An Opportunity to Redo Zoning Code

Feb. 7, 2007
David Feldman
is a planner and architect in Philadelphia who specializes in implementing neighborhood revitalization strategies

When it comes to neighborhoods and development, it's hard to find issues where private developers and community activists agree. As Philadelphia experiences an unfamiliar residential building boom, however, developers and activists have found common ground on one point: They all agree that the city zoning code is broken and needs to be fixed.They support a proposal, to be debated and perhaps voted on in Council tomorrow, that calls for a referendum on whether to undertake a full rewrite of the code.

That code, to which the adjective archaic attaches itself like a barnacle to a hull, is a 40-year-old, 640-page-long patchwork mess. Most city building projects end up needing variances to the code. The Zoning Board of Adjustment has total control over whether those variances are granted or denied. Approval or denial is subject to the whims of this board, and the board's rulings often seem to be based on little more than personal taste or agendas, with little regard for neighborhood concerns.

Developers may have more money and savvy to deal with this messy system than ordinary citizens, but the uncertainty and delays that surround zoning in Philadelphia cost them time and money. This is a major deterrent to development. People who want to build prefer clearer, more consistent planning guidelines and zoning rules. The current mess, meanwhile, results in proposals for larger buildings with greater density than neighborhood residents and organizations want.

Many civic organizations, feeling an urgent need to preserve the livability of their neighborhoods, have learned how to protest specific development proposals, either to stop unwanted projects or to extract beneficial concessions. For this reason, some civic associations support the existing zoning process and don't want it changed. They fear losing leverage; they've learned after long effort how to use the current system to their advantage.

But this project-by-project approach is draining, expensive and exhausting. It is also often ineffective in directing development wisely. The recent approval of a 265-foot-tall residential tower at 218 Arch St., more than four times taller than the recently passed zoning overlay limit of 65 feet in Old City, is a glaring case in point of the inadequacies of the status quo. Members of the Old City Civic Association, about as well-heeled, educated and organized a civic association as exists in Philadelphia, spoke out loudly and repeatedly against this project. The association was supported by other well-respected planning, design and historic-preservation advocates, including the Design Advocacy Group. Yet the zoning board decided it liked the look of the project and approved it.

Sometimes, the outdated code allows, as a matter of right, projects that are wildly inconsistent with neighborhood scale, such as the plan for a 47-story Barnes Tower on the Ben Franklin Parkway, abutting the Spring Garden neighborhood. This underlines the point: The best way to protect neighborhood character is not by endlessly mounting challenges to individual proposals, but by having solid, clear neighborhood plans produced through collaboration between residents and professional planners.

Those plans can then form the basis for a new, consistent zoning code. Such a rational and comprehensive zoning code, designed for neighborhoods that exist in this century, would benefit developers by providing predictability. No longer would many of their projects be hostage to zoning board whim or irrational not-in-my-backyard fever.

The referendum, proposed by Councilmen Frank DiCicco and Jim Kenney, would wisely set up a Zoning Review Commission, with a cross section of stakeholders who would review the entire zoning code and craft a new, relevant code for Philadelphia today. The Design Advocacy Group has further proposed setting up a Civic Design Review Commission to offer independent, professional reviews of projects of larger scale. This type of approach, not ad-hoc challenges to projects, would provide the strongest defense a neighborhood could have to preserve the quality of life in the face of new development.

Philadelphia residents should let their Council representatives know that they want them to vote for the Zoning Review referendum.