As I mentioned on the front page, coverage of Mayor Nutter's appointments to the Zoning Board of Adjustment (first mention on this blog yesterday) has been pretty extensive. Some, like the Daily News, went the route of searching through campaign finance records to see how much the appointments contributed to the Nutter campaign. I'm not sure why this is an important part of the story, given that the campaign finance limits were supposed to have made it unlikely that such positions could be "bought."
The Inquirer looked a little deeper into the backgrounds of the appointees themselves and got quotes from them about their new jobs.
WHYY went even deeper to get reaction from a local expert on the planning process and a reaction quote from one of the appointees. The Metro did similarly good work to use this news to explore some of the problems that Philadelphia has in its planning and zoning process:
“The city has evolved into a style of making planning decisions as big issues hit the agenda and are ripe for development,” said Joseph McLaughlin, a former government official and assistant dean of Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts. “That gives developers less certainty.”
Overall, it seems that reaction to the appointees has been positive. But the reporting itself, given deadline pressure, is pretty surface level.
So what, exactly, does the Zoning Board of Adjustment do? I put that question yesterday to a friend of mine who has some planning expertise and follows these issues very closely. He suggested that we start with the Home Rule Charter itself:
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Section 5-1006
Zoning Board of Adjustment.
1. In accordance with any statute or ordinance as now or hereafter in force, the Zoning Board of Adjustment shall:
1. Hear and decide appeals in zoning matters where error is alleged in any order, requirement, decision or determination made by an administrative official in the enforcement of zoning ordinances, regulations and maps;
2. Hear and decide special exceptions to any zoning ordinance upon which the Board is required to pass;
3. Authorize, upon appeal, in specific cases, such variance from the terms of any zoning ordinance as will not be contrary to the public interest, where, owing to special conditions, a literal enforcement of the provisions of the ordinance will result in unnecessary hardship, and so that the spirit of the ordinance shall be observed and substantial justice done.
2. In the exercise of its powers, the Zoning Board of Adjustment may reverse or affirm, wholly or partly, or modify, the order, requirement, decision or determination appealed from, and make such order, requirement, decision or determination as ought to be made, and, to that end, it shall have all the powers of the officer from whom the appeal is taken.
Yikes. Perhaps a quick explanation. As I understand it, the ZBA is supposed to be a very small part of the process with a very limited set of tasks, the most important of which is the granting of variances from the zoning designation of a piece of land (the bold face part).
I'll use a somewhat ridiculous example. Let's say you buy a piece of land that is designated as residential. For whatever reason, since that piece of land was originally designated residential, other buildings have gone up around it or near it that make it unlikely that anyone would ever want to live there. Now you own this piece of land that is essentially worthless, causing you hardship. The only way you can make money is if you build something commercial or industrial. Since you can only get permits from L&I to build residential, you need to seek a variance. So you (and your lawyer) go to the Zoning Board of Adjustment and, with a good case that without a variance you would be caused a hardship, you get a variance.
What the ZBA has been doing, however, is far different and far exceeding their charter-mandated functions. They've been granting or rejecting variances based on things like the design of the building (according to my source, something which, in other cities, is the purview of a design review board), or whim the input of the community. (edited to add) If the system worked properly (as I'll explain below), the input of the community would have long since been taken into consideration in determining the zoning designation for the parcel in question. This has made zoning a very reactive process rather than a proactive process.
Ideally, if the ZBA stayed within its role and they noticed that they were starting to see a lot of requests for variances from a specific neighborhood, they would put the brakes on and encourage others to be "proactive" in solving the problem.
In this case, the planning commission would get together with a group representing the community and do a parcel by parcel examination of the zoning map for that area. If the community seeks to encourage development of a certain density, height, and mixture of residential and commercial in a formerly industrial area, they would work with the Planning Commission to examine the area and come up with a new zoning map. Then, City Council would introduce the ordinances to adopt the new zoning designations and hold hearings, at which time there would be another chance for public input and testimony by the planning commission.
With all of this in place, developers now know exactly what they can and can't build and the community can feel confident that their wishes were taken into consideration. Any developer who doesn't want to comply with the zoning designation for a parcel simply wouldn't buy that parcel. If they did, the Zoning Board, knowing that the planning commission, the community and City Council have all weighed in, would be outside of its right to even hear a case for a variance, let alone grant them. Of course, some things would still slip through the cracks and "hardships" may still come up, so you need to keep them in place as a last resort.
But that's the key... last resort. We'll be able to tell if it is, in fact, "A New Day" by watching the activities of what are, by law, relatively insignificant parts of the government like the ZBA to see that they're just doing their job and nothing more.
There's a lot more to the story, issues that the Zoning Code Commission, the Planning Commission and others are seeking to fix.
Consider this a "crowdsourcing" topic, like a wikipedia entry. I invite anyone to use the comments to correct parts of the story that I may have not understood completely or missed. Let's consider this story a work in progress. I'll edit it later today to reflect further input from emails or comments so that we end up with a finished product that helps everyone understand the issue.
Comments (10)
I agree the ZBA has been known to over step the limits of its authority by deciding cases based on what you call "the whim of the community." But this is one of the few places where communities have been able to control the destiny of their neighborhoods. Is that such a bad thing? It would be if there were other mechanisms in place for their input, but as it is now the average citizen is nearly voiceless in what happens in the neighborhoods.
As for positive reaction to the new board, I would say people aren't digging deep enough. It seems like the same ratio of political appointees to legitimate appointees is the same now as it was last week: 4 to 1.
Tinari? Did anyone in the Nutter camp bother to look up her voting record while serving L&I? Probably not, and they wouldn't have found much because the board had a nasty habit of voting behind closed doors and not recording votes; decisions would be handed out from the back room where no light ever shined.
Posted by Anonymous | January 18, 2008 11:47 AM
The scariest piece of everything I hear from Nutter and in the media is the concept that giving the Planning Commission a greater voice will improve the process. What people don't realize is that the Planning Commission is one of the worst agencies in the City. They have taken a back seat to the ZBA, so nobody has focused on it, but the Planning Commission staff is much worse than L&I. Imagine L&I acting only sujectively. The staff is bloated with unqualified life long civil servants, who weigh in based on their own bias rather than based on any plan or guidelines. If Nutter gives them more power without first evaluating the staff, we will regret it.
Posted by Anonymous | January 18, 2008 11:52 AM
It is concerning that the Planning Commission has over 100 employees, but no one seems to know what they do.
Posted by Anonymous | January 18, 2008 11:53 AM
Dan P,
Being the first poster, I agree. We should not be complacent and allow the broken system to continue. It needs fixing and I have hope the Zoning Commission will be able to live up to its promise. But to attack the old ZBAs for stepping into the breach and listening to communities' 'whims,' seems unjustified. I suppose I'm most miffed about calling the communities' concerns whims. Some times their complaints are whims, but they are the ones who have to live with the consequences and they should be heard. In recent years the ZBA was one of the best forums for their voices.
As far as I can tell, as things are now, and hopefully they will change, running things through the planning commission would be like seeking an amputation to correct your hypothetical limp.
Posted by Anonymous 1 | January 18, 2008 12:49 PM
L & I is a scandal ridden department that needs to get cleaned once and for all. Let's get rid of the Deputies and Supervisors before the FBI does it for us!
Posted by Civil Servant | January 20, 2008 12:12 AM
Hello
G'night
Posted by Testttyq | June 15, 2008 8:13 AM
valuation about beat
Posted by Myncirrickmiz | August 29, 2008 3:22 AM
Hello!
d6ebefb0f18997eafe263f15704c9fb923
And Bye!
Posted by ttestermaness | February 6, 2009 1:36 AM
Hello!
d6ebefb0f18997eafe263f15704c9fb924
And Bye!
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Posted by arropeedurn | April 3, 2011 5:31 AM