People unclear on the concept - the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority

A perfect example of bureaucratic incompetence -- but I was just following the rules... From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Was spruce-up of Point Breeze lot a trespass?
The city-owned lot, neighbors say, was in deplorable shape, thick with weeds and trash. So when a business owner cleaned it up last month, spending more than $20,000 and removing, by his count, more than 40 tons of debris, Point Breeze residents went out of their way to pass 20th and Annin streets to see the changes.

"This was a lot of garbage," Elaine McGrath said as she took in the carefully tended plantings and wooden benches. "Now it's gorgeous. I'm excited."

But not everyone is happy with the alterations - namely, the lot's owner, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.

Paul D. Chrystie, director of communications at the Office of Housing and Community Development, said it's a simple matter of trespassing. In an email, he said: "Like any property owner, [the authority] does not permit unauthorized access to or alteration of its property. This is both on principle (no property owner knowingly allows trespassing) and to limit taxpayer liability."

Ori Feibush, the real-estate developer who cleaned the lot and whose coffee shop backs onto the now-controversial plot, said the authority is making a big deal about this because it doesn't like him or the properties he's developed in the neighborhood.

"They don't like nice things," he said. "For a private developer to create a garden, it's a question of who gets credit. To do it without their blessing, you're basically insulting them."

A bit more:

"They said we need to return it to the condition we found it in immediately," Feibush said.

That shocks McGrath, who has lived in the neighborhood for four years.

"They liked it filled with garbage and broken glass?" she asked. "I can't imagine why the city would be upset."

And the irony:

Here's what Feibush finds funny about the situation: In the past few years, he's received three citations from the city fining him for not removing the snow from the sidewalk in front of this lot. Last August, he received a citation for the trash on the lot.

But he doesn't own the lot. He never did. And now that he's cleaned the lot, he's been threatened with legal action.

"They've been bad stewards for so many years and suddenly it's the most critical lot in the world," he said. "I'm not looking for a thank-you, but I'm not looking for a big F.U."

The PRA's website is here: Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority They do show some properties on the corner of S 20th St & Annin St. that have a sale pending. There is no way to embed a link but if you go to their search page here and enter "1145 S 20Th St" into their Search bar you should bring up the property, note that there are two more adjacent properties and all of them show as Owned - Sale Pending so hopefully there is a happy ending to this story. Forty tons is a lot of crap to have to get rid of and the problem is that when the city let this start to accumulate, it served as a magnet for even more -- people wanting to get rid of their own crap would remember that abandoned city owned lot. A poorly managed bureaucracy, one that has been in existence since 1945 and would be a perfect candidate for outsourcing to a private company. Save Philly a lot of money...