Also this issue: The Too-Fast Lane How poor planning encourages high-speed driving in West Philadelphia. -Steve Conn

February 13-19, 2003

cityspace

Zoning By Design

by Daniel Brook

The Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has drafted a letter to Mayor Street urging him to appoint a design professional to chair the Zoning Board of Adjustment. The departure of Tom Kelly, who recently took a job in D.C., has opened up the chairman's position. Kelly, whose day job was running the local sheet metal workers union, was known more for his insistence on requiring central air-conditioning in new projects than for his sense of urban design. (Kelly's members are needed to install the metal ductwork used in central air systems.) Other members of the board include political consultant Eleanor Dezzi and Famous 4th Street Deli owner David Auspitz (father of City Paper arts editor Debra Auspitz), but no architects or city planners.

According to John Egan, the co-chair of the AIA's Urban Design Committee, the main criterion in the past for membership on the zoning board was political connections, not design education or experience. But the board, he argues, "has a real effect on the face of the city [and so it's] really important to have representation on it from the design community."

Egan says the approval of the Jefferson University garage on Chestnut Street was the last straw, prompting the AIA, which normally keeps its distance from politics, to draft a letter to the mayor. "Jefferson Hospital is an example where the planning commission staff actually proposed that the variance request be opposed but the board voted in favor of it," Egan says. "Having an architect on the zoning board will make it more likely that these design controls are followed."

Egan says it was unusual for the AIA to take a position on the Jefferson garage since an AIA member firm, Bower Lewis Thrower Architects, worked on the project. "There's been sort of a tradition among the chapter not [to] take a position on a project that one of the member firms was working on," he says. According to Egan, partners in the firm are not signing the letter. "In all fairness, they're aware of all these design issues and they presented them to their client. [But Jefferson] decided to ignore those design considerations."

In addition to the AIA, the Coalition of Philadelphia Neighborhood Associations has requested that the mayor appoint someone who has "professional credentials" and is "community-oriented."

Christine Ottow, a spokesperson in the mayor's press office, says, "We have not made a decision yet on Tom Kelly's replacement. We are considering a wide range of backgrounds that may or may not include architecture and design."