What the ‘poop building’ tells us about affordable housing in Philadelphia
As demand for housing rises, Philadelphia’s neighborhoods can either remain affordable or remain low-density. They cannot do both.
The former private dog park at 48th Street and Chester Avenue in West Philly is now dotted with signs heralding the construction of 22 luxury duplexes. This lot could have hosted a 76-unit apartment building, including 15 low-income units. Alas, the dream of the so-called poop building has been, ahem, flushed away — and with it, any hope for affordable housing in this neighborhood.
The scatological tale of this lot, including “stool samples to fight gentrification,” masks a deeper battle for the future of our city. As demand for housing rises, Philadelphia’s neighborhoods can either remain affordable or remain low-density. They cannot do both.
Squirrel Hill, a cozy corner of Southwest Philadelphia, was given this choice. We overwhelmingly chose the latter. Other neighborhoods would do well not to copy our mistakes.
In late 2020, landowner Meir Gelley declared his intention to develop the lot. By right, he could build 22 luxurious duplex homes. But he wanted to build apartments — a more lucrative option, but one that would require zoning variances.
Some neighbors persuaded Gelley to set aside 15 of the units for families making under $35,720 a year, well below the median household income for this census tract. Cedar Park Neighbors, a local registered community organization, hired an attorney to ensure this agreement was binding. SEPTA weighed in with a letter of support for a dense, mixed-income development next to a major trolley line.
Nonetheless, the plan faced opposition from an alliance between landowners and tenants. At one meeting in March 2021, 64 out of 72 neighbors opposed the project. (The 76 families who could have lived in this building, including 15 low-income families, were not represented.)
One neighbor, objecting to density, dismissed the apartments as “slum housing.” Meanwhile, the neighborhood group Protect Squirrel Hill referred to the four-story mixed-income project as a “monstrosity,” fearing an apartment building would gentrify the neighborhood.
They were right to be worried about gentrification. Between 2000 and 2020, the inflation-adjusted median household income in this census tract increased much faster than inflation, and the Black population declined by nearly two-thirds. A home across the street from the dog park recently sold for more than $1 million; an “efficiency” apartment in the carbon monoxide-filled building next door was recently listed for a “luxury” rent.
But new development did not cause the neighborhood to become whiter, wealthier, and less affordable. Take a walk around the neighborhood and you will see that essentially no new development has occurred. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau estimate that the number of housing units here decreased by 132 over two decades. The building that once stood on the site of the dog park hosted 61 apartments.
When housing supply is constrained, property owners have more power to dictate prices; new residents and existing tenants must compete for units. Research supports this intuition, finding that new apartments lower, rather than raise, the risk of rent hikes and displacement. Even market-rate development “frees up” low-income units; blocking development has the opposite effect.
Philadelphia must do more to protect tenants and directly expand our stock of low-income housing. But the market can be an ally, rather than an enemy.
Initially, Protect Squirrel Hill sought an alternative use for the lot, like a cat corner or bird sanctuary. As it became clear that the only options were a mixed-income apartment building with affordable units or a set of expensive luxury homes, Protect Squirrel Hill signed on to the latter. The 600 signers of its petition against “luxury housing” must have been surprised by this pivot.
After a yearslong legal battle, the landowner withdrew plans for the apartments last July.
Locals are continuing what’s unfortunately become a neighborhood tradition of blocking dense development. In 1982, residents halted the rehabbing of a 51-unit apartment building because “the area is way above the density quota.” In 1991, neighbors prevented the construction of 70 low-income rental units, fearing they would “destroy Squirrel Hill.” A few blocks away, homeowners recently demanded that 70 homes be axed from a low-income development in favor of 49 parking spaces.
Neighbors used the guise of housing justice to block the development. Other times, we wore no such mask. But in each case, we have chipped away at affordability, walkability, and the urban fabric that makes this neighborhood diverse, unique, and sustainable.
When we frame the fight over an apartment building as a community-stands-up-to-greedy-developer story, the tenants who might have called the new building home are forgotten and erased. And when a building gets blocked, those tenants don’t vanish into the ether.
Best-case scenario: They pay more for a unit that’s either lower quality or further from where they’d like to live, and put pressure on the rest of the market. Worst case: They can’t find housing at all.
I’m glad previous generations of Squirrel Hill residents didn’t prevent the unit I live in from being created. Presumably, my neighbors feel the same way about their own homes. We should remember that our “city of neighborhoods” is just that — a city whose vibrancy, dynamism, and character are all made possible by density.
After all, density doesn’t just mean buildings. It means people.
Taylor Kessinger is a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Pennsylvania’s department of biology.