Children run along the Somers Drive section of Bedford Dwellings as Pittsburgh’s skyline rises in the background, on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
The Urban Redevelopment Authority hopes to knock out more renovations using federal Choice Neighborhoods funds awarded for the revamp of Bedford Dwellings.
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Last year the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] awarded $50 million through the Choice Neighborhoods program to the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh to replace the 411 units of the Bedford Dwellings public housing complex and create an additional 422 mixed-income rental units across the Hill District. The city’s economic arm, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, is responsible for using $7.5 million of that grant. The URA is now looking to preserve and renovate townhomes in the area for first-time homebuyers making at or below 80% of the area median income [AMI].
On Thursday, the URA’s board of directors approved the use of $750,000 for the emergency stabilization of eight vacant townhomes on the 2700 block of Bedford Avenue. Five of the homes are currently owned by the Hill Community Development Corp., and the other three are owned by the Pittsburgh Housing Development Corporation [PHDC], a URA affiliate.
“These units have been standing for 94 years and when this work is done we anticipate they’ll be up for another 94 years,” said Richard Snipe, executive director of the PHDC.
Thursday’s approval helps pave the way for the URA’s organizations to acquire the buildings so that they can be rehabilitated and eventually marketed to eligible buyers. First-time homebuyers in the Bedford Dwellings area and the Great Hill District will be given priority when the units become available. The URA did not specify when that might be.
The URA will look to rehabilitate more homes in the area, though it remains unclear how many rehabs they will be able to complete before the federal money runs dry. “We don’t have a full sense of the scope of the issues yet,” said URA Chief Development Officer Thomas Link.
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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