Entitlement pathway election — Pennsylvania

PHFA doesn't gate on zoning -- it scores it

Several other states in this series make zoning a hard pass/fail threshold: a Colorado or Georgia competitive 9% deal that lacks appropriate zoning at Application simply cannot compete in that round. Pennsylvania's QAP takes a different structural approach entirely. Zoning sits inside Selection Criteria Category D (Development Team and Process) as item D.3, worth up to 10 points out of the category's 93-point maximum and the QAP's own 232-point scale: "Ten (10) points will be awarded for developments which demonstrate that all zoning approvals have been secured for all sites included in the Application, to the satisfaction of the Agency, including all variances and special exceptions. OR Five (5) points will be awarded for developments which do not possess full zoning approval but which provide a letter from a qualified attorney or local zoning official which articulates and identifies a realistic and timely path forward to secure final zoning approval."

No threshold section of the QAP made available for this research restates zoning as a pass/fail requirement -- Section 3 (Threshold Criteria) covers compliance history, delinquency, financial capacity, affordability commitments, and the Environmental Site Assessment requirement described in Phase 2, but not zoning status. That means the entitlement-pathway decision in Pennsylvania is fundamentally a scoring trade-off rather than a go/no-go filter: a developer can file with full zoning in hand and collect all 10 points, file with only a credible-path letter and collect 5, or file with neither and lose the full 10 points while remaining otherwise eligible to compete -- provided the rest of the Application clears every other threshold and scores enough points to clear whichever minimum-score figure applies (see the unresolved 120-versus-125-point conflict flagged in Phase 1).

That structure changes the calculus for the letter itself. Because the 5-point alternative requires only that a qualified attorney or local zoning official identify "a realistic and timely path forward," not that the path actually be completed by any particular date, a developer weighing whether to hold an Application for a future round to finish a rezoning, or file now on the strength of a path letter, is really weighing 5 scoring points against a full round's delay -- a materially different trade-off than a state where missing full zoning removes the application from competition outright.

The Municipalities Planning Code: one statewide code, not separate zoning and subdivision acts

The Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code -- Act of July 31, 1968, P.L. 805, No. 247, as amended, and generally cited as 53 P.S. § 10101 et seq. -- is the Commonwealth's single enabling statute for local zoning, subdivision, and land development ordinances alike. Section 601 (53 P.S. § 10601) is the operative grant of power, authorizing a covered municipality to adopt, amend, and repeal a zoning ordinance in furtherance of a comprehensive plan and the MPC's own stated purposes; this guide describes that grant in its own words rather than quoting the section directly, since the statute's full current text was not independently re-verified section-by-section in this research pass. The same statute also houses subdivision and land development review (commonly implemented locally as a SALDO, or Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance) rather than placing it in a separate enabling act. Zoning itself remains locally optional under the MPC -- a covered municipality is not required to adopt zoning at all -- but the MPC does require every county to adopt a comprehensive plan regardless of whether its constituent municipalities zone.

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh: excluded by municipal class, not by home rule

It is a common but imprecise shorthand to say Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are outside the MPC "because they're home rule." That is not how the exclusion actually works, and getting the mechanism right matters for any other Pennsylvania city a developer might assume is similarly exempt. The MPC's own short title and definitions sections enumerate exactly which municipalities the grant of power covers: cities of the second class A and third class, boroughs, incorporated towns, townships of the first and second class, and counties of the second through eighth class. Pennsylvania's municipal classification system sorts cities by population into named classes -- Philadelphia is the Commonwealth's only city of the first class, and Pittsburgh is its only city of the second class (Scranton, notably, is a city of the second class A and remains fully covered by the MPC). Because the MPC's grant-of-power language names "second class A" and "third class" cities but does not name first-class or second-class cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh fall outside the statute's coverage by that class-based enumeration -- not because either city separately adopted a home-rule charter.

Home rule and the MPC exclusion are two independent facts about these two cities that happen to coincide, not one fact causing the other. Pennsylvania has dozens of home-rule municipalities -- boroughs, townships, and counties that have adopted a home-rule charter under the Home Rule Charter and Optional Plans Law of 1972 -- and adopting home rule does not, by itself, remove a municipality from MPC coverage: the MPC is generally treated as a subject on which a home-rule charter cannot grant authority contrary to or in expansion of what the Code itself provides, meaning most home-rule boroughs and townships in Pennsylvania remain fully subject to the MPC's zoning and subdivision framework. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are exempt because of their unique municipal classifications, and each also happens to be a home-rule city with its own charter -- Philadelphia's Home Rule Charter and Pittsburgh's 1974 Home Rule Charter, respectively -- which is what lets each city legislate its own, self-contained zoning code rather than defaulting to any statewide substantive standard once the MPC's own grant of power does not reach it.

The clocks underneath the score: amendment procedure, deemed approval, and the pending-ordinance trap

For a site that needs a rezoning or text amendment rather than a variance, MPC Section 609 sets the procedural floor: the governing body must refer a proposed amendment (other than one the planning agency itself prepared) to the planning agency at least 30 days before the public hearing on it, public notice of the hearing must be published for two successive weeks stating its time, place, and the nature of the proposed amendment, and -- once enacted -- a copy of the amendment must be forwarded to the county planning agency within 30 days. None of this guarantees a particular outcome or a particular overall timeline; it only fixes the minimum procedural steps and their minimum lead times, which is why municipalities vary widely in how long a rezoning actually takes in practice even though the MPC's own floor is the same everywhere.

For a variance, special exception, or conditional use decided by a Zoning Hearing Board, Section 908(9) of the MPC (53 P.S. § 10908(9)) creates a real, enforceable deadline with teeth: the board (or a hearing officer) must render a written decision within 45 days after the last hearing, and secondary legal sources describe the consequence of a missed deadline as a deemed approval in the applicant's favor by operation of law -- a rule this guide is describing rather than quoting verbatim, since the section's exact current text was not independently re-verified in this research pass. A contested or denied decision must be accompanied by findings of fact and the reasons for the decision. This deemed-approval mechanism can work in a developer's favor, but only if the record of the last hearing date is clean enough to prove the 45-day clock actually ran -- a fact worth documenting carefully, and confirming with land use counsel, rather than assuming will be self-evident later.

Pennsylvania courts also recognize a judicially created pending ordinance doctrine, predating the MPC itself, that lets a municipality apply a not-yet-enacted zoning change against an application filed while that change is already under consideration -- a doctrine secondary sources describe as originally aimed at landowners attempting to file under the old rules just before a new ordinance's adoption. The doctrine still reaches discretionary zoning applications (variances, special exceptions, conditional uses, and the like), but the MPC itself narrows its scope for the next stage of the process: Section 508(4)(i), 53 P.S. § 10508(4)(i), is described in secondary sources as entitling an applicant for subdivision or land development plan approval to have that plan decided under the ordinances in effect on the date the application was duly filed -- meaning a pending ordinance cannot be used to defeat a plan that has already been duly filed for subdivision or land development review, even if it could still affect an earlier-stage discretionary zoning application on the same site. This guide is describing that rule rather than quoting the section's exact text, which was not independently re-verified in this research pass; confirm the precise statutory language with counsel before relying on it in a specific dispute.

Once a preliminary (or, where there is no preliminary step, final) subdivision or land development plan is actually approved, the MPC gives it a statutory vesting period: five years from the date of preliminary approval, extendable in three-year increments for later phases of a multi-section development that has not yet completed its required improvements, and tolled for the full duration of any appeal from the plan's approval or disapproval (53 P.S. § 10508(4)). That is a materially stronger, more precisely codified protection than the kind of secondary-source-only vesting claim this guide series has had to flag as unconfirmed in some other states -- in Pennsylvania, the vesting period is written directly into the MPC's own text.

The closest thing Pennsylvania has to an affordable-housing planning mandate: the curative amendment

Pennsylvania has not enacted a statewide zoning preemption for affordable or multifamily housing comparable to Florida's Live Local Act or a New Jersey-style statutory "fair share" mandate -- no statute located in this research forces a Pennsylvania municipality to zone for a specific affordable use or density the moment a statutory test is met. What the Commonwealth has instead is a judicially developed exclusionary-zoning doctrine implemented through the MPC's own curative-amendment procedure. Under MPC Sections 609.1 and 916.1, a landowner who believes a zoning ordinance, map, or provision is substantively invalid -- for example, on the theory that it fails to provide, in the language of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's exclusionary-zoning line of cases beginning with decisions like Appeal of M.A. Kravitz Co., a "fair share" of land for a particular housing type such as multifamily dwellings -- may file a curative amendment along with the challenge, and the governing body must hold a public hearing on the matter within 60 days of receiving the request.

This is a litigation-adjacent tool, not a scoring or threshold mechanism inside PHFA's own Application, and it operates on its own separate MPC clock rather than any PHFA deadline. It is the practical mechanism Pennsylvania developers have used historically to challenge a municipality's zoning code as exclusionary of the higher-density or multifamily housing types a LIHTC deal typically needs, where the local code otherwise permits only single-family detached development. Any decision to pursue a curative amendment is a legal strategy question for land use counsel, not a step a screening or scoring tool should recommend automatically -- but a developer evaluating whether a difficult site's zoning is worth the fight, rather than simply moving to a friendlier parcel, should know this pathway exists and runs on a 60-day governing-body hearing clock once filed.

Bond-financed deals add a TEFRA hearing -- and PHFA is not always the one holding it

A 4% Tax Credit deal financed with tax-exempt private activity bonds carries an additional federal approval step layered on top of local zoning entirely: the public-approval requirement of Internal Revenue Code Section 147(f) and its implementing regulation, 26 CFR § 1.147(f)-1, commonly called a TEFRA hearing after the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 that first imposed it. A private activity bond issue is not tax-exempt unless it receives public approval either by the "applicable elected representative" following a public hearing for which reasonable notice was given, or by voter referendum -- and since final regulations took effect in December 2018, that notice is presumed reasonable if published at least 7 calendar days before the hearing, down from the prior 14-day standard.

Who actually holds that hearing in Pennsylvania depends on who is issuing the bonds, and PHFA's own volume-cap Request for Proposals makes clear that PHFA is not automatically the issuer: an applicant's Intent to Submit and full Application must identify "the proposed bond issuer," and the RFP explicitly contemplates "developments utilizing local issuers other than PHFA," for which the Application must include "evidence, satisfactory to the Agency, that the governmental unit which will issue the bonds has made a determination of the financial feasibility of the project and qualification as a low income housing project as required by Section 42(m)(2)(D)." Where PHFA is not the bond issuer, the RFP also requires the bonds to "receive an investment quality rating from one of the nationally recognized rating agencies" or otherwise meet Agency criteria, and requires bond counsel to the issuer specifically for local-issuer transactions.

For a state housing finance agency acting as its own bond issuer, the "applicable elected representative" who gives final public approval under Section 147(f)(2)(E) is generally the Governor -- the same office that already has to approve PHFA's own Qualified Allocation Plan after a public hearing, described in Phase 1 of this guide. Where a local governmental unit issues the bonds instead, the relevant elected official is that governmental unit's own applicable elected representative under the statute and regulation, not the Governor. A developer choosing between PHFA and a local bond issuer for a 4% deal is therefore also choosing whose TEFRA hearing, whose rating requirement, and whose Section 42(m)(2)(D) feasibility determination governs the deal -- not simply picking a financing convenience.

Two statewide zoning-preemption bills are moving through Harrisburg, but neither is law yet

As of this research (September 2026), the Pennsylvania General Assembly has two active bills that would touch local zoning authority statewide, and neither has been enacted. House Bill 2186 would amend the MPC to require any municipality with zoning to permit one accessory dwelling unit by right on any residential lot where a residential building is otherwise permitted -- no special exception or variance required -- and would bar municipalities from imposing owner-occupancy requirements or a familial relationship condition between occupants, while still allowing a municipality to prohibit short-term rentals of ADUs. It passed the House on third consideration, 139-62, on June 1, 2026, and was pending in the Senate as of the most recent confirmed status in this research.

Senate Bill 1281, sponsored by Senator Greg Rothman with several co-sponsors, would amend the MPC to create an "expedited high density housing approval" pathway for planned residential developments -- a streamlining measure explicitly framed around lowering housing costs through pre-approved housing plans. It passed the Senate unanimously (50-0) on June 3, 2026, and was referred to the House Housing & Community Development Committee the same day, where it remained pending as of September 18, 2026.

Of the two, SB 1281 is the more directly relevant to a multifamily LIHTC deal, since an expedited approval process for higher-density planned residential development would speak directly to the entitlement-timeline risk this phase is built around; HB 2186's by-right ADU mandate is aimed at single-unit-lot accessory housing and has little application to a standard multifamily LIHTC site, in the same way this guide series has flagged similar single-family-oriented ADU laws in other states as largely inapplicable except in a scattered-site acquisition strategy. Neither bill should be relied on as current law -- both were still pending in the opposite chamber from where each originated as of this research, and either could change materially, stall, or die before final passage. Confirm the live status of both before assuming either changes a specific site's entitlement math.