Chestnut Hill likely to get a conservation district following controversial apartment proposal

An effort to create a neighborhood conservation district mandating design and materials in development around East Mermaid Lane in Chestnut Hill is on track to be passed by City Council in June, despite pushback from the Philadelphia Planning Commission.

The bill would create a zoning overlay governing new construction and remodeling in that corner of Chestnut Hill. Vinyl and aluminum siding, and concrete masonry would not be allowed, for example, while Wissahickon schist, brick, limestone would be.

Among a long list of provisions, the bill would also ban roof decks, force HVAC equipment and gas meters to be hidden from the street, and require that at least 15% of a front yard be landscaped.

“What we were trying to do is just make [developers] build something that looks similar,” said Camille Peluso, an architect of the overlay. “We’re not asking to be draconian like a historic society or an HOA that requires paint colors.”

Conservation districts are a little-used development tool in Philadelphia that are meant to ensure that new and renovated buildings accord architecturally with the existing neighborhood. Rules are set individually for each district and are regulated through the Planning Commission and City Council, unlike a historic district, which contains a uniform set of restrictions that are governed by the Historical Commission.

The bill to create the district, which Councilmember Cindy Bass introduced April 25, received a negative review from the Planning Commission’s staff. Conservation districts are meant to preserve small collections of buildings that look similar, but planner Ian Hegarty argued that the East Mermaid Lane proposal encompasses three distinct architectural styles.

Some of the homes that would be protected are large manses built in the mid-19th century and set on expansive lots, while others are densely built twins and rowhouses near rail transit that date to the early 20th century.

Below Mermaid Lane are a cluster of institutional buildings, such as the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting and the former site of the nonprofit Blossom Philadelphia — formerly known as United Cerebral Palsy of Philadelphia — that was sold to the Goldenberg Group, a Philadelphia-based developer, in 2019.

Hegarty said that the staff decided that there wasn’t enough “consistent architectural character” across the area to justify a conservation district.

The backers of the conservation district have been planning the bill for three years, dating to the Goldenberg Group’s 2021 revelation that it planned to build a 250-unit apartment building. The company did not return a request for comment on the current plan for the site. Their lawyer, Ballard Spahr’s Matt McClure, submitted a letter to the Planning Commission protesting the district proposal.

“The former industrial site that was then used for Blossom Philadelphia may be in play in the coming years in terms of redevelopment,” Hegarty said. “I understand that that is a primary motivation for [the conservation district].”

Advocates took Hegarty’s recommendation against the proposal as a slight on the merits of the neighborhood but agreed that the former Blossom Philadelphia site was a concern.

“We are in the midst of trying to preserve our neighborhood and that includes four acres of it that are ready to be developed into housing, or whatever, by a predatory developer,” Peluso said.

The conservation district bill was also dealt a blow by the Chestnut Hill Community Association (CHCA).

Multiple board members contended that the conservation advocates had acted alone, without support from the larger neighborhood. The proposal was not brought to the zoning experts in the neighborhood organization.

“They’re quite well aware that the community association exists,” said Larry McEwen, who serves on its board. “This … has been brought before you without any attempt to present it to the community association or any of the other RCOs in Chestnut Hill.”

Peluso herself is on the board of CHCA, too, but described the organization as concentrated on issues concerning neighborhoods at “the top of the hill.”

“We’ve had a problem in this area of Chestnut Hill, where it has been the poor stepchild of Chestnut Hill,” she said.

The controversy that unfolded over the hour-long Planning Commission meeting — punctuated by a bill supporter breaking down in tears — led commissioners to hold the bill for 45 days. That would delay City Council consideration until after the summer recess.

But at the City Council Rules Committee hearing Tuesday, a Planning Commission staff member stated that the bill will again be on the agenda of the commission’s June meeting. That could allow Council to consider the bill in June.

The tradition of councilmanic prerogative gives district members near total control over zoning in their areas, allowing them to create their own land-use rules within their political boundaries. Since Philadelphia rewrote its zoning playbook in 2012, City Council members have many idiosyncratic zoning overlays to appease constituents, punish enemies, and advance policy goals they can’t get passed at a citywide level.

While the Planning Commission often condemns this behavior, they are powerless to stop it.

“Overlays can be really good things, the more the merrier,” Bass said at the end of the hearing to laughter from her colleagues, just before the bill was voted out of committee.

This story has been updated to make clear what the Planning Commission staff agreed to at the hearing.