A Pittsburgh City Council bill that replaces a proposed citywide affordable housing mandate with an optional program will soon return to the body with the City Planning Commission’s blessing.
On Tuesday, commissioners unanimously recommended the legislation package, which proposes an affordable housing bonus program, would permit accessory dwelling units by right for certain buildings and would remove minimum parking requirements for new developments.
“The best inclusionary housing policies recognize the economic realities of residential development in the local rental market and incorporate flexibility,” said City Councilor Erika Strassburger prior to the commission’s vote.
The bill, if passed, would allow developers to earn points based on the number of affordable units that they incorporate into their housing developments — a system that already exists along the riverfronts, residential mixed-use areas and urban centers. The points allow developers to add height to buildings.
If developers don’t want to participate in the point-based program, then they would pay $25 per square foot of housing they build. Those funds would support affordable housing development.
The commissioners’ recommendation wasn’t without conditions. While City Planning staff proposed expanding the duration of affordability for units in the optional bonus program from 20 to 35 years, the body ultimately went with the shorter term.
Developers who do not want to build affordable housing can instead opt to pay a fee per square foot of housing that they build. The commission suggested listing those costs in a fee schedule rather than legislation.
The original bill came about in 2024, when former Mayor Ed Gainey unveiled his goal to implement inclusionary zoning — a zoning district that’s overlaid across existing zones and requires developers to build a specific ratio of affordable units — across the city. Inclusionary zoning is in place in a handful of neighborhoods today, and the proposal endorsed by the commission would not change that.
“That bill was the wrong policy for this particular moment in Pittsburgh, despite public enthusiasm about it,” Strassburger said at the commission meeting.
Gainey’s plan resulted in a yearslong debate between affordable housing advocates, developers and city officials. Last September, Strassburger proposed a revision to that original bill, with the largest change being the replacement of the citywide inclusionary zoning measure.
With the commission’s positive recommendation, the bill will return to City Council for a vote, likely after the council’s recess in August, said Andrew Dash, the deputy director of City Planning.
Mayor Corey O’Connor said while campaigning for his current position that he didn’t support a citywide affordability mandate for all new housing.
Finding a window of affordability that works
Some commissioners — as well as members of the public who submitted testimony — were at odds over which affordability term to push forward: 20 or 35 years?
In a separate vote to determine which term to use, commissioners Diamonte Walker and Rachel O’Neill voted against 20 years.
Walker said she wasn’t “wholly convinced” that keeping units affordable for 35 years would deter developers. In fact, she said, the length of time would benefit those who specialize in affordable housing development.
She is the chief executive officer of Rising Tide Partners, an organization that preserves affordable housing through acquisitions. “I come from a world where 40 years of affordability” isn’t uncommon, she said.
“I also come from a world where I’ve seen people come to the end of a LIHTC term and had their housing affordability gutted from them, and that was a 40-year term of affordability,” she said, referring to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program that underwrites much of the nation’s affordable housing.
For an affordable housing unit that remains affordable for 20 years, City Planning staff estimates, developers lose about $120,000 in rent over that period. For a 35-year term, developers would lose about $162,000. Spread out over decades, the month-to-month loss that developers would experience would decrease as the number of years increases.
Still, “It’s ultimately something that sounds good on paper but won’t result in the apartments that the commission, and ultimately the city, is looking for,” said Commissioner Justin Hunt.
Maddy McGrady is a co-chair of the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table, a coalition of housing advocates that formed to push for the city’s Housing Opportunity Fund. McGrady overall supported the revised legislation but opposed council’s original 20-year affordability term.
“To reduce the term from 35 years is to erode the public benefit of the program for the residents who need it the most, and that is unacceptable,” McGrady said.
While Walker and O’Neill opposed the shorter of the two terms, the rest of the commissioners recommended keeping units affordable for 20 years.
The commissioners and public also debated the proposed payment in lieu of building affordable housing that developers could opt into. Dave Breingan, executive director of Lawrenceville United, urged commissioners to recommend a fee of $35 per square foot of housing.
“Because it’s so low, it will strongly disincentivize developers from creating mixed-income projects and it’s likely to exacerbate our current issue, where affordable housing is concentrated in certain neighborhoods,” Breingan said.
ADUs recommended, despite concerns of ‘little hotels’
If passed, the bill would also permit accessory dwelling units, or “granny flats,” by right for residences, community centers and religious facilities.
Owners of residential houses would be allowed to place up to two ADUs on their lot, while lots where community and religious facilities already exist would have no maximum.
While the ADU portion of the bill passed through the commission mostly unscathed, Mark Knobil of the Polish Hill Civic Association opposed it.
By not placing owner-occupancy restrictions on ADUs, he said, the city would be making single-family homes more “attractive to corporate buyers” interested in flipping the homes into short-term rentals.
“There can be multiple Airbnbs, there can be little hotels in our very residential neighborhood,” he said. “We think this is taking viable housing for young families off the market and driving up the value and price.”
Highlights in push for citywide inclusionary zoning
In 2016, the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force recommended implementing citywide inclusionary zoning, kicking off a decade of debates, protests and new legislation.
July 2019: Pittsburgh City Council unanimously votes to create an inclusionary zoning pilot program in Lawrenceville. The program, which lasted for 18 months, required developers who planned on building at least 20 rental units in the neighborhoods to set aside 10% of those units as affordable.
June 2021: Lawrenceville’s inclusionary zoning program becomes permanent.
January 2022: The city releases a housing needs assessment, indicating that the city is short some 8,200 homes for people making less than 30% of the area median income.
April 2022: Inclusionary zoning expands to Bloomfield and Polish Hill.
February 2023: City Council approves a plan for development in Oakland, which includes expanding inclusionary zoning to the neighborhood, over the next 10 years.
September 2024: Mayor Ed Gainey unveils a proposal for citywide inclusionary zoning, as well as permitting accessory dwelling units or “granny flats,” and removing minimum parking requirements for new developments.
December 2024: The City Planning Commission braces for 2025, when it must weigh competing affordable housing proposals offered by the Gainey administration and City Councilor Bob Charland.
January 2025: After 11 hours of debate and public comment, the City Planning Commission voted in favor of Gainey’s proposal and shot down Charland’s. That vote sent the proposals to council, where Gainey’s was amended.
Mia Hollie is the economic development and housing reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at mia@publicsource.org.
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