“Everyone Can Reap the Benefit”: Delaware County’s Housing Plan
When I first started looking into what other communities were doing to address the housing affordability crisis, my research took me west and north.
California and Minneapolis are well-known for using zoning changes as a tool to provide more reasonably priced housing. Connecticut and Massachusetts are actively working toward that goal as well. My uncle recently sent me this optimistic story from Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. The crowded tourist town is permitting property owners to rebuild some commercial spaces with up to 20 housing units if at least a quarter of them are deeded “affordable.” The proposal sailed through the town meeting.
(There are, unfortunately, cautionary Massachusetts stories too, like this one about wealthy suburban towns willing to forgo state grants rather than build more housing near transit hubs—transit oriented development being central to Republican governor Charlie Baker’s Housing Choice plan.)
What’s Happening Locally?
After learning about what was happening elsewhere, I started reaching out locally to see who is working on affordability closer to home.
I met with two staff members of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), who explained that they are at the very beginning of their work on housing affordability. Learning of Swarthmore’s Task Force on Development and Affordability, they offered their support.
The DVRPC staffers sent me links to articles on “missing middle” housing—like duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes—from the American Planning Association and Zillow; to their own study of how multifamily housing benefits communities; and to a report on how mixed-use development and a diversity of housing types helps make communities resilient.
Then they connected me to staff in the governmental offices of Delaware County.
Rebecca Ross, Principal Planner, worked on Delco’s comprehensive 2020 housing plan. This plan stresses the importance of housing diversity, urging all 49 municipalities to develop different types of housing at different price points.
Noting that local zoning often favors single-family homes, the plan encourages missing middle housing and promotes accessory dwelling units, a.k.a. ADUs, in-law apartments, or granny flats.
The Delco plan explains how increasing housing variety helps more prospective home buyers to enter the housing market. Smaller homes at lower price points enable more people to
build equity, eventually moving “up the ladder” of housing as their needs change. Allowing people to add ADUs to their properties and offer them for rent also provides a potential income source for homeowners, which could help alleviate costs.
Much of the county’s work on housing focuses on income-qualified projects that are eligible for federal, state, and county funding. But Delco is beginning to pay more attention to “attainable housing”—that is, market-rate housing for first-time home buyers, younger families, and middle-income earners.
Ross said she saw Swarthmore’s task force as a useful response to “a growing, ongoing need for our communities to look more holistically” at housing overall.
“No one community should be bearing the brunt of high housing prices,” she said. “And no one community should bear the brunt of disinvestment.”
If municipalities across the county work together, Ross said, “Everyone can reap the benefit.”
What Else Is Happening in Delco?
Ross and her colleague Sarah Carley pointed me to other local communities that are tackling the affordability problem. Mostly these places have different situations and populations than Swarthmore (more land, more people, less wealth). Phoenixville’s new Council on Affordable Housing is working on public-private partnerships for new development and is developing a grant program to help low-income buyers afford homes. Upper Chichester is experimenting with land banks. Media, which has experienced its own explosion in housing costs—has a new group addressing affordability.
On the one hand, I had hoped to see more efforts to alleviate the housing crisis.
On the other hand, it’s exciting—and a little sobering—that what we do here in Swarthmore can serve as a model for our neighbors.
