Affordable or workforce housing is the flavor of the day among most local governments. Even in Allentown, where so many churches are empty, the high cost of housing is a common refrain. Some form of rent control could be enacted to prevent current tenants from being displaced. There is no statewide ban on rent controls, so I am hard pressed to understand why our local elected officials have failed to pursue this option. But there's another reason why our housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable, and that's mostly due to the onerous rules imposed by an unwieldy and slow bureaucracy in places like Allentown,
A few weeks ago, I told you how Allentown makes life miserable for developers. Like many municipalities, it requires a third-party review of building plans from a list of approved vendor. This is supposed to expedite the permitting process by allowing a recognized independent agency to review the structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, architectural and accessibility requirements of a building project. It enables the developer to address any issues before plans are approved. But guess what? Allentown, unlike other municipalities, insists on conducting its own review of submitted plans after the third party review is completed. And once those conditions are met, they are reviewed again ... and again ... and again. As a result, unless you're getting a tax break, there's little reason to invest in Allentown.
These draconian rules and sloth-like mandarins combine to make it illegal or unprofitable to build. As a result, municipalities are saddled with a lack of supply. They have pretty much created the crisis of which they now complain.
What our cities and larger townships really need to do is completely overhaul the permitting process to make it more efficient. I understand the need for safety, but the repetition and multiple checks and stops along the way need to be simplified.
40 comments:
Your first paragraph weas right on. You nailed it. Problem is developers now have free reign and it won't stop. Developer money is spread over all local politicians. They can now do as they please. The infrastructure be dammed. Build it and lee the money come in and even if it goes to hell, they can section eight the thing.
You blew it in your second paragraph, you had to do a love letter for one of your mancrueshes, Hyman about how tough it is to get things done. If he is having a problem, it has to be his fault as pols are bending over backwards for these guys. Maybe he is not greasing palms but that is his problem.
There is not any affordable housing in the Lehigh Valley for natives. Young or old. Don't forget seniors. Unless you can throw out three to four hundred thousand upfront and hundreds a month, good luck.
In the case of welfare recipients streaming into the poverty magnet that is Allentown from throughout the tri-state region, Allentown housing is *too* affordable, making it too profitable to be a slum lord, and pushing much of the cost of the care and feeding of the dependent segment onto productive citizens.
Rent control is generally a spectacular failure too
All welfare - corporate, especially - is heroin. Once injected, addiction quickly follows and is very difficult to break. Allentown is a big heroin addict in a doom spiral. Good thing the school system is strong and providing great hope for the city's future. Oh wait ....
I'm not in agreement. I blame the high local housing costs on our regional location in the Mid-Atlantic and the in-migrating renters and home buyers from New Jersey and New York who are driving up rents and home sale prices. Lehigh Valley is within 1-2 hours drive from places with double the property values and much higher taxes to boot.
I Love your blog Bernie but I have never commented before. I've been a plumbing contractor doing work in Allentown for 30 years. I've never seen it more difficult to get something done than it is now. Matt Turk has made things much Worse than ever before. He just hired a guy named joe franzone To be in charge of the construction department. He is making every contractors life terrible. He thinks he knows much more about construction than he really knows. I have turned down work in Allentown and don't plan to do anymore work there. And I hear the same from other contractors
I read in the morning call a few weeks ago that the guy doing the nueweiler brewery was so upset with The city And the inspectors That he is giving up deposit and walking away from the job!Tuerk has managed to make a bad situation worse
And who runs Allentown to put these rules in place? They voted for it.
The bureaucracy may be to blame in Allentown but there are many municipalities in the Lehigh Valley, all who could arguably do something to tackle affordability. You had it at a lack of rent control.
Allentown has become the landfill of the valley. Bethlehem is trying for that honor.
Affordable housing has a host of issues. Delays caused by bureaucracies are one of those problems. Local approval is just one of those steps. You also have approvals that you need from the local county conservation districts as well as DEP and PennDOT. The people that are in those positions, especially the newer grads, are more pro-environment and less pro-development so any subjective requirement or policy is never held in favor of the developer. Keep in mind that the developer has to pay its own engineers while at the same time paying for the municipality's engineers. To get a land development plan approved (provided you have zoning in place), can take 3 years if you are lucky, but 5-7 years is more typical. A lot can happen to the market in that time.
The next barrier to affordable housing is the price and availability of building materials. We live in a market based economy driven by principles of supply and demand, and material shortages post-pandemic are crushing developers. Generators, switch gears, electrical panels, pipes, etc., are in short supply with lead times over a year. The prices are through the roof for all steel, wood and petroleum products.
Labor is also an issue. Developers and construction companies are having a difficult time finding the skilled trades to perform work. There are not enough experienced people in the field, and the ones that are rightfully are demanding higher wages. Kids do not want to perform manual labor whatsoever, and the turnover rate is exceedingly high.
These are all facts as to why affordable housing doesn't work - it's not affordable to build without having robust governmental subsidies in place to support development and construction activities.
Maybe rent is too high due to rent subsidies? Landlords know what Uncle Sam is pitching in take advantage of the system too!
Pennsylvania in general and this part of it in particular has always been the land of arcane and annoying "nuisance" taxes and permitting. And of course, Allentown is an All-Star in this game.
Occupational privilege tax, business privilege tax, residence tax, earned income tax, maybe Allentown still requires a moving tax, but everywhere you turn, there's a piece of some government trying for its cut. And everywhere along the way, that piece has a chance to take the shape of a palm waiting to get greased. Heck, even one of your commenters is so accepting of this that he/she says it's YOUR problem if you can't figure out how to make it work.
I don't know what to do about it other than what some contractors are apparently doing...go elsewhere.
I hear that Tuerk is making it impossible to build anything in Allentown. Instead of going to Puerto Rico to figure out the job problem, he should make it easier for people to build and create jobs
7:17AM My friend has had a rental house in Allentown for 20 years . Always has rental inspections and never has a problem. He told me that Fanzone came by out of the blue and put a sticker on that says he has to raze it.
Rent Control ultimately leads to unaffordable rents. Take NYC or San Francisco for example. Both have rent control and both are ridiculously unaffordable and going up even thogh quality of life is deteriorating. It renders development or redevelopment more difficult when combined with the byzantine regulations codes that are administered. Thus, those in rent limited apartments rarely leave, causing a shortage due to lack of turnover. (Someone in my daughter's pleasant East Village building lived in the same studio apartment since the early 70s, his rent was nothing. He died recently, now the apartment is receiving its first update in over 50 years.) When an apartment becomes available, its rent jumps on the basis of a limited marked creating price pressure.
10:48 many good points. Between the municipality and the state, then the EPA it’s a grind to get anything built. then you get a guy like Tuerk in, forget it they go somewhere else.
It is no better in Bethlehem. The Reynolds administration has taken the City to a new low when it comes to Community and Economic Development. Permits take forever and don't even think about developing something. Months to get approvals for projects that don't even require zoning relief. A friend told me it took 2 months to get a permit for an above-ground pool.
I’m pleased to see how many Americans are waking-up to how far down this nation has fallen. Yes, money laundering to politicians, especially the House and Senate, high administration officials, etc. is a very REAL, and serious matter. It needs to be called out and dealt with. But, who has the guts and courage to touch such widespread graft? Well, no one currently in office. That’s evident.
"I'm not in agreement. I blame the high local housing costs on our regional location in the Mid-Atlantic and the in-migrating renters and home buyers from New Jersey and New York who are driving up rents and home sale prices. Lehigh Valley is within 1-2 hours drive from places with double the property values and much higher taxes to boot."
please stop injecting facts, basic economics and market principals here. it has no business in a discussion about housing.
Rent control actually is illegal in Pennsylvania.
3:35, there is no law banning rent control. BernieOHare
We need rent control!
In addition, let’s make sure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes, that goes for the builders, and let’s get the churches to start paying taxes.
Bernie,
You going to be cheap on me? Or is this the excuse for not buying me a meal at Nat Hyman's Nathan's Famous? My buddies to me you were going to welch.
Turk was working for don Cunningham Before he Quit his job and biked around the city running or mayor. He won with a paltry 2000 votes. He is way over his head and never run anything before. he Only cares about cutting ribbons and kissing babies. He doesn't know how to Run an administration. I can't believe I'm saying this but this city was better off with fed Ed
BernieOHare to Al, no way i did not know you were in town. Tell me when and I’ll meet you there.
If you want a nightmare when making repairs to present structures, visit the looney tune township of Lower Nazareth. They have an idiot in charge of permits. This woman should not be in charge of anything to do with construction. She never had any training in that area and was a secretary of a twsp. supervisor. She doesn't know diddly squat about how to interpret the zoning laws and causes residents tens of thousands of dollars in excessive costs because she needs to collect a fee for a permit to justify her position. she is a disgrace to the position that she holds and an embarrassment to Lower Nazareth Township professional staff.
Bernie have rent control on his apartment in Nazareth ?.
It does not seem difficult for J.B. Reilly to build in the City. I wonder why it works for him.
I'm sure JB has to jump through hoops as well, but he's getting a huge tax break so he has no incentive to complain. I have never spoken to him about this subject. I do know that one company with which he was once affiliated ended up in litigation in Bethlehem Tp over delays attributed to the township engineer.
"\You blew it in your second paragraph, you had to do a love letter for one of your mancrueshes, Hyman about how tough it is to get things done."
I doubt very much that Nat Hyman agrees with me on the subject of rent controls.
"Bernie have rent control on his apartment in Nazareth ?."
Yes, I live in senior housing, where rents are tightly regulated. Before that, I lived in the same small efficiency for decades, and the landlords only very rarely raised rent. I started raising it myself because I loved living there even though it was tiny. Having owned a home and having lived in an apartment, I much prefer apartment life.
Rent control helps current tenants. It is far from perfect. But I consider it inexcusable to triple someone's rent over the course of a year.
People are afraid of affordable housing. They automatically think it means welfare people moving in next door to their own little kingdoms. Therre are many middle class people who can no longer afford the high rents, let alone the high housing sales prices. Lets not forget our senior citizens who must cough up a half a million dollars for a cottage in a 55+ comunity. Developers are entitled to makea profit. However when does that profit become onorouse. When is enough enough? The only reason prices are so high that that there are people willing to pay them.
Try
https://www.yahoo.com/video/investors-set-sights-mobile-home-153250704.html
"Residents have been complaining that the hedge fund has been raising rents without improving maintenance or amenities. Rising rents have pushed these tenants into mobile home units, and even higher rent could result in more homelessness."
Yep Wall street will come in and borrow money at low rates--bleed tenants while putting nothing into the property then walk away after vampiring every cent and if that creates homelessness or severe financial difficulty for tenants-- well that is just good investment strategy.
You think JB Reilly had to jump through hoops when Fed Ed was in charge?? Doubtful
Bernie, how do you head straight toward the point and miss it entirely? GREED is the problem with affordable housing. Developers have no interest anymore in building single family homes and have instead shifted their business plan into apartment rentals for long term passive income. They literally don’t want you to own anything and are attempting to create a renters nation where THEY control the prices by eliminating the possibility of competing with fixed-rate mortgages.
These greedy landlords/developers present a barrier to the basic human right of housing, and the commoditization of housing is unethical, leading to the unaffordable housing crises.
It’s always greed, Bernie. Resist them at every turn.
8:43 am hit the nail directly on its head. Notice that even the smallest parcel of land is being designated either for apartments or a Wawa. The sellers and developers couldn’t care less about the community because the almighty dollar is the motivation. I’m looking forward to the Wawa by Blue. Imagine wanting to sit on Blue’s patio on a night such as tonight, but hearing nothing but horns, loud music, and traffic. Add the sweet smell of exhaust and you have a perfect evening. Blue’s ownership is pretty dumb because business (at least on the patio) will probably decline. A money-grab may be a short-term benefit, but often it creates bigger problems.
I personally disagree with 8:43 and you. Sellers and developers give people what they want. It's called capitalism. two generations ago, the dream of most young people was to have their own home, preferably new, on at least an acre of land. I know one fellow who has builty four homes, one for each time he married. These days, younger people prefer apartment life, and for good reason. They bounce around a lot for different jobs. Instead of building equity in a home, they invest in stocks. That is actually more sound financially. At the time the housing bubble burst, developers were unable to sell condos, and started converting them into apartments. That has taken off/ If people wanted more homes, the market would be there.
A transient population doesn’t benefit anyone, Bernie. You want a community in which people put down their roots because, it is hoped, all will benefit. People flitting in and out of the community only benefits the young people you mention who refuse to adult. Just as housing markets crash, so do stock markets.
Yes, I find it impossible to enjoy my incredibly overpriced food when I look next door and see someone buying decent food at a reasonable price.
I've been recently evicted from my house rental that I was in, for over 4 years. According to economics you should spend no more than 28% on rent. I maKe around $70,000/ yr that equals $1,750/month but at $1425/month rent that only leaves me $325 for my utilities. It doesn't add up. That will not cover my electric, oil heat, water sewer and trash.
The middle man company taking care of the landlords rent took me to court over 10x with each hearing costing $150 In court costs and $142.50 in late fees monthly. That's $300 additional a month. I'm a contractor and get paid by the job. So I tried getting the rent paid on time but came short on a bunch of occasions but always got it paid by the end of the month
Why is it ok to get evicted in 10 days after the rent is do which would be for me the 18th of the month. But the foreclosure process takes at least 3 months for non payment.
Greed is the number 1 problem and number 2 is no rental controls! I'm sorry making $70,000 a year I should not have a problem renting a 1,000 ft2 home.
Now for the first time in my 49yrs I have an eviction on my record which now has stopped me from finding something else and dropped my credit score below what landlords are now demanding as the average. Anywhere from 620-700 for a decent house! It's insane.
I'm moving out of Allentown, you cannot work and live here affordibally!
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