LUPZ considers Hirshorn proposal

The Hirshorn Company’s planned expansion of their office building at 14 E. Highland Ave. involves the demolition of 16-18 E. Highland Ave. (currently housing Cardonick Chiropractic) and construction of the gable-roofed structure seen in the top drawing (the view is from Highland Avenue). The bottom diagram is an approximate rendering of the footprint of the new structure, superimposed on the current site layout. The driveway to the parking lot would be relocated to the right of the new building. 

by MEREDITH SONDERSKOV

The Hirshorn Company’s plans for an addition to their building on East Highland Avenue and the resulting relocation of a driveway to a Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation lot were discussed at a CHCA Land Use Planning and Zoning committee meeting on June 2 at Hiram Lodge.

According to Adam Jacobs of Krieger Associates, the architectural firm handing the project, Hirshorn received eight refusals from the city, primarily based on complex violations having to do with the parking lot.

The city expects easements for vehicular access but there are no easements; the property owners lease the space occupied by the parking lot to the parking foundation for $1 a year. Part of the problem is that a 1961 parking foundation map is incorrectly drawn; as a result it looks as though there are four separate parking lots, and the city wants parking spaces for handicapped drivers in each one. In the existing lot, those parking spaces are all at one end, next to the Hirshorn building.

The Highland Avenue lot is owned by multiple property owners, including the Hirshorn Company, who decades ago agreed to lease land to the Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation for the creation of the parking area.

Another refusal has to do with the requirement for minimum building setback. C2 (commercial) zones can have no setback, while R5 (residential) must have eight feet minimum. The present Hirshorn building is zoned C2 and has no setback. Hirshorn wants the new building, which would utilize space zoned residential and currently occupied by the Cardonick Chiropractic building, to have no setback as well.

The city has signed off on a requested new 15-foot-wide driveway with a buffer six feet wide and six feet high. This is one of the issues that brought a negative response from three Ardleigh Street neighbors who attended the meeting. Other issues raised by the neighbors concern windows on the second floor of the new building looking down on their yards, exterior lighting, removal of mature existing trees and safe sight lines for entering and exiting the parking lot.

After considerable discussion, the committee recommended approval of the project to the CHCA’s Development Review Committee with conditions that theJune 14 DRCmeeting be properly advertised and neighbors notified by letter, and that Hirshorn bring letters from all the adjoining neighbors on Germantown Avenue, Ardleigh Street and across Highland Avenue. The LUPZ also requested that construction and landscape drawings be made available to the committee when they are ready.