 Community Activist Vern Anastasio Throughout the summer, Anastasio hosted public forums to explore the major problems with zoning and development in the city, and to find solutions. He's come up with a very sane, six point plan to reform the zoning and development process.
The first zoning reform forum that came up, at Palumbo Recreation Center, I made sure people knew, because I know people from that neighborhood, from my daughter's school, and I know they care so much, but they have no clue what's going on because they're working 60 hour weeks and they have kids to take care of, and no time to keep track of what's going on. So I'm trying to ask questions about these issues on their behalf, as well as my own.
That's great. At some point we have to make this a bigger type of thing. I don't know how we do it but, the snowball has to keep rolling downhill. And we need to gather more people in this movement, if you will, of pushing for responsible development and also dealing with the casinos. Casinos are like enemy number one when it comes to an irresponsible way of planning and development. Maybe we can put the pressure on in time for the mayor's race. Can you describe the development forums you've hosted over the last few months? What inspired you to do them?
What led me to it was, being a community activist type for the past ten or twelve years now, I've seen my neighborhood and neighborhoods like it in Bella Vista, Queen Village, Washington Square West, Passyunk Square, evolve. And I've seen a lot of really responsible, good development. And it's all been in spite of, not because of, the way the system works in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, I've also seen a lot of reckless and irresponsible development. That's directly because of the way the system works in Philadelphia. And how does the system work?
Well, it doesn't work. The development process is scattershot at best. A District Councilperson is the ultimate arbiter, judge, jury, point person, when it comes to development. A developer goes hat in hand saying this is what I'd like to do. And depending on who sits in that chair, either the people are well represented, or the developers are well represented, or the District Councilperson is well represented. Very oftentimes at least two of the interests, the developer and the community, aren't adequately represented at the same time. And of course there are standard practices when it comes to planning and development that should be represented and oftentimes those are out the window from the get go. Standard practices like what?
Standard practices like making sure that if you're going to build 40-story towers, there's some setback from the road, if that's the appropriate thing to do. To make sure that there's appropriate green space, and there's greening. Not necessarily just green space. People think oh, if I put up 15 townhomes, as long as I put in a little pocket park on the side then that's fine. No. There's more to it than that. And Councilpeople don't necessarily know that. And because we don't have a built-in mechanism, a standard universal process that is the law of the land in Philadelphia, people can make up their own stuff. And when people make up their own stuff, neighborhoods suffer. And that's why Spruce Street has got more potholes than ever before. That's why there's more pollution up and down Christian Street. New trees are actually dying on Christian Street, becuas what we did was, we increased the population by adding 300, 400 units. That's 150 to 250 new cars. And no one took this into consideration. We have a waterfront that's completely underdeveloped. Whatever development is planned for it is going to be irresponsible development because there's no overall plan. And that's the cornerstone of responsible development reform. So all of these things were taking place. Anastasio relates an early effort in Bella Vista to turn a blighted property that was formerly the last Italian immigrant bathhouse in Philadelphia into an open square memorial that the neighborhood could enjoy. However, Councilman DiCicco, the District Councilperson involved, decided it would be better if it were demolished and made into a townhome. It sounds like a decision based on financial considerations alone as opposed to a balance of financial considerations and considerations for the community.
The line was, the city can't afford not to sell this property. We have a $168 million dollar surplus this year. There were about 500 or 600 people living around that property who begged to differ. The city could afford to sell it for $1 or hold a land lease, and allow the community to create much needed green space, which, if you know how densely packed that area is, there is very little green space. We wanted to put something there of artistic and cultural value and in fact create more tourism, which would increase the economy. But they saw it differently. And yet along the riverfront, they seem to have no trouble giving low-ball deals to developers.
That's the thing. On the one hand, here's a community group that's been in business for 12 years, planting trees, hanging banners, feeding senior citizens, mentoring kids- doing a lot of the work the city used to do but can't do anymore- asking for something that can benefit the overall city in the long run, and there's push-back. Whereas Bart Blatstein or Tower Investments or Foxwoods, any company that comes in that wants to build a tower or build a development, they're ready to give away the store. And all of that is why I decided it was time for ordinary folks to get educated. I'm not an architect, I'm not an urban planner, and I just became an attorney. I don't know anything about this stuff, I'm learning. But what I've learned is, there are some very dedicated people out there already talking about it. And I thought, wouldn't it be nice if ordinary folk, like me, civic association people, people who get together and do stuff but don't really have an expertise in this, meet and start to talk about development and maybe learn a little bit, and maybe even push for some reform. Anastasio hosted two public forums on Zoning and Development Reform over the summer, and is planning a third for October 16th, in the Silas Cohen Auditorium at Thomas Jefferson University. The panelists will be those individuals who have declared their candidacy for the 2007 mayoral race. The forum will be open to 300 to 350 voters to ask questions of the candidates about development and zoning issues in Philadelphia.
I told them, it's not going to be fun, and you're going to be drilled on responsible development and on zoning reform. There are very few issues that are black and white, but here, you're either for comprehensive zoning reform, the real deal, that means rewriting the zoning coade, putting in developer extractions instead of raising property taxes for community improvements, that means inclusive zoning, setting aside 5 to 15% of a large project and saying , you know what, you know you're going to be selling these townhouses for $800 to $900 thousand, but 10% of them should go for people who are schoolteachers, and firefighters. Because we need people to actually work in the city...
Right. That's all part of responsible development reform. Also, streamlining the process to actually make things easier for developers is important. Right now it's a mess. They have to go to all these different agencies, get different permits, stamps and approvals, and still curry favor with the District Councilperson. So what we need to do is boil it down. There's a very quick and easy ten step process that's been advocated by the Building Industry Association (BIA). And talking to these builders, what I found out is that boiling the process down to these ten steps will save them money. Therefore they would be very comfortable with the across the board 5% developer extraction fees, impact fees, basically, money that goes to whatever the community decides it needs to improve the quality of life for everyone. To become a part of the community. In Bella Vista right now, we have two gated communities within what I think is one of the greatest little village neighborhoods in the world. I can't even meet these neighbors because I can't get in. I can't let them know about the bake sale, or about Fleas for Trees, we have flea markets and the funds go to pick up trash and plant trees. There's no knock on the door, hi neighbor, welcome to the neighborhood, because you can't even get to the door. That's not responsible development. Responsible development has six aspects to it and you're either going to be for it all, or against it all. Because if you're going to try to pick and choose, as far as the mayoral candidates are concerned, it's not reform. And the six steps, in a nutshell?
1. Rewrite the zoning code and fix the permitting process.
2. Revitalize the Planning Commission, charge them with developing master plans for every neighborhood and the waterfront, and then stick to the plans.
3. Mandate community input in planning and in all development hearings.
4. Streamline the development process to the BIA's 10-step process.
5. Pass laws that set development impact fees for infrastructure improvements and inclusive zoning guidelines to ensure working class homeownership.
6. Require every zoning variance applicant to disclose campaign contributions made to local and state elected officials within the last two years. How do you present that as a black and white thing?
If you're for boiling down the process for developers but against asking for development impact fees, then what you've done is created a policy that helps developers, but hurts people. So you've got to do both. If you boil down the process for developers, but then say we refuse to rewrite the zoning code, well, what good was taking all those 900 steps down to ten if the zoning code still doesn't make sense to anybody? And you've got these amendments and overlays. You can't move forward; it'd be a huge block. Everything would still take a bunch of time because you've got an antiquated zoning code. You can't pick and choose this stuff and call it reform. Stay tuned for Six Steps to Zoning Reform, Part 2, next week... {moscomment} |
