So tell us again why the city needs to buy more land for affordable ...

Those of you who have been following the soap opera that is the rejeuvenation of Point Breeze ? or its ruin, depending on who you ask ? no doubt have heard that its district Councilman, Kenyatta Johnson, is pushing a bill to have the city buy a bunch of vacant lots in a hurry in order to land-bank them for affordable housing. Or something like that. And this in an area where both the local community development corporation and private builders have had little trouble building both market-rate and affordable houses that sell.

Or do they? According to this post on Philadelinquency, the city appears to have some affordable housing on its hands that it wants to unload already:

So now we at least have an idea of what constitutes ?affordable housing? in the city of Philadelphia. Which made it a bit of a surprise when we learned from our housemate that we currently live in ?affordable housing? in Oxford Circle. We don?t think he thinks of it as such, either, but it?s certainly in that price range.

We did a quick search on Trulia just now for homes for sale citywide, priced between $80,000 and $150,000 ? we figure anything below $80k is probably at best a fixer-upper. We found 5,860 properties for sale in that price range. Of these, 1,789 are single-family houses, townhouses, condos or co-ops ? the kinds of properties people talk about when talking ?affordable housing.? 118 of those (out of a total of 148 homes for sale at $80,000 and up) are located in that Lower Northeast neighborhood, and 46 (out of 119 for sale at any price above $80,000) are in Point Breeze.

We don?t know about you, but that sure doesn?t sound like a crisis in the making to us. So tell us again: What?s the rush? Where?s the fire?

-By Sandy Smith for PhiladelphiaRealEstate.com

Image from Philadelinquency.com

Media professional with more than 30 years' experience in journalism and public relations. Launched award-winning newspapers at the University of Pennsylvania and Widener University. Editor-in-chief of this blog since May 2012.

Source: http://blog.philadelphiarealestate.com/so-tell-us-again-why-the-city-needs-to-buy-more-land-for-affordable-housing/

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