The rights of communities in Philly are being eroded on several fronts right now, with the loss of zoning on the casinos and the passage of Act 193 which strips groups right to appeal before the zoning board.
These are opportunities as well as with the creation of groups like NABR, MCA, RCU around the casinos and now Neighborhood Defense.org in response to Act 193.
Neighborhoods right now are at the mercy of elected officials who won't represent their interests. How can we turn this around?
Part of that I think is through electing better representatives, but we also need to fight for the right for communities to represent themselves.
That is why I think Neighborhood Defense.org is important as it can not only restore those community rights strippd by Act 193 but also be an organizing tool for neighborhood groups across the city.
Signed the Petition
This can be considered a perfect addendum to what I wrote earlier today.
I signed the petition, and everyone should too.
Good Points Fran9480
Local communities do not always make the best choices (ie NIMBYism), but I believe it should be their choice to make.
The new definition of aggrieved person status makes it that much more difficult for community groups with limited resources to have a say.
This was legislation also passed it appears to keep a community group (SCRUB) from opposing large corporations like Clear Channel.
In the context of casinos being dropped in Philly with no community control, developers like Westrum raising blocks, huge towers placed in residential areas, I think that communities need to have the power to have a say and to have more leverage to negotiate with interests that far outgun them.
Good planning comes from a mixture of intelligent interchange b/w the city, communities, and developers so the repeal of 193 is not going to solve that but it would slow the erosion of community power which I think is important.
Signatures? Watch Them Quake
Are you F$%&ing kidding me???? Signatures??? These are the same F%^&$ers that voted themselves a midnight payraise and kept it even after it was repealed and even after the Supreme Court of the F%^&*ing state said it was illegal. You think names on a petition will make them repeal Act 193? Tammany Hall has it rigged. They are laughing all the way to the bank on this one. They screw the community groups so the billboard companies can get theirs and then the billboard companies dump their campaign cash into reelection campaigns. What??? the billboard companies don't give signatures as a thank you??? COME ON! WE KNOW THEY ARE BUMS NOW WE GOTTA THROW THEM OUT!
What Else You Can Do To Help Repeal Act 193
Thanks to Aaron for posting this.
A press release about the kick-off of Neighborhood Defense.org is now available on my website http://www.stier.net/blog/2006/09/26/neighborhood-defenseorg-kick-off/ and will be posted at Neighborhood Defense.org later today.
Besides signing the petition at the www.NeighborhoodDefense.org., here is what else you can do to help this cause:
1. Send an email to ten friends to tell them to sign the petition.
2. Help me find contact information for all the hundreds of community groups around the city. There is no updated list of such groups available in the city. I hired an intern to help compile one and am looking for email addresses and websites for each group. We want to ask the leaders of each community group to contact all their members and ask them to sign the petition. So if you know of a community group in your neighborhood, please send me as much information about them as possible. I will be sharing this list with other progressive causes now, such the Recycle Now and Inclusionary Housing campaigns, and in the future. Email me at MarcStier@stier.net .
3. Pretty soon we will be engaging in lobby days at the offices of Philadelphia State Representatives and Senators. Check back at the website to find about them.
4. Send an email to another ten friends to tell them to sign the petition.
5. Tell us how important neighborhood control over zoning and development is. If you have a story about how your neighborhood has been helped by aggressive community organizations that have fought inappropriate development or that negotiated with businessmen to improve their developments, post them in the news section of www.NeighborhoodDefense.org.
6. Send an email to another ten friends to tell them to sign the petition. Look, just send the email to everyone you know. Do it now!
A Different Angle on Act 193
Inside of a broken and inefficient system, as are the current states of Philadelphia's L&I process (specifically zoning) and overall planning infrastructure, Act 193 corrects some things which make Philadelphia a less competitive place to do business.
A couple of points to consider:
1.) Your rhetoric on this issue seems to insinuate that in fact neighborhoods are now powerless against the big bad developer. Instead, while rights of "groups" are being taken away, aggrieved persons can still stand before the zoning board. Therefore, if I live in Manayunk, and someone applies for a permit to construct a scrap metal yard on the G2-zoned property that borders my property line, both I and my neighbors still have just as much right and opportunity to state our case before the zoning board as to why we oppose such a development.
I like that the notion of "aggrieved" now has some substance to it. Too often, neighborhood groups oppose things because, simply put, they don't like it. Month after month I sit at my neighborhood group meetings while Joe, Jane and Harry from the deli down the street pick away with glee at some professional architect's designs. The end result? "Oh, we won't oppose this project before the zoning board if the proposed homes have shutters as opposed to no shutters" or something absolutely ridiculous like that.
2.) You seem to offer community groups a free pass as it relates to corruption and/or conflicts of interest. Before doing so, I would encourage you to check out the names of some of the figureheads of these groups throughout the city. In a lot of cases - but not all - you will find honest people dedicated to their neighborhoods. Other times you might find folks with a vested interest in a particular development or project not moving forward. Even worse, in other cases you might just find folks with political ambitions which lead them to er on the side of caution rather than risk-taking when it comes to controversial proposals.
An example. Let's say I am head of the Port Richmond Neighborhood Council (note: this is completely hypothetical, but fully possible). I run my own real estate brokerage during the day. I am very active in the community, and in fact sold many of the local residents their homes. XYZ company wants to come in and construct a dog kennel on a property zoned G2 nearby. Even though parts of Port Richmond are set aside for these types of industrial or "out of sight" kinds of companies, my dream is that it will all be residential someday - and I will have built and sold all of the homes. So, I need to do everything in my power to fight this dog kennel. I use my influence as head of the Port Richmond Neighborhood Council to fight this. I lie about the impact, I paint worse case scenario portraits, perhaps pressure and/or threaten the councilperson, and generally rally the community around the opposition of this development. Now, as a result, a positive thing for the city in terms of job creation, and allowing someone to fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams - in a place set aside by the city to do such things - are all killed because of my own self-interests and personal vision for the neighborhood.
3.) As an entity, SCRUB's bread and butter is the opposition of unlawful billboards. There's an inherent organizational belief that billboards are unsightly, or, at least too many billboards are unsightly. That's their belief, but not one shared by all. So, if the residents of a particular neighborhood happen to believe as SCRUB does, it's up to them to stand up and fight. As it stands now, SCRUB will basically oppose whatever they want, largely regardless of local residents.
Example: SCRUB actively opposed the lining of an old grain tower in South Philadelphia with billboards. The proceeds of the billboards were going to be used to help the owner of that building pay for the reconstruction of the pier on that property so that he could build his shipping business. Council President Verna submitted a letter of support to the zoning board for the project, yet the fuckers at SCRUB opposed it. Why? (a.) Organizationally, they live off of opposition; (b.) They are generally, albeit indirectly, opposed to entrepreneurial opportunity being alive and well in Philadelphia.
Another point about billboards. From what I can tell, most of the people that post on this site are not really engaged in anything truly entrepreneurial as it relates to building a business, so you might not understand this. Tomorrow, go out and buy a warehouse in Frankford. Your opinion about billboards may change, for they provide significant and secure cash flow at a time when your bottom is on the line and you need anything you can pull together to get by.
What would you do, IROQ? Com
What would you do, IROQ? Complain? How would you handle this?
Let Democracy Bloom In Our Neighborhoods
First of all, the new law requires that someone be not only an aggrieved person but holds that “the term ‘aggrieved person’ does include taxpayers of the city that are not detrimentally harmed by the decision of the zoning hearing board or other board.”
The first thing to be said about language is that the phrase “detrimentally harmed” is not a legal term of art. No one really knows what it means. (And the language is pretty weird. Why does the law say detrimentally harmed, to exclude masochists who like to be beneficially harmed?)
The second thing to be said is that the language is meant to restrict standing beyond those who are just aggrieved in the usual legal sense. Our fear is that this language is going to be interpreted to limit the standing to appeal to those who might suffer some serious economic loss. But that excludes all the non-economic losses that can come from inappropriate development, losses that might dramatically change the character of a neighborhood. For example, my house might be much more valuable if my street were rezoned to allow someone to open a bed and breakfast. But the traffic and noise generated by the commercialization of my street would really undermine my quality of life.
Second, given that we are talking about the quality of life in a neighborhood, why should we leave that to near neighbors to defend? They might not want to do so. Or they might not have the time or money that would enable them to go the ZBA or to appeal decisions in court. Community organizations exist to do this sort of thing. And most of the time they do it well.
Sometimes community organizations are frivolous. Sometimes they are corrupt. The solution—one used more than once in Philadelphia—is for neighbors to take over the organization or start a new one. Just as the antidote to bad speech is more speech, the antidote to bad community organizing is good community organizing. We don’t eliminate the first amendment because Nazis take advantage of it. We shouldn’t eliminate the role that community groups play in the zoning process because some of them don’t represent their neighborhood well.
Moreover, in my experience, community organizations are the saviors of the neighborhoods within them. The thousands of activists who devote themselves to the good of their communities are the people who, more than any other, make this city livable. Taking away their rights to guide development in their communities will destroy this city.
And, by the way, you example of a bad community group strikes me as just the opposite. Sometimes neighborhoods change. Last year folks in Northern Liberties wanted to stop a strip club from opening up. Ten years ago, that site would have been a downtrodden industrial area. Now it is changing and becoming residential. That is a good thing and the community organizations fighting for that change deserve credit.
The Northern Liberties example also shows that good developers recognize that community groups are helpful to them. Miles and Generalis realized that the opening of a strip club would undermine the community and thus reduce the value of the projects that have done or planned to do. So they allied themselves with local community groups. If developers think long term, they will recognize that protecting communities protects their interests as well. If the community suffers, so does the value of their already completed projects.
If you don’t like what Scrub does in your community, then the answer is to fight against them at the ZBA and in court. Or go to Council and try to get the laws changed. I think it was John Dewey who said that the best solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy. The answer is not to shut SCRUB up so that the ZBA can systematically violate the law. Isn’t it time we stopped this kind of Banana Republic government in Philadelphia? Let's let a thousand community organizations bloom!
Handle it? I'll END it!
Ahh grasshopper, once you start down this path, there is no turning back. There is no departing from the WAY. Caietanus, let me get all Socratic on you.
What neighborhoods get shat upon the most by the man's America? C'mon, you know the neighborhoods I am talkin' about. Now which neighborhoods vote most loyal-like, pulling the big lever without question? Correctamundo! Them very same neighborhoods. So the lesson a savvy Roman like you must take from all of the above is that blind loyalty is BullS$%t!
So how do we repeal Act 193. Here is what we gotta do. We gotta hit them F$%#$rs where it hurts. We gotta threaten what they hold dearest.
We give 'em one chance. Repeal 193 by November 1 or they gets no votes. They count on the fact that we won't do it, but that's what we gotta do. What got the pay raise repealed? When the voters F#$%#D Nigro. It didn't matter what he did or whether he deserved it. He got done and then those dopes in Harrisburg started quaking.
Tell 'em they gets no votes! They running for rep, NO VOTES. They running for senator, NO VOTES. They running unopposed, then they gets no votes for whatever they are running for or whatever their boyz are running for.
No lobbying. No asking pretty please. No playing around. Repeal the M$%^&r F%$$#r or we cut you. Run the play MY WAY and it'll be over by November 2nd.
Now Caietanus, the question is, are you willing to follow the WAY?
A very compelling, well organ
A very compelling, well organized and astute plan. Except--you forgot to include exactly how you plan on getting the people to not vote for X or Y. In fact, all you have done is summarize the problem with inner city politics--that many people either do not vote or do not care who they vote for--they follow blindly.
Also, and not to get off on too much of a tangent--nothing you wrote in your post was even remotely Socratic.
Yes--I am a savy Roman.
The PLAN
Yo 'anus, it starts with me, it goes through you and it goes out there.
I'm layin' it on the line - if our Jefferson/Jackson homies do not repeal Act 193, I will not vote Democrat in November. Top to bottom and side to side on the ticket. Let them chips fall where they fall. So that's one.
'Anus, you keep the chain goin' or you kill it. No two ways about it. Either you are SERIOUS about F*&%^ng change or you are PUSSYfootin' around. If you and me are in, then we got two, then it is on you to get three and then we got something.
There's the PLAN. Now you either make it happen or kill it in its crib.
WOW! What a great job explain
WOW! What a great job explaining this. I cannot even imagine why you have not been succesful yet.
As for being "in"--I have no idea what that means. So far, it only seems like not voting for Democrats. Well, when it comes time to vote for any of the idiots who passed Act 71 (gambling) you can safely assume I will place my vote elsewhere.
I really think it is great you are on here. I just wish you would lower the hostility level a bit.
Number two from 'anus
Now you jokers are in trouble!
Iroqtherowhouse won't vote for anyone in the party unless 193 and 71 go down. That makes one.
'Anus is down for number two.
Who else is with us?