ZOOM General Meeting June 4, 2025 at 7:00PM

Register for the meeting

When registering please pick the date of the meeting you are registering for.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The meeting will begin promptly at 7:00 PM.

Admission will begin 10 minutes before the start. At 6:50: PM.

Please help us out by joining the meeting early and waiting in the ZOOM waiting room to be admitted.

During the meeting, attendees will normally be muted. Use the 'raise hand' feature of ZOOM when you wish to ask a question. The meeting administrator will un-mute you and announce you.

Thank you for your letters in opposition to 4045-61 Main Street
Now it's time to do more!

The hearing on Wednesday March 19th ran long with the applicant's attorney chewing up the clock as usual and there wasn't time to take all testimony.

There will be a resumption hearing Wednesday, May 7th at 2:00 PM.

See the details below on how you can participate

The ZBA hearing for 4045-61 Main Street, the Littlewoods property started,as scheduled, on March 19th

Because of the number of letters of support and opposition, it was decided by the ZBA that, after an hour of testimony from the applicant's attorney, the hearing would stop and then resume on May 7th at 2:00 PM.

It was because of significant numbers of the community writing in or signing on for the Zoom link that this decision was taken - so thank you to those of you who took some action; it had an immediate impact.

The hearing next week is called a resumption hearing and the attorney will continue with his testimony and call on various consultants to provide supporting testimony. After that, questions and comments from the ZBA Board and then the public will be allowed.

We need people to sign in again on the ZBA home page and speak, however, briefly about the proposal and any details from the testimony. After raising your virtual hand, the chair, William Bergman, will swear you in and allow you to speak; you will be heard but not seen on the screen. If there are a lot of people, the chair will try to limit the time that you speak and try to insist that you say something different from previous speakers but don't be flustered by this - say exactly what you want, as succinctly as possible.

The ZBA session begins at 2:00 PM but the Main Street case may not be the first case to be called.

The developer has gone door to door along Main Street, asking for support for the scheme so we need as many people as possible to register some form of opposition so that the ZBA Board knows that the scheme is not liked by the community beyond Main Street.

We appreciate any help that you can provide.

Watch the recording of the March 19 hearing. The 4045 Main Street testimony begins at minute 22 on the recording. You can fast forward or rewind as you please.

There are three ways to attend the hearing.

• Remotely with ZOOM. register for the zoom hearing to attend via zoom.

  To register your appearance for this case enter address 4045-61 MAIN ST in the address field at the bottom of the registration form.

• In person
  

  1515 Arch St.
  18th floor, Room 18-002
  Philadelphia, PA 19102

• By Phone
  

  If you don't have a computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can join a hearing on any telephone. You will be able to listen to the hearing. To join by phone, dial (646) 876-9923. When prompted, enter the following information:

  Webinar ID: 820 8829 2595
  Password: 634842

  To be heard at the appropriate time, you'll be instructed to dial *9 to use the "raise hand" function and *6 to unmute and mute yourself.

  If you join by phone please register your appearance for this case by calling (267) 270-5548 on the day of the hearing. Leave a message with your name, contact information, and the address or appeal number for which you would like to register.

• Letters (a little late for that maybe)

  Zoning Board of Adjustment
  1515 Arch St., 18th Floor, Room 18-006
  Philadelphia, PA 19102

There are three ways to write letters to the ZBA.

• To write to the ZBA you will need several pieces of information

  Appeal number: ZP-2024-003395
  Meeting ID: MI-2024-006733
  Hearing data and time: May 7 2025 at 02:00 PM
  Property Address: 4045-61 MAIN ST

  You can also find this information on the ZBA website.

• A good old fashioned letter (probably late for that)

  Zoning Board of Adjustment
  1515 Arch St., 18th Floor, Room 18-006
  Philadelphia, PA 19102

• Email to RCOZBA@phila.gov

• Submit your letter through the on-line document system.

The Resumption ZBA hearing for 4045 Main St. is scheduled for Wednesday, May 7th at 2:00 PM. The appeal is to allow an 8 story high residential building on the corner of Main Street and Shurs Lane. MNC has voted against this proposal ,considering it to be an over-scaled development.

The applicant, Urban Conversions, and the present owners, the Littlewoods Family Trust, have been preparing this appeal for a long time and have asked pretty much every business and property owner on Main Street for their support in the form of letters and a petition.

To counter that effort, we need as many people in the local community as possible to write to the ZBA (or give testimony at the hearing) in opposition to the development.

• The hearing is Wednesday May 7th at 2:00 PM.
• The Zoning Appeal number is ZP-2024-003395 and the Meeting ID is MI-2024-006733 Please reference these, along with the address, 4045-4061 Main Street, if sending an email.
• Participate in a Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) hearing. Instructions on how to attend the hearing in person, or virtually, how to email documents, or how to submit them electronically.
• Zoning Hearing Information Page.
• Direct link for document submission.
• Design drawings from the developer.
• Our letter to the Zoning Board.

Below is a list of comments which you might want to pick and choose from to include as reasons for opposition:

• The proposal is for a change of use from 'medium industrial' to 'mixed use' with 163 residential units (1 or 2 bedrooms) with 162 parking spaces.
• The height of the building is 82' while the height limit for this area within the Manayunk Historic District is is only 38'.
• The property is the last (or first ) one at the eastern end the Manayunk Historic District along Main Street which was created to protect Manayunk's historic character.
• The majority of the property, including all the frontage along Main St., sits within the floodplain.
• Because the building sits in the floodplain, it is allowed to exceed the general 38' height limit and be just over 50' above the Main St. sidewalk. At 82' high, the proposed building is over 30' higher than the allowable height.
• The parking is arranged on 2 levels; the lower level, with spaces for 99 cars, is arranged along the Main Street frontage, which will need to be evacuated in a flood event. There is no detailed plan for where these 99 displaced cars will go for weeks while the property is cleaned and repaired.
• There is no commercial space in the building - even though it includes almost 400' of Main St. frontage.
• The proposed building stretches from end to end of the almost 400' long property. The maximum setback along the Main St. facade (which is predominantly 82' high) is only 5', so the building will appear as an 8 story solid wall on Main Street.
• The adjacent proposed building at 11 Shurs Lane, which received ZBA approval last year, is only 3 stories of newly-constructed residential units above a 1st floor level of parking and a small commercial space. That scheme, which includes a small existing building which will be retained, is, demonstrably, commercially viable as it proceeds through design. By comparison, 4045 Main Street is double the height of that building. There is no economic hardship argument that justifies that this building needs to be 3 stories higher to be viable.
• As an alternative, a building with significantly less residential units would need less parking spaces and could be significantly lower. Providing a terrace at the 2nd floor level above the flood elevation along Shurs Lane would provide public access and reduce the impact of the mass of the building at this prominent intersection.

If anyone needs further information of has questions, please let us know.