The plaudits are coming out in some circles over a “compromise affordable housing” proposal by Pittsburgh City Councilor Erika Strassburger.
Hold the applause, please.
As the Post-Gazette reports it, the Strassburger “compromise” bill would maintain the basic structure of Mayor Ed Gainey’s “inclusionary zoning” proposal, “including certain bonuses for hitting affordability benchmarks, with one very important distinction: It’ll be voluntary for developers to participate in the program, not mandatory.”
As a P-G editorial explains:
“This means that if a developer of a residential project of 20 or more units sets aside at least 10 percent for households below 80 percent area median income, the company would receive relief from other zoning restrictions, such as height limits. It’s a way of encouraging and rewarding building mixed-income developments that recognizes that doing so is costly. However, if a developer does not wish to include affordable units, the company can still build, just within the normal limits.”
But, and at least on the surface, there appears to be a fatal legal flaw in this “compromise.”
As the P-G editorial further notes:
“Under the original Gainey plan, the affordability benchmarks would have been mandates, meaning every 20-plus-unit project in the city would have been required to be mixed income,” thus further stifling “an already stagnant market for residential construction — which in turn, by keeping the supply of housing tight, would hurt overall affordability in Pittsburgh.”
Simply put, mandatory “inclusionary zoning” in pursuit of “affordable housing” leads to less housing at a higher cost.
But here’s the potential legal hitch:
“The Strassburger amendment would keep existing [inclusionary zoning] mandates in place in neighborhoods like Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Bloomfield and parts of Oakland. The voluntary policy would apply to the rest of the city,” the P-G says, calling it “a remarkable expansion of affordability incentives, which developers that already specialize in affordable and mixed-income projects should take advantage of.”
And equal treatment under the law becomes a dead letter. You can’t have developers in three neighborhoods and part of another expected to follow one deleterious restriction while those in all others have considerable wiggle room to mitigate their costs.
“Inclusionary zoning” has not worked in Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Bloomfield and parts of Oakland. And the Strassburger “compromise” stands to make sure it never does. (Unless, that is, some brainiac hatches a plan to have taxpayers somehow subsidize developers in those areas in a warped effort to make them “whole” and their new housing “affordable.”)
The P-G notes that Mayor Gainey is adamantly opposed to the “compromise” measure; he wants his plan enacted as originally envisioned – citywide.
Mandatory “inclusionary zoning” citywide would be an unmitigated disaster, an onerous governor on much-needed, market-guided housing development.
But a Strassburger “compromise” that automatically consigns three neighborhoods and part of another to housing development purgatory, and likely in violation of equal treatment laws at that, is no “compromise” at all.
If Pittsburgh City Council is so hell-bent on using “inclusionary zoning” in pursuit of “affordable housing,” the program must be market-based — and that means voluntary – for all.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
