(Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority board moved on a number of housing and business initiatives, including the sale of the Hunt Armory to the Penguins.
by Eric Jankiewicz, PublicSource
The City of Pittsburgh is one step closer to possibly raising millions of dollars for affordable housing development through the issuance of bonds.
After Mayor Ed Gainey last week announced the effort to use bonds to borrow funds, the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority [URA] board approved the plan to support unspecified programs to preserve and create affordable housing. The board on Thursday approved the issuance of revenue bonds of up to $42 million and to cooperate with the city to accept funding of $2.5 million per year for 25 years to pay off the bond debt.
City Council must now pass legislation to trigger the initiatives.
During last week’s announcement, Gainey said that legislation would be introduced to council and that the bond would bring in about $25 million to $40 million over three years.
According to the URA’s resolution, the bond proceeds would then be used by the URA to bolster new and existing affordable housing programming serving Pittsburgh.
During Gainey’s announcement, Chief Economic Development Officer Kyle Chintalapalli said the city hadn’t yet decided on which nonprofit groups to fund with the money. Chintalapalli chairs the URA board.
“We’re all in agreement that we’re open to robust conversations about how these dollars are spent but first we need to secure them and that will take some time,” said City Councilman Daniel Lavelle, who is also a URA board member and made his comments during the board’s meeting.
“I’m asking City Council not to procrastinate but to move on [bond] bills and move it forward,” he said. “After that we can have a robust conversation on how it’s spent.”
According to the resolution, the estimated time to issue the bonds and receive the proceeds will be three to five months.
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