- Council Committee Passed the Freeze
- Carol Campbell Passes Away
- My first trip to the public library
- Fight digital exclusion
- What if half of Philadelphia didn't have roads?
- You know, let's not even worry about the City Commissioners office messing up voter registration processing
- Bold ideas to fix the budget
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- City Releases Library Information to City Council
- Size of Philadelphia government?
PGCB Admits It Does Not Trump Philly Zoning Authority
Submitted by Karim Olaechea on Sat, 05/05/2007 - 1:28pm.
In a dramatic turn of events, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB)admitted that Philadelphia City Government has final authority in determining zoning regulations. It did so in its brief, released on Friday, responding to Philadelphia citizens who accused the board of irresponsibly choosing the two locations.
In the brief, the board makes clear that it does not have local zoning authority. It claims the casinos must deal directly with the city on zoning issues and places all responsibility on the casino companies themselves to obtain city zoning rights. This includes zoning restriction such as the North Delaware Avenue zoning (zoning code Chapter 14-1624 of the Philadelphia Code), which SugarHouse casino violates and which Foxwoods is expected to violate based on zoning changes proposed by Councilman Frank DiCicco.
The most relevant entry is on page 31 of the brief where it states:
Second, the Board's award of the license to HSP is not an automatic ticket for HSP to construct and operate a casino at that location. HSP must obtain any permission and permits required by the City of Philadelphia in order to build and operate its casino. As this court held in [Pennsylvanians Against Gambling Expansion, in June 2005], the Board cannot act as the local zoning hearing board and rule upon zoning issues. It is the licensee's responsibility to address zoning issues related to the location they wish to build upon.
Essentially, this means that SugarHouse cannot be built unless the city itself deems the locations appropriate. All polls and all evidence shows that Philadelphians know it is wrong to build casino slot parlors right next to homes and neighborhoods. A poll conducted between February 28 and March 1st by Global Strategy Group found that 79% of Philadelphia voters support prohibiting casinos from being built within 1500 feet of residential communities, schools, playgrounds, and places of worship.
Anti-Casino activists collected 27,000 petition signatures and secured two unanimous votes from Philadelphia's City Council to get a referendum as Question #1 on the city's May 15th primary ballot. The referendum gives the people of Philadelphia a voice on whether to place a 1500-foot buffer between casinos and neighborhoods.
Barely a month before the election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court placed a temporary injunction on the ballot referendum, and stripped Philadelphians of their right to vote on the casinos. The decision was at least partially based on the casino industry's contention that PGCB had sole authority over the location of Philadelphia's two proposed casinos. Now that the PGCB is punting the ball back to the city, it appears that Philadelphians may have been unjustly denied an official vote in the coming election.
Regardless, Casino-Free Philadelphia announced our intention to hold a "citizens ballot" on the issue at a press conference outside City Hall last Tuesday. We are calling the new campaign PhillysBallotBox.org, and have vowed to have ballot boxes located in every state house district within Philadelphia and in dozens of high traffic areas around the city. Registered voters will also be able to cast their vote through our secure website and by calling our voter hot line. All results will be checked against official voter rolls.
It is becoming increasingly certain that Philadelphia voters will have the final say on casinos after all.
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that's awesome!
That's really cool! I hope this sticks.
I have been wondering about this for a while. The zoning thing the city did was really interesting, although according to this article, it is essentially a delay tactic. How much time does it take to rezone something?
I am not at all the zoning expert on this site - we used to have endless blogging about zoning on YPP, esp. after Vern Anastasio started running for office and had to leave the blogs - but my question is, does there have to be a special district for casinos?
I remember Councilman Dicicco passed some gaming CED legislation in ?2001?. We looked at it last year. (One of the things that was super interesting: Councilman Nutter got written into the legislation that his district, the entire 4th city councilmanic, was totally exempt from the law, assumably to protect it! Makes you wonder what was wrong with it!)
Does that zoning no longer apply? Has the city rewritten the CED legislation?
Hannah
Rezoning Casinos
What they did was create an entirely new zoning code for casinos. (For all who think it's high time we reduce the zoning code, this is one more step in the wrong direction.) That's the CED legislation.
What has yet to happen is that Councilman DiCicco has not introduced CED legislation for SugarHouse or Foxwoods. That is, neither site is zoned for casinos and until then they cannot build on that site.
The prevelant worry among many was that City Council would delay so long in not introducing the CED legislation that SugarHouse or Foxwoods would claim it its de facto exclusionary zoning -- i.e. they are an oppressed development and need Statewide exemption. Or that a certain Senator would trump city zoning control -- which seems to be less and less of a worry these days given al lthe politics going on.
The bottomline here: City Council has the power to prevent these casinos from being built on these sites.
...whenever they're ready....