Germantown neighbors oppose 148-unit apartment building proposed for industrial site

During the pandemic, the historic homes and tree-lined streets of Germantown saw an influx of residents from other parts of Philadelphia seeking more space indoors and out.

The last few years have seen the greatest new development interest in the neighborhood in 100 years as small apartment buildings have been proposed on major thoroughfares such as Germantown and Chelten Avenues.

The latest proposal is a different order of magnitude, neighbors say. A 148-unit apartment building is proposed for Church Lane, a one-way street currently lined with rowhouses and twins. Outsiders may know it because it’s capped by Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books to the south where Church meets Germantown Avenue.

“This needs a total rewrite,” Oscar Beisert, a Germantown resident and preservation activist, said at a meeting with the developer Wednesday night. “I can’t begin to list all of the outrage about this proposal and the complete lack of empathy to where you are located and the people around you.”

The development is proposed by Huntingdon Valley-based Olympia Holdings, represented at the meeting by Chagai Bader, and would replace a warehouse and parking lot owned by Nolen Building Materials.

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The developer met with the community in part because several zoning variances are required to move forward. The land is zoned for industrial use, so residential is not currently allowed. Bader will need the permission of the Zoning Board of Adjustment to build housing. A hearing is set for Aug. 9.

“It’s unlikely another industrial use of this size will come into the property,” said Zhen Jin, the zoning lawyer representing Bader. “So it is currently not usable in its intended zoning district.”

The project calls for the demolition of the Nolen structure. It would include 74 parking spaces, a gym, and an interior courtyard. No commercial space is proposed.

At a community meeting on Wednesday evening, neighborhood residents were united in opposition.

The neighborhood groups that organized it — the 12th Ward Democratic Committee and Faith Community Development Corp. — were unprepared for the size of the gathering. Their Zoom account could admit only 100 attendees, a number they’d never come close to reaching before, and many residents could not gain access.

Critiques ranged from parking to affordability to the scale of the building, which would dwarf its surroundings. Some near neighbors fear it will undermine the privacy of their backyards and bedrooms.

Critics like Beisert noted the project’s proximity to neighborhood historic sites such as the Germantown White House and Market Square, where they feared it would “ruin the historic view shed.” Others argued that the building was not set back far enough from the street, crowding the narrow rowhouse blocks it faced.

A popular call was that each apartment have its own parking spot, so that the already competitive struggle for street parking would not worsen. But Jin said that such an ask was an impossibility, as was the idea of reducing the size radically to accommodate less housing and more parking.

“We don’t have enough land space to do one-to-one parking,” said Jin. “Everything’s expensive now. The cost of the materials, the cost of the interest rate on the loans, everything has gone up. [Reducing it to] 74 units may not make sense.”

In one of his few comments at the meeting, Bader said that the two bedroom would be priced at roughly $1,400 to $1,600 a month, while the one bedroom units would be between $900 and $1,200 depending on size.

Some neighbors called for greater affordability, noting Germantown’s high poverty rate. For a long time, subsidized housing accounted for many of the new houses that were built in the area, but the need always outstripped the supply.

“Would you consider including affordable housing, because those rates are not appropriate for people who are living in Germantown?” asked Anna Albrecht, who lives on the block. “I really wonder who you think is going to move into these. Is it people moving down from Brooklyn? Is it people who want to change what Germantown is — 300 of them all at once?”

The two community groups held off on voting on whether the neighborhood would support or oppose the project when it reached the zoning board.

Jin said the development team would discuss the criticisms, including the scale of the structure and the affordability, and see which concessions were financially feasible.

“We’re getting the message about the massive size of the building,” Jin said. “We will take a look at that to see what can be done to reduce the massing.”