Pittsburgh City Council is preparing for a potentially drawn-out, bitter debate over proposed zoning legislation.
Two conflicting bills will be before council in the coming months. One, presented by Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration, clarifies definitions around community homes, such as group homes and personal care residences. It also streamlines the process for approving smaller group homes. It’s meant to make sure the city is in compliance with the federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.
According to Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak, the bill covers homeless shelters, homes for disabled people and halfway houses. It would move smaller versions of those homes, containing up to 10 people, from a staff-level review to a by-right approval, lessening administrative hurdles. The degree of streamlining depends on the size and capacity of the homes under consideration.
“I think that our goal is to level the playing field in as simple a process as necessary to increase the number of housing options for folks who need supportive housing,” Pawlak said, and described the amendment as an effort to remove “unnecessary barriers to supportive housing of all kinds.”
An alternate proposal, introduced by Councilor Theresa Kail-Smith, adds more opportunities for council and the planning commission to weigh in by changing community homes to require a conditional use. It would require small community homes and personal care residences to be subject to mandatory public hearings before the planning commission and council. Council would be required to ultimately approve the uses.
At a meeting on Oct. 1, Kail-Smith said she wanted to make sure that “council’s voice is not minimized” in the process.
“We want places where kids and people that have to live in facilities or temporary housing, that they're safe,” she said Tuesday. ‘We have to make sure resources are coming to people, and that they're managed well. These things don't just affect the people outside of the facility. They affect the people being treated inside the facility.”
Kail-Smith’s bill was technically introduced earlier and must be addressed before the administration’s bill can be considered by council. Her bill was set to go before the planning commission on Tuesday, but was held for four weeks.
Pawlak said he is “optimistic” that council, the administration and the planning commission can “find a path forward that everyone can agree on.”
Letter sparks discussion
A letter that Kail-Smith sent out about the pending legislation caused a stir among some city residents
In the letter dated Oct.2, sent out to District 2 property owners and later circulated by residents online, Kail-Smith claims the mayor’s legislation would allow residential group homes of up to 10 people in any building or allow City Planning to approve changing a school or nursing home into a “large homeless shelter” without community notification or public process.
She also said the bill would allow City Planning to approve large homeless shelters and “waive any zoning regulation it deems necessary” to allow group homes or homeless shelters to operate anywhere in Pittsburgh.
At the council meeting Tuesday, Smith said she sent the letter to her constituents to call attention to the legislation she was introducing. She said she wanted to help struggling Pittsburghers, but she emphasized concerns about poorly run or dangerous facilities.
“I was actually surprised with the outcome of it because I was getting phone calls myself across the city,” she said. “But this is so important to the city of Pittsburgh that we do this and do this right.”
In a statement, Gainey spokesperson Olga George criticized the letter’s claims and Kail-Smith’s legislation, and she clarified that the bill would remove barriers around changing “between one group housing or institutional use and another group housing use.”
“The proposed bill from Councilmember Kail-Smith does nothing to address these issues, and instead it increases the red tape, cost, and length of process involved with this kind of change,” she said.
George said the administration’s bill will clarify that 10 disabled people can be allowed to live in a typical residential setting and require that those types of small group living residences are appropriately licensed. Kail-Smith’s bill “would make housing for more than eight disabled individuals a conditional use, adding substantially more time and cost to that process without resolving any of the confusion and redundancy around group housing uses.”
Councilor Dan Lavelle said at the meeting that his office had received calls about the letter even as recently as Tuesday morning. Councilor Anthony Coghill said his officer was “peppered” with phone calls about the bill and said it “obviously struck a nerve” with a lot of people. He said he supported Kail-Smith in sending the letter.
“I look forward to having the conversations with the planning commission to steer this in the right direction,” Coghill said.
Councilor Deb Gross said that though she heard conversations online about the letter, her office received only one email. She said she expects debate about both the mayor’s and Kail-Smith’s bills moving forward.
“We need to debate what each of the bills mean, and we will be having that debate,” she said, noting that it was too premature to discuss the mayor’s bill in depth because it technically hasn’t come before council.
