If so, please mute them.
Oh, okay.
Okay, continue.
Sorry about that. Thanks. So we've answered a lot of their requests. We've, like Mike said, you know, we send detailed responses, you know, we've worked with them, the best of our ability, and we've now reduced it to seven homes.
Sorry about that, thanks.
So we've answered a lot of their requests.
um you know if we were to build this two years ago or a year ago when it was eight homes that
would be that would have been great we would have been happy now construction costs are rising
um lumber's rising a lot of materials are rising so as mike said seven homes is
you know this really is a deal that uh it's hard to do but we were committed we've been in this for
so many years. The first, you know, we lost the house just to, you know, just to accommodate not
being close to the road. But while our house, our first home now starts behind the other homes
that face Stevens. You know, we've done really everything they've asked. And the response was
still a no. You know, I let Michael speak to how the voting was and how the voting went over the
past few months. But again, we'd love to build this. There's an acre there. And we feel like
we've done everything that they've asked in terms of reducing density to a level that just makes
sense for us as a developer. So, Mike, I don't know if there's anything else you want me to add.
Eugene, can you just speak to, is building one single family home, which is what you'd be
permitted to do by right at all economically viable?
No, not the type of home that would sell
and that would be consistent with the homes in the area.
I mean, we're not talking about building a home here.
If I could build a home here that's 5,000 or 7,000 square feet
and I could sell it for $2 million, that's a different story.
This is not that area.
mean, I'm going to build a house here that is a certain size that has buyers that are willing to
buy this home. So to answer your question, no. One house is really, it would be a little odd,
but no. And you ran detailed projections on outsell and on construction costs
and developed a pro forma for this property. Is that right? That's correct. And we even shared
a lot of that information in detail with Somerton. I just want to go through that in particular
because you were asked from Somerton about the outsell and really was the ultimate
decision. And I think I got to the petition support. So they asked about the economic
viability and they based it on if the houses sold for $500,000. And you responded to that
and showed how with your carrying costs, with your out-of-pocket costs, that really at seven
homes you're you're looking at breaking even is that is that a fair and accurate uh assessment of
your of our response that's correct i mean our our our net numbers are like you know a hundred
or two hundred thousand dollar potentially income before you know any other sales sales expenses
you know what i mean so after you factor in selling costs and taxes transfer tax and things
like that it's nothing um thank you eugene i'll uh anything further for you the the board may but
i just want to uh state a few things in in uh in closing and then provide a you know obviously an
opportunity for questions and and i'm sure uh there's a representative from somerton civic here
uh so again we're the the variance is for multi-family use because we cannot subdivide
this property. Our hardship is the fact that we have a PennDOT easement that takes up 54% of our
lot. We have only 53 feet of street front and preventing any subdivision. And we have an area
that consists of attached twin homes that range in lot size from 3,500 to 4,500 square feet.
RSA 2 contemplates attached homes. We, at every community meeting, we have addressed every concern
that has been raised, whether it's density, turnaround radius for fire trucks, adding
additional parking, removing the home closest to the street. But the response has been the
the response has been the same it simply has been opposition no no no we presented this back in
same. It simply has been opposition, no, no, no.
December and we had our question and answer round that went till the middle of January and up until
yesterday we weren't even advised how the vote turned out and what the position Somerton Civic
was going to take despite numerous overtures to have a conversation to discuss this to see
if there are any other concerns we can we can address. I have attached also in our packet
the petitions of support from the community and the numerous emails of support that were sent to
Somerton Civic which I was copied on noting approval for the project. These are residents
of Somerton. Somerton in the far northeast is a bit different. It's geographically
uh spread out the homes are not as densely packed um and but but these are residents who will drive
by the area who this will affect and they are largely in support whether they attended a an
in-person meeting of somerton civic or whether they pay their five dollar dues uh we we deem that
uh is not relevant to the fact that they uh live within the boundaries and support the project
um so in conclusion uh we believe that the hardship is clear relating to the unique
configuration of the lot the pendot right of way the lack of street frontage and the fact that
this is a rsa2 zoned uh area which largely consists of uh attached twin homes because of
that physical circumstance is a condition of the property. The property cannot be used in strict
conformity with the zoning code. And what we are proposing is the least dense alternative that is
viable. The granting of the requested variances won't alter the essential character of the
neighborhood. This will be less dense than everything in the surrounding area. Won't
impair the appropriate use or development of adjacent property, most of which is the PennDOT
easement uh won't substantially increase congestion in the public streets we're providing
more parking than would be required won't adversely affect transportation burden public
facilities and will not be detrimental to public welfare thank you mr phillips i just uh have one
question uh i think earlier you mentioned when the board did a reconsideration and denied the
application your client filed an appeal in common please court uh we we did file uh an appeal of
that is it still in common please it's still in common please we actually requested that everything
be uh stayed while we present this seven unit plan so it's not a provider all right thank you
any questions from the board no no no i'd like to testify in this case if so please raise your hand
any hands up
i'm sorry this is mr brian o'neill with his hand up i think he's been unmuted already
thank you jason councilman o'neill okay i'm now unmuted please identify yourself spell your last
name for the record and i'll swear you in yes councilman brian o'neill um councilman for the
10th district which includes this parcel and I also testified before the board in May of 19 at the
hearing on the on the 8th. Okay let me just let me just interrupt you do you swear in the firm to
tell the truth? Yes I do. Thank you sir please proceed. I just want to mention that I was in
attendance with several nearby residents in May of 19. We testified against it, and I'll
do some of that testimony because it's essentially the same application. But it's the first time
I've seen in 41 plus years where LNI has allowed an application while an appeal is pending to be
filed that isn't substantially different than the original appeal. And I just mentioned that
substantially different than the original appeal. And I just mentioned that because historically
because historically
that's not been the practice at Illinois. And it apparently don't have any problem with it now,
but there's, if the, you know, it's, it's just not fair to the community. It's not fair to the
process, in my opinion, but I wanted, before I begin my testimony, I wanted to ask the chair,
Or if the chair could ask the owner of the property, the representative of the owner that testified, if the alleged hardship, the PennDOT right-of-way, was placed on the lot after he bought it?
or was it already on there when he purchased the lot?
Mr. Phillips, can you address that question as to whether or not the conditions were on the lot prior to purchasing or after?
They were on the lot at the time.
It's been on the lot since the 70s.
However, the deed and title history was not entirely clear at the time.
um so after my client uh had to you know purchase the property they ended up having to clear up a
lot of old bag taxes um and only uh take ownership of this 44 000 or you know this 44 000 square foot
developable parcel but this other part that's encumbered by pendoc was there um and they
bought it with knowledge um they didn't have knowledge is that right that there was a yes
that there was a portion of it
that would be subject to the right-of-way.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And also, was the owner of the property,
the purchaser just mentioned,
aware when he bought the property
that there was only street frontage for one home?
And only because the zoning has very small requirements on side yard and rear yard and all that, but basically side yard.
Yes, Mr. Phillips.
I mean, the parcel is what it is, and whether an owner purchases it with knowledge of a hardship does not negate the existing hardship.
It just means that a hardship exists.
Yeah, but that does.
I mean, it's kind of like a buyer beware, isn't it?
It's not even – that is an erroneous argument.
When you buy a property and you know there can be one house put on it, or you should know because he's a sophisticated buyer.
I know from the last hearing, this is not a stranger to real estate that purchased this.
And I have another question for the owner of the property.
Since it was testified by Mr. Phillips that the property is a vacant, undeveloped, blighted lot, I believe it's been three, four years that this case has been, you know, this property, at least that many years, three to four, has been owned by this gentleman, who's the applicant.
Has he ever done anything to obviate any of the blight that's there, to reduce the blight, to eliminate it?
I don't see this as a blighted property, and it's never been reported to my office.
It's a wooded lot.
But the applicant obviously believes that it is vacant, undeveloped, and blighted.
It's clear that it's vacant and undeveloped to anyone.
But to this applicant, he's making an argument that it's also blighted. If you own a blighted property, would you let it go four years as an owner of real estate and not relieve any of the blight? Because you don't have to build houses on it to relieve what you may consider blight.
it's a wooded lot it's no different than the wooded lot across the street or
around the corner where there's wooded lots we will concede that it's an over has he done
anything it's there's a question there and it's direct it has he done anything to relieve the
blight that he thinks this lot has i i would just say clearly as indicated by the photographs
uh the lot has not been cleared and the owner has not gone through the uh extensive costs of
extensive costs of clearing uh raising uh and thank you the answer is no yeah
clearing uh raising uh and
that's all i wanted you don't have to give me a speech just say yes or no it's either he's done
anything or he's not it's not all about your definition of what blight is you brought up
blight no neighbor has ever brought up you know what this is not okay and has considered to blight
it come on councilman i think you made your point okay okay and it's because of mr phillips no
disrespect raised the issue that it's a blighted unkept property and the onus if that's the case
the onus to maintain it is on the current owner i i will apologize for my inartful uh uh language
which it's not condemning you for it but it is i i know the point you were trying to make but
sometimes less is better uh understood but and we could put a fence around the whole property but
you know neighbors have said they like walking through it they like the wooded area and they
like to have this here but but it's privately owned land is the point and and so my client
is looking to just develop this property the neighbors would also like singles um and a few
of them not and I we can repeat the last hearing because this is the same issue at the last hearing
seven and eight don't make a difference uh seven or eight the I had said at that hearing that
we could work with two to three homes and I'm not bringing this out of the sky
if you go north on Stevens on the same side of the street on the other side of Woodhaven Road
which is just a paper highway that's never going to be built at this point.
There are single homes on Bybury, small single homes that have been there pre-war probably, 70, 80 years old.
And then you have a piece of ground that's directly on the other side of the Woodhaven Road right away.
The entire thing is the right away.
The entire, whatever you see is Woodhaven Road and in between.
there are two very large, nice, attractive, expensive homes that are on a single private
driveway that the two of them share. I would be willing, and the community I know and the
nearby neighbors would support three if it were necessary. This goes back almost two years.
And we heard the same stories about, I paid too much, please relieve me of my bad decision, because that's all this is here, is a bad decision, a careless decision, whatever it was, the argument is just that I paid too much.
The only way now I can break even is if you – well, real estate developers gamble.
They always take a high risk.
That's why no one begrudges them when they make money.
A risk was taken.
Now the zoning board and the community is supposed to relieve the owner of what wasn't such a great gamble or risk-taking on his part.
two to three houses of a considerable size. And there were just three homes sold in the last two
years. And the market wasn't red hot like it is now that I'm talking about these homes just up
the street. No one's showing you those homes because they kill whatever argument Mr. Phillips
is trying to make. Those homes face a private driveway. Two, three houses on a private driveway,
but especially substantial homes, is not a problem for me or for the neighbors.
Even though only one house was legally able to be built here.
Those houses sold on the other side of Southampton Road for $600,000.
And they sold immediately.
Somerton is, even in the slow market of two, three years ago, very, very desirable.
Those homes wouldn't be anywhere near Stevens Road.
They would be in the fat part of the lot, not the narrow part near the street.
They would have a nice driveway out to the street.
Two in three people in different homes can handle, I've had a lot of experience with this,
can handle a private street, which isn't built like a city street. It's just basically a long
driveway. They can handle the fact that they have private water and not city water and sewer
because they go in eyes wide open. When you start getting into the 7, 8, 10, even 6, 7,
When you start getting into the 7, 8, 10, even 6, 7, 8, 10, it's a totally different thing.
Everyone there is paying the same taxes as everyone else with a similarly valued house.
And no one wants to fix anything.
They want the city to do it.
We went through this in May of 19.
This is a mistake that was made by a developer asking for relief.
relief, I and the community are willing to entertain relief. And I do feel sorry only
for this, Mr. Phillips, that you had to go through a process with Somerton Civic that
is not a process. It's not a process recognized by the zoning board. And I'm sure you had
no choice. But there was no RCO meeting. There was no virtual meeting. There was no meeting
I could attend. There was no meeting that the nearby neighbors could attend. There's no way
you could say to someone, could you sit over here if you got a letter mailed to you so your vote
will be counted separate on the sheet because there's no sheet on this. And that's beyond my
control. It's frustrating. But fortunately, this is a mirror image of May of 19, except there's a
hot real estate market right now. There's a very hot real estate. It's on fire. And everyone,
you can't pick up any newspaper or talk to a realtor or even a neighbor about it otherwise.
So that offer still holds. I hold no grudges. That offer still holds. We can work with two to three
good-sized homes that'll sell for a pretty penny. It'll sell for a substantial amount of money.
if your client, if the applicant doesn't break even, and I think that's a real stretch in this
case, if he builds what I'm talking about and what I was talking about two, three years ago,