LVPC: Expect more increases in population, development in the Lehigh Valley in the coming years
Lehigh Valley Planning Commission members were back in person Tuesday to give their outlook for the region, a region they say is changing.
"The Lehigh Valley is growing, development is not slowing down, and the need to manage it is only increasing," says LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley.
"Based on our forecast model, Lehigh and Northampton counties will add at least 100,000 people by 2050," said LVPC Economist and Data Scientist David Jan.
The region's projected to add about 3,300 people a year, on top of the nearly 700,000 people already here. Population growth jumped by 11,000 From 2019 to 2020.
"That was COVID," Bradley said. "A lot of people coming out of North Jersey, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and into the Lehigh Valley. They discovered it. A lot of them wanted to stay."
Which leads us to housing. LVPC is on track to review about 6,000 housing units this year, slightly more than last year's record year.
The median sale price of homes rose from $250,000 in 2021 to $272,000 in 2022.
"While we expect interest rates to cause the development market to plateau, we don't expect reviews to slow down," said Steve Neratko, Chief Community and Regional Planner.
"One of the things we're working on because we have such a significant housing shortage is working with the Urban Land Instute, Lehigh County, and others to figure out where can we put housing that still preserves our open spaces," Bradley said.
Unsurprisingly, 80% of the 19 million square feet under review this year was warehousing and distribution.
Office space proposals dropped about 50% from last year.
Thankfully, LVPC also predicts an 18% increase in jobs by 2050, with around 460,000 job openings. Some of those are coming from new roadwork projects.
"We're going to be kicking off and completing some really big transportation projects that we would not have been able to do without that bipartisan infrastructure package," Bradley said.