Zoning

IN 2004, THE Building Industry Association of Philadelphia commissioned "If You Fix It, They Will Come," a report detailing the city's confusing and complex development process. The report, produced by Karen Black of May 8 Consulting, identified many of the reforms for zoning and planning that are now being addressed by the zoning reform commission. Here is a graphic depiction from the report of the 28 steps required to get the permits and approval required to build a project in the city.

While nearly everyone - commissioners, planners and representative of local institutions - agreed that an institutional zoning ordinance would be beneficial in Abington Township, action has been delayed for at least three to four months. At a public hearing Thursday, the township commissioners voted unanimously to have the township planning commission present a final draft of a proposed institutional zoning ordinance at a continuation of the hearing scheduled for Aug. 13. On May 14, the planning commission recommended amendments to the draft ordinance issued by the township commissioners in February.

The Whitemarsh Township Planning Commission has recommended that a proposed pest-control business be prohibited from a residential area. The board voted by 5-0 last week to recommend that the township zoning hearing board deny the application, by David V. Barry, for a variance for a house in the 900 block of East Hector Street. "I'm not really ready to support that," said David Lansing, a member of the planning board. "I'm just not prepared to have a chemical business in a residential (area)

As Phoenixville residents got their final chance Tuesday to comment on a proposed overhaul of the borough's zoning law, a planned historic district was praised while a rezoning of High Street was criticized. At the second hearing on the proposed ordinance, Borough Council President John Horenci described it as "a complete and total revision" of borough zoning. The 531-page draft is the product of 2 1/2 years of work by the Planning Commission, Horenci said. It is scheduled for adoption at Tuesday's council meeting.

The Washington Township Council has postponed until August a proposed change in zoning of 19 parcels of land to a new category known as office- residential. The delay is needed to notify the owners of the 19 sitesand nearby residents. Planners failed to do that before bringing the proposed changes to the Township Council last week. As many as 150 people could be affected by the changes and will be notified, said Township Planner Lou Glass. Glass told the council that no notification was made because there was no legal requirement to do so. Councilman Joseph Yost said the township still had an obligation to notify the owners and residents, in case the zoning changes were to jeopardize plans for the lots.

Langhorne Manor, known for its spacious houses with sprawling grounds, is looking to preserve that tradition with two zoning changes, the first in the borough since 1976. The Planning Commission on Thursday endorsed the zoning amendments, which would increase minimum lot sizes in two of the borough's three zones. The Borough Council will vote on the changes at a meeting beginning at 8 p.m. Tuesday. The changes would apply only to the undeveloped lots in residential Zones A and B. Zone A includes most of the borough's 380 homes.

Swayed by an outpouring of public opposition, the Hatfield Township Board of Commissioners has delayed its decision on a request to change the zoning at Orvilla Road and Route 309 to permit a shopping center. At Tuesday night's meeting, representatives of the developer, Site Development Inc., agreed to negotiate with the township and residents about the commercial zoning on the 12-acre property. The residents live in Lexington Commons, a development behind the proposed 90,000-square-foot shopping center.

Those larger-than-life signs in Pennsauken will be addressed as an issue of zoning, not of morals. Although the township has received dozens of complaints that the recently installed pictures of scantily clad women at the Showgirl Palace in Pennsauken are distasteful and degrading, the available avenue of change rests not in righteousness, but in reasonable size, officials said this week. Township officials met Wednesday with Joe Peters, general manager of the Showgirl Palace, to notify the business of violations of the township's size requirements for signs.

The Upper Southampton Planning Commission has reviewed a number of proposed amendments to its zoning and subdivision ordinances. The amendments were proposed by the township Board of Supervisors. The planning commission must review the amendments and then approve the amendments or add revisions before sending the package back to the supervisors. The amendments also were sent to the Bucks County Planning Commission for review on July 18. The supervisors proposed amending the zoning ordinance yard requirements for shopping centers.

Another stage in a battle over whether to allow small oil businesses in Lumberton industrial zones concluded last night much as it began. The Lumberton planning board voted 5-4 to send a zoning-ordinance amendment allowing that use back to the Township Committee unchanged. The board reviewed the ordinance change after the Township Committee decided at a public hearing Jan. 19 that the amendment needed more clarification. The planning board decided last night that concerns of neighboring Eastampton and Southampton officials and residents would be answered when site plans for oil businesses were presented to the township.

This is a war story told by an eyewitness. Kevin Purcell does the driving - in a Prius, no less - as we visit the battlefields of his youth, familiar places he hadn't set foot on in decades. Here's where somebody got shot, here's where somebody got stabbed. And here, he tells me, is where "grown white men were swinging baseball bats at grown black men who were swinging back with their belts and broom handles. " For a boy of 10, as Purcell was in 1969 when these events took place in his Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood, it all seemed unreal.

After a young woman in her neighborhood committed suicide in April, Pamela Robb vowed to attend the Camden Trauma Summit. "If one of us is hurting, we're all hurting," said Robb, 58, the tenant association president at the Northgate II high-rise in North Camden. A Camden resident for a half-century, Robb was among 150 citizens, clergy, and public health and safety professionals who gathered Monday at the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. The relentless toll that violence exacts on Camden, a big small town that's been called America's most dangerous city, was the focus of the summit.

What makes Philadelphia's new zoning code such a landmark policy is that it embraces the modern view of cities first articulated by such urbanists as Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte. They understood that cities couldn't survive with fortified streets and blank ground floors. In the spirit of that movement, the code took the bold step of banning a particular local scourge: garage-fronted rowhouses. Apparently, the Zoning Board of Adjustment never got the memo. The new rules went into effect eight months ago, and yet the board continues to conduct business as usual, handing out variances that allow rowhouse developers to install garages where the living rooms are supposed to be. Last week, it was a pair of houses at 19th and Catharine Streets.

MAYOR NUTTER appointed Julia Chapman, legislative director for the first two years of his administration, to chair the Zoning Board of Adjustment yesterday. Chapman, Nutter's longtime chief of staff during his City Council days, will replace Lynette Brown-Sow, who became chairwoman of the Philadelphia Housing Authority on Friday. "Throughout my many years of public service, I have been keenly aware of the critical role the Zoning Board of Adjustment plays in balancing neighborhood preservation and the economic growth of the city while insuring the integrity of the zoning code," Chapman said in a statement.

Mount Laurel Township, long synonymous with landmark court cases mandating affordable housing, can also lay claim as a town that pushed back against billboards. On Monday, the national beautification group Scenic America will honor the town's leaders and residents for successfully defending the right of municipalities to restrict billboards within their borders. The national organization's president, Mary Tracy, is to present its Stafford Award to the township at Monday's council meeting.

A meeting of the Conshohocken Borough Council erupted in applause Wednesday night after the council voted, 6-1, against a zoning amendment that would have allowed a Wawa store and service station on Fayette Street. Wawa requested the amendment to allow a convenience store and 10-pump station in an area zoned for residential and office uses. The company can push forward, but will now have to argue before the zoning board. The proposal generated heated debate over the last few months, with community groups forming to lobby for and against the store.

A decision on whether to grant a zoning variance for Patterson Farm in Lower Makefield Township to allow a veterinary facility on the grounds will be delayed until May 20, after testimony at Tuesday's zoning hearing lasted until the meeting's conclusion at 10 p.m. A husband and wife want to build a hospital for horses in a farmhouse on the site. The township bought the 234-acre farm, with two homes, in 1998 for $7.2 million. Several township officials have said they are concerned about the cost of maintaining the property.

THE ACTUAL Value Initiative shouldn't be treated like the only item in Mayor Nutter's proposed $3.75 billion budget. It's time to give serious thought to the budget for the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation department. Nutter has pitched spending $51 million on parks, which is roughly how much the department is getting this year after a midyear boost of $2.7 million. It's not much more than the parks have gotten for decades. A recent City Controller report found that 40 percent of the recreation centers that they visited had expired or empty fire extinguishers.

Patterson Farm, founded in colonial times, has a rich history: The soil is among the most fertile in Bucks County, and patches of pumpkins, fields of corn, and heaps of fresh vegetables have grown there. For decades, Thomas and Alice Patterson owned the 234 acres in Lower Makefield Township and lived in the stone-covered Janney house, one of the property's two homes. The other - the Satterthwaite house, a large home made out of wood painted white - was built in 1760, according to Kaaren Steil, chair of the Lower Makefield Historical Commission.