good afternoon board peter bernard for the planning commission
this property is indicated for commercial use in the comprehensive plan the property was rezoned
from CA2 to CA1 in 2019 against the recommendation of the Planning Commission. The proposed use would
have been an as of right under the previous zoning. Accordingly, we have no objection to
the granting of the variance. Thank you. MI 2020-002034. 399 Franklin Mill Circle. My vote is yes.
My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes. My vote is yes.
thank you mi 2020-002045 thank you mr chairman members of the board uh completes my
activity for today i'll see you tomorrow at two o'clock
i'll try that again mi 2020-002045 3133 south juniper street mr demarco
Mr. DeMarco has been promoted to panelists.
Mr. DeMarco, you're still under oath from earlier today.
Just identify yourself with a record and proceed.
Carol's going to read off.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Can you hear me okay?
We can hear you.
Can you rotate your device once?
I'm trying to do that.
Okay, there we go.
We got you.
Now, a quick question, Carol.
I just wanted to see if Mr. DeMarco needed me to do his exhibits.
I am, Tanya, I am going to need you to do that.
And I'll talk to you offline.
I don't understand why.
This happened once before.
No worries.
We got you.
No worries.
All right.
I appreciate it.
So name and address and do you wave and did you already put your name and address on?
Earlier I did, but it's Richard DeMarco, not for this listing.
Richard DeMarco, 2005, Market Street, 16th floor, Philadelphia PA, 19103.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
And have you emailed an exhibit packet with the required documents consisting of proof of ownership, tax compliance, refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of the hearing?
And have you met with the RCO?
And do you also have a letter?
Yes to all of that.
I did submit on Friday rather than Thursday.
Thursday was Thanksgiving, which was five days ago.
So, yes, I sent everything on Friday.
We did meet with the RCO, and we have a letter of non-opposition from the RCO,
and it was fully flyered, and I submitted all the exhibits on Friday.
That's great.
You may proceed.
So, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, thank you.
This is a third-story edition request.
We are asking for two-dimensional variances,
The first one being to not have to set back eight feet at the third story.
And the other one is the rear deck.
We do want to be flush with the building line.
So those are the two dimensional variances.
The client is Joe Pizzo.
He's a neighbor.
Our architect should also be on.
And in a moment, I'll ask them to accept my testimony as accurate.
The reason for why we believe, first of all.
We still don't have, excuse me, Richard, we don't have the exhibits.
Oh, I'll ask Tanya to.
Yes, Chair, I'm working on them.
I got to save the file on the desktop, then promote it.
Okay, I knew you said you were going to do it.
Okay, thank you.
Sorry, yeah, and I only need Tanya to show the refusal,
which is within the petition of appeal in Exhibit 1, and then the.
within the petition of appeal in Exhibit 1. And then the plans are Exhibit 2. I think those are
the most important ones, so you can see. And I don't think we need to, I don't need Tanya to
scroll through the rest, but I'll say that a number of properties within my neighborhood,
this is my neighborhood. I am the vice president of the RCO, but the RCO meeting was chaired
by the president, Antonio Perretta.
There was no opposition mentioned.
And a number of properties in the neighborhood
have taken advantage of the third-story addition
and have received variances to not have to sit back at eight feet.
The reason being, and our architect will verify this,
especially among the properties along South Juniper Street,
the properties are very, the buildings are very shallow,
unusually shallow. So to have to set this particular property, the building is only
36 feet deep. There is a lot of open space because we have private driveways and we have very large
front yards, but the building itself is actually extraordinarily shallow. And that is the case
with this property. It's only 36 feet deep. So having to set back eight feet really makes it
almost impossible to construct a viable third story, and the third story is otherwise legal.
This board has granted a number of variances in this actual neighborhood from this setback,
from these setbacks, and what we as a community have been doing is supporting this because we
want people to stay in it. It's a nice neighborhood. We want people to stay here.
We want people to improve their homes.
So we have not been opposing these requests, and that's why there is no opposition in this particular case, at least none that I know of, or none that was voiced at the neighborhood meeting.
So the plans are in there.
I did flyer everyone in the community per the requirements of the code.
Let me ask Joe, if you can see Joe Pizzo and Michael Nardi, those are my two witnesses.
I don't need them to speak other than to accept my testimony as accurate.
So, Tanya, if you could authorize them.
Could you please raise your hand so I can acknowledge you and unmute you?
Joe and Mike, raise your hands.
That's the refusal I see on the right.
Hello?
Mr. Pizzo, you've been unmuted. You're free to speak.
Please identify yourself, first and last name, and your address, and I'll swear you in.
Joseph Pizzo, J-O-S-E-P-H-P-I-Z-Z-O, address is 3133 South Juniper Street.
Joseph Pizzo, you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. DeMarco.
Joe, did you hear my statement to the board a moment ago?
Do you agree with my factual testimony, accept it as your own, as true and accurate?
Yes, I do.
Is Mike also with us? Mike Nardi, the architect, would he be with us?
I don't think we need Mike.
Okay. Very good, Mr. Chairman.
We're good.
Yeah, Joe is familiar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that.
Joe is very familiar with the plans and agrees with the issue.
And Joe, do you agree with everything I said about the depth of your property and the scenario in the neighborhood?
okay and you have two other properties on the same block that actually did not set back and
were granted third story additions as well correct yes that is correct mr chairman that
concludes my presentation uh we'd ask for the variances uh to be consistent with the neighborhood
and um we appreciate your time thank you questions from the board no no
anyone else would like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
there are no hands here thank you planning commission
good afternoon board peter bernard for the planning commission
this property is indicated for single family residential the neighborhood is predominantly
two-story single family residential accordingly we recommend an eight-foot setback to maintain
the neighborhood character accordingly we object to the granting of the variance
Thank you. Calendar number MI 2020-002045, 3133 South Juniper Street.
My vote is yes.
Hold on.
My vote is yes.
My vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you. MI 2020-001514, 2657 Livingston Street.
All right, I got it.
All right, I got it.
We have Ryan Bolin.
Mr. Bolin.
Mr. Bolin, you've been promoted to panelists.
You're free to share your screen.
Perfect.
Good afternoon, Mr. Bolin.
Please identify yourself for the record and I'll swear you in.
Ryan Boland, B-O-L-A-N-D, 1801 Market Street, Suite 2300, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Do you swear to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed.
Carol, hold on.
Carol, I apologize, Carol.
I know this is a little confusing.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
We agree to waive the reading, but we won't stipulate as to its accuracy as the building's about six inches shorter than noted in the refusal.
Okay, and have you emailed your exhibit packet with all the required documents consisting of proof of ownership, tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos, plans of the property, five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes, we have.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Terrific. So I'm here and I represent the property owner, Alexander Sharpen.
So we submitted a package to the board that I'll walk the board through.
We're also here with a letter from the RCO, who is Old Richmond Civic Association,
which shows there was a vote of eight to seven in our favor overall.
And there was an even split of five-five from the near neighbors.
And we also have a letter of no position from Councilman Swilla's office.
We're here today seeking a variance for a completely finished, new construction, single-family home that is located in Old Richmond.
And we're here today due to a series of mistakes, including mistakes by Ellen and I in approving of 41 feet when the code only allows 38 feet.
and as a result of this there are there's a vested rights issue where in our client has
vested rights to build to 41 feet um what what happened here was there was a second mistake on
top of that after we had the plans approved at 41 feet um the the contractors um when they were
doing the foundation they hit water and they ended up digging the basement out two feet shallower
than in the plants. What which ended up happening and I'll take you through the pictures is that we
have a foundation that ends two feet above the ground and when they frame the building out
they frame the building out two feet too high. So the building here it's 43 feet in the front
and it slopes down and it's 42 feet in the rear. In order to minimize this impact what was done is
this the pilot house was reduced by two and a half feet so instead of being 10 feet tall it's seven
and a half feet tall. And we also reduce the height of the parapet from 42 inches to 9 inches.
Can you share those exhibits, Mr. Bowen? Yes, I will. Here's the refusal. I'll take you through
the pictures. So there's the location of the property. Here it is down here.
There's an aerial view of it. Here it is from above. So here's the property from the front
as it stands, and you can see what the error is here. If you can see my cursor, you can see that
the garage here, you have a foundation that comes up two feet. So what happened there? Well, now you
have a garage that has over 10-foot ceilings, and there was no benefit whatsoever by this mistake
because instead of having two steps up the front, now you have five steps up, which just creates
accessibility issues. The first, second, third, and fourth floors are the same as in the approved
building plans. The mistake is just here in the height of the garage.
So I'll just walk you through these photographs very, very briefly. Here's a look down Livingston
Street. Here's directly next to it. Here's another view of it to the side. You can see
there's some garages. Here's a view from the rear. Here's a view from the roof deck down on the one
side. Here's views across the street and down the street. Again, here's a here's a more of
a close-up of the garage which shows the the issue with the extra two feet. As far as the
interior, here it is as far as the view that's looking away from Center City. This is this is
what would be between what what is on the other side of the pilot house. Here's the view of
what what is on the other side of the pilot house here's the view of center city and again we reduce
the pilot house height by two and a half feet and there's nothing on the other side and there's no
views there to block here's just the very basic unfinished basement it's a three-bedroom house
it's it's a single family house as you can see it's very high-end finishes so if we had to
tear this house down it's more than just a regular tearing it down because the
the owner spared no expense in trying to build something really nice.
I'll zoom in here a little bit just so that you can see the zoning plans.
This here shows the 38 feet approval and that was obtained by a prior owner.
The construction plans I have here.