There is already a regulation against garage fronts, which is why they need a strict variance. In fact, almost all of these points are negotiated upon any contract to receive permits and variances approval which already comes down to the nosey neighbors coalition. Any law such as this will strengthen the amateur watchdog's ability to play sheriff ten-fold, and will additionally give them ways to beg for funding that they lost through the NAC funding, as other cities and states give block grant money to these nazi groups.

A friend of mine who is a dentist lives in SH.When he went for a permit to redo his facade(to red brick I may add) he was denied. He had no idea why, until one day he came out and his @sshole neighbor began snickering. He(who is a fairly notorious SH'er), basically said "haha got you", and proceeded to cliffnote that when SHCA asked him about the facade he said "no" because, ready?....when he went to go see this dentist several years ago, the dentist didn't wave some fee even though they were neighbors! Once my friend found this out he got on the phone with his lawyer and fought the idiotic ruling, but if a Neighborhood Conservation District was enacted in his area, he would of had little or no recourse to fight such tainted decision making.

__________________
Peter Cetera:
Sometimes I just forget
Say things I might regret
It breaks my heart to see you crying

But if it means tax dollars, don't you think the city will vote for the developer at the expense of existing residents? And no, I don't believe it's not the city's job to "keep tabs" on anyone unless you are talking about criminal activity.

Common ground? Sure. I was willing to put in windows with a fake grid so they'd look all colonial and pretty. But I wanted insulated double-pane windows to lower my energy bills. Instead I had to have single-pane true divided light windows cause that's "historical." This legislation isn't aimed at compromise, it's a power grab.

allow me to quote a wise man in answer to this:

disclaimer: i am in bella vista so i am disenfranchised here....

__________________
SITUATION: MOISTURIZED
thor must be failing -

This proposal also has no chance of helping solve the stated goal
of protecting and preserving old and historic houses. These houses which are damaged and torn down by contractors, are the result of contractors either working without permits or without following the rules. If they had gotten a permit and followed the rules, they would have been stopped from tearing down or damaging the home before they started. As plenty of laws are inplace to protect against this and QVZB has long been active in stopping out of touch designs.

So this legislation will put more burder on the people who have or would follow the rules and changes nothing with the people that dont. Old and historic houses will be damaged and torn down by negligent contractors. The only way to stop that is through diligent neighbors keeping an eye on close properties and contacting L&I & the historical commission at the first sign of a problem. Even that is tough. A quick moving demo team can do severe damage to a home within a day. Even an immediate call at first sign of a contractor showing up to work on a home would, at best, take hours to get a authority to show to put a stop to the job. Within those hours
a facade can be removed or historic interior woodwork could be decimated.

Whatever the situation, there is no stopping this problem.
There will always be shady contractors and developers.
More rules wont stop this.

The other end of this bill contains many things which are acceptable or even warranted(such as hiding the utility meters that have become popular to have on the front of the new houses), but also many things which are just opinions on aesthetics, which are just that... opinions.

It also seems an odd time to to put forward this type of legislation, as the city is now reviewing its own zoning policies. The results of that review may well solve many of the issues that this bill is trying to deal that are actually issues.

A start would be to completely clarify the rules and regulations when it comes to pre-existing homes. No gray areas, no dont worries. They say that it is only going to kick in when a building permit is needed, but it doesnt say that in the proposal.

Even with that, there are far too many issues that could be very expensive to a homeowner, if they have to address them.

For example, Rule (4)(a)(.7)(.b)
A neighbor whose pre-existing window happens to be 5'2" off the ground, needs to replace it. Their brick facade window opening is also 5'2" off the ground. The rule states that windows must be no more 4'6" off the ground. Will they make them lower the opening?
Now add that the window doesnt conform in regards to (4)(a)(.7)(.c) in that it doesnt span atleast 33% of the facade. Do they make them change that? Now add in that they dont conform to Rule (4)(a)(.3) in that there is a securtiy grill. Do they have to remove it?

Now lets put this into some sort of perspective...

Say this homeowner is a 75 year old widow who lives alone and is barely making ends meet and has been putting off replacing the window for years because she couldnt afford it.
Now the window has past its time and HAS to be replaced.
What could have been a couple hundred dollar job is now possibly thousands of dollars in renovation to the facade of the house. Plus she is told she cant replace her security grill, even though half a dozen homes have been broken into in the last year within a block of her home and I dont remember how many sexual assaults there have been in homes that had been forcibly entered.
Sorry must have blocked out that ugly information.
Please keep in mind that I hate the grills and removed them from my own home, but that being said I dont protect my neighbors while they are sleeping at night.

More than 2/3 of the houses on my block have gray areas like this. Too me there is no gray area, if it is in black and white in the city charter, there will be hell to pay (or lots of money) at some point in the future for some unsuspecting neighbors. I have heard dont worry, they wont do that to me from neighbors, but I also heard that the public said in the early 1900's that the 16th amendment
would never be turned into something more than a 2% tax to pay off war bonds. To those that dont know, the 16th amendment allows the government to apply an income tax. Now Im not completely against the income tax, but once its in black and white,
how they apply it and change it becomes the issue.

Without any protection for the current homeowners, the interpretation of the law is then in the hands of the individuals sitting on the board. I have visited that board and dont want the power in their hands I want it clearly in black and white.

Common ground would BEGIN with this proposal being very clear and very protective of the homes that already have things which clearly dont conform to this set of rules.

The NCD is irrelevant. Garage front and "preservation" issues are already under the authority of the city's zoning regulations and Historic Preservation. These are are simply invalid arguments throw up to convince people that we "need" an NCD.


If your home is historic, Historic Preservation makes sure it is properly renovated.

If your home is NOT historic, this NCD makes sure your house is made to look historic even though it isn't.

If there is no home and you try to build one, this NCD makes sure your house is made to look historic even though it isn't.

Enough FAUX-colonial.

While I think that monstrous spanish-style home on the 100 blk of Catharine (or is it Queen?) street is ugly and out of place, it is not my prerogative to tell my neighbors what their house should look like. So long as the house meets all zoning requirements with regard to usage, height, width, setback, lot coverage, etc. I should have no say in the style and design of that house.

As for zoning, as we all know, the city's zoning is far from perfect....which is why it is being overhauled. If people are concerned with garage fronts and windows and doors and the like.....then you should be working with the planning commission in re-writing the city's zoning regulations.

There is no need to create an NCD when Zoning already handles all of the relevant matters. This energy should be spent making sure the new zoning regs and appeals process is done properly.

Amen. Neighborhood controls have already brought us such craptastic structures such as the cvs on 2nd and lombard or abbott's square. Developers wanted to build something modern, but nimby groups even back then said its not getting approved unless its red brick. Thanks. Really. Its just beautiful. Has it ever occurred to anyone that the new faux red brick look IS the aluminum siding of our generation-and it looks just as bad if you ask me. Its just as humorous when people scold linoleum only to replace it with laminate flooring.

__________________
Peter Cetera:
Sometimes I just forget
Say things I might regret
It breaks my heart to see you crying

What happened at this meeting? Don't tell me it's in session at this hour! Come on Alesis, you seem to have the ability to post from anywhere.

It was quite unsatisfying, to say the least. As usual, the QVNA board tried to justify everything, and the residents in attendance did their best to shout them down (myself included, and I'm not proud of that fact but DAMN they made me angry). Then it was 9 p.m. and we were shuttled out of the church. I am hopeful that, at the very least, we got DiCicco to delay a vote beyond June 11, but that wasn't clear either. In any event, below is the e-mail that I hastily sent to DiCicco and Carla following the meeting -- it isn't well written or complete, but I consider it a start. I encourage anyone opposed to the NCD to write their own e-mail (or, hell, use mine if you want).
--------------------------
Consistent with the discussion tonight, below please find some (but by no means all) of my objections to the creation of the NCD:

(1) The process: Queen Village residents were not given an opportunity to vote for or against any aspect of this proposal. It was developed by a select group of people and forwarded to you (DiCicco) without broad neighborhood consensus, similar to the one-way Christian Street proposal. Before City Council votes on it, Queen Village should vote on it.

(2) The proposal that has been distributed by QVNA and, indeed, was power-pointed at the 5/15 meeting is not the proposal on the city's website. How is someone to know what they are voting for or against if it is not clear?

(3) The proposal has not been distributed to the neighborhood. Putting aside the fact that MANY MANY property owners did not receive the notice from City Council, the actual legislation was never printed in the Crier and never distributed. People without computers or without a facile use of computers never saw the proposal. Further, as set forth above, different versions of the bill are circulating, making it even more confusing.

(4) While we have been told that the Planning Commission review would occur only if permits are pulled, that is not set forth in the bill. There is no definition of the bill of "alterations." In fact, the bill itself does not even reference the planning commission or any approval process.

(5) As explained tonight, some of the provisions are unenforceable and/or nonsensical -- window bars are prohibited, but we were told tonight that the Planning Commission would never pass on "plans" for window bars. Why create laws that are unenforceable and/or contradictory.

(6) Tonight we were advised that the NCD is actually a form of NID, but that is not made clear or evident ANYWHERE. What aspects of the NID laws apply to the NCD? Which ones don't?

(7) The bill states that the requirements of Code Section 14-903(1)-(6) ... have been met. According to the city's own website, there is no such section. (See http://www.phila.gov/philacode/html/...VED/index.html ). I in fact challenge you to find that code section anywhere on the internet (without using a paid subscription service such as LEXIS).

(8) There is no grandfathering of existing properties, such that if I seek to replace my current windows, nothing in the legislation allows me to replace my windows in an existing non-conforming location.

(9) Why is a setback with a wall better than a setback without it? If the intent is to make a pleasing streetscape, landscaping along the sidewalk is far superior to a concrete block wall.

(10) The requirement of doors more than 1 foot from the sidewalk prevents any ADA compliant housing to be built in Queen Village, as most lots do not have enough width to allow for a ramp. I believe that preventing a building from building an ADA compliant home is against federal law.

(11) There bill places too much discretion in the Planning Commission to determine whether there are, for example, sufficient "offset planes, roofline variations, etc." to comply with the requirements.

(12) The bill fails to recognize that the beauty of our neighborhood is its ever changing nature, that it includes homes that are 200 years old and homes that are 2 months old. There are some beautiful examples of modern architecture and design that would not meet the criteria set forth in this bill, and that would be a true loss to the neighborhood.

(13) If the intent of the bill, as expressed tonight, was to prevent the *destruction* of historical homes, this bill does not do that at all. Nothing in this bill precludes the demolition of existing structures.

(14) Stucco can be used to marvelous effect, even on facades. There's a house on front street in which stucco has been used to mimic stone. It's very nice.

(15) Why must rear walls match front facades?

(16) This seems like a lot of effort for legislation that automatically expires in a year.

(17) The bill imposes financial hardship on residents who must go through the planning commission for approval, and allows only those with sufficient money to enjoy certain aspects of home ownership, e.g. a garage (if you can afford a wide enough lot or a lot that runs through), a front garden (only if you also build an ugly wall in front of it), etc.

(18) If I wanted to live in an historic district, with all its regulations, I would have bought a house in Society Hill. If I wanted to live by Toll Brother's rules, I would have bought in Naval Square. Our neighborhood is a living, breathing thing that grows and develops organically. Imagine if those living here in 1830, i mostly wooden homes, decided that those new-fangled brick structures were an abomination to the character of the neighborhood and prohibited any brick homes to be built?

(19) That a board member didn't like his neighbor's house addition is no basis for taking away the private property rights of homeowner.

__________________
---Shosh

If those are just the points you managed to jot off quickly after the meeting, I'd love to see the list you put together with some thought! Very compelling!

For those of us who couldn't be there tonight, can you re-post the addresses to send our own letters?