Title
Calling upon the City of Philadelphia to exhaust all reasonably necessary steps to ensure that PMC Property Group ("PMC") re-affirms and satisfies its contractual and moral obligation to set aside on-site units of affordable housing at One Water Street, the expected performance of which conditioned the City's decision to grant PMC a substantial density bonus permitting construction of additional floors and units therein, all under certain conditions set forth by the city's Mixed Income Housing Program; and further calling upon PMC to apologize to the citizens of Philadelphia for evading affordable housing obligations while the City faces an affordable housing crisis.
Body
WHEREAS, Philadelphia's shortage of affordable housing is a crisis of epidemic proportion, such that hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians who work full-time, family-sustaining jobs lack access to safe and affordable housing, at a time when rents and home sale prices continue to rise rapidly despite stagnant wages and deepening poverty; and
WHEREAS, Over the past decade, City Council has vigorously confronted Philadelphia's affordable housing crisis, by studying national best practices for inclusionary housing reform, by legislating reforms particular to Philadelphians' housing needs, and by collaborating with the Nutter and Kenney administrations in order to swiftly implement those reforms; and
WHEREAS, Council's 2012 passage of the Mixed Income Housing Program, by amending Section 14-702-2(7) of the Philadelphia Code, established one of the City's most powerful tools, in the form of a "density bonus," for incentivizing private developers to build housing for low- and moderate- income residents and to grow mixed-income communities across Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, The Mixed Income Housing Program provides that a developer may obtain special permitting to construct a building in excess of certain zoning limitations on height and density if and only if said developer sets a...
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