West Mount Airy Neighbors (WMAN) is teaming up with Councilmember Cindy Bass' office to form a "Zoning Remapping Task Force" to identify neighbors' concerns about how potential development in the neighborhood’s commercial districts could impact their quality of life, and whether those areas should be rezoned. 

This initiative, which starts with a community meeting at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 6950 Germantown Ave., will identify properties that could present a problem, assess the greater needs of the community and compile a list of properties for potential remapping.

"WMAN has heard increasing concerns from the community, actually, on both sides related to development," Jo Winter, the executive director of WMAN, told the Local. "Whether it be there are too many buildings coming in. What will be its implications for the neighborhood? Or people saying, 'We love all this new development,' clearly, things are happening in the neighborhood."

Aside from the rows of businesses dotting Germantown Avenue, West Mt. Airy is home to three other commercial areas that have seen a rise in development: West Mt. Pleasant Avenue between Cresheim Road and Emlen Street (where the controversial development is now planned); the intersection of Carpenter Lane and Greene Street (where the Weavers Way Coop is located); and the intersection of Greene and Hortter Streets (home to the Family Dollar store strip mall.)

The initiative follows controversy over 309-321 W. Mt. Pleasant Ave., a large high-density apartment project now planned for a formerly residential set of buildings across the street from Mt. Airy Taproom, just west of the intersection with Lincoln Drive. The site had long been zoned CMX-2 for commercial mixed-use, so under the city’s new zoning code, the high-density development is "by right” – which means that developers do not need a city variance to build it. 

In September, WMAN held a community meeting about the project that drew about 80 people who raised concerns about the project's density, design and initial lack of parking. Winter described the project as "maxed out," meaning it nears the maximum height allowed for the lot.

"Councilwoman Bass' Chief of Staff Charles Richardson was there, and following that meeting, he approached WMAN about potentially doing some zoning remapping of the three main areas in our territory,” Winter said. "That designation allows for additional bonuses in height for affordable housing, as well as green roofs."

At subsequent meetings, after that project went further into the Civic Design Review process, Richardson said Bass intends future action. "At some point, we're going to rezone that area and make sure that this type of development doesn't happen again," he said. 

WMAN had begun the conversation about rezoning before the invitation from Bass' office, Winter said, but "that kind of pushed it over the edge.”

Winter emphasized that the task force is not a pro or anti-development group; their goal is to identify the needs of the community and submit their findings to the City Planning Commission and City Council.

"The point of this task force is to study these areas and try to conclude, through community input and the expertise of the task force, what would be best for the community to allow for its future growth, but also sort of maintaining the character and the values that are sort of the basis of what West Mt. Airy life is like," Winter said. "It's trying to take all those things into account. It's not an easy task, and we didn't expect it to be, but if it's going to be done one way or the other, we feel like the community has to have a voice in it."

WMAN is conducting a preliminary survey within these neighborhoods to gather feedback about what the community wants, which it will present in the Wednesday meeting.

After the meeting, the task force will review each CMX-2 parcel within these neighborhoods, looking at potential rezoning or community need-based incentives for developers to match new projects to their surroundings.

"Those territories that are zoned CMX-2, if it was maxed out, what would those buildings look like? What would be the potential ripple effects? Are there ways to incentivize other sorts of bonuses, based on the community values," Winter said. "So if people say affordable housing is the most important thing to us, is there a way to incentivize more affordable housing units? If people say, it's really important to us that we plant trees, are there ways to change the bonuses or incentivize those sorts of things."

After reviewing each parcel the task force will then go back to the community for further feedback based on their findings. They will then submit their final recommendation to the City Council likely by mid-year.

For more information and to register for the meeting, visit wman.net.

Tommy Tucker can be reached at Tommy@ChestnutHillLocal.com