The Pittsburgh Planning Commission on Tuesday voted to postpone a vote on a suite of zoning changes aimed at expanding affordable housing.
Due to a busy agenda and a roomful of people eager to offer public comments, city planning officials were able to present only the part of the zoning overhaul that would permit more dense housing developments within walking distance of three transit hubs: Herron Station, South Hills Junction and Sheraden Station.
A public hearing and vote on the rest of the zoning package, including a proposal for citywide inclusionary zoning — which requires new housing with at least 20 units to have a portion designated for people with lower incomes — is pushed ahead until January.
Many planning commissioners said they support transit-oriented development but need to see changes to the current proposal.
“I am a fan of the transit-oriented development, but I do think that hearing all the comments today, there definitely needs to be rework and it needs to be a conversation that is had,” said Commissioner Mel Ngami.
”Because … I have 10 commenters saying ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not a fan.’ And then two people are like, ‘Yeah, we're a fan, but we understand that there are problems.’ We need to kind of go, ’I don't want to say go back to the drawing board, but we need to take two steps back.’”
Dozens of residents from these neighborhoods showed up to voice their concerns about these proposed changes. Some Sheraden residents said they feared that building more apartment complexes would change the character of their neighborhood.
Many Polish Hill residents raised significant concerns about the neighborhood’s capacity for more housing due to its high-speed roads in need of traffic calming and aging infrastructure. One worrisome area involved the rezoning of steep slopes on Ruthven Street and Herron Avenue. It’s currently zoned as a hillside and does not allow for development. The proposal would allow for residential mixed-use development, such as rows of 36 townhouses.
The city requires special geotechnical reviews on any landslide-prone or steep slopes before a developer starts digging, regardless of how it’s zoned. But residents spoke of their experiences with persistent flooding and landslides, including one in October that shut down the East Busway.
“Once construction begins, the water will only be diverted to the current houses and flooding and sinkholes on top of the landslides,” said Lorraine Callen, who has lived in Polish Hill for 16 years.
“The infrastructure in our neighborhood is dismal,” Callen said. “The water lines on Bethoven and Harding have been worked on countless times in the past couple of years. Water main breaks, gas leaks. Power outages are common. Increasing the population in the area will put even more of a strain on our system.”
The Planning Commission will be back in the new year to consider the transit-oriented development changes for a vote. They’ll also listen to public comment on the rest of the zoning changes and vote on whether to recommend them to City Council.
