And we are live.
Thank you.
okay chair as you wish we have about 38 attendees at the moment thank you good morning everyone my
name is confessor plaza and i'll be the acting chair for this morning zoning union along with
me are board members thomas holloman present james snell present thank you also uh board
Board Administrator will be Fatina L. and Zoning Board Attorney Rebecca Cole are also
in attendance.
Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to make the following changes related to
this virtual format.
First please be advised that during this procedure proceeding is being recorded and by participating
you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
Second, for the benefit of anyone participating by phone, we ask that attorneys and witnesses
identify themselves prior to speaking or testifying. Third, for anyone participating by phone,
if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand by hitting star nine, then star six to
unmute yourself. Before calling the first case, I would be calling out cases that are being
continue the data. First case we have is calendar number MI 2020-00841, 1041 South 53rd Street.
is being continued, must be heard.
Next one is MI 2020-001-525-1037 Falk Road Street.
Is there anyone here for 1037 Falk Road Street?
i see no hands chair thank you that case will be dismissed
thomas holliman dismissed james snell dismissed thank you god i'm sorry chair it seems like
someone just raised their hand as an attorney. Okay. I'm allowing them to speak now. Thank you.
Okay. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Maureen Walsh and I'm present for arson
Kaskashian. We actually were asking for a continuance. Ma'am, do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. I do. Are you an attorney?
I am an attorney. I'm sorry, Chair, if we can just get her name spelling on the record, please.
Yes. Can you spell your first and last name? Yes. My first name is Maureen. M-A-U-R-E-E-N.
Last name, Walsh. W-A-L-S-H. I'm an attorney with the law firm Kaskashian Dover and Associates.
And I'm here on behalf of Arson Kaskashian.
Okay. And the reason for your request for a continuance?
There are three matters.
Mr. Kaskashian is in another court matter this morning.
Our client, Mr. Kolos, is still recovering from eye surgery.
But the most important reason is because we are still waiting on our engineer who has been hired to complete the drawings to provide those to us.
He indicated that they would not be done by today, and I have not gotten them by today's date.
This case was listed three times prior to today?
It is my understanding that's true, but we are waiting on this draft that we asked for after the last hearing, and we're still waiting on it.
And my client, the last continuous, because the client had emergency eye surgery, and he is still recovering from that eye surgery.
And my client, the last continuous, because the client had emergency eye surgery.
I'm sorry, Chair, this is Tanya Sankit, the Zoning Board Administrator.
This case was initially scheduled a year, over a year ago, in September of 2020, just for the record.
Thank you.
Okay, that being said, calendar number MI2020-001525, dismissed.
Thomas Holloman, dismissed.
James Snell, dismissed.
Thank you.
Number five, MI2020-002622, 1713 South Street.
This case was listed three times prior.
My vote is to dismiss.
This vote was actually dismissed on June 23rd.
I'm sorry, 2021.
It was previously dismissed.
Next one up, number 12, MI 2021-00316990 Rochelle Avenue.
Continue.
Attorney asking for a continuum.
will be continued. Thank you. Does anyone else here need a continuing or are withdrawing their
case or feel that any case that I called was due to an error? Please come forward now.
Chair, we have Rachel Pritzker. Thank you. Rachel, good morning. Please identify yourself for the
record good morning rachel r-a-c-h-a-e-l pritzker p-r-i-t-z-k-e-r 1635 market street suite 1600
philadelphia pa 19103 thank you rachel you saw our phone to tell the truth the whole truth for
nothing but the truth yes thank you please proceed uh chairman i represent uh the owners of 3504
Ainsley Street. I was just engaged yesterday to work on this matter, so I'd like to request a
continuance so that I have time to review the record and can actually put on a decent case for
the board. Okay, calendar number MI 2021, that's 003-662-3504 Ainsley Street. Anyone else here
who would like to speak in this manner?
Chair, we have Alan Nockamson.
Alan, good morning.
Please identify yourself for the record.
Alan Nockamson of Nockamson, PC,
123 South Broad Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA, 19109.
I had my hand virtually raised just for another matter, so I have no interest.
Hang on tight. Thank you. So MI 2021-003-662-3504 Ainsley Street will be continued.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Anyone else?
chair we have leonard excuse me we have alan alcamson i'm gonna unmute him now thank you
hello mr chair good morning members of the board you saw our friend to tell the truth the whole
truth for nothing but the truth i do thank you please for seeing uh yeah so we have some
confusion with the with one of my listings on the 930 list um we are representing the property
owner at 2241 North Fifth Street. We were told that we would have a hearing today. There was
an administrative error before regarding this matter. And we then discovered that there was
no, that accidentally they put 2241 North 15th Street, which my office previously handled on
the listing. So we never received the orange posters for 2241 North Fifth Street. This is
the second time there was some type of administrative error um so now you said fifth
street or 15th yeah so so we actually represented both 2241 north 15th street um which we handled
months ago but right now we have pending a pending zoning appeal for 2241 north 5th street so
accidentally if you look at the calendar listing it's in the middle of of this 9 30 listing there's
2241 north 15th street so what we're trying to do is just either be able to present today
we have a letter of support from the coordinating rco or at the very least get a date
coordinating rco or at the very least get a date uh with orange posters uh sometime this month
for this very simple zoning matter uh i don't see fifth street on our agenda today
that's right because it's the same number the same prefix of 2241 it's just uh the administrator
um accidentally put north 15th street because i'm associated with that matter which was handled
months ago, instead of North 5th.
Gotcha.
And you say you haven't received the orange posters?
No, our office has been working with the administrator, but we haven't received a firm
response of what's going to happen.
So as you can imagine, my client's very frustrated.
This is the second listing for this matter, where originally it was taken off.
Again, a confusion between 2241 North 15th and 5th.
So we thought we strained it out, but then obviously we're not on the calendar listing.
It's not where the 15th is.
Yeah, unfortunately, you know, get a hold of Tanya offline and see what she tells you, okay?
Because if we don't have it on our agenda, we can't go forward, especially if you haven't got the orange posters yet, okay?
I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.
You got it.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Chair, we have Hilary Langer.
Thank you.
Please unmute yourself, Ms. Langer.
Ms. Langer, please identify yourself for the record.
okay we also have steven dudek
please unmute yourself hello this is steven dudek and sir please identify yourself for the record
spell your first and last name this is steven dudek
spell your first and last name please s-t-e-p-h-e-n-d-u-d-e-k uh you saw a firm to tell
the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth yes okay and what case are you here for
uh the case that was just discussed by rachel pritzker uh there's a last minute shuffle
um we wanted to actually go through with today's that case is being continued
you. Thank you. Anyone else. I see no other hands here. Thank you. So first case up will
be calendar number MI 2021-003177, 1214 East Susquehanna Avenue.
um fatine are you there yes i am i'm trying to promote now ms hunkett okay
it looks like the attorney melanie lacy is available
okay i'm promoting her now
Good morning, ma'am. Please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name, please.
Good morning, members of the board. Melanie Lacey. I'm with Claire Harrison,
Harvey N. Brandsburg, 1835 Market Street, Street 1400, Philadelphia, PA. Apologize, M-E-L-A-N-I-E,
last name L-A-C-E-Y. And can you sort of find to tell the truth, the whole truth,
for nothing but the truth? I do. Can you agree to wait the reading of its refusal and stipulate
to its accuracy? Yes. And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents,
proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, photos and plans
five days prior to this hearing? I did. And have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
Yes, and we do.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Okay, good morning, members of the board.
Once again, my name is Melanie Lacey, and I represent the owner, Micah Sherman.
This is a variance application for a multifamily building with four dwelling units.
The property is located on Susquehanna Avenue between Moyer Street and East Girardi.
The property is located on Susquehanna Avenue between Moyer Street and East Gerrard Avenue.
As mentioned, we met with the coordinating RCO, which is Fishtown Neighbors Association for Screening and Public Meetings, and the public meeting took place on September 28th.
The FNA provided a letter of support, being satisfied that we demonstrated a hardship, proposed a use of high-quality materials and design, and established precedent of the legal multifamily use that was previously at the property.
So to give some background on the application, back in 2016, our client had a multifamily building at this address.
As you can see from the picture, there is no building presently there.
So the entire building was destroyed due to the negligent excavation work performed at the neighboring property, 1212 East Susquehanna Avenue.
And at that time, the construction company's failure to properly underpin our client's property resulted in significant structural damage, and the building collapsed, and ultimately it was rendered uninhabitable.
So the Department of Licenses and Inspections ordered Micah, the owner, to immediately demolish or repair the premises, and after filing a catastrophic loss claim,
His insurance company determined that the property was beyond repair, requiring demolition and replacement of the entire structure.
So let me show you some photos of the building before it collapsed.
This is the exterior,
as well as the deck in the backyard.
And I'll mention that the owner occupied one of the four units and intends to reside there, so the board approved this application.
I'll also show you some photos of the interior prior to the catastrophe, and this is the unit that he occupied.
And you can see it had been renovated quite recently.
So following demolition of the structure, MICA applied for a zoning permit in June of
this year.
L&I issued a refusal because a proposed multifamily use is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district,
which I'll show. However, the use would not have been interrupted, but for that excavating
catastrophe that I mentioned. It's also important to note that the building was legally converted
to a three, from a three-family to a four-family dwelling pursuant to a permit that was issued in
1988, which you can see here. So this morning, we're here because Micah's simply trying to rebuild
that four-family building that he had before the neighbor's excavation work destroyed it
by granting approval of this prior use. We respectfully request this relief, given that
the four-family dwelling was legal prior to the catastrophe. The interruption of use is no fault
of the owners. He is, in fact, a victim of negligence, and restoring the property won't
endanger the public. It won't introduce undue traffic congestion. It won't burden public
facilities damaged environment or interfere with neighbors use of their properties.
So that summarizes my testimony on the application, and I'm accompanied by Micah Sherman, the
owner.
So if Micah, you would raise your hand so that you may be promoted to the panel and sworn
Yes, thank you.
He's coming back in as a panelist.
Morning, sir. Please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name.
Is that okay now? Am I here?
Okay. My name is Micah Sherman. My first name is M-I-C-A-H, Micah. My last name is Sherman, S-H-E-R-M-A-N.
And you so affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Please proceed.
did you hear my testimony that i provided to the board this morning yes i did do you affirm that
my presentation was accurate yes i do and do you adopt the testimony as your own i do okay thank
you so along with the project architect um we'd be happy to address any questions that you may have
and that concludes our presentation thank you does the board have any questions uh yes can
Can we show the drawings?
Thank you, Tom.
You're right, I did not show that.
Here we go.
Okay, so this is a zoning page, site plan.
Page, site plan, and let me know if you'd like me to slow down or stop on any particular sheet.
Can you see that, Tom?
continue
i'm sorry you can continue showing oh it's just those three pages
i thought there was nine pages
it just
oh you know what
yes yes i apologize for that these are the additional pages
thank you you're welcome
how many pages in total so these are the floor plans whereas before i was showing
you the zoning set. Mr. Chairman? Yes. You only need one, the site plan. Okay. Thank you, Tom.
Okay. Anyone else that would like to testify?
I see no hands, Chair. Thank you. Tom, any more questions? No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Planning Commission. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and board members. David Fecto, F-E-C-T-E-A-U, with the City Planning Commission.
Thank you, sir. Affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes, sir, I do. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, the comprehensive plan recommends no change in the residential single-family zoning at this location.
In 2015, Fishtown was rezoned through a community-led process.
However, considering the unique circumstances regarding the structure's demolition, which was not caused by the applicant, we recommend that the Board support the requested use variants to reconstruct the previously permitted building.
Thank you.
okay let the record reflect that we have a letter of support from the rco fish town neighbors
association that being said uh calendar number mi 2021 that's 003177 1214 east susquehanna avenue
my vote is yes with proviso revised plans one page uh approved today
thomas hollivan my vote is yes with proviso james snell my vote is yes with proviso
thank you good luck
Calendar number MI 2021-003198, 1721-23 Chestnut Street.
Ms. Lacey, I believe you're up again.
She's coming back in as a panelist here.
Thank you.
Morning, Ms. Lacey.
You are still on the row.
Can you please identify yourself for the record?
Hi, good morning once again.
Melanie Lacey, Claire Harrison, Harvey Bransburg, 1835 Market Street, Suite 1400, Philadelphia PA 19130.
And can you agree to wait the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, photos and plans five days prior to this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
Correct. Yes.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Okay. Once again, my name is Melanie Lacey and I represent the tenant applicant, Kura Sushi.
This is a special exception application for a sit-down restaurant called Kura Sushi.
It is located on the stretch of the street between 17th and 18th street.
It is located on Chestnut Street between 17th and 18th Street, which I will show.
As mentioned, we met with the coordinating RCO, which is the Center City Residents Association, on September 28th.
CCIRI provided a letter of non-opposition with proviso conditions, which I'll share.
And the applicant agrees with the proviso.
In response to those conditions, submitted a revised proviso plan application.
which you can see here. In that application, the floor plans were revised only to identify
the trash room, which is located in the basement of the basement floor plan, which you can
see on the lower right-hand corner here. And Chura Sushi will store their trash internally
in this room. They contracted with a private commercial trash pickup vendor, and here we
We also have a floor plan of the dining area, rendering of the proposed facade.
Now I'd like to highlight the property was once a restaurant in the past, and you can
see that in the zoning history.
Now the applicant simply seeks to convert it back to that use.
There are also plenty of restaurants on this particular block of Chestnut Street.
So to give you some background on the restaurant briefly, Kurosushi is an innovative and tech
interactive restaurant concept. Part of what makes them unique is that patrons place their
orders on tablets located above each table. You can see it here. And they remove their orders
from continuously revolving conveyor belt that runs between each of the tables. You can see the
container here. And I'll go back to the floor plan briefly so you can see the conveyor belts
running between the tables.
So each order is delivered, like I said, in a protective container.
It ensures freshness, and those used plates are placed into cubbies beneath the table.
But it isn't a totally automated concept.
Servers are available to deliver drinks, condiments, soup orders,
assist with the use of the tablets, and ensure customer service.
They'll also clean tables after guests depart.
And overall, it's a modern, creative, family-friendly venue.
It's an established brand with 540 locations across Japan, Taiwan, and the United States.
So the property is zoned CMX 5.
The supplemental use controls require us to obtain special exception approval.
And the proposed project is otherwise code compliant.
So to conclude, giving the character of the block and surrounding area,
The proposed sit-down restaurant use for Kurosushi will add a valuable amenity, and it will have no adverse impacts on the congestion of the streets, adjacent properties, public facilities, public health or safety, nor inconsistency with the comprehensive plan.
So that summarizes my testimony on the application. I'm accompanied by Desmond Wong, who is Director of Construction at Kurosushi USA, Inc.
So Desmond, if you'd raise your hand, you'll be promoted to the panel and be sworn in.
please unmute yourself mr wong yes can you hear me now yes sir can you please uh identify yourself
for the records by your first and last name please yes my name is desmond wong desmond is spelled d-e-s
m-o-n-d w-o-n-g and i'm the director of construction at kua sushi thank you your friend
Do you swear or affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Okay, Desmond, did you hear the testimony that I provided to the board this morning?
Yes, I did.
Do you affirm that the presentation is accurate?
Yes, ma'am.
And do you adopt the testimony as your own?
Wonderful.
so that um along with our project architect uh we'd be happy to address any questions that you
may have thank you thank you uh does uh board have any questions no mr chairman no thank you
Uh, Ms. Rebecca Cole, do we get a chance to, uh, take a look at the, uh, provisos to see which
ones are, were enforceable or not? Uh, we need to know how many pages of, uh, plans to stamp, but,
um, if the, the plans are agreed to by the community organization, um, that that's satisfactory.
Okay, good stuff. Ms. Lacey, you know how many pages?
How many pages? The only revision was to the basement floor plan by identifying that trash
The only revision was to the basement floor plan.
room. I can revisit that page if you'd like. And I did send that standalone PDF to Ms. Shaletta
this morning. Okay, so one page. Let the record reflect that we got a letter from Center City
Residents Association of Non-Opposition. Is there anyone else here that would like to speak in this
matter. Chair, we have Sarah, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Sarah, please unmute yourself.
sarah please identify yourself for the record by your first and last name please
okay the hand was lowered now thank you anyone else
i see no other hands chair thank you planning commission good morning david effecto city
planning commission mr chairman members of the board the comprehensive plan recommends no change
in the commercial mixed use zoning at this location the applicant has proven that a sit-down
restaurant in this building will have no more of an impact than a sit-down restaurant would be
expected to have we recommend that the board support the requested special exception thank you
okay uh calendar number mi 2021-003198 1721-23 chestnut street my vote is yes with proviso
revised plans uh one page approved today thomas holliman my vote is yes with proviso
james snell yes with proviso thank you good luck
Calendar number MI 2021-003104, 1811 North Bend Pelt Street.
Mr. Orphanides is coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you.
morning mr orphanetes please identify yourself for the record
certainly david orphanetes orphanetes and toner to penn center 1500 john f kennedy boulevard
suite uh 800 philadelphia pennsylvania 19102 and i'm here this morning on behalf of infinity
re holdings 3 llc the owner of 1811 north van pelst can you please spell your first and last
name for the scenario? I certainly can. First name is D-A-V-I-D. Last name is O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Thank you. And you swear to front and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. You agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do. And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership,
it, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, voters and plans five days prior
to this hearing? Yes. Okay. And have you met with the RCO and have a letter? We met with the RCO.
We don't have a letter. I did reach out to them last week, emailed the contact that we were
provided. I have not heard back. I did reach out to Council President Clark's office on Friday and
spoke to mary jones about it i'm not sure she's on the call um she said that that indicated to
me at that time she was going to reach out to them as well um to priscilla and um see if she
could secure one but i've i've not seen an email come in through my email since then or received
a telephone call but we did we did with meet with them and we did uh comply with the requirements
of 14 303 as you'll see for notification purposes thank you please listen may you share my screen
yes thank you
see my screen now
chairman can you see my screen yes yes we can yep
um and also i have um i have the architect on the on the should be on the call charles kerr
if he could be at some point admitted as a panelist and also Erwin and Anita Andrews should be on
as well just to add some testimony and and adopt my statements as well
just to add some testimony and adopt my statements as well.
So again, the property is 1811 North Van Pelt Street.
You can see here from a picture that we also include later in our exhibit book
that the property is a vacant lot.
The property is located between two boarded up buildings, as you can see,
and you'll see in further photographs.
But I just wanted everybody to get a sense right off the bat
of what we're talking about here.
the property has been blighted, has been vacant for a considerable period of time.
The exhibit book that we submitted includes our notice of refusal.
Change to this. There we go. Single page. Okay. The property is owned RSA 5. Our application
is for a three family dwelling as you know in RSA 5 anything other than a single family is not
permitted I've included copies of our revised zoning drawings you'll see right here at tab 2
we lowered the front parapet of the building to bring the building it to the same height of the
buildings to either side of us in the event that those buildings are rehabilitated in their current
condition that is lower than the permitted height so we're not trying to squeeze every little last
bit out of this we're looking to uh to fit into where there are uh existing structures on on the
on the block and the reason i bring that up is you can see here here's our property the vacant lot
there are about half the block or more than half the block is vacant lots and vacant buildings
here's the 1800 block in north van pelt street you can see right here an incredible amount um
unfortunately, of open green space.
It'd be nice if it was green space that wasn't supposed to be houses.
You can see that the abutting blocks to either side of us also have
a very high vacant land rate just by taking a look at the aerials.
This history of vacancies on the block goes back quite a bit of time.
you can see here as we go through the Sanborn maps you can see where the vacancies start to pop up
the zoning archives for the property even though there there's a considerable amount of vacancy
and the properties are presently zoned most of them are zoned RSA 5 and let me just go to our
zoning map see right here our property is here it's an RSA 5 block however if you look at my
exhibit 14 where we've pulled the zoning archives for other properties on the block the block has
a history of a non-single family use the zoning archives from the city's website from atlas
show that 1806 north van pelt street where our property was historically zoned for a two-family
dwelling 1806 north van pelt street for a two-family dwelling 1813 north van pelt street for a three
family dwelling. 1821 North Van Pelt Street for a two family dwelling. 1823 North Van Pelt Street
for a three family dwelling. 1826 North Van Pelt Street for a three family dwelling. 1830 North Van
Pelt Street for a three family dwelling. 1832 North Van Pelt Street for a five family dwelling.
1842 North Van Pelt Street for a rooming house for five non-housekeeping units with two community
kitchens 1843 north van pelt street for a three family dwelling 18th excuse me council excuse me
council yeah is that existing buildings or well i'm just showing the history demolish yeah but
that's that's demolished buildings some of them are not standing anymore some of them are standing
but i'm just showing that this this block has a history of non-single family use and i'm almost
finish. 1844 North Van Pelt Street, three family. 1850 North Van Pelt Street, four family. 1852,
three family. 1853, two family. 1854, two family. 1856, two family. 1857, three family.
So there is a history here again of non-single family use. And you have a high degree, as I
indicated with the aerials of vacancy and blight as on the block going through some photographs
that i have of the of the subject property in the surrounding area
you can see right here photographs showing the conditions on the block and up and down the block
so our our property again we're proposing a dimensionally compliant single family
or three family dwelling the original zoning drawings as i indicated had the parapet in the
The original zoning drawings, as I indicated, had the parapet and the bay extending above the buildings to either side.
bay extending above
So we've brought that down, as indicated, on the revised drawings, so it comports and is in line with the buildings to either side in the event that they are rehabilitated in their current state.
Here is the floor plans.
um the units um you know range in size unit one is uh by level 1700 square feet
um the second floor that's at the cellar and the first floor second
floor has an 844 square foot unit and the third floor um
uh has a has a i'm sorry it's it's front and back by levels at the upper
two level at the second and third floor, 994 at the rear by level and 844 at the front by level.
My clients are a minority owned business. They own a number of other properties.
They generally develop single family. They own eight other properties.
In the city of Philadelphia, their model is to attempt to
to provide affordable housing where they can of their eight existing properties. Again,
when they can, they do single families. This is their first time when they weren't able to make
a single family work because of the economics of the area. At present of their eight rental
properties, they have two that meet the low income threshold and two that meet the moderate
income threshold under the mixed income housing bonus, although they are single family dwellings.
They meet those for those that have the units at the lower level in terms of rent. They meet those
levels. We are looking here to provide one of the units, even though it doesn't qualify under the
mixed income housing bonus through the zoning code in the planning commission. I have been in
conversations with the planning commission to see if there was a mechanism where the owners wanted
to commit to providing an affordable unit and still going through that process so uh we did
present to the community that one of the three units was going to be um priced uh one of the
upper levels was going to be priced at the moderate income threshold as set forth in the uh in the
mixed income housing bonus uh under the philadelphia zoning code um and that was what
was presented to the community, and that is the intention of my clients.
Here's a rendering of the building, and you can see right here, fitting in with the height
of the buildings to either side using red brick.
We have gone with them slightly, oops, sorry about that, slightly more modern bay.
A lot of glazing and glass for eyes on the street.
If possible, we'll be putting in another street tree into the footway.
We did run some comps, both rental comps and sales comps in the area.
They are included at Exhibits 15 and 16, and both of them demonstrate that for new construction, there's not anything really particularly close.
You can see you get over into Brewery Town for a lot of the new construction, but that the rates don't support doing this property by right as a single family dwelling.
And if you care to take a look at those, we did include all the comps that my client pulled up, both 15 and 16.
And I can have her testify in greater detail if you have further questions on that.
we do have a couple just so you get an example of what some of the other units that my clients
have developed again i indicated that half of their units meet the moderate or low income
threshold under the philadelphia zoning code and there's their intention here just as with
the other properties that they have is to provide comparable finishes high quality finishes throughout
the unit so they're not going to be skipping there our tax clearance for my clients included
at tab at tab 17 a deed for the subject property showing that my clients do in fact own the own
the property a posting of our zoning notice is at tab 21 that was posted in compliance with the
zoning code our application of appeal and our project information form are at 22 and 23 tab
24 includes our 14 our community notice the email from the planning commission
designating saint elizabeth as a coordinating rco for the project
uh the list of addresses to which we mailed notice of our community meeting we had first
get notice of our community meeting meeting we had first we had that we had troubles getting
we had that we had troubles getting in touch with that
in touch with them initially in establishing a date so we sent out a 14 303 notice by certified
mailing that had a just notified of the project but did not have a date and time for the community
group meeting did have a date and time for the zoning board hearing and then we sent out a
subsequent one that had the information and again by certified mailing that had the information
regarding the community meeting on september 29th and again the certificate mailing for each
here's for the first one and here's for the second one
again in summary it's our position that the given the nature the condition of the block
given the lack of opportunities here to develop the property in compliance with the zoning code
whether it's under the Hertzberg case or some of the other cases that exist to support our
request for variance in this matter we ask that the board again grant the requested relief and
the permission for a three-unit dwelling at 1811 North Van Pelt Street. So for you do you have
revised plans? I do I have revised drawings they are one page I did submit again the only change
is the reduction in the parapet height and um and that was submitted previously with the revised
proviso plan form the one plan stamp today would be is your client available to testify yeah i
would like to have yeah both the architect and then um and my clients adopt my statements in
addition i i reserve the right to if there is anybody on the on the call to uh through additional
statements and testimony and presentations they're right to rebut um but first if um
if uh charles if you can get on the uh if you can please by the identified
mr kerr please unmute yourself
okay can you hear me now just identify yourself for the records by your first and last name please
My name is Charles Kerr, first name C-H-A-R-L-E-S, last name Kerr, K-E-R-R.
So are you trying to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Thank you, please, for seeing.
Charles, you heard the statements I made to the board this morning.
I guess I did.
And are they regarding the architecture of the property, the proposed project, the surrounding area?
And are they true and correct, to the best of your knowledge?
Yes, they are.
And would you adopt those statements as your own?
I would.
Okay, thank you.
Anita or Irwin?
And or Irwin?
Did you raise your hand, please?
Hello, this is Anita.
Andrews?
Hi, Anita.
Can you spell your first and last name?
Yes, sir.
Anita, A-N-I-T-A.
Andrews, A-N-D-R-E-W-S.
So our firm will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Anita, good morning.
Did you hear my statements to the board?
Yes, I did.
And particularly regarding the architecture, the nature of the area, you were the one who
pulled the comps regarding rentals and sales in the area, correct?
Correct.
And again, the statements I made regarding your other rental units and then the rental rates
comporting with the low and moderate income thresholds under the zoning code, you provided
that information to me?
I did.
And you ran the calculations, you did the pro forma to attempt to see whether a one or
a two family dwelling would work at this location, correct?
Correct.
And based upon your calculations, those would not be financially feasible. Is that correct?
Correct.
Okay. And it's true that the statements I made that when you can, you do develop single family dwellings as evidenced by your other projects that you have, correct?
Absolutely, yes.
Okay. And all right. Thank you. So you heard those statements. Are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
yes they are would you adopt them as your own yes i would okay thank you and again i i reserve
the right to call uh nita and charles if i need to if there's anybody else there's any further
testimony or any other statements thank you does the board have any questions uh yes mr chairman
can i suggest that we hold it until we get our rco letter thank you i mean again we i mean
i mean again we i mean we are trying to make the um you know before the end of the year and we did
it we are trying to make the um
do our best to reach out to them and i don't know if they're not on the call but i did reach out to
the council president's office again is there anyone else here that would like to speak in this
manner chair we have josh pesner please unmute yourself how you doing morning sir please identify
yourself for the records by your first and last name uh name is josh pesner j-o-s-h last name
pesner p-e-z-z-n-e-r your address 1815 north van pelt street okay you saw a friend to tell the
truth the whole truth from nothing but the truth i do thank you please proceed um so i am actually
in a uh a group chat with a couple other people from the block at the moment um and we would like
to know if we can get a continuance um to hire an attorney uh to get a more professional and
professionally submit uh all of our reasons why we don't want this uh and also we just heard the
case 1809 well some of the information is false that they presented 1809 north van pelt is not a
vacant house there's actually a family of four that lives there with two kids they've owned it
since 2010 um i'm a real estate professional myself i think that some of the comps they
put in were wrong um but yeah we we didn't i i personally only got one of the letters and i was
just saying that the the date got moved i didn't get any of the other letters that they put out
um so yeah we we would like to put a case together hire an attorney as as a community
thank you anyone else that would like to speak in this matter
yes chair we have mary jones thank you
ms jones you may unmute yourself and wait for the chair
jones good morning please identify yourself for the record
yes good morning uh mary jones uh from council president daryl clark's office city hall room 494
you still are firm to tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
i do thank you please proceed yes um i have um been in contact with the rco and um people are
at this and there's some people were not able to come today because it's it is election day
and many people are involved at the polls they would i agree with mr holliman that this vote
should at least be held.
I wasn't aware of the other community members
looking for an attorney,
but we don't have a final word from the RCO yet.
So there's still matters to be resolved
and our office has not yet.
We wanna basically review what the RCO submits
and what the issues are
so we can also determine whether we will take a position.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
no more handshare thank you board has uh any questions no mr chairman no thank you planning
commission good morning mr chairman members of the board david effecto city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change in the single family zoning at this location
this is a 1358 square foot lot there are no unique physical circumstances that would prevent it from
being used in conformance with the zoning code. However, there are 14 properties on this block
which contain multiple dwelling units, many of which predate the 2014 zoning map changes for
north central Philadelphia. Given the multifamily nature of the block, we recommend that the board
grant the requested use variance. Thank you. And again, if I could just respond, I mean, we work
with the community we always work with the community we've attempted to reach out to them
i'm not trying to you know we came to the community group meeting i don't not sure um so
first i'm hearing but about the some of the neighbors on the block hiring an attorney um
but you know we had some issues with them getting the meeting scheduled and now we're having issues
on this side getting a letter out of them i understand that the council president's office
wants to, wants to hear from them. But I mean, it's unfortunate that we're being held up because
they're not communicating. And again, I think the planning commission's position
is very persuasive in this matter. Yep. So what we're going to do, Mr. O'Fanini's is,
you know, without the letter too, we're curious too, we would like to see the letter. So we're
going to close this record and hold the vote for maybe like two weeks, I'll say,
pending the receipt of the letter. If we don't get the letter in a couple of weeks,
then we're going to render our decision, okay?
then we're going to render our decision, okay?
I would appreciate the opportunity to leave the record open
I would appreciate the opportunity.
to allow me the ability to respond to the letter.
I don't know that it would be wrong for them to respond to the letter.
But other than that, it would be the community group's letter,
St. Elizabeth's letter, a letter from Justine Elizabeth,
and then my response there, if any.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
So for calendar number MI 2021,
That's zero zero three one zero four 1811 North Van Pelt Street.
We're going to hold our vote pending a letter from the RCO for two weeks, right?
Two weeks.
Is that good, board members?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
And again, if the board were to vote, I'm sorry, it would be one plan.
There's one page of the plan.
I see it in our exhibit book.
Thank you.
Thank you, good luck.
Oh, thank you.
Calendar number MI 2021-001496,
1851 North Van Pelt Street.
Chair, I have a Takesha Walker, who's in his race.
Please unmute yourself, Ms. Walker.
I'm not sure if anyone can hear me.
I am Ms. Scott, Shannon Scott.
I am the owner of the property.
You're the owner of the property.
Please promote her.
I'm sorry.
Hold on one minute, please.
Can you please promote her?
Yes, I'm doing it now.
Ma'am, can you please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name, please?
Sure. My first name is Shannon, S-H-A-N-N-O-N.
My last name is Scott, S-C-O-T-T.
on your address my address is 1851 north van pelt street philadelphia pa 19121
thank you so far from the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
yes i do and have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents proof of ownership
proof of tax compliance copy of the refusal or referral orders and plans fought days prior to
this hearing? Yes, sir. And have you met with the RCR and have a letter? I have. Thank you. Please
proceed. I actually requested a variance some time ago to use my property to actually bring
additional opportunities to our neighborhood. Member, real quick, do you have any plans that
you can share with us what i uh i don't really operate the computer well all of those things
were sent to uh the zba i have i submitted plans deeds um rco meetings everything that was requested
was submitted but you also have to do a little presentation so that would be we'd be able to see
what is it that you want? Now, I do have my business partner. She may be a little bit more
computer literate than I. I'm not sure if she can hear. I know that she is included.
Let me see here. I'll find one second.
hello hi everybody good morning good morning ma'am um the are you about what uh can you spell your
first and last name please identify yourself for the record yes dr um takisha walker first
name is spelled t-a-k-e-i-s-h-a walker w-a-l-k-e-r you saw a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the truth yes are you available to show any uh proof of documents i have the
documentation pulled up on my end however i don't even see the um the tab where i can actually share
my screen it was like switched out for somehow before i was able to do it but i can't now
we're gonna try to promote you just so you can present but uh
miss scott's gonna have to uh present her case okay thank you
present her case, okay?
Thank you.
Latina, is there any way we could promote her so she could share her screen?
Yes, and she's coming in now as a parent.
Thank you, LaKeisha.
Okay, I'm going to share my screen.
okay so here can you guys see this is the letter from the um rco can you guys see that
no ma'am you're not um sharing your screen just yet okay here it comes
oh yes i see it and you're able to um share the screen but ms shannon has to speak
that's correct okay shannon uh yes okay so it looks like you're yes i'm not sure can you guys
hear me yes all right so it looks like here um the first that is presented is our letter from uh
the rco uh where we did meet with our community board leaders um i am a resident of the neighborhood
and we did receive access to meet with them regarding um can you scroll as she's talking i'm
I'm sorry.
That what we could see.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Ms. Scott.
Listed here on this form,
it shows the attendees of the meeting
who I am very familiar with.
I've dealt with the RCOs in the past
for other opportunities that I have offered
in the neighborhood.
We presented to them a request to operate a home health care business from my property.
At one time before, I did request to use the same property as a group daycare.
So that is why I'm familiar with these individuals.
And they also welcome me to the neighborhood because I tend to always bring opportunities for the neighbors, for the community, to add jobs and so forth to the community, to community, period.
This is a new venture.
And we have requested that due to the pandemic, the daycare is no longer operating from this building.
Unfortunately, we were unable to keep going. So we decided to then do the business, as I said, for quality of life. That is the name of the business. And we would like to offer health care services throughout the community, Philadelphia County and the surrounding counties, sorry, surrounding counties in Pennsylvania.
yeah um we could go to the second um dr walker whatever which one do you have next i don't know
what uh can you show us any plans uh the site plan yeah site plans or profile
hopefully she should have the photos too
i'm going to go to the email um dr walker so that this is the site plan okay can you see it
i can't see anything but not yet
where um where is the site plan is it in a different um or is it doesn't
so did you open it up separately from this because you would have to you would have to
unshare this so hit the green button go back and share the site plan
Let me share.
Got it.
Can I see it now?
I see it.
you can see it shannon i can yeah yeah can you scroll down a little
it just went away but i did just see it
do you have any pictures
Yes, the pictures were also submitted.
There is the site plan.
Looks like those are the letters to the community that were sent out notifying them of what we are trying to do.
um that were sent out notifying them of what we are trying to do at this location
let's see what do you have next
are you trying to pull up pictures
yep okay my internet is moving so
can't help the technical issues the internet
can we um show the property deed and the taxes tax documents as well okay there they are
that would be the front door entry um from the inside looking out of the building
let's see
it's like they're loading
can you see that sheena yep i can see that there that would be
our office area which is in the front of the building
and the next image is probably our waiting area are you guys housing people overnight
this facility or no oh no no no no no we yeah this is we are just providing um uh actually
we, to our clients, once we receive clients, which we don't have yet, we will be providing
them with caretakers that will actually go to the client's homes. We actually, which is me,
myself, and Dr. Walker, we have no employees. There will be no additional employees. Everything
is done through the internet. Well, not the internet. Everything is done through email,
as far as pay stubs or their timesheets, everything is pretty much emailed to us.
If someone had to come into the office, if we needed to meet with them, it would be occasionally.
But other than that, we pretty much just needed a location, an actual location in order to be able
to operate, period. That area there is
another seating where in the
office. Thank you, Miss. You're welcome.
What will your hours of operation be? The hours of operations
are from 9 to 5, Monday through
Friday. We do have a 24-hour
service to contact us, but as
far as any individuals that needed to walk in or come in, we are here Monday through
Friday.
It looks like there is the deed to the property stating that I am the owner of the building.
Thank you.
Does the board have any questions?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else here that would like to speak in this matter?
I see no hands, chair. Thank you. Planning commission.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. The comprehensive plan recommends no change in
the single family residential zoning for this property. The applicant, hold on a minute.
Okay. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the single family zoning for this property. We
typically don't support commercial use mid-block in a residential block. However, the applicant
has described an office with a service that will refer clients. There would seem to be a minimal
number of people who would be entering and exiting the building. And so because the impact would not
seem to be great, we would recommend that the board grant the requested variance. Thank you.
Calendar number MI 2021-001496, 1851 North Van Pelt Street.
1851 North Van Pell Street. My vote is yes. Thomas Holloman. My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Jane Snell. My vote is yes. Thank you. Good luck.
Tanya, I believe number nine, that's the one with Alan Notkinson, right?
You had a little. Yes, chair. That's an administrative handling.
Okay, good. So I'll go to number 11. Thank you. Calendar number MI 2021-0027168051 Morrow Street. Mr. Orfanides.
Hello.
Hello, Mr. Orphanides, still on the road. Please identify yourself for the record.
Certainly. David Orphanides, Orphanides and Toner, 2 Penn Center, 1500 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 800, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19102.
My name is spelled D-A-V-I-D, first name, last name, O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S, and I'm here
this morning on behalf of Seven Stars Remodeling, the owner of the subject property 8051 Morrow
Street.
I should have with me today Alex Duller, who is the architect.
Mr. Duller, you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax combined, copy of the refusal or referral of photos and plans five days prior to this hearing?
I have.
And have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
Yes. In this case, we do have a letter. Yes.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Yes. And again, I have with me, I apologize for jumping ahead, Alex Duller, who's the architect, and then also Serge Fedorov.
um who's the owner of seven stars remodeling if he could also be admitted as a panelist
to um either provide testimony or adopt my statements um may i share my screen please go ahead
okay again i'm david orphanetes from orphanetes and toner here on behalf of seven stars remodeling
for 8051 Morrow Street. The property goes through from Morrow Street to Craig Street. Just real
quickly, we do have a letter of non-opposition from the Holmesburg Civic Association, which
you'll see later on. It was designated by the Planning Commission as a coordinating RCO
for this property. We also have a number of letters of support from near neighbors, including
owners of the property right next door to where we're developing the property. There's an existing
residential structure on Morrow Street. As I indicated, the property goes through to Craig
and what we're looking to do to subdivide the property to create two lots on Craig Street,
leaving the one residential structure on a lot at Morrow Street. And one of the property owners
next to us on Craig Street at 8070 has provided a letter of support. We have other letters of
support from other property owners on both morrow street and on craig street and those are all
included at tab two uh we do have revised zoning drawings for this project uh based upon input we
received from the community group um they had asked us to push our buildings back a little bit
um we originally had a setback of 14 feet for each of the structures that are to be located
on each of the two lots that are to be created on Craig Street.
Again, here you'll see, let me zoom this in a little bit for you.
So there is a subdivision plan, and here you can see the one existing lot
with the structure existing at Morrow Street, extending through to Craig Street.
the proposal here is to again subdivide create one lot for the existing residential structure
at morrow and then split the rear portion at craig down the middle so you have two lots left
and right fronting on craig street as indicated we've revised the drawings nothing affecting
the lot lines where they're proposed to be nothing affecting the morrow street building
but at Craig Street, the original design, which I can show you, had the building set back 14 feet
from the Craig Street right away. Since each of the homes at single family homes that we're
proposing, we do not have a use variance here, it's just dimensional. Each of the units will
each of the units will have a one car each of the building single family homes will have a one car
have a one car, each of the buildings, single family homes will have a one car.
garage originally the setback was 14 feet as you can see in the letter to make sure there's room
in case somebody stops in the driveway that they don't know for hanging to the footway
they asked us that we set back the uh fronts of the building and here you can see in their letter
um a minimum of 20 feet and what our revised drawings do is they show us that we're now set
back 22 feet and so uh if the zoning board would uh grant our request today i have both one page
of zoning drawings and one page from the lot survey plan lot subdivision survey plan that
would need to be stamped so two pages all together all two pages all together one of each page again
our notice of refusal it is owned which is single family we have single family proposed use um
However, in the RSA-3, even though it's an RSA, which is an attached residential zoning district, attached structures in RSA-3 are not permitted, and our units are attached.
As you can see, they go from sideline to sideline.
Well, we don't have the required amount of side yard.
And then the minimum lot width that you have in RSA 3 is 25 feet. Each of our lots are 16 and a half feet wide. But if you take a look at the information that we've provided further down at tab 14, we provide information regarding the other properties on Craig Street and what those lot widths are, particularly the ones that are located close to us.
They're not 25 feet either. The ones next to us are 17 feet to two feet, 17 feet, 2.5 inches.
Extending the other way, you have a number of 15 feet, 16 feet.
So you have examples of other lots on the of the lots on our block of Craig Street that are similar or smaller lot widths.
Here's an aerial image of our property as it presently exists.
you can see the residential structure at morrow vacant lots to the rear
again here you can see the existing residential structure and the vacant lot vacant portion of
the lot to the rear you can see the structures located next to us are very narrow this is to
the north 8070 and 8072 this is one we have a letter of support from a number of other
going back up here you can see another a number of other very narrow lots
and these rsa5 and rsa3 lots all of them have parking in the front or garages
not that we have a refusal for that and you can see rsa5 rm1 and rsa3s up and down the block
it's a very mixed block um you can see from the photographs that i've included here's at morrow
street but here at craig street if i scroll down just wanted to see what's show you what's across
the street from us this is what's across the street from us so you have residential on our
side but on the opposite side because it extends through to frankfurt you have a lot of non-residential
properties as you can see there are a couple single family homes up the block right here
but other than that the opposite side of craig street is non-residential
the original zoning drawings again show the property as i indicated show the buildings
being set back 14 feet and again that's the change with the revised drawings
see here and that setback here you see 14 feet which we again increased to 22 feet
we do have I did communicate with both Ms. Sunkett and Ms. Saleta we were working on our
tax clearance right up until this morning we had an email from the revenue from the law department
that we had a temporary tax clearance so then today we just received this I did not submit
this I can forward it but this is information that I have we just received today from the
revenue department so we would ask that this uh that the information we provided is information
that's acceptable to the board uh to satisfy that requirement of the zoning code and here's
the email communications that we had uh yesterday uh and then uh our 14 303 here's the email from
the planning commission designated homes i'm sorry that's the email with tanya sharon and lakeisha
Our posting photographs, Exhibit 21, both at Morrow and at Craig Street in compliance with the requirements of the zoning code.
morrow and at craig street require and compliance with the requirements of the zoning code
and then here i'm sorry is the email designating for email from the planning
commission designating homebrook civic association association as a coordinating rco
our address address list our 14 303 notice we had to send out two notices again
getting things scheduled originally we didn't have a date and time by the time the 20 days was
up for us to send notice so we still send out the notice with it to be determined time we had the
zoning board hearing so we provide information so we provided that the certificate of mailing
and then we send out a subsequent once we had the information regarding the coordinating rco meeting
i think it was within a couple days in compliance with the zoning code requirements we sent out an
additional notice um so with that and with the communities non-opposition to our proposal the
existing conditions regarding residential structures other residential structures and
uses on our side of craig street both to the lot width and to the side yards
and the non-residential uses directly across the street we submit to the zoning board that we've
met the requirements for the granting of the dimensional variances in this case with that
I'd like to have Mr. Duller and Mr. Federoff adopt my statements.
I'm here. This is Alex Duller. Alex, please identify yourself with a record for your first
and last name. Alex Duller, Fusa Designs, 622 North 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19123.
You swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
I'm sorry, Chair.
This is Tanya.
Again, I would request a spelling.
Thank you.
Oh, yes.
I'm sorry.
Please spell your first and last name, please.
Alex, A-L-E-X, Dollar, D as in David, U-L-L-E-R.
Thank you.
And, Alex, did you hear the statements I made today to the zoning board regarding the project?
And your firm drafted and prepared the zoning drawings?
and uh and the renderings and things of that nature yes we did okay and uh were the statements
i made to the board today true correct to the best of your knowledge yes and would you adopt
them as your own yes okay thank you and serge you raise your hand i'm not sure if he's here he
It should be on. Did he just raise his hand?
Yes, he's here. You can unmute yourself, sir.
Serge?
Good morning. Do you guys hear me?
Yes, now we do.
Good morning, sir. Please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name for the scenario.
Can you unmute yourself, please?
can you hear me yes something's wrong with my computer uh so sergey fedorov s-e-r-g-e-i
uh fedorov f-e-d-o-r-o-v you saw our founder tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but
do you i do serge uh you're the owner of seven stars remodeling this is correct okay and did
you hear the statements that i made today to the zoning board yes okay and they're true and correct
to the best of your knowledge yes sir and would you adopt my statements as your own yes okay thank
you thank you with that we rest reserving the right to rebut any further statements uh that
might be made during the hearing thank you uh does the board have any questions no mr chairman
thank you is there anyone else who likes to speak in this matter
i see no hands chair thank you mr fanides you said two pages yeah i mean there are two separate
plans one's a one page of the survey plan and one page zoning drawings total of two
Thank you. Planning Commission. Good morning, David Fecto, City Planning Commission, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. The comprehensive plan recommends no change in the single family zoning at this location. This is a 7,147 square foot lot. Although the code allows the applicant to divide their property into three lots, it does not require the applicant to do so.
Dividing into only two lots would help the applicant come closer into conformance with
the dimensional standards of the zoning code. The applicant has failed to show that the requested
the applicant has failed to show that the requested variances are necessary to continue
variances are necessary to continue deriving value from this.
deriving value from this property we recommend that the board deny the requested variances
thank you well we obviously respect the planning commission and and mr effecto's opinion given the
current conditions on the block where none of the other residential uses comply with the requirements
or are very are built the same way with no or little side yards and have lot widths similar
to what we're proposing similar to the Valley View case we think that this what we're proposing is
in keeping with consistent with what exists on our side of Craig Street and obviously you have
to take into account what exists directly across the street with those large containers I forget
what that's called it's the insectarium i think it's a bug museum or something i don't know um
but there are other industrial or light industrial commercial uses so again we'd ask that you take
that all into consideration with all due respect to the planning commission thank you calendar number
For MI 2021-002716, 8051 Morrow Street, my vote is yes, with the revised plans, two pages approved today.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
James Snell, yes, with proviso.
Okay, good luck.
Thank you.
Let the record reflect and Ms. Vice-Chair Tenere, it's present.
Okay, we are.
Moving on to the next case.
Thank you, Professor Plaza.
Calendar number MI 2021-003248-1201 West Girard Avenue.
This is an appeal against L&I filed by Council President Daryl Clark, challenging a by-right permit issued to HPRA 2013 LLC for the proposed development of its property at 1201 West Gerard Avenue.
After originally voting to grant the appeal, the Board received a request to reconsider and rehear the case from the property owner.
That was granted, and we are here today for the hearing on reconsideration.
Because this is a hearing on reconsideration, all testimony, exhibits, and documents submitted at the initial hearing are hereby incorporated into the record.
We will begin by hearing from Sean Whalen, the attorney for the property owner, the party that requested reconsideration.
We will then hear from attorneys for the city and the councilmen.
Please note that because this is an appeal against L&I, not a variance or special exception case, members of the public will not be permitted to testify.
Can the attorneys one by one raise their hands so they can be promoted?
okay i see you up mr whalen good morning madam chair sean whalen w-h-a-l-e-n
do you swear from the tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do
okay is there anyone else that has to be promoted
sure we have maggie white we have mary jones and we have leonard reuter okay mr reuter can you
please put your name on the record and then i'll swear you in spell your last name too
can you unmute yourself Mr. Reuter
Ms. Sunkit should I be swearing all of them in right now or can I do it one by one
um if it's up to you chair I would think it would be a good idea to swear them in all now
in case they need to object or anything thank you I agree thank you Mr. Reuter name and address
please spell your last name and I'll swear you in uh good morning hi sorry making sure my mic
was on uh good morning members of the board Leonard F. Reuter senior attorney for the city
of Philadelphia I'm here with my colleague Maggie White Maggie
do you swear from the tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank you maggie
i do thank you
can you put your name name on the record spell your last name my name is maggie white m-a-g-g-y
w-h-i-t-e and i'm here for the city of philadelphia thank you do you swear or affirm
to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do is mary jones here
ms chairwoman i just wanted to notify the board uh that uh ms white uh is
assigned to election court today so she may be leaving the hearing early
so i'll let you know when that happens thank you so much is mary jones here yes i'm here
hi mary good morning can you put your name on the record and spell your last name
yes good morning mary jones j-o-n-e-s um for um on behalf of council president daryl clark
uh city hall room 494 do you swear for him to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
okay so everyone's been promoted
Yes, that should be everyone.
Thank you, Ms. Sunkett. Okay, Mr. Whelan, I think you begin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Sean Whelan here on behalf of the property owner
for the property at 1201 West Girard Avenue.
uh this is as madam chair described for the board a uh a pending appeal against lni from
council president clark and his office uh we are obviously the intervening property owner here
um as such you know that the matters before the board today are really legal in nature
and you know the facts are kind of locked in it was previously stipulated to
the accuracy of all the documents submitted and that there was not an error committed
in the review by Anna Gintart who was the zoning the underlying zoning examiner regarding the
zoning permit fundamentally at issue here today before the board. So I will attempt to be brief
in just giving some context to the legal issues that are arising here today. And I won't get too
much into the details for that reason. But I think laying out the timeline and just giving a quick
overview of the property is really going to help this board see the issues before it.
So I just started sharing just to give you a quick overview. Here's Girard Avenue, and there's North Broad Street. The property is 1201 West Girard, which is the entirety of this block, from Girard all the way back to West Flora Street, and from North 12th Street over to North 13th Street.
um what the board has heard previously is there this is an older image uh this was a one-story
ride aid uh that was on the property um for at least uh 20 plus years for as long as anyone could
could remember i think was the testimony on previously before the board um what you can see
is this was uh the property was mainly used as an open surface parking lot with this uh this one
property here. Again, this is just this just sort of gives you an idea of the the overall scale of
what the project used to look like. I should note that the building has been completely demolished
at this point, and this is a an entirely vacant lot, which I will get into and why that's relevant
now. So here was the zoning map as it stood at the time of the application. The property was
zoned RM1 entirely. This has, as I'll get into, been entirely rezoned at this point
by the Planning Commission in coordination with Council President Clark's office and City Council.
And here are images of the building that was proposed and approved. So again,
And then, notably, this project had to go through CDR. And so here's our CDR referral issued on August 28, 2020. It was for a 166 unit building with 31 parking spaces. That's going to be four stories and 45 feet tall. Again, in line.
that's going to be four stories and 45 feet tall. Again, in line with RM1 zoning, it was to be
entirely residential and will be entirely residential. As it was by right, there were no
refusals issued. And we did, on behalf of the development team, there were three public RCO
meetings at which we presented this project to several community groups. There were two CDR
meetings before the Civic Design Review Committee of the Planning Commission, and there were also
two additional meetings between the developer and the community on an informal basis that were not
formally noticed public meetings. At this point in time, there was extensive discussion about
a community benefits agreement, and the board heard testimony at the last meeting that
the developer had stopped such communications. Those communications have been not responded to
by the community. The developer is here and can speak to that, but has reached out numerous times
to, I believe it's Ms. Becton who was working on behalf of the RCO with regard to a possible
community benefits agreement. And the developer has not had any response. So again, just to
lay this out, because it's actually a very straightforward case that has become very
procedurally muddied. So I'm going to try to set forth a timeline here just to give context to the
legal issues that are presently before the board. The zoning application was filed actually more
than a year ago, almost exactly 15 months ago on June 25th, 2020. As you just saw on August 28th,
2020, we received a CDR referral from L&I confirming that the project was by right,
but that the project triggered civic design review meetings, and we then proceeded through
that process. Based on that confirmation from the city, the owner purchased the property at a cost
of approximately $5 million on September 2nd, 2020, over a year ago. And shortly thereafter,
Rite Aid was actually paid a termination fee of almost $3 million for it to cease operations
going forward once zoning approval was achieved. The first meeting that we had with the RCO was
actually with the Yorktown Community Development Corporation in person. This was mid-pandemic,
but we still met with them in person at their request on October 20th, 2020.
October 21st, 2020, the very next day, we actually met with the 14th Ward Democratic
Executive Committee by Zoom, who was in fact the designated coordinating RCO for this project.
But Yorktown community did want to take a co-lead role, which we obliged and worked
directly with them as well. On November 10th, 2020, we held our first CDR meeting. And then
following up after that CDR meeting, it was clear that another meeting with the RCO would not only
be warranted, but would benefit all parties. So on December 9th, 2020, there was a second RCO
meeting that was hosted by the Yorktown Community Development Corporation and also included the
14th Ward Democratic Executive Committee sort of in their co-lead roles at this point.
Thereafter, on January 5th, 2021, we're now into this year, this project went through its second
and final CDR meeting. On January 6th, 2021, a CDR conclusion letter was received. And following
up after that CDR conclusion letter, on January 14th, the zoning permit at issue here was obtained.
And that zoning permit is for the complete demolition of all structures. That's the right
aid that can be seen on this image right here. And the new construction of the proposed four
story building. So that happened on January 14th, 2021. That permit was posted the next day,
which was a Friday on January 15th, 2021. And therefore any appeal period from that would have
And therefore, any appeal period from that would have run on February 15th, 2021, 30 days thereafter from the posting.
It should be noted also that the appellant is actually not just a standard individual neighbor where notice issues are tantamount,
But rather, as the city council president actually gets printouts and reports of every permit issued in the district, and so they would have had immediate notice of any permit issued in addition to the posting.
Based on the permit being pulled and being posted, then on January 28, 2021, Rite Aid actually vacated that store.
Um, the, uh, February four 15th, actually, which was a Monday, um, gave more than 30 days for any
appeal to be filed, um, of that January 14th notice. Uh, we were not served with any notice
at that time. Uh, again, we had been, you know, this is a very public developer. Um, this is a,
I had entered my appearance at every stage. Everyone involved was aware of who we were.
There was no notice of any appeal served before the expiration of that 30-day deadline.
In fact, on February 23rd, eight days after the expiration of the 30-day appeal deadline,
I personally reached out to the Zoning Board Administration and was informed that there was no completed appeal on record, and that if there was, my appearance would be entered therein, but that there was none as of the 23rd.
Therefore, having confirmed that there was no appeal pending and no appeal that needed to be worried about for this case, because it was by right, the developer proceeded to rely on those permits and move forward.
The City Atlas website.
I'm not objecting to everything that you just said.
So noted.
Thank you.
Because we have different documents to prove otherwise. Thank you.
The city, I would just note that no documents were provided to me. I've actually requested before both hearings, any documents submitted.
Who did the request come to?
To the zoning board itself.
I submitted all my documents to them as well before the previous hearing.
so so well thank you i just wanted to make my you objected so i just wanted to make my objection
noted um i'm almost done with the uh you know the timeline here on march 2nd um there is so the city
atlas website um here's a screenshot of it actually shows right here where i'm circling
that on March 2nd, 2021, the zoning board processed an appeal. It's unclear what that
appeal could be against, because even though it says that it's against the other permit,
that would actually be two and a half to three weeks late as a permit or as an appeal of that
permit. So you'll hear that one of our key issues in this case is that there is no timely appeal
filed against the primary permit and that we believe that this permit, if any appeal was
timely filed, it was actually against the demolition only. So that was on March 2nd is the
first thing that this has shown. Again, neither the developer nor myself were provided any
notice, either from the city, the zoning board, or the appellant of any appeal, or the docketing
or processing of any appeal at this date. Therefore, the developer continued in full
reliance on approved permits that were unappealed. And on March 2nd, actually that same date,
submitted a building permit application. And then on March 10th, 2021, a demolition permit
was submitted, which was then pulled on March 15th. That permit was posted and publicly noticed
by everyone. And that permit, which was just for, quote, the
And that permit, which was just for, quote, the demolition of existing structures on the lot, was pulled directly by the demo contractor and in kind of furtherance of the underlying permit at issue.
And on April 21st, demolition of the permit or of the all improvements of the Rite Aid building were completed.
At this point, again, without any notice, the developer still had paid a termination fee, had had Rite Aid leave an ongoing business and stopped paying rent, and had actually demolished a viable building, and now had a vacant site.
All right. On April, that demolition was completed on April 21st, 2021. On April 28th, a week later, that's actually when the fifth district overlay that applies now to this property was amended in city council and passed.
I believe that actually April 28th is the date that the mayor signed it. That changes the density allowance here. And so what you'll hear as I go forward in the legal arguments is there's no ability here of a no harm, no foul, because through ordinances and new overlays,
This project that is presented and was fully approved by Wright at the time is now could no longer be proposed or approved by Wright.
So then actually on May 3rd, we received from ZBA administration an email notifying the development team of an appeal against the zoning permit.
So this is the very first notice that we have of any official appeal against the January 14th permit. You're now three and a half months, two and a half months later, sorry, of when this happened.
Again, you know, the development team has already secured vested rights at this point, having expended multi-millions of dollars in reliance of the permits at issue.
Um, then following up, uh, just a couple of weeks later on May 20th, 2021, uh, council
president Clark introduces to new bills for the Gerrard Avenue overlay and the North Philadelphia
overlay, uh, both of which, um, sort of, uh, truncate, uh, any proposed project of this
nature. And actually, as you can see on this screen, the entire project, which was RM1,
has in fact now been remapped to CMX2. So then finally, on June 9th, 2021, just three and a half
months ago or so, we held the first ZBA hearing. The board will, of course, remember that, and that's
on record, and we have submitted the transcript with our exhibits for any review. And then
that case was held for a decision for a week. On June 16th, 2021, the ZBA rendered its decision.
That was rendered yes on 5-0. I will get into one of our grounds for
reconsideration here, which we filed a timely motion for reconsideration on June 25th,
which was then granted on July 14th. And it should be noted that the zoning permit has been
reinstated and the building permit has been issued and construction is moving forward at this time.
um so the issues the that kind of gives the you know the general framework of what happened and
how and the timing of how it happened the issues are uh numerous from a legal situation uh the
first one is that and the first two of these the city actually joined in in the motion for
consideration. The first two issues are that it is unclear what, you know, or I should say
it appears to be clear from the factual record that there was no timely appeal filed of the
January 14th zoning permit that's at issue here. Objection.
uh zoning permit that's at issue here um objection again the first notice that was sent to the
development team was may 3rd from the zoning board administration um the first record on any city
website or anything is actually this what's up right now on the atlas page is uh march 2nd 2021
both of which are well after the zoning permit for new construction which was issued again by
Wright with no refusals. So the first legal issue is any appeal that was filed on either
March 2nd or in May or you know relevant in May would have been simply against the demolition
only permit. Again, that permit is closed out. Any issue with or any appeal with regard to that
permit would be moot at this point in time. Again, the demolition is complete. All of the
structures that were shown at the site are entirely removed and now you have a large vacant site.
So that's the first issue is that there's no timely appeal here. And therefore, you know, the first issue legally for the board to decide is, you know, whether this appeal is simply moot as against the demolition permit only.
The second issue in this appeal legally is that there's an unclear language of the vote. So again, in the first vote, not only is there an untimely nature of the filed appeal, there is a question as to which permit, underlying permit, is being appealed.
in addition to that lack of clarity there's a second lack of clarity with regard to the actual
language of the vote which simply said granted yes on all chairs yes is is unfortunately not a
a descriptive term in this context because this is a this is not a standard special exception
hearing or a variance grant, this is actually an appeal against L&I. And so the board would
have to say, for instance, you know, appeal denied against L&I permit still valid or something of
that sort. So that's the second issue. The third issue I have already somewhat alluded to, and I
I know the board is not intending on taking testimony here, but I did just want to advise
the board that Mr. Ori Fibush is here, should the board have any questions with regard to the
damages that I've alleged with regard to the vested rights here. In essence, there's tens of
millions of dollars at stake. This is, again, not a no harm, no foul. This has been a serious issue
of damages and continuing damages and delay. So I've set forth more of those in the motion
for reconsideration. Again, I described the numerous overlays that the council president
and city council have passed through and with the planning commission coordination
over the summer which basically takes we had an approved project for four stories 45 feet
and 166 dwelling units that project would now basically be eviscerated or anything of the sort
so again it's this is not a scenario where um objection yeah there can even be a further
application. The overlays actually limit overall development to 94 units, and that would have to
be reviewed by L&I, of course, but I will represent that it would be limited almost by half.
So just to wrap up, the final issues for legal arguments on appeal,
So, any by right permit under the zoning code is entitled to a presumption of validity.
This is actually dating back all the way to the 1920s.
There's an entire litany of cases.
And that validity is based on the fact that zoning ordinances are legislative acts and
must be presumed to be valid and appropriate.
Here, there's no argument that Ms. Gindhart, as the underlying zoning examiner, applied the appropriate conditions of the zoning code to the documents submitted to her.
conditions of the zoning code to the documents submitted to her. And again, any issues of that
were stipulated to as to the accuracy at the time. The last couple issues are that
here I would argue that the zoning board does not have authority to rule on this case and must
dismiss it as an improper appeal. Again, not only is it untimely, but under section 14.103.4.1,
the zoning board may, after public notice and public hearing, which is how we're here today,
hear and decide appeals in zoning matters where error is alleged in any order of requirement
decision. There's no error alleged here. The allegations on appeal are simply that
while the project was by right, the project itself was somehow not appropriate or contextual for
the neighborhood, relying almost entirely upon the fact that the property should have been
remapped like much of this neighborhood was over the decades, but it was admitted on the record
that it was not remapped. It was RM1, and therefore there was no error. It was simply that
but for this lack of remapping, the property would have been remapped sometime in the last
20 years, and the project would not have been appropriate had it gone forward. But again,
that's not an issue for the zoning board to decide. And therefore there's no error alleged
and any errors were waived at the last hearing. Um, finally, the last two points are, you know,
the, the, uh, council president bases his arguments on essentially the preamble 14 dash
14-101 of the zoning code. The, you know, including, included in one of those is actually
an intent, 14-1013C, that states, quote, the intent of the zoning code is, quote, to promote
growth and economic development by removing barriers to enable responsible development
to proceed as of right. I would posit that this is the quintessential argument we have here,
which is we have an as of right project that went through the process at all times
and was fully reviewed and approved by the city without error. Whether or not the project is
appropriate or liked or appreciated, I'm not going to weigh in on, and I certainly understand
everyone will have their own concerns and issues along those lines, but that's not a matter for
the zoning board to decide. And finally, dating actually back all the way to the 1850s
and continuing up through Pennsylvania Supreme Court law to date, but even through the 70s and
80s. As a matter of law, the preamble 14-101 is not part of the zoning code itself. It is used
to provide context and a further understanding if there's some ambiguity in the underlying code or
legislative act. But here, there's no ambiguity. There were no issues. There were no errors.
any argument which the board heard a lot of with regard to the sort of desirable nature of zoning
and the preamble of the zoning code set forth in 14-101 is really of no consequence here because
it's not those are not code sections specifically that any applicant has to make has to meet rather
So with that, I would rest.
This is, you know, those are the legal arguments that I believe are before the board at this time.
And I would be happy to answer any questions that the board has.
Does the board have any questions?
No, Ms. Chair, Chairlady.
Chairlady.
All right, then I would turn the floor over.
I'm not sure who goes next, Madam Chair.
It's up to you.
I'm just listening to that beeping on Leonard Reuter.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm still trying to get my video to start. The city's network is extremely slow lately, and I think that's probably, since we're all going through it, that's probably, the camera's supposedly on, but you'll just have to bear with me with that.
I'm still trying to get my video to start.
The city's now.
In the meantime, I would basically just follow up and reiterate much of what Mr. Whalen said.
I think the bottom line here is that there has been no challenge raised to the validity of the actions taken by L&I.
In other words, the permit application materials, the plans, documents that were submitted to the city to L&I for the permit approval were reviewed by the plans examiner.
and who applied the code as written. And as a result, the permit was therefore approved
and ultimately issued. So with that, and again, nobody's permitted, I believe in this instance,
nobody's permitted to introduce any new evidence. There was no evidence introduced whatsoever that
there had been any impropriety in terms of L&I's actual approval of the permit or the application
of the code. Therefore, you know, there's, as Mr. Whelan just said, there's really no error
alleged. So the argument seems to be mostly a challenge to the validity of the ordinance,
I guess, as applied in this particular instance. And we just, so again, as Mr. Whelan said,
this board does not have any authority to invalidate an ordinance of the zoning code it is
the the board is required by law to follow the zoning code as written that does not mean that
Mr. Clark Council President Clark cannot preserve a challenge to the validity of the ordinance
and then take that to the court but it's simply that this board doesn't have the authority to
make a ruling on that. As far as the issue of, you know, again, going to the validity of the
ordinance, we pointed out before, and I wanted to reiterate that this is not a property that had
been recently remapped to allow the proposed purposes. This lot, along with several others
along this portion of Girard had been mapped, what's now the equivalent of RM1 back in 1970
or 71.
So this proposed use was always permitted, well, not always, but certainly has been permitted
by Wright for almost 50 years.
And in fact, the Rite Aid, which exists on that lot, was itself only allowed by variants.
So, in fact, the Rite Aid itself, now that that has been demolished, you couldn't put that, well, I mean, obviously there's been overlay changes, there's been other changes, but like under the RM1 classification, that wouldn't have been allowed.
So, that was only there by variance. So, that being the case, again, we certainly, the city is certainly sympathetic to the concerns of the neighborhood and the community groups.
But again, it's something that requires a legislative change, which we understand has, in effect, taken place through the overlays.
but at the time this application was submitted the proposed use was clearly by right and there's
really been no challenge to that whether you know again this board and the city planning
commission and the department planning and development have often encountered situations
where you know there maybe has been an error in mapping or maybe something should oh there I am
Something should have been mapped a certain way and wasn't. This often happens when you have parcels that are bordering, you know, within zoning classifications.
And again, we offer no opinion at this point whether this should have been mapped something else at the time.
But the fact is, at the time the application was submitted, the proposed use by this developer was by right, and there's really not been anything introduced that suggests otherwise.
And therefore, again, as a matter of law, this board doesn't have any authority to grant the appeal.
Again, the appellants have every right to preserve that argument were they to pursue it further.
But we're simply saying the jurisdiction of this board begins and ends with the letter of the zoning code itself.
So, you know, with that, we don't really have any additional information to provide.
You know, with that, we don't really have any additional information to provide. I do want to note, you know, we did join in the motion for reconsideration on a couple grounds. First of all, we ourselves were not entirely clear what the meaning of the board's original vote was.
the vote as recorded was yes, but this was an appeal against L&I, and it's not clear what yes
means in the context of that kind of appeal. I mean, typically it would be yes to a variance
or variance approved or something, but in the appeal against L&I, it wasn't really clear what
yes meant. I think, to be fair, I think we're all under the understanding at this point that the
bore that the board's intention was to um to grant the appeal but again it was just we we did want
the additional clarification of what the board's vote was and and as i said to the extent that the
board did intend to grant the appeal at the first hearing we believe that as a legal matter the board
had no authority to do that uh given the letter of the code and the lack of any um any actual
evidence or challenge that the LNI's approval was improper at the time, and the board's lack
of authority to invalidate the written letter of the code. We did not join with respect to the
timeliness, and the only reason for that is because we have no idea whether the permits
were properly posted. I have no reason to doubt Mr. Whelan or his client that they did in fact
post the original zoning permits in a timely manner, but we don't go out and check that.
That's just something that is the applicant's responsibility.
You know, the zoning permits are supposed to be, by-right permits are supposed to be posted within five days.
It's assumed that that happens unless it comes up otherwise.
And again, the lack of posting itself just goes to the timeliness.
So again, we don't, we're not opposing that aspect of the reconsideration request.
It's just that we don't have a position on it.
We don't know whether it was posted or not.
We assume it probably was, but we don't have any witnesses and wouldn't be prepared to present any on that.
We'll let the board decide that question.
So that's basically it.
I mean, you know, again, I'm here with Ms. White.
We're here to answer any questions about the legal issues in this case.
but but we do think that ultimately you know if there is a challenge to the proposed use the
challenge lies somewhere else than this board thank you does the board have any questions for
mr reuter no
jim you're bouncing all over the place breaking up
okay am i can i go ahead now i guess yeah mary your next name and spell your last name
oh i i did that already do i need to do it again uh no and i swear you in right yes okay go ahead
okay um yes good good morning um members of the board um so basically we're here today um just
to you know we we would like the board to stand by their original decision which was unanimous
in our favor. The grounds for reconsideration we think are incorrect. Based on the zoning
board regulations, a written request shall state the special circumstances that were not known
and could not reasonably have been known at the time of the hearing. But yet in Mr. Whalen's own
timeline, he mentioned that they were notified prior to the last hearing about the appeal and
everything associated with it. But yeah, that was not brought up in the original hearing, but
he just said that he knew. We did file a timely appeal on February 10th, and I served the owner
of record at the time, as well as the applicant to the CDR, who were the people listed of record
associated with that case, which would have been, I believe, the applicant to CDR, I believe,
would be affiliated with Mr. Fybush. And we were not refunded our money. The ZBA processed our
appeal. And so I don't know the inner machinations of the zoning board and how they process appeals,
but ours was on time. And again, all the notice, they did eventually find out if they didn't first
They did eventually find out if they didn't first know, they didn't know immediately, and this was not, none of that was brought up at the case.
you know, the
And I also just want to object to the characterization of the communications with the neighbor, with the community.
If needed, there are community members here that can testify to the many times that they reached out to Mr. Fybush and Mr. Whalen to try to talk on this.
So I'm not sure why it was mentioned that no one had communicated with them because they are here.
They can testify on their own that they reached out many times.
And as for our original argument, it was based on 14-101.
And we also had a second part, which was the second part of our argument, is that based on guidance from the L&I from last year, once an applicant acts on one permit,
The previous permit, any other permits that they hold are then rendered void. So we argued that the permit on March 2nd, that was for a full demolition with the approved use of a vacant lot, was acted on, and thus the original permit was voided.
that was our the second part of our argument and um and so again we don't all the other arguments
and that including from the city um which we are not sure if that's a conflict or not for them to
be speaking here today um that those all were presented the first time um at the original
hearing in June. So, um, that's so, and the board heard all of those, those arguments that it was
clear what our perm, what, which permit we appealed that was all noted in the documentation that I
submitted to the zoning board. So there's no confusion around there. It was the January 14th,
a permit that we appealed ending in 2668.
So those are just the factual things
that I wanted to clear up from our end.
And also the council president is here and I'm not,
he may want to speak if you have any questions
for him or anything else.
Thank you.
does the board have any questions for miss jones no madam chair no
is there anyone else who's going to testify
uh no again madam chair the only thing i would offer is if the board has any questions based on
the uh statements that i made i can call or if i bush if uh if madam chair would like
otherwise we have no witnesses we would just um point out that the demo permit issue that
mary miss jones just raised was actually um fully shut down by mr reuter as far as city process and
procedure at the june 9th hearing um and is just as a legal matter not not the case that that
second demo permit would invalidate the first demo permit. I'm happy to, you know, the board
can certainly look at that hearing or go back to the transcript, which I've provided in my exhibits.
So I don't need to reiterate those arguments. And so therefore we would simply just ask the
board to deny the appeal against LNI. Thank you very much for your time.
Madam Chair, Leonard Reuter for the city. I just wanted the record to reflect that
But my colleague, Ms. White, has moved on to election court.
So just letting that be known for the record.
Thank you.
Vice Chair Tanari.
The council president is here, and he said he's trying to raise his hand.
And since he's the person who is appealing, I think it should be allowed to speak.
I have no control over his hand being raised.
Well, I'm just saying it out loud.
so if anyone who sees him can they please let him in there he is
council president you have to unmute yourself please
council president can you hear me i can now okay okay great can you
Okay, great. Can you put your name on the record, please, and spell your last name?
put your name on the record please and spell your last name
Daryl Clark, C-L-A-R-K-E, Councilperson, 5th District.
Thank you. Do you swear if I'm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Absolutely.
Okay, you may proceed.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of quick issues, and I know not to put new testimony on the record,
But I just wanted to reference a couple of statements that was made with respect to the basis for the appeal on the permit.
Nowhere does it say simply because a person demolished a building from our perspective without authorization to demolish the building that that point is moot.
If that were the case, there are numerous people that have demolished buildings across the city of Philadelphia without the appropriate permit and then are quickly taken to task by the Department of License and Inspection and any other of the appropriate departments.
So that whole issue around the building now being demolished, therefore, we should ignore the fact that there was not the appropriate authorization to do so is, in fact, an issue.
um the city's lawyer uh and i've said this for some time uh but in this particular case um i i
asked that the zoning board strike from the record uh the city's um lawyers mr reuter's testimony
is a clear conflict of interest um the fact that uh even in the case the course of the
conversation that Mr. Reuter indicated that he was not taking an opinion. I think it's totally
inaccurate where he referenced that he assumes that the developer posted a sign. That's an opinion.
This whole issue around the city's lawyer representing, I guess, the city. The last time
I checked, I do have a designation of the city of Philadelphia on my paycheck. And I do think I was
elected to represent a significant part of the city. So I asked the zoning board to strike all
the testimony of Mr. Reuter. It is clearly a conflict as it relates to this particular matter.
The error, I noticed in the testimony of Mr. Whelan, he talked about the fact that there wasn't
no error. It was clearly errors on behalf of the developer in terms of their requirement.
And it may not be a legal requirement, although I think it is. It is a moral requirement to be
responsive to the community, to the point. First of all, it's responding to the community. So I
think that in itself was an error on behalf of the developer. So I just would like to weigh in.
You had my testimony from the earlier case.
I believe that that is going to be a part of the record as you all make those decisions.
So I asked the zoning board, both from the legal perspective, as stated by my attorney, Ms. Jones, and based on all the other aspects of the proposed development.
and the fact that this particular area is now not zoned for what is being proposed today,
I ask that the zoning board rule in favor of the appellant.
I just want to thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak.
Thank you for taking the time.
Absolutely. Always my pleasure.
Is there anyone else we need to hear testimony from?
uh madam chair yes mr reuter uh thank you again i don't i don't want to uh certainly don't want to
to get into any arguments with the council president or his uh attorney miss jones here
on the issue i do want to just point out that uh it is not a conflict of interest for the law
department to represent uh the the administration and the operating departments uh we represent the
city uh and you know it is not unusual and it has not been unusual over the past you know 70 years
that the charter's been in effect that there are often going to be situations where an individual
council person or several council persons may take a position uh in any given matter that is
at odds with that of an operating department or the administration uh and i'm not suggesting that
the administration per se has any specific opinion in this matter, but simply, you know,
again, the operating department applies the code as written, and we are obligated under the charter
and the law department to defend those decisions and those actions by L&I. So, you know, and again,
decisions and those actions by l and i so um you know and again i think any conflict that might
exist has been resolved by uh ms jones appearance on behalf of the council president so again i don't
want to get into that i just want to preserve you know that um response to to uh the council
president's remarks uh and again i'm i'm not well i guess it's a it's semantics but i'm not
It is not my opinion that the permit was posted.
It is simply the presumption in the code is that the permit is posted unless it's otherwise objected to, and it only goes to the timeliness of an appeal.
So, again, we always presume that applicants will do what they are required to do under the code.
Therefore, we presume that the permit was properly posted.
Now, again, if Council President Clark or the neighbors or other people have evidence that it was not posted, then that's fine. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just simply saying the presumption is that people do what the code requires, and it requires you to post a permit. Therefore, we presume that it was posted.
but again if there's evidence that it wasn't that's why we didn't take a position on whether
it was or it wasn't but we do take the position that there is a presumption that it was done
correctly that's all mr reuter when was the uh demo when did the demo occur uh the actual
demolition occurred you'd have to ask mr whalen i don't know the date the demolition when did the
demo occur was the permit uh the demolition permit was issued in uh mid-march of this year
i believe the actual date is march 15th 2021 and demolition was completed and my understanding
closed out by lni that permit being closed out by lni on april 21st 2021
okay thank you supportive any questions no madam chair no no
madam chair i have nothing further again i simply say that i don't believe there's a uh
any conflict here um and i rest on you know all of the testimony and legal argument already
presented and would simply just ask that the uh board grant you know deny the uh the pending
appeal. Thank you. I think I see the council president's hand raised. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I'm
not going to belabor the point, but I just want to respond to Mr. Reuters statement that that same
charter says that the law department represents all aspects of the city of Philadelphia,
particularly the legislative branch that had this conversation on numerous occasions.
I actually don't think that they can adequately represent both parties, which is shown here today.
But for the record, you don't just represent the executive branch.
You also represent the legislative branch of government, allegedly equally.
My reference to your assumption statement is based on, in my mind, you just stated that this responsibility of the person, the applicant, to post it.
That should have been in and of it. We didn't ask you to assume, you know, or presume that they did that.
that's not necessarily always the case in the city of Philadelphia unless you have the ability
to go out and look at the site or enforce the posting of the site from my perspective you
shouldn't assume anything so just for the record you know thank you for for your indulgence
madam chair and the zoning board thank you again
does that conclude this matter
board members
uh i believe so yes
okay i'm looking for the um okay is everybody prepared to vote and do i need a recommendation
again from planning commission
uh madam chair this is an appeal against l and i so planning commission would not weigh in
thank you I'm sorry this was Tanya I know who you are I know your voice by now oh yes I'm sorry
that was for the record madam chair thank you calendar number mi-
Rebecca Cole ZBA attorney we were expecting a discussion and a hold
on this matter okay well I believe we're voting it today
would you like me to confirm okay
Ms. Sunkit, we're voting this case today.
Madam Chair, as you wish, but it was discussed in the executive session that all members wanted to discuss fully to be able to be clear before the vote was taken.
Okay, great. So calendar number MI-2021-003248-1201 West George Avenue. This matter is being held. The record's completely closed, and we will discuss this amongst ourselves, and then we'll vote it.
Madam Chair, if I may, on what date will you vote it?
Ms. Sunkit can tell me that.
um as you wish um it could be discussed in executive session next week and the vote can
be taken or given on record on wednesday at 9 30 a.m
okay i i guess next wednesday
i'm looking for the date of next wednesday november 10th at 9 a.m
9 30 chair yes 9 30 9 30 sorry about that okay thank you everyone thank you that concludes my
business may be excused yes you may thank you yes thank you and if i conclude i'm sorry
No, confessor can go ahead. I wanted to make sure we knew we had a two o'clock meeting.
Yes, yes. So this concludes, right? Anyone else feels that we left them or we missed a case?
No hands are up, chair.
Okay, confessor. Okay, I'll talk to you when we're off of this. Thank you, everybody.
You got to have a good one. Thank God. See you, too.
all right yes sir ready to go thank you
good morning everyone my name is confessor plaza and i'll be the acting chair of the zoning board
of adjustment i'm participating in today's hearing along with uh board member thomas holloman
Present.
James Snell.
Present.
Thank you.
Board Administrator Fatina L., also our attorney, Rebecca Cole.
For those of you that are here to participate in one of our virtual hearings, I will go through some of the basics of what you can expect.
First, we'll be administrating oath to individual participants prior to their testimony.
I would like to advise everyone that this procedure is being recorded and by participating you
are acknowledged that you are grieving to be recorded.
For anyone participating by phone, if you wish to testify, you must raise your hand
by hitting star nine then star six to unmute yourself.
Finally, to enter an appearance statement, call Google at 267-270-5548 and leave your
email address and the address of the property at issue okay with that being said i will call some
uh continuing cases calendar number mi 2021-003182 5000 wallington avenue uh this case will be
continue next one up is mi 2021-002-261-7234 woodland avenue is also continuing uh continue
is there anyone uh here that feels that i call these cases an error or have a case
that needs to be continued or withdrawal please come forward now
Chair, we have Craig Melodosian. I'm sorry if I'm messing up his name. Please unmute yourself and please wait for the chair.
Mr. Melodosian, please identify yourself for the record. Spell your first and last name.
Good afternoon, Confessor Plaza Acting Chair. Craig Melodosian, C-R-A-I-G, last name M-E-L-I-D-O-S-I-A-N, coordinating RCO for 7234 Woodland Avenue, P.O. Box 33355 Philadelphia Zip.
P.O. Box 33355, Philadelphia, ZIP19142.
Are you sure to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Please proceed.
Okay. The RCOs are in support of the continuance. In fact, we asked for it.
However, we have a concern.
Which one is that, Mr. Melodozio?
Thank you.
72 34 36 woodland avenue 72 34 yes sir okay all right it is being continued we appreciate it
however we have an ongoing problem with this we're not here to attempt to try this at this
point in time but we've communicated with the owner through council that there are certain
things that we do not support him doing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There should be no testimony
at all regarding this case. It's been continued. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Melodozian.
Chair, we have Craig Trachtenberg. Please unmute yourself and please wait for the chair.
Thank you. Mr. Trachtenberg, please identify yourself for the records by your first and last
name yes my name is craig c-r-a-i-g last name tractenberg t-r-a-c-t-e-n-b-e-r-g uh i'm with
the law firm of fox rothschild i uh represent someone who's protesting the uh 5000 warrington
avenue sir you swear affirm itself the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
yes i do okay and this is in regards to the continuance for number 11
Yeah, I just want to I didn't hear the beginning. Is this continued? Yes, it is.
Okay, thank you very much. Sorry.
Chair, we have Steve Masters. Okay.
Good afternoon, Mr. Masters. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good afternoon, Mr. Acting Chair and members of the board.
Steve Masters, the law firm of JustLaws. We raised our hand because Mr. Melodosian was
beginning to testify. I'm sorry, Mr. Masters, you already identify yourself, spell your first and
last name? Yes, Steve, S-T-E-V-E, Masters, M-A-S-T-E-R-S, the law firm of JustLaws. I have two cases today.
You sort of want to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
I just raised my hand because there was some testimony that was beginning to be offered on 7234 Woodland Avenue.
We requested the continuance.
You granted it.
And now that that's happened and there's no testimony, I do not need to be recognized at this time.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
i see no other hands chair thank you with that being said calendar number mi 2021 that's zero
zero three one eight four uh one two zero zero zero east roosevelt boulevard
mr feldman
mr feldman is coming back as a panelist
yes good afternoon good afternoon Mr Feldman I don't know was you here this morning
I wasn't I wasn't okay please identify yourself for the record
sure Brett Feldman 1835 Market Street Philadelphia Pennsylvania 19103 I represent the applicant
and property owner, Provco, Good, MCB, Bybury, and its principal, Michael Cooley. Along with us
today is also George Hartman from Bowler Engineering. Thank you. You saw our firm
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. And do you agree to waive
the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. And have you emailed an exhibit
packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the
refusal or referral photos and plans five days prior to this hearing? Yes. And have you met with
the RCO and have a letter? We do. Thank you. Please proceed. Rebecca Cole here. May I interrupt?
Counselor, can you clarify? We received in your packet a refusal for both 12,000 and 12,002
East Roosevelt Boulevard, but that is not on today's hearing list. Can you speak to that?
Sure, sure. Do you have my screen now? Yes, we see it.
We are here tonight for 12,000 East Roosevelt Boulevard.
We are here tonight for 12,000 East Roosevelt Boulevard.
We will be back in November 16th for 12,002,
which is the next door property,
which is part of the same development.
Thank you.
So long as that's on the record.
Thank you.
Yeah, sure, sure.
So let me get right to it here.
Pass up exhibits one through 10,
which I'd ask to be incorporated into the record.
This is the site right here.
This is what the project, we've been in front of the board probably three or four times on this.
This is up in the far northeast, Roosevelt Boulevard, to the bottom here, Byberry Road, Bennett to the left over here.
This was the Nabisco factory bakery site for many, many years.
It was when Nabisco left, it was demolished.
And back in 2017, the board approved an existing Wawa that's now been built there at the corner of Roosevelt Boulevard and Bybury.
And then we came back in 2019 with the support of the community.
We went to Civic Design Review and went through, I think, every city agency just about.
For this project back here, this is Topgolf, a golfing entertainment facility, which I think this would be the first one in the city.
and then some strip shopping center down here.
And then this is 12,000 here.
This is 12,000 East Roosevelt.
This is 12,002, which will be in front of the board,
as I said, on November 16th.
We're here today on the already approved Chick-fil-A
here at 12,002.
And what we're asking for is to increase the size
of this already approved Chick-fil-A
by about 250 square feet.
Let me just show you what it looks like right now at the site.
So that's what it looks like now at the site here.
You can see the top golf in the Wawa here, the top golf, and then these are preparing
for construction on the shopping center.
And then here's the Chick-fil-A.
Again, the only change we're seeking here is going from the 4,900 square foot previously
approved Chick-fil-A to a 5,200-square-foot, 300-square-feet increase in the size of the
Chick-fil-A. Primarily, this is because of post-COVID, Chick-fil-A has slightly redesigned
some of their prototype stores, a slightly bigger kitchen, and we're also adding, if you can
probably make sense, an outdoor dining area to the Chick-fil-A, this site here. So I'll just
show you a little more of the pictures. Again, this is where the Chick-fil-A would go. And then
let me go right to the plans for the Chick-fil-A right here. Here's the Chick-fil-A. This is the
way it is proposed. It was, as I said, it was approved for 4,857 square feet. It's now about
300 square feet at 5,200 square feet. And then right here, you can, you can see this here. This
is the outdoor dining area. That is really what this application is for. We, again, we've met
with the community groups many times. We again met in September, Mr. Cooley on behalf of the
developer, Provco, met with the Somerton Civic Association again in September. And we submitted
a letter of, I think it was unanimous support from Somerton Civic. I can, let me just, I can
pull that up here. Here is their letter of unanimous support. This went through a lengthy recitation
of 12,000, 12,002, 2017, Wawa, 2019, Chick-fil-A, Topgolf, Strip Shopping Center, and then the
2021, the 7% increase from 4857 to 5,200 square feet that we're asking for today.
The hardship here is this property is still zoned industrial. Clearly, the board has recognized
that industrial is no longer relevant for that site with the approvals back in 17 and in 19
for the Wawa, the Chick-fil-A, and the Topgolf, and then this small de minimis change recognizes
some of the changes kind of in the quick, fast, casual restaurants in light of COVID.
So with that, I can just add Mr. Cooley, whether he will
confirm my presentation, unless there's any questions.
confirm my my presentation unless there's any questions that the board might have before I go
to Mr. Cooley. Please go ahead with your client. Sure. I would ask that Michael Cooley from Profco
be added as a panelist. Good afternoon, board. Michael Cooley. Mr. Cooley, please identify
for yourself for the record? Yes, Michael Cooley of the Profco Group, 795 East Lancaster Avenue,
Villanova, Pennsylvania, 19085. You sure are firm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Thank you. Please proceed. Mr. Cooley, you've heard my
testimony concerning the evolution of this property from the industrial use of Nabisco to
the Wawa and then the approvals in 2019 for the Topgolf or the Strip Shopping Center as well as
the Chick-fil-A, correct? Yes, I did. And do you adopt that as your own testimony and truthful?
Yes, I do. And is there anything further you want to tell the board as far as why the additional
300 square feet are absolutely necessary for Chick-fil-A to commence development of this
site? Sure. First and foremost, thank you to the board for your time and consideration.
If you noticed in the aerial photos provided by Mr. Feldman, all of the site infrastructure
improvements have been made. All the stormwater management, the curbing, partial paving,
and all of the buildings are set to commence vertical construction.
So this shopping center has been in the works for several years,
and we are finally getting a chance to build vertically after long COVID delays.
As Mr. Feldman said, Chick-fil-A has changed their prototypical building size and dimensions
due primarily to some changes made through the COVID pandemic
and the way they operate their business, more outdoor seating,
more drive-through stacking ability, and slightly larger building size.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Cooley.
Thank you.
With that, I would...
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Any more witnesses, Mr. Feldman?
uh i have our project engineer um i think he would uh affirm the same as mr cooley uh he's
available if there's any further questions but uh this is probably a case it should have been
the administrative approval um because it was slightly smaller slightly slightly larger we
couldn't get administrative approval and we're back in front of the board but uh it's it's this
it's the same project and i know the community is excited for us to move forward with this next
phase thank you for your time and consideration thank you uh is there anyone else that would
like to speak in this matter i see no hands chair thank you planning commission
uh good afternoon um chair plaza and members of the board my name is greg waldman for planning
commission staff can you spell out your name please uh yes it's greg or gregory g-r-e-g-o-r-y
last name waldman w-a-l-d-m-a-n thank you you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
for nothing but the truth i do thank you please for seeing comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing light industrial zoning at this location as you've seen in the applicant's
presentation this case is for the expansion of a restaurant this case for the expansion of a
restaurant is part of a larger redevelopment of the former Nabisco site into a Topgolf
entertainment facility shopping center and associated pad sites including restaurants
the redevelopment project was heard at Civic Designer View on in May of 2017 planning commission
staff subsequently recommended that the variance is not be approved at the zoning board on March
1st 2017 and may 22nd 2019 for two different phases of the project for this particular case
we do not believe the applicant has demonstrated a hardship that would require the expansion of a
non-conforming use accordingly we recommended the board deny the requested variance thank you
all right board has any questions no mr chairman thank you all right now
now mi 2021-003184 12 000 east roosevelt boulevard my vote is yes thomas halliman my favorite
My vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Be well, everyone.
Counting the number MI2020-003416, 1345 East Susquehanna Avenue.
mr knackleson good afternoon please identify yourself for the record
uh yes good afternoon mr chair members of the board alan knacklemson of knacklemson pc
123 south broad street suite 1600 philadelphia pa 19109
so knacklemson you saw a firm to tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
Thank you.
And do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to attackers?
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal, or referral of photos and plans five days prior to this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
Yes, we have a letter of support from the Fishtown Neighbors Association to coordinate the RCO.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
May I share my screen?
Yes, you may.
All right.
So we're here for 1345 East Susquehanna Avenue.
It's a converted church that has three units in it.
One in the main sanctuary, two in the adjoining building.
This board actually heard this project in 2006.
Unfortunately, not all the steps were followed to conclude the matter.
So it was never formally legalized, this use, but it was approved by both the coordinating RCO at the time, Fish Town Neighbors Association, and this board.
And we're here to just, you know, do it right this time.
So you'll see in my packet of materials our notice of refusal, which was dated December 7th of 2020.
Accidentally, the proposed off-street parking spot, which is also something that the board approved of pre-existing use, was not included.
So we asked the board for authorization, which we received, so we have an updated notice of refusal dated August 9th of 2021.
You'll see in exhibit number two, our letter of support from the Fishtown Neighbors Association, the notice of refusal in 2006 for exactly the same thing we're proposing.
My client then did what he needed to do in terms of using the property over the course of 15 years, but then discovered that all steps were not followed subsequent to that hearing.
That's why we're here today.
You'll see the letter of support from the Fishtown Neighbors Association in September 2006, as well as the letter of support from the Fishtown Neighbors Association today.
You'll see maps of the area, photographs of the properties around the area, plans and drawings or application for appeal, our RCO meeting notice with proof of mailing, our deed to the property, and our certificate of tax clearance.
This property is owned by Dominic Episcopo, who runs and operates Episcopo Studios.
What we're looking to do is, you know, again, put three units in the structure, one in the main sanctuary, along with two in the adjoining structure.
And in the main sanctuary, he has his photography studio, and that's noted in the notice of refusal for business support within one of the dwelling units.
Dominic and his studio is well known nationally.
They're a full-service studio specializing in commercial photography, cinematography, and compelling digital content.
His studio has been featured in Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, National Geographic, Traveler, Rolling Stones,
the Food Network magazine as well as some of his work has been featured in with museums across the
country including our own Philadelphia Museum of Art. So you'll see in 2021 we met with the
Fishtown Neighbors Association and they fully support this project. They've referenced the
fact that they previously approved this project in 2006. Here's our notice of refusal in 2006
along with the letter from the Fishtown Neighbors Association, again, supporting this same exact project.
Maps of the area, again, we're in the heart of Fishtown.
We're on the corner of Susquehanna and Livingston.
The lot size is 9,279 square feet. The size of the combined buildings is over 13,000 square feet.
The lot size is 9,279 square feet.
And we're only looking to put three units in there with off-street parking and to allow Dominic to use his studio in the main sanctuary where he lives.
Maps of the area, photographs of the property, again, beautiful structure that he's maintained over the course of his ownership.
uh street views on east susquehanna avenue to left and right of the property
livingston to uh the left and right of the property and then our plans and drawings oops
so here's just our site plan uh you know here's our off-street parking here's the main sanctuary
and here's the adjoining structure which has two of the units the main sanctuary has
where Dominic lives, and he has his studio there as well.
And then there's just detailed drawings of the main sanctuary,
which is a substantial structure, again, where he lives and does his business.
Our application for appeal that we followed with the ZBA,
along with our notice of refusal, our project information form.
And then we met with the Fishtown Neighbors Association some time ago.
We just had to do some cleanup and trying to make sure that the parking space was properly reflected on our application.
We gave notice to 251 neighbors at Dominic's.
And our detailed property is showing that Dominic is the owner of the property.
He's owned the property since 2004.
With that being said, I'm going to stop sharing my screen, and I would ask that Dominic virtually raise his hand so he can adopt my testimony.
So, Dominic, please identify yourself for the record.
Hi, my name is Dominic Episcopo, D-O-M-I-N-I-C-E-P-I-S-C-O-P-O.
You sir, do you want to tell the truth, the whole truth for nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Oh, yes.
Dominic, you heard everything I stated today.
And is it true and correct?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any more witnesses?
No, there's not.
Thank you.
Does the board have any questions?
No, Mr. Chair.
no thank you uh anyone else that would like to testify
i see no hands chair thank you planning commission good afternoon uh this is
greg waldman from the planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change to
existing residential single family use i was at zoning sorry at this location the proposed use
is in accordance with the district plan recommendation to accommodate adaptive reuse
options for underused places of worship the city planning commission recommends that the zoning
board grant this variance thank you mr chair before you vote i would just ask for proviso to
reference the updated refusal dated august 9th of 2021 yep will do okay so that means calendar
Count the number MI 2020-003416, 1345 East Susquehanna Avenue, my vote is yes as per
amended notice of refusal dated August 9, 2021.
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you, good luck.
Thank you.
Counting the number MI-2021-001113, 2000 South 12th Street.
Mr. Derizio is coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Derizio.
Please identify yourself for the record.
Yes. Good afternoon, Chairman, members of the board. Raymond D'Orizio, 2 Penn Center, Suite 520, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.
I'm here on 2000 South 12th Street, and that's calendar number MI2021001113.
Thank you. You spell your name for the scenario, please?
Thank you. You spell your name for the sonographer, please?
Yes. First name, Ray.
Yes. First name Raymond, R-A-Y-M-O-N-D.
Last name Dorizio, D-O-R-I-Z-I-O.
Thank you, Mr. Dorizio. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
And do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to attack her scene?
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance,
copy of the refusal over for photos and plans five days prior to this hearing yes and have
you met with the rco and have a letter we have yes thank you please proceed sure thank you i'm
just going to share my screen if you just give me one second i will grab that from my
uh sorry my ipad if you just bear with me one second
Maybe I should do this from my laptop next time, but okay.
All right. So this is basically 12th and McKean Street. This property is on the southwest corner of 12th and McKean.
And my client is not the owner of the building, but he is the proprietor and he is seeking to open a takeout restaurant pizza store there.
This is a zoning map. There are some CMX one buildings are on the corners of the property.
This is a photo. My client's property is to the far right there on the corner.
that's the 12th street side it's owned by Mr. Lou my client has a five-year lease
with the property here's a copy of his lease he's going to be leasing it for five years
so he can do his do the restaurant here's the copy of the plans just going to be the first
floor he'll have the basement here's a here is a photo of the McKean street side basically as
you see under the steps going up to the second floor there's a little fenced-in area where my
client can you know store some trash until that he's going to have a private pickup doing that
this is McKean Street looking east towards 11th so there there are some other businesses but no
restaurants around it's formerly was a restaurant like convenience store corner store many years ago
are called JoJo's. This is 12th Street looking south. Inside the property, it's kind of a mess,
but there's equipment all over the place. My client hasn't really taken any action to get
anything straightened up yet until the zoning is decided. But there is equipment there, pizza oven,
stove and range, and other items. These are photos of the basement where I'll have storage,
refrigeration. We have some utilities there. We do have a letter from East Pass Junks Crossing.
We did meet with them. They support our petition. My client, his hours of operation are going to be
around 10 to 10. It's going to be purely takeout, no indoor eating. He's going to have pizza,
sandwiches, cheesesteaks, pasta, things like that. He's been a chef and a cook for many years.
So this is something that he's looking forward to do, and hopefully he can get, you know, the corner brightened up again and get the property in order.
And he is on the call, and he would verify my testimony.
He's available?
He is.
Mr. Romero, do you hear us?
If he could raise his virtual hand, please.
Mr. Bomero, if you can hit the raise your hand button, please.
Okay, he's been allowed to speak.
Okay, very good.
Okay, Mr. Bomero.
Can you file yourself for the record?
Yes, can you please identify yourself for the record, spell your first and last name?
Yes, my name is Bomero Medina.
can you spell it yes as a b-u-l-m-i-r-o medina's m-e-d-i-n-a thank you you saw affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth yes sir thank you please proceed okay
mr medina did you hear my presentation and testimony to the board yes okay and was it
Okay, and was it truthful and accurate?
truthful and accurate.
It's a truth.
It's the truth.
Okay, and would you adopt it as your own?
Do you adopt it as your own?
Okay, very good.
Thank you.
And I have nothing further, Chairman.
Thank you.
Does the board have any questions?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Anyone else that would like to testify on this matter?
Yes, we know he is here.
Thank you.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon. Greg Waldman, Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing commercial mixed-use
one zoning at this location. This property has had established use as a food-serving business
with documented licenses dating back to 1998, which is what we found, or potentially earlier.
We believe that the proposed takeout restaurant would not alter the essential character
of the neighborhood. Accordingly, the Planning Commission recommends the variance request be
granted. Thank you. Calendar number MI 2021-001113, 2000 South 12th Street, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes. Thank you. Good luck.
thank you have a good afternoon you too uh real quick before we go into number four
there's been a request for uh three continuance real quick let me read that uh into the record
calendar number mi 2021-002655 2315 north 10th street also calendar number mi 2021-002656
546-2307 North 10th Street and MI 2021. That is 002-546-2303 North 10th Street have been requested.
It's been continued by attorney. Hi, Chair. This is Tanya, the administrator. We do have Mr. Ward
Ward with his hand up, but if you would allow him to speak to these cases.
Sure. Mr. Ward, good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Sean Ward, S-H-A-W-N-W-A-R-D, attorney for the applicants
in these three matters, and I just wanted to confirm that that is correct.
Mr. Ward, you swear to affirm and sell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
just just confirming that we did in fact want to continue these cases thank you so noted have a
good day okay thank you you're welcome all right next one up it's uh mi 2021-003186 2039 east york
Street. Mr. Whalen is coming back in as it ends. Mr. Whalen, good afternoon. Please identify
yourself for the record. Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N. Thank you. You're still on the oath, is that
correct? As far as I know, happy to swear in again if you want me to. Thank you. You agree
to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, I do. And have you emailed
an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance,
copy of the refusal or referral, photos and plans five days prior to this hearing? Yes, I did.
And have you met with the RCO and have a letter? Yes, we do. Thank you. Please proceed.
Thank you. And I am very happy to tell everybody that I've got a much easier case in front of you
this afternoon than I did this morning.
We're more happier than you.
So this is 2039 East York.
Just to give you an example of where we're at, it's this property right here.
My clients purchased it about six years ago.
It is this one right here, an existing single-family home.
As you can see, this is a mixed-use area.
there's a number of properties up and down each of these blocks that are multi-family uses.
Contextually, these vacant areas right here, this is an older photo. You can see it's from 2020.
These are very large multi-family developments now, as are just off the screen up here and
another project over this way. So that was just for context. It's this property right here.
The application involves no new construction. It is an existing single-family home, and we are seeking to, again, RSA 5.
And we are seeking to, again, RSA 5, and we are seeking to convert it to a triplex.
Here's the one refusal we have.
Again, there's no new construction.
The property owners, husband and wife, are seeking to convert this to a triplex.
There's a picture of it, and I can walk through the rest of the neighborhood.
Essentially, Ramtin Sanikattam and Parida Mogadam, husband and wife, have lived here for about six years.
They purchased the property and have always intended on bringing Parida's parents over from Iran.
And now is the time that they're able to do so.
And they are intending on continuing to live on the first floor.
They will be turning the second floor into a single family unit for their in-laws and
their parents, respectively.
And the third floor will be a small 600 square foot one bedroom unit to kind of allow them
to do this, make this reconfiguration internally and try to bring their parents over from
Iran. And I know that Mr. Seneeketam is on the call, so he can speak more to that.
But essentially, that's our one issue. So we did get a letter of opposition from ECNA. However,
I would note the opposition was seven to six, and one person voted in non-opposition.
um we learned of this vote uh so essentially it was a split room we learned of this vote
only last thursday uh since that time my clients um started going door to door and they had
actually um all they have spoken with all six people uh all six people who voted in favor
reached out to them and uh there are actually two other people who voted in favor but apparently
their votes were not counted. They voted after the meeting via email. So they thought they were
doing it correctly. That is Jackie and Santo Perez. And so just in the last four or five days
that we've known about the opposition, my client went and again, just in very short time, was able
to pull, and I'm happy to focus on any of these, 11 additional signatures just from
the immediate area, not even extending out beyond this immediate neighborhood for additional
support.
So we do believe that there is substantial support for this project, again, mainly surrounding
the fact that this is for Ramton and Parida to bring Parida's parents over from Iran to
live with them.
and be able to age in place and um with that i would call unless you have any questions for me
i'd be happy to call um adam lasota who is the architect for the redesign okay go right ahead
thank you um if you can find adam lasota if you could please raise your hand
Hello, Mr. Chairman. This is Adam Lasota. Mr. Lasota, can you identify yourself for the record,
please? Yes, absolutely. My name is Adam Lasota of Lasota Architects. I am a licensed architect
in the state of Pennsylvania and also in good standing in the state of New Jersey.
Can you please spell your first and last name? Yes, it's Adam, A-D-A-M, and Lasota, L-A-S-O-T-A.
And you swore a farmer to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
And Sean, do you have my drawings up there?
Adam, just a second.
Hold up.
You are the architect for this project, yes?
And you heard all of the testimony that I presented already?
And do you believe it to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
Yes. And would you adopt it as your own testimony? Yes.
Is there anything else that you believe pertinent for the board's consideration here, given that there's no additional, no new construction?
Okay. And the internal layout is such that the existing three floors can, without significant effort or extra digging or any underpinning or anything like that, any kind of negative impacts to the neighbors, be conformed to.
any kind of negative impacts to the neighbors uh be conformed to a triplex correct yes i think it's
actually quite it's of course it will require some effort but nothing substantial like you
had mentioned we're not going to be doing any underpinning we're not going to be doing any kind
of construction that would hinder against any of the neighbors and and we're not changing anything
on the exterior so the construction is going to be only on the interior okay thank you very much
does the board have any questions for Mr. Lasota okay board have any questions
just one question this is new construction no existing construction it's an existing
three-story home that we are converting from a single-family use to three residential units
we're not and all of the work that is being proposed will be done only on the interior
here is your cursor pointing to the new building i'll show you uh so uh board member holloman this
is the building right here um this is an existing row home it is you know it's been built uh my
clients purchased it about six years ago when it was erected by the then developer
it's a single family home everything you see from the outside will remain the same
um every all of the occupants will you know walk up the existing stairs uh will enter through this
doorway and then the my clients will remain living on the first floor and they will um
outfit the basement for their use also and uh miss morgan's parents will be brought over and
they will be living in their own personal space on the second floor and then there will be a third
floor smaller one-bedroom apartment for that. There's really no concerns of traffic here.
So my clients have a single car, and obviously Mr. Saniketam can get into this more. They have
a single car. That's all they will have. Their parents will not have another car, so that space
on the second floor will not have that. And then the third floor is really designed in this
neighborhood in east kensington for you know a younger single professional obviously generally
working from home these days and there's significant amounts of public transit and transit
stops in all directions from here so so it was originally built as a single family yes yes you
are correct thank you it was originally built as a single family it is a single family still
and essentially what they'll do is with no additional working or serious structural changes
inside they can easily put up some some additional walls and use the existing staircase to turn this
into a triplex thank you thank you of course um so if uh the board doesn't have any questions
for Mr. Lasota, I would call Mr. Ramton Saniketam.
Go right ahead.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, sir.
Please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name, please.
My name is Ramton Saniketam, R-A-M-T-I-N-S-A-N-E-E-K-H-A-T-A-M.
thank you you swore affirm it's all the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do
thank you please go see all right thank you chairman uh mr sunika tom did you hear all the
testimony that i presented already yes and do you believe it to be true and correct to the best of
your knowledge and information yes and would you adopt it as your own yes okay and uh i jumped the
gone a little bit. You and your wife, Padida, are the owners of this property, correct?
Yes, we are.
And you've lived in this property as a single family home for the last six years or so?
My wife has lived there for six years. I have lived there for five.
Okay. And could you please maybe elaborate a little bit as to the purpose
and intention of why you're seeking to make this change?
certainly uh we had always uh had the intention of bringing our in-laws over uh we've had
a situation where we've had looked elsewhere to see how we could have kind of achieved this while
kind of having our in-laws very very close to us yet remain have them remain independent
with talking to our architect the layout of our house lent itself to be able to pull this off
rather easily and within our means this allows our very independent in-laws to have
uh this allows our very independent in-laws to have uh to be literally right next to us in their
latter years but be independent so they won't feel like a burden one of our biggest concerns
from their perspective is they're they're feeling like they're they're within our space or they're
a burden to us this allows them to live a complete independent um lifestyle but be literally steps
away from us okay and do you understand i mean obviously you live on the block do you understand
your block to have uh multiple multi-family uh buildings up and down the block yes it does
okay and do you know are you familiar with the number of units in those
i believe there is a five unit uh structure i believe there is a five pardon me a six unit
structure uh the picture on my screen is one block down so obviously that's a very large
uh multi-family uh complex that's not exactly my block that's the adjacent block
right here's uh 2110 which is just on the block and you see uh two mailboxes correct correct
okay and then uh 2059 right down the block is this what you were talking about where you have
uh the six mailboxes here or yes or bells yes okay and then here at 2063
also on your block is this where you were describing that you had the the five units
in the building yes it is okay um and do you understand not to belabor the point for the
board it's in the photos and as we've presented it but you understand that there are also additional
multi-family projects in your neighborhood correct absolutely okay and
that is all the questions i have for you mr sunika time unless you have anything further to add
no i i just uh you know i asked the board to do consider our case uh we are just trying to have
our in-laws be with us near us take care of them but provide them the independent that they so much
siege. All right. Thank you. With that, I would rest. And again, just pointing out that
by our numbers, while the vote again was six in support with one opposed and one
not opposing, essentially that's a seven, seven vote as I counted up. However, we do know that
for certain, Jackie and Santo Perez reached out to us and asked to make sure that their votes
were counted. They appear not to have been because those six votes were other individuals that
reached out to Mr. Sinekatam to say that they liked the project and good luck. And again,
ECNA let us know on last Thursday afternoon that we were not getting a letter of support,
which we thought we were getting. And so just in the last four days, Mr. Sinekatam and his wife
Parida Magadam were able to get 11 additional signatures. So thank you very much. Thank you.
Is there anyone else here that would like to speak in this matter?
Chair, we have one calling user. Calling user, please unmute yourself and please wait for the chair.
Thank you.
all in user could you please hello yes hi can you please identify yourself for the record
yes my name is ed cummings i live on the same block as the property at 2039 east york
uh less than 100 i'm sorry sir last name please oh my name is ed cummings c-u-m-m-i-n-g-s
okay you saw a firm to tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
yes please proceed thank you my name is ed cummings as i said i live on the same block as 2039 east
york uh less than 100 feet away from the property i attended the rco uh etna uh zoning meeting
And I understand that there was not a majority of approval for this project.
Most of the people who voted, there was not a majority.
Basically, it was not approved by the RCO voting membership.
Personally, I like the neighbors.
I like them very much.
However, I do not think it is appropriate to convert a single-family dwelling into a triplex.
there are not many other there are not many houses on the block there's only
There are not many houses on that block. There's only two long-standing residences that have multiple families in them or multiple apartments in them.
two long-standing
And on the end of the block where this is proposed, there is no multifamily dwellings I'm aware of.
I've lived on that block for more than a decade.
I have heard no hardship described here other than family members want to have a different lifestyle, more independent than getting all together, sharing a kitchen.
Personally, I don't feel that is a hardship.
If family members cannot get along well enough to share a kitchen, that is not a hardship by the definition of the city's hardship requirement.
Again, I like the neighbors very much.
I wish them a nice cohabitation with their parents or in-laws, and that they all can get along and share a kitchen like everybody else has to do.
But this multifamily dwelling is not acceptable under the zoning for this block, and I vote against it.
I do not want it to happen.
I think they should be able to figure out how to get along.
Thank you, sir.
Anyone else?
I see no hands, Chair.
Thank you.
Mr. Whirling, would your client be inclined to a duplex instead of a triplex?
So, Chairman, that was something we asked a lot and went through a lot.
The question, and I'm actually asking him now again,
Again, the question, the issue here, and I neglected to ask Mr. Sneeketam, is, you know, there's also obviously financial hardship cannot solely support the grant of the variance, but it is certainly evidence towards the grant of the variance.
Really, it's the interior cost of doing the construction, which will be offset by that third unit.
um so you know they they purposely looked uh all around to see if they could find a duplex
um obviously you probably know as well or better than i do what's going on in
commercial in residential real estate these days but staying anywhere close to the neighborhood
which they want to stay in um they could not afford to um they could not afford to get a duplex
for them. And here, since they already own the property and have been paying into it for six
years, they have the ability to make the transformation at a lesser cost, but that
cost is still significant. And that third unit of the triplex is what's going to offset
the transition to the duplex. Okay. Thank you. Planning Commission.
Good afternoon. This is Greg Waldman for Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single-family zoning at this location.
There are no unique physical characteristics particular to this 1,186-square-foot lot on a mostly consistent single-family block that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code.
While we are sympathetic to facilitating aging in place, granting a variance today would create a triplex that could be used in the future if this family moves to another location.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the variance not be granted.
Thank you.
Board has any questions?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Calendar number MI 2021-003186, 2039 East York Street.
My vote is no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is no.
Okay, good look.
Calendar number MI 2021-002205, 2265 North Park Avenue.
Mr. Bertil is coming back in as a panelist Mr. Bertil good afternoon please identify
yourself for the record good afternoon Mr. Chair Steve Bertil B-E-R-T-I-L Claire Harrison
Harvey in Brandsburg 1835 Market Street um 19103 you swear from the tell the truth the
whole truth for nothing but the truth? I do. And do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, I do. And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the
and have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents proof of ownership proof of
required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance?
tax compliant copy of the refusal over for folders and plans five days prior to this hearing
yes to all the above thank you and have you uh met with the rco and have a letter
yes and yes thank you please proceed thank you
just share my screen here okay it was stated uh my name is steve bertill
i'm here on behalf of the applicant owner of this property miss samira mcneil
uh the property that we're here for today is 2265 north park avenue uh as you can see from the
the zoning area, the zoning map on your screen, the highlighted, actually, let me zoom in here.
There you go. The highlighted parcel is the property in question. It's on the corner of
Park Avenue and West Dolphin Street. This property is a family home previously owned.
It's been in the family for decades, previously owned by Ms. McMill's grandmother and intention
here. It's a repurposed existing basement space and garage extension into a salon geared towards
providing services to the local area. So we're requesting variance relief to allow the changes
of use on those levels for personal services under the code. As was stated, the property is
currently zoned as RM1, as you can see, but the property is actually being used as a single
family still. And so the single family use above the basement will maintain. That's not being
converted to multifamily. This will be a mixed-use structure with a single family use above it.
As you can see, the existing site is a corner lot and is fairly deep. The lots on this block
are 92 feet in depth. The reason we're here is because we have a refusal for the personal
service use under the residential district. And therefore, because of that, we need a
variance approval. And so what we're looking to obtain is essentially the change of use
and a redesign of the entrance to the basement so it can be utilized as salon. Just so you have
context, here's an aerial, excuse me, here's a frontage photo of the property. If you're standing
on the corner of park and dolphin this is the property in question here
right on the corner and this is if you're standing along dolphin um and you look at the profile of
the property you can see the elevation as you can see it's a fairly large single family home
um and you can see that it extends back and it has this rear garage addition um
that will be part of the entrance upon redesign. Here's a better shot of the rear addition to the
property that's in existence that we want to redesign for entrance into the salon that's being
proposed. Now due to the size and location of this property, it's not uncommon in this area
for there to be commercial uses on the ground level. In fact, across Dauphin and across
excuse me, park there, there were historically commercial uses on the ground floors and into
the basement levels. What you're looking at now is our is the zoning plan that kind of shows the
site plan, you'll see that we upon renovation of that space, we will be removing the existing curb
cut that's there. I would see adding a legal street back onto the street, which we believe
is a benefit. Rehabbing the existing space so it can be an entrance into the basement salon space.
As you can see, signage is not part of this application currently, but you can see sort
of the branding going on for what is intended with the space. Now, I'm pleased to say because
this is a family home, Ms. McNeil was able to obviously be able to engage at a higher level
with the community members that live in the immediate area. I'm happy to say that, excuse
me, let me zoom back in here. I'm happy to say that we obtained signatures of support
um signatures of support by the immediate neighbors on the block as you can see um we have
by the immediate neighbors on the block.
signatures up and down park avenue including the immediate adjacent neighbors um i believe she has
about 20 18 or 20 signatures in addition to that we did meet with the community group the uptown
entertainment and development corporation i'm pleased to report that we have a letter of support
from the community group as well, recognizing Mrs. McNeil's intention to keep this family,
excuse me, to keep this property in the family and find a productive use for a basement that is
suited for some sort of commercial use, as was historically across the street on both sides of
the property. And so with that, with the support of the near neighbors, with the support of the
community group. We believe that this is a variance that is appropriate for the site,
does not take away from the character of the neighborhood. In fact, because the intention
is to be a community salon that's geared towards the immediate neighbors. And in addition to that,
how some sort of programming and mentoring services that Ms. McNeil can speak to more
specifically towards young people in the neighborhood who wants its jobs, we believe
that this is will be de minimis nature and have little to no adverse effect on the community.
And with that, unless the board has any specific questions for me, I'll ask if Miss McNeil
could raise a hand and be recognized to adopt and affirm my testimony and provide any anything
added.
Ms. McNeil, you can unmute yourself and please wait for the chair.
okay miss mcneil good afternoon please identify yourself for the records by your first and last
name good afternoon my name is samira mcneil s-a-m-e-e-r-a-h-m-c-n-e-i-l-l
you swear if i'm going to tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
yes thank you please proceed thank you mr chair miss mcneil did you hear the testimony that i
just provided to the board this afternoon? Yes. Do you affirm the truth of the testimony and adopt
it as your own? Yes. Was there anything that you would like to add to the board?
Just that this is a dream of mine. This is a neighborhood in which I was actually born and
raised. This house was given to me by my grandmother. This house has been in my family
for almost 100 years, and I just want to keep the legacy going
and be able to open up a small business
and be able to attain my dream.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
That concludes our primary presentation.
Does the board have any questions?
No, Mr. Chair.
Is there anyone else that would like to speak in this matter?
Chair, we have Sean Whaley.
Thank you.
Yes, Chairman.
I don't know if you can hear me at this point.
I actually had a question on the prior case.
I was kicked off the hearing.
So I'm not speaking about this matter.
I just.
Anyone else?
I see no handshare.
Thank you. Planning Commission.
Good afternoon.
My name is Greg Waldman for Planning Commission staff.
This property is indicated for residential multifamily use on the city plan.
Our adopted district plan recommended no change to existing residential multifamily zoning
at this location.
This parcel is not dissimilar to nearby corner properties, so in commercial mixed use.
Do not believe that the proposed use would alter the essential character of the neighborhood.
accordingly we recommend that the requested variances be granted thank you calendar number
mi 2021-002205 2265 north park avenue uh my vote is yes thomas holliman my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you very much.
Calendar number MI 2021-002-634-326, Rocksboro Avenue.
Ms. Pritzker is coming back in as a panelist.
Thank you, Ms. Pritzker.
Good afternoon.
Please identify yourself for the record.
Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R, 1635 Market Street, Suite 1600, Philadelphia PA-19103.
Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K.
Thank you. You agree to waive. Was you here this morning?
I was, but just for a continuance.
Okay. You swore a friend to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal or stipulate to attackers?
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership,
proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, folders and plans five days prior
to this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO and have a letter?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
I'm going to share my screen.
Can you see my screen?
Okay, so this is 326 Roxborough Avenue.
As the board can see, this is an application for the extension of an existing sit-down restaurant to the second floor for an accessory office on the third floor of an existing structure.
All of these refusals were generated because the property, although it's been a restaurant since at least 1936,
um it is zoned rsa3 so as a result any extension um to the use would trigger a variance as the
board's well aware rsa3 is a very restrictive residential zoning classification and all this
is a long-standing corner property that has been a restaurant for decades um it has not been
remapped uh adequately and so um we are just trying to extend the existing restaurant to
accommodate additional seating, change the apartment use above to an office space, which
will be a less impactful use than apartments, and just to provide additional space for this
restaurant to continue operating, especially during the current climate. I'm just going to go
through tax clearance deed. So as the board can see on my screen, this is a large corner property
on Roxborough Avenue and Larson Street. And again, it's been a longstanding restaurant
since 1936. The city has archives for. A variance was also granted legalizing all the uses on the
property by the Zoning Board of Adjustment in 1960. So nothing really changing except just expanding
this existing use to utilize the additional space in the building and provide for an office space.
This is the building as you can see. We obviously have a hardship in that anytime you want to expand
anything and the base zoning is RSA 3 or any restrictive zoning classification that doesn't
align with the actual use of the building, you trigger a variance if you're to exceed more than
10%. So in this case, that would maybe allow us to expand into another bathroom, but nothing
enough to provide additional seating and an office space. Additionally, compliance with the zoning
code would require a demolition of the entire interior of this building to build a single
family home, which would eliminate this amenity in the neighborhood. And especially now when
restaurants are especially trying to survive, would not be ideal for a number of reasons.
This is just the outside of it. Side view.
This is the interior of the space. Just to show what we're converting above, as you can see,
was apartment spaces. And again, just going to convert this to an office and additional space
for the restaurant. This is just showing that the building has been an existing restaurant
and has been legalized by the city. There was an addition to the property. And so again,
the use registration that you see under it shows that this is an existing sit-down restaurant and
again, can't expand more than 10% without a variance. Again, older permits that you have
in your packet. We met with the Central Roxburgh Civic Association back in August. We also met
with the near neighbors a couple of times. More recently, closer to the prior hearing
on this case that was continued given technical difficulties. And the RCO letter that they
provided, there was 110 attendees. If you scroll down to the vote of the letter.
If you scroll down to the vote of the letter, basically it says there was 44 in support and 17 against.
So obviously there was a large majority of support for the project.
Many people believe that this was, you know, has been a good use in the neighborhood.
A lot of people visit this restaurant. And again, it's been a restaurant for a very long time.
The other concerns that were mentioned by the RCO were really just related to the directly adjacent near neighbors, three of which we met with and proposed this list after that meeting, proposed this list of provisos that we would be willing to have or things that we would be willing to enforce in order to address any concerns around noise.
Again, it's been an existing bar and restaurant for decades, and so most of these folks were aware of that when they purchased their home or moved back into these homes, but we did want to be good neighbors and try to provide some ways in order to help address their concerns, such as closing windows at 8 p.m.
nightly, removing sofas and picnic tables on the Roxborough Avenue side permanently so that
none of that noise carries as much, stop seating customers outside at 9 p.m. Sunday through
Wednesday, stop seating at 10 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, canceling karaoke because some of the
music was a concern, setting the jukebox volume to limit raising music and set it. We obviously
they've already done this once, but again, we'll set a meeting with the entire staff to go over
all the neighborhood concerns so that the staff can be really well aware of it and do anything
to minimize the issues in the future. Again, I just want to make it obviously known that at the
end, despite this long-winded letter and asking for a continuance last, which they were ultimately
able to obtain because I couldn't get on my computer, there were 44 votes in support of this.
Um, so that's a vast majority.
Um, and again, we did meet with the directly adjacent near neighbors.
I even emailed them a number of times since went back and forth.
And I have not heard from the head of the RCO, um, or received any additional letter,
but I think that this does a good job stating kind of the position of the community.
Um, I'm going to stop sharing my screen.
Um, if I could bring on my client chairman, um, to swear in my testimony,
that would be Khalil Meir. He should be able to raise his hand.
Mr. Meir, please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name.
Yes, hi. Khalil Meir, K-A-H-L-I-L. Last name is Meir, M-I-R.
You sure are firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Khalil, have you heard my testimony today in front of the board?
Yes, I have.
Do you believe it to be true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, and do you adopt it as your own?
Yes, I do.
Feel free to share anything else you'd like with the board.
Keep it brief if you can.
And I don't know if you had other folks on the call to testify, but they would need to raise their hand at this point.
One of the neighbors is on the Zoom call, Mike.
uh as far as as far as what i have to say yeah we're just we're trying to get an office space
which we do not have um we would like to you know have more space for private parties we've
been in the neighborhood for over seven years now um and uh we've had never had any real real
issues there's two neighbors that you know aren't happy with us for whatever reason but we've we've
Tried to, you know, make them happy with, you know, different things and doesn't seem to work.
But all in all, like we just had a block party a couple of months ago and the entire neighborhood came out.
So, you know, we try we were there to make the neighbors happy and have them have a place to enjoy.
And that's it. Mike is on the line. Thanks, Khalil. Yep.
Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to testify on this matter?
yeah hi i've raised my hand this is mike smayhal
for yourself by your first and last name please michael smayhal m-i-c-h-a-e-l s-m-a-h-o-l
i'm a resident on the loriston side at 4336 loriston street um i've worked with roger and
Khalil on organizing firm to tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth I do
thank you um yeah I've I've been on the street for nine years at 43 36
Yeah, I've been on the street for nine years at 4336 Lauriston. I saw the place that was there before that. And Roger and Khalil have done a great job kind of expanding the property and bringing an amenity to the neighborhood.
I know that almost all the neighbors on the street on my side of the street are happy and frequent the establishment, you know, multiple times a week.
It's a it's a good community spot for gathering and having meetings and things like that.
As Khalil mentioned, we had a block party and Hiltown was very generous with helping us organize the block party.
They paid for one of the bounce houses. We had multiple bounce houses on the street.
It was really a great day for the kids in the community.
They helped us with letting us order food through Restaurant Depot.
And I've personally seen the efforts of closing the windows and doors at 8 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. per the noise ordinance.
And anytime we've ever had any issue on the street, they've been willing to help.
So I see no real issue with them expanding into an office space.
The space is kind of crunched as it is right now.
So giving them the ability to kind of prep food upstairs and have an office space would be beneficial for them as they do a good business down the street.
That's all.
Thanks, Michael.
Anyone else?
I see no hands, Chair.
Thank you. Does the board have any questions?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Okay, Ms. Pritzker, are you done with any other witnesses?
No, Chairman. I'm good at this point.
Thank you. Planning Commission?
Good afternoon. My name is Greg Waldman from Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change in the residential single-family zoning at this location.
The application is for expansion of a previously approved restaurant.
The applicant has demonstrated long-standing commercial use of this slot,
which dates to at least 1936. We recommend that the board approve the requested variance.
Thank you. Calendar number MI 2021-002634-326 Roxborough Avenue. My vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman. My vote is yes.
Jim, you're available.
Chair, this is Tanya.
It appears as though he's here, but may be having technical difficulties.
Would you like to hold the vote until he can?
Rachel, we'll hold the vote on another case just to see if he's...
That's no problem, Chairman.
Thank you.
Let's see before we start.
Second.
Thank you.
i'm sorry i was having trouble getting online i'm sorry no problem so we still on uh rachel
Are you available?
Ms. Pritzker, is she?
Yes, I'm here, Chairman.
So I'm going to call it again, okay?
Calendar number MI2021-002634, 326 Rocksboro Avenue.
My vote is yes.
thomas holliman my vote is yes james snell my vote is yes thank you thank you you're welcome
all right next one is calendar number mi 2021
Calendar number MI 2021-003-450-4003, Filbert Street.
Mr. George is coming back in as a panelist.
Mr. George, please unmute yourself.
Mr. Chairman, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Can you please identify yourself for the record, spell your first and last name?
Dennis George, D-E-N-N-I-S-G-E-O-R-G-E.
I'm with the law firm of Arangio and George, LLP, 2000 Market Street, Suite 1440, Philadelphia, 19103.
Thank you.
You swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents, proof of ownership, proof of tax compliance, copy of the refusal or referral, photos and plans five days prior to this hearing?
Mr. Chairman, this is a reconsideration. We originally submitted all the documents back in January on the initial vote, and then I recently supplemented the documents to the board.
Great. Okay. So please proceed.
Thank you.
um the the original hearing took place in january uh on january 6 2021 the board granted um the
request and then a reconsideration application was filed by the rco west palton saunders park
a response to the reconsideration was submitted since that time we have met with the rco and we
We have had extensive meetings and discussions, and we revised the plans and incorporated a new design, eliminating two of the three variances.
With me today is the architect from Sky Design.
He can, if you'd permit him, he can share our screen with you and show you what we've done.
We basically have eliminated the accessory parking and we've eliminated the street frontage
requirement. Our new plan is for again with just the same as a single family home but we redesigned
it in conjunction with the RCO. We can have Sky be able to share it. We can share with you the design.
I think here today is Mr. Masters from the RCO, who will testify with our cooperation with them.
Great. Please proceed.
I'm sorry, Chair. What is the name of your architect so I can promote him to panelists?
Shing, are you here? Let me see.
I have him for Tina, and he's coming back in as a panelist now.
Thank you.
Thank you. Sir, please unmute yourself and identify yourself for the record.
yeah sorry oh it was me my name is xin yuan chen sky design i'm the last name please
sorry can you spell your first and last name please yes first name h-s-i-n-g last name c-h-e-n
thank you for affirming tell the truth the whole truth for nothing but the truth
yes thank you mr george please proceed thank you shin could you just share with us the um
the new plans please so yes
i'm sorry chair this is tanya yes um the zoning board administrator i'm just a little bit confused
i was just trying to ask if i could mr george um was this a reconsideration request for the
from the rco yes okay so he should have been promoted
from the rco yes okay so he should have been promoted oh i'm here i'm going to promote mr
masters he has the case here oh okay it wasn't i didn't have that list okay that's true all right
i do apologize mr masters the chair will recognize you now mr master please identify
for you uh please identify yourself for the record um good afternoon mr chair members of
the board, Steve Masters, law firm of JustLaws. I represent the RCO West Powhatan Saunders Park.
Okay. You swear to affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Thank you. Please proceed. I am going to defer to Attorney George
for the applicant, just to tell the board that the RCO had numerous meetings with the applicant
and her counsel. And in the course of those meetings, the applicant agreed to change and
accommodate almost 100% of the concerns that the community had. At this point,
the RCO is in support of the revised plans and the head of the RCO, Pamela Andrews, is I believe
in the Zoom meeting and I would like to recognize her to confirm the RCO's position
because I believe that there wasn't a new letter that was submitted to the board from the RCO so
So we wanted to present a testimony, a live testimony on that.
Thank you.
So if Ms. Andrews could raise your virtual hand, then you can be recognized.
Ms. Andrew, good afternoon.
Please identify yourself for the record.
Good afternoon.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Great.
My name is Pamela Andrews, A-N-D-R-E-W-S.
I am the chair of West Pelt and Saunders Park RCO.
You swear to affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Thank you. Please proceed.
Sure. Ms. Andrews, can you describe what the changes are to the plans that your RCO and the community has come to an agreement about?
Well, the plans are extensive.
First of all, the height of the building was adjusted.
The facade was changed and the community was very happy with the new look of the building.
There was concerns for the community about the roof and the pilot house that was on the roof.
The pilot house was adjusted to allow more sunlight to the rear properties that would be affected by this new structure on Wyota Street, in addition to changes to the fencing to allow more light.
So all in all, the community as a whole were very happy with the new plans and voted to move forward with them.
Can you speak with some detail to the issue of the curb cut and the lack of on-street parking that existed before this agreement was reached?
Yes, I can.
Um, with the original design, uh, the owner had, um, plans was to put in a garage on the
first floor and the community definitely did not want that.
And they wanted the parking, um, reinstated to the street.
So, uh, the curve cut will be removed and the parking, um, spaces will be added back
to the streetscape.
okay that's um that concludes um my questioning of the witness thank you so much anyone else
mr chairman um we have submitted revised proviso plans and plans
which incorporate the new design removal of the curb cut the removal of the parking space
and etc and we would request the board approve the new plans thank you mr george uh did you submit
approve the new plans. Thank you. Mr. George, did you submit the request, the form for the revised
plans? Yes, we did. Okay. All right. And how many pages? The revised plan, the revised proviso is
one page and the plan is one page. Okay. So two pages. Okay. We've also submitted an updated
certificate for tax clearance. Thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Sunke. I'm sorry, Chair, to interrupt.
I just wanted to make sure we confirm that the proviso form was sent today. Yes. Was it Mr.
George? Yes, because we just recently received from the RCO a request to remove, to replace the
curb in our original revised proviso. That was not included, so we wanted to include that. Yes,
Yes, you're right. It was submitted.
I'm early to text our counsel.
Ms. Cole, can you confirm that we received that form?
I cannot confirm that currently.
Okay. So we'll hold it for a week.
We have the form on the screen, just so you can see it.
But Chair, if I could speak, Mr. George,
was this submitted to Attorney Saleta today for her approval?
it was submitted to her and um and carol fee yes okay so we would just want to confirm because our
notes do not detail that and we would like to confirm for sure and again as mr um plaza stated
we should wait for a week at least to confirm we have that form in order for them to vote thank
Thank you very kindly, Junior.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I just had one additional issue
that we haven't been able to determine
the proper resolution of.
The curb cut, the restoration of the curb
has been agreed to and is in the plans,
which we are very appreciative of.
But there was also stripes that were painted on the street
to indicate no parking in front of the current property curb cut.
And the applicant has said to us that they don't believe
that they have the power to repaint over stripes on the street.
So we've been reaching out to the streets department
through the councilwoman's office to determine the best ways to do that.
But we certainly want to put in the record
that the intention here is to restore on-street parking which would require not just the curb to
be replaced but also the stripes that are indicating no parking to be removed okay
mr chairman we have no control over the street department and we did not paint the stripes when
we acquired the property so we will work in conjunction with uh with the rco but we really
don't know what we can do we can replace the curb service right right right we we understand that
we don't contest that we just wanted to put that on the record just continue working with the
council person they'll get it you know straightened out okay uh anyone else uh that would like to
speak in this matter i see no hands chair thank you board has any questions no mr chairman thank
Thank you. Do we have a planning commission?
Mr. Chairman, do you need the owner to affirm the testimony that I've presented?
If he's available, that's fine.
Lily, are you available?
Lily Zhao?
Yes, I'm here.
Yes, hi, ma'am. Can you please identify yourself for the records by your first and last name, please?
Lee, first name L-I, last name Zhao, Z-H-A-L.
You swore a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Lily, have you heard the testimony I presented today?
And is that true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
And do you adopt the testimony as your own testimony?
Yeah, you're representing.
Thank you.
That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Planning Commission?
um chair i'm pretty sure that the planning commission does not comment on reconsideration
of appeals that's what i thought okay thank you you're welcome thank you so calendar number
mi 2021-003-450-4003 filbert street uh the record is closed we'll hold a render our decision
in a week, pending on this letter that she received the letter for the revised form.
received uh the letter for the revised uh form thank you good luck thank you
Thank you.
Good luck.
calendar number mi 2021-003187918 north broad street
michael phillips is coming back as a panelist thank you
Morning, Mr. Phillip. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good afternoon, Michael Phillips, Claire Harrison, 1835 Market Street, Suite 1400,
Philadelphia PA 19103, here on behalf of Broad Street owner LLC, the owner of 918 North Broad.
And can you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth?
uh and uh do you agree to waive the reading of its refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
i agree to waive the reading and will stipulate to the accuracy of the refusals i will just note
that the refusal notes this is a seven-story building and it's actually an eight-story
building as reflected in the plans okay and have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required
documents proof of ownership proof of tax compliance copy of the refusal or referral
voted in plans five days prior to this hearing? Yes. And have you met with the RCO and have a
letter? Yes. Thank you. Please proceed. I am sharing my screen right now.
All right. So again, good afternoon, Chairman Plaza and members of the board. We're here today
for an application for both a variance and special exception at 918 North Broad Street.
The proposal is for an eight-story mixed-use development with about 2,200 square feet of
ground floor commercial and 49 residential units from the second through eighth floors.
uh we received refusals uh two one refusal and one referral the refusal is for the number of
parking spaces and we are required to have eight spaces due to the size of the uh of the lot which
is a narrow lot that has frontage on both broad and then carlisle to the rear we were only able
to place three spaces um and also a referral because uh above ground parking in the cmx4
zoning district requires a special exception approval. And once again, due to the narrow
constraints of the lot, which is 37 feet wide, it really is not feasible for us to
build underground parking here. I have with me Boris Kaplan on behalf of the owner, and also
we have Carrie Yance with Cano Design. We met with the RCO, Map Holistic CDC,
as well as the Friends of the 47th Ward on September 22nd.
Please do announce we have a letter of support from the RCO that is in the exhibit packet
that Friends of the 47th Ward also joined in on with their enthusiastic support for this project.
We'll just briefly take you through the plans.
This project is to the southwest of Broad and Girard.
There's the CVS that is directly to the north of us, and then we're of the much smaller, narrower lot right to the south of that CVS.
And I'll note that that is proposed for redevelopment, I believe, of 190 units, and there will be underground parking there.
But that's due to the large site and their ability to support that.
These are just some photographs showing the surrounding area. We're right near the Broad Street line. There's bicycle share parking all along that CBS that I believe will still be there at that other development. And this is our current property.
um this is the front is a three-story existing structure that we proposed to demolish this is
the view from the rear um as the RCO notes in their letter this property has been um you know
quite uh for quite some time it's been blighted and they very much look forward to its redevelopment
um just again showing you north broad and this is our parcel right here um everything um to the
north even beginning with this drive aisle belongs to uh the neighboring property
orders of the posting um so here is uh the zoning map see we're zoned cmx4 and we are this one
skinny 160 foot by 37 foot lot um and going to the development plans now
And going to the development plans now.
We are proposing an eight story structure.
There is a vacant retail about 2200 square feet proposed fronting Broad Street and then a residential amenity.
And then here are the three parking spaces that we're proposing in the rear to be accessed off of Carlisle Street.
There's an ADA space, an auto share space, and then a standard space.
Really, due to the width of the lot, this is all we could fit, and obviously, we do not want to put any additional parking that would either be stacked or cause congestion on Carlisle Street, nor do we want to have a curb cut or propose any parking directly accessed off of North Broad Street.
So, again, that's the entire basis for the refusal and the referral.
This is the roof plan.
I'll just take you through some of the renderings in the floor plan.
This is the proposed rendering of the structure along with the neighboring development that's proposed and I believe already has permits in place.
And you see that they are showing some parking off of broad.
and I think that actually might be changed so that everything is just one straight commercial
frontage. And then we go up eight stories. I'll also note that we are utilizing the mixed income
bonus and are making about a $250,000 contribution into the city's affordable housing trust
for purposes of increasing the floor area ratio on this project. And that's how we get to this
eight-story structure, and I know the community was very supportive of that aspect of this project
as well. Again, that is the ground floor plan, and then we're showing units. There's some two
bedrooms, 879 feet, and then that bookend, the property, and then we have one-bedroom units
in the middle for a total of 49. And then this is the roof plan. See, we have a roof deck for
residential use only. And also on the ground floor, we have 14 parking, bicycle parking spaces.
It's just a building section showing the elevations.
once again it's just the south north elevations along with the broad street and the carlisle
street frontage with the parking that would be right below the structure to be accessed
off of carlisle we entered into a memorandum of understanding with the community with a
commitment to working with the community and having minority participation on this project
and community-based subcontractors to bid out the project too as well and have worked closely
with the community to hopefully move forward with this successful project. If the board has any
questions, I'd be glad to answer them and if not, I'd like to call Boris Kaplan to testify and I
believe Reverend Lewis Nash might be on the call as well to mention the community's position.
Go right ahead.
I'd like to call Boris Kaplan.
Present.
Boris,
please identify yourself for the record, sir.
Spear your first and last name.
Boris Kaplan,
B-O-R-I-S
Kaplan,
K-A-P-L-U-N.
You swear to affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth,
for nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Good afternoon, Boris.
did you hear my testimony a moment ago? Yes, I did, Michael. Okay. And would you agree that
everything I stated is true and correct? Yes, I do. And do you agree to adopt my testimony as
your own? I do. I have no further questions for Mr. Kaplan. Thank you. Any other witnesses you
have? I have the architect available if the board has any questions. Otherwise, I have no further
their questions. Thank you. Does the board have any questions? Just the trash plant. What is the
trash plant? Sure. We have, it will be commercial trash collection. And the plan is for it to be,
we have the trash and recycling here, and it would be collected right off of here. We have an 11
foot gap between our curb cuts. Trash would pull up on Carlisle Street heading north,
pull up on carlisle street heading north collect and then continue heading up towards gerrard
collect, and then continue heading up towards Girard.
thank you thank you uh is there anyone else that would like to testify on this matter
i see no hands chair thank you planning commission
good afternoon chair members of the board my name is greg waldman planning commission staff
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing mixed use commercial zoning at this location.
The site is very transit accessible in close proximity to the Gerard Street station along the Broad Street subway and enjoys good pedestrian access along the Broad Street commercial corridor.
Therefore, the granting of the proposed variance for below minimum required parking spaces would not adversely impact the surrounding transportation network.
Furthermore, the narrowness of the lot creates a hardship for designing a building with underground parking.
Accordingly, we recommend that the Board grant the variance for parking spaces and special exception for surface parking.
Thank you. All right. Calendar number MI 2021-003187918 North Broad Street.
My vote is yes, with proviso, as per amended application, CP 2021-005300.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
James Snell, yes, with proviso.
Thank you. Good luck.
Thank you very much. Have a good afternoon.
You too.
i believe that concludes uh is there anyone else that feels that we forgot to call their case
i see no hands chair thank you that concludes
thank you very much guys i'll see y'all tomorrow have a good night
thank you phenomenal job great good night thank you yes good job good night thank you have a good
one everyone good night good night good night thank you good night you too thank you