Testimony from the virtual audience?
no handshare 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 however the proposed use is consistent with documented previous use of
this structure and with the rest of the attached structures on this block face the city planning
Commission recommends that the board grant the variance. 2021-00338, 1311 North Sixth Street.
I vote yes with the proviso. It's reduced to two. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
MI 2021-003-339-2539 Grays Ferry Avenue, RCO South of South Neighborhood Association
has a letter of support.
Council?
good morning just uh state your name and spell it you're already sworn sure david orphanetes
last name is spelled o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s thank you thomas do you have some questions please
do you agree to the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy i do we have
all of the documents including the rco letter thank you i proceed yep um we're here today on uh
2539 um grace ferry avenue um the um the property uh is located here you have a photograph at the
beginning of the exhibits we presented at the southeast corner of grace ferry avenue and
captain street um as mentioned we do have a letter of support from the coordinating rco the south
of south neighborhood association um they held a meeting on november 17th 2021 uh where we
They held a meeting on November 17, 2021, where we presented the application, which is to change the previously approved use of the ground floor, which was approved by a variance in 2017, calendar number 30494, and zoning permit 775636, which I'll show you in a minute, for the retail sales of food, beverages, and groceries.
and to change that use from that to a business and professional office.
At that meeting, as you can see, I guess I can't share my screen,
but as you can see from the materials at Exhibit 1 that I provided,
that the vote was 25 in support, zero in opposition, zero in abstention.
So we had full support of everybody who was at that meeting.
The refusal, which is included in Exhibit 2 of our exhibit book,
indicates that because the property has an RSA 5 zoning classification, which, as you know,
is a zoning classification for single family use, dwelling use, the proposed use of business
and professional office was refused as not being permitted in the district.
If you were to look at exhibit three of our package, you would see in the first a number
of aerial images and you would see that the property is located catty cornered across
craze ferry avenue from the vicinity energy plant which i believe is located at 2600 has
an address at 2600 christian street massive massive facility as i scroll through the remainder of the
aerials you can see that the area other than the vicinity plant is made up of a series of row homes
there's some further newer residential multi-family residential and single-family
residential development towards and on washington avenue many of those row homes as i would be able
to show you in our in our photographs at exhibit six of the block both on grace fair along grace
ferry and even a little bit on kimball street around the corner are used for non-single family
use um you can see page three if you were to turn to page three of exhibit six i have specific
photographs of specific properties on the 2500 block of grace ferry that are usually utilized
for three family two family even though the zoning classification if i go back to exhibit four
on my exhibit book show those properties uh to the i guess the south of us on our side of grace
ferry are also zoned rsa 5 single family to the opposite corner from us on the northwest corner
of grace ferry and uh and catherine are rm1 properties many of those properties are used
for non-single family use so you have a very extremely mixed block and mixed area immediately
surrounding the property, single family, multifamily, and obviously industrial use
right in the immediate vicinity. This property, I went back and pulled street view images at
Exhibit 5. You can see the history of this property dating back to 2007 when the property
was a boarded up or unboarded up vacant building. I include images, street view images from 2007
2007, 2009, 2011, 2014, showing the condition continuing, 2016. And then in 2017, my client
purchased the property and demolished that building. And you can see in the image here,
back in July of 2017, that blighted vacant building that had stood there for so long
have been demolished by my property or by my client. And then as indicated in 2017, he pulled
a permit that required a variance for the use of the ground floor again for the building that I
showed you that was recently, well, still on the verge of being completed by Zato's Construction,
which is a neighborhood construction company. The owners live in the neighborhood
um and they uh what they're they're actually going to be the tenants of the business and
professional office essentially they're like a family member that came to stay for a for vacation
and decided to stay um they while they were completing the construction of the building
they were not the original contractor the owner or my client john baird had issues with the
contractor uh that he initially hired to uh complete the construction of the project zedo
stepped in and finished the construction of the project. And while they were there,
And while they were there, they liked the property so much, they asked John, the owner, whether he might consider a change of use of the ground floor from the variance zoning permitted retail sales of food and beverages and groceries to the business and professional office.
they liked the property so much, they asked Jim
And that's what brings us here today.
And stepping back to the zoning map real quickly, I wanted to show you the second map that I show you, shows you the great number of corner properties that are used for non-residential purposes, as historically has been the case in our neighborhoods.
And this, of course, is a corner property. I've circled up further up Grays Ferry Avenue towards South Street, both the South Street market, which exists, has existed for some time at South Street and Grays Ferry, but also at Grays Ferry and Bainbridge.
soon after the permit was issued in 2017 that included the resale sales of food and beverages
and groceries, the giant heirloom market went in that project and that property actually that I
came to this board for. And it really made the idea between giant heirloom going in in 2019
before the construction was completed for the subject property.
And also the pandemic makes the idea of a retail sales of food, beverages, and groceries a hardship here.
And in our presentation to the community group, we indicated that the proposed use would be much less dense,
generate much less traffic, much less trash than would be generated by the approved use,
which is, again, the retail sales of food, beverages, and groceries. And for that reason,
we believe that the community group, that helped lead to the full support of the community group
for the application. My client has lived in the neighborhood since he was young. I believe he
might have even purchased his property from the woman who used to babysit him when he was younger.
My client, as I indicated, purchased the property in 2017.
I have included a copy of that deed.
Our tax clearance we've provided to the Zoning Board showing that taxes have been paid.
Here's a copy of the hearing notice that was posted at the subject property in compliance with the zoning code requirements.
You can see those exhibits are those photographs are included in Exhibit 14.
A copy of the zoning hearing notice is at Exhibit 13, and as I indicated, the deed is at 11, and the tax clearance documents are at 12.
Our 14-303 notice, or the 14-303 notice that was prepared and sent out in advance of the November 17, 2021 SOSNA Coordinating RCO Community Group meeting is attached to Exhibit 15.
sasa also requires uh notice that they uh that they prepare be posted at the property
and that was and here's a copy of that at exhibit 16 along with photographs of the posting of that
at the um at the subject property um again um i'm gonna quickly go to the zoning archives
which are Exhibit 7. And here's a copy of that Zoning Permit 775636, dated July 31st, 2017.
It's a little hard to read, but it does call for the complete demolition of the existing structure,
which we showed you photographs of, historical photographs from Street View, and then the
erection of the structure that you presently see there with residential dwelling units on the second
and third floor, and then the retail sale of food, beverages, and groceries at the ground floor.
Again, that was – that non-residential use was granted a variance by the Zoning Board, and here's notice of decision.
Again, that was issued on July 2017.
And so we feel that – and here's a notice of refusal.
There was a rear-yard depth refusal for this structure.
It was an irregularly shaped lot, as you can see both from the aerial images that I showed to you.
and um so we believe that the conditions that existed that warranted the zoning board
back in 2017 granting a variance for the retail sales of food beverages and groceries still exist
at this property and actually the hardship that warranted the granting of the variance at that
time maybe even more so now with the uh with the heirloom giant heirloom market that's gone in up
the street in the intervening years and obviously with the uh with the pandemic that we're still in
the middle of and uh for those reasons we would request that the required relief that we need in
order to have the zoning permit issued by the department of license and inspections be granted
by the zoning board if you're flying out to councilman johnson's office i don't know if they're on on the
It's your client out to Councilman Johnson's office. I don't know if they're on on the call
attempting to ascertain their position. We hadn't received word back from them directly before
today's hearing. So if they're here, obviously. Is your client client here? Yes. Do you want the
testimony adopted, please? Yes. He's he had a an appointment at the VA that he's waited four
months for. That's at 1130. But he I believe so he's not in front of a computer, but I think he
was going to call in and so i've john if you could um i forget how you're supposed to raise
your hand when you call in star nine star nine i've had somebody um tom yeah oh yeah use yeah
use tom please yes and he hit star six uh no we don't have a call in he could just be promoted
it so that he could use his audio yeah i have john here with me um on the phone he's going to speak
in john can you hear i can hear could you do me a favor could you state your name and spell for
the court reporter john j baird b-a-i-r-d okay do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth thank you i do thank you proceed counsel john i'm gonna ask you just
a couple questions john did you hear the statements that i made to the board today
i did yes and are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge
yes they are and would you adopt them as your own
yes yeah sorry all right i have no further questions questions from the board no mr chairman
no questions mr chairman other testimony in the virtual audience
no more hands here planning commission thank you chair bergman e hegarty with the philadelphia
City Planning Commission. Members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map
change to CMX1 at this location. And so the proposed use is consistent with the recommended
zoning and with documented prior uses on this property. City Planning Commission recommends
that the board grant the variance. MI 2021-003-339-2539 Grace Furry Avenue. I vote yes.
thomas holloman my vote is yes ishmael shaheed my vote is yes thank you counselor thank you
have a good day and have a happy holiday everybody mi 2021 003 288 2601 south 7th street
Zin Jin, please. RCO Whitman, letter of support.
He's coming in now as a panelist.
Good morning.
Will you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Yes. Zin Jin, Z-H-E-N-J-I-N.
that is 1617 john f candy boulevard suite 1838 philadelphia apa 19103 here on behalf of the
applicant do you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do mr holliman has several questions for you do you agree to the reading of the refusal and
stipulate to his accuracy i do we have received all of the documents including the rco letter
you can proceed. Thank you. I will refer to the index of exhibits we have submitted with the
application for this presentation. One of the first exhibits is the refusal. As shown on the
refusal, this property is zoned RSA 5 in the comprehensive plan. However, we are proposing
the use for a takeout restaurant with retail sale of food beverages and groceries. The reason that
my client feels that this property is fit for this particular use is because it's historically
been used in this way. If you look at Exhibit 2, the RCO is also in support. As Exhibit 3,
we have attached an extensive neighborhood petition in support. Part of the reason the
neighbors are so strongly in support of this use is because this property historically has been
used this way. And for the most part, it is already set up as such. The photographs we have
at the exhibit four, I'm sorry, exhibit five shows that the property is actually
I'm sorry, Exhibit 5 shows that the property is actually already set up.
I'm sorry, I want to correct myself.
That is Exhibit 4.
It is already set up as a commercial space and would be basically continue to be used in a similar format to what it was used before.
My client intend to certainly renovate the space and improve it and continue to use it as a grocery with hot food takeout, essentially qualifying it as a takeout restaurant.
The plans are at Exhibit 5, and it shows the layout for the first floor.
We have no particular changes to the upper floors. This is simply to allow the first floor to be used as the existing grocery with hot food takeout that it was before.
So with the neighborhood support and also with the hardship of a pre-existing non-conforming condition, we would ask the board favorable review of this application.
Do you have your client with you?
Yes, I believe Mr. Charles Williams should be with us.
Mr. Williams, can you click on the raise hand feature to be identified?
Mr. Williams, you can unmute yourself.
Hello?
Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Charles Williams, that's C-H-A-R-L-E-S.
Williams, W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Council?
Thank you.
Mr. Williams, did you hear my presentation to the zoning board?
Can you verify that what I represented is true and correct and adopted as your own testimony?
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from the virtual audience?
No hands, Chair.
Planning Commission?
Thank you, Chair Bergman and Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the single-family zoning here.
However, the proposed use is consistent with documented previous use of this structure.
City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the variance.
Thank you.
2021-003-288-2601-2601 South 7th Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Heileman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
MI 2021-003-025-3344 Tilton Street, we have no exhibits, this is the first listing.
Vieta Urban
Chair we have
a Greg Urban
state your name
and spell it please