Questions I have for Rich Lazer:

- Can you double the parking permit fees for oversized vehicles, since they take up 2x the curb?

- How could his approach to operational excellence and JFDI translate to other city depts, like L&I and Streets?

- Does he want to run for Sheriff?

Hope to see all Philly urbanist Bsky folks there, once in a lifetime opportunity!

Policy Lunch 4/10: Rich Lazer, Philadelphia Parking Authority This Friday at Econsult Solutions

PPA director Rich Lazer is our guest for BPN’s policy lunch tomorrow open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

Regional Rail is getting some used passenger cars from Montreal Aged 37 to 39 years, the Montreal trains are youngsters compared to the Nixon-Ford era Silverliner IVs.

SEPTA has acquired the cars with the 2-by-sideways seating arrangement

www.inquirer.com/transportati...

This is the future YIMBYs want

A crane for a 3-story building in Philly @stephenjacobsmith.com

Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes....

oh look at that www.pew.org/en/research-...

Just to make sure there won’t be enough new housing to keep even more from closing

I know! Voted for it before he voted against it. And such a rarity for Michael Johns to be on the YIMBY side, which he was in two votes before recusing. These vote patterns are weird! I’m gonna dig into the voting history for a bigger project

BPN News | After Almost 2 Years, Land Bank Board Approves 30 Workforce Homes in Norris Square After 5 appearances before the board, the proposal passed...only to land back in bureaucratic purgatory

After 5 appearances before the LB board in nearly 2 years, the proposal for 30 workforce homes on vacant city lots in Norris Square finally passed the board last Tuesday. But now it’s back in bureaucratic purgatory! New BPN News article from me: open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

Starting to dig into Philly Land Bank voting records and meeting packets with Claude Code to track LB projects. Here is a new BPN mini-site with the timeline for just one example project, showing why the process can take so darn long norrissquarettk.netlify.app

Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story Bettors are using death threats to try to get The Times of Israel's military correspondent to change his report on a missile impact in central Israel. This is his alarming account

Crazy crazy story. Times of Israel reporter ( English language Israeli news site ) gets escalating death threats to change story that’s at center of big polymarket bet. www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-try...

Also the Germantown Station development parcel mentioned in the article, that SEPTA wants to see happen, still isn't getting rezoned with the Mayor's bills! CM Bass has stalled it
wwww.septa.org/initiatives/...

Some overlay districts are huge and explicitly named after the Councilmanic District, a blatant expression of prerogative that was only introduced in 2021 first to ban ADUs
whyy.org/articles/to-...

3D Aerial view of zoning overlay counts in Center City

Here is a 3D map of Center City Philadelphia--but no, it's not height! This is the number of unique zoning overlays applied to each lot, totaling up to 14 separate overlays on some lots!
codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/philad...

I was able to create a Philly zoning overlay "skyline" out of this
bsky.app/profile/bens...

Generally I’m not one of those “eliminate two laws for every one you pass” or “the tax code should fit on an index card” people. Modern society is complicated and laws will be too. But big city zoning is getting too complicated. A lot of it came from a YIMBY place, but we need to simplify the rules.

There’s a narrower slice of projects the current 6-month deadline already applies to. While doing this analysis I discovered about 1 in 3 of those projects blows the deadline. So it doesn’t even work well for the limited range of permits it applies to now and should be amended

Forget a big project like Hahnemann—you can’t even build a single-family home in 6 months. They’re all caught up in this too if it passes

Does Councilmember Young Want to Stifle Development? City Councilmember Jeffrey Young's proposed bill would block more than 90 percent of city building projects, as Mayor Parker tries to build

thephiladelphiacitizen.org/jeffrey-youn...

CM Young’s Hahnemann revenge bill would have blocked 92% of legitimate development projects *citywide* from 2010-2025, based on a review of city permitting and construction timelines from that period

Passyunk Ave manages to have much shorter opening times for restaurants, with many many more opening by-right. While I haven't been down there in a few months, I'm pretty sure it's not hell on Earth

I put the study results on this mini site I built with Claude Code, with a full analysis of 2007-2025 permits on multiple Philly commercial corridors, and an interactive map. All source data linked so you can check my work ncaoverlaystudy.netlify.app

How Not to Plan A Neighborhood The controversy over a planned Fishtown restaurant is another instance of Neighborhood Commercial Areas making it hard for small businesses

Food and beverage businesses spend anywhere from $3,000-15,000 dollars on this process, and have to wait an extra 7.5 months on average. By one estimate, this has transferred nearly $2M from restaurant entrepreneurs to zoning lawyers since 2007 thephiladelphiacitizen.org/neighborhood...

I wrote about my white whale, the Neighborhood Commercial Overlay in Fishtown and Northern Liberties, which doubles the amount of time it takes to open a restaurant. The ZBA approves 97% of these cases, making it more like a toll booth than a gate

Eye-popping margins in the Pennsylvania special elections today:

—Democrats won HD94 by 63 points.
(Harris won it by 30 in 2024.)

—Democrats won HD42 by 35 points.
(Harris won it by 17 in 2024.)

[The 2024 numbers are via the essential @the-downballot.com].

I personally know two separate people who just won neighborhood races By Applying. Both were relatively shocked

Dig into the ward politics of your neighborhood and get access to all the tools you need to win at 5th Square’s CP elections hub mini site 5thsq-ward-elections-hub.netlify.app

Committeeperson Elections, By the Numbers Committeeperson may be the lowest elected office in Philly, but they're vital to civic engagement. And if you run...chances are, you’ll win

thephiladelphiacitizen.org/committeeper...

I wrote for @thephilacitizen.bsky.social about how uncompetitive the Philly committee person elections really are. Don’t be afraid to just go for it!