Sixteen zoning bills go before the Rules Committee Tuesday. Here's what's in them
Self-storage limits in the Northeast, a new Southwest Center City overlay, Manayunk's Main Street and a rewrite of the adult cabaret definition are on the Oct. 27 agenda.
Council's Committee on Rules, which hears zoning bills, meets Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 10 a.m. in Room 400 of City Hall with 16 bills on its agenda (meeting page). Broad and Market flagged the hearing in its Oct. 15 roll call. Zoning bills decide what can be built on a block and what businesses can open there, so this is one of the more consequential hearings of the fall for neighborhoods.
What the Planning Commission said
Zoning bills go to the City Planning Commission for review. In an Oct. 20 letter read into the record Oct. 22 as Communication 260887, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker sent Council the commission's recommendations on 15 bills (letter PDF). The letter marks one bill "Not for approval": 5th District Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr.'s Bill 260700, which would require special exception approval for "limited lodging" in the RSA-5 residential district. That bill is not on Tuesday's agenda.
The letter also says the commission voted to take 45 more days on Bill 260689, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson's change to heritage tree removal rules. The commission's Oct. 15 agenda shows staff presentations on most of these bills.
The bills to watch
- Self-storage limits (Bill 260703, Mike Driscoll). Defines "self-service storage facilities," bans them in the Sixth District Overlay, sets which industrial districts allow them, and sets parking requirements based on unit counts (bill text).
- Adult cabaret definition (Bill 260695, Rue Landau). Removes "male or female impersonators" from the list of performers that make a business an adult cabaret under zoning (bill text). The bill has no other changes.
- Southwest Center City (Bill 260690, Council President Kenyatta Johnson). Creates a Southwest Center City Neighborhood Conservation Overlay and adjusts the Center City Overlay's boundary. Gilmore Richardson is a co-sponsor.
- CMX-1 rules (Bill 260516, Johnson and Jamie Gauthier). Changes uses, dimensions and parking in the CMX-1 commercial mixed-use district. It was introduced May 14 and our record lists it as held in committee. By Tuesday it will have waited 166 days.
- Tenth District overlay (Bill 260704, Brian O'Neill). Merges the Far Northeast and Northeast overlay districts into a single "/TEN" overlay.
- Manayunk (Bill 260694, Curtis Jones Jr.). Revises the Main Street/Manayunk and Venice Island overlay's boundaries and restricts more uses.
- Eighth District (Cindy Bass). Bill 260709 restricts more uses in the Eighth District Overlay. Bill 260710 carves a limited exception from the district's business-hours curfew. Bill 260711 rezones an area around Roberts and Germantown avenues.
The rest are map changes: two by Anthony Phillips rezoning Water Department drinking water sites, per the commission agenda (Bill 260686, Bill 260687); two by Johnson near Wharton and Reed streets (Bill 260759, Bill 260760); one by Jones near Lancaster Avenue and 63rd Street (Bill 260796); one by Mark Squilla near Lehigh and Aramingo avenues (Bill 260800); and Gauthier's update to the University of Pennsylvania master plan for the David Rittenhouse Laboratory site (Bill 260795).
What our records add
Ten of the 16 bills were introduced Sept. 17, so Tuesday's hearing comes 40 days later. Two more were introduced Sept. 24 and three on Oct. 1. The oldest, the CMX-1 bill, dates to May 14. Landau's cabaret bill is the only one of the 16 whose lead sponsor holds an at-large seat.
What's next
Bills the committee approves can be reported to the full Council for first reading as soon as the Oct. 29 session, with a final vote at a later session, as early as Nov. 12. Public testimony is taken at the hearing. Bill 260700 and the tree bill remain in committee for now.