and the record was closed except for proof of tax compliance which we have since received
okay mi 2020 that's 01228 223 south 44th street my vote is yes my vote is yes
my vote is yes my vote is yes
to mi2020-000551 3649 north 15th street
and three and mi2020-0006863651 north 15th street
is mr moldahill available
Is Mr. Mulvihill available?
Thank you.
Mr. Mulvihill has been promoted to speak, Chair.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Mulvihill.
You know the drill.
Please identify yourself with the record, spell your name, and I'll swear you in.
Yes, good morning, Chairman, members of the Board, Leo Mulvihill, 2424 East York Street, Suite 111, Philadelphia, 19125. Here today for 3649 and 3651 North 15th Street.
We're having a friend to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Please proceed.
I'm sorry, can we give this one minute, Leo?
I'm going to promote you to a panelist.
Thank you, I was just about to ask.
okay you're ready
okay members of the board pardon me my computer's being a little slow this morning so i'm going to
do my best and ask that you bear with me today as i try to present these projects so board members
we were here several weeks ago for these two projects 3649-3651 north 15th street we had
originally scheduled a zoning meeting, I believe with the 13th Ward RCO. We attended that meeting.
No one from the community did, and we weren't presented any time really to present our project,
so we were asked to return. We did so on, if I may just refer to my notes one moment, please.
on i believe it was november 17th it may have been it may have been the 16th i'm doing my best
to recall okay all right that was an in-person meeting that was held at the hero center
um on 19th street that by the 13th ward rco as you all recall that monday the mayor's office
and the city had announced that they would be locking everything down on that Friday.
And the best way I can describe the meeting is unproductive, to be charitable.
I showed with my architect, and we showed in person.
There was the chair of the RCO present, several other members of the community,
and an off-duty Philadelphia police officer who acted as security for this,
who had a mask on their face, but it was generally either around their chin or leaving their nose
uncovered the whole time. So needless to say, it wasn't a very safe environment. That said,
we began to present the project when a member of the community who was very upset that the
project meeting was being held in person at all came to the meeting and began with a raised voice
berating me, my architect, and the RCO chair for holding a meeting that night.
That kind of set the tone for the rest of the evening, which generally devolved into
these voices. And it's my understanding and belief that we couldn't have gotten a
bi-writer project approved that evening. Nevertheless, there was a vote held. I
understand that the RCO chair had sent a letter to the ZBA. I didn't see it because the attachment
that I received was unopenable, so I'm unsure what the vote was. For purposes of this hearing,
I'm going to share my screen, or at least attempt to. One moment, please.
While you're doing that, Sharon and or Tanya, do we have a letter?
i can try to check um leo what was the name of the group it was the 13th ward rco the chair would
have been charles karn c okay let me check yes and miss sunkett for for purposes of today's hearing
if i recall you just sent you may have sent him back a message saying that we can't open this
because it's not a PDF file, if that's helpful in refreshing your recollection as to the
correspondence. Okay. So let's just share this. In the meantime, members of the board, the sole
reason we were here for a zoning hearing for these two properties was for required off-street
parking both of these properties are located on north 15th street directly south of erie avenue
you should be seeing my screen right now which the presentation pack that i previously submitted
if you can enlarge that's good thank you so the the two refusals are identical
for 49 and 15. the floor plans are identical but mirrored in the cmx3 zoning district
the number of units we're asking for are by right the height that we're asking for is by right
The number of units we're asking for are by right.
The height that we're asking for is by right.
The block itself has numerous multifamily properties on it, including a rooming house directly to the north that's existed for years, which is right on the corner of Erie and 15th.
Several multifamily homes going down the block.
I can refer to the photographs later if the board would like to see those again.
And it is an intact block with no curb cuts.
The sole reason we're here is because the zoning code requires in CMX3 districts that we install all-street parking for these projects.
To do so, we would have to take 20 feet away, give or take, of the curb, or 10 feet if we do a smaller curb cut, right, times two.
This privatizing, essentially, two on-street parking spaces to put one parking space on each proposal.
for four dwelling units.
We only asked for this refusal
because we thought it didn't make any sense
to install brand new curb cuts on the block
where none existed.
Otherwise, we would have built this project by right.
The community kind of inexplicably voted this down.
I don't have any explanation as to why this happened
because I did not receive a letter.
My assumption without having any real evidence
to back this up is that
due to the general tenor of the meeting,
um the people being very upset about the circumstances that no matter what was presented
that night it would have been voted down because in any other meeting in my experience when we are
asking to not put a curb cut in on an intact block where there is legal on-street parking
that is generally preferable by the community um i will again move to the photographs of the
properties so the board can see for purpose of the record the refusal that i was previously
referring to is on page 3 of 78 of my zoning packet. I am now going to be shifting to page
65 and 66, pardon me, 64 of my zoning packet. Members of the board, this is the block that
we're discussing. To the left, you see large homes that have been converted to multifamily
dwellings. There are newer homes down the block, which I'm indicating with my cursor
at this point. There are two-story, single, and I believe at least one or two, two family dwellings
on the opposite side of the block. This lot to the left, which this car is parked directly in
front of on the street legally, is where we'd be proposing to build. So the relief that we're
asking for, generally members of the board, I would expect that would have otherwise been totally
approved why it was not approved i am uncertain i would ask that the board find that my client
faces a hardship in installing these two off-street parking spaces for several reasons
first off the lots themselves are 17 feet wide if we install curb cuts we're taking parking away
from the street from anybody to park there for one car per unit and that's basically all we could
theoretically fit. Two, our curb cuts in our driveways are going to be 10 plus feet wide,
taking up more than half of the lots themselves. And they're going to have to be around 18 to 20
feet deep, which would require us to either cantilever the structure so that it doesn't
even come close to matching the existing structures that are adjacent, or coming up with some strange
way to place off-street parking on these parcels. And I'll just move to the floor plan to give the
board an idea of what we're looking at. I think we can, not to interrupt you, I think we can
get past that. I'm just sure, is there a letter in the file? Yes, Chair. We were sent the letter
November the 25th. It was sent to Leo. However, it was not provided as a PDF for him to open.
I was able to open the documents and it was opposition in the letter for, I believe it
was one address. We only got one letter for, I believe it was 51. But that's what we have. And I
will download it as a PDF, Leo, and then email it to you. Not what I'm supposed to do, but going
forward, if we don't have the documents in the PDF form as requested, we're not going to be able
to submit them to anyone. This is Sharon Saleta. We also have an email exchange that we were copied
on. Which is, I'm showing that for purposes of the record right now. It's an email dated Thursday,
November 19, 2020. Yes. I provided three emails, which I believe encapsulate the entire exchange
between my first initial email and the responses from the RCO, from the council person's office,
uh from the council person's office and there may have been one or two other people
And there may have been one or two other people as the RCO.
as the RCO chair counseled many many folks um and copied many folks on the correspondence
and this is Farid Seletic and I just forwarded that email to the board members in case they
can't read it on the screen yeah so members of the board I sent this email only because of the heated
exchange that occurred uh on that Tuesday so that would have been the 17th when we had that meeting
because I had another RCO meeting with this RCO at a different location on that evening, the 19th.
And for purposes of the record, it just essentially states my concerns about having continuing
in-person RCO meetings, the fact that I did not feel safe at the meeting,
the fact that I would not be attending any in-person meetings in the future,
and my offer to use my personal Zoom account to help the RCO facilitate virtual RCO meetings in
the future. And I reached out to the council person's office as well as a plea essentially
to help if they could do anything to help Mr. Karn and the RCO facilitate these virtual RCO
meetings in the future because it's a volunteer organization. As we all know, Zoom costs money,
which I'm not sure this RCO has a budget to do.
um the response that i got was surprising um i'm going to allow the board to read that at their
leisure um it essentially i feel like attacked me for trying to offer this service to the rco
i feel like it mischaracterized the events of the evening i stated to everybody present that
evening that while my client was not there physically at the meeting due to having family
members with compromised immune systems, I had my client available via FaceTime at any point
should anybody have any questions. This note fell on deaf ears at the meeting, I think because
everybody was so upset about the fact there was a meeting being held, period. So I did my best to
try to do everything I could to facilitate this RCO. This was the second in-person meeting I'd
held for this project. That's essentially all I have to do. I would just submit that the email
that I previously submitted to Ms. Zuleta, the Thursday, November 19th exchange, and there are
multiple exchanges. There was another exchange later in the day at 11.05 a.m., which I showed
on the screen, and another exchange at 11.46 a.m. I would just ask that they be marked and moved
into the record for purposes of these hearings to help elucidate what happened at these community
meetings and the pleas for for if the council person's office is still present on this call
i will do anything i can to help this rco have import virtual meetings in the future i'm not
trying to impugn the rco they're doing their best in this weird time i want to help them out i just
can't go to in-person meetings anymore my client won't and my architect won't because we can't
continue doing this that's all i have members of the board i'm happy to answer any questions
you have at this time. And if anybody else has anything they'd like to add, for example, Mr.
Karn of the council person's office, I'm happy to continue that dialogue and respond to any
questions they may have. Here we do have the council person's rep, Mr. Richardson. Fatina,
can you please unmute him? And he can be sworn in. Mr. Richardson, you've been unmuted. Please
wait for the chair to be sworn in. Mr. Richardson, good morning. You're still under oath. Please
identify yourself with a record. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Charles Richardson from the Office of
Councilwoman Cindy Bass, room 312 City Hall. The councilwoman is opposed to the granting of the
variance. The community did speak very loudly with regard to what their desires were for this
property and uh based on the on the uh refusals that's what what they voted on uh i do have on
the line charles karn uh because in fact he's at work right now but i wanted to get him on the line
to uh you know hear anything that that had to be said with regard to uh mr mulvihill's off
offer of uh you know trying to get to get them to have future meetings uh via zoom and that type of
thing but you know that that being all with state withstanding uh the community voted against the
granting of the variance and the councilwoman stands with the community
mr mr karn available uh because i'm a bit confused that it's one of the first cases i
think i could remember where people actually want curb cuts on streets that don't have them
and that's why i brought it to the board's attention confused about that one i am i was
also surprised by that result and if that's what the community once understood it just because it
was such a bizarre result in my experience doing these hearings I wanted to kind of provide a
in my experience doing these hearings i i wanted to kind of provide a little bit of background as
little bit of background.
to what happened at the meeting which seems to me to be the potential explanation for what had
happened i wasn't privy for the for conversations that were had by members of the community
because i i left the building as to my architect and there was conversation so you have a buy
right project that is required to have off-street parking that it would we would have built it by
right with off street but we thought having the off street in the middle of a block made no sense
understood thank you it's mr chair chair oh excuse me chair i don't see charles corn but i do have
two telephone uh callings i have charles uh this is mr richardson again i have charles on my phone
right now uh i don't know how well this is going to work out if you have any questions uh perhaps
you can, Charles, can you hear? Yes, I can hear. Okay. If you can, I don't know if you guys can
hear him over my speaker? Yes. Okay. If you have any questions, you can ask Mr. Karn directly.
I'll have to swear you in though, Charles. Mr. Karn, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Please identify
yourself with the record spell your last name and I'll swear you in. Charles Carn 3853 North 19th
Street RCO chair for the 13th Ward RCO. And Mr. Carn spell your last name for the stenographer.
I'm sorry C-A-R-N. Thank you. Swear and affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth.
Yes sir. Would you care to comment on what the purpose of the objection what why the community
is objecting objecting to this application what happened was we're talking about um 15th street
15 30 um 36 49 and 51 yes um the variance the variance uh mr mobile presented was not to have
all street parking for the two um the two properties the community voted that they wanted to have
off-street parking
off-street parking for the properties
and we understood about the curb cuts
and that was
that was the vote and that was
discussed with Mr. Mulvihill
at the meeting and his architect
the elimination of at least
two on-street parking spaces
is what the community
supporting correct
yes sir
oh yes
that because it's very unusual that's why i need to ask and make sure we're we're all on the same