Update on Nov. 28, 2023: On Tuesday members of the Pittsburgh Planning Commission voted unanimously to advance two proposals that aim to improve residents’ quality of life: changes to how the city regulates child care businesses and a historic nomination for Frick Park. Both matters now head to City Council.
Officials briefed the Pittsburgh Planning Commission Tuesday on two very different proposals to improve residents’ quality of life: changes to how the city regulates child care businesses and a historic nomination for Frick Park.
More than 6,000 children are on waiting lists for child care facilities, said Mohammed Burny, chief of staff to City Councilor Bobby Wilson, who earlier this year introduced legislation to change the zoning regulations for such businesses.
Wilson, working with Department of City Planning staff, looked at how the city could “tweak the zoning code to make it a little easier to open one of these child care facilities,” Burny said.
He characterized the changes as an “essential first step” to helping more Pittsburghers access affordable child care.
“We don't by any means think it's going to solve the problem,” he said. “But we at least think we can get out of the way a little bit.”
Under the existing regulations, only certain neighborhoods allow someone to open a child care facility without first going through a zoning hearing. And when the use is permitted, the code often creates “undue burdens,” said Corey Layman, the city’s zoning administrator. That’s because prospective business owners very often face the requirement to add parking, which can be expensive or infeasible.
Layman told the commission that Pittsburgh’s most common zoning district is for single-family detached or attached homes, and that most child care businesses are small, serving fewer than six children.
While a series of changes are proposed, the most significant is to allow people in all residential areas of the city to open a child care business for four to six children, without additional approvals and without a parking requirement.
Commissioners seemed pleased by the presentation, noting that they’ve heard the need for child care from community members. The commission will vote on the issue in two weeks.
Commissioners are also set to vote at that time on whether to recommend a historic nomination for 644-acre Frick Park, which is contiguous to four city neighborhoods: Swisshelm Park, Squirrel Hill South, Regent Square, and Point Breeze.
Industrialist Henry Clay Frick bequeathed the park’s original 159 acres and his house to the city when he died in 1919.
“This is one of those things we probably thought was already nominated as historic,” said Commissioner Rachel O’Neill. She asked staff to clarify that the nomination would only cover park land, and not surrounding areas that may be zoned as park. (The former Irish Centre falls in that zoning district, and a divisive proposal to redevelop the land as condos helped spur the push to secure a historic nomination for Frick Park.)
Sarah Quinn of the planning department said that only city-owned park land would be protected.
The Historic Review Commission has already recommended that city council approve the nomination.
