LOWER MERION TOWNSHIP

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

Request for Proposals

For

HOUSING NEEDS ASSESSMENT & ACTION PLAN

DATE ISSUED: MARCH 4, 2025

PROPOSALS DUE: MARCH 28, 2025

Lower Merion Township
75 E. Lancaster Avenue
Ardmore, PA 19003
(610) 645-6103

Contact:

Charles Doyle
Assistant Director for Planning
cdoyle@lowermerion.org

Request for Proposals

Housing Needs Assessment & Action Plan

Introduction and Background

Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania (2020 census pop. 63,633) is a large suburban municipality located outside Philadelphia and is known for its excellent schools, hospitals, shopping, and open space. As such, the Township has experienced modest growth in population in recent years and now finds itself at a place of wanting to encourage workforce and affordable housing at all income levels in the market.

The Township has utilized Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and, recent the American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to try to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing and initiate the construction of new affordable housing units, specifically for the elderly. As housing prices and the cost of rent continue to rise across the region and nation, there is a need for communities to be strategic rather than transactional. Through strategic policy choices and initiatives, it is the intent of the Township to foster a robust housing market that meets the needs of the community that preserves and expands housing opportunities for households of all types, ages, and income levels.

The Plan will address the following issues for Lower Merion Township:

• Population demographic projections
• Existing and future need for housing type and housing choices, including but not limited to low-to-moderate income homes, workforce housing, single family homes, and high-density homes
• Housing choices for special populations, including veterans, elderly, low-income, young professionals, working class, and people with disabilities and/or other special housing needs
• Rental Housing Market
• Aging housing stock
• Infill housing
• Market potential to attract new housing development as the needs assessment dictates
• Coordination of housing with land use, schools, services and transportation infrastructure
• Zoning

In preparation and/or conjunction with the scope of work outlined in this RFP, Lower Merion Township staff will provide the following demographic, geographic, and housing inventory data:

1. Gather socioeconomic and housing related data including but not limited to demographics, age, households, and employment.
2. Conduct population forecasting.
3. Examine income, housing cost-burden, poverty, homelessness, sensitive populations (such as the elderly, disabled, etc.) and identify any geographic concentrated areas of low/moderate income in the Township.
4. Provide a rental and owner-occupied housing inventory and provide specific metrics (such as ownership status, type of dwelling, age of units, historical status, and access to public transportation.
5. Provide an inventory of existing subsidized housing, including availability, new or future subsidized housing, and other dwellings which serve as transitional and emergency housing.
6. A summary of proposed housing units, planned developments, and housing trends across the Township.

Scope of Work

Lower Merion Township is seeking a qualified consultant ("Consultant") to develop a comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment and Action Plan ("Plan") to identify a range of implementation tools and strategies to further the overall goal of providing a variety of workforce and affordable housing opportunities for households of all types, ages, and income levels in Lower Merion Township.

The purpose of the Plan is to analyze the housing stock and housing market in Lower Merion, inventory existing housing resources, identify gaps in the local housing market, identify trends that may affect the housing market over time, increase home ownership, and develop strategies to address the current and future needs of the community, with the overall goal of ensuring that housing opportunities are provided for households of all types, ages, and income levels. The Plan will help Lower Merion Township, housing providers, housing developers, nonprofit organizations, and decisionmakers develop a better understanding of the existing housing market and update intervention strategies including land use and zoning decisions and encourage housing development projects that meet both market demand and community priorities.

A component of the Plan will be to identify proactive programs and policies that could advance the goal of fostering the development, preservation, and expansion of workforce and affordable housing opportunities for households of all types, ages, and income levels. The consultant will for all tasks in the Plan include this component in their data collection and recommendations. Lower Merion Township will rely on its consultant's professional expertise to ensure that all pertinent factors are analyzed, and open to additional or alternative approaches to achieve the overall goal of analyzing housing needs.

TASK 1: Housing Initiatives

The consultant will:

1. Inventory and review existing documentation and plans, studies, efforts, organizations, and programs relevant to the housing market in Lower Merion Township.
2. Identify sources of county, state, and federal funding for housing and other related programs included in current and recommended housing initiatives detailed in this Plan.
3. Review programs to identify redundancy, coordination, and collaboration across multiple agency efforts.

Deliverable: The consultant will provide a Baseline Housing Initiatives Report containing the information gathered in Task 1.

TASK 2: Market Analysis

The consultant will:

1. Review residential real estate trends of all types of housing including an analysis of sales prices, length of time on the market, and other relevant real estate indicators. Interview realtors and lenders.
2. Summarize available market rate information for rental units and availability of rental units. Units shall be distinguished by type, number of bedrooms, size, and general location in the analysis. Interview rental property managers and owners.
3. Analyze home and rental affordability to inform programmatic recommendations.
4. Include information on new residential development and types of housing being built in the Township and trends across the county.
5. Identify impediments to housing development, including but not limited to zoning and permitting. Interview developers to better understand impediments to housing development.
6. Estimate the impact of market forces such as cost and availability of developable land, utilities costs, and any other market forces the consultant believes are pertinent.
7. Included in this report should be a summary of trends, historical data, and future projections of the housing market. Historical data of five years shall be included, and a period of ten years for futuristic projections.

Deliverable: The consultant will provide a Market Analysis Report containing the information gathered in Task 2.

TASK 3: Housing Needs Assessment

The results of the demographic study, housing inventory and market analysis conducted above shall be synthesized and presented to determine what deficiencies and surpluses of housing units exist for owner and renter households of various sizes, incomes, and types. This gap analysis will help identify housing needs in the community and aid efforts to develop and prioritize an action plan to address these needs. The goal is to provide an estimate of the number of housing units needed (both rental and for sale) to meet the existing and future needs of the communities based on unit type, number of bedrooms, price point, and location in relation to income levels and age categories.

Deliverable: The consultant will provide a Needs Assessment Report containing the information

gathered in Task 3.

TASK 4: Develop Recommendations and Implementation Strategies

The consultant will:

1. Develop strategies to increase housing affordability and housing choices identified in the Plan.
2. Develop strategies and programs to develop, preserve, and expand housing opportunities for persons and households with low and moderate incomes (HUD qualified).
3. Develop strategies to meet the workforce housing needs (knowledge workers, service workers, entrepreneurs, etc.).
4. Identify sources of funding (federal, state, local and private resources) for assistance for housing development and other related programs.
5. Develop strategies to combat deterioration and encourage preservation of the older housing stock.
6. Provide recommendations to overcome identified structural impediments to housing development and housing affordability in the Township.
7. Identify policies and tools available to Pennsylvania local government including incentives that have successfully been used to spur different kinds of workforce and affordable housing development.
8. Identify strategic options for promoting or attracting market rate, workforce and affordable housing developers.
9. Provide recommendations for long term capacity building and improved collaboration among entities to implement recommendations.
10. Include action steps specific to each entity or entities that would implement the proposed strategies
11. Include metrics for the Township to judge the performance of the housing market in meeting the needs of our residents.

Deliverable: The consultant will provide the above along with an implementation framework identifying actions, indicators, timelines, and responsible organizations from information gathered in previous Tasks.

TASK 5: Final Document and Presentation

Deliverable: Consultant will prepare a preliminary draft of the study for Township review and comment and final draft of the study plus a separate Executive Summary for presentation to the Township incorporating changes requested. The Consultant shall provide one (1) original, six (6) paper copies, and one (1) electronic copy of a visually appealing Final Report of the Housing Needs Assessment and Action Plan and an Executive Summary, one (1) paper copy and one (1) electronic copy of the PowerPoint presentation summarizing the report's findings and recommendations, one (1) electronic copy of all GIS shape files and maps, and other supplementary data.