Cable Advisory Committee - public_hearing

good morning and welcome to pittsburgh city council's cablecast public hearing for thursday july 9th 2026 relative to bill 2026-0513 will the clerk please read the title of the bill

Ordinance amending the Pittsburgh code title 9 zoning code article one introduction and establishment section, I know 2.0 3 zoning map to rezone parcels one 25 G 13 one 25 G 14 one 25 G 15 for residential single unit detached low density to urban industrial in the home with West neighborhood.

thank you madam clerk and for the record we are joined by myself councilman kahari mosley other members may be joining us shortly and our first order of business will be a brief introduction of the legislation by representatives from the department of city planning followed by a presentation by the applicant katie seftis thank you councilman and uh and members

An application for a zoning map amendment was introduced at the City Planning Commission for three parcels in the Homewood West neighborhood. The proposal would rezone parcels 125G13, 125G14, and 125G15 from residential single unit detached low density to urban industrial. The Planning Commission, at its meeting on May 5, 2026, made a positive recommendation to City Council on the proposed Zoning Map Amendment. Upon conclusion of the public hearing required to be held by City Council, the bill may be enacted with five affirmative votes. The involved parcels are bounded by Kelly Street to the north, Formosa Way to the south, a residential home on the parcel to the east, and an office slash institutional building on the parcel to the west. The subject parcels are adjacent to an existing urban industrial district. A map of the proposed rezoning is included within the materials forwarded to City Council. The urban industrial district allows a broader set of uses on the site, including multifamily residential, than what the current R1DL district would allow. A copy of the site development standards are included within the forwarded materials. In 2023, a similar rezoning was approved as part of Council Bill 2023-1393 to rezone parcels on a portion of the block on the northern side of Kelly Street from R1DL to Urban Industrial UI. development activities meeting was held virtually on march 12th 2026 with the homewood community development collaborative the registered community organization for this area the summary report is attached to the council packet the rezoning application was also reviewed for compliance against the homewood comprehensive community plan a copy of the plan conformance report is also included within your packet Property owners within 150 feet of the proposed zone change were notified of the proposal via mailed and posted notice. Notice was also posted on the site, on the city planning notices site, 21 days in advance of the scheduled hearing. With that, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you. And I would like to invite the applicant to come up and give a brief presentation as well. feel free to introduce yourselves and thank you for joining us today

Yeah, thank you for having us, Councilman. Really pleased to be here this morning to present at a public hearing on the proposed rezoning of these three parcels in the Homewood West neighborhood. If we could go to the next slide, I'll introduce our team briefly that will be presenting today. My name is James Aish. I'm the Director of Real Estate Development at Action Housing. We are the developer of this site, and with me today is Jody Lincoln, Senior Development Officer also with Action Housing. And our design partner, Moss Architect, Katie Seftis, will be presenting. And I did want to note, also in attendance is M.L. Meyer. She's the Senior Director of Real Estate with the URA, who you know. And they are the property owner of all of the parcels we'll be discussing today.

Thank you.

I also wanted to note two projects that we Action Housing have developed recently. For those unfamiliar with Action Housing, we are a nonprofit affordable housing developer and supportive service provider located here in Pittsburgh, but we do work throughout Allegheny County. We currently have about 2,000 units of affordable rental housing that we own and operate. And I'm showing two projects here. Our most recent one, which opened about two years ago, Flats on Ford, This is a fully affordable rental project located in Squirrel Hill at the foot of Murray Avenue at the intersection of Forward and Murray. And Penn Matilda Apartments, which was opened, I think, about eight years ago, located on Penn Avenue in the Bloomfield-Garfield area. That project was also, incidentally, designed by Moss Architects. And these two projects represent the type of work that we do. So to briefly orient you to the project site, we see the map here with the project site noted in red. This is located in the east end, just northeast of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Penn Avenue. So you'll note the east busway directly to the south and then Bakery Square kind of to the northwest or the upper left portion of this slide. On the next slide, we have a closer view of the project site highlighted in yellow. So in this slide, you're looking roughly southwest. The frontage of the site is Long Kelly Street. You can see to the right on this slide the commercial uses that exist along Fifth Avenue, Washington Boulevard. So there's self-storage, beer distributor, fast food, things of that nature. And then you can see as you move to the left into Homewood West, kind of the transition to more of a residential nature. And the next two slides show images of our project site. So these are our four parcels. The image on the left shows the three vacant parcels that are zoned R1DL. These are the three that are up for consideration for rezoning. These have been vacant for over 20 years. Again, all four of these parcels are owned by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. The image on the right shows the fourth parcel, which is a vacant UPV, former UPMC building, which was donated to the URA with an expressed desire to help forward an affordable housing project.

Hello. So as James had mentioned, the lots under consideration, the three vacant parcels, are currently part of an isolated kind of pocket of R1DL zoning in the city, kind of within a larger expanse of urban industrial UI zoned uses. The former UPMC building that we saw on the previous slide is the lot currently zoned UI, which you can see kind of bracketed in red, our total project site. So the three parcels zoned R1DL are shown in the yellow that were under consideration for today. Earlier, it was mentioned that there were 19 parcels that were rezoned to urban industrial in the fall of 2023. Those are two on the north side of our site along Kelly Street, and that was for an anticipated get-go gas station project that has no longer moving forward. This slide is again kind of highlighting the three lots that we are discussing today that we are requesting be rezoned to urban industrial. Those lots in combination with the fourth lot that has the former UPMC building together are really required in order to make this project work successfully as a multifamily affordable housing project. All four lots are owned by the URA, and they were donated or obtained by the URA with the intention of something that's a community-driven purpose being built on these lots. The next few slides are some images just illustrating the historical development of the full project site. The lots in question for rezoning have been vacant and not underutilized for at least 20 years. As you can see in the photo on the right, going back to May 2024, you can clearly see those lots as being vacant. Former UPMC building has been vacant since 2020 when UPMC left that building. And so we feel that this zoning change really allows for springboarding development for this kind of underutilized portion of the neighborhood. So why is the zone change necessary? As I mentioned, the larger kind of property site expense is needed in order to facilitate the housing development size that is really needed for this affordable housing project. The UI zoning district allows for a special exception for multifamily use. I also mentioned that this land was donated to the URA with the intention of building a community-driven type of use, which multifamily affordable housing aligns with. And there's existing, this RD1L zoning district is really an isolated kind of spot zoning condition that exists within a larger UI zone. But more importantly, I think this proposed project really aligns with the City of Pittsburgh's goals to increase affordable housing within the city, and it also aligns with the Homewood Cluster Plan. And so the cluster plan Specifically outlines Kelly Street for development opportunities at those vacant lots. They would like to have a gateway into the neighborhood along this district, which we feel like our project aligns very well with.

So we are proposing for this site, if we get the zoning approval, to build a multifamily affordable housing development. We're still in early schematic design. It's part of a long process, but we'd be looking at approximately 38 units, and all units would be affordable for folks under 60% area median income because we'd be going for the low-income areas. housing tax credit awards. So this whole process is part of preparing for our LIHTC application that we would be applying for in the next round. We're anticipating that to be in early 2027. So as mentioned, this is an extensive process. We'd be looking at five years if we get funded in this next round until construction is completed and lease up is happening. We are starting with zoning, though, as a feasibility requirement for the project. So if we get approval on the zoning change, then we'll be going to the zoning board for a number of variances and special exceptions related to neighborhood compatibility, apply for the financing, and if awarded, go through our pre-development and construction over the end of the 2020s.

so as jody mentioned we are very early in the overall design process for this project this is a kind of critical milestone for us to get over in order to further the applications that jody just mentioned but i'll walk through our current planned use for the site so what you're looking at is the full four lots and what we're proposing to develop on the ground floor which would be primarily amenities for the building occupants on the ground floor. But we are planning for a community room, which would be available to the neighborhood to utilize as an event space or a meeting space. We are planning for off street parking, which would be accessed off of foremost away, which would serve the residents needs. This project is in alignment with the adjacent residential single family homes in terms of the setback off of Kelly Street, but also it is raised above the Kelly Street elevation to kind of match a similar site condition there. What that allows for us is some space and in order to have site accessibility for occupants to get up into the building and as well as landscaping along that frontage. This slide illustrates the second, third, and fourth floors, as well as the anticipated roof plan of the actual unit floors themselves. These will be a mix of one-bed, two-bed, and efficiency units as the current anticipated breakdown for the total 38 units. And this is also in alignment with what we have heard from the community so far in terms of the need for sizing and types of affordable spaces and rental units in this neighborhood. This is a conceptual 3D massing illustration of what we currently are anticipating this building would look like. As I had mentioned before, the Homewood Cluster Plan identifies Kelly Street as having kind of a gateway into the neighborhood, and we feel like this building could really act as that, as well as a buffer. to the existing three residential homes, single-family homes that exist on Kelly Street from the more commercial uses that are on Fifth Avenue, which are more towards the right side of this image. So as the building gets closer to those homes, we're anticipating breaking down the scale of the building to kind of help have a contextual relationship to the proportion of those existing homes.

So Action Housing as a developer is deeply committed to a robust community engagement process in all of our projects and Kelly Street, no exception. We actually first started talking to the URA and the Homewood community about this project in 2022. had some initial designs and then stepped away for a couple of years and began to work on this project again last fall. So we've had a number of meetings with local council, Mn. Mosley, the neighborhood groups, and direct neighbors impacted by the project. So the last six months have been a really active engagement process with the community, and we're also dedicated to keep that throughout the process of the project, including during construction, and have active engagement for lease up. Upcoming too, we do have the zoning variances and the URA disposition process, so there'll be continual opportunity for public comment and engagement on this project in the coming months. And then just to highlight some of the project benefits for the neighborhood and city as a whole. Currently, these are vacant lots and a vacant building, so activating land. As Katie was mentioning, we think this makes a really good transition from the more commercial UI uses into the neighborhood. And it really does align with what we've seen in the neighborhood cluster plans and in talking to, you know, the neighborhood community groups have gotten a lot of really good positive feedback. I also want to mention since, you know, we have brought up the GetGo UI conversion, that this project, while we're asking for this change of zoning now and then that'll be permanent, if this project doesn't get financed, all of this land is still in control by the URA and any future project, if this specific one doesn't go forward, would have to go through the same URA community disposition. So it's not owned by a for-profit landlord that would then sell it to a more UI-inclined use. Yeah, just in summary, the maps here and images to highlight the three lots in that R1 district that we would be seeking to convert to UI to enable this project.

Thank you. Is there anything else you want to add?

That's it. That concludes the presentation. Presentation, yep. Happy to entertain any questions.

Thank you. Yeah, I just have a couple. know and again it was 38 units um right now is is is the prognosis um and it was uh it was studios ones in two bedroom absolutely yep yeah one i just want to um you know thank you for the extensive community engagement that that you've done um you know over this uh i believe lena reached out to me feel like almost a year ago i think of my initial you know conversation right um you know about this project and i'm glad to see that um it is uh you know being received positively you know by the community obviously a community that needs more um housing in general but obviously you know more affordable housing particularly newer affordable housing and not just naturally occurring affordable housing but affordable housing that's being done intentionally um So I think, you know, this is, you know, I believe, you know, pretty cut and dry, very straightforward. I don't believe I have any other questions. I would like to provide an opportunity if there's anyone here in the gallery that would have any public comment to open it up for public comment. okay being that we have no public speakers and we have no additional members from council I just want to just reiterate you know my comments thank you so much for keeping my office engaged in this process and continuing to be in touch with not only the community groups and stakeholders in the community, but also taking an intentional approach to the residents who live adjacent to this parcel, who I know had a lot of concerns about the get-go. And I appreciate the fact that you, in a very intentional way, have reached out to them and kept them and have treated them as a stakeholder, similarly to a community organization or a larger institution within the community. I think that's very important. I continue to encourage you to move forward with that spirit and keeping those residents that live in close proximity to this parcel as important stakeholders in the process. So being that there is no public speakers and the presentation has concluded, having exhausted the business of this public hearing, this meeting is now adjourned.