URA backs Bedford Dwellings revamping

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The potential redevelopment of Bedford Dwellings took another step forward Thursday.

Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority voted unanimously to commit millions of dollars to the project, contingent on the receipt of a federal grant, and approved a one-year option agreement to sell 293 city and URA-owned Hill District parcels to the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh for the redevelopment effort.

The housing authority will be applying for a $30 million federal Choice Neighborhoods redevelopment grant next month to redevelop a portion of the 411unit public housing complex.

“Change is hard, but we have to do it,” Gail Felton, a longtime Bedford resident and president of the Bedford tenant council, said following the vote. “I think once it’s done [the residents] will understand, it’s what’s best for everybody.”

The development of the barracks-style Bedford Dwellings was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 and the complex opened a few years later.

Officials hope to redevelop 98 units of the complex on Somers Drive into a mix of 320 public housing, affordable and marketrate units over a span of five to seven years at a variety of locations, if they are approved for federal Choice Neighborhoods funds.

Housing Authority officials