Good afternoon and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's cable cast public hearing for Friday, December 5th, 2025, relative to bills 2025, 2296, and 2025 2333.

Will the clerk please read the title of the bills?

Bill 2296.

Resolution providing for the designation as a historic site under Title 11 of the Code of Ordinances.

That certain site known as Westinghouse Park, located at 320 North Mertland Street in the Point Breeze North Neighborhood.

In the 14th ward, City of Pittsburgh.

The owner of the property supports the nomination.

And there is no cost to the city.

Bill 2333.

Resolution providing for the designation as a historic site under Title 11 of the Code of Ordinances.

That's certain structure known as police station number three, also known as the Office of Municipal Investigations.

Oh MI building at 2603 Penn Avenue, located in a strip district neighborhood, second ward city of Pittsburgh.

The owner of the property supports denomination.

There's no cost to the city.

Hi.

I'm city planning staff.

I'm going to do the presentations for both of these.

I'm wondering, are we going to do should we just do the Westinghouse one first and take public comment and then do the OMI, or should I give the presentations for both?

I guess we could do uh, I mean, we have just a short number of speakers, so yeah, we can we can break it up.

Okay, all right.

So I'll do the Westinghouse one first.

Yeah.

Um, let me share my screen.

Oh, there we go.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh the first uh nomination is for Westinghouse Park.

Uh the details of the nomination are that it was nominated on May 27th, 2025 by Preservation Pittsburgh.

It's located in the Point Breeze North neighborhood, and it's in Council District 8, and it's zoned parks.

Here's location map that shows the location of Westinghouse Park in reference to the entire city.

And here is a neighborhood specific map.

Showing it there where the red dot is.

And this is a site plan that shows Westinghouse Park.

Uh so the nomination process for uh local historic landmark has a number of steps.

Um, the first step is a determination of reasonable cause before the historic review commission.

This nomination uh went on July 2nd, 2025 and uh received a positive determination, and then uh went to Historic Review Commission uh on September 3rd, 2025 and received a recommendation to City Council, and then to planning commission on September 9th, 2025, where it also received a positive recommendation to City Council.

Right now we're at the public hearing um December 5th, 2025, and the next step will be a city council vote, the date of that to be determined.

So this uh nomination meets two of the 10 criteria for historic designation.

The first is criteria two, it's identification with a person or persons who significantly contributed to the cultural, historic, architectural, archaeological, or related aspects of the development of the city of Pittsburgh, state of Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic region, or the United States, and also criterion six, its location as a site of an important archaeological resource.

Um Westinghouse Park uh retains a high degree of integrity of location design workmanship and materials.

And based on the results of the phase one um archaeological survey that was completed, uh ground disturbance within the Westinghouse site and the grounds of solitude have been minimal.

Um removal of the main house and stable laboratory buildings has resulted in some disturbance within the immediate immediate vicinity of the structures.

It's evidenced by the presence of intact below ground features such as tunnels, gas wells, gas piping.

Um, demolition did not impact the site to any significant degree below the ground surface.

Given the overall good archaeological integrity of the site, geophysical survey was undertaken to further identify associated below ground features.

So our um our city uh Pittsburgh Cultural Heritage Plan that was adopted in 2012 supports uh the Department of City Planning.

Um the Department of City Planning's Cultural Heritage Plan supports designation of city-owned structures.

Uh the following frameworks for the goals for the framework goals for the city are documenting cultural and historic resources, which this is committing to preservation, increasing awareness and recognition of the city's historic resources, and uh being stewards for the system.

This meets specifically the preserve policy 1.2, identify and designate additional historic structures, district sites, and objects.

Um, identify, I don't need to read this whole thing, but basically uh looking to identify um uh assets that are significant or unique for their architecture or engineering and would severely or adversely impact the neighborhood's um form character economic growth if uh uh demolished or negatively altered.

Here are a few historic photos of Westinghouse Park.

Um, the one in the lower right is from the archaeological survey that was done.

Um on that one.

Um so I guess we'll take public comment and then I'll present the second one.

And before before we go to public comment, I do just want to state for the record that uh we are joined by uh councilman Bobby Wilson from the first district.

Um and uh now we could take public comment uh around the Westinghouse Park designation.

And I believe there's two registered speakers.

Yeah, I believe Mr.

Bear is the one.

David Bear.