Halfway through its Stakeholder X-Change outreach, the Zoning Code Commission attracted 18 people to its Tuesday X-Change meeting. Eva Gladstein, executive director of the ZCC, walked stakeholders through how land use regulations have been organized, revised, and presented in Philadelphia's new zoning code.
"It's an attempt to make sure folks know what's in the draft the ZCC is working on right now," Gladstein said. "Some of the changes are coming out of meetings like this, some out of an internal review process, and some out of meetings with stakeholders."
She reviewed the principles by which property uses are being reorganized in the new code—namely, how to make permitted uses more flexible to accomodate changing neighborhood and business needs.
"It was to determine what's the best fit. Our zoning code was last comprehensively overhauled over 50 years ago," Gladstein said, explaining that the uses detailed in the new code were not planned to be the same as those that currently exist. According to Gladstein, the goal with use changes, as with the entire code revision, was to simplify the code, to increase predictability for residents and property owners, and to make the code more consistent.
"We want the code to be able to adjust over time. We wanted to create enough flexibility for it to be adjusted without a major overhaul," Gladstein said.
To these ends, Gladstein said that the use regulations have been changed in three ways:
- A new organizational model,
- Entirely new uses added to the code,
- A new way in which use regulations are displayed.
In the current code, every zoning district has a list of specfiically permitted uses. Any property owner who wants a use that's not called out in the code has to appeal to the Zoning Board of Adjustment, "even though they have the same impact as a use that's listed," Gladstein said.
The new code reorganizes uses into ten broad categories:
- Residential,
- Parks and open space,
- Public, civic, and institutional,
- Office,
- Retail,
- Commercial services,
- Vehicle and vehicular equipment sales and services,
- Wholesale, distribution, and storage,
- Industrial,
- Urban agriculture.
Within these categories are approximately 40 subcategories, and these subcategories govern what types of uses—rather than what specific uses—are permitted in the new zoning districts.
"It recognizes new uses that are not in the Zoning Code that have created confusion in the past decade," Gladstein said. "We're trying to recognize modern land use."
The new uses in the code include:
- Four types of urban agriculture—animal husbandry, community garden, market or community-supported farm, horticulture nursuries and greenhouses,
- Artisinal manufacturing, such as live-work spaces for artists, or industrial space repurposed to low-intensity hand-crafted manufacturing,
- A revision of day care to include adult day care,
- Accessory dwelling units, a new class of housing sometimes known colloquially as "mother-in-law" apartments or "granny flats."
Given the reorganization and new uses, the code is also reorganized into use tables that reflect the broad categories and the narrower subcategories. Notes also direct readers to use-specific standards in the code that govern, for example, where and how gun stores or cell phone towers may be operated.
The new code has four tables, one each for all residential districts, all commercial districts, all industrial districts, and all "special purpose" districts (which include areas like universities, airports, and casinos). The use tables include only categories and subcategories that are permitted in those zoning districts.
(The ZCC has also issued a document titled "A Review of Use Changes in the New Zoning Code," detailing use changes zoning district by zoning district.)
The open question-and-answer session primarily focused on special exception uses, religious institutions and their accessory uses, and whether the concentration of such uses could be regulated by zoning.
Joe Schiavo, of the Old City Civic Association, expressed concern that no spacing or geographic restrictions existed for special exception uses.
"There's no limit to how many special exception uses can be on a block," he said.
Gladstein emphasized that special exceptions do not necessarily get approved.
"It's not by-right, but it's not the same as a variance," she said.
"The concern is you get three, four, five, ten per block, and it creates a district that may be detrimental to their neighborhood. If you're looking at preserving the best things in a neighborhood, and you let saturation occur with no restrictions, you'll change the character of the neighborhood," said Meg Greenfield of the East Falls Community Council.
Some special exception uses in residential neighborhoods include group and assisted living, educational facilities, hospitals, churches, and bed-and-breakfasts.
"In order to use spacing standards, you need to have a study to back that up. We don't have those. The idea behind a special exceptions is it might be OK, but if you go to the [ZBA] and say it's detrimental to the neighborhood, you can make a case against it," said Natalie Shieh, the ZCC's program coordinator.
"The first burden is on the applicant to demonstrate that it will not have [negative] effects," Gladstein said.
Joe Schiavo expressed concern that whether special exceptions will be permitted comes down to a ZBA decision.
"It's all a matter of ZBA's disposition to a particular application or applicant. Do we all have the faith that when the new code is in place, ZBA's disposition will be any different? We're asking that you conisder that these uses permitted by special exception, be not permitted by spacing requirements," Schiavo said.
"These standards have been tested by the courts, so we have to go back to our lawyers" to discuss whether spacing can be added, Gladstein replied.
The concentration of religious institutions, and accessory uses at religious institutions, came up for extensive debate as well. Greenfield said that daycare is allowed as-of-right as an accessory use at churches, and made a radical proposal to address the matter.
"We think religious institutions should be by special exception across the board, because if they intend to put a church in there and then have a day care, a school—these are things you'd regulate," Greenfield said.
Under the new code, such institutions are permitted by-right in most districts. Churches are only prohibited in Philadelphia's heaviest industrial districts. They are special exceptions only in areas of single-family detached homes and in CMX-2.5, the new district for neighborhood commercial corridors.
"That's a valid point," replied ZCC Commissioner Greg Pastore, "but if we live in the real world, I'm not going to say somebody's going to put in a church just to put in accessory day care."
Mary Tracy worried that the new code allows churches in more neighborhoods than previously.
"In Overbrook Farms, we have a lot of large homes, so we became very attractive to churches. So we became R1 because a lot of these uses were prohibited," said Mary Tracy.
"Religion is an issue that is pretty well protected by the First Amendment," replied ZCC Commissioner Stella Tsai. "It's hard to be prescriptive when deciding whose religion is legit and whose isn't. A lot of these organizations provide social services, and have to abide by regulations."
"I don't care what kind of religion it is," said Greenfield, "but my problem is that you have these uses and superimpose them when they'd normally be dealt with by special exception. I'm not saying get rid of churches or synagogues or mosques or anything else. I'm addressing the combination of these two parts," referring to accessory uses like day care or social services.
Pastore said that spacing might not make sense given that different churches serve different people.
"One might be Ukranian Catholic and one might be Ukranian Orthodox, and these are different," he said.
Schiavo said that currently, many places of worship offer other programs.
"In a way, they're functioning like an alcohol-free club," he said, referring to how both church services and accessory events, like concerts, can attract a large number of people who all arrive and depart at approximately the same time.
Pastore said that parking requirements would help restrict the placement of churches.
"Surprisingly enough, relgious assembly and assembly and entertainment are the same," Pastore said, regarding parking requirements. "But we will re-review this to take into consideration your issues."
And so revision work and community feedback continues. One more regular meeting and three more X-Changes are scheduled before the tentative May 11 vote on the code. All meetings will be held at 1515 Arch Street, 18th Floor:
- ZCC regular meeting,Wednesday, April 13, 8:00 a.m.
- Stakeholder X-Change on Dimensional Standards, Tuesday, April 19, 8:00 a.m.
- Stakeholder X-Change on Other Development Standards, Wednesday, April 27, 5:00 p.m.
- Stakeholder X-Change on Parking and Signs, Tuesday, May 3, 8:00 a.m.
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