ZBA Hearing - November 4, 2026

I do. Okay, our vice chair has a few questions.

Good afternoon. Have you submitted your documents and a zipist for this case 14 days in advance of

this hearing i have okay and is are you under the understanding that you're here for your

applications for artist studios yes i understand and then are you under understanding that you

will refuse because this um use is prohibited in your cmx1 district i understand okay all right

thank you guys um you're getting some help with your documents so you can just uh follow along

and point things out to us and while you let us know what you're trying to do okay i have a

PowerPoint here? Oh, good. Well, see if we can do that. We thought we were going to have to help you

with something in back. You have three letters

of support from different agencies in Mount Air. Okay.

Let me see if you can get that on.

Oh, shoot. We've had a little trouble getting on

the Zoom with my computer for some reason. It just kicked me off again.

Ian, are we in a position to help?

oh there he is there he is see he just like i mentioned saying it appears from nowhere

okay well i could use all the help i can get i know i don't know what i did i'm gonna put your

pictures up on the screen for you that way you don't have to worry about that

your stuff on the screen for you that way you don't have to worry about that so he'll he'll

so he'll he'll throw your stuff up and you'll be able

throw your stuff up and you'll be able to do it okay my powerpoint then he'll he'll he'll have

okay he'll have nice things for you i hope i'm a little nervous i'm gonna just say that out

you don't have to you don't have to be nervous

okay okay so this is the documentation that i uploaded okay so that's tell me what i'm looking

at so there i can't put up my because i have can you see it up there i do but i have a powerpoint

that i kind of laid everything out i can't use that well if you want to you want to talk from

the powerpoint i mean is that well why don't you he'll he'll show photos you just talk tell me what

you want to do if i could get the powerpoint up i think that would be helpful um well isn't

the powerpoint up there yeah you just read it off there yeah but i mean i see what you're saying

i'm trying to get this power point gotta be in the zoom meeting in the show i just was and i

can't figure out could you help me yeah i'm so sorry it's just i have it all laid out in order

and i remember when i was uploading my documentation it was kind of all over it's okay

thank you for bearing with me i appreciate that okay i'm in the meeting great

it's fine in there but basically what you're going to do is you're going to pay your document

that you already have open that you want to share wonderful after um okay thank you

um so yes this is my storefront um in mount area the mount area neighborhood yeah philadelphia

tell me what you're trying to do why don't you just tell us what you're trying to do

I'm like, I feel so much more comfortable once I get this up.

Okay, you'll feel better when the PowerPoint comes out, right?

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm not listening to you.

I'm not listening to you.

I want my PowerPoint.

And then we can play.

Oh, I see it.

Okay, look at that.

Look at that.

I told you to use the PowerPoint.

I told you to use the PowerPoint.

okay hi everybody my name is jessica ladel see it's like a transformation and right in front of

your eyes okay so this is it um so uh my situation is this i have been in business next year for 30

years um i started my business right out of college professional artist um and uh i bought

this building in 03 um and because i was young and excited and earnest i didn't understand the

zoning that i needed to the zoning requirements i wasn't aware that i couldn't have an art studio

on cmx1 so um recently in the spring i had an lni inspector come to my business and i received a

violation for that zoning um outdated zoning right and so i have put together um uh powerpoint

about, you know, I've concluded all the documentation, of course, but I also feel

like I wanted to show you a little bit about my business because that's helpful to see what I'm

already doing. Sure. And so here we go. So this is me. And I, like I said, I'm requesting a use

variance to allow my company, Bella Mosaic Art, to continue operating as an arts education center,

art studio i'm at 6780 germantown avenue and i started my business in 1997 and we provide mosaic

art instruction inside the space and throughout the region and outside of the state and we facilitate

community projects we fabricate public artwork we lead workshops started in san francisco

that's where i'm from oh okay all right okay um but it's expensive for artists to live in san

Francisco. So Philly captured my heart and here I am. So our focus is on the ancient art of mosaics.

There are only a handful of mosaic studios throughout the country, so we're one of them.

This is our location. This is from our Google business page. So you can see we're in between

the main streets of Carpenter and Pelham in Mount Airy. The neighborhood looked a lot different

when I purchased the building. There weren't a lot of businesses around. I was one of the first

on my block besides Fino's Pizza if anyone's aware of that there's been a lot of businesses

filling in in the last 20 years now I haven't been there the full 20 years at some point I

moved my business home to raise my my daughter and but

um to raise my my daughter um and but you know i've i've always continued to use the studio just

to store my materials and and so on um so you can see i have some a lot of reviews they're all five

star reviews on google switch over here this is my um my refusal letter and my storefront with the

the image of the posted poster thank you um this is the letter that was sent out to the neighborhood

um and just to backtrack a little bit a mosaic for anyone who isn't aware is a piece of artwork

that's made up of a lot of little pieces and so there's a lot of different types of materials you

can use in that type of artwork um so the rco meeting was held september 2nd coordinated by

west mountain area neighbors we had eight supporters from the community in attendance

of those supporters were two students my intern the executive director of mount air usa

representatives from the mount airy business association and the mount airy bid the proposal

was received positively with all 13 attendees expressing support for the continued operation

of the studio in this location there was no community opposition at this time and

Ralph Pincus was the chair for this and he submitted

he submitted this this letter of recommendation and the summary of that meeting and that is what

is here this is the documentation of the certified mailing i i believe there were 78 addresses that i

sent to um and then i did receive a lot of letters of support from neighborhood businesses and the

local um organizations i just put a little artwork in there for fun um we have some long-term

students of mine um also wrote letters of support and i believe i i uploaded most of those letters

to the the um documentation that you have in front of you yep okay good um and so

this mindy and frank these two people frank lives in mount airy but you know one thing that's really

special about my studio is that we have these ongoing classes so every tuesday night every

wednesday afternoon we have a group of eight to ten people that come to work on mosaics a lot of

those people are older retired they find me when they um you know when their kids go off to school

and we've developed a really nice community we've been doing this class for years some of them have

come for years and i think that's a really special thing about my business it really provides like a

space for people to spend time together enjoy each other's company and get creative

and since I opened there's been a lot of other businesses using this model that have opened in

Mount Airy and I'd like to think you know maybe they were inspired by what I was doing there

so here we have another long-term student who is writing in support and also the executive director

of mount airy cbc who's written his support a support letter and then i also have some

i have five star reviews on yelp as well so i included one here

this is what my space looks like the front of the shop the shop interior and the backyard so the

main area is this classroom space and so like i said the classes are you know eight to ten people

we can squeeze 12 in but we usually just have small intimate classes and workshops

i haven't really done anything with my backyard at this time but that's what it looks like

here's a picture of the restroom and the back room which we just use as like a storage area

and a little kitchen for area for myself and my students and my um my interns and this is what

the space looks like when it's um when there are workshops happening so this is what my workshop

looks like everyone's using different materials we also do a lot of team building so like businesses

and non-profits come into this space and they make things together we should probably do this

this group. I think that would be fun. So if I get a class, like if this dinks up that there's a

class registration, I'll know where it's coming. Okay, so this is my floor plan here and you can

see this is what the classroom space looks like when it is in use. This is my resume. We partner

that's my resume we partner with a lot of we have these ongoing community partners so like tomorrow

with

I'm teaching at the Morris Arboretum I teach classes for Mount Airy Learning Tree I work for

Mainland School Night and then we partner with different like we've got a lot of projects that

we've done over the last year with Amir Healing Center working with families and people who have

have been impacted by violence.

I always try and give good deals for these nonprofits,

especially the ones in my neighborhood

that are doing the work that I'm aligned with.

We did a bunch of workshops

for the Free Library of Philadelphia,

and then we also have worked through the school district

of Philadelphia with PAEP, which is the Pennsylvania,

so nervous, Pennsylvania Arts Education Partnership.

That's it.

Okay.

OK, I'm going to slow down, deep breath.

And so then here are some other projects.

We did a mosaic workshop this last month at Jefferson

or last month at Jefferson University.

And my goal is really to spread this art form

and to teach people about it and make people excited

and feel good about them having an opportunity to be creative.

OK.

These are some works in progress, different projects

that we've done um we have some here we have project bartram high school we did

two residencies at laurelview village retirement home

we were part of this program with the turnpike commission that is the ceo there we were doing

a dedication we got to work with high school students to make this artwork in the service

plazas um this is at uh bayard taylor um elementary school in north philadelphia so the

kids so and with all these projects the kids make all the tiles and then they they put everything

together so these mosaics that you see are made by uh k through fifth graders oh and we have

somehow i'm more nervous today than when i was giving a speech to mayor kinney but uh

I don't think you're nervous, but go ahead.

This is a project here at Pharrell Elementary School, and then an example of what we might do for the Free Library or some of the local organizations.

We did the project at the SEPTA station.

We did 20 station ID signs for the Fifth Street Independence Hall renovation.

So those are ours.

We've done a lot of work with Elmwood Park Zoo.

And so I think that's completed the portion of my work.

I went around the neighborhood and then also got my students to sign this petition.

So these are some of the folks that are in support of my business.

These are more photos of the space in use.

So you have...

I think we know what you do.

I think we know what you do.

Okay.

Questions from the board.

So is this mostly mosaics and things that you're doing or tile work?

Yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

Okay.

So where did you learn how to do this?

Out in California, I had some formal training at the California College of Art and Design.

And I'm mostly self-taught.

Okay.

So I did a lot of ceramics and tile making, you know, in high school and college.

And then from there, you know, figured a lot out on my own.

Okay.

So, you know, I went to Tunisia, and they do mosaics.

Yes.

Yes, and they train people.

And so it was really interesting to see how they were restoring some of the mosaics that were missing, like pieces and things like that.

So it was part of their training, too.

Yeah.

Interesting.

I hope to visit there someday.

You would love it.

Questions from our attorney.

Actually, go ahead.

So I have a question about sort of operations.

one are you doing any art sales on site or is this strictly a workspace yeah there's no there's

no sales um my model is a little different from say like a yarn shop or shop um i don't i'm mostly

working on big projects so i'm not so i'm i mean i guess i'm more of a service-based business than

you know i'm fabricating as opposed to creating things and then selling them okay and then

And then just, is there anything that's happening on site that requires the hot work permit?

And just is there anything that's happening on site that requires the hot work?

Because I know ceramics doesn't necessarily need it, but some ceramicists, like kilns or anything on site.

I'm sorry, there's a hot work permit, you said?

There is, yeah.

Okay, well then, yes, there is a kiln.

Okay.

And I wasn't aware there's a separate permit for that.

um but i do have um in my bag i have a uh i had my kiln inspected recently i get it inspected