to the right is the storage shed this small area here is an enclosed area that has an open
or a window that can open to the patio behind there is a refrigerator a tv you know in order
to be able to serve refreshments on the outdoor patio deck.
So looking at it from above, again, this is the storage shed.
This is access to the window serving area for the covered deck with a ceiling fan.
So then we have the deep map.
Again, property is located on Glen Street.
Academy Road would be up towards the far top left corner, and it's just before the intersection with Berea Street.
So we have our posting.
And again, the Google aerials.
We do have our letter of support from the West Tarsdale Morrell Park Civic Association in support.
um three committee members present voted in support 16 unaffected members in the area voted
in support five affected who received the rco meeting notice voted in favor however it was
one individual who voted against the application
um again the chair referenced the petition of support that is attached
um and then there was some zoning history again the property was you know built in 1971
uh there was some additions for you know miscellaneous items such as retaining walls
etc etc uh filed over the years so um again the property is uh you know the the pink area here
would be the airport and academy road you know meandering to the left here property is located
quite towards the back near the requesting bybury creek and again just another aerial photo
and again as mentioned uh councilman brian o'neill's office submitted a letter earlier this
afternoon uh for the property of 3769 glenn street advising that he had no objection and i
I would add that he was present at the meeting, the RCO meeting, and was aware that we were making our presentation that evening.
uh the rco meeting and was aware that we were making our presentation that evening
uh mr chairman that's all i have i did ask joe murphy to raise his hand when the meeting started
so if he can be uh allowed to speak i can have him verify and adopt
mr murphy could you state your name and spell it please for the court reporter
uh my name is joseph murphy j-o-s-e-p-h last name is m-u-r-p-h-y right do you swear for him
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel thank you chair
uh joe you've heard my representations to the board yes are they true and correct at the best
of your knowledge information and belief yes and would you adopt them as your own testimony today
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, first name Ron, R-O-N, last name Bednar, B-E-D-N-A-R.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
This property is indicated for residential use on a city plan or adopted district plan recommends no change to the existing residential single-family zoning and dislocation.
The applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or condition of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the code.
Therefore, we recommend a request for variance not be granted.
Thank you.
M-I-2022-003-143-3769 Glenn Street.
I vote yes.
Carol Tenere, my vote is yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Sorry.
Sorry about that.
I'm sorry about that.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you very much.
Have a great day.
Okay. Number six, MI-2022-003-086-1122 Dickinson Street. David Orfanides is the attorney. Letter of non-opposition from Councilman Mark Squilla and letter of non-opposition from Passchung Square Civic Association.
Orfanides is back as a panelist, sir.
There we go. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Mr. Orphanides. Could you please state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Certainly. David Orphanides, O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, sir.
Could you identify your client in a relationship to the property?
Certainly. My client is Dickinson Partners, LLC. That's D-I-C-K-I-N-S-O-N, Partners, plural, LLC.
Right. Thank you. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Hi, Mr. Orphanides. Do you agree to wait the reading of the refusal to stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed proof of ownership tax compliance, a copy of the refusal or referral, photos under plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
We met with the RCO. We have a letter. We also have a letter from the councilman.
I did email everything. We were a couple hours after the deadline. We had problems getting the PDF in the proper format. But I think given that, given the position of the community and the council person, that few, few hour delay shouldn't hopefully prevent us from moving forward today.
Okay, you may proceed again by sharing your screen.
Thank you.
Can everybody see my screen?
Okay. So again, my name is David Orfanides. I'm here this afternoon on behalf of Dickinson Partners, LLC. I have John Micah Zimmerman with me, who's here representing Dickinson Partners, LLC. He's one of the members.
He's identified as such, I believe, on the Zoom call that at some point I'd be promoted so that he can either answer questions or adopt my statements. I also have Richard Miller here with me. I think he's identified as Richard Miller. He's the architect on the project and the same thing.
At some point, we'll have him either promoted so that he can answer questions or adopt my statements.
The subject property, the property that we're here for today is 1122 Dickinson Street.
You can see a photo of it up on my screen.
It's an existing two-story building.
I can show you the interior photos.
It's in a pretty bad state of disrepair.
um what's interesting about this this property is that or the structure is that it occupies
What's interesting about this property is that
All right.
two things first of all it occupies presently the structure occupies 100 of the lot you can also see
that it's sandwiched um encircled or include completely enclosed by the buildings to either
side of us the one building is this building over here to our left which would be to our east
which is not part of this project obviously but you can see how it comes back here and then the
other property is this property here 1124 to 28 dickinson street which my client also owns which
is right now a vacant uh building with had has a history of commercial use uh with a garage and
accessory parking there and here you can see part of that building right here i have other
photographs of that so it's very unique uh in the fact that it's completely enclosed by other
buildings. You can see that it's also extremely unique in its shape because of the way some of
the streets come together and meet down in this portion of Philadelphia, of South Philadelphia,
off of Paso Yonk Avenue. On the one side, the west side here, it's 27 feet 1 3⁄8 inches long.
On this side, it's 47 feet 2 3⁄4 inches long. Per the definition of the zoning code,
and coming up with lot depth, you measure to the in-between and you'll see then the refusal
with what we propose, we're not being held to the nine foot required rear yard depth that you
normally see in RSA 5. This is an RSA 5 zone property, but seven feet. So the lot depth is
obviously given that requirement has been deemed by LNI to be less than 45 feet. And then obviously
you have this angled portion here that runs along the other building that my client owns. So two
sides of it are along sides along building or a property that my client owns. And then the other
side, the third of the four sides is a budding of building that we do not own. As mentioned,
the property is zoned RSA 5. The application is for a single family dwelling. So we do not have
a use variance here. We have two dimensional refusals. One is because we at the present time
have two two-story buildings to either side of us. Again, you can see here, and then you can see
here. Again, this is the building that we own. This is the building on the other side,
and you can see that to the west of us, there are existing three-story buildings. If we had
developed this building first, the three stories, we wouldn't have a refusal here, but we wanted to
get the single family underway um so um you know we if we had done it differently we would not have
that refusal um and we feel that given that this is uh these are three stories that we have an
application in for a three-story structure here that that that refusal um is one that um is not
of uh very much materiality here the other refusal has to do with the rear yard deck this is we are
calling this a complete demolition because we're removing we're we're maintaining part of this
structure but we are we think we're probably going to be removing more than two-thirds
of the uh the structural members that roof choice and and one of the walls and so it's been deemed
and it was applied since we thought it would be close enough to call it a complete demolition
but we are maintaining portions of the structure but again as you can see from the aerials
our building it's you know the two stories towards the front it's the one story at the back it does
it does occupy 100 is the lot depth again as you can see from the survey that we had a professional
engineering firm prepare and we're essentially what we're doing is we're building uh you'll see
here in the zoning drawings we have revised zoning drawings with some minor kind of dimensional
changes, informational changes, but nothing of substance. You can see here that we're maintaining
that ground floor area that's open. And then here we're putting the two stories above that,
basically rebuilding the second floor and then putting the third floor. There will be a roof deck
with a roof deck access structure that's all compliant, set back five feet from the front.
The pilot house, that's less than 125 square feet and not located closer than five feet to the rear of the structure.
Again, the use is a single-family use.
In terms of that, you know, we mentioned the setback already.
So essentially what you're looking at is you're looking and going back to the aerial.
You're looking at a rebuilding of the second floor structure and then just putting a third floor directly above that.
do have some interior photos you can see you know the interior is in a pretty bad state
and you obviously saw from the exterior
and you obviously saw from the exterior, the photos that we have, you know, you've got boarded
up windows. My client has cleared off a lot of the, you know, of the, you know, the vines that
were growing on it and whatnot. He maintained it as best that he can in its current condition.
We do have floor plans here. Again, single family dwelling, ground floor, common living area.
You have a second floor.
You have a bedroom with a home office and a master suite up on the third floor and then leading up to the roof deck.
A copy of the deed that shows my client owns the property.
We did provide a tax compliance showing that all the taxes are paid, recurrent on our taxes.
We did have a community group meeting that was indicated when there's tax compliance.
And we did have a community meeting.
that's a zoning board hearing I'm sorry and zoning board hearing notice for today the posting of the
notice and a copy of the notice of refusal at the property 21 days in advance and then I was about
to say that the 14303 notice here's the email from the planning commission notifying us that
the coordinating RCO would in fact be PSCA a list of addresses we pulled from the planning commission's
website uh that the architect pulled from the website um the notice of the meeting with the
with psca that took place on july 12th that included a copy of the notice refusal and then
here's the evidence of the cert the certification of the first class mailing again as you had noted
there is a letter of non-opposition from psca and then a letter of non-opposition from councilman
Mark Squilla. We do have revised zoning drawings, one sheet. Again, those are some minor
clarifications, clarifying on the elevations that there is a cellar to be maintained or
constructed below, and some other various dimensional clarifying or confirming some
dimensions and some materials. Here is a rendering of our project of how it's going to look.
So the architect is, you know, Rick Miller, RKM architects are well-established, do beautifully designed buildings throughout the city of Philadelphia.
And again, we'll be coming back and doing, and again, it's dimensionally compliant in terms of height.
We're going to be doing a similar type of structure directly next to us to the east.
And that'll be between this structure we're proposing and the three story structures to the west.
So it's pretty straightforward.
forward, we have a non-opposition from the community. It's a blighted property. It's a
regularly, clearly irregularly shaped, located in a very unusual situation, surrounded by the
properties. We're not going to be impacting, again, as you can see from the survey, we're not going to
be impacting anybody's windows. We're not going to be impacting anybody's rear yards in terms of
shadowing. Our property, actually, the abutting property actually runs all the way down the back
here, down the tail. These are just the buildings located to either side. So this built property
actually runs all the way down here so our property runs behind here the abutting property
and for these reasons we feel that the two variances or the refusals that were issued
that we meet the uh criteria for the granting of the um of the variances that are being requested
by the zoning board i mean requested of the zoning board excuse me and with that i would
have my uh i would have my client um john michael zimmerman adopt my statements and richard miller as
well it's been a lot to speak sir hi could you state your name and spell it please for the court
reporter sure john j-o-h-n micah m-i-c-a-h zimmerman z-i-m-m-e-r-m-a-n right do you
swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel okay
good afternoon micah um you've been on uh you've been on this you've heard the whole case that was
presented to the zoning board i have and what were the things that i stated uh true and correct to
the best of your knowledge they are and uh would you adopt those statements as your own i do okay
thank you and then real anyone else david yeah mr miller mr rick miller real quickly rick you're on
Mr. Miller, please raise your hand.
He's been allowed to speak, sir.
Hi, Mr. Miller, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
My name is Richard Miller, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-M-I-L-L-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Sure. Rick, have you been on for the full hearing this afternoon in this matter and heard what I
Have you been on for the full hearing this afternoon in this matter and heard what I say stated to the zoning board?
And you are the architect of record for this project, correct? You prepared the drawings?
Yes, correct.