Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's ZBA hearings.
With me is our Vice Chair, Isabel Jahi, President, Mr. Chairman, our Board Member Salman, President, Mr. Chairman, and Emily Persico from Development Services will serve as our alternate Board Member.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and also our executive director, Tanya Sunket.
Here's our virtual format.
Be advised the proceedings are being recorded.
A video will be available by contacting TanyaSunket at phil .gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question answer box on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our executive director, Tanya Sunkit.
Let's look at our schedule for this morning.
Number one, MI 2023 -001 -268 -1343 East Light, Combing Street. That case is continued.
8. MI 2023 -002 -007 -1619 West White, Moy -Mensing Avenue, Cases Continued, Attorney Moving Party.
Number 13, MI 2023 -002 -047 -2231 Green Street. That case is continued.
Number 16, MI 2023 -001 -945 -7128 Yoakam Street. That case is continued. And number 17, MI 2023 -001 -967 -6614 North 13th Street. That case is continued.
are there any comments mr chair for sorry with um numbers number 17 66 14 north 13th street
do we have a translator here because we had asked for a translator for that case
is there a translator for 66 14 north 13th street
just wanted to let them know they could be dismissed because the case is now being continued
um good morning mr chair this is jason hand i will be the calls for today
I have a Donna
with her hand raised
I will allow them to speak at this time
Good morning
Are you the interpreter?
Please unmute
Thank you
Good morning.
Once again, good day, Donna Siaffer.
Please unmute and wait to be sworn in.
They may be having technical difficulties with the microphone.
So if you're listening, Donnie, if you're the interpreter, that case has been continued, and thank you very much.
Are there any other requests for continuances?
Yes, I have Steve Masters with their hand raised. I have allowed them to speak at this time, sir.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Mr. Masters, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Steve Masters, S -T -E -V -E -M -A -S -T -E -R -S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
nothing but the truth i do what case sir um i have for this morning it is 2551 -53 west silver
What case, sir?
street okay um you're requesting a continuance yes we have requested um authorization from the
zoning board to return this um appeal back to lni because there are errors in the application that
need to be modified. The description for the change of use was not correct. We were brought
into this case quite late. The applicant was pro se. She went all the way through filing an appeal
to the ZVA and then discovered she needed an attorney because it's an LLC. Okay. All right.
So MI -2022 -006 -213 -2551 West Silver Street, that case is continued.
We're asking, Mr. Chair, for an attorney moving party.
Okay. MI -2022 -006 -213 -2551 West Silver Street, cases continue, attorney moving party.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Thanks for calling in.
Is there any other requests for continuances?
Yes, Vern Anastasio with the hand raised. I have allowed them to speak at this time.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, sir. Could you state your name for the record, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. It's Vern Anastasio, V -E -R -N. Last name is A -N -A -S -T -A -S -I -O.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
What case, sir?
1402 Wharton Street, Mr. Chair. Ms. Drake, the owner, just recently hired my firm. I recently
learned that the RCO, when they met first with Ms. Drake, they did expect her to return. So
we're going to make sure we do that and also have proof of mailing when we do it.
Okay, thank you. So, MI 2023, 00901, 1402 Wharton Street, that case is continued. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other requests for continuances?
Yes, I have a hand raised from a number ending in 3552. I will allow them to speak at this time.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court sonographer?
Yes, Adrienne Fernandez, Spongebouw Neighborhood Parsons Association, RCO.
My last name is spelled F -E -R -N -A -N -D -E -Z.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
What case?
it's listed as 2551 west silver street um
steve masters just spoke about it yeah yeah we continued that
okay um i want to put on the record um that the notice of refusal was completely incorrect
proceed go ahead okay i want to put on the record that the notice of refusal was completely
or materially incorrect, and we are putting on a record that the address needs to be corrected
to the required PWD record address, which is 2551 -53 West Silver Street, especially because
there's violations on the property related to removing structural members between these two
buildings. There were other corrections. Excuse me, Ms. Fernandez. Ms. Fernandez,
this is hillary yeah no well no i just also want to note the zoning board does not determine
what address is on the refusal that is determined by l and i so if the if you believe there is an
error on the address for the refusal you need to speak to l and i we cannot change it
no i i understand that hillary thank you what i'm requesting um mr masters was limiting the material
errors when he spoke about correcting a refusal as if he's ignoring that the address is wrong
and we need to correct address on refusal so that we did a public meeting and for the public hearing
because I understand ZBA does not put the address on the application for appeal so we are our school
putting on the record that the address is material and then it's wrong and we need to correct address
there so that the public knows exactly which house is being spoken about, what address we're
having a public meeting about, and also the posting on the buildings was incorrect, had the
incorrect address because VBA was giving incorrect address. So, Adrienne, listen, the case is continued.
All your issues you can bring up when the case comes back. Thank you very much. Okay, I've written
it down. Thank you. And you need to direct your concerns about the address to L &I. They determine
what address goes on the refusal, and then that determines what goes on our posters.
I will do that. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else?
I will do that. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there anyone else who has a request for a continuous?
Joseph Vaccaro with her hand raised. I have allowed him to speak at this time.
Okay. Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Hi, good morning. Joseph Vaccaro, V -A -C -C -A -R -O.
Right. Mr. Vaccaro, do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
And I believe, is your case 1343 East Lycoming?
Yes, I was just asking if it could be an attorney -moving party continuance.
Okay. MI 2023 -001 -268 -1343 East Lycoming Street, continued attorney -moving party.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Tarot, for calling us.
Thank you. Have a good day.
Any other requests for continuance?
Yes, Dawn Tancredi with the hand raised. I've allowed them to speak at this time.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Council. Could you state your name, please, for the record?
Sure. It's Dawn Tancredi, T -A -N -C -R -E -D -I. And, Mr. Chair, I'm just advising the board that...
Dawn, let me just swear you in for a moment, okay? Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Okay, proceed.
And this involves not a request for continuance, but a withdrawal of 2707 -11 Federal Street, which is showing on the calendar.
That's number 14, Mr. Chair.
Yeah, I'm going to call that in a minute, and I do have that as a withdrawal.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Is there any other requests for continuances?
We're going to move to a few cases that we do not have.
No further hands, Mr. Chair.
Exhibits.
Number two.
MI 2023 -001 -304, 16 West Johnson Street.
Vernon Lucas is the listed owner.
Andy Barbaras was the listed applicant.
No exhibits.
This is the second listing.
It must be heard.
I do not see any answer, Mr. Chair, for that case.
So then MI 2023 -001 -304 -16 West Johnson Street, I vote to dismiss.
This is the second listing.
Must be heard.
Thomas Pollman, I vote to dismiss.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is to dismiss.
Thank you.
Number five, MI -2022 -005 -440, 5008 Hazel Street.
Richard Lawrence is the owner applicant.
There are no exhibits.
This is the third listing.
It's Mr. Lawrence here.
I know, handsome, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
So MI 2022 -005 -440 -5008 Hazel Avenue.
This is the third listing.
We still have no exhibits.
I vote to dismiss.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is to dismiss.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is to dismiss.
Number 15.
oh I think I just handled this tonight 2551 West Silver Street didn't we handle this
um if you could read it into the record Mr. Chair officially that would be great thank you
MI 2022 006 213 2551 West Silver Street no exhibit second listing oh wait hold on Mr. Chair I thought
you meant 14 yeah this one this one's already been continued attorney so okay I'm sorry so 15
has already been continued?
Okay, and finally,
we have a few withdrawals.
Number nine,
MI 2023
001 995
740 North 40
Street, that case has been withdrawn.
And number 14,
MI 2023 -002 -088 -2707 -211 Federal Street, that case has been withdrawn.
That case has been withdrawn.
We're going to go to our add -on list.
We're going to go to our add -on list.
Number one, MI 2022, 001 -058 -332 Delanche Street.
The vote in this matter will be held at the start of the 2 p .m. list today.
The board will briefly reopen the record for comments from counsel for the parties prior to voting.
number two mi 2023 003 765 1625 north 18th street the vote in this matter is being rescheduled
to wednesday november 1st at 9 30 a .m
Number three, MI 2023 -003 -967 -2431 North 26th Street, I vote appeal denied.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is appeal denied.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is appeal denied.
Number four, MI 2023, 001 -804 -1300 Federal Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
And number five, calendar number 39273, 615 South Broad Street.
Mr. Terry, that's 1615 South Broad Street.
Say that again. I just heard 615. So I just want to make clear it's 1615 South Broad Street. So it's calendar number 39273 1615 South Broad Street.
I certify that I watched the video of the March 17 2021 hearing in this matter and reviewed the materials that were submitted to the board.
I vote yes with Proviso. Business and professional office use limited to a law office on the first floor and use of basement for storage, mechanicals, and utilities only.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with Proviso.
So, Ishmael Shaheed, I certify that I've watched the extra recording of this video, and my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you.
We're going to go to our regular list.
Number three, MI 2023, 3430 North 18th Street, Joseph Consul is the attorney.
We do not have an RCO letter. There were two meetings, 9 -19 and 10 -17.
Mr. Consul will be rejoining as a panelist.
Good morning, Ward.
Good morning, Mr. Consul. Just for the record, state your name and spell, please, for the court sonographer.
Yes, Joseph, J -O -S -E -P -H, Consul, C -O -N -S -O -L -E.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you please identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yeah, it's Gained Properties, LLC, and I believe Mr. Cahill is my client who's going to be speaking on behalf.
Okay. Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
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?
I did. The RCO letter did come in, and we sent it over. It's full support, so I'd like to get that to you guys if it's not in front of you.
Yes, we did not receive it, Mr. Consul.
Oh, no. Okay, can I send it to you, Hillary?
Yes, absolutely. Thank you.
Okay, let me do that right now.
And then you can just show it to the board during your presentation.
All right. Perfect. Okay. Let me email it to you. And then actually, I'll do that right after. I'll just show it on my screen. Then I'll email it to you after that. So I don't hold everyone up here.
after that so i don't hold everyone up here um please proceed to share your screen all right
is that yeah that's okay so all right to start uh here is the letter that i just referenced
um it's a position of support by the rco uh for three four three zero north 18th street
we did meet with him twice and um yeah there was 21 people in the room only one near neighbor
uh the second time um and so the the board voted i it was four and then they really only called it
one near neighbor but there was like i said it was a it was a fairly well attended meeting
um okay so we got the support property is three four three zero north mr consul did did they have
any proviso they usually have a letter did they have any provisos in their letter here is their
letter um it's dated the 17th i saw the email looks like everyone was copied i apologize um
it's okay it doesn't it doesn't look like it because that looks like the summary of the
meeting oh it looks like trash stored in the back or the i although some that some of this
may be the summary yes okay anything here that you you need okay i think i think we're okay was
there were there any discussions and provide those like particular areas of storage for the trash
no because and i'll show you i'll show you guys in a second um we we have the we have the trash
taken care of okay so 34 30 you're welcome north 18th street uh this property um if you
look on this photo here actually i'll use my packet um it sort of sits on the corner of an alley
and um in back of the property is a large open space which leads to uh like a little
outbuilding back there it's a good old garage here's a shot the goal is to rehabilitate this
property fully. It had accessible and usable parking and it will have that again. And it will
have space for trash storage because as you can see, it's very open to this alley here that can't
be infringed upon. So the goal is to rehabilitate this property into three units. The property
directly next door, 3432, that's built out back here, was approved by the board. Here it is on
Atlas, was approved by the board in 2021 for three units. So we're seeking the same approval for this
property on the corner. And we believe it is actually a stronger case in the sense that we've
got parking and easy trash storage and trash to drag out to the side. Not to mention, this
property, let's go up a little bit here, was previously zoned as two units plus one owner
occupied unit. So it's always been set up as three units. It's two one bedrooms and one two
bedroom but as you'll see in the photos it's fallen into disrepair and my client's goal is to
make it nice and activate the three units there's the front of it
there's the front with the newly rehabbed three unit directly next door
again there's the back going inside you can see that this property needs
a lot of TLC and we included the as existing floor plans now got one bedroom on the first
floor actually no two bedrooms on the first floor second floor you got one bedroom and then on the
third floor, you've got two bedrooms and an office, but I think it's a little small to be
considered a bedroom. So call it two, two bedrooms, one, one bedroom. After that, we have our other
required documents, tax compliance and everything like that. So basically we want to reactivate
this property as a multifamily and fix it up and make it nice. The property next door was granted
the same right. It is exactly the same footprint. And we believe we have a good case in the sense
that we've got space for parking and for trash storage. And on top of that, we have full support
from the RCO. With that, I'll call my client. I believe it's Mr. Cahill should be the one that's
i believe it's mr cahill should be the one that's on here
on here.
pardon me could you show us the third floor again the drawing oh sure
yeah we he labeled this one as a bedroom office but
my opinion is it's that's not really a good size for a bedroom so there should be a kitchen
there somewhere right hold on it's a bi -level unit oh okay all right good okay now now i got
thank you all right mr k hill are you on
please raise your virtual hand
i do not see any hands mr consul you're an officer of the court we will accept your testimony
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Once again, there are no answers.
Planning Commission.
Good morning, Chair Bergman.
This is Ian Hegarty representing the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Last name is spelled H -E -G -A -R -T -Y.
Right.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
Good morning, board members.
Comprehensive plan recommends a change from RSA 5 to RTA 1, 2 family zoning at this location.
We were able to find a documented use history as a legal 2 family dwelling on this site, but not as a 3 family, as counsel has posited here.
um and we further believe that the um the hardship case here is relying a little too heavily on an
adjacent non -conforming use that was granted by the board rather than an actual physical condition
of this property our recommendation here is going to be that the board grant the variance but
to add a proviso allowing no more than two dwelling units in this property
i 2023 001 972 3430 north 18th street i vote yes proviso no more than two units
thomas holliman my vote is yes with proviso ishmanul shaheed my vote is yes with proviso
Number four, MI 2023 -002 -062 -4087 -1 .5 Lancaster Avenue. Henry Clinton is the attorney.
um letter of support from hope phl and also applicant provided a petition in non -opposition
signed by approximately 101 neighbors mr clinton good morning mr chairman members of the board
just for the record mr clinton could you state your name and spell please for the court's
stenography my name is henry clinton h -e -n -r -y clinton c -l -i -n -t -o -n all right do you swear
affirmed to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do um could you identify
your client the relationship to this property sure my client was on the call is a kia a -k -i -a
phillips p -h -i -l -l -i -p -s and our vice chair has just a few questions for you sir good morning
counsel do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i do have
you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed and required to proceed
with this case, five days in advance.
I have.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Is that visible?
No, sir.
Sorry, this again.
It's coming up now.
we good mr chairman yes sir we are all right good morning mr chairman members of the board
again henry clinton on behalf of akia phillips who is the owner of this property at 4087 and a
half lancaster avenue table of contents containing exhibits a1 to a10 which i ask be admitted into
the record this is a straightforward refusal this is a cmx2 property we were before the board
last year, you can see on their notes, the ZBA, to have the first floor used as assembly and
entertainment on the first floor only. Today, we're asking for visitor accommodation for a one -bedroom
Today, we're asking for visitor accommodation for a one -bedroom on the second floor.
It kind of goes hand -in -hand with the event space.
There's often a need for people who were there for a gathering or a party to stay over.
Plus, I'll show you for the plan for the Lancaster Avenue business district in this area on the
40 -hundred block and 4 ,100 block of Lancaster Avenue.
that are encouraging second -floor apartments to bring more foot traffic to the avenue to patronize the businesses.
This is the RCO letter of support.
There were several RCOs at the meeting, including Hope, PHL, and they overwhelmingly voted in support of this use.
And as the chairman noted, we have over 100 signatures in support of the project.
These are seven pages of signatures, 15 signatures on a page, all from Paxson Street, Aspen Street, business owners on Lancaster Avenue.
You can see here, 40 -100 block of Lancaster, 40 -89, 40 -91, 40 -96, and on and on.
Pretty impressive list of neighbors and support.
This is the Lancaster Avenue Commercial Corridor Development Plan study.
I just wanted to point one or two things out.
The potential income generated by rents from the upper floors may stabilize income for property owners, which will help in this case in particular, who may also be business operators, which Ms. Phillips is, increase foot traffic in the area and increase protection of existing building stock, some of which are architecturally and historically significant buildings.
Again, for perspective for the board, these are some photographs of the front of the building, as well as the interior well -appointed apartment.
An aerial view, this is the property right here on Lancaster Avenue, surrounded by businesses on left and right.
And this is the front of the building. Our notice sign is to the right.
This door leads up to the one bedroom apartment.
The roll -top gate is for the event space called Plush Events Venue, which is owned and operated by Ms. Phillips.
This is with the roll -top gate, exposed interior space, again, just to show the board that it's really a top -shelf organization and fit out.
This is the one -bedroom unit.
The plans, I'll be brief, Mr. Chairman. Basically, on the first floor is the event space, which has been ongoing since 2022. And this is the one -bedroom apartment. I'll blow it up a little bit more.
a living dining area in the front uh kitchen one bath uh excuse me living dining area in the middle
uh additional kitchen area and sitting space in the front with a one bedroom in the rear
uh the rest of the documents mr chairman are pro forma documents you would see
our application uh the zoning map indicating this is a commercial corridor cmx2 the deed to
the property, indicating that my client owns the property. Notice of mailing to the surrounding
area, and that is the presentation. So basically, Mr. Chairman, we're asking that the second floor
of this commercial space on the first floor be used for visitor accommodation as per the application.
We are not affecting anyone's light or air. We're actually in conformance with the business plan
development for the 4 ,100 and the 4 ,100 block of Lancaster Avenue. We have overwhelming support
from the near neighbors and surrounding neighbors on the residential properties in the neighborhood,
as well as support of several RCOs, as evidenced by the letter that I've attached to this
presentation. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I would rest and ask my client if she could unmute herself
so she could adopt my testimony. Okay, thank you. Ms. Phillips, could you raise your hand
and be unmuted? Yes. Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Ms. Phillips. Could you state your
name, please, and spell for the court stenographer? Akia Phillip, A -K -I -A. Last name is P -H -I -L -L -I -P.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do. Proceed, counsel. Ms. Phillips, were you on the call when I presented your project for
the visitor accommodation request? Yes. And if you had the opportunity to testify, would you adopt
my testimony as your own and as true and correct yes i would could i could i please just add one
thing sure so on the second floor there is the visitor accommodation is for a one beer room
in studio apartment that's up there so it's two units that's on the top that the visitor accommodation
apartment that's up there so it's two units that's on the top that the visitor accommodation
is needed for um the studio slash efficiency and the one bedroom thank you you're welcome
is that on the drawings
why mr chairman was that on the drawings let me go back
I have to open this up again
I can't access that.
Let me see.
Is that visible, Mr. Chairman?
I don't see anything, Henry.
Well, I did show the one bed.
I didn't explain it, but it's a one bedroom efficiency.
There's a one bedroom and an efficiency.
So in the photographs, I'll try to bring that back up.
I have to share my screen again, Chairman. Sorry for this.
Is that visible now?
Yeah, we see that.
Right, so studio in one bedroom.
The picture before there is the studio.
The one right before there, that's the studio.
Right, right there.
and then the other the next one that's the studio okay there's yeah okay that's the pullout couch
sorry about that mr chairman there's a studio apartment right and then a one bedroom part yes
yes mr chairman and the studio has a it has a bathroom hillary do we have to make note of that
anywhere um i don't believe so mr chair since this is this is visitor accommodations and not
dwelling unit all right good thank you um questions from the board no mr chairman
no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
mr chair i just wanted to note that um there was a variance previously granted for two family
household living on the second floor so there are two recognized dwelling units on the second
floor already all right thank you um so that's not a problem thank you um questions or comments
from the virtual audience i do not see any further answer mr chair okay planning commission
thank you chair bergman ean egerton for the philadelphia city planning commission
board members the comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map amendment from cmx2 to cmx 2 .5 at
this location given the existing second story space in this building and the surrounding uses
which are primarily commercial,
City Planning Commission recommends
that the board grant the variance
for visitor accommodations.
Thank you.
MI 2023 -002 -062 -4087 -1 -2 Lancaster Avenue.
I vote yes for a temporary variance
which expires 10 -26 -2026.
Thomas Holloman,
my vote is yes with proviso.
So, Ishmael Shaheen, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Mr. Clinton, could you stay on, please?
We're going to do number six and number 10.
So, number six is MI -2023 -001 -979, 753 -55 North Taylor Street,
number TA415131, and number 10, which is MI2023 -001 -977 -753 -55
North Taylor Street. We have no RCO letter, but there was a meeting held on 92823.
Mr. Chair we yeah we just Mr. Clinton just sent me the RCO letter this morning it was it was in
support although it was a little unclear to me and Mr. Clinton maybe you could clarify this
if they were asking for a proviso related to the rear balcony and spiral staircase or they just
wanted it to stay as it was presented didn't want to see any changes so maybe you can clarify that
when you get to there. Sure, will do. Mr. Clinton, can you identify
your clients and the relationship to the property? Sure, my client is
David Jeffries, J -E -F -F -R -E -Y -S
and he is on the call. Okay. Our vice chair has a few
questions for you, sir. Counselor, do you
agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Have you emailed in all the required documents that is needed and required to
PERCEIVED.
I do, except as Ms. Emerson just said, we just received the letter of support last night about 8 o 'clock.
Yep, understood. Please proceed.
So, Mr. Chairman, there are two properties.
It was one property, but they're basically mirror images of each other.
Do you want me to do one and just incorporate the second one?
One and incorporate, okay?
Revisible, Mr. Chairman?
It is, sir.
All right.
Good morning again, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
I'm here on behalf of David Jeffries and Ronald Hayes, the owners of this property.
We're requesting basically two single -family homes, and I'll explain the history as I walk
through the presentation.
This is my table of contents containing Exhibits A1 through A11, which I ask to be admitted
into evidence.
And as you can see here by the zoning records at the bottom, which I'll go through, this
property used to be basically a storage and kind of an industrial location, as were probably
four or five other properties on that block.
And it's one lot at this point. We're asking that the property be approved for two single -family homes because we basically subdivided the one large lot, 32 feet wide, into two 16 -foot wide lots. And I'll show you that as we walk through.
It is an RSA 5 zoning district, and we have several refusals. One is concerning a balcony, one is concerning parking, and one is concerning open space.
This is 100 % lock coverage right now, Mr. Chairman. We are demolishing the interior part of the building, keeping the front facade, and creating a rear yard, which there is no rear yard right now.
So the last refusal is, besides being de minimis, it's only 56 feet.
We're actually increasing the open space and providing some light and air to the rear of the property.
And as far as the parking, they've been parking in front of this building for decades,
and there are actually no parking signs on the front of both buildings.
And you can see there's garage doors already in place.
The RCO letter, I will show you that as a separate attachment.
This is a photograph of the property right now. It's a 100 % lock coverage, a double wide property. We had it subdivided, and I have the permit at the end of the presentation to show the board that that, in fact, was done.
This is an aerial view, again, just showing 100 % black coverage.
I don't know why the photographs are not moving through here.
Bear with me for a minute, Mr. Chairman.
There we go.
So this is the view looking north.
The property is to the right -hand side.
You can see there's garage doors colored green.
The idea is we're going to keep the facade.
My neighbors on the block like the facade.
My clients like the facade.
And we're going to build two stories above.
There is no basement since these are existing garages right now.
And you can see there are other garages on the block on the west side of Taylor Street,
as well as further north on Taylor Street.
And this sign where my cursor is and this sign where my cursor is now basically say no parking.
So basically three frontages have no parking.
and historically has been that situation for a number of decades.
Again, this is looking south towards Center City.
Properties on the left -hand side.
Some more perspective shots, 753, 755.
Just a close -up of the facade.
Again, we're going to keep that in place.
And these are photographs of the postage of the posters on the property.
The remaining documents are pro forma documents, tax clearance, zoning map, the deed indicating ownership, our certificate of mailing.
or a certificate of mailing.
And these are just some zoning records
And these are just some.
to show the board historically,
1961, this was storage of janitorial supplies.
It's a garage -type building,
which was used back from 1925 to 1960
as a carpenter machine shop.
More recently, my client has used it
as an office on the first floor,
and there's a living unit above.
This is the zoning permit indicating that we did get a lot line relocation, subdividing this one lot, which was known as 753 to 755, into two separate addresses, 753 and 755.
So I'm going to stop sharing this document and then move on to the plans because I was not able to include that all in one package.
Is that visible now, Mr. Chairman?
we don't see anything right now let me go back
now the plans are visible no
yes all right beautiful thank you for your patience but chairman
So this is the Z1 zoning plan. And the idea is, as I said before, we're keeping the facade with some minor adjustments because we have to put another door in. And we're going to add two stories above since there's no basement. We're under 38 feet. We have a de minimis issue with open space.
As I said, we've now opened up the rear yard area right here where we have more than a nine foot rear yard, which is providing open space and air to not only the two single family homes, but also to the neighbors on either side.
And Hillary, one of the questions that you raised, and it's in the letter from the community group, is the neighbors were concerned that the pilot houses be in the middle of the property rather than to the edge.
And that's the way it's presented here at 755, and it will also be the same on 753.
And I'll show you the other plan.
So this is 753. So the spiral staircase is going to be back to back from 753 to 755.
So you don't have someone walking up a spiral staircase and overlooking the yard of the adjacent neighbor.
So we're in full conformance with that and we agree with that.
This is the floor plan starting from right to left. First floor plan, parking, second floor, living, dining, third floor, two bedrooms.
fourth floor, one bedroom with a rooftop deck. And Mr. Chairman, this floor plan and the
statements that I've made with regard to 753 are equally applicable to 755,
which is the other project that is before the board today. So I can walk through that project,
but it's basically a reiteration of what I just presented to the board.
uh so mr clinton yeah can you just do the plans for the other one just so it's
on the record that the the balconies and the staircases are where the rco has requested that
they be thank you i think too miss emerson if mr chairman can you see this letter now
Yeah, so this is the letter from Fairmount Civic Association indicating that it is one
of support.
Again, we just got this letter last night.
You can see there's overwhelming support for the project, and the issue was at the end
of the letter that the spiral staircases are supposed to be back -to -back on the project,
and we've agreed with that.
So now I'm going to move on to 755.
This is 755, again, the same table of contents, A1 through A11 as 753.
I incorporate all my comments from 753 to 755.
Same photographs, same analysis.
and I'm just going to have to go to another attachment to show the plans.
so this is uh seven not up yet henry i'm sorry
it's coming up
Good. Yep. So this is the this is the plan for 755. And you can see where the spiral staircase is in the middle.
And then 753.
really i might have to send you that because it is it is part of this
i have i have both i have both sets of plans and on the i think it's on 753 it shows
the staircase for 755 on on the other side of the yard but when you look when you have
the plans for 755 do show it immediately adjacent to the property line with 753 right so the 755
and it's crossed out so the 755 only applies to 755 and even though 753 is depicted
that is not incorporated in the 755 so the 753 that you have that is the correct one for 753
great thank you so then both so we're in conformance with what the community wants and what
miss hoberg's letter indicates that the spiral staircases have to be back to back
mr chairman with that uh just in conclusion again we don't have any issues with height
The open space is des minimis.
We're including a rear yard.
This is a single family district.
This was formerly a storage area office with living quarters above.
We're basically returning the property to conform with the existing zoning code, which is RSA 5.
Parking has been in existence in front of the properties for decades.
There's two no parking signs there, not only for these two garages, but for the property owner to the north.
We're in harmony, basically, then with the code, and we're in harmony with the community wishes, and we have the support of the RCO.
With that, I ask my client to unmute himself.
Mr. Jeffries, can you unmute yourself and adopt my testimony?
Please unmute and wait to be sworn in.
Morning, sir.
Could you state your name and spell, please, for the course sonography?
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but I still would not see any hands raised for the matter to speak.
Mr. Jeffries?
Mr. Jeffries, are you on the call?
There are no hands raised, and I do not see any hands raised.
Mr. Clinton, you're an officer of the court. We will take your testimony.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not tune in.
Planning Commission?
Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Chair, this recommendation will apply to both MI -2023 -001979 and 001977.
Comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA -5 single -family zoning at these locations.
With regard to the variances for rear -yard balcony and lot coverage, the small lot size, we agree, makes strict compliance with the requirements of the zoning code impractical.
And with regard to the variance for garage access, the garage access is an existing condition. It's also typical for this block. City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the variances on both cases.
Thank you. Number six, I'll do them both together. MI 2023 -001 -979 -753 -55 North Taylor Street, number TA415131, and number 10, MI 2023 -001 -9779.
MI -2023 -001 -977 -753 -55 North Taylor Street, I vote yes to both.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes to both.
Oh, I thought I was off mute.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes to both.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the courtesy of taking these together.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Great.
Hillary, was number seven, did we handle that?
Is that the one Vern called in for?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, that case was continued.
All right, good.
Thank you.
Number 11.
mi -2023 -003 -050 -2940 east tayova street richard de marco is the attorney's appeal against l and i
um renter reuter should also be on the call um mr chair um mr reuter um is not able to attend
this morning but we did receive written correspondence previously that he is not
in opposition or the city is not in opposition to the non -protunk request that mr demarco is going
to be presenting morning mr demarco could you state your name please and spell for the court
stenographer good morning mr chairman richard demarco last name d -e -m -a -r -c -o right do you
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
So we could, no pro -tunk, do you have comments relative to that, sir?
Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, so I just want to let you know I didn't know about this hearing.
I didn't get notice until I happened to check the dockets on my own and found out.
That's okay, that's okay.
All right. So our appeal was timely to the original violation. What happened was the city reissued the same identical violations with a new date. And the board wanted me to file another appeal and withdraw the earlier appeal. I mean, whenever Hillary and the board want me to do something, I do it.
I asked that the fee be waived in light of the fact that there was nothing wrong with the earlier appeal.
But, I mean, I guess in terms of I certainly do not want to withdraw the earlier appeal until the NUNC -Protonc is granted.
I do see that Len does not object to it.
So that's fine.
I'd like to eventually move forward with this.
The client is waiting for a disposition.
We do have a permit, Mr. Chairman.
It's associated with a different address.
and we're just fixing it's really a clerical issue as to why we're even here but it looks
like there's no dispute for the nunc pro tonk so i um i suppose we could just move forward
once the nunc pro tonk is granted on the second appeal i would be willing to withdraw the earlier
appeal um but i don't do we actually vote on this hillary um yes no we we do vote and i just i just
wanted to clarify um unfortunately we can't even though the one violation was closed and an identical
one was open we can't just swap them out because the appeal is tied to the violation that's why
the one appeal would need to be withdrawn and then a new appeal filed um so i i know it's
a little bit of a hassle but that's just that's how we have to do it to keep to keep things in
order so we appreciate you um doing this this process thank you all right i appreciate that
Yeah, that's fine. As long as the Nug Pro Tunk is granted, I'll withdraw the earlier appeal. We'll move forward on the second one.
Hillary, we vote. This will be a vote of appeal granted.
Okay. MI 2023 -003 -050 -2940 East Tioga Street. I vote yes for appeal granted.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes for appeal granted.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes for appeal granted.
Hillary, are we through?
Yes, and then now Mr. DeMarco can just formally withdraw the prior appeal for the record, and you can note that on the record as well, Mr. Chair.
Yeah, since the appeal, since the newer appeal has been granted on the more recent violations, I'll withdraw the previous appeal at the request of the board.
Okay, thank you.
so we'll have another hearing date on this is that it yes yes now that the appeal has been
accepted by the board um the staff will reach out to you with a new date all right hopefully
we'll have a resolution by then as well okay sounds good mr demarco thank you all right
thank you have a good afternoon everyone mi 2023 002 104 17
MI 2023 -002 -104 -1714 Washington Avenue.
Dawn Tangrady is listed, and possibly Clementa Amazon.
No RCO letter as of yet.
Actually, Ms. Tangrady just sorted one to me this morning, Mr. Chair.
It is a letter in support, yes.
So there is an RCO letter in support for Point Breeze Community Development Coalition.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Just state your name for the record. I think I swore you in once today.
Yes. Dawn Tancredi, T -A -N -C -R -E -D -I.
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Sure. Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Dawn Tancredi here today on behalf of 1714 Washington Avenue L .P., the owner of 1714 Washington Avenue.
And our vice chair has just a few questions for you.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents that are needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, my office sent them in.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay, so with me here today is Michael Carosella, one of the members of the Limited Partnership.
Also here is Felicia Diara. She is the architect from Landmark Design that is available to answer any questions.
We are here seeking a use variance for three residential units on the second floor of this building.
I would ask that the materials that I submitted be incorporated into the record as well.
So, the proposed space is approximately 5 ,400 square feet, and it is vacant.
My client recently evicted the commercial tenant.
In fact, my client has had to evict several tenants since they've acquired the property in 2005.
The evictions are evidence that the space does not work for commercial tenants, in particular because it's on the second floor and in the middle of the block.
As for the property, you can see here from the site plan, it does run from Washington Avenue through to Alter Street.
Altar Street is a residential block. On the Washington Avenue, the property is adjacent to a family dollar and an auto zone.
Other properties in the area are mixed use. In particular, right across the street at 1731 Washington Avenue, a building is under construction with commercial on the ground floor and residential above.
of. So the proposed use makes the second floor feasible and an active space. There are three
designated parking spaces, one for each unit. These complements the surrounding area on
Alter Street and the other mixed use projects on Washington Avenue. And we did meet with
the RCO. As you noted, we have a letter of support. While the architect is available
to answer specific questions, I'll give an overview of the plans. There's one unit facing
Washington Avenue. It's approximately 2 ,100 square feet, and it's a three -bedroom, two -and -a -half
bath unit. There's two units that face Alter Street and each of them are one bedroom one
and a half baths. There is a pilot house which you can see here on the elevations that leads
to a roof deck. And here's photos of the interior space you can see as it exists today.
And here's the commercial building, the property at 1714, and this is the back of the property
And this is the back of the property on Altar Street.
on Alter Street.
There's some surrounding area photos of Washington Avenue.
And you can see the residential uses on Altar.
Does the board have any questions or would you like to hear from the architect?
I think at this point, we understand what the project is.
I would like to call my client to adopt my testimony.
Could someone please promote Michael Carosella?
They've been allowed to speak.
Sir, could you please state your name?
Could you state your name and spell it for the court stenographer, please?
Hello, my name is Michael Carosella, C -A -R -O -S -E -L -L -A.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
And Michael, have you heard my testimony today?
Yes, I have.
Is it true and accurate?
Yes, it is.
and you adopt my testimony as though it were your own yes i do thank you i have no further
questions questions from the board no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from our attorney
hillary emerson no this is time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes i have a handout from a number ending in 3780 i have allowed them to speak at this time
why could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer
good morning my name is gail matt i'm a long -time resident of south philadelphia
and i would like to hold ma 'am could you state your name again and then spell it please for
the court stenographer gail map g -a -i -l -m -a -p -p right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes are you a neighbor
i i live in south philly i'm a resident okay and i walk to and from i'm 18th and reed so i'm not
far from you. I walk that way every day. Okay. So please proceed. Okay. Good morning. My name
is Gail Matt, and I'm a longtime resident of South Philadelphia, Philadelphia area.
And I walk to and from Center City every day. I see apartments, condos that are empty, houses
that's up for sale and rent, they're empty.
So we're overpopulated with housing.
So I would like to oppose this change that they're going to make on Point
Breeze Avenue.
I would like to stay business and commercial because we don't want to lose
the commercial stores that we have in the Washington Avenue area.
So, I would like to oppose this.
Okay, but you're aware the first floor is still going to have commercial, right?
Why can't Washington Avenue be all business instead of building a whole lot of apartments and condos?
All right, I'm just saying that the first floor is still commercial.
Business commercial, yes.
All right.
And Mr. Chair, I would just object to that testimony being included in the record as to standing that MISMAP lives at least eight blocks away.
Okay, I understand. Thank you for your call. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Chair Bergman. Ian Hegarty again for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
board members the comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map change from industrial 2 to irmx
the proposed use we feel is generally consistent with the recommended zoning district and so the
city planning commission recommends that the board grant this variance thank you mi 2023
002 104 1714 washington avenue i vote yes thomas holloman my vote is yes
this bill shaheed my vote is yes thank you counsel thank you have a good day
um is there anyone in the virtual audience
Is there anyone in the virtual audience that their case has not been called?
that their case
I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, everyone.
See everyone at 2 p .m.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergen, and I will be chairing this afternoon's EBA hearings.
Are we okay, Fertina?
Yes, Chair. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
That's okay. With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Member, Thomas Holloman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And Emily Persico from Development Services will be serving as our alternate Board Member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director, Tanya Sunkett.
Here's our virtual format. Be advised if the proceedings are being recorded. A video will be available by contacting tanyasunkett at phil .gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property question.
And finally, the question answer box on screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our executive director, Tanya Sunket.
Let's look at our schedule for this afternoon.
Number
Right with you
Number three
MI 2023 -003 -492, 2219 -23, North 2nd Street. That case is continued.
Number five.
MI 2023 -003 -505, 2113 -29, Oregon Avenue. That case is continued.
Number eight, MI 2022 -007 -295, 5737 Elmwood Avenue.
I understand we have a request from Vern Anastasio to continue this case.
Mr. Anastasio.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
He has been allowed to speak.
Mr. Anastasio, you've already been sworn, if I remember correctly.
Just state your name for the record.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Vern Anastasio.
Mr. Anastasio, I understand for 5737 Elmwood, you're requesting a continuance?
I am, unfortunately.
I understand that there's been several listings, but we have yet to be able to secure an RCO meeting.
As a result, we would like it continued.
I'm not quite sure if it's best to do a moving party, you know, attorney moving party so that we don't have to ask for yet another.
But we're working with the folks at Southwest Philadelphia to have a sit down and work this out.
So MI 2022 -007 -295 -5737, Elmwood, cases continued, attorney moving party.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Number 12, MI 2023 -003 -510 -2809 -13 Master Street Cases Continued.
And number 16, MI 2023 -004 -699 -2113 -29 Argonne Avenue Cases Continued.
are there any comments
relative to the cases that have been continued?
Chair, I have
Dr. Darwin Bovey with his hand raised.
I'm allowed to speak
at this time.
Mr. Bovey, would you...
Mr. Bovee, would you state your name and spell, please, for the court stenographer?
Yes. Darwin Bovee. That's Darwin, D -A -R -W -I -N. Bovee is B as in boy, E -A -U -V as in victory, A -I -S as in Sam.
Mr. Chairman, I...
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
You want to talk about number four, sir?
uh is it number four 306 to 08 parkside yes yes we are withdrawing that one thank you so
mi 2021 004 548 4306 to 08 parkside avenue that case has been withdrawn thank you thank you for
calling it is there anyone who else has a has a continuance request
here i have casey bechtel with their hand raised i've allowed him to speak at this time
all right could you state your name please and spell for the courts and honor
hello my name is casey bechtel first name c -a -s -e -y last name b -e -c -h -t -e -l right do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do what case do you
want to talk about well i was called on to comment on 2809 -13 master street i jumped on right when
you continued it and you asked if anybody wanted to make a comment and i would like to make a
comment on that um i just want to say i live on that block and i i don't think it would be very
good for the neighborhood for that to be approved considering the lack of a police presence in
the neighborhood i appreciate your call but that case will be coming up in the future and you will
have an opportunity to testify at that okay thank you so much for taking the time to close
are there any other requests for continuance
yeah i have uh we're on anastasia with the hand raise again i'll let him speak again at this time
go ahead mr anastasio hi mr chair uh 2242 north 9th street
should be on today's listing
it's hold on a minute
mr anastasio did you say 2242 north 9th street that's correct that is not on our list for today
Yeah, then we're good.
Yeah, that's cool.
Thank you.
My apologies.
Any other requests for continuance?
I do not see any further hands, Mr. Chair.
We're going to go to our add -on list.
number one on our add -on list mi2022 007 291 430 west berg street that case has been moved
to november 29th and it will be voted on at 2 p .m
number two on our list mi 2023 003 246 29 90 southampton road
the vote on this matter has been rescheduled to wednesday november 1st at 2 p .m
Number three, MI 2023, 002 -336 -251 Granada Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Her amended refusal dated 10 -23.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Sorry.
And number four, MI 2022 -001 -058, 332 Delancey Street.
The vote in this matter is being rescheduled to Wednesday,
November 1st at 2 p .m.
We're going to go to our regular list.
Number one, MI 2023 -003 -555 -427 Easterrod Avenue.
Steve Masters is the attorney.
There's a letter of support, Fishtown Neighbors Association,
letter of support from the Fishtown Kensington Area Business Improvement District,
and the applicant also provided a petition in support signed by approximately 22 neighbors.
And the applicant also also provided a petition in support signed by approximately 22 neighbors.
Mr. Masters.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
I'm going to share my screen.
Hold on one minute, Mr. Masters, you've already been sworn.
Just for the record, please state your name.
Steve Masters, S -T -E -V -M -A -S -T -E -R -S.
Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, Captain. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do. It's a referral, not a refusal in this case. It's for a special exception.
Understood. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case?
Yes, we have.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Good afternoon again members of the board. We are here for a special exception for a tattoo studio
at 427 East Girard Avenue. With me today is my client Doug Hand who is the owner of the property
and also the tattoo artist who is going to be going to be creating tattoos at this location.
As I mentioned, this is a special exception.
That's the only relief that we're looking for from the board today.
There are no variances.
This is a mixed commercial and residential zoning.
So it is permitted with a special exception.
As the chair noted, we have 27 near neighbors that signed petitions in support of this business.
and um here we have um a few of the uh the drawings of of the the the um the the floor plan
so uh this is the first floor and as um we come into the first floor there'll be a waiting area
uh then there will be four different stations that can be used for tattooing
There's going to be a step up here, there's a final station here, a restroom, and a small backyard that's accessible from the rear of the building.
In the basement, which is accessible from Bilko doors by the front door, that's where the trash will be stored.
and there will be an industrial sink and a sterile room if that's needed.
And then this is all, there is no public access down here,
but this is for the various infrastructure to support the tattooing.
There is no sign on this application,
but there will be a design that is going to be painted on the front window
for the establishment that will look like this. The name of the tattoo studio is going to be
Redeemer Tattoo. So here we have the front facade of our building. This is where the
sign will be painted on the window. Upstairs is a residential area, which is not part of
this application because it's already by right.
So we're now looking, um, this perspective is we're looking, um, towards the rear of the
building, uh, and this is the, the, the doorway that goes out to that backyard, um, that I
spoke about.
Now we are turning around and facing the front of the building.
And so this, these, all these areas here is where the tattoo stations will be.
This is a view close to the front door looking towards the back of the building, and here's
the restroom that we spoke about that's in the rear of the first floor.
This is our zoning posters that were posted on the property.
And we prepared some questions and answers for the neighbors at the RCO meeting.
It describes, you know, what types of activities are going to be happening here. It's really just
tattooing for for the body arts we expect most of the clientele will be from the neighborhood
there's going to be relatively short hours between nine at the earliest
There's going to be relatively short hours between nine at the earliest to six at the latest,
Tuesdays through Saturdays, a very minimal impact on traffic and parking. The trash as we noted is
going to be stored in the basement and will be accessible through the Bilko doors on trash day
and there will be special biohazard procedures for the sharps that will be part of the tattooing.
So Fishtown Neighbors issued a strong letter of support, and they reported that at their meeting, 28 meeting attendees voted in support, and of the committee, all eight voted in support, and one neighbor voted in support.
So it's quite a large mandate with only one vote against.
The Business Improvement District also issued a letter of support, strongly supporting the creation of this business and noting that it was going to activate this block and create a lot of positive impact on the surrounding community.
We have our tax clearance, our deed, the project information form,
and our RCO notice, which was sent to the surrounding neighbors. A total of 140 envelopes
were sent out. So at this time, members of the board, I would like to call my client Doug Hand
to adopt my testimony. Okay. Mr. Hand? Dave's been about to speak. Mr. Hand, could you state your
name and spell, please, for the court stenographer? Sure. My name is Doug Hand, first name D -O -U -G,
last name h -a -n -d you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do to see counsel sure um doug welcome uh you've heard my testimony today do you
agree that it's true and accurate and do you adopt it as your own i do 100 percent uh is there
anything else that you wanted to add uh for the board uh to tell them about this about this project
um not really i feel like the the past two times that we've done this you uh you've learned
everything that there is to know about it the only thing that i can add is that um me and my
wife live here in the neighborhood so we're already part of the neighborhood and we're just
you know i'm looking to uh open up here in the neighborhood to help build the you know the area
that we already live in so all right thank you i have no further questions questions from the board
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Mr. Chair, I have Robert Everett with their hand raised.
I will allow them to speak at this time.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yeah, good afternoon, everyone.
My first name is Robert, last name Everett, E -V -E -R -E -T -T.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Absolutely, I do.
Please proceed.
I just wanted to clarify on the letter from Fishtown Neighbors Association.
I did the draft that the chairperson wrote in and messed up the numbers.
It's actually 36 -1, not 28.
We forgot that in the eight votes from the zoning committee that weren't counted.
And yes, overwhelming support from the community. They're very active with our association.
All right. Thank you very much for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I do not see any further answer, Mr. Chair.
Training Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the board. My name is Greg Waldman from Planning Commission staff.
My name is spelled G -R -E -G -O -R -Y, last name Waldman, W -A -L -D -M -A -N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing commercial mixed -use zoning.
The proposed use will not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what normally might be expected.
beyond what normally might be expected the city planning commission recommends that the
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board
zoning board grant the special exception thank you my 2023 -003 -555 -427 east rod avenue i vote yes
thomas holliman my vote is yes ishmael shaheed my vote is yes
thank you thank you counsel thank you so much may i be excused you most certainly can sir
all right number two mi 2023 003 507 611 nara street pasquale kalavati
is the attorney um letter of support from apm
they'll be rejoining as a panelist sir okay
good afternoon counsel could you say your name could you say your name please and spell for
the court sonographer sure pasquale colavita p -a -s -q -u -a -l -e -c -o -l -a -v -i -t -a right
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to this property?
My client is J &K Hotpads, LLC.
They're the owner.
Their principal and sole member is Ernest Peterkin.
He should be present.
From what I understand, he called me and indicated that he was on.
And your vice chair, our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
We do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
We have.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
bear with me one moment okay and here we go um attached a table of contents for the 611
west norris street property attached are the deed certificate of tax clearance notice of refusal
the application for the appeal. Photographs is a zoning poster, zoning plans and drawings at
Exhibit F. The notice to the neighbors was sent timely, received a letter of support from the APM
Community Development. After their meeting, there was only five members of the community were there.
They all voted in favor of it, plus the board members have also added to the letter of support
that's attached at Exhibit H.
There's an Exhibit I
is an MLS history
reflecting that the property
at the time of the purchase
was four units
and my client purchased it
with the understanding
that there were four units.
As such, this is a variant,
requesting a variance of a
pre -existing non -conforming use
in an RM1 zone, which allows two family dwellings as of right.
There are, at Exhibit K, we attached the zoning archives or permits
indicating other similarly situated properties within a block or two of the subject property.
I can start by also adding that this is a three -story property on the first floor, and I'll show it on the plans, but I'll explain it first, and then if anyone wants further clarifications, I'll be more than happy to assist.
So the first floor is a single unit.
Second floor are two studios, and the third floor has a single unit for a total of four units on here.
My client has applied for and is approved for PHA housing at the premises for all four properties, which the community was very happy with.
And as we stated, the deed, my client just recently purchased it as soon as he found out there was an issue, made the application.
and has his tax clearance certificate file the so we can get some photographs of the zoning posters
that were timely posted and here is a the first floor unit so it it's
uh two bedrooms and one and a half bath here with a kitchen area there is a single entrance for all
two bedrooms and one and a half bath here
four units so then we'll get to the second floor which has two efficiency units as you can see the
two separate entrances for each one hallway and bathroom for each of them and on the third floor
It's a two -bedroom with a kitchen, a bathroom, and living area.
And here are some photographs of what the actual apartments look like at purchase.
It's in excellent condition.
And Mr. Peterkin, my understanding, as you can see, one of the arguments on the hardship would be to retrofit this property.
And whereas I guess the income is not necessarily the hardship, the hardship here would be to retrofit it to make it go back to two units.
You would have to change all of the utilities. You would have to rewire everything to retrofit.
Retrofit it would would just be excessive in cost as the hardship.
As you can see that each each of the units has their own water, hot water tank.
And again, notice and here's the letter of support from APM, which the board I'm presuming has received the copy of not just from me, but from from the actual community organization.
Yeah. Here is a copy of when my client went to purchase it, has downloaded a copy of the MLS, which indicates the the four total units, which is has been highlighted.
uh there's further proof of it being a multi -family dwelling he has it um approved for
the fire uh system so the the fire alarm system indicates that that it's been four units uh and
that each of them um have been um attached and uh i think that that's been there for a while
it's not as if he put the uh the system himself he just had it updated and finally we get back to if
you i don't think it's necessary to go through each and every one but if i can go back to the
table of contents to show the different properties that there are four family dwellings there are
several uh most of them are the ones that i've indicated and they're right next to each other
There's 1940 North 6th Street, 48, 50, and 52.
They're all around the corner from it.
They're all three -family dwellings.
On the same block is a three - and a four -family dwelling, and a block or two away at 20 -25 is another four -family dwelling.
I'm going to stop sharing the screen for a second, and I'm going to share a different screen, if I may.
and this is actually just showing what the actual block looks like on
google maps as you can see the property is it's right here three
family again they're they're all um three -story properties single entrances
um and you can see look three trash cans here um so uh with that i guess um
i open it up for any questions bring your client on and adopt your testimony sure
uh again ernest peterkin is the client if we can uh bring them on
they've been allowed to speak
could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer
yes sir my name is ernest peterkin it is spelled e -r -n -e -s -t my last name is spelled p -e -t -e -r -k -i -n
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes sir i do please proceed counsel good afternoon mr peterkin did you have an
opportunity to uh listen to my presentation and my testimony yes i did uh would you uh agree to
its uh veracity and accuracy and adopt it as your own yes i do members thank you questions from the
board no mr chairman yes chair um council can you please clarify the relationship between
You, your client and PHA, please.
you, your client, and PHA, please.
I have no relationship with PHA and I don't think you said your client, your client, Mr.
Peter, can you have a relationship with PHA?
OK, I'm still here.
I rent primarily through PHA.
So low income houses.
Anytime I run out a building, we only accept we do our best to only accept clients with
vouchers.
So we do have a good working relationship with PHA. It's our goal to offer well -kept, remodeled, low -income housing through the PHA program.
Do this property have a current active lease arrangement?
With PHA? The first floor unit currently has a PHA tenant in place.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Chair, I'm going to recuse myself on this.
you're done is you going to recuse yourself or no yes okay all right um emily
no questions for me okay thank you um questions for our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time um questions or comments from the virtual audience
I do not see any hand
good afternoon chair members of the board this is Greg Walden planning commission staff
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential multifamily zoning
the existing zoning supports two units in this 982 square foot lot two units had been permitted
for this property in 2012 however the proposed use is consistent with documented prior use of
the property and our I guess legalization and are consistent with nearby properties
the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance
thank you Mr. Shahid will recuse himself from this vote Emily Persico will vote in his place
MI 2023 -003 -507 -611 West Norris Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Emily Persico, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you. May be excused.
You most certainly can.
Have a great afternoon.
Number six, MI 2023. 003 -509 -4499 South Broad Street. Number T -71C -879660. Darwin Beauvais is the attorney. We do not have an RCO meeting. We don't have an RCO letter as of yet.
There's an issue also with a tax clearance.
Mr. Bovee.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Yes, what we do have is...
Just one minute.
My understanding is I swore you in once today, right?
Yes, yes.
You just identify yourself for the record?
Yes, Darwin Bovee, 1500 Market Street.
I represent the applicant of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation.
And before you start, our vice chair just has a few questions for you, sir.
Mm -hmm.
Ish, you're on mute.
all right as soon as i get an unmute we're okay yeah in the meantime i do waive all right reading
of the uh refusal and stipulate to its accuracy okay fine proceed yes and i did submit my exhibits
within five days i'm sure you did okay so mr chairman members of the board um you you you
The board is astute to realize that there is a tax clearance issue.
When we went to file for the certificate and plug it in itself, it turned out that even though this is a quasi city agency that operates state authority, PAID, paid, which is the actual owner of the Navy Yard,
It turns out that that very strange tax issues came up.
If if if I could share my screen.
If I could share my screen, we go to the OPA.
And I want the board to notice that I'm on the OPA website and I want to do this exercise
in real time so that the board can see exactly what we are dealing with so as it comes out
it's $44 .99 right yeah it's $44 .99
as it stands it shows that we it shows that there's money owed even though the but from
2020 to 2018 no money was owed from 2017 money was owed 2016 and 2015 and all the while the owner has
been paid philadelphia authority for industrial development which is a state agency um when you
get to the description of the parcel. Let me see where we can get that.
Well, there are issues that actually describes the parcel as a religious institution,
that it's 5 million in square feet. There's a whole quagmire. So what I'm asking the
board to do is allow us to go forward and we'll submit a zero balance as as quickly as next week
let's hear the case okay thank you
so let me share my screen again and i would like to i would like to start off here
with the mat.
As you can see, this is the Navy Yard.
And this artery here is Broad Street.
And the subject of our hearing
is this inverted L jug handle,
which is the end of a key.
This is where we are.
um i don't know can everyone see my exhibit list yeah we can okay so what i'm submitting before
the board is a set of exhibits from 1 to 14 that includes our refusal i already explained the issue
of a tax certificate but the deed our application uh description of the end user as well as site
plans our memorandum of law uh our support letter from the civic and photos so with that said
we are our refusal is is for uh um having a marina related
uh uh industrial use in a cmx3 uh zoning classification
Now, if you can, let me see if I can do this differently. Now, the end user, let me go to page 34, is a towing company.
they have
they're looking to enter into a lease
they have fully negotiated
an arrangement with PIDC
and if you can notice
the inverted L
is a description of the marina
and it is
that portion
that is literally
beyond the land
beyond the Navy Yard
beyond the Navy Yard and actually sits in the water. And what we're looking to do,
and actually sits in the water
and what
they're looking to have enough docking for five tugboats. If you can look closely.
And there are 15 parking spaces along the north side, 14 parking spaces,
including two handicaps along the south side. There's landscaping along the dock as you enter
into the dock right before parking and this all in all is for the employees. So let's talk about
our end user. Moran Towing. They are, in essence, and you can, the board can read this along as part
of our exhibit, but in essence, they're an international towing company. They run tugboats
up and down the eastern seaboard, and I believe also in parts of the Gulf of Mexico. They've been
And they've been in this Philadelphia area for several years and have been operating on the Delaware.
But they've been renting out docking space docks both on the New Jersey and Pennsylvania side.
PIDC did convince them to make Philadelphia their own.
And this is what has taken place.
And ultimately, as you can see, at the bottom of this description, they'll have up to 32 employees, no more than 16 being on site for a typical day, but they will run a 24 -7, 365 -day operation.
There are a lot of boating activities on the border, and they find themselves to be a leader in the industry because they actually provide a service that few people can.
Again, so having said that, let's just look at where we are in terms of our zoning classification.
Again, here's our aerial, but the portion that I want the board to see, and again, I'm going to go on Atlas.
here so as you can see the the here's our dock right here this of course isn't this is still
part of the navy yard we were converted to cmx3 this is where pretty much a budding
I -3 industrial, this use, although the LNI does say that it goes beyond a CMX -3 classification,
I think we are close enough that we won't create such a negative impact amongst the other uses.
Lucky enough, it's the Navy Yard. The uses are pretty much limited more towards the interior.
There's not much in terms of commercial activity or industrial activity along the water directly, especially in terms of using the marina.
So what we are taking the position that we really don't have a negative impact when it comes to producing and any type of results from the activity.
And we actually met with the, with the, let me just pull this up again.
We met with the community.
Stadium neighbors.
And I just want to show their letter.
and they decided to not oppose our application and this meeting was as recent as Monday
so Darwin could you make sure Hillary gets a copy of that yes yes
Yes, yes. And there's our notice, our certification of mailing, and part of our exhibits was to just look at the site going east.
So right now, the area is undeveloped, there is a gate, no entry, and it's right along industrial parcels, right along industrial parcels.
so another view and also the the activity will be taking beyond taking place beyond the gate
we'll be having the employees parking beyond there so we won't be crowding any other parking
parking or staging areas here's a view looking south here's a view of looking north and this
is our final view looking north along the gate so with that I will ask the board to
have Eileen Burak the general counsel to PIDC if she could be called up
oh it is past 2 30 i asked her to hold on so she may not be in the audience so uh i'm asking
the board to i am an office officer of the court and we are looking to asking the board to hold
their vote anyway because we're looking to produce
the tax information. Mr. Beauvais, we know you're an officer
of court. We'll accept your testimony. Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman. Questions or comments
from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.
planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg walden planning commission
staff the comprehensive plan um i'm sorry the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
existing commercial mixed -use zoning this case is being refused for non -conforming uses in the
commercial or mixed -use zoning district however the proposed marine related uses are in line with
the documented use of the pier which is long long existing and traditionally used maritime
infrastructure that extends over the delaware river city planning commission recommends that
the zoning board grant the variance thank you mr bouvet we're going to hold the vote till we
straighten out the tax matter and we'll bring this back as soon as we can all right thank you thank
you the record is otherwise closed except for the tax uh documentation thank you that's correct
Thank you. Thank you, guys. All right. Number seven, MI 2023 -001 -536 -6109 Market Street.
Alan Nockms is the attorney. There's letters of opposition and support from Achievability.
There's a letter of opposition from Councilman Jones, Councilmember Jones.
And the applicant did provide a petition signed by 25 people, 25 neighbors, I should say.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of this board.
Alan Nockamson, A -L -A -N, last name Nockamson, N -O -C -H -U -M -S -O -N.
Right. Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is Winfield Investments, LLC, and then in the virtual audience is Len Chang, its member.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
How should you read away the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
have you emailed in all the required documents that is needed to proceed with this case five
days in advance of this hearing yes we have thank you mr mackamson please proceed and share your
Okay, I'm here to present 6109 Market Street.
okay i'm here to present
In our presentation packet, we will review the notice of refusal, the correspondence
from achievability, the petition that we received from nearby neighbors in support
of this project, our zoning map, maps as well as maps of the area, photographs of the property in
the surrounding area, our plans and drawings, our RCO meeting notice, our application for appeal
that we filed on behalf of Winfield Investments, our deed, which shows that Winfield Investments
is the owner of the property, and a certificate of tax clearance showing that Winfield Investments
owes no real estate taxes to the city of Philadelphia. At the conclusion of my presentation,
I would ask that Len Chang virtually raise his hand, be sworn in, and then I have a few questions
for him to answer. All right, so our notice of refusal. So this is a CMX2 property,
and what we're looking to do essentially is convert the ground floor unit from a commercial
unit to a residential unit. There's already two units above on the upper floors. And we're
receiving a refusal as follows. First, because of the size of the lot, three residential units
are not allowed by right. But what I would say as to this, we're allowed three units.
We're not asking to have more units than are allowed in this property. Instead of having
two residential units and one commercial unit. We're asking for three residential units.
And the reason why we're asking for that is that Mr. Chang has been trying to rent this property
out as the commercial unit since 2020. He's had 111 inquiries about this property. He has had 12
showings of this property. No one's interested in renting this property. This is not something that
is uncommon in this part of Philadelphia. This commercial corridor is struggling
mightily. And we're asking that this be converted into a residential unit. This would allow
for the commercial corridor to hopefully thrive close or closer to thrive because you're creating
density in a corridor that has no density. I will say this too, if you look at the 2035 plan,
the City Planning Commission has recommended that this property be converted into a CMX3 zoning.
If that was the case, this is a use that's allowed as of right. So the second refusal has to kind of
do with what we're trying to do with the first refusal. We're trying to eliminate the commercial
component in this property. And because this is a CMX2 property, you know, commercial use is
required on the ground floor. And by eliminating it, we receive a refusal. Again, if this was a
CMX3 property, we wouldn't be required to have that commercial use. And this use would be allowed
as of right. So I know the chairman stated that there was two letters in here, one of support
and one of opposition, I would just want to note and clarify that the letter for
achievability for this project is in non -support. We met with them on separate projects,
one at 6104 Market Street and one at 6109 Market Street. They're across the street from each other.
And actually, Mr. Chang owns both of these properties. So he's really trying his best
to have commercial units
on the ground floor of these properties,
but it's been rather difficult.
At this meeting,
which was not very well attended at 6109,
those members of the community,
which I believe were a handful,
like maybe three or four voted against it.
We provided them a petition
in support of this property.
And just like, you know,
and the community group said,
well, we can't accept a petition.
These people have to be here. So if you look at, though, the letter and then we received a letter of opposition from Council Member Jones, who, you know, again, because the community was against it, you know, he went with a community vote.
But if you look at the other letter for 6104 Market Street, this same organization voted in support of this project. Essentially, it's the same three people. I think there are like three people who are really against having any type of residential units on the ground floor of these properties, which again, there are because there is CMX3 around us.
they were against the project in person we provided this these same letters of
They were against the project in person.
We provided these same letters of support or petition and support at a different meeting for this project, the 6104.
They counted that petition as part of the vote, and Achievability then issued a letter of support.
So I'm just saying how Achievability in one instance for 6104 supported a project under the same grounds.
We provided the petition. They accepted those votes. 6109, same grounds as 6104, same people basically showed up. We also provided petition, but for whatever reason, they didn't count those votes.
So for 6104 is in Councilmember Gutierrez's district. 6109 is in Councilmember Jones's district. 6104, Councilmember Gutierrez actually supported the project with a proviso to have a temporary variance.
So if this board feels so inclined, and I don't know if it's appropriate because my client's going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars converting the commercial space to residential, but if they feel so inclined to only grant it by way of a temporary variance,
My client would be more than willing to accept that because he's been able to generate no rent for years for this property that he has shown on or has inquiries for 111 times, 12 showings, and no leases.
So here's the petition that we received for 6109.
It's full page, people that are close by.
And then again, he didn't differentiate, but this is also the one for 6104.
different people just you know he didn't differentiate between 6104 and 6109 and then
maps of the area as you can see on our side of market street and we're underneath the l
this is all cmx2 which the planning commission's recommending being upgraded to cmx3 which we
allow residential use on the ground floor there's a portion of of this corridor right here as you
which is currently CMX3, which if we were here would be allowed, you know, the use that we're
requesting. And as you can see here from the Google Maps, even though this is a commercial
corridor, you don't really see a lot of businesses active. This is a Google Maps, which would show
businesses that are active. There's not many active businesses on this commercial corridor.
So there's a lot of empty storefronts here, and we're asking to allow for our first floor to be
can convert it to residential, hopefully it will increase the density of this corridor to allow
for other storefronts to become active. I know this is not a zoning matter, but my client's
business model is affordable housing. The two units above are affordable, and he would have
this third unit affordable. I know presenting in front of this group, it's really important for
them to have affordable housing. So we think that this would be a benefit for the community as well
to allow for this unit to be residential. Photographs of the property, again, it's a
three -story existing structure. And here's the property on Market Street to the right of the
property, to the left of the property. Here's our zoning notice poster showing proof of posting for
today's hearing. Our architectural plans and drawings, very simple. You walk in, open floor
plan. This would be the living room. Here's the kitchen. It's a one -bedroom with a bath,
and there's a laundry facility on the ground floor. RCO meeting notice we met many, many months ago
with the group on May 17th at 6 p .m. 150 addresses were notified in the meeting.
These are the lists of the addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses,
our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of Winfield Investments,
along with the notice of refusal and the project information form for this proposed triplex,
which already has two units but an empty storefront on the ground floor,
which we're hoping to convert to residential.
Our deed to the property showing that Winfield Investments owns the property.
and our certificate of tax clearance showing they owe no money to the city of Philadelphia
with respect to this property. I will unshare my screen. I would ask that Mr. Chang virtually
raise his hand and be sworn in.
They've been about to speak.
Yes. Sir, could you state your name and spell a piece for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Leonard Chang, L -E -O -N -A -R -D -C -H -A -N -G.
Yes, my name is Leonard Chang, L -E -O -N -A -R -D -C -H -A -R -E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Yes, Mr. Chang, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
And is it true and correct?
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
including the extensive efforts you've used by way of retaining a real estate broker to
lease this commercial unit and been unable to do so. Yes. Thank you. Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman. No, Chair. Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
mr chair i've got two individuals with the hand raised who are both named
bridget powell okay i'll click on the first one so named let them speak at the time
could you state your name please and spell for the court sonographer
i'm sorry can you hear you i hear you now could you state your name please as bell for the court
stenographer um bridget powell b -r -i -d -g -e -t last name is powell p -o -w -e -l -l right do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor
i am proceed um i'm on this call um i was on the previous call and we're in opposition to this
okay i was on the meeting i think he said that was for this um um place and we did vote no
at that time no there were no petitions provided he provided those petitions at the 6104
meeting. I want to note, since he chimed in about 6104, that you already denied that variance,
which is the same one he's asking for 6109. And without repeating what we said about 6104,
this is one of the most dangerous blocks in Philadelphia. It's one of the 7070 most dangerous
blocks. We have not seen where he's tried to do all this advertisement he claims. I take public
transit to school, to work, and my children dance around the corner. I get my hair done on Market
Street. I shop on Market Street. So I've been around since the 90s. So I've watched this area
commercial go away with the L, and I'm looking forward to it coming back. So that is my testimony,
And we do have two letters of non -support from our councilman, which is not part of the let's make it residential and change it back to commercial.
That was Councilman Gaudier. This is on the side of Councilman Jones.
So this was not a discussion about this property. I'm done. Thank you so much.
Okay. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
um yes mr chair i have a manette hill with the hand raised i've allowed them to speak at this
time i could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer hi yes my name is
leonette hill this spelling is l -e -a -n -n -e -t -t hill h -i -l -l you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes are you a neighbor yes please proceed
Mr. Chairman, may I actually delay my response? I have a commercial business owner that is across the street from 6109 who would like to speak. He's not as techie, so I'm assisting him so he can test it.
Put him on.
Here you go.
Hi, sir. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Okay, my name is Cleveland English, C -L -E -V -E -L -A -N -D, E -N -G -L -I -S -H.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Please proceed, sir.
I am a neighbor.
I'm at 6101 Market Street.
I also have a business at 6110 Market Street.
We are adamantly against changing it to residential from commercial.
residential from commercial like he's saying that the commercial district's been struggling
Like he's saying, the commercial dish.
and we're trying to get commercial businesses in here and business likes other business so when
people come for one thing they'll see another store over here and I personally know because
when we sent people over to his commercial property
at 6109, and the reason he's saying it's still empty
is because the amount, the $1 ,700 that he asked the people
for was just more than that neighborhood usually draws.
And it seems like they're holding out for something
since they got the up
they have
10 more properties that
they'll be coming up for
in the same block
so I wouldn't even mention
anything about other properties
but since he
let's just concentrate on this one
he can mention both properties
when he's up for one
but nobody else can mention anything
we wanted
to be a commercial
thing, a councilman, and him
to be, I know you, is
it a rush now that I'm talking
is only the... No, I'm listening to you, sir.
Because it's
a shame how some people seem to be
able to wiggle
their way and change everything
in the neighborhood.
That's all we want is a
fair business neighborhood.
It's the same thing they want in other
districts.
that's all i'm saying we're adamantly opposed to it so thank you very much for taking time to calls
is there anyone else in the virtual audience
there are no further answer mr chair
mr chair i'm sorry i see that i think the the woman who is assisting the the last testifier i
think she wanted to testify as well. Ms. Hill? Sure. Hi, guys. Mr. Chairman, I'm back. Can you
hear me? Sure. I can. Yep. Okay. Okay. I am supporting my council member in achievability
and non -support of this. Achievability and my council member, along with myself and other
community leaders, are definitely working towards revitalizing the commercial corridor.
And my council member didn't just send a letter of, you know, of non -support just because, you know, we asked them to like Mr. Allen claim.
He wants it to be a business corridor. And if you know my council member, it's like he has a mind of his own.
So, again, I'm definitely I definitely want to see, you know, this commercial business corridor, you know, get revitalized.
And I welcome Mr. Lynn and his partners to, you know, participate in community meetings.
so we can kind of, you know, strategize on what revitalizing our commercial corridor looks like.
I haven't seen him in many community meetings at all, none, other than the community meeting
that we had to meet about in regards to this zoning situation. But, you know, Mr. Lynn,
I know you're on a call. We invite you and we will make sure you get notices when we start
those make up thank you for taking the time to call us we appreciate it is there anyone else in
that virtual audience no mr jr do not see any further hands mr knockison do you want to respond
before uh yes yeah so to reiterate for 6104 achievability sent a letter i believe of
supporter of non -opposition for 6104. The council member, Guthier, also issued a letter or
correspondence in non -opposition, but only with a temporary variance. My client did not avail
himself of that, honestly, because of the 2035 plan for CMX3 property. I believe the Planning
Commission also suggested or recommended a grantee of the variance. We are in the process of filing
a motion for reconsideration, reluctantly, you know, agreeing to hopefully the board will allow
us to represent, but reluctantly agreeing to a temporary variance. I hear what the community
saying about they would like a commercial corridor there. My client Len Chang has been diligently
marketing this property for years and cannot find anyone. And they talk about, and one of the
members of the community talked about safety. Well, having empty storefronts makes it less
safe. Having individuals with eyes on the street on the first floor makes it safe. So if this board
feels so inclined to protect this commercial corridor, my client would agree to a temporary
to protect this commercial corridor my client would agree to a temporary variance of five years
variance of five years.
hopefully at that time the commercial quarter will become stronger and more more robust and
my client would be more than willing to then convert that property back into a commercial
unit on the first floor thank you thank you mr malcomson planning commission
sorry i had to find my find my uh it's okay um greg waldman's planning commission staff
um the comprehensive plan recommends a zoning change to commercially mixed use three
which lacks a requirement for uh ground floor commercial given its documented
use history and physical conditions at the site we have no objection to the granting of the requested
variance. MI 2023 -001 -536 -6109 Market Street, I vote no. Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is no. Thank you, Mr. Nocklinson. Thank you.
Number 9. MI 2023 -003 -574 -2521 Grays Ferry Avenue. Brandon Sovereign is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from the South of South Neighborhood Association.
Coming back in as a panelist.
good afternoon mr saverin just for the record could you state your name please and spell for
the court stenographer yes my name is brandon saverin and that's spelled b -r -a -n -d -o -n
s as in sam a v as in victor r -a -n as in nancy you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth yes i do would you identify your client the relationship to the property
my client is the property owner miss amaris hernandez okay and our vice chair has
good afternoon council do you agree to wave the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy yes i do mr vice chair we emailed in all the required documents to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you please proceed and share your screen thank you
Good afternoon, members of the board.
So the property I'm here to speak to you about today is 2521 Grace Ferry Avenue.
This is a residential building that is located in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood on Grace Ferry Avenue, which is a main corridor with a bus route.
So excuse me, it's my phone, which I'm going to mute.
Our side of the block, as you can see here, and this is a map from Atlas, the official zoning map, is zoned RSA -5, while the other side of our block is zoned RM -1.
This is one of 11 exhibits which I submitted to the board, and I would ask that all of them be moved into the record at the conclusion of the hearing.
Moving on to Exhibit 7, these are just more images from Atlas. This is a parcel map on the top and an aerial map on the bottom, which shows that it's a triangular block. We're towards the center of it, but we do have street frontage on Gray's Ferry, and we have a small rear yard.
I'm just going to show you Exhibit 5, which is a copy of a 1957 permit application that marked the beginning of the use of this building as a duplex.
And I'll come back to the significance of that in a moment.
And going to Exhibit 8, which is additional images from Atlas, I will show you what the building looks like from the street.
So our building is on the right -hand side where my cursor is.
Very handsome building with a brick facade.
And what you can see here are a few things of note.
So for starters, you have at the time of this photo, a third floor addition that was under construction.
And this was a by right addition. And because it was by right, it was constructed with a setback.
And because of that, it's actually not very visible from the street, especially if the construction railing weren't there.
You'd sort of hardly be able to see it standing on the street.
You'll notice that our building is three stories and some others on our side of the block of three stories.
You know, our building is three stories and some others on our side of the block of three stories. This one here, this one here, that's two doors, two doors down, four doors down. You'll also see about six doors down. I think that is 2509 Grays Ferry.
There are some buildings that have close to a half a dozen units and present themselves more in an apartment building format like this one here where my cursor is.
So it's sort of a mixed block in terms of use, in terms of physical appearance.
Staying in Exhibit 8, this is an image from Atlas of the other side of the street, which shows you that on that side, every building, at least in our vicinity, is three stories tall.
and there's a mix of new construction, older construction. So that just tells you a little
bit about sort of the vicinity. Going back to the image of our property, I just want to put sort of
the story of this application in layman's terms. So Ms. Hernandez, the property owner, acquired
this property by inheriting it essentially. I don't know if you could legally call it inherit,
it. I want to be careful, but acquired the property from the estate of her husband's
grandmother. So this is a family property. I believe in my application and in my exhibits,
I erroneously noted that it was her grandmother, just for clarity, it's her husband, Ron's
grandmother. And the goal here was for Ron and Amaris to be able to move into this property.
So it's always been a duplex, or at least since the 50s. It's basically at the moment an investment property, but they wanted to move in and they wanted to be able to do that without losing the income that is generated from the two units that have been there for a long time.
So their idea was, let's build a third story addition, since we're allowed to do that by right, and we'll move into it.
When they sort of started the paperwork to move into it, and this was after the construction was already underway, they realized that that is a third unit, and the increase from two to three units generates a refusal, and they called me.
Now, on the other side of the street, where the properties are RM1, this would not have generated a refusal.
But because our side of the street is RSA 5, we needed a use variance.
At that point, and this was a full year ago, and I'm going to exhibit 2C here, we filed an application for a variance and we met with SASNA and went through the entire RCO process.
So here is an interesting letter that SOSNA generated at that time, which it called a letter of contingent support.
And I'm going to summarize this for you. What this letter sort of does is establish a quid pro quo.
It says, you know, Ron and Amaris, we understand you want to live in this building.
We're all for that, especially since it's been in your family for a very long time.
So no problem with you having a third unit, but we really don't like that third story
edition you built.
We don't like that it has a setback.
We want the front of the building to be closer to the street.
And that was a very, I'll say, surprising request.
But it's a request that we could not comply with, even though we wanted to, because it
was too far afield from what we initially were going for, which was simply the third
unit without the addition.
So what we had to do was withdraw that case.
I never came to the board.
We withdrawed it before our hearing date, and we refiled with the addition that SOSNA
asked for.
And I'm going to show you the refusal and the plan in one moment.
But the sort of end result of all this, if you go to Exhibit 11, is that we met with SOSNA again with our new application, new application number, new plans.
And here is the letter that they authored this time.
Just like last time, we had a tremendously positive response at the meeting.
But this time, instead of offering a letter of contingent support, this was full support, as it says there.
And you can see that the six SOSNA zoning committee members voted in support of the project, as did every single one of the 21 other attendees.
So now to go into the refusal.
This is Exhibit 2D, and I will just note for the record that the
And I will just note for the record that the refusal that we got with this application that we're here before you on today had some incorrect language.
And I got lucky, I'll say, and I caught it immediately.
So I emailed the examiner that wrote the refusal.
I told him what I thought he needed to fix.
He agreed.
So we have a corrected refusal with the same date as the original refusal.
And the actual refusals aren't any different. It's just the description of the application that's a little bit different.
What are our refusals? It's that we're going up to three units from two and that it's we are eliminating the existing setback of the third floor because SOSNA asked us to.
Those are the only two refusals. And I won't read it word for word, but what is the proposal? It's to add that addition that Sassner demanded. It's to increase our unit count from two to three. And it's to build a rear deck off the third floor's bedroom. And that rear deck is by right. So that's not an issue here.
let's see how about I show you the plans so we do have proviso plans the proviso plans are not
all that different from the original plan that we submitted this time around the proviso plans
are at exhibit 2f of our package and I'll just I'll walk through them if you have any questions
I do have Jeffrey, our architect on the line, but in short, the third floor currently ends right here where my cursor is located.
And this is a cross section that is a part of our zoning plan.
So at SOSNA's request, we are adding what is labeled as a sunroom at the front of a third, the third floor, relatively small compared to what's already there.
But this is the front addition and it has a mansard style roof with a dormer window.
In addition, we're going to be completing a roof deck, so we're going to be punching a pilot house onto the roof, which is shown here, and then down here, not on the roof, but off the floor of the third floor is a small rear deck onto the bedroom that was just built up there that we're proposing.
um just to to say a word about the uh process process with sasna um this is exhibit 2g which
describes the the changes that we went through uh this time around with sasna so um my firm and i
at times have gone to war with sasna they can be very particular about the architectural elements
of the plans that they want to see. But this applicant and this architect, I have never
worked with anybody more cooperative with an RCO. I think they went through four different
iterations of the plan, not changing its shape, but changing materials, changing like angles of
the dormer, very sort of nuanced stuff. And that's what's described here. None of this generates
additional refusals. But I'm only bringing that up to really demonstrate how sort of hand in glove
we worked with SASNA here. And not only did we modify the zoning plan with SASNA, but here in
Exhibit 3 is the building permit set. And we walked through all of this with SASNA and changed
this at their request too. So I just really, I'm proud of that. My client should be proud of that
and wanted to mention it.
I think I can end my presentation there.
I mean, I'll just say in terms of the hardship in this case,
it's really that my client's not in a position
to join this community and move into this building
without, with giving up the income
that it can currently receive
from the two units that are already there.
So this is going to allow Ron and Amaris
to join this community.
And we did so, you know, with Sassana's blessing.
Amaris is on to adopt my testimony, and we're happy to take any questions.
We have been allowed to speak.
All right.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court's sonographer?
Amaris?
Amaris Hernandez, A -M -A -R -I -S, Hernandez, H -E -R -N -A -N -D -E -Z.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Receive counsel.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Amaris, did you hear my testimony to this point in your zoning case this afternoon?
i did was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge information and belief
I did.
Was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information?
yes it was and would you therefore adopt it as if it were your own testimony
yes i would okay thank you questions from the board no mr chairman no chair questions from
our attorney hillary emerson um i just wanted to note mr chair um while there there is a
corrected refusal i don't think we can actually add that as a proviso because the date is the
same as the other refusal and there isn't any notation on that refusal to to indicate that
it's the it's an updated one or corrected one so i just i just want to put that on the record that
i don't think we can add that as a proviso thank you and and on our end that's fine i've discussed
that with ellen i and they said it won't be a problem so we won't have revised plans hillary
no we will have the revised plans it's just we won't have any proviso related to the fact that
there was a corrected refusal issued yep all right thank you um comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any hands mr chair planning commission good afternoon chair members of
the board this is greg bald planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing residential single -family zoning in 2021 this property received a permit for two
dwelling units and a third story edition the pellet has not supported their hardship claim
with evidence of unique physical circumstances or conditions of the property for the third unit
city planning commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance with the following
condition no more than two units yeah and and i'll just say mr chairman we we would not agree
to that as a restriction because it defeats the the purpose of the application mi 2023
zero zero three five seven four twenty five twenty one gray's furry avenue i vote yes
Revised by ZBA, one page, stamped by ZBA, October 25th, 2023.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Number 10, MI 2023 -003 -575, 7911 to 17 Ogons Avenue.
Letter of support from 50th Ward Democratic Executive Committee, RCO.
Letter of support from Councilmember Phillips.
Attorney is Brett Feldman.
He's coming back in as a panelist.
Good afternoon, Mr. Feldman.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Members of the board, good afternoon.
Brett Feldman, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
I represent McDonald's, USA, and also the franchise operator, Mr. Kenneth Youngblood.
our vice chair has just a few questions for you sir good afternoon council do you agree to waive
the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy i don't have you emailed in all the
required documents that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing
uh yes i have thank you council please proceed and share your screen okay let me um
is my screen up yes great great um let me just do some quick introductions here
uh mr kenneth youngblood who is the franchise operator of this particular mcdonald's location
Eileen Seberger, who is the McDonald's Regional Development Director and is working with myself on this project, William Smith from Ballard Engineering, and our project architect, Kiernan Meehan.
SO I 'LL GET RIGHT TO IT. WE PASSED UP EXHIBITS. IT'S NOW EXHIBITS 1 THROUGH 14 WHICH NOW INCLUDES
DISTRICT COUNCIL PERSON'S LETTER OF SUPPORT WITH LETTER OF SUPPORT FROM THE COMMUNITY TO 50TH WARD.
THIS IS AN EXISTING MCDONALD'S LOCATION. LET ME JUST GO RIGHT TO THE PICTURES.
This is an existing McDonald's location. Let me just go right to the pictures here. That's been there, I think, since 1988. Probably some of the board members will recognize the location and maybe patronize the location.
And McDonald's, as part of their ongoing continued efforts to increase, improve the efficiency of the operations, the efficiency of their drive -through is adding, I believe it's 290 square feet, which is basically they're adding a walk -in cooler box.
So there needs to be less truck deliveries of food to the location and adding a third drive in window to better improve the drive, the service times of the drive throughs.
A very, very minor increase in the size of the restaurant.
However, it's in a CA1, as you can see here, it's in a CA1 commercial district.
This is the location here in blue.
So any increases in the size of a takeout restaurant, even though it's been there for 40 years, and even though it's less than 300 square feet, triggers the need, in this case, for a special exception.
So I think as you'll hear, the relief is certainly warranted and consistent with the special exception criteria.
criteria. So just real quick, here is, here's the location nestled between Ogance Avenue and
Cheltenham Avenue. Access points off of Ogance, access points off of Cheltenham. Here's what the
restaurant looks like from Ogance. This was redone a couple years ago. This is the top of the line
McDonald's exterior treatment finish. There's pictures. That's the rear of it on Cheltenham
Avenue. Here's the Ogans entrance. This was the top of the line interior upgrades for the
restaurant itself. So that was all done recently. Here's more of the interior. So let me just,
as far as what we're actually doing here, it's almost impossible to see on the site plan.
Um, there are these little, I'll pull it down here. Um, this, this dark area here is the,
the walk -in cooler, the cooler boxes again. So we have more capacity for food. Uh, and then there
is this brown or darkened area right here and right here, uh, where we are adding a third
drive -through window. We actually prepared a specific exhibit just to show those areas.
Let me just show right here.
Just to show, to take all the layers off and just show that really de minimis increase in the size.
These are those darkened areas, the walk -in cooler box and then the addition of the third window.
So all this is being done to increase the time, to decrease the time that it takes for McDonald's to serve its customers in the drive -thru line, which has become increasingly important.
And there's increasing pressure on that.
Here is the existing drive -thru.
And here is the proposed just with those small little window changes on the side and the walk -in cooler box.
There's no change to where the trash is being stored or anything else like that.
As part of the new city landscaping requirements, we work with city planning to increase some landscaping in the rear.
I think I actually went by that picture, but we are increasing the landscaping in the rear.
Here's a photo simulation of the new landscaping that will be in the rear, some new bushes, some new trees.
uh so we're consistent with the new uh city planning landscaping um there's also some work
being done in the kitchen area all new with about um eight or nine hundred thousand dollars is being
spent in the kitchen to bring that all up to 2023 the most advanced um um kitchen equipment
that is possible so uh there is going to be um you know stores going to need to be closed for
some time but this is uh the commitment uh that mr youngblood and mcdonald's has made to this
neighborhood and to make sure that this location is state -of -the -art. As I mentioned earlier,
we have a letter of actually support. Here's the posting photos. We have a letter of support from
the community group. We had a pretty well -attended meeting, including some near neighbors. No
concerns or objections were raised to Mr. Youngblood, who's been operating this now for many
years. And then we also have a letter from the district council person. So I guess I'll just
So I guess I'll just stop with that. I would say the special exception criteria, this is a special exception case. We certainly do not negatively impact or have detrimental impacts on congestion in the public streets or transportation system where we're crowding the land.
stop with that. I would say the special experience.
everything we're doing is to increase and improve all those special exception criteria. So we think
we easily meet the special exception criteria. So with that, I guess I would turn it over. I could
certainly have the engineer and the architect. Why don't we have Mr. Youngblood come on and
adopt your testimony? Sure. Mr. Youngblood, are you out there in the virtual universe? Can you
say hello?
I don't know how to speak.
Sir, could you state your name?
Can you hear me now? Yes, could you state your name
and spell for the court stenographer? My name is
Kenneth A. Youngblood
K -E -N -N -E -T -H
A. Youngblood
Y -O -U -N -G
B -L -O -O -D
Right. Do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Just real quickly, Mr. Youngblood, and Doug, good afternoon, and thanks for joining us.
You bet.
You have owned and operated this location for how many years?
About 35 years since May 1988.
And you also have other locations in the city, correct?
Yes, sir.
And you heard my testimony as far as what we were doing to the location, the upgrades in the kitchen,
the upgrades on the drive -thru and the landscaping, correct?
Yes, sir.
And are they true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Yeah, I agree. Yes, sir.
And do you adopt them as your own?
I promise I do.
Okay. And is there anything further you'd like to add?
I don't think so.
I'm proud to be an owner in that neighborhood, been there for 35 years,
and I promised them when I moved in that I would do everything in my power
to keep the standards up and add value to the neighborhood.
great great thank you so much thank you questions from the board questions from the board no mr
chairman no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr chair planning commission
Good afternoon, Chair, members of the board. This is Greg Baldwin, Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends a zoning map change to commercial use. The proposed use will
not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what normally might be expected. The City
Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the special exception. Thank you.
MI 2023 -003 -575 -7911 to 17 Oguns Avenue.
I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Great.
Thank you.
As always, thank you for your time and consideration.
Okay, thank you, counsel.
Bye -bye.
Number 13, MI 2023, 004 -374 -5392 West Montgomery Avenue. Meredith Ferlicker is the attorney. There's a letter of non -opposition from Winfield Residents Association with unenforceable providers.
And there's a letter of non -opposition from Winfield Community Neighbors Association with support from also non -enforceable providers.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court's sonographer?
Sure. Meredith Ferliger, F -E -R -L -E -G -E -R, of Delworth Paxson, 1500 Market Street, Suite 3500E.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Certainly. My client here today is property owner Michael Fine, which is represented by management company Vica Technologies, LLC, with the representative Azuka Anyin.
And our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, Councilor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
have you emailed on all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case five
days in advance of this hearing i did thank you please proceed i see you have already shared your
screen thank you mr chairman members of the board as i mentioned i am here today on behalf of the
property owner we do have a deed with a letter of authorization authorizing the property management
vica to speak on mr thine's behalf both of those are included at exhibit three the request before the
both of those are included at exhibit three the request before the board today is really quite
minimal so i will keep this brief unless the board has additional questions at the end of the
presentation in your packet at tab 13 as as i believe mr chairman mentioned at the beginning
we do have two letters of non -opposition both from winfield residents association
and Winfield Community Neighborhood Association. To summarize, the request today proposes to change
a currently existing accessory office use into a non -accessory office use.
So the board has my exhibits, which contain 14 sets of documents. The zoning map, which I'll bring
up at Exhibit 6 shows that the property at 5392 West Montgomery Avenue is at the corner of West
Montgomery and North 54th Street. The property is zoned RSA 5 and is just south of where you'll
note the beginning of the commercial corridor on North 54th Street. The aerials that I've included
at Exhibit 6 should provide the board with some additional site context. So you'll notice that
this is a predominantly residential neighborhood, except for a couple of the corner properties.
And this is just a view towards the north, so this is really showing the back of the property.
This is a south view, so again, you can really get a sense of the residential structures
on West Montgomery. The view from the west, which I have up on the screen, this shows you better
context to the commercial block that does start just north of the property that's before you
today. And 5392 is marked with that little red teardrop. I have included site photographs at
Exhibit 14. From the front, you'll notice that this single -family home is accessed from the
West Montgomery Avenue frontage. And as we travel around the corner here, you'll begin to see that
the ground floor commercial use was previously existing and does have a separate access door
directly from North 54th Street. As I move through more, and just for context, this was an
existing SEPTA bus station stop. That has since been removed. As we move through more of the
photographs, you'll gather a little bit closer view of the property. This is from the rear.
And again, this is a better view of that commercial corridor that starts just across
the street from this property that's before you today.
If you look, again, this is just additional residential structures on West Montgomery.
And then if you look south, you'll notice that the corner property that is directly behind 5392 West Montgomery has a similar ground floor commercial use.
In that case, it's a takeout restaurant.
I did include a couple of interior photographs just to orient you to the space itself.
The space is currently vacant.
It is small, but it does have a separate entrance and has plenty of space to accommodate a small office user with limited customer traffic, which is consistent with how it's been used over the last several years.
Although not at issue today, I did include a couple of interior photos just of the single family home.
So at Exhibit 8, you'll note the last zoning permit that was issued for this property in May of 2021, which documented the use as a single family home with a home business and professional office use as an accessory use.
So this application is simply seeking to convert that previously approved office space to a non -accessory use, which just means that it can be rented to anyone and not just used by the owner of the property or the residential tenant that lives in the single -family home above.
So because the property is currently zoned RSA 5, we are required to seek a variance for the proposed non -accessory office use.
We are also required to seek a variance because the RSA 5 district would prohibit more than one principal use of the property.
We submit to several straightforward hardships, which I will summarize.
First, there is no recent history of this ground floor space being used for any residential use, nor would it be desirable or feasible to convert it into single family use.
nor would it be desirable or feasible to convert it into single -family use in conjunction with the
Let's get started.
single -family home above. The property has in fact been operating with an office use for several
years and this request will only change the designation of that use from accessory to
non -accessory. A commercial use within a basement or a first floor is a common condition of corner
properties in this neighborhood, many of which are currently zoned RSA 5, like this property.
And I did include examples of some of those similar mixed -use corner properties,
and I did summarize them for reference on my exhibit list. Some of those ground floor uses
that I referenced include a restaurant, retail, and other office uses, many of which were also
granted by variance at one point in time in fact the designated north 54th street commercial
corridor that's noted on city maps extends past this property despite the single family zoning
we submit that the proposed use is clearly the least minimum as it will not change the usage of
the space in any significant way since it has been operating as an office for the last several years
albeit as an accessory use. By converting the office to non -accessory use, there will be no
substantive change in the nature of the use of the space itself. Given the structural separation
between the single -family residence and this office space, continued use as an office is not
only most appropriate for the space, but requires the least amount of monetary investment and
physical modification to the property to enable reasonable use of the space. The proposal will
not increase congestion, endanger the public, or harm neighbors' use of their properties.
This request is very intentionally limited in scope to just a business and professional office
to limit the impact to the surrounding area. In approving this request, the only commercial use
that would be permitted for this space is a business and professional office use and no
other commercial use. And that was a fact that the community really appreciated when we presented
this request to them. As noted in our presentation to the community, this is an ideal transitional
commercial use from the denser commercial corridor just north into the residential neighborhood.
There's also ample public transportation access directly in front of the property.
There are no exterior physical changes to the property that are proposed. We would expect that there would need to be some minor updates to the interior in order to secure a certificate of occupancy pursuant to the building code.
We submit that the proposal and the requested variance complies in full with the requirements of the code. Full analysis is provided in my memorandum of law submitted to the board at Exhibit 10.
And Mr. Chairman, I do believe you referenced the list of provisos that the community included with their letter.
Just for the record, the applicant is perfectly happy with and had intended to comply with them regardless.
But we do understand they're not within the board's jurisdiction to oppose.
So if the administrator wouldn't mind locating Mr. Azuka and have him unmuted.
Sir, could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court stenographer?
My name is Azuka, A -Z -U -K -A, and I am A -N -Y -I -A -M.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Azuka, did you hear all the testimony that I offered before the board today?
Yes, I do.
And you are the authorized representative of the property owner, correct?
Yes, I am.
And would you agree that the testimony that I offered today was true and accurate?
And would you adopt that as if it were your own?
Yes, I will.
Thank you.
Happy to answer any questions.
All right.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not see any further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Board.
This is Greg Baldwin from Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing residential single -family zoning.
The proposed use is consistent with documented use of the property.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the Zoning Board grant the variance.
Thank you.
Thank you. MI 2023, 004 -374 -5392 West Montgomery Avenue. I vote yes.
MI 2023 -004 -374.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ismail Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
All right. Number 14, MI 2023, 003 -558 -2334 North 30 Street.
Alan Nockamson is the attorney.
There's a letter of opposition from Strawberry Mansion community concerned with the accompanying photo.
Applicant provided a petition of support from approximately 11 neighbors, along with nine form letters of support from neighbors.
Mr. Nockamson, you've already been sworn.
Just state your name, please, for the record.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
could you identify your client in relationship to the property yes castello ventures llc uh
and in the virtual audience is its representative chris grimes our vice chair has just a few
questions good afternoon council do you agree the way the reason ever refused us to believe
to his agency? I do. Have you emailed in all of the required
documents that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of his hearing?
Yes, we have. Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Bye. Let me show my screen.
All right. So I'm here to present 2334 North 30th Street. This is in the Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia. In my presentation, we'll review the notice of refusal we just received, I believe, this afternoon, the correspondence from Strawberry Mansion Community Concern, which was the coordinating RCO.
So we did receive letters of support, as well as we circulated a petition with, I believe, 11 signatures as well.
And that's in your packet of materials.
We have a user registration permit showing a permit issued in the 90s, excuse me, in the 80s,
which shows that this was a five -unit dwelling at one point as a rooming house.
So that's the last known use of the property.
So even though this property is RSA 5, given the size of the property of 1 ,120 square feet of the lot size, we think it's appropriate to allow for the proposed multifamily use.
We have maps of the area, photographs of the property, our plans and drawings, our RCO meeting notice, our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of Costello Ventures, LLC.
The deed showing that Castello Ventures LLC is the owner of the property and a certificate of tax clearance.
Again, in the virtual audience is Chris Grimes, a representative of the company.
And at the conclusion of my presentation, I would just ask that he virtually raise his hand and be sworn in.
And then I will ask him a few questions about my presentation.
So notice of refusal, this is an RSA 5 property.
We are proposing an erection of a rear and top addition with roof deck and roof deck access structure and rear second floor deck to make it a three -family dwelling.
If this board is so inclined to grant our variance request, we would ask for a proviso, no roof deck and roof deck access structure.
this is the strawberry man this is strawberry mansion and they're very protective about their
overlay which is one of the refusals which prohibits roof deck and roof deck access
structures again i was involved with the initial submission that's one of the things that as soon
as we present in front of strawberry mansion we we we provide you know a proviso in that respect
you know that was the will of the people in strawberry mansion the second refusal has to
do with the multifamily use. And that's where we have a disagreement with the, you know,
Strawberry Mansion community concern. They believe that the property should be a single -family
use as an RSA -5 property. And we disagree with that assessment. This property since the 1980s
has had a multifamily living in it. And it's not out of character, not only for the property,
but the surrounding area we did an inventory of that block there is a 21 unit apartment building
across the street uh gordon apartments and then there are one two three four
Gordon Apartments. And then there are one, two, three, four, five instances of properties
nearby on 30th Street, which are also RSA5 properties, which are also multifamily in
nature, which have active rental licenses. So it's not out of character for the property itself,
given its long history of multifamily use, along with the surrounding area.
So we did meet with Strawberry Mansion Community Concern.
There were only three people who showed up on the meeting.
Mr. Goldberg from my office did the presentation in front of the community.
According to Mr. Goldberg, it was Bonita Cummings who is the representative for Strawberry Mansion Community Concern.
And there was a representative from Strawberry Mansion CDC.
There was a third member at the time we did not know of the community.
We did not know who that was.
It seems like it was another representative of another community organization.
They asked us to postpone today's hearing.
We, you know, we declined in the sense of this.
We've been reaching out to Strawberry Mansion Community Concern for months to just get the community meeting.
And, you know, at the last second, we finally got a community meeting.
The only reason why there was a request for a continuance was they wanted paperwork submitted to L &I, eliminating the roof deck and roof deck access structure.
We said we can do that by way of proviso.
And as a man, as someone who believes in giving their word to things, that's what we're doing today.
And that would be enforceable to remove the roof deck and the roof deck access structure by way of proviso.
So the second reason why they wanted us to have a continuance is they wanted us to redo the plans to make it single family, a single family dwelling.
Mr. Goldberg tried to explain that if we were to change our request to single family dwelling, then we wouldn't need to be part of this process.
We're not asking for any dimensional variances.
There is a huge lot.
It's, you know, we're only asking for three units given a history of five units at one point.
So I just addressed that because in the in the first paragraph, I believe they stated that we refused to continue the hearing.
And they stated that all attendees of the community meeting were opposed.
Again, there were three members of the community.
Two of them we knew of Miss Cummings and and and another member of the Sherbury Mansion Community Development Corporation.
I guess the third member was also a member of another RCO, but it doesn't seem like any actual members of people who live nearby stated a position to this project.
But again, this project is not unique to the property and to the neighborhood as a whole.
And again, we tried to reach out to people who are close by.
So on that block, we got a letter of support for 2330, 2314, 2345, 2355, and 2335 North 30th Street.
Again, because no one really showed up to the community meeting, and honestly, we were surprised people were against, the community groups were against it because given the history of the property and the surrounding area,
And given there's many vacant lots around there, we thought that this was a pretty straightforward project.
But after the community meeting, we made it.
My client himself physically canvassed the neighborhood and obtained these signatures from nearby neighbors.
And then here's our petition as well.
And then the use registration permit shows in 1986 that this was converted into a five -unit dwelling, you know, rooming dwelling, but still five units.
And then the maps of the area, again, the use that we're requesting on 30th Street is not out of character.
I mentioned five instances of properties that are RSA 5 just on 30th Street, but there's other RM1 use on 30th Street down the block on 29th Street.
There's CMX 2. So there is a diversity of zoning classifications in this part of the neighborhood.
And as you can see here, too, there is, you know, there's some commercial use here.
This added density will help support that commercial use.
And as you can see here too, this is our property. There is a decent amount of open space here because of the lack of development. We're hoping that this project will encourage others to build in this part of the neighborhood as well.
and as you can see here too this is our property
there is a decent
And photographs of the property is an existing three -story structure. We're just doing an addition in the rear and a little bit on top. This is our hearing notice poster and proof of it.
And then this is North 30th Street to the right of the property, to the left of the property, our plans and drawings.
Oh, two provisos we would agree to is not only one of which, as I mentioned before, is the no roof deck or no roof deck access structure.
We would also agree to no living in the basement.
My client has no intentions to have, you know, anyone living in the basement.
So while the first floor unit has access to it, my client intends to lock that access and just to have, you know, it unfinished with no residential use allowed.
And then this is our meeting notice.
Again, you know, we met on October 16, 2023.
23. Here's our proof of email of that notice to not only the community groups, but also the
council member zoning aide, Mary Jones. 163 addresses were notified of the meeting.
List of those addresses, proof of mailing of those addresses, or an application for appeal
that we filed on behalf of Costello Ventures LLC. Our deed showing that Costello Ventures LLC is the
owner and showing that no money is due to the city of philadelphia with regards to his property
i would ask that mr grimes virtually raise his hand now
grimes he's been out to speak hi sir could you state your name and spell please for the court
sonographer? Chris Grimes,
G -R -I,
or C -H -R -I -S,
G -R -I -M -E -S.
Do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth? No.
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes. Mr. Grimes,
you heard everything I had to state
today about your zoning matter.
Yes. And is it true
and correct? Yes.
And do you adopt it as your own testimony?
and specifically you attended that community meeting that i referenced in my presentation
right yes okay and and and you're in agreement that there were only three individuals at that
community meeting yes okay and then after the and after that community meeting you personally
canvassed the neighborhood specifically close by properties to get these letters of support and
the petition that I showed in my presentation. Yes, I did. Okay. And did you have conversations
with individuals during the time you were canvassing and getting that support? Yes. I
talked to quite a few neighbors and they were all in support of rehabbing the building,
making the community stronger. Gotcha. And then my understanding is that a couple of them even
stated, and I don't know if they're online, that they may even show up in support at this here.
yes they were asking me when the hearing was and that they would show up and support it
yeah and based on that our office sent the emails to those to the individuals who
provided us with their email addresses for today's hearing yes okay thank you
is from the board no mr chairman
no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
yes sir i have a handout from strawberry mansion community concerns i have allowed
them to speak at this time i could you state your name and spell it for the court stenographer
Yes. Can you hear me? I can. Hi, my name is Bonita Cummings. That's B -O -N -I -T -A, Cummings, C -U -M -M -I -N -G -S. I am the coordinating RCO. Okay.
Ms. Cummings, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Please proceed.
I first wanted to state that there was no petitions or letters of support presented at the meeting.
There were more than three people present, and many of the people present at the meeting were
There were more than three people present, and many of the people present at the meeting were major community organizations within that footprint.
So the petition also, the letters of support and the petition are the same thing.
They're the same people.
So it's not like you have additional letters of support to the petition.
And also the petition has several people who live outside of the affected areas.
You have 5 ,500 block of Jefferson Street and a whole other part of the city, and you have something from 2 ,200 block of 28th Street, which is also from a whole other part of the city.
There is no demonstrated hardship for the applicant.
Our community, as Sherbury mentioned, is now getting the appraisal values for single -family homes.
We're also getting the rents, so there is no hardship to the applicant to keep this property as a single -family property.
Further, you are asking the community to accept an extreme modification of this property to force three units into it, which piles residents up on top of each other.
But that brings a hardship to our community because it brings great congestion to that particular location in that that block is a short block.
It's cut off by Arizona Street. So it's not even a block that's the full length of a normal block that could be impacted by many residents living in three separate units.
Also, Ernest Hobbs, the previous owner of that property, was a member of our community who lived in that property as a single man.
And he never used that property in any capacity other than his self living there.
And there were no rooming units ever used, although it may have been applied for.
Our community is in need of single family properties because of the number of family members in many of the families that apply and look for housing in our community.
We would also want as a community to reserve the right of some of our single family properties.
Every developer that has come to our community over the last several years has turned everything into multifamily units.
We would be forcing a three, we would be forcing a single family property to hold three units where even the space basically is only 613 square feet, a little over for each unit, which is for small families or for one person.
So we would like to preserve the right to have some of our single family properties because the market is there for that.
So there is no hardship to this applicant to get to sell that property for what he would want to get, to rent it for what he would want to get.
And it would lessen the impact to our community of the type of crowding that you would place in that footprint right at that intersection there at Arizona and 30th Street.
So we would ask this board to know that that property has never been used for more than one owner, one person who lived there for many, many years, Mr. Ernest Hobbs, and our community would not want to have to be burdened with the congestion that three units would bring.
And why would we pile people on top of each other by forcing an extensive modification of a property just for profits to the applicant?
So we ask you not to force us as a community to have to live with that congestion and to have to have our families crowded up in a building that was designed to only be a single family property.
It's not like this new construction coming out of the ground being fitted to really have that kind of use.
It's a small property, actually, unless you force an extension and it's not unreasonable in size to a single family.
So thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Cummings. Thanks for your comments.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience? Yes, Mary Jones with their hand raised.
I've allowed them to speak at this time.
Mary, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes. Good afternoon. Mary Jones, M -A -R -Y, J -O -N -E -S, here on behalf of Council President Darryl Clark.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
yes uh the council president just asked that the board take under consideration
the community group's concern about density for this particular proposal
community group's concern about density for this particular proposal. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in the first audience?
I do not see any further hands, Mr.
I plan a commission. Oh, Mr. Chair, can I just respond? I was just, I was going to wait for everyone to give their comments. Can I respond?
uh yeah so a couple things um in terms of our petition the reason why we didn't submit one
was we did not think that this was one of those projects that would be controversial and then
from experience miss cummings asks us politely never to show a petition or letter of support
because she thinks that somehow trumps her community meeting so we never show petitions
or letters of support this as a matter of practice but if you look at the the petition
and the letters of support. They do have addresses at 2330, 2314, 2345, 2355, and 2335 all on that
block in support of this project. In addition, there is a documented history of non -single
family use on that property. I can't speak to the recent history of whether someone then
converted it back, but I'm just telling you since 1986, there's a documented history of
multifamily use, plus vacant lots there, plus there's an apartment building across the street,
and there's five other instances of multifamily structures, which are RSA 5,
that are multifamily in nature. If this board feels like the proposal is not the least modification
possible under the Philadelphia zoning code, my client would agree to provide a maximum of two
units in addition to the other provisos of eliminating the roof deck and the roof deck
access structure and no basement living. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Matheson. Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Board. This is Greg Waldman from Planning Commission
staff. In 2014, the zoning map was amended from residential multifamily to residential
single family at this location in accord with recommendations from the comprehensive plan.
The proposed three dwelling units does not substantially differ from the five rooming units approved in 1986.
However, the dimensional requirements of the zoning code that prohibit roof decks in the neighborhood conservation overlay do not create an economic detriment for the applicant.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance with the following condition, the roof deck.
Thank you.
Mr. Notkinson, there's been a lot of testimony on this. What I want to do is take this back to
the board. We will vote on this next Wednesday at 2 p .m. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Number 15.
MI 2023 -003 -580 -1530 East Houston Street. Alex Goldberg is the attorney.
letter of support from Fishtown Neighbors Association and applicants submitted a petition
and support signed by 13 neighbors along with four form letters, including one from the adjacent
neighbor at 1532 East. Mr. Goldberg. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the board.
Mr. Goldberg, could you either get closer or turn your volume up a little bit, just a little bit?
Can you hear me now? Yeah, we can. We can.
Right, sir. Could you state your name and spell, please, for the court's sonography?
Sure. Alex Goldberg, A -L -E -X -G -O -L -D -B -E -R -G.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
Sure. My clients are Michael Baker and Eugene Marone. They're the owners of the property.
And our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, but I'll note that by way of proviso form and revised plans, we have eliminated one of the refusals.
Fair enough. Have you emailed in all the current documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay. Thanks again. My name is Alex Goldberg of the law firm Nockamson PC. I am here presenting
1530 East Houston Street. We're seeking now just one variance for this single family home.
Again, the property owners are Michael Baker and Eugene Marone, and at the conclusion of my presentation, I'll ask Eugene to raise his hand and adopt my testimony.
Again, the property owners are Michael Baker and Eugene Marone.
So, here's your table of contents.
First, there will be the notice of refusal.
This is a single -family home in an RSA 5 zoning classification.
We're seeking to keep it that way and only seeking a variance for rear yard depth.
The second exhibit is a letter of support from Fishtown Neighbors Association.
We met with them earlier this fall and received unanimous support.
Third exhibit is the revised proviso plans form and the revised plans.
Fourth is a petition, then an aerial view of the property, some maps of the property,
photographs of the front of the property, the posting photos in the surrounding area,
architectural plans and drawings, the RCO meeting notice, the application for appeal.
The deed to the property showing that Mr. Baker and Mr. Marone are the owners of the property and the Certificate of Tax Clearance.
I'll note that James Hare of Design Blends is the architect for the project, and he is, again, available for testimony if needed.
So here's the first exhibit. It's the Notice of Refusal was issued earlier this summer.
you'll see that the application is for a rear three -story addition and roof deck and roof deck
access structure to an existing single -family attached structure. The story here is basically
that Michael and Gino purchased this home in 2020. They received a number of violations on
the property in 2021, which they were confused about until they found out that almost all of
work that was uh done in the 2019 renovation of this project was was not permitted um a contractor
who not only did that sort of work to this property did did um similar work to other homes
on this block um so that individuals in known quantity when we showed up to the fish town
neighbors meeting they were aware um that this situation uh had occurred had occurred so now
Michael and Gino are sort of going, you know, stepping back into this process. They had
now seek a variance for an addition and a roof deck that was existing on the property when they
purchased it. So now we're going back to seek a variance for that rear yard depth from the
11 foot addition that was built to the existing structure. And again, as you'll see, we do have
a proviso form and revised plans after speaking with the neighbors and my clients, we have added
a 5 -foot roof deck setback, which was not built when this renovation took place. We understand
the spirit of the code is life and safety of not only Mike and Gino, but people that are at their
house using their roof deck and future owners as well. So we've agreed to install a 5 -foot setback
and you'll see that in their revised plans. Here's the letter of support from the Fishtown
Neighbors Association. We met with them on September 12th, and they're in support of the
granting of the variance for the rear yard depth. And at that meeting, we came to an understanding
with them that we would be presenting the proviso plans, adding that five -foot roof deck setback,
and you'll see we have unanimous support, 26 in favor, zero in opposition. Here are those
revised plans. You can see the only changes to the application noted here are the roof deck
setback increased to meet a minimum of five feet. You'll see that bubbled here in red
for sort of a site plan view of the property that's now being set back from East Houston
Street. Here's a petition. Mike and Gino are owner occupiers. They love this block. That's
why they moved here a few years ago. And their neighbors were in full support of helping them
sort of get past this nightmare that they've been dealing with. And you'll see those letters
of support and petitions here. Here's an aerial view of the property, just to sort of show you
what it looks like. This is 1530 East Houston, showing this roof deck here that doesn't have
that five -foot setback that, you know, the code requires. An Atlas map showing that we're between
East Susquehanna Avenue and East Berks and Gall and Cedar Streets. And a Google Maps perspective
showing sort of our proximity to the main commercial corridors of Fishtown. Here's the
photographs. This is the front of the property. Here's the orange notice poster, both posted at
ground level and in the window above to the right of the property on east houston street
And to the left, here's the architectural plans and drawings.
and to the left here's the architectural plans and drawings this
This site plan is the same that I presented a few slides ago showing that we're meeting this five -foot setback.
I'll point out that this site plan, which I'm happy to zoom in on, shows the portion of the property that was added to the original building structure.
It's an 11 -foot piece that you can also see depicted here, which allowed the contractor who did this work to create a larger kitchen, bathroom, and living space.
I'll also note that because we are less than 45 feet deep, the code only asks for a rear yard depth of 7 feet as opposed to 9 feet for lots that are greater than 45 feet in lot depth.
And as you can see here, we're proposing a rear yard depth of 6 feet 1 and 3 quarter inches. And again, that's an existing condition of what is currently there.
Here's a floor plan just working from right to left, showing that they have a kitchen and garage on the ground floor, living space and office space and a bathroom on the second floor, and then the bedroom area and bathroom on the third floor with a roof deck above.
12. Here's the RCO meeting notice. Again, we met September 12th at 7 p .m. We mailed
this out in a timely fashion. Here's the email notification showing that it went out
to the coordinating RCO and all of the required parties. We mailed 178 notice mailers, and
these are those addresses. The bulk mailing certificates. Here's the application for appeal.
And then finally is, sorry, the deed to the property showing Michael Baker and Eugene Marone are the owners of the property.
They've owned it since December of 2020.
And finally, certificate of tax clearance showing that no taxes are owed on the property.
With that, I would ask Eugene to virtually raise his hand and adopt my testimony.
Mr. Marone?
they have been allowed to talk hi mr marone could you state your name spell it please for
the court stenographer uh yes my name is eugene e -u -g -e -n -e last name is marone m -a -r -r -o -n -e
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
thank you proceed mr goldberg hey eugene uh did you hear my testimony today yes sir and was it
true and correct yes and you adopt it as your own i do thank you questions from the board
no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
here we have robert every okay
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer yeah good afternoon
again first name is robert last name everett e -v -e -r -e double t i think i swore you earlier
today sir so just proceed you did indeed i'm just here to confirm everything alex has said
and we are totally in support as a community organization thank you very much for taking
the time to cause is there anyone else in the virtual audience
i see no handshare planning commission good afternoon chair members of the board this is
greg baldman planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change to
existing residential single -family zoning the appellant's property is shallow presenting a
hardship for meeting yard depth requirements in the code furthermore the proposed dimensional
variance is minimal and does not conflict with the purpose of the spirit of the zoning code
the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board grant the variance thank you
MI 2023 -003 -580, 1530 East Houston Street. I vote yes with proviso. Revised plans,
one page, stamped by CBA on October 25th, 2023.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso. Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
we're going to go back to number 11. Thank you, Mr. Holloman. Thank you, sir. Mr. Holloman has
recused himself for this. It's MI 2023 -003 -559.
MI 2023 -003 -559 -2340 Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
Letter of support from Brewery Town Chargersworth Community Civic Association.
Property received a historical commission approval in 2022.
And we will have Emily Persico will be our alternate board member voting on this.
Mr. Anastasio.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Vern Anastasio for Beach and represented by Mr. Bernard Savage.
Mr. Anastasio, you've already been sworn once today.
Our vice chair has a question for you, sir.
Thank you.
Council, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, sir.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, sir.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, members of the board, this property is zoned for CMX2.
We are looking to do construction of an attached structure with a roof deck, roof deck access for dwelling units with vacant ground floor commercial space in this in this area.
We have.
Excuse me for one moment while I move that.
we do have some refusals as it relates to the um the roof deck and the roof deck access uh structure
number of dwelling units allowed is three we are looking for four
and the maximum occupied area it's just slightly below what is um allowed as a matter of right
And with that, I want to show you our interiors.
This here is the lower level.
We'll have business support on the lower level.
We'll have the commercial space on the first level, and then we will have four, one, two, three, four residential units that are in excess of 500 square feet, although they are, I would say, junior efficiencies, but they are all open concepts.
So they're very ample in size and open.
What we're doing, my client, Beach Interplex, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with the organization,
they're taking this property that has been left to squalor for many, many, many years.
And they're going, this is the property right here.
And they're going to be breathing new life into it.
We've been working with the Historic Commission and have gotten approval for what we'd like to do to restore and respect the integrity of the property.
The property is going to be targeted to the artistic community with the hope that we can put some art commercial space there on the first floor and rent these four units to members of the artistic community.
In addition to the typical materials, we have, in fact, added the correspondence and information from the various different agencies, including but not limited to the Historic Commission.
Here's the property.
As you can see, it has been historically in major disrepair.
we met with the neighbors also attached is the uh the appeal itself we met with the neighbors
after inviting uh 150 separate households which we have proof of mailing here this is the two -page
letter that went out to all interested parties who live within three to four hundred square feet
here are the addresses and as a result we do have a letter of support from the rco
uh mr chair do you have that in your file or should i uh present i believe we have that
okay right hillary you should which which document i'm sorry i didn't do the document
Which document? I'm sorry. I didn't hear the document.
Rurie Town Chargewood, letter of support.
Yes, we do have that.
I want to move that into evidence as well as my exhibit binder, which is 31 separate pieces of evidence today.
And with that, I'd like to call and ask Mr. Bernard Savage to raise his virtual hand to be recognized.
i've been about to speak sir hi sir could you state your name and spell please for the court
stenographer good afternoon everyone my name is bernard savage b -e -r -n -a -r -d s -a -v -a -g -e
and i'm the director of real estate and project development here at um beach
Do I refer him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Savage, did you hear my presentation to the board this afternoon?
Yes, I did.
Is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Yes, sir.
Do you adopt it as your own testimony?
Yes, sir.
Mr. Chair, because of the very long history of disinvestment in this property,
Because of Beach Interplex's long history of community engagement and investment in the neighborhood, and because the RCO strongly supports this proposal, we respectfully request the granting of this variance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from Hillary Emerson, our attorney?
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further answer mr chair planning commission
good afternoon chair members of the board this is greg waldman planning commission staff
the copper hazard plan recommends no change to the existing commercial mixed -use zoning
the variance requests for four dwelling units and maximum occupied area are necessary to enable the
adaptive reuse of the appellant's historic property however the appellant has not shown
that the dimensional requirement that prohibits a non -residential roof deck would cause significant
financial burden the city planning commission recommends that the zoning board grant the
variances with the following condition no non -residential roof deck
mr chair there's no outdoor space for the for the uh residents of this property and we do believe
that the having the roof deck will make it more marketable and livable uh and the community
obviously as a result of the rco meeting that we've reached uh the immediate neighbors feel
the same way mr anastasio this is this is hillary so it says non -residential roof deck
but you were just talking about the residents i'm sorry my what i meant was that the the deck
would be purely for um staff and management my my apologies i'm just looking at my notes now
the roof deck is not for anyone but for staff and management no one will be allowed to access that
roof deck uh you know except for utilities on the roof utilities and storage of uh rubbish which
beach would manage and only beach could get up there thank you thank you for the clarification
thank you miss emerson m i 2023 003 559 2340 cecil b more avenue i vote yes
ishmael shaheed my vote is yes
my vote is yes thank you thank you thank you counsel yep thank you is there anyone from the
two o 'clock list that their case has not been called in the virtual audience
i do not see your hands mr chair okay thank you so we're going to take a five minute break
and we'll come back and we'll finish up the 3 .30 list, okay?
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks, Chief.
Yes, Chief.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman,
and I will be chairing this afternoon's 3 .30 ZBA hearing.
With me is our Vice Chair, Ismail Shahid.
Here, Mr. Chair.
Our Board Member, Thomas Holloman.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And also, Emily Persico from Development Service will serve as our alternate board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Thank you. Also here is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director, Tanya Sunket.
Also here is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, and our executive director, Tonya.
Here's our virtual format. Be advised the proceedings are being recorded.
Video will be available by contacting tanyasunket at phila .gov.
For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.
To enter an appearance statement, call 267 -270 -5548.
Leave your email and the address to the property in question.
And finally, question and answer box on the screen is now for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Sunken.
Let's look at our schedule for this afternoon's meeting.
Number four, MI 2022 -007 -383 -1440 Hellerman Street.
That case is continued.
Number six, MI 2023 -002 -105 -5627 -41 Hegerman Street.
That case is continued, attorney moving party.
And number seven, okay, let me go back. Number six, MI 2023 -002 -106 -7401 Edmond Street. That's
attorney moving party. And then number seven, MI 2023 -002 -105 -5627 -41 Hagerman Street. Request
for continuance is also attorney moving party those are the three continuances we have do i
have any comments from the virtual audience ralph to those continuances good afternoon once again
mr chair if this is chase in hand i will be your your co -host for this afternoon i have a hand up
from a number ending in zero nine four six i will allow them to speak at this time
could you state your name please and spell for the court sonographer
it is star six you're on mute
yes i'm not sure if this is the right case that i'm calling for
i'm looking for 3301 princeton avenue
hello that's number five on the list mr chair we'll be calling that later
yeah we'll be calling that shortly okay yes okay when we call that shortly okay
any other issues about continuances
i do do not see any wait a minute sir a hand has gone up from strawberry mentioned
community concerns i have allowed them to speak
hi i just was inquiring um hi i'm sorry one minute you've already been swore and just state
your name for the record please it's bonita cummings yep yep what i was just i didn't know
if you were finished with continuances, but I was just inquiring about 29, 43, 45 Ridge Avenue.
I'm going to get to that shortly. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. No more
continuances. I'm going to go to number two. We have no exhibits. This is a second listing.
MI 2023 -000 -966 -2943 -45 Ridge Avenue. Akbar Brown is the listed owner.
Ambrose Chikawana is the listed applicant professional.
This is no exhibits, second listing.
Case was marked, must be heard.
Yes, Mr. Chair, there are no hands and I do not see anyone in the audience answering to those names.
Okay, thank you.
MI -2023 -000 -966 -2943 -45 Ridge Avenue.
Second listing, no exhibits, must be heard.
I vote to dismiss.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is to dismiss.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is to dismiss.
Thank you.
We're going to go to our regular list now.
Number one, MI 2023, 002 -189, 910 North 41st Street, Gregory Bell is the listed.
910 North 41st Street, Gregory Bell is the listed owner.
It's pro se.
The Belmont Civic Association did not reach agreement on the application.
No explanation provided.
The vote was four to four, and two in support, four in opposition, two in non -opposition.
Mr. Bell?
Yes, can you hear me?
Hi, Mr. Bell, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Gregory Bell, G -R -E -G -O -R -Y, Bell, B -E -L -L.
Right, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Okay, so I'm going to read your case one minute here.
the applications for the erection of a front one -story addition to an existing attached
structure. Size of location is per plan for use as an existing multiple family household living
for dwelling units. In the RM1 zoning district, on any given street, the distance between the
front facade and the front lot shall be no greater than and no less than the distance between the
front facade, and the front lot of the principal buildings on the immediate adjacent lot.
In this instance, a front setback of 18 feet, one inch is required.
Only six feet was proposed.
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, Mr. Bell.
Good afternoon, Mr. Bell.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have.
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Let's see here how to share from this point.
Should be a green share button at the bottom of the screen.
I apologize, but I don't see a green button at the bottom of the screen.
Let me just check here.
I'm sorry.
I see it now.
Okay, I'm with you.
I apologize. Share. Okay, are you able to see the screen? We see it, sir. Okay, very good. So this is regarding 910 North 41st Street. It's a four -unit apartment building on 41st Street.
And the proposal here is to have the basement apartment enclosure extending out five feet from the original frontage of the front porch.
So just to give a little background of this, the original plans that were submitted to do the renovation of the building did include the basement entrance.
However, the enclosure for that entrance wasn't flagged for a zoning variance process, so it was not discovered by myself that that was necessary until I had the inspection by L &I for the construction work, which at that time it was identified that I needed to go through a zoning process.
So that's why I'm here before you now. And I'm showing, first of all, the way the property looked before any of the construction was done.
And to the right here is the plans that were submitted with the original construction, the renovation.
With this, just to blow it up a little bit, I'm also showing this is the entrance to the basement apartment, indicating that this here being the original frontage line here is where the extension comes out for the stairway to go down into the basement apartment.
So as a result of that, I applied for the zoning permit, and that included the plans for doing the enclosure, which I had already done, but then had to submit all the plans for that with the zoning permit request.
I also applied for this special exception, which was submitted, and then the application
for the appeal because it was denied.
in this we're showing the refusal letter and just
In this, we're showing the refusal letter and just a confirmation of the project information form that I did also submit online.
Here is the confirmation of the email that I sent to the RSOs and also this hard copy of the letter.
I'm sorry, forgive me. This is the hard copy letter that is sent to 61 residents and the RSOs that are listed here in this letter for the residents in the community.
And the confirmation of the email for the actual RSO virtual meeting that took place.
To the right here is the meeting summary, which, as you have stated, Mr. Chair, that no decision, yea or nay, was determined at that time.
This is a copy of the zoning notice that was also posted.
This is one of the pictures on the frontage of the property, the second and third picture.
And this gives you a picture of what has been done.
Indicating that there's no outstanding balances here.
This is the certification of tax clearance.
There were no real estate taxes.
Now, this commercial trash fee is showing a balance of 500, but that's for the upcoming, let me get past that, for the 2024 year.
So all the trash fees have been paid for 2023.
And that's all I have to present to you, Mr. Chair and zoning board members.
What questions do you have for me?
Well, could you go back and show us photos of what you had put up?
As far as the zoning notice?
Show us the photos now, the photo of the entrance.
Okay, very good.
okay and that steps down into the basement yes correct as state shown in the plans here
that were submitted with the
uh zoning
permit all right questions from the board no mr chairman no chair
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I do not see any hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission?
Yes, this is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The property is indicated for the resident.
Ron, let me swear you in first.
uh do you swear firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed
sir thank you the property is indicated for residential use on the city plan given the
physical conditions of the site we have no objection to granting the variance thank you
MI 2023 -002 -189 -910 -North -41st Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you, sir.
You have your votes.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
Number three, MI 2023 -002 -107 -2100 Robbins Avenue, Henry Rojas and Glanice Silva are the owner applicants.
There will be rejoining us panelists.
There was a meeting on the Community on the Rise on 9 -21.
We do not have an RCO letter as of yet.
there was a petition in support signed by approximately 41 neighbors.
Mr. Rojas, could you unmute, sir?
Unmute?
Thank you.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court sonographer?
Good afternoon.
Yes, my name is Henry Rojas, H -E -N -R -Y -R -O -J -A -S.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay, so this application is for artist studios and artisan industrial and wholesale sales and distribution, making chocolate items and distribution at basement in the same structure with a single -family household living above.
No signs on this application.
no signs on this application. The proposed use of artist studios and artesian industrial is
The proposed use.
prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district. The proposed use wholesale sales and distribution
is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district. Multiple principal uses on a lot are prohibited
in the RSA 5 zoning district. Our vice chair has just a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, sir.
Have you emailed in all the required documents that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, sir, I did.
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay, let me share screen.
All right.
I'm sharing the screen.
Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the board.
Well, basically here, as you can see, is the denial that you just read.
What we want or plan to do in this location, as you mentioned before, we want to do a business to be able to prepare fruit arrangements.
Basically, as you have heard, probably it's edible gift made with fruit, covered with chocolate.
That's all we want to do.
it has nothing really artistical we don't do wholesales we basically we would do uh basically
receiving orders in this location online we wouldn't be receiving any clients in place
it's everything would be online everything will be prepared in the basement uh following the
different uh requirements that any kitchen uh would would need for that uh nature uh we would
do the delivery so in that same reason it was not distribution per se we would do the deliveries of
each one of the uh give to the different recipients where they should go um as you can see here i will
i show you the application for appeal that was required um then uh i have here
i have here for you also the
the project application that was uh shown also um submitted to you
we have here the deed from the location uh my wife and me who are the ones who own the location
we are the ones who would want to work on this place and we want to create the business for this
um here's the authorization letter from my wife where she's allowing me to represent her in this
uh hearing this is a uh tax clearance for the building showing that there is no uh issue with
the taxes uh here are um as you can see the uh certificate of mailing of the uh for the rco
public meeting that was conducted on September 21st at 7 p .m. in the evening. Here we can also
show the list of the 117 different houses around the 2100 Robins, 250 feet far from the location.
Also you can see this was the notice that was sent to all the neighbors around the area
and businesses around the area and just to give you an idea basically this is the
floor plan that we have right now it used to be a garage we remove this wall previously with all
the permits required for that it's an empty space there we right now basically using it to store
some personal belongings what we want to do in that location is basically have some tables to
have all the work done of course all the things are required to have to clean the fruit to clean
the hardware to cut and personal cleaning for for us to do the job and different
refrigerators or freezers to keep all the inventory for that matter. There is an electric
plans. Nothing changes in the whole building. We would only add a couple of lamps here and a couple
of outlets to make sure we can connect everything that we need, but there are no major changes on
the electrical plant from the building.
This is the basement elevation that was presented.
This is the basement elevation that was presented.
And this is a street view. What we want to make sure that we have is, since the area is no longer
a garage, we want to have the driveway that was used to keep it as a ramp. And we want to make
sure that the area that is a part of the yard, we would make it a parking area so we can make sure
we can have any car that would come if required or will park here to pick up deliveries to
have put it to park here and not cause any traffic jam or affect the area parking wise
and if required any kind of trash containers also we would be able to have it here.
this is a list of the neighbors um who signed it's pretty much a list of uh 41 42 neighbors
who signed the uh petition i personally did that and visited all of them um making sure that i'm
giving them all the information about this um project i don't have anything else to share with
if rojas you have photos yes ah let me show you pictures yeah i forgot that these are internal
pictures i don't know if you can see them yeah okay so this is the utility area this is the um
this is also how it looks right now basically a bit of course messy but it's because we haven't
done anything there um this is everything on the area these are the pictures for the posters
As you can see, it's a corner building sharing between Robin Street and Leonard.
One block from here, there are other businesses in the area.
And this is the area where we are considering to have a pavement and have a parking, at least for two spaces.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No, Mr. Chairman.
questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson um just one brief comment mr chair um
mr rojas you mentioned that you wanted to put parking here i just want to make sure that you're
aware that that's not part of your current application so that that will require separate
permitting and approvals um in order to be able to do that that is correct that would be a
um for a different procedure yes okay all right great thank you yeah no problem
your comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any hands mr chair planning commission the ron bednar city planning
the property is indicated for residential use on an adopted comprehensive plan no changes to
existing zoning at this location has been recommended the applicant's hardship is not
supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or condition of the property
that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the code
therefore we recommend the request of various topic
continue the vote on this till next week we'll probably vote at two o 'clock next week
I just want to confer with our other board members before we vote, okay?
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you, sir, and thank you for your presentation.
Have a great day.
Thank you, bud.
Yeah, you too.
MI 2023 -002 -186 -3301 Princeton Avenue.
Ron Anastasio is the attorney.
um there were meeting held on 918 and or 10 1623 by the may for civic association
um no rco letter at this point that that we have
mr anastasio yes sir but you just state your name you've already been sworn
you've already been sworn in earlier yes sir verne anastasio uh representing uh jessica yun lee
okay our vice chair has just a few questions questions sir thank you good afternoon counselor
do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, sir. Have you emailed in all the required documents to proceed with this case five days
in advance of this hearing? I have. Thank you. Thank you. I want to start not with my exhibits
but with a secondary document, Mr. Chair, members of the board, a petition of several folks right on
A petition of several folks right on the block, all supporting the variance for 3301 Princeton Avenue.
the block.
The application is for the business professional office at the ground level of this property, which has long been commercial.
And my client was able to go door to door and get most of her immediate neighbors in support of that.
So I wanted you to see the petition first, since we are absent of any other sort of document expressing support or otherwise.
Here is the exhibit binder itself of evidence.
Oh, this is the wrong.
My apologies.
I'm going to take this out for a moment.
there it is 3301 princeton avenue again the proposed uses for our office space on the ground
floor of an existing structure it is zoned rsa5 however it is on a corner with a very long history
of commercial use here is the second floor layout and here is the first floor layout
that my client was able to put together
here's the property itself as you can see there's a you know there's a commercial window on the
first floor it's on a corner and this property has long been a commercial space so we just want
to bring it back to that that use as you can see again another large window two large windows
on the side of the property which were used for commercial use here are some interior photos
of the first floor and of course the second floor give me one second while i
pull out a little bit for you
we also did in fact meet with the community
we uh here's a two -page letter uh notification that went out not only inviting folks to the
september 18th um meeting with the community uh rco but also inviting them to the um
to the zoning board hearing today we have a copy of our deed we actually had two meetings
147 is the number of households that were mailed and as i've already shown you uh we do have
uh letters of support for the appeal uh from the immediate neighbors uh because this property has
a history of first floor commercial because it sits on a corner and is uh you know that
That's where the commercial space typically is in a residential area.
We respectfully request the granting of the variants.
With that, I'm asking Jessica Yun -Li to raise her virtual hand so I can get her on the record.
She's been allowed to speak.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the choristenographer?
my name is jessica young lee j -e -s -s -i -c -a -y -u -n -l -i right do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel thank you ms lee did
you hear my presentation to the board this this evening yes i did and is it true and accurate to
the best of your knowledge yes and you adopt it as your own testimony yes thank you mr chair i
have nothing else questions from the board no questions or comments from our attorney hillary
emerson um yes mr chair two quick things um one mr anastasio if you could forward the petition
um that would be great we hadn't received that previously very well yeah it came in came in late
So I'll be happy to do that so we can submit it into the record.
All right. Thank you.
And my other question is, are you aware of any vote that took place for at either of the RCO meetings in regards to this project?
at either of the rco meetings in regards to this project we went to the rco meeting it was an
We went to the.
in -person rco meeting uh but we were not notified of any sort of disposition okay thank you yep
and burn there were two meetings there were yeah there were two mailings uh so i'm assuming that
there were you know two meetings to go over this okay uh questions or comments from the virtual
audience? Mr. Chair, I have a hand up from
a number ending in 0946.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the
court stenographer?
It is star six to unmute.
Yes. My name is Karen Monjack, W -A -N -J -E -K.
Could you spell one more time and try to just get a little more
sure w my name is karen wanjek w -a -n -j -e -k right do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole
truth and nothing but the truth yes are you a neighbor i'm next i live right next door
okay please proceed no one knocked on my door to sign a petition i went to the first meeting
i said i said that i've been living here for 32 years this place has never been a business
downstairs. In 2006, they tried to do a nail salon. Me and my daughter actually went downtown
to court and fought it. And they looked up the zoning and it hasn't been zoned in over 60 years.
60 years ago, it was a gas station and it hasn't been zoned since then. And as long as I lived
there, there's never been a business downstairs. Thank you for your input. We appreciate it.
is there any anyone else in the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands at this time
mr planning commission mr chair before the planning commission
weighs in i just want to state that if you look physically at the property
in the front and the facade and the side and the interior on the first floor
it is obvious that it's not a living space thank you
planning commission
this is ron bednar city planning properties a lot of properties and currently indicated for
residential use on a city plan given its uh physical condition of the site we recommend
the request of variance be granted mi 2023 002 186 3301 princeton avenue i vote yes
thomas holloman my vote is yes ishmael shahi my vote is yes thank you
anastasia could you stay on please yes sir mi2023 002 184 301 to 23 spring garden street
no RCL letter at this point
that we have
there was a meeting held on
8 -7 -23
our vice chair
has just a few questions
thank you
do you agree to waive the reading of the
refusal and stipulate to his accuracy.
Yes, sir. Have you emailed
in all the required documents that are needed
to proceed with this case five
days in advance of this hearing? Yes, sir.
Proceed.
Thank you. 301 -23
Spring Garden.
One unit in there that my clients
would like to put a
basically
a tattoo parlor in the existing structure.
This is not a refusal. It's a
referral, which means that
the use itself is already deemed to be compatible with the code.
We just need to, as you know, make sure and show that what we are proposing will not have
an adverse impact that would be extraordinary, would be any different than what one might
expect in the neighborhood for this use, similarly situated.
My clients already operate a personal service body art facility in the neighborhood, and this is where they'd like to land in this space.
Take a look at the actual space.
It's one spot in a larger building.
As you can see, that's the property right there, CMX2.
This is the facade, here's the interior, here's some layout,
this is the facade here's the interior
so there'll be body art stations, ample trash removal, commercial of course for hazmat
needles and such. Here's the 3D model.
We have our lease.
We did, in fact, meet with the neighbors.
Here's the letter that went out to 55 individual households, all who live within 375 feet of the property.
i'm going to move all 26 uh pieces of evidence into uh into evidence for the exhibits
again we met with the neighbors i i thought the rco sent over a letter of non -opposition
but uh if you don't have anything uh handy my office could certainly provide it
you know if that's the case um but again this is a you know a commercial strip
completely compatible use with the uh with the cmx2 uh designation we're not looking for a
variance simply looking for a special exception certificate uh with a client who has done this
for years in this neighborhood
with, you know, very well
regarded. And
with that, I'd like to call
Ms. Montiel
M -O -N -T -E -I -L
I believe, Montiel, to
raise her virtual hand to
be promoted to put her
under oath.
Melissa Montiel.
You've been allowed
to speak, sir. Thank you.
State your name, please, and spell it for the
court stenographer.
Montiel, M -E -L -I -S -S -A -M -O -N -T -I -E -L.
Swear or affirm, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Montiel, did you hear my presentation to the board this evening?
Yes, I do.
And is it true and accurate, to the best of your knowledge?
Yes, it is.
You adopt it as your own testimony.
Yes, I do.
Are you a long -standing member of the community who has operated these sorts of services to the benefit of the near neighbors?
Yes, since 2015.
Thank you. I have nothing further.
It's from the board.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Just briefly, Mr. Chair, one, we do not have a record of an RCO letter being submitted.
in this case so if you have one please please submit it to us um second um should there be
any sort of proviso specifying where where this use is on the second floor or in a certain suite
or something like that melissa do you have a specific space it's on the second floor it's the
entire second floor okay thank you okay we can we can do if if your client is okay with it then we
could do a proviso limiting it to the second floor i understand from the least that is the
part of the building she is renting that's correct questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further information commission so this is ron bednar city planning the property
is indicated for commercial mixed use on the city plan proposed use will have no more of an impact
than would be expected given its um specific location therefore we recommend that the board
grant the special exemption i think we'll we'll move forward with this i don't i don't think we
need the letter i mean um meeting was back in in august well we should have the letter if there
was a letter issued we should have it for the record but i think you can still vote on it today
So, Vern, if you have it, please send it over to Hillary.
Yeah, I thought we did.
I know it's not in the exhibit packet, but, you know, because it's just a referral and not a variant, so I've just asked that you vote if you can, please.
Okay, so MI 2023, 002 -184 -301 -23 Spring Garden Street.
I vote yes, proviso, activity limited to the second floor.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
My vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you very much.
Have your votes.
Have a good evening.
All right, thank you.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose 330 case has not been called?
I do not see any answers.
Okay, thank you.
First, I want to thank Emily again.
Emily, thanks for spending very long days with us.
And we do appreciate everything you do, but thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks to everybody else.
I mean, I think we had a good day.
We've done it a fairly good time.
So thank you all.
Thank you, Emily.
Thanks, Steph.
Thank you, Drew Bill.
Thank you, Drew Bill.