Politics & Government

Next Steps for Philadelphia Zoning

The city's Zoning Code Commission met Wednesday to discuss the next steps in the city's zoning code.

On June 2, Philadelphia City Council, authorized the first public hearings on the city's new zoning code which the Zoning Code Commission has been preparing since 2007 when the city overwhelming voted to update what some called "outdated" codes. 

Just about a week after the decision, the zoning commission met Wednesday morning to discuss the next steps of the  process.

According to Eva Gladstein, executive director of the commission, there must be a hearing within 45 days of the approval, which are tentatively scheduled to begin as early as next week but Alan Greenberger, chairman of the commission said the "meat" of the discussion will not happen until the fall. 

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Within 30 days of the closure of the hearings, City Council may make recommendations to the commission and, within 30 days of the recommendations, the commission must issue a final report. City Council must act on the report within 60 days of its issuance. 

The major changes in the revisions include use and dimensional standards. 

Find out what's happening in Roxborough-Manayunkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Some civic associations leaders from different sections of the city voiced concerns about how specific overlay districts would be affected during the transition period. 

Irv Ackelsberg of the Germantown Community Connections, said he was most concerned with a local ordinance that prohibits certain uses along the corridor in the community including barber shops and beauty salons as well as certain retail uses that, he said, do not encourage economic development. 

"Under your current reform, that ordinance will disappear," he said. "During this transition Germantown will loose the little control it has."

Other concerns included how historic districts such as Germantown and Chestnut Hill will be preserved going forward. 

"This raises a lot of questions and that is exactly what we wanted," Greenberger said. "To flush them all out in the next few months."

To keep the community involved, Councilman Bill Green (D-At-Large), who is a member of the commission, asked about the possibility of creating a "formal, obvious" process where community members can submit specific properties to the commission and find out what changes are in store for them under the new code. 

The commission said they would look into the "operational realities" of creating such a process to answer resident's questions or, if the demand became too great to handle, providing a number of different examples for specific geographic areas of the city. 

Wednesday marked the last meeting of the commission until September but Eva Gladstein, executive director of the commission, said it will be a very busy fall. 

For more information about the proposed zoning changes, or the commission in general, visit www.zoningmatters.org. 


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