Author: Philly Zoning Team

    Say you want to open a coffee shop.  You’ve found a place, in a quiet block, and the building is perfect: homey, but a little more spacious than you might expect.  It’s on a corner, too.  But it’s zoned RSA-5 (as you might already know if you’re reading this: Residential Single-Family, Attached; Category 5 of 5).  So you aren’t allowed, under Philadelphia law, to open...

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Here at Philadelphia Zoning, we get a lot of requests from developers and homeowners for permits allowing construction.  Every developer — and most homeowners — know that they need some kind of paperwork from the City of Philadelphia to begin construction, but not everybody is sure what kind.  At some point we usually get the question, “What exactly do I need to give the City?”   The...

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