Philly voters approve ballot measure giving community groups legal protections

For years, neighborhood groups in Philadelphia have urged local officials to provide them with legal protections due to their city-sanctioned involvement in zoning matters, which could place them at odds with moneyed business owners.

Now Mayor Cherelle L. Parker will have to figure out how to indemnify registered community organizations (RCOs), after Philadelphia voters approved a ballot question Tuesday requiring the city to do so.

Previous mayoral administrations blanched at the idea, fearing the city would end up paying legal bills for community organizations they had little control over and that occasionally indulged in bizarre, reactionary, or even illegal behavior.

But as one of his last acts, former City Council President Darrell Clarke pushed to pass a law last year that would require city government to indemnify RCOs. The legislation required approval by voters to amend the city’s Home Rule Charter. Such ballot measures almost always pass and this one proved no exception Tuesday.

Clarke admitted that larger RCO revision was needed, but he said that as long as the city was asking local residents to be an official part of the zoning process, they should get some protection.

For supporters of the measure, it’s an equity issue. RCO leaders say they feared lawsuits brought by developers or restaurant groups that could destroy neighborhood groups or even burden individual members with legal debt.

Most community organizations in the city’s wealthy neighborhoods have directors and operators insurance, which protects leadership from being sued individually. But activists in lower-income neighborhoods are often left exposed.

Still, the city’s RCO landscape is chaotic, with hundreds of overlapping organizations that can range from a lone activist to a community development corporation or a political ward. Only one piece of RCO reform legislation has been introduced this year — requiring that members of an organization live in the area they represent — and it applies only to Cindy Bass’s Council district in Northwest Philadelphia.