Just for the record, could you please spell your name?
My name is Isaac.
I-S-A-A-C.
Last name Slepner.
s-l-e-p-n-e-r you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do and we have a a letter of non-agreement here i see that right there is a letter of
it seems to be no position uh from allegheny west yeah well i yeah i i we interpreted what
they sent us is a non-agreement whatever i'm not sure what that means okay um i'll take well why
why don't we do this why don't we go on and you can explain that later when you get to that
our vice chair has a few questions for you sure good morning have you submitted your documents
and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing i have submitted many of them five days a few of
them were uh yesterday and this morning i submitted a deed i believe yesterday and only because i
received it very early this morning we also had another letter from swamp poodle rco who was
another participating rco and they sent me a letter and i believe they emailed it to the board
as well and i also submitted it via the system this morning okay all right thank you for that
information and do you waive the read another refusal and stipulate to its accuracy yes all
thank you you can show your screen and proceed with the case okay thank you
here we go all right
okay and is everybody uh seeing this we we do we do see it sir okay this is just my table um
my table of contents so our first document here is the notice uh our notice of refusal which we
just stipulated to original application for appeal um this is the project information
now uh i would point out that in the past this property 3251 fox is an adaptive reuse of an
older factory building in, I guess, the Allegheny West section of the city. And in 2019, the building
was granted a use permit for use, among others, as a child care center. And the space that we're
here on today is specifically is unit 103 of the building, which is we are applying for
a use variance for its use as a daycare or child care center. You can see here that in 2019,
a permit was granted for use of child care center, barbershop, eating and drinking,
retail sale of wearing apparel and accessories in gym and an existing structure.
Then later on in 2021, a zoning permit was also granted for the addition of 37
accessory parking spaces um this is a lease between the tenant and the landlord
um gm holdings llc is the landlord and fc fox llc
Um, GM Holdings LLC is the landlord and FC Fox LLC is the, uh, operator of the, um, daycare center.
This is a lease, a five-year lease beginning, um, on 1-1-2024 through 12-31-2028.
I can scroll through the lease if you want to see the whole lease.
Um, in fact, there is a clause in the lease that states that this particular unit will only be used as a child care center.
Um, let's see.
It's actually, it's further forward than the lease.
Here it is.
The demise premises shall be used solely for the following purpose and no other use, daycare.
This is the letter that I sent to the near neighbors on 6-8 of 26, inviting them to the public meeting that was held by Allegheny West Civic Association because they were the coordinating RCO.
We held the meeting on 6-16 of 26.
This is the cert of mailing from 6-8-26 to all of the addresses that were listed to me by the Planning Commission and the RCO notification tool.
These are plans, and I think these are basically as-built plans.
What had happened was when my client purchased the building in 2019, they had lined up a tenant to open and operate a daycare center, and the tenant had to go about getting all of its licensure from the Commonwealth and fitting the place out in order to have the state inspectors come through.
and then COVID happened and obviously no one was sending their kids to daycare and unfortunately
that operator had to close up shop. A new operator has taken over since then and that's who we're
actually here. I'm actually representing the building owner. The building owner also was
taking over operation of the daycare but these are the plans. So as you can see here this is a
um a site plan of 3251 fox unit 103 is where we're concentrating on right here so this this is the
i'll enlarge this a little bit so this is the unit um we will all right so here is the door from
outside um entry hall entry corridor there's a kitchen some bathrooms back here another toilet
over here storage space a classroom another classroom another classroom an office young
school age uh i guess that's for smaller kids a classroom and an activity room then there's
hallway to go out to the sorry hallway to go out to the backyard and there's a yard over here a
play yard for the kids over here as well um if you scroll down this now gives us kind of more oh this
is um it's more of the uh interior plans these are um your your uh attachments um your wall
attachments and and uh construction connections but as i said this is all already built out so
there's no no construction no demolition planned here um and that's the the rest of the um of the
plan uh we'll move on over here then i've got photos so this is the front door from the outside
leading in. This is a kind of a wider shot of the front door. Entry hall, you can see you got a front
desk and rooms branching off on either side. Classrooms, and there's the kitchen. This is
one of the classrooms. This is another of the classrooms with a window. Another of the classrooms
with large array of windows looking out onto Fox Street and another of the classrooms again with a
window. This is one of the bathrooms. Another shot of the bathroom. Here's your kitchen. You can see
the hot water heater right here. Second shot of the kitchen. This is a close-up of the play yard
and a large wide shot of the play yard.
This is a photo of the orange poster posted in the front window 21 days ago,
so on July 1st of this year,
and a close-up of the orange poster as posted on July 1st.
And a close-up of the orange poster as posted on July 1st.
This is also a copy of the deed in favor of my client that was recorded in August of 2019.
This is the letter and vote tally from Allegheny West Civic, which the board does have in its hand.
The vote total was tied.
It was a total of 11 in favor, 11 against.
And you can see that the coordinating RCO, Allegheny West, stated that they did not reach an agreement on the application.
And so I would point out that it is not a letter of opposition.
uh we also have a letter of support from another of the local rco's uh swamp poodle neighborhood
who uh wrote a very um glowing recommendation in favor of the variants uh they also seem to
have written about some issues that they seem to take with allegheny west which i can't really
comment on um but i would just put point out that that some of the content of their uh
letter involves that um and with that i would like to call my client george groves to adopt my
testimony okay what's your client's name uh george groves of 3251 fox street limited liability company
and he should be out there
George Groves is coming in now.
Mr. Grove.
George Groves, can you unmute yourself?
you're allowed to speak i'm mr grove could you please state your name is spelled for the
stenographer. I'm trying to get him right now. Mr. Grove, do we see him? Yes, he's there. He's
technical issues uh counsel uh you're an officer of the court will accept your testimony uh thank
you mr chair questions from the board yes what uh how many children are we talking about
see that would be a question for my client but i believe it's no more than
25 no excuse me here he is hello wow mr grove could you please state your name is bell for
the stenographer sure george groves g-r-o-v-e-s all right do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth told truth nothing but the truth yes sir council uh george are you a member of three two
five one fox street limited liability company yes and three two five one fox street limited
liability company owns 3251 fox street correct yes and did you hear all of the testimony and
see all of the exhibits that i just offered to the board yes and would you adopt all of
that testimony as though you had given it yourself yes um and uh george i know that um
miss gaston had just asked how many children does this daycare accommodate
yeah 106 okay i was way off oh yeah okay um yeah and uh what kind of age up to questions
from the board and i'll turn it over to the board yeah what other what kind of age ranges
are we talking about infant to uh pre-k okay and then uh hours of operation six to six
every day no six to six five days a week and they're available for uh saturday upon request
okay all right and how long have you been operating this this one um this was approved
in 19 and COVID came
and the person who was running it
lost their
I guess
classification okay we okay I'm just asking about how long is it is it
classification
I'm just
operating now no man how long no it's not operating all right okay all right
so this is an anticipation of doing that so you're not how do you handle snacks
and things like that and that's for the children that's all done through a mason
meals okay it's a reheat it's not a cook got you okay and then uh my question always about these
is um is this on one floor yes ma'am yes ma'am it's on floor perfect okay um and then uh you have
all the fire code um yes yes covered right with the means of ingress and egress um panic bars so
when there's five means of egress there's five means of egress into the building and out of it
okay okay and then uh you have the uh hardwired smoke detection systems you have sprinklers yes
ma'am okay um and uh uh emergency lighting yes ma'am okay and then uh what's the ratio of uh
children to bathrooms how many how many bathrooms do you have and what's the ratio it's it's there's
combination bathrooms in the in the in the girls room there's four toilets in the men's room there's
three toilets and two urinals okay and you said you have 106 kids it's it's it's classified for
the state to be 106 kids okay all right and then so but a bunch of i'm sorry so a bunch of those
would be um children that are um maybe using diapers and first one thing and another so
they wouldn't necessarily be using the bathrooms is that correct correct okay all right thank you
all the questions yeah sorry i have a quick go ahead oh if i may if i may just um ask my
client one one follow-up uh that's not 106 kids all at the same time correct why not it doesn't
The building's big enough for 106 kids.
Mr. Johns is on there.
He can tell you the square footage a lot better than I can if he looks at it,
but we're going to qualify for that.
I know you have one, Mr. Johns.
You want to ask?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't see...
I see steps to the front, so my question is about accessibility, wheelchair accessibility.
I don't see it, so how do you plan to address that?
So there's means of egress on other sides of the building?
On the flat street side, there's a gate, and it's ground level, rolls right in, right through the building.
So the wheelchair access is from there?
Yeah, it met all the ICC and handicap codes.
Yeah, I mean, ideally, you don't kind of want to have folks in wheelchairs that have to kind of go to the back door to get in.
So it would kind of maybe be good to address that.
the other the other just sort of general question i have is what is do the naughty kids get the room
the classroom with no windows yeah that's that's that's my only other question well i want to put
all the i want to put all the attorneys in that room great all right wow that's it don't worry
sir we only have one attorney on the board and two lawyers sitting next to her you're right
other questions um questions from our attorney who's traumatized but
no windows mr chairman you know when i go back and see mr higgins he's going to scold me for that
one i had i just wanted to clarify because you said now the owner's taking over because the um
applicant was fc fox llc you showed the lease and now um let me cut we are part of uh fox llc
that's just another entity of ours okay but i just want to make sure who is now running it because
there's a lease and a deed. Is it going to be FC Fox LLC or is it going to be 3251 Fox Street
Limited? It's going to be Fox, what do you call it, the daycare end of it, the first one you just said.
It's going to be Fox, what do you call it, the daycare end of it, the first one you just said.
The FC, Fox, LLC, that's pursuant to the lease that was produced?
And also for council, I didn't see any tax compliance.
Yeah, we're working on that.
I had spoken with Mr. Hegarty and with board council about that late last week and earlier this week.
my understanding is that the board is either going to hold its vote until we produce tax
compliance and that we will need to do that within 30 days but i did speak with both mr hegarty and
um miss emerson uh about that okay i just wanted to clarify yeah we won't we will not be able the
board will not be able to vote on this um with regard that should be done within the next five
days per the city questions or comments from the virtual audience no hands planning commission
oh wait excuse me chair a hand just went up sure and it's phone number ending in three five five
two they will be allowed to speak right okay adrian
Hello, good morning, Adrian. Could you please state your name is bill for the sonographer?
Adrian.
Adrian, could you you're coming in very low?
can you hear me better now a little bit better yeah could you please state your name and spell
for the stenographer yes adrian fernandez my last name is spelled f-e-r-n-a-n-d-e-z
can you hear me better now do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing about the
true yeah yeah please proceed okay RCO has worked with this address with the
affected RCO North Central Philadelphia Susquehanna CDC since 2019 we are
familiar with the original unit 103 application and through to the current
one um swamped rco supports this appeal with one proviso and that's just that they continue with
the um trash and recycling management plan that's already in place um the information
we wrote about the vote is because we have had we have testified swamped rtos testified with
um Tioga residents and other persons about the um concealment and falsification of votes by
Allegheny West Civic Association um for this application for this um public meeting all RCA
all affected RCOs did not receive the public meeting summary form and it's very confusing
how the letter says that no agreement was reached but the public meeting summary form has a chart
throwing votes including six votes for one rco fewer in attendance and either one voted or two
voted but once again the votes are very confusing they're summarized however the letter is in
conflict with that we have other information there in the letter that this concealment and
classification violates the philadelphia code for regulating neighborhood meetings so we're just
asking the board to approve this application for the new operator of the current um or proposed
chocolate center thank you thank you for taking the time to call is there anyone else in the virtual
audience i see no hands planning commission good morning liz fuselay on behalf of philadelphia
the Planning Commission. The comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning from the existing
I-1 light industrial zone district. There are several existing commercial uses within this
building. The proposed child care use is in keeping with the commercial character of this