Thank you.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
The ZBA hearing will start in approximately 15 minutes.
Thanks, everyone, for their patience.
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ready to go all right good morning everyone my name is bill bergman and i will be chairing this
meeting of the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment. With me is our Vice Chair Ismail
Shahid. Present, Mr. Chairman. Our Board Member Cheryl L. Gaston. Present, Mr. Chairman. Our Board
Member Tanetta Graham. Present, Mr. Chairman. Our Board Member Michael Johns. Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our Board Member Taya Nguyen. Present, Mr. Chairman. Also present are our Board Attorney
Hillary Emerson, the Zoning Board Director Ian Haggerty, and our Board Administrator Lakeisha
dandy. Recording of this hearing will be posted on the ZBA website. By participating, you consent
to be recorded. This is an in-person meeting with remote capabilities. Whether remote or in-person,
if you're called to speak, you must state and spell your name and then wait to be sworn in.
Once you've been sworn in, please state your name each time before your test mode. Any person may
enter their appearance to become an interested person in the case. There are three ways to enter
your appearance. You can identify the case property address on your zoning, on your Zoom
webinar registration. You can see a staff member, or you can call the ZBA appearance line by the
close of the business day. Call 267-270-5548. Leave a message that includes your email address
an address to the property of the appeal. The following guidance is for remote attendees.
First, when directed by the chair, you must raise your virtual hand in order to be recognized to
speak. Second, if you're called to testify, you will be prompted to join a panelist.
Please accept the request and turn on your camera. Third, the webinar Q&A for questions
about the hearing, do not comment on cases in the Q&A. Fourth, if you're participating by phone,
press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. For our in-person attendees, please refrain
from talking or eating, drinking during the hearings. Verbal and physical aggression will
not be tolerated. Restrooms are across from the elevators. A water fountain is just down the room,
down outside the room. To the right, all attendees and the court reporters. When speaking on record,
you must speak directly into the microphone in order to be heard. In the event of an emergency,
please follow the directions given over the public address system by the staff. The main exit is
through the double doors at the rear of the room. The nearest stairwell is to the left outside the
doors. In case of evacuation, the rally point is in the Love Park directly across Art Street. Please
remember there so we can account for you. Let's now look at our schedule for today.
Number nine.
Number nine, MI 2024-006-543-1433 South Dover Street. That case is continued.
Number 10, MI 2024-006-646-6324 Anderson Street.
That case is continued.
Number 14.
number 14 mi 2024 006 693 7200 summers road that case is continued
and number 19 mi 2024 006 749 2515 west lehigh avenue that case is continued
Are there any other requests for continuance?
Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Number two is my understanding that that case will need to be continued because the property was not posted for today's hearing.
Excuse me, Mr. Chair.
So we can continue that one.
And if there is a Spanish interpreter here, this Spanish interpreter is free to go. I understand the applicant is not available either.
So MI 2024-003-374-630 West Mayfield Street, that case is continued.
Is the interpreters in the offending audience, please?
Yeah, they can be dismissed.
Right, you can leave, okay?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Number five, MI 2024, 006-402, 14,000 Busselton Avenue, no exhibits, first listing.
The owner is one mansion, and Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
Good morning, Chair. Verne Anastasio will be promoted.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Good morning, counsel. Could you please state your name and spell it for the court sonographer?
Yes, sir. It's Vern Anastasio, A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O.
Do you swear to Vern to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Counsel, could you give us an update on this case, please?
I do need a continuance in order for us to meet with the RCO.
Okay. Thank you very much. So MI 2024-006-402-14000 Bustland Avenue. That case is continued to 9325.
Wow. Thanks.
and case number 18
mi mi 2024 006 735 2948 north fairhill street no exhibits first listing
nelson rodriguez sarvino is the listed owner
there are no hands up i think thank you so this is the first listing so mi2024
006735 2948 north fair hill street that case is continued must be heard to 9325 thank you
We have one pro-shape case we want to go to.
Let me break it in one minute.
Number eight.
and my 2024-006-541-4607D Street.
Listed applicant tenant is Jennifer Baez.
There's a letter of unanimous support
from the North 42nd Ward
and a letter of non-opposition
from Council Member Lozada.
Jennifer Baez, if you're in the virtual audience,
can you raise your hand? Good morning. Could you please state your name and spell for this
stenographer? My name is Jennifer Baez. First name J-B-E-N-N-I-F-E-R. Last name B-A-E-Z.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you. Good morning. Have you emailed in all the required
documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed
with this case five days in advance.
Sorry, to my knowledge, I have.
Thank you.
Our presentation is up.
Someone else is going to add or something?
Yeah, I got them.
Okay, all right, so please proceed.
Just scroll down.
You want to see everyone?
We have the computers here.
We see all the documents you're showing.
We see all the documents you're showing.
Why don't you
Why don't you start off by saying, what is it you want to do?
So we want to meet with my daughter.
I'm nervous.
That's okay.
You don't have to be nervous, really.
We want to open like a one-stop shop for women, beauty salon, do facials, massages, hair, nails.
So why don't you show us the property?
and you're the tenant am i correct yeah okay so this is the inside of the property um this is the
front from where the door is there's a bathroom there um back here will be where the waxing
services will be um any facials or massages that will be will be back here um there will be a
shampoo bowl right there. There is a connection here to my right. There will be two salon
chairs for hair. And then on the left, we want to have two nail tables to have manicures
and extend nail extensions. And then here is from the back view. So this right here
will be where the shampoo is. This is the front of the building. There is an exit here
and there's an exit on the side here, right on the side of this door. There's another
exit right next to the bathroom um so it will be it will be simple um maybe no more than three
people will be working we do seek we are going to look for um people to work to to we're going to
hire maybe two more people um and you posted your building right you put the zoning notice up yes
yes sir okay and that's your mailings and this is the mailing and tell us what happened when you
went to the rco um they denied it because it wasn't it was oh when i went to the meeting yeah
on on the community meeting yeah oh yeah yeah um i just explained to them what we want to have and
showed them the videos and the pictures and they seem to be on board they're they're they were in
favor of you yes right and the council person's in favor of what you're doing too yeah okay
okay questions from the board uh hours of operation hours of operation will be um
nine to six will be our last client at six o'clock okay and then um how many operators you're
planning to have doing hair nails in all or in the beginning all in all three three yeah so
there'll be how many doing hair how many doing nails oh well four i'm sorry so two doing hair
and two doing nails okay and um you have all your um certificates and licensing for
providing beautician services yeah so we are going to require that anybody that comes on board
will have their cosmetology license my daughter is certified so we're going to start with her
in there now well she's licensed she's a cosmetologist so she's going to be in there
and then we are going to look for employees to come on board okay and then I guess the other
question is um okay uh the hours of operation you said nine to six and that's how many days a week
um tuesday to saturday okay and then if they have any saturday um sunday or monday it would be like
by appointment only it wouldn't be open like the doors won't be open to the public it would just
be by appointments only and how many how many clients do you expect you would have on a day
on a day i mean you're guesstimating at this yeah um per per um yeah so for nails on a schedule from
nine to six, about five a day. And then for hair, it can vary depending on service. I'll say two,
three. And do you do any of this kind of work now? My daughter does. Yeah. She's a,
she's a cosmetologist. So she's at another shop. Yeah. She's been doing this and whatever. Yeah.
she just graduated in last year okay it feels like just yesterday
in last year okay it feels like just yesterday but she is she is in another location she's
currently practicing okay and you would be what the manager yeah just overseeing everything
all right thank you all right i have two questions one are you going to be handing any
sorry biomedical waste um on site since you're doing waxing and esthetician services
and is there a plan for the kind of disposal of that so we haven't gotten that far yet
um but i do think that we will have it just in case like any nicks or cuts yeah so yes and then
two are you planning to do any signage because i saw from the photo it looks like this was like
maybe a food establishment before it was a barbershop okay yeah um there will be a sign
included over over the building there is um a spot for it let me see there's no post or nothing
outside um hillary would she need a corrected refusal to include the sign um it depends on
the sign um if it meets the parameter she can just get a permit over the counter for it um but
if she has something that's outside of compliance she would she would need to do a separate zoning
application because this is change of use only for the sign here at the top of the different
size signs and different types of signs some of them do require separate approval at this board
so just pay attention when you're some you could get over the counter but depending on the sign
just because what's there might have been previously approved doesn't mean okay you could
replace it okay any questions from the board questions from our attorney hillary emerson
um you're using the entire building is that correct yeah it's like a garage i think they
had it as a garage before it's one floor okay all right thank you all right questions or comments
from the audience or the virtual audience no hands at this time planning commission
Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission, A-M-Y-B-O-Y-D.
Do you swear or affirm that tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5 residential single-family zoning at this location.
The proposed use is consistent with documented prior use as the property has had a past permit for personal services.
The Planning Commission recommends a board grant the requested variance for personal services.
Thank you.
MI 2024-006-541-4607 D Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Tywin, my vote is yes.
Shishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Always forget you.
Number one, MI 2020.
Mr. Chair, excuse me, can we vote the add-ons, please?
Sorry about that.
Number one, MI 2024-006-242-3533 North 16th Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Maximum six units, no household living and basement.
My vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
And number two, MI 2024-006-307, 141 East Roosevelt Boulevard.
I vote yes with proviso.
Use limited to first floor only.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
Number one, MI 2023, 001-365-2108-12, North 6th Street.
This is a resumptive hearing.
Adam Laver is the attorney.
Can you please state your name and spell for the court's sonographer?
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Adam Laver, L.A., V as in Victor, E.R., Blank, Rome, 1 Logan Square.
Do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.
This is a resumptive hearing, and this is where I believe we're going to be.
You're going to introduce your witnesses to complete your presentation.
We'll have questions from the board, counsel, questions or comments from the public, and then recommendations of the planning commission.
Yes. May I be admitted for screen sharing purposes?
And I'm recusing myself from this.
And I'm recusing myself from this.
Thank you, Mr. Jones.
mr chairman and members of the board uh as as the board will recall blank rome represents 2108
n6 llc which does business as fringe development group when we last appeared before the board
on february 12th the city was celebrating a super bowl and planning for a eagles parade
here on the parkway during the last hearing we discussed that principals alan and dove
and Jordan Leibowitz purchased the subject property about four years ago with the goal
of transforming this site into what you see on the screen from what it currently is auto repair
and towing non-conforming uses. Transforming this site into safe, secure, and affordable
mission 30,000, if you will. And that's the site there, just to refresh your memory.
for for two minutes of uh overview we acknowledge divergent opinions regarding the proposed
development but noted that most comments occurred prior to revisions having been made to the plans
that the conversation began in march of 2023 and the current plans reflect input from community
members cdr suggestions and more the current proposal reflects several updates uh significant
modifications and revised proviso plans have been submitted to Ms. Emerson. The highlights of the
changes, as the board will recall, reduction in density, addition of two-bedroom units, larger
units with balconies, addition of Class 1A bicycle parking to effectively eliminate one of the
refusals, addition of green space, and in its advisory recommendations of December 20th, 2023,
three the civic design review committee concluded quote the front setbacks proposed materials and
density were appropriate for this site the project has been vetted by a by the streets department
and by my client's own traffic planning engineer which the board had reviewed last time so with
that very brief background, I'd like to ask that our land use expert, Benjamin Cromie,
please raise his virtual hand to be sworn in. Mr. Cromie.
Benjamin Cromie is a managing planner of CH Planning and will, once he makes himself known,
present highlights of his analysis to the board.
Yes. Hello. Hi. Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
William Cromie, W-I-L-L-I-A-M, Cromie, C-R-O-M-I-E. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sir? I do. Counsel, please proceed.
Mr. Cromie, you're familiar with the subject property. Is that correct?
yes i am and uh through uh ch planning you have prepared a professional planning report
correct that is correct would you please uh present for the board succinctly an overview
of your findings yes um uh in our professional opinion uh considering the current limitations
of the existing zoning and the unnecessary hardships that would ensue under it, granting
this variance is justified. The project will not detrimentally impact the surrounding neighborhood.
The proposed use is compatible with other developments in the area and will align
with the neighborhood's character, and it will provide a beneficial and complimentary
service to the community. It's our opinion that denying the variance relief would result in
unnecessary hardship as the current zoning does not allow for the appropriate scale and density
suitable for this site. Due to the size of the site, present zoning restrictions would result
in higher incompatible rents and residential units that are out of scale for the neighborhood.
Furthermore, the proposed mix of commercial and multi-use family uses provides a more appropriate and compatible mix of uses in the commercial corridor surrounding the site than the current use.
surrounding the site than the current use. I would like to scroll to, I believe it's page
I would like to...
five with a diagram of the commercial corridor. You'll see that the site is on the commercial
corridor. The drawing may seem a little bit misleading, but of course the frontage of the
of the site in question is on 6th Street and part of the commercial corridor.
Limiting the building to the current zoning designations height and unit count would undermine
the project's goals of leveraging economies of scale to maintain affordable prices while
providing high quality living. By granting the variance, the project can better serve the
community by providing additional housing options like studio apartments that offer lower rents
while providing a buffer to rising home prices in the area. According to the Delaware Valley
Regional Planning Commission, the metropolitan statistical area faces a housing gap of approximately
80,000 units. This was in 2021. We know that the housing gap is directly related to affordability,
and that's a big issue in the national conversation as well as the regional conversation right now.
DVRPC's report states that this underproduction is the product of exclusionary zoning laws
that restrict the type and number of homes that can be built in certain neighborhoods,
like minimum lot and square footage requirements, limits to the height of buildings, and restrictions
on building multifamily homes. Now, of course, proceedings like this are essential to make sure
that the right types of development go through. And I'd like to try to assure the board this
morning that this is the right kind of development to go through. Projects like this one located in
the commercial corridor can help absorb existing demand rather than put that pressure on more
residential blocks. Adding density to this area supports and strengthens the historical commercial
corridor at 6th Street and Germantown Avenue. Commercial corridors serve as economic and
cultural hubs for the neighborhood, providing jobs and offering residents local options for
goods and services. According to the Lower North District Plan, successful commercial districts
depend on proximity to a strong source of customers and a complementary mix of stores
and establishments. The Lower North District Plan also emphasizes that prioritizing commercial and
residential development on and adjacent to the corridor could help restore street life and
customers as well as improve perceptions of safety the commercial space on the first floor
of the building complements the recent addition of a 1297 square foot commercial space at the newly
constructed mixed-use housing development at 2059 germantown avenue located diagonally across the
site um it's to the right in that image um as well as uh the recent residential project at 2105
germantown across the street um and they have similar massing and density to the proposed
project um the requested variance relief would represent the minimum variance that would afford
relief as the proposed dimensions are similar and complementary to existing adjacent dimensions
Overall, this development could play a crucial role in addressing the housing shortage and affordability issues, while also expanding the commercial corridor.
The proposed housing development will also positively impact public health, safety, and general welfare of the neighborhood and its residents.
Specifically, it'll add accessibility, bicycle parking, very strong transit access, which will reduce pressure on street parking and help reduce air quality issues.
as well. Furthermore, it will also enhance the area's aesthetics and environmental quality
with new street trees, a mural, and additional landscaping. And the high pervious surface rate
will improve stormwater management and help reduce the urban heat island effect, which is
which is a significant public health issue in North Philadelphia.
a significant public health issue in North Philadelphia.
Aligning with neighborhood character, the proposed building's facade will match the surrounding architecture,
maintaining the community's historic and aesthetic character.
As professional planners, in conclusion, we highly recommend that the City of Philadelphia's Zoning Board of Adjustment
support the requested zoning relief for the proposed development of 2108 to 12 North 6th
Street. The proposed project meets all the criteria for approval for variances established
in the zoning code. Specifically, the requested variance relief would support the proposed density,
enabling the site to fulfill its intended purpose and enhance the neighborhood's residential
and commercial landscape. In addition to providing new residential options for the neighborhood,
the increased density will add new transit users and new customers to patronize neighborhood
businesses. Thank you, Mr. Cromie. So, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, what you've
heard from CH Planning is that not only does this revised project meet local objectives,
but it also addresses citywide efforts to provide options for housing of many types.
And I don't want to repeat what I had stated in the first hearing, but this leads to our excitement about this.
Moving from Mr. Cromey's testimony, we are disappointed that the interactions with the coordinating RCO were unusually and inexplicably difficult.
The briefing with RCO leadership took place in May of 2023, followed by publicized community meetings on August 10th, 2023, and then September 27th of 2023.
At the voting meeting with 25 people in attendance, the majority unfortunately arrived very well after the meeting was scheduled to commence and after the development team had presented its proposal with only one person who signed in living within 250 feet, an additional five within 500.
I only mentioned this to provide background to the board.
What I'm more interested in sharing with the board is that we have revised proviso plans that really present a thoughtful, comprehensive solution to the photos that you've seen, to the site that you've seen, tying into commercial, providing housing, etc.
And we're really pleased that we've presented quite a bit of support for this project.
Here we have, as a resident of the community, someone who has lived in Germantown their entire, their whole life. They acknowledge the dedication and care that my Mr. Germantown.
Oh, in Germantown Avenue.
Yes, yes.
Okay, yeah.
I thought you might have lived in Germantown.
I'm sorry.
I beg your pardon.
I beg your pardon.
I wanted to, oh gosh, I just lost my power.
But you know what?
It's okay because I've submitted to the board letters of support, seven letters of support
that speak to the reputation of these individuals in the community, that they are local, that
they care and they're recognized by their tenants in the existing area as caring and there are seven
pages of support. Perhaps the best judge of future endeavors is to look at reputation, to look at
track record. So just a half mile from the subject property, Allen and Jordan built a community at
1613 Germantown Avenue, Mr. Chairman, as you just mentioned, which has been very well received and
several residents have submitted support letters to the board regarding their experiences
in the documentation submitted into the public record we have acknowledgement of the dedication
that the property owners have put into maintaining the property they speak to the developers efforts
to a pro to provide affordable modern and inclusive housing quote their project will
bring affordable housing that adds invaluable vibrancy to the community, end quote. We have a
growing recognition in our city of the need for various types of options, which our mayor has
spoken about, and this is one option of many, along with the Housing Choice Voucher program.
The buildings and amenities are well thought out, in the words of a neighbor, and another notes
And another notes from experience how vital it is to have affordability.
from experience how vital it is to have affordable.
Another neighbor noted that the proposal would create affordable housing.
Another noted responsive and communicative owners and that the designs are unique, modern, and well-maintained.
Mr. Chairman and members of the board, you've seen the conceptual renderings that I've shared with you.
We firmly believe that the authorization of variance relief will not alter the character
of the neighborhood or district or be detrimental to the public welfare.
The revised proposal fits into the surrounding neighborhood as evidenced by the expert testimony,
verbal, and written as submitted, in addition to other expressions of support.
This all speaks to the granting of relief being within the scope and spirit of the zoning
code and of benefit to the public.
The proposed variance would represent the minimum to afford relief, will represent the least modification possible of the regulations at issue to permit a reasonable use of a burdened, currently non-conforming property.
What's there right now does not conform.
The grant of variance relief will not substantially increase congestion in the public streets, increase the danger of fire, or otherwise endanger the public health, safety, or general welfare.
the professionally designed plans represent the highest and best use for the site in line with
the location and with city objectives proposed development appropriately respects a changing
neighborhood with a mix of long existing uses and new projects dotting the neighborhood as
mr cromey mentioned and as you saw in the february 12th hearing when i shared photos uh of neighboring
properties with you. This will not adversely affect transportation or unduly burdened water
sewer school or public facilities. And as I stated, we've submitted revised proviso plans
to Ms. Emerson and for the board's consideration. We have Mr. Cromey available. We have the architect
available, the engineer available, and my clients, Alan and Jordan, should the board wish.
Do you want to have your testimony adopted by your client?
Yes, please.
Mr. Alan Nadav, would you kindly raise your virtual hand to be recognized by Chairman Bergman?
Well, we're waiting for him to come on.
Did you make the reduction in units before the RCO meeting or after?
It was in response to discussions with the RCO.
Okay, thank you.
Mr. Nadav, I see you're there.
Chairman Bergman will address you.
Hi, sir.
Could you please state your name?
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court's stenographer?
My name is Alan Nadav, A-L-L-A-N-N-A-D-A-V.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Good morning, Alan.
Have you been present during the entirety of this hybrid proceeding of the Zoning Board of Adjustment?
Have you been able to fully hear the statements made into the record this morning in this matter?
And would you adopt and affirm all of the testimony as your own?
Thank you, Mr. Nadav. Please stand by.
Questions from the board.
I have a quick question. So the reduction in the units, does that impact the height of the building and the number of stories?
Or is it still the same?
No, Ms. Graham. However, there are setbacks and hopefully the board recalls that we have a very, very wide rights of way. And I had shared with the board on February 12th that the pedestrian experience from the line of sight has a different feel than the upper floors.
So this would still be the tallest building in and around that area on a particular block, correct?
Even with the setbacks?
On that particular block, yes.
Okay. And the other question is, the current building that's there now would definitely be demolished?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, I have a question about the revised plans. Have they been shared with the community yet?
Yes, yes, they have.
And we, yes.
And what was the feedback at the meeting?
We were interested in ongoing discussions and we didn't have a partner in that.
But we remain open to it into the future, no matter what happens.
Other questions from the board?
Question.
No commercial use on the first floor.
No commercial use, with the exception of the proposed gym facility, which would be at the ground level.
I had shared that it's always hard when we have the resumption hearings.
I had shared that it's always hard when we have the resumption hearings. As to whether that ends up being open to the public or not, that remains a question mark to be fully candid with you, Ms. Gustin.
Okay. And does this then need a variance for that as well? Because I don't see that as part of the...
the we need it we don't believe so because this is a cmx2 property we're comfortable that let me
say it this way to you is it is it cmx2 or cmx2 okay so i believe i believe personal services is
buy right in cmx too okay all the questions yes council do we thank you i understand trash storage
indoor trash storage within the parking the indoor parking area with commercial trash pickup on a
regular basis we really view that mr shahid as a synergy of uh interest with the uh neighbors
thank you other questions i have one more question um i know the councilman revised his letter he's
still in opposition, and it originally had said that if there was a community meeting that they
would possibly consider changing their mind. Did you get a sense at that meeting why the
councilman's office is still in opposition? This particular case goes back to former city
council president Daryl Clark, with whom we had worked quite closely, and with Mary Jones of his
office i think in part uh this project having gone on uh over so long has uh has created um
has not been helpful necessarily but no i don't have further uh insights i really view it uh as
a district council member um recognizing uh the coordinating rco's position but uh they were not
present. And again, Alan and Jordan, as their reputation attests, they want to be welcomed
into their neighborhoods. They want to work with people. And so sometimes people disagree and then
realize that it makes sense to work together moving forward. So Ms. Wynn, I think it makes
complete sense for olive branches to be extended and to continue to work, hopefully with this
board's blessing and moving forward on what
we think will be a positive transformation.
Questions from our
attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the
audience or the virtual audience?
There are no hands up, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Amy Boyd with the
Planning Commission. The comprehensive
plan recommends no change to the CMX2
commercial mixed-use zoning at this location the proposal completed civic design review in november
i'm sorry december 2023 the civic design review committee's advisory recommendations are not an
expression of the city planning commission's recommendations or opinion regarding the zoning
variances or special exceptions or other discretionary approvals associated with this
proposal we also note for the board that absent participation in city state or federal program
a city zoning initiative affordability mentioned in the appellant's testimony cannot be enforced
by any city agencies there are no unique physical circumstances or conditions of the property
that would prevent it from being used in strict conforming with the zoning code
for dwelling unit count occupied area and height since bicycle spaces have been added the appellant
appears to have cured this refusal the planning commission recommends that the board deny the
requested variances for maximum number of dwelling units maximum occupied area and maximum height
thank you um council we're going to take this to our executive session next wednesday we
will vote at 9 30 a.m next wednesday okay thank you mr chairman thank you the board
my apologies for the battery i have to work harder
number number 15 mi 2024 006 696 1224 r east columbia avenue william o'brien is the attorney
there's a letter of opposition from council member young and a letter of opposition from
Fishtown neighbors.
Good morning,
counsel.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
If you could indulge me
two seconds, my
client is waiting for my text so that he can join and listen to the testimony okay
client is waiting for my text
so that he can join
and listen to the text.
thank you
Could you please state your name and spell for this stenographer?
William J. O'Brien, W-I-L-L-I-A-M-O-B-R-I-E-N, 4322 Main Street, Philadelphia, 19127.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, their relationship to this property?
They might represent Pathfinder Homes, LLC, which purchased 1224 Rear East Columbia Avenue in March of last year.
James Miloseka, who is the managing member, is joining this hearing now.
Okay. Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits as needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes. In fact, I reloaded it earlier this morning. There was a request for interior photos, which I supplemented, and I uploaded that supplemented file this morning.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Thank you. So this is an application to legalize an existing triplex. The refusal shows one refusal. The district is RSA 5. And as I said, this is an existing triplex.
The refusal indicates parcel owner as Dowd, Terrence.
Terrence Dowd was the former owner who sold it to my client in March of 2024.
I'll come back.
I have a few comments about the RCO's letter.
That's the next item in the package.
Their position is opposed.
The first page of their letter gives some reasons, which I'll go into briefly in a moment.
And then their vote is tabulated.
Just quickly, I'll note that there were 32 persons present.
Only 14 voted in opposition.
So it certainly wasn't a majority of those present that voted opposed.
The next item is a petition that I passed around the neighborhood, well, in the immediate neighborhood, on Monday, a week ago Monday, and last Friday.
I spent two different times of the day on Monday and Friday to try to catch people.
And nobody turned me down.
There was one person who wanted to consult their spouse, but mostly it was the, there were houses
that were just not, nobody was home. But with the one exception of the person who wanted to consult
their spouse, each person who did answer the door signed the petition, including, I'll note,
But the fourth line, Emily, looks like Beamer, is the house 1224 East Columbia, which is the house that's front on Columbia.
This is the rear building that we're here for today.
I have some photographs.
Maybe you got to shrink that.
Is that better?
So that is 124, the one I just mentioned, Emily, who's the tenant.
She doesn't own it.
She signed the petition.
And then you see to the right the covered alleyway.
The next picture is a close-up of that gate, and it has the zoning poster on it and a mailbox as well.
The next photograph shows that covered alley heading back to the rear building.
this is a photograph of that three-story rear building on the left
and these are the staircase this is the staircase the second floor second floor landing and third
floor landing a photograph standing on the second floor landing looking down towards
Columbia Avenue you can see in the distance the daylight at the end of the alley covered alley
The stairs are steel.
This is from the third floor landing.
That building in the foreground there is a 15-unit building,
a 15 unit building and there are duplexes and triplexes in the neighborhood
and there are duplexes and triplexes in the neighborhood.
these are three photographs showing interior conditions of the apartment i didn't take them
i received these from the project architect uh who who sent them to me earlier today
the first two pictures appear to be the living space basically configured and you'll see the
zoning plan in a second uh they're configured as efficiencies uh bathroom and then a living
space that includes a kitchen and a bedroom. And the third photograph is the bedroom.
As I mentioned, the property was sold to the appellant in March of 24. This is an affidavit
of the former owner, Terrence Dowd, that is dated the same day as the deed, which is part of this
package and it states statement of use 1224 rear east columbia avenue philadelphia
1224 rear east columbia avenue philadelphia property was purchased on december 19th 2005
by the undersigned affiant affiant turnstout at that time the property was configured as a three
with three dwelling units since december 2005 the property's three apartments have not been
occupied have been occupied at no time has the three unit configuration of the property been
modified or altered today the property is being sold to pathfinder homes llc the undersigned has
no knowledge of the date that the three unit use and configuration of the property began further
the undersigned makes no representation as to the legal status of the property's conforming
non-conforming multi-family use and occupancy the foregoing statements are true and correct
to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief. I understand that false statements
are made subject to the penalty set forth in Pennsylvania Code regarding unsworn falsifications
to authorities. It is signed by Mr. Dowd, and it is notarized. This next document is the
floor plan and site plan. Let me try to focus first on the site plan a little bit.
how's that okay so you can see to the right is columbia avenue to 1224 east columbia which
we saw in the first photograph is in the front and then separate there's a very small rear yard
and then there's a separate completely separate parcel which is 1224 rear east columbia the floor
are identical
plumbing is stacked
for each bathroom
the plumbing is stacked for each kitchen
you see the staircase
coming up to the second floor
and from the second floor to the third
with the landing at the second and the third floor.
The next document is the Office of Property Assessment record,
which indicates that the property...
So here it is, 1224 Rear East Columbia Avenue.
and it indicates that it was built in 1915 we don't know when the three-family use was configured
however the project architect is who was inside the building and can testify as to what he saw
has an opinion as to how it was built in the first place
finally the deed and some other documents that are required and are indicated in my index
I want to go back briefly to the RCO letter and point out a couple of things.
So community members are concerned with the following elements.
um this first element is concerned that if the variance is granted and the process to get a
uh rental license requires a certificate of occupancy uh to make sure that the house the
units are safe there was concern that that may result in displacing the tenants um there's no
intention to displace the tenants the leases are from mr dowd they extend into 19 in 2026 there's
no intention of displacing them. The units are small. They're about 500 square feet. If an
additional layer of drywall is needed on a ceiling, that can be done. It wouldn't be any
more invasive than painting an apartment. And that can be done over a couple of days
by moving some personal property. Again, it's not really a zoning issue.
by moving some personal property. Again, it's not really a zoning issue. The second item is
lack of fencing and the concern with increased occupancy. I think there was some confusion at
the RCO meeting that some people thought we were looking to change this from single family to
triplex. We're trying to keep the status quo, but make it legal. So there is no increase.
And then Mr. Karakoff will also mention that there was a concern that there was no internal stairs. Mr. Karakoff observed the same condition. There are no internal stairs. This was never built as a single family home.
There was one set of staircase, the outside, to access each separate unit.
And then, as I mentioned, the vote, 32 persons were considered verified and eligible to vote.
Only 14 of them voted opposed.
So you can have a difference of opinion as to whether the RCO really is opposed to it or maybe not.
And as I said earlier, there was a petition signed and nobody refused to sign it of the near neighbors that I went to.
I'd ask Mr. Karakoff to raise his hand.
Mr. Karakoff has been promoted.
Sir, could you please state your name as spelled for the stenographer?
can everyone hear me yes i can could you please state your name and spell for the sonographer
yes my name is uh christopher karakoff his name c-a-r-i-c-k-h-o-f-f you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do please proceed counsel uh mr mr mr
Karakoff. Did you hear my testimony? I did. The photographs that I showed of the interior,
did you take those? I did, yes. And that they took those photographs in connection with your
measuring, conducting measurements and site visit for the purpose of drawing the site plan and floor
plans? Correct. Based upon your expertise and experience as an architect, what observations
did you make about the structure and whether it may have been converted at some point prior to now
from a single family to a triflex? I did not see any evidence of conversion.
I didn't observe. There's no interior stair that would, you know, indicate a single family use,
being able to communicate between floors. The only accesses are through an exterior
deck structure and exterior doors to each floor. There's separate electric meters in each unit
that I observed. And all the plumbing bathrooms are stacked. So it read to me as if it was built
that way. Thank you. Could you remain available in case any of the board or members of the public
have questions for you? Could Mr. Meliseka raise his hand?
I think no one by that name.
you don't see okay you're an officer of the court we will take you you're an officer of the court
yes well do you have anybody else uh i do not i do i do not have anybody else in
do you have somebody yes chair he just raised his hand and i will okay thank you
you're welcome he has been promoted
good morning
good morning sir
i'm sorry is it working now i'm sorry could you please state your name and spell for the
yes sir it's james j-a-m-e-s last name melaseka m-e-l-a-s-e-c-c-a you swear or firm to tell
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
truth told truth nothing but the truth yes sir could you turn your
Yes, sir.
Could you turn your video on, please?
Yes, sir.
Please proceed, counsel.
Mr. Melisaka, are you the managing member of Pathfinder Homes, LLC?
That is correct, sir.
And you own 1224 Rear East Columbia Avenue?
Yes, sir.
You purchased it for Mr. Dowd in 2004, in March of 2024?
Yes, sir.
And at the time you purchased it, you became aware that the existing use was not permitted?
There were no permits?
Correct.
And for that reason, did you ask Mr. Dowd to confirm his use of the property in the 20 years he owned it since 2005?
Correct.
Okay. And is it your intention to make this legal so that you can go ahead and get a rental license and, if necessary, make changes to make sure it's safe for the existing tenants?
Yes, sir.
And the existing tenants are there from leases that Mr. Dowd had created with them prior to your purchasing?
That is correct.
And those leases extend into 2026?
That is correct.
And will you work with those tenants to introduce improvements if necessary so that their occupancy is not interrupted?
Yes, sir.
Do you adopt, did you hear my testimony earlier in this hearing?
I did.
Was it truthful?
Yes, sir.
And you adopted as your own?
Absolutely.
Counselors 1224 is separate owner.
Thank you.
Questions from the board.
Yes, I have a question about the part of the walkway that's not covered. I understand there's an easement, but what are the precautions to make sure that the tenants of 1224R don't really, like, utilize the rest of that backyard space for the owners at 1224?
I don't know how to answer that.
Can you go back to the bike plan?
Yes, James.
Yes, yeah, that'd be helpful to see that.
you know the board the site plan or the photograph site plan so there's okay so there's
the photograph and then here's the alley that extends after the covered alley that's open
extending to the stairs and then the this is looking back at that and I can make that a little
larger so this extends this is going down the stair and then they have this open alley
that goes to the closed alley. And you can see some trash bins here behind this.
I guess this is behind 1222.
Is that a fence between 1224 there? Yes. That's a fence behind 1224?
Yes, it's a fence in the rear yard. It encloses the rear yard of 1224 right here.
And so I guess the other issue is it looks like part of this walkway and part of the stairwell is actually on 1226's property.
Yes, that was pointed out during the meeting.
I mean, that's not really a zoning issue.
In Pennsylvania, the law changed a few years ago.
so it may be the 1224 rear either has a claim for adverse possession or it may have been done
by permission which would have given them no right to to any uh not needed it's not needed
right it's not yeah the landings are very generous i mean you could have a very narrow you could have
a more narrow access uh the the deck the the landing on the second and third floor is almost
like a deck it's got to be yeah that is and there's no bring let me bring up that uh site
plan so you can see that and then were the tenants did the tenants attend the community
meeting or the rco meeting i don't know it was a virtual meeting i did meet each of them uh when i
went uh getting signatures each each of each unit is occupied by one person and none of them have a
car right now current car knock all right any other questions yes how long have these tenants
been in this property i don't know their leases were dated in in i think january of 24 i don't
know if they were renewals uh or they were first-time tenants jim do you do you know the
answer to that um yeah i believe mr dowd told me that they were all moved in in 2019
Okay, and did the former owner of this property have
And did the former owner of this property have rental licenses for these units?
I see.
And when you purchased this property in 2024, you knew that, correct?
Yes, Mr. Malasaka.
I should go on.
When Mr. Malasaka and the deed, this part of the package, will confirm this, there were two parcels being sold.
12-22 and 12-24 rear, which would share a party wall in the rear. So there was one of two properties. 12-24 is a larger property, which is one building east of 12-24. And that is connected at the rear.
So this was kind of like part of the transaction.
It was listed as a sale for both properties.
So he bought both, and now he's trying to fix, which may have existed since 1915.
He's trying to do the right thing.
And did you have title insurance when his properties were purchased?
Did you finance this purchase, Jim?
Yeah, we have title insurance to the title company.
Yes, ma'am.
And as part of the title insurance process,
did they advise you of the permissible uses for these properties?
I'm sorry, advise you?
Of the permissible uses for these properties.
I don't know that the title company did.
Mr. Melisaka knew, and he called me at the time he was getting ready
to complete the purchase.
He said, what do I do?
And I said, well, all you can do is get the current owner to verify under oath what the use has been for the last 20 years.
And then you have to legalize.
You have to get permission to legalize the use, which is what we're trying to do today.
OK. And then my other question, did you get a city certification for these properties, which will tell you what the permissible uses for a property are?
i don't know did you get a city cert did the seller give you a city certification
i don't believe so no because i didn't get the leases until literally the day of closing
okay okay so it's the seller's obligation under philadelphia as you know uh miss miss gaston
to supply but there's no lack of information here mr malasaka knew before he purchased it
that one of the two properties was affected by this problem
that you have to deal with.
Well, I guess my, okay, here's my problem.
I don't understand how we even got into a situation
where you're building a house and it's totally landlocked.
There's no street frontage of any sort or variety for this property.
I don't, I don't understand how that ever happened, even in 1915.
Well, I'm, I'm having a real problem with that.
And then my other problem, you know, and you can, you can, my other problem is with these,
with these stairs, which, you know, so, so presumably you can enter into this first unit
for the front door, and then you have to go through these alleys and what have you to
get to uh what are purported to be entrances to the second and third floor i don't there's not a
front door entrance either right for the first floor probably it's all from now i think it's all
it's all there yeah i really you know i don't understand how you how a property could even
have been built like this, even in 1915. I just find it to be amazing. And then that
in 2005, it was purchased. Knowing all of this and no effort was taken then to start to address
these issues i i just so i just have to assume that for um the entire history of this property
it has been it's not even non-conforming it's just it's it's not proper in any way or shape
or form i don't i don't understand and then we have the additional issue of that there may be
some kind of issue with respect to the deeded lot and whether these stairs encroach in some way on the other.
And whether these stairs encroach in some way on another property.
And we can't get permission to allow something that's not necessarily on the property that's in front of us.
I'm having real problems with this.
Bill, you want to respond?
Yeah, if I please briefly. So the city didn't have a zoning code, as you know, until 1933. So this is an existing parcel. And in 1932, you could have built anything you wanted on it. You could have built a blacksmith shop. In 1933, that changed.
and until 1962 the uses were simply commercial industrial and residential
you know we didn't get into duplexes and multi-family until after 62
this is if we take the office of property assessment record at face value
this building has been there for 115 110 years
um the neighbors that i spoke to had no problem signing this um in fact uh the uh 12 30 a woman
who has lived there for over 40 years liked the current tenants and disliked some of the
former tenants she said the current tenants are nice people um uh the the tenant at 12 24
whose alley is next to her building in her rear yard says no problem with it i'm not saying it's
not an anomaly but after 115 years mr melisaka is coming forward saying i'm going to do the right
thing now when he files his application for a rental license i believe he's going to have to
get a certificate of occupancy and he's going to have to show the detail that the fire separation
is adequate, that the window sizes are adequate, that the fire alarm is adequate, so that it is
safe for the current tenants. That's in everybody's interest, to make sure that it's safe for the
current tenants. I don't think Mr. Malasaka should be disparaged because he did it. He's coming
forward to legalize. Many owners apparently before him looked the other way, and that was wrong.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Is there any other questions from the board?
I need to slide down to the site plan. I just, just slide down to the site plan.
I'm sorry.
Just slide down to the site.
Oh, yeah. There?
I'm just trying to, I was just trying to understand that this is a completely landlocked parcel in the back of this other property.
Yes. The legal description makes the point of beginning, I believe it's this corner here, is the point of beginning of the legal description of the lot. And then it's 18 feet 6 by 29, 10 and a half inches.
And so legally they'd have, what, adverse possession to the alley and the tunnel?
I understand from Mr. Melisaka that 1226 recently sold and that the former owner lived there for more than 40 years.
As I said, if the area of the deck or landing on the second and third floor, which extends over this area,
If it was done with permission, then if the current owner wanted to discontinue that permission, remove that permission, they'd have to make the landing narrower.
If it was not done with permission and it was done without permission, then there would be a claim of adverse possession if it was necessary.
I suspect based on my observing
it's been there a long time
there's no indication that that deck was built recently
or those landings were built recently
if you look at the photograph of the staircase
you can see
that it's been there for a while
thank you
questions from our attorney Hillary Emerson
not at this time
What's your comments from the from our audience or virtual audience?
Yes, Chair, there are two hands up.
The first one is Justin Epperson will appear in a few minutes.
Okay. Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Hello, can you hear me?
Hi, yes. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Hello, sir. My name is Justin Epperson. I'm the owner of 1224 Columbia in the front.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth? The whole truth is nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, sir.
I'd like to make a couple of points also followed up with a couple of questions. So I've owned the property in the front 1224 for 16 years. I've lived in it for 14. As far as I'm concerned from witnessing in person over the years, Terrence Dowd, the previous owner, was using that structure as an office.
He was running his painting business out of it with the adjacent garage.
It was not used as a triplex.
My question would be, are there more interior photos of three kitchens?
Are there three leases?
Are there three tenants?
That's a question I have because I don't believe that to be true over my 16 years of ownership.
It has been an issue with that alleyway and that easement on who owns that easement.
It's been a nightmare with the traffic coming in and out of that easement and that alleyway with the previous owners painting clients.
The trash situation was a nightmare, and this is with not having three tenants back there.
Emily Bremer is the tenant of 1224 Columbia, so she signed that form, but she's in no position to vote yes or no, in my opinion.
I'm the owner of the property.
Another question would be, that's an 18 by 29 footprint on that structure.
I don't see how it's even legal to have a triplex on an 18 by 29 foot structure.
And my recommendation moving forward with the group and to the prior or the current owner is, I don't know how far back this goes with zoning, but that garage next door that he purchased with 1224 rear would be a good way for them to access the street.
I think at some point back in the day, that structure, the existing triplex, so to be, would exit and get to the street through the garage because those buildings are attached, but they are separately deeded.
So there's a couple of points I have, and mainly just the trash and the throughfare, people coming and going out of my easement or our easement, I would say.
All right. Thank you for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it. Do you have any questions, Bill?
May I just respond really quickly? Mr. Epperson?
Why don't we do this? Why don't we wait that there's another person with their hand up and then you respond at one time.
Next hand, please.
Yes, the next hand is Robert Everett.
He's from Fishtown. Okay. Hi, Mr. Everett.
Coming in now.
good morning mr everett i'm here it took a while i know you are just state your name
please and speak for the court stenographer yes 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, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
You are the Fishtown RCL, am I correct?
That's correct.
I am one of the co-chairs.
Please proceed.
You have our letter, so I won't go on that.
I can't explain why we had eight abstentions.
Sometimes they hit the wrong button since we do it on Zoom, but that is what it is.
A question earlier from one of the board members there. Did the tenants attend the community meeting? The way we verify, we pull the list of everyone who voted and verify them against our database of verified members where people have given us evidence that they live where they say they live, and none of them are on our list for that meeting as having had attended.
And in addition to the letters that went out from the attorney for the applicant, we follow up and do actual door-to-door flyers for the same meeting the weekend before, so they should have had an opportunity to attend, with the exception if there's someone in the rear, because the gate's locked and we couldn't get back there.
All right. Thank you, Mr. Everett. We appreciate taking the time. Mr. O'Brien, do you want to respond?
Yes, just briefly to Mr. Epperson. Mr. Epperson sent an email prior to the RCO meeting to the Fishtown neighbors saying that he was the owner of the property and disagreed with Mr. Dowd's affidavit that it was continuously used as apartments.
It was that email was discussed at the RCO meeting. As far as I know, Mr. Epperson did not appear or participate in the RCO meeting. So there wasn't any further context.
And regarding the leases, I have two of the three leases here with me. I did not put.
And regarding the leases, I have two of the three leases here with me.
I did not put them part of the package because I thought it contained personal information wasn't necessary.
These are dated in January of 24 between the current residents of the first floor and third floor.
I don't have the second floor lease with me.
The rent is $800 a month and it includes all utilities and it extends until February of 26.
And they were signed by Mr. Dower.
Thank you very much.
So we're going to hold this till next Wednesday morning.
We'll vote at 930.
We're going to take it at executive session and go over all the issues.
Chair, do you want my recommendation?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Amy Boyd from the Planning Commission.
oh i don't think i'm on video am i just a second
okay amy board with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning
at this location from the existing single family residential rsa5 the limited access by a narrow
easement to the back multiple dwelling units would risk life and safety of those residents in the
space and create congestions for the front property therefore the planning commission
recommends that the board deny the requested variance for multi-family household living
thank you very much we'll vote next wednesday thank you okay thank you
number three mi 2024 004 299 7143 edmond street or hey follow is the tenant applicant
This application is for use as artist studios and artesian industrial in an existing structure. The proposed use to artist studios and artesian industrial is prohibited in the RSA 3 zoning district. There's support from the Taconi Civic Association.
Do we see his hand?
Sorry, Chair, I do not.
Oh, yeah, there he is.
Should be coming in shortly.
good morning good morning sir could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
yes how you doing is george falu j-o-r-g-e falu f-a-l-u right do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes sir our vice chair has a few questions
okay good morning sir have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits as needed
and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing
Yes, sir.
Thank you, sir. Please proceed and share your screen.
I'm sorry. I didn't hear you at the end.
You can proceed and share your screen.
Oh, okay.
Your presentation.
Niney, where
I share at?
There should be a green button at the bottom
of your screen in the center.
It says share.
You have to open your documents up as well
before you share.
I'll open the document there.
Y'all see the documents?
X this out.
That's good.
You can start your presentation.
Oh, okay.
All right. So, so I'm asking for a variance for the corner property of 7143 Edmond. And this is the blueprint right here. I'm sorry. Blueprint right here where it's the front entrance right here.
and the windows on the side
we're here on the left hand side
I'm trying to move myself but I can't
see my screen
and the office as you said
front office is the front
and right behind is the bathroom
and the main part
of the shop is the back
part of it where it's the dryer
and my
auto print
so it has two three closets
with the
a little sink
in hot or cold water.
And then
I also have
On the right-hand side of 7143 Edmond, on Friendship Street, I also have a garage that I'm renting in front of the property as well.
on the same side of the
on the right hand side of 7143
Edmond.
Why don't you tell us what you're trying to do?
I'm doing this as a screen print. It's a t-shirt shop, a silkscreen t-shirt.
this is the entrance of the shop right here
front door I can show you a better picture than that that's the bathroom
this is the front of the shop
as well as the office I was saying
and they go to the back of the shop
right here this part right here
yeah it's a silk screen
t-shirt
is there a residence above this
yes there's a residence above it
it's two apartments
up top over me
and how many
years have you had this
I rent
I believe
this is uh the back of the shop as well left side is the windows like bow windows
this is the front that's the entrance to the shop where do you get correct
where do you get into the two units above the two units above is up top of the shop
i mean how do you how do you get in there i'm saying oh they have their own entrance
on the left side
they have their own stairway
their own door
and on the right side as well
they have their own entrance as well
So tell me what happened when you went to the RCO
When I went to the RCO
the meeting
I didn't have any objections
not too many people showed up
Right, okay
the people that actually
showed up agreed to it.
Let me ask you this.
Before you rented this
property, what was it being used
for then? It was
a non-profit
art school.
Okay. Thank you.
They was doing clay
stuff,
oil painting.
You can see it on the
right side of the building.
little pieces of mirror that's on the wall
that's some of the stuff that they were doing
inside of there too as well
questions for the board
yeah I have two questions one
are you using the garages that you
showed in the images
yeah as storage
all three or
no just one I'm sorry
the far right to the
the garage
yes the far right is it's three garages and i'm using the far right so to get into the garage you
have to leave the store walk down the sidewalk there's no through access through the building
correct no at all you have to come outside okay and then how long has your business been in
operation um i've been uh i'm working not there but uh in my grandma's basement since 2016
and then i have we had sold the house and i have rent this place since 2018 and then in the
silkscreen process um i know there's a number of chemicals that are used to treat the like the
of fabrics how are you handling the storage and the disposal of any chemicals related to the
dyeing process okay well um the the type of chemical i do use it's called it's plastic saw
ink and it's similar to like uh like paint but it's for clothes and um when it's time to waste
is that I have a solution product
where it's safe for
the sewage when
it's time to get it off the
screen.
So you're just
putting it down a regular drain inside the
property? No, there's a solution with
it that
when it goes down the drain,
it goes through this
solution and it goes through
the pipes before it hits the
drain. Like it flushes
and then what do you need to do any updates to the property or have you done any updates to the
property as it relates to ventilation uh they already have ventilation in there all i did was
it already had ventilation in there all i did was uh add um i made it a little bit uh bigger
uh add um i made it
with a ventilation it was like a i think it was a 18 inch fan exhaust fan and i made it to a 22 inch
okay but no major systems no no major systems at all uh the only other difference was the electric
I had to put a brand-new panel on the electric.
And did you pull permits with L&I?
Did that work?
I have a question.
So when customers, they come into your building to place orders, is there any kind of – there was a concern that maybe parking on the sidewalk.
is there adequate parking you think around your area so that if customers had to come in
to place orders that they wouldn't have to park on the sidewalk yeah yeah there's this parking
there's plenty of parking it says uh sometimes i have uh customers come and they'll like pick up
and there'll be a like a bunch of boxes so they have reversing to put it in the back of the van
and stuff like that but besides that it's not like a constant where they always park on the sidewalk
other questions yes sir what is your plan for removing um motor oil and transmission fluids
from the site excuse me i'm sorry i didn't get that plans to change my motor oil yes the waste
as far as uh the only thing that takes the oil is it's a compressor like and it's something small
I could put it in a little
like a gallon bucket
it's not
like I don't work on the cars or anything
in the garage
so I guess
I guess I got
a couple of questions
you okay
going to
go through how I think this works
and you can tell me if i'm correct okay sure sure so how do you get the t-shirts that you're going
to imprint um to this premises are they delivered in trucks vans how how does that how does that
okay yes so when when when um it's trying to do it when i take an order sometimes i purchase the
shirts for them or they bring the shirts themselves and I print on them or I give them my
idea and you know whether they like it or not you know I print it or not okay so you have
deliveries of through UPS like yes through I'm sorry this is like more bulk delivery correct
of the t-shirts? Yes. For most part, yes. I say about 80%. About 80%. Sometimes I do retail.
I get a little bit of both, but more of a contracting. Okay. And then if you're doing
these kind of bulk things this is uh you do the imprinting and what have you you then box this all
up and then this has to be delivered to somebody or do they come to pick it up or how does this
work yes the once this once the product is finished there i'll call they'll come some
customers that come pick up or they're uh or i send it through ups okay mostly it'll be customers
coming to pick up all right and so then most of the the t-shirts are inside your building um until
such time as the the work is done and you're shipping it out to wherever correct yes yes yes
Once I finish the work, it'll give them about 24 to 48 hours.
They'll be there. I'm very local.
Most of your orders, they're online? They're in person?
How do we do this? I don't see that there's a sign of any sort.
No, there's no signages yet.
People just
go on my social media, word of mouth.
so i'm working on that part as well okay all right and about how how large is this
it's it's um it's not very big it's just like i'm gonna say about almost 800 square footage
and the actual um
and the actual
you have one of these machines to do the
screening or do you have multiple? Yes, it's only one machine
one machine. How many people do you have working with you?
It's just me, like I said, it's very small, it's not a huge
Okay, so how many of these would you say you produce
in a week, shall we say? Far as printing t-shirts
um i'd say about five to eight hundred
depending on the the you know depending on the client
what type of work for schools or events and you say you've been doing this since 2018
on my own yes 28 2016 on my own i've been working for other companies
right but i thought you said that you moved into this property yes to 2018 i moved in this property
all right okay thank you okay uh sorry mr felu i have a couple follow-up questions
so you moved in in 2018 and it's looking like this has been a use issue since and i'm just
what when was were you made aware that the business was now in violation
and what has taken so long to address it okay so yeah there was uh i didn't know any better when i
actually moved into this building and um the landlord had i asked him about the um there was
a piece of paper that said a non-profit art school and i told him that uh i asked him is this is good
for my for my business as well as i do artwork as well and um he told me that i was fine with it
until i think it was like two years a year and a half ago and i it i was i guess i didn't know
any better on that part and that's when i had a license inspection guy come out and say no you
have to actually read
to have it under
my name and different
title.
That was the reason why
it took that long.
It looks like there's a number, and I don't
know if it's for your space specifically or the whole
building, but it looks like there's been a number
of fire code violations that
go back a few years.
I was wondering, have you
had to take steps, or is the landlord
taking steps to address it?
Yes, the land that that was the building that that on the basement. So when the license inspections came out downstairs in the basement, they had like old panels. I guess that was there before the new breakers they had put up and they didn't secure it right.
that was just like wires almost everywhere in the basement.
And since then, they had dressed up the coat with fire alarms and stuff like that.
And can you explain, like, who did the electrical work for you?
It was, his name was Lee, his business is Lime Electrician, but his name is Lee Lawarski.
and you and you're under the belief that he pulled a permit to do that work for for for my
for my unit but he i think pro managed that's the people that i rent from they uh handled
what they had to handle for their their building got it so i just want to let you know that there's
no electrical permit on record with the city that shows that this work was permitted and
done by a licensed electrician and i just want to make you aware like the the thing that we're
looking at today is both the approval for you to be able to use the space in the way that you've
been using it we understand that since 2018 but it would would require you to get a certificate
of occupancy for you to be able to continue to operate which means you have a certificate of
occupancy yes you can't you can't yeah that's you have you need approval from us to get the
certificate of occupancy oh i'm sorry i guess i'm talking about the wrong thing then yeah um but i
just want to let you know because that means that anything like as a as a business anything that in
the building that was not up to code would have to be brought up to code and done under a license
and permitted would have to be done under a licensed professional and permitted so i just
wanted to make you aware just uh there's been no plan have you been working with any
like licensed professional to kind of put together your layout plans for the shop yeah there was um
the electrician he he um he was like he is licensed electrician that's the guy
the electrician he um he was like he is licensed electrician that's the guy they uh recommended uh
get and he just didn't pull a permit so i just wanted to make you aware because you showed us a
hand-drawn plan that i'm assuming you sketched and you've given us sort of estimates for the square
footage that anything moving forward would require you to get a ceo and you'd have to hire a
professional and it could uncover some other things that you'd have to update in that space
Questions or comments from our attorney?
Sir, you are leasing unit 1F.
Is that correct in this building?
Okay, thank you.
I have a question real quick.
So could you clarify for me, are you using the basement or does your business use the
basement as well?
No, I'm no use in the basement.
Okay, thank you.
Questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience?
Daniel Trubman will be promoted
questions or comments
could you identify yourself please
can we see him
he's disappeared not there uh no he was there but i don't okay planning commission
amy board with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends a change in
zoning at this location from rsa3 residential single family to cmx1 commercial mixed use the
proposed use is consistent with documented prior use. The Planning Commission recommends a board
grant their proposed use for artist studios and artisan industrial. MI 2024-004-299-7143
Edmund Street. I vote yes with proviso. Certificate of occupancy has to be issued.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Oh, and also, I'm sorry, proviso, one F only. So a certificate of proclamation must be issued and one F only.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Thank you, sir.
Number four, MI 2024-006-065-6156 Mulberry Street.
Corn Wise is the attorney.
Inanimous non-opposition from the Wissahickon Civic Association.
Corn Wise is coming in as a panelist.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I was shuffling my screens.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Corin Wise, C-O-R-E-N-W-I-S-E, Attorney for Applicant Patricia Ludwig, 6156 Mulberry Street.
Okay, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning, sir. Have you emailed?
Excuse me.
Do you swear to, do you agree to the...
Do you agree to waive to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, sir.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed and required?
In this case, five days in advance of this hearing.
I have.
Yes, sir.
Thank you, counsel.
Please proceed.
I'm going to share my screen.
So this is 6156 Mulberry Street.
this is actually a photo of the back where you see two garages and um
why don't you say what you're trying to do sir yes sir uh i represent patricia ludwig
I represent Patricia Ludwig. She's the owner of this property since 1987. It's been a duplex. It was purchased as a duplex. She's had a rental license as a duplex since that time, but only recently found out that zoning was required.
she's the owner of this property since 1987
so we are seeking a variance to legalize this existing duplex at 6156 mulberry it's on a block
front of four uh these four or you see two in this photo uh they're all duplexes um okay so uh
let me when he shows the photos and
trying to go through the photos
Nothing's not working.
You see the garage doors?
We see garage doors, but I understand.
Why don't you get to the front?
Why don't we go to the front?
That's what I'm trying to do.
So let me try and reshare.
Counsel, you're having a hard time with your computer?
Yes, yes.
I have more photos, but they're not.
Okay, so why don't we do this?
Why don't you get that straight?
we'll come back to you because we have to move on okay so i'll i'll get back to you in about 15
minutes okay i promise okay my sharing is paused do you hear me i do hear you i'm okay so well
you're gonna have to go out and come back okay all right number six mi 2024 006 405 2531 to 35
cedar street justin crick is the attorney counsel you'll have to come mr wise you got to come back
i'll call you back shortly just try to get your computer straight okay yes sir good morning mr
chair this is jason hand i am stepping in temporarily mr crick will be coming back
and as a panelist shortly.
Sure, thank you.
Good afternoon.
Good morning, members of the board.
Counsel, could you please state your name
and spell for this phonography?
Yes, my name is Justin Crick, K-R-I-K.
Right, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you identify your client,
their relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is K&M 2531-35 Cedar LLC, and the members Manoj and Kristen Prasad are with us today.
I see that old Richmond Civic is in non-opposition to this, and Council Member Squill is in non-opposition to this, and our vice chair has a few questions.
Council, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this
case five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you counsel please proceed thank you very
much i will share the screen members of the board we are here today on an application for a variance
for this property at 2531-35 cedar street and we are seeking the could technically be considered
legalization, but the use of four off-street parking spaces, surface parking spaces, that
will be an accessory to the single-family house on that property.
This district in an RSA 5 prohibits single-family off-street parking unless it's accessed from
a shared driveway or alley or rear street.
That is not the case here, but you'll see from the description and the layout of this
property that it is uh it is probably the best and highest use for the neighborhood as well
um the refusal is correct other than we're not really building any off-street parking it's kind
of already there using the side yard for that purpose um for geographic purposes we are at the
corner of cedar and east sergeant street and it is as you can see i'll zoom in a little bit it's
a sizable parcel with a fairly open side yard, as you can see here, and actually more importantly
right here. So you'll see from the historically, and this is an older picture, a car had routinely
parked here and there is a gate at this end of the fence. Obviously, that person had some issues
getting in and out with no curb cut and cars parked along that side. But currently, we are
still talking about the same open side yard and rear of that property, and gate is located in
the same location. From a floor plan perspective, the existing D dimensions show that this is
that this is uh essentially like parcels separate parcels but within the same deed
essentially like parcels, separate parcels, but within the...
and it had been put together by a previous owner uh at some point in time where they kept the
single family structure and then paved over this entire area with concrete and as you'll see they
built a wall it's kind of like a little compound uh on on the on the corner here case in point
right here. This is also a slightly older photo. The fence has been updated by the current owners.
The important thing to know here is that these owners are, this property is not for rental. It
is not being turned into multifamily. It is single family dwelling for the owners themselves. They
bought it in an LLC because it is not their primary residence. They do reside in South Jersey,
but they have several relatives, including a nephew who attends law school in Philadelphia.
I'm sorry, who attends Temple in Philadelphia and their daughter may be going to law school nearby.
And they're hoping to have they use this space currently for when families in town, when they want to stay overnight in Philly after an evening or something.
But it is, again, not for rental. So this is a this is a essentially I don't know.
Not many people may have second homes in this neighborhood, but this is a kind of a second home to address their needs when they're in Philadelphia and not that close.
I have a bunch of photos just to show you the scope of this from the street, and there's a lot of street frontage here that many cars do park on.
This is going up Cedar Street, down Sargent Street, and just getting to the point here.
You can see here that they've updated the fence and the gates for this area.
One of the things you might also have a question about is this telephone pole.
PICO has already indicated that they are moving this pole much further out of the way from where
this curb cut would be, where this car sits. We have also obtained streets approval for the curb
cut. I will just pull that up for a second. This wasn't included in the packet because it
was necessary as part of the application to be approved before we could even apply.
But just so you know, the streets approval has been given for the possibility of the curb cut
in this space so as you can see from the interior photos this is a pretty large concrete pad in the
side yard and is ample space based upon the um based upon the drawings that our design
company did you can fit approximately four cars in here with plenty of turning radius
Is it the intention of the owners to use four? It's rare or unlikely, but even with that, the fact being is that they would like the opportunity to stack four for their family, and that does take potentially four cars off the street, even with one additional curb cut that is here.
We believe that it provides a lot of relief from off-street parking for the rest of the neighborhood.
We did meet with the neighborhood.
There were not many people in attendance, but those that did were in support.
And before I just go into some more, I will show you our notification to the public of the meeting,
along with, as you can see along the side here, all of the proof of mailing notices.
this is an exemplar page from the deed my clients purchased this in july of last year
legal description the taxes are only for 2025 um at this point still and then we did have
posting of the property on the front and on the sides um so essentially this this application
would um again it would benefit the neighborhood by by removing possible congestion on the street
taking away uh the need for more parallel parking by people that can slow certain you know traffic
down or so forth but we believe it's we believe it's the minimus even though it's asking for four
based on the scope of it it's it's still a small amount by comparison to just uh just to go to
off-street parking. So we're just saying that the step from off-street to on-street to off-street
parking is the request. The number of spots, again, is basically they are just hoping to
maximize this use of the space. This will not impact any of the neighbors' air or light. We're
not building any structures to do anything that would impact that. And in fact, we believe it
will decrease congestion in public streets. I should also note that Sardin Street is one way,
so it does make it easier for turning radiuses out of here, which were part of the application
to streets, and it showed that. So it's a little bit less of a concern when someone's pulling out
left or right from a potential curb cut here. It would only be going in one direction. There is no
curb cut here it would only be going in one direction um there is no environmental impact
with this application and it would not burden any public utility we believe that because of the
and this owner did not create this but because of this disproportionately large cemented side yard
we believe that a literal enforcement of the code preventing off-street parking
where there is access to the street directly and no need for a rear alleyway shared driveway or
such that literal enforcement of the code would create a hardship on this applicant.
And so we are requesting the variance to allow this side yard to be used for off-street
parking.
Mr. Crick, before we bring your client one, counsel, could you mention the issue about
Yes, Mr. Crick, do you know if any of the fencing that's up has been previously approved,
to the you know especially where it's a corner property um and it's completely opaque
i will i will say this um i have not my client has not received a violation this was what was
the existing fence but i do recognize when looking at the pictures i spoke with them about
that the the fencing itself may have some um some issues and again this is the old existing fences so
So this technically would or could require legalization, but we didn't when when doing the application that was not noted.
But again, we didn't put in for a fence. It may need this.
This fence may need either legalization or approval, but that is not part of this application.
Right. Right. I understand. I just want to make sure that, yeah, the applicant was aware that there may be additional things that they need to do because of because of that fence.
if it was not previously approved understood yeah and i'm sorry go ahead counsel why don't
you bring your client on yes if uh kristen prasad could raise her hand
and kristen prasad has been promoted
miss prasad please let me know when you can hear me
i'm here hi christine could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer
sure christine k-r-y-s-t-i-n prasad p-r-a-s-a-d you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth yes could you please turn your video one certainly proceed counsel
all right thank you miss prasad um have you had an opportunity to hear my testimony to the board
today regarding this project yes uh do you are were the statements made by me to the board true
and correct to the best of your knowledge yes and would you adopt my testimony or do you adopt
my testimony as if it was your own stated today yes thank you questions from the board
yes could you pull up the the parking plan again yes and then how many current
off-street parking spaces are going to get eliminated at with the approval of this project
so here is the uh here's the parking plan and we have this one curb cut that will essentially take
away one uh as you can see also here i guess it's a little bit closer but this is the power pole to
be removed. So only this curb cut, which is right out front of this gate, is expected to be
taking away an off-street parking space. So for one house, even with one car, that's equal,
but we're hoping that we can have more to take more off the street.
And can you explain to me, like, if there's four cars parked here, how do the cars in the front
get out? So because we have this larger rear yard, in addition to this spacious side yard,
this demonstrates the turning radiuses and it may be necessary for the family internally to
have to jockey some cars a bit if they were to ever have the density that is requested
but there is ample space to pull a car back move another in without having to do that on the street
and and interrupting the traffic flow just to get a car out of here and then what is the
rear yard for the house wants this okay well this is the rear yard for the house yeah except there's
a car turning on it so is the rear yard currently paved this entire area is paved it's every
everything up to the actual physical yeah you can kind of see it here it's just always been
concrete yeah or at least as far as we can tell i mean and as long as we've owned it i i definitely
Or at least as far as we can tell. I mean, and as long as we've owned it, I definitely question what this circle of concrete is. It's a little odd, but I don't know, maybe they had an above ground pool sometime way back in the day.
question what this
And then how often are they occupying this house on average during the year?
I can let Kristen tell you that. From my understanding, it's not that often, but Kristen, if you want to just weigh in on kind of the usage and what you expect for usage.
Yeah, so this property has allowed us to see family that live in Florida now that my nephew's at Temple. So, you know, I would say we are not there during the week. It's weekends, mainly. That may change if my daughter gets into law school in Philly. Right now she's at Rutgers.
so currently we're using it you know every few weekends when our family is in we meet them for
dinner we stay at our property my older daughter currently who lives in Bridgewater New Jersey
she comes every now and then on a weekend so I mean for now it's it's not as frequent it's on
the weekends but that'll depend if my daughter gets into law school you know what's the long-term
plan for the property once the family that's currently in college oh we fell in love with
fishtown so much when we were having dinner with my nephew that i decided that this is my husband
and i's retirement plan to be near medical facilities that are wonderful um when we're old
so it's my retirement home okay yeah other questions from the board
Questions or comments from our attorney?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience?
Carol Wright should be coming in.
carol rice can you please unmute yourself why could you please state your name and spell for
the stenographer she's still muted chair i'm trying to ask her to unmute carol weiss
yes she's muted planning commission
amy boyd with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change in
zoning at this location from existing single-family residential rsa5 the appellant has not shown that
there are unique physical circumstances or conditions of the property that would prevent
it from being used in conformance with the zoning code the planning commission recommends that the
board denied of the requested variants for parking. Thank you. MI 2024-006-405-2531-35
Cedar Street, I vote yes. Gojohns, my vote is yes. Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes. Tanetta Graham,
my vote is yes. Tywin, my vote is no. Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes. Thank you. Thank you,
Council. Number seven, MI
2024, 006
536, 4219
Main Street.
Vern Anastasio is the
attorney. There's
a letter of support from Manny Young
Neighborhood Council.
also believe
one other group up there sent a letter.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Hi, Vern. How are you?
Sir, you've already been sworn, just for the record, could you state your name?
Yep. Vern Anastasio.
On behalf of Nakia Peterson, the applicant.
All right. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Good afternoon. Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
Thanks.
Counsel, please proceed.
Thank you.
The application is for a restaurant on Main Street in Manioc.
Not an unusual occurrence.
So that's what we're here to do.
42-19 Main.
We have an exhibit binder of 77 separate exhibits.
It's ZoneCMX 2.5, the sit-down restaurant with 30 seats is a refusal, and it's refused
And it's refused for accessory parking. There is none. I mean, it's Main Street. So we're coming up with a parking plan with Manny Yonk Development Corporation and working with MDC and Manny Yonk Neighborhood Council.
for accessory parking.
There is none.
As you can see here, the board has already granted uses for hookahs.
So it's a hookah lounge currently, and BYOB.
We're going to be discontinuing that particular use, and we're going to have the restaurant instead.
So let's get to the plans.
that's just the basement
and here's the first floor
here's your entrance
here's the front of the house
your tables and chairs
service bar
powder room
back of the house
prep table and the trash area in the back. And it was asked, we were asked to make sure that it was
in a corral with fencing. So Station Street, which is behind us, would not be able to see
the trash receptacles we had no problem with that of course can i show you the import there's some
photos of the interior here's the street view
this is what we look at there's a stake in hoagie place that's the existing property the the hookah
lounge that's the rear some interior shots
there's the basement and again there's another interior shot here's the letter that went out to
everybody uh inviting them to the rco meeting as well as to the hearing today
and as i said i've also talked to lou agar the 21st ward democratic
ward leader full support here's everybody who was mailed
57 individual households here's a poster that of course was properly posted
in the window for 23 consecutive days
and here is the old use permit for a vape lounge
so because the restaurant is a welcome change uh getting away from the uh hookah lounge that's
there now because we enjoy the unanimous support manioc neighborhood council and luager
and because we are willing ready and able to enter into parking agreement with manioc
development corporation i respectfully request the granting of the variance
with that nakia peterson please raise your hand
i'm moving all of this into evidence by the way
nakia peterson has been promoted thank you
you're welcome
as you can see here on the uh pullout uh the station street is behind us there's no homes
there but people can park there and they wanted to make sure that our trash was covered so we're
We're going to do that.
We see the owner.
I believe she's.
She's here.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Nakia Peterson, N-I-K-I-A, Peterson, P-E-T-E-R-S-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Thank you.
Ms. Peterson, did you hear my presentation to the board this afternoon?
Is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
You adopted as your own?
I have nothing further, Mr. Chair.
i have nothing further mr chair questions from the board question do you is trash pickup from uh
Questions from the board.
Question, do you, as trash pick up for.
the street behind uh good question nakia where the trash pickup where does that occur on main
street on station street on station street yes mr johnson on the street behind thank you
other questions from the board uh yes on the drawing it did say that the um there was some
i saw the ventilation but it moves too quickly um where does it ventilate is it up or to the side
up thanks okay questions or any other questions from the board
questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience
planning commission amy board with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends a
change in zoning at this location for the existing commercial mixed use cmx 2.5 to cmx 2 the proposed
absence of parking is an existing condition of the property and others on this commercial corridor
block face the planning commission recommends that the board grant their requested variance for
parking thank you mi 2024 006 536 4219 main street i vote yes johns my vote is yes
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes
Iowan, my vote is yes
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes
I know you have a few other cases
I'll be back to you as soon as I can
I gotta just get a couple done
Thank you, sir
Let's go back to this other guy
Mr. Weiss
Karin Weiss, please
Number four
His computer wasn't working
Mr. Weiss
it's been promoted
okay thank you Mr. Chairman
you've already been sworn as your computer working
why don't you proceed with your presentation
thank you okay you should see the front door this time yep i see it all right so this is 6156 mulberry
it's a duplex um so this is the front of the property the front door this is the front foyer
area to your right right to the first floor and upstairs to the second correct that's the stairs
up to the second this is the first floor unit uh they're both identical uh first and second floor
Living room, kitchen area, bathroom, bedroom.
And Mr. Weiss, the remainder of that block is also all duplexes.
Yes, it's a block face of four properties.
They're all identical.
I was actually before the board in 2019 for the neighboring property, 61-58.
And utilities are already separated?
Separate furnaces, separate water heaters.
Questions from the board?
Questions or comments from the virtual audience or our audience here?
There are no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA 5 residential single-family zoning
at this location.
The proposed use is consistent with documented prior use.
The Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the request of variance for two
family residential.
Thank you.
MI 2024-006-065-6156 Mulberry Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Iowan, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Number 11, MI 2024-006-664-2181 Bennett Road.
Musa John is the attorney.
There's unanimous support from Somerton Civic Association
and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member O'Neill.
Moussa John. Moussa John will be coming in shortly. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members. Good morning. Good morning, counsel. Could you please
state your name and spell for the court stenographer? Certainly. My name is Moussa John,
and my first name is spelled M-U-S-A
and my last name is spelled J-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm the total truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, I do, Mr.
Mr. John, could you identify your client, please, and relationship to the property?
Absolutely.
My client is, excuse me, 21, sorry, it's Bennett Road Property, LLC, and they're represented
by the owner of the Bennett Road Property, LLC, Mr. Amar Halaj, who is with us today.
Hillary, is that appropriate?
Sorry, who is here with us today?
Amar Halaj.
He is the owner of the Bennett Road Property LLC.
Yes, that's fine.
Please, our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have, sir.
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Just looking to see how to share my screen.
There we go.
So what you usually, you have to open it.
You're good.
You're coming up.
okay can everybody uh see the screen yes sir okay thank you um i'm here to have i'm here today on
behalf of bennettberg property llc the appellate respectfully requests that the the zoning board
grant a variance to allow the operation of a commercial auto repair facility in a property
that is zoned i1 and is located in the far northeast overlay and situated amongst similar
businesses. The only reason for the refusal from L&I was solely the property's location in the
far northeast overlay. And just so that we're clear, the only change that we are seeking is
for the use of the premises. We're not trying to change any of the physical characteristics
of the property or anything like that. Just by way of background, we're dealing with the lot
size of about 33,000 square feet here, and the improvement area is 15,000. The first picture
that I'm showing you is the front of the premises, and you can see the cease operations notice
at the bottom there, as well as the required notices. Sorry. And they have the entire property
there is it, sir? Yes, there's the entire property. And then there is a tenant in the back
who is leasing a small portion, about 25% with a separate entrance. And we've also provided the
lease for him to be doing the same function of auto repair. You'll note that there is plenty
of parking here. In addition to inside and in the back, there's nothing that's going to be
parked on the street here. Here's a photo of the interior area. This is where the customers will
wait and where the office person will greet them. There's a couple of offices for the management.
This is what the inside of the shop looks like. There's six vehicle lifts here.
This is the other side and this is some of the empty space in the shop as well.
The hours of operation for this business will be 8 to 6 Monday through Friday and 8 to 1
on Saturday.
The activities will be performed are general auto repair, brakes, oil changes, engine repairs
and inspections.
As you saw, there's a nice setup for the customers, who are mainly going to be retail customers, such that they won't have to be waiting out on the street while their cars are being fixed.
We provided all of these details to the community when we had our meeting, and thankfully, we were supported unanimously by the Somerton Civic Association, and Councilman O'Neill's office has sent a letter of support as well.
We also worked with the association to agree on the limitation of future uses, which will help protect and preserve the neighborhood, and we have attached a copy of that proposed use limitation as well.
I wanted to point out to the board that there are numerous similar businesses in the area.
We provided a list of 10 that are within the immediate vicinity from things like truck repair.
There's multiple truck repair. There's body shops, used tire shops, and also car sales.
There's body shops, used tire shops, and also car sales.
We respectfully submit that there is no harm to the neighbors or any imposition on the public resources with respect to the congestion or the street parking.
We also respectfully submit that there is no harm or threat to the health and safety and welfare of the neighborhood.
these are experienced business people who have familiarity with the proper storage and handling
of the waste products from automotive repair and i also wanted to point out to the board that not
only is there not a risk of harm to the neighborhood but there's actually a substantial
environmental benefit and that the owner has made significant investment of over 125 000 for
the environmental remediation that's currently awaiting the final approval from the DEP.
It's been a process that's been going on for a few years and was unfortunately caused by
a use a long time ago as a dry cleaner.
And I'm sure the board is aware that's one of the worst environmental conditions to have
to come back from.
So the company has a successful track record of being a lawfully compliant family business
at their other location on Roosevelt Boulevard for many years, which is right down the street
from where this location is.
They have an established customer base from within the five mile radius.
And this property was actually purchased to accommodate the growth of the repair business
because they did not have enough space at the other location at Roosevelt Boulevard.
As far as the previous use, the use proposed by my client is very similar to the previous use,
which was an engine repair facility by a company known as JDM Engine. For many years,
they had imported engines and transmissions from Japan, serviced them, and sold them directly to
the customers. We respectfully submit that this is the best and highest use of the property,
particularly on this block. And we also respectfully submit that a denial of the
zoning variance would result in unnecessary hardship upon the applicant and also create
a situation of selective enforcement given the situation of identical businesses in the area.
Yeah. We've complied with all of the requirements, including the posting of the notice.
And I can show this. Why don't you bring your client on and you can have your testimony adopted.
And I have a question. Is this address number two?
This is 2181. But I mean, is it unit number two?
Do we have that, Hillary?
we let me i believe that was what was indicated in the lease so that was going to be one of my
questions as if the you should be limited to unit two i mean you are representing the owner
and as opposed to the tenant um but yeah we just understood so you the unit two lease i i appreciate
you're bringing that up so we had submitted the lease that is for the tenant uh who's leasing the
25% on the back portion. And I also wanted to point out that that tenant had also applied for
the use through L&I. And for some reason, his application was approved back in October
while my client was denied and has gone through the process. So
number two is already approved, that are you saying?
Right. Number two has previously been approved, but we're requesting the variance for the entire
property okay okay okay that's what we want to know and and the other just while we're here the
other question was the refusal says commercial vehicle repair and maintenance but these look
this looks more like a personal vehicle repair and maintenance use like just regular you know
consumers cars not commercial vehicles is that is that correct yes that this is that the customers
are going to be just regular average people. I understood that commercial, the use of the term
commercial in that context, in that repair was being provided as a business, as opposed to
somebody just having a place to work on his own cars. Yeah, no, it refers to the type of vehicle.
So I think if the board grants in this case, then we'll include a proviso that indicates the
approved use is personal vehicle repair and maintenance. So these are people's personal
vehicles but they're taking them to a business for repair understood and i've also asked my
client amar halaj to raise his hand and he can clarify if i'm misspeaking on this issue but i
believe that there is also a small component of customers that they will have that that are part
of commercial fleets but not like trucks but but for passenger vehicles okay well i think as long
Okay. Well, I think as long as it's passenger vehicles, that would be personal vehicle repair. But I can double check on the code definition while the board members ask your questions.
as it's passenger vehicles that would be personal vehicle repair
Bring your client on, please, sir.
Did he raise his hand?
Yes. They should be coming in shortly.
Sure. Thank you.
No problem.
Mr. Halaj, please let me know and you can hear me.
I did promote the person, but I don't see them at the moment.
Okay, so counsel, you're an officer of the court.
we can accept your testimony okay questions from the board yes i have two questions one
is the facility with the shared with the other tenant of the building or do they have completely
separate facilities so the 15 000 square foot building is the same but it's separated and the
other uh okay my client is here as well um bring a one please
what's your client's hello yes sir could you please state your name and spell for the court
stenographer sure my name is amar halaj first name spelled a-m-m-a-r last name is spelled h-a-l-l-a-j
Do you swear or affirm that's all the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
So, counsel, before we answer the question, let's have your testimony adopted, okay?
Yes, sir. Mr. Halaj, you're the owner of Bennett Road Property, LLC, correct?
Yes, I am.
And you provided your deed as part of your exhibits to the zoning board, correct?
Yes, I did.
Did you hear the testimony that I presented to the board this afternoon?
Was the testimony I presented truthful and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
Yes, it is.
Did you take the photographs that were presented to the board?
Do you adopt the testimony that I presented as your own?
Thank you.
Moving back, Mr. Halaj, could you please, you can explain more eloquently than I can,
as far as the separation of the property with respect to the tenant's separate portion
and his own entrance um so the application was to uh change of use basically apparently
even the previous owner when he used to repair engines and and import them and so on
he never changed the use from warehousing to auto repair um so when we i'm just gonna i'm sorry to
cut you short the question was about uh the distinction between the boulevard auto center
portion and the portion used by the tenant in the back right so so he uh the tenant occupies about
20 to 25 of the building and change of views will apply to all the whole building basically
the tenant and myself the owner and is the tenant's part separate and distinct from yours
No, I was just referring to the fact that you said the other tenant also does auto repair.
So when we're looking at this interior of the garage, are they sharing the use of the garage?
Because the other two parts of the building that you showed as being separate were offices.
There was one photo that is in, if we go back, I have no control.
So that's the, go back, please.
One more to the empty.
No, no.
No, the empty spot.
One more.
No, go the other way.
Keep going.
All right, go.
He's looking for the empty spot in the garage.
Yeah, it's got two cars, and this is an older photo.
Right there.
Yeah, that's an older photo.
Now he has a lift, but that's the space in the back.
They're in the same open area.
there's no wall there is a door there is a roll-up go a garage door between them just like that one
the one you see in the back so it's a separate okay and and but hillary he basically said that
part in the back is already has yeah that that's that's fine we don't have to all right all right
good all right all right all right questions from the board yes a question um you said what
were the hours of operation did you say it will be hours of operation i got it tomorrow the hours
of operation will be eight to six monday through friday and then eight to one on saturday okay
and then 8 to 1 on Saturday.
and you're doing
And you're doing just, as you said,
general car maintenance, tires, oil changes, and what have you?
Is that what you said?
Engine and transmission repair.
Amar does...
We don't do tires.
The guy next door sells used tires.
And you're not doing any auto body repair or spray painting?
Okay. And then how are you disposing of the waste products like the used oil and things like that?
Right. So the used oil, if we go back, one of the photos will show our heater that we used for recycled oil, that one.
So this contains the used oil that we, when we change oil for cars and transmission and diesel, and we burn them again and use them as a heating device for the warehouse.
Now, the coolant does not go in there, but there is a company that comes and empties it.
When we call them, they come.
There is one, if you see that there is a couple of barrel, yep, it says coolant.
they come and they pump them out because you can't re-burn coolant if they get to burn oil.
Interesting. Okay. Are you doing any painting? No. Okay. Questions or comments from our attorney?
Just noting that for personal vehicle repair and maintenance, that includes autos, small trucks or
vans motorcycles motorhomes or recreational vehicles um so does it does that so that it
sounds like it would cover small fleet vehicles like if it's vans and stuff are there any is there
anything larger than that that's being um uh would be repaired here no we don't repair uh semi trucks
and big uh large freight uh trucks we the max we go is i think 16 000 pounds which is an f
yeah we don't do
trucks big trucks it's it's personal
actually it's not commercial I understand
the difference okay all right yeah so
we'll so if we the board adopts
we'll we'll add a proviso
all right questions or comments from the audience
to the virtual audience
planning commission
Amy board for the planning
commission the comprehensive plan recommends
a change in zoning at this location
from the existing light industrial I-1 to medium industrial I-2.
The appellant has shown that the proposed use would not cause detrimental impacts
on what would reasonably be expected
and that they have a previous license for out-of-body repairs.
The pending commission recommends the board grant the requested variance for vehicle repairs.
Thank you.
MI 2024-006-664-2181 Bennett Road.
I vote yes with proviso. Personal, vehicle, repair, and maintenance only.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ty Owen, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you very much, board member.
Sure. Number 12, MI 2024-006-678-5138, North Broad Street. Jennifer Bizzillo is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from Oak Lane and Worcester Coalition.
Jennifer Bizzillo will be coming in as a panel.
good morning good afternoon counsel could you please state your name and spell for the court
stenographer sure jennifer basidlow b as in boy a z y d as in dog l as in larry o as in oscar
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
Could you identify your client, a relationship to this property?
My client is 5138 Investments, LLC.
The representative here today is the sole member, Timothy Miller, and he is now the
current property owner.
We had originally submitted with an agreement of sale, but he has since purchased the property.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to either read another refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibit as needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Please proceed and share your screen.
Great.
So just before I continue, actually, I'll move on here.
i'll move on here um so just want to run through briefly our exhibits that were submitted
So just want to run through briefly our exhibits that were submitted.
um the first being the refusal um and i just want to pause a moment here our initial um application
was for four units in this property uh however uh after talking with the neighbors and also
some evaluations of the property of the project itself um we are now knocking that down to two
units so the rest of the presentation will be based on a duplex use of this property instead
of the four the four units that were originally applied for here you can see the recorded deed
that now shows the owner's 5138 investments this was the agreement of sale that was originally
submitted you can see that the property taxes are paid for this property and we have the letter of
non-opposition and the community group will come back to that uh zoning map nearby uses we're
going to come back to all of this um previous use permits for the property um which we'll go over as
well uh sorry one second um some aerial views of the property our photographs here's our posting
There are three street frontages, and all three were posted.
Photos of the property, which we'll also be coming back to.
Nearby area.
And then these were the existing floor plans, and these are our proposed floor plans.
So let me first go to, like I said, with the refusal,
So there were already conversations with neighbors before the RCO meeting, as well as some evaluations for the property after it was purchased.
So we're now seeking two units, which still requires a variance.
So let's talk a little bit about the property as it exists right now.
So this is 5138 North Broad Street.
It's surrounded by three different streets.
In the front, we have Broad Street.
on this side the main side we have west duncanon street and then in the rear there's north carlisle
street this parcel is zoned rsa3 and it's rather large the entire parcel here is over 4 600 square
feet and i just want to go to and there is an existing structure on it that is six bedrooms
three stories and over 2,800 square feet not including the sort of ground level
here that's partially above ground so we have a large building a lot of
bedrooms I'm just gonna scroll through some props some of the photos just so
you can get oriented here this is the side of the building on Ducanon and this
is from the rear on Carlisle this is another street view from the rear that's
kind of backed out a little bit that you can see Carlisle on
And here are some more photos of the outside, and then this is what the building currently looks like on the inside.
This is going from the lower floor through the first floor, and these are the second and third floor as they currently exist.
So let's just talk a little bit about the background of this property.
The furthest background I could find was from a permit from 1937.
There's indication in the records that in 1937, this was used as a funeral parlor with an additional residential dwelling unit.
There's some other permits on the record later that seems to indicate that it had been used as a funeral parlor and residential unit from 1931 on.
It later in 1988 was purchased by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
there is a large catholic church across duncanon street from here it's our lady of hope and this
property was then used from 1988 on as a convent for the sisters of saint joseph so as far as we
can tell from 1931 on it has not been a single family home with some various uses from a convent
to a funeral parlor um the archdiocese didn't use it for many years um and my client uh has
it like has an affiliation with the church and approached them to purchase it and was able to
purchase the property in december of 2024. um so what he is proposing is this is the existing floor
is this is the existing floor plan so you can see kind of how things are already laid out
plan. So you can see
and the floor plan we showed to and what I like about how this is actually done this is the
existing floor plan and then you can see on the blue lines where things might be added
so the plan would be to renovate the whole property but and to convert it into two units
This floor plan shows, you know, the lower floor and the first floor being used for one unit.
That would be a three-bedroom, and the second and third floor being used for the second unit, and that would be a four-bedroom.
This plan actually only adds one bedroom to the total bedroom count because this is already a six-bedroom house.
um and uh you know we have fairly large units uh because we have a building that with all the
space is over 3 000 square feet um so we really have two quite large units um both have kitchens
dining areas living rooms um and good size bedrooms i know that's always a concern
the smallest of the bedrooms here when i was looking is like 11 by 12 feet um we have really
good size bedrooms. It's bigger than my bedroom at home. And as you can see, these three on the
third floor and this unit, these are already bedrooms that already exist. We're going to try
to use as much of the current floor plan as possible to preserve the building, which is
actually pretty nice inside in terms of like the existing architecture, although it is in need of
significant repairs and renovations from just not being from being vacant for a while and not
really being upkept before that um so uh and then i just wanted to go back to uh to show that the
there's plenty of room in the rear yard for storage of trash for both units and they will both have
access to that rear yard um we discussed with the community group they're concerned about where it
was taken out the trash needs to be taken out onto broad street um because that's the address
of the property and that will be in any tenant's lease to take the trash to the front of the
property so that it will be picked up on the correct day um and at the correct time um and
then so and i just also want to say there is a yard large yard here uh why and why uh this is
actually great is that Tim, who owns the property, also owns a landscaping company. And so his plan
is to, you know, fix up the outdoor space as well, you know, take care of the fencing and bushes and
trees. And he has been working on the outside of this property already to get it into shape and
maintain it. And I think he had told me he'd been helping the neighbor next door trim trees and
things like that. So he has a specific skill set in order to maintain the outside of this property.
The use, even as two units, would have two refusals.
The first is for the use as anything more than a single-family home.
And as I said, this hasn't been the case for this property as far back as the 1930s.
And the other would be for accessory off-street parking.
I'm going to, with only two units, we would need two spots.
We still are proposing none, and I'm going to go over why we kind of can't add parking and also the neighbor's opinions about that in a little bit.
But let's first address the use itself.
So this is, I've marked on this map, both the zoning and then the actual uses of the properties on the 5100th block of North Broad.
As you can see, the southern end here is RM1, and then it switches to RSA3 up here.
The houses and the properties are remarkably the same in architecture throughout this block, but half of it is zoned for multifamily and half of it is zoned for, you know, or two-thirds is zoned for single family.
I would also add that across the street is RTA1, where a duplex would also be a by-right use.
of note the property immediately adjacent at 5136 is permanent for a personal care home
with six units up to 10 with up to 10 people living in it when you do these calculations here
see i also wanted to say that so 50 of the property so the uses on this block are there's
mix of mixed-use commercial, multi-families ranging from 2 to 12 units, rooming houses,
and personal care homes. And the total on this block, about 57% of the properties are
non-single-family homes. If we go up to the next block, I don't have a map,
but on the 5200 block, which you can see the zoning of up here, that you can see this is also
Up here that you can see, this is also RSA 3 and RTA 1.
So RSA 3 and RTA 1.
The 5200 block also has significant uses that are not single family residential and have churches, doctor's offices, commercial units, a 22 unit apartment building, 3, 2, 4.
So when you combine these two blocks together, which I think is appropriate because we have it kind of our properties at the corner of the 5100 block into the 5200 block, a total of 63% of these properties are non-single family residential, including both of the properties that are adjacent to ours on Broad Street.
um and again this property has as far as we can tell never been used as a single family home
so with the parking variance um we did um i think the first thing to note here let me just get to
some photos to show you um let's just get to broad street one second so as you know this is located
on broad street um and there is ample public transit available uh within a block there are
several bus lines and a broad street line stop um one of the great things about living in this area
is the accessibility to public transit um but even with that we know people have cars right
we're not going to contest that so there is like i said three street frontages on this property
about a total of 235 feet of frontage which if we do a normal size car spot of about 21
feet you can fit about 10 cars along the front rear and side of this property
and you know any any off-street parking that we would create would necessitate taking away at
least one if not two spots off of the street parking um so you know we're not really gaining
a ton by taking away a spot or two for that uh for off-street parking um when we have so much
street parking around this property anyway um i did want to also show that we did want to make
sure that you know we went and took pictures um and this is what ducannon street looks like on a
saturday morning um you could see that there's lots of open spots available um and this is this
side here at the bushes is where our property is and that's also the side of the property where
so so jennifer i think i think we understand the parking what what i think you might want to do is
go back to the uh drawings and talk about the basement and what you're putting in the basement
in relationship to the first floor sure absolutely um so great i'll just add that in the community
meeting, the neighbors actually supported not having parking. They did not want parking along
Carlisle. Those are single family homes. They did not want the parking there. So I just wanted to
make sure that that was understood. So in the current plan right here, actually, let me go to
the photos first because it's easier to understand what's happening. Right now, there is proposed to
have a bathroom and two bedrooms in the basement. But I want to show you what's going on with this
basement uh because it's not necessarily your typical row house basement uh first firstly it's
not fully underground it's about half and half um and so you can see this both on the exterior here
where this is the window these are some of the windows um for the side of the building where
you can see this is these are for the for the lower level and you also have a direct access
right now it's a bill code door but there we are thinking you're going to try to convert that into
a direct access as well for one of the rear bedrooms um so you don't have the same sort
of fire safety concerns um and then here you can see these this is the existing condition of that
you know basement lower level um and this had been used as part of the funeral home
for a long time so we have finished ceilings we have lighting we have you know you can kind of
see that there's already some larger windows in place these were obviously brought up to code
you know if there was any window wells that needed to be added but we're not going to have
to dig fully underground to get those window well situations that you see a lot of the time
so it's a little bit different there and then also what I would say too is that we don't have
even if you add those sort of window well situations we're not right on the sidewalk
it would be into their own yard so you're not taking away any sidewalk space this isn't public
space this is private space of that property um the biggest concern raised with that with this
The biggest concern raised with that, with this space, I'll go to the floor plans now, was actually that they believed, the RCO believed that we were going to have to dig down to create these spaces.
space i'll go to the floor
Even with the finished ceiling that's there, the ceiling height is over, is eight feet or more in these spaces.
They are full height rooms because they were used for a commercial purpose prior.
That being said, we understand the concern, but, you know, and we can try to work around, you know, not having bedrooms in the basement, that sort of thing.
I talked to my client and he's willing to try to work around not having the bedrooms and try to reconfigure these units.
Because, again, it is a large building with some space that we can try to be creative with our floor plan layouts.
um so i think that was but really their concerns seem to be the digging down and that's not what
we're proposing uh we are going to use the existing space that's already there
and so community meeting we did um go to the community meeting um in addition to tim also
talking with the neighbors ahead of time some of the neighbors ahead of time while he was there
um there was let me just go to the letter um so uh the two neighbors two of the neighbors that
were in attendance were the two neighbors directly behind the property who are probably the most
impacted um because they are single family homeowners uh and they voted in support um
tim has reached out to them they have his contact information they have my contact information
And in general, they were in support. They did not want to see parking in the rear of the property.
And I just want to also add that it's physically impossible for us to do that as there's a fire hydrant and a haircut here that would prevent us from accessing a rear parking here.
So the I know.
Jennifer, why don't you bring your client on?
Sure. Tim, can you raise your hand?
Excuse me, what's your client's last name?
His name is Tim Miller.
Tim Miller has been promoted.
Tim, are you there?
It'll take him a minute to get in.
Tim, but I don't see him.
I was trying to give him like a few seconds to join.
Can you hear me?
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
My name is Timothy Miller, T-I-M-O-T-H-Y-M-I-L-L-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you turn your video on, please?
Counsel, please proceed.
He's coming on now.
He was having a problem with his camera before at the meeting.
I don't know if he's going to.
Please proceed then.
Timothy, did you, did you, first of all, let me ask you,
You are an authorized representative of 5138 Investments, LLC, right?
And did you hear my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful and accurate?
And would you adopt it as your own?
Yes, I do.
Great.
Questions from the board?
for the work that you plan to do with the basement um are there any thoughts about
replacing the windows so that they're operable absolutely um in order to meet fire code
requirements there would absolutely be a replacement of the windows so that they were
code compliant and allow for any sort of meeting of the fire code standards right
other questions from the board what's the height of the uh ceilings in this
in this basement uh it is at least eight feet um it varies slightly but um the part where people
are going to be that aren't just mechanicals because there's a fun part with mechanicals
Um, but this is eight feet or more.
And, uh, you said there was going to be, uh, there was a door maybe that could be, uh,
uh open to doors so right now bedroom we saw we have um one second let me just get to the picture
open to doors.
So right now.
so i could show you there's a bill co door right here um and that can be replaced with a regular
door like there's a staircase underneath that that accesses um directly to um that lower level
bedroom so you have another means of exit other than you know any window wells that would be
create it you'll have a direct exit um out to uh the rear yard as well okay thank you yeah yeah i
see the windows i just don't see window wells they're not there yet because we haven't done
the construction work at all so this is right now this is just in the state that it's there
um and so you know as as you can see here these are where the windows are and um you know when
the building these we're going to need to have building plans put um and when those building
plans are developed, obviously any window access will meet fire code compliance in order to obtain
the CO for this property. Did you mention that your client will be as amicable to having no
basement living? To not having bedrooms in the basement. Thank you. Thank you. Questions or
comments from our attorney? My only comment was covered by Ms. Vazidlo, which was that there was
no refusal listed for parking
and it will be required.
I think there was
a refusal listed for it.
Questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience?
Chair, I have a hand up by
Charles Richardson.
Mr. Richardson.
mr richardson should be in shortly good afternoon mr chair good afternoon um could you state your
name spelled for the stenographer certainly charles richardson r-i-c-h-a-r-d-s-o-n
office of councilwoman cindy bass room 508 city hall do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Please proceed, sir.
Following the lead of the RCO, they made a couple of
proviso requests that there be no basement
living and also only two units. The councilwoman
is not ever in support of basement living, and
good to hear that the applicant is amenable to actually
changing that only to two units and not doing
any any uh bedrooms in the basement so uh the councilwoman is is uh not opposed to it as long
as there is some movement towards that towards not having basement living uh in that property
all right thank you very much anyone else in the virtual audience
planning commission
amy boyd with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change in
zoning at this location for the existing single-family residential rsa3 the property
has previously done commercial and has a history of mixed use the conversion is commercial ground
for living and to breath am i echoing
i'm echoing what my mind should be
you got rid of my testimony
did she did she finish start don't worry yeah um amy board with the planning commission
The comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning at this location
with the existing single-family residential RSA 3.
The property was previously zoned commercial and has a history of mixed use.
The conversion of previous commercial ground floor into residential
is more in line with the spirit of the zoning code.
No parking is an existing condition of the property and typical of the block phase,
and the appellant has shown that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances.
They would prevent the property from following the zoning code requirements for parking.
The Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the requested variance for two-filling residential and no parking.
Thank you.
MI 2024-006-670-5138 North Broad Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Maximum two units, no bedrooms and basement.
michael johns my vote is yes with proviso
cheryl gaston my vote is yes with proviso
tenetta graham my vote is yes with proviso
iowen my vote is yes with proviso
ishmael shaheed my vote is yes with proviso
Thank you, counsel. Thank you so much. Sure. Number 13. This is Ian Hegarty, executive director. We're going to have to take a break and hold the rest of the 930 list until 2 o'clock p.m.
thank you counsel thank you so much
sure number third
Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to take a break and we'll be back at 2 o'clock. Thank you.
oh just to start off with this is a continuation of the 9 30 list we have three cases and then
we're going to get to the two o'clock list okay so case number 13 mi 2024 006 686 2579 memphis
Street. Trevor
Serene is the attorney.
Letter of non-opposition from Old
Richmond Civic and a letter of non-
opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Good afternoon, Chair. This is Yvette Benton.
I'll be your co-host for this afternoon.
Mr. Serene is coming back in as a
panelist shortly.
good afternoon sorry i popped in and out there i'm not sure sure sure uh council could you
please state your name and spell for the court's the knock short trevor serene s-e-r-i-n-e right
i represent the applicants could uh do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do could you identify um your client the relationship to this property yes my
My client is – let me get the actual LLC name, HSN Property LLC, and they have a representative here today, Mr. Lay, Lay Goff.
He will – I believe he's in there.
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
We emailed all the documents that I believe I uploaded the tax certification this morning, excuse me.
So I had emailed the board recently about that.
Here it is. We had other documents indicating the taxes were paid, but I actually have the certificate.
So I uploaded that and that's available. I can share my screen.
But other than that, everything else was supplied.
thank you please please proceed and share your screen and we'll see it in the presentation
okay we end we did uh can you everyone hear me yeah it's starting to come up right now sir okay
all right yes we did we have filed this application we had the denial as well we have an exhibit
packet that we submitted you guys have an opportunity to review that basically we're
looking to put a small restaurant into this area originally it was there was a retail established
this is a mixed mixed-use building mixed-use area there's a apartment on the upper floor the first
floor is a commercial facility originally was used for retail that was given approval
at some point that ceased now we're here back we're looking to have a small restaurant some
takeout, things like that. We don't believe there's any modification of the building.
We're not expanding the footprint. Essentially, we're just here for the use.
Council, it might be worthwhile if you start putting photos up when you start talking about
the restaurant. We can see what it looks like, okay? Sure. So, these are some of the interior
photos. They're available in MLS. They're... Oops, sorry. I don't get too fast here.
If you can see here, the first floor already is sort of relatively set up.
there's an apartment upstairs there's not much work that we need to do
in terms of apartments so this is the basement that will be is just for storage as far as I'm
aware um so again there's a photo there sorry about the angle this is from the reverse facing
towards the front and here's a photo of the outside and you can see where you have a zoning
notices posted i also have evidence of them posted as well
okay here are the photos of us posting all the proper thing that's a time stamp just so you
guys are aware we put nine up total because we're on the corner here so we wanted to make sure
we're all there as you guys are aware the board is aware the um there's no opposition here we
have an approval letter um let's see
I have the letter here. I'll just pull it up. This is the approval letter from the old
i have the letter here i'll just pull it up this is the approval of from the old richmond
Richmond Civic Association for non-opposition. Again, the city product information form. These
were all supplied in our zoning packet. That's the zoning application. And originally, we had
applied with an agreement of sale, but we have now subsequently closed. So they,
oh, excuse me. My client has told me that these are virtually staged, this one here. So this is
essentially what it will look like but the interior is the photo so this is what it's going to
the actual plan or design and i do have some actual here you go
and if everyone can see we have the kitchen the counter the little the area the dining area here
floor plan on the first floor and this was the notice we were going to operate from 11 a.m to
11 p.m. a restaurant for dine-in byob on takeout they we do anticipate uh more takeout like walk-up
takeout kind of clientele uh it will be a cambodian thai restaurant
let's see okay doesn't notice
cancel the door that's on the side does that go up to the apartment
uh that's my understanding yeah so if i can pull out the zoning photos here you can probably see it
i believe that's the okay the door
okay um i believe that's you know essentially what we have here to present again we it was
So why don't you bring on your client
and have your testimony adopted?
Yep, if you could give Mr. Lay permission there.
Mr. Goff.
Do we see him?
He should be coming back in as a panelist chair.
Thank you.
Could you please state your name
and spell for this sonographer?
Are they coming in?
Chair, I no longer see them.
Counsel, you're an officer of the court. We will gladly accept your testimony.
Okay. He was in here all morning, so let me just see if he got bumped.
But yes, I can answer any questions.
Thank you. Questions from the board?
I have a question.
He did say he's back in. Excuse me.
He's back in?
Okay. Sir, could you please state your name as Bell for the stenographer?
Hi, my name is Leigh Goff, spelled L-A-Y-G-A-U-V.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Yes, Leigh, did you have an opportunity to hear my testimony earlier today?
Do you affirm that it's true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
Yes. The only thing that I would change is that the virtually staged restaurant picture is virtually staged by the listing agent selling a property. That is not the virtually staged representation of my client's future. I'm sorry, the future restaurant. I just didn't want any confusion there.
So from what I can gather, basically, there's no furniture, there's no booths and interior stuff.
not yet no not yet and and the main focus is is uh it's going to be take out mainly
okay okay the board has a few questions for you sure um yeah did he adopt your testimony
oh i'm sorry did you adopt the testimony oh yeah yes yes sorry about that all right questions from
the board um yes is um the basement part of the restaurant the basement is uh no that's not the
basement uh i don't i don't know you have any pictures of the basement but no it's not it's
going to be just for storage dry storage down there oh this isn't thank you yeah that's the
upstairs that's what it is currently right now without the virtual staging okay this is the
actual restaurant correct correct if you see that stairway on the left side that leads to
the apartment upstairs understood okay so just to be perfectly clear we've got the restaurant
We've got the restaurant going in on the first floor.
going in on the first floor you've got an additional apartment that's single
You've got an additional apartment,
that single apartment that's going to be on the second floor.
And the basement is going to be used for dry storage.
Who is going to have access to the basement?
All of the tenants in the building or just the restaurant?
Just the restaurant.
Just the restaurant.
And is there going to be a bathroom or any plumbing in the basement?
The bathroom is going to be on the main floor.
And then I know you keep mentioning that it's mostly takeout,
but the permit is for a sit down restaurant.
So how are you planning to situate the interiors for that business?
There will be seating for, but limited seating.
If you look at the floor plan, Trevor.
So the floor plan is accurate to you, to the tenant, not to the.
Yeah. So, so this.
So it's good. Is there a rear yard? No, there's no rear yard.
So what is the plan for trash and deliveries?
So for trash, it it's going to be two to three times a week commercial trash pickup.
And where is it going to be stored until the commercial pickup?
Alongside the the building.
can you point to where that is where you envision that happening
sure there's no site plan let me pull up the exterior photos
so you're gonna your plan is to have dumpsters next to the building
um because we're doing it um two to three times i don't i don't know if there's a need for
big dumpsters um i we we were in conversation with um the owner of franco pizzeria who's down
the block and he has dumpsters on the side of his his property uh but you know he he gets it picked
up twice twice a week we were planning on doing it um possibly three times a week just to uh
limit the um the impact it's on the other side why you can't store your uh trash in the basement
that is a possibility and then when trash pickup come we can we can put it outside yeah that is a
possibility we're just trying to you know um because because of the footprint of the building
it's it's uh there's no space outside of it out there it's trash outside of a restaurant
tends to be very unsightly also i'm assuming that's going to be the trash for the whole
building so whoever is living above will also have to store trash in the same location so yeah
right now the the apartments above they put um there's a trash um trash container on the side
of that that their door right there and then um it gets put up front when uh the trash pickups come
and then is it the owner's plan to come back to get approval for the apartment later or should
that have been on this it's it's pre-existing right now it is but isn't it pre-existing as
a single family house no it's a it's a mixed use i believe can we confirm that because that's not
what our notes say okay yeah yeah our understanding was it is zoned for single family but so i mean
you can have the single family but right i think it's probably missing a refusal for multiple
principal uses is where we're probably having an issue. And it also does not
specify where the restaurant is in the property. It sounds like it's the whole property
the way it's written. I see. It's only the first floor.
The second floor remains the same. It's the first and the basement, right? Yeah, first and the basement.
Yes. Any other questions?
Question. How many seats are you planning to have
here? Is that what we're seeing on this plan here? That it's only
eight seats or how many seats are we talking probably no more than uh 12 um most of the the
business uh anticipating is going to be like doordash grubhub on you know online orders
pick up take out type of thing okay but you're asking for a sit-down restaurant here
just uh limited seating just for um folks who don't want to take it and go they have some
option to sit and um eat there all right just just along those lines so is there a public
restroom yes yes okay because i knew you said there was one restroom i didn't know if there
was public or for the employees and are you going to be serving food on disposable containers for
food on disposable containers for the people that are staying or you are going to have
the people that are staying or you are going to have.
actual dishes like a restaurant um that's something that we'll have to um talk about
but most likely um there's not going to be any waiter or waitresses i mean i think it's just
buying food and having an ability to sit there but uh you know that can be changed um based on
the business plan and this isn't great well you it's more seats than you're allowed to have for
takeout restaurants so some of the criteria just to clarify we're not asking exclusively for a
takeout i mean obviously we do i mean sorry sit down yeah well it's more seats than allowed for
a takeout so it pretty much has to be a sit down you do have the public restroom um sit down is
kind of fills in the gap for if it doesn't meet the definition of a prepared food shop or takeout
restaurant. So you're a little bit beyond the definition of a takeout. So I think that's
probably why Elle and I put you in a sit-down restaurant category. I believe that's correct.
Got it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
I'm good now. Thank you. Good. Questions or comments from the audience or the virtual
audience. Here we have
Daniel Trubman with his hand up.
Okay. He should be coming back in as a
panelist.
Mr. Trubman, please unmute yourself.
Sorry, can you hear me now?
I can. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes, my name is Daniel Trubman.
D-A-N-I-E-L-T-R-U-B-M-A-N.
And I'm just curious.
Oh, yes, I do swear.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do swear.
Could you turn your video on for us?
Yeah, one second.
mr tubman are you a neighbor uh no i'm not okay well what's your questions i just wanted to know
if the uh restaurant operator had any experience that we may have heard of or
run a restaurant or something well i i don't know that that's a zoning issue so but but you know
We're here to decide on the zoning.
I guess it kind of goes to the use, right?
Because that does not kind of go to if they're capable of using it.
But I just also was just curious about it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Regina Tange with her hand up.
She's coming back in as a panelist.
hi could you please state your name and spell for the sonographer hi my name is regina tangy
um r-e-g-i-n-a tangy t-a-n-g-h-e do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do are you a neighbor i am please proceed okay um i attended the uh the
public hearing back in february and um there was only five of the residents that were there
yes and um apparently there were seven altogether which could be the owners of the restaurant i am
not sure who they were um some of the concerns that were brought up were already brought up about
trash um our concern is the need for trash and what they were going to do with the trash
because it's really not conducive to put trash outside of that building and in regards to
Franco Pizza he does have a bin under and it's stored underneath the steps so it's not really
visible to the neighbors and he has trash pickup every day okay five days a week because he was
at the meeting as well and expressed that concern. In regards to the trash our concern is we have had
over the summer and the beginning months rats a rat problem in our yards and we've been dealing
with that for a while so our concern with the trash would also bring more rats there is an
establishment directly across this diagonal from this property that is a store that runs from six
o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night and there is never one piece of trash out or
one piece of trash out or a trash can out for the visible neighbors to see.
a trash can out for the visible
In regards to the retail building that they were talking about recently,
I've lived on the block for 47 years,
and that retail building was a flower shop
where the woman would display her flowers in the front part
where the dining area would be,
and then um there would be the break where um the lunch um where she would do the flowers
and then her son lived upstairs so if you were saying it was a family owned yeah at that time
it was when it was built and it's been built probably i don't know how how long that building
is there there is no backyard for trash i think we had that as testimony thank you yeah and and
And that was, again, trash is our major concern.
The building itself is basically almost as big as a residential home.
So it's not really a big property to have what they are proposing.
So I voted against it while I was at that meeting, and I still vote against having that establishment there.
I wish the people well.
Also, I feel there should have been more information at the meeting and that we could have had another meeting prior to this only because five people came.
And the reason why is when the mailing came out, it came out as looked like trash mail that you get for people wanting to buy your property.
So most of the people ripped it up.
I forwarded the letter to many neighbors asking them to go to that meeting.
All right. Thank you very much for taking the time to call us. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Michelle Gaffney. She's coming back in as a panelist now.
michelle yes hello hi michelle could you please state your name and spell for the
court sonographer yes my name is michelle gaffney spelled michelle m-i-c-h-e-l-e gaffney g-a-f as in
frank f's in frank n as in nancy e-y do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth yes michelle are you a neighbor i am please proceed uh i live diagonally
behind this building on east hazard street 2327 east hazard street i'm the block captain of that
block i can verify the rat infestation issue that we have this year uh that regina was speaking of
i just wanted to know if um i know that the building does not have a backyard does it have
alleyway access i'm not um i did not see that on the drawings okay um just going to echo the
the trash concerns i was happy to hear that the um applicant is planning to have three times a
week trash pickup um but there were concerns that they were not looking to get a dumpster
they were looking to get large trash bins right i would just urge them to make sure that those
are airtight thank you very much for taking the time to call is there anyone else in the virtual
audience chair we have robin lord they're coming back in as a family how many more hands do you
have up. Robin Lord is the last hand chair. Thank you. Hi, could you please state your name and
spell for the stenographer? Robin Lord, please unmute yourself.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
robin lord r-o-b-i-n-l-o-r-d right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do are you a neighbor yes are you for this project or against i'm against
okay for any reasons other than what we've heard um yes go ahead please proceed um
And if you look at the diagram and even the pictures of the layout as it currently stands, not the staged layout that was used to sell the building.
When you go in to the apartment, when you enter the building to get to the apartment, you enter on Huntington Street.
Yes, I saw that entrance.
Right. And you turn right to go up a flight of stairs.
And you turn right to go up a flight of stairs.
So if I rent that apartment.
So if I rent that apartment, I'm going to be walking into virtually the kitchen.
But the kitchen will be, it looks like flush to the stairs.
And I just think that the drawing does not convey that this does not have a private apartment entrance.
I don't know how they're going to privatize it.
regarding the basement, I think it would be helpful if we knew for sure that the trash could
be stored in the basement, or if it could not be because of the dry food or dry goods storage
they'll be using. I also think it would help if we knew exactly how they're going to store the
trash, no matter if they put it on the roof, how are they going to store it because of the rat
infestation. And also, I see no evidence or no indication that this will be an ADA compliant
business establishment. And I see no concern whatsoever to the existing neighbors. I'm here
almost 40 years. And I see no concern whatsoever that the purchaser has in any way tried to engage
this area in the plans and the planning for what is going to dramatically impact everyone who lives
here and who waits for a bus here and who comes here. So I would respectfully suggest that the
owners, the developers, the people who will be running this business and renting this apartment,
that they give us a little more information, and perhaps the, you know, this board could
consider postponing the vote on this issue until we as residents get more information.
Thank you very, thank you for taking the time to call us. We do appreciate it.
Council, before I give this to Plante, do you want to respond to any of this?
Yeah, I just want to address a couple of the comments and concerns. We did end up after that meeting, we did go out and got additional letters of support from the neighbors. I believe that was submitted about eight or nine days ago, part of our packet.
The other entrance that they're talking about to the department upstairs is going to be walled off. It'll be a separate entrance. We're not going to have people wandering through the kitchen. I don't think that that makes any sense. So that will obviously be a separate entrance, separate thing.
I don't believe right now that there's any issue with having the trash essentially stored in the basement until it needs to be picked up.
Again, we've been discussing three times a week.
And then just I wanted to say that the ADA concern, obviously, our building permit will be compliant with the ADA.
So that's the law.
Thank you.
Planning Commission.
Thank you, Chair Bergman.
And good afternoon.
David Fecto, F-E-C-T-E-A-U with the City Planning Commission.
Do you swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Please proceed.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5,
residential single-family zoning at this location.
The city rezoned Old Richmond in 2017, and a community requested MAC change.
The zoning archive shows that this property has had use permits at various times,
starting in 1938 for a meat store, an ice cream shop, a flower shop, and a newspaper distribution
station. This property has been vacant since at least 2016. The proposed use would be more
impactful than the previous approved uses. The City Planning Commission recommends the Board
deny the requested use variance for a sit-down restaurant. Thank you. MI 2024-006-686-2579
Memphis Street. I vote yes
with provisos.
First floor and basement
only. Trash to be stored
in the basement. Michael Johns,
my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote
is no.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tywin, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael
Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Thank you.
Thank you, board.
Number 16.
MI 2024-006-710-790 South Front Street.
Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from Queen Village
and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Mr. Anastasio, if you're in the virtual audience,
please raise your hand.
He's coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Thank you.
afternoon mr chair counsel you've already been sworn just for the record state your name
yeah vern anastasio um could you could you identify your client the relationship to the
property yeah i'm here representing mr fred uh gohestani who is the owner of the property
in question our vice chair has a few questions for you sir thank you good afternoon council do
you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy yes sir have you
emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days
in advance of this hearing yes sir thank you council please proceed and share your screen
thank you mr chair members of the board this is a 90 page exhibit packet it includes a letter of
support from queen village neighbors association uh very straightforward application here uh 790
south front street is a four-family dwelling it's a front house and a rear structure that has
three separate units uh it's been that way it was built that way 200 years and as is the case
in Queen Village. It went unnoticed for a very, very long time. My client purchased the property.
During the purchase, he realized that the three back units were not legally zoned,
so that's why we're here. He intends to live at the front house, and all three homes in the back
are already occupied and they've been for decades as you can see here
we have one two and three are the rear units and then the front house
here's the main house on front there is a uh little breezeway here the gate alley that then
allows tenant for rear number one rear property number two rear property number three
and the red on the plans shows the
I just went blank on me that's weird I'm going to try again
please bear with me for just one second I'm going to have to
Take this.
so where was i i showed you the refusal yep and i showed you the uh the layout of the property
how there's a main house and how there are three rear structures one two and three
i explained to you that it's going to be owner occupied in the main house
the three rear properties are already occupied by long-time tenants
I'm going to have to make this smaller so you can see this better
here's the layout of the main house
here's the third floor bedroom on the main house
here's the rear first floor rear second floor
rear two third floor it's one bedroom one bath here's the other
It's one bedroom, one bath.
Here's the other rear.
Living room, kitchen.
Bedroom.
It's one bedroom, one bath.
Here's the breezeway.
This is how they enter.
there are all separate air conditioning units all separate electric meters all separate gas meters
and this is front street like much of queen village the numbered streets are
where you're going to find multi-family dwellings
Fitzwater, Monroe, Bainbridge.
That's where you find the single-family homes.
You can see they're very well-appointed, in really good condition.
That's really small photos.
I'll blow them up even more.
how long has he had this property ver we just bought it okay
but the previous owners have had it for generations right
here's the letter that went out to everybody inviting everyone to the community meeting
back in january and today's hearing it was very well attended here are all the people that were
mailed and of course everybody supported it and they welcomed legalizing it 164
or individual households were mailed.
Here's your letter from Queen Village Neighbors Association.
I didn't get a chance to speak to Mark Squilla.
I'm assuming he would support the position of the RCO.
We have a letter from him.
Great.
I didn't see that.
Thank you.
Other than that, again, because of the long history of it being the four-family dwelling that it is, because we have unanimous support from the community and from the council member, I'm going to ask respectfully that the variants be granted.
And with that, if Fred Gohestani is in the audience, I ask that he raise his virtual hand.
Fred is a physician, and he has been with us since 9.30 this morning.
So he may have been called to help with his practice.
Mr. Gilles Stani is coming back in as a panelist now.
That's great.
Good afternoon, doctor.
Mr. Goestani, please unmute yourself.
Do we see him?
Is he there?
Is he promoted?
I see him, Chair, but he's not unmuting.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Hi, Doctor.
How are you?
Doctor, could you please state your name and spell for the court?
Alfred Goestani.
Could you spell it, please?
Last name, G-H-O-H-E-S-T-A-N-I.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Fred, did you hear my presentation to the board?
True and accurate to the best of your knowledge?
And you adopted as your own?
Thank you.
I have nothing further.
Questions for the board.
Thanks.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience
i see no hands chair planning commission thank you chairman and good afternoon david effecta
with the city planning commission chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa5 residential
no change to the RSA.
single-family zoning at this location this appears to be a non-conforming use though with no
documented evidence of legal non-conformance the zoning archive shows that this property has a
current rental license from 2024 for one rental unit and no other history of rental licenses
the city planning commission recommends the board deny the requested use variants for four dwelling
units. MI 2024-006-710-790-South Front Street. I vote yes. Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes. Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Iowan, my vote is yes. Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes. Thank you.
Thank you. Vern, would you stay on? We have one more case. Yes, sir.
So MI 2024-006-711, 7040-48 Caster Avenue.
There's a letter of support from Community on the Rise.
Just for the record, state your name.
You've already been sworn.
It's Vern Anastasio on behalf of Lakeisha Jones for 7040 Castor Avenue.
And our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Thank you.
Counselor, do you agree to weigh the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, sir.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits as needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
Thank you, counsel. Please proceed.
Thank you.
OK, my last one today is 7040 Caster Avenue. This property is a second floor is what we're going for here.
This is an 81 page exhibit packet, including the RCO letter of support.
The application is for event space. This is going to be, excuse me for one second.
And Lakeisha Jones, who's my client, has been doing events for the last 20 years for other facilities, other folks.
She's now like to take this beautiful mid-century building space and bring event space to this spot.
Funeral lunches, showers, bar mitzvahs, things such as that.
And that's what would be going on here. This is a large commercial sort of strip mall. And there's lots of parking in the rear for well over 100 cars. The beauty of this space is that it will be used when most of the businesses are closed.
So my client will be able to avail herself of practically all of the parking that's available.
Here is, we have a trash storage will be outside, of course, and commercial trash pickup.
Here's the, we have a women's restroom, a men's restroom.
There's catering support.
And of course, there's the event space.
This used to be a kitchen appliance retailer on the second floor.
And the person who ran that business used to have the kitchen appliances outside on the sidewalk as advertisement.
It was a real problem for the neighbors, to say the least.
So they were very pleased that my client and my team presented this plan.
They're very pleased with it.
We had absolutely no pushback whatsoever.
This is the space.
This is exterior.
I've got interior as well.
And as you can see, several storefronts, diner, building supply.
There's a large food market that's on the first floor now.
It's like a supermarket, 6,000 square feet.
Other businesses as well.
And here's the interior space.
Obviously, the internal partitions will be coming down.
to make one nice assembly area significant amount of work that needs to be done
most of the time these events are going to be weekends
and events will be over wrapped up by 11 pm
And events will be over, wrapped up by 11 p.m.
As far as events are concerned, there will be some breakdown time.
It's also going to be a dry facility.
No alcohol is permitted.
That means no one can bring your own bottle or anything like that.
This is alcohol free.
This is the letter that went out to everybody.
we had a community meeting and of course that was at the end of last month and of course we
invited everyone to today's hearing here are all the people that were invited
94 individual households were mailed and as i explained and the letter shows overwhelming
support for the for the use here's our poster laminated and and placed on the
exterior gate so anyone walking on the sidewalk could see it
and because the space is a marketable upgrade to what was there before and it had long history of
commercial use in a commercial strip with ample parking and commercial trash pickup
I would have respectfully request the granting of the variants.
And with that, if Lakeisha could raise her virtual hand, I'd like her to come on and
adopt my testimony.
Chair, Lakeisha Jones is coming back in as a panelist now.
Thank you.
Hi, Lakeisha.
Hi, how are you?
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Lakeisha Jones.
L-A-K-I-S-H-A.
We lost her.
I think we lost her, Vern.
I think so, too.
Sarah, it looks like she dropped out.
I'll try to promote her again.
Vern is an officer of the court.
We'll accept your testimony.
Thank you, Sarah.
Questions from the board.
I have a question.
So the event space is on the second floor?
Correct.
And the first floor is still going to be rented out as commercial?
Yeah, the first floor is various.
I think I showed a few different businesses.
Yeah, but there's various.
It's all commercial.
Okay. And how is there ADA access to the second floor?
Not yet, but a lift is planned.
What about kitchen?
Nothing's being cooked. There's catering support, which means, you know, microwave and maybe there'll be a place for burners and stuff to heat up.
Washing dishes and utensils when the party's over.
yeah all of that will be back there back in the house so they have that are they they are not
oh no there's nothing's had everything has everything has to be built out that space is
as you saw not ready for prime time right so the plan is to have uh facilities where they can wash
dishes or pans and whatever yes sir and will that also include um some kind of way that they can
like wash floors and clean counters and tables, that kind of thing?
Of course.
And is that what catering support means on the plan?
That's correct.
And will there also be any, like, refrigerator, freezer,
that kind of thing for keeping foods cold?
Yeah, I think most...
Yeah, most places that do this sort of event space will have at least a refrigerator, but oftentimes they have like a chest freezer for ice.
Okay. And, but you're saying most places do. I guess my question is, is this place going to have these things?
not a lot of the ones that have talked before us
yes we're not talking about some places
about this place yes ma'am okay and then uh the uh restroom is going to be sorry i was being a
The restroom is going to be. Sorry, I was being a lawyer, right? Yes.
lawyer right uh yes yes
Yes. Sorry. And as a lawyer, I heard you. I know you did. That's why you threw the flag on that flag.
OK. And then the restroom. Is there going to be a separate restroom, unisex bathroom?
And is it going to be ADA accessible as well? It has to be ADA accessible.
and yes, they're already in existence, both male and female bathrooms. There might be a unisex
bathroom. I really haven't talked too much about that. All right. Okay. Thank you.
Any questions from our attorney? Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience?
I see no answer this time, Chair. Plenty Commission.
Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon. David Fecto with the City Planning Commission.
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the CMX2 commercial mixed-use zoning at this location.
The appellant has shown that the proposed event assembly facility will not cause detrimental impacts beyond what would reasonably be expected.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the requested special exception for an event assembly facility.
Thank you. MI 2024-006-711, 7040-48, Caster Avenue. I vote yes. With proviso, use limited to suite 2D or second floor?
so let's just clarify that mr so i had so um verne i was a little confused because there was
the initial lease which was for 2d but then there was an amendment that expanded the area so now
it's entirely the second floor correct okay all right so then proviso second floor second floor
yes he's limited to second floor thank you thank you michael john my vote is yes with proviso
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Tyra Wood, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you all.
We're going to start the 2 p.m. hearings.
We made it, y'all.
Took long enough, but we did it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Vern.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this meeting
of the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment. With me is our board member, Cheryl L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Taya Nguyen.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our alternate board member, LeBaron Leonard Palmer, from Development Services.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And I would be remiss to say that Mr. Palmer has been working with us for almost two years as an alternate board member.
And we invariably call him at the last minute and he's always here.
He will be leaving city government and go and take another position somewhere.
And I just can't tell you how valuable he was at his own.
I mean, and I think everybody who worked with him, he's just a wonderful person.
And I really do expect to see big things from him one day because he's that talented.
So we thank you very much.
Thanks so much, everyone.
I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. And also present is our board attorney, Hillary Emerson,
our zoning board director, Ian Haggerty, and our board administrator, Lakeisha Dandy.
A recording of the hearing will be posted on the ZBA website. By participating, you consent to be
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leave a message that includes your email address, the address of the property of the appeal.
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Do not comment on cases in the Q&A.
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across our street please remain there so we can account for you so hillary i'm going to do our
uh normal where we stand with the do so do the the the continuance and the withdrawal in blue
first and then we'll call the other cases okay thank you thank you man
number seven mi 2024 001 846 2549 1 half north 32nd street this appeal has been withdrawn
MI 2024
005385
South 11th Street
that case has been continued
and what's the date on that Mr. Chair
that date is
July 15
at 2pm
at 2pm
And I think we can now do the
Yes, we'll call the other cases up
And I believe Mr. Nockmson
Would like to discuss the continuance request
Mr. Nockmson, when do you come up?
And Mr. Masters can come up as well
And you can read all the cases into the record, Mr. Chair
Well, why don't I read the cases first
Then I'll swear to you
All right. Number one, MI 2024-001-079-3015 West York Street. Number two, MI 2024-001-084-3010
York Street. Number three, MI 2024-001-085-3012 West York Street. Number four, MI 2024-001-086-3014
West York Street. Number five, MI 2024-001-087-3110 West York Street. Number six, MI 2024-001-165-3112
West York Street. Number eight on our schedule, MI 2024-002-270-2408 North 31st Street, parcel A.
Number 9, MI 2024-002-416-3200-West York Street.
Number 10, MI 2024-002-423-3108-West York Street.
Number 11, MI 2024-003-871-3214-West York Street.
Number 12, MI 2024-004-344-3230-38 Diamond Street.
Number 13, MI 2024-005-135-2401 North 32nd Street.
my number 16
MI 2024
007 551
2338 North
31st Street
there are all the cases
They are all the cases. Mr. Nockmson, could you please state your name and spell for the courts the
Mr. Nockamson could you please state your name
and spell for the courts the novel
not? Yes. Alan Nockmson, A-L-A-N, last name Nockmson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N. Do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. And Mr. Masters, could you state
your name, please, and spell for this stenographer? Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board,
Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-E, M-A-S-T-E-R-S with the law firm of JustLaws. Do you swear or tell the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Mr. Nockmson, I understand you want to
address this first. Yes. So we received a request for a continuance of these matters
about a month ago from Bonita Cummings of Strawberry Mansion Community Concern.
um just as and i have some materials here to kind of address some of the concerns we have i
gave there are two exhibits one is a packet of emails uh i would like the board to see that
as well as a flyer for a meeting that took a community meeting that took place in 2019
so i would i didn't know if you if you want me to approach so did you did you already send the
is that emails the same packet that was emailed previously well yesterday I believe because we do
have that yes yes I believe so I don't know if the the flyer did not I don't think we received
the flyer so you can just upload the flyer yes thank you so um may I approach to um hand it to
them oh Mr. Mr. Chair I have a question about this um because we're here just for a continuing
I know I know so so I think that we have whatever you've sent right and if you could
send it again that one piece to that but i think we're okay for what i think your request is yes
so is that is that no i'm not clear as to um i'm clear that that there's an agreement on a
continuance but i'm not i just said he's gonna he's gonna mail him whatever he wants he'll copy
you but i'm not what i'm yeah but i believe he wants to make argument yes no i want to make a
I want to make a statement about how we got here today, because there were some factual inaccuracies in that continuous request.
And I think that's important to understand.
Okay, so why don't we, that's not going to take you long anyway.
Let me just make one clarification for the record.
There was one case where there was not a continuance request put in by the RCO.
So in that case, you're actually making the continuance request here.
So I just wanted to clarify that that 12 of these 13 cases had already had continuance requests, but you're adding the 13th.
That's right. And here and explaining your reason for agreeing to continue.
That's right. Thank you. That's right. And that's that last continuous request is for twenty five hundred north thirty first street.
It's a matter that's scheduled for July of this year that we would like to bundle into these other matters.
Just to state about the factual inaccuracies that were contained in the continuance request, our office has diligently pursued a community meeting for this matter, but this is not the only law firm that's tried to seek a community meeting regarding this matter.
A previous law firm, in the summer of 2024, and even before that, has tried to schedule a community meeting.
This matter has been in front of this community as far back as 2019, where this community has spoken loud and clear about this matter.
Our office, after taking over the case and getting the new hearing dates, has been in communication with Ms. Cummings since December 17th of 2024.
That's 88 days from today.
Under the rules and regulations pertaining to RCOs, she was required to have a community meeting within 45 days from initial notification by us.
She completely ignored us.
She knows our office. We've had multiple matters with unrelated clients within that time period. And time and time again, professionally, we've asked her to put these matters on her calendar, and she has refused.
The fact that she is a coordinating RCO as a legislative aide for Jeffrey Young, who is the district council member for this project, raises grave concerns.
What's your comment?
Ms. Cummings has retired from city council at this point, but when she was working for city council, she had many positions, but none of them were legislative aide.
i'm i'm on the city's website right now i'm looking at it right in front of me
she's special projects liaison according to to council member young's page okay the fact
The fact that she's a coordinating RCO or heading a coordinating RCO, and according to the city's website, is an employee of the city of Philadelphia, raises great concerns.
the fact that she's a coordinating rco
We've presented in front of Strawberry Mansion Community Concern over the years on many, many occasions.
We have never seen anyone represent Strawberry Mansion Community Concern other than Bonita Cummings.
Either she's overloaded because she's the only one handling these matters, and there's a lot of matters going in Strawberry Mansion, and I commend her for her community involvement, but she cannot delay matters such as this.
This is an affordable housing project that many of the stakeholders in the city are in support of.
We have a crisis of affordable housing in the city.
We have a crisis because the Trump administration, as you saw in the recent Inquirer article, is threatening to pull public funding for many of these projects.
Begrudgingly, we are accepting the fact that there will be a continuance, but we are afraid that our funding will be pulled, and more so because of Ms. Cummings' inability or intentional misconduct in the proceedings.
to that characterization so we we are in acceptance of a of a of a new hearing date
april 22nd for all these matters to be heard at the same time my understanding is that because
this is an affordable housing matter that hopefully we'll get the notice of decision
soon thereafter um but you know i know my client wants to speak because you know they're they've
been very frustrated throughout this whole process have expended significant funds in this process
i don't take this lightly i'm in front of this board all the time and we always try to work with
the community and be fair about it but like this is a situation that has given us grave concern
thank you mr masters l what's your comments on this sure so i just was retained two days ago
on this case and i don't have any real substantive comments to be able to give you i can tell you
that i have known benita cummings for over 25 years we were colleagues in city council for
much of that time and she is a woman of very high um uh she has very high ethical standards and
and she's a very conscientious public servant um i would like to be able to tell uh my opposing
council that that when we have a date for a community meeting i wasn't aware that the rco
meeting had not occurred in this case because i had been told that many community meetings had in
fact occurred over this case over many years and that at a certain point the developers including
which i believe includes the city of philadelphia the the philadelphia housing authority and um and
a company that they contracted with to do the development, that they started to ice out certain
community groups and did not want them to be part of the conversation. So again, I don't have a full
picture. I'm not going to present you with... I guess the question is, do you agree to this 422
date? I don't see a problem with the 422 date at this point. I believe that if we can get a
meeting together, that should give us enough time to have a meeting. Anything you want to add to
this? No, yes, we would like a 422 date and we would like an opportunity to present in front
of the community prior to that. Okay. Mr. Chair, we can accommodate these cases on Tuesday, April
22nd at 9 30 a.m. Okay. So, Hillary, do I got to go back and call the cases here? Do you mind?
thank you i know i know some of this i know that i know that but i mean i mean um i understand
his frustration um i i think that what you've said you represented your concerns very well
mr masters indicated that he's just getting into this but um we're going to grant it we're going
to give you the date and i'm going to also mark that must be heard that day thank you okay all
All right. All right. So let me start here again.
I'm going to read all these first and then do the other ones.
All right. So number one, MI20220010793015 West York Street.
Cases continue to 42225 at 930.
Number two, MI 2024-001084-3010 West York Street.
MI 2024-001084-3010 West York Street.
That case is continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
Number three, MI 2024-001085-3012 West York Street.
That case is continued to 422-25 at 9.30 a.m.
Number four, MI 2024-001-086-3014 West York Street.
That case has been continued until 422 at 9.30 a.m.
Number five, MI 2024-001-087-3110 West York Street.
That case has continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
Number six, MI 2024-001-165-3112 West York Street.
That case is continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
Number eight, MI 2024-002-270-3408 North 31st Street.
Parcel A, that case is continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
Number 9, MI 2024-002-416-3200 West York Street.
That case is continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
Number 10, MI 2024-002-423-3108 West York Street.
That case is continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
number 11 mi 2024 003 871 3214 west york street at cases continue to 422 at 9 30 a.m
number 12 mi 2024 004 344 3230 to 38 diamond street that cases continue to 422 at 9 30 a.m
Number 13, MI 2024, 005-135-2401 North 32nd Street.
Cases continue to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
And my number 16, MI 2024, 007-551-2338 North 31st Street.
That case is continued to 422 at 9.30 a.m.
and all cases aren't marked, must be heard.
So I apologize.
And Mr. Goldberg reminded me, and I may have misspoken,
2408 North 31st Street is I'm the one
who requested the continuance.
And I mentioned it as 2500 North 31st Street.
2500 North 31st Street is the one that's in July.
Yes, that will be administratively rescheduled.
I just wanted to make sure the record
was accurate in that respect.
Okay, everything good?
All right.
But they're all marked, must be heard.
Got to do it that day.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
All right, thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Knockupson, hang around.
I think I have a case of yours, right?
Pardon me?
I see something on this map.
We're closed, I think.
Which attorney is yours?
I'm with the stormy management team.
So why don't you talk to your attorney?
Okay, but I just want to address the matter that this law firm...
Mr. Chair, this is the reporter I'm not able to hear.
Sir, we're not able to take any additional testimony on the matter at the moment.
Thank you.
Thanks, everybody, for coming.
Mr. Chair, if we could make sure we do the add-ons next, and we do have an interpreter.
Good to see you.
For one of the cases.
Thank you.
Before we have a couple of add-ons we're going to handle.
So if you want one, you get a drink of water or something.
It's going to take about five, ten minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And if I just want to make sure.
board member Johns and
vice chair Shahid
are back on for the add-ons.
I'm here.
I'm going to wait for Mr. Johns
because we do need him to vote
on several of these.
What was for you?
board member johns are you available
We need him for this one. This first one.
Oh, okay.
but Hillary
I'm good
oh absolutely
I would say
okay okay
that's why she gave me that look this morning
does that mean that you're leaving me
you just come in because you're getting a party
oh my gosh
we know
We need Michael.
You're done?
Thank you.
Thank you.
oh yeah no he's there um well actually hold up mr chair can we do the um i'm sorry um
I'm out of order here. Can we do number five, vote number five first, because we do have our interpreter here, who's ready to interpret the vote? Yes, you are. Everybody is on that one.
And board members Shahid and Johns will need to certify prior to voting. Yes. Thank you.
Okay, we're going to, I don't know if you heard that, but I'm going to do number five first. So this is a re-vote, MI 2024-005-763-221 West Lallon Street. I vote yes.
Mr. Chair, was there a proviso that you wanted to add to that one?
Yeah. So here's our proviso for that. Single family household living only.
Michael Johns. I certify that I reviewed the video and my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston. My vote is no.
Tanada Graham. My vote is yes with proviso.
Tywin. My vote is yes with proviso.
ishmael shaheed i certify that i watched the march 5th 2025 video and my vote is yes with proviso
okay why don't you start this oh sorry do we do we allow we allow the interpreter to
interpret the result i think we forgot to swear him in first do i have to swear him in uh yes
Yes. Interpreter. Yes, I'm here on the line. My name is Stephen Aubain, A-U-B-A-I-N-I-D-Y-M-2-8-8.
Okay. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will interpret accurately, completely,
and impartially from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English to the best of your ability?
Yes, I do.
All right. So do we want to do it again in front of him so he heard it here?
Does the interpreter speak? Yes, I have it.
So why don't you announce it?
So why don't you announce it?
Thank you very much.
We appreciate you again and you thank you.
And do you require any more interpretation?
No, we're not. We're fine.
And thank you for your patience while we work on some other issues.
All right, Gordage, take over.
All right, number one, MI-2024-006-217, 1907 East Seltzer Street.
My vote is yes.
Cheryl.
Yes, Cheryl Gaston.
My vote is yes.
Teneda Graham, my vote is yes.
Mike Johns, we need you to vote.
Sorry about that. I didn't say it. My vote is yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Number two, MI-2024-006965, 514 East Kabat Street. My vote is yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
I don't think the next one is...
Number four.
Tenetta.
Okay, go ahead.
Go ahead, Tenetta.
Okay. Number three,
MI2024-006920
I mean, 648 to 50
North 40th Street.
My vote is yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tywin, my vote is yes.
All right, number four, MI-2024-006905, 512 East Kavak Street.
My vote is yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tannetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Cheryl, back over to you.
All right, thank you.
Number six, MI-2024-006-331-498 Midville Avenue.
I vote no.
Michael Johns, my vote is no.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is no.
Teneda Graham, my vote is no.
Iowyn, my vote is no.
Number seven, MI 2024-006-471, 2031-33 Paltorpe Street.
The vote in this matter has been postponed pending receipt of an amended refusal that reflects the proposed accessory off-street parking spaces presented at the hearing.
except for the amended refusal the record remains closed we're going to go to our regular list
so this is an all-hour list
i i did i i yes i i was at 10 and i'm going on vacation tomorrow so i'm very happy about that too
number 15 mi 2024 005 631 5226 chester avenue al knockamson is the attorney
unanimous support from the 51st Ward
Democratic Executive Committee
and there's also the applicant
has a form letter of support
from a neighbor on an adjacent block.
Alan Nackamson, you've already been sworn.
Just state your name for the record.
Alan Nackamson.
Do you agree to the waiving of
the reading of the refusal
and do you agree with its accuracy?
please proceed sir
all right so i'm here to present 5226 chester avenue
it's a corner property in the southwest section of philadelphia
we are looking to put a quadplex here uh you'll we'll review first a notice of refusal then a
letter of support from the 51st Democratic Executive Committee. We did make some modifications
based on our discussion with them, and we have a revised proviso plan form. We have a letter of
support from a nearby neighbor, the property history, nearby RSA, five multifamily projects
which are on that block, a narrow view of the property, maps of the area, photographs of the
my narrow view of the property maps of the area photographs of the property in the surrounding
property in this around the area.
area our plans and drawings which were designed by 24 7 design and in the virtual audience i have
christopher johnson the architect's representative our rco meeting notice as you saw it was unanimous
support it was a well-attended meeting and we have proof of mailing of that notice
our application for appeal that we filed with the zba or our deeds of property showing that can
properties. One LLC is the owner of the property and our certificate of tax clearance showing that
we are tax compliant. First things first is our notice of refusal. This is an RSA 5 property,
but I believe in name only. It's a rather large lot of, what's the lot size? 1,960 square feet.
We're looking to put four units in here. And as you'll see in the plans and drawings, each of the
units have its own front door. There is no basement living. That was one of our provisos
you'll review. We got rid of the basement living. We got rid of the egress wells as well.
The basement is only for mechanical storage only. We have three refusals. First is the use of the
property. We're asking for four units. This is an RSA 5 property. We'll see further along in
the presentation that this property has a history for four-family use. And in addition to that,
the properties next door to us are also multifamily in nature now because of approvals
and their density is greater per square foot than our density and we'll go over that as well
our height where 38 feet is allowed we're proposing 40 feet again we are in conformance
to neighboring properties that have been approved previously by way of the city and we'll review that
as well later on in the presentation. And then our occupied area, our request is de minimis in
nature, where we're seeking 32 extra square feet in lot size, but our backyard is almost 18 feet
in depth, which is actually deeper than the property to the left of us as well. So in actuality,
we provide more light in there than even properties that are next to us, and we'll discuss that as
well letter of support we met with the community unanimous support and you know they referenced
that one nearby neighbor the reason why i reached out to that neighbor we reached out to that
neighbor mr khan has done other projects in southwest there was some discussion about some
issue he had with one of those properties with a next door neighbor about completing the sidewalk
we brokered obviously a resolution in that regard to make sure that the sidewalk was completely
redone at Mr. Khan's cost. And then the neighbor showed up and said, yes, Mr. Khan does the right
thing. And I support him because he's a man of his words. And then again, before there was living in
the basement, we didn't think it was appropriate, especially after the community comment. So we are
removing the living in the basement, removing the egress wells, and removing the basement living.
and we would agree to a proviso on top of that in terms of basement living, no living in the
basement. And this is our revised plans. Letter of support. This was from the next door neighbor
of another project that Mr. Khan did. Again, there was some discussion previously of had this
neighbor having an issue. Mr. Khan dealt with him appropriately, responsibly, and now supports
this other project, which is nearby. Property history. So as you can see here, this property
has a long history of multifamily use for units. Nearby RSA five properties, which are also
multifamily in nature, 5220 Chester Avenue. This is a 15 unit building with commercial on the ground
floor. And, you know, which would, you know, we don't think it's appropriate to put commercial
here on the ground floor. This is an RSA five property, which would require an even more of a
variance, but it's also 41 feet in height. So again, we're asking to have 40 feet in height,
so a lesser variance, but also follows the roof line of the nearby properties. And then 5216-18
Chester Avenue, that's a nine unit building, 41 feet in height, also commercial on the ground
for. Per square foot, our property is 490 square feet of lot size for each unit. These other
properties are either 451 square feet per lot size per unit or 397 square feet of lot size per
unit. From a density perspective, we are less dense than those other properties.
Area view of the property. So this is an older view, but I got this off of Google Earth because
the at least this building is almost built like at least the structure is but there's a a 40 unit
apartment a 45 unit apartment building here on chester avenue and then there's these rather
avenue and then there's these rather two large multi-family buildings so it would be out of
two large multi-family buildings so it would be out of character
character to require us to have a single family lot where you have these two other rather large
apartment buildings with height and everything else that we're seeking is in line with what they
have maps of the area again you know we are rsa5 we're rather large lot but there is multi-family
on that block both as a right and by way of variance and then again we're on the bus line
as well so again would you would think that we would be allowed to have multi-family here plus
it's a corner property from a city planning perspective you know having multi-units is is
a reasonable request plus the history of the property as well as four units photographs of
the property so this is the front of the property from chester avenue from south lindenwood street
this property has been vacant as far back as you can go on google street view at 2000 you know 2007
this is the nearby structure well these are hearing notice posters but you can see this
nearby building structure is is at least the shell of it is complete and it's rather large
in nature while our rear yard setback is 18 feet theirs is only nine feet so they're actually
blocking some of our light in there in in that respect but we are getting a refusal because our
property doesn't go as deep as their property and this is chester avenue to the right of the property
to the left of the property, South Lindenwood Street to the right of the property, and to the
left of the property. Our plans and drawings, again, Chris Johnson of 24-7 Design, the architect's
representative, is here, but what they envisioned doing was to have the traditional brick facade,
many windows, so each of the bedrooms, living areas, have windows in them. Again, no living in
the basement, but you're going to see four doors here, one for each unit. Also, to kind of mask
the height of the building, we try to do a change in color of materials as well.
And then again, these are our floor plans, but you can see the four front doors, unit
one front door, unit two front door, unit three front door, unit four front door.
Unit one and two are bi-levels.
I mean, there is access to the basement, but again, no window wells, and we would agree
to a proviso, no living in the basement.
uh but this is a two bedroom two and a half bath of 1198 square feet as you can see here
there's many windows in all the living areas nice little uh open floor plan for units one and units
two oops wrong way and then for the second floor is where you have the two bedrooms and the
bathrooms uh trash uh would be stored outside so that will be another proviso because we take
advantage of the fact that we're a rear property but this these are units one and two to get to
units three and four you have front doors unit three unit four and i don't know i keep going
backwards but like here is the same type of floor plan you have an open floor plan of a kitchen
a dining room and a living room you can see windows throughout same thing for unit number four
and it's a bi-level unit where you have the bedrooms up top and you can see there's ample
windows for all the bedrooms and that that's where the bathrooms are as well rco meeting notice we
met met with the community on march 4th at 6 p.m this is proof of email of that notice that we sent
a few weeks ahead of time to give them notification that not only did we mail the notice but you know
i mean that we sent out the notice but we mailed it and here's the proof of mailing the notice
to 126 addresses these are the addresses proof of mailing to those addresses or application
for appeal that we filed on behalf of con properties one llc along with the notice of
refusal the project information form the deed to the property showing the con properties llc is
the owner of the property and then filing the certificate of tax clearance while there shows
There's a balance of $692.90.
That money is not owed until March 31st of 2025.
I will stop sharing my screen.
I would ask that Sabas virtually raise his hand and be sworn in.
Chair, I see no one by that name.
Okay. Alan, you're an officer of the court. We'll gladly take your testimony.
Thank you.
Questions from the board.
Yes. Question. There's no basement living.
No basement. We do not show any basement living, and we would be happy to accept a proviso of no basement living.
Okay. Thank you.
question well the bi-level unit did include that did assume the basement as part of the bi-level
question well the bi-level unit did include that did assume the base
it did originally it did and you know speaking to my client i indicated why would you need
three floors for living i think two are enough and then after speaking to the community i you
know he changed his mind okay questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
just to clarify on the revised plans it still shows unit one and two in the basement are those
are they the only ones that have access to the basement that's right that's why it's showed as
part of their unit okay all right just wanted to clarify that thank you questions or comments
from the audience for the virtual audience chair we have jeremy blatstein they're coming back in
as a panelist now.
His name is Jeremy.
Yes, Jeremy Blatstein.
Mr. Blackstone, please unmute yourself.
Hi, Jeremy.
Can he unmute?
chair he might have an outdated version of zoom because there's no option for him to unmute
okay is there anyone else in the audience chair we have lavar clark and they're coming back in
as a panelist now okay lavar could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
LaVar?
LaVar, please unmute yourself.
Yes, I'm unmuted.
LaVar, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Name is LeVar Clark, L as in Larry, E as in Edward, V as in Victor, A as in Apple, R as in Robert, Clark, C-L-A-R-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, I am.
Please proceed.
Yes, I am the direct neighbor right next door to this development.
The developments that Mr. Alan Nockleson mentioned of 5216 to 5224 are my developments.
I have been in communication with Alan Nockleson last year when this particular parcel came up for a board hearing.
We talked about some issues.
Mr. Nockleson at that time mentioned that he would let me know about the next community meeting that would actually happen in regards to some of the issues that we presented.
I wasn't informed of that particular community meeting. I found out late yesterday that they actually had it and that the ZBA board hearing was today.
This is why I'm here to address some of the issues and concerns about this particular development.
I've been, yes, I've been in front of, I'm sorry.
Go ahead, please proceed.
Yes, I've been in front of the board last year with the developments that I have next door.
okay um met with the community plenty of times uh community community meetings a lot of the people
know me miss allen knows me personally as i've talked to him and had meetings with him previous
on other issues um we were approved for those developments next door to give you a quick
history there are only six lots on that particular block between lindenwood and uh wilton street we
were approved i own five of them so 5216 to 5224 chester avenue are all owned by me which were all
approved for mixed use. You have 52 direct next doors, 52 20 to 24, which is a 15-unit mixed-use
property, which is going to have commercial on the first floor. And then 52 16 to 18, which is
also a mixed-use property, which also is going to have commercial on the first floor. This particular
block currently right now, as it's projected, already has about 24 residential units coming
on it. Also, what he mentioned, 5200 Chester Avenue has 45 residential units, 4,500 residential
units, and 5200 Chester Avenue doesn't have any commercial. The reason why we actually set out on
this block to do commercials is because we wanted to have amenity space for the community.
When Ms. Allison presented his poor case, I explained to him that it makes sense to do
commercial on the first floor, even though I know he has an RSA 5 zoning, the least restrictive use
of that would be a duplex. And I explained to him, if it's four units going to come, it should be
some commercial space, knowing that there are 70 plus units coming on this particular block
units coming on this particular block in this particular area and also future developments
in this particular area. And also
that are actually coming through this particular area. That mixed use for amenity standpoint for
the growth of that particular community to me would be much more warranted. I explained that
to Mr. Opsen. He said he would sit down with me and try to work out something that would be
beneficial for the community and for everyone that was involved. I didn't get a call even though I
I have his personal number. I did not get a call for that, that the newest community meeting,
even though I knew about the first one that was postponed. I'm just asking that the board looks
at this actual proposal and understand what is actually best for the community, looking at the
precedent that was already set on the block by me in the previous zoning hearings in regards to the
other five parcels that are actually on this block. And, sir, you didn't know about the RCO
meeting no he i was not informed about this this new rco meeting that was that was handed from i
understand it was it was last week the gentleman that he mentions um that gave a a right of a
approval for 5307 chester avenue i know about that particular parcel because at one time i owned that
parcel and sold it to the new owner right he's the one that informed me that there was a community
meeting that was held right and i never got notification and i see it was it was 14 to zero
and Pharaoh. It was 14-0, but I'm the one next door that is directly impacted and is also looking
to change. But I wasn't informed, and even though Al Knoxon knew, because I talked to him before the
first time about the actual community, and he was gracious at that time to say that I talked to him
and tried to address concern before he was blindsided at the zoning board, but also informed
me that he would let me know about the next community meeting that was going to happen in
regard before this time, but I was never informed. All right. Thank Mr. Clark. Thank you for taking
the time. And Alan, why don't, why don't I wait to see if there's anybody else? All right. And
then we'll be soon. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience? I see no hands. I see no hands
of this time, Chair. Yeah. Mr. Chair, I did reach out to Mr. Clark the first time. And during our
discussions, he indicated that he was rather upset with my clients because my client developed
at a property at next door to 5307 that he sold to Mr. Let me just make sure I have the name
right. The one who signed the letter of support, Mr. Adolphs, and indicated, you need to make it
right with this guy, because I'm really upset with the situation here. That's what we did.
And during the community, and we got a letter of support. And this, the gentleman actually
showed up at the meeting and voted in favor. And during the meeting, we talked about community
benefits, and he mentioned Mr. Clark by his first name. Oh, yes, my client, Mr. Adolphs, and Mr. Clark
would love to do community benefits. Our understanding was that that was what the ask was
in terms of working through that. Mr. Clark did state that he thought it was more appropriate to
have commercial on the ground floor. That would require an even greater variance that we're
requesting. This is an RSA 5 property. And I understand Mr. Clark's position. He owns other
properties on that block. But I'm looking at the zoning permit for 5220 Chester Avenue. Those were
RSA 5 properties. He sought a commercial use. He can't then push it upon another property owner
to also now seek a greater variance than that property owner wants to do, especially given the
history of the property at four units. Same thing again with 5216-18 Chester Avenue. According to
the zoning permit that's in front of me, that was mixed zoning of CMX2 and RSA5. Doesn't look like
it had a calendar number, but that also had RSA5 zoning. Again, we respect the fact that Mr. Clark
has developed in this neighborhood, but at the same time, we are asking that the board consider
this application as the least modification possible requested under the philadelphia zoning code thank
you very much thank you planning commission
chairman thank you chairman and good afternoon david vecto with the city planning commission
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa 5 residential
and single-family zoning at this location the proposed height and occupied area variances are
minor and in keeping with the purpose and spirit of the zoning code this is a primarily primarily
multi-family block face with unit counts ranging from two units to nine units the appellant
proposes four the city planning commission recommends that the board grant the requested
use variance for four dwelling units and the proposed dimensional variances for occupied area
and height. Thank you. MI 2024 005 631
Thank you. MI 2024-005-631-5226 Chester Avenue. I vote yes with provisos. Revised plans, one page, stamped by CBA, March 12, 2025. No basement living, trash stored inside.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with provisos.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with provisos.
Senator Graham, my vote is yes with provisos.
Hi, I win.
My vote is yes with provisos.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
Is there anyone in the audience whose case has not been called yet?
3.30 list.
Oh, 2 o'clock list.
I'm sorry, 2 o'clock list.
All right, we're going to take a five-minute break, and then we'll be right back, and we'll
finish up.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this meeting of the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
With me is our board member, Cheryl L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Tanetta Graham.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our board member, Michael Johns.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our board member, Taya Nguyen.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is Hillary Emerson, our attorney, our zoning board director, Ian Haggerty, and our board administrator, Burstrator, Lakeisha Dandy.
Recording of this hearing will be posted on the ZBA website.
By participating, you consent to be recorded.
This is an in-person meeting with remote capabilities. Whether remote or in-person, if you are called to speak, you must state and spell your name and then wait to be sworn in. Once you've been sworn in, please state your name each time before your testimony.
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Verbal and physical aggression will not be tolerated.
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to the right when speaking on the record you must speak directly into the microphone
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please call follow the directions given over the public address system or by the staff
the main exit is through the double doors at the rear of the room the nearest stairwell is to the
left outside the doors in case of an evacuation the rally point is love park directly across
Smart Street. Please remain near so we can account for you. Let's look at our schedule for this
afternoon. Number three, MI 2024-006-700-3801-Old York Road. That case is continued.
Number six, MI 2024-006-713-2618 North 22nd Street.
That case is continued.
Is there any other requests for continuance?
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, what are the dates that those cases will continue to?
Oh, I'm sorry.
So both cases will be August 27th at 3.30 a.m.
p.m., yes, thank you.
3.30 p.m., I'm sorry.
Okay, so number one,
MI 2023-005-909,
2219 West Oxford Street.
Alphabet of Equities is the LLC.
No exhibits, third listing.
There may be an attorney needed.
We also have Brenda Harris as the listed applicant.
Brenda Harris and Alphabeta Equities, LLC.
Good afternoon, Chair. This is Javette Benton. I'll be your co-host for this afternoon.
I see no hands at this time.
I see no hands at this time.
No one appeared on 710.
No one appeared on 710.
Applin requested a continuance on 3624.
She is selling the property at 322 on 32224.
So MI 2023, 005-909-2219, West Oxford Street, I vote to dismiss.
Michael Johns, my vote is to dismiss.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is to dismiss.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is to dismiss.
Iowyn, my vote is to dismiss.
And number four, MI 2024-006-702, 1638 Porter Street, no exhibits, first listing.
Ralph Lane is the listed applicant.
Bai Fang X. Chen is the listed owner.
i see no answer this time chair so mi2024 006702 1638 porter street this is the first listing
the case will be continued to august 27th 3 30 p.m
we'll go to our regular list now
we'll start with
number 7
MI 2025
000471
4400 Market Street
Ronald Patterson is the attorney
there's a letter of non-opposition
from Spruce Hill Community Association
a letter of Councilman
Gauthier's office expressing
non-opposition
uh good afternoon good afternoon counsel could you state your name and spell for the court
stenographer sure my name is ronald r-o-n-a-l-d patterson p-a-t-t-e-r-s-o-n with claire harrison
law firm 1835 market street do you go ahead 19103 do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth yes i do could you identify your client the relationship to the
property? Sure. I represent the property owner and developer, which is 4400 Market Street, LLC.
The general partner owners group is the Orans Brothers Real Estate Group. And with me is Scott
Orans, who is a principal. Okay. Do you agree to the waiving of the reading of the refusal and do
you agree with its accuracy? Yes, I do. Okay. Well, why don't you proceed? Share your screen
and proceed. Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, so this application regards 4400 Market Street.
It's located here.
It's an aerial picture at the corner of 44th Street and Market Street.
It's currently vacant land, and it consists of 10,411 square feet.
The zoning district is a CMX-4.
Here's some ground-based pictures.
So, in 2024, we obtained a buy-write permit that approved a seven-story structure, show
you a picture.
Before that, I'll show you some of these site pictures surrounded by multifamily buildings, of which Scott will identify which ones are his under development and in operation.
So we, there we go.
Seven-story structure, having 84 single-family residential dwelling units,
nine of which are moderate-income units, with retail on the first floor of $2,300.
are moderate income units with retail on the first floor of 2360 square feet. Within the building
though we also were providing parking in a mechanical access parking configuration and if
you see this little elevation here you'll see how the cars parked beneath the surface
floor here, and we'll put into that more detail. So there's seven spaces below grade, and Scott
will explain how it works. Based on the number of units and the credits and all, we were required
to have 15 parking spaces, and eight of them were going to be provided off-site around the corner
of one of those buildings you saw in the initial pictures, which the Warren Brothers owns, and they
were going to park there under a non-accessory parking permit that the department had issued as
a matter of right so by nature of this mechanical parking garage you could add two levels atop as
you see in this photograph and here's what the rendering would look like because it's a it's a
it's an elevator type of nature and the cars go up the cars go down the cars they shift
so adding two more levels completely within the building would not change make any change to the
building to the exterior it would be imperceptible from the outside yet it would add additional 13
spaces and provide a benefit to the community to add additional parking spaces that are needed in
the area. The refusals that we received, one was a referral for providing above ground parking
garage, which is having the two additional levels above grade. And the second was a refusal for
not providing a sufficient ADA van parking space. And I'll show you that here.
So we were providing one space here, as you see. But in this area here, the walkway was only five
feet and the code required eight feet under the ANSI regulation. So what we did was we modified the plan.
Here we're showing the original plan at five feet in width on this area here and
we've modified the plan to provide the required eight foot width here so we have submitted
an application for an amended site plan approval with proviso to address that refusal so this case
then defaults to a special exception case so the referral was for the additional 13 spaces
which we believe would create no negative impact to the building or the area and again yet provide
a benefit. You'll hear about why the design would be necessary. So, but with that said,
I'll introduce Scott and get on with this. So, Scott, tell the board.
Yeah. Sorry. Let's start over. Tell the board your name and address, please.
Name's Scott Orens, O-R-E-N-S, 444 North 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19123 is my address.
Scott, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
And Scott, please tell the board your affiliation with the development.
I am one of the partners of Warren's Brothers.
We are the general partners of this LLC.
And you've heard my presentation so far.
Would you agree it's true and accurate?
And would you adopt it as if it were your own?
And briefly in these photographs that we started off with, are these your buildings?
Yes, the one you have your cursor on right now.
Okay, that's 4419 Ludlow.
4419 Ludlow.
And then how about back here?
That is 4415 Chestnut Street.
These are buildings that we've owned.
The land underneath these buildings we've owned since the early 1980s and 1990s.
And so in the 4419, there's 32 apartments.
Correct.
Is that fair to say?
And 4415, there's 40 units?
40 units.
And both have first floor commercial.
And parkings as well?
4415 Chestnut Street has parking.
Okay. And I show this because you have a kind of a mini master plan for the area you're developing under. Okay. And so it was true, we got a buy right, we obtained a buy right permit for the underground parking, the seven spaces, correct?
Correct.
And why couldn't you dig lower and put more spaces beneath the grid?
This was previously a gas station. There were a lot of environmental concerns which took us a number of years to clean up. The current Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has allowed us to basically cap the existing ground upon which we are building, and they allowed us to go down one story enough to park the required number six.
go down one story enough to park the required number six cars below grade and in order to do
that we had to use a mechanized parking system which would lower the cars down and that system
can handle more than just the six or seven cars that were originally showed in the original permit
and and your first floor has a high ceiling correct and so that has not changed in the design
correct nothing so this is infilling the area and it would be imperceptible from the exterior
and how would this work with the two additional levels cars would pull into the garage and they
would enter the uh mechanized parking system and it essentially works as a shuffler it shuffles
cars around and uh there's always one empty space so if you call for a car and your car is on the
third level it moves cars uh in a jigsaw pattern until it gets down to the grade you get into your
car you drive off it's not a valet type system you can people can access it themselves without
any assistance okay and you met with the spruce hill community association we did and you presented
the plan and what was the response um they needed some uh my changes that they'd like to see to the
exterior facade uh based upon our original rendering uh we agreed to them and we presented
it a new rendering. And based upon that, I believe they've issued a letter.
Yeah, we received the letter late on Friday, I believe. I don't know if the board has it,
but I have it on the screen here. Is it on the screen? It's not on the screen.
How about that? All right. Let's try that again.
There we go.
so let me ask you as a developer that's vested in the area will would the granting of the special
exception in your mind for the above ground spaces within the building cause or create
any greater impacts than would having the seven spaces below grade no i believe if anything it
reduces the impact of additional apartments without additional parking the fact was you
were going to have to, I guess, valet eight cars to 4415 for compliance for offsite within a thousand
feet of that property, correct? Correct. Okay. Anything else you'd like to add? No. Okay. Thank
you. That's all I have. Question. Questions from the board? I guess my question would be, all right,
So you're providing spaces for an adjacent property and for this property?
Is that what I'm hearing?
Well, so initially, we only had seven spaces on this property, and the additional eight were going to be provided off-site at 4415 Chestnut.
So now we don't have to do that.
so those spaces are available and now we would have 13 more spaces available here
which actually would be used for non-accessory purposes for the neighborhood is that correct
so it was kind of a strategy to get the buy right permit and then we found we were able to put
additional levels of parking here okay okay was this is part of the affordable housing overlay
correct uh it is correct and you're how many units are you providing not moderate
nine moderate units
nine in lieu of right correct
you said how many
nine nine okay yes
and what were the
you said there were minor corrections or
changes that the
RCO wanted to the building
what do you remember what they were
yes they
wanted a different look on the facade
that was on Market Street
and a slightly different design
on the facade
that is on 44th Street
they were changes that i didn't think were i mean they're going to cost us a little bit more money
but i think that uh um it's worth it for this their support and does this rendering reflect
this rendering does reflect that the the facade on marketry right now is very similar to the facade
that they uh liked and approved for 4415 chestnut street so kind of carries the the motif that we're
doing with regard to facades uh also all of the units all the one bedroom units of which there'll
be 78 in this building they will all have uh balconies uh which is actually kind of unique
for the area so uh the the balcony design the the uh was changed somewhat based upon their
confidence and scott looking at this photograph this area when i'm touching that's the entrance
to the garage that's where the entrance was previously so nothing has changed okay and the
landscaping plan that we see here that was recommended by the RCO as well and
that was okay for you okay questions or comments from our attorney Hillary
Okay, questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Emerson
Just a clarification, because it says on the refusal,
accessory parking, not non-accessory parking.
Yeah, so
yeah, it'll stay accessory. We had a discussion with the examiner who said
we'll change it as a matter of right, if this gets approved.
Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you. I wasn't asking for that now, I was explaining what was going to happen.
Good catch. Thank you. She always gets good. He's got it.
So questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair. No hands? Chair. No hands. All right. Thank you. Planning Commission.
Ron Bednar, City Planning. First name Ron, R-O-N. Last name Bednar, B-E-D-N-A-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Ron.
Property is indicated for commercial use on the city plan.
The proposal should have no detrimental impact beyond what might be expected given its location.
Therefore, we recommend that the Ford grant the special exception provided adoption of revised plan that included van accessible parking as required.
And what I'm showing you now is my amended application.
Okay, thank you.
And the plan.
So, NY 2025, 00471, 4400 Market Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Revives plans, three pages,
sent by ZBA on March 12th, 2025.
My vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
I win. My vote is yes with provisor. Thank you very much. Thank you, counsel.
Thank you. So number two, MI 2024-000237, 1939-31 North Hancock Street. David Shafkowitz is the attorney.
David Shafkowitz is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
I do not see a letter or a summary at this point, but neighbors were sent with proof of mailing attached.
Sorry, Mr. Chair, I was joining in as you were mentioning that I missed part of it.
Hi, could you, well, first of all, could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. My name is David Shafkowitz. First name, David, D-A-V-I-D. Shafkowitz is S-H-A-F as in Frank, K-O-W-I-T-Z.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Oh, I do.
Could you identify your client, a relationship to the property?
uh yes um i'm here on behalf of the impact group which is the owner and applicant of
actually two parcels of property that are on the board's agenda for today all right thank you so
and when you were coming in i said there's we do not have an rco letter at this point or a summary
but notice was sent to neighbors with proof of a mailing on october 23rd 2024 before south
Kensington Community Partners?
That is correct, Mr. Chair.
We were in touch with the RCO a few times.
The position that was taken following the meeting was no opposition,
or they were going to file a letter of opposition,
but we will happily supply that if post-hearing as necessary.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal,
and do you agree with its accuracy?
Why don't you share your screen and start your presentation?
Thank you. If I may, before I share, I'll just introduce myself and my client. And I know this is something a little unusual as a request, but I wanted to, as the board may know, there's a second application on the agenda with the same owner applicant under 1345 North 2nd Street.
what it is is both that both pieces of property are owned by the impact group if the board's
familiar with impact group they are a not-for-profit affordable housing entity that
its sole purpose is to do their best to provide affordable units within the city of philadelphia
they happen to own both parcels both parcels were conveyed to them by the rda and both parcels do
have deed restrictions for affordable affordability on them the only reason i asked the board and i
present it kind of jointly is the applicant does look at both these pieces as one kind of project
the way it's set up between the two parcels there's going to be a total of eight units proposed
six of which are going to be or i'm sorry five of which are proposed to be affordable three of which
six of which are going to be, or I'm sorry, five of which are proposed to be affordable,
three of which are market rate.
The concept that the market rate units help support the construction of the affordable.
So, you know, I see my attorney reaching for her microphone.
I'm sure.
Apparently she has something to say to you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Shafkowitz.
So because the properties are on different blocks and the projects are a little bit different,
one being two units, one being six. We do want to hear them separately. However, if there are
remarks that are including background about your client that are applicable to both,
you can just state them once and indicate they're incorporated into the record for your other
hearing. I figured as much and I just, I appreciate that. And I just wanted to provide the board some
background. I kind of find it unique that I was, I have the pleasure of representing this group and
what they're trying to do in the community. So I appreciate that. But starting with,
I'll share my screen, and I'll start with 1529.
Let's see.
So I hope the board can see the attached, can see my screen.
We do.
Yeah. And what I'm showing is just a copy of the tax map that has our property located in gray, outlined in blue, located at 152931 North Hancock Street. As the board is well aware, it's in the RSA zoning district. The RSA 5, I apologize.
um the parcel consists of about 3100 there are 3110 square feet currently vacant obviously takes
access directly to north hancock street it's in in a mixed zone as you can see it has rm1 zoning
across the street which is a permits multifamily this particular um unit that's being proposed here
There is going to be a six-unit building that was presented to the RCO, and the RCO, I believe, for this particular one, did make—oh, maybe I misspoke because I was confusing it with 2nd Street, Mr. Chairman.
Was this one, if they did not file their report, this one was a support from the board, so we'll make sure we get that submitted as well.
But as noted, and what I'll do is let me go back to get some more information because this, for some reason, doesn't look right.
I'm in trouble with my share screen figures.
ah can the board see this one we can all right but i'm going to take you over to
yeah okay we're on the right one i apologize so um what's being proposed as i said is a six unit
three-story building um as you can see this is a rendering that was prepared by cicadia
architects that shows the building proposed from an elevation standpoint and remarkably how it fits
into the street or the block that it's located. As we stated, right directly across the street
is a large parcel zone multifamily. As you can see from this particular elevation, there is a
first floor unit that will take direct access from the street. The area that's located to the right
of the photo is an alcove to which will lead to a shared walkway or staircase, which will have
each three units on each side of the building and i'll show you a little bit more what that looks
like um so here's here's a statement or an elevation of what the property would look like
what's showing here in 1529 is where our access would be and this would be a point where there'd
be the shared um uh stairway to all to the three to the three units on each side of the building
the part that's interesting about this particular project like we noted
Of the six units being proposed, four units are proposed to be affordable.
Two units are proposed to be market rate.
All the units will be for sale.
And all the units range in size, or all three bedrooms, they range in size from 980 square feet to just over, or 927 square feet to about 1,020 square feet.
And I could show you that here.
Hopefully this is something that would be visible or easily read.
But as you can see, there's the shared centered stairway. There's three units on either side of the building. Each building would be three bedrooms, family room, kitchen. The second and third floor would be the same. And as you can see, as it compares to the properties in the area, it's of the same similar size look.
and as you can see as it compares to um the properties in the area it's of the same similar
size look shape etc um the refusal was based on the zoning being it being uh rsa5 multi-family
is not permitted but we believe that this would be suitable as it relates to the um
fit in with the with everything else that's in this vicinity and mostly as indicated on our
rendering here that shows how it exactly fits in to our adjoining properties, maintaining that
same look as the properties adjacent to with the three stories, the windows, and creating some
architectural interest. As we stated, Mr. Chairman, if the RCO did not submit it, this one, they were
in favor, expressed to us that they were in favor of the application. With me also, should the
board have any questions is darren edwards from cicadia architects who can offer some more details
about the building as necessary and casey o'donnell from impact should the board have any questions
about how that procedure works and uh their intent in terms of how they operate and their proposals
for this property and what will ultimately be second street as well okay so so why don't you
bring your client on and have your testimony adopted and then we can start there okay darren
Can you join in?
What's your client's name, Mr. Shavkowitz?
We're looking for Darren Edwards first.
Is she the architect?
He's the architect.
Why don't we start with the owner?
I can always bring the architect on you.
My apologies.
You have your owner, come on.
It'd be Casey O'Donnell.
Casey O'Donnell is coming back in as a panelist now.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
Mr. Chair, would it be okay if I stop sharing, or should I leave this up?
I'd leave it on there in case there's some questions.
Okay, appreciate that. Mr. O'Donnell, can you hear us?
I can. Good afternoon.
Hi. Casey, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. Casey O'Donnell, C-A-S-E-Y-O-D-O-N-N-E-L-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Casey, you were present during the course of my presentation?
And if you were going to testify today, would you adopt my presentation as if it were your own?
Yes, with the exception of it's not Impact Group, it's Impact Services Corp.
My apologies for that. Casey, if you could just take a few minutes, maybe tell the board a little
about what you do. I'm sure they may already be familiar with you guys.
Sure. Impact is a community action organization mobilizing people and resources to create
connected, resilient, thriving communities. From a place-based perspective, we focus largely on
Kensington, although our workforce development strategies are throughout the city, mostly in
North Philadelphia. Our work in the 10 years that I've been in this role has really been north of
Lehigh, although these parcels were part of an acquisition from RDA years prior. And now that
we've stabilized both kind of work and properties north of Lehigh. We finally were able to focus
on these. Impact exclusively builds affordable housing. As Dave mentioned, the reason for the
market rate is to cross subsidize so that we can make the other units affordable. You're probably
well aware that if we tried to build just the three affordable units up, I apologize for this
property, two in total with Second Street, three. If we attempted to build just affordable units,
we don't think they would be at the standard that we would like to provide. What we're seeing going
up and to make the finances work and to provide just a better quality product, we've approached
it this way. We also, you know, want to generate as many affordable units as we can. And so here
we are. We started working with folks at the land bank quite a while ago and have been to
multiple RCO meetings and appreciate your consideration and any questions you have,
I'm here. Sure. Counsel, could you give us an idea what that block looks like relative to
multiple family properties? Yeah, unfortunately, I was going to, when I went back to this screen,
just to give a look as to what was going on on North Hancock Street, what we know for sure is
I think the RM1 property has been recently or has been, was converted, was an old kind of
commercial structure at some point that was converted converted to multi-family
that was converted to multifamily. Honestly, as we sit here right now, I would need to gather
um i'm not
some additional information, Mr. Chairman, on the other properties and whether the ones like,
for example, the one that's next door to us in the elevation is multifamily versus a single family.
But- Casey, do you have an idea what's going on in the area? There were multiple families.
Yeah, on that block across the street, there's conversion for multiple families.
On our side of the street, mostly single family.
But if you you can't see it here, but if you look north and west, which is visible, it's the amount of development there is tremendous.
You can't see it on the screen. It's covered by.
But if you were to go north on Hancock Street and just to the west, that was a giant vacant lot.
And that whole block is being renovated mostly for multifamily.
Questions from the board.
Could you tell me what's going on with the rear of the building?
Like, is there any open space or common space?
I can answer that if you want, Casey.
Yeah, please do.
Yeah, my apologies with that.
As I got through the rest of my presentation, yes, I believe there's a portion of the property
that we're able to provide the 25 percent open space at the rear um which could be shared among
the unit owners um and set and the building coverage is about just under 75 percent
so if i look at this the plan here there's a sort of like an alleyway that's the access to the yard
yeah side side of the building yeah i think if you're looking at this um this particular
plan sheet which shows the elevation here there's this for the first floor
unit here there's a front door entrance and then there's an alcove kind of common entrance
that would lead uh the resident to here or this area actually and then up to the uh this first
unit is we'll have its first door here and then up to the second and third floor which also have
their doors on the interior on the stairwell oh the rear the rear one has the door in the back
is that what this actually actually the door would be if you could see it right here
for the first floor unit in the back so there's no there's not a door here
okay um this well your plan shows the bathroom there i'm i'm looking at the right thing here
yeah because a door door or maybe the door's here i think darren's available if needed oh there i'm
i apologize you're right i'm looking at this door entrance here it's the door into the bathroom
yeah you're right that would that would be funny if that was the front door for the for the first
floor units here my apologies it's off of this sort of i call it a less of a side side yard
yeah yeah because i i was thinking the same thing because with the first floor entrance here maybe
there would be a corresponding entrance on this side but it's actually right here so all right
thank you any other questions from the board my apologies yeah um so understanding that we're
looking at five units and i think you had said three are affordable and two are market rate
six units for affordable to a market rate to a market rate and then um and this might be a
question for mr o'donnell are these going to be naturally occurring affordable housing or
do you plan to seek some other type of subsidy for the well we originally the rco asked that we
apply for to be eligible for turn the key which we did but then it turns out that turn the key is
not like the city really hasn't you probably know this better than i do hasn't provided guidance as
to what to do with um sort of multi-unit buildings or condos um and so we're not sure where that
stands to be honest with you but we are looking at 80 am i okay and these are for sale units are
they going to be rental units managed by impact for sale for sale okay any other questions yeah
Is there any storage for any of the units like.
That might be a Darren question in outside space.
Is there any kind of.
Why don't you bring the architect on.
What's your architect's name?
I'm sorry, Darren Edwards.
Darren Edwards, please raise your virtual hand.
He's coming back in as a panelist now chair.
Darren, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
You should pop back in shortly, Chair.
Sure, I'm fine.
good afternoon hi would you state your name is spelled for the stenographer yes darren edwards
Good afternoon.
Could you state your name?
d-a-r-y-n-e-d-w-a-r-d-s you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth yes counsel could you uh start this conversation with him yes mr edwards um you
were present during or you heard the testimony that was presented with regard to the plans that
you prepared? That's correct. And based on the information I provided, would you have adopted
that as your own testimony should you have testified today? Yes, I would. And I understand
that you heard the question about how storage might work in these particular units. Can you
explain that to the board? Right. So there's no basement. Both of the buildings are going to be
slab on grade so all of the storage is going to be within the units we have made enough closets
that are generally comply with what the state housing agency recommends so that's the the
storage strategy like so what if you had a bike like where would i put a bike uh well there is
there is the shared backyard space that we might be able to do so all units would
have access to that that's correct yes thank you other questions
so yeah I guess in each one of these is three bedrooms two baths is that what I'm
seeing that's correct yes and the the first two floor first floor units are
accessible units. All right. Thank you. Questions or comments from our attorney? Just briefly,
first of all, the plans that were submitted with your exhibit packet, they indicated that they
were revised plans, but there was no proviso form, and they didn't look different from the plans that
have been submitted to L&I. Were there any changes since the plans were reviewed by L&I?
not to this property okay all right i just wanted to make sure and then my other question is
you mentioned the rco is in support did you have any documentation to show that they were in support
because as the chair said we didn't receive anything from them yeah that um we did talk to
marco uh earlier today about writing both those letters for both parcels which he um poor guy
seems like a one-man band out there but um we will make sure we um he was going to work on those
tonight and once we get them we could submit them to supplement the record okay but the only
proviso that mentioned for the support of this particular project was what mr o'donnell was
mentioning about trying our best to become a part of that turn the key program okay we could we yes
if you want we could hold we could hold for one week just and leave the record open i think what
we're going to do is hold for one week for both kids we're going to hear the other case in a
minute, but we're going to hold for one week and it'll be closed other than what we receive
relative to the RCO. Yeah, a letter from the RCO and any response from the applicant, if you have
any. That's right. And David, you would have a chance to respond to that. Okay. Appreciate that.
All right. So we need to go to the audience and planning. So, okay.
Comments from the audience and the virtual audience
Look at this audience here
Here we have Frank Foley with their hand up
They're coming back in as a panelist now
Hi Frank how are you
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
There we are
Hey y'all
Hi could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
Yeah it's Frank Foley
f as in frank r-a-n-k f as in frank o-l-e-y you swear or firm to tell the truth told truth
nothing but the truth i sure do frank are you a neighbor i am uh i'm actually adjacent to the
other portion of the project but i'm about four blocks from from this uh okay please proceed
um i just wanted to chime in real quick that we uh i didn't see that there was a kensington
neighborhood association meeting for for this portion of the project on hancock street um
And I don't know, apparently we don't have any feedback yet from the meeting that did happen. But I just wanted to add that the neighborhood in general has a pretty strong preference for affordable single family homes rather than multi-unit.
Okay. Thank you very much for taking the time to call.
Sure. I just had one other quick question. At one of our neighborhood meetings, someone did bring up that apparently there was going to be a sale of impact services to another entity. And I just wanted to see if we could get some information or clarity around who would own the project.
uh who would own the project mr foley we this is about zoning of this particular
Mr. Foley, this is about zoning.
we don't get into uh companies and sales and things like that but that's cool thank you
we understand your concerns thank you um waiting yes this is uh ron bednar city planning
comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa 5 residential single family zoning at this
location the city rezoned this portion of south kensington in 2016 at that time the single family
zoning for this parcel dated from 1985 was left unchanged the proposed density is three times what
would be allowed by right we are aware that of one 14 unit condo building and two triplexes on the
block but the majority is comprised of single family homes city planning commission therefore
recommends that the board deny the proposed variance for six dwelling units so that this
this vote on this will be held next wednesday at 2 p.m um the case is closed
everything is closed except for what we see or hear from the rco and frank you'll have a chance
to respond to that. Now, we're going to move on to the next one. MI 2024-006-708-1345 North 2nd
Street. David, could you just state your name for the record? David Shafkowitz, counsel for the
applicant. First name David, D-A-V-I-D, Shafkowitz, S-H-A-F-K-O-W-I-T-Z. Do you agree to the waiving
of the reading of the refusal and you agree with its accuracy yes will you um start your
presentation please uh yeah the property the second part of this um kind of project for
impact services is a property known as 1345 north second street um this is a parcel property also
located in the rsa5 multi-family units are not permitted as well uh the applicant is proposing
a two-unit structure on this property, and also part of this application, the applicant
is proposing a height variance.
This one, this particular plan was revised from what was originally submitted with the
refusal.
As the board probably is aware, this particular district permits a 38-foot height.
The original proposal was just under 40 feet after visiting with the RCO and our original
design had some living below ground the plan was revised to put the have the building slab on grade
so it increased our height request from the 40 feet to 44.7 feet the site is currently vacant
takes access from the north second street as i noted is the two unit three-story structure
one of the unit is proposed as an affordable one of the unit is proposed as market rate
Both units are proposed for sale. The property is subject to a deed restriction with regard to providing for affordability at this location.
Both units will be identical in terms of the floor plan, and I'll show you those shortly.
The issues, as I mentioned, with regard to the height variance was at a request from the RCO to take any potential living area from below ground to have it all above ground.
And therefore, based on Darren's work, we had to increase our height to the 44.7 feet.
And if I can, so this particular property or this particular plan is just a survey plan of the property.
The parcel itself, sorry, and I just had it in front of me, in terms of its size.
I remember it's about 1,100 square feet.
Anyway, I'll get you that information, or we'll ask Darren to fill us in on that.
The applicant is proposing, as noted here, a three-story structure.
What we do have here is an aerial of the location, which will show what is going on on this section of North 2nd Street.
As the board can see, here's our proposed structure here, which is intended to give a sense of what the height would look, but I do have a better picture of that as well.
And across the street, what we have is a relatively new four-story multifamily facility that was built right across the street.
The applicant, as you can see here, is the floor plan.
Again, we have access on the ground floor, at the ground floor for both units, one in the front, one in the rear.
on the ground floor, on the, uh, at the ground floor for both units, one in the front, one in
the rear, the, then there's the central staircases for both units. They have the three stories,
um, following, um, or actually fourth stories following the first floor, the ground floor.
Um, they are all three bedroom units. Um, they are identical, uh, between the two and access,
you know, essentially in sharing the party wall, essentially like a duplex,
But instead of the two units facing the street, they're one in front, one behind each other.
Again, in a similar design that Cicadia provided on the other applicant,
the Arizona alcove, which will lead through to the second unit and their access point.
The total square footage of each unit is 1,340 square feet.
The lot area is 1,154.75 square feet.
Apologize my, there you go.
The occupied area of the lot is about 75%, and in the rear, they're proposing a 25% open area for the units.
Mr. Chairman, as I offered some of the testimony with regard to the two projects and how they relate to each other, I'd just like to incorporate that testimony into this particular application as well.
And as with the last application, Mr. Edwards and Mr. O'Donnell are available for any of the board's questions.
Just, why don't you have Casey come back on adopt your testimony so that we'll have your testimony adopted on both cases.
Wonderful.
Good afternoon again, Mr. O'Donnell.
Good afternoon.
Hi, you've already been sworn, Mr. O'Donnell.
Please, counsel, please start.
Casey, you heard the testimony I provided with regard to this application?
Yes. And would you adopt that as your testimony should you had given testimony in this application?
Yes, I would. Is there anything in particular you'd like to add with regard to this proposal?
No, thank you. Casey, just for a point of information, I noticed the one side,
the other side of the block looks like it's completely multiple family. How about this
side of the block? So there's and I think the gentleman was on prior to this, the building
right next door i believe is two units most of that block is single family except at the end of
the block is a commercial property for a cdfi but across the street is a giant um multi-family
building all right questions from the board this so this is a this is four stories so this is
four stories and the the buildings the properties next to them are are they two stories
it's hard to tell from that skewed there are three we have a three-story building to the right
and probably three-story building to the left that just uh and then the four stories across
the street um then what's the with the what's the width of the lot and what's the width of that
alleyway that get folks have to walk through to get to that i'm gonna darren if you don't
mind jumping in um we'll do the same thing that you were present during my uh presentation during
this application i was and you would adopt that testimony as your own as it relates to the plans
you prepared i would if you don't mind answering the board members uh mr johns's questions with
regard to those sure so the property uh lot is or width is 15 foot six and the width of the alley is
three feet yeah any other questions is there a site plan that shows the backyard or the rear yard
yeah so the uh kind of this the the single line behind the uh the building
um so the rear unit has uh a rear yard of or yard space that is 15 foot seven and a half deep
uh oh i'm sorry uh that was the old plan um the the rear unit has a yard that is 10 foot
seven and a half foot deep and the front unit has a yard that is eight feet
there's an eight foot setback between the that's correct line and the okay right and the property
to uh to the north uh 1347 is set back probably nine half or ten feet so it's even behind from
where ours is okay other questions
Questions from our attorney, Hilary Emerson?
questions from our attorney hillary emerson yes
Yeah, so the packet that was submitted with this, the only plans that were submitted indicated that they were the original plans reviewed by L&I.
So if there are revised plans, in addition to holding for the RCO letter, if you could please submit the revised plans in the proviso form outlining the changes so those can be reviewed.
absolutely the um the plans that actually were submitted were the new plans not the revised but
um i will submit the proviso form and include them as well and if you believe it's necessary
we can even submit the original too so okay thank you questions or comments from the virtual
audience there we have frank foley with his hand up he's coming back in as a panelist now
there we are hello hello mr foley you've already been sworn in just state your name for the record
and then start your presentation it's uh frank foley f-r-a-n-k-f-o-l-e-y all right please proceed
sir uh i'm the neighbor directly to the north um my primary concern uh with the variance
is on height. I have solar panels on my roof, flat on the roof. So this would impact
my solar production probably eight months out of the year, something along those lines.
Other concern is we have a survey pending. I think the property lines might be a little bit off.
uh there was some confusion about um there should be a breezeway uh between these two properties
um and my builder in 2006 um before i purchased the property i didn't put in a breezeway at all
um but he also built the house about 14 and a half wide on a 16 foot lot so i believe
a portion of that 15 and a half feet that this project would be the frontage of it
maybe seven or eight or nine or ten inches of that is mine probably
so i've just got to have a i've got a survey pending to uh you know figure out the property
lines and also uh our overarching concern from the the neighbors is uh we have a strong preference
for affordable single-family homes.
Mr. Foley, thank you.
Counselor, you want to respond at all?
Yeah, I was just going to mention to the board
that there was a point in time where there was
like a shared alleyway for the property in the rear,
but there was a portion of the property
that covered that alleyway,
and we went through a quiet title proceeding with the court
and had a court order entered that granted us
the balance of the alleyway to our property,
so there is no breezeway between the two properties anymore.
And that was one of the things that held up the application originally.
So the order was recorded, the deed was amended, and the survey plan accurately reflects the property owned.
Okay, so we're going to hold on a minute.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Sean Caulfield.
They're coming back in as a panelist now.
which which property was that that homeowner was it 1334 or 1347 because i remember it was
uh this particular owner in the rear so he's in the rear it's for 34 so what that gentleman is
to the left of our property left as you face the front of your property yes sir yes okay so 13
Oh, no, that's 1347.
All right.
We have the person online.
Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?
Yes. Could you please state your name
and spell for the stenographer?
Yes, my name is Sean Caulfield.
First name S-E-A-N.
Last name is Caulfield.
C-A-U-L-F-I-E-L-D.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
are you a neighbor i am please proceed sir yeah so hi uh my name is sean caulfield so i am the
neighbor um in the photograph that you're seeing on the screen there 1343 um so to the south of
the property that we're talking about here so i have some notes i just want to go through here
um being that i'm a direct neighbor um this does have a direct impact um on my home but also
of all of my neighbors um many of whom were at the community zoning meeting that was in january
And a lot of concerns were raised about the property. I'm not sure if those were published anywhere or provided to the board, but I had not seen them.
And a lot of concerns were raised about the property.
I'm not sure if those were.
So I just wanted to talk about some of mine. And the main issue here for me is splitting a lot vertically into two narrow units.
I just don't think that makes sense for the long term livability or resale value of this property at all.
So the design crams each unit into a very tight four-story layout, and each floor is basically a single room. So it's a lot of stair climbing to get to any part of the house on four floors. That's not practical for families. It's not practical for older residents or anyone that has a disability or just wants a functional living space.
There's no communal space. There's no real flow. It's just a setup that does not encourage long-term home ownership.
Instead, this design really does feel like it's built for investors that are looking to rent the units out rather than for people who actually want to live there long term.
On top of that, if one of the units is supposed to be affordable housing, I just don't see what's stopping that from being immediately rented.
So I understand that there's rules that say the units have to be lived in by the owners.
But given the impractical layout, I just I really find it hard to believe that someone's going to live there long term.
Additionally, I don't think this design also meets Philadelphia zoning requirements.
The rules make it clear that affordable units should be comparable in size, comparable in quality, comparable in layout to the homes that are in the area.
And this project just does not measure up with that at all.
The zoning code also has a minimum lot requirement to prevent overdevelopment and to protect the neighborhood's character.
And this is forcing two units into a space that's not suited for two units.
Additionally, there's nothing else like this in the neighborhood.
So to my knowledge, every other house in the street is three stories.
And this project is four stories and it makes it very out of place.
The picture that was shown there of the street view with the red lines, I think, is a bit disingenuous.
So the red line where it ends at the roof of my house, it would be much higher than that.
My house is three floors and the proposed is four.
So it violates the standard to look at the block.
It disrupts the continuity of the street.
And it just doesn't do anything positive to look and feel of the neighborhood.
Thank you for taking time to calls.
We appreciate it.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
i see no hands at this time counsel do you want to respond um mr chairman i'm not sure i have much
that i can respond to i mean i think we understand that you know mr caulfield is
there's a lay person with his lay opinions and none of that stuff is right been related by an
expert all right thank you so um planning uh ron bednar city planning comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the rsa 5 zoning at this location there's no unique physical circumstances
or uh condition of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the code
the application represents a inappropriate overuse therefore city planning commission recommends
denying the request thank you mr chair if i'm if i may i totally i just wanted to make sure that
one of the items that was mentioned and maybe in response a little bit to the planning commission's
comments is that this property is deed restricted for affordability.
So there has to be a mechanism to build affordable units on this and on the other property.
So the idea is that with the deed restriction, that's what's going to occur on this site.
So I know the board's aware, but I just wanted to make that work.
All right.
So we're going to hold a vote on this, like we said.
We're waiting to see where the RCO, and I think council talked about any change of plans.
Am I correct?
Yeah, on this particular app, we'll submit the proviso form.
We're going to vote on this next Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, members of the board.
Appreciate your time.
Thank you, folks.
Is there anyone in the virtual audience whose case has not been called?
I've seen no hands, Chair.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Somebody pinch me.
Thanks again.
Thank you, everyone.
Good night, all.
Good night.
that I see in sunlight.