L&I is underfunded and overworked. It’s also integral to Mayor Parker’s affordable housing plan. | Editorial

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is traveling around the city to tout her $2 billion plan to invest in 30,000 new or renovated homes. Yet, one of the key city departments for ensuring her plan is enacted safely is facing questions about transparency and efficiency.

If Parker’s affordable housing initiative is to succeed, it needs clear answers and greater efficacy from the Department of Licenses and Inspections.

In many ways, L&I performs one of the most quintessential duties of local government: regulating local businesses and inspecting property. Despite the essential nature of their work, the department has not always met the standards Philadelphians deserve. For decades, it was known for corruption, with rogue inspectors accused of accepting bribes.

In 2013, these issues metastasized into a catastrophe. A building being improperly demolished on Market Street collapsed onto the Salvation Army store next door, killing six people. An inspector took his own life, blaming his own actions for the disaster, even as city officials strongly defended his integrity.

Mayor Jim Kenney appointed David Perri to lead L&I in 2015 with a mandate to effect transformational change, root out corruption, and embrace new ways of doing things. One of the changes Perri made was to the system of tracking vacant and abandoned properties. In the past, inspectors would verify vacancy by doing a “windshield survey.” This meant driving by homes to look for physical signs of abandonment. The method was inefficient, and the counts were almost certainly inaccurate.

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The department partnered with the city’s Office of Innovation and Technology to create a new way of tracking vacancies. They used data from the Water Department, Peco, and other city sources that strongly indicate abandonment.

This information was not only used by the city, but also by groups like Clean and Green Philly, which aims to reduce gun violence by cleaning up empty lots. According to a study led by University of Pennsylvania physician Eugenia South, keeping these lots from becoming sources of blight, trash, and disorder helps reduce shootings.

Then, without warning, the database disappeared.

According to Nissim Liebovits, the founder of Clean and Green Philly, it was down for 16 months before being restored. Even before its disappearance, it had significantly fewer properties listed than expected.

While the data is available again on the city’s Open Data portal, residents still deserve to know what happened. City officials have yet to provide an adequate explanation for the disparity or the gap in publication.

Beyond the missing data sets, L&I also struggles with understaffing and political pressure, particularly from members of City Council. Despite many quality inspectors joining the department in the years following the 2013 collapse, outside pressures often led them to leave city government. Union leaders called it a mass exodus.

The workers themselves said they were often told to ignore violations by bigger developers and contractors, while also being urged to come down harshly on smaller entities.

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The U.S. attorney who oversaw the investigation into the Market Street collapse said the remaining inspectors are overworked and have too many buildings to handle. Meanwhile, Council members regularly divert departmental resources away from the backlog and toward their pet issues. They also seek to put their finger on the scales to help or hinder projects.

A city controller report from earlier this year cited insufficient enforcement of the city’s building regulations, with construction crews across the city operating without licenses or work permits. Meanwhile, some contractors with suspended licenses and records of shoddy work have resumed doing business simply by changing their names.

Philadelphia cannot afford further backsliding at L&I, particularly when the city has committed to increasing the rate of construction. Mayor Parker and City Council President Kenyatta Johnson must work together to provide adequate staffing, restore full transparency, and insulate inspectors from the kind of political pressures that routinely interrupt regular business and contribute to the backlog of unfinished work.

The ability to call up an inspector and get immediate results may be politically beneficial for the city’s elected leaders and a few lucky constituents, but the “squeaky wheel” approach must end if the department is ever going to systematically address ongoing concerns.

Parker says she wants Philadelphia to be America’s “cleanest, greenest, and safest city, with economic opportunity for all.” Her One Philly dream can only be achieved if residents feel they can trust L&I to work for all.