(Photo illustration by Natasha Khan Vicens/PublicSource)
Housing and development have been major focuses of the outgoing mayor, and the durability of his legacy may depend on what his administration can get done through December.
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With seven months still available to enact its goals, the Gainey administration’s development menu ranges from fully cooked items including an affordable housing bond to still-raw priorities like inclusionary zoning, for which there’s no clear recipe for success.
In the weeks after the primary election, which saw Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor best Gainey for the Democratic mayoral nomination, the administration had little to say about inclusionary zoning, but vowed to work toward some of its other development goals.
City Council — five of whose nine members endorsed O’Connor — has numerous development-related bills in front of it and lacks a clear path forward.
“It’s not like the council has a strategy” for zoning change, said Councilor Deb Gross, of Highland Park. “It’s not like there was a mastermind” as packages of bills broke into component parts in recent months.
Councilor Erika Strassburger, of Squirrel Hill, said she and her colleagues have parsed out the various efforts Gainey wanted to pass in a unified legislative effort. “I think there’s an opportunity to get something done,” she said.
Gainey development priorities in various stages of completion include:
- Inclusionary zoning
- Transit-oriented development
- Accessory dwelling units
- Minimum lot-size changes
- A citywide comprehensive plan
- A disparity study to support minority contracting
- Spending affordable housing bond funds.
Here’s what we know about each of the administration’s development planks.
Inclusionary zoning
In January, Gainey’s efforts to create a citywide zoning overlay received significant momentum when the City Planning Commission approved the plan to require housing developments of more than 20 units to put aside some apartments for affordable housing. The overlay is modeled on a similar zone that covers Lawrenceville and other nearby areas. During that same meeting, the commission rejected a less comprehensive version of the plan stewarded by Councilor Bob Charland, of South Side.
Strassburger said that having some kind of zoning overlay for the whole city “will be an important policy to have in place,” and that she will continue to discuss these issues “with housing justice partners, the mayor’s administration, my council colleagues and some key developers willing to engage on this issue.”
Charland’s bill is set for a June 18 public hearing before council. Gainey’s bill reached council after Charland’s, and city rules require that bills on related topics be handled in the order they’re introduced. The rule essentially freezes Gainey’s plan until summer.
Gainey’s main zoning proposal “was prevented from getting in front of us” by Charland’s tactic, said Gross.
Charland declined to comment for this story.
Some council members are skeptical about any expansion of inclusionary zoning. Councilor Bobby Wilson, of Spring Hill said the specter of a zoning ordinance has already put a chilling effect on new development.
“Right now I’m seeing development stalled,” said Wilson, who supported O’Connor. “Right now if you apply to build something more than 20 units, the zoning administrator is saying ‘we expect affordable housing in it,’ even though there’s no IZ yet. The zoning administrator is just assuming it’s the law now.”
Wilson said that he is willing to consider an inclusionary zoning overlay if it’s tailored in a way that would spur affordable housing without depressing overall construction.
Transit-oriented development
Last year, Gainey’s administration proposed zoning changes meant to spur housing construction along three transit hubs across the city.
During a City Planning Commission meeting, residents pushed back against the plans to rezone areas around the transit hubs of Herron Station, South Hills Junction and Sheraden Station. In response to residents’ concerns with the plans, commissioners tabled the discussion and declined to vote.
Strassburger said the meeting showed that development change requires community trust.
“You won’t get transportation reform passed unless you build trust with the community,” she said. “The question swirling in my mind is: Is it the right time for this, or should we put it aside and build trust through the comprehensive plan process?”
The matter hasn’t returned to the commission for a vote.
Kyle Chintalapalli, chief economic development officer in the administration, said that the effort is on pause for now as they revise their plans and consider all of the public feedback they received.
Accessory dwelling units
As city officials continued to look at ways to address housing needs, the familiar concept of accessory dwelling units [ADUs] or “in-law suites” resurfaced. Having an extra residence on a single property isn’t a new concept in Pittsburgh, where several properties built before the first citywide zoning ordinance in 1923 featured extra residences, but in-law suites are restricted under current code.
Gainey’s administration included lifting curbs on accessory dwelling units as part of the package of zoning changes that included inclusionary zoning.
The effort remains in limbo with the other zoning changes, but council members have presented their own legislation to study ADUs.
“I passed a resolution to explore ADUs a while ago,” Gross said. “City Council members were so excited by ADUs.”
Gross said that there are still details to be worked out and that her staff is tracking the impact of such units in other cities.
“There’s definitely a need to localize models we see in other cities,” she said.
Wilson said council “should have a fair discussion about” ADUs.
Minimum lot-size changes
On May 6, council unanimously passed an ordinance that eliminates minimum lot sizes per unit in all residential zoning districts and numerous subdistricts. The bill was co-sponsored by Wilson, Charland and Councilor Barb Warwick, of the Four Mile Run section of Greenfield.
“Pittsburgh is taking a bold and necessary step to modernize outdated zoning codes, lower construction barriers, and open the door to more affordable and diverse housing options,” Wilson said at the time. “This ordinance promotes responsible growth while preserving neighborhood character.”
According to the city, minimum lot size requirements “have historically been a tool of exclusionary zoning intended to prevent lower-income households from being able to live in certain neighborhoods,” and that “large minimum lot size requirements drive up the cost of housing by requiring more land to build the same number of homes.”
The city also notes that, “much of Pittsburgh’s older multi-unit housing stock would not be able to be built today under the minimum lot size per unit caps.”
Proponents hope the elimination will spur more housing construction, but it remains to be seen how effective this will be.
A citywide comprehensive plan
In March 2024, City Council passed two resolutions that allowed the mayor and the Department of City Planning to begin a $6 million comprehensive plan process. If completed, it would be the city’s first effort to integrate all of many neighborhood-level plans.
City Planning Director Jamil Bey said this initiative was long overdue.
“This is the administration recognizing that things we thought about in neighborhood scales wasn’t the kind of thing to make it a great city,” Bey said. The lack of a citywide blueprint “has inhibited growth.”
In putting a plan together, Bey hopes to better understand the various needs, like housing, in the city and the job market.
“We thought of these issues in isolation, and at the neighborhood level they’re not connected to any bigger picture,” Bey said.
Strassburger expressed concerns with the cost, “but I think it’s the key for planning in all regards and having everything we do tied back to economic development and growing the city.”
Strassburger said development sentiments have “oscillated to economic development, being bullish, growing the number of businesses, building housing, redeveloping disinvested neighborhoods, growing population — and then swinging to, ‘oh, we’re gentrifying too quickly, and then we’re not lifting the folks who have been here historically.’”
She said the plan will let the city balance those competing sides “The comprehensive plan can show us how to do it,” she said. “This is supposed to be the summer and fall of real engagement.”
The city intends to garner input — at meetings and events and online — from at least 30,000 residents to guide priorities for the next 25 years. Outreach is scheduled through September, with planning scenarios scheduled between August and April 2026 — well into the next mayor’s tenure.
Wilson said the plan is “taking too long.” In cosponsoring the plan legislation, he “was convinced we would get some good engagement in terms of zoning and see some growth in this city and making sure neighborhoods are improved and people would be able to continue to live in their neighborhoods.”
He added that he was hoping to see more community engagement than he has so far.
“They’ve drawn down a ton of money. I’m looking forward to seeing what they accomplished. I’m skeptical.”
A disparity study to support minority contracting
Taking a stance in the nation’s debate over race-conscious programs, the city kicked off a disparity study in April to better understand minority-owned businesses seeking to contract with the city. Along with Allegheny County and allied agencies, the city initiated the study to find support for race-conscious government contracting, even as the legal foundations for such programs are being narrowed by federal policies and challenged in courts across the country. The study is also expected to explore race- and gender-neutral options.
A study timeline shows various analyses over the next year with goal setting and a final report by June of next year.
“We are deeply committed and full steam ahead to continue the disparity study,” said Pittsburgh Deputy Chief of Staff Felicity Williams, noting that city code requires a disparity study every five years. The city’s last one was in 1988.
“That had been ignored for who knows what reasons from prior administrations,” Williams said. “As a legacy we’re leaving behind, we identified just how much more work needs to be done in our procurement system not only to be more equitable but also finishing the transition from a decentralized system to a centralized system.”
Spending affordable housing bond funds
Some of Gainey’s efforts are already secure. In December 2023, his administration and other government entities announced $30.6 million in bond borrowing for affordable housing development.
“Affordable housing is not just something to banter about during election time. It’s absolutely critical for our communities to continue to thrive and allow our residents to remain in the place they call home,” Gainey said at the time.
The funds are supporting three of the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s [URA] existing programs, including the Rental Gap Program and the Housing Preservation Program, designed to create and improve affordable homes. The funds are also being used for a pilot program to convert Downtown office space into housing units.
“Preservation is an important part of it, too,” said Quianna Wasler, the URA’s chief housing officer. “If we think about the Gainey administration and housing programs . . . the conversion and housing preservation are markers of things that happened under his administration.”
According to a URA annual report, bond funds were invested last year in projects that will lead to 61 units of affordable housing, from studio apartments to four-bedroom homes, for households earning 80% of the area median income or less. One of the goals for the funding, according to Wasler, is to help create 1,000 units within three years. Wasler noted the bond is likely to be fully committed within three or four years of its issuance in 2023.
“Once the bond issuance runs out, we have to reevaluate how to maintain these programs,” Wasler said.
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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