good afternoon counsel do you agree the way the reading of the refusal or stipulate to
with accuracy? We do. Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to
proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing? Yes. Thank you. Please proceed and
share your screen. Thank you. So I'm here to present 308 West Queen Lane in the Germantown
section of Philadelphia. You'll see from this rendering that our lot is rather narrowed.
This is an Eastman area that we have the benefit of. But when you look at the photos, it really
starts with a two-story structure in the front, and our building is 16 feet wide, which matches
the width of the property in the front. This portion of the property on the rendering where
I'm pointing to is RSA 3. The RSA 3 portion of the lot is one-third of our lot. As you go towards
the rear, you'll see there's newer construction here that we're proposing. That's two-thirds of
our lot, which is CMX 2.5. So we have really a hardship here because we have two separate
zoning classifications on a regular size lot. And we're trying our best under the circumstances to
choose the least modification possible under the Philadelphia zoning code. We'll review the notice
of refusal. We've eliminated a number of refusals, and we've done above and beyond that as well by
eliminating things that were distasteful to the community. So I think we had three community
meetings, I believe, or at least two. And we really try to do as much as possible, even after
the community meeting, to make this project work under the Philadelphia Zoning Code and meet our
legal burden, but also to meet the needs of reasonable requests by the community. So we'll
first review the notice of refusal. And then we have correspondence from Charles Richardson and
others the reason why i have the correspondence from charles richardson um um inez love the
Inez Love, the leader of the FAITH CDC, the coordinating RCO, had some technical difficulties today.
leader of the faith cdc the coordinating
So he included an email to the zoning board earlier today, but really just forwarding the thoughts of Ms. Love.
So we have that email along with correspondence that was submitted by the other RCO solo.
Then we also have a revised proviso plan form that we completed.
again we made changes over time based on multiple community meetings and after even
the last community meeting which was within the past week we've made additional changes
again to choose the least month to choose a project with the seeking the least modification
possible under the philadelphia zoning code you'll read we'll go over the correspondence
of the community there was only one affected neighbor at the community meeting that i that
I saw. And, you know, they voted in opposition to this project. They're on Pulaski. We circulated
the petition after the community meeting because it didn't seem like there were many nearby
neighbors at all. There are a lot of people there who are outside the affected zone. They weren't
just not nearby neighbors. They weren't even within the 250 square foot radius. And during
the community meeting, Ms. Love asked every individual in that audience, I think there were
maybe like 12 or 14 well how did you hear this community meeting only one person maybe two i
think but two people may have gotten to notice only one of them was within you know like touching
our property the rest of them indicated one of the rcos alerted them to that meeting and they
were blocks away from where this project is um but so we reached out to the community ourselves we
You know, we had our client canvas the neighborhood and there are 14 addresses all within the 250 square foot radius.
Most of them that you'll see on this map are in Pulaski, like the ones who would be most directly impacted by this project.
And they're all in support of this project.
Then we'll review maps of the area and you'll see both the original shape of the lot, which makes it almost impossible to do anything, you know, other than one single family home, technically.
But also you'll see the split zoning, where one-third of the lot is RSA 3 and two-thirds of the lot is CMX 2.5.
Then we'll review, have an aerial view of the neighborhood or of that block.
And then photographs of the property in the surrounding area, our plans and drawings, our RCO meeting notice of the last meeting we had, our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of the property owner.
The deed to the property showing that VP308W Queen LLC is the owner of the property and our Certificate of Tax Clearance.
At the conclusion of my presentation, I'm going to actually ask that Master Passport, the architect, as part of this project, virtually raise his hand.
I'm going to ask him a few questions about the project itself.
And then at the conclusion of that, I would ask that Mr. Aronovich virtually raise his hand and he can be sworn in and he can take some questions from me about adopting my testimony as his own.
So a notice of refusal. So you can see this is split zoning. It's a rather large lot, but it's an RSA3 lot. One-third of the lot is RSA3 in the front, and then two-thirds of the lot is CMX2.5.
And what we were originally proposing was to have multiple roof decks and 19 units with a commercial, vacant commercial in the front.
This property has a long history of mixed-use zoning, where the commercial will be in the front, there will be some residences above, and then there is a warehouse in the back that's been abandoned, which also had some commercial use.
So because of the mixed zoning, you know, the zoning examiner chooses the most restrictive zoning available, you know, for the review and for multiple sections of their review.
So the first thing that they applied was, well, let's go first.
First thing that they did was originally there was a roof deck in the rear that hugged the back of the building structure where we had a zero foot roof setback on the roof deck.
And five feet is required for a setback for a roof deck.
We've eliminated that refusal.
So that was after the last meeting, I indicated to my client, I said, listen, let's choose the least modification possible on the Philadelphia zoning code.
I want this to be a by-right project, essentially, as a CMX 2.5 property.
I want this to be a by-right project, essentially, as a CMX two and a half property.
And we've made concessions beyond that.
But there's no reason to have a roof deck in the rear.
We would like to have one, but there's no reason to.
So let's get rid of that refusal.
And so now there's one less refusal here.
So that's number one.
The second refusal has to do with the number of dwelling units.
Originally, 19 units were proposed.
Two is allowed technically as a right, given the RSA-3 zoning classification.
The issue is, and Mr. Master of Password will testify to this, given the width of the lot at the front of 16 feet wide, we only get one unit in there anyway.
And if you go based on the CMX, and that's the RSA-3, given the physical limitations of the lot itself.
Well, if you went based on the CMX two and a half zoning, we were allowed 17 units as of right.
We're asking for 16 units as of right.
We're asking for 16 units.
So what we did was originally we had an extra floor on the extension of that building, which gave us a height variance, which is the fourth refusal of 42 feet, seven inches.
We're now going down to 33 feet, six inches at the roofline.
So we're eliminating that refusal.
Again, originally we had this built as a CMX two and a half property.
But in order to accommodate the community that was concerned about the height of the building, we went down to 33 feet, six inches, which, by the way, lopped off a complete floor of the building structure in the rear, which we did briefly.
But we went down three units to 16 units, which is one less unit than we would be allowed if this was straight CMX two-and-a-half zoning.
The third refusal, as you'll see in the notice of refusal, has to deal with the maximum occupied area.
Again, they didn't imply CMX two-and-a-half zoning, even though two-thirds of the lot is CMX two-and-a-half.
They applied RSA three zoning, which is only a third of the lot.
So we have a lot occupied area limitation of 50 percent. Well, you know, we have 74.98 percent of occupied area.
Currently, this is a nonconforming property because based on the building structures that are there, our occupied area is 65.6 percent.
So yes, did we increase the occupied area based on our project by an amount that is greater than what's there today? Yes. Is it in violation technically of the Philadelphia Zoning Code? Yes.
Is it out of character for what the lot is currently today? No, because we merely increased it by 9%. And again, the lot is 66% CMX 2.5%.
And only a small sliver of it was RSA-3.
And then there's two refusals dealing with parking.
Again, they're applying the RSA-3 zoning classification.
If you apply, and you couldn't even do parking.
We have a building structure that's 16 feet wide on a 16-foot wide lot in the front.
So it's physically impossible to put parking on our property unless we, you know, given its current conditions.
And so, but they're applying the RSA 3 zoning of 19 parking spaces.
If this was CMX 2.5, which, you know, two-thirds of the lot is, there would be no parking requirement.
And those are the two next refusals, that for 19 parking units and one accessible parking space.
And again, we're not that far from the Queen Lane station, train station, and there's ample public transportation as well.
And it would be out of character to have this type of parking as well in the neighborhood.
And then the last refusal is a technical refusal.
It says, whereas the proposed attached building is explicitly prohibited in RSA 3 residential zoning district, our property on the, you know, on the front on, you know, on with the building structure we have now is built to, you know, to the left of our property line.
So, but there's no building structure to the left of us.
There's a 10 feet gap between our building structure and the building structure to the left of us.
But because our building structure is built to our property line on the left, when we extend that building structure further along our property line, we get that technical refusal.
But we're not attaching to anyone because there's nothing attached to us to the left.
because there's nothing attached to us till that. So you got a lot of technical refusals here. And I
So you've got a lot of technical refusals here.
think partly we have these technical refusals because of the mixed zoning, which by the way,
at one point, this property was full CMX two and a half. So I don't know why they changed it from
the front thirds to be RSA five. And then the last two thirds to be CMX two and a half. And as you
can see, because of the regular shape of the law, there's been one, two, three, four, five, six
refusal requests. The only thing that the board has denied in terms of commercial use is a poultry
business. It looks like, I didn't look at the year, but the ZBA has approved commercial use
for cabin and manufacturing, boat manufacturing, laundromat, auto repair shop, and actually
granted for a variance for open area.
But this property does not have, you know, the community wants two single-family homes
there.
Only one can be built.
But this property has a long history of not being single-family in use.
And then the correspondence that we received from Mr. Richardson today, again, I think there's a dispute like between this defaced CDC organization and the SOLO organization about how many close by neighbors, people within the affected area were at the meeting.
I think Solo believes that there were two people within the affected area. I believe, and I don't want to speak for Ms. Love, but I believe that she believes that there was zero within the affected area. I know that there was one because everyone who announced themselves at the meeting, I checked them off to see if they were within those addresses that we always show the board that the Planning Commission requires us to send letters to.
Only one person was within the affected area on Pulaski. And then that's why we specifically looked at Pulaski to make sure we got support by way of the petition, which we'll be showing you shortly.
um now miss love did you know mr richardson i don't know if this is for miss love or mr
richardson but they're the both the um fate cdc organization as well as the solo organization
stated okay we're against this project but if the board feels so inclined to grant you know the
variances, these are the provisos that we would require from the board. First one is replacement
of the dilapidated dividing wall in the back of the property that separates the 308 Queen Lane
property from the Pulaski Avenue property. The wall is part of the Queen Lane property.
During the community meeting, we stated that, yes, we are going to replace it. We have to. It's
dilapidated. So we are going to replace it. Whether that's an enforceable proviso, that's
another thing. I don't think it is, but just indicating at the community meeting, we said,
we stated we would do it or my client did, and we still believe that. And, you know, I'm stating
that on the record under oath, which my client will adopt my testimony as well. The second one
is changing of the existing front steps connected to the front commercial space to allow access to
the handicapped and senior neighbors living in the area. I think a lot of the opposition,
I don't want to speak for the neighbors, but some of that opposition had to do with the fact that we have a vacant commercial space in the front that is being repurposed by way of this development.
Well, we have a building structure that we can't change, right?
It's raised out of the ground, and they wanted us to put a ramp to give people the opportunity who are the more elderly or needy to be able to access that.
We stated we can't, that the front of the property is too narrow, that our ramp wouldn't be able to work from a building code perspective.
And I have Mr. Master Pasqua, the architect on the project, who's going to testify in that respect.
We can only do what we can do.
And again, you know, we always try to work with the community, but we can't do the physical
impossible.
Number three, the third proviso, permission from the property owner on the right side
of 308 Queen Lane property to allow both properties to have free access to the shared
easement.
That easement's a public record.
It's in the deed.
It says we have access to the seven-foot wide easement.
It's reflected on our site plan.
We did explain that to the community as well.
And again, I don't know if they understood the legal implications of that, but we have a seven foot wide easement.
So we don't need permission from the owner to the right of us because it's already been granted.
you know, it's within the chain of title. Number four, basement area to be used for utilities,
You know, it's within the chain of title.
Number four, basement area to be used for.
laundry, and possible tenant storage, not to be used as living space connected to the first floor
apartment as presented by the owner. We're fine with that. We're fine with no living in the
basement. I don't know if there were floor plans that show living in the basement, but if the
board feels so inclined to grant this project, no living in the basement. That's perfectly fine.
That was from Ms. Love. Now, on behalf of the FATE CDC organization. Now, we also have a letter from Solo Germantown Civic Association. Again, they're opposed to the project. Their whole board voted against it, who attended the meeting.
They also claimed there were additional attendees who voted against it, including two people that were nearby neighbors.
Again, when I took account of everyone, there was one nearby neighbor on Pulaski.
We have now 14 nearby neighbors in support of this project.
So if you read the letter, they're like, you know what?
They may not like the project, so to speak, and there may be different reasons why.
But they recognized that we made significant changes to this project that were asked of us, which includes reducing the height of this project, where instead of having height refusal, which would be allowed by CMX 2.5, the height that we were requesting, it was above 38 feet, but less than 45 feet.
We said, okay, we'll do that.
If you think that it's out of sorts and out of scale, we'll take a whole floor off.
We'll reduce the unit count as requested.
So even though if this was a CMX two and a half property, we would completely, we would
build out 17 units, we'll do 16 units.
And then we even made architectural design changes of how things looked, the materials
we looked.
And, you know, and again, there are other things that, you know, have asked of us at the next meeting about lighting, things like that.
You know, we would definitely do that.
So they said that it's all within these two pages.
Oh, wait, I think they had these are the the the provisors at the bottom of the second page.
So these are the provisors. Originally, we're going to have a dog park on the roof.
You can think about it, what you want. But my client said, OK, we would agree to no dog park on the roof as agreed.
We would agree to interior storage of trash. That was a request of us. We have a trash room. We're fine.
Interior storage of trash. Interior mailboxes, we were fine with.
And then they said provide walkway lighting security cameras registered with the 39th Police District.
We're OK with that. I don't know how enforceable that proviso is.
And then landscaping and street trees front and side. Well, we can do the landscaping and street trees on the front. We can't do it on the side because that's the easement area and we can't build on the easement area. So from a legal standpoint, we can't agree to that. Again, that's not probably an enforceable proviso anyway. But we are in agreement to do landscaping the front on our property and adding street trees.
So, again, we submitted this updated plan to the board, and these are the four changes we made.
We reduced the building height from 42 feet 7 inches to 33 feet 6 inches at its highest point.
We reduced the unit count from 19 units to 16 units.
We removed the rear pilot house.
Again, this reduced or eliminated three refusals.
And then the roof deck is for mechanical access only.
So again, that dealt with no dogs on the roof deck as well.
So again, we made as many changes as we can possibly do.
Now, basically, this is a buy-write CMX 2.5 project with a height limit of 33 feet 6 inches from the roof line.
And then the petition that we did.
So this is our property here. And you'll see the regular shape when we go to the zoning map. But again, there was one owner back here who was against our project. So we reached out to all the ones because this wall that they said we have to deal with, the lapidated wall, we wanted to make sure that we met with as many of the neighbors on Pulaski Street, which we did.
And we got a letter of support from the neighbor to the right of us as well.
And then you can see the only addresses I showed you are the addresses on this map are the addresses that are listed with the planning commission as affected property.
uh with the planning commission as affected property so we my client got more signatures
So my client got more information.