Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, Steve.
Meredith, could you go first, please? State your name.
Sure. Meredith Ferliger. F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R.
Steve, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Steve Masters, S-T-E-V-E-M-A-S-T-E-R-S.
Right. Do you both swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Thank you. So this is a resumptive hearing, right?
So what we're going to have today and both tell me from right here, the Protestants will introduce
a counter pro forma by Christopher DeBrun. Am I correct, Steve? Yes, that is our expert witness.
Right. And then after that, there'll be questions from the board.
and also the planning commission to make a recommendation, right?
And we taking public testimony with this?
We already took public testimony.
So, yeah, the record is closed on public testimony.
Thank you.
So, we're ready to go, Steve?
Yes, if Mr. DeBrun can be elevated to panels.
Meredith, you agree that's where we are, right?
I agree, Mr. Chairman.
I agree, Mr. Chairman. I would love to give just a very brief closing statement just to kind of tie it all back in as well, if that's possible.
I would love to give just a very brief closing statement,
it just
Well, let's see. Let's see how how far we go here.
Understood. Right.
Mr. DeBroom.
Has Mr. DeBroom been identified?
Yes. Mr. DeBroom is being promoted to penalist.
All right.
And Mr. DeBruyne, are you up on the panel?
I'm Mr. DeBruyne.
do we see him in the audience yes chair he needs to unmute and turn the camera on
okay so the room could you please unmute
also my apologies i had a conflict on my calendar and i didn't see it pop up i apologize okay all
All right. All right. So please state your name and spell for the stenographer.
Christopher DeBruin.
Can you spell your name?
Christopher, D-E, capital B-R-U-Y-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Masters.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to go over Mr. DeBrun's expert credentials, unless opposing counsel has no objection to certifying him as an expert.
Meredith?
I do have an objection. I'm not clear from his report what kind of an expert he's being certified in.
Okay, so Steve, why don't you...
All right, sure.
Of course. Mr. DeBruin, can you review for the board what your professional experience is concerning costing estimating for construction projects?
Yeah, I have been employed full time continuously since 1998 as a construction cost estimator for a variety of bosses.
Right now, I'm my own boss. And those construction projects have consisted of a very wide variety of projects in a pretty wide geographic range.
But residential type projects, office towers, residential towers, museums, airport renovation work, like just a really wide variety of projects.
And can you name some of the larger companies that have employed you to do your cost estimating?
Yeah, I worked for Becker and Frondorf starting in 1998. They're an independent cost consulting firm that is probably one of the most respected firms in Philly at the moment, and certainly was back in the day.
I left Becker and Frondorf and went to Gilbane Building Company, which is an international, at this point, family-owned building company.
We did a lot of work in the Philadelphia area.
I worked in the Philadelphia office.
My last five years with Gilbane were on a Hurricane Sandy recovery project where we inspected, estimated, and managed the grants and the construction of about 2,500 homes along the Jersey Shore for lower-income residents who were impacted by the storm.
And after Gilbane, where did you work for next?
After Gilbane, I went out to work for a small firm, small $500 million a year construction firm in Exton called HSC Builders, who kind of focused on hospital renovation and kind of high acuity, highly technical construction work.
and on the day that my office closed for COVID I had planned to leave and start my own firm so I
did and I've been doing that ever since. All right so Mr. Chair we intend to certify we would like
to certify Mr. DeBrun as an expert in cost estimating but we also have another field that
we want him to be an expert in. So I'm going to turn to that one now. Mr. DeBrun, do you have a specific expertise?
Um, uh, Mr. DeBrun, do you have a specific expertise concerning zoning and land use?
I have been, um, I'm not currently, I left the post in January, but I've been, I was
approximately 10 years on the, um, Swarthmore planning commission, um, four, four and a
half years or so of that was as chair.
and our role there was to
the majority of the projects in Swarthmore
were zoning and
kind of land use issues for the college
since they did most of the building
but we did a fair amount of residential
kind of adjustments of the zone
we did quite a bit of rewriting of the zoning code
to try and keep it coherent and modern
um and and um helpful for the residents of the town as opposed to having a kind of a static
aging zoning code so is it fair to say that you were a member of the swarthmore planning commission
from 2010 through 2025 uh it's i think it was 11 i i don't remember the exact date that i know if
wrote it there that's correct so 2010 until january of 2025. okay and you were the chair of the of the
planning commission and and in swarthmore is the planning commission the body that approves zoning
variances no we have a zoning hearing board the planning commission um gets input from the zoning
hearing um committee and when we talk about writing new code to kind of address common
issues that keep coming up um but we we do not hear in the pennsylvania township system that
there's a separate board for that okay so mr chair we would move that mr de brun be
uh admitted as an expert in both cost estimating and in land use and zoning
um mr chairman would would would you prefer if i uh just make a counter argument on this or or
would you prefer that i ask him some questions to get to the point that i will make that i have
no objection to him why don't you just make the point okay i have no objection whatsoever to him
being uh certified as an expert in cost estimating but with all due respect serving on a planning
commission in Delaware County, Chester County, I don't remember where Swarthmore is specifically,
but serving on a planning commission in a volunteer capacity in no way qualifies somebody
to be certified as an expert in zoning, no less an expert in zoning in Philadelphia,
of which Swarthmore has absolutely no bearing and is in a completely different system.
So no objection to being certified as an expert, as a cost estimator, certainly, but I will maintain a vigorous objection to him being certified as a land planner or having any expertise in zoning.
Steve?
As you'll see from some conclusions that Mr. DeBrun has made in his findings, we want to be able to put into the record his examination of the Viola block and the context and some zoning-related findings that he made.
His primary findings are around the cost estimating and showing that the pro forma produced by the applicant was deeply flawed and inaccurate.
But we do want him to be able to also present the findings that he made concerning some of the unique zoning features of Viola.
The fact that the Swarthmore or virtually every other jurisdiction in Pennsylvania has a different code doesn't really detract from the fact that he has written parts of zoning codes.
He sat and deliberated about zoning codes for what he said was over 15 years.
And that, I think, makes him as much of an expert as members of this board are as experts on zoning.
Well, thank you very much. But I agree with Meredith here that the cost and things of that nature, looking at the pro forma, but I don't think that I can say that he's a zoning expert. Okay.
Okay. May I make a quick comment?
Pardon me?
The point I would make.
No, no, no, no, no. There's an attorney here. He'll represent the case. Steve, do you have any comments?
um yes we're going to go to uh our exhibit one
Yes, we're going to go to our Exhibit 1.
Exhibit 1 was presented by the applicant at the last hearing.
This is the pro forma that Mr. Yakubov testified to.
And I have a series of questions for Mr. DeBrun.
So we...
All right, so I'm all on one screen.
Okay, so hang on a second.
Mr. Dubroon, did you have an opportunity to review the video from the last ZVA hearing
where the applicant testified at length about a pro forma he prepared for the zoning project?
Steve, I'm so sorry to interrupt you.
Mr. Chairman, can we have my client brought on and sworn in, in case there is any redirect?
I just want to make sure it's clear that he's actually on here.
I apologize.
I should have done that before Steve started.
What's your client's name again, please?
German Yakubov.
If you're there, just be ready to go on, okay?
Good morning.
Yeah, well.
Thank you.
I apologize for the interruption.
Use him when we have to.
Sorry, Steve.
let me um let me ask that again hold on hold on sir please state your name and spell for the
stenographer german
sure german yakubov g-e-r-m-a-n y-a-k-u-b-o-v all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth i do so swear and affirm all right steve let's go back
to your client sure um mr de brun did you have an opportunity to review the video from the last cba
hearing where mr yakubov testified at length about a proforma he prepared for the sony project i did
yes and did you analyze the costing calculations in mr yakubov's proforma i did yes um and is that
um so that and that is exactly what we were looking at on the on the um uh on on the screen
before the the pro forma from last uh from last session uh okay um in your opinion did you discover
any unusual elements in the applicant's pro forma well it wasn't it didn't appear to be
about this project there was um a list of kind of a menu of different building types one two three
units four five six i think six units was the most and the project we're talking about is a 16
unit project so it didn't i didn't see how it applied to this project really specifically at all
other than um somebody saying it was about it so
can you um can you describe um those unusual features in more detail um proformas are typically
um in constri in real estate and construction proforma a proforma um for a project typically
describes the financial aspects of the project and you would typically use it I mean it's not
typically a legal document it's typically a document that you use to get um to inform the
bank um how your project what your profit levels are going to be and your sources and uses of cash
and what you expect expenses to do and to make some projections um in order to do that you need
to have accurate information about the the land cost you need to have the cost of construction
in there you need to have um um all of the costs that you need to the costs and the uses that you're
going to provide for this that are going to provide for this project um this pro forma had
uh six different building types shown as a kind of a matrix they all had the same land cost so
a single family had a $70,000 land cost, and it had a kind of a built and a cost per square foot
cost, which is fine. And it was being compared to a six unit building on the same $70,000 piece of
land with almost the same, well, the cost per square foot was a little higher because it was
a few more larger square footage
but it didn't
but it didn't none of it was specific or it had nothing to do with this project
none of it was specific or
some other things i thought were a little bit odd as a even as a comparison is that the
cost of construction of a building is not the same
like a single family is a different cost of construction than a two-family
if only if only because kitchens and bathrooms are the most expensive part of each of these
buildings and you've got two kitchens and at least two bathrooms in a two-family and you've
only got one kitchen and at least one one bathroom in a single family so the cost per
square foot is going to vary and particularly when you're comparing a one-bedroom or let's say
it compares to a two-bedroom building
which would have, in his assignment
it would be two kitchens and
I don't know, maybe four
bathrooms, I guess. It's a two- and a three-bedroom
versus a six-bedroom, which would have six kitchens.
Steve, can I ask a question? Could you put that up?
He's reading off what I'm reading off.
then we i'm not and yeah we don't know what he's comparing to okay sure um right yeah i just uh
yeah you had it up and then you took it back took it down yes i will i will put it back up sure
thanks steve okay so as you can see this the first row is single family homes he's got 1700 square
feet 1770 um construction cost total development cost um and then some kind of the last two columns
are a kind of analysis i guess so the last three columns are kind of a finance somewhat
of a financial analysis it's an unusual way to use this to terms but it seems to be what that is
um if you look at it the two bedroom it's 3 000 square feet um
so but the $715,000 if you subtract that if you do the math um works out to be $215 a square foot
and each one of these um in the total development cost column the 450 715 and the 715s all the way
down, are $215 a square foot construction cost. And that's just not reality. It's a way to talk
about, to make a very preliminary discussion about, it's a way to talk about costs on a very
preliminary level, but cost is based on what you put in the building. It always varies tremendously.
So in particular, did you make any conclusions and findings as to whether Mr. Yacobov's pro forma was accurate and it used the proper types of measurements in order to arrive at a sound amount of costing?
um all this
I did um I just in my opinion um this isn't really a pro forma it's not about this project
it's just a list of what he thinks the cost is to build um to build a building in Philadelphia