PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — There's been controversy about the way the City of Philadelphia disposes of the land it owns. City Council has been considering a bill to make the procedures uniform and more public, and changes to it were made at Thursday's session that should clear the way for passage next week.
Philadelphia has some 40,000 vacant parcels of land. The city owns 8,400 of them, through three different agencies. The method of acquiring and then selling them off has been slow and inefficient. It's also been subject to political influence because council members have outsized influence in who gets property.
Councilman Kenyatta Johnson is under federal investigation believed to be tied to land deals in which favored buyers received lots at under market value. Johnson, himself, is one of the sponsors of the bill to reform the process that would eliminate the Vacant Property Review Committee, where council had the most influence and which weighed the process down.
It also creates a uniform policy for all three agencies.
Council President Darrell Clarke says the new amendments say that any change to policy must be done by ordinance, which would give the public a chance to weigh in.
"We believe this finally creates a uniform, transparent, equitable distribution policy and we think this is a good thing for all of us," he said.
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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misattributed ownership of some of the city's vacant land.
