for brighthurst please do all right hi board joe consul again
313 to 15 east bringhurst street uh this is a companion appeal it's directly across the street
from ashmead this is for nine two-story three-bedroom two-bath single-family homes on an
existing vacant public redevelopment parcel. I will skip to the refusal here for parking again
and several dimensional refusals, those being lot width, minimum lot area, and what else? Maximum
front yard depth. Again, it's tapered lots and I'll show you what it looks like at weird angles
that make it difficult to provide the exact amount of frontage for all these lots
and keep those homes uniform.
So most of the lots do have the appropriate amount,
but one's about a few inches shy of having the correct amount of inches for a front yard.
This parcel's got 20,000 square feet.
It is 20,539 to be exact.
RSA 3 minimum that would be let's see yeah we actually have more than we need here by about
32 square feet if you divide the total lot area by nine RSA 3 homes we've got 2,282 square feet
per home so even though some of the resulting lots are proposed to be undersized for RSA 3
When combined, we've got adequate space to provide nine RSA3 homes under the, you know, that rubric.
So notice.
Resolution with the city from the land bank.
Tax clearance.
points. This just shows the top down of those nine attached homes. Again, some are considered
completely attached, the ones on the end, semi. We can come back to any of these when and if the
board wants us to. Here is a drawing rendering. The property again is tapered down to the train
tracks at the end. Here is the uniform layout of these properties. Again, what my client provides
is three bedroom, two bath homes. That is uniform throughout his properties and these nine homes
will have this specific layout. Again, we can come back to it to address whatever questions we have.
So these lots go all the way from Bringhurst to Roof Street. They're very deep lots. My
client's going to develop them, include backyards that'll be cleaned out and
include backyards that'll be cleaned out and egress in the back for humans, not for cars.
And then the remainder of the lot will remain wild coming up against Roof Street, which is the
street that separates these houses from the train tracks. Here's some shots of what the property
looks like that's looking up bring her street the train tracks are behind you
that is coming around the corner the lot in the middle is ours this is a uh the roof street in
the back and what i think is important is um parking is a concern obviously for everyone here
But the day that I visited the site and went to the RCO meeting, there were cars parked on this street, not a ton of them, but it seemed like a perfectly reasonable place to park.
I would submit after development, this would provide some extra parking to ease some of the RCO's concerns.
We met with Banton Hill Neighbors Association.
The RCO committee itself supported the project.
However, the attendees, and here's another shot of Roof Street, were not in support. Specifically, parking appeared to be the major issue there that we couldn't get past with these folks.
It was bandied about suggesting putting parking spaces in front of the properties and just things that we've already discussed as being not viable under this specific program.
There's the RCO information, proof of mailing. Here's the postings on the lot.
It's a letter again from Solo. They attended both meetings and submitted opposition to both.
Here is the renderings for the Brighurst lot showing
the architect's view of what the the brickfront properties will look like when when they're
completed so we believe the hardships real on both of these properties and that the proposal
is modest in the ways that matter um we've got single family homes two stories mostly three
stories to match on the ashmead project uh project it's not multi-family use there's no roof decks
there's no height relief we're replacing vacant public land with single family home ownership
and um we believe that this is an appropriate project to grant these variances
that's it i'll call why don't you bring somebody on to adopt your testimony
yep uh michael thomas said he could you raise your virtual hand
uh is that you sir
no okay he's coming in now i'll i'll be i'll get you in a minute okay
hey joe i'm here hi good morning could you please good afternoon could you please state your name
and spell for the stenographer yes my name is michael thomasetti m-i-c-h-a-e-l last name
thomasetti t-o-m-a-s-e-t-t-i you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth yes i do please proceed joe uh good evening mike um did you hear my testimony just now regarding
these two uh projects yes i did joe i thought you did a great job thanks mike uh do you adopt them
your own i do okay um we're here to answer any questions and um as we also have the architect
that can speak to anything specific the board might have concerns about questions from the
questions on the board i just want to clarify across the two projects how many total units
are being built it is 12 and 9. 12 and okay so 21 total homes and then of the of the lots being
creator any lots every lot has a building currently proposed every resulting lot has
a proposed single-family home yes um i mean i think uh i think a concern i have is understanding
this is a turn to key workforce housing project so obviously an attempt to try to control costs
both to the homeowner as well as to the developer these are not these are these are you know typical
will start a home size but the lots are really big and i think just having worked in this industry
for a very long time um it it tends to leave the homeowners stressed because they're paying taxes
on the unimproved land and there's a lot of land on all of these lots some in
And there's a lot of land on all of these lots.
In many of them instances, if the homes resemble a RSA 5 row house lot, they're now on an oversized, what would be RSA 5 lot.
So what are the, like, what provisions are being put in place?
Or what is the thought process around how that's going to be managed in the future from a cost standpoint?
point i'm going to tee that up to mike if he's available to speak to it yeah so uh it's a great
question um the city is freezing the taxes on these turn the key developments they're trying
for 20 years it has not been written in legislation yet but i mean that's all i know
what they do is for the improvement right it's going to be similar to the senior isn't it
currently being discussed as being structured similar to the 10-year tax
statement correct yes and it and also because this land is over the 15,000
square feet a majority of the land is stained woods we will not touch it so
you know other than I mean that's basically all I could speak to it okay
and then given the fact that this is currently you know we want to call it
wild but woods what's the storm water management plan understanding that it might not have triggered
it by regulation but like water moves and this is a slope site what's the plan uh to kind of keep
these watertight well we didn't so we are removing the trees in order to build the homes and provide
an adequate backyard but other than that i mean this is this is under storm water management
uh requirements we don't have to storm water plan okay so was anything else being prepared
during construction to keep absolutely there'll be yes i mean we work we work closely with uh
the water department between silk fence socks in their drains cleaning our sites
yeah we're pretty we're pretty on top of uh managing any erosion issues okay all right other
questions here i'll be to you the uh the homes on i think it's bring her street this is one you
have up now are there rear window wells and that for the basement light in there for the basement
well i know i well i'm trying to get confused i there were no bedrooms in the basement in these
soonest though right okay i've got i've got them up now the mike the the these are crawl space only
units okay okay yeah right yep okay other questions questions from our attorney i'm
gonna get to you i'm gonna get to you questions from our attorney no questions at this time
come on up who wants us to speak come on up sir you come up to you come on up yeah
so why don't you uh you see there should be a button there you can turn on it that's all right
and then it's all put it on the green light yeah so pull it towards you and why don't we start with
could you please state your name and spell it for us sure my name is deborah jackson smith d-e-b-o-r-a-h
j-a-c-k-s-o-n hyphenated s-m-i-t-h tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do and are you a neighbor yes i live on ashme street okay i'm all for what's being done to a
degree i've been on the block for 40 years it's a family orientated block but it's a dead end street
they're planning on building 12 10 8 however but there's no parking now okay there's no parking at
all on our street there is none now they're going to be adding more units on our block i would like
to know where are we all who've been on the block for 40 to 70 to 50 years where are now where's
parking they're not thinking about the residents that's been on the block for a long length of time
and also trash now you're also taking the trees away you know you're doing they're messing up
our environment totally totally it's an historical area where we are it used to be factories that
were all around in that area and now they're just diminishing everything and they're no one knocked
on our door to say listen we're going to be doing a b c and d the rco meeting uh no there was a zoom
uh no there was a zoom meeting that took place last week that was very short and sweet okay and
meeting that took place last week that was very short
um quite a few of us who was on there oppose what's beginning to take place because of no
consideration of the residents that's in the area my resume i'm right across the street from there
and it's like where how can you not knock on someone's door to let us know that you're building
a multi-million dollar project and you're not letting the residents there's 14 houses on the
block and you're not letting any of us know whether we own whether we rent whatever you're
not letting us know and that property has been available for umteen years there were not really
abandoned houses as he said abandoned cars that were there there's been it's been emptied it's
been emptied we were told that septa was going to take it because we have the train station right
down the block right down the hill is septa they were thinking about making it into a parking lot
so septa riders would have some place to park but that didn't go through so now you're planning on
doing this and we have no parking what about trash where's the trash what are they going to
be doing their individual trashing what is going to take place nothing has been discussed with us
do this i've heard what you said i'm sorry no no i'm sorry i'm sorry everyone i'm sorry sorry
it's just frustrating said i'm sure the attorney did so what i'm going to do is
please go back and sit down i shall i'll see where we are here and then i'm going to ask the
the attorney to sum up once we get towards the end on some comments okay thank you for my time hi sir
how are you i'm just fine how are you doing how are you doing well it's getting a little late but
i'm fine i'm i'm feeling fine and i i know it's getting late for you because you two have been
here a long time so why don't we do this why don't you state your name for me and spell it for the
stenographer richard t williams w-r-i-c-h-a-r-d p period williams w-i-l-l-i-a-m-s right all right
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do both
Okay. That's good. So, first of all, where do you live?
I live on Bringhurst, right across from that development.
Give me your comments.
410 East Bringhurst, right across from that development.
I know, I know, Debra.
Yeah, stay there, stay next to this thing here, so.
Okay. My main thing is, for the environmental side, she said something about water runoff.
Well, Bringhurst is a steep hill, and there's a wall on Rough Street.
Actually, the city has been chipping off that wall for a few years now.
And in back of those houses, there's an alley for Queen Lane, and there's another built wall.
It's built and it's natural wall.
And so they're talking about either building out closer to Brinkhurst or moving further back off of Brinkhurst,
which would go closer to that alley back there on Queen Lane.
How is that, because it will be more water runoff, they're taking down the trees, including
the papa oak that i take care of personally they're taking down those trees and there's going
to be nothing to hold the soil there's nothing to hold the soil on the alley on queen lane or
rough street both of them have a steep grade so and ask me too that when they take those trees off
they're going that that's going to be some runoff to the train station that's a steep grade there's
a wall there holding that we call it the cattle chute that's gonna uh run if they take that those
trees off he's talking about taking the trees off that's gonna go down to the tracks okay let's go
run down to the tracks my other thing is parking like she said they're gonna be parking on my
sidewalk why would there's no other there's no other place to park
to park so is there anything else because i mean you said a lot what she said except
so is there anything
i think you didn't hear the whole war thing pretty well uh and and the uh
land because the land's going to flood and it's going to go it's going to collapse what i want to
do now see if there's anybody in the audience and then before we go i'll have the lawyer in the
audience no the virtual audience i'm going to call right here i call that that's the audience
that's electronic audience anyone in the virtual audience yes there are three hands the first one
is antoine fuller okay they're allowed to speak good evening can you hear me ken could you please
state your name and spell for the stenographer yes antonine a-n-t-o-i-n-e-n-e fullard f-u-l-l-a-r-d
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth
i do okay so we've just had a lot of information given to us by people that are here is there
anything more you would want to say that they haven't already said and are you for this or
against it so i'm actually on here on behalf of uh the office of councilwoman cindy bass
sure um we are in non-opposition to the development of the turning key homes but i just wanted to say
a few things um you know from our office yeah so i mean we do want to acknowledge um the concerns
raised by the neighbors and also the members of the rcl um you know about the density and the
parking you know within this around the community um you know so we hear those concerns and we will
take you know a lot of this um a lot of these concerns back to the office and even maybe the
mayor's office with all the tourniquet that's being built around the city because we we do see
that a lot of you know parking issues um you know are now arising but at the same time we do want to
recognize the importance of the purpose of tourniquet so again we all know that the program
is intended to create quality affordable homeownership in our communities and that's
what we you know we do want to see um you know this is a great opportunity for people within
our community to become first-time homeowners so um you know we we also um you know we just
i just wanted to share that and um just say to just one more thing i'm sorry just one more thing
So I know that the some of the RCO, one of the RCO mentioned that Safeda, you know, didn't have full development team present, you know, in their ZBA hearing.
So I just would like to say, you know, that maybe in the future on those, you know, on in those meetings, just to make sure that they do have their full team, you know, available, you know, for their presentation,
just to ensure that all questions and concerns raised by the community members in the RCO can be fully addressed.
But just wanted to say that we are for the project, but we do understand and hear the concerns,
and we will take a lot of this back to see how we can be better with the tourniquet program.
Thank you. Thank you very much for hanging around and to talk to us. We appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Another hand, please.
Yes, Olivia Jane Winters.
hi livia could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
olivia olivia you're allowed to speak
olivia
why don't you move on to the next hand okay christopher edwards and then another hand
just went up after that okay mr edwards could you please state and spell your name
uh i'm christopher edwards uh ch-r-i-s-t-o-p-h-e-r-e-d-w-a-r-d-s right do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth yes i do are you a neighbor
yes i live at 293 east springhurst so we've heard we've had several people testify at length here
are you for this project or against uh no i voted in support of the project for bring hearth and i
voted to oppose the project for acting all right one and not the other is that what you're saying