right here yeah so if you go up what happens to that bay window there
is the architect on or the engineer or
Mr. Kerr Mr. Kerr please unmute yourself
can you hear me now yeah I can
can you hear me now yeah i can and mike so if you build up on that what happens in that bay window
Thank you.
there so in in reality the bay window is over the property line so it's actually an illegal bay
number one but number two the the owner of this property owns the building next door okay all
right has already been removed for that development all right good thank you good thank you yes but
thank you very much okay thank you mr chairman um i'd like to ask that yuri tomashek he's the
owner of xl1 llc that he'd be admitted yuri tomashek has been unmuted and allowed to speak
all right sir could you please state your name is spelled for the court stenographer
Yes, my name is Yuri Tomlishek, spelled Y-V-R-I-Y, last name T-O-M-A-L-I-S-H-C-H-A-K.
I'm sorry for the background noise.
Yuri, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Mr. Tomlishek, have you heard my testimony today?
Yes, I did.
Do you believe it to be true and accurate?
Yes, I do.
And do you adopt it as your own?
Yes, I do.
Thank you. Nothing further at this time, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Just briefly, Mr. Chair, I had let Ms. Pritzker know that we need to hold this one for a corrected refusal.
The refusal does not list the number of dwelling units on any part.
and the plans actually indicate that there's adequate lot area for five dwelling units which
is incorrect um so we need to have a corrected refusal before we can vote on this okay thank
you questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission
good afternoon mr chair dan powers with the philadelphia city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed use zoning at this location
the appellant could earn up to five units by applying for the mixed income housing bonus
the city planning commission recommends that the board deny proposed dimensional variance
thank you uh we council we're going to hold the vote mr chairman could i respond
sure go ahead so just in response that um i just like to reiterate that the planning commission's
own comprehensive goals are to increase the housing in the area and this project is in
keeping with the character of the neighborhood we are offering one unit for an affordable rent
which has been discussed with the rco and i would just like the board to keep in mind that both the
the community RCO and the council's office is in support of this project.
Thank you.
Council, thank you very much for your comments.
Thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose 2 p.m. case has not been called?
Mr. Chair, can we just note for the record for the last case that the record is closed aside from receipt of a corrected refusal?
Thank you.
The record is closed on receipt of an amended refusal.
Thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual?
We don't give up at this time, Chair.
Okay, so we're going to take a five-minute break, everyone, and we're going to come back and take care of the 3.30 list.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this afternoon's hearing.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, James Snell.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
We also have LeBaron Leonard Palmer and Emily Persico from the Division of Development Services, both serving as alternate board members.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Present here also is our attorney, Hillary Emerson, and our executive director, Tanya Sunken.
Here's our virtual format.
Proceedings are being recorded.
With your participation, you agree to be recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunkin at philip.gov.
Attorneys and witnesses should identify themselves before testifying for our court reporter.
If you're participating by phone, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
5-5-4-8. Leave your email address and the property in question. And finally, the question and answer
Leave your email address and the property in question.
on the question and answer comments on the box on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be referred to our executive director, Tanya Sunken. Let's look at our schedule.
Number one, MI-2023-002-415-1941 East Tioga Street, that case is continued.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, there was a request for that case to be continued attorney moving party.
Yep, yep. So that case is continued attorney moving party.
Number two, MI 2023-006-896-138 West Sharnack Street. That case is continued.
Number three, MI 2023-006-923-3101 East Ontario Street. That case is continued.
And number four, MI-2023-006-927-925 North Lawrence Street.
That case has also been continued.
Are there any other requests for continuance?
Good afternoon, Chair.
This is Yvette Bett, and I'll be your co-host for today.
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Okay. And then I have number seven, MI 2023-007-016-1715 McKean Street. Carmen Vono is the applicant owner, and Anne-Marie Vono is the listed owner. This is a pro se. No exhibits. This is the first listing.
Do we see any of the Vonos there?
i see no one by the name chair okay thank you so mi 2023 007 016 1715 mcane street
this is the first listing cases continued must be heard we're going to go to our list
First, we're going to go to number five, MI2023-006-932-1240 Harrison Street.
Jennifer Bizzillo is the attorney.
There's a letter of unanimous opposition from Northwood Civic Association.
She's coming back as the panelist now, Chair.
Letter also of opposition from Council Member Lozada's office.
Council, you've already been sworn. Could you state your name for the record?
Sure. Jennifer Bazzidlo, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
Could you identify your client and the relationship to this property?
Sure. My client is Rent Office Spot, LLC, and they are the current owner of the property.
our vice chair has just a few questions good afternoon council do you agree to waive the
reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy i do have you emailed in all the
required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this hearing i did and i submitted a few um supplemental exhibits as well this morning but
they were not the required documents okay thank you please proceed council let me share my screen
Okay. Alright, so as I said, my name is Jennifer. I'm here today representing the current owners
of 1240 Harrison Street. I do have with me today the property manager, the properties
managed through Dan Housing, which will become important later on as I talk. So I'm just
going to walk through our exhibits real quick. We do have a copy of our refusal. It is for
to family living and for lack of accessory parking. Here's the deed showing that rent off a spot LLC
is the owner. We also have our proof of tax compliance. This is, as you mentioned, the letter
from the RCO, which was Northwood Civic Association. We'll come back to that as well.
um and that was our proof of mailing um here is the zoning map of the area uh this is a list of
non-single-family residential properties um within uh the 1200 1300 block of harrison street
The two that are other addresses are attached to Harrison Street, but they're addressed to a different address.
the two that are other addresses are attached to harrison street with their address to a different
In a separate exhibit, we have the permits for all of those uses.
Aerial views of the property.
And photos of the property.
And surrounding areas.
As well as the inside.
And these are floor plans.
And these are the plans, the building plans that were previously approved, which we'll
come back to later as well.
So for now, here we have, this is 1240 Harrison is an RSA 5 zone property, is near the intersection
of Harrison and Oakland and it is Catty Corner from Frankfurt High School. The parcel is 1,673
square feet and includes this existing three-story building. I know it looks like it is two stories
but it does have a small third story that's not necessarily visible from the street level.
You can kind of see it on the side. So we are proposing to use this property as two residential
dwelling units. They will each have their own entrances. This is the rear entrance to the lower
unit and the front entrance is over here to the upper unit. The upper unit is three bedrooms,
1.5 baths and it is on the front it is the first half of the first floor where there's a kitchen
and living area and then the second floor is the three bedrooms and bathrooms and the third floor
is just a little storage area it's kind of a partial floor the second unit is three beds one
bath it is the main living area is located in the rear of the first floor and then we have bedrooms
and bathrooms on the lower level. There are egress windows and it is all code compliant
for fire safety reasons, which I'll explain later why we know that. So the owner contracts with,
let me just show you the inside of these units. As you can see, they're nicely done units.
So the owner contracts with Dan Housing, which is a property management company that works with insurance companies to provide housing for local homeowners after their own properties may have been destroyed in fire or other catastrophic incidences, and they need long-term housing while their properties are repaired.
So the residents of these units are found through insurance, but it's not a transient situation.
If someone needs only like a month or two of housing, they are put up in a hotel most likely.
This is for long-term repairs.
So the average stay is a year to a year and a half, typical of what you might see as a long-term rental property.
The advantage being that these tenants are people that are from the area and are homeowners.
So they're not, you know, they tend to be more responsible than your average renter.
And we're not talking about, you know, short term leases.
We're talking about long term stays.
Sometimes people are there as long as two years if they if they run into issues with the repair of their own home.
um by providing this sort of home environment for um these homeowners during uh the repairs
uh dan housing is is able to keep these families nearby where they were before it keeps them with
their families it keeps them with their friends it keeps their kids by their school and it keeps the
other family members by their jobs typically if this sort of housing is not available in a local
area we could see these families having to move to like long-term stay hotels and often since
there's no hotels in this area often they are very very far away from this community and so they both
not only have they lost their home but now they have lost their community as well.
I do want to talk about the surrounding area. So as you can see it is an area that's zoned
largely for single-family use with the exception of this corner property here on the 1300 block
which is a 60-unit apartment building. This over here is Frankfurt High School.
And so why all of this is zoned for single-family use? We have a large amount of properties on these
blocks. I didn't even look off of Harrison. This is just on the surrounding blocks of Harrison.
I didn't even look off of Harrison. This is just on the surrounding blocks of Harrison that are not single-family uses.
On the 1200 and 1300 block of Harrison, there are 19 properties that are not single-family residences, even though they are zoned for single-family use.
Notably, the property that is the other half of this twin is already approved for two residential units.
So that is a duplex, and the other house adjacent to it that's not connected was also approved for an in-home daycare in addition to a residence.
The uses of these, as you can see, range from a lot of two-family housing, but there is a nine-resident unit, which is across Oakland Street.
and I'm just going to show you a property of that, a picture of that if you give me one second here.
So if you see here, I took this picture from in front of our house at 1240. This fence right
here is a duplex and this gray building is a nine unit building and then to the left in the picture
is where you see the large educational building. So you know we are surrounded by non-conforming
uses. The property on the corner across the street was last permanent for a single family
and doctor's office. So the current owner, so why we have an area and not pictures, sorry,
let me back up and not on this list. I did go back and look at the 1100 block of Harrison as well.
And there's an additional seven non-single family uses on that block, which is all zoned single
family housing. So as you can see, we have an area that's zoned single family, but not exclusively
used as single family. There's many multi-family housing on these blocks, and then there's also
mixed commercial and residential. The current owners purchased this property in May of 2022,
fully converted into a two-unit building, and believing that it was a fully permitted
structure. There was no open violations at the time they purchased it. And I think a lot of
what happened here is that there is a permit that was issued in 2021 to the previous owner
for construction. And here we have the approved plans for this project that was approved by the
city. And as you can see, there are clearly two units labeled in these plans. There is one unit
and it's laid out. It's basically as we are presenting it today, these plans were submitted
and approved by the city and issued a building permit. The city continued to come out. We started
the previous owner started construction. City came out and did numerous inspections. Everything was
fine uh continue with the project and then upon final inspection it was flagged as hey this was
needed a zoning variance beforehand um and so all of the work had been done already uh and now we
were in a situation where uh we had a duplex built to building plans that were approved by the city
but did not have the prior zoning authorization so that's the current state we are in right now
I do think that there was some confusion here between the contractor who had filed for these
permits and the communication between the prior owner and the current owner and the city I'm not
exactly sure what happened I have spoke to all of these people what I do know is that we have
approved plans that show are the same plans we are showing today. It's the same way that this
project was built. And we have that zoning, we have that approval stamp, sorry, over here from
the city to move ahead. And it was very far along in the project before anyone in the city stopped
it saying you needed a zoning permit. So along those lines, so that's why we know we've built
egress windows. We've done all the fire code things. This was built to be a duplex to city