A smaller incarnation of a developer’s attempt to create new residential buildings in Oakland received a major boost on Tuesday.
Pittsburgh’s City Planning Commission approved an update to the Oakland land use plan to allow a zoning change championed by Councilperson Bob Charland for part of Oakland along McKee Place and Louisa Street. The area includes the former site of the Jewish Federation headquarters.
Walnut Capital owns the land where there are currently three pre-war residential buildings that serve mostly as student housing. The zoning change would allow the Shadyside developer to create new multi-unit apartment buildings with retail space on the ground floor, but the developer’s lawyer, Jonathan Kamin, didn’t elaborate on Tuesday about plans for the site.
Kamin said the change from the current Urban Center – Employment zoning to Residential Mixed Use would allow the developer to build more units and get more rental income.
Under the current zoning, if the buildings on the land have more than 50% residential occupation, instead of commercial or manufacturing, then all units have to be affordable. Under the change in zoning, this requirement would be removed. Instead, 10% of units in any residential development would be required to be affordable for 30 years.
“So when we look at property and highest and best use for this site given the surrounding neighborhood,” Kamin said, “we came to the conclusion that residential mixed use is the best.”
The proposed change will now go to Pittsburgh City Council for its approval.
Walnut Capital originally planned for the area to be part of the Oaklands Crossings project, a plan that sought to redevelop 18 acres around the Boulevard of the Allies. Those plans have since stalled.
Charland, whose district includes the considered area, voiced his support for the zoning change on Tuesday by way of a staff member.
“This will help create high quality housing,” according to Charland’s statement, read to the commission. “I am committed with the help from partners to engage in rezoning to continue to better fit the needs of Oakland.”
Georgia Petropoulos, the chief executive officer of the Oakland Business Improvement District, said that her organization supports the rezoning and is excited to see the changes this would bring to the neighborhood.
And Mike Madden, the director of the Pittsburgh Innovation District said the zoning change was needed to provide “critical walk-to-work housing.”
Andrea Boykowycz, executive director of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, said her organization also supported the creation of multi-family housing in the area but she questioned the process that this rezoning was taking.
“We really emphatically do not support this approach to public planning,” she said, commenting on the route of city council bills going through the City Planning Commission process without a public engagement step in which residents could critically engage with the proposals.
“It circumvents the public process. It ultimately undermines the Department of City Planning and erodes the public trust in the planning process,” she said. “This kind of approach to doing rezoning does not allow for that kind of broad public, political engagement.”
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
