Families, business owners say they will be hit hard by eminent domain

THE BLOCK of Seybert Street, where generations of Juan Padilla's family called home for 50 years, can be hard to find in the Sharswood section of North Philly.

Seybert is unmarked where it meets North College Avenue, behind the looming stone walls of Girard College.

The narrow street winds north, almost snakelike, beneath the gaze of a mural of Henry Ossawa Tanner's "The Banjo Lesson." Then, Seybert bends west toward 21st Street.

On Padilla's side of the block, the sidewalks are crumbling but the houses appear well cared for and colorful.

There is the pale yellow house on the corner, where Padilla's 87-year-old mother lived; there is the mustard-yellow house of a sister; Padilla lives in the house painted the color of key-lime pie; there is one red-brick rowhouse; another relative's bright lavender house; and then there's one more red-brick house.

Padilla is angry because all of his relatives' homes are to be seized through eminent domain by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

Padilla believes the stress of learning the close-knit family may have to move caused his mother's recent death.

"She was so upset, she went to sleep one night and just didn't wake up the next day. She said she would never leave her home, and she didn't. We just buried her yesterday," he said Saturday.

Demolition of Blumberg Apartments is planned for this fall.

But PHA president and CEO Kelvin Jeremiah said the larger, more ambitious plan to develop the more than 1,330 properties to build a mix of fair-market and affordable housing may take 10 years to complete.

In the meantime, Padilla, 63 said: "I'm not going nowhere."

He said he received a letter offering him $18,000 for the house he inherited from an uncle.

"But I've put $18,000 in renovations in just the first floor alone," Padilla said Saturday.

Padilla has been in his house for 25 years and said his uncle was in the house for 25 years before him.