Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

yeah that's a residential yeah she has pretty nice grad school yeah sorry because yeah she's right in the middle of it but not paying very much for it okay we're about two minutes out from start just for a little time check I got my sex thank you Kate cheese it's good call hey Justin

This kind of answers the question we were asking earlier. In stories and for requirements are waived. So we're going to be here. So I mean, we should clarify that. That's right. We're live. Okay. We still have about two minutes to start. So we'll.

All right, about one minute out.

Thanks. Really not. I don't think so.

Okay. Well, welcome and good afternoon. We are at the briefing portion of today's Planning Commission meeting for June 2nd, 2026. I'm going to go ahead and start with roll call and then I will talk a little bit about briefing. I'm going to do roll call and looking for Commissioner Burton-Falk. Present. Commissioner Hunt. Present. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano. Present. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly. Present. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill.

Present.

Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla. Present. Thank you. Commissioner Reppe. Here. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz. Present. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker.

Present.

thank you okay so this is the briefing session of planning commission and briefing means that presentations are heard for preliminary public presentation and there will only be questions comments from commissioners and no public testimony at this time i'm going to go ahead and read the one agenda item for briefing today which is briefing agenda item a that is title 11 the historic preservation code this will be updates to the historic preservation code and presenting that this afternoon is ms reed turning it over

Hello, Commissioners. Thanks for having me here. My name is Katie Reed. I'm a principal planner with the Department of City Planning, and I'm here to present some updates to Title 11, which is the Historic Preservation Code. These updates came initially out of an audit that was requested by City Planning. from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 2023. So a lot of these were things that came out of that audit recommendations that would bring our program sort of up to date with current preservation practices and help to streamline and clarify our processes and our code. Our original code was written in 1976, so it hasn't been substantially updated since then. So this was long overdue. Oh, wait. okay uh so just uh to familiarize you with uh what we're dealing with this is a map of all the historic landmarks and historic districts in pittsburgh there are quite a few they stretch across all parts of the city so there are a variety of changes that are being made to the code but the most impactful um with regards to planning commission is oh wait sorry i forgot about the slide apologies um so title 11 is the um the portion of our code of ordinances that um protects our architectural cultural and aesthetic heritage it provides a regulation needed to prevent demolition or inappropriate alteration of significant local landmarks why update now title 11 needs to be rewritten to streamline processes clarify roles ensure all groups are represented and update language and organization of the ordinance to reflect best practices and historic preservation All right. So the one item that's being updated that really is the only one that impacts planning commission is eliminating commission redundancy. So currently there when historic districts and individual landmarks. So historic districts being a collection, a larger geographical collection of of. buildings or structures or objects and individual landmarks being individual. When both of those different categories go through the process, they come to Planning Commission for two meetings currently, and they go to the Historic Review Commission also for two meetings. So this very much extends sort of the process of a review. in the proposed uh well i guess first to point out um there at the bottom of the page you'll see something from our current code which explains what the purview of the city planning commission is with regards to reviewing historic landmark applications so city planning commission shall consider effects of designation on adjoining properties and surrounding neighborhoods within the framework of established planning development and land use objectives for the city of pittsburgh So the purview of Planning Commission is somewhat limited, as you can tell. And one of the things that we've discovered over time is that Planning Commission frequently does not have very much feedback, nor does their purview include individual landmarks. There really applies much more to historic districts. So in the revised ordinance, individual landmarks will not be reviewed by Planning Commission. You will still review historic districts, but we'll take that down to one meeting instead of two. So instead of there being a briefing like this, And then hearing in action where a vote is taken and there's a public comment, there'll just be a hearing in action. So we won't lose a public meeting for historic districts that'll still take place. But this will speed the process along somewhat. Also, it should be noted that historic review commission will also reduce to one meeting for all landmarking instead of two. There are two processes that happen in historic review commission and both of them will happen in one meeting. It really was kind of, unnecessary for them to be spread between two meetings. So this will speed up the process of nominations going through the entire process and making their way to city council for a final vote. The other proposed changes to the ordinance include a commitment to inclusive preservation, reorganization of sections for clarity and a simplification of language, clarification of process timelines. We've included a process for revoking landmark status. We have made city staff ex-officio. There are two positions that are currently voting historic review commission. And we've expanded and diversified commission membership. And the last one is to introduce framework for interior landmark of publicly owned buildings. So if you have any further questions on those, you're welcome to ask them. But those are not really, you know, under the purview of the Planning Commission, those really impact other portions of the process. Tentative timeline here. We've met with most of the council districts to provide them an update. This is here for a planning commission briefing. It'll go for a review briefing at the Historic Review Commission tomorrow and then also at their July meeting because we'll go more in depth there since this has more have an impact on them, then it should be back here for hearing and action later in June. And then final hearing and action at HRC in August. Our hope is to submit it for the mayor's agenda in mid August, because they're on recess because councils on recess in August, it won't begin the council process until the beginning of September.

And that's it. All right. Thank you very much. Commissioners, at this time, are there any questions or comments as it relates to this?

I have one question. Go ahead. So I remember seeing some information from an early engagement that was going on related to these changes. And it seemed like there was maybe some possibility that there was going to be change in I think specifically the section about who can nominate for historic review. So like right now, churches and religious sites can only be nominated by the owner of that site. Is that remaining?

Yeah, so that's remaining for now. We've we looked at that. We removed it and we will revisit it after these changes have gone through.

What's the what's driving that, I guess?

um these changes are mostly administrative and easy to get through and that's a more difficult larger conversation got it so you're saying that there's going to be additional uh work looking into that when we have the bandwidth in our division to take it on we hope to look into that further understood thank you

all right commissioner vance uh commissioner o'neill uh thank you for the presentation i think it was very clear and we do have a very limited role in review of this so it's great to reduce that redundancy i just wanted to add on um in your chart you showed that you know we'd be reducing the uh number of meetings but there's still an opportunity for public comment on all of these um not only at hrc but also at council uh so just more for the record that people will have an opportunity to speak it's just uh

getting everybody through the process quicker sure for individual landmarks which will not then have a hearing in action and will not receive public comment at planning commission they still have the opportunity in a historic review commission and at council so multiple opportunities for the public to comment great thank you yeah all right any additional comments commissioners or questions all right so uh you did really well

You got through that relatively quickly. Okay, so we can't start the second half of the agenda until 2 p.m., so feel free to visit the vending machines or the restrooms. We'll see you back at 2. Thank you.

where is it in oxford this is whatever she says yeah that's not too bad i don't know i can't good job i don't think the entire is having trouble with the money guys was on there, right? I kept getting kicked off or something. Oh, yeah.

It's only available to internal users.

Yeah, that's what I was going to change. No, it was me. So go on the shared drive now and see if it's there, and then I'll verify with Kate if she downloaded it. Okay, copy.

Do you want anything, LaShawn?

No, I'm good. Thank you so much.

Yeah. I know. But it'd be helpful, I think. We have 20 minutes.

What's the nearest Starbucks?

Right around the corner.

I mean, I don't drink coffee. I mean, I do have Mountain Dew now and then, so.

It's, she's getting it.

Yes, but I think this extreme is that's where we were.

It's great way around everything. I'll yell the bottom. It's in people can't participate. Actually, you know, it's been a bacon for 40. It's like that's all. Can't believe we're out in this Bailey, whatever they have on words. Yeah, so many. Yeah, but is that the one? Was it search time? Is it just a minute before start?

Our court reporter is there and can hear us. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I hear that. Yeah. Even when we go to the 22nd, I'm not going to come. I have just two minutes left.

Okay.

And it is two o'clock exactly. So good afternoon, good and beautiful people. Welcome to Planning Commission. Today is June 2nd, 2026. Before I go ahead and read through the agenda, I'm going to do roll call for today. Commissioner Burton-Falk, present. Commissioner Hunt, present. Thank you. Commissioner Antariano, present. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly, present. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill, present. Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla? Present. Thank you. Commissioner Reppy? Present. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz? Present. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker?

Present.

Thank you. All right. Reading through today's agenda. Agenda item A will be approval of minutes. Agenda item B is correspondence. Agenda item C is plan of lots. We have one item under plan of lots. Agenda item D is hearing and action. under hearing and action we have four items and agenda item e is the director's report moving back to the agenda item a commissioners we are going to do approval of minutes and before us we are in receipt of may 19 2026 unless there are any edits do i have a motion from the floor to approve so move all right i have a move from commissioner kelly do i have a second second i have a commission uh commissioner quentinia for a second i'm gonna do roll call commissioner burton falk aye commissioner hunt aye thank you commissioner interiano aye thank you commissioner kelly aye thank you commissioner o'neill abstain thank you commissioner quentinia aye thank you commissioner repi aye thank you commissioner vats aye thank you and commissioner walker All right, so moved. I'll move on to agenda item B, which is correspondence. Correspondence for Planning Commission for June 2nd, 2026 is as follows regarding Council Bill 2025-1545. We are in receipt of correspondence from Colleen Cadman, AARP of Pennsylvania, We are in receipt of correspondence from Jack Billings, Moaz Ahmed, Leiba Vigar. And if I'm saying any of these wrong, I do apologize ahead of time. Receipt of correspondence from Kathy Ray. Additional correspondence from Colleen Schuta, Board President of Polish Hills Civic Association. Correspondence from Candace Kane. Correspondence from Mark Nabil. This is also from Polish Hill Civic Association and its board of directors. We are in receipt of correspondence from Ellen Mazzo. correspondence from Christine Grenci, and finally correspondence from Pamela Johnson. That concludes the correspondence for June 2nd, 2026. Moving on to agenda item C, which is plan of lots. We have one item under plan of lots and it is as follows. dcp-lot-2026-00096 at 743 technology drive this is a major subdivision in south oakland presenting this afternoon is mr johnson um i need to recuse myself thank you so much commissioner for today's the item is canceled for today's that item is canceled for today so you don't have to go anywhere thank you

All right, very good. Thank you so much.

All right, then we are moving on to the hearing and action portion of today. The hearing and action means items will be presented, then we have public testimony, and then after that commission will vote. So I'm going to read through all items. And then we'll go back up and start with item number one. For hearing and action under agenda item D, number one is BDA-2026-03415. For 107 6th Street, item number two under hearing and action, DCP-MPZC-2026-03415. at 3025 East Carson Street. Item number three under hearing and action is DCP-ZDR-2021-12140 at 525 South Aiken Avenue. Item number four, Council Bill 2025-1545. Moving back to item number one, uh under d hearing in action bda-2026-03415 at 1076th street this is the renaissance hotel new signs in the central business district presenting that uh this afternoon is mr rott oh

Mohit Rao, Good afternoon, Commissioners. This is Mohit Rao, planner with DCP. Mohit Rao, Application BDA-2026-03415 for installing high wall signs was filed in by Clifford Levin in GTC zoning district. As per zoning code, the proposed high wall sign requires a design review and approval by city's planning commission. The proposed high wall sign is as follows. One high wall sign, the arbitrary hotel, will be mounted at 170 feet above ground on the northwestern east side of the structure. It will not be roof-mounted nor projected above the ground. about the parapet wall the proposed sign will be 224.3 square feet in size which is no more than two percent of the exposed facade area on the northwestern side that is 25 862 square feet the the sign will not include uh any motion or any or animation and will not exceed luminous of 2000 2500 needs during the daytime and 250 needs during any other time uh The proposed sign will be in-kind replacement of existing signs in the same position. Design review staff has reviewed the question request with outcome as not required. This application also has two other signs proposed at ground level, which is one projecting sign and one canopy sign going to zoning board for a variance on 11 June. no development activities was required for this application and thus no development activities meeting was conducted. Thank you. Staff recommends the approval of this application with following conditions. The final construction plans, including the site plan elevation, be reviewed and approved by the zoning administrator prior to issuing the final ROSA. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Good afternoon. My name is Cliff Levine with Dennis Cone and Grigsby, counsel to RLJ. Lodging with me is Melissa Kenrick, who's the project manager for the project that is basically transforming the Renaissance Hotel into a hotel that will be known as the Atterbury. I believe, did we get the two other individuals joining? Jim Wallant is the vice president of RLJ for design and architecture, and John Kelly is the sign manufacturer who's been working with us. This is really a very straightforward case. uh appreciate the the summary uh the really the the review the commission is looking at under uh section 91903 m7c you're looking to see if a high wall sign is less than two percent of the facade and this is substantially less but we'll give you some we only have about 10 or so slides so i i can just whip through them let's see here go to the Next slide. The Renaissance Hotel is right at Sixth Street Bridge, right across from PNC Park. You see the red dot on the second page. On the third page, it shows the zoning district. It shows the dot, blue dot this time, but it's indicating which district is in its golden triangle C district. as you look across the ways again there's the view of the renaissance i'm sure members of the commission are familiar with it anybody who's walked over to the pnc park would go right past that building here's a uh up front or a closer view and as you can see renaissance exists now it is on the top of the facade um Go to the next slide. There was a certificate of occupancy for that sign that was issued in 2016. This is just one of the preliminary drawings. This is showing This is basically showing where the Atterbury would be. So it's just where you saw the Renaissance. It's going to say the Atterbury Hotel. This sign is slightly larger because it's not just the Atterbury. The Renaissance just says Renaissance. This says in smaller print, if you will, the and hotel. So this is the Atterbury Hotel. this is a good description or a good view of what uh the size of the science of the renaissance you can see the the height and width and then we show that as well with the the atterbury hotel and we have a summary slide that's going to show um the various dimensions so here's the specific dimensions on on the slide that's titled sign package and it shows the atterbury um hotel shows um basically the 598 square feet you see right above the lettering of the atterbury hotel um it's not it you know it's a fix to the wall so that's a compliant with the the ordinance and here um i hope we can zoom this a little bit but i could let me zoom that but okay thanks that's better so this just showed this is the analysis for the commission's review the existing signage 149 square feet the proposed signage including the lettering with the and hotel is 224 square feet we then took the building dimensions which is reflected in those exhibits the total building square footage 25 990 square feet and so two percent of that would equal 519.8 square feet and this sign is about half less than half of that 224.3 square feet so it's 0.086 percent of the signage we um our neighbor is the biome um and so we went to the cultural trust and presented the sign packages for this sign and also we're going to change obviously the marquee can't be the renaissance anymore it's going to be the atterbury and they had reviewed it and they said the proposed the proposal aesthetic is consistent with the biome and that they had no objection to the signage and so although we have a number of people it's a relatively simple Is it under 2% or not? And it is. And so for that, we'd ask for approval.

Thank you so much. Given that concludes the presentation at this time, we open the floor for public testimony. Let's check online. Is there anyone online that would like to speak regarding this? All right. Fantastic. Anybody here in the room? Given none. Okay. Commissioners. I just have a clarifying question.

Reading the condition that's on here, what is the process if this condition were not to be adopted? The process of which condition? So the condition of the final construction plans, including site plans, be reviewed and approved by the zoning administrator prior to issuing the final record of zoning approval. Is it not normally approved by the zoning administrator? What is the process by which it would go through if the condition is not approved? Because I'm trying to get that as a clarifying point.

Good afternoon. My name is Kate Rakus, R-A-K-U-S. I'm a senior planning manager here. So yeah, if the final conditions weren't met, then we wouldn't sign off on the zoning approval and they couldn't get their sign permit.

I'm sorry. If this condition was not to be included in the recommendation, what is the process that they would go through without that condition being included there?

The condition is sort of belt and suspendering what we would review before we signed off on the zoning approval. It's just sort of what it's our normal process, normal course of reviewing and signing off on the final.

So we are just reiterating the normal process that it goes through. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Is that helpful? Excellent. All right. Any additional questions or comments? If hearing none, do I have a motion from the floor to approve with the conditions as stated in our reports? So moved. All right. So I have a move from Commissioner Kelly, a second from Commissioner Quintanilla. I'm going to go ahead and do roll call here. Commissioner Burton Falk. Aye. Commissioner Hunt. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano.

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Kelly. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla.

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Reppy. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Vance.

Aye.

Thank you. And Commissioner Walker. Aye. Thank you so much. Okay. The motion passes. Have a great day.

Thank you.

All right. Moving on to the next agenda item under item D, hearing and action. We are at agenda item number two, which is as follows. DCP-MPZC-2026-00069 at 3025 East Carson Street. This is an amendment to the SP5 PLDP in the Southside Flats. Presenting this afternoon is Mr. Johnson.

And before you start, I will be recusing from this item.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair O'Neill.

Christian Johnson, Senior Planner for Department of City Planning. An application for BDA 2026-00156 was submitted by Caroline Verga on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh for a parking lot adjacent to a university building at 3025 Carson Street. Parking lot includes 13 parking spaces, including one ADA parking space. The site will also include parking for six bikes. Two items from the preliminary land development plan that the applicant does not meet and proposes to amend include A, major surface lot shall be avoided along Gateway Boulevard, Carson Street, and Marina Boulevard, and located to the rear of buildings, and B, all at-grade lots fronting primary roadways shall be set back not less than 10 feet from the right-of-way line of such roadways. To address the aforementioned two items, amendments are proposed for the SP5 Preliminary Land Development Plan under DCP-MPZC-2026-00069 to be presented today by the applicant. The parking lot plan as proposed meets all zoning code requirements, including landscaping requirements and screening requirements. The development activities meeting was held on April 30th, 2026 with Southside Community Council. A copy of the dam report is included with this hearing report. staff recommendation is that the planning commission of the city of pittsburgh approves applications bda 2026-00703 and dcp mpzz-2026-0069 with the following conditions all domey permits will be reviewed and approved prior to issuing the final record of zoning approval and the final construction plans including the site plans and elevations will be reviewed and approved by the zoning administrator prior to issuing the final record of zoning approval i will now turn it over to the applicant

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

I'm Carolyn Berger. I'm the assistant vice chancellor for campus planning the University of Pittsburgh with me today have Joseph Galbraith. He's the project manager with gateway engineers and the expert on this project. Devin Johnson, who is our planner at the University of Pittsburgh and our liaison with the city and Terry leisure is on the call. She's the project manager for the University of Pittsburgh on this project. We are here. We would like to construct a permanent surface parking lot where there is an existing temporary lot located adjacent to the McGowan Institute facility at 3025 East Carson Street. There is currently no parking on the site, so we are proposing 13 parking spaces, one ADA space, and city standard bike racks. This facility is where we have our neuroimaging lab. This is where we study how the brain regulates blood flow to understand stroke and Alzheimer's disease. And with that show is going to give you good afternoon.

This 1st slide here is really just to give you some context exactly where a lot is. As you can see, you are in between Sarah street and hot metal street. We would be on the north side of East Carson street. To the east of our lot is an existing traffic light and also to the west. So we're kind of bounded by those two traffic lights as it relates to traffic. Here is just another render that gives you context. As it sits today, East Carson Street, there is a raised median. So traffic flow into this proposed lot will be right in and then right out only. And then again, you can just see the traffic lights on each side and then all the parking on the north side of the building that is parking associated with the apartment building there. So this area is where we're proposing the parking being that there is no existing parking as there is today. Here's just an enlargement rendering, shows the 13 spaces along the east side of the lot. We do have a curb cut approval for the entrance off of East Carson. The bike racks are located on the southeastern portion of this plan, and then you can see the proposed landscaping and screening around the proposed lot. Again, here's just the detailed engineering site plan that shows all the West and dimensional requirements for the proposed improvements. It'll be concrete apron off of East Carson street and then by 2 minutes payment from that point forward along the East side. We'll also have bollards to protect the existing building. As you can also see, we're. salvaging the three existing trees on the north side of the lot. Uh, this is simply the grading and utility plan. Uh, we wanted to share this, um, cause this is tied to the city of Pittsburgh stormwater management requirements. Uh, we have submitted and received approval for that as well. Um, the connection from our stormwater detention facility will come out to East Carson and we've also received the water tap in approval for that storm connection as well. Here's just the detailed landscape plan that shows the five foot wide screening around the parcel. All those shrubs will be, you know, the minimum 42 inch height requirement. I believe there's 52 of them. And then we also have four proposed trees that meet the space requirements and the street tree requirements. And then I'll pass it on.

Thank you, commissioners, and thank you, Joe. As part of this project, just to share, we're working with the URA because they own this parcel that is highlighted in red. That's 29-N-507. They are interested in conveying this parcel to us at their board meeting on July 9th to enable the work. The curb cut would essentially go there, but the rest of the site would be exactly the same sidewalk as per required requirements. And so this is the ask today discussing the PLDP and FLDP for SP5. So we propose two amendments. These are just discussions of what they are. There's full text on the next slide defining major surface lots to be surface parking lots designed for 20 plus automobiles with secondary surface lots having fewer than 20. And then the second one is reducing the parking lot front setback requirements from 10 feet to 5 feet on this block only, this block being E1D in the PLTP. And so again, just looking at page 44 of the PLDP, section 6A, 6A, I can read the text out for the record. Surface lots, major surface lots shall be avoided along Gateway Boulevard, Carson Street, and Marina Boulevard and located to the rear of buildings. Secondary parking lots will be allowed in between buildings and may be located along Carson Street. Secondary lots include any parking lot with less than 20 vehicular parking spaces. then all at grade lots fronting primary roadways shall be set back not less than 10 feet from along the right-of-way lines of such roadways except for block e1d along which at grade lots fronting primary roadways shall be set back not less than five feet from the property line all at grade lots shall be screened from view as outlined in this document And so this is just the timeline of where we've been. Other permits we've received, including the most recent curb cut permit. We went to the development activities meeting with Southside Community Council on April 30th. And now we're here at the Planning Commission today to present this project and look at the next steps. And with that, I open any questions.

Thank you for the presentation. At this time, we open the floor for public testimony. Is there anyone online that might like to speak regarding this application? No hands. All right. And so there are some beautiful faces in the room. Is anybody here for this application? Looks like none. Okay, commissioners, are there any questions or comments, or is there a potential motion from the floor with the two conditions as stated in our reports? So moved. All right. I have a motion from Commissioner Walker, a second from Commissioner Kelly. I will do roll call. Commissioner Burton-Falk? Aye. Commissioner Hunt? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly? Aye. thank you commissioner o'neill has recused uh commissioner cantania aye thank you commissioner repi aye thank you commissioner vats aye thank you and commissioner walker aye thank you all right that concludes have a great rest of your day thank you all right so moving on to the next agenda item Under hearing and action would be agenda item number three, which is as follows. DCP-ZDR-2021-12140 at 525 South Aiken Avenue. This is a 10-story multifamily residential in the Shadyside neighborhood. Presenting this afternoon is Mr. Johnson.

Should we wait for Commissioner O'Neill?

um she'll be back in just a moment i'm sure i see her and she uh you can go ahead and start thank you christian johnson senior planner for department of city planning

An application for a project development plan, PDP, DCP ZDR 2021-12140 was submitted by Indovina Associates Architects on behalf of the property owner, National Apartment Leasing Co., for the construction of a new 10-story residential building. The proposal includes 117 dwelling units, 6,245 square feet of office space, and over 1,000 square feet of ground floor retail. The project will demolish two existing multi-dwelling homes located on two of the three parcels and will retain the existing surface parking lot on the third parcel. The proposed development includes a mix of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units. The project was presented to the Zoning Board of Adjustment in November 2022 and requested multiple variances. The ZBA approved all requested variants subject to conditions outlined in the report. The decision of the ZBA was appealed and quashed by the trial court and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 2025. The project is eligible for a 30% reduction in required parking by providing bicycle parking. The project is required to provide nine street trees, five along South Aiken Avenue and four along Claiborne Street. Due to the presence of a utility pole, only eight trees can be installed. An in lieu fee will be paid for the remaining required tree. The project will remove 83 inches of existing trees and will pay an in lieu fee of $24,900 calculated at a rate of $300 per inch. The applicant has coordinated with the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure to develop an alternative access parking and loading plan. Because the project retains the existing surface parking lot adjacent to single family homes along Claiborne Street without adding new landscaping, the applicant has agreed to replace the existing chain link fence along Claiborne Street and Center Avenue. Conceptual Stormwater Management Review has been approved for this project by the Department of City Planning. The project was presented to the Contextual Design Advisory Panel on February 3rd, 2026. The panel appreciated the consistency of the material palette and the cohesive design across all four elevations. Recommendations included strengthening the street state design, enhancing screening, minimizing the use of metal panels, and refining planter design. The CDAP summary is attached to the report. Although there is no registered community organization for the neighborhood, the applicant conducted a community meeting on March 12, 2026, in coordination with the council person's office. Under Section 922.13 , the Planning Commission shall review a project development plan according to the criteria listed in the section. The applicant provided a memo indicating how the proposed development meets the criteria. The memo is attached to the report. The staff recommendation is that the Planning Commission of the City of Pittsburgh approves application DCP ZDR 2021-12140 submitted by Indovina Associates Architects on behalf of the property owner National Apartment Leasing Company with the following conditions. All domain permits will be reviewed and approved prior to the issuing of the final Record of zoning approval and the final construction plans, including the site plans and elevations will be reviewed and approved by the zoning administrator prior to issuing the final record of zoning approval. I will now turn it over to the applicant.

Good afternoon. Bill Sittig representing the applicant. We were here for the briefing and there were a couple of comments made which we'll see the responses to that and specifically having to do with lighting, landscaping, some of those details. Just want to mention before we get started on the meat of the presentation that as Mr. Johnson mentioned, you know, we're here compliant with the zoning board decision. We also supported a memo with a PDB Criteria, so we meet all those criteria. I'd like to also introduce into the record the various engineering reviews that were done. Essentially, we responded favorably and met met all of those concerns. So. As indicated this, and as the Commission's aware, this project is at the corner of Claiborne and South Aiken and on the back of the block with center and. There's, as indicated, it's a 10 story building. It's gonna be high rise quality, high quality building. There's been a very extensive community process. It started long before, a year before the zoning board action. We had two zoning board actions actually and made adjustments. Didn't satisfy obviously all of the community, but we did largely satisfy the community and most specifically our immediate neighbors. And that was a result of the monumental efforts, despite opposition and plowing through that, with Mr. Gefsky, who's going to speak here today, and Mr. Besko, another principal of the applicant, who is not going to speak today. So it's something that I personally appreciate. uh very pleased to have plowed through that project with and as a result of the entire planning process through CDAP and through the briefing we now have a project that we're very proud to present hopefully the planning commission will find to be satisfactory with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Gefske thanks Bill good afternoon it is a pleasure to be with you this afternoon

It is not an understatement to say that we are just delighted to be here. We started this process on this important building and this important corner in the city four years ago, almost to the day. And we, as Bill mentioned, are really proud to be here. When I say we, I'm speaking on behalf of my partner, Joel Besko, and his family who own and operate Mozart Management. a long-standing pittsburgh multi-family owner and property manager here and on behalf of my company campaign capital i was born and raised in pittsburgh and we've been investing throughout neighborhoods in pittsburgh for some years now bill touched on one thing i just want to mention that and one other quick things this has been a incredible incredibly robust community process and we're really proud of that and we value that and we value the input of the community And we are very thankful for the overwhelming support that we've received from the community, including at the time, what were five community stakeholder groups with unanimous support. And then ultimately the ZBA hearing. We've worked tirelessly with the folks who did have constructive criticism for us and feedback for us. And I think we largely met their concerns. One of the most important of which, we are voluntarily doing here in this building we're very proud to do so which is affordable housing 10 of these units will be set aside at 80 percent of ami and that is something that we work together with uh council members strausberger and her staff as well as some members of the community and we're really proud to do that we'll keep that as part of it With that said, I'll keep my remarks short. Thank you for your consideration this afternoon. I'll turn it over to Ryan and Davina, our architect.

Thank you, David, Ryan, and the associate architects very excited to be here to present the project to you all as Mr sitting Mr mentioned the projects located the corner of South and in this view, it's rather dense location directly south of the Arlington apartment building as well as across the street from Shadyside hospital. So reorient everybody on the site here. This is the existing site plan. So the Arlington is the U-shape or C-shape building on the left side. Center Avenue is on the left-hand side of the plan. South Aiken on the bottom. Claiborne Street on the right-hand side. The subject property is highlighted in pink. As was mentioned in the outline, there are two existing residential structures that have been converted to multifamily in the 1970s or so. So those will be removed as well as a portion of the existing surface parking lot that exists wrapping around those two buildings and between the Arlington structure and then the portion of the existing E-Rest corridor out to Claiborne, the parking lot E-Rest corridor that exists between these two buildings And the single family residential structures at the top of the page will also be reconfigured to a minor extent for our new project. couple site context images so in the upper left corner this is a view standing on center roughly center and south aiken so the arlington building on the left-hand side 10-story multi-story multi-family building on the left and shady side hospital office building on the right-hand side the lower left corner stepping back a little bit further on center avenue it's really the gateway here to shady side so the coronado apartments on the right the arlington on the left The other two images on the right hand side are looking on South Aiken back towards center. So a little bit further down, there's a three story multifamily building. And then essentially at the corner of Claiborne and South Aiken, there's a converted large single family residence that's now I think it's a multi-unit building as well. This is the opposite side of the site, so this is long Claiborne on the lower left and upper left corners as a view on Claiborne looking back towards South Aiken. There's a 10 story condominium building. That's basically mid block of Claiborne within the residential district. That is on the right hand side of the images and then the 2 right hand images are marching up towards South Aiken where you have the existing structure. You see kind of in the background with the green roof, that will be one of the structures to be removed. And you also see the existing egress drive from the surface parking lot servicing the Arlington as well as this project. That curb cut and that access point will remain as part of the project. So the site's uniquely placed in that it strides over three separate zoning districts, and that was the crux of our zoning board of adjustment process. The UNC district in purple, the RMH in kind of a medium yellow, gold color, and then the R1BH district in the lightest color. So, as a result of our process, working through the, we are subject only to the and districts in terms of their limitations of heights, density, et cetera again, having gone through the zoning board of adjustment process. And we have specifically are not proposing any construction within the district to give us a full 40 foot gap between our project and the adjacent single family residents, which starts that that row of housing along. uh in terms of just the various setbacks as mr sidig mentioned we're in compliance with uh the standard zoning as well as uh some variances so most most importantly we're kind of keeping the uh contextual setback that occurs on south aiken relevant relevant relevant to a relate sorry excuse me related to the Arlington and then utilizing a 10-foot setback along Claiborne and establishing a build-to-line setback between the Arlington and our new building with basically a midpoint property line. So, the building is really nicely situated in terms of a very dense area of public transportation. This is pretty important for its location. It was also relevant to the zoning side of this project. So we're indicating our access within 1500 feet to the bus way. Bus stop as well as a number of stops that occur along bond Boulevard and center Avenue. Just going quickly through the zoning summary. So we have a list of the various subject components that within the and the districts are permitted list, which is the middle of the page here is what was approved in the decision. And then the proposed line is what you're proposing as part of this project that you see here today. So, again, we are in accordance with all the approved. uh zba uh elements within both the rmh and the unc district uh some of the main components here uh maximum height at 10 stories 108 feet that magic number is related to the height of the arlington apartment buildings next door so we want to maintain our absolute contextuality with the neighboring property Um, the also equivalent, um, within the district, that's kind of limiting factor on density. And then another point to make is our rear setback at 40 feet when we had a 25 foot setback in the, so we've actually increased our setback adjacent to the residential district or residential housing portion of the site. So shifting into the project itself, we have a total of 90 spaces for the project, 36 internal, 14 external, and 40 shared with the Arlington parking lot that's neighboring this property. We are in compliance with the bike parking. And then there's also residential compatibility standards that were required here. And again, we are in compliance with those as part of the ZBA decision. As Mr. Gebsky mentioned, 10% of our units will be affordable at 80% AMI. We're also pursuing a LEED certification. for the project and compliance with International Dark Sky Association requirements for the site as well Quick overview on the scale of the building. So 117 total units, primarily one bedroom units, but some studio and two bedrooms also. So for about 75,000 square feet of residential area. On the ground level, as you'll see in the plans, we have a large square footage of office area, about 6,200 square feet, a small retail area of 1,300 square feet, and the remaining square footage on the ground level would be amenity and lobby servicing the residential use. Overall building, again, 10 stories above grade, one below grade, 108 total feet. And the parking is, again, 36 internal, 14 external, 40 shared, total 90 spaces in compliance with our city of Pittsburgh parking ratio. Accessibility, we'll show you on both plans here. This is the lower level of the building. So this is the internal parking garage. Our ADA compliant spaces are directly adjacent to the vertical circulation, the elevators that service all floors. So any resident would be able to park directly adjacent to that circulation and access their units. At ground level, our South Aiken entrance points to the office, retail, and main building are all at grade flush with the sidewalk condition. So those are all accessible points and all residents will be able to use our main entrance and access the vertical circulation through the building via the elevators. Shifting to circulation, vehicular circulation to the site. So again, South Aiken on the bottom, Claiborne on the right. This is the lower level of the parking garage. This is primarily below grade. We are utilizing both the ingress and egress points that exist today. So on the lower left corner of our new building between the Arlington and the proposed building, We have an entrance point for the vehicles, which will turn either off south, making a right or a left. They'll access the driveway between the two buildings. They'll either make a left into the expanded parking on the Arlington or to the right. Well, then they'll circulate along the existing drive aisle and then enter the building where the light blue arrow is. They'll be able to park below grade there. And then when they are exiting the site, they'll use the existing curb cut as you saw in the image at the beginning of the presentation. And then Claiborne at this point is a one-way, so they'll be making a right turn on Claiborne and then making a right or left onto South Aiken. Shifting upstairs, this is ground level. So as I mentioned, South Aiken is entirely flush with grade for our primary building entrance points. The light yellow areas are office space, which is an L-shape wrapping around our core. The center zone is a retail space, and then the yellowish color is the building lobby as well as amenity. We're also providing direct accurate access to bike parking for a portion of our bike parking with the remainder being located below in the parking garage. It's kind of a unique site in that the property line along South bacon is pretty well forward of the of the site. So we're actually utilizing a fairly wide sidewalk as it sits today and expanding that rather significantly to create a nice Plaza. in front of the building. We're anchoring that plaza as the grade turns on Claiborne with a large landscaped area, additional bike parking further down Claiborne, and then some utility components, the generator, and further landscaping as we go further down the hill there. one thing to note on this plan i think we have a landscape plan here as well but one of the comments from the commission at our briefing was to look at expanding the street tree pit conditions primarily along south aiken so as you see here we've looped uh basically groups of two trees into one large planter and as we wrap around clayborne we still are having our individual trees primarily because of utility locations as well as our loading and parking access along clayborne So, as we go upstairs, this is levels 2 and 3 combination of 1 bedrooms in the gold color bright yellow is 2 bedroom at the corner and then some studios. That layout will continue for levels 4 through 10 with a slight cut out on the corner, which we'll see architecturally was intended to reduce the mass and change the materiality to a degree. So, again, the building extending upward is an L shaped building on a plinth. Here's a landscape plan. The actual text there is a little bit challenging to read, but all of our plantings are native species for Pennsylvania. Again, really heavily landscaped zone in the planters at the anchor point between Aiken and Claiborne, as well as extending downward along the building to the egress drive from the surface parking area. uh one other thing to note uh we've been working with domi for our loading condition and uh domi prefers actually that we do on street loading via claiborne so there's currently a non-parking area right at the intersection of aiken and claiborne that will be now converted to a loading space anybody who would like to move in utilize that space will go through the domi perme process to get that as a temporary loading uh permit and they'll utilize that for the afternoon or for the day to to move themselves in and then that'll revert back to no parking so again that's most recommendation from domi for how to access this site otherwise all parking will be on site sectionally again building partially below grade and then 10 stories above just giving you a sense of scale and hitting the magic number at the top of the building at 108 to match the arlington another section so shifting to the architecture uh as i presented uh in our briefing very excited about the architecture and the articulation of the building um It's a very prominent structure, and we really wanted to accentuate the glazing on this building and take advantage of the views that are available in all different directions. So the architecture is treated kind of in a tripartite way. We have the large grid structure, which is comprised of masonry veneer wrapping around large-scale windows that intersects with a more punched opening appearance you see on the left side, which is light masonry veneer. And then at the top of the building, a concealed fastener, a lucubon-type metal panel, an ACM panel at the top of the building, kind of create a contrasting materiality and sort of allow that building to have a cap to it. And then one other thing to note, we'll see in some renderings, but on the ground level along Aiken, there's a significant setback on that ground level space. So it creates kind of a canopy structure where the building sits over top of the main entrances. That's, as I said, to increase the sidewalk condition, create a nice plaza and also provide a nice insight area for the glazed entrance points. As we wrap around Claiborne, the building's articulation matches that on Aiken, so the grid-like structure of masonry veneer, large-scale windows, and then on the ground level, as it extends down the gray differential from Aiken along Claiborne, we have masonry veneer wrapping the entire space to the bottom with significant landscape along that buffer zone between the building and the sidewalk. wrapping around to the eastern side of the building. This is facing the residential zone. Again, wrapping our materiality, our brick veneer on all sides, really taking advantage of the fact that this is a visible building from all directions. So we have our light masonry veneer on the right-hand side that wraps our courtyard, the L-shaped indent portion of the courtyard. Masonry veneer wraps on the other side, and then the metal panels extends from that top floor down into the courtyard space. Same thing occurs on the elevation that's directly adjacent to the Arlington. So our punched opening articulation here is most, you know, is closest to the Arlington. And then we have our metal panels in the background with then a masonry veneer for two floors on that courtyard space. So again, really focusing on the fact that this is visible for everybody approaching this site as well as residents of the Arlington. So we want to make sure everybody has an equal appearance and the building has the same quality across all four sides. uh this is just a zoomed in view of the materials so we're using a medium medium colored gray masonry veneer with some masonry articulation as you can see then contrasting light color brick and then precast concrete sills kind of create a horizontal banding through the whole building playing up with the grid structure we have on the overall structure and And then where we have our lighter colored masonry veneer, playing with how the masonry is actually laid. So we have some running bond, some soldier courses, inset portions, and really allowing that to have a dynamic appearance as much as the grid structure. And then our metal panel section, it's again a concealed faster ACM panel, sort of very high quality metal panel. We're going to take the same articulation of that sill and head condition on where we have on the masonry veneer and wrap those lines through vertically and horizontally, utilizing the same window spacing, same window sizes, et cetera, to really make that read the same way. Here's a view on South Aiken, standing across the street in front of the UPMC office building. So you have the Arlington on the left-hand side, our building in the background here. You can see the arrangement and scale are equivalent. Materiality, again, it's not the yellow type brick on the Arlington, but a very close palette, let's call it, with a medium gray and then the lighter colored masonry veneer with that nice dark cap at the top. other view looking the other direction so again the building anchoring claiborne and south hagen same articulation wrapping around the building landscape ground level and street level this is a view wrapping around the corner on claiborne again same materialities as explained Zoomed in version here where you're seeing the anchor or the entrance point to the lobby. So we'll be doing a nice raised planter bed here with native species and an L shape that kind of anchors that transition from Claiborne to Aiken, steps downward to our secondary plinth. We'll have our bike parking. and then allows that inset portion where we have our residential lobby to really read nicely with our forward ceiling glazing and the articulated building structure that comes down through these exposed columns. Another view here from the Aiken side. So this is a vision from our previous presentation with our continuous tree-tree pit. Nice landscape environment along Claiborne, particularly that this is a bike lane right there. Sorry, on Aiken, excuse me. This is a bike lane along here, so it's a nice uninterrupted non-parking area. That'll be a nice frontage to our building. And then a distant view. This is kind of all the way back to Ellsworth Avenue, looking at our building relative to the site context. Some shadow studies, so this building is located on the southern portion of this group of of parcels. So there's really no significant solar impact any residential structures or any adjacent structures per se to the north and northeast as a surface parking lot as well as as a single story retail strip mall type structure that is further to the east. So very limited impact on any residential zones. And then last piece here is a site logistics plan. So this is working with our construction partners to identify how this project would be constructed. It is an urban site and presents some challenges in terms of how the structure would work over the course of the project. Primarily, just for clarity, and it's a little bit hard to read here, but primary access will always be through that access drive between Arlington and the site. In instances where we are putting up the superstructure, where we would need a crane and that sort of thing, that access point will be closed. And then any vehicular access for residents of the Arlington or any workers would be through a fence opening along Center Avenue. So the top of the orange area is where there's an existing surface parking lot. and a vinyl infilled fence. So we'll open that fence up, allow vehicular access directly through there, obviously go through the domain permitting process to utilize that entrance point on a temporary basis. And then once we're back to just standard construction activity, then we'll be back to utilizing the standard access ways through the site. um the intent is not to impact anything along claiborne or south aiken in terms of significant closures of streets so we'll be just utilizing the parking area along claiborne so all the access from the neighboring area within claiborne will be unimpeded through the construction process and same thing with south aiken So, I think with that, that is our presentation. So, thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you for a very, very thorough presentation. I'll also add thank you, Mr. Siddig, for the copies because that was helpful for me today. At this time, we open the floor for public testimony. Do we have anyone online that would like to speak regarding this application? no all right uh so now we open the floor to anyone in the room is there anybody that would like to speak regarding this application good to see you

Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Erica Strasburger. I sit on Pittsburgh City Council. You'll see me twice today. First, I'll keep my remarks very brief. I can attest to what you heard. There has been extensive community process, although you heard there was some constructive feedback initially, and there has been quite a process. We are here now. The last community meeting that was held, although there was not a formal RCO for Shadyside, invitations were extended to the burgeoning new resident group, the Shadyside Community Partnership. and any prior attendee to any of the previous meetings that were held and this presentation a shortened version of this presentation was given and it was essentially nothing but positive feedback so i can attest that there has been ample and robust community discussion And we've reached a point where the applicant, as you heard, has been responsive to community wishes. And we heard positive feedback at the last meeting. So I offer my support for this as a council member representing the district where this project is taking place. I think it'll be a an improvement to the corridor and improvement to the corner here. I especially appreciate the commitment to affordability on site as well voluntarily. So thank you very much for your time today. Thank you for your testimony and all your work in your district.

Is there anybody else here this afternoon that would like to speak regarding this application? Okay, hearing none commissioners at this time. I will turn it over to you if there are any comments. If if there are no comments.

I just have a quick comment. As somebody, I participated in some of the public engagement early on in this process, and I just wanted to compliment the developer and the council person on the exhaustive public engagement that occurred around this project. I think it's going to be a tremendous addition to the corridor, and I only wish it was taller and bigger and had more homes in it. But beyond that, I think I really appreciate all the engagement from you guys throughout the process.

And on that, I'll echo Commissioner Vatz. Thank you for all the community sewing. That should absolutely be acknowledged and come out of this with some affordable housing. So thank you for that. Any other questions, comments, or do I have a motion from the floor to approve? So moved. Thank you. I'll do roll call. Commissioner Burton-Folk. Aye. Commissioner Hunt.

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Interiano. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Reppy. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz. Aye. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker. Aye. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Have a great rest of your day. Moving on to item number four under hearing and action. Before us, under item number four, we have Council Bill. Here we go. My apologies. Thank you. All right. Item number four under hearing and action is Council Bill 2025-1545. This is a report and recommendation on Council Bill re-referred to Planning Commission after Council replaced citywide inclusionary zoning with affordable housing bonus program. And this would be citywide and presenting this afternoon would be Mr. Dash.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Andrew Dash, Deputy Director of City Planning. We are here to discuss the council bill. I will give some kind of brief background and timeline as to how we've come to where we are. Then we'll talk about the various components of the bill, which include changes to allow for accessory dwelling units citywide, revisions to the city's parking code and parking minimums, and then the affordable housing bonus program. This has had its own journey, and, you know, we've been working with council person, you know, relative to what was sent to the planning commission to actually change, make some changes or make a significant amount of changes. And, you know, that's reflected in the recommendation that is in the staff report to you all. And then we'll talk about next steps and in the affordable housing program or bonus program, explain the purpose for those changes, as well as how we've carried or hope we carried over the council person's intent into the proposed changes that are in that are recommended by the staff report. So as background, this all started out of work that city planning and the city had done back in 2022 with the release of the city's housing needs assessment. It made a series of recommendations around land use. It made recommendations around subsidy and tenants rights. Obviously, since we're here to talk about zoning code amendments, we are here on the land use components of that. We started community outreach on this back in 2024. Began the journey with the planning commission and at the end of 2024 in October in January had what is famously known as the marathon planning commission meeting where the package was recommended to city council. in the time after that that was recommended by city council um you know councilman wilson had then taken one piece of the bill which was minimum lot size reform uh and passed that separately uh through city council uh so that was that that occurred in march of last year um the city council we had a public hearing uh on the bill at the time which was accessory dwelling units parking reform and an expansion of mandatory inclusionary zoning in september In October, what was referred back to the Planning Commission was an amendment by substitute where mandatory inclusionary zoning citywide was removed and its place was an affordable housing bonus program. As we, you know, in our kind of review of Um, you know, go to the next slide 1st, you know, again, as you'll see just what is changed from the previous bill that the commission saw in January of 2025 is the removal of minimum lot size reform is that it was passed separately. and the amendment of a citywide inclusionary mandatory program to a voluntary program at the same time as noted in here the existing inclusionary zoning overlay district which exists in the Lawrenceville neighborhoods Bloomfield Polish Hill and the Oakland neighborhoods remains unchanged so there's no proposed amendment to the ICO at this at this time And so we'll talk first about accessory dwelling units. This has remained unchanged since what the commission saw back in January of 2025. But just as a refresher, accessory dwelling units are small residential units that are subordinate to the primary use of the property. They can happen in a number of different ways. I think typically what we see, and we'll show some examples of Pittsburgh, is you see kind of garage apartments on alleys, but these can be things that also are standalone units in a yard space. They could be the conversion of a basement or attic space, or another way that there would be, again, a dwelling that would really be subordinate to that residential use. We do allow it as an accessory use to residential community center or religious assembly uses. This is because not only do we want to allow this where residents can convert a garage or create an accessory dwelling unit on their property, but at the same time, we have seen a number of uses as we've looked at best practices across the country of ways to, you know, transition people into, you know, that are unhoused into tiny home projects or things like that. There's a veterans project in Harrisburg that we've referred to a number of times as one example of that, but there are a number of others, as well as there's been a large, you know, a large movement of religious institutions and being able to work in their communities to provide additional housing as we've seen a housing crunch that's occurred. So utilizing the code to allow for that, those types of conditions as well are amendments that are a part of the allowance of accessory dwelling units. We also made changes at the time, again, which have not changed, to create a maximum height that is above what we have for typical accessory structures. There's not an owner occupancy requirement. This was something that was discussed a lot when we went through public process. Reality of that is that it's really difficult for even homeowners to get financing for accessory dwelling units in cities that have owner occupancy requirements. And so even though I think, obviously the intent is, and the aspiration is something that we want, we obviously want, we value the opportunity for owner occupants to be able to provide ADUs, those restrictions that other cities have relative to that, we felt like it was not beneficial for us to do that here in Pittsburgh. If our intent is to create this as an opportunity that residents can take advantage of. We did also change and relax some of the setback requirements. As discussed two weeks ago, we did change where if A garage or an existing accessory structure is already expanded into legal setbacks that an accessory dwelling unit could be created and they could go above that structure or convert that structure without requiring a variance from the zoning board of adjustment. In addition, if they were looking to expand an accessory structure like that, instead of it being into a side or rear setback where they're kind of projecting out a little bit further, instead of that going for a variance before the zoning board would be something that could be approved as an administrator's exception. We have a lot of examples of this in Pittsburgh. I mean, really allowing for accessory dwelling units is really replicating the urban form that we have in so many of our neighborhoods. We see this across the city, whether it is what are primarily single-family homes that have a basement unit or have another unit that's in structure. or we have these garage type structures that have accessory dwelling units as a part of them. So really this is legalizing I think a lot of the things that we already allow or have here as part of the fabric of our city. One of the things that was, I think, a question that was brought by the Commission at briefing around this was just looking at some of the successes otherwise and what that means as far as production. We have looked at other cities. I mean, there are some West Coast cities that are very high growth cities, like places like Seattle and San Diego that we're seeing You know, roughly, you know, you know, in Seattle, I think they've made amendments to their accessory dwelling in ordinances and now are permitting, you know, close to a thousand per year. There are cities like San Diego that are doing that, that are actually that are permitting about twenty three hundred accessory dwelling units per year, even in. lower growth cities, there are a lot of places that are seeing benefits through the provision of accessory dwelling units as different forms of housing or different income producing opportunities for owner occupants in cities like South Bend and cities like Buffalo that are more on maybe similar real estate markets to Pittsburgh. All right. So with that, that's all on accessory dwelling units. And I'm going to turn it over to Paul from the team to talk about our changes to parking.

Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, so I'll talk about the parking reform aspect of this amendment package to kind of set the existing conditions as is well documented. Most of Pittsburgh was built in the turn of the 20th century, so by 1958, which was the first city zoning code that implemented. off-street parking requirements, most of the city had already been built out. It was pretty evident throughout the changes in the zoning code that have happened since that there was an acknowledgement of how these off-street parking requirements were pretty ineffective. for Pittsburgh and so we've seen incrementally over the decades changes to those parking requirements as ways to reduce those requirements just given that that just doesn't work with the built form of Pittsburgh And we've kind of been able to take this parking reform ordinance from other cities who have kind of been leaders in this aspect, most notably Buffalo and Minneapolis, which, as Andrew alluded, in the ADUs has kind of had a similar type of real estate market built environment to to pittsburgh as well as other southern cities such as austin and raleigh and others have implemented this to to really great effect um they were early enough on that they've actually been quite a number of studies that have shown the benefits to parking reform, which include things such as much more walkable neighborhoods, mixed-use neighborhoods, with the also result of lowering housing costs and make it much easier for adaptive reuse of existing buildings that were built to allow these parking requirements that came in. Uh, so what is being proposed in this package for those new members of commission removal of the minimums for all uses and all zoning districts. We are also reworking the parking maximums, which I'll get to in a later slide of how those will work. implementation of a transportation demand management system for developments above a certain size threshold. Again, I'll get to that later, but essentially that is for existing large projects that go through that's already a part of the system. And we're trying to create clarity as a part of the code here. Removal of 80 parking review as that is duplicative with building code review for compliance. So it's duplicative and. You know, we're trying to reduce the number of overall reviews as a part of the development review process. Additionally, there are some expansions on the limits of accessory surface parking and very dense mixed use areas, such as downtown and the riverfront districts. Additionally, as some of you may recall from that marathon planning commission meeting we did in that version, there was essentially a gap period of if that ordinance was adopted by council, when the TDM program would be effective. given the time frame between that time period and now we've had time to kind of work with Domi on some of that implementation so we're as a part of this updated package we're removing that effective date so that if you know this package goes through by city council and signed by the mayor that this TDM package would take effect when the rest of the ordinance takes effect So to clarify broadly, what does this ordinance do? It simplifies the zoning code. It also allows the market to decide how much parking is needed. Additionally, we want to remove barriers to the reuse of existing buildings. It also shifts the focus to focus on all transportation modes, not simply focusing on transportation being met by single occupancy vehicles, and also just creating a more optimal use of urban space. What this ordinance does not do, we're not removing any legally existing parking spaces. We're not intending to create greater restrictions on car parking than what already exists, and I'll get to that later. We're not looking to prohibit the building of new parking spaces or structures. Those are still permitted as they currently are. Additionally, we're not trying to create a discrepancy between what the market is providing and what the requirements limit. As a part of this rewrite process, we looked at development applications that came in from a four-year period from about 2019 through 2023, and to try to do a gut check and confirm that this statement is correct here. those developments showed that we were additionally we're not looking to create a parking free-for-all there are other limits in terms of that developers have to look at including bank financing which may require a certain number of parking spaces to be provided for those and there are other limitations that people you know developers may want to provide parking as an amenity to the tenants of their buildings So to clarify on those changes to the parking maximums, what we're really trying to do here is two things. One, to kind of create broader kind of use categories rather than having a million different things that may fall under a commercial use. We're trying to create more broad categories. and then additionally we're trying to create the maximums to be based off of the the access to transit rather than the zoning districts because even though sometimes you may be located in a riverfront district there are some aspects of the riverfront district that may not have as good of transit access to others so we want to be more kind of realistic with what's on the ground and typically that involves looking at things like transit access um so what we're what we're showing here is really the comparison between the existing and what we're proposing to show that really we are matching largely with what um the existing in some aspects we're actually being a little bit more generous with the parking maximums to allow for actually more parking than what the some particularly in the riverfront and the mixed-use districts in oakland currently provide and and again looking at this is from prt which is their high frequency walk shed which is what we're classifying as kind of the the high frequency uh transit um so if you're within kind of these blue shaded areas where the there is good access we have a little bit more of a stringent uh parking maximum but if you're outside of outside of these areas um You know, you're subject to that less stringent and then there is some aspect given that this is showing a kind of a 2 dimensional and we know that given the topography of Pittsburgh, there may be instances where technically you're in a walk shed, but that transit stop is say, 300 feet below you. So there are sort of an administrative exception that can be granted to make sure that we're not catching things that. make it so that, you know, the topography makes that transit stop that is technically putting you in this walk shed is inaccessible to you feasibly. But basically, the transit walk shed is a quarter mile within a bus stop that services every 15 minutes or within a half-mile stop of a fixed guideway, namely the T or the busway. um so the mobility improvement trust so this is an option for if someone wanted to exceed the parking maximum so if you if by code you were only allowed 100 parking spaces and you wanted to provide 105 spaces rather than seeking a variance you have this administrative option to be able to pay a fee set at a rate per space into the mobility improvement trust These funds would then be intended to be used for DOMI mobility improvement, Vision Zero projects, essentially in the neighborhood, in the general vicinity of where the development is occurring. Again, this is an administrative flexibility for projects rather than needing to go to ZBA for a variance. The current code does have this in the riverfront in Oakland zoning code districts, but now we want to make it so that it's included in all zoning districts to be an option for people. On the transportation demand management aspect of this ordinance, so this is what transportation demand management is, is this is a tool to increase the efficiency of the transportation network, providing development options to be able to meet the demand generated by their project in ways other than just single occupancy vehicle trips. So this is wanting to utilize things such as transit, biking, walking, and other efficient transportation modes. Again, as I said earlier, this is something that is already required for large scale projects. Typically, it is the result of transportation impact study. And then from there, there are TDM measurements that are essentially negotiated. And what we want to do with this TDM process is to really have those be able to be known upfront so that. developers kind of have a good sense going in rather than as a result of something that comes later on in the process with the intention that this creates greater predictability by formalizing a point system that is proportionate to the development size. And we've really looked at a lot of leading cities on this such as minneapolis is a good example buffalo as well city of madison wisconsin is another one where they actually use a spreadsheet where you know you can put in your development put in the project skies and then be able to select from the menu options to be able to see how the points you're required line up with the ones that you decide to implement from that menu without turn it back over to andrew

Thank you, Paul. And the third piece in the package of amendments before the Commission today is around the affordable housing bonus. This chart was given, was shown two weeks ago. The discussion, as we discussed two weeks ago, was that in receiving the legislation back from City Council and from the Councilperson, I think there were some Some issues with the legislation as far as administration that the planning staff had some concerns on creating this affordable housing bonus program that existed citywide, except for the ICO. While we also had the performance points as a voluntary affordable housing program, and then had the ICO as a mandatory program, all of which had slightly different standards. You know, was, you know, I think, you know, something that we wanted to be able to address and, you know, what we wanted to make sure that the council person's intent with the affordable housing bonus program as it was drafted and returned to planning staff for their review. you know, was able to carry through and do what we've done. And so, you know, what we've done is instead of creating a separate affordable housing bonus program that is in the code, you know, what we are using as the affordable housing bonus proposal is to use the existing performance point system and modify the performance point system, you know, to then reflect, you know, what the council persons or, you know, what was in the council bill that was returned to us. And so you'll see that as kind of the change here on system is that we are, again, trying to utilize the existing performance point system but modify the standards. There was a late change to the code that I come over to you around geography and that 1 of the district it is. Our intention is that it is for all districts that allow for multi unit and housing for the elderly previously in the highway or in the highway commercial district housing for the elderly is permitted, but multi unit residential is not. And so we wanted to allow for that bonus to apply in the highway commercial zoning district as well. So the only change that has been made since briefing and hearing was that inclusion of the highway commercial district, which was purely an oversight as we were going through all of the districts and making the necessary change as to where the performance points would apply. The unit count and the affordability levels were proposed initially as 10% that's affordable. You'll see in the next slide as we get there that there were some changes there. Those are really to actually take some of the affordability that was in the council bill and move it and alter the performance points to reflect something similar, which is around onsite and offsite affordability. You know, as far as the affordability, that is, you know, The affordability and its applicability, that's the same. The term of affordability is 35 years in the existing inclusionary zoning overlay and in the performance points. We did carry that forward and we'll talk about that on a future slide as well. The bonus is similar here. So what we did was really try to use the performance points so that the bonus that would be able to be given through the performance points would mirror what had come to us through the Affordable Housing Bonus Program. So, you know, that meeting that, you know, kind of 10% at 50% AMI, which was outlined in the Affordable Housing Bonus Program, would allow for the same bonus, that additional 30 feet in height in the performance points. One thing that is a change to the performance points that wasn't another thing that was that was in the council bill was a payment in lieu option. This was not initially in this. This is new to the planning commission from kind of prior iterations of this, where there is a payment in lieu function that can offer. A bonus to a residential developer if they are providing those funds and loom. and the offsite requirement is similar. So, as to, again, the summary of those performance points changes, what you'll see is that the new table for the performance points looks like this, allowing that 10% onsite or 12% offsite as affordable housing bonus that would allow for two points also 30 feet in height. The payment in lieu mirrors that. And then the 20% proposal for the performance points, that is leftover from the existing performance points standards. And so again, where this applies now in the RIV, in the uptown public realm, and the new urban center districts, this will apply citywide for all districts that have the opportunity to do multi-unit residential or housing for the elderly. Relative to, and this came up at our briefing with the Commission, relative to the affordability term, like I said, the 35-year affordability term comes from the inclusionary zoning overlay as well as the performance points presently. Um, so developments that have, you know, I think we've noted that, um, that most of the many of the developments that have happened in the inclusionary zoning overlay, where it is mandatory have existed in the RIV and the urban center districts where the performance points bonus applies. So that we are seeing that, um, that recent developments that have come before the commission that have. you know, provided required affordable housing or restricted affordable housing have happened in those locations where the performance points apply and those bonuses apply. So that would be where this affordability term exists. And really the intent here by keeping the standard the same in both the voluntary program and the mandatory program is really about, you know, kind of long-term predictability to the largest spectrum of developers. You know, we are looking to try to make sure that as we're applying these standards that that it is consistent across across those. We are trying to align with funding sources that are out there as well as we went through the payment and Lou research as that was part of what the council person and the kind of various iterations of this bill had asked us to look into. most developments that are providing affordable housing even in the ico are getting some form of subsidy through programs and that is anything from you know the litech program which has a 40 40 year affordability term uh to the housing options program from phfa which has a 30-year affordability term or the rental gap programs that are offered by the housing authority or the ura the ura's program being a 40-year term and the housing authorities being a minimum of 30 that it's really, you know, there's a little bit fuzzier because it's dependent on HUD regulations. But, you know, really trying to align that 35 year term with a lot of the funding that people are receiving, you know, to provide restricted affordable units. In addition, you know, as I had stated, there was prior work, you know, which is the chart that's here on the screen that actually really went to try to calculate what kind of the net present value of revenue was in different affordability terms. We looked at anything from 10 years to permanent affordability. What you'll see is that the difference between a 20 and a 35 year program is roughly about a $1,350 change in in value per year. That is only if we're using the conservative approach of looking at getting rents at 50% AMI versus market rate rents. As I said, even though the housing authority is working to modify a lot of their moving to work standards, which are their voucher programs, to provide a much higher rent than 50% AMI. So if people were using vouchers or other means, it would actually shrink even that $1,350 change between the 20 and 35-year affordability periods. Um, you know, and then we also did, you know, kind of look, uh, post the briefing, uh, natural research on, you know, various components of inclusionary zoning programs, both mandatory and voluntary. And what was, what were the things that were determining factors as to how they, how production happened? Um, you know, and, you know, we obviously can afford, you know, kind of this and other research that, you know, that in that case, affordability terms is one of the things that has least correlation, lowest correlation to, you know, to whether or not housing is being, affordable housing is being produced. So, you know, I know that that was, you know, something that had come up from our prior discussion. Just wanted to make sure that we were able to do some additional research, that we were able to look at that more and provide that, you know, to the Commission as well. So, again, you know, looking at the research, looking at, you know, kind of, you know, the alignment with the existing programs, we do feel like and staff would recommend, you know, kind of maintaining the 35-year term of affordability for both the mandatory and the voluntary programs, which, again, are aligned. So, they're in the same section, you know, the same section of code. It's just the performance points references the IZO standards for affordability term. Additionally, there was a requirement in the affordable housing bonus program that required a look back after two years, including a report to council. Usually we don't have these things in zoning code. At the same time, there was separate legislation, I mentioned this at briefing, that was passed for city planning to produce a housing dashboard. We are currently working on the construction of that with our innovation and performance department. Um, and that's going to have all of this information real time in public. So, um, you know, housing units that are created in the pipeline, both affordable and market rate will be a part of that. Um, you know, we will, you know, obviously continue to look at best practices if, you know, we've talked to the accounts person, if there's a, if there's, if there's a, if uh feeling that there's a need to you know to pass uh something separately to to request that city planning uh you know kind of look back at this um you know we would we would be more than you know that would be more than fine uh with us um just not maybe you know kind of having that restriction specifically in the zoning code um but you know we do feel like that housing dashboard will hopefully create a consistent place for the public, for researchers, for city staff and others to be able to access this real time information. And so, you know, so that it is something that's consistent that people can reference as a valid source of information for this work and can be able to to do this analysis in addition to city staff being able to look back at that as well, because obviously we want to make sure that things that we are implementing with you all are serving the intent and really trying to advance the intention of what we're trying to do here. So although that is not in there, it is something that we intend to do in the future. Again, I think just with changes to the affordable housing bonus program, and again, this is a prior slide, we do think that it can both reduce the time and create more predictability for projects that actually did get approved, but just ended up with a longer time for their approval process due to variance requests or special exceptions or additional process. as well as ones that were not able to be approved because a variance that they ended up requesting was kind of too far out of what was or what the initial district was, that this mechanism will allow for developments like that to provide affordable housing for a community, which I think in the specific example of the SureSave site was requested by a community in the community process, but ultimately wasn't able to be approved by the zoning board because of the magnitude of the variance that was requested. So that is the affordable housing bonus program and the changes there. So the next steps, you have the staff report before you. It is to recommend approval to city council of the package with this replacement of the affordable housing bonus program with the performance points. And then obviously after that, this will go back to city council for a public hearing and city council will make the ultimate decision on that. Given where we are in the schedule, likely if the planning commission is able to make a recommendation today, that hearing would take place and we'd be looking at probably shortly after the August recess for city council to make a decision on this legislation.

with that thank you all and uh here obviously the staff is here after a testimony uh to answer any questions the commission has thank you uh for the presentation i see councilman strasburger here uh and would like to open the floor to her first to be able to come up and say a few things

Thank you very much and good afternoon again. My name for the record is Erica Strasburger. I sit on Pittsburgh City Council and I appreciate your time today. Thank you for all of your time and energy as you consider Council Bill 2025-1545, the package of legislation that you just heard, which includes the Affordable Housing Bonus Program, changes to the parking minimums requirements, and a streamlined process for accessory dwelling units. I support this legislation today and I will, although I strongly support all aspects of the all kind of three parts of the bill, parking minimums and elimination of parking minimums and accessory dwelling units, I will spend the bulk of my time today discussing the affordable housing bonus program. So as you heard, I was the prime sponsor on council for the amendment to the original Bill 1545, creating this alternative to mandatory citywide inclusionary zoning. I propose this amendment because I believe, as written, mandatory inclusionary zoning, that bill was the wrong policy for this particular moment in Pittsburgh, despite public enthusiasm about it. As you know, the affordable housing bonus program is a voluntary citywide program that offers meaningful incentives to those building housing if they include affordable units in their projects or contribute to a new affordable housing payments fund. The intention of that fund, from my perspective, is to directly support deeply affordable housing projects for residents with the greatest need. That affordable housing payments fund will need to be specified through, I believe, separate legislation that I'm interested in introducing. Importantly, this proposal does not eliminate existing inclusionary zoning protections in neighborhoods where they already exist. Those remain fully intact. The amendments I proposed last fall are animated by some very basic principles. One, that more housing is not only good but necessary, particularly for Pittsburgh at our current juncture. Two, building new housing is extremely expensive and often challenging to finance, construct, and operate. three policies like inclusionary zoning can add to a city's affordable housing stock on the margins but unless they're paired with sufficient benefits to offset the financial shortfalls created by the rent restricted units they will depress overall housing construction without meaningfully delivering affordable units to people who need them And four, the best inclusionary housing policies recognize the economic realities of residential development and the local rental market and incorporate flexibility so that a program provides the greatest support for affordability initiatives. I also wanted to say, I've said this before, I'll say it again here, that affordable housing is far broader than how many units in a brand new apartment building are reserved for lower income residents. Affordable housing also means home ownership opportunities. It means rental options at all price points in all kinds of structures across all 90 neighborhoods. It means the ability to both obtain a housing choice voucher and successfully use it to secure a living space, something that desperately needs to be fixed as part of a separate process. Affordable housing also means strategically using the city's and URA's funding to support large-scale LIHTC projects that are nearly impossible to cobble together, and identifying creative solutions to fully fund our land bank and turn vacant abandoned lots into homes. In short, there's no single solution to housing affordability, but this is one of them. It's my sincere hope that this legislation moves forward through the Planning Commission today and through City Council in the weeks to come, and I guess in the months to come, paired with a number of current and future policies and programs, we will have the opportunity to assess the success of this bill in a few years' time and adjust it as needed to maximize affordability for the greatest number of current and future residents citywide. As you heard today, those actions include the housing dashboard, which was originally proposed by Councilperson Bob Charland and now is being worked on by city planning staff and IMP staff, which will provide the public with real time data about new housing that's built in the city. Mayor O'Connor's work to reform and streamline permitting in the city to make it easier and more desirable to build here. The potential of a 20-year LERDA tax abatement citywide, thanks to the work last year of Senator Wayne Fontana, which could be used to provide gap financing for even broader and deeper affordability citywide. And eventual changes to the housing authority of the city of Pittsburgh that expand opportunities for voucher holders. I understand also that you have before you today additional amendments proposed by city planning staff that will help this bonus point program better conform to existing performance points programs. I know you have given those further amendments your time and attention over the last few weeks and will make the best decision on the details based on the merits of the issue and the information that you have received. I would like to thank you all for your time and attention to all the matters before you today, and I look forward to our continued collaboration as we work toward building a housing strategy that works citywide. Thank you again so very much.

Thank you, Councilwoman, and thank you for rolling up your sleeves and sponsoring. All right, at this time, we open the floor for public testimony. I'll get online first. Are there hands raised online?

uh oh yep uh dave uh brennigan uh you can unmute yourself you have three minutes to provide your testimony thank you good afternoon my name is dave bring it i'm the co-director of lawrenceville together which is the newly unified organization of lawrenceville united and lawrenceville corporation and our mission is to excuse me build opportunity and community for all who live and work in lawrenceville uh overall we're in support of this package but i did want to make it just a couple comments on the affordable housing bonus program overall what city planning presented for this legislation is significantly improved from the original legislation that was introduced by council member strasburger so we're highly supportive of these changes i'm not going to go into detail but there was a lot of problems that original legislation I know there was some talk from some planning commission members during the briefing about reducing the affordability term. And I want to strongly encourage the planning commission against reducing it from 35 years. 35 years is already extremely modest by national standards. The minimum requirement for LIHTC projects in Pennsylvania is 40 years, and anyone who has been around knows that the expiration of affordability requirements from LIHTC creates a lot of challenges for communities and our public agencies in terms of preserving affordable housing and protecting against mass displacements. So increasingly the national best practice has been to try to move toward permanent affordability tenures. So again, 35 years is already watered down. I understand the concern that a longer affordability period may unintentionally discourage some developers from opting into mixed income housing and create less affordable housing. But this concern is not supported by the research and evidence on the subject as Assistant Director Dash pointed out. And just to put a finer point on it, I'd refer you to that study that Mr. Dash uh referenced which is by far the largest scale empirical examination of iz outcomes across the entire united states and the district of columbia that study used regression models to look at which inclusionary housing policy characteristics were associated with higher or lower housing production and i found that longer affordability terms were not associated with lower affordable unit and I'll just quote directly from the paper, quote, in all regression models, we found that having longer affordability terms did not affect affordable housing productivity. On the contrary, we observed a trend that the higher the level of affordability, affordable unit productivity, the higher the share of IZ policies with 50 or more years of affordability requirements. This empirical evidence counters the notion that longer affordability terms would deter new development and result in fewer affordable units, end quote. So again, I strongly encourage the Planning Commission not to water down the affordability term because it will create a lot less affordability down the road without any compensation in additional units in the short term. Finally, I do want to point out one piece of the affordable housing bonus program that does need modification, which is the payment in lieu fee. And lieu fees are, in my view, bad to begin with because they really counteract the whole benefit of programs like this, which is to promote affordable housing specifically in neighborhoods where there's high demand and in high opportunity neighborhoods. Our status quo in Pittsburgh is that just 12 neighborhoods contain over half of Pittsburgh's total affordable housing stock, while half of the city's wealthier residential neighborhoods contain less than 10% of the city's total affordable housing stock. But since in lieu is included, we should at bare minimum get the metric right. $25 per square foot is way off. It's not supported by the city or the URA's own data on that, which puts it at $35 a square foot. Because it's so low, this will strongly disincentivize developers from creating mixed income projects. And it's likely to exacerbate our current issue where affordable housing is concentrated in certain neighborhoods and higher income neighborhoods provide basically very few housing opportunities for low income households. So I would honestly encourage planning commissions and negatively recommend payment in lieu provision overall, but at bare minimum, recommend fixing the metric to match the city's own data on this. So that will actually create a one-to-one replacement for the affordable units that will be provided on site.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brangan, for your testimony. Do we have other hands raised?

Andrea Boykowitz, you can now unmute yourself.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Andrea Boykowicz. I live in central Oakland and I'm the executive director of Oakland Planning and Development Corporation. OPDC has submitted testimony in the past regarding our enthusiastic support for the removal of parking minimums and our more measured support for permitting accessory dwelling units in all residential zones citywide. I'm offering remarks here in support of city planning's proposed revisions to the affordable housing component package of this package of measures meant to help implement the recommendations of the city's most recent housing needs assessment such a long preamble um the affordable housing bonus points which are currently available in the riv in lawrenceville and in the ucmu uce and rmu zones in oakland are an effective are an effective tool to incentivize the creation of more affordable housing in high-rise multi-family developments and they should be available city-wide the affordability period of 35 years is essential to the success of the bonus point bonus height incentive and we support dcp's recommendation that the Commission keep that period. Regarding the proposed $25 per square foot payment in lieu, it's been our experience and the experience of our colleagues and partners in the affordable housing development space that this amount is too low. $35, just as Dave said, just as Deputy Director Dasch said, is near the mark. The point of the height bonus incentive is to support private developers choices to deliver a public benefit in the form of new affordable units. That benefit is moot if the amount of the supports provided through payment in lieu is too small to actually result in any new housing. In addition, I'd recommend to the city that these payments in lieu be paid into the existing Housing Opportunity Fund. I mean, if you're going to keep the payments in lieu in general, they should go into the HOF rather than creating a separate fund. The HOF is able to respond to evolving needs and market circumstances to deliver the kind of assistance, including emergency rental help, home repair, down payment assistance, and crucial support for developers of affordable housing to make these important projects possible. until city council can agree that inclusionary zoning should be extended to the whole city offering bonus high pipe bonus height for affordability is a very reasonable place to start so thank you thank you miss boykowitz for your testimony do we have additional uh mark noble you can now unmute yourself you have three minutes hello

you may need to unmute there i am can you hear me we can hear you now mr noble okay um my name is mark nobile uh a member of the board of polish hill civic association one of our concerns is that these uh this package as a whole makes single-family houses more affordable to or more attractive to corporate buyers because they can break them up easier with no parking requirements and no restrictions on Airbnb. They can be multiple Airbnbs, they could be little hotels. In our very residential neighborhoods, we don't think of this as a positive thing. We think this is taking viable housing for young families off the market and driving up the value and price of housing. So we would have to oppose the ADU portion of this package unless it is restricted to owner occupants. I think that is the key of what I have to say. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Mr. Nebel, for your testimony.

Marcia, you can now unmute yourself.

Thank you. Yes, my name is Marcia Bandes, M-A-R-C-I-A, last name Bandes, B-A-N-D-E-S. I'm the chair for the Pittsburgh Crescedoff, which is a women's rights organization. And I want to thank you for having this meeting. I think Dave Brennigan gave a lot of the background that I would have wanted to say. So I'm going to comment on a few other things. The first one is going to be to increase the payment in lieu fund amount from $25 per square foot to 35 square feet to align with the city's own research on what it costs to build affordable housing. With funding at $25 per square foot, either fewer units will be able to be built or smaller units, one to two bedrooms, not family size. More families will be priced out of Pittsburgh, more schools closed. And we talk about food deserts. How about school and education deserts as the number of schools in Pittsburgh shrink and the distance between them becomes longer? I noticed also that Councilwoman Eric Strasburger commented that this in lieu fund would help address deeply affordable housing. And a couple of sentences later, she said, building housing is extremely expensive. So I think her comments actually support our need to have the in lieu fund being at least $35 per unit. I recommend that we start with a $35 square to enable adequate funding for new units. and that the inclusionary zone bill also incorporate a clause that ties the average cost of building affordable housing to inflation. Every two to three years, the cost should be reviewed and updated. And then in support of my request, I just want to mention the May 2025 special HACP report by the Office of the City Controller. On page 42 of that report, it states that in 2006, there were 9,354 family units. By 2022, there were only 5,999 units. That is a 35% point nine percent drop. It's clear we're going in the wrong direction and cannot afford to make it any less prohibitive to build affordable housing. The second item I'd like to talk about is I want to highlight that to reduce affordability window to 20 years rather than the more reasonable 35 years. And it looks like the Planning Commission is leaning in this direction as well. And I won't repeat what others have said except to point out that 20 years is actually cruel. 20 years is not very long for a family. Families with children build strong communities with their parents for backup support with other parents for backup support and shared family events. Even now to find doctors and dentists, et cetera. In 20 years, growing families may still have children in school. Now we want the rent to shoot up to market value. What happens to the community? The children moving to other schools, access to their doctors and dentists.

or you're at three minutes.

Okay. Thank you very much.

I appreciate your time. Thank you, Ms. Bandy's for your testimony.

Do we have additional Ronda Strozier? Uh, you can now unmute yourself.

Hi commissioners. I am Rhonda Schroeder, the executive director of plan view and Perry hilltop citizens council and member of the housing justice table coalition. Um, thank you for promoting this bill today. Specifically, we want to support the accessory dwelling units, as well as the parking mandates. We also want to just highlight that in the Perry Hilltop and Fine View neighborhoods, our median income is still extremely, extremely low, anywhere from 45 to 60,000 for our families. And so affordable housing, and of course this inclusionary zoning is extremely important to us. We want to echo Dave's sentiments and Marsha's as well about putting the funds into the Housing Opportunity Fund if possible. I understand that that might come in later legislation, but that is something that we have seen be successful and really help the families, especially in our communities. We also want to, reiterate the importance of not just having the $25 per square feet, but $35 per square feet as well. That is all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Treasurer, for your testimony. We have additional?

That was the last hand.

Okay. Thank you so much. Is there anybody here in the room? Please come on up.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thanks for your time today. My name is Maddie McGrady. I'm a renter in Highland Park and a co-chair of the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table. We're a coalition of organizations and advocates that actually formed to create the Housing Opportunity Fund. And we are still working together to bring healthy, affordable, accessible housing within reach to all residents in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County as a human right. We support the ADUs and eliminating parking minimums. Obviously, we were big supporters of citywide mandatory inclusionary zoning, which was removed from this package last year. Regarding the affordable housing bonus program, we are supportive of city planning's proposed amendment by substitution with two comments. that others have touched on. First of all, we would like to see the payment in lieu be increased from $25 per square foot to $35 per square foot to align with city planning's research and what it actually costs to build affordable units. If we're serious about building the deeply affordable housing that residents of this city desperately need, we need to be serious about paying for it. Raising the payment in LUFI is a reasonable and meaningful step that we can take to invest in the future of affordability in this city. Secondly, we strongly support city planning's recommendation to maintain the affordability period for 35 years, which is also in alignment with affordability periods in similar programs across the country. This program offers incentives to developers in exchange for affordability as a public benefit. So we need to be getting what we need out of this deal, which is that units are truly affordable to the low-income residents who need them the most. Study after study have shown that low-income residents are the most housing cost burden, paying 50 to over 100% of their income on housing alone at the expense of meeting other basic needs. To reduce the term from 35 years is to erode the public benefit of the program for the residents who need it the most, and that is unacceptable. This commission and our elected officials have a responsibility to do everything in your power to meet the housing needs of our most vulnerable residents, including seniors, people with disabilities, and working families. We need long-term affordability, at least 35 years, but ideally longer. And we'd like for you to increase the payment in LUFI to actually fund development of more deeply affordable housing, especially permanently affordable public and social housing. I think that could be through the Housing Opportunity Fund. I think that could be through a separate fund for social housing, which was discussed last year. But it should definitely go toward funding deeply affordable housing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you miss mcgrady for your testimony. Anybody please come on.

Good afternoon members of the Planning Commission. My name is Colleen Cadman and I'm here on behalf of AARP Pennsylvania and our 1.8 million members in Pennsylvania, including nearly 80,000 Pittsburgh residents age 50 and older. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people to choose how they live as they age. Our advocacy is grounded in housing affordability, mobility, and the ability to age in place. Older residents consistently tell us they want to remain in their homes and communities as they age. And in fact, 75% of Americans age 50 and over want to stay in their homes long term. At the same time, many are caregivers or expect to be at some point. Many provide care at home and one in four older homeowners would consider creating an accessory dwelling unit or ADU to meet their families or housing needs. In Pittsburgh, support for ADUs is even stronger, with 80% of Pittsburgh voters age 50 and over favoring making it easier to create ADUs. AARP supports expanding ADUs as a flexible neighborhood scale housing option. ADUs help older homeowners remain in their homes, provide supplemental income, support multi-generational and caregiver living arrangements, and increase housing supply without changing neighborhood character. We also support maintaining clear standards such as size limits, long-term residential use, and owner occupancy to ensure compatibility within existing neighborhoods. AARP also supports eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements as they have been shown to increase development costs, limit the feasibility of small-scale housing including ADUs, and do not reflect the needs of many older adults who may drive less or not at all. Allowing parking decisions to be based on actual demand and site context supports more efficient land use and improves housing feasibility. As you consider this change, we encourage flexibility for units housing older adults or individuals with mobility challenges who may require a designated parking space. When taken together, ADU expansion and parking reform remove structural barriers to housing choice, support walkable age-friendly neighborhoods, and align with Pittsburgh's goals for housing affordability and access to transportation. AARP Pennsylvania respectfully supports these zoning reforms and encourages the Planning Commission to advance this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cadman, for your testimony. Are there any others? Missing anybody? All right. Doesn't look like so. So again, I'd like to now turn to Commission again, first recognizing and thanking Councilwoman Strasburger for sponsoring this bill. Thank you to those who came out for public testimony online and in person. Commission, at this time, I'm going to turn it over for any discussion.

as it relates to the bill being proposed uh keep in mind this is a recommendation uh to council and and we're not voting on it here today okay all right any questions comments i have a few comments so uh first of all uh this uh commissioner batts um yeah i wanted to start off by thanking uh council person strassberger um councilwoman gross council person charlin council person wilson who are all co-sponsors on this legislation and also um deputy director dash zoning administrator rostow and everybody else from the department who has spent countless hours over now several years working on this it's a really important legislation and uh you know i think uh there's a lot of a lot to be proud of in the process that we've gone through on this but what i wanted to focus on really is the trade-offs that we see in this zoning legislation and really in all zoning legislation um you know i think that sometimes there's an urge that we all have to pick all of the good outcomes and say we want to achieve all of those all at once but it's not always realistic when you look at zoning like this so you know when we look at parking reform for example if you include more parking It means that you're spending more money building parking. You're creating higher costs, and you're likely creating less housing. If you have lower heights, you're going to build fewer homes. And I think the same can be said about stricter affordability mandates. And so this idea that we can take a voluntary program, increase the affordability mandate that was passed by council from 20 years to 35 years, and still achieve the same outcomes, is not realistic um you know i think all of us have the goal here and we all agree on the goal of building more affordable housing we want more affordable housing in pittsburgh But the key point that we need to focus on is creating a program that actually produces homes, that actually produces affordability. And I think it's important to look at what the Affordable Housing Bonus Program is not. It is not a public subsidy program. It is not a program that is committing more public dollars to building these affordable homes. So we need to rely upon the incentives that we're offering to get home builders to participate in these programs. I think it's also worth noting that the 20-year term was not something that was chosen haphazardly. It was something that was determined and voted on by a majority of the members of council. It was determined over a many months long process of public engagement, discussions with community groups. And I think that when it was advanced to the planning commission, when five members of council voted for it, it was with the assumption that's what it was going to be. And that's not to say that we as the commission need to rubber stamp everything that comes over from council, but I do think that we should acknowledge the process that was gone through. 20 years is a meaningful affordability commitment, and it's a commitment that's being made voluntarily by home builders under this program. If we increase that affordability commitment to 35 years from 20 years, which was passed by council through robust public process, we risk nobody taking advantage of it. We risk a situation where we pass a program that produces no affordable homes because the term that we've set up is too long and is unrealistic and does not pencil so you know i think that it's really important when we look at this program that we whatever we pass back to council we pass something that we believe is realistic and something that we believe will produce actual abundant affordable housing making the term stricter will not do that thank you

Thank you, Commissioner Vatz. If I might hear just for some clarification to address what Commissioner Vatz is talking about, I just want to get a little bit of clarity. The 20 year, 30 year, can you break that down a little bit more deeply for us here? What that means, what that might not mean just so that we can wrap our arms around the time difference, the 15 year difference here.

Sure. The affordability term is in the code as the length of time that once a housing unit that is an inclusionary unit as per the code is built. It's the length of time that it is required to be affordable to someone of the required income. So 50% for a rental unit, 80% for a for sale unit. And so that happens. And typically, we're talking about the rental unit side of that as opposed to the ownership side. I mean, the ownership side is usually handled through other mechanisms like a community land trust, which does protect affordability somewhat differently. um you know with uh the rental units again you know it is it is a part of the the monitoring that we do um you know annually um you know with all of the inclusionary units that we already have and would do similarly with uh units that would come through ultimately what's recommend recommended and eventually passed by city council um you know here and so um you know existing in the code uh in both the mandatory program that we have of the ICO, as well as the performance points, you know, the system, which is in the code, because the performance points references the ICO standards, they have essentially a number of the same standards that are requirements. You know, that one standard that has an affordability term of 35 years presently operates where it is the affordability term for both the voluntary and the mandatory programs. Because of the transition of going from a kind of third affordable housing bonus system to really trying to incorporate the standards from the council person's bill into the code. Since the performance points system already references that it was, I mean, We were keeping what was existing in the performance point system by doing that. And so that is that 35-year term, as I had stated on the slide. I mean, we went back and looked at this. The director had conversations with developers kind of in the interim period between the briefing and hearing, as well as the research that myself and that staff had done on either previous work that the department done or best practice and again you know it was our recommendation you know to to you all uh to to keep the the standards and the code you know as as it is um you know i think if that answers your question so i'm going to go through this just just for me real quick so the 20-year is still an option and is still out there right

For units that are receiving maybe LIHTC or something like that, they're still 20 years still out there.

Accurate? Not for LIHTC projects. LIHTC projects are a minimum of 40 years. But if someone was utilizing the LERDA, for example, So the downtown LERDA is maybe an example where the LERDA in that case is a 20-year LERDA for downtown. It's 10 years in the majority of the city. But that tax abatement is a different term that they get that tax abatement.

you know the ones that are where the lerda is tied to affordability the affordability term is the same as the amount of time that they're getting the tax abatement and i misspoke i said the wrong thing but the 35 year is something that um the developer could participate in or not correct

As far as the affordability, I mean, yes, however, the bonuses are kind of predicated on the 35-year affordability.

Understood. Just want to wrap my arms around for some clarification, because I just want to make sure that as we're having the discussion with 20 versus 35, that we're

Well, and I'm sorry, just to clarify. So the bill that was sent over by council had a 20-year affordability period for the voluntary program that was arrived upon by members of council through a like eight month long public process what and you know just to kind of summarize what is being proposed by the department is that they change that 20-year period to 35 year to 35 years instead my concern with that is that it's a voluntary program the stricter you make it the fewer participants you'll get and so we want the program to be effective and successful, which means we want a lot of home builders to participate in it. And so that like to me, that's kind of the summary here is that there was a change made by the department. It was made to allow it to align with the existing performance points program, although there's no reason why the performance point couldn't just specify for the voluntary zone. It's 20 years for the mandatory zone. It's 35 years.

Okay, very good.

Maybe to clarify, when this came before the Planning Commission in January of 2025, the proposal at that time was to actually amend the affordability term from 35 years to the life of the building. And that was for both the performance points And the, um, that went to city council, you know, that was that was the proposal that went to that went that was recommended from the planning commission that went to city council. And that was until the amendments that were made by the accounts person by council as a body that in October that were returned. you know, to the commission, that's where the 20 years was introduced.

And I mean, Deputy Director Dash, I think that's an important distinction though. So the elected representatives of the citizens of the city made a determination that 20 years was the appropriate affordability term for the voluntary program. So whatever planning commission recommended back in January was superseded by the work and public engagement that council did over that time. that's what we're that's what we are now ruling on today is what council brought back to us not what was approved back in january i'm only giving a history of where the discussion on the affordability term you know on the on the affordability term was uh commissioner um don't want to over speak commissioner vats commissioner i'm done okay

I'd like to quickly touch on why I also see the expansion of the length of the program from 20 to 35 years as being a material change and ultimately a change that will hinder the program's success. You know, like Commissioner Vatz and likely others on the Planning Commission, I'm defining success here as multiple development firms opting into this program in projects across multiple neighborhoods in the city and ultimately delivering a significant number of affordable apartment homes at this 50% AMI level. I'd like to, at a high level, you know, walk through why the change from 20 to 35 years is significant. And it really comes down to the maximum extended LERTA in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you know, tapping out at 20 years. So an affordable housing unit at 50% AMI of monthly rents averaging about $1,100 per month are worth approximately $150,000 per unit. The cost of construction is within the city for mid-rise apartments is approximately 350 000 per unit and high-rise you know steel and concrete buildings cost over four hundred thousand dollars per unit um and so how how do you get these projects financed with you know a two hundred thousand dollar per unit delta it's again going back to the lerda And so whether it's in year one or year 21, the LERDA must offset that diminution in value. And so, therefore, you know, Again, go back to this increase in years from 20 to 35 years is ultimately something that sounds good on paper, but won't result in the apartments that the commission and ultimately the city is looking for.

Yeah.

Commissioner O'Neill. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, this is this is a really interesting discussion and something I've been looking at and I apologize for missing the last meeting because I was out of town. i think i'm just trying to wrap my head around this in terms of the zoning code and how it's administered so i appreciate that there's been a lot of public process regarding the number of years and the length um but i don't think it's done that's kind of why we're here and there will be another council hearing there'll be a lot more discussion But what Mr dash and then Mr Reagan cited was an empirical study that the length of time doesn't necessarily. Result in the risk that we're hearing about, you know, there is empirical evidence. We have had developers in the city adopt the 35 year standard and been been going through that. And just for context, you know, the other bonus points that are currently in the zoning code are based on permanent improvements to the buildings. So we're seeing, you know, to get the same thing, to get one point or more, which is 15 feet, You know, we're seeing zero energy or zero carbon buildings being built. We're seeing onsite energy generation, you know, substantial reuse of buildings, you know, adding riverfront public access, trails, easements, amenities. So, for example, we've seen a lot of bathrooms and then kind of rainwater. These are, you know, costs that are attributed to the to the project. There's something that developers bear, and that's kind of what we're asking for here. And so the LERTA that's in place and incentivizes affordable housing doesn't go away. That incentive remains. What we're kind of looking for is that exceptional additional 15 years. And when you're doing that, you're getting a minimum of two bonus points or 30 feet. You could be getting more than that. That's an additional two floors that the developer wouldn't otherwise be able to build, which helps to kind of pencil that project moving forward. Um, and I, I think that kind of aspirational, um, maybe that's the wrong word because I, I think there is the empirical evidence there that the 35 years is appropriate. And I also do wanna give, um, some credit too, to, you know, city planning, administering these programs is difficult and having conflicting or potentially conflicting, uh, you know, provisions related to different numbers of years and having different standards when all of the other bonus points are permanent standards that are, you know, going to be in place for the life of the building, which useful life could be 50 to 100 more. Or typically, if we're thinking about it from a depreciation standpoint, it'd be 39 years under the IRS code. You know, making this different than those just makes it very difficult. And we want it to be administered. We want it to move forward. So I think for the people who are on the ground, to say that it's easier to have 35 years is appropriate. and i i did also want to touch on the amount of the b and lou um and then just from like a very legal perspective having any number in there is probably a little problematic It really should be, you know, a fee to be determined by either the zoning administrator or council and then published in a fee schedule each year. That way there is some sort of, you know, adjustment for inflation, some sort of increase. It is, as we all know and why this is here, a long process to come through a zoning amendment to maybe change it to 30 years and 10 years from now. Right. Or $30. um so i would recommend that's kind of similar to some of the other fee and lou language that we see in the zoning code i would say um to be determined by either a zoning administrator or council and i'd be interested in the law department's take on the amount just because we want that to be enforceable as well if it's too high and i understand um 35 dollars a square foot sounds like a good number but if it is too high it can be considered an illegal tax and unenforceable so I I would really like that kind of placeholder for an amount to be determined and then Council can adjust that yearly and then the law department can also weigh in on what is an appropriate amount and what is too high I would agree with that um and I think that completes my comments

thank you you're welcome um you can go you can go bob i'll go all right thank you um two thoughts first i i completely agree with uh council commissioner o'neill's idea of both the payment in lieu of in regards to the affordable units but also in regards to the parking remember that's the other one that we should also be i am a i'm really concerned about legislating numbers right legislating numbers that things over time change especially dollars is really uncomfortable for me so i really appreciate the idea and the suggestion to do and i would advocate that we do both the parking and payment in lieu of parking and payment in lieu of units or for square feet both be done through the fee schedule that can be amended annually it doesn't that way we can factor into inflation and things like that uh throughout I also, frankly, am a little nervous about the idea of putting numbers in regards to years in the zoning code. So whether it's 20 years, 35 years, 135 years, what happens when a developer all of a sudden says, no, I'm not going to do any more affordable units? Are we going to take those floors back? We don't have that kind of regulatory power right to take the floors back. And so I'm a little concerned about this notion of putting that of how do we enforce that? Right? I did. There isn't really a good way to do that. I guess I'm maybe interested in council's position and probably ultimately city solicitor's position about how can that be enforced if it can be at all? And if we're going to put that in there, what is the way to make sure that it's the what's. Whether or not it's the right number, I think that's open to debate amongst here. But for me, it's something that should never be in there at all.

Commissioner Rupp, I think just as clarification, I believe that it's enforced through a deed restriction on the building before it gets its occupancy permit.

Again, I get that. But having enforced zoning law for many years, if somebody changes that, is the city going to go out there and change that deed restriction? Is that going to challenge that? That that's the enforceability is the component of to me to that that's problematic. That's our question. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I. Look, I think this is a great piece of legislation. I think I commend council for doing this. The idea of 1, eliminating parking requirements is is lots of other cities are doing it. We could be doing, we should be moving in that way. The, the accessible additional accessory units is a really great idea. it's going to be a great one for my when my mother-in-law comes moving in so i do think that but i i think the affordability bonus program is the right way to be doing it i'm just concerned in both both frankly for the iz overlay and for this this idea of putting a year of restriction on there that is somewhat arbitrary but also going to be really hard to enforce

uh do you want to comment to that i mean i just may kind of limit my comments to the enforceability uh aspect of uh you know of this and you know this is i mean this is you know as commissioner vats had noted um you know there is one side of this that is you know there is a deed restriction you know that is required at the time of you know prior to circuit certificate of occupancy um that does you know create that restriction as an you know something that's enforceable There are also restrictions in the performance points around a number of these relative to, you know, how, you know, enforcement and if it comes to it, which obviously is not our intent, you know, fining and, you know, and those things, those things occur, you know, on the back end for noncompliance, you know, are specific because similar to um the you know kind of amorphous nature of you know of you know of i mean somebody could say i don't want to rent you know i don't want to make this an affordable unit anymore what do you do then the same as separate performance points that we have around energy or around you know around other things uh you know relative to building systems you know that there is you know i think you know obviously ways that building owners could make changes to come out of compliance and some of those ways that are very different than traditional zoning standards of you know yes you're building a setback or no you're not right you know or you know yes you know the use is very clearly one that identifies with the zoning code or doesn't so we do have mechanisms in the code to you know to get on the enforcement side you know relative to that you know whether you know whether that is like i said some of the other things that we have around um you know around um you know, energy production or energy generation or, you know, energy, you know, provided in, you know, just harping in that one is kind of like what I see as a similar example to restrictions that maybe already are in the ICO that get into either term of affordability or some of the, you know, things that happen internal to the units, you know, that are standards that exist in the present ICO and performance points relative to affordable units. if that helps to maybe provide some clarity and answer your question there.

I mean, it does. And I appreciate the notion. I also know that, you know, there's a lot of other things in the zoning code that are out there that are as enforced as well. So I just, I worry about enforcement has always been the hardest part. There's no zoning cops, right? Right. And not that maybe there should be, but I'm sure there's a long line of applicants for that. But that being said, I think that's where my nervousness is. I mean, I think what we as a commission need to find out is what is the balance between wanting to give as much care as possible out there to encourage the development to happen, but also making sure that we're retaining the rights of the city if it does not. And I think that's so, I mean, I'm inclined to think about, again, I'd be interested in where the solicitor's position is, and frankly, where council is on that as well. Maybe one last piece. on this is that if we just as a note for protocol i guess as we're going through this if there is a decision that we want to change the any of these numbers specifically i'm thinking the one that i think we're all in favor of this idea of putting the payment in lieu of on the fee schedule as uh for both parking and and for the um affordability that would i would suggest that we do that through a separate motion that's done before we act on the further the bigger pieces i that's just a suggestion that i put out there

So you want to separately vote on payment in lieu and that number being adjusted?

If we approve as it is, then we're getting what it is. If we want to amend it, do we need to vote to amend it and then vote to accept it?

No, I think we would just vote with conditions.

Yeah, we could approve with some conditions instead of separating.

Yeah. And, and it, I mean, it sounds like the conditions that are being discussed right now are, I think the payment. So it would be the payment in lieu fee being something that is either determined separately via legislation or via determination by the zoning administrator and published in a fee schedule. Right. And then also reverting the, uh, affordability period to, for the voluntary program only for 20 to 20 years.

uh i think commissioner walker had something she wanted very very very brief comments um i i will say that i'm not wholly convinced that the 34-year affordability will be a deterrent to developers i think that some of the first movers on this particular bonus program will be our existing affordable housing developers and so we also have an imperative to make affordable housing development easier for them while also trying to incentivize some of our more Market rate developers to take advantage of this program. I think that the legislation has done a great job of pairing significant density increases parking reductions fee waivers and other tax incentives that are contemplated by the lerda and one thing that we've not talked about are faster entitlement timelines i think we talk about affordable housing but what we're fundamentally dealing with is the need for subsidized housing and so by creating this bonus program we're asking market rate developers to essentially help subsidize affordable housing i think we should You know, not only think about in terms of affordability, the term of affordability from 20 to 35 years, but how do we start to address some of our the subsidy tools that can be used to further enhance this bonus program? I come from a world where 40 years of affordability in a 99 year D restriction. It's not an uncommon thing. It's just what you do. I also come from a world where I've seen people get to the end of a LIHTC term and have their housing affordability gutted from them, and that was a 40-year term of affordability. So I think we have an imperative here, a moral imperative, an economic imperative, and sort of a fiduciary imperative to not only think about affordability in terms of getting people to buy into the program, but we have to think down the line, how do we put mechanisms in place between that 20 to 35 year period? How do we prepare people for that cliff? um that's not been contemplated that's not been talked about but it's a very real thing uh in our city and so i am in support of the 35 years because i think we have to start somewhere and i think that the hard work that's gone into the legislation and reframing what was a city-wide inclusionary program and people had major concerns i think that this is a strong showing of how we make affordability um we show that affordability is important we do not alienate the developer community but at the same time we have a responsibility to residents to give them longer terms of affordability. And so I'm in support of the 35 years.

all right uh commissioner o'neill oh i was just gonna piggyback off of uh commissioner rappy's i think because there may not be alignment on the amendments it's first taking a vote on amending based on the fee and then a seg and then a separate vote on the number of years and then once we've done those votes it's voting on the final legislation so uh you want to take apart

The fund.

Oh, yeah. So I think the 1st, so it would be the 1st motion would be that the payment provisions in the legislation are changed to reflect to be determined amount by either the zoning administrator or counsel and included in a published fee schedule. Okay. And then a 2nd amendment and I will let commissioner vats propose his amendment. Just the language what it would be when we we're not officially proposing it. No, no, no.

I'm just well, I mean, I just think that that we go with what was passed by Council, which is 20 years, because we want to make the program something that developers will actually use.

Can I make a suggestion there? Yes, please. I think if I'm hearing Commissioner Vatt's intent correctly, that he would be asking for a condition to amend what planning has offered by substitution by creating an additional provision to allow for the voluntary program to have a 20-year affordability term. Because again, since those were aligned, there's not a, you know, and the reason I make that clarification is just because of the way that what is, where it's transitioned from what was submitted initially as the separate affordable housing bonus program to integrating the council person's intent into the performance points. If that, you know, just to try to like, you know, if that gets at your intent.

Yeah, no, I think that's accurate. so you're that's what you feel yeah i mean i think that like what you said sounds like what my intent is i feel like i mean i don't know i don't see it right now i think we're in i think we're in alignment yeah yeah all right that sounds like you yeah now commissioner kelly please and thank you sure i just have a quick question uh-huh do we have the right to override the will of council

don't i don't think i don't use something i i i don't know that's all i was asking so i i would say that i don't think what we're in mr dash wants to to clarify please i'm confused on this sure so um you know i mean so when when when council bills come to us um you know it's it's for the planning commission to review and make a recommendation The Planning Commission can either approve what City Council has submitted as it was, can reject it or can recommend rejecting it outright, or can recommend approving with conditions. Again, in this case, case uh you know planning staff's recommendation and again this is off of work that we've done you know with you know the council person to recommend a different direction um you know was to make some of these changes to the performance points to to relate to her intent Um, and so if the planning commission wants to make additional edits, which I think is what the discussion on the table is that there might be additional conditions, then what happens is those go to city council with the planning commission's recommendation planning staff. Most times tries to work with city council to edit the bill. to conform to the conditions. At the same time, it is Council's will to, through a supermajority, vote against the Planning Commission's recommendations. So, you know, like, so, you know, with, you know, then, you know, when it comes to Council, a simple majority is what they, was required for them to, you know, to, if they're going to comply with your recommendation, it takes a supermajority if they would say, well, you made these conditions and we disagree, we're not going to do them. So does that help answer your question, Commissioner Kelley?

This whole loop's been a little confusing. Go ahead.

I totally understand. And so what Commissioner Vatz is proposing around that is that we look at the 20-year which council has proposed. Then the additional condition on the table is that we vote separately on the in lieu fund. okay um so commissioners we've had some discussion uh and it is has been very healthy discussion understanding i think that we are unanimous in taking a two-part vote so since that is the one thing right yeah yeah okay yeah all right i just want to make sure uh that we go ahead and someone make a motion and i don't want to put the motion in your mouth as it relates to the in lieu

I'd be happy to make that motion. Please and thank you. I make a motion that the Planning Commission add a condition that both the payment in lieu of for parking as well as payment in lieu for affordable units not be legislated in the code in regards to those dollar amounts, but rather be designed and accepted annually as part of the fee schedule determined by the zoning administrator with the council.

I'll second. do you second all right um so i'll take that um commissioner burton falk aye commissioner hunt aye thank you commissioner interiano aye thank you commissioner kelly aye thank you commissioner o'neill aye thank you commissioner quentinia aye thank you commissioner repi aye thank you commissioner vats aye thank you and commissioner walker aye all right very good did you have something it was on the motion you just made so i think we're oh sorry okay well you should have jumped out there a little bit okay i'm trying to catch the whole line up here okay so for um the recommended motion and the other portion we've heard commissioner vats we've heard commissioner walker um other commissioners on it as well is there

So I'll make a motion that we approve with the condition that the affordability period for the voluntary program only, not for the mandatory program, only for the voluntary program, is set to 20 years. So, yeah.

And then the voluntary...

The voluntary is 20 years, and then the mandatory program stays unchanged.

Okay, very good.

I'll second.

You'll second, Hunt? All right, very good. So now I'll do... And this would be a recommendation to council.

Just voting on the condition? Just for the condition.

We'll do the condition.

And then do the vote. Got it. Thanks for clarification.

Well, I'm trying to take the vote here so that we can get to the recommendation. Because we got a whole lot of conditions. Okay. Burton Falk. Aye. Hunt. Aye. Thank you. Interiano. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill.

Nay.

nay uh commissioner cantania aye uh commissioner repi thank you thank you uh commissioner vats hi thank you and commissioner walker nay nay all right very good all right so now we've got two parts in terms of condition now what we're doing is a recommendation to council with these conditions to approve Right, we're not approving, we're making, now your hand is up and I can see that.

Just to clarify, Chair, is that a recommendation in accordance with the staff report with the additional conditions that were voted on? Because the recommendation of the staff report was kind of the changes that were presented to you all and the revised legislation that was submitted to you all then with the two conditions that you've already voted on.

Let's just make sure. Let's go down the line.

I believe so, yes.

Okay.

i feel like that's what we've just talked through here is there's two additional conditions that we want to apply beyond that i think we agree with the staff yeah i just want to clarify on the recommendation to approve because approve would have been the initial the initial affordable housing bonus bill that's that's why that was why i was sorry i was adding that from the staff report into you know the conditions that y'all made that's fine i just want to make sure that i'm not speaking for the entire commission

I, I, what you're saying is that like, it seemed to, and I'll, I'll just throw this out there. It seems like the motion is to approve the staff's recommendation with the two additional conditions that we just agreed upon. That's correct. Okay. Yeah. I think, am I saying that correctly for everybody? Everybody's interviewing.

Is everybody feeling that? No.

Sorry, there's a lot of moving. So can I? Yeah, that's the motion. That's the motion.

And I second that. Okay. All right. So life is getting better here. Commissioner Burton Falk. Aye. Commissioner Hunt. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Reppy. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz. Aye. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker. Aye. Thank you. Okay. all right so um there you have it uh and um thank you for all those who have gone through this process with us that concludes uh the hearing and action items we are now moving on to agenda item e which is the director's report director's report today wow you were awesome thank you thank you not that i wasn't enjoying this just saying um okay so commissioners at this time uh that concludes june 2nd 2026 uh planning commission session do i have a motion to adjourn so move do i have a second second all in favor give me an eye all right thank you