The zoning and planning system in Philadelphia is broken. City Hall and City Council routinely insinuate themselves into zoning matters. The Zoning Board of Adjustment is completely politicized. At least the courts are finally paying attention. Let’s see if the Commonwealth Court does the right thing.

Has Philadelphia’s zoning permit process become excessively politicized?

That’s essentially the question the Commonwealth Court is being asked to answer in an appeal sparked by plans to build a high-density housing development on a small Northeast Philadelphia street.

An en banc panel heard oral arguments today in Land Endeavor 02 Inc. v. City of Philadelphia, a case that has also shed a spotlight on the City Solicitor’s Office’s methods of providing legal advice to city agencies, such as the Department of Licenses and Inspection.

The appellate judges in Land Endeavor 02 must decide whether or not to reverse Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Albert W. Sheppard Jr., who in granting the case’s developer mandamus relief had criticized certain City Council members’ habit of passing judgment on zoning activities in their districts.

Sheppard had also suggested in his April 2006 opinion in the case that “potent distillation of political pressure would have made it next to impossible” for the developer to have prevailed before the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment.