City Council agrees to tax abatement extension

Pittsburgh City Council agreed Tuesday to extend several tax abatement programs that would have expired at month’s end, allowing them extra time while the city plans an overhaul for such assistance.

The six-month extension could help as many as nine planned development projects reach fruition — more than half involving affordable housing, Councilwoman Deborah Gross said. She said the plans, some of which include market-rate housing, are distributed across the city.

“It seems prudent and fair, given that some of these projects may have been in the pipeline for two years,” to allow the extension, Ms. Gross said.

In place about a decade, the extended abatements apply to narrowly defined construction and other improvements in targeted areas, such as deteriorated parts of the city. Some provisions fall under the Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance Act,or LERTA, program.

City officials are looking to streamline those and other tax abatement offerings next year, hoping to encourage developers to take risks in less-popular neighborhoods. Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration also wants to drive more affordable housing as part of the push, which would compress seven tax abatement programs into three.

Existing programs have become such a “labyrinth” that some developers don’t want to deal with them, Mr. Peduto’s chief of staff, Kevin Acklin, has said.

Also Tuesday, council and the Peduto administration introduced legislation to support a new senior citizen center in Morningside. The Morningside Central Community Center is set to take shape at the former Morningside Elementary School, which is being converted into senior housing, the administration said.

Portions of the development are to be used for the senior activity center, due to open in late summer 2018, Mr. Peduto’s office said in a statement. Plans call for it to replace an existing senior center in the neighborhood.

User fees and utility expenses could cost the city as much as $238,000 under a 15year agreement, according to the administration.

Adam Smeltz: 412-2632625, asmeltz@post-gazette.com, @asmeltz.