Do we see how many participants?
Yes, Chair, it's still counting.
Chair, we currently have 52 attendees, and you can start as you wish.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's EBA hearings.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, James Snell.
Present, Chair.
Our board member, Cheryl L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chair.
Our board member, Tonetta Graham.
Present, Chair.
And our board member, Michael Johns.
Present, Mr. Chair.
So present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and also the Deputy Director of Planning and Zoning, Kathleen Grady.
Here's our virtual format.
the proceedings are being recorded with your participation agree to be recorded video will
be available by contacting kathleen.grady at phila.gov for our course and offer we ask attorneys
and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying if you're participating by phone
press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute to an appearance statement call
2-6-7-2-7-0-5-5-4-8. Leave your email address and the address of the property in question. And
finally, the question and answer box on screen is not for testimony or comments. All comments
should be directed to Kathleen Grady, our executive director. Let's look at our schedule
for today. Number three, MI 2023-005-986-7250 Willen Avenue. That case is continued. Number five,
MI 2023-006-038-615 Alberger Street, Cases Continued, Attorney Moving Party.
Number 14, MI 2024-001-631-2732 West Montgomery Avenue.
That case is continued. And number 17, MI 2024-002-123-1524-38 Germantown Avenue. That case is continued. Are there any comments relative to the case is continued? Are there any additional cases to be continued?
Good morning, Chair. This is Doreen Blakey, and I will be your co-host today.
And there is a hand up for Vern Anastasio, and he will be allowed to speak.
Good morning, Counselor.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Could you please state your name? It's spelled for the court sonographer.
Yes, sir. It's Vern Anastasio, A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O.
on behalf of Ms. Sherry Minor, the owner of the subject property.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And what's the location of that property?
2135 West Venango.
Yep. Please proceed, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My firm was just hired yesterday to take over representation of the case.
As such, I'm just asking for a continuance so that I can get caught up to speed.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. So MI 2024-001-644-2135 West Venango Street, that case is continued. Are there any other requests for continuances?
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, just to jump in on that one. Mr. Anastasio, I'm looking over the paperwork for that one. I think the refusal may have the incorrect use listed on it. It's listed as group child care, but it appears from the materials that the applicant submitted that they're asking for group living. So the refusal may need to be amended in that case. I just wanted to bring that to your attention.
I appreciate that. And we'll probably discuss offline and move forward. Thank you.
thank you very much any other requests for continuances yes tiana brown will be allowed to
speak good morning good morning hi could you please stay
Good morning.
Good morning.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court sonographer?
Yes, Tiana Brown, T-I-O-N-A, last name Brown, B-R-O-W-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
What case do you want to talk about?
2732 West Montgomery Avenue.
what what number is that hillary
zp 2024 that's number 2027 number 14 mr chair we just we just continued that case
tiana that case has been continued oh okay okay um all right at the request of the coordinating
maintaining RCO, there's been no contact with them. So please take care of that for us. Okay?
Okay. Ms. Brown, I did send you an email last night explaining why the board had to continue
the case. Oh, my apologies. That's okay. I just want to let you know, we did send you an
explanation so you can look at that. If you have further questions, you can let us know.
Okay. May I ask one question or should I do that offline? Why don't you do that offline?
Offline, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Are there any requests for continuance?
There are no hands.
So number two, MI 2023, 005-982-6233 Chilwin Avenue.
Prince Dennis is the listed applicant.
This is the second listing.
No one appeared the first time.
Listed applicant is Prince Dennis, and Amazing Heights is the listed owner.
um i see no hands chair thank you oh wait a minute excuse me chair um whose hand is that
let me a sec please
that's craig meladosian um yes craig meladosian our ceo is handling this matter okay all right craig
Good morning, Chair Bergman. Craig? Sure, thank you. C-R-A-I-G. Last name Melidosian, M-E-L-I-D-O-S-I-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and not take by the truth?
I do, Chair Bergman. Please proceed.
I just want to indicate we've had no communications from this applicant by the email address or the physical address of the property.
This process started in December 4 of this year, and we would ask your consideration for dismissal in this matter.
We actually put in the continuance request the last time.
I have advised Andrew Goodman at Councilperson Gautier's office of our desire.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Is Prince Dennis in the audience?
There are no hands with the name Prince Dennis, Chair.
So MI 2023-005-982-6233 Cheltwin Street, this is the second listing. No one appeared the first time. I vote to dismiss.
James Snell, my vote is to dismiss.
Michael Johns, my vote is to dismiss.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is to dismiss.
Teneda Graham, my vote is to dismiss.
Thank you. Number 6, MI 2023-006-083, 627 South 11th Street. Jim Armstrong is the owner applicant.
Jim Armstrong, if you're in the audience, please raise your virtual hand.
There are no hands, Chair.
Thank you.
So MI 2023-006-083-627 South 11th Street.
We have no exhibits.
This is the second listing.
We do have information that Mr. Armstrong was thinking about withdrawing.
We did not receive a letter.
I vote to dismiss.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is to dismiss.
James Bell, my vote is to dismiss.
michael johns my vote is to dismiss panetta graham my vote is to dismiss
ishmael shahim my vote is to dismiss
thank you mi2023-006-253-2848 south 12th street pasquale calavito is the attorney
this is the second listing we do not have exhibits
This is the second listing. We do not have exhibits.
I don't see Pascual Calavita with a hand raised here.
So in the audience. Okay, thank you. Hillary, have we heard from him at all?
i do we did reach out to him via email um i don't believe um
we have not received a response previously he had requested a continuance
in this matter because the rco meeting had not occurred thank you so mi 2023 006 253 2848
south 12th street this is the second listing we still have no exhibits i vote to dismiss
michael johnny my vote is to dismiss james now my vote is to dismiss
cheryl gaston my vote is to dismiss tenetta graham my vote is to dismiss
and number 12 mi 2023 006 927 925 north florence
Street, this case has been withdrawn. We're going to go to our add-on list.
Number one, MI 2024-001-280-1449 South 13th Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes
So number two, voting on this will be myself, Ishmael Shaheed
and LeBaron Leonard Palmer, who is an ordered board member in the past
M.I. 2023-006-343-9901 Frankfurt Avenue.
I vote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
H.M.L. Shaheed, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
LeBaron Leonard Palmer, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Thank you.
We're going to go to our regular list and start with number four. MI 2023, 005-998-1813 East Somerset Street. Delvis Tavares is the listed applicant. Martha Pennant is the listed owner.
anyone okay i have martha martha pina with a hand raised chair okay she will be promoted
please thank you okay thank you she has been promoted to panelists
good morning
hello good morning everyone good morning could you please state your name and spell for the
court stenographer yes martha penna m-a-r-t-h-a p-e-n-a do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do okay um do you have a uh
you're the owner am i correct correct is there a tenant
uh not at the moment there was a tenant i used to own a beauty salon there
everything's shut down at the moment okay so this application is for use as retail sales of food
beverages and groceries in an existing structure correct the proposed use retail sales of food
beverages and grocery is prohibited in the rsa5 district our vice chair has several questions for
you okay good morning do you agree to wait to read another review or stipulate to a fact
Yes, I do. Good morning.
I've emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing.
I have submitted everything, yes.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Just so you know, there are some taxes still owed, and we will hear this case, but we will not vote on it today.
Okay. Could you turn your video on, please?
Could you do could you.
Yeah. Can you see me?
i think it's my desktop it's not working is that uh we we absolutely need you to be
need to see your documents and also to see you okay i'm new to this i'm sorry
okay i think you're coming up i see zoom okay
Okay, we still need to see you. Am I correct, Hillary?
I'm working. Ideally, yes.
But she has been sworn in. So if she is certifying that she is.
She says in the owner of the property, then she is under oath.
Yes, I am. All right. We see that. We see your refusal.
And I'm trying to get rid of this box. Is it okay to just exit out?
well if you could exit out of that but we just need your your other materials too right
and then this is part of the um the permit yep application when we submitted okay
sure go on this is my deed okay
this is the payment plan that i got for the violations with the city of philadelphia
I included it just to let you know that the violations and the fees are not being ignored.
I'm just on a payment plan with them.
All the details are stated here, where the ballot started and my monthly payments.
this is the list of the notifications for the rcos the number of um mailing lists that i had
to send out this is today's um hearing notice
this is when well it had been rescheduled for the first of july
that's that has different names on it am i correct
that's deborah tavaris and angela sanchez
yeah i i didn't even i don't know who these i don't know who that i don't know
but it is my address um miss pena uh angela sanchez is the one that submitted all of your
documents or at least that was the name on the email yeah i know angela but i don't know um
the death relate this lady okay who's who's angela sanchez
she's uh someone who helped me fill out all the paperwork for the zoning when i submitted it
okay and she's um also been the one scanning and emailing stuff
for me to the ZBA and the RCOs.
I can have photos of your property.
Then I have the, this is the plans.
If you want photos, yes.
This is the inside.
Everything's closed.
Nothing's been constructed yet.
they just I just put the shelves there and this is two properties am I correct 1811 and 1813
yes I was told by the the RCOs that I need to amend something because when the when the
application was submitted you see here where it says the correct address is 1811 slash 813 east
somerset right the only thing that had been picked up was just 1813 east somerset
so i i need to understand how to go about i need to find out how to go about amending that
all right mr chair um yeah let me let me jump in here so um all right so yeah so miss paying
right mr chair um yeah let me let me jump in here so
yes your refusal is incorrect um uh it will i believe that l and i will correct it because it
appears from zoning records that 1811 and 1813 were recognized together for zoning purposes only
um they are not jointly deeded or they're not they're not a consolidated parcel i should say
they're on they are listed on the same deed but as separate premises um they're not they're
separate partials in the city's records um and also considered separate tax parcels excuse me
separate tax parcels um but because of how they were treated previously for zoning i believe that
l and i will likely be able to correct the refusal to note both addresses because they both need to
be on the refusal um in order for this to be done for you to um get what you're asking essentially
assuming the board approves um that is a request that i will i will make um as the board's attorney
to l and i uh make sure they correct that um i did have a couple other questions about the refusal
um is this is this use for the entire building or is there a separate use proposed for the second
floor no this is just for the the first floor okay what's proposed for the second floor
uh an apartment okay one one apartment that spans both of the properties correct
okay all right thank you um i will let ellen i know that because that also should have been
noted on the refusal oh so so hillary hillary i also see that there's an agreement for 1811 but
there's taxes owed on 13th right so turning to the taxes um yeah so in addition to a corrected
refusal the board will need to see proof of tax compliance for can vote on this matter
For 18-11 Somerset, the agreement is only for 2018 and 2020 real estate taxes.
There are still taxes owing for 2023.
Those need to be in an agreement or paid off before the board can vote.
For 18-13 each Somerset, there are taxes owed for 2020, 2022, and 2023.
Those will need to be in an agreement or paid in full before the board can vote.
Understood.
So those will need to be addressed.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No questions.
No questions.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
There are no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good morning, David Fecto, F-E-C-T-E-A-U with
the City Planning Commission. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, and nothing
but the truth? Yes, sir, I do. Please proceed. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and board members,
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5 residential single-family zoning
at this location. This property has a documented commercial history, which appears to predate the
adoption of the zoning code. The City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the
proposed use variants for retail sales of food, beverages, and groceries. Thank you. Ms. Pina,
we are going to hold the vote on this until the tax issues are cleared, okay? Okay, so then once
i get that clear i submit them through email to you please please yep thank you very much thank
you very much thank you bye-bye number seven
mi2023-006-170-1608-12 ridge avenue uh quayam maranco is the owner um there's a letter of
Support from the Francisville Civic Association.
Quayum has been promoted.
Good morning.
Good morning, sir.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court's denomination?
My name is Quayum Morokino, Q-U-A-Y-Y-U-M.
Last name is M-O-R-A-K-I-N-Y-O.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning, sir. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have. I did also receive an email for pictures, in which I did also send in an email.
Yes, I have. I did also receive an email for the...
Thank you, sir. Can you please share your screen and also turn the camera on? Thank you.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning.
And I'll go ahead and share my screen also.
The green button at the bottom?
Yes, no, I see.
I'm just turning on my...
Oh, sure.
Oh, I think it's trying to ask me to quit and reopen to allow to change the settings for zoom.
So I hope it brings me right back to the same recording.
Yeah, it's going to ask me to leave the webinar for me for me to be able to do that.
Thank you.
I believe so, Chair.
Okay, thank you.
Tisha, would you see him at all?
No, Chair.
if you wanted to either wait
or if you want to call the next case.
Why don't we call the next case
and then I'll call him after that, okay?
So number 13.
MI 2023-007-101-2225 St. Albans.
Michael and Debra Scarpatti.
michael scarpatti has been promoted good morning mr scarpatti could you please state your name
and spell for the court sonographer
morning everybody my name is michael scarpatti m-i-c-h-a-e-l-s-c-a-r-p-a-t-i
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. So this application is for use as a visitor accommodation in two units in an existing three-unit dwelling. The proposed use of visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district. Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good morning, sir. 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 have yes thank you sir please proceed and share your screen
so here is the zoning permit
the refusal
the application for appeal
project information form agreement of sale
the tax certification was sent in via email um thank you hillary for uh for helping me with that
zoning poster and then the rest are exhibits for me to uh to explain here
do i have the floor to explain the situation yeah what yeah why don't you talk about when
you went to the rco meeting sure so the uh the rco meeting it was a little
Sure. So the RCO meeting, it was a little disconcerting, to be honest. This was the first RCO meeting for our area where three RCOs were actually invited to the meeting.
So generally, it's SOSNA that is our jurisdiction.
NOAC and Point Breeze Plus were also a part of this.
This was the first ever zoning meeting.
The three RCOs were able to not only attend the meeting, but voice their opinions and
all brought in very preconceived notions about this Airbnb.
It was unfortunate.
There was not a lot of openness from the RCOs to understand how unique my current situation is with this property and how it actually caters to the organization.
So there was a lot of confusion with the RCOs going into this.
I actually put an exhibit in here just to kind of show you how irregular the voting was.
This is just some correspondence with one of the chairs from Sazna.
And you see down here, up until tonight, people, the primary residents in Sazna's boundaries were the ones that would vote for this one.
No one was really sure what was going to happen going forward for this zoning hearing or this RCO meeting.
So it was a little strange. The three various RCOs with their perspectives on Airbnb were able to all be a part, all have voice in this meeting.
and i'll uh i'll state their their stance without you know many of them really recognizing what the
property is so to give you kind of some background this is an owner occupied triplex so this is the
the unit i'm the owner of the unit i purchased this in 2016 by myself there was no investment
capital that that was put into this and i put substantial investment and renovations in
furnishing the property. So this is, it's three one bedroom apartments. This isn't
a large house that can accommodate multiple, you know, people or families in it all at once
in one unit. I live, you know, my primary residence is the first floor unit. However,
I've lived throughout the past six to seven years in all these units, fixing them up,
getting them together to allow for furnished rentals in our area. They've been operating
on Airbnb since 2017 as one-bedroom, one-bath units. So the neighborhood in question is
Graduate Hospital. So in the Graduate Hospital area, it has a lot of young families, and it is
in very close proximity to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Penn, and the CHOP
Research Center. And it's a thriving, booming area right now of development, actually, on the
washington avenue street there's four city blocks right now that are all under development for new
housing there's four full city blocks many of them have already completed and in the rco meeting it
was just it was super disconcerting there was a handful of people close to 20 people in this
meeting and we ended in a deferral with eight supporting eight in opposition of the eight in
opposition, seven of them sat on various RCOs within the organization and brought in significant
bias into this meeting, which I have documented in here just through some emails that these
proposals are generally, the RCOs are against these proposals because of the idea of commercialization
of residential properties in the area. And I understand that, right? I can understand that
perspective in the idea of developers coming in, buying up properties, taking away housing
from other people and commercializing them. And that's just absolutely not the case in this
instance. This is a case where this is my primary residence.
So Michael, let me ask you, do you have photos of your property?
I do. Yeah.
I see the photos.
Sure. So this is a third floor unit. When I purchased the property, this is what it looks
like now after significant renovation. It's one of the highest rated Airbnbs on the market for a
one bedroom, one bath with high reviews, as you can see here. Same with the second floor unit.
This was the previous photos before I came in and renovated and made it nice for the community.
The interesting thing about this is we've been operating on Airbnb.
So this is not a new venture.
This is something that's been happening up until the laws changed.
And the reality is that it's going to stay in Airbnb.
It's going to stay in Airbnb. The question here is whether or not I can run it for 30 days or less, right? So the 30-day plus is well within the rights of the property. And what I'm looking to do is cater to the people I have been catering to.
The question here is whether or not I can run it for 30 days or less.
This is not some party house. This is an area that caters to the neighborhood families. There's a ton of young families in our neighborhood. When they have kids, they want their parents, their grandparents to be able to come to help support. My place is a place where people stay for that.
We have kids that need to go to CHOP. There's not a ton of lodging in the graduate hospital area in the CHOP area in University City, right? They stay with me. They stay in these places because they're one bedroom, one bath. And there's a ton of medical professionals that come in for research at the CHOP facility. They stay at this place.
So, you know, I'm asking, I know this is more of a unique situation, but this is what this caters to.
We've been operating for seven years.
There's been a total of 674 reservations.
There's never been a neighborhood complaint.
There's never been an incident.
We have, you know, one of the highest rated operations here.
And the Airbnb situation holds the whole house accountable for it to be clean and to be tidy out front.
One of the concerns from the neighbors was these absentee landlords in our neighborhood, which is I took a photo of this.
This is down the street. The absentee, the landlords that just set up their properties and rent it to whomever are some of the issues on our block.
You can see my block up here, which is nice and clean. This is not on trash day.
Right. So a lot of the conversation and things that were brought in that RCO meeting had nothing to do with what we're actually talking about.
It was vilifying Airbnb as a concept in the city versus what this is actually for, which is something that's going to operate regardless.
I'm just looking to see if we can rent, you know, help these people that need the short-term lodging in our area to support them in their travels.
All right. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation.
Questions from the board.
I have a question.
business so it's existing three units is that what it is correct yeah yeah the primary residence is
the first floor for myself and then the second and third floor unit sorry to not better explain that
are both one bedroom one bath and furnished apartments but the so the request is to make
what's i'm just i'm just the request is for second and third floor to be airbnb yeah
airbnb okay and then it's already so so it's so so is it is it a tribe is it zones as a triplex is
that is it is yes yeah yeah it's done as a triplex a regular apartment you want to make it both units
at airbnb well so the both units are airbnbs right so they're furnished apartments and they're
rented on Airbnb for 30 days plus, right? That's the visitor accommodation will allow for short
term stays. So there's no, the properties are what they are. I've spent a ton of investment
and time to make them furnished units. That's just how they're going to operate. The issue is
they have shorter term stays. Yeah. Is that's what the variance would allow me to do? You know,
the, the, the being able to only rent them a third day plus just creates a bit of a hardship
for myself and my wife as well because of these big pockets of time that can potentially be
you know scheduled where if there's 29 days and and we can't cater to some of the the
i understand yeah all right all right other questions from the board
yes you said uh something about how long you've been doing this i think you said it was seven
years and you said you had um how many rentals during that time once the 700 yeah i'll bring
back up the stat here something 674 total reservations okay all right
and uh you're only doing two of the three units correct correct because my primary residence
is the the first floor oh okay so i live in this property yeah
then you are asking no for visitor accommodation which is generally for
non-occupied like that the owner doesn't occupy property so i know it's it's very difficult it's
this the way this one works even though it is my place technically the second and third floor
aren't my primary residence so it's just it's a unique situation where even though it's my place
my primary residence so it's just it's a unique situation where even though it's my place and i
live there the second and third floor technically need to go through this process okay so usually
it's limited lodging is where you know you have uh an owner occupied like property so it's not
like you're someplace else you are there i'm there i live here yeah i just don't live in these units
Yeah. So it's a strange, unique scenario that because of the way the law is written, this is this is the process.
And I get that. Yeah. So that's the situation. It's my house.
I have a question. You mentioned the variety of RCOs.
So what were you know, you have the coordinated RCO and then you have other affected RCOs that were notified of your request.
So are you saying that all these other RCOs are not affected RCOs to your knowledge?
It's not that they're not affected. The voting, the way that the votes were tallied was just odd because the other RCOs were able to come into the meeting.
Every RCO was able to speak, but then their votes were not actually tallied as separate RCOs.
They were bulked into the general community, which is just a little strange.
All the residents that were in the meeting. So we ended up in an 8-8. We ended up in a tie.
But the RCOs that were there were bringing up valid points about Airbnb. They were talking about taking away, you know, Airbnb in general was taking away lodging from people and driving up home prices and various things that just didn't apply.
I just wanted to, because there's a coordinating RCO and then you have affected RCO, so it doesn't mean just because you're a coordinating RCO, you have the final say.
The affected RCOs in the area still have a vote and a voice in the whole issue, so I just wanted to clarify that.
Okay. No, I understand.
Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
i just wanted to to note um mr chair that um if the second and you know third floor is what's
being requested here if the board is inclined to grant there should be a proviso to that effect
that the visitor accommodations use is limited to the second and third floors thank you questions
Thank you. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes. Richard Gliniak will be allowed to speak.
Good morning. Could you please state your name? It's spelled for the court stenographer.
Yes. Good morning, Chair and fellow board members, committee members. My name is Richard Gliniak.
There's no A at the end of Richard. Excuse me about that.
And the last name is G-L-I-N-I-A-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed.
I'm actually a SOSNA neighborhood board member.
I'm also on the zoning committee.
I just wanted to present, while the letter is a letter of deferral, the majority of the zoning committee, the SOSNA zoning committee, was in opposition to this, granting this variance.
Also, in attendance, as the applicant stated, were two legitimate RCOs.
That was NOAC and then the South Street West Business Association.
NOAC in the SOSNA letter, their opinion was in opposition as well, basically because of the issues of availability and affordability in the graduate hospital area.
We currently do have a shortage of housing, as it was stated by NOWAC in the SOSNA letter.
We feel that the majority of the SOSNA and NOWAC was that these properties would be best as rental units, serving the community as rental units.
So I just wanted to, while the letter is a letter of deferral, I just wanted to highlight that the majority of the opinion of the SOSMA zoning committee and NOAC was in opposition of granting this variance.
Normally, you do grant these variances for three years.
So if you are going to do that, I think that would be an acceptable outcome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
There are no hands.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning.
David Fechtow with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA 5,
Residential Single-Family Zoning at this location.
residential single-family zoning at this location there is no unique physical condition or
There is no unique physical condition.
circumstance of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning
code a 2020 zoning ordinance passed by city council which regulated short-term rentals did
not change the basic rule of prohibiting full-time use of a dwelling unit as a short-term rental
this type of absentee management where the owner does not live in the unit has been illegal since
the first short-term rental zoning regulations became effective in 2015. What's changed since
the passage of the 2020 ordinance is that there is now a licensing and enforcement mechanism.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny the use variants for visitor
accommodations. Thank you. MI 2023-007-101-2225 St. Albion Street, I vote yes for a temporary
variants that will expire, 8-8-27, for the second and third floor only.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, saying proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Michael Johns, my vote is no.
Senator Graham, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, we're provising.
Thank you. Thank you. You have your vote, sir. Thank you. Number seven. We'll go back to number
seven. MI 2023-006-170-1608-12 Ridge Avenue. Koyam Monkayo.
has been promoted to a panel this year
good morning everyone once again good morning sir sorry about your
how how we could you put your video up and share your screen absolutely
yes good morning everyone um
I'm not sure which documents to share first so so we we have that that's fine thank you
move on oh okay um so actually let me share a different way I can highlight all of this and then
So here is a picture of the inside of my property.
Here is the deed stating that I'm the owner.
Here is the tax clearance showing that there is any tax that I'm owing.
Here are the applications for a pew.
So I will also like to seek variance to change the zoning of my property to allow visitor accommodation.
Here's additional. Here's some pictures of the notice that I've posted in the neighborhood.
Here's also some of the applications that I submitted to the town.
And sorry, I think I got lost here.
And when I went to my RCO meeting, I did get the favor of approval.
So the votes, as you see, just for the attendance was seven to five, with the RCO members also being an addition of three that supported this change to allow visit accommodation from our property.
And I believe that's pretty, that's all the information that was requested.
This is unit 302?
That's correct. This is unit 302.
Do you live in the building? Yes, I do.
Okay. Questions from the board?
Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Mr. Howell, can you, or actually, actually the staff do this. Board member Gaston somehow ended up in the attendees and is no longer a panelist. Can she be promoted again, please? Thank you.
she's coming back in and as a as a penis so can can uh i guess um someone explain
so you you live in the building so you is is it there i'm assuming they're condos right or
something like that yes so it's a plan unit development i own the property um i currently
just the only entire building no no just that unit just that unit 302 um it is um one of my
One of my property, but I've moved to New Jersey for work since purchasing a property, but I still use it as a dual property. So I do go back to Philadelphia as well. And in the time when I'm not there, I would like to utilize it for Airbnb. So it would have to require me to use it for less than 30 days for me to be able to rent it out for less than 30 days for a short term stay rather than 30 days or more.
property, but I've moved to New Jersey for work since purchasing a property.
I heard you said you also live in the building.
So you have another unit in the building?
No, no, I meant this unit, this unit.
So it's I'm not it's not just for investment.
It's I actually do live here as well.
When I'm not in New Jersey, I'm in Philadelphia.
Carol, you're back.
Yes, Mr. Chair.
OK, all right.
But I don't have any questions.
OK, thank you very much.
Any other questions from the board?
questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands chair planning commission
thank you chair bergman and good morning david effecta with the city planning commission
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the cmx 2.5 commercial
mixed-use zoning at this location, there is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this
property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code. A 2020 zoning
ordinance passed by City Council, which regulated short-term rentals, did not change the basic rule
prohibiting full-time use of a dwelling unit as a short-term rental. This type of absentee
management, where the owner does not live in the unit, has been illegal since the first short-term
rental zoning regulations became effective in 2015. What has changed since the passage of the
2020 zoning ordinance is that there is now a licensing and enforcement mechanism. The City
Planning Commission recommends that the Board deny the proposed use variance for visitor accommodations.
Thank you, David. MI 2023-006-170-1608-12 Ridge Avenue. I vote yes for a temporary variance that
will expire 8-8-27, use limited to unit 302. Joe Gaston, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with proviso. James Snell, my vote is yes, with proviso.
It's another Graham. My vote is yes with proviso. Thank you. Thank you, sir. You have
your vote, sir. We're going to go to number one, MI 2023-005-977-5310 Haverford Avenue.
Ron Anastasio is the attorney. There's a letter of opposition from the 44th Ward RCO.
Applicant has provided a petition of 19 neighbors. I'll be recusing from this.
Thank you, Mr. Johns. Thank you.
Vern Anastasio is coming in as a panelist.
Council, you've already been sworn. Could you just state your name for the record?
Yes. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Vern Anastasio on behalf of A.J. Zingle, the owner of the subject property.
All right, and our Vice Chair has a few questions.
Good morning, Counselor. Do you agree to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
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 have.
Thank you, Counselor. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, members of the board, 5310-14 Haverford Avenue, as the address demonstrates,
this is a triple property. And I've got an exhibit packet of 40 individual documents that
we'll go over. Application is, the three properties are each zone RSA 5. We are looking for multifamily
household living on this, on Haverford Avenue, which is a very large, heavily trafficked block
with mostly multifamily homes on it. And we are looking for 10 units across all three properties.
I'll pull out here so you can see.
The way the exterior design looks is that it looks, appears as though there are two wider than normal single-family homes, but the property itself will be housing 10 units.
As you can see, here's the rear. There's backs up into an alley. The yard will be landscaped. There is a fire escape in the rear.
the yard will be landscaped there is a fire escape in the rear there's a trash enclosure on the side
each unit will also have its own trash space there's an ada ramp in the front here on the left
so that the front unit is ada compliant and all other units are ada accessible
and of course as you can see there's a double gate here onto gets back into the side yard
here's the ada unit right here it's a large uh either three bedroom with a den or four bedroom
unit. Unit two. We have unit three here. Four in the front. Two back here as well. All the units are
in excess of 500 square feet, one, two, three, and four additional.
There were several meetings with the RCO, and they did have some concerns. I got a list of
those concerns emailed to me, and as a result, we've addressed each and every one of those
concerns. I would like to go through them because I do believe they may be a part of
the record from the RCO input. They had an issue to ensure that we had ADA compliant and
accessible units. We do. It's on the plans. It's going to be built as we present, and it's going
to have the ADA ramp in the front of the building portion of it. They asked that the trash, we have
a better plan for trash when we initially started. As a result, we have an exterior trash
compartment, plus each and every unit has a trash closet. They asked that we have central air,
so we have put the HVAC units in each of the apartments, and the mechanicals will all be
housed in the basement. They said that the exterior looked as though it sort of was
overwhelming. So we, again, the exterior look will ensure that the property looks like two
sort of wider townhomes when in fact there'll be multifamilies on the inside. And the property
has the exact same footprint of each and every other property on the block. Let's take a look at
the rest of the block so you can see. Obviously, the lots that we're dealing with are vacant and
there are several other vacancies.
Much of the block is multifamily and, in some cases,
just boarded up.
Here's the letter that went out to all the immediate neighbors.
Here's the addresses.
All were mailed.
101 individual households were mailed.
There's the zoning poster and the proof of posting.
We have the tax information.
Here is the, as you can see, this is the lot in question.
And behind it, you can see there is a substantial amount of vacancy on the block.
So we do think the density would be helpful to Haverford Avenue.
It's also transit-oriented development that abuts CMX2.
And we have petitions of support of folks on Haverford and on Parrish and on 53rd and 54th Street.
So we, in fact, there are more people that signed our petition than attended the RCO meeting.
And with that, I'm going to ask my client, A.J. Single, to raise his virtual hand.
Good morning, sir.
A.J. Single is allowed to speak.
Good morning, sir. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
A.J. Single, can you please unmute yourself?
my first name is aj that's a-j-a-y last name is singal s-i-n-g-h-a-l do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel thank
you mr chair mr single did you hear my presentation to the board this morning
presentation to the board this morning? Yes, I did. Is it true and accurate to the best of your
yes i did is it true and accurate
knowledge? Yes. And you adopt it as your own testimony? Yes. Mr. Chair, because we're dealing
with three large vacant lots that have been combined, because brand new single-family
homes on this block would not be sustainable or marketable, and because this new quality
construction will, in fact, offer neighbors an opportunity to occupy some quality residential
products at approachable price points. I respectfully request, along with the support
of immediate neighbors, the granting of this variance. Thank you.
Counsel, when you made the changes, did you go back to the RCO?
I emailed Reverend Jordan, Willie Jordan, and showed everything. And the last set of plans
were the plans that were presented addressing those issues.
All right. Questions from the board.
Yeah, I have a question. So the makeup of these 10 units, I know the, what is the makeup? Like
buns in two bedrooms? What is the total makeup of all 10 units?
Let me take a look. The two first floor units are four bedrooms or three bedrooms and a den each, so they're family size.
Then we have a two bedroom on the second floor, another two bedroom on the second floor.
I'm sorry. That's a one-bedroom. So it's four one-bedrooms on the second.
And four one-bedrooms at the top floor.
so you have eight one bedroom units two three and or four uh bedroom units
and what is there any common space um for all units just the hallway storage or anything like
that uh well there's the basement is all mechanicals uh and uh the hallways are of
common but there's trash storage space for each of the units and each unit is pretty ample
so there's no other common space other than the exterior breezeway
and the way this is constructed it looks like two large properties right
On the outside, it looks like two large properties on a triple lot, on a triple lot, right?
Yes, it's a three-lot parcel.
Other questions from the board?
Can I see, again, the first floor unit plant?
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you.
And can we kind of. I'm going to zoom in in a minute. Thank you. I can't see it either.
Okay. Yeah. So as you can see here, it goes street to street.
A large living dining kitchen, sort of open space, open concept. We have a large ADA bathroom and
There's trash storage.
And then we have four rooms, which we, off the hallways, which we've identified as bedrooms.
Of course, we realize it could be, you know, use maybe three of the bedrooms and one be more of a home office for folks who work from home, like most of us do.
But, or some other room, but that's, and then there's one other large bathroom back here.
And that's, and these are mirror units.
They're both the same.
Gotcha.
so question so the ada accessibility is with the ramp out front you said that's correct
this ramp goes right into this unit okay um just the one unit or yeah this one is the one that's
ada compliant the all others can be adapted for ada if needed okay and then uh you said that the
Is there some way for someone who needs it to get to these other units on the second and third floor?
I thought you said that one was ADA compliant and then the rest.
I thought you said that one was ADA compliant and then the rest were ADA accessible.
So how are we doing that?
How would people get from it?
I think I don't know if I said accessible.
I meant adaptable.
So all other units can be adapted for ADA, which is what the code requires.
But the one unit must be ADA, which is why we have the ramp here for this.
so no they're not except there's no there's no uh elevator uh but they're adaptable each of the
units has to be adaptable and that's what they've done okay but how would they get to the other
units on the i mean even if they would need i mean obviously they would need you know assistance
getting upstairs because there's no elevator for the three it's a it's just a three-story building
okay all right thank you questions or comments from our attorney
um just briefly mr anastasia you mentioned there were some changes made as a result of
um concerns raised at the rco meeting do any of those changes things that were
affected the plans that were reviewed by lni for this project like the site plan anything
on the floor plans that wouldn't yeah nothing nothing of material uh uh impact otherwise i
would have attached a proviso form okay all right thank you questions or comments from the virtual
audience yes willie jordan will be allowed to speak morning mr jordan could you please state
your name and spell for the court stenographer willie jordan w-i-l-l-i-e j-o-r-d-a-n do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes please proceed sir
uh i'm willie jordan um the um coordinator for the 44th ward um we did have uh two meetings
and had some concerns we met with we communicated those concerns and we did receive a email with
some of the changes unfortunately it didn't get in front of the population that's in question
and one of our major concerns is a four-bedroom apartment this is almost turning into a rooming
house uh and he never addressed any parking situation on there to add four bedrooms and in
in one um area is just too much that is just too too much okay uh mr jordan yes
mr anastasia you have any questions uh none whatsoever uh just uh it was loud why don't
you wait to see if there's anyone else in the audience and i'll give you a chance to respond
Okay. Is there anyone else in there? Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Is there anyone else in the virtual
audience? Yes. Madeline Medley will be allowed to speak. Good morning. Could you please state
your name and spell for the court stenographer? Madeline Medley. M-A-D-E-L-I-N-E, Medley, M-E-D-L-E-Y.
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do. Are you a neighbor?
I am a homeowner on the block.
I live at 5326.
You don't have to say where you live.
That's fine.
Please.
Well, we feel like this is a warehouse for families.
These are single family homes on this block.
There is only one vacancy.
Where do the children play?
Who cleans the hallways?
This is a recipe for disaster.
Because you have one person who is untidy and the whole building is in uproar. Are there bathtubs for the children to be bathed in or is each bathroom a shower? How is the daily cleaning of this building done?
How is the trash handled? Are these large trash containers sanitized on a regular basis? Or is this going to bring rodents into our community that we do not have now? And that is our concern. I did not receive a letter. Neither did many of my neighbors.
I saw the gentleman sitting in a car taking signatures of people who did not live on this block.
So that is not only my concern, but I speak for a number of my neighbors.
We vote absolutely no.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to call us.
thank you for taking the time to call us we appreciate it is there anyone else diverse
We appreciate it.
Is there anyone else to vote?
audience yes there's a call-in user number one will be alive hi could you please state
your name and spell for the court stenographer hello calling user one with your hand up please
unmute yourself do you have any other hands up
there are no other hands up chair i say that's star six to unmute
they may be having technical difficulty okay all right yes mr anastasio before i go to planning
do you have a comment? Oh, yeah. At the meeting, there were concerns about the questions about
different things. And I'm not quite sure that the second witness was at that meeting. But there
would, we've already committed to commercial trash pickup, which would be normal, regardless of how
many units. There would be a property management team and a property maintenance team, which we've
also discussed with Mr. Jordan. And of course, we did submit evidence that all the impacted
homes were in fact male. The four-bedroom option, we're not married to that. We never were.
In order to reduce that, however, this back portion of each of these units would become
separate units. So instead of asking for 10, we would ask for 12, or I guess it would be 12,
because these are mirrored units.
So we did not think that the neighbors
wanted additional units
and therefore we kept the four-bedroom
or three-bedroom in a den option.
But we're certainly willing to discuss that.
If that's the sticking point,
if that's what can't get us to where we need to be,
then we're willing to have that further discussion.
But we're not married.
Okay, I hear.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
And good morning, David Fechter
with the City Planning Commission. Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends
no change to the RSA-5 residential single-family zoning at this location. This is a primarily
single-family block face. If this 5,565-square-foot lot were to be subdivided, then the appellant
would be allowed three dwelling units by right, not the 10 they have requested. The City Planning
Commission recommends the board grant their proposed multifamily use, but with a maximum
of three dwelling units. Thank you. Council, we've heard some testimony. What I'd like to do
is next Wednesday, sit in the executive session with the board and really go over the project,
okay? I appreciate that. We will vote on it. We will vote next Wednesday at 9 30. I do appreciate
that, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank the Planning Commission for their input, but
But building a three-family dwelling on this triple lot is just, it's an unsustainable, it'll sit vacant.
It just, the market, this particular area cannot support brand new construction of three single-family homes on a triple lot.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anastasia. We understand your position. Thank you.
Let's see, we'll go to
Number 8
MI 2023
006236
North 15th Street, Steve Masters
is the attorney
There's non-opposition for Oak Lane
Worcester Community Coalition
with a proviso
so. Steve Masters has been promoted.
Good morning, Mr. Masters. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Hi, could you please state your name
and spell for the court stenographer? My name is Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-E-M-A-S-T-E-R-S,
and good morning to the new members of the of the board that i haven't uh appeared in front of
you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client in relationship to this property
yes my client is cynthia baines she is the property owner and our vice chair has a few questions sir
good morning counsel do you agree to waive the read another refusal or stipulate towards that
um good morning um yes i agree i've emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is
needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes we have thank you
Yes, we have.
Thank you, council.
Council. Please proceed.
Please proceed.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
We are here for a special exception for group living personal care home at 5103 North 15th Street.
I'm going to walk you through the exhibits, and then I will call up the owner, Cynthia Baines, to adopt my testimony and to provide some more testimony on her own, and we will go first to the referral.
So this is not a variance case. This is only a special exception. This property is the home of
Cynthia Baines and it's been historically her home for quite a long time. She is proposing to
move out of the home and convert the home into a personal care home for young adolescent girls.
There is a substantial amount of support in the immediate neighborhood for this project.
We have a number of petitions signed by very close neighbors.
And at the RCO meeting, there was 100% votes in favor of this proposal.
In fact, the number of signatures that we have in terms of close neighbors, we did a special graphic.
Everything that is highlighted in yellow are the addresses that are within the 250 feet.
And we have a very high percentage of all of the properties that are in support.
We also have a number of letters in the exhibit from professional associates of Ms. Baines, who is a trained nurse and has worked with children and other populations for many, many years.
So these letters in the exhibit binder are to really show the board the credentials and the background that Ms. Baines has as to why we can be very confident that her personal care home will be a high-impact, high-quality operation.
quite a few letters of recommendations that we can go into if there is a desire from the
board later. The next exhibit is our response to the RCO. The RCO has asked for a two-year
temporary special exception, and we understand that there are personal care homes in the
neighborhood that have presented some problems for this community, and we understand that the
board from time to time does award temporary status for special exceptions for this kind of
use. Our position is that we hope that through this presentation today that you will be comfortable
enough with this project to give a special exception without a time limit. But should you
choose to place a time limit on it, our concern is the date that is the beginning of whatever
period of time you ask for two, three years. In this case, there's quite a bit more permits and
licenses that have to be applied for that can't even be applied for until we receive the special
exception. And I'm talking about the licenses from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for this
particular personal care home, the contracts with the city for CVH, and other contracts with
the health department for food licenses. All of those are going to be taking, especially the
license for the personal care home will take a number of months, including multiple inspections
and a variety of checks and investigations. So our ask for you is that if you do a three-year
or the communities we're asking for two years,
we know that you tend to do more on a three-year level.
If you do that, we would ask you not to base it on the date
that this special exception is issued,
that this special exception is issued, but rather the date, really the first date that this personal care home can operate and can bring in clients and can start to operate.
but rather the date, really the first date.
Otherwise, it would be a truncated period of time.
And if you want us to have a three-year temporary, we would like the full three years.
This is the Oakland Worcester Community Coalition letter in which they refer to all of the support from the neighborhood and then ask for a two-year proviso.
In Exhibit 4, these are the floor plans for the home.
So we have, we're starting on the third floor, three bedrooms and a bath.
This is the reflective ceiling plan.
This is the floor plan.
And second floor is one bedroom and then some office space and medication rooms.
And then the first floor is the group areas with living room and dining room.
And I guess we have ceiling plan diagrams for all of those also.
So this is the basement, and that is going to also have communal space for the girls
and their storage and the utilities also.
This is a photo of the outdoor deck that the adolescent girls will be able to enjoy
on appropriate weather days.
Another photo of that, this is the side walkway of the home, and this is the other side of the property.
2nd floor master bedroom
2nd floor bath
2nd floor front bedroom
The living room view 1
And view 2 at the fireplace
This is view 3 of the living room
third floor bedroom
third floor front bedroom
the bathroom under remodeling
and this is the basement area that we looked at
on the plans for the family room
this is the family room dining area
basement bathroom
The business plan that Ms. Baines will also review with you, she calls it the lady in
the shoe because she's had many, many children, both biological and foster that she has raised
over the years.
I'm actually going to have Ms. Baines walk through this with you so that we don't have
to do it in duplicate.
In Exhibit 6, we have our zoning posters.
for today's hearing.
Exhibit seven is our tax clearance.
Exhibit eight, we have a deed,
but we also have a statement of adverse possession
for over 21 years.
So we have double proofs of ownership of this property.
And then in exhibit nine,
is our application for the special exception and exhibit 10 is the project information form
and exhibit 11 is the um the rco mailing notice and the proof of mailing that was sent to
oh we also had um a second meeting with the rco where we went door to door with a with a flyer
also uh and our proof of mailing shows that uh we had 115 letters that were sent out
so i'm going to return to
bring your client on steve yes um so i'm gonna ask cynthia baines to raise your hand so you can be
uh admitted into the panel
admitted into the panel.
cynthia barnes has been allowed to speak
hi hi good morning could you state your name and spell for the stenographer
sure my name is cynthia baines v-a-i-n-e-s do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth and nothing but the truth yes i do we proceed counsel um sure well first i'm
going to get this out of the way. Ms. Baines, have you heard my testimony so far in this hearing?
Yes. Do you agree with it and do you adopt it as your own? Yes. So now let's move forward. So
that's, I wanted you to describe to the board what kind of a personal care home you are creating
and also talk about what brought you to this project, what motivated you to start this kind
of a visit. Hello, everyone. I would like to first start, again, my name is Cynthia, and I am the lady
in the shoe. I was a mother at the age of 15 years old, so I had to learn what to do. And by the age
of 28, I had eight children, four now, I have in which six are college graduates. I have one in the
military station in Africa, and I have one in nursing school. I adopted a baby when he was two
weeks old, and he's now four, and he's at preschool. I was a correctional officer for 10 years for the
city of Philadelphia at CFCF prison, and I am a nurse. I've been a nurse for seven years with
the experience of care for patients with medical conditions, mental health challenges, and drug
alcohol, these drug and alcohol treatment. I was a nurse for four years as a manager overseeing the
medical department of 250 clients. I have been a foster mother of five years, four children,
three of which are siblings. One, as I spoke earlier, I adopted and he was a few weeks old.
And then two, I have permanent legal custody.
Today is a milestone in my journey for me, creating a safe haven and nurturing environment for adolescent girls who deserve a chance to thrive and succeed.
The Lady in the Shoe, our mission is to be able to provide a caring environment for adolescent females who have mental health or behavior challenges.
We will provide life skill training, therapy, outside resources, medication administration and transportation.
There will be training in such areas as anger management, building positive relationships, life skills, and helping change negative thinking.
And our goal for this program will be to help prepare our girls to become self-sufficient
and self-supporting young adults.
And family reunification will be an important component of the individual's growth and development.
Thank you.
So can you can you just briefly describe the the letters that were in the exhibit binder from your professional associates and colleagues?
Can you can you just briefly tell the board who these people are and why they have come to support your project?
some people know me um from personal from my personal life like i sent children seven six
children of college and some of their room their friends needed help and i helped them as well i
was more than a mother just to the children on birth i it seems like i'm everybody mother who
needs me they call me up on the phone they call me mom and they need advice they need help i'm
there always to help. I have friends, nurse practitioners, nurses, doctors. I have a lot
of friends that know what I do. St. Christopher's Hospital had me come in in April as a foster
parent on a panel for the doctors and nurses to describe how is it to be in a foster mother
because they'd say I do such a good job with the children as they chose me. A lot of people
support what I do because they know I have a heart and it fills me up with love and joy to
be able to provide and give this gift to others. Thank you. I wanted to just get a couple of the
details of the operation. Can you tell the board how many children you're planning to have in this
House? 68. And the ages? 14, 18.
14 to 18.
And do you have an idea at this point of where these referrals and where these children will be, how these children will be brought into your care?
CDH, private pay, they can come from Magellan, DHS. I'm already involved with DHS. I've been a class parent again for five years.
And in terms of staffs, have you identified the staff that you're going to have for this project, and can you tell us how many staff and what the hours are going to be?
Well, it's going to be a 24-hour care with my staff. I have a staff member who's a daughter of mine who has a doctor's degree, and right now she works as associate director in Delaware, so she has lots of information and input that she provides to me, and she's going to come and work for me and my mom.
I have a son who's a registered nurse who can help me out when I'm not available to do medication administration passes.
I have a daughter who is going to come and work for me, who is the director at DHS.
I have a nurse practitioner friend who's going to come in and help do the psych evaluations.
And I have other members that's going to come on my team.
And in terms of shifts, how are you going to be dividing the staff up?
It'll be three shifts. I'm sorry. Three shifts, 24 hours staffing, two staffs on each shift.
All right. At this point, I'm going to turn it over to you, Mr. Chair, for questions from the board.
Sure. Questions from the board.
i have a question um so all things be equal but what is your timeline if everything like
lined up well with the state and everything what would be your timeline for ideal um operations
beginning oh that's for is cynthia still um is she still able yeah okay great yes okay
if it was up to me i can have everything running within six months
If I had all my licensors and everything, I can have it up to running in six months.
Thank you.
Other questions from the board?
You said six to eight girls?
Yes, ma'am.
So, question then.
How is this going to work in terms of the number of bedrooms that you have?
I thought, can we look at the floor plans?
Yes, I have six large bedrooms.
I can have two bedrooms and two beds in each room and still have more space.
It's three on the third floor, it's two on the second floor, and it's one on the
in the in the downstairs in the basement that I'm going to use that as a storage.
So if it's going to be two children in each room, so on the third floor, that'd be six,
and then it'll be two-pound stays on the second floor.
Other questions from the board?
And then you're going to have,
where are the staffing people going to be?
Yes, you're going to have staff.
The second floor has the office and the medical room for the staff.
And also when the children are in the community room, the family room, in a basement that has a large TV, a pool table, a sectional, it has access to go outside in the yard, it has a bathroom, laundry area.
It will also be office down here so that the staff could be with them at all times.
All right.
And then when you say medical room, what are we talking about in terms of?
If we have clients that take some medication, they have to be in a locked room.
And I'm a registered nurse, so I can get medication.
and I have a son also who's going to come and work with me,
who can administer medication as well.
All right. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Questions or comments from our attorney?
Questions or comments from our attorney?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, there are three hands up.
Donyell Holmes will be allowed to speak first.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Donyell Holmes, D-O-N-I-E-L, last name Holmes, H-O-L-M-E-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
I'm a fellow co-worker also, yes.
Are you in favor of this project?
Yes, I am.
And you're going to work at the project?
Yes, I am.
All right.
All right.
Thank you very much.
We appreciate you calling in.
Thank you.
Next hand.
The next hand will be Charles Richardson.
Hi, Mr. Richardson.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning.
Could you please just state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Charles Richardson, C-H-A-R-L-E-S, Richardson, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N, Office of Councilwoman
Cindy Bass, Room 508, City Hall.
Do you swear to firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, sir.
Okay, Mr. Chair, this property has had two meetings. The first didn't go very well. The applicant had loaded it up with friends and her former colleagues, and only actually one or two near neighbors actually appeared.
uh following you know the rco uh you know said that they would give them another opportunity
to give her to go out and find the you know introduce herself to the near neighbors and
let her her project be known to them uh in the interim the councilwoman and i had a conversation
with steve and uh she indicated to him at the time that she was opposed to granting the special
exception because of the fact that the number of uh such properties that are in that specific area
and within the that 17th ward uh so since the rco decided to give them the second opportunity
they had this second meeting but you know still only eight uh properties where uh individuals
showed up of 115 properties that were mailed to um you know it still does not have a whole
a lot of community support, but since the RCO has decided to have a position of non-opposition,
the councilwoman is going to also take a position of non-opposition, but that two-year proviso
that we're talking about is definitely necessary because we don't know exactly what type of young
ladies that they're going to be getting into that property. We're hearing CBH and things along those
lines, but we need to be able to let her prove herself essentially to the community and see
that they're going to do what they say they're going to do. If not, then they need to come,
and then they can come back before that. But we're supporting the two-year as opposed to three-year.
And we've had that conversation with Steve as well. So again, she is taking a position of
non-opposition, but supporting that two-year variance. Thank you. Anyone else in the virtual
audience? Yes, I have another hand up by the name of Cynthia Barnes. We'll be allowed to speak.
Well, that's the applicant, so maybe we'll have her speak after all the members.
is there anyone else yes there there was two um two cynthia barnes and in the audience i thought
it was another person oh all right um should i allow them to speak the left one come on
the other cynthia barnes has been allowed to speak
you're breaking up sir
could you state your name all the board members can you i can yeah what's your name state your
name my name my name is marvin gross okay m-a-r-v-i-n-g-r-o-s-s do you swear or firm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing yes sir are you a neighbor
i do sir i'm in proximity of the residence i grew up in the neighborhood
are you in favor i grew up in the neighborhood and i'm listening listen to me are you in favor
of the project mr grocery in favor of the project sir thank you for taking the time
Thank you for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it. Is there any more hands up?
to call us we appreciate it is there any more hands up
There are no more hands.
Thank you.
Sorry, Chair. I'm sorry, Chair. Another hand did just go up with the phone number ending at 9216.
Could you please state your name? It's spelled for the court stenographer.
Please state your name.
i think we have to tell them how to unmute oh there hi could you please state your name and
state your name and spell for this stenographer sure priscilla sigler that's p-r-i-s-c-i-l-l-a
s-e-i-g-l-e-r right do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, sir.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, I am. Thank you.
Are you in favor of this project?
Yes, I am.
Thank you very much for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it. Is there any other hands?
There are no more hands.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning. David Fechto with the City Planning Commission.
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa3 single
family zoning at this location the appellant has shown that the proposed personal care home
will have no detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what might be expected
the city planning commission recommends that the board grant a proposed special exception
for a personal care home thank you um mr chair i would also just um reiterate what we spoke about
earlier in the presentation that if you are inclined to do a temporary variance, that the
date that it starts be the date that the applicant receives her license from the commonwealth.
Steve, we've had conversations about that. I'm not sure that we can do that. Hillary?
Yes, Mr. Masters. Unfortunately, there's no mechanism by which the city would be able to
know when she's starting and has all her state licensing in place so i believe that there would
be because because the city is supplying the the the the um clients to her so the city would have
to verify that she has all the state licenses in order to in order to authorize um any young girls
to to you know to to be treated um and cared for by her but i believe that would be a different
department that's not any way tied to the the zoning permit so i i think that'd be a bit
attenuated to assume that that connection would be made right okay steve listen and the board
member and direct questioning asked your client she said she'd be up in six months
yes but we're going to vote okay so i 2023 006 236 5103 north 15th street i vote yes
for a temporary variance that expires 8 8 26. michael johns my vote is just with the same
proviso
Cheryl Gaston
Cheryl Gaston
my vote is yes with proviso
Proulosy Cheryl
Tinetta Graham my vote is yes with proviso
James Snell my vote is yes with proviso
Ishmael Shahid
my vote is yes with proviso
Mr. Masters could you please
stay on
So MI 2023-006-250-1457 Sterling Street. There's a letter of opposition from Take Back Your Neighborhood, and there's a letter of opposition from the community on the rise. Mr. Masters, could you just state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-M-A-S-T-E-R-S, with the law firm of Chuss Laws.
you've already been sworn could you identify your client in relationship to the property
um yes my client is mark on holdings llc the property owner and we have here uh to testify
along with myself is going to be stephen glass who is the property manager with odin properties
um just to start off mr chair i have a vice chair our vice chair has just a good question
Sure. Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to read another refusal or stipulate to your accuracy?
I do agree to stipulate to the accuracy.
Do you know the required documents are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
yes we submitted our first we uploaded our our exhibit binder and our witness
Yes, we submitted our first.
list five days in advance but we also just uploaded a revised version of the
exhibit binder from earlier this morning okay thank you please proceed I'll show
your screen all right thank you I'm gonna just say first mr. Sharon this is
kind of unusual in terms of practices, but both of the RCOs did not send copies of their letters
to us, despite the fact that we have been engaged with them on multiple meetings and also many times
with the council member's office. We were able to receive a copy of the Take Back Your Neighborhood
letter yesterday we have no we've never seen any letter from another rco so i i have no um i have
no way to address it or to rebut it at all um let me let me ask this would you want hillary
to send it to you and you could continue the case um no i'd like to go forward all right sure
yeah but but um i but i would i would ask you to disregard that letter we because it was not
PROVIDED WITHIN, IT WAS NOT SHARED WITHOUT.
SO WHY DON'T WE JUST PROCEED?
SURE, OKAY.
THIS PROJECT IS AN AFFORDABLE DUPLEX, THIS PROPERTY AT THE MOMENT AT 1457 STERLING STREET.
It has been under contract for many, many years with a nonprofit organization called Pathways for Housing.
They work closely with the city of Philadelphia and provide transitional housing and related wraparound services to homeless people.
And so this property has been a legal duplex.
Those two apartments, which are not the subject of the variance today, but those two apartments have been providing, each of these apartments has one individual who has been placed there by Pathways for Housing, formerly homeless, and is getting services from the city via Pathways for Housing.
The rental costs, you'll hear testimony from Mr. Glass later on that the rental costs, the rental rates that are being charged to Pathways for Housing are substantially below market rates.
And that has, over time, produced a financial burden on the owner of this property. The owner wants to help the city and provide a way for caring and housing formerly homeless people.
But the financial burden was such that they decided to create a third unit, which is below the other two, and that is an above-ground basement unit.
It's small. It's only $600 a month in rent, but it was financially what makes it possible for them to continue to house two formerly homeless people on behalf for pathways that's from that's a high priority for the city of Philadelphia.
What we have here is one refusal for the three multifamily units.
Although the zoning archive doesn't really have any documents to speak of that address the zoning,
for many, many years, the city has been issuing two rental licenses for this property,
and so there's no dispute among anyone that this is a legal duplex.
We have petitions in support, I believe it is 21 petitions in support from the near neighbors,
and these are very close addresses from within the 250 feet.
In Exhibit 3, we have an important letter from Pathways for Housing.
They write in support of this zoning application. They've been at this location for more than 10
years. Pathways for Housing, if you're not familiar, supports 600 formerly homeless individuals
supports 600 formerly homeless individuals with housing, comprehensive case management,
with housing comprehensive case management.
primary care and psychiatric services, and community inclusion supports. They have a
scattered site model, which means they have to lease hundreds of different apartments in order
to provide the housing to their clients. And they're finding it very difficult to find affordable
units to place homeless people. I know that
Councilmember Lizata is quite also, she has a very
high priority in finding beds for homeless people. She's
spoken about it many times concerning Kensington and other areas of her
district. So the pathway says that
their work with the landlord, Odin is the property management company,
is the key to be able to continue to provide these affordable
units that are essential for the city's goals of of reducing homelessness and providing support
for formerly houseless people um this is in our exhibit binder this is more about pathways for
housing and and the kind of programs that they provide um in exhibit four um this is our um
site plans and and our elevations so this property um is located um
uh it borders on an alleyway and then it borders on on sterling street
uh this is the existing um front facade there are no change this is just a a change of of use
and the unit on the inside, there are no changes that are required on the outside at all.
This is the structure itself, and right behind it on the level of the above-ground basement unit
is the parking space that this tenant has been using and is dedicated to this tenant.
The other two tenants from Pathways for Housing do not have cars, and they don't, they receive transportation services when they need to go places.
This is the front view where, like I said, it borders onto an alley.
And this is the rear view showing the tenant's car in the lot that we're trying to, I'm sorry, the unit we're trying to legalize.
And these are, this is the other, these, by the way, these, these two units for pathways for housing are, are two bedroom units, but there's only one person living in each one of them, because that's the, that's the, the, the protocol for pathways, they provide housing, but they, but it's only for, that's the single homeless person.
um so we have here in in the uh in our in our floor plans um this is the um the exit onto the
the back driveway this is the unit that we are legalizing um and it's uh it's a you know
modest size unit um so it does have two means of ingress and egress so here's one that goes
to the outside where the car was that we saw parked and here's the second one that goes out
into the alley that we saw that um that is on the side of the building um there are uh this on the
on the um what would be called the first floor but it looks like the second floor from from the
building. This is the unit for one of the formerly homeless persons. And then this is the other one
on the third floor. Steve, is the basement unit already occupied?
It is currently occupied. We do have a violation from L&I and we have that under appeal. And the
The violation simply states that it needs a zoning permit and a certificate of occupancy for a living space in that unit.
How big is that unit?
not the mechanical so um it is nine feet six plus
i guess we take 39 minus nine so it's approximately 30 feet long by 14
All right.
Thank you.
This is the rear, the rear facade, you can see that it's totally above ground.
This is the rear, the rear facade, you can.
And this is the front, okay.
We have some photos now.
So this is the front of the property.
You come into this door to go into the upper two apartments that are with pathways to enter the new,
the new above ground basement unit,
the entrance is in the rear.
This is the first floor bathroom.
So this is, when it says first floor,
this is one of the pathways units,
half of first floor living room,
kitchen, first floor bedroom.
And now we're going to the second floor.
This is the second pathways unit.
then here's the above ground basement this is the kitchen area for this the unit that we want to
legalize this is the sleeping area bathroom shower this is the common area uh that has the
mechanicals and the utilities um this shows the various water heaters the um
this is the gas there is no gas hookups into this into the the the unit that we want to legalize the
gas um power is for the two pathways unit this is the door that goes out to the alleyway so this is
one of the egresses from the unit that we wanna legalize.
And this is the other egress where the car is parked.
This is another view of that egress
into the alleyway from that unit.
So we, there were, the RCO had complained
about a lot of wires that were very unsightly
that were along this wall.
So one of the remedies that we did,
you can see them kind of scattered all over this wall.
This is a photo afterwards showing
that we brought in a contractor
who consolidated all of the wires
and made them very tidy.
There was also a concern that
because it was a converted garage
into this above-ground basement unit,
There wasn't a dedicated hot water heater for that unit, so we have now installed a new hot water tank that only services this new above-ground basement unit that doesn't share any of the utilities with the other units.
This is our zoning poster with the data posting.
Steve, what was the vote of the zoning board, of the RCO?
So that's an interesting question, Mr. Chair. So we asked several times to have an RCO meeting.
The RCO told us that they will not hold an RCO meeting for this type of a project. They said
we will do a site visit, not an RCO meeting. So we had a site visit, and we walked through,
but there was, we basically, it was quite cold, and we were basically outside on that alley for
for a good 45 minutes or so after we walked through the unit.
At that point, the RCO told us that they don't have votes.
They're not going to call a vote on this.
I said to them, we need an RCO meeting.
That's what our requirement is.
We have to do a mailing.
We have to tell people about this.
So they said we could have a second site visit,
and they would make that as the RCO meeting.
So they scheduled a second site visit.
we did our mailing, and we had a few neighbors show up. No one from the block. The neighbors who
showed up were from a ways away. They were, I'm not sure exactly how far away they are, but they
were not within the 250 feet. At that point, Mr. Radnitsky, who was the head of Take Back Your
neighbors. I saw him walk around to all of the people who came and encourage them to oppose the
project and to vote no. It was somewhat unusual to see someone who leads an RCO be that explicit
with neighbors. And so they reported on their letter. I wasn't present in any kind of an
official vote, but to what extent there were people who were there who I think were expressed
But for to what extent there were people who were there who I think were expressing their position on on the issue.
And I believe that there was substantial opposition to it from those people.
So that's the letter, the letter that you don't have. Were they also their community on the rise?
I am not sure. There were two people from Take Back Your Neighborhood.
there was Robert and Pamela. And I recall that there was one or two other people, but I don't
remember if they identified where they were from. Why don't you bring your client on?
Okay. Sure. All right. So, Steve Glass, will you please raise your virtual hand?
steve glass is allowed to speak to speak yes can you hear me i can't could you please take
your name and spell for the court stenographer even glass s-t-e-v-e-n glass g-l-a-s-s
you swear or affirm to tell the truth to hold you is nothing but the truth
i do please proceed counsel um mr glass you've heard my testimony so far today
yes i have and do you adopt it do you agree with it and adopt it as your own yes i do
all right um i'm going to uh walk you through a couple exhibits now um
we uh have proposed some provisos to uh the rto so i'm going to have you uh talk about this one
first um so um can you describe to uh the members of the board uh what this what the issue was with
the water heater and how you addressed it so there was the there's two there was two units
we had a water heater for each unit the third unit was feeding off this another unit in the building
so we ran separate plumbing and added a third hot water tank so they have they pay for the
hot water now all right and the wires that were dangling unsightly on the building's wall
we had our electrician come and clean up all the wires on the side and take them down
there was also a request to relocate the electrical meter and the circuit breakers
because they were located now in this new uh base above ground basement unit uh what what is you what
what was the uh the solution that you came up with and and what's the timing for that
well we had discussed it we brought my licensed electrician and he said it is legally it's legal
to have it where it is right now in the in the basement unit but uh if we can work on an agreement
then we can move the uh the the additional circuit breakers into the common area basement unit into
the uh utility room i'm sorry all right did you um did you uh hire uh an electrical contractor to
give you a bid on that yes i did okay is that the clean sweep two incorporated bid yes yes that's
correct so what um what was the cost um that to to do that relocation of of all of the electric uh
service for the house $4,500
excuse me $4,500
to do the service cable outside was an additional
$3,000 okay so there's like two pieces
of it and the total is $7,500 correct
so for that piece of the work
was it your preference to see
whether you could get this zoning permit
before you expended that kind of money
on the repairs?
That's correct, yes.
All right, now,
before we go to the RCO letter,
I just want to ask you some basic questions
about your role and your duties.
Mr. Chair, can I have Mr. Glass
elevated to panelists?
Actually, Mr. Glass,
do you have a camera do you have a camera on your computer i'm actually on my uh iphone right now
oh okay all right so if you prefer not to be uh not not to not to be seen that's
i'm all right if you're okay with that mr why don't you just question all right sure um
so can you describe your position and duties at odin properties
I am a property manager, and I oversee the Morekind Portfolio, Morekind Properties Portfolio.
Okay. And how long have you been managing the property at 1457 Sterling Street?
and how long have you been managing uh the property at 1457 sterling street seven years
could you tell the board what your duties and responsibilities are for managing the property
well we have on-site man not on site we have managers in in the area and i oversee the managers
uh i see i oversee the managers that manage the property they're on near near the on-site area
all right so would you be aware if there were any complaints that were received from neighbors
or about the tenants or the upkeep of the building yes i would and um have there been
any complaints that you know of in these past seven years about the neighbors or the building
yeah about three years ago we did get a complaint from the neighbors a few doors down
about the condition of the front lawn and some trash.
We did contact the tenants, and we did have it cleaned up.
That was the only complaint I'm aware of.
And that was, sounds like it was done relatively quickly?
Yes, yes.
So do you agree the property is currently zoned for two apartments?
Yes, that's correct.
And how long, if you know, has Pathways to Housing been renting those upper two apartments?
They've been there for roughly five years.
And also, I want to mention that they also have their own people that come and come to the property every two or three weeks to check on the tenants, their tenants, and check on the condition of the property.
So they have, you're saying regular inspections of the property?
Yes, yes, they do.
Okay. And was I correct that there's only one tenant in each of those units?
Yeah, they're both two bedroom units, but we only put one tenant in each one.
Okay. And do any of those tenants have cars?
They do not.
All right. Do you or your colleague, your coworkers, do you work closely at all with Pathways to Housing to address any of the issues with these tenants?
At Odin, we deal with Pathways.
We rent a lot of units to them, so we have a very close relationship with them.
The director is John Lambert, and yes, if there's any issues, we're told about it right away.
What is the market rate for an apartment rental in this neighborhood in terms of what would be a fair market rate for the two units that you're renting to Pathways?
1250 for each one 1215 1250 okay and what is the actual rent that you that you um
charge pathways for these units we're getting 900 for each unit there
so you are down uh 350 dollars each if we want to yeah if we chose to go market that's correct
Right. If you went market on those two units, would you expect that there would just be one tenant in each of those units, or would you expect that there would be more than one?
No, there would be two, possibly three in each unit.
and would you expect that they would uh based on all the different rentals that you do in this
area would you expect that they would be likely to have a car or two or or what would what would
your opinion on whether they would also have cars it's tough to say but i would say at least one of
them would probably have a car yes okay so mark and holdings is your is your
is the owner is the is your client for for odin um have they suffered any financial losses by
renting these two apartments below market to pathways i mean yeah if we decided to go market
he'd probably get another 600 hours a month
and two units right um so we've i think we went over that steve about the two units so
So now I'm talking about the third unit.
So my first question, Steve, could you ask them when that first unit was rehabbed and turned into a, the basement was turned into an apartment?
If you know, Steve, when was the basement converted from a garage?
And I think it might have been converted in different times, in different uses.
yeah at first it was used as an office and then we converted into an apartment and i was roughly
And then we converted into an apartment.
And that was roughly, I want to say, three years ago.
i want to
Three years ago?
But when it was first converted from a garage to an office, do you have an idea when that was?
I'm going to say about five years ago.
Okay. And is the reason, were there financial pressures on the owner? Is that why they were creating this third unit?
Well, yeah, sure. If we can get a third rent to compensate for the other two rents.
We do a lot with pathways and we try to help them out as a city agency.
So we would take a little less because they rent a lot of units throughout the city from us.
So we try to accommodate them.
That's why we decided to rent these two units to them under market value.
Right.
But I'm talking about the unit that we want to legalize today.
Is the reason that that was created because of financial pressures from the two pathways units?
Yes, that was part of the reasons, yes.
so if if today the board turns um us down for the variance uh will that put the two pathways
of tenants in jeopardy for for uh for future housing with this at this location i mean it
could have a consideration if pathways wasn't able to give us more rent we may have to put
an extra person in each unit in each of the units and get a higher rent for it
and that's that would be against pathways policies right yes they yeah the policy they
have now for the tenants they have in there they just put one in each unit of the units that's
correct okay um so let's go back to the um i do want to mention one thing too steve i don't know
if you mentioned it but the guy in the back who has the ground has his own parking spot back there
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did show that to the board. All right. So let's go through some of the falsehood of the Take Back Your Neighborhoods letter. In their letter to the board, they said that no additional systems were planned for the basement and the main circuit panels are uncovered and exposed and present a serious safety hazard.
and they haven't been addressed.
So can you, are you able to see what I'm sharing right now?
Well, we had a license, they did bring that up.
They said there's certain violations on the property.
So we did bring in our licensed electrician
to check everything out and everything was under code.
And if there was an issue,
Elle and I would have cited us when they did their inspection also.
Right.
Um, take back your neighborhood also said that, uh, that this, that making this third
apartment legal would reduce available parking spaces, uh, because it's only one vehicle
that's parked in the, in the back there.
Um, so, uh, can you confirm, uh, that pathways for housing tenders have no cars?
No, they have no cars.
And the gentleman who rents the basement has a car, but there's a spot, a deeded spot for him there.
So there's no impact at all on parking for the street.
That's correct.
Then to take back your neighborhood said that there were two windows that don't have that don't provide any adequate emergency egress.
And that there is not proper emergency egress from this basement unit, which is a significant risk.
and safety risks from uncovered circuit panels and a history of violations
and a history of complaints from the neighbors.
So can you respond to those?
Well, we discussed the electric.
We had the electrician who said everything was under code.
There is a second means of egress for the basement apartment to go out on the side.
So that's not an issue.
Right, because it has the two doorways.
Correct.
there's one in the front and it's also a rear entrance that leads to the outside that's correct
okay and you did clean up the wires correct that's correct yes and the only zoning the only code
violation that wasn't complied was that you need a zoning permit correct for the third unit that's
correct yeah okay um i think that's it for all of our i did i guess i wanted to show oh so
So on the tax clearance, we...
On the tax clearance, our client paid off the balance that was, there was a balance because there was an assessment appeal on a number of properties, but we paid that off a few days ago.
But it's not showing up as a clear tax clearance because Marcan Holdings has appeals on assessments, and so they haven't fully paid the higher rate because they're trying to avoid paying that with their appeals.
uh we have the feed for you uh for the property and we have yep our appeal uh application for
for appeal our project information form and our mailings that we did for that second
walkthrough which we called an in-person public meeting and site visit
um and the number of mailings that we sent out was 137
um questions from the board uh yes uh okay so what size unit is this about 500 500 square am
I correct? 400, 500, Steve? It was 14, 7 by 30.
It's 14. Mr. Glass, do you have a number, a square foot number? It's about 440 square feet.
Okay. Okay. And you have all of the buyer code issues that have been addressed? Yes.
To means of ingress and egress, the emergency lighting, we have all of that that we're seeing.
When L and I cited the property for not having for a new use and not having a zoning permit, they did not cite it for any fire code issues around the residence.
They also further attempted to cease that unit, and we appealed that and put a stop to that.
But in our conversations with Illinois, they conceded that there were no safety, life safety issues that they were concerned about.
It was simply the lack of a zoning permit.
And you say that you converted this property, this unit, three years ago?
it appears it was five years ago it was converted from a garage to an office and then three years
ago it was um they they installed you know amenities for for a living space the kit the
kitchen and uh that you know basically the kitchen area and you're uh this tenant is uh in this
property without a well i don't know what they call them now but basically a rental license
uh she has a this tenant has a um as a written lease um and as as do
right there are only two there are only two rental licenses for the two
pathways units and this does not have a rental license okay thank you the other questions for
the border is the current is that current unit being leased by pathways to housing resident no
it it is um it is leased um by someone who do who is not connected to any um any non-profit agency
they're they're they're they're they rented it on their own so so so it's just leased at uh whatever
value i guess they can get um to just kind of looking at the plan my one of my concerns is that
one it enters off of a driveway you know two is the amount of light and air natural light and air
that's um that's available to the unit um small window in the kitchen and a small window in the
bathroom there's no window in the bedroom and then the very little there's no window in the living
space so that's a that's a real big concern to me the other thing is you you literally enter off of
a side alley or a backyard. So that's a big concern. And I don't necessarily buy the argument
about the amount of money that the owner would be losing because what I've heard them say
essentially was that because Pathways to Housing leases a number of units from them
or throughout the city that providing these units at a discount rate is kind of what they would do
providing these units at a discount rate is kind of what they would do anyway so i don't know that
anyway. So
not having the other unit kind of makes a difference particularly since the other
unit you're not even running to a pathways to howling person well yeah i guess um mr glass
can you can you clarify that you were talking about odin as opposed to mark on when you were
talking about the pathways yeah well and and it's considered a studio so it's really one large
apartment and window everything in daylight in there it sounds like it's blocked off with
a bedroom with no light or anything as far as uh pathways yeah odin is does a lot of business with
um with pathways that's correct uh markheim this is the only unit that they lease um from pathways
so odin is the property management company and marcon is the actual property owner
and they yeah they they this is their only pathway and and and the basement the basement
apartment has nothing to do with pathways that's correct correct any other questions from the board
questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes chair sloan folks will be allowed to speak
good morning sloan could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
Good morning, sir. I'm very good.
My name is Sloan Folks, S-L-O-A-N-E, F-S-N-P-I-R-O-L-K-S, representing the Office of the Postal Service, Chester Lozada, and 484 Supervisor.
We're referring to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sir.
We do.
Please proceed.
uh uh firstly um i would like to state that um we have been in discussions with the uh the
applicants and the uh the rcos for a number of months now attempting to bring them together
regarding this issue um early on the applicant did uh advise us that they had intended to
oppose this area's request. So although the application, I'm sorry, although the letter
did come in rather late, our office does recognize the opposition from both our students. Our
office is going to defer to the ZBA for position, but we would request if the ZBA does make
a determination on supporting this application that is a temporary variance of no more than three
years that being well thank you mr folks any other comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands planning commission thank you chair bergman and good after good morning david
effecto with the city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa
5, residential single-family zoning at this location. There is no unique physical condition
or circumstance of this property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with
the zoning code. This is a primarily single-family block face. The appellant appears to have built a
third dwelling unit without the benefit of permits. The City Planning Commission recommends that the
board deny the proposed use variance for three dwelling units. MI 2023-006-250-1457 Sterling
Street, I vote no. Michael Johns, my vote is no. Cheryl Gaston, my vote is no. Tanetta Graham,
my vote is no. James Snell, my vote is no. Ishmael Shahid, my vote is no. Thank you,
on Tampa Street. Raymond DiRizio is the attorney. No RCO letter or summary of the notice, but there
was a meeting held March 21st, 2024. Raymond DiRizio has been promoted. Good morning, counsel.
Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. This is Raymond DiRizio. Last name
is spelled d-o-r-i-z-i-o i represent 3401 tampa street and i'm on with uh owner applicant
matthew marston do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
cancel hello i'm sorry cancel do you swear or affirm do you hear me now
I'm sorry. Council, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Hello? Council, we're having a hard time getting your, could you put your video on?
cancel could you put your video in could you put your video one hello sorry about that okay um i
i can't hear oh boy okay okay um do me a favor we're gonna move on to another case i'll come
back to you when we're done to see if we can get through to you, okay? Hello? Yeah. Counsel,
we're going to move on. Hello? Yeah, counsel, we're going to have to move on. Number 16.
Hello? I'm sorry about that. I've lost connection. Okay. We're going to come back to you, okay?
Hello?
Hello?
Could we take him off, please, somehow?
Thank you.
Number 16, MI 2024-001-917-8214-20, Caster Avenue.
Daniel McElhatton is the attorney.
Letter of unanimous support from the Ron Hurst Civic Association.
Daniel McElhanty has been promoted.
Good morning, counsel.
Mr. McElhantin.
I'm coming up, sir.
Here we go.
Good afternoon. Good morning, Councilman. Could you please state your name and spell for the
court stenographer? Daniel, D-A-N-I-E-L, McElhatton, M-C, capital E-L-H-A-T-T-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
My client is a social service organization by the name of PATH, known also as People Acting to Help, Inc., and they are the owner of the property.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Yes, sir.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to raise a reading of the refuse or stipulate to exact proceed?
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?
We have so complied.
Thank you, counsel.
So please proceed and share your screen.
Is my screen up, Sherrod?
Yes, sir.
Members of the board, PATH is the social service organization that has been in the Northeast since 1973.
They are the primary behavioral health and intellectual disability service provider for Northeast Philadelphia.
The chairman and CEO, Elizabeth Andel-Petkoff, is on the call and, if necessary, will affirm my representations.
This is a very simple application.
The organization has purchased a building on 1919 Cotman and the old First Trust building, renovated that completely and built a new building there.
The existing 8220 Caster Avenue building was the former headquarters.
They have completed a multimillion dollar renovation. And this application is to put signage at the spot on your screen are the council.
Councilman, could you, could you, we don't, you're, you're not up on the screen.
So we see you, but we need to see your documents.
My doc up there.
No, we don't have any documents.
Okay. Let me see.
the green button on the bottom no yeah
our IT person how are we doing there we don't see anything sir all right I'm sorry sir
are you finding the green button at the bottom
Are you finding the green button at the bottom?
I am not
I am not.
What kind of computer do you have?
I have a Mac.
So along the bottom, you should see audio, video.
I saw that.
That was there.
And as you continue to the right, you don't see a green button name share along the bottom?
I have not.
Let me enlarge the screen here.
I have the share.
There we go.
Thank you, Bill.
Are we sharing there now?
Anything?
It's only board of hearing.
All right.
Let me just see if I can get the document up again.
There's a refusal.
All right.
We're getting there.
My apologies. I'll be real short with this then. As I explained the application, does this now have the graphic?
It does. We see 8220 with the buildings in the back.
Right. This is the former executive offices, now renovated also offices in some treatment places.
and what we're requesting is for signage on this location and the signage will be for the
entrances as you see here the proposed sign on the right hand side at the bottom and the double
sided monument sign and on the building itself these are the locations for the signs there has
been no community opposition as the chair mentioned the runner civic was in complete support
We also just yesterday received a letter from Council Member Brian O'Neill, who's in support or no opposition.
And, you know, this would be the signage that would appear on the outside.
8220 is the address of the property. It's been known as that address for years, even though the 8214-20 is the official address.
So what we would be asking for is the legalization of these five different signs, the two on the buildings and the three for directional signs.
where's the directional sign said sir this is the main entrance and drop off this is the above
picture shows the current location and this would show the drop off sign okay
so those would be the signs and this is another directional sign
having it come in on the other end okay
And I have, as I mentioned, Elizabeth Andel Petkoff, CEO.
Why don't you have her come on and adopt your testimony?
Could you promote her, please?
Is the name Lee Horn?
No, Lee Horn is from the Ronhurst.
Elizabeth Andel Petkoff.
She was on earlier.
Okay, give me a second, please.
She has been promoted.
Hi, could you please state your name
as spelled for the court stenographer?
Betty?
If you're on, unmute.
Sorry.
Good morning.
Could you please state your name
as spelled for the court stenographer?
Yes, Elizabeth Andelpetkov, spelled E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H, last name's hyphenated, A-N-D-L hyphen P-E-T-K-O-V.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Betty, you've heard my presentation about the signage request for the building at 8220 Caster Avenue, correct?
You're the president and CEO of PATH?
And do you adopt the testimony that I, the information that I presented to the board as your own testimony and in support of the signing application?
Thank you.
I have no further questions.
Questions from the board.
no questions questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes there's a hand up by lee horn and they will be allowed to speak
good morning lee could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
Name is Lee Horne, H-O-R-N-E.
name is lee horn h-o-r-n-e
I am zoning chair for Ron Hurst Civic Association.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Please proceed.
The applicant held the meeting with the community on May 9th.
They presented the same documentation you've seen in their presentation.
It is the RCO's opinion that all signage is appropriate, and we also want to say that PATH has been a good neighbor to the community for a long time.
We absolutely request that the variance be granted.
Thank you for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it.
You're so welcome, sir.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, David Fechto with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the CMX-1 commercial mixed-use zoning at this location.
The appellant has shown that the proposed signs would not have a negative impact on adjacent properties.
The signs would assist users with building identification and traffic circulation.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant their proposed use variances for accessory signs.
Thank you.
MI 2024-001-917-8214-20.
Castor Avenue, I vote yes.
Michael Jones.
Go ahead, Michael.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Michael Jones, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
We're going to go back to number 11.
MI 2023-006-283-3401 Tampa Street.
Raymond Derizio.
Mr. Derizio.
He's coming back as a panelist.
good afternoon mr chairman and members of the board i hope you can hear me now i apologize
for the technical difficulty um i said did i already swear you in earlier i i couldn't hear
i'm so sorry my okay all right could you you're going to be able to share your documents there
right yes i will okay please state your name and spell for the course not for yes good afternoon
Mr. Chairman, members of the board's board, Raymond Dorizio, R-A-Y-M-O-N-D, last name D-O-R-I-Z-I-O, and I represent 341 Tampa Street.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is Matthew Marst. He's the owner, applicant, and I believe he is present on the call.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Thank you.
Hello, Julie Weeks here. This is my last attempt for reaching out, though I'm still in search.
Yes, good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to read another refusal or stipulate to his accuracy?
Yes, 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?
Thank you, sir. Please proceed and trace me.
Okay, thank you.
I'm just going to share my screen.
Share with me one second.
Okay, so this is 3401 Tampa Street.
It was a refusal.
My client is seeking to do a two-family unit in an existing structure.
My client recently purchased the property.
He believes it was being used as a two-family structure prior to his purchase.
So he's not looking to make any changes to the structure.
This is the deed by which he recently, when he recently purchased the property, 2022.
We did meet with the community.
These are the plans.
There would be two two-bedroom units, one on the first floor, one on the second floor, basement used for utilities.
It's a little zoning map. This is a picture of the property. It is, like I stated, a corner property. That is the Tampa Street view, where they walk up.
These are some photos of the surrounding area on the street and some photos of similarly situated properties just along the street.
This is a photo of the notice of the city.
This is a photo of the notice of today's hearing.
We did send notices to the RCO list.
These are some pictures of the interior, one bathroom, two bedrooms, nice size living space.
Now, we did meet with the community, and this is a photo of what the RCO and the community asked us to do.
Of course, there would be some trash stored under that stairway leading up to the second floor.
they suggested that we close that off which i believe is a good idea some trash doesn't
spread throughout the neighborhood my client did do that he took a photo of the enclosement that he
put up right raymond that's kind of tough to see it's hard to see that that it's a black um
gate basically that he put in i can resend the picture um all right i'm not sure if i haven't
I don't know if I had another one there, but it's just basically a black mesh paint that he put up on.
Sorry for the shadow. And then this is the tax clearance.
So that was basically what my client seeking is basically seeking to legalize a two family unit in an area that does have some.
And he's looking to supply some affordable housing while maintained in the area.
Again, my understanding, I didn't receive the letter from the RCO.
my understanding is that there was no opposition provided that my client put this enclosing on
how long has this been a duplex that we know
well we believe that it was operating for years before that when my client purchased it he thought
he was okay he purchased it with the intent of it being a duplex and uh when did he when did
he when did he purchase it 2022 and he originally filed his uh application from a variant as a pro
se uh litigant bring your client on please adopt your test sir mr marston can you please uh
raise your hand virtually raise your hand
matthew marston is allowed to speak sir could you please state your name and spell for the
court stenographer. Matthew Marston, M-A-T-T-H-E-W, Marston, M-A-R-S-T-O-N. You swear for him to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you.
Mr. Marston, you heard my presentation to the board today, correct? Yes. And was it truthful
and accurate according to your information, knowledge, and belief? Yes. Thank you. I have
Nothing. Questions from the board.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
There are no hands.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon.
David Fechta with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the R.
s a 5 residential single family zoning at this location this property has a documented history
as a ground floor luncheonette with a residential unit above the ground floor commercial unit appears
to have been converted into a residential unit without the benefits of permits prior to the
appellant buying the property this conversion brings the property closer into conformance
with the current residential zoning the city planning commission recommends the board grant
their proposed use variants for a second dwelling unit. MI 2023-006-283-3401 Tampa Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes. Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tynetta Graham, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Shana Shaheed, my vote is yes. Thank you, counsel. Thank you so much. Have a good afternoon.
is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been called
there are no hands chair thank you everyone see everybody too all right thank you
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Bill Bergman. I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearing. With me is our Vice Chair, Ismael Shahid.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Member, James Snell.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Shel L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Tenetta Graham.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our board member, Michael Johns.
I'm present, Mr. Chairman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is our attorney, Hillary Emerson, and the Deputy Director of Planning and Zoning, Kathleen Grady.
Also present is our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Here's our virtual format.
The proceedings are being recorded.
With your participation, you agree to be recorded.
The video will be available by contacting Kathleen.Grady at phila.gov.
For our court stenographers, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
To an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email address and the address of the property.
Question.
Finally, the question answer box on screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our executive director, Kathleen Grady.
Let's look at our schedule for this afternoon.
Number 9, MI 2024-003-018-510 Midvale Avenue. That case has been continued.
Number 11, MI 2024-003-086-7330 Ridge Avenue. That case has continued.
Number 13, MI 2024-003-326-5145-47 Delancey. That case is continued. And number 15, MI 2024-003-271-1201-203 Adams Avenue. That case is continued.
We're going to start, go to our regular list.
Number one, MI 2023-006-519-20 South Ruby Street.
David Horfanides is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from the West Philadelphia Economic Development Council
and also a letter of support from Generational of Philadelphia at Cobbs Creek RCO.
mr orphanetes good afternoon and david orphanetes has been promoted to panelists
good afternoon mr chairman counsel could you please state your name and spell for the court
sonographer certainly my name is david orphanetes the last name is spelled o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do could you identify your client and relationship to this property
Certainly. My client is a Cal, A-K-A-L, Investments, LLC, the owner of the subject property.
Our vice chair has a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reason of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Sir, I do, so long as you are referencing the amended notice of refusal dated 8-6-2024.
I have a copy of it that I forwarded to the board's attorney and the zoning board staff and planning commission earlier today.
I just received it yesterday from the zoning plan examiner, but that is correct.
It was vetted thoroughly by me and the L&I examiner.
Thank you.
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 forwarded everything except for the amended notice of refusal that I just referenced. And then the two letters, we have a letter that the chairman referenced, which I secured, received on the 5th. And I provided that today, along with another letter from another RCO generational of Philadelphia Cops Creek, their letter of support.
I also forwarded earlier today along with the correct and amended notice of refusal.
Everything else was forwarded five days, at least five days in advance.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed and share your screen.
Certainly.
I'm going to share my screen.
Can you all see?
Okay, great.
So the subject property is 20 South Ruby Street.
20 South Ruby Street, as you can see here on the aerial images, is located just south of Market Street on the west side of Ruby Street between Ludlow and Market.
This property is presently a vacant lot.
It was, as you can see here, street view images.
Let me just get the view corrected.
there we go um dating back to 2012 as far as street view goes back you can see we had a
vacant lot next to us our property was boarded up uh as far back as um
Our property was boarded up as far back as 2012, 2009.
You can see here, 2014, 2018, 2019.
At the present time, it is a vacant lot.
You can see right here.
Here's a photo of a property that's right now where the arrow is pointing.
My client maintains it, keeps the lawn cut, keeps the grass cut and the weeds down.
Again, the property abutting us to the north remains to be vacant.
The properties on this block, we have vacant lots down at the end here.
It's a Market Street address.
There's the vacant lot here, another vacant lot, the one I mentioned that's next to us.
So four of the 10 properties that are on our side of the block are vacant.
On the opposite side, we have three lots that are vacant right here.
So we do have a situation where we have a longstanding blighted property, both as a building and then as a vacant lot, and then other vacant and blighted properties on the block.
When my clients purchased the property in 2021, and I'll show you here at tab nine, you can see here, purchased it November 5th of 2021.
At that time, it was zoning classified RM1 multifamily.
However, in June and August of 22, bill number 220451, which I've included here at tab 7 of my exhibit book, remapped a subject property.
Here it shows existing as RM1 and remapped it as RSA5.
So he bought it.
My clients purchased it to develop it as a multifamily.
It was owned RM1.
after they purchased it, within about a year of them purchasing it, it was remapped to single
family. The application that we have before you today is to convert the property to a,
to a, let me just go up here to the notice of refusal.
You can see right here, the one from yesterday is to construct a three-story structure for use as a
three-family dwelling. The original notice of refusal, as you can see here, we ended up amending
the application because during the process of meeting with the community, they asked for certain
changes. We originally only had, we had a dimensionally compliant building and only had
a use refusal for the three-family dwelling. This is a 1,020 square foot lot. It's just 60 square
feet under what would be allowed to have three units in RM1. But again, it was remapped as RSA5,
so we had the use. What we ended up doing as a modification to the design when we went to the
community group, and I will show you what we started with. What we started with was a building
that looked like this. It was a flat front, went straight up, three stories, roof deck, again,
dimensionally compliant. The only refusal we had was the use. Meeting with the community,
we revised the design, and what we have now is this design. We have a front porch cellar that
extends out to the same degree that the properties, that the existing buildings to the south and to
the north of us have. Porch above that, a bay leading above that. We have put in the by right
third floor. The proposal doesn't call for an increase in the height of what we originally
proposed. We did drop the parapet. We had a permitted parapet height that extended all the
way around the roof originally. We dropped that at the front so that it has a lower profile at the
front. And then we have the roof deck. As a result of the changes that we made, it kind of pushed
most of the building back. And again, where we had no dimensional refusals with the original
application. With the amended application, we had two additional dimensional refusals.
One is that it pushed by having that front porch, it pushed the building back and pushed
the balcony that we have off the rear of the second floor that you can see here where my
pointer is. And then you can see down here where I'm circling. It pushed that into the required
rear yard depth. The main building itself does not encroach into the rear yard. We actually have
10 feet where the requirement is nine but because we shifted the building back three feet by adding
the um the porch in the front to match or actually six feet to match the buildings like i said on our
side of the block with the setback in the porch of the front of the face of the building it pushed
the balcony back and then also because you have what you can see here is that
And then also because you have what you can see here is that a portion of the seller is actually above grade.
By pushing this back, we had a compliant occupied and open area, but counting this as occupied area, which is a question whether we should or shouldn't, but we want it to be safe.
And then pushing the building back, it reduced our open area to the point where we had an occupied and open area refusal.
Again, the additional refusals, the dimensional refusals that came about with the revised amended design that was submitted to the L&I resulted in the amended notice of refusal based upon an authorization letter I submitted for and received from the zoning board's executive director.
Other than we only have the dimensional refusals because of the changes that we made based upon the input from the community.
As mentioned earlier, we do have the letter of support from the coordinating RCO, the West Philadelphia Economic Development Council.
Again, you can see in their provisos changes that we made based upon the things that we discussed at the meeting, aligning the front facades, including a front porch.
Not only are we putting a front bay on the front, but it's actually an angled bay, a three-sided bay, just like the other bays that we have there.
We reduced the height of the front parapet, as I mentioned, security cameras.
I mean, that's not something that the zoning board can address in any decision, but we've agreed to do that.
And then we will provide an enclosed area for trash.
We were provided a letter.
I just received this this week, but apparently it was drafted back in April after our meeting in March with the community.
But similar provisos, a letter of approval, the location for the trash storage, lighting and security.
They talked about a sharing of property-managed contact information with the near neighbors, which we address, and reducing the height.
Again, we reduced the parapet at the front of the building.
We did that community group meeting that we had was led by the Coordinating RCO, the West Philadelphia Economic Development Council, which was designated by the Planning Commission as a Coordinating RCO.
You can see here an email dated December 13, 2023, which is at my tab 21.
We did send out the 14303 notice to the list of addresses that we received from the Planning Commission with their link, which you can see here, including the RCOs, Planning Commission, Zoning Board, and the council person.
And then we did two mailings.
The first mailing was before we had the meeting scheduled with the coordinating RCO within the 20 days of providing the notice from the Planning Commission.
and then we did a second mailing once we knew and had the community group meeting scheduled and you
can see that notice right here and again we have the certificates of mailing for both of those
you can see here for the first one without the meeting date and here's the second one with
we did post the property in compliance here's a copy of the notice that we printed
and then the photographs of the posting of the property
in compliance with the requirements of the zoning code.
I'd be happy to go through the elevations, the zoning plans.
Here's an elevation that shows the different materials
that we presented to the community group.
The revised site plan, again, I'd be happy to go through that
if the board has any questions.
And then here's the revised, the current floor plans.
Again, three units by level and then two flats.
Then the rendering again of what we're presently proposing.
I do have my client on this morning or this afternoon who can adopt my statements.
I believe the architect may be on as well, and he should be able to adopt my statements as well.
So if I can have them promoted to panelists, one is Justin Chabra, C-H-H-A-B-R-A.
And the other one is Peter Elsbeck.
Do we see the hands?
Yes, I just let Justin Chabra.
I didn't promote him.
I just allowed him to speak.
All right.
Justin, could you please state your name and spell for the courts that I refer?
Yeah, sure.
My name is Justin Chabra, and the last name is spelled C as in Charlie, two H's, A, B as in Bravo, R, A.
and i'm the sole owner of a column of estimates you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole
truth and nothing but the truth yes please proceed counsel um justin did you hear the
statements that i made to the board today yes and are they um true and correct to the best of your
Yes. And are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge? Yes. And would you adopt them as your own? As your own? Yes. And then I'm not sure if Peter.
knowledge.
Is the architect on? Yes. I'm going to allow Peter Elsbeck to speak. Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court sonographer?
hi my name is peter elsbach p-e-t-e-r last name e-l-s-b-e-c-k right do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir please proceed counsel
peter good afternoon now 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, sir.
And would you adopt them as your own?
Yep, absolutely.
And just real quickly, you prepared all the architectural materials for this project, the zoning plans, the floor plans, the elevations, the renderings, correct?
Yes, I did.
You were at the community group meeting along with Justin, correct, and me?
Yes, yes, sir.
Thank you.
I have no further questions of either of these individuals.
Again, members of the board, I feel that given the remapping of the property from RM1 to RSA5, after my client purchased the property, the long-standing blighted condition of the property, the blighted condition of the remainder of the block, and the concessions and the revisions that my client and the architect have made based upon the input of the community,
that we meet the criteria for the granting of the requested and required variances in this matter
set forth in the revised amended notice of refusal dated 8-6-2023. And I welcome any
questions that the board or any members of the- Questions from the board?
No, no questions. Just a comment. I just want to say that I appreciate the way that the development
17 worked with the community to come up with a plan, at least the facade and a scale that works with the rest of the walk.
Thank you. Thank you. Other questions from the board.
Did he say that there were other multifamilies on the block?
uh i do not i do not i could not see any evidence of multi-families on this particular block
um there are right around the corner quite a number of more on market street though
the questions from the board
uh how many are vacant how many properties on this block are vacant at this time do you know
So there are 10 lots on each side between Ludlow and Market.
The two up at the corner are Market Street addresses.
But there are four vacant lots, including ours, four of 10 on our side, and then three of 10 on the opposite side.
So on the west side, four of 10.
On the east side, three of 10.
And long-standing.
And long-time vacant.
oh yeah yeah as far as i mean like i said it's been at least again going back to the um
the street view images at least back to 2009 the lot next to us has been vacant and this was ours
was a flighted building i can't go i couldn't get back any further to see how much longer
before that our building was a vacant boarded up building thank you questions or comments from our
attorney i i just want to note that we did receive a copy of the the corrected amended
refusal which was issued yesterday thank you any questions or comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands any commission
good afternoon good afternoon board this is keith davis with the philadelphia city
Planning Commission. It's K-E-I-T-H-D-A-V-I-S. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth? The
whole truth is nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. Please proceed. Thank you. The comprehensive plan
recommended the RSA 5 residential single-family zoning at this location. Further up the block
facing Market Street, the corner lots are zoned to allow the multifamily use, but aside from those
two lots. There's no evidence of multifamily use on this block, let alone on the properties adjacent
to 20 South Ruby Street. There's no unique physical condition or circumstance to this property that
would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code. City Planning Commission
recommends that the board deny the proposed use variance for the three dwelling units.
Thank you. MI 2023-006-519-20 South Ruby Street. I vote yes with proviso per amended refusal
Per amended refusal, dated 8-6-24.
dated 8-6-24.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tsunetta Graham, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tywin, I'm going to recuse myself because I signed on in the middle of this and didn't hear the full presentation.
but also wanted to let you know I am in attendance, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Thank you, Ty.
Okay, so thank you, counsel.
Number two.
Thank you.
MI 2024-000-314-9745R, East Roosevelt Boulevard.
David Tashoti is the counsel.
Letter of support from Northeast Community Civic Association Alliance
and the letter of non-opposition from Councilmember O'Neill.
David Tashutti has been promoted.
Good afternoon, Council.
Good afternoon, Council.
Good afternoon. How are you?
I'm good. Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. It's David Schutte, silent T, and it's spelled T-S-H-U-D-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
My client is Walmart Real Estate Business Trust and is the fee owner of the subject property.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Counselor, do you agree to waive the read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
You know, then all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case in advance of this hearing.
I did, with the exception of a letter from Councilman O'Neill was received on Monday, which was provided as an updated exhibit package to the board on Monday.
And then yesterday, we received a request from the board council to provide photos of the interior of the building, which we did and provided another updated exhibit package to the board yesterday evening.
Thank you, counsel. I believe we've received everything. Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Hey, again, my name is David Schutte of the Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP. In the virtual audience right now is Kelly Halstead, and she is with the Walmart Legal Department.
My firm represents the Walmart Real Estate Business Trust and it's the fee simple owner of the property at 9745R East Roosevelt Boulevard.
The property is currently improved with approximately 150,000 square foot Walmart store.
Counsel, counsel, counsel.
Why don't you share your documents so we can look at them?
I'm trying to.
Thank you.
There you go.
Thank you.
My apologies. I thought I clicked on the right buttons there.
Okay. So, as I said, the property is improved with an existing Walmart store. The property is located in the CA1 zoning district, and it's part of a larger shopping center, which is fronted on the west front, Roosevelt Boulevard.
and the east fronts up Bluegrass Road, located in the northeast portion of the city.
The CA1 zoning district does not permit for personal vehicle repair and maintenance uses.
However, since the opening of this store in 2004, a portion of the building has been used as a Walmart auto care center.
I'm not sure how that was permitted in that time, but currently it is not permitted in the zoning district.
Recently, Walmart received notice that it does not have an auto repair license from the city.
And when it applied for the license, it was directed to obtain a zoning use permit for this use.
And that use was then that request was then I refused.
Here's the refusal from December 21st, 2023.
That refusal was then appealed to this board.
uh, to this board. And then, and then, uh, we've continued this case, uh, two or three times,
And then we've continued this case.
I think one or two times actually, in order to meet with the, uh, meet with the community group
to discuss the matter and to also, uh, and to also, uh, make sure that we had all of our
administrative ducks in a row as well. Uh, and, uh, as, as, uh, was mentioned, uh, we did receive
We did meet with the community group, the Northeast Community Civic Alliance, on July 3, 2024, and at that meeting, we received very positive feedback, and here's a letter of support from that group.
The meeting with the board was properly advertised and noticed, and those notices are in Section Exhibit 10 of the exhibit booklet that we provided.
We also received a support letter or a non-opposition letter from Councilman O'Neill, which is also in the exhibit booklet, as Exhibit 14.
The, as I mentioned, this use has been on the property for approximately 20 years, and as to any kind of variance being requested here, the building was built for this purpose, as you can see in the originally approved site plan.
I'll pull that up real quickly here.
I'll try to zoom in a little bit here.
this use. You can see the driveway right back here into the auto care center. This is still
existing today as shown on the plan. So it was built for this use. It's been there for 20 years
and as a result, the building really can't be adapted for another use other than this use.
And I'll show you the, then the, and then as you can see, this is the entrance that was shown on the, on the site plan.
And then this is the interior photos that were requested by the board council yesterday of the, of where the use is taking place.
Are there any questions? Why don't you bring your client on? Sure. Adopt your testimony. Okay. Can Kelly Halstead be brought on, please?
Kelly Halstead is allowed to speak. Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, sir. My name is Kelly Halstead, K-E-L-L-Y-H-A-L-S-T-E-A-D.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Kelly, what is your position with Walmart?
Lead counsel.
And did you hear the presentation that I provided and review the exhibit booklet that was provided to the board?
I did.
And do you adopt the factual statements that I made on behalf of Walmart Real Estate Business Trust?
I'll go for their questions
Questions from the board
Questions or comments from our attorney
Hillary Emerson
Not at this time Mr. Chair
Questions or comments from the virtual audience
Yes Madeline
Shacamba will be allowed to speak
Hi could you please state your name
and spell for the court stenographer
Can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
I'm not speaking on this
particular thing. I wanted to speak
on another.
We'll get to you.
When you hear your case called,
you can get on that, okay?
Thank you.
Other people in the virtual audience?
There are no hands.
Planning Commission.
Hello, Keith Davis, City Planning
commission um the comprehensive plan recommended that the site remain uh ca2 zoned uh nevertheless
it was rezoned to ca1 in 2019 uh neither the existing nor the proposed zoning support the
proposed personal auto care use however given the site's long-standing use as a shopping center
and the orientation of the proposed use on the north side of the building facing abutting
industrial lots no negative impacts are anticipated as proposed the planning commission recommends
uh the planning commission recommends that the board grant the requested variance thank you
that the board grant the requested variance.
Thank you.
mi 2024 000 314 9745 r east roosevelt boulevard i vote yes
MI 2024.
chel gaston my vote is yes mike johns my vote is yes
Suneeta Graham, my vote is yes
Taya Nguyen, my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shahi, my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel
Thank you
Number three, MI 2024
000767
1425 Marlboro Street
Brandon Savage is the attorney
also Verne Anastasio
represents Protestants
could both come on
Brandon has been promoted
Brandon
could you
state your name and spell for the court stenographer
good afternoon
members of the board
could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer
please
Sure. I'm Brandon Saverin. That's spelled B-R-A-N-D-O-N.
And then S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R-A-N as in Nancy, representing the applicants.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, it doesn't even put the truth.
Yes, I do.
And Mr. Anastasio.
Mr. Anastasio has also been promoted.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon.
Counsel, you've already been sworn.
Could you just state your name for the record?
Vern Anastasio on behalf of Mr. Anthony Lolio, among others, neighbors of the subject property.
Thank you.
And Mr. Saverin, could you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
My clients are purchasers under contract for the property, their husband and wife, named Stephanie Widener and Armin Gabriel-Ans.
Okay. Mr. Saverin, our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wait to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, 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?
Thank you, counsel.
Were we swearing the other counsel in or no?
I did. I swore him in already. You're good. You're good with him.
Mr. Sabrin, just for a point of information, we have a letter of no position from Fishtown Neighbors, 25 in support, 25 opposed.
That's correct.
Please start your case.
Okay. Thank you. And thanks, Mr. Vice-Chair. Just give me one moment to share my screen.
Let's see.
There we go. Okay. Okay. Hopefully you can see this rendering of the proposed project. Let me know if not.
um so good afternoon again members of the board as stated i represent stephanie widener and her
husband armin who are purchasers under contract for the subject property this is despite the
beautiful image on your screen currently a paved parking lot and per our understanding from the
seller it has been a paved parking lot for 50 years so it's a vacant lot they would like to
build a home for themselves on this vacant lot. For over a decade, they have lived on the adjacent
1300 block of Marlborough Street. So they are locals in the deepest sense of the word. This
property is on the 1400 block. The goal of this project is to stay in their neighborhood while
Stephanie, who has a spinal disability, can gain the ability to park at home. Their current home
has no parking. So on that note, after I complete my presentation, Stephanie will adopt my testimony
and will also make a short statement about her disability. And I would also like to reserve time
to rebut any testimony that's offered in opposition. And because of all that, in the interest of time,
I will not include our architect, Gabriel Deck, in our presentation, but he is on the line and
available to address any design related questions that the members of the board
may have. So what you're currently seeing on your screen is a rendering of
So what you're currently seeing on your screen is a rendering of the proposed project.
the proposed project.
This is a part of the 15 exhibits that I submitted to the board in advance of the hearing, all of which I respectfully request to be moved into the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And I will now walk you through some, but not all of those exhibits.
So let me start doing that.
Exhibit two is our refusal.
try and zoom in a little bit more and we go um so what you can infer from this refusal is that
we are proposing to build a single family home on a vacant lot um as you saw in that rendering the
the scale and mass of the home really is designed to perfectly line up with other homes on the block
um the the dimensions of the structure and all of its qualities fully conform to the zoning code
except for one item, which is the refusal given here. That item is that accessory parking,
while a permitted use in the RSA 5 district, has to be accessed through a specific manner
that we are not offering. So in the RSA 5 district, one must access accessory parking
from a rear street, shared driveway, or alley, as many of you board members probably know.
What I wanted to perhaps introduce that is new here is that at least two commonwealth court cases have suggested that even when L&I calls a refusal a use refusal, the more stringent hardship standard that is typically applied to use refusals should not apply when the refusal does not deal with a blanket prohibition on a certain land use.
And that's the situation here. L&I has called this a use refusal, and I'm not disputing their terminology, but it's really a manner of access issue. And accordingly, we believe that it is what these cases that I've mentioned have called a hybrid refusal rather than a use refusal, which is really a court-made hardship standard that is easier than the typical use refusal hardship standard.
The hybrid standard allows economic issues to be taken into account.
And this is important because one of the bases of our hardship that I'd like to assert, in addition to those stated in our application, is that if we are denied relief to build a home with parking here, it is virtually impossible at this time to purchase an existing home in Fishtown that includes code compliant parking.
short of going to the owners of those few properties, even if they're not for sale and
offering the owner an amount, you know, over market value to pry the property out of their
hands. So that's a hardship. I'll continue to our next exhibit. This is exhibit eight. It's
the zoning map of the property. So you can see here we are just east of the intersection of
Marlboro Street and Frankfort Avenue. The property is zoned RSA 5. As you can see here, and I really
do apologize, this came out quite a bit blurrier than I had hoped, but if you look at our block
and then some of the adjacent RSA 5 blocks, very few of the properties in Fishtown touch a rear
street, a side street, or an alley, which is, again, the required manner of accessing your
parking. It's a tiny minority. So, you know, instead in Fishtown, what you typically have
is two properties that touch each other on the rear and each of them only touch a front street.
So in other neighborhoods that you're probably familiar with, like much of Northeast Philadelphia
or Winfield or Overbrook Park in West Philadelphia, there are shared private alleys
that weave between the rears of homes. In some parts of South Philadelphia, there are rear
streets behind homes. I was here on one such case last week or two weeks ago. But here in
Fishtown, for a majority of the properties, it's impossible to have on-site parking while conforming
to the zoning code. This is despite the fact that parking, accessory parking, is not a prohibited
use. So this is also a factor behind our assertion of hardship and, you know, leads us to sort of
this pickle where we have to create a home with parking from scratch if one is not available.
And as I mentioned, my application for appeal, which I won't go through live during the hearing,
includes other arguments, you know, towards our assertion of hardship.
And real quickly, and I did not include these in my exhibits and we'll submit them afterwards in
accordance with the board's regulations. This is a photo of the atlas map of a neighborhood
in Overbrook Park showing those kind of alleys that I mentioned.
thanks for your patience there so this is exhibit six which is our zoning site plan
Thanks for your patience there. So this is exhibit.
zoom out a little bit this is what our architects submitted to L&I
um what you'll see here is that um we have this sort of dog leg that is ours in the back of this
property um and between that and a very nice sort of entry garden which I'll show you a rendering of
in a moment, most of the, well, not most, about half, I think if you go to the table, it's 49%
of the property is proposed to be left as open space. So this is not an overbuild of the property.
I also wanted to highlight that the existing curb cut, which I'll show you moments of in a second,
serving the vacant lot, is 21 feet long. One moment, I'm sorry. Trying just to, there it is.
Right here, you can see that the architect notes that the property width is 21 feet, and you'll see that the curb cut occupies the entire property width, whereas we are going to narrow the existing curb cut to 10 feet.
So over half of the existing curb cut is going to be eliminated and effectively given back as parallel parking space to the community.
So the community is going to regain a parking space through this project.
We also had to submit an elevation to L&I, and this I'm just going to briefly touch upon to show you that within the garage, the parking space is fully code compliant and comfortably fits a full-sized passenger car.
I'll also show you that the Streets Department has reviewed these plans as part of its typical
zoning stage review and has approved these these plans which means that they do not run
afoul of any Streets Department regulations. Exhibit 7 is a architectural presentation that
was shown to the RCO. So here's the first photo I'll show you taken by the architect of the
existing property and curb cut. This presentation is 11 pages long, so I'm not going to show all
that to you during this hearing, but the entire thing is in your possession as Exhibit 7.
A particular note here is that these photographs show this yellow translucent square, which
approximates the massing of our new home in the context of its neighbors, which again is to really
say it fits. It's approximately the same height, et cetera. Also, as part of this exhibit six
presentation package are floor plans, single family homes. So I think the plans are great
and include this recreational space in the rear yard. I'll sort of leave it to the architect to
walk through them if you want him to do that. I think, Brandon, we want to concentrate on the
parking issue. Yeah, understood. That's the only issue you have. So let's concentrate on the park.
Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. That's helpful. So I'll skip ahead a couple more pages in this
presentation set. Actually, I'll tell you what, I will skip ahead to the next exhibit,
which is Exhibit 9. So these are aerial photographs from Atlas, and I'll just flip
through a few of these very quickly. The point of providing these is sort of twofold. One,
today, so I will also submit this after the hearing, I received a letter from the seller
and the seller's agent that states that the lot has been used for parking, first by her grandmother
for over 50 years and that she still uses it for parking, the current owner, the granddaughter.
But I didn't want to leave it to this letter as the only proof that the property has been
used for parking for that long.
So I went as far back as I could get a clear image in Atlas.
This one's from 2004.
You'll see the lot paved with a car on it.
And I won't even zoom in that far at the others, but 2008 paved with a car on it.
2015 paved with a car on it. 2020 paved with a car on it. I think you get the idea there.
Exhibit 10 is street level images. Again, sort of went as far back as I could get clear images.
I used a mix of Atlas and Google Maps. So this one's from Google Maps. It's from 2007.
What you're going to see here is that clearly a section of the sidewalk here is a curb cut.
and it looks like it's been a curb cut for a while because I don't know if you've ever walked
on a sidewalk that's starting to like erode in in sort of small sections but you can see the
stone sort of coming up through it from erosion and there was a patch that's been put on here
from erosion. And there was a patch that's been put on here to try and repair a little of that
to try and repair.
and tie it into the rest of the sidewalk. So I would say that's evidence that even by 2007,
this has been used for parking for quite some time. Our understanding is that around 2013,
the city did major utility work on this block, repaved the street, and reconstructed that
sidewalk. What you'll see here is as part of that, the city reconstructed the curb cut.
The seller, the current owner, did not perform this work. It was the city of Philadelphia.
You can tell that that's true by the way the curb cut matches the concrete of the surrounding
properties that the city also installed. So, you know, that's to say we don't have a permit for
prior parking on file for this lot, probably due to age, but the city's reconstruction of this curb
cut and, as the seller has stated, its continued ticketing of cars that block the curb cut, I would
say are evidence of its legality, at least in some manners of regulation. I'll just keep going
through a few more photos. This is the most recent photo from Atlas. It's how the curb cut looks
today. Not my clients, of course, but the current owner seems to put yellow paint on the bottom of
it, occasionally uses cones to mark it, installed a taller fence gate with a towing warning there.
This is from the other side of the block. So our property would be, if you can see my hand,
towards the end of the right-hand side. We're not on the corner. We're a couple properties
in from the corner on the right. But one benefit to the location is that cars, by the time they
reach our property coming from the east, are slowing down for this stop sign, which promotes
safety. The seller also indicates in their letter that they are unaware at any time over those 50
years of an accident involving a car entering or exiting the lot. And then in the foreground here
is an apartment building down a few properties and across the street with a curb cut.
This is my client's current block on the 1300 block of Marlboro, simply providing this to show
that while there's not a ton of properties in Fishtown with accessory parking, certainly not
a ton of properties that have that parking fully documented due to age, having parking is not
unheard of. Here are several properties on the same block that have it. You get the idea there,
I think, too. So I will just go to the zoning posters. We hung posters twice here. This is
exhibit 11 because Mr. Anastasio requested a continuance for the original hearing. I'm actually
showing you just to highlight that the selling agent, the McCann agency has this sign. It remains
there to this day with this hang tag underneath that advertises the lot as parking. So you can
understand why my clients thought that they would not need to obtain a variance to build a home here
with parking, even though that's not the case because it's a change of use. And you can
understand the possibility that if our home is not built, that the property will continue to be used
purely as a parking lot. This is our application for appeal at Exhibit 5. Certainly, we'll not
walk you through most of it, but this is the memo that is attached to our application that explains
why we feel that we qualify for a variance for this issue under the standards of the zoning code.
I'll just sort of highlight a couple pieces.
Since I already touched on the hardship qualification, I'll move on to some of the other qualifications,
which is that minimum necessary relief is one of those other qualifications, as is minimizing harm to the general public.
So what we're doing here, as you saw, is we're taking a property that is primarily used for parking and can fit multiple cars
and transforming the use such that only one car will fit on the property, and it's an accessory
use. It's not the main use. So I assert that that's a reduction of the degree of the existing
zoning nonconformity, which benefits the public. We're also reducing the length of that curb cut
by half, as I showed you. So I feel that these elements of the project are to the public's
benefit and are the minimum necessary relief when compared with the alternatives for my clients,
which would be constructing a home with parking on a property that currently has no curb cut
or reducing or sorry, or building the project without reducing the existing curb cut.
uh or sorry or building the project without reducing the existing curb cut
and i'm lastly just going to touch on the uh rco's um role in this and then i think i should
be finished so um exhibit uh 14 is um actually they did a really nice job this is in addition
to a letter they provided what's on your screen now which is a very detailed breakdown of the
public vote at the RCO meeting. Mr. Chairman, as you mentioned, the RCO took no position
as they described it on this matter. And what I want to highlight here is that under this header
that says info, you'll see that of folks that were verified to live within one block of the property,
15 of the 19 of them voted to support this project. Only four voted in opposition. So all
of the votes of opposition other than those four are coming from folks that live at a greater
distance from the property. I'll also just highlight at Exhibit 15 that following the
meeting, six residents of the RCO's catchment area emailed the RCO and said that they supported
the application but missed the meeting. Again, well done on the RCO's part. They suggested that
these folks email me so that I had a record of this and could include it as an exhibit.
But these six individuals were not counted as part of that vote. And then lastly on the vote,
you know, I just wanted to point out and, you know, in my rebuttal, we'll sort of get into
who the opponents of this project exactly are. But there were two people, and I find this to
be suspicious at this meeting who attempted to vote and were disqualified from doing so.
There are no such persons on our side of the ledger. So, you know, everybody that
voted for our property was an actual resident. So that's it. I know I was very brief on the
design. As I mentioned, I have the architect, but my client is here to adopt my test.
Why don't you bring your client on?
Thank you. Stephanie, could you raise your virtual hand?
Stephanie Weidner has been allowed to speak.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Hi, I'm Stephanie Weidner.
It's S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E-W-E-I-D-N-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Steph, did you, well, first of all, are you and your husband purchasers under contract
for this property right now?
Did you hear my testimony in your case this afternoon?
Was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
Yes, it is.
Would you therefore adopt it as if it had been your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Thanks very much.
And if you want to say anything to sort of add on to my testimony, this would be your time.
Hi, I'm Stephanie, the applicant for this variance.
Brandon highlighted most of the important things, all the important things.
My husband and I pursued purchasing this lot for very specific reasons, but most significantly for its use as single car parking.
We've lived in our current home a block away from this property for the last 10 years,
and we strongly desire to stay living in the immediate neighborhood that we love.
I live with chronic pain from degenerative disc disease and the parking incorporated into this
new home would dramatically improve my accessibility and quality of life. I can expand more on my
health condition if that's helpful to understand. At the time we initially went under contract for
this property, I had some cursory knowledge of Philadelphia zoning regulations. I discovered
that the curb cut did not have current permits with the city, so I began this process to correct
that. For the reasons Brandon has outlined about the long history of the curb cut and other zoning
compliances of our designs, we believe this is a straightforward and rational variance to ask for.
At our FNA vote, we received great support within a one-block radius. Our neighbors have been
vocally and enthusiastic supportive of this project. Thank you for your consideration.
Thank you very much. Mr. Anastasio, do you want to present your case?
Yes, thanks. I'm going to share my binder. Okay. And I'll be brief. This is the property in question,
as you can see, and this is a relatively new photo. As you can see, there's a car parked in
front of here, and there's a reason for that. This property may have been improperly marketed
this property may have been improperly marketed for parking. It may have been in the past used
for parking.
improperly for parking, but at no time has this property ever been a legal parking lot.
And even at the attorney's, Brandon's presentation, he admitted that about 10 years ago,
the curb cut actually disappeared and the city put a curb back in. So any use of front load
parking at this lot has been on, you know, without the benefit of any permits and in violation of the
permitted use. Now, this property is not on a corner. It's smack dab in the middle between
other row homes. And the issue is pretty simple and straightforward. Should there be front-loading
parking here? My clients who represent just about every occupant and or homeowner that touched this
property, here's the bird's eye view. They oppose. And here's a list of everybody who signed the
petition in opposition to the front-loading parking. That's really it. It's not a matter
of whether or not it should be developed. It's not a matter of density. It's just a matter of
the front-loading parking. All these folks who own these properties, occupy these spaces
that are hugging this property, simply don't think a front-loading garage smack dab in the middle of
to townhomes on a block with no other front-loading garages on any of the townhomes
should be something that is accepted because, frankly, there's no unique physical condition
that would prevent the purchaser from building in compliance with the code.
And that is a beautiful single-family home. If there is a medical condition that can be
documented, then the subsequent purchaser is entitled to apply for and receive appropriate
parking for ADA accessibility, handicapped parking, which, by the way, my clients would
not oppose. They simply don't think a front-loading garage on this row of townhomes
makes sense, is safe, and is consistent with the streetscape of the block.
So absent any real hardship that this property presents, we do think that the front-loading
garage part of this, which is all use based on L&I's review, should be a use variance
that is denied.
I have nothing further.
Mr. Anastasia, are you going to call a witness or no?
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you.
Questions from the board?
I have a question.
Go ahead.
Any other questions?
Did I see a garage, like a door, a garage, or was this more just a parking sort of?
I don't know what you call it, but like an alfove, if you will, or a, I didn't see a door.
So it presents a garage.
So can we go back to the plans here?
Is there a door?
There is.
There's a, there's a, both a pedestrian door and a garage door.
I just would need, thanks Vern.
He just, he knew what I was asking there.
um so could could i have the board's permission to share my screen to answer board member gaston's
question and then to offer a rebuttal okay thank you let me just pull that up uh let's see
it was a garage yeah there's a garage and a door to get in yeah
okay i'm sorry wait did i uh this rendering that you yeah yep yep i'm gonna go back to that
one, one second. Let's see. Okay. Okay. So here's a decent route. Can everybody see this?
Oh, okay. Okay. So there's two, there's an interesting design. There's this sort of garden
on the side with a walkway here, and this is a low pedestrian gate. You would enter here and
then make a right into what is effectively the front door of the property. This is going to
actually provide more light and air both to our client and to the who I
understand to be one of the clients the one named Mr. Lolio I believe he owns
this property here too so this design is to his benefit as well and then yes
And then, yes, there is a garage door. The front of the building, board member Gaston, is flushed with the fronts of the other building on the block.
there is a garage door the front of the building board member
And how is the access from this garage going to be beneficial to the health condition of the?
Sure. So I'll pull up the floor plan. I think if I could, I think my client would be in the best position to answer that. Stephanie, could you help us out?
hi there um uh would you please repeat the question the question is how is the property
going to be accessed from this garage here such that it helps with whatever the physical condition
is that you are dealing with? The physical condition is my chronic pain is worsened by
sitting in my car. So by getting home and exiting the car quickly, that dramatically would change
my daily life. Ms. Gaston, so you can see that there's a door, as is common in homes.
I apologize if I didn't understand the question. Yes.
Yeah, no, Steph, I think that was relevant.
I just wanted to add there's a door here that would allow Stephanie to walk directly from the driver's side of the car into the home.
I mean, that's the gist of it.
But it's just like steps and what have you to get to the other floors and that kind of thing.
we're not yeah anything in terms of uh well okay it doesn't have anything to do with the parking
but are we talking about some stuff has the ability to go up and down stairs and the the
home could in the future be reconfigured to put um a bedroom on the ground floor but that's that's
not the at least at this point in her life she's able to go upstairs um so the ground floor as
again is i'd say traditionally the case in home with garages will be um for like living room type
use and if i if i may add i'm i'm comfortable to address this that the house in entirety with my
architect is designed with greater accessibility in mind uh the floors themselves uh the ceilings
are not as high as majority other new construction so that the stairs are reduced to the
uh lowest amount to climb and the main bedroom that i would use is on the second floor not higher
with the laundry right next to the bedroom so that there's the least amount of traveling between
floors as possible so there are many facets of the house uh that i have the opportunity to design
for my accessibility even though i am able to walk stairs in general thank you
Any other questions from the board?
Mr. Chairman, for the record, in case this goes to appeal, and I'll try and do so as quickly as possible, I just wanted to put on a brief rebuttal case.
A rebuttal for what?
From Mr. Anastasio's testimony.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity.
So this is the petition that Mr. Anastasio submitted.
He only named one client, and he should come on and correct me if this is not the case,
but I don't think that he intended to state that all of these folks are his clients.
I think that they signed a petition that was created by his client.
I took the liberty of mapping out, and this was this morning, because this petition was only provided to me overnight last night.
I took the liberty of mapping out the addresses on that petition.
There were 17 addresses.
So what's interesting is that Vern's client, Mr. Lolio, owns one of the properties adjacent to ours.
And he did write his name, to be clear.
I'll show you right here, 1427 Marlboro Street.
And he writes his name, Anthony Lolio, on that line.
and then he writes FSVRE. So I wondered, what is FSVRE? And it turns out that that same LLC
owns two other properties on the list, and Mr. Lolio owns a restaurant and a fourth property
on the list. So four of those properties are connected to the same person, although he failed
are connected to the same person, although he failed to identify that with the exception of
to identify that.
one property, which I found, and again, I don't blame this on Vern at all. I just found that to
be a bit disingenuous. Most of these properties, as you can see, are on Frankfurt Avenue and
several others of the 17, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, are owned by other LLCs. There, in fact, were only three
properties that I could verify that the name on the petition matched one of the registered owners
with Atlas. So again, only three of these 17 properties are owned by an individual who
actually signed that petition. So that to me says this is sort of a corporate interest-driven
group of folks, whoever they are. I'll flip through these quickly, but these are your
screenshots from property.phila.gov, proving the ownership by Mr. Lolio's LLC with regard to the
three properties that I mentioned there. And here's the fourth, which is his restaurant.
And now we get into something even more troubling, which is that the property that Anthony Lolio
indicated that he lives at, the one he did sign his name next to, does not appear to be a single
family residence. This is a listing on VRBO, VRBO.com. And if you go up to our architectural
presentation, you can see this very distinctive tarp over a roof deck next to our property,
which clearly shows you this is 1427 Marlboro. This is the property that Mr. Lolio purports to
live at. But this is a, this is a printout of the listing page on vrbo.com, which is a brokerage
for short-term rentals. He offers this property for rental by up to 12 people at a time, according
to this page. And there are details on how exactly you can fit all those people in the property.
But, but, but, but Brandon, tell me 12 people there. What does that have to do with the part?
Well, it has to do, it's simply to say that the veracity of the petition is not to be trusted.
And I am totally unclear on what his interest in this case is or how he is aggrieved by it,
given that clearly he is operating a business next door and a business down the block.
And the last thing I'll say to this is the property is available for rental,
as you can see in these screenshots, throughout the entirety of the year.
and finally he does not have the license that is required to operate a business of this type
on that property and i i appreciate that but i don't know him not having a license has anything
to do with the parking well he he doesn't want the parking he seems to have claimed he lives
there and he does not and his address on the most recent permit is in delaware county so i i just
think that totally debunks that evidence. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Okay. Mr. Chair, may I? Sure, please. First of all, the folks who are listed on the
petition, most of them occupy the buildings. So the fact that some of the properties may in fact
be owned by LLCs, I don't think is relevant. Also, the objection to relevance is my client's
property, if it has a visitor accommodation permit or not, a license or not, is not relevant,
nor is the physical condition of any applicant relevant. The only issue before this board
is, is there a unique physical condition to this property that would require front-loading
parking in smack dab in the middle of townhomes with none. That's it. That's the only germane
question that needs to be answered. And I don't believe there's any evidence of that. Further,
Brandon's client has not purchased, or the purchase, the witness who testified that she's
under contract is purely that, under contract. There is no hardship. It's not like the closing
went through. Had they purchased this property, believing the false marketing that it was proper
parking, then we would be having a different conversation. And I don't necessarily think
I would be here representing opponents because she would have relied reasonably on marketing
that was incorrect. But here she's on notice that this property, like every other property on that
block is prohibited from having front-loading parking. So for the life of me, I can't figure
out why relief should be granted in this one. Thank you. Questions or comments from
relief should be granted
in this one. Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair. Madeline
Shacumba will be allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name
and spell for the court stenographer?
Hello?
Madeline Shacumba, can you unmute
yourself?
i keep lowering my hand and i don't know i'm waiting just for one property to come up if it
hasn't already come up yeah but yeah it hasn't come up yet ma'am oh okay is there anyone else
in the virtual audience yes stephanie whitener hi could you please state your name and spell for
the court sonographer not never mind not her um i'm going to go on to nathan curry low
hi could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
sure my name is nathan carillo n-a-t-h-a-n-k-u-r-y-l-o do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do are you a neighbor yes i live on thompson
street are you in favor of this project yes i am um thank you very much for calling we appreciate
Is there any other people in the audience?
And so just a quick comment on this as well, if that's okay for one second.
Sure, go ahead.
So as I mentioned, so I'm a neighbor on Thompson Street.
I've lived in Fishtown for many years and just wanted to raise in favor of support of this case.
So I walk by the, I have a dog in the community, frequently walk by this home.
And like Brandon mentioned, right, I think it's clear that the prospective owners are thoughtful in the design.
actually the community will regain a parking spot on the street from the design of this
by shrinking the width of the curb cut.
Also, I'd like to highlight that I think it's clear that when I frequently walk by this location,
there are often cones there blocking two parking spots from the community with the current use
and have often seen cars that are actually parked in the lot.
And so by actually supporting this project, I believe that there's a net benefit for the community with the design of the curb cut, reducing that width, and also the appearance of the home, which will be a net benefit for the community with the garage.
Thank you for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the audience?
yes i have carly morris how many more hands do you have after carly there's two okay thank you
carly please state your name and spell for the court stenographer hi my name is carly morris
c-a-r-l-y-m-o-r-r-i-s do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth and nothing but the
truth i do are you a neighbor yes all right are you in favor of this project or against it i am
in favor okay thank you very much for taking the time to calls could i just share one comment just
to support different than what we've already heard i just wanted to reaffirm that i have the
same experience as nathan mentioned and i believe that this project would provide a lot of value for
the community to fill in this vacant lot and i have seen it been used as parking in my experience
All right. Thank you very much. We do appreciate your call. Next hand, please.
Yep. Not Madeline. Mackenzie Gifford.
Hi, Mackenzie. Could you please state your name and spell for the court sonographer?
Hi, my name is Mackenzie Gifford. M-A-C-K-E-N-Z-I-E-G-I-F-F-O-R-D.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
Are you in favor or opposed to this project?
I am in favor.
We've heard quite a bit of testimony about it.
Is there anything different you could tell us?
No, I would just echo the statements already said for the reasons of my support.
Thank you very much for taking the time.
Next hand, please.
There are no more hands.
All right, thank you.
Planning Commission.
thank you keith davis city planning commission a comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
rsa5 residential single-family zoning here as the code states accessory parking for attached
residential is prohibited unless it can be accessed through a rear street with no on-street parking
this meets neither criteria as approval removes potential on-street parking spaces
uh this is particularly uh this is particularly this is particularly of concern in this case
uh because 100 feet from the frankfurt or sorry 100 feet away is the frankfurt
or sorry 100 feet away is the frankfurt avenue commercial corridor in fishtown
avenue uh commercial corridor in fishtown uh there is no unique
there is no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would
prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code city planning commission recommends
that the zoning board would deny the variance thank you um for both council uh we're going to
take this to executive session next wednesday morning i'll vote on a two we're going to vote
We're on at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, okay?
And thank the both of you.
Thank you for your patience, everybody.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, thank you.
MI 2024-001-332-5301 West Montgomery Avenue, E.
Augusta O'Neill is the attorney.
Let's see here.
letter of support from the winfield residents association based on revised plans
augusta o'neill has been promoted
good afternoon counsel could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
sure augusta o'neill a-u-g-u-s-t-a my last name is o apostrophe n-e-i-l-l
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Would you identify your client and relationship to the property?
My client is 53rd Street Partners LP.
They are the owner of the property.
All right.
And our vice chair is going to ask you a few questions, but I see here we can hear case based on revised plans, but we'll need to hold the vote.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
All right.
Our vice chair will ask you a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy i agree to waive the
reading of the refusal because we are going to be getting an amended refusal understood uh 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 thank you council please proceed to share your screen
Thank you.
Great. Okay. Sure. Sorry. For some reason, the PDF settings have changed. I'm not sure if that's on your end or mine. Apologies. So good afternoon, members of the board. I'm here this afternoon representing 53rd Partners LP.
They're the property owner.
I'm here.
They're, I'm sorry.
They own the property at both 5301 West Montgomery, condo number E, and the property at 5322 to 30 Moore Street.
This is an application to relocate lot lines and create one lot from two lots to permit a multifamily use and to permit some accessory parking.
Both of these properties are zoned RSA 5.
But while they are zoned RSA 5, as you can see from the picture on my screen, most all the properties that are on this block are triplexes.
There's a number of rental licenses on Atlas showing that they are being used as triplexes.
My client bought these two properties because he's constructing the Hawthorne, which is a development across the street.
It's a multifamily building with 98 units.
For context, I have provided in my exhibit package some renderings of the Hawthorne,
which is going to be constructed across the street and is going to be constructed by my client.
Just as an overview, so you can see this property right here, this is where the Hawthorne is going to go.
And these are the two properties that bring us here this afternoon.
As a result of developing the Hawthorne, my client developed a very close relationship with the local community stakeholders and RCOs who very much appreciated the efforts that he and his team made to create a project that worked for everyone that was in the community and showed their commitment to their neighbors in Winfield.
um after they'd gone through cdr on the hawthorne they decided that they wanted to buy these
properties that were across the street um and spruce up the garage that's on moore street which
i'll show you a picture of and uh also put in a commercial use on the ground floor of this
property over here this is 5301 montgomery number e um specifically my client wanted to have a plant
shop on the bottom floor at 5301 Montgomery. We met with the affected RCOs for this project
We met with the affected RCOs for this project back on May 6th of this year.
back on May 6th of this year.
The feedback that we received was that neighbors were concerned about having a commercial use in the bottom of that triplex.
So my client asked the neighbors what they would like to see instead, and they said they wanted to see an affordable unit in there instead.
so we're going to be providing a 548 square foot affordable unit on the first the ground floor
along with two parking stalls instead of the plan shop that was originally proposed and so that's
why we're going to have to go back for the amended refusal because we're changing the use that was
initially part of this application so this application did receive five refusals two of
which were related to the commercial use,
which is now moot.
One is related to the multifamily use.
Again, this property is zoned RSA five,
but as you can see, most of the properties
that are part of this condo are being used as triplexes,
like what we're proposing now.
And there were two parts, I'm sorry,
two refusals that were related to the parking spaces.
So this is the other property that my client bought.
So here's 5301 West Montgomery. This is the parking garage that I was referring to.
My client is going to use it to provide additional parking to those residents at the Hawthorne, his other building.
And the purpose is to keep cars off the street.
And so he's going to make some cosmetic changes to this garage.
He's going to add a new roof, add some new siding.
But because he's reusing what is there and trying to maximize the space so that he can, again, provide as many parking spots as possible and keep cars off the street, we received refusals related to the stall space size and one related to drive aisle width.
the stall space is existing so that's not a refusal that was created by the application
and that drive aisle width is going to be necessary so that we can maximize the number
of spots that my client can offer. I can't emphasize this enough just to keep cars off
the street because there are going to be a number of units of Hawthorne. I'd submit to the board
that this application therefore meets the criteria for hardship because these refusals are unique to
this property there's going to be no adverse impact on public health safety or welfare because
we're providing an affordable unit with additional parking spaces in an area that that needs it and
this is the minimum variance that will afford relief there's also going to be a tenant amenity
space just in the side yard so between this garage and 5301 west montgomery again as i indicated
earlier we did meet with the the affected rco the winfield uh neighbors association while their
initial response to the plant shop was that they didn't want the commercial use um they have sent
to the board a revised letter um which uh applauds the team for returning to discussions
with the neighbors um to come up with a solution that really worked for everyone and the letter
stated and i quote this is what the process should look like end quote um with me this afternoon is
alex kennedy he's part of 53 53rd street partners lp um i would ask that he be called forward and
i'll make myself um and mr candy available for questions the board may have
could you please state your name sir
i'm looking for him okay i will
He's been allowed to speak. Thank you. Sir, could you please state your name and spell for a court stenographer? Yeah, Alex Kennedy, A-L-E-X. Last name is C-A-N-A-D-Y. Do you swear to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you. Alex, did you have a chance to hear my presentation this afternoon? I did. Was it true and accurate? Absolutely, it was.
was there anything that you would like to to add um to my presentation um just just to uh reiterate
the fact that um this we're really passionate about um this local neighborhood and we want to
make we want to be as good as neighbors as possible um you know knowing that we're putting in
uh a big building across the street so we thought this was a great way to um help alleviate some of
the pains um that come with a big new neighbor like that so um yeah we're really excited at the
opportunity thank you um mr chairman we're available for any questions at the point so
i want to go over one more time so he he's buying he has the property down the street
he was going to put a plant store at the garage at the first floor level no no i apologize so
at the garage at the first floor level no no i apologize so the plant shop was the initial
the plant shop was the initial
application right so they met with the neighbors the neighbor said we don't want to see a plant
shop in there so instead he's going to take what would have been the plant shop and he's putting
two parking spots plus an affordable unit in the back right and then then he's he has all these
garages here that he wants to have parking for the places across the street correct okay questions
from the board um do we know how many parking spaces the garage is going to provide 13. yep
that's correct yeah and then there's two more um they're going to go where the plan shop would
have gone so there's going to be a total of 15 parking spots um and there's one ada uh i believe
there's one ada and everything else is regular size there might be one compact parking spot
Is this one of the projects
I'm supposed to recuse myself?
I can't remember.
Did this come to CDR?
18, 18 North 53rd
did go to CDR.
Do you need the date
that it would have...
I probably need to recuse myself.
Thank you, Michael.
Was this,
this portion of the project
excuse me project
the portion that was across the street so i guess you know the sister kind of application but um
the same owners have both properties okay any other questions from the board
questions or comments from our attorney
um not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands here we're not going to vote on this am i correct hillary and they're going
to come back with that is correct mr chair um we need an amended refusal and
updated streets approval does planning want to take a position or they want to wait
oh we can give our testimony now please proceed
well i'm sorry is planning going to get testimony based on the original application or the amended
uh the amended okay all right just wanted to clarify sorry
good afternoon keith davis with philadelphia city planning commission
uh the comprehensive plan recommends that the two properties being consolidated through this
proposal remain residential single family five because of the irregular dimensions of the
building that whether it's consolidated or not the continued non-conformity of multifamily and
the multiple buildings on this single rsa lot is not expected to have any negative impacts on the
neighbors planning commission recommends that the board grant the proposed variances per the
amended refusal thank you so much um we'll we'll have this come back right hillary but it's closed
am i right yeah it's closed other than an amended refusal yes okay i just wanted to ask um if
there's any way that um i could just enlist the the board's help to get me the amended refusal
soon as possible just because we are in a rush to get this um through again it's providing
affordable, an affordable unit. We just want to get this relief. We'll see what we can do with
the office. Wonderful. I appreciate it so much. Send us a letter at your earliest convenience
to request the amendment. Wonderful. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Number five, MI 2024-002-490-5355 Lena Street. Joseph Consul is the attorney.
there's a letter of unanimous opposition from faith cdc
it's the council
also dose of console has been promoted to a finalist
good afternoon i counsel could you please state your name and spell for the court sonographer
Joseph Consul, that's J-O-S-E-P-H, last name Consul, C-O-N-S-O-L-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is the owner of the property, and his name is, pardon me, Mr. Juan Chong.
Okay, and our vice chair has a few questions.
good afternoon council do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to
its accuracy yes have you emailed in all the required documents that is needed to
proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you council please
proceed share your screen okay that should be my exhibits this property is five
exhibits this property is 5355 lena street um going back to 1959 it was approved for a food
store and a one-family home i'll briefly go through the uh other entries in the zoning
code history on that in in a second but the reason we're here is because
please proceed mr council sorry um it is because this property is a corner property
that was zoned commercial residential mixed use and has been used in accordance to that uh that
That zoning designation, since as far back as the 50s, it was rezoned as an RSA 5 property, but it has been a continuously occupied store, grocery store, since that time on the first floor.
My clients are seeking to get a use approval to use this property as a commercial store on the first floor again.
um so in the 50s it was approved as a food store in one family there's a second application from
that time for the same use uh retail food produce in one family from 1982
and then there's one more from 1985 and it's been a retail fruit and produce in one family
dwelling since since that time and there doesn't appear to be any uh claim from the neighbors that
it was ever not a grocery store they uh what through what appeared to me to be some personal
issues between my clients and and the neighbors they voted to oppose this project
um there's no the the violations on on the property are related to to fire alarm things
that my client is in the process of fixing however he needs this this use permit to continue to
operate here um legally so i'm just showing you some pictures from the outside of the property
place to stop use order on there
and then there's some interior photos showing the grocery store itself
and we included photos showing several meters then we showed the deed
and the tax clearance certificate wasn't available we have a zero dollar tax balance
and we'll submit the tax clearance certificate as as soon as it's available but there's
no outstanding tax balance on this property.
So we're seeking to approve a use that's been approved several times in the past.
And the property has always been a grocery store for as far back as my clients will testify.
We believe at least 40 years continues the operating as this particular grocery store.
With that, I'll ask my client to...
Mr. Counsel, could you tell us what happened when you went to the CDC?
At the RCO, some near neighbors showed up.
It was a situation where folks were kind of yelling over each other.
We believe that there was a personal issue between some of the neighbors and my clients.
My clients are Asian Americans, and we just think that there's some animosity there, and that led to basically what, as I perceived it again, this is just from my outside perspective, it seemed like one neighbor in particular brought other neighbors into the meeting to oppose my client, and we weren't able to come to any kind of meeting of the minds.
I think functionally, the unnecessary hardship is clear. The property has always been
a legal grocery store up until the point that it was rezoned. And to deny my clients the
continued use of this would deny them any kind of economically viable use of the property.
It's not a residential property. There's a single family above. There's no permitted alternative uses besides a single family home on this corner property that's never had that. It would be unfeasible and economically impossible for my clients to change this lower level into a single family home.
to change this lower level into a single family home concurrent with the upper level it's it's
currently closed uh i am i both i mean it looks like they posted a stop work order um my clients
can test license license and inspection closed it they the the no they didn't actually there
There's several violations on the property, but they are related to fire protection systems.
But I don't believe that there was any kind of stop order on there.
They said in one of their violations here, which I have on the screen, they have to get a license for the sales, food sales.
which is what we're here for and then something called a sales and scanners license which i don't
believe is is through um this the zoning variance folks i think that'll that'll be a separate license
we'll have to we'll have to contain why don't you bring your client on hi um could you raise your
hand mr chung mr chung is allowed to speak hi sir could you please state your name and
spell for the court stenographer. My name is Won Suchong, W-O-N-S-U-C-H-O-N-G. Do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. Please proceed,
counsel. Mr. Chong, did you hear my testimony just now regarding your property at 5355 Lena
street yes uh do you adopt it as your own yes uh can you um testify to the board
how for how long you've been running a grocery store at this property
i think about uh 35 years 35 years okay yeah that would match with the the permits you pulled
in the 80s is that accurate yes okay i have nothing further from my client mr console how
long has it been closed? Sir, can you testify? Has license and inspection, Mr. Chong, has license
and inspections closed your property? No. We don't believe that they posted a stop operations
order, I believe, where they are aware that we're in the process of negotiating this variance.
Okay. All right. All right. Questions from the board.
I have, well, I would like to hear from if any of the RCO, the contention that the attorney just described, but just curious as to if you've been operating for 35 years for your client, like what is the issue with the community?
Like, 35 years, it seems like it's a long time to be in business.
What are the major issues in terms of the community that your clients foresee them to be?
As we understood it at the meeting, there was some claims that they didn't like how the grocery store was being operated.
I really, it got out of hand pretty quickly in terms of folks.
Do you know if it's been reported as a nuisance business in the past?
I've seen no evidence of that, that none was provided to me.
There's nothing on Atlas that lists it as being reported as a nuisance.
You know, I put all the violations like I had put up previously to this.
And nothing here is regarding any kind of nuisance or anything like that.
It's regarding fire extinguishers and licensure.
So they're actually, to your point, Chair, they have until August 26, 2024, according to License and Inspections Violations Notice, to correct the violations.
And that includes what we're seeking to make.
Other questions from the board?
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our Attorney Hillary Emerson?
just briefly um mr consul i don't believe the notice of violation was included in your original
packet so if you would like that included in the record for this case um please uh submit that as
soon as possible i would it didn't cross my mind today when i was searching for any kind of police
reports or anything that might verify what the what the rco had said but um i found this
Um, I found this. I'll send it in questions or comments from the virtual audience.
I'll send it in
Yes, Charles Richardson will be allowed to speak.
Mr. Richardson, just state your name. You've already been sworn.
Yes, Mr. Chair, Charles Richardson, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N, Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, Room 508 City Hall.
This business has been closed prior to the beginning of the pandemic.
They've had all kinds of issues with the neighbors in that area, specifically on the side facing because of the fact that we've gotten calls here
and had L and I go out and investigate.
The upper floors have been closed for quite some time.
They've had wooden boards over the windows.
The last time that I had any contact with L and I with regard to that,
they had the windows on the second floor, which is technically the third floor,
were hanging off, and the neighbors were afraid that they were going to fall.
You know, this has been an ongoing thing, and it's not anything that's new with regard to that.
I don't think they're being truthful with regard to the situation, and we do know that they're trying to sell the property.
So that's why they're trying to get the zoning taken care of so they can, you know, it will be more lucrative for them to be able to sell the property.
So the Councilwoman is joining with the RCO and the community in opposing the variance.
Thank you, Mr. Richardson. Any other questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, I have Zamberlay Shepard will be allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Mr. Chair, that individual is for a case on the 330 list.
Okay, thank you.
Just for everyone's information, we are still on the 2 p.m. list.
We will start the 3.30 list after we have completed the 2 p.m. cases.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience for this case?
There are no other hands.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair.
This is Keith Davis, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Planning Commission recommends no change to the property's RSA 5 zoning.
This corner lot has served as a neighborhood market in the past.
With no rear yard access, the unsecured dumpster and delivery trays can be observed scattered on the sidewalk.
this represents a potential hazard for pedestrians or neighbors planning commission
recommends approving the variance request with the provisor that the applicant provide a permanent
semi-enclosure to house the dumpster mi 2024 002 490 5355 lena street i vote no michael johns my
vote is no vote is no show guest and my vote is no thank you my vote is no james snell my vote is
no ishmael shahi my vote is no thank you council number six mi 2024 zero zero two eight nine four
or 1500 to 42 Market Street.
William Kerr is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition
from Center City Residence
and a letter of non-opposition
from Council Member Young.
Mr. Kerr.
William Kerr is promoted.
Good afternoon, Mr. Kerr.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Mr.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
William Kerr, K-E-R-R, on behalf of the applicant, 6th Renacar.
Do you swear or affirm that tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I would like to indicate to the board, my colleague, Sean Livdy, L-I-V-S-E-Y, is going to present the case.
I believe his hand is raised.
If he could be admitted, he will actually present the case for me.
He's an attorney, too?
He's an attorney.
He's a colleague of mine at my firm.
Why don't we bring him on, then?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There he is.
sean you're you're muted sean thank you okay i'm here hi could you please state your name and spell
Thank you.
Okay, I'm here.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, thank you.
Sean Livesey, S-E-A-N, last name L-I-V, as in Victor, E-S-E-Y.
You swear, affirm, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
I will agree to waive the reading of the refusal, but I would actually like to address
what is contained in the refusal, and I'll do that at the top of my presentation today.
Thank you, counsel. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's
needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, we have, and in addition to what we emailed five days in advance, we were requested to
provide interior photographs this morning, which we promptly did around 9 or 10 a.m.
Thank you. Please proceed to share your screen.
Okay, thank you.
Okay. Can everybody see the notice of refusal?
Yep, we did.
Okay, great. So as I mentioned, I wanted to address this at the top. The refusal, as our application indicates, states that we are seeking personal vehicle rental use at the property located 1542 Market Street, also known as Center Square.
The single single refusal we received was in connection with table 14-502-2 of the zoning code of the code, which for the reason as stated in the refusal being that this equal sales of rental use is expressly prohibited in the center city overlay district, specifically the center city commercial district control area.
That is, in fact, where the property is located.
I want to direct the board's attention first to Table 14-502-2 here, point to the Center
City Commercial District control area to show you that the vehicle and vehicular equipment
sales and services use category does not actually prohibit this use.
We would, however, like to point out that it's in the CMX-5 zoning district.
Here's the table on allowed uses in the commercial districts.
CMX-5 here, scroll down.
CMX-5 permits by special exception of personal vehicle sales and rental use.
So what I would posit today is that the refusal is saying that we need a variance.
We're prepared to proceed. We believe that we are entitled to relief, whether it's for a variance or for a special exception.
But in reality, we believe that the standard that we would have to meet is the special exception standard based on what the code provides.
And that's a less rigorous standard. So we don't have any problem with proceeding today on that basis.
With that said, I'd like to orient everybody again. The emesis in question here is at 1500 Market Street, which is the large high-rise center square right next to City Hall. I'm going to take us through the exhibits here quickly.
First, we have our lease. The property, my client, which is, as my associate mentioned,
sixth rent-a-car, is the lessee of the property. They're renting the property for a five-year lease.
The lease here provides the location of the premises with respect to the building at large
on the first floor. Here it is on the southwest corner of the building. It's a 835 square foot
space. Also in connection with this application, we have the sublease, sublease which affords 35
self-parked parking spaces in the underground garage connected and below the center square
building. This is a depiction of that garage. It shows the 35 spaces that are located in gray here,
which are specifically designated to my client's use under this sublease.
I'm going to just take you through some photos of the area.
This is a picture of the building itself.
It's not the particular premises, but facing south on Market Street.
This is the building.
This right here is the access to the building on the southwest corner.
The property of the premises itself is directly to the left here.
of that main entrance to Center Square.
Here's a straight-on picture, and you can see it's cleaners on the square.
That's the former use that was there previously.
This is another angle from the same street around 15th street looking northward.
There's another angle from the same street, around 15th Street, looking north.
The premises is here.
This is a parking garage.
This is the access to the parking garage under center square that will be utilizing those
35 spots.
Okay, here's another photo of the building.
For good measure, one more photo of the building on the street.
Now, turning to the interior, we have several photos of the already fitted out interior showing the rental.
It's an administrative office for the rental use.
There's a couple of different angles.
That first one obviously was looking from outward toward the street.
This one is looking as you turn it into your right.
And this one is looking straight back as you enter the building.
I also have some photos here of the garage space that's going to be used.
This is going to be self-parked spaces.
We'll be able to access this directly from within Center Square.
Here's a copy of our zoning poster, which was posted on the property.
This is and it was ultimately posted on the property within 21 days in advance and in accordance with the requirements of the code.
I'm going to take you through these quickly.
Now, here we are at our application, which states what we're looking for.
We're seeking under the application, under the refusal,
we're seeking a variance or a special exception under base use requirements.
Scroll through this.
Here again is the notice of refusal.
Here are our plans for the project.
This is the site location plan first.
You can see there's the center square building is where it's located right next to City Hall.
This is a floor plan of the building.
You saw the actual photos, but this gives you a sense of the shape and the spaciousness
of the administrative office.
Obviously, this does not depict the garage version, it's only the office.
And finally, here are some elevations that show, it's not too useful for this purpose,
but it shows some of the technical requirements that were for this project.
There's a zoning map showing that this property is located within the CMX5 district and also
within the Center City overlay, specifically the commercial control area.
Another aerial view of the property, and here's Center Square.
this is a uh photo of the uh the letter that we sent for the public meeting
with the rco for this project that was center city residents association
also advertising the hearing itself this is
all right so council you you're you're renting an office they're renting an office
and they've also they're subleasing 35 parking spots is that right correct yes why don't why
you bring your client on and have your testimony adopted happy to do that john frisbee if you want
to raise your hand mr frisbee
john frisbee is about to speak hi mr frisbee could you please state your name and spell for
the court stenographer. John Frisby, F-R-I-S-B-Y. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth? Yes. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you very much,
Mr. Chairman. John, did you hear my statements about this project that I just made? Yes, I did.
Were they accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
Yes, they were. Would you accept them as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Okay, thank you.
And if you have anything to add, please feel free to do that.
And the board may have some questions for you.
Fair enough.
Questions from the board.
I have a question about the sort of operation.
So understanding this is a rental car, are you going into a commercial space that was previously occupied by a similar business?
And then my second question is, like, that's a really busy intersection.
And how are you kind of managing flow of traffic or how vehicles enter or exit at one of the most sort of, I guess, hectic intersections in Center City?
I guess, hectic intersections in Center City.
Okay, well, I guess the previous use was the dry cleaners.
But as it stands, people enter into the building.
They go to those counters that you saw.
They rent their vehicle.
They go down to the garage via the elevator in Center Square, get their car, and they exit the building.
as anyone else who parks in that building.
It's not a steady flow of traffic in and out of there.
You know, I mean, it's basically, you know,
our use, our cars are just as any other cars
that utilize the parking area.
You know, they come and go
and it's not with, you know, crazy frequency.
You don't have a steady line of traffic going in or out.
Just to add to that, it's an already approved parking garage. We don't anticipate this use would add any traffic that wouldn't already be invited by a use that's there. The parking garage, the 35 minutes that are specifically allocated to this use were otherwise used by other types of uses, perhaps retail, for example, dry cleaning that was there.
It's conceivable that this would reduce the amount of traffic at the location, given that rentals tend to be over a longer time horizon, as opposed to retail or something where people may visit frequently during the course of the day.
Any other questions from the board?
Yes. Again, talking about the traffic.
So the cars would be exiting on to, what's that?
is that 15th street that's right man and heading north correct yes correct okay
15 streets on a southbound street um north 15th street hold on here
oh you're right you're right i'm sorry
yeah but then this is isn't okay then this is on 16th correct it's next to the in there there's a
starbucks and there's a there's a wall on the corner across from the garage and then uh starbucks
there are a couple storefronts down from us so i believe it is 16th and then it's across from the
uh parking you're absolutely right i apologize as the wrong street we're standing on 16th street
from all those photos i sent i'm sorry and i'm i'm saying 15th but it's 16th and it goes north
right right yeah that's the confusion it is northbound but it's 16th not 15th i apologize
and then it's right across from the uh liberty police like parking garage that's right
all right any other questions from the board question is more attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes i have a hand up from jihad ali and they will be allowed to speak
Hello, I apologize.
You're not for the parking lot, are you?
No, I hit the wrong button.
Thank you. That's right.
Sorry, I have Wade Albert with a hand up.
Wade Albert, could you state your name and spell for the courtesanographer?
Good afternoon. Wade, W-A-D-E.
last name is albert a l b e r t you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth sir yes i do please proceed thank you uh so i am counsel for the center city residents
association which is the coordinating rco for this project we heard this matter at our uh july 23rd
meeting and as was indicated before we voted to not oppose this project because we did not believe
that it would be a um a burden for the neighborhood however we did request that uh in the event that
that the the zba is inclined to grant this request uh that the decision include a proviso uh that
there that the property should not be used for the sale of or repair to vehicles and i understand
that the applicant is agreeable to this proviso language so i would just request that that
language be included in the in the decision. Thank you. Thank you.
planning commission thank you chairs this is keith davis with field office city planning commission
Planning Commission.
comprehensive plan recommends no change to the property cmx5 zoning
rental cars enable center city residents to avoid car ownership which effectively keeps
unnecessary cars off of the streets planning commission recommends that the board approve
the variance with the proviso that the business is limited to short-term rentals and that it
excludes car sales, leases, and repair. Thank you. MI 2024, 002. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, I just want to
add, so the use of vehicle sales and rental, there is no repair that is, that would be, I mean,
maybe incidental repair, but generally any sort of repairs are a different use under the code
yeah that would require yeah that would that would be prohibited yeah so i have no require
additional approval so don't put that in as a yeah vehicle repair is a separate category okay yes
this is william kerr can i just make a statement it's william kerr um again uh there is no intention
to do any kind of vehicle repair the only thing that will be done to the vehicles would just be
clean up and vacuuming when they come back off of a rental bed to get them ready for the next
rental. So it's all just very minimal attention to the vehicles. Thank you. MI 2024, 002-894-1500-42
Market Street. I vote yes with Proviso, no vehicle sales. Michael Johns, yes with Proviso.
Cheryl Gaston yes with proviso. Tanetta Graham yes with proviso. Tyowin yes with proviso.
James Snell my vote is yes with proviso. Ishmael Shaheed my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you. Number seven. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you. MI 2024-002-934-2247
in Catherine Street. Henry Clinton is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from
North Washington Avenue Coalition
and a letter of
support from Council Member Johnson.
Henry Clinton has been promoted.
it mr clinton could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer sure henry
clinton h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do um you identify your client a relationship to their property sure my
client is wellington way developers and the principal of which is ryan stawaz s-t-a-w-a-s-z
and Ryan is on the call.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reason of the refusal
or stipulate to its accuracy?
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?
We have, but I know recently
Council President Johnson also sent a letter in.
I don't know if the board has it,
but it's in my pack.
We do.
We do.
Thank you, counsel.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you, Mr. Shaheed.
Is that visible, Mr. Chairman?
It is.
Again, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
I'm here on behalf of Wellington Way Developers.
Ryan Stawaz is on the call with me.
This is my presentation package containing Exhibits A1 through A11, which I asked to be admitted into evidence.
And just in candor to the tribunal, we do have a support letter from Councilor President Johnson, a support letter from SOSNA,
And we have a half support from NOAC, and I believe Madeline Sucumba is on the call to address that.
The remaining documents are self-explanatory, and I'll walk through the presentation.
A refusal, certainly the key document.
This is an RSA 5 zoning district, and what we're asking for is a rear parking space in the property.
and the third floor, as is typical in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood, instead of having the
eight-foot setback, the preferred dimensions of a mansion roof are what is acceptable and
what is supported by both community groups. This is similar to a project that I presented to the
board in December of this year at 2209, Catherine. It's the same architect, the same renderings,
in the same parking space, so there's a little bit of redundancy here.
The RCO letter from Council President Johnson, support letter from SOSNA, and SOSNA, as the board may know, they have an architectural review committee that we went through and we decided, based on their recommendations, to make a number of changes to the cornice, the internal gutter, the windows, and also the transom windows.
The RCO letter from Council President Johnson.
have, excuse me, window have been changed all in based on suggestions from SOSNA and actually from
NOAC also. So there are two components to this. One is the mansert roof and the other is the
parking space. SOSNA supports both. This is a letter from north of Washington Avenue, NOAC.
They support the mansert roof, but they do not support the parking space in the rear.
photographs of the 2200 block of catherine street we're looking east here our property is three
doors in we're going to keep the facade or the first floor we're going to remove the aluminum
siding reveal the cornices there and basically keep the context and the the concept of the first
two floors but change the the third floor to make it into a mansard roof actually similar to what's
on the corner already. This is just an aerial view. Now we're looking north. 23rd Street is
where my cursor is. Again, we're three homes in. That's the property that's going to be renovated.
We'll remove the awning. As I say, keep the facade and do some other things. This is a photograph
looking eastbound on, this is Fulton Street. It's really not a street per se with the city.
It's really a thoroughfare or an alley.
It is wide enough for a vehicle to transgress.
And there is parking already on both sides of Fulton Street.
And our project that we presented back in December of 2209 also has a parking space in the rear.
This is the corner property that also has a parking space.
This is our posting of the placards on the front of the property, as well as the rear of the property.
Again, this is Fulton Street looking westbound.
These are our proviso plans, if the board looks kindly behind this application.
And again, here is the front facade that we're trying to keep, changing the windows, keeping the cornice line.
And that's really the main change that we have from the original submission of this to L&I back several months ago.
Now, this is the floor plan that was presented at the community meeting, and I just want
to go to, yeah, this is the floor plan presented at the community meeting.
Again, we have basement, first floor, second floor, third floor, and rooftop deck.
The mansion roof is here.
There's certain dimensions that both Nowak and Sazen prefer.
We hit all those marks, including the elevation on the side, as well as the slope of the roof, the internal gutter, so it's not visible from the front of the property.
Redoing the front of the property, keeping the windows double hung, and then the mansion roof on the third floor.
we also have streets apartment approval for the rear parking space as we did with 2209 catherine
street this is the application tax clearance indicating there's actually a tax credit on
this property our zoning map you know ironically this block is rm1 but most of the properties on
the block are single family. The deed indicating ownership, certificate of mailing, proof of
mailing. And then this is a zoning record from our permit from December of 2023 for this property at
the end of the block, which is really a mirror image of what I'm presenting today. Again, the
front facade was kept, third floor mansard, and then a rear parking spot with a turning
radius and we also had street department approval for that particular project i can walk through
the floor plan if the board or chairman desire or i could have my client adopt my testimony
i also have the architect andrew menu here to answer any questions mr clinton is there
other parking in the back in the back alley yes not only 2209 but i'll go to an aerial photograph
not only for our project you can't even see on this aerial photograph but yeah there's
there's parking on both sides of the street here and also on this side of the street which is our
and also on this side of the street, which is on Catherine Street.
on Catherine Street
And then on the corner, there's also a parking spot.
And we have a parking spot here, and it looks like there's a parking spot here.
But not all the cars are in place.
I think this is a parking spot too, but there are cars that park on both sides.
They come down Fulton Street from 22nd and then go in the rear property on both streets.
Why don't you bring on your client?
Ryan, can you unmute yourself?
Ryan Stawaz has been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Ryan Stawaz, R-Y-A-N, last name S-T-A-W-A-S-Z.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
i do please proceed counsel ryan were you on the call when i presented your project
yes and if you had the opportunity to testify would you adopt my testimony as your own and as
true and correct yes and would you second my testimony that there are cars that park on both
sides of fulton street behind catherine street yes thank you questions from the questions from
the board. Can you flip back to the floor plans? Is that visible, Mr. Johns? Yeah. Okay. I'm good.
Okay, thank you, sir.
Any other questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Murray Spencer.
He will be allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
can you hear me yes could you please state your name is spelled for the court stenographer
uh murray spencer m-u-r-r-a-y s-p-e-n-c-e-r i am chair of the sasna zona committee the sasna
hold on a minute you do swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
I do. Please proceed, sir.
The SOSNA zoning committee supports this project wholeheartedly, both the parking and the application for the originals to the housing.
They met with the architectural review committee and they're using the master roof standard that we like.
They're maintaining the corners. We're very thankful that the applicants are not raised in the house.
They're keeping the front facade, but just gutting the back, which is something that we like.
We're trying to maintain the streetscape in these neighborhoods on these two story streets.
And they're doing just that. So we're happy to support this project.
There were 11, 11 neighbors, four and two against as far as I can remember.
And I'd like to know, chairman, if you actually received our letter.
or you didn't mention it in your opening.
I thought I did. I'm sorry.
You did not, but I'm sure you got it.
Okay. And thank you so much.
Thank you so much for calling in.
We appreciate it. Thank you. Okay.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
There are no hands.
I'm sorry, Chair, but never mind.
Madeline, keep putting her hand up.
So there are no more hands.
All right. Planning, Commission.
Thank you.
this is keith davis philadelphia city planning commission uh the comprehensive plan recommends
no change to the property's rca5 zoning uh regarding the the request for a parking space
variance fulton street qualifies as a rear street because it is in the property's rear and it is
designated as a local street um accessory parking is allowed if accessed by a rear street uh there
is no hardship request or sorry there is no hardship for the request to forgo the third
floor additions required for the setback planning commission recommends approving the variance
request for the rear accessory parking space with the proviso that the third floor must be set back
eight feet from the front property line thank you mi 2024 002 934 22407 catherine street i vote yes
proviso revised plan one page stamped by zba on august 7th 2024.
michael johns my vote is yes with proviso
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tana Graham, my vote is yes with Proviso
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Taya Nguyen, my vote is yes with Proviso
James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with Proviso
Mr. Clinton, could you please stay on, please?
So number 8, MI 2024-002-938-1720 Cater Street
Letter of support from South of South Neighborhood,
letter of support from North of Washington Avenue,
and letter of opposition from an adjacent neighbor on Bain Street.
Letter from a adjacent neighbor on Bain Street,
also expressing support for the setback and variance
in opposition to the maximum occupied area.
Applicant also has four form letters.
Mr. Clinton, could you identify your client
and their relationship to the property?
Sure. My client is Alex Clark, the homeowner, and he's on the call.
Vice Chair has a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wait to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I did email all the documents, except today we submitted four support letters.
There's also a letter from Council President Kenyatta Johnson, and then three days ago, we provided proviso form with a revised plan.
Thank you, Council. Please proceed and share your screen.
Good afternoon again, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Henry Clinton for the homeowner, Alex Clark.
This is my presentation package containing Exhibits A1 through A10, and I'll walk through each document and ask that they be admitted.
This request is for a mansert roof in lieu of an eight-foot setback on Cater Street.
It's consistent with the community and the RCO's design of what they like to see on the third floor as evidenced by two support letters and as evidenced by the support of the council president.
The other issue is open space. We're six percentage points off of what the requirement is. We're 81%. The code calls for 75%. And I'll explain why I believe this is the minimus variance and why it makes sense considering the depth of the other properties on the block.
This is the RCO, excuse me, this is Council President Kenyatta Johnson's support letter.
This is SOSNA's, South Neighborhood Association's support letter, which was written by Murray Spencer, who I believe is on the call.
Again, supporting the mansert as well as the depth of the property.
And north of Washington Avenue is also in support of this project.
as Henry I know Henry one minute Hillary you don't have the council presidents do you
I don't believe we received that and Henry if you just sent that to us this afternoon we may
not have seen it yet I will make a note of it thank you Miss Emerson yes I received it today
so as soon as I received it I sent it out and I do have it in my presentation here
these are the letters of support from the neighbors at 1706 1710 1714 and 1724 and i
understand that that one or both of the neighbors on either side of this property
at 1718 and 1722 are on the call
so photograph so the property is the green door uh we're going to keep the facade it's
it's a nice, it's a beautiful facade. We don't want to do away with that. We're going to gut
the inside of the building and expand the rear of the building, similar to the depths of other
properties on the 1700 block of Cater Street. You'll note that there's an alley, some call it
a Baker's Alley, that gives you access to the rear yard for trash and also to bring, you know,
furniture or whatever through the property. What's unique about this particular alley is that it
provides also apparently an easement for individuals on Bainbridge Street to literally
exit their rear yard, walk through this alley, and then put their trash in front of my client's
property. This is a view looking east. If you know Cater Street, it's one block south of South.
To the left is a parking garage for Penn Medicine. It's a four to five-story high
garage with a beautiful garden in the front that's maintained by a neighbor on the block.
This is an aerial view, again, directing your attention to our client's property with the
Our client's property with the black roof, you can already see there's already one other mansert on the block, and you can see down toward the corner, there's four or five houses that are three stories high and almost approximate 38 feet, which is the height of the maximum height you're allowed for an RSA 5 zoning district.
black roof. You can already see there's already one.
So a three story with a mansert is not going to be an unusual occurrence on the block.
An aerial view, just to show the board and anyone in the audience, the rear yards of the homes on Cater Street.
Again, we're here with a black roof. We're going to square off the back of the property.
And when I show you the site plan, you can see that we're going to be one foot longer than the houses on either side.
Both neighbors are aware of that and they're happy with that.
And we're going to be one foot less than the depth of a property at 1720, a couple of doors down.
And here at the bottom of the screen is Bainbridge Street.
And this is the neighbor that actually has access through our Baker's Alley to put his trash on Cater Street.
This is a view that I've actually personally took sitting on the step of 1720 to show you, you know, the monolithic structure that's across the street, which is the parking garage.
Again, some views just to show you that we did post the placards.
Both of Sazna's has their own placard, and this is the placard recommended by the ZBA, which we posted on the property.
Here's our proviso plans if the board looks kindly upon this application.
So I'd just like to direct your attention to the site plan.
So the shaded area is our proposal.
And you can see from the depth of the property that we are a foot longer than 1718.
The proposal is for a foot longer than 1718 and a foot longer than 1722.
And we're one foot less in depth than 1716.
So when we looked at laying out this property and the floor plan, we looked at the adjoining
properties. My client has talked to the owners of the adjacent properties. They're okay with
the depth. We saw that 1716 was a little bit longer than ours. We really didn't want to
overreach. So we kind of split the difference between the properties and the very large that
are already there. The elevation, again, we're going to maintain what's there. So we're adding
the mansert roof on the third floor. Again, just some photographs to give you a contextual view.
This is looking south from the top of the garage that is Penn Medicines. This is the floor plan,
basement, two areas of flex space. Again, whatever the owner is going to use them for, an office,
gym, exercise area, a living room, dining room, kitchen leading to the back,
second floor, two bedrooms, third floor, one bedroom with access to a rooftop deck.
Again, just another closer view of what the front elevation is going to look like. It's
really going to fit in nicely with everything else that's there. And again, the mansion roof
adds a certain level of detail rather than having the eight foot setback or even as i saw at the
end of the corner as i showed you just that straight up uh brick look that's really amassing
that's uh at the far end of the block rest of the documents for the pro forma documents you'd
usually see an application or tax center document indicating all taxes are paid and up to date
Zoning map, again, you know, this is an RM1, ironically, zoning district, but almost all the homes that I'm aware of are single family on the block.
The deed indicating ownership, our zoning notice, and proof of mailing.
So, in summation, basically, we are not changing the character of the neighborhood.
Our project is in harmony with the code.
It's in harmony with what two neighborhood groups want, with what the council president supports.
We're not impacting any lighter air.
The sun is rising towards the south and then coming against the rear of our property.
It's not affecting anybody across the street, on Cater Street, because that's the four to five story garage.
With that, I would rest my case, Mr. Chairman, and ask my client to adopt my testimony.
And the architect, Andrew Menia, is also available for any questions or comments.
What's your client's name, please?
My client's name is Alex Clark, C-L-A-R-K.
Alex, can you unmute yourself?
He's been allowed to speak.
Alex, could you please state your name as spelled for the stenographer?
yes my name is alex clark a l e x c l a r k you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
Yes, my name is Alex Clark, A-L-E-X.
nothing but the truth yes please proceed counsel uh alex were you on the call when i presented
your project yes i was and if you had the opportunity to testify and tell the board
your story would you adopt my testimony as your own and as true and correct yes is there anything
that you would like to add that i i didn't bring out that the board should know um just that i
am planning to live in this property uh and stay on this block i've met everybody on the street
and um have amazing experience with them they're uh here to support me which is excellent i thank
them for that um but just excited to uh excited to be a part of this project and um hopefully be
able to raise my family in this home thank you alex question questions from the board
questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes there's a hand up from murray spencer hi could you please state your name and spell for the
sonographer. Murray Spencer, can you unmute yourself, please?
Is that good? Yeah, just, just state your name. Murray, yes, Murray Spencer. Again,
SOSNA zoning chair, the applicant met with the zoning committee the same day as the last
applicant did and again as with the previous application the sasno zoning committee likes
the fact that the applicant is maintaining the facade the corners and doing the uh third floor
addition with the master roof which has become our neighborhood standard uh and there's a project
down the street that was approved two years ago that also had the master roof so we're trying to
you know, maintain that as people add on to their houses on this block,
that they do the mansion roofs,
that there's a uniformity as houses expand this neighborhood.
There is a,
there are neighbors on Bay and Mr.
to express displeasure,
not so much with the facade,
but with the depth of the rear yard and the height of the building,
but there's no refusal for the height of the building.
And I'm sure that one of them,
if not both of them are on the call and I will stop speaking at this
point, but SOSTA supports this project wholeheartedly.
and neighbor state as well thank you for calling we appreciate it anyone else in the virtual
audience yes samuel or donnie collie will be allowed to speak i could you please state your
name and spell for the court stenographer hello good afternoon my name is samuel bordoni hyphen
cowley that's s-a-m-u-e-l b-o-r-d-o-n-i hyphen c-o-w-l-e-y you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor
Yes, I am the adjacent Cater Street neighbor at 1718.
Okay, please proceed, sir.
I have no questions, just a comment that I am fully in support of this project.
It's a wonderful looking home and wonderful people, so I welcome them very much.
Thank you. Thank you for taking on time to call us. We appreciate it.
Anyone else?
There are no hands.
Planning Commission.
thank you chair keith davis hold on sorry hold on one second sorry there's a couple other hands
that were raised i see john layman and i think um ms shakumba is trying to speak this is one of
the cases her rco i was impacted by okay okay yeah those hands um went up afterwards the first
be john layman will be allowed to speak john could you please state your name and spell for
a court stenographer. Good afternoon. My name is John Lehman, J-O-H-N-L-E-H-M-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Please proceed, John. Well, first, I want to say thank you for your time, Mr. Chair and
the other board members. I'm trying to figure out if I can share a screen on this.
you will need to be promoted to share
mr layman john do you want to promote
uh so join as panelist i can promote you
excuse me chair he's been promoted thank you very much please proceed john
Please proceed, John.
Here you go, John.
Go ahead.
Let me just see here.
Sharing a screen.
Can I do that?
You can, I hope.
Trying to find where it is here.
The green button on the bottom, John?
Oh, right there. Oh, okay. I didn't see it. Thank you.
Mr. Layman, can you please turn on your video since you're testifying and sharing your screen? Thank you.
Is it working? Let's see. Start video. Let me see here. It's all right.
As you can tell, I'm not used to this. My name is John Lehman. I am the neighbor and property owner of 1729 Bainbridge Street, which is the lot directly to the south and to the rear of the subject property on Taylor Street.
What I'm sharing here is simply a letter that I submitted earlier yesterday to the board.
So I am here writing, or let me say, there are two variance requests for this project.
And I am here to object to the requested variance of the code required maximum area,
which is in the section 14701-2, commonly known as open space.
The other variance, which is for the eight-foot setback, I support.
The owner's front facade design includes several mitigating features, including, as has been discussed,
A handsome third-story mansard roof, restoration of the original masonry below, and an open roof deck rail.
I would note that Sosna's position on these projects does not address individual variances and is focused almost entirely on the facade issues here at the eight-foot suspect, which I support.
However, on the rear of the property, the design both fills in the original open L shape of the existing footprint and extends the new construction beyond the maximum occupied, the current occupied lot area of 75%, placing the rear wall one third closer to our property line, nine feet instead of 12.
of the 12 feet that would comply with the zoning.
The work guts the existing house structure.
So this is all new construction
and therefore absolutely no need
for the extended building length.
I'm actually happy to assist their architect
to revise their design to comply
with almost no disruption to the home design.
What would be required to comply with the open space would be either to maintain the
existing open L-shaped footprint or shorten the 39-foot house length to 36 feet, simply
a three-foot change on their design.
Further, unlike the front facade, their rear design provides no mitigating features to offset the open space encroachment.
Instead, the rear is a solid wall of vinyl siding nearly 40 feet high, including the roof deck parapet.
On this basis, I ask the board to reject this unneeded and unnecessary maximum occupied area variance, and I call on you to enforce the open space zoning code requirement when there is no hardship and no need. Thank you very much for your time.
John, just for curious, that's like instead of 75%, it's 81.2%, is that correct?
uh the open space is six percent more than it should be you're saying uh well that's what i
think their um documents okay all right in in the cape i don't have them right and all right thank
thank you john for taking time to call and we can i just address a couple things with mr layman
why don't what henry could we wait to see i think there's someone else with their hand
Why don't, Henry, could we wait to see?
I think there's someone else with their hand up.
So you can dress it all at one time.
Is there anyone else in the audience?
Yes, it was Madeline.
She'll come by, but she's back.
I'm going to allow her to speak.
She left again.
Thank you.
Henry, go ahead.
Mr. Clinton, respond.
Not Madeline.
You want me to go, Mr. Chairman?
Yeah, please.
Madeline's not here.
She's back.
She keeps, I don't know where she's going.
MR. LAMON, YOU'RE ASKING THAT THE PROJECT I PRESENTED BE MOVED BACK THREE FEES.
IS THAT WHAT I UNDERSTAND?
WELL, I'M SIMPLY SAYING THE DESIGN CAN AND SHOULD COMPLY WITH THE ZONING CODE REQUIREMENT OF 25%.
Otherwise, by accepting this variance, the zoning board is essentially saying the open area requirement is not 25%.
It's only nine feet, which is what this design provides.
So if we move the property back three feet, we would be less depth than 1718 and 1722, since we're only one foot longer than that.
So you're aware that 1718 and 1722 don't meet your criteria either?
Yes, they do, because it's either three feet shorter or maintain the existing open space L of the existing footprints.
In other words, it could be 39 feet and maintain the L to provide the 25%.
You have a couple of hundred dollars.
That wasn't my question.
I'm only asking you, you understand that 1718 and 1722 are only one foot less in depth than ours,
and then 1720 is one foot greater than ours, so that there's a multitude of depths on Cater Street.
Would you agree with me, yes or no?
You are not cross-examining me for the council.
Yes, I am.
The 1718 is an L-shaped footprint.
So about three-quarters of its rear wall is one foot deeper, I guess, than what you proposed.
But the other one-quarter of the wall is something like eight feet farther away.
So it provides effectively the required open space and reduces the mass of this building against the property line, towards the property line.
Mr. Lehman, isn't your real argument here that you don't like the back of my client's property?
And isn't that what you told him?
And didn't you tell him if you put stucco there, you'd be okay with the debt of the property?
I remind you you're under oath.
That is true.
in the sense of a mitigating offset to your uh requested variance all right so there would be
i thank both of you i really do i thank you both i have your comments thank you
is there anyone else in the virtual audience
Planning Commission
Madeline
She's allowed to speak
Could you please state your name
As spelled for the court stenographer
Hi my name is
S-H-I-K-O-M-B-A
There was something wrong with my thing
Hold on hold on hold on do you swear
Or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
Truth yes I do
are you involved in this case here yes and i was involved in a previous case but
my thing kept going raised hand low hand and i had no control over it i'm sorry what what what
what do you want to tell us about this case um i do approve of it i was trying to get in to
really speak on 2247 but my the machine um kept wearing raised hand over there i didn't know
I'm very sorry for you that
but could you tell me about the argument
in this case I do support what the man
was saying in terms of he
wanted to make some adjustments
but there's something wrong with
the argument
thank you very much we appreciate
I don't know what was wrong
I couldn't get through nobody
and I'm very sorry about that
that's not helping me thank you ma'am um anyone else in the virtual audience
there are no more hands planning commission
thank you chair keith davis build off your city planning commission uh comprehensive plan record
Thank you, Chair. Keith Davis, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Comprehensive plan recommends no change to the current RM1 zoning.
In order to support their proposed addition, the applicant is requesting a variance to forgo the required third floor front eight-foot setback.
There's no evidence of hardship to support the request for the variance.
Further, the variance request for reduced open space in the property's rear creates massing that directly impacts the neighbor's backyard access to light.
Planning Commission recommends that the board disapprove the variances.
Thank you. MI 2024, 002-938, 1720 Cater Street. I vote yes with proviso. Revised plans, one page, stamped by ZBA, August 7th, 2024.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Taya Nguyen, my vote is yes with Proviso
James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with Proviso
Thank you, thank you, thank you, counsel
Alright, number 10, MI 2024-003-049
1148-62 Frankfurt Avenue
Eric Bozen is the attorney
There's a letter of support from Fishtown Neighbors
a letter of unanimous support from Fishtown-Kensian Area of Business
and the Improvement District,
and a letter of non-oppositions from Councilmember Squill.
Eric Bison has been promoted.
Hi, Council.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Counsel, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes, Eric Bodzin, E-R-I-C-B-O-D-Z-I-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
Could you turn your video on so we can see you one minute, please?
Yes. I'm sorry.
Sure. No, no, that's fine.
can you see me now we do not
can you see me now we see no we see a picture of the bank the old bank
his picture was to the right of his um screen he's on he's on the screen chair okay okay how's
this. Can you see me now? Let me see here. Okay. Please proceed. I'm good. Could you identify
your client and relationship to the property? Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Eric Bodson of
Blank Rome, 1 Logan Square. I am here on behalf of 1148 Frankfurt Partners, LLC, which conducts
business as the Altera Property Group. Connor Burke is here with me on behalf of ownership.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Yes, thank you.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to wait another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Good afternoon.
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have.
Thank you, counsel.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
I am here in support of this special exception with Connor Burke on behalf of the Altera Property
Group. I understand that representatives of the Fishtown Neighbors Association and the Fishtown
Kensington Area Business Improvement District are also here and may be available to speak
about their organization's near unanimous support for this project. Altera is the owner of the
subject property of 1148-62 Frankfort Avenue, which includes the historic Kensington National
Bank building, pictured here at the corner of Frankfort Avenue and Girard Avenue. You may
recall that Altera previously appeared before this board also with community support to preserve this
historic structure and to reactivate its use at the center of the Fishtown-Girard commercial corridor.
here are the historic photographs of the building and here is the building as it exists which the
owner continues to preserve with the addition of an accessible entrance in the bottom right
portion of your screen which was designed in collaboration with the coordinating rco fish
town neighbors association here exterior photographs of the building with fronts
fronts Gerard Avenue to the north, Frankfurt Avenue to the east, and Dutton Street to the west,
It's Girard Avenue to the north,
Frankfurt Avenue to the east,
and Dutton.
where Wells Fargo Bank continues to operate. And here are interior photographs of the first floor
commercial shell space at Frankfurt Avenue and Gerard Avenue. We submit that this space is well
suited for Garage Sale Vintage's nationally renowned store, where neighbors buy, sell, and trade
high-quality clothing and enjoy light food and beverage. As you can see from the zoning map,
the subject property, like its neighbors in all directions, is located in the CMX 2.5 district,
where garage sale vintages retail and dining uses are all permitted. However, as you can see here,
the property sits on the border of the North Delaware portion of the NCA overlay district,
where the eating and drinking use
is permitted by special exception.
That this property's referral
for eating and drinking use
is in fact the singular issue
before the board, Mr. Chair.
We submit that the grant of this exception
is well-precedented
and a natural fit
for the supportive Fishtown community.
As you can see here,
in fact, every corner
of this busy intersection
is an eating and drinking establishment. Johnny Brenda's on the northeast corner,
Garage on the southeast corner, and Joe's on the northwest corner. Here's a map of about 10 more
dining establishments within a few blocks radius. And here's a rendering of Garage Shale Vintage on
the southwest corner, designed in a manner that will benefit, not detriment the community,
with its Fishtown appropriate mission to quote, reduce the waste caused by fast fashion and
extend the life of clothing resale, reuse, and responsible recycling. Here is the store layout.
As you can see, the front two-thirds of the approximately 6,000 square foot space
is for merchandise. The one-third remainder in the rear by the old bank vault is for light food
and beverage, and for buy, sell, and trade appointments. Here is the exterior design
with two entrances that lead into the main shopping gallery. As I mentioned, the accessible
ramp at Girard and Dutton was specifically designed by community input. Here are snapshots
of the interior shopping experience, which will be open day and night, seven days a week,
to ensure an active presence at this center corner of the Fishtown-Girard commercial corridor.
Here is a template of the menu with a focus on light, reheatable food like tacos, chips and salsa, margaritas, and here are pictures of Garage Sale Vintage's growing national footprint since it was founded in 2020, with two additional locations on the way in New York City.
On June 25th, the Coordinating RCO, Fishtown Neighbors Association, voted near unanimously, with 24 in support, one opposed, for approval of this application for, quote, an appealing daytime and nighttime retail option in the Fishtown-Gerrard corridor.
I understand Councilmember Squilla sent this letter to the board yesterday acknowledging that the Coordinating RCO is in support and that his office, as such, is in non-opposition.
And finally, on May 22nd, the Fishtown Kensington Area Business Improvement District also voted completely unanimously in support of this application, observing the garage sale vintage quote fits the identity of Fishtown by focusing on fashion and vintage items while adding to our destination dining experience.
The letter also highlights similarly approved retail and dining uses in the near vicinity.
Again, I understand that representatives of each of these organizations are here today
and available to speak at your request.
Mr. Chair, for all these reasons, I submit to the board that the proposed use of garage sale
vintage meets all criteria and conditions of the code, including use definitions and
dimensional requirements.
I submit that your grant of relief will not cause any specific detriment beyond that,
which is normally expected from the proposed use, including detriments of congestion, overcrowding,
impairment of light and air, burden to public facilities, impairment to adjacent properties,
endangerment of public health or safety, or inconsistency with the comprehensive plan,
all as further defined by the code. And I submit that the grant of special exception relief would
represent the least modification possible of the regulation at issue and will neither alter the
character of the district nor detriment to public welfare. Rather, this proposal fits into the
surrounding area and will support efforts to reactivate dining and shopping along the Fishtown
corridor. There are no environmental issues with this proposal, and Mr. Chairman, this concludes my
There are no environmental issues with this proposal.
And, Mr. Chairman, this concludes my presentation.
presentation.
Do you have someone to adopt your testimony?
Yes, Connor Burke is here with me and prepared.
Why don't we bring Connor?
Connor is allowed to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes, my name is Connor Burke.
That's, excuse me, C-O-N-N-O-R-B-U-R-K-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Burke.
Have you been present during the entirety of my testimony today?
Was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
And would you adopt and affirm my testimony that I have offered as your own?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the board.
questions or comments more attorney hillary emerson
um just briefly mr chair um hi mr bodson good to see you again
um um with um with this um use it seems like there may actually be two principal uses here
both a retail sales use
as well as a sit-down restaurant.
The retail sales use, from what I can tell,
will be permitted by right,
so I don't know if there may need to be
an additional permit pulled for that
or if Elle and I just consider this all a restaurant,
but I just wanted to just make that note
in case there was an additional permit needed for that.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
yes robert everett will be allowed to speak mr everett could you please state your name
and spell for the sonographer yes good afternoon first name is robert last name everett e-v-e-r-e-double
t you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do please proceed mr everett just confirming that eric mentioned our group and yes we
overwhelmingly supports it with only one opposed thank you very much for taking the time to cause
we appreciate it is there anyone else in the virtual audience there are no hands there are
no hands to planning commission thank you chair keith davis philadelphia city planning commission
uh comprehensive plan recommends no change to the current cmx 2.5 commercial mixed-use zoning
this lot is on the corner of the established frankfort avenue and gerard avenue commercial
corridor no negative impact is anticipated by the proposed use planning commission recommends that
the board grant the variance for a special exception thank you mi2024 003049 1148 to 62
frankfurt avenue i vote yes like john my vote is yes cheryl gaston my vote is yes
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes
Ty Owen, my vote is yes
Now my vote is yes
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes
Council
Number 12
MI 2024
003 210
20 Jackson Street
Meredith Ferliger is the attorney
A letter of support from
Whitman Council Incorporated
And a letter of non-opposition from Council Member
Squalor
Meredith has been promoted.
Counsel, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Mr. Chairman.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Meredith Ferleger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
i do could you identify your client a relationship to this property my client is a sherwin williams
company which is a tenant of this property our vice chair has a few questions for you
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 thank you council please
proceed. You have power to share your screen. Wonderful. Thank you. Good afternoon, almost
evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Again, Meredith Furliger of Dilworth-Paxson.
My client this afternoon is the Sherwin-Williams Company, a tenant of the property at 20 Jackson
Street. Sherwin-Williams, as you know, is an infamous company that provides all kinds of
services in paint. So you should know this particular tenant quite well. As you know,
As you know, the property before the board today is 20 Jackson Street in South Philadelphia.
the property before the board today is 20 Jackson Street in South Philadelphia.
Today's request exclusively concerns signage and requests a minor variance concerning the location of the proposed signs on the building.
With me, I have Bob White from Sherwin-Williams, Danielle Mannion, and Katie Allenson from Accent Graphics, who designed the proposed signs, as well as Dan Johnson from Easy Signs, which is the local installer.
They'll certainly be available in case the board has any questions.
The exhibit packet submitted to the board contains 13 exhibits, including tax clearance at Exhibit 2,
zoom out a little bit, tax clearance at Exhibit 2, and a redacted lease at Exhibit 3.
We do request that these exhibits be moved into evidence following the conclusion of our presentation.
As the board knows, Sherwin-Williams is a global leader in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of paint and paint-related products.
They're excited to be opening a new store at 20 Jackson Street, which will provide services to contractors and individual consumers in the first floor space that is 16,452 square feet.
As is clearly shown on the zoning map I have up on the screen at Exhibit 7, the property at 20 Jackson Street is located at the corner of Jackson Street, which is up here to the north, and South Swanson Street, which is along the side but is unlabeled.
labeled. The property zoned I-2 industrial. Importantly, as it relates to signage, this
property and its surrounding industrial properties are separated from the residential areas to the
west by I-95, which is immediately to the east of this property. Aerial views are included at
Exhibit 9. The aerials show that the building at 20 Jackson Street is sandwiched between
surrounding industrial buildings and set back from the I-95 roadway by about 200 feet.
From this east view, the board can see the main frontage of this building along South
Swanson Street. In these views, the former retailer, which was a Joe Mar clothing store,
was still in the space, where you can see quite a significant number of wall signs that they had on
this property. From this particular view, the separation of the building from any residential
areas is quite clear, with the building being surrounded exclusively by other industrial
or large-scale commercial uses. From the south view, the board can see the frontage of the
property along Jackson Street. And again, you can clearly see the distance here from the residential
areas on the other side of 95. And finally, from the west, the board will notice the two small
extensions above the building which are relevant to today's case. Looking at the street level
photographs at Exhibit 13. This first view shows the property again from South Swanson Street
when Joe Marr was in the process of closing down its operations.
This next photograph is looking towards Jackson Avenue, where the board will clearly see the
building extensions above the roof. The tenant is anticipating that the upper level windows
that are currently obscured here in this image will be restored.
The next photograph shows a view standing up towards Jackson Street looking south.
This next view is from the Jackson Street-South Swanson Street intersection
and is also helpful in terms of establishing context of the property as well as its proximity to I-95.
And again, just by way of context, the residences are on the other side of I-95, which is pretty far off in this image.
Given the industrial nature of this area, the roadways surrounding the property are quite wide, and I believe are also slated for upcoming city-led improvements.
The next view is from Wolf Street, where again the board will see the prominence of the aforementioned building extensions above the roof.
From this view, roughly 230 feet away, you can clearly discern the most prominent point of this building in terms of identification.
The next photograph shows that the building is minimally visible from Snyder Avenue, which is all the way north of the property.
Finally, the exhibits include a photograph from the I-95 roadway, where again the board may note the building is over 200 feet away.
where again the board may note the building is over 200 feet away and is tucked behind another
building which inhibits visibility of the building for those that might be traveling down I-95
preparing to exit at Columbus Boulevard to travel to the Sherwin-Williams store.
Photographs of the zoning posters that were timely posted on each frontage are also in the packet.
it. With this instant application, the applicant is proposing the erection of four total wall signs,
only three of which generated today's appeal for a variance. Looking at the signage plans at
Exhibit 5, I'm going to flip to the last page here first. Only the signs marked in this image
with a B require a variance. The sign A is considered by Wright. Scrolling up one page,
the board will see a rendered view of the proposed signs. As you can likely tell,
these are brand standard in terms of color, overall design, and of course, Sherwin-Williams logo.
Sign A, which is the wall sign above the door, is 99 square feet and does not require relief.
The three other wall signs are each 79.33 square feet, measuring 14 feet long and 68 inches high.
They are proposed to be erected on these building extensions, which are each 15 feet long and 12 feet high.
The extensions themselves start roughly 30 feet from ground level.
The signs will be illuminated with LED lighting from behind the signs, but the signs themselves are, of course, static.
The exhibit packet does also, at Exhibit 6, include a floor plan of the Sherwin-Williams interior, but that is not subject to today's application, so I will skip over the floor plans unless the board has any particular questions about the interior layout.
As I noted earlier on, the application before the board today only concerns the location of the signs that were presented.
The number of signs and the size of the signs not only complies with the provisions of the code, but is actually substantially less than the code would allow.
As established in earlier evidence, this property suffers from a unique hardship
entitling the applicant to a variance to permit the erection of three wall signs above the second
floor windowsill. As shown in the photographs and clearly established on this particular rendering,
the building is subject to various obscurements given the heavily industrial and commercial
surroundings. Since Sherwin-Williams is intended to cater in this case both to commercial and
residential customers, it is critically important that the building be quickly and easily identifiable
from a distance, particularly since there is no signage proposed at all for the north face of the
building. This further supports the necessity of all three signs, with the westernmost sign being
visible from I-95 and allowing travelers to identify the building before taking their required
exit. Additionally, this section of the code referenced in the refusal that only allows
signage at the lower of the roof line or the second floor windowsill is really intended to
prevent against the erection of roof signage. While the building extensions in this case do
sit above the roof level, technically speaking, the proposed signs do not constitute roof signage,
but are instead common wall signs that just happen to sit slightly higher on this particular
building. They unfortunately cannot be treated as building identification signs, which do have more
of an allowance in terms of height, because the building itself is too low for them to qualify.
The building itself also has unique features that make locating wall signage difficult.
As shown in earlier photographs and renderings, the building benefits from significant windows,
both existing and anticipated to be restored. As you can see, it's nearly impossible to identify
a spot below the roofline where the applicant can actually locate viable signage here,
other than the proposed wall sign above the door.
These challenges are presumably why the former retailer felt it necessary to erect such colorful signage
nearly every couple of feet along the entire building.
The proposed Sherwin-Williams signs are significantly more modest than what was there in the past,
while still providing minimal signage necessary to support a nearly 17,000-square-foot commercial and retail operation.
There are other similar signs in the immediate area as these building extensions appear.
There are other similar signs in the immediate area, as these building extensions above the roof are quite common in this area for industrial buildings of this nature.
The applicant further submits the proposal as the least minimum variance and is limited just to the necessary relief to ensure the new tenant space is sufficiently identifiable.
The I-2 district would permit an unlimited number of wall signs.
On this frontage of the building, over 900 square feet of signage would be permitted.
This entire application only encompasses roughly one-third of the total permitted signage square
footage for this frontage of the building. Additionally, the signs are only a few feet
above where they'd be permitted by right, below the second floor windowsill. As shown,
there is simply no feasible location on the building to locate code-compliant signs.
We submit the proposal will not increase congestion, harm neighbors' properties, or impair light and
air. The building is amongst other commercial or industrial uses, and the signs cannot be
visible from any residents. The applicant further submits the proposed signs will facilitate a
reduction in congestion that might be caused by insufficient signage, particularly drivers
traveling down the highway seeking to visit this store. In terms of impact on surrounding
properties, the evidence established this property is in an area that can accommodate
these minimal signs without impact. Full analysis is provided in the memo of law submitted to the
board at Exhibit 10. With respect to the community, as you noted earlier on, we did meet with Whitman
Council, and their support was unanimous for this proposal. So at this point, I would call
up my client, Bob White, if you're in the virtual audience, if you can raise your hand.
Mr. White.
Bob White has been allowed to speak.
Mr. White, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes, thank you very much. It is Bob, B-O-B, White, W-H-I-T-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Mr. White, could you identify your position with Sherwin-Williams, the tenant of this space?
Yes, I am a senior project engineer in the real estate department for the Sherwin-Williams company.
And as a senior project engineer, have you been granted authority by Sherwin-Williams to speak on their behalf today?
And have you heard all of the testimony and evidence that was offered in front of the board during the presentation?
And would you agree that testimony was true and accurate, and would you adopt that testimony as if you had given it yourself?
Yes. The only thing that I would clarify is that the second story windows are still subject to review with the landlord and their ultimate building plans that they have to submit before the town.
Thank you. We're happy to answer any questions. And again, we do have the architect as well as the installer on the line.
Questions from the board?
I have no questions.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands chair planning commission
thank you chair uh this is keith davis filled up the city planning commission
uh the planning commission recommends no change to this property's i2 zoning
the proposed signs in question are effectively shielded from nearby residents by the elevated
i-95 and will therefore have little to no impact in that regard the planning commission has no
objection to the granting of this variance but we suggest a provisor that the signs uh self-identify
um number 12 mi 2024 003 210 20 jackson street i vote yes michael johns my vote is yes
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes
Taya Nguyen, my vote is yes
James Snell, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes
Thank you, counsel
Thank you, everyone
Number 14, MI 2024-003-2372 Franklin Town Boulevard
Joseph Vaccaro is the attorney
There is a letter of unanimous opposition, 16 to 0, from the Logan Square Neighbors Association, and also a letter of opposition from Council Member Young's office.
Mr. Vaccaro.
Mr. Vaccaro.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
I can, Mr. Vaccaro. Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Certainly. My name is Joseph Vaccaro, V-A-C-C-A-R-O, and I'm here on behalf of Logan Wheel Property, Logan Operator, the applicant.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its
accuracy? Yes, 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? Yes, I did, with the exception of
the tax clearance documents, which I was able to finally send either yesterday or Monday.
Understood. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen. Thank you very much. If I may start
sharing my screen okay can you see can you see this says fountain view yep yes okay great so
we're on the same page um and for the record i do have tom kilcourse on the call as well as
Dennis O'Hara from the Compass Sign Company on behalf of this application. So at the conclusion
of my presentation, I'd like to call Mr. O'Hara next with any additional technical information
regarding the signs. As indicated, this is an application for two signs to this building,
which is used for senior living, as well as medical officers. The medical officers are on
the first floor, senior living in the rest of the building. I'm starting on page one of my exhibit
packet. I don't want to belabor or waste the board's time with the deed and the other items
which the board already has had. I'm moving along to page 18. Yes, there were a series of signs
which were already installed and approved as of right. This specific application relates to
sign 3, where my cursor is hovering. Do you see that? As well as sign 5, where my cursor is
hovering. The building is taking up the whole block. The block is bordered by Franklin Town
Boulevard, then Callow Hill Street on the north side, 18th Street on the west side, and the former
Wood Street on the south side. The next property over further south across the street from Wood
Street is parking for the Mormon Temple in Center City, Philadelphia. Going further down, I have
another view. Again, sign five and sign three of the ones that are part of this application.
And I could show you a street view. I could stop sharing this for now. I could go to
actually better yet, I'll go to
this one here. This is a screenshot of the building.
In question, this is Wood Street, where my mouse is hovering over.
Franklin Town Boulevard is here, where you see my mouse hovering, 18th Street.
So one sign would be here, and the other sign would be here, right where the batter is.
The batter is just temporary.
This is the Mormon Temple, on the very bottom of the screen.
Another building affiliated with the Mormon Temple.
And these parked cars over here are affiliated with the Mormon temple, just so the board has an idea of where the two proposed signs are going to be.
The reason we need the proposed signs and the reason that we're here before the board is that these signs would need to have a pan in the back.
Why does it need the pin at the back of, and referring to sine three, it would be a nine
by 24 inch and sine five would be nine by 24 feet.
I apologize.
Nine feet by 24 feet.
And sine five would be approximately eight foot six feet by 12 feet, which would be resting
approximately six foot eight inches above the ground.
The reason that it needs that is, I'm going to scroll down.
The letters to the sign, and this is one of the signs that's already up.
This is one of the proposed signs. This would be sign number three by Franklin Town Boulevard sign on the Franklin Town Boulevard side and going down, and this is on the Wood Street side.
This is one of the proposed signs. This would be sign number three by Franklin.
The purposes of these signs would be to direct receiving and deliveries to the building in question, as well as to direct the bus drivers or the van drivers for the residents, so that people would know where the building is for the residents, as well as shipping and receiving.
The sign would consist of all these letters, which would create pinholes into the building.
And the reason that the proposal called for the pan in the back would be that the pan would only use between six and eight holes into the EFIS surface of the building, whereas installing the individual letters would create hundreds of pinholes into the building.
The building previously had a sign. If you could read it, it's called when this building was known as the watermark. And if you're looking at page 27 of my exhibit packet, and I have several other pictures, all these are pinholes from when the watermark sign was on the building.
All these pinholes, they can't be covered up. They can't be repainted. Those pinholes are still going to be seen. And to add additional pinholes for the proposed sign, it would just be harmful to the structural integrity of the building.
We're adding additional holes to the building and we're not going to be able to cover up these holes.
That's why there is the proposal for the pan so that the pan would be attached to the building and then the individual letters would be attached to the pan.
So as the letters get removed.
So, Mr. Vicario, just to be clear, you said five, you showed three.
What are the other two?
The other two, the other two are on the top of the building.
i could just briefly show you why don't you show us that
here it is on page 20 on page 20 on the top of the left and left left over there
yes yes to the left over here my my right wow okay okay it's those signs and then there's
and how big are those signs at the top of the building well those signs
If I could zoom in here, those are roughly 62 feet wide by about 4 foot, 62 feet wide by 7 foot 9 inches wide.
And those signs, they're much higher. They sit approximately between 200 and 230 feet above.
And that design's up there, too?
That's my understanding, yes. And Mr. O'Hara, he can confirm that. Again, that's not part of our application. That's for the city. That's for the city in general to view where the building is.
These signs, these specific signs are for the cab drivers, the bus drivers, as well as the delivery drivers.
And again, here, I'm just scrolling down, if I could zoom on down.
Mr. Vaccaro, did you go to the RCO meeting?
I know, I know, I understand that.
Did you go to the RCO meeting?
Yes, I did.
And 16 people were there?
They all voted against it?
I know that. And that was surprising that all 16 people voted after one of the residents actually said that these are very nice signs. The signs are not illuminated. They're static. We had one resident that said it was very nice.
We had another resident that was very insistent.
He was being very insistent that all of these holes, all of these holes that I'm showing on page 28, they could all be covered up and the whole building could be repainted.
Now, again, members of the board, this building is over 200 feet tall.
Does he propose that we have to repaint the whole building?
I'm just trying to figure out.
There's 16 people voted and they all voted against it.
I know him, but we were not there for the vote.
Okay, thank you.
Now, if I can respond, though, I did share an email communication with Mr. Lineback of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, and that's on page 67.
And that's on page, that's on page 67, page 66 and 67. Okay. When he emailed me and, you know, this is, this is an opposition. I emailed him back. I emailed him back. Can you please, non-argumentatively, good afternoon. Is there a rationale for the vote?
and he responded to me and he responded to me here's a here's a response if i could zoom out a
bit the l the lsna board of directors voted to oppose the request for the variance the board
did not consider this to be an unnecessary hardship for the applicant okay thank you so
we think it is we think it is okay and that's it in you want to bring your client on to adopt
your testimony please uh can i bring in mr o'hara first sure mr harrow's the who's he from the
compass sign company sure okay so you there he has been allowed to speak hi mr harrow please
state your name and spell for the stenographer dennis o'hara d-e-n-n-i-s capital o apostrophe
capital h-a-r-a you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do sir please proceed mr vicara
if i may joe no joe you're muted joe you're muted we can't hear you joe you're muted go
ahead please can you hear me now we can okay mr o'hara have you heard my presentation to the board
yes and uh do you have anything else to add to it or do you disagree with it in any way
I'd like to go over a few things the chairman questioned about the high-rise letters on the building.
They were replaced.
The previous, it said the watermark, and below it, the watermark had a logo.
We acquired permits for those.
Permits were approved, and we fabricated and installed those signs.
sign number four shows another approved sign by the city and permits were issued
that show what we were proposing for signs three and five okay that sign is located on 18th street
um and the sign measures three foot by 12 foot six it met all the requirements the code
And that sign is tucked underneath an overhang where buses come or vehicles come to deliver patients to the Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center.
Signs 3 and signs 5 are all on Wood Street, and what we proposed was to cover all the holes left and discoloration from the previous individual letters.
So if you could go to sign number three, that is towards, it's on Wood Street, and it replaced what was previously on the wall that I assume received the variance because it's above the second floor windows.
right uh we only squared off where the lettering previous lettering was to cover all the holes
and install a non-illuminated uh pan sign with individual logo and letters pinned to the pan
okay the finish would be an a flat color would not be a high gloss finish to the pan and this
This sign is located where it's the streetscape, so when you're on 2 Franklin Town Boulevard,
you'll be able to identify the building because everything else is 34 stories up in the air.
If you go to sign number 5, again, you can see to the left what was there previously,
and all we're proposing is a 9-foot by 12-foot sign to cover all the previous holes.
We did seal the holes so no water penetration could come into the building
after we removed the letters.
This is an ethos facade for both signs 3 and 5.
And you can see on your pictures of the elevation all the discoloration that took place
where the previous letters were located and staining onto the ethos facade and other areas
we've seen that several times sir thank you
Mr. O'Hara, have you?
Mr. O'Hara?
may i finish
May I finish?
We contacted a wall restoration company.
That's what I was going to ask.
That are well known for wall restoration, and they would not touch this job.
They just said there's no way of blending in that ethos where the, obviously, they could cover where the letters were,
but how would it blend in with the rest of the ethos surrounding the letters?
because of staining, and how would they blend that in?
So that's why we came up with a pan to cover all the holes
and to give them streetscape identification.
This elevation where you would see the receiving sign from 18th Street,
the one-way traffic coming towards the building,
we would remove the existing receiving letters and add them to the new pan sign
along with the name
of the location
of Fountainville.
Okay, thank you.
You've answered the question I was
going to ask, Mr. O'Hara.
If I could call Mr. Tom Kilcourse.
And is he going to adopt
your testimony, Joe? He's just going to adopt
the testimony, yes. Okay, please, bring him on.
Mr. Kilcourse.
Okay. Are you there, Mr. Kilcourse?
He's been allowed to speak.
Hi, Mr. Kilcourse, please state your name and spell for the court stenographer.
Tom, I can't hear you.
He's muted. Can you unmute, please?
Tom, there he is.
There we go. My name is Tom. Last name is Kilcourse, K-I-L-C-O-U-R-S-E.
All right. Do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. Vaccaro.
Thank you. Mr. Kilcourse, what's your affiliation with the property?
I'm Executive Vice President of Plant Operations for Marquis.
And you're part of the owners of the property, right?
That's correct. I work directly for the owners, correct.
Understood. Did you hear my presentation as well as Mr. O'Hara's presentation?
I did.
And do you have anything else to add to it?
No, I think everyone has done a good job in describing exactly the issue that we have.
Thank you.
And would you adopt my presentation as well as Mr. O'Hara's testimony as if it were your own, as if you were testifying?
I would.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, Rich Leinbach will be allowed to speak.
Hi, Mr. Leinbach.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Good afternoon.
My name is Rich Leinbach, L-E-I-M-B-A-C-H.
I'm with him.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
i do are you with the rco i am i'm i'm with the logan square neighborhood association
and we conduct we conducted a public meeting on june 25th and there were 38 people in attendance
uh 16 of which were board members of the logan square neighborhood association
who voted unanimously to oppose this request for variances.
Both signs are over the size limit of the code,
and the 200-square-foot sign is not in the proper location on the building.
And it was the opinion of the board that complying with the zoning,
the signage code as to the location and size of the two signs was not a hardship.
Thank you very much for calling us.
We appreciate you taking the time.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
If I may, if I may, Mr. Bergman, I do have a few questions for Mr. Leimbach.
Go ahead.
Mr. Leimbach, are you still there?
It's your testimony that there were 16 board members who voted against, correct?
Correct.
how did they're only they're the only ones that are permitted to vote on any rco business
but there were 38 members of the community in attendance because we don't we don't close the
meetings to the community they're understood understood and uh that's in your bylaws that
the 16 board members only get to vote that's correct okay and what was the consensus
Only gets a vote. That's correct. OK. And what was the consensus among the other 38 members that participated at the meeting?
There was nobody voiced any consensus. Did you even ask?
No. Did you even did you even provide me with the form letter at the conclusion of the RCO meeting?
besides the email that you sent me
and the email exchange that we engaged in?
What do you mean, form letter?
You mean the meeting summary?
Yeah, I sent that to you.
I'm sorry, but I didn't see it.
I'll take your word for it
that you sent me the form letter.
Thank you.
Are you done, Mr. Vaccaro?
Thank you, yes.
All right, is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
there are no hands planning commission
thank you chair uh this is keith davis philadelphia city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the lots existing cmx4 zoning
there are two sign related variances to consider here one for the orientation of the
two signs that are in the permit um on the sorry there the permit speaks to two signs
and the variances are first for the orientation on the building regarding the signs orientation
the planning commission does not object because the proposed signs are replacing signs at the
same locations the second variance is in regards to the sign sizes the applicant is requesting a
103 square foot sign and a 216 square foot sign when a property cmx4 zoning limits each
sign to 100 square feet so Planning Commission Planning Commission asked that the board grant
the variance with the proviso that the signs are no bigger in area than the existing 199 and
the 79 square foot signs
respectively
thank you
MI 2024
003 237
2 Franklin Town Boulevard
I vote no
Michael Johns
my vote is yes
Cheryl Gaston
my vote is no
Tanetta Graham
my vote is yes
iowen my vote is yes
james snell my vote is no
ishmael shaheed my vote is no
oh that's four no's right
yeah that was how many i counted mr chair okay um thank you mr vaquero is there anyone in the
virtual audience whose case, 2 p.m.
case has not been called?
There are no hands here.
We're going to take a five-minute break, then we'll come back.
I think we only have a few more cases.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing the 3.30 list.
With me is our vice chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, James Snell.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Shell L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Tanetta Graham.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Board member, Michael Johns.
Present here, Mr. Chairman.
And board member, Taya Nguyen.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Here's our virtual format.
Proceedings are being recorded
With your participation, you agree to be recorded
Video will be available by contacting
Kathleen.Grady at phila.gov
For our court stenographer
We ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying
If you're participating by phone, press star 9 to raise your hand
And star 6 to unmute
To enter a pyramid statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email address and also the property, the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question answer box on the screen is not for comments.
All comments should be directed to our executive director, Kathleen Grady.
Let's look at our schedule for this afternoon.
Number two.
2. MI 2023-002-787-90 Red Lion Road. The hearing in this matter has been continued to Wednesday, October 9th at 2 p.m.
The hearing in this matter has been continued to Wednesday, October 9th at 2 p.m.
This is the final continuance of this matter.
Are there any other requests for continuances?
There are no hands, Chair.
Number three, MI 2023-004-266-1458 North 30th Street.
Aaron Herman is the listed applicant. Kevin Bryant, the listed owner. This is the second
listing. No one appeared the first time. There are no hands out for this case, Chair.
MI 2023-004-266-1458 North 30th Street. I vote to dismiss.
Michael Johns, my vote is to dismiss.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is to dismiss
Tanetta Graham, my vote is to dismiss
Thank you
James Snell, my vote is to dismiss
I don't want my vote to dismiss
Thank you. Number one, MI 2021
005123, 931 South 18th Street
This case has been withdrawn
And number four, MI2023-006-952-532 East Johnson Street.
This case has been withdrawn.
And number eight, MI2024-001-643-5650-Hunter.
Zamberley Shepard is the listed applicant.
Lamar Oglesby was the listed owner.
or either one in the audience.
Yes, Zamberly is in the audience
and will be allowed to speak.
Good afternoon, how are you?
Good afternoon, could you spell your name
for the court sonographer?
Okay, it's Zamberly, Z as in zebra,
A as in apple, N as in Nancy,
B as in boy, E as in Eric,
R as in Robert, L as in Larry,
E as in Eric, that's my first name,
and my last name is Shepard,
s-h-e-p-p-a-r-d
do you swear for him to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes I do
we have information
has this case been withdrawn
I actually submitted something
saying that I would like to
withdraw my application
for the zoning for 5650
100 street
okay you did
you sent us an email
am I correct
yes Mr. Chart
I just wanted to clarify
Ms. Shepard, are you or were you a tenant at the property, leasing space from the owner?
Yes, I was at one point in time.
I am no longer doing any business here.
All right.
I just wanted to clarify that.
Thank you so much.
So, Hillary, we're okay, right?
Yes, we are, Mr. Chair.
We've received the signed letter from Ms. Shepard.
Thank you.
So MI 2024-001-643-5650, Hunter Street, this case has been withdrawn.
And thank you.
Excuse me.
There is Lamar Oglesby in the audience.
Mr. Oglesby.
Lamar has been allowed to speak.
Mr. Oglesby, could you state your name, please, and spell for this sonographer?
can you unmute please yes can you hear me now i can could you please state your name and spell
for this yes excuse my voice uh lamar lamar l-a-m-a-r last name oglesby o-g-l-e-s-b-y
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I do. Mr. Oglesby, Ms. Shepard has withdrawn her application for the zoning board of adjustment. Okay. And so we've withdrawn her request for a hearing.
okay okay okay now because what i was how can i go about um
because i previously had this woman put like six children there how can i go about but she
listen she's the one she's the one put in the application she put the application in
she sent us an email a letter saying that she no longer wants to go
She sent us an email, a letter saying that she no longer wants to go on with this.
I love you.
And I think anything, and I understand there might be some litigation.
So whatever's going on, you're going to have to work it out.
Besides, we've withdrawn this case here.
Thank you.
And thank you for getting on the phone.
We appreciate it.
All right.
Thank you.
All right.
All right.
um mi2024-001-628-5502 haunton street gerardo prez is the listed applicant
owners are giacomo and sheila denanis um this is a pro se mr prez okay
gerard perez gerardo perez has been promoted hi i'm mr prez could you please state your name
and spell it for the court stenographer
yes hello sorry i don't know how are you sir could you please state your name and spell for
the court scenario yes hi my name is gerardo perez that's spelled g-e-r-a-r-d-o last name
perez p-e-r-e-z do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing about the
truth yes and this is for your property um this is for uh um john como and sheila the anantis
so i'm the permit agent of representing um helping them out um they're also on the uh
i know hillary we can't do that can we no no mr perez the homeowners have to testify
um you can assist them technically if you want to show the exhibits but they have to do the
presentation you are not permitted to act on their behalf before the zoning board okay okay yeah
Nobody told us that, so I wasn't aware.
It's my first time here dealing with the Philadelphia board.
But they are in the office.
Okay, which one of them would testify?
I'm thinking Giancomo.
Have Giancomo come on, please.
And do you have the documents?
Yes, yes, I have everything prepared.
So you'll put the documents up and he'll go off the documents, okay?
You're just not going to be allowed to say anything, right?
Thank you.
Giacomo
Person by the name of Giacomo
Could you please raise your hand
Giacomo
I don't see them
Dianontes or Sheila Dianontes
Either one
I will promote Sheila
Dianontes
Thank you
Hi, Sheila.
Do we see her hand?
Yeah, she should be coming in.
All right, thank you.
Hi, Sheila.
Hi, Sheila. Hi, how are you? Could you state your name? You're going to testify, right, Sheila?
Or Giacomo? Which one?
I'd rather Giacomo.
Giacomo, Giacomo, you're going to testify. Your associate will put the things up. You'll read
off of it, but you're going to testify. So first of all, say your name and spell for me.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
All right. Now, this is for the erection of a sunroom onto the rear of an existing detached structure. Am I right?
Correct.
Okay. So, Mr. Prez, will you put up the paperwork?
Okay, so these are all the documents you've submitted, am I correct?
Correct.
Okay, so could you show us, that's good, keep going.
You can go right through these.
Has he already put the sunroom?
Is the sunroom already up or you're putting it up?
No, it's not up yet.
Okay, so show us the drawings of what you're going to do.
Okay, there's a drawing.
Okay, so this drawing, tell me, give me an idea where we are here.
So the house has an existing deck on the back.
So the house has an existing deck on the back.
And so this is an application to enclose that deck with this cup, that patio enclosure that does this for business.
All right.
And could you show us, okay, could you show me the pictures?
Do you have pictures of the back?
Why don't you show me the photos?
That's from the back of the house
looking to the back of the property.
And then what you're going to do is you're going to put an
enclosure on top of this? Yes, correct. And how much
room will you have left on the deck after you put the enclosure?
We're going to enclose the entire deck. The entire deck you'll
enclose. And it'll go right to the edge of here?
Correct. Okay.
All right. OK. All right. And did you go to that? You went to the art. You went to the RCO, the Roxborough Civic Association, and they agreed with you and they had no objections at all.
Right. There was over 27 people. OK. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Questions from the board.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Just briefly, Mr. Chair, I wanted to clarify.
I believe there were revised plans in this matter, which requested a slightly larger deck than what was already there.
Could you explain that?
Are you rebuilding the deck, too?
Well, we're not rebuilding the deck.
We're just enclosing it.
But what she's referring to is instead of having that little L there, it would just square it off.
Oh, I see. So in other words, right there.
So instead of having that, where the steps are, you're going to come out?
Correct. Correct.
All right. Okay.
I see. Okay.
Thank you for clarifying.
Just, I will ask if the board approves, if you can please resubmit your revised plans because they did not include the measurement showing that you did not have the required rear yard.
It was missing from the plan.
So, Ellen, I would probably flag that.
So, if you can, on your revised plans.
Make sure we get a copy of the revised plans.
Is that okay?
Right.
That show the measurement showing where you need the variance.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
There are no hands.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chairman, and good evening, David Fecto with the City Planning Commission.
You're back, David.
I'm back, bookending the day.
So, Chairman and Board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSD-3 residential single-family detached zoning at this location.
the proposed sunroom would bring the property's rear yard depth out of compliance with the
dimensional requirement in the zoning code. The proposed variance for rear yard depth would not
injure the use of adjacent property, and so the City Planning Commission recommends that the
board grant the dimensional variance for rear yard depth. MI 2024-001-628-5502,
Horton Street
Hillary should I say proviso
revised plan
yes the revised plans one page
5502 Horton Street I vote yes
with proviso revised plans
one page
stamped by ZBA
on August 7th 2024
stamped by ZBA
on August 7th
Michael John my vote is yes with proviso
My vote is yes with Proviso.
My vote is yes with Proviso.
My vote is yes with Proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Mr. Prez, you have your votes
They have their votes, thank you
Alright, so we're going to hear
5 and 6 together
Ishmael will
recuse himself from this
MI 2024
001 567
Cyberstreet
Joseph Consul is the attorney and MI 2024-001-568-2338 Cyber Street.
Joseph Consul is the
Attorney
and MI
Joseph Consul is also the attorney.
There is a letter of support from Brewery Town-Chargewood Community Civic Association for both projects.
A development agreement is also attached.
Mr. Consul.
Good evening.
I'm going to get in there, Mr. Consul.
you've already been sworn
could you identify your client a relationship
to the property? My client is
Chivetta Property Group
and Mr. Michael Tomasetti
is available to
adopt my testimony. He's agreed to
the accuracy of the
hold on a minute here
is this
do you read to the accuracy
of the
hold on
Is this a variance or?
These are variances, yes.
Yeah. Do you agree to the accuracy of the variance request?
Yes. The refusals are accurate.
Okay. All right. And have you had all your paperwork in within five days?
All right. Please proceed.
Okay. I'm here on 2338 and 2328 Seabert Street.
These applications are for the building of single-family homes.
The applications are the result of two subdivision plans to divide two larger lots into two smaller
lots to be built as single-family homes.
My client is Chivetta Property Group.
Chivetta Property Group is under a development agreement with the Philadelphia Redevelopment
Authority, sorry, the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
this agreement is part of Philadelphia's Turn the Key program, which develops affordable
workforce housing for Philadelphians. As part of that agreement, they took on a large number
of lots to develop. These two lots are to be developed as single family homes. What I think
is important about these properties is they're going to be subdivided. For example, 2328 is
currently an undeveloped lot. The two variants requests that we have are, the two refusals that
we have are for square footage and for how wide the resulting lots will be. What's important about
the resulting lots is they will match identically to all of the other single-family homes on the
block. So we've got an 800 square foot lot that results, sorry, the resulting two lots are each
840 square feet. Those two lots are as big as every other single-family home that exists on
this block. The 14-foot wide variance, as opposed to the 16-foot required, is exactly the same width
that exists on all of the other single-family homes on the block. And I'll go through the
pictures in a second, but for 2338 Seabrook Street, that property already exists as a single-family
home with a lot next to it. That lot is going to be separated off. And again, the resulting lot
will be 840 square feet identical to every other single family home on the block and 14 foot wide
identical to every other single family home on the block. Also important to note is we view these as
a type of down zoning. These properties are all zoned or both zoned RM1. So while the resulting
lots could be several units we're seeking single-family homes to be built on these properties
as per the development agreement with the city so focusing first on 2328 there's the two refusals
for lot size and for lot width our application for appeal our proof of mailing
our project information form and we've got photos showing the lots
as they exist now uh this kind of gives you an idea of of where the properties will be built
um but i assure you in checking in atlas that we we've um got a sufficient size we're not going
any higher than two stories on these properties they'll each be three bedroom two bathroom homes
as indicated on these plans
that were submitted
which shows both
the size of the resulting lots
the dimensions
cursor's in the way
there's the top down
you can kind of get an idea
and kind of get an idea of what the two lots look like now and how they'll be chopped up.
of what the two lots look like now
and how they'll be
We included the redevelopment authority agreement with the city, which includes a list of the properties that my client's developing with the city.
Now for two, actually we'll go over the RCO meeting form.
We had a meeting with the RCO. We got their support.
The community supported us overwhelmingly.
nine one in opposition and then the zoning committee itself supported us in full in full
support with the two abstaining regarding two three three eight require the variances for the
same thing as i expressed to build a single family home on an 840 square foot lot as you'll see in
the pictures that i will show in a second the two three three eight has already been built
As you can see there, and we're seeking to divide it with the lot next to it and build a single family home on that lot.
Again, you can see a top, actually, this is a better view.
You can see where the new single family home will go here between those two properties.
Again, it's exactly the same size as all the other properties on the block, no higher.
The roof lines will match, and that's something that my client prides themselves on, creating properties that fit into the character of the block and are good quality construction to provide for this workforce housing program.
We included our certificate of tax clearance for 2338.
For 2328, we have a zero tax balance, which we're showing here.
uh the the certificate wasn't coming up for that one yet we'll get that in as soon as it's
available but there's no outstanding tax balance uh and i can assure everyone that
shiveta is tax compliant and then again another copy of the um the redevelopment authority
agreement and we included the plans and the rc no that's pha right joe oh pha sorry yeah it's okay
uh and uh finally their uh letter of support regarding this property it was the same meeting
so the numbers are the same but we received one for each of the two properties and this was the
brewery town sharswood community civic association with that i'll call michael tomasetti to adopt my
testimony. Michael Tomasetti is allowed to speak. Sir, could you please state your name
as spelled for the court stenographer? My name is Michael Tomasetti, P-O-M-A-S-E-T-T-I.
We're referring to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes. Please proceed, counsel. Good evening, Mr. Tomasetti. Did you hear my
testimony just now regarding 2338 and
2328 Seabird Street?
Yes, I did, Joe. Do you adopt it as your own? Yes, I do.
Okay. Nothing further.
Questions from the board for both locations, both projects.
Questions or comments from our
attorney, Hillary Emerson?
just a quick clarification mr consul for 2328 seabird street we um one document that was
submitted said it was an updated elevation plan was it a revised plan that needed to be stamped
i just was a little unclear as to what that was i'll i'll check on that that that came in from
our architects um i'll make a note and get back to you about that okay and we can vote these today
but if we need to to revote the one with a revised plan um we can we can do that yeah
yeah you can talk mike if you know the answer i saw i didn't see any plans i just saw a site
plan maybe did i miss plans and elevation they were they were submitted they were submitted
separately i don't know um mr consul i don't know if you have them handy but we did receive
he did receive copies of plans for both properties i don't i didn't see anything presented though
that's one let me see back in there joe put them up one second that was for uh two three
two three two eight was the one where we were revised elevation plan was submitted so that's
where i was just a little confused if there were revisions that that needed to have board review
have board review and approval um checking my archives all right so here is the floor plan
and approval um checking my archives
for two three three eight i'll see if i can find what you're looking for i realized that i hadn't
put the floor plan up in my presentation but that should be on this wait actually i gotta
share my screen again right okay apologies for the delay all right so there is the floor plan
for 2338. I'm going to look for the other one.
Site plan again.
here's the floor plan but tell me if this is what you're referring to say that's the two three two
eight floor plan and I got one more you said elevations so she mentioned revised elevations
that's why I was like well I don't remember seeing anything
that appears to be an elevation plan
was this what that may have been it i have to and may that may have been i have to go back and
look because there was a few a few different pages of plans but i just remember there was
one it was specifically labeled updated elevation so i didn't know if there were
changes that that needed to be addressed yeah or if it was just correction or something
yeah i'm not seeing that in my file right this second um but these are two story plans that
will match the roof line uh to to the extent you know i can get you over whatever you're looking
for um okay yeah no problem we can communicate offline thank you um board member johns did you
see what you wanted to see with the plans thank you what what we had questions or comments from
the virtual audience there are no hands chair planning commission thank you chairman and good
evening gave it effector with the city planning commission chairman and board members the
comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from rm1 residential multifamily
to RSA 5 residential single family. The appellant is building income-restricted homes on subdivided
lots previously owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority as part of the city's Turn the Key
program. The appellant requests dimensional variances for lot size and lot width. The
proposed undersized lots will match the character of the lots on this block face, which range in
size between approximately 830 square feet and 850 square feet. The City Planning Commission
recommends the Board grant the dimensional variances for 2328 and 2338 Seibert Street.
Thank you. So number five, MI 2024, 001-567-2328 Cyberstreet. And number six, MI 2024, 001-568-2338 Cyberstreet. I vote yes to both.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes to both.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes to both.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes to both.
Ty and Wynn, my vote is yes to both.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the, thanks, Joe, by the way, is there anyone in the 330 list whose case has not been called in the virtual audience?
There are no hands, Chair.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Have a good evening.
Thank you.
Thanks, David, for getting back on the phone, David.
Oh, certainly.
Happy to do so.
See you later.
have a good night everyone
good night