My guess is people paying $500K for a house in a cool city neighborhood won't be thrilled about a raft of regulations reminiscent of a suburban homeowners association or, as someone else said, a condo association, telling them in minute detail what they can't do to change or protect their property. On the other hand, there will be some who think this sort of thing protects the whole neighborhood from someone else's questionable taste. Do the historic districts even have these many regs?

This is nonsense. If I wanted rules like this I could have bought a home in a Toll Brothers development. I probably agree with most of the ideas in the rules its just not right to legislate it.
Building materials are changing all the time and unless you are in the business you probably don't know what you are looking at. To legislate taste in a city neighborhood is stupid.
This is not Nantucket

One the one hand, City Council is promoting "Visitability" which requires that buildings have one entrance at grade level so that people with mobility issues can enter/exit building. Then they pass rules like this one in the Conservation District:

Essentially, you've ruled out building any accessible housing or retrofitting any existing house to be accessible in the district. Nice job, Frank.

__________________

In a historic district, or if you have a historic house, the Historic Commission can and will tell you what to do when it comes to anything that changes the exterior of your home. That includes windows, doors and storm doors but not paint colors. Not yet anyway.

When I wanted new windows for the front of my house, the HC put me through hell. The windows had to be wood. Not vinyl over wood, all wood. And with true divided light, not looks-like. That means a wood frame between individual panes of glass. That's not strong enough to support an insulated window so forget saving energy, looking "authentic" is more important. And I couldn't get full-size screens either, I had to pay for custom-made removable half-screens. For what six windows cost me, I could have done twice as many insulated vinyl windows.

And yes, they do know what you are doing--when you apply for a permit, L&I will check the historic status of your property and if you don't have the HC approval stamp on your application, it'll be rejected.

Yeah, declaring us a historic district is a great idea--NOT.

Our home is historic and we were surprised last year to learn that the HC denied the color of shingle we selected (I believe it was a brown or rust color that complemented the red brick, or so we thought) and then dictated the color we could use for roof replacement.

About the only change you can make to the exterior of a historic property is paint color on windows and doors. Everything else is under the Historic Commission. They have final say. And good luck getting a steel entry door or storm door other than plain full glass approved. I need the lintel on my back door repaired and reinforced so I can put in a new door frame and door--I have to submit plans to the HC for the permit. I'm not changing, I'm repairing but they don't care. And if you sell your property, the buyer won't be able to easily get a tear-down permit to put up something new, which will probably reduce the number of interested buyers.

So I, like I'm sure many of you, received official Notice of the Hearing on June 11 regarding the QV Neighborhood Conservation District. According to the Notice, if at least 51% of owners and owner-occupied housing units register objection to the proposal, it will die.

Although this much modified version of the bill (it has many fewer regulations than the initial proposal) is not as bad as the original, I still don't like the control aspect of it. I would be interested in working with other homeowners to kill this thing, the faster the better ... if anyone here is similarly interested, PM me.

__________________
---Shosh

Please post how we can be part of the 51% that can kill this thing. Does all the copper they are putting all over the triangle house meet the requirements?

Elvis --

Prior to 6/11, you must file your objection with the Clerk of City Council at City Hall, Room 402, Philadelphia, PA 19107. It doesn't have to be detailed, or give any reason, but it must be in writing, and it must be signed by the homeowner. The bare minimum would look like this, I believe:

--------------

To: City Council
Re: Objection to Queen Village Neighborhood Conservation District



I, [Elvis], own property located at [insert address], within the proposed Queen Village Neighborhood Conservation District.

I hereby register my OBJECTION to the creation of the Queen Village Neighborhood Conservation District.

Signed: ___________________
Elvis
[address]

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Also, if you want to get your neighbors involved, you can create a petition to be signed by more than one person that could look like this:

To: City Council
Re: Objection to Queen Village Neighborhood Conservation District
Date:


We, the undersigned, own real property located within the proposed Queen Village Neighborhood Conservation District.

We hereby register our OBJECTION to the creation of the Queen Village Neighborhood Conservation District.

___________________ _____________ _________________
[signature] [printed name] [address]
___________________ _____________ _________________
[signature] [printed name] [address]
___________________ _____________ _________________
[signature] [printed name] [address]
___________________ _____________ _________________
[signature] [printed name] [address]

__________________
---Shosh

The letter is extremely disingenuous, and designed for QVNA to get their way.

No one can conduct a vote by asking 51% of naysayers to standup.

Instead, it must conduct a formal vote, and if 51% of the participants in the vote object then it would be tossed. They are formulating this as if 51% of all property owners must object, which would be extremely hard to obtain since a majority of Queen Village properties are owned by landlords who are not going to receive these notices since they are being sent directly to the properties.