i'm not against all these high-rise condoes, but but i think that they should appropriate some money when they build them to storefront space on del ave, better (i.e., not on the street) crossings of said ave, a public walkway along the river, and capital to turn the old pennsy line in the median into a light rail/trolley line, e.g. the river line. these are not big things, and will make the neighborhood, such as it is, as attractive to the casual shopper as the developer. and if they just want to build gated condoes, then put them somewhere else WAY out of view of center city or the sports complex or anywhere else in philly...chester's a good place, come to think of it, for senseless las vegas strip development.

This is the bottom line that every "do-gooder" in Philadelphia for some reason is incapable of grasping. And because of them, instead of financially feasable development, we get empty lots.

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Wasn't there a law in Portland until recently that...I forget the specifics...every new construction had to have some money earmarked in its budget for some community purposes or something? I understand monetary inavaility (I'm bloody broke myself) but developers should be enticed to help the neighborhood in general, rather than just putting up gated silver towers: Republican ivory towers, they are...

But putting a clause into zoning code that any developer planning on devoloping a high-density space greather than, oh say 10 acres or 20,000 sq. ft. (at random) to earmark not more than 1% of their construction budget to the effect that they would increase pedestrian access to their building, plant trees around it, and refurbish any stretch of rail currently abandoned for tram/light rail purposes immediately adjoining their property for mass transit purposes would certainly require some political pressure, and no matter how much it may help them in the long run, big development will oppose it...

But that's where I think the money should come from...

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There's this misperception that the projects currently planned for the Delaware Riverfront are all "gated communities." That's far from the case. I think you'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't propose waterfront access, public space and community benefits.

It's easier to just say that no property owner can cut off access to the waterfront.

Developers are already shaken down pretty well by the city in terms of having to use only union workers, 1% for art, permit fees, placating neighborhood groups, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Asking developers to fund large scale projects such as light rail likely won't work. We have enough trouble attracting any development. I don't think it would work on the one hand to have council say we have to provide 10 year tax abatements to get anyone to build stuff, and then whack developers with the cost of light rail on the other hand.

What will work is get solid mixed use projects underway, get new residents and businesses to move there, tax them fairly, use the tax money to do stuff.

Trying to slice open the golden goose directly (by charging the developers) isn't the best approach. Let them lay some golden eggs for the city in terms of large scale development, and go from there.

ah, but random, my friend, i was thinking about a zoning code provision for use on a citywide basis, not just on del ave...

as for the light rail, if you look at the maps, it seems obvs that there used-ta-was a pennsy line servicing the docks along the del ave median: in fact, it still exists up to race st. what i was thinking of was the developers in nl needing to upgrade merely the parcels of rail their properties their properties are immediately adjacent to, which could well be used to claim that said properties are greener than what they really are (cuz rail mass transit is greener than everybody having to drive and park in those unsightly parking garage podiums). it would be a lot less expensive than having SEPTA funding an entire project, what with them mired in corruption and everything, and the developers--the ones who really want to be good neighbors--can claim, if SEPTA can't get its act together, that they, at least, did their part. You see, none of those del ave projects would have more than (maybe) a football fields' worth of rail to replace, instead of SEPTA thinking about it and needing to replace all of it, and since those developers are all towers anyway, their pockets must be pretty deep anyways. i think that the city's job of providing efficent mass transit should be tackled by the city, those who live within the city, and those who wish to develop in the city...and of course, rail restoration could be combined with tax liens or something to that effect to make it all in the developers' best interest anyway. everybody complains about the traffic problem on del ave, but nobody seems to realize that the solution sits, quite literally, in the median.

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Not entirely random. The C-4/C-5 zoning classifications include some of the requirements you're suggesting, and also impose significant open space/public benefit requirements for developers seeking "bonus" floor area. The Waterfront Redevelopment District includea requirements for waterfront access and extensive open space. And the Industrial Transformation District has a specific public benefits provision.

Where zoning is concerned, it's not easy to find a "one size fits all" solution. Are you going to require the same contribution from a developer building low income housing in a blighted area and a developer building a luxury high rise in society hill? That's not to say your suggestion lacks merit -- some reasonable contribution based on a percentage of construction costs might be feasible. But finding a way to monitor compliance will certainly be a challenge.

Then, too, there's the constitutional question. The Supreme Court has held it's okay to require concessions from a developer/propery owner as a condition for issuing a permit -- but only where the concession bears some relationship (some "nexus") to the impact of the proposed development. When the requirement goes beyond that, it's an unconstitutional exaction, or taking. for which the government must compensate the land owner.

Portland did require a certain portion of new projects to go to community oriented services, usually in the form of a public space within the complex. I think it was eliminated when Very Katz left office, but by that point the city had pretty much maximized it's potential public space, particularly in downtown NW and SW. Portland also has the luxury of being able to implement such schemes because it's widely known as a city that's desirable in which to do business.

It's not as is Philadephia hasn't attempted to do this sort of thing, i.e. Comcast's involvement in improvements made to Suburban Station. There may even be some sort of requireed involvement, I really don't know. Something tells me if there is, it's very diffiucult to understand and almost always ignored.

Nonetheless, I don't think it's a partisian issue, whether Democrat or Republican, developers are capitalists first and it's all about getting as much money out of a development as possible and I would think, whether we mandate community involvement like Portland or not, any residential developer knows he can get a lot more return if the surrounding vicinity is desirable, accessible, landscaped, etc.

Portland's focus on requiring community involvement was motivated by the mistakes other up-and-coming cities had made. They wanted to keep their downtown walkable so they put a big focus on street level retail and public transportation, and they were very successful at it. Philly - gritty and dirty as it may be - already had what Portland was trying to achieve and we've had it for 300 years.

__________________
The idealistic are no longer concerned with influencing public opinion and creating a free world of responsible and ethical social choices, but rather imposing opinion through legislation, mandating these ethics, and outlawing choice in what the loudest sample finds offensive.

Ban the Bans. It's a slippery slope between Idealism and Fascism.

I don't think Comcast itself had anything to do with the Suburban improvements... If anything, it would have been Liberty Property Trust, the developer of the office building that is named after the cable company. Also, I believe that the money ($30 mil or so) that benefited the station's access from the northwest, near the Comcast Center's location, came from the state, as a consolation prize for not getting KOZ status for the project. The overall renovation of Suburban Station, I am almost sure is a completely separate project that was underway before the Comcast Center was even a concept.

DC...I wasn't being political during the second half. When you go by Waterfront Square, you know, that gated skyscraper, doesn't it remind you of the image Republicans try to put into your mind when they say 'ivory tower'?...Given the fact that the people who can normally afford such opulent digs tend to vote in that general direction...basically, now that it's worthless, it WAS a pun on Waterfront Square and the GATED condo projects.

BTW, isn't revamping the Del Ave branch into a light rail system already part of Penn Praxis' plan? Wouldn't the implementation of such a light rail system have an immediate community effect? As we see with Cira Centre, if there are good rail connections into and out of your building, people will prefer to take the trains there instead of driving (what with the price of gas and all). Wouldn't it just make better sense for the developments, as a whole, to provide for a better transit system than selfishly hogging parking garage podiums on each and every single site? I mean...it must cost way less to rebuild 1/2 of a 50-yard double-track line in the middle of Del Ave than it would be to build another ten-story mass of concrete. By the time half these buildings are actually built, if Penn Praxis' plan is implemented well, there should already be major capital improvements on the rail, which as I may have mentioned already, is in despicable (read: nonexistent) shape north of Race, with the exception of a stretch along Penn St. north of WF Square.

If I were a builder, and the community gave me a choice between building a parking garage and rehabbing a miniscule section of track, I would certainly pick the latter. Don't get me wrong, one of the projects should have an oversized parking garage built into it, to compensate for the other ones not having parking garages at all, and the one that does can potentially realize massive profits by charging monthly passes to all the other local residents. My vote is: Bridgemans View gets the garage, cuz that's the one that both has the potential to be the largest, and is the closest to groundbreaking (the only reason why the project's stalled is, believe it or not, the parking garage issue).

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