Our zoning meeting was held at Second Baptist Church on October 10, 2013. The first property to be considered was 5020-5028 Leiper St. Mr. Mike Dilmore, the owner of the property and Pastor John Kennedy, were requesting a variance to renovate two detached storage buildings into one, to form the main church sanctuary of the Shepherd House Ministries. Community concerns raised centered on issues of parking and the exact nature of services to be offered. The Pastor explained that there would be off street parking for upwards of forty vehicles and that only worship services with no type of separate, standalone outreach programs were planned. With no further questions raised a vote was called and the variance was granted.
The second property listed for consideration was 5458 Tacony St aka 2251 Fraley St. Ms. Cheryl Gaston, Esquire represented Mr. George Martinos the owner with a through presentation. But a series of questions surrounding past code violations, current usage of the property, length of time that activity had been taken place and notification of surrounding neighbors could not be addressed to the board’s satisfaction. The variance request was not granted and instead a continuance was issued. With no other properties listed the meeting was adjourned.
November 25th we, along with the Wissinoming Civic Association, had a joint zoning meeting at Wissinoming Presbyterian Church. The developer Carl Freedman of F C Development Group gave a second presentation on the progress of the Shoppes of Wissinoming. This development will be located at Tulip St. and Aramingo Ave. ShopRite will be the anchor supermarket of the development. He is in the process of obtaining an Urgent Care Facility, 
restaurants and merchants who are interested in upgrading their businesses.
The existing buildings will be crushed on site and recycled. Green Technology is planned to be a major part of this development. Storm water management and Hi Tech Green Roof Technologies are some of the examples of such. He is talking with Septa to bring in a bus stop. A retaining wall and fence will be constructed to stop access to railroad traffic. Plenty of security cameras will be implemented with a direct link to local authorities.
This construction will create 200 to 350 union jobs and after construction will create 400 to 500 long term jobs. Completion of this development is planned for the Spring of 2015.
