Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 16:24:21 -0400
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: VICTORY! City Council Pulls Park Bill!
Dear SCRUB Members and Friends,
CONGRATULATIONS! Thanks to your support and outcry at the proposed City Council
Bill allowing non-recreational, private uses on public parkland, Councilwoman
Krajewski has pulled the Bill from City Council!
Earlier today at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission meeting, the
Executive Director of the Planning Commission, Alan Greenberger announced that
the Bill, referred to as Bill No. 090380, was pulled from the City Council
calendar and therefore would not be considered by the Planning Commission.
SCRUB will continue to follow this issue and other issues affecting our public
space and keep you informed. Thanks again to all who contacted their City
Council members and the Planning Commission.
Your friend,
Mary Tracy
Executive Director
Scroll down to read today's Inquirer article about the Proposed Bill or click
this link:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/45382727.html.
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
Posted on Tue, May. 19, 2009
Bill could allow construction in Fairmount Park
By Stephan Salisbury
Inquirer Culture Writer
Only months after voters approved a charter change abolishing the independent
Fairmount Park Commission, transferring decision-making power over parkland to
the mayor and City Council, legislation has been introduced that would open up
the entire park to housing development, parking, building construction,
signage, and other uses.
Park advocates have expressed "strong opposition" to the bill, a proposed
change in the zoning and planning provisions of the city code introduced by
Councilwoman Joan L. Krajewski.
Krajewski could not be reached yesterday, but a spokeswoman said the bill was
not intended to affect the entire park. Rather, she said, it was an effort to
address long-standing problems involving operations of Glen Foerd on the
Delaware, a historic estate in Krajewski's district in the Northeast.
Even if the bill is amended to avoid the specter of parkwide construction and
parking lots, the sweep of the measure and the speed with which it is moving
illustrate potential problems in the wake of last year's charter change, said
some park officials and members of the lame-duck Fairmount Park Commission.
The Philadelphia Parks Alliance said it intended to meet with members of the
city Planning Commission, Council staff, park officials, and members of the
administration to help resolve the matter.
"The bill will be amended to zero in on Glen Foerd," Krajewski's spokeswoman
said, adding that a meeting had been set for Friday to address the problems.
The bill is scheduled for a hearing by the Committee on Rules on June 3, and
could be voted on by Council within days after that. The Planning Commission
will discuss it today.
"Once this thing is done, I don't know how the commissioner of parks and
recreation will stop the next one," said Robert N.C. Nix 3d, president of the
Fairmount Park Commission, which will cease to exist at the end of June.
Harris Baum, another commission member, said that the legislation would put
"decision making in the hands of individual councilmanic members rather than
the commission looking at the park as a whole."
The Fairmount Park Commission, established by an 1867 state law, was voted out
of existence in November. A new Commission of Parks and Recreation, composed of
members of the administration and candidates nominated by Council and selected
by the mayor, will have an advisory role, setting policy guidelines on land use
and other park matters.
"Whatever you want to say about the [Fairmount Park] Commission, at least it
was a sounding board. Now there is no hurdle" for potential developers, said
Nix. He argued that "councilmanic prerogative," which grants Council members
sway over zoning and land use in their districts, could ultimately govern park
use.
"You'll need a really, really strong mayor to fight it," said Nix.
Michael DiBerardinis, commissioner of the city's newly combined park and
recreation department, said the Nutter administration was "concerned about the
sweeping and broad nature of the bill" and would work to rein it in.
"In the future, the first thing I want to do with the park and recreation
advisory commission is work on a set of approaches and policy recommendations
on the use and disposition of parkland," DiBerardinis said. "Advisory
commissions can have real force if they take something seriously."
Councilman Darrell L. Clarke, who sponsored the charter-change legislation with
Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, argued that the bill would have high
visibility in Council.
"I don't think the charter change has any effect one way or the other," Clarke
said. "Had this been done at the park commission level, I question whether the
average person would have known about it." The Fairmount Park Commission had no
authority to legislate, but its approval was necessary for park construction
and land sales.
Reynolds Brown said the bill would "be heard in a public way."
"The advisory board will have a role, a very meaningful role, in formulating
positions," she said.
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