Fresh off the heels of their successful plea for the Pittsburgh Planning Board to reject the proposed redevelopment plan for the former Penn Plaza Apartments site, a coalition of affordable housing advocates celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by calling for the city to seize the property through eminent domain.
“We sit on the site of a monstrous injustice where hundreds of individuals, families, our seniors, our veterans and our disabled have been displaced–all for the simple chasing of a dollar,” said Randall Taylor, past Pittsburgh school board director and former Penn Plaza renter.
“If this property could be eminent domained, then we could come together as a community and create wonderful decent affordable housing in which individuals and families can grow along with this new Pittsburgh.”
Carl Redwood, chair of the Hill Consensus Group, said gentrification is an issue across the county.
“People have come together across the country to fight this,” he said.
“Halt Gentrification through the empowerment, stabilization and restoration of traditional Black neighborhoods. Black people have the right to develop, plan and preserve our own communities. No project shall be considered ‘development’ that does not serve the interests of the impacted population, nor should any people-displacing or otherwise disruptive project be allowed to proceed without the permission of that population.”
Residents call for Penn Plaza seizure
