Also this issue: Bloat On The Water The St. Joe’s boathouse is an affront to the city. -Harris M. Steinberg

April 17-23, 2003

cityspace

Garden of Eden

by Daniel Brook

When the word came down that Zoning Board of Adjustment Chairman Tom Kelly took a job in D.C., the little people in the city who feel that zoning should be for residents, not developers, got together to lobby the mayor to appoint a replacement more to their liking. Kelly, a leader of the sheet metal workers union, was famous for insisting that air-conditioning (which his members installed) be included in new construction in the city.

Neighborhood associations banded together to ask that one of their own be appointed. Architects and city planners clamored for someone with a design background. In the end, the mayor chose Judith Eden, an attorney who has worked on zoning issues for the Center City Residents Association (CCRA) and SCRUB, an anti-billboard group.

Eden says she will be an asset to the board because she knows zoning from her public service, not from working at a large law firm or development company. "I've developed a great deal of expertise as a zoning attorney," she says, "outside of a large law firm that represents a lot of [zoning permit] applicants."

The design crowd views Eden as an improvement and they are happy to see an appointee from outside the development axis of evil -- the building trades unions, the developers and the corporate law firms that represent them. But the design community remains puzzled as to why a five-member board can't have one person with design credentials. William Becker, co-founder of the Design Advocacy Group, says, "I am pleased to see that Judith Eden was appointed to the Zoning Board because of her long and outstanding record of community and neighborhood activism, but we remain disappointed that there is not a qualified design professional -- an architect or an urban designer, city planner or landscape architect -- on the Zoning Board. The Zoning Board deals with a lot of complex issues that affect the physical environment of the city and the public interest in important ways. And the public interest will be served by having a professional who is trained to understand the impact that these issues will have on the general public as one of the voices sitting at the table."

Eden agrees, saying that the design community should "lobby for it when there's another vacancy in the future because I think it's great to have a relevant perspective."