Planning Commission?
Ron Bednar, City Planning. First name Ron, R-O-N, last name Bednar, B-E-D-N-A-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
So while this property is currently indicated for mixed use on the city plan,
And given the surrounding use context, we recommend that press referents be granted.
I'm sorry, Chair.
This is Tanya.
May I ask Mr. Ward a question?
Mr. Ward, am I to understand there is a minor tax balance?
A minor what?
I'm sorry?
Tax balance.
Yeah, Tanya, it's $40.
understood. However, we would need a zero balance before the board is allowed
Understood.
However, we would need a zero balance before the board is...
to render a decision, in my experience. Is that correct, sir?
My understanding is that the former chair would vote the cases based upon the lack of any
liens against the property for tax balances due. I would suggest that a $40
balance on a vacant lot is nominal at best and that the board is within their discretion to vote
the case. I would feel more comfortable. Mr. Ward, this is what we'll do. We have the planning
commission on record. Pay the $40, we'll vote the case and we'll report it out next week.
Okay, that's fine. Thank you both very kindly. All right, have a great night.
Thank you.
You too, sir.
MI 2021-003831, 1708 North Bodine Street, Old Kensington Neighborhood Association, letter of support.
Councilwoman Sanchez, non-opposition, Gabriel Falco.
mr falco
here he is mr falco state your name and spell it for our court reporter
i don't see him where i i see his name here i promoted him
good thank you you're welcome mr falco unmute
could you say your name and spell for the court reporter please
yes sir um gabriel falco g-a-b-r-i-e-l
f as in frank a l c o right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do our vice chair has a few questions for you yes mr falco did you um
submit the exhibit packet as we requested um five days before this hearing yes ma'am uh thank you
you may proceed okay yeah okay thank you you're welcome um so yeah thank you you're not i know
you're doing this per se but you're not an attorney are you no i'm not no okay go ahead
where the suit for the you know it was a court here you know it's all but yeah uh no ma'am i'm
not for the record yeah so um yeah thank you for the continuance i'm sorry it seemed to be an issue
with the documents last week uh at a different hearing so sorry to burden the court with that
i thought to be able to just can everybody see my screen do you see the documents we don't see that
yet you have to make sure you hit that green button on the bottom okay thank you
it's coming up now okay great um there's another one with the picture of the actual
property but this is the proposed elevation i thought um so mr taco we don't see it yet you
have to bring it up oh wait a minute you don't see the um it says you're starting to share your screen
sir you might want to try to stop sharing um pull up the document and then just try resharing again
It's saying something about optimized full screen video clip and it's doing that thing.
Did you click yes for the optimized full screen?
I don't notice that, but yes, I just clicked it.
and what kind of um computer are you using Lenovo laptop okay
there you go there you go so okay thank you guys sorry about the yeah okay so okay yeah thank you
all for being here today I'm sorry that it was a matter of the continuance it wasn't my attention
but in any event um the first image that we have here is just the simple
but in any event um the first image that we have here is just the simple uh floor plan uh not floor
people.
plan i'm sorry the elevation view and so following that i have a table of contents to run through with
and so after this follows the deed and uh other relevant documents of the application for
appeal you guys have the letter from the neighborhood association and so the I thought to go through
this just on basis of the refusal which I'll pull down to where's my documents
um you might need to just like time to load yeah say it again you just might need to give
them time to load when you get to each page okay thank you
so any well anyway yeah i do hope to answer any of your questions or concerns
on the project this year is the actual I don't know how to blow that up but where my cursor is
that's the actual site of the project so that's the site plan it's a blighted block as it stands
okay so this is the zoning refusal and so my thought was just to go ahead and address the
issues on there and then as necessary or requested to consider the other items in the pdf
and so the first item was a location of accessory parking and so um it mentions not accessible from
shared driveway alleyway or yard and so the issue on that is that this street i'm sorry
i can't see any of you guys just hold on please they can't see me either
okay so in any event i guess it's going to be that way um so the idea was to reduce parking
congestion in the area um wasn't taking away any parking from anyone who would pull up and park on
the street uh it happens to be a street that's only um well it's one way but there's no parking
on either side of the street so narrow street that doesn't allow parking on it and so in that
the idea was to reduce the parking from overflowing into the other parts of the
neighborhood. With regard to the second item, use is allowed in residential district refusal
because of a two-family household living expressly prohibited in the RSA-5. And so originally when
this was purchased, it was a CMX-2 property. I purchased it off of friends of mine, the Cologne
family, and I purchased in 2012. Around 2016, if not 2014, the city went through a sweeping change
and reduced all the zoning designations by one grade.
And so as an RSA5 property, this would have allowed for two to three units on the property itself.
At that time, the lots were 12 feet wide.
Originally, it was three 12-foot lots that we had consolidated into two 18s.
And so a good matter of thought was given to the amount of units and to reduce density as it was when the project began.
As time went on, that changed.
And so the hardship.
I'm sorry.
And so, yeah, regarding the multifamily, inherently it was that way for many years.
And then the city did a sweeping change to reduce it by one.
so the cmx2 became an rsa5 that being said the three sites would have allowed for six to nine
units today it would be three units the one property was approved and allowed as a single
family this property was designed as a duplex or a two-unit property on the third unit and there's
a letter from the streets department i guess i should bring that up um that they didn't have any
further um requirements for for that i'm sorry guys if you don't fast through this like this i
hate the burden of court with the wasting the time here
before that
yeah so this was um the letter from the can everyone see that
yeah okay thank you um so this is the letter from the street department dated 2021
i believe and uh it shows that it's a review of the application and plans for the subject
submission has been performed the philadelphia streets department now takes no further exceptions
to the most recently submitted current version of the proposed plans which are approved as noted by
proposed plans which are approved as noted by any conditions and so that was their um
any conditions and so that was
you know their position on the matter um now and so that goes to the accessory parking i believe
the third refusal or item of refusal back to that
i'm sorry guys a little disorganized i guess yeah so the third item was the dimensional standards
to the open area and so uh 80 is allowed and so we went and designed it as an 83.4 property
so the lot itself is 48 foot with the rear alleyway in the back and so it amounts to a 40 foot depth
with the proposal and the 3.4 percent comes out to about a foot or a little less than a foot
and so i the hardship that i have there is my truck is a 19 foot truck and so after we build
the walls i lose about two feet so to be able to have this space so it's sizable not just actually
um building rooms but rooms that actually can function and have you know um serve the purpose
are designed for. That was the reason for the encroachment on the open area. Finally, the
refusal 147011, the rear yard, a minimum of nine foot is required by RSA 5, and eight foot is what
I had proposed. And so the idea that, again, touches on the other issue where it allows me
to have the vehicle in the garage, allows me to have the vehicle in the property, but then be able
to walk in front of it behind it and then still have like a good 15 or 16 foot in the back room
and so that was the um the origin of that and how that developed it's worthy to note that the
parking is going to be built on top of a slab not on a foundation with a basement underneath it
the basement itself is a half basement the idea here is that since i have a next door neighbor
and oftentimes the garages are problematic and that they leak when guys build it out like that
The idea was to avoid that altogether and not have a basement underneath it in the first place.
So we avoid any of those propping opinions under his part of that foundation.
And the smallest allowable yard space in the city of Philadelphia, I understand, is five foot.
so the yard allows me to satisfy my needs allows the interior space to work work well for what i
have and um let's see what are the other issues so the thought is so it's two units to be proposed
so if i can i'd like to go to the floor plan so i hope you guys can see this but this is my screen
and that's the property that's the block bodine street it corners at cecil b more there are other
there are other multi-use families well there are other properties that are beyond RSA 5 in the area
on this block here we only have two houses well three houses but that house is addressed to Cecil
B. Moore the other two houses 1710 and 1712 I believe the owner of that property is here today
Luis if he's mentioned anything or not I don't know but he signed a petition to support the
project and the idea here um yep so it's a blighted block we have very little to no development
there were code enforcement violations on it when i purchased it we satisfied all those liens and
encumbrances so that the city of philadelphia would you know not have any deaths or anything
to that effect um so it's a four-story property as was mentioned in a letter from the neighborhood
association that they wanted it to be able to be brick which i have no problem with i'm happy to
built with brick and so the facade is to be built with brick and the exclusion of the bump out there's
a small bump out and that would probably have to be a product different than brick the floor plans
here just simply show the garage on the first floor the room in the rear and then the half
basement here with the yard and the easement in the back so all those requirements were satisfied
But in design, we have a one-bedroom, two-bathroom unit on the first floor, which is what these plans indicate.
We have one bedroom, that's the second floor, and the one bathroom here.
The second unit, or the upper unit, would be the third and the fourth floors.
And they allow, I guess that was part of that, part of them, yeah.
So this here, where the cursor is going through, is the one-bedroom, one-bath.
But there is another bath in that unit.
it's in the basement on the basement level the idea is to be able to wash off and not bring all
basement level the idea is to be able to wash off and not bring all the dirt and junk up into the
to dirt and junk up into the UL.
second floor bedroom apartment rather and so this here is the third floor this has a bathroom
a bedroom in the back it has the one bathroom kitchen utility area so forth
and then this is the fourth floor with two bedrooms and then the stairs leading up to the deck
i do hope that everyone did everyone receive a copy of the letter from the neighborhood association
it's in your file okay great yep okay and so this is just a letter from the
neighbors so far as what their um you know if they had any concerns on it so we wrote out this
letter in 2017 when I originally did the matter and subdivide and build a house for myself
on the address.
This is a petition to ask for your support if you have no objections and hopefully of
your own volition agree that the project is okay for your community as well, doesn't conflict
with any of your interests.
And so that was signed off by a number of the neighbors.
Plans were shown to the neighbors that signed.
This is the petition for the garage.
this was June 25th 2017 so they are older perhaps some of the neighbors have
changed by now but not too many and this is just the two building proposal
project and would include the garage as is noted here and the two units so I
went through a number of the neighborhood associations at the time
not knowing that I just needed to go through one that was my business so I
just put that up there so anybody could check I never had any lawsuits or any
um issues complaints with my company so that's just me being a carpenter furnish that so that
that could be verified this is the first letter originally in 2017 before the board met with me
in july 26th and uh or that we met and had the hearing it was supported at that time
notes that there was zero opposed seven affected address zero opposed attendees seven supported
two opposed but I don't understand that if zero were opposed but attendees did not vote two okay
that's what that was two people didn't vote and total was 11. and again the same letter from 2017
all that's been updated so if you're aware the application all the necessary documents I think
if you have any questions you're welcome to ask but that's the application form for license
inspection and the project intake form is required and then this would be the February 20th
letter I'm just there are two letters that the neighborhood association Old Kensington
had sent me I'm just looking for the one that's the latest they were both in support but I think
this is the one that the board would be concerned with or the final decision on it February 20th
It notes the refusals.
And in this case, the hearing represented four Zoom participants, zero opposed, non-Zoom, three supported, zero opposed.
Attendees did not vote, one.
Total attendees were eight.
So that was held on February 8th.
All the notices went out to the neighborhood, to the 103 neighbors.
and this is the this is this first letter she sent and then she updated it with the
revised it with the other one I believe and so I'm sorry there's not more pictures here because
it did include well anyway I may have sent them to you in your emails but I didn't include it
include it in this PDF I just want to check on something because I have another file yeah so if
that picture is a little bit bigger than the one in the site plan and so it shows a bit of the
blight regarding the trash we have the alleyway and then over on this area here there's a shared
alley as everybody comes out so there's access to it and so forth so those issues were given