News Analysis: Zoning approval likely after recommendation

The Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment is likely to give significant weight to the City Planning Commission's recommendation to approve plans for a hotel at 40th and Pine Streets, but community opposition still has the project up in the air.

After hearing from developers as well as long term residents of the area, the City Planning Commission recommended on Tuesday that the ZBA approve the 11-story extended-stay hotel.

City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, whose district includes Penn and the surrounding area, said the Planning Commission's recommendation "will hold a lot of weight" with the ZBA.

Peter Kelsen, a Philadelphia zoning and land-use lawyer unaffiliated with the hotel, agreed.

"In my experience, this Zoning Board and this Planning Commission listen to each other pretty well," Kelsen said.

But the ZBA is ultimately independent, and the Planning Commission's recommendations are advisory rather than binding, he added.

Blackwell said "developers have continued to not give an inch" to community concerns, and local residents don't yet have a unified stance on the project.

In 30 years of serving on city council, "I haven't seen many like this, where there's still no consensus," she said.

Carl Primavera, the attorney representing the hotel developers, wrote in an e-mail that he believed the ZBA would approve the project.

Some local residents have expressed concern about the dense flow of visitors and traffic that a hotel would generate, but developers say the hotel would be used for extended-stay visits only.

Still, Primavera could not absolutely guarantee that the hotel would be restricted to extended-stay guests.

"The design of the rooms and rate structure will create the market for extended stay," he wrote.

He compared the concept to a restaurant "like Le Bec Fin; it's not designed as a take-out restaurant, but it is possible, not likely, that someone will go and order take-out."

Erik Jensen, another Philadelphia real estate attorney not connected to the case, said zoning decisions like these are "very political processes."

In addition to normal zoning statutes and economic considerations, ZBA approval is influenced by the effects of a proposed development on local politics, Jensen said.

"If a development is going to bring jobs to a community, that's a powerful impact, because jobs mean votes," he said.

Commercial developers trying to build in residential neighborhoods in Philadelphia have faced mounting opposition in recent years, according to Kelsen.

Blackwell predicts that the ZBA will hear the hotel case in about a month.

If some members of the community still have concerns about the hotel at the time of the hearing, Blackwell said, her office will "certainly not take a position on the issue, though we usually give the zoning board a recommendation one way or another."

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