Bill Advances To Restrict University Land Sales To Developers In West Philadelphia

Universities in Philadelphia’s main education hub could have less control over their land sale decisions if a proposed zoning overlay comes to fruition.

Council Member Jamie Gauthier’s legislation would require community and Planning Commission oversight when colleges try to sell large tracts of land in the West Philadelphia neighborhood she represents.

The bill was passed by the Rules Committee on Tuesday but won’t get a full council vote until at least late next month, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“Today, we face a fork in the road where universities feel comfortable selling properties with little regard for neighbors or the lasting consequences,” she told Bisnow in a statement earlier this month. “I’m here to say that that is not fair and will not stand.”

Gauthier’s proposal was a response to St. Joseph’s University’s decision to sell much of the West Philadelphia campus it acquired when merging with the University of the Sciences in 2022 to student housing developer Michael Karp’s nonprofit, Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance.

The lawmaker and her allies believe the institution disregarded community feedback it received ahead of the transaction.

“Philadelphia has stood by and watched colleges and universities downsize, merge, close, and even file for bankruptcy,” Gauthier said. 

“National trends indicate that it won’t be the last,” she said of the merger and subsequent land sale, which the university confirmed was finalized during a Tuesday hearing.

The Planning Commission punted a vote on the overlay to late November after city attorneys raised legal concerns about a previous version of the bill, which sought to directly regulate how universities use their land.

The new version is triggered instead by shifts to a noneducational use associated with university land sales of more than 5K SF.

While this version of the overlay would apply to a developer with housing aspirations for the site, it remains unclear if it would be triggered by the BNEA transaction since the organization is considering building a teachers college on the site.

St. Joe's is concerned about the proposal regardless.

“It probably would devalue our real estate holdings, which, in turn, would then devalue our balance sheet, which would then restrict our ability to offer financial aid,” Senior Vice President for University Relations Joseph Kender said, according to the Inquirer.

“It would restrict our ability to start new construction projects. It would restrict our ability to offer new academic programs.”