The Philadelphia Campaign for Housing Justice has developed an inclusionary housing bill that will bring the benefits of inclusionary housing to Philadelphia. If this legislation is passed it will create 200 – 250 additional affordable homes per year, or 2000 to 2500 affordable housing units over the course of the decade, and will help to preserve an additional 500 homes each year, or 5000 over the course of the decade.

 Our bill has the following features

1. It requires developers of a project containing 8 or more units on a site to do one of the following:
    

• Construct affordable housing on the same site
  • 10% of the housing must be affordable to families (of 4) who earn $36,000 or less
• Construct affordable housing off-site on land that meets the requirements of being close to public transit, schools and shopping
  • The number of  affordable units must equal to 20% of units in the project
• Choose to pay a fee rather than construct the affordable housing either on-site or off-site.  Developers must pay $20,000 per multi-family unit in the project, and $5,000 per single family unit into an inclusionary housing fund
   

2. Money from the inclusionary zoning fund will support: The creation of affordable rental and home ownership units
   • Rehabilitation of vacant housing
   • Home repair grants to low income home owners
   • Rental subsidies to ensure affordable rental costs
   • Homelessness prevention programs
   • Property tax relief for low income homeowners
   • Funds to buy land or buildings in gentrifying neighborhoods in order to create affordable housing and prevent resident displacement.

3. The affordable housing created by the inclusionary housing bill will remain affordable over the long term
    

4. A large percentage of the homes built through the inclusionary housing fund created by this bill, will be accessible for families with a disabled member and all newly constructed homes created by the fund will be visitable to anyone in a wheelchair.
    

5. Developers who create inclusionary housing will get significant benefits from the City to insure that inclusionary housing will not hurt development in Philadelphia. These benefits will include:

• A Density bonus—developers may build 20% more units than they would otherwise be allowed to
• Parking reduction—developers may receive a reduction of  25% in the number of parking spaces they must provide with the project
• Expedited permitting process—developers may use special permitting and approval rules for the inclusionary housing project.

6. Waivers and modifications will be available for developers who cannot meet the inclusionary housing requirements.