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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wants the state to borrow $1 billion in bonds as part of a broad effort to make housing more affordable across the commonwealth.
The proposal, announced Tuesday during his fourth annual budget address, is primarily aimed at preserving and growing the commonwealth’s housing supply.
Similar to many states, Pennsylvania continues to grapple with a housing shortage, including affordable units. As of 2021, the state needed nearly 100,000 more homes to meet the demand, according to a report released by policy research group Up for Growth.
Shapiro told lawmakers it’s time to make a “major investment” in building new homes and protecting existing units to narrow the state’s supply gap. He said not investing in housing preservation could grow the deficit by an additional 185,000 homes by 2035.
In previous budgets, the governor has pushed for new dollars for housing preservation, to no avail.
“Rather than tinker with this, let’s go big and make a real impact,” said Shapiro, whose administration is expected to release a housing action plan in the coming weeks.
Under the plan, Shapiro is also pushing for zoning reform in hopes of cutting “red tape” and making it easier to build new homes. That includes creating new state standards for accessory dwelling units, as well as transit-oriented and mixed-used development “on main streets and commercial corridors,” he said.
Accessory dwelling units are generally apartments built within or alongside an existing home that can be used to generate rental income.
Every municipality in Pennsylvania has its own set of rules dictating which types of housing are permitted by-right and which projects require a variance — that is, permission to deviate from the law — for construction to move forward.
These regulations can essentially bar certain developments from being built. In general, single-family homes are heavily favored over small apartment buildings, including duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes.
During his address, Shapiro called for creating a catalog of all those rules “so that we can help local governments understand what works best to build more affordable housing.” He also wants to modernize the state’s Municipalities Planning Code in hopes of streamlining the approvals process where possible.
The code spells out local zoning and land-use powers for nearly every municipality and county in Pennsylvania. Changing it would require approval from all of those entities, excluding Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Shapiro’s push comes as some housing advocates have called for a statewide zoning code to help alleviate the need for more housing in Pennsylvania.