On March 6, Pennsylvania real estate mogul Brian O’Neill shot a panicked email to Benjamin Kirshner, a top state official, with a plea to the governor.
Amazon, wrote the property developer, had just told him “in writing, and I have sent you the e-mail, that they will not be doing any projects in Pennsylvania until they get certainty that the projects they have invested in can move forward. In conversations, they have pointed out to us that they have been appealed in EVERY project at EVERY turn,” O’Neill told Kirshner, Governor Josh Shapiro’s chief transformation and opportunity officer, referring to local governments rejecting the company’s permit applications. His own project in the Philadelphia suburb of Conshohocken had been blocked in November.
O’Neill then pleaded for the governor to “make sure we are not going to get appealed frivolously by people who just want to slow us down for sport like Amazon,” asking the governor to force those who challenge zoning…
