Are you okay?
Yes, court reporter, are you back, Ms. Stacey?
Yes, ma'am.
I'm ready for you.
Okay, we're good.
All right, I'm ready.
My name is Bill Bergen.
Are we recording?
Okay, thank you.
My name is Bill Bergen, and I will be chairing this afternoon's 3.30 ZBA hearings.
With me is Carol Tenere, our vice chair.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Ismail Shahid, our board secretary.
President, Mr. Chairman.
Thomas Holliman, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
James Snell, our board member.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also, here is our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
Before we start, here is our virtual format.
Be advised, these proceedings are being recorded.
By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.
The video will be available by contacting our board executive director,
Tanya Sunkett at phil.gov. For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and
witnesses to identify themselves before testifying. If you're participating by phone, if you wish to
testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. To an appearance statement, call
267-270-5548. Leave your email and the address of the property question. And lastly, please note
the question answer box on the screen is not for testimony or comments. Any comments have to be
directed to our executive director, Tanya Sunken. So let's look at our continuances for this
afternoon. Hold on a minute. Number four, MI 2022-001681-3878 Lancaster Avenue. That case
is continued. And number six, MI-2022-001-695-530-32 Moore Street, that case is continued.
Both those cases are continued. Is there anyone in the virtual audience
has a comment relative to them? Relative to them?
I don't see any hands, Mr. Chair. Are there any other requests for
continuous this afternoon. And I see no hands, Mr. Chair. Okay. I also have two cases that do not,
we do not have documents. Number one, MI 2022, 003408, 1030 Loney Street.
it's an l 2447 investments llc
do we see anyone
that case is continued or must be tried case number two
Pardon me?
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, to interrupt you, but I hand this one up from Mr. Anthony L. Samarco, Jr.
Can I speak?
Mr. Samarco, you have been allowed to speak.
Please wait to be sworn in.
Hi, Mr. Samarco.
State your name and spell it for the court reporter, please.
Anthony L., as in Louis, Samarco, Jr.
Could you spell your last name, please?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I apologize, Chairman.
S-A-M as in Mary, A-R-C-O.
Right.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Do you represent the first case?
We have no documents?
I had no idea how this was handled.
This is my first case.
All right.
So here's the point.
All right.
That's fine.
So what you should do is call the office and they'll gladly help you with directions.
We're going to continue it, but the next time it must be tried.
Mr. Samarco, are you an attorney or are you a representative of the property owner?
I am the owner of the property.
So I think, number one, you're going to need an attorney because it's an LLC.
Right?
Yes. Yes, that is correct. Because the property is owned under by an LLC, you will need an attorney to represent you at the hearing.
Yes, that is correct.
Because the property is owned by an LLC.
You will need this.
I didn't know that nobody, nobody told me that I've worked for this myself for 31 years.
Okay, okay. So that's so what you what you want to do is you want to look for an attorney who would represent you.
Okay. And they'll they'll do everything for you. Okay.
Okay. And if there's any questions, you can always call the office and we're glad to help.
okay thank you very much that's not not a problem number two mi 2022 001 759
1200 to 28 west loudon street magic investments corporation listed no exhibits
once again Mr. Chair no hands okay that case is continued mark must be tried
are there any requests for withdrawals
once again no hands at this time we're going to go to our regular list number three
M-I-2022-001-762-2448 Frankfurt Avenue.
Henry Clinton is the attorney.
Letter of opposition from the Fishtown-Kensington Area Improvement District.
Mr. Clinton will be rejoining as a panelist, sir.
okay good afternoon mr chairman hi mr clinton you've already been sworn just
state your name for the record sure henry clinton h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n right could you
identify your client the relationship to the property sure my client is atlin a-t-l-i-n
Longini, L-L-O-N-G-O-N-I, and he is a representative of the LLC. Right. Our vice
chair has a few questions for you. Hi, Mr. Clinton. Do you agree to waive the reading of
the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy? I do. Have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof
of ownership, tax compliance, refusal, or referral, voters under plans of this property
five days in advance of the hearing, and have you met with the RCO, and do you have a letter?
Yes. Well, the above. Okay, great. You may proceed and begin to share your screen.
Thank you. Sure. Thank you.
Is that visible, Mr. Mary? Yes, it is. All right. Great.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Henry Clinton on behalf
of 2446 to 48 frankfurt llc my client atlin longini is on the call as well as the architect
justin bright these are my table of contents containing exhibits aa through a11 which i
ask be admitted upon the conclusion of this matter the rest of my appearance statement and this is
a refusal this is a pretty straight up uh issue here the property is owned cmx2 and in the cmx
zoning district as the board knows you're supposed to have commercial along the first 30 feet of the
building and then you can have two units above. My client does not want to do commercial and I
will explain why and I have expert report to acknowledge why zoning or keeping residential
is the way to go in this particular part of the block. Now ironically my client already was
approved by the board for a two-family dwelling prior to the pandemic, but during the pandemic,
as a lot of my other clients, they ceased activity as did Mr. Longini. As a consequence, his prior
approval expired, and that's why we have to come back through the process again. So we do have a
letter of opposition, which I will get to, from the Businessmen's Association, but we have some
supporting documentation that I wanted to show you the board. First, this is a simple letter from
Berkshire Hathaway indicating commercial is not viable at this space. Rather a terse commentary,
but we also have a more in-depth letter from a well-recognized realtor in the city of Philadelphia,
Patrick Conway. He's been in the business for about 25 years, and he's taken a close look at
the block and at this project. And as I will show the board, a portion of the block is residential.
so commercial use is out of character and there is a commercial project a few doors north that
And there is a commercial project a few doors north that are going to have commercial spaces and which is actually mentioned in the Business Association's letter that, you know, why don't you put commercial?
are going to have commercial
There's going to be other commercial coming forward on the block.
And Mr. Conway is suggesting, well, if you add more commercial here, when you already have vacancies, and I'll get to that, on the blocks on Frankfurt Avenue, it really doesn't make a lot of economic sense for a developer to move forward with commercial in the middle of residential when the commercial aspect of the block is further north.
The third reason that Mr. Conway indicates that commercial is not viable or would not be viable
on this block is because when he did a survey between 2300 to 2600 block of Frankfort Avenue,
he found seven vacant commercial spaces. And I have photographs that my client actually took
of the fronts of each of those seven properties.
So this was the vote, and with all due candor to the board, there's also a letter from East
Kensington Neighbor Association. We met with them, but it was a real close vote. It was only three
to two. So I think that, you know, Councilman Squilla, you know, may have followed the directives
of ECNA, but I think the close with the vote was so close that I'm asking the board to look beyond
that closed vote and look at the real realities of what's happening on this block. This is a
letter from the Fishtown Kensington Business Improvement District and you know not surprisingly
as they are a group of businessmen they want to see commercial everywhere but I don't think
in the general domain we want to see commercial that's vacant and only leads to dark spaces
and unusable first floors. So here's the photograph of the block. The yellow stickers are
existing to family or requested to family. So this is the vacant lot right now where my client
would like to continue with the residential nature of this block. And the red dot indicates
a triplex. So this is all multifamily here. There is commercial in the corner and the project that's
going to be commercial is down the street. Across the street is a church. So in this particular part
of the block, you know, it's all residential and or institutional use. Just another photograph of
the area. And these are photographs of the fronts of some of the commercial spaces between the 2300
and 2600 block of Frankfurt. My client will testify under oath that he took these pictures
and that these spaces are currently vacant.
This is on the 2300 block of Frankfurt.
Retail space available.
This is also on the 2300 block of Frankfurt Avenue.
Retail space available.
This is actually on the 2300 block of Frankfurt Avenue.
I know Mr. Conway's letter says 2300 to 2600 Frankfurt,
but this is on the 2300 block of Frankfurt,
just three blocks down.
And this is also on Frankfurt Avenue. This is on the 1,800 block, excuse me, 1,700 block.
And there's another vacant property on the 1,800 block commercial.
Here's space to be leased on the 2,400 block of Frankfurt Avenue.
These are the plans. I mean, we have no issues with open space or rear yard or height
or anything like that it's strictly a question should my client who was once approved for this
residential property be given the opportunity to restore him to the condition that he was in
prior to the pandemic this is the the floor plan the site plan which I can walk through
for the board if they so desire but it's pretty straightforward
What I wanted to get to for the board was, and certainly the elevation is in keeping
with the character of the block, this is my tax certification, application, the zoning map.
But what I wanted to show the board was, these are the properties that have been previously
approved for two family and this is the subject property I put that in there because as I said
Mr. Longini was approved at one time for two family dwelling so this is 2446 two family dwelling
2017 and this is my client 2016 it was approval for two family dwelling
for two-family dwelling. Just showing you another shot of an approval from the OPA.
This is 2450, two-family dwelling. This is 2452. This is a three-family dwelling.
and this is the deed actually we had to resend in the deed because we
excuse me this is now the correct deed we initially we sent to miss emerson 2446
but this is the correct deed indicating that 2446 to 48 frankfurt owns the property so you know we
have a unique situation i don't often come to the board where without community support but when i
looked at this situation when it was indicated that he had a permit at one time, did not or was
unable to build at the time, I thought coming back to the board and knocking on the door again
would be a position that I thought equity would demand or would suggest that Mr. Longini be given
the opportunity to put the two-family house on the slot, especially when there are so many
vacancies with commercial. I know that as a matter of public policy, we don't want to
suggest or try to put forward spaces that will be uninhabitable or unrentable. And I realize
what the zoning district is, but because half of this block is residential in the areas of the
aerial photographs that I showed you, I'm asking the board to keep the request in play, restore
Mr. Longini to the position that he was in several years ago. We also have a letter,
expert letters from Mr. Conway and another member of Berkshire Hathaway indicating that
commercial is not viable. We believe that Mr. Longini would be, would not be an astute
businessman if he moved forward with commercial and only was left with a vegan space. We want to
continue the residential nature of this half of the block. We believe the use is consistent with
the block. It's in harmony with the code. It does not adversely impact any other buildings. And
actually, if he was able to bring residential use to this property with two single-family
dwellings, it would actually support the commercial use that is on Frankfurt Avenue now.
And again, not that two families are going to all of a sudden rent one of the seven vacant spaces, but the more density that we have on the block, certainly the better.
So with that, I ask the board to consider this request in the totality of the circumstances.
And with that, I rest and ask that all my exhibits be admitted.
Exhibits are admitted. Could you have your testimony adopted, please?
Sure. Mr. Longini, can you raise your hand, please?