Mayor Cherelle Parker pledges crackdown on illegal dumping and abandoned cars: ‘We’re going to enforce the law’

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker pledged Friday that her administration would crack down on nuisances like illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, and trash-strewn empty lots in her quest to shed the city’s long-held, undesired moniker: “Filthadelphia.”

And she said she’s willing to spend more money to get it done.

Parker and members of her administration said their initiatives to “clean and green” the city will hinge on enforcing already existing laws and will be a key priority in the mayor’s upcoming budget proposal, which is set to be unveiled in March and will represent the first major opportunity for her to advance her agenda.

She made the comments Friday morning while standing on a sidewalk on the 29th Street corridor in Strawberry Mansion, a culturally vibrant enclave of North Philadelphia that for decades experienced disinvestment and population loss. Parker toured the neighborhood with community leaders, elected officials, a large portion of her cabinet, and representatives from more than a half-dozen agencies including the parking and housing authorities.

Her administration said the tour would be the first in a series of visits to the city’s dozens of commercial corridors, many of which were once bustling business hubs but have over the years been burdened by nuisance businesses, blight, and illegal dumping.

“This is a prototype of what we need to address in neighborhoods across the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said as street cleaners cleared debris from the road and inspectors took note of abandoned houses. “You watch us. We’re going to enforce the law here.”

Parker hinted that she may propose bolstering funding to the Department of Licenses and Inspections, which enforces building safety regulations and the city code. This fiscal year the department was allocated $44.2 million out of the city’s $6.2 billion budget.

She noted that L&I generates more annual revenue — about $87 million — than it spends. She also already announced that her administration is splitting the department in two, and that one arm will be focused exclusively on enforcing quality-of-life issues.

The upcoming budget proposal may also include more dollars for PHL Taking Care of Business, a program to clean and beautify commercial corridors that she created when she was a member of City Council representing parts of Northwest and Northeast Philadelphia. The initiative began citywide in 2020 and currently employs 200 part-time employees who work in dozens of corridors.

» READ MORE: Parker campaigned on expanding her commercial corridor cleaning program

And Parker has vowed that in the early days of her administration, her team will review the city’s Land Bank, an opaque bureaucracy that was created to sell off vacant or tax delinquent city-owned land, but has been slow to do so.

She said expediting the sale of more land to communities and responsible developers is key to cleaning the city. And while pointing to an empty lot filled with garbage, she said some programs for cleaning lots are seasonal but must be funded year-round.

“We’re going to demonstrate very specifically that none of these different line items are in isolation,” Parker said. “You’ll see ‘clean and green’ through the budget.”

Parker is not the first mayor to pledge an improvement in quality-of-life issues, and Philadelphia lawmakers have for generations proposed programs and regulations to address nuisances. More than 20 years ago, former Mayor John F. Street’s administration committed $1.6 million to tow thousands of abandoned cars — he claims to have removed more than 289,000 during his two terms.

But many of the neighborhoods that were the focus of that effort — including Strawberry Mansion — today have thousands of abandoned car complaints piling up, and there’s no comprehensive city plan to deal with it.

Carlton Williams, the former Streets Commissioner now serving as Parker’s director of clean and green initiatives, said his office is charged with bringing together disparate agencies and groups, from Licenses and Inspections to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, to streamline city service delivery.

“Now I’m able to coordinate those services together,” he said. “Before, we had to request it, and unfortunately there might have been other competing priorities where things didn’t get addressed. But together now, we can do this holistically.”

Parker wasn’t shy about that Friday, repeatedly calling on top officials to take note of what they saw. She summoned Commerce Director Alba Martinez when she came across a corner business with wires hanging from its awning and cooking grease on the sidewalk.

And when Parker saw a large abandoned van covered in graffiti and with a broken windshield sitting on the street, she called for Parking Authority executive director Rich Lazer to have a look.

A half-hour later, as Parker was already on her way back to City Hall, a tow truck hauled it away.