The most controversial Philadelphia Land Bank project in Kensington is officially dead
The developer could not win the support of community groups, who wanted to see city-owned land reserved for housing affordable to people with the lowest incomes.
The most controversial project to come before the Philadelphia Land Bank in the last year is officially dead.
Over the last nine months, the Philadelphia Land Bank considered a proposal from developer Mohamed “Mo” Rushdy for the city to sell him dozens of properties in the Norris Square neighborhood at a very low price so he could build modestly priced units for homeownership.
Neighborhood groups and local community development corporations opposed the idea from the start. The project would have been orchestrated through the city’s Turn The Key program, which subsidizes homeownership for working-class residents with preference for city employees. Local advocates argued that such homes would still be priced above what most longtime neighborhood residents could afford.
On May 17, Rushdy capitulated in a mass email sent to neighborhood organizations.
“I wanted to inform everyone that I will be withdrawing the Seventh District application for a 45 Turn the Key home project from the land bank,” Rushdy wrote. “I hear you loud and clear, and that is why I’m withdrawing my application.”
Crucially, Rushdy’s project never appeared to have the support of the area’s Councilmember, Quetcy Lozada, who would have to introduce legislation to transfer the land from the city’s Land Bank. In October she submitted a letter of opposition to the project. She declined to comment for this article.
Rushdy pushed forward anyway, asking the Land Bank board to at least vote on his plan. Consideration was hampered multiple times by lack of a quorum to vote. This lead him to briefly serve on the Land Bank board himself, where he said his company would seek no more city-owned property (while continuing to pursue this effort).
He stepped down just before a raucous March meeting in Norris Square where neighborhood residents pummeled him with questions.
At the same time, Rushdy attempted to tailor the project to win community and Council support. He narrowed the project’s scope from 75 properties, some at market rate, to 45 properties that would be sold only with Turn the Key subsidies — to no avail.
“Public land should be for the public good,” said Will González, executive director of Ceiba, a coalition of Latino groups. “This effort has solidified the community around the need for affordable housing, and the Latino CDCs are looking to be more innovative in terms of securing financing [to redevelop the land].”
Rushdy, who is also president of the Building Industry Association of Philadelphia, said the saga demonstrates why most developers avoid the Land Bank to acquire property.
While the housing wouldn’t have been affordable to the lowest-income residents, he said, it also wouldn’t have been priced like new market-rate homes in Kensington or Fishtown. He predicts that nothing will happen on these parcels for a long time.
“We need so much more subsidies if we are going to just focus on [housing for the] lowest income,” Rushdy said. “If we’re going to wait for that money, we’re not going to do much.”