Inclusionary Zoning Then and Now
The following OpEd pieces were submitted by Sam Sherman to the Philadelphia Inquirer in response to editorial comments.
JANUARY, 2008
In response to your editorial
(“Developers should help,” December
27, 2007), you should know that when
it comes to affordable housing, developers do help, and they are prepared to
help even more.
But at a time when costs for residential construction in Philadelphia are
already nearly double those in the suburbs, it’s just not fair to demand that
developers bear the additional cost of
the inclusionary zoning program.
To be sure, the BIA agrees that the
goals of inclusionary zoning are worthwhile. Adding more affordable housing is good for neighborhoods, good
for the city’s tax base, and good for the
construction industry generally. We
look forward with great interest to the
companion legislation that will spell
out the alleged incentives that will be
provided to encourage the development of more affordable housing units
in the city. But in the absence of agreement on these measures, the affordable
housing bill passed by City Council last
month is just another unfunded mandate that requires developers to foot
the bill – and in the process, winds up
killing any momentum for residential
construction in the future.
On this point, let’s be as clear as possible: we do not “pretend” to dramatize the impact of legislating additional cost on the city’s residential housing
market. Across the country, the