Zoned Out

Why did the city pass up a chance to greenify industrial land?

by Tom Namako

development

Michael T. Regan RECLAMATION ACT: Pia Varma and Steven Nebel had big plans to green up an industrial site north of NoLibs. The city has other ideas. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Newell Deussing bought the abandoned lot across the street from his Kensington-based pallet company for $200,000 in 2004. Around the perimeter of the triangle-shaped property was a graffiti wall, covered with bright cartoons of young men and topless women. The inside was once used as a dock for tractor-trailers.

It was a common-sense business move, he thought. Soon, one of several nearby industries will want to buy the land to expand their business. And when they did, he'd profit.

But three years later, there still was no sale. No profit, either. But even worse, there were no offers. "Now I just stack my extra pallets in there," Deussing says. "It's pretty simple now that I realize it: No one manufactures or warehouses here anymore."

The problem isn't that no one wants the land. Deussing did get a call from a small developer, Home(Scale), whose young owners are set to build in the city. They said they want to transform (or gentrify, take your pick) the land into the greenest 36 condominiums in the country. Think solar hot water, argon-insulated windows and heat pumps. They'd call it High Street.

So, Deussing and Home(Scale) CEO Steven Nebel looked around. It's obvious that the city's residential housing boom is extending past Northern Liberties. Across the street from the abandoned truck docks are upscale apartments built into the shell of an old lamp manufacturing warehouse — priced from $1,050 to $1,325 a month. Down the block are artist's lofts made from an old factory. Nebel promised a $40,000 deposit. They were both in. But the city wasn't. The catch was zoning. Since 1700 Germantown is zoned as G-2 industrial, which prohibits retail and residences, they would need the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) to approve a change.

Usually, that can be smoothed over if the city endorses the plan. Instead, Vincent Dougherty, the director of the Mayor's Business Action Team, wrote a Jan. 7 letter to the ZBA stating, "The Commerce Department has a great interest in preserving industrial land throughout the city" and opposed the Home(Scale) development. The next day Dougherty told the board the same thing in person.

The board gathered in a large conference room. Their meetings are nothing short of a circus. At any given time, the board secretary is yelling at people to be quiet and lawyers and developers are squeezing easels of renderings into the small presentation space. If someone talks for a beat too long, a board member cuts them off with impunity.

At the meeting, Dougherty gave the microphone to a woman, Annie Moss, who belongs to the Old Kensington Neighborhood Association. (After the meeting, Moss admitted that she actually lives in Jenkintown, "but my parents still live in Kensington," she said.) She told the board that she opposes the development "because jobs are more important."

Nebel then mentioned that he has the support of another community group, the Kensington South Neighborhood Advisory Council (KSNAC). Later that day, KSNAC executive director Marie Lachat said her group supports the development because "it's a balanced combination of residences and small businesses." (Lachat also admitted that she doesn't live in Kensington, either.)

The ZBA delayed its decision until Jan. 18. "We want to see the site," said William Hall, the vice chairman. But when that date came, the board decided to hand it off to their replacements who were recently appointed by Mayor Nutter. That group began hearing cases on Tuesday. No new hearing date has been set for High Street.

While the proposal winds its way through the municipal maze, it raises an interesting question: Should the city save industrial land that is barely used in case someone wants it? Or, should some of that land be changed to accommodate green residential development?

Whatever the new board decides, it'll give an insight into the future of a post-industrial city. Dougherty refused to elaborate on his opposition unless Nutter's office allowed him to be interviewed. They didn't.

Yet there's no lack of industrial landowners around American Street who disagree with Dougherty. This includes some who say they're trying to sell their land, and some who say they're happy with their business and aren't looking for a buyer.Mike Gatto, the owner of NCS Supply, an insulation distributor, said that as manufacturing leaves the country for overseas, and warehousing leaves for the more business-friendly tax structure in South Jersey, the city should allow green residences. "Come on. If there's someone willing to make a worthwhile development in the neighborhood, why would anyone oppose it?" he says.

Gatto says full-time residents in an area like American Street help reduce crime. "If I see someone jumping over somebody's fence when they're at work, I'll call the cops," he says. "And I've had people see guys try to break into my place at night, when I'm not there, and they've done the same."

But improving safety doesn't address the need for jobs, says Steve Jurash, president of the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia. "Manufacturing is the fourth-largest contributor to city revenue," he says. "It's ahead of education."

Several years ago, Jurash says, Philadelphia-based Amoroso Baking Company wanted to expand along American Street and needed another 100,000 square feet. Today, he says, businesses want that space spread out over one or two floors, not several stories up, the way warehouses were designed years ago. "We couldn't find 100,000 square feet anywhere in the city," he says. So Amoroso's ended up subcontracting the work to a facility in Vineland, N.J.

This anecdote — along with Dougherty's letter — gives the impression that the city's industrial land has been completely swallowed up by retailers like Wal-Mart and by residential and commercial uses. "These conversions," Dougherty wrote, "leave little industrial land and property available for industrial users" — the basis of the argument against Home(Scale).

Is there really a lack of industrial land in Philadelphia? Just crunch the numbers. According to Jurash and the city's own figures, 26 percent of the 92,414 acres that make up Philadelphia are zoned industrial. Thirty-five percent of those acres are either vacant, contaminated, or have "other uses." That leaves 8,409 acres, or 366,339,600 square feet of industrial land that is either unused or needs an environmental cleanup before development. Would the so-called nation's greenest development — requiring about 65,000 built square feet — really stop industry from locating here?

"Of course not," Nebel said. "Industry isn't buying it in the first place."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)