The last time inclusionary zoning appeared on the City Planning Commission’s agenda, housing advocates, residents and developers debated for more than 11 hours about the potential citywide adoption of mandatory affordable housing.
On Tuesday, the City Planning Commission heard a more flexible approach to incorporating affordable housing development into the city’s zoning code — what Commissioner Diamonte Walker described as “moving away from a stick policy to more of a carrot-based policy.”
Zoning Administrator Carolyn Ristau shared the changes City Planning Department staff made to the City Council’s amended bill, which swaps mandated affordable housing development for an optional, incentive-based program.
The changes would tie the bonus program to an incentive-based point system that already applies to buildings along the riverfronts, residential mixed-use areas and urban centers. In these areas, builders who choose to set aside affordable units in their development can add building height.
If passed with City Planning’s changes, this same framework would apply to all zoning districts that allow multi-unit residential development. It would not apply, however, to Downtown properties, where office-to-residential conversion incentives already exist and building height requirements are already flexible compared to the rest of the city.
For developers who ultimately do not want to build affordable housing, City Planning added an option to pay $25 per square foot of housing that they build into a fund that would support other affordable housing developments.
The bill on the table now only creates a path toward creating that fund, said Deputy Planning Director Andrew Dash. Additional legislation would be required to create it and outline its uses.
A public hearing will be held on June 2, when the commission will also have an opportunity to make a positive or negative recommendation to the City Council.
Concerns of scaring off developers remain
Inclusionary zoning was formally introduced to Pittsburgh in 2019, initially covering only Lawrenceville. Any new housing developments of 20 units or more within the inclusionary zoning district had to set aside at least 10% of units for people earning less than half of the area’s median income.
That pilot program has expanded to three other neighborhoods: Bloomfield, Polish Hill and parts of Oakland.
Supporters point to a housing needs assessment that forecasted Pittsburgh could be short thousands of affordable units in the future.
But developers, trade unions and some pro-housing groups have said it’s too costly and will discourage new development in the city.
Even with a substantially amended bill that creates optional incentives rather than a full-on mandate, some commissioners said the amendments miss the mark.
Commissioner David Vatz said he applauded City Planning’s work, but an amendment to keep units affordable for a minimum of 35 years would still pose a barrier to private developers considering participating in the program. Councilor Erika Strassburger’s amended bill called for 20 years of affordability, but planning staff recommended the longer mandate.
“That’s a major change that probably greatly impacts the amount of projects that actually opt into the program. And my assumption with Councilperson Strassburger’s bill was that it was to entice developers to build affordable housing,” Vatz said.
Developers in existing IZ districts would still be mandated to build with affordability in mind, but with the bonus program, they’d automatically be eligible for increased building heights. They would not, however, be able to participate in the program by making payments in lieu of building affordable units.
No more parking minimums
Also attached to the affordable housing bill is a proposal to remove minimum parking requirements from all uses and districts.
Ristau said the parking reform is a much-needed overhaul of how the city treats parking requirements for new construction, which have been in place since the city first formalized its zoning code in 1958.
The change will “provide more room for the market to decide how much parking is needed as opposed to outdated, 1950s formulas,” she said.
If passed, the change would keep parking space maximum requirements, which already exist in the zoning code. But much like the affordable housing incentives program, the legislation would pave the way for developers who exceed a given area’s maximum to pay a fee toward a mobility trust fund.
“Parking is not going away,” Ristau said. “We are just making it easier for projects to find a path forward with the parking that’s appropriate for the scale of the development.”
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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