"They better not start things off with a prayer," someone muttered as hundreds of Point Breeze residents filed into the sanctuary at Mount Zion Pentecostal Church for the latest in a series of volatile zoning meetings fraught with issues of race, class and gentrification. "But," a neighbor responded, "we might need it."
The Monday meeting, run by South Philadelphia H.O.M.E.S. Inc., was for the kind of project that wouldn't get all that much attention elsewhere: Developer Ori Feibush, who owns OCF Realty and the blog NakedPhilly.com, wants to build 13 "affordably high end" housing units (mostly moderately sized one-bedrooms) with ground-floor retail. But while many community members said the development was gravely needed, other longtime residents saw something else.
"This is very sentimental to me," said Angela Anderson, gesturing at a photo of the site, a series of blighted lots on Point Breeze Avenue and Titan Street. "I know how things work when a neighborhood is being gentrified."
The way they work, argued Tiffany Green and Theresa McCormick — who appeared to have been behind widely circulated fliers saying rents would rise to $1,500 to $2,000 and accusing Feibush of "preying on the poor and minority" — is that current residents get priced out and Hispanic workers, not local African-Americans, get the construction jobs. "It's just always coming in here and taking and taking from us; that's why we're tired," McCormick said.
The back-and-forth lasted more than two hours, and Feibush says he watched as Green stole a number of ballots cast by neighborhood residents. As Green said at the meeting, "We're not going to allow high-end."
More coverage of the meeting, including video, on Naked City.
