Update 04/17/24: Pittsburgh City Council voted preliminarily to change the city’s zoning code to allow for the construction of townhomes in more residential areas.
In a voice vote during a Standing Committees meeting, most members expressed support and there were no votes in opposition. Councilor Theresa Kail Smith abstained. A final vote is likely Monday.
Big zoning rumblings from small Pittsburgh neighborhood
Reported 4/16/24: A debate over the direction of one of Pittsburgh’s smaller neighborhoods is pulling the whole city toward a potential zoning change allowing for more housing density.
A Pittsburgh City Council hearing held last week may have also previewed future plans for overhauling the city’s zoning code through further legislation.
Council is poised to vote, as early as Wednesday, on a bill sponsored by Councilor Bobby Wilson that would allow people to build houses that share walls in areas with zoning that now allows only detached homes to be constructed. If the bill passes, it would impact about half of the city’s residential areas. The bill is sponsored by eight of the nine councilors.
The root of this citywide change is in Fineview, where efforts by the nonprofit City of Bridges Community Land Trust to build six townhomes on Lanark Street have been stymied by a group of residents who believe their neighborhood should focus on houses with yard space, less density and unimpeded views.
Perched between Perry South and Central Northside, and flanked by Interstate 279, Fineview has a notably steep gradient in a notably steep city. Above its Federal Street border sit the Allegheny Dwellings public housing community and the newer, mixed-income Sandstone Quarry apartments and townhomes.
The neighborhood of around 1,100 residents — around 40% of whom are white, per the 2020 census — has been the subject since 2021 of a planning process under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods program.
Though the neighborhood hasn’t yet won one of the eight-figure Choice Neighborhoods awards that have transformed parts of the East End and Hill District, the planning process has prompted reflection, litigation and legislation.
Different views of ‘vibrant and diverse’
What is vibrant and diverse is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder.
The planned townhomes on Lanark Street would violate Fineview’s zoning rules favoring detached housing, but City of Bridges applied for a variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment. That board approved the variance in January 2023, allowing the nonprofit to pursue its plan to build three pairs of attached homes. But Fineview residents Candace Cain and Ellen Mazo appealed the board’s decision and a Court of Common Pleas judge reversed the variance, halting the construction of attached homes.
“What the residents of Fineview want is what you want: a vibrant and diverse city,” Cain said during the March 5 City Planning Commission hearing on the zoning bill. “We want to build affordable housing and we want to work with developers.”
She continued, “Fineview is a small, low- to moderate-income neighborhood with fewer than 600 households. As a result, every housing development in Fineview has an outsized impact on our community.”
Cain urged the commissioners to vote against the bill, arguing that allowing attached housing will “increase density in areas of Fineview that are already dense. Lanark is close to the popular overlook, an area already vulnerable to congestion.”
Instead, she told the commissioners that the project should downsize.
The site on Lanark Street is owned by the Fineview Citizens Council [FCC], the area’s registered community organization, or RCO, a city designation bestowing a voice in development in a neighborhood. RCOs can pressure developers to contribute to social and civic causes. But this power can also lead to a Balkanization if interests split and rival groups form.
Cain headed the FCC board until 2002, but in 2022 created a splinter group called the Fineview Community Organization to oppose the building of townhomes in the neighborhood. The new organization aspires to become an RCO once the group establishes itself.
The groups have different approaches to ensuring Fineview’s balance of neighborliness and distinctiveness. The FCC is joined with the Perry Hilltop Citizens Council in a collaboration called Our Future Hilltop. Cain has voiced concern that Fineview and the FCC were being subsumed by their neighbors in much larger Perry South and Perry North.
Wilson, who represents Fineview, said he became involved after noticing the court’s decision and began discussing ways to get the attached housing built. He noted that the site used to host attached homes.
“I felt like it was a telling story about how there was once attached housing on those properties and this bill seeks to restore that,” Wilson said. “If we can’t restore the fabric of what made Pittsburgh such a great place to live for working families, I felt we had to do the right thing, which was to bring the code back to make sure that houses can be built attached.”
If the variance hadn’t been overturned, construction would have likely started earlier this year, according to City of Bridges Director of Real Estate Julie Nigro.
Council hearing garners variety of opinions
The solution Wilson landed on was to introduce an ordinance amending the city code to allow for single-unit attached residential buildings to be built in areas zoned for single-unit detached houses. The measure would permit townhomes and other attached housing in lots that are 35 feet wide or smaller in neighborhoods zoned for detached housing. Developers could seek an exemption to build attached homes on lots larger than 35 feet wide.
The bill won City Planning Commission approval on March 5.
Council held a public hearing on April 10 at which residents voiced concerns over how to create affordable housing, the cost of construction, whether city government should circumvent a court ruling and the role of civic organizations.
Commenters on Pittsburgh online forums about the issue have characterized critics of the zoning change as being NIMBY — standing for Not In My Backyard.
Some in the neighborhood have embraced an uptick in density.
Jon Hanrahan moved to Fineview in 2021, just as City of Bridges was building partnerships there. He recalled attending a community meeting to hear about its plan to build on Lanark Street.
“I remember learning about this exciting new thing and I had no idea this would occupy the majority of my time for the next three or four years,” said Hanrahan, now vice president of the FCC.
Currently, there are six houses in various conditions on the much-discussed strip of Lanark Street. Three of the houses were renovated by the FCC and are occupied by residents, according to Hanrahan. Another two are currently being renovated by City of Bridges. A sixth house is under a conservatorship with real estate nonprofit Rising Tide Partners.
Hanrahan said the addition of the proposed six attached homes would provide a form of density buildup that fits with his neighborhood and the city overall.
“People might chafe at larger developments or less dense single-family homes,” Hanrahan said. “So this is kind of a middle ground, a happy medium that a lot of people agree, is that rowhouses are a gentle density and that’s what we want to see in Pittsburgh.”
Hanrahan said the cost of housing is one of the greatest challenges the city and the country face and the kind of homes planned for Lanark Street are a local way to address this issue.
“The cost of a home is too damn high and this has become the real economic challenge of our time: inflation,” Hanrahan said. “I see this as a way to chip away at this on the ground level and to push for affordable housing development.”
Most of the more than 30 people who spoke at the April 10 council hearing agreed with the zoning change. But others strongly disagreed.
“This ordinance is so misrepresented, misguided I had to say something about it,” said David Demko, a Central Northside resident. “All the arguments supporting this ordinance are about affordable housing … Really nothing could be further from the truth.”
“The idea that zoning will create affordable housing is a myth,” he said, arguing that the opposite will happen and the land will increase in value by increasing the building options developers will have.
“The purpose of zoning is to protect the context and character of the neighborhood,” Demko said, adding that people who live in these neighborhoods “do not like their property rights taken away” by people who live in other neighborhoods.
But Jack Billings, a Squirrel Hill native and housing advocate pursuing a Ph.D. in economics, explained that creating new housing helps reduce housing prices and increases affordability.
“This issue has been studied exhaustively,” Billings said.
“In the final sense, every home delayed, every home not built means a family without a home in Pittsburgh — some driven out of the city, some driven into homelessness. To fail to act is to ignore their lives.”
Others who were against the zoning change said the process has been rushed.
Adrienne Johnson, a Fineview resident who moved there in 2019, cautioned that protections for detached-housing neighborhoods could diminish with the change.
“Before you rush to pass this ordinance, you should be aware of unintended consequences,” Johnson added, arguing that living in a rowhouse comes with downsides. “They are OK in a pinch but you’re basically tied to the ability and motivation of the rest of your rowhouse neighbors to maintain the house and keep it in order.”
Joanna Deming, the executive director of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council, said she supported the zoning change because it would allow for more housing.
“Single family has some things about it that are inherently racist,” said Deming, a former leader of the FCC. “It was used by people in the suburbs to keep the suburbs white. It’s been used in the city to keep neighborhoods white,” she said, noting that Pittsburgh’s population is less diverse than similar cities.
Wilson said the bill is just the first step in overhauling the city’s zoning to allow for more density and, therefore, more housing.
“I’m looking forward to revamping zoning codes overall.”
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.
