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Tag: gentrification

  • Property values in Kensington went up more than any other Philly neighborhood this year

    Property values in Kensington went up more than any other Philly neighborhood this year

    The biggest jump in Philadelphia’s property assessments this year occurred in Kensington, a measure that means many homeowners in the long-struggling neighborhood are likely to see higher taxes amid a concerted effort by the city to clean up the area.

    That is according to an Inquirer analysis of recently released property assessments of single-family homes, which found that, citywide, there was a 3% median change in valuations from the 2025 tax year, the last time there was a mass reassessment.

    That increase is far more modest than the widespread jump in valuations that homeowners saw two years ago, which captured multiple years of real estate growth and the volatile post-pandemic market.

    What remains the same: who will be most affected.

    The Inquirer’s analysis of this year’s property assessment data shows that low-income neighborhoods near gentrifying areas saw the sharpest jumps in valuations compared with the rest of the city.

    The four areas that saw the largest percentage increases in median assessments — Kensington, Mantua, Grays Ferry, and Kingsessing — all border more gentrified neighborhoods like Fishtown, University City, and Point Breeze. The results of the analysis are a further sign that market pressures in higher-income areas are pushing into pockets of the city that have long been primarily home to Black and brown working-class residents.

    Of the eight neighborhoods that saw the largest increases between the 2025 and 2027 tax years, five have median annual household incomes around $40,000 or less, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data. The federal poverty level is $33,000 for a family of four.

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    In a statement, officials with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration noted that many homeowners in those five neighborhoods are benefiting from a popular city tax break. The city said that the median 2027 value in those five neighborhoods is $123,600, so for many homeowners in those areas, the median taxable assessed value is just $23,600.

    That is because of the homestead exemption, a tax break for homeowners who live in their house as their primary residence that exempts the first $100,000 in home value from property taxes. Homeowners must sign up to be included in the free program.

    At least 60% of homeowners in those neighborhoods have signed up for property tax relief programs, according to the city.

    James Aros Jr., the chief assessor of the Philadelphia Office of Property Assessment, and Revenue Commissioner Kathleen McColgan said enrollment rates in property tax relief, including the homestead exemption and multiple tax freeze programs, are “encouraging.”

    They said the city will “build on this progress through extensive targeted outreach, community partnerships, and efforts to make enrollment as simple and accessible as possible.”

    The current property tax rate is 1.3998% of assessed value, which has not changed for nearly a decade. The revenue is split between the city and the Philadelphia School District.

    Rising home values in Kensington

    Citywide, the steepest increase in valuations was in Kensington, where the median property value jumped 15.3%, from $115,700 in the 2025 tax year to $133,400 now. That median increase would translate to a roughly $250 annual property tax hike.

    That comes after Parker’s administration in 2024 launched a multipronged effort to address the long-entrenched open-air drug market in Kensington, which is the epicenter of the city’s opioid crisis and a site of sprawling homelessness.

    While the administration has increased law enforcement’s staffing in the neighborhood and scaled up programs for people who are in addiction, Kensington has also for years seen creeping gentrification from Fishtown to its southeast.

    In this 2021 file photo, a glass building at J and Tioga sits near a beer store in Kensington.

    Some neighborhood leaders have watched with anxiety as luxury housing developers and out-of-town investors gobbled up properties in the neighborhood, fearing that poorer residents and middle-class homebuyers may be priced out.

    City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, a Democrat who represents the 7th Council District, which includes parts of Kensington, said she knew speculators from outside the area would want to make it “the next gentrified neighborhood” once the city changed its strategy to more aggressively clean up trash and improve public safety.

    How speculators fueled a nightmare for Kensington residents — and could soon cash in

    But Lozada said there are not enough programs specific to Kensington aimed at preventing displacement as a result of rising property values, especially as the city is investing millions of dollars a year to improve the neighborhood. She said her office is exploring additional tax relief measures.

    “I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make sure that residents who have lived in that community can stay there, can raise their families there,” Lozada said. “We have witnessed what has happened on the southern end of the district, where there has been rapid gentrification.”

    In this March file photo, City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada stands in Council chambers during Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s budget address.

    Lozada also said rising property values in Kensington are part of why she has been “so careful with projects presented to me” and has prioritized what she sees as equitable development in the neighborhood — at times to the chagrin of developers who think she has been too restrictive.

    “I’m all about people making a return,” she said, “but you can’t continue to do it on the backs of poor people.”

    The 3100 block of Arbor Street in Philadelphia on Tuesday, July 7, 2026.

    Continuing change in pockets of West Philly

    There were also significant property value increases in parts of West Philadelphia.

    The median increase in Mantua, the neighborhood north of University City, was the second highest in the city, at 15%, according to The Inquirer’s analysis. The median increase was 12% in Kingsessing, the neighborhood south of University City that in 2025 saw the largest jump of any neighborhood in Philadelphia.

    Newly developed buildings along Fairmount Avenue in the neighborhood of Mantua in Philadelphia, Pa., on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025.

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, a Democrat who represents West Philadelphia and has made preventing displacement a key initiative, said that there has long been racial bias in the city’s property assessments and that the city must “get serious” about protecting low-income homeowners by revamping its system.

    “There has to be a higher level of urgency in making sure that the city doesn’t have a hand in pushing out all of these homeowners that make Philadelphia what it is,” Gauthier said. “It’s unconscionable for us to destabilize our neighborhoods and the longtime homeowners who live there because we didn’t take enough care to make sure that our process was fair and equitable.”

    For too long, she said, city officials have said they intended to examine the property assessment practices and identify improvements. In 2024, Parker convened a task force to study the process.

    Aros told Council in April that the task force’s report was “being finalized.” He said OPA would look to implement recommendations from the report, including conducting more regular reassessments and improving property-level data such as property condition.

    The city is also planning to hire an outside consultant to examine its mass appraisal practices, according to city records. The analyst will be responsible for drafting a report by the end of this year.

    Deputy creative director John Duchneskie contributed to this article.

  • ‘Unattainable’: POWER Interfaith calls on City Hall to address affordability crisis. But Philly doesn’t have many good options.

    ‘Unattainable’: POWER Interfaith calls on City Hall to address affordability crisis. But Philly doesn’t have many good options.

    Philadelphians are facing a growing affordability crisis, and City Hall needs to act quickly to counter the impact of funding reductions from the federal and state governments, leaders of the progressive group POWER Interfaith said Monday.

    “Living comfortably in our city is becoming unattainable,” the Rev. Cean R. James, senior pastor of the Salt + Light Church, said at the gathering at Arch Street United Methodist Church. “The mayor’s recent budget does focus on economic mobility, and that is noble. But it does not go far enough. It’s not sustainable.”

    POWER, an influential coalition that includes more than 50 congregations in the city, on Monday released a report based on interviews with 750 city residents at church meetings, neighborhood gatherings, and other events. The informal survey found:

    • About two-thirds of respondents had to forego another bill to pay mortgage or rent, and 80% struggled to afford property taxes.
    • A majority of congregations surveyed have seen the number of unhoused members in their congregations increase.
    • Ninety percent of respondents said the city hasn’t done enough to “invest in their community’s needs.”

    POWER leaders on Monday called on City Council to hold a hearing on affordability. But the report did not include policy prescriptions for addressing the crisis it described, and it’s far from clear what city lawmakers or Mayor Cherelle L. Parker can do to make it easier to get by in the city.

    Philadelphia already has a relatively small property tax burden, and the city has some of the strongest protections in the nation for people struggling to stay in their homes.

    Mayor Cherelle Parker unveils ‘economic mobility agenda’ in $7 billion city budget proposal
    Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to City Council, guests, and dignitaries at start of her budget presentation in Council Chambers last Thursday.

    Parker last year unveiled her Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative, which involves selling $800 million in city bonds to fund programs aimed at making housing more accessible and affordable. Last week, she unveiled a $7 billion proposal for the next city budget with a focus on economic mobility, including investments in workforce development training, internship opportunities, and financial counseling.

    But with little ability to affect the cost of goods and state-imposed restrictions on how it can collect taxes — preventing the city from imposing higher rates on wealthier residents — Philadelphia officials have limited options when it comes to addressing affordability.

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    The POWER report acknowledged the predicament.

    “To be very clear: There are no easy answers to these challenges,” the report said. “We must prepare serious and sober projections about the impacts of the impending revenue losses we face, and then we must develop a menu of policy options to soften those impacts and mitigate harm to residents. And we must ensure that any actions we take do not make the current cost-of-living crisis even worse.”

    The city’s limited options on addressing affordability won’t stop it from being a major topic during this spring’s budget negotiations. Affordability has recently become a political buzzword, and Democrats are hoping to win back Congress in November in part by blaming rising costs on President Donald Trump’s administration.

    This year, thousands of Pennsylvanians are abandoning the state’s Affordable Care Act insurance exchange after congressional Republicans declined to renew expanded healthcare subsidies. Trump’s efforts to increase tariffs and the war with Iran threaten to increase inflation nationwide. SEPTA last year increased fares and is still facing a fiscal crisis due, in part, to objections by GOP lawmakers in Harrisburg.

    It’s unlikely the city could meaningfully address any of those losses without significantly increasing taxes, which would in turn make Philadelphia less affordable. And hiking any of the city’s three major sources of local revenue — the wage, property, and business taxes — all come with significant downsides or political roadblocks.

    Increasing the wage levy alone would make the city’s tax structure more regressive, meaning a greater share of the overall tax burden would be paid by poorer workers.

    Increasing the real estate tax rate could make the tax structure more progressive, because property owners tend to be wealthier than the average resident. But POWER and other left-leaning groups generally oppose that option due to concerns about displacing low-income homeowners.

    And when it comes to the business income and receipts tax, or BIRT, City Hall has recently been moving in the opposite direction of POWER’s goals. Council last year approved a proposal championed by Parker and Council President Kenyatta Johnson that will provide annual cuts to the BIRT rate over the next 12 years.

    Philadelphia City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas addresses members of POWER Interfaith during a news conference on affordability at Arch Street United Methodist Church. at Broad and Arch Streets, on Monday.

    POWER leaders have called on lawmakers to pause those reductions or even increase the tax. But the political headwinds they face in City Hall were evident at Monday’s news conference. Two of three Council members in attendance voted for the business tax cuts last year: Democrats Jamie Gauthier of West Philadelphia, and Isaiah Thomas, who represents the city at-large.

    “It’s very difficult, as we discussed in the past, for local government to be able to step up and address some of these concerns,” Thomas said at the event. “There’s not much we can do as it relates to the catastrophe that we’re seeing around healthcare. There’s not much we can do as it relates to all the tariffs and the cost of living that’s going up significantly. But there are things that we can do, that we control.”

    He pointed to efforts by Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke to preserve a program that provides free SEPTA fares for low-income Philadelphians and to Gauthier’s advocacy to direct more housing money to the city’s poorest residents.

    Philly Council votes against Mayor Parker’s vision for her signature housing plan, signaling a win for progressives

    The Rev. Carolyn C. Cavaness, pastor of Mother Bethel AME, said she understands that lawmakers have to deal with complicated political dynamics. But she said she hopes that POWER’s focus on the affordability crisis will reset the conversation.

    “I always think about context. … Sometimes we’re in tight spaces,” Cavaness said at the POWER event. “I think also conditions then were much different than what they are now. … We’re really back to ground zero.”

  • Closing this North Philly school would be ‘severing a lifeline’ for special-education students, supporters say

    Closing this North Philly school would be ‘severing a lifeline’ for special-education students, supporters say

    James R. Ludlow Elementary School in North Philadelphia educates a substantial population of special-education students.

    And the learning environment for those students would be upturned by the school district’s recommendation to close Ludlow after next school year, teachers say.

    “For our children in special education, that consistency isn’t a luxury, but a requirement for them to learn. If we relocate our students, we aren’t just changing their school address; we’re breaking their routines and undoing their progress,” Vanessa Martin, an autistic support teacher in kindergarten through second grade at Ludlow, said at a community meeting last month with school district officials.

    “This building isn’t just a facility. It’s the one predictable place where our students feel safe and supported every single day,” she said.

    The district says Ludlow was slated for closure because of an “unsatisfactory” building quality score, a lack of appropriate space for programming, and only utilizing 47% of its capacity. Ludlow has 237 students enrolled across general and special education, of whom 75% are Black and 20% are Hispanic.

    The K-8 school will celebrate its 100th anniversary in what could be its final school year of operation. The district, which has proposed closing 18 schools, plans to convey the building at 550 Master St. to the city so it could be converted into affordable housing or used for job creation. Ludlow students would be reassigned to one of three schools: Paul L. Dunbar School, Spring Garden School, and Gen. Philip Kearny School.

    ‘Severing a lifeline’

    The Ludlow community is strong and connected, and about a hundred people packed the school’s cafeteria for the community meeting on a recent Thursday evening to show their support for the school and fight against the district’s plan.

    District officials present their plan for closing Ludlow at the February community meeting.

    “I felt very angry. I felt upset. I felt like they were taking something away that was a part of me,” said Deilyhanix Vazquez, a Ludlow eighth-grade student who has attended the school since kindergarten. She said her teachers “feel like home,” and she had been planning to continue visiting the school even after she graduates.

    “I’m worried that the students will have to travel far just to get an education. Something they have to do on the daily starts to feel like a burden,” said Savannah Lindsay, another Ludlow eighth grader.

    Another young student broke down into tears as she spoke into the microphone, saying she had planned to attend Ludlow for “my whole life.”

    If the plan goes forward, she said, she may have to split up from her friends as they get assigned to one of three different schools.

    “I don’t want to leave them,” she said, as others in the room clapped and cheered her on.

    Should Ludlow close, the neighborhood and the wider school district would lose a valuable special-education resource and hub. Its offerings include autistic and other learning support for all grades, and emotional support for grades three through eight.

    Ludlow often receives student referrals from other schools and catchments across the district, staff members said, including from the schools that would take in Ludlow students in the closure plan. It can feel like the district dumps its most difficult students on Ludlow, Martin said, but those children are accepted and become like family.

    District officials have said that in addition to closing buildings that are not operating at full capacity, another goal is focusing on K-8 schools over middle schools to reduce transitions. That goal especially doesn’t square with the plan to close Ludlow, critics said.

    “Ludlow is an exceptional school that works. By moving forward with this proposal, the district would be doing more than just closing Ludlow’s doors — it would be severing a lifeline and dismantling a support system that children and families depend on for their stability,” Martin said.

    Affordable for whom?

    Community members questioned the plan to turn Ludlow into affordable housing. They doubted whether those units would actually be affordable for the people living in the neighborhood, where the annual median household income is about $58,000.

    The area sits next to Fishtown and Olde Kensington, where gentrification has made living more expensive for longtime residents.

    Various signs protesting the closure of James R. Ludlow School, available at a community meeting with district officials in February.

    Ludlow community members said they did not want or need more housing. They wished the district would instead invest in the building for learning purposes, and said the district had let it fall into its poor condition.

    “It’s money before our kids,” said Valerie Johnson, known better as Valerie Brown, a beloved former Ludlow staff member who worked at the school for more than 30 years.

    While housing may bring new residents and investment to the neighborhood, the loss of Ludlow could drive some to leave, one mother said.

    “I stay in this neighborhood because of Ludlow,” said Darlene Abner, a mother of six whose children have attended the school, including a kindergartner enrolled this school year.

    Abner herself was born in the neighborhood, and she said she does not want her children to attend any school but Ludlow.

    She wears a nearly full face-covering niqab, and credited the school and its teachers for never letting that be a barrier to building a relationship with her and caring for her children.

    “They know me. They see me,” she said.

  • New York’s Blank Street, a coffee and matcha chain, to open on UPenn’s campus

    New York’s Blank Street, a coffee and matcha chain, to open on UPenn’s campus

    New York’s ubiquitous seafoam-green painted coffee and matcha cafe chain is headed to Philadelphia.

    Blank Street will open its first Philly location at 3603 Walnut Street, joining UPenn’s retail district. It’s expected to open in late summer.

    The six-year-old chain is known for its micro-cafe look and automated espresso systems for customers to grab matchas and lattes. And soon, Penn students, faculty and surrounding neighbors will experience the quick service inside the 3,500 square foot cafe.

    The Philly location will be one of the largest U.S. cafes on Blank Street’s expansive roster, which includes more than 40 locations in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

    “We’re excited to be getting closer than ever to the UPenn community,” said Vinay Menda, Blank Street co-founder and U.S. managing director in a statement. Giving the company, “the opportunity to invest deeply in design and bring an elevated, hospitality-forward experience to the neighborhood.”

    The new Blank Street cafe location at 3603 Walnut Street will be their first in Philly.

    Founded in 2020 by Menda and Issam Freiha, Blank Street quickly expanded with New York’s pandemic-induced surge of lowered rent storefronts and private equity financing. But soon, the rapid growth raised scrutiny from skeptics, who saw “Blank Street as an avatar of gentrification and automation” resenting “the use of Wall Street money to compete with local businesses,” reported the New York Times. The cafe chain also has its fans, who lean younger and see the trendy matcha drinks as fashionable — even leading the brand to London Fashion Week this year.

    Blank Street cafe is one of several additions to the SHOP PENN retail district. James Beard Award winner Chef Tom Colicchio’s Root and Sprig will open in the spring. And Korea Taqueria opened a location at Franklin’s Table Food Hall in January.

  • Choose transparency, deliberation, and investment over closure

    Choose transparency, deliberation, and investment over closure

    Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. and the Philadelphia School District have proposed 18 school closures, six colocations, and a vague, insufficiently transparent plan to reconfigure grade levels across numerous other schools, citing the need for “more efficient use of all of our resources” to deliver high-quality academic and extracurricular programming districtwide.

    The Inquirer Editorial Board has endorsed the plan, pending adjustments to several sites, including Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School.

    The district is right to pursue a comprehensive facilities plan that addresses toxic building conditions, overcrowding, and underutilization. But it is going about it the wrong way. Facilities planning should be an annual, longitudinal process grounded in sustained community engagement, not a punctuated moment of 24 mass closures that disrupt neighborhoods and sidestep the thoughtful incorporation of public input that only time and intention can provide.

    Mistakes of 2013

    Without such care, the district will repeat the mistakes of the 2013 closures, which led to students disappearing from school rolls in September, overcrowded receiving schools, and the racialized erasure of neighborhood histories and place-based educational traditions.

    First, significant questions remain about implementation and transparency. Ten properties are slated to be “conveyed” to the city, reportedly tied to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s H.O.M.E. plan. Amid speculation about a 20-year tax abatement connected to redevelopment, it is unclear what mechanisms will ensure the benefits of these transfers accrue to the communities that have borne the brunt of closure, rather than to private developers. A two-decade tax abatement would symbolically and materially reinscribe the racialized disinvestment, neglect, and manufactured crisis that have too often paved the way for school closures in the first place.

    Second, the data used to inform the closures have been called into question by many, and do not take into account the nuance of mixing school populations via colocation. For example, parents at Childs Elementary have cited the district’s plan to colocate a new Academy at Palumbo based on a building capacity of 1,000. However, a significant portion of the building’s classrooms is dedicated to special-education students. A colocation would displace SPED students from these classrooms while reinforcing a bifurcated culture among the catchment-based middle school students and Palumbo students in an already rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Point Breeze.

    Third, closure and conveyance to the city for resale do not guarantee public-serving outcomes. With my collaborators — Ariel Bierbaum, Amy Bach, and Elaine Simon — I have studied how thoughtful reuse, rooted in restoring community access and public control, can begin to repair the racially inequitable legacy of past closures.

    Yet, private redevelopment has repeatedly failed to stabilize these properties. Selling off public assets does not guarantee revitalization; it often perpetuates stagnation or displacement. Developers frequently “flip” former school buildings, speculating on value rather than advancing community use.

    After it closed in 2013, Germantown High School fell into decay and disrepair, a fate Julia McWilliams writes could be repeated.

    Take the former Germantown High School and Robert Fulton Elementary, for example. Concordia Group bought them in 2014, only to abandon its plans and resell the buildings three years later to local developer Jack Azran, whose opaque redevelopment has sparked concern.

    Moreover, once schools are sold to private entities, they are effectively lost to some communities and public education forever. South Philadelphia’s experience is a cautionary tale. As nearby elementary schools became overcrowded following the 2013 closures, the former Edward W. Bok Technical High School, once a public citywide admissions school, was transformed into a workspace for small-business owners, artists, and nonprofit organizations, closing classrooms forever.

    This reuse no longer serves the same community of students and families as when it was a high school, and raises important questions: What does it mean for a community’s future when former schools become symbols of gentrification rather than centers of education? And what options remain when demographic shifts create new demand for neighborhood schools that no longer exist?

    Had Bok remained in public hands, it could have flexibly adapted to those needs. Instead, it serves a much different population: South Philadelphia working artists, small-business owners, and local refugee-serving nonprofits, but also patrons who can afford $14 cocktails.

    Slow down

    Rather than defaulting to closure, the Board of Education should consider how underenrolled buildings might be repurposed for public-serving uses that retain community control. Could redevelopment proceed gradually, with clear commitments that investments in existing buildings benefit both local families and those who have chosen these schools?

    Such an approach would require genuine public engagement and sustained dialogue. It would require slowing down and rejecting a disruptive, thinly deliberated plan shaped by speculative capital and instead committing to participatory, long-term facilities planning.

    The district and the city face a choice. They can repeat a cycle of disinvestment and dispossession, or they can chart a more deliberative, community-rooted path. The question is whether they have the will to do so.

    Julia McWilliams is the codirector of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of Stand Up for Philly Schools. She coauthored the forthcoming book, “Schools for Sale: Disinvestment, Dispossession, and School Building Reuse in Philadelphia,” from the University of Chicago Press.

  • Despite winning awards for improving test scores, this North Philly school is planned to close

    Despite winning awards for improving test scores, this North Philly school is planned to close

    Robert Morris School in North Philadelphia has been lauded for improving test scores, and it is the last elementary school in its immediate neighborhood.

    But the school district says not enough neighborhood children want to attend.

    The Brewerytown K-8 school’s enrollment is just under 23% full, with 216 students, and Morris is one of 18 schools slated for closure under the district’s facilities plan.

    At a community meeting last week, district officials said the school’s “severely underutilized” capacity was the driving factor behind their recommendation to close Morris after the next school year.

    But community members have questioned why low enrollment alone was enough reason to cut the school — and have voiced concern that the district is closing a school with a majority-Black student population while keeping open a nearby elementary school that has more white students.

    “We want the option for our children to be able to walk a block or two or three and get to their school. And it’s not clear to us the reason why that isn’t a possibility,” said Cierra Freeman, co-lead of culture and strategy for the Brewerytown-Sharswood Neighborhood Coalition.

    Morris students would be reassigned to Bache-Martin School or William D. Kelley School for fall 2027 under the plan.

    The district plans to repurpose the building at 2600 W. Thompson St., which it has categorized as being in “fair” condition, into a hub for its Office of Diverse Learners. Currently, the office operates within district headquarters and has an evaluation center near Central High School.

    District officials also said they want to keep the building so it could be reopened as a school in the future should enrollment interest rise.

    Robert Morris Elementary School in Brewerytown.

    ‘Punished for being so small’

    Morris was honored by the district last year at its Accelerate Philly awards for major improvements in test scores across reading and math. Its third-grade class jumped from 7% proficiency in reading and 14% in math to 48% and 59%, respectively. The district has said it did not consider schools’ academic performance in its facilities plan.

    “It seems like Robert Morris is being punished for being so small,” Paul Brown, a school psychologist at Roxborough High School a Youth and Education co-lead for the Brewerytown Sharswood Neighborhood Coalition and a member of Stand Up for Philly Schools, said at the community meeting.

    Neighbors said the district has not done nearly enough to retain and attract families to Morris, a “neighborhood gem,” according to Siobahn Neitzel, a local resident and youth and education action team co-lead for Brewerytown-Sharswood Neighborhood Coalition.

    “The challenges that the district talks about with regards to Morris … really come from a continued lack of investment on the district’s part,” she said.

    If there must be change at Robert Morris, some speakers urged the district to consider colocating the Office of Diverse Learners with the school instead of closing it. District officials said that option would be considered — but it was not reflected in a revised plan Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. presented Thursday that spared two schools originally slated for closure. Morris is still on the closure list, but the school board could make changes before voting on the plan in the coming weeks.

    A changing area

    Brewerytown and adjacent Sharswood are neighborhoods in flux. The area is experiencing rapid gentrification, with new developments and property values shooting up in recent years, including the $750 million Philadelphia Housing Authority project to clear and redevelop the Norman Blumberg Apartments towers.

    In the last round of mass closures in 2013, the district shuttered Meade Elementary School, less than a mile from Morris. Residents within the Morris catchment area have opted for other choices in recent years, including charters and other public schools. District officials said about 16% of students in Morris’ catchment already attend Bache-Martin.

    Third grade teacher Brendan Yuhas teaches students Trenton Andersen, left, and Serenity Rose Rhoades, right, at Robert Morris Elementary last year.

    Freeman said that is, in part, the district’s fault.

    “This school has not been marketed to parents and families in the neighborhood. It has not been made attractive. It has not been pushed up,” Freeman said.

    Some residents are frustrated with the plan to instead invest more than $50 million in Bache-Martin to handle an infusion of hundreds more students, including from Laura W. Waring School, and $4.7 million into Kelley. They believe Bache-Martin students deserve that kind of investment, but so do Kelley and Morris students. District officials said Kelley has received more funding in recent years, making a similarly large investment unnecessary.

    Residents are concerned the consolidation could result in violence, by putting kids from different neighborhoods and rival gangs suddenly under the same roof at Bache-Martin or Kelley. And some at the community meeting worried that even if the district reopens the Morris building as a new school, it would be as a magnet that excludes local students.

    Undergirding many of their concerns is the reality of race. Morris’ student body is 82% Black, and its community members said its potential closure was another indicator of the major impact the district’s plan would have on Black families. Bache-Martin in Fairmount, poised for significant financial support, has only about 34% Black students.

    https://www.inquirer.com/education/philadelphia-school-district-building-closures-black-students-impact-20260129.html

    “When closures disproportionately affect minority communities, we cannot pretend race is not a part of this story. … What message are we sending to our students, my fifth- and sixth-grade students, when [the] place that nurtured them is going to disappear?” Adrienne Ramsey, a math teacher at Morris, said at the community meeting.

    Freeman insisted that there must be a public education option for elementary school students in the neighborhood. She said she is concerned that charter schools, which are privately run and publicly funded, do not have enough public oversight, and public schools are critical to communities.

    “Schools are one of the places that the real community building and community weaving starts,” she said.

    She said she believed interest in a public elementary school in the Brewerytown-Sharswood area would return, particularly as incoming residents occupying the new developments look for places to send their childrenand current neighbors reconsider their education options.

    “People want to be part of their communities. They want to be part of their neighborhoods. They want their children to have friends whose home they can walk to,” she said.

  • PHA took over its first private-sector apartment building. Tenant reviews are mixed.

    PHA took over its first private-sector apartment building. Tenant reviews are mixed.

    The Philadelphia Housing Authority embarked on a strategy last year unlike anything it has done before.

    The agency is known as the largest affordable housing provider in the city. But in 2025, under the leadership of CEO Kelvin Jeremiah, it began buying struggling private-sector apartment buildings all over the city to expand the affordable housing supply.

    Over the last 14 months, the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) has spent $280.6 million to acquire 17 multifamily properties, totaling 1,515 units. Some have been student apartments or largely empty new buildings. But most have been full of tenants paying market-rate rents, ranging from $1,106 to $2,323.

    That’s a new demographic for PHA, whose renter base often makes less than $30,000 a year.

    PHA plans to fill these buildings with Section 8 voucher holders, who often have a difficult time finding rentals in higher income areas.

    “It’s part of the strategy … to give residents the broadest possible options in terms of their housing choice and one that is not limited to particular neighborhoods,” Jeremiah said.

    In an innovation, the agency intends to keep renting some units in the newly acquired buildings at the market rate, using the income to support operating expenses.

    The first PHA purchase in 2025 was The Dane, a 233-unit building in Wynnefield. It now houses some tenants paying market-rate rents and others using government subsidies.

    Last year, several tenants contacted The Inquirer with concerns about what they described as a rocky transition to PHA ownership. Since then, interviews with 18 tenants at The Dane have laid out challenges within PHA’s new model — and the potential difficulty of retaining renters with options elsewhere.

    Eighty-six people have moved out of The Dane over the last year. That’s about half the original occupants as the building was only 75% occupied when purchased.

    The overwhelming majority of tenants interviewed by The Inquirer said PHA is a better landlord than the previous owner, Cross Properties. But most have moved out or are planning to.

    “The management staff that are there now are better than what we had, but they’re still pretty mediocre,” said one resident, who, like many of the tenants, asked that their name be withheld to preserve relations in the building.

    “Everybody’s very polite; everybody’s very cordial, but it’s only maybe one or two maintenance people,” this multiyear resident said. “The trash pileup is very bad right now … I plan to move elsewhere.”

    Jeremiah noted that most of the properties PHA acquired have not experienced the kind of turnover that The Dane has seen. The building is now almost completely occupied with both market-rate and subsidized tenants, said a PHA spokesperson.

    He said some tenants moved out after the agency began collecting rent again. Many had been withholding payments to Cross, which lacked a rental license at the end of its tenure.

    It’s possible that the turnover at The Dane is largely the result of a difficult property transfer from a troubled previous owner. (Cross Properties is no longer in business.) In that case, the tenant exodus may not be a predictor for PHA’s larger ambitions.

    But given the skepticism PHA faces in many neighborhoods, outside observers say, the agency’s new expansion strategy faces high expectations to get everything right.

    “PHA is under a tremendous amount of pressure,” said Akira Rodriguez, a professor of housing policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “There’s going to be experiences that are uneven for tenants as they navigate this new model of housing provision … [and The Dane] is a really high visibility example.”

    A long troubled apartment building

    In November 2024, residents of The Dane were fed up. Their hot water wasn’t working — again — in apartments where many households paid over $2,000 a month in rent.

    “The owner [Cross Properties] was not the best,” said Akeesha Washington, who has lived in The Dane since 2020. “He just didn’t maintain the building. Over the years, you saw the amenities dwindle.”

    Cross Properties acquired the building in 2016 when it was the Penn Wynn House and converted the rent-subsidized building into market-rate apartments.

    When Washington moved in, she was impressed. The staff were kind to her in 2020 when she contracted COVID-19. They coordinated care with Washington’s mother so she had access to medication without infecting anyone.

    “It was a really nice community. It’s luxury in the 19131 section, where not everyone feels like they can afford it,” said Washington, who loves the diversity of the tenants, which included university students, working-class residents, and doctors and lawyers.

    “You had so many layers of people living and coexisting in this building,” Washington recalled. Rents ranged from $1,100 for a studio to $2,200 for a two-bedroom unit with two bathrooms.

    But by 2024, most tenants said, building management had fallen off. Trash wasn’t picked up regularly; lawns went unmowed and snow unshoveled, and basic amenities like the parking garage door often didn’t work.

    Shortly after another hot water outage, tenants got news in late 2024 that Cross Properties was out.

    “When residents heard it was being acquired, we were excited because we won’t have to deal with not having hot water, especially during the holidays,” Washington said.

    Akeesha Washington in the lobby of her apartment building in the Wynnefield neighborhood in December. She was living in the market-rate building before the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) purchased it to expand the city’s affordable housing supply.

    New management, new problems

    When PHA purchased The Dane, the building had many unresolved issues, said Tonya Looney, who worked for Cross Properties as the building’s manager. And she said there was scarce planning for the details of the transfer.

    “To be fair, this is something new and I understand from a real estate professional’s perspective that there’s going to be hiccups,” said Looney, who stopped working at The Dane last May, although she still manages 15 apartments for long-term corporate stays in the building.

    Looney is in a legal dispute with PHA, which says she owes substantial back rent. “We do not intend to renew the leases that she has in her name,” Jeremiah said. “I do not think she is a good arbiter of the facts in this case.”

    Both Jeremiah and Looney say that after the sale closed, Cross Properties shut down the operating software, cutting off tenants’ ability to pay rent online, see their rental histories, and submit maintenance requests.

    “We had 200 people with no way to log in to pay their rent, no way to submit a maintenance ticket, no idea who to talk to about any issues at the building unless they came downstairs to see what’s going on,” Looney said. “Needless to say, it was chaotic.”

    For much of 2025, residents had to pay with checks, which sometimes went uncashed, according to Washington and Looney.

    Jeremiah says that Cross Properties’ owner asked PHA to pay to access the former tenant management system, although PHA eventually figured out how to get the records.

    Despite the chaotic transition, many tenants said PHA’s ownership brought improvements from previous conditions, especially after Maryland-based HH Redstone was brought in to operate The Dane in August. (That’s when online payments, for example, started working again.)

    “HH Redstone is doing what they can, and I’ve re-signed my lease for one year because I am willing to see what change they can continue to make,” said another tenant who asked not to be named.

    Why tenants are leaving, even with improved conditions

    Other tenants say property services continue to suffer.

    Trash pickup is still persistently late, several tenants said. Pest outbreaks such as bedbug, mouse, and cockroach infestations flare up, which is new in the building, according to Washington and two other tenants. The dog washing station and the dog run are often messy. The garage door continues to break down. This winter, a rash of burglaries spooked residents.

    Jeremiah said PHA is addressing these concerns, and in some cases — such as the dirty dog run — residents are expected to clean up after themselves. He also noted that the agency installed 24-hour security.

    “The idea that this is a new phenomenon to that building, given where it’s located, is just nonsense,” Jeremiah said of the security concerns. “We have a very robust set of layered access control systems in place [and] CCTVs.”

    As PHA was negotiating to buy The Dane, it also sought to save the Brith Sholom House, a dilapidated nearby senior complex linked to a national fraud scheme. After assessing the depths of the building’s issues, PHA determined that to repair it, tenants would have to move out.

    The exterior of Brith Sholom House on May 8, 2023.

    When they first arrived at The Dane, some elderly residents were not getting the care they need, Washington said.

    One man she ran into frequently often smelled of urine and would walk around with visibly wet pants. She said building management addressed the issues by spraying Febreze on benches the tenant used after he left an area. He has since died.

    Another man screamed for help from his balcony and has since been moved out of the building.

    “We are very used to all kinds of things happening here, from the students being wild to elderly being wild, but not to the level of being unable to take care of themselves,” Washington said.

    Jeremiah says that PHA keeps tabs on the rehoused Brith Shalom residents — who previously were living with no oversight, although there are limits to what it can do. He encouraged tenants to report anyone who needs aid.

    “We provide a robust set of social services to residents we inherited at Brith Shalom,” Jeremiah said. “PHA is not a healthcare provider. We are a housing provider, though we provide access to opportunities for residents who are interested in aging in place.”

    A former Brith Shalom resident had no complaints with The Dane and praised PHA for the improvements in his life.

    “I have no problem with them. I’m happy,” said Barry Brahn, who is blind and has AIDS. “They’re slow at getting things fixed, but they can only do so much and they’ll eventually get on it.”

    What comes next?

    Some aspects of the rocky transition from Cross Properties to PHA have eased. Since October, tenants were able to pay their rent online and submit maintenance requests. Washington says she does not see obviously distressed elderly residents any longer.

    But tensions remain.

    “The transition to PHA has been challenging, and their communication has been sorely lacking,” said Lanese Rogers, who has lived in The Dane for two years. “As someone who pays unsubsidized rent, they deal with us in a condescending manner.”

    Kelvin Jeremiah, PHA president and chief executive officer, at PHA headquarters, in Philadelphia.

    Jeremiah says he believes some of the pushback against PHA is due to class prejudice and bias against subsidized tenants.

    “I don’t believe that there is anywhere any Philadelphian, whether or not they’re high income, middle income, low income, shouldn’t be permitted to live,” Jeremiah said.

    He is committed to providing accessibility and affordability throughout the city, he said, and he hopes to retain mixed-income residency in newly acquired buildings with existing tenants.

    So far at The Dane, many of the market-rate tenants are leaving.

    “If I could pick up my apartment and move it to another location, I would,” Rogers said. “The building is changing, and I don’t like the direction it’s moving in.”

  • The Philly School District tried to close Paul Robeson HS before. Now, it’s back on the chopping block.

    The Philly School District tried to close Paul Robeson HS before. Now, it’s back on the chopping block.

    In 2022, the governor of Pennsylvania stood on a stage at Paul Robeson High in West Philadelphia and hailed the small school as “a model for what can happen in Pennsylvania.“

    But four years later, the Philadelphia School District has recommended closing Robeson, suggesting its small size limited students’ opportunities. Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. wants its students to attend Sayre High, where Robeson would become an honors program, losing its separate identity, administration, and staff.

    A hallway at Paul Robeson High School, which the district is attempting to close for the second time.

    Having Robeson listed among 20 schools slated for closure was the worst kind of déjà vu for some in the Robeson community: In the last round of large-scale Philadelphia school closures, district officials recommended closing Robeson and sending students to Sayre, which is about two miles away.

    “This is the exact same plan,” said Andrew Saltz, who helped organize the Robeson community against closure in 2013 and who is doing it again 13 years later. “We need a different plan.”

    The community is speaking out, hoping to persuade the school board to save Robeson again when it votes on Watlington’s recommendations later this winter.

    An upward trajectory

    Robeson soared after successfully fending off its last attempted shutdown.

    By 2017, it was named the district’s most-improved high school. It built upon its core of dedicated teachers and students; though most Robeson students come from its own West Philadelphia neighborhood, it is a citywide school, meaning they have to apply to be there.

    Robeson expanded existing partnerships and formed new ones that gave students opportunities to get onto nearby college campuses. Richard Gordon, who came to lead the school in 2013, was recognized as national principal of the year. (Gordon has since been promoted to assistant superintendent in the district.)

    Multiple Robeson teachers have been honored as among the district’s best.

    The school sent a student to Harvard, a coup for any district high school, let alone one without strict academic criteria. Its students successfully pushed to get their school air-conditioned. School staff secured outside funding to renovate the cafeteria.

    Then-Principal Richard Gordon (front, tie), then-assistant principal Lawrence King (rear, gray sweater) and members of the Robeson High student body in the newly renovated cafeteria in this 2022 file photo.

    Then-Mayor Jim Kenney visited Robeson to tout its success. So did then-Gov. Tom Wolf.

    Elana Evans, a beloved Robeson teacher and the school’s special education compliance monitor, has already weathered one school shutdown — she taught at the old University City High School, closed in 2013

    That loss was brutal, Evans said. But she is proud of what the community has built at Robeson.

    “It’s an amazing story that continues to stay amazing because we still keep growing,” Evans said. “To say, ‘OK, you’re going to merge with this school, and your name is just going to fade to nothing,’ is, to me, disrespectful.”

    District officials are pitching Robeson’s closure — and the closings writ large — as a move to expand opportunities for all students.

    Sayre, with Robeson as a part of it, would get modernized career and technical rooms and equipment in the facilities plan, Sarah Galbally, Watlington’s chief of staff, told the Robeson community. Sayre would get more accessibility features; renovated stormwater management, roof, and restrooms; and new paint.

    But that didn’t convince Evans.

    “You say one thing, ‘This is how it’s going to look like,’ but for real for real, stop gaslighting me,” Evans said.

    ‘They needed something small’

    Samantha Bromfield homeschooled her twins for seven years, and was wary when she enrolled her children in public school — until Robeson made her believe.

    The move to shut the school frustrated and saddened her, Bromfield said. She and many other Robeson parents said they would not send their children to Sayre.

    “If you as a board choose to close Paul Robeson, I choose to pull my children from the public school system,” Bromfield said at meeting held at Robeson on Saturday. “They needed something small. They needed a family. They needed someone who could hold their arms around the children and say, ‘Hey, are you having a bad day?’”

    Multiple parents echoed Bromfield’s statements.

    The district is choosing to invest in some schools but not others under the facilities proposal, they said.

    “Cassidy got a new school, why not us?” one parent told district officials, referring to a $62.1 million new building for a West Philadelphia elementary school.

    ‘Y’all don’t know’

    Ahrianna DeLoach, a Robeson ninth grader, struggled in middle school but is soaring at Robeson, she said, because of the nature of a place where teachers know every student’s name.

    “I don’t want it to close down,” DeLoach said. “I was looking forward to graduating from this school. It would devastate me if I couldn’t.”

    Antoine Mapp Sr., a West Philadelphia resident, expresses frustration that the Philadelphia School District is attempting to close Paul Robeson High School. Mapp spoke at a district meeting on the subject.

    West Philadelphia resident Antoine Mapp Sr. graduated from University City High, but has been spending time at Robeson since he was 11. Mapp’s West Powelton Steppers and Drum Squad rehearses inside the Robeson gymnasium.

    It feels especially cruel to lose Robeson as gentrification creeps in, Mapp said, and with gun violence still plaguing Philadelphia. He worries about the routes children would have to take to get to Sayre, and about neighborhood rivalries.

    “You guys don’t understand what it’s like living in the community or our neighborhood, or what we go through,” Mapp said. “Y’all don’t know how hard it is just to go to the store in our community. Y’all don’t know what it’s like trying to go to an activity in our neighborhood. We have none of those things. Now you want to take this school away from us and send our kids to different communities. I want you to know that the crime rate and the murders are going to increase and there’s nothing y’all can do about it.”

  • City Council seeks to stop demolitions as anti-blight measure

    City Council seeks to stop demolitions as anti-blight measure

    Late last year, some members of Philadelphia City Council began pursuing legislation to further regulate demolition.

    Philadelphia has many thousands of vacant properties, and historically, some local politicians have sought to encourage razing such structures to prevent fire risks or eliminate drug havens.

    But in the last couple of decades, as real estate development heated up in many neighborhoods, concerns emerged that potentially historic older buildings were being destroyed to make the vacant land more valuable.

    “We know that when these properties are demolished in certain communities, that typically is a sign of gentrification,” Councilmember Jeffery Young, who represents much of North Philadelphia, said at a Tuesday hearing.

    “When you demolish that property and you build up, you’re trying to make more money than the property was originally stated as a shell,” said Young, whose district also includes parts of Center City.

    Young introduced a bill last year that would ban demolition permits from being issued in his district unless a property owner had secured building permits for a new project.

    He said he saw the legislation as a means to encourage property owners to repair existing buildings and to ensure that vacant lots would not scar his district.

    “When you rehab a property, the price is typically lower than a brand-new house, and so we’re trying to keep homes affordable,” Young said, “and prevent blight from our communities.”

    Young’s bill would not apply to buildings deemed imminently dangerous by the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections.

    Last year Councilmember Jamie Gauthier passed a law containing a similar provision, but for a more tightly proscribed area that covered properties held by large higher education institutions in University City.

    The Building Industry Association (BIA) presented a litany of concerns about Young’s bill at Tuesday’s Rules Committee hearing.

    The BIA feared the legislation would delay projects, as many developers demolish structures while they are waiting for their building permits. The additional months in limbo would increase insurance, security, and financing costs, the group argued.

    The bill could also encourage bad actors to engage in dangerous behavior, the BIA said.

    “To qualify for an exception based on structural danger, certain property owners may be compelled to intentionally incur code violation or enforcement action to demonstrate instability,” said Kenn Penn, a local developer, who spoke on the BIA’s behalf. It “incentivizes the very condition that the city seeks to avoid.”

    Penn also warned about the danger of preserving long-vacant properties.

    “The bill would prevent demolition of vacant and unsecured structures that are highly susceptible to unlawful occupation,” Penn said. “Philadelphia has already experienced multiple fires this winter, many historically linked to squatters and abandoned buildings.”

    Penn asked Young to limit the legislation to properties that do not have a vacant property license.

    But the bill passed from the committee with only technical amendments.

    “I understand the impacts this will have on the development community,” Young said. “But what I think this bill does is ensures that property owners maintain their properties in a prudent manner.”

  • How Jamie Gauthier charted a new path to power in Philadelphia City Hall

    How Jamie Gauthier charted a new path to power in Philadelphia City Hall

    When Mayor Cherelle L. Parker unveiled her much-anticipated plan to address Philadelphia’s housing crisis last year, there was predictable criticism from the political left. Activists said the proposal drafted by the moderate Democrat would not do enough for the city’s poorest residents.

    Less predictable was that a majority of City Council stood with them.

    Even the Council president, a centrist ally of the mayor, sided with a progressive faction that just two years ago had been soundly defeated in the mayor’s race — but whose new de facto leader in City Hall has proven adept at building alliances across the ideological spectrum.

    At the center of that shift was Jamie Gauthier.

    The second-term Democratic lawmaker from West Philadelphia has solidified herself over the last year as a leading voice on Council and a counterweight to Parker. She has worked within the system as opposed to trying to break it, maintaining relationships with power players who disagree with her on policy.

    She counts Ryan N. Boyer — the labor leader who is Parker’s closest political ally — among those who consider her a “thought leader.”

    “Over the last year, what you saw,” Boyer said, “is her modulate her positions to become more practical.”

    Gauthier has generally voted with progressives, including last year when she opposed the controversial Center City 76ers arena proposal. But she has also endeavored to be a team player, at times compromising on ideological battles to focus on priorities in her district.

    Last year, she voted for Parker’s plan to cut taxes for businesses and corporations when other progressives opposed it, because her main priority was securing housing funding. She has not opposed some tough-on-crime efforts in the Kensington drug market, instead allowing her colleagues who represent that area to dictate the policy there.

    She says she is trying to use her political capital where it matters.

    “Why would I take a protest vote and tank a relationship with a colleague when I’m going to need them later?” she said. “I want to win.”

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier talks with news media following a special session of City Council on March 24, 2025.

    The fact that Gauthier is a district Council member who represents a large swath of the city west of the Schuylkill also gives her cachet with colleagues. Council has a long tradition of honoring how members want their own neighborhoods to be governed.

    Gauthier, who leads Council’s housing committee, has used the influence to make West Philadelphia something of a testing ground for left-of-center policy. Plenty oppose what they see as draconian restrictions on real estate development in her district.

    Others see a progressive champion, and some political observers think Gauthier could amass enough support to run for mayor one day. She doesn’t deny that she has thought about it.

    But for whatever politics Gauthier can navigate in City Hall, she knows she can rise only if she is successful at home.

    ‘Not just a lone actor’

    When Parker took office, Council was in a moment of upheaval. Council President Kenyatta Johnson was the new leader of the chamber, and several prominent voices were gone after they had resigned to run for mayor themselves.

    One was Helen Gym, who was seen as the leader of Council’s left flank. There were questions about who would fill the void once Gym was gone.

    Gauthier, 47, an urban planner by trade, did not come up through an activist movement in the same way Gym did, and was a bit more reserved in her style.

    But she carries the mantle for the same theory of governance: that lawmakers should prioritize the vulnerable, and that what is good for business is not necessarily good for everyone else.

    That set Gauthier on an ideological collision course with Parker, a former Council member who ran for office on a promise to uplift the middle class, a group the mayor believes has been too often ignored.

    It came to a head in the fight over Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative.

    Parker wanted to set unusually high income eligibility thresholds for some of the programs so that middle-class families could unlock government subsidies they may not otherwise qualify for. A significant portion of Council, meanwhile, wanted the money to go initially to Philadelphians most vulnerable to displacement.

    Parker was clear-eyed about who was leading the charge.

    “Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, she may be comfortable and OK with telling Philadelphia homeowners, working-class Philadelphians, that they have to wait and there is no sense of urgency for them,” Parker said in a December interview on WHYY. “But that is not a sentiment that I support or agree with.”

    Gauthier is quick to point out that she did not work alone, and that one member of a 17-member body cannot accomplish much. Alongside Councilmember Rue Landau, a fellow Democrat and a housing attorney by trade, Gauthier worked for months to win over her colleagues.

    In the end, Council approved a version of the housing initiative closer to Gauthier’s vision.

    Gauthier didn’t think Parker helped her own cause. A “line was crossed,” she said, when Parker took the fight outside City Hall and to the pulpit. Amid negotiations with Council, the mayor went to 10 churches on one Sunday in December to lobby for support, saying her vision was to not “pit the ‘have-nots’ against those who have just a little bit.”

    Mayor Parker’s second year saw big wins and signs of tension in Philadelphia City Hall
    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to the crowd at The Church of Christian Compassion in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. Parker visited 10 churches in Philadelphia on Sunday to share details about her HOME housing plan.

    To Gauthier, the divisiveness was coming from the mayor’s office.

    “I wish the mayor and her administration were more open to other people’s ideas, were more OK with disagreement on policy issues, and more aware of Council as a completely separate chamber of government,” Gauthier said, “as opposed to a body that works for her.”

    That is a candid assessment of the relationship between Parker and City Council from Gauthier. Few lawmakers from the mayor’s own party have criticized her publicly.

    Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker holds a press conference regarding her first budget flanked by members of city council in her reception room, Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday, June 6, 2024. Council members from left are Kendra Brooks, Jamie Gauthier, council president Kenyatta Johnson, and Quetcy Lozada.

    State Rep. Rick Krajewski, a West Philadelphia Democrat and a progressive who has worked closely with Gauthier, said the fight over H.O.M.E. showed that Gauthier has learned “the diplomacy required to be an effective legislator.”

    “It was a good example of not being afraid of a conflict that felt important to stand up for,” he said, “but then to not just be a lone actor, but organize with other colleagues and allies.”

    Gauthier’s most important ally was Johnson, who negotiated directly with Parker through the process and controls the flow of legislation in the chamber.

    The two go back years. Before Johnson was Council president, he made a point of welcoming new members, a gesture that has always stuck with Gauthier. They worked closely to secure funding for gun violence prevention. And Gauthier said that since Johnson took the gavel, he has been more open to working with progressives than his predecessor was.

    She was also key to Johnson’s ascent. When he was locked in a tight battle for the Council presidency, it was Gauthier who became the ninth Council member to commit to voting for Johnson, allowing him to secure a majority of members and the presidency.

    He does not talk about that publicly. What he will say is that he works in partnership with Gauthier because she understands “the bigger picture in terms of how we move forward as the institution.”

    “I consider her to be a pragmatic idealist,” Johnson said. “She wears her heart on her sleeve, and she really believes in actually doing the work.”

    Creating a testing ground in West Philly

    When Gauthier first ran for office in 2019 against a member of one of Philadelphia’s most entrenched political families, she ran as a good-government urbanist. She railed against councilmanic prerogative, the city’s long tradition of allowing district Council members final say over land-use decisions in their areas.

    She was also supported by real estate interests, some of whom now have buyer’s remorse.

    After Gauthier pulled off a shock win, she arrived in Council and quickly aligned with the progressive bloc. Through her first two terms, she has used councilmanic prerogative often, and has voted with her district Council colleagues so that they can do the same.

    She admits that it is an effective tool for accomplishing her goals quickly.

    Carol Jenkins, a Democratic ward leader in West Philadelphia, said Gauthier’s use of councilmanic prerogative is “part of her maturation.”

    “That’s the power you have,” Jenkins said.

    City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier in her district near 52nd Street and Cedar Avenue in Philadelphia on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025.

    Gauthier has at times used the power in ways that the city’s urbanists and development interests can get behind. She has quickly approved bike lane expansions. And she recently was the only district Council member to allow her entire district to be included in legislation that cuts red tape for restaurants that want to offer outdoor dining.

    However, her most notable use of councilmanic prerogative has been in housing policy, and some developers say her district is now the most hostile to growth in the city.

    In Gauthier’s first term, she championed legislation to create what is known as a Mixed Income Neighborhood overlay. In essence, it requires that developers building projects with 10 or more units in certain parts of her district make at least 20% of their units affordable. That is defined as accessible for rental households earning up to 40% of the area median income.

    For Gauthier, it’s a tool to slow the rapid gentrification of her majority-Black district.

    But developers say that growth has slowed significantly in the areas covered by the overlay since it took effect in 2022. Some have said they avoid seeking to build in the 3rd District entirely. The only major project currently in the works in the area is a parking garage.

    A look at the biggest development projects in Philly

    Ryan Spak, an affordable housing developer who said he considers Gauthier a friend, has been among the most outspoken critics of the overlay. He said while Gauthier’s “moral compass is pointed in the right direction, her policies don’t math.”

    “You would never ask a restaurant to give away its ninth and 10th meal for 40 cents on the dollar, with no additional discounts or benefits,” he said, “and expect that restaurant to survive.”

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier reads out a citation honoring Rapper Mont Brown during a street naming ceremony for the Southwest Philadelphia native at the 13th Annual Stop the Violence Kickback Block Party at 55th Street and Chester Avenue, in Southwest Philadelphia on August 17, 2024.

    Gauthier said she has made adjustments, and she championed legislation to accelerate permitting and zoning approvals. The mandate, she said, is necessary because the market won’t build enough affordable housing on its own.

    “As untenable as it is to them that they can’t make the numbers work, it’s untenable to me that people can’t afford to live here,” Gauthier said. “So we can come together and we can fix that. But I’m not going to move from my position that we have to demand affordability.”

    Mayoral buzz, but no ‘stupid campaigns’

    Gauthier is one of several names that have been floated in political circles as potential candidates for mayor in 2031, which would be Parker’s final year in office if she runs for and wins a second term. Several of her Council colleagues, including Johnson, are seen as potential contenders.

    “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that mayor could be interesting one day,” Gauthier said. “I also don’t believe in stupid campaigns. So I would never do that if I didn’t think I had a path.”

    Boyer said he has counseled Gauthier to pursue moderate policy and avoid being “label-cast” as far left. He said Philadelphia is not Chicago or New York, and he doesn’t see the city electing an uber-progressive to be the mayor any time soon.

    “Philadelphia has always been a real center-left community,” Boyer said, “and just because you’re the loudest isn’t the most popular.”

    The left may have other plans. Robert Saleem Holbrook, a progressive activist, said that Gauthier would be an “ideal candidate” for higher office and that the city’s leftists would back her.

    Probably.

    “So long as she stays true and supportive of progressive ideals,” Holbrook said. “You can’t compromise on your way up.”