Philly developer focused on Housing, urbanism, and economic development. Here to ask why everything takes 5 years and costs 3x as much.
Philadelphia, PA
Joined May 2011
- Tweets2K
- Following1.1K
- Followers365
- Likes5.8K
Couldn’t have said it any better…just like @nextphlmayor likes to say..let’s grow Philly to Two milly.
The government should get out of the way and let builders build.
A safe, clean, competitive city that welcomes businesses and makes it easy to get things done gives people concrete reasons to choose a city, writes Allan Domb.
bit.ly/4zhixMR
A work of art even Shakespeare couldn’t write.
Before I visited Pennsylvania, everyone warned me that Philadelphia people are the toughest, most impatient people in America.
I believed them until I walked toward the front door of a Wawa gas station.
I was still forty feet away in the parking lot, walking between rows of cars.
A massive construction worker in steel-toe boots, carrying a twenty-four-ounce coffee in one hand and a paper-wrapped hoagie in the other, pushed open the glass door to leave. Then he saw me.
He stopped. He planted his boot against the bottom of the door. And he waited.
Forty feet is a very long distance when a grown man is holding a door for you in the wind.
In Japan, to make a stranger wait carries great shame. So I broke into that awkward half-jog every man performs when he wishes to show gratitude without looking like he is fleeing a crime.
"Go ahead, boss," he said as I passed.
Ten minutes later, as I walked out with my own sandwich, I saw an elderly woman locking her car thirty feet away.
I planted my foot against the glass. I held the door.
Another man behind me held the inner door. Within seconds we had formed an impromptu honor guard of grumpy men holding glass doors in complete silence.
Philadelphia may boo Santa Claus.
But inside the three-foot radius of a Wawa doorway, they have the manners of the imperial court.
wild ruling out of Seattle that @PHLCouncil needs to read. a builder put $39M into 254 low-income apartments locked at 60% AMI for 30 years. from 2015 to 2018 it worked, collecting ~94% of rent.
then Seattle stacked on "tenant protections": banned criminal background checks, banned winter evictions, required 180 days notice for rent hikes + 3 months relocation pay, and forced the owner to let unscreened roommates move in and take over leases.
result: rent collections dropped from 93.9% to 44.1%!!! the building lost nearly $6M through 2023 ($2.7M in 2023 alone) and is now appraised as functionally worthless. the city bankrupted actual affordable housing lol.
the appeals court just ruled the owner can sue Seattle for an unconstitutional taking. when you strip a landlord's right to screen, collect rent or remove non-paying tenants, it's not "regulation" anymore, you took the building…. Philly has half these laws already 🙄 courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/8…
since this has 220k+ views—I actually build apartments in Philly (despite our best local politicians lol). if you're in Philly or moving down from NYC, we just opened The IceWorks at Belmont in West Philly (1BRs from $1,580, 2BRs from $1,980): phillyiceworks.com — and follow along for more real estate math
The biggest difference between the DSA and literally anyone else is they don't want to create real value...they want to manage decline instead of growing the pie for everyone. It's always "we're pro-housing" right before pushing every policy that kills it 🙄
the talent is already here. the jobs aren't, because BIRT taxes your gross receipts AND your net income and then the wage tax hits everyone you hire. companies do the math and sign a lease in Conshy and KOP...lol. fix the business taxes and the office demand follows
Philadelphia gained tens of thousands of degree-holding residents in the last decade — but office jobs aren’t growing ebx.sh/NNjegh
German Yakubov retweeted
A reminder that our dysfunctional system which is unable to produce sufficient housing is actually a microcosm of democratic socialism because it gives the community veto power over how prospective developers get to use their property.
I'm in my 40s. I'm a lawyer. My wife is a lawyer. We both work full time.
We cannot afford the house my parents purchased on a single electrician's income in their 30s.
We cannot afford the house my immigrant grandparents purchased on a single MTA bus driver's salary in their 30s. They had SIX CHILDREN.
For 30 years, politicians in Washington & their oligarch allies convinced regular people that this was just about avocado toast and fancy coffee.
In reality, this is end-stage capitalism. Everyone is stuck in place. It's impossible to buy a home. It's too costly to move. We work too much to have passion projects. We don't have enough savings to start our own businesses. We can't afford to go without healthcare to do it.
Thanks for writing this article @troy_closson. Would be very happy to discuss further.
nytimes.com/2026/10/25/nyreg…
😂😂🤌🏼 George Orwell was the real Nostradamus… the way animal farm just “gets it” right. EVERY 👏 DAMN 👏 TIME.
Hassan Bennett, the chair of the Philadelphia Citizens Police Oversight Commission, was arrested Tuesday and charged with bribery and intimidation, according to paperwork provided by a law enforcement source: trib.al/dqVB4Vq
German Yakubov retweeted
The core false belief of left NIMBYism is that the housing market can't deliver lower rents.
The problem, of course, is that the housing market routinely delivers lower rents. The exceptions are places the government does not allow this to happen.
The issue is when people say they can’t find parking…what they really mean is. They can’t find parking in front of their house….and that just “feels” like it’s someone’s fault….
"While the data show enough parking, the report acknowledges that 'parking is an emotional and highly subjective experience for most users,' and that just as important as data is 'how parking in a community is perceived.'” inquirer.com/news/pennsylvan…
Lmao. “Here in Brazil” …you reporting on the ground my guy?
bro is gonna be the biggest clown in Congress.
German Yakubov retweeted
“No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.”
- Carl Jung
LMAO this is a wild take…. "I like that he feeds people, but he did it with someone I don't like, so now I don't like him" 🙄 pretty sure the people getting a meal don't care who's standing next to him
Had a ZBA hearing today for 5100 Lancaster Ave. Only refusal was height. We need it to be 66’ instead of the permissible 45’
Mainly to have 9’ ceilings in the units and a 15’ Commercial space on the ground floor.
45 units on 5 floors with 5 income restricted units at 50% ami.
Figure it would be a light ask.
Promote commercial use. Provide affordable housing…
Even had CM Jones support.
It’s on LANCASTER Ave. You know the Commercial corridor with like all of the possible access to public transit. Shopping etc.
5 neighbors opposed on the RCO letter. About a dozen showed up to the zba hearing.
A couple of the board members attacked the height as “excessive”…that I should be mindful of the neighbors. (There were 3 other projects approved between 4100-4300 Lancaster with the same height) Mind you. There’s a junk yard across the streets. 2 blighted buildings next door. Tons of junk or abandoned cars strewn all over the sidewalks and vacant lots.
But the main concerns that I may be imposing on the non -existent near neighbors.
Members of the rco complained that there’s too much commerical vacancy. I pointed out that it’s possible that there’s not enough density to support the businesses. But hey. You know. Logic and stuff is hard. 🙄
Board held the vote for two weeks.
The city can’t get out of Their own way of progress…or creating more affordability.
🤖 Made with AI
If you are in the RE development biz and not using @bot to review your plans... you are costing your self so much time and money... Just try uploading a quick zoning plan.. and ask it to redline it for you... I promise you, you will sound smarter than your architect and zoning lawyer when asking them how they missed so much lol.... when will @PhillyLI start implementing ai for plans review.... this will make the process sooooo much more enjoyable.
German Yakubov retweeted
"Muse is so slow"
"I asked Grokbot to build me an app that would otherwise cost me $5k and it asked me to login to a tool. UGGHHH"
"One of my 9 $20/month PhD-level AI agents forgot something UGGH"
Every time I hear complaints like these I think of this bit.
Anyone else find themselves using Claude and ChatGPT like 25% of the time vs 75% of the time using GrokBot?
Bot is quickly becoming my everything app.
Calendar, budget, taxes, todos, meal and workout tracking.
I don’t even use websites anymore.
I just talk to @bot.