O’Neill is cool to land swap
as part of cancer-center deal

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

City Councilman Brian O’Neill (R-10th dist.) has been asked to introduce the legislation that would pave the way for the 20-year, $1-billion expansion of the Fox Chase Cancer Center into Burholme Park by the end of the current Council session next month.
But the way things stand now, he has no intention of doing that, O’Neill told neighbors on May 11 during the bimonthly joint meeting of the Fox Chase Homeowners Association and the Fox Chase Town Watch.
The councilman’s main problems with the project are the proposed swap of suburban parkland to replace the ground to be lost in the city-owned Burholme Park for the expansion, as well as the cancer center’s slow movement on a traffic study of the area.
O’Neill asked residents to contact the cancer center and other City Council members to lobby them in support of his land-swap proposal, which has not been met enthusiastically by those parties, he claims.
"This is not looking pretty," O’Neill said. "It looked like a real nice process we were going though."
That was several months ago. But now, the councilman, whose district includes the cancer center site at 333 Cottman Ave., believes that a move is afoot to circumvent his office and get the required legislation introduced through another City Council member.
By tradition, other Council members defer to the local district councilmen on any major redevelopment projects. But there is no rule preventing another Council member from introducing the ordinances.
For close to a year, O’Neill has been trying to get the cancer center and the Fairmount Park Commission, which controls Burholme Park, to acquire land along the 8400 block of Pine Road to replace the 19-plus acres of parkland that will be lost to the cancer center’s expansion.
He announced his proposed site publicly for the first time at last week’s community meeting. The Medical Mission Sisters own about 40 acres there and are willing to sell part of the ground for park use, O’Neill said.
But under a deal approved by the Fairmount Park Commission in February, the cancer center would donate about 11 acres in neighboring Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, as the replacement parkland. The cancer center already owns that ground.
O’Neill doesn’t see how a park located in Montgomery County and controlled by suburban authorities will meet the needs of Philadelphia residents.
In recent days, he said, he’s been meeting one by one with other Council members to solicit their support for his stance, including Marian Tasco, a Democrat whose 9th district is the closest neighboring district to the project site.
The traffic study is another reason O’Neill wants the Council legislation held up until the fall.
"If it weren’t anything but the traffic, this thing shouldn’t move forward," he said.
The cancer center agreed in February as part of the deal with the park commission to prepare a traffic study of the roads surrounding the project site. Neighbors complain of heavy volume already and warn of further quality-of-life problems as the cancer center increases its workforce and its patient load.
Last Friday, the cancer center announced that it had hired a consulting firm to conduct the study.
"They’re not going to have a traffic study done by June 16," O’Neill said, referring to Council’s spring deadline.
It generally takes at least several weeks for a bill to advance through City Council’s legislative process. Any pending bills at the conclusion of the Council session effectively die and must be reintroduced at the next session.
So, a cancer center bill would surely have to be introduced in the next week or so for it to make it before the full Council by the spring deadline.
Meanwhile, O’Neill reported, a group protesting the use of Burholme Park for the expansion suffered a small court setback last week when a judge denied a request for a temporary injunction to prevent the project from moving forward while the legal battle continues.
The protesters say that a deed restriction placed on the Burholme Park ground by its former owner, Robert Ryerss, prevents the Fairmount Park Commission from transferring the ground. Ryerss willed the land to the city’s park system. The case has been referred to the city’s Orphan’s Court. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com