Reading about Tarik Khan’s anti-housing stance in the candidate forum was very disappointing but not completely surprising. There are lots of stories and letters on these pages about projects like 30 W. Highland, 10 Bethlehem Pike, East Mermaid Lane, and the JoaMart. If you’re not familiar with these addresses, these are a small sampling of projects looking to increase the amount of housing in the Northwest and have a contingent of neighbors fighting to prevent them and in some cases, community organizations joining in.

There was also a letter a month ago from Bob Holum and Lina Baker about the challenges with buying housing in Northwest Philadelphia right now, especially with competition from real estate investors. Anyone that watches the local market closely will find it hard to argue with anything they said. 

As a regular reader of the Local, it’s incredible to see stories and letters about such deeply interconnected issues that never get connected – and that’s not even touching the related environmental, racial, and criminal issues. They’re all tied back to one central problem – a lack of sufficient housing supply. 

We need to see more new housing, both income restricted and market rate in Philadelphia to meet the needs of our rebounding city growth. Instead, we have people who are suing to prevent new apartments that have a legal building permit because it “deprives them of sunlight.”

It’s sad to watch the very securely housed around here do everything in their power to prevent additional housing for those who are not. Luckily, the ZBA has started to ignore some of the ridiculous opposition to housing projects, but we need more Philadelphians to vocally support them as well.

Tyler Britten

Chestnut Hill