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A judge has thrown out the designation of the Washington Square West Historic District in Center City, threatening demolition protections for more than 1,400 properties and potentially undermining the broader effort to preserve thousands of historically significant buildings across the city.
Judge Christopher Hall of the Court of Common Pleas ruled last week in favor of a group of residents who sued after the city’s Historical Commission voted in 2024 to create the district and protect most of the buildings within its borders.
The Washington Square West historic district next to Old City covers an irregularly shaped 26-block area bounded, roughly, by Walnut Street to the north, Juniper Street to the west, Lombard Street to the south, and 8th Street to the east.
Hall indicated that he granted the appeal because a conflict of interest by one commissioner and a shortage of evidence supporting the nomination. The nomination “was not in accordance with law,” he wrote in a brief, one-page order. “The decision to designate the district, moreover, was not supported by ‘substantial evidence.’”
It was not immediately clear why the lengthy nomination document for the district, along with public testimony by supporters for the designation, did not constitute substantial evidence. But if Hall’s decision survives a possible appeal, it could lead to more efforts to overturn designations, make it more difficult to nominate areas and win designation, or require the city to rewrite its standards for approving new districts.
“Washington Square West was designated through a flawed process that lacked any evidence whatsoever. We are delighted that it has been overturned,” said Dan Auerbach, the attorney for the Washington Square West residents.
“Designations subject property owners to burdensome restrictions. Imposing them demands real evidence. It demands real procedures that respect the rights of property owners. The Historical Commission should take this case as an opportunity to implement those procedures,” he said.
Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia, which co-nominated the district for designation, said the group was “kind of stunned” by the unexpected ruling. “We’re baffled, confused, why this nomination, of all nominations, doesn’t meet this judge’s standard,” he said.
The city’s historic preservation law “has been working on a pretty consistent basis across multiple neighborhoods for decades, since the ordinance was amended in the 80s to allow Philadelphia to designate districts. So for 40 years, we haven’t had this problem and now suddenly we do,” he said. “It doesn’t hold water to me.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department declined to comment on the ruling, saying officials are reviewing it and preparing to evaluate their options.
Claim of due process violation
The city has ramped up creation of historic districts since 2017, after an outcry over the demolitions of several notable buildings led the Kenney administration to beef up the agency’s funding.
Preservationists and supportive residents maintain that extending the rules to areas covering several homes or whole neighborhoods — rather than individual buildings, nominated one at a time — is essential to prevent the erasure of the distinctive buildings that make people want to live in and visit Philadelphia, and have valuable architectural and cultural histories.
However, as more and larger districts have been designated, some have been criticized by residents and property owners who say that following the commission’s rules governing the design of historically accurate windows, doors, roofs and other elements they are required to use when making repairs can raise their costs significantly.
Some also argue that designation infringes on property rights, stunts redevelopment and makes neighborhoods unaffordable, although the evidence for the latter effect is mixed.
Two other new districts have also faced appeals recently; Steinke said the creation of the Southeast Spruce Hill Historic District was upheld, while a challenge to the Northwest Apartments Thematic Historic District remains under way.
In the case of Washington Square West, residents Jonathan Hessney, Colin Murphy and Josh Zugerman argued that the nomination and approval processes were legally flawed. That’s in part because the main author of the nomination document, Emily Cooperman, is a member of the Historical Commission.
A footnote in Hall’s decision references a city ethics law that prevents a city employee from serving as an agent to someone who has business before his or her city agency, Auerbach said. “Violating due process, the commissioners sat in review of their colleague’s factual claims and advocacy,” he wrote in a legal brief.
Cooperman, an expert in historic preservation, declined to comment, referring questions to the Historical Commission. Steinke said she discussed her authorship of the nomination with the other commissioners, who agreed to allow it, and recused herself from voting on the designation.
“We were fully transparent, and she was fully transparent every step of the way. So I guess we disagree with the judge on that,” he said. “She’s a recognized preservation professional with a long history of writing nominations for both local and national register properties.”
1983 steak shop variance cited
The lawsuit also argued that the commission’s discussion of the nomination resembled “a policy debate” more than “a real adjudicative proceeding,” failing the legal requirement to provide “substantial evidence” that the neighborhood meets the criteria for designation.
In an interview, Auerbach said his appeal differed from other past cases in that he argued that, from a legal perspective, there was no evidence provided for designation at all. He contended that nobody testified in support of the designation and no facts were provide to support it.
For example, most of the 1,482-page nominating petition is a listing of properties with no information about their significance, and it referred to but did not include supporting documents, he said.
However, he also said it’s not entirely clear why Hall agreed the evidence was insufficient. A footnote in the ruling cites a 1983 state Supreme Court decision regarding a Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment case, which concerned a variance granted to convert a Ridge Avenue home into a steak and sandwich shop.
The 1983 decision focuses on the question of what and how much evidence is needed to justify such a variance. The justices concluded that the homeowner provided sufficient evidence and overturned a lower court decision that had canceled the variance.
Auerbach noted that, if the city decides to appeal Hall’s ruling, the judge will write a fuller explanation of his reasoning.
The Washington Square West residents have also argued, in interviews and in the lawsuit, that the nomination lacked underlying merit because it sought to designate “a substantial district” based on arguments about the significance of a smaller subset of properties. For example, the nomination noted that one famous architect designed just one particular building in the district, and described only 173 properties as meeting a definition of historical significance, the suit says.
“It failed to show why it was necessary to designate the other properties—many of them built in the latter-half of the 20th century with no apparent historical significance,” the suit said.
However, Hall’s brief order did not reference those arguments. The judge said he also had not considered arguments made in two other lawsuits appealing the designation.
Hessney and the other plaintiffs said they would decline to comment during the 30-day appeal period. In an email to supporters they said they would defend the decision if the city does appeal and said the suit has been “a long, hard process.”
Preservation law “in jeopardy”
Steinke said he found the judge’s comment about the lack of substantial evidence in the nomination to be “baffling.”
“It’s a lengthy statement of significance that does provide evidence. From our standpoint, it was a strong and solid nomination that demonstrates how the district meets the criteria in the preservation ordinance. That’s the name of the game, and the commission agreed unanimously,” he said.
He said he hoped the city appeals, because the decision “could put the entire [preservation] ordinance in jeopardy. I don’t know for sure, but it is a concern.”
Steinke noted that Councilmember Mark Squilla has been working on amendments to the preservation law in response to similar complaints from developers and other critics.
A group that includes Squilla, a building industry representative, real estate attorneys, preservationists and others has met four times to discuss the possible changes, with another meeting scheduled for later this month, he said. The Law Department is working to rewrite the proposal.
Squilla has said the legislation was meant in part to discourage spurious nominations, but an initial draft caused an outcry from preservation groups who said it would make it easier to demolish significant buildings.
Squilla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Washington Square West ruling.
