Discussion Continues on 60-Unit Proposed Workplace House Development In Upper Gwynedd

Tony Di Domizio | North Penn Now•

The debate on a proposed 60-unit affordable workplace housing development on Pennbrook Parkway by The Walters Group is continuing in Upper Gwynedd Township, with some residents claiming they are being harassed and called bigots for opposing the project, according to a report by Dan Sokil at the Reporter.

Lansdale Councilman BJ Breish and Manna on Main Street Director of Development and Strategic Direction Sheldon Good appeared at the commissioners’ meeting last month to speak up in support of affordable housing in Upper Gwynedd and Lansdale Borough.

“I’m calling on both our communities, Lansdale Borough and Upper Gwynedd Township, to take action to make affordable housing a reality for more families where we can,” said Breish at the meeting.

“I’ve lived in Lansdale for five years, worked for most of my career in affordable housing and ending homelessness, and other social services. I don’t want to take too much of your time, I simply want to echo and second everything Mr. Breish said,” Good said at the meeting, per the Reporter.

Video of the meeting can be viewed here.

Talks on the project began in March 2022 and a presentation was made before the commissioners in April.

The presentation was led by New Jersey-based developer The Walters Group’s Pennsylvania Director of Development Kimberly Krauter, a 20-year-plus veteran of aging adult community management and nonprofit organization management, including 14 years as COO with Advanced Living Communities.

According to The Reporter, the $20 million “workforce housing” tax credit development, financed via the federal Community Reinvestment Act, is proposing 60 one- to three-bedroom, three-story high rental units on five acres of property along Pennbrook Parkway, near the border with Lansdale Borough, as well as an expansion of the township’s transit overlay district.

The development would require a zoning change, land development plans, and further approval processes, and it is in the very early stages.

According to the article, Walters Group is awarded tax credits, as stated in the CRA, through Pennsylvania that are sold to large banks. In exchange, the developer gets up-front financing for the project.

“It’s not funded through taxpayer money in any fashion,” Krauter said in April. She said banks are required to reinvest in the community, and when they do, they get points. Bigger banks require bigger reinvestments, she said.

“And so huge banks, that make tons and tons of money, are required to reinvest in the community. And they come in and buy these tax credits from us,” Krauter said in April. “We will be arm-in-arm, lockstep, more than married, to an investor. And they’ll basically write a check up front for – I’m looking at $13 million or $14 million in equity coming in from an investor … We get the money up front, so we don’t have a big mortgage.”

In April, a few residents cried foul over the project, stating it will “urbanize” Upper Gwynedd and that it was “subsidized housing” and bringing an “urban mess” to the township, per the article. One resident called it “an experiment,” and Commissioners President Denise Hull told him the density of units per acre was less than Pennbrook apartments across the street.

At the May meeting, resident Carl Smith, of McIntosh Way, said the project fits the Democrats’ definition “of the national agenda of your Democratic party, and your worldview of what is ‘equitable.’ There’s some people that disagree with that viewpoint, and that’s what I guess we’ve been discussing over the last months.”

Smith said he and other residents were stonewalled when it comes to The Walters Group and the township’s affiliation with the developer. He claimed a letter from attorney Joe Clement voiced support for the project.

“When we challenge this, we are greeted with the same tried and true methods from the left, as we saw last month. We are labeled and we’re called names. And the top three that you like to use are racist, bigoted and homophobe,” he said in The Reporter article.

Smith’s wife, Linda, suggested the project was a de-concentration of poverty by marketing certain units lower than the market rate.

“Do you think that the current voters of the township voted you into office to address the housing needs of Norristown, Pottstown and Philadelphia?” she said, per the article. “You’re doing the exact opposite of what residents of Upper Gwynedd township surveyed in the 2020 comprehensive plan want for our township. It will no longer be a good to excellent place to live if we go along with Montgomery County’s plan to urbanize the suburbs.”

Briesh told commissioners that the median home value in Upper Gwynedd of $300,000 and median rent figure of $1,700 far exceeds what many families can afford.

“These are our schoolteachers, service industry workers, caretakers, volunteer firefighters, daycare workers and family with young children. When these households are cost-burdened, they are forced to make impossible decisions. There are a number of things that our local elected leaders can do to make affordable housing a reality,” he said in the report. “I urge you to join me, by opposing ‘Not in my backyard’ by saying ‘Yes, in my backyard.’”