Today marks another step in the enactment and institutionalization of Philadelphia’s new zoning code with the announcement of six of the seven committee members for Civic Design Review. It’s wonky, as are most of the things we like to talk about, because this group is tasked with assessing the impacts projects have on the public realm. But it’s also a ‘thank goodness’ moment because we’ve been waiting for a standardized way to address these issues in the development review process, and the new code came up with CDR as a way to codify the way these discussions will proceed. CDR establishes a predictable way for developers, design professionals, and the public to engage on issues of walkability, street activity, connectivity, and other sometimes-hard-to-grasp-and-quantify features of a person’s physical experience in the public space of the city.
Technically, Civic Design Review (CDR) went into effect on August 22nd along with the rest of the zoning code, but as some of you may remember, CDR is only triggered in certain circumstances, when projects are of a certain size as compared to the affected properties around them. There are three tiers for CDR, outlined in great detail in 14-300, the chapter of the zoning code that deals with administration and procedures. There’s a chart of the three triggers, and a handy diagram detailing what constitutes an ‘affected property’ in CDR cases. We’d copy them here for you, but they really don’t make great visuals, so we encourage the curious to check them out on their own time.
A full press release discussing the CDR committee members is available on the city’s wordpress blog. Why only 6 of 7 announced, you may ask? Well, the 7th seat is intentionally left open for a representative of the local RCO. Whenever a project triggers CDR, a local RCO with boundaries that include the parcel in question are asked to appoint someone to sit on the CDR committee to provide the local perspective. In cases where multiple RCO’s include the area of a CDR project, the RCOs are still to decide on a single representative to sit on the committee. In cases where a decision can’t be reached or a local RCO does not exist, the district council person for that area is the designated appointee.
We’re excited to announce this step, one of many coming online slowly but surely to make the zoning code’s procedures the reality of how we do business in Philadelphia. We’re also excited to say that we’ve received the first submission of a project that triggers CDR review, so this group will get their feet wet very soon! Stay tuned, and leave questions in the comment section.
