(The Center Square) — Statewide zoning reform could come to Pennsylvania, as a pair of legislators want to greenlight multi-family housing by-right in much of the commonwealth.
A trio of bills, proposed by Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Allentown, and Rep. Tarik Khan, D-Philadelphia, would loosen restrictions on where duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes could go, as well as allowing single-exit stairwells for buildings up to six stories.
Currently, local zoning rules and building costs prevent multi-family housing from going in many neighborhoods composed of single-family detached homes and, for larger projects, prohibit a single-exit approach.
“It’s clear to anybody who lives in Pennsylvania that we have a crisis of affordability,” Siegel said. “There’s a crisis of supply and demand … It’s impossible to address the housing shortage that we have unless we get to the heart of the problem — which is really zoning. That is a huge — and, in many ways, artificial — impediment to us.”
The problem hits rural, suburban and urban parts of the state. One analysis found that Pennsylvania is short by 100,000 units. Republicans and Democrats have both held committee hearings on the problem, where legislators heard about the woes of regulatory barriers to expanding the housing supply.
Siegel argued that the post-COVID drop in demand for office space provides an opportunity to build up housing and avoid sprawl that eats up farmland.
“Rather than let (office parks) fall into delinquency or become blighted … we have a chance here to turn them into housing, particularly multi-family to address this really critical shortage,” he said.
The proposed bills would override local zoning restrictions and allow apartments to get built by-right, meaning that developers wouldn’t have to apply for variances and lose time on a project that might get denied.
Avoiding the process of requesting a zoning variance to build a duplex, Siegel said, provides certainty. Such a change could speed up how quickly construction gets done. In Pennsylvania, it takes months longer to get housing built compared to southern states.
“For a developer to buy a prospective lot, not knowing for sure whether or not the municipality is gonna zone that property properly for them creates a tremendous source of consternation,” Siegel said.
Siegel and Khan aren’t alone in pushing to make it legal to build small apartments in neighborhoods dominated by single-family homes. In Pittsburgh, Councilman Bobby Wilson introduced a similar reform bill.
“We at City Council have the ability to make a real impact on the housing crisis here in Pittsburgh,” Wilson said in a press release. “Simplifying the process so that housing can be built faster and more cheaply is one of many steps we can take to become a more equitable place to live.”
Getting more housing built across the state, Siegel argued, is too important for municipalities to block.
“Growth is the lifeblood of any municipality: we can’t shut the door on growth,” he said. “If you’re not growing, inevitably costs continue to go up and that cost will be spread among a stagnant population or a shrinking one. If you shut the door on future growth, you are dooming yourself to a death spiral of increasing costs and more expensive services.”
Legislators have been shy about subverting local control, but this deference may be changing. In a Senate hearing last May, Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, noted that pre-empting local control may be necessary to build more housing and drive down housing costs.
Siegel argued for exactly that.
“I’d argue the status quo is broken, local control is what created this problem,” he said. “Local municipalities have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of addressing the crisis of supply and demand appropriately … One municipality’s unwillingness to expand its housing supply adversely affects all of the communities around them.”
The push to reform restrictive zoning has found success in other states like Montana as housing prices drive Americans to move states more than any other reason, according to the Census Bureau. Though opposition to zoning reform and what Siegel termed “gentle density” can be loud, opponents may be only a minority.
“Broad majorities of Pennsylvanians are supportive of expanding access to our housing stock, they are supportive of supply-side solutions, they are supportive of reforming zoning; I think that that speaks to this moment and the sense of urgency that residents intuitively grasp,” Siegel said. “They know it’s a problem.”