Projects like this one at 35th and Haverford, a block from where last week’s meeting to talk about rezoning took place, has many Mantua residents worried about displacement and gentrification (Photo by West Philly Local).
As Drexel University’s residential footprint continues to creep north, Mantua residents are turning to rezoning to keep their neighborhood diverse.
Roughly bound by Spring Garden Street to the south, Mantua Avenue to the north and 31st Street and 40th Street to the east and west respectively, Mantua has become a focal point for developers looking to cash in on the relatively cheap stock of rowhomes and vacant lots. Most of the building is aimed at students pushing north from pricier Powelton Village.
About 100 Mantua residents met last week at the Grace Lutheran Church to talk about a plan to rezone the neighborhood as primarily single family housing and make it more difficult for developers to build multi-unit student housing.
“The first step is rezoning,” said Michael Thorpe, executive director of the Mount Vernon Manor Community Development Corporation, which organizes community input on zoning in Mantua. “The goal is to preserve this neighborhood and make sure that as progress is moving, we’re not moving too.”
Much of Mantua is currently zoned RM-1, which encourages multi-family housing. The designation is left over from zoning codes written some 50 years ago that tried to accommodate the city’s ballooning population. Soon after they were on the books, the population began to drop.
The new proposal rezones nearly every parcel in the neighborhood as RSA-5 – attached or semi-detached single family homes (see the maps below).
Many neighborhoods around the city went through this rezoning process many years ago, and Mantua is just now trying to catch up.
Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who attended last week’s meeting, said she would introduce the rezoning for a vote later this year.
– Mike Lyons
The current zoning in Mantua. The orange indicates where multi-family homes are permitted.
The rezoning proposal would convert the orange to yellow, which permits single family housing.
May 3rd, 2016 at 11:05 am
I think I understand the reasoning behind this re-zoning, and can appreciate that this will help slow the construction of multi-family student housing apartment into the neighborhood, but it would have been nice if some multi-family were still permitted within a block or two of Lancaster Ave. Having more people near the Ave, even if they are students, could presumably boost businesses along the corridor, and higher density seems appropriate along a trolley line.
May 3rd, 2016 at 3:53 pm
Good for the neighborhood. You don’t want to be overrun like the folks that live near Temple U who are now living in a never-ending fraternity/sorority nightmare!
May 4th, 2016 at 12:37 pm
Blackwell and neighborhood RCOs are attempting to solve the wrong problem with the wrong tools. Residents are reacting negatively to student housing because developments elsewhere are of such poor quality and do not compliment nor contribute to existing neighborhoods. The reason behind this is two-fold: Philadelphia lacks form-based codes that set minimum thresholds for design quality and contextual sensitivity, and overly restrictive zoning (like the kind residents are asking for) ensures that poor-quality construction is both spread throughout a neighborhood and also that it cannot offer retail & commercial activities that add opportunity to a neighborhood.
Pressure for student housing will not go away, and this downzoning in the abscense of better codes will simply push more bad construction into the neighborhood until this demand is satisfied. Worse, the newly restrictive zoning will ensure that no new opportunity for retail or commercial is added to the neighborhood in the places that need it. Blackwell should be encouraging denser development at the neighborhood’s edges and high-traffic corridors where students want to live, closer to their classes, retail activity and where mass transit is most frequent. Perhaps even worse, a district plan has not even been prepared for this area, so Blackwell is moving forward without the full guidance and support of the Planning Commission. This is a bad plan and will do very little to renew or redevelop the neighborhood in a way that creates new opportunities or lasting value.
May 4th, 2016 at 1:17 pm
Participants in this meeting voiced an interested in having both the advantages of single family zoning, to prevent gentrification, as well as the ability to include other generations of their families in their homes, a seeming contradiction. But this could be accomplished if a new zoning classification were created which would allow for subdivision of a home into a maximum of 3 family units IF it were owner occupied – but revert to single family, if not.
May 6th, 2016 at 9:00 pm
Drexel forces all 1st & 2nd year students to live in “Drexel approved housing.” Anyone wonder why this sub-standard crap qualifies as such?
May 7th, 2016 at 11:23 am
I remember a woman being struck by Jannie Blackwell (Jannie hit her with a city car) after a meeting about this very issue in 2011. I was in the meeting at MCIC building I remember when that woman tried to bring up the issue people surrounded her and threatened her with harm. I left the meeting at that point b/c I thought I might get hurt.
I hope that lady is ok…
May 7th, 2016 at 11:28 am
There is a lot of corruption up there in Mantua. “They” took properties under the guise of putting in a supermarket. Eminent domaine. I drove through there… No supermarket but new development by STRONG properties. Rick Young…. and DREXEL. Both huge contributors to city council. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160507_FBI_probing_the_way_the_city_sells_land_to_developers.html
Maybe the FBI can put a little focus on MANTUA!