I understand. Hold on a moment
just one minute. Do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but
the truth? Yes. Are you
in favor or against this project?
I am against the project.
You're a neighbor. Yes.
Thank you very much for taking the time to call
us. We appreciate it. Anyone else?
okay so here another hand from nile right okay you're allowed to speak mr right
could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer hi uh nile n-i-l-e
right w-r-i-g-h-t do you swear or firm to tell the truth told you it's nothing but the truth
yes are you a neighbor yes are you a favor this practice or against no i am not okay
Thank you very much. Are we done with the hands? Okay, so here's where we are. We've heard what people said. We know what the planning commission said. We want to sit and talk about it ourselves. We will vote next Wednesday at 930 a.m. Okay. Thank you very much for coming in. We appreciate it.
No, no.
All right.
Number 13.
Back here.
Number 13, MI 2025 007 730 2430 Master Street.
Vern Anastasia was the attorney.
There's a letter of support from Brevytown Sharswood and also a letter of non-opposition
from Councilmember Young.
Chair, I don't see. Okay. It just went up. Okay. Vern is here. All right. He's being promoted to
panelists here. Sure. Mr. Anastasio, if I remember correctly, I swore you in earlier today. So just
for the record state your name good morning mr chair verne anastasio on behalf of miss tangela
turner okay and um our vice chair has just a few questions for you sir thank you good morning have
you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing i have and do
waive the read and other reviews on simple A2 is accuracy? I do. All right. Thank you.
You can share your screen and proceed with the case. Thanks.
Sorry, that's the wrong document.
Just encountered a computer error, so my apologies.
Do you want us to come back to you, Vern?
I have it here.
Actually, Mr. Chair, it might be best if you do that.
When I do, I'll go to the next one.
I appreciate that.
We only have two left, so I'll come back.
Yep, that sounds good.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
All right.
So we're going to move to number 14, MI-2025-007-799-5170.
G100, Umbria Street, Alex Goldberg is the attorney.
Mr. Goldberg, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Alex Goldberg, A-L-E-X-G-O-L-D-B-E-R-G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, their relationship to the property?
My client is the Feldman Ebner Family Irrevocable Trust.
Um, sitting to my left is Rebecca Ebner, who is the daughter of the trustees, Stephen and
Cheryl, and Stephen and Cheryl are in the virtual audience.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good morning.
Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
And do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?
All right.
Thank you.
You can see your screen and proceed with the case.
So I'm sharing my screen.
There's a lot going on in this application.
I'm going to do my best to explain it
and sort of get out in front of as many questions as I can.
We expect there to be some anyway.
Rebecca, as I said, is the daughter of the trustees,
but she's really spearheading what is proposed here.
So I don't usually do this.
I would like for her to be sworn in now, if that's okay,
because I may have some questions for her
as I give my presentation.
Is that okay?
You can do that, sure.
Could you make sure the mic is close to you, right?
You can pull the mic, right?
All right, could you state your name
and spell it for the stenographer?
Yes, good morning.
My name is Rebecca Ebner, R-E-B-E-C-C-A, E-B-N-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Okay, so 5100 Umbria Street is the address.
Maniunk Timber is the business that currently operates there.
It is the city's only owned and operated urban sawmill.
It's been in existence for the last 30 years.
The employees of that business are Rebecca, her father, and one other employee, and they
saw reclaimed beams, fallen trees, backyard logs, and produce custom cut jobs, furniture,
finishing work for different businesses.
have some photos related to that business which is legal and existing and has been in this location
but there's a lot of open space on the property this is a large parcel in roxborough it's almost
86 000 square feet and we're proposing to adaptively reuse some of this open space and
some of it's already being used this way into what's called a third space where people can
gather for you know a cup of coffee we're proposing a tap room here a small gallery market for local
artists it's got like some elements of Bach Bar in it it's a one-story structure so it's different
but in the sense that like there's different vendors here the RCO currently hosts their
meetings at this location and there's a sort of a garden that people can sit in and it's it's a
really nice project but we're asking for for four variances related to the i2 zoning of the property
so to break this down we are asking for the approval of a cafe of a small tap room of the
retail sale of consumer goods which i would call this this gallery area and the retail sale of food
beverage and groceries with the goal of having a Sunday farmer's market on the property at a
later date. None of those uses are allowed in I2, but we think that this is a really positive use
of the property that, you know, doesn't have a whole lot going on there other than cutting wood
and making really beautiful pieces. And this has the opportunity to be a really nice amenity for
the community um i was hired recently rebecca handled everything up until this point i think
she did a great job she submitted all the required documents she sent the notices out timely
um zoning lawyer and training she had the rco meeting her pro rco meeting herself they
unanimously supported the project um they uh a lot of you know a lot of the people in ridge
A lot of the people in Ridge Park and Roxborough are familiar with this property and her family, and they were excited to see, you know, this application come through.
Park and Roxborough are familiar with this property and her family.
So that was from Ridge Park Civic Association, which was the coordinating RCO.
That meeting happened on March 10th.
Separately and without a separate meeting, the Roxborough Development Corporation, which I think is kind of like the bid for Roxborough, sent a letter of support as well.
um talking about you know how how valuable um you know what they're proposing is and and the
existence of the business that's there now okay so some manny on timber information you can see
they do really nice work they um operate 9 30 to 3 30 monday to friday on saturdays 9 a.m to 1 p.m
they have that part of the business is entirely separate from what you're going to see later in
this presentation so you know one of the things that I asked her about when I was you know
learning about the application was is there any risk of a wooden beam on a forklift like taking
some people out that are like having a cup of coffee it's it's completely separate right
well you know there's there's there hey there's like a forklift that carries you know a railroad
tie for example and I wanted to make sure that you know that what we're doing here is going to be
you know safe obviously the property is insured all the businesses that we're proposing will be
insured um but but everything's that business is is entirely separate and i i had her put together
sort of an aerial image to show you where these different things are happening here's photos of
some of the furniture they've built there's a limited industrial and an artisan industrial
permit that were both approved in 2023 and 2025 for a coffee roaster that's on site and for a
bread bakery that's on site those are existing uses that happen there already um the bakery is
called dead king bakery and the coffee shop the coffee roaster is called i have it here park bench
coffee roaster and part of this application is for a cafe where that individual they've had no
problem with lumber hitting no no no problem no problem they have their own space in the back
um they currently have commercial trash pickup so that will be you know this what we're asking
for will be added to that and that individual who roasts his coffee and sells it to other coffee
shops will now be able to you know also be a barista and serve his coffee at this location
you can see it's it's along umbria it's along a stretch of all industrially zoned properties
here's some photographs so this is the front of the property um i think when you see an aerial
you'll get a little bit more context but this is what it looks like from the street on umbria
the notice posting here's to the right on Umbria and to the left
okay so I'm going to come back to that let's start here so this is an aerial image of the property
this thing right here called a mini forest is sort of like a garden there's a fire pit there
there's some chairs you'll see an image of it it's just a gathering space that people currently use
and i think we'll utilize more once you can get a cup of coffee or a local a local brew at this
location the cafe and the gallery and the tap room entrance is all right here where you see cafe
entrance and everything that's happening for the maniunk timber is happening over here we are
proposing to have a farmer's market on sundays which would be right where my this blue box is
maniunk timber is not open on sundays so while those sort of spaces are close to each other
The timber business is not operating on the one day that we hope to have a farmer's market for.
The cars would not be there either because those are cars related to the operation of any on timber.
There is reference on our application to existing, bless you, an existing parking lot at the property.
It's not, you know, the typical parking lot that I see from a zoning standpoint, but we have parking space here.
we have parallel parking right here and there's also street parking along Umbria so going back
here you can see this is the ground level view of that farmer's market area it's just a paved
area and then this is the entry point to the cafe the tap room and the art space hoping to have some
nice signage there at a later date this is what the mini forest looks like it's again just a garden
with some seating trash storage this is on the side of the property they currently have commercial
trash pickup um that is picked up by ritasky and trainer which is a commercial trash um
hauler um and and it's stored there currently in two cans because you only have a baker and a
coffee roaster once we have a cafe and a tap room i imagine we may have a small dumpster or or a few
more cans but trash has not been an issue on the site you can also see there's a ventilation there's
ventilation here for the um the baker and lni has has inspected that space and it's all up to code
inspected that space, and it's all up to code. Okay, so I'm going to go skip ahead, and I'll
okay so i'm gonna go
come back. I'm going to show you what the plans look like, and then I'll go back to the photos
so that you have a little bit more context. So this is the space that is the subject of this
zoning appeal. So we can start with the tap room. So you would walk in here, and there's sort of
three separate rooms, and then the gallery, which is the retail space. In the back corner
is the Tap Room. The Tap Room will be run, let's get my notes together here, the Tap Room will be
run by Two Locals Brewing, which is the first African-American-owned brewery in Philadelphia.
They began in 2016. They have a relationship with the Ebners, and they have a primary location
in West Philadelphia. Beer only, they're properly licensed to do that. This is going to be very
limited timing, meaning Thursdays and Friday evenings, five to nine. Plus, if there's a
community gathering, they may operate then as well. And these gatherings are small, like RCO
related events, Quizzo, stuff like that. And that space is 210 square feet. Below that right here
is a bookstore. And I guess I would say bookstore and record store that is owned or that is operated
by a business called Tomorrow Today. It's 350 square feet. Hours there are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursday to Sunday, and they only have one employee, the person that owns the business.
This is one of the things that is, and you'll see the photos, it's already existing in the location.
So that's the bookstore there. In the bottom left corner here, you have the cafe, very small cafe,
a couple seats um one employee in terms of hours for that and we're talking 360 square feet
tuesday to sunday 7 a.m to 3 p.m just one employee they'll serve pastries and baked goods
i imagine there might be some synergy with the baker um and um they're called park bench coffee
roaster um there will be no commercial cooking equipment only prepare foods in the coffee shop
space and part of the goal here and i think this will make more sense you've already seen the mini
forest, but when you see the gallery, the goal would be for people to be able to, you know,
get a beer at two locals or get a coffee at the coffee shop and peruse the gallery, peruse the
bookstore, sit in, sit outside, you know, in the, in the garden. So that's the, those are the floor
plans. There's the bathroom. Back here is where the bakery and the roaster is. Okay, going back
to the photos i hope i'm not i haven't lost anyone yet um this is the interior space um
this what you're looking at here is going to be built out into the cafe um again like i mentioned
pretty small small counter with some seating um this right here is the interior and you can see
an arrow pointing to the cafe there's sort of a uh i would there's two entry points and this is
the gallery where they have artistic items, clothing. It's about 1,500 square feet. Rebecca
has relationships with artists from around the country who, I guess, they buy on consignment