In late November, City Councilmember Mark Squilla introduced legislation that would alter the City’s regulations on protecting historic properties. Most notably, Bill No. 251030 would modify the initial stages of the nomination process to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, giving property owners at least a 30-day heads up between when a nomination is made and an initial hearing in front of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Proponents of the measure–primarily representatives of real estate development interests–call that fair notice. However, preservationists worry it amounts to a demolition “loophole” that will lead to the destruction of culturally-important buildings and spaces by giving property owners a chance to get a head start on demo permit applications before historic protections can go into place.

As previously reported by Hidden City, another change would allow the Historical Commission to reject a nomination simply because the owner had submitted an application for a demolition or alteration permit, rather than having already received the permit. It would also compel the Historical Commission to allow demolition or alteration permits if the owner had conceptual development designs or contracts at the time they were notified of the proposed nomination. Finally, it would eliminate the work of significant landscape architects as a qualifying criterion for designation and weaken the ability to designate for archaeological reasons. 

Although these provisions caught some by surprise, they didn’t come out of nowhere. Across five interviews, with Squilla and four key stakeholders, two each from the preservation and development communities, it becomes clear that the proposed policy changes arrive during a period of heightened acrimony between the interests and political jockeying that has picked up over the last year.

On one side, preservationists like Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, see an overall backsliding on citywide policy. He feels that helpful recommendations from former Mayor Kenney’s Historic Preservation Task Force compiled just six years ago have been left by the wayside, replaced by Squilla’s recent “surprise” introduction of the proposed amendments. “These [policy ideas] do not reflect the letter or spirit of the task force, and we think they would significantly weaken the City’s historic preservation ordinance,” Steinke said.

On the other side, allies of developers like Sarina Rose, president of the Building Industry Association (BIA) of Philadelphia, claim current nomination practices are unfair, creating a system where historic preservation is financially hindering not just deep-pocketed interests, but homeowners and working class Joes, while also tying bureaucratic machinery in knots. “That one arm of the City accepting our money for [permit] approval, and then the other is working to stop a project, is kind of inappropriate. Really, due notice is important and fair,” said Rose.

In the middle–ostensibly–is Squilla, who fashions himself a neutral arbiter interested in hearing arguments from both sides, while hinting that he may intentionally be cracking eggs to make an omelet. “I know it got off to a rough start. I think sometimes that’s good–not everybody understanding the full intent of the legislation,” Squilla said. “Maybe by bringing those concerns to light, that gives us an opportunity to look at it closely and make a difference.”

All parties agree that Squilla, whose district stretches from Port Richmond to Old City and South Philadelphia, has long been engaged on matters pertaining to the historic preservation ordinance. Yet, they add that momentum behind introducing a substantial change has picked up in the last year or so, and that there is a sense that the time for discussion is coming to a close. “My understanding is that Councilman Squilla is taking very seriously all the input from stakeholders and weighing that input,” said Rose, “but, that he wants to get this done pretty soon.”

The Backstory

Squilla was elected to office in 2011 after an earlier public sector career as a systems analyst. By 2017, former Mayor Kenney had announced the formation of a Historic Preservation Task Force to bring together the contentious array of interests and come up with changes to the City’s ordinances. Squilla wanted in and became City Council’s representative in its membership.

“My district has a lot of historic properties in it,” explained Squilla. “So anytime something comes out, whether it’s the Historic Commission or Planning or whoever, they look to me to say, ‘Hey, would you be interested in introducing this legislation?’”

The Task Force spent several years producing a final report of recommendations, released in April 2019, before disbanding. From Steinke’s perspective, precious few of those recommendations have been enacted. In an interview this month, Steinke at first said none had, but later agreed with Squilla’s office that a pair introduced shortly after the Task Force, allowing for more commercial and residential reuses of historic properties, had passed.

Still, Steinke said other major recommendations have sat on the shelf. Given Squilla’s position as the primary councilmember active on historic preservation policy, Steinke said his group and other preservationists have continued to interface with his office behind the scenes, as well as the City’s planning agencies. In fall 2024, Steinke’s group approached the City’s Department of Planning and Development with policy recommendations for creating a Preservation Trust Fund, a city-wide historic resources inventory, a reintroduction of independent reviews of financial hardship applications to circumvent protections, and the creation of a tiered system of historic preservation regulations. Steinke said his group then took the recommendations to Squilla last March. “We weren’t getting much traction with Planning and Development, and so we went to Squilla. He said he was open to those ideas, and to send him a bill.”

In July, Steinke said someone from the Planning Commission called the Preservation Alliance and said they were getting started on writing a policy and asked for their recommendations again. However, Steinke learned that other draft policies were also being circulated by the development community. “We were being told by Planning and Development that they didn’t really think those ideas [from the developers] had much traction, and so it gave us some comfort,” said Steinke, adding that he was then surprised to see them included in the bill Squilla ultimately introduced in November.

Rose refers to a similar timeline, saying that the BIA’s membership asked its leadership sometime in late 2024 to begin speaking with Squilla about what they felt were unfair mechanisms in the city’s historic nomination process. “There were projects that owners had spent money on: design professionals, approvals, or permits… and at the same time there was either a third party or the Historic Commission working on a nomination they had no idea about,” Rose said, adding that in some instances a property owner would be working with one City office on pulling permits, while another office unbeknownst worked to take actions that would invalidate them. “And so it was in everybody’s best interest to explore that and make sure the property was looked into before tax dollars were spent nominating [it].”

Rose said that her group indeed met with the Historic Commission regarding a “disclosure” bill and provided text, but that City staff ultimately produced something substantially different, which wound up in the Squilla bill. That description largely squares with Squilla, who says his office received language from the BIA and other members “of the community,” but that City staff had issues with it. So, Planning staff created their own text that ultimately appeared in the bill. In an interview, Squilla also appeared to be surprised at some elements of what was included in his own bill. “I’m hearing some other consternation too about removing landscape architecture [from the list of considered protections]. About why that was removed–I’m still not sure why that was removed from the designation or nomination part of it,” Squilla said.

He added that he thinks disclosure issues are important to address, particularly because of percolating legal challenges. Yet, Squilla also said he understands and even has supported the idea of a tiered designation process, which was in the Task Force report and continues to be a top priority for preservationists. Language creating a tiered system–which would create less onerous regulations for certain historic properties than others–was actually in a draft of the current bill at one point before being removed, he said. Concerns over how that provision was written and recent pushback from some residential groups on the creation of historic districts caused him to pull it, he added. “[A two-tiered system] was initially in this legislation that came from the Planning and Historic Commissions,” Squilla said, adding that he removed it out of concerns it lacked specificity. “We need to have some sort of guard rails and regulations in place.”

David Gest, executive director of the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, which is opposing the bill as it is currently written, has also been involved in stakeholder meetings. He believes the bill primarily represents policies championed by development interests. However, Gest said he believes City staff also have concerns over current “technical issues” with the existing ordinance and the perceived legal vulnerabilities borne from them, and that there is a need to respect input from homeowners.

A spokesperson for the City’s Department of Planning and Development did not respond to questions about the agency’s role in the bill’s formation.

Disagreements Over Severity of the “Loophole”

The Squilla bill provision getting the most attention is the so-called 30-day “demolition loophole,” which Steinke said may stretch to as far as 60 days depending on how the calendar falls. In essence, it requires that the Historic Commission notify a property owner as soon as a nomination is made or received and provides a 30 or 60-day gap prior to the Commission’s consideration of its merits at a public meeting.

Currently, Historic Commission staff review the merits of a historic nomination privately and make a determination as to whether they will recommend approval to the full Historical Commission. If they do, the property owner is notified and temporary prohibitions against issuing demolition or alternation permits go into effect. The full Commission then considers the application in a public meeting and weighs any hardship or other arguments set forth by the property owner or other interested parties before making a final determination.

Steinke said “the fear” around a change is that the advanced notice will give property owners a heads up and time to apply for demolition and hardship permits. If they are able to obtain one, or perhaps even just apply for one, it could provide a winning argument against the application at the first hearing. “If there’s going to be a battle, it would happen at that first meeting,” Steinke said. “And that’s a standard the Commission has used all along: ‘Well, if a demolition permit was applied for before the nomination was determined complete and correct, then the demolition permit prevails.’”

Steinke is also concerned about paperwork issues, asserting that the Historic Commission receives many half-baked nominations that it rejects or asks an applicant to improve. Issuing notices to owners and holding a hearing for every application regardless of its merits risks gumming up the works, he said. “All of a sudden the system would be clogged up with, potentially, a whole bunch of trash nominations: having to hold hearings and the Commission has to come together [for all of them],” Steinke said.

Matthew McClure, a zoning and land use attorney for Ballad Spahr who has been involved in policy conversations with Squilla’s office, said he believes concerns about a demolition loophole are “a little overblown.” McClure noted that the City tightened its regulations on demolition permits after the deadly 2013 Salvation Army Collapse at 22nd and Market Streets. Now producing an application, he said, often requires the engagement of engineering and legal professionals. He views it as unrealistic that a property owner will accomplish that in time, particularly if the building is presently occupied. “I have never seen anyone be able to put together a demolition permit application within 30 days,” claimed McClure.

Rose is a little less absolute, saying she also doesn’t believe the changes will cause demolitions not already planned, but that she “could see someone pulling a demo permit for negotiating purposes.” However, both she and McClure said the provision would prevent real-world scenarios they actually are seeing, where property owners who have already sunk significant investment into the redesign of a property are blindsided by a nomination that nullifies it. “It’s a private homeowner, and they spent their nest egg on architectural fees, and they’ve already submitted for a building permit,” Rose offered as a scenario. “Then [the home] is nominated, there’s an automatic stay on the property, meaning they can’t pull their permit. Now they have to come up with a brand new design, and the Historic Commission might want it to look like the property next door.”

What Comes Next?

Running through the background of the debate around new ordinances is a sense that the dynamics are exactly that: an ongoing debate. The week after Squilla introduced the ordinance, his office organized a conference call that included many of the key players, multiple attendees said. Squilla explained that the meeting provided a “surfacing of the issues,” on both sides, and mainly focused on the notification provision.

The bill was slated to be an action item at the Planning Commission’s December 6 meeting, but was punted after staff requested a 45-day review period. At least one more stakeholder meeting then followed in mid-December, Gest said, adding that more are expected in the months ahead. Squilla said he sees at least one more private stakeholder meeting happening in January before a public Planning Commission meeting in February where the bill could be considered. A series of Council procedures and votes would then follow. “I don’t see this happening until March at the earliest,” he said. “Until we get to the point where people feel mostly comfortable with the language.”

All parties believe the bill arrives at a time when tension over historic preservation regulations has reached a fever pitch. Preservations see a city that is losing historic buildings year-after-year as policy recommendations sit on a shelf, while developers, and some residential groups, have felt stung by what they consider overreaches under the current system of nominations. Regardless, some hope for compromise remains. “What I’ve tried to do in the meetings I’ve been in with [Squilla] and others is to just sort of carefully and continuously emphasize that these are very complex issues that require a lot of discussion and flushing out,” said Gest. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to be able to get to something that works.”

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Kimberly Haas contributed reporting to this article.

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