Pittsburgh City Council gave preliminary approval to a multi-million dollar comprehensive plan that is expected to guide long-term city planning, despite concerns over the price and scope of the plan.
Parts of the plan will include recommendations to overhaul the zoning code, address climate change and combat historical racial and social injustices in Pittsburgh. Once completed, it could also help guide budgetary priorities.
The city is proposing to spend about $6 million to create the plan. It’s broken into two pieces of legislation: one that would authorize the spending of about $2.6 million for public engagement and another that would cost about $3.3 million for the technical aspects of writing the plan.
Despite both pieces of legislation receiving preliminary approval on Wednesday, it came with a split vote. Council members Anthony Coghill and Deb Gross voted against both. Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith voted against one and abstained from the other. Councilman Khari Mosely voted in favor of the plan and abstained from the public engagement portion, because 1Hood Media, where he formerly worked, would be one of the community groups receiving money to do the engagement. The rest of the members voted in favor of both.
It could be given final approval as early as Tuesday.
Nearly every council member Wednesday said they were in favor of the city having a comprehensive plan, but some members had issues with the price or timing of this specific plan.
Council first began its debate over the plan in December. But because no action was taken before the end of the year, the bills expired and had to be reintroduced last week.
“I think this plan is still far too expensive,” Councilman Bob Charland said. “I don’t have a justification that meets my needs for why it is so expensive.”
Mr. Coghill said he could get past the price of the plan, if it were happening at a different point in time. With ongoing property tax reassessments, the city has already had to pay back $1.8 million, he said. This is on top of the two bonds the city has taken out in the last year totaling nearly $155 million, including interest.
“I think it’s financially irresponsible for us to pass this next week without knowing what debts we’re going to be looking at,” he said. Residents can appeal their property tax rates until March 31.
He asked council and the City Planning department to hold off on passing this legislation until April, when they would know how much money they could be facing in tax reassessments.
Mr. Charland ultimately was supportive of the plan on Wednesday, but said he has “major reservations” about it.
As former Councilman Bruce Kraus’ chief-of-staff, Mr. Charland was involved in the development and approval process for the controversial Oakland Plan, which nearly a year after its passage is “still largely unimplementable,” Mr. Charland said.
“I don’t have any comfort that this isn’t just doing the same thing,” he said, adding that a need for zoning reform is what prompted him to support this plan.
Mr. Coghill shared a similar concern, that this plan would end up “sitting on a shelf collecting dust,” if a different administration takes office.
Ms. Kail-Smith said she was concerned about the public engagement process and that the responses would be what the city wants to hear, rather than how people actually feel.
“I hope that we’re not trying to manipulate the public to get an answer that we could have just simply said and not cost the taxpayers a dime,” she said.
In previous discussions regarding the comprehensive plan, council members asked why the city needed to spend millions of dollars on community engagement when the mayor has an Office of Neighborhood Services that does just that.
In order for the Neighborhood Services team to complete the level of public engagement Pittsburgh is striving for to develop this plan, they would have to stop all of their other programs, which include things like the City in the Streets program and other community engagement meetings, City Planning Director Karen Abrams said.
Through this process, they hope to reach 10% of city residents to get their feedback for the plan, Ms. Abrams said. In typical community engagement efforts, the city hears from about 6%.
City Planning staff also pointed to the plan as a way to secure future funding. Previously, the city had been turned down for grants because the application seemed like it was something they “were crafting in the moment,” Chief Economic Development Officer Kyle Chintalapalli said. Having a comprehensive plan would go a long way to show that the city has a vested interest in projects it is applying for grants and that it all fits into a broader plan, he said.
Hallie Lauer: hlauer@post-gazette.com
First Published: January 31, 2024, 8:22 p.m.
Updated: February 1, 2024, 7:25 p.m.
