A Santa impersonator, a self-described Polish Hill punk, and a person who identified as an Aborigine shaman were just some of the concerned residents who convinced a city panel to delay taking action, Tuesday, on proposed zoning changes meant to spur housing construction along three transit hubs across the city.
Residents from around the city but largely from Polish Hill and the Sheraden-Crafton Heights areas gathered in person and online at a City Planning Commission meeting to voice their concerns, sometimes through yelling profanities, with the city’s plan to rezone hillside areas around three transit sites. The sites would become residential zones that would allow, in many cases, for maximum building heights up to 90 feet.
Sites slated for zoning change in transit-oriented development plan
The proposed rezoning is part of a larger effort undertaken by Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration to transform zoning throughout the city. The commission voted late Tuesday evening to table the issue until next year pending further community engagement. The issue drew such a high number of public commenters that the commission, out of daylight and facing a rainy forecast, postponed another zoning package centered on the expansion of inclusionary zoning until the New Year.
“I’m a fan of the transit-oriented development but hearing the comments today, there needs to be a rework and more of a conversation,” said commissioner Melanie Ngami. “I heard a 10-to-2 ratio of disagree to support so we need to take a step back.”
City planners on Tuesday presented plans to rezone areas around the transit hubs of Herron Station, South Hills Junction and Sheraden Station with the intended aim of allowing more housing development in those areas. But a large gathering of residents expressed concern, with some arguing that the hillsides are prone to landslides in a city already contending with annual slides. City planners contend that the zoning changes already account for the issue of landslides.
One resident of Polish Hill, Samantha Stowe, took note of the proposed site on Bigelow Boulevard and Bethoven Street and said, “Bigelow Boulevard is a highway. People drive very fast there. The sidewalk is barely there. It’s crumbling. You need to fix the infrastructure of our neighborhood before you even propose this.”
Stowe’s neighborhood includes the Herron Station site, which has 217 acres of land within a half mile of the station, according to city planners who want to change the current hillside zoning that dominates the area into residential mixed use.
“We’re so sick and tired of this – dealing with things that don’t help poor people in our neighborhood,” Stowe continued. “So many people moved out because they can’t afford it there. A house recently sold for $700,000. We supposedly live in the most livable city. That’s laughable.”
Other residents said the city should focus on more basic needs like public safety instead of zoning changes.
“I want to change my name to collateral damage,” said Terry Hanis of Sheraden, due to all the issues they’ve experienced in the neighborhood.
“I haven’t slept in two months since [Councilor Theresa Kail Smith] sent out a letter about this zoning,” Hanis said. “I’m afraid. I’m going to have a heart attack that people are going to break into our home. We hear gunshots all night long, drag racing, cars are getting broken into every week.”
Hanis said that Zone 6 police officers told them that they can’t control crime in the area.
“Put more quality people in there,” Hanis said. “You’re going to put who knows who in these neighborhoods.”
Another resident who said they live in Crafton Heights, near Sheraden, called the area “a God-fearing, residential, multi-unit community, and we’d like to keep it that way. Please, dear God, stop this now. Our voices need to be heard.”
Susan Pace, calling herself a proud resident of Polish Hill, said that some of the areas in the Herron Avenue Area Station should be removed from consideration for rezoning.
“It’s simply unsuitable for development due to steep sloping and unfathomable water daylighted from underwater streams,” Pace said. “There’s ancient utility infrastructure beneath our street. It’s a virtual labyrinth of sinkholes and forever-unsuccessful construction and rebuilding of underground systems from PWSA [Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority] and other institutions.”
Diane Woodruff of Polish Hill echoed the sentiments of many residents when she said she supported the idea of housing near public transit hubs, but she didn’t think her neighborhood should be rezoned.
“It would make Polish Hill less safe and livable,” Woodruff said. “Allowing 90-foot apartment buildings would alter the neighborhood.”
Ricky Kolling said that he used the city’s public transit options often but he didn’t want to see his home on Herron Avenue rezoned. Like many other residents that spoke Tuesday, Koling said that the current Hillside zoning has the added benefit of protecting green space in the city.
“It protects my property and my neighborhood,” Kolling said. “It encourages safer construction projects and helps prevent landslides.”
Another Herron Avenue resident, Erin Nolan, told the city planners to “go there and look at this place before you fill up this space on the map and say, ‘Let’s take it all.’”
“You don’t live in affordable housing,” she continued to the commissioners.. “None of you live in affordable housing. I do because I’m fucking poor. You laugh about displacement. Ask the Hill District about when they built the Civic Arena. Ask them how they feel.”
Auguston Pionati, a resident on Bigelow Boulevard, said he opposed the zoning changes because “we have very little input with developers that come in. … I’m a self employed contractor and these developments are very exclusionary to people like me. It favors large developers.”
The commission votes on whether to recommend zoning code amendments, which then go to Pittsburgh City Council for final approval.
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
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