Jannie Blackwell’s Stupid Zoning Reforms Could Be Expensive for Philly Neighbors

I’m for more by-right development and a less politicized zoning process, so I was against Jannie Blackwell’s zoning reform bill giving neighbors more power to hold up new construction and extract concessions from developers.

Now it turns out neighbor groups don’t like it either because the cost of all the mailings they’ll need to do to notify the relevant people about all the extra meetings with developers could be huge.

The best solution is to require even fewer projects to go through the zoning appeals process by expanding what kind of buildings can be built by-right, unbundling parking from housing, and so on. The next best solution is to rescind the Blackwell law and require fewer meetings.