you can now start to see the opposing corner where 4152 lighty sits
and then again just looking down west style street this is a really good view kind of
showing you the relationship of the two properties next to next to one another
obviously we did also include evidence of the timely posting in each of the individual exhibit
packets. And then just to give you a little bit more zoomed-in view here of 4152 Lighty Avenue,
you can see here the corner that is immediately opposing the street.
This is directly across from 4152 Lighty Avenue.
And then just a little bit better view as you start to move towards North 42nd Street.
and again you can see this is a view as if you're standing on north 42nd street looking
up towards the property and one thing to note here even since this particular photograph was
taken several of the structures towards the end of this block have since been demolished by the
city you can even kind of see a very small hint of that orange demolition notice on that on that
building in this image here. And again, these just revert right back to that same set of photographs
again. Now, I do want to go a little bit out of my normal order, because I think it's important
for the board to understand just how dominantly multifamily this particular block and area are,
despite the existing RSA-5 zoning.
despite the existing RSA 5 zoning. So at exhibit 13, I'll just bring that up here,
So at Exhibit 13,
you can see that of the structures that are left on this particular block, nearly every single one
of them is multifamily. Many of them, as you can see, let me actually zoom out a little bit here,
there we go, many of them which are of a very similar density to that which is proposed today.
And you can really see those purple stars indicating the corners, which are generally more dense than the interior properties.
So, again, I think it's just important as we walk through the exhibits that you have a good sense of the context of this particular block.
So, in terms of the zoning site plans, I'll start at Exhibit 6, which, again, is 4150 Leidy Avenue.
Zoom in there.
You can see here each of the buildings is generally almost identical, again, other than a deviation in the lot size itself.
So you can see each building proposes a three-story structure with a pilot house that is only for mechanical access only.
Now, as you can start to see here, the lots themselves are extremely unusually shaped and narrow significantly in the rear as you start to move down along West Isle Street.
Now, the building at 4152 Lidey, let me bring that one up, is, again, nearly identical, except for the fact that 4152 Lidey is 5 feet wider.
So, 4150 is 17 feet wide, 4152 is 22 feet wide.
So, of course, the building on 4152 Lidey is also wider as a result.
The buildings themselves are designed to be aesthetically complementary.
Now, from the side elevation, let me bring up one of those, you can see that the buildings are compliant 38-foot structures with a majority of the lower level built out of grade by nearly six feet.
You can see that measurement there is five feet, 11 inches.
Now, the only reason that the height was refused for these proposals is because of the pilot houses.
So you can see here, the buildings are compliant 38-foot normal RSA-5 height structures.
Because the roof deck is for mechanical access only, the pilot house is counted towards the overall building height.
Now, both of the structures themselves fall below the maximum allowable occupied area, and both exceed the minimum required rear yards.
now in terms of the floor plans and again these are generally almost identical except for of
course the fact that 4152 is wider so there are some slight deviations there now overall each of
these buildings is proposed to have six dwelling units just generally speaking unit one is a
bi-level unit of over 1,100 square feet with three bedrooms, three bathrooms. This unit,
Unit 1, has a private entrance in both 4,150 and 4,152. The rest of the units are accessed
from a central staircase along the side of the building on that west-style street frontage.
Unit 2 is similar, but it is a two-bedroom, two-bath unit of 895 square feet.
Units 3 through 6 are on the second and third floor and range from 460 square feet to 675 square feet,
which provides a significant mix of unit types and price points for the building.
Now, as I mentioned, the layout of 4152 Leidy, which is up on the screen, is very similar.
except that all of these units are actually larger since the lot itself is bigger and wider.
So just by way of example, the bi-level units 1 and 2 are both over 1,100 and over 1,500 square feet.
Units 3 and 6 are between 576 and 857 square feet.
All of the units across both of the buildings have in-unit washers and dryers and ventilated trash storage closets.
And then, of course, because they are located on a corner, any form of shared trash storage that's necessary can be in the rear and accessed through West Isle Street.
And then preliminary renderings for the buildings are shown at Exhibit 8, showing that there is a predominantly brick design here, and you can really get a sense.
showing that there is a predominantly brick design here,
and you can really get a sense of the grade of the building here.
I'll just scroll through those.
Now, regarding the refusals, the refusals are also nearly identical.
We do have a couple of dimensional refusals,
and then the one-use refusal for the proposed multifamily use.
Now, first, the pilot houses here would be required to be set back 10 feet.
Let me bring up the zoning plan so you can really visualize this.
This is a very unusual one because of the location on a corner.
So for 4150, you can see it's set back from Lighty Avenue quite significantly.
The measurement that L&I is looking at there is the measurement from West Isle Street,
which is also considered a frontage. So in this case here, the pilot house is set back four and a
half feet. And then on 4152, it is set back eight feet, seven inches, which we submit is a de minimis
deviation. But even beside from that, we submit that the hardship here is imposed because of that
corner location where it is measured from both of the building frontages so as you can see the
pilot house is clearly set back from lighty avenue but cannot meet that setback from west isle street
due to the narrowness of the lot these are not occupiable roof decks so the insufficient setback
does not impose any particular safety concern since these are not going to be occupied roof decks
And then, as you saw earlier, 4152 is a slightly wider lot, which is why the refusal is to a lesser and de minimis degree.
What's the refusal setback? I'm sorry. I missed it.
The refusal for 4152 is eight feet.
It's four and a half feet, 4150.
It is eight feet, seven inches for 4152 Lidy.
Now, beyond that, the proposals also received what I would classify as a de minimis refusal for exceeding the occupied area at 84.5 percent for 41.50 and 82.8 percent for 41.52 instead of the required 80 percent.
Now, again, as the board saw earlier, these lots are subject to a hardship as they are
extremely unusually shaped and come to a sharp point as it sort of moves away from West Isles
Street.
So the structures are designed to be uniform in shape and size, which does result in a
very slight increase in building coverage above what the code would allow.
third each proposal received a refusal for an insufficient front front excuse me front setback
which is one of the most significant hardships facing these properties
first there are no structures adjoining either of these properties on either side and again
here we're just looking at the lady avenue frontage there are only vacant lots on either
side of these buildings. Providing a 10-foot front setback here would be extremely burdensome
to any structure built on these lots because of the unusual shape and the resulting loss of usable
buildable area in the entire rear of both of these properties. Now, because they are situated on the
corner, there are no particular contextual references that can match, with the corners
often maintaining a different design than the rest of the block due to the corner location
and availability of significant additional windows and ingress and egress points from
the side.
Let me also just bring this up for context here.
Furthermore, I'm candidly not even sure where L and I came up with the 10-foot measurement,
which hopefully you can understand why I'm saying that by looking at this overhead aerial
view. As you know, the front setback requirement is meant to be a contextual reference to surrounding
properties. But as you can see here from Exhibit 13, none of these properties have seemingly
anywhere close to a 10-foot front setback. A 10-foot front setback, or really any front setback
from Lighty Avenue, would be significantly out of character and would result in a remaining
buildable lot that is extremely shallow and then finally the proposals received a refusal for the
proposed multi-family use the applicant submits to a variety of hardships that would render any single
The applicant submits to a variety of hardships that would render any single-family development
of this block impossible, which has been proven here by the lack of any single-family development
in decades.
As the board might recall from prior cases, this area was rezoned from RM1 during a Viola
Street rezoning initiative.
That rezoning initiative rezoned this entire block from RM1 to RSA 5, despite the nearly
exclusively use of the block as multifamily.
Had the RM1 zoning remained in place, the multifamily use proposed would not only be
by right, but would have allowed any applicant to take advantage of the city's mixed income
housing bonus program for additional density on these lots.
the zoning change here instead had the effect of growing an already existing vacancy and was also
entirely against the city's west park district plan recommendation for rm1 zoning which i did
include at exhibit 11 and you can see here with the arrow the proposed zoning in that plan was
orange, which indicates RM1. Furthermore, both of these properties have long history of multifamily
use, as I included in permits at Exhibit 12 in both packets, showing multifamily use as both
three and four dwellings. There is zero history of any single family use of either of these lots.
Most importantly, and as I showed at the beginning, nearly every single structure on this block is
multifamily in use, many with five, six, and seven units comparable to the density that is proposed
before the board today, particularly with that higher density being located at the corners.
This block is either multifamily in use or entirely vacant, but is objectively not a single
family block, nor would be capable of supporting new unsubsidized single family development.
Just to highlight how significant the vacancy is here, based on city records, there are 64 vacant lots or structures on Lighty Avenue, and only 23 occupied structures.
Many of these conditions have persisted for many decades, with zero evidence of any development of any lot on this block for over 75 years.
the relief sought is the least minimum modification of the code as the proposed
dimensional refusals are either de minimis or are necessitated by the unique trapezoidal shape
of these lots in terms of the use itself the use is most similar to the character
of the surrounding neighborhood a characteristic which the pennsylvania supreme court
has looked to when reviewing the least minimum standard the neighborhood here is dominantly
dense multifamily residential, and this proposal will bring the building into more harmony with
surrounding uses. Case law has shown us that the least minimum standard is satisfied by showing
that the density is necessary to permit the reasonable proposed use of the property,
particularly since the proposed design results in a varied mix of units that are comfortable,
large, well-appointed, and benefit from significant light and air due to the corner location.
As always, a full analysis of these proposals' compliance with Section 303AE of the zoning code is shown in the memo of law at Exhibit 14.
And at this point, if the chairman could swear in my client.
Could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
German Jakubow, G-E-R-M-A-N-Y-A-K-U-B-O-V.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel.
Thank you. German, can you confirm that you are authorized to speak on behalf of Haverford Square by Metropolitan 14 LLC?
And have you heard all of the testimony and evidence that I offered in front of the board today?
I have.
Do you agree that testimony is true and accurate, and would you adopt it as if you had given it yourself?
Anything in particular that you would like to add?
No, I apologize for being a little bit late, because I'm not sure if you already went over the floor plans.
I did.
Okay. So this proposal is unique in that we're proposing here six units, but they're not small one-bedroom units that would typically would build in a structure like this that the board has previously approved.
Most of them are either two bedrooms, or I think there's one three-bedroom as well.
It's also on the corner, and it allows us to have parking in the back if the board so chooses.
the neighbors did
the constant concern of all the neighbors
at every meeting is always parking
in every meeting is always parking and how much density this creates how much density increases
and how much density this creates
how much density
parking and in this particular um development there is an opportunity to have that parking
in the rear uh if you want to bring up that site plan there's an old 12 foot wide cartway in that
plan uh nope it's first page you can zoom it nope not that long as a 41 it's 41 uh are we talking
Am I 50 or 52 today?
It's in the back of 50.
There we go.
So there's a 12-foot-wide old cartway that I'm guessing was used maybe 100 years ago.
So we're able to repave that if needed and utilize the space behind that we have for about two parking spots that would fit in there comfortably.
and the same is applicable to the um property on the opposite corner um so yeah so we're we're if
parking is a something that the board wants to see here we're more than happy to amend uh i don't
know if we would need a refusal or not but if we would we'd be happy to amend it and include it as
part of this um if that's contingent on an approval um another thing you've already mentioned about
the roof deck it's a non-occupied roof deck i know a lot of neighbors also have concerns about people
having uh their neighbors be on the roof and people having parties on the roof in this specific
instance we omitted that and had a variance for that um to make the roof deck only accessible
for mechanical purposes to have um the condensers and everything else up there to maintain and just
one quick question um have you built a structure that is identical to the one that's proposed today
correct 801 north 40th street we built this identical structure and we also sought zoning
board relief for that one it was granted um five years ago and the building has been built and it's
fully occupied um during that time thank you okay um council before i open it up to everyone um
i see here east parkside requested the possibility of four units am i correct
and you turn it down
it said it had to have six
is that right?
questions from the board
two quick questions for me
are there any
interest in some lighty?
I don't believe
they're all off of
and the next question is what is the trash management
plan for the building?
in the current building we already have
built trash is picked up four times a week and it is picked up from the rear and in this case
um just like the other one which is also on the corner um it's accessible from the side street
in that case it's brown in this instance it'll be styles so a trash truck will come down styles
empty the the dumpsters from the rear of the property so the tenants where would the tenants