After weeks of debate, a divided City Council voted to have the Planning Commission evaluate Councilor Bob Charland’s bill to rein in the potential use of inclusionary zoning.
Currently, the city is considering different approaches to inclusionary zoning, which requires developers make a certain portion of units in their new buildings affordable. The approach is used in a handful of city neighborhoods already, and a proposal from Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration to apply it citywide is currently awaiting review by planning officials.
Charland’s alternate bill would let each neighborhood decide for itself whether to apply the zoning rules. It expands the definition of “affordable” to include more expensive rents — and it requires the City of Pittsburgh, the Urban Redevelopment Authority or the Housing Authority to compensate developers for additional costs that inclusionary zoning could cause them.
Council voted 6 to 3 to have Charland’s measure moved along for the nine-member Planning Commission to review. Officials would weigh in with a recommendation they would send to council to review before voting on the measure. Judging from Wednesday’s discussion, that debate will be contentious.
“If the desire is there for council to create a different bill that isn’t the mayor’s bill, we can do that, but I think that what we really need to do is sit down and have a serious conversation, and this bill is not serious,” objected Councilor Barbara Warwick. “This is just obstructionist and really just a waste of everyone’s time.”
Other council members backed the measure despite reservations about it, if only for purposes of further discussion.
“Councilperson Charland's bill is far from perfect,” said Councilor Erika Strassburger. “But it does raise some discussion points that I think everyone in council can agree are important discussion points. And to keep those discussion points present, I agreed with some of my council colleagues that it made sense to send it to the planning commission.”
Who pays the bill?
Inclusionary zoning is not a new topic in Pittsburgh. It’s been discussed in some form for years, and has been implemented in the neighborhoods of Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Polish Hill and parts of Oakland.
Gainey’s proposal, which is currently before the Planning Commission, would require 10% of the units in a development to be affordable to people at 50% of the area median income. According to Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak, that corresponds to people making about $17 an hour.
Affordable housing advocates say inclusionary zoning helps build a mixed-income neighborhood, particularly where there’s access to shops, restaurants and public transit. But developers and some pro-housing advocates argue that the best way to make housing more affordable is to make it more available — even at higher prices.
They contend that inclusionary zoning makes building new housing more expensive and would result in fewer units overall. Charland has said that Pro Housing Pittsburgh, a group that looks askance at policies that slow down home construction, helped compose his bill. Several members of the group spoke at public comment in support of the bill Wednesday.
Charland, who is a renter, said that because including affordable units is pricier for developers, the added expense is often passed on through higher rents charged to tenants like himself — and it was unfair to expect renters alone to bear the burden for the program.
The Gainey approach, he said Wednesday, “really relies on the renting class to pay for these units. … I don’t think that it’s fair that me, personally, citizen-Bob, pays more than anyone else here. I hope we can develop a program where I am not the person with the most skin in the game in this process.”
Charland has admitted he isn’t sure how much it would cost the city to offer the subsidy. But he has tempered his proposal in recent days. His original version, for example, said homes that were affordable to people making 120% of the area median income could receive subsidies. But the bill was amended last week to limit the program to homes that were affordable to people making no more than 99% of area median income. It made other changes as well.
A ‘political stunt’?
Despite those changes, two council members in particular, Barb Warwick and Deb Gross, have vehemently opposed the bill. Gross in particular has been involved in discussions on inclusionary zoning in her district since 2015, a legacy she is passionate about. Inclusionary zoning, she says, is important to keep neighborhoods from becoming “playgrounds for the rich.”
“If we allow wealth concentration in certain neighborhoods of the city, we are facilitating concentrated poverty,” she said after the meeting.
She hopes that the bill receives a negative recommendation at the planning commission.
“And when it's set back to us, we should vote no,” she said. “I mean, it is just rife with internal contradictions and sloppy writing.”
Warwick referred to Charland’s bill as a “political stunt” intended to slow the passage of the mayor’s inclusionary zoning package. She described the argument that the city should pay for inclusionary zoning as “disingenuous” because the city already spends a lot of money on affordable housing. Voucher programs with HUD funding are already available, she noted, even if they are often not taken advantage of by developers.
Charland said after the meeting that he doesn’t take allegations that his bill is obstructive seriously.
“I think that the folks that are making that criticism have their political motives to blindly support a policy they know doesn’t work,” he said. “I would rather craft productive, collaborative policy instead of just doing what the mayor asks me to do.”
In the end, Gross and Warwick were joined only by Councilor Khari Mosley in voting not to forward the proposal. Some council members voted to send it on to the planning commission anyway, to continue a robust discussion.
“I don't fully expect the planning commission to reconcile it for us. That will be our job,” Strassburger said. “I think that also gives us a little bit of time to continue to meet with community members, to educate them on what the implications would be, and to get our act together.”
Council President Dan Lavelle said after the meeting that he won’t vote for Charland’s bill as written. He expressed concerns last week about whether the city could afford an open-ended housing subsidy, especially considering projections that the city faces lean budgets in the next few years.
Still, Lavelle said, “I do believe that each council member, when they introduce legislation, should have their sort of day in court. And by sending it to the Planning Commission, he has that opportunity to have his bill fully vetted out.”
“I think an ideal scenario would be that the Planning Commission would … take up both bills together [and] send both bills back to council so that we can then lay both bills on the table and have a robust dialogue.”
Charland, too, sees room for compromise. He said he hoped his bill “could be a starting place for a conversation.
“My hope is this allows us to have the opportunity to take these proposals … and actually have a wholesome discussion about what we believe we want to see, who should be paying for it and where it should go.”
