Thank you.
how do we look
well chair currently is stopped at 25 attendees you can proceed as you wish
thank you good morning everyone my name is bill bergman and i will
be chairing this morning's eba hearing with me as our vice chair ismail shaheed
President, Mr. Chairman
Our board member, Thomas Holloman
President, Mr. Chairman
And our board member, James Snell
President, Mr. Chairman
Also here is Hillary Emerson, our attorney
and our executive director, Tanya Sunkett
Here's our virtual format
Be advised the proceedings are being recorded
The video will be available by contacting
Tanya Sunkett at phil.gov
For the benefit of our court sonographer
we ask attorneys and witnesses
to identify themselves before testifying
If you're participating by phone and you wish to testify, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute.
To enter the period of statement, call 267-270-5548.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And finally, the question answer box on the screen is now for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our executive director, Tanya Sunken.
Let's look at our schedule for today.
Number three, MI 2023-003-085, 3550 North 6th Street.
That case is continued.
Number four, MI 2023-003-8487, 90 Rochelle Avenue.
This case is continued attorney moving party.
Number five, I want to have an update for that.
So that's MI 2023, 005-160-319 Cherry Street.
David Orfanides is the attorney for the appellant.
Also involved is Meredith Verliger and Leonard Reuter from the city.
Mr. Chair, I don't believe Mr. Reuter is available yet, but Mary Costello is also here from the city, so I believe she can speak as well. Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Meredith Ferliger here.
Good morning. Meredith, just for the record, state your name and spell, please, for the court sonographer.
Sure. Meredith, M-E-R-E-D-I-T-H, Ferliger, F-E-R-L-E-G-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. Mr. Orphanides?
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court stenographer?
Sure. David Orphanides. Last name is spelled O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mary Costello?
Good morning.
Good morning.
Could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer, please?
It's Mary Costello, M-A-R-Y-C-O-S-T-E-L-L-O.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
And I believe Attorney Reuter should be logging in momentarily as well.
Thank you.
Let's wait one more minute.
We see Leonard.
Not yet, Chair. He has an old name.
Well, we're going to start. So, Mr. Orphanides, are you ready for today's hearing?
Yes, we're ready to proceed.
Excuse me, Chair. We have a hand up under a user, Lisa Kennedy. I'm not sure if Mr.
we have a hand up under a user lisa kennedy i'm not sure if mr reuter might be underneath her
username why don't we just double check okay lisa kennedy you're free to speak
um the councilman said that i needed to log in to agreeance to the continuance because my rco
is on may 4th okay ma'am we was uh okay we were speaking for this case um you can raise your hand
wants to chair uh announces your case yeah okay thank you so mr mr orphanese you're ready to
to proceed today am i correct
mr orphanetes
artist uh yes mr chairman are you are you are you ready to proceed today uh mr chairman we we
certainly were ready to proceed today but uh with all due respect to my colleague mr rufandides
he did not submit his exhibits five days in advance and submitted about 200 pages worth of
exhibits at 2 30 in the morning uh so we we are more than happy to proceed but uh mr chairman uh
we and i would imagine the city would take the same position have had no opportunity to review
200 pages uh this morning to to adequately prepare now i i'm confident that we could proceed
uh without that review but we would ask the board to uh prohibit mr orphanetes from relying on any
of the exhibits that he submitted at 2 30 in the morning if the board is going to proceed today
if i can orphanetes sure so um there was some uncertainty whether my client was going to be
present uh we were going to be able to proceed this at the proceeding today and that's the reason
why our exhibits weren't submitted last week.
We confirmed yesterday
and we got the exhibits submitted as soon.
And yes, it was late last night.
I'm not sure why my computer didn't send it earlier.
It might've been changing locations
throughout the course of the day.
There have been continuances in this case previously.
None of them were requested by the applicant.
They were for a variety of reasons
over which we had no control.
I did in my email to Hillary
that I thought had gone out earlier in the day
had mentioned, had referenced the virtual rules
for the board.
And while it does mention that if you fail to submit
within five days, the board may continue
and if warranted can dismiss the case.
I don't believe in this case it's warranted to dismiss
given that the prior continuances have not been
at the appellant's request and not that we weren't ready.
Again, it was other factors. And I understand what counsel is stating. I think, again, the reason for the number of pages is that I usually include full zoning copies of all the zoning archives, not just select permits. And so it's largely zoning archives.
But with that being said, I don't want them to be prejudiced in any respect.
I would like this to be fully put before the board.
And if the board feels it's necessary, I'd suggest that we continue the case one last time with the must-be-heard designation.
Ms. Costello?
Good morning, Chair.
I believe it's the city's position at this point to leave it within the purview of the board.
I mean, would we benefit from an opportunity to further review? Sure. But we'll leave that to the board to decide.
OK, we're going to go on with this today. I don't. Our quick review of what David submitted is just it's basically almost public knowledge.
So we're going to go on with this today. So we were going to call this last.
We don't have many cases, so we should probably be calling this maybe in 40 minutes, something like that. OK.
And excuse me, Chair, if I may, Mr. Reuter is available.
Leonard, just for the record, could you state your name and spell for the court sonographer?
Leonard?
Sure. I'm sorry. Thank you.
sure i was still i had my mute on on my thing um leonard f reuter r-e-u-t-e-r senior attorney
city of philadelphia you swear a firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do so uh we're going to go on with this today leonard and it'll probably be in about 40 minutes
we don't have that many cases so we're going to hear this one last no that's okay and yeah and
i fully back up what uh what ms costello has said on the record thank you thank you very much all
All right. Mr. Chair, can I can I make one suggestion? You can. So when we when we hear the case, if there is.
So when we when we hear the case, if there is information that was not previously seen that either the city or Miss Ferligar would like to respond to, we could hold the record open for a limited period so that they could they could respond to that information.
Like you said, based on our review, the information was largely public record, plus the materials that had previously been submitted to initiate the appeal.
So I don't think any of it is new, but if there is anything that they would like to respond to, we could leave the record open for them to respond.
Thank you very much. That's perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. All right. So we're going to go to number seven, MI-2023-006-847-2644 North 22nd Street.
David Denenberg is the attorney and also a representative from Councilman Young's office.
Chair, we have a participant by the name of Lisa Kennedy.
okay I believe she may be the applicant
Lisa Kennedy you've been able to speak
um I talked to the hi hi hold on could you state state your name and spell for the court
phonographer? Lisa Kennedy. Spell your name, please. L-I-S-A. L-I-S-A. Kennedy. K-E-N-N-E-D-Y.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Lisa? Yes. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth?
Yes. Okay. Is this your property? Yes, 44. And are you willing to take a continuance today?
Yes. Okay. Well, just for a point of information, also, we don't have any exhibits on this.
So you're going to have to make sure that for the next listing, you have our exhibits. Okay.
Okay. Ms. Kennedy, just a couple of things. My RCO is May 4th. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Yes.
Ms. Kennedy, just a couple of things.
So we have the owner listed as construction, construction, LLC.
Are you related to that entity?
Yes, I'm the owner.
Okay, you're the owner.
And you are aware that you need an attorney to proceed because the property is owned by an LLC.
Is that correct?
originally had David
Denenberg and I do represent me for this
hearing next hearing I guess this hearing
this case okay so
David David Denenberg is still your
attorney he
withdrew this morning and I spoke
to him this morning and he said he sent
in the withdrew
to you guys
okay all right so you will
need to secure another attorney for
the next year
yeah I did David
Yes. Sorry, Tina. David Orphanides, he has his hand up. Should I allow him to speak?
Yes, I believe Ms. Kennedy just indicated that he was now going to be representing her on this case. Yes.
Good morning, everybody. I believe we were just retained this morning in this matter.
I have been in conversation with Ms. Kennedy about this project over, I guess, the last couple of weeks.
and as I just put my head out of my office to check
when I heard her voice and heard the case.
And yes, we have just been retained this morning
and we'll be working with Ms. Kennedy
to get her through the process
and get her back before the board.
And if we're ready to roll,
we'll be representing her in front of the zoning board
at the next hearing in this matter.
Thank you.
So MI 2023-006-847-2644
of North 22nd Street. That case is continued. Are there any other requests for continuance?
I see no handshare. Thank you. So number one, MI 2022-006-003-2055 Cemetery Avenue. Michael
Matione is the attorney. There is a letter of support from the Ward 40 Republican RCL with a
provisional.
Mr. Mattione is coming back in as a panelist.
good morning mr chairman good morning could you please not letting yeah it's not letting
my video come on for some reason so um we're will you be oh there it goes there you go yeah come on
there you go. Thank you. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. Michael Mattioni, M-A-T-T-I-O-N-I. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Could you identify your client in relationship
to the property? Sure. It is William James, J-A-N-E-S, and he is the owner of the property.
And our vice chair has just a few questions, sir. Sure.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to wait the reading of the refusal or stipulate to attack
receipt? Good morning, and I do. It's a referral, yes. All right, thank you. Have you emailed in
all the required documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing? Yes. Thank you. Please
proceed and share your screen. Thank you. And again, I'm representing William James. He's the
owner of the property at 2055 Cemetery Avenue, and he is available today as well. And again,
we submitted our materials in advance, including the tax clearance, the referral, the support
letter from the 40th Ward Republicans, who are the coordinating RCO, and they did have
unanimous support in their, actually, email. A plot plan, photographs. Again, as shown in
the referral, we're seeking a special exception to allow this to continue as an auto repair
garage. And it's been that way since at least 1951. Mr. Janes had some, in Exhibit 6, I have
permits going back to 1951 showing that this has been in continuous use as an auto repair facility.
Mr. Jane's had some personal issues and his permit lapsed several years back and he has recovered and now he is seeking to get the special exception to allow him to operate.