A City Council bill passed Dec. 11 will prohibit superlarge sheds and other “accessory structures,” Councilman Brian O’Neill told Greater Bustleton Civic League members last week.
The measure, which O’Neill introduced, corrects a glitch in the city’s new zoning code that allowed sheds that could have been up to 25 percent as large as a property’s main structure, the councilman said during the league’s Dec. 17 session.
The code for accessory structures used to limit them to 120 square feet, O’Neill (R-10th dist.) said. The city’s new zoning code put it to 200 square feet or 25 percent of the house’s square footage. With his amendment to the code, the councilman said, 130 square feet will be OK.
The zoning code governs how properties may be legally used. The idea behind it, the councilman said, is to protect neighborhoods, not to hurt them.
The league routinely goes after property owners that want to do things out of character with Bustleton. It has been fighting one property owner’s use of a single-family home at Haldeman and Red Lion for a business. The owner is claiming his business was a legal home occupation. The zoning board has gone back and forth on this, and most recently said no to the man.
“This association will oppose something that does not fit in with the neighborhood,” league president Jack O’Hara said. “This is a neighborhood that will get involved.”
Straightening out what is a legal home occupation, O’Neill said, is the point of another of his measures, which is before City Council now and will go to a vote in January when the body returns from holiday break.
Speaking of the city’s new $2 per pack tax on cigarettes, the councilman said the revenue the levy is bringing in is higher than expected. It’s true that smokers who live near the suburbs can readily go outside the city and pay less, he said, but he thinks that is not as evident in the heart of the city.
The revenue is up, but the councilman said he believes it will be only for the short term. Besides, it is not just the revenues lost from plummeting cigarette sales that affect small city businesses, O’Neill said. The smokes draw people to the stores, so it is their extra purchases that will fall off, too.
STATE ISSUES, CRIME
State Rep. Kevin Boyle said there is bad fiscal news coming out of Harrisburg. A $2 billion deficit is predicted. Some of that is fallout from the recent recession, Boyle said, but some is the result of the policies of Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration. State spending cuts, especially in education, he said, were a drag on the economy.
Since the state can not run a deficit, Boyle said, it will have to cut services or raise taxes. He said a 5-percent extraction tax on Marcellus shale production would bring in $800,000 more than the current impact fee.
Boyle said he opposes privatizing the state Lottery. Democrats, however, might compromise and sell off the state liquor stores in exchange for raising taxes, he said.
“We need to compromise to get things done,” he said.
Capt. Frank Bachmayer, the 7th District commander, told league members that gunpoint robberies have dropped 27 percent this year compared to 2013. Other robberies are down 22 percent, he said, but residential burglaries are up 5 percent.
Commercial burglaries are down 30 percent, the captain said. Theft from autos is down 12 percent. There are about the same number of vehicles stolen in the district as last year.
He mentioned that the district had three robberies in the last 30 days, and one of those robbery reports looked a little fishy.
Bachmayer, who once commanded the busy 15th District, said two robberies in a month “is absolutely amazing.”
The Greater Bustleton Civic League next will meet at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at the American Heritage Federal Credit Union, Red Lion Road and Jamison. The league’s hotline is 215–673–6890. Its website is www.gbcleague.com ••
