RTK Request: West Philly Zoning Edition

West Philly has been debating a zoning variance for a proposed apartment building at 48th and Chester. The community response to this development has been a ridiculous parody of West Philly. It was a really contentious topic throughout Cedar Park/Squirrel Hill! I have been following the issue closely because I’m a member of the community garden on this block and frequently walk by this corner. As long as I can remember, it’s been an empty lot closed to the public, so I was excited to hear something would be built.

I’m skeptical of developers but overall this project seemed pretty good: it included some affordable units (I mean “affordable” for who, but good effort…) and it wasn’t displacing anyone, just adding housing on an empty lot. The building design is not totally hideous, and it’s about the same height as the apartment building diagonal from it on 48th Street. It was not perfect - I actually think it’s very dumb to have such a big parking lot for a building that’s in a walkable neighborhood and literally wedged between three trolley lines. But adding 76 apartments is overall very good! I’m no economist but if you want to keep the price of housing down I’m pretty sure you have to increase the supply of housing.

Surprisingly, my City Council rep came out in opposition to the zoning variance. [Jamie Gauthier statement]. Her statement seems to be just a list of reasons why she should have supported the variance, making it all the more surprising. But apparently a lot of people complained about this project. So I submitted a RTKL request to see what folks were actually saying, and how many people were actually chiming in. Here is what I got.

My RTKL Request:

1) All e-mails sent to and from Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier's office (including chief of staff, constituent services representatives, and general e-mail addresses), and within the Councilwoman’s office, between April 1, 2021 and May 12, 2021 relating to the Zoning Variance Request at 48th Street and Chester Avenue.”

2) Any summary or log of constituent input in support or opposition of the Zoning Variance Request at 48th Street and Chester Avenue.

The City’s Response:

The City gave me some emails and a spreadsheet tracking communications Council Member Gauthier’s office received. There were only 51 entries! And 36 opposed the zoning variance. Here they are:

It’s interesting and frustrating that this is all the response it took to get a City Council member to oppose a project, especially when her explanation of her position acknowledged all of the positive aspects of the project and failed to identify any real drawback. I didn’t attend the neighborhood association meetings and I can’t comment on how much weight they carried before Council Member Gauthier. However, this doesn’t really reflect a democratic process - there was no vote, just certain voices in the community speaking out against something. The substance of most comments opposing the zoning variance didn’t make a lot of sense.

This was an interesting lesson in how City Council members operate. I was not able to get copies of e-mails reflecting internal debate among Council Member Gauthier’s staff (and I didn’t expect to - Section 708(b)(10) of the RTKL exempts the internal predecisional deliberations of an agency from disclosure!) but seeing the community’s input was illuminating.

Ultimately, the Zoning Board approved the variance the developer sought anyways. [West Philly Local].