Mr. Holloman has a few questions for you.
Do you agree to the...
Do you agree to the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
Yes, I do.
The board has received the required documents, including RCO letters. Please proceed.
Thank you, Chair and members of the board. As I mentioned, Isaac Slepner with Matt Eoney Limited.
I represent the owner of the property junk property LLC with regard to 5220 to 24 Chester
Avenue and my client should be here LeVar Clark who's the principal of the LLC owner as well as
our architect Logan Dry. I understand there's been some glitches with the technology. I'm
going to click this share screen button and if it doesn't work we'll I'll narrate. So let me try
nope doesn't work okay if uh if the board has the documents and and would care to follow along i will
take everybody through our uh presentation so the very top is our table of contents exhibit one
are tax clearances for 52 20 chester and 52 22 to 24 chester exhibit two is our refusal
and we were only issued a single notice of refusal for 5220 Chester.
Exhibit 3 is the meeting summary form from Earths Keepers, Inc., RCO, and the letter of support.
That was 3A, rather.
3B is a similar letter of support from Concessing Area Civic Association.
Exhibit four is our site plan.
So if you look at that across the, to the left there is Chester Avenue, on which this project mainly fronts.
And the project is from Chester Avenue between Lindenwood and Wilton Streets, just west of 52nd and Chester, on the north side of Chester Avenue.
And actually, I think at this point, I'd like to call on Logan Dry to offer just a walkthrough of our floor plans and site plan.
Logan, are you there?
There he is.
Yes, I'm here.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. Logan Dry, L-O-G-A-N-D-R-Y, KCA Design Associates, 6525 Tulip Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19135.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
All right. Logan, if you would, starting with Exhibit 5, walk the board, and I know that there's technology issues, we're not sharing the screen, but you have our plans in front of you, I'm sure.
the board has our plans in front of them if you could just walk everybody through
beginning from exhibit five sure so i'm assuming exhibit is the exhibit five is your is your zoning
site plan right uh four was our site plan so yeah you may as well start at four go ahead yeah i mean
i'll be brief um you know we're proposing a a 17 unit uh multi-family building with some light
uh ground floor business professional use um looking at the site plan again to orient yourself
moving from left to right. You've got Chester Avenue towards the right. Most of the plan is
your rear yard. In a nutshell, we designed the building to be dimensionally compliant with the
zoning code, with the only exception being the building height. So as far as coverage and things
like that, we're permitted 75%. We're only asking for 72%. Open space permitted 25%. We're providing
27.9%. We have side yards on this property as well, just so that all the units have windows
and access to outdoor space that you'll see in the floor plans when we get to. The maximum height
in this district is 38 feet. And again, our building is clocking in at 41 feet, so three
extra feet above. And that was just simply to get some additional ceiling height for that ground
floor uh light commercial space that we'll discuss a little bit later um you know what we have here
is again a building that has two means of egress we've got two staircases as well as a uh elevator
so um you know all four floors the building as well as the uh roof deck and the uh cellar are
going to be fully ada accessible um you know designed obviously in accordance with 2018 ibc
You know, the next exhibit, Isaac, if you want to move into Z2, which would just be the elevations you can see here, you know, the black and white elevations are pretty, you know, straightforward.
You know, the black and white elevations are pretty, you know, straightforward. Obviously, when we get to the renderings, you'll see we had a little bit of fun with the RCO as well as the client in developing some murals that we want to propose on this new construction building, which is something you don't see very often.
But the black and white elevations, again, nearly just demonstrate the 41-foot height that we're asking for compared to a 38-feet.
And then it also shows the pilot houses and the elevator overrun for 10 feet, which, again, is permissible, all of which are meeting the required front, rear, and side setbacks of the property.
Again, the only ask is the additional three feet dimensionally for the height.
um if you want to move into the floor plans um sure i can give you an idea here if you're looking
at the sk1 sheet you'll see the cellar plan as well as the first floor plan um that first floor
area again you see kind of moving towards the bottom of the page where your entrance is that's
chester avenue and again the top of the page would be your rear yard for this property so again the
ground floor you've got your common mail lobby bike area for the residential you'll see your
two staircases that are you know center line the building with the hallway and your your elevator
again for that ada accessibility over on the left hand side in the front you'll see a bi-level
commercial space which again is is bi-level with the basement that you know the owner who's on the
call can discuss a little bit more it's going to be his you know office space in the future
so you can get into a little bit more of the details there but we've got a business professional
you know office style use for that commercial space that we're asking for here and then you
know throughout if you go to the next page isaac on sk2 i'd say basically you've got a typical
floor plan what means is your second floor third and fourth floor are all identical so for each of
those uh each of those floors you've got uh you have uh let's see here one two three so you have
four units per floor um on the upper floors um again they're a mix between two and one bedroom
units um i believe the mix in the building total we've got a total of 10 two-bedroom units and seven
one-bedroom units again all of which have their own private uh balcony spaces uh which we feel
is important to work into these so everybody has their own private balcony spaces that are at least
five by ten and then again they all have that access whether it be the stairs or the elevator
up to the shared roof deck again your square footages of these units range in size on the
small end for the one bedrooms are about 675 which is actually pretty pretty large for a one
bedroom considering some other development in the city you know where you can cram here we had a
a decent amount of space in the lot that we could kind of really, you know, make these units a little
bit larger. So again, ranging in size from 675 square feet to looks like the larger end is about
950 for those two bedrooms. And again, all of the units are designed to be compliant that are type
B accessible, as well as the required number of type A units that we need. And again, that elevator
helps us, you know, provide a greater access to accessible units and, you know, types in a
building of this size that, you know, not having the elevator would prohibit us from. So we felt
it was a good choice to put that in there. Other than that, I mean, the roof deck plans, the last
page of the floor plans. And again, just from this, I would point out that we have our minimum
roof deck setbacks from the front and the rear. Our pilot houses and our elevators are also set
back more than 10 feet which is required and we located all of the mechanical equipment again
towards the rear of the property on the roof again the idea being that you didn't want to see any of
that from the streets so we kind of tried to tuck it in the back and then just I guess kind of while
we're in the back of the property that's also where we have our trash enclosure which again
can be accessed from either of the side yards the owner's going to have private collections since
were over the six unit uh minimum for that so it would be you know private trash collection
uh probably two or three times a week and again we have all of that all the tenants have access
to that uh you know fenced off uh trash enclosure area in the back and then on on trash day you know
the collection company would would access that from either of the two side yards and and do their
thing there um isaac the next one's the rendering i'll kind of just touch briefly on that and you
know that that's probably all I have for my part at least but um thank you thank you thank you
Isaac would you want to bring the owner on and adopt sure um yeah LaVar I would like to um
call my client uh LaVar Clark who is the principal of the LLC owner uh junk property LLC
who is the principal of the LLC owner, Junk Property LLC.
LeVar, are you there?
Can you guys hear me?
Yes, I'm here.
Okay, LeVar, state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please.
Name is LeVar Clark, L as in Larry, E as in Edward, V as in Victor, A as in Apple, R as in Robert.
Last name is Clark with L and E.
Thank you.
and um uh chair i guess uh just want to be sure that the witness is sworn as well
yeah i'm sorry yeah do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do thank you uh lavar you heard all the testimony that i offered to the board today
yes i did and did you hear the testimony that logan dry offered to the board today
yes i did and would you adopt all that testimony as though you had offered it yourself
Yes, I would.
Is there anything that any other facts about this property in your proposed development that you wanted to share with the board?
I wanted to share that the commercial space, which is like business space, will be occupied by my team, which is very company development.
We plan on bringing our real estate office there.
That's where our home base is going to be located.
We can provide education, also lending, and also we're bringing our nonprofit, which is BEAT, Building Equitable Action Together, all in that location to provide services to the community.
There are also community benefits that we've talked about with the neighboring RCOs.
Two of the units will be affordable units at 60% AMI.
Also, we've coordinated with RCOs.
we would like someone from the community to uh design and when the building is built is imprint
the the murals there that represent the history of the concessing neighborhood um as it sets so
that way when a new development comes on they have a part in the development itself so those are
pretty much some of the things that we we want to do in regards to coming into the community
thank you mr clark thank you questions from the questions from the board no mr chairman
no mr chairman okay questions from the virtual audience
yes chair we have minister l you can admit yourself greetings mr chairman and uh members of
the Zoning Board of Adjustments, Minister Enoch Amarayal, E-N-O-C-H-A-M-E-N-R-A hyphen E-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
I affirm.
Thank you, sir.
Earth Keepers was the coordinating RCO in this proposed project, and we supported the
project in reference to the reason of refusal, not repeating any testimony.
We supported the property in reference to, you know, we understand that the height was exceeding the three feet of which is required by the code.
Such additional footages we deem necessary for the owner's office space, which would bring management presence as well as the community area, including a conference room for free of use for the community.
With that being said, we support the project and further has determined that, you know, this community development would benefit the community in its diverse capacity and would encourage the honorable members of the Zone and Board of Adjustments to concur.
Thank you very much for testifying.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other questions from the virtual audience?
No more hands, Chair.
Planning Commission?
making sure i hit that unmute button um hi this is this is greg waldman planning commission staff
this property was part of a community driven zoning map amendment that maintained the existing
single family residential zoning at this location however given the lots location along a transit
corridor or the the lots uh plural location along the transit corridor and adjacency to a vacant
structure previously used as a mixed-family multifamily building. We have no objection
to the proposed multifamily use, but we would request a proviso that no more than 15 units
are built, which would be the maximum allowed under the RM1 zoning, the most common multifamily
zoning in this area.
CHAIRMAN BRYANT- Counsel, do you have any comment?
MR. Well, I would say that the
We proposed 17 because after, you know, reviewing our...
Because after reviewing our plans, our square footage, and our uses, we believe that we can effectively provide management of the extra units, I think, would not be incredibly difficult.
This is an experienced property management company to the two extra units would be the affordable units as well to take, you know, two units out would likely.
I don't want to say likely, but it could lead to the possibility that we may only be able to devote one unit to affordable, whereas if we have the 17 total units, we would definitely be able to offer two of them as affordable at 60 percent of AMI.
So that would be, you know, that would be our position on that.
And I, you know, I understand why that's planning's position, but, you know, we're striving and my client is a local neighbor.
He he intends to run his business out of this property.
He intends to be on site. He already is very involved in the neighborhood in terms of his his planning and his development,
but also in terms of community benefits that he already, you know, gives back to the community and would like to put in these two affordable units at this site.
So, MI-2021-003776, 5220 Chester Avenue. I vote yes with provisors from planning.
Excuse me, Chair. I'm sorry, but you will have to state the provisor specifically, so it's on the record.
Is that maximum of 15?
Maximum 15.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with maximum 15.
Correct.
Thank you.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
We'll provide those 15.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair, and welcome to the board.
Thank you very much.
MI-2021-00889-5921 Haverford Avenue, no exhibits, third listing.
Lotus-02A-LLC.
No hands, Chair.
I vote we dismiss.
Thomas Holloman, dismiss.
Dismissed.
Dismissed.
MI 2020 0028176948 Keystone, no exhibits, third listing, Latrice Burrell.
No hands, Chair.
I vote we dismiss.
Thomas Holloman, dismissed.
is there anybody left in the virtual audience that has a case that wasn't called or they're
still waiting no hash thank you everybody great work no i'm sorry chair um a hand did just go
okay sure mike you can unmute yourself yes i was here for the uh 138 tasker meeting wait a minute
do me a favor could you identify yourself and sure my name is michael harrigan h-o-r-r-i-g-a-n
uh i thought there was going to be a meeting for 138 tasker street so let me let me just
swear you real quick do you do you swear from tell the truth the whole truth nothing about the truth
yes sir so at two o'clock today we continued one through one through the eight tasker street
at the request of the applicant's attorney.
Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
That's okay. That's okay. We'll make sure
you're notified the next time.
I sat through a lot of meetings.
Well, two o'clock, we did announce it.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you so much.