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NIMBY Nation - Hawthorne Residents Blast Blatstein Proposal Again

The neighbors don’t want any tall tower on the site, period. But they also said the plan doesn’t offer enough parking, and some also criticized its awkward walkability.

When the revised plans for Bart Blatstein’s mixed-use residential/retail development at the northeast corner of Broad and Washington were made public in a Civic Design Review submission, we predicted that the residents of Hawthorne would be no happier with one 32-story tower than they were with two.

We called that accurately: at the February 25 Hawthorne Empowerment Coalition zoning meeting, just about every near and not-so-near neighbor beat up on Blatstein for insisting on a tall apartment tower still. But that wasn’t the only thing they didn’t like about the project. In fact, just about every aspect of the proposal came in for criticism, and the criticism also revealed areas in which the residents, many of whom have lived in the neighborhood for years, share the concerns of newer urban advocates regarding this site and areas where they part company.

The area where the new urbanists and the old residents agree most concerns walkability. Where Blatstein touted the fourth-floor rooftop shopping village as providing that walkability, HEC Zoning Committee Chair Ben Weber and several other residents questioned whether anyone would take an escalator or elevator up four floors in order to walk around on a rooftop. Weber specifically advocated for restoring the intrablock streets that had been removed when the site was cleared many years ago and bringing the retail village down to the street level.

Then there was that tower. Some residents argued that the project was simply too dense for the residential community surrounding it, but even those who weren't opposed to dense development wanted it at a lower height. "The committee is opposed to this monstrosity, and we're trying to see if we can get you to bring it down and stretch it out," said Zoning Committee member Haneef Nelson. Some residents asked him why the tower was oriented to the site's north edge, along Carpenter Street, rather than along Broad Street; Blatstein said that putting the tower there would cast shadows on the rooftop village and outdoor pool for most of the day.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment will hear Blatstein's variance request on March 25 at 2 p.m. in its hearing room at 1515 Arch Street. The public may attend and comment, and the Zoning Committee members urged residents to do so.

Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/property/20...Z1P8GX6ak0b.99