Nonprofit gets tax credits and gap funding

Oakland apartments will stay affordable

A colorful plastic tricycle sat outside one of the units at Allequippa Place the other day, part of a pile of household stuff left behind and waiting for a dumpster.

The one-acre site across from the University of Pittsburgh’s Trees Hall is being renovated, and at least half the people who relocated for the renovation want back in.

It was affordable before they moved out and it will be affordable for their return.

Having won state tax credits and gap funding from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, Oakland Planning and Development Corp. is ensuring that the 24 apartments in the old Allequippa Place apartments it owns will remain affordable when they are renovated.

OPDC also will build an apartment building on nearby Wadsworth Street, with 25 new affordable and accessible units.

That will occupy seven lots that OPDC acquired through the city’s land reserve and one lot from a private seller.

OPDC has owned Allequippa Place properties for 30 years. In the mid-1980s, it partnered with the community-service organization Breachmenders to redevelop them. That project was done with the first award of lowincome tax credits in the city, said Elly Fisher, OPDC’s assistant executive director.

The units will rent to people who make 60, 50 and 20 percent of the area median income.

“I’ve been in this community since 1968 when I was a Pitt student,” said Liz Bennett, a longtime Oakland resident who plans to apply for a unit in the new building. “Now I’m retired and living on one fixed income, but I don’t want to leave to have to find something affordable.

“Thisneighborhood is diverse and the location is so convenient. There’s nowhere else I want to live. This project is going tomake a big difference here.”

Thelocation — so close to Pitt’s facilities, multiple bus lines and medical institutions— almost guaranteed that the market would scoop it up had the nonprofit not done so. OPDC’s strategy is to peck away at purchasing properties as it can, from apartments to homes, to ensure owner occupancyand affordability.

It owns 50 other apartment units throughout Oakland and a handful of homes.

There is great need for threebedroom units, which are hard to find, Ms. Fisher said. OPDC’s inventory includes just a handful that roomy. At Allequippa Place, half the units will be built out to include a third bedroom.

The first phase will be complete between March and May. OPDC will start taking applications in January, giving preference to people who lived there before, she said.

The project will cost $16 million and has more than a dozen sources of financial support.