Details about Mayor Cherelle Parker’s plan to build and preserve 30,000 new homes in Philadelphia are still up in the air more than a year into her term, but she’s putting together a team to help firm them up and setting a tight deadline.
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The mayor enacted the Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or HOME, Initiative through an executive order on Wednesday. It created an advisory council of government, private sector and nonprofit stakeholders who will deliver recommendations with specific financial figures to Parker within 30 days.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time, to promote the creation of what I call ‘affordable luxury housing’ everywhere,” Parker said during the press conference where she signed the order.
The city’s efforts will be led by Angela Brooks, the former president of the American Planning Association who helmed the trade group’s Housing Supply Accelerator program. She will start her new role as Philadelphia’s chief housing and urban development officer next month.
“We can get this done,” Brooks said. “It won’t be easy, but it is achievable.”
With her budget address coming up on March 13, Parker said she is eager to have some specific financial figures in hand.
“When we talk about reforming the processes and streamlining them, what will the actual cost be? …That is what they're going to be reporting to me,” she said.
The Philadelphia Housing Authority will be a major part of the HOME initiative, and its CEO, Kelvin Jeremiah, already had some thoughts about how much the city government should be spending.
“The PHA is committing $4.8B over the next four years,” he told Parker Wednesday. “I would recommend respectfully that you come up with about $2B to match.”
Jeremiah also revealed that PHA is on track to preserve 13,000 units and add 7,000 more in the coming years. Those 20,000 residences will contribute to Parker’s goal.
Parker's executive order also includes language about minimizing the “time tax” housing developers often experience due to the city’s approval process, according to a press release from her office.
“We want a streamlined approach so we can get shovels in the ground,” Parker said.
Parker campaigned on an ambitious goal of creating 30,000 new affordable housing units in Philadelphia, but that goal quickly broadened to include preservation after she was inaugurated last January.
