Mayor Parker just sent Council bills to make it easier to build homes in Philadelphia
Of the five bills, one was formally introduced. That leaves little time for the others before Council will break for the summer.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration on Thursday sent City Council five bills critical to her signature housing initiative, but in a sign that her proposal has not yet been embraced by lawmakers, only one — a hyperlocal bill related to zoning in North Philadelphia — was formally introduced.
The centerpiece of Parker’s agenda, dubbed the Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative is a proposal to issue $800 million in city bonds for a variety of housing programs as part of her campaign to build or repair 30,000 homes.
But the mayor also wants Council to adopt a slew of changes to the city’s zoning and land sale processes that the administration hopes will eliminate impediments to building in Philadelphia.
“We have many miles to go to achieve our goals, and these bills are steps in the right direction,” Parker said in a statement. “Now our partners in City Council can keep us moving forward by introducing and passing the bills without delay.”
After the mayor transmitted the first tranche of those bills, Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young Jr. on Thursday introduced a measure to make zoning changes in his North Philly-based 5th District, formally beginning the legislative process to approve it. But the other four bills were left pending.
“We want to ... make sure that there’s a balance in this in terms of community input in any proposal that comes to City Council as relates to housing,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson said. “And so we’re just taking a pause on the bills until we address the concerns of members.”
Council’s delay might be a sign that some members have concerns about the legislation or that lawmakers need more time to digest the new proposals, or both. The bills include tweaks to the Philadelphia Land Bank’s legislative process, an elimination of parking minimums in some densely populated areas of the city, and the creation of a new zoning category legalizing duplexes.
“These bills help increase our efficiency and the work we’re doing to increase our operational capacity,” said Tiffany W. Thurman, Parker’s chief of staff. “Consider these bills building pieces of a larger puzzle [to] ensure the H.O.M.E. plan is successful and we’re really meeting the moment.”
Parker has asked Council to consider the H.O.M.E. initiative alongside her $6.7 billion proposal for the next city budget, which must be approved before July 1. Council’s final meeting before adjourning for summer break is June 12, and if lawmakers follow their normal rules, they must give preliminary approval to all legislation by June 5.
That means the bills that were not introduced Thursday would have to be green-lit less than a month after introduction if they are to pass before Council’s fall session.
Today’s zoning bills have the support of the influential Building Industry Association (BIA), which argues the changes would boost housing affordability and jobs.
“At a time when residential developments simply don’t pencil out due to interest rates, increased construction costs, as well as ending the full 10-year tax abatement, the Mayor’s transmitted bills offer some relief to get projects back into penciling out,” said Mohamed “Mo” Rushdy, president of the BIA.
Meanwhile, the legislation authorizing the bond issuance — the most important bill in Parker’s H.O.M.E. initiative and the only one that the administration needs Council to approve before its summer break — is not expected to be introduced until mid-May.
Here is what Parker is asking:
Eliminate parking requirements in areas zoned for high density residential.
Zoning codes across the United States require builders to provide a certain number of parking spaces per home.
In recent years these requirements have come under scrutiny. They often result in developers providing far more parking spaces than residents need, adding to the cost of construction and reducing the number of homes built. To compete for buyers or tenants, most projects include parking even without requirements.
Some cities have eliminated mandatory parking minimums, and in 2012, Philadelphia lowered its requirements. Now three spaces for every 10 units are mandated in many residential areas.
Parker’s bill would eliminate parking requirements in CMX-4 and CMX-5 — the two most flexible zoning categories — which, in practice, mostly just means Center City, University City, North Broad Street, and a few other small sections of the city.
Parker’s team argues that Center City and University City are the most walkable and transit-oriented parts of Philadelphia, with only 56% of households owning cars in the former. Team members argue this change would allow developers to choose how much parking to provide, marginally reducing construction costs and allowing more units to be built.
“The bills make common-sense improvements, such as by freeing up space for housing that the Zoning Code currently requires be used for parking,” Parker said in her statement.
Status: This bill was not introduced.
Create a new duplex rowhouse zoning category.
Most of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods are zoned for either single-family (RSA-5) or multifamily (RM-1), which allow rowhouses to be carved into apartments.
Multifamily zoning predominated in the 1950s and 1960s, when Philadelphia had more than 2 million residents and city planners expected the population to keep growing. More recently, the Planning Commission and City Council have been promoting single-family zoning, especially as car ownership is more common and apartments make finding parking harder in dense rowhouse neighborhoods.
Parker’s team is proposing a new zoning category, RTA-2, which would allow duplexes in areas zoned for rowhouses.
“Our desire here was to make sure that we had an option that Council members could apply to their districts that allows for two families,” said Octavia Howell, director of the Planning Commission. “A little bit more density, at a level that is palatable to residents.”
After passing the legislation, City Council would then have to apply it to different areas of the city which would, in theory, make it less controversial.
Status: This bill was not introduced.
Reconsider former Councilmember Darrell L. Clarke’s zoning overlays.
District Council members have near total control over land use and zoning in their districts. As a result, Council members have created hyperlocal zoning rules that only apply to their districts (or certain corners of it). This patchwork quilt of rules has come in for plenty of criticism from good government groups, city planners, and real estate developers.
Clarke, who represented much of North Philadelphia and parts of Center City, was a master of these zoning overlays. Parker’s team has been working with his successor, Jeffery Young, to eliminate some of these specialized rules.
Clarke required that a minimum lot size for a home in his district be 1,440 square feet, essentially banning smaller homes. Parker and Young’s bill would revert the minimum lot size to 960 square feet, the same as the rest of the city.
The former City Council president also banned developers from using zoning bonuses that gave a building more height and density if they included a green roof. Above Spring Garden Street, he banned using a bonus that allows taller buildings with more units if they provide lower-income housing.
Parker’s team has no immediate plans to attempt to alter any other zoning overlays, which could alienate Council members.
Status: This bill was introduced by Councilmember Young.
Reduce Council’s role over moving property into the land bank.
When the Philadelphia Land Bank was created in 2012, it was meant to rationalize the ownership of city land, which was spread across numerous municipal agencies. But that never really happened, partly because Clarke inserted provisions in the land bank law that required Council to introduce a resolution to move property into or out of the land bank.
Many Council members never bothered to do that, so thousands of city properties are still owned by the Department of Public Property or the Redevelopment Authority. This is hardly the biggest challenge facing the land bank, but the Parker administration would like to ease the consolidation of municipally owned property under one roof by eliminating the requirement that City Council act to move land into the land bank.
Status: This bill was not introduced.
Clean up the zoning code.
The administration anticipated that this would be the least controversial bill, as it just tweaks the existing zoning code to correct spelling, eliminate language describing defunct legislation, and other technical tweaks.
Status: This bill was not introduced.