West Philly and Southwest Philly have two new registered community organizations (RCOs), West Philly Pride and Kingsessing Spirit, and there is an opportunity this week to learn more about their work and to talk about some important issues. Both organizations hold quarterly RCO meetings focused on zoning and land use issues.
Kingsessing Spirit will hold their Spring 2018 community meeting this Wednesday (March 28), at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community (801 S. 48th St), and all concerned citizens of Southwest Philly are invited. The meeting, which begins at 6 p.m., will feature reports from the RCO’s involvement with the Post Brothers’ proposed expansion of Garden Court Plaza at 4701 Pine Street.
The West Philly Pride meeting, which will take place Thursday, March 29, will hear from neighbors about the proposed Orens Brothers development on the 4400 block of Chestnut Street. This meeting will be held at Mantua Haverford Community Center (631 N. 39th St), beginning at 6 p.m.
Zoning meetings discussing both development projects were hosted earlier this year by other RCOs – Garden Court Community Association and Spruce Hill Community Association.
West Philly Pride and Kingsessing Spirit “provide an alternative venue for the community to influence major land use projects,” according to attorney Steve Masters, who works with both organizations. They will focus on a few, large scale projects and participate in ZBA hearings on those projects.
March 28th, 2018 at 9:48 am
No love for Post Brothers but how typical of Johnny Doc and IBEW to start their own RCOs rather than have union members join true local organizations. Must be more important that they be in the driver’s seat of a group than part of the community. If they put similar time and effort into hiring from the neighborhoods instead of the suburbs, maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to create astroturf RCOs.
March 28th, 2018 at 4:39 pm
Today’s the first time I’ve heard of these RCOs even though I’m apparently inside their boundaries. What’s their connection with JD? Google didn’t turn up any obvious connection between him and either Steve Masters or the contact people for the new RCOs.
April 2nd, 2018 at 4:52 pm
The president is retired IBEW and the Zoning chair is a recent IBEW apprentice grad. It’s not subtle.
April 3rd, 2018 at 3:00 pm
what are the boundaries of these RCOs?
April 5th, 2018 at 10:15 pm
Between the two of them, basically Bartram’s Garden up to Girard, from the Schuylkill River out to 54th. You can select RCO’s on openmaps.phila.gov to see.