Tax Increase Approved Affordable Housing, Park Avenue Condos & Trash Talked

At its November 8th legislative meeting, Swarthmore Borough Council approved the proposed 2022 budget, which calls for a 3.5% tax increase to fund a $5.66 million operating budget.  

The 2022 budget projects a nearly 4% decrease in local government expenses, which will offset the projected slight increase in the cost of the public works and public safety departments. The new budget contains a nearly 10% increase in expenditures on community services such as the Swarthmore Public Library, the Swarthmore Recreation Association, and Swarthmore Town Center, Inc. According to the finance committee chair, Michael Carey, this is the borough’s first tax increase in seven years.

The public comment section of the meeting was primarily devoted to an update on the progress of a study related to affordable housing development in the borough. (When the study was presented to the council last week, Council President Mary Walk had asked the study group to provide more details, and so consideration was deferred until the December work session.) Rachel Pastan, a representative of the study group, explained:

We’re trying to put together something, and we realized we wanted to take a little bit more time and do a little bit more … I just want people to know we’re hopeful that we will have something in the next week or two. 

Betsy Larson presented the Planning & Zoning Committee’s report. She noted that on Wednesday, November 10, the committee will hold a discussion with a group of Swarthmore residents who recently signed a petition to establish a task force to study affordable housing development in the Borough. Council President Mary Walk asked Larson whether this discussion would best be had with the committee or with the whole Borough Council. Larson explained that the November 10 meeting  was intended to enable the committee to reach a preliminary consensus on the topic so that it could present a recommendation to the full council on next steps.

Swarthmore resident Neil Young expressed concern about the establishment of an borough task force on affordable housing: 

I’m going to swim a little bit against the tide and speak against the affordable housing task force. Not because I don’t have sympathy for the very real hardships that people face, but because I don’t think that the task force will achieve the desired result. I say that because the economics profession will tell you that, in a market, if you want to reduce the price of something—make it more affordable—you need to [either] reduce demand or increase supply. And that’s true for houses as well.

Young cited studies of two small towns—in Vermont and Massachusetts—that had implemented affordability measures and yet had not met their goals: “The house prices in those towns are doing the same thing as Swarthmore, maybe even worse,” he said. He noted that the demand for housing in Swarthmore is high, and that it is difficult to increase the supply of new homes because Swarthmore’s zoning regulations are highly restrictive. Young said that, while “zoning [does] constrain [the] supply [of housing] … it also exists to make Swarthmore the nice place to live that it is.” He noted that raising tax rates can also make housing less affordable. He urged the council to remain focused on the line items that make up the town’s budget, and not to deviate from its zoning code to favor any “sympathetic group”: “Council spends too much time thinking about activists,” he said. “I hope in 2022 we spend a little more time focused on the details, and less time on things that are outside the focus of a small town.”

Borough Manager Jane Billings reported that the borough had received no new plans related to the proposed 110 Park Avenue condominium project since the October public hearing about the project, but that a sketch plan is currently being reviewed by the borough’s planning department. Council Chair Mary Walk asked the borough solicitor, Bob Scott, to clarify for the public Borough Council’s role regarding the approval of the 110 Park Avenue project. Scott noted that there are two levels of review that will require Borough Council involvement. The first is to review the findings of the planning commission and determine whether the project is compliant with regulations. The second is a conditional use approval “for the demolition of two historic resources.” Regarding the latter approval, Scott said that there is a standard that the developer needs to demonstrate, and that Borough Council will decide whether or not the project’s developers have met that burden. He added, “When we get close, I will reduce this to writing so that it’s a little clearer.”

Towards the end of the meeting, Borough Manager Billings reported that, pursuant to a recent directive from the Delaware County Solid Waste Authority, all 49 municipalities in Delaware County will be faced with an immediate 20% increase in tipping fees. Swarthmore Borough’s share of this increase would be $25,000—although some of that may be offset by savings from the Borough’s new recycling contract. Billings noted that such a sudden, large increase in trash fees was unusual, and that the Solid Waste Authority had attributed it to their uncertainty about whether the County’s contract with Covanta would be renewed, and to the high cost of expanding the county-owned Rolling Hills landfill in Berks County.