Philadelphia could soon become the first American city to establish its own retirement savings program for residents whose employers don’t offer one.
City Council is poised to pass legislation that would enable the plan, called PhillySaves, which is modeled on similar state-facilitated “auto-IRA” programs that have been increasingly established across the country.
The idea is that workers would be automatically enrolled in the city-managed plan and would contribute through payroll deductions at no cost to their employer. The plan would then follow employees, even as they change jobs.
Council President Kenyatta Johnson, a Democrat, said during a committee hearing on the legislation last week that the program is an anti-poverty measure aimed at generating wealth for more than 200,000 Philadelphians who do not have access to a retirement savings plan through their job.
“We want to make sure we are lifting all Philadelphians out of poverty, building generational wealth, and ensuring our seniors are financially stable in retirement,” Johnson said.
A Council committee approved the legislation following a hearing last week, and the full Council is expected to pass it. Voters would have to approve the creation of an investment management board through a ballot question, which could come as early as the May primary election.
Councilmember Cindy Bass, a Democrat who represents parts of North and Northwest Philadelphia, called the plan a “game changer.”
“There was a time when you could retire just on Social Security alone,” she said. “That day has come and gone.”
How would the program work?
Workers would be automatically enrolled in the plan with a default contribution rate of 3 to 6% of their wages, however they can opt out or change their contributions at any time.
Employers that do not offer their own retirement plans would be required to sign up. Their only responsibility would be facilitating the payroll deductions for their employees. There is no matching program for employers or the city.
City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, a Democrat who represents parts of Northeast Philadelphia and is sponsoring the legislation, emphasized last week that there is “no cost” to employers and no fiduciary liability.
“The goal is to make it easy for employees who want to save,” he said, “and not burden employers who are already managing their many responsibilities.”
In this 2023 file photo, Council President Kenyatta Johnson (left) greets 6th District Councilmember Michael J. Driscoll (center) and Councilmember At-Large Katherine Gilmore Richardson (right) before the last City Council meeting of the year.
The legislation includes minimal fines for employers who don’t enroll employees. But Council members said the city will launch a significant public education and outreach campaign before levying fines.
Who is the program for?
Under the current version of the legislation — which could still be amended — the program applies to businesses with at least one employee. It must have been operating in Philadelphia for at least two years.
Auto-IRA plans are especially geared toward hourly workers who generally have fewer employer-covered benefits, such as 401(k) plans, as well as people who work for small businesses that can’t afford to provide retirement benefits.
Pennsylvania is not among them, but New Jersey launched a state-run retirement savings program last year. That plan, called RetireReady NJ, was first established in 2019 and signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
It is more limited than Philadelphia’s would be, in that it only applies to businesses with at least 25 employees. Philadelphia’s would apply to businesses with just one.
Gov. Phil Murphy speaks with members of the media after meeting with Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill at the governor’s office in Trenton on Nov. 5.
Two other cities — New York and Seattle — passed legislation enabling auto-IRA programs, but neither was implemented because both New York and Washington states enacted state-run programs that include the cities.
The Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania State House passed legislation in 2023 along party lines enabling a similar program called Keystone Saves, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.
The city would create a nine-member Retirement Savings Board, which would include four appointees by the mayor, four by the City Council president, and one by the city controller.
That board would be responsible for facilitating the program and may contract third-party consultants, financial advisers, actuaries, and other experts to manage the investments.
The program defaults to a Roth IRA, though people covered can elect to switch to a traditional IRA.
John Scott, director of the retirement savings project at Pew Charitable Trust, said during the Council hearing last week that Roth IRAs are often the default in auto IRA programs because participating employees can pull money out of those accounts at any time without taxes or penalty.
He said that’s especially appealing to workers “who sometimes have fluctuations in their work schedule or they might have a financial shock.”
“For many of these workers in these programs, this is really the first opportunity to save money,” Scott said. “So, you know, life happens. And sometimes they do need to pull that money out, and the Roth IRA is really the best vehicle to do that.”
When will this become reality?
Creating the board that will oversee the investments requires a change to Philadelphia’s Home Rule Charter, the city’s governing document.
If Council passes legislation and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker signs it — both are expected to support it — then voters could approve the change through a ballot question as early as May.
The legislation says the program must be launched by July 2027, however there are exceptions in the case of legal challenges or a state-level program superseding the city’s.
The fix was needed because Council earlier this week amended a separate but related piece of legislation — called the H.O.M.E. budget resolution — that sets the first-year spending levels for the housing programs funded or created by the initiative.
Council’s changes, which Parker largely opposed, were significant enough that the budget resolution no longer aligns with the bond authorization bill Council approved in June, meaning the administration cannot rely on the original legislation as its legal basis for taking out city debt.
The new bond bill introduced Thursday reflects Council’s changes, which include increasing the first-year H.O.M.E. budget from $194.6 million to $277.2 million and changing eligibility requirements for some programs to make sure the lowest-income Philadelphia households were prioritized.
“We want to make sure that this is a H.O.M.E. plan that supports everyone, but obviously members of Council had an issue and concern about making sure those most in need are supported throughout this process,” Johnson said.
The bill now heads to committee, and Johnson said negotiations could lead to further changes. Next week is Council’s final meeting of the year, and Johnson on Thursday ruled out adding an extra session, meaning the bill likely will not pass until January at the earliest.
“Working with Council President Johnson and the Members of City Council, we are laser-focused on building, repairing and restoring 30,000 units of housing and making H.O.M.E. a reality for the people of Philadelphia,” Parker said in a statement Thursday.
‘That’s my sister’: Johnson says relationship with Parker still strong
Parker-Johnson pact intact: The Council president on Thursday downplayed his spat with Parker that saw both issue pointed statements Tuesday night blaming the other for delays in issuing the bonds.
But Johnson said Thursday their relationship remains the same and has always involved disagreements — just not ones that have spilled out into public view.
City Council President Kenyatta Johnson and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker have maintained a close working relationship.
“That’s my sister,” Johnson said. “Most of the time, when we do have disagreements, y’all just don’t see it. We meet every week, so you don’t get a chance to see the back-and-forth. But at the end of the day, the mission is to move the city of Philadelphia forward together.”
Council makes it harder to open convenience stores and pharmacies in Kensington
The bill, authored by Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, forces any new “sundries, pharmaceuticals, and convenience sales” businesses in her 7th District — which covers much of Kensington and parts of North and Northeast Philadelphia — to get approval from the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment. That process is notoriously long and can be expensive for applicants.
Lozada has said that the bill is targeted at corner stores and smoke shops, not chain businesses like CVS and 7-Eleven.
The legislation is part of the body’s broader war on so-called nuisance businesses, which lawmakers say attract crime and disrupt neighborhoods. And it comes in addition to a controversial 11 p.m. business curfew in Lozada’s district that took effect earlier this year.
City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada represents Kensington.
It’s one of several legislative remedies lawmakers have undertaken to curb small businesses like smoke shops and convenience stores that have unregulated slot machine-like “skill games,” sell marijuana-like products, and peddle drug paraphernalia without a license to do so.
Seriously … no nuisances, please: Lozada was not the only lawmaker taking aim at “nuisance” businesses Thursday, when Council approved two bills by Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson on the same topic.
One measure makes it easier for the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections to issue stop-work and cease-operations orders to businesses violating city regulations. The other is aimed at closing loopholes that “let nuisance business owners avoid enforcement by changing their name or ownership, ensuring those with similar ownership or operations remain accountable for past violations,” Gilmore Richardson’s office said.
The measures, which were both approved 16-0, were aimed at stopping “the spread of dangerous and destructive businesses and the need for further action to address their impact on our communities,” Gilmore Richardson said.
“While I am encouraged by the steps we are taking today, I am also working on additional legislation to more aggressively crack down on these businesses and the bad actors behind them,” she said.
“Anybody that knew Paul will tell you he really was that guy, that guy who would give you the shirt off his back,” Harrity said. “He’s the only person I truly knew never lost faith in me, even when I was at my lowest 10 years deep in my addiction.”
Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. thanked Harrity, who often gives impassioned speeches, for his heartfelt tribute to Staico.
“I want to shout out Jimmy Harrity for making crying in Council cool,” Jones said. “Nobody does it better, brother.”
Staff writer Jake Blumgart contributed to this article.
For years, preservationists have countered claims that historic designation limits development and housing supply. Some neighborhood groups have gone as far as filing petitions to oppose new historic districts in Philadelphia on these grounds.
Although only about 5% of the city’s land and 4.4% of its buildings are listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places — up from just 2.2% in 2016 — that expansion in designations shows how Philadelphia has begun to catch up with peer cities. This growth reflects both resident advocacy and the city’s expanded preservation capacity, which were spurred by efforts under Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration, including the convening of a Historic Preservation Task Force.
The new report produced striking findings that flip the old narrative on its head: that preservation constricts housing supply and reduces density.
In fact, the data show preservation supports growth and density. Population density in historic districts is 34% higher than in other neighborhoods, and housing units there grew 26% over the past decade, nearly triple the citywide rate.
The study also found that older neighborhoods are becoming more diverse, with preservation helping sustain racial and economic inclusion. Nonwhite homeownership in these areas is rising faster than in the city as a whole, a clear sign that maintaining older housing can open doors to opportunity, not close them.
It’s evidence that preserving the city’s older housing stock is a key component of Mayor Cherelle L.Parker’s H.O.M.E. Initiative to provide new affordable housing opportunities. Investing in these neighborhoods will support the growth of homeownership for Black and Hispanic populations.
The 1500 block of Christian Street in the historic Black neighborhood nicknamed “Doctors Row,” photographed in 2021.
Beyond the data, historic neighborhoods offer beauty, character, and a sense of place that newer developments often struggle to match. Built long before cars shaped our neighborhoods, these areas were designed for people: compact, walkable, and full of architectural variety. Their mix of rowhouses, corner stores, and small apartment buildings naturally creates the kind of density and vibrancy that newer communities struggle to emulate.
Moreover, many older neighborhoods were built at a time when transportation options were more limited, such as walking and transit, causing them to be more densely developed than later, automobile-oriented areas of the city. These neighborhoods were often built with a wide variety of housing types, including multifamily buildings that are inherently denser than neighborhoods of primarily single-family homes.
Historic districts are simply desirable places to live. And that attracts housing developers seeking to put up new housing, whether on vacant lots or on parcels containing “noncontributing” properties, which can be demolished under Philadelphia Historical Commission regulations.
These and other new buildings constructed within historic districts in recent years have been subject to Historical Commission review to ensure they do not detract from the character of the historic districts in which they were built.
Preservation also fuels local jobs and investment. Philadelphia ranks among the nation’s leaders in historic tax credit projects, which, since 2010, have generated roughly 2,500 jobs and $141 million in annual labor income — a steady return that proves preservation is as much an economic strategy as a cultural one.
Historic districts are living, breathing neighborhoods that welcome both new housing and new residents. The findings from the latest study should put to rest some of the more persistent claims of preservation’s detractors.
Paul Steinke is the executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.
Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Google’s parent firm, said Wednesday that it has begun autonomous tests in Philadelphia and expects to offer its robo-taxis to customers at some point afterward.
“We’re making it official, Philly: Waymo will bring our service to the City of Brotherly Love!” the company announced on its website.
Ethan Teicher, a spokesperson for Waymo, said in an email: “We recently began driving autonomously with a specialist behind the wheel, after securing permission to do so from PennDOT. We’ll continue laying the groundwork in Philadelphia to open our fully autonomous ride-hailing service for the public in the future.”
In July, a Waymo spokesperson said the company would begin mapping Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, manually “driving through the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and freeways.”
In its Wednesday announcement, Waymo said it will begin the mapping process in Pittsburgh, and noted that city’s connection with autonomous driving history. Carnegie Mellon University, which is located in Pittsburgh, is known as the birthplace of self-driving technology.
Under a 2022 Pennsylvania law legalizing the commercial operation of “highly automated vehicles,” Waymo needs a “certificate of compliance” to conduct autonomous testing in specified locations. In July, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said it was reviewing an application from Waymo.
The only other company with a certificate for the city is Perrone Robotics, which operates a self-driving shuttle service at the Navy Yard.
In New Jersey, state law does not allow for commercial services using self-driving vehicles on public streets. Legislation recently was introduced to create a pilot program requiring three years of testing with a human driver in the vehicle.
Waymo offers self-driving taxi service in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta, and has test-driven in dozens of other cities. Testing began in New York City this summer.
Currently, the company says it is performing a total of 250,000 rides a week using fully autonomous electric vehicles.
A spokesperson for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said Wednesday that the mayor and other city officials are “closely monitoring Waymo and its plans for Philadelphia” but declined to elaborate.
Besides mapping and testing its vehicles, Waymo has “engaged with community organizations” in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, including the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania, said Teicher, the company spokesperson.
In the company’s announcement, it included a statement from Samantha Civitate, the Pennsylvania state director for Best Buddies, a nonprofit that brings together volunteers and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“Accessible transportation remains a vital piece of fostering independence and inclusion,” Civitate said.
There has been no groundswell of opposition to Waymo coming to Philadelphia. The company, however, has had to deal with recent incidents elsewhere that have generated negative attention.
A Waymo taxi in Los Angeles was caught on video making a left turn just feet away from an incident involving police officers positioned behind their vehicles shouting commands at a suspect who was lying facedown on the ground, apparently waiting to be arrested.
In San Francisco on Sunday, a Waymo taxi hit an unleashed dog, which reportedly needed to be euthanized because of its injuries.
Waymo vehicles have also been targeted, though mainly because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In June, several Waymo taxis were burned during anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. The company temporarily halted service in the area.
City officials and housing advocates want Philadelphia to close a loophole in its tax code that allows people who forge deeds and steal homes to get a refund for taxes they paid to commit their crimes.
Thieves commit deed fraud when they illegally transfer a property’s ownership and record a fraudulent deed with the city.
This fraud often occurs after a homeowner dies but remains the legal owner of a property. Thieves use deceptive means, such as posing as fake heirs and forging documents, to take and sell properties, often flipping them to developers for large profits.
To record a deed, property owners — including fraudsters — need to pay a realty transfer tax. If a judge later determines that a sale was fraudulent, the person who paid the tax can request a refund from the city. That includes thieves.
“It’s a nightmare for victims of deed fraud, and while we can’t necessarily improve the situation, we can help to ease some of their financial burden,” Gilmore Richardson said during a Council hearing Wednesday.
Philadelphia’s portion of the realty transfer tax is 3.578% of the value of a home sold. So for a stolen $100,000 home, a victim could receive a refund of about $3,500.
A longstanding issue
Deed fraud is a persistent problem in Philadelphia. The city’s records department received about 130 reports of deed fraud in 2023 and about 110 reports in 2024.
Investigations by The Inquirer have shown that deed theft grew alongside gentrification in Philadelphia, as property values rose in neighborhoods that became more desirable. Victims of deed fraud disproportionately are people of color and seniors.
James Leonard, commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Records, said the Parker administration supports the Council bill, which “addresses a gap in how we help victims of deed fraud.”
“We see these cases regularly,” he said. “They devastate families, they undermine confidence in our property system, and they impose significant costs on victims, who must fight in court to reclaim what was always rightfully theirs.”
Victims face a long legal battle in which they must prove that a deed is fraudulent and often must pay attorney fees. And they have to keep paying mortgages while they fight to reclaim properties.
“When they finally win, they get their property back. But they’re often financially and emotionally devastated by the process,” Leonard said.
The new Council legislation allows a victim who gets a court order that voids a fraudulent deed to request a refund of the realty transfer taxes that a thief paid. Leonard estimates the city will see at most 25 to 50 cases per year, a “modest” fiscal impact for the city.
And under current law, the city keeps tax payments that it never would have received if not for the deed fraud, he said, so the city has been benefiting from fraudsters’ payments.
“From an equity standpoint, this bill is the right thing to do,” he said.
Vincent Gilliam and his family were victims of deed fraud when his deceased mother’s home in North Philadelphia was stolen. Between the belongings that deed thieves took and the fight to reclaim the home, he estimates that the ordeal cost his family at least $5,000.
He told Council members that getting some money back from the city through a realty transfer tax refund “would be a tremendous help.”
Kate Dugan, a divisional supervising attorney at the legal aid nonprofit Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, said the problem of deed theft “is expensive and complicated to fix.”
“Even when free representation is available, which is normally not the case, victims are stuck paying for costs like repairs, changing locks, filing fees … out of their own pockets,” she said. “It’s rare for a deed fraud victim to collect any meaningful money damages or restitution.”
On Wednesday, Council’s Finance Committee sent the bill to the full Council for consideration.
Northeast Philadelphia’s Franklin Mall — better known by its original name, Franklin Mills — is for sale after years of plummeting valuation, occupancy, and visitor numbers.
A listing on the website of real estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) includes possible uses a new owner can consider, including industrial and office development. The parcels including Sam’s Club and Walmart are not included in the sale.
“Franklin Mall presents the opportunity to acquire meaningful control of more than 137 acres … in a densely populated location that may support additional densification and redevelopment,” the listing reads.
The move comes amid a wave of mall sales and redevelopments in the region, with demolition and residential construction a common fate for many struggling shopping centers.
Over 68% of Franklin Mall is occupied, which could be an incentive for continued retail operations. But sales and visitor numbers have been falling for years,and JLL reports the average existing lease lasts for only another 1.7 years.
If a new use is sought, the mile-long, one-story structure would be difficult to repurpose.
“I think it’s unlikely to be a shopping mall” again, said Jerry Roller, founder of the design firm JKRP and a longtime architect in Philadelphia. “What could it be? Obviously, residential. It might be a warehouse. It’s essentially a large vacant piece of land. It was fairly inexpensive when it was built, so it’s not hard to demolish.”
The hundred acres of land that Franklin Mills sits on at the edge of Far Northeast Philadelphia is zoned for auto-oriented commercial use.
JLL’s listing advertises the site’s suitability for industrial redevelopment.
“The property’s infill location and highway access make it a strong candidate for redevelopment into a modern industrial facility,” the listing reads. The zoning “could provide a basis for an investor to pursue the development of up to 1.4 million square feet of new warehouse space.”
The residential redevelopment opportunities for the site could be aided by a promised 20-year property tax abatement for the conversion or demolition of outmoded commercial buildings into housing, which Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration promises next year following enabling legislation from Harrisburg.
But the existing zoning would not allow that, so a residential project would need to win the permission of the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment or have the land-use rules changed legislatively by Councilmember Brian O’Neill.
The mile-long Franklin Mills mall drew Christmas-size crowds at its opening in May of 1989.
Tribulations of a Northeast Philly icon
The 36-year-old, 1.8-million-square-foot facility at Knights and Woodhaven Roads is the second largest mall in the Philadelphia area after King of Prussia. But while its larger cousin remains a dominant retail force, Franklin Mall has been struggling for years.
The mall opened in 1989 to great fanfare as the largest outlet mall ever, with an iconic zigzag-shaped concourse that stretched for 1.2 miles.
In 2007, in retrospect near the end of Franklin Mills’ golden era, the property and the rest of the Mills Corp. was taken over by Simon Property Group, the largest mall owner in the country. The new ownership group rehabbed the property in 2014, although there were already signs Simon was distancing itself by moving Franklin Mills (renamed Philadelphia Mills) into a different balance sheet category than its core properties.
Simon’s loan on the property had been intermittently distressed since 2012. An April 2024 report from real estate analytics firm Morningstar Credit was headlined “Legacy Philly Mall Back to Special Servicing for the Umpteenth Time.”
Shoppers stroll through the Franklin Mills mall in 2014.
The 2007 loan still had an outstanding balance of almost $250 million when it came to maturity in July 2024. Simon stepped away from the day-to-day operations at that time, with Philadelphia-based OPEX CRE Management appointed as receiver of the distressed property. The name was changed to Franklin Mall because Mills was trademarked by Simon.
Last year Franklin Mall’s appraised value was $76 million, a precipitous decline from its $201 million valuation in 2012 and $370 million in 2007. According to Morningstar Credit, a new appraisal is likely in the next month.
Full financials haven’t been publicly updated since last year, but at that time, the cash flow for the property was $9.5 million, the lowest since Simon took over in 2007. That’s down from 2019, when cash flow was $17.5 million, according to Morningstar, and from $11 million in 2022.
According to Morningstar, the latest reports from the special servicer for the property, Greystone Servicing Co., say cash flow is even lower this year and occupancy has fallen to 65.4%.
Possible reuses for Franklin Mills
Franklin Mall’s for-sale status comes as some old-school regional shopping destinationsare declining.
While some of its counterparts like King of Prussia and the Cherry Hill Mall are still thriving, there has been a wave of sales and redevelopments of area malls as the nature of retail evolves.
Some ailing malls have been purchased on the cheap, allowing their new owners to reinvest and refurbish the property in its previous mold.
“In terms of using the buildings that are there, it’s a challenge because they are generally big box retail, and they’ve got a center mall, which is completely out of fashion,” Roller said. “Could somebody, if they had the right tenants, recreate the mall? Turn it inside out, open the thing up?”
“Maybe it’s possible,” Roller said. But “I don’t see a lot of uses for the buildings that are there right now.”
The redevelopment of Exton Square Mall is in legal limbo.
When regional malls are redeveloped, more commonly, the retail options are reduced with much of the old structure demolished. Diverse new uses often take a faded shopping center’s place.
In New Jersey, the Echelon, Moorestown, and Burlington Center malls have or are going through a variety of demolition and redevelopment options. The commonality is that residential building is a part of all three plans.
At Franklin Mall, redevelopment would likely require demolition of the existing building.
“Ultimately, it may just be a piece of land” for sale, said Roller.
JLL’s listing, however, pitches the property as either redevelopment or continued mall use.
“This offering presents prospective purchasers with the opportunity to acquire a strategically positioned super regional shopping center with significant upside potential and/or redevelopment opportunity,” it reads.
JLL’s managing directors on the sale are John Plower, David Monahan, and Jim Galbally.
Philadelphia City Council on Tuesday amended the initial budget for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s signature housing initiative to direct more money to programs that will help the lowest-income Philadelphians, a move that sparked one of the most notable confrontations between Parker and city lawmakers since she took office almost two years ago.
The amendment, which followed a weekslong standoff between the executive and legislative branches, represents a rare act of defiance for a Council that has otherwise been largely compliant with Parker’s agenda, and it appeared at first to be a major win for Philly progressives.
But Parker is not giving up the fight, and she said Tuesday night that the amendment may have had unintended consequences that could hold up much of the housing initiative for months.
The changes to the legislation, she said, may trigger additional procedural steps that will prevent the city from issuing $400 million in bonds to fund the initiative until March or later. The mayor did not hold back from laying the blame for the delays at Council’s feet.
“The resolution that City Council passed out of the Committee of the Whole today contained language that our bond lawyers have repeatedly advised would prevent the administration from being able to issue the bonds,” Parker said in a statement. “That means homes are not being restored. It means homes are not being built or repaired.”
In an unusually blunt statement late Tuesday night, Council President Kenyatta Johnson pushed back against the administration’s analysis of the situation.
“Council’s responsibility is not to rubber-stamp legislation, but to ensure that any multi-billion-dollar public investment is legally sound and targeted to the Philadelphians who need it most,” Johnson said.
But he also vowed to have Council quickly introduce new legislation that could ameliorate the procedural problem Parker identified, tacitly conceding that additional legislation was needed hours after lawmakers approved the resolution with no mention of that possibility.
Johnson said Council would “resolve remaining legal and policy issues swiftly,” and that a new measure to legalize lawmakers’ most recent changes could be introduced this week.
Council wants “shovels in the ground” and “homes repaired,” he said, but ”refuses to rush into issuing $800 million in debt without iron-clad legal protections and clear guarantees.”
“Council members repeatedly raised concerns — directly and in good faith — about accountability, neighborhood equity, homeowner protections, and the long-term impact of the H.O.M.E legislation,” he said. “Council’s action today strengthened the H.O.M.E resolution, not sabotaged it.”
The late-night war of words between Parker and Johnson came hours after a celebratory Council committee meeting in which lawmakers took a victory lap for standing up to the administration.
After the vote, Councilmember JamieGauthier and Councilmember Rue Landau, respectively the chair and vice chair of the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless, said the amended resolution means “working and low-income families will finally be able to get the support they need sooner.”
“With roughly $30 million in federal homelessness funding at risk, it is more important than ever that this multiyear, $800 million investment begins by prioritizing the more than 200,000 Philadelphia households on the brink of losing their homes,” Gauthier and Landau said in a joint statement, referring to a federal policy change proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration that could cost the city millions in funding for anti-homelessness programs.
Council pushes for policy changes
Parker, who has long championed the city’s “middle neighborhoods,” structured her sweeping Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E, initiative to ensure that the myriad programs funded or created by the program would be available to homeowners and renters at a variety of income levels.
But Johnson — in an unexpected break from his usual alignment with Parker — stood with Gauthier and other progressives who fought to ensure the neediest city residents were prioritized in the budget resolution, which sets the first-year spending allocations for H.O.M.E. The distribution of funding must be approved by Council before the administration can issue the first of two planned $400 million tranches of city bonds that will finance much of the initiative.
Council’s Committee of the Whole, which includes all members, approved the amendment and advanced the resolution in a pair of unanimous voice votes Tuesday afternoon following hours of testimony.
The measure would now head to the Council floor for a final passage vote in the next two weeks. Parker’s statement, however, could mean Council has additional work to do before getting the measure over the finish line. Johnson’s office said the vote is still scheduled for Dec. 11.
“The majority of the members of City Council want to focus on the issues of those who are poor here in the city of Philadelphia when it comes to housing and equality,” Johnson told reporters after the vote.
It’s unclear whether the vote represents a serious rupture in the tight relationship between Parker and Johnson, who have worked closely together since both took office in January 2024. Council approved the most important pieces of legislation Parker proposed as part of the H.O.M.E initiative earlier this year, and the changes adopted Tuesday do not alter the fundamentals of the program, which Parker hopes will achieve her goal of creating or preserving 30,000 units of housing in her first four-year term.
“We support the H.O.M.E. plan,” Johnson said. “And I think the mayor did a good job in investing close to $1 billion … in supporting the issue of housing inequality here in the city of Philadelphia. This amendment represents the will of the members. … We want to specifically focus on those who are the most least well-off, those who are poor.”
But after reading about Parker’s statement in the evening, Johnson’s attitude toward the administration sharpened. His lengthy statement included the most critical language the Council president has directed at the mayor since they were inaugurated.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker unveils her long-awaited plan to build or preserve 30,000 units of housing during a special session of City Council Monday, Mar. 24, 2025. Council President Kenyatta Johnson is behind her.
Johnson rejected Parker’sclaim that the legislative delays could cause the popular Basic Systems Repair Program to temporarily run out of funding, saying that there is plenty of money in the current city budget to cover shortfalls.
“Threatening residents with a shutdown of the Basic Systems Repair Program and assigning blame does not move this process forward,” he said. “Collaboration and working together does.”
The amendment increases the first-year budget for spending the bond proceeds from $194.6 million to $277.2 million. The increased price tag, however, does not represent new money in the housing budget; it merely allows the administration to spend more of the $400 million in bond proceeds in the initiative’s first year.
The changes include increases in funding for housing preservation from $29.6 million to $46.2 million, and housing production from $24.3 million to $29.5 million. Additionally, the amendment boosted funding for homelessness prevention programs from $3.8 million to $8.8 million.
But perhaps more importantly, Council altered the income eligibility levels for several programs.
Parker, for instance, had proposed that the H.O.M.E. funding for the Basic Systems Repair Program, which subsidizes critical home improvements to prevent residents from being displaced by the costs of needed repairs, be open to any homeowner who makes Philadelphia’s area median income, or AMI, which is about $119,400 for a family of four.
Council’s amendment, however, requires 90% of the new funding to go to families making 60% of AMI or less, about $71,640 for a family of four.
The administration initially planned to issue the first $400 million in bonds this fall, and Parker sent Johnson’s office a first draft of the budget resolution in July. Council then delayed the committee vote on the resolution several times as Johnson negotiated with Parker on potential changes.
The amendment adopted Tuesday appears to largely mirror Gauthier’s priorities for the spending plan, rather than a negotiated compromise, the first sign that Johnson had moved forward despite not reaching a deal with Parker.
Parker’s plan to sell the initial round of bonds this fall appeared to be on schedule when Council in June approved the most important pieces of legislation associated with the H.O.M.E. initiative, including an $800 million bond authorization.
But lawmakers at that time inserted a provision into the bond legislation that required the administration to get Council approval of its H.O.M.E. budget each year before it can spend the bond proceeds. For the initiative’s first year, that provision means the city cannot take the bonds to market at all without Council signing off on the budget resolution, city Finance Director Rob Dubow has said.
The latest potential delay, which could set Parker’s schedule back months more, stems from the amendment approved in committee Tuesday.
Parker did not elaborate on the procedural issue that could cause the latest delay, but her comments indicated what it may be: Because the resolution, which dictates how the bond proceeds can be spent, now includes significant differences from the bond authorization bill Council approved months ago, the city may not be able to rely on the original bill as its legal basis for taking out debt and selling the bonds.
To make them align, Council may have to approve a new bond authorization bill, or abandon some of its changes to the spending resolution.
In his statement Tuesday night, Johnson indicated Council has chosen the former route.
“City Council is preparing to introduce an amendment to the H.O.M.E bond ordinance as early as this week’s Council session,” he said.
It’s unclear if the resolution could pass by the end of the year. But Johnson’s reference to the potential of the current city budget’s surplus covering shortfalls in housing programs indicates that might not be possible.
Council’s last meeting is scheduled for Dec. 11. Lawmakers can vote to suspend Council rules and fast-track legislation as needed.
This story was updated to include Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s response to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s statement.
Historic preservation advocates are sounding the alarm about legislation from Councilmember Mark Squilla, which they argue would weaken existing protections in Philadelphia.
The bill, introduced Nov. 20, would institute changes to the city’s Historical Commission, which regulates properties on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places and ensures that they cannot be demolished or their exteriors substantially altered.
“This is the first time the [preservation] ordinance has been proposed for amendment in decades,” said Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. “This is a developer-driven proposal that does not reflect any of the priorities of the preservation community.”
Proponents of the bill argue that it is simply meant to give more notice and power to property owners before their buildings are considered by the Historical Commission.
“The bill does nothing to decrease the power of the Historical Commission to protect important historic resources,” said Matthew McClure, who served as co-chair of the regulatory committee of Mayor Jim Kenney’s preservation task force.
“It is a modest good government piece of legislation,” said McClure, a prominent zoning attorney with Ballard Spahr. He emphasized that he was not speaking on behalf of a client.
The bill was introduced too late in this year’s Council session to receive a hearing. Squilla says it will be considered next year.
Currently, the interest group most supportive of the bill is the development industry. But even some preservation opponents are displeased with Squilla’s effort, arguing that it does too little for homeowners.
“Everybody’s talking, and I think they all agree to move forward with continued conversations to maybe tweak the language a little bit so everybody feels comfortable with it,” Squilla said.
At least one more stakeholder meeting will be held in December.
Tensions over preservation
Squilla’s proposal comes in the midst of heightened debate around preservation in Philadelphia, where the majority of buildings were constructed before 1960.
Over the last decade, the number of historically protected properties doubled, although well below 5% of the city’s buildings are covered. Preservationists oppose what they see as a demolition-first approach to development in the United States’ only World Heritage City.
These have provoked backlash among some homeowner groups and pro-development advocacy organizations, which see these regulations as increasing housing costs.
Members of the Philadelphians for Rational Preservation gathered at Seger Park in the Washington Square West neighborhood on July 27 to talk about their opposition to the Washington Square West Historic District.
Some property owners have grievances against the way the local nomination process works.
In Philadelphia, citizens are empowered to nominate buildings to the local register — giving buildings protection from demolition or exterior changes — without input from the property owner until the Historical Commission considers the case.
This practice persistently causes controversy, especially because there are few local incentives for homeowners whose properties get protected.
In some localities, preservation protections are promulgated exclusively by planners. In others, owner consent is required.
“The current historic nomination process is most often dictated by nongovernmental actors who operate without notice to property owners,” McClure said. “The administration’s bill is aimed at increasing transparency and basic fairness during the nomination process.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration did not respond to a request for comment.
What’s in the bill
Squilla’s bill is thick with new provisions to the local historic ordinance. A key aspect of the legislation gives property owners at least 30 days before a pending nomination of their building is considered by the commission and protections kick in.
While homeowners probably would not have time to radically alter the exterior of their house — and presumably wouldn’t demolish it — preservationists fear that developers will use the extra time to begin razing historic buildings.
“No one likes the notice provision the way it’s written; that’s freaking people out,” Steinke said. “We made clear why we think that’s a problem, and we were heard. Of course, the development community would love it to be the way it’s currently expressed in the bill.”
A Victorian home in the Spruce Hill historic district. Recently large new historic districts have been created to cover neighborhoods like Powelton Village, parts of Spruce Hill, and 1,441 properties in Washington Square West.
The delayed provision particularly worries preservationists in combination with a proposed requirement that the commission approve permits — including demolition or exterior design work — if “material commitments” were made to plans before the attempt to protect the historic building.
Other provisions include language to make it more difficult to protect land because it may house archaeological remains. It also limits the ability to consider a property for protection due to its relation to a landscape architect (as opposed to, say, a building designer).
Despite their animus toward existing preservation rules in the city, groups like 5th Square and Philadelphians for Rational Preservation called the legislation a sop to those who least need help.
“While this bill is a boon to developers, it doesn’t help ordinary Philadelphians,” said Jonathan Hessney of Philadelphians for Rational Preservation.
He argues that Squilla isn’t curbing historic districts that burden homeowners, “while at the same time risks allowing genuinely historic properties to be destroyed in the new 30-day race to demolish or deface it creates.”
A possible reform that some critics of the bill would like to see are flexible, tiered historic districts, where only a select group of buildings would be fully regulated. Demolition protections would still exist for many buildings, but most would not be subjected to oversight for changes like replacing a door or window.
“That was discussed as something that the preservation community would like to see that was mentioned in the original draft and then stripped out,” Steinke said.
Squilla said the pushback surprised him, given that negotiations have been held since June. He’s confident a compromise can be reached.
Beyond the Preservation Alliance — the advocacy group with the most funding and pull in City Hall — the bill has caused alarm among historic activists.
“It was a blindside to the progress that many stakeholders in the preservation community felt they were reaching with him,” said Arielle Harris, an advocate. “Squilla understands the preservation climate in the city — given that he was on the preservation task force — so this is out of left field.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has said her administration relied on expert advice from a top law firm when it decided to end a Philadelphia policy prioritizing businesses owned by women or people of color in city contracting following recent court rulings that limited affirmative action-style government programs in hiring and contracting.
“I call them my genius attorneys because they all clerked for Supreme Court justices, and they handle the hardest cases throughout the country,” City Solicitor Renee Garcia, the city’s top lawyer, recently said of the New York-based firm Hecker Fink.
“And we went back and forth,” Garcia said. “Can we do this? Can we do this? What about this? What about that?”
But when it came time to replace the city’s old program with a new policy, the Parker administration didn’t adopt all of the suggestions it received from Hecker Fink, internal administration documents obtained by The Inquirer show.
Hecker Fink attorneys suggested that Philadelphia replace its old contracting system with one that favors “socially and economically disadvantaged” businesses, the documents show. Parker instead created a new policy favoring “small and local” companies.
The differences between Parker’s program and alternatives the city could have adopted are highly technical but hugely important, attorneys and researchers who study government contracting told The Inquirer.
Critics say the new policy indicates Philadelphia took the easy way out in the face of conservative legal attacks, instead of fighting to preserve the spirit of the old program: promoting equity and diversity in city contracting.
Parker, however, is adamant that her “small and local” policy will achieve that goal, given that many small companies in the city are owned by Black and brown Philadelphians who have faced discrimination.
“Our small and local business program is our disadvantage program,” Garcia said in a written statement. “Considering counsel’s advice, the City determined that a small and local business program is the best way to incorporate social and economic disadvantage in a way that is objective, content-neutral, consistent, demonstrable, and could be stood up very quickly.”
The documents, which include confidential legal memos from Hecker and internal administration emails, show how top city officials attempted to navigate a new legal landscape after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 upended decades of jurisprudence on affirmative action and other race-conscious policies.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said her “small and local” contracting policy will boost Philadelphia companies.
In early 2025, the Law Department provided a spreadsheet of line-by-line edits to the city’s Five Year Plan, a long-term budgeting document, to remove language about racial and gender-equity goals submitted by city departments.
When the Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity, for instance, wrote that its mission involved “advancing racial equity,” the Law Department simply wrote, “remove racial,” as it did for several other agencies.
The edits signify a stark contrast to the city’s approach under former Mayor Jim Kenney, who in 2020, operating under very different circumstances, instructed all departments to craft comprehensive racial-equity plans.
There is no indication in the internal documents, which are primarily from 2024 and 2025, that Parker, the city’s first Black female mayor, or administration officials were eager to make those changes. And no city officials appeared in the documents to view the “small and local” policy as less aggressive or safer than the other options at Parker’s disposal when she replaced the city’s race-conscious contracting system.
But for Wendell R. Stemley, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors, the mayor’s choice was revealing.
“The cities that want to cave in on this issue without doing the hard work are just doing small [and] local, race- and gender-neutral,” Stemley said.
‘Disadvantaged’ vs. ‘small and local’
The documents obtained by The Inquirer show that Hecker recommended the city abandon its decades-old contracting system — responsible for allotting more than $370 million each year in city contracts to historically disadvantaged firms — due to the threat of potential legal challenges, as Parker and Garcia have said.
But they also show that the firm proposed replacing that policy with a system “setting mandatory goals for hiring socially and economically disadvantaged businesses or persons,” a race- and gender-neutral standard based on the federal Small Business Administration’s 8(a) business development program.
Like the city’s contracting policies, the federal program previously had a stated policy of aiding business owners who were members of specific historically disadvantaged groups, such as women and Black people. But a 2023 federal court ruling in Washington, D.C., prohibited the SBA from presuming that members of those groups had faced barriers and required 8(a) applicants to demonstrate social and economic disadvantages.
The change allowed the program to pass legal muster by not favoring race or gender groups, while still allowing the agency to consider whether each applicant had faced discrimination on an individual basis.
Hecker, a litigation and public interest firm, suggested that Philadelphia adopt a similar approach.
“Adopting mandatory goals for hiring socially or economically disadvantaged individuals or businesses, defined along the same race-neutral lines as in the SBA’s 8(a) program, would likely be defensible if challenged,” Hecker lawyers wrote in a May 5 memo to the city.
An internal administration memo analyzing the city’s options on May 16 said that Hecker “recommended taking a look at the federal SBA 8(a) Business Development Program as a model.”
“This is a program to recognize small and disadvantaged businesses,” the city’s memo said, adding that the SBA defines socially disadvantaged individuals as “those who have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society because of their identities as members of groups and without regard to their individual qualities.”
The executive order governing the city’s old minority contracting program, which aimed to award 35% of contracts to historically disadvantaged firms, expired at the end of 2024, and the city quietly ended it at some point earlier this year.
The key difference between Parker’s program and the 8(a) model is that the city’s new policy gives no explicit consideration for social disadvantage, prejudice, or cultural bias.
Garcia, the city solicitor, firmly pushed back against the notion that the city had ignored Hecker’s advice on reshaping its contracting landscape and contended that the “small and local” policy will result in equitable outcomes because many of Philadelphia’s small businesses are owned by people of color and have faced discrimination and other barriers to growth.
“The City’s small and local business program … is more aggressive [than an SBA 8(a)-style policy] in that it is broadly applicable to small and local businesses, without creating unnecessary hurdles and confusion over the word ‘disadvantage’ or requiring onerous paperwork” for business owners to demonstrate their disadvantages, she said.
City Solicitor Renee Garcia is the Parker administration’s top lawyer.
Although Parker’s new program is not exclusively available to disadvantaged firms, Garcia said it “has built-in elements of social and economic disadvantaged programs like the SBA 8(a) and [U.S. Department of Transportation] programs, such as utilizing SBA business size standard caps, examining years in business, examining employee count, and personal net worth considerations.”
But Andre M. Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that while the city may be intending to help disadvantaged businesses with its “small and local” approach, specifying that goal in writing is important. The mayor’s executive order does not use the word disadvantage.
“They are different,” said Perry, the author of Black Power Scorecard, an examination of access to property, education, and business success. “The downside of any approach that does not use some criteria for being disadvantaged is that you can ignore them.
“There is a history that suggests that you absolutely need some process to identify groups of people who have been ignored by the city. It’s certainly not a given that you will touch those communities that have been denied opportunities in the past under ‘small and local,’” Perry said.
‘Too early to tell’
Parker’s move to abandon the city’s goal of prioritizing businesses owned by women and Black and brown people has become the latest flashpoint in the debate over the centrist Democrat mayor’s approach to the new political reality under President Donald Trump’s second administration, as critics like progressive City Councilmember Kendra Brooks have accused her of “caving” to Trump.
Parker, however, said the city had little choice but to end the old system following Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that prohibited affirmative action in college admissions and has had widespread consequences for race-conscious government programs.
“There were people who told us that leadership meant justifying the [old] law,” Parker said at a recent news conference announcing the contracting policy changes. “They said, ‘Forget about the Supreme Court ruling. Philadelphia should just continue functioning and operating its program even if your Law Department and these genius lawyers at [Hecker] who have clerked for Supreme Court justices [recommended abandoning it.]’
“I want to take some advice from somebody to interpret the Supreme Court ruling right for some folks who have worked there.”
The U.S. Supreme Court upended the legal landscape for race-conscious government programs with a 2023 case ending affirmative action in college admissions.
But Parker also said she felt that the city’s old system was “broken” long before the Harvard decision because it failed to achieve its goal of boosting the number of “Black and brown and women and disabled business owners” in Philadelphia.
Parker, who as a lawmaker worked on policies aimed at boosting economic opportunities for minority- and women-owned firms, said she was optimistic that pivoting to a focus on “small and local” firms would produce better results.
Parker has not publicly discussed suggested alternatives to her new policy, including the 8(a)-style approach.
Several government contracting attorneys and researchers interviewed by The Inquirer said that both “small and local” and “socially disadvantaged” programs have downsides and that the success of either would primarily depend on how well it is executed. Details are scant on what the new policy will actually look like, making it difficult to evaluate the potential impact.
But experts said choosing a policy that seeks to favor disadvantaged businesses rather than any small Philadelphia firm would indicate the mayor was fighting to maintain the spirit of the old program, which sought to boost companies owned by women and people of color who have long been underrepresented among business owners and government contractors.
“Adopting an 8(a)-style program with language prioritizing contracts for socially disadvantaged businesses would signal a desire to maintain the pre-2024 understanding that cities can procure goods deliberately, intentionally, in different ways, with preferences from disadvantaged businesses,” said Brett Theodos, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who has written a paper about how governments can use contracting to promote equity, despite recent court decisions. “Having an (8)a-style [program] would signal that the mayor wanted to try something more.”
Parker has defended her policy shift by invoking the bona fides of the Hecker attorneys who worked with the city. She and other city officials have noted that one clerked for liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and now works for the American Civil Liberty Union — “not somebody who would have had a conservative mindset,” as Garrett Harley put it. (Those comments later prompted the ACLU-PA to distance itself from what it described as the city’s “DEI rollback.”)
To be sure, adopting a program in which contractors need to demonstrate social disadvantages, such as past instances of discrimination, has its own drawbacks.
Following the 2023 federal court decision, the SBA now requires 8(a) applicants to submit “social disadvantage narratives,” or essays, increasing administrative burdens and potentially favoring savvier contractors. The U.S. Department of Transportation has a similar essay-based approach.
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) business development program is aimed at helping “socially and economically disadvantaged” firms.
“We have heard from our businesses it is already too hard to do business in Philadelphia; these kinds of additional requirements will exacerbate an already difficult and burdensome process,” Garcia said.
And despite being a race- and gender-neutral federal policy, the current 8(a) standard, which was adopted in President Joe Biden’s administration, may still be challenged in court.
The lawyers at Hecker Fink, however, believed that a Philadelphia version of the policy could withstand scrutiny.
“The next wave of conservative litigation in this space may target such programs, arguing that social or economic disadvantage is a proxy for race,” Hecker attorneys wrote in the May 2025 memo. “However, based on our assessment of the current legal landscape, the City would have a strong chance of defeating such challenges.”
Like many diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives cast as discriminatory by the president, the 8(a) program has come under siege since Trump took office in January. On the agency’s website, hyperlinks to guidelines on how companies can demonstrate social disadvantage have gone dead, and the Trump administration has launched an audit of the program in the wake of an alleged bribery scheme.
None of those issues, however, address the question of whether a similar policy crafted for the city would be legally defensible. Despite Trump’s attacks, the current version of the 8(a) program’s focus on “socially disadvantaged” firms has not been overturned in court.
Regina Hairston, president and CEO of the African-American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ, and DE, said the organization will wait and see how Parker’s new policy shakes out.
“It’s too early to tell if the mayor’s policy is the right policy, but from what I’ve seen across the country, other cities are moving to [prioritize] small, medium enterprises,” Hairston said. “We don’t know if that’s the answer, but we will be monitoring it.”
Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.
Philadelphia renters have some more to be thankful for this holiday season.
City Council bills that cap rental application fees and allow renters to pay security deposits in installments take effect Tuesday.
“The goal was to address the unaffordability of moving in for so many tenants in Philadelphia,” said City Councilmember Rue Landau, who introduced the legislation. “Rents have gone up tremendously, and people’s incomes have not.”
Parker signed the bills capping renter application fees and allowing for security deposit installments in September.
Capped application fees
Starting Tuesday, the city is prohibiting landlords from charging a rental application fee of more than $50 or the cost of running a background and/or credit check, whichever is less, within a 12-month period. Landlords are prohibited from charging application fees unless they are used to cover the cost of these checks.
Landlords can’t perform a “hard pull” credit check that affects a prospective tenant’s credit score and have to provide tenants with a copy of any credit and/or background check performed.
And landlords who have more than one unit available can charge a prospective tenant only one application fee if the tenant applies for multiple units. Landau said some renters had been paying $100 or more per application. That adds up when renters have to apply for multiple homes.
“Historic discrimination of Black and brown, immigrant, LGBTQ, and disabled Philadelphians causes higher barriers for them to overcome in order to secure housing, with increased costs as they pay application fees throughout the city,” Landau said. “As a city, we still need to tackle housing discrimination in a serious way. But in the meantime, this bill will reduce those costs.”
Payment plans for security deposits
Also starting Tuesday, some landlords will have to allow renters to pay a portion of their security deposit in installments if the deposit is more than one month’s rent. According to state law, landlords can charge up to two months’ rent for a security deposit, with the charge of the last month’s rent included in the tally.
This ordinance does not apply to landlords with one or two units, a concession Landau made after pushback from other Council members and small landlords.
Landau said that when renters have to come up with a security deposit of multiple months’ rent, “it creates a barrier that many people can’t overcome,” which leaves people stuck in shelters, unsafe homes, or squeezed into overcrowded homes with family or friends.
“We’ve seen a national conversation about affordability happening because people are rightly concerned” about the costs of necessities, Landau said. “If they have to move for any reason, the affordability crisis is just exacerbated.”
