Wilmington - In a follow-up to a June 20, 2007 story in the Town Crier, representatives from the Yentile Estates project were in the hot seat at the Planning Board meeting on Tuesday night. They faced questions not only from the Planning Board, but also from several families that have tried to buy homes in the not-yet-built development, including the family from the previous article that had been unable to get back a sizeable deposit they had placed on a Yentile Estates unit.
Planning Director Carole Hamilton explained that developers for Yentile Estates had been called in to meet with the Planning Board because the project is substantially behind where they expected it to be at this point and that they were starting to hear complaints from people that bought or were trying to buy in the development. “Confidence is very low and trust is a difficult thing to gain back,” Hamilton explained. She also warned, “Frankly, if it isn’t going forth and isn’t going to succeed, let’s not start!”
Lawyer Joseph M. Antonellis spoke representing builder Dave Franchi. He explained that due to health issues with Franchi’s lawyer, John O’Keefe, he has stepped in to help with the situation.
Antonellis said right up front that he could not quarrel with anything that Hamilton had said because he had previously discussed it with her. He instead described the situation as a “perfect storm” at work against the builder, meaning that everything seemed to go wrong.
Franchi came into the project as a work in progress when the previous builder passed away. The financing was with Webster bank at that time, and the contract that had been negotiated called for the townhouses to be built first. Unfortunately, what were selling at the time were the more affordable garden style units.
Franchi “no more than dug half of a hole in the ground” when Webster bank pulled out of the project saying that they were no longer interested in doing business with them. He said that the CT based Webster bank came up here and pulled the plug on about 8 projects in MA and NH. He questioned their pulling out of a project once it had been put in motion, but to no avail.
As for the lack of communication between the builder and the town and also families with questions, Franchi said that he did not want to have his situation in the press while he was trying to get funding for the project. Board members told him that if he had come to them and explained the situation quietly with them as problems arose then he would have been better off and they also assured him that they do not contact the press with such matters.
Franchi made no apologies, and was quick to blame the DiFazio family for the miscommunications because they did not retain an attorney to speak with his attorney. Several Planning Board members responded that it seemed unfair that the family should have to get an attorney to get back money that was rightfully theirs anyway.
Antonellis said that Franchi definitely intends to go through with the project. Forty percent of the money put into the project is Franchi’s own money, so he has a definite invested interest in it reaching completion. He has now secured new financing with Century Bank, a more local bank that is interested in having a presence in Wilmington through the Yentile Estates project, according to Antonellis. They have a meeting scheduled for Friday with the ADA to ensure compliance and then will be able to put a foundation in the ground.
Currently the bank has given approval to go ahead with the infrastructure- roads, sewer, etc. To go ahead with Building A, and the first four townhouses, the builder must acquire some P&S agreements, improve signage, and demonstrate activity and interest in the site which means that people are actively looking at unit designs and the site. To go beyond those first units, they need 12 Purchase and Sale agreements to continue. “How many are there now,” asked Lora Oliver, whose mother has a reservation for a unit – but not yet a purchase and sale agreement. “We have several” was Franchi’s quick non-committal reply. The quicker we have commitments is the quicker we can proceed, Franchi explained.
Franchi and Antonellis were also non-committal about the date that the first units might be completed. Antonellis said they had discussed time frames, anything from May of 2008 to a year from now or beyond, but could not agree on a date and did not want to give another false deadline. There was an audible gasp from Oliver and her mom, Carol Paulicelli. Paulicelli sold her home on the Cape and is now renting an apartment in Reading until the development is built. She said the plans are beautiful and she still hopes to live there some day, but expressed reservations about putting money down right now until the project is moving along.
Hamilton reminded the builders that it is in their best interest to present absolute truth on their website and to questions that people ask them. “There have been units shown on the web that may or may not have been sold. Our trust has deteriorated. This needs to be an open and honest process and we cannot wait months.”
A Check In The Mail
Mark DiFazio spoke on behalf of his mother, Ninfa DiFazio, who paid a deposit and had a Purchase and Sale agreement for unit 15C in Yentile Estates. In April 2006 his mother paid a $5,000 deposit on the garden style unit. On June 6, 2006 she signed a Purchase and Sale agreement and paid the remainder of her deposit. On October 26, 2006 she cancelled her P&S agreement by certified mail as per the terms of the contract because the completion dates kept pushing out further and further. As of the meeting Tuesday night, she had still not received her deposit back from Franchi.
“You have $38,490 of my mother’s money,” said DiFazio. He went on to say that the realtor told him that Franchi was an excellent builder and that DiFazio hopes he is also an excellent human being and will do the right thing.
Antonellis said the money has now been put in escrow for a couple of people that cancelled their contracts. He took the contact information for the DiFazio family and said he would have a check cut for the full amount of their deposit. The family should receive the check within a week along with a letter they must sign and return to the lawyer stating that they have received their funds and terminated the contract.
Find Yentile Place, part one here: http://ontherisewriting.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
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