A proposal to divert future tax revenue from new developments to fund the revitalization of the Golden Triangle is drawing criticism from the city’s transit and housing advocates, who say the program lacks transparency and clear planning.
Just under two dozen Pittsburghers spoke at a public hearing held by Pittsburgh City Council on Thursday to discuss a proposed Downtown Transit Revitalization Improvement District using diverted tax revenues from construction in Downtown, the Strip District and parts of the North Shore.
“We know this playbook, and we’re tired of it failing to deliver for working families,” said Maddy McGrady, a co-chair of the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table.
Transit revitalization investment districts, or TRIDs, were introduced by the state in 2004 to encourage private sector investment in public transit infrastructure and the developments that surround them.
Pittsburgh’s existing TRIDs in East Liberty and Manchester have primarily filled funding gaps for large, transit-oriented redevelopment projects. In East Liberty, for example, about $1.5 million from the neighborhood’s TRID fund went toward the $77 million redevelopment of the East Liberty stop along the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway and surrounding area.
If the Downtown TRID becomes a reality, the URA would borrow against future tax revenue from new developments in the Strip District, Downtown and parts of the North Shore, and direct those dollars into a new funding program that targets residential or commercial development projects concentrated near Downtown’s transit hubs — Steel Plaza, Wood Street and Penn Station included.
As it’s written, the proposal is “effectively cutting the rest of the city out of the benefits of economic growth,” said Danielle Wenner, a Polish Hill resident and the associate director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Ethics and Policy.
Without a TRID program, she said, the future tax revenue from rapidly growing neighborhoods such as the Strip District would be distributed more evenly across the city, rather than benefitting one neighborhood.
For other TRIDs and transit increment financing areas — another tax diversion program used by the URA — “money comes from and is spent in the same footprint,” Councilor Deborah Gross said.
Only three public commenters spoke in support of the Downtown TRID, two of whom represented the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. In his comments, PDP’s President and CEO Jeremy Waldrup described the neighborhood as “the economic core of the region.”
“Downtown has billions of square feet of underutilized office space,” he said. “These buildings will languish without public support, and the right preservation and revitalization of these assets are critical to the long-term economic health of Downtown.”
Councilor Bobby Wilson, whose district covers some of the area impacted by the proposed TRID, emphasized Downtown’s contributions to the rest of the city.
“I think we’ve all benefited from this,” he said. “We’re just not really figuring out that this is part of how we live every day.”
The City of Pittsburgh would be responsible for public realm improvements, which could include improvements to infrastructure owned by the city or Pittsburgh Regional Transit.
This part of the plan faced the most public criticism, in part because of what advocates said was a lack of transparency surrounding detailed plans to improve public transit infrastructure and build affordable housing.
A study of the TRID’s potential impact, which is required by state law, isn’t yet publicly available. And several speakers noted that the City Council’s meeting was their only opportunity to provide feedback on the plan.
“For such a costly and consequential policy, there’s been almost no information provided to the public, and we’re robbing future city leaders and the public over the next 40 years of these hundreds of millions of dollars in decision-making power,” said Laura Chu Wiens, the director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit.
The plan also diverts 20% of future tax revenue toward public infrastructure projects, while the remainder of the TRID proceeds would be directed toward improvements Downtown, such as housing or storefront lifts. For its first phase of borrowing, the URA anticipates that $10 million would go to public infrastructure projects, while $40 million would go to the Golden Triangle.
To move forward, the program must be approved by the three local taxing bodies — the City of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools and Allegheny County — as well as the Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s board. City Council will hold a post agenda meeting on July 1.
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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