Proposed housing plan in Aspinwall stirs ire of some residents

A Sunoco station would be purchased to create that entrance and parking for the business district.

Several residents oppose changing the entrance, saying it will add to traffic woes on Freeport Road. Some also question cutting a road through the park for a private development.

“It’s an abstraction to think that collaborations aren’t necessary” to make big projects happen, said Mr. Minnerly of Mosites, the developer of several large residential and commercial developments in East Liberty. “The public, private and nonprofit mindset has been part of nearly everything that has been minted there.”

In response to one resident who implied that the board was granting the Crookstons a favor, Mr. Burke said the same concession would be made to any developer who would grant public access to riverfront land and the trail.

Resident Gil Hart said he opposes the plan because of the heavy traffic he anticipates.

“Freeport is already a very busy road,” he said. “Additional housing is not what we need. But we don’t know what might be put in there. It could be a Dave and Buster’s or a Target. It could become whatever it becomes, but I don’t want all the traffic coming to it through my town.”

A second entrance into the development is required, so not all traffic would enter the development in Aspinwall.

“This piece of property has made the riverfront inaccessible to the public for more than 80 years,” Ms. Crookston said. “We will gain a mile and a half of trail, acreage around the river, and reconnect Sharpsburg, O’Hara and Aspinwall.”

Rob Stephany, the program director for community and economic development at the Heinz Endowments, said the plan for the former scrap yard is “an attempt to overturn 100 years of bad land use. Susan has been a dogged advocate of a high-quality public realm, and the notion of unraveling a brownfield is hero’s work. Part of this design is the reality” that revenue has to be part of the picture.