Variance

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.

SEPTA and its advertising contractor yesterday withdrew their application for permission to wrap almost two stories of its Market Street headquarters in advertising. Sharon Suleta, the attorney for Titan Outdoor, the national firm that sells ad space on SEPTA stations, vehicles and Trailpasses, apologized to the city Zoning Board of Adjustment for the late withdrawal, saying the company made a last-minute decision not to pursue the variance. SEPTA had asked a financial hardship variance that would have allow it to install the large ads at 1234 Market St., across from the Convention Center.

Facing stiff opposition from some key Market Street neighbors, SEPTA and its advertising firm have decided to withdraw a zoning request to wrap roughly two stories of the transit agency's Center City building with ads. The decision was confirmed late yesterday by three people involved in the case, including two Center City community leaders who formally filed objections to the proposal. The three said they were notified by an attorney for Titan Outdoor, which sells ad space on SEPTA vehicles, stations and Trailpasses.

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 proposed residential facility in Delanco for troubled teenage boys does not conform to the zoning requirements that govern the sprawling mansion where it had been planned, a state Superior Court judge ruled yesterday. The Delaware Avenue property, known as The Columns, had been a retirement home for decades. Restorative Programming Inc. of Ewing, Mercer County, which had hoped to house as many as 37 emotionally disturbed teens there, argued that its operation would not be much different.

Balance is a tricky thing in Moorestown. And the toughest trick is balancing the need for growth against the desire for open space. Right now, the balancing act is centered on the expansion of an orthodontics office on Main Street. Orthodontists Richard Kaye and Mary Beth Morrone, a married Moorestown couple, want to expand their one-story, 1,798-square-foot structure to two stories and 5,652 square feet, with the second floor to be used for lab space. They need more room because "obviously our practice is growing," said Kaye, who recently expanded an office in Mount Holly.