The Urban Redevelopment Authority Board has voted to purchase 69 city-owned properties in the Hill District for $1 each and convey them to the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh as part of the second phase of it Addison Terrace redevelopment.
The original housing development, sitting atop one of the highest parts of the Hill was razed as part of a $160 million Housing and Urban Development-funded rebuild into a lower density, mixed-income community.
But beyond reclaiming the original development footprint with its $28 million first phase, the HACP seeks to reconnect the isolated site to broader community by stepping additional rental and for-sale units downhill toward Centre Avenue and the redevelopment efforts underway there. These 69 properties are to be part of that second phase.
Though the board agreed to move forward with this initiative, the conveyance of a further 19 properties to be rebuilt as for-sale housing, raised objections from board members Hill House President and CEO Cheryl Hall-Russell and state Sen. Jim Ferlo.
For Ferlo, the issue is continuity. Many of these properties will be in-fill units built blocks away, some on the opposite side of Hill closer to Bedford and Webster Avenues.
“The whole point is to a build critical mass (of homeowners and renters) to support the Centre Avenue corridor. A house here and a house there doesn’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want to see us devote all this time and effort and end up with a project.”
Hall-Russell’s objection was that none of this third phase, for-sale component had been vetted by or discussed with the neighborhood.
“I’m doing development in the community and this is the first I’ve heard of this,” she said.
An HACP Chief Development Officer Nate Boe said there had been conversations with City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle and with the Hill CDC about the properties and that a series of charts are being planned to inform neighbors and community stakeholders.
Lavelle was not present for the meeting, and did not return calls for comment on the additional properties. The first phase of the Addison redevelopment, which is being renamed Skyline Terrace because its spectacular city views, should be complete in the spring.
The board also voted to partner with the city on a federal Promise Zone application, which if approved would enable preferred access to federal grants and other services.
Neighborhoods must have a 33 percent poverty rate to qualify for the Promise Zone designation. The selected neighborhoods: all or part of the Hill District, Oakland, Uptown, Hazelwood, Glen Hazel, Carrick, Knoxville, Allentown, Mt. Washington, Beltzhoover, Beechview, Bon Air, St. Clair, Arlington, Arlington Heights, the South Side Slopes, the South Side Flats, the neighborhood of Mt. Oliver, and Mt. Oliver borough, have a collective poverty rate of 38.63 percent.
The other interesting moment occurred as part of a pro forma authorization to accept $2.5 million in state funds to help expand the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital of UPMC. It wasn’t routine because the conference room was filled with protestors from One Pittsburgh who want UPMC to pay more to its employees and to the city in taxes.
Ferlo said he sympathizes with the protesters, but added you can’t turn down state grant money because opponents of such largess can say you don’t need it in the future. State Rep. Ed Gainey, D-East Liberty, agreed, but said, “UPMC has been horrible to its workers.”
Though he voted with Ferlo, Gainey convinced the board to draft a letter voicing its concerns about UPMC.
Late the next day a National Labor Relations Board judge ordered UPMC to reinstate four workers with back pay who had been fired for supporting unionization efforts by the Service Employees International Union.
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