Philadelphia's Councilmanic Prerogative
A report from July 2015 Philadelphia’s Councilmanic Prerogative How it works and why it matters Contents 1 Overview 3 Background 5 How prerogative has worked in Philadelphia 14 Prerogative and zoning 17 Analyzing prerogative’s reach 19 Prerogative in action 20 What happens in other cities 22 Conclusion 24 Endnotes About this report This report was produced by The Pew Charitable Trusts in partnership with PlanPhilly, a news website dedicated to covering design, planning, and development issues in Philadelphia. PlanPhilly is a project of WHYY and NewsWorks. The report was researched and written by journalists Patrick Kerkstra, Jared Brey, and Casey Thomas. It was edited by Matt Golas of PlanPhilly and Larry Eichel of Pew’s Philadelphia research initiative, as well as Elizabeth Lowe, Daniel LeDuc, Bernard Ohanian, and Carol Hutchinson of Pew. The report was designed by Kodi Seaton. Acknowledgments In producing this report, the authors interviewed more than two dozen officials from Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration, members of Philadelphia City Council and council staffers, for-profit and nonprofit developers in the city, neighborhood organization leaders, development consultants, academics, zoning lawyers, and lobbyists, all of whom spoke on the understanding that they would not be named. Research into the practices of other cities included interviews with about a dozen planning department staff members and veteran journalists in those cities. John Kromer, a housing and development consultant who served as Philadelphia’s director of housing from 1992 to 2001; Joseph P. McLaughlin Jr., director of the Institute of Public Affairs and the Center on Regional Politics at Temple University; and Kenneth Steif, a doctoral candidate in the City and Regional Planning Program at the University of Pennsylvania, were independent reviewers of this report.
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