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PRA to citizens: Leave our lots alone
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
PRA to citizens: Leave our lots alone
Today's Daily News had a cover story about how Point Breeze uber-developer Ori Feibush turned a trash-strewn lot owned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) into a small park — and was hit with a lawsuit threat as thanks. Feibush was frustrated when the city told him to return the lot to the condition in which he'd found it — but he's not alone.
Take Brett Dietsch, who unlike Feibush isn't a developer taking a neighborhood by storm, but just a guy who owns a house next to a nuisance lot that he's been trying to buy from the PRA for over a year. He says a side-yard would be nice, sure. But mostly he just wants to get rid of the constant short-dumping — not to mention the mice and roaches that don't respect property boundaries — turning the lot on the 2200 block of East Cumberland Street into neighborhood hazard. Hell, he'd do the work himself — if only the city would let him. But when he offered to, he says he got a clear response: "No Trespassing."
"When I first called [the PRA], they said they didn't own the lot. After doing a ton of homework and calling every city department and neighborhood committee in Fishtown, Kensington, Port Richmond, etc., I was able to prove that they did, indeed, own the lot." He says it took him six months of calling everyone he could think of even to get an estimate on the property: $50,500, way more than he thought was fair.
In the meantime, he says, "I told [the PRA] I was going to start taking care of the land anyway, and their response was to put up 'No Trespassing' signs, which have since been knocked down by the people throwing trash there." He wanted to clean up the place and put up a fence, but was afraid of legal action.
Now, after five months of negotiations, Dietsch and the PRA finally agreed on a price, and the sale could go through by next month. Of course, "they're still dodging questions about putting up a fence meanwhile. The lot is cleaned now, but it probably won't stay that way for long."
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