currently apartment buildings. On the next slide, you'll see the existing land use. And as you'll
see up and down 11th street and the surrounding community there is no longer industrial use with
one exception if you if we start you can see here a picture of the of south 11th street as well as
the 11th street corridor you'll see you know south 11th street starts from bainbridge you have
residences on both sides of the block despite the ICMX zoning there and then on the next block
on the western side of the block you have what was formerly Hawthorne's Cafe it's now Two Robbers
Cafe which moved into the area you have a one-story CrossFit gym nursery school
nursery school, the subject property, and then across the street, Palumbo Academy.
the subject property and then across the
And this red here actually was an auto shop that was recently redeveloped into residences,
10 residences. Below that, you have more residential homes on both sides of the block.
Across the street in purple, you do have one existing manufacturer, that's Petro's bread manufacturer. It is a one-story building and certainly not of the scope of this 38,000 square foot project.
And as ownership can attest, they spent an extensive amount of time seeking to market this large 1914 built building for industrial commercial uses, could not find a viable tenant.
This map shows you in pink rental licenses in the neighborhood and in blue business licenses.
You'll see there are very few business licenses remaining in the neighborhood, as opposed to what are the true commercial corridors that are the Italian market down here on South 9th Street and South Street up to the north.
This area is well-suited for transit-oriented development.
You can see here apartments nearby.
There is the east-west 40 bus line.
The north-south 45 bus line, I believe, and the Broad Street line is within a couple blocks.
And as you can see in green, there are new bike lanes and a recent street-scaping design on South 11th Street itself,
accessible directly from the bike storage that ownership is providing at the property.
The next exhibit we have here is a letter from the property's appraiser, the Flynn Company, noting the lack of viable or marketable features necessary for an industrial commercial user.
In summary, the broker points to two factors that make this parcel incompatible with the permitted uses, one being the nature of the existing building.
Again, as trucks would be required to back into the building and block the sidewalk and the building itself with an existing loading zone in front, albeit a small one, is not fitted for modern commercial trucks or commercial access.
and as just one loading dock, second being the residential, overwhelmingly residential character
of the surrounding neighborhood. As you see here, Mr. Flint of Hine, quote, we are seeing less
demand for these older, functionally obsolete buildings in tertiary locations. We also have
a letter from Jim Paterno at Stockton Real Estate Advisors, also finding that the subject
property is not suitable for modern commercial or industrial tenancy, again, given the nature
of the building and the surrounding neighborhood.
The conclusions, again, being that the permitted uses here were but are no longer compatible
with the existing building in this location the next exhibit is a sport letter from the
hawthorne empowerment coalition the ownership met extensively with the neighbors over a series of
of meetings over the spring and summer and as i'll detail in a moment entered into a very
comprehensive community benefits agreement to ensure minimal modification and beneficial not
adverse impact in this community the vote ultimately in support was 38 in support and 14 opposed
we understand that certain neighbors have had a negative experience with development in this
this neighborhood hawthorne empowerment coalition the council office were very helpful in convening
these continued and engaged meetings with the neighbors this oops this is the neighbor the
community benefits agreement maintaining as I mentioned both blocks
Maintaining, as I mentioned, both blocks, I'm sorry, both parking lots on the property, totaling the code required amount of parking because the existing building fills the lot so parking cannot be provided on site.
There is also a commitment on ownership to provide and pay for regular street cleaning services weekly for the entire rear block of South Jessup Street to provide.
I think you have to go over a whole community. Wonderful. They're all enclosed in the packet.
Local hiring, ground floor, community amenity space are particularly important to the community.
These are the parking lots across the street that I mentioned that the ownership was able to secure.
and i'll be very brief with with the plans for this minimally uh minimal construction of this
adaptive reuse project um uh the what what in in totality uh these plans show is the preservation
of the entire envelope here just repointing and repainting of the facade um and ada and egress
upgrades to the front of the property as well as additional egress in the rear for commercial
properties as well as rear trash space. There are 47 units to preserve the building as much
as possible with minimal construction and take advantage of the broad windows of the property.
those units are mostly one-bedroom dens with the average unit size is just over 800 square feet
there are only three studios they are at average of 600 square feet and the ground level apartments
are all bi-level so they are windows with egress and again well suited to this layout
In front of you is the first and second floor layout of the next slide are the upper floors and the roof deck. There is an existing roof deck access structure. The deck is set back from the street and the community benefits agreement further details posted required quiet areas and posted signs around the building to ensure that those areas are in fact quiet and well maintained.
um these are the life safety plans again showing um the additional egress points at the property
it's a full plan set um in your exhibit package and um miss katie burrell is also on uh in the
virtual audience as the design professional for this project um one um uh last point of the plans
that we were pleased to elaborate on with the City Planning Commission was that the street
furniture and plantings and streetscape in collaboration with AGC really matches the
recent redesign of South 11th Street to include bike lanes and street calming measures that are
that are well suited for this adaptive reuse project um again this is the uh community support
letter we also have enclosed support letters from the nearby businesses i mentioned uh two robbers
which has recently replaced the beloved hawthorne cafe as well as bella vesta beverage across the
street sport letter a petition of support from 31 neighbors in the surrounding community
and this is again the rendering of the repointed and repainted 1101 catherine street in conclusion
mr chair members of the board we submit grant of this relief is consistent with the spirit of the
code to encourage viable adaptive reuse, particularly for historic buildings of this
nature in a transit-rich area that has become overwhelmingly residential.
And further, per the minimal work scope we've described in the community benefits agreement
that we spent a lot of time putting together, this minimal modification will have a beneficial
not adverse impact uh on this residential neighborhood's character congestion public
facilities adjacencies health and safety and the built environment again mr chair we want to thank
hec and the council president's office for their partnership and their support this team
their support this team is deeply committed to continuing to work in good faith with all
is deeply committed to continuing to work
neighbors and stakeholders into the future and uh mr chair this concludes my direct testimony
this afternoon ken penn is in the virtual audience to adopt and affirm my testimony ken ken penn
oh henry can also adopt and affirm my testimony for efficiency yes hi sir could you please state
your name and spell for the stop henry sullivan henry sullivan h-e-n-r-y s-u-l-l-i-v-a-n you swear
or further tell the truth the whole truth yes sir please proceed council thank you mr chair mr
sullivan how are you this afternoon uh mr sullivan have you uh heard the entirety of the the testimony
that i just presented yes and uh can you uh is it true and accurate to yes thank you is it true
accurate uh uh to the best of your knowledge yes and do you adopt and affirm my testimony as your
own yes thank you mr sullivan questions from the board
no question curiosity you said something about this being historic are there any
has it is it locally nationally uh historic it has not been locally nominated that's correct
okay and do you have any easements like with the preservation alliance for great don't believe so
there are no easements for the i'm sorry i don't want to yell there are no easements for the
preservation alliance but it has been nominated by the state historic preservation and uh right
and it is being recognized at the national level so it is being all of our plans are reviewed by
the national park service to keep in in touch with the historic fabric of the building okay
all right thank you other questions questions from our attorney hillary emerson not at this
time mr chair questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience hi chair we
have an last of go with her hand raised all right hold on i i have someone i'm in here come on up
yeah why don't you let let somebody take a chair
good afternoon good afternoon you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
matthew connor m-a-t-t-h-e-w right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor i am please proceed with your testimony my name
is Matt Connor. I live on Marvine Street. I've lived there for 16 years with my family. Marvine
Street's a very unique street. We have over 40 kids on our block. We have a nice, wonderful
community. Kids are able to play outside, and everybody knows each other. Marvine Street is
also the first place that people are going to be looking for parking, you know, the 47 to 90-ish
people that are going to live in this building. They're going to turn right there onto Catherine,
then they're going to turn right on on tomorrow vine um we have older residents who've been on
the block for generations who rely on being able to park on our street and we cannot absorb
you know the types of uh you know additional cars and traffic uh that's going to come in um
i know mr bodson uh alluded to the uh meeting summary that uh hawthorne empowerment coalition
set in with respect to the august meeting which had 14 people opposed uh they also note in there
that virtually all of that opposition is from Marvine Street.
If they had reported on the first community meeting
that was held in May,
they would have noted that there were only three votes
in support of the project out of over 40 attendees.
The August meeting, we were presented,
we were sent the night before a draft of the CBA,
and during the meeting,
it was, we found out that HEC had not even had a lawyer review it.
I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, sir, but I believe Mr. Bozzin drafted it.
And after that was revealed during the meeting,
several lawyers who were residents within Hawthorne got on the call
to indicate that they've also read it and would never allow their client
to sign such a document such a one-sided unenforceable document the community has received
no updates from either the applicants or from HEC on the CBA I was at the the HEC monthly meeting
two weeks ago and Daphne Watkins one of the interim co-presidents committed to me
publicly that the community would receive a an executed copy in advance of this hearing
I sent
Anne and Daphne
an email two or three days ago
two or three days ago asking for an update on when that would be coming and received no response
asking for an update on when that would be coming
and received no response
people remain you know very opposed to this and there are things that uh the developers
can do with respect to parking um in advance of any sort of approval of um the the appeal
that would give us much more uh much more comfort um we don't believe um that they've you know
acted in good faith towards the neighborhood throughout the process and you know can't even
review the doc this the the CBA that was flashed up there for two seconds we've got other neighbors
here you know to express opposition I know other neighbors have written in written in by email so
you know puts us in a difficult position we don't want to be unreasonable we understand the
restrictions with respect to the building. But it certainly has been our experience that the
developers are really dragging their feet and not really willing to make, you know, firm commitments
in advance. And I'm not even sure if the CBA has been signed. Like, I haven't had an opportunity to
review it. Another example, you know, we tried to present some possible solutions, such as working
with the city to bring back parking spaces to the neighborhood that have been taken over by loading
zones and other official and restricted parking areas that really don't get used at all.
You know, they've said they'd investigate that and, you know, talk to some people in
the city.
But for us, you know, if you approve their appeal, all our leverage goes away and, you
know, it's quite possible that they're not going to do anything.
So, you know, I'm not an expert in these matters.
I don't know what's possible, but, you know, it seems to me in this case, it's something
like a deferral would be appropriate until we can actually get certainty with respect to the
neighborhood's concerns and at least be able to have people review the CBA. I'll pause it.
But did the RCO, didn't the RCO do that? I don't know. They haven't, they haven't
communicated anything to us. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have any questions?
No, I don't have any questions. I'm happy to respond. Why don't you do this? Why don't you
wait to see how many other people come up and then respond to them once? Anyone else in the
audience here. Come on up, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Could you please state your name and spell
for the stenographer? I'm Pete Janosik, J-A-N-O-S-I-K. I want to get a little closer to the
mic. Janosik, J-A-N-O-S-I-K. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Are you a neighbor? Yes, sir. Are you in favor of this
project you're against i'm kind of torn i have i have a 34 year background doing land use and
zoning in new york city and i'm still learning how you guys do things down here and i did help
out with the uh stadium a little bit um i i live very close to this building and i walk by it
every day and like the first thing I when I saw the notice go up that this was going to be
redeveloped my first question knowing the age of the building was asbestos and you know is there
you know has this been looked into it is most likely there was there at some point has it been
removed was it done legally was it by you know someone who was a company that is licensed to do
this um you know that's that's a you know environmental question is a big thing i mean
i spent my life my professional life reading environmental statements of the size of telephone
books which kids today don't know what a telephone book is and basically in this case it's like
i've just seen how much changes have happened on 11th street since the two years i've been there
And it's like with the bike lanes that have been put in,
the traffic congestion just gets worse and worse all the time.
The amount of, like, development in the neighborhood,
it's like you take the cumulative effect of everything
and, like, all the cars and all the people,
and you don't see any sort of infrastructure being improved.
And it's like parking is horrendous there.
And, you know, the parking for this facility, which I read,
was basically, okay, they're going to get these spots on both sides
of the beer distributor, but it's only for 10 years.
And it's like, after that, it's like, okay,
things are just going to get worse because everywhere you look in the neighborhood,
you know, Rite Aid is happening, then, you know, the place, you know, up on Broad Street,
that, you know, that, they're just going into phase two over there.
But even, you know, just even very close in the neighborhood, just more
and more and more and there's no more parking spaces to put cars and you know the thing that
The thing that also bothered me was the fact that I listened in on the Hawthorne Empowerment Association meeting,
also bothered me was that the fact that i uh listened in on the hawthorn
and it was like, the people there seemed to be, like, felt like they were between the rock and the hard place.
It's like, it came up in the meeting, it was like, okay, if you don't approve this residential component,
well, we're going to put an Amazon distribution center in here, which scared the hell out of everyone.
Because obviously, the area has just gotten more and more residential.
And now, to put something there would really basically freak people out.
And so it's like, just listening to the hearing and listening to people in the association,
you could tell these are people who don't have a background in land use and zoning.
And they're being led.
Very smart attorney.