Tim Kearney on 2013 Zoning Changes and the Condo Project

Pennsylvania State Senator Tim Kearney, former mayor of Swarthmore, who chaired the Swarthmore Planning and Zoning Commission prior to becoming mayor.

State Senator Tim Kearney, who was the chair of Swarthmore’s Planning Commission prior to becoming mayor of Swarthmore, provided his thoughts on the 2013 zoning code changes and the current condo development project under consideration.

I was chair of the planning commission before being elected mayor. Much of our discussion centered around mixed use development with an eye toward creating new housing opportunities in our inner ring, transportation oriented downtown. We were also very concerned with maintaining the character of the town and discussed different ways of accomplishing that. I remember talking about establishing a HARB (Historic Architectural Review Board) but there was no appetite for it at the time. HARBs are often seen as overly controlling and  “taste police”.  We discussed form based zoning and sought ways to implement it. In the end, we made changes to the demolition permit process and inserted language about buildings that add to the character of the town. This is all subjective of course, there did not seem to be a way to make it any more restrictive without something like a HARB. We do not have any buildings in town that meet the textbook definition of historic and we have many buildings that do not have much character. So we used the language in the demolition code to try to protect those character lending buildings. Our thinking at the time was to encourage the possibility of housing in town that met needs that were becoming apparent. Part of this encouragement was the reduced required parking, we wanted to encourage less reliance on cars with in-town living and develop units for a variety of people with different needs and resources.

I think it is fair to say that we, or at least I, did not foresee this particular project on this particular site. We did not imagine something of this scale on Park Avenue because of the difficulties in amassing a site this large where we have small scale lots. There are parcels in town that would better handle a project of this scale. Any developer wants to maximize the size of his or her project, it’s always considered a given. The concern on this proposal is that it doesn’t meet the scaler issues as discussed in form based zoning, it appears out of scale with its neighbors and neighborhood. I understand that proposing a project that doesn’t maximize the building, that “leaves money on the table” is a difficult proposition. But remember, the borough benefitted greatly when the college realized that they did not need to maximize the Inn and right-sized the building to meet their needs. They were able to maintain a scale that worked with the borough context. So, my hope is that borough council will understand what we were attempting to do with the demolition language and encourage the developers to build a project that meets their needs and the needs of the borough.