Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

guys just letting you know that i'm on the zoom here hi good afternoon

I see. Thank you. All right. It is one o'clock. Welcome all to the Planning Commission meeting for July 14, 2026. This is the briefing portion of the meeting. We have four items on for briefing. Before I get started, we will do a quick roll call. Commissioner Burton Falk. Commissioner Hunt.

Present.

Commissioner Interiano.

Present.

Commissioner Kelly. Commissioner O'Neill. Commissioner Cantania? Is he able to join? I know there was a question. Commissioner Ruppey? Commissioner Vatz?

Present.

Thank you. And Commissioner Walker? All right. We have four items on for briefing on the agenda today. The briefing portion is where the projects will be presented by the applicants, and then we will hear comments and questions from the Commission. Following briefing, there will be the hearing and action portion of the agenda. That is the opportunity for the public to comment and go through those projects that are on for hearing and action. Of the four items, I will read just quickly. For briefing, we have Council Bill 2025-224. My apologies. That is DCP-MPCC-2025-00243 and BDA-2026-02700. That is located at 2695 Winchester Road and involves a preliminary and final development plan for a new planned unit development in the Banksville neighborhood. Briefing item B is BDA-2026-03918, located at 4337 Fifth Avenue. That involves a nine-story residence hall with a ground floor restaurant in the North Oakland neighborhood. Briefing item C is BDA-2026-04520 at 3102 Smallman Street and proposes a 23 four, I'm sorry, 23 four-story townhomes in the Strip District neighborhood. And the final item on for briefing portion of today's agenda is zoning code updates. This is phase one of the zoning code text amendment and map amendment. and involves DCP-MPCC-2026-00169. And these changes are in response to an executive order 2026-01 regarding the permitting process reform. And those are citywide. The first item up in briefing is that Council Bill 2025-2224 and BDA-2026-0016 02700, located at 2695 Winchester Road, P and FLDP for planned unit development in Banksville. And presenting that on behalf of the department is Mr. Fraker.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Good afternoon.

I'll read in the case and turn it over to the applicant team for the presentation. Council Bill 2025-2224 was filed by City Council on behalf of the property owners Marion Manor Corporation to rezone the former Vincentian Marion Manor assisted living facility in the Banksville neighborhood. A preliminary land development plan which includes the site layout and development standards was submitted to accompany the legislation as is required for the zoning code. An application for a final land development plan was then filed by Goldberg, Kamen, and Garvin on behalf of the property owners for the final land development plan for the site. The applicants have requested that the applications for the PLDP and the FLDP be reviewed concurrently, and the department has agreed to that request. The legislation has changed since being introduced at city council in September of 2025. The original legislation was proposed to create a new special plan district. that legislation was then amended in february 2026 to be for a new planned unit development district the newer version of the legislation includes texts that will live within the preliminary land development plan and not in the zoning code itself therefore the legislation will be amended by substitution to include just the text needed for the zoning map change A copy of the legislation to be amended by substitute is attached to your report. The site is 26 acres and is currently split zone between the RMM, residential multifamily, medium density, the R1DL, and the parks district the zone change would change the entire site to the new rp district residential plan unit development the site has frontages on winchester road rose garden road and carnahan road but access to the site would be off only winchester road the preliminary land development plan establishes uses and standards for development within the proposed rp district the uses are outlined in the report and in the presentation to be provided by the applicant the preliminary land development plan also includes provisions for open space which is a requirement for new pud districts the applicant has provided an open space exhibit illustrating locations of total open space usable open space and recreation space The application for final land development land development plan includes the demolition of the existing structures on site and construction of 124 single unit attached townhomes. site improvements will also include site grading installation of new a new private road new sidewalks a Community Center pickleball courts and a pool. The zoning code requires that trees 12 inches in diameter or more that are removed be replaced on an inch-for-inch basis. The applicant will be removing approximately 3,500 total inches of trees, but will be replacing much of that on site. The remaining portion will be entered into an agreement with the applicants for a conservation easement. which is currently being negotiated with staff. The final land development plan was reviewed by the contextual design advisory panel. Design staff have requested that the applicant note whether there have been any design changes since the CDAP meeting. A copy of the CDAP summary is also attached to your report. And with that, I'll turn it over to the applicant.

Good afternoon, members of the Commission. My name is John Kamen, that's K-A-M-I-N. My address is 437 Grant Street, Suite 1806, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. I'm with the firm of Goldberg, Kamen & Garvin, and I'm counsel for the applicant. and pleased to be here this afternoon to present this plan to you. We're calling this the Banksville Golden Horizons RP District. This is going to be, as far as we know, Pittsburgh's first active adult 55 plus community. And I'm pleased to walk you through what is, we think, a great adaptive or I should say a great reuse of a site which really needs some attention and is going to generate significant new for sale housing for Pittsburgh. This is an aerial view of the existing site. As you can see, it is in the Banksville neighborhood, as Joe said. It is mostly surrounded by residential, though the woods that you'll see, a large portion of those woods are actually on site and on significantly sloped areas associated with our site and the surrounding neighborhood. This is just a tax map highlight of the existing site. As you can see, there is a significant portion of the site that does front, as Joe said, on a number of different roads. We will be using the Winchester access, which is the existing access, as our access to the site. One of the things you can note about this is that it has very good access to many different streets, including Banksville Road, and we think transportation is something that's going to make this site very attractive to its future occupants. As Joe mentioned, the site is the existing Marion Manor personal care home. It is mostly vacant and will be fully vacant shortly. It is in very poor shape and is unsuitable for anything other than demolition. As Joe mentioned, the existing site is a split zone site. There's that covers most of the most of the, I should say usable portion. Then there's parks, which covers the sort of lower portion and goes up against the banksville and corridor. Couple things that we are going ahead and putting into this zoning district. First of all, it will be a deep, restrictive, active adult community. So that's 55 plus community. There'll be 124 for sale, single family attached homes. Each home will include an elevator and its standard model. And at this point we are planning all modular construction. The unit owners will pay a monthly fee to the HOA. It is going to be a planned community under the Planned Community Act. And the community homeowners association will be responsible for the maintenance of all the common elements, all the exterior landscaping and private streets. It's going to be responsible for the clubhouse and responsible for all amenities. This is going to be essentially a no maintenance community to its residents. This is a proposed overall site plan. As you'll see as we get through the next series of exhibits, the site does have some significant slopes to it. So what we have done to meet both the RP requirements and to minimize disturbance to slopes and other sensitive receptors, including you can see the stream that kind of runs through the back of it, is that we've concentrated all of our density on the most usable and buildable area. And that's why we're having essentially 124 single-family attached homes. This is just a blow up of half of the plan. As you can see, when you come into the entrance of the site, there will be a community clubhouse that is an amenity for the community that we are planning to have pickleball courts. We are planning to have a swimming pool associated with it. And then the clubhouse, as you'll see in the later portion of the deck, has a number of amenities for the residents itself. This will not be open to the public, but is just a amenity for the residents who live there. As you can see, this is the back half of the development. Again, it's a very efficient layout. We've gone one sort of single spine road with driveways that come off of that and a turnaround at the end of the site. All of those items, as designed by Gateway, are in compliance with city standards and city codes for turning radius, width, etc. This is just a little bit of a blow up of the amenity area. Again, you can see there's adequate and ample parking for the residents. Should they choose to drive down there or should there be an inclement weather days that they can park here so there'll be no spillover whatsoever with regard to the streets surrounding the development or parking that would impact any of our neighbors. This is the proposed open space plan. The RP district has an extremely onerous requirement for open space. As you can see, 70% total open space is required. We've been able to go ahead and provide 77%. There is a distinction between usable open space and recreational open space. We've met the recreational open space requirement by putting in sort of a circular trail that sort of runs along the grade there. that will go down and around our proposed detention pond this is a landscape plan as Joe mentioned there's a significant number of trees many of which are undesirable trees that are being removed as part of the development of the site and as you can see from the planting there are Also a significant amount of trees that are being planned for the site and placed back onto the site. It is very dense in terms of planting, which is the way that we wanted it to be. We think that's a lovely amenity for the new development. We have tried to protect and pay attention to the slopes because. One of the things, as you'll see in the next set of plans, is that there's extensive grading that has to happen on the site because the site contains significant unsuitable soils. So we have to perhaps overgrade and remove more trees than we would like to, to be able to get the slopes to be stable and sufficient to go ahead and take the development. This is a slope map of the existing site, and as you can see why we concentrated the area where we did the area in red are slopes that are basically in excess of 25%, and you can see from the. map that that is definitely a significant limiting factor for us as i said before when the site was originally developed it looked like there were a lot of spoils that were sort of placed on the site since the structural fill was really only under the building so there's significant amount of undercutting and soil work that has to happen according to our geotechnical engineer to be able to make it suitable for development This shows the proposed grading plan. And as you can see, we're grading out essentially almost everything in that two box or three box area and reestablishing some slope on the way down to get ourselves a good vegetatable slope going down to the pond. Here's some characteristics of the site in the proposed uses. Again, it's 26.44 acres, has significant slopes, significant vegetation and is split zoned. Our RP zoning district is single unit detached residential, single unit, two unit residential, three unit residential, community clubhouse and recreational facilities and multi-use residential. That should say single unit attached residential. As far as accessory uses, we're talking about private garages, home occupations, recreation and entertainment. And then we did had to write a standard for the community clubhouse, which again is a proposed sort of accessory use within our district. In terms of housing typologies, we wanted to create some flexibility for different unit types. As you can see, we really have just a couple of unit types that we're using. We have a maximum height of 40 feet. And because we're doing single family attached, And because of the limitations associated with the site, we did not establish any minimum lot sizes. It is anticipated that once our foundations are in, that we will be coming back. You'll see probably a series of subdivision plans that will be coming through over the course of the next couple of years with you. The lots will be sold in fee simple. but we're not going to go ahead and lay those lots out until the foundations are actually in to allow for field adjustments for our units before we set them in terms of minimum parking requirements there's not any minimum parking requirements though we are planning that each unit will have their own two-car integral garage This is a proposed rendering. It has not changed from the CDAP conversation, but we are in design process right now with our builder to finalize a number of different elements for them to go ahead and provide to us. They will look similar to this. There will be some adjustments to it, color of material, those types of things, and we are working through right now, final floor plans. I'll show you the next slide has preliminary floor plans of what we're talking about. Each unit on these, what we're calling our 36 foot units are approximately 26 feet wide, 36 feet in depth. As you can see from the floor plans, the basement level is on your left that does have the two car integral garage. there is an elevator that will be part of the base unit for every unit and then at least in this design we're showing sort of a basement bedroom which can be used as an office bedroom etc that does have a bath on the first floor we're showing sort of wide open areas with kitchen living and dining area you can see the elevator continues to run through there and then on the second floor we're showing two baths and two bedrooms along with a large master closet up above. There will be an option for exterior decks, which will be built as part of the delivery of the unit, which a customer can opt into. Here's a proposed rendering of the 42-foot unit. Again, there are some changes coming with materials, window placement, that type of thing from the factory, but this is generally the concept of what it is. Like the prior unit, it's approximately 26 feet wide, but it's 42 feet in depth, and you can see that that gives you a little more flexibility in terms of Living area and this unit is proposed on this one does have a first floor master And again like the 36 foot unit there is an elevator that comes all the way up and will be part of our base package In terms of community amenities We're planning a 3,800 square foot clubhouse that will have a golf simulator a full communal kitchen pool table swimming pool pickleball courts conference room in the community trail and This is a conceptual plan that we have of the clubhouse. And as you can see, the clubhouse is going to serve is again not just an area for the residents, but also as double as a area that services the outside pool. There will be a small men's in women's locker room, storage room, maintenance room, potting green, typical amenities that you would find in an active adult community. In terms of the process that we're asking for today, we are at briefing, but we will be coming to uh back for you for hearing on both the pldp and fldp uh combined approval um i don't need to go through all the criteria uh but this the the two parts of that the first are section 922 11b3 which talks about what the planning commission is to consider for a preliminary land development uh criteria and we'll go through these in detail when we get to the hearing in two weeks from now but we do believe that we've met each and every one of these criteria for going ahead and designing the uh planned And then the FLDP criteria has many of the same as the PLDP criteria, but adds a couple more to it. And again, we'll go through these in detail when we come for hearing and action in two weeks, but we believe again that we meet each and every one of these criteria and that's under section 922.11 of the code. More from the code. and i believe that that's it so happy to answer any questions i know there's a lot that we went through quickly i also know that you have a packed agenda today so happy to answer any questions that any members of the commission may have thank you if that concludes your presentation uh we will take comments from the commission at this time we do not take comments from the public yeah i i have just a few things online i i don't know i can't see who's got hand raised down there um

All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Kamen. Appreciate the presentation. I just want to say like real quick and I will keep it short. It's great to see development like this happening in the South Hills. I mean, so often we hear about developments happening, you know, more in the east end of the city. So it's nice to see some development activity happening there and also, you know, repurposing property that is currently disused. And then I think the other thing I'll say is just like, you know, right now we see very, very little single family housing being built in the city. And so I think it's also great to see a development like this. So thanks for the presentation. The only thing that stuck out to me, and I'd be curious to talk about this with DCP staff, that 70% open space requirement seems incredibly onerous. And why wouldn't we want more housing to be built on properties like this rather than requiring 70% open space for these planned unit developments. But I know it's not a question you can answer necessarily, but just something to flag for DCP staff.

I can tell you, David, in terms of, you know, we do a lot of work in the city, but we also do a lot of suburban work outside of the city and, you know, Butler, Washington, other areas, and 70% is very high. Most of the times in a PUD scenario, you would see 50% is something that that would be pretty typical. But this 70% number is surprisingly high for the type of development we're talking about.

Well, and particularly in an urban context, you would think that maybe it should be significantly lower than that. But one way or another, I think thanks for sharing all the information. And we'll see you back in a few weeks, I guess. Yes.

Um, thank you. I just have, uh, I think a question to piggyback off of that. I do appreciate the detailed presentation, um, and also the math you're trying to make us do for a residentially planned unit. Um, and it is to commissioner Vatz's point, um, kind of a, an overly complicated district. Um, if we could just switch to slide number 12, please. without going too far into the details about the open space. I just wanted to understand a little bit more clearly. So on the table provided, it says the open space required is 70% and 77.7 is being provided. There's also a breakdown within there that says usable open space, 45% is required and 10.1 is provided. I don't know that that math is,

Correct so so the, I think the way that so I think the way that the city defines usable. Under that is based on a floor area ratio associated with what's there. I think that we've worked through with staff that given the trail. And what we're doing in the way that the open space is situated, particularly with our planning, is that it's going to qualify as that. So we'll adjust the table. But I think to be super technical, it's based on floor area ratio, which doesn't really necessarily make a whole lot of sense when you're doing single families. So we'll adjust that for the final presentation.

Because you are showing on the additional table the passive open space, which does seem to contribute to that. So trying to reconcile those was little bit hard but helpful to understand my only other comment if we could go i think it's one of the earlier slides uh with the rezoning um if we could just go to the zoning map please yeah give me a second yeah take your time the clicker is not as fast as i there you go uh so if we could have a little bit of a clearer map showing the outline of the property It seems like the highlighted parcel is the adjacent parcel.

And I can... Yeah, I will get you... We'll get you a better map. Okay.

Thank you.

That matches the tax map.

That matches the tax map. Correct. Just because it's helpful to understand that there are three districts that are being changed to this district. And just to clarify, there is a parks district that is being rezoned, but that is privately owned. It's not health infrastructure.

That's correct. It was just... similar to what's happened many times before when sort of the overlay the gis overlay comes in um when it was plotted they saw a bunch of trees there and i think it just parked but it's privately owned and again the level of disturbance that we're talking about is really diminished i've i just wanted to make sure that clarification was was addressed all right uh no additional questions for me anything else no no additional questions we will see you back here in two weeks thank you so much for the presentation thank you thank you

We will be introducing the next item. Commissioner Burton-Falk is about to introduce that and read that into the record. I will be stepping out because I will be recusing.

Thank you, Vice Chair O'Neill. All right, so moving on to the next item. briefing agenda item is item number b and that is as follows bda-2026-03918 at 43 37 5th avenue this is a nine-story residence hall with ground floor restaurant in the north oakland neighborhood and mr johnson will be presenting thank you good afternoon good afternoon commissioners christian johnson senior planner for department of city planning

An application for a project development plan, BDA-2026-03918, was submitted on behalf of the property owner, University of Pittsburgh, for the construction of a nine-story residence hall with ground floor restaurant. The project is located on Site 2B of the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Master Plan. Zoning and other reviews for this application include review of compliance with the University of Pittsburgh IMP, including parking requirements, energy goals, and architectural compatibility. A copy of the Institutional Master Plan has been provided to the Commissioners, and an excerpt has been included in this report. The application adheres to the Site Development Standards outlined on pages 166 and 167 of the Institutional Master Plan, except in a few cases where minor revisions are proposed. These minor revisions to the Institutional Master Plan for Site 2B are included in the applicant's presentation. This includes revisions to setbacks and sidewalks. These revisions should be considered by the planning commission when reviewing the project development plan criteria and will be subject to approval via administrator exception per 922.12 of the code. project was presented to the zoning board of adjustment on june 11 2026 and requested special exceptions in the emi zoning district for dormitory use and restaurant general use the zba decision is anticipated before the the planning commission hearing date for this application on july 28 2026. The project is in the Oakland Civic Center Historic District and requires historic review and approval. The historic review commission hearing was July 1st, 2026. The decision letter is included with this report. The certificate of appropriateness is required for final zoning approval. Development activities meeting with the registered community organizations for the neighborhood was held on May 11th, 2026. That dam report is attached to this report. Conceptual Stormwater Management Review has been approved for this project by the Department of City Planning. The Department of Permits, Licensing, and Inspections will be approving the final stormwater plan. The project was presented to the Contextual Design Advisory Panel on May 26, 2026, and that summary is attached to this report. Under Section 911.04A.23, the Planning Commission shall review a project development plan according to the criteria listed in the criteria of 922.10e.2 attached to this report. The applicant provided a memo indicating how the proposed development meets the criteria, and that memo is attached to this report. I will now turn it over to the applicant.

Thank you.

Thanks very much, Commissioners. My name is Regina, R-E-G-I-N-A, BLECK, B-L-E-C-K. I'm the University Architect and Vice Chancellor of Planning, Design, and Construction for the University of Pittsburgh. With me is Jim Richardson from VMDO. Also, I have my team here as well as Edgar Smith from Kimmel Architecture. And we're really excited to present this as was mentioned, nine story residence hall. I'm going to be really quick and turn it over to Jim because you already heard a lot about the about the building. So it is located on Fifth Avenue at the intersection of Fifth and Ruskin, wrapping around the existing 1884 Richardsonian Romanesque historic music building and its 1920s annex and spans to North Bellfield in an L-shape with you know, with an architecture that is sympathetic to the surrounding neighborhood. So traditional style residence hall of 450 students in double beds, suitable for first year students. I'm going to turn it over and then I'll talk about the IMP later on. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you.

So our rendered schematic design is right in the middle of the image. We've been trying to give it a really self-evident fit. The site and the project is really a gateway for the University of Pittsburgh campus and the city of Oakland, both as an entrance experience, but also in the way as an urban infill project as it frames the cathedral on maybe the most memorable campus landscape around. Ground floor has a retail dining facility that connects to the energy of Fifth Avenue and along Fifth Avenue connects to two other dining facilities, the eatery and the base of Litchfield Towers and the Cathedral Cafe. We've seen the architecture itself as kind of a Sorry, go back kind of a hub or a pivot in the way that it needs to both represent its institutional identity, but also have a really strong contextual fit overall of its place. So, the rendering shows our approach for massing and height with flat roofs. You can see the top floor steps back from 5th Avenue. We're showing a green roof on the portion of the roof that faces 5th and an equipment screen on the portion that is further away from from 5th. This is an existing conditions plan. So the existing L-shaped parking lot is the site with fronts on Ruskin Avenue on 5th and on Bellfield. The yellow rectangle represents a temporary structure that will be removed as part of the project. And the red rectangle represents the removal of a 110 square foot office addition to the addition to the music building as an enabling work. Also in the red square will be reconfiguration of an ADA ramp and removal of a generator. So a few site photos of existing condition where you can see the music building and the annex, the parking lot and Ruskin Hall there in the lower right image. The surrounding context itself is an eclectic mix of both styles and ages. In particular, soldiers and sailors, Belfield Hall, Webster, public education all have a base, middle, and top composition that we're drawing from. There's a pretty common material palette of tan or buff brick and limestone, particularly on the bases that we are drawing from. Regarding open space, there's a really important connection to the cathedral lawn. And I think our approach is to continue the landscape approach of clap hall and alumni hall on the urban streetscape in relation to the city's guidelines. So wanna talk a little bit about the site plan and then might come back to this in a little while.

Wait for a second.

So the idea that we have is to reinforce the urban edges along Ruskin and 5th and Bellefield Ave. As Gina mentioned, the project wraps around and preserves the music building in the annex. We see a primary approach from the southwest, and so have configured both a stair and a universal sloped walk up to entrances for dining, which I think is number 13 on the lower left, and the primary residential entrance a little bit further up Ruskin, which I think is labeled 14. There's an inside outside retail dining facility that faces both Ruskin and 5th Avenue, and that spills out onto a pretty generous terrace for inside outside dining that we think is going to enhance the public realm. It's a few feet above the street. At the north, a change since we last presented is a pass-through service area that will serve new construction and Ruskin Hall together. So the approach is to have a one-way passage going from Ruskin to left, kind of left to right, with a required right-hand turn onto Bellefield Ave for deliveries. Trash will be taken care of entirely from the Ruskin side of things. If that was a site plan, this is really meant to be about a zoning compliance plan. So our approach is to seek alignment with Ruskin Hall on the left side, on the Ruskin Avenue side, seek alignment with Ruskin Hall on the east side, which is the Bellfield side, and also alignment with the music building and annex on the south side facing fifth. This drawing shows the ground floor step back that has a bit more public space than the ground floor. The building above does align with the music building. Those really reflect the red dash dot lines that you see there are a few light black dash lines which reflect open to air canopies above that project no more than five feet beyond those alignments regarding sidewalks we're continuing the sidewalks along ruskin and bella field and widening the sidewalk along fifth as far as we can up to the edge of an existing asphalt that the city maintains and we have to maintain in place This is showing our proposed height in relation to context, an elevation along Bell Field facing west. I think we're inspired by some of the depth of the facade treatment of the cathedral, of its tracery that we're reinterpreting. this is showing our base middle and top configuration in relation to ruskin hall that datum also comes across pretty nicely the the school of music the music building nearby and also vertically shows the proportion of our windows in relation with rhythm and scale and massing in relation to ruskin So there are four elevations of the project showing a primary use of tan or buff brick. Ground floor treatments include local contextual stone, larger areas of glass on the ground floor to suit the retail dining. And on the ends of the building, we have larger areas of glass where we have student gathering spaces and we wanna showcase that programmatic feature. Width and length and height are also identified there. The lower elevation here is along 5th Avenue showing relation to clap hall on the left and Webster hall, particular on the right. We're drawing from clap halls, 2 story window groupings to help to scale to context and are inspired by Webster halls, verticality and kind of the inset nature of the top floor that helps to scale to the city and the campus context. This is a ground floor plan. It's a little out of date and apologize for that. The purpose for this is to show in green the extent of the ground floor restaurant or retail dining. As it is retail dining, it would serve both the student and the public together. A section with Ruskin Hall on the left cutting through and Fifth Avenue on the right shows in green again that dining facility that's two stories does have double height space and a mezzanine. Above that are in purple six stories of student housing always with student lounges and student studies in orange on the ends and a top floor main primary gathering space for residents that is inset at the top away from Fifth. One more ground plan just showing the extent and the intent for full universal access to all the main entrances. I think we have a few more renderings and then I'll hand it back over to Gina. The design really intends to activate Fifth Avenue as a kind of stacked neighborhood of learning and dining and social centers of the student experience at Pitt. So the base features that open and welcoming transparent dining facility that both draws the public in and also spills out to a terrace. above that are stacked double height student lounges that give great views to the city but also from outside you can really see community taking place in the building the top floor features much of the student gathering spaces where they will study and have social spaces i think in the evening in particular we've been calling these lanterns the idea is to have it be really open and inviting as a lantern in the evening when students come home we can showcase the community taking place within This is a view from the corner of Fifth and Ruskin, showing our base, middle, and top orientation. Regarding the middle in particular, you can see a primary use of the tan or buff brick in a stacked bond. The windows do stack. There's a narrow dark panel on the side that simply flips or flops in two-story bands, which we think gives it a sense of motion overall to balance order and variety. Organization, those two story bands we have felt helps to scale things down and make it seem a little bit less tall maybe than it actually is. The top floor has an overhead canopy that helps the building meet the sky in a graceful way as it steps back. At the ground floor you can see the extent of the transparency where dining extends campus paths into it and we hope gives a lot back to the city in the evening and the daytime too with its transparency. This is a view of that dining approach to zoom in a bit more. I think the hope here is this shows the extent of the dining terrace and the ability for low stone-clad site walls to have a relationship to the adjacent music building as we're trying to encompass the whole site within the design approach. I'm calling this the gateway view from the corner of 5th and Bellevue as a campus entrance point. So we believe the building and the architecture has a warm, neutral backdrop to the music building. It has those lantern-like ends that really feature themselves in the evenings as the lights get turned off. We're drawing from the rhythm and proportion of the music building, its ashlar pattern, and the dark accents, particularly in the roofline, are things that we've tried to draw from in our approach overall. differently rendered view, but one that we've recently done to show what it looks like and feels like if you're coming down Bellfield Ave, looking at the kind of service pass-through area between Ruskin Hall and Bellfield Ave. The material palette consists largely of tan or buff brick and a stacked bond, natural contextual stone at the base, and areas of clear insulated glass with a dark mullion. The top floor is an ultra high performance concrete rain screen system, and areas of trim and detail are a similarly colored metal composite material. This next image just shows the residential entrance, and you can really see the stone and the intent for the stonework at the ground in this view. The landscape planting plan overall consists of a mix of canopy trees, understory trees, small and medium shrubs, and ground covers. We believe in keeping with the design guidelines.

Thanks, Jim. And as was mentioned previously, this project is Site 2B, the RA parking lot that was approved in the 2021 Institutional Master Plan. I'm going to walk through the Institutional Master Plan and the clarifications we'd like to make as well as the slight revision. So regarding setbacks, the important feature for the urban design guidelines is alignment with the adjacent buildings and the creation of the street edge to continue the urban street wall. So unfortunately the dimensions that were provided in the Institutional Master Plan were approximations and not the exact measurements that we now know based on surveys taken. So we are proposing that we modify the previously included dimensions in the Institutional Master Plan so they match the exact dimensions from the setback from the legal setback to the existing buildings so that the new building aligns with the adjacent structures because that's the more salient and relevant feature than the dimensions that were shown. in addition to that as was previously mentioned we're maximizing the sidewalk and not moving the gas vault so there's slight modification there and keep talking in advance this um The IMP commits, as does this development, the historic Romanesque building that we already talked about and we all love. So we think that the L shape, you know, comports with this. And then in text, this shows the exact dimensions, as I mentioned. And then the last feature, which is an addition, so this language is not in the Institutional Master Plan, but is consistent with the zoning code that we're asking for canopies up to five feet, no more than five feet. so that we can add some of the exciting rhythm and interplay of elements on the building that I think is consistent with the rest of the architectural character. So those are the IMP adjustments. I'd say one's in addition and the others are really clarifications of the language because we want to match the street wall. Then in addition to that, the IMP talks about the university's commitment to sustainability. Pitt recently celebrated its 20th LEED-certified building with the Scaife West, the Alan McGee Scaife Hall West edition and renovation shown here, and we did achieve LEED Gold. The other projects are pending. We've had quite a spate of recent construction, so we're tracking well for these projects, but we don't yet have those certified. So hopefully all goes well. We are tracking LEED gold for this building and it would be the 27th building for the university to achieve that status if the rest attain their, you know, we're on track. So I think that will work. in terms of the specifics about the energy utilization we are tracking 51 kilobtus per square foot which is very efficient without being an all-electric building for a residence hall especially in our climate i want to make a correction to the slide for the um because i think the tree canopy there's a mistake about the tree canopy There are six existing trees and in large measure we are protecting them and they remain in place. I will validate that and then make that revision. In addition, the existing site is a parking lot, so it's an impervious surface. It's about a wash in that, you know, it's the building is pretty sizable and takes up most of the site. However, we are having a green roof as was mentioned, and adding to the landscape that is there. So in addition to new street trees, we will have understory and shrubs and ground cover to improve the health of the tree canopy and the vegetation on campus. The building, it will be tied to the university steam and chilled water system. And the university has a public art committee and an internal public art committee. And we've recently, for three projects, undergone a pretty robust process with neighbors and other stakeholders, students, faculty, and staff at BioForge, Fifth and Halcott, and the Hillside Landscaping Project. So we're going to look to the success of those projects for this building as well. parking, everyone's favorite. The existing surface lot had 64 parking spaces. 32 of those were for permit holders. They have already been relocated to other university owned parking garages. And the day parkers are also being relocated elsewhere on campus. The institutional master plan made a commitment to no net new parking on campus for the next 10 years. So this is in keeping with that. And in negotiations with the neighbors, and we're willing to commit that the students will not, students living in the residence hall, it's slated for first year students and first year students are not allowed unless they have a special dispensation to bring a car to campus. In our conversations with the neighbors, we are willing to commit that any future students of the building, whether their first year or other year, not be allowed to bring a car to campus unless they get special dispensation. And that is very rare and typically for medical reasons. So we've advanced, you know, the thinking of parking in our conversations with the neighbors. In terms of parking across campus, there was This shows the parking garages and lots at the time of the institutional master plan with the RA lot removed. So you can see there's a pretty wide variety of parking. It tallies over 4,000 vehicles across campus. In terms of the university's commitment to the Institutional Master Plan, it also looks at how we are dressing and getting out of single occupancy vehicles and looking at better mode split. So for that, I'm going to pull up the PRTs BRT project, the university funds, student faculty and staff with IDs access to free PRT rides. This project is on quite a few of them, the 61s and the 71s, as well as the P3. There are PRT stops. The inbound is across North Bellfield on 5th, and there's also another bus stop inbound on Tennyson on 5th and then outbound is on South Belfield diagonally across 5th just off of 5th on South Belfield. In addition to the Pittsburgh Regional Transit, I'm sorry, the University has shuttles And so university students, faculty and staff may ride the university shuttles. And in January of 2024, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon finalize an agreement where there's reciprocity so Pitt students can ride CMU and CMU can ride Pitt shuttles so that's an improvement that wasn't included or envisioned in the institutional master plan but adds to mobility options on campus and then In addition to that, the university funds POGO rides for Pitt faculty, staff, and students, free 30-minute rides, and if you are... Intrepid about it is all you need to do is get to another pogo station within the 30 minute and then take another bike out so you could actually ride for free for longer than 30 minutes. You just have to change bikes every 30 minutes. In the last fiscal year, Pitt accounted for over 400,000 individual trips with pogo. So the university in the first year had only 1100 trips in 2019. And we're over 400,000 this year. So another option for alternate modes of transportation. So we I think we've talked quite a bit about how we've activated the first floor of the building, including the bicycle storage on North Belfield. While many students will take and currently use POGO, the building does include bike parking for the campus as an amenity. Then... It was also mentioned and part of the text within the Institutional Master Plan that we see this site as a gateway and this building really framing the precious music building as gateway on the east side of campus. We, you know, we, we would posit that we're improving the public realm and streetscape with this and, you know, instead of the existing parking lot. In terms of traffic operations, the IMP included an evaluation of traffic operations and the existing conditions that were measured. And this intersection that we've been most focused on at 5th and Bellfield was identified as green, meaning it was high quality. Sorry, for both AM on the left side of the circle and PM peak had a level of service in an acceptable A to D grade. And then the IMP looked at the proposal and future conditions projecting future conditions for traffic. And in this intersection, the no build scenario stays the same and you still have an acceptable level of A through D service at the intersection. And in the build condition, Sorry, I didn't think in advanced. In the build condition also similarly stays in the acceptable level of service for both AM and PM peak times. for specific site loading. And Jim already showed that we have one way in, one way out, making a right turn only onto North Bellfield. Trash will come in and exit because the trash trucks will back in from Ruskin and then exit out onto Ruskin. And so in terms of the expectations for future restaurant and residence hall use, monday wednesday friday two to three trucks in the mornings tuesday and thursdays possibility of an one truck in the mornings and we're working with the neighbors on time of day for that um i have an edit to this slide the the daily trash pickup given the restaurant will continue daily throughout the year with weekly recycling pickup anticipated The project uses the existing curb cuts and eliminates two on the Ruskin side. And I already mentioned we're working with the neighbors. So this is a list of the community engagement that we've already had, including meeting with the community July 8th and today's briefing. We received approval at the HRC and we received, well, we were received favorably by CDAP. Thank you very much. Happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you so much. Since that concludes your presentation, at this time, we don't take any public testimony, but commissioners, at this time, any comments, any questions that you have for the applicant, now is the time for those. I do know that we have one commissioner online, and I do believe that Commissioner Vatz does have a few questions. Is that accurate?

Just a quick comment, because I know that we're really tight on time. I just wanted to commend the applicant here You know, I think for our city, it's great to see Pitt growing in enrollment, but I think that's led to a real shortage of housing in Oakland. And so, you know, I think we're glad to see Pitt building more housing. And, you know, we'd like to see continued building of housing, both on and off campus from Pitt and others in the Oakland area. So I also think the active public space for the restaurant is great. Like it's a block with mostly institutional uses. It'll be good to have some public activations. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Vatz. Any other Commissioner comments? Sure. Commissioner Walker?

Yes.

So on page 407, it talks about housing density and ensuring that there's a wide range of housing available at all different income levels. And the explanation here is that by adding student beds closer to the core of the campus, that you begin to unlock opportunities for other housing options that are of broader range for non-student demographics. Can you talk a little bit more about if whether or not there's any data that supports the supposition that this will unlock more more housing outside of the campus because I know there's a lot of pressure that exists there. So I'd like to hear more about that.

Thank you. So I'm not sure that I have specific data that I can share for you today. And we'll have to get back to you on that. However, we know that we've had to lease, you know, other buildings, which takes them away from the inventory for neighbors. So having 450 beds should free up those, you know, those similar spaces in the neighborhood. Thank you.

Okay. Any additional comments, commissioners? I'll add comment here. I do appreciate the cooperative shuttle transportation agreement between both universities. That's a real win there, you know, working together in both faculty and students being able to have use of that cuts down on some of the congestion, you know, that's there. Really happy to hear the 400 trips with the POGO. You know, that was something that I wanted to make sure that I pointed out. uh the the use of the glass is is a true definition to me of inside out and outside in it's it's a real nice way to um engage and with the activation that you have at the street level i think that'll prove to be a benefit for you know long term the future so it was really good to see that as well uh with that in closing you know thank you for showing up today and uh we'll see you back in two have a great rest of your day thanks very much you're welcome okay so we are moving on to agenda item c vice chair o'neill should be making her way back in And I'll begin to read item number C in. Item number C under the briefing agenda is BDA-2026-04520 at 3102 Smallman Street. This is a 23 four-story townhomes development in the Strip District neighborhood. And that will be presented by Mr. Johnson. Are the folks here for that? Yep.

okay very good thank you yep good afternoon in application for our project development plan bda 2026-04520 was submitted by rothschild doino collaborative on behalf of the property owner smallman street holdings llc for the construction of 23 new or story town homes the proposal includes a one-way interior drive private lawn and planting areas incorporated garages planting beds and is considered multi-unit residential project will demolish the existing buildings on parcels under a separate permit with the genco sales building to be preserved on parcel 25c203 subdivision plan dcp lot 2026-00162 will be presented and reviewed by planning commission a consolidation of four parcels into two parcels the project was presented to contextual design advisory panel on july 7th 2026 a summary is attached to this report The applicant was notified by the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure of the curb cut permit and right of way plan required. Approval of these will be a condition before issuing a record of zoning approval. From a loading perspective, this project will be treated as a single unit attached project rather than a multi-unit residential as it would be infeasible to require a loading space. The applicant is providing 15 street trees along Smallman Street and 31st Street in compliance with the code. The plan provides one parking spot per townhouse. The maximum allowed for multi-unit residential use in the riverfront zoning district. The construction management plan was provided and is currently under review by Domi and the zoning administrator. There's no registered community organization for the neighborhood. However, the applicant met with Strip District Neighbors Community Development Committee november 7 2025 and december 16 2025 a letter of support is included in this report under section 90504c.3.b the planning commission shall review a project development plan according to the criteria listed in the criteria of 922.10e.2 attached to this report the applicant provided a memo indicating how the proposed development meets this criteria that memo is attached to this report i will now turn it over to that

Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Campbell. I'm the principal with Rothschild Doina Collaborative. We're the architecture team for the project. We're also joined by a few people online, so I just want to make sure they're available. From my office, we have Jen Matthews, who's the project designer for the project. We have George Mongell on behalf of the owner, Smallman Street Holdings. And then we have two individuals from PBEDI who did the civil engineering for the project, and that's Rocco Magrino and Adam Machinbao. Just want to make sure everybody's here. That would be Adam Machimba and Rocco Magrino. He may be under District 31 is the title. Okay, great. Thank you. So we're excited to present this project. I will go through this somewhat quickly. I know in the interest of time here, I'm happy to answer any questions at the end. First, for the location, we are in the Strip District. We are at the foot of the 31st Street Bridge. So we're a few blocks from where the Strip formally transitions to lower Lawrenceville and also close to Polish Hill here as well, but an important area in development in the city right now. The perspective here, So our office is actually a block off to the left as you look here. And when people ask where our offices are, I used to say the other end of the strip. So we're in the strip, but not that end. This is very quickly becoming an area that needs its own neighborhood. As I'm sure the Planning Commission is aware, most of the projects on here have been built within the last five years. There's a number that have been proposed that are coming online as well. Almost all of those are apartments. What we're proposing here are townhomes to kind of give a variety of use in this particular area. The site itself has been vacant for quite a few years. You can see it outlined in red here. It is bounded by Smallman Street in the upper left, Mulberry Way, the alley in the back, the 31st Street Bridge, and then 31st Street actually slides in between the site and it on the left here. And then the... property goes all the way to 32nd but at this point we are just developing up to the first warehouse building so we're actually the demolition proposal that mr johnson mentioned is for the buildings that are colored here highlighted in red that last building would be part of a future phase The other thing I just want to add here, as we're probably all aware, this is a highly industrial area historically, but it is converting to residential. And I think that's something that we really wanted to incorporate as we were doing our design on the project. the site itself the top images are of the actual site so the the large white building you can see the first one is one that will remain for now and then the second one would be demolished there's also some older factory buildings are also on the site the images in the upper right are of the alley behind it is very much an alley you know it's filled with dumpsters it has uh overhead lines on the top that are crisscrossing in all directions. So it was a real sight for us as we were looking at things. The site context on the bottom is what you see across Smallman Street. So the building on the left is a nice little gem from 1903. Currently the Studebaker Metals Workshop is in there. It has some nice detailing we tried to pick up on. There's also the Crucible Building, which is on the other side of the bridge that has some of those details as well. And then there's two other warehouse buildings across the street. So again, very much industrial area that's starting to convert. When we were looking at the design of the project, we were really trying to pick up some of those elements. The idea of using brick and metal, these are all things that are prevalent in this particular area. We really wanted to design something that was of this area. And we're not alone. I think a lot of the projects that have come in have used these elements. So you see a lot of metal siding, a lot of brick. This type of detailing comes in here.

Excuse me.

This is the view from Smallman Street. So again, we are proposing 23 four-story townhomes. It's actually aligned in two rows, which I'll get into in a moment here. The real driver behind all of this was us trying to recognize that while we are in this industrial area, we also wanted to create a pedestrian rich experience. that also at the same time created a space for the neighborhood of this community to come together as well so when we got to the actual site design we focused a lot on the design around this interior drive so this was an area that you know this is meant for families the idea that neighbors could have kids could have dogs that would have a safe place to be out and play and really create a greater sense of community amongst amongst these residents So the way we've approached this is that there are 11 buildings that are 26 feet wide on the Smallman Street side, which is to the top of the page. There are also 12 buildings along Mulberry Way with 22-foot-wides that also face into that interior drive. And again, with the idea here being that we're creating a neighborhood street, if you will. So again, moving back out to Smallman Street, this is that perspective that is, I would say, the more public facing of the facades. Again, trying to make sure that we had porches and stoops and visibility at that ground level to create a pedestrian rich experience. But at the same time, recognizing that residents There is still industrial traffic in the area and that residents are probably not, if they had to choose where to hang out, they would prefer to hang out in a more common space. So we've really tried to design that into porches in the back. There are Romeo and Juliet balconies here with the idea that people can open their windows and still interact with the street in a high level. This was just a quick perspective we did as we were working through some of the design here to kind of iterate that point. We really wanted to make sure we were creating this interior street with two-story porches on the interior. So the perspective on the inside, as you were to step into that and look to the left, this is the rear of the homes that we just mentioned. So we do have garages. That's just a reality of market rate construction. Those garages, we tried to potentially create an overhang and a porch up above so people could interact from up above. Also create a carved out space amongst that door in the rear to really give the sense of a front door. And then as you turn your head and look to the right, you're now facing the front perspective of the Mulberry buildings, which directly front the space. This drive in the middle is a drive. It is how people will get their vehicles into their car, but it's meant to be much more of a residential feel. For the most part, this is meant to be an active space. trying to use a lot of plantings in this area, trying to create some vertical feel between the porches, some lighting. We're looking at the landscaping a lot as well. And then those elevations in particular, again, this is looking at the rear of the Smallman Homes. You can see we're using a brick on the lower floors where it's a little more tangible, going to metal siding when we get up above, again, to kind of relate to that larger context that we're building in. And then the front of the Mulberry Homes, again, very much trying to mimic that to feel like the other side of the street. But again, two levels of porches here that are open. We had our CDAP presentation at 5 o'clock on the 7th. So this is due for public posting on the 7th. We did pick up a few of the comments from the CDAP. I would say they received us very favorably. We are still working on some of those pickups. I think really with the brick coloring, some of the materials, I think what we present here in two weeks, you'll see a slightly different when it comes to colors and things like that. But the general gist of the project will be the same. And then this is that alley face along Mulberry Way, where we really are up against these wires, up against the dumpsters. We are using this for vehicular traffic being in the alley itself. The material palette went with three main materials. Again, we used the metal siding again to try to highlight some of these, the porch deck areas of above and some of the interior spaces went with brick along the front facades. And then we have an accent siding that would be a wood appearance, probably a PVC, just something that's long lasting and low maintenance that has highlights that you can see on the entries on the front and then up in the public spaces in the back. as well as some of the porches and screenings that we're doing on the ground floor and then finally the last oops the elevations again and then the last slide i did want to include a landscaping plan in case there were questions on that as mr johnson mentioned we are doing street trees around the public streets of this area we're also looking hard at landscaping on the interior we want to make sure that that's successful so making sure that we're designing everything appropriately there. We've also given a space between the buildings to create some more visibility between them. There is also meant to be a green space in those areas as well that would be used by the residents. You know, the idea that this could be potentially a dog run area or something where kids could play as well. And then just an overarching on the drive itself, I should note that this is meant to be a one-way drive. So one would come in off of Mulberry Way, drive up across the site to the left and then out onto 31st Street. So we have the whole team here happy to answer any questions and if you want to get any more detail.

Well, thank you. Since that concludes your presentation at this time, we don't open the floor for public testimony. But commissioners, if there are some questions or comments by us, this is that time. Is there anybody that'd like to say anything? Commissioner Quintanilla?

Yes, hi, good afternoon. So I was just looking at the Google Earth here. So Smallman is up on top. And so between Smallman and Mulberry, you're creating basically like a small little alleyway in a way. It's a one-way alleyway. Correct. And so the units whose back is onto Mulberry, their front will be facing the garage of the units that are in front.

They will, right, which was a whole design iteration that we're really trying to look at because we want these to feel like they are not facing an alley. We want them to feel like they're really in a neighborhood street. And I think that's what we've really tried to do with some of this, with this design on that facade.

Okay. And you have a sketch of what that looks like, the alleyway? Yeah.

So this is a perspective that is from that interior street. If we were walking there, Smallman is on the left. If you were to step into that street and look on the left, this is what the intent of that space would be, the design of that space. And then if you turn to the right, is what it would feel like there so that would be their front correct so this would be the front of the mulberry um but the last thing we wanted to do was make it feel like they were looking at the back of somebody else's home so we were really trying to to make this feel like it had a front here right okay thank you um any additional comments commissioners

I will add just an appreciation for the housing diversity, how important that truly is. And you've got a lot of other housing typology in the area, but not necessarily the townhomes. So it's nice to see because you can maybe bring families in and engage a little bit differently in the neighborhood. definitely appreciate that we'll see you back in two thank you so much unless did you have anything okay very good just double checking all right thank you see you in two all right uh that concludes item c under briefing and we will move to the final item under briefing which is item d this is exciting uh zoning code updates This is phase one zoning code text and map amendment, DCP-MPCC-2026-00169. This is in response to an executive order 2026-01 regarding permitting process reform, and this is citywide. Presenting this afternoon is Ms. Ristow.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Very excited to be here today before you all with this zoning amendment package. As taking a step back for a second, because I know that not everybody who's watching this session knows who I am. So my name is Carolyn Ristow. I am the zoning administrator for the city of Pittsburgh. So, at the beginning of Mayor O'Connor's administration, he signed an executive order initiating a permit reform initiative. And as part of that, zoning plays a very important role and that's acknowledged in this executive order. So we are going to go over today the background on this executive order, timeline on this particular amendment package, details about this amendment package and then the next steps. So the executive order identifies that our zoning code is outdated and it is creating barriers to building housing and bringing economic opportunity to the city of Pittsburgh. However, zoning doesn't have to do that. Zoning could actually be helping us to build more housing and could be helping us to encourage affordability, growth, responsible, equitable development, In every part of the city, I noticed that that was a comment that we had in some of our earlier presentations this morning, how vital it is that all of our city is benefiting from develop. And so, with this executive order we're acknowledging that we need to start the long overdue process of updating our code in order to make it more feasible to do all these great things in the city of Pittsburgh. There, the executive order, again, it touches on many things besides the zoning code that are in progress with others. It is divided across all those big topic areas into three phases. And so right now we are currently in the middle of phase one. The action items that specifically identify zoning code amendments are at the end of the list of many action items. So there are 25 other action items that are being worked on in other spheres before we reach the ones that are specifically for the zoning code amendments. And so there are five action items specifically talking about the zoning code. We're going to talk about them slightly out of order to start with the lighter proofreading sort of items first and then get into the more substantial changes after that. So the timeline. So again, this was one of the first things that Mayor O'Connor did was sign this executive order, identify the action items that he wanted to see the city accomplish. Shortly after that, this spring, staff started working together. It was a collaborative effort. I think pretty much every single one of the staff people in the codes and commissions group for the Department of City Planning has had a hand in this amendment. So everybody got together working on different pieces over the course of the spring. In June, we have regular check-ins with each of the council members. So in our June monthly check-ins, we shared a version of this presentation with each council member so that they were aware of this package and that it would be coming to Planning Commission and then eventually reaching their table. um and so that brings us to today in the middle of july um there is a map amendment a very small map amendment as part of this amendment package which required a posted notice on site and a mail notice so the notice happened a week ago to be 21 days before the hearing and then today we have our briefing and in two weeks we'll be back to do hearing in action on this item And then once you take your action, we will be submitting the legislation to City Council, at which point they will also schedule a public hearing before going through their process to review and vote on the amendments. So what's in this package? So the first item that we are going to talk about is the executive order action item is to remove obsolete sections and language in the zoning code to make it easier to use and understand for everyone. So we have a long list of things that we identified as obsolete in our code. These are primarily listed in the order in which they appear in the code. So the first one that we'll talk about is the view protection overlay. this was an initiative from the early 1990s that requires a text and a map in order to be functional and so when the when the planners um and the city council worked together in the 1990s they came to agreement on the text and then the planners came back with the preliminary the first map to actually cite this overlay within the city It seems from what I've heard in conversations with the planners from that era, once people actually saw what that meant on the ground, there was significant opposition to this. And so the map was never passed. So we've ended up having this section in our code with no map ever to make it actually usable. for 30 years. So at this point in time, it's time to say this was a valiant effort. It ended up not being applicable to the, or not being, sorry, totally blanking on the phrase I was going to use there. Inforceable. There we go. Thank you. So it's time to remove the text out of our code because we can't use it. More recently, you may be aware that Oakland adopted a neighborhood plan in the last few years. One of the items in that plan was to introduce some new zoning districts to the neighborhood. And that's when we established our two urban center districts and our residential mixed use district. these three districts replaced some older special districts within oakland we had an oakland public realm district and there was a specially planned oakland planned unit development district in oakland all of which on the map were replaced by our new zoning districts but the text was left in the code so once again we have this text that is no longer usable no longer enforceable there is no intent to bring those districts back so we are cleaning that up and removing those texts There's another project or another site that has, it's a similar pattern, but for different reasons. In the early 2000s, there was a proposal for a specially planned district in what we now call Hayes Woods. The idea was to build a racetrack and casino sort of development in that location. It's highly fascinating. If you need a good bedtime read, I recommend that you read this section of the code before it goes away. However, it ended up not ever being feasible. The developer was not able to follow through and actually do any of what was in the plan. In the meantime, that land was donated back to the city, created into a park. It's in our park zoning district. The specially planned district is removed from the map. But again, the text was left in the code. So it's time to take it out. Again, maybe save it for a good read sometime or other. We have a couple of errors in our code. Some of these we think may have been introduced over the years with the entities that host our code online. They have caused unintentionally um some some issues um so the especially planned district for riverfront landing this is our specially planned district in the strip district is in the code twice we don't need two copies of it so we are taking one out um then um in our use table um um over the years uh occasionally a couple of our use definitions have been removed by the people that maintain our code even though there never was legislation saying our intent as a city is to remove these definitions these are primarily parent definitions so the uses themselves still exist um the one that's top of my mind right now is multi-suite resident or Yes, multi-suite residential. The multi-suite residential limited is still in the code with the districts that it's allowed and not allowed. Multi-suite general is still in the code with districts that's allowed and not allowed. But the parent definition that tells us what is a multi-suite residential use got removed. So we are proposing to reintroduce those. I think there's about four or five of these parent definitions that have been accidentally removed. And then we are also removing Chapter 913 in its entirety. This chapter is unusual. It's not something that you see in zoning codes elsewhere. Potentially somebody else has one, but it's not a standard part of a zoning code. The intent of it is to list every single administrator exception, special exception, and conditional use that you can get within the city of Pittsburgh. But that's not a useful way to share that information. If you need one of those approval paths, you're going to learn that when you go to the use table and the use table tells you you need an administrator exception or a special exception or a conditional use. Or you're reading the setback section and it tells you, you know, this is the base setback. But if you meet these three conditions, you can get a different setback if you do an administrator exception. That's where you're going to learn if you can do one of those approval paths. You're not going to go to 913 and say, hey, I wonder if I can do an administrator exception. And so partly because it's not a useful way of listing the information, we've not been good as a city in updating this. So over the years, as we've changed thresholds for an administrative exception, special exception, conditional use, we've forgotten to update 913. So between all of that, this section, everything in this section either is stated elsewhere in the code where somebody's actually going to see it, or it's obsolete because we changed it in the place where people are going to look for it. So again, we're just taking out that whole chapter. Then, I forget exactly what year this was, but a couple years ago, the city changed the hosts of our online city code. So we used to be hosted by the MuniCode platform. We are now hosted by Ecode, the parent company of which is General Code. At the time that the city made that transition, part of that agreement was that General Code was going to do a full proofread of the entire city code. I'm a little bit envious and a little bit impressed that they got to do that. However, a couple months ago they shared with us the edits to the zoning code section. As that seemed in alignment with our intent of trying to clean this code up, trying to make it a little easier to use and understand, we are incorporating those proofreading edits into this amendment package. So that is the... Again, I think that's fun, technical, proofreading, editing kinds of things. Other people might appreciate more the following sections that we're going to get into. So the next action item from the executive order is to begin to reform the zoning code with smaller targeted changes to help bring it in line with the standards of comparable cities. in some ways this this category is an umbrella of all of the action items um here but we have okay yes we have identified um a couple specific items to talk about under this this particular category The first is that small map amendment that I mentioned earlier. So the downtown zoning districts, Golden Triangle is the name of our zoning district for downtown, is one of the areas of the city that has an urban open space requirement. Most of downtown, it's a 10% of the lot area provided your lot's over half an acre. in size, it's a 10% requirement of that lot area be urban open space. However, there is a portion of downtown that's sub-district D. This is the portion of downtown that essentially borders Point State Park. that has a 60% urban open space requirement, I appreciate some of the faces I'm seeing in reaction to this, regardless of your lot size. So every single parcel in that sub-district is required to provide 60% urban open space if they are basically building anything on those sites. now this is inspired by or it's it's we haven't quite figured out which came first chicken or egg whether gateway towers happened first and then we introduced this requirement into the code to mimic gateway towers or This was in their code and then Gateway Towers happened. One or the other, but that is sort of the, it is a great illustration of how this could work and how this does work. It works great when you have a large lot and you're building towers in a park. However, if you look at the Monongahela side of downtown in this part of town, we don't have large lots. There's a lot of smaller lots, a lot of smaller buildings, there's parking lots. It's not that big open space portion of downtown, but it's in the sub-district and still has that requirement. um we've identified that this is a prohibitive regulation for that particular portion of downtown it is also immediately adjacent to a different sub-district that has the 10 urban open space requirement those two um here actually i forgot This is the part of downtown that we're talking about. So again, this is, you can see it's next to the freeway, it's next to the river, it's next to other denser areas and has multiple buildings on smaller lots. I acknowledge there's a lot of text on this slide and it got kind of small because of the amount of text, but this is a comparison of those two sub-districts. The purposes are slightly different. The GTC has a greater emphasis on housing than the D sub-district that it's currently in. because of that greater emphasis on housing it does actually also offer a density bonus if you're building residential versus any other uses in that district which again we feel is an appropriate something that's appropriate to be supporting in downtown. So but other than that, like the the height requirements are the same for these two sub districts, pretty much all the other requirements are the same. The two differences are the amount of open space that you're required to provide and that you get a density bonus for residential in the GTC. So we are proposing to have a zone change for that area. The other item that we are talking about under this action item 1.26 is an amendment to our street tree requirement. We are not changing the policy and the what is required. We are just making it clearer in the ordinance what it is. So we are clarifying that Tree pit sizes need to be three feet by 10 feet at minimum. You can always make a tree pit bigger as long as you leave an accessible route on the sidewalk. Trees are required to be spaced 30 feet apart and that the tree species that you are selecting must come from the recommended tree species list maintained by the city forester. Again, this is all stuff we already do, but we're going to put it into the code so that it's clear for applicants and staff and everybody's on the same page when they are dealing with this particular requirement. All right, the next action item gets even more exciting. And so this one, the executive order states that we are going to eliminate redundant dimensional standards by modernizing the floor area ratio requirements where feasible and regulating height in feet rather than stories to provide new denser housing opportunities across Pittsburgh while clarifying design expectations. So in summary, looking at this, there were a number of opportunities for making these adjustments to our code. Pittsburgh's code, All of these items are focused on the older zoning districts in our code. The newer ones that we talked about earlier, the urban centers, the residential mixed use, they don't have the level of redundancy in the density regulations that we see in our older districts. In a way, we are starting to bring the older districts closer into alignment to current best practices as illustrated by our new districts. And so looking at our older districts, most of them regulate height in feet and stories. And this can create some redundancy and some conflicts. We often see this, for example, in our residential zoning districts when somebody wants to build an integral first floor First floor garage and they still want three living stories above that garage that is considered a four story building and currently the zoning code limits height to 40 feet and three stories. And so they usually fit those within the 40 feet height requirement, but there's four stories, so they have to go to the zoning board to get a variance for that fourth floor just to include an integral garage. And we see that again, across all of these districts, a similar pattern of occasionally projects are going to the board for a height variance, just for the number of stories they're providing, not for the height and feet. And so our proposal is to remove height and stories where that is redundant, which again, we've identified as our residential density sub-districts and our older mixed use districts and the parks and hillside. There's also a reference to stories in the accessory uses height regulations. We are going to remove that as well. Then moving on to the next item here are mixed-use districts. Pittsburgh was early on one of the early cities to be adopting zoning, and that's my assumption for why when we were developing the density standards for these and planners nationwide had identified several tools that you can use to regulate density. Pittsburgh was like, let's do them all, which doesn't actually work well. That's not the intent of these tools. You're supposed to pick and choose a couple of them. And we just kind of said, We'll do them all. So that's part of what we're trying to clean up here. So the next item is the floor area ratio requirements, which is in our older mixed use districts and in our parks district. Well, I'm going to remind myself if we have, okay. We do not have graphics for this yet. I am hoping by hearing an action that we'll have some graphics to help illustrate what I'm going to talk about here. So floor area ratio is, it's basically a mathematical equation that based on your lot size, you can build a certain amount of floor area. So in our local neighborhood commercial zoning district, we have a two to one floor area ratio so if your lot is a thousand square feet you can build two thousand square feet of building um and so you can do that anywhere within the other parameters so we have a three-story 45 feet height limit again we'll be dropping that three-story but for now it's there um and um 90 lot coverage um and uh um blanking on what the rear setback is but the ninety percent lock coverage and the rear setback generally line up in the lnc um so if you have that one thousand square foot lot two thousand square feet of building if you want to build up your full three stories of height you're not going to be built able to build out that full ninety percent lock coverage um because of the far um That, again, sort of like the heightened feet and the heightened stories, we feel like this is not an appropriate limitation. We feel like if the code says you can build up to three stories, you should be able to build up to three stories. If it says you can build out 90% of the lot, you should be able to build out 90% of your lot. So in order to enable the regulations in the code to actually be used to their full extent, we are proposing to remove the floor area ratio. There are a handful of other areas where heightened stories is referenced in our code. We are not able at this point in time to clean up all of them because they're tied to certain other things that we're afraid that if we touch that we might break something else down the road. So we were judicial in identifying where we are removing this. So there was one place in the Grandview public realm where it currently is regulated only in heightened stories. And we felt that there, based on the context, there was a clear height and feet translation that we could apply here. So we're replacing that one from heightened stories to heightened feet to be consistent with the other changes in this section. Then the bonus height criteria in our performance point system speaks to height and stories and floor area ratios because we've been regulating those. So it requires a little bit of tweaking to that language. We're not changing the amount of bonus height you get. If it has, I think in some areas you get a 10 foot height bonus and other areas you get a 15 foot height bonus. We're not changing the bonus that you get or the number of points. We're just cleaning up the language to be consistent with the other changes that we're making to stories and floor area ratio. this is a small snippet from the very large amendment package this is an example of the site development standards from one of our older mixed use districts this is just showing again that we are removing the floor area ratio requirement we are removing the heightened stories requirement we are not touching the heightened feet we're not touching setbacks we're not touching um lot coverage um so this is a really minor change that we think will have some significant impact next action item says to simplify the height requirements in zoning districts like urban neighborhood commercial and others that can support denser build outs the urban neighborhood commercial is one of those older districts that we've been talking about but it has some unique features that most of the others do not the most unique feature that it has is multiple base maximum height limits so if you are within 1500 feet of a major transit facility as defined in the code you are eligible to be building up to 60 feet in height again currently four stories we're going to drop that part but if you are outside of that 15 foot buffer of a major transit facility you are limited to 45 feet and three stories um the urban neighborhood commercial is very similar to the local neighborhood commercial the main thing that distinguishes these two districts is greater density and so the the the lesser of these two heights is identical to the local neighborhood commercial and so it begs the question of well why did we put this area in an urban neighborhood commercial if we didn't want it to have denser potentially for housing, potentially for something else. And so we're simplifying this and essentially dropping that 45 feet so that the 60 feet in height is applicable anywhere in the urban neighborhood commercial moving forward. I have some maps to show in a second, but I'm gonna talk about one more thing before we get there. The other thing almost unique to the urban neighborhood commercial in our older districts is a special exception for height. The urban industrial district also has a similar special exception. In both of these districts, the special exception allows for greater height under certain conditions. Again, like the performance points we talked about a minute ago, because we've regulated height in stories and included floor area ratio, these special exceptions incorporated language to say what you get in feet, what you get in stories, what you get for floor area ratio. And so we are cleaning up that language. This was one area where in the urban industrial district, the current cap on how high you can go is solely a floor area ratio. number and we were not prepared at this moment in time to translate that into feet so we are maintaining that floor area ratio number as the maximum cap for your special exception in height otherwise we are removing references to floor area ratio in the special exceptions in both these districts and we are removing all references to stories in these two special exceptions And here is a citywide map showing just the urban neighborhood commercial districts in, I guess that's a reddish plumish color. And then the blue circles, blue bubbles are the major transit facility buffers. So zooming in on those, you can see that we have a mix of some urban neighborhood commercial districts that don't have any transit buffer in them, which again begs the question of why do we choose that district and not local neighborhood commercial if we didn't want the density? And then others that are either entirely or mostly within the major transit facility buffers. All right, our final action item from the executive order is to adjust the outdated residential compatibility standards to make it easier to build vibrant neighborhoods with mixed use amenities like small businesses and transit opportunities. Now, residential compatibility is another one of these things that over the years we have changed our approach. So those new districts, the UCs and the RMU have a different way of doing residential compatibility than our older districts. The older districts rely on the chapter that is called residential compatibility. And that chapter is divided up into three main sections. There's a section that applies additional setback requirements, applies additional height requirements, and then there's a third section on nuisances. So that includes things like lighting, screening, noise. We are not touching the nuisances at all at this point in time. So those residential compatibility standards will stay the same. We are adjusting the residential compatibility setback and height standards. And this is based on information that we've gathered from peer cities, in addition to what we've been doing in our own newer districts. So the changes to the residential compatibility standards for the setbacks, currently there are 15 different combinations that may apply to one or more of your property lines when residential compatibility applies. So residential compatibility applies generally when you are in a non-residential zoning district that's adjacent to a residential zoning district. And currently, the code has, again, these 15 different combinations of, is your side adjacent to the side? Or is your front adjacent to the side? Or is your side adjacent to the rear? Or is it across the way from a side, or a front, or a rear, or a street, or a side, or a rear? And it makes your head spin. It is so hard. to try and determine which one of these applies to your project. This actually came up in a question last week in a meeting that I was in. They were like, we don't know which one of these 15 we need to comply with. I'm like, don't worry. We agree with you. This is crazy. We're trying to change it. So we are proposing in alignment with what we're seeing in our peer cities to simplify this, that if you're, again, in that non-residential zoning district and you're adjacent to a residential zoning district, we care if you are abutting that property line, so your property line is shared with that residential property line, we want you to have a higher setback requirement. If you're across away, we're gonna have, again, that higher setback requirement. If you're across the street, we're going to bring the requirement down to five feet. Those are the things that matter, whether you're adjacent, across the way, across the street. It doesn't matter as much if it's your front, if it's your side, it's your rear, you're adjacent or you're not. So we're simplifying how to approach these. residential compatibility for height is another one that our current requirements are quite onerous. Again, this applies if you are in a non residential district and you're adjacent to a residential one. Currently, the red dotted line is the illustration of what the current requirements are. Starting from the residential property line, measuring 50 feet, you are limited to 40 feet in height, which is the same as most of our residential districts. And then after that 50 feet, you are allowed to go up in height, but you're only allowed to go up in height an additional 10 feet. In a city like Pittsburgh with lots of small lots, like 100 feet deep is common for lots in Pittsburgh. This means that you are functionally prohibited from reaching your maximum heights because of residential compatibility. That is not how our peer cities are doing this. So we are proposing to provide some relief from this requirement. So moving forward, if this package goes through as we're proposing, it would be measuring from that residential property line, 25 feet, you're limited again to that 40 feet comparable height with that residential district. Then you get to jump up to 55 feet for the next 50 feet and then you get another bump up for the next 25 feet. And then once you're 75 feet away from the property, you can max out whatever the maximum height is in your district. Now an important point to clarify is that if your district does not allow 55 feet in height, this does not enable you to get 55 feet in height. So it's whatever your zoning district max is with these limitations on top. So for example, the local neighborhood commercial, which we've referred to a few times in the presentation, that has a maximum height of 45 feet. So for the first 25 feet measuring from that residential property, they would be limited to 40 feet. At 25 feet, they could bump up, but they only have five more feet that they are eligible to get to bump up. Again, in the UNC with that 60-foot height requirement, at that 25-feet mark, they would be able to go up to 55 feet. It's not until they reach 50 feet away from the residential property that they can max out the 60 feet in height. And then if they were doing that special exception for additional height in the UNC, they wouldn't be able to start using that until 75 feet. We have another graph here to show how this compares to our new zoning districts, the UCs and the RMU. I mentioned earlier, they have a different approach to residential compatibility. So it's not an exact one for one comparison, but this is the comparison if your non-residential property is abutting that residential property. So again, measuring from that property line in our new districts, the limitation is only for the first 20 feet of the property and the limitation is 60 feet. So the amendment that we are proposing is, again, it's going to allow for more height in more properties around the city. But this is still a very conservative approach to residential compatibility and height requirements, even within what we have passed in recent years in the city of Pittsburgh. all right we've made it through the details uh thank you for your patience i know that's a lot to take in so um uh it's kind of picking up back now with the timeline of you know talking about where we are again these are the phase one zoning amendments we're here right now going through the planning commission process after hearing in action and and you as the commissioners make a recommendation to city council This will be transmitted to city council, get on their agenda, they'll schedule the public hearing and go through their process. We imagine all of that to be happening after their August recess. Then, again, as I mentioned earlier, there's three phases in this executive order. So phase two calls for the complete overhaul of our zoning code, which is, again, long overdue. And this is just a stepping stone to get us there. Some of the items we have talked about today may actually come back and be revised even more in that full code overhaul. The expectation at this point is we are waiting for the comprehensive plan to be adopted because there will be lots of good guidance in that plan for our zoning code overhaul. And so once that's been adopted or by the time that's adopted we will have more details on timeline and expectations on the code overhaul. That wonderful day, once that code overhaul is passed and adopted as our new zoning ordinance, In order to reduce the need for taking things out of the code 30 years later, as part of phase three of the executive order, our intent is to establish a more consistent process for keeping our code maintained and current so that we don't have to do these giant amendments of like, this was 30 years old, this one's 20 years old, maybe it's time to take these things out. So we want the new code to be well established and to be continued to be relevant throughout its life. And that is the end of the presentation. I will be happy to take any questions.

Well, very good. At this time, we don't open the floor for public testimony. But commissioners, we do open for questions or comments from us. I do know that Commissioner Vatz does have some comment here. So we'll open with Commissioner Vatz. And then if there are other commissioners that would like to comment, please do.

Thank you very much. Well, thank you for the presentation. This was really good. I know there was a lot there. I'll probably have more questions later on, but I just wanted to commend you and the rest of the department. I know this has been a lot of different people working on this, but this is a lot of work and really important work. And I know it's something that I've talked about now for years about how important it is to you know, simplify and reform the code. And I'm just really happy to see some of this stuff, you know, in there. I think a lot of the changes that are being recommended here are really sensible and will make it easier to build housing and to build all types of things in the city. So I just wanted to like provide some major kudos to the department, to the zoning administrator for all of this hard work. And, you know, I think that, At least everything I saw looks like it will be a step forward. You know, perhaps not the end of the story, because I know there's going to be a lot more that will happen after the comprehensive plan is done, you know, with the full zoning code overhaul. But, you know, it seems like a good interim step to take to simplify our code and make it easier to build housing in the city. So thank you for the presentation, Zoning Administrator Ristow. And that's all I've got for now.

Thank you so much, Commissioner. That's a comment.

So I just want to say thank you so much for taking just like David, Commissioner Vance mentioned, thanks so much for taking this forward and cleaning up the cleaning this up has been a long overdue. But yeah, next time, please have more graphics. That would be great.

We're working on it.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioners. Additional Commissioner, Vice Chair O'Neill.

yeah uh without taking up too much time thank you for the comprehensive presentation um I appreciate the nerding out I also appreciate a simpler code so uh thank you for all the hard work to you and everybody involved I think my only question is um in terms of the map amendment I would assume that the owners of that property would be in support because there are fewer restrictions on their property but we haven't heard otherwise is that correct um

uh yeah I don't believe we've we've heard any um anything contrary to that um and I did forget to mention that there was a development activities meeting um around that rezoning um several weeks ago or a couple weeks ago um so there has been additional public process right and it makes sense but yeah I was just curious about the process thank you you're welcome uh commissioners any additional comment okay

uh so i you know i have some comments uh echoing uh commissioner vats and quentinia and vice chair o'neill um very thorough presentation great job by uh all staff and and your leadership in that uh who can argue with like taking things out that don't need to be there and making sure that uh The original intent on things that are still being left are reduction and redundancy and clarity is critical because we want everybody to be able to understand when they're coming in and looking to do a project. I think what's really important for today and the city at large is, and I thank you specifically for walking through very thorough adding a level of clarity adding some fun to it as well but giving examples so that people can understand uh what it was and what it means you know to the to the future and um future opportunities so this is a a wonderful opportunity and season for the city to be able to um continue to be resilient and adaptable to what the time is calling for so thank you and appreciation for that great thank you so much thank you and so in closing you know at this time commissioners we are going to take a 10-minute break we look forward to seeing you back in two I would say is 10 minutes fair and reasonable for everybody okay well then we'll see you at 312 that's when we'll resume All right.

So no fighting over the rest. Thank you.

All right.

I can be patient.

I mean, it used to be Dylan all the time. And then Sherry, I forget the last name has been pretty, pretty consistent, but they're her plant. Right.

I agree.

Great. Okay, we're about two minutes to start. And we're not seeing the court reporter, I guess. That's okay.

No rush.

That's okay. You want me to ask is the court reporter on and raise your hand please and thank you. Sherry? Is there? Jeannie? All right. Good job, guys.

Hi, sorry about that. I think I missed the promotion that pops up.

Oh, that's okay. Thank you so much. We appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. We'll start in about one minute. Sure. All right. Let me know when you go live. Is Commissioner Vatz still online?

Looks like you stepped off.

Yeah, I'm not seeing is Hollywood Square. may have gotten knocked off and that's okay we can we have quorum so we can start okay all right so it is 3 12 we're on okay yeah All right, fantastic. So it is 312 and we will resume. Good afternoon and welcome beautiful people. This is the Planning Commission for July 14, 2026. I'm going to go ahead and do roll call and then share that we are at the hearing and action portion of planning for today. That means cases will be presented for action and we will do so. Commissioner Burton-Folk, present. Commissioner Hunt. Present. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano. Present. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill.

Present.

Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla. Present. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz. Present. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker. Thank you. Okay, so next up, I'm going to go ahead and read through today's agenda, which is very long. Agenda item A is approval of minutes. Agenda item B is correspondence. Agenda item C is plan of lots. and agenda item d is hearing in action agenda item e is the director's report moving back to agenda item a which is approval of minutes commissioners we are in receipt of two sets we will take them separately uh for uh we are in receipt of minutes from june 30th 2026 unless there are any edits do i have a motion from the floor to approve So move. I have a motion from Commissioner Quintanilla. Do I have a second?

Second, Commissioner O'Neill.

Okay, a second from Commissioner O'Neill. I'm going to do roll call. Commissioner Burton-Folk? Aye. Commissioner Hunt? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill?

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla?

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Vatz? Aye. Thank you. And commissioner Walker. Aye. Thank you. All right. Commissioners looking at minutes, uh, before us as well are June 16, 2026, unless there are any edits. Do I have a motion from the floor to approve?

So move.

All right. A move from Commissioner Quintanilla. Do I have a second? I'll second, Walker. Thank you. Second from Commissioner Walker. I will do roll call. Commissioner Burton-Folk? Aye. Commissioner Hunt? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill?

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz? Aye. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes on both. And so we have completed agenda item A. Agenda item B is next up. That is correspondence for July 14, 2026. We are in receipt of correspondence regarding item BDA-2026-03918 for 4337 Fifth Avenue. We are in receipt of correspondence from Rick Smith. We are also in receipt regarding the same item of correspondence from Three Crossings or The Stacks, Susan Warner. We are also in receipt of correspondence regarding the executive order phase one downtown rezoning from Chris Emery. Regarding Bill 2026-009, short-term rental zoning ordinance, we are in receipt of correspondence from Danny Tristan. And as well, we are in receipt of correspondence for the Bigelow zoning exception. Something has been sent in from Allison Knights. That concludes correspondence. Now moving on to agenda item C, which is plan of lots. We have three items under plan of lots today. I will read them in and then we'll go one by one. Item number one is DCP-LOT-2026-00160 at 2713 Charles Street. Item two. DCP-LOT-2026-00162 at 3112 Smallman Street. Item number three, DCP-LOT-2026-00167, this is Baxter Park Consolidation. Moving back to item number one, again, DCP-LOT-2026-00160, 2713 Charles Street. This is a major consolidation. This is in the Perry South neighborhood and Mr. Shepke will be presenting.

Thanks. This is the 2731 North Charles Street consolidation. It is the proposed consolidation of three parcels into one parcel. The parcel would have frontage on North Charles Street and would be 79,936 square feet in area. An office building is located on the subject property and this is a major consolidation that was first reviewed by the Planning Commission on June 30th, 2026. Staff's recommended motion is to approve the 2731 North Charles Street consolidation.

Okay, very good. Thank you, Mr. Schepke. Is there anyone here in the room or online that would like to speak regarding this? no thank you very much okay um commissioners do i have a motion from the floor to approve so move thank you commissioner interiano do i have a second commissioner walker thank you uh we'll do roll call commissioner burton falk i commissioner hunt hi thank you commissioner interiano hi thank you commissioner o'neill hi thank you commissioner quentinia hi thank you commissioner vats aye thank you and commissioner walker aye thank you okay moving on to the second item under plan of lots which is as follows dcp dash lot dash 2026-00162 at 3112 smallman street this is a major consolidation in the strip district neighborhood presented by mr shepke

This is the 3112 Smallman Street consolidation. It's the proposed consolidation of four parcels into two parcels. The proposed lot one would have frontage on Smallman Street and 32nd Street and would be 15,270 square feet in area. The proposed lot two would have frontage on Smallman Street and would be 39,697 square feet in area. several warehouse buildings are located on the subject property which are to be demolished and staff's recommended motion is to preliminarily approve the 3112 small and street consolidation with final review scheduled for july 28 2026. thank you so much is there anybody here or online that would like to speak regarding this

seeing hearing no uh commissioners we are being asked to do a preliminary approval today and a final for july 28 2026. do i have a motion from the floor to approve so moved thank you commissioner walker do i have a second second thank you commissioner interiano uh we'll do roll call commissioner burton falk i commissioner hunt aye Thank you, Commissioner Tariano. Aye. Thank you, Commissioner O'Neill.

Aye.

Thank you, Commissioner Quintanilla.

Aye.

Thank you, Commissioner Vatz.

Aye.

Thank you, and Commissioner Walker. Aye. Thank you. Okay, so that moves forward. Item number three, DCP-LOT-2026-00167. This is Baxter Park consolidation. This is a major consolidation.

in the homewood neighborhood presenting again is mr schepke uh this is the baxter park consolidation it's the consolidation of 26 parcels uh the proposed lot would have frontage on frankstown avenue in north braddock avenue and would be 55 561 square feet in area a park is located on the subject property and the recommended motion is to preliminarily approve the consolidation with final review scheduled for july 28th 2026.

Hi there, was that you? Okay, no problem. Just wanna make sure. Okay, so at this time we open the floor for public testimony. Sorry, didn't mean to call you out. I think you might have me and I'm not going back at me. Anyone here that would like to speak on that inside, outside? No. thank you so much okay um commissioners at this time we are being asked to do a preliminary approval for today a final on july 28 2026 do i have a motion from the floor to approve so moved thank you commissioner anteriano do i have a second uh second commissioner o'neill Thank you, Commissioner O'Neill. I'm going to do roll call. Commissioner Burton-Falk? Aye. Commissioner Hunt?

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Interiano? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill?

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla?

Aye.

Thank you. Commissioner Vatz? Aye. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker? Aye. Thank you. Okay, so we're... Wrapped up with plan of lots. Now we are moving on to agenda item D, which is hearing and action. Hearing and action, one item, and it is as follows. DCP-ZDR-2024-00061, 2000 Mary Street. This is a four-story apartment building in the Southside Flats, and presenting is Mr. Routt.

Good afternoon, Commissioner. This is Moith Rao, planner with Department of City Planning. An application for project development plan DCP ZTR 2024-00061 was submitted by Strada LLC on behalf of the property owner, Collective Southside Agent LLC for construction of new four-story residential building with 200 units. and two-story garage structure with 199 parking spaces in UI zoning district and Southside neighborhood. This project is a site plan level review. However, the zoning administrator has elected for planning commission to review this project under the provisions of zoning code. The existing structures on this property have already been demolished, which included former UPMC Mercy Southside Campus and a vehicle repair business on the current combined zoning lot. This project was presented at zoning board on 21st March 2024 for a special exception for multi-unit residential in UI zoning district, which was granted by the board on 5th May 2024. the applicant proposes to use the part of parking structure as leased out parking spaces for residents of edson properties this this garage structure was reviewed by zoning board on 9 july 2026 for a special exception for proposed parking structure general use in ui zoning district decision for it is yet to be uh given by zoning board Applicants submitted an alternative access parking and loading plan requesting alternative compliance for the required loading space. This plan proposes to use on-street loading space along Mary Street for moving move-outs as well as for trash collection. The AAPP request was approved by zoning administrator with following condition. A small curb cut must be provided along Mary Street for rolling out dumpsters for garbage trucks. Residents may apply to Department of Mobility and Infrastructure for temporary permit for move-ins and move-out as needed. Applicant has provided 70 indoor bike parking spaces and 3 outdoor bike parking spaces. Overall, this project is in compliance with the parking and loading requirement according to the provisions of the zoning code. Permits related to Department of Mobility and Infrastructure are still under review. Due to structural challenges associated with the retaining wall, on the neighboring property at rear located on parcel 12 and 350-03 owned by corn rail and other underground utilities the rear alley cannot be used for loading unloading or other purposes this project requires to provide 33 street trees in total 20 24 street trees along mary street five trees along south 19th street and forced four trees along south 21st street due to the presence of utility pole traffic sign and fire lane only 27th street can be installed Funds in lieu will be paid for the remaining required trees through an alternative landscape compliance agreement. This project was presented to contextual design advisory panel on 24 June 2024. CDAP recommendations are attached to this report. Design review was accepted for this project. Three development activities meeting with the community organizations have been conducted for this project so far, with the most recent one conducted on 21st May, 2026. All DAM reports are included as attachments. staff staff recommends that the planning commission approves the project development plan dcp zdr 2024 00061 based on the application filed by strada llc on the behalf of property owner with following condition strong water management plan shall be approved prior to issuing the final record of zoning approval department of mobility and infrastructure related permits to be completed first prior to issuing the final record of zoning approval all for the final construction plans including site plans elevation alternative alternative access parking plan as well as alternative landscape compliance be reviewed and approved by zoning administrator prior to issuing a final record of zoning approval thank you thank you

Good afternoon, members of the Planning Commission. My name is John Kamen, K-A-M-I-N. My address is 437 Grant Street, Suite 1806, Pittsburgh, PA, 15219, with the firm of Goldberg, Kamen & Garvin, and I'm here on behalf of the applicant. for the presentation this afternoon. Thank you to Mohit for the thorough presentation. And I know that you saw our briefing two weeks ago, so I'll try and move relatively quickly through the deck here so that we can acquaint you with the project and keep things moving along. As we talked about two weeks ago, this site is the old UPMC hospital site on the south side. It's shown in the outline in red here. The buildings that are shown on this picture have been demolished. Right now the site sits as a vacant parcel of ground. Just another aerial view of the site. One of the things you can note is that the site did have significant density to it before, including the towers that came out of the sort of podium base there. And again, all that has been removed. The site is a very long site, approximately 582 feet in length, and it does border both 19th Street, 21st Street and Mary Street along the frontage. site is approximately 2.21 acres we'll walk through now relatively quickly some photos of the site and again this will orient you to what it looked like before and then we place the building on these pictures so that you can get the context of where we are this is a view of south 19th street and mary street as it existed prior to demolition this is the view what it will look like after the demolition And this is the view without the street trees. Same thing for a view from 20th Street. This is what it looked like before demolition. This is what it looks like post-construction. And this is what it looks like post-construction without the street trees. And again, you can see the detail. I think Strada did a very nice job on creating to make it blend in with the neighborhood, but also have a really nice presence about it. This is the view at 20th Street, again, pre demolition, post construction, post construction without the street trees. 20th Street looking east, same thing, post construction with the street trees, post construction without the street trees. This is the view of 21st Street, pre demolition, post construction, same thing view looking west post construction one of the things we'll talk about as we go forward in the presentation but you can see as per the request from the briefing we have updated the graphics a little bit to provide some better color and some more coverage on it As requested, the graphics are not finalized, but at least conceptually planning commission can see what we're talking about here to make these entrances more prominent to make the garage look less gray and concrete. Again, overview of the existing site, aerial of the site. A couple things to note in this picture. You'll see that it is an E-shaped building, so there are carve-outs for resident amenities located behind the structure adjacent to Edwards Way. And then you can see the separation that exists between the building and the garage. And as we talked about last time during the briefing, There is a significant PWSA right-of-way that runs through that that prohibits us from being able to build on top of it even though the hospital was previously there. Same thing. We'll just walk through quickly some elevations of what each facade looks like. This is the apartment west facade, apartment east facade, the rear to Edwards Way, Rear to Edwards Way on the other side. And then here are some elevations for the garage. And again, we've shown some more screening as requested and some more colorful graphics to be determined to, again, give a little bit more character to the garage. This is the face of the garage on Mary Street. I would note again that the entrance and exit to the garage for vehicles is located on Mary Street by virtue of a single curb cut, the pedestrian exit. uh entrance and exit to the garage is located on 21st street so it has two fronts and you can see what we've done there to again make it less gray this is the rear facade along edwards way again nobody will be seeing this because of the elevation and the abutting conrail wall and right-of-way west facade of the garage this is what is against our building Here's the materials palette. One thing I did want to note is that the brick, well, came off a little orangey in the rendering. It is red. So you can see that from the palette and the use of the various materials that we talked about for accents are located here on the slide. Here's our plant palette. Good species, native species, species that should withstand the salt and otherwise, you know, typical Pittsburgh weather. Um, we did have some, uh, traffic analysis, parking analysis, transportation, demand management, all those things performed by trans associate and Cindy Jampel who's here, um, the legend. Uh, so if the members of the council, her commission have any questions, Cindy is here to answer them, but just to run through this quickly. Again, garage access you can see is located on Mary Street as is the loading path. We have no problems with the conditions outlined by staff for the curb cut or for managing the loading area. As you said, you can't really get up Edwards Way and this is the most efficient way to do that for both loading and also for dumpster access. Here's a quick chart on the parking spaces. We meet the code in everything that's required in terms of parking. We met or exceeded all the requirements, whether it's ADA spaces, bike spaces, or regular vehicle spaces. Another site plan from Cindy talks about exactly what's happening on the site. And again, these are some moves that we're going to make to make sure that pedestrian access is safe. There'll be a stop sign. There'll be good visibility, good clearance. Everything should work out just fine and complies with the applicable codes. We did put in a TDM plan. This has been very successful in Walnut's other buildings. We plan on using that. The south side does have great access to public transit and great access to various ways to get from A and B. So we intend on making that a priority and making sure that people who are our prospective residents and actual residents understand what they can take advantage of. This is a construction management plan. Our contractor on the job is PJ Dick. They have a ton of experience in handling large projects like this. And in fact, I think handled the demolition of the property, which took a long time to do very successfully for us.

More of the CMP.

More of the CMP. just a little bit of notes on some of the other boxes to check on accessibility all the we'll have type a units all the units are access accessible entrances elevator access to all floors and meeting the required number of parking spaces in terms of sustainability we are again checking the required boxes there you have native and efficient landscaping, building recycling program, and EV charging stations will be in the garage. The property is in the UI district. The UI district doesn't require a whole lot. We did agree and want to come here to Planning Commission to present on the project because again, it's a project of significance and we think neighborhood changing. And we believe that this is consistent with what the UI district is looking for. in terms of the review criteria i'm not going to run through them all but we do meet each and every one of 9 22 11 c 2 those criteria come into play and looking at a plan of this scale essentially is the same criteria associated for fldps and that's the criteria for the commission to review it under and i would say again as set forth in both the presentation and in the application we meet each and every one of these criteria uh again project metrics 2.21 acres approximately 96 000 square feet uh we do have a 10 foot side yard setback on south 19th street which we've landscaped and set the building back we have put in some stoops as well so that facade is not neglected um zero set yard zero foot set yard for the front yard on mary street zero foot set yard for the front yard on south 21st street um and we're planning 200 units and 199 spaces And that is the presentation. So happy to answer any questions that the commission may have or to address any comments. And if you want me to go through the criteria in detail, I'm happy to do so, but recognizing that it's late, we'll just say it's good as submitted unless there are questions.

There you go. Appreciate that. Thank you so much for the presentation. At this time, we open the floor for public testimony. Is there anybody inside, outside that may have interest in this particular application?

No?

Thank you so much. Okay, commissioners, at this time, are there some comments as it relates to, no? Commissioner Vatz, I don't see you either. Well, all right, I'll make some. I might as well. Great site reuse. I wanna make note of that. It is wonderful to have some new housing options. From an artistical perspective, I really respect the blend of the materials, creating harmony with the old and new, you know, and definitely neighborhood facing. It really does a lot, you know, for that site. The resident amenity is very thoughtful, and I do agree it's a significant project and very good to see. So thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. If that's it, then I guess we'll close. Thank you so much. We're going to do a vote. Do we have a motion from the floor commissioners to approve?

So moved.

All right. We have a second from Walker. We'll do roll call. Commissioner Burton-Falk. Aye. Commissioner Hunt. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner and Terry. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill. Thank you. Commissioner. Thank you. Commissioner. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. It passes. Have a great rest of your day. All right. Looks like we're up to our final, which is. Agenda item E, director's report, and we don't have one, right? Thank you. All right. So now we can go enjoy the sunshine. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. All right. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Good job. Good day, guys. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.