Monthly Archives: June 2013

Without admitting any wrongdoing, Wells Fargo Bank N.A. has entered into a settlement agreement with the National Fair Housing Alliance. The NFHA filed the complaint against the lender in April 2012, alleging discrimination in the maintenance and marketing of real estate owned properties. Similar actions against U.S. Bank and Bank of America are still pending.

People who live in Philadelphia are likely to be familiar with the Kensington neighborhood. For quite some time, it’s been known as a “tough” area. However, a fresh round of real estate development is beginning to turn that reputation around. This slow — but visible — change has many people living in the neighborhood excited about the future.

Lower Pottsgrove and other towns in Montgomery County are in a pushmi-pullyu relationship with residential and commercial real estate developers. As much as officials want housing, shops and offices in place of vacant land, they want new developments to bring in, not chew up, tax dollars.

The five members of a Pennsylvania town’s Zoning Hearing Board will be getting lumps of coal in their stockings at Christmas — or even sooner — if one neighborhood has anything to say about it. The board recently vetoed a variance that would have allowed a family to build an “accessory structure” in their front yard. The variance was needed because the structure violated the 35-foot setback mandated by borough law.

There is a great Shirley Temple movie called “Stand Up and Cheer.” The year is 1934, and the country is in the depths of the Great Depression. President Roosevelt creates a Department of Amusement and gives the top job to a theatrical impressario. His job is simple: Cheer up the nation. The movie ends with a news flash: The Depression is over! Banks are opening up again! “We’re out of the red!” A musical number follows, and we all, yes, stand up and cheer.

The news of a building collapse in Center City made headlines well beyond Philadelphia. Investigators are still looking into what exactly caused the demolition of a four-story building on Market Street to go so wrong. The building fell on the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, taking that structure down as well. In the end, six people were dead and another 13 injured. 

This post will conclude our discussion about the Philadelphia School District’s plans to sell, repurpose or raze some 23 school buildings. In many cases, residents and businesses surrounding the shuttered sites have fought hard to keep the schools open. A combination of economics, dwindling population and deteriorating sites, though, have forced the district to close the buildings and move on.

We are continuing our discussion from our last post about the challenges ahead for the Philadelphia School District and the 23 school buildings the district will close over the summer. A number of factors drove the decisions, including population loss in the district, competition from charter schools, funding shortfalls and conditions of the sites themselves.