Developers Disrespecting Temple Area

**Debbie1125** · 10-11-2012, 08:17 AM

4th or 5th story on Philly.com about this topic. Temple and Point Breeze seem to be fighting for the title of residents whining the most about improving their neighborhoods.

Review blasts developers' disrespect for Temple neighborhood

City Controller Alan Butkovitz on Wednesday blasted developers working near Temple University for cutting corners and criticized the Nutter administration for failing to police construction sites that have been vexing neighbors near the campus.

In a "special review" of off-campus construction, Butkovitz said builders had been illegally dumping debris in vacant lots, closing streets without a permit, and allowing dust to blanket the neighborhood and runoff to flow into the sewers.

**John Goodman** · 10-11-2012, 08:45 AM

Butkovitz wants to be mayor sooo bad

**raider.adam** · 10-11-2012, 08:48 AM

In further news, Controller Butkovitz still fails to routinely audit the City departments as obligated by the Charter.

**green77** · 10-11-2012, 08:49 AM

The zone they're talking about is a disaster, no question. Dumping, bad construction that still brings in huge rents for the developers, absolutely no plan. No green spaces being incorporated into any development. Political gridlock.

**eldondre** · 10-11-2012, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by green77

The zone they're talking about is a disaster, no question. Dumping, bad construction that still brings in huge rents for the developers, absolutely no plan. No green spaces being incorporated into any development. Political gridlock.

God forbid the city be in charge of "greenspaces" formerly known as parks

**John Goodman** · 10-11-2012, 09:02 AM

Temple has plenty of green spaces around...

**Fishtown Phan** · 10-11-2012, 11:58 AM

I am a Temple student that lives in this area and as much as all the new development has been an overall positive thing for the neighborhood there are alot of developers that just dump whatever, wherever they feel like it. The neighborhood is littered with large piles of debris on vacant lots. Also over the summer 18th street looked more like an unpaved road than a city steet because of all the dirt and runoff than built up by the curbs which was made even more noticable because you had to walk down the middle of the street because of the sidewalk closures.

The trash issue is seperate and comes from students who are living away from home for the first time and have no idea what Rubbermaid is and just pile trashbags at the curb. These bags then get ripped apart by animals and homeless guys and turn into street confetti.

**thoth** · 10-11-2012, 03:26 PM

Development is great, but illegal dumping shouldn't be ignored just because it's the byproduct of something positive. Not the same thing as PB at all.

**seand** · 10-11-2012, 03:47 PM

illegal dumping is somebody seeking to push the cost of their business onto the rest of us. They don't want to pay for debris removal so they put it on the rest of us taxpayers to clean up.

In other words, L&I should do its job and sometimes fails. I'm shocked, shocked.

Has nothing to do with whether we should allow new development or not. We should allow development, but we should also fine the hell out of crews working for developers who illegally cut corners.

**billy ross** · 10-11-2012, 06:23 PM

I think it's more than that. It's the grit and dirt blowing or getting washed off of the construction sites. It's the fact that the streets become almost dirt roads because of all of the earthmoving equipment leaving dirt from their tire tracks as they drive down the streets from jobsite to jobsite or from jobsite to trailer, and due to all of the street and sidwalk openings. It's like living in a housing development before it's completed, except you've lived there since before the gold rush happened and you're not used to all of the cacaphony and disruption. There are worse complaints to have, but it strikes me as annoying. Imagine if ten houses on your block and each block all around around you went into full-blown construction mode all at once, and this went on for month after month after month, with holes for foundations all of a sudden appearing and the sound of trucks beeping and saws sawing and jackhammers jackhammering and backhoes digging and scraping goes on for day after day after day instead of peace and the sounds of birds chirping being your world. It would get under my skin.

**green77** · 10-11-2012, 09:09 PM

it's very rapid, chaotic development geared toward high profit-- without the student market it would not be happening, but without the city (meaning all 4 agencies holding property including PHA) making its lots available there will still be major gaps on many blocks-- and also, there could really be a saturation point where Temple's own dorm consruction and peak enrollment ( whatever that is) will mean gaps don't get filled by the student-market developers. Who else is going to want to build and sell in this environment? This is not a community where many people with lots of options would want to own a home and put down roots- not because it's North Philly, but because it's mostly transitional student housing and not much else.

**thoth** · 10-11-2012, 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by green77

it's very rapid, chaotic development geared toward high profit-- without the student market it would not be happening, but without the city (meaning all 4 agencies holding property including PHA) making its lots available there will still be major gaps on many blocks-- and also, there could really be a saturation point where Temple's own dorm consruction and peak enrollment ( whatever that is) will mean gaps don't get filled by the student-market developers. Who else is going to want to build and sell in this environment? This is not a community where many people with lots of options would want to own a home and put down roots- not because it's North Philly, but because it's mostly transitional student housing and not much else.

I guess you can hope that eventually by filling in the gaps the neighborhood will become attractive for new single family units. It's happened in West Philly. Right next to campus it's prob never gonna happen, but even a few blocks south in Francisville it's happening.

**MariusPontmercy** · 10-12-2012, 01:22 AM

Originally Posted by thoth

I guess you can hope that eventually by filling in the gaps the neighborhood will become attractive for new single family units. It's happened in West Philly. Right next to campus it's prob never gonna happen, but even a few blocks south in Francisville it's happening.

This is what I've always imagined. A lot of the blocks around Penn are still shabby to look at since they're all student rentals, but go a few blocks beyond campus and the neighborhoods start to look a lot better.

**seand** · 10-12-2012, 01:42 AM

There's a huge difference between undergrads and graduate students and permenant staff. Penn's circle of influence amongst grad students and as an employer is much, much larger than the circle of influence of undergrads. Of course Penn also had a mortgage program encouraging employees to buy in to the surrounding neighborhood to amplify the impact of the more grown up members of its academic community.

Does Temple do anything remotely like this?

**Fecteau03** · 10-12-2012, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by seand

There's a huge difference between undergrads and graduate students and permenant staff. Penn's circle of influence amongst grad students and as an employer is much, much larger than the circle of influence of undergrads. Of course Penn also had a mortgage program encouraging employees to buy in to the surrounding neighborhood to amplify the impact of the more grown up members of its academic community.

Does Temple do anything remotely like this?

Penn funded their mortgage guarantee program with money from their endowment (currently almost $7 billion). Temple doesn't have anything this large. Temple paired up with City goverment several years ago to give an incentive to faculty to buy homes in North Philly. One person applied, a coach of some team or other, and moved into Brewerytown. The City then suspended funding for the program because of budget cuts and I'm not sure whether it's been restored.

**seand** · 10-12-2012, 01:05 PM

There were two part to the Penn program but the part that had the biggest impact was basically a loan guarantee program, which means Penn gets the money back (with interest) it just invests it in their staff being able to walk to work rather than sending their money someplace else to try to get interest. Of course mortgages are cheap now so it doesn't have the impact it did when interest rates were high and the Penn mortgage was better than what was available elsewhere on the market.

**annie** · 10-12-2012, 01:21 PM

Property-Holding Nonprofits | Philadelphia Daily News

There are more than 4,500 properties in the city owned by non-profit organizations that pay little or no property taxes. A group of activists and union leaders wants Mayor Nutter to ask them for proof of their exempt status in an effort to increase tax revenues.

I've heard activists say that local universities are building student housing on residential blocks and then as the housing is owned by a non-profit it doesn't pay property taxes. And so families have this additional grudge against students, who don't always treat their housing or blocks well, that they're not paying their "fair share" of property taxes. I assumed the people were talking about Temple because I think Penn has all of its off-campus student housing holdings in a for-profit shell company.

But from this map, I'm not really seeing much that would fall into that category. Am I missing something? Also, this proposal does not sound that cumbersome for a legit, properly run non-profit unless I'm mistaken.

**raider.adam** · 10-12-2012, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by annie

Property-Holding Nonprofits | Philadelphia Daily News

I've heard activists say that local universities are building student housing on residential blocks and then as the housing is owned by a non-profit it doesn't pay property taxes. And so families have this additional grudge against students, who don't always treat their housing or blocks well, that they're not paying their "fair share" of property taxes. I assumed the people were talking about Temple because I think Penn has all of its off-campus student housing holdings in a for-profit shell company.

But from this map, I'm not really seeing much that would fall into that category. Am I missing something? Also, this proposal does not sound that cumbersome for a legit, properly run non-profit unless I'm mistaken.

Correct. If you are a non-profit meeting criteria, you don't have anything to worry about (except possibly more paperwork).

**bootsywannabe** · 10-12-2012, 06:03 PM

Good thing the City got rid of it's short-dumping Police officers. That's right, there aren't any now. Try calling your local district to find out how to report it. good luck.

Any problems with the area can be put at the feet of Clarke, and the rest of his poverty pimp coalition with shirley kitchen.

BARF

Maybe if the City would stop wasting all our money, they wouldn't need to try to tax non-profits like Universities. How much taxes does Clarke and Kitchens constituents pay anyway? nothing?

We've been throwing money at this stuff for too long. It's not the answer. We need our city government to get it's house in order. we don't need to give them more of our hard earned money.

**bartphilliy** · 10-12-2012, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by John Goodman

Butkovitz wants to be mayor sooo bad

He might have a hard time getting re-elected Controller. There appear to be lots of people who are not exactly please with his way of being Controller by press release and him clearly trying to have his name in the news in order to run for mayor. That...and as noted, he doesn't actually do the job of Controller by, you know, auditing.

Clout: Is there a push to get a black city controller candidate for 2013?