you say you couldn't you actually could i mean you own they own the property they own the property
they could do a lot i'm sorry but i misspoke i didn't mean we couldn't as in they couldn't
actually do it what i'm saying is that we that that plan would be a project but there's a big
difference between the three units and the eight units as we all know and that's something um that
We've had discussions before this meeting about possibilities, and it would take us to release.
There may be opportunities here to utilize the garage along with some residential, which would increase the value of the apartments.
I'm not an architect, but I think that could be made possible.
If your client is willing to go back to the board with some revisions that get us a lot further away from where he is today, I'd certainly agree to resume this hearing at a later date.
And, Mr. Chairman, I think we would like to take the board up on that opportunity if available.
Excuse me, this is Sharon Saleta. Can I put one thing out?
if you are going to, as part of the revisions, add a commercial component. You're going to have
to start from the beginning anyway. You're going to have to reapply to L&I.
Well, would parking be considered commercial? No, not necessarily, but...
We'll look at all options. Our architect, and that's part of the reason why he couldn't be here
today um had to go in for surgery um between the time of the meeting and um our community meeting
and um this is owning hearing so i haven't had the opportunity to have much back and forth with
him because he was sort of out of commission due to that surgery um in fact still is which is why
he couldn't be here today um and so i would welcome that opportunity to be able to have
those additional conversations with them to see what else is possible.
Okay, all right.
Can I ask Mr. Bertil, if you do decide to revise your plans and attempt to submit those,
would you please send me the revised plans form first so I can advise you as to whether
you can, whether you'll be required to file an amended application?
Absolutely.
Thank you.
And in those revised plans, I think we didn't get into it, but you need to address trash
as well.
regardless of the number i'll make a note of that right thank you all right count count oh
calendar number zero seven six zero carol one yeah hold on i'm going to resume this so
mi 2021-000592 900 greenwood street this hearing will be resumed you have any dates for us tanya
June 2nd at 2 p.m.
June 2nd at 2 p.m., at which time the board will consider any feedback related to the RCO and Councilman Squilla's office.
Thanks, Frank. I resumed it in my head quickly.
Thank you.
Calendar number 0760, 145 North 7th Street.
The attorney is Rich DeMarco.
for the purpose of our court reporter
this is the last case
on our two o'clock list
we will take a break once this case
is heard and we respectfully
ask Mr. DeMarco
well let's see what the case
is are there any letters from the RCO
we don't have anything here
I don't have a letter
you have exhibits
we do have exhibits
Mr. DeMarco. I got weird. I got kicked out for a minute. It was odd. Okay. I'm here. Yes. Hello.
I got weird. I got kicked out for a minute. It was odd. Okay, I'm here. Yes. Hello.
Please identify yourself for the record. Spell your name, and I'll swear you in.
Good afternoon, everybody. Richard DeMarco, 2005 Market Street, 16th floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.
D-E-M-A-R-C-O. Do you swear to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. I do. Thank you. Yeah, on the RCO issue, we had a meeting.
We had two meetings, actually.
The last one was in January.
We had a vote overwhelmingly in favor of our proposal today.
It was confirmed in an email from the RCO leader.
I have that email.
I'm going to use it as an exhibit because I've been asking for weeks now for a copy of their letter.
I haven't received it.
I'm not sure what the issue is.
I did call Victoria, who is the person I know to be involved with the RCO.
I called her today.
I didn't get a response.
I called the councilman's office, did not get a response.
And again, I have a confirmation email.
The vote was 20 to 6 in favor of-
What is the name of the RCO?
It's Association-
All right, let me try this now.
Associacion Vertor Roqueños en Marcha.
Very good.
APM RCO.
I'm sure the court reporter got all of that.
Yeah, yeah.
Associacion.
Okay, anyway.
My Spanish is really bad.
But anyway, I'll share my screen in a moment.
I'll show you the email that confirmed the vote in favor of the project.
I would imagine that should be enough for the board.
But, you know, there is a neighbor that is next door to the project that has had construction,
She's going to offer construction issues, I believe.
So there is at least one person in opposition.
I don't know if she's here.
I'm sure you'll...
Excuse me.
This is Sharon.
Mr. DeMarco, after the hearing, could you forward me a copy of that email so we'll have it for the record?
I will.
I will.
And Sharon, I did copy you on a follow-up, but I'm going to re-forward it to you anyway because I want to officially use it as an exhibit because I was expecting to get the letter prior to the hearing time today, and I did not get it.
I'll absolutely send that to you.
I did copy you on email today. Thank you. You have it in your inbox as well.
Chairman, this case is, and Liz Casey, I want to also mention that the client is Ophir Kamarian.
He had an accident, poor accident, unable to participate, but his office manager, Liz Casey,
is intimately familiar with all of this and will be verifying my testimony today.
And she knows all the knowledge about this project and will be testifying on behalf of the developer.
We are here solely for a variance for four units.
This board actually heard a similar case on this same property two years ago, granted a variance for three units.
This is a block that was recently rezoned from RM1 to RSA5.
And when I share my screen and go through some of the photos and some of the exhibits, you'll see that this particular block has been developed almost predominantly for multifamily, some densities of as high as six, seven, eight units.
And it is the only singles.
There's a handful of singles that are homeownership, but the other singles are PHA rentals.
So over 95% of this property are either rentals or multifamily.
We're not asking for any dimensional variances.
We're asking, instead of three units, to develop four units.
What I'll have Liz verify is that the prior developer, the prior owner,
who got the variance in 2019 from this board for three units,
could not develop the three units.
And my client was willing to attempt to obtain the relief today for the four units because it is the much more compatible project for this property.
Again, no dimension.
Let me share my screen.
I'll show you some of the exhibits.
So on your screen, you should see the email from the RCO.
where my courser is, it says the final tally was 20 yes and 6 no. All right, so I'll forward that
to Sharon. This is the refusal. See here, reference to your 2019 case where you granted three
variances. So what I want to say about that is that hardship has already been found by this
board with regard to this property and the RSA 5 zoning. I'll show you the photographs,
I'll show you the photographs and you'll see what I'm talking about, how the neighborhood,
and you'll see when talking about how
if you see here, these are multi-family.
This is a large multi-family structure. There's numerous units in here and some commercial uses.
multi-family here
my family here i'll jump to the permits i i took the liberty of downloading all of the permits on
the block what i found when i went through each property on this block there is a consistent this
is the next door property by the way mr chairman you see 1417 here four units next door um but
again, I do admit that the unit on the right of us is going to be someone who's been opposition.
She has one of the very few singles on the block. But if you're panning through all the permits,
you have duplexes, you have mixed use, you have triplexes, you have eight units in one building,
three units it's it's a multi-family block so the it's a classic valley view situation where
the current zoning classification of single family row homes is is frankly a joke it is a multi-family
block significant density and i think that's frankly reflected in the rco vote which was
overwhelmingly in favor of the project because people don't mind the density they want the
density. The decision for you today is whether to grant four as opposed to three. These are
the rest of the permits. I'll show you my plans so you can see. We do have trash storage in the
rear, accessible to all tenants. There is one basement bedroom. These are our floor plans,
Mr. Chairman. There's a walkout basement and a ladder going up. You can see here this shaded
area is a walkway from the front door all the way to the back where there'll be trash storage for
all the units. Let me promote Liz Casey, the panelist. I'll have her adopt some of my testimony.
Okay, Tanya.
four stories this is the fourth and third plan
hello hi liz hi liz have you heard my uh you are the office manager for the owner of the property
correct ma'am ma'am you need to identify yourself sorry okay my name is elizabeth casey
Do you want me to spell it?
Please spell your last name.
C-A-S-E-Y.
And your interest in this application?
I work for the applicant.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. DeMarco.
So the other thing I do want Liz to speak about is we don't have the official tax clearance, but your account should show taxes paid.
Let me show you, Liz, why don't you explain to the board briefly what happened, why you couldn't initially get a tax clearance, and what you did up until today to straighten that out.
Okay. I was emailing with the tax clearance unit for several weeks. It takes a while to get a reply. And they initially told me that this particular property was not registered properly with the city.
so i made an appointment and i went down to the msb and i got that corrected and i i have an email
from the tax clearance saying that that was the only issue um and then i have still been unable
to pull it so i went back down uh to the msb yesterday when they had walk-in hours um
excuse me excuse me this is sharon saletta i just looked it up on the revenue site you're fine
okay thank you for that i appreciate i thought that would be the case
all right thank you okay uh liz did you hear all of my factual testimony and yes okay and is it true
and accurate yes and is it is it true that the seller in this case made statements to the effect
that he was unable to develop the three units that were granted by the sport in 2019.
Yes. And if I can add, that hardship has only been made more difficult with the astronomical increase in construction costs in the last nine months.
And if I can add that hardship has only been made
And if the, thank you, if the developer were to develop the three units granted by this board in 2019, what would happen with regard to the size of the units?
Are we getting somebody speaking in the background?
Sorry.
Somebody walked into my office.
I didn't have the door locked.
Sorry.
We're all out.
Liz, to back up a little bit, as far as if you were to be wedded to the three units and have to develop three units,
why would that be difficult for this particular developer to be able to develop and market the three units as opposed to the four that you're requesting today?
Sorry, that was a little awkward.
Do you understand my question?
Still with us, Liz.
If you're muted, you just have to unmute yourself.
Why is it necessary to build four as opposed to three?
Oh, okay.
Sorry, I was muted.
The going rate of apartments in this neighborhood would not offset the cost of the development.
And the size of the apartments, the square footage of them,
it would be too big for what we can market in this neighborhood and you uh manage as office
manager for this particular developer you own scores of apartment units in this not only in
this community but on this very block isn't that right correct and so you have intimate knowledge
of the rentals uh that you have and that are marketable and what demand there is and there
is not agreed agreed i manage all of our rentals all right so if you were to do three units here
and again, we're not requesting any dimensional variances, Mr. Chairman, a member of the board,
the units would be too large, right? Correct. And unrentable. Is that correct? Yes. All right.
So to anticipate the potential opposition in this case, we had a letter of opposition from
the near neighbor regarding some of the issues that she has had. Can you tell the board,
have you had any problems with L&I? First of all, the property that, the structure that was there
has been demolished, correct? Correct. I'm going to try to pull up a picture of the old structure,
Mr. Chairman, so you can see it. Has L&I issued any violations for your demolition? No.
and uh has ellen i is ellen i satisfied with the protection that you have given
to the home on the side where we have the opposition letter yes and you've you've patched
it all up and there's but but that particular owner has demanded that you stucco her wall