Community leaders tell ZCC they want power over their own destiny

ZCC Public Hearing

The Zoning Code Commission announced its recommendations to amend the zoning code and a timeline for doing so at a public hearing Wednesday. Leadership from neighborhoods and non-profit organizations attended the hearing to voice their concerns. Community groups asserted that allowing more development to occur by-right would prevent the neighborhoods from playing a meaningful role in their own destiny. A coalition of Hispanic organizations emphasized the need to include provisions for language access to facilitate public participation. Several speakers expressed concern about height limits, suggesting more gradual increases between low and high-rise neighborhoods and prohibiting three-story rowhouses in predominantly two-story blocks. The Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations called for PCPC staff to attend community meetings regarding development to improve communications and called for the new code and all hearing notifications to be made available online.

About 100 gathered in City Council chambers for the Zoning Code Commission’s (ZCC) public hearing to present a summary of work to date, review draft recommendations for the new zoning code, take public testimony, and discuss next steps. Acting Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger opened the meeting with a statement that the hearing marks the completion of the first phase of the ZCC’s work: a set of written recommendations or “a working table of contents” and the launch of phase 2, the actual rewrite of the code. Phase 3 will include the re-mapping of zoning districts where necessary. The ZCC will manage phase 2; however, the phase 3 remapping will be the responsibility of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission (PCPC). Greenberger emphasized that the goal is not to remap every corner of the city, since there is much that works as is. But there are also issues such as abandoned property, obsolete uses, commercial corridor upgrades, the introduction of transit-oriented development, and sustainability practices that are relevant to many locations.

Phase 1, which began in earnest in June 2008 and has since been completed by the consulting team led by Clarion Associates and Duncan Associates, included: an assessment of the existing code, a best practices report, and public outreach, involving a citywide public hearing, 10 community-based meetings with  550 attendees, 24 ZCC meetings (open to the public), interviews with 125 professional code users, and 1260 citizen survey responses.

The Phase 2 timeline will involve about 12-15 months for the code rewrite and approval by City Council. Simultaneously, PCPC will be working on district plans on a rolling basis. Necessary remapping will be completed in about 5 years.

PCPC also plans to establish a citizens planning institute, a permanent, educational arm which will provide training and assistance to the public on zoning and planning issues. 

Don Elliott of Clarion Associates presented the draft recommendations for the new zoning code, emphasizing that public comments and feedback are welcome at any time in the process and are essential to save time and money in achieving a workable code. His summary of the draft included these points:

• Based on public outreach, the top citizen priorities involve process. “It appears that what is most broken in Philadelphia is the process by which people are informed and decisions are made,” he said. The consultants identified these four “top tier” concerns:
    
  1. Providing a clear, fair and efficient zoning approval process
  2. Involving the public in development decisions
  3. Protecting existing neighborhoods from development impacts
  4. Encouraging redevelopment of existing buildings and sites
• In order to facilitate public involvement, the draft code proposes to improve the notification process, clarify which projects demand neighborhood input, and streamline the process to send fewer cases to the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) by allowing for more staff approvals. The draft would allow for discretionary “call ups” of individual applications by higher-level decision makers, such as the ZBA, and “bump ups” in which lower-level decision makers such as Licenses & Inspections (L&I) would request the ZBA to consider an application. Elliott said that with clear rules, there would only be a small number of these exceptional cases and that overall, the process would be much faster.
• Although most cities have done away with use variances, in Philadelphia these applications are another reason for backlogs at the ZBA. Instead, an application for non-compliant use should be grounds for consideration of rezoning the parcel and objective standards should be applied, he said.
• The recommendations call for simplifying base districts from 55 to 32 by consolidating many residential zones. Similarly, the recommendations call for reducing overlay districts from 33 to 11 and 14 Center City overlays into one with individual rules as appropriate. Ten neighborhood commercial corridor overlays would be consolidated into one.
• To meet the goal of protecting neighborhoods, new development standards would be established for landscaping and natural areas, for the buffer zones between commercial and residential areas (especially regarding parking) and for transit-oriented development overlay districts. Design standards would address commercial corridors, transit-oriented development, and parking lots. To promote sustainability, the new code would encourage energy and water conservation, renewable energy and, significantly, urban agriculture and would support public health by promoting walking.
• The code itself would be reorganized and simplified – from 21 current chapters to six. Information on uses would be consolidated into four tables and other sections of the code, such as off-street parking requirements and signage controls. The new code would be amply illustrated.

In November, the consultants will issue a change memo to the draft, based on public feedback. The actual draft work will occur from February to July 2010 and will be released in three “modules:” administrative and procedural (the most controversial), zone districts and use regulations, and development standards.

Click here to view the full, 92-page Detailed Recommendations for the New Zoning Code. Click here for a PowerPoint presentation from the meeting.

Take a survey on the draft reccomendations at www.zoningmatters.org .