all right mr chair um yeah let me let me jump in here so um all right so yeah so miss paying
right mr chair um yeah let me let me jump in here so
yes your refusal is incorrect um uh it will i believe that l and i will correct it because it
appears from zoning records that 1811 and 1813 were recognized together for zoning purposes only
um they are not jointly deeded or they're not they're not a consolidated parcel i should say
they're on they are listed on the same deed but as separate premises um they're not they're
separate partials in the city's records um and also considered separate tax parcels excuse me
separate tax parcels um but because of how they were treated previously for zoning i believe that
l and i will likely be able to correct the refusal to note both addresses because they both need to
be on the refusal um in order for this to be done for you to um get what you're asking essentially
assuming the board approves um that is a request that i will i will make um as the board's attorney
to l and i uh make sure they correct that um i did have a couple other questions about the refusal
um is this is this use for the entire building or is there a separate use proposed for the second
floor no this is just for the the first floor okay what's proposed for the second floor
uh an apartment okay one one apartment that spans both of the properties correct
okay all right thank you um i will let ellen i know that because that also should have been
noted on the refusal oh so so hillary hillary i also see that there's an agreement for 1811 but
there's taxes owed on 13th right so turning to the taxes um yeah so in addition to a corrected
refusal the board will need to see proof of tax compliance for can vote on this matter
For 18-11 Somerset, the agreement is only for 2018 and 2020 real estate taxes.
There are still taxes owing for 2023.
Those need to be in an agreement or paid off before the board can vote.
For 18-13 each Somerset, there are taxes owed for 2020, 2022, and 2023.
Those will need to be in an agreement or paid in full before the board can vote.
Understood.
So those will need to be addressed.
Questions from the board?
No, Chair.
No questions.
No questions.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
There are no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman, and good morning, David Fecto, F-E-C-T-E-A-U with
the City Planning Commission. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, told truth, and nothing
but the truth? Yes, sir, I do. Please proceed. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and board members,
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the RSA-5 residential single-family zoning
at this location. This property has a documented commercial history, which appears to predate the
adoption of the zoning code. The City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the
proposed use variants for retail sales of food, beverages, and groceries. Thank you. Ms. Pina,
we are going to hold the vote on this until the tax issues are cleared, okay? Okay, so then once
i get that clear i submit them through email to you please please yep thank you very much thank
you very much thank you bye-bye number seven
mi2023-006-170-1608-12 ridge avenue uh quayam maranco is the owner um there's a letter of
Support from the Francisville Civic Association.
Quayum has been promoted.
Good morning.
Good morning, sir.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court's denomination?
My name is Quayum Morokino, Q-U-A-Y-Y-U-M.
Last name is M-O-R-A-K-I-N-Y-O.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning, sir. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have. I did also receive an email for pictures, in which I did also send in an email.
Yes, I have. I did also receive an email for the...
Thank you, sir. Can you please share your screen and also turn the camera on? Thank you.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning.
And I'll go ahead and share my screen also.
The green button at the bottom?
Yes, no, I see.
I'm just turning on my...
Oh, sure.
Oh, I think it's trying to ask me to quit and reopen to allow to change the settings for zoom.
So I hope it brings me right back to the same recording.
Yeah, it's going to ask me to leave the webinar for me for me to be able to do that.
Thank you.
I believe so, Chair.
Okay, thank you.
Tisha, would you see him at all?
No, Chair.
if you wanted to either wait
or if you want to call the next case.
Why don't we call the next case
and then I'll call him after that, okay?
So number 13.
MI 2023-007-101-2225 St. Albans.
Michael and Debra Scarpatti.
michael scarpatti has been promoted good morning mr scarpatti could you please state your name
and spell for the court sonographer
morning everybody my name is michael scarpatti m-i-c-h-a-e-l-s-c-a-r-p-a-t-i
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. So this application is for use as a visitor accommodation in two units in an existing three-unit dwelling. The proposed use of visitor accommodation is prohibited in the RSA 5 zoning district. Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good morning, sir. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
i have yes thank you sir please proceed and share your screen
so here is the zoning permit
the refusal
the application for appeal
project information form agreement of sale
the tax certification was sent in via email um thank you hillary for uh for helping me with that
zoning poster and then the rest are exhibits for me to uh to explain here
do i have the floor to explain the situation yeah what yeah why don't you talk about when
you went to the rco meeting sure so the uh the rco meeting it was a little
Sure. So the RCO meeting, it was a little disconcerting, to be honest. This was the first RCO meeting for our area where three RCOs were actually invited to the meeting.
So generally, it's SOSNA that is our jurisdiction.
NOAC and Point Breeze Plus were also a part of this.
This was the first ever zoning meeting.
The three RCOs were able to not only attend the meeting, but voice their opinions and
all brought in very preconceived notions about this Airbnb.
It was unfortunate.
There was not a lot of openness from the RCOs to understand how unique my current situation is with this property and how it actually caters to the organization.
So there was a lot of confusion with the RCOs going into this.
I actually put an exhibit in here just to kind of show you how irregular the voting was.
This is just some correspondence with one of the chairs from Sazna.
And you see down here, up until tonight, people, the primary residents in Sazna's boundaries were the ones that would vote for this one.
No one was really sure what was going to happen going forward for this zoning hearing or this RCO meeting.
So it was a little strange. The three various RCOs with their perspectives on Airbnb were able to all be a part, all have voice in this meeting.
and i'll uh i'll state their their stance without you know many of them really recognizing what the
property is so to give you kind of some background this is an owner occupied triplex so this is the
the unit i'm the owner of the unit i purchased this in 2016 by myself there was no investment
capital that that was put into this and i put substantial investment and renovations in
furnishing the property. So this is, it's three one bedroom apartments. This isn't
a large house that can accommodate multiple, you know, people or families in it all at once
in one unit. I live, you know, my primary residence is the first floor unit. However,
I've lived throughout the past six to seven years in all these units, fixing them up,
getting them together to allow for furnished rentals in our area. They've been operating
on Airbnb since 2017 as one-bedroom, one-bath units. So the neighborhood in question is
Graduate Hospital. So in the Graduate Hospital area, it has a lot of young families, and it is
in very close proximity to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Penn, and the CHOP
Research Center. And it's a thriving, booming area right now of development, actually, on the
washington avenue street there's four city blocks right now that are all under development for new
housing there's four full city blocks many of them have already completed and in the rco meeting it
was just it was super disconcerting there was a handful of people close to 20 people in this
meeting and we ended in a deferral with eight supporting eight in opposition of the eight in
opposition, seven of them sat on various RCOs within the organization and brought in significant
bias into this meeting, which I have documented in here just through some emails that these
proposals are generally, the RCOs are against these proposals because of the idea of commercialization
of residential properties in the area. And I understand that, right? I can understand that
perspective in the idea of developers coming in, buying up properties, taking away housing
from other people and commercializing them. And that's just absolutely not the case in this
instance. This is a case where this is my primary residence.
So Michael, let me ask you, do you have photos of your property?
I do. Yeah.
I see the photos.
Sure. So this is a third floor unit. When I purchased the property, this is what it looks
like now after significant renovation. It's one of the highest rated Airbnbs on the market for a
one bedroom, one bath with high reviews, as you can see here. Same with the second floor unit.
This was the previous photos before I came in and renovated and made it nice for the community.
The interesting thing about this is we've been operating on Airbnb.
So this is not a new venture.
This is something that's been happening up until the laws changed.
And the reality is that it's going to stay in Airbnb.
It's going to stay in Airbnb. The question here is whether or not I can run it for 30 days or less, right? So the 30-day plus is well within the rights of the property. And what I'm looking to do is cater to the people I have been catering to.
The question here is whether or not I can run it for 30 days or less.
This is not some party house. This is an area that caters to the neighborhood families. There's a ton of young families in our neighborhood. When they have kids, they want their parents, their grandparents to be able to come to help support. My place is a place where people stay for that.
We have kids that need to go to CHOP. There's not a ton of lodging in the graduate hospital area in the CHOP area in University City, right? They stay with me. They stay in these places because they're one bedroom, one bath. And there's a ton of medical professionals that come in for research at the CHOP facility. They stay at this place.
So, you know, I'm asking, I know this is more of a unique situation, but this is what this caters to.
We've been operating for seven years.
There's been a total of 674 reservations.
There's never been a neighborhood complaint.
There's never been an incident.
We have, you know, one of the highest rated operations here.
And the Airbnb situation holds the whole house accountable for it to be clean and to be tidy out front.
One of the concerns from the neighbors was these absentee landlords in our neighborhood, which is I took a photo of this.
This is down the street. The absentee, the landlords that just set up their properties and rent it to whomever are some of the issues on our block.
You can see my block up here, which is nice and clean. This is not on trash day.
Right. So a lot of the conversation and things that were brought in that RCO meeting had nothing to do with what we're actually talking about.
It was vilifying Airbnb as a concept in the city versus what this is actually for, which is something that's going to operate regardless.
I'm just looking to see if we can rent, you know, help these people that need the short-term lodging in our area to support them in their travels.
All right. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation.
Questions from the board.
I have a question.
business so it's existing three units is that what it is correct yeah yeah the primary residence is
the first floor for myself and then the second and third floor unit sorry to not better explain that
are both one bedroom one bath and furnished apartments but the so the request is to make
what's i'm just i'm just the request is for second and third floor to be airbnb yeah
airbnb okay and then it's already so so it's so so is it is it a tribe is it zones as a triplex is
that is it is yes yeah yeah it's done as a triplex a regular apartment you want to make it both units
at airbnb well so the both units are airbnbs right so they're furnished apartments and they're
rented on Airbnb for 30 days plus, right? That's the visitor accommodation will allow for short
term stays. So there's no, the properties are what they are. I've spent a ton of investment
and time to make them furnished units. That's just how they're going to operate. The issue is
they have shorter term stays. Yeah. Is that's what the variance would allow me to do? You know,
the, the, the being able to only rent them a third day plus just creates a bit of a hardship
for myself and my wife as well because of these big pockets of time that can potentially be
you know scheduled where if there's 29 days and and we can't cater to some of the the
i understand yeah all right all right other questions from the board
yes you said uh something about how long you've been doing this i think you said it was seven
years and you said you had um how many rentals during that time once the 700 yeah i'll bring
back up the stat here something 674 total reservations okay all right
and uh you're only doing two of the three units correct correct because my primary residence
is the the first floor oh okay so i live in this property yeah
then you are asking no for visitor accommodation which is generally for
non-occupied like that the owner doesn't occupy property so i know it's it's very difficult it's
this the way this one works even though it is my place technically the second and third floor
aren't my primary residence so it's just it's a unique situation where even though it's my place
my primary residence so it's just it's a unique situation where even though it's my place and i
live there the second and third floor technically need to go through this process okay so usually
it's limited lodging is where you know you have uh an owner occupied like property so it's not
like you're someplace else you are there i'm there i live here yeah i just don't live in these units
Yeah. So it's a strange, unique scenario that because of the way the law is written, this is this is the process.
And I get that. Yeah. So that's the situation. It's my house.
I have a question. You mentioned the variety of RCOs.