Dallas City News

Luzerne County needs more housing, particularly for middle-income residents, county council members learned during a presentation last week.

Council had earmarked $150,191 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to The Institute in Wilkes-Barre to analyze housing needs, prompting last week’s council briefing on the findings.

The Institute’s President/CEO Teri Ooms told council an examination of housing was warranted.

“Housing is a critical component of our economic development future as a region, and housing has been a challenge for a number of years, which is why we really wanted to do this study to bring to light the state of housing in the region and potential opportunities to improve the housing for all individuals,” Ooms said.

She started by explaining why the county has a housing shortage.

Due to a county population decline between the 1950s and early 2000s, the overall housing stock did not markedly grow because there was no incentive for residential real estate development.

“While our population had grown some prior to COVID, it still did not warrant significant investment by the private sector or even the public sector to create different types of new housing,” she said.

Since the mid-1990s to early 2000s, more upper-middle income residents in “first-tier suburbs” of New York and New Jersey have been moving into the Poconos to escape the high cost of housing, and that pattern, which The Institute calls the “westward migration,” has started spilling into Luzerne County.

A large suburban house on a half-acre can be purchased for $300,000 to $500,000 here, compared to a million dollars in the New York and New Jersey suburbs, she said.

When the pandemic hit, the ability to work remotely “created opportunities” and sparked population growth here, she said. More people from the major urban cores of New York, Philadelphia and even the Lehigh Valley moved in this direction.

There’s also a migration of low to moderate income individuals of different races and ethnicities moving here in search of lower-cost housing, mostly renters or purchasers of small single family homes, Ooms said.

“It helped create some of the incredible diversity we have here. They’re familial populations, so you often see multiple generations under one roof because they take care of their elders,” she said.

Much of the county’s existing housing stock is old.

The quantity of housing built before 1940 in this county is twice the state average and three times the national average, leading to potential blight and structural issues, she said.

“With all of this growth within the past two decades and no development, there’s obviously a shortage. And you couple that with the availability of older housing that may be blighted, and we’ve got the perfect storm,” Ooms told council.

Zoning

The Institute confirmed through interviews with private developers and other stakeholders that zoning has negatively impacted housing growth and development in the county, Ooms said.

Twenty municipalities follow the county’s zoning ordinance, while the county’s remaining 56 — including all four cities — have their own ordinances, officials said.

Another consideration: 28 of the 76 municipalities follow the county’s subdivision and land development ordinance, with the rest operating individually, according to the county planning/zoning department.

Some land available for residential development falls in multiple municipalities with differing ordinances, which is an approval deterrent for those seeking to invest in projects, Ooms said, noting her house is in Dupont borough while her driveway is in Pittston Township.

Zoning also must be explored because it impacts some possible solutions to the housing challenge, such as changing minimum building lot sizes to allow for more density and making other alterations to encourage reuse of larger vacant structures for housing, she said.

The 268-page report, which will be posted on the main page at luzernecounty.org, profiles housing and socio-economic characteristics of each municipality and explores approaches that have been taken by other regions to increase housing at different price points in both urban and suburban/rural areas.

Ooms said the housing shortage must be addressed on multiple fronts.

“We certainly don’t see the county as the entity that has to fix the problem, but it can work with partners in other jurisdictions, with the private sector and with the nonprofit sector, to improve the housing,” Ooms said.

County officials have been working to activate a coalition to address a shortage of affordable housing in the county.

When announcing the panel plans in April, county Councilwoman LeeAnn McDermott said she met with county grants writer Michele Sparich, county Community Development Director Catherine Hilsher and Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo to help develop the coalition plan.

Lombardo has been trying to spark regional interest in tackling the need for more affordable housing, stressing he is not talking about low-income housing because that sector already has been largely addressed through public housing programs.

During significant growth cycles like the one now underway, area leaders should consider what related needs must be addressed, and affordable housing is a big one, Lombardo has said.

Most activity

The Institute’s data analysis found most home sales are concentrated in a fraction of the municipalities, with Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre and Butler Township at the top, said Jill Avery-Stoss, The Institute’s chief operating officer.

The influx of new residents coincided with a peak in home sales in 2021.

Purchasing eventually became more unaffordable when housing prices and other costs, such as interest rates, rose, the study said. Declining sales have helped constrain prices somewhat, but in some municipalities, prices grew at a faster rate in 2023 than in 2019, it said.

“They still remain very much out of touch for a lot of middle income and lower income individuals,” Avery-Stoss told council.

Interviews with stakeholders revealed some common themes, she said, including:

• Housing stock currently not meeting population needs

• An insufficient supply of housing for middle-income individuals

• Significant confusion and conflict surrounding zoning

• High interest in blight remediation and adaptive reuse of structures

Council input

Council Chairman John Lombardo said council has supported blight reduction by providing American Rescue funding to local government land banks that acquire property with the goal of returning it to productive use.

“Although that’s kind of a drop in the bucket, it is something we have done, and I would like to partner with them in more ways,” Lombardo said.

Lombardo said he’s torn on pushing more municipalities to fall under county zoning because he often believes it is better for each jurisdiction to control decisions about allowing variances and different types of operations within their boundaries. He asked if there is a reason why a countywide or regional approach is better.

Ooms said her organization studied communities and regions across the country and found those most successful have regional planning entities establishing consistency across all municipalities.

In some cases, multiple counties can successfully team up, she said, citing the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission as an example.

Councilman Harry Haas said he’s observed the impact an influx of residents has had on housing.

“It’s really neat to see. Five years ago in south Wilkes-Barre, there were like two vacant homes for every one livable. They’re all filled up today,” he said.

Haas said a top priority is ensuring the county does not lose rural space to new development. County council recently halted a past plan to subdivide and sell unused county-owned land in Butler Township due to a concern about the loss of green space, he said.

Haas said he recently had a doctor’s appointment in the Lehigh Valley and considered the area a “mess” due to the congestion.

“I don’t know what advice you have for that because I would hate to make the same mistakes that other metro areas have made across the country,” Haas said.

Ooms said there must be a delineation to keep rural areas less dense.

“I don’t think we need to lose that,” she said of keeping rural areas intact.

Vacant industrial and commercial buildings can be modified for housing, she said, citing the conversion of multistory downtown Wilkes-Barre buildings as a “great start.”

The challenge is some developers in the private sector are charging what they say is a market rate for rentals when it’s actually a high market rate that is unaffordable for newer college graduates starting in the workforce or those earning an average wage, Ooms said.

“That’s where the challenge in middle-income housing comes into place, whether it’s rental or home ownership,” Ooms said.

Haas also questioned how the region’s rise in warehouses and distribution centers is impacting housing.

Ooms said housing is a “critical aspect” in the “phenomenal” distribution and logistics industry growth along the Interstate 81 corridor from Hazleton through Lackawanna County.

During a discussion about a tax break for a warehouse project in July, Haas said the Humboldt Industrial Park and surrounding land in Hazle Township is “exploding,” prompting worries about increased traffic and housing.

Councilwoman Patty Krushnowski shared those concerns in July.

”If we’re going to have all kinds of businesses here, where are these people going to live?” Krushnowski had said. “There are just so many places that are coming up all around the place, but there’s no housing for these people to live.”

Councilwoman Brittany Stephenson had concurred with the points made by Haas and Krushnowski at the July meeting, saying she wants housing on the radar of more private investors.

County Manager Romilda Crocamo said after last week’s presentation she has reached out to The Institute to assist with planning of possible county zoning ordinance updates that have been under development by the administration.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.