homes within the city. Thank you, sister. You heard some of what I said that was about the
policies of the sisters. Do you adopt that as your testimony as well? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman,
I think that we've completed our presentation. We're happy to answer any questions the board may
have questions from the board i have a question so while while the men will not be living on site um
I have a question. So while the men will not be living on site, what about visitation? Will men be allowed to visit the site?
The plan is to allow individuals on the first floor in the public spaces. Again, there won't be any women and children there who are with a husband, a father, someplace like that. They're two different groups. When we have an intact family, they house them in a different location with a two or three bedroom individual row home.
so you're saying that any male engagement will be done on in a common area on the first floor
on the first floor where those four offices and the common spaces are down there under supervision
of the staff okay and then also for a couple of the units they have to uh go out there's no
interior bathrooms so um are they accepting just single women uh without children for those
possible units instead of having children going outside to go to their bathroom?
Correct. There are six of the units that have disconnected bathrooms. The idea is that those
will be single women or maybe a woman and a mother, two adult women who are connected in
some way in a family. The six units, the seven units that have intact bathrooms could be for
a mother and child dynamic where it's a one bedroom or a mother with multiple children
where it's a two bedroom. Thank you.
We have the questions from the board.
I have a question about what is the age where they're defining adult male?
Ten years old?
It's women and children under ten is the entire universe.
So we're not taking 11-year-old women, 11-year-old girls either.
It's women and children under ten.
That's the line we're drawing.
And my question, you said that there was going to be training programs or something that's going on there.
i don't see space for that but so ms gaston let me go back to the slides there there the what we
have marked as the as the great room and those things on the first floor would are designed to
be multimodal and multi-use facilities um so if you come down here on the first floor
uh you have this meeting room right here in the middle here and the and the great room over to
the side here that's 663 square feet in the 225 square foot meeting room. And those are designed
to be multimodal. So there'll probably be computers up against the wall or things like that.
We will not generally conduct those trainings ourselves. The sisters have partners in the
community. Every family here has their own caseworker. They all come referred from
higher. So one of the other Catholics family services, one of the other entities that provide
wider services so the idea is that we will be housing partner agencies who come in and do
individual trainings for the people who will live for the women who are living there okay and that's
in english that's in uh basic financial literacy how to get a social security card things like that
okay all right thank you of course good to see you questions or comment
question or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair question or comments from the virtual audience
yes a person's hand went up but it went right oh he's back nick huck will be allowed to speak
okay sir could you please state your name it's spelled for the court stenographer
first name is nicholas n-i-c-h-o-l-a-s last name is huck h-u-c-k
Where or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, in the fact that I'm the principal of the school that is on the same property as the convent.
Please, please give us your testimony.
We have about, we have 525 students at our school.
A significant number of them are from immigrant families.
And as you saw from the diagrams, there's a large amount of shared space with the convent and the school.
Our primary concern is that we can do as much as we can to maintain the safety of our children and for the staff and the community that is a part of our school.
Is that the end of your testimony, sir?
Yes, sir.
All right. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, if I could just comment on that.
My client is committed, and frankly, the Archdiocese and the Monsignor who runs the parish are aggressively working to work together to accommodate all of the users in this complex.
They're all, you know, the ground is all owned by the Roman Catholic Church, the Archdiocese, and we're one big family in that dynamic.
Any other questions from the virtual audience?
I see no other hands, Chair.
Any commission?
Any commission?
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
So, Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The property is indicated for residential use on the city plan.
The applicant has demonstrated that the proposed use will have no more of an impact than would be expected to have given its location.
Therefore, we recommend granting the request for special exception.
Thank you.
MI 2024-004-295-6127 North 5th Street, I vote yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Iowa, my vote is yes.
Tynetta Graham, my vote is yes.
You have your four votes, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, members of the board.
May we be excused.
Thank you.
You can.
Thank you very much.
Number 11, MI 2024-004-318-135 South 18th Street.
Rachel Pritzker is the attorney.
There's a letter of non-opposition from Center City Residents and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Young.
Also, the applicant has provided two form letters of support from neighbors.
Rachel Pritzker has been promoted.
Counsel, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Rachel, R-A-C-H-A-E-L, Pritzker, P-R-I-T-Z-K-E-R.
Where or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, their relationship to the property?
My client's 135 South 18th Street Associates, LP, and I have Stephen Ferraro here who is in ownership.
Do you stipulate to the reading of the refusal and do you agree with its accuracy?
Please proceed and share your screen.
Can we also promote Stephen Potts?
He's the architect.
We'll have him ready.
Can you see my screen?
It's coming up right now.
We see.
It's a little bit off to the side.
better maybe you want to make it just a little bit large a little a little tough to read
better it's better okay it's hard to see what you're looking at or what you can see
i guess from the way my screen is the calendar number percer if i may can you just um widen
your screen like make it a whole screen
can i widen it you drag it drag it get to the end of it drag it
like it's in like the minimize if you can there you go is that better yep thank you
sorry guys i'm the least tech savvy lawyer in the town so i apologize okay is that better though
it is it was we see everything okay great okay i'm gonna get to the refusal
Okay. This is for 135 South 18th Street. This is a CMX5 property located at the corner
of 18th and Walnut. This is the AK Rittenhouse Hotel, if you're familiar with Rittenhouse Square.
This project is for the installation of two illuminated accessory building identification
signs, size and location as per plans, which we'll go through. This generated one refusal
for accessory sign controls for specific zoning districts for maximum height. The proposed
accessory sign installation is above the second floor windowsill, which results in a refusal
exceeding the maximum height allowed for CMX 5. The sign is located on the exterior wall,
as the plans will show, just to give you an idea of this building. If you can see on my screen,
it's this corner where the aka is it's a historic building as well so I'll go through a hardship as
for the location of the signs but as you can see it's a long-standing commercial mixed-use building
high-rise on 18th and Walnut it's located on roughly 7,500 square feet given the size of the
property and its commercial characteristics the mixed-use nature of the building and its location
on this busy street 18th and Walnut we're needing a relief from the zoning code for
two illuminated signs that we'll show on our plans. Essentially, the code only allows for them
to be under the second windowsill. There is some, as you can see, historic detailing and facade on
this property. And so given that and the fact that it's a mixed-use property that has a bunch
of different retail tenants, restaurant, hotel, and also, again, given sort of the location of
um and also again given sort of the location of the sills and the historic details on this project
the sills and the historic detail.
location as per the code is not feasible or practical um on this site so this is just for
signs um and we're looking for relief from the code just to allow for the signs to be
above the second story windowsill um just going to go through we met with so we also have approval
given the historic nature and the review by the art commission we have approved from the art
commission we also have approval from the historical commission as well for the location
and for the design of these signs um your tax clearance the deed again this is cmx5 aerial
shots of the site zoning posters all in our exhibit packet
This is the part in the code that we are seeking relief from.
We met with Center City Residence Association back in August on the 27th, and as was mentioned,
we sent mailers to 231 people, and we have a letter of non-opposition for the signs proposed
in this application and for the refusals that I mentioned.
um i also believe you should have a letter of non-opposition as mentioned from
the council office um i'd like to bring up stephen potts from the architecture firm who designed
the project just to quickly go through the signs and the details of them and the locations
for our hardship okay stephen potts has been promoted
could you please state your name and spell for the sonographer
Absolutely. It's Stephen Potts, S-T-E-P-H-A-N, last name Potts, P-O-T-T-S, with Stanif Potts Architects.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Stephen, can you just share your screen and go through the plans?
Absolutely. And I'll try to be succinct and brief here.
um what you're looking at here is a a rendering a photoshop rendering we did to show these signs
in the proposed location um what what these signs are trying to accomplish is is helping
people understand the identity of what that what happens in the building um and the thing we
struggled with here and the reason we're looking for relief from the zoning code in this particular
case is that the the uh i think i can draw here and you'll be able to see the zone that would be
the sort of by right place to put just below the second floor windowsill where signage where this
signage as proposed would be just by right would be uh wouldn't present any need for refusal um is
quite tightly packed with actually a lot of really beautiful stone ornamentation and uh and also
architectural this sort of bronze window surrounds and the way uh i think i'm going to skip maybe just
while we're talking about this to the to the details so when you when you look at the um
this is the uh walnut street elevation um that zone that i was talking about it's sort of below
here's the second floor sill so each separate uh retail store has what would be sort of your normal
kind of identification of what happens inside that window,
let's say, if it's a retail store like Lagos or Toomeat.
What we were trying to do, and so I guess the difficulty
was how to apply signage to this building in such a way
that it would sort of, where was the lowest place
on the building you could apply signage,
but still be respectful of the architecture
and the historic nature of the building's sort of importance.
And I think one thing that's important to kind of start out with is that we work closely with the Historic Commission to kind of work together to work out this location.
It was by far the preferred location of the Historic Commission because this is a spot on the facade that has sort of smooth stonework without any crenellations or any kind of ornamental bronze work.
So hopping back to the rendering for a second, that's why that location made sense to them.
They were very pleased with this proposal.
um it the scientists otherwise in full compliance with this type of signage in terms of height
illumination it's not proposed to be facelit or blinking or anything like that it's actually
backlit metal letters so that it would actually just be a subtle glow around them um and that
was something that both with the historic commission and in our conversations with the
art commission that was appreciated as well um we also were careful to get the input of the
neighbors at the RCO meeting, we spoke with them about the color temperature of the lighting,
the sort of ways in which the intention here was to have building on a vacation,
building out a vacation but to do it in a way that fit with the architecture of the building and was
but to do it in a way that fit with the architecture of the building and was subtle.
subtle in impact not aggressively bright or anything of that nature i'm just kind of quickly
just going through the rest of the pages here this is a site plan that shows the two locations
the sign they're near the corner of 18th and walnut and just kind of completing out these
drawings the drawings we have here are the are the just they say approved because either the
copies of the drawings that were approved by the uh store commission they were actually approved at
staff level which i think is sort of speaks to um the uh so the supportive nature of the of that
that conversation with them we we um we work closely together to make sure we were sort of
all our connection points are at grout joints and things like that all the things we would want to do
to make sure that we're uh being respectful of the building so um that i i we could i could