Pittsburgh’s land bank board voted Friday to acquire 21 abandoned properties from the city’s and Urban Redevelopment Authority’s inventories, positioning the homes that have sat idle for years — decades, in some cases — to finally be revitalized.
With the coming acquisitions, the land bank is poised to diversify its portfolio — with properties in Sheraden, Elliott and Oakland — and partner with new developers, including Pittsburgh Housing Development Corporation and Habitat for Humanity.
Partnering with Habitat will “certainly advance our mutual goals of eliminating blight and advancing opportunities to all residents for affordable housing in our city,” said State Senator Wayne Fontana, who served on the land bank’s board for years and sponsored legislation to speed up property transfers.
The acquisitions are expected to take up to four months, as they need approval from City Council and the city’s Planning and Finance departments.
The agency also closed on its sixth sale Thursday to City of Bridges, on a sprawling lot in Hazelwood that is slated to hold a four-unit affordable housing dwelling.
More than half of the parcels approved at Friday’s meeting are homes, which succumb much more easily than vacant lots to the ravages of blight and require urgent intervention.
The land bank plans to sell 3319 Niagara St. to Rising Tide Partners for redevelopment; it’s a long-vacant home covered in vines and awash in code violations — rotting wood, a sagging porch and a structurally unsound roof that has damaged the property next door.
“Scenarios like this,” said Councilmember Bobby Wilson, “are a great example of why we need to move property quicker.”
Also on the list: a side lot in East Allegheny that will be transferred to the next-door Garden Cafe. It’s been in the city’s inventory since 1983.
Some residents have found more creative uses for the land bank’s properties. Ebony Evans, widely known as “Farmer Girl Eb,” plans to take in a parcel on Chartiers Avenue in Crafton Heights — which contains a deteriorating structure and 14,000 square-foot lot — to build a fresh food stand, which she’ll stock with produce from her garden.
Ms. Evans called the land an “opportunity at generational wealth.”
With the city swearing in new members of council on Monday, the agency’s board is seeing some turnover. New Councilmember Khari Mosley, who attended Friday’s meeting, will take Ricky Burgess’s seat on the land bank board in the coming months. His district is the epicenter of blight, with about 1,500 city-owned properties — more than 100 are condemned, data shows.
Vice Chair Jamil Bey, who has served on the board since the land bank’s launch a decade ago, will also exit; an application is open to fill his seat.
The land bank’s recent success comes after an investigative series by the Post-Gazette exposed the city’s glut of unsafe homes and incessant delays in turning them over to responsible owners. In its first nine years, the agency failed to sell even one property.
“I look forward to more progress for the land bank,” said Senator Fontana.
Neena Hagen: nhagen@post-gazette.com
First Published: January 12, 2024, 11:31 p.m.
Updated: January 13, 2024, 7:57 p.m.
