Although the group Neighbors Against McPenntrification held its third town meeting Tuesday night in the campus Newman Center, low attendance might have left them preaching to the choir.
But NAM hoped that the 20 West Philadelphia residents who answered the call had found salvation in talk of rising rents, University impropriety and a fast food project gone awry.
"I love my neighborhood, I've been there for 30-something years, and it's home," said Rev. Larry Falcon. "But the community is being purchased and bought up, and Penn is behind it all."
He offered the example of the recently-established Partnership for Quality Housing Choices in University City, which pools money from Penn, developer Trammell Crow, mortgage giant Fannie Mae and the University of the Sciences to purchase, improve and manage large, distressed apartment buildings from 40th to 50th streets, and from Market Street to Woodland Avenue.
"It's a real value for students and staff... but not for our community," Falcon, pastor of the Covenant Community Church, said. He believed that the intended average rent of $550 for a one-bedroom apartment was too pricey for many residents.
Fellow NAM member and West Philadelphia resident Beth Pulcinella agreed with Falcon's charges.
"The climate that has been created in West Philadelphia through all of Penn's real estate ventures and acquisitions is one of inflation," she said. "Landlords know that they can charge higher rates on rent because if nothing else, Penn students will pay."
Carol Scheman, Penn Vice President of Government, Community and Public Affairs, acknowledged that dislocation of residents was a concern, but said that this was the case "virtually in every single urban university where you have a lot of students living off-campus."
"If you have five students living together in an apartment, they can afford to pay a lot more than a family of five -- that's a problem and we've been paying attention to it," Scheman said, adding that providing housing for families with children is also a priority in the wake of the Penn-assisted public school.
Also on the minds of NAM members was the new McDonald's restaurant scheduled to be built at 43rd and Market streets. Construction had been halted when officials discovered soil contamination during demolition of a dry cleaning facility, the site's previous tenant.
Falcon said that the community was only just officially informed of the site's main contaminant -- tetrachloroethylene -- when a notice of intent to remediate was posted on May 16. A 30-day public comment period is part of this process, but Falcon alleged that it arrived too late, since work on the project began in February.
"They've been trying to poison us for three months now," Falcon said, who believes that he and his neighbors should have received official notification of the soil contamination earlier.
But officials from the southeast regional office of the state Department of Environmental Protection disagreed.
"It's not uncommon to have some site work ongoing at the time of our notification," DEP geological specialist Walter Payne said.
McDonald's construction project manager Scott Lang said the method of decontaminating the site will be based upon community feedback. According to him, work on the restaurant will resume once the site is safe for construction.
"McDonald's did not contaminate the site, but we are going to clean it," Lang said, adding that the site had been contaminated for a number of years. "This is a benefit to the community."
Regardless of the opinions voiced at the meeting, area resident Jennifer Hunter was happy to be there with her family.
"We basically wanted to be informed about the issues," she said.
