page here um yes sir the design the architect the architect came with the design and the pictures
and that's what um they wanted that's what they voted on you say the design so is this more to do
with the design of the structures or does it have more to do with the curb cuts
the design was fine um the variance was for the um um not to put the um the parking spaces
the community voted to have the parking spaces on the property and and the curb cuts all right
okay thank you anyone else i'm sorry
you have anything else to add
there are no hands chair all right uh questions from the board no no no planning commission
good morning david effecto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with the philadelphia city planning commission
You swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Please proceed.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman and members of the board, these properties are indicated for commercial mixed use on the comprehensive plan.
They are located one block from the Erie Broad Street Line station.
Accordingly, we have no objection to granting these variances.
Thank you very much.
um mi 2020-000551 3649 north 15th street and mi 2020-000686
3651 north 15th street uh my my vote is yes with all due respect to mr karn and the councilwoman's
office uh this is very unusual but my my vote is yes yes my vote is yes to both my vote is yes to
both my vote is yes to both thank you all
my vote is yes to both thank you all thank you members of the board have a good afternoon
thank you take care
so did we we got to go to 21st street now correct south 21st
MI 2020-001539, 1401-03 South 21st Street.
I believe Mr. Marcioni is representing the applicant.
Is there anyone representing 1401-03 South 21st Street?
I'm sorry, Chair.
Mr. Mattione, you've been promoted to panelists.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Mattione, identify yourself with the record.
Michael Mattione, M-A-T-T-I-O-N-I, Federal Reserve Bank Building, 100 North Independence
Mall, Suite 5A, Northwest, Philadelphia, 19106.
Mr. Mariano, you're still under oath from earlier this morning.
Please proceed.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Cliff Lasky, my client is available as well, and I'd like to have him unmuted.
He's the owner and developer of this property.
It's a 1401-03 South 21st Street.
We did receive late last night a support letter from the RCO, there's our tax clearance certificate, and the refusal.
This is 1401-03 South 21st Street, was consolidated from two lots into one lot in 2018.
The prior owner then sought to develop it as five units.
that was denied. My client bought the property and he seeks to subdivide it back into two separate
properties, 1401 and 1403, South 21st Street. Because doing the subdivision creates two lots
that don't meet the minimum lot requirements of 1,440 square feet and for 1403 doesn't meet the
16-foot-wide requirements, he needs variances to basically build two single-family homes
where two single-family homes are permitted.
It would be bringing back the lots to what had been prior to 2018.
In this area, there are many 14-foot-wide lots, including basically every one on Garrett Street,
and a lot of 15-foot-wide lots, including 1407 South 21st Street,
and then every other lot in the area is undersized.
The two lots here are basically 18 by 48 and 15 by 48,
so they're 855 square feet and 715 square feet.
So that's the refusals.
The homes themselves, they meet all of the dimensional requirements.
They're less than 38 feet in height.
There are three stories, the rear yard and open area requirements for both properties are met.
And again, we have the full support of the RCO.
On the site plan, we do have bump outs for bay windows.
And what we would like to do, Mr. Chairman, we met with the RCO on November 23rd.
And we would like the opportunity to revise the plans at the suggestion of the RCO to remove these bay windows.
We just didn't have enough time between last week and this week with the holiday.
So, if we could finish the presentation and hold the vote until we can revise the plans
and come back with revised plans without the bay windows on the side, we would appreciate
Excuse me, this is Sharon Sledder.
Mr. Mattione, is this something that could be addressed with a proviso, no bay windows?
If we could have Cliff Lasky add it on, then he could comment on that.
I'd rather not comment on that for the developer.
I'm sorry. What's the name of the developer? Cliff Lasky, L-A-S-K-Y.
Hello, can you hear me? Mr. Lasky, please identify yourself for the record. Spell your first and last name, and I will swear you in.
Hello, Clifford Lasky, C-L-I-S-F-O-R-D, Lasky, L-A-S-K-Y, Ben Franklin Residences, 1453 Point Breeze Avenue, Philadelphia, PA.
Hello, Clifford Lasky, C-L-I-S-F-O-R-D, Lasky, L-A-S-K-Y.
Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Thank you, sir. Please proceed.
You heard the question.
Could you just repeat it once?
Yes, I'm asking if the request of the community could be addressed rather than submitting revised plans
simply with a proviso to the decision saying bay windows to be removed.
Yeah, so the only issue is, you know, the architect didn't have enough time to resubmit this zoning drawing here,
which L&I has, which shows these two bump outs.
I know when my architect actually completes the plans, these structural drawings will have to show, you know,
a triple joyous beam supporting these bump outs when in reality we're not going to do any bump outs.
There's not going to be any triple-joice beam. I want to make sure that the architect can submit
a zoning plan not showing these bump outs and the final building plan not showing the bump outs
so that there's not any issues later on. There's an agreement we can do by proviso.
Right. Maybe we'll submit to you the zoning plans with the bump outs removed.
You guys can stamp them if everybody's in agreement. No, that's the point. We cannot
stamp them after the decision is read but how about this as an alternative is there a possibility that
the architect could have the plans to the board by end of today or by end of tomorrow uh possibly
yes uh let me you know i'll call him right after this meeting and tell him it's a super rush and
to get the plans to you guys today tomorrow because if it could um if it would be cleaner to simply
remove them from the plans i don't think this requires a follow-up hearing but if the board
approves it, you could instead say that the record is being held open solely for submission
of plans showing removal of the bay windows, if that would work for you, Chair.
Yes, yes.
I'm fine with that as well, yep.
Let me just do one other thing, Mr. Chair, real quick.
Did you hear my statements, Cliff?
Yes, I did.
And are they truly correct?
do you adopt them as your testimony i do thank you thank you any questions from the board no no
anyone else will care to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
we still have uh mr lasky's hand up but there's no other hands chair
Thank you. Planning Commission.
Good morning. David Fecto, City Planning Commission.
I'm sorry, Chair. Can I please interrupt for a second?
We do have Pietra Gamble.
Pietra.
I thought she was missing. All right. Good morning, Ms. Gamble.
Please identify yourself with the record and I'll swear you in.
Good morning. My name is Pietra Gamble. I'm a member of the coordinating RCO.
We're in front of the tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
I just wanted to go on record saying that we are in support of the project with the
proviso of the removal of the bay windows.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Anyone else?
That's all, Chair.
And Planning Commission again.
Sorry.
Oh, that's okay.
Good morning.
David Fecto, City Planning Commission, Mr. Chairman and members of the Board.
This property is indicated for residential single-family use on the comprehensive plan.
Accordingly, we have no objection to granting this variance.
Thank you. Sharon, what was that proviso again?
For the removal of the bay windows or?
Oh, Sharon.
Tanya, do you remember what that statement was? Does anybody remember it? Proviso would be
removal. I'm sorry, I forget, but I was muted. We can't vote. Yes, what you could announce is that
the record is closed aside from submission of plans showing the removal of bay windows.
it will be voted tomorrow at 3 30 with revised plans so my vote is yes no we can't vote oh that's
right we can't vote on so i'm sorry it will be voted tomorrow but the record is closed except
for the revised plans being submitted thank you so noted i will i don't have to repeat that thank
you yes thank you all right okay um am i
All right. Okay. MI 2020-000494. 1439 South 20th Street.
anyone here for 1439 south 20th street
chair we have two hands up
one anthony merlino and a phone call excuse me i'm sorry one anthony merlino and the other steve
masters masters good morning please identify yourself with the record and i'll swear you in
i'm sorry can we promote steve masters fatina yes
mr matter masters you've been promoted to panel
good morning mr chair members of the board steve masters from the law firm of just laws
representing the applicant we're going to firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing about
the truth i do please proceed your masters do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy yes i do and have you mailed the entire email packet the exhibit
packet to the board within five days of this hearing yes we have thank you you may proceed
thank you members of the board this is a change of use only proposal to put a restaurant
at the corner of Dickinson and South 20th Street.
This is a location that since 1954 has had a sandwich shop.
So the proposed use that Mr. Merlino's company is bringing in here
is a very slight alteration from the use that's been at this location for quite some time.
um go through the exhibits really quickly um so the the um refusal here is just um a denial um
because this is a cmx1 uh zoning district and the sit-down restaurant is not permitted
um so it's it's one use refusal uh we had several very productive meetings with
the community on October 21st, October 26th, and November 16th. And as a result of those
conversations, and in addition, Mr. Merlino was able to meet and talk with many of the near
neighbors. And as he went around to explain the project, we had an overwhelming vote in support
of this project 27 community members voted in favor of it and only two were opposed all of the
near neighbors were in support there are some provisos that we agreed to as part of this process
and i'm go through in a in just a a bit just a description of the whole project but the provisos
and the community letter that we agreed to are the hours from 7 a.m to 11 p.m cut off a pickup
at 11 p.m. The trash trucks, commercial trash, will be on 20th Street and will pick up trash
from both the tenants and from the restaurant during daytime hours. We're going to have a
barrier that's a vegetative barrier to insulate the sound from the pickup window to the near
neighbors. We'll be adding some extra security cameras to ensure that the barrier doesn't
cause a blind spot. We are not going to apply for a streetery parklet. We are interested in
a sidewalk cafe, but nothing onto the street. And the neighbors did agree with us that it was
beneficial to have a loading zone, one parking space between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.
so that the residents could use that spot between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., and that loading zone is going
to be for not just deliveries during the day to the restaurant, but for the commercial drivers
with the online orders that people will make, like Uber Eats and Grubhub, so those types of
uh companies um so uh we you'll see in this photo is um our property is on the corner here
is um our property is on the corner here and we have the approval of the neighbors um except
and we have the approval of
uh for the vacant home which there's no one there uh that there would be the most impacted by uh
bringing back this this restaurant use into this property and we have um a very large number of
petition signatures from the immediate area including a second round of petitions that were
that were done after we negotiated the the provisos
that confirmed that the near neighbors were all in support of those
have the client if you could summarize sure um would you like to see the the plans at all
uh yeah briefly i guess yes okay all right sure let me put this over here
So this is the site plan, um, Dickinson Street, oops, I think it's a little smaller.
Dickinson Street is to the right. South 20th is below here. We're proposing containers,
very attractive containers to put the trash bins on the south 20th side. And a few will
be applying to the streets department for a few tables and chairs for sidewalk dining.
and then, go down.
So this is the view from the rendering
from South 20th Street.
This is the entrance to the apartments that are upstairs
and this is the main entrance to the restaurant.