Philadelphia lawmakers advance ordinance to speed affordable housing construction

In an effort to impact the housing supply crunch faced by the city of Philadelphia, municipal lawmakers have advanced legislation designed to speed the approval process for the production of affordable housing.

The move, reported by Philadelphia-based NPR affiliate WHYY, represents a coordinated effort by city leadership to speed the process for developers who specifically seek to build affordable units. It would also bolster the “supply of affordable housing while blunting the financial burden of renting a new place,” according to the report.

This new effort comes on top of other moves by city leadership to create and preserve 30,000 units of the city’s affordable housing stock.

In March, Mayor Cherelle Parker (D) described her intention to make housing a central focus of her second year in office. She vowed to make a “significant financial investment” to create and preserve units in an effort to make good on a first-term goal. That would come in the form of the city borrowing $800 million in bonds to support the Philadelphia Housing Opportunities Made Easy (HOME) initiative.

But the legislative move is an essential piece of the puzzle, according to municipal leaders.

“If we’re serious about ending our city’s affordable housing crisis, and making government part of the solution, we need to turn over every stone and identify ways we can do things differently to get families into safe, stable and affordable housing sooner,” Councilmember Jamie Gauthier (D) told WHYY about the new legislation. Gauthier chairs the council’s Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless.

According to the WHYY, the legislation would require the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections to “expedite the review process for zoning permit applications for these developments,” which currently takes 10 business days under current statute.

The new effort would slash that number in half, and it would impose a new requirement of 10 business days for reviewing building permit applications for these projects.

The effort would also aim to streamline the zoning process for such projects to slash one or two months from the six-month-long process that’s currently the norm. The typical cost of an expedited hearing is about $750 per property but ranges up to $2,250, according to city provisions cited in the report.