So MI 2023-006-845-2128-Chelton. Cases continued, Mark, must be heard.
OK, we're going to go to our list now. Number seven.
that is the list mi 2024 001 164 9201 james street alan knockamson is the attorney this
is a reconsideration hearing oh you gotta be shitting me john john john kelly
alan knockamson is coming in as a panelist
Hi, Mr. Nockamson.
Yes, Alan Nockamson.
Right, and you've already been sworn.
So this is a reconsideration hearing.
And the evidence and testimony from November 8, 2023 hearing in this matter
is incorporated into the record for this hearing.
The scope of this hearing is limited to taking testimony from the applicant
as they were unable to testify at the previous hearings.
The board will also take testimony from the public response to the applicant's testimony,
as well as the recommendations of the Planning Commission.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Alan Ockamson, again from the Ockamson PC.
The applicant is direct to Auto Sales Speedy, Inc.
And in the virtual audience should be Albert Belfour, its principal.
So I would ask that Mr. Belfour be promoted.
So Mr. Belfour, if you can virtually raise your hand, that would be helpful.
I'm searching him now.
You said Belfour?
Belfour, B-E-L-F-E-R.
okay yes his hand is not oh you know what he's actually in my office so he's under mr goldberg's
Oh, you know what? He's actually in my office, so he's under Mr. Goldberg's name.
name okay
Sorry. I wanted to make sure there was no issues this time, so I brought him into my office.
Mr. Goldberg has been promoted.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Mr. Belfort. Yes, sir. Hi. Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Albert Belper. Spelled, please. A-L-B-E-R-T-B-E-L-F-E-R.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Mr. Nockamson. Yeah, so I just want to give some background here.
we are dealing with an application for a special access exception we have a notice of referral i'm
just going to go through the exhibits really quickly just to give you know again it's been
a while since the hearing so i'm just going to go really quickly through it and we'll go to mr
belver's testimony but this is not a variance this is for special exception and the standard
as the board knows is that will the granting of the special exception cause a detrimental impact
to the neighborhood beyond what would be normally expected from the proposed use.
The proposed use of this property, according to the notice of referral, is personal vehicle
sales and rental, no sale of used automotive parts on the same lot with all other uses
as previously approved, no sign on this application.
As a matter of background, Mr. Belfort owns a car dealership in close proximity to this
property.
He wants to sell some of those cars via the internet.
Because of an archaic rule from the state, he needs to have a separate location just for internet sales.
So that's why he purchased this property at 9201 James Street.
This is an ICMX property, which requires a special exception.
You'll see from the zoning map, we are adjacent to I2.
I2 would allow this use as a right.
But there's going to be no cars stored on this property. So, again, when we're looking at the detrimental impact of this proposed use, will Internet sales of cars that are at a separate location cause a detrimental impact to the community?
There are like six factors to consider. Congestion in the public streets or transportation systems, no cars are going to be stored on the lot. Overcrowding the land, no cars are stored on the lot. Impairing an adequate supply of light and air to the adjacent property, he's not changing the building structure. He just has offices in there.
Burning water, sewers, school, park, or other public facilities?
Impairing or permanently injuring the use of adjacent conforming properties?
The answer is no, because he's at the end, and we'll show at the pictures,
he's at the end of this row of more industrial-used properties.
Endangering the public health or safety by fire or other means?
The answer is no.
This is just office use.
He's not actually conducting any like physical like sales of, well, more so cars that are physically on this lot.
And it's not consistent, inconsistent with the comprehensive plan either.
So we originally received a letter of support overwhelmingly, like people showed up to a community meeting and they're like, we're not against this.
It was it was 30 to 6.
we filed our motion for reconsideration um we had some pushback at the original hearing which
was surprising because we didn't expect that to happen um and all of a sudden we get a letter
from the community after a motion reconsideration but before this hearing stated they had a separate
meeting without our involvement we weren't invited where they not only retracted the the their
support but they voted 28 to zip against it and in there they said it was suggested that the owner
of the property has not been the best neighbor as it relates to addressing the concerns that were
brought up with respect to the media surrounding businesses uh and that could be no further from
the truth first of all like the neighbors who who actually know mr belfer and his and his company
we did a chart
and this was at the community meeting
this was at the ZBA, the last ZBA hearing
we have 14
Fourteen people who are nearby neighbors who conduct business right next to Mr. Belfort in the subject premises who are in support of this project.
people who are nearby neighbors
who conduct business right next to Mr.
So if anyone was having issues with how Mr. Belfort conducted himself with his nearby dealership or with the proposed, I guess you would say satellite office of that dealership, they wouldn't have signed this.
And then so, yeah, we had an issue because we came to the hearing.
There were certain allegations by someone who owns five properties surrounding Mr. Belfort.
And by the way, that individual, Mr. McDermott, my understanding is tried to purchase this property in 9201, was upset with Mr. Belfort simply because he he purchased the property under Mr. McDermott's notes.
But all of Mr. McDermott's tenants signed out that letter of support or that petition of support.
But again, unfortunately, Mr. Belfort, because of the lack of technology, he had issues getting on, and that's why we had this reconsideration.
But this is what's new, and Mr. Belfort testifies to this.
Mr. Belfort agrees there's been issues with the properties next to this one in 9201.
He's not the one that's at fault.
As soon as he purchased 9201, he also saw illegal dumping of the property.
He reached out to the council member, my council member, Mike Driscoll's office to say that there's been illegal dumping even on his property and that he wanted he was trying to figure a way how to take care of this.
In your presentation packet, there's invoices that Mr. Belfort, you know, paid for to remove illegal dumping on his property and nearby.
so i would ask that mr belfort you know speak to that so mr belfort you know have you had issues
with illegal dumping on your property yes i have okay so can you can you just elaborate more than
i just stated of course um about two years ago when i purchased this property um i have
I've never thought that I would be dealing with the issues that I started dealing with.
Mind that, I have been on the street operating a car dealership for the last eight years, literally 100 feet away from this property.
When I first moved in here, there was obviously a little bit of upsetness because I ended up buying the property instead of the person who owns multiple units already there didn't get a chance to buy it.
so I understand there was frustration from one end.
I honestly thought that we were all grown-ups
and we could get along and have no issues.
I've been in this location for eight years,
and I never had problems with anybody there.
A couple months into me being there,
I started having issues with people parking their cars there.
Later on, all of a sudden, after I became strict,
I started having a lot of dumping happening in the middle of the night.
One night, give or take, three, four o'clock in the morning, a big dumpster truck comes out
and dumps 40 something tires on my property. When I first had that, I had no idea what to do. So
the first thing I do is I contact the police. The police come out, they give me a police report.
They state to me, unfortunately, there's not that much that they can do or offer to me,
but they will notify a neighborhood division, watch division that they have in the police
Department and let them know of the issue that I'm having. I was told to reach out to
Councilman Driscoll and also tell him the situation of what I've had. I personally,
not only did I write him multiple letters, I personally went over to his Toursdale office
and I met with Mr. Driscoll's assistant, Terrence Devlin. And I explained to Terrence that I've had
this issue and I don't know what to do. And it's not fair that I have to pay these expenses
considering there should be another way around it. He told me he would look into it.
I never had a response from the councilman's office and I just had to keep moving on with my
day. A couple of months after that, I had 11 nasty mattresses dumped all over the hill of my
property again i was told i had to contact the police reached out to the police made a police
report notified them of the situation again had to pay a fine uh to a dumping company to come
and remove everything off my property there was also no outcome of arresting somebody or
arresting somebody or a prevent to way of preventing this there was no other option
or a way of preventing this.
finally uh sometime in december i had two cars uh there were uh stolen vehicles and they were
parted out they were dropped in front of my front door i contacted the police and we had two police
officers that came out. They did the inspection on their cars. And they told me that, unfortunately,
because the VINs have been decoded, I'm not allowed to touch the vehicles or I can be arrested
for grand theft auto. I said, how am I supposed to walk into my building that I own to work?
And they told me, unfortunately, we have to do our job. And then at that point in time,
once the cars are moved off of your, off your premises, we'll be able, you know, you'll be
able to get back to work. I had six days that I had to wait, calling every day, speaking to a
supervisor at the police academy, eighth district, being upset, not understanding what kind of world
we live in. And then I understood that they told me that if a car would be left in my driveway
and the police came out there and they told me that somebody, it was a stolen vehicle and there
was no VIN numbers, I would have to have that car sit there until the police took further actions.
After all this transpired, I have a three acre lot right across the street from this warehouse
where I store over 200 vehicles. I decided to take 12 of my vehicles and I put them
at the dead end of my street where the dumping was taking place, not because I need to put cars
there, but literally I put them there so the dumping would stop happening in front of my
office. The minute that I did this, the dumping disappeared overnight. Since this day, I had not
had any issues. I don't want to keep my cars there. I'm actually putting myself in danger
because of the theft that can happen today with cars being stolen. All my cars are locked up in
my yard. But at this point in time, getting expenses that are growing only because there's
no way to prevent it. This was my only way to put cars at the dead end of the street where I make
sure that i'm not adjacent i'm not a problem to any of my neighbors um where i can leave the cars
there and know that when i come to work the next day there is nothing that's going to be on my
premises and that's what i did just to make sure that i can have no issues on a daily basis coming
to work so just to reiterate because i i testify but i want to make sure that it's truthful and
accurate like the only reason why you have this other location is because of a state requirement
that you have to do internet sales at a location other than your dealership is that correct
so it basically works like this uh down the street at 92 40 uh james street um i have a car dealership
license there uh it is by law that because i have a one office um car dealership there it's just one
office. You either need to have multiple offices or you need to have a separate office to be able
to conduct internet sales. All right. And this is the interior of the building that you own at
9201 James Street, right? That is correct. Yes. Right. And this is meant merely as like essentially
office use, but because of the technicality with the state code, you need to say that you
actually have personal vehicle sales and rentals from a zoning code perspective, right?
That is correct.
But you have no intention to actually have physical cars for sale at this location?
No. I have a car dealership down the street. I have a lot, like I said, of three acres of
land where I can put another 200 cars if I wanted to. This is strictly an office that I bought.
I did a nice renovation to have a comfortable feeling to be able to walk into work
and to be able to conduct online sales. That's pretty much all that would be done there.
Yeah. And you're on a row of, I guess, industrial properties where you're at the end of that row
Because it dead ends where you're at, right?
That is correct.
So no one from the street can actually see like your property at 92.
So no one from the street can actually see, like, your property at 9201 James Street?
I mean, they can see it if you go through, you know, all the trees and bushes have been cut down by PennDOT.
But, I mean, you can physically see the location.
But in terms of, like, if you, like, you know, you're putting these cars here to protect your property from illegal dumping,
Even if you continued hypothetically doing that, you're not causing any harm in terms of access or congestion on the street with this dead-end portion of your lease.
Not at all. I'm not in anybody's way.
And just again, just to kind of go to this, you're not the only automotive use for this row of properties on James Street, right?
There's about seven car dealerships on this street.
Yeah, there's Modern Auto Detailing Intent, 925 Auto Repair Center, that's you, Liam's Auto Repair, R&E Auto Service, and T-Car Care Used Car Dealer, right?
All on this row of properties or nearby, right?
Right. OK. And again, having cars along this strip of Jane Street is not out of character because these are your this is your lot.
But then these are the other properties where they have cars are stored in front of their like bay doors.
Is that right? These are pictures you took. Yes.
So for the last couple of months, Alan, I provided you pictures and I wanted to address the chairman and everybody.
I am not in any way, shape, or form the person that's causing the issues.
You can see what happens on a daily basis with all the other businesses blocking the road.
If anything, I am the person that can't get to my unit.
I am the person that it takes 20 minutes sometimes to wait until trucks unload for other warehouses just to get back to my office.
I am in no way, in anybody's way, my cars, these are not my cars. These are regular customers or people that work. And this is just what they do on a daily basis.
Yeah, I have no further questions. Everything else was made into evidence.
You know, last time I would just say I would lose our exhibits.
The council person's office, where do they stand?
Project. That's what the most shocking part is. We don't understand why. Again, there's all this rumor and innuendo without any proof of that Mr. Belfort's causing this time.
Okay. All right. So, questions from the board?
No, Chair.