okay so we'll go with the vote
MI 2025 004 496
Ben 19 Wall Street I vote yes. Cheryl Gaston my vote is yes. Tanetta Graham my vote is yes.
A1 my vote is yes. Thank you so much members of the board. Okay thank you all right um we're
going to start the uh two o'clock list now. So good afternoon everyone my name is Bill Bergman
I will be chairing the meeting of the Philadelphia zoning board of adjustment.
With me is our Board Secretary, Cheryl L. Gaston.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our Vice Chair, Tanetta Graham.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Our Board Member, Michael Johns.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
And our Board Member, Taya Wynn.
Present, Mr. Chairman.
Also present is our Attorney, Hillary Emerson,
and our Zoning Board Director, Ian Haggerty,
and our board administrator, Lakeisha Dandy.
Recording this hearing will be posted on the ZBA website.
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Let's look at our schedule.
Wait with you.
One minute.
So number five.
MI-2025-002-750-1122 Frankfurt Avenue.
That case is being continued.
Oh, date is February 11th, 2026.
Number nine, MI 2025-002-846, 5001-205-Frankford Avenue.
That case is continued to February 11th, 2026.
And number 10, MI 2025, 002-849-2619 North 29th Street.
That case is continued to February 11th, 2026.
And number 15.
Number 15, MI-2025-003-591, 4023 Girard Avenue, no exhibits, first listing.
One Girard property, LLC is the listed owner, U.S. remodeling, construction.
no exhibits first listing
do we see any hands
yes chair we have a hand up from alex goldberg
Alex, we're asking you to
unmute yourself. Can you unmute yourself?
Mr. Nockmson is? Okay. All right. Okay. Chair, I think he's having technical difficulties. Okay. All right. Good. All right. So is there anyone else from 4023 West Gerard Avenue?
I see no hands at this time, Chair. Okay. Let's wait for Mr. Nockmson to come back and to be sure that he just didn't get this client.
Okay. So MI 2025, 003-591-4023 West Gerrard Avenue. No exhibits first listing. This case is continued to February 11th, 2026. Mark must be heard. Thank you.
Are there any requests for continuance in the audience? That's not your case, right? Is there any requests for continuance?
i see no hands at this time chair thank you so we're going to do our one add-on
mi2022-007-291-430 west burke street
I vote yes, per refusal, dated 10-8-25, and the rest of the group will have to certify that they watched the video.
I, Cheryl L. Gaston, certify that I watched the video recording of the September 20, 2023 hearing in this matter, and I vote yes with proviso.
I, Tanetta Graham, certify that I watched the video recording of the September 20, 2023 hearing in this matter, and I vote yes with proviso.
i own i certify that i watched the september 20th 2023 hearing in this matter and i vote yes with
proviso that's good that's it okay uh number two mi20 of our regular list mi20240067484283 viola
street ta six three eight three eight murder ferliger is the attorney um steve masters is
also involved
miss ferliger has her hand raised and is being promoted to package
Good afternoon.
good afternoon counsel could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
meredith ferliger f-e-r-l-e-g-e-r all right and mr masters could you please state your name and
spell for the stenographer good afternoon mr chair members of the board steve masters s-t-e-v-e-m-a-s-t-e-r-s
here for the objectors yep okay um so this is a resumptive hearing um and i i'll i'll tell you
what we've received updated proof of posting we received a tax printout and we've received rebuttal
material that's been submitted um i understand where we're going to be with this murder is
you're going to have a chance to cross-examine the protestant's witness and planning commissioner
We'll make a recommendation. And. Meredith, we're going to, you know, we're really backed up today.
We're giving this a half hour and at the end of the half hour, we're going to move forward.
Understood, Mr. Chairman. I'll keep an eye on three.
We'll keep we'll keep we'll keep the eye. Mr.
we anticipate there may be a need to have some brief redirect of our of our witness so i've
talked to counsel about this okay so uh i'm going to give her a half hour and um that half hour will
she should figure out the brief that you have because we just can't go past we've put a lot
of time and effort in this case a lot of time and effort so murdeth why don't you start and
try to get this through as quick as you can. No, no problem, Mr. Chairman. If we can find
Mr. DeBrun, if he's on Zoom, I don't, I don't see him in the audience there. So I'm assuming
he's on Zoom. He's there. I think his hand's raised. Their hand is raised. They're being
promoted to panels. While he's coming on, I'll just bring back up Mr. Masters exhibits for
purposes of my cross? Sure.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm here. Would you please state your name and spell it for the
stenographer? Chris DeBruyn. D-E-B-R-U-Y-N. All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Meredith, please proceed.
Thank you. Hi, Mr. DeBruyn. So I want to try and go through this as efficiently as possible,
But I do have a contextual question first, and this is going to go to section one of your report here regarding recent sales.
So would you agree, just generally speaking, that in terms of providing sales comps for
So would you agree, just generally speaking, that in terms of prevention,
data like this or for an appraisal, that just a couple of blocks in Philadelphia
can make a material difference in pricing, in sales pricing, particularly if, say,
a neighborhood designation changes? Is that a fair, generally speaking, is that a fair statement?
The sales price is heavily driven by the neighborhood. Yes, I agree.
Okay. So, when I look at your, at least this first column here, you have a list of recent sales. When I look at, say, 1301 South Hanson Street, are you aware that this particular property is three miles away near St. Joe's, nearly 15 minutes away from 4283 Viola?
so wouldn't you say then that that property is probably not a fair comp to be used in terms of
this particular property if i were trying to sell the property if i were a broker trying to show
that that's what the price should be that i should be charging for it i agree with you it's
inappropriate but it is very appropriate as a kind of showing the um the limit of construction cost
The intent of this list is not to show sale costs per se, but to show you the total cost that the developers had in these buildings, including profit and including any fees they need to pay to sell the thing.
And turn it into a square foot cost to show you what the actual cost of the maximum amount of money that the builder could have spent on building the building.
It hasn't it isn't really about the actual like I'm not trying to prepare a comp for a sale, for example.
OK, well, we'll get to that other point. And then just again, in terms of some of the other addresses you used here, would you agree that 3736 Brandywine and then all of the addresses listed under the second column here?
These properties are all in Mantua, not East Parkside, correct?
Correct. There are not any properties available. I don't think when I looked on Zillow prior to the previous meeting, there were none in East Parkside that had been recently sold and were listed on Zillow.
Okay. When you were creating this data, did you do any investigation into how these particular lots were acquired by the developer?
I looked at it. Some of them appeared to be, one of them, I think, appeared to me to have been a land bank purchase, but I was unable to determine the rest of them.
Okay, so then are you aware that all of these Penns Grove lots, that public records would show that all of those were acquired by the developer at below market prices from sheriff sale, not arms land sales?
Not. So they weren't 100,000. They were 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 or something like that. Right.
Okay. And in terms of how you prepared all your data, did you talk to any of the owners or
developers to verify whether their development financials were consistent with the analysis
that you provided? The only analysis I'm trying to provide is the cost per square foot that they
that the developer derived from the project um i didn't talk so the answer the answer is correct
all right so turning to your data here on the next page starting first with your rental pro forma
would you agree that your conclusion here establishes that single family rentals are
not financially viable? I would agree that a 5,000 square foot, 5,000 square feet of three
single families on three $70,000 lots is not viable. Okay. Or it'd be difficult to sell in
the neighborhood. Okay. So then if we just for a moment assume all of the data that you've
provided here is valid, which of course we dispute. Would you agree that this chart essentially
represents that the minimum number of rental units viable across these three lots would be
two per lot or a total of six? I would disagree with the idea of it being viable.
um looking at the at the sales in west philadelphia which is what my the previous
sheet showed there are people are building single families and selling them and people are building
there are people are building single families and selling them and people are building
multi-families and so i'm sorry i want to stop you because i'm not asking about sales here is not
viable um but again i'm not asking you about sales i'm asking you under your rental pro forma
do you agree that what you have established here is that the minimum number of rentals
that would be viable based on your own chart is six units.
I believe that, as you do, that every builder has a different,
every developer has a different cost that they need to earn on their construction.
They have a different cost of construction to some degree.
The $172 there is the average cost per square foot of the buildings that were the sale
price of the buildings on the previous page. So that sale cost includes purchase of the land
and the sales fee and, you know, everything else that's involved. So
I think the actual construction cost is somewhat lower than that.
So it may be viable depending on who the builder is. And it's possible to build a wide variety of
cost in philadelphia okay but i'm a little confused here because i thought that the purpose
of your chart here is to try and establish i guess essentially what is viable on these lots
and based on your own chart here you have provided that single families across three lots
you lose money and then the next time that you can make money is essentially two units per lot
So I'm I'm I'm a little bit unclear. The purpose of this rental pro forma was to was I look I took a look at your at the at the plaintiff's I'm sorry Mr. German's pro forma and it it didn't see it seemed very loose and it didn't seem to represent the project at all.
So I took his model and I changed it a little bit. So my purpose was to kind of understand what his pro forma was saying. It had a number of problems. Number one, it didn't have a 16 unit building, which is what is proposed here. It only had a six unit building.
it used the same land area for each same land cost for each project a single family with a
$70,000 lot and a 16 unit building with a $70,000 lot clearly you have three lots there which I
believe the total cost is somewhat higher than $70,000 and you're going to build three single
families. So the pro forma that was presented didn't really seem to represent the project at
all. So I tried to put together a pro forma that would represent the project and be reasonable.
I'm not trying to say that you can go in there and bottom dollar build something for $125 a square
foot. I think you can, but I don't think that's what the neighborhood wants. I don't think that's
what the developer wants. So I tried to present something that was reasonable. And in that
reasonable analysis, single families of 1,600 or 1,700 square feet each is something you'd have to
work on. This kind of a format is a useful format to look at land and make a decision about what
you're going to do on it on how many units how big the units should be you can make some changes
in the number of units and the size of the of the buildings you're building and that number
changes into a viable project into an attractive project actually okay so let let let's move on
then to the for sale category that you have here so going back up first to your recent sales
So am I correct that your average sales price under the category of built 2020 to present, you come to an average sale price per square foot for single family of $179 a square foot?
Is that accurate? Okay. So then if I turn down to your financial analysis, your pro forma down here, you have a construction, a total construction cost of $172 a square foot and a total development cost of $225 a square foot.
So what I'm trying to understand here is your data would seem to show that the total cost, again, just using this category right here, that the total development cost of $225 a square foot.
that the total development cost of $225 a square foot would seem to be materially higher than one
can expect to sell a single family home for. And in fact, your own data doesn't show a single comp
that would actually support. I'm objecting that it's a multiple question and the witness has to
be able to know what he's being asked when she's going on to three or four different portions.
though i'm asking murder murder let's just make sure that he understands what question you're
asking okay so let me i think i do understand the question um the cost the the column that you're
referencing the the sale per square foot or the total development cost per square foot
the total development cost per square foot so the total development cost per square foot
includes all of the cost right so it includes getting the land the fee to the broker and
everything in between um and those are all a little bit lower and the only point of this was
to say that those are all a little bit lower than the pro forma um than on your performance
cost for just construction so your performer shows cost for construction at 215 or something
like that plus the land and then probably plus some profit that you're trying to add along the
way so but i'm not talking about what germans is showing i'm talking about what your data is
showing the data that you have presented to rebut our testimony shows that an average sale price per
square foot is 179 a square foot yes and then you show to total development cost or sale per square
foot at per square foot rates that are higher. So how does that work? I did actually spend a