PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[PurpleWhiteOut]

Originally Posted by allovertown

Let's see, the results for 500th Philadelphia Taxes Debate are in. Everyone still believes exactly what they believed going into the debate, exactly zero minds were changed, and nothing was accomplished.

Great job everyone. See you next week, when the same stupid topic will derail the thread again.

Thank you. Can we stop talking about this here? And public transportation too? Thanks

[jsbrook]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

My taxes are almost $4,000 on a 755 square foot trinity in Northern Liberties. 5 years ago, the tax bill was $1200. There are 1,600 square foot homes littered throughout Northern Liberties with lower taxes than mine. The two houses attached to mine are identical in layout and pay more than $1,000 less than I do.

So yeah. The re-assessments are uneven, unfair, and targeted.

The lack of uniformity is tax assessments shows problems with methodology and is troubling and needs to be addressed. But the actual rises do not, and I have seen scant evidence that ANY properties are overvalued. Maybe a handful but barely any. This is what happens when you vastly understate value of property for ages and suddenly increase to market value. Sounds like the 1,600 square foot homes in Northern Liberties paying $3,000 in tax a year remain highly undervalued. Have you checked what OPA is saying their market value is and compared to sale of similar property in the area? I have investment property that saw a big jump too and that now seems out of whack with some comparable property. But not actually overvalued. It is finally pegged at around what it would sell for. Some comparable property remains undervalued.

This tangent has gone on way too long, though. There is a transportation thread. Why not a city "Governance & Policy" thread or something like that to discuss things not as centrally related to construction and development?

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by Tatts

"They could increase taxes on people who commute into the city for work and decrease on residents to offer a tax break to residents."
No, they cannot. They are expressly forbidden from doing that by state law. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

"Which part? The part about the Controllers office audit discovering $33m in missing funds last year."
Okay, you clearly have a mad-on about Philly government. And you deliberately led with the old story about the "missing" money that wasn't missing at all--and everybody knows it. There have been follow-ups in the news many times since then. The bulk of that money was deposited automatically on a monthly basis in the wrong city account. That one correction solved the bulk of the issue. Subsequent news has shown that everything is working its way out. That happens all the time in any big business. As I remember, the finance departments had a personnel shortage during that time. And the city has is old software and systems. But fixing that takes money--lots of it, paid to major software corporations, which you don't want them to spend.

And your list of departments that need to be combined is laughable. The Parking Authority? That is a STATE agency, run by the Republicans in Harrisburg as a patronage mill. Everybody knows that. It's in the papers all the time.

The Board of Health is already part of the Department of Public Health, and DBHIDS is about mental and behavioral health while the Department of Public Health is about diseases and disease control--different missions. You just don't know what you're talking about; you've only looked at the names.

What's the PA law that bans the city from raising taxes on people commuting into the city for work? I'm honestly, not aware of that.

Say whatever you like about the $33m, the point is that it's part of the $924m in accounting errors and inefficiencies. I'm not against the Philly government, but I'm not going to pretend it's well ran either. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/loc...Errors-According-to-Audit-485270481.html

And you are misunderstanding the categories I laid out. I'm not saying ALL of them should be consolidated into the categories I've outlined (of course not -- I'm only listing The Parking Authority or SEPTA or those in there so people have a full picture of all the various offices...naturally, there are some that definitely need to remain). What I'm saying is there are many Offices within given categories that are duplicates or could benefit from restructuring or consolidation. For instance, The Office of Arts Commission and Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) are very similar. Office of Youth Engagement (OYE), Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, and Office of Civic Engagement and Volunteer Service -- do we really need all 3 of those plus Black Male Engagement and Women Engagement Committees? I question if we do (and note, skimming the city budget very quickly shows we spend around between $4m to $6m a year on these offices (engagement and diversity). Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT), Office of Innovation Management, and Office of Open Data and Digital Transformation (ODDT) do we really need all 3? I don't know that we do.

At the end of the day, when is the last time Philly gov has gone through a reorg or any major cuts? I haven't seen it. If they were to consolidate down these departments, they cut reallocate that money to the school system or provide tax cuts. But this doesn't matter -- as you are proving, people in Philly can't handle change or consider that there are better ways to do things, and that holds this city back big time. The city could benefit from restructuring, streamlining, and actually allowing new technology to automate admin tasks as a way of reducing the bloated city budget.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

Point taken. I was just giving an example of one office where I know we spend money but there might not be a ton of value added. There used to be more staff than that, but not sure what the total budget is. My main point is I'm quite certain there are many offices and services that Philly government has that could be streamlined, cut, or reallocated.

The biggest budget items are the Police dept and pensions. Debt service is pretty high on the list as well. Two of those three are non-negotiable based on prior agreements/contracts. Cutting police spending- well good luck with that. You don't save significant money by shaving off ceremonial offices or firing the person running the LBGT "office". Reduce the police force via attrition by 10% or so- you will see some real savings.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by cardeza

The biggest budget items are the Police dept and pensions. Debt service is pretty high on the list as well. Two of those three are non-negotiable based on prior agreements/contracts. Cutting police spending- well good luck with that. You don't save significant money by shaving off ceremonial offices or firing the person running the LBGT "office". Reduce the police force via attrition by 10% or so- you will see some real savings.

Yes -- there are some big areas that consume most of the yearly expenditures.
Even the Airport spends a chunk of funds, and because of unions, they refuse to allow any systems to automate basic administrative tasks. They intentionally allow the inefficiencies just to give people jobs.

I don't think we can discount how much money can be saved by restructuring many departments. What most people don't realize is that for every Office/Department in the city, it is headed by someone who makes 6-figures. In the example I laid out above, if they consolidated all the Diversity Offices together and had it led by 1 senior staff with 1 jr staff for each office, they'd cut overhead salary costs in half. In this simple move, that'd free up over a million alone while also not cutting any of the responsibilities the offices currently deliver (simply, the people of Philly would get better bang for our bucks). While that doesn't seem like a lot, that million is funded by around 250 households paying an average of $4000 a year in property taxes (just using an example from the guy who commented earlier on here about his taxes). That's $1m a year that we could put towards improvements to schools, street cleaning, etc. And this is just one example. If this restructuring were done on a wider city scale, I'm confident there would be $30m to $50m a year, on the low side, in extra funds that could be used for a multitude of different uses.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by jsbrook

The lack of uniformity is tax assessments shows problems with methodology and is troubling and needs to be addressed. But the actual rises do not, and I have seen scant evidence that ANY properties are overvalued. Maybe a handful but barely any. This is what happens when you vastly understate value of property for ages and suddenly increase to market value. Sounds like the 1,600 square foot homes in Northern Liberties paying $3,000 in tax a year remain highly undervalued. Have you checked what OPA is saying their market value is and compared to sale of similar property in the area? I have investment property that saw a big jump too and that now seems out of whack with some comparable property. But not actually overvalued. It is finally pegged at around what it would sell for. Some comparable property remains undervalued.

This tangent has gone on way too long, though. There is a transportation thread. Why not a city "Governance & Policy" thread or something like that to discuss things not as centrally related to construction and development?

And the problem isn't if the properties are undervalued or overvalued. The problem is the city specifically targeted land with new houses receiving tax abatements on them as part of the adjustment and didn't adjust most other properties in the city. Given that all land is tied together, all land should have been adjusted for everyone and not just targeting certain groups of people.

In my situation, my property value increased from $35k to $85k in value (which I think is fair). Meanwhile, the empty lot next to me is valued at $15k with no adjustment -- and funny enough, the guy who owns it wasn't even willing to sell it for $100k when I offered him that. He's sitting on many pieces of property and paying hardly any taxes. And that's the kind of actions by city government that make many people frustrated and not trust them.

[PhilliesPhan]

Philadelphia Outpacing Its Suburbs


Read more: https://www.philly.com/news/a/philadelphia-population-growth-census-south-jersey-20190418.html


There's clearly still some work that needs to be done in the city, with the ongoing discussions being evidence. This news, however, is excellent! The city has grown in population for a 12th straight year!

In my opinion, the 2020s are going to be a truly pivotal time for the city, where key decisions must be made to ensure that we can not only continue to grow (in jobs and population), but grow faster than we are now.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan

Philadelphia Outpacing Its Suburbs


Read more: https://www.philly.com/news/a/philadelphia-population-growth-census-south-jersey-20190418.html


There's clearly still some work that needs to be done in the city, with the ongoing discussions being evidence. This news, however, is excellent! The city has grown in population for a 12th straight year!

In my opinion, the 2020s are going to be a truly pivotal time for the city, where key decisions must be made to ensure that we can not only continue to grow (in jobs and population), but grow faster than we are now.

Totally agree with your comments and the article, itself. Philly's growth is "Slow, but steady" (as headlined). I'm a little concerned that with only around 5-6k increases each year that the number if going to flip and head south. I'm already seeing houses in my neighborhood sitting on the market a lot longer and building slowing compared to the past few years. I hope this isn't the beginning of a negative shift.

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

Totally agree with your comments and the article, itself. Philly's growth is "Slow, but steady" (as headlined). I'm a little concerned that with only around 5-6k increases each year that the number if going to flip and head south. I'm already seeing houses in my neighborhood sitting on the market a lot longer and building slowing compared to the past few years. I hope this isn't the beginning of a negative shift.

That's weird, the link I saw in Google had a completely different title.

5-6K increases certainly fall into "slow" territory, and our rate of domestic out-migration does concern me, but I am happy to see continued growth in our region. I'm hoping that the numbers don't shift anytime soon; nevertheless, there is one factor that may serve to work to our advantage: metro NYC--along with all NYC counties except Richmond County (Staten Island)--all lost population numbers in 2018. With the flow of migration between the two metros being as strong as it is, NYC's loss could potentially be our gain.

Even if we do lose population numbers, I'm hoping that household incomes and educational attainment levels will continue to increase, and that our level of poverty will decrease markedly. Chicago is going through a situation where it is losing population, but also increasing its share of residents with a bachelor's degree or higher and seeing a stark increase in household incomes.

[Aaamazarite]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

Totally agree with your comments and the article, itself. Philly's growth is "Slow, but steady" (as headlined). I'm a little concerned that with only around 5-6k increases each year that the number if going to flip and head south. I'm already seeing houses in my neighborhood sitting on the market a lot longer and building slowing compared to the past few years. I hope this isn't the beginning of a negative shift.

According to the calculators available via the MLS, days on market for listings in a 3 mile radius around City Hall are up about 25% compared to this time last year. Inventory is at its lowest point ever (17% less than last year, which was itself a record) which is helping drive prices up-- average home sale price is up 8% from this time last year. Again, this is all in a 3 mile radius around City Hall and for residential sales of all types.

Number of building permits city wide is slightly up from this time last year and much higher than any year before that.

[Urbanthusiat]

Seems the whole south and eastern parts of the state is growing slow but steady. I'll take it! Everything east of the Appalachians is growing at a decent clip. Nice to see solid growth around Lancaster, Reading, Allentown, and Wilmington too. Their growth is good for us too as we're at the center of it all.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by Aaamazarite

According to the calculators available via the MLS, days on market for listings in a 3 mile radius around City Hall are up about 25% compared to this time last year. Inventory is at its lowest point ever (17% less than last year, which was itself a record) which is helping drive prices up-- average home sale price is up 8% from this time last year. Again, this is all in a 3 mile radius around City Hall and for residential sales of all types.

Number of building permits city wide is slightly up from this time last year and much higher than any year before that.

The total number of listings may be up, but they appear to be sitting on the market longer which either means a) fewer people are moving into the city or b) fewer people are choosing to buy.

Of course, I'm just going off listings I see sitting around Fishtown / East Kensington so it may be different patterns throughout the city. The past few years, it seemed for sale signs were on houses for much shorter length of time than the past year.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by jsbrook

The lack of uniformity is tax assessments shows problems with methodology and is troubling and needs to be addressed. But the actual rises do not, and I have seen scant evidence that ANY properties are overvalued. Maybe a handful but barely any. This is what happens when you vastly understate value of property for ages and suddenly increase to market value. Sounds like the 1,600 square foot homes in Northern Liberties paying $3,000 in tax a year remain highly undervalued. Have you checked what OPA is saying their market value is and compared to sale of similar property in the area? I have investment property that saw a big jump too and that now seems out of whack with some comparable property. But not actually overvalued. It is finally pegged at around what it would sell for. Some comparable property remains undervalued.

This tangent has gone on way too long, though. There is a transportation thread. Why not a city "Governance & Policy" thread or something like that to discuss things not as centrally related to construction and development?

Here's the irony though. When your house is overtaxed RELATIVE to others just like it, the value of your home actually decreases.

Why would you buy my house when you can own one of the two identical houses next to mine for $100 less a month? Because that's the net savings you pay in your mortgage when you buy somebody else's house and not mine. It also makes you more willing to pay full price for the house next to me and less than value for mine, all other things being equal.

Taxes have a very real affect on housing values. I'm not saying that I wasn't underassessed for years. I was. But so were my neighborhoods. Now, I pay more than market value and they continue to pay less than market value.

It's not fair. There's no 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 way a 2br trinity in Northern Liberties should be taxed at a higher absolute value than any conventional row home in the neighborhood, period. Literally every single house in Northern Liberties should have a higher tax bill than mine, excluding the other trinities, of which there are probably only 15-25 in the entire neighborhood.

The system is sh*t.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

The total number of listings may be up, but they appear to be sitting on the market longer which either means a) fewer people are moving into the city or b) fewer people are choosing to buy.

Of course, I'm just going off listings I see sitting around Fishtown / East Kensington so it may be different patterns throughout the city. The past few years, it seemed for sale signs were on houses for much shorter length of time than the past year.

I think you have a special situation in Fishtown and East Kensington.

Prices got way ahead of themselves. Flips in Fishtown shouldn't be selling for the same $ per sf as houses in Graduate Hospital. Yes, Fishtown is great, but is still further from the employment centers than other closer in neighborhoods.

If anythings, it's just a pause.

Also, there is a lot of competition, particularly for new construction, coming on line in South Kensington, which is arguably more central and still close to the action on Frankford Avenue. For quite a while, Fishtown was the only game in town in that quadrant of the city.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by Aaamazarite

According to the calculators available via the MLS, days on market for listings in a 3 mile radius around City Hall are up about 25% compared to this time last year. Inventory is at its lowest point ever (17% less than last year, which was itself a record) which is helping drive prices up-- average home sale price is up 8% from this time last year. Again, this is all in a 3 mile radius around City Hall and for residential sales of all types.

Number of building permits city wide is slightly up from this time last year and much higher than any year before that.

It makes sense for very low inventory to be driving prices up. I find myself wondering whether the slowdown is in part caused by the prices being asked currently being in excess of what the market will bear? That is, that the reason the slowdown in sales is happening is because, while the product is good, it isn't quite that good? If this is the case, then bringing more inventory to market should bring slightly overheated prices back into line and cause more movement in the market.

It also occurs to me that there is inventory being brought to market now in many more neighborhoods than even just a decade ago. Where in the past, most of the inventory movement was highly concentrated in a handful of neighborhoods, now it's much more decanted, which means that even if the inventory being brought to market on a per-neighborhood basis has decreased somewhat, because there are many more neighborhoods where inventory is being brought to market, the overall amount of inventory being brought to market is still increasing!

(Funnily enough, I'm noticing more construction this season than either of the previous two years, by the way.)

All of this is of course predicated on the idea that the very low inventory counts being registered is the essential bottleneck, driving an overheated price, and therefore that increasing inventory should bring the price down a tad which should generate more market movement.

[Tatts]

"What's the PA law that bans the city from raising taxes on people commuting into the city for work? I'm honestly, not aware of that."

The law doesn't ban the city from raising income taxes on commuters. It says that commuters must pay LESS than residents. Without raising our taxes, they have no room to raise the commuters' taxes. It's been that way since the tax was initiated. We can't just do whatever we want--the City Charter controls much of what we do and it must be amended through the legislature.

"And you are misunderstanding the categories I laid out. I'm not saying ALL of them should be consolidated into the categories I've outlined (of course not -- I'm only listing The Parking Authority or SEPTA or those in there so people have a full picture of all the various offices...naturally, there are some that definitely need to remain)."

I didn't misunderstand the categories at all. I was pointing out that A: You don't know that the Parking Authority is a state agency over which the city has no control and can't become part of another department--it's not a city department, B: that you are listing as separate entities things that are already aligned as you are suggesting, and C: you are looking only at names with no understanding of what each office does.

"If they were to consolidate down these departments, they cut reallocate that money to the school system or provide tax cuts."

The amounts you are proposing to save through micromanaging this minutae is immaterial. It wouldn't pay for 4 days' worth of police coverage. You have no perspective of this in a $4.5 billion budget.

"But this doesn't matter -- as you are proving, people in Philly can't handle change or consider that there are better ways to do things, and that holds this city back big time."

I didn't prove any such thing by pointing out the gaping holes in your plan and your lack of knowledge about the city.

[Tatts]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

It's not fair. There's no 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 way a 2br trinity in Northern Liberties should be taxed at a higher absolute value than any conventional row home in the neighborhood, period. Literally every single house in Northern Liberties should have a higher tax bill than mine, excluding the other trinities, of which there are probably only 15-25 in the entire neighborhood.

The system is sh*t.

Then appeal the assessment. Simple. Done.

The Inquirer has reported on the number of appeals. Mistakes happen; that's why you were, as you admit, undervalued for years. That's why there is an appeals process. Now they are correcting things, and in time the mistakes will become fewer and smaller.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by Tatts

"What's the PA law that bans the city from raising taxes on people commuting into the city for work? I'm honestly, not aware of that."

The law doesn't ban the city from raising income taxes on commuters. It says that commuters must pay LESS than residents. Without raising our taxes, they have no room to raise the commuters' taxes. It's been that way since the tax was initiated. We can't just do whatever we want--the City Charter controls much of what we do and it must be amended through the legislature.

"And you are misunderstanding the categories I laid out. I'm not saying ALL of them should be consolidated into the categories I've outlined (of course not -- I'm only listing The Parking Authority or SEPTA or those in there so people have a full picture of all the various offices...naturally, there are some that definitely need to remain)."

I didn't misunderstand the categories at all. I was pointing out that A: You don't know that the Parking Authority is a state agency over which the city has no control and can't become part of another department--it's not a city department, B: that you are listing as separate entities things that are already aligned as you are suggesting, and C: you are looking only at names with no understanding of what each office does.

"If they were to consolidate down these departments, they cut reallocate that money to the school system or provide tax cuts."

The amounts you are proposing to save through micromanaging this minutae is immaterial. It wouldn't pay for 4 days' worth of police coverage. You have no perspective of this in a $4.5 billion budget.

"But this doesn't matter -- as you are proving, people in Philly can't handle change or consider that there are better ways to do things, and that holds this city back big time."

I didn't prove any such thing by pointing out the gaping holes in your plan and your lack of knowledge about the city.

"The law doesn't ban the city from raising income taxes on commuters. It says that commuters must pay LESS than residents." Cool. I actually didn't know that, but it makes sense. So conceptually, they could lower the rate of residents from 3.8809% to 3.65% and increase the rate of non-residents from 3.4567% to 3.6% to give residents a tax break. Let's not split hairs with the point that taxes on non-residents CAN go up and residents CAN go down. Thanks for proving my point.

"I didn't misunderstand the categories at all." No offense; you still don't get it. No where did I say the Parking Authority should be merged with other agencies (just like when I listed SEPTA in Transportation did that mean it makes sense to dissolve it). I just showed a list of all the agencies and how much overlap there are. By I'll bite, your point is still moot. Philadelphia could reclaim ownership of the Parking Authority and merge it into other agencies if someone had the vision of doing it, but I'm not suggesting that in what I put above. Again -- I'm showing the full list of city agencies as listed by Philly's government. If you can't see there's a lot of overlap between chunks of those city offices then you can't see the forest for the trees.

"The amounts you are proposing to save through micromanaging this minutae is immaterial. It wouldn't pay for 4 days' worth of police coverage. You have no perspective of this in a $4.5 billion budget." You don't know that. Just looking at the Diversity departments and reorging them, I found $1m in budget, and these are the smallest offices. If someone were to look at the bigger offices, I'm confident basic reorgs could find $30m to $50m a year, easily, while avoiding the big union fights. Say whatever you like, but I do this for a living and looking at the city budget, it was obvious it was bloated and could easily be streamlined .

"I didn't prove any such thing by pointing out the gaping holes in your plan and your lack of knowledge about the city." LOL - I didn't have a plan. I had a list that shows overlap of a bunch of offices that you are trying to paint as a plan to position with your own spin. Again, proving you aren't open to looking into all options to make the city better. Typical Philly mindset that holds this city back.

[jsbrook]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

It makes sense for very low inventory to be driving prices up. I find myself wondering whether the slowdown is in part caused by the prices being asked currently being in excess of what the market will bear? That is, that the reason the slowdown in sales is happening is because, while the product is good, it isn't quite that good? If this is the case, then bringing more inventory to market should bring slightly overheated prices back into line and cause more movement in the market.

It also occurs to me that there is inventory being brought to market now in many more neighborhoods than even just a decade ago. Where in the past, most of the inventory movement was highly concentrated in a handful of neighborhoods, now it's much more decanted, which means that even if the inventory being brought to market on a per-neighborhood basis has decreased somewhat, because there are many more neighborhoods where inventory is being brought to market, the overall amount of inventory being brought to market is still increasing!

(Funnily enough, I'm noticing more construction this season than either of the previous two years, by the way.)

All of this is of course predicated on the idea that the very low inventory counts being registered is the essential bottleneck, driving an overheated price, and therefore that increasing inventory should bring the price down a tad which should generate more market movement.

It does make sense. But sales prices in Rittenhouse are actually down 2% from 2018. Similar in other prime neighborhoods. And maybe more for higher end real estate.

[jsbrook]

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

"The law doesn't ban the city from raising income taxes on commuters. It says that commuters must pay LESS than residents." Cool. I actually didn't know that, but it makes sense. So conceptually, they could lower the rate of residents from 3.8809% to 3.65% and increase the rate of non-residents from 3.4567% to 3.6% to give residents a tax break. Let's not split hairs with the point that taxes on non-residents CAN go up and residents CAN go down. Thanks for proving my point.

Not sure why anyone would ever do this. The slight rebalancing would do nothing, and if anything would tend to push more jobs to the suburbs. Also, rates are higher for residents because they are viewed as using more resources and services than non-residents who work in the City during the day and then leave and aren't here nights and weekends in way residents are. It surely is true. I am unaware of any city in the U.S. that imposes a HIGHER tax on non-residents. A few cities in Ohio have the same tax rate for residents and non-residents who commute in to work in the city. Almost all other cities have a slightly higher tax on residents as we do.