Council tradition shouldn’t upend Mayor Parker’s housing plans | Editorial

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has made housing the central issue of her mayoralty, pledging to build or preserve 30,000 homes in the city. City Council, despite some misgivings over the cost, signaled its support, as well, recently voting overwhelmingly in favor of the mayor’s housing plan.

Despite the rhetoric, however, actions by two councilmembers provide a reminder that Council — and the tradition of allowing district representatives to control decisions in their territory, known as councilmanic prerogative — remains the greatest obstacle to accomplishing the mayor’s goal.

Fifth District City Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young says that “no one is opposed to affordable housing.” Yet, he wanted to kill a proposal to build 57 homes in Strawberry Mansion, and his Council colleagues voted to grant him this authority.

Young cited insufficient community support and too high population density as his reasons to oppose the project. Neither reason is particularly persuasive.

After all, the project had already gone through six years of community review and has support from most neighboring civic groups.

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After initially proposing to build 77 homes and apartments, the developers agreed to scale the project back to 57. These concessions were necessary to win the approval of former Council President Darrell L. Clarke, who represented the 5th District at the time. Clarke’s delays imperiled $13 million worth of federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Still, the project seemed likely to proceed — until Young took office.

Young won his seat unopposed in 2023 after other challengers were knocked off the ballot over paperwork issues. Thus, the former Clarke aide became the councilmember by default. This gave voters little opportunity to scrutinize Young’s history of offensive social media posts (insulting women, Asian Americans, and other groups) or his involvement, as Clarke’s legislative aide, to steer property at a discount to developer Shawn Bullard.

In office, Young held up a bill to add speed cameras outside of schools, froze funds to renovate the Cecil B. Moore Library for a housing plan with no funding and no support, engaged in scuffles with constituents, and now has blocked dozens of families from sustainable, affordable housing.

The density of the project is also reasonable. Dense living is not a departure from the norm for Strawberry Mansion. In fact, the area has historically included a much higher population. During the area’s postwar peak, much of North Philadelphia had 40,000 residents per square mile. That’s over twice today’s numbers. Per a 2021 Economy League Report, Strawberry Mansion is still losing residents, rather than gaining them. The neighborhood also has a surfeit of vacant lots that, in the recent past, housed families.

If Young goes through with his efforts, he might not just block one affordable housing project — he could also hinder Parker’s housing plans.

As Ben Franklin said, time is money. This is especially true in construction, where administrative requirements and bureaucratic obstacles that keep a project on the shelf for months or even years become a prohibitively expensive time tax. Whatever incentives Parker’s plan includes may wither away under an individual councilmember’s opposition.

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Young is not alone as a recent example of using councilmanic prerogative to push against affordable housing.

Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who represents parts of West Philadelphia, Roxborough, and East Falls, is fighting a proposal from Gaudenzia, a nonprofit organization that specializes in treating substance abuse, to build affordable housing in West Philadelphia.

For advocates, developers, and community members who support these projects, the greatest source of frustration may come from the fact that councilmanic prerogative is a norm, not a rule.

There is no law on the books that requires all land-use decisions be made by district councilmembers. Council should not allow a single person to make these decisions.

The institutional culture surrounding prerogative is so strong that the 3rd District’s Jamie Gauthier, who promised to end prerogative when she ran for office, has since embraced the practice. Gauthier maintains that prerogative has allowed her to do good things for her district, citing her affordable housing requirements for new development.

But Gauthier’s measure has helped produce only around 30 new units of affordable housing in 18 months. That’s about a third of what Jones and Young blocked this month alone.