September 5, 2018, Jake Blumgart - Plan Philly
A housing plan introduced by Philadelphia planning czar Anne Fadullon Wednesday calls for producing and preserving a combined 100,000 units over the next 10 years.
Billed as the first comprehensive citywide housing strategy, the Philadelphia Housing Action Plan would create or save 60 percent more housing units than the 63,000 produced or preserved over the last decade, according to Vincent Reina, an urban-planning professor at the University of Pennsylvania who is helping draft the plan as part of a city-led task force that includes housing consultants from LISC and Wilson Associates Inc.
The report comes in the midst of a long-burning debate over Philadelphia’s housing policy, or lack thereof. In recent years, City Council members have introduced a host of legislative efforts to address various housing woes, leading developers and other interest groups to complain that there isn’t a coordinated citywide strategy.