Where ‘construction destruction’ has impacted a city of rowhouses

Philadelphia is a city of interconnected rowhouses — mostly, very old rowhouses increasingly in need of repairs.

It’s also a city undergoing a dramatic transformation, as construction has flooded into communities that had endured decades of disinvestment.

» READ MORE: Each year, 50 Philly rowhouses are ruined by reckless construction next door — with the greatest impact on those who can least afford it.

At the same time, contractors and inspectors alike described a “Wild West” culture of impunity that permits reckless construction practices to flourish — and has resulted in dozens of collapses and hundreds of homes being damaged and declared unsafe by the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I).

At least 50 rowhouses each year were seriously compromised or collapsed during neighboring excavation, construction, or demolition, according to an Inquirer analysis of city data since 2019. Of those, 93% were at least 70 years old.

The result is that many have lost their homes while others live with the fear that their destabilized homes could fall on them at any moment.

It’s no coincidence that construction damage is concentrated in neighborhoods that historically were home to large populations of low-income, mostly Black and Latino, families — with an abundance of comparatively cheap vacant lots and blighted properties available for redevelopment.

Going back a century, Philadelphia was a deeply segregated city. Many of the fault lines were hardened in the 1930s by federal “redlining” maps, created as an assessment of credit risks to lenders, that labeled as “hazardous” the ring of residential neighborhoods that were home to Black and immigrant families around commercial Center City.

In the last five years, 81% of apparent construction damage has occurred in those formerly redlined areas.

Today, many once-redlined areas are still segregated, with little development and disproportionate numbers of blighted, unsafe buildings.

Rowhouse residents in majority Black or Latino neighborhoods are three times more likely than residents of mostly white neighborhoods to live in a home adjoining an unsafe, derelict property that could pose a threat to others up and down the block.

Contractors were also cited for doing work without a permit at nearly 8,000 properties since 2019 — more than two-thirds of them in communities of color.

When you combine the numbers of properties deemed unsafe due to neglect with those rendered unsafe during construction, the result is disproportionately grim: Residents of majority-Black neighborhoods are five times more likely than residents of majority-white neighborhoods to live in unsafe properties or in rowhouses adjoining unsafe properties.

Meanwhile, in formerly redlined areas that have been rapidly gentrified, construction chaos has become pervasive.

Since 2019, the neighborhoods where incomes increased by at least 25% over the last decade accounted for about one-quarter of housing units, but 43% of violations for illegal, unpermitted or unsafe construction.

L&I issued stop-work orders — shutting down dangerous or illegal work — at only 3% of construction sites citywide. But in neighborhoods where median incomes increased by 50% or more, it issued stop-work orders at a rate three times higher than the citywide average. More than 80% of the stop-work orders issued in the last three years were in neighborhoods categorized as “hazardous” or “definitely declining” in the federal government’s 1937 redlining map.

The pace of investors buying up single-family homes in Philly’s distressed markets has fueled residential construction on small sites — contributing to rising risk of residents being displaced due to spiking rents, rising property taxes, or construction damage.

An analysis of home-sale data and income levels in Philadelphia neighborhoods by the Reinvestment Fund, a community development nonprofit, categorizes the risk of displacement to long-term residents. Although already-expensive neighborhoods have the highest levels of construction activity, 43% of construction permits issued this year were for areas where existing residents are considered to be at medium to high risk for displacement.

Philadelphia could help keep residents safer and more homes intact with more aggressive code enforcement, paired with more resources for repairs, experts say. They note that L&I’s staffing lagged behind the growth in construction: The department is projecting revenues of $66 million this year, but plans to spend $43 million on oversight. Each inspector is responsible for a caseload of 964 permits, on average, according to L&I’s budget.

About half of construction damage took place in areas where more than one in five people lives below the poverty line.

Residents in such communities have few resources to relocate if their homes are destabilized by adjacent construction, let alone money to hire a lawyer and fight a developer in court. The city has recently agreed to fund a pilot program for legal aid to assist homeowners dealing with damage from contractors, but that has not yet been launched.

The Federal Reserve has estimated the home repair need in the Philadelphia region at $3.7 billion; current home repair grant and loan programs would cover only about 1% of that. City and state lawmakers have so far failed to act on proposals to require contractors to add neighbors to their insurance, to create a homeowner-assistance fund to address construction damage, or to take other measures to hold negligent contractors accountable.

Philadelphia’s Democratic nominee for mayor (and frontrunner, given her party’s 7-1 voter registration advantage over Philly Republicans), Cherelle Parker, is known for her commitment to assisting homeowners.

Many are hoping that the next administration rises to this challenge.