The NCA Overlay:
Regulatory Review or Regulatory Tax?
What the data shows about how the overlay
impacts restaurants on Philadelphia's commercial corridors
Prepared by Jon Geeting with Claude AI
February 2026
What We'll Cover
- What the NCA overlay does — and who it affects
- What the data shows — 18 years of city records
- The Frankford Ave natural experiment
- Quality of life — does the overlay help?
- What we're asking for
What the NCA Overlay Does
Every other commercial corridor
Sit-down restaurants are by-right in CMX zones.
Get your permits, do your build-out, open.
NCA corridors
Sit-down restaurants need a special exception from the ZBA.
Hire a lawyer, wait for a hearing, pay $5K–$15K… then get your permits and do your build-out.
The NCA overlay roughly doubles the number of restaurants forced to ZBA on these corridors — adding sit-down restaurants to a list that already includes take-out.
Which Corridors Are Affected?
| Corridor | Status | F&B Licenses | F&B ZBA Appeals |
|---|
| Frankford Ave | NCA | 154 | 60 |
| E Girard Ave | NCA | 74 | 30 |
| N 2nd St (N. Libs) | NCA | 123 | 17 |
| N 3rd St (N. Libs) | NCA | 13 | 22 |
| E Passyunk Ave | By-right | 202 | 39 |
| N Front St | By-right | 61 | 28 |
The ZBA Approves Virtually All of Them
97%
approval rate
(201 of 207 decided cases)
100%
sit-down restaurants approved
on Frankford Ave (32 of 32)
On NCA corridors: 107 of 111 decided cases approved (96.4%). Just 4 denials in 18 years.
91% of Hearings Are on Parcels That Already Allow Restaurants
227 of 250
F&B appeals are on CMX parcels
where restaurants are already permitted
13
appeals where the base zoning
actually restricts restaurants (5%)
The overlay is not catching uses the zoning code didn't anticipate.
It's adding a mandatory hearing for uses the code already allows.
The Overlay Adds Months to Opening
5 mo
By-right path
Permit to business license
(n=147)
vs
10 mo
ZBA path
Filing to business license
(n=51)
On NCA corridors specifically: 12 months via ZBA vs 5 months by-right — 7 extra months.
The Gap Exists on Every Corridor
| Corridor | Status | By-Right | ZBA Path | Gap |
|---|
| Frankford Ave | NCA | 6 mo (n=35) | 10 mo (n=10) | +4 mo |
| E Girard Ave | NCA | 4 mo (n=12) | 8 mo (n=9) | +4 mo |
| N 2nd St | NCA | 3 mo (n=11) | 15 mo (n=6) | +12 mo |
| E Passyunk | By-right | 4 mo (n=34) | 7 mo (n=7) | +3 mo |
By-right corridors have smaller gaps because their ZBA cases are mostly take-out restaurants — a base-zoning issue. NCA corridors have larger gaps because the overlay forces all restaurants to ZBA.
Frankford Ave: Same Street, Different Rules
The NCA overlay covers only the east side. The west side is by-right.
East Side · NCA Overlay
15.1 mo
Typical restaurant (≤5K sqft)
30 mo
Large project (>5K sqft)
vs
West Side · By-Right
7.5 mo
Typical restaurant (≤5K sqft)
14 mo
Large project (>5K sqft)
+7.6 months for a typical restaurant. +16 months for a large project.
Real Costs, Real Consequences
13
Restaurants won ZBA approval on NCA corridors
but never opened
$5K–$15K
Cost per ZBA hearing
(legal, architect, fees)
$650K–$1.95M
Aggregate cost across
all NCA F&B appeals
Some restaurants discovered the zoning requirement only after they had already opened. One filed for its special exception 26 days after getting its business license and remains in process 2+ years later.
Does the Overlay Improve Quality of Life?
Within the Fishtown BID
Complaint rates are comparable between NCA and non-NCA areas of the same neighborhood.
Across neighborhoods
East Passyunk (by-right, 202 F&B businesses) does not have worse quality-of-life outcomes than Fishtown's NCA corridors.
The overlay imposes real, measurable costs — with no measurable benefit.
What We're Asking For
Primary Ask
Remove the sit-down restaurant special exception from the NCA overlay on CMX parcels.
- Eliminates ~57 unnecessary ZBA hearings on these corridors
- Saves 3–12 months of delay per new restaurant
- Saves $5K–$15K per establishment in legal costs
- Brings these corridors in line with every other commercial corridor in the city
- Frees ZBA resources for cases involving genuine land use conflicts
If Full Removal Isn't Feasible
Exempt typical-scale restaurants (<5K sqft) • Convert to administrative review • Establish presumption of approval for CMX-permitted uses
What You Can Do
- If you are on a local board, pass a resolution supporting removal of the sit-down restaurant special exception from the NCA overlay
- Share this analysis with Councilmember Squilla's office and the Planning Commission
- Collect stories from restaurant owners who have experienced ZBA delays
- Amplify the message: this is a pro-small-business, pro-neighborhood reform that costs the city nothing
The full analysis, methodology, and record-level data
are available for review — contact jgeeting@gmail.com
Appendix: Methodology
- Data: All from public City of Philadelphia open data — business licenses, ZBA appeals, OPA parcels, L&I permits, 311 complaints
- Period: 2007–2025 (18 years)
- Approval rate: 207 F&B appeals reaching a substantive decision. Additional 43 dismissed/withdrawn/pending excluded
- Timelines: Two-path comparison — by-right (permit→BL) vs ZBA (filing→BL). Medians, 2-year lookback. n=147 by-right, n=51 ZBA
- Frankford east/west: Classified spatially using NCA polygon boundary (not odd/even parity, which has 56% error rate)
- Size stratification: OPA livable area. 5,000 sqft = 75th percentile = typical/large cutoff
- Construction time: Included in both paths; turnkey vs renovation difference is negligible (160 vs 155 days). NCA corridors have higher renovation share (81% vs 70%), biasing against our finding
- Special exceptions run with property under PA law. ~26% of NCA F&B addresses have prior approved SE. Does not invalidate timelines but context for burden rate
Supplementary Excel workbook with record-level data available for review.
Analysis code available on request.
Thank You
Jon Geeting
jgeeting@gmail.com
Full analysis, data & source code available online
Excel workbook with record-level data available for review