ZBA Hearing - July 31, 2024

Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.

Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.

Tyowin, my vote is yes.

James Snell, my vote is yes.

Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.

Number two, MI 2024.

This is a re-vote.

MI 2024-001-066-1826, North Newkirk Street.

I vote yes with provisos.

No household living in basement, interior trash,

one bedroom only on the second floor unit,

and a certificate of occupancy needed.

Michael Johns, my vote is yes with provisos.

thank you we're going to start with number our regular list we're going to go to number 15

MI 2024-001-520-2239-47 North 2027th Street.

Clementa Amazon is the attorney.

There's a letter of support from all in the family with an enforceable proviso.

Applicant also provided five-letter support from neighbors, including the adjacent neighbor at 2237 North 27th.

street. Council. Amazon is coming back in as a panelist now. Good afternoon, chairman and members

of the board. Good morning, Council. How are you? Could you please state your name and spell for the

court stenographer. Good morning. I'm from Amazon. So C-L-E-M-E-N-T-A. Last name is A-M-A-Z-A-N.

All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do.

Could you identify your client or relationship to the property?

My client is Top Tier Builders LLC. They are the owners of the property, and I have Colby Mills as the representative of the owner.

Thank you. Our vice chair has a few questions.

Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reason of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?

I do.

Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?

Yes, I have.

Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.

Thank you.

Again, my name is Clementa Amazon, and I will be presenting 2320-239-47 North 21st Street.

During my presentation, I will go through the refusal.

We did receive a letter of support from the RCO, as well as from nearby neighbors,

maps of the area, as well as photos of the property, our notice, which was provided of the duty meeting,

the certificates of mailing, application for appeal, project information form,

The deed showing that top-tier builder's LLC is the owner of the property, as well as our certificate of tax clearance.

So this property is a pre-existing use, as you will see in my presentation.

It has already been fitted out for more of an industrial use.

My client purchased the property as is.

He did some renovations.

However, he is now looking to have his tenant maintain the use of the property as an electrician stores and office space.

so we do have two refusals because the property is zoned for residential use it is on rsa5

however again this is a pre-existing use a pre-existing structure that my client would

like to continue using in this commercial space we do have a letter of support from the rco stating

that they do support the project the provisals that they have requested are specifically for

the use of storage and office use only which we are happy to comply with they also requested that

we prove on the record are operating hours. This is not a space that customers would be

frequenting in and out. It is purely for storage as well as office space. We imagine that the

expected office hours will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. And my client does have a great relationship

with the neighborhood, and he was able to reach out to nearby neighbors to request letters of

support, as you can see here. The first letter that we have is Women & Neighbor on 2600 West

Susquehanna Avenue stating that they support the project, 2231 North 27th Street, 2237 North 27th

Street, 2630 West Dolphin Street, 2703 West Sedgley Street. And as I mentioned, this is a

pre-existing use, as you can see here, for this application for a zoning permit. In this present

section right here, I think it might be a little close to see here, but you can see that the

use at that time was for sheet metal fabrication shop with accessory storage and office and this

dates back to 1983 again my client purchased this property as is he made some renovations as you will

see further in my presentation with the photos however this is a long-standing use that has been

dating back to 1983 and here we have a photo of the map of the area just an aerial view

as we can see here we are along about 27th street with west dolphin right patty corner as well as

west fletcher street i'm just going to zoom out here to show the floor plans that we have for

the property we do have two floors here and the entrance is along the first floor just zoom in

so you enter along here and then there's storage available throughout the property

There's a separate room here.

Further back, there's storage along the full length of the property.

There's a separate room that's provided to the left as well.

And then we have office space and further storage along the second floor.

And again, my client did significant work on this property.

It was a nuisance, and as you can see, very much so on the ISO for the community.

This is how the property looked when he first purchased it.

So again, it was not well maintained at all.

There was junk and a lot of dumping of trash for this particular space.

So these are photos of what the property looked like prior to my client's acquisition

and as they began working to clear things out.

So this is a photo showing once the property was completely cleared of that trash.

So this is the photo showing once the property was completely cleared of that trash.

And a view of the front of the property.

As you can see, he painted it.

He installed new windows.

So he really put in a lot of effort to make sure that the property was no longer a nuisance

and an eyesore for the community, which resulted in him establishing a great relationship with

neighbors and being able to see the letters of support that you guys absolutely and me

present not too long ago.

Again, photos of the front of the property.

and here we have a photo showing that the property was in fact posted for today's hearing

the application for appeal submitted by that client

our project information form detailing the description of the project

i apologize just sent the head there the notice that we sent out for the community meeting

and again we did receive a letter of support from the community as well as several letters

from nearby neighbors again the refusal that we have here this is a pre-existing structure

it is a non-conforming use that date back to 1983 the refusals because the property is zoned as rsa

5 although it is not fitted out as such and has not been used in that matter for quite some time

so we do have refusals for the equipment and material storage as well as the office space

list of properties that were notified of the meeting our certificate of mailing

and the d showing that my client top tier builders llc does in fact own the property

as well as our certificate of tax clearance so with that i would be happy to answer any

questions that the board may have as well as have my client about my testimony it should be

colby mills in the virtual audience why don't we bring your client on and counselor could you

tell us again the hours 8 a.m to 4 p.m seven days a week yeah okay and i'll have my client

confirm that as well sure thank you colby mills please raise your virtual hand

colby mills please unmute yourself and wait for the chair

Good morning, sir. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?

Good morning. My name is Colby Mills, spelled C-O-L-B-Y, last name M-I-L-L-S.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Please proceed, counsel.

Hi, Colby. Did you hear my presentation today?

I did.

And was it true and correct?

It is.

And could you specify what the hours of operation will be for the property?

So I believe it's it's actually Monday through Friday, eight to four.

Thank you.

Would you have got my testimony as your own?

I would.

Thank you.

Questions from the board.

Questions from the board.

Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.

not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience

chair i see no hands at this time planning commission thank you chairman and good morning

david vecto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with the city planning commission do you swear or affirm to tell the

truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes sir i do please proceed thank you sir chairman

Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5 residential

single-family zoning at this location.

The city changed the zoning maps for this property from RM-2 residential multifamily

to RSA-5 in 2014.

The RM-2 zoning dated to 1967 when the property was rezoned from industrial to residential.

This property has a history of storage use.

The 1942 and 1962 works progress administration maps show this as an industrial block face.

So the requests for equipment and materials storage yard and business office are consistent with prior documented use of the property.

The City Planning Commission recommends that the Board grant their proposed use variances for equipment and materials storage yard and business office.

Thank you.

MI 2024-001-520-2239-47 North 27th Street. I vote yes with Proviso. Hours of operation 8A to 4P, Monday to Friday.

Michael Johns, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Taya Nguyen, my vote is yes with Proviso.

Thank you.

Number four, we're going to go to number four.

Thank you, by the way, counsel.

So MI 2023, 006-089, 2000 East Clearfield Street.

Rachel Pagan is the applicant.

There's a recommendation of support from Somerset Neighbors for Better Living.

Vote was six in support, a zero opposed.

A letter of non-opposition also from Council Member Squill.

Chair, Ms. Pagan will be coming back in as a panelist now.

Good morning, Ms. Pagan.

Ms. Pagan?

Yes.

Sorry.

Good morning.

Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?

Yes.

Rachel Pagan, R-A-C-H-A-E-O, Pagan, P-A-G-A-N.

Right.

do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth

yes could you please turn on your uh video of course okay our um our vice chair has just a

few questions for you okay good morning have you emailed in all the required documents and

exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes

Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.

Okay.

And this application is for use as a sit-down restaurant on the ground floor of an existing attached structure. No change to existing multifamily household living use on the second floor and third floor. The proposed use sit-down restaurant is prohibited in the CMX1 zoning district.

correct um so why don't you proceed with your presentation okay thank you um so my name is

rachel pagan and as i am leasing the property from my older sister margie pagan um the property

for discussion is 2000 east clearfield um as you stated uh we're pretty much focusing on the ground

floor. To the right is a notice of refusal. The proposal here is seeking a variance to permit that

sit-down restaurant that can activate the serving neighborhood in a CMX1 commercial district.

In this case, implementing local businesses will help stimulate the economic growth in our

neighborhoods. This proposal hopes to create accessibility to food and promote pedestrian

friendly places in the community, a way of investing in our neighborhood.

And then here is pretty much a site mapping. As you can see, the property is locating in the

Kensington neighborhood at the corner of Emerald and Clearfield. The site is the red box. So here

I've highlighted a five minute walking distance from the site, a number of schools in the

neighborhood and restaurants to pretty much show the dynamic of the neighborhood, but

also to see how we could contribute to the neighborhood, creating more access to food

spots, creating access to safer places.

And in this case, there is a higher number of schools within that five-minute radius.

So being so safety is pretty much a concern, a concern factor in activating vacant and unused spaces like the ground floor of this building.

And by activating spaces, we have more surveillance and community involvement.

And then the prior use of this building was a cafe back in the 50s.

I do know the current uses in the early 2000s was a bar and recently within 2017 it was a notary

place and then based on some of the existing photos that I have here it's pretty much used

for storage and then a proposed schematic that we've laid out just thinking about how we would

arrange the spaces nothing is permanent it's just um based on some of how we would arrange the

spaces um as you can see the ground floor there's about three entrances a side and then two from

the frontal approach and some of the documentations needed uh we were

And some of the documentations needed, we were supported by the meeting.

And then here are some photos of the documentations that we had to post out in the front, application for appeal, the project information forms that we submitted, and the commercial leasing.

And if I'm not mistaken, you also have a letter from Council Member Squillin, right, correct?

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Questions from the board?

Questions. Yes. How many seats are you planning to have?

you said um based on tables not too many um probably about five to six we're mostly thinking

of it as um accessory seating rather than um rather than like an actual sit-down restaurant

um but minimal i would say five seatings with about four chairs

so you're planning to have more takeout and yeah yeah it's receiving it okay and is that