Retaking the Delaware

Instead of courting developers, Street is now paying attention to people.

by Bruce Schimmel

Last week, the contest between developers and residents tilted sharply in favor of the people. The man most to blame for letting developers have their way in our streets, and for losing control of our waterfront, finally made the right move.

On Columbus Day, John Street began retaking the Delaware riverfront — which of late has been appropriated by the state. Street created a task force which many say has the smarts to conceive a superb waterfront plan and the muscle to get it done.

A huge move, if a tad tardy. Because as we go to press, legislators in Harrisburg are voting to strip the city of some of its rights to control riverfront casino development.

"Too much development in this city is developer-driven," Street told the Inquirer , after signing the executive order for the riverfront task force. A welcome thought from this mayor — but one that surely sets a new high for understatement, given the mayor's long legacy of babying builders.

Street's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, for instance, needlessly ruined whole neighborhoods to provide blank canvases for private developers.

Then there's Street's zoning board chief, who has dealt with big developers with all the mental acuity of a bobblehead doll.

And the last time Street tried to fix the waterfront, his passion for big developers crashed. The insider he charged with creating an exclusive contract for Penn's Landing pleaded guilty to corruption charges. Since then, the mayor has shied away from the water, and his "New River City" plans have languished.

Now Street sounds like he's ready to dive in again, and this time, instead of courting developers, he's paying attention to the people. "Our goal [for this new group]," he said, "is to create a plan that has wide community acceptance."

To succeed, Street's waterfront planning group has got to grab some of the riverfront back from the state. And that means crossing swords with State Sen. Vince Fumo, who essentially sold his constituents down the river.

In a move of astonishing arrogance, Fumo has managed to ignore his constituents' rage, while the senator's political ally, City Councilman Frank DiCicco, got clobbered by them. The councilman attempted to smooth things over by proposing a planning commission of his own. But his plans died, because his own constituents didn't trust him.

Now, DiCicco should take credit for bringing the mayor back to the river — after he'd essentially abandoned it after being burned on Penn's Landing.

Street has assembled a huge planning panel, an army of about 45 to confront and cajole Fumo and Rendell. Unlike the Penn's Landing fiasco, this promises to be a big, inclusive public process.

The task force will be led by Penn Praxis, an urban planning group affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. Penn Praxis has impeccable credentials. I think they'll be able to manage a transparent process that values the views of everyday citizens. People like you and me, who want to reconnect this city to both of its rivers.

It would be a fine legacy for a lame duck mayor who may have finally figured out that ordinary people, not developers, have the wisdom to make a city great.

Growing Peace

"So can planting trees make peace in Philad-elphia neighborhoods?" asked one green activist.

"In the course of planting trees [in Kenya]," answered Maathai, "we saw the relationship between a degraded environment and social problems. A healthy environment produces healthy people, and a sick environment produces sick people."

"In Philadelphia," Maathai told me in an interview last year, "surely you can cut the grass, remove garbage and actually deal with empty areas in the city. That would empower ordinary people to take charge of their immediate environment. We are not as powerless as we are made to believe."

No, ma'am. We are not.

(bruce@schimmel.com)