Mayor Michael Nutter has signed a bill rezoning wide swaths of the Frankford Avenue/Front Street corridor in East Kensington and Fishtown. We first reported on the two proposed companion bills, introduced by Council members Maria Quiñones-Sanchez and Mark Squilla, in the June 18th edition of Politics Are Hyperlocal.

Squilla and Quiñones-Sanchez passed the bills changing allowable uses for the land, much of it commercial frontage on main drags, through the Committee on Rules last month. Most of the new construction designations would change I-2/ICMX–zoned areas (medium industrial or industrial mixed-use) to CMX-2 zones (small scale neighborhood commercial and residential mixed use).

Squilla, who has said he would make development of the Market East district the legislative priority of his first term (which began in 2012) also recently approved the auction of hundreds of city-owned properties in his district, The 1st. This district stretches from the Naval Yard up the Delaware River into Fishtown, and snakes into Frankford above Lehigh Avenue. With his focus on the Market East development, which just Monday broke ground, we were left to wonder whether the residents in the northeast region of his district could expect him to steward any large-scale developments those recent land sales have the potential to spur. As Sean McMonagle of Councilman Squilla’s office explained to us, the changes in what he referred to as part of the office’s Fishtown plan are more about catching the zoning up with its current use.

The Front Street corridor’s light-industrial workshops all closed decades ago, but many of the warehouses in which they operated remain vacant — and in a crucial commercial sector. A lot of the strip of land between Oxford Street and York Street is still zoned for industrial use, though much of it is already home to commercial and residential development — construction which was granted zoning variances.

By rezoning these blocks to match the way they are being actively used, the Councilman removes one obstacle for owners of vacant property to develop it toward gainful use that matches the current urban ecosystem.

“This was done in discussion with the Planning Commission and all of the affected neighborhood associations,” said McMonagle. “Most of it is corrective zoning.”

Whether or not disused land will see new construction “is contingent upon the owner of the property, of course,” McMonagle told us when we asked if the Councilman expected the rezoning to encourage more consistent revitalization. “But I think that’s a realistic possibility.”

McMonagle went on to tell us a bit more about Councilman Squilla’s plan for the 1st District, which, in fact, does not seem overly heavy on Center City concerns. “We are working to actively remap all of the Riverwards,” McMonagle told us Tuesday, “All the way up to Castor Avenue.”