Sobering words as zoning reform gets underway

August 4, 2007

By Patrick Kerkstra
Inquirer Staff Writer

There was plenty of optimism in the room as Philadelphia's new Zoning Code Commission ended its first meeting yesterday morning. The session, after all, had been chock-full of unanimous votes and feel-good team-building exercises. But the commission's members were also bluntly warned just how difficult their job will be. Their enormous task: Create a blueprint for the city's development that will shape the look and feel of Philadelphia for decades.

"You've all become radioactive," University of Pennsylvania city planning professor Jonathan Barnett told the commission yesterday.

The comprehensive effort to reform zoning will inevitably touch on innumerable hot-button issues: property values, gentrification, quality of life, property rights, NIMBYism, and so on.

So fraught with controversy is zoning that even Chicago - which has become a national model for zoning reform - still has not finished the job more than seven years after its zoning overhaul began, Barnett said.

The official timetable for Philadelphia's new commission? Ten months.

And the commission is not at full strength. Mayor Street still has not named his five appointees to the 31-member commission, though the appointment deadline was last month.

Street spokesman Joe Grace said the mayor would make his appointments soon.

"The commission is important and the administration wants to make the right appointments," Grace said.

As difficult as zoning change is likely to be, there is little if any organized opposition to the commission. Few constituencies in Philadelphia are happy with the existing code, which dates to 1933 and has not been overhauled since 1967.

Few significant developments are built in the city without being granted exemptions to the code. Developers complain that navigating the code is absurdly complex. City residents are often stunned to discover that the code permits massive developments in areas where they seem to some to be wildly out of scale.

Commission members hope that a new code will spur economic development across the city, make neighborhoods more livable, and give Philadelphians the chance to decide what their city ought to look like.

But agreeing that there is a problem does not mean it will be easy to achieve agreement on solutions, especially on a commission where a two-thirds majority vote is required for all decisions.

The commission itself is a diverse group including City Council members, community leaders, a labor representative, city officials, urban planners, business leaders, lawyers, and real estate and development executives.

Republican mayoral candidate Al Taubenberger is a member by virtue of his position as president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. John Westrum, the chief executive officer of Westrum Development, is also on the commission, as is John Binswanger, chairman of the Binswanger real estate firm.

The commission is chaired by Janice Woodcock, executive director of the city Planning Commission. Woodcock's staff will assist the Zoning Code Commission.

Yesterday, the commission agreed to an approach - used in Denver and other cities - in which neighborhoods would be identified as "areas of stability," where zoning tweaks are likely to be minimal, or "areas of change" where major overhauls would be needed.

There was also agreement on a tentative schedule that begins with a "diagnostic phase" set to run through February. There appeared to be little hope among commission members that they could get the job done before the mandated deadline of June 2008.

"We all need to recognize as a commission that we're going to move at the right pace," Woodcock said.

City Council can give the commission an extension with a two-thirds majority vote.

Council will approve or reject the commission's recommendations. The mayor then will have the chance to veto. Finally, Philadelphia voters will have to approve the results before the zoning overhaul is made law.