Good morning, everyone. My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing this morning's meeting
of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. With me is our Vice Chair, Teneda Graham, our Board
Secretary, Shel L. Gaston, four members, Michael Johns, Taya Nguyen, and Ron
Ryan McAdams.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Also, here is our board attorney, Lynn Reuter-Huber, our executive director, Ian Haggerty, and our board administrator, Lakeisha Dandy.
This hearing is being recorded and will be posted on the ZBA website.
By participating, you consent to be recorded.
This is an in-person meeting with remote participation.
whether in person or on zoom if you're called to speak please state and spell your name
wait to be sworn in after you've been sworn in start each of each section of testimony
by stating your name to enter an appearance to enter an appearance
indicate the property address in your zoom webinar speak with a staff member
call the zba office by the close of business tomorrow call 215-686-2429
and provide your name email and the case address for remote participation raise your virtual hand
we're directed directed to so that we can call you to speak when we call you make sure you click
the join as a panelist button. Use the Q&A only for procedural questions, not for comments about
the case. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
In-person participation. To testify, get close to the mic and ensure that all attendees and
the court reporter can hear you. No talking, eating or drinking during the hearing. Aggressive
behavior will not be tolerated. In an emergency, follow staff instructions. The main exit is the
double doors in the rear and the nearest stairwell is to the left. If you are, if we have to evacuate,
go to Love Park, which is directly across Arch Street. Please remain there so we can account for
you. So let's look at our schedule for this morning. Number one on the list and our, so the
board knows, our number is four MI 2025-004-525-451-55 East Wyoming Avenue. That case has been
withdrawn. Number seven, MI 2025 007-847-531-43 South 52nd Street. We have no exhibits. This
is the second listing and the owners listed owner is um tracy smith
good morning chair this is doreen and i will be co-hosting this morning i see no hands so
mi 2025 007 847 531 to 42 south 52nd street i vote to dismiss michael johns my vote is to
dismiss Cheryl Gaston my vote is to dismiss Tanetta Graham my vote is to dismiss I am McAdams my vote
is to dismiss I own my vote is to dismiss number number three on the the order of appearance list
and number eight on our list MI 2026-000-971-5152 Paris Street this case is continued until 217 at 9.30 a.m.
what was that yeah yeah oh you're you're right i i i gotta try
excuse me chair there's a sabrina weiss with her hand up would she be a part of that case
there's a sabrina weiss with her hand up would she be a part of that case sure okay i will allow
her to speak which one is that this is number eight we just want to continue that
Sabrina Weiss, you're allowed to speak.
Sabrina.
Sabrina Weiss, you have your hand raised and you're allowed to speak now.
Please unmute.
i'm sorry that was hi my name is sabrina wise i'm sorry um i just hit the for 51 52 i didn't really
mean to raise my hand i apologize but i am here for you case well that case is now being continued
right yes okay thank you very much okay so that's eight number ten
Number 10 and number four on the regular list is MI 2026 002 037 5726 Thomas Avenue.
This case is continued until 2 17 27 at 9 30 a.m.
Let's see here, we have, hold on, number 12, okay, number 12 on our list and five on the
regular list
MI 2026
Sandy Road
no exhibits this is the
first listing
the owners are
Pavlo and
Harbor
and also Albert Perez there are no hands raised here so MI 20 26 002 104 99 66 Sandy Road this
case is continued on two till 2 17 27 and we'll be at 9 30 a.m and Mark must be heard
Number 14, MI 2026-002-165, 1638 South 18th Street, no exhibits, first listing,
elite service and contracting, contracting is listed applicant, third-party professional.
Chair, I have Joseph Vaccaro with a hand raised. I will allow to speak.
Good morning. This is Attorney Joe Vaccaro.
Good morning, Mr. Vaccaro. Could you please state your name as Bell for the stenographer?
Good morning. May it please the board, Joseph Vaccaro, V-A-C-C-A-R-O, attorney for 1638 South 18th Street.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Joe, did you just get engaged in this?
Yes, I just got engaged in this matter.
And there is a matter that my client also needs to work out with the landlord on this.
So we'd greatly appreciate.
So this case will be continued, Joe, until 2-17-27 at 9.30 a.m.
And Mark must be heard.
Much appreciated. Thank you.
Have a good day.
All right.
chair tamika mccoy has her hand up also okay okay she will be allowed to speak
good morning morning tamika could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
sure tamika mccoy t-a-m-i-k-a last name is m-c-capital-k-o-y
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told you it's nothing but the truth
Yes I do. What case are you interested in? 5152 Parish Street. You just said that it was
you just um said that it was continued i'm actually here on that matter uh we did not
continued. I'm actually here on that matter.
request the continuance i believe a continuance was requested in this in a different matter that
had already been withdrawn um mr chairman if you want me i can why don't you speak on that yes
um hello this is lynn reidel huber board council this case was continued because the exhibits were
not received um in the two-week requisite period before this hearing so it was continued
and you also received notice from the staff that it would be continued
okay i don't believe i got notice of that um we did submit the materials but um
all right if it's continued can we have the earliest available date
that is the earliest available date that was provided by the chairman
all right what they can can you repeat the date was 2 17 27 at 9 30 a.m
wow okay all right thank you thank you i mean you can call the office if you want to talk to
the staff but that's the date that it's been continued to as of this time okay i'll do that
thank you all right number 15 mi 2026 002 167 2053 north 9th street um seth johnson is the listed
owner um no exhibits first listing the only hand i see up is sabrina weiss
what was that sabrina weiss has her hand back up but no seth johnson
all right bring her on no we we can move on chair that's from the previous case okay all right so
so MI 2026 00216 2053 North 9th Street this case is continued until 2 17 27 at 9 30 a.m
and Mark must be heard.
That was 2055.
Be right with you.
Number.
Number two, MI2025, 000686, 418 North Salford Street, Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning.
Could you please state and spell your name for this stenographer?
It's Vern Anastasio, A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O, on behalf of Reverend Anifa Wessu.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Vern, could you give us an update on this case, please?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
We were able to, you know, after lots of conversations with the community and the RCO, we were able to amend our refusal this summer.
I have it in hand, and we are scheduling a final RCO meeting with them now that we have it.
Okay, so this case, Vern, will be scheduled at 2-17-27 at 9.30 a.m., and Mark must be heard.
Thank you very much.
All right, thank you.
Number five, MI-2025-007-616-9401 Frankfurt Avenue.
This case is continued until 2-17-27 at 9.30 a.m.
10. Must be heard.
Number nine. Yeah. Yes, sir. Was that your case? Yeah. Oh, okay.
why don't you state your name and spell for the stenographer mark morrison m-a-r-k m-o-r-r-i-s-o-n
Morrison, M-A-R-K, M-O-R-R-I-S-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
And, Kurt, sir, what case are you, why don't you own records say the case you're interested in?
94, excuse me, 94-01 Frankfurt Avenue.
We have a note that this would be continued.
Could you give us?
I just want to know how many times they get to continue a case like this, because they did meet with the Civic Association, and we sent all our documentation in.
And I'm just curious, because I am a board member of the East Tarzell Civic Association.
Oh, so we'll make this will be the last continuance.
Thank you.
You already said must be heard.
I did.
I said that.
Oh, I did not know.
yeah that must be heard means they have to go on the next time oh okay okay thank you
thank you very much thank you for coming down we appreciate it
So, number nine, MI 2026, 001559, 5013 North 9th Street.
That case is continued until 2-17-27 at 9.30 a.m.
Number 11.
MI 2026-002-072, 2638 East Clearfield Street.
This case is continued until 2, 1727 at 9.30 a.m.
And number 12.
MI 2026-002-104-9966. Sandy, we did that one already?
We did that one.
Okay. All right. Is there any other?
Yeah. Is there any other requests for continuances?
I see no. Oh, yes, I do. Strawberry Mansion Community Concern has a hand raised.
Hold on one minute.
We got to do 18. Yeah.
let me let me do 18 first
mi 2028 002 280 2019 north van pelt street this case has been withdrawn is there any other request
i see no answer okay thank you
okay so let's go to our add-on list
MI2025-006074-222-Hartell Avenue.
The vote on this has been moved until September 30th at 9.30 a.m.
And number two, MI 2026-002-176. Our attorney has something to say about this. Am I correct?
Yes, this is for the property at 3856 Fairmont Avenue. The board is opening the record to receive
and review the revised plan submitted by the appellant, and the vote is rescheduled for next
wednesday september 30th so september 30th 2026 at 9 30 a.m okay thank you um now let's go to our
our our regular list number one mi2025 000622 6441 north 20th street um ramon jacoas is the uh
applicant this is also a Spanish interpreter I see one hand up by Brad
Adams good morning my name is Stephen I'll be the Spanish interpreter my
morning Stephen up hello good morning hi Stephen could you please state and
spell your name my name is Stephen Albain my last name is spelled a u b a i n
in interpret ID YM288. Do you swear or affirm that you will interpret accurately, completely,
and impartially from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English? Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
Could you please tell the applicant to state his name and spell for the stenographer?
Could you please tell the applicant the statement?
Sí, por favor, nos puede proveer su nombre y deletrarlo para el reportero.
Mi nombre es Ramón María Hacke.
Ramón María Hacke.
Y me puede deletrear su nombre, por favor.
so it's uh ramon maria hagas ramon r-a-m-o-n maria m-a-r-i-a hagas j-a-g-u-z easy
Could you please ask him, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth?
Usted jure y afirma decir la verdad.
Yo puedo hablar de la verdad.
The whole truth.
Y toda la verdad.
Nothing but the truth.
Y nada más que la verdad.
All right.
Our vice chair has a statement to make here relative to this.
good morning have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing
you understand that you're here for
to family living as well as retail sales on the first floor así que para su entendimiento
usted entiende que está aquí para este vivienda de dos familias y también una tienda de ventas
en el primer piso 10 and you understand that you are denied because that use is
you need to have a variance in order to use it in rsa 5 y usted entiende que se le negó porque
para este tener ese tipo de uso necesita una variancia en la orden del rsa 5
all right so you can begin to tell us what you're trying to do and describe any pictures
and stuff that you want to show us to present your case ya puede comenzar a decir lo que
está tratando de hacer y describir las imágenes y las diferentes cosas que nos quiere presentar en
su caso
so the interpreter can do it yes hi my name is lynn reidel huber i am board council
i was wondering if you had pictures with you that showed your posting for today's hearing with you
me llamo Lynn Reithuber y yo soy la representante de la junta y estaba tratando de averiguar si
usted tiene imágenes que demuestran la publicación de la audiencia del día de hoy
en verdad que presento por el día de hoy yo soy presentante porque yo
So I'm just presenting what I have.
I don't know English, so I'm speaking to you in Spanish, and I have the documents that Pablo helped me get.
well let me ask it this way did you post your property for notice for today's hearing
so there's someone in the audience who's raising her hand with documents
so here is the evidence if you want me to present it
again we couldn't read your
if you have the photographs for what you posted for the property we couldn't tell the date on it
We couldn't tell the date on it.
así que si usted tiene la fotografía
Así que si usted tiene la fotografía de lo que publicó.
¿Puede repetirme, por favor?
¿Usted tiene la fotografía para lo que publicó para la propiedad?
Porque no tenía una fecha.
Sí, señor.
So, yes, I have it.
¿Puede enseñarla, por favor?
¿Lo puede enseñarla, por favor?
Oh shit, he let's use that, he took it down, didn't ever put it on top of it.
Thank you.
Is that it?
This is Lynn Reidelhuber, Board Counselor.
I reviewed the paperwork that was just presented by the applicant with regard to posting and
I will say that it's sufficient for our needs to indicate that he did post the property
for the hearing today.
Thank you.
So, I'm Lynn Wright and I'm the representative of the Junta, and I've been represented by the applicant, and about the publication, I can say that it's enough for what we need to indicate.
Okay, let's go back to where we were. Could he explain what it is he wants to do?
So I want to have a business for food and providing food and then the apartment and
so that I could pay for like taxes and to be sufficient or pay for my things legally.
Okay, could he look at the photos that are up and would he want to comment on the photos?
así que si nos puede enseñar la foto que tiene publicada y éste que quiere comentar en cada imagen
en la foto para no a pierre a pierre acá arriba
la foto que tengo la presente por ahora de entre por pisi éste puede ir por cada imagen y describir
Okay, could you tell us what you're doing there?
Well, what I'm going to do in my business...
the interpreter will clarify le está enseñando fotos
en la pantalla si puede describir esa foto que está presentando
this is the interpreter speaking i don't think he understands the
um the presentation um i could try explaining it again
So that's the photo of the bodega, the business is on the first floor.
photos go on
Go on.
Y puede continuar.
Do we have any photos inside?
Is this property?
Esa es la propiedad.
Yes, that's the property.
That's the inside.
Okay, so.
so you want two apartments above
así que quieres dos apartamentos arriba
y después una tienda de comida en el piso abajo
home yes in the first floor um do we have any other photos
why why why could we enlarge that in
so that's that's your store there right yeah the architect drew that for you
so that's the first floor that's the first floor where the right
so that's the whole image say that again sir that's the he said that's the whole image of
that the architect drew okay um you have the is the apartments do we have drawings of the apartments
that's the second floor yes where's the third can we see the third floor
and the person that did the plans he created all of that okay
um questions from the board can you go back to the second floor plan please
Okay, and then the first floor.
I don't have any questions.
Thank you.
¿Los últimos preguntas?
¿Están going to sell cooked food?
Y pregunte, ¿usted va a vender comida ya cocinada?
Sí, comida caliente y fría.
Both cold and hot food.
Sí, todo soda, papa, todo de alimento.
Y menos nada de bebida, nada de alcohol.
The interpreter requires clarification.
¿No va a vender alcohol?
No, no, no hay alcohol.
okay so um just like sodas potato chips um i'm not going to be selling alcohol nothing like that
just food
so is a business like a bodega for both cold and hot food
Okay. My other question is the RCO meeting, a lot of opposition was expressed. Do you have any comments about
was expressed do you have any comments about what the opposition to your having the store
así que en la reunión del receo ellos expresaron su oposición usted tienen
algún comentario acerca de este eso que ellos declararon
so what i have to say is the entire neighborhood is in my favor i get along very well with them
and they're okay with me putting up the business okay so one of the concerns was they were worried
that it would the young people would like loiter and stay at your store like what would you do
about that así que una de las preocupaciones es que los jóvenes iban a quedarse este tiempo más
tiempo en las tiendas este que usted cree acerca de eso so i wouldn't allow that by 8 30 i wouldn't
allow any more service to the young people so they can go to school
other questions yes what's your plan for the take out window y cuál es su plan para la
ventanilla de de comida para llevarse comida that's going to be close
it's still showing on your plans pero todavía está enseñándose en los planos
um so it's in the plans um but since it's not done i haven't started selling from there if i
needed to sell through the window I could yes I understand it's possible I
think I just want to understand like what the plan for it how like what's the
queue what are the hours what types of items would you be selling through the
window is it anything in the whole store is it restricted to specific thing I'm
I'm just trying to understand the possible use of it, like how you envision it.
uh ventanilla esas son cosas pero la ella tiene su puerta en negocio para entrar en todo el público
the interpreter requires clarification así que va a usar la ventanilla no la bosa
bueno no creo que sea necesario usarla so i i don't believe it's necessary to use it
okay okay um i'm i want to go back to the kinds of foods are you going to have hot food and
is it the type of food that would need uh venting for the whatever you're going to be cooking is
food with are you going to have fryers are you going to have other types of equipment that require
So, when it comes to the type of food that you're going to cook,
that type of food will need ventilation?
Like, you're going to have things that are going to freeze,
that you're going to need some type of ventilation?
And what type of equipment you need for that ventilation?
It's like an air inside of the kitchen.
The interpreter will clarify.
As a ventilator, if he is cooking fried food, where is it going to go?
Like ventilación, if you are cooking food free, where is the humo or vapor,
will you have a ventilación system or will you cook food that requires ventilación?
No, you have to have it, so that the humo goes out.
So that it goes out, so that it goes out, so that it goes out, so that it goes out.
The interpreter will clarify.
So, is it going to use a ventilación system or not?
yes so yes we are going to be using a ventilation system
okay so is that on his plan yes
and there's the interpreter speaking i i think he's confusing two things
um so he's confusing the um takeout window with the ventilation system um would you like me to
try to explain that again no no no no no okay we're okay okay thank you um questions or comments
from our attorney no questions at this time mr chairman questions or comments from the audience
come on
turn the mic on please good morning hi good morning could you please state and spell your
name for the stenographer my name is darlene rodriguez d-a-r-l-e-n-e r-o-d-r-i-g-u-e-z right
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i saw you waving
your hand several times back there would you want to give us your comments um yeah um even with the
interpreter sometimes it's kind of hard for him to understand and um i know you guys was asking
for the window so for that window it was glass and somebody came and tried like to come in the
store and like rob we did have a case for that and try to go to court but the guy um the cops said
they they was trying to look for him um we went to court one day but they you know this continued
because it wasn't nothing so that's why i want to like to let you guys understand that part about
the window because the window is not like it wasn't there to have um you know to sell food
or to overnight it's not none of that just something happened and he um contracted somebody
to cover that and for the events i'm not sure because i'm just here to help him out um do the
is the plan on there has the events for or no yeah yes okay because from my understanding he um
is doing this to reopen the store. All the neighbors around there is really sad because
all the situation happened. He wants to reopen the store to have a corner store, like they
say, bodega, to have hoagies, cheese steaks, cold and hot food, and stuff like that, like
he said. But I just wanted to have that clear about the window. The window is not going
uh open thank you very much for telling us we appreciate it you are is there anyone else in
the virtual audience there are no hands planning commission
thank you chairman and good morning david facto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with the city planning
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir i do please
proceed thank you sir um chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no
change to the rsa 5 residential single family zoning at this location
The city rezoned this neighborhood in 1969 in a council supported map change.
This property has a documented history of commercial and residential use.
and residential use esta propiedad tiene un historial documentado de uso
ambos residencial y comercial the city planning commission recommends that the board grant
their proposed variances el comité de planeo de la ciudad recomienda que la junta de las variancias
propuestas. Thank you. We're going to vote on this next Wednesday at 9.30 AM. Así que nosotros
vamos a tomar el voto el próximo miércoles a la 9 y media de la mañana. Right. We would just want
to make sure where we stand that we know there was opposition. We've taken the testimony. We thank
you for coming here. You don't necessarily have to come back next week. You can just listen on the
phone, but we will vote at this for this at 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Así que solamente nos queremos asegurar que todo esté bien debido a que hubo algunas
oposiciones, pero ya hemos tomado su testimonio y le agradecemos por llegar.
No necesariamente tiene que venir la semana que viene.
Usted puede escuchar por el teléfono, pero nosotros vamos a tomar el voto a las 9 y media
de la mañana el próximo miércoles.
And, Chairman, the record's closed then?
Oh, definitely closed.
Everything's closed.
Thank you for coming in.
We appreciate it.
And thank you for your help in the back there, too.
Thank you.
All right.
Number 14 on the list and 17 for us.
MI 2026-002-258-549-Selma Street, number A.
Darlene Threat is the attorney.
do we have an interpreter for this yes chair and pardon the interruption is there a georgian
could you and because they're a georgian interpreter in the audience if there is
please raise your hand do we have an interpreter here for this in the audience
i don't see a hand up for the interpreter what was the name again
um well why don't we bring the attorney on to darlene treat is the attorney and
katazi and kala panishva panishville is the owner applicants uh good
i hear
council good afternoon can you hear me commissioner yeah you would break it up a
little bit could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
darlene darlene you're darling you're really breaking up let me try something okay
Okay. Is there an interpreter in the audience for this case?
I don't see a hand up. I just promoted cart cartozy.
Last name beginning MP to panelist. Okay.
Cartozy. Oh, yeah. There is an interpreter with a hand up. They are. They are promoted.
no i'm sorry that is a spanish interpreter we're looking for a georgian interpreter i believe uh
mr rodriguez mr rodriguez are you uh here to interpret spanish language or georgian language
do we see a georgian interpreter in the audience
I do not share okay let's let's get Darlene on if we can um I'm having audio problems
Commissioner I hear an echo and I can't seem to get rid of it this is Ian Hegarty pardon the
interruption chair do you have I see your name twice in the attendees list do you have another
device on in the room somewhere with you because that could be causing the echo problem let me just
just give me a second can you hear me now we can yes that's much clearer thank you
why don't you please state your and spell your name for the stenographer
ian can you hear me now we we do we do
darlene
Pauline, can you hear us?
Darlene are you able to hear me now can you hear us I don't know what's going on
can you come back to me put me at the end of the list
we we certainly can we're just trying to Darlene are you going to need an interpreter
i don't think she's able to hear the audio chair okay all right
um we we hear you we hear you um we'll come back and check on you later okay
all right let's move on
you don't have to stay by the way you're done for the day and you're done too sir
Right. But you you're more than welcome to sit. All right, let's let's go.
Let's go to number 16 and we'll check back later. Number 16.
MI 2026 002 169 901 Belmont Avenue, Liam and Barbara Barrett.
Liam Barrett has been promoted.
Good morning, Liam.
Hello, good morning.
Good morning. Could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer?
Liam Barrett, L-I-A-M-B-A-R-R-E-T-T.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has just a few questions for you.
Good morning. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing?
and uh do you understand that your application is for four dwelling units yes okay and that and
you're refused because uh four dwelling units is prohibited in your rm1 zoning district yes okay
all right you can share your screen and proceed to tell us what you would like to do with this
property all right and i also notice you have a letter from the west belmont civic association
and support. That's correct.
You're coming up now. You're... Okay, it's taking its time.
and could could you please do you can you uh show yourself one video
i don't i don't see you uh yeah one second
can you see me um not yet okay sorry about that
It looks like I'm on.
Bring your documents up, please.
Right.
So here is my notice of refusal for 901 Belmont Ave.
Sorry, Liam.
Liam, we don't see anything.
You can see that, right?
We don't see anything.
Pardon the interruption.
uh he did start sharing and it's just taking a moment for that he did start sharing and it's
just taking a moment for it to appear it looks like there's a little bit of a lag um in the
sure balance connection
uh i'll just give it a second sorry about that but it's uh it's showing up on my end
uh is it all right if i turn my camera off i think that might help with internet sure go ahead
there you go all right so why don't you start it by telling us what you want to do
there you go all right so why don't you start it by telling us what you want to do
okay uh so i would like to legalize an existing
thing uh fourth unit in this house
uh so if you can see my screen uh here is the notice of refusal yep because you need
1440 square feet of lot area scrolling now here is my uh very crude uh proof of mailing for
my rco meeting uh i know now that there's a more efficient way to do this but this
each individual card is for one neighbor and i can show you paper copies in person or close-ups too
okay that's fine yep and here is the rco meeting summary uh everybody who voted voted in support
and one epstein okay okay here is my certificate of tax clearance
okay we have that we have that so what do you want i think the easiest thing is do
is go to photos or plans okay that's your posting too right yep yes that's
correct all right okay so here's picture of the property it's on the
corner of Belmont Ave on the front here what's going to be sure which one is
this one here on the corner okay this is on Belmont Ave on the front Westminster Ave on the
side here's another picture of the front and you can see there's a door here this door goes to a
common hallway where you can access the first floor apartment goes up a stairwell to access
the second floor apartment and another stairwell to access the third floor and this door here on
the right is an additional door for the first floor apartment. This is an aerial view. As you
can see, here's the property, apartment building over here, many other houses, and this is a school
across the street. Another view here, house outlined in red. Right here, you can't see them
now but this is where trash and recycling bins are stored and then there's two doors here this door
on the left leads to the basement and this door on the right is that other apartment uh that i'm
applying for today another picture how many apartments do you have there now four okay and
okay you you exist you've and and you're applying for an extra is was that what you said i didn't
understand that so uh it's listed as a triplex but there are four properties here so i'm trying
to legalize the existing fourth unit okay so why don't you show us some interior photos okay one
moment so i'll start with the plan first so since i wasn't proposing any physical changes i drew this
up myself that door on the left here goes to the basement and this door on the right you enter here
it's a laundry room stackable washer dryer closet go through another door and here's the kitchen on
the right here's the living area and above here is a loft bed and then here is the bathroom with
the full-size shower now this area here has very very high ceilings and then on top of the areas
is here is a loft area.
You'll see it in the pictures, but it's pretty big.
So, and this is on Westminster Ave, yeah.
This is that front door to the apartment.
You can see it's got electrical panel,
fire extinguisher, alarm system.
Going over here is that closet, carbon monoxide detector.
This is a view of the washer dryer
with the entrance to the street on the right.
closet and then this is that door going into the main area of the apartment
another view it's got mini split heat and air conditioning works very well ceiling fan
and this is some sort of exercise ladder that the previous owner put in
and here's a electric cooktop microwave
another view of the kitchen
for you can't have too many pictures right
here's a picture of the loft bed this is a
here's a picture of the loft bed this is a i believe eight foot ceiling and then the loft bed
on top so underneath the loft bed is this window uh it is egress size and this is a kick plate so
you can kick this and the bars on the outside will pop open uh in case of an emergency
is that the first floor uh yeah this is all on the the regular first floor
let me uh so is there a bedroom there too in that first floor or is it just the loft is the bed
so i showed you the loft bed this is just a studio apartment
in no separate bedroom okay and then here's a picture of the bathroom let me ask you this
is this the one you're trying to listen to me is this first floor the one you're trying to
add yes
another view of the bathroom with a pocket door
full-size shower
and another view of the bed up here and this is that loft area so this picture was taken from
on top of the bed you can see all that extra space i mean it's big enough to fit a full-size tv
and then plenty of more storage this is there is the kitchen here on the left this is that
entrance on top of there and then i have some notes if i can go over that too
well i think yeah you can go over the notes but we need to see the rest of the property too
uh well i have pictures of the outside of the property and then pictures inside this unit but
the other three are tenant occupied so i didn't take pictures of those
but those those three i'm not really uh applying for anything for right
let me just go up
So it was built in 1915. I found documentation stating in 1965 that it was five apartments.
2011, this was six apartments. And then in 2014, they switched it to three apartments.
So I'm applying for four apartments, which is pretty in scope with how many apartments this
property has had over the years. I have 1,280 square feet of lot area. So I'm 160
square feet short of the 1,440 square foot lot requirement. And the hardship here is that it was
built long before these current zoning laws and uses for units. So it would be a significant loss
of reasonable use of the space without it. I'm not requesting any building expansion. Should have no
effect on utility use because it's been an apartment for a long time. Parking should also
have no effect if you'll see outside those two front doors there is a curb cut out because that
used to be a garage a long time ago i guess so if this to get this apartment legalized that would
actually make that a valid spot out front so you actually gain parking on the street
and then i actually based this proposal off of let me pull this up uh two neighboring properties
So there's 885 Belmont Ave, it's a block away, same zoning, and they got a similar variance a few years ago for four dwelling units where they legalized an existing rear first floor addition.
And then 939 Belmont Ave is a different zoning district, RSA 5, but they were also approved for four dwellings two years ago.
any questions um questions from the board can you pull back up the floor plan please yeah
and then maybe maybe I missed this because I was looking at other things but
how do you get to this unit from the main entrance of the building
yeah let me pull up the outdoor picture so that front door this door goes to the apartment on the
first floor second floor and third floor this door on the back is how you enter that apartment
This door on the back is how you enter that apartment.
you enter right by the laundry room
You enter right by the laundry room there.
So it's these two doors here.
Well, the left one is the basement.
The right one is the apartment.
The laundry room is the basement.
It is not.
One moment.
Pull that up again.
So like on this floor plan.
Wait, go down.
Go down.
So if you show the whole plan so we can see the whole plan, that door that leads.
Oh, I see. So is the laundry room just for this unit or for the entire building?
Just for the unit. All apartments have their own washer dryer.
What's the square footage of this unit?
Just shy of 180 square feet.
when was the renovation to make this this unit done uh i'm not sure honestly this is how i bought
it uh when did you buy it november uh 2025
and then what's the use in the basement then
uh well basement is where the water heaters are you know hvac systems no no tenants really go in
there it's for utilities okay so all the utilities for all the units are in the basement
entrance to the basement is through this door yeah that's the only entrance and uh all the
water heaters are for for those apartments are in the basement uh but for the second and third
floor apartments the heaters are in the apartments themselves and the electrical panel for all of the
pico meters is in the basement yes okay they're they're right here so they're not they're not
underneath the house but they are in that entrance to the basement so nothing else is
the basement is not used for anything else uh correct and the meters for the gas are in the
basement as well. And then all apartments are gas, including this efficiency? So those, the front
three apartments do have gas. This efficiency is electric only. So that mini split on the wall up
here just uses electric. Same with the washer dryer. Well, all mini splits only use electric.
I think I was more concerned about the stovetop in this one. That's an electric stovetop. Yeah.
Electric stovetop. And then where is it venting through the rear wall?
so uh i'll pull up a picture it just has the uh
just this microwave has the vent the fan in it
what's what's the height of the the area where the bed is what's the height between the
the top of the deck and the ceiling uh to be honest i did not get that measurement
I apologize about that, but I could get that for you later today.
What do you think it is?
I'm not sure.
Maybe two and a half, three feet.
I mean, I fit in there pretty comfortably.
I'd say maybe two and a half, three, maybe two max.
so you bought this as a triplex
yes but this existed when i purchased it wasn't listening but you bought it as a triplex
and then you discovered this um this efficiency apartment that wasn't approved am i correct
correct and then do you want to try to now make it um legal is that what is that what you're saying
That's correct.
Any other questions from the board?
I don't know.
That just doesn't make sense to me.
I don't know how you buy something as a triplex and you walk in and you see another unit and you go, oh, wow.
I was aware of it when I toured it for the first time and all that.
This wasn't a surprise.
I think my last question, what size mattress is in the sleeping?
Is that a full size bed in the sleeping wall?
It's either a full or a queen.
but one of the two okay my question is regarding your trash so has it been working out um with your
three tenants that all the trash has been stored outside of the property uh yeah there have been
no problems uh no complaints it's usually me or a different tenant will take it out on sunday
nights and bring it back monday it you only have to drag the cans like two feet to the curb so
I also want to confirm that you're not opposed to a certificate of occupancy.
Correct. I'm not opposed.
Correct. I'm not opposed.
And I just want to let you know.
And I just want to let you know, I mean, this has nothing to do with zoning, but I'm pretty sure that this is not a code compliant livable unit.
So I just want to warn you because there's a few things that I think you're going to have to do that would require extensive reconfiguration of this kitchen where you only have about five feet of kitchen.
Yeah, I figured zoning first, right?
Okay. I just let you know.
thanks but but sir the the fact is you bought this as a triplex you agreed to buying a triplex
yes okay other questions from the board questions from our attorney uh yes i just have a quick
question you mentioned something about parking that wasn't mentioning your application or refusal
i i was i was confused on what you were mentioning about parking or let me uh pull up a picture to
help explain so right here the curb is cut out a little bit and I'll pull up a
different picture right here so if my understanding is correct that's not a
legal parking spot because there's a curb cutout and obviously getting this
apartment legalized would allow people to park here legally therefore one more
spot on the street no i don't believe that's correct that you can park legally there
it's a sidewalk right now i'm not saying you can park that was a converted girl i'm pretty sure
that the sufficiency was the converted garage and at some point somebody closed up access to
the basement from unit one okay um anything else no that's okay thank you questions or comments
from the virtual audience no answer planning commission thank you chairman and good morning
david vecto with the city planning commission chairman and board members the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the rm1 residential multi-family zoning at this location this
neighborhood still carries its original 1933 zoning under the current zoning three dwelling
units are allowed by right the appellant seeks to legalize a fourth dwelling unit built without the
benefit of permits planning staff is concerned about the ability of a tenant to exit the fourth
dwelling unit in case of an emergency the appellant has not shown that they cannot derive value
from a three-unit building the city planning commission recommends the board deny the proposed
use variance for a fourth dwelling unit mi 2026 002 169 901 belmonton avenue i vote no michael
johns my vote is no cheryl gaston my vote is no tennessee graham my vote is no ryan mcadams my vote
is no tyra with my vote is no thank you sir um number 16 on the on the zoning list and our number
3, MI-2025-004-485-2169-66th Avenue, Brittany and Christopher Jones.
This is the resumption for amended refusal, am I correct?
Brittany Jones is coming in as a panelist.
hi yes i'm here all right i could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
b-r-i-t-t-a-n-y last name j-o-n-e-s you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth? Yes. Okay. Um, so like matters before we start, this is more than a
resumptive. Where do we stand with this counsel? Um, no, this is, uh, we need to, um, hold on one
second. We need to, with regard to the testimony, find out what's really happening in the building.
So we may need to have a resumption if they need to get a, uh, amended or refused. We're not sure
what's happening in the bill okay so uh our vice chair has a few questions for you good morning
have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing um yes i've
been working with an expediter uh zakiya sample and she submitted it and to my understandings
um you guys sent us an email about one of our documents wasn't clear in the picture
Okay, so why don't we start? Why don't you start presenting your case, and we'll see where we stand.
Okay, so why don't we start? Why don't you start presenting your case?
I wasn't prepared to go today because the email that I received via my expediter
said that you previously received the email from board counsel notifying you that your ZBA hearing
will be continued due to a missing exhibit item okay all right we're okay with that
council sure all right so um this case hold on here let me figure here
this case will be continued then to 2 17 27 at 9 30 a.m
thank you ma'am for coming in and giving us that information too we appreciate it
okay thank you mr chairman i appreciate it you said 217 correct i did i did yeah okay okay great
and then then we're going to um go to um number six mi 2025 007 716 4045 spring garden street
kevin valentine is the attorney
Kevin Valentine has his hand up.
He has been promoted, but it's two of them.
Mr. Valentine?
He's rejoining now.
kevin valentine you have been promoted and you're free to speak
can you hear me yeah good morning good morning council could you please state and spell your
name for the stenographer yes good morning my name is kevin k-e-v-i-n valentine v-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-e
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do but do you identify your client the relationship to this property
yes my client is mr sao chin or danny lee and he is the owner of the property at 4045
Spring Garden. And our Vice Chair has a few questions. Good morning. Have you submitted
your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing? Yes, ma'am. And do you weigh the
reading of your refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You can share
your screen and proceed with the case. Okay. Can you see the screen? Yeah, we're waiting to see
anything on it. We see a blank screen. You're good. You're good. You're good. Okay. All right.
Well, I guess I'd like to just briefly go through the procedural facts here. We have,
we have all your documents but oh okay you might want to start by saying what is it you're trying
to do all right my client is um appealing the variance so that he can convert the property
to a duplex um he purchased the property in 2011 um and at that time the majority of that block
was RM1 for multi-unit properties. In 2015 the zoning designations changed in
the area and his property was changed to RSA 5. Now because he had ceased
operation in 2012 he was not granted non-conforming status as all the
surrounding properties were. He did obtain a vacancy license
during that period of inactivity and is now coming to the board to try to get the variance
so that he can use the property as a duplex as the surrounding properties are.
And do I understand right, you originally asked for seven units?
No, no, that's not correct.
Originally, when purchased in 2011, it was a seven unit building.
My client went to the RCO trying to get a triplex after negotiation.
it was brought to our attention that
they would not approve a triplex
but they will approve a duplex
so that's why we're back
then why don't you do this, why don't you show us some photos
and some plans
okay, alright
just scrolling down
let's see
bear with me
let's see if I can do this any faster
that's your posting that's the posting yep okay and this is the posting um you can see in the
front window of the property yep okay more postings again posting um plan shop these are the the
emailing yep okay this is going to take a minute there are a lot of mailings
should be coming up pretty soon
This is the RCO, the community notice letter. And let's see after this. Here we go. Here are the plans for the proposed property. There are. And Danny, are you here right now, Mr. Lee?
The property, I'm just waiting for Mr. Lee to come on, but the property is used, again, as a duplex.
As you can see, I believe we have two bedrooms per unit.
Those units would be divided between the first, second, and third floor.
your basement would be used um as a media a workout room and um a utility portion but before
i go further into detail i'd like to get mr lee um on the line i think he had his hand up
um i did not see his hand up would he be under your name i don't think so no hold on let me
because there is a hand another hand up under kevin valentine oh oh let's see i wonder is
i'm wondering if i did not put my hand down or if that's actually him let's see let me just ask him
are you on
let's go here
i mean can you explain it or you don't know enough about the drawings um i know i know
i can answer basic questions about the drawing um but mr lee is mr lee mr lee in the audience
anywhere i do not see him mr lee yeah oh sorry this is this is ian uh he's there under kevin
valentine's name let's promote that other kevin valentine to panelists please and bring that person
got it he's been promoted okay mr lee could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
maybe he needs to unmute
mr valentine this is lynn reidelhuber board council can you make sure you identify mr lee
as the owner because you refer to him as danny lee but we have a lease that indicates his first name
is sao chin yes when i just if you can just make sure that's on the record thank you yes yes yes
when i um initially mentioned him i said sao chin or danny lee mr lee
yes i mentally could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer yes uh this is sao
Hi, Mr. Lee. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes. This is Sal Lee. First name Sal, S-A-U. Last name Lee, L-E-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel, why don't we move on?
Okay. All right. Mr. Lee, can you give us a basic description of what the project entails?
Can you see the plans right here?
okay okay so this will be um proposing a um two residential unit both has um uh two bedrooms uh
two and a half bath uh and a large kitchen um the unit one which consists of a basement first
and second and the union two has separate entrance from the outside which is the second rear and the
whole floor third so both has a separate entrance um so why don't why don't you go over the first
floor the first apartment first okay so the the first first apartment would be the door on the
left right and then once you walk in uh you'll have an open ceiling or a lower floor you can
see the lower floor uh and then the staircase going up and down which is going to the basement
and to the second floor and then after that uh you have the kitchen a full-size kitchen with an
island and then towards the back uh will be a full-size uh master bedroom uh with a closet
and and a bath and then if you walk to the basement will be a gym uh living room space
and storage area and a mechanical room and then if you go in the upstairs to the second floor
front will be the bedroom, a master bedroom, a bathroom, and then some work space.
And if we go into the second unit, it will lead up to the second floor rear,
and it will consist of a powder room, utility room, a full-size kitchen with an island,
and then walking upstairs would be a two-bedroom one in the front and one in the back and a larger
living room space in the middle uh also with um an open uh ceiling plan so which is like 20 feet
high ceiling
counsel is that your presentation um i let's see let me give you a
can you see this rendering i i we can okay um this is a general rendering i'd like to
To point out though that the larger garden to the left would only be about half that
size because there is an entrance there that would lead down to the basement's utility
closet.
And the garden that you see to the right would not be there at all.
these are renderings would not be there at all because that's actually the beginning of the next
property can you see what i'm talking about here we can okay so yeah i just wanted to clarify um
what was actually accurate in that in that rendering um
we um again we initially um went to the rco um they explained to us that they were not
in favor of excuse me a triplex so we paired the plan down to a duplex they
approved it with provisos with two provisos one being that mr. Lee would
contribute to the West Powleton clean and safe initiative to address their
concerns about neighborhood community neighborhood maintenance and that sort
THING SO WE CAME TO AN AGREEMENT THERE AND THEN FINALLY THEY HAD SOME CONCERNS ABOUT CURBSIDE
APPEAL, MR. LEE AGREED TO PLANT A SMALL TREE TO ADDRESS THE CURB APPEAL ISSUES LIKELY USING
THE CITY OF THE STATE'S PLANTED TREE PROGRAM. OKAY, THAT'S YOUR PRESENTATION.
ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS THAT YOU HAVE? QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD.
YEAH, I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS. ONE, I JUST WANT TO POINT OUT FOR THE RECORD THAT RENDERING IS AI
and is not accurate to the existing conditions or the floor plan um so you have to be real careful
when you use ai because it is not accurate understood which is why i kind of pointed that out
understood which is why i kind of pointed that out yes i don't know you pointed out the drawing you
Yes, I do understand.
pointed out the the uh greenery not the fact that the porch is actually the entire front entrance is
completely incorrect to what isn't drawing or existing um well you have critical to this
conversation so you have yeah go ahead good question when i'm looking at the uh what i'm
looking at right now i see the two doors and i see the door sized window to the i guess left of the
doors is that what you're referring to well like do you see in this drawing how the the porch does
not go the full length of the property in your rendering you also are showing an entrance to
the basement yes yeah well the basement is what i had addressed when i said the um sure either way
the drawing is incorrect the point is that the drawing is incorrect so all right my uh question
my first and the most important question i have right now is what is the egress out of the basement
you're showing extensive living space in the basement with no egress wells
Mr. Lee hello
yes did you did you hear that question um yes so this um egress well um I mean we could add
egress well to do this you're going to have to legally add an egress well to have an occupied
basement correct okay so what's the plan for the egress well um on the alleyway uh on the side
three foot alley we could add egress where the uh the gym is you have the hvac there i mean
The other issue, you know, that I'm going to speak on is the fact that the bedroom is off of the backyard in a unit.
So there's no other access to the backyard except through that bedroom, which is always a bad situation when you've got, you know, units that have more than, that are not efficiencies, essentially.
um so it's resident useless and you're you know you're doing all this work creating all these
stairways and all these openings but you force people to go through a bedroom to go to a backyard
which i think is um it's not the it's horrible other questions
and the other thing what do you what's the trash plan well trash is um picked up in this
neighborhood on um in terms of in terms of storage how is your trash stored where you
plan to store your trash well the trash would be stored um in units until that monday when
trash is collected is there if you have dedicated trash rooms in the units and ventilated
danny can you speak to that i i we actually we do it in a basement in the front where the staircases
uh we we could put two trash cans down in the basement so that's that'll be ventilated
so your plan now is to do trash cans in the in that uh basement area under the porch correct
okay what's the depth of the basement below grade uh approximately seven foot six no what's the
depth of the basement below the i'm sorry below grade uh the four four foot four and a half foot
And then just to confirm, the first unit is the basement, the first floor, and then the
front portion of the second floor.
Second floor, right.
what what is the deck up is there a deck on the second floor is that a note that says deck
there's no no there's no in the breezeway what is that is oh is that that first floor
there's no no there's no data in the breezeway what is that is that
just extends beyond it oh that's the roof below okay i don't think i'm going to slow down i don't
think we're still down i'm going to be in now if it's not going to come back here
questions or comments for our attorney um yes uh attorney valentine you need to have your client
adopt uh your testimony what's that he needs to have his client adopt his testimony he didn't
he didn't do that uh okay mr lee can you affirm that um my testimony today has been um true and
correct yes questions or comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands landing commission
thank you chairman and good morning david effecto with the city planning commission
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa 5 residential
single-family zoning of this location. The city rezoned this neighborhood in 2015 in accord with
recommendations in the comprehensive plan. At that time, this block was zoned RM1, residential
multi-family. Most of the homes on the north side of this block face have three dwelling units,
so the City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant a proposed use variance for two
dwelling units. MI 2025 007 716 4045 Spring Garden Street, I vote no. Michael Johns, my vote is no.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is no. Tynetta Graham, my vote is no. Ryan McAdams, my vote is no.
Taya Nguyen, my vote is no. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Number 13 and 18 on the list, MI 2026-002-138-828 Ritner Street.
Zen Jin is the attorney.
We do have letters and positions of opposition to this project.
good morning good morning counsel could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
yes my name is zenjin z-h-e-n-j-i-n do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth i do counsel could you identify your client a relationship to this
property. Yes, my client is Ms. Tsleijan Deng, the owner of the property. Right, and our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good morning. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing?
Yes. And do you waive the reason of your refusal simply to its accuracy? I do. All right, thank you.
You can share your screen and proceed with the case. Thank you. I'm going to share with the board what was previously submitted as
exhibits. It should be coming up on the screen. Yes, sir. Thank you. So this is an application
for the property located at 828 Rittner Street. The refusal indicates that we are asking for a
two-family household living in a CMX1 district. In the CMX1 district, normally whatever is the
most restrictive residential district next to the property would be also the restriction against
this property. The most restrictive being RSA 5 near this property. Therefore, our request for
two-family household living was refused. We met with the RCO. I actually have the RCO letter as
a separate attachment exhibit because at the time we submitted our exhibits, we did not have their
feedback yet that was received today by my office i will address their comments as far as their
basis for refusal and opposition so as the board can see this is a corner property but it is a
corner property on a small side street that also faces retner street there are multiple of these
little streets between the major streets such as 8th street to 9th street and this property itself
falls kind of in the in the corner type situation without being really on a commercial type corridor
street such as 8th street which is a lot more active this property was purchased by my client
buying in 2021.
And at the time of purchase, the property was previously zoned as a CMX-1 with a vacant commercial space and two residential units.
And at the time of purchase, the property was
my client had to do some work on the exterior at the time because at the time of purchase
the certificate the property certificate indicated there were some requirements that
has to be met including exterior repairs as well as mechanicals being installed uh before
I'm going to zoom into the plants uh this is the layout that we are proposing but
But the history of it is that after purchase, after some of that work was done, the property
was put into use and then got a violation for getting rental licenses as well as updating
the use permit.
So at the time, she hired an expediter who applied for a use permit that was indicated
it as vacant commercial on one unit, and it's the way that it was applied for. That was approved
and essentially carries over to the current situation where after about a year of trying
to rent this commercial space, my client decided to simply convert it to a residential unit because
it wasn't really renting for that period. That is what triggered the current violation.
Now, the RCO's letter primarily objects in that one, they indicated there are multiple violations
on the property. That is simply not true. There are only two open violations. I think the RCO's
looking at atlas which any property will have all its prior violations in history listed as
violations which yes there are in history of this property probably some 30 some violations
but there actually was only four or five relating to what i just discussed since my client purchased
and none of those violations related to uh the claim of trash or anything of that nature the
the property itself was updated over time. And I think the fact that it was purchased with some
vacancy and needed some work at the time of purchase essentially affected the prior variance
approvals or the prior approved uses of the two family and vacant commercial that was actually
obtained by my client at the time of purchase. What I'm going to do is I'm going to actually
show the board uh the property certificate real quick that was the uh issue to my client at the
time of the um the purchase so this this property was purchased in uh april of 2021 by my client
from a Mr. Michael Chen. And at the time, the property was a vacant non-residential space and
two dwelling units on the city records. However, it does say that at the time that additional work
needs to be done before it can be occupied or certified as fit, because there was exterior
cracks, siding falling off that the city felt was unfit for occupancy, and there were mechanicals
missing. So that was part of the work that was done after acquisition. Those items were actually
cleared by the city as complied and removed as any violations in June of that year. So that was
taken care of relatively quickly. So my client was under the impression, of course, that she is
acquiring a vacant commercial and two residential units at the time. Ultimately, she was still
having a lot of problems getting the vacant commercial leased. When the next time she went
for permits, that was still applied through the city as again as vacant because it was still not
rented so that frustration eventually led her to make the current design of making the vacant
commercial into a residential the original layout of the second residential unit that was actually
partially in the basement and in the back half of the first floor she understands that that basement
basement area in the back first floor is not really conducive to good residential living
area in the back first floor is not really conducive to
that is why she actually only wanted the front uh part that was commercial converted to a
residential unit and keep the second floor unit which already existed the way it is
she's not looking to use or want to have the other piece as a residential unit that would simply be
used for storage and utilities there the way this property is laid out the basement front already
has washer dryer and the trash area that can be accessed by belco doors the building is at 100
lock coverage so there's unfortunately no rear yard space available to the building
so for the layout of the actual residential spaces this was the former commercial space that
the community feels would be viable at this point it's about 30 32 feet deep by 15.
it doesn't have access to the basement because the prior owner actually built a party wall here
and made this into a residential unit which actually was by the original permit permitted
so it wasn't done illegally but it certainly isn't helpful to the commercial space
being rented out what my client wants to do is to make this the a small single bedroom residence
and keep the existing second floor the way it is as well it's access so the first floor will
be accessed from the corner entry there's a secondary door on the side of the building
that leads straight up into the second floor, which is its entire space. And then a third door,
actually existing door on the back of the building as part of an addition as well,
that used to lead to what would be a third unit in essence. My client does not want to
have this used as a residential unit and would prefer to have it as storage
and utilities for the basement, and then keep the existing washer-dryer, which is accessible by both
units, in the front as is. So from the standpoint of other properties in the area that are similar
in that they are on the corner of a small street like my client's property, further down the street
there's another small street, Meldred, which is 814, 816, approximately those numbers for
Rittner Street. They're very similar in that there are also corner properties like this on
a small street. All of those are duplexes. There are really no active commercial activities on
Rittner Street itself, although there are active commercial activities on 8th Street, which is
another block down from this small street towards the next corner. The building here is zoned as a
contractor office slash single family, although I don't know if it's active as a contractor office.
But generally speaking, the smaller street corners have been used as duplexes. And we believe that
that is actually the best and most fitting use of a property like this, given its prior
permit for the use as a duplex, as well as having the, and here's the permit that was
obtained back. This is going back quite a few years. But as you can see, at one point,
the owner did obtain a permit for both the retail store on the first floor and one dwelling
unit in the basement and the first floor rear and second floor dwelling unit so the renovations done
to the property at least structurally was done long before my client purchased the property
so that particular setup does bring a level of hardship to my client to now comply with what
the community wants which is uh basically one single unit with just a commercial on the first
floor, we again submit that the location of this property on a small corner street
already limits any kind of commercial activity that possibly could go into this space. And
the layout of the space makes it even further more difficult to meet what the community is asking for.
With the RCO letter, I do want to share that briefly with the board because I did receive it.
I do want to show that the letter itself, the vote is kind of split, with support and non-opposition being two.
the vote is kind of split with support non-opposition being two and then opposed being
two. And again, they're saying there are over 23 violations. That's all the violations in history
listed on the property. You can see from the photos that were taken of the property that
trash is not omnipresent. There was in fact no trash in front of the property in the photos.
And while we understand that any property is viable as a single-family home,
the hardship here is we don't believe the commercial is truly viable at this location,
given its physical proximity to Rittner and a small side street.
So that is the reason we're asking for the board's favorable review of our request to
use this property as a two-family dwelling with the layout as presented in the plan.
I do believe my client should be here for and would be able to confirm my testimony as well
as I will now put the original exhibit back up so that I can answer questions.
Sure. Thank you. Why don't we bring your client on?
Ms. Dunn, can you raise your hand virtually to be identified?
Let me put this to the, my apologies. I'm going to move this to the plans.
did you say miss dunn uh yeah uh dng should be her last name all right
this stone
i don't see anyone with that name let me let me verify that
Yeah, it's Tsui Jindong is the full name.
D-U-N-G?
D-E-N-G.
Oh, sorry.
No, they're not in the audience.
Counsel, you're an officer of the court.
We'll have to take your testimony, okay?
Thank you.
Questions from the board.
I'm going to move back to the plans for the board.
I have a number of questions.
So, one, I think, you know, there are currently, since your client bought the property, there are nine L&I violations on this property.
All seem to be for property maintenance, incorrect use, or construction being done without permits.
And so, I just want sort of clarity around when the property got to the condition as shown in the plans and the photos.
so the the original so at the time it was purchased there were already um some violations
that were carried over from i'm only talking about the nine since your client there yes there
are many from before there are nine cents there so there was a series of them right around 2023
three. Um, and that's where an application was actually made, uh, by an expediter to have
the zoning updated with vacant commercial and single family, uh, that those violations were
relating to also to use. And, um, I believe property having the proper permits for the
use that were in place uh then there was the more recent violations were actually dated i believe
2026 or 2025 for the current use because she converted the commercial space into a residential
unit right yeah so that was done so we're confirmed the conversion did happen without permits
that's correct okay and like this you're so you're saying the wall that bifurcates the first floor
was there at purchase and there was actually three there were two residential units at purchase
and the front half of the first floor was a vacant commercial space correct so the only work that
your client did is in the now front apartment well actually she had to update the mechanicals
of the upper floor lower floor at the time at the time of purchase because it was it was in a
dilapidated condition. So mechanicals were done. Exterior walls were updated. So the current
awning type section and the brick upper facade were done by my client as well.
Because they used to have...
A lot of work that was done without permits.
Those were actually inspected and complied. So I think those were done...
Are you sure? Because I'm seeing no record of building permits. And I'm seeing the only
certifications are only for there's one electrical certification and i'm seeing a certification
for the fire suppression system only um i i'm not sure why that why the inspectors at the
time would comply violations if it was done without permits we generally don't
have that happening when when we're handling violation matters um i'm not saying i understand
have that happening when when we're handling violation matters
since having been closed i'm saying most of them right i mean i at this point obviously to clear
these violations if the board requires the co inspections and co and that then it would require
all the engineering and architectural to be verified with the uh with the city as well before
the final co can be issued again i understand um i think the sort of concern i have is that there
are things that have been done on this plan that are not code compliant so there's more construction
that would need to be done to bring both of the units into compliance i am confused because i see
that there's a rental unit license already on one of them and it's also not code compliant so i just
want to make sure that the your clients aware that like there would be now more work that would
require additional costs when she uh when she started this process to legalize the conditions
it was made clear to her through both the person that helped her draw the plans as well as working
her helping her through the violations and myself that this is just a step within the entire process
of complying all the violations that exist with the use now and the current so the plans that
you're showing us is this intended to show us the unit completed or the existing conditions
this is the existing layout inside the property including um there there is a full bath that
exists here in the back that that is already there what is going to be the the new layout
this is the layout um this plan is currently not code compliant understanding this is zoning we
don't need to look at it for code but um i do just want to point that out if you and architect
are helping her like this is not accurate right well i mean the this is again you're correct
these are zoning based uh plans okay she would have to go for building permits and then building
permit complying plants as well okay and then so what so for this storage space the rear of the
first floor this is going to be just like for the owner for the owner yes and are we going to keep
the bathroom and keep access to the basement uh the access to the basement uh yes the bathroom
doesn't have to be kept i actually spoke to her about this and she's willing to remove it if
that's a requirement from the board okay and then i just think just as a general comment i think
having the two tenants have to come around the corner and go through a bill coat door
to have access to laundry uh when there's this whole room in the rear that has a regular door
that no person could walk through does seem like a not very wise decision it has nothing to do with
zoning but i would strongly i mean this is against that it is the current layout um i can certainly
advise her to relocate for like actual people use for actual like functionality like bill code doors
are not easy to operate they're in the middle of the sidewalk they create a hazard for people
walking by on the street to have another clear and like not very well utilized access to the
basement it does seem that that could open up opportunity for people in this building to have
access to both storage and uh or normal access to the yeah i will turn it right here yeah i think i
think um miss win is correct that makes no sense i mean you just look at the plan just practically
it makes no sense it seems as if there's something else that's maybe some alternative here right
because why spend all this money and have this extra space in the back with a full bathroom that
could actually make into part of that one unit my question though is um you there's so the the quest
from the community is that there be a commercial space on the ground floor that was the that was
the that was their request or that's why they are opposing this right yes that's that's their belief
is that a commercial space is viable at this location okay and as with one unit and your
contention it is not is not is not um not viable to have commercial here but two units are viable
but two units only are viable with the layout that you have is that right well i mean two units
two units obviously if the right now the layout is
so so so i'm just trying to get to so your hardship is that okay this layout for the first
floor only kind of makes sense the hardship is if the hardship is would be if we'd have to
or if you'd have to extend this first floor unit in some way that's your right
extend this first floor unit in some way that's your right it would require substantial um changes
to the layout from the for the property I I personally don't agree that that's true right
um that it would be that much of a hardship to make this a legitimate um unit on the first floor
and not go through all these shenanigans to send people down local doors to work their clothes and
blah blah blah blah so so i don't agree with that with that argument um um so that's that's my point
just in general i don't know that um it's not viable or viable as commercial on this corner
we've seen a lot of tiny commercial that you know have worked um so it's interesting that this
community actually wants commercial a lot of communities don't want commercial anymore on the
on the on the on at these locations so so that's interesting um that's kind of just my comments
um so i'll leave it at that but with regard to with regard to the uh commercial i i do want to
point out that you know other corners in this community like this has already and is in fact
are mostly uh duplexes and not not commercial so my client's first time even even in 2023 when she
had to go through the zoning process it was also even at that time it was vacant you can see in
the permit that they only applied as vacant because it was vacant it stayed vacant quite a
long time yeah you know what i don't i don't mean to cut you i don't mean to cut you off and i
understand that and i don't necessarily disagree with you i think that your your argument breaks
down for me um and that you you have this horrible unit that and you didn't take the opportunity to
make it a decent sized unit like the one is not that it's great upstairs but it's a decent more
decent unit right and said oh i can't do anything i got to keep this same configuration that kind
of makes no sense right it just doesn't and so that's that's why that's why i'm getting the
disconnect i just don't agree with what you've done i think also given the history of the
property right there was a point it had to make safe permit on it as recently as 10 years ago
i think the condition that it was in when it was purchased was arguably not great you guys
already said it needed to have a lot of work done that's probably contributes to why it was a vacant
commercial space so all right okay right okay uh questions or comments from our attorney
no questions at this time questions or comments from the virtual audience
no hands chair planning commission thank you chairman and good morning david vecto with the
City Planning Commission, Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends no
change to the CMX1 commercial mixed-use zoning at this location. The city rezoned this neighborhood
in 1985 in a council-supported map change. This property has a documented history as two dwelling
units. The absence of a commercial ground floor is a common condition of the houses on this block
face the city planning commission recommends that the board grant their proposed use variants for two
dwelling units MI 2026-002-138-828 Rittener Street I vote no Michael Johns my voters no
Cheryl Gaston I'm torn on this one I understand the hardship with respect to the commercial
uh part but i i i just i think the unit layout is just horrible um anyway okay uh i'm gonna vote no
sonetta graham my vote is no ryan mcadams my vote is no iowen my vote is no thank you thank you
council um let's go back to uh number uh 17 mi 2026 002 258 549 uh selman selma street uh darlene
treat is the attorney mr chairman the interpreter is on the line too okay and could the interpreter
please come on i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to darlene first to see where we stand with this
INTERPRETER, CAN YOU PLEASE RAISE YOUR VIRTUAL HAND?
THE INTERPRETER'S NAME IS TAYA JOJUA, AND THEY'VE RAISED THEIR HAND NOW.
THANK YOU.
INTERPRETER HAS BEEN PROMOTED ALSO.
INTERPRETER?
Good afternoon.
uh good afternoon uh can you hear me and can you see me this is the interpreter
yes this is the georgian interpreter okay do you think okay uh do you have your uh video on
i do but for some reason it's not turning on even though i see myself here okay i i think it's on
your end something maybe it is okay could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
um yes my name is tea and i'll be the georgian interpreter
could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer
Okay. My name is Tia Jojua. It's spelled T-E-A-J-O-J-U-A.
All right. Do you swear or affirm that you will interpret accurately, completely, and impartially from Georgian to English and from English to Georgian?
Okay. Let's call Darlene. Are you here? That's the attorney I'm calling.
commissioner i'm here can you hear me yeah yes um okay great could you please state your name
and spell i don't think we ever did that with you because we couldn't get through could you
please state your name and spell for the stenographer sure my name is darlene freak
V-A-R-L-E-N-E, 3P as in Thomas, H-R-E-A-T-T as in Thomas.
Arlene, let me, Darlene, have you been in contact with your clients?
Yes, they're on the line.
And they need interpreter, right?
I see his name highlighted in the group.
Okay. Okay. So let me, let me, let me call for the appellants to come on. Let's see here. Katazia, K-A-T-I-E-A, P-A-N-I-S-H-V-I-L-I.
Interpreter, could you please call for them to come on?
they're on chair they're on dimitri dimitri cartozia is on okay uh could you have him please
state his name and spell for the stenographer uh gamma job at dimitri methargy maniva
20 sakhali dagwari rotquat the spelling it's rotquat gargit sakhali dagwaris
last name is k-a-r-t-o-z-i-a
does he swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Darlene, would you please start?
And I'm part of my interruption chair. This is executive director Ian Haggerty.
Attorney 3, good morning. Thanks for being with us today. I wanted to ask a question,
maybe you've discussed this with your client already, but we basically can offer two sort
of levels of interpretation here one would be for the entire record to be interpreted including all
of your statements for your client or the other would be for you to make your presentation and
then only interpret questions that would need to be asked to the applicant and then interpret the
outcome of the board's disposition which option would you like to take today i'd like i'd like
the second option mr hagerty very good thank you very much interpreter do you understand yes i
understand do you want me to explain it to the uh yes please uh dear dmitry i said he got that
Very good, thank you.
Well, let me, why don't we start by by mentioning your comments or sure. Hi, I'm Lynn Reidel here for board counsel. We reviewed this and it looks like you're going to need to obtain an amended refusal.
we reviewed this and it looks like you're going to need to obtain an amended refusal
given that there were you had submitted revised plans that had facade changes and you now indicated
that there'd be parking in the driveway so we believe that you need to get an amended refusal
with regard to that I believe that the refusal reflects what we're in the front
of the board for today basically we only removed the garage door and closed it up
that parking space I don't know if it's really we're not requesting a legal
a parking space in front of the garage door you need to get a parking space because you're taking
away a parking space you're going to park in front of the uh where the garage was so you're
going to need to get an amended refusal for that we were the uh refusal can we take a look at the
refusal, please? May I be sharing my screen? Yes, you can. Darlene, this is Hillary. Just
to clarify, so the refusal indicates that there's a demolition of a garage. It doesn't
show that you're changing the garage to living space and moving the parking space that is
in the garage into the driveway, which is what you're doing. The refusal says you're
getting a refusal for not having the required parking space but you are you are providing the
required parking space it's just in the driveway now so your refusal should say that you're being
refused for having parking in the required front yard so the refusal does not accurately
explain what you're doing you can go ahead today and present because we understand what's happening
but the refusal needs to be updated so that your permit if this is approved correctly reflects
on what your client is doing.
Ms. Emerson, will I need a new hearing?
If I need a new hearing,
I'm just going to request a continuance.
No, no, you will not.
We can hear it today
because we understand what you're trying to do.
You have revised plans that explain it better,
but we're just going to need to hold the vote
so that you can get an amended refusal
that reflects what you're going to present
to the board today.
But we already understand.
Yeah, we already understand what you're doing.
It's just the refusal, unfortunately.
doesn't reflect what you're doing all right darlene wanting to start or do we want to have
the interpreter explain a little bit to the no the pellet no it's okay it's all right good
good please proceed may i share my screen please
Are you able to see the screen? We see it now. Yep. Thank you. Good afternoon, board members. Darlene, through on behalf of the applicant. Board members, my client has a disabled son. He requires 24 hours care. He wanted to make some space for the caregiver in his home, and he enclosed the garage.
he did receive a violation for enclosing the garage and he filed an application to the zoning
board of adjustment to uh legalize the enclosure uh it's my understanding that prior to my
representation the documentation was uploaded i have presented a package today from that
documentation which includes a refusal and appeal the project information form deed
tax information plans pictures the community letter and a letter of
support I'm going to start with the refusal as you see here we're
requesting it does say demolition of the garage which is kind of incorrect
basically we did remove the garage door and we enclose the garage the garage on
this property is in the front of the house I'm just going to go down we have
all your documents we have all your documents yeah i'm gonna go down to the picture yep
this is the uh property before the work that was done to the property uh it's a two-story property
the garage is in the front and it's under the house uh the client did modify uh this garage
He enclosed it and here is a picture of the enclosed garage. It also contains the coasting
They didn't close the garage
They put two windows on the front and there's a door so you can come into this house from the front of the property
I'm just gonna go back here
I'm going to show you a picture of the deed.
My client has owned this property since 2017.
Again, his son and the caretaker will be living in the bottom of the property.
here is the tax clearance for this property I'm going to scoot down to the
plans now so this is how the property originally looked originally looked
there was a garage door here and this door is still existing we removed this garage door we
sealed it up we put two windows here and a door I'm going to go to the finished
here is a picture of the front of the house you can see the door that was here is existing
this is how we close it up we bricked it in the garage door we put an entry door and there are
two windows here the purpose of enclosing this garage was to actually make a living space for
the caretaker to be able to access come in and out the house and actually able to get
uh the person whom they are taking care of in and out of the house but actually out not having to go
through any stairs so this is the bottom floor this was the garage it was sealed off here to
make a bedroom which is approximately 249 square feet i did notice this morning when i was going
do the plan that this plan is incorrect and that it doesn't show the exit to the rear
here i'm going to show you pictures of the rear in a moment
so this was originally how the house looked this is how it looks now
this was originally the empty garage the garage is now furnished and it is in use
violation um for this which why we're at zone trying to correct it here is a picture of the
room now and this is the room that the caretaker stays in if you put it out the store you would
be in the front you would be walking down the driveway this is the room in
back of the driveway so if you opened up that door from the room I just showed
you and come in the back this is where the disabled individual stays and these
are the stairs which would go up to the second floor of the house where the
rest of the family or resides. Again, there was somewhat of a
whole part in the plan in that it didn't really show the back
door. But this is the back of the house, there are stairs there,
and you walk down and you're able to get in the actual back of
the house through the back door, I would have a modification
onto the plan where they actually put this door on the plan because I didn't
notice this morning the back door was not actually shown on the plan it really
should be right here we did meet excuse me the clients did meet with the Somerton
uh civic association there was a community letter sent out uh somerton did support this application
there were over 50 members that uh attended the meeting and the overwhelming uh majority of the
uh votes were in favor um of approving this application and uh commissioners that's all i
have um i guess we think that testimony adopted right
no okay um um questions from the board can you go to the pictures again right when you come in
with the new door okay this one yes on the left hand side next to the uh shelves is is that is
with the new door okay
that a kitchen area right there um let's uh put that uh question to uh the applicant uh mr cartoza
uh yeah explain to the board what is beside this shelf here
Dmitri, what you can do is go to the Exhibit.
You can use it as a paper.
It's a paper.
Yes, it's paper.
You can use it as a paper.
These are additional drawers just to keep things accurate.
Is there a full bathroom down in the garage area?
Yes, the garage is a territory.
Yes, it is.
That's what I'd like to say about this.
They decided to take it from everyone's garage.
They aren't going anywhere so far.
I would not like to leave the line.
They had to pay some people.
The way it was to be that I did not let the person in the book,
and I thought that the people who were all the people who were the people,
would have had a very good feeling.
I was a very good feeling at all,
but I was a very good feeling at all.
But I was thinking that I was very good.
I know there is no full bathroom here, not the toilet.
This is like an additional room for the aides who come in shifts.
they change like turn day the turnover is every 12 hours or so so they use this
room as like room where they can change their clothes or like keep their stuff
keep the backpacks and the adjacent room to this room is the big room where my
son who is autistic is staying and he gets irritated or when there are too
many items in the room so aids keep additional like items that are not like
needed at that particular moment in this room so basically this is the room for
the aids for their basic needs like keep their stuff store some stuff change and just to um yeah
to to keep the stuff there okay thank you any other questions yes um how do you get from this
new garage space to the existing house or residence.
Sorry, I think he misunderstood the question and I will ask again, Anna,
do you mean how I go up to the upper floor, right?
Correct. I'm trying to understand the relationship between the views in photo 20, 21, and 22.
Thank you.
What is the problem?
Why did you tell me about the house?
Why did you tell me about the house?
So when there was a photo of the room that was converted from the garage, there is an entrance door and there is also an exit door that is not shown on the picture.
so from that exit door you can go to the main big room and from that big room you
can go up to the main floor so the main big room is the one that's depicted on
the screen right now it's always did you talk he doc and then where is the photo
if you can go back council to photo 20 where is this space in that this is not existing anymore
this is what's been converted to the bedroom it's been converted got it okay
questions for attorney oh i i have a question though so there's no bathrooms in this lower
Yes, I am Sartolze, I am Sussu Kueda Sartolze.
What is your name, Sartolze?
Yes, yes, yes, I am.
I am sorry, I am sorry.
I am sorry, I am sorry.
If you can pull up picture 22nd and where you see this big bed, this is the bed where my
child sleeps and across that bed there is a bathroom there okay and it's a full bed is that
No, just a toilet.
Really? Okay.
I don't really understand that answer.
I don't either.
Is there a bathroom down there? That was the question.
There is only the bathroom, but no shower.
like a half yeah okay all right yes and and so then and then i guess a little follow-up so
the uh meals and things the they're all cooked and eaten upstairs is that
how this works
I'm sorry, I cannot understand the question.
The question is, when meals, okay, where are they all cooked and eaten upstairs?
The meals are cooked upstairs where there is a kitchen, but for Irakli, my son, the food
uh goes down and he eats downstairs okay all right thank you questions from our attorney
um just a couple questions um council did you indicate that there's going to be revised plans
i know you had kind of we're gonna we're gonna have to make revised plans i do not see a back
door on this uh site plan so frankly it's material and incorrect it should be an opening right here
or back door and it's not on the plan okay uh because we're going to hear and hold so we'll
you know we'll hold for you know well chairman will say but it looks like for
re you know additional revised plans also the photographs that you submitted um they had not
i just checked i could be missing um where they are i didn't see any of those photographs um
Like the interior that were submitted to the board so it looks like you have something called a final presentation.
Can you submit that so that we can have a full record? Does that make sense?
yes it does
i'm sorry
I'm sorry we can't really hear you I'm sorry what was that I said I'm sorry I
didn't do the original submission when I reviewed the file I put it needed some
more information and I put it in my presentation so you may not have that in
all the pictures I will upload this presentation that I showed you today
when we get done the only addition was the pictures that I put in that I found
lacking uh when i reviewed the file that's why i didn't see the fixtures either so you're going
to submit what the presentation is as well as revised plans and then also get an amended
refusal correct yes okay thank you but to be clear the only thing we're looking at is parking
right the only zoning issue it's not well we don't know what's going to come in the amended
refusal it could be something else you know what i mean like we're waiting and refusal is going to
change it to take it inside i don't think so i'm just saying we're waiting for whatever they meant
my point of view right now the only thing we have is the parking issue that's the only zoning
refusal right well we don't have it yet but i believe it's going to be that like we have
to wait for whatever we're going to hold it yeah but i just got that but i'm just so we're clear
um comments from the virtual audience
there are no hands here all right uh david do you want to take a position now sure
uh thank you chairman and good afternoon david effecto with the city planning commission
chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa2 residential
single family zoning at this location the city changed the zoning in this neighborhood in 1978
8 and a council supported map change the proposed elimination of an interior parking space matches
the character of the other homes on this block face and the appellant will still have a driveway
space and on street parking available the city planning commission recommends that the board
grant the proposed variance so we're going to hold this for a revised plans and an amended refusal
right yes and for her to submit i'm sorry for council to submit the exhibits and also to submit
the additional photos how long do we want to take this uh we'll do two weeks two weeks correct so
two weeks wednesday at 9 30 what's our date october 7th october 7th council okay
council
all right um uh interpreter thank you very much we appreciate it
you are welcome your honor thank you very much okay of course everybody have a nice day i'll
be disconnecting i i hope i hope it is a nice day thank you very much is there anyone in the uh
9 30 list uh whose case has not been called there are no hands here see everybody 2 p.m thank you
the 10 other kids.
Thank you.
Thank you.
we've ready
Thank you.
okay okay good afternoon everyone my name is bill bergman and i will be chairing this afternoon's
meeting of the zba with me is our vice chair tenetta graham president mr chairman our board
secretary charl l caston president mr chairman port member michael johns president mr chairman
Taya Nguyen, Ryan McAdams. Also here is our attorney, Lynn Reuter-Huber,
our ZBA Executive Director, Ian Haggerty, and our Board Administrator, Lakeisha Dandy.
This hearing is being recorded and will be posted on the ZBA website. By participating,
you consent to be recorded. This is an in-person meeting with remote participation,
whether in person or on zoom if you're called to speak please state and spell your name and wait
to be sworn in after being sworn in state your name each time before testifying to enter an
appearance indicate the property address on your zoom webinar speak to a staff member
call the cba office by the close of business tomorrow please call 215-686-2429 and provide
your name email and the case address remote participation raise your virtual hand when
directed so that we can call on you to speak when we call on you make sure that you get
make sure you click the join as a panelist button use the q a only for procedural questions do not
ask about individual cases if you are joining by phone press star nine to raise your hand and star
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attendees and a court reporter can hear you though talking eating or drinking during the hearings
aggressive behavior will not be tolerated in an emergency follow staff instructions
the main exit is the double doors at the rear and the stairwell is to the left
if you if we have to evacuate please go over to love park
and remain there so that we can account for you so let's look at our schedule for this afternoon
Number one, MI 2025-007-117-1650-60 Van Dyke Street. That case continued until 12-16-26 at 2 p.m.
number two
mi 2025 007 539 5610 lancaster avenue that case is continued until 12 16 at 2 p.m
Number eight, MI 2026-002852-9300 Ashton Road.
That case is continued until 1216 at 2 p.m.
Number 11, MI 2026-002-902-5201 Lebanon Avenue.
That case is continued until 1216 at 2 p.m.
And number 13, MI-2026-002-929-4283 Viola Street.
That case is continued until 1216 at 2 p.m.
Are there any other requests for continuances?
Let's go to...
Let's go back to our add-on list for a minute, MI 2026 002 567 3701 Baring Street.
I vote no.
I vote no.
Michael Johns, my vote is no.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is no.
Tannetta Graham, my vote is no.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is no.
Ty Owen, my vote is no.
Number two, MI 2025-006-634-3336, North 17th Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
I'm sorry. I wrote yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
Oh, Tywin, my vote is yes to reconsideration and rehearing.
All right, we're going to go to our regular list.
We're going to start with what would be the board's four,
but our number three, MI-2025-007-631-7635 Roosevelt Boulevard.
Sean Ward is the attorney.
Mr. Ward, Mr. Ward will be rejoining as a panelist, Chair.
Sure. Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. or good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Can you hear me and see me?
I most certainly can hear you. Could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer?
Very good.
Sean, S-H-A-W-N, W-A-R-D, attorney for applicant.
All right.
Do you swear or affirm to, hold on a moment.
I didn't hear it.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and that relationship to the property?
I represent Safar Chutai, C-H-U-G-T-H-I-A, operating as Safar and Faisal Realty LLC,
owner of the subject property, and he is present with the room seated behind me on the screen.
Our Vice Chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing?
Yes. Preliminary exhibits were submitted 14 days and they were supplemented thereafter
through the CBA executive director and staff. Okay. Thank you. And do you wave the read,
no your refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? Yes, I do. All right. Thank you. You can share
your screen and proceed with your case. Okay. Just confirming that my screen is shared?
yes sir thank you very much uh mr chairman i've said to my typical exhibit packet
on behalf of so far true tide doing business as so far and fasil realty uh our calendar number
ending in 7631 for today's hearing a1 is the notice of refusal this was an application for
a permit for visitor accommodations and an existing two-family mason restructure
Visitor accommodation is not permitted in the district, and therefore we seek a use variance today.
As A2, proof of ownership, we have a copy of the deed just for the board's information.
The ground floor is a one-family dwelling, currently occupied with an 11-year-plus tenant.
He's lucky in that aspect to have a long-term tenant like that.
Additionally, that tenant has no plans on going anywhere.
The first and second floors of the property are the area subject for the request for an Airbnb.
They constitute a one-family dwelling.
We have proof of tax clearance at A3.
A4 are photographs of subject property, posting, interior, and some street views.
A4 is the RCA meeting notice together with proof of mailing.
A6 is the RCO letter of non-opposition with provisos for them.
A7 is an email from District Councilman Driscoll's Representative Stan Sawinski,
indicating Council District 6 is not opposed, given non-opposition from Mayfair Civic.
With regard to the zoning history, 1963 was a permit for a one-family in a dental office.
07, there was a permit for a one-family in a real estate office.
And so far, I obtained a variance with my assistance in 2013 for A2 family dwelling.
We also have at A9 some Airbnb history for this property.
A map of the Airbnb locations near the subject, you'll find none.
A11 is the zoning map, and A2 is the aerial photograph.
Briefly, I would just submit that the property had previously been used as an Airbnb without
Briefly, I would just submit that the property had previously been used.
objection or incident in the neighborhood.
Thereafter, there was subsequent regulation changes requiring Airbnbs to have zoning permit
as well as a limited lodging license.
So that's what brings us here today in order to obtain a limited lodging license for Safar
and this subject property.
So briefly, we have the zoning board appeal together with the proof of, I mean, the project information form, a copy of the refusal, my transmittal letter to the board filing the appeal, copy of his deed, as you can see, it was purchased in 2012.
of. We then also have a proof of tax clearance. He's to the plus $250 as a credit. This is the
subject property. It's the unit on the right. To the right of that is Revere Street. This
picture is a Google photo taken from Roosevelt Boulevard. Here's an angle photo. You can see
there is a first ground floor rental unit, and the subject of the application is the first and
second floor. This is an angle photo from Google. Another angle Google from photo. There's two
entries on the side of the building for first and second floor occupancy. The first floor has a
ground level entrance towards the front and also a rear entry at the back of the property.
As you can see by the aerial photograph, this property is located adjacent to the Hub Motel.
That property is on a CMX commercial. It is also located across the street, across the boulevard
from the Roosevelt Inn, two lodging uses or visitor accommodation units, as well as a
large residential apartment complex. Here's a copy of our zoning poster, copy of the refusal,
both of which were posted on the side door of the property in accordance with the rules and
regulations. I would point out the interior. This is the living room, a well-appointed,
well furnished you know not typical of a rental but it's it's hotel quality as you know so far
wants to rent this out as an Airbnb here is a copy of the dining room it comes equipped with
a washer dryer it's got a galley kitchen all new appliances one of three bedrooms the second of
This is the full bath on the first floor.
That's the original bedroom that we showed.
Another bathroom.
The third of the bedrooms. This is a copy of our notice to the
public regarding Mayfair Civics meeting
held on September 21 at 7 o'clock p.m. at the Mayfair Community Center.
This is a copy of the addresses provided by the Planning Commission website.
It contained a copy of the refusal.
This is the certificate of mailing by Lawler Direct for the subject property,
indicating 34 total pieces were mailed at a postage cost of $26.52.
This is the RCO summary letter.
As you can see, one neighbor attended that voted in support without any provisos.
Four opposed the application outright, and a total of 11.
Eight members from a community and three board members voted in favor of a provisos.
So it turned out to be non-opposition with provisos.
Those provisos, we reviewed them.
We agreed a three-year temp would be appropriate in this case.
There was no single night rentals that would be permitted.
Visitor accommodation, Airbnb would be limited to the first and second floor unit only and not applicable to the ground floor.
and that we, as we do now, provide commercial trash service
and all trash is stored in the totes that are located in the rear driveway.
This is a copy of the email from Stan Sawinski at Councilman Driscoll's office
indicating that Council District 6 has no objection
based upon the provisos that we have suggested.
We also have the zoning history, the variance granted for,
This is for the single family and dental office.
And there was also one for the real estate office.
The Airbnb history.
In 2024, Safar was able to rent this sale through Airbnb, and he earned approximately $6,600 in rental.
And then in 2025, it was a better year, he earned approximately $15,896 in Airbnb rentals.
Again, none of those resulted in any complaints or incidents with regard to the community
or the city, for that matter.
This is the zoning map. You can see it is zoned RSA3. Again, across and from the RM1, this is the Roosevelt Hotel.
This is the zoning map.
You can see it is zoned RSA 3.
Again, according to the zoning map, you can see it is zoned RSA 3.
The RM3 is that large multi-rise apartment building, and the CM6-2 is the hub motel, and again, we finalize with the aerial photo.
Again, absent any questions, I would have Sofar verifying and adopt at this point, so he might want to be.
why don't we bring why don't we bring your client on are you
right here again yes
sir could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
zafar z-a-f-a-r the last name is chukdai c-h-u-g-h-t-a-i do you swear or affirm to tell
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes counsel thank you uh so far you've heard my
representations of the board today yes are they true and correct to the best of your knowledge
information and belief yes and you adopt them as your own testimony yes thank you questions from
the board yes um did i hear you say this is across from a hotel yeah cheryl uh directly directly if
you're looking at the property from the front from roosevelt boulevard directly to your right is the
hub motel it's an existing long long existing hotel on roosevelt boulevard and diagonally
across the street across roosevelt boulevard directly across the street is an apartment
complex and then to the right of that a little bit north is the roosevelt inn i can go back to the
uh arrow photos if that helps you
there you go so here is the subject cheryl okay here's the hub motel and then tagline across the
street over here this other pink uh icon is the rooseveltian okay uh all right so i guess my
my question was going to be until i was advised by members of the board
why would we need this airbnb if we have all these other options in terms of um well i can i can uh
i can address you the underlying reason why you said it and and that is because um given that
it's a three bedroom uh apartment um it you know it would normally be suited for a family with
young kids however being located right on the roosevelt boulevard uh you know people are
afraid to raise their kids in that house on the boulevard across from a hub hotel and across from
another hotel. So he's had better success with Airbnbs. And as far as that goes, we expressed
to the RCO in our summary, let me hit that real quick, that so far during his Airbnb history,
it was friends and family, including a lot of overseas visitors who come for extended stays.
And believe it or not, he gets, you know, temporary construction workers that might be in town on a job.
They don't want to necessarily stay at what you would define as the hub motel or something similar to that,
where three of them can share lodging for a limited time period while they're working in the city.
And he has not had any weekly, he's had nothing but weekly stays or long weekends historically with his rentals.
He has never rented out for one night stays.
But for the amendments to the zoning code in 2015 and 2018 requiring a zoning permit and curation of the visitor accommodations use and the limited lodging operator's license, he was free from all that until they were passed.
And that's why he's trying to get the zoning permit, get the license, and then he could continue to operate as an Airbnb at this location.
all right and i'll also point out he's got he's got 50-some properties uh in the city of philadelphia
and and around uh that he uh you know provides his own uh um rental business um any other questions
could you tell me uh what was some of the provisos that the uh rcox were yes as as as contained in
their letter of support or letter of non-opposition if i stand corrected it was a three-year temporary
variants to show that we are a good neighbor and we're willing to come back in three years and
request a renewed variance or new variance. There would be no single night accommodations.
It would be a minimum two night stay. It applies to the first and second floor only,
the three bedroom unit. It will not apply to the ground floor unit and that we will provide
commercial trash removal for both units which he does already and you want to do the airbnb on the
on all the whole the whole house the whole property or no just just the first and second
No, just the first and second floor, which is one unit, and then the ground floor is a separate unit, not the subject of this application.
floor which is one unit and then ground floor is a
All right, got you. Thank you.
I have a question about management.
Are you using a property management service or company, or is your client managing the property individually?
Safar manages all his properties through Safar and Faisal, F-A-I-S-A-L Real Estate,
and they are located on Busselton Avenue blocks from this location.
And that's property management, not just ownership?
Okay, and do they have any other visitor accommodation units in the area?
Do you have any? No, this is his only Airbnb location.
Okay, so how are they managing things like cleaning, issues with any potential overnight guests?
So Barr has a staff member of his company, her name is Cindy, as I recall, that once a property is vacated, she would come in and do housekeeping, for lack of a better term.
change the sheets and make the beds, clean the bathrooms,
clean the kitchen, and make sure it's ready to go for the next, you know,
occupant, renter, or, you know, Airbnb person.
That is his employee at Safar and Faisal Realty.
Is that same person going to be the contact if there's anything that the
guest needs while they're staying there?
It's my direct number.
Um, they, they have, they would have so far as direct number for any, uh, needs, uh, while they are staying. In addition, just sort of board knows, uh, so far gave his personal cell phone number to make our civic at the meeting and announced it to the public at that time that he can be contacted directly via mobile phone.
Okay. And then I think that answers all my questions.
question smart attorney um i have a couple questions can you put up that letter from the
rco again certainly and can you send that to us yeah that was uploaded in my final packet uh this
morning but i i believe i emailed a copy of it yeah a copy of it if you can yeah i will re-email
that um okay so here is the here's the summary and then page two of the summary
included, highlighted in yellow on this version, the three-year temp, no single night rent
rentals, visitor accommodations limited to first and second floor unit, not applicable to the
ground floor, and that commercial trash is contracted. And what was the vote again on the
first page? The vote was a total of 11 non-opposition, four opposed outright, and one
support outright okay so eight so it looks like three and eight well total of 11 you had three
of the board members and eight community members so that's 11 plus the one that supported you know
hypothetically 12 in support or non-opposition and four opposed okay and also I know that there
was an issue maybe with posting and you indicated something in an email but we need to put something
on the record either yourself or your client that will attest that the property was posted
for the hearing yeah in my email response i indicated that this is the first listing
i only received one set of posters from the board via email and i sent uh i had file copies of the
poster and the refusal in my folder and i sent to the board copies of this is the only poster i
received and it was for september uh 23rd two o'clock hearing and those two uh items both the
notice of refusal i mean the the the hearing notice and the notice of refusal were promptly
posted on the side door of the property by myself you can see my tape is hanging on the uh the
doorknob um you know as required by the zoning code okay great i just wanted that on the record
i know you put in email but okay yeah no i i verify as an officer of the court that i personally
posted the property myself and took those photos thank you thank you questions or comments from
the brooch of the virtual audience do anybody in the virtual audience oh yes can you hear me yes
okay do you need me to state my name or anything oh sure yeah state your name and spell for the
stenographer sure sadie troop s-a-d-i-e t-r-o-u-p right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth yes are you a neighbor no just happened to be on the call
oh okay so uh um can i can i ask why you you want to testify oh sure i'm just a you know
resident of philadelphia and um i think that i just had a question
resident of philadelphia and um i think that i just had a question and so i you know i care
about what's going on throughout the city generally and i think airbnbs are something that
we're probably seeing an increase in so just was curious about this particular instance okay so
okay thank you very much for okay right calling in we appreciate it sure um anyone else
no chee i see no more hands planning commission
madison matera planning commission staff m-a-d-i-s-o-n-m-a-t-e-r-a
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes please proceed the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa3 single
family zoning at this location the city rezoned this neighborhood in 2012 and a council requested
map change there's no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that would prevent
conformance with the zoning code city planning commission recommends the board deny the proposed
use variance for visitor accommodation thank you um mi 2025 007 631 76 35 east roosevelt boulevard
I vote yes, with proviso.
Temporary variance expires 9-24-29.
First and second floor only, and commercial trash pickup.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes, with provisos.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with provisos.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes, with provisos.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes, with provisos.
Ryan Wynn, my vote is yes, with provisos.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you.
That concludes my business.
may have excused most certainly thank you thank you mr chair all right um number number we're
going to call this number five mi 2025 007 852 2167 north 29th street sean whalen is the attorney
and i'm going to recuse myself chair and i noticed there's a letter of non-opposition
from Council Member Young, and the applicant gave us 11 signatures, but we don't have an RCO letter
because there's a complex meeting about there was no meeting. He showed up, but there was no meeting.
Correct. All right. You do the follow-up question. Sean, could you please state and spell your name
for the stenographer of course sean sean whalen whalen here on behalf of 2167 llc the owner of the
property and the applicant all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes i do our board secretary has a few questions for you a good afternoon council
did you submit your documents and exhibits 14 days before this year uh to make sure that ian's here
AND IS LISTENING I DID SUPPORT MY SUBMIT MY REGULAR EXHIBITS AND FOR ONE TIME I MISSED
SOME SUPPLEMENTAL EXHIBITS THAT WERE NEEDED THOSE WERE NOT SUBMITTED 14 DAYS BUT THEY WERE
SUBMITTED I DON'T KNOW A WEEK AGO SO YOU KNOW THAT IAN IS ALWAYS LISTENING I JUST I GET THAT SENSE
THANK YOU AND UH DO YOU UH WAIVE THE READING OF THE REFUSAL AND STIPULATE TO ITS ACCURACY
yes i do thank you then you can uh share your screen and begin your presentation
thank you very much so this is the first of two properties for
the same underlying owner
can the board see my screen now we can okay um this is 2167 north 29th street and
just quickly an atlas map to show you where this is this is one one parcel in from the corner of
west susquehanna avenue and north 29th street again this is looking south now at the property
we are not the corner property we're the next one in you can see there's a large mixture just on the
other side of west susquehanna of property types and with regard to this property
uh the condition is about 50 50 on the block of vacant lots and vacant buildings
to occupied uh built structures um you are you generally have about half of the
uh buildings that are built and occupied are multi-family uh you can see on our side of the
street the east side of the street all the buildings are three stories the multi-families
on that side are all triplexes as indicated in numerous photos and whatnot by three mailboxes
numerous photos and whatnot by three mailboxes three trash cans out in front of the properties
three trash cans.
as well as in the city records on the west side which would be the side of this photo closest to
us all those properties that are occupied are two stories about half of them again are duplexes but
not triplexes. So we are seeking today to turn this existing three-story building right
here into a triplex. And as you can see, this is RSA 5. It's a built structure. We're not
adding any height or new construction as part of this project. And we only have the one
refusal which is for you know multi-family three three dwelling units being prohibited in a rsa
five zoning district you can see here where the property on the right it is existing we have
multiple vacant lots to our to the right hand side in this photo and as you can see going down
And again, this is the general condition of this entire block is sort of this toothed building versus non-building vacant lots.
And about, you know, even some of the existing buildings in place are also still vacant.
This is a photo looking north.
Again, as I said, as you go north of, this is West Susquehanna, running east and west here, you have a large church.
there's also a daycare up there you have some businesses on the left so there is a variation
of property type and use as you go up this is what's directly across from us this is
i believe six part six separate parcels that i could find out by deed they have been vacant long
enough to have beautifully grown trees in them and it is well manicured and used kind of as an open
park for the neighborhood um but as far as i could tell the condition of the vacant lots
uh is pervasive and has been there for decades um again this is the same with the property where
we're talking about 2167 is right behind where this red car is off screen and this is just
looking down so again you can see the three-story buildings on the left and the two-story buildings
on the right these are the floor plans as it's laid out there is no basement living just
mechanicals in the basement the first floor has a one bedroom with rear access into the rear yard
the rear yard is approximately 10 and a half 11 feet deep and there is a three foot alleyway
running north and south between this this property and the properties on the other side on the other
side of the block. In the second floor, you have a two-bedroom unit, and on the third floor,
you have a two-bedroom unit. This property was actually built in this condition. The client
actually purchased this in March of 2023. It was already set up as a triplex. George Ponzo will
come on and adopt my testimony and answer some of this a little more directly for you.
What he purchased, this property, it was almost fully rehabbed already when he bought it.
And he actually, this and the next property that we're going to be talking about, 3024
West Dauphin, which is the same owner, George Ponzo, these were the first two multifamily
properties he's ever purchased. The next one that we're going to talk about is essentially a shell
with framing inside this one was fully rehab so he was excited to have this one basically done
and only need to work on one of the two so i'll show you some interior photos um
and the property owner he did walk the property beforehand and it is in the current condition
that he bought it in uh already set up as a triplex um next we did attempt to have an rco
meeting we worked closely with pastor tyrone williams he was very helpful helpful set us up
a meeting in late july and he showed up as did a non-coordinating rco head and we all just looked
at each other for about half an hour because no one from the community showed up it was a
very lovely july evening and he said that there were a couple other community events maybe going
on in the area, but there were all the notice letters sent out. I believe Pastor Williams
had originally told me he would get on and, you know, say that this is what happened and
say that this is what happened and had no objection to us proceeding without a meeting
had no objection to us proceeding without a meeting because, you know, we did.
because you know we did appear and we did serve the notices to all the properties
so because this happened the owner george ponzo went forward and went door to door and he'll talk
about you know that experience went door to door trying to see if you know we need to know what the
community thinks again it's mostly vacant sites but he did find and you can see from some of the
addresses as you're looking uh even the immediately adjacent property was in support
and he found no opposition
so with that i would say that we have a clear hardship here in that first and foremost the
property has dramatically changed there's been a sea change in the neighborhood from
the rsa 5 zoning district this was actually remapped some time ago just
the entire neighborhood in all directions this property has been a long-standing vacant building
there have been vacant lots all up and down but this is like I said about a 50 percent
50 percent of the buildings that are occupied are multi-family either triplexes on the east side or
duplexes on the west side and there is no detriment to the health safety and welfare of the public
quite to the opposite this will put eyes on the street get a much more active building take away
a vacant building and vacant lots that you know we all know the trouble that those bring in the
neighborhood and lastly this is the least minimum variance because we are seeking simply one unit
per floor we're not trying to add basement living and this would be the natural configuration of
this uh property in fact as it was already set up um so with the photos inside oh thank you yeah maybe
so i'm at the bottom i'll just go from the bottom up um
So, as you can see, this is, like I said, mostly rehabbed. It wasn't ultimately finished. Yep.
You know, everything will have to be, you know, make sure that it's fully permitted meets all code requirements and everything going forward.
But as you can see, most of the work is done. If you can tell the electrical boxes and isn't finished out there.
Um, but this is the condition in which, uh, Mr. Ponzo purchased the property.
Why do you bring your client on?
Of course, uh, George Ponzo.
He says he's on.
Mr. Ponzo.
Mr. George Ponzo, you are allowed to speak.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, I can.
could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer george ponzo g-e-o-r-g-e
p-o-n-c-o do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do counsel thank you very much chairman uh mr ponzo you are here as a member of the llc
that owns the property correct yes have you heard all the testimony that i already provided in this
matter yes do you believe that all of it to be true and correct to the best of your information
knowledge and belief yes would you adopt my testimony as your own yes okay now to clarify
some things for the board you purchased the property in march of 2023 correct correct yes
uh and you walked the property before you purchased it yes i did and you just saw the
condition of the interior photos that i uh just showed to the board uh was that the condition
that it was in when you purchased it? Yes. And it was already set up as a triplex? Yes. Okay. And
was it in part because it had been mostly rehabbed that you, in fact, purchased this property?
Yes. Okay. Did you believe it was approved for a triplex at the time that you bought it? Yes.
okay and had you ever handled uh multi-family units before multi-family triplexes before with
the city no but you have other properties that you have that are single family houses correct
yes okay um how did you learn that this was not approved to be a triplex uh when i tried to get a
um after fixing it up and well after doing a little bit of work uh
i went to i forget exactly the um the step behind went
but i tried to get information on it and noticed that it wasn't zoned for a triplex
but i tried to get information on it and noticed that it wasn't zone
okay and that's when you learned you needed to get a variance to yes triplex use okay yes
and now did you also hear what i testified to with regard to our rco meeting and process yes
okay uh did did anybody from the community appear when you went to the meeting no
Okay. Uh, and then did you then go door to door with a petition for support?
Yes, I did. Okay. And how was the reception when you went door to door?
Uh, I didn't get no nasty looks or anything like that. All of them was very informative,
uh, wanting to know, uh, exactly what was going to be the outcome of it. And most of them was
delighted to uh to to hear that something was being done okay was there anybody that told you
they were in opposition to the project no uh and lastly um if you were to rent the properties
what would you rent the units for well i was looking to keep it affordable for the neighborhood
um and maybe look into uh um section eight housing okay and you understand that there's
no basement living correct yes and you would be accepting of a a qualification on the zoning
permit from the zoning board that no basement living is permitted correct yes all right and
Can you also finally understand that you'd have to meet all city zoning codes and building codes and fire codes to occupy the building?
Yes. No further questions from the board.
Yeah, I just want to walk through some of the history here at the property, because it does look like you started doing work.
And I just want to understand what work have you completed since you became owner in 2023?
because it does look like there were some plumbing permits pulled and there's been a number of
violations that were some that are open some that were closed out so i just want to understand
like what work has happened since purchase uh well the plumbing i believe uh on the second
you pulled it huh well in 2025 you believe no i'm not i'm not saying that okay i'm not saying
that i didn't i'll take that back but the plumbing issue was one of the toilets
that were i don't know why something might have got in it uh during uh the previous person um
fixing it up i'm not sure what it was but uh it clogged the main drain going out to the uh
street. So I had to get Roto-Rooter over there to fix it. I believe they pulled the permit.
That's why I was not sure. So I just want to walk through, because I understand that you're
saying there was already three family when you purchased that. What work have you done since?
I haven't did any work really because of it needed to fix it up a little bit. So I just
like what no no no no fixing up means and just cosmetic i might have painted a little bit
and um that was basically it because i needed the variance and i didn't have the money to
pursue with fixing it completely or at all okay i just want to check because fixing it up
could require a permit i think a lot of people don't understand the interior no no i'm fully
aware of that okay there's that's why alteration permit which is why yeah no that's why i stopped
that's why i stopped and then pursued to get the the variance because that was lengthy also okay
and then i think my my next question is just around like the management of this property
like what's your if you don't have any other multi-family what's going to be your plan
for the management of this property and i guess this question will come up for the next one as
well but like this is it's a very different ball game well um i'm uh a plumber by trade uh i also
have um my own construction business so either i or the team that works with me would be doing
most of the work i'm not asking about the construction work i'm asking about the property
management once you have a tenant well they would they would be over it also i'm sorry
leases in this building right right yeah people and trash and like what's your property management
yeah people and trash and like what's your property management plan yeah i'm aware of that
been playing.
and yes uh we will be handling all of that yeah but how my question is like it's the like what is
your like do you have a plan in place are you going to hire a property management company
are you going to manage it yourself no they they will have my number to call
to uh handle any situations that happen okay and then what's the plan for trash
uh well i can get uh the city to come by and pick trash you mean well there's multiple ways the city
can pick up the trash so are you thinking like you're gonna just write into the leases and have
your tenants put it out with the regular trash pickup that comes yes yes okay and then where
are you planning to put the trash receptacles for the building uh it uh like he said is a
little area behind the house off to the side um that could go back there and all tenants will
have access to the rear yard yes through the they're gonna have to walk around and go in from
the from the side isn't this yes until how are they gonna get to the well either they can walk
it around i haven't really came to that point technically legally i mean yes i understand that
there's a faking lot next to your property now so like currently that yes they can well no that
wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't allow them to do that because that wouldn't be right
um so how are all of the tenants getting access to the rear yard
well it would be under lock and key so they would have a key to it if they walk around the building
but if they choose to I'll figure something out with maybe putting it to the front of the building
okay i have no problem i mean i haven't really with respect real quick wait a minute any other
questions questions for attorney um just a question of counsel uh we never received those
interior photographs um so if you can i i will upload them i thought i uploaded uh two videos
because they were originally in video form oh and i had to like splice them out videos if you can
just i i could just upload them yeah that'd be great thank you and if you can't do that if you
can send it to you know us via email also of course i'll do that today all right thank you
questions or comments from the virtual audience mr pastor tyrone williams you are allowed to speak
good afternoon reverend good afternoon chairman and board could you please state and spell your
name for the sonographer sure tyrone williams tyrone t-y-r-o-n-e williams w-i-l-l-i-a-m-s
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes sir please proceed sir um i'm glad to finally get to hear the presentation as
mr. wedding testified there was zoom and in-person for the first time for these
two properties um I was trying to kind of wait to start moving to in person and
And that was the first month that I attempted to do Zoom and in-person.
Unfortunately, we was going up against the Fever Fest and some other things going on in the city that this particular Thursday, for some reason, we couldn't even get nobody, let alone in-person, even on Zoom.
um as Mr. Shawn stated we sat and looked and chatted a little bit uh I was totally embarrassed
because that's never happened and um I did attempt and did offer another meeting day or another
meeting uh understanding that they have already had continuances on both these properties and I
wanted to see how they wanted to proceed with this uh they proceeded to get the uh signatures
from the nearby neighbors um the still strawberry mansion cdc did not weigh in due to the fact that
there was no attendance however as long as there's no basement living uh the strawberry mansion
they will confirmation overlay is observed which means no pilot houses rooftop that egress wells
um and then i'm interested to know what is uh what the holding area for the trash be locked
um because we have a dumping issue that the i must admit the mayor doing a great job
I must admit the mayor doing a great job on working with, but it's not federal.
or working with, but it's not federal.
And so I don't want any residents or businesses or contractors or any way to get no idea that they see some trash.
This is a good place to dump.
If those things are compliant and done, the survey mentioned CDC issues, non-opposition, which I will forward a letter on both properties, that the coordinator is the whole.
So, Reverend, are you feel the same way about the second one or do you want to hear the presentation?
I pretty much know about the second one.
It's similar to the first one.
it's not necessarily for me i don't okay i don't need to thank you very much for doing that
as long as he uh the client adhere to his trash plan lock in the trash holding area
no uh not going against the overlay and no basement living i'm for it okay okay non-opposition
right is there anyone else in there thank you thank you can we confirm that they're okay with
those provisors the owner is okay with all those provisors yeah yes we had previously spoken with
pastor williams okay he's actually the only one who got to see my presentation originally right
can i also reiterate my question about trash because i think the what the rco has requested
is not necessarily allowable on the rear of the yard the way that we was just outlined
in their response to me. So I just want to be clear. How is everyone getting to the trash
enclosure? So we will, I think Mr. Ponzo may have confused the two properties. The next property
goes block to block. So it's a very easy access. This one does not, this one I do believe we're
going to have a locked receptacle at the front with all the trash cans inside of it. And then
each tenant will have a key that they can bring out theirs. Dumping is a major issue on blocks
like this with all these vacant lots. So this is going to be something that we take a lot of care
of. Otherwise, Mr. Ponzo is going to be paying for everyone else to dump their trash on his
property. I would recommend that you actually consider, I know I've come from the outside of
the world, right? Sorry, you just scared me there. The trash and storage. Your units are large
enough that you can have a dedicated trash storage within the units so i would really consider that
instead of having trash cans sort of piled up whether they're enclosed or not enclosed in front
of it out of my head i was actually going to tell the chair that i was going to recommend interior
trash storage i think that would be fine mr ponzo would you be fine with that yes okay thank you and
i just want just because we've had a lot of conversation i just want to let you know like
Like you do, when you get the CO, there are some things in your plan that are going to get flagged.
So just be ready.
For sure.
I mean, this is going to have to meet all sorts of code and going to require a lot of permits.
All right.
Anyone else in the audience?
Add it this time, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Madison Matera, Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the R.
That's where you went yet?
Oh, good.
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the rsa 5 residential single family zoning at
this location the city rezoned this neighborhood in 2014 in accord with recommendations in the
comprehensive plan there's no unique physical condition or circumstance of this property that
would prevent it from being used in strict conformity with the zoning code an owner appears
to have converted this property to three dwelling units without the benefit of permits city planning
commission recommends the board deny the proposed use variance for three dwelling units
MI 2025 007 857 267 North 29th Street I vote yes with proviso certificate of occupancy to be
obtained no basement living trash stored in individual units chairman if I may just very
quickly it's 2167 is the property address you listed it you said 267 oh 2167 thanks for
tonight thank you i just want to make sure we don't say ellen is picky about these things
michael johnson my vote is yes with provisos cheryl gaster my booty chefs with provisos
ryan mcadams my vote is yes with provisos hi owen my vote is yes with provisos
all right so mi 2026 000 551 3024 west dolphin street sean just for the record state your name
Of course, Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N.
And you have the same client, I understand.
Could you state his name?
It is actually a different LLC.
So it is Harland Group, H-A-R-L-A-N-D Group, LLC.
H. A. R. L. A. N. D. group LLC. George Ponzo is the same owner of the LLC and our board secretary of.
George Pons.
Well, has a few questions for you. Yes. Good afternoon. Council. Um, did you submit your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this? Yes.
Yes. And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, we do. Then you can share your screen and begin your presentation. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Anything you can relate back to the other one, I'd appreciate.
Of course. You went pretty low on the other one. I'm just letting you know.
I apologize. It's been so long since I've had a regular hearing in front of you guys. I keep
having these convoluted messes that get dropped on your desk on Tuesdays. So we're here for
for 3024 West Dauphin Street. As you can see, this is a mid-block property in the same
neighborhood. It's right in between. It goes all the way from West Dauphin Street back to West
Nevada Street, about halfway in between North 30th and North 31st. This property has a very similar
condition, actually, even it's over 50% vacant lots on these two properties. You can even start
seeing it from here and then what you can start to see is we have a 12 unit apartment building
going in right next to us and we have a large commercial auto use right on the other side of
that we also in this neighborhood so what you can see here with the zoning plan we have large rm1
on both corners you have far more far less single family living in this area than the other block
with far more multifamily.
Again, we are seeking a single variance
for the three units again.
This is the property on the right-hand side.
It does have a new front.
The property owner purchased it in July of 2022.
It had been designated imminently dangerous
and the front of the building needed to be repaired.
So that was repaired.
and then I will go into the rest of it is in the condition in which he purchased it
this is looking south from the property or sorry west from the property and this is looking the
other direction as you can see this is the you know a large the large building uses right next
to us as well as this 12 unit building immediately adjacent to us again here the floor plans again no
basement living we are willing to accept all the same conditions from the strawberry mansion cdc
that were just mentioned and discussed these units are even larger so we are willing to accept the
uh interior trash storage that board member win and john's suggested um these are actually very
large uh one bedrooms on each floor one on each floor the first second and third floors
and what you can see this is the current condition
um it is uh you know framed out as a triplex uh but not actually built as a triplex at all
um and what you can see uh these the the new wood up here is the third floor was previously
not the same size as the as the first and second floors and in uh as mr ponzo will testify if you
want me to go that long more as i can testify now he bought it in the current condition framed out
but he knew this was going to require a lot of work the second floor roof needed a lot of work
and ultimately he decided in 2024 to pull a zoning permit and building permit to make an addition
to basically extend the third floor in the rear to be the same size as the second the first and
second floors so now you have a completely contiguous building going all the way up
As you already heard from Pastor Williams, we had the same condition here.
We were to present both properties, 2167 North 29th Street and 3204 West Dauphin Street
at the same meeting in late July to the RCO.
No one appeared.
However, I will show you again.
Here is the, we serve notices to everyone, and that was confirmed by the CDC.
So we had the same situation in which Mr. Ponzo went door to door and he can testify again, no, no opposition from anyone that he spoke with and received numerous signatures of support.
Again, as I was suggesting before, in 2024, he pulled a permit to build the addition to frame out.
in 2024 he pulled a permit to build the addition uh to frame out the entire building so that's the
only port that's the only work that he's done is that rear portion aside from the imminently
dangerous matter uh and this is actually how he found out for the first time again he walked this
property it was framed out as a triplex knew he was going to have to do the work thought it was
approved as a triplex uh however when he pulled this permit the zoning permit listed it as
residential single family and that is how he first learned that this was not an approved
triplex he was already down the path ended up building out the addition because otherwise
he'd have to finish the roof anyway and now we're before you to try to legalize the work
that was already done which he thought was already in place and obviously this will require full
permitting from uh you know basically full permits all mechanicals um and new it really is just
framing at this point although it is technically framed out as a triplex in the form that is shown
uh in this um in the floor plans that i presented again i think this one even more strongly we have
hardship and that you have an existing building uh but even more so you have a real sea change
including you know immediately adjacent to us you have a 12 unit building that towers up four stories
um which is you know a heavy multi-family use there is far more multi-family use uh even even
actually at this time approved which most most of the time it isn't but even mostly approved
multi-family use on this block and again this is the least minimum variance in that we're just
seeking to have one this is a very large property these units will be actually just over 700 square
feet each and have a very large rear yard so you actually have did i only include i only included
one i apologize but what you can see is here's the existing building it does extend all the
way back like i said to west nevada street so there's a very very large rear yard a lot of open
space and here we're just trying to put one unit per floor again so with that i'm happy to uh call
my client to adopt if you would like i can have my client again walk through the specifics and
details here um if not i could just have them see someone mr ponzo yes i'm here sir just for
the record state your name you loaded and sworn george ponzo george g-e-o-r-g-e last name ponzo
p-o-n-z-o counsel yes uh thank you uh george mr ponzo you're here on behalf of the harland group
llc that owns the property correct yes and have you heard all the testimony that i already provided
in this matter yes do you believe it to be true and correct to the best of your knowledge
information and belief yes and would you adopt my testimony as your own yes and do you agree
to all the provisos that were already set forth with regard to the prior property at 2167
north 29th street uh also being applied here yes uh questions from the board yeah can you
go to the site to the plan the floor plans the floor plans sure yeah i'm looking at google and
it looks like on the second and third floor you have outdoor balconies on the rear but you're
yeah you're not quite sure okay so you have these outdoor balconies on the second and third floor
You know, you mentioned that there's a large backyard, which I think is great, right?
But in this plan, you don't even show access, but I'm quite sure it's showing some access.
But it's, again, like the other units that we see a lot, they're through the bedroom.
And you, it's again, a totally missed opportunity not to have access from the common area in a living, in a living, an apartment to the outdoor space and not through a bedroom.
I'm sorry, board member Johns, I thought you were done.
Yeah. So, I mean, I just, I mean, you know, you, you kind of did it on the other plan and you got the hallway and the access to the, to the rear yard, which, you know, was kind of funky, but here you've got a huge backyard and it's only access through the living room.
just want to make one comment for anybody any architect that's listening that comes that comes
in with these kind of plans this simple if you want to keep this bedroom in the back you can
easily put a a bathroom there you can move your kitchens here and get access through that alleyway
it makes much more sense it just works functionally for a living unit to have everybody have access to
works functionally for a living unit to have everybody have access to a rear yard, not having
to go to somebody's private bedroom space to go to a rear yard. It's very simple. Please, please,
please listen to that. Okay. Thank you. Did you hear that? I heard that loud and clear and I will
have our architect investigate that. I just have one question because I think similar to
the previous property this property also has a number of like a very long
Illinois history some of them predating and also posts like your clients
purchase but I just want to understand like what drove your decision to decide
to move forward with turning this into a triplex because it does look like you
previously had applied for demolition permit and that it when it was purchased
it was already imminently dangerous and had already had application that was
approved for a demolition permit from the previous owner you bought it from so it just seems like
this like has a long history of like issues of this property like what drove the decision to try
to revive it this year so i i can go into the detail and then mr ponzo can answer the rest
with regard to the demolition it was deemed imminently dangerous that needed to be cured
immediately that was the demolition permit but mr ponzo didn't want to demo the building
but the city was requiring a demolition permit be pulled they actually were about to do a um
yeah a sidewalk demo a curbside demo yeah come down and mr ponzo actually had to to fight with
the city to be able to just go ahead and and repair that front wall which is why it is not
demolished and it is uh still in place um so yes he did he did the exterior front wall to cure the
eminently dangerous violation i understand but i think like if you look at its permit history there
was interior permit issues there was like rear permit issues in the past and it had almost been
torn down three times so i just i'm wondering like the amount of work it's going to take to bring it
up to code is tremendous it does sound like your client has a construction company but like what
is driving the decision to try to like salvage it versus just start over from scratch i can answer
that um all that happened prior to me well some of it came up during my ownership but
before i per before i purchased the property most of them violations were in the inside the wall
all that which i didn't know because they already did some repairs that i didn't know of
so when L&I finally uh well when it came around for them to demo it I had no knowledge of it
that's why I went to bat with L&I not that I wanted to but I I thought I put in too much
already or put in enough already to save it versus starting all over from scratch
and uh it worked out in my favor i guess um because i did uh repair the wall that they
were saying uh was imminently dangerous because everything else was done before me uh fixing it
which ellen i didn't know of because uh some of the pictures they pulled up i'd never seen it before
and when they showed me i mean it was the same property but i never seen it in that condition
so they just said all right well fix this and then we'll see what happens next and i did and then
you know they ruled in my favor that it was okay okay and then i just when you purchase
the property did you run a title report or did you get a certification of any status of the property
at the time of purchase? I did not, which is, you know, bad on my part and is a lesson well
learned. Okay. I have no further questions. And that was what I was going to say.
If you're making an investment in a property, there are different tools available to help you
to know whether this property is zoned as you need for whatever it is that you were planning
to do including getting a city certification and then that at least would tell you it would have
told you uh how this property was last zoned and or used and it would also have put um if there was
a demo order that had been right because they take a little bit of work to uh get lni to do it
to uh get l and i to do it um and uh so you know it's it's just prudent and um title insurance
Um, and, uh, so, you know.
that also helps because then they look into the title and they look into one of the things they
have to look into is the use of the property right okay so these are all things which help you and
then you know you're not surprised uh when you you know go to do what you want to do and you find out
oh now i have to apply for variances and what have you yeah i was definitely surprised yeah well the
other thing is you can do an agreement of sale with a contingency in it right which means you
have to have an attorney and um and it can say you know if i can't do what i want to do with this
property you know then um i don't have to go through with this sale which saves you too i'll
boast that luckily for Mr. Ponzo, he and I are now working together. So I think these issues
will not be issues going forward. Right. Questions for our attorney? Yes, I just wanted to make sure
with regard to posting of the property, it was a little unclear to make sure that the poster was
correct. So I would like if either you or your client could, you know, indicate on the record
that the property was posted for this hearing today i'm happy to it was actually posted uh on
the front and the back i think it was originally not posted the same day on the back because it
does the property does continue all the way to the rear street so it was posted both on the front and
back yes more than 21 days in advance for this hearing for this hearing yes thank you questions
or comments from the virtual audience i see no hands here planning commission
Madison Matera, Planning Commission staff. The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning from the existing RSA 5 residential single family to RM1 residential multifamily.
This property was rezoned in to RSA 5 in 2014 and a council-supported map change.
Under the comprehensive plan recommended zoning of RM1, based on lot size, they would be allowed three units.
The Planning Commission recommends the board grant the requested variance for three units.
MI 2026-000551-3024 West Dauphin Street. I vote yes with proviso. Certificate of occupancy to be obtained. Inside trash storage. No basement living.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with provisos.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with provisos.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with provisos.
Iowen, my vote is yes with provisos.
Thank you, Councilman.
thank you very much chairman everyone um let's see here number six all right number eight on the list
mi 2026 002 451 896 north 41st street murder ferliger is the attorney
good afternoon counsel could you please state and spell your name for the sonographer meredith
ferliger f-e-r-l-e-g-e-r you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the
truth yes i do um um could you identify your client a relationship to the pro oh wait a
Oh, wow. Thank God she's here.
Yes. My client is 2621 Jefferson Development, LLC.
And that LLC is represented today by Eugene Nadevich and Robert Sherman.
Our vice chair is going to ask you a few questions, but I understand this is going to be here in whole. Am I correct?
not to my understanding no i don't think there's any issues here um it depends on the rco letter
if you want to wait for the rco better all right we have an rco letter it was submitted with my
exhibit okay we're good all right our vice chair has a few questions we'll we'll get we'll get you
to learn we'll get you to learn hi good afternoon have you submitted your documents and exhibits
14 days in advance of this hearing yes i did and do you weigh the veto now that your shoes
on and stipulate to his accuracy yes i do to both all right thank you you can see your screen and
perceived the case thank you I need to be promoted as panelists you have been
and promote it.
No, it just unmuted me.
What should we do?
There we go.
Thank you.
all right there we go
uh mr chairman members of the board the request before you today concerns 896
6, North 41st Street, which was before this board in identical form back in 2022.
You do have an exhibit packet that contains 15 exhibits.
And as conveyed to the board back in 2022, this is a low income housing tax credit project
that unfortunately has not yet secured funding.
So as a result, no project has been built and the zoning permit has expired.
As this board may be familiar, it can take years upon years to secure LIHTC funding, as there is only a certain amount of funding that's given in each cycle every year.
And having an active zoning permit is an absolute threshold requirement to even qualify.
So this development team is quite hopeful that this project should finally receive funding in this next cycle to allow for this 30-unit, 100% affordable project to be built, which is reserved exclusively for seniors.
So with that background in mind, let me first orient you to the location of the property.
As always, the exhibits include the deed at Exhibit 3, as well as tax clearance at Exhibit 2.
flipping forward a little bit to exhibit nine you'll see the aerials this property sits on
north uh 41st street which is right at the corner of westminster avenue just diagonal
from this property is the belmont academy charter school and just flipping through here a portion of
this lot at the corner has been vacant since at least the 1940s and was consolidated with 892-94
for North 41st Street to create this roughly 7500 square foot lot that you'll see a little
bit better in the plans as you can see here on the zoning map at Exhibit 8 you'll note that
the property and most of the surrounding properties here are zoned RM1 and is surrounded by either RM1
CMX 2 and then of course the special purpose for the Belmont Academy Charter School
just to give you a little bit better sense from the photographs here you'll see again the vacant
corner lot that has frontage on both 41st street and Westminster Avenue and then again this is
looking at the vacant lot from Westminster Avenue if you zoom out a little bit further
there is another vacant lot behind this one that is not owned by my clients and is not a part of
this application looking across the street you can see here uh what i believe is an assisted living
facility based on some of the permits i was able to secure you may take note from this photograph
which is relevant to one of the variances that we're requesting that this structure extends
basically to the right-of-way line and has no notable setback on north 41st street
Street and then again looking across Westminster are other multi-family properties some new some
under renovation it seems and then again looking back along North 41st Street the board will see
here the immediately adjacent brick structure that has a significant front setback which is
ultimately the cause of one of the refusals before the board today and then again diagonal here you
can see an image of that charter school and then we did include photographs of the timely posting
in the exhibits as well which were timely posted on both of the frontages
now before i show you the plans i want to briefly show you the plans that the board
last approved so again you can see here that what was what is before you today is absolutely
identical to the 2022 proposal so i have included here at exhibit 10 the zoning permit history
where again you can see here the zoning permit for 30 dwelling units
and then if i scroll down to the plans here uh you'll see again the layout of the proposed
building and just to point out just so you can see it is absolutely identical
You can see that it extends to that front lot line along north of 41st Street and then has a slight rear yard in the back and around the perimeter of the building.
And then again on the refusal that was issued back in 20.
and then again on the refusal that was issued back in 2022 you can again see that the refusals
were identical back then although the one difference is that the yard refusal at that
point was identified as being a side yard refusal instead of a front yard refusal I'm not sure why
that was because in this case the relevant uh yard is actually in the front so I think back
IN 2022 IT WAS JUST WRONG SO IF I NOW FLIP TO EXHIBIT SIX THESE ARE THE ZONING PLANS THAT
WERE SUBMITTED WITH THIS APPLICATION AND AGAIN YOU CAN SEE HERE THE IDENTICAL BUILDING THE ONLY
CHANGE BEING NOW THE YARD LANDSCAPING REQUIREMENTS ARE NOW IN EFFECT SO YOU SEE THAT YARD
LANDSCAPING REFLECTED ON THIS PLAN THE BUILDING ITSELF IS DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH ALL OF THE
relevant PHFA requirements. The building itself is proposed to be five stories and will include
30 dwelling units, which is the least minimum number of units that will actually qualify the
project for LIHTC funding. As you'll see on the floor plans, there is a small basement which is
reserved for mechanical space only. As you can see here, the building extends to the lot line
along westminster although the lot line as you can see here is actually angled quite a bit
and then it does briefly meet the property line right here at this little pinch point
along north north 44 41st street again owing to that angle if i bring up the floor plans
and again these were designed specifically in compliance with phfa standards
STANDARDS. SO AS YOU CAN SEE HERE, IN
COMPLIANCE WITH THOSE STANDARDS, THE DESIGN CONTEMPLATES 19 ONE-BEDROOM UNITS, WHICH INCLUDE
FOUR TRADITIONAL ADA AND ONE HEARING OR VISUAL-IMPAIRED, AND THEN 11 TWO-BEDROOM UNITS.
AS I'VE MENTIONED, ALL OF THESE ARE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO COMPLY WITH THE PHFA REQUIREMENTS
for unit size, layout, any form of special accommodations or in-unit amenities that would
be required by PHFA. On the first floor, you can see that there is an office, a lobby,
and then a community space for building residents, which is also a LIHTC requirement. So when you see
LIHTC projects you will pretty much always see a community room which is one of the things they
require and then you can see to the right the typical floor plans for the upper level units
which are again a mix of the one and two bedroom units the building itself will have an elevator of
course and then as you can see on the floor plans there is a three-yard dumpster enclosure proposed
along Westminster Avenue in the, I guess, what you would consider the quasi-rear yard of the
building. And of course, it would be picked up by a commercial hauler. This is not my client's
first LIHTC project, so this particular development group is intimately familiar with all of the
requirements. Some of these units will be reserved for extremely, extremely low income, and then it
it kind of goes up from there. It's all at different AMI levels. And my clients are here
and they can answer any questions that you have about the funding or anything having to do with
the LIHTC. So in terms of the refusal itself, I'll start first with the dimensional refusal,
which I have somewhat hit on a little bit in the introduction here. So as I mentioned, there is a
front setback refusal here as you can see 12 feet would be required and there is no front
setback proposed and that is again measured basically right from this little pinch point
here on 41st street ultimately this results from both the angled lot line as well as from underlying
phfa requirements that do not allow for any flexibility in terms of the layout of the
building and the size of the building, the unit sizes. This is basically designed to be exactly
what would accommodate the 30 units to secure this type of funding. And unfortunately, this would not
be as simple as just moving the building back a little bit. If you look at the zoning plans, you
can see that there is only nine feet in the rear yard. So effectively, if you were to shift the
building all the way back to that rear lot line you would you would not only create another refusal
here but you still would not have a compliant front yard if you were to then just say well
If you were to then just say, well, why don't you shave off 12 feet of the front of the building? Unfortunately, that would then render the entire project incapable of the LIHTC funding, and it would no longer become viable as a 100% affordable project.
why don't you shave off 12 feet of the front of the bill?
this is one of those unfortunate conflicts between lie tech and phfa requirements uh as
they are applied against the zoning code so a lot of these projects are designed with very very
specific dimensional requirements in mind this is also consistent as i think you saw in some
of the photographs with the conditions of two of the three corners that surround this particular
property which also have structures that extend to the front lot lines so you saw that in the
assisted living across north 41st street as well as with the structure that is directly across
westminster only the charter school has a setback which you can see here is essentially built on an
angle next the applicant received a refusal for the proposed density as you can see here the
refusal notes that 24 units are allowed where 30 units are proposed i will note that the 24 units
does already include the allowance for the mixed income housing bonus so this project will
ultimately end up with a double deed restriction once the litech funding is procured it'll have
the restriction imposed by litech which is actually more restrictive than the one that
the city would impose so they tend to interact together as i mentioned already the 30 units here
is a crucial number in terms of eligibility for litec funding effectively they have told
applicants that if you don't have 30 units you might as well not bother applying
now given of course the importance of encouraging projects such as this one that will not only
provide deed restricted affordable housing but will do so for seniors over 62 that predominantly
come directly from this community the refusal here represents a clear hardship as strict conformity
with the zoning code would prevent development of this important project that directly serves
the goals of the current mayoral administration the number of units here and the variances requested
are the least minimum, as it is necessary to ensure that the project can be built as a 100%
affordable senior project. Absent this, any developer could come in here and build 24 units
at market rate. And fortunately, the additional six units here does not alter the building
dimensions or layout. Let me bring up the RCO letter, which you can see here from Belmont
alliance uh i will resubmit this if if you don't have it it was in my exhibit packet you can see
here the votes nine nine uh votes in favor seven votes opposed one vote abstain uh and it says
based on the vote tally the community has expressed support for the variance proposal with a majority
voting yes so in conclusion we submit that the proposal will not increase congestion
harm neighbors' properties or impair light and air, and a more detailed analysis, as always,
is provided in the memo of law submitted to the board at Exhibit 11. At this point, I would ask
for the chair to look for Eugene Nadevich or Robert Sherman, whoever is going to raise their
hand. Eugene, you have been allowed to speak. Hello. Could you please state and spell your
name for this tomographer eugene knightovich e-u-g-e-n-e last name is n-a-y-d-o-v-i-c-h
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do counsel eugene have you heard all the testimony and evidence that i offered in front
of the board today i did would you agree that testimony was true and accurate and would you
adopt it as if you had provided it to the board yourself yes i would thank you we're happy to
take any questions. Questions from the board. I have a few questions. One, I'm assuming this
is going in for the upcoming tax credit round and has not been submitted yet. It is going in. I
believe the deadline is February. It is. So you said that this was built to PHFA standards. The
QAP changed two weeks ago. This is to the current standards. It just got approved. Eugene, are you
able to answer that question? Yes. Based on the information that we have, this is up to the
current standards okay and then who's gonna be the property manager at the
project for the property management most likely we are going to be using CRM
yes yep and have you worked with CRM and your other tax credit properties yes
Yes, so we're actually about to close another tax credit property on 64th Street, and they are going to the property management company there as well.
so we're actually about to close another tax credit property on 64th Street and
I'm assuming this is one that you're acquiring that's already in existence.
Which one?
The other one?
Yeah, the other one is in existence. It received funding.
We're hoping to close next month on it.
Okay, and then a couple questions I have here is like, one, have you pre-scored this tax credit application?
Um, we have, I'm not the one that did the pre-scoring, but yes.
And so you guys are, I guess, pretty confident that this is going to get an award.
All right.
And then how many vouchers have you been approved for from PHA?
So actually, so originally we were, it was, uh, we were approved for the RAD vouchers.
Um, but you know, for all 30 originally, because the RAD vouchers went originally for all 30 units, because the RAD vouchers, you know, suddenly went away.
um we won't have any route vouchers but the building actually works i understand that but
so the included letter from pha is for the previous vouchers that are currently
not applicable to this project for the route vouchers no yeah okay so what is your plan if
you do not get tax credits to build a market rate he said to build it market right to build
market rate yeah we're very highly confident i wouldn't get it um get fun this round um
unfortunately a previous yeah sorry yeah i think my concern is that this is a very big building
this is a lot of units that if it does not get tax credits we would have approved it it could go up
30 units market rate and getting a 30 unit tax credit building is actually really it's incredibly
difficult while it is the minimum it is not typical most typical still senior buildings
in philadelphia are 50 to 60 units and they don't have this many two bedrooms so i would be concerned
about the like what happens if we approve this well yeah well previously that was the number
uh based on you know recent uh how funding works and what construction is units buildings are now
much smaller they are in the 30s the other bills that we have approved is 33 units um a few but
it's still not been typical the other thing that i will point out just as a reminder the buy right
number of units here is 24. so we're not we're not talking about you know 24 versus 50. we're
talking about that delta of six units and we did just by way of background when we originally
applied for this there used to be a discrepancy between some of the funding sources and the
bonus where you were not even allowed to use the bonus in order to get units so that's how we
originally applied fortunately that changed we actually went through the process we went back
incorporated the bonus in just to ensure that in an absolute worst case scenario there'll be six
units that there would still be some affordable units now again this was approved in 2022
they didn't secure funding
and they didn't build it as market rate
I think even just that
shows that they truly
truly want to build this as a
LIHTC project
they've waited a really long
time even having permits
in hand
I will just
add that
and also the 24 units that's also
without green roof
bonus as well
that's correct
right because you removed it that that's correct so so even so with the green roof bonus at that
point you're up another 25 which i i'm horrible at math in my head but that either gets you very
close so um i have a question about the trash so you said that they were going to be dumpsters um
along the the i think it's the rear edge of the building so are the seniors going to come down
five floors or or go down to their from their units to go dump their trash in the dumpsters
or is are the trash rooms on the floors well right now so right so yeah so as of right so
it's an elevator building as of right now we currently have trash being outside we are trying
to incorporate uh trash for the trash should be inside the building um it's just originally when
the originally we got zoning for the building there was no intention for light that was going
to be just a market rate development since then you know we're trying to pivot it towards uh
you know having to be you know light tech and 100 affordable and we're trying to you know have the
second entrance be on the westminster side and you know we it looks like we can probably put in
interior trash pickup even if it happens you know three to three four maybe five times per week so
it's constantly clean. It's just, you know, it's a little bit tight with space.
um it's just you know it's a little bit tight with space so i don't know how you do that and
not in your footprint not change or your unit mix not change if you're trying to do interior trash
shoots or whatever well the trash itself doesn't take up a lot of space um you got to get down
you got to have a place down on the first floor for it to accumulate
yeah i'm not sure we're still working with the architect on it we still don't have we don't have
final plans you know we just have preliminary plans of what we need to submit to phfa and
obviously the zba yeah and typically the way that it works is that you know when they get to the
point that they've secured funding and prior to going to closing a lot of these details get refined
before they even close.
So there's a lot of eyes on these things
before the funding is ever released.
Yeah, I know I've done a gazillion of them.
And those are things that they look at
when they actually submit.
So those are questions that are going to come up
during the review and whether or not.
So whatever, it's an affordable housing project.
And we also work with a third-party
consulting company, Innova.
So they really help us out,
iron all these little details out.
question yes question so it says here that your prior permit in 2022 was amended to remove the
green roof roof deck and pilot house is that still the case or this application was filed without a
green roof and without a double check on the pilot house so the there's no the roof deck here is not
for occupancy by people um there are there are still pilot houses for access but there is at
this point no green roof proposed okay so what are we doing for some sort of outdoor space or
recreation space or besides this so the the property itself is quite large and as you can
see there are open areas that surround the entire property um it's it's actually slightly less
coverage than the code would allow for so uh there there is there is still a bit of open space
surrounding the building um you know gene i i don't know if it's typical that there would be a
roof deck on the building, on a building like this for occupancy by, you know, the residents,
or if that's something that, you know, is typically frowned upon?
Yeah, not really. It's, you know, it's usually frowned upon. But also, you know,
in our original application, a big reason why we didn't have the green roof is we were going to
have solar on the roof. The funding that, you know, the government had for solar is no longer
available. So now there's a high probability we'll be able to do a green roof
you know regardless what's the plan for stormwater management if there is no green roof
uh just a regular roof tpo but most likely it will most likely have a green roof
yeah and the property is only 7 500 square feet so it does not trigger it yeah it doesn't it
doesn't trigger it for this size of a lot okay questions from our attorney um i just want to
clarify, we do have the letter that you showed from the RCO. Is that the RCO? I just want to
clarify, because we had something written down, West Belmont Civic Association. That is not the
RCO. We had the one that you're talking about. We called it affected RCO. I just want to clarify
for the record. There are two RCOs in this area, and I think the council office sort of switches
back and forth. The last time the project was heard, it was before West Belmont. This time,
it was assigned to belmont alliance civic which is the letter you have oh we have that okay thank
you questions or comments from the virtual audience not at this time chair planning commission
not a cemetery planning commission staff comprehensive plan recommends a change in
zoning from the existing rm1 residential multifamily to rsa5 residential single family
the proposal of 30 units is an overuse of the property and there are no unique physical
conditions or circumstances of the property that will prevent conformance with the code for minimum
front setback planning commission recommends the board deny the requested variance for 30 dwelling
units and minimum front setback so mi2026 002 451 896 north 41st street i vote yes with proviso
per amended refusal dated july 23rd 2026. michael johnson voted 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
ryan mcadams my vote is yes with proviso tie a win my vote is yes with proviso
Tyia Nguyen, my vote is yes with Proviso
thank you council congratulations on your new associate
three weeks in she's doing great i should i should have put her up here
thank you thank you all right
33 okay here we go so mi 2026 002 835 1833 south 18th street gabrielle fellis is the attorney
good afternoon mr good afternoon could you please state your name it's spelled for the stenographer
yeah that's uh gabriel fellis g-a-b-r-i-e-l last name is fellas f as in frank e-l-l-u-s
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do did you identify your client and relationship to this property yeah my client is gabrielle
ditchy and she's the owner of the property and the applicant our vice chair has a few questions
good afternoon have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing
i have and do you weigh the reading of your refusal to stipulate to its accuracy i do i think you can
see your screen and begin your case and you also have a letter of support from point bree cdc
yeah so unfortunately for this uh zoom it's uh it's coming in a little bit
strange and i'm not able to share my screen um
okay um it's not it's just not giving me the option
the way hold on let's ian do we have this on back there
hi chair it's ian uh mr fellas do you are you promoted to panelists already
now i am and now it allows me to thank you for that okay thank you great so do you guys see my
screen now yes great sorry about that uh so we're here today seeking approval for you the property
for visitor accommodations uh miss that she was already granted a visitor accommodations permit
in 2023 for this property uh so she's been actively operating it as an airbnb for the last
three years we're here today just because the permit had a three-year expiration date that
ended earlier this summer so we're just looking to renew that permit that's already been in place
this is our refusal for visitor accommodations which is prohibited in the arm one zoning district
so like i said my client was granted variance for visitor accommodations in 2023
and this is the permit that was issued in june of that year which expired in july
uh so here i have the airbnb listing that um that miss that she set up for the property
uh the property is configured as a four bedroom home with three and a half baths
a backyard and a roof deck throughout our time operating as an airbnb to our knowledge there's
never been any issues or complaints with any neighbors stemming from airbnb guests
she also uh maintained nearly nearly universal positive reviews from the guests who stayed there
she currently has a 4.97 rating out of five fives across the board for cleanliness uh really the
only thing that prevented her from a perfect rating was because of the location in relation
to center city a few more views here
we have some more detailed uh photos of the property from the full listing again the property
is set up as a four bedroom three and a half bath with backyard and roof deck you can see it's very
well maintained by miss ditchy fully furnished uh the upkeep obviously reflected in those positive
reviews from her guests
go through these a little quickly
and this is just one unit am i correct uh yes correct one unit
so here we have some floor plans of property uh get you a little bit of a sense of the dimensions
and the layout i also want to point out no basement bedroom spaces the basement is just a
bathroom and a rec room this is our zoning map again property is zoned rm1 so visitor
accommodation is prohibited in this district um however um
in the stocks so on these two pages everyone these price buttons are home and everyone
so on these two pages uh every one of these price buttons are home and everyone the green dots are
The green dots are also home.
also home same this page uh so we're looking at nearly 20 airbnb's within a quarter mile radius
in pointe breeze and this is the property itself i've turned to our community outreach efforts
we met with the point breeze cdc on july 7th on zoom this is the notification letter that
our office sent out to nearby neighbors and then this is the letter of support that we received
from the rco and its director albert litter page
um essentially also was extremely diligent and trying to engage neighbors
to discuss the project before that here that that hit that uh meeting with the
community um again she's operated it uh the last
three years without any complaints she got 10 centers of support before that
meeting including the two neighboring homes at 1831
and 1835 south 19th here is the deed to the property uh showing gabby taking title in march of 2018
this is our application for appeal
and product information form
here we have our statement of real estate tax compliance as well as the zba posters
notifying the community of the hearing here today
and lastly these are the certificates of mailing for the notification letters that we sent out
in advance of that july hearing i'm sorry the july meeting with the rco
so with that i'd like to bring my client uh gabrielle ditchey on to adopt my testimony
just just confirming audio
yep we hear you gabby i could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
absolutely it's gabrielle ditchey g-a-b-r-i-e-l-l-e and last name is ditchy d-i-t-c-h-e-y
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do also have you heard my testimony today?
Yes, and wasn't true and correct to the best of your knowledge.
Correct. Yes, and would you adopt as if it were your own? Yes, I would.
Okay, any questions for questions from the board?
Yes, I have a question just understanding that you previously had visitor accommodations approved.
also understanding that we're in an ongoing housing shortage and crisis in the city
i guess i'm just wanting to understand and what's the justification for keeping the property as a
short-term rental instead of renting it as a traditional of course um so currently i've moved
you know with my boyfriend i lived at the home for five years um so i still obviously own the
property um i would say it gives me the flexibility i do have you know family and friends that do come
in and i still am a resident of philadelphia um and obviously just the the financial aspect of
that i would say that um you know for me i think this is probably the last round that i'll be going
through uh the just the variance um obviously as you know just you know with the you know rental
markets um you know there's been a lot of up and down so um i would say that those are the two
reasons right now is just you know flexibility of use of the home uh for personal use and then also
um you know from a price perspective okay and then uh what's the average sort of number of
times a month that the unit's been occupied in the past three years um so the first process actually
took a full year so i unfortunately only got to release it for the the two-year term out of the
three most of my bookings are long weekends and then during the summer during the week so i would
say typically i would say probably march through november i would say mostly every week like long
weekends friday through sunday i do not allow single night bookings um you know i try to make
sure that i'm really screening my my candidates and most of them are returning families or people
that have family that live in philadelphia so i would say probably three to four times
each weekend during those months i mentioned and then are you managing this directly by yourself
are you working with a property management company or like a co-host i know airbnb now
has the co-host option right i know i actually manage it myself and i have for the entire
duration and plan to continue okay i don't think other questions questions from our attorney no
questions at this time questions or comments from the virtual audience i see no hands chair any
commission thank you thank you for your time anna cimiterra planning commission staff the
Thank you for your time at a cemetery planning commission staff. The comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from the existing arm 1 residential multifamily to RSA 5 residential single family.
comprehensive plan recommends
The appellant has not demonstrated that there are unique physical conditions or circumstances of this property that will prevent conformance with the zoning code planning commission recommends the board deny the requested variance for visitor accommodations.
MI 2026-002-835-1835-South 18th Street. I vote yes. Temporary variance that will expire 9-24-29.
Michael Johns, 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.
Tywin, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, guys.
Okay, so number, let's see here, it'll be number 11, MI 2026-002-856-824-26, South 18th Street, A Street, Richard DeMarco is the attorney.
I was just unmuted, I didn't get invited to be a panelist.
Okay, we'll take care of that for you.
there we go
sir demarco could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
good afternoon mr chairman
could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer sir yes richard demarco last
last name spelled d-e-m-a-r-c-o do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. Mr. DeMarco, could you identify your client in a relationship
with this property? Phil Harvey, Mr. Chairman, and him and his daughter are in the Zoom together.
Okay. And our vice chair has a few questions, sir. Good afternoon. Have you submitted your
documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing? Yes, I have. And do you waive the reading
your refusals and stipulate to their accuracy yes i can waive and stipulate all right thank
you you can see your screen and proceed with the case okay thank you and you do have letter
of non-opposition from um bella vista yes we met with them i'll get into that in a minute let me
make sure thank you okay you should have my exhibits on your screen they're coming up right now
and i also have so what i'll do mr chairman the the plans and the renderings um were of scan
quality so i actually have the powerpoint that was incorporated directly i'll use that so it's
easier for everybody to see our architect is also i believe in the room um rich villa he he just
waved to us okay great so he's there to answer questions as well so i'll let me go through this
I'm going to start with the PowerPoint, if that's okay.
So this is the final product on your screen.
You should have a rendering on your screen.
That is how the building will look.
The next page is pretty important.
So there's an existing structure there.
You can see it.
I'm circling it with my cursor.
It's on the left side.
And then you can see very faintly superimposed R building, which is as it would appear on the right.
and it's kind of imposed over it, so the existing structure, that is.
The original structure was not conforming as to height.
It was 40 feet high.
You can see it here.
Our building will be 42 feet high.
So even though our variance is a four-foot height variance,
I would argue that it's only a de minimis increase over the current building,
which, for reasons that I'll get into, is obsolete.
um actually let me jump to the refusal I'm going to jump back so let me zoom in
so we got a refusal refusal for having six units instead of having seven instead of six units this
is a CMX2 property you see it here uh the seventh unit we were about a half of a unit short the
calculation resulted in about six and a half units we're asking for seven I'll explain why
in a moment also we have a rear yard variance request uh it says four feet proposed where nine
feet is required we actually do have a nine foot rear yard and i'll get again get into that in more
detail in a moment but we got a four foot uh refusal because of the existence of balconies
which were considered a structure but most of the yard is open and is nine feet and the rear yard
But most of the yard is open and is nine feet, and the rear yard itself, the area of the rear yard, is compliant.
itself
So let me, so you can see, here's the height variance, and then here's the maximum occupied area variance.
Let me go back to our chart here, and let me zoom in.
Let me zoom out a little bit.
There we go.
So the original structure was over 96% lock coverage.
so it was a non-conforming yacht lot both for height and for occupied area while the requirement
is 65 we are proposing 84 but it is as you can see a significant improvement over the original
structure which occupied most of the lot this first floor is a restaurant now let me say mr
chairman that we're going to be submitting to you that there is a hardship presented by this property
The restaurants have failed. There's been five different attempts to operate the restaurant on the first floor of this structure. It was Michael's way back, and then my clients had bought the property in 2016, inherited it as a non-conforming structure.
The restaurants have continued to fail at this property.
It is currently vacant.
It's an unusual site.
It's a little tricky for a restaurant, and no one has been able to maintain the business there.
There are two apartment units above on this property.
My clients, for years, have attempted to get a certificate of occupancy.
They inherited those two units as occupied units, but they were unable to get.
they went to the city to try to get rental license and certificate and were told that
there's no certificate of occupancy for those units. The requirements to convert those units
to code involved completely tearing out all the walls, fire rating the walls, and fire rating
the flooring, and also sprinkler systems and other mechanicals. So the cost of getting a
certificate of occupancy for the existing units was so extreme it made no sense to do it they had
and of course the difficulty with the rent with the first floor space this decision was made that
was compelled them to seek a new structure which would be fully code meet all code comply and be
compliant with all current codes so let's get to that um this is the site plan i'm going to zoom
in on the right here so you can see the rear yard issues here and i won't belabor the point we do
have no opposition but let me just want to get some stuff on the record by the way here's the
cross section mr chairman and members of the board you can see uh the the two feet added to
the height over the current structure it's this little line here and then this is the the outline
of the current structure so there's not a huge increase in massing over the current structure
this is the and i'll show you on on a elevation you can see the balconies
this is the real balcony here i'm indicating with my cursor that's why we got that four foot
refusal but it's actually a nine foot deep rear yard and it's a lot a lot of open space this
dotted line here is actually the current uh structure so you can see how it's it's practically
100 occupancy um and so the current this is all new open space here with the new structure so
it's a vast we would argue obviously it's a vast improvement over the current structure um
um this is the first here's more renderings lots of glass which the name the neighborhood group
was very happy to see we do have a commercial space there is a refusal for not being deep
enough but it's de minimis it's basically about 28 feet deep I'll show you over here
this is the floor plan of the first floor I'll zoom in here so you can really get a sense of
that first floor. And so you can even read it. Let me zoom in again. So this is our trash room
here. It's got an entrance from the street and it's got an entrance from the interior. There'll
be a container and there'll be a commercial hauler to take trash. All tenants will have access to the
trash room and trash storage. There's a bike room here. There's an elevator here. So the reason why
we want that seventh unit, Mr. Chairman, instead of just sticking with the six units, is discussions
with the neighbors. It was clear that they did not want commercial in the back. Some of these
neighbors here and here were at the meeting, were very concerned about the construction, but
in conversations with my clients, they indicated very strongly that there would probably be
in conversations with my clients they indicated very strongly that they would probably be opposed
if we attempted to have commercial along the entire first floor so this was a critical um
having a residential unit on that first floor was a critical aspect of working with the community
working with the rco and most importantly working with the near neighbors so they were very clear
they wanted residential rather than commercial so there's a single unit on the first floor
And let me show you those. This is, there is a roof deck which will be fully, which will not be abused. There's not going to be any type of party use. Let me zoom in a little bit. There we go. Here's a more detailed look at the first floor. Let me just show you those balconies.
These are the balconies here on this cross section.
You see them here.
This is our rear yard fenced in.
And I think that's the most of the, oh, here it is, this is a little better.
So you can see this was deemed the structure, so we did not get credit for the full rear
yard depth.
Let me show you some photos.
So we would say as follows, Mr. Chairman, the current structure is obsolete.
it's a hardship to redevelop it. You cannot get a certificate of occupancy with the current layout
without an extensive amount of investment. And the first four commercial space has been very
difficult. It looks weird. Let me show you some photos. Actually, that was the last thing I wanted
to show you. It's an odd layout for a restaurant. There's windows. Let me rotate. There's odd
Windows. This is the last restaurant that was operating there. It failed within a couple of
years. Here's our posting. And it's an unusual structure. So we would send it as follows. We
believe this is a permitted use. We have designed a mixed-use structure, which we have no opposition
from the neighbors. The neighbors were happy to see that. Let me go back to that later. This is
the RCO letter. There were a couple people who were in opposition, but their concerns
were mostly with the construction. It wasn't really with the use. I would think it's fair
to say there was near unanimity as to the use itself, having a smaller commercial space
with residential units. There wasn't a lot of opposition to the density. Part of the members
of the RCO board liked the extra density. But again, six is as of right, and the seventh unit
really allows us both to protect the rear of the first floor and have a residential quiet use for
the neighbor neighbors in the rear um and so that is why we want that seventh unit so um let me go
ahead and get my clients on board our architects in the room to answer questions why don't you get
your client first then we know your architecture very good uh so phil and allison if you can unmute
mute or raise your virtual hand. Are you with us? Should be a Phil Harvey or Allison Harvey
Hindenman? Do we see a heart of anybody? Allison had been promoted to speak. Thank
you very much. Hi, this is Allison Harvey and I'm here with my father Philip Harvey.
Hi, this is Philip Harvey.
Okay, who's going to testify?
If it's okay, sorry, go ahead.
I'll testify.
Okay, good.
Okay, fine.
Please state and spell your name for the stenographer.
Spell your name, Phil.
Philip Harvey.
That's P-H-I-L-I-P-H-A-R-V-E-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Mr. Harvey, did you hear my presentation to the Board today?
Yes, I think you gave a very accurate and complete description of what the situation is on this
property. Okay, terrific. And can you also adopt everything I said as your formal testimony in
this zoning case? Yes. I want to just ask you one additional question before we turn it over to
questions um was this proposal the seven units and the structure as proposed is it the minimum
development that you can propose in order to feasibly develop this property yes
mr chairman i i'm done with the owners and uh if the board here's what i'll do is we'll take
questions from the board and there's questions relative to the architects your architect
sitting right here okay perfect all right so questions yeah yeah i have a question
Yeah, I have a question about the commercial space and sort of what's the long-term plan for that space.
about the commercial space and sort of what's the long
So I'll answer before Phil does.
This was discussed at the neighborhood meeting.
The hope is to get a smaller, like a cafe-style use.
With no kitchen?
Or is the plan to have the tenant do the fit out?
I see the architect is coming.
well phil why don't you handle that what do you sure go ahead
phil did you hear the question phil
i think we lost you might have muted yourself
phil are you there you hear me yes good now we can okay
Yes, I heard the question. And there could be some minor cooking facilities, either at the first level or down in the basement. But if I had my druthers, I would take a florist shop. Thank you.
And the basement is strictly storage and utilities, by the way.
Okay. And is the basement restricted to that commercial unit or can all tenants in the building access the basement?
There are different portions to the basement.
There will be tenant storage on the northwest end of the basement, and there will be, in the front, underneath the commercial, that will be dedicated to the commercial tenant.
Go ahead.
I guess another question I have is about mail and just package drop-off, package management.
I see you do have a dedicated residential lobby, but it does seem to have mostly space for people to transit through it.
And I just want to know, what's your plan for managing seven units worth of Amazon packages and DoorDash?
Yeah, actually, what has been described as a bike room is really a package room.
I misspoke.
I might also add, this is going to be an elevator building with direct access to each unit from the elevator, which will open on the front or back, depending on which unit it's accessing.
So private entrance and private elevator access for each apartment.
We're really looking to get a higher end user here and people who will be more stable.
So DeMarco, your architect has been attempting to put his hands up several times.
Yeah, he can talk.
Do you want me to swear him in?
Yeah, please.
I misspoke.
Please state your name and spell it for the stenographer.
Richard Dullo.
real quick i misspoke that's a package room not a bike room that's for amazon packages
richard villa r-i-c-h-a-r-d-v-i-l-l-a do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth yes mr demarco he's sworn in do you have questions or referrals for him or no i can i
i can just say have him state mr bill mr villa you're the architect for this project yes um is
this project the minimum uh development necessary to overcome the hardship posed by the original
structure yes i'll go ahead mr chairman uh i'm fine does anybody have a question for the architect
i was just going to clarify the all right go ahead uh that the we do have a bike room um mr
demarco uh correct himself we do have a bike room all right sorry a package room i gotta correct
myself a package room a trash room we have an area right next to the front door that is labeled as
mail so we can do mail and packages uh and as far as bikes the units upstairs are nice size two
bedrooms i think anybody's going to bring their bike up to their unit which happens in a lot of
buildings i do other questions storage in the basement i don't have a question i just think
just two general comments i think the while the facade is really nice i would put something that
allows people to know which door is the main door for the lobby i think you have four doors you'd
the emergency egress you have the trash door you have the commercial door and i think yes you're
showing the number but like something that lets visitors and like delivery people know that that's
the main entrance i will say that we do intend to put the name of the building and do me a favor get
it closer sorry but to put the name of the building and the address closer to the front door and then
allow the space above the commercial to have the commercial signage which would come back for its
own zoning permit i think the second thing is it's always great when you have a ground floor
apartment to be able to allow the people that might have mobility needs
to be able to allow the people that might have mobility needs to access those units.
I do see you have the wheelchair circle along the leading up to it.
So I'm hoping that the developer keeps that restricted to people who need wheelchair access.
And I'd just like to point out that we did present this brick, which is a nice,
it's like a burgundy brick with a nice sheen to it.
And that'll be the brick facade.
And the brick does have, the facade has some nice details to it, nice big windows.
all right thank you any other questions questions from our attorney
more uh to make a comment actually to let the applicant mr harvey know that um it's not going
to affect um what's happening here today but that his date of consolidation is incorrect
and he might want to get it corrected because it's indicates the property at 828 is 828 south
fourth street not south eighth street oh i did not notice thank you because i just looked at
your deed data consolidation i noticed i'm like they're not next to each other so you might want
to look into that and um i don't know the opa numbers everything like that you just might want
to look into that definitely the data consolidation we will definitely look into it yeah i see there's
there's a it's a scrivener's error you're right yeah right here okay you see it look oh yes yes
i do see it oh wait yeah no that can't be right everybody sees it hold on a moment questions or
comments from the virtual audience not at this time chair planning commission
madison matera planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the
existing CMX 2 commercial mixed use zoning at this location. The refusal for ground floor use
dimensions is de minimis. The appellant has demonstrated that there are unique conditions
or circumstances of the property that are perfect conformance with the code for rear yard depth,
occupied area, and building height. The proposed lot size per dwelling unit is a de minimis
deviation from the zoning code. The Planning Commission recommends the board grant the
request of variances for rear yard depth, occupied area, building height, ground floor,
use dimensions and seven units. Thank you. MI 2026 002 856 824 to 26 South A Street I vote yes.
Michael Johns my vote is yes. Cheryl Gaston my vote is yes. Tanetta Graham my vote is yes.
Ryan McAdams my vote is yes. Iowyn my vote is yes. Thank you Mr. DeMarco. Thank you for your time
everybody have a good night. Great and thank you for August you moved me up so I could make dinner
on my birthday. Oh, here you go. I made it. Thank you. We appreciate it. We're happy to
hear that. Okay. All right. So number 10, MI 2026-002-888-5911 Ridge Avenue. Brett
Feldman is the attorney, and I see that Brett is not here.
here you go it is me andrea so we know we think we know that could you please state and spell
your name for this stenographer andrea solomon a-n-d-r-e-a-s-a-l-o-m-o-n right do you swear
or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do could you identify
your client a relationship to this property yes my client is nikki group uh l i believe llp uh
with me today is corey goodman they're the owner of the property and with us today also is a
representative of the proposed tenant concentra urgent care and the project architect mr robert
lynn okay our our vice chair has a few questions good afternoon have you submitted your documents
exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing we did and this is a special exception so do you
waive the rating of your referral as to play to its accuracy thank you all right thank you
you can share your screen to proceed with your case and the central roxford has you as unanimous
support i am raising my hand but do not not see the share screen can we make sure you're in
One moment, please.
Angela, you have been promoted.
Thank you.
I'm just sharing my screen.
okay thank you again andrea solomon from claire harrison harvey bransburg on behalf of the
applicant the nikki group this is an application for a special exception approval at the former
rite aid location on 59 11 ridge avenue one of many rite aid locations that are looking for
one of many Rite Aid locations that are looking for redevelopment of this large footprint building.
redevelopment of this.
This is, I think, a proposed use that will fit nicely into it, a proposed urgent care facility
for Concentra. Matt is here and he can speak a little bit to the need and their growth,
but their current location in Roxborough is at the Roxborough Memorial Hospital. They have about
half the square footage that they would be growing into and able to expand their services
our application received we met with the Central Roxborough Civic Association about two weeks ago
and received their unanimous support we worked a lot with them even though this application is
just for the use as part of the new tenant coming in the owner will be making some some improvements
to the facade, the streetscape, and the parking configuration that come out of their requests
and they're wanting to be more pedestrian access, just a better streetscape in what
is their busy commercial corridor.
Again, we received their unanimous support.
We also have a letter of support from Drexel University, which is one of the bigger
clients that Concentra serves, as well as Matt will speak to, a lot of work-related injuries
for the city as well. The property is zoned CMX 2.5 and located, as I mentioned, right at the
commercial corridor of uh Roxborough Avenue um we can keep flipping um it's it's long been vacant
since I think about two years since Rite Aid left and there is another vacant tenant space
that used to be a Chinese restaurant we're preserving that restaurant use
demising the Rite Aid space into two tenant properties so one will be a vacant commercial
tenant space that we're hoping to fill the bigger of the two tenant spaces will be uh inhabited by
concentra again this has been long vacant uh here's a picture of the parking field and the
building as it is now and behind me i know bob has been near the playground the the playground
isn't the playground right there no no i'll see that there's there's a wendy's because i can't
yeah at the end there there's a there's a church and a cemetery across ridge ave
and the wendy's diner right next door the diner is close by okay all right yeah
and and we are just down the street from rocksboro memorial which is where concentra is now
um here's here's a little bit better view of where we are
okay with the wendy's next door and uh we love to see empty ride aids but this is
this is what they look you know you can imagine what they look like and it'll be
uh of course improved um with that i'd love if we could swear in mr lynn so that he can speak
to a little bit could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer absolutely robert
h lynn l-i-n-n business address 1140 north providence road media do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth yes i do counsel please proceed thank you
hi bob uh can you please state for the record uh your title and your relationship to this project
certainly nice seeing everybody again thanks for serving here um uh bob lynn i'm the principal
lynn architects we just started our 45th official year on monday so we've been hanging around while
i formed the company 45 years ago which does make me slightly old that's okay um uh we are architects
civil engineers and code officials um we are in delaware county um i'm 31 years now on the planning
Commission to the Providence Township. I'm the zoning officer in one municipality, which is
Upper Providence, and I co-chair that position in two other municipalities in Delaware County, so
I see zoning a lot. I have worked on five comprehensive plans in three municipalities,
and again, we do site civil and architecture for a living, and I've had the privilege of appearing
in front of you several times. Why don't we proceed? Yeah, and Bob, you've been retained
by the owner on this project. I have indeed, yes. And I know you've walked the property,
And I know you've walked the property. Just describe briefly the conditions that it's in now.
just describe briefly the conditions that it's.
Certainly. And I'll give you a couple. I'm going to make this less than five minutes, I promise.
Well, I can't be much time. You gave me 30 last time. I used 27. I got three spare, if you recall.
That's hearing. We basically have 246 feet of frontage on Ridge Avenue.
We have 144 feet of frontage on Gerard Street or Gerhard Street on the side.
What Andrea just described was three different pieces of the puzzle.
The entire site is 26,789 square feet, which is about 0.61 acres.
There's a 10,967-foot building on the site.
The proposed use we are talking today is on the left-hand side under my pointer.
The recently closed sit-down take-out restaurants on the right-hand side,
and the space we'd like to see a tenant for is in the center of the parcel.
Basically, the consent for use, which Matt will describe more fully in a minute,
is about 7,165 square feet of the entire building.
We took a design approach of attempting to enhance the facade.
The site is in pretty bad condition.
Sorry, I was just, I'll lean first and then I'll, excuse me.
The site and the property is not in great condition. I think the photographs you saw gave you a better idea of what we're looking at.
Again, the facade is something left over from the 1960s. You saw that earlier in photographs. I don't even know what the pent roof is, frankly.
So we took the approach of doing six things. We first of all put a water table to anchor it in a simulated stone at the bottom with a little concrete cap.
We cleaned up all the fenestration in the facade doors.
We cleaned up this sign band.
The signs, if you look at the photographs, are left over where they put them right on the roof, which is the old school way of doing them.
And then we went ahead and we did a new pent roof, and we did some brackets under the pent roof.
They were the initial passes we took.
We also did some decorative lighting on the facade of the building.
When we interfaced with the RCO, they had some really well-thought-out suggestions what they wanted to see, and they were quite engaged in the project.
And they came up with, that was June 23rd of this year, they came up with six suggestions, which we incorporated.
First of all, they wanted to see a wider sidewalk at the building.
The current sidewalk is only five feet.
So what we did was we expanded the sidewalk.
That was something they thought would be more of a sense of arrival.
Plus, when you're parking there, your car bumper, when it hangs over, doesn't close the door of the building, which happens on these narrow sidewalks.
They didn't want to see us increase parking.
Parking right now is just abysmal.
It's a series of angular spaces.
And you really can't get in or out of any of them.
You can't circulate through the lot for 24 spaces.
We thought at first everybody wanted to see increased parking.
There is no parking required for this particular use.
But they said, no, we're a walkable community, decreased parking of anything.
So we did a new configuration.
We went from 24 to 22.
But what we did is we created legitimate spaces with legitimate backup distance, no more confusion.
So you have head-in spaces to the new widened sidewalk and head-in spaces to Ridge Avenue.
The next piece we did was we widened this particular landscape buffer.
Right now it's zero.
It's literally right up to the property line.
And we took that, we went from zero feet to 14 and a half feet.
So now we have a legitimate piece of landscaping on the front, and that introduced another 1,152 square feet of area because one of the other goals was to get more pervious surface.
So we've got a stormwater management recharge situation available to us, quite a bit more there.
There's also a little pot over on the side where we enhance the landscaping.
The final piece, they wanted to see a safe pedestrian path from the Ridge Avenue to the building.
So we literally, and you can see it in the rendering, there's a little stamp pattern that leads you directly from Ridge along the side.
Again, this is Wendy's to the right.
And there's a really scrubby little landscape island that's just off our property.
We might be able to even clean that up to get into the building.
And the last piece was really, really bright.
They wanted to pin letters instead of a sign.
So we went to pin letters, which Concentra has done on other facilities.
So the pin letters is a little more upscale modern. And when we go to the next two occupancies, we'll carry that theme across with pin lettering for the other two occupancies. So it was a combination of functionality of the site and aesthetics. And I think we now have a legitimate parking field, decent landscaping, much better stormwater management control, and all the other bells and whistles that bring this from 1960 into 2026.
As a result of that, we went to the meeting one.
As a result of that, we went to the meeting on September 10th, and we got a tremendous turnout at that meeting. There were somewhere approaching, I believe, 30 people that came, were very well engaged, listened carefully, thanked us for what we did.
and actually i'm i rarely get letters it's nice so i'll read one sentence this is the letter of
september 17th crca and the last comment is people greatly appreciate the willingness of
the applicant and the property owner to make the visual and functional improvements that we feel
are important to re-enliven it's a new word for me this location there was unanimous community
support for this appeal so that's to me speaks volumes about if you do listen to people and you
do try to implement it um you get a good response back okay thanks bob and i know you're familiar
with the requirements of special exception and the programmatic requirements of concentra uh do you
have any reason to believe that this would create a detrimental impact beyond those of a typical
group medical use no i don't and again this board certainly is probably heard ad nauseam that
there's nothing special about a special exception it's really a use by right as long as you match
the conditions that you're not impacting if you will certain HSW type of components and there's
six of them listed they're under your section 14-3037 I believe E is a sub letter and they talk
about similar to variances but you can't increase congestion you can't change the uh the fire impact
you can't change the water impact you can't block air and light all the bells and whistles and I
could spend the 30 minutes talking, but I suspect you'd rather have me say that, yes, I truly believe
that this application complies with all the special exception standards, and I can focus on
any individual one if you have a concern about it. Great. Thanks, Bob. With that, I'd like to
bring Matthew DeLong up. He's a representative of Concentra. Thank you. Sir, could you please
state your name and spelled for the stenographer matthew long m-a-t-t-h-e-w-d-e-l-o-n-g the
swearer firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do counsel thanks
um matt can you briefly state for the record your uh relationship to concentra the proposed tenant
so i am the director of operations for eastern pa southern new jersey and delaware so just assist
with the oversight of 24 brick and mortar facilities in the tri-state. And just briefly
for the record, tell us about the current operations in Upper Roxborough and how this
new facility will improve your ability to serve your clients. Yes, so we're currently in approximately
3,300 square feet in the Roxborough Hospital. It is a small wing of the hospital. We cannot have
any x-ray on site. We cannot have physical therapy on site. And honestly, it's a little bit of a
challenge for our flow and the patient care so this will just kind of open things up and and
kind of run smoother for our clients great thanks and matt is here if the board has any questions
operation this is like an urge center so we're listed as an urgent care but we are primarily
occupational health oh okay all right we have relationships with the city of philadelphia
philadelphia parking authority housing authority and tell me drexel what's the relationship with
Drexel? Same situation. We work with Drexel University, and we manage their injury care.
We manage their pre-employment services. Same situation. All right. Questions from the board.
My client, the property owner, is also online, and if he could just adopt my testimony quickly,
that'd be great. Okay. Why don't you bring him on? Corey, if you could raise your hand in the
virtual audience corey has been promoted to panelists okay corey hello hi could you please
state your name is spelled for the stenographer yes corey goodman c-o-r-y g-o-o-d-m-a-n
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Council.
Corey, can you state for the record your relationship to the property owner, Niki Group?
So I'm vice president of the Niki Group LLC.
We're a boutique commercial real estate firm based in San Diego.
And this former Rite Aid on Ridge Ave is one of our properties.
Great.
And you saw the entirety of my presentation.
correct and is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge
yes and do you adopt it as your own testimony i do questions from the board yeah i don't yeah
just have one question it was hard for me to see the presentation because it wasn't digital
um but i did kind of get the gist of it so mostly defer to the folks that are there for for comments
Mostly defer to the folks that are there for for comments.
I apologize.
I apologize about that, and I am happy to flip to the.
Landscape plans that were being pointed out during the presentation.
I have so is this replacing the 1 at Roxborough hospital now? So that won't be shut down. Yes, that's correct. We would be moving from Roxborough hospital to this location. Okay. And my question about the site is besides the lighting that's on the building.
is there any other light lighting fixtures or whatever that are that's going to be on the site
there is existing current lighting which is on the outer perimeter down lighting shoebox style
that's facing inboard which we're going to leave we believe the photometrics work very well
Wendy's has some interesting lighting next door but we believe the site's well lit and again we
try to illuminate we always try to put something at the facade of the building that's the safe zone
want to be at least three foot candles track you to it and be safe on the sidewalk in front of it so
i believe the lighting will be adequate i have a question for our attorney first before um
the parking was not on the original okay but do we need to review it we're only no okay all right
that will be a separate application this is just for the special exception for the use
okay i was like i'm not crazy right now it was just part of our dialogue with the rco
and so we we wanted to share the improvements that will be made we believe that the parking
and the landscape percentages are actually consistent with all the regulations that this
was developed today so we weren't going we're going through streets and water and everything
else parallel sure i think we understand that i was just like on the grounds of today's zoning
case it's not currently relevant so we're here for special exception yeah i guess i have a question
about the group medical so for our consent so understanding this needs a special exception
um for this space um what is your plan for uh like the drop-off services for people that are coming
for i guess your appointments uh can you explain that a little better so like a lot of people
especially elderly especially people who are dealing with you know temporary ailments physical
ailments they're often dropped off by like a medical service or a van and i don't see a current
location on the zoning plan that addresses anybody getting dropped off even if they're coming in an
uber into your facility yeah i think that is where that parking space is the plan comes in and there
are ADA and van compliant parking. We can certainly look into designating specific spaces for drop
off, but that's not contemplated. Parking but not loading. So like typically the van doesn't
always pull into, like a person could be parked in the ADA parking space. So I feel like a lot
of times medical facilities have like a loading, there's like a loading area for people who are
just getting dropped off and might need even assistance, you know, getting into the medical
space we we will certainly take that into account um one nice thing is one night one nice i'm trying
i understand uh one thing is the the aisle between the spaces is 31 feet half the aisles in
philadelphia 20 or 22 feet so there's enough room actually even if you can't drive well back in and
out of the spaces there's also enough room there for it to have a vehicle that's longer if you will
that could pull in the space.
And even if it hangs out six or eight feet,
it's still not blocking the circulation aisle.
Currently, it's a disaster.
I mean, I don't know how anybody ever got anything
for the Rite Aid, to be honest.
So I was very pleased by going to double-loaded
90-degree parking, leaving a wide 31-foot aisle.
And again, we can designate a space
probably in the right.
There are, as you know by ratio,
you need one accessible space for...
Hey, I'm just going to cut you off
because I think we're over...
So my question is mostly for Concentra.
it's just like so your plan is that you're going to address it when you do the parking
yeah and corey the building owner can speak to that none of the parking spaces are allocated
specifically to concentra at this time okay we we can certainly look into it yeah we can certainly
take a look what do you do with the hospital now because you don't go into the emergency room right
no no so i'm saying where do they where do they drop off right in front so i was going to say we
necessarily have like an emergency service drop right again we're in an emergency service i'm
just thinking like old people that get we're more so in occupational health so that's not necessarily
something that's utilized with our services in any of our other facilities okay it's it's not
a common practice at all that they're getting transportation from any kind of outside vendors
at all okay don't answer my so your job is to get people back to work correct that's exactly right
Trash is in the rear of the facility. The beauty is we actually have a gate over on the side street
and a giant concrete rollout area, which they've used for the Rite Aid. So
half the time you don't know what to do with the conflict of trash. It's behind the building.
half the time you don't know what to do with the conflict of trash it's behind the building
and then my other question is about just the volume of appointments that you typically have
in a day and do you take walk-ins we do take walk-ins yes uh we are generally approximately
66 to 70 visits per day at that location so we're looking at eight to ten patients per hour somewhere
in there and then how many uh staff do you have on site so we would have to increase staff again we
do not currently have x-ray we do not currently have physical therapy but right now there's
approximately six or seven uh mss pss kind of vmas of the center and then generally one to two
providers so you're still thinking like maxed out this is what we're talking like 15 to 22 people
could be in this space and just parcel tenant space number one at any given hour uh that would
be a very very high estimate i guess seven people ten pages you said 10 10 to 15 appointments
That's 7 employees. That's 22 people. If they didn't, if they came alone, there is street parking on the side that I would expect the colleagues of concentra to generally utilize. Okay.
And a bus stop on the corner.
What are the questions they do currently take public transportation to the location? Most of them. I shouldn't say I like the sidewalk. You make one back on the side there. Yeah, that's that's.
most people just leave it open you walk through the parking lot but council uh yes just what was
brought up before parking is not included you'll have to have a special uh permit and also um
potentially you might need to have streets look at this i can't hear that could you speak i'm sorry
oh i'm sorry i can't hear um i just said for this application parking is not included so you're
going to have to do a separate application and potentially um you might have to do something
with streets with approval for this absolutely it will be a separate application currently the plan
contemplates keeping the existing curb cuts but we will submit a separate application and go through
all the required approvals for it for the reconfiguration okay because you mentioned
that you expanded the sidewalk that that's what it might trigger streets that's why okay thank you
questions or comments from the virtual audience not at this time chair planning commission
Madison Matera, Planning Commission staff. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing CMX2 commercial mixed-use zoning at this location. The appellant has shown that the proposed group medical practitioner office will have no detrimental impact beyond what might be reasonably expected. The Planning Commission recommends the board grant the proposed special exception for group medical, dental, and health practitioner.
MI 2026-002-888-5911 Ridge Avenue. I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tonetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes.
Ioann, my vote is yes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your time today.
Thank you.
Where's the
Is Alan outside?
All right.
Mr. Nockam's in outside?
I mean, he's been sitting there most of the day.
I mean, most of the afternoon.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, why don't we do this?
We're going to, Alan, come up and get set up.
We're going to take a five-minute break to staff needs a little bit of a rest.
How's that?
I said, well, I mean, that's why they need a rest, Alan.
Let me get some more water.
Number 13.
No, no, wait, wait, wait.
Number 13, right?
Right on Ian's list, right?
You got to always remember what Ian has his list here.
And by the way, that's what everybody else has.
So, all right.
So, MI 2026-002-912-1449 North 75th Street.
Alan Nockamson is the attorney.
Mr. Nockamson, just for their record, please state and spell your name.
Alan Nockamson.
A-L-A-N, last name Nockamson, N-O-C-H-U-M-S-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
yeah my client is stanley mcdaniel the owner of the property and he should be in the virtual
audience our uh our vice chair has just a few questions sure good afternoon have you submitted
your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing yes we have and do you wait to
read now your refusal or stipulate to its accuracy yes we do all right thank you show your screen and
proceed with the case now a quick point do you have an rco letter oh we do yes unfortunately
Yes. Unfortunately, it's a letter of opposition, but it's in our panel.
it's a letter of opposition but it's you know okay well we don't yeah then
Oh, okay. Well, we don't have anything here.
Yeah, well, it's a good story.
Am I right?
We might have missed that.
Okay, I put in my presentation.
If you can also just submit it separately.
Oh, yeah, sure. We'll send it over to you guys.
If I could just be promoted as a panelist.
You have been promoted to panelists.
1449 north 75th street um we have 12 exhibits here uh we'll go through them uh and we have
uh stanley as the owner of the property stanley is a former firefighter as well as police officer
um and he owns this property uh to live on the first floor um he travels to see his daughter
back and forth in atlanta so the the intention was to renovate the first floor the first floor
was originally a garage and storage area and then the second and third floors were uh just two units
combined in there and um what happened was and you hear this story a lot he hired a contractor
he thought that the contractor was doing everything right found out that wasn't the case
and then he had to go across the street to city hall and deal with you know lni in terms of
violations and and fines and it took a few years for him to deal with that and he finally dealt
with it unfortunately the collateral damage is just not stanley but the neighbors who are upset
with him and stanley's upset just because he's upset because he's had to deal with this for a few
years so you know his demeanor at the community meeting immediately wasn't the best i told him
you know the neighbors have a right to speak and say what they want to say and you can be upset
but they're not the enemy the enemy is your general contractor who you know did wrong by you
um so you know at the very least and he let the rental licenses lapse where it's now for the two
places upstairs for the two places upstairs so and i don't even think that based on the letter
of opposition they even say it's going from two units to three units right so if this board feels
so inclined or to deny the three units which we think is appropriate under the circumstances
at the very least they should grant it with proviso maximum two units at least you know
get him those two units he had previously um so the notice of refusal is for an rsa5 property
is the corner of Woodbine and 75th Street.
It's a rather large lot of 3,124 square feet.
He did get a permit, you know,
the one permit he did get
or his architect got for him
that was to close up the two garage doors
to add that additional space on the ground floor.
And you'll see there's no below-basement,
there's no below-ground living, right?
So where he's going to live is above ground.
But he closed up the garage legally
with his owning permit.
you know getting the building permits and all that that's going to be a chore whether it's
two or three units but he's we've advised him and we told him he needs to do that the good thing
about three units is that if it's three units as the board knows he has to put a sprinkler system
in there so that's going to add some extra safety measures if it goes in that direction
so we did meet with the community it was unanimously in opposition um like i said i
don't think my client presented well because he's just really frustrated and upset you know he again
he was a former police officer who believes in the rule of law you know he's he's not only served
our community as a police officer but as a volunteer firefighter you know everything's
black and white to him and you know he's you know he's like well why am i fighting at all like i
did everything i i thought i was doing everything the right way i hired a general contractor i
assumed i get all the permits and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose and i have to deal with
this for many, many years and spend a lot, our firm didn't represent them, but many hours and
thousands of dollars in litigation with the city. So they did have comments, and I wanted to go
through the comments of opposition. The community has every right to say what they want in the
community, but it does have to make sense too. So the first comment was that the applicant did not
come to the RCO before pursuing the zoning relief. Well, we did and we didn't, right? There's a
process we we apply for the zoning permit application or we apply for zoning permit
we get a refusal which we knew we're going to get and we go through that process and we went through
that process but it's not very often that you go to the community before you even make the
application you know some of my clients we've tried especially for bigger projects to go to
especially for bigger projects to go to the community most communities are not receptive to
the community. Most communities are not receptive.
that you know they're already overloaded so what we did was not anything different than most people
do we didn't try to slip it by them um we followed the process and you know we tried to explain that
to them the second is about the construction noise from the equipment again my client hired a bad
general contractor he admits that he you know i'm going to apologize on his behalf because he's
frustrated and it's you know some people get so emotional about these things it's incapable of
of expressing what should be said and so i do apologize you know on behalf of my client to
the community and i did afterwards too i said i'm so sorry like even some community members was like
i was hoping to support this but your client was really difficult and that's a nice word what they
said so um third thing construction occurring outside of permitted hours again my client hired
a bad contractor he's going to he's he's intending to hire a good one who's going to follow the rule
of law number four which doesn't make sense to us neighbors are receiving trash and sanitation
violations so they're separately receiving trash and and sanitation violations they're somehow
blaming us for that that somehow what we're doing on that site either through trash debris or
something is somehow going to their properties i think we looked on atlas and we did about like
three one ones or trash i don't think anything's been done the last year like there's been no
violations the last year so since we filed so i can't speak to that uh no clear answer what on
what permits have been pulled again we what we're showing you is what we show the community we stated
that my client got a zoning permit to close up the garages. He thought he was getting all these
alteration and building permits to do the right thing. He thought he was getting three units as
a matter of rights. That's the truth. And unfortunately, who he relied on, they didn't
do the right thing. And the last one, it kind of speaks to the relief that we're asking for
and a minimum of two units the variance saw duplex to triplex in the comparison offered right so i
don't think they even dispute that this was previously used as a try a duplex for many many
many years and we have the rental license to show when it expired but the triplex that we're offering
is on the same street we're a corner property in woodbine i think it's martha i don't remember the
cross street on the other side and we have a picture it's the same exact type of building
that's a triplex as well they're like well that that that that zoning permit was granted 42 years
ago it's like anything whether it's granted 42 years ago 42 hours ago 42 minutes ago 42 seconds
ago it's the same thing right so it's apples to apples like that's what we're trying to say it's
not out of character so we're hoping that the board the two units were legal and then he let
it expire he let it expire but when he didn't let it expire the problem is he had all these violations
And as many members of the board know, once we have a violation against the property, we can't renew the rental license.
Yep, I got it.
Property history.
So here you see is the two rental licenses that expired on October.
So it's from August of 2021 to October of 2022.
So we're past the three years.
And then I also have the zoning permit application, or zoning permit, excuse me, where he enclosed the area where the garage was.
And then here's the three units at 1401-03, North 75th Street, Apples to Apples.
And then this is just an aerial view of 1401-03, right, kind of showing that even how it looks from an aerial view is exactly the same as ours.
and then this is the side view of 1401 again you'll see it's very similar to ours where you
have a side front door for unit number one and then you have unit number two and three that go
up those steps and then maps so like here's our property you can see it's really really large
you know compared to the other properties on that street from a lot size perspective
other than the huge apartment building that's behind us so it's also not out of character
to have such large multifamily living behind us.
And that's called Haverford Court Apartments.
And then photographs of the property,
as you can see, similar to 1401,
there's a front door, it's two stories,
really three stories because as you see
how the property slopes,
that would be the first floor unit.
Everything is above ground.
Here's a zoning hearing notice postings
for both public streets.
North 75th Street to the right of the property,
to left of the property woodbine avenue to right of the property until left of the property
our interior photos.
our interior photos and again he was just going to completely cut this place out and then
And again, he was just gonna completely gut this place out.
And then obviously he got stopped in his tracks
because there was an issue with L and I.
But really, this application really is legalizing
all three units, but really two of the units
existed previously.
And then just the floor plan.
So this is really what would be the new use
is here's that side door.
and by the way there's a back door as well you have a living room a kitchen and then you have
you have two bedrooms and you have a bathroom right next to the two bathrooms i mean two bedrooms
which is always good right we try and then instead of going to unit number one you have unit number
two and three and these are the existing ones where you come up a flight of steps you have a
living room you have a kitchen a dining room a kitchen and you have the two bedrooms and right
Right next to the two bedrooms is the bathroom and the same floor plan is for the third floor
as well.
We met with the community on August 11th.
It was a well attended meeting.
We sent that notice to, I can't see how many addresses, 89 addresses.
These are the addresses, proof of mailing to those addresses.
Our application for zoning variance along with the notice of refusal and the project
information form our deed to property showing that stanley owns the property again he's not
a company he's not hiding behind a company he just wanted to buy a property renovate it live
in the ground floor unit and continue and and fix it up it's been you know you know it's it's old
and he wanted to fix it up to to add value to the community um i would ask that stanley virtually
raise his hand and be sworn in and of course we would answer any questions the board may have
danny has been promoted to panelists danley could you please state and spell your name for
the stenographer yeah can you hear me again okay yes stanley mcdaniel uh s-t-n-l-e-y-m-c-d-a-n-i-e-l
right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
all right far cancel oh yeah stanley you heard everything i had to state today about your zoning
matter all right is it true and correct yes sir including all the issues you had with the general
contractor you hired correct also may i add something to it as well sure yeah i do have a
licensed contract on standby uh waiting to um complete the project out again like um you stated
already that it was an issue with the contractor that i thought was a licensed certified insured
contractor but when i found out he wasn't i had to go to city hall and again i'm just reiterating
what you just said and took me through a whole lot of process and they stole thousands of dollars
of my money so when i went to city hall i apologize when i went to small claims court
um the situation came about was his mailing address was not um accurate and then with the
whole process not only did he steal my money but he stole the neighbor's money next door as well
which he was he was one of the guys at the hearing as well was he he attested to that in regards to
his money was stolen from that contractor so it wasn't just like i was just trying to you know
not just do things the right way i thought i was doing things the right way by paying
a licensed contractor i need to do because again i'm retired from the city of falafia i did 23 years
of the city of Philadelphia the fire department the police department now I'm in school for law
actually I just completed law school at the same time towards well I'm always trying to obey the
law at the same time as well but I just get frustrated when I feel like um I'm being opposed
against when I'm trying to do something right but at the same time people keep pointing to think I
mean like I'm doing something wrong when they know the situation at hand that um there was
licensed contractor without just robbing people legitimately in regard to the situation I'm
dealing with. And again, I'm not repeating myself, but the neighbor next door of mine,
he hired the same contractor and had the same issue. Yeah. And Stanley, just, and I think you
said this, like your intention is if you do get this variance, obviously not only gain the zoning
permit, but gain the building permit and not only hiring that general contractor to make,
but to also make sure that they complete it to a certificate of occupancy that's correct
right and then there was one thing i did not bring up in terms of trash storage
you will agree to a proviso trash to be stored outside on the side of the property in an enclosed
trash area is that correct that's correct whatever the compliance is for the law i'm i'm willing to
agree upon that i have no issue with obeying the law it's not at all at no point again i'm retired
Again, I'm a retired police officer, retired Philadelphia Fire Department personnel, and actually retired correction officer.
police officer retired philadelphia fire department personnel and actually
So I've been doing legitimate stuff for all my life.
I have no problem being legit.
It's just that I have a problem with somebody that keeps stealing from me.
That's my problem.
All right.
And then everything I said was not only true and correct, but you will adopt it as your own testimony.
Correct.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Questions from the board.
What's the plan for trash?
we would store it outside on the side of the property um in the enclosed area let me just
go back to the picture we have a lot of room on that side and we'll do it discreetly we're not
going to just store trash cans here but i can show you the picture of where it would be stored
right here this little area well that little big area but we'll do it discreetly so it's not an
eyesore to the community and what's the plan for sort of that paved area is it just going to be
open for the all three residents because your property line comes all the way to the sidewalk
correct yeah i think it's an opportunity to you know you know with legal fencing to you know maybe
fence it off and and maybe add an outdoor area for them you know for like a patio area give some
activity to that corner without being obnoxious and then since oh go ahead family you're gonna
say something yeah one of the things was god do a lot of things for the community and i do a lot
things in regard to um the prison system um i try to do community outreach one of the things was
with that pad was because then i know that the community have a lot of block parties and for me
to give out free book bags and haircuts for the kids because i cut hair too as well for the uh
winter time and summertime for the kids and i noticed once again when he blocks off the street
or they blocks off the uh the back alley they don't really have no way for the kids to do certain
things like that so i was going to set up because i have a um a relationship with the barbers down
the street from the house so they were going to come out at certain points in time of the year
give free haircuts give free book bags to the kids and during the summertime
do um free lunches and breakfasts for the kids that was that was my goal for that property
yeah i think there's a stanley there's a school nearby right correct right across the street
yeah right and then my second question is about mail like just understanding that the address is
oriented in one direction but you now have a unit that's only accessed by not the state that's the
primary address what's going to be your plan for mail and deliveries for that well yeah no problem
i would have separate mailboxes in regards to whatever mail needs to be in regards to
what the individuals that's there um again whatever the law requires i'll have no problem
obeying the law that's not an issue so whatever needs to be done i have a contractor i have
people in the vision is really allowing them to do whatever they need to do it was less about
the law i'm not assuming anybody's disobeying the law i think it's more so that you've now got
to a unit that's accessed from let me see what street from wood wood buyer street or from the
rear the only two entrances into that what is effectively the basement unit and they'd have
to walk all the way around the corner to access any mail and any deliveries and just i mean i
know there's ways that you can go to opa you can do like do a side address but just trying to figure
out a way that makes sense for oh it'd be a mailbox there well actually that'd be my that'd
be my living quarters so any mother come there which will be on an access on the side but majority
of the time that i will be walking around the front of the house and put another mailbox there
for that uh location as well well i i know i i think what board member when is saying is when
eventually you may not use that property yourself and so what would happen to like a third party to
make sure it's commercially reasonable i'll talk to stanley okay and then i just have a question
because i see there's parking on the like behind the row of houses do they have dedicated parking
spaces or is that it's all it's all garages back there so we we we close the parking across like
it's literally like there's an alley for all of their garages and then right behind it there's
bunch of parking spaces is that shared is that shared parking for the um for the apartment
building behind you i was going to say that may be the apartment building look like it should be
because it's there's a there's like a curb barrier that like would put it the parking's on the side of
the houses that's why i was asking stanley do you do you know what's up with those parking spots
well the parking spots that's in the back of the house right now they're still going to utilize
that's a parking space but the parking space in the back of the houses as well there is for the
apartment units for the apartment building so everybody in the back of the house has
So everybody in the back of the house has one parking space, which mines is still available for one parking space.
one parking space which mines is still available for
So your, because it looks like you have vertical barriers that look like they might be like the steel from fence.
Yeah, I put that there. Yeah, I put that there for the simple fact that the trash truck come past and they roll up on your property, which they have, and I had a picture to prove it, but they throw trash and they throw all kinds of debris and things of that nature.
so i try to block it out much as possible without causing an issue with for the community that's
fine i'm just the only point i want to make is that it does look like parts of the asphalt that
have been done are now at a higher like they're not flush with the ground so and it doesn't look
like where that parking space exists that you can currently access it they're like metal fence post
barriers not the fence itself but just yeah i understand now that will be configured in regards
uh what needs to be done in regards to parking but like i said when the contractor was doing
the work l and i came and stopped them in the process so the things that you see as right now
it was just automatically um ceased so i couldn't i couldn't go no further trying to make things
properly um accessible well thank you stanley yeah thank you so so alan is a simple question
was this place built as a duplex well we bought it it was a duplex and on the ground floor where
that extra unit would go was where the garage was what i'm saying so what you had was a duplex
yes and then a decision was made to put an apartment on that's right right and uh how long
did how long has he had this uh i have in my notes that he bought this in august of 2021 is that
correct stanley correct right so he has it from 21 to 26 that's right right there's two duplexes
But somewhere along the line, he stopped getting rental licenses for the duplexes.
Because he got into trouble with the—
For working on the first floor.
That's right, with the violations.
And it took him a few years to get through that process.
Okay, thank you.
Any other questions?
Go ahead.
I'm trying to figure out how we got this VA appeal withdrawn
for the legalization of the demolition of two garage doors.
where did that happen, and structured parking spaces, and for the erection of an addition to
an existing semi-detached structure with use of single-family dwelling in April of 2026 to now
this request for three dwellings. So I think originally, and this may have been before we
were hired he was looking to be a little bit more adventurous with the property by doing the addition
after speaking more with our office we try to do apples apples with the property on the other side
of the of the block and so he's just built he wants three dwelling units within the existing
structure so so before we get to all of this there was the demolition of two garage doors
and structured parking spaces right but he has a zoning permit for that that that was in the in
the actual in the actual uh presentation he has his own appeal withdrawn with a legalization
of the demolition of two garage doors I'm just telling you we have a zoning permit for
and where is that it's in my pre hold on because this is april of 2026
and i i don't remember when we got hired as around that time so let me just see hold on
what board member gaston should be referring to would have been on the refusal
no i get it but but but here in in in march of 2026 i just pulled it yeah i should have
probably had my team pulled the actual zoning permit but if you go on that page there's a pdf
of it and this is the zoning permit for the elimination of two interior off-street parking
spaces from an existing semi-attached structure size and location as shown in the plans so i think
our office decided to piecemeal this because he was trying to do a lot so legalization
to have you come up when he's done i'm gonna bring where's the there's this about the the
legalization of the demolition of the two garage doors where when did that happen i
so like i said we did this we understood that this was the proper way of doing that
he got a zoning permit for that doesn't say that what it says here and this is on the notice of
refusal is the notes from the examiner it says that maybe you try to get a zoning permit 2022
that maybe you try to get a zoning permit 2022 it says zba appeal withdrawn for the legalization
of the demolition of two garage doors can i can i can i respond to that filed an appeal
and then you withdrew it well because we saw that there's a zoning permit for the elimination of two
interior off-street parking spaces the garage of an existing semi-detached structure size and
location is shown in the plans we have a zoning permit for that and when is that dated it's it's
on your screen it's march 26 2026. but this is from april 16th i i can't i can't tell you why
that happened but i'm telling you we have a zoning permit for that date and then we straightforward
went to just the use application and again he was trying to be more adventurous in terms of
single family dwelling and now we're talking about a tripod well yes it was single family
zoning classification which has a long history of a two-family dwelling there's the there was going
to be an addition to an existing semi-detached structure with use single family toilet again
that was before we were involved he hired capable counsel to try to clean this up i mean that's all
i can tell you is maybe he hired again i can't speak to what he did before we april i know and
then we then we talked to him first of all and we said okay well you have this zoning permit right
for for elimination of that garage area and we thought it would be out of character to add
additional square footage to the building structure we thought it was more appropriate
and in line with the property on the other end of the block to have three units in the existing
building structure just like you have and what's the and what's the hardship here well the hardship
here is that it wasn't self-inflicted he hired a capable contractor who did him wrong she said
what well he thought he hired how about this thought you did well how about this he thought
he did so are we going to blame the victim or the perpetrator um okay i mean that's the question
right so like it's unfortunate he didn't do he didn't do it on purpose right but what why did
the question is what why did he have to have a third unit forget that why he hired it what's
the hardship that he needed a third unit in an existing duplex well he was looking at it from
this perspective i mean i'm not i'm not no no that's fair i mean he's looking from this perspective
yes he he was looking to add a unit for himself to so he had a place to stay because he goes back
and forth from from atlanta to philadelphia you know he he he was like let me have this unit
there's what i'm sorry what she finished but he had two units he he did have two units he looked
at was on the other side of the block where the same building heavy building structure had three
no and and that's fair and that's for the board to decide i think i think i see someone from the
communities and the audience behind you um questions from our attorney um i just wanted
to make sure because i i don't know if we had realized that about the receipt of the letter
was the vote 23 to zero it was something zero i think it sounds right 17 17 community members and
and six six board members i've not tried it i just want to make sure it's on the record because i
I don't think you actually said it.
So I did, I pointed it out.
I pointed it out.
But I also went through what the rationale is.
Yeah, so you didn't do the presentation with the community?
I did.
You did?
So then why would your client be antagonizing the community?
Well, I wish I had an ability to, you know, control everyone.
And it's a very emotional situation, as you can hear from his voice.
And so I let people speak, right?
I don't mute them.
I encourage them to, you know, respect the situation and people's opinion.
But for some people in all of our lives, like, there's some things that are emotional and
something you can't control yourself sometimes.
Am I able to speak?
No, Stanley.
let's let's hear okay why don't we do this why don't you come up person in the audience who's
been uh waiting patiently is the word that's a very good word come on up and pull
patiently is the word that's a very good word come on up and pull sit down please pull the
microphone close to you and relax and um okay so pull that mic nice and close to you so could you
please state and spell your name for this stenographer uh carolyn hardrick c-a-r-o-l-y-n
h-a-r-d-r-i-c-k you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes. Are you a neighbor? I'm a neighbor and I'm here to represent the neighborhood and the
Overbrook Park Civic Association. Why don't you start your presentation? I just wanted to
reiterate what you already have here that the neighbors, all the neighbors surrounding this
property and the whole neighborhood is opposed to him going forward with this variance. We don't
want to start anything in our neighborhood we we bought these houses as single family homes
and we don't want to start chopping them up and making an apartment okay but you were aware that
this was a duplex at one time uh no i didn't okay i found out recently right yeah right but now he
wants to make it into a trifle we understand we understand okay um question no they gave us a very
fair forum they were very respectful and i appreciate that and like i stated if the board
you know feels so disinclined to give us three units as a variance i would at least keep the
status quo two units so we can legalize that structure i appreciate it thank you do we have
do we have i didn't see any photos of anything inside we yeah we showed photos i can do that
You don't have to do it. We can. We can. I don't think I am not living here. I do believe it's probably going to become a rental.
Okay, well, ma'am, we want to thank you for sitting here so long and we appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the audience?
Yes, I have a name by Tina love. You have been promoted to speak.
good evening chairman good evening could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
uh my name is tina love t-i-n-a-l-o-v-e right do you start referring to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth i do and tina are you a neighbor i am a neighbor i um reside on
adjacent street sure woodcrest avenue um my my concern is um the parking um is lack of parking
as as it is as it stands now also my concern i heard what he said about the trash and how
the trash would be stored the problem is um if he sits the trash out there it will be an eyesore
and that's definitely a concern you also have a school that sits directly across the street
from the right side of his property so what happens if the kids are coming along and they're
just happen to be walking down the street decide to tip the trash cans over it's just the eyesore
so i am opposed to this um this particular plan thank you thank you have a question is there
anyone else? Not at this time, Chair. Planning Commission. Madison Matera, Planning Commission
staff. A comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA 5 residential single-family
zoning at this location. This property has a documented history of two-family use. However,
it looks like work was completed without permits to convert the garage into a third unit. The
Planning Commission recommends the board grant the requested variance for multifamily with
proviso maximum two units so mi 2026 002 912 1449 north 75th street i vote yes with proviso
maximum two units michael johns my vote is yes with proviso
cheryl gaston my vote is no it's not a graham my vote is just with proviso ryan mcadams my vote is
yes with proviso i win my vote is yes with proviso so thank you
thank you thank you thank you ma'am thank you for coming thank you um so we're gonna move here with
number 14 mi 2026 003 151 4712 edmond street alan knockamson is attorney mr knockamson could you
just state your name for the record you've already been sworn alan knockamson mr knockamson could you
identify your client in a relationship to this property yes my client is goody llc and in the
virtual audience should be its member thomas goodyear right and our um vice chair has a few
right and our um vice chair has a few questions good afternoon have you submitted your documents
questions
and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing yes we have and you have a few refusals do you
wave the reading of your refusals and stipulate to their accuracy i do not as to refusal two three
and five okay i guess we'll explain that as you go along all right thank you you can see your
screen. Thank you. Yeah, I think there were a couple of mistakes on the refusal.
So clarify, you're not, you're still going for it with the variance. Yeah, the variance. Yeah,
yeah. I'm making sure there's previous approvals that should eliminate, you know, two, three,
and five. And I'm just going to show a record. That's why they, you're not doing, you're not
trying to change into LNI. No, no, no, no. I just, just wanted to show that we should have less
refusals uh this is 4712 edmond street uh i believe it's an rsa5 property but only in in
in name um it has been non-residential for the longest period of time i feel like almost like 70
years it's a lot size of 6283 um there is a roofing company in there um so and it's not off character
and you know you can see for neighborhoods as yeah supported it yeah um so we have 13 exhibits
we'll go through this we have tom uh in the virtual audience as the member of the corporate
entity that owns the property so let's just go through the refusals that we disagree with review
refusal number two and three talks about chain link prints of nine feet uh 9.9.25 feet you'll
see in the rec the documented history of this property that those have been previously approved
um the the fifth one is dealing with the uh proposed use of equipment and material storage
yards and buildings again you'll see in the documented history that has previously been
approved so what we're trying to do here is legalize this fence that was put up and the
wall that's been put up. It's not out of character. And actually, it gives some nice sound proofing
for this residential neighborhood. So that's refusal number one. Like we're supposed to have
an opaque fence or at least 50% opaque. It's 100% not opaque. But in a lot of ways, that's good for
the neighborhood because they don't have to see what's going on in there. And from a sound proofing
standpoint as well. And then the fence is high. Well, because we have trucks, they have trucks
going in so they want to you know it's supposed to be a four foot fence we're doing 16 feet
because we have trucks going in so we want to make sure the trucks can get in and out
um again the community was like sure like that makes sense uh what was the only other refusal
that was for so this one about business and professional offices right so we put that in
there there's an accessory office use in there we're not trying to have a whole separate use
But we put it in there as an office use, not separate from the roofing company.
So, you know, again, we'll leave it to the board's discretion.
But if you'll, you'll see approvals previously for this property with accessory office use.
So that's the last refusal.
Letter of support from the Frankfurt NAC.
Property history.
so you can see here that uh where is it let's see what's here feel like oh here's the one about the
storage and and construction equipment so that goes to the to the first one of the refusals
oh and legalization addition offenses as well so so alan as you're presenting i always get curious
how did you get here no i'm serious how no well i think here was this an l and i action no i don't
think so i mean i'll leave it to board member win who usually looks at the the you know the
the notices and stuff i don't remember i don't think it is uh you you he just came to you one
day and said i want to do he did he that's that's what i understood but i have not looked today so
my memory fades so in terms of i should have looked at atlas but but you look at the refusal
for the what was granted the the defenses and stuff see this has all been you know ready fleshed
valid and approved so we have the newer staff you know at l and i so sometimes they miss things
yeah um yeah just more just showing proof and then but we're not out of character around the
corner from us at 47 47-53 route street look it just looks like our property not as well maintained
right so it's ours actually looks nicer and then aerial views here you can see here here's that
front office and then this is a two-story structure where they store the materials
and they have a secondary office space here.
and they have a secondary office space here.
And this is where they like do the loading and unloading.
And this is where they like do the loading.
And then by the way, this is Roush right here.
And this is the other area that,
I think this is the one where I showed you,
which is similarly situated.
Then maps of the area.
Yeah, while we're RSA-5, obviously we're not,
like from a practical standpoint.
Like I said, it's a long documented history,
I think almost 75 years of non-residential use here.
and the photographs of the property i mean they did a good job they understand that this is only
the first step that whatever they did they're going to have to get blessed by lni with the
building permit and the co uh how high is that pence uh this is this is 16 feet high right here
and you can see when he bought the property in this is 2022 he bought it in september 2023
this is what it looked like all he did was finish up the fencing work make it look nicer
and extended the walls up to just, again, make it more discreet so no one needs to see what's going
on in there. That's all legal, by the way. Zoning notice poster. Edmund Street to the right,
to the left. Interior photos. Again, keeps it very clean, very new looking. This is the office space
that's on that second floor in that bigger building. This is the office space that's in
the building that's closer to where the fence is that one story structure um let's see
and then you know again this is the fence this is the building structure here this is the height of
the fence you know this is the first floor of the building this is again the parking where he
the loading area for those trucks we had an rco meeting notice alex handled it so i don't know
how many people were there but you see we have support we met on august 13th we sent it to 84
addresses proof of mailing to those addresses our application for zoning variance along with
the notice of refusal and the project information form the deed to the property showing goody llc
owns the property and certificate of tax claims i will say that my client um i think is a well-known
quantity in that area too so they know him and you know i think they know that he's a good business
owner and operator and i think that went a long way plus the improvements he made to the property
which he's going to have to legalize that's it you want to bring your client yeah mr goodyear
can you virtually raise your hand
What's your name Tom? Tom Goodyear.
Sure, this is Ian Hegarty. I do not see anyone by that name in the virtual audience.
okay um i see your hand just raised okay
i don't see
what is the name again it's supposed to be tom goodyear but i know
the person who raised their hand that was not their name so i'm goodyear
Do we have somebody with their hand race now?
Okay, um, it's not comes in your and also the court. I appreciate it. Questions for Mr. do you have a plan that, like, clearly shows that just the walls and the fence highlighted.
I do. Okay.
It's just the 1 at the.
the front
yeah hold on it's not here
let me see
let me see let me make this smaller
oops went by it
let me get out of the full screen mode
move this over
let's play the next
okay there you go
down here
Do you see that?
oh sorry it's like trying to click on it there you go
Sorry, it's like
trying to click on it.
There you go.
okay other questions
is the roll of fence electrified or is this a manual list
i don't know the answer to that so i apologize let me see if i might if i have it somewhere in
my notes i'm just trying to be clear so since i see there was a zone environment you know i can't
can't hear you taya sorry you're right i just realized i'm loud in the room but not on the mic
so i i had asked about specifically what was um being talked about today so i'm just trying to
walk through the timeline because this is a long-term site there's lots of fences and lots
of doors we are only talking about the fence and the wall that's the front front facade that's right
to the to the property that's correct and then in this there was a permit that was issued for
the previous owner and some work was done it looks like permits were never pulled for that
and then your client did additional work also without i think he completed the job i think
that's what you said you showed he filled it up yeah you did you see the picture for us i saw that
but i would be helpful if he was on here but but i think that's what happened the timeline he
purchased it in 23 22 it seems like the old owner started doing the work my client completed the work
i can't say as to what his belief was we are here to legalize that use and then just to be clear
like apart from finishing it because it looks like there's a long history of violations no other work
has happened at the site that i'm aware of that you're aware okay okay any other questions yes
do you have a picture like you had of that other property with the fence up where you could look in
and see what was going on well i have an arrow view that's why i put the arrow for you there
that isn't what i want yeah i mean the only thing i can tell you is well you can see it from
different angles like this is from like looking like your back is to the building and this is
like that kind of landing area where the trucks would be this is the the the actual storage
facility here um let me see what else i have here this is inside where that double doors are
where it's two two levels right and then there's that separate office there
and then here's this office i just want to point out i'll show you it may be easier with the
where is that in relation yeah that's on the right here so you see this this is the office
the single floor office is right here okay but you don't have a picture that shows just that
fence up and we're looking right into what we do it's just a different angle it's it's it's the
angle that where your back is towards the on here's your back is towards the building structure
here so you kind of see what everything that's there actually here's i would think this is where
that would show this angle the left one would be the one kind of like you're probably near the fence
and your back is to the street and you're looking in
what was the vote of the rco i wasn't there so there was no there was no description of it i
what i got got from alex was support and there was there was no issue because there's a long
documented history of this use it's much nicer than what was there and in relation to the other
similarly similarly situated structure on the other side it's much nicer
questions from our attorneys no questions at this time questions or comments from the virtual
audience no not at this time chair planning commission madison matera planning commission
staff the comprehensive plan recommends a change from the existing rsa5 residential single family
zoning to rm1 residential multifamily this neighborhood was rezoned in 2014 in a council
supported map change this property has a documented history of use as material storage yard with the
business and professional office and previously received a permit for a taller fence than what
is allowed by the code the planning commission recommends the board grant the requested
dimensional variances for fence height and opacity and requested use variances for
business and professional office and equipment and material storage yard
um mi2026-003-151-4712 edmond street i vote yes michael johns my vote is yes
gerald gaston my vote is no tennessee graham my vote is yes ryan mcadams my vote is yes
ryan mcadams my vote is yes hi owen my vote is yes okay we're going to um number 15 your third
hi owen my vote is yes okay we're going to um
and last correct yes mi 2025 003 245 15 16 dickinson street mr knockamson could you please
say uh just state your name for the record because you've already been alan knockamson could you
identify your client a relationship to this property yes my client is uh shu yen dang
uh he's the owner of the property and it should be in the virtual audience and our vice chair has
a few questions good evening have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance
of this hearing and do you waive the reading of your refusal and stipulate to his accuracy this
one i do okay all right thank you so you screened up a seat all right
i'm glad to say with this one my clients are seeking approval before doing any work here
well that's good yeah um after a day like this a day like this this is something different i know
exactly it's novel uh so you'll see the before and after this is a this building looks a lot
different than what it would propose looks a lot different than what it is uh it's a corner of
dickinson and hicks uh in the point brie section of philadelphia i have 10 exhibits and then you
know as you know when i'm concluding my presentation i would ask that mr dang be
sworn in and i have a couple questions for him notice refusal this is our rsa5 property i would
say in name only this has a long documented history of three units two residential and one
commercial we're trying to make this into a triplex we're trying to square off the building
as well by adding 850 square feet trash would be stored for the first floor unit outside
and the second and third floor units would be indoors and we would agree to a proviso in that
respect we have a letter of support from the point breeze community development coalition
overwhelming support the one it was a vote of seven to one the one person who did not support
was not a nearby neighbor the nearby neighbors i believe were two of them that's point breeze cdc
yeah pointbury cdc that's right uh so the the the two nearby neighbors who were there
supported the project uh here's the history showing that this was a two plus one for the
longest period of time maps of the area again quintessential corner property we have two
entrances one entrance we'll have for one unit and then the two entrances the other entrance
will be for the upper floor units this is what the property currently looks like again it's day
and night so instead of tearing it down we wanted to you know to improve it so you'll see the
difference between what it looks like now and then we're going to square this off by the way
we're going no deeper than 1518 so we're not taking any other light and air so we're squaring
and off adding a third story to this little portion here these are orange notice posters
this is dickens street to the right of the property to the left south hicks to street to
the right of the property and to the left and then our plans and drawings so that's completely
different and then we didn't you know this community as well they don't like roof deck
access structures so instead we have and by the way this is for illustrative purposes only we
intend to put a legally conforming fence here but we want to show what it would look like every unit
has outdoor space instead of a roof deck though they'll have space here and why is it important
where it's located they're not like overseeing and hovering over someone's property there's
a brick wall here so they're not going to intrude on anyone's privacy which was important to the
community as well so this is the brick wall so you it's like you know you're not going to kind
of hover over people but you can see this is literally day and night but compared to what's
there it's a much improved structure so it's three feet eight inches above ground this is
existing we have ample height in in in the lower level maybe not for me it's someone who's six five
but for most people um and trying to see what else is here we have no dimensional variances
uh so you walk in uh to the unit this is the first floor you come in there's a front door
there's a bedroom here there's a home office it's a three bedroom two bath open floor plan
there's a bathroom here we chose not to put the bathroom here because we wanted a home office
uh we chose not to put the bathroom here because we wanted a home office we can always you know
We can open it.
we'll see my clients you know going to think about it but like that could be a bathroom
but we thought a home office would be better and there's a lower level where you have the washer
and dryer you go up a flight of steps though instead uh you have the you have two bedrooms
you have a bathroom here and then you have uh the open floor plan of a living room dining room
kitchens for units two and three and then this is just a side view of how things look talks about
grades again this is an existing structure but it does go out of the ground pretty deep i mean
three feet eight inches is pretty good and obviously we have to put egress wells
where appropriate you know to have legal living down in the basement
we met with the community as well attend the meeting on august 24th
we mailed that notice uh it doesn't say on there how many addresses oh 199 addresses
these are the addresses proof of mailing to those addresses
our application for zoning variants along the notice of refusal in the project information
form deed to property showing Mr. Dang owns it so he's not hiding behind the corporate LLC
and then certificate of tax clearance I would ask that Mr. Dang virtually raise his hand
I have a few questions for him and then we would love to take any questions the board may have for
us oh Mrs. Dang sorry
And she's raising her hand.
Hi, could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer?
X-U-Y-E-N-D-A-N-G.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
Xu Yan, you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter.
Is it true and correct?
And do you adopt this as your own testimony?
Yes, I do.
Thank you.
Helen, why don't you put the drawings up?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Questions from the board.
Yes, did you say the trash for the first floor would be stored outside?
In the rear.
Oh, in the rear, okay.
Yeah, in the rear.
And the basement is used for what?
It's just an open floor plan down there.
It's a full bathroom down there, isn't it?
There is a bathroom down there.
They would prefer to have extra living down there.
What's the ceiling height?
It's 7 feet 10 inches.
This is all existing.
So while they would prefer to have a higher ceiling,
that's what they're working with.
Let me just see.
Where does it say?
Ceiling height.
Oh, here it is.
so if you can see oops uh three foot eight out of the ground you're saying it's three feet eight
out of the ground so I'm I last time I tried to pull it off like expand it but this is the
ceiling height right here seven feet ten inches and above grade is right here you can see it it's
really tough I don't want if I expand it out I lose the page sometimes yeah yep I see it
is the egress for the basement
only the front
of the house
well egress the only
things he's showing out of the basement is the
stairway that goes up to the first
floor there are absolutely no windows
well double windows on the plane
what's the plan
for egress let me
well they're going to put egress
wells along the side on Hicks
on Hicks isn't that Hicks
street it is it's on the side there's a corner property this is hicks and dickinson right that's
right yeah so if you see here this is hicks so there are one two three windows showing okay
why don't they show it i'm sorry why don't they show it if they're going to do it i mean they
did this you know these illustrious plans and why did they not show the egress well yeah yeah yeah
why not you know i i ask that question every day about i i because when i was prepping today i was
like where are the egress wells and i and they said oh we're gonna you know obviously we have
to add it for the construction phase obviously to get a co and then what's the current status
what's the current status of the property it's not occupied i don't think it is occupied it's
of the property it's not occupied
a pretty bad shape yeah okay you see the pictures i did yeah it's a pretty bad people yeah that's
why i know clarifying um i guess i have the question i have is really about the facade so
like what is being proposed is pretty different than some of the existing conditions so are we
reconstructing the entire facade is that the so i have the architect if ping can virtually raise
his hand i would defer to him but it's definitely like you know yeah there he goes what's his name
ping yeah all right sir could you please oh hi everyone photographer sure um so my name is
Tren Ping Wang, C-H-W-E-N dash P-I-N-G. Last name is Wang, W-A-N-G. Do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sir? Yes, I do. Counsel one of you. All right, so
Peng, you heard a board member, uh, Wayne, uh, it's definitely, it looks a lot different than
the existing site conditions. So can you just explain what your intention here is with regards
the facade and such um sure so um we're planning to um um let's have a a um um new brick facade
and we're gonna use like metal panels as well okay so we're gonna do new brick on
on the existing brick so we're doing brick veneers
yes but we're going to take right currently is flagstone about 13 feet and then it's red
existing brick and you're showing the concrete block of about let's call it six feet and brick
so that's like a very different facade so is this being applied to the existing facade are
taking this down and rebuilding the facade oh we're taking the facade down and then and then
having a new break on it okay so then my next question is then why are we keeping the openings
i feel like this facade and the floor plan you have is it's okay but like if we're doing that
much reconstruction you had the opportunity to get rid of this blank wall at the corner and like
introduce new windows and do something different with egress to allow it to be
better more livable for it already doing the expense to take everything down and
change so much like why didn't we just change change it for the better I'm just
trying I guess it's from a hardship standpoint at this point like we're
doing major construction, to put it kind of exactly back the way it is, just slightly different.
Well, I think from a cost perspective, it's very expensive to build in the city of Philadelphia.
Yeah, especially brick.
It's going to be very expensive to take down all that brick and essentially rebuilding it.
I don't know that that's what you're going to do, right?
I just don't think that makes sense, right?
It's just cost-effective-wise.
It's just you tear it down before you take every facade off and rebuild it.
you're just not going to do it maybe veneer or something like that but yeah I think that
that that's I agree with her she does that makes that's well I think the intention is to is to
match it to the best of their ability I am not the construction guru I don't know how much it's
going to cost to change that but the intention is to have a 850 square foot rear addition to
mimic the rear addition of 1518 and to put three units which are sizable and for each unit to have
outdoor space wait so we're mimicking the house next in terms of the rear for the rear sure but
that's not what like the drawings show that there's currently a house and the third floor does not go
all the way back to the current rear of the building and it sort of recurrent this drawing
makes it look like you're just filling in what's already there like it's going to come to the same
rear of the existing building the building next door if that's what we're referencing is about
eight feet deeper into the lot than that one it's like it's actually like a very different
volume i i get to say i our rear facade is not going any deeper than the rear facade of the 1518.
Can I add something? I'm sorry. So what I said previously was wrong. And I want to correct it.
And I want to correct it, so we're planning to wash the bricks that are there and the
new portion of the building, we want to match the brick color of the bricks that are there
already.
So that's the plan.
I mean, that's kind of what I figured, I mean, because you clean it, you take off
that veneer that's put on there, clean it up, and just repair what you can.
But the issue is you're going with a three-unit building, right?
That's the goal here, right?
Correct.
That's the request.
Which, again, this property has a long history of three units,
two residential and one commercial.
Got it.
And we're not out of character, and actually that's something I didn't bring up.
1518 is three units 1514 is three units 1542 is five units uh 1500 is three units and then if
you go in the 1400 block 1441-43 is three units and 1423 is four units so we're we're not different
than what's next door to us and next next door to us in terms of unit count and then everyone you
the ones i stated it's not out of character for these properties look i'm i'm good you're not
going through the bedroom to go to the backyard i'm good and we have bathrooms next to the bedrooms
yes not all of them not all of them so um can can we see this floor plan sure again yeah let's do it
Hold on. Let me get back. Come on. Let's do this. Let me try. Hold on. Come on. I'm trying to get. I see 29, maybe. No, 28.
All right, there we go.
Do you want me to walk you through it again?
And then so this by level here is what would have been the commercial space that is correct.
That would be my understanding. I would think that the commercial space would be on the first floor.
All right. Thank you. You're welcome.
Questions from our attorney.
you um just one question uh with regard to your posting it was kind of hard to see but um that
you were posted correctly for this hearing but could you attest on the record that the property
was posted I definitely can attest to that I beg my clients to get that up at least 21 days
beforehand just just in the future yeah and we've been telling everyone this we need to see it you
what i mean like a lot of times people take pictures i don't know like 50 feet away i don't
understand take it up close then do it you know what i mean like i'm not saying you necessarily
but so we can tell so noted in the future we'll make sure that we have a zoom out and zoom in
that's all we're asking thank you um questions or comments from the virtual audience
not at this time chair planning commission madison matera planning commission staff
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing RSA 5 residential single family zoning at this location. This is a long vacant property with a documented history of two family use. Multifamily use is common on this block. The planning commission recommends the board grant the requested variance for three dwelling units.
MI 2026-003-245-1516-Dickson Street, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes.
Tywin, my vote is yes.
Thank you very much. Have a great night.
All right. We hope we get home for the night. Sorry.
All right. Number 16, MI 2026-003-334-24-30 Bank Street. Vern Anastasio is the attorney.
Vern Anastasio has been promoted to panelists.
Thank you.
good evening mr chair good evening members of the board i guess i swore you in early this morning
do i remember you did yep okay all right just for the record could you please state your name
yeah it's verne anastasio a-n-a-s-t-a-s-i-o on behalf of grand crew cafe llc all right and our
vice chair has a few questions sir thank you good evening have you submitted your documents
and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing i did yeah and you have uh this is a special
exception so you need a referral do you weigh the reading of your referrals and simply to your
accuracy i do all right thank you can see your screen there's non-opposition opposition from
council member squilla and non-opposition from the rco that's correct uh this is uh pretty
straightforward this is a uh in the 237 chestnut is exactly where the space is located uh it the
front will be a uh coffee shop cafe the center will be grab and go uh sorts of uh you know
prepared food and the rear is going to be uh a wine bar with taps here at the rear
we have our drawings here we have a 3d rendition basement is for storage and for staff restrooms
and we are going to
the application itself was uh this is a takeout restaurant in an existing building
And it is a referral because the takeout is subject to the overlay with the Center City District and Chestnut and Walnut Street, as well as the Old City overlay.
The hours of operation will be Monday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
our uh the staffing will be mostly uh uh local we're looking at uh maybe eight folks working
in the cafe here's some photos of the existing uh space it's emptied right now uh we'll have uh
maybe six uh up to six folks for service table service another uh eight for the wine bar
this is on chestnut by the independence hotel there maintenance and cleaning will be another
three people i'm going to move all 68 pages of evidence of exhibits into evidence we'll have
commercial trash pickup and as a result we've gotten unanimous support nearly unanimous support
from the rco and of course a letter from councilman squilla's office as well this operation will be
done by the folks who brought us pork goes which is a very well-known pork sandwich shop on
washington avenue west abroad and uh we are looking forward to uh to uh bringing a new life
to this space because of the unanimous, nearly unanimous support we've got from the RCO,
the support from the council member, and because our operation is going to be run by folks
who know food service, we respectfully request the granting of the special exception. With
that, I have to call my client, Rafi Litch, to the stand to adopt my testimony. Thank
Thank you.
Raphael Licht has been promoted to panelists.
Good evening.
Could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer?
Raphael Licht, R-A-P-H-A-E-L-L-I-C-H-T.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
sir sorry i uh it when i hit the panel button uh it skipped the last question or the last
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do counsel thank you mr chair rafi did you hear my presentation to the board today
i did is it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge yes it is you adopt it as your
own testimony yes i did i thank you very much i have nothing for a quick question where do we
stand with taxes uh well uh it's my understanding that taxes are taken care of uh you know obviously
my my client is a tenant we're okay we're okay yeah yeah all right i just got a head shake
all right i just got a head shake the only thing i asked mr chair if the board could
the only thing i asked mr chair if the board could
specify if if if you know if in fact the special exception will be granted
special
is that the space is identified as a proviso is 237 chestnut street
but l and i i think it's identified as a different address though like
it's a much larger property and this is one section of that property
The OPA for the property is 2430 South Bank Street, but it's a much larger property.
This is like a unit in what would be, you know, strip mall that we've done, you know, in all other different places.
It would be, yes, with proviso specific to 237 Chestnut, that unit.
our council is checking right now I know yeah thank you back to you in two minutes
no problem we've waited this long we can wait longer can we can we clarify like a unit just
because Ellen I like I said before identified it as the bank street address do you have yeah
And that is the legal address of the entire property that runs at Chestnut East and then down bank.
The unit would be 237 Chestnut.
Retail.
Thank you.
Are you saying 237 Chestnut is the unit number?
That's correct.
That's how the application was submitted.
We'll do that as a provider.
We've got to pass first.
along with if you want to do proviso we're going to limit it to first floor and basement
that's correct thank you that's how the application was initially submitted
um questions or comments for the virtual audience are we asking the board first
nobody said anything oh i didn't hear the question sorry i was no i've got a question
i have many oh you're only at this time of night you're only allowed you're only allowed one right
okay mr john and i are on the same page so my main question verne is like i understand what
we're trying to do here but where is the actual like if i'm a pedestrian coming to this place
how am i getting to the water i stand it's not it's a cafe you would if you i don't are you
familiar with the american revolutionary history museum on chestnut street this is directly across
the street and there is a separate entrance on the street into the retail space at 237 chestnut
yeah 237 chestnut is uh sort of like adjacent to the independence independence uh hotel which
is right there uh and and and that's that's where it is on the the the front the frontage is on
chestnut got it okay so we're gonna go in the doors on chestnut and the basement is mostly
going to be used for your staff and storage only for the staff and storage they're going to go into
they're going to go into 237 chestnut and they're going to see uh right here there are restrooms in
the basement um there's an ada restroom on the ground floor and additional restrooms in the
basement but other than that the basement is storage lock-in refrigeration uh utilities you
walk in here you'll see a counter you'll see the coffee and the coffee section i saw all of that
um that part i was i was good with okay i was just trying to figure out because it looked like there
was no separate door between the hotel and the next building no there there certainly is yep
there's like i see for city i see the hotel where's this door yep and the only uh we're here
because we're doing takeout we're going to be doing grab and go sort of stuff as well so okay
and then it's it's a full cafe and it's are you doing cooking on site no no heavy cooking no no
not whatsoever everything will be uh pre-made or sandwiches you know things like that got it okay
questions from anyone else questions actually i have an update
um it was suggested that we say for the proviso that the use is limited to the commercial unit
on chestnut on the chestnut street frontage 237 chestnut to be exact yes i don't know if 237
but we say that again this is what hillary recommended that we say use limited to commercial
unit on chestnut street frontage that's perfectly fine for our for our purposes yes but do we have
That's perfectly fine for our purposes, yes.
But do we have to do first floor, second floor, too?
First floor, basement, too?
Correct.
First floor, basement.
That's all I need.
That's all we need here.
All right.
237 doesn't exist.
All right.
So anyone else in the virtual audience?
Not at this time, Chair.
Planning Commission.
Madison Matera, Planning Commission staff.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change the existing CMX 3 commercial mixed use zoning at this location. The appellant has shown that the proposed takeout restaurant will have no detrimental impact beyond what might be reasonably expected. City planning commission recommends the board grant the proposed special exception for a takeout restaurant.
MI 2026, 003, 334, 24 to 30, Bank Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
First floor and basement only.
And then hold on one second.
There's typing.
Hold on.
Oh, she stopped.
Use limited to commercial unit on Chestnut Street frontage.
That's it.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
Cheryl gets the my body chefs with proviso to net a Graham. My vote is just with proviso Ryan McAdams. My vote is yes with proviso. When my vote is yes with proviso.
Is there anyone in the, uh, thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you for anyone in the audience. Who's a 2 PM case has not been called.
I see no hands here. We're going to take a 5 minute break and come back into the 330 list.
anybody's not here hey everybody's here good afternoon everyone my name is bill
bergman and i will be chairing this uh zba hearing with me is our vice chair tenetta
graham president mr chairman board secretary cheryl l gaston is it mr chairman board member
michael johns president mr chairman i win that's it mr chairman mcadams mr chairman also here is
lynn reuter uber our attorney our executive director ian haggerty and our board administrator
lakeisha dandy this hearing is being recorded and will be posted on the zba website by participating
you consent to be recorded this is an in-person meeting with remote participation whether in
person or on zoom if you are called to speak please state and spell your name and then wait
to be sworn in after you're sworn in please start your testimony by stating your name each time you
testify 200 appearance indicate the property address on the zoom webinar speak with a staff
member call the zba office by the close of business tomorrow please call 215-686-2429
and provide your name email and the address of the property remote participation raise your
virtual hand when directed so that we can call on you to speak when we call on you please click
the join as a panelist but use a q a only for procedural questions not anything to do with the
case and if you're joining by phone press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute
so let's go to our our um our list for the evening
number three mi 2025 007 615 3612 north 5th street um this is the second listing we have
no exhibits um justin johnson is the listed owner and michael choi is the listed applicant
see no hands chair no hands
did you say no hands no no hands here thank you so mi2025 007 615 3615 north
fifth street i vote to dismiss michael johns my vote is to dismiss mr chairman i think we talked
about waiver going to waive the two-year rule and then we will waive the two-year rule
do i need to say that also no just proviso okay with proviso
cheryl gaston my vote is to dismiss with proviso senator graham my vote is to dismiss with proviso
Ryan McAdams, my vote is to dismiss with proviso.
I am Wynn, my vote is to dismiss with proviso.
Number five, MI 2026 003 961 6517 Ray Street. This case has been continued to 217 27 at 3.30 PM.
Number five, MI 2026-00.
I'm going to go to number one, go to our first case, MI-2025-002-467-5861 Willows Avenue.
Gabriel Fellis is the attorney.
Gabriel Fellis has been promoted to panel.
good evening gabriel good afternoon everyone uh good evening what would have been sworn
once today could you please just state your name and spell it sure it's uh gabriel fellas
g-a-b-r-i-e-l last name is fellas f is in prank e-d-l-l-u-s all right could you identify
your client the relationship to the property sure my client is enid breckneridge she's the
property owner all right our vice chair has a few questions for you sir good evening you submitted
your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing i submitted most of them 14 weeks i
submitted one extra exhibit um i believe the end of last week or beginning of this week
all right thank you and do you weigh the read know your refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
see yes all right thank you you can show your screen and proceed and you also have a letter
of non-opposition from the third war executive committee
i'm so sorry my uh the zoom originally kicked me out earlier from trying to get on to the desktop
i apologize
gabriel i have two other cases do you want me to come back uh yeah i'm so sorry that it looks
that's not a problem we'll be back in probably about two hours a little humor for the staff
okay we'll be back in 10 minutes can you see my screen now here you guard look at that it scared
you i said two hours yeah i'm trying to get out here just like you guys i'm sorry about that
all right you guys can see my screen now what your screen your screen is up great
all right so we're here today seeking um so let me pull this up
just want to make sure we actually see your email yeah it's a lot of emails emails can you see the
table of contents now no no let me come back to you okay all right sounds back shortly sounds good
number two mi 2025 005 346 58 58 south 2nd street mark feinman is the attorney
mark has been allowed to speak all right mr feinman could you please state your name and
spell for this stenographer? Yes. Good evening. My name is Mark Feynman, M-A-R-K, F as in Frank,
E-I-N as in Nicholas, M-A-N. Do you swear we're affirmed to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Mr. Feynman, could you identify your client,
the relationship to this property? Yes. My client's name is Sam. Last name is Obiah,
O-B-I-A-H, and he is the tenant.
He has a lease to operate what we are proposing, which is a restaurant on the first floor.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good evening.
Have you submitted your documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing?
And this is a referral, so do you wait to know your referral?
All right.
Thank you.
You can share your screen up again.
my apology if i could request there um there is another uh laptop that we're using for the
sharing of the screen and that would appear as hamza alia dia you'll see that he'll raise his
hand if if we can allow that but you're going to do the testimony right that's correct that's correct
okay yes all right bring that gentleman on
All right. Bring that gentleman on.
Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question that involves standing right now?
Involved who?
Standing?
Okay. Mr. Feynman, this is Lynn Riedelhuber, Board Counsel.
I know you just identified Sam Obaya.
Obaya. What is his relationship to Rittenhouse Grill and Juice Bar?
Oh, he's-
I can indicate what it is.
okay i beg your pardon he he would be the owner and operator of that business
okay because he signed the lease then so he signed in as the mooner okay i wanted to clarify that
with regard to the lease that would have the standing okay thank you great greatly appreciate
that thank you you're coming up now yep i see that there okay go ahead sir if i may this is
an application it's a request actually it's quite similar to the one you just heard um and it's
It's right around the corner from the property on Chestnut Street where you just heard some testimony.
It's for a special exception to operate a restaurant in the current building.
This building has served as a restaurant for the past two decades.
The granting would not affect and harm the general public or the community.
The building was already configured for a restaurant.
The use of that restaurant had ceased right after the pandemic.
It's a multi-use building.
It's comprised of four stories.
First two stories are zoned as commercial.
The top two are residential.
That would not change.
But because we fall within the Center City Overlay District and Old City Residential Area District,
And we have a referral over to the board for consideration.
The Mark, we have we have all of your documents and I was going to say photos and my I was going to say my photos and documents that their photos show the exterior of the property along with the zone.
Let's get to that before you say we see you're posted.
uh and i'm going to actually refer because originally this was scheduled for a different
time earlier in the year it got rescheduled till till now and um so we had photos from both
periods of time and the the photos show that the posting it's only one area which would be the
front of the building to be posted and that was posted um more than 21 days prior to today and
can see this photo here shows the exterior facade of the building which there's already an approval
for the construction and that's why you see the the plywood on the windows there for the
construction work that would be taking place in preparation for the anticipated use and there's
also photographs showing the interior and that's what it is right now it's basically it's a it's
It's a box being framed out in preparation for making it into the restaurant.
Somebody yelling.
Okay, keep going.
We had a little issue here.
Oh, okay.
And as I, as I, this, the plans here show the, the, the four floors and how it would appear
and look on each of the floors the layout for the business the second floor would not be used
for this restaurant at this point in time it still is commercial the landlord we don't we
we don't know what his plan would be for down the road on use on that space depending on how
the restaurant does it could very well be that the restaurant could expand to the commercial
use that would be the second floor but at this point your first floor and basement
That is correct. That is correct.
There was a meeting when we first were scheduled that that meeting was with the old city district.
And as you can see, they had light attendance, but there were five that that came out and voted and supported it.
There was one additional attendee and that that was an abstention.
So, you know, like I said, was unanimous for those who voted.
um and uh taxes are current and at this point i would ask uh unless the board has any more
questions of me i would bring my client on to adopt my testimony okay um bring your client on
mr sam you have been promoted to panelists
sir could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer yes hi do you hear me guy
yes hi do you hear me again okay yes good evening everyone my name is sam obaya i'm the
Yes, good evening everyone.
owner for the restaurant sam sam sam hold up sam please spell your name for the stenographer
oh i'm sorry sam no you don't have to be sorry sam obaya s-a-m last name o-b-i-a-h
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
Yes, I do. Please proceed, counsel. Thank you very much. Before I ask Mr. Abai, I do have one additional thing to extend and offer, and that is once the business is approved and opened and operating, it would provide commercial trash pickup consistent with the commercial trash pickup that's currently taking place in basically in this whole corridor there and coordinate.
Mark, do you want to talk about, too, what you're serving?
I mean, you're going to cook food there.
Tell me, why don't you do that, Mark?
The intention of Mr. Obaya is to operate a Mediterranean-style restaurant, eat in and take out.
When we say Mediterranean, it's Middle Eastern food, but a combination.
It could have halal meats.
It could have vegetarian dishes and a variety, of course, based on what the interest and demand of the general public would be.
but it would be consistent with the offerings in what we know is a very popular restaurant.
Mark, let me ask you, you will vent it up to the roof?
Well, yes, we'll vent it wherever it needs to be vented in accordance with what L&I wants and what is needed.
I believe it was already vented that way from before.
Sure. We would just check to confirm. And obviously, we'd have to look at what the existing vetting system was and make sure that it's not corroded or had been deteriorated. But either way.
Why don't you do, Mark, why don't you do this? Why don't you have your testimony adopted by the client?
Yes. Mr. Abai, you heard my presentation of the different evidence and information, correct?
Yes, it is.
And you heard that that was true and correct to best my information, knowledge and information you supply to me.
And would you adopt that testimony as your testimony?
And I will also, at this point, I would move the exhibits in as evidence.
All right.
Questions from the board.
What's the plan for trash storage?
I know you said you're going to have commercial trash pickup, but like where is trash going to be located on the premises until then?
I believe for the most part that would be in the basement of the property.
And would be trash cans outside will be daily.
Every night being taken from the company, which is I have a contract and several business.
We do have franchise in the city.
So the trash is going to be taken every night.
And then what is your plan? Just knowing this quarter pretty well, it's pretty congested.
What's the plan for like Uber Eats and DoorDash delivery pickup?
I do plan to have like that delivery for pickup only because I don't have that big space. So
So my location will be for takeout.
So for delivery Uber and other companies for deliveries, yes, they'll be available for the business.
And then just because the attorney went through it really quick, can you pull up the floor plan of the interior?
I was just trying to understand, like, the takeout to the hostess to the table.
I went through it really quickly.
We'll get back to it.
Thank you for your indulgence.
And did you say you were going to store the trash in the front?
No, no, in the basement.
No, in the basement.
In the basement of the pickup shop.
But it would be taken from the front.
that's the only place that they can go all right so uh if you look to the
to this to the right the second the second um diagram there that would be the first floor
and if you look where it's sort of a hexagon entrance that would be the entrance to the
restaurant i will point out if you look to the right of there where the cursor is
There's actually the door, which would be the door for the upper floor units.
door, which would be the door for the upper floor units. The layout, as you can see here,
shows open space here. That would be the receptionary greeting of the customers coming in.
The pickups, DoorDash, Uber, and so forth, they would get their orders right from the hostess
area there in the front. Got it. So we don't actually have a layout of the restaurant itself.
we just have the that's correct it's it's not it's not a huge space we we anticipate eight or
eight or ten tables total um so depending on the configuration it could be two to four people at
those tables okay and then where's the kitchen going always in the back and it would be to the
right you you see where the stairwell going in the same the same primary space on the first
Correct. That's correct. Yes. Got it. Yeah. That's why that's why you indicate there won't be that much seating space because of the configuration, but there will be some.
OK. And then it does look like right now in the commercial space, there's an internal stairwell that takes you directly to the second floor commercial space.
That's correct. If you do not use that space, how are how is that going to be bifurcated in the future?
That might be a property owner question.
well obviously we we would defer to the the landlord on that um that space that he controls
or would control um our our lease is for the first floor in the basement only when we do the
when we do the build out we'll we'll coordinate and work closely with the landlord on what type of
door or security, he wants to prevent access to that second floor.
Okay. I mean, while I understand you, I feel like legally they're all still considered one
commercial unit, aren't they? Are they not? Like legally, that would be one unit.
I would agree with you in the sense that if there's access to that second floor.
no uh i believe that you see that stairs on the back that's the basement access
that's how you get to the basement yes oh i beg your pardon yeah so if you look at the front of
the the front of the diagram there are stairs there that leads to the second third and fourth
floors those stairs that mr obaye is referencing i hear him i just see them also on the second
floor which is why i think yeah i think it goes from the basement to the second floor which is
why i asked my question and i think the front stairs go directly to the third floor from the
main uh interest yeah yes because there's a third and fourth floor so i'm assuming that there's a
fourth floor residential unit as well yes that is correct yes okay all the questions questions
from our attorney um yes um your client testified now that he this wasn't part of the actually the
application of the refusal that there's takeout service so my question is what percentage is
takeout what percentage is going to be sit down okay there's a side by the wall there should be
a bench by the wall for like waiting area sit down for uh but actually 99 will be take out
Okay. Given that, you're going to have to file, your attorney's going to have to file for an
amended refusal because the application use is for sit-down restaurant.
There's an bench shiver by the wall for the sitting.
But you just said that the majority of your work is take-out.
Correct.
You're testimony. So you're going to have to come back.
Well, no, we can hear and hold.
Yeah, we'll hear and hold.
yeah your uh your attorney's gonna have to get an amended refusal because the majority of it's
going to be um take out take out okay yeah so so we'll we'll we'll submit to get the
to get the amended um we will yeah okay i'm sorry yeah we'll we'll submit the uh application
for the so why don't we do this let's let's get through what we have to get through first
and i just want to clarify it looks like the lease you provided that you actually releasing the um
third floor just as an FYI but I understand the use right now is limited to basement and
first floor I'm sorry second floor is part of the lease and if you want to expand it you're going
to have to come back no it's first floor and basement yeah I misspoke yeah yeah basically
the first floor but your lease actually indicates that you're on the second floor also right but
yeah for you the second floor is zoned as commercial
okay but i just want to let you know that it is part you said you didn't have access to it but you
Okay, but I just want to let you know that it is part, you said you didn't have access to it.
do part of your lease but if you are going to whatever the vote is let's say it's granted and
you do want to expand it to that second floor you're going to have to come back oh yeah i would
not uh expand the second floor yes ultimately not under understood if we if if that ultimately
becomes an uh uh yes yes generation we would need to do that yes okay thank you all right
Um, questions or comments from the first audience that at this time, chair depends on what you want to do.
Oh, yeah, we're just gonna hold as well. What's that?
So you got to give it a result of hearing.
then so i think you're sure she can do a letter letter and if um council wants to give any uh
response that he can do it via a submission a written submission also should i should i do
testimony for sit down restaurant but nothing's going to change for her right no no no what i'm
saying is yeah i know i know that but he's saying i'm doing 99 takeout that's not going to change
unless i say if the refusal is for sit down but they're doing takeout can i say right right so
that's my question she's going to change the change well i don't know what the refusal is
going to say he's going to say probably by the combination but primarily take out probably wait
okay for the amendment okay but we can hold it she's going to hold so we can we can close the
record except for the amended refusal the submission by planning and then if council
wants to submit anything in response to what planning you know indicates afterwards
what was it they submit after after what they say yeah right all right okay i understand mark
do you hear that uh yeah so uh how about a date do we want to we can do it for probably two weeks
to house two weeks mark october 7th october 7th my my my problem is i have a couple things
scheduled that that day and i fly out that evening for europe so um well but i mean i mean i guess
the question would be is you know if you you know if you turn the documents in right that's right we
we need and then the question would be we could handle it other than if planning does something
that you'd want to respond that that would be my only concern well then we'd have to continue it
again that's all if you're not here that's fine so we can give it the seventh um why don't we vote on
the seventh but you have to get everything in beforehand if we can't then i'll have to be
continued get everything in beforehand and we'll vote on the seventh and that's what i was going
to say that i'll work to get everything over you vote on it on the seventh unless something comes
out of left field so to speak and we need to just give it a new date for a vote
only yeah correct yeah okay perfect all right excellent thank you very much thank
you have a good evening thank you thank you everyone let's go to number four to
be sure and then we'll go back
where do you want to get it out now let me get them out
All right. MI 2026 002 255 7352 82 State Road.
um quinzel but there is the um uh the tenant mr quinzel has been promoted to panelists
good evening good evening sir could you please state and spell your name for the stenographer
my name is Quinzel but they l that's q-u-i-n-z-e-l-l-e but they b-e-t-h-e-a and space e-l
all right do you swear we're affirmed to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i affirm our vice chair has a few questions for you good evening have you submitted your
documents and exhibits 14 days in advance of this hearing yes an exception of the uh the sign lease
which was uh submitted a couple days ago okay all right and you understand that you're here
Okay. All right. And you understand that you're here for personal vehicle repair and maintenance?
for a personal vehicle repair.
Okay. And that this is when you're here for a special reception because this use is prohibited in your I-2 zoning district?
Okay. All right. You can just share your screen and proceed to tell us what you're trying to do and explain your pictures if you show them to us.
Mr. Chairman, if I can speak first, I just want to clarify the standing.
we did receive the lease the signed lease but i just wanted to confirm it didn't have a unit on it
so for the uh property of 7352-82 state road you're in unit 104 is that correct yes that is
correct okay because the lease didn't have a unit on it but okay because that's going to be part of
our proviso it's already on there that's tax taxes are okay we're okay okay you does you have the tax
it's fine all right please proceed sir okay can everyone see my screen here you can okay so yeah
so we're just proposing a straightforward application uh we're proposing a car repair shop
um these are images of the front of the property um the entrance is that draw
bridge there this is a copy of the referral um principal use is allowed um this is a this is a
uh this is allowed under special exception as as it was said um and we're just doing personal
vehicle repair and maintenance um no car sales uh the notice of the zoning appeal this is the
notice um that we printed out here this was the letter that we provided the the residents
prior to the public meeting.
This is the addresses that were mailed out.
And this is our proof of mailing here.
Total price was $26.
This is another image.
Adjacent to the property is a closed down car repair shop
that was closed.
And we're directly across the street from Sunoco Gas Station.
And the address is pretty good for this location
because this is the I2 Industrial District,
and they wanted to designate this spot specifically for these type of things
that it doesn't become a public nuisance and no loud noises.
These are pictures of the interior of the shop,
which is a substantial amount of room for parking vehicles,
so we don't have to worry about the nuisance of vehicles parked on the street.
This is the entrance where you see the Mitsubishi.
That's actually my car.
this is going into the parking space or where individuals will be able to come into it,
make a left where the lifts are and get their vehicles repaired. And then storage will happen
in the back when needed for customers. We plan to have roughly about, we only have about three
lifts. So it's a small repair shop, three to four customers and not overdoing it.
Again, this is an I2 district. This is a picture of the space on State Road.
And as mentioned, this is a copy of the of what this is going to look like.
So to the left where you see the offices, that's the office where individuals able to sit.
They come in to the left are the lifts and then the back where this travel distance there is in the parking lot.
All of this is a parking area and storage area.
This is a notice of the pill that was posted on the door in time.
This is a letter from the ZBA for not opposed.
This is a lease agreement as well.
And that ends my presentation.
Questions from the board?
Can you point out where the parking lot is that you mentioned?
So there's parking inside of the, so I'll show you here.
Inside the building.
Inside of the building.
So if you look here, you see where where this vehicle is here, the black truck.
Yes. So all of that in the back is all parking space.
OK, I think the question I have is really about because it doesn't look like there's a lot of street parking on State Road.
No, I know when we look at other personal care vehicle locations, they often have these cars like backed out, parked down the street, blocking the sidewalk.
What's going to be your sort of plan to navigate and move and temporarily store the vehicles while you're doing while you and your team are doing work?
Yeah. So as mentioned, and thank you for the question, which is a big nuisance.
So as mentioned here, if you can see the screen that I have up here, if you see the entrance where it says car entrance, this is to the left of my screen.
so the vehicles are coming in through the car entrance um and then the the v
So the vehicles are coming in through the car entrance, and then the vehicle repair is being done where you see the auto lifts at.
So that means everything where you see the oil drums and all that, that's all room for storage.
So that can store over maybe 50 or so cars.
It's a large storage area.
I mean, it's gigantic.
This is 175 feet in travel distance if you look here, and then this is 195 feet in travel distance.
So, I mean, I could be exaggerating, but a lot of cars could be stored.
You know, cars can be like just a little bit.
Cars like 50 feet long each.
Yeah, yeah.
It was 195 square feet in travel distance.
Make it 75 cars.
75 cars.
Yes, there we go.
So it sounds like just for your operation purposes, you're only ever going to have cars being repaired on lifts.
you have four lifts and then any other car whether you're waiting for a part or you're
waiting for pickup will be stored inside this building on in one of your sort of parking or
storage areas i couldn't have said it better okay and then um are there any uh like locations or
staff restricted places i'm thinking like break room um place from like i didn't see a bathroom
on the plan um no so there's no there's there's that one office location okay um and um that's
it that's that sorry um that's my son just came in um there's that one office location um that is
uh where where you see this person at in the front um and that's that's the only location
adjacent to the property there's a warehouse okay i'm sorry you said um adjacent to the property
uh is a um it's another rental property that um we rent as a warehouse so that's access to the
facilities or restrooms and different things like that as well okay and then my last question is
about the storage of like oil used oil chemicals things like how are you containing them and
disposing of them safely yes perfect yeah so it will be picked up um there's storage drums that
are expected to be it's not there now but there's oil drums that will be here um and they will be
picked up by a commercial by a commercial vendor okay all the questions yes so uh what are you
going to be doing in terms of this car repair this is just oil changes higher changes what
what are you going to be doing exactly so just personal vehicle repair um there's not going to
be any body work being done here um so uh standard alternators transmissions you know the the standard
things. We're not an engine specialist shop, but all the other standard repairs,
brakes, stuff like this. Okay. And then about how many customers do you have a day?
Well, we don't have any customers now. We're expecting roughly four to five customers daily.
okay all right and this will be by appointment is that how you're going to do this by appointment
up until we up until we have a sign up and then individuals they can you know of course pull in
inquire and at the inquiry all depending on as is mentioned today storage and availability
then we can take that take that car okay all right and um you have the hazardous waste disposal
you will have hazardous waste disposal is that 100 all right okay and um are you going to store
tires at this no we do not plan to do that okay all right thank you questions from our attorney
um i know we had exchanged emails on it but i wanted to make sure it's on the record that
you are only using this location for uh personal vehicle repair and maintenance you are not using
for personal vehicle sales and rental that is correct questions or comments from the virtual
audience not at this time chair planning commission madison matera planning commission
staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing i2 medium industrial zoning at
this location the appellant has demonstrated that the proposed use will not cause detrimental
impacts beyond what we reasonably would be expected the planning commission recommends
the board grant their crusted special exception for personal vehicle repair and maintenance
okay um MI 2026 002 255 7352 to 82 state road I vote yes with proviso approve use for personal
vehicle repair and maintenance and limited to unit 104. Michael Johns my vote is yes with proviso
Gerald Gaston, my vote is yes with proviso. Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
my vote is yes with proviso
my vote is yes with proviso
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with proviso. Tyia Nguyen, my vote is yes with proviso. Sir.
Thank you so much, Chair. So you you have your votes and I have to tell you,
you made a great presentation. Thank you so much, everyone. Well,
I got to say that it sounds good. All right, we're back to number one, Gabriel.
you're not tired hear me and see me
uh mr chair can you hear me yeah i can wait i'm going to share my screen how are we doing okay
Can you see my screen?
Yeah, here we go.
You're moving now.
Now we are losing.
All right.
Do you need me to swear in again or say my name or anything?
Yes, sir.
My name is Gabriel Fellis, J-B-R-I-E-L.
I already swore you in, didn't I?
I didn't know if you need me to do it again.
Go ahead.
You just do a state your name and then start your presentation.
Yeah, it's Gabriel Fellas. My client is Enid Breppenridge. She's the owner of the property.
Breppenridge is the owner of the property at 5861 Willows Ave. She's looking to use the lower
level of the property as a takeout waterized stand. Her plan is to use the basement of the property
for prep and storage, and then customers will be able to place takeout orders from a window
at the side of the property. I'll show you the layout and proposed configuration a little later
on uh properties previously held a variance in place for use of the lower level as a funeral home
hasn't been in operation for as a funeral home for a number of years so miss breckenridge is
just looking for a new commercial use of that space it's a bit more in line with what would
best serve the community so here we have that zoning history for the property as i mentioned
for a funeral home and residential living above
Here we have some rough proposed site plans, the layout of the prep area in the basement.
So the plan here is just to use the basement for prep and storage, and these plans show
the orientation of the basement.
But this gives a little bit of a better layout.
So there's an above ground door right here that leads to stairs that go straight down
to the basement and then right next to that door right where the zba posters are hanging now
the proposal is to actually have a sliding window where customers can place those orders and and
take out their their orders and these are these bill card doors are just another means of egress
and ingress into the basement but again this is take out no customers are going to come
into the basement or onto the property besides just taking out from that window
So here we have some photos of the basement in its current condition, which is unfinished right now.
Eden and her daughter originally filed this appeal on their own.
They worked with the third ward executive committee directly to set up the community meeting and speak with the neighbors.
They ended up having that meeting with the community on January 26th, and they received
this letter of non-opposition.
Mr. Waters, the RCO chair, and he helped them through that process of notifying neighbors
and sending out their required mailing.
This is our zoning map, again, the property is zoned RM1.
And this is the most recent deed to the property showing Enid as a sole owner, but she's actually
been an owner of the property in one way or the other for over 30 years so here we have our
application for appeal that they did on their own and their project information form
here we have proof of the real estate tax paying plan that miss breckenridge has with the city
and here we have the zba posters notifying neighbors of the hearing here today
so with that i'd like to invite enid on um she might be on her daughter's
zoom and her daughter's name is maya so it's either enid or maya
Enid has been promoted to panelists.
What's your name again?
Hello?
Hello?
Could you please state your name as spelled for the stenographer?
First name is E-N-I-D-E-N-E-D-B-R-E-A-K-E-N-R-I-D-G-E.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
And have you heard my testimony today?
What did he say?
yes yes yes and it wasn't true and correct to the best of your knowledge yes and would you adopt it
as if it were your own yes great uh any questions we have an answer so this is just all take out
right so people are going to stand on the pavement and uh be serviced through uh there's a you want
to put in a window or yes the goal is to put in the window yes yes so a window is going right
there next to the door and so people will come up and get um and get service there okay yes
and then the rest of and the rest of this basement is just going to be for servicing this this take
out yes okay and then what all are you going to be servicing i know it's a water high stand but
I know a lot of other water art stands do nachos and pretzels and just want to be clear.
So what are you serving?
Hot dog, pretzels, and chips.
And then are all of the, I guess, the equipment that you're using to heat things up, are they all electric?
yes okay i have a question just about the trash management um like what are you
planning on doing about keeping the front sidewalk or the sidewalk clear uh trash and debris like
you can have the trash can there it's gonna be cleaned daily um just yes yes the trash can will
be right there and it will be cleaned daily i have one last question is this a year-round
business or is this going to be seasonal um you're going to start off seasonal okay
so it's okay gabriel let me ask one quick question i mean um are the immediate neighbors okay with
this um so they met with the community and the community had uh you know they voted i saw the
community mean but what i'm saying is they're going to be people they might go in front of
other people's houses waiting in line right yeah so so this the property itself is like right on
corner it's right on the corner property okay so that's the corner right here and that
all right is the side block so to be waiting kind of lined up on the street or on the street corner
right please go ahead okay so the water ice you're gonna put freezers or something in this
basement is that how you're gonna do this yes okay and then you're gonna have you said hot dogs and
chips and I guess soda so you're gonna have some place to keep this sodas cold or whatever drinks
you're going to have so cold yes all of this in this basement yes okay and then you're gonna
put a window in yes okay so all right um okay uh
i'm not sure but you know i think you need some department approval too for takeout windows
um have you made any arrangements about that or looked into that
there's going to be a window on both sides of the door
you're going to put in two windows yes
okay so and where are you gonna uh okay where's the second one they're going to go yeah where's
yeah where's the second window gonna go on the other side of the door
the second window gonna go on the other side of
so is there so so there's a floor there behind this door in some level and that's where whoever
is going to be serving this they're going to stand back there and take this order through these
windows yes are you planning to do this okay
hey brother windows on the floor plan no the the floor plans are just the layout of the basement
itself or the proposed layout of the of the floor itself yeah okay yeah just out of curiosity
gabriel could you figure out what's the purpose of two windows is that's if the lines get big or
um i i honestly i'm not sure i'll defer to them to see how they wanted to you know why don't you
ask your client what's the what i mean what's the purpose of two am i able to talk things that's
going to be my business um can my daughter talk because she's the one who is going under the
business absolutely oh okay good hold up hold up hold up can she's the one applied right right so
she can call her you can call your daughter call your daughter as a witness that's right
state your name and spell for the stenographer i guess my name is kenwin breakingridge first
name is spelled k-e-n-w-y-n all right all right last what do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes would you add some light to this for us
yes so yes there's going to be um two windows one on each side of the door so that way um we won't
cross contaminate it will be a person that obviously will be collect the money and then
the other person would deal with just the food so one one side would be like the cashier side
and the other side is where they will be getting the food and so my just to give a little more
context so like this right here where you see my screen yes there's a floor out here right so like
gonna be a window here and then someone can stand right behind that window and yes orders and give
out and then these stairs go directly as soon as you open the door it's stairs that go directly to
the basement no there is no stairs that's that's that's what that's going into the basement yeah
straight level yes okay any other questions
i mean on the plan so you have two spaces in the basement you're using it looks like you're using
what would have been this like vestibule for the side entrance and then it looks like you have a
storage room as well to the side are you using the remainder of the space or is the rest of the space
going to be it's like no just yeah it's just going to be for storage those are the only two spaces
we need for this okay and then so where is your equipment going to be set up because i see the
sink and i see the shelves but i'm just trying to figure out like where are the hot dogs being
cooked where's where the pretzels being heated up well yes we will have space for that in that the
it's right next to it that's just the layout of the full basement the basement is really big
so it's the two areas right there and that one um other area is where that will be to make like the
the hot dogs and stuff it will be like a what do they call those it looks like a toaster oven or
something like where they make the hot dogs in um yeah okay it's not like i'm sorry
i i didn't say anything i think because we didn't see your equipment layout i think that's why
you're you're getting this line of questioning oh okay space as depicted couldn't fit all of that
so i think people are asking like now if there's two windows where where's all this equipment
been happening but I think you explained it's in the area next to the door yes yes ma'am
questions for our attorney yes I just wanted to clarify about your use it's just on the ground
floor right yes ma'am okay so not basement we're just going to say if it's granted use limited to
ground floor only yes
questions or comments from the virtual audience
not at this time chair planning commission madison matera planning commission staff the
comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from rm1 residential multi-family
to rsa 5 residential single family city rezoned this neighborhood in 2019 in accord with
recommendations in the comprehensive plan there's no unique physical condition or circumstance of
this property to prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code there's
there's no evidence that this property has ever posted a commercial space the city planning
no evidence that this property has ever hosted a commercial space the city planning commission
commission recommends support deny the proposed use variants for a prepared food shop
MI 2025-002-467-5861 Willows Avenue I vote yes with proviso use limited
to first ground floor only Michael Johns my vote is yes with proviso
Cheryl Gaston, I'm abstaining on this one.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Iowyn, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Thank you. You have your votes.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Gabriel.
Thank you.
Has anyone in the audience whose case has not been called from the 330 list?
I see no hands cheer.
okay um thank you thanks everyone i appreciate it i think we had a lot of work done today we
had a lot of different things to look at a little bit a little bit different um see everybody next
wednesday take care all right