere.
Is that correct?
My daughter and myself operated daycare a few years ago.
It's no longer operable.
So when you acquired this property, did you acquire it with daycare in mind?
I purchased the property not knowing exactly what I was going to do with it.
But the fact that I know my daycare will be different than the ones in the neighborhood, I decided to do that with that property.
So have you investigated costs with a realtor about either selling it to somebody to use as a single family home, renovating it, renting it, reselling it yourself?
No, I have not because I own the property and I'm going to do.
That's fine.
Thank you.
I don't have any other questions.
questions or comments from the virtual audience
see no answer oh yeah i see a hand from us diane settles sorry i'm allowed to speak
miss settles is my witness um i think i'll call her um as my first witness once
I think I'll call her as my first witness once Ms. Lewis's case is done, but we can probably hold off on.
miss lewis's case is done but
Her case is done.
She's done.
Excuse me.
Can I make a comment regarding Ms. Diane Settles?
Ms. Diane Settles is not located within the RCO boundaries.
Ms. Settles, please, I have a...
Call your witness.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to call Diane Settles.
Ms. Settles, if you could unmute yourself.
good morning um wait a minute could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes my name is diane d -i -a -n -e last name is spelled s as in sam e -t -t -l -e -s
do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do proceed counsel miss settles i'm just going to ask you some questions and you can
answered. We spoke about, you know better than I do about this property. So can you tell me
briefly where you live? I live at 1313 South 49th Street. So my understanding is that's about two
blocks away. A block and a half. Maybe this would be easier. I have my associate, Rachel Rempell,
we could promote her. We have like a satellite imagery from the atlas of the program in the
city Philadelphia website so we can see an overview but I'll continue while we do that
um so Ms. Settles um in addition to living there are you involved in any local civic organizations
yes I am um King Cesson Area Civic Association which is the RCO and the third councilmatic
district I'm also a committee person um in the 27th ward 17th division which falls in this area
where Ms. Lewis' proposed daycare will be.
And so have, now, do you have an opinion about this proposed daycare?
If you could explain why?
Yes, I do.
I would first like to say that Ms. Lewis did not post the first zoning notice
until after I had contacted Andrew Goodman and the other RCOs that are on this.
Understood, but let's talk about the properties and the use that's going to be here.
So she's going to have a daycare there.
What about the use might you be concerned about?
Well, because this is a residential area and the homeowners want to retain that
since those homes have been residential since 1940.
That is what the opposition was about,
as well as about the safety of this establishment.
You actually, you submitted a letter
on behalf of your organization,
Concessory Area Civic Association, that's correct?
That is correct.
And can you tell me, we also submitted a bus schedule.
Can you tell me about that and what you're saying?
And if there's any, if you personally know if SEPTA buses are going by and the impact that this might have on that?
There is a, historically, there's been about 12 buses there that goes at the very corner of where this establishment will be at.
There are three stop signs there. There is no light there whatsoever.
There are other things that will prohibit parking there at that establishment as well.
So if that bus was to turn, would not if, when that bus turns, it needs to have clear passage to continue on to its route.
And so, yeah, I'm going to share my screen because I don't see my associate.
There we go.
Doing that.
And so, in addition to the SEPTA buses, are there any other interferences that might happen here?
larger vehicles or other things?
There are tractor trailers that come there.
That's a gateway from the sanitation department,
which is sanitation number one.
That block is also a feeder off of Grace Ferry Bridge.
There's many obstacles that would prohibit a safe passageway
at that establishment.
So I put up a satellite photo on the screen. If you can see here,
does this look like where the blue dot here? This is page 39 of my of my exhibit package.
Does that look where the property is?
yes i would say that is right so this is a 50th and pascal right here um and um to give everybody
Yes, I would say that it is.
an idea there's trucks they come down woodland um and then they sometimes come down 50th here
to then cut across and go right by this daycare is that correct that is correct and we're talking
like big rigs right six 18 wheelers yeah and how about out um here out of this factory here on
pascal that comes out of pascal avenue are there any trucks that come out of there yes it is trucks
that come in and out that um lots of them or just a couple well that is a major national company so
So I would say yes.
All right. Is there any other reasons why you want to mention that you took time out of your schedule here to be here to oppose us today?
Because the community feels as though that it would jeopardize the health and wealth and well -being of this tight -knit community, which they have been, as I stated before, since 1940.
um you didn't mention i would like to retain it it's a well -kept block is there anything about
the hours of the daycare or the number of kids that you might be concerned with
oh according to miss lewis she said that she would start off um with five to six days a week
and that she would go to be put in the act for 24 hours um as an establishment whereas there are
other 24 -hour establishments already in this area. In our exhibit package, we mentioned
or we actually put a list of other daycares. You're familiar with a number of other daycares
in the neighborhood as well? Yes, I am. And are you familiar at all if there's vacancies in there
if they're all full and well um most of them are full is two that are pending opening and um one is
a 24 hour um then the other ones are from 7 30 to 5 38 um p .m and then um you know the 24 i stand
corrected there's two that's going to be 24 hours yes one which is right around the corner on 49th
woodland and one that is on the corner of 51st woodland that the one on 49th and woodland that's
in like a commercial corridor or shopping center yes it is and there there might be other that's
a block away there there are probably other commercial spots that would be open for a daycare
like this right they may be yeah on woodland avenue yes great thank you no further questions
um i i have uh another neighbor i'm going to try to do things different so that we don't you don't
hear the same thing from different people and uh my the next neighbor is estelle alley
and um miss alley submitted a letter as well so we'll just summarize what her letter was
miss holly could you raise your hand curry alley
i believe it is i don't know how to speak right now if i could ask you mr chairman my my associate
Rachel Rempel has her hand raised.
If we could promote her, she could just help me.
Wow, you just told me Kerry Alley.
Do you want her?
No, she's my witness.
I've been trying to get my associate to be promoted as a panelist
just to do the electronics for the screen.
Okay, go ahead. Sure, sure.
I'll proceed meanwhile.
Ms. Alley, if you could.
Ms. Alley, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Good morning.
My name is Rachel Rempel, R -A -C -H -E -L -R -E -M -P -E -L
of Feynman, Crexstein, and Harris on behalf of the
Protestants. Do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Ms. Ali, could you
I'm trying to get
your client, Curry Alley on it.
Could you state your name and spell for the
court reporter, please?
Good morning. My name is, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Good morning. My name is
Estelle Alley.
E -S -T -E -L -L -E
A -L -L -I -E
all right thank you do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth yes i do thank you proceed counsel miss alley we spoke yesterday you told me um that you
had a lot of feelings about this project that meant a lot um that you to take out a time out
of your schedule to be here today please tell us um what you what you feel about it where you live
start with where you live and then what you feel about the project okay i am a near neighbor i live
in the 1400 block of South 50th Street within 250 feet of the
South 50th Street within 250 feet of the proposed daycare.
Okay, thank you. And are there any reasons of the neighborhood, the streets here,
why are you concerned about the location of a daycare in this location?
Well, I'm concerned for the children, the safety of the children, as well as for the safety of the
neighbors. Within my letter that goes into depth, I believe that the panel has some pictures that
were taken and sent that also tell the story of how many trucks come down our street and turn
where the proposed daycare is.
Okay, that's the 1400 block that you're showing now
of 50th Street with, and at the very right,
which looks like it's a tan or yellowish house.
That's where the daycare is proposed.
I've summarized my letter, if I may read it,
because I'm not very good at ad -libbing if I'm allowed,
it won't take long if I'm allowed to. It'll probably be easier for you to just summarize I
think you know it's a very nice letter which is in the record but let's go through some of these
incidents that you referenced in your letter so it looks like there was a number of pictures of
car accidents on this block correct um uh there have been at least within the uh the last year
no two uh accidents directly across the street uh well i'll talk about the one that you're showing
now this was it uh within 80 okay so uh the car a car accident where where um a car sped down
Paschal Avenue, turned at 50th and Paschal which is turning right where the proposed daycare is,
sped down 50th Street going the direction of Woodland Avenue, lost control, ended up going up
on the sidewalk and would have gone on the neighbor's porches if not for
of the hand railing that was between the houses you're seeing some of the debris where the car
actually sideswiped the number of vehicles um the uh mr harvitz i mr harvitz i i think i understand
so this is down the street from where it is right so this is a i understand there could be accidents
things so could we move on please yeah of course thank you um so um miss ali there a lot so you
you had given me a bus schedule which we enclosed is there a lot of buses that go past here or
um um yes uh kitty corner to the home is a september route 12 bus stop on 50th street
it turns east and travels down pascal avenue um the bus schedule that i reviewed reveals that on
weekdays between the hours of 7 a .m and 6 p .m it passes by the home uh approximately 38 times
on Saturdays. Okay, that's fine. Thank you so much. So I have, and you also said that you see
lots. All right. So you did, you know, we didn't see a traffic study from the applicant, but you
tried to figure out about the traffic here. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. By just getting a
up to schedule, yes. And the trucks and stuff too, right? It ties into what Ms. Suttles had
mentioned, that when a bus turns, if there is a car parked, and at times with daycares, it happens
it shouldn't, but it happens, or double parked, it can adversely impede. A bus will not be able
to operate. Thank you. We understand. All right. Thank you. So no more questions. And
if Ms. Lewis doesn't have any questions, I have one more witness, which is Jamie Kushner of
Paschal Partners. She, in addition to owning properties right next two doors down, her company
also owns the big factory right across the street. Okay. Hi, my name is Jamie Kushner,
J -A -M -I -E -K -U -S -H -N -E -R. I'm an owner of the factory across the street at 5 ,000 Pascal Avenue.
Right. Wait a minute. Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? I do. Proceed, counsel. Thank you. Rachel, if you could go down to the satellite
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Rachel, if you could go down to the satellite photos, like the middle.
like photos.
So, Jamie, please tell me, do you operate the factory across the street from this property?
Yes, we do.
Yes, I do.
And as a part of that operations, are there trucks that come in and out of your property?
There are constant trucks, flatbeds, 18 -wheelers coming in for pickups and deliveries all day, six days a week, 7 a .m. to 6 p .m.
And we're talking about a driveway located directly across the street from the proposed daycare. Is that correct?
Correct.
And are your trucks the only trucks that go on these residential streets in this neighborhood?
No. In addition to our factory here on the other side, we're actually 50th Street and Paschal is a feeder streets into Grays Ferry Avenue and the bridge leading into Interstate 76.
So there are constant, I -95, so there are constant buses, trucks, trailers coming down our street.
They actually, it's like a cut through as well, a shortcut from Woodland Avenue to get to the bridge, to get to the interstates, and so on and so forth.
So it's just constant action.
There's actually there's two stop signs here outside our building, and people are always trying to cut through as a shortcut.
And it's just it's rolling through the stop signs on stop all day, every day.
And you're talking about 18 wheelers rolling through the stop signs, right?
Not just. Correct. And buses. Yep.
All right. And so you also, in addition to owning this factory, you own other homes in the neighborhood?
I do. As Paschal Partners LP, we own about 15 properties in the area. It's a mix of vacant land and dilapidated homes.
Over the years, we've spent close to $500 ,000, if not more.
Mr. Horowitz, I'm not sure what Mr. Horowitz, I'm not sure what that means.
So could we move on, please?
You've been able to successfully renovate and rent or sell properties in the neighborhood, including on this block.
Correct. Into residential homes.
Thank you. And I just have one last question.
At this dead end here, which is kind of at the end of your factory, down 50th Street here, if we've continued south where it gets cut off by the train tracks.
Does anything happen down there at that end that you're aware of with regards to the train tracks?
Yeah, there's a lot of cars that are left that sit for months and months.
There is dumping that happens of furniture and mattresses and trash.
There are cars that go down that way.
What about the train tracks?
Do they service the train tracks through that access point over there?
That I'm not sure of.
That I'm not sure of.
Okay. I don't have any further questions for Ms. Kushner.
Counselor, are you through?
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
I just have a brief...
No, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman, I have one question for you.
So first thing is, listening to Ms. Rachel and her business, and it seems like from where the child care facility is trying to offer, it does not seem to me that it will be an increase in large vehicles coming down 50th Street, North Pasco, for a daycare.
It's only an increase in vehicles, not commercial vehicles.
And from what I understand, she said she has trucks running around the clock to her facility.
But usually with child care facilities, you usually have a drop -off time, might go over a little bit, and you've got to pick up some.
So I'm a little unclear on the expectations you are looking from a daycare facility.
Furthermore, when it comes to large vehicles coming down,
did you see that the applicant's property is located on a corner coming down
and then the other side is a dead end?
There's no traffic, low traffic random, coming into that area.
The commercial vehicles will at least be turning adjacent to the property
and away from the property, not towards the property.
So I'd just like to make sure that's added to it.
Thank you, Mr. Shahid.
Mr. Harwich, do you want to summarize?
Yes, please. Well, you all have heard the testimony today. Most strikingly, there's been no allegation of any hardship or any proof of a hardship. The most important of the many factors that Ms. Lewis would need to prove to you today in order to grant a variance.
Yes, please.
Well, you all have heard the testimony today.
For that reason alone, we must deny her request for a variance today. She would have to show that there was some hardship of the land. She hasn't even made that allegation.
But even more so, what our evidence has shown today is that the neighbors and 44 close by neighbors who've submitted petitions and the neighbors very close by, including the factory across the street, have said this is not a compatible use with the neighborhood.
And that's why it's not zoned commercial. These residential and industrial uses have existed side by side for decades without any incident. These trucks know how to deal with residences. They don't know how to deal with these commercial property right across the street where there's going to be pickups and drop offs as these trucks not only coming in and out of the factory, but also are constantly cutting down to get away from it.
They've saved one traffic light and they blow through a couple of stop signs and they can get to their destination across Graves Ferry Avenue quicker.
And they come one after another. All of my clients that have testified today have testified to that fact because that's the reality.
Despite what anybody might surmise about this residential block, the reality is there's a huge industrial factory across the street that constantly has trucks coming in and out.
big 18 wheelers and big 18 wheelers are coming down the street in addition to trash trucks and
not just trash trucks for this neighborhood but for the entire city of philadelphia commercial
and residential they come to this neighborhood and to these industrial properties around these
properties and the septum buses are constant and thank you so with all of that um we we don't
believe that a variant should be granted thank you thank you miss lewis would you want to take
two minutes just to respond yes i would i would like to oh first of all i would like to say
the children will be dropped off they will not be parked there they will not be sitting there
whether they come by scepter or get dropped off in the morning by their parent furthermore the
block that that i will have the children drop off on is on 50th street which is a dead end
the traffic that comes into the building across the street is comes straight through it's never
sitting on that block. I've come around that area. I grew up in that area. I'm a police officer. I
patrolled that area on numerous occasions. And furthermore, it has also been other businesses
on that block in the past. It was a barbershop in the middle of the block and it was a hair salon
at the end of the block. I grew up in that neighborhood. I know that neighborhood very well
and accidents take place every day. But with me, I have three entrances. I can either come in 50th
Street, the side of the building or the back of the building, which is gated up for my children
to go in and out. My children will never be left on outside unaccompanied by a parent or myself.
We bring the children into the facility. We practice safety all day. I will have safety
measures put in place. I will have permitted parking put outside if I have to. And also,
I'm trying to get speed bumps put into the neighborhood within the city council. And if
they're unable to do it, I'm going to do a fundraising myself to get it done. But I will
never put a child in harm's way. And yes, it is a busy area, but it's busy everywhere.
and it's not to say that accident that took place it took that place down the street near 50th
street most of the disabled not near my daycare all right thank you mr lewis you're welcome
anyone else in the virtual audience have a comment
mr chair i have a miss mary cox with her hand raised do i allow her to speak please at once
um hi i'm a can you hear me could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
mary cox m -a -r -y c -o -x right do you swear for them to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do proceed i'm a neighbor on the 1400 block of 49th street
i am currently pregnant i know that there's a lot of options for child care in the area
i also know there's a lot of commercial areas and i'm really worried about our blocks because they
are in kind of a weird area take being taken over by commercial like i feel like we don't need more
businesses we need more neighbors okay and i will say there is also a lot of accidents on my corner
too several a month that i at least hear and witness myself when i'm home but you know i i'm
of four people running businesses out of their homes but if she's not living there like then
that changes it for me all right thank you ma 'am thank you for calling in planning commission
uh chair we still have people if it's allowed
um it's still there's still people with their hands up you're saying
So there's still people with their hands up, you're saying?
Tanya?
Yes, four people.
Okay, so someone has something different to say than what was already said.
Please put your hand up.
I have an Oma Bukoma at a coger with a hand raised on.
Sure, sure.
That's a name.
State your name and spell it, please.
Sure. Olubukola, O -L -U -B -U -K -O -L -A, last name Adekoji, A -D -E -K -O -J -E.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you state your comments, please?
Sure. My husband and I are in opposition to this variance being granted.
We are near neighbors who live on the 1400 block, just doors away.
and as has been previously said um i wanted to respond to mr shaheed's comment about
the issue between the trucks and the cars um because there are trucks coming so quickly down
the street we do feel that there is a higher risk of accidents taking place um as pedestrians cross
especially during those hours for drop off and pickup so as they do that i think it's it's an
issue. Thank you. Sure. I also just wanted to add that we completed a safety study and we saw that
20 % of the cars, only 20 % of the cars stopped at the stop sign. So most cars are speeding through.
So it's a concern that as kids are crossing or their caregivers are crossing, or even as the
childcare workers are crossing, it could be an issue as well. Thank you, ma 'am. Thank you. Is
there anyone else who has something they would want to add to this that's different than has
already been said. We have a Carl Joseph. Jason, can you unmute? Mr. Joseph, state your name and
spell for the court reporter. Mr. Joseph. Okay, we have a Tania. We can move forward.
state your name and spell for the court reporter yes tania t -a -n -e -a pratt p -r -a -t -t
all right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do proceed um good morning everyone i just wanted to um say that i am a resident
in the community and it's funny just hearing everyone um say everything about things not
being safe and everything and it seemed like with me having children that would kind of scare me
period even if I was just to be a you know home buyer just to come and raise my children on that
block it seemed like I would be scared to even do that the way everyone is describing it you know
you would think that everyone on the block are just people who are not raising families but um
when I heard about uh Miss um Lewis opening a daycare I actually walked around there myself
just to see you know what exactly was going on and um being a member of the community being raised
around there all my life I do know that the block has not always been residential it used to be a
barbershop on the block I used to go to the hair salon with my mom and my grandma on the corner of
the block but I wanted to see you know just what the fuss was about um and then talking to Miss
Lewis and her actually taking the time to show me um how the daycare was and the things she was
going to do in the community and how, you know, if I was to, you know, register in her daycare
that she would bring my children on this side and so on and so forth. I was excited. I'm excited to
enroll my two small children in that daycare when she opens up. Do I have other options? Yes,
but I would have to walk over to 50th Street or I would have to walk up to 49th Street and it's
like the option is right there, you know, why not take it? I just want to just let you guys know
that i'm excited about her opening up the daycare i do plan on um enrolling my two children and
you know there are accidents everywhere but everywhere that you go you know to um a daycare
or a business or whatever it is you're going to have cars ride by you're going to have traffic
you know you're going to have those things and the way that miss lewis described to me that she's
going to run her daycare i'm excited about it you know i'm ready to enroll it mr shaman can we just
get what the address was of that person who was just speaking? Yes, 4902 St. Brook Avenue,
right across the street from 4907, where she wasn't supposed to sign that, because you guys,
because they came to me to sign it as well, but I didn't know what it was, so I didn't sign,
but my neighbor did, and she said, no, I didn't know what it was. So outside the, you are not
So outside the, you are not within the 250 feet?
within the 250 feet?
Yes, absolutely.
Yes, yes, yes.
Born and raised all my life, yes.
You didn't, you weren't asked to sign
because you weren't within the 250 feet of the property?
No, I was asked to sign.
Thank you.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
That's it, Chair, you can move on.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Members of the board, the comprehensive
plan recommends no change to the existing single -family zoning at this location. The
existing structure, as you have seen from the photographs entered as evidence, is clearly
configured as a residential structure. We heard a lot of testimony about traffic conditions and
safety conditions and so on, but I think the bottom line here is that the appellant has not
presented any evidence to establish a hardship owing to physical conditions of the lot that
prevent it from being used as a single family dwelling. And further, group child care for up
to 12 children is permitted as an accessory use by special exception in RSA 5 zoning district. So
our recommendation in this case would be that the board deny the variance and that the applicant
reapply for a group child care use permit as an accessory use. Thank you, Ian.
MI 2021 003845 1501 South 50th Street. I vote yes.
Harold Tenere, my vote is no. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes. Is that a yes to Ishmael?
it sounded like a yes that was a yes thank you everyone thank you miss lewis thank you
mr horowitz thank you so much everyone good luck okay here okay mi 2021 004594 2038 north
Lambert Street. No exhibits listed. Yarmouth Construction Group Incorporated.
Mr. Chair, I have a Mr. Robert Clewell with their hand raised. I will allow them to speak at this
time. Good morning. Mr. Clewell, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yeah, sure.
Robert Clewell, C -L -E -W -E -L -L, representing Yarmouth Group.
Are you an attorney?
I am, sir, yes.
Okay, sure.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and the relationship they have with the property?
Well, there are two principals of Yarmouth Group, Dante Preston and David Bullock.
They are, I believe, co -owners of that property, and they are on the call as well this morning.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
And I assume you've submitted the required documents.
That's what our notes indicate.
I did submit them all but the letter of support, which I did receive late yesterday.
I do have that as part of my presentation, but it was not sent to the email address given.
So I can send them.
Sonia, do we have the documents?
I don't.
I have here that is no exhibits that was submitted.
Can you explain where the exhibits were submitted?
I did submit them a little late.
I had on top of computer problems, generalized computer problems last week and some staff missing.
I submitted them on Monday.
So they are, they have been submitted.
So, I know you've had some problems with your computer and all, but when we get them that close, we can't process it.
So, we're going to have to continue the case.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
You'll hear from us with the next date.
Thank you.
Sure. MI 2021 -004627, 2423 South Garnett Street, Lynn Nichols, Drodd Estate, Area Residence, Letter of Support.
Mr. Chair, I have a Mr. Frankie, I have a Frankie San Juliano with a hand raised.
sure no it should be lynn nichols she's not available okay he can i see miss nichols
She's not available?
I see Ms. Nichols.
Now you promote it.
She's been promoted.
She'll be rejoining soon.
Good morning again.
You've already been sworn to state your name.
Nichols.
l -y -n -n -n -i -c -h -o -l -s could you identify your client and their relationship to the property
yes this is frankie and i don't want to mispronounce her last name sanguiliano
and she's the owner representative for 2423 south garnett street our vice chair has a few questions
hi do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
Yes, I do.
It appears that you've submitted all the required documents.
Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct.
Okay, you may continue.
May I share my screen, please?
Yes, you may.
Thank you.
Can everyone see that?
All right.
So this is a presentation for 2423 South Garnett Street.
We're seeking an erection of a two -story addition as a part of an existing two -story attached structure for continuous use as a household living single -family dwelling.
In this presentation, we have the materials, which are the addition of appeal, the project information form, the deed, which is for Frankie Sanguiliano.
we have the certificate of tax. This is a photo showing the rear of the property, which is where
the roof, the deck will be attached. The community member notice that was sent,
the impacted neighbors, as well as a proof of mailing is shown. Here we have the notice of
refusal for this property. And these are the plans showing where the deck will be erected.
um on the property it will not cause an undue burden to any of the near neighbors
in addition we do have letters of support from the near neighbors showing that they are not an
objection to the erection of the deck and in an rco meeting we also receive support
at this time i would like to call my client
Frankie Sanguliano
Ms. Sanguliano has been allowed to speak
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
Good morning, could you state your name please
and spell it
Frankie Sanguliano
F -R -A -N -K -I -E -S -A -N -G -I -U -L -I -A -N -O.
Do you swear for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Good morning, Ms. San Giuliano.
Did you hear my testimony and presentation given here today?
And do you adopt and agree with the testimony and presentation for the purposes of the variance that we're requesting for your property located at 2423 South Burnett Street?
yes thank you i'm nothing further questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
don't miss the chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no further hands mr chair planning commission thank you chair bergman this is
ian hegarty for the philadelphia city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommended
no change to the existing residential single family at this location. This proposed enlargement
is minimal and does not conflict with the purpose and spirit of the zoning code. City Planning
Commission recommends that the board grant the variance. Thank you. MI 2021 -004627 -2423
South Garnett Street, I vote yes. Carol Tenere, my vote is yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Ms. Nichols.
Thank you.
MI 2021 -002 -204 -2615 East Haggard Street.
Leo Mulvihill, RCO, Old Richmond Civic Association, Letter of Non -Opposition.
Chair, this is Tanya.
Chair, this is Tanya. After this case, may we revisit the second add -on because there
After this case, may we revisit...
was supposed to be a proviso with that.
The second add -on? Okay, sure.
Yes, thank you, Chair.
Mr. Mulvihill's hand is not raised. As a matter of fact, I do not see him in the
virtual audience sir okay all right i'm gonna go back to okay chair
there was supposed to be a proviso of revised plans one page if you could re -vote that thank you
that's 2400 east venango right yes chair right mi 2021 005012 2400 east venango i vote yes
with proviso, revised plans, one page.
And that's for Ishmael and Tom.
My vote is yes.
Thomas Solomon, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Okay, Mr. Mulvihill's not present?
No, he's not present.
If you don't mind, Chair, would you move to see a fact?
We'll find them. Okay, thank you.
Number 8, MI 2021 -002290 -2755 Maxwell Street.
No RCO letter is of yet, and I believe we may have one that came in.
Jennifer Barzildo, Esquire.
Ms. Barzildo has been promoted to Panama, sir.
Thank you.
give me one second i'm just starting my video sure hi could you state your name and spell for
the court reporter please sure it's jennifer bezidlow uh b as in boy a as an apple z as in
zebra y d as in david l as in larry o as in oscar right can you swear to firm to tell the truth the
whole truth nothing but the truth i do could you identify your client and their relationship to the
property? Sure. I believe Michael Besenhoff, who is the property owner, is on today, as well as
George Rosinski, who is the property manager. Sure. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Sure. Good morning. Do you agree to leave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? I do. It appears that you've submitted all of the required documents. Is that correct?
It's correct. Just wanted to make clear that I just got the RCO letter this morning.
It's in my presentation and I also forwarded it to all the required parties this morning,
but I didn't have it on Friday when I submitted my main exhibit packet.
Thank you. You may proceed. Great. Can I share my screen? Yes.
all right so like i said my name is jennifer bezidlow i'm here representing michael besinoff
and his wife victoria who owned 2755 maxwell street um i have submitted a packet give you
one second so i can rearrange my screen here um that contains uh the refusal
uh the deed showing that um the best analysis purchase this property from fannie mae
um we also have proof of tax compliance um so this is just that the property taxes are current
um and i could not for some reason incorporate the tax certificate the
tax clearance into my packet as hard as I tried so here it is that was also
issued and then we have the RCO letter which I'll come back to you from
Northeast Community Civic Alliance the notification letters that were sent out
including proof of mailing and all the required addresses that were notified
slide. This is just an aerial view of the property. We're talking about this property
right over here. And the photographs of the property. We'll be coming back to these. I'm
just going to scroll through and get to the plans before I start my presentation. Okay,
So 2755 Maxwell Street is approximately a 3 ,263 square foot RSA 3 zone parcel.
three square foot RSA three zone parcel. It's just off Ashen Road near Northeast Airport.
It's just off Ashen Road.
Our proposed use is to continue to use this property as a two -family dwelling. Unit one,
which you can see the floor plan right here, is an efficiency unit about 650 square feet.
uh it has a walk out to the main um the driveway area um with no steps up or down and then on the
two upper floors we have a four bedroom two full bath unit with the floor plans right here
uh so on the first floor we have main living space a bedroom kitchen bathroom and on the second floor
we have three additional bedrooms and a full bathroom and the entrance to this prop to this
unit is on the um they each have their own separate entrances the entrance to the ground floor unit
is right here through the front door and the entrance to the upper floor units are on the side
they each have their own entrances the four bedroom two bath unit also has access to both
the driveway and the garage for parking purposes. And as you can see on the photographs here,
there is additional space next to the structure for any cars that might be associated with
the efficiency unit. The owners purchased this property directly from Fannie Mae in
2019 without prior, without being able to enter the property. It was that kind of purchase
When they purchased it, the unit was already divided into the two units as proposed,
and the current owner made some cosmetic updates to the interior.
I will show you the photographs. This is the ground floor unit, and you can see it has the
walkout and exit. And then the upper unit, this is the first floor of the upper unit,
And this is the second floor of the upper unit, pretty standard apartments.
So the tenant, and just as note, the tenant in the efficiency unit had resided in the property before it was purchased by the current owner.
And the upper unit is actually used for long -term housing for local homeowners who have had their homes damaged in fires or other sort of natural disasters.
They tend to stay for a year or two, and they are homeowners from no further than five miles
away, often closer. So they are responsible tenants because they are homeowners themselves.
They just are in a situation where they need temporary housing. The housing is managed by a
professional management company, Dan Housing, who screens all their tenants and is required for any
sort of maintenance issues. The contact information for that management company was given to the RCO
and to the neighbor that attended the meeting. Dan Housing operates these sorts of housing
for displaced homeowners throughout the city, specifically so that they can have
housing available to keep people in their communities when they are displaced by
these sorts of accidents. Let me go back and talk about the community meeting. So
we did receive a letter of opposition from the Northeast Community Civic Alliance. We had a
meeting that took place on January 26. All the notifications were sent out. However, only one
person attended the meeting. He was the neighbor from across the street. I guess his concern was,
he didn't really specify a specific concern other than he just didn't want it.
I am not aware. The RCO letter speaks of other people who were opposed. I did not receive any contact information or contact from any other opposition, so I'm not exactly sure what their issues were.
However, I just want to say we are just trying to continue what has already been there and, you know, maintain these homes for people to stay in while they're where their actual homes that they own.
are being repaired. Uh, if I could just have, um, Michael, um, be allowed to speak so he can adopt
my testimony. Michael, are you here? Is George here? What's the full name, please? Uh, Michael
Bessonov or George Rosinski?
I've got a George R here.
I've allowed them to speak.
Okay. George, are you here?
yes i am george state state your name and spell for the court reporter
Yes, I am.
George, state your name.
george wrzinski george wrzinski r -y -z -i -n -s -k -y right you swear for him to tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do proceed counsel um george can i just ask you
one question you um your management company was the company that um updated this building correct
and it was in two units when you first started those updates correct correct okay um and then
i just wanted to say um you heard my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful and
accurate correct and you would adopt it as your own yes great questions from the board yes mr
chairman counselor are there other uh two units on the block uh not that i have seen permitted
I did check the permits and I did not see it.
However, this property is uniquely situated for the rest of the block because it has this additional space on the side that allows for extra parking area and also allows for an extra entrance to a second unit.
Thank you.
Any other questions from the board?
Counsel, could you go back to the RCO letter?
You said one person attended, but I think the letter says five.
So it was the one person who, the one neighbor, hold on, let me just get back to here.
The one neighbor, my client, the property manager, and two board members were there.
All right.
And I would just swear to that as an officer of the court that that's a truthful thing.
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Chair, if it pleases you, would it be okay to ask a question of the applicant for the record?
Counsel, could you please describe the means of egress for the basement unit using the floor plan that you had up before?
Sure. So right now, and this is something we did speak to the RCO about. Let me just get to the floor plan.
Here we go. So right now, the first means of egress is directly to the front door,
which exits out to the driveway. And there is also a window here, which I can show you,
which the intention is to dig that out to make that an egress access. And we are happy with
proviso that a new CO must be issued to make sure that it is completely fire code compliant.
As I said, this owner houses people displaced by fires and we want to absolutely make sure
that any unit created is up to code or any unit that's now in their possession.
It wasn't created by then, but it would be updated to make sure that it's up to code.
Thank you.
Members of the Board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing single
family zoning at this location.
We find that the applicant's hardship claim is not supported with evidence of unique physical
circumstances other than self -created hardship resulting from buying the as -is property without
an inspection we note that the proposed use is not restricted to the specific temporary housing use
as has been described in the presentation and the city planning commission therefore recommends
that the board deny the variance mi 2021 002290 2755 maxwell street i vote no
carol tanari my vote is no thomas holloman my vote is no
thank you council thank you
mi 2021 004632 407 south 20th street rco center city residents
Association, Letter of Non -Opposition, Vern Anastasio.
Mr. Anastasio, I'm going to move to the panel, sir.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Verne Anastasio, A -N -A -S -T -A -S -I -O, 1315 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, 19107.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
Yes, I represent the owner, Sharif Youssef.
Thank you. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Thank you. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Anastasio.
Hi, Mr. Anastasio. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
It appears that you've submitted all the required documents. Is that correct?
It is.
You may proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
okay mr chairman members of the board this is 407 south 20th street we're here
by the way it's cmx1 uh but rm1 adjacent so the only reason why we're here is about 70 square
feet. It's what I would consider a de minimis dimensional variance. This is an existing two
family dwelling. My client recently purchased the property. However, 720 is required for the two
lot area for the two family dwelling. And what exists currently is 643. So that's really the
only reason why we're here this is the property in question on the left as you
can see there's residential right immediately next door on either side we
have some photos of the units
i've already forwarded plans and the letter from center city residents association i have a binder
here of 51 exhibits 147 individual households were mailed uh the meeting was very well attended
and as a result everyone voted to not oppose the request
because of the nature of the dimensional variance being so de minimis because it
exists as a two -family dwelling and because it's adjacent to other residential properties
on the first floor I respectfully request that this appeal be granted and with that I'd like
to call my client, Mr. Sharif Youssef, to raise his virtual hand.
Mr. Sharif, that's been allowed to speak.
Yes, hello.
Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Sure, Sharif Youssef, first name S -H -A -R -I -F, last name is Y -O -U -S -S -E -F.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Sharif, have you heard my presentation to the board this morning?
Is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Thank you very much.
I have nothing further.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i'll see no further hands mr chair planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty
for the philadelphia city planning commission members of the board this proposed use variance
is minimal and does not conflict with the purpose and spirit of the zoning code the city planning
commission recommends that the board grant the variance mi 2021 00 4632 407 south 20 street i
vote yes. Harold Tenere, my vote is yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Anastasio, please stay on. Okay. MI 2021, 004 -630 -4400 -Aldeen Street.
Do not see an RCO letter yet in our file. And Vern, it's you again. Just state your name.
you've already been sworn? Sure. Vern Anastasio, A -N -A -S -T -A -S -I -O. Right. Could you identify
your client and their relationship to the property? Yes. Jessica Yee, who is the property management
and agent of the owner. Right. Our vice chair has a few questions for you. Hi, Mr. Anastasio.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
It appears that you do have the required documents submitted.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
Last night, the RCO sent over a letter of non -opposition.
Ms. Sunkit should have it.
I forwarded it to Ms. Attorney Saleta as well this morning.
um attorney saletta as well uh this morning so if thank you it's not in my packet thank you that
seems to be a pattern with the rcos the night before you may miss sunkett can can confirm
otherwise i am able to pull it up i'll just have to share it separately no worries no worries okay
thank you um nevertheless we are talking let me zoom in here 4400 aldeen street uh this is for
It's the legalization of a pre -existing two -family dwelling.
My client purchased this property.
First of all, let's go to the basement.
It's just going to be unused for storage.
Here's the first floor apartment and the second floor apartment.
My client purchased this just last year.
When he purchased it, it was already a pre -existing two -family dwelling with some sort of, I would call, flex space in the walkout basement.
It looked like there was a kitchenette in there, but it didn't look like a full apartment.
But it was suspicious enough that the RCO and my client and I worked on a list of provisos to ensure that there would be no living space in this basement area.
We're merely trying to legalize the apartments for the top two.
It's already outfitted out.
My client purchased it just like this.
These are photos from the listing.
We did meet with the RCO.
We even had an in -person walkthrough of the property from the RCO leadership.
And the final meeting was March 8th.
I have an exhibit packet of 21 pieces of evidence. 104 families were mailed. And Holmesburg Civic Association is the RCO. And as of last night, they sent over a letter of non -opposition because my client came to this existing condition.
He believed that it was illegal to family at the time.
As you can see here, we've got two electric meters, one for each floor, one for each of the top floors, and then the house meter.
So my client reasonably relied on all of this evidence to the common eye to believe what he was purchasing was, in fact,
a legitimate legalized two -family dwelling and by the way right next door is another duplex
so in fact most of the houses on that side of the block are multi -family
so with that if you don't need me to pull up the rco letter and the administrator has that handy
i am going to call jessica lee to the panel jessica if you could raise your hand
Jessica? Yes. Can you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Yeah, I'm Jessica. I'm here. Could you spell your first name and your last name, please?
uh j -e -s -s -i -c -a last name l -i all right do you swear firm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do proceed thank you mr chair jessica did you hear my presentation to the
board today yes i did is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge yes and do you adopt
it as your own testimony yes thank you i have nothing else questions from the board no mr
Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from the virtual audience?
I have a Mr. David DeLugos with his hand raised.
With permission, I can allow him to speak.
Could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?
My name is David DeLugos, D -A -V -I -D -D -L -U -G -O -S -Z.
do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes proceed so um first of all i'm the zoning chair of the homesworth civic association i
apologize for the belatedness of sending the the letter that is never our attention just
stuff happens sometimes um but i just wanted to concur you know since it obviously wasn't part of
it in uh part of the package i want to make sure i was here to convey what was in the letter
being that we are not opposed to the duplex variance with provisos in that the main proviso
being that we are not opposed to the duplex variants.
that's relevant to us here, I suppose, is the removal of the kitchen appliances from the ground
floor. And, you know, it was fitted out by the previous owner as a triplex. And that third meter
was uh wired for just the ground floor so you know to make sure that it's you know is not
intended to be a triplex and it's only for a duplex because we don't want to have to
come and revisit this you know with the next owner or later down the down the road
no living space on the on the ground floor yeah and and the removal of the kitchen appliances
from well we separately agree to that that's not something the zoning board or lni can enforce okay
got it uh planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia city
planning commission comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing single family zoning at
this location however given the apparently long -standing physical configuration of the
structure for two -family use, City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant
the variance and we support the proviso for no living space in the basement.
MI 2021 -004630 -4400 Aldean Street. I vote yes, proviso, no living space in first floor basement.
Carol Tenere my vote is yes with proviso. Thomas Holland my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell yes with proviso. Dishno Shaheed yes with proviso. Thank you all.
MI 2021 002284 4500 D Street
letter of support
from the new 42nd
Democratic Ward.
Ali, it's your turn.
Can you promote him, please, Jason?
Mr. Abdeliz?
I'm trying to promote him right now, sir.
Sound like for some reason some error code came up not too long ago.
Yes, it's coming up for me as well, Jason.
Let me try.
Can one of the ladies on his own board staff try to promote him?
I can try.
Tanya, I'm sorry.
Sorry. I was on a call with Martha. Can you please remind me the name of the person?
Ali. And his hand is raised.
Okay. I see.
The other staff is getting an error code as well.
I know. I was just talking to Martha about, yes, fail to change role to panelist.
um during our break i can research this code i've never seen this error code come up
um but i am getting did you get the um fail to change rule to panelist error code 3028
yes that's the same thing i'm getting same with the staff yes do we have any more um before the
this session is completed we have we still have a couple more we do
allow me to move on and try to get him and tanya what's is it the system or is it just his system
i don't know because he was on before as the audio so if ali could you go out and come back
in let's try that and we'll put you on um a little later and see if we can resolve this issue so
because we don't want you to not be able to present okay um tanya if it seems to be consistent
i don't know if there's any way until lunch that someone on our staff could like do the
part where we present and we can allow them to talk hopefully without at least allow them
i guess they wouldn't be able to see that see them though yeah no they would have to okay
present themselves number 12 um yeah so we'll try to do that offline ali can you go out and come
back in mi 2021 002203 4931 to 59 spruce street rco garden core community association letter of
RCO, Garden Court Community Association, Letter of Opposition, Sean Whalen is the attorney.
Mr. Whalen has been promoted to panelist, sir.
Good morning, Mr. Whalen. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Certainly. Good morning. Sean Whalen, S -E -A -N -W -H -A -L -E -N.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Do you identify your client and his relationship to the property?
Certainly. My client is Terrace. Let me grab the actual name.
Terrace Avenue A, LLC, is the owner of the property.
Okay. And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Hi, Mr. Whelan. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
It appears that you've submitted all the required documents. Is that correct?
Correct.
Thank you. You may proceed and share your screen.
Thank you very much. We'll see if I can share my screen, right?
Right.
All right. So I don't know. Can you guys, it looks like I'm sharing my screen.
Okay. So Sean Whalen, Vintage Law, here on behalf of 4931 to 59 Spruce Street. This is just a quick aerial view from Google to kind of give you an example. Right in between 49th Street and 50th Street, we're talking about a very large existing apartment right here.
here's a better example of it. This is Spruce Street running up and down on the page. This is
50th Street running right here. This is the existing apartment. It actually touches
all three streets. It touches St. Bernard Street, Spruce Street, and going up and down on South
50th. So as you can see, it's a very large parcel here, approximately 36 ,000 square feet L -shaped
parcel, all zoned RM1. The apartment building that I showed you here is actually approximately
80 to 100 years old. In fact, the only reason why we're here today is that LNI has no official
records of this property because it predates the zoning code. So this is a prior non -conforming
use. There is this existing building is 108 unit apartment building. It has been in continuous use
as long as the city and I can determine for the entirety of its existence. What we're talking
about today is simply this accessory parking area right here, which is actually already has
an existing curb cut, an existing gate, and is not paved but is graveled over and is used for
trash collection and access, maintenance trucking, and some tenant parking. So we did receive one
refusal. The only refusal we received is that the proposed use off -street parking is front accessed,
which is prohibited in this zoning district we agree that if this were a new newly proposed
parking lot that this uh this would be appropriate again this is a prior non -conforming use so
the refusal is correct although not necessarily applicable under the code as it's presented today
we have I did just take up this case last week so I was not a participant at the RCO meeting
I believe somebody from the RCO will be here they did present the property was presented to them
and they did oppose the the project they stated three reasons for their opposition one is that
crossing the sidewalk, the vehicles crossing the sidewalk, would create a pedestrian safety issue.
Two, that off -street parking on primary street is adverse to the district plan, hence the refusal.
And number three, that there are a lot of large apartment buildings in the neighborhood,
and none of them have surface parking, and that parking is not necessary. So I'm reading,
I'm not summarizing I'm reading verbatim from their numbers one two and three for the board's
information so again our only there's no this application does not deal with
So again, this application does not deal with the large kind of lower portion of the L here along
Spruce Street that is existing. There's no construction of any kind addition or anything
like that as part of this application. Rather, what we are seeking to do is here is 50th Street
and here is Spruce Street, and I will zoom in so you can see it. All we are seeking to do
is to legalize the existing non -conforming use, again, which only has to be done because there
are no zoning records for this property. This has been and continues to be a rear access lot.
This curb cut is existing. I'll show you a couple site photos in a minute,
and we're looking to simply create a real buffer between our property and there's a church
right here at this property where there is not one now there's just a chain link fence
and to put in actual parking spaces including an ADA parking space.
So again here's just a map as far back as you can go with our city access maps is 1942
42, showing that this was already in existence as of 1942. Here is the official city cert that you
get for this property and states that, again, for this address, 4931, no record on file,
new use registration may be required. Again, this is a prior non -conforming use that's been
in process for a long time. This is North 50th Street right here. Here's Spruce Street going up
and down. This is the building right here. It actually goes block to block. So you can see
the first portion, then it has an inset courtyard, and then the second portion of the property.
This is, there's a large park, and you can see a number of other apartment buildings
across the street. This is looking up the street. There's a large church immediately across the
street. And like I said, there's a large church that you can see in one of the later photos.
This is North 50th Street. So as we go forward, this should have been my first photo. I apologize.
This is the full frontage of the apartment building.
so then again just going up north 50th street here's the existing condition you can see it's
kind of an unsightly chain link fence there's a chain link fence and overgrowth here these bollards
have been in place forever it's an existing curb cut when I took the pictures of the site there
were maintenance trucks parked in there but it also is the commercial trash pickup rear access
to the property and all of this is existing and my client simply today is seeking to improve
this property or you know improve this existing parking lot with you know real curbs and
striped lines and everything again just another angle so you can see the trucks are already in
there bollards here um primary access right off of north 50th street and again here's a close -up
shot so um with that i will quickly go into arguments that i don't waste anyone's time
uh the the issue here is because the property is bound by three streets
here, South 50th Street, South St. Bernard, and Spruce Street. Under the code, each one of those
three streets per 14701 .1 .2 is considered, quote, a front street. However, Spruce Street would be
what's determined as the primary frontage under 14 -701 .1 .4. So we believe that even under that
code, it would be appropriate to say that South 50th Street is not the primary frontage where
even though you have three quote front streets for this large of a property, and therefore the
existing parking would be appropriate. Again, I alluded to this before.
This falls under the code section of non -conformities. That's 14 -305. And specifically
subsection 9 deals with non -conforming parking or site improvements, which is exactly what we're
trying to do. And that reads, quote, where the amount or location of off -street parking
Where the amount or location of off -street parking or amount, location, or design of site improvements, which is exactly what we're trying to do here, does not meet the requirements of this zoning code, the nonconformity may remain and be used notwithstanding these nonconformities.
or a mount location.
So again, all we're seeking to do with this application is to improve an existing prior nonconformity underneath the code.
And the only reason why we're here is because the city has no formal zoning records for this property, which has obviously been in place for an exceptionally long time.
So, with that, I will conclude and simply call Mike Galante.
I understand he's in.
Mike, if you can hear me, raise your hand, please.
Okay, Mr. Galante has been allowed to speak.
Would you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Michael Galante.
m -i -c -h -a -e -l -g -a -l -a -n -t -e. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes. Proceed. Thank you. Mr. Galante, you are the property engineer,
correct? That is correct. And you've been involved with this project from the beginning and the
proposed parking lot plan that I showed is actually yours, correct? That is correct.
okay and did you hear all of the testimony that uh was already provided in this matter
i've heard your testimony correct yeah and do you believe it to be true and correct to the
best of your knowledge and information and belief uh yes yes um the you know yeah i mean yeah that's
correct yep i'm just elaborating sorry i will i will ask you to elaborate on uh on any sections
that you believe further information
would be appropriate for the board.
So you believe what I said,
although it may need additional information
from your engineering expertise,
you believe that what I stated was true and correct
to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Thank you.
And now, would you adopt my testimony as your own?
And I will just, yeah, I just want to be clear.
Just one more question, Mike.
mike i'm teeing you up for it yep all right so mr galante is there anything with with that said
and your adoption of my testimony is there anything additional that you believe is uh
important or relevant for this board to take into consideration uh beyond what i have already
presented yeah just just to be yeah to to elaborate we do have all our i don't i might
have missed the first couple minutes of your testimony i want to be clear on that because
I was having computer issues. However, I'm well aware of the application. You and I spoke about
your testimony prior to. The project has obtained all PWD approvals, streets approvals, and we were
submitting for zoning permit, and that's why we're here today. So with that said, with the testimony
about the driveway, the existing driveway being used as already being used in place, yes, I adopt
all that testimony yes all right thank you very much uh mr chairman i have no further questions
and uh we'll ask answer any questions questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
no mr chairman question or comments from the virtual audience
i'm mr chairman we have a robin shine maddox with the hand raised i can allow them to speak
of this time, if you wish. Please. Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter,
please? Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Robin, R -O -B -I -N, Shine, S -H -I -N -E, Maddox, M -A -D -D -O -X.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Proceed. Okay. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share.
I was asked to be on this Zoom on behalf of State Senator Vincent Hughes.
We just want to acknowledge that we have been receiving a lot of concerns and complaints about this particular zoning from the residents right in that neighborhood.
So when you're talking about St. Bernard Street particularly, and then you talked about the two churches.
particularly, and then you talked about the two churches, which we are very much familiar with,
the Beulah Baptist Church and Monumental Baptist Church, and the parking that is, you know, being
planned, and already the complaints because of the limited parking for both churches, in addition
to the residents, especially on St. Bernard Street, because of the park across the street now
that has erected a new apartment building and the zoning there, you know, the parking permits.
So I just want to just go on record to say that we have been receiving a lot of calls
and concerns to our office. And again, State Senator Vincent Hughes asked me to be on this
call just to get all the information so that, you know, we can further have the right conversations
with the communities, with the neighbors that live in that community.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you, Ms. Maddox.
Thank you very much.
Other questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I have a Christopher Mejia -Smith with her hand raised.
I can allow him to speak at this time, if you wish.
Please proceed.
Yes, sir.
Hello, can you hear me?
Can you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
My name is Christopher Mejia -Smith, C -H -R -I -S -T -O -P -H -E -R -M -E -J -I -A hyphen S -M -I -T -H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
I am the democratically elected committee person for the division that encompasses this lot.
I'm very familiar with this neighborhood.
I think that, unfortunately, the argument that's being put forth by the lawyer for this case is not representing the true situation of what's going on here.
This is not the legalization of a prior nonconforming use.
The fact of the matter is this is a backyard.
This is a backyard to an 80 to 100 -year -old apartment building.
In the pictures that were portrayed to you, you saw that there was a chain link fence that's currently running along that side of the property.
The access to that rear yard is actually a double swung chain fence that is padlocked and chained together.
This is not simply a curb cut that people are driving in and out of all the time.
If you would like, I can share my screen where I have Google Street View.
Then I can show that this has been used as a grassy plain since at least 2007.
In fact, the bollards that were claimed to be there forever have not been have not existed.
And since it's they've only been there since about 2020.
And I can, again, prove that to you with Google Street View photos.
So the fact of the matter is, is what this property owner is trying to do is create a new parking lot where one did not previously exist.
Now, the question is, is this something that is needed?
And the answer is resoundingly no.
We do not need to remove our green space for when there is plentiful parking in the neighborhood.
In addition, removing this padlocked gate and replacing it with an open curb cut means that cars can flow in and out at reckless speeds.
This neighborhood, unfortunately, had to deal with the death of a child in 2019 who just across the street at the intersection of 50th Street and Irving was hit by a car that was speeding down 50th Street and turned rapidly onto Irving.
I do not want to see that happen because we have a curb cut here behind this building.
I have a four -year -old daughter, and I take her to her daycare on the 42 and the 21 buses, and that means I walk along this block.
and this having a new parking lot here is going to severely reduce my ability to trust that this
block is safe so at this time I highly strenuously stress that you reject these variants this
variance thank you thank you for your call is there anyone else in the virtual audience
has a comment um yes sir Mr. Robert Jackal was their hand raised I can allow him to speak at
this time. Okay. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Mr. Jackal?
Hello, are you there?
Hello, can you hear me? Yes, could you state your name?
Name and spell for the court reporter.
Yes, Robert Jackal, last name J -A -C -K -E -L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
So I am the other democratically elected committee person in this division.
I live on the 4900 block of Locust, and my backyard doesn't quite about this property, but it's very close.
doesn't quite about this property but it's very close um i had a couple things i wanted to add
I had a couple things I wanted to...
but first as as chris pointed out this was not a parking lot this was a grassy lot until about
two years ago they're claiming it's a prior uh non -conforming use but frankly they've just been
building their lot without permit um there are some other things though so i'm also on the zoning
committee for the walnut hill community association that overlaps this property but
was not the RCO that this was brought to.
I did attend the meeting before the Garden Court Community Association, though,
and one thing that we stress in Walnut Hill is that when apartment buildings,
when neighbors have parking concerns, we urge them to look into permit parking as a first option.
This property, Terrace Apartments, is the main property owner along the 4900 block of Spruce Street
and could get permit parking on the block if they so choose.
At that meeting, they had expressed some openness to this and to some other issues that we had brought up, but ultimately ignored us and didn't respond.
So there are some good faith issues here that are of concern.
And I understand that Mr. Whelan, as he said, only recently entered onto this case, so we may not be aware of that.
But this is not, in fact, the long -standing use of this property.
Honestly, that was it.
I just wanted to reiterate that this curb cut is an issue for the same reasons that person.
All right.
Thank you for calling in.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Mr. Chairman, this is Tanya.
Would it be okay to acknowledge Mr. Andrew Goodman from the council person's office?
Could you put him first, Jason?
Thank you kindly, sir.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Goodman.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Andrew Goodman, G -O -O -D -M -A -N, here representing the Office of Third District Councilmember
Jamie Gaudier, Room 586, City Hall.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
I won't duplicate testimony that's already been given.
Our office would just like to be on the record as opposing the variance presented here today
as well.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair and Ms. Tanya Pendleton with her hand raised, I will allow her to speak at this time, sir.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
My name is Tanya Pendleton, T -O -N -Y -A. Pendleton, P as in Paul, E -N -D as in David, L -E -T -O -N.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Proceed.
There are also, my other neighbors are also waiting in line to speak as well, if they can be acknowledged.
I am a resident of the 200 block of South St. Bernard Street.
Mr. Whalen showed you pictures of this backyard area, but did not acknowledge the 10 or 11, I believe, houses and a new multi -unit that was recently built that are on this side of South St. Bernard Street in the 200 block.
This project would be extremely deleterious to the homeowners and renters on this block. That particular parking lot was never used or particular backyard grassy area is used primarily as a maintenance area for cars and vehicles to come in to do maintenance work on the building.
It has never, and I have been a resident here for 12 plus years, ever been used as a tenant parking lot.
There are issues that we discussed in the last meeting with trash access, with parking lot access, that curb cut is one way.
and as Mr. Mejia Smith said, those parking yellow barriers were put in recently. They have not
existed the entire time. This building has had a history of violations with trash and other things.
We don't necessarily believe, in fact, we are absolutely sure that it would be deleterious
for the multiple reasons that Mr. Mejia Smith suggested, including the traffic patterns on
that block. I was actually here the day that the child was killed in a hit and run, which is why
that block was turned from a east -west block, I believe it was, to a, they changed the one -way
pattern on that block of Irving Street. It should also be acknowledged that Philadelphia Water
Department has been on Irving Street at least 10 times in the last 12 years for potential
in the last 12 years for potential infrastructure issues on that block, which is directly adjacent
infrastructure issues on.
to this proposed parking lot. For what reason, I don't know if they've done any ground or water
studies. I think grounds water was an issue that was raised in the meeting where they were denied
or this variance was discussed because there are some issues with parking lots apparently
and flooding if they're not done right that would directly affect the homeowners that are on the
South St. Bernard Street side. We have not had a voice in terms of the impact that this would have
on us as residents of this community. It seems as though everyone is being considered except for
those of us that would be the most directly impacted, not to mention that would be the fifth
construction project within the confines of just these two blocks from the apartment building up
the street to the two multi -units constructed on the block at St. Bernard and Locust and a
construction project that is going on right now on South St. Bernard Street. So I don't believe
that this is a project that will enhance the neighborhood. I believe that it is part of
some attempt to gain some additional revenue from the building when they have not figured out
simple things that need to be figured out, like access, the sustainability survey,
the impact on the residents of the block, and how they are going to figure out trash disposal,
security, lighting, and so forth. There is also a loading zone that if you can, if Mr. Whalen has
those pictures that leads into our driveway that the building right now doesn't even have a great
plan for because their tenants constantly are blocking and using that as a loading zone.
So it's keeping us from even being able to go in and out. With the addition of a parking lot,
I'm not sure that people won't confuse if they're not going to do anything about how people are
entering or exiting, how people are going to potentially confuse this as another entrance
for that parking lot. So, sorry if that sounded a little jumbled up.
No, thank you for calling in. We appreciate your concerns.
Anyone else in the virtual audience who has something different than what's already been said?
you have three two hands still up chair okay mr jonas macku
mackunas with his hand raised i can allow him to speak this time sir sure
could you say could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
Sure thing.
Jonas, J -O -N -A -S,
M is Michael, A -C -I -U,
N is Nancy, A -S.
Do you swear or affirm,
wait a minute, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you possibly try to
concentrate on a testimony that's not been heard?
Absolutely.
Just for reference,
I live in Forty -Eath and Larchwood
and chair the zoning committee for the Garden Court Community Association.
that's the coordinating rco um uh i first want to say that i don't believe that the applicant has
in any way uh made a hardship case for uh for for for the property uh we often hear uh cases
like this and are you know frequently you know support projects uh and their variances that are
either uh consistent with vision for the neighborhood or um uh uh or or demonstrating
on hardship uh specifically there are three issues that we found um in addition to the unanimous you
know community opinion that we heard in our meeting uh as to why a hardship uh shouldn't be granted
here one uh is a public safety concern about uh crossing the street i'm not sure um where uh the
applicant's attorney has has has found a sort of secondary definition of what makes this not a
principal street but the streets department right now defines it as principal street and that makes
it explicitly prohibited to have a parking lot on it.
The district plan was published in 2013
and the zoning code, the zoning update was made in 2019
to reflect that plan.
And this was on RM1 in the process.
So granting of a variance in this case
would adversely affect the implementation of the plan.
And finally, with regard to the central character
of the neighborhood, this property itself
didn't include the parcel in question
up until at least 1967.
when it was bought from the church on the corner.
So this grassy lot used as a parking lot supposedly wasn't even originally built as part of the building.
So this grassy lot used as a parking lot, supposedly.
But more importantly, within our boundaries of RCO, there isn't a single apartment building that has a parking lot use attached to it.
So we think it's fair to say that granting a variance would certainly negatively alter the essential character of Garden Court.
And we ask that you refuse a variance.
Thank you very much for calling in.
Thanks.
We have one more.
Miss Erin Hanson or Mr. Hanson.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Good morning.
My name is Erin, A -R -I -N, Hanson, H -A -N -S -O -N.
I am also a resident of the 200 South of St. Bernard Block.
Wait, wait, one minute.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do, yes.
Could you concentrate your testimony on what's something that's not been heard before?
Yes, I would like to just raise the issue of water runoff from parking lots.
We know that parking lots drastically impact the ability of the ground to absorb rainwater.
My house in particular is the lowest house on the South St. Bernard block,
and I get all of the water that is already collecting from the joint alleyway and this
this parking lot would significantly impact the the flooding that we're already seeing in my
garage and other impacts on my property um so I just wanted to share that thank you so much
thank you for no thank you for calling in thank you um you can move on chair so Mr. Whalen do you
want to take a minute to respond? I don't want to let you sit there. I certainly understand the
overwhelming nature of the opposition here, Chairman. I would, instead of asking each
individual questions, I would just like to point out the parking lot use and essentially what we've
heard to this point is all about the use of that area as a parking lot. That's actually permitted
by right. That's not the subject of today's hearing. It's not the subject of the application
or the refusal. It's only the access to that parking that is in question. Now, you know,
there's testimony, and I certainly find it credible, as I'm sure you do, as to when the
bollards went in, but that curb cut significantly predates any of the bollards or the 2020s.
There is some portion of that back area that is grassed.
I'm sure that at various points in time in history that has been used as a backyard for either the church when they owned it, you know, through the 50s or this property when they owned it from the 60s going forward.
however we still believe that the curb cut and the access to this rear area is a prior
non -conforming use and is worthy of actually in and of that in and of itself substantiates
the granting of the variance thank you thank you mr whalen excuse me mr chairman i have a quick
question yes the council do you have a site plan a proposed site plan uh mr holliman i showed and
i can pull it back up give me two seconds um hopefully you're seeing right now i have zoomed
in on the relevant portion but this is the site plan uh showing this is 50th street and this is
showing the rear portion of the property that we're talking about. Okay. Is that a rear yard
or inner court? It is not an inner court. Is it a rear yard? It is not, according to my client,
a rear yard, nor is it advertised or allowed to the residents as a rear yard. I can't say that
you know certain residents from the neighborhood don't go back there and throw a football around
or do whatever they might do um but it is not intended as a a rear yard nor provided as one
thank you planning commission thank you chair bergman ian hegarty for the philadelphia city
planning commission comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential multi -family
zoning at this location. As we've established, this refusal is for parking lot access since it's
from a street that is not classified as a rear street in the zoning code technical definition.
The intent of this provision of the zoning code is to limit conflict between pedestrians and
vehicles. We believe the applicant has not demonstrated a hardship. Accessory parking is
we believe the applicant has not demonstrated a hardship accessory parking is permitted but not
It's permitted.
required for the existing use and the uh existing building has been here for roughly a century
without accessory parking city planning commission recommends that the board deny the variance
Thank you. MI 2021 -00 -2203 -4931 -59 Spruce Street, I vote no.
Harold Tenneri, my vote is no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no.
Thank you, counsel.
All right, thank you very much.
All right, sure.
Chair Berkman, this is Tanya.
would it be allowable to go back to number seven most certainly um i reached out to mr
movahill and the case was already voted so it was listed in error so the case
does not need to be considered it was voted already oh that's very good thank you thank you
Let's see here
MI 2021
002288
6226 Calahill Street
No RCO letter
in our files yet
Derek Jackson Pro Se
Can I promote
Jackson?
Please
Yes, please.
At once.
You'll be coming back in as a panelist soon.
Mr. Jackson, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Please unmute.
uh good afternoon can you hear me yes could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
uh certainly my name is derek jackson that's d -e -r -r -i -c -k uh jackson j -a -c -k -s -o -n
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i certainly do yes okay so uh could you answer a few questions for a vice chair before we start
I'll be more than happy to.
Hi, I'm assuming you've sent in the required documents.
All the documents have been provided, yes.
Okay, you may proceed.
Again, my name is Derek Jackson.
Thank you for having me here.
I purchased this property about a year ago,
and I was under the impression that it was a triplex
because it had three gas meters and three electric meters as well.
um mr jackson mr jackson could you share your screen with us you have your documents on the
screen um i i do have my documents uh can i have uh patrick jones can i bring him on because he
i don't know how to share on the youth on the zoom i have no experience with that part but my
uh the gentleman that have been advising me um can i bring him on so he can bring up the document
He can bring up the documents, but he can't testify.
No problem.
It's Patrick Jones.
He should be on this platform as well.
Yes, Mr. Jones has been promoted to panelists as well.
He'll be coming back in soon.
Thank you.
Derek, can you see the screen?
I certainly can.
Why don't you start?
Well, this is the exhibit packet, what has been provided.
We have shown the blueprints.
We had to get a lot of drawings completed.
I would like to say that we also have had full, the community has been very supportive
as well regarding the work and the renovations that we were doing with the project.
Thank you.
so my purpose was just
Go back to the picture, Mr. Jackson, go ahead and start explaining.
My purpose is just to legalize the building once again as a three unit property.
Is that the entrance on the side there?
Could you explain how do you get in and out of the building?
Certainly, right there at the corner, that's the entrance to one unit.
unit. If you look in the middle of the picture, you see a door. Once you enter that door and
go to the right, that's another unit, and upstairs is one unit as well.
I would say this is an older picture we've had to include multiple windows to make it
COD compliant. When did you purchase the building? This was purchased last year around this time.
Okay, questions from the board? Yes, Mr. Chairman. Sir, do you have pictures of the electric meters?
uh we certainly i certainly yes
i mean i i don't they're not included in this package that has been provided but
i i can certainly provide pictures of the electric meter and a gas meter that was there
how many electric meters do you have we have three electric meters currently and three gas meters
currently. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chair. Questions from the virtual audience?
I see an affording answer, Mr. Chair. Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty
for the philadelphia city planning commission uh members of the board the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the existing single family zoning at this location according to
records the property has a has a prior legal use and a physical configuration consistent with one
dwelling unit and one commercial unit for two units total given this prior existing condition
city planning commission recommends that the board grant the variance with the proviso
that no more than two dwelling units
be permitted in this structure.
MI 2021
002288
Callahill Street.
I vote yes with proviso
only two units.
Harold Tineri, my vote is yes
with proviso.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes
with the proviso.
Ismail Shahid, my vote is yes
with the proviso.
Thank you, Mr. Jackson.
Tanya, how do we make out with that case we had a hard time getting him on?
Chair, if we could promote him to be heard and see if that works.
If that does not work, because our IT professional research, the error is something on his device in.
If it doesn't work, we will have to continue the case.
i'm fine let's let's let's bring them on
ali you can raise your hand and jason can promote
which case is this case uh number 11
4500 d street thank you thank you i'm sorry mr sunken and mr chair but i'm still getting that um
error code. So am I Jason. We're going to have to continue this case Ali. That's fine. Okay we'll
just let well I guess we'll have to call him or talk on that we just have to figure this out for
the future. Yeah if I if I could ask Mr. Ali to reach out to our office via email and we will try
to schedule sooner than later because of the technical error. That's right. You might want to
be prepared with a different device, because that's the problem. Thank you, Chair.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been heard or still waiting for a case?
I see no hands, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, everyone. See you two o 'clock.
Sure, same.
Thank you, Ian. Thank you, Chair Wright.
Thank you, Ian.
Thank you, Chair Ray.
Anya, we ready? People in? Yes, they're already here. Okay, good. Good afternoon. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing the ZBA hearings this afternoon. With me is Carol Tenere, our vice chair.
Present.
Ishmael Shaheed, our board secretary.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also, here is our executive director, Tanya Sunkit, and our attorney, Sherman Thomas.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Before we start, here's our virtual format.
Be advised, these proceedings are being recorded. By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
A video will be available by contacting our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett, at phila .gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And lastly, the question and answer box on your screen is not for comments or testimony.
Any comments, you should contact our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett.
Now let's look at continuances.
For the afternoon session, I have one continuance listed.
Number four, MI 2021 -005 -024 -1776, Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Is there anyone who has a comment or statement relative to that?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. I have two hands raised. The first one is Rachel Pritzker.
Right, okay. Yeah, well, permission I can allow her to speak at this time.
Ms. Pritzker. Good afternoon, Chairman Members of the Board.
Sure. State your name and spell for the court reporter.
Sure. Rachel R -A -C -H -A -E -L Pritzker, P -R -I -T -Z -K -E -R, 1521 Locust Street, Suite 605, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.
You swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
thank you chairman i just wanted to make note i represent the applicant and owner of the property
pearl properties and we wanted to request the continuance as attorney moving party
very good thank you thank you
any other requests for continuances
Mr. Chair, I have Mr. Alan Ockamson with his hand raised, so I will allow him to speak at this time.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Alan Ockamson of Ockamson, D .C., 123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA, 19109.
You know, spell your name for the court reporter, please.
Allen, A -L -A -N, last name Nockamson, N -O -C -H -U -M -S -O -N.
Do you swear to affirm the tell -the -truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
What case do you want to talk about?
First one is 5018 North 12th Street.
Yes, we have it.
We would ask for a continuance for that case.
Anything else?
Yes. 2035 -51 South 60th Street.
Excuse me. 2031 -35 South 60th.
2031 -35 South 60th.
Is that, what number is that, Tonya, do you see it?
What number is that, Tondi? Do you see it?
Oh, I see it. Okay, number seven.
Number seven.
You want to continue that, sir?
Yes, please.
Okay, thank you.
I'm going to have a case of the add -ons for you, so stand by.
Thank you.
Anyone else would continue with this?
i see no further hands mr chair anyone with a withdrawal
again no hands mr chair thank you i want to go to the add -on list
mi 2021 004832 31 35 to 49 west montgomery yes with provisors number one
no roof deck number two no railings number three roof access with piled house
is permitted but as you shall be limited to maintain and service mechanical
equipment and solar panels existing on the roof number four no other
accessory structure shall be permitted on the roof I vote yes
Is that for all of us, Mr. Chair?
Yes, yes, yes.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes.
With provisos.
With provisos, sorry.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with provisos.
James Snell, my vote is yes, with provisos.
Ismail Shaheed, my vote is yes, with provisos.
The next case will entail a vote,
but Thomas Holloman and Ismail were the only ones voting.
and myself. MI 2021 -004 -993 -8410 Prospect Avenue. My vote is no. Thomas Holloman. My vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed. My vote is no.
Thank you. And the next case to be called MI 2021 -003 -594 -222 -Hermitage.
Alan Nockamson, RCO letter of support.
Mr. Nockamson has been promoted to panelist, sir.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the Board.
Alan Nockmson of Nockmson, E .C., Alan, A -L -A -N, last name Nockmson, N -O -C -H -U -M -S -O -N,
1 -2 -3, South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia, PA, 19109.
Nockmson, you've already been sworn.
Could you identify your client and the relationship he has with the property?
or he or she has with the property?
Yes, my client, hold on a second.
Let me just pull up the deed for a second.
I have the owner's representative, James Wade,
and the owner is 222 Hermitage ST LLC.
Thank you.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Nockmson.
Do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy?
Do you? I assume you've submitted the required documents. I have that indicated in my notes that you have.
I have. Thank you. You may proceed. And yes, you may share your screen. Thank you. Sure.
All right. So I'm here to present 222 Hermitage Street.
oh there we go sorry about that 222 harmonized screen let me just do this full screen mode
all right so this is in the manion section of philadelphia as indicated previously we have a
letter of support from the coordinating rco during our presentation materials we'll be presenting the
notice of repeasal, as well as the revised proviso form, which we previously gave to
the ZVA Council, a letter of support from Manion neighborhood council, a map of the
area, photographs of the property that surround the area, our plans and drawings, the RCO
notice that we mailed along with the corresponding proof of mailing, our deed to the property,
our application for appeal, and our certificate of tax clearance. With me is James Wade, the
With me is James Wade, the owner's representative from the Corporate Limited Liability Company that owns the property, which was previously referenced, as well as Matthew Master Pasqua, who's the architect to this property with regards to this project.
the ownership representative from the corporate community life.
This is an RSA by property.
All we're looking to do is to put a single -family home.
So fortunately, we're in Maniang, where there's an issue with steep slopes, and we run about to that requirement under the code, whereas a portion a lot, the steep slope is more than 25%, and only a portion a lot, and Mr. Master Passport could speak to that if the board is so inclined.
uh here's our revised proviso plan form along with the revised plans again the only thing we
changed about the site plan we put the correct alley dimension at 222 224 hermitage street
and this board is so inclined to grant the variance we ask that the board granted with the proviso
with the revised plans. Here's our letter of support from the Manionk Neighborhood Council.
As you can see, there was overwhelming support. The only discussion point was about aesthetics,
which is a non -zonly related issue, but we did agree to certain colors for our facades,
which is reflected in our rendering. Maps of the area, again, we're on Hermitage Street.
is currently a vacant lot, as you'll see. From here, we're between two single -family structures.
Here's Hermitage to the right of the property, Hermitage to the left of the property,
proof of appearing of our notice poster plans. Again, all we're trying to do is a three -story
structure. There are no dimensional variances. We actually have a side yard with regards to
June 2, or Hermitage Street.
And here's our plans and drawings.
Here's our site plan, elevations, another set of elevations.
And again, just single -family use.
You walk in, open floor plan, living room, dining room, kitchen.
Lower level is an open space that can be for any purposes, whether it's an office or just living, like a living room.
You go up a flight of steps, there's bedrooms, two bedrooms, and a den, and then you go up another flight of steps to the third floor, and there's a master suite.
The survey, which also includes information about this deep slope, and then our proof of mailing.
We met with the community on October 6th of 2021 at 7 p .m.
There are 158 addresses that were notified about this community meeting.
Here are the addresses.
Here's proof of mailing for that notice.
Here's our deed to the property, showing that the Hermitage corporate entity owns it.
Here's our application for appeal that we filed for 222 Hermitage Street, STLLC,
along with the notice of refusal as well as project information form and here's our certificate
of tax plan showing that we're in good standing with the city with that being said i'm going to
share my screen i'm going to ask mr wade virtually raise his hand so he can adopt my testimony and
then we can take any questions from the board
so wait if you're in the audience please raise your virtual hand
the way that's been allowed to speak hi mr wade state your name is spelled for the court reporter
please? Mr. Wade? Mr. Wade, state your name and spell for the court reporter.
Mr. Chair, I would ask that, given that he's having some difficulties as an officer of the
court. Absolutely. Yes. Questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair? Okay, yes, Mr. Chair, I have a Mr. Jeremy Inman with his hand raised. I will
speak at the top. Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
yes sir it's jeremy inman j -e -r -e -m -y last name i -n -m -a -n you swear or affirm to tell the
last name i n m a n you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth yes proceed yes the only thing i just wanted to mention was um uh that i first originally had
a concern with the with the border the the property border but it appears that that has been corrected
so i just wanted to go on record for that because i did send a letter i'm not sure if that had been
received or not i never got a notice back so i just wanted that to be clarified thank you
very much sir thanks for calling in anyone else i see no hands mr chair planning commission
unmute please unmute sorry good afternoon good afternoon chairman members of the board
i need to be sworn in you state your name and spell it please uh my name is ian i -a -n litwin
L -I -T -W -I -N
Planning Commission staff
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
So the comprehensive plan recommends
no change to the existing RSA 5
single family zoning at this location.
There is evidence that this site was developed
previously from historic maps
and there is no way to develop the site without
encroaching on the greater than 25 %
steep slope area. Therefore, the
planning commission recommends the board approve the variance for sleep steep slope disturbance
thank you very much mi 2021 -00 -3594 -222 hermitage i vote yes with revised plans one page
carl tenary my vote is yes with proviso thomas halliman my vote is yes with proviso
So, James Snell, yes, we'll provide those.
Ishmael Shahi, yes, we'll provide those.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
MI 2021 -005240 -1302 -12 West Cumberland Street.
RCO, letter of support, 37th Ward.
Daniel Roisman is the attorney.
Mr. Reisman has been promoted to panelist.
Mr. Reisman, state your name and spell for the court reporter, please.
You need to unmute, sir.
hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter yes good afternoon mr chairman
and members of the board daniel n reisman r -e -i -s -m -a -n from edgert siemens my address
is to liberty place philadelphia pa 22nd floor you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole
truth is nothing but the truth i do could you state who your client is and their relationship
it to the property yes my client is cumberland equities holding llc it's the owner for the
property uh here with me today is uh brian lubliner who is a principal of the owner
along with uh jackson duncan who is the project manager thank you our vice chair has a few
questions okay hi mr reissman do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate
to its accuracy? Yes, I do. Based on my notes, you have submitted all of the required documents.
Is that correct? That's correct. You may proceed and please share your screen.
can you see my screen
oh we see your screen that you don't have to it's up now
could you make it a little bit bigger
yes can you see the exhibits with the um on the face of the screen yeah we're seeing it now okay
but the chair would like it a little bit larger
so again i want to make sure you can see the exhibits because i have it as large as i can
okay can you see my cursor right now we can we're fine go ahead okay so um thank you mr chairman
of members. As you mentioned, as I mentioned, I represent the applicant. I've submitted
exhibits A1 through A10, and I'm not going to walk through each one, but as Ms. Tenere
mentioned, it has all required exhibits. Those include the application. It includes an exhibit
Those include the application. It includes an Exhibit 2, a letter of support from the RCO,
and the vote for that was 14 in favor and 0 opposed for the application.
I have photos and zoning maps and zoning plans as well.
I'm going to go to the maps first so that you can see the project.
okay and can you see this photo yes okay so the project is right here the property 1302
west cumberland it's at the corner of west cumberland street and 13th street
and here's another map showing the property again
and i'm now showing you a zoning map and again here is the property
corner of West Cumberland and North 13th Street, and it shows that the property is located in CMX
2. The history of the property is that in 2010, a prior owner of the property
obtained a ZBA approval for the use as 17 units. I'm going to show you some photos of the property
right now. This is the building. These are the 17 units. Here's another photo showing
from this. There are the units on this side of the street. The application solely relates
to adding an 18th unit at the corner, which is an existing structure. Right now, it's
vacant and it was not approved it wasn't as from what i can see it just was not submitted
in 2010 it was a prior owner i'm assuming they only submitted for the 17 units because that's
what they wanted to uh rehab at the time and renovate um the 18th unit is unused and that's
all we're talking about here today so here is the 18th unit i'll show you a few more photos
This is a good view. 18th unit, there are the 17 that have been already approved.
When we met with the community, they were very happy about this because, you know, right now this unit is, it's important, this 18th unit, because it's a corner property.
So, what you have right now is something of a dead zone at this corner, and we think this is very important because it will fill this vacant structure with occupants, and it will activate that street corner with eyes on the street.
The unit itself is actually will be the largest in the building. The unit will be 2 ,200 square feet, so it'll be the second and the third floors.
The other units in the building are one bedroom units, so this will actually be the largest unit in the building.
now i we have some photos of the interior so here are the finished units for the 17 you'll
see they're very nice they have loft space which adds square footage to each unit
here's a view of the hallway and my clients expended a substantial amount of money
on the existing building to renovate them and here is the 18th unit this is the door that
connects it from the hallway of the 17 and you'll see from these photos right now that it's unfinished
And my client would like to finish this unit to renovate it. And as I said, activate this part of the building, both in terms of externally for the street corner, as well as internally. So there's not effectively this large vacant unit that's attached to what is almost a fully occupied building. I believe 16 of the 17 units are occupied right now.
Lastly, you can see that historically, this property clearly had some use for residential.
So it's really, to me, a classic hardship.
There's no other feasible use for this 18th unit.
It has a historical use for residential, and that's what it would be used for here.
And that's it.
really, you know, we think it's a good, in terms of the test under the zoning code, we think it
We think it has positive impacts on the public welfare for the reasons I mentioned and that the community mentioned at the meeting.
has positive impacts on the public welfare for the reasons I'm
And we also think it satisfies the legal hardship standards.
Would you want to have your client adopt your testimony for us?
Yes, I would. Thank you.
Mr. Lubliner?
Raise your hand, please.
I'm about to speak, sir.
Can you hear me?
Yes. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Yes. My name is Brian, B -R -I -A -N, Lubliner, L -U -B -L -I -N -E -R.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
Mr. Lubliner, good afternoon. You are a principal of the owner, is that correct?
Yes, I am.
And did you hear my statements today?
Yes, I did.
and were they true and accurate to the best of your knowledge information and belief
yes they are and do you adopt them as you're on yes i do thank you questions from the board
no mr chairman no no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
do you know all that has mr chair planning commission
good afternoon chairman members of the board ian litwin planning commission staff
this is an existing apartment building with 17 units the proposed 18th unit exists and is in
disrepair there is no other viable use for this building therefore the city planning commission
recommends that the board grant the use variance thank you mi 2021 -005 -240 -1302 -12
12 west cumberland street i vote yes carol tenary my vote is yes thomas halliman my vote is yes
james snell my vote is yes ishmael shaheed my vote is yes thank you counselor thank you very
Thank you very much, Board Members.
good afternoon good afternoon could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
stephanie magagna m -a -g -a -g -n -a do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do could you tell us who your client is and what the relationship
is to the property sure so my client is compass real estate um legal entity in pennsylvania is
Compass, Pennsylvania, LLC, and they are the tenant of the building, specifically the third
floor and a portion of the second floor at 1431 on Street. Thank you. Our vice chair has a few
questions. Hi, do you agree to leave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do. It appears that you've submitted all of the required documents. Is that correct?
Correct. You may proceed and please share your screen. Thank you. Thank you. As mentioned,
This application is about 1430 Walnut Street. It's an existing building located at the corner of Walnut Street and 15th Street.
The existing building is a multi -tenant building with multiple entrances on the different street frontages that are there.
We have Verizon on the ground floor, Cheesecake Factory on the second floor with its main entrance on the first floor along Walnut Street,
and a multi -tenant entrance along the 15th Street frontage that's shared by multiple
tenants in the building. Compass Real Estate is looking to relocate their Philadelphia regional
office to this building. They are taking over what was formerly the WeWork space at the building
and are looking to erect a one -wall sign at the third floor of the building to replace the
previously approved WeWork sign that's there. The unique layout and physical conditions of this
building have required that tenants deviate from the strict compliance with the zoning code
in order to be able to provide signage identifying their tenant spaces within the building.
There isn't a lobby or a doorman, so visitors and employees of the space rely on the signage to
direct them to these tenant spaces. Compass in particular will have over 200 agents who work out
of this office as their Philadelphia hub, as well as serve as an office location for
buyers and sellers who are coming in for in -person closings, which is still required in Philadelphia.
which is still required in Philadelphia. So Compass is seeking to replace the previously
So Compass is seeking to replace.
approved WeWork sign at this location in order to be able to identify their tenant space within the
building. As I said, this sign will function as a change of copy. The Zoning Board approved a
WeWork sign here, which I think was in a previous picture. Back in 2017, you can see it in this
picture. And this sign will function as a change of copy. We are seeking variance relief to allow
a sign at above, at the third floor, above the second floor windowsill of the building. But
otherwise, the sign is dimensionally compliant with the requirements of the CMX5 zoning district
in which it's located. And as I mentioned, we do have a letter of non -opposition from the Center
City Residents Association, as well as the approval letter from the Art Commission that's in our
packet. The overall intention of this sign is to be in keeping with the aesthetic of the neighborhood
generally, but also more importantly with the signage design that's at this building to replace
the sign that was previously approved and also will be consistent with the Cheesecake Factory
sign that's located at the second floor and the other signage that's previously been approved
at this building. So we don't anticipate any change to the overall character of the building
or the neighborhood or any other detrimental impacts in connection with the sign.
With that, I will ask, I do have Rocco Gaskins from Abco Signs available here today,
as well as Amy Bang from Compass.
I'll ask Rocco to raise his hand and adopt my testimony,
and he can also answer any questions anybody has.
Thank you.
Mr. Gaskins has been allowed to speak.
Is Mr. Gaskins from the sign group?
Yes, he's from Abco Signs.
How about your rep for the building?
is he there yes amy bang from compass is here as well why don't you put your rep from the
building on sure amy would you mind raising your hand and identifying yourself
hi this is amy bang all right could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
yes amy bang a -m -y b -a -n -g you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth yes i do thank you thank you amy have you heard my testimony this afternoon
yes you believe this to be true and correct based on your knowledge and understanding
yes do you adopt it as your own yes thank you questions from the board no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
mr chair with your comments from the virtual audience
um yes you wish to hear from mr gaskins rocco gaskins sir
Yes, can you hear me?
Is that the sign person?
Yes, Rocco is here on behalf of Rocco.
Rocco, we're fine.
Rocco, we're okay, Rocco.
Thank you.
Any other comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Mr. David, Mr. Bayesdow with his hand raised.
Is that going to allow him to speak at this time, sir?
Mr. Bayesdow
Mr. Bayesdow could you state your name
and spell it for the court reporter
can you hear me
could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter
yes David Basedow
B -A -S -E -D -O -W
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do thank you
thank you Mr. Chairman
Yes, it's a little bit confusing in the zoning meeting notice that we got from Stephanie Boggs -Magnana Esquire about the nature of this and the size of this sign.
I don't understand what back illuminated means. I don't know why something that's twice the height of what is approved by allowed by the zoning code should be allowed.
a 60 foot back illuminated sign should be approved in the neighbourhood. I think it would
be totally out of keeping with the nature of the street. I think the illumination is a form
of light pollution. We're already in our building disturbed by the banks of lights
that are above the pizza place, ampersand. We have to close our blinds at night to watch TV
because the light is so bright.
And I think if there are not going to be any rules about maximum heights,
I don't know why 60 feet, which is twice what is usually allowed,
should be considered appropriate.
I don't think we live in Las Vegas.
I don't think we live in Las Vegas. I don't think we live in Times Square, and I don't think any of us want to live in those areas.
I don't think we live in Times Square.
And I don't think any...
This is an elegant neighborhood, and I don't think its purpose is appropriate for the nature of our neighborhood at all.
And I think it will spoil the characteristics of our elegant building.
Thank you for your comments, and I will try to have them answered. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
counselor you want to just sure so i just want to clarify what the nature of this application
is for you david um if it was confusing in my letter i do apologize um but as presented to
the center city residents association are at our meeting on january 25th we are seeking relief to
be able to replace what was a we work sign when they were the tenant of the building at the third
floor and now put in a compass sign the dimensions of the sign are slightly different which is why
we are here, we are still compliant as a sign area, which is the only difference we have
between our sign and the WeWork sign with the CMX5 zoning. We are simply asking for relief to be
able to put the sign on the third floor of the building. The sign will be placed at the same
exact location as the WeWork sign that was approved for this tenant space at this location by the
zoning board in 2017. It's also asking for the same relief that was given to the Cheesecake
factory sign, which is located at the second floor of this building, to identify their tenant space
within the building. While the signage requirements and the height limitations of the sign are
appropriate generally in the neighborhood, we are asking for variance specifically for this property
because of its unique design and layout and the history of signage here. As I said, it's a
multi -tenant, multi -floor building with signage that's provided to be able to identify the tenant
spaces to visitors and to employees within the building and to encourage wayfinding we are simply
seeking to be able to replace what was previously approved to now identify the current tenant of
the building thank you is there anyone else in the virtual audience has a comment
no other hands mr chair planning commission
good afternoon chairman members of the board ian litwin planning commission staff
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX 5 zoning for this parcel.
The proposed sign is located above the ground floor, but is too low to be considered a building identification sign as allowed in CMX 5.
The proposed sign is in keeping with the design of the building as a replacement for an existing sign for a previous tenant.
Being located on Walnut Street, this property is subject to ARC Commission approval for all signage.
The ARC Commission approved the proposed sign on September 1, 2021.
Therefore, the Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
MI 2021 -005 -026 -1430 Walnut Street, I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Amy Snail, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. MI 2021, 005234, 1636 North 26th Street, Brewery Town, Shardswood Community Civic Association, Letter of Support. Alan Nockamson.
uh good afternoon again alan knockamson a -l -a -n last name knockamson n -o -c -h -u -m -s -o -n
one two three south broad street suite 1600 philadelphia pa 1910
knockamson you you've already been sworn in could you identify who your client is in the
relationship to the property? Yes, Mr. Chair. I have the corporate representative, Jock Singer,
of Cilantro DG LLC, which is the owner of the property. Thank you very much. Our Vice Chair has
a few questions. Hi, Mr. Nachamson. Do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate
to its accuracy? I do. It appears that you have submitted all the required documents. Is that
correct? That's correct, including a letter of support from the coordinating RCO. Okay,
you may proceed and share your screen. Thank you very much.
All right, so I'm here to present 1636 North 26th Street. It's in the Burry Town section
of Philadelphia. We'll go through the documents we typically do for a project at this time.
we'll have a note we'll go through the noise refusal the letter of support from the brewery
town charge with community civic association nearby rsa multifamily variances recently granted
Nearby RSA multifamily variances recently granted. I was in front of the board for many of these, including one that was granted by the board a few months ago.
um i was
Maps of the area, photographs of the properties around the area, our plans and drawing, our RCO meeting notice, along with proof of mailing of that notice, our deed to the property showing that cilantro, DG LLC is the owner of the property.
our application for appeal to the zba which also includes our notice of refusal as well as project
information form and our certificate of tax claim at the conclusion of my presentation i will ask
that mr singer virtually raise his hand so to adopt my testimony and afterwards we'll be more
than happy to take any questions from the board so first things first is our refusal this is an
RSA -5 property, but you'll see through our next set of exhibits, it's non -common for a property
of this sort to be multifamily. This is a heavily multifamily section of Philadelphia.
Our only refusal is the use of the property. We're not asking for any dimensional variances
of particular importance for trash, storage, or removal. Every resident has access to the rear
of the properties and we will remove trash accordingly from from rear to front of the
property. Additionally, my client would agree to a proviso and they mentioned that in the RCO
to the RCO, but it's not referenced in a letter, but we would like a proviso commercial pickup
once a week. Letter of support from the Brewery Town Charlotte community organization. As you can
see there was a this is a very well attended meeting uh and there was overwhelming support
including by the zoning committee which had unanimous support of this project
and then recently granted variances again as you can see uh there's more than a dozen
instances where this board has granted uh multi -family use under similar circumstances
the latest of which is 1612 North 26th Street, which is actually Virgo Long on this block.
Maps of the area, again, while this is an RSA by property, as you saw from the
recently granted variances, it's not uncommon to allow for such multi -family use.
And then again, from a Google map perspective as well, where we are in the neighborhood.
Photographs of the property where we're vacant lots, you know, here's north 26th to the right of the property, north 26th to the left of the property, and then in addition to the one, there are variances recently granted, there are other instances on this block and nearby where there's multifamily use.
1638 North 26th Street is an RSA 5 property that's multifamily.
1644 North 26th Street is a nearby RSA 5 multifamily.
1635 North 26th is a nearby RSA 5 multifamily.
So in addition to the variances that were recently granted, there are other examples as well of multifamily use.
Here are examples of interior photographs of what my client's work product is.
And by the way, my client actually lives blocks away in Brewery Town,
and he specializes in developing properties nearby his house.
So just sample interiors to show the quality of work with Chip.
These are marketing materials for a recently sold album.
And then just, you know, our plans and drawings. As you can see the rendering, we try to keep the traditional brick facade. As you can see here, there's there's a walkway from front to back where each of the residents will be able to access the rear yards for trash storage.
And then just, you know, again, elevations to the rear of the property and the front of the property.
more elevations and no dimensional variances here.
Here's our site plan uh as you can see you know our building structure does not go any further
to the left of the building to the building structure to the left of us.
And then just our floor plans and and uh for this for this project each of the units are two bedrooms
to that. And then here's our meeting notice. We met on February 17, 2022 at 6 .30 p .m. 168
addresses were notified of this community meeting, the list of the addresses, proof
the list of the addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses,
of mailing to those.
deed to the property showing that Cilantro DG LLC is the owner of the property,
our application appeal to the ZBA along with our notice of refusal and our project information form
and her certificate of tax clients.
With that being said, I would ask that Mr. Singer virtually raise his hand
so he can adopt the testimony.
Singer has been allowed to speak.
Hi, this is Jack Singer.
J -A -C -Q -U -E -S -S -I -N -G -E -R.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed.
Oh, yes, Mr. Singer, you heard everything I stated today.
Yes, I did.
And is it true and correct?
Yep, that was correct.
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
no hands mr chair planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board
ian litwin planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change to
the residential single -family zoning at this location there is no unique physical condition
of this 1591 square foot lot that will prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning
code in addition 1621 and 1623 north 26th street are single -family homes built in 2019 proving that
single -family home construction is viable on this block the city planning commission recommends that
the board deny the use variants thank you mi 2021 005234 1636 north 26th street i vote yes
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no
James Snell, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes
Thank you
MI 2021 -003 -735 -201 West Hunting Park Avenue
Attorney Tolliver
however if you're in the audience please raise your virtual hand
come back in as a panelist you see anybody
hold on let me i think i got him now
okay now he's being promoted to panel sir you're coming back in soon
good afternoon mr chairman mr toliver all the uh exhibits came in late to us
and we're going to continue the case oh okay we didn't get anything until late monday
okay no you we'll be in touch and we'll continue this particular case okay okay thank you
mi 2020 001579201 west johnson street um this is a resumptive hearing attorney bill kerr
okay mr chair mr kerr has been promoted to panelists who will be rejoining you soon
thank you
okay good afternoon mr car could you could you spell your name and uh state it to the court
reporter, please. I will. It's William Kerr, W -I -L -L -I -A -M. Last name is K -E -R -R. And I'm
the attorney representing the applicant here today. All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Vice Chair, I think everything's
in. This is a resumptive hearing. So, Mr. Kerr, why don't you start and give us a sense of where
WE ARE. NEW SPEAKERS, OKAY, I'M GOING TO SHARE MY
Okay, I'm going to share my screen, if I can find that link. Here we go.
screen.
I think that is, are you seeing a hearing binder?
All right, again, this is a resumption of a hearing that was first held December 8th of last year.
And it relates to what we refer to as Building 3 on this particular property, 201 West Johnson Street.
At the time last year, we presented, now you see my cursor?
Yeah, could you make the, it's a little hard to see.
Try to make the, that's it, that's better.
Yep, thank you.
All right. So you weren't seeing my cursor? Again, I'm not sure I'm not seeing.
We should. We should.
Okay, good. This is the exhibit packet we submitted in December of last year. It included
the initial refusal, the supplemental refusal. We had some photos, including posting photos.
We had a facade rendering. We had various plans, including a site plan, elevations,
and some floor plans.
We had the RCO notice letters.
In the process, prior to December 8th,
we had been to CDR at the Planning Commission.
They had granted an approval.
We had been to the Historical Commission.
We had a Historical Commission letter.
We had also been to West Mount Airy Neighbors
and had a letter of support from the West Mount Airy Neighbors.
After hearing itself,
the Planning Commission supported the request of variances.
and at the end of the hearing um the the councilwoman councilwoman bass's office
unexpectedly took a position which opposed the application which surprised us that was the first
time we had become aware of her um opposition we're back here today essentially to supplement
the record um that we had made back in december with some additional um testimony including
evidence on our legal position which is that based on what's happened to this at this property
to date that we have a legally recognizable vested right to complete the project as initially
approved including building three which again is the subject of this application and that legal
vested rights theory is based on first of all Nolan property's reliance on the city permits
and approvals that have been granted uh to date dating back to 2009 uh its development of the
various infrastructure on the property and then its completion of buildings one and two
on the property uh given that um uh what's happened today nolan has a total investment
of over 30 million dollars in this property including five million dollars or so of which was
spent on the infrastructure and that infrastructure served not only buildings one and two but it was
also designed to accommodate building uh three and the entire development so at this point i'm going
to swap over to a hearing binder for whoops that was the wrong one so okay so initially i had
okay so this is this is the binder for today um and i'm just going to run through here real
quickly just the first three exhibits we have some posting photos to confirm that we did you
see the posters here we did post a photo or excuse me property again another poster for the today's
hearing. Tab two, we've included for your convenience a copy of the transcript from the
December 8th hearing. I'm not going to spend any time on that other than to let you know
that it's here. And then I'm going to get to tab three, which is the current plan. And
so just to refresh your recollection, this is building one, what I'm circling, this is
what we call a presser building. This was constructed in the 2009 timeframe. It has 45
senior apartment units, which are occupied by tenants who are qualified as affordable
housing tenants. It was constructed under the federal low -income housing tax credit program,
so there are rent and income restrictions on the tenants here. Building two is this building here,
which is sort of a back at L -shape, which is referred to as the Nugent Building.
That's occupied by 59 affordable senior tenants.
Both of these buildings are senior buildings.
You can also see that there's significant infrastructure, including the road services, building two, this parking, which service is building one, which has been installed to date.
You can also see that there's significant infrastructure.
now at the time of the um so this is building three we're proposing now um 165 units 135 of
those will be one bedroom 30 will be two bedroom units at the december 2021 hearing we were
proposing that 40 of the 165 units would be designated for seniors and then 125 would be
for general occupancy. Now subsequent to that hearing we've had a number of contacts
Zoom and other meetings and correspondence with Councilwoman Bath's office and we discussed a
number of issues in those meetings and Zooms. The Councilwoman let it be known that her preference
for this property really was senior apartment units.
So based on, in reliance on those discussions,
my clients today are committing that all 165 of the units
that are proposed for building three
will be designated for seniors that are 55 years and above.
Mr. Richardson confirmed to my clients,
Mr. Sudol and Mr. Hedges,
Mr. Rollins, that based on that commitment to occupy these solely as senior units, that
the Councilwoman was no longer opposing the project.
So at this point what I'd like to do, I think Mr. Richards is on the call, and I would just
ask for him to maybe raise his hand and confirm that what I just indicated.
mr richardson good afternoon mr chair i state your name and spell for the court reporter please
charles richardson from the office of councilwoman cindy bass last name r -i -c -h -a -r -d -s -o -n
room 312 city hall do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth i do proceed uh based upon their commitment that they were going to make this a 100 percent
senior building as opposed to market rate as they were originally uh attempting to do
uh the councilwoman is not opposed to the uh to to the variance at this point um
she is still concerned about the about the uh community i do believe this there might be some
community folks that might be coming on but just to know that that she at this point is
not is not opposed to granting the variance based on their commitment. Thank you, Mr. Richardson.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Richardson. What I'd like to do is just walk the board now quickly through
the balance of our exhibits. And actually, it might be easier if I just go back to the
cover sheet. I could just indicate to you what we have in here and that you can review
the various documents as you believe necessary. So again, we've gotten down through the current
plan in Tab 3. Tab 4 and Tab 5 all relate to the initial permit and approvals which were granted
for this project back in in January of 2009. It includes the permit 11 -2906 issued January 14th
of 2009 for the overall project that was building one, building two, and building three. As part of
that there were support letters there was a support letter from Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller that
was part of that process and then there was also a I believe it was a letter from four separate
community groups, including
Mr. Carr, Mr. Carr, I understand
what you're saying here, but why don't we just concentrate
on the third building? I mean,
back in 2000, I think
we understand that we have it in the package,
but let's just concentrate on this building here.
Well, all these permits, though,
included building three. That's part of
the... I understand, but
I'd really like to just concentrate
on building three. Okay, what I'm going to do
that. I'm just going to scroll through here and show you the plans that were approved with each
permit. Okay, so you can see what the evolution of the plans were. So that's the current plan.
Okay, I jumped too far. Okay, so this is the original 2009 plan. Building 3 was a linear building, approximately the same square footage, approximately the same height. And so that was approved as part of this plan, again, with Presser and with Studio.
Okay, I jumped too far. Okay, so this is the original 2009
and then this is a later iteration of of the 2009 plan again the the building free was still in its
linear configuration um we also one of the things that we had to do was we created a declaration
of condominium which is a fairly significant document uh which requires significant plans
I don't have them all in here but I just put that in there to let the board know that there
wasn't significant expenditure on the declaration of condominium. So this then we get to 2011
which is the second iteration. This involved some changes to building two, the first iteration
and then there was a second permit that same year which essentially added a wing into building two
so in addition to staying out building two we added this wing and then building three was
was constricted a bit in its in its configuration
so that was the plan which was something that subsequently led to building two being constructed
in 2014. And then in 2014, based on the success of the first two buildings, which were constructed
as affordable housing senior units, Nolan decided that they were going to take building three
to create a U -shaped configuration and split it in two. This building to the right of the U
was proposed in 2014 as another senior affordable building which was to be constructed under the
low -income housing tax credit program. We went through as far as getting zoning board approval
for this. This is a zoning board stamp of I think it's July 14th of 2014. Before this plan,
Nolan then submitted their application for financing to Pennsylvania Housing Finance
agency on two occasions and both occasions they were they were turned down and the message back
for phfa was that we already had two affordable senior buildings on this site and phfa determined
that they'd rather not have a third affordable building mr carr this is in 14 this is in 2014
correct yeah could you could this is approved by the zoning board because of that that financing
process, we never pulled a permit on this because we were going through the financing
process.
So fast forward a couple of years and we came in with the, yeah, this is just some,
these are just some support letters relating to the 2014 plan, including from the West
Mount Area Neighbors.
And that's the end of the package.
So basically that package indicates history. And again, in 2014, we were unable to get financing.
So when things calmed down financing -wise, the clients essentially went back to a similar plan,
but connected the senior building, right -hand side of the U, to the overall, to the larger building, the remnant building.
And we're now just proposing essentially the equivalent square footage and units, but in a single building, which we've now agreed will all be senior.
So that is the history. Again, there's been very significant work on this, very significant investment in the development that's been completed to date and in the infrastructure completed today.
So we believe that based on the history that I've given you, sort of a thumbnail sketch of here, that we're entitled to be recognized as having a vested right to this building free that we're proposing here today.
Thank you.
That's what I have.
Go ahead.
Well, I'm going to have the board ask, is your presentation done?
That's my presentation.
I'm just going to call Mr. Segal, who testified last time to have him adopt my testimony here today.
Go ahead.
Rick, are you here?
Oh Rick was a stand up a moment ago but he put it down for some reason I don't know
Mr. Kerry, you're an officer of the court.
Mr. Curry you're an officer of the court you're an officer of the court
You're an officer of the court.
I will confirm that as an officer of court, that what I've stated here today would be
confirmed by this.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Can I just make one last point then?
You can.
I did include a short vested rights memorandum outlining the law on vested rights.
and the key criteria as to proving or be entitled to vested rights.
And these are the five criteria.
I just want to go through this real quickly.
The first is there is due diligence in attempting to comply with the law.
We believe that we did that because we came back numerous times
and obtained the permits which were required.
There was good faith throughout the proceedings.
Again, we did everything that was required in the process.
going to the community organizations, the planning commission, historical commission,
expenditure for special and recoverable funds. Excuse me, clearly we had 30 million dollars
to date. The expiration without appeal of the period during which an appeal could have been taken
from the issuance of the permit. There were numerous permits here, there were never any
court appeals taken. And then the last is, whoops, I jumped out of there by mistake.
and that the lack of evidence that there's going to be any negative public impact, that
we believe that the fact that those two buildings are there recognized as assets to the community
and along with the rest of the infrastructure, which is really proven to be aesthetically
very uh pleasing and an important part of the character of the community um indicates that
there will be no and there is no negative impact on the community so that's that's all that i have
for the uh for the board today thank you mr kirk questions or uh comments from the virtual audience
mr chair mr rick sudall has his hand up i will allow him to speak at this time if that is okay
with you sir sure yep understood
this is rick sudall hello hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
sure this is rick sudall r -i -c -k s -u -d -a -l -l i am a partner in known properties
this property for the foot off your preservation group all right wait a minute wait a minute do
you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do proceed
Rick, could you just confirm for the board that everything that I've stated here today
is accurate and that you adopt it as your testimony?
Yes, that is correct.
Do you have anything else to add?
No, I do not.
Okay, thank you.
Comments from the virtual audience.
Mr. Chair, I also have a Oscar Bazar with his hand raised.
I will allow him to speak at this time.
Absolutely.
Hi, my name is Oscar Beisert. I'm a member of the community where...
Could you please spell your name for the court reporter?
Oscar, could you spell your name?
It's Oscar, O -S -C -A -R. Last name Beisert, B as in boy, E -I -S -E -R -T.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Hi, I have concern with this project. I appreciate that the developer has restored the other two buildings, and I understand the need for more housing. However, there is a third historic building on the property that is essentially in a state of collapse.
And it is one of the most ornate active historic heritage that we have in Germantown and Mount Airy.
And I don't see how, you know, at this moment it is at it's in a state of risk to be lost.
And it is by being designated by the commission, it is essentially a resource for the public.
And I think that, you know, before we allow a property owner who has tremendous financial resources to continue building new developments, they should have to take care of properties that are there, especially those that are historically certified.
And we cannot compel the property owner to fix the building.
Thank you for your call, but you've sort of
Thank you for your call, but you've sort of broken off there.
broken off there.
He actually looks
He actually looks like he fell out, Chair.
If I could just respond briefly.
Well, hold on, Mr. Carr.
Here's what I want to do.
Go through the virtual audience, then you can respond at one time.
Any other comments or questions from the virtual audience?
I see no answer, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Carr, you can respond now.
The building that Mr. Beysart refers to is what I'm indicating here with the cursor.
We refer to it as the carriage house.
It's a small, older building.
It does need some repairs.
And we've always considered this to be phase four.
This was phase one.
Presser, Nugent was phase two.
Getting building three as phase three is important.
And then once building three is completed, then we're going to turn our attention to building four as phase four.
Thank you.
The Planning Commission has already ruled their position on this, and they approved it.
I'm going to call for a vote.
And Mr. Shahid, you can't vote on this because you weren't here when this happened.
MI 2020 -001579 -201 -West Johnson Street.
I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Carr.
Thank you very much.
We appreciate your attention to this.
Thank you.
Take care.
MI 2021 -005 -027 -2628 North Broad Street.
Rachel Pritzker.
Let's see here.
Mr. Brandon Saverin
has been out
RCO Uptown Entertainment
Development Corporation
letter of support
RCO Swamp Poodle Neighbors
letter of support
could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter
Mr. Saverin
yes good afternoon
Brandon Saverin
B -R -A -N -D -O -N
S as in Sam
A -V as in Victor
R -A -N
Do you swear for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you mention who your client is and the relationship to the property?
So my client is the Philadelphia Suburban Development Corporation, and that is the owner of what are actually the two properties that are the subject of this application.
I also represent Starbucks Corporation, who is the tenant of one of the two properties, and they will have a representative as well here.
Absolutely. And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
I assume you've sent in the required documents?
Yes, I have.
Thank you. You may proceed and share your screen.
Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
Before I begin, I just want to ask the board and make sure that you have this refusal.
It's actually a referral since we're dealing with special exceptions, that you have this referral before you.
The application number that you read, Mr. Chairman, does not match the application number.
on this referral. Check again.
I read MI 2021 005027. Yeah, I have 008483. This is the only matter on these properties that has
an active appeal. And my guess is if you look through your exhibits there, you'll have the
same referral i'm not uh quite sure as to the reason for the number mix up but i'd like to
proceed if that's okay with you just wanted to point that out um no i i would actually need to
research it this is tanya i'm chair if you don't mind i have to research no no what tanya take a
look at it and what i'll do is i'll go into another case and we'll get we'll get back to it
thank you kind of mr sadwin if you can unchair and turn off your camera we'll come back thank you
okay. MI 2021 -003 -231 -400 block of Wall Street. Councilman Squilla has a letter of non -opposition.
He quotes the Whitman Council letter in his support. We do not have a copy of the Whitman
We do not have a copy of the Whitman Council letter yet.
Council letter yet. Alan Nockamson.
Alan Nalkamson.
Mr. Nalkamson has been promoted to panelists.
Hi, Mr. Nalkamson.
You've been sworn to state your name, please.
I would like to say that Alex Goldberg, the newest member of our team,
is going to handle this any matter. That's fine. Thank you. Could you
could we make sure that he's coming in? Yes, Mr. Goldberg will be coming back and
as a panelist. Perfect. Thank you.
Hi, can you hear me?
Good afternoon.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Alex Goldberg, A -L -E -X -G -O -L -D -B -E -R -G.
Right.
Do you swear for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and the relationship they have with the property?
uh my client is and construction llc uh corporate representative by the name of gazi out of seven
is here with us today okay and our vice chair has a few questions for you
i do agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do
it appears that you've submitted well i think it does all the required documents is that correct
that's correct we however we did receive the letter of support after we submitted the materials
that letters are now included in the packet i'm happy to send it to you after this hearing
if you don't. Thank you.
You may have to see. Ensure your screen, please.
Are you able to see my screen?
again i'm alex goldberg of knockinson pc at 123 south broad street suite 1600 philadelphia pa
19109 i'm here presenting uh for 400 wolf street the owner of the property again it's and construction
llc uh here's the table of contents for my presentation
first we have the refusal then a letter of support from the corresponding rco whitman
council incorporated after that a prior approved zoning permit an atlas map photographs of the
property architectural plans and drawings the rco meeting notice and the corresponding
certificates of mailing an application for appeal a deed to the property and certificate of tax
clearance again with me is the owner's representative ghazi out of seven
first this is an rsa5 property seeking a variance for the relocation of lot lines to create
two lots from a single deeded lot the refusals are for minimum lot area as a result of the lot
line relocation of the 960 square foot lot becoming two lots two lots one of 427 and a half square
feet the other of 564 and a half square feet here's the letter of support from whitman council
we met with them on november 17 2021 as you'll see here we had unanimous support
from the rco eight members from the committee and 20 other attendees in the meeting for a total of
28 to zero in support of the project again there's no there's no construction new construction here
the building is existing as is this is merely form over substance
here is the zoning permit for the initial construction of the property the erection of
a single structure multi -family property with two dwelling units this is dated february 1st 2018
here is a map of the property one of the uh the two properties face different streets one property
has a front door on wolf street the other has a front door on south ford street
And you'll see that in the photos upcoming. Here's another map of the property. Here are the photographs.
upcoming here's another map of the property here are the photographs so this is the front
of the property on the wolf street facing home and side of the property you can see
to the left of the photo that is the front door for the south fourth street facing home
street to the right of the property and to the left
and stop 4th street to the right of the property and to the left
here is the survey map of the property
the site plan this is a floor plan of the basement there is no basement living
if this is again this is a corner lot this is the first floor floor plan
as you can see there's two means of egress here on the bottom unit from the first floor
second floor floor plan
third floor and a roof deck as you can see right down in the middle of the property is
sort of the division between separate homes here is our rco meeting notice letter which was
was sent on 11 -3 -21 which included the letter and the refusal that went out to 220 properties
in the surrounding area as you can see from this map and the list of the properties as follows
and here we have proof of the mailing
here we have the application for appeal that was filed for 400 wolf street
there the corresponding refusal again there's no new construction here this is
an existing property that's simply a lot line relocation project information form
here's the deed to the property showing at construction llc is the legal owner of the property
tax clearance showing no taxes on the property and that concludes my presentation
I'd like to have my client adopt my testimony, the owner's representative Ghazi out of seven.
out of seven
an audience sir please raise your virtual hand
mr goldberg you're an officer of the court well you can okay as an officer of the court
questions from the board no mr chairman and mr chair no mr chairman questions in the virtual
audience or statements
mr chair planning commission good afternoon chairman members of the board ian litwin planning
commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential symbol family zoning
with this location the current two units exist on one roughly 1 000 square foot lot the minimum
lot size for an rsa 5 lot in the first council district is 950 square feet allowing a lot split
will result in two lots that are far smaller than the zoning code allows there's no hardship created
by maintaining the current lot configuration therefore the planning commission recommends
the board deny the request of dimensional variance.
MI 2021 -003231 -400 -Wolf, I vote no.
Harold Tenere, my vote is no.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is no.
Jane Snell, my vote is no.
Esmail Shahid, my vote is no.
Thank you, sir.
MI 2021 -005 -233, I'm sorry, that's continued.
MI 2021 -000 -558 -5608 -12th Street, Alan Nockamson,
approval from the RCO with provisos.
Sir, Ms. Clementa, Amazon had her hand raised, so I will allow her to speak to the panelist
at this time, sir.
I'm sorry.
Could you say, Tanya, what were you going to say?
Could you say, Tanya, what were you going to say?
Yes, I wanted to ask if Brandon said.
Yes, I wanted to ask if Brandon Saverin can reach out to me.
He's ready to go?
No, Chair. I want him to reach out to me so we can clear this up.
Brandon, if you can email me, thank you. Very kindly, Chair.
Thank you. Right.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Yes, of course. Good afternoon, Board.
Quimente Amazon, C -L -E -M -E -N -T -A, last name is A -M -A -Z -A -N, address is 123 South Broad Street,
suite 1600, 19109.
Do you swear for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you state who your client is and the relationship to the property?
Yes, of course.
My clients are Kim and Locke -Wen, and they are the owners of the property.
All right. Thank you. And our Vice Chair has a few questions.
Clementa, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
It appears, based on my notes, that you've submitted all the required documents. Is that correct?
That is correct.
Thank you. You may proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
again i'll be presenting 5608 north 12th street this is a very straightforward request and that
we are simply looking to legalize a three -unit dwelling here my client owns the property and
the entire block has a similar use we do have council matter support as well um with a few
provisos. So I will go through the notice of refusal, the correspondence that we do have
from Councilperson Cheryl Parker, who did facilitate this meeting. We also have several
properties that have similar views along the 5600 block of North 12th Street. We have
maps of the area, photographs of this property, our proposed plans and drawings. The notice
that we did send out for the community meeting, as well as the application for appeal, deal,
and the certificate of tax clearance excuse me. So again the refusal of property is currently
zoned as RSA 5. We are looking to have a triplex here in an existing structure. Again this is a
block that was primarily multifamily used. It does still have that use although it has since been
re -zoned so my client is simply looking to revitalize that use and we did meet with council
person, Cheryl Parker. And here we have a letter that we received from her zoning aide, Hillary
Emerson. We worked very closely with them throughout this process to ensure that we did address all
concerns from the community. To that effect, we did receive support with the following provisos
for my clients to receive. Within three months, the required permits for the extension of the
unit into the lower level, which does have a separate entrance and egress, as you'll see in
the photographs, obtaining the certificate of occupancy within nine months, the installation
of exterior lighting on the front and rear of the property, as well replacing a rear
deck that my client is currently working on at the moment.
And as I mentioned previously, this is a use that is very common along this block.
It has been rezoned rather recently, but it does have a history of multifamily use that
is still used within the block.
So we have 5610 North 12th Street, right next door 5612 North 12th Street, 5614 as well as 5616 North 12th, 5618 as well as 5620 North 12th.
All of these properties are currently being used as multifamily, and they have similar configurations and identical lot sizes to my client's property as well, and they are all along the same block.
So, as you can see, it's primarily the entire block that has this similar use in the requested
bank that we have here.
So, I don't want to drill it in too far in, but again, we have a map of the area.
So, we are off of West Olney Avenue and in between West Chu along to North 12th Street.
A Google map view of the area.
Here we have a view of the front of the property, and this is one side of the twin that are
multiple means of access.
So we do have one front door here, as well as a front door along the side that allows access for the upper level unit, as well as this unit here.
And this unit is going to be our lower level unit for the third floor, which has the egress here in the front, as well as access in the very yard.
Here we have a view of North 12th Street to the right of the property, North 12th Street to the left of the property.
And again, these are all of the homes that have similar variances and that they are all multifamily used currently.
Here we have a view of the front of the property dating back to August 2008 and there are multiple
And there are multiple electric meters, as well as multiple hot water heaters, and we do have a means of access here for that lower level.
multiple electric meters, as well as multiple hot water heat.
Again, it is not below ground. It is another means of access here along the side.
And this is a rear deck that we are looking to currently fix and rehabilitate, and that is another means of access for that lower level unit.
and here we have the plans and drawings the notice that we sent out for the meeting again
we did work very closely with the councilwoman's office to facilitate this meeting and to work on
addressing all concerns the community had through provisos that meeting was held on june 3rd at 6 30
p .m along with a copy of our refusal we listed the properties that were notified of the meeting
meeting. The notice was sent out on May 17th, as you can see here. Our application for appeal.
Again, we are looking for the legalization of a triplex. This is a very common use along this
block. Our project information form and the deed showing that my client does in fact own the
property and our certificate of tax clearance. So with that, if I could have my client lock one
and raise his hand so that he needs out my testimony.
He's been allowed to speak.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Loc Nguyen, L -O -C -N -G -U -Y -E -N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Proceed.
did you hear my presentation today yes and was it true and correct yes and would you adopt it as
your own testimony yes thank you um i'd be happy to answer any questions the board may have questions
from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman questions from the virtual audience or comments
miss hillary emerson has her hand raised that can allow her to speak at this time sir
please
good afternoon mr chair members of the board hillary emerson on behalf of councilwoman
sherelle parker h -i -l -a -r -y -e -m -e -r -s -o -n you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the truth i do thank you proceed yes thank you mr chair um the councilwoman
acted as the coordinating RCO in this case as the other RCOs in the area weren't able to hold
the meeting and we did we did hold a meeting with a couple of community members attending
we recognized that this property was converted back in 1946 to a triplex but through non -use
no longer the non -conforming use did not continue and the zoning of the area changed single family
So that's why they're here today. We did agree. We worked with the community to develop the provisors that we agreed upon and that Ms. Amazon went over regarding the expansion of the lower unit into the former garage area.
Also addressing a deck that had to come down and needs to be rebuilt, as well as lighting concerns and obtaining a certificate of occupancy within nine months.
And as I said, we've worked through these provisos with the community and with Ms. Amazon, so the community and the councilwoman are not opposed to this application with these provisos.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Any other comments from the virtual audience?
I see no other hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair, members of the board, Ian Litwin, Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single -family zoning at this location.
However, there is a documented history of three -family use dating back to a time before this property was zoned RSA 5.
This is not inconsistent with the rest of the neighborhood.
Therefore, we recommend that the variance be granted.
Thank you, Ian.
MI 2021 -000558 -5608 -North 12th Street.
I vote yes with the following provisos.
One, within three months, obtain required permits for extension of benefit basement unit into Fulmer Garage Space.
Two, obtain CO within nine months.
steel must include review of utility costs.
Three, install exterior lighting on front and rear property.
And four, within six months, replace the rear deck and stairs that were removed, obtaining
And four, within six months, replace the rear deck and stair.
appropriate permits first.
Mine is a yes with those provisos.
Carol, you're muted.
You're muted.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes with provisos.
Sorry about that.
Thomas Harleman, my vote is yes with provisos.
James Snell, yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, yes, with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Chairman Berkman, this is Tanya again.
We have researched the matter, and Counselor Severn is prepared to go forward.
We resolve the issue.
MI 2021 -005 -027 -2628
North Broad
I'm sorry Mr. Chair
Mr. Saverin has been promoted again
and I believe we already
swore you
I believe so Mr. Chair
did you talk to the Vice Chair
yes I did
Thank you. And I want to thank Administrator Sunkit for her help there. I am now reassured that you do have the correct referral in front of you. So as I began to mention, I'll show my screen here.
uh so this um this application pertains to two different properties um they are adjacent to one
another and it concerns um the uses on those two properties and a lot line relocation between them
so as i mentioned i represent the property owner philadelphia suburban development corporation
who owns both properties and the tenant of one of the properties, which is Starbucks.
The proposal seeks to accomplish a couple things. So this aerial image sort of outlines
both properties together. It's sort of got this leg out to 15th Street and is otherwise
a L -shape assemblage that I'm outlining here.
It's currently a strip mall sort of scent shopping center,
which is along Broad Street with a lot of parking behind it.
And what we're proposing to do is to demolish the existing strip center
and build a new construction building to house a Starbucks restaurant
with the drive -through.
We're also going to re -stripe the existing parking lot area and reconfigure the lot line between the two properties.
So to just illustrate that quickly, this is what it will end up looking like.
We're going to take land from what is currently the 1412 -22 West Lehigh Avenue lot.
and move it over to give it to the 2628 North Broad lot to effectively make it larger.
And this will allow the Starbucks that we're proposing to build to have more parking on site.
The remainder of the parking, which will be in the remainder of the Lehigh lot,
will be non -accessory parking that the owner can use for other purposes as it owns some other properties.
in the area. And again, what remains of the Lehigh lot will be freshened and restriped.
So just to give you a quick sense, here's what the properties look like now. The Lehigh lot is
larger than it will be. The broad lot is smaller than it will be. Both properties will be partially
zoned CMX2 and partially zoned CMX3, but CMX2 controls under the zoning guidelines for mixed
designation properties. And in the CMX2 district, both of these uses, zoom in a little bit here on
our referral, both of these uses require special exceptions from the board. So the Starbucks will
be classified as a takeout restaurant in caps here because it will feature an automobile drive -through
and that use takeout restaurant requires a special exception. The non -accessory parking
use on what will be the smaller Lehigh Avenue oriented lot also requires a special exception
which is stated here. That's it. There's no zoning refusals so we're not seeking a variance. We do
not have to demonstrate a hardship to the board. We have to demonstrate that we satisfy certain
We have to demonstrate that we satisfy certain criteria for special exceptions that are enumerated in the code, and I beg for your patience, I'm going to attempt to satisfy those criteria on the record relatively quickly so we can, you know, build a satisfactory record and obtain our special exceptions.
criteria for special exception.
So we did attend two community meetings about these two properties and obtained support from two different RCOs.
The coordinating RCO was the Uptown Entertainment and Development Corporation. This is their meeting summary. Here is their letter of support.
we also obtained a letter of support from a secondary or non -coordinating RCO called the
Swampoodle Neighborhood Parcels Association this is their meeting summary which is of the same
meeting I believe and this is their letter in any event what what I have
is a memorandum in our exhibit packet from the civil engineer, which is a gentleman named Anthony
Caponegro and the engineering firm Kimley Horn. Because we have this memo and it's in our exhibit
packet, I'm not going to call Mr. Caponegro to walk through the zoning plans. I will be legally
compelled to do so if somebody asserts that the plan is not safe for any reason, and he'll be
available for rebuttal for that purpose. But Mr. Caponegro's firm created the zoning plans for each
parcel. This is the plan for what will be the enlarged 2628 North Broad property, showing the
A new Starbucks building, a drive -through with ample, what they call stacking spaces in the code.
So a lot of room for cars to wait for food pickup if it's busy.
25 parking spaces towards the rear of the property in two different areas shown here.
And a vast improvement in terms of the manner of automobile access to this property versus what exists right now.
So there's going to be two curb cuts of only 12 feet along Broad Street, along with a secondary egress to Lehigh and a secondary ingress and egress from 15th.
If you look at the situation now, just to go back to this image, what this shopping center has that's being replaced by the Starbucks is just a massive, about 100 -foot curb depression that allows cars to come on and off of Broad Street in a very haphazard manner.
So we feel this is a really big safety enhancement.
So that, again, was the site plan for 2628 North Broad.
This is the site plan for 1412 -22 West Lehigh. This will likely be separated from the Starbucks portion of the site, and it's just a small parking lot with two curb cuts onto Lehigh Avenue.
One of the code standards for non -accessory parking use is that you have to obtain a professional traffic study by a traffic engineer showing that your non -accessory parking use will not degrade the level of service on the affected street here, Lehigh Avenue.
And again, I'm not going to bring this gentleman on. This is a separate engineer, Mr. DiMartino. This is his report with regard to that non -accessory parking use. It's also in our exhibit packet. It demonstrates that the level of traffic service on Lehigh Avenue will not be degraded and that the geometry and sight lines for cars coming and leaving from the parking lot is safe.
The code asks us to make those demonstrations, and we've done it through this report.
Beyond that, I just want to call a representative from Starbucks to talk about some very limited facts about the proposed restaurant.
His name is Joseph Gibbs.
joseph gibbs if you are in the audience please raise your virtual hand at this time
been allowed to speak hello hi could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter
Yes, my name is Joseph Gibbs, J -O -S -E -P -H.
Yes, my name is Joseph Gibbs, J -O -S -E -P -H, G -I -B -B -S.
Great. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Mr. Gibbs, hi. So, firstly, what's your position within Starbucks?
I am the store development manager for a Starbucks coffee company.
Okay, thank you. And do you know the proposed hours of operation of this restaurant?
Yes, the proposed hours are seven days a week. It will be 530 a .m. opening and closing at 8 p .m.
Okay, thank you. One other line of questions for you. So you just saw a moment ago the zoning site
plan on my screen. What I have up here now is a litter cleanup plan. Are you familiar with this
document? I am. And did you and I collaborate on the creation of this litter cleanup plan?
Yes, we did. Okay. So I'm just going to ask you to affirm what this says. It provides that
Starbucks will place outdoor trash receptacles at the two entrances to the building.
and those are shown at the red dots is that correct that is correct um does this plan also
provide that at once an hour a starbucks partner as you call it or staff member will um patrol the
perimeter of the building and pick up any trash in the outdoor seating area in the drive -through
lane in the landscaping in the front of the building and along north broad street even
outside of the property boundaries on North Broad Street? That is correct. And is that a
segment of the North Broad Street sidewalk in front of the proposed restaurant shown in red
here? Yes, it is. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm just going to make a couple very brief
additional comments that go to the special exception standards, and then I'll bring on
the property owner to adopt my testimony. The block in which the proposed parking lot and
Starbucks sit lacks any residential use. There are commercial and industrial uses such as what
appears to be a warehouse and a Sunoco gas station. This proposed use will not harm those properties.
The Starbucks building will occupy less than 10 percent of the lot area of the 2628 North Broad
lot. And as such, it conforms to all dimensional requirements. It will not have negative impacts
on the light or air servicing surrounding properties. The existing strip mall has been
safely and successfully served by local utilities. And as such, we believe that the Starbucks
restaurant that will replace the strip mall will not have any negative impacts on those public
utilities. The Starbucks will provide ample parking and ample space for the safe function
of the drive -through and safe methods for cars and pedestrians to enter and exit the property
with that i'd like to bring on mr nicoletti to adopt my testimony and ask if the board has any
questions mark nicoletti would be the owner representative's name
you sold
okay who was the individual again sir mark nicoletti or it may be philadelphia suburban
development corporation okay mr nicoletti if you're in the audience please raise your virtual
hand and wait to be sworn in mr sabrin you're an officer of the court we can take we'll take your
okay thank you very much mr chair questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chair oh mr chairman
no mr chair uh questions or comments from the virtual audience mr chair mr mickland let his
hand to some uh i think we're okay we're okay we got another one it's from a number ending in
at 3 -5 -5 -2.
I'd love them to speak.
Hello?
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Adrian Fernandez.
A -D -R -I -E -N -N -E
F -E -R -N -A -N -D -E -Z
Swampo Alto Neighborhood
Parsons Association.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes. Proceed. Okay. We support this special exception.
Proceed. Okay. We support this special exception or special referral as stated or detailed in our written testimony. And also, we are happy that this project fits in with the huge amount of work we did for our Philly 2035 plan.
And we hope the board will vote to approve the special referral.
And lastly, our testimony is given equally with Uptown.
There are probably about six affected RCOs for this address.
All RCOs are equal.
There is no hierarchy.
The RCO coordinator, the difference, as stated in the zoning code,
is for the purpose of setting the date, time, and location for the public meeting.
So are all testimonies equal?
There's no secondary or hierarchy of RCOs, which we strive to get all parties to understand.
Thank you very much.
All right, thank you.
Any other questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no further answer this time, sir.
Planning Commission?
good afternoon chairman members of the board ian litwin planning commission staff
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed -use zoning and dislocation
the applicant has shown that the proposed takeout restaurant and non -accessory parking lot
will have no more of an impact than these activities would normally be expected to have
therefore the city planning commission recommends the board grant the special exceptions
MI 2021 -005 -027 -2628 -North Broad, I vote yes.
Harold Sanerian, my vote is no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no.
next case
let me see here
MI 2021
005025
North 36th Street
Mantua Civic Association
24th Democratic Ward Letter
support. Alan Nockamson. Mr. Nockamson, you should have already be a panelist.
Uh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you kept me as a panelist.
Well, you've been on quite a few times today. I mean, it's like you work here.
I feel like I'm part of the team.
But you do.
Can you get us a raise maybe, Alan?
What are you saying?
Can you get us a raise?
You're here a lot.
I'm just a humble zoning attorney.
State your name.
You've already been sworn.
Alan, A -L -A -N, last name Nockamson, N -O -C -H -U -M -S -O -N, 123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia
UPA 19109. But could you identify your client and the relationship they have with the property?
Yes. My client is 1712 -14N36 LLC. And my client's representative is Alan Rubinovich.
Okay. And our vice chair has a few questions. Okay. Do you swear or affirm? No, you've already
sworn in 17 times. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? I do. It appears that you've submitted everything required. Is that correct? Yes,
including one letter of support. It sounds like a second letter of support came in. I don't have
a copy of that in my presentation package, but I do have letters of support. Okay, you may proceed
and yes you may share the screen thank you sure hi uh so i'm here for this full screen
here to present 712 -14 north 36th street uh in my table of contents is the notice of refusal the
letter of support from antwa civic association my understanding again uh is that there is a second
a letter of support from an associated RCO, a petition, maps of the area, photographs of the
property, our plans and drawings, our meeting notice for the community meeting, as well as
mailing of that notice, our deed to the property showing that 1712 -14 and 36th, LLC is the owner
So 36th, LLC is the owner of the property, our application for appeal, along with the corresponding notice of refusal, as well as our project information form, our application for appeal that we filed with CDA, and our certificates of tax clearances for these separate parcels.
of the property.
I may be incorrect.
I believe maybe it's Natalie Obrowicz is the owner's representative.
Either way, someone will have got my testimony, and I also have Scott Murphy in the audience who's the architect that can answer any questions you have.
All right, so the nose refusal.
These are two RSA -3 properties, significant in size.
In total, it's over 3 ,200 square feet.
And we're looking to put a nine -unit apartment building with five off -street parking spots in the lower level with one curb cut.
And our refusals are as follows.
First, what's it called?
The attached structures are especially prohibiting an RSA 3 residential zoning district.
So essentially, the reason why we're being refused is that we're combining these lots and putting one structure there.
So that's a de minimis refusal.
Whereas the proposed use for multifamily household living is expressly prohibited in RSA 3 residential zoning district, I would like to point out that this zoning board, three years ago, almost exactly to the date, on March 13th of 2019, approved a fireplace for 3606 Olive Street and 3608 Olive Street separately.
a lot that was half the size of ours, under respectively calendar numbers 35902 and 36,
excuse me, 35901. So it's not out of character to have multifamily living with RSA 3. And that's
just one of two examples. I was in front of this board recently as well on a property on the 600
block of north shedwick again a significantly less lot and this board this board equally granted
of zoning barriers for multi -family use uh then we have some dimensional refusals here uh there's
a requirement for an eight foot uh front uh setback um that's required under the zony district
again not out of character not to have a setback um additionally the reason why we're not having
this setback is to accommodate the parking that has been requested by the community uh mantua is
the type of community that would look that does like off -street parking and providing that with
five uh parking spaces and just a particular note for 3606 and 3608 olive street uh which was
granted by the zba uh three years ago there was no off -street parking so our project is stronger
in that respect that we are providing our street work uh that's the uh second refusal dimensional
refusal has to do with the open area where 50 is required where we're not providing 50 but
again if you went on atlas right now on the 700 block of north 36th street you would see that
none of the properties fulfill the requirements of open area for rsa3 so we're not out of
average in that respect either. And then the rear yard depth where 20 feet is required, where 12 feet
is proposed. Again, if you look at the similarly situated properties on the 700 block,
again, they run afoul of that as well. And the reason why we're having a larger building structure
is to accommodate the off -street parking with the parking garage. So at the behest of the community.
And then finally, technically, we're required to provide nine off -street parking spots, but we're providing five. We do have limitations given the dimensions of the property. We're providing as many parking spots as reasonably allowable under the circumstances.
So we have a lot of support from the Manitra Civic Association. Very well attended meeting. 21 people voted, and we got 20 votes. So, you know, again, it's really tough, you know, a lot of community meetings to get that type of support.
we really did a lot of community outreach as you can see we particularly focused on you know
olive street which is the coordinating or side block of ours and you can see that we made great
outreach to people on olive street and they're in support of this project and then just maps of the
area where corner property on olive and 36 you'll see from the drawings that are off street parking
and the one curb cut is coming off of Oliver Street.
And then this is 712 -14 North 36th Street
from a Google Maps perspective.
And then photographs of the property.
As you can see, it's a rather challenging property
to begin with because where we are elevated,
Because where we are elevated, this is a vacant lot. But you can see the slope issue. But we actually took advantage of the fact that we do have a slope by allowing us to have essentially, for all intents and purposes, underground parking, which the community, especially the individuals on Olive Street appreciated.
this is a vacant lot, but you can see the slope.
And that's why we had support. So this is Olive Street from, oh, well, this is the property from 36th Street. This is the property from Olive Street. Again, elevated, so we have some challenges in terms of that.
We took advantage of that by actually providing parking to allow for the residents.
North 36th Street to the right of the property, North 30th Street to the left of the property, Olive Street to the right of the property, Olive Street to the left of the property.
And then just floor plans from our clients.
Our clients, like the parent companies, Liberty Bell Management, they self -manage their own properties.
they you know they also uh develop these properties and they try to do a really good job
with respect to that and as you can see from just a sample interior photos and then our plans and
drawings um as you can see uh from here this is the lower level for the parking which will allow
for five uh for five uh parking spaces we try to keep a traditional brick facade and in order to
meet the like the you know the feel of the community we put a mansard roof there to give
some architectural interest as well and here's a greater look of the schematic for the parking
level as you can see each of the floors you'll see have their own garbage room including the level
where the parking is we have a lobby a common lobby which would come off of 36th street and
people can go up an elevator. Here's the parking here, in terms of entrance for the residents.
And then this is a floor plan, a sample floor plan. Each floor has three units. And each
floor, again, just to reiterate, has its own garbage room. And because of the size of the
property we will obviously have commercial pickup again here are some elevations again we're not
trying to get any height variance we want to keep within the scale of the community and the look of
the community by way of our brick facade and concert group and this is the community meeting
notice we met with the community on february 4th at 5 30 p .m we had 62 addresses that were notified
this community meeting, the list of the addresses, proof of mailing, deed to the property shown
in 1712 -14N36, LLC. It's the owner of the property.
Our application for appeal to the ZVA, along with our nose refusal, project information form,
and our certificates of tax claims. Of particular note, this property has been a vacant lot.
for at least 15 years based on Google Earth.
So, you know, we're really looking forward
to developing this lot where it has been undeveloped
for a significant period of time.
With that being said, I would ask that either Natalie
or Alan virtually raise their hands
so that we can dock my testimony,
and then we can take any questions from the board.
sir i have an alan borovitch with the hand raised
allows him to speak at this time sir yes please
at once could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please
yes alan borovitch a -l -l -e -n last name b -o -r -o v like victor i -c -h do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed uh mr boravich you heard
everything i stated today yes and is it true correct yes and do you adopt this in your own
testimony yes all right thank you very much questions from the board no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
Mr. Chair, Ms. Michelle Gilmore has her hand raised.
I will notice you.
Hello.
Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Michelle Gilmore, M -I -C -H -E -L -L -E, Gilmore, G -I -L -M -O -R -E.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Okay, so I just wanted to make one correction to what Mr. Nolkinson said.
It hasn't been vacant for 15 years.
I'm the next door neighbor, 3602, to those lots.
So it hasn't been vacant for 15 years.
The other question that my concern is the parking.
Why couldn't they put non -parking spaces?
Because on the left -hand side of Olive Street, you have driveways.
on the right -hand side, we have street parking. So now you take away our street parking
and you have a building for non -tenants, but you only want to provide them with five parking spaces.
Either give them non -spaces or don't give them parking at all, because now you force the people,
the four other tenants to use the parking that we have. It's a big issue.
All right. Mrs. Gilmore, thank you for calling in and telling us that. Any other questions or
comments from the virtual audience? I have a Ms. Tamika. I have allowed to speak.
Please. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Tamika Chavis, T -A -M -I -K -A -D -H -A -V -A -N -V -I -T -O -I -S.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
yes proceed please i'm calling because while i'm on here because i am supportive of this
development we have had previous vacant lots on the blocks for years people dump trash on the
things like that there are other property that they built on the block we have not had any issues
with yes the parking thing is an issue and it was addressed and discussed that's why they're doing
the parking which only they can do without zoning allow them to do and they have definitely
took that into consideration. Thank you very much for calling in and reporting that. Is there
anyone else that has a comment from the virtual audience? I see no other hands Mr. Chair. Planning
Commission. Good afternoon Chair, Board Members. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to
residential single -family zoning at this location the proposal for nine residential units exceeds
the minimum variance required to allow the applicant to use their property a nine -unit
building will be out of character with the block the city planning commission recommends the board
deny the use and dimensional variances for this proposal mr chair i just would like to respond so
next literally next door is 3606 and 3608 olive street both like significantly less in square
footage and this board granted the variances without off -street parking while we're providing
off -street parking. Thank you, Mr. Nackamson. MI 2021 -005025 -712 North 36th Street. I vote yes.
You're muted, Carol.
Carol Tenerey, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shadee, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the audience who the 2 o 'clock cases have not been heard?
I see no hands, Mr. Chair.
Okay, so let's take a five -minute break, and then we're going to come back and we're going to finish the day up.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As you wish, Chair.
Tonya, how are we looking?
As you wish.
Ready to begin when you are.
Let's start recording.
We are good to go, sir.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman.
I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearing.
With me is Carol Tenere, our Vice Chair.
She's here. I just spoke to her. Ismail Shahid, our board secretary.
Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present Mr. Chairman.
And James Snell, our board member.
Present Mr. Chairman.
Also with me is our executive director, Tanya Sunkit, and our attorney, Sherman Thompson.
Good afternoon Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair I am present. I know I told him you were there. Before we begin
here's our virtual format. Be advised these proceedings are being recorded.
If I participated you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded. A video will be available by
contacting tonyasunkett at phil .gov. For the benefit of our court sonographer we ask attorneys
and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying. Three, if you are participating
by phone, if you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548. Leave your email and the address
of the property in question. And lastly, please note the question and answer box on your screen
is not for testimony or comments. Any comments should be directed to our Executive Director,
Tanya Sunken. I have no continuances listed for the 6 -3 -30 meeting. Is there any continuances
is requested. Mr. Chair, I have a Mr. Alex Rung with his hand raised. I will allow him to speak
at this time. Thank you. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter? Alex Rung,
A -L -E -X -R -O -N -G. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth? I do. What case do you want to talk about, sir? 247 -49 North 12th Street. Do you want to
continue that? Yes. Are you the owner, sir? I am the engineer. I'm the applicant and representative
of the owner. Okay. Is the owner here today? I'm not sure. Maybe not. No. Okay. Well, then
I'm not sure. Maybe not. No.
Okay. Well, then that case is continued.
Thank you.
Any other requests for continuances?
No further hand, sir.
Okay. Number one, MI -2021 -002432, 1831 North 21st Street. We have no exhibits for that case.
Kenan, LLC.
Any responses?
No, Mr. Trasky, no hands for it.
That case is dismissed.
Thomas Holloman, dismissed.
Carl Tenere, dismissed.
James Snell, dismissed.
Ishmael Shahid, dismissed.
Thank you.
MI -2021 -004635 -2249 -North 12th Street.
RCO 37th Ward, letter of support, Zen Jin, attorney.
Zen Jin has been promoted to panelists, sir.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, sir.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Zhenjin, Z -H -E -N -J -I -N, 1617 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1838, Philadelphia PA 19103,
here on behalf of the applicant. You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth? I do. Could you state your client and the relationship they have with the
property? Yes, my client is the 2249 North 12th Street Holdings LLC. They're the owner of the
property. Mr. Chagai Bader will be with us today. He is the representative from the company.
Thank you, Sarah. And our vice chair has a few questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Jinn, do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
It appears that you've submitted all of the required documents. Is that correct?
That is correct.
Okay, you may proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I am sharing the documentation we forwarded to the Zoning Board. I just want to verify it is
appearing on everyone's screens. It is. Thank you. We have submitted copies of the refusal,
the support letter from 37th Ward RCO, the coordinating RCO and the only RCO in the area,
photos, plans, tax clearance, and related documentation. Firstly, this is an application
in an RM1 district, but it falls under the NCP subarea B overlay. And what we're asking
before the zoning board is a variance to allow a total of four units, which would normally be by
right for the size of the lot. However, under NCP, we're short by about 200 square foot for
the lot size. That being said, this is a large lot and it is in a basically a heavily multifamily
area of the block. And because of that, and because of the size of the lot, the community,
the neighbors and the community representatives were in unanimous support of our request for four
units rather than three. The reason for the four unit layout also is that it would make the units
actually work out better in overall design. I'm going to jump to the plans at this point
to show the board the layout of the property.
This is proposed to be a three -story structure
that will essentially match what is in the area
as far as height and general look.
The lot itself is about 16 foot wide.
I'm going to zoom in so that it's easier to see on the site
the actual width of the property.
It's over 16 foot wide and it's 90 foot deep.
This is a 1 ,500 square foot lot.
So the proposal is to have what is essentially a three -story structure, which will have a maximum height of 33 feet 6 because that is more matching to what is in the area.
The interior layout are four units, but what they are is they are front and back bi -level units, both first floor basement and then second and third floor.
Each contains two units, but each unit also covers two floors.
They look more like a small bi -level house set up than a pure apartment set up.
house setup, then a pure apartment setup. The designer was aware that generally the board
would prefer not having bedrooms in the basement. So what they did is they put the living spaces in
the basement, the bedrooms on the first floor for the first two bi -levels, and on the second
bi -levels, which are on the second and third floor, it's similar in design except the bedrooms
are on the third floor and the living room kitchen area would be on the second floor.
For a total of four units there are accessible roof decks for the upper floor units as well
and there is an access alleyway actually to kind of a court area for the lower level floors as well
so that trash would not have to be stored anywhere on the street. It is accessible through and can
be placed in the court and then pulled out for trash day. So we are trying to manage
trash in a way that it doesn't end up any time on the street prior to pickup. Again,
the total lot size is 1 ,500 square foot. It is about 200 square foot shorter than a buy -write
under NCP, but it is a rather large lot and this layout also allows the units to be a
little more conforming to the area market rate units that people are looking for and again we
when we presented this to the community the neighbors and the community group gave us
unanimous vote of support because it does my apologies it does fit what they're looking for
in the neighborhood and what is already around on the blocks so we would ask the board's favorable
consideration of this request for variance. I'm happy to try to answer any questions or
redirect to any other part of the exhibits. And why don't you have your client and
have your testimony adopted? Sure. Mr. Bader, can you raise your hand and be identified?
I'll have to speak. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Chagai Bader. C -H -A -G -A -I. My last name is Bader. B -A -D -E -R.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I am. Proceed, counsel. Thank you. Mr. Bader, do you see my presentation
to the Board and hear my testimony to the Zoning Board? Yes.
Can you verify that what I have represented is true and correct and adopted as your own testimony?
yes thank you questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman no mr chairman
question or comments from the virtual audience
center for the hands mr chair
do you have a hand lands no hands no sir okay uh planning commission uh ron bednar
with the City Planning Commission, first name Ron, R -O -N, last name Bednar, B -E -D -N -A -R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, please.
While this property is currently indicated for commercial mixed use on a city plan,
given the physical circumstances of the site and the surrounding use pattern,
we recommend a request for variance to be granted.
Thank you.
MI 2021 -004636 -2249 -12th Street, I vote yes.
Harold Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Hullman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Have a good evening.
Thank you.
So, MI 2020, 000119, 3442 North 18th Street, Floor 1, no RCO letter from Tioga United, Cedric Darnell, Mike Kahn, his pro se owner.
Mr. Mike Kahn?
Mr. Mykind, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Hold on one second.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the Portman Pro's here?
Pardon me?
Oh, here we go. I'm ready.
Oh, here we go.
I'm ready.
All right. Cedric Mixon.
All right.
Cedric Mixon.
Yes. Could you spell for the court reporter, please?
Yes. C -E -D -R -I -C -M -I -X -O -N. Yeah, they misspelled it in the city. They spelled it M -I -C -O -N, but it's actually M -I -X -O -N.
Okay. Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Mason. I assume that you've sent in all the required documents. Is that correct?
Yes. And the person that put together the exhibit package, Patrick Jones, he asked to
share his screen. So I'll present the material and he will flip through the slides if that's
necessary. That's fine. Thank you. That's great. Thank you. You may proceed.
all right so i guess we should wait for him to share the screen right
because i don't i don't see anything on my screen okay
he's coming on
it's on you have it's up
are you yeah yeah yeah it put me on mute for some reason all right so this is the exhibit
packet for uh the property located at 3442 north 18th street all right so first we'll go to our
notice of refusal. We are requesting to increase our dwelling units from four units, which
is what it currently is, to five units. All right. And this is a copy of our project information
form. We'll just scroll through that quickly here. All right.
And this is a copy of my deed showing that I purchased the property March 3rd, 2017.
All right.
And this is a certificate of tax clearance.
And next is a copy of what was sent out to the neighborhood that was prepared by Jones Business Development Company.
So this is the actual letter that went out to the neighborhood, and this is the proof of mailing.
So we have a few pages of that.
all right and here's our draft drawings here where the units that we are the unit that we're
requesting to build out is in the rear of the first floor there so that that back portion there
and um so that's the only thing it's the um the structure is already existing we just want to
build it out currently it's being used it's just like unfinished storage space but it's the same
the other units so we're requesting to build that out for the purposes of people in the building
you know visitors in the building always ask if i have other units um so it would make sense to
just provide more housing in the area and this is a picture of the front of the house
and this is an area of view and this is the rear of the property
and another area of view of 18th and Tioga
and that's another picture of the rear of the property showing the the sidewalk there that
comes to the rear of the property and I believe that is it okay you're done sir yes questions from
board? No, Mr. Chair. Mr. Mixon, right now you have four units? Yes. Okay. Questions or comments
from the virtual audience? Mr. Chair, I have Mr. Charles Wieselton with his hand raised,
so I will not speak at this time. Thank you. Good afternoon again, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
Good afternoon again, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Richardson, just state your name.
You've been sworn a few times.
Charles Richardson from the Office of Councilwoman Bass,
from 312 City Hall.
Just wanted to make a correction.
The Tioga United RCO did send a letter,
but they sent it late.
They sent it yesterday.
I did forward it to Sharon and to Ms. Sunkit this morning,
but i'm sure it didn't reach you guys in time but i can read it uh if you would if you uh prefer
are they in favor they are opposed opposed okay that's fine okay and uh the councilwoman joins
with the uh community in opposing the uh increase in the number of units in this in this uh building
thank you mr richardson any other comments from the virtual audience
planning commission this is uh ron bednar city planning this property is indicated for residential
use on the city plan or adopted district plan recommends no change to the existing zoning at
this location the applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical
physical circumstances or conditions of the property that would prevent it from being used
in conformity with the code. Therefore, we recommend the request for variance to be granted.
MI 2020 -00119 -3442 -North 18th Street, I vote no.
Carol Tineri, my vote is no. Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is no.
thank you sir
004841
3603 to
3605 Lancaster Avenue
Houghton Village Civic Association
letter of support
Bodak Trust
mr bodak i promoted mr harry bodak on panelist you should be welcome thank you
also a hanley bodak and i'm blair black
if you could bring hanley bodek on to uh speak that would be helpful i'm just going to share
my screen is he your attorney uh no we do not have an attorney present well then you're the
you're the name on the building we are yes we're the owners you you have to do you have to do the
presentation? I'm unprepared to speak. Okay. Mr. Bodak, then what we're going to do is we're
going to continue the case. Can you unmute Hanley Bodak as he is prepared to speak on our behalf?
Hanley Bodak, he's your... Mr. Bodak, you have to unmute.
I'll mute, Mr. Bodek.
Okay, Mr. Chairman, can you hear me now?
Yes, you can.
Okay, I apologize for my technical difficulties.
All right.
This building is owned by a trust, right?
State your name.
My name is Hanley Bodek.
I'm the trustee of Bodek.
Spell for the court reporter, please.
B like boy, O -D -E -K.
First name, Hanley.
H -A -N like Nancy, L -E -Y.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Please.
yes sir have you submitted all the required documents consisting of proof of ownership
tax compliance refusal or referral photos and 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 i have i've submitted
all the documents you require to mr jason hand and i had a meeting with the peloton village rco
oh and they have provided me with a letter thank you mr chair because it's a trust does he need an
Thank you. Mr. Chair, because it's a trust, does he need an attorney?
attorney
Sharon's already looked at this.
Okay, cool.
Mr. Bodak, are you ready?
Yes. Should I continue?
Can you put it on our screen?
Yeah, I think Harry Bodak will put it on the screen.
And hi, this is Tanya.
Mr. Bodek, when you began your presentation, could you indeed state that you are the trustee for this project, please?
Should I start?
My name is Hanley Bodek.
I'm the trustee for Bodek Trust.
I'm speaking to you today about 360305 Lancaster Avenue, which is a double -wide property on Lancaster Avenue.
The plot plan of this property is unique because though it is located on Lancaster Avenue, it has access to a side street, 36th Street.
And if you look at the plot plan that we submitted, you can see this, that the proposed parking space where we would like to put in would be accessed from 36th Street, not from Lancaster Avenue.
uh i've met with the community organization and they have voted uh to accept the variance that
i'm asking for i have met with the people who live on 36th street and they have accepted the
variance that I am asking for. And the place where the parking would be is in the back of the
building. I think you can see the plan there right now. That street across the top, which is at an
angle is 36th street and the land for our property 360305 includes access to 36th street
and we would put one parking space there and as I've said the neighbors on both sides
are in favor of my proposal i've met with the community organization and they accept and are
in favor of my proposal and i've provided documentation of that uh the council our
councilwoman has not opposed that the uh the request and if there are any questions or concerns
I would be happy to field them right now.
Questions from the board?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
I'm looking at your site plan.
Do you have a rear yard?
Do I have a rear yard?
Correct.
Are you parking in the rear yard?
Currently, no.
Are you proposing to park in the rear yard?
But I'd like to add that because this is a double lot, and by looking at the plot plan, you can see that the majority of the open space will still be available.
uh the the lot is about uh 65 feet deep and at 3605 Lancaster Avenue the existing building there
only goes back approximately 25 feet so we have all the yard area behind that
uh so we're not using up all of the yard i'm looking at your site plan do you have landscaping
for the parking current currently no but i would be happy to to add landscaping that's not an issue
and if the board would like to request that we put landscaping we'd be happy to
thank you any other questions from the board
mr what you're talking about is what's behind the gate you see the picture right on the front
of the there's the front of the building then the rear of the building is that what the parking
lot's behind the gate or the yard well the the the gate is on 36th street i that's what i'm saying
Well, the gate is on 36th Street.
That's what I'm saying.
I just...
So you want to drive into there?
Yes, from 36th Street.
If you'd like, I could read.
As I said, I got a vote of support from the Powhatan Village Civic Association.
No, we have it.
We have it, sir.
And do you have the letter from my neighbor?
I'm not sure if I've seen that one.
Well, this says, to whom it may concern, I'm writing in support of the petition by Vodek Trust for creation of an accessory parking space in the rear of 3603 Lancaster Avenue, with egress under 36th Street, between 3601 Lancaster and 200 North 36th Street.
My wife, Donna Moratana, and I own 200 North 36th Street, adjacent to the parking space and proposed driveway.
We live at 208 North 36th Street.
He owns the properties on 36th Street and own properties from 200 to 210 North 36th Street.
Our sons, Ian Kerr and Colin Kerr, recently bought and renovated 3601 Lancaster, the rear of which is adjacent to the proposed parking spot and driveway.
They are in favor of the proposed use.
They recently replaced the broken concrete sidewalk next to their property on 36th Street
with new bricks. Hanley -Bodek cooperated on this project, paying for the new bricks on the driveway
section with extra stone underneath to support cars. It looks beautiful. Our neighbor John Mostello
at 3601 Pelton Avenue, although the side of his property is on 36th Street, the other owner on
the block has told me that he also supports the proposed usage. Everyone on this block
supports the new parking spot and driveway. We hope you will approve it. I'd like to add
that I do have a letter, which is not included in the packet, from John Musteller. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Thank you. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I have Blair Bodock here. Do I allow them to speak?
Well, yeah, that. Yeah, I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
Yes. Could you state your name, please? Sorry. I inadvertently raised my hand.
Okay, fine. Fine. We're fine. We're fine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
is there anyone else in the virtual audience
has a comment
Debra McCarty has her hand raised
so I'll know to speak
Ms. McCarty
thank you
hi could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter
certainly Debra McCarty
D -E -B -R -A
M -C -C -A -R -T -Y
you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do proceed. Good afternoon. I represent Pelton Village Civic Association. I'm the co -chair
of the zoning committee and co -chair the RCO meeting for this property zoning request.
I just want to confirm that yes we are supportive. The owner
promised that there should be no short -term leases. The terms of the lease would be a year
or more. And we recognized that he renovated a property that was formerly a garage on Lancaster
Avenue into a really nice retail. And that added a parking space on Lancaster. So technically,
this would take away a parking space on 36th street but it's a it's a you know it's a plus
and a minus so it's it's no less parking spaces for the entrance to this parking space so again
we're supportive thank you thank you thank you very much for calling in are there any other
comments from the virtual audience you know other half was the planning commission
planning commission
ron is it ian ron or mason sorry
if we're having technical difficulties this is mason austin
Could you spell your name for the court reporter?
sure mason m -a -s -o -n a -u -s -t -i -n right do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
Mason, M -A -S -O -N -A -U -S -T -I -A.
and nothing but the truth i do proceed please sure thank you uh mr chairman and members of the board
the property is indicated for commercial mixed use on the city plan our adopted district plan
recommended no change the existing zoning at this location the applicant's hardship is not supported
with evidence of unique physical circumstances
or conditions of the property
that would prevent it from being used
in conformance with the code.
The standing policy of the City Planning Commission
is to not support front -loaded garages
on principal commercial quarters,
legalizing the existing private curb code
will negatively impact both vehicular
and pestering safety.
Therefore, we recommend that the requested variance
does not be granted.
Thank you.
Could I respond to that, Mr. Chairman?
Sure. Yeah. The proposed parking spot is not on the commercial corridor. It is not on Lancaster Avenue, which is a commercial corridor. It is on 36th Street, which is not a commercial corridor.
As I said, this is a unique property because though it fronts on a commercial property, it has access from a side street, which is not a commercial corridor.
I totally understand why you don't want parking spots where you want to have businesses.
And this is not the case here.
There are no businesses on 36th Street.
and on 36th street i have the support of all the owners of properties there and i'd be happy to meet
with the planning commission thank you mr bodak we we thank you we appreciate your comments
mi 2021 004841 3603 to 05 langister avenue i vote yes carol cenary my vote is yes
Thomas Holloman my vote is no Ishmael Shaheed my vote is yes thank you you have your votes
Mr. Bodek thank you Mr. Chairman sure right MI 2021 002429 5012 Knox Street at this point
No letter from the RCO.
Rich DeMarco is the attorney.
Mr. DeMarco, I'm going to have you.
You'll be joining us shortly.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. DeMarco.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Certainly.
Can you hear me okay, Mr. Chairman?
We can.
We can.
Richard DeMarco, last name D -E -M -A -R -C -O for the applicant. Good afternoon.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your applicant and the relationship to the property?
I can. It's Jerry Brown and his wife, Patricia Brown. If it's okay, I'd ask them to be
entered as panelists right away. I would like to have them answer some questions and go through
some testimony they're the owners of the property yes and i represent them all right i vice chair
has a few questions for you you bet i'm mr demarco do you agree to wave the reading of the
refusal and stipulate to its accuracy yes i do okay it appears that you have submitted all the
required documents is that correct i believe i have yes okay you may proceed and share your screen
thank you madam chair members of the board hopefully you can see my screen at this point
you can terrific um this is a a challenging application uh for this applicant mr chairman
and members of the board that we are asking for legalization of an existing duplex in a single
single family zoned area um i'm going to have my my client put on some testimony in a minute and
of course adopt my own the property has been an existing duplex for over 25 years the property
was inherited by my clients from Mr. Brown's mother in that condition. So the existing challenge
posed is that the property is an existing duplex. I'd like to show you some photos.
There are multiple utility counts and multiple meters here. So this is already,
forgive me hit the wrong button so in order to convert the property back to single family
In order to convert the property back to single family, you would have to reroute existing utilities, existing electric accounts, and existing – there's two kitchens.
you would have to
I'll show you floor plans and I'm going to show you some photos.
There is trash storage either in the side alleyway or in the rear yard for both tenants.
Both tenants are currently occupying the units.
One of the tenants has been there for over six years.
Now, forgive me, our floor plans are very rudimentary.
I know you're used to architectural plans.
My clients are of limited means, and this is the floor plan that we have, but it is
accurate, and the dimensions are accurate.
I'll blow it up a bit here.
You can see what we're dealing with.
I'll collapse this.
There's one single unit on the first floor, which is a one -bedroom, and there's a three -bedroom
unit on the second and third floor. And these are the dimensions. So what I'm going to do is
now there's an individual who is the abutting neighbor who is in support of the application.
He lives directly next door, but he's in a call -in situation. He's calling in from
a hospital. He's with his mother at the hospital. His name is Rodney Mingo.
So I've been asked to allow him to potentially testify first so we could get him out of the way, if that's at all possible.
And, of course, Jerry Brown, I would like to be authorized as well.
I'd like to have him verify a few facts.
Can we do both?
We'll start with the one that's in the hospital.
So does he have his hand raised?
I don't see anyone with that name.
Is it Rodney?
His name is Rodney Mingo.
i don't have a phone number handy if that if he if you don't see him we can go to jerry brown and
jerry brown might be able to help with that i don't have him listed either are there phone
numbers they call patricia brown yes we have patricia brown that's them can you please raise
your name your hand patricia patricia raise your use the raise hand function in the zoom so they
see you. I have a lot of Ms. Brown to speak. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Brown can you hear me? Yes I can hear you. Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter? Patricia Brown P -A -T -R -I -C -I -A Brown B -R -O -W -N. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
yes and my husband is going to state his name as well jerry brown j -e -r -r -y b -r -o -w -n
right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes proceed jerry uh did you hear the facts and statements that i made uh so far to the board
absolutely are they true and accurate and would you adopt them as your own testimony
they are true okay and mr rodney mingo uh he is your next door neighbor right yes he's my next
door neighbor we i think he was he was trying to call in okay yeah let's let's let's get to that
in a minute maybe patricia while i finish the testimony maybe you could see if rodney can get
on do you have another resident they're asking
uh rotney i'm sorry rotney is on mute can you unmute he said he can hear everything but he's
on a mute okay all right okay i'm sorry if we could proceed oh and if he raises his hand we
can reach him i'm gonna uh patricia you talk to rodney i'm gonna finish with jerry on the record
okay all right mr brown and then they can reach you he has to mute though i'm sorry okay we can't
we so mr demarco mr demarco mr demarco so he's the next door neighbor right right and he's in
favor of this yes okay so we're fine we're fine okay you're fine with that you'll accept that
it's very good i can say that as an officer of the court as well so mr brown yes is this property
did you inherit this property in its current condition as a duplex dwelling yes are there
two kitchens within the dwelling yes are there multiple meters yes multiple utility counts yes
Yes. Are the units occupied? Yes. How long have the tenant when you said one of the tenants a
longtime tenant, right? Yes. Six and a half years. Six and a half years. If you were not to receive
the variances today, what would you have to evict those tenants? Yes, I would. Okay. And
Okay. And would you have to reconfigure the entire house to adopt to a single family dwelling?
would you have to reconfigure the entire house to adopt to a single family?
Yes, basically, it would be a lot of work and I could not afford it.
I was going to say, do you have the funds to be able to make that kind of a conversion?
No, it would be devastating to our family and the tenants because we would have to
evict the tenants and we would have to allocate a lot of resources to get that done.
And you inherited this property in the year 2000 in its current condition as a duplex, correct?
That's correct.
All right.
And is there any room to provide off -street parking on the current property?
Let me show that photo.
No, they've been parking on the front of the house for 20 years, and there's no problem.
That is due to every three houses there are driveways, and the driveways hold three and four cars.
and that's every three houses on the block there's basically a driveway so it's plenty
of parking on the actual street right in front of the house that's where tenants typically park at
but what i'm getting at there's no room for you to create a parking space if you did you'd have
to demolish the existing structure is that right right no room all right and you got some signatures
from your neighbors in this matter correct right forgive me i'm having i'm having technical
difficulties now i wanted to show you that that uh and i'll do that in a minute but anyway and i
have my neighbor next to me vince de leo he's on site have him have him put his name can we have
him put his name and address on the record please can he hear me yes yes yes okay let me raise the
hand mr de leo wait a minute wait a minute he's in the room with them wait a minute wait a minute
Wait a minute. If you have somebody who wants to testify, just have him say his name and I'll swear him in.
Go ahead.
Vincent DeLeo.
Could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Vincent DeLeo, V -I -N -C -E -N -T, D -I, capital L -E -O.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I will.
Okay. Go ahead, Mr. DeMarco.
Just in your own words, Mr. DiLeo, tell the board where you live in relation to this property and if you support the requested relief.
I live in the 5100 block of Knox Street.
The next block, right? That's the next block, right?
Yes, yes.
Go ahead.
And there's plenty of parking over there. I haven't really seen any problems.
Like, like Jerry said, there's like every three houses, they have driveways and they can fit three, three to four cars in those driveways.
So I don't, I don't see where it's any problem.
You know, it's like I said, it's been there over 25 years.
And like I said, it'd be devastating to have to, you know, try to convert it back to a single family dwelling.
All right.
Is that your case, Mr. DeMarco?
Pretty much, Mr. Chair.
We had an RCO meeting.
It was an odd scenario.
There was only one neighbor.
It was Mr. Mingo who voiced support for the application.
And the rest were just members of the RCO.
And he was the only neighbor there, and he was in support.
And so all the neighbors that we have spoken to support the application because it's a long time.
It's been there a long time.
There are a handful of other multifamily dwellings on the lot, but it would be, and my clients are of limited means.
They're local. They're in the neighborhood. They're not absentee landlords. There's trash storage.
They have longtime tenants who appreciate the opportunity to live there, and it would be a difficult and a catastrophe for them to have to convert to single family, and they lack the means to do it, and it's not of their own making.
the hardship is not one that they created they inherited it from their parents so i would say
there's go ahead that that's all i have thank you question questions from the board no mr chairman
oh mr chairman questions from the virtual audience or comments uh chair bergman this is tanya
i hate to interrupt but i just wanted to confirm that we have um the letter from the community um
and the position is opposed.
We do.
Okay, thank you.
That's fine.
Questions from the virtual audience.
Anybody have a question?
Mr. Chair, I have Ms. Alice with her hand raised.
Mr. Chair, I have Ms. Allison with her hand raised.
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Allison, A -double -L -I -S -O -N, Weiss, W -E -I -S -S, Solo Germantown Civic Association.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
proceed yes thank you uh we were the overlapping rco and affected rco and we attended the rco
meeting and the community felt that they were not presented interior photographs to substantiate
the claim that this property has been a two -family property because we could not find
any records to indicate that that there has been uh rental licenses or permits to
uh construct a two -family or any kind of uh you know information that would show that this had
been and is a two -family situation so the community was opposed
there were four members who opposed thank you and thank you for calling in so mr demarco do
you want to very brief response mr chairman uh the community as it's defined would be the near
neighbors who received notice of this of the meeting and none of them have voiced objections
in fact the only neighbor that attended the zoom a meeting was mr mingo who was in support the
other members, so -called members of the community, were the coordinating RCO and Ms. Weiss who had
issues with the application. But the actual neighbors that are impacted and are nearby,
such as Mr. DeLeo and Mr. Mingo, have no objection to it. So my client has testified truthfully that
this property has been a duplex for 25 years. We've shown you the multiple meters. There's
multiple water heaters, and I'm having trouble showing my screen, but I'm going to, anyway,
there's the meters. There's clear proof that it's an existing duplex. My client has long -term
tenants, but I understand that Ms. Weiss had concerns and doesn't think that this is a duplex,
but we can't get a rental license because this is why my clients are here now. They're trying
to get this resolved they're trying to get this finally legalized it's been that way for 25 years
their mother did it and jerry can you just verify did your mother was your late mother
that converted the property to a duplex while she owned it is that right
jerry are you there okay all right all right mr demarco i understand
i understand everything you're saying thank you for your time planning commission i'm sorry chair
This is Tanya. We do have a representative from the council's office. Mr. Richardson,
may we acknowledge him? Sure. Thank you. I'm allowed to speak.
Thank you again. Mr. Richardson, just state your name, please. Sure. Charles Richardson,
Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass from 312 City Hall. Also, the 12th Ward coordinating RCO did
send something, but they sent something late as, you know, unfortunately it did not reach you.
There is also an opposition. Councilwoman feels that she never likes to do legalizations, especially since the folks did conversions without the benefit of permits or anything along those lines.
We do note that there was a rental license back in 2004, which has lapsed since then, but that seemed to be for a single family household that they were renting out, not as a duplex or multifamily.
So the Councilwoman is opposed to granting this variance.
Thank you.
Planning Commission.
Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The property is indicated for a residential on the city plan.
Our adopted district plan recommends no changes to the existing single -family resident zoning at this location.
the applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or
condition of the property that were prevented from being used in conformity with the code therefore
we recommend the request of variance not to be granted thank you MI 2021 002429 5012
Knox Street I vote no Harold Tenere my vote is no Thomas Holloman my vote is no
Ishmael Shahi, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed my vote is no
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been heard?
Still waiting?
Thanks, everyone.
Thanks, everyone.
Long day, but we appreciate it.
Thank you.
Have a good night.
this is an early night though but we do have someone we're doing okay we're doing okay with
times yeah so we have um craig maladocious his hand is raised and we have another person if you
can allow them to speak we have a case we have people with their hands up after your last
question. Oh, okay, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it's the Eastwood Community Group.
Mr. Craig Melodosian had his hand right now. Good afternoon. Hi, could you state your name
and spell it for the court reporter? Yes, Craig, C -R -A -I -G, last name Melodosian, M -E -L -I -D -O -S -I -A -N.
I'm the coordinating RCO
Ward 40 Republican RCO
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
What case are you talking about?
Well, on the calendar appears
6101 Harley Avenue
This had been previously
continued
So, I guess the reason I've raised my hand is a point of clarification.
The original applicant who appeared before us had engaged in illegal construction on the back of his property.
Right.
When it came to the first hearing.
I'm sorry.
We can't really discuss the case if the applicant is not here, but it was the last one on the list here.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I, yeah, I, I, I, I don't, okay, fine.
Oh, so Mr. Maladolson, just hold a second.
Let's see if the applicant is here.
Uh, let's see if we have, we do have a quorum.
Right.
Kwong Lee?
I have a lot of, um, to speak.
He should be promoted.
he's the applicant i understand
mr lee has been promoted
hi mr lee
mr lee could you state your could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
you need to unmute yourself if you there you go
Hi, could you state your name
and spell for the court reporter?
My name is W -E -N -Q -I -A -N -G -L -I
Do you swear for him to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Are you ready to go on with your case today?
Chair, if I can ask,
sir, do you have your documents
available to present on the screen yes okay chair okay so mi 2021 002611 6101 harley avenue
um our vice chair has a few questions for you hi have you emailed the exhibit packet with all
of the required documents consisting of proof of ownership tax compliance a copy of the refusal or
referral photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing and have you met
with the rco and do you have a letter we have we have the letters
Mr. Lee do you have all your did you send all your documents in
Tanya do we have all those documents yes Mr. Letta's comments do say that it appears that
everything was provided and they're good to go right we have a letter of opposition
just for your information.
I see it, yep.
Mr. Lee, take your screen
and you can start.
Give us, give us access to your screen.
Give us
access to your screen.
Okay, sir, you have two devices on.
One is like a Yai Ting Zhao, and then one you have.
You have to mute the other one, and then present your device.
Thank you.
um sir so if someone is assisting you yes yes good morning this is a yawking show
wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute he can testify but we just need to get his
his could you put his things up on him on the screen okay i'm sorry cheer this is tanya again
Mr. Lee, do you need an interpreter? Because legally, we would have to provide an interpreter
for you. You cannot use someone in the family to interpret. So please respond to that question.
Yes, we have a partner.
I'm sorry?
Yeah, we have another applicant on the other line. Can you connect to me?
okay but i'm asking do you need an interpreter we would have to continue the case if you need
an interpreter we have to get an interpreter for you you cannot use someone in your family
or friend to interpret yes yes you need an interpreter yes i do so that's why i'm stating
we would have to continue this case we're legally bound to have a neutral interpreter
so no one from the family can i can i do the interpreter as you know as a friend no you cannot
sir all righty so what i could do is i can work with you to get a quick turnaround
for a continuance and um chair bergman i would recommend that we continue this case
because we are legally bound
I understand, I understand
that's good
Mr. Chairman
I represent you on the other line
as an applicant
so can they represent me?
I have an applicant on the other line
I think
he's also inside
so they want to talk to you
they represent me for this zoning
Is it an attorney?
no he's a he's an applicant
so we're going to continue the case we're going to have to continue the case we're going to get
an interpreter for mr lee and that way we oh i have to you know i'm the owner of the property
but i have an applicant he's the one who applied for this application so i'm sorry i'm sorry this
is the executive director i previously stated you would have to be continued the only individual
who could represent you would be an attorney or the owner themselves would have to come forward
with the presentation that's the law yeah so so tanya i think what he's what he's saying is the
the actual owner lee every lee applied but the owner's on the phone we we can't work with that
I think if he has somebody else you can present it later, he can present them.
But at this point, we're saying he needs an interpreter.
If you're saying there's another owner, then at the next hearing, the other owner could come in.
No, no, it's not another owner.
I am the owner.
But I have a different applicant, the one who, you know, helped me to apply for everything.
And he's never Yachting Yao, Z -H -A -O.
No, no.
He's not a lawyer either.
Wen Quang Lee.
that's the owner of this building okay so the case will be continued and the um executive
director will work very closely with you to get your case heard quickly is that correct
mr chairman yeah that's fine okay thank you all thank you all right let me let me double check
is there anybody else in the audience that we've missed the last case that i i thought six was the
last case okay how did i get it off how's that happening
okay you you should you should get off the that's it good thank you all right we're good okay
that's it good thank you all right we're good okay uh i hope you didn't mind that i jumped in
all right is everybody off thanks everybody yeah thank you
thanks sherman