did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing
yes thank you please proceed and share your screen thank you chairman bergman and members
of the board again my name is mike gumbel i represent redemption housing uh the refusal is
for a uh group living wherein single room residences are not permitted in rsa 5 zone buildings
The building itself is a single-family home, as you'll see.
To give you a little bit of background, Redemption Housing is a faith-based nonprofit organization
that provides housing and support services to formerly incarcerated and homeless men
as they seek to reintegrate into society.
Statistics regularly show that one of the greatest contributors to recidivism in our society
is the inability for formerly incarcerated individuals to find safe and stable housing.
Redemption Housing seeks to break that cycle through the program that it has created at this property called Barnabas House.
Every June after a strict application process, they enroll a new cohort of men for a year-long program to help provide them with housing, stability, employment assistance, spiritual support, mental health support, sobriety support, and companionship.
Redemption Housing currently provides housing for three individuals in this property.
However, the goal is and always has been to assist as many men as possible, and with this
property in particular, they are looking to increase from three residents to six.
With that in mind, as a nonprofit, Redemption Housing is extremely limited resources and
needs to maximize benefit wherever possible when it comes to administrative costs.
I'm just going to switch over to the exhibits real quick.
So, several years back when they were looking at properties, they were specifically searching
out properties that would have a CMX 3 or gradier zoning to allow them to do the group
living by right so they could service more men.
At the time of marketing the property, and just so you can see here with the deed, it
It was purchased on August 15th, 2022.
At the time of marketing the property, it had a CMX3 use, which, if you look at the use tables, did allow the group living single-room residence.
The MLS listing you'll see here showed that it was zoned CMX3, again, at the time of marketing.
They pulled the title report, and the title report indicated, looking at the old Atlas printout, that it was CMX3 at that time.
However, around the same time, like ships in the night, a bill was moving through city
council to change the base zoning of the neighborhood.
So originally you'll see that it was the CMX-3 on that block, and then the new zoning went
into effect, which changed it to RSA-5.
That legislation was signed into a bill on August 31st, 2022, so approximately two weeks
after they purchased the property. As a result, we now have a significant hardship wherein the
organization used its resources to purchase the property believed to be and at the time of
purchase was CMX3 to house its program, but which has then changed hands or which then changed a few
weeks later.
Additionally, in the exhibits, we have the Barnabas House Resident Handbook.
Additionally in the exhibits we have
This is here to kind of point out the program, what it's striving to do, and to also show
that it has strict requirements.
So the program has strict requirements for violence, for lending money, for weapons,
drug and alcohol use, strict curfews and visitation rules.
What they're trying to do here is run a nice, clean organization to help these men to get
back on their feet and to reintegrate into society.
Just to show you some photos of the property, you'll see here the actual house itself, the
posting of the signs.
On the interior, you can see it's a well-kept, clean property for the men to make them feel
comfortable where they're living at.
There are currently four bedrooms within the house. One of the bedrooms is used as a chaplain's office who's on site during the days.
The other three bedrooms are housing the residents.
And again, the intention is and the hope is that those three bedrooms will be able to double so that we would have two residents in each room and be able to provide services for up to six individuals.
I also wanted to show a letter of support from Madam Speaker of the House, Joanna McClinton,
who's a friend of the organization and can attest to the wonderful work that they're
doing.
So again, she wrote a letter in support for us.
Finally attached, you have the RCO notices and proof of mailing, and then the tax clearance.
And with that, I'd like to call on Dr. Lori Banfield, the Executive Director of Redemption Housing.
Lori Banfield is allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Peace and peace. My name is Dr. Lori Banfield. That is spelled L-O-R-I, last name B-A-N-F-I-E-L-D.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Dr. Banfield, have you heard my testimony today?
Yes, I have.
To the best of your knowledge, is everything I've stated true and correct?
Yes, it is.
And would you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from Hillary Emberson, our attorney?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Kyle Sampson has a hand up and will be allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Hello?
Kyle Sampson, K-Y-L-E-S-A-M-P-S-O-N.
president of the west philadelphia economic development council rco all right do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed sir
uh we had a community meeting which the community overwhelmingly did not support this it's nothing
more than a halfway house coming into our community there is a similar house that they
have directly across the street from this property and that property according to the 18th district
police department has had several incidences in which the police had to come out we don't want
this in a community the community voted against it i don't know if you've asked about a letter
from the uh coordinating rco in which they would have stated that the vote that took place
and that's my testimony uh thank you for taking on the kind of calls and and and i my rco sent
the letter yesterday of opposition okay thank you sir um anyone else in the virtual audience
there are no hands chair chairman if i might respond real quick sure um the as far as the
coordinating rco there was a and i'm sorry i when i was my screen was coming up for the screen share
i missed what you said earlier uh regarding the councilman's office and if it was that the
councilman is in support. I'm sorry? The council person was in support. Okay. And then Cobbs Creek
did issue a letter where the board of Cobbs Creek issued a no objection. They did note that there
was the neighbor opposition. We would strongly object to Mr. Sampson's classification of this
as a halfway house
And in regards to the concerns about 5233 Locust, which is another property that the organization manages, we did actually reach out to the council person's office and they reached out to the 18th district to see if there had been anything going on in that property.
and in regards to
the concerns about
um they sent over a report and if you want to bring on miss banfield again she can speak to
any of the incidents that were reported and that those incidents were not significant in
any manner whatsoever okay thank you um planning commission
i just want to interject quickly um mr gumbel we did not receive that letter from um cedar park so
if you could please forward that to us for our records sure that would be helpful thank you
and it was i'm sorry hillary it was cobs creek yes i'm sorry long day cobs creek yeah
planning commission this property is indicated for residential use the city planning commission
has no objection to granting the variance thank you mi 2023 005 132 52 34 locust street i vote yes
Thomas Holliman, my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel, you have your votes
Thank you very much
Number six, MI 2023-001-767-6650
Musgrave, Henry Clinton is the attorney
There is a letter of support from the East Mount Airy neighbors
and we clinton is returning as a panelist
you were you were sworn earlier today just for the record state your name sure henry clinton
clinton and could you identify your client a relationship to this property sure my my client
is SEMA, C-E-M-A-H, Torbaugh, T-O-R-B-O-H. He's the owner of the property, and he is on the call.
Okay, and Mr. Holloman has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his
accuracy? I know. Did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to
this hearing? Some of the exhibits came in later than that. Typically, not chiefly, the tax
certification, which we were trying to get. We also sent in the views of the posting of the sign
and then some additional zoning records that we uncovered recently. But other than that,
everything is in. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen. Thank you, Mr. Holliman.
Mr. Chair, I want to note that Councilman Bass has taken the position of non-opposition in this case.
Thank you.
Again, good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Henry Clinton on behalf of Seema Torbaugh, who is on the call.
This is the Table of Contents, Exhibits A1 through A10, as well as some zoning records, which we'll go over at the end.
This is a refusal.
So this is a request to legalize a four-family dwelling, which has been in existence for at least 10 years.
My client acquired this property in 2018, and he's been living in the property since 2018.
He bought the property.
It was for sale by owner.
There was no realtor involved.
And for at least five years prior to his purchase, it was used as a four-family dwelling.
The neighbors locally on the block are aware of this, and they came out strongly in support
of his continued use of this property because, as I said, he lives there.
and he self-manages the property.
And also, I'll show you the zoning records.
There's historical multifamily use in this building
for a long time,
as well as two of the other three corners
that this property shares.
And I'll show those records at the end, Mr. Chairman.
This is a letter of support
from East Mount Area Neighbors Association.
They recite all the issues that were raised,
But the bottom line is there were 12 votes in support of the variance, and then all five near neighbors, which I think is significant, supported or voted in support of the variance.
The rest of the documents have been submitted along with East Mount Airy neighbors' standard operating procedures.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to roll through these because it's not part of my presentation, and I think the relevant document is the letter of support, if that's okay.
We're fine.
The only issue I would like to photograph like to point out is this is the property on the left for you.
photograph I'd like to point out is this is the property on the left, four units, three stories.
The property that has an historical multifamily use is where my cursor is now. And then to work
directly across the street, it also was historical use as multifamily. I don't know what they're
being used as now. And I don't mean to make a representation that they're multifamily now.
I didn't knock on the door. I'm not going to search their mailboxes, but historically,
I can show you records that they have been used as multifamily. This is another view of our
property from the side. This is a good shot of the property, three-story. You'll see when I show
you the zoning records, it used to be a supermarket store on the first floor. So basically what we
have are two apartments on the first floor, an apartment on the second floor, and an apartment
on the third floor every apartment is occupied by a single individual there's no families there's not
a lot of people involved in the apartments and as i said mr torba occupies one of the first floor
units and he manages the property again these are all documents submitted by east mount airy
I can tell you this, it's quite a thorough process that East Mount Airy has when they
undergo an evaluation of a request for multifamily.
This is a photograph indicating that there's four meters reflecting four tenants in the
property.
These are all markings by East Mount Airy.
so these are my photographs so this is a photograph for the rear of the property again
you can see the multiple meters on the wall uh the property doesn't go back as far as other
properties but you can see from the front it projects out further than others and the other
multifamily uses historically are this property to our properties right which where my cursor is
and then there's another property directly across the street again that historically was used as
multifamily. Some more photographs of our property. There's the meters. Then we also
have photographs of the basement indicating multiple hot water heaters, multiple heaters
for the units. Again, another shot of the heaters and hot water heaters that have been
in play for at least 2013. Postings of our zoning notices. These are plans, the interior
of the property. There's a one-one bedroom on the first floor, a studio on the first floor,
and then some internal photographs. It's well-appointed, done nicely in a professional
manner. This is Unit 2. Unit 3, which is on the second floor.
for application for appeal, tax clearance, our zoning map, again, indicating where the property
is, the deed indicating my client did purchase it in 2018. And we're here before the board,
not in response to a violation or a complaint, it's just that my client apparently was at a
gathering and someone asked him about the zoning. He said, well, I'm good with the zoning. He did
an independent search, found out it wasn't proper, and that's when he approached May.
So we're here to try to make something right.
This is our notice to the neighbors, and these are the zoning records.
So this is a zoning record from 1996 of 6650 Musgrave, the subject property.
You can see it was two family and a store, a candy store.
And then in 1967, it was a grocery store, and it says living quarters, plural.
I don't know if that means two units or one.
Then on the third floor, it was vacant, and that had been vacant since 1946.
This is a request for signage at the property, Rosario's Grocery.
And this is across the street, 6652.
This was a two-family in 1953.