Demand Politicians' Support for Communities Near 1 Red Lion Road, Philadelphia

We, the undersigned residents of the communities surrounding the properties at 1 Red Lion Road and 10098 Sandmeyer Lane (the former Budd Company property) and the roadways that service those properties, ask you to publish a detailed account of all the information in the possession of the City government, its agents, or of elected officials about plans for the development of the site or the roadways that will service it. To this time, community members' efforts to obtain this information from these sources have been met with resistance and false statements. We ask you to publish any agreements (including non-disclosure agreements) and a full account of any promises made or understandings reached in communications between City agencies, agents, or elected officials, and the owners or any potential tenant of these properties.
We ask you to enact legislation that would give our communities input through the zoning variance process when very large new industrial construction is proposed to be located directly adjacent to an existing residential use. Several recent proposals to locate massive, traffic-intensive distribution centers directly adjacent to settled neighborhoods in Northeast Philadelphia have threatened the quality of life in communities nearby and along roads that would service those sites. Under the existing Zoning Code, communities have no opportunity for public participation or input into the development process when properties with out-of-date industrial zoning in the middle of residential neighborhoods become the focus of plans that would radically transform those neighborhoods. We urge you to correct that defect in the Code and to give our communities a voice by enacting legislation that would ensure that new industrial construction must obtain a variance when it is in excess of a fixed amount of square footage (we suggest 200,000 square feet, which is larger than an average Walmart Supercenter) and is located on property directly adjacent to existing residential uses. If you believe that this rule would not be appropriate for adoption citywide, we urge you to enact the rule to apply to our neighborhoods only.
We ask that you refuse to approve or to fund changes to roads or other infrastructure that would enable the overuse of the former Budd Company property. We ask that you use your power to withhold such changes in order to assure that the property's use does not harm nearby communities.