Thank you. Sean, have you heard the testimony that I provided to the board this morning?
I have.
do you confirm the truth of my testimony and adopt it as your own i confirm and adopt
thank you and is there anything you would like to add nothing more to add at this time thank you
thank you questions from the board no no anyone else like to testify in this case if so please
raise your hand chair we have north central philadelphia cdc that's unmuted you hello this
is tina marie russell by your name and give us your address tina marie russell north central
philadelphia cdc 1631 west susquehanna avenue um i i would like you swear and affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please proceed our organization was not
notified of this um activity and we would not we did not receive any information from the attorney
so we would like to actually have had time to review this because it goes against
um the ideas that we're looking to do by itself our 20 35 year plan and i'd like to know we can
have a continuance so that we can have time to do our due diligence as well.
Mr. Bertil, you have a letter.
We don't have, the board doesn't have a file in front of them, as Sharon and Tanya have.
So we did get a letter.
I can show you the letter.
So this organization wasn't designated the coordinating RCO, but we did send out the,
So typically our standard practice is in addition to sending out the required notification emails
to the near neighbors in the coordinating RCO, we respond to the email sent out by the RCO
notification email that includes all the representative contact information for the
other RCOs. And we did send notification of this letter that I will show the board.
Let me just scroll back up.
Let me just scroll back up.
The zoning notice was sent out on November 3rd.
Would you make that a little bit larger?
I'm sorry.
Make that a little bit larger, please.
My apologies.
Thank you.
That's great.
And I could also share with the board the email that was sent back to the RCO notification email
that CC'd all the registered RCOs that was provided to us by the Planning Commission.
can i um can i speak could you show me could you show me that letter that email because the letter
we never received and um i don't have any proof here that you sent the letter but the email um
can you have showed me that because i've done searching and searching and i haven't yet to see
anything from anyone so i'm going to go offline mr pertell would you contact
and make contact with her and provide her with that?
Yes, I'm happy to.
I would like to see that prior to you actually being confirmed to do this
because, I mean, if you don't have any proof that you notified all the RCOs.
We have it.
You don't.
And I'm asking him to share it with you.
So you're saying, I'm sorry, just to be clear,
you're saying you see the email that has NCP North Central Philadelphia CDC.
I'm sorry.
We have the letter.
I apologize.
It's a letter, but it doesn't mean that it came to us.
It's just a letter saying that he sent something,
but it doesn't mean he sent it to us.
I believe Mr. Battelle testified that you were not part of the coordinating North Central.
I'm right here.
North Central.
I'm not a coordinator, but we all are considered RCOs.
We all have a voice.
That's why we are affected RCOs, yes?
Because he's actually down the street from the office, this location.
And we're also a CDC.
So, therefore, we do have some plans that we've been working on for different locations in the area.
Understood. Understood. I stand corrected.
Well, once again, I'm happy to provide, her name doesn't come up, it just says North Central.
I'm sorry, I didn't recall your name, but I'm happy to provide her a copy of the email that was sent out.
So the email that was provided by the Planning Commission is the info at ncpcdc.org.
I don't know if they updated that, but that's the email that was provided to us.
But in addition to that, we did, again, we did meet with the coordinating RCO.
We did send out over 130 notices to near neighbors.
um so we would humbly request that the board would make a decision today yeah and not prolong that
i mean i'm curious if this property is a block away from from your office or wherever it is you
had you stayed your meeting it's um it's like it's like four blocks away i think you should
have as a block no no i said several blocks away i'm sorry i must not be clear okay included in
our notice in our package to the board we've also included um documentation of the property being
constantly posted over the past 21 days okay all right very good any questions there's nothing
coming up so okay thank you for that all right thank you i have questions from the board no
anyone else to testify there are no more handshared thank you planning commission
Good afternoon, Board. Peter Bernard for the Planning Commission.
This property is indicated for single-family residential in the comprehensive plan. We
feel this proposed use will not have a negative impact on the surrounding community. Accordingly,
we have no objection to the granting of the variance.
Thank you very much. MI 2020-001925, 2113 North 21st Street. My vote is yes.
my vote is yes my vote is yes my vote is yes okay it's my understanding from a text i just
received from sharon that 1127 north hancock is being continued mi 2020-001963 um so chair
the situation with Hancock is I asked all staff to look in our boxes to see if we received.
We have not. Also, it appears as though it is LLC, I believe.
Also, it appears as though it is a LLC.
I believe that's the same one I'm looking at.
And an attorney would be required for this to proceed.
If you wish, we can promote the owner.
This is actually Sharon Saleta.
I've had emails back and forth with the architect.
Unfortunately, their attorney died, and they are not ready to go forward today.
They acknowledge that.
I explained that it would be continued.
Does that work, Tanya?
Yes, it does.
However, I had back and forth also with the owner, so I just wanted them to understand
from the board's viewpoint what was going on.
Right.
I apologize, Tanya.
No problem.
he's an LLC and he's required they're required to have an attorney all right so so MI 2020-001963
1127 North Hancock is continued last one is Vernon Road MI 2020-000717 1330 Vernon Road
We have Bill Kerr.
He's been unmuted.
No, he has to be a panelist.
He's been promoted to panelist, Ms. Sunkin.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Can you hear me okay?
Yes, please identify yourself for the record, spell your name, and we'll swear you in.
I will do that.
William Kerr, K-E-R-R, 40 East Erie Street in Norristown,
1-9-4-0-1, on behalf of the applicants.
Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Okay, good afternoon.
I'm sorry, excuse me, sir.
Carol's got to read you something.
Yep, you're right.
I'm used to hearing you say my name.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
And have you emailed the exhibit packet with the required documents, which would include the proof of ownership, proof of tax clearance, refusal or referral, photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing?
And have you met with the RCO? And do you have a letter by chance?
I have done all that. We have the RCO letter. I believe that was sent directly to the chairman. So that should be in your file.
Thank you.
Okay, that did not get into my exhibit packet, but if Sharon needs that or Tanya, I can forward that after the hearing.
Thank you. You may proceed.
Okay, thank you. I'm here today representing a joint venture between St. Raymond's Catholic Church and Human Good East, which is formerly known as Presby's Inspired Life.
They all are or were nonprofits.
Together, they're proposing to construct a 49-unit affordable rental housing building
for seniors that are age 62 and above.
There's a well-recognized need for affordable housing in the city.
Most recently, that was demonstrated pretty clearly by the encampment on the parkway.
So we're hopeful that this project, if it's approved, it would be a small part of a solution
to that problem.
All right. Now what I'd like to do is share my screen.
Okay. I think this is it. Can everyone see that? That's my exhibit packet.
Is that coming up? Yes. Okay. Just have to figure out how to advance that.
Okay. Here we go. Okay. There's the witnesses that I have. The first three will be testify
and the other, or actually Father Walsh will testify, Vidi Anderson will testify, Nancy
Bastian will testify, Pete Tantala, and Mr. Canteen will be here to answer questions.
So the exhibit packet includes a number of items. We have our appeal application. We
were two frontages. So we have photos on Williams Avenue, East Philolena Street. We have an exhibit
that basically illustrates the demographics of the region at tab three, which I'll get into in a
little bit. We have a zoning map. We have an aerial photo, a perspective view of the proposed building,
our overall site plan, a more close-up development plan. We have floor plans, a typical elevation.
There were a number of RCO mailings that went out. These were the latest two, one in September of this year, one in October, relative to the RCO meeting and today's hearing.
um there were a number of uh rco mailings that went out these were the latest two one in
There are a number of support petitions. Father Walsh actually collected 86 signatures of folks in the neighborhood or around the neighborhood who support the proposal.
One of the issues we heard in the RCO meetings on this was concerned with how will this affect property values.
So what we did was we pulled some BRT records for a couple of blocks that are in the vicinity of two existing senior affordable housing complexes.
The Presser Senior Apartments at 101 East Johnson and the Nugent Senior Apartments that are at 221 West Johnson Street.
Both of these have been in place for about 10 years.
And if you look at the BRT records, you'll see that the BRT believes that those property values
of the properties in those blocks have stayed stable and have even increased.
We also have some parking data for senior housing buildings that Presby slash Human Good has been
and is a part of. We've got our tax clearing certificate. Also going to the issue of property
values is an article from the center for housing policy research which uh goes into a pretty good
depth as to the impact on property values of these types of affordable housing properties and then we
have the opa information which confirms that the church does in fact own the property um so what
i'd like to do now is i'd like to go to a different screen um so this is the proposed project can
everyone see that perspective view yes this is what it will look like our architect will get
into a little more detail uh but i wanted to focus on this whoops i went too far i wanted to focus on
this aerial photo so this is this is the campus the the church campus this is third this is vernon
road 1330 vernon uh this is basically the church and the related buildings for the church
this is the school there's significant parking all around the church parking over here there's
an excess of about 100 parking spaces the church and school require 76 per code so we have
significant excess in parking so again this is Vernon this is Williams the 7900 block of Williams
the 7900 block of Forest, and then this is the 1300 block of Philalena Street.
The project is proposed to be constructed in this area of the parking lot at the corner of
Philalena and Williams Street. This other building, this is the former convent for the
parish, which was converted a number of years ago. It's now known as St. Raymond's House.
It's owned, the building itself is owned and operated by DePaul USA, which is another non-profit,
and it's operated as a 28-room personal care facility. The proposal today was originally
conceived by Father Walsh, St. Raymond's pastor. It's based on the age and the demographics in the
area. He believes that there is a need for senior housing. That need was supported by
human good when he contacted them. This is actually some evidence of that. This is basically
Councilwoman Parker's Councilmanic District, the 9th District, and it's broken out by census
track. I don't know if, can you read that? I'm going to try to zoom in. You can make
that a little bit larger. I'm going to try to do that, not seeing the and that's
unfortunately I'm not seeing the continue. But basically the dark blue
illustrates it's basically a map of the elderly population. The dark blue indicates where the
elderly population is in excess of 30 percent up as high as 45 percent. The light blue is 22 percent
to 33 percent and the light color is under 22 percent. So this is actually the location for
St. Raymond's and what this illustrates is that in this area there's a significant concentration
of senior population, which we believe goes to the need for the affordable housing in this location.
the need for the affordable housing in this location so we'll go back to these slides at
this point just a little more about human good again human good is a non-profit
it's an umbrella organization that actually merged with presby together they now own operator
manage 95 senior apartment communities in four states, a total of 7,200 units with approximately
8,000 senior residents. As we originally proposed this application, it was for 49 units and nine
parking spaces, again for 62 and above. It's to be constructed with the federal low-income housing
tax credit program. It will be targeted to seniors whose incomes are primarily in the 50 to 60% of