Launching their "Zoning Remapping Task Force," West Mount Airy Neighbors held a meeting Wednesday, Jan. 8, allowing community members to contribute to the project.

WMAN's goal is to identify neighbors' concerns about how potential development in the neighborhood's commercial districts could affect their quality of life and whether those areas should be rezoned.

In addition to the businesses along Germantown Avenue, West Mount Airy is home to three other commercial areas that have seen increased development: West Mount Pleasant Avenue between Cresheim Road and Emlen Street; the intersection of Carpenter Lane and Greene Street, where the Weavers Way Co-op is located; and the intersection of Greene and Hortter streets, home to the Family Dollar store strip mall.

At Wednesday's meeting, WMAN set up multiple large boards with questions about potential wants and needs of community members near those commercial areas. Attendees placed stickers on the boards and wrote comments, indicating important factors they'd like the task force to consider.

The poster boards featured questions such as "What are your top priorities for the future of West Mount Airy? What should community leaders focus on?" Options included "Attracting new businesses," "Preserving parks" and "Maintaining/fostering diversity," with other categories ranging from education to affordable housing and public transit.

Adam Johnson, who recently returned to the area after 17 years away, was curious about the ideas being shared, noting that the areas being discussed are close to his current home.

"The reason I chose Mount Airy when moving back to the Philadelphia region is I just love the character and the quality of the architecture, I love the tree-lined streets, I love the sense of community," Johnson said. "I have some concerns about some of the proposed buildings that are huge; they seem to be kind of out of scale with the neighborhood. I think parking traffic is an issue. I believe there's a variety of ways to address things like cost of living and housing shortage that can be done in ways that aren't necessarily obstructive or destructive to what Mount Airy is."

Jo Winter, WMAN's executive director, emphasized that the task force is not a pro- or anti-development group; their goal is to identify the community's needs and submit their findings to the City Planning Commission and City Council.

The initiative will identify properties zoned CMX-2 for commercial mixed-use that could present future challenges and compile a list of properties for potential remapping.

Some CMX-2 properties and projects receive maximum height bonuses for mixed-income housing when developers add affordable dwellings to their projects or pay into a fund supporting affordable housing. In return, the development can have 25% to 50% more dwellings and possibly 7 more feet of building height.

One CMX-2 property is the controversial 309-321 W. Mount Pleasant Ave., a large high-density apartment project planned for formerly residential buildings across from Mount Airy Taproom, just west of the intersection with Lincoln Drive. The site had long been zoned CMX-2, so concerns raised by neighbors over the project's density, design and initial lack of parking were rendered moot since it is "by right," meaning developers don't need a city variance to build it.

The development caught the attention of City Councilmember Cindy Bass' office, with her chief of staff Charles Richardson attending a WMAN meeting about the property. "At some point, we're going to rezone that area and make sure that this type of development doesn't happen again," Richardson said.

After the meeting, Bass' office invited WMAN to make recommendations for possible changes to Zoning on West Mt. Pleasant. WMAN had begun the conversation about rezoning before the invitation from Bass' office which expanded into their task force. 

Craig Stevens, who rents an apartment in West Mount Airy, says many developments in the area "create traffic issues and other issues, but they don't meet the need that we have for housing."

"Part of (the solution) is to provide affordable rental housing for people who work in the area, younger people who are not making that much money, and older people who are trying to hang on to what retirement they've got. You just need more affordable housing," Stevens said. "I know people hate density, but until we change the way we do multifamily or rental housing, it's always going to be four or five stories."

Combining feedback from the meeting with a preliminary survey WMAN conducted in these neighborhoods, the task force will review each CMX-2 parcel, looking at potential rezoning or community need-based incentives for developers to match new projects to their surroundings.

After reviewing each parcel, the task force will seek further community feedback based on their findings. They will then submit their final recommendation to the City Council, likely by mid-year.

Tommy Tucker can be reached at Tommy@ChestnutHillLocal.com

This story was updated on Jan. 21 with more details about the formation of the task force.