‘Housing, housing, housing:’ Mayor Cherelle Parker lays out her agenda for year two of her administration

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Wednesday said her focus for 2025 is on increasing housing production, revitalizing the Market East corridor, and launching an ”aggressive” tax reform plan.

“In year two, we will focus on my promise to create, repair, and restore 30,000 units of housing during the Parker administration,” Parker said at her annual address to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, a high-profile speech that often serves as a preview of the mayor’s budget proposal in March. “Housing, housing, housing.”

Parker offered little in the way of new details about her plans for those initiatives. But on her long-awaited housing plan, the mayor said she will soon be announcing “a significant city financial commitment” to build and preserve housing, as well as proposing legislation aimed at “easing the production of new housing and increasing density.”

Here are highlights from Parker’s speech at the Convention Center:

While campaigning for mayor in 2023, Parker promised to create 30,000 new units of affordable housing, an extraordinarily ambitious benchmark. After taking office, she watered down that goal to include new housing units of any kind — whether affordable or market-rate — as well as renovations that preserve housing.

That still might not be possible. But on Wednesday she said she is sticking to “Mission 30,000.”

“Sometimes folks say, ‘Well, what do you think about when you sleep at night?’” Parker said. “I’m thinking about, at all times, ‘Mission 30,000′ day and night, ensuring that Philadelphians at all income levels — renters and homeowners — ensuring that they have a safe, secure, and affordable place to live.”

» READ MORE: Cherelle Parker promised 30,000 units of ‘affordable housing’ as a candidate. She’s watered down that goal as mayor.

In addition to the coming announcements on city funding and new legislation, Parker said she planned to sign an executive order to convene an advisory group including real estate industry groups, affordable housing providers, and “private and nonprofit and minority developers.”

The goal of increasing the housing supply has fans across Philadelphia’s political spectrum, and she is likely to get broad support for much of her initiative.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents rapidly gentrifying West Philadelphia and chairs Council’s housing committee, has clashed with Parker on several issues. But Gauthier said after Wednesday’s speech that she was “very excited to hear that the mayor is focused on housing this year.”

“We’ve been eagerly awaiting [the plan’s] arrival,” Gauthier said.

Parker said she would not get into details of how she would like to change the city’s tax structure before the Tax Reform Commission — convened last year by Council President Kenyatta Johnson — releases policy recommendations, which is expected to happen within the next few weeks.

But she said Wednesday that she is interested in an “aggressive” approach.

In her first budget proposal last year, Parker proposed no tax rate changes, breaking with a decades-long tradition of city leaders pushing for incremental cuts to Philly’s wage tax, which is the highest of its kind in the nation. Parker and other officials have questioned that approach, which results in minuscule savings for individual taxpayers in a given year but puts a significant dent in the city budget.

» READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker didn’t want to talk taxes in her first year in office. That’s about to change.

The mayor may be signaling that she would prefer to take a bigger swing. The commission, which is stacked with business-friendly appointees, is expected to propose a major cut to Philadelphia’s business income and receipts tax, or BIRT. Whether Parker embraces that recommendation could play a key role in how the debate over taxes plays out this spring.

Parker will deliver her budget and tax proposals to Council in early March, kicking off four months of negotiations between lawmakers and the administration. The budget must be approved before the start of the next fiscal year on July 1.

Johnson, who attended the speech along with hundreds of business leaders and city and state officials, said he was heartened to hear Parker was focused on “making sure we’re bringing down barriers to business to not only stay here, but also businesses to come here — and one of those key things is examining our tax structure.”

In her speech, the mayor highlighted major initiatives from her first year in office, touting Philadelphia’s remarkable turnaround in homicides and shootings, following a nationwide trend, and promising that the administration’s efforts to end the drug crisis in Kensington were just beginning.

She also highlighted some of the city’s recent highs and lows, from the deadly medical transport plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia last month to the Eagles’ dominant win in Super Bowl LIX.

“How about our Philadelphia Eagles? And don’t get excited — I ain’t spelling,” Parker said, joking about her widely lampooned misspelling of the team’s chant before leading the crowd in the cheer: “E-A-G-L-E-S!”

Toward the end of her speech, Parker also referenced what might have been the strangest moment of her tenure: when the 76ers pulled out of a plan to build a new arena in Center City’s beleaguered Market East corridor weeks after getting Council and Parker to formally approve the proposal following a divisive multiyear lobbying effort.

The team announced last month that it would instead partner with Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Center and is the 76ers’ current landlord, to build a new arena in the South Philly stadium complex as well as work together to help revitalize Market East.

The mayor and Council were not part of the last-minute negotiations that brought the two sides together after feuding for several years, which was seen by many as an embarrassing moment for Parker, who had championed the project. But once the “shock and awe” of the 76ers’ about-face wore off, Parker said Wednesday, she embraced the new plan as a “win-win-win” for Comcast, the team, and the city.

» READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker called the Sixers’ decision to stay in South Philly ‘a curveball.’ Some say she just whiffed.

“If we had to do what we had to do all over again, nothing about that decision-making would change,” Parker said. “Why? Because two of our city’s most important business partners, Comcast and the Sixers, have publicly committed to bringing a whole vision, new investment, and jobs to our city in South Philadelphia and in Center City.”