Vehicles parked in the area near where the Civic Arena once stood in the Lower Hill District. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
by Juliette Rihl, PublicSource
The Urban Redevelopment Authority board has approved a series of measures laying out affordable housing and community investment commitments tied to the Pittsburgh Penguins project at the former Civic Arena site.
The vote was initially scheduled to take place at an Oct. 10 board meeting, but it was delayed after Hill District leaders and residents voiced concerns that the community had not had time to review the proposal before a vote. Several advocates reiterated that concern during a special board meeting of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Friday, Oct. 18.
The proposal expands on a previous community agreement between the Penguins and community stakeholders that dictates affordable housing and investments in the Hill District. Among the measures the URA approved on Oct. 18 was a commitment to reserve 20 percent of housing units in the project for families making at or below 50 percent of area median income (AMI) for 20 years, along with making 50 percent of the Local Economic Revitalization Tax Abatement (LERTA) funding—an estimated $40 million—available up front to the Greater Hill District Reinvestment Fund, which is controlled by the community. The board also gave preliminary approval to Intergen, a Hill District-based developer, to begin take-down work on several lots. The mixed-use development will include a music venue, retail, parking garage and 288 units of housing.
In a letter sent Thursday, Oct. 17, to Mayor Bill Peduto, Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle and URA Board Chair Sam Williamson, several Hill District stakeholders requested that votes be delayed until this week and that the Oct. 18 meeting be used to provide an update on the public process. The letter was sent by the Hill Community Development Corporation (Hill CDC), residents, business owners and community leaders.
At the request of advocates, the URA board on Oct. 18 unanimously approved a motion to formally recognize the letter and create a working group to present an action plan to the URA within 30 days. The plan will outline which items can be moved by the URA and which items can be moved by other entities.
The Hill CDC-led letter made several recommendations, including:
Removing the condition that commitments made by Pittsburgh Arena Real Estate Redevelopment (PAR), the Pittsburgh Penguins’ development arm, be “commercially reasonable.”
Create more affordable housing, either by pursuing affordability for 30 percent of Blocks A and B of the development at or below 50 percent AMI for the length of any loan terms or by pursuing affordability for 20 percent of all Lower Hill housing units at or below 50 percent AMI for the length of any loan terms.
If PAR contributes half of the LERTA funding up front to the Greater Hill District Reinvestment Fund—meaning that the funding would be made accessible sooner—the city should try to recapture more than $200 million in funding commitments that were made by various entities in connection with a failed application for the federal CHOICE Implementation Grant. The money would have been used for development in the Middle Hill District.
Marimba Milliones, president and CEO of the Hill CDC, asked that the board formally adopt the principles of the letter.
The board did make some revisions to the terms agreement, including limiting or removing the commercially reasonable standard to the extent possible and amending the agreement’s language about funding for the rehabilitation of the Ammon Community Recreation Center to not limit the facility’s rehabilitation to the elements already included in the agreement.
But URA board members said some of the letter’s recommendations were outside of the scope of the URA.
“I don’t disagree with 99 percent of the letter. It’s spot-on as to what needs to happen,” said Diamonte Walker, URA interim executive director and Hill District resident. She suggested the URA identify the items within its control so it could be held accountable.
Walker stressed the importance of not postponing the vote. “If we don’t act today, if we don’t act now, we are pushing the can down the road and our children will not get the material investments they deserve, our residents will continue to be displaced,” Walker said. “I would not sit here as a Black woman and champion this if I thought for some reason this wasn’t feasible.”
Councilman Lavelle, who is co-treasurer of the URA board, stressed the need to capitalize on the reinvestment fund quickly. He said he was open to having monthly meetings to make sure the community is informed on the development process moving forward.
After the meeting, Milliones called the potential $40 million up front from PAR to fund the Greater Hill District Reinvestment Fund from PAR a “rare opportunity to redress that failed effort” of the unsuccessful HUD grant application.
“This is a great opportunity to say, ‘OK, we didn’t win the HUD money, but we have this money, so everybody bring their money back to the table,’” she said, adding that the more than $200 million in funding commitments related to the HUD application came from a variety of stakeholders, including universities, the city and the URA. “We want those funds back at the table and invested in the same footprint and the same focus area.”
As requested by attendees of the Oct. 10 meeting, the URA board provided a breakdown of the Civic Arena project’s timeline and next steps, including pending votes through June. Many of those dates have not yet been set.
The URA also provided a breakdown of the total public subsidies and public benefits for the project. According to the URA, estimated public investment in the project is $80.65 million, including $40 million for the on-site LERTA. Total public benefit is estimated to be $97.83 million, including $40 million from the off-site LERTA to go to the Greater Hill District Reinvestment Fund.
Milliones said the URA’s breakdown of the public subsidies and benefits differs from that of the Hill CDC. The Hill CDC estimated the public subsidy to be $99 million, with the known public benefit being $1 million, not considering the value of the rehabilitation of Ammon Recreation Center, the affordable housing, and other proposed benefits with unknown dollar amounts.
Kevin Acklin, senior vice president and general counsel for the Pittsburgh Penguins, said at the meeting: “Our commitment on behalf of the Penguins is to be as transparent as possible, as collaborative as possible.” Acklin recognized the historic distrust between the Hill District and the city. “For decades upon decades, the Hill District has been disenfranchised and disconnected from development and economic opportunities on behalf of the city,” Acklin said. “Our commitment … is to use this development as a way to reconnect the Hill to the city.”
Acklin and members of the URA board stressed that the Oct. 18 vote was the first in a series of votes by multiple entities, including the Sports and Exhibition Authority and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh. “All of these issues will be vetted over and over again,” Acklin said.
Bomani Howze, a Hill District resident and part of the Intergen development team, spoke at the meeting about growing up in the Hill District and of his grandparents’ displacement in the neighborhood.
“I want you to understand that as developers, we are not on the other side,” Howze said. “We are with you. This is our charge.”
(Juliette Rihl is a reporter for PublicSource. She can be reached at juliette@publicsource.org.)
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