Hi, Mr. Ward, name and address on the record and spell your last name, please.
good evening madam chair members of the board sean ward on behalf of the applicant
trying to start my video there all right there i am do you swear if i'm to tell the whole truth
and nothing about the truth i most certainly do uh madam chair uh and you also agree to
weigh the rating of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy of course have you emailed the
exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance refusal referral plans photos five
days in advance of this hearing and have you met with the rco and do you have a letter yes i do
okay i would also like to mention that councilman brian o'neill and senator sabatina oppose
this somerton civic supports with a proviso i don't think somerton civic is recognized in that
area but go ahead you can present this i would respectfully disagree that somerton civic is the
recognized rco in the district they are the only rco in the 19116 19116 zip code which encompasses
all of somerton so i i don't know why they may be incorrect but i i yeah i don't know why they
would suggest that to the board if they infected uh but madam chair i'm going to share my screen now
i will try and be brief as possible given the late uh hour of the day and
hour of the day and what the board has been going through today.
what the board has been going through today
I've submitted to the board my typical exhibit packet.
I'll blow it up real quick.
I represent Yusuf Karakaglio, and for spelling, that's Y-U-S-U-F, last name Karakaglio, K-R-A-C-A-O-G-L-U-E.
He is the applicant tenant, and by virtue of a lease agreement, he is the beneficial owner of the property, so I'm here on behalf of both.
The city recognizes it as 626-30 Byberry Road.
Everybody in the neighborhood knows it as 630 Byberry Road, and it is calendar number 2021-000424.
So, in my packet, I have a copy of the notice of refusal at A1.
The application was for a permit for personal vehicle repair with an accessory business office, the office for the vehicle repair, and a one apartment on the second floor.
It resulted in two refusals. Ironically, personal vehicle repair is not permitted in the CA1, which is the commercial auto-oriented one commercial district.
In addition, the single family dwelling is not permitted in the CA1 district. Therefore, we need to use variances.
A2 is the ZBA application of appeal.
A3, the project information form.
A4 is proof of ownership.
A5 is the tax clearance.
A6, site elevation shouldn't be in there.
It's a site and floor plan.
A7 are photographs.
A8 is not in the packet, but I have it, and it was submitted to the board.
Sergeant Civic's letter of support.
A9, ironically, is Councilman O'Neill's letter of opposition.
A10 is the relevant zoning history.
As far as I, you know, I'm from the very far northeast.
And as long as I can remember, Marvick Supply was at that site.
They sold building supplies and materials for as long as I can remember.
I think they closed maybe in 2012.
Then we have the zoning map and aerial photograph.
um well i'll um yeah very quickly the days and hours of operation monday to friday 7 a.m to 6
p.m saturday 8 a.m to 1 p.m and sundays are closed currently there's two employees including
the owner uh he does have uh room for two more employees because he's got uh four repair bays
two having lifts all work would be performed indoors there is secured vehicle storage in
the back i could show you that and there's no auto body or painting uh you know contemplated
proposed or expected in the future so uh moving through the exhibit packet uh briefly uh this is
the notice of refusal um as you can see it is 626-30 bybury the two refusals again
Personal vehicle repair not permitted, and the single-family dwelling not permitted.
My transmittal letter to Tanya containing the application.
The application, page 2, the PIF.
Okay, moving on.
Proof of ownership.
The Philodoc site was down, so I could not obtain a copy of the actual deed.
But Philodox does have 626-30 recorded as the owner, Siltrent LLC.
And that property was purchased on or about May 31st of 2017.
As you can see, taxes are paid through 2021.
Okay, I don't want to interrupt you, but I am interrupting you.
Is the councilman still on?
yes i am thank you madam chair okay um i'd like to hear from you okay and let me clarify because
we had somerton civic earlier on the stevens road case um the uh somerton civic has not followed
and this hurts everybody not just um whether they're for it or against it uh who who's affected
by that. They don't hold meetings. They send out a proposal, a request that they get a copy
of the proposal, they'll email their membership, and then they get comments. It all goes through
the president that concocted all this, and he sends questions to the applicant.
And he sends questions to the applicant.
They send answers back.
No one sees them.
It's totally not transparent at all.
But then he doesn't follow the sheet because he can't.
There was no meeting.
He can't tell you whether the 18 people that are for it live two miles away in Somerton
or the 14 people that are against it live within a block and got the letters.
And that's just a fact.
It is not a recognized procedure by the RCO.
It's certainly the summer in RCO, summer in civics, been there for longer than I've been in office.
And that's pretty long. So I just wanted to clarify that it's really the process that they're not following and what the implications are for both sides.
Because you don't know who they who's who's for, who's against.
There was no meeting. You never had any personal contact.
In fact, the Zoom meetings work with every civic in my district.
In fact, I think we get more participation on some of the meetings.
So I'll just put that aside.
Mr. Ward, I have a lot of respect for.
I know him.
He's a friend.
But when he stated that this is a single-family use, technically, you can call it single-family.
we call it an apartment and a mixed use of of commercial whatever it is and an apartment so
it's an over it's starting right there with the with the residential it's an overbuilt
it's an overreach whatever you want to call it but i can tell you that neighborhood is one of
the nicest neighborhoods in the city and certainly the nicest and highest priced in my district
Madam Chair, at this point
I'm going to object to the
councilman pontificating
on the characterization
of the neighborhood
let's stick to the facts
and the property
let's stop it
strike that
but not what the councilman said
we're not going to go back and forth like that
continue
Councilman O'Neill
madam chair i would object i i would like to present my case
councilman o'neill you may unmute yourself please
hi councilman o'neill you're still there you can uh sean when uh there you go i'm still figuring
this system out so the the entire corner this is right it sits on bybury but it's right behind
a strip of stores that is owned by the person that bought this property. He also owns a very,
you know, a larger shopping center across the street. It's all his own CA1. He's been there a
long time. Nothing bad to say about him. Just like I got nothing to say about Mr. Ward. This is not
personal. This is a use that's not allowed in any one of those stores that he owns, the centers he
owns, or any of the other uses right there in that Busselton and Byberry, and everyone that I've
talked to personally. Alice from my office who does zoning and L&I for me lives in the area.
She's talked to people. We can't find anybody that lives anywhere near this that is not totally
opposed to having a repair station on a CA1 property right behind by the same owner, forget
it's a lease, the same owner that has the stores on Busselton and the corner that reaches to the
corner on Busselton Avenue. So I would ask the board to deny this application. Thank you. So
that's a strong opposition from you yes i believe senator sabatina sent a letter i was told that by
him personally today um i have that in my notes he did and he is also opposed to it uh thank you
sean do you want to continue or begin of course i do i'd like to make my case before i was rudely
interrupted by the council thank you oh come on i know you guys are friends but this is not okay
Okay, but this isn't the first time he's done this.
I've known Brian for 30 or 40 years.
Sean, I'm going to cut you off.
Okay, I object.
Note my objection, and I will do what I got to do.
But let me present my case, please.
I asked you to.
Thank you.
So, again, I've submitted my exhibit packet to the board, as I typically do,
which includes all the required documents as requested and directed by the board.
We do have, in fact, the copy of a site plan, but let me first show you that this property
But let me first show you that this property is extremely unique in that it is zoned, split zoned.
So half of the property is CA1 commercial, and I again reiterate that CA1 commercial is commercial-auto-oriented.
However, auto repair is not permitted in the district.
The other half of the property, the smaller half, is zoned RSD1.
Therefore, the CA1, because it's a majority of the property, the zoning of CA1 carries.
So with regard to the property itself.
There are, this is Byberry Road.
I'm going to reduce this.
Hold on a second.
Okay, so at the top of the page, you would have Bybury Road running from east to west.
Can everybody see this, Carol?
I'm sorry.
Just want to make sure.
I can.
It's a little bit small.
Okay, I'll blow it up.
But I just want to know that this is Bybury Road at the top.
And then the property is almost a rectangle going in from Bybury.
So when we blow it up, you'll see that there are three buildings on site.
the two blue dots represent the single building
that we are referring to in our application.
The two red dots are not part of the application.
Again, this used to be the property occupied and operated
as Marvix Supply for as long as I can remember.
And I'm sure Brian, Councilman O'Neill would agree with that.
But we are limiting our application
to what we're calling, I believe, is building C.
I think this is building A.
This is building B, which was basically an open-face storage building
for lumber and building supplies.
This was probably the latest building constructed on site.
The front portion consists of a two-story building,
which has an entrance at the front and then there's another entry here. Over here is a
separate stairway access up to the second floor and as I recall that first floor was used as a
showroom type display area for building supply materials and then this is just a masonry
clearspan garage with two bay doors and a manned door dead center.
And we have pictures.
We'll show you that.
So we're limiting our discussion to this building here.
The application has nothing to do with the original first building constructed on site
for Marvick Supply, nor their lumber shed, as I would call it, in the back.
Anyway, so with regard to the – we didn't do a floor plan for the garage because it's basically a two-bay door garage with nothing else to show on a floor plan.
But there is a basement.
It's for mechanical and storage.
This is the first floor, which would be used as the proposed office for the auto repair shop.
There is a man door right here, which takes you out, and then you would enter into the garage.
There is no pass-through from the office building into the garage.
And then on the second floor is what is fitted out as an apartment.
The applicant, Yusuf, is going to be the operator of the auto repair shop, the office, and he's going to reside.
in the apartment above. So just for the board's view, this picture was taken just inside the
property line from Byberry Road. It's showing the street frontage of the building, which is actually,
you know, in all intents and purpose, the side of the building. This door would take into the office.
around this corner is that entrance to the upper apartment, okay?
So what is typically the front facade of the building
is actually the side of the building.
You can see the display doors, you know, the double doors entry
for the commercial office area, and then the apartment above.
Then you have, this is looking into the garage to the right, there are two bays for vehicle repair.
then you have this is looking into the garage to the right
And then looking to the left, there's also two bays, but obviously they have the lifts.
My client specializes in pickup truck repairs.
It's not a commercial vehicle operation.