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Reposted by Jonathan Salmans

Jon Geeting @jongeeting.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Some of us are starting a Pro-Housing Philly grassroots pro-housing advocacy group here, and we're having a kick-off event next week on 6/3 at the Pen & Pencil Club. If you have liked or retweeted 5 pro-housing tweets in the last year, you have to come! actionnetwork.org/events/pro-h...

actionnetwork.org

Pro-Housing Philly Kick-Off Event!

Hi everyone! Thanks for staying up to date with our first event, coming up on Tuesday, June 3 at 6:30pm at the Pen and Pencil Club. Our goal from this first meeting is to give folks a chance to get to...

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

They also fail to recognize the benefit of strengthening our tax base that results from development.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Most of the benefit of market rate development flows to the community, not developers. Lot size reform legalizes beneficial development. An affordability mandate causes more harm than the benefit from lot size reform.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Under Gainey's proposal, a property reassessment would trigger a massive tax cut for wealthy long-time homeowners, which would need to be made up by higher taxes on renters and people who've become homeowners more recently. (1/2)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

You say that as if it would have been a trivial thing for him to do. I don't think he would have been able, had he tried.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

You have to pay capital gains when you sell.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Voucher recipients aren't allowed to rent much of the typical, well maintained housing because it fails to meet quality standards that are unrealistic considering the age of Pittsburgh's housing stock. (9/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

The meeting also didn't consider issues identified by HUD funded research. Issues with housing inspections are one of the most common reasons for landlord reluctance. (8/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Another major shortcoming of the council meeting was that no landlords who refuse to accept vouchers participated, leaving out important perspectives. (7/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Unfortunately, HACP director Caster Binion did not have good answers to the problems. He went on a bizarre tangent about using AI that left the impression he didn't have serious solutions. (6/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Kendall Pelling, the Executive Director of another non-profit, described how it takes months to schedule the inspections the program requires. He said the Allegheny County Housing Authority is more prompt and organized. (5/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Glenn Williams, the Executive Director of one housing non-profit, described how vacancies caused by the Housing Authority cost thousands of dollars. (4/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

At a recent city council meeting, Barb Warwick engaged landlords to try and find solutions. The meeting was a good first step, but it also made clear the scope of the problems. (3/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

The HCV program is administered by the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP). Suffering from high staff-turnover, HACP has struggled to make timely rent payments and is a bureaucratic challenge for landlords to work with. (2/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

🧵One of the most impactful things Pittsburgh could do to help people afford housing is improve the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. Thousands are currently on the waiting list for vouchers, but it is difficult to find enough landlords who will work with the program. (1/10)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

PHP's paper, while constrained by the limitations of available data, is the most accurate assessment of the Lawrenceville IZ program that has been developed to date. (4/4)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

But it's a strength that PHP's paper acknowledges these limitations, whereas PCRG's report is full of false or overstated claims. PCRG's report contains no analysis to estimate the amount IZ reduces market rate construction or increases affordable units new construction. (3/4)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

In your next tweet you mention that PHP's paper acknowledges their results are not statistically significant. And it's true that the timeframe and number of developments in Lawrenceville is too small to evaluate IZ's impact with a high level of precision. (2/4)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

🧵This is not a reasonable analysis method. The housing market was still depressed from the financial crisis for much of 2012 to 2019, and COVID triggered a housing boom as people needed more space to work from home. The PHP paper addressed this by using comparable neighborhoods as controls. (1/4)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

PHP fixed the data errors identified in the PCRG report and issued a revision. These errors did not affect the conclusion. As outlined in this Pittsburgh New Liberals thread, the PCRG report now has more errors than PHP article. bsky.app/profile/pghn...

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

That public funding is available and creates units in neighborhoods without IZ. IZ requires additional units without additional funding. It is unfunded.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Honestly, this passage of the PCRG report reads as a pretty strong argument against IZ. Since many developments in neighborhoods without IZ have affordable units, you can't attribute any of the affordable units in Lawrenceville to IZ with any certainty.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

I think your statement about there being insufficient data is more applicable to the PCRG report. PHP's paper included discussion of the data limitations, whereas the PCRG report was filled with overconfident claims not backed by evidence.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

To be honest, I am a little unsure after reading that response what it is in the Pittsburgh City Paper article WPRDC disagrees with. (The PCP article was very problematic in a number of ways)

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Good thread comparing PCRG's data with that in Pro-Housing Pittsburgh's IZ paper. The numbers are similar, with PHP's being more accurate overall.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Question for my followers: What Trump cabinet nominees should I write for my senators to support and which ones to oppose?

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Reposted by Jonathan Salmans

Pittsburgh New Liberals @pghnewliberals.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

IZ in Pittsburgh is having the opposite of its intended effect. For every 1 affordable unit IZ has created in Lawrenceville, it has killed ~7 market rate units. Killing 7 market rate units kills 2 affordable units. IZ is killing 2 affordable units for every 1 affordable unit it creates.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Defining 'existential threat' as one that could wipe out civilization, these are probably a greater risk than climate change: 1. Nuclear War 2. Pandemic 3. Blight or disease that wipes out food/crops 4. Unaligned AI 5. Conventional War 6. Fertility Crisis

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

What material are the Germans using?

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Pittsburgh is a lot denser than LA though.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Totally, I think working to improve this program is a much better approach than trying to force developers to work with a broken system through the IZ mandate. I hope to have a follow-on blog post on the topic published soon.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Approximately 90% of new housing that has been built in Pittsburgh in the last few years has been in buildings of 20 units or more, so the exemption only applies to a minority of new buildings. I think it's an in-the weeds detail appropriate for a footnote, and it doesn't impact the main points.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

The direct impact is on projects with 20+ units, but it raises the rents of all market rate renters by restricting the overall supply. Homeowners also face higher taxes due to a reduced tax base. All this was clear in the article.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Contrary to Barb's claim, the cost of the affordability mandate she advocates for is not tiny or properly compensated for by the government. Where it has been tried already, it has significantly reduced housing construction. Those harmed are primarily renters, not developers.

static1.squarespace.com

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

If you're curious, my blog post addresses this question in some detail under the heading: 'Housing Choice Vouchers don’t Solve the Problem'. connect-pgh.com/mayor-gainey...

connect-pgh.com

Mayor Gainey’s Exclusionary Zoning Proposal

Mayor Gainey’s misguided attempt at an affordable housing program will raise rents and drive displacement.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

The Federal grant to fund this project was approved in 2020. Amazing that it's not done yet.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Barb's post that started this conversation, calling the people she refers to as lobbyists as selfish and 'disingenuous', is hardly destigmatizing. So if that's what you believe I would direct your criticism to her.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

For tax purposes the IRS definition is the appropriate one to use, but when writing tweets and communicating with the general public it's important to consider how words are commonly understood.

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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

This is the definition on wiktionary.org, not one I just made up or 'reworked' myself. It's how many people understand the term when they hear it used.

wiktionary.org

Wiktionary

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