ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Leaders throughout the Lehigh Valley have long been calling for more affordable housing options for people at the lowest end of the income scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the latest measure in the local fight to curb the housing crisis focuses on a different part of the population \u2014 households that earn too much to qualify for low-income housing programs but not enough to afford the cost of living.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Easton now requires developers to include \u201cworkforce housing\u201d in projects that use public funding or tax incentives. Allentown City Council is set to consider similar legislation this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What is workforce housing?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Experts and advocates typically use the term \u201caffordable housing\u201d to refer to housing that\u2019s meant for people earning 60% or less of the area\u2019s median income (AMI).\u00a0<\/p>\n
That cutoff stands at about $48,000 across the Lehigh Valley, where the median household income recently hit a record high of $82,000 regionwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s significantly lower in the Lehigh Valley\u2019s three cities: about $69,000 in Easton and Bethlehem, and $55,500 in Allentown, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Workforce housing targets households earning 80 to 120% of AMI. It\u2019s meant for \u201cthe forgotten middle\u201d class, according to Easton City Councilman Frank Pintabone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He led Easton\u2019s push to adopt workforce housing requirements, which are tailored to help those earning less than the city’s median income.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If a developer is proposing to build 10 or more housing units and the project relies on grants, tax incentives or other public support, it must set aside at least a quarter of those units for people who fall within the city\u2019s new \u201cworkforce\u201d income brackets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Developers can only rent workforce studio apartments and efficiency units to households that earn no more than 75% AMI; that cutoff is set at 80% for one-bedroom units, 90% for two-bedroom units and 95% for units with three or more bedrooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Easton\u2019s ordinance also prohibits units designated for workforce housing from being rented for more than 30% of a household\u2019s annual income; paying more than that for housing is considered unaffordable by industry standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The units\u2019 workforce-housing designation and their affordability cap must remain in place for 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Developers can opt out of the mandate by paying the city $30,000 for each unit they would have been required to designate for workforce housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That in-lieu fee would bring in $750,000 for a 100-unit project, money the city plans to use to acquire, rehabilitate and develop other workforce housing units.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is a lot that municipal governments cannot control, so local officials must step up where they can to ease the housing crunch for residents, the councilman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c(The) bottom line is: we need to do something,\u201d Pintabone said. \u201cNobody knows exactly what it is, but we have to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c(The) bottom line is: we need to do something.”\u00a0 – Easton Councilman Frank Pintabone<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t do anything about gas (prices). I can\u2019t do anything about bread, milk and eggs. But I can do something to help people be able to live comfortably in the city of Easton,\u201d Pintabone said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s optimistic his counterparts in Allentown will do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Council members Cynthia Mota, Ce-Ce Gerlach and Jeremy Binder are pushing workforce housing legislation in the state’s third-largest city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They need just one more supporter among their four other colleagues to secure its passage, though it will likely be tailored to better fit Allentown, Gerlach said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Workforce housing also is part of Northampton County Executive Tara Zrinski’s broader pitch to modernize the Gracedale nursing home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Leaders throughout the Lehigh Valley have long been calling for more affordable housing options for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-286853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}