Daniel Rubin | Project neighbors also being sued

River's Edge is a cobblestone rump of a place - a couple dozen mismatched homes, stranded by I-95, and pressed against the few poultry processors and food wholesalers left from the day when the neighborhood by the Ben Franklin Bridge fed the city.

Noise, trash and drunks have traditionally been the sort of nuisances that have vexed civic association president Andy Sacksteder since he moved in two decades ago.

These days a sprawling site at the end of Callowhill Street is cause of his biggest headache.

It's not its two vacant buildings, which have become homes for the homeless. It's lawyers.

Since 1989 this ragged lot has been known as the future home of Philadelphia's World Trade Center. The latest plan of some developers from New York calls for a 42-story apartment building there and an 18-story office and complex, followed by two more 42-story towers.

All of which would be taller than 65 feet. And that's the problem.

In 2006, City Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced legislation that for purposes of development considers the site and several other blocks to be part of Old City.

That means that to build anything near what the New Yorkers want, they'd need a variance excusing them from the neighborhood's height restrictions.

This angered the developers - Waterfront Renaissance Associates - who contend the change risks the millions of dollars they've already spent. (Though not in taxes; it's in a tax-free zone.)

In February they sued City Council, the Planning Commission, three neighborhood groups, and - here's the ugly part - several individuals, including Sacksteder.

The suit uses some strong language - conspiracy, tortuous interference, breach of contract. The lawyers say Sacksteder and others failed to honor a 1989 agreement in which neighbors pledged to back the developers' effort to obtain necessary permits and approvals.

Just by being named, Sacksteder and his civic group have to come up with $10,000 in fees so they can be represented by the Old City Civic Association's lawyer. They've raised about half what they need.

And the River's Edge group has shallow pockets. It gets by on $20 in annual dues from its three dozen paying members and proceeds from a yearly flea market. It's $3,500 in debt.

What burns Sacksteder, a 49-year-old engineer, is that he says he never supported the legislation that set a height limit. In fact, he's on record as supporting plans for another high-rise - the Marina View Towers - in the area.

"He's a realist," says a lawyer who has worked on development projects in that neighborhood.

Sacksteder thought maybe he should visit the New Yorkers' lawyers at Obermayer, Rebmann, Maxwell & Hippel. He brought all his e-mails from Brian Abernathy, a DiCicco aide who has also been sued. Those letters show that Sacksteder backed a proposal that had no height limit. Please release me, he asked.

The lawyers thanked him for his time - not to mention the free discovery - then informed him that their client had no plans to drop him from the suit. Sacksteder hopes a judge is more agreeable. The case has been moved to federal court. Meanwhile, the meter runs, and his lawyer's fees rise.

DiCicco finds it outrageous that people who have volunteered to help their neighborhoods face such financial exposure.

"How's the average person going to ever defend him- or herself from these lawsuits from these major corporations?" he asks. "You just don't have a shot."

The councilman said that when the developers called to complain about the height restriction, he had forgotten that there were plans to build towers there. He's not sure they will ever be built.

"I still don't see a stake in the ground," he says.

Sacksteder and neighbor John Scorsone gave a tour of their mongrel of a neighborhood one day last week.

They showed off a lot they'd cleared, a park they'd landscaped, a barbecue pit they'd built with colonial-era curbstones.

They paused at the Wood Street steps - 13 slabs of granite that lead down to what was the riverbed in 1684, when William Penn's Council ordered every block to provide public access to the Delaware.

"We're supposed to be picking up trash, getting streets fixed, and developing the Wood Street steps," Scorsone groused.

"We spend all our time and money paying lawyers."