ZBA Hearing - August 18, 2026

I'm not going to call any of it dangers. And the financial risk that's involved,

that's the only hardship you see, correct? Again, what I did was I presented an analysis

that looked at selling 10 units nine units and eight units and that's without respect to the

configuration of those proposed units what do you mean by that well how they're laid out on the site

or different proposals for laying out no so i mean that that's not true i as i mentioned before

the the if you're going to have eight units nine units or ten units you're going to have

different square footages the ten unit ones are going to be smaller and the eight unit ones are

to be bigger again i just gave that square footage all right thank you i have nothing

further mr thank you your next witness yep mark mike gargiulo of the how group he's a general

contractor for the project and he prepared a brief um feasibility statement which i submitted to the

board which is on the screen promoting Mike is rejoining now thank you

mike yes hi sir could you please state your name and spell for the sonographer

yes mike gargiulo m-i-k-e last name g-a-r-g-i-u-l-o right do you swear or affirm to tell

the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do counsel mike can you describe your background

and experience in residential and multifamily construction in philadelphia yep i work with

the the how group we're a vertically integrated uh real estate development construction and property

management company in the city for over 25 years. And were you asked to provide a construction

feasibility assessment for the proposed development here? Yes, I was asked to give a high level

construction feasibility perspective and I reviewed the zoning and the site plan. Okay,

and how would you describe the physical characteristics of the site from a construction

standpoint? It appears to be a constrained urban site that has grade changes, multiple retaining

walls drive out conditions foundations and some access constraints and what kind of challenges

for construction to those constraints cause yeah it causes uh more excavation uh complicated

foundations the retaining walls require coordination and engineers drainage issues

waterproofing etc and what does all this mean for cost it means there's a lot of fixed costs

that are directly related to the site conditions okay and would a subdivision that proposed four

homes on peaching and four homes on loriston the same sort of theoretical plan i showed earlier in

my presentation would that create more or less uh site development complications and expenses

uh hard to know at this point but uh probably pretty close to what's actually there today

you're still doing a lot of the work that's underground whether you're building

10 9 or 8 houses okay um but but if there was if we were developing the back side and we had four

homes parallel to pechin and four homes parallel to lorist on that that sort of plan does that you

know because of the the site does that propose additional costs and complications rather than

this perpendicular pud development that we presented to the board

um no it still requires all most of the same things that are required under the

the perpendicular plan as the other planet the house is facing mentioned and marsh and

these these fixed site costs would they reduce if we went from from 10 to nine or eight homes

not necessarily um that's all i have for mike i have no questions of this witness is that the

end of your uh yeah if i could just have my client adopt my testimony sure

Good morning, sir. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?

All right. Timothy Townhill.

Why don't you get a little closer to the mic?

Timothy Townhill, T-I-M-O-T-H-Y-T-O-W-N-H-I-L-L.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

I do.

Counsel?

Tim, did you hear my testimony today?

I did.

Was it true and correct?

It was, yes.

And do you adopt it as your own?

I do.

And do you adopt the testimony of your expert witnesses as your own as well?

I do.

No questions.

How long do you think your presentation will be, Dan?

Could be 45 minutes.

Okay.

Mr. Chairman, I just have a question.

For who?

For them.

Yeah.

It looks like, according to our notes, that Shannon Park testified earlier.

She did.

She's available.

I asked her to come today in case opposing counsel had questions for her, but I have no, I had no additional questions. That was going to be my question. Did you want to have, she testified in the last hearing. I wasn't sure if you had any questions. Thank you for asking, but I would be as brief with her as I was. Just want to make sure the record was there. Okay. Thank you. You're going to be 45 minutes. I expect it. Right. How many witnesses are you going to call Dan? Six, six or seven. Okay.

I think we're going to have to do a resumptive hearing, because I see there's people in the audience, too. Am I correct?

Yes.

Right. So, yeah, I don't want to start and then get you all the way through.

So, I think our resumptive date would be in 915. Does that sound right?

that's correct chair tuesday september 15th at 9 30 a.m 6 at 9 30 a.m i'm sorry 9 15 15

right at 9 30 a.m and then i think that way i don't want to break and i have to bring it back

and that way you have a fresh and we should be able to finish your presentation up that day i

appreciate that

okay all right everybody thank you very much we're going to take a five minute break and

then we're going to come back and and you're back with us right so why don't you just stay right

there you got another mi 2026 mi 2026 001 455 69 30 are late arlid street this is a a an appeal

against l and i attorney is david orfinetes also here is leon leonard reuter and alan knockamson's

firm, Mr. Goldberg. David, could you first state your name as spelled for the stenographer?

Certainly. My name is David Orfanides. Last name is spelled O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.

You swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Mr. Goldberg, you've been here several times today. Leonard, could you please state your

name as spelled for the stenographer?

Sure. May it please the board, Leonard F. Reuter, R-E-U-T-E-R, Senior Attorney, City of Philadelphia.

All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

I do.

David, we're going to start with you.

Okay, certainly.

David, how long do you think your presentation will take?

Uh-oh.

Probably.

I'm sorry.

That's not long.

Come on now.

Why don't you do this? Why don't you answer?

It's biased.

Listen to me, why don't you answer me without taking that deep breath?

Yeah, certainly.

I think I can be through.

I have one witness, one expert witness, and one or two witnesses from the neighborhood just to corroborate some conditions that he speaks about.

So I don't think I'll be more than an hour.

It might be 45 minutes.

Okay, well, let's start and see where we stand.

And this is about L&I, right?

It's the appeal against L&I.

This is appeal against L&I, appeal of a zoning permit that was issued for 6930 Ardley Street.

Right, but it's around L of an I, right?

So what would the neighbors be a witness?

I'm going to boil it down.

So what this is, is this property, 6930 Ardley Street, is bound by two properties, Ardley and East Sedgwick Street.

Yeah. All right. Um, in the planning commission's review of the zoning permit application, they designated hardly street as a primary frontage.

And that's important because under the zoning code, and we're going to talk about this since the property was owned on one at the time, if one frontage, not both front, because it's possible to designate both frontages as primary.

If one frontage, not both front, because it's possible to designate both frontages as primary, but if one is designated as the primary frontage, the front yard requirements for RM1 do not apply to the other frontage because every street frontage is deemed the front, right?

So, because of that, because of that determination, the developer, Mr Goldberg client was able to secure zoning a permit for an addition, not only to the rear of the property towards a rear shared drive into the rear yard area, but all the way out to the property line at East Sedgwick Street.

And it's our position that the Planning Commission, and that if it turns out that there's only one primary frontage and that primary frontage is Ardley Street, then that's permitted.

There's no question about that.

It's our position that the Planning Commission, with all due respect, made an error and designated only Ardley Street as a primary frontage and that they should have designated both streets, both frontages as primary frontage.

And then because of the rules applicable in RM1 regarding front yard setback, that you can't be any closer or further away from the property line than the adjacent properties, not abutting properties, but adjacent properties, that they would have had to have maintained at least a setback, approximately, or a setback that existed at the building as it presently exists and could not build an addition all the way out to Cedric Street.

So, being that we're laying the groundwork out, Mr. Goldberg, do you have comments?

Sure, yeah.

Okay.

Sorry, Len.

And I just was laying out with the basic issue.

Yeah, I understand.

Well, I think the basic issue is about L&I, but go ahead.

Right.

And to be fair, I don't dispute most of what Mr. Orphaniti stated, but the code explicitly

says the Planning Commission shall decide the primary frontage.

The Planning Commission makes that, they stamp it on the plan, and L&I issues a permit or a variance or, you know, acts based off of the Planning Commission's determination.

So whether L&I, L&I interpreted the Planning Commission's decision, I would, I don't believe it's up to this board to overrule a Planning Commission decision when L&I just plainly acted on what they decided.

Leonard?

uh yeah i would just uh echo that and also particularly add that again this this is an

appeal where again they've appealed against lni there is a provision that says that if you want

to appeal a preliminary decision by one of the um agencies that makes preliminary review you can

appeal that through an appeal to the zoning board but this was never presented as an appeal against

the decision of planning commission so this is kind of a new argument here um it was not part

of the original uh notice of appeal that was submitted by uh in my recollection it's not

part of the original appeal that was submitted by um by the appellant uh we'll just preserve

that argument um for now and just yeah yeah we'll start but my view of this this is about l and i

well so so then i just want to clarify that because to me it's about the an appeal of the

permit, of the zoning permit. And whether you want to, I mean, we typically call that an appeal

against L&I, but it's an appeal to zoning permit, and that includes the underlying prerequisite

reviews that were served as a basis of that zoning permit. Wait a minute. I see my counsel's

getting her. We're good. All right, start. We're going to see how this goes, okay? So, I mean,

I've given a brief opening, and I think with that, I'm going to get right into the meat of

it um we we had a um a report prepared by by a land planner brian seidel of seidel planning

um i'm gonna have him go through the report um and go through his conclusions um the basis for

his conclusions which are that again there are two primary frontages for this property and as such

the the approved structure should have been set back from both ardly street and sedgwick street

Mr. Seidel should be on the call right now.

Okay.

So I'd have him promoted to a panelist.

Excuse me, did you say Seidel with a Z?

S-E-I-D-E-L, Brian.

Promoting now.

If you'd like, I can share.

He's coming in as a panelist.

good morning everyone good morning could you please state your name is bill for the sonographer

Sure. Name is Brian. First name is B-R-I-A-N. Last name is.

Sure. Name is Brian. First name is B-R-I-A-N. Last name is Seidel, S-E-I-D-E-L.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

I do.

David?

Okay. Brian, have you appeared before this zoning board before?

I have.

Okay. And were you recognized as an expert in front of this zoning board?

Yes, an expert in land planning.

Okay. I would introduce Mr. Seidel's testimony today and his report.

as an expert in land planning before the zoning board i can go i included a cv

with my witness list that i submitted last week if you'd like me to go through that i can but

otherwise you're both okay okay yeah go ahead all right um brian um we're here what property

are we here before today uh it's regarding the property at 69 30 orley street and can you tell

me um what area of the city that property is located at uh yeah it's the upper northwest

planning district okay and can you for the benefit of the zoning board um i think most people

um will be familiar with that neighborhood um but can you give us a general overview of um that

neighborhood or that area of the city uh sure specifically i think it was indicated previously

is located in the southeast corner of the intersection of Arlie Street and East Cedric

Street. Generally, in terms of the housing that's in that area, most units of that block

of Arlie Street are semi-detached or two-family dwellings, larger front yards on the main

frontage and uh generally residential in character um can can i uh can i share my screen yeah for

some reason it's we let him share his screen please yes excuse me um mr orphanities i didn't

see your name so i can promote you oh on the attend now i was in and then i think i was

kicked out but i'm i'm on now okay yep there you are i'm gonna promote now

We should be coming in now great.

All right. Can you can you tell us a little bit about the the neighborhood in general, though?

Like the characteristics of the neighborhood, not just the block?

Sure. In general, I'd say it's a residential neighborhood. The subject property is served

by a rear residential alley that connects to each Sedgwick Street. In terms of the frontage

on RLA, as I mentioned, those buildings generally have a pretty large building setback from

marley street so they have larger front yards i believe the front yard is approximately 35 feet

based on the zoning drawings that were provided in the application and then

regarding the end units or the corner what i call a corner properties on these areas

those properties are also set back from the adjoining streets

okay so so when you're talking about the you're talking about the 6900 block of ardley street

right now correct that's correct okay and then you're talking about as far as corners are you

talking about uh what streets are at the end of either block at the end of the block at either

end of the block i'm sorry sure uh we're adjacent to east sedwick street and then to the east would

be east orgus lane okay and the conditions that you've described um regarding setbacks

exist at both ends of the block that's correct okay and then the lots that are located in between