Monthly Archives: July 2015

We are wrapping up our discussion of the federal Fair Housing Act and the types of actions it prohibits. When we left off in our July 24 post, we were talking about what landlords, lenders, sellers and others cannot do. Discrimination is more than slamming the door in a renter’s face solely because he is African American. It is more than a lender telling a loan applicant that the bank does not, as a rule, lend to Muslims.

The easy answer is, “The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing.” A better answer will take a little longer.

The multifamily housing market is doing well in Philadelphia. New apartment buildings are in the works or on the market all over the city, and new condominiums are also underway. Investors may have competition, but they also have options.

While Mayor Michael Nutter has been visiting mayors in other countries and pressing the case for Philadelphia’s designation as a World Heritage City, the Philadelphia Business Journal believes the designation is practically a done deal. The designation will not only give the city’s tourism and convention industries, but it will make Philly an international city — as a World Heritage City, Philadelphia will have global recognition.

By the end of the year, Philadelphia may be the first World Heritage City in the United States. The designation would put the city on the same list as Assisi, Italy, Mexico City and Chengde, China and more than 200 other cities around the world.

We are still talking about brownfields. As we said in our last post, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection defines them as underutilized properties, the development of which may be complicated by the presence of hazardous substances or contaminants. A brownfield site may be an old chemical plant or an old gas station. Underground storage tanks, for example, can contaminate more than the soil surrounding them: Groundwater and surface water are also at risk.

We have spent a good deal of time lately talking about Philadelphia’s problem with abandoned and vacant properties. The city might have an easier time finding a solution if all of the properties were the same — not necessarily a uniform size, but in the same condition. Even if these parcels could be broken down into two or three categories, it might be easier to find buyers or to make redevelopment a more attractive option.

Real estate developers, homebuilders and realtors have had a pretty rough decade, and new potential problems seem always to be on the horizon. The foreclosure crisis sent new housing starts plummeting — and the apartment industry booming. Climate change threatens to alter entire coastlines — or at least to create new design and insurance challenges. Now, an entire generation of Americans may have given up on homeownership.

The City of Philadelphia has taken an unusual step in its efforts to collect taxes owed on more than 98,000 properties. At the end of June, the city put hundreds of tax liens up for auction on the Internet. While investors did not exactly snap them up, officials said that investors bought 240 of the 865 liens available. (Initial reports put the number at 938).