You can see here some photos.
Again, the photo property, the view to the east towards Oriana Street,
the abutting residential property to the east of us.
And then there's another view of that and a view down the alley.
And then as you go down, this is the back of a gym,
which I believe has been vacant for a little while.
you can see that until you get to 308 which i said is and that's the single family use a little
further you have this open area which is used by the jean madeline beauty school which is on south
oriana street between cater street and bainbridge street and then you can see here on the north side
from heading uh westward from oriana again those those residential looking buildings um and i do
have copies of all the zoning archives in a summary i'm not going to go through them all again
or go through them with you but um i did provide that documentation and then as you kind of head
down and hear those pick those properties you can see they look like single family dwellings
and then as you head back to the west back towards our property you have the rear of some mixed use
or commercial properties that front on the south side of south street and then you actually have
the back of the TLA theater, which you can see right here, which you can see also covered
which you can see also covered in the glass mosaic work that we all know on South Street.
in the glass mosaic work.
Then here's a residential property, 329 Cater, that's two units across the street.
Then at the end of the block, across the street, and then next to us, you have commercial mixed-use properties,
restaurants on the ground floor, commercial use on the ground floor with residential above.
my client purchased uh well let me go back for a second uh historically the i'm going to show right
here historically our property um 326 and 337 bainbridge were one property um interestingly
enough it's my client's father who was an attorney that i was actually partners with in early 2000s
handled the subdivision of this of these properties of this property to create the subject property
which his son then purchased a number of years later.
So it's kind of, I thought that that was a very interesting situation.
We purchased it in 2013 and back in 86.
His father was the attorney before this very zoning board,
securing variances to subdivide the lot.
But it is a deep lot, as you can see.
And as you can see, as you saw from the aerials,
the building itself is a very deep building, you can see here.
What you can also see, and you'll see on the plan, is there's not a lot of open area presently around our property or on any of the properties on this block.
You can see our buildings here into the east towards the back or to the west.
There's a small open area that then kind of curves around with a tail to the south.
We have a small rear yard, and you'll see on the site plan, it's about 3 feet 4 inches.
337 Bainbridge has a similarly shallow rear yard.
And then the 324 and the property that's behind it at 335 have some open area and then an open
area behind or next to the gym. But other than that, there's very limited open area.
My client bought the property, as I mentioned, in 2013. He's occupied it as his residence.
Since then, there is a history in the zoning archives that I've provided single family use
on the property. But because the property is on CMX2, as you know, CMX2 requires commercial
or non-residential use for the first 30 feet of frontage. And our desire is to clearly document
the use of all of the building for residential. And it's our position that this block is clearly
not suitable for commercial use at the ground floor. You have a lot of vacant commercial spaces
on south street um this is the only would be the only property actually with the front door on
cater street the 300 block of cater street with the commercial use um again with all the other
properties with the front door on cater street having residential residential type uses
the proposal is simply to build a the structure itself is non-conforming and it's been non-conforming
it's one of the reasons why the subdivision had to come before the zoning board back in 1986
is to add a dimensionally, as far as the depth, open area,
rear yard depth, compliant third floor with a roof deck above it.
Because of the height of the buildings that we have at the present time,
you can see the building to the east of us is a three-story,
613 to 15 South 4th Street.
And then the building next to us at 324 is a little over,
I think it's 36 feet 8 inches so 613 to 15 is 40 feet 5 inches 324 is 36 feet 8 inches as a two
story we're shorter than both of them with our third floor we're going to be above the 38 foot
height limit and I'm going to go to the zoning drawings right now and show you those
and here you can get an idea of the site plan and you can the gray areas are the open areas
And here's the rear yard that I indicated is three feet, four inches.
The proposal, again, is to build a third floor on top of that, as you can see here, with a pilot house and a roof deck above.
The roof deck is set back eight feet from the front of the building per the Queen Village NCO requirements.
And what you can see here, and I'm going to zoom in a little bit, is that when we add our third floor,
we end up being slightly taller than 613 to 15 south 4th street to the to the right of us to
the west of us and a little bit taller than the residential building to the to the east of us
our roof height is comparable to the height of uh for the pre-existing or existing building at 413
or 613 to 15 bainbridge street which is 40 feet 5 inches we're at 40 feet 11 and a half
we're 40 feet 11 and a half but because the height of the parapet at the front which we've lowered
but because the height of the parapet at the front which we've lowered
from what was originally proposed that goes into the calculation of height because it's more than
42 inches above the permitted height in the zoning district which is 38 feet so we we have a
variance for the height of the structure originally the variance was 44 feet seven and a half inches
the architect sharpened his pencils and before going before queen village we were able to get
down a little bit about four inches below what was originally submitted and we're now at 44 feet
three and a half inches but as you can see we're just barely taller than the property
to the east of us then you can see the setback roof deck and the setback pilot house here
on the front elevation detail b4 you can see the same in detail c4 g4 and then d6 you can see so
here's the front of the building there's a architectural window that projects over the footway
here's the setback of the roof deck the addition is pushed towards the north end of the building
uh and the property leaving the rear area for the required rear yard depth and open area
back in that area back in that location
here are elevations of what we're proposing the additional of the third floor you can see here
the material they're looking to use as a metal material, the sections.
And here we have some comparative massing where we show what the difference between a buy right and a variance.
Oops, sorry about that.
And you can see that the massing actually with a buy right could actually be, in many respects,
more massive than what we're actually proposing because everything has been pushed down because
you can put a deck actually higher or the height that where our roof deck surface is looking to be
and then you can see here the massing in the area we did do um here's some rendering showing
how it'll blend in with the with the block and you can see here
and then we did shadow studies and we compared the buy right uh a buy right scheme with what
we were proposing and you can see in the orange or the red that there's only some slight additional
shadowing and it's across the rooftops of the commercial mixed use properties uh to the west
of us a little bit of the property to the east of us at different times of the year but not
substantially different and we're not creating any additional shadow into those open areas in
the windows that front them surrounding the property unfortunately they're largely in shadow
most of the time the refusal over here the original notice we had original notice of
refusal as hillary mentioned um it did not have the height uh correct it gave the height to the
to the roof. And as mentioned, because the permitted height for parapets not to be counted
in the calculation of height is 41.6 in the zoning district like CMX2, where the height limit is 38
feet, we had to have that corrected. And again, we showed that to the top of the parapet,
it's actually 44 feet, seven and a half inches. But again, you can see that the roof height from
what where we were before and where we are now is comparable to what the roof height is or what the
height of the building to the west of us is at 613 to 15 bainbridge street
i did include in my materials a copy of the deed of my client where he purchased the property in
2013 um our tax compliance certificate a notice of the appeal of the notice poster that was posted
at the property you can see here compliance with the requirements of the zoning code and our
notice that went out for the meeting that we had April 8th with Queen Village as mentioned at the
beginning. Queen Village is in support of the project. They did include a proviso at the end
that there not be any that short-term rentals be disapproved. I did want to point that out but we
did not apply for short-term rentals. This is my client. He and his family live here. It's their
home and they're doing this addition so that they can continue to live here. Council member Mark
school have provided a letter of non-opposition yesterday. So, you know, we believe that in terms
of the refusal for use of the ground floor for residential or for non-residential use,
which you can see is one of the only two refusals that were issued. We believe that it would be a
hardship to utilize the ground floor for commercial use for pretty obvious reasons. It's not a block
that's conducive to commercial uses.
There are no commercial properties
that actually have a front door
on the 300 block of Gator Street
between South 4th Street and South Oriana Street.
between south 4th street and south oriana street and there's a there's an abundance of vacant uh
And there's an abundance.
commercial storefronts on south street as it presently stands which is a more suitable commercial
corridor as we all know in terms of the height um we believe that the we do have we have the
taller building to the west of us you have other tall buildings located in the area including the
gym, the former Pennsport gym, the TLA, we are in keeping with the heights of the buildings
next to us and surrounding us in the nearby vicinity.
We've lowered the height of the addition as much as possible, so it's a minimum variance
necessary to add an additional story.
It is dimensionally compliant other than the overall height because of the parapets.
and that we've provided the shadow studies that show that as compared to the by right building,
that it only produces a minimal amount of additional shadowing than what would otherwise be produced by a by right building.
And none of those buildings are conforming.
And again, as I think I mentioned during our hearings yesterday,
day, that provision of the zoning code regarding the zoning variance requirements regarding
shadow and light applies to conforming properties.
And the properties that surround us are clearly because they occupy all or most of the lots
and far more than they're permitted to occupy under the zoning code are not conforming properties
as far as the requirements, the dimensional requirements of the zoning code.
so with that i would have um both the architect uh and the david quadrini and my client rich
stouffer promoted to uh panelists so i can have them adopt my statements we start with your client
short rich stouffer hello hi mr stouffer could you please state your name and spell for the
stenographer my name is richard stouffer r-i-c-h-a-r-d-s-t-o-u-f-f-e-r
you swear or affirm to tell the truth to all truth nothing but the truth counsel I do uh
Rich did you hear the statements that I made to the board yes I did and are they true and correct
to the best of your knowledge yes they are and would you adopt them as your own yes I would
thank you are you bringing your architect on please David Quadrini David I'm here
i think he responded hello i'm here hi sir could you please state your name and spell
for the stenographer yes my name is david quadrini q u uh first name d-a-v-i-d last name q-u-a-d-r-i-n-i
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth i do counsel david
did you hear the statements that i made to the board today i did and are they true and correct
to the best of your knowledge yes and would you adopt them as your own yes thank you questions
from the board i closed questions from our attorney not at this time mr chair actually
i did have one i did have one question um so the rco reference not having any short-term rentals
um visitor accommodations is not permitted in cmx2 um but would you be adverse to a proviso for no
limited lodging which is an accessory use i mean it's not permitted under the i've even applied for
it and it's not i asked them about that and they just said they don't want they don't want limited
lodging um because i thought it was i've never i haven't had that happen before um i mean i think
either way whether it's to eliminate that proviso or to come before the board to get a variance
either way you're coming back to the board so if it's that i mean to me i don't think it's necessary
i don't think it's maybe appropriate but if if you need it to to make this happen then we'll agree to
it because we either way you got to come back to the board to have it and they intend to live here
they don't tend to rent it out so limited lodging is specifically for owner occupied and it's an
accessory use it's right something you'd have to come to the zoning board for that's true yeah so
but visitor accommodations you would need a variant yeah i think they and in communicating
with them i think they mean more visitor accommodations because there are those on
the other side of the block at the north end but i mean richard do you have any problem with that
can you be promoted again i mean i'd have to no no problem with that yeah okay so we could we
could we could provide so no limited lodging about uh plans how many pages it's three pages
of revised plans yeah yes okay okay and you have the amended refusal already okay great
okay and you have the amended refusal already okay yeah great yeah thank you
mi 2026 000 848 326 cater street i vote yes um oh i'm sorry i'm here
i thought i did put we'll go we'll go questions from the pub audience
There are no hands. Okay, Michael, with the Philadelphia city planning commission, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX to commercial mixed use zoning at this location.
The block within the district, this block within the district lacks commercial street frontage along the entirety of the block face. So this requirement would be out of character with the surrounding community, which features these communities commercial uses half a block away along the south street corridor.
the height difference is likewise in keeping with the architectural character of the surrounding
blocks therefore the city planning commission recommends the board grant the requested variance
for variances for maximum height and lack of ground floor commercial use
and my 2026 000 848 326 cater street i've for me 326 cater street i vote yes per refusal dated
3-12-26 revised plans three pages um stamp by cba 6-10-26 and no limited lodging
michael johns my vote is yes with provisos
cheryl gaston my vote is yes with provisos tenetta graham my vote is yes with proviso
ryan mcadams my vote is yes with provisos iowen my vote is yes with proviso
thank you very much thank you counsel have a nice day mi 2026 000 981 751 east wyoming
sean ward is the attorney
do we see mr ward yes he's coming in now i'm right here i i see you counsel could you please
state your name and spell for the stenographer yes thank you mr chairman sean shawn or ward
Esquire attorney for applicant and owner you swear referring to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth I do I see there's a unanimous support from the 42nd Ward but didn't you have a
question or so no I did um hi Mr Ward good to see you um so I just I'm sorry who is it this is
Hillary Hillary oh oh Hillary oh yeah the camera's on me right now you can't see me um so um so with
with this one um I noted in the in the refusal it talks about personal vehicle sales and rentals on
a vacant lot um but in the materials that were submitted there was an indication that parking
was to be provided as well as a trailer to I guess have office space the way this refusal
is written neither of those things are part of that so I just wanted to make that clear
up front and that it will probably require additional maybe even variances to have those
you know have those additional elements to the project so I just want to make sure we're