Nutter picks five for his redesigned Zoning Board

Of the many pledges Mayor Nutter made during his campaign, one of the most frequently repeated was his promise to overhaul the city's approach to zoning and planning.

He got started on that job yesterday, sweeping away the remaining Street administration appointees to the Zoning Board of Adjustment and replacing them with five of his own representatives.

The board's new chair will be Susan O.W. Jaffe, who returns to the board she served on for 12 years - including a long stint as vice chair - mostly in the administrations of W. Wilson Goode and Ed Rendell.

The other new members are Lynette Brown-Sow, a vice president at Community College of Philadelphia and a member of the City Planning Commission under Mayor John Street; Anthony Lewis Jr., executive director of the Housing Association of Delaware Valley; Joseph M. Manko, a politically connected environmental attorney who served on Lower Merion Township's Board of Commissioners for 28 years; and civic activist Carol Tinari.

The Zoning Board, part of the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections, considers appeals of zoning questions and grants or rejects zoning variances.

Its job is a core municipal function, and the board's decisions have real consequences for the look and feel of neighborhoods across the city.

Nutter was an acerbic critic of the Zoning Board before becoming mayor. At one public appearance in September, for instance, he likened the board's proceedings to the antics on the television show

Judge Judy

, calling them "painful," "torturous" and "incomprehensible."

The board's former chair, David Auspitz, resigned the day Nutter was sworn into office. Auspitz was unavailable for comment yesterday.

"Whenever new people are appointed, there will be differences in style, and I would hope there will be differences in substance as well," Jaffe said in a phone interview yesterday. "There will be changes. There will be a lot of changes."

Jaffe said Nutter was familiar with her approach to zoning from her service in past years, when, as a councilman, he would sometimes attend board proceedings.

"Although we didn't always agree on the outcome of the hearing, we developed a healthy respect for one another," Jaffe said.

Jaffe said she enthusiastically supported Nutter during his campaign, and she held at least one fund-raiser for him.

Manko, the former Lower Merion commissioner, has also been a prominent Nutter supporter.

Manko was a finance chair for Nutter's campaign and cochair of the committee recommending board and commission appointments to Nutter. He is also a member of the Fairmount Park Commission.

Although he founded a law firm that specializes in land-use and environmental law, Manko said yesterday he had some work to do before becoming a zoning expert.

Brown-Sow, the Community College vice president, was a cochair of Nutter's mayoral transition team.

But Nutter did not stock the board solely with his backers. Housing advocate Lewis said that he supported another candidate during the primary election, and that he was stunned Nutter had asked him to take the zoning position.

Tinari could not be reached for comment yesterday. According to a short biography provided by the Nutter administration, she is "managing director/consultant" for the law firm her husband owns, a member of the License and Inspection Review Board, and a member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

Her husband is attorney Nino V. Tinari, a high-profile criminal-defense attorney whose clients have included convicted City Councilman Rick Mariano. Their daughter, Nina Tinari, is a special assistant to Gov. Rendell.

The new Zoning Board will begin hearing cases Jan. 22.