Photos by Ed Hille

June 26

Action Plan for Central Delaware Waterfront

By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

     Thursday night Mayor Michael Nutter whipped up the riverfront faithful with the news that he, too, believed in their Central Delaware vision.
     "I share your vision for our waterfront," he said. "Tonight, we talk about a Declaration on the Delaware."
     Nutter thanked the citizens, the waterfront neighborhood organizations, the politicians and the planners for the months of brainstorming that led first to a vision of a river of play, of work, of public access and then to the plan on how to make that vision real - the action plan that was unveiled that night.
     Nutter shared their faith in Philadelphia, he told them, but that was not enough - not if this plan was to be kept off a dusty shelf. It was time for work, he said, and he told his rapt audience he had already started.
     The vision needs a manager, a guide to take it from paper to reality, so says the Action Plan for the Central Delaware – 10 steps designed to implement the civic vision for the Delaware over the next 10 years.  Nutter said he has begun work on a new agency whose sole mission is to shepherd the plan from paper to reality.
    To make way for it, he will demystify the secretive and often-criticized Penn's Landing Corporation, he told the crowd of 500 gathered, ironically enough, at Penn's Landing - in the Independence Seaport Museum.
    Nutter pledged to name new board members within a month. Maybe the group needed a new name - he casually called it the Delaware Waterfront Corporation. It would certainly have a new way of doing business, he said. Meetings will be open, as will the books. The website will contain helpful information. He queued the music, and "Let the Sunshine In" flooded the auditorium. The audience got it - they got everything about the mayor's address.  They liked his wit, they liked his charm, they really liked his plans to re-examine the casino question.

     Nutter asked Penn Praxis, the clinical arm of the Penn School of Design and the group that brought Philadelphians together to create the Central Delaware Plan, to take a look and report back to him in two months.
    "Let me be clear again: I share the opinion that the two casinos, as currently designed, simply do not fit with the Civic Vision" for the waterfront, Nutter said. He said he wants Penn Praxis to review the casino designs and determine whether they can contribute to the future of the waterfront as is or in a modified form - or if there is no way to make any casino fit into the plan.
    Penn Praxis Executive Director Harris Steinberg moderated a discussion of the Action Plan just prior to Nutter's speech. He, too, said that the casinos, as designed, did not fit the vision. "They are large windowless boxes" that would rely heavily on automotive traffic, he said. But Steinberg indicated that if Foxwoods and SugarHouse do open on the Delaware, they could be redesigned in ways that would better match the human-scale streetscape the Central Delaware vision calls for.
     The audience, many of whom had worked on the Vision and the implementation plan, liked it when Steinberg said it, too. But the audience was devoid of people who want the casinos. The governor wasn't there talking about tax relief, pro-casino group Fishtown FACT wasn't there talking about jobs, and the developers of Foxwoods and SugarHouse were not there to remind everyone that they have no intention of building elsewhere, or in another way.
    Reached by email after the event, SugarHouse spokeswoman Leigh Whitaker said that whatever Praxis recommends to the city, it will not affect SugarHouse's plans.
    "The City Planning Commission approved our Plan of Development in May 2007. In addition, when the Supreme Court ruled in our favor in December, they deemed our Plan of Development to be finally approved and requiring no further action from City Council. The Supreme Court, in the same order, also required the City to zone our site as a CED and process our permit applications," she said. "We plan to build our casino as designed and as approved by the Planning Commission."
    Foxwoods spokeswoman Maureen Garrity, also responding by email, had similar sentiments and clearly expressed frustration over the design and location examination.
    "The Supreme Court has been very clear:  The City cannot determine casino sites.  The Court has also been clear in its mandate to the City that it must comply with the law and allow our project to move forward," she said.
    "Foxwoods has attempted to work with this administration and to adhere to the law.  Still, the City refuses to comply with the Supreme Court’s order and continues to engage in a pattern of delay, leaving us few options but to return to the Court for relief.
    Mayor Street championed casinos as a way to reduce city wage taxes and boost development. Garrity pointed out that while Nutter has been critical of the casinos, he "anticipates receiving revenues from both Philadelphia casinos in 2011" in his budget projections.   
    Nutter said it was good to bring Praxis in because they are an objective third party, but reflecting on Steinberg's remarks at the event, Garrity said she does not agree.
    "It is further confusing that Penn Praxis can be called an 'honest, legitimate third-party,' to conduct an analysis of casino plans when its executive director continues to say casinos don’t fit into their plan."
    Steinberg said that Praxis does not have a bias.
"We are agnostic on use. It's about form, the impact of traffic and access to the riverfront," he said. "Any form of development, not just casinos, would be held to these standards."
    Garrity said that Foxwoods' plans actually are consistent with many of the Central Delaware waterfront plan's development goals. "We fully intend to move forward with our project – which includes landscaped areas, waterfront access and biking and walking trails - on our site on South Columbus Boulevard," she said.
    The casino wars are far from over. The Supreme Court is still considering whether the city had the right to issue a license for SugarHouse to build into the riverbank under the pro-casino Street administration, and, if it did, whether the Nutter administration had the right to revoke it. The casino needs that permit to build as planned.  And the SugarHouse site - just up the street from the Thursday night gathering - is still undergoing a historical review. The spot was once the home of a Revolutionary War Fort and, long before that, much Native American activity. The Army Corp of Engineers must weigh the potential impact on history when determining whether to give SugarHouse another permit it needs to build as planned.
    Legislative battles are also being waged, and some similar battles rage on around Foxwoods, too. For example, after modifying their plan, Foxwoods officials say they no longer need a riparian license - the kind SugarHouse is now fighting for in the Supreme Court. But local state legislators, who maintain that the General Assembly has the exclusive right to grant riparian licenses to a project of this size, say the casino does need this license.  And they promise a legal battle if Foxwoods starts to build without one.
 
    In a telephone interview Friday, Steinberg said that Penn Praxis' charge centered around the design questions, not the political ones.
    And from a design standpoint, it is possible to create casinos that fit the plan. Something that "is not only acceptable, but that would make the casinos contributing members of the waterfront," he said.
    The scale of individual buildings could be changed to fit the street grid the plan calls for creating at the waterfront, he said. People could arrive at the casinos via public transit, or park their cars off-site.
   That doesn't mean Steinberg doesn't see the difficulties. He sees three major obstacles:
   "As currently designed, the casinos follow the American business model of a big box in a sea of parking," he said.
    The state has mandated that the casinos turn over 54 percent of their revenue, and when a business is forced to fork over that much, it isn't left with a lot of room in a budget to spend on design, he said.
    "Third, these sites were selected as part of the Gaming Control Board's process - so the sites and the developers came as one. And that pre-dated the Civic Vision. And the Planning Commission approved their plans."
     So changing the way the casinos would look and work will be hard, he said, "But that's where you would imagine the city and its regulatory authority could play a role, depending on where things shake out in the Supreme Court right now."
    Steinberg said he is uncertain how the mayor intends to use the information Praxis will provide. Also, he does not yet know whether that report will include suggestions on how to address some of the obstacles to changing the casinos, he said.
    Nutter spokeswoman Maura Kennedy would not discuss the feasibility of getting the casinos to change their plans, saying it would be premature to do so before Praxis makes its recommendations.
    "We aren't going to anticipate their results," she said. "We are going to let them have a thoughtful discussion, and once we see their findings, we will create our actions from there."
    But Thursday night was not about such obstacles. The crowd, their mayor and the other speakers did not dwell on the obstacles in the way of their hopes for the waterfront. The mayor was head cheer leader, the audience was at a pep rally. They all were focused only on the waterfront goals.
    The Action Plan calls for the development of parks and trails along the river, and Nutter said he was going to get right on that, too.
    Audible wows and gasps could be heard when Nutter promised the city would turn a run-down pier at the foot of Race Street into a park - the sort of "urban front lawn" that New York City has created with some of its old Hudson River piers - by next summer.
   "Let this reclamation serve as our lighthouse to transform other derelict and dangerous places into green space," he said.
    The mayor also pledged $250,000 to match grant money the Center City District has received to build a waterfront trail. 
    Nutter and other speakers said that the waterfront would never live up to its potential without good planning, which takes time. But something had to happen quickly, they said, to protect the resource while the city works on new zoning and a master plan.
    Nutter said Councilman Frank DiCicco and the City Planning Commission were already working on an interim waterfront zoning bill that would be proposed to Council this fall.
     As Nutter neared the end of his remarks, he once again thanked those who helped create the plan. "You've heard me say it's a new day and a new way for Philadelphia," he told them. "You are the true embodiment of that process."
     With that, he asked the audience to think ahead. His audio/visual team showed a simulated airplane ride over the Central Delaware after the plan has had its impact. This was the same video Penn Praxis played when it unveiled the vision the Action Plan is based on.  As the song Proud Mary played, the audience spontaneously began to clap to the beat of "rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river."

Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com

• Nutter's Planned Remarks.doc

April 14
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
 
Invite a couple of hundred people to become critics, and you’re bound to get mixed reviews.
 
That’s what the Kimmel Center and PennPraxis heard tonight from citizens who had been invited to respond to proposals by students of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Arts for redesigns of the public portions of the performing arts building.
 
The students’ ideas ranged from the whimsical (a huge rock-climbing wall) to the possible (a sidewalk café) to the inspired (a rooftop oasis with a translucent aqua floor).
 
The reactions ranged from excitement to apprehension to rejection. But it was obvious that the proposals offered much to embrace and build upon.

 
Kimmel officials began the conversation about enlivening the center’s public spaces last fall, explained executive vice president Natalye Paquin.  While its Perelman and Verizon Halls have drawn crowds and a degree of success since the building opened in 2001, it had never realized the goal of becoming a cultural mecca for events that are not performance-driven, Paquin said.
 
So the Kimmel partnered with PennPraxis, the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Great Expectations program to initiate a “dynamic dialogue” with city residents about the overall space, she said. Four public discussions, involving about 200 people, were held in January to develop guiding principles for rethinking the exterior and interior spaces. That input was combined with online suggestions to serve as the foundation of the undergraduate and graduate students’ redesigns.
 

Cafe Corner

“Tonight’s ideas are preliminary,” said PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg, “and they are part of an ongoing dialogue about achieving excellence in design, with the Kimmel at the heart of it.” The goal is to make the building “a beacon and an icon” for future audiences, but the ideas may take years to achieve, he said.
 
One group of students attempted to humanize the Kimmel’s public spaces, seeking ways to make portions of the grand center more intimate. Among the group’s more dramatic suggestions was a stairway that wrapped around the Perelman Hall and around a new elevator to the rooftop. The garden at the top was transformed into a sculptural playground. Comfortable lounge seating was introduced in the Commonwealth Plaza for lingering and wifi use. Large graphic signs and maps directed visitors to the seldom-visited corners of the Kimmel. A new entrance was created at Spruce and 15th Streets, and glass was added along Spruce to invite passers-by inside.
 
The second group of students tried to reconnect the center to other forms of art. A tower was erected in the middle of Commonwealth Plaza with stairs that connected to the tiers of the building. The plan also called for the creation of small performance spaces, a reflective pool on the rooftop, and a hanging mobile in a glass enclosure at Broad and Spruce.
 
The third group added sensory dimensions to the center. The rooftop floor would be glass, with water flowing underneath and into a seven-story water wall. A vertical garden with plush greenery and a rock-climbing wall to “invigorate the entire body” were among the other creative suggestions.
 
In smaller group discussions, the audience offered their critiques.
 

Humanize Perelman stairs

Many applauded the proposals to open a second entrance to the Kimmel and increase the use of glass on the ground floor to bring the inside out and the outside in. “I like anything that brings in more light,” said Sheila Rosenbloom.
 
But Rosenbloom was concerned about the cost of some of the student ideas, and she wondered if any of the young planners had attended events at the Kimmel that attracted large crowds. The proposals for new furnishings and architectural additions might work for daytime audiences but would be intrusive in the evening, she said. “The space has to accommodate the primary purpose – the concerts.”
 
Identifying herself as a psychologist, Ruth Harvey emphasized the need for spaces and uses that would take advantage of “interactive qualities,” and “not interactivity with a computer.” The rock-climbing wall was one of the few activities proposed that “people could do together.” Rather than reflective, meditative interior spaces, the Kimmel needs to create opportunities “where people can involve themselves with each other, and make connections with each other,” she said.
 
Marsha Moss was opposed to the proposed tower for Commonwealth Plaza, a vertical structure that would “undermine the integrity” of the building, which she described as “a work of art.”
 
Josepha Gayer, an opera singer, agreed that the tower was “imposing,” but she liked the idea of stairs emanating from the tower that linked the many levels of the interior. Other participants in the group discussions liked scaled-down versions of the students’ visions.
Large graphic signs would interfere with the architecture of the Kimmel, many said, but most agreed that more signs are sorely needed.
 
“I’ve been here 100 times,” said Beth-Ellen Kroope. “But I’ve only gone up to the roof once – on a tour,” because it is so hard to find. “We need easy access,” she said.
 

Water and vegetation elements

Thomas Morr liked the proposal for a water wall, but not seven stories high. He suggested a smaller version behind the bar to “create visual interest in that space.” Marsha Moss suggested a “meandering, human-scale” stream of water would be more appropriate.
 
A younger member of the discussion group, Donald Maley, cast his support for the “bolder ideas.”
 
“To me, they are more exciting. Speaking for the 20-something crowd, I like the large, bold outdoor signage” proposed by the students, which would inform him when there is a concert he’d like to attend while he was walking home from work.
 

Spruce Street facade

Maley’s friend and peer, Clinton Randall, noted that 70 percent of the Kimmel space is not used. “It’s not about adding, but repositioning what’s already here,” he said. “I like the idea of subtle modifications, which help people realize there’s more space than they’re using.”
 
A still younger participant, 10-year-old David Bulack, would like the Kimmel to add more stores to the retail space and add more color in the windows. Colors, rather than signage, could lead guests through the building, suggested his mother, Patty Bulack.
 
“We should think of this space as a hotel,” said Morr, “with many uses that can accommodate many kinds of interests.”
 

Plaza tower

Adding a closing note to the group discussion was Jack Nixon, who revealed that he is the director of engineering for the Kimmel Center. “There needs to be something to do when you get here,” besides attending a concert, Nixon agreed. “We realize there are things that need to change – and can change. There are some relatively simple things, like better seating and more programming. Anything that attracts people into the building is good.
 
“I’d like to think that this is going to be here in 100 years.”
 
Over the next three weeks, the Penn and University of the Arts students will incorporate tonight’s public feedback into a process book that will be presented to the Kimmel Center for its consideration. The contents will be made available online at www.planphilly.com.
 
 

Rooftop playgrounds

Contact the reporter at alanjaffe@mac.com

• KimmelDesignPrinciples_web.pdf

March 31

 
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
 
Over the last 18 months, the city has had a case of “civic engagement” fever. The symptoms are a rash of Sharpie-wielding facilitators, an outbreak of breakout groups, a yen for cold cuts and cookies, and contagious debates on the future of Philadelphia.
 
• PennPraxis asked communities to rethink what can be done on the Central Delaware Riverfront.
• Great Expectations sessions were organized by The Inquirer to figure out how to make us the next great city.
• Multiple city agencies and organizations led Green Plan discussions on how to improve the environment.
• The City Planning Commission set up a circuit of Imagine Philadelphia roundtables as the first phase in drawing up a new comprehensive plan.
 
And there are more requests for your presence coming down the pike. Anyone with a mind to share an opinion has had a choice of soapboxes and a variety of willing ears.
 
But what is behind the recent spate of invitations and concern for public input? Just how much longer will people show up before they sink into civic engagement fatigue? And why does the city seem so damned democratic lately?
 
Athens, Rome, Philadelphia

Coordinating the civic engagement programs for both Great Expectations and PennPraxis has been Harris Sokoloff, director of the Center for School Study Councils at the University of Pennsylvania. Sokoloff traces the framework of that work to the senates of Athens and Rome.
 
“In every decision-making process we have where people come together in some sort of equal terms, we use some form of deliberative model,” going back to those early republics. “The tools we’re using are different; the ideas are still the same. It’s still a matter of: people get together, find a way to identify the issues, what the pros and cons are, the different ways of understanding the issues and the different forms of action, and use that in the decision-making.”
 
As in ancient Rome, “power politics” always play a part, Sokoloff adds, but there are ways to keep the process transparent and the public an important partner.
 
Beverly A. Harper traces her involvement in modern civic engagement to the early 1970s. Harper is founder, president and CEO of Portfolio Associates Inc., the agency that managed the series of Imagine Philadelphia meetings held in neighborhoods around the city over the winter.
 
Back in the ‘70s, Portfolio Associates conducted a study for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that examined how and where citizens could become involved in the transportation planning process. The agency surveyed the 50 state transportation departments around the country, then took an in-depth look at four departments’ experiences with civic engagement.
 
“We found that in the Boston area there was almost a billion dollars in projects that had been stopped because of public involvement,” which occurred at “a very late stage in the projects,” Harper said.
 
“Involving the public early in a realistic way – and realistic means letting them know all of the different factors that will go into the decision-making – does help a project have a smoother development,” she said. “If you involve them early enough and know the kinds of issues and concerns that they have, you can do things to mitigate some of those concerns.”
 
Civic involvement programs continued into the 1980s, according to Harper, then trailed off for the next 10 years or so. The resurgence in Philadelphia is the result of several factors, she said.
 
“I think that part of it has to do with federal guidelines related to the National Environmental Policy Act,” the 1970 measure that required federal agencies to prepare Environmental Impact Statements before taking action and then sharing the information with the public. “Many government-funded projects and public agencies use those guidelines to identify the projects where they need engagement,” Harper explained.
 
Another reason for greater public involvement is governments’ limited funds and resources, she continued. “So one of the ways to help identify what should be done, and how it should be done, is by engaging citizens.”
 
The third factor is increased sophistication on the part of the citizenry, Harper believes. “Thanks in part to the Internet, they can find out what’s going on. When there are things they don’t like, they know how to get involved and who they should be contacting.”
 

Sokoloff’s plunge into the deep end of civic engagement came in 1995, in partnership with Inquirer editorial page editor Chris Satullo. Each year Sokoloff and Satullo took on a new topic that included civic engagement initiatives, from national to local issues, on everything from health care to the needs of a particular school building.
 
Over the past year, their collaboration on Great Expectations was part of a larger effort, the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, which also included the Delaware waterfront project led by PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg. Sokoloff, Satullo and Steinberg had worked together four years before on the attempt to find a developer and the right development for Penn’s Landing.
 
Sokoloff said the civic trend is due to the realization on the part of government leaders and agencies that “those who must be involved in supporting or solving a problem or challenge ought to be involved in naming and framing the problem, and in helping to find a solution.”
 
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for example, recently acknowledged that he can’t do anything without the support and involvement of other people, Sokoloff said.
 
“The leaders can no longer say ‘do this’ and it happens,” he said. “Issues are too complex; the solutions are too complex. Everything requires adaptation. …It requires a different kind of citizen involvement and engagement, and that’s why you’re seeing all these community forums.”
 
The Right Model
 
There are many models for conducting civic engagement, Sokoloff said, and he doesn’t claim to have the best one, “though we try to make it better and are constantly revising it.”
 
In too many cases, the process takes the form of an expert- or advocate-driven discussion. “An expert gets up in the front of the room, makes a presentation, and has a question-and-answer period. Or there may be a group of people who have developed an agenda and all they want to happen is for all the people to bless the agenda,” he said.
 
Liz Gabor, a real estate manager at the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, was a participant in two civic engagement efforts in recent months. The Imagine Philadelphia session, she said, was an “organic” interchange in which neighbors were asked to brainstorm solutions to city problems. “People were imaginative and came up with very good ideas.”
 
But Gabor said her experience in the Great Expectations did not seem as productive. “We were told, ‘read this report and comment on it.’ It was too guided.”
 
Another participant in both the Imagine Philadelphia and Great Expectations sessions found them equally constructive. “I heard similar comments at each meeting and a consistency in what people were saying,” said Jo Ann Desper, a senior consultant for a healthcare services company. “They were both good, open forums.”
 
Public involvement means more than meetings at which participants offer opinions and possible solutions, Harper said. “That is one tool that you can use to get reaction and input. There are lots of others that can be used,” including surveys, focus groups, and online interaction.
 
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is in the midst of a public outreach effort for its long-range strategy, entitled “Connections – The Regional Plan for a Sustainable Future.” An online survey is underway through the end of March that will help refine planning in the areas of transportation, land use, economic development and the environment. The survey will be followed by planning exercises, focus groups and public workshops.
 
The public meetings have dimensions beyond surveys, Harper said. They serve as an educational tool that shows participants how the next person thinks, and they provide “directly and subtly an empathy and understanding of the position that the agency or organization has in trying to come up with a plan, knowing that everyone is not going to be of one mind.”
 
Those differing views are a vital component of civic engagement. A diverse group of participants is a primary goal in calling the meetings. “I was very pleased with the diversity of the Imagine Philadelphia sessions,” Harper said. “It was diverse in lots of different ways. The meeting in West Philadelphia had lots of young people, and I thought that was terrific. In the Northeast, there were lots of Eastern Europeans, but they were from different ethnic groups. I’m very happy with the cross-section we achieved” over the course of the nine citywide meetings.
 
Sokoloff also seeks a diverse group of participants. “The idea is always to make the group as inclusive as possible – by gender, ethnicity, race, and different levels of expertise,” he said. “The more diversity, the richer the conversation.”
 
While different viewpoints are sought, the civic engagement sessions organized for Penn’s design department or the meetings for the City Planning Commission did not specifically invite developers to the table.
 
But they would not have been turned away, either. “For Imagine Philadelphia, we wanted to hear from ordinary citizens,” Harper said. Developers may have attended, but they would have probably been there in their roles as residents. “The only people we explicitly invited by letter were elected officials.”

In the Central Delaware engagement process, separate meetings were held with developers to gather their input and expertise. “That’s where you say, ‘We’re going to have a closed session with developers.’ And when you do that, you let people know you’re doing it,” Sokoloff said. “It is a matter of transparency, but I like to think beyond transparency to co-production – the idea of experts working with citizens.”
 
Too Much of a Good Thing?
 
Even an engaged citizen may need to rest his voice occasionally. To prevent civic exhaustion, Harper suggests more collaboration among agencies. Portfolio Associates is currently undertaking public research into two projects – one looking at ways to ease traffic congestion on the west side of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the other exploring an extension of the PATCO line along the waterfront – with a combined questionnaire and meetings that will ask stakeholders about both issues.
 
“This is to recognize that people’s time is valuable. I think we need to do a little bit more of that,” she said. “So that you’re not asking the public to come out too many times.”
 
A more serious problem arises when organizers of civic engagement create “unrealistic expectations about how much say people will have in a project. I think it’s something you have to repeat early and often – that this is just one of the factors you use in the decision-making process,” Harper emphasized. “I think it is incumbent upon organizations who are managing this process to be truthful with people about what their involvement is going to mean.”
 
There must be an implementation mechanism in place, she said, to show participants their input had a result. If there is no implementation, “I think that hurts other efforts,” she said.
 
The new Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Charles Ramsey, conducted his own form of civic engagement, a round of six town hall meetings in the six police districts, when he took office earlier this year.
 
“The commissioner had said he wanted to get the public’s input for developing a plan for Philadelphia,” explained Lt. Frank Vanore, of the police public affairs department. “He knows about policing, but he didn’t know Philadelphia. He was following a format he did in Washington, D.C., where he held town hall meetings to create his strategy.”
 
According to Vanore, Commissioner Ramsey took notes at every meeting in Philadelphia and shaped a plan to fit each neighborhood. The result? “Some of those things the people said went verbatim right into his plans.” The commissioner’s Crime Fighting Strategy was then posted on the police department’s website for town hall participants to read.
 
Every municipal or regional issue does not require public involvement sessions, Sokoloff said. “You don’t want to do it with every decision. … You’d get stuck. You don’t have time to do it all. There’s so much that has to be done quickly.”
 
The problems that require the most “citizen adaptation” are those that call for citizen participation, he said.
 
But keeping the public engaged through rounds of meetings is “a real challenge,” Sokoloff said. “It’s a possibility that they will get fatigued. I think it’s less likely to happen if what comes out of the engagement – the action steps, policies, proposals, whatever – is responsive to the citizen voice.
 
“The minute you engage the public in this kind of conversation, you have a responsibility to tell them what you heard, what you did with what you heard, and how what you heard impacted your decisions,” he said.
 
“People need to know their time is being well spent. They need to know they’re making a difference.”
 
Desper, the healthcare services consultant, hasn’t tired of civic engagement after participating in two projects. “The more of these the better, as far as I’m concerned. They are a wonderful example of our government working the way it should. They are opening up opportunities for what citizens want at a very basic level.”
 
Contact the reporter at alanjaffe@mac.com

Foxwoods aeriel view

Jan. 29

Rendell calls council stance gutless

Casino-Free Philadelphia challenges the governor

By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

   Philadelphia still faces a lawsuit that was filed after its Commerce Department gave SugarHouse Casino a permit to build on riverbed land - even though the city revoked that permit last week.
   "We really think it's a moot point since we revoked the licenses," said Maura Kennedy, a spokesperson for Mayor Michael Nutter. The city filed a brief with the Supreme Court stating as much shortly after Nutter announced the permit decision Friday.
   But state Rep. Mike O'Brien - one of the cadre of local legislators who filed the lawsuit in late December, said the case is not about whether a permit exists, but who has the right to grant one. The legislature does, he says, and the city does not. The city disagrees.
   When making last Friday’s announcement, Nutter criticized the administration of former mayor John Street for its handling of the permit, saying errors were made and the decision was rushed.  But Nutter's legal staff agrees with Street's -- and SugarHouse's -- that a 1907 law gives the city the right to make the call on riparian rights.
    "The city does have a right to decide, it was just done improperly," Kennedy said.

Sugarhouse aeriel view

 Historically, the right to build a project the size of SugarHouse on riverbed land - also called riparian or submerged lands -  has been granted through an act of the state legislature. But tradition holds that only a legislator representing the district where a project is located introduces that legislation. None of the local contingent were anywhere close to doing that for SugarHouse when the casino's attorneys found the 1907 law and applied to the City Commerce Department.
    The legislators and their legal experts maintain that newer laws - including the Administrative Code of 1929 and the Dam Safety and Encroachment Act of 1978 - override the old law.
  "The initial cause for action no longer stands, (but) the overriding principle of law does," O'Brien said, and thus the lawsuit will go on.
    In another twist, SugarHouse officials are now using the lawsuit filed when their revoked riparian rights license was issued to argue that the license should stand.
  "We have been advised by our legal team that the City’s action to rescind our submerged lands license is contrary to law given the pending litigation surrounding that license," said Greg Carlin, chief executive officer of HSP Gaming, the company developing the casino.
    Nutter anticipates the Commerce Department will take a second look at whether SugarHouse should have a license to build on riverbed lands. SugarHouse has 30 days to appeal the revocation, and that appeal would launch the process, Kennedy said. She said there would be at least one public hearing.
  SugarHouse executives don't think they should have to appeal the revocation, because they believe the permit should stand. They filed a brief with the Supreme Court detailing these arguments.
  Spokeswoman Leigh Whitaker said SugarHouse has not yet decided whether it will file an appeal, anyway. "We're exploring all of our options," she said.
   Philadelphia's other proposed riverfront casino, Foxwoods, may also find itself in a riparian rights battle - even though officials say they do not need to build on the submerged lands. 
  

   Foxwood's changed its original proposal by pulling in a promenade, and so, officials have said, they no longer need riparian rights.
  But some state and local leaders disagree.
  In fact, the very day that Nutter announced SugarHouse's submerged lands license had been revoked, City Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced city legislation that would give Foxwoods the zoning it needs to build. But DiCicco's proposal contains several conditions that Foxwoods must meet first, and one of them is that they are granted riparian rights, via the state legislature.
  DiCicco's spokesman Brian Abernathy said last week that Foxwoods first proposal, which required riparian rights, was a better design and the one that was approved by the Gaming Control Board.
   Abernathy predicted that Foxwoods wouldn't like the conditions on the proposal, which must make it through committee and then be read twice more before city council before it could be adopted. He was right.
  Foxwoods spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said in written statements that the riparian rights condition and the others are unlike anything that council has demanded of a zoning applicant up to this point, and therefore unlikely to hold up in court.
   "We believe very strongly in our legal position, and we believe the City will have a difficult time in abandoning the position it has consistently taken in this case and in its last two filings with the Supreme Court," she said.
   It was the Supreme Court that gave SugarHouse the zoning it needed, saying that the city had intentionally stalled for too long. That ruling prompted DiCicco to submit the zoning proposal, in hopes that the city would retain some power in the matter.  The zoning is necessary before Foxwoods can move very far, because the zoning permit is a prerequisite of others. Foxwoods has not received any of the permits it needs yet, but "we're working with (the state's Department of Environmental Protection) to determine the appropriate permits for our project," said Garrity. Foxwoods is also working with the city's water and sewer departments, she said.
   O'Brien believes even Foxwoods' amended plan actually requires riparian rights. Regardless of what happens with City Council, if Foxwoods begins construction without securing riparian rights, O'Brien pledged to seek a restraining order and file a lawsuit "as soon as they put a spade in the ground."
 
Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com

• SuagrHouse stay order request.pdf
• 2008[1].01.24, 207 + 208, City Mootness Sugarhouse.pdf

Nov. 14

By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly

A new vision for the Central Delaware waterfront, forged over 13 months in more than 200 collaborative, occasionally contentious civic meetings, was formally introduced last night with dramatic flare and some compromise on the most disputed elements.

Inquirer coverage
Metro coverage
Daily Pennsylvanian
 
The proposal to bury a section of I-95 was softened by less drastic options. The dense riverfront street grid was proposed with a nod toward developers’ concerns. And the casinos, the hottest issue, were plotted on the plan – and then dissolved on an alternative map.
 
The audience of about 1,200 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center cheered the proposals and offered a standing ovation to the concluding video fly-over, a time-warp that transformed the current waterfront into an active, thriving scene of green spaces and well-balanced development and communities.
 
Public reaction

Approval for the plan, which was coordinated by PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the design department at the University of Pennsylvania, came from nearly every front. Mayor Street lauded the process for engaging the river ward communities and taking on a challenge that has eluded the city for decades. Michael DiBerardinis, secretary of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, called the Civic Vision “meaningful and important.” Riverfront developer Bart Blatstein said the plan is “a great start.”
 
Dissenting voices in the audience condemned any allowance for casinos, intermittently disrupting the presentation by PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg, who has guided the Civic Vision through several combative meetings. Outside the Convention  Center, a six-foot skunk urged people to wear clothespins to show their displeasure with the Foxwoods and SugarHouse sites.
 
A panel of government, business and community leaders were invited to respond to the presentation, and they lent their support to most aspects of the plan. But there was a clash over the issue of funding a major I-95 reconfiguration. Rina Cutler, deputy secretary at PennDot, warned that an estimated $10 billion needed to depress the interstate at Penn’s Landing would be hard, if not impossible, to raise. Mayor Street disagreed. Initial response to large projects is always negative, Street said, but “there is plenty of money” if the public says “this is the priority.”
 
Overall, the evening was upbeat, congratulatory, and very hopeful.


Councilman Frank DiCicco, whose constituents’ fears of waterfront gaming sparked his suggestion that the city create a master plan for the Central Delaware, said the unveiling last night was “the highlight of my political career.” He thanked the William Penn Foundation for providing more than $1.6 million for this first phase of the waterfront process. He also credited Street for signing the executive order in October 2006 that charged PennPraxis with leading the effort. 
 

The mayor noted that “plan after plan failed” to make the best use of the 13-acre parcel on the Center City riverfront. “The thing that should distinguish this report from other studies is you,” he told the audience last night. “We never had this kind of community engagement” in the process before, and “what will deter it from sitting on a shelf is you not letting it happen.”
 
With just over 50 days left in his term, he urged that the plan more forward with the formation of an organization that will take up the banner and “ensure that this work has not been done in vain.”
 
Steinberg then took the podium to present the culmination of his team’s year-long labor in an eloquent, 30-minute sales pitch. With archival, contemporary and conceptual images of the waterfront beamed on two screens flanking him, and on screens in an adjoining hall for the overflow crowd, Steinberg emphasized the historical and regional context of the Central Delaware -- from William Penn’s arrival, through the riverfront’s industrial dominance, through the traffic-jammed state of things today. The initial question was, “how do we create a framework for growth?” he said.
 

PennPraxis conferred with elected officials and every civic group with a stake in the waterfront so that the “pinheads from Penn,” as he heard one resident describe his team, “would not impose their image on the waterfront.”
 

The planners relied on the values expressed by residents in that series of meetings, and on the best practices for riverfront redevelopment accomplished in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Hoboken. “Man, if we can’t beat Hoboken,” Steinberg laughed.
 
What the Philadelphia team came up with was three frameworks based on movement, open space, and development.
 

Movement refers to connections across and beneath I-95 to the river, a street grid that replicates the feeling of Center City life on the waterfront, and a north-south urban boulevard.
 
A reborn Delaware Boulevard, the “spine” of the riverfront, would mean keeping a six-lane avenue for now, but eventually “skinnying up” the current road to allow for a light-rail or other mass transit line down the center.
 
The street grid would recall the 17th-century template designed by William Penn “which has guided our identity,” Steinberg said. “We need to think about extending that to the river,” not only to disperse traffic, but also as “the connective tissue” that links land parcels.
 

The audience applauded the Civic Plan’s suggestion that Septa and Patco lines be linked on a reinvented waterfront. Water ferries and water taxis are also part of the plan, as opposed to a Camden-Philadelphia tram that links the two cities.
 
Turning to the high-profile proposal of burying I-95 to reclaim the Penn’s Landing area, Steinberg offered a conciliatory tone. “Is there a way to sink it? I don’t know. There is lots more study to be done. It is something that the plan doesn’t live or die on.
 
“But if we don’t start thinking about it,” he said, “Philadelphia will miss the boat to capitalize on that potential.”
 
The open space framework in the Civic Vision foresees “a great lawn” at Penn’s Landing, “a great democratizing element of the city.”
 
Frankford Avenue and Spring Garden Streets were presented in artist’s drawings transformed into pedestrian-friendly green streets of trees, blooming medians, and bike lanes. The string of parks and open spaces along the Delaware would “do work,” Steinberg said, filtering stormwater and pollutants, and creating wetlands, wildlife habitats, tidal gardens, and a healthier city and river.
 
Land development along the water, and specifically how casinos fit into the plan, has been “the most contentious part of this project,” Steinberg said,
 
“Not an option!” an audience member shouted.
 
“Yes it is!” responded another.
 
“Bull----!” answered the first.
 
Acknowledging the debate, PennPraxis provided two options for those sites on the waterfront plan, with and without the casinos. But Steinberg said the issue is “not about what is there. It’s about how the buildings relate to each other” and surrounding streets, and whether they allow access to the waterfront.
 
Other development issues should be addressed through zoning code reforms, according to the Civic Vision. The street grid plan must be codified and buildings must “meet the street line,” with retail, commercial and “life-affirming” uses, Steinberg said. Tall buildings should be staggered along the landscape to ensure “everyone has light and air and views of the river,” he also said.
 
There is a place on the river for big-box development, too, so long as it is “done more gracefully,” Steinberg said.

The presentation ended with the video, reminiscent of the 1964 World’s Fair ride that looked ahead to the city of the future. The audience was remarkably silent as it was given a glimpse of what Philadelphia could become 50 years from now. When it ended, they rose and applauded the vision.
 
In an official response to the plan, DCNR secretary DiBerardinis, a 30-year resident of Fishtown, said the unveiling of the plan was an “important event for Philadelphia.”
 

A century ago, he said, Pennsylvania stood at a similar crossroads, with its forests decimated and streams polluted by the Industrial Revolution. But some leaders had a vision for the commonwealth that helped save its ecosystems. “We are in a similar moment in this time,” he said. Conservation and sustainable communities will become policy imperatives, and “cities that imagine a waterfront like this are the ones that will succeed,” DiBerardinis said.
 
“The plan is right. The economy of the future will be built around efficiency and sustainability,” he said.

 
To make it happen, the city must build on the collaboration of the community, DiBerardinis continued. There must be consistent city leadership to shepherd the plan forward, and it must move from a vision to a detailed planning process. Strategic investment must be made and leveraged through the local, state and federal governments, he said. And “early victories” should be implemented “so people can see the reality.”
 

Inquirer columnist Chris Satullo moderated the panel discussion that ended the evening, posing his own questions and those from the audience.
 
Blatstein, of Tower Investments, said “planning is not the enemy. The enemy is lack of planning.” He said the Civic Vision has been a “marriage of planners, developers and communities.”
 
Blatstein also said there should be no gated communities along the waterfront and there should be open and free access to the river.
 

Cutler, of PennDot, who was among the supervisors on Boston’s Big Dig project, said Philadelphia should not become too focused on a large I-95 reconstruction. “If we spend years debating if it is possible to bury 95, we will miss the opportunity to rethink what else exists there.”
 

A better choice, she said, might be improved public transit on the waterfront. Because of funding limitations, “we may have to make those choices,” she said.
 
Mayor Street said an ambitious 95 redo can happen. “It will not happen unless we say this is the kind of investment we want from the local and federal government,” he said. That will require the support of surrounding counties, who must also see that a revived city waterfront will benefit their residents. “The biggest deterrent is perceived regional differences,” he said.
 
Steinberg said the next steps in the process will be “early action projects,” such as the blazing of a bike trail from the Pier 70 neighborhood to Penn’s Landing, the restoration of riverfront wetlands, and the release of an implementation guide in the spring.
 
“This is the very beginning,” he said.

Alan Jaffe is a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor. He can be contacted at alanjaffe@mac.com