Councilmember Cherelle Parker held a tight rein on development. What would she do as mayor?

In 2017, former Councilmember Cherelle Parker linked arms with constituents to shut down a construction site.

A developer had purchased one of the detached homes with brick-and-stone facades, lawns, and driveways that distinguish her corner of Philadelphia. He planned to raze it and build two duplexes, clad in vinyl siding.

To Parker, adding density and “cheap” materials was an insult to the neighborhood, so she rallied with neighbors to block contractors’ access to the construction site.

“We did the old-fashioned civil rights chain,” Parker, now a candidate for mayor, said in late March from campaign headquarters in East Mount Airy.

After the rally, she fought the project to a standstill at the city’s zoning board. The developer at the time accused Parker of “trying to strong-arm me through politics.”

Eventually, the company worked out a deal with Parker to use her preferred materials on the front facade of the homes — brick and stone, like other nearby homes.

“If anybody ever tells you I’m a snob about materials … I am,” Parker said, who represented the 9th District in upper North Philadelphia between 2016 and 2022. “I want brick and stone, however I can get it.”

The incident is emblematic of the hands-on approach that Parker often took to land use or quality-of-life issues. Along with her distaste for vinyl siding, over the years she blocked new rental units and instituted special rules limiting businesses such as new convenience stores and at-home day cares in her district on the northern edge of Philadelphia.

I want brick and stone, however I can get it.

Proponents say these moves help struggling city neighborhoods stave off nuisance businesses and slumlords. But critics see it as “councilmanic prerogative” — an unwritten rule giving district Council members total deference on land use decisions — and micromanaging or taking a “not in my backyard” approach toward new developments.

Now that Parker is running for mayor, the question is how her approach to those issues as a Council member will translate into an office responsible for the entire city.

Critics say Parker’s past actions solicitous toward neighborhood groups who oppose any and every change would undermine Philadelphia’s economy if applied citywide.

“We’ve seen across the country, and within Philadelphia, that the more policy is determined at a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level, the more anti-growth it tends to be,” said Emily Hamilton, senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center in Virginia. “Housing tends to get voted down because the cost-benefit calculation looks different to immediate neighbors than to the larger community.”

Parker counters that she will balance neighborhood interests with new development and the city’s economic health.

“I can’t get pigeonholed into [being] the poster child for councilmanic prerogative,“ Parker said. “People who live in the community have a right to be one of the major stakeholders. But as we attempt to grow Philadelphia … you won’t hear me say, ‘Oh, hell no’ [to major projects]. Reflexive opposition, that’s not me.”

District City Council members are given extraordinary latitude over land use in their territory, and Parker used those powers to defend what she saw as the neighborhood’s interests.

When she moved to require all new convenience or grocery stores in her district to obtain a special zoning license, she framed it as a response to a trend of nuisance drug paraphernalia stores stealthily opening 24-hour smoke shops under these licenses.

“Black and brown neighborhoods have historically been targets of exploitative business practices,” she said. “Nuisance smoke shops and certain types of convenience stores are a stark reminder that this history is still alive today.”

When a medical marijuana dispensary was proposed in her district, she retained a law firm to sue the Pennsylvania Department of Health over its permitting and paid $700 to bus constituents down to a Center City zoning hearing to block it. (The store, which was operated by a political rival, eventually opened in the suburbs.)

Parker also moved to tighten zoning rules for larger home-based day cares. “We are … having economic engines in the heart of a residential block where we already have challenges with parking,” she said in 2017.

And Parker cast efforts to add rentals or more residential density in her district as a quality-of-life issue that neighborhood residents should have a say in.

Beyond the duplex dustup, she twice went to court to block landlords seeking to carve out rental units from their properties. When Council proposed a COVID “relief bill” to loosen development rules, Parker asked to exempt her district because the legislation could increase density.

“People on a block full of single-family dwellings say … when we purchased this property, that’s not what we signed up for. We moved on this block because this was a block full of single-family dwellings,” she said at the time. “It would be a storm in the 9th Councilmanic District if these changes were to be made.”

In 2021, she also exempted her district from a bill allowing homeowners to add accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. Informally known as “in-law suites,” ADUs enable homeowners to add secondary rental units to their properties. She said the bill could lead to overcrowding.

The Planning Commission has often bristled at Parker’s zoning legislation and, after she resigned for her current mayoral bid, outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney used it as an opportunity to veto Parker’s efforts to zone out convenience and grocery stores.

“Requiring prospective business owners to retain the costly services of an attorney and face the delay and uncertainty associated with a special exception hearing will discourage the establishment of new businesses,” Kenney said in a statement at the time.

The base of Parker’s political support comes from a district full of aging postwar communities she refers to as “middle neighborhoods” — like East Mount Airy, West Oak Lane, and East Oak Lane.

Many were initially populated after World War II by upwardly mobile working class white families, moving from older rowhouse communities in North or South Philadelphia. Growing up in the 1970s in West Oak Lane, Parker experienced the midpoint of the transition of those neighborhoods from almost entirely white to almost entirely Black communities.

“We got here when it was white flight, blockbusting, Black people came and the white people who were here moved out,” said Parker, who was born in 1972.

The census tract where she grew up dropped from 41% white in 1970 to 5.1% in 1980. (It had been 0.3% Black in 1960.) But the median income remained elevated above the city average.

“These became purchases of pride,” Parker said. “For the first time for many Black people, [they] owned their house. It was where you wanted to go.”

Neighborhoods in Parker’s district helped stabilize the city during the financial and demographic struggles in the late 20th century by adding population and boosting the tax base. But as downtown Philadelphia’s fortunes began to improve in the early 21st century, many of these neighborhoods faltered.

Racist lending practices that underpinned the subprime mortgage crisis were often targeted at neighborhoods like West Oak Lane, which was hit by record foreclosures after the 2008 real estate crash.

In the census tract where Parker grew up, homeownership rates in 2020 fell below 80% for the first time. Household median income fell precipitously to around $42,200 — below the city’s median — from $66,300 (in today’s dollars) in 2000.

“Starting around the beginning of the 21st century, things started to get seriously shaky in Black middle neighborhoods,” said Alan Mallach, a senior fellow with the Michigan-based Center for Community Progress, who has consulted with Parker. “At the same time, you have all these homeowners asking, ‘How can we stabilize these neighborhoods?’ This is the dynamic I think was present in Cherelle’s thinking.”

As a legislator, Parker’s commitment to these communities manifested in legislation like a $40 million low-interest loan program tailored for people with incomes well above the poverty line who might have bad credit or live in a neighborhood where bank loans are harder to obtain. Bills focused on commercial corridor maintenance and assisting first-time home buyers have a similar bent toward populations she feels have been neglected by the public sector and the real estate industry.

Some neighborhood groups similarly view Parker’s track record on land use as beating back decline.

“We are committed to upholding the character of our neighborhoods … addressing the quality-of-life issues/concerns of our residents/homeowners,” Gerry Sizemore of the 50th Ward Democratic Executive Committee wrote in an email. “[We] have the full support of Cherelle Parker.”

Parker’s record also shows that she has occasionally opposed neighborhood organizations when she believes larger interests are at stake.

When a church attempted to build 40 affordable senior housing units in East Oak Lane, neighborhood groups argued that the four-story building would be out of scale with the nearby homes.

But research by Parker’s Council staff found little senior affordable housing in her district so she backed the church, to the dismay of community groups.

“She went against the community at a meeting where over 100 people came out and clearly stated their opposition,” said Freida Williams, zoning chair for the Oak Lane Community Action Association. “We felt that was very disrespectful and now see that as almost a prelude to her run for mayor. When you support construction projects, I guess that helps to create jobs for the building trades.”

Just say no? I won’t be that kind of mayor.

Parker said that she went against her constituents because the project met other important goals and that she would bring a similar perspective to the mayor’s office.

“We wanted people who live in the district to be able to age in place,” Parker said. “It is a perfect example of when I’ve not been afraid to make a tough decision relative to land use, even if it wasn’t popular.”

Parker has been endorsed by many of the city’s building trades — labor groups that generally have an interest in large-scale construction, including mega projects like the proposed new 76ers basketball arena.

Few of these kinds of projects were ever proposed in her Council district. She says labor’s backing shows they’re confident she will not govern as a “NIMBY.”

“That’s when the mayor speaks up, when projects have an extremely large economic impact,” Parker said. “The poorest big city in the nation, doing our best to grow the tax base and deal with challenges like the opioid crisis and homelessness and affordable housing. Just say no? I won’t be that kind of mayor.”