Pittsburgh City Council approved Mayor Ed Gainey’s $6 million proposal to create a citywide comprehensive plan Tuesday, despite some members recently describing the price tag as “irresponsible.” Gainey’s two-year proposal includes a $3.25 million contract to develop a plan after a community engagement process budgeted to cost $2.6 million.
Such plans provide an overall vision for a community that shape zoning regulations and other policies. While the plans are commonplace in many cities, Pittsburgh has operated without one. Gainey’s plan is expected to include recommendations to overhaul zoning rules, address racial and social inequalities and combat climate change.
Advocates say having a roadmap for such goals will make it easier for the city to pursue grant funding and set budgetary priorities. And council approved both parts of the plan Tuesday, voting 6 to 3 in favor of crafting a plan, and 5 to 3 in favor of allocating funds for the community input process.
But some councilors took issue with the approach during a preliminary discussion last week, and while there was no discussion of the issue when the final vote was taken, the split count suggests there are still misgivings.
District 3 Councilor Bob Charland, for one, said last week that he had “major reservations” about whether the city would be repeating mistakes it made developing a comprehensive plan for the city’s Oakland neighborhood. The controversial plan created three new zoning districts in the neighborhood, but nearly a year after the plan was passed, Charland said it hasn’t been implemented.
Neither the Oakland plan nor Gainey’s proposed citywide plan are legally binding. But Charland said last week the city should take care not to repeat its mistakes.
“I don't have any comfort that this isn't just doing the same thing,” Charland said. “And I worry that we're going to end up in a similar situation where much of this plan is unimplementable.”
Gainey’s citywide approach is a departure from former Mayor Bill Peduto’s previous neighborhood-by-neighborhood proposal. The mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the proposal Tuesday.
Still, Charland said his passion for zoning reform — one of the key goals of the plan — outweighed his doubts. He stressed that the city needed to move forward on a planning process to help neighborhoods in his district including the South Side, as well as Allentown, Arlington and other southern hilltop neighborhoods. He voted in support of both bills Tuesday.
District 4 Councilor Anthony Coghill, who was a consistent no vote on the proposal, called the effort ill-timed due to uncertainty from ongoing property tax appeals involving Downtown properties that have already cost the city $1.8 million. He noted the city has also taken out more than $155 million in bonds over the last year.
Coghil said “We should just put the brakes on” the additional spending, at least until the period for appeals ends in March and "we see what we're going to be looking at with our properties."
But that suggestion fell flat as the proposal now heads to the mayor’s desk.
The city will hire Downtown-based Common Cause Consulting to solicit community feedback about the comprehensive plan. The company will use that money to subcontract with community groups and a list of pre-selected organizations who will carry out public meetings.
Common Cause would receive $500,000; Sasaki, a Boston-based urban design firm, would receive $712,000; Grayscale, a Cambridge, Mass. architecture and planning firm would receive $312,000; advocacy group 1Hood would receive $210,000; Brown Mamas, an advocacy group for Black women, would receive $115,000 and Alyssa Lyon, an environmental justice advocate and director of the UrbanKind Institute, would receive $71,000.
District 2 Councilor Theresa Kail-Smith argued that the city could save money by hosting its own public meetings about the comprehensive plan.
“Any one of us could have meetings in our community,” Kail-Smith said. “I hope we’re not trying to manipulate the public to get an answer that we could have just simply said and not cost the taxpayers a dime.”
