ZBA Hearing - December 21, 2021

them in terms of demolition and what efforts he wishes to make with the nearby neighbor during

construction. So, Mr. Adasevan, if you can virtually raise your hand, that would be great.

Yeah, I was already unmuted. Hi, my name is...

Could you state your name and then spell it for the court reporter?

Yes, my name is Gazi, G-A-Z-I.

The last name is Araseven.

My address is 2424 East York, Philadelphia.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Go ahead.

Yes, thank you.

Mr. Araseven, you heard everything I stated today.

Yes, I heard it.

Is it true and correct?

Absolutely correct.

and do you and do you adopt it as your own testimony yes all right can you just again

i usually don't go beyond this but i really think it's important for the board to understand

what efforts you made in terms of responsibly demoing the the old building structure

in terms of responsibly demoing the the old building structure and what efforts you've made

since to work with the nearby neighbor um and talking to her about construction hopefully of

the new building structure yes uh actually i was expecting the um support letter from them because

i even give i gave them my personal cell phone number because the meeting looks to me it went

well because most of the question i was asked it wasn't related to zoning it was related to

construction stage they even asked me uh underpinning they even asked me framing they

they asked a lot of things related to construction uh i tried to answer all of them with my best

ability and knowledge and they asked me to give the cell phone number i gave them my cell phone

number they asked me uh i mean i have been in contact with the neighbors i told them yes and

And I gave them their names and their numbers that I have been communicating with them.

Since, I mean, before we demo, even most of my project, I always communicated with the community.

So I really want them to make happy whatever they ask me to, even out of my scope of work.

So I did it so far.

And I met the neighbor right next to 2026, I think I spoke with the lady and I gave them a same guarantee that we can have her put her name under additional insurance.

I talked to the left, right of the property's owner and I told them the same thing. And also I communicated with all the executive members.

um so we the reason uh we asked this i mean variance as our attorney said so we really were

affected uh from covid so we were planning to uh we have the property and sell it but

it came middle of the covid we couldn't do anything at least three or four months the

house really was deteriorated and the structural compromise so the lni told us i mean we need to

demo this building. So that's what we did under the supervision of the engineer, under the

supervision of the LNI inspector. So we passed the final inspection. We hired, even we pay more than

the average market value to hire the really experienced demo company, which they, I mean,

being used for city's job as well. So everything went well. I mean, from at the beginning to

until this point. So that's why we're kind of expecting the support letter. And

so they asked me everything about the construction. I gave them all the information they need.

than here where we are.

Mr. Adesab, you're also a licensed real estate agent, right?

Yes.

Is it economically feasible to build a new construction home,

a single-family new construction home at 222 for North Howard Street?

Yeah, that's what I was coming to that.

So the reason, I mean, even as a real estate agent,

to suggest that to my partner

to going to variance

because the unit one

is going to be a real hardship

if we cannot get the variance.

So the unit is going to be first

and it's going to be,

it's not technically the first unit.

It's kind of living space.

Maybe if we can fit the one bedroom,

that's all.

And after we made all the investment,

so we're really trying to

not make money

we're trying to really cover our loss

because we purchased it as a house

then we demo it

now we're trying to do new construction

thank you very much

no problem

questions from the board

no Mr. Chairman

no Mr. Chairman

questions from the virtual audience

yes Chair

we have Sloan folks

mr folks you can unmute yourself good afternoon chairman bergman zba board sloan folks sloan e fs

of fire lks office of councilwoman maria canyona sanchez from 50 city hall the applicant has met

with the coordinating rco they did not receive a letter of support from them unfortunately the

Councilman does not support this various request. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other people in the virtual audience chair? We have Stephanie sent Diego.

okay um good evening everybody my name is stephanie santiago s-t-e-p-h-a-n-i-e last name

Okay.

Um, good evening.

s-a-n-t-i-a-g-o okay you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth

yes sir let's see so um i am the one of the nsca rco representatives um from north square

Community Alliance, I just want to speak on the 2224 project. So with concerning the letter of

support, just to clear it up, those that are the votes that are in support with conditions are only

counted as yes votes from the community if the conditions stated in the letter are supported

in writing. Just for future reference to the ZBA board from the letters on NSCA, and we will

further explain that in future letters to ensure that there's no discrepancies. A lot of the issues

that the community has been having concerning this project and others that have been coming

into the community have to do not only with the density but the parking issues and the fact that

that there have been issues concerning demolition and other issues as stated.

So the community did ask a lot of questions concerning construction because we have had a

lot of projects within the Philadelphia area as you know and have seen on the news

that have been damaged by demolition,

damaged by excavation and damaged through other means.

Not saying that anybody's doing them purposely,

but residents in our area cannot afford lawyers

and cannot afford the means to truly support themselves

if their properties are damaged by other people.

And also just to clear up that the RCO board

or committee of the Norris Square Community Alliance

is made completely of residents.

So the five opposition votes

and the one that is in support with conditions

from the RCO board committee, the executive board,

are residents. Four of those residents live within one block of the 2224 project, so they are

adjacent neighbors. They are directly involved with the community, and they live directly around

them. I also have Ms. Pat DiCarlo here, who's a resident, and the chair for our RCO committee

board, who would also like to say a few things on the project. My name is Patricia DiCarlo,

P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A

capital D-E

capital C-A-R-L-O

You swear a firm

to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I do.

So I understand

that construction and

destruction of property

is not a zoning issue, but we

purposefully wanted to raise

it to the

zoning board so that they

understand, because I'm sure you do

know that it is an ongoing issue in this community it is destroying people's properties people's

homes and there is no solution to the problem because it's being seen as oh well you demolished

according to the code too bad that the property went the adjoining property then just fell apart

and they no longer have a home or it's been destroyed and now your insurance doesn't want

to cover it and the other insurance doesn't want to cover it because quote it's a pre-existing

condition that it's a hundred year old home well somebody needs to take responsibility for this

and my sense in our community sense is that because zoning gets to take a vote before

the actual damage gets done, you have a responsibility to make sure that you look at

the issue when it's an adjoining property. We can't continue to approve construction

next to an adjoining building without taking into account what measures have been taken in advance

to protect the property in this case they went ahead and demolished the property and when they

demolished their property they damaged the adjoining property so that doesn't look good

that doesn't feel good that is an example of what's happened in the past we just had one on

front street they were digging down to demolish they caused the damage next door and the next

property, Ellen and I came in and had to tear it down because it was in danger. So I understand

that the gentleman here doesn't want us to talk about the damage of demolition to an adjoining

building, but somebody has to assume responsibility for it. And saying that the guy is a licensed

contractor for demolition that the city approves and that he did it according to code does not

answer the question that the property was damaged. And that's before they dig in and dig out to build.

and that's before they dig in and dig out to build. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, can I just respond? You can. Yes. So, again, we're not dismissive of,

you know, any alleged damage. My client has worked with the property owner next door,

gave his information, his phone number. He's been trying to work through the issue.

We honestly have not seen that damage.

We indicated, you know, obviously during the building permit stage, we would have to revisit having a structural engineer in order to do any additional work.

But we obtained a demolition permit.

That work was approved during the demolition and after the completion of any demolition.

We're not aware of any violations due to any issues with the adjoining building structure.

But with that being said, my client has reached out to the owner, has his cell phone number, has been diligently trying to work with them, wants to work with them during construction.

So it's, again, none of this is zoning related.

The provisos were not zoning related either.

If you had the letter in front of you and indicated that we were going to guarantee doing work on her home, and we indicated that the only thing we can guarantee is that we're going to follow the rules of the law and science in order to build a sound building structure, which is not going to cause any harm to her.

We even agreed to put her as an additional insured on our GC's construction policy, just in case if there are any issues, she would be covered.

So we were pretty forthright in all respects.

Are there issues with other property owners and builders?

Yes.

Do mistakes happen sometimes, not purposefully?

Yes.

But we've tried to work with this building owner.

We didn't want to demolish this property.

My client purchased this property in October 2019.

his intention was to use the pre-existing building structure because of the condition

of the property through no fault of his own because this property has been you know uh

abandoned for all intents and purposes prior to 2019 but through no fault of his own

he was advised by a professional that the building structure his building structure was unsafe

and needed to be demolished because of that we're asking you know to allow us to build

a multifamily structure which is allowed as of right we're asking for de minimis variances

under the circumstances to allow us to have a functional two-family dwelling with that being

said we hope that you would approve uh this various request thank you there are there any

other questions that are any issues different in the virtual audience than what's been already

spoken please raise your hand no hands at this time chair planning commission

you're you're muted i i keep missing that button apologies um good afternoon my name is greg

waldman planning commission staff this property was part of a community driven zoning map amendment

that changed the zoning from single family to multi-family residential at this location

given the narrowness of the law and the de minimis dimensional refusals we recommend

that the board grant the request of variances MI 2021-003881 2224 North Howard Street I vote no

Thomas Holloman my vote is no

Ishmael Shaheed my vote is no

Thank you.

MI 2021-003-776-5220 Chester Avenue.

RCO, letter of support.

Civic Association, letter of support.

Chair, if I could also mention that after sending out the summaries,

we received an email from Andrew Goodman of Councilwoman Gauthier's office.

she is also in non-opposition thank you attorney is Isaac Slepner

hello good afternoon chair members of the board Isaac Slepner here from Mattione limited I

represent the property owner on this could you could you spell your name for the court reporter

please sure thing first name Isaac I India S Sam double a alpha C Charlie last name Slepner S Sam

I am L. Larry, E. Elvis, P. Peter, N. Norman, E. Elvis, R. Robert.

I am with Mattione Limited.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do.

Okay. Mr. Holloman has a few questions for you.

Okay.