before the law of this.
Council, as you can imagine, we've had quite a few different comments about this.
I'm going to hold the vote on this till next Wednesday at 9.30 a.m.
At 9.30 a.m., we'll talk about this in an executive session, and then you'll be able to hear the vote next week, okay?
We'll talk about this in executive session.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Number 15, MI 2024-003-285, 2167 to 69 North A Street.
Joseph Consul is the attorney.
This is a city-owned property.
Michael Johns has recused himself from this property, this vote.
Hello.
Mr. Consul, please state your name and spell for the court stenographer.
That's Joseph Consul, J-O-S-E-P-H, last name Consul, C-O-N-S-O-L-E.
Where are firms that tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Do you stipulate to the reading of the refusal and agree with its accuracy?
Yes. Please start your proposal, sir.
Okay. Here's my screen.
Okay. Good morning. Or yeah, still morning.
Joe Consul here for Chivetta Property Group, limited liability company.
Under an agreement dated May 13th, 2024, Chivetta Property Group,
And the representative from Chivetta is going to be Brennan Tomasetti with us today.
But in May of this year, Chivetta entered into an actual agreement with the Philadelphia Land Bank to develop a number of properties.
I haven't counted this list as single family homes, three bedroom, two bath homes under the Turn the Key program.
So it's workforce housing.
The property that we're here to discuss today is 2167 through 2169 North 8th Street.
It's zoned CMX2.
It's about 2,400 square feet.
That's what the lot looks like now.
It's zoned CMX2.
There's no businesses around it, and there doesn't seem to be any appetite for commercial
on the first floor of this property.
that's just the the atlas showing the size of of the lot so you know by right it would be i don't
know five units plus uh commercial space on the first floor maybe even six units uh we're asking
for two single family residential properties so my clients are seeking to subdivide this lot into
two lots and on those two lots putting one single family home each on those lots and so we've got
a refusal because uh while the um subdivision is approved by right the use is is not approved by
right and so we have a requirement for variance to eliminate the commercial space on the first floor
We have, and we submitted in our packet, the subdivision plan as prepared and filed, showing the two proposed lots.
It is according to the property, and we'll have these two lots with backyards.
We went in front of APM, pardon me, and they took no position.
It was not a, there's seven folks attended.
three community members, and the votes were one, one, and one. Similar concerns from other APM
cases, affordability, again, this is workforce housing, the likelihood of rising property taxes,
I don't know how to address that again. These are turn-the-key program houses that will sell
for a maximum of $280,000. Again, a similar concern that they've had before. What happens
if the owner passes away before the 15-year restriction? The Workforce Housing Program
has all kinds of contingency plans for how it works. The property passes on to another owner
with that same deed restriction on it until those 15 years are up. And properties as rental units,
again workforce housing during the key program uh is very um keen to prevent those properties being
rented out and being profited on and those are flagged in the rental system as being inappropriate
for uh rental licenses so they took no position here's our proof of mailing
OUR LETTER TO THE NEIGHBORS, POSTERS, BAD BOY, AND THEN OUR TAX CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE.
So we're requesting that the board approve the subdivision without commercial space on
SO, WE'RE REQUESTING THAT THE BOARD APPROVE.
the first floor and to allow for two single family homes to be built as a result of the
subdivision. With that, I'll call my client, Brennan Tomasetti, if you could raise your
virtual hand.
Brennan Tomasetti, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Hello, Brennan Tomasetti here.
Could you please spell your name for the core stenographer?
Sure, Brennan, B-R-E-N-N-A-N Tomasetti, T-O-M-A-S-E-T-T-I.
Or affirm, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Good morning, Brennan.
And did you hear my testimony just now regarding 2167-369 North 8th Street?
I did, Joe.
Thank you.
Do you adopt it as your own?
All right.
Thank you.
Nothing further.
Counsel, do you have drawings or photos of what you think the houses are going to look like?
I did not get sent them by Modo Architecture.
I'm sure that I could get them fairly quickly to the extent the board wants to see them
prior to prior to voting or holding the vote but questions from the questions from the
board hard to have questions when you're not sure what this is gonna look like okay well
the request is two single family homes with no commercial space.
Yeah. Yeah. They're, I don't know if you can still hear me,
but they're fairly standard Philly row homes,
depending on the lot size, but it's a three bedroom,
two bath product anywhere between 1100 square feet to 1600 square feet and
brick front. I'm trying to think what else I can share.
i mean i i mr council i think uh um we'd have to at least see what we think it's going to look like
before we can go forward yeah that's fine is there a subdivision plan of the lots itself
oh yes yeah what yeah the subdivision plan was included i can i can share that again
there it is this was the plan that generated uh the refusal
can you zoom in a little bit so that the just the drawings are shown
that's sufficient that yes okay we've got it we go down a little bit we do have the
the frontage i don't see that front oh okay yeah i don't think a shoe that showed that the first
time. Great. Oh, I
apologize, Chair.
You did not.
Can you zoom back up? Wait, just to the
proposal, and I'm trying to see.
So the two new lots
are going to be subdivided, and each
one is going to be roughly
just under 1,200
square feet. Correct.
And then they have a, what's the depth?
It's a 71
foot depth on the deed.
It's looking like
75, but with a four-foot easement. Is the alley
a city legal alley or an easement?
I believe that's a city alley
back there, a four-foot alley.
D-dimension, yeah, that would be an easement.
Pardon me. And then was there any conversation at the community meeting about the removal
of the trees? There was not.
countries no and you've already gotten approval from the city we have okay
okay any other questions from the board
questions or comments from our attorney
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands chair planning commission
Thank you again, Chair Michael Gall with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the CMX II commercial mixed-use zoning at this
location. The proposed single-family dwellings on lots A and B of the subdivision will be built
under the City's Turn the Key program, which provides the deed-restricted affordable housing,
and the comprehensive plan recommends focusing commercial development onto
to viable commercial corridors. Since this is not in a commercial corridor, and since
the proposal will result in two guaranteed affordable dwelling units, the city planning
the sitting planning commission recommends that the board grant the proposed use variance
commission recommends that the board grant the proposed use for the commercial ground
for the commercial from the commercial ground floor requirement thank you and by 2024
zero zero three two eight five twenty one sixty seven to sixty nine north a street i vote yes
cheryl gaston i vote yes senator graham my vote is yes hey my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Brandon, right?
Brandon Saverin, please.
MI 2024-003-242, 405 South 17th Street.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney.
mr saverin is coming back in as a panelist back morning council i remember i did swear you in
yes could you please start yes let me everyone cross your fingers but i really
i'm really hoping that you can see this table of contents can you we do we we do all right
Okay. Well, good morning, members of the board. So the case I'm here to present is for 405 South 17th Street. On my screen is the table of contents for the 18 exhibits that I submitted last week. In the interest of time, I will display some but not all of them. So with your permission, Mr. Chairman, despite that, I ask that all of them be moved into the record.
okay that's fine thank you okay so I'll start with the refusal here
I'm here to request the renewal of a variance that this board granted in 2022
for visitor accommodation so essentially this is you could say like a micro hotel or a whole
house Airbnb. And I'm going to show you plenty of photos in a moment. It has been a whole house
Airbnb since 2016. So some of the board members have already seen this property potentially
because of the case two years ago. At that point, it was granted a two-year variance,
which I believe was the common practice of the board for visitor accommodation requests at that
time. I don't think that the two-year limitation stemmed from any particular concerns about this
property specifically that the board had. So on your screen now is the deed map from Atlas. And
what you'll see is that the property is so tiny that it's actually hard to make out. This is one
of the smallest properties of any kind in the city of Philadelphia. It's 234 square feet, the lot,
And because of that, and I'll show you a photo here, our building is a historical slender finger
of a building that has one bedroom, one bathroom, no yard, and no full kitchen. It's, as I mentioned,
currently licensed by L&I as a one suite hotel. And I'll show you our hotel license in a moment.
It's somewhere that can be enjoyable to stay for a few days. But as I've heard mentioned
in other cases today, this is not suitable as someone's home, for better or worse. And that
is the basis of our hardship. It lacks the features that are necessary in a modern apartment
or home, and it's unable to gain them because of its physical restrictions. So as I mentioned,
it has not been used as a long-term residence since at least 2015 across the tenure of three
different owners and its immediate neighbors, to go back up to the parcel map, there are two other
properties, 403 and 401, which are similar to ours. And otherwise, I think these are very unique
and really smaller than anything else found in Center City or elsewhere. Those two neighbors,
per the best of our knowledge, are also not used as long-term residences, as I'll discuss.
So they share the same hardship.
Going to this on your screen right now is the RCO's letter from 2022.
So at that time, they sent a letter of non-opposition and have offered no explanation as to what about the property changed or became troublesome since then.
At that 2022 moment, Council President Johnson also wrote a letter.
2022 moment, Council President Johnson also wrote a letter of non-opposition.
I gave Council President Johnson's office the opportunity to review these exhibits in advance
of today, and they have chosen to take no position. So they are not joining in the RCO's opposition.
I'll note that at the RCO meeting, which I attended, no member of the public expressed
opposition to this variance renewal, at least while I was present. And we have given you letters
of support from near neighbors that I'll show you in a moment. The RCO's letter this time provides
no vote count or basis for their opposition. It simply says we oppose with no other detail.
That would have been critically helpful information here, given the position change.
In a recent case that went from this board to the Commonwealth Court this year,
The court held that a prior variance for the same use on the same property is a very strong factor favoring renewal or a new variance, even when the RCO opposes the renewal.
In the exhibits, I included the zoning code's dimensional regulations that affect the property, even though we're not requesting a dimensional variance because there's no change proposed to the property.
Of the zoning districts that have minimum lot areas, the smallest permitted lot would be 700 square feet in RSA 6.
So this property is three times smaller than the smallest lot, which would be permitted for creation in a residential district.
So just to drive the point home, and it's extremely rare to find properties of this size, and the zoning code really does not even consider what to do with them.
In addition, the property is on the historic register. Sorry for the page orientation here, but we are the last row in this page of the register as are our two neighbors at 401 and 403.
so the replacement of furniture or appliances in this building requires the removal of sections
of the floor which I've never even heard of before because the property's three floors are
only connected by this tight spiral staircase and I'll show you some additional photos in a moment
but this is the entirety of the first floor so we're talking about a 150 square foot
uh room and and the first two floors have like a 39 square foot sort of um back room so what
you're seeing here is the living room and a mini kitchen i call it a mini kitchen because it
doesn't have an oven it has no window and it actually has no means of a direct ventilation
so it's not really really a kitchen but you know it's sort of a kitchenette and this is the entire
her first floor again. More photos to come, I promise. Just want to sort of keep moving here.
So my clients, the property owners, are Heather and Joseph DeGrands. I just want to tell you
about them briefly. They are a married couple who live in West Philadelphia. Heather is an
entrepreneur by nature. She owns and operates the Knockbox Cafe at 45th and Pine and has for many
years. In the spring of 2022, she purchased this property from her friend, who had already been
operating it as an Airbnb since 2016, with no known negative feedback from neighbors.