(Most of Fishtown's Frankford Ave will be eligible for inclusionary zoning, but not the interior neighborhood | Photo: Jon Geeting)

The year-long affordable housing funding debate in City Council finally wrapped yesterday, at least for the time being, with Council passing a package of bills that together would fund the Housing Trust Fund to the tune of $71-100 million a year, depending on who you ask. 

(Awesometown, an affordable housing project by Post Green Homes and NKCDC)

The Kenney administration and City Council have been working toward finalizing details of a compromise plan to fund affordable housing, as an alternative to the 1% construction tax that passed Council back in June, which the administration opposed. The compromise plan has two main parts—about $50 million from expiring tax abatements, and about $20 million from the newly-revamped zoning bonuses that allow greater density in housing projects that either include some below-market-rate units or make an in-lieu payment into the Housing Trust Fund. 

(Mid-rise housing construction on North Broad | Photo: Jon Geeting)

Mayor Kenney struck a deal with City Council on affordable housing funding Thursday, with a counter-proposal to Council's construction tax bill which narrowly passed the full chamber with a narrow vote of 9-8 back in June. Kenney's alternative proposal would increase general funding to the Housing Trust Fund by $53 million over 5 years, with an additional $18 million projected to come in from in-lieu payments from Mixed Income Housing bonuses. 

The saga of the old Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co. building at 4601 Market continues, as Jacob Adelman reports the city has found a tenant who's proposing a new public health campus on the property.

While we haven't always agreed with Council President Darrell Clarke's politics in the past, we strongly agree with his sentiment that Philadelphia city government should look to use our existing resources better if we're expecting a hostile urban policy environment under the Trump administration and a conservative supermajority in the Pennsylvania legislature.