ZBA Hearing - September 20, 2022

to maintain the storefronts. Everyone will see it's a storefront. We're not going to go dark

And in the back, you'll be able to have an apartment with one car parking.

There's no demolition involved with any of these projects.

Everything is going to be done up to par.

It's going to be any interior renovations are going to be done to the Interior Department's regulations with regard to adaptive reuse.

And again, in keeping with Mr. Snowden's past history, in this case, I think past history is an indication of his future performance.

He wants to make sure these buildings stay the way they are.

So in terms of preparation, again, because he's a member of the community, Mr. Snowden did not want to curveball anyone.

He sent out 340 pieces of mail on his own.

I actually gave him the addresses that the City Planning Commission would use for all nine projects.

So we overdid it with mailings and had an informal community meeting.

In my first presentation, I'll show you a little bit about what that presentation consisted of.

And I have a lot of redundancy, Mr. Chairman, in my presentations because I gather the board will vote on each project alone.

And I wanted to make sure each project had a full and complete record.

I'm not going to regurgitate what I'm saying now, or I'm not going to regurgitate what's in the first presentation.

But in terms of material preparation, I have to have that in each presentation.

so Mr. Snowden and his staff engaged the neighbors at one of their locations one of

their vacant commercial spaces and they presented these projects seven of the projects because only

two of them are legalization so they really weren't presented but the seven projects where

we're either converting commercial to residential or converting commercial to commercial slash

residential so we had 40 attendees at that meeting it took place about a month or so

a month and a half before the formal meetings with the RCO,

and only one person expressed displeasure with one or two of the projects.

And only one person expressed displeasure with one or two of the projects.

So again, we're part of the fabric.

We want to give the community the heads up.

And then we went through the gamut of the Chestnut Hill Civic Association, the numerous

committees they have, which were very thorough and gave us some good ideas.

Finally, or next to last, I want to talk about the legal aspects of this project.

You'll see in my first presentation, there's a letter from Midge McCauley.

She's an expert on retail throughout the country.

And when I get to the first presentation, I'll talk about that more in depth.

But basically, her thesis and her theme is prior to, but as a result also of the pandemic,

retail is realizing, which I referenced earlier, they don't need the square footage that they

did prior.

The pandemic forced people to downsize, coalesce their operations, and they can get lean and

mean with less square footage which means any of the spaces that we have which are let's use the

term large we're not we're not able to rent they're sitting vacant we don't want vacancies

the business district as you'll see from you know their strong support they don't want vacancies

and i believe the majority of chestnut hill does not want vacancies so in terms of that letter i'll

go through it and you'll you'll see what i'm talking about you know she actually even says

in Europe, you know, you would expect the retail to be about what we have in terms of square

footage, and it's 25% less. So that's one aspect. She talks about other, you know, small towns where

they're doing the same thing that Chestnut Hill is. So from a legal perspective, in terms of

hardship, I want to run through about eight or 10 categories that I think we hit the mark on

all eat. We have some unique circumstances in Chessna Hill and in the physical layout of these

properties, which warrants the variances. We are not altering the essential character of the

neighborhood. The storefronts are staying the same. We are not impairing any development of any

adjacent properties. We're not putting on any additions. We're not demolishing. We are providing

parking for every apartment that we're doing, but it doesn't take away from anyone else.

we're not detrimental to the public welfare we're certainly in harmony with the code because a lot

of these refusals and mr chairman every property is cmx1 but because it abuts an rsa3 designation

in most categories we're getting refusals for uses but because cmx1 does permit retail as well

as residential we're in harmony with the neighborhood again we have overwhelming support

for nine, excuse me, for seven of the nine projects, and one organization is opposing two,

although the councilwoman is staying neutral on that, and they're the last two that I'm going to

present, and we'll save them for the last because they might be the longer of the two. We're not

increasing congestion. We're not endangering the public health. There's no adverse impact

on transportation or sewer or safety, and we're certainly not creating any environmental damages.

Finally, the neighborhood groups that are involved in this presentation have

watched the presentation, have weighed in, include seven or eight organizations.

And I just want to list them for you as we go through.

We have the Chestnut Hill Conservancy. We have the Chestnut Hill Business District,

which is composed of the Chestnut Hill Business Association, Chestnut Hill Business Improvement

District, Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation. And we also have, those groups support all mine,

right? The business folks want this. They see it as a catalyst. I'm reading into their letters a

little bit, but they certainly are in favor of all mine projects. The designated RCO is Chestnut

Hill Civic Association. They're in favor of the first seven projects. They oppose the last two

projects. Councilwoman Cindy Bass, Councilmember Cindy Bass is in support of the seven in line

with Chestnut Hill Civic Association and on the other two where the Civic Association opposes

she's taking a neutral position and perhaps Mr. Richardson is on the call and can echo that.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, that's my opening statement. I'm going to ask that that opening statement be incorporated into all nine presentations, although, frankly, the first two, the opening statement doesn't apply to that much, but some of the illegal ends of it do.

I do have an order of presentation, if you would indulge me, Mr. Chairman.

Sure.

So I'm going to start off with 8622, just to give you a preview. 8622.

I'm going to start off with 8622 Germantown Avenue. Then I'll move to 8624 Germantown Avenue.

Both of those projects are legalization of historic uses. Then I'm going to move to 18 Hilltop,

79 28 germantown 81 37 germantown 101 bethlehem pike 105 bethlehem pike and then the last two

80 42 germantown avenue and 85 32 germantown avenue so the first one is 86 22 let me see

where that is for me. That's number 11, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Hillary. So number 11,

MI 2021-003-132-8622 Germantown Avenue, letter of support coordinating RCO, letter of support

Councilwoman Cindy Bass, letter of support Chesson Hill Conservancy, and letter of support Chesson

Hill Business District. Mr. Chairman, can you see my screen? I can. So I had the presentation

broken up into five because frankly I couldn't get them all on one on one PDF which is too

voluminous. So 8622 Germantown Avenue is the first. This is my you know introductory page

it's the same on all projects. These are my exhibits a little bit too fast.

Here's my exhibits at A3, excuse me, A1 through A10, which I asked to be introduced into the record.

This is the overview of what we did at the community meeting I mentioned at the outset.

We basically had all the folks that were there come into a room, and we were able to give them the aerial view as well as a summary, and then we went through each project.

But this is the letter I talked to you about at the outset from Midge McCauley, and I highlighted some areas that are going to apply to most of these projects.

She talked about the downsizing of individual store footprints and the overall square footage devoted to retail and food uses

are likely to have a substantial impact on Chestnut Hill's main commercial district.

And these are recommendations that Ms. McCauley gave to the business district.

And basically what she was saying is that some of the restrictive zoning that are on the retail corridors should be lifted

and that residential should be permitted

because you're bringing more foot traffic to the area.

You're not losing your commercial frontage

or your storefronts.

And at the same time,

you're letting other citizens who are selling

maybe their larger homes in Chessau Hill

and want to stick around in the neighborhood.

They can do that if they are able

to have a first floor apartment.

So again, not to belabor the point,

but she suggested review of the viability

of shrinking deep retail spaces

so residential could qualify as a permitted use at the back of the spaces.

That's exactly what we're doing in the majority of these projects.

Again, I've said this before, I don't want to beat it,

but deep spaces are tough for retailers.

It's a common issue in historic areas and districts across the country

with Chestnut Hill, and residential reuse of inappropriate retail space

is an excellent solution.

Again, bringing people and activity to the ground floor.

excuse me. These are the support letters that we're getting. This is the list of people that

were invited to the neighborhood meeting even before we met with the RCO. And this is just a

flavor of what Mr. Bowman and his staff did at the community meeting. Basically had a board

for each property, a table, a sign-in sheet for each property. Also had refreshments

to get a gauge from what people's reaction would be

and also to inform, to let them know

that they're not, all of a sudden,

sometimes neighbors get a mailer in their mailbox

about an RCO meeting, they can't make it.

But here was something where people could come out

and just be relaxed and walk through step-by-step.

The refusal, again, every property is same X1.

And the refusal has to do with the fact

that there's a two-family living in this household,

excuse me, a proposed two-family household living, but historically, this always had a commercial

use on the first, and it had two apartments above since the mid-1940s. So we're asking this project

for a legalization of an existing use. Again, to refresh, the current use is not what is reflected

use is not what is reflected in the zoning records. The zoning records say you only have a

in the zoning records, the zoning records say,

commercial and one family. If you went to L&I and asked for an L&I certificate, that's what they

would give you. But when you go through the historical records, which I have, you can see

from 1950, this has always been a commercial and two uses. These are the support letters we got

from the Conservancy, as well as from Chestnut Hill Business Districts, which I went through.

I don't want to go through those again. This is the photograph of the property. Again,

this is what's in the L&I records, but this is the actual use. We've had this use. It's referenced

1933. I was able to find records in the 50s, and there's one reference at 33. I don't want to

stretch it too much. So basically what we're saying, we're asking the board to legalize the

first floor commercial and one bedroom on the second floor and one bedroom in the third floor,

which has been there for basically 70 years.

Here's some interior photographs.

Mr. Clinton, there's no change in the commercial of this property.

No change in the commercial.

Okay.

Questions from the board?

No, Mr. Chairman.

No, Mr. Chairman.

Questions or comments from the virtual audience on this particular case, 8622 Germantown Avenue?

i see no hands chair planning commission good morning chair bergman ian hegarty for the

philadelphia city planning commission last name is phil h-e-g-a-r-t-y do you swear for him to tell

the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir i do proceed thank you chair good morning

board members. The comprehensive plan recommends this property for CMX 2.5 zoning. This proposed

use conforms to the recommended zoning in the comprehensive plan. And so the city planning

commission recommends that the board grant the use variance. Thank you. MI 2021. Mr. Chairman,

can I have my client adopt my testimony? And then can I, unless you want to wait till the end,

he'll adopt it all at the end. I thought maybe at the end you could adopt all your testimony.

That's fine. Is that all right?

That's fine, Mr. Chairman.

MI 2021-003-132.

Mr. Chair, this is Hillary.

If you're going to vote, you should probably have him adopt the testimony for this individual case, just briefly.

Okay.

Let's swear him in.

Mr. Snowden, can you raise your hand?

hi could you state your name and spell for the court reporter please

is in the audience yes rich snowden can you raise your hand yeah my name is rich snowden

can you spell for the court reporter please yes sir s n o w d as in david e n right do you swear

firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, sir, I do. Proceed,

counsel. Mr. Snowden, were you on the call when I presented the project for 8622 Germantown Avenue?

Yes, sir, I was. If you had the opportunity to testify, would you adopt my testimony as your

own and as true and correct? Yes, I would. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Snowden. In Hike 2021, 003-132-8622

Germantown Avenue, I vote yes. Carl Tenere, my vote is yes.

Thomas Collins, my vote is yes.

James Snell, my vote is yes.

Ishmael Shahi, my vote is yes.

Next case, MI 2021-003-131-8624-26 Germantown Avenue.

Letters of support from all the people we've mentioned before, all in support.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Again, my presentation package is attached.

It's going to have some redundancy, but I'll move through it to streamline the presentation.

This project is also requesting a legalization of a use that's been in place since 1950.

Again, my table of contents, AA through A10, which I ask to be admitted into evidence.

I also ask to be admitted into evidence, my opening statement.

And this is the introduction that I went through on the first project.

I don't think we need to go through that again, Mr. Chairman.

Concerning Ms. McCauley's

letter about retail spaces and meeting with the community.

I'll get right to the heart of the presentation.

This is a refusal against CMX1.

There's already a sit-down restaurant there and has been, but the refusal concerns a sit-down restaurant, but historically, it's been used as three commercial and one residential, although if you went to L&I and asked for certification, which prompted the refusal, they would say one commercial and one single family.

There's already a sit-down restaurant there and has been, but

Again, letters of support, which we mentioned at the outset, from the stakeholders.

This is a picture of the front of Casimo's Pizzeria, the listed use, commercial, one

family, historical use, and you'll see why when I show you the plans, Mr. Chairman, historical

use has been for three commercial and one residential, and that's what we're asking

today to legalize that use, which has been in play since 1950. These are some interior photographs