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Sustainable Pennsylvania

Sustainable Pennsylvania

Municipal Certification Project

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Home › Action Resources › Land Use and Housing › Equitable housing

FOCUS AREAS

Related Criteria

LH6 Housing Opportunities: The zoning ordinance provides for or accommodates a full range of housing opportunities.

LH7 Inclusionary Zoning: The municipality has inclusionary housing incentives/requirements for housing developments or support for affordable housing.
A. The municipality has inclusionary housing requirements or incentives for housing developments that receive public funding. (documentation required)
B. The municipality has affordable housing incentives or requirements for multifamily developments that do not receive public funding.
C. The municipality provides support for or promotes local programs for affordable housing. (documentation required)
D. The municipality supports or promotes a program to facilitate home ownership within the community; Homebuyer incentives, employer assisted housing, community land trust, etc. (documentation required)

Equitable Housing Policies

Housing Options

A diversity of housing types and price points ensures that a community can be home to a broad range of people at various stages in life. Without intentional focus on the preservation and creation of housing that serves people living at a variety of income levels, for example, zoning that prioritizes or even subsidizes the development of only low-density market-rate housing in will, over time, serve to displace the residents who rely on the affordability and accessibility of lower-cost, higher density workforce housing options.  The issue of quality affordable housing for people living at a variety of income levels and with a variety of housing needs intersects with issues of equity, economic development, and multimodal transportation.

When areas of great employment opportunity have minimal affordable housing options, people of lower incomes are displaced into communities that are further away from economic opportunity, typically places with less access to public amenities such as transportation and human service resources, perpetuating income inequality and further straining public resources. Further, when affordable housing is rare or nonexistent, local businesses can struggle to find staff, constraining economic growth in such areas.

Housing Types:

  • Single Family Detached Dwellings/Homes
  • Single Family Attached Dwellings/Homes
  • Two Family Dwellings/Homes
  • Townshouses
  • Accessory Dwellings/Homes
  • Multifamily Dwellings/Homes
  • Multifamily Multistory/Medium Density Dwellings/Homes
  • Multifamily Highrise/High Density Dwellings/Homes
  • Tiny Homes/Mobile Homes
  • Assisted Living/Nursing Homes
  • Co-op or Community Land Trust Housing

Housing Analysis

The first step to addressing this issue locally is to understand the reality of the housing market on the ground, from the changing costs of purchasing or renting a home to the availability of units versus the demand in the area. Municipalities should contract with a firm that has expertise in studying housing markets to understand supply, demand, and the broad regional market factors affecting the housing dynamics uniquely in each community.

Municipal officials looking to codify the preservation and expansion of affordable housing in their communities should explore existing code to understand the ways in which local laws may currently be disincentivizing affordable housing development; requirements such as off-street parking minimums and single-family housing types can inadvertently raise the cost of housing.

  • Inclusive housing zoning policies can ensure that new housing development incorporates a certain percentage of units as affordable to people living at or near the federal poverty line, or people making at or near the community’s average median income.
  • Allowing accessory dwelling units to be developed can simultaneously expand the housing stock in a community while also giving local property owners the opportunity to generate additional income.

Home Ownership

In the United States, a key driver of creating generational wealth is the ability for a person to own a home and build equity in that property. For decades, federally backed mortgage opportunities excluded homebuyers in Black and immigrant communities; while these discriminatory practices have been outlawed, to this day zoning limitations on multi-family and other affordable housing approaches exacerbate housing challenges for the people already disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to homes they can afford.

Increasingly, municipalities looking to address systemic inequities in wealth and financial security are looking to programs that serve to make homeownership more accessible to people less likely to have the resources or knowledge to purchase a home. In many places, local governments collaborate with community-serving nonprofit organizations or financial institutions to offer free workshops on topics such as credit repair, first-time home buying, financial literacy, and workforce development; these programs can not only educate renters on the process and requirements of buying a home, but also address underlying challenges to homeownership, such as budgeting, credit, and income.

Co-operatives or Community Land Trusts

Across the world, community land trust organizations have been created to separate the value of a house from the rapidly increasing value of the land on which it sits by enabling the organization to own the land in perpetuity while the home is owned by an individual household who has a perpetual land lease with the organization. In practice, this allows moderate-income households to purchase a home affordably, build equity, and eventually sell it for a modest (but not market-rate) profit to the next homebuyer, who can then in turn also buy it affordably.

Co-operative Housing Associations that sell shares as opposed to individual units can affectively act as a steppingstone to full home ownership or allowed fixed- or low-income residents to control long term costs.

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About Sustainable Pennsylvania

Sustainable Pennsylvania, a joint project of the Pennsylvania Municipal League and Sustainable Pittsburgh, is a voluntary performance recognition program designed to help municipalities set and achieve sustainability goals, save money, conserve resources, and foster a vibrant community.

Pennsylvania Municipal League

The Pennsylvania Municipal League is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization established in 1900 as an advocate for Pennsylvania’s 3rd class cities. Today, The League represents participating Pennsylvania cities, boroughs, townships, home rule communities and towns that all share The League’s municipal policy interests.

The mission of the Pennsylvania Municipal League is to strengthen, empower and advocate for effective local government.

Sustainable Pittsburgh

Sustainable PGH is a nonprofit committed to building the knowledge, perspective, and ability needed to create a better tomorrow for our region.

Contact us

Email info@sustainablepa.org or call Leslie Rhoads from PML at 717-236-9469 *237 or Jim Price from Sustainable Pittsburgh at 412-259-5331

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