Proposed Oakland zoning change gets panned
Residents voice concerns at City Council hearing
A proposal by a Shadyside developer to rezone parts of Oakland in support of a plan to build 1,000 apartment units and other amenities came under fire before City Council Tuesday.
Speaker after speaker slammed the plan during a nearly two-hour public hearing, with many calling for council either to reject the proposed zoning change altogether or to delay action until residents have had a chance to fashion their own vision for the neighborhood.
A group of residents had petitioned council for the hearing after Mayor Bill Peduto’s office introduced zoning legislation last month to add a new subdistrict to five existing public realm districts in Oakland to facilitate the ambitious development plans of Walnut Capital.
During Tuesday’s hearing, some accused Mr. Peduto of trying to push through the bill before he leaves office in January as a favor to the developer.
Others argued that Walnut Capital was trying to usurp standard procedure for zoning changes and jumping the gun by not waiting for the Oakland Plan, a 10-year vision for the neighborhood, to be finished.
Kathleen Gallagher, an Oakland resident who has been working on the neighborhood plan, said the proposed zoning change gets in the way of that work.
“This process feels very much top down rather than community up,” she said. “I believe that a project of this magnitude, which will impact every single one of us, deserves community input from the very beginning.”
Others took issues with some aspects of the plan itself, a major one being the lack of affordable housing in it.
The vast majority of those who spoke during Tuesday’s hearing urged council to delay forwarding the legislation to the planning commission, the next step in the process, until the Oakland Plan has been completed.
That is also the position of the Oakland Planning and Development Corp., the registered neighborhood community group that has ripped the Walnut Capital proposal.
During her testimony, Wanda Wilson, OPDC executive director, called the way the legislation was introduced “fundamentally wrong” and a “threat to the public interest.”
Zoning changes should go through a monthslong process led by the city planning department before going to the planning commission itself, she said.
“Zoning should not be written by a private developer behind closed doors and introduced by the mayor completely separate from the city planning department,” she said.
Dan Gilman, Mr. Peduto’s chief of staff, has disputed such characteristics, arguing that the planning department was involved in
conversations and meetings surrounding the legislation.
And while some claimed the mayor was playing politics in trying to advance the legislation before leaving office, Mr. Peduto’s spokeswoman Molly Onufer said that wasn’t the case.
“The mayor was elected to a full four-year term to serve the residents of Pittsburgh,” she said. “This legislation is not about the end of a mayoral term but about an opportunity to deliver a grocery store, expanded green space, walk-to-work housing, safer Boulevard of the Allies and thousands of union construction jobs to Oakland. To not take advantage of this opportunity would be a disservice to the residents and community needs.”
Nonetheless, some other community groups wondered how the controversial zoning fight in Oakland could affect their efforts to develop their own neighborhood plans.
Christina Howell, executive director of the Bloomfield Development Corp., testified that the “bypassing of the process for zoning changes does a disservice to community members” who the organization has been working with to explain city procedures for making and changing laws.
“It feels that we are lying to our community members, and we’re extremely concerned with the precedent that this sets — that a zoning overlay ordinance can be changed specifically to a developer’s needs, one developer, not a larger issue, without an intense period of public engagement,” she said.
Not everyone spoke against the zoning change or the overall plan, which would span some 17 acres in Central and South Oakland.
Major components include more than a half-dozen apartment buildings to be erected on Halket Street, McKee Place, and the historic Isaly’s site on the Boulevard of the Allies; a pedestrian bridge across the boulevard; and the creation of a plaza on Zulema Street.
The developer’s overall vision also includes a plan by the University of Pittsburgh to convert the Quality Inn and Suites on the boulevard into nonstudent housing and to bring to the site a grocery, a long-sought neighborhood amenity.
Speaking in favor of the plan, Chris D’Addario, who helped run the city’s Just Ducky Tours, said he always saw Oakland as Pittsburgh’s “front door.” But that door isn’t an inviting one these days, he stressed.
Even with all the research funding it receives, Oakland, he asserted, is the only innovation district in the country that isn’t growing.
“That should alarm you all because it is completely unnecessary,” he said. “Efforts to stop a transformational development not only blocks progress for Oakland residents, but it deadlocks the entire regional economy.”
Councilman Anthony Coghill said he hoped that the residents and Walnut Capital could reach a consensus on the development.
“Walnut Capital, what they did out in Bakery Square was really transforming. This, I think, will be a legacy project for them. They’re local developers, which I really like — proud, passionate Pittsburghers,” he said, adding the developer always hires local labor.
Council President Theresa Kail-Smith said she doesn’t want to see Oakland end up like Grandview Avenue on Mount Washington where there are “holes” that have been vacant for years because of opposition to proposed developments.
Bruce Kraus, the councilman who represents the part of Oakland affected by the Walnut Capital plan, said he would take the time to do some follow-up. He asked that the legislation be held until he had a chance to do that.
But he also maintained there could be some urgency involved because there could be $35 million to $50 million in COVID-related public infrastructure funding available that could be used for the project.
“What I heard mostly today was really about process and not the project. And there are elements of the project which I believe business advocates, community advocates, residents, have lobbied for for a very long time,” he said. “What I hope we don’t do is throw the baby out with the bath water and get caught up in personalities and not focus on the project and the principles.”