truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do sir thank you uh prior to official testimony on
behalf of councilwoman sanchez in the 7th district uh she would like to um thank you for your service
on the zba board this being your last day and to wish you well in all of your future endeavors sir
thank you thank you i'll just speak to the councilwoman personally thank you
uh officially uh regarding 1736-64 north master street although council member sanchez understands
that this is a resubmission uh of a previously approved project in light of today's housing
climate and her efforts to create affordable housing in the 7th district council member
sanchez is disappointed in the developers inability to identify any affordability within
this project having stated that and having the fact the community was pulled and supported the
project seven in favor zero guests the councilwoman has no opposition to the project thank you thank
you and thank you very much and uh mr grigos you've already uh we've adopted your your client's
testimony so we don't need to hear from him anyone else to testify in this case
i see no other hands chair you planning commission
good afternoon david effecto city planning commission mr chairman members of the board
comprehensive plan recommends this property for general industrial use however during our zoning
map changes in 2016 we reached consensus that this property should become multi-family residential
while we concur with the councilwoman's statement on affordability and we certainly support
affordability we also join her in recommending that the board support the requested variances
Thank you very much. MI 2021-003954, 1736-64 Masher Street. My vote is yes. And Sharon,
do I need to make that amended refusal as a proviso? Yes, you do, Chair.
With the proviso, amended refusal approved today, adopted today.
Carol Tenere, yes, with proviso.
Confessor Plaza, yes, with proviso.
James Snell, yes, with proviso.
Thomas Holloman, yes, with proviso.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Case number five, MI 2021-003520, 2000 Welsh Road.
Dawn Tancredi is the attorney of record.
There is a letter of support from the Greater Busselton Civic League.
and unless there's a mistake there's a letter in opposition from Councilman Brian O'Neill
and if it's a if the board were to approve it it is would be with revised plan two pages approved
today. Ms. Tancredi please spell your full name and I'll swear you in. Good afternoon Dawn
Tancredi, D-A-W-N. My last name is T-A-N-C-R-E-D-I. And Mr. Chair, did you say that there was support
when I was logging on? There's a mistake. It says the greater buzz.
When I was logging on, there's a mistake. It says the greater Busselton. Well, let me do this. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Yes. Okay. My notes, and Sharon can correct me if I'm wrong. RCO sent a letter of support, the RCO being greater Busselton Civic League, but letter of opposition from Councilman O'Neill.
i believe that is correct um we received both letters from
ms utifich of councilman o'neill's office
okay i did not see that letter of support okay i will email that to you right now ms tancredi
thank you well ms tenere has a few questions for you and i'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this
sometime at the end of your testimony okay hi john do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal
and stipulate to its accuracy i agree to waive a reading of the refusal there have been changes
to the plans so that the dimensional uh variance the refusal has been eliminated
excuse me this is sharon i just received an email from miss udovich saying that i'm mistaken that
it is not a letter in support I will double check that now have you emailed the exhibit packet with
proof of ownership tax compliance a copy of the refusal or referral photos under plans of the
property five days in advance of this hearing and you met with the RCO and do you have a letter
yes thank you you may proceed thank you good afternoon my name is Dawn Tancredi I'm here on
behalf of Hervis Elazaj and Nabila Brahmi, the owners of 2000 Welsh Road. With me here today
is Hervis Elazaj and his wife, Nabila Brahmi. Also, Arian Peshkepia is available. He is the
architect that prepared the plans. And Maria Zimmerman-Culp, the realtor who sold the property
to my clients, is also available. I would ask that the submission materials we turned in be
incorporated into the record. So we are here seeking approval for a family-run Albanian
specialty store, along with the residential use at the property. May I share my screen?
Yes, you may.
Thank you.
in the meantime this this is sharon again um i just checked the letter and it does say support
so i will send it to everyone and maybe miss yudovich can explain the confusion
thank you hi this is tanya i'm the zba administrator i have raised the letter up on my
screen i have 18 opposed and three in support and this letter is dated um november the 7th
from Greater Boston Civic League,
if that's the one that you're referring to, Mr. Letter.
It is not.
The one that was attached to Ms. Udovich's email
is dated October 18th, 2021.
I suppose that means that the RCO changed its position.
I will send you that letter.
All right, well, why don't we do this?
Let's go.
Why do I keep losing everything here?
Can anyone hear me?
I think I understand what happened.
Ms. Udovich sent me the councilman's letter and a letter was under the subject 2000 Busselton, but the letter from the RCO is actually, or rather, the letter is actually for 821 Welsh Road, not this proposal.
So it is another property that the letter in support is for.
So they are opposed to this.
They are opposed. This was just mistakenly attached to the email.
May I proceed?
Yes, please.
Okay. So what we have here is we have a property, 2000 Welsh Road. The property is a 20,000 square foot lot. It's located on a heavily trafficked two-way state road, Welsh Road. It's immediately adjacent to a cemetery and church on one side.
Okay. So what we have here is we have a property 2000.
it's immediately behind immediately behind the property is a school the neighborhood consists
of single family homes on lots that average 2 000 square feet so my client's property is 10 times
larger than the average surrounding property with a single family home many of the homes in the area
are accessed from side streets or cul-de-sacs consisting of strictly single-family homes,
which is different than Welsh Road. The property does sit down the road from a busy commercial
corridor centered around the intersection of Welsh Road and Busselton Avenue. In the past,
the property had been used as a single-family home with a stable for horses. The property
sat vacant for two years. The prior owner was unable to rent it out. The prior owner was
interested in building a church, however, never proceeded with that plan. The property was
marketed for sale as a residential use for over four months before my client purchased it for
about $55,000 below the asking price. His intention was to live in the property and to
use it for business purposes since it was so large. And you'll hear his testimony today.
The costs associated with maintaining a 20,000 square foot lot solely as a home is out of the
ordinary for this neighborhood. Increased costs include cutting grass, landscaping, fence
maintenance paying property taxes and insurance you'll see that my client does rent out the space
at this time at a rent well below market rent because of the property's location further this
property cannot be subdivided because it would not meet dimensional requirements the street frontage
as shown on the plans is approximately 66 feet. The minimum street frontage requirement in this
district for lots is 35 feet. So there's not enough street frontage to even divide the lot
into two lots. We did include in our packet two pages of signatures showing support.
so and us due to the uncharacteristically large size of the lot for this area increased expenses
associated with that the location in particular next to a cemetery and school and near a busy
commercial district the inability to be sold for solely residential use the collection of below
market rent, there is a hardship to this property that supports the granting of the use variances.
There is no adverse effect on the public health, safety, or general welfare,
and the use variance does represent the minimum variance that will afford relief.
With that, I would call my client as my first witness.
on its name
Elezaj
Elezaj
please spell your full name
and I'll swear you in
yeah my name is
Elezaj
E-R-V-I-S
E-L-E-Z-A-J
I fully swear
you swear or affirm
to tell the truth
the whole truth
nothing but the truth
yes I do
thank you
Ms. Tancree
good afternoon
can you put your address
on the record please yeah it's a 2000 welsh road philadelphia pa 19115 okay and are you the owner
of this property yes i am and what is it that you want to do with the property
so uh we have been in business for several years as a albanian product wholesaler and
And since we had a lot of demands from the Albanian community to open an Albanian grocery
store with Albanian products and traditional clothing and souvenirs, we decided to see
if we can flip the first floor of our Welsh house into a small market place, a mini market
that can sell our Albanian products.
We plan to make an addition to the existing house so it can accommodate my family, and
we plan to live in this property.
Is the property, Ms. Tincredi, is the property we're looking at, the white, the stucco, whatever, is that the property in question?
Is the property, Ms. Tincredi, is the property we're looking at the white?
Yes, this is the property on the screen.
You want to convert a portion of the first floor to commercial?
you can explain yeah so the entire first floor we want to convert into a commercial and on the side
of the other building we wanted to to put an addition so we can connect it with second and
third floor in there and me and my family can live in there and i will show a copy of the plans
before you here.
And, Ervus, can you explain your business plan?
What would your hours of operation be?
Yeah, sure.
The store will be open 9 to 6 all week.
We plan to create nine parking spaces,
but most likely either three or four cars at the time
will be parked during the weekdays.
Myself and my wife will run the business in the beginning.
As the business grows, we plan to hire some employees down the road.
Regarding the trash, we plan to hire Republic Service,
that is a commercial company that picks up trash weekly.
And that's about it.
Okay. And did you purchase this property at asking price?
No, I didn't.
I spoke with the owners.
um property was vacant for two years so they couldn't find no renters and they were not
they were unable to use the property they wanted to build church for the brazilian community
and uh apparent that they didn't proceed with it and they sold this property with the lost
because they purchased for 235 and they sold it for 225 uh it was both from us under 55 so it was
uh listed 279 and we purchased for 225 the idea that we had in there since they they plan to do
a church we thought that we can build a warehouse in the back because it has a 20 000 square feet
lot but uh you know after getting information and everything else we knew that we could bother
the neighbors by doing that so we said might as well use it you know have a commercial use only
for the first floor and the walk-in cooler that is in the back and do a parking space
for nine cars in the area where it's empty right now in the lot.
Okay, and Irvis, when you were looking to purchase this property, how did it compare
to the price of other single-family homes in the area?
so we tried to rent it in the beginning uh and even the purchase price was it because it was
located it's located next to a cemetery is that correct yeah so because it was a similar house
like that that the same zip code you know close to welch uh it could have been sold 350 easy
because it has you know a good size lot it had two car garages in the back it has 2 000 square
fit interior space where you can live so anywhere else in the time that i purchased if you could buy
it the 19115 you couldn't find anything under 350 so because of the place where it is located
near the the graves you know certain buyers they didn't approach at all so that's why we said maybe
we can use it for our business and uh and and build something in the back so it's set vacant
for three for six months and uh that's after just for clarification irvis after you purchased the
property what happened to the property so i i fixed up some stuff so i could i could live in
there i had several contractors coming in there and you know every time they were coming they were
saying, man, this property is close to a grave. You really want to live in this thing?
Hervis, Hervis, did you try to rent out the property?
Yes, yes, I did try to rent out the property.
And did you find a renter?
No, I did not find a renter for six months.
Okay, and did you talk to any potential renters?
Yes, I did.
And what did they say?
so they were they liked the house because the condition of the house was good and we fixed it
up but when they were seeing the cemetery that's where you know they were just uh skipped this to