AAA Mid-Atlantic says the auto service/travel
agency/insurance agency/retail store it plans for 1601 S. Columbus Blvd. would
fit within the city's plans for a pedestrian- and bike-friendly Central
Delaware waterfront -- especially because the plans were modified according to
city planning staff recommendations and the business' existing neighbors are
big-box stores.
Representatives of the quasi-city agency that oversaw
development of the Central Delaware Master Plan, an advocacy group that exists
to defend the plan, and the Pennsport Civic Association say the driver-focused
business would hamper the city's goals and residents' wishes to ease pedestrian
and cyclist traffic and link walkers and bicyclists with the waterfront.
The current waterfront zoning overlay, designed to put the
goals of the Central Delaware Master Plan into city zoning code, prohibits a
business like the one AAA proposes. But since AAA got its zoning application in
the day before the overlay went into effect, the facility could operate there
-- if AAA convinces the Philadelphia City Planning Commission it should.
AAA representatives began trying to win planning
commissioners' support in an
information-only session Tuesday, while waterfront planners and civic advocates
argued that the board should say no.
AAA has reduced the number of proposed driving entrances to
the site from four to two – that's one curb cut each on Columbus Boulevard and
Tasker Street, AAA representatives Brad Murr and Andrew DeFonzo said. The group
has also added trees and moved the rectangular building up against the streets
– it used to be in the center of the site, located between the Home Depot and
the former Foxwoods site where local developer Bart Blatstein plans for
mixed-use development.
The proposed parking that once surrounded the building is
now behind it, AAA told Philadelphia City Planning Commissioners Tuesday. The
renderings shown depict windows lining the facades facing Columbus and Tasker,
with the door customers would enter located at the corner, on a diagonal.
The sidewalks would be improved and no auto service bays
would be visible from Tasker or Columbus, said project attorney Carl Primavera.
The travel agency/retail portion of the business would be up front and “it's extremely urban,” he said.
“Urban” is the opposite of how the AAA plan was described by
representatives of the quasi-city Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, the
Central Delaware Advocacy Group, and the Pennsport Civic Association. They said
the driver-focused business would hamper the city's goals and residents' wishes
to ease pedestrian and cyclist traffic and link walkers and bicyclists with the
waterfront. A single-story building with a surface parking lot may be what was
built on the water 10 years ago, but it shouldn't be built today, they said.
“Adding another auto-focused development at this very key
intersection for South Philadelphia and the waterfront adds more cars, more
congestion, and is exactly the opposite of the city's goals for Columbus
Boulevard and for the waterfront,” said Karen Thompson, planner/project manager
at the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, the agency that oversaw
development of the waterfront master plan.
Tuesday's session was a precursor to an upcoming Plan of
Development hearing where a court stenographer will record proceedings and
commissioners will vote to determine whether or not the project moves forward.
The commissioners have a lot of discretion.
“There are no set criteria, but always our interest is about
the public realm and the relationship of the proposal to any plans that are out
there, particularly any ones that the commission adopted,” said Commission
Chairman Alan Greenberger, who is also the city's deputy mayor for economic
development and, because of his role, a member of the Delaware River Waterfront
Corporation's board.
Thompson reminded board members that they unanimously
adopted the Master Plan for the Central Delaware last year. She said that
Tasker Street is an especially important street for pedestrian and cyclist access
to the trail that runs behind the big box stores, and it will be Pennsport's
only means of connecting to that waterfront.
She noted the site to the north that Blatstein just
purchased would likely become an urban, walkable, mixed-use development in
keeping with the master plan. Allowing this adjacent property to develop “in
the way development happened 10 years ago” would set an unfortunate precedent
and “set the Master Plan back just as it's beginning to take hold and create
positive change for the waterfront.”
Primavera said from either Columbus or Tasker, the business
would seem like any store or restaurant, with its customer entry and windows
facing the street. The travel agency/store would be located behind these
windows.
The 10 auto bays would be located in the rear of the
building, with five visible along the southern-most facade, which faces the
Home Depot parking lot. The other five bays can't be seen from the outside, but
a single door that provides access is located on the easternmost facade. This
is the facade closest to the river, but its immediate neighbor is Home Depot's
outdoor storage.
Customers would drive in from either Columbus or Tasker,
park in the spaces behind the building, and walk to the Columbus/Tasker
entrance, Murr said. An employee would fetch their car and drive it into either
one of the five visible bays facing south or the single door facing east.
Primavera also noted that while neighborhood residents like
to walk and bike on weekends, they need car services daily.
In an interview after the meeting, Blatstein said his plans
for the property to the north would “absolutely” be in keeping with the Master
Plan for the Central Delaware. He said he has no problem with AAA, and it may
be possible to craft this development in a way “to satisfy the needs of the
planning commission, Pennsport and other interested parties.”
But “the design needs to be sensitive to the new
waterfront.”
Blatstein said he'll personally be looking for a sidewalk of
at least 12 feet on Tasker – sufficient space for people and trees. The AAA car
access on Tasker should be an entrance only, he said, as Tasker could become a
one-way there in the future.
Thompson is right that this issue is important to Pennsport.
Pennsport Civic sent two board members to testify – Rene Goodwin, the
representative to CDAG, and Brian Newswanger, an architect with Atlantes
Architects.
Both reminded the PCPC of the unusual path the project took
before it landed before them: AAA was first granted an over-the-counter zoning
permit by L&I. Pennsport discovered this when workers began tearing down
the former construction company that was on the site.
Pennsport representatives were at first perplexed because
the use isn't allowed by right under the current Central Delaware Overlay. When
told that AAA's permit was applied for the day before the current overlay went
into effect, Pennsport – and later CDAG – asked that the permit be revoked
because the terms of the interim overlay that was in place at that time weren't
enforced by L&I, either.
At first L&I said it couldn't revoke a permit and told
Pennsport to appeal it. But earlier this year, L&I changed its mind and
told AAA that it would have to either reapply under the new overlay and seek
zoning relief, or file a Plan of Development for PCPC consideration, as the old
overlay required. AAA's decision to file that POD brought them before the PCPC
on Tuesday.
Goodwin spoke of the millions of dollars spent toward
waterfront planning and improvement projects like Race Street Pier and
Washington Avenue Green.
“But be very clear [the plan] is not a city beautification
project. This is about possibly the largest single development scheme since Ed
Bacon envisioned Society Hill, the benefits of which are still being realized.
This is economic development in its highest form.”
But Craig Schelter of the pro-development nonprofit The
Development Workshop asked the PCPC to consider how much sense it makes to
“hold off the owner of this site from being able to develop it in a way that is
sensitive to the neighborhood, while still paying taxes on it, because of the
hope that the land use would change over what is predominately there south of
Tasker Street today.”
Schelter, a former PCPC executive director and a frequent critic
of the Central Delaware Master Plan, said AAA's plan for Columbus Boulevard
wouldn't impede bicyclists or pedestrians, and the business would produce tax
revenue and jobs.
AAA will present its plans to Pennsport Civic Association on
April 29 and will be back before the PCPC for their Plan of Development hearing
sometime after that.
Commissioners had few questions on Tuesday; they will get
another chance to ask questions at the POD hearing.
Source: Philly.com
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