FNA Zoning Committee Meeting: 1325 Beach Street

Eww. No more surface parking....anywhere. It's right in front of Penn Treaty Park. The last thing I want to see along the riverfront are more parking lots. Go to the camden waterfront and you can see how attractive all the surface parking is.....

agreed! we should hope for better.

More parking is absolutely needed by Penn Treaty Park. Whenever there's an event or a nice summer day there just isn't enough spaces to go around, creating a massive clusterfack that could be eliminated through more parking. I say bring it.

I'd rather have a flat surface that later could be something else than some monstrosity like those condos down the street, that now block my view of fireworks.

Where exactly do they want to put in more parking? The triangle? Or remove some of the park (grass) for parking?

Devil's advocate: Suppose Yards wants to hold large outdoor events but then cancels after the first couple of them because parking is too difficult.

This is Beach Street we're talking about, too where everyone parks up on the pavement:
http://bit.ly/zspRty

Better idea: Delete half of Beach Street which people are using for drag racing and turn THAT into a parking lot that opens out from both ends and put speed humps there.

I think it's the triangle.

Drag racing? Really? Beach Street?...what are they racing, midget cars?

Rice burners. I got the videos from Youtube around somewhere.

One more idea that's even better... there is already a surface parking lot at the PECO generating station. Perhaps PECO could share this with PTP in exchange for the benefactors to resurface it and put up signs at the park instructing motorists to drive to the other side of the plant and park in that lot?

Bikes or cars?

Leave the triangle ALONE!

Save the Triangle!

Really! how many cars could fit on it; not enough to destroy it.

Bikes but I've seen cars back there. It's not every weekend; if they did it religiously the po po would always be over there. I think they meet up in an online forum or a facebook group somewhere and pick places around the city at random.

The owners of the office building, Penn Treay Park Place, are looking to lease a piece of PECO property along Beach Street for use as parking for their tenants. They currently have some folks park on the opposite side of Delaware Ave, but that lot is being taken by PennDOT for the I-95 project.

Ok. So if I understand correctly, this parking lot would be semi-temporary, as in only intended for use until 2016 or the end of I95 work?

Other things -- does this fit in with the scope of the Waterfront Master Plan? What about the Penn Treaty Park Revival Plan?

Temporary like the Johnstown Flood Tax.

I'm thinking that the I95 work will elimate those spots permanently? I may be wrong.

Well it's "temporary" in the sense that PECO (Exelon?) owns the property and may not want to renew the lease at the end of the term, pending their plans for the property. The lot at Delaware (west side) and Columbia is not coming back from what I remember of the Revive 95 maps. Someone correct me there if I have it wrong.

Right now, the power plant is still active - they use it to provide extra capacity on high demand summer days, as far as I know - so I don't think PECO is looking to sell of the property any time soon. Does the Waterfront Master Plan have any short term ideas for this area, or is it all big dreamy stuff? Anything big on this site is going to be subject to PECO and their plans for the power plant.

PTPP has a huge underground parking lot. As far as a 'temporary' parking area -- HA HA HA HA HA HA; once you allow it -- gone!

Who said Johnstown Flood Tax? BINGO

It's called walking. Penn Treaty Park is less than two miles from Lehigh Avenue. If you can't walk that to go to an all day outdoor event, something is wrong. Or take the 5 bus down if you are physically unable to walk that far. I'm so tired of people wanting massive parking lots everywhere.

It is the triangle. And I am 100% in agreement with you. There is no need to stuff a handful of cars on that lot. Ridiculous.

"Temporary" is a code word used in the Philadelphia developer's maze of insanity to get something built that will immediately become permanent as soon as the project is completed and established.

i'm with you on the walking and all, but a lot of those free events draw both families and the elderly. for a parent with young kids you're not going to want to walk the 2 miles both ways or stand around forever waiting for the 5 bus when you could pack everyone in the car and head down. same thing with the elderly.

Don't think too many people want to push a baby stroller across a pot-hole ridden moonscape (Richmond is going to be a disaster for nearly 5 years) and baking concrete to get to PTP, they'd rather drive.

The triangle is also elevated and (gasp) has trees on it. So the trees will get mowed down.

You know, they could just take the parking that's inside PTP right now and expand it by perhaps 30% in that corner of the park and change it from crescent-shaped to rectangular, and you'd get the same number of spots added that the triangle would offer.

This ain't my beef, but having tried to park here when it's busy before---there needs to be more parking somehow. And I'm a walking/SEPTA fool, but I'm not a nutter either. There ain't enough spaces.

Seriously. Hey C0llins, you try pushing a baby stroller down some of the neglected sidewalks in this neighborhood and tell me how easy it is to "just walk" down there. I'd gladly do it if wouldn't take me forever to get there because I had to maneuver around dog crap, trash, raised sidewalks, etc. Nonetheless, we usually just drive to Girard somewhere, park, and then walk over to events at PTP.

I think google just has the wrong address. City Maps http://citymaps.phila.gov/Map/ has 1325 Beach St as being the PECO building, so they probably are talking about the unused PECO lot.

You're right - this address isn't the triangle of the park, it's the entire PECO property. The site in question is on PECO property, river side of Beach Street, just above the power plant I believe.

Check the city's zoning map:
http://citymaps.phila.gov/zoningoverlay/

Yeah now that I look at it, this is not the triangle it's the generating station.

They have to be taking down a structure for parking or doing something with part of the G2 lot.

I have personally seen Mr Collins haul strollers, bbq equipment, coolers etc down to PTP without a car. He is actually pretty much a master of urban mobility so your throwing that challenge to the wrong guy... me, i'm a driver myself and I still think that all plans for the waterfront should be looking towards transit and the environment rather than re-enforcing the auto-centric planning of previous decades that has left us with the tragedy of a river we have today.

Just to clarify --- no new parking lots will be built, no buildings will be demolished. This is all existing and the owner is leasing the property from PECO.

Ok stupid question time: Why is this even going to zoning then? Is it because the lot is going to be pay-to-park?

G2 industrial properties require parking spaces of a certain size (9 ft wide?) The applicant needs a variance if they want to lay out parking spaces that are not as wide.

How silly. I was getting ready to handcuff myself to a homeless tree to prevent more homeless tree theft.

I love when I get a good laugh from the zoning code.

But I will say, I am glad this sparked some interest. The situation with the Master Plan, I95 construction and everything surrounding it can be confusing, good to stay engaged (cometoFNAmeetings) and ask questions (atmeetingssoyouknowthings). See what I did there?

Yes and yes. And we'd love to see more people come out to the zoning meetings too. For as much interest as is shown for some of these items, the meetings can be rather...sparse. It would be great to see more people passionate about the area get involved.

I actually love the shroud of silence that comes over a thread when you ask people directly to come to things in the neighborhood that dont involve beer and/or whiskey donuts.

Pfft that's SoYo. We got the sex club restaurant motorcycle repair cupcake shop over here. That gets people out.

p.s. thanks for ruining the thread.

I usually just ask people to volunteer when I want them to go away and leave me alone. Works like a charm!
Although, the zoning committee has picked up some pretty awesome new members lately. People don't know what kind of fun they are missing

Anytime. My goal is to keep it to once or twice a month this year, we'll see how that works out.

BUMP -- this meeting is also tonight!

Please, it really is not that hard to push a stroller, or carry your things from any point in Fishtown to any other point in Fishtown, especially with the proper transport tools. I do it constantly, and it's a healthy and rewarding lifestyle change. I can't wait for gas to be $6-$7+ a gallon so that people will finally be forced to actually live their lives without depending on their cars!

And don't hate, I do own a vehicle, although it spends most of its life in a parking space.

I don't own a car (my housemate does), but I'm not a anti-car nut either.

When my legs can take me to CostCo in Jersey where I can buy my aircraft carrier sized package of toilet paper, I may consider walking to Jersey, but at the moment they cannot. I haven't seen any anti-car folk figure out yet how to move out of a house or an apartment to another address without the use of a vehicle, either.

Besides not everyone is ambulatory enough to travel from one side of Fishtown to another. Some people can drive but have COPD so they can't walk more than a couple blocks but they still would like the mobility to get out and enjoy more than just the confines of where they can walk.

Getting to the Navy Yard sucks goatnads on SEPTA so I take a cab. Getting to Microcenter in Radnor takes forever so I borrow a car. Buying 150lbs of groceries from the supermarket is pretty difficult even with a granny cart.

I still walk a mile to the EL most days, each way. But I'm not naive enough to believe that Fishtown will return to 1895 where there's not a single car anywhere in sight, either.

And I would imagine a lot of businesses in Fishtown need more than just the residents of Fishtown to support them enough to turn over a profit, so that means guests---from elsewhere, who drive.

BUT, this parking isn't for the residents it is for the people who work and/or visit Penn Treaty Park Place.

Kenzo: I'm not an anti-car nut (although I do appear that way at times), I just feel that this lot is not appropriate at all.

Sad. People will sacrifice anything for more parking.

I didn't go to the meeting, but from what I understand, there was no sacrifice here. An abandoned parking lot will be allowed to become a used parking lot.

This was basically a big pile of rock and dirt that is part of the PECO complex. It's already gated off, inaccessible to anyone besides PECO, and looks like crap. I'm not a fan of parking lots for the sake of parking lots but the tenants are improving the area with lights and cameras. They also sounded like they wanted to work with the FNA and other groups to have parking for special events. Plus, they are suffering a hardship since one lot they currently use will be removed while I-95 is expanded.

Until PECO/Excelon sells off a lot of that land they can basically do what they want with it, which mostly consists of barely maintaining it. This is an improvement.

I respect your opinion but I tend to agree that the neighborhood didnt really lose anything here, especially if PECO wants to help out with parking for River City Festival, Shadfest, etc.

peco isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and i doubt they'd allow anyone to build anything on the lot. a parking lot is better than a cement strewn waste land.

i think the extra parking is really good for events in the park. they draw from more than just the immediate norther liberties/kensington area. it's good to facilitate people from around the city to come visit our neighborhood. a lot of those people, especially the elderly and large families wouldn't come without reliable parking.