Alliance challenging site for Youth Study Center

Can an alliance of community groups in the East Falls, Germantown and Tioga-Nicetown areas really expect to beat a united Mayor Street and Gov. Rendell?

Street wants to move the Youth Study Center to temporary digs at the old state-owned Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute on Henry Avenue. He's got Rendell's pledge to underwrite close to half the cost of rehabbing the old building.

But it now looks like Goliath is about to meet David in the form of the Multi-Community Alliance, representing a coalition of neighborhood groups.

The city needs to get a use certificate from the Zoning Board of Adjustment because the EPPI site isn't zoned for a youth-detention center.

The alliance is gearing up for a major confrontation before the Zoning Board, which the hard-headed leadership concedes may be a losing proposition. But if the groups lose, they'll appeal to Common Pleas Court and up the line.

"We think our best shot is going to be before the Commonwealth Court," said alliance chairman Ralph Wynder, a ward leader who got into a verbal dustup with Street on the day the mayor announced the Youth Study Center move in early September.

The alliance has both bark and bite. Just ask Lower Merion Township, which two years ago wanted a school bus depot in the area. Or Donald Trump, who wanted a casino in Nicetown-East Falls. Both proposals failed, in part, alliance leaders say, because of their vigorous protest.

Wynder is promising a major promotional effort on Election Day when alliance members will hand out fliers and seek signatures on petitions.

Managing Director Loree Jones said if the city prevails before the Zoning Board, a legal challenge from the community groups "would stall the process."

And that could become an issue because the city is supposed to turn over the current Youth Study Center site at the Parkway and 21st by the end of May for the Barnes Foundation museum.

"We still believe we can turn over the property in time assuming there are no glitches," Jones said yesterday.

Alliance members say letting the Youth Study Center occupy EPPI, even for just the three years Street has promised, would get in the way of the "smart development" that they want.

"This is a very marketable site," said Julie Camburn, president of the East Falls Business Association. She cited various commercial possibilities, including a supermarket on the 15-acre tract.

"To me this suggests poor fiscal management and a lack of planning on the part of the city," she said. "I've lived here all my life and I'm tired of this. We don't need politics as usual." *