Interesting report on a model "plan" for Parkside by a group assembled by The Daily News. Parkside, unlike Spruce Hill, has a lot of blight and abandoned buildings. Also it's been an area of "disinvestment" as opposed to our past 10 or 15 or so years of heavy investment.
But many of the points in the report ring a bell.
I noticed, especially:
1) emphasis on interviews with residents (in strange contrast to what the UCHS/SHCA has tried to get away with here);
2) understanding that one block has different needs than the next;
3) a distinction between what might be done with free-standing houses or presumably twins and those in intact rows;
4) recognition of "group" interests, but with decisions by a vote of the affected parties rather than something dictated by the bureaucrats in an "agency" like the Philadelphia Histroical Commission;
5) incentive-based rather than "do-it-our-way-or-we'll-fine-you" regulation-based programs;
6) an interest in getting rather than getting rid of a student rental base;
7) recommendations for the city to actually contribute through service and infrastructure improvements;
8) absence of representatives of the Philadelphia Historical Commission or any other branch of the municipal apparat (zoning, planning, Council, the Mayor's office, etc) from the panel.
It's long, but worth reading for anyone seriously concerned with historic designation -- on either side of the issue.
http://www.philly.com/multimedia/philly/daily_news/parkside_phila.pdf
Al Krigman
