October 25, 2007 Issue
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Classified Chestnut Hill Local Don't Miss an Issue, Tell us what you see or Winner of Two |
Commentary: Time to get onboard with zoning reform
On May 15, Philadelphia voted to approve the creation of an independent commission to modernize the city’s zoning code. Except for the periodic addition of minor amendments, the zoning code is essentially the same as the one adopted by City Council and signed by the Mayor in 1962. There have been citywide attempts to modernize the code and re-draw the zoning map in the past, but these have failed in City Council. Council has shown a preference for amending the code piecemeal by passing spot zoning bills for specific sites introduced by a district Councilperson acting at the request of a single owner or developer. This has been going on for decades. One of the big challenges for the Reform Commission will be to figure out a way of getting Council to enact citywide zoning reform. Zoning matters are contentious by nature, and anyone who has ever been involved in a zoning battle knows how heated the discussion can be when the sides face off with one another. These debates are often fueled by unspoken desires to settle old scores that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. An alarming number of permit applications now end up in the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA), overloading that beleaguered board and holding up permit applications for weeks, months and sometimes years. If the ruling of the ZBA is appealed by one of the parties, the matter will go into the courts for ultimate resolution — often costing the parties large sums of money paid out for attorneys’ fees that could have otherwise been invested in the project had the dispute been settled at the ZBA. An example of such a case is the zoning permit application filed by Woodmere Art Museum more than three years ago to build a much-needed expansion. Despite the fact that the project had broad community support, as reflected in a resolution of support by the CHCA, it was opposed by a small group of neighbors at a hearing at the ZBA. When the ZBA ruled in favor of Woodmere and against the neighbors, the neighbors appealed the ruling to the Court of Common Pleas. When the Court ruled in Woodmere’s favor, the neighbors appealed again, this time to Commonwealth Court. At the date of this writing — three and a half years later — the litigation still is unresolved. This case highlights another critical challenge to the Zoning Reform Committee. How will it figure out a way to resolve zoning disputes more swiftly, more economically and, ultimately, more equitably? After all, as is often observed: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” An Optimistic Approach Taking an optimistic approach to zoning reform, however, let us imagine this time that the recommendations of the Reform Commission will be approved by the Planning Commission, passed by City Council and finally signed into law by the Mayor-elect. With that successful outcome, what kinds of benefits could Philadelphians expect to enjoy? 1. Homeowners would have good reason to believe that the value of their homes, usually their most valuable asset, would be maintained or increase in value. This is likely to happen if the new code protects them from the introduction of uses in their neighborhoods that degrade the quality of residential life and erode the value of their homes. 2. Businesses, private institutions and industries would be more likely to choose to stay in Philadelphia instead of moving to the suburbs if the new code can help them expand their properties and maintain their access to public transportation, city infrastructure and other vital city services. To summarize: A modern zoning code, with a new zoning map, can be drawn to favor the interests of its own citizens, its businesses and its institutions. It is a powerful support for re-investment by these groups, because it can help make decisions about re-investing in their properties more predictable and more appealing. Before I report on the current activities of the newly formed Zoning Reform Commission, however, I want to analyze a recent sale of a very large tract in Chestnut Hill to illustrate how important modernization of the current zoning code is to the future of Chestnut Hill and I hope this case study will persuade you to support the work of the commission. A Cautionary Case Study Earlier this year local residents welcomed Chestnut Hill College’s purchase of Sugarloaf, the large estate at Bell’s Mill Road and Germantown Avenue where Albert M. Greenfield and his family once lived. The Chestnut Hill Community Association voted to support the college’s bid for the property because it believed the college would be a good steward of the beautiful, densely wooded site with its attractive old buildings. What is not well known about the sale, however, is that all the other bidders for the property were housing developers, some of whom were interested in subdividing the land. The tract is zoned R-1 for single family detached residences. It permits a minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet — less than a quarter of an acre. Suppose that a developer had succeeded in purchasing the property and developed it with as many houses as the code permitted. What now appears to most passersby as an extension of Fairmount Park would have become an extensive development of closely-spaced single family residences on small lots with new streets, sidewalks, street lights, storm water retention structures, and only a small fraction of its gorgeous, mature shade trees still standing. The impact of such a change would have been an environmental calamity. The air quality and water quality benefits of all the destroyed trees would be lost. The increase in impervious cover would add substantial quantities of storm water to an antiquated sewer system that is unable even now to keep untreated sewage from overflowing into the Schuylkill River more than 50 times a year. A most troubling part of this nightmare scenario is that the owner/developer would have been able to obtain a zoning permit “as a matter of right” because the use and the lot size are permitted in R-1 zoning. When a developer seeks to build on a property in a manner that conforms to the zoning requirement, and does not require a variance to achieve his goals, he need not appear before the Zoning Board of Adjustment, where community members may give testimony for or against proposed projects. Moreover the city’s Licenses and Inspections department cannot deny the owner/developer a permit “across the board,” if he has complied with all the stated requirements. Thankfully, the community escaped the nightmare scenario described above only because the Greenfield Foundation and Chestnut Hill shared a common vision for the future of Sugarloaf, not because the zoning code would have prevented it. In fact the language of R-1 is a relic of a day long ago when a quarter acre was thought to be a large lot and Philadelphians thought of trees more as a nuisance than an asset. In 1978, environmental controls for the Wissahickon Watershed were added to the code to reduce flooding of the Wissahickon Creek and its tributaries and to reduce incidents of erosion, siltation and channel enlargement within the watershed. These controls recognized problems associated with increasing development within the watershed and its inexorable transformation of pervious ground cover (woodlands, meadows and fields) into impervious ground cover (buildings, paving and lawns). These controls, as well intended as they were at the time, now are antiquated and in need of modernization. Updating R-1 As the above tale about Sugarloaf demonstrates, Chestnut Hill residents cannot rely on the current R-1 zoning to protect the environmental quality and character of Chestnut Hill when land in that district changes hands. How then should R-1 be updated? A previous attempt to do just that was proposed in the early 1980s by the Chestnut Hill Community Association at the request of the City Planning Commission, which was then leading a comprehensive zoning re-mapping of the entire city. I was then a member of the association’s Land Use Planning and Zoning Committee and worked with Bob Brown, Bob Coughlin and other members of the committee to produce a new zoning map of Chestnut Hill that was adopted by the association and sent to the Planning Commission for implementation. Among the many zoning proposals in that new map, we proposed a new residential district we named R-1A. It was created to update the existing R-1 zoning of all the properties on or near the boundary of Fairmount Park, including Sugarloaf. It increased the minimum lot size from a quarter-acre to a half-acre. We reasoned that by this change more trees could be saved and less ground could be paved over or otherwise converted to impervious cover in the event of future developments. The Planning Commission took our recommendations together with those of other communities throughout the city and drafted a bill to submit to Council that would adopt the zoning re-mapping. Having spent hundreds of hours doing the rezoning of Chestnut Hill, we naturally hoped and expected that Council would enact the legislation, but it did not pass. In the current provisions for residential districts there is no mention of either R-1A or half-acre minimum lot size for single-family detached districts. Next Steps If you think you may want to get onboard with the zoning reform effort in some capacity, there are several things you can do. First, you can attend the meetings of the newly formed commission. It meets the second Wednesday of each month in the City Planning Commission Board Room on the 19th floor of 1515 Arch Street from 8-10 a.m. The meetings are open to the public. Second, you can find out more information about the commission — its goals, its members, its plans, its procedures, etc. — by visiting a Web site set up by the commission at www.webmatters.org. Third, you can get on the commission’s mailing list by sending an e-mail request to Karen Chin. Her e-mail address is karenchin@phila.gov. I am told by staff at the City Planning Commission that the commission intends to organize community focus groups down the line to get citizen input into the process. If you wish to participate in these groups, make your wishes known to Karen Chin or to Richard Redding at the City Planning Commission. Mark Ueland, a Chestnut Hill resident for 41 years and a co-founder of UJMN Architects + Designers, will continue to cover the meetings of the Zoning Reform Commission and offer his commentary of the proceedings for the Local.
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