I came up with this Bill of Rights for Residents Near Construction Sites.

This is a work in progress. Concerns and Comments and Ideas can be left at 215 525 1176

These laws can help protect public health, the environment , personal property
and give citizens greater knowledge and partcipation in the creation of the city
and protection of the environment.

Rights of Citizens and Environment near Building Projects


1) Easy and quick Citizen access to environmental reports of sites located within
eight blocks of their home.

2) Notification, Access and Transparency of decisions of building sites made by
City Planning and License & Inspections, City Council, and Zoning provided easily
to Citizens within eight blocks of residence.

3) One of the First Steps in getting any approval at City Planning is Environmental
Reports. If Environmental Report is not adequate, timely, missing or false then
any proceeding decisions made by City Planning or Zoning is invalid.

4) Give Citizens the Right to demand a third party or neutral Environmental study
to be made at site owners expense of any developing site within affected neighborhood.

5) Require that NO fugitive dust from Construction or developing sites escape the
site and invade residential area or public areas. This is already Federal law but
is not currently enforced in Philadelphia. Hold developing site and City responsible
for enforcing effective dust control. Citizens can FINE the City and the Developer
for invading dust.

6) Circulate information of known health hazards of dust and other common environmental
hazards to local citizens so they can more easily protect and treat their health.

7) If a site developer violates the health of Soil, Air or Water and the damage
is not reversible, then the violator must contribute to a project or fund that will
clean up Air, Water or Soil elsewhere.

8) Site developers and the City must go to each neighbor within site influence
and know the heath status, vulnerabilities and concerns of each neighbor, in order
to implement required protections and respect for each neighbor. (VERY IMPORTANT)
Quick and effective responsiveness to neighbor concerns are required by developers
and city.

9. The new site developers, whether City or private, must go to each adjacent neighbor
and pay for a property/ home inspection before any demolition, excavation or building
proceeds in order to record prior status of adjacent home so that if any damage
is done there is a record.

This happens in parking garages or when you rent a car. The rental agency or parking
attendant will walk around your car and take notice of dents and scratches so that
when the car is returned to you there is a record to show if any new damage has
occurred. The developer needs to pay for the inspection.

10) 100 year history of former site use needs to be circulated to neighbors within
8 block radius. Philadelphia has a long history of industry and environmental
damages that must be known in order to execute proper and healthy remediating.
Too often the history of a site is hidden by both the city agencies and the developers
and then proper remediating is avoided and the environmental health and rights
of the community suffers.

11) If a group claims it is the Community or Neighborhood Group or the CDC, they
cannot prejudice against or exclude any specific person from the services and support
and protections they claim to offer the community or neighborhood.

Questions, please...


1. In Mayor Street's Administration, who was in charge of LAND ASSEMBLY?
2. Who orders and approves demolition on vacant lots?
3. At what stage of the Planning, Zoning process, is environmental study suppose to be done?
4. How can you find out when a lot is changed from industial to residential and who makes that change?
5. How is the health and welfare of a neigborhood protected during the demolition, excavation and construction process?
6. What are the health risks for children and sensitive populations at the site of demolition, excavation and construction ?
6. If a number of environmental violations are disovered after zoning is granted, what happens???
7. Are neighbors in area affected by enviromental hazards TOLD by the city or violation granting agency of the impact and exposure?
8. Are environmental hazards IGNORED by the city so people can just get sick on their own?
9. Does the City of Philadelphia have the right to withhold
Public Health hazard information from the people who are affected by the hazard?
10) What kind of effect does months of breathing brick dust have on a person's lungs?

Thank you for your answers.

I won't address all of your "rights", just the ones that are downright ridiculous.

This is ridiculous. If a property owner doesn't believe the developer's environmental report, let that property owner pay for a second report out of his own pocket and prove it. Just like one attorney hires his own expert to refute the opponents' expert's testimony... or just like YOU have to pay for a mechanic to inspect a used car before you buy it....you can't make the seller pay for it. If you don't believe it, the responsibility is yours to prove it.

Um, I don't know about this federal law you are referring to, but this idea is downright silly. How could anyone possibly prevent ANY dust from escaping a construction site?

This gets more ridiculous as I go along. Go to each neighbor to find out what maladies they suffer from so that construction can be adjusted so as not to cause a problem for specific individuals? That is just downright silly.

No way. Again, you are out there. Come to the real world where, if something goes wrong, you hire an attorney and prove it in court. When you rent an apartment, if you are smart, you take your own pictures when you move in so you have proof of the conditions in advance. You don't get to force the landlord to have an inspection at his expense. Does the car rental company hire a mechanic to inspect the vehicle? And, also if this is your analogy, the car rental company equates to the property owners. To make your analogy appropriate, it would be like the car rental company forcing you as the renter to hire and pay for a mechanic before you rented the car in case you damaged it.


Um, just where do you expect to get this information from? Do you think there is some magical database that has all of this for you to access? Sorry, in some cases prior use is known, but not in all, most or many cases.

Tim says---" I won't address all of your "rights", just the ones that are downright ridiculous.

The Ridiculous Topics.

#1) Environmental report.

Environmental health is extremely important and something that matters to many people and is highly vital to life.

My suggestion makes it easier for the average citizen - who usually doesn't have money for such things--- to participate in protecting the environment and public health. Considering the fact that so many large companies with money have not only been the environmental criminals but also hide it from the average citizen who has no money-- I think laws that give the average grandmother, single mom, or person with very little money a way to protect, not only themselves, but the environment for all of us, is a good idea..

The average citizen needs added protections and abilities to deal with environmental harm done by "Big" business.

The more power each individual has to protect the environment- the better it is for all of us.

#2 Um, I don't know about this federal law you are referring to, but this idea is downright silly. How could anyone possibly prevent ANY dust from escaping a construction site?

Read up:
a) On the health hazards of fugitive dust.
b) Philadelphia's Air Management and Health Department Regulations (code)
c) EPA
d) Dust Control methods COMMONLY used in other areas -
(but NOT Philadelphia) Water Down is the Best.
Philadelphia is in the dark ages.

#3 This gets more ridiculous as I go along. Go to each neighbor to find out what maladies they suffer from so that construction can be adjusted so as not to cause a problem for specific individuals? That is just downright silly.

What is more important to you??? The project or human life????

In other words you are saying that is okay to dump contaminated dust on a person with health problems and kill them. It's really silly to worry about killing people, shortening their life and making them sick, isn't it???

That is why citizens need more rights and protection because there are people who think like you.


#4) The parking lot example hires the car attendant to check the car before and after. They checked my car when I park downtown recently. It is not a rental. The parking lot wants to make sure to avoid lawsuits.

A smart and responsible contractor will try to prevent lawsuits and take care of issues as they come up and build good relations with neighbors.

Unfortunately too many contractors feel it is their right to hurt others. That is why people need extra rights and protections.

The neighbors did not ask the contractors to build. Having a "before and after report" is a preventative measure and protection for the neighbor. A lot of people in Philadelphia have been hurt by nearby builders.

A lot of contractors feel that if they have a permit ,they have a permit to do anything, including hurt people.

"No way. Again, you are out there. Come to the real world where, if something goes wrong, you hire an attorney and prove it in court. "

A sick person or single mom with babies just can't go the attorney route. That is the real world.

The system doesn't work for the average person. That is why we need added protection and empowerment for the average person.

#5 Um, just where do you expect to get this information from? Do you think there is some magical database that has all of this for you to access? Sorry, in some cases prior use is known, but not in all, most or many cases.

Every property has a file with L&I . It's true that it hasn't been kept up very well, but you can also get info from maps and tax records. It's not that hard.

Builders are suppose to reveal prior use on zoning applications but they often LIE and city planning and zoning looks the other way in many cases and simply rubber stamp things.

It's important to all of us that we more closely regulate environmental hazards and public health in urban areas.

Building often bring these hazards to the forefront. Then we have an opportunity to clean up the hazards left over from the past and not create new ones.

Business , industry and politics has not done very well in protecting the average citizen and obviously has no morality about hurting people.

So I think the average person needs to have more rights so they can more fully participate in the creation of this or any other city and more power to participate in the clean up of the environment and protection of public health.

I believe the individual human being is more important than business and that people and nature should not be collateral damage to some contractor's immoral recklessness.


I witnessed three crimes on a construction site on Friday alone. But of course they have a permit---- so they can do anything they want.

Assault with dust causing bodily harm is a crime.

Wow. You really are out there. Good luck on your mission.

That's what they always say about people with who try to change the system or don't buy into the status quo.

I remember my mother telling me when I was little that chemicals in food gave you cancer. That was pretty radical.

Oh Yeah - Galieo was imprisoned- I believe- for saying the earth was round.

The guys that wrote the original Bill of Rights were total lunatics.

What- and give women the vote-- outrageous.

Protect quality of life and human health next to construction sites?? That is truly an insane idea.


Asking for a world that cares about human beings. Unheard of. Outrageous. Ridiculous.

Its not that protecting the health and safety of people is ridiculous....it is your proposed methodology for doing so that is simply unrealistic bordering on impossible.

And your analogies/examples.....well, they are so far off that I don't even want to call them analogies. Giving women the right to vote being compared to requiring a developer to go door to door asking people for their medical conditions????

Its hard to believe you are serious (which you clearly are) when you put ideas like this out there.

It's extremely simple. Have a questionaire form and go talk to the neighbors. Very EASY.

Submit forms to Planning and Zoning and Public Health Department so there can be assessment and then protection for the public.

Dust control is simple too. I'ts done all over the country except here. Philadelphia has the second higest rate of asthma in children of any city in America.

My analogies refered to the fact that you called my ideas "way out there"

People have called many new ideas way out there but then those ideas catch on.

I don't really see what is extreme about trying to prevent reckless construction from harming people.

The system obviously does not work to protect the average person who can't hire an attorney, who is simply living a private life and doesn't want to be the target of construction projects that don't consider the health and safety of those around them and don't consider them to be human beings.
The horror stories about construction projects abound for a reason.

Hmmmm... I think you'd have a difficult time getting this "bill of rights" passed - or even accepted by the people it is intended to "protect".

No developer will ever be legally required to design their construction site to protect the health of a variety of individuals based on their verbal, or written assertion that they have specific health conditions that require such planning.

John Doe states that he suffers from severe asthma. How can a builder of a 50 story office tower prevent dust from blowing off the site during a windstorm and potentially impacting his asthma? Would you wrap the site in some sort of membrane and expand it as it rose to it's ultimate height?

Furthermore, how can a developer reasonably be expected to accommodate a need stated by an individual without requiring that individual to provide medical proof of his or her condition? How can the developer be expected to re-mediate unless he or she has proof that construction dust will exacerbate it? The burden of proof resides with the resident who asserts he has asthma? If that's the case, a lot of neighbors will opt to accept what the developer does rather than invest their time (and potential money) into something that likely will have no benefit to them in the long run.

I also agree with Tim K that to expect the city or the developer to absorb costs for inspecting properties that are owned by individuals is absurd. If I'm taking down plaster in the bedroom of my rowhome, I am certainly not going to pay to have my neighbor's home inspected prior to my demolition on the off chance that my demolition may impact my neighbor's house. If it does, my neighbor can request reparations or take me to court.

As much as I hate lawsuits, they are what force people (and developers) to do the right thing. If developers were as reckless as your proposed "bill of rights" implies, we'd see far more developers being sued by individuals or attorneys representing groups via class action lawsuits.

Finally, unless your "bill of rights" is adopted by the entire region, it will likely succeed ONLY in stifling development in the city since developers will simply develop in places where there are fewer restrictions placed upon them. This proposal would seal Philly's fate as business UNfriendly, just as Michael Nutter is trying to convince business leaders that Philly is turning over a new leaf and making the city more inviting to business and development.