Pittsburgh’s City Planning Commission is poised to make its first return to in-person meetings since the early pandemic, starting with a Tuesday hearing on a contentious measure meant to address persistent homelessness.
The commission this week advertised that it will hold a hearing and vote on legislation that would allow temporary managed communities, via Zoom, with the public also able to watch via YouTube. Mayoral spokesperson Maria Montaño told PublicSource Wednesday that the administration has arranged to hold the meeting in hybrid fashion, with in-person access in City Council Chambers in the City-County Building, Downtown.
She said the commission has been meeting by Zoom because its old gathering place, in the shuttered Robin Civic Building at 200 Ross St., is no longer safe, while a new space at 412 Boulevard of the Allies remains under construction.
“This is a gap measure, but we feel that this is the direction we need to be going to offer both in-person and virtual,” Montaño said. That way, the city can “be in compliance with the state law.”
She said the city aimed to enable in-person attendance at future commission meetings, too.
State authorization to hold meetings remotely expired with the official end of the pandemic emergency in mid-2021. PublicSource has, since October, been seeking in-person access to meetings of public bodies that have remained in virtual-only mode.
“Virtual technology has great benefits for public participation, but it cannot take the place of in-person public participation,” said Melissa Melewsky, an attorney with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. When the subject is homelessness, that’s even more relevant, she added. “If they are in a position where they are unhoused, there is a higher likelihood that they would be unable to access this kind of virtual-only platform.”
City councilors Deb Gross and Anthony Coghill, sponsors of the temporary managed communities legislation, said they were seeking an in-person hearing.
“I want to go before [commissioners], look them in the eye, and tell them why I think they should make a positive recommendation,” said Coghill. “There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be an in-person forum, not only for us, but people are saying, ‘How can I see them? How can I talk to them?’”
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Administration opposes legislation
The Allegheny County Department of Human Services has tallied around 750 people living in emergency shelters and nearly 180 living outside.
The proposal to allow “temporary managed communities” Downtown and along some riverfronts is based on Denver’s ordinance and would:
- Allow nonprofit entities or government-related organizations to seek permits to build and manage temporary communities, potentially made up of temporary, tiny houses
- Require a community meeting before any decision on a permit
- If a permit is granted, allow the agency to build temporary structures for no more than 50 people who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of becoming homeless
- Require restroom and bathing facilities
- Prohibit storage of “junk”
- Allow fences of up to 6 feet in height, plus gardening (but no agricultural animals) and dumpsters.
“We’ve already seen two people die in tents this year because of the weather,” said Coghill. A temporary managed community would be safe, managed, clean and warm with “luxury bathrooms and showers in, so they can have proper hygiene.” It would feature “services, food, you name it.”
The commission’s role is to vote whether to recommend its passage to council. If the commission recommends the measure, it still requires support from five of the nine council members. If the commission does not recommend it, then a sixth “yes” is needed. If approved by council, it would go to the mayor, who can veto, subject to a potential override.
So far, Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration has opposed the measure. At a commission briefing on Feb. 6, city Zoning Administrator Corey Layman said the language in the proposal does not line up with Pittsburgh’s code, and warned that allowing such communities might have the unintended effect of rendering existing encampments “illegal.”
Gross said she and Coghill have found around 100 American cities with temporary managed communities ordinances and have not discerned any in which it has resulted in the illegalization of existing encampments.
“No one would want that to happen, but again we can’t find any place where that has happened,” she said.
Montaño said the administration continues to have the concerns Layman expressed.
Layman also said the administration is working on multiple zoning code changes meant to ease the development of solutions for homelessness, which would be forthcoming “in the next couple of months.”
Gross said she has “encouraged the administration … to work collaboratively to share that language so we can get something sooner. Whatever is fastest, we’re amenable.”
Commission members at the virtual briefing appeared to be of mixed minds on the temporary managed communities proposal.
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Going in person
In October, PublicSource reviewed the transparency policies of 10 city and Allegheny County agencies. Among the findings: Three city agencies continued to hold their meetings in virtual-only formats.
“If the pandemic showed us anything about public participation, it’s that the virtual-only platform is extremely problematic,” Melewsky said. “Pennsylvania is not a fully connected society. … In many cases, it was difficult to hear and see the person who was speaking. Body language, tone of voice, people speaking over one another — the platform made witnessing and participating in a virtual-only meeting difficult, in the best of circumstances.”
Hybrid meetings allow in-person attendance and accommodate people for whom that is difficult, she said.
Late last year, following outreach by PublicSource, two of the three city agencies — the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh — switched to hybrid meeting formats, with both in-person and remote participation enabled. The Pittsburgh Public Schools board also made that change after PublicSource reached out about its virtual-only meetings.
The City Planning Commission, though, did not respond to PublicSource inquiries, first forwarded on Oct. 17, about its meeting practices.
PublicSource renewed its inquiries on Feb. 7, formally asking the commission to follow the law by enabling in-person attendance at its meetings, starting on Feb. 20. After the commission indicated on Feb. 13 that it intended to hold the Feb. 20 meeting by Zoom, PublicSource reached out to five officials from Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration and to all of the commission’s members, seeking in-person access.
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Montaño noted that the virtual option has made it easier for some people to participate in public meetings.
Gross said there’s nothing quite like in-person access.
“I have seen in-person [pre-pandemic] Planning Commission public hearings,” she said, “where 30 citizens turned out and got their turn and got to be in the room together and walk up to that microphone and be heard.”
Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.
