child daycare center in the neighborhood is beneficial for the community their biggest
concern that they put in the mail is uh three things one being the trash um which i don't
supposed to be an issue. The reason why because in a commercial daycare center, I would be hiring a
janitorial service to come in daily to remove trash. There is a basement where the trash can
be stored for the during the day. And then it would be a responsibility of the commercial
janitorial service to at the end of each day to remove the trash daily. So there is no
smell they were the neighbors were concerned about the odor the number two issue was concern
about the noise this being a child daycare center but I would like to say that the backyard would
be used uh for children to be outside but uh each classroom would be taking turns they would not be
outside all at once one because the size of the backyard itself wouldn't allow it in the first
place so uh each classroom would be taking turns so there would be uh not a lot of children
um outside at once and also the operating hours of the child daycare center um that i'm proposing
are at 7 30 a.m to 6 p.m uh so that means that uh you know uh people neighbors getting home from work
would not be um um receiving um not being exposed to a lot of noise so so i get i guess
a logical question would be this is the middle of a residential neighborhood yes and you're putting
14 child care in and out right I mean I don't you think that would upset the neighbors a little bit
or maybe I'm wrong I mean there's no there's not any commercial there's no businesses in your
I mean, there's not any commercial, there's no businesses in your neighborhood, right?
I mean, they're all residential homes, right?
They are all residential homes.
That is correct.
But there are businesses within walking distance.
So, and I think it would be a great addition to have a daycare center within a walking distance for the neighbors to actually use.
um and it will create you know it's an educational purpose um so i have you run have you run daycare
centers before yes so i do have if you would like to see i do have a degree in early childhood
education i have over 15 years of experience in early childhood education and i did own and run
a daycare center in Langford um okay um so questions from the board i i have a question
so you you said that you you used the property previously as a rental unit
that's correct is there a particular hardship as to why you want to change now to a commercial um
use yes yes so I had one tenant and I had to evict the tenant and through the
City Hall and eviction took over eight months and besides eviction taking over
eight months the tenant does all over $27,000 in rent and to your
knowledge um was the feedback from the rco meeting did did they have did the residents uh nearby have
any issues with you having it as a rental property uh no thank you all right any other questions
and actually one of the so the signatures that i did um uh collect um one of the neighbors is
actually next to her neighbor so I am in 485 the neighbor who signed one of the neighbors who signed
is in 481 okay okay so you mentioned as part of this well you're talking about 14 kids what is the
age range no no i'm talking about so um a group home would be a 14 children this is actually more
than 14 children uh okay yes okay but what is the age so the ages are uh from one uh to five
to four so it's a one to two year old classroom two to three year old classroom three to four
year old classroom and four to five year old classroom a total of four classrooms uh ages from
one to five okay more than 14 children yeah so yeah yeah oh yeah it's 14 plus what's the max
number of kids that you're hoping to have on site so these are preliminary plans from an art these
are preliminary drawings from an architect and engineer uh the true capacity is determined by
Department of Human Services when they come out and remeasure. I understand that. So where are you
planning to put the younger children? So the younger children would be upstairs. You're going
to put them upstairs. So you do know that for younger children that are, there's classifications
of occupation of a property for these kind of purposes. And so if you're going to have those
children up on the higher floor, and they are not considered to be capable of self-preservation,
there's a problem. Okay. So where are you going to have the means of ingress and egress for these
children in case there's some sort of fire uh so um uh there is um maximum distance of travel for
the evacuation there is a way to evacuate the building and there is nearby uh in walking
distance uh church uh that has um no no no no no what i mean is you have these young children
on the second floor, if there's a fire, how do they get out of this doggone property?
Okay, so this drawing right here shows the evacuation.
Okay, so they have to come down the steps.
They would have to come down the steps, correct.
But if they can't come down the steps, you have to have some other means of egress if you're going to have these young children on the second floor.
But it is possible.
And what if they can't come down the steps?
You have to have to.
Right. So if that is not possible, you know, we can always change for the younger children to be on the lower floor.
that is not a problem so we can modify it and for the older to be upstairs and for the younger to be
downstairs so you do understand that for fire purposes in a center like this you're going to
need to have a hardwired smoke detection system you're going to need to have the um uh fire alarm
which has the strobes and the lighting you're going to have to have panic bars yeah the doors
There will be, yes, access to the outside.
And if you're going to have the young children on the lower floor, then you still may have to have some extra exits because, again, there are additional requirements for children who are not considered to be capable of self-preservation.
So you may end up having to do some other doors to make sure that there is an exit route for those children.
Right. So the lower level has two exits.
You can't. No, I'm not talking about the lower. You mean a basement?
No, no, no, no, not a basement. The first floor.
First floor, right. Without having to use the stairs. There are, on the first level, there are two exits, one over here and one over here that does not require.
and what we have done my experience from a prior daycare center what we have done
in case of evacuation and when we practiced fire drills because that's
part of the requirements is to practice fire drills what we have done with the
younger children is we used one of the, I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous, cribs that has
wheels. We put the younger toddlers inside of the crib on the wheels and we wheel them
out during the fire drill okay that's one of the things that the staff members knows how to do and
that's what we did with the um daycare center that we private that i previously had in lancorn
and how many staff members are you planning to have so uh according to the uh department of
Human Services based on the classroom size and age of the children, that's the
ratio, teacher-child ratio depends on that, but if it's children three to five
years old, it is one staff member to ten children, and if it is one to two-year
olds it's one for five children and two to three-year-olds is one staff member to six children
so i am uh not expecting for this to have more than four staff members okay okay um questions
from our attorney hillary emerson not at this time mr chair questions from the virtual audience or
come on up sir you want to testify right yeah sure
Could you turn the microphone on too, if you would? Oh, good. Thank you.
And get it real nice and close to you. So could you could you could you state your name and spell it for the court stenographer? My name is Mujeeb Chaudhly. M-U-J-E-E-B.
Last name is C-H-A-U-D-H-A-R-Y.
right do you swear or affirm the mic please
all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but truth
come back to the mic yes i do okay uh are you i'm sorry chair pardon me i i did not get the
gentleman's name okay we'll do it over again do me a favor state your name again and spell
My name is Mujib Chaudhly, M-U-J-E-Edward, E-Edward, B-Boy, last name is C-H-A-U-D like devil, H like Harry, A-R-Y.
Thank you. And I already swore you in, right?
Thank you.
Yes. I do.
I think so. All right. I did ask the question. All right. Thank you. Are you a neighbor?
I'm a next door neighbor.
Okay. Could you give us your testimony and what you think of this project?
Okay. This is next door for me on my right side.
and all the neighborhood which I know of, or who I met, they strongly oppose it.
The reason behind that is it is a residential area, not a commercial area.
There are 18 houses on each side, and that's all the whole street.
There could be only six or seven kids in the whole neighborhood.
That doesn't make any sense for us to have to go into that direction.
Secondly, on that street, there is one house, everybody has two or three cars.
So there are two cars in front of each house.
If the 14 kids are coming, moms are dropping, running on the street and running on the port
ask this is a dangerous situation in a small area thirdly the problem is in the whole block they
technically went to that meeting and 37 to 3 it was rejected so i don't see any further which
look into that the whole neighborhood oppose it only three people support it okay there's something
is wrong there secondly her backyard and my backyard are on the same back side right so
the kids are going to go out is my privacy will be gone well it is a small backyard that we
always say. Liability issue because the traffic now only six people pass by on
the footpath in the whole day. Imagine after these 14 kids, parents dropping off,
picking it up, it will be more liability even on the footpath for all those
houses. If they want to serve it we have a place which is only half a block away
from that house is the church. They have all this facility there for the children.
One and a half block on Busselton Avenue, it was the old Rytale Pharmacy, they made a
big giant place over there. So these, I am living there for 43 years. It's a calm,
quiet neighborhood. And because I know her parents, when they were living the
passed away she she has taken over the property they should come and live there or sell it
because this is going to be nuisance for the whole block of 38 people lastly
those buildings are made for private use for the people who live in not for commercial use one
bathroom here one down there 14 kids teachers where they're going to park
their car because there are only two spots in front of every house lastly I
don't want to waste more time on this whole thing that
I will stop here but I know the whole neighborhood because we live in the same
place they all pose it all right so i will humbly request you all right um thank you very much for
your testimony and thank you for spending so much time here today we appreciate you staying here
okay is there anyone else in the audience there are no hands in the virtual audience chair planning
madison matera planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change from
the existing rsd3 residential single-family detached zoning at this location there are
no unique physical conditions or circumstances of this property that would prevent it from being
used in conformance with the zoning code, the Planning Commission recommends the board deny
the requested variance for Child Care Center. Thank you. MI 2025-004-399-485 Pinewood Road,
I vote no. Michael Johns, my vote is no. Cheryl Gaston, my vote is no. Tanetta Graham, my vote
is no. Ann McAdams, my vote is no. Taya Nguyen, my vote is no. Thank you, everybody.
mcadams my vote is no tie a win my vote is no thank you everybody thank you all right number
three mi 2025 004 400 48 11 king sessing avenue henry clinton is the attorney there's a letter of
support from southwest philadelphia district services 13 in support one in opposition a letter
of strong support from neighbors Miranda Weinberg and Jeff Goffner.
Mr. Clinton.
Good evening, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Clinton, sorry you're here so late.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Sure. My name is Henry Clinton, H-E-N-R-Y, Clinton, C-L-I-N-T-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
But do you identify your clients in the relationship to this property?
Sure. I have two clients, Patricia Irwin, IRWIN, and Mary Taylor, T-A-Y-L-O-R. They're both on the call, and they're both owners of the property.
And our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good evening, counsel. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have, Ms. Wynn.
And do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?
Sorry. Yes, Ms. Graham, I have.
okay thank you uh proceed with your case please thank you thank you
is that visible mr chairman it is sir uh good evening everyone again henry clinton on behalf
of the homeowners uh 4811 king sessing avenue uh this is a request for a rear edition on the home
one-story addition to replace an existing open-air deck and extend maybe out four feet or so from
where the deck's footprint is right now. This is my presentation package containing exhibits AA
through A10, which I ASP admitted. I've included an entry of appearance because I got involved in
the case a little bit later. Here's a refusal. It's an RSA3 zoning district, single family,
with the breezeway in between two refusals. One is a required side yard. You'll see that the entire
side yard right now is three feet, eight inches, even though eight feet is required. We're not
really changing that in the rear of the property. Where we are changing is we are increasing the
occupied area of the lot so that the 50% allowed open space has been reduced by 14%.
If I walk through the plans, I can show you that via pictures.
This is the letter of support.
Chairman recommended.
We did have unanimous support from the community.
There was one member of the committee that was against, but pretty much solid support from the neighborhood.
This is a letter that the chairman referenced early on, the support photographs.
This is the property.
We're looking north.
This is King Sessing Avenue.
shorter a closer view here's the breezeway in between every other house it's currently three
feet eight inches even though the zoning requires eight feet this is a view looking from the other
direction this is the home where my cursor is right now and this is the breezeway in between
this is the rear yard so I think the bottom photograph is more instructive so
here's the breezeway between the homes this is the existing rear deck which
projects out about 10 feet the proposal is remove the deck and extend out four
additional feet to put a one-story addition on so that my client one of my
clients can maintain single-story living and or age in place in this property
which they purchased about two years ago again just some more views for perspective this house
next door has a screened in porch there's a wooden fence in between this is the posting of the
property here's the plan so the plan is basically the same top and bottom here but this is a one
inch scale so we'll use this one we have a porch in our front living dining room kitchen and then
there's a a bathroom full bathroom here and the idea is to take the deck extend it out four feet
and make it into a bedroom so again the existing floor plan is here as i mentioned earlier the
deck comes out about 10 feet and the idea is to extend the deck and really the addition four more
feet we're not enlarging or increasing the width we're staying in line actually we're a little bit
inside the existing framework of the building that's why i mentioned that the three foot eight
inside the existing framework of the building that's why I mentioned that the three foot
eight inch setback we're just maintaining a non-conforming use of the main part of the
property with this addition uh this is the rear elevation what it will look like it's going to
be stuck on the outside side elevation here's the addition the steps will will come along