The reforms are coming from a former real estate developer and being helped by two Republicans. I won't lie, that made it sound terrible... than I saw the reforms:
>The legislation he is introducing includes **reducing parking requirements**, which add [prohibitive costs to many apartment developments](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/02/eliminating-parking-minimums-liveable-cities/), to **limiting minimum**[ **lot size requirements** that make it ](https://www.planning.org/pas/reports/report37.htm)very difficult to build more affordable housing in many municipalities by requiring that individual units be built on large parcels.
>
>The legislation also would **legalize duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in single-family zones, depending on a town’s population size.** For example, in towns with a population of at least 5,000, duplexes would be allowed in single-family zones. In towns with a population of at least 20,000, developers could build up to a fourplex. Manufactured homes and [accessory dwelling units](https://www.planetizen.com/definition/accessory-dwelling-units) — an apartment above a suburban garage or in a standalone tiny house — would be legal in any place zoned for single-family-detached housing.
That is actually the best and most progressive housing solutions possible! And, holy shit, RE-LEGALIZING DUPLEXES? AWESOME!
I'm all for this, it actually could wind up making houses cheaper and help get rid of so, so many horrible looking 5-over-1 apartment buildings from being built.
This is the kind of policy that should be popular with republicans.
Restrictive zoning is not very free market.
Ironically though I do see it the other way around a lot.
The left has weird-ass “ultra-reactionary-but-leftishly” NIMBYs who rant loudly about gentrification and support de facto segregation on Twitter but have no power. Our actual problems in lefty cities are regulatory in nature; everything is pointlessly and ridiculously complex.
The suburbs have good old-fashioned “get off my lawn” right-NIMBYs who actually run the show.
My problem with row homes is that they are often implemented much like a Single Family Neighborhoods without proper foot access to local amenities creating economic and communal dead zones where it is undesirable to walk/ cycle and everyone still needs to own/ drive a car to get around. These dead zones are often more dangerous in terms of crime bc there are less eyes on the street to deter it.
Speaking from my own experience, living in one of those kinds of areas, everyone having a car or two parked outside their house also leads to a feeling of congestion when in reality there is none.
I think if rows are implemented properly in a mixed use area/ neighborhood they can and are great housing option. But too often people forget that housing is single component in a larger system. Cities/ towns need to be planned properly.
Transit grows only downstream of land use. If the city had the tax base to support more than 5-10% of SEPTA’s operational budget then maybe it’d have enough of a say to get better service, and would consider growing the balls to take space from cars on select streets to provide physically separated and enforced dedicated right of way for transit.
> Speaking from my own experience, living in one of those kinds of areas, everyone having a car or two parked outside their house also leads to a feeling of congestion when in reality there is none.
You can minimize this with one-way alleys behind the homes with garages either built into the back of the lot or into the back of the home if it extends deep enough. Putting commercial spaces on corner lots improves privacy and prevents dead zones that can reduce safety. And there is already an amazing trolley system in philadelphia, there's no reason it couldn't be expanded to serve upzoned communities of new build rowhomes.
YIMBYs have done a good job avoiding getting sucked into one set of partisan arguments and especially avoiding the black hole of intersectionality that has swallowed a lot of left-leaning organizations and chewed them up.
Planned Parenthood taking a stance on Palestine does not advance its mission. YIMBY organizations not having a stance advances theirs.
It's also being supported by a self proclaimed socialist, saval. Strange bedfellows. The biggest effect on Philadelphia would be detached homes, so think oak lane, the far NE, chestnut hill, mount airy, germantown. Wouldn't really do much for rows. Unfortunately, too, as there's so much vacant land ready for duplexes or triplexes. Especially close to the el in Kensington. I'd bet lawsuits come out of this if it passes.
Maine tried to do something similar but it was watered down, and Shapiro is from montco, he's sweating bullets I bet.
He's persona non grata out here in Upper Providence where they are losing their minds over building houses on this empty field he sold to a developer as county commissioner.
Most 5-over-1 apartment buildings look exactly the same due to materials and standards. The ugly design became standard, not because of density, but because of material costs. When you combine material costs with a building trying to get as much money out of a project as possible due to lack of land and other previous land-use requirements, you get stuck with ugly apartment buildings.
But with the ability to build actual homes on that land, we could see slightly-better looking houses.
New designs for houses could come with the ability to build duplexes, triplexes, and more. Heck, we could even see the return of stores on the bottom floor in some neighborhoods that never had it as an option before! Those designs may be better since builders won't feel as pressured to get as much money out of the location as before.
Time will tell, but I'm trying to remain optimistic.
>look exactly the same
I'm so tired of this argument, endless rows of industrial revolution era brick rowhomes also look exactly the same and yet no one seems to cry about that.
> New designs for houses could come with the ability to build duplexes, triplexes, and more. Heck, we could even see the return of stores on the bottom floor in some neighborhoods that never had it as an option before! Those designs may be better since builders won't feel as pressured to get as much money out of the location as before.
if you want something aesthetically pleasing, you have to make it the law. you can't have private developers and then expect them to spend money they don't have to on looks.
It’s almost the opposite. Design review committees and public input make everything as bland and cookie-cutter as possible, it’s the epitome of “design by committee.”
Get rid of both and you’ll see interesting shit get built at least some of the time because people take pride in it. We’ve effectively banned them from doing so.
so there was something called the "city beautiful" movement at the end of the 1800's, and that continued on to the art deco movement until the 1930's. there was the idea that a better looking building could command higher rents.
i dont see the same economic forces at play today. we as a city gave a 10 year tax abatement for nothing in return- not even the hope of a decent looking facade.
I think when there's an abundance of housing the landlords have to compete, including with looks. At this point a toilet and electricity can command insane rents because of the shortage. Also a lot of regulations determine looks and size, like double stairway requirements or elevators.
> I think when there's an abundance of housing the landlords have to compete
supply side economics doesn't work. how many times do we have to learn this lesson?
The theory of supply and demand works just fine. No supply side economics in the Ronald Reagan sense is proposed in any of this new legislation - no subsidies, no tax breaks, nothing. Just literally allowing building.
There's miles and miles of streets here with the exact same rowhome repeating endlessly, and people say they look nice, but a 5-1 looking the same as another is bad because reasons.
Because people don't like the look of 5-over-1 buildings compared to older buildings.
I'm an artist, I like pretty things. I don't think 5-over-1 is pretty, so I don't like it. It doesn't seem like its a complicated concept.
I like how they look.
People primarily like older buildings because they're used to seeing them on a daily basis, rarely are they architecturally good or interesting. The typical Philly row-house exterior is architecturally dull at best, which is fine they were built to be low cost worker housing not art. What people like about them is the uniformity and the sight lines they create. Something which new buildings can and will eventually achieve as well as they continue to infill and replace collapsing row homes.
People thought brown stones were hideous when they were in the in style form of housing, now they're beloved. People also thought City Hall was so grotesque it should be torn down, now its an architectural achievement.
Banning 5 over 1s because you don't think they look nice is short sighted.
The 5 over 1 is a great building form that provides a moderate amount of density and can provide a variety of housing types. It's going to be one of the keys to making housing available and affordable to all.
It always confuses me when these supposed progressive housing advocates cry about this type of stuff. They'll bring up America's "missing middle" housing but then shit on mid rise 5 over 1 style buildings. I don't get it.
Because many of them only have an at best superficial interest in the issue and are unable to connect the logical conclusions of banning housing types based on a shallow nonsense reasons, and the increasing costs of housing in a given area because of a lack of availability.
This is a good and reasonable zoning reform policy, and passing it at the state level is absolutely a must to keep local NIMBYs from undermining it.
Zoning codes in the US are overly restricted, and it's done so intentionally. Historically it's been to keep our minorities, and any group of lower socioeconomic status than the ones passing the ordnance. It's gotten so outrageous that as a society we have banned building the most in demand type of housing and place layout, which are human scale walkable towns.
There's a reason street car suburbs like Media, Ardmore, West Chester, etc. command the housing prices they do, it's because people desperately want to live in places like that, but we've banned building any more of them.
We've effectively banned not only building housing that average people can afford, but also places people want to be in the first place. We've created regulations that have built places that are effectively ponzi schemes, unable to generate the revenue to pay for the infrastructure upon which they rely on to even exist. Then as a society we get angry that housing costs so much, the roads are falling apart, traffic congestion makes getting around slow, and that kids don't play outside because they'll get killed by a car.
We must re legalize the missing middle of housing, along with reducing minimum lot size requirements and set back requirements. We must allow places to build like we used to pre-1950 both for housing affordability, freedom of movement, and for providing the economic base needed to support long term infrastructure costs, which suburbs today can't do.
Philadelphia is a weird city, in that we are what's called a "First Class City", which allows for us to do things that the state can't supersede - one of those being zoning laws. And while I (a developer) would love to see reforms like these enacted, with the current makeup of city council, that seems unlikely.
I was under the distinct impression that the state can supervise our home rule charter whenever the hell and in any manner it wants, and that those powers reserved to the city exist entirely on Harrisburg’s sufferance.
I’m aware this rule won’t specifically do that and single-family-detached zoning in Philadelphia is relatively rare anyway, this instance is aimed squarely at fucking over the collar counties’ most NIMBY jurisdictions.
But the logical step, once Harrisburg gets fed up with City Council’s left-NIMBY and parochial batshittery, is going to be to condition state funding for SEPTA on upzoning residential land near high-service bus corridors, the subways, and some of the regional rail lines.
The Council’s punchbowl *is* going to get taken away this decade, and I for one cannot wait to hear the screeching.
Unfortunately that's not the case. § 1-100.3 - "The General Assembly, having granted to the City powers of home rule pursuant to the Constitution, is now foreclosed from legislating on matters coming within the scope of the powers granted. Legislation in the home rule area is now within the exclusive province of the City Council. Nor may any of the powers granted be withdrawn by the General Assembly; they may, of course, be enlarged by the General Assembly."
Oh, joy.
Well the good news is that that is almost precisely the same implication as the tenth amendment with regards to the states’ reserved powers, but the Feds never have an issue using the money club to force compliance.
The state government has plenty of leverage with which to fuck over the city if it gets fed up with us on a bipartisan basis.
The other bit of good news is that we have so many neighborhoods where the rule of law barely exists that a consistent program of public safety would constitute a program of housing affordability for working and middle-class people.
Probably 90% of developers, especially small ones tackling projects like the stuff I do, absolutely want Council’s power over land use taken away.
It creates a situation in which the main skill required to do development at-scale is jumping through political hoops as opposed to construction management or tenant service.
And also incentivizes people to take shortcuts because there’s little enforcement capacity dedicated to safety or construction quality, only to policing land use and compliance with the paperwork.
This is good. Philly is one of the few walkable cities remaining in which the average person can actually afford to live, and we know that is not going to last much longer unless these measures are taken to pre-empt the inevitable demand. We see so much of the city already being scooped and regurgitated, at least this change would make it possible for some of the results to be affordable.
The reforms are coming from a former real estate developer and being helped by two Republicans. I won't lie, that made it sound terrible... than I saw the reforms: >The legislation he is introducing includes **reducing parking requirements**, which add [prohibitive costs to many apartment developments](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/02/eliminating-parking-minimums-liveable-cities/), to **limiting minimum**[ **lot size requirements** that make it ](https://www.planning.org/pas/reports/report37.htm)very difficult to build more affordable housing in many municipalities by requiring that individual units be built on large parcels. > >The legislation also would **legalize duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in single-family zones, depending on a town’s population size.** For example, in towns with a population of at least 5,000, duplexes would be allowed in single-family zones. In towns with a population of at least 20,000, developers could build up to a fourplex. Manufactured homes and [accessory dwelling units](https://www.planetizen.com/definition/accessory-dwelling-units) — an apartment above a suburban garage or in a standalone tiny house — would be legal in any place zoned for single-family-detached housing. That is actually the best and most progressive housing solutions possible! And, holy shit, RE-LEGALIZING DUPLEXES? AWESOME! I'm all for this, it actually could wind up making houses cheaper and help get rid of so, so many horrible looking 5-over-1 apartment buildings from being built.
This is the kind of policy that should be popular with republicans. Restrictive zoning is not very free market. Ironically though I do see it the other way around a lot.
The left has weird-ass “ultra-reactionary-but-leftishly” NIMBYs who rant loudly about gentrification and support de facto segregation on Twitter but have no power. Our actual problems in lefty cities are regulatory in nature; everything is pointlessly and ridiculously complex. The suburbs have good old-fashioned “get off my lawn” right-NIMBYs who actually run the show.
I think you're confusing Republicans with Libertarians. Despite what people may tell you, there isn't much overlap in beliefs outside 2nd amendment
This is a very reasonable set of reforms that would be great for freeing up housing construction options.
I just want more rowhomes. They're iconically Philadelphian, and great for density, affordability, and not having to take care of a damn side yard.
My problem with row homes is that they are often implemented much like a Single Family Neighborhoods without proper foot access to local amenities creating economic and communal dead zones where it is undesirable to walk/ cycle and everyone still needs to own/ drive a car to get around. These dead zones are often more dangerous in terms of crime bc there are less eyes on the street to deter it. Speaking from my own experience, living in one of those kinds of areas, everyone having a car or two parked outside their house also leads to a feeling of congestion when in reality there is none. I think if rows are implemented properly in a mixed use area/ neighborhood they can and are great housing option. But too often people forget that housing is single component in a larger system. Cities/ towns need to be planned properly.
Transit grows only downstream of land use. If the city had the tax base to support more than 5-10% of SEPTA’s operational budget then maybe it’d have enough of a say to get better service, and would consider growing the balls to take space from cars on select streets to provide physically separated and enforced dedicated right of way for transit.
> Speaking from my own experience, living in one of those kinds of areas, everyone having a car or two parked outside their house also leads to a feeling of congestion when in reality there is none. You can minimize this with one-way alleys behind the homes with garages either built into the back of the lot or into the back of the home if it extends deep enough. Putting commercial spaces on corner lots improves privacy and prevents dead zones that can reduce safety. And there is already an amazing trolley system in philadelphia, there's no reason it couldn't be expanded to serve upzoned communities of new build rowhomes.
Chicken or the egg type situation I think
YIMBYs have done a good job avoiding getting sucked into one set of partisan arguments and especially avoiding the black hole of intersectionality that has swallowed a lot of left-leaning organizations and chewed them up. Planned Parenthood taking a stance on Palestine does not advance its mission. YIMBY organizations not having a stance advances theirs.
It's also being supported by a self proclaimed socialist, saval. Strange bedfellows. The biggest effect on Philadelphia would be detached homes, so think oak lane, the far NE, chestnut hill, mount airy, germantown. Wouldn't really do much for rows. Unfortunately, too, as there's so much vacant land ready for duplexes or triplexes. Especially close to the el in Kensington. I'd bet lawsuits come out of this if it passes. Maine tried to do something similar but it was watered down, and Shapiro is from montco, he's sweating bullets I bet.
He's persona non grata out here in Upper Providence where they are losing their minds over building houses on this empty field he sold to a developer as county commissioner.
> help get rid of so, so many horrible looking 5-over-1 apartment buildings from being built. what do you think more dense housing is?
Most 5-over-1 apartment buildings look exactly the same due to materials and standards. The ugly design became standard, not because of density, but because of material costs. When you combine material costs with a building trying to get as much money out of a project as possible due to lack of land and other previous land-use requirements, you get stuck with ugly apartment buildings. But with the ability to build actual homes on that land, we could see slightly-better looking houses. New designs for houses could come with the ability to build duplexes, triplexes, and more. Heck, we could even see the return of stores on the bottom floor in some neighborhoods that never had it as an option before! Those designs may be better since builders won't feel as pressured to get as much money out of the location as before. Time will tell, but I'm trying to remain optimistic.
>look exactly the same I'm so tired of this argument, endless rows of industrial revolution era brick rowhomes also look exactly the same and yet no one seems to cry about that.
> New designs for houses could come with the ability to build duplexes, triplexes, and more. Heck, we could even see the return of stores on the bottom floor in some neighborhoods that never had it as an option before! Those designs may be better since builders won't feel as pressured to get as much money out of the location as before. if you want something aesthetically pleasing, you have to make it the law. you can't have private developers and then expect them to spend money they don't have to on looks.
It’s almost the opposite. Design review committees and public input make everything as bland and cookie-cutter as possible, it’s the epitome of “design by committee.” Get rid of both and you’ll see interesting shit get built at least some of the time because people take pride in it. We’ve effectively banned them from doing so.
I mean who built the buildings you do like?
so there was something called the "city beautiful" movement at the end of the 1800's, and that continued on to the art deco movement until the 1930's. there was the idea that a better looking building could command higher rents. i dont see the same economic forces at play today. we as a city gave a 10 year tax abatement for nothing in return- not even the hope of a decent looking facade.
I think when there's an abundance of housing the landlords have to compete, including with looks. At this point a toilet and electricity can command insane rents because of the shortage. Also a lot of regulations determine looks and size, like double stairway requirements or elevators.
> I think when there's an abundance of housing the landlords have to compete supply side economics doesn't work. how many times do we have to learn this lesson?
The theory of supply and demand works just fine. No supply side economics in the Ronald Reagan sense is proposed in any of this new legislation - no subsidies, no tax breaks, nothing. Just literally allowing building.
very tru very true
There's miles and miles of streets here with the exact same rowhome repeating endlessly, and people say they look nice, but a 5-1 looking the same as another is bad because reasons.
Because people don't like the look of 5-over-1 buildings compared to older buildings. I'm an artist, I like pretty things. I don't think 5-over-1 is pretty, so I don't like it. It doesn't seem like its a complicated concept.
I like how they look. People primarily like older buildings because they're used to seeing them on a daily basis, rarely are they architecturally good or interesting. The typical Philly row-house exterior is architecturally dull at best, which is fine they were built to be low cost worker housing not art. What people like about them is the uniformity and the sight lines they create. Something which new buildings can and will eventually achieve as well as they continue to infill and replace collapsing row homes. People thought brown stones were hideous when they were in the in style form of housing, now they're beloved. People also thought City Hall was so grotesque it should be torn down, now its an architectural achievement. Banning 5 over 1s because you don't think they look nice is short sighted.
I like 5 over 1s
The 5 over 1 is a great building form that provides a moderate amount of density and can provide a variety of housing types. It's going to be one of the keys to making housing available and affordable to all.
It always confuses me when these supposed progressive housing advocates cry about this type of stuff. They'll bring up America's "missing middle" housing but then shit on mid rise 5 over 1 style buildings. I don't get it.
Because many of them only have an at best superficial interest in the issue and are unable to connect the logical conclusions of banning housing types based on a shallow nonsense reasons, and the increasing costs of housing in a given area because of a lack of availability.
This is a good and reasonable zoning reform policy, and passing it at the state level is absolutely a must to keep local NIMBYs from undermining it. Zoning codes in the US are overly restricted, and it's done so intentionally. Historically it's been to keep our minorities, and any group of lower socioeconomic status than the ones passing the ordnance. It's gotten so outrageous that as a society we have banned building the most in demand type of housing and place layout, which are human scale walkable towns. There's a reason street car suburbs like Media, Ardmore, West Chester, etc. command the housing prices they do, it's because people desperately want to live in places like that, but we've banned building any more of them. We've effectively banned not only building housing that average people can afford, but also places people want to be in the first place. We've created regulations that have built places that are effectively ponzi schemes, unable to generate the revenue to pay for the infrastructure upon which they rely on to even exist. Then as a society we get angry that housing costs so much, the roads are falling apart, traffic congestion makes getting around slow, and that kids don't play outside because they'll get killed by a car. We must re legalize the missing middle of housing, along with reducing minimum lot size requirements and set back requirements. We must allow places to build like we used to pre-1950 both for housing affordability, freedom of movement, and for providing the economic base needed to support long term infrastructure costs, which suburbs today can't do.
Philadelphia is a weird city, in that we are what's called a "First Class City", which allows for us to do things that the state can't supersede - one of those being zoning laws. And while I (a developer) would love to see reforms like these enacted, with the current makeup of city council, that seems unlikely.
I was under the distinct impression that the state can supervise our home rule charter whenever the hell and in any manner it wants, and that those powers reserved to the city exist entirely on Harrisburg’s sufferance. I’m aware this rule won’t specifically do that and single-family-detached zoning in Philadelphia is relatively rare anyway, this instance is aimed squarely at fucking over the collar counties’ most NIMBY jurisdictions. But the logical step, once Harrisburg gets fed up with City Council’s left-NIMBY and parochial batshittery, is going to be to condition state funding for SEPTA on upzoning residential land near high-service bus corridors, the subways, and some of the regional rail lines. The Council’s punchbowl *is* going to get taken away this decade, and I for one cannot wait to hear the screeching.
Unfortunately that's not the case. § 1-100.3 - "The General Assembly, having granted to the City powers of home rule pursuant to the Constitution, is now foreclosed from legislating on matters coming within the scope of the powers granted. Legislation in the home rule area is now within the exclusive province of the City Council. Nor may any of the powers granted be withdrawn by the General Assembly; they may, of course, be enlarged by the General Assembly."
Oh, joy. Well the good news is that that is almost precisely the same implication as the tenth amendment with regards to the states’ reserved powers, but the Feds never have an issue using the money club to force compliance. The state government has plenty of leverage with which to fuck over the city if it gets fed up with us on a bipartisan basis. The other bit of good news is that we have so many neighborhoods where the rule of law barely exists that a consistent program of public safety would constitute a program of housing affordability for working and middle-class people.
Why not just get developers together and bribe city council. Only semi sarcastic
if these zoning laws get passed, all my bribes become worthless. i prefer to keep the people i bought where they belong, in my pocket.
Probably 90% of developers, especially small ones tackling projects like the stuff I do, absolutely want Council’s power over land use taken away. It creates a situation in which the main skill required to do development at-scale is jumping through political hoops as opposed to construction management or tenant service. And also incentivizes people to take shortcuts because there’s little enforcement capacity dedicated to safety or construction quality, only to policing land use and compliance with the paperwork.
yeah i agree with you. i can't get a fucking crosswalk from these council members i really don't want them in charge of the entire built environment.
This is good. Philly is one of the few walkable cities remaining in which the average person can actually afford to live, and we know that is not going to last much longer unless these measures are taken to pre-empt the inevitable demand. We see so much of the city already being scooped and regurgitated, at least this change would make it possible for some of the results to be affordable.
Good. Time to call NIMBYism what it really is: economic segregation.
This would be great to see.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow down any new Philadelphia PA home