And if I can have him sworn, I'd have him adopt my testimony.
Kong, could you raise your hand so that you can be identified?
Kong Nguyen has been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Hi, sir.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, Kong Nguyen, K-H-U-O-N-G, and my last name is H-U-Y-N-H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr.
Thank you.
Mr. Nguyen, could you state for the record your title and position at Penn?
Yes, sorry.
Yes, Kong Nguyen.
I'm the Assistant Vice President of Facility at PPMC, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
And did you oversee the construction of the garage and the signage that's a part of this application?
Yes, I do.
Were you present for my recitation of the, in summary of this application?
Yes, I was.
And was that recitation true and correct?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
I don't have any other questions for Mr. Wynn.
I have other witnesses available.
The board has questions regarding the signage.
But if not, I'm happy to move my exhibits into evidence.
Move your exhibits into evidence.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson i'm just briefly mr chair um
mr uh fiscaldo um it looks like there are actually seven signs being proposed but only
five of them are on this application is that correct no that that that that exhibit was uh
shows all the signers there's there are some signs that were uh below the second story uh
window sill and those were already permitted and they've been installed
okay all right thank you for the clarification yes thank you if your comments from the virtual
audience chair we have a claire sable they have been unmuted and allowed to speak
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer
hello yes my name is claire sable c-l-a-i-r-e last name s-a-b-e-l do you swear or affirm to
tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor yes i am okay
please proceed thank you mr chairman um i live at three three two sloan street which is uh the
block of sloan street immediately north of the of the parking garage just north of powleton
um i attended the um the first meeting with rco leaders on september 19th but was not notified
of the second meeting the pec meeting held in october nor were any of the neighbors um on my
block and all of us were opposed to um the signage specifically i don't i have no objection to to pen
putting signs on the structure, but it is a large parking garage, which takes up the better part of
a block. And I specifically object to sign number one and sign number four, the two large internally
illuminated signs, the five by 28 feet ones, which I really feel would significantly negatively
impact the neighborhood by projecting these large institutional branding on where there's
essentially um two pedestrian corridors especially on the the filbert facing side the illuminated
sign would look directly into a large um uh community low-income community of seniors which
is in the university square complex whereas uh on the back of the garage again y pen needs a large
um five by 28 foot illuminated sign high up on the back of a parking garage on what is essentially a
residential area of powleton avenue um it's going to be illuminated at night looking into
and projecting onto a you know a residential area um and it just it just seems uh totally
superfluous to be perfectly honest i understand needing signs for for you know pedestrian and
driver navigation but these buildings on top of you know a multi-story parking structure are not
visible from cars and so it really does only serve the purpose of reinforcing um penn's very large
presence already in the area with large illuminated branding that um really negatively impacts the
community feel it's a very pleasant neighborhood and again for a garage it just seems um totally
superfluous and and um i really i'd walk of intrusion thank you for your input is there
anyone else in the virtual alliance i see no hands chair council before i take this to planet do you
want to respond i'd be happy to call um if the board would like uh phil dorley he's the president
of Compass Sign Company, they're fabricating and sawing the signs, which frankly are similar
to other signs located on the campus. He can speak to the level of illumination, which is less
than a street light, and the impact and the necessity to help people locate the building.
i think you just covered it i mean um okay uh planning commission
planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg baldman
planning commission staff in 2019 the zoning map was amended to commercial mixed use at this location
in accord with recommendations from the comprehensive plan the proposed signs are
for the existing hospital use the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board grant
the variance. Thank you. MI 2023. I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair, but just for the record,
I just wanted to know with respect to Ms. Sable's testimony that that second meeting was hosted by
the coordinating RCO, and we offered subsequently to meet with Ms. Sable twice after that meeting
to discuss the signage, and she declined those meetings. So just for the record, I just wanted
to make sure that the board was aware. Thank you. MI 2023-003-764-3800 Palton Avenue,
I vote yes with proviso per amended refusal dated 10-30-23.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with provisos. James Snell, my vote is yes with provisos.
Ishmael Shaheed. My vote is yes with provisors.
Counsel, you have your votes.
Thank you so much.
Number four, MI 2023, 003-833-5200-UNRU.
Ronald Patterson is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition from the Taconi Civic Association.
Ronald Patterson is coming back and is a panelist now, Chair.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Patterson.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Ronald Patterson, R-O-N-A-L-D, P-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N, Claire Harrison Law Firm, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia PA, 19103.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
My client is the owner of the property.
It's a Philadelphia QOZ Self Storage LLC.
Operating here is Devin Self Storage.
okay and our vice chair has just a few questions sir good afternoon counselor do you agree to
waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do have you emailed in all
the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing yes i have thank you council please share your screen thank you
So, as you mentioned, this application regards 5200 Unruh Avenue.
It's a large warehouse building, four stories here depicting here, right near and along the Delaware River.
And it's about a quarter mile from I-95 and State Road.
For the most part, it was predominantly unoccupied for the last memory, except for an adult cabaret strip club called Daydreams that occupied the building and which had a draped vinyl sign here, if you could see it here on the front of the building facing, I guess, parallel with State Road.
Um, pictures of the current condition, the view from I-95, you can see the upper two
floors traveling down on Route Avenue.
It's the street.
I think you get the flavor of what's going on here.
So Devin took over in like 2022, embarked on a complete renovation rehabilitation of the building and signed it out for the by-right use of a self-storage facility in the I-1 industrial zoning district.
This application is for an accessory signed package.
You can see my screen showing the area of the self-storage.
You can see my screen showing the aerial of the self-storage.
Can you see that? I'm just asking.
Yes, it's visible, Mr. Patterson.
Okay, we're still here. Okay.
So the original application, sorry, was for four accessory signs, three on the building and one freestanding at the corner here of State Road.
We revised the application to reduce this sign, which is sign A, and I'll show you what it was reduced to, which basically spanned the upper floors of three and four.
as well as a freestanding sign.
We're going to remove this freestanding sign
and reduce the size of this sign,
and I'll show you what the new plan looks like.
The screen.
This is the current condition of the building.
You see how it's been renovated.
You see here the free staining signs were removed.
This new sign A, as I mentioned, is half the height.
We've reduced the size of it, and now it's on the fourth floor.
The signs, other than this one, were permitted as a matter of right.
This one, because it's above the bottom of the second for a windowsill, are required a variance.
The size of the sign you see here is now 82 feet in width.
It was 104.
It was 26 feet tall.
Now it's 17.
Cuts in by half.
So freestanding sign, not really visible from I-95, obviously, but we believe that the sign A variance is justified in this case because it's hard to exist based upon the property's location, its use, its surrounding use, and basically its visibility from any nearby street.
The building needs to be and has the right to be identified for what the use is.
As I mentioned, it's set back at least a quarter mile from the nearest street.
It's located in a highly industrial area, nowhere near any residential uses, buffered by the I-95 elevated highway.
Okay. Visible from I-95. When you see the visibility from I-95, you really only see these upper floors, which really necessitates the need for this type of sign at this location.
Go back to the highway shot here.
so apropos anything lower than that would not be effective
and it also replaces of course the long time
similarly located a daydream sign yes
yet we believe that there's no it creates no adverse impacts in fact it will be
beneficial because it will identify the building and will also
help with traffic safety trying to locate
the building due to its
distance from I-95. We did meet with the
Decony Civic Association. That was earlier
mentioned.
Showed your refusal. It was for
sign above the bottom of the second floor windowsill, although it's not clear
from reading that. And our letter from the Decony
Civic Association not opposing our application. With that
THAT SAID, I WOULD LIKE TO PROMOTE ALLEN UCCI TO HELP TESTIFY IN THIS MATTER.
Here, there's no hands at this time.
Hmm. Okay. Patterson, your, your officer of the court will gladly take your testimony. Yes, he would have. I'm sorry, his hand did go up. Oh, sorry. Okay. No, you're fine. It just went up. Do you, would you like for him to testify, Chair? Please. Yes.
Patterson, you're an officer of the court.
Mr. Yucci, you're free to speak. Please unmute yourself.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Alan Yucci. It's spelled A-L-L-A-N, last name Y-C-C-I.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Hi, Alan. How are you?
Pretty good. How are you?
I'm fine, thanks.
You've heard my presentation.
Would you agree that it's true and accurate?
Yes, I do.
And would you adopt it as if it were your own?
Yes, I would.
And with respect to the sign, this sign A, the self-storage sign,
would you agree that the need for the sign is to appropriately
and effectively identify the building?
Anything else you'd like to add?
Yes, I agree that that is the appropriate way to identify this building.
I, much like you've noted, with it being so far away from I-95, it would be virtually impossible to point out this building in any other way.
Okay, thank you. That's all I have, Mr. Chair.
Hillary, before I open it to the board, have the plans changed on this? Is that what we're saying?
Yeah, I was just looking at that. I think I did not see that the first time.
so there are six pages of revised plans and i i did want to ask because i was a little bit
confused the initial refusal was only for sign a excepting the square footage there wasn't any
mention about its height and the height is still i mean the location on the building
but its location on the building is still roughly the same just a little higher
uh it's yeah the sign is smaller it's um it's no higher it's just not as low anymore in terms
of height i couldn't tell i assumed the refusal was for the above the bottom of the second floor
windowsill the way the refusal was written um so it wasn't clear to me other than um
does not comply with area requirements i thought that's what it meant in this case but
Yeah, so the size of the sign has decreased. If I may, it's gone from 2,723 square feet to 1,394 square feet. Seems large, but it doesn't look that large from State Road and I-95.
Okay. So if it's possible, can you just pull up the refusal for a second? Because I think it may be that.
here we go okay yeah it doesn't seem that it mentions the the um being above the second
story but i mean that certainly would make sense because that is um standard on a wall sign and
perhaps um perhaps the planning commission can weigh in on that if that should have been there
because if we should we should just clarify if the board grants what is what is being granted
because the one refusal that's listed on here um i don't think it uh applies anymore um when i
looked at the wall area um so but we can we can check with planning on it it's very generous in