Jeffery Ayers has lived in Moore Township for over 60 years. He has seen the community in Northampton County grow, but it is still largely a patchwork of farms and small villages.

As chairman of the Moore Township Planning Board, he is well aware of the growing development in the Lehigh Valley and understands the area's housing shortage, but he believes the community is unique, with its own characteristics and problems that need to be addressed.

And while rural communities are certainly different from Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton or suburban communities like Whitehall, Lower Macungie and Forks, they each have their own unique aspects.

“Every community is different,” said Ayers, who has served on the planning committee for more than 15 years.

That's why Ayers isn't happy with the bill to change zoning laws currently before the state House of Representatives. Two bills are sponsored by Rep. Josh Siegel (D-Lehigh).

House Bill 2045 would legally allow multifamily housing on land zoned for single-family homes. Meanwhile, HB 1976 would legally allow the construction of homes on land currently zoned for office or commercial use.

Both bills were forwarded to the Rules Committee at the beginning of June.

“I'm just trying to create a community, to make all of our communities more people-friendly, more walkable, more pleasant and more affordable,” Siegel said.

The Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors has opposed both bills because they believe they would take away zoning decisions from municipalities.

“Under the guise of 'affordable housing,' this bill would force municipalities to accept a developer's plan that meets Harrisburg's mandated density,” the organization wrote last week. “These bills override all local land use authority and mandate that multifamily housing can be built 'as a matter of law' anywhere that is currently zoned for commercial or single-family housing.”

The association said the options listed in the draft legislation were already available to municipalities and many of them were using them even without a statewide mandate.

What the legislation would achieve

Siegel said the idea is to address the housing shortage in the Lehigh Valley and the rest of the Commonwealth.

According to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, the region is 9,000 housing units short, a number expected to grow by 1,300 annually. More than half of renters and 25% of homeowners are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

“We have three options,” Siegel said. “One is we can continue to build as we have, which will lead to more suburban sprawl, more housing developments and single-family homes further away from jobs and opportunity, and those homes will be extremely expensive. They will cost more to maintain. Individual taxpayers will pay more over time. We will use up our open space and farmland faster than we can maintain it. We can build new housing, we can basically close the door, and we can make the Lehigh Valley so expensive and unaffordable that we will become like San Francisco, where unless you have a million dollars, you can't afford a house.”

The law, Siegel said, will address some of the more restrictive housing practices that have driven up costs. Developers will be encouraged to build where high housing density already exists.

“They try to argue that population density is going to increase where it shouldn't, but in reality I'm trying to increase population density even more,” Siegel said. “I'm trying to focus on people where there's already infrastructure, where there are already roads and water systems, and not add additional costs to taxpayers.”

Market factors would ultimately determine whether something would be built.

“This is a developer's right development, which means the developer can do this without having to apply for zoning, but there still has to be demand, infrastructure and underlying capacity,” Siegel said. “Look at where the housing is being built. They're being built in South Whitehall, they're being built in the Macungies. They're being built in Allentown to some extent, not necessarily single-family or traditional homes, but the housing is being built in the communities where there's market demand.”

Despite opposition from groups such as the Association of Township Supervisors, there are supporters of the bill from all political camps, including the Pennsylvania State Chamber of Commerce and Industry, developers' associations, affordable housing advocates and smart growth supporters.

However, Ayers said a one-size-fits-all zoning law wouldn't work in places like Moore. He said community members, regardless of political affiliation, work together to make the place a better place.

“Because what works in Upper Macungie doesn't work here,” he said. “So you should leave it to the people who go to the meetings monthly, who know what these issues are, who listen to the residents, what's going on, and come up with a long-term strategy that we all know works.”

“I'm a Democrat. I also know that without growth the economy stagnates,” he said. “But I don't think that hasty land development is the solution, because you usually end up with more chaos than before.”

“The problem is only getting bigger”

Ayers remains suspicious that developers will be given the authority to develop land while communities are left to foot the bill.

“I've been on the planning board for 15 years and have been its chairman for five or six years,” Ayers said. “One thing I've learned is that if you look at state law, developers are not required to make improvements off-site. That means if they buy 200 acres of land and build 50 houses on it, they're not legally required to do anything at an intersection half a mile down the road, even though everyone knows that's going to cause traffic chaos.”

“High density housing would only exacerbate this problem,” he said. “I've seen this time and time again in other communities where developers come in and build all these houses and then it creates traffic chaos. And PennDOT takes a while to do something.”

He gave another example: in Moore, too, there is no public water or sewage connection; the water is taken from an aquifer.

“They're going to tap into the aquifer to supply water to all of these townhouses, and if the aquifer runs dry, the neighbors have no legal recourse,” Ayers said. “If it runs dry, it runs dry. They can't sue the developer.”

Dave Sanko, executive director of the Community Supervisors Association, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the bills were a gift to developers.

“It's not unusual for developers and real estate agents to not want rules,” Sanko told the newspaper. “They want to be able to do what they want. But that's not why housing costs are rising.”

What can be done?

Ayers said a simple solution is to build smaller, cheaper homes.

“I understand Mr. Siegel's problem with the housing shortage,” Ayres said. “To me, the problem is not the housing shortage, it's that they've been building the wrong types of houses. They've probably been building these little castles for 20 years. Years ago, the average house was maybe 1,500-1,700 square feet, then it went up to 2,000. Then it went up to 2,500. And it went up to 3,000. The houses that are out there are so expensive because they're so big. If they would just reduce the size of the houses and make them more affordable, there wouldn't be a housing crisis.”

This is easier said than done, since more expensive, larger homes, also called “McMansions,” yield higher profits.

“For first-time home buyers, McMansions are the most popular because [developers] “They have to build these to make a profit at the end of the day because of the costs and expenses that they're making,” real estate agent Jack Gross, president and CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Cassion Realty, told The Morning Call in 2023. “So that's one thing that impacts first-time home buyers and the affordability index.”

Siegel said community resistance to loosening zoning is contributing to higher real estate prices.

“I think if you're a proponent of preserving farmland and open space, want to lower housing costs for our young people that we're educating in the Lehigh Valley – and actually want to make sure they can afford to live here when they graduate from high school and college – or if you're a senior looking to downsize,” Siegel said, “community opposition to these bills is directly contributing to higher housing prices. It's pushing families out of the Lehigh Valley and making the valley a place that only the richest of the rich can afford.”

But as the legislation moves forward, county and municipal officials from across the state will continue their efforts, Ayers said.

“I just don't think this Mr. Siegel understands what this is about,” he said. “He's trying to address the problem, and I think he's going to make a big mistake if he tries to force me to do it, because I'm telling you now, the people of Moore Township are upset about this. They don't want dense development here.”

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at [email protected].