Variance

One vase was molded out of soil and wax, one looked like a bag made of clear vinyl, and another, made of wood, was designed to warp when water was poured in. And there were vases fashioned from pipe fittings, tree roots, recycled concrete, and florist's foam. But when the winners of Collab's annual student design competition were announced at the Art Museum on Monday, the top prize went to a vase made out of ice. Instead of a typical container, Brett Duncan's "Ice Bloom impermanent vase" featured flowers frozen right into its surface.

A Newlin man has been granted a variance that clears the way for him for the sale and development of part of his property off Glen Hall and Beagle Roads. Resident Clarence S. Miller wants to sell 13.9 acres of his Glen Hall Road property to Alan Thomas of East Bradford. At the Zoning Hearing Board meeting Wednesday night, Thomas said he planned to build a house and move his family to the property. Miller plans to continue living on the remaining 31.9 acres. A variance was needed because a 1986 ordinance requires a 100-foot frontage on the road, and the property now has only a a 35-foot frontage.

The Morrisville Borough Zoning Board has granted a variance allowing a car repossession and processing business to operate in an existing vacant building on Harrison Street. The business, to be owned by David Hermes of Levittown, will process about 40 repossessed cars a month, bringing the cars to the facility to repair locks and clean cars when needed, Hermes said. The cars would then be shipped to other locations to be sold. Hermes needed a variance because there is only room on the lot for seven parking spaces.

The Whitemarsh Township Zoning Hearing Board has denied variance requests for two commercial developments and granted requests for two others. During a lengthy meeting Wednesday night, the board voted 4-0 to deny the request of the Seltzer Development Corp. to build an office-warehouse on the southeast corner of Butler Pike and Campus Drive. The 8.4-acre site is one of 16 lots in the Whitemarsh Industrial Campus. The land slopes 10 percent, and construction of the 70,000-square-foot building would have required a variance from the township's steep-slope ordinance.

A Downingtown couple has won approval to build a carport next to their home at the southeast corner of Washington and Whiteland Avenues. Paul and Victoria Zelesnick, who have lived in the home for nine years, want to add a 27-by-15-foot wooden carport on the east side of the house to cover the driveway and prevent rain from leaking into the basement. However, the carport would extend to within one or two feet of their property line, and the Downingtown zoning code requires that carports be three feet or more from property lines.

Exxon Corp.'s plan for modernizing a 56-year-old service station at Montgomery and Haverford Avenues has been turned down. The Narberth Zoning Hearing Board Thursday rejected Exxon's request for a zoning variance. The variance would have enabled Exxon to build on the lot even though it was about 1,000 feet short of the borough's required 15,000- square-foot lot minimum for gasoline stations. Attorney John M. Phelan, who represented Exxon at its April 30 hearing before the zoning board, was unavailable for comment.

The West Pikeland Zoning Hearing Board has denied a variance to Thomas Hughes of Wayne, who wanted to install a driveway steeper than required under the township zoning ordinance. He was seeking permission to have a 12 percent grade for 75 feet in a driveway leading to a house being built on Route 113 near Route 401. At a meeting Tuesday night, Hughes told the board that his contractor hit rock when digging for the driveway. Hughes wanted a variance from the requirement of a 10 percent grade.

The East Torresdale Civic Association will oppose a zoning variance application for a single-family housing development proposed for the northeast corner of State Road and Grant Avenue, an attorney for the association said Tuesday. Members decided Monday night, in a closed session after their regular monthly public meeting, to oppose the plan by developer George Pappas, said Richelle Hittinger, the attorney. Pappas' plan first was presented to the civic association in March, she said.

The Gloucester Township Zoning Board, tired of waiting for developer Donald Paparone to show up to support an application for a use variance for a small shopping center he had planned, has denied the application without prejudice. The application, which was denied June 14, had been postponed at least four times since it was originally filed about nine months ago, said Dolores Fimi, the board secretary. It was filed with one for another center just across the street on New Brooklyn Road at the southern end of the township.

The Warminster Zoning Hearing Board has granted two variances to the township's 50-foot setback requirement. At its Tuesday night meeting, the board granted a rear-yard variance to James M. Yates of Bryon Drive to allow construction of an enclosed patio at the rear of his property. Yates needed a variance because the proposed patio, which would be 15 by 25 feet, would fall within the setback area. The board also approved the application of Gerald W. Shapren for a rear- yard variance to allow construction of an additional bedroom and a bathroom on his Hardman Lane property.

Powelton Village has every reason to top the list of Philadelphia's most desirable neighborhoods. Let's start with location. As the first residential area west of Center City, it is a brisk 15-minute walk from downtown. It boasts some of the best transit connections in town, a rich stock of Italianate villas and Victorian twins, and postcard views of the skyline. Geographically, it occupies the same urban niche as Georgetown and Cambridge. Yet no one would ever utter Powelton in the same breath as those tony enclaves.

Can you control the Zoning Board's decision on a request for a variance? If an undercover agent asked that question of a Philadelphia City Council member, the whispered answer might be, "Of course. " That's because Council members in this city have "councilmanic prerogative," a self-endowed superpower to stall or support stadiums, concert halls, pedestrian bridges, hotels, housing, museums, signs, decks, fences, and sidewalk cafes. On her way out of office, retiring Councilwoman Donna Miller is using her "prerogative" to allow a six-story building on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill that could be twice as tall as any surrounding structures.

Optimism has withered for the preservation of Autumn, a mural at Ninth and Bainbridge Streets in Bella Vista and a fixture that has drawn tourists to the neighborhood. On Wednesday at a Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting, developers who own the empty lot adjacent to the mural requested a parking variance that would allow them to build a single-family townhouse on the lot, blocking the view of the mural from the street. Several Bella Vista residents and artist David Guinn, who created the mural, have collected more than 1,000 signatures on a petition to save the mural and pledges of close to $250,000 from community members to buy the property in question.

FEDERAL prosecutors have recommended that disgraced former state Sen. Vince Fumo be resentenced from 17 1/2 to 21 years behind bars next month. Fumo, in prison since August 2009 for corruption, faces resentencing on Nov. 9. A U.S. Court of Appeals panel in August sent Fumo's case back to U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter after finding that he made some legal errors when he sentenced Fumo in July 2009. Buckwalter gave Fumo 4 1/2 years, noting that leniency was warranted because Fumo had "worked extraordinarily hard" for the public during his 30 years as a power broker in Harrisburg.

A Chester County township and school district are close to resolving a zoning dispute that has threatened a multimillion-dollar high school renovation. East Marlborough Township issued a violation in March to the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District, saying a new, 58-foot-high auditorium at Unionville High School was too tall. The township says its zoning code limits buildings to 35 feet in height and wanted the district to seek a variance. The district has argued that it has a right to build the $3.6 million structure - part of an overhaul of the school - and that the township interpreted the code incorrectly.

Pain from a finger jammed playing flag football prompted Michael Lubas, 15, to ask his mom to call the doctor. A pediatrician's office that was closed for the day caused his mother to take him to the emergency room. The $1,500 paid for that 30-minute ER visit angered his father, who then checked around and discovered that the same treatment at a nearby urgent-care center would have cost $145. Was he rooked? Probably not - but health experts say the Phoenixville family did get a rude introduction to a changing health-care world, in which patients must think more like accountants and also like doctors.

For 19 years Warren Harrison grew potatoes, beans, corn, and tomatoes in the community garden across West Venango Street from his home. "I had the biggest spot over there," Harrison, 83, recalled recently. Then in June 2008, the bulldozers arrived. Next came the concrete mixers, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. By fall, seven rowhouses had sprouted where 20 vegetable patches once stood. "I didn't know anything about this," Harrison said. Now, when summer comes, he just grows "four rows of collard greens on my front lawn.

AS CITY Councilman Frank Rizzo tells it, he got the idea at a Bustleton Civic Association meeting. "They were discussing some zoning-code variances," Rizzo said, "when someone asked why a particular person should be granted a variance when he doesn't even pay his taxes. " Good point, Rizzo thought. He subsequently introduced legislation, which received a public hearing last week, that would require anyone seeking a variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment to submit a "certification from the Department of Revenue that all of a person's taxes are current or subject to a payment agreement.

Jennifer Zoga and Liz Bales tried to follow all the right steps when they started their new business in Chestnut Hill. They put together a business plan, found a location on a busy street, and lined up the necessary financing. But they didn't count on getting kneecapped by petty Philadelphia politics. Their story is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start a small business in this city. Zoga and Bales, two smart moms who live in Chestnut Hill, spent a couple of years planning Good Food Market, an upscale shop that sells prepared foods and caters to other busy neighborhood families.

Jennifer Zoga and Liz Bales tried to follow all the right steps when they started their new business in Chestnut Hill. They put together a business plan, found a location on a busy street, and lined up the necessary financing. But they didn't count on getting kneecapped by petty Philadelphia politics. Their story is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start a small business in this city. Zoga and Bales, two smart moms who live in Chestnut Hill, spent a couple of years planning Good Food Market, an upscale shop that sells prepared foods and caters to other busy neighborhood families.