Cable Advisory Committee - public_hearing

Good morning and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's cablecast public hearing for Monday, June 22nd, 2026, relative to Bill 20260426. Will the clerk please read the title of the bill?

Bill 426, Ordinance Amending and Supplementing the Pittsburgh City Code Title II Fiscal Article 9 Property Taxes by Creating a New Chapter 269 Real Estate Tax Exemptions for Constructions or Adaptive Reuse of Buildings on Pittsburgh Northside.

Thank you. And for the record, today, we're not joined by any council members right now, but if they do come, I'll recognize them as they show their presence. So we're going to move on to our first word of business will be to have a short presentation of the legislation, and that will be where you can go ahead and introduce yourself.

Okay, my name is Morgan Martin and I serve as legislative aid for Councilman Wilson and I'll be giving a brief presentation on the legislation and what it does. So as the Councilman said, we are here today to speak about Bill 2026-0426, which establishes a new local economic revitalization tax assistant program for a designated area on the north side. So this legislation creates a new Northside-specific LERDA program, and it also establishes a temporary tax incentive to encourage redevelopment and the adaptive reuse of projects located on the Northside in a specific designated area. And it creates a new chapter 269 of the Pittsburgh City Code and establishes a targeted tax exemption program located within this designated area on the north side and encourages the rehabilitation and the redevelopment of older buildings. And it also supports office to residential conversions and other adaptive reuse projects. So to qualify under the legislation properties generally must be located within the designated program area the multi story buildings constructed before January 1st 2026 continue at least 5,000 square feet have more than 50% office use either currently or historically and have retail uses comprising of less than 25% of the building's total square footage. And this legislation creates two levels of tax exemption, a standard tax exemption and an enhanced tax exemption. For the standard tax exemption, eligible projects may receive up to 50% of exemption of the increase in assessed values resulting from improvements to the property. And this exemption is available for a period of six years. And for an enhanced tax exemption, these are for projects that provide additional public benefits, and the legislation offers this enhanced tax exemption, and projects may qualify for a greater level of tax relief by incorporating affordable housing units or creating significant numbers of new jobs. And depending on the level of public benefit provided, eligible projects may receive up to 100% exemption on the value of the improvements for as long as 20 years. And so, as I mentioned, this legislation only applies within the designated Northside area, which is pictured here, and bounded by the black lines, and is located within the Allegheny Commons Park. And in the legislation, this picture and map is also shown under Exhibit A. Thank you.

Thank you Morgan. Our next order of business would be good to go to our registered speakers and just to confirm. Madam clerk of any registered speakers. It's been as there's no register speakers. Our next word is we go to anyone that's in the audience that will wish to speak. I'm not seeing anyone there's a one. I've seen one come in there's no audience so we're move on to the time where we typically have comment from members. So I'd like to make a comment, which is, you know, as we continue to see downtown struggle in terms of the tax base for our real estate income, we're seeing that these, you know, especially downtown businesses, uh, these older structures have, they need a lot of more assistance to get these projects done. And there's only so much that the city can do to really, uh, try to infuse some, some, um, some money into the project. And one way that we've done that historically has been through tax abatements. And so that, that was activated downtown. Uh, the, the, the Lerner, uh, um, the tax abatement that we're talking about here for the North side for a particular part of the North side, um, that would be the same as what's been activated downtown. And I definitely see that necessary, um, in this area, especially because there are some really, I would say really nice historic structures that we want to keep on the North side, even though that area does have, um, quite a history of, of, uh, What I would say is it would be interesting to go back in time to see if we would actually do that urban renewal project, which is Allegheny Center, if we would do that again. But since it exists and there are some structures there that are in need of a new life, I do see the need to – actually, I don't see any difference between – Those structures and the same historic structures that are downtown. So therefore, some of this assistance can go to the north side as well. We see that downtown obviously is the Golden Triangle. But to extend that to other areas of the city, especially in this area where there are some older structures where we are seeing that these conversions from office to residential, there are some very large gaps. Prices are very expensive now. And to get people into these structures, these older structures as soon as possible, be really important for our income tax base. And so that and also for the local community there and for to take advantage of the different tiers of affordability. Which would really make these projects work. So, for instance, if. If the project did take advantage of anywhere between 60% to 80% of the AMI requirement, they will get 60% to 80% of the taxes off per year. So the real estate taxes. And that also opens up. a decent amount of housing for the local institutions that are around there, for instance, like the hospital, Allegheny General Hospital. So looking forward to seeing some of these projects come to completion here in terms of the financing and hope we can really get something done on the north side so that these structures just don't remain vacant. With that, anything further we have to do technically? Okay. All right. Thank you very much, and have exhaust in the business of the public hearing. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.