The boards of Chestnut Hill’s three registered community organizations — the Chestnut Hill Community Association (CHCA), the Chestnut Hill Business Association (CHBA), and the Chestnut Hill Conservancy — are all scheduled to vote later this spring on a final version of a proposal to overhaul the current development review process. The proposal is intended to address complaints that Chestnut Hill’s development review process is too complex and filled with repetitive meetings, placing an unnecessary burden on applicants and reviewers alike.

While we agree on the need to streamline some aspects of the current process, we strongly oppose the proposal under consideration and offer an alternative we believe is superior.

Our opposition to this new proposal centers on two major changes. The first would be to replace the current seven-member Development Review Committee, or DRC (comprising three representatives from the CHCA, two from the business community, one from the Conservancy, plus a non-voting chairperson) with a 15-member Zoning Review Committee, or ZRC, composed of five members each from the CHCA, the Conservancy, and the Business Association.

While this might sound like a more equitable approach, it is also less representative. As currently constituted, the Chestnut Hill Community Association is the only Chestnut Hill registered community organization to represent the residents and property owners of the entire Chestnut Hill community. The other two organizations represent narrower constituencies — business owners in the case of the Business Association, and those concerned with historic preservation in the case of the Conservancy. All three perspectives are valuable, but when it comes to recommending for or against zoning variance proposals, the needs of the entire community should carry greater weight. Based on our experience as current and past members of the DRC, we also believe that a 15-member review committee will be too large to be workable and will be prone to block voting, which, depending on the project, will favor either developers or neighbors at the expense of community-wide concerns. To make the current DRC more representative while reducing the tendency for block voting, we propose adding one additional DRC member representing the Conservancy. This would bring the DRC’s voting membership to seven while giving no single organization the power to dictate the agenda.

A second concerning element of the new proposal would replace two existing technical review committees, the Land Use Planning and Zoning Committee (LUPZC) and the Historic District Advisory Committee (HDAC), which are each comprised of accomplished design, planning and preservation professionals, with a single ad hoc review committee that would meet only to consider large or controversial projects. This would eliminate a principal source of decision-making continuity and consistency, as well as sideline a major source of community-based expertise. If you want to know why new development projects in Chestnut Hill are more contextual and community-sensitive than those in Roxborough or Mt. Airy, it is largely thanks to the efforts of the LUPZC and HDAC.

Even more concerning is that the proposed ad hoc review committee could hold closed-door meetings, sharply reducing the high level of public accountability and transparency that characterizes the current process. To reduce the number of repetitive meetings, we propose that the LUPZC and HDAC hold a combined meeting with project applicants, while continuing to make separate but complementary recommendations. (If a proposal affects members of the Chestnut Hill Business Association, its representatives should also attend the combined meeting.)

To those unfamiliar with the intricacies of Philadelphia’s development review processes, these proposed differences may seem like a lot of nothing. We assure you they are not. For those who want to keep Chestnut Hill’s development review process open to public input while ensuring that proposed development projects are of the highest quality, we urge the Chestnut Hill Community Association, Chestnut Hill Conservancy, and Chestnut Hill Business Association to mend the current process rather than end it.

(Collectively, we six have worked as design or planning professionals for an average of 41 years, have lived in Chestnut Hill for an average of 33 years, and have served on various Chestnut Hill review committees for an average of 22 years. Still, at least in our own minds, each of us is under 50. Go figure.)

Patricia Cove, past HDAC Chair, Past President, Chestnut Hill Conservancy, Past Vice President Physical Division, CHCA

John Landis, current DRC Co-chair

Joyce Lenhardt, past CHCA Physical Division Vice President, and CHCA Board Member

Chris Linn, current LUPZ Co-chair

Larry McEwen, current DRC Co-chair and CHCA Board Member

Craig Schelter, current LUPZC member and past Executive Director of the Philadelphia Planning Commission