that's your first floor right that is correct right and what what do you live there or tell
me oh no i don't live here i at one time i did live here but i don't live here does anyone live
on the first floor nobody lives on the first floor and nobody lives on the second and third floor
either second and third floor you're looking for pardon me are you looking for the second and third
floor no uh the the first floor and the second floor okay it's a three-story building with two
units in it okay this is the backyard right okay this is the uh the vestibule area
going up the step to the second floor this is the bathroom on the second floor
turn this around
this is you know another shot of the bathroom
this is the hallway down to the first floor
so there's an apartment on the first floor the second floor and third floor is an apartment
no the the the second and third floor are one unit
This is the second floor.
These are the steps up to the third floor.
This is one of the bedrooms on the third floor.
Turn this around.
This is another shot of that bedroom.
This is the front bedroom right here.
This is Maplewood Mall, the street here.
Now, this is the side over here where my property is located.
This is the north side of the street, and it has about 20 properties on that side of the street, and 10 are unoccupied.
On the south side of the street, there are less, but two are unoccupied.
There are two parking lots at both ends of the mall.
Well, this is a paid parking lot run by the Philadelphia Parking Authority.
There's another parking lot at the other end, but that's a private parking lot that belongs to a senior citizen's home.
But there are two free parking lots at the corner of Green and Armat and Germantown Avenue and Armat.
They're run by Philadelphia Parking Authority, but they don't cost anything.
this is another shot this is another angle this is looking uh east my property would be back over
this way but as you can see the vacant properties are one two three and the other ones are down
this way you can't see so those are are the uh shots of the
so those are are the uh shots of the of the location there
so is that your presentation sir yes all right um questions from the board
yes have you ever operated a short-term rental before uh no and um so i guess how what's going
to be your plan for the management of the property like are you well i'm going to manage the property
i i'm uh you know i i almost uh got one foot of retirement so this is this is part of my game
player you know okay yeah um the reason i ask is because a lot of people who are managing short-term
rentals will work with either property management company or the cleaning services uh they call them
co-hosts now i think on airbnb so just saying like what's going to be your plan to manage my plan is
to maintain my property the way it is now you can see it's a when i bought this property 10 years
ago i bought it from hank uh and um it had good bones but i added a lot of meat to these bones and
uh this is sort of like uh like my baby so uh i'm gonna maintain this property
no no the question is like how so you know people are gonna come in you're gonna have tenant
turnover what i understand that there's vacancy on the street now but it say it returns what's
going to be the process if any of your former neighbors have questions or something you know
or one of your tenants your short-term renters needs need something uh what's going to be your
they'll call me they'll call me you know okay i'll be available and you know if there's an
issue with the neighbors i mean i know the neighbors you know so uh my next door neighbor
has airbnb as well and she hasn't had any issues as well so and it's hers a multi-unit as well
Yeah, hers is a three-story unit.
Is she living on site as well?
Are she living on site, or is she also going to be off-site?
No, she's off-site at her place.
All right.
And I'm only a few blocks from where this location is located at.
I'm like the 6,200 block away in Avenue is where I live, and this is only a few blocks away.
So I live and work in this area.
um when's the last time you had like a a a tenant at least in the property if you ever
i haven't had a tenant since uh january on the second and third floor since uh january of uh
2026 and and in terms of that first floor has been vacant for a substantial amount of time
so it's very hard to get finding tenants oh definitely
other questions questions from our attorney
i just wanted to clarify that you're going to be using the entire um building for your airbnb
the first floor is one and second and third floor is the second unit is that correct yeah i'd like
to have those options yes of course there were at the at the meeting there was one person who sort
is going to have the the apartment that already have a license to rent there to keep it as an
apartment i'd just like to have the option to do that now my question was it's going to be the
entire building just legally thank you questions from the virtual audience
no hands chair planning commission nina solomonic the planning commission the
The comprehensive plan recommends no change the existing CMX 2.5 commercial mixed use
zoning.
There is no unique physical condition or circumstance that would prevent the property from being
used in conformance with the zoning code.
A 2020 zoning ordinance passed by City Council to regulated short-term rentals did not change
the basic rule prohibiting full-time use of a dwelling as a short-term rental.
This absentee management where the owner does not live in the unit has been illegal since
the first short-term rental zoning regulations became effective in 2015 what has changed since
the passing of the 2020 ordinance is that there is now a licensing and enforcement mechanism
the city planning commission recommends that the board deny the proposed use
for variants for visitor accommodations mi2026-003-495-41 maplewood
I vote yes with proviso. Temporary variance expires, 9-3-29, entire building to be used.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Tyia Nguyen, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Layla Beebe, my vote is yes, with proviso.
We're going to go to number one, MI 2026-002-144-1616-22 McKean Street.
Ryan Bolin is the attorney.
Ryan Bolin is rejoining as a panelist.
Good afternoon.
Mr. Bolin, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes. Ryan Boland, R-Y-A-N-B-O-L-A-N-D.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Mr. Boland, could you identify your client, a relationship to the property?
Yes. My client is the equitable owner, and their name is Shackamax & Wines, LLC.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
And do you waive the reading of your refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?
Okay, thank you. You can show your screen and proceed with your case.
Terrific. So I am here today with the support of the neighbors and the coordinating RCO
seeking a variance for the second location of a neighborhood wine bar named Mural City Cellars.
It's already in operation in Fishtown, and they're seeking to add a second location.
And this is on the southeastern side of Point Breeze.
And I have in front of me, just so you can look at something while I give my intro,
what it looks like now, the auto garage, and what it will look like in the future.
So this is a one-of-a-kind business where they both manufacture wine on-premises,
and then they also sell the wine that they are manufacturing.
manufacturing. The manufacture of wine can be done as of right in this I2 zoning district.
We are here today with because of two different refusals. And that refusal, the first one
is that we cannot have a sit down restaurant use. And the reason that we are seeking that
use is in order to sell the wine as well as the small plates such as charcuterie boards.
this isn't going to be a full-blown restaurant. There's no hood or anything like that. And also
the I2 does not allow the sale of wine. We would like to be able to sell bottles of wine to go.
So we also got a refusal because we cannot sell the wine for consumption off premises.
I'm going to give you a little bit of background here on the location. Here's a map here that
It shows exactly where it is, just west of Broad Street, north of Passiunk.
It is on the southeast corner of, it's this building right here that's blue as well as the next one to the right.
It is right here on the corner of McKean and Chadwick.
It occupies about 80% of the south side of the block.
You have Chadwick on the west.
You have Bancroft on the east.
It's a long, as you saw with the initial photo, it's a long-standing auto garage.
Here's another photo, which was Liberty Auto and Liberty Repair.
There's two roll-up garages, one here on South Chadwick, and then there's two more on McKean.
This is a 4,900-square-foot building.
It's this beautiful-looking blue that you can see right here.
It's a 4,900-square-foot building.
It has 70 feet of frontage on McKean Street.
The owner's deceased and entered into an agreement.
Here's another photo of it looking down McKean.
You can see there's an auto garage across the street.
Here's looking down the side of it and down here behind it, there's more auto uses.
Just want to give you a little bit of background on the use here.
And while I'm doing this, I'll show you just a draft floor plan.
So, as you can see here, and I'll let my clients spend a minute going through it,
So as you can see here, and I'll have my clients spend a minute going through it, about
about half of the space is going to be used for wine production, which is the as of right use.
That's here on the bottom of the screen, and the top part here is what will be used as the wine bar.
As I said before, there won't be any hood in the kitchen.
It's going to be small plates like charcuterie boards.
You might have also seen renderings that showed outdoor seating.
There will not be outdoor seating.
Potentially in the future, that would be applied for.
The liquor license here places limits on the hours of operation,
which limits them at 11 p.m., but it's going to close before that on most days.
The hours will be, it'll be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Wednesdays and Thursdays, it'll be 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Fridays 4 to 11,
Saturday noon to 11, and Sunday noon to 8.
And the trash we're going to have on the side of Chadwick side,
that will be a soft close lid dumpster that'll be private pickup twice a week
we'll have a wooden frame container around that. I want to give you a little
bit of background about the operation of this business. So here's what the
current location looks like up in Fishtown on Frankfurt Ave. So I obtained
a special exception for the Fishtown location to operate. That was in about 2022. So this will be
the second location. And I'll have the owners introduce themselves, but the owners have a
long background here. Nicholas is a graduate of CIA, Culinary Institute of America. He's a certified
sommelier. He's run, he's one, he's worked at vineyards in California, New Zealand. And then
And then there's his wife, Francesca, she is a Star Restaurant alum.
She's also managed some large restaurants, including the Tao with Tao Hospitality, which
has locations across the country.
I had showed you a little bit before some of the surrounding area, but I want to remind
the board that back on June 17th, I'll show you with my cursor right here, just on just
to the northeast on the other side the board approved that's a two-story building which has
residential above but the board approved a unanimous vote a variance for a sit-down restaurant there
it was an Italian restaurant I think it was El Mechanico but again that is an auto garage that
was converted all of the buildings around this are there's a lot of auto garages so across the street
we have auto related uses behind it we have auto and on the southeast side we also have have auto
uses um we also have um right up here where it says cmx2 there is a um there's a brewery called
second district brewery um and um i will um i know it looks like the board's running behind a little
bit so i will speed along and not go through all the other exhibits um that i've submitted but i
I just want to emphasize to the board that this is a limited operation as far as limited hours compared to a normal restaurant.
It's a much less impactful of use than having the auto garage with all the cars parked all over the streets.
It will still keep the industrial use through the wine manufacturing,
but it will bring this other use that's consistent with the uses in the neighborhood.
We're keeping this as a one-story building.
We're not adding residences above it or anything like that.
So if Francesca and Nicholas, if you can raise your hand and we'll have you sworn into without my testimony, please.
Excuse me. I don't see a hand by Francesca, but there is Nicholas Ducos.
I think they're sitting side by side.
Okay. I will promote them.
Sure. Thank you.
You're welcome.
He's my promote.
Hi, Nicholas.
Hello, Francesca and Nicholas here.
Who's going to testify?
I will, Francesca.
Okay, Francesca, could you please state your name and spell it for the sonographer?
sure francesca galaris f-r-a-n-c-e-s-c-a-g-a-l-a-r-u-s do you swear or affirm to tell