PHILADELPHIA | Lowrise/General Developments Thread

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by City Wide

Isn't this the spot that used to have public ice skating back when we had winters?
My suggestion, build a Wendy's there and call it good. After all, we're down a Wendy's since the at 11th? & Walnut closed.
Who actually owns this space?

No, the ice rink was a block away at the SE corner of 17th & JFK, replaced by 8 Penn Center.

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by TonyTone

I kind of understand why they are doing it.

Now I am saying this without facts, but their thought process might be that new development can be built however more of townhomes and apartments with ground level businesses so it does not push out the people who live in the area.

Taller buildings = Gentrification to them so they are limiting it for that reason.

This is a major area in the city though, I don't understand why they don't cap the height to about 10-15 stories. This will at least allow the area to gain density and be fair to the current residents.

I get your thinking, but restricting taller buildings actually makes the impact of gentrification much worse.

Look at what's happened in Philly over the past 30 years. Look at housing prices. Home ownership in any central neighborhood is becoming a dream for 90% of Philadelphians. That is going to push people looking to buy homes further out and into more and more neighborhoods. Gentrification is coming for Girard Avenue whether they build tall buildings there or not.

If Clarke truly gave a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 about the people living in that area and the business owners in that area, the way to protect against gentrification is to strengthen tenant's rights and implement rent control protections for longtime renters and commercial tenants to ensure that they're able to remain in their neighborhood as more people move to the area and prices shoot up.

If you're not going to do stuff like that, the next best thing is to encourage the construction of high density housing with a focus on low income units. This proliferation of available housing at a low price point would make it much easier for long term residents to remain without experiencing significant increases to their housing costs.

The absolute worst thing you could do is what Clarke just did. He did nothing to protect those who already live there, and he ensured that the number of housing units in the area will stay mostly flat, creating greater competition for existing units and inflating their price, almost ensuring that longterm residents will ultimately be pushed out of their neighborhood unless they own their home, and even then, while they'll able to reap the benefits of a sale, home owners could still be pushed out due to rising real estate taxes as the neighborhood gentrifies and the housing becomes more valuable.

So yea. Not great.

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by PurpleWhiteOut

More unnecessary downzoning.

Philly Council limits development on growing Girard Avenue

6th to 13th probably needs the most help imo. Idk what they're trying to "preserve" when ithat stretch includes a ton of strip malls

This bill is stupid, and Darrell Clarke’s spokesperson is a joke. Yorktown and West Poplar certainly aren’t “historic” by any stretch of the word. Exactly what is “historic” about suburban-style homes that look like they belong in South Jersey rather than Philly? Also, the spokesperson mentioned that they’re looking to encourage commercial development through the downzoning, but how can that be accomplished with a height limit of only 38’?

6th to 13th Street is the most depressing stretch of Girard, especially considering what the neighborhood looked like before the PHA messed it up during the middle of the 20th Century. Looks like this stretch will continue to look depressing due to the ineptitude of Council.

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan

Also, the spokesperson mentioned that they’re looking to encourage commercial development through the downzoning, but how can that be accomplished with a height limit of only 38’?

6th to 13th Street is the most depressing stretch of Girard, especially considering what the neighborhood looked like before the PHA messed it up during the middle of the 20th Century. Looks like this stretch will continue to look depressing due to the ineptitude of Council.

The same way the existing early 20th century building stock with ground ground-floor commercial and 3 floors of residential above do it?

Am I the only one that doesn't see what is so terrible about this "downzoning"? It seems like it will encourage a lot of contextual (in form) new development that will probably be better neighbors and better quality than much of the 5 over 1 developements.

[TonyTone]

Originally Posted by allovertown

I get your thinking, but restricting taller buildings actually makes the impact of gentrification much worse.

Look at what's happened in Philly over the past 30 years. Look at housing prices. Home ownership in any central neighborhood is becoming a dream for 90% of Philadelphians. That is going to push people looking to buy homes further out and into more and more neighborhoods. Gentrification is coming for Girard Avenue whether they build tall buildings there or not.

If Clarke truly gave a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 about the people living in that area and the business owners in that area, the way to protect against gentrification is to strengthen tenant's rights and implement rent control protections for longtime renters and commercial tenants to ensure that they're able to remain in their neighborhood as more people move to the area and prices shoot up.

If you're not going to do stuff like that, the next best thing is to encourage the construction of high density housing with a focus on low income units. This proliferation of available housing at a low price point would make it much easier for long term residents to remain without experiencing significant increases to their housing costs.

The absolute worst thing you could do is what Clarke just did. He did nothing to protect those who already live there, and he ensured that the number of housing units in the area will stay mostly flat, creating greater competition for existing units and inflating their price, almost ensuring that longterm residents will ultimately be pushed out of their neighborhood unless they own their home, and even then, while they'll able to reap the benefits of a sale, home owners could still be pushed out due to rising real estate taxes as the neighborhood gentrifies and the housing becomes more valuable.

So yea. Not great.

100% you are on point with it. Protections for current Residents/Commercial is what would keep people in the area and many other areas in the city.

This is definitely not the way to go, like you said this will only cause the area housing to stay flat and thats not good either.

I wonder what made them put this bill forth.

[PurpleWhiteOut]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

The same way the existing early 20th century building stock with ground ground-floor commercial and 3 floors of residential above do it?.

This specifically covers 6th to 13th st which ironically has the LEAST amount of extant 20th century stock with shops with there only being some on the 600 and 1200 blocks, the rest are strip malls, one story industrial, or parking lots. This section is on the trolley line, near the BSL and MFL and should be encouraged for transit oriented development. Also, a good bit of the 20th century stock on the 600 block is even 4 stories tall. If this limit was was placed on an intact commercial corridor like in Brewerytown to discourage teardowns, I'd at least understand where they're coming from, but this just reads as arbitrary anti-development

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by PurpleWhiteOut

This specifically covers 6th to 13th st which ironically has the LEAST amount of extant 20th century stock with shops with there only being some on the 600 and 1200 blocks, the rest are strip malls, one story industrial, or parking lots. This section is on the trolley line, near the BSL and MFL and should be encouraged for transit oriented development. Also, a good bit of the 20th century stock on the 600 block is even 4 stories tall. If this limit was was placed on an intact commercial corridor like in Brewerytown to discourage teardowns, I'd at least understand where they're coming from, but this just reads as arbitrary anti-development

This 38 ft figure is based off of the height of the existing 4 story building stock right?

[PurpleWhiteOut]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

This 38 ft figure is based off of the height of the existing 4 story building stock right?

I'm not good at height estimations, but the article said "Under the new legislation approved Thursday, new building heights between 6th and 13th streets would be capped at 38 feet — about the height of a conventional, three-story rowhouse," so I figured it was a three story cap, one floor of business and two floors of apartments. A 4 story cap would be more reasonable IMO, but 3 stories would probably be hard to make financially feasible

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

The same way the existing early 20th century building stock with ground ground-floor commercial and 3 floors of residential above do it?

Am I the only one that doesn't see what is so terrible about this "downzoning"? It seems like it will encourage a lot of contextual (in form) new development that will probably be better neighbors and better quality than much of the 5 over 1 developements.

You're really going to compare commercial real estate from the early 20th century when automobiles were novel and every town in America had a busy commercial main street to the amazon dominated landscape of today? How commercial real estate does on Mars would be about as relevant.

All you need to do is walk down Girard to see that with the current population surrounding the street, plenty of businesses can't survive. Adding more people and density to the area would absolutely help matters in this regard.

This is a commercial corridor served by a dedicated trolley line and intersects both the El and the BSL. Downzoning should not even be a consideration.

[Busy Bee]

Larger retail spaces would be available on the ground floor of new developments, whether it's 40' of sidewalk frontage or 140'. The only difference is the overall height is capped at 38'. I take it you are referring more to the overall limit on density, and thus customer base, than the actual function programming of a potential new development that adhered to these lower height guidelines?

[arkitect13]

Im still struggling to understand the point of this bill tbh, if its to limits gentrification it fails at that, if its to protect "History" it doesnt do that too well, if its to help create more housing/jobs, it really isnt gonna do much for that either. This bill just seems like a "I made a bill, and im gonna show it off" kinda thing to me
Wanna limit impacts of gentrification? Affordability mandates, renters rights, tenant protections etc. you cant stop highrises and gentrification its really one or the other, taller structures would allow the gentrifications to be more centralized, and on 1 parcel rather then an entire city block torn down for condos...

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by PHLtoNYC

..... see this 🞵🞵🞵🞵 in sunbelt cities, but rarely in NYC, DC, Boston, Chicago. Cities that I see as Philadelphia's architectural peers.

The Boston area has a never-ending spout of this 🞵🞵🞵🞵, just mostly not in Boston proper. However, Boston proper is only about 1/3 the size of Philadelphia in square miles, so many of the suburbs getting these would be within Boston's boundaries in an apples-to-apples comparison. Lots of this junk is in Cambridge near Alewife, Quincy, Everett, Chelsea, etc. It's good to get more housing units but the architecture and proportions are soul-crushingly awful.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

The same way the existing early 20th century building stock with ground ground-floor commercial and 3 floors of residential above do it?

Am I the only one that doesn't see what is so terrible about this "downzoning"? It seems like it will encourage a lot of contextual (in form) new development that will probably be better neighbors and better quality than much of the 5 over 1 developements.

Why yes, yes you are. You just described RMX-2.5 zoning, which has a higher height limit than 38'.

[Busy Bee]

I'll refer you to post #15967

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by PurpleWhiteOut

More unnecessary downzoning.

Philly Council limits development on growing Girard Avenue

6th to 13th probably needs the most help imo. Idk what they're trying to "preserve" when ithat stretch includes a ton of strip malls

Will have the opposite effect. Just make it more expensive and maintain the stupid suburban feel around there.

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Will have the opposite effect. Just make it more expensive and maintain the stupid suburban feel around there.

Development of Girard is inevitable. Especially considering that there are already structures proposed along the street that are dense with ground floor retail, and its location relative to three transit lines, people will want to move there.

As Girard is built up with 38’ townhomes that cost many hundreds of thousands if not millions to purchase, the value of the surrounding land will go up. This will lead to higher property taxes for the surrounding residents (especially in that suburban development just south of Girard). They might make more on the sale than they would’ve before, but if they don’t leave the neighborhood they’ll be paying for it out the 🞵🞵🞵.

If dense development with apartments was being built along Girard, the corridor could remain desirable and affordable (and also help boost SEPTA ridership). This would help to keep neighboring property values from skyrocketing (though they would increase, albeit more slowly).

Who proposed this bill? Johnson? Clarke? What crumb bums.

While we’re on the topic, I’ve noticed that a lot of developments on Girard west of Broad are built to a datum line set back quite a ways from the street. Saint Joseph’s even meets the line. Is this to do with the ill-fated (thank god) Route 30 expressway?

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Why yes, yes you are. You just described RMX-2.5 zoning, which has a higher height limit than 38'.

Which is 55 feet, with commercial required on the ground floor.

[AnEmperorPenguin]

Anyone know if there are renderings somewhere for this project?

http://www.ocfrealty.com/naked-philly/we...ong-vacant-triangle-near-divine-lorraine


Looks like they're finishing the interior of the first building before doing anything on the other ones so it might be quite a while before we can see everything.

Originally Posted by arkitect13

Im still struggling to understand the point of this bill tbh, if its to limits gentrification it fails at that, if its to protect "History" it doesnt do that too well, if its to help create more housing/jobs, it really isnt gonna do much for that either. This bill just seems like a "I made a bill, and im gonna show it off" kinda thing to me
Wanna limit impacts of gentrification? Affordability mandates, renters rights, tenant protections etc. you cant stop highrises and gentrification its really one or the other, taller structures would allow the gentrifications to be more centralized, and on 1 parcel rather then an entire city block torn down for condos...

The reason given by Clarkes spokesperson is they want to preempt concerns about driving and trash so I don't think affordability is being considered with this bill. A large portion of the poplar side is strip mall style retail next to a housing project that can't be gentrified anyway, so no existing historical context, no one living there to get displaced, nearby residents can't be priced out, etc. I'm pretty sure he's used the trash excuse for other downzonings as well, have the city fail to do something and instead of fix it limit the number of people that it can fail; Clarke is the "drive to the corner store" guy, he doesn't like urban environments.

[Redddog]

Originally Posted by AnEmperorPenguin

Clarke is the "drive to the corner store" guy, he doesn't like urban environments.

It's amazing. And this passed unanimously. I expect a veto.

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by Redddog

It's amazing. And this passed unanimously. I expect a veto.

Unless at least 5 councilmembers have sudden epiphanies the override of any veto is a foregone conclusion.