Klehr Harrison Announces Run of Favorable Decisions

PHILADELPHIA (August 1, 2024) – Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP is proud to share the recent successes of our newly formed appellate litigation practice group. In April, Glenn Weiner and Michael Phillips argued four appeals on the same day in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on zoning and land use matters, all of which received favorable decisions.

In one favorable ruling, In re: Appeals of Sandmeyer Steel Co., et al., The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled in favor of our client, Relteva LLC, in upholding the issuance of by-right zoning permits by the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) for the construction of a one-million-square-foot warehouse, distribution and trucking facility for UPS. The development is part of a $1.4 billion project announced by UPS in 2020 to expand and modernize its infrastructure and operations across Pennsylvania. After a team led by Carl Primavera and Stephanie Boggs Magagna took the project through Civic Design Review during the pandemic and obtained unity of use and zoning/use permits for the project in December 2020, a neighboring business, Sandmeyer Steel Co. and nearby community organization, the Greater Bustleton Civic League (GBCL), filed appeals against the by-right zoning permits. The zoning permit appeal was ultimately denied by the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) in November 2021. The Court of Common Pleas affirmed the ZBA’s decision in August 2022. The Commonwealth Court agreed with the lower court that the by-right zoning permits had been issued properly in accordance with the Zoning Code and that the numerous objections to the zoning permits raised by Sandmeyer Steel and GBCL lacked merit.

The Commonwealth Court also ruled in favor of Relteva in dismissing an appeal filed by GBCL against Relteva’s building permit to construct the warehouse, distribution and trucking facility. The Commonwealth Court ruled in In re: Appeal of The Greater Bustleton Civic League, et al. that GBCL’s appeal of the Board of License & Inspection Review’s decision was untimely and that the BLIR’s scheduling of a reconsideration hearing did not stay the 30-day deadline to appeal the agency’s decision.

We also represented Frankel Enterprises, who obtained a zoning permit from L&I for an apartment development in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. The proposal featured a 33-unit, mixed-use building, with 3,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, eight car spaces, 12 bike spaces and a green roof. The project was to proceed by-right and received zoning and building permits in late 2021. The community association and a group of neighbors appealed the permit, and the Court of Common Pleas reversed the grant of the permit, holding that the proposed development did not meet the requirements of the Zoning Code. On appeal, in the precedential decision of In re: Appeal of Chestnut Hill Community Assoc., et al. v. City of Philadelphia ZBA, et al. ~ Appeal of: 10 Bethlehem Pike Property Owner, LLC, the Commonwealth Court reversed the Court of Common Pleas, adopting our interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Zoning Code, and allowing the proposed development to proceed.

In the fourth ruling, Appeal of: D.L. Clarke From a Decision of ZBA ~ Appeal of: D.L. Clarke,  we represented Bock Development Group, who obtained a variance from the Philadelphia ZBA for a 225-unit apartment building at 1451 N. Broad Street. When the then-City Council President sought to appeal the Zoning Board’s decision, the Court of Common Pleas quashed the appeal, concluding the Council President did not have standing to appeal. We successfully defended the Court of Common Pleas’ decision on appeal before the Commonwealth Court, which rejected the former Council President’s argument for standing to appeal in a precedential opinion.