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.
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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