Good morning and welcome to the standing committee's meeting for Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026.

All council meetings will be live streamed on the city's website.

And for guest speakers, please do not turn off your microphones.

Mr.

Charlotte, Mr.

Coghill, Miss Gross, Mr.

Laval.

Mr.

Mr.

Mosley.

Here.

Miss Salonetro.

Here.

Miss Warway.

Here.

Mr.

Wilson.

Miss Strasberger Chair.

Here.

Five members present.

Thank you.

Our next order of business is to amend the agenda.

Can I have a motion to amend the agenda?

No moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Amend it is it uh agenda is amended.

Our next order of business is public comment.

I would like to remind all speakers that the rules of council state that comments are limited to matters of concern, official action, or deliberation, which are or may be before city council, and profanity will not be permitted.

Please state your name and neighborhood for the record, and you will have three minutes to speak.

I share those concerns and I focus in my initiatives three and and six on local city government and LI cities.

The leaving of those.

Why is that?

Why is that not under the Democratic Party leadership?

I'm going to skip down to the last of these.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Chief Icahana Helmakina.

Not seeing her, we will now move on to those who are in the audience wishing to speak who have not yet registered.

Good morning.

Carlino Giampolo, Panther Hollow.

In my testimony yesterday, I read excerpts of an email sent to University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gable last week, pertaining to the University's Electric Vehicle Charging Stations project in Panther Hollow.

Here is a similar email sent last week to the Duquesne Light Company president, the main electrical contractor for this project.

President Kevin Walker, why would you bring shame to yourself and Duquesne Light Company just for four EV charging stations?

As President, you set the moral compass, ethics, and values of the company.

You can delegate authority for your to your administrators, but you cannot delegate your heightened responsibility.

Both in written and in spirit, with your company now becoming involved.

The EV Charging Stations Project is a shameful wrongdoing on all levels spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.

Deny the shame by proclaiming this is a university project, or ignore the shame which you continue to do.

However, shame that is masked, denied or ignored, continues to grow.

That is your choice.

A meeting release was recently sent with this as the last paragraph.

Should the EV charging stations project be completed, we will remove the Italian sense of place.

Who established Panther Hollow as a quintessential Italian immigration experience?

We will not allow the symbols of our legacy to exist next to the injustice and shame of the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne Light Company.

Next to the injustice and shame of the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne Light Company.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Unique Brown.

Today I am going to continue speaking about our veterans and the families who simply want to honor them.

I recently looked into the process on purchasing a military tribute banner.

And what I found broke my heart.

In the Hill District, families are being asked to pay $449 for a banner display from Memorials Day through Veterans Day 2026.

Yet in nearby communities, the cost is much lower.

West Mifflin is about $70.

Dormont is about $100.

Find Leigh Township is about $110 to $140.

South Fayette is about $145.

So I have a simple question.

Why does it cost so much more for some families to honor the people they love?

And when I search for the banner programs in Homewood, Hazelwood, Penn Hills, I can find little to no public information about how families can participate.

Why is it so hard?

Many of these communities are working class and low income communities.

Everybody knows that families already are struggling to pay rents, buy groceries, and keep the lights on.

Yet, if they want to honor their a veteran, a father, a mother, a grandfather, a grandmother, sister, brother, they are faced with barriers that other communities don't seem to face.

The battlefield did not care where our veterans came from.

It did not care about a zip code.

It did not care about their income.

Every veteran took the same oath.

Every veteran from the same country.

Every veteran made sacrifices for all of us.

Some never came home at all.

And for many families, that banner is more than a picture on a pole.

It may be the only public recognition their loved one will ever receive.

It may be the only place where a child can point and say, that's my grandfather.

The only place where a daughter can show her children the face of the man who served.

The only visible reminder that a family sacrifice mattered, just like everybody else's family sacrifice matters.

We're talking about people's lives, their service, their sacrifice, and their legacy.

I guess because our communities don't look good enough.

The polls don't need to be decorated.

At least y'all can do that.

Y'all don't want to do the streets.

I see y'all kind of fixed Befford thanks.

But uh go on Western or Wiley or whatever about Jay's Lounge.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, your time has expired.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning.

My name is Yvonne S.

Brown.

I live at 715 Mercer Street.

That's the senior citizen home.

Up at the top of Bedford.

There's a hundred and ninety apartments in there.

Now I was trying to explain yesterday about DeWitt Watson, who is my county council person.

Um we don't have a bus to take us from the top of Bedford down to Mercy Hospital on 5th.

And I have been asking my councilman, President, about the buses.

He never responded, but uh but we ended up coming up on an elevator together.

And he said, Miss Brown, you keep coming and asking me.

He said, Go to County Council.

I explained to you that I went to County Council.

And when they asked the wit, Watson, would he call Port Authority?

Or write a letter.

He screams and holler, no.

Can't nobody come and tell me what to do in my community.

Okay, so time.

This isn't.

I have a paper 2018.

And this is 26 now.

So anyway, I was coming down the hall in my building.

I didn't know about the politicians coming.

So they said they were.

Well, he came down the hall and I caught him.

I said, Sir, you remember me?

You said you were gonna do so.

So I said you didn't do nothing.

I said, I'm gonna go to council and tell on you.

And he he hollered, but I found out he talks loud, but I said, Are you hollering at me?

And he said no.

But he promised right then that he would call Port Authority.

Okay, so I go down the hall, and there's a white woman there standing at the door, and she's talking about John DeFayo, who was at president of Columbia Council then.

He was running again.

So she asked me if I would vote for him.

I said, I'm woman to woman.

I said he's mean.

She says no.

So she runs me in there, and we were talking to him.

And as we're talking, this is when the wit comes.

And I happen to look up at the big stomach.

But anyway, we're talking, and um, all of a sudden we hear he ran in and he ran up and he was he was screaming.

I don't appreciate you telling the president of council on me.

And they they were real scared.

Okay, I have a poem that I wrote.

I might not get finished, but you need this was the ode to John to Face here.

Minnie says you better come back.

She hopes you keep your promise to come again.

She says that you and your wife can really know how to groove.

And I think she's trying to learn some new moves.

Don't be afraid to old people's scene that frightened scene, boy, was he mean.

I'll finish it because it's cute.

And I didn't know I could write such a poem.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Brown.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning, special agent sunshine, the missing child Cherise Taylor.

Lord, thank you for the Jubilee Kitchen, located at 2005 Wyandotte Street, which served steak and eggs with cheese grits and baked apples and orange juice for breakfast this morning.

Amen.

For anybody interested in lunch, they're serving Salman Crocat.

Please go check it out.

Hey Heather, thank you, Terry, a guitar player at the club cafe on the south side, whom after I sang a few songs with the house band, played the song, I think you're crazy.

I know y'all know that song.

I just had to sing a little bit so you would know.

But internal affairs, here's a yet another red flag.

We know someone went to the courts claiming that I was incompetent.

Really?

Somebody has illegal conservatorship over me and illegal guardianship over me, claiming they're taking care of me, and I can't take care of myself.

Well, Jesus is doing a very good job, wouldn't you say, with no job, no phone, no bank account, no credit cards?

This is what Jesus doing in my life, amen.

Y'all have to look at it.

Developing a uh godly lifestyle.

That's the title of my message today.

Um, Terry, did you claim conservatory ship over me?

Are you the one that has a legal guardianship over me?

Are you the one that has power of attorney over me?

Are you the one who's forcing me to be homeless?

Would you happen to be my real father or know who he is?

If so, you are part of this Rico.

Thank you for being part of it.

And this identity theft fraud investigation that's over 40 years old, has a lot of missing parts and people attached to it, lawyers, judges, Mosley, who claims to act like he don't know what I'm talking about, but he knows who my uncle is, whoever that is.

Are you my real father, Mosley?

Was your father my grandfather?

Mosley.

The truth is going to come out.

And when it does, hold on to your seats.

To develop a goggy lifestyle, Paul warned us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world.

And I am not, and I will not.

I'm creating a project called a night of sunshine all over the world.

And when it's time for me to go, I promise you, God is going to make sure that I do.

In Jesus' name, I will continue to pray.

The thought for today is I choose to trust and believe the promises in God's word.

He keeps his promises.

Amen.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Are there any further speakers?

Seeing none, we will move on to the standing committee's agenda.

Our first committee is the finance and law committee.

We have deferred papers.

Bill 39, ordinance directing the Allegheny County Board of Elections to place before the qualified voters of the city of Pittsburgh at the 2026 May primary election, a referendum question.

I don't know.

Shall the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter Article 3 legislative branch be amended by changing the budget approval rules to ensure timely passage at the end of the legislation.

So legislative session, excuse me.

Motion to hold four weeks.

Second.

Discussion.

Sure.

We're working with the administration.

They believe we can actually make these changes appropriately via the ordinance as opposed to having to go to referendum route with everything that has occurred.

We just haven't had the opportunity to sit down and really write it out.

So I'll commit to do that over the next few weeks.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of a four-week hold on Bill 39, please say aye.

Aye.

Bill will be held.

New papers, Bill 537.

Resolution authorizing the issuance of a warrant in favor of 1410 East Carson LLC and an amount not to exceed 3,151 over one year in full and final settlement of a claim for damage to the front window of the business at 1410 East Carson Street.

From a city of Pittsburgh Police Force on March 16th, 2025.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 537, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

That moves us to invoices.

Is there a motion on invoices?

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of invoices, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Invoices are approved.

That takes us to P cards.

Is there a motion on P cards?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none.

All in favor of P cards, please say aye.

Aye.

P cards are approved.

That takes us to public safety and wellness committee chaired by Councilman Coghell.

Bill 527, resolution authorizing the issuance of a warrant in favor of international trauma life support pen Ohio and an amount not to exceed $8,100 for trauma and life support certification necessary to the mission of the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 527, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 528.

Resolution authorizing the mayor and the director of the Department of Public Safety to enter into an agreement or agreements with the United States Department of Agriculture for services relating to a cooperative wildlife damage management program for white tailed deer for a sum not to exceed 103,132.88 over one year.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of bill five twenty-eight, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

That moves us to public works and infrastructure committee chaired by Councilwoman Salonetro.

Deferred papers, Bill 414.

Resolution authorizing the mayor and the director of finance on behalf of the City of Pittsburgh to enter into an agreement or agreements or amendments thereto with various parties for the purpose of accessing city property while certain railroad crossing at Lockway East and Lockway West, Council District 7, are being upgraded or removed at no cost to the city.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 414, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

New papers, Bill 532.

Resolution authorizing the mayor of the City of Pittsburgh and the Department of Public Works to apply for a grant from Pennsylvania Department of Economic Development's Greenways Trails and Recreation Program for the Manchester Park Rehabilitation Project.

The grant proposal includes an ask of $250,000 with a local match of $37,500 for a total grant project cost of $287,500 for this stated purpose.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 4 532, please say aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 533.

Resolution authorizing the mayor of the City of Pittsburgh and the Department of Public Works to apply for a grant from Pennsylvania Department of Economic Development's Greenways Trails and Recreation Program for the planning of Budford Park.

The grant proposal includes an ask of $250,000 with a local match of $37,500 for a total grant project cost of $287,500 for this stated cost.

Purpose.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none.

All in favor of Bill 533, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation, Bill 534.

Resolution providing for an amended reimbursement agreement or agreements with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for costs associated with the study phase in the preliminary design phase of the Beaver Avenue Esplanade Project, providing for a payment of the cost thereof not to exceed one million dollars, an increase of $750,000 from the previously executed agreement, reimbursable at 100% at no cost to the City of Pittsburgh.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 534, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 535.

Resolution providing for an amended reimbursement agreement or agreements with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for costs associated with the preliminary design, final design, right of way and construction phases of the Liberty Avenue Highway Safety Improvement Program, providing for the payment of the cost thereof not to exceed 14 million eight hundred eighty-three thousand one hundred fifty-one dollars and ninety-three cents and increase of one million nine hundred seventy-seven thousand five hundred ninety-five dollars and ninety-three cent from the previously authorized amount reimbursable at 80 percent and a municipal share of commonwealth incurred costs not to exceed $29,700, an increase of zero dollars from the previously authorized amount.

Future resolutions will authorize the project specific agreements.

Motion to approve, discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 535, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

That moves us to human resources committee chair by Councilperson Charlin.

Bill 526 resolution providing for the authorization to make all legitimate expenditures for payments and agreements or agreements with various agencies for job development and employment services necessary to implement the 2025 neighborhood employment program and providing the periodic transfer of funds to be used in the 2025 neighborhood employment program for payment of the cost thereof, cost not to exceed two hundred and ten thousand dollars.

Motion approve.

Second, discussion.

Councilperson uh Werwick.

We've the team come up.

Yeah.

Good morning.

I'm Chris Barnes.

I'm the youth program supervisor for the city of Pittsburgh.

And I'm Diana Pinski, I'm the fiscal and contracting coordinator for the city.

Yeah, so I just wanted to I, you know, I'm I'm excited about the program this year.

I just wanted to give you a chance to talk about updates and new locations and all that good stuff.

Yeah, so the way the neighborhood employment centers work is uh we go into already existing employment programs and we use a reimbursement system to help improve said programs.

So this year there was RFP process, I believe 13 applied.

We took the top six based on scores from outside council.

Um the six employment programs this year are Pittsburgh Community Services, the Kingsley Association, East End Common Ministries, Davis Consultant Resolution Solutions, Bloomfield Garfield, and the Carnegie Library on Forbes.

So we've actually spent the last two weeks going into each and everyone, seeing what they got going on, um, getting all the paperwork figured out with fiscal and the contracts and everything, and uh next week they finally will get to meet as a network, and it's designed for them to lean on each other as a network if there's job fairs or any employment opportunities they might have throughout the city, and at that meeting they'll be introduced to uh Devin Talaferro, who is the talent acquisition for the city, so we'll give them a streamline to city opportunities and anything the city may want to co-op with them on.

Great, and as far as locations, do we know where they're gonna be located?

They're all at their actual organizations.

Oh, okay.

Okay, got it, got it.

So, all right, that sounds good.

I know.

Well, one of them is in Hazelwood, so that's why I'm very excited.

Yeah, they're last week.

Yes.

Okay.

And one the nice thing about the one in Hazelwood, they're they're always on the move, they go everywhere.

So that's a nice part that they provide.

Okay, great.

Well, I don't that that's all I have, so thank you.

Just very excited for thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion, Councilman Cockhelm.

Uh, yes, so the additional funding, let's say it could go towards yes, the funding, yes.

I'm sorry, my microphone was off.

So you provide the funding.

Yes, additional funding to the ordinary.

City money.

Yes.

Okay.

Grant money.

Grant money.

What kind of money do you what kind?

Like what do you a dollar amount?

Like each one was awarded 35,000 from this, and then we have money left over before, so technically this year they get 47,667.

So you give away the portion that was left over from last year as well.

Two years.

Yeah, it was two years.

We had a prior agreement where it didn't work out.

So they get a forty-seven thousand dollar.

Normally it's thirty-five thousand.

Right.

We divvy it up the extra.

And they use that however they feel fit to get help with salaries, computers, uh whatever they actually visited all these organizations.

Yeah, we are just at all six of them.

Yes.

Well, they must be doing well, right?

Yeah.

And like I'm looking forward because we have some new ones, and I think they can bring a lot to the network, so when they all get together next week, I really think the jobs across the spectrum, or is it is it uh, yeah, whatever they're doing within their organization.

Yes.

Okay.

How long have you been in existence?

Long before me.

I've been here, I've been with the city for over 24 years, and this program has required that.

All right.

Great.

So they help city residents.

Yes, only city.

Yes, okay, great.

Okay.

Thanks.

Sounds like good work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 526, please say aye.

Iffirmative recommendation.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you.

That moves us to land use and economic development committee chaired by Councilman Wilson.

Bill 2250, ordinance amending the Pittsburgh Code Title IX zoning, Article 5, Use Regulations, Chapter 911, primary uses to add retail, tobacco inhalant, and cannabinoids to add specific requirements and conditional use application requirements.

Motion to approve discussion.

All right, thanks.

So last week we had a public hearing on this uh bill, which is to um, you know, put some put some uh parameters around where vape shops can go in the city of Pittsburgh.

And I think it was uh pretty successful uh to uh you know to hear not only from supporters of it, but then also to hear really an impactful story of people who are getting addicted to uh you know the products that are being sold at these establishments or these shops.

Um and uh, you know, really it's uh it's an area that's unregulated uh by the you know, by um by and large is just really unregulated, and uh for the city to step in, city pits were to step in and make sure that uh there is some guidance on where these can go.

So right now um there's a map uh and we have it available if you'd like to see it.

Uh we sent it out uh yesterday as well to all offices.

It's really stronger uh than the previous version in terms of strength, it's um strong in terms of uh really making sure that it really doesn't uh it won't impact uh our neighborhoods uh that we really want to make sure that you know these vape shops just stop popping up in our neighborhoods, uh especially downtown.

It's just the swamp with the amount of with the amount of shops that are down there.

I know people are looking for relief and people are asking if this can go any faster.

Unfortunately, you know, this is as fast as we can go.

I feel like we're moving at a pretty good pace here.

Uh there wasn't too much delay at um throughout the process, and you know, the process really is the process of how we get to a point where we take action to limit the ability for vape shops to pop up anywhere in the city of Pittsburgh.

So at the end of the day, you know, I want to uh thank uh all the sponsors, um uh Council President Lavell, Councilman Charlotte, Council Person Strasberger, and former council person uh Teresa Cal Smith.

I want to thank everyone uh for their for their uh continued support throughout this process and that and uh you know what I just want to say what this bill really does is uh protect our youth and also strengthen our neighborhoods at the same time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilperson Warwick.

Um I have a quick just interrogatory and maybe and it's not necessarily something that this bill addresses, but I'm wondering just from um the zoning perspective, if there's an existing vape shop, right?

So it's there, and then it closes or or whatever wants to sell the you know what I mean, like as far as the use, does this then apply?

Like would this bill then apply like if if I if I want to buy the vape shop and you know put a new sign on it, do I have to go through this process or is the use like grandfathered in?

So uh I'm gonna do my best to answer the question, but city plan is here to answer it.

For my understanding, if it was a new shop, they would have to apply.

And the new ownership they would have to apply.

Okay.

Um, manager with uh zoning and development review.

Uh if an existing vape shop, which we would consider retail sales and service right now were sold, they would be able to continue to use that certificate of occupancy as retail sales and service.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the question was whether to transfer.

Right.

So that's what I'm saying.

So if I own a vape shop, and I decide that I don't want to do that anymore, and then I sell my vape shop to someone else, they could continue that use, yeah.

Under yeah, as a with a valid certificate of accuracy, yeah.

All right, if it stays consistently open, but if it closes for any period of time.

There is some language about um you know where where use ends, and it there's sort of it's very clearly been abandoned.

There would be some a little bit of oper a little bit of wiggle room in uh in land use law to say this is a new use if the old use had been abandoned.

Um but if there wasn't any evidence of abandonment, they could reopen it as a vape shop under the retail sales and services occupancy permit.

Got it.

Okay, all right.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilwoman Gross.

That was the clarification I was looking for.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Councilperson Charlin.

Okay, so let's say uh I this legislation passes, and I open up a vape shop anyway.

What happens?

Right.

So if you so you would in a situation where you didn't get a permit or then yeah, it would be up to enforcement at that point for the neighbors or the other, you know, abutting businesses to say, hey, somebody's this looks like a vape shop, file a 311 complaint, have PLI go out and inspect uh and then say, you know, did they have a valid certificate of occupancy for what they're doing?

Um and if they don't, they would have to come in for uh um for a permit.

Or what would happen?

Uh uh PLI would they would get a um I'm not sure what the technical term is, but PLI would shut them down if they were um I mean, in a practical matter, PLI would work with them to have them get the proper permits, that's always their first step.

But if it was something where the use wasn't permitted, like if it was a vape shop downtown, which under the new bill wouldn't be allowed, then yeah they would like to see.

Yeah, and then yeah.

Um in any of the districts, the thinking LNC it's a special exception, so yeah, they would have to come to the zoning board and then they would have to document that they met all the standards like the separation of uses from schools and if libraries, if we add libraries to that.

What if I just didn't want to do that?

Um this is not a hypothetical.

This is a very real situation at 115 today I've been an eviction court because a vape shop opened up that is not allowed to be there that didn't get any of the right permitting, and just there's no enforcement mechanism around it.

There's like the problem that I have here is that this is this sounds great, but like in practice, it's great if you want to follow the rules.

It's really lousy if you don't.

Right, and it punishes the people that that follow the rules.

I agree, yeah.

No, the enforcement end is is an issue, unfortunately.

That's yeah, that's in PLI's court and then the enforcement that's in um if it's in the magistrates court or whatever that it would be up to them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I've got a what is licensed to be a smoothie bar um at 1401 East Carson right now that is a vape shop that just opened up.

I mean, I have a lot of issues with historic districts, but they don't even have the right historic code to have the right sign on front.

Like, yeah.

They don't have dumpster permits.

They can just but we have no power to stop them.

We have no power to get to get them out.

Is literally the only thing we have got is the landlord being agreeable, which that's gonna be a multi-month process too.

And if there's anything that we can do from the zoning perspective to show up at court, um if there's anything that we can provide through this process that that we can say to the enforcement folks and the people who make the decisions, you know, again, it would be the magistrate or whoever that wherever it's in court.

If we can go and say this is, you know, under zoning, this is not allowed.

This is, you know, they're clearly operating as a as a smoothie shop, but it's not, you know, that's not what it is under the use code.

Again, we're happy to to show up in court and do whatever that we can to sort of back up that enforcement mechanism, um, because yeah, it's completely unfair if their folks aren't following the rules for especially for the people that that are following the rules.

Yeah, the unfortunate reality is that that court date won't be scheduled until September.

Yeah, you know.

Yeah.

So it'll have been the whole summer that this illegal operation is.

Yeah, it's frustrating.

I don't, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further first round?

I'll just say I wanted to, um, and then second, I'll pass it to Council uh council sponsor, Councilman Wilson, but I um asked last week at the public hearing about and really sort of insisted that we take another look at the thousand-foot buffer.

And since then I have gotten some clarification.

I was sort of misreading the map that demonstrated where uh allowable uh new vape shops or where vape shop new vape shops would be allowed and uh even with a uh a special exception.

And um it's clear to me that it's already like with the with the changes to this from um kind of a buffer stamp from a a buffer structure to more of a just a this is where it's allowed in the zoning districts and this is where it's not it's really restricted it's really restricted and I think it still accomplishes the same goal so um wanted to be clear about that because I know we heard a lot of public testimony in support of a thousand foot buffer from an existing vape shop and I still think it is highly restrictive and and still come qu accomplishes that goal quite quite well um with my new understanding of that second I'm I'm in the same boat as at least just with one vape shop as as the council as council person charlon just mentioned and you know like an owner of a building evicting the tenant who is the vape shop owner and they've still been operating for for at least a year since that eviction notice.

So I think it is worth contemplating what the enforcement looks like if it's a if it's sort of a com a combo unit task force of law department and PLI and after hours PLI and that sort of thing because you know it's not just the sometimes illegal um skirting of the occupancy permit or even eviction notices and getting the courts involved is helpful but it's also uh the lights you know violations on the lights and the sort of brightness of the lights that are in violation of our zoning code that are it's also really hard to enforce is particularly because that's only visible at night and we don't always have enforcement at night so I'm in favor of figuring out what we can do or around that and um open to any ideas.

Sure and especially for um I don't want to single out this type of business but you know signs are required to have sign permits we have worked with PLI about you know just um reminding them and then their enforcement folks about what is a sign um you know because anything that would say vote vape or smoke or whatever I mean that they're advertising a product that's inside and that is a sign so that would require a permit.

So making sure that they're within the legal limits of of what they would be allowed for a signage allowance and they have permits again so yeah can be happy to continue to work with PLI and the enforcement of that so whatever yeah whatever mechanism I think you have council members here who are willing to contemplate that as well and help in any way possible.

Thank you.

Okay councilman Wilson.

Oh yeah I know that it feels I have two things one is just I just wanted to kind of address the conversation around you know where um you know this really only this really hurts the people who want to follow rules um because I see that all the time in my district in terms of like how can we get enforcement on certain issues and you know can I continue working with the administration on how you know our are on our on our enforcement side in terms of PLI and then also you know anything that's needed planning.

But then also continue uh working with uh local magistrates to really understand where they're at when they have to make these decisions decisions.

Uh but ultimately like the vote here is doing our job from the council side and that's I think an important step that we're making and that you know when the public asks us to respond and that this is the response that we're doing our job here and that everything else down the line it's not just well whatever it's that we our job then is to continue to you know strengthen those ends if we can do it in the budget in terms of PLI and really you know what's left in the what's left to do is is in the court's hands and that's a whole separate whole separate body of of individuals that uh are accountable as well so uh looking forward to at least getting done uh what's our job to do here in the in city council thank you oh I said uh two things yeah second thing was is give a big thank you uh to my staff especially Morgan Morton, my my legislative aid, uh, for all the the work and the the good um you know just the good work that that's been happening.

I know um you know there was a lot of questions as to the map and uh going back and forth on uh some of the language, so I really appreciate uh her attention to detail uh on that matter and um uh just wanted to say thanks.

Thank you.

Was there a further discussion?

No, I'll just further discussion for anyone.

Okay.

I wanna also just mention I uh thank you to um Councilman Wilson and and your staff for this great work and I was proud to be a co-sponsor of this bill.

So seeing no further discussion, all in favor of bill twenty two fifty, please say aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

Sorry, did that get amended by substitution with the version that came over from planning commission, you just want to clarify.

My understanding is that we amended by subsorption.

I thought we did that before the public.

That's all about the same before the public career.

I can say it.

My understanding is we amended it by substitution before the public.

Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you to your new team as well.

That moves us to recreation youth and senior services committee chaired by council member Warwick.

Bill five thirty-eight resolution authorizing the mayor and the director of the department of parks and recreation on behalf of the City of Pittsburgh to enter into an agreement or agreements for booking performance and entertainment services in conjunction with the City of Pittsburgh's Independence Day Festival at an amount not to exceed $54,950 to be paid for using grant funds received from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and chargeable to a job number.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 538, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation, Bill 539.

Resolution authorizing the mayor and the director of parks and recreation on behalf of the City of Pittsburgh to enter into a financial sponsorship agreement with Bank of New York Mellon Corporation valued at $50,000 for the 2026 City of Pittsburgh Independent independence day celebration at no cost to the city.

Motion to approve.

Discussion.

Seeing none.

All in favor of Bill 539, please say aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

That moves us to Innovation Performance Asset Management and Technology Committee chaired by Councilwoman Gross.

Bill 529 resolution amending resolution eight ninety-seven of twenty twenty-four, authorizing the mayor and the director of the Department of Innovation and Performance on behalf of the City of Pittsburgh to enter into an agreement or agreements and amendments thereto with Granicus Inc.

in a form approved by the city solicitor for website content management by increasing the approved amount by three hundred ninety-four thousand six hundred thirty six dollars and twenty-seven cent for total cost not to exceed eight hundred ninety thousand two hundred forty-four dollars and twenty-seven cent over six years.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 529, please say aye.

Aye.

Affirmative recommendation.

That moves us to intergovernmental and educational affairs committee chaired by Councilman Mosley.

Bill 530 resolution adopting plan revision to the City of Pittsburgh's official sewage facilities plan for 1208 Forbes Avenue at no cost to the city.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Seeing none, all in favor of Bill 530, please say aye.

I agree.

Affirmative recommendation.

Bill 531.

Resolution authorizing the adoption of the downtown Pittsburgh Transit Revitalization Investment District Implementation Plan and Related Agreements.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Discussion.

Councilman Wilson.

Morning, good morning.

Morning.

Morning.

All right.

Good morning.

I'll introduce yourselves.

Yes, sure.

Good morning.

I'm Catherine Murray, Director of Government Affairs for the URA.

I'm Tom Link.

I'm the URA's chief development Officer.

I'm Leah Matthews.

I'm a senior project manager at the URA.

Good morning.

I'm Matt Singer, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Mayor.

Can someone give us a rundown of what we're looking at here?

Yeah, of course.

I'll do that.

Yeah.

It seems like a fairly decent big vote here.

It's a big vote, yeah.

Yeah, I yeah.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate that and the opportunity to discuss.

Yeah.

So uh first, yeah, thank you to city council to all of you, not just for you know consideration of this particular vote, but I know that when we you know discuss matters of tax diversions, these types of things, uh it's a partnership with our taxing bodies, and it certainly including the city, and we don't take lightly the uh yeah, the gravity and importance of these discussions.

Um so today what this discussion and this legislation that relates to, and I think for the public watching it's important to sort of educate on this, the uh a downtown TRID.

So TRID is an acronym for transit revitalization investment district.

Um practically speaking, that what that means is TRID, uh along with other tools like tax and commit financing is a value capture tool uh that allows for essentially borrowing against a portion of future, largely in this in this particular case only real estate taxes that don't exist yet, to borrow against those a portion of those taxes uh that are created through basically economic development activities to reinvest in geography and districts to sort of invigorate economic development and public infrastructure and public projects.

Uh so the legislation today is in regards to a downtown trid.

Um, the downtown trid is a tool that will essentially have a larger uh a capture area that includes our central business district, our golden triangle, a portion of the North Shore, and then our strip district communities as sort of a greater downtown value capture district to be able to borrow against again future incremental real estate taxes from this district to create more branding for now a golden triangle reinvestment fund to reinvest in our golden triangle in our downtown.

Um that reinvestment would um include uh public infrastructure, transit infrastructure, public realm improvements, uh support of small business businesses, excuse me, business district improvements that and also um supporting uh real estate development and specifically, I think in the near term, you know, the conversion of fallow and vacant office buildings into housing uh for our city.

Um couple just notes on tax diversions in the URA's role in this.

So the URA administers tax diversion programs on behalf of the city, so we've been doing this for I've been at the URA for like 23 years and it predates that, but I think it's well over 40 years.

Um so we are the administer these tools on behalf of the taxing bodies and on behalf of the city.

We just did some quick math before I got over here.

So for the last 10 years, we've actually retired 13 individual tax increment districts in the city and have implemented three new ones.

So that's the way you know our portfolio of tax diversions citywide has been shrinking.

Uh we actually have three more that are going to retire within the next 12 months or so, so it'll further shrink that portfolio uh of tax diversions that we're administering.

Um I mentioned the uh the geography of the downtown TRID.

Um the way that the implementation plan is uh structured is that uh seventy-five percent of future uh again incremental real estate taxes uh generated within this tax capture district would be uh pledged or diverted for the purposes of the TRID to reinvest in the manner in which I described 25% uh would be retained by the three taxing bodies.

To be clear, it's only incremental future taxes, so all base taxes that exist today are you know they're there's they're not touched by anything related to the TRID.

Um the way we've defined qualifying development projects and it's defined in the implementation plan is essentially a minimum uh five million dollar construction project uh that has an increase in assessed value.

So practically speaking, what that means is if someone improves their home, um if there's a reassessment due to maintenance of a building or something like that, these are not the types of things that are captured within the uh within the investment district.

Uh per modeling that we've done, and we've worked with uh third-party uh financial analysis in particular JL has supported us.

We think over the term of the TRID, you know, depending on the pace and scale of projected development across the district.

It could create a potential up to borrowing of roughly 200 million uh over 40 years.

Our initial modeling is we believe we could borrow up to maybe 50 million on an initial borrowing, you know, if we're supportive and aggressive and make good progress, perhaps by the end of this year, uh, to create the seed this fund and create the investment mechanism to reinvest in downtown.

Um the term of the trade is 40 years.

That's that's uh typical of TRIDS, the state statute sort of allows for that, and so the TRID term is 40 years within the plan.

Um sorry.

Legislatively, so uh the UA board has induced this implementation plan to the URI board through its public meetings, sort of induced the implementation plan, allowing us at the URA to move forward uh with the legislative process.

From a legislative perspective, you're the first uh the city council, city of Pittsburgh is the first to review this.

Uh this uh Pittsburgh Public Schools uh would also uh be required to consider as well as Allegheny County and Allegheny County Council.

Um I will say that we are um going to be at a similar table on Monday at public schools and their business and finance committee to describe this plan and further for the purposes of the school board.

Um so this plan comes out of you know, it's the way it's born is we've been working on this for a long time.

I think you know, I've personally in my role at the URA have been working on supporting downtown for several years.

As many will recall, you know, the downtown investment strategy was sort of born out of part of that work in partnership with regional partners that that helped attract you know significant private investment, uh, investment from the uh from the from our friends at the state level and the governor's office into Pittsburgh and the downtown investment strategy.

Uh part of you know one of its strategic goals was to create a predictable and uh funding mechanism to support downtown, and this implementation plan is is born out of that process.

Um I won't get too much into why downtown.

I'm happy to talk about that, but you know, I'm sort of a visual person and thinking about this holistically.

When we think about downtown Pittsburgh, downtown Pittsburgh is our you know, it's our primary tax base.

And I think you know, we understand that there was an article in the Postgazette a couple of weeks ago.

Uh, you know, our our analysis is that it represents, I think, 20% of the city of Pittsburgh's uh uh taxable value in the city, um, but it only represents less than like five percent of the land area.

Um so increases and decreases in that value within downtown have pretty significant effects on sort of the overall uh ability for you know tax payment essentially for the city and for the region.

Um downtown is overbuilt with office.

There's an overbuild of office supply.

I can I have lots of data points, I won't spout them here, but roughly right now our downtown portfolio is about 66% office.

Uh I think it's 20% or so housing, and then 15% uh sort of play, recreation.

So we're there's a lot of office.

Optimal balance should probably be what we go like 45, 40, 15.

So there's work to be done to sort of rebalance that.

Some basic level rebalancing office to housing does it's a very big people into our city, like more people living and and working and and and investing in our city, supporting small businesses.

Um we have retail vacancy at the street level downtown that you know, we believe this will help support both in terms of actual capital through programs to support small businesses, but also creating more market, more people in a marketplace to support our small business community.

Uh the office market would benefit too.

Uh less supply means more demand for those office buildings that should be office buildings and helps maintain that uh value, which is important for our tax base.

Um in combination, this creates sort of a rising tide, and we believe it's important to be reinvesting in downtown in this way.

Um I will dispense on data because I have lots here, but I it might be better to uh just to leave that here and certainly answer any questions.

I will say in the yeah, go ahead, I'll stop there and answer questions.

Yeah, so you just described how you know this would be for we would be borrowing against future taxes that we believe we would get.

Yes, okay.

So with the uh the future taxes we believe we get.

What um what will we do differently to make sure that these projects are reassessed?

That they are in fact reassessed.

So I know that the homeowner, you know, I know that PPS is pretty good at usually the school district is the number one entity that like really, you know, looks at the permits and sees that there's one work that's been done.

But I'm just curious on how that works on uh for everyone else.

I guess the the county would be.

Yeah the county conduct some of the county to make sure that means yeah you know, there's regardless of this, what should happen is that you pull pull a building.

Like if I did my home, pull a build I just that's happened to be actually a pull a building permit, has some value attached to it.

You've increased the value, you've done real property improvements to your property that should trigger reassessment so for development projects what should happen is you pull your permit you have a construction value of some dollar amount that gets into a system which triggers a reassessment process um that reassessment will will will be um against the the value of those improvements um I personally don't exactly know the more formulas and models that reassess what's there happened but with you know with working with GLL and our and our own sort of um experience we can quite find comps across properties to project what the property reassessments would be um to create the uh incremental assessed value and then the increased taxes that would happen I mean have you ever been a part of this process before like to understand you know like this have we ever borrowed against future tax revenue?

Oh all the time yeah and so we had to have success to show that oh absolutely yeah you know these these reassessments happen.

Oh for sure.

Okay.

And just to be really clear just to be really clear if it's it's a function of the actual tax increment right like there would be some tax increment and we can only borrow what's there does that make sense like we can't we wouldn't overstep what's actually available like we we make sure that the the assessment the reassessment the values are there in order to ensure that the value is there to borrow against the project it's a projection out for the purpose of the plan so that we can scale it and understand what we're we think we can borrow but at the time of an actual borrowing and we underwrite these projects to that I'm to that level but what I'm saying is we go to the bank, right?

Someone's going to the bank and saying okay here's the projection that you know could you give us a loan based on this future revenue we think and all my I'm saying is like yeah at the end of that we we have like some reassessment success on we have a hundred percent success on the reassessment and other tax diversions we've done the assessments being there the value being there and the ability to borrow and have the tax revenue available to 40 to 50 million right who's paying that back and that's going to be based on that 75% of the tax revenue.

Yes.

The trade revenue the revenue from the trid which is the incremental real estate taxes would be the repayment source for that debt.

Okay.

So what who bears the risk in this situation?

So the city of Pittsburgh would be asked to and the legislation would come back to this council table by the way we're not asking for that legislation.

Yeah so at the time of the issuance of debt uh there would probably be a mix of taxable and tax exempt bonds depending on the use of funds.

The city of Pittsburgh would be asked to provide um I understand the for a tax exempt bond an actual guarantee and on a taxable bond essentially a guarantee to ensure that a debt service reserve remains in place.

But the way the bonds will be underwritten is against the uh the re the TRID revenue right so that the real estate taxes are there to pay this debt service the city stands behind that but it but in a as a essentially as a guarantor so um that's that that's part of the debt structuring to ensure that they're you know we can get frankly get a good yield on the bond issuance at the time but the underwriting is against the TRID revenue.

The tread revenue from those um future real estate taxes um are underwritten to ensure that they're there to uh pay debt service on the on the bonds and we have bond underwriters we work with to ensure that you know this full underwriting occurs.

Okay.

So is there some like maximum financial exposure that will be like at risk or well if we say we came back to this table with a and I actually suspect it might be more like a two a one twenty five like two individual tranches of say twenty five and twenty five because I'm not sure we would borrow 50 at once but we would only borrow that much.

So whatever that borrowing is that's the maximum exposure at that time.

Okay.

So what specific projects would be like in the mix of the first 40 million are we talking about an office to residential versions, office it's parking I don't yeah yeah that's a great so we we will bring a funding plan back to the stable at the time of legislation but we are tracking a pipeline of I think it's about 12 individual projects downtown that are operat that are in planning stages for the from potential conversion from office to housing.

Additionally, we would work with trans, we're working with, and just again, legislatively, Pittsburgh Regional Transit actually is a part of the approval process legislatively for the plan to identify and ensure and with the city of Pittsburgh public infrastructure, public ground projects uh public transit projects that would be part of a borrowing to support downtown.

I hate to say individual projects because we have not we have not said this individual project would get funding from this trade at this point.

We're tracking individual projects would have to apply and be underwritten to ensure that they're a ready to go, that they can actually have their full funding, you know, their full capital stack in place, shovel ready, they're fully entitled and these types of things because we you know we don't want to provide money to projects that to your point before don't actually happen.

So I hate to point out a specific project because that would indicate that we've sort of earmarked it for a specific real estate project.

Um but there's you know we have a retracting 10 to 12 right now that are in planning stages downtown that I think are uh candidates for this funding and would be you know we would underwrite those at the as we move through this uh and certainly before a borrowing and certainly before dispersing monies to those individual projects.

But yeah, but largely these are I mean some basically we probably read about most of them, but you know, projects downtown that are naked and fallow office buildings that are in various planning stages to be converted into you know, largely housing development.

There's two important points I didn't ask about that.

That's okay.

Uh I I read this in in the in the report, but I think it's 40-year term.

40 year term of the trade, yes.

So the vote here would be to open this up for a 40 year period.

Yes.

And what are the what are the um, you know, in terms of where the lines are on the map?

It goes.

The downtown Gold Triangle Central Business District.

A portion of we have a map, but a portion of the North Shore.

Um, and then the strip district, all the way up to I believe it's what 30 31st Street.

So that's that's the boundary of the of the uh of the trip boundary.

Okay.

And then just to be clear, this is a nuance, but there are some individual parcels within the boundary that are existing TIFF districts, uh that are not included.

So as an example, the produce terminal is pulled out of this boundary.

Um and it it in some have asked this, you have Nessus here.

But the Manchester Chateau trade is not included in this.

That's that's outside of this boundary.

The terminals pulled out of this?

I'm sorry?

You said the terminal was pulled out.

The smallman street TIF.

There's a smaller because of the 60 years.

That's not a large parcel, yeah.

And then how does the since this is a trid, but transit improvements could uh people expect?

Yeah, I would expect hardscape improvements, so you know improvements to boulevard streets.

Um, we've had very preliminary conversations about things like improving um uh walkability, transit stops in particular, hurtscape improvements to transit stops, um, you know, lighting projects, these types of things that have our multimodal aspect to them.

So they would be in a funding plan, just to be clear, but those are the types of projects I would expect.

So we have some major throughways and and um public right-of-ways in our downtown that I think you know you know I I personally say you know, projects like Boulevard of the Allies could be something that you know needs work.

Um there are other through ways that um there's opportunities to reinvest to that infrastructure that the trade could support.

Um, and again, working with our partners at the transit authority identifying specific, you know, there could be other specific transit projects that could also be funded through this through the TRID.

Last question.

Last question how would the downtown alert on that affect the so we the plan is written in a way that is that does not ask anything of the alert though.

So we understand this the there's certainly there's alert in place of this, you know that the downtown alerta for the city of Pittsburgh.

Uh the county and the school district have a downtown alerta in place.

The way we are looking at this is that what sits here today exists and the plan to acknowledge that an underwriting would include that in terms of whether or not alert of benefits are or not attached to an individual project.

If LERTA changes, you know, the plan would adapt to that, but it the the plan does not it it recognized alert exists and it's underwritten away that the alert is in place and uh is is not asked to be changed as part of this plan.

Yeah.

I should have never done that saying this is the last question.

I guess I think this is the last.

I think this is the last question.

But please that's amazing.

Uh so I'll comment as well.

Yeah, it's okay.

Mostly it's it's important for me uh and I think others here would would it would agree that it's important for us to understand that there's gonna be this great return on this.

Yes.

And the calculation is that we borrow against this future revenue that we would get, uh, and that somehow the return will be greater, or is this just to stabilize?

Well, I would imagine it'd be it should be much greater.

So in our experience, that you asked about that.

Is that calculation done then?

Yeah, it's in the plan and we've done some projections on this.

And our experience in when we do tax or increment financing in tri districts, we're experiencing at least 10 times increase in real estate.

And that's what you have written down?

Yeah.

10 times.

Yeah.

I mean, that's when we can again, it's up subject to think, you know, the projects actually, to your point, they have to come out of the ground and get reassessed these types of things.

So we give someone five million, we what give?

We you know, yeah.

So we lend a project.

I would expect it.

I'd expect it's no more than ten times out of 50 million.

At least 10 times that.

So just one project.

And one project.

And we have some we've done some in plan like study.

Like we expect if the fall of the development pipeline were to happen, it probably creates at least five million dollars.

But how do you calculate that to 50 million?

You said 10 times.

That's our experience.

And we would build into guidelines too.

So we usually of like because it's not that we don't get 50 million from any one building and tax revenue.

But are you talking about you calculated over the like the time?

Yeah, over time.

Yeah.

So we I was actually when you asked that, I thought you were talking about investment into that individual building.

So we would expect that if we would put as an example, five million into an individual building, at least 10 times that would be from private and other sources besides the TRID to help support that capital state.

I mean the real yeah what we've been saying is the real goal here, I don't know if this is your goal, but the real goal that at least, you know, in terms of uh have worked on the alert of the tax abatement bill for downtown, uh which is now for 20 years.

Yeah.

That since the state allows 20 years, we're in a 20-year period where they can get this tax abatement is to really try to move uh, you know, more than just public subsidies, because that's not going to get us to where we want to be.

We would not sure because this is another subsidy that we're given to um, you know, people that are going to build downtown, property owners, developers, and you know, to boost that project to fill some to fill a gap that you're gonna you know look at the books and see if that gap exists.

Now, I would think the real goal is to get that private money to just fund these projects naturally and not have to continue to inject or give relief in terms of a tax payment program or uh, you know, public subsidy.

And so I guess the thousands are going to be largely in your calculations.

Absolutely, I agree a thousand percent.

So in our underwriting of individual projects, it's not if a project does not need the money, it's we're not we we wouldn't be compelled to get you know to provide money for an individual project.

That's the goal.

I agree with you completely.

I bet you know, this should be a stimulus to it to improve a market to help you know fill gaps in projects, but over time that need for that type of money should should certainly dissipate over time.

All right, thanks.

Yeah, of course, thank you.

Thanks for your time on this.

No, thank you for your questions.

Thank you.

Further discussion.

I guess I'll council McCock hill first, and Council Member Warwick.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um I think I understand Tom.

So we are borrow you are and we will co-sign as a city of Pittsburgh, basically, to borrow off future residents, future property owners, future taxes coming in from this specific area.

Real estate developer, yeah, taxes from real est they're from largely multifamily real estate development projects.

Right, right.

And um when do we actually will be collecting taxes from these projects?

So at the time of an individual project gets reassessed and their tax bill comes due, then the taxes would be collected uh at that time across all these projects.

So the extent there's a tax.

So by the time you get the loan, we'll be collecting taxes from that to pay for the loan.

Yeah.

That's the goal here.

Yeah, okay.

So we've underwritten this to be there's I mean candidly, there's a specific projects that are in near term, and that's the idea.

There's a timing.

And who do we use to borrow the money from?

So we're in the pro the money from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we would we're in the process now actually of working with uh interviewing bond underwriters to help work with us to identify.

This it would be a bond.

It would be bond.

We would go to market.

There would be a public, yeah, a market issue.

So I don't have a specific detail on that because we're just starting the conversations now with our bond underwriters, but that would all become very specifically and detailed at the time of an individual borrowing.

But I would imagine they're public issues.

Okay, so in the money borrowed, yeah, would be used for mobility mostly, or how how to improve mobility?

In public infrastructure, infrastructure.

So you could reinvest some of that money into a new project.

Yeah, building a conversion of it's not uh for some reason I was thinking it's developed more around mobility, but it's wide spectrum.

I'm using mobility very broadly.

Okay, thinking about improving our streets and so it's more walkable, it's more transit friendly, it's more you know, makes the city more viable in terms of.

Right.

So this model would be geared towards that and whatever other projects that it could help out in a specific area.

Right.

Okay.

Um the amount you're gonna borrow, do we know?

The initial the what we're modeling and then what this plan describes is up to 50 million as an initial borrowing.

And beyond that, there's nothing we would that's the first borrowing that we're modeling right now.

And the trid will be in effect for 40 years.

Yes.

40 years to be able to collect that and invest back into that district.

So the city wouldn't see that as part of their natural gains in our whatever capital or operating budget.

So we kind of lose money as a city.

Well, just to be clear, so any base taxes today.

Yeah.

Not touched at all.

Right, right.

Yeah, but then but you just have to we're losing not a hundred.

Okay, 25%.

Right.

We split 25% with the school and the county.

Right.

Of that for right.

Well, and after 40 years, it comes back to 100%.

And just to be really clear, individual borrowings are not 40 years.

If we did a 20 year borrowing, at the end of that 20 year borrowing, whatever those projects that we're using to underwrite that borrowing, they become 100% at that point.

So it's actually 20 years from an individual, there's some timing mechanisms, but it allows for individual borrowings of up to 20 years within the 40-year term.

Right.

So you take out the bond before you identify any specific projects that comes later.

No, we'll we'll we'll have a funding plan that's pretty that'll be you'll see it again actually.

We'll bring it back to this table, but it would be specific to how the exactly the money is being spent and um and the underwriting for that particular borrowing that will it'll be detailed as to is specifically those revenues, the projects, the revenue.

We've we should begin to model the plan that describes that, but we'll get those details through bond underwriting process will become more um becoming more detailed and would become part of a bond underwriting and bond issuance package.

So today it's kind of like the pre-vote.

Okay, I mean uh the pre-consideration.

You're looking at the implementation plan overall.

Um and you're you're also um looking at how this is going to be kind of operationalized at large, and there's language in here that speaks to the fact that the city and uh the county and the school district are gonna be able to put input into terms of like what projects you know receive funds ultimately.

Um and then like Tom said, we're gonna come back when we are putting this out out for um for a bid to to actually take out a borrowing, and then we'll bring back this funding plan, and then at that point in time, the funding plan is gonna list out those individual buildings to be able to see those, and it'll also list out that that public infrastructure improvement piece that we're working on like in haste with PRT right now.

So you'll be able to see kind of down to the specificity at that point in time of what's gonna happen with that actual borrowing.

So this is uh kind of largely um the first vote to adopt what we can do aspirationally with the TRID, and then we'll come back each time for an individual borrowing.

The legislation also does say like you said that the city will act as the guarantor, basically, the co-assigning, the kind of financially fiscally responsible for that borrowing at large.

So this is like the initial kind of framework vote is what I would say.

And then when we're kind of getting down to brass tax of like how much are we taking out, what projects in the pipeline, we're gonna be back at this table reviewing that all with you at that point in time.

Understood.

And does the county in the school board have to sign off on this?

They have to have to.

It's a sign off on this plan.

Yes.

Right.

So it goes to vote for the legislature.

That's first.

You're your first.

Yeah, we're going to the school board on Monday, and then we're working in with the county to get on their legislative calendar as well.

And then once it's adopted by, you know, hopefully you all first and then the school district and then the county at that point in time, then PRT will also vote to adopt it on the board level.

Okay.

I trust you.

I understand.

Thank you.

Great job the other day, Catherine in our meeting.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah, likewise.

Okay, that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Warbeck.

Thanks.

Yeah.

So I wanted to, I guess uh Councilman Cockle, I think was maybe getting at some of the questions.

So it's yeah, as far as the the transit part, right?

Like, how much of this really is like really is about transit?

Yeah.

So I think so specific public infrastructure improvements would include transit improvements.

And again, Pittsburgh Regional Transit, their board will have to adopt this as well.

So we need to, you know, they'll certainly be at the table and legislatively and working with them in the practical matter as Catherine described to identify those specific projects.

I would also suggest that the spirit of this trip is to improve the viability of transit downtown.

We need you know more people living downtown, you know, create improving our office market, improving our small business um viability.

All these things feed into transit to make it a a more valuable transit corridor, at least the most valuable transit corridor can be.

But on specific projects, I mean we'll work directly with PRT, it'll be part of the legislative process and to ensure that those are transit project.

I would describe them as hard scape.

Like I think these are probably things like improving up bus stops, improving, you know, uh right-of-ways, these types of things, signage lighting, at least in the near term, but we'll work with um our partners at our the transit, you know, Pittsburgh Regional Transit and um the specific projects again would come back uh to this table to um you know so we we know s specifically what those investments are uh that we've worked with with PRT and Domi on.

So we'd be looking right at transit improvements that are not necessarily around service, but just around uh build around.

I think so.

And I'm not a I don't think it would be like I don't know, like individual buses or like you know, or certain transit routes or that type of thing, but it could be the type of infrastructure work that influences those routes or helps improve service.

Uh that Pittsburgh Regional Transit is uh either planning or offering uh downtown and for the city.

So I guess like financially, how does PRT so they they vote on it, but what what is their did do they get funding as an authority?

They would get yeah, PRT would be in theory, PRT projects could receive funding.

Okay.

But we couldn't press for that funding to improve service if that was what I mean.

I don't know about downtown.

I mean, I don't you know, and in lots of places the issue I mean, yeah, sure, the issue is also infrastructure, but the issue is really service and reliability.

That feels like a conversation that could be had.

I don't frankly would be between that, the the concern you're bringing up, and I think with PRT specifically, and we're happy to be at that table to help help have that conversation.

Okay.

I was just kind of curious.

And then my my other question is um, and now you know I've my sort of hidden the hidden reason that I'm asking this at all, is um uh so in my district, Hazelwood Green has a TIFF.

Now you can't so it sounded like from what that you can't if there's already a TIFF, you can't sort of lay a TRIT on top of it or something like that.

Yeah, I mean, that's a there's generally right, you can't add a TIFF on top of a TIFF.

You could work with an existing TIFF and could you deal with that?

But you can't like yeah, I I agree with your statement.

So I mean because when I'm sort of so it's like so there was a uh uh Hazelwood Green has a 20-year TIF that is now we're 13 years in.

Um but there's still lots of building to do, right?

It's still the early, early-ish uh, you know.

Yeah, um teenage years, perhaps, of its evolution.

Um but transit is of course a huge issue for that one, and so that's why I was asking.

Like what, do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like what is what is the transit part or what can it be?

What can it be used for?

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, maybe that's just a a further conversation.

Um.

And then also just generally speaking, so can these can this tool um can a trid be used to revitalize like other neighborhoods?

So this particular to encourage like, you know, grocery stores and restaurants and housing and and whatnot in other communities?

So this particular trade is for the one's for downtown.

Right.

But I mean is that is that uh speaking, you know, I would say trids and tax value uh tools can be used for that type of work.

I mean, a key element to any tax value, whether it's a trid or a TIFF, there has to be some, you know, underwritten and believed feature incremental taxes that are being generated that can be borrowed against.

So it doesn't, you know, you can't do it.

It doesn't work if there's not that that happening.

So that's a key component of any tax value capture.

So you answer your question in theory, yes.

Um but trades and TIFS require sort of that excuse me, that dynamic and the and sort of increase in real estate taxes to borrow against essentially to make those improvements.

But to answer your question in theory, yes.

So there has to be some, so you're saying there has to be like some developer interest in the area, which is we're having this opportunity zone conversation later today.

It has to be development.

I mean, some practical level, you need development happening that has some sort of substantial increase in value that creates a tax, a real estate tax increase event.

And then that's that allows you to borrow against it.

That has to be part of the dynamic of any tax cap value, TIFF or TRID, is part of that part of that um equation.

Do you think you could talk more about East Liberty and kind of the success of that of the.

Yeah, I can talk about East Liberty.

So I mean the first trade, of course, in the city was East Liberty uh transit revitalization investment district, which I believe is still it was the first in the state, and I believe it might still be the only one.

Um we become sort of like models of using TRIDS.

But there was a similar concept.

It was a sort of a district wide value capture district, and there was a timing, frankly, there was a sort of serendipity of timing at the time of the creation of these liberty trade in terms of there was development happening that we could model that we could see happening that was gonna they were gonna pay increased real estate taxes, and we could model that not in a similar fashion that's been modeled here to say okay, we could borrow against some of this future real estate taxes to make improvements in the district uh that are that are important to the district and important neighborhoods.

So it would help fund things like you know, these are infrastructure projects, like the two-way conversion of Fence Circle that the TRID help pay for the completion of that.

Um there's some park projects that were completed with that.

We work directly with the school district on some supportive infrastructure that were around Obama High School that the TRID help support.

Um phase two of the TRID helped create an affordable housing fund as an example for that district that helps pay for affordable housing in East Liberty.

Um so that's an example of how of that.

But that was a district wide, it's got a geography that's sort of broad and there's projects within the boundary that we're able to borrow against, and then um the trid is able to invest those monies in a variety of um sort of priority projects and activities within the district.

And then that was that was actually my my last question just with the TRID for affordable housing.

I mean, is that something that you can build into a TRID agreement?

I guess you so here's the way I would think about it.

Like so I'll say this.

So the TRID itself will not specifically in and of itself require, like it's not like it it doesn't require affordability to itself.

What I would say is that the TRID plan and the funding mechanism that we're creating, I think is a really critical tool to advance affordability uh downtown.

I would imagine you'll as we advance projects downtown, um, there will be a good percentage of them that are providing either either be low-income housing tax credit deals themselves or mixed you or mixed income developments that have a uh layer of affordability within their unit counts that will increase the overall affordability of downtown.

So that's the way I think about it in the aggregate, but just to be clear, the TRID monies themselves don't specifically require that outside of what any other and there could be other funding sources and projects too.

So as an example, you know, development that's using low-income housing tax credits, would have its own specific requirements that trade doesn't supersede, it would have to follow that um or any entitlement issues and zoning and those types of things that might be required of an individual development.

Um so that's the way I think about it.

We've done some analysis on this.

So right now, the units that exist downtown right now, um, about 18th percent of the units are affordable units.

Um tracking are the pipeline and the project development pipeline.

We think that can increase the north of 20% if the if those were to be ex, you know, if all the projects were to be executed based on you know the number that could be low-income housing tax credit deals and also uh mixed income deals that will have some uh level of affordability within their projects, so that pushes that number.

We believe it does increase affordability, but I want to be clear because you're asking the question, the TRID dollars themselves don't specifically require that, but I do believe it's a tool that advances affordability for downtown.

And then I guess so just so with that, just to understand, so the way that it works if I'm whatever building a building or establishing a business or converting a building in the TRID map.

Do I choose whether or not to take advantage of this tax of like do I choose whether or not to participate or does it automatically participate in receiving funding or particip or your taxes?

Oh, providing the real estate taxes.

You do not choose.

So you wouldn't, you we're not the plan itself would would those pro those parcels within the geography that uh qualifies a pledge parcel automatically get pledged.

You don't you don't opt into it.

Okay, from a use of funds.

If you were saying, hey, I need some TRID funds to develop my project, that would require, you know, then we come to you.

Basically, we have to underwrite it, we have to ensure that the project A needs it.

Um it's you know, ready and it meets the mission and goals of the uh of the TRID itself.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think I understand.

Thanks for the learning.

Well, I we think about these all the time, and I appreciate that it's gonna be.

But anyway, I appreciate your questions.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's all for me.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilwoman McGross.

Thank you all.

Um I guess first of all, let's let's just repeat kind of what is the timeline of public input and council action.

So I mean, it feels to me like even at this point in the approval process, there should be a public hearing.

It may not be mandated by state law for TRIDS, but it still feels like this, as you said, this is really momentous.

This is really big.

You know, this is a diverting 75% of future tax revenue in a huge area of the city.

It's not a couple of parcels, which some of the TIFFs have been.

Um, and again, TRID is just a TIFF.

The TRID is a TIFF.

It's tax increment financing.

We're just giving up.

We're relinquishing this council is saying take 75% of future tax revenue away from the general fund.

Well we're letting it go.

We're giving it to someone else to decide how to allocate, not to pools, not to policing, not to DOME, not to vehicles, not to um other public benefit, but we're just giving it away for someone else to decide what to do with it.

So that's the basic of what a tax increment financing and trade is.

And this one is proposed to be um, if you can tell, kind of hate TIFS and TRIDS.

Um I voted yes on some, I voted no on some.

Um, so this would be, and again, to give it away to a non-elected body, by the way, um, a committee.

Um so this one is like all of the the golden triangle and all the way up to 33rd Street.

I mean it's a it's a really big footprint.

Um, of not a former industrial site that has nothing on it, which Hazelwood was, you know, a very large, what, 200, 300 acres?

Um, you often see, and I think the regional intent of the state statutes were to be, you know, revitalizing brown fields, et cetera.

Like nobody's building anything here.

Nobody in the foreseeable future has any antenna building anything here.

So we're gonna create this program like this to say that you know it it's blighted now, so we're gonna divert to a committee to kind of reinvest in that footprint to for basic infrastructure.

Well, I'm sorry, this is the historic downtown district of the, you know, of Pittsburgh.

It's been inhabited and had development infrastructure, industry, housing, commerce for I don't know how many how many years are we up to 250 years?

Um a little more.

So um it's slightly different.

I just think we should acknowledge that.

This is not an empty former industrial site that is just you know, kind of bulldozed and just raw dirt.

Um so uh that's that's one thing, but let's go back to the process.

So, I thought I heard like this is the first time we're discussing it here.

Did you expect to get a provisional vote today?

No.

Okay, good.

Okay, so we are gonna still hold this.

I think this is I mean, it feels like council members still have kind of if we have questions about kind of what is being proposed, even how these mechanisms work, how a tax increment financing works, how a uh a transit revitalization um transit revitalization investment district.

Is that what a trade is?

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um then you know the public probably does too.

So okay.

So I'll get to more substantive questions.

Um the map, and again uh the public has the same pack that we have, it's attached and legislature, and I appreciate um Ms.

Murray emailing me and I didn't I read the packet, but I didn't get back to I appreciate the opportunity to have asked some of these questions before now.

But you know, I think it's they're appropriate to to have on the record.

Um the map has the golden triangle colored in gold, um, but then the map extends up this way here all the way to 33rd street.

So the title of the district is proposed to be downtown Pittsburgh Trade District, but the proposal on the table here is that every bit of new construction all the way up to 33rd Street would have 75% of its property taxes diverted.

It's a qualifying pledged parcel.

That's the that's the way the plan is structured, yes.

So it only it would be within side this map, but you turn the page to like this chart of parcels.

You said qualifying parcels.

These are ones that would receive or pay.

Pay.

Only these is this every parcel in the map?

So the way the plan is, there's those parcels in the plan that are initial list of pledged parcels.

There's a definition of the plan, which could be a future pledged parcel.

So that so the way it is defined is the.

The minimum threshold is a five million dollar construction project.

Okay.

And a reassessment of section.

Yeah.

Okay, so like the base now minimum I see it here in the in the section.

Well, number three.

Um, future pledged parcels.

If the parcel exceeds a minimum threshold of 5 million in construction value.

Right.

So it may not be in this list today, but in you know, 15, 25 years from now, if five million dollars of construction were proposed on a parcel, then it would be added to the chart of what where the taxes are diverted.

But if it's like you have a house, there are houses, there are little historic townhouses in the strip district.

And let's say that you were doing, you know, even a $500,000 renovation to that.

That would not in any way, shape, we'd get 100% of the tax bill from the general fund would get a hundred percent of the tax bill from the little town, you know, the little homeowner-occupied townhouse.

Um so this is for large construction.

And I think Tim, you said um Tom, you said multifamily.

You said to, I think in response to one of the questions.

This would basically diverting the property taxes from multifamily projects.

That's a reflection of what we're seeing in the current development landscape.

So most of the developments that are happening in the strip district and downtown are multi-partment buildings for lack of a better term.

Because offices have kind of the market has collapsed.

The offices that were built are empty, a lot of them.

No?

Are you asking me if office buildings are empty?

Yeah.

Some office buildings are empty and some office buildings are not empty.

Some office buildings are full.

What's the occupancy then?

Like across.

I assume you've looked at what the occupancy rate of office buildings are in this footprint.

Yes, I think it's we follow the PDP's dashboard.

It's rough, it depends on the building.

Some buildings are completely vacant, but I think broadly in the market, it's trending between 80% or so.

It depends on the building across the market.

And I'm wondering why their downward reassessments were granted by the County Board of Appeals.

Sorry?

So yeah, I mean, actually, that's an open question.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Because some are vacant.

So those that are vacant have been.

I'm not, but some are vacant, I think.

What we're hearing is across the board, maybe 80%.

Some are 80%, but some are full and some are vacant, and some are around 80%, is what I heard from that.

Sorry.

It's kind of a finite list, right?

We're looking at one specific footprint.

There are only so many offices.

I think someone out there who's got more time on the hands for these kinds of research questions.

It would be really great to just look at the itemized list in these parcels, not just the ones proposed for in the TRID, but in basically Golden Triangle and Strip District that are office buildings, and look at which ones had downward appeals and what their occupancy are.

Um because that's part of, you know, this is part of the large conversation about why is the general fund, why are we having budget issues?

We had a drop off on property tax revenue already, right?

Because our property tax revenue, especially because of the central business district, is down, and the same thing affects the county, the same thing affects the school board, the same thing affects most cities our size across the entire country post-COVID because of office um market changing.

People taking smaller leases, their leases were maybe five-year leases, and so they couldn't break their leases right away, but now that they have had time to they've taken, they've gotten rid of their office space or taken much, much smaller footprint.

So that's the current office market, and I think it's relevant to this discussion.

Um here's a really simple question.

Why is why are there two different colors on this map?

The golden triangle is the investment district, so that's where TRID monies would be invested, and the larger area is the value capture district.

So build a $30 million building at 33rd Street.

75% of the value is diverted to the committee that's not this table.

And every year for 20 years, that property tax is diverted, but it only gets invested in the yellow area.

It can't go to the infrastructure.

Um, public infrastructure, transit safe sidewalks, lighting, all of that stuff anywhere in the strip district.

It's 75% of incremental future real estate taxes diverted to the TRID for investment into that into the downtown Golden Triangle investment district.

All the money goes only into the yellow area.

That's what this plan, yes.

That's the plan that you're proposing.

I don't know if I like that.

Um, so the one of the problems with the strip district, especially is the lack of public infrastructure.

It was a warehouse area, right?

It's just like, you know, there weren't a lot of people.

There had been people living in the strip a long, long time ago, and then a lot of the houses um gone went away and were giant.

It was like, you know, the warehousing districts.

It was just giant warehouses coming in and out, trucks coming in and out.

Think about like 28th Street, 26th Street, near the river, American Railroad Street.

Some sidewalks have been built by some of the developments on there, but you know, the the pedestrian safety is incredibly challenging because of it just wasn't built for pedestrians, and so it's one of the new challenges there.

Um, I would note that other public infrastructure is things I think councilwoman Warwick mentioned, like grocery stores, um, parks, um, senior centers, right?

If you're gonna create a residential neighborhood, as we've all talked about, right?

We need more residential downtown, we need more residential in the strip district, we need um to have accommodations for residents like we have in the other residential neighborhoods of the city.

Um, and so those are new public investments.

Um tell me, so you're proposing that the investments only go into downtown.

What would those investments look like again?

You said I I heard some of the like, well, we don't know that there would be buses, or we don't know what PRT, we can't control what PRT would do, but we could try to build stuff they would like, is the way I heard it.

So the specific funding plan would come back to this table to be clear.

But the the types of investments that the TRID could uh invest in, which would need required approval again by this body, include uh public infrastructure, transit infrastructure, public realm improvements, business district improvement projects, and then direct financing to um gap fill for real estate development as well as small business development support.

Yeah, the um the criticism and why I sometimes don't know on these things why I generally don't like them in principle, is that in practice citizens see the investments going into what just to defray the costs that developers should pay themselves.

Pretty lampposts and sidewalks.

So it's like if you're building a building, you know, a lot of and a lot of the developers do.

They built, you know, they if they're not in a TRID or TIFF, they have to put in their own street trees, they have to build out sidewalks, sometimes have to make sidewalks bigger because you know, there didn't used to be anybody on that parcel, and now if there's 500 apartments, you've got you know a lot of people emptying out the doors onto a sidewalk, so you're gonna make the sidewalk bigger.

Um again, they want um, you know, maybe there aren't street lights, and so they have to put in their own street lights or their own landscaping, etc.

etc.

hiding the HVAC or doing things, and that in the TIFF districts, especially I think I've heard this in in the TRID, right?

That that the committee allowed them to use those funds, um, that would have been again going to the general fund, so we could have been allocating them to you know other neighborhoods, but it's always, you know, for their infrastructure or you know, collapsing bridges, collapsing streets, sinkholes, whatever, landslides, all of the stuff that we use general fund for.

Um we try to get the grants and it's matching, so we are leveraging our own funds, of course, but that would be restricted to this footprint, but then we're you know, how do we guarantee that it isn't just defraying, um, their own development costs?

So a couple of things.

Any investment from the TRID has to go through public bodies.

It's not it's not a committee that sits somewhere that does not have public sort of input.

So it the URA board, which is a public body and our board meetings are public, would have to move.

We can debate that all day.

Um would have to approve any investment plans that through the trid.

And individual borrowings, as I described before, would have to come back to this table with the funding plans in place and would have the scrutiny of the public in this board, this council, I should say, as to um what those funds are being used for.

Um so that's the mechanism for this.

So it's our responsibility to I think what I'm hearing, and in the cooperative agreement for the TRID.

If we say this is generally a good idea, but here are the boundaries that we expect to see.

I think we should.

Again, giving up 75% of the revenue from a very large footprint.

Now I think this is a question for the for the um people at the table.

I think the other trades we've seen, the capture map and the investment map were the same map.

Is that true?

Yes.

This is the first time the proposal is like this giant capture map with this tiny investment map.

And that's different.

And again, I think I need some time to process that.

And I certainly would like to hear from the public about that.

One of the very concrete requests that I have is that the map actually reflect if the if the proposal is meant to be the capture is from the entirety of the strip district, then I would like to see that map actually restricted to the strip district because this map actually crosses neighborhood boundaries and includes parcels in Polish Hill.

Because you've got the line, the line sh between Polish Hill and the Strip District is on Liberty Avenue itself.

Between at the upper end, between 28th and 33rd.

That's the neighborhood map.

So it it starts off in the right place, where it's at the downtown end, but it doesn't end at the right place, but the 33rd Street end.

So I would like that.

I don't, I mean, I just see the picture.

I don't know if there's like actually the way we do it in words in like a planning map, but I would like to see that reflected in the map.

Because certainly I haven't seen this discussion at Foolish Hill yet.

And I'm sure there will be opinions.

So that's one thing.

But I'm really gonna have to process again.

It's so it's so interesting.

The kind of narratives and the way we discuss this, the PDP itself now kind of in their dashboard does include the strip district and some of what they talk about as greater downtown, but as a business improvement district where they're diverting property values to themselves, it is not the strip district that's contributing.

I don't believe.

Does anybody know what the boundary of the business improvement district for the PDP is?

I don't know, but I can find out for you.

Yeah, let's find out, sure.

Um, and so like is the strip district downtown or is it not downtown?

And so then why is the investment district excluded um if it if those boundaries are shifting?

And certainly there is a sort of a difference between what the neighborhood boundary is.

I think in the golden triangle public realm, might go up to 16th Street, you know, that kind of thing.

It's a bit, it is a bit fuzzy, I think, for everybody, and it would be good to clarify that because I see that this one kind of follows the neighborhood boundary of downtown by going on like 10th street, but I think maybe the golden triangle actually already does go past 10th street and which is the zoning category.

So this is just like a lot of different boundaries that I think are getting a little muddled.

Um that maybe we decide we like them this way anyway, but I think it explores um it would be good to explore and discuss um those things.

So I'm gonna stop there, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the time.

I I just have a I think we all have a lot to process right here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Mosley.

Thank you for coming.

I just have a couple questions.

Uh first, if you could just very briefly kind of walk through um the affordable housing fund that was created around the East Liberty Tride, and and and maybe just talk about how potentially something like that um could be established in in the event, like if this is established.

Very briefly.

Um in the East Liberty TRID and phase two, a portion of TRID uh dollars that were created through the TRID and East Liberty were used to cede a specific fund that it's called an East End Affordable, East End Housing Afford, East End Housing Affordability Fund that can make that fund can make direct investments in affordable housing development within the boundary of the East Liberty Trid.

Absolutely.

And I think there's there was five projects that were funded.

Yeah, we can get back to you on that.

Um of the city's geography, you know, being responsible for anywhere to a fifth or a quarter, you know, of the other real estate tax revenue, and then you know, with the common level ratio decision a couple years ago kind of turning that, you know, on his head, um, which I'm sure is you know, you know, one of the reasons that brings us um here today.

Um, has there been any analysis or expectation that the parcels that don't participate that you know don't um, you know, do five million dollars worth of improvements, but is there an expectation that that property values that don't participate in this program will will increase Nobia overall increase of property value to kind of turn around that this trend that was caused by the common level ratio?

Can we expect that?

That's sort of the goal, right?

Like I think frankly, I think in terms of downtown, part of the goal is yes, increasing real estate tax value of actual projects that come out of the ground is certainly part of the goal.

But the majority of downtown will not receive direct investment from the trip.

It's really about improving a market so that the base that we have today remains as stable as possible, right?

Like so to the extent that the our marketplace is stable to the extent folks are living downtown spending money at small businesses, small businesses are thriving, has excellent public infrastructure, those office buildings that are office buildings and should be office buildings are as have the maximum value possible, that helps protect the base, right?

Like what what causes a reassessment to go down?

No one works there, no one lives there, um, what causes a small business to close.

There's no one here to spend money at my small business.

All of these things contribute to a downward valuation of a marketplace.

So the the spirit of this trade is yes, individual projects that may receive funding certainly could have any what would expect to have an increase in their valuation.

But the vast majority of the real estate in downtown um are benefiting right from this overall sort of increase in the valuation of downtown, which from a tax perspective is is working to protect that base, right?

And ensure that those properties that again can be office, can be small businesses or have as much value as possible, which helps stabilize the tax valuation of those properties.

I'm thinking that I understand that obviously 75% based on this proposal will be reinvested, you know, and not um put in the coffers of the city, county.

Future taxes.

If you have a just development property.

Yeah, yeah, of the of the increased value.

I need to be clear on this because I don't want to have a confusion.

It's not 75% of like okay, what did downtown create a real estate tax?

We're taking 75% of it.

It's only those projects that have a basis set today, doesn't capture any of that, and those projects experience an increase in real estate valuation due to some sort of investment project that construction project that creates the assessed value increase.

So does that make sense?

Yeah, I don't want people to get confused.

Is this the projects that meet the sort of test of an increased valuation due to a substantial real estate development project?

Absolutely.

Yeah, so um so my next question, um, has there any analysis or can some analysis be done on um any uh expected and you know increase uh of value in existing buildings that don't participate in the program because that's tax revenue that we would be able to collect.

Yeah, it's a good that doesn't get diverted at all.

That's increased value of existing buildings.

If their property value goes up, then we we collect all that.

I think that would be you know some very helpful information to understand about you know the the balance and obviously that you know the ballot concerns that councilwoman Gross has, you know, about diverting um you know potential future tax revenue from participating parcels, but the existing parcels that potentially, you know, rising tide lifts all boats and you know buildings that may uh have lost value, but the common level ratio um if there is begins an increase, if we could understand the buildings that aren't participating, you know, in the program that'll have a natural increase in in valuation that we would receive, you know, all those proceeds back to the city.

I think that would be helpful to understand the full um implications of of these decisions.

I certainly appreciate that and certainly appreciate that question.

That's something we can work on and make sure that we get back to all involved.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I think that exhausts my questions, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

I know we have some second round.

Any for the first round?

Councilwoman Salonetra.

Um I just ask this question.

Um, when you borrow against, you know, any asset or perceived asset, you know, of course you're gonna pay back more than what you borrowed.

What kind of borrowing power does the city have at the moment that would make us believe that we would be not committing uh future councils to paying back this large amount of of money that we didn't we didn't have the uh the power to get a better interest rate for lack of other way of saying it.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Do we have that kind of power?

Um, I mean, certainly, yes, we're working directly with it.

We'll work directly with the city, city finance our bond underwriters to ensure that we do a city and URA as it actually would be the taking out the debt has the um has the power to and ability to support the debt and does not is not um be running a foul or or overpromising, frankly, to future generations and future councils to something that cannot be supported.

Yeah, just want to make sure we're not you know overpromising and then in committing uh funds at council, maybe none of us will be here, but you know, they're gonna have to deal with that issue at the time.

So, but thank you.

Yeah, of course, thank you.

I think just to build up on that, yeah.

Uh director note as well, like in terms of the borrowing portfolio, at least on the URA's uh side of things, number of projects of I don't know if going offline is the term that used, but they they've wrapped up allowing a bit more flexibility.

Um also generally like the intention of borrowing this is to make a return on our investment.

We don't wanna we don't want to sign ourselves up one, just given the term it's not a quick pay day, but we would never want to put this council, future councils or the residents in a position where getting a quick payday is really gonna come back and bite them 20, 30, 40 years from now.

I think two, we are at this this critical inflection point with with downtowns.

It's no it's no stranger to the city, it's no stranger to the county.

Um this trade is is very different, is historic.

It's it's big, the the composition is different, and that the capture area and the investment area is different.

But so in token, we are in a very different market now where we're still reeling from the fact that commercial real estate had a lot of value drop out from beneath it, and that's the bread and butter of almost every city in America's primary real estate tax base.

So I think the unique circumstances call for a unique solution, a unique funding mechanism like this.

And from the administration administration's perspective, we are confident this is uh the worthwhile strategy.

Um it's also by no means our one silver bullet to to improve downtown and improve the city.

We're really, whether it's downtown, whether it's other neighborhood level, we're we're really trying to take a yes and approach.

The trend isn't gonna fix anything, but the trend is a necessary part of an overall broad portfolio of options we want to do to invest in downtown, have the neighborhoods next to an adjacent downtown benefit, and then from there the rest of the neighborhoods, the city invests that one day the city is gonna start bringing in greater tax revenue, and that can go into the the basic public services that we deliver day in and day out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I didn't see any further for first round.

I did want to ask, I think most of my questions were answered.

The clarification of the kind of beneficiary geography was helpful.

And recognizing that, you know, we're in a very particular post-COVID moment in the golden triangle.

Um, well, I'll return to that in a second.

Trid 1.0, East Liberty Trid 1.0.

Did that help finance the construction of the East Liberty Transit Station?

Yes.

Okay.

So we have that.

And then did it also help finance the um federally in part federally funded housing, um, the choice neighborhood behind uh target.

I'd have to get back to you on that.

Okay.

I don't know if it's not my headset.

But maybe there was other um of affordable and other affordable housing and mixed income housing projects that did offend.

Yeah.

Again, I think there's a sort of point of leverage.

Yeah.

It helped leverage additional funding and and federal funding and other private funding, yeah.

Melon's orchards.

Yeah, oh yes, yes.

Okay, so there's just a couple of different projects that I couldn't include.

So the answer is yes if it's that's the okay for the project.

So those are the types of projects that are interesting to me because I just think that to I mean, to some council members' points, uh this is a lot of money we are then not reaping as uh various bodies of government, and so getting the projects that they would then leverage or gap financing, is that an eligible use?

Scout financing for a you know multi-unit family downtown that has deeply affordable or widely affordable units you know for families to live in downtown.

Yeah, spirit answers, yes.

That's part of the like we have I think that's I mean that's what I'm hearing is sort of the desired one of the desired uses from this body, um, and I would I would hope the public too, and um I think that if we're we have for diverting this this amount for 20 years, you know, getting the projects, getting the the the either end of it exactly right.

Um of the allies improvement, great for creating you know, uh walkability and space and re-imagining and and getting more I don't know, companies, people, residents to want to invest and live there or be there, but I I think I'd like to see a mix of different types of projects as well that are uh kind of within the spirit of what we're all looking for here.

Um let's just say that in again we're in a particular moment post-COVID, I would say maybe others wouldn't agree with me.

We're a little behind the eight ball in terms of pure cities that have been you know using these types of of tools for since 2021, 2022 post-COVID.

They kind of saw the writing on the wall and said, Okay, like this is the time to invest in our downtown because we know we're gonna see loss of whatever, residents, office workers, et cetera.

But um what if in 10 years, 15 years, Golden Triangle isn't doesn't have the same need that it has now.

Is it locked in stone for 20 years, or does council and the other three taxing bodies have the power to expand benefici I'm gonna call it the b beneficiary geography further beyond where it is right now and change the the justice?

I'd say I'd answer that in a couple of different ways.

One, once you do a borrowing, so we come to the table and we borrow money, like there's gonna be certain pledged parcel that have been underwritten to help pay that debt service.

We have to keep you know, you you get you I would, you know, those have to be in place and and have the diversion in place to ensure that that debt gets paid.

Yeah, did they extend any future borrowings were to come forward, the same process would come through and the city council, whether it's folks literally the human city or now, future city councils would have the opportunity then to review whether or not it makes sense to borrow this money against the this future uses.

Um, to your question of if in 20 years there's no projects that are does it the legislative bodies have to be.

We've accomplished it all.

We've done it all.

Now I'm kidding.

But I'm 54 years old, 20 years from now I'll read about all this.

But I will say this legislative bodies always have the opportunity to review all legislation that they have passed.

Um the way this legislation is presented and would be to the other taxing bodies that the taxing bodies themselves, not a URA appointee and the taxing bodies themselves will appoint somebody to monitor and review the TRID and make sure that you have to participate in discussions as to the revenues and expenditures.

If it's deemed that our work is done, this is no longer needed, I would invite the legislative bodies of those times.

We certainly have the ability to revisit the legislation.

So somehow logical for other reasons.

Yeah, I'm still.

I and I'm in agreement with other council members that you know the the geography of it is is interesting, and I'm sort of grappling that with that in my head, but um, but I just wanted to see what kind of flexibility existed in the future.

So okay.

I mean everything's possible, right?

Yeah, I think we're I would agree that things can always be if the work is done, the work is done.

If there's no need for funding, I mean that's another question, right?

If we don't have any projects or things to fund, there's no need to go borrow money, and that opens up another conversation.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's helpful.

Okay.

Uh second round, Councilmember Warwick.

Um, so uh yeah, thank you, Councilman Gross and and uh Councilman Strasberger, et cetera, just for asking questions that kind of lead to more questions.

So I do want to come back.

I asked about affordable housing.

So the money, so the and and by the way, I do want to start by saying I uh uh contrary to what some folks might, I am a firm believer in creating a downtown that is a residential neighborhood.

I think that is a great idea for the city of Pittsburgh, right?

I think that a downtown where people lots of people live and it's bustling and you can go town, you know what I mean, and it feels like a you know, whatever, like sort of a mini mini New York or something like that in downtown Pittsburgh, would be wonderful where you can live and you don't need a car and you can do everything you want to do and people can come and visit.

So I I I'm the my one concern though is that we build that downtown, and it is only for wealthy people, and that those are the only people who can live down there.

So and then you know, so in this of you know, we've talked a lot at this table and and sort of decided that we don't want to force developers to include affordable units in their large projects, you know, that uh I wasn't on board with that decision, but that that's how it goes, right?

But here, and then thinking back to the the downtown LERTA where we have this debate with the down.

So, if there is, can we require with this TRID that if there is funding that is going into that yellow triangle, right, from this trid for housing, any you know, any type of housing, um, that it include affordable units, like in the same, you know, because to me, like it's one thing to to say, well, we don't want to make developers do affordable units, or you know, the bonus points aren't worth it, blah, blah, blah.

But to actually give tax dollars to developers who are doing housing and not have firm requirements that they have.

Yeah, so I mean, just to be blunt.

So the trig monies themselves, we're not asking that they specifically require that.

That said, and even the plan, the pipeline of projects, a number of them will be seeking other types of resources like state low-income housing tax credits, four percents, nine percents.

You mentioned the alert legislation, the little legislation that's in place to participate in alerting, you must deliver certain levels of affordability to see s re receive certain you know, thresholds within LERTA.

TRID would not supersede any of that.

So, whatever requirements that are placed on a development by virtue of uh entitlements, uh participation in say the LERTA, other funding sources that they're bringing in, um, they're required to do that.

The TRID doesn't say you don't have to do that anymore.

But the TRID dollars in and of themselves would not specifically require that.

I would suggest that my belief is and I yeah, I hope folks you know, our process and I would I believe that as we start to fund individual projects, so this get passed and we have TRID monies to deploy.

Um not in a good a good number of those developments will either be some will be some combination of uh tax credit deals that are seeking gap financing to get done and projects that will have a mix of affordability within their development.

But but the but to be clear and answer your questions, the TRID dollars themselves, the way the way we're anticipating would not specifically require that on its own.

But is I mean, so again, and I I appreciate that yeah, you know, we we figured that it might, but is there a way?

I mean, is there no way to say, like to to say if if your project is getting these TRID dollars, like or whether it's a rule on what the committee can do, right?

Like that it must have a certain amount of affordability.

I'll say this the way the plan is contemplated right now, that that's the case is no.

I will say this.

We people keep saying the committee, the bodies that would administer this, the URA as a URL.

And again, individual borrowings and and uses of funds would come to the city to this table, right, as the city's role in in co-signing uh on individual debt.

Um so those conversations can be had in those roles.

I would say the way this plan is uh written and candidly what's in front of you now does not contemplate that in a very in a specific way, but that's a discussion and input.

And to Catherine's point, we're not at step 99, we're at step one of this process.

So, I mean, so is that something that we could like ask for in the conditions of like if you are receiving TRID funding for your project and it's a how you know like I get it.

If if we're redoing a park or we're redoing a road or sidewalk, that's yeah, those are dome projects, whatever.

From I see we provided a plan and an opportunity.

Yeah, let you know as policymakers and legislative bodies.

I mean, it's certainly an input, and if that's a request and a requirement, I would that's something to consider, and then something on the from the implementation perspective to consider as well.

But sitting here right now, I can't one way or the other.

I mean, the way this, again, just to be clear, the way this is presented and the way we're uh uh envisioning this is that the treat specific dollars would not require, I think what you're asking.

That said, I believe there are many other ways in which that requirement does get into place through entitlements, through frankly, other sources of funding that do specifically require uh different levels of affordability.

But specific to your quest, those are questions that would have to be discussed, I think beyond you know, you and I having the, you know, me saying one way or the other.

But the way the opportunity here is that the answer is no, but I think more broadly it's a discussion point.

And I anticipate that it would increase affordability downtown.

I just I I'm asking just because I you know I know we have we have projects right now going up, you know, 400 plus units, you know, in the strip, whatever that don't have any affordability at all.

Like these projects are happening.

So I just which is great, you know, whatever, fine.

Um that's what this body decided.

But it just doesn't seem right to be giving ta you know what I mean.

Like when we're not investing, when we're investing in this neighborhood at the expense, ultimately, right, of other neighborhoods, they could be getting that investment that we're not making room for at least some people from those other neighborhoods to potentially live in this new nice place that we're gonna do.

I totally and I understand it.

I think this is a I appreciate that and certainly understand it.

Again, from my seat, I'm I'm certain that there will be an increase of the availability of units across of you know affordable units and non-affordable units, and that will increase in this plan and this funding will help increase that supply of affordable units downtown so it is truly a mixed on income community.

Um but to your point, these are discussion points and policy questions that uh yeah, I think as bodies have to be considered and talked about if that's if that's a requirement or not of this uh particular plan.

Council Member Warwick, I'm also happy to provide you a list of our downtown conversion pipeline of things that are already in the works that are largely affordable units downtown, so you can see kind of the unit count that the URA is like already working on in haste that's kind of like already being built.

Um and I think that might be a helpful just to kind of as we're looking at this holistically to show you kind of what what is happening currently in the affordability realm downtown.

Yeah, I mean that the that would be fine.

I just again I just want to reiterate like it this was the same argument we had about the the LERTA, right?

As that, you know, are we giving tax like what you know what are Pittsburghers who live here today getting back, you know, potentially from these projects, right?

Growth is great, development in the future is great, attracting new people is great, but also making sure that people who live here today can continue to live here and can also potentially, you know, if you know it would be nice if if uh you know uh today's whatever 16-year-old could someday live downtown, you know, even if they don't work in a big fancy office.

I have a 16 year old, and I would love, you know, if he wants to and chooses to, I'd love them to live in Pittsburgh and at some very basic level for folks to stay in our city.

They need a place to live, and they need a job, and they need a tax base that supports that.

And I think we're probably all speaking the same language, and sometimes these types of conversations get into the I think some specific details, and I you know again appreciate that input and something we're I think collectively striving for, and just how we accomplish that is something we have to work through.

Yeah.

I mean, the the tax incentives are there, like other cities.

I um you know, New York, I think the tax incentives are so good that you always do affordable at to some degree, right?

I personally can't speak to that.

I'm not I'm not an expert in that, but I have had conversations with developer who are just like, yeah, like they make it so, you know, that that um but again the requirement has to be there.

The requirement's not there then, then you know that that's sort of my sticking point.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I know councilperson Charlotte had to leave.

So I wanted to cast some.

Yes, I just would like to uh cast an eye on this vote, and if there's a hold, I'd like to cast a no on that.

Thank you.

So noted.

Councilman Congale, followed by Councilman Wilson and Councilwoman Gross.

Thank you, madam chair.

So I I gotta tell you, my my original gut feeling instinct is we're being asked to give up income for the city of Pittsburgh at a time when we're struggling to, you know, uh produce a balanced budget, and you know, the forecast for the first quarter this year is not very good.

So I hesitate to give up income that goes into our general fund that we can use to balance our budget because um especially in this day and age.

So I guess broadly, we're being asked to go along with um this plan in order to see 20 years from now that we'll develop a much more broader base and a bigger tax base, and um with this trid, that's gonna help develop that.

So we're hedging our bets basically here, right?

We're counting.

If we support this, we're counting on the URA to revitalize this area and make sure that there's even more and more and more residents coming in and taxpayers um to foot our bills in the future.

But we're being asked to give up 20 years of substantial income.

I mean, what what is the projected income?

You know, I uh your projected loan, or what is the projected income of the tax base if we want to go along with this plan?

Well, if we want to go along with this plan, I it's hard we'd have to, you know, my read is that a number of the projected in increase in taxes downtown could may not happen, right?

Like there's a need to protect that base and increase this estimates downtown.

I think to your point, it's an investment in growth, right?

Like you're uh you're investing a portion of where there's growth, frankly, in the city, that doesn't exist today.

Again, I just need to be clear on that's basic you know, it's not whatever the base taxes that exist and can all those sorts of things are not touched uh to reinvest in growth, right?

To attract residents, to improve buildings, to improve it's a very basic level, right?

And support small business and create jobs.

I mean, we haven't talked a lot about that, but if we're able to unlock this developer potential, it could be you know as many as at least 5,000 construction.

I mean, these are these are opportunities folks pay taxes, folks you know, shop at small businesses, small businesses pay taxes, so all of this gets generated to sort of raise the you know the income of the uh taxing bodies, and that's that's the goal.

Um, and I would say it's not just the URA.

I mean, we we this is a funding mechanism to support in partnership with taxing bodies, with tribe developers, with states.

I mean, I don't want to talk about it.

Yeah, we there's a lot of hard we're our role is to we're trying to, you know, we're trying to invigorate and stimulate and provide a mechanism that's predictable too.

Like another thing from a development perspective is if I'm on the sidelines and I'm thinking about investing in the city, I want to know that other tools that I can work with to help with attract my investments.

And predictable, you said it, you know.

I mean, to know that we have a tax base that we're gonna help the whole idea to run this city as far as I'm concerned, and to pay our bills is to increase our tax base.

Okay, not to um not to necessarily tax the property owners.

We've done that, and we're we're we're doing our best to try to balance the budget, but um to forfeit 20 years of tax base.

40.

And you did say 40, did you?

The idea the term of the geography is 40.

The term of the trade, which is the j is 40 years.

Individual borrowings can only be 20 years.

So, you know, we borrow against, say, some number of parcels for 20 years.

At the end of that 20 years, those parcels get, you know, they they no longer have for another twenty years.

You could again.

Has to come back through.

There has to be uses, right?

Like not just borrow for the sake of borrowing, but if there's funding needs and priorities that the collective decide are important, this is a mechanism by which those monies could be raised to make those investments.

Yeah, broadly, I agree with you.

I think if you can help projects and help housing plans and conversions, fantastic that will increase our you know viability in the future.

Um just I'm hesitant because you know, uh, yeah, we're giving up possibly 40 years of a tax base that we could help balance our budget for.

I mean, um, so I struggle with that.

I and I I appreciate the the wider, broader vision.

Um I think ultimately that that is the way to success.

Um, I imagine that the administration is completely on board, Matt.

Yeah, and and I will say, just to really hammer home the point of like it's not just the URA or not just the city on the loan.

The the school district, the county, they're on board with this as well.

And I think just for example, the the county controller's officers they put out their annual comprehensive financial report.

They publish a little bit later than the city controller does, but really, in a sense, it's it's an echo without similar findings.

Well, the growth of downtown, the rebounding value of commercial real estate, there really is an unsustainability to budgets and and like has been said, the terms of the trade.

We're not giving up the same amount of money that we're getting right now, and also these are value increases that very well could not happen without the creation of a mechanism like this.

So that if we were to do nothing, things could very well stay the same as they are now.

They could continue to trend downward.

They could possibly get better.

That doesn't really seem that one seems to be the least, the least amount of certainty of the options, but a vehicle like this does greatly increase our odds of ultimately having that increase in value later on, but we're not gonna be bringing in fewer taxes from that area than we are today.

And likewise, same thing for the the county and the school board.

All right.

Seems like a hard lift for the school board.

I don't know where they sit on this, but you obviously nobody's talked to them yet, right?

Well, we've briefed, we've had pre-briefings uh with the school board again on I think it's Monday, it is Monday, Monday night.

We brief the uh school board's business and finance committee, which is made up of school board members and we'll have a discussion with them as well.

Um, what are we being asked to vote on today?

Actually, again, are we being asked to vote on this today?

The preliminary approval, is that what we're being asked?

Yeah, the implementation of the plan.

Sorry, um, they're gonna come back, they're gonna come back with um whenever they want money.

Okay, it would be to create the the lines and the terms and but then they would come back for the for the money.

Okay, for the individual borrowings, yeah.

Okay, that's it, madam chair.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

All right, I just wanted to uh make a comment here, since everything we're talking about is my district.

Uh not all of downtown, but you know, three quarters of downtown, all the strip district and the north shore, or some of the north shores of my district, but uh I know that I can at least speak for council president Laval.

He voted for this on the URA board, he reads on here, so I think uh individuals that represent these areas are are in favor of this.

Um, and I'll just talk about why I'm in favor of this.

Uh number one is because I do see the need for downtown in terms of closing these gaps to get it done, and in terms of what that looks like downtown, I would suspect that there will be a large amount of affordable housing that would be attached to these projects.

If you're a developer and you don't take advantage of the LERDA that we all debated here in past, then um that's very short-sighted of you because the easy calculation of my head of uh the amount of the amount of tax revenue on the delta over the course of 20 years is greater than the amount that you would give them in the loan, I would think if we're talking about five million or less.

I agree that the LERTA helps bridge the calculation as you're like if you take advantage of the learner that helps bridge the calculation to deliver the the affordable units that are required to take the 20 years if I just times 20th times 300,000 right that's greater than the loan than you right.

I'm sorry that the amount of money I understand what I'm saying is I would I would think that these projects were also I would think so too want to take advantage of some level of affordability.

I would think so too in if it was if it was housing.

So you know I'm happy with the work that we've done with that prior and that is the area that would be although the capture is larger that is the area that we'll be doing where the work would happen which is in the golden triangle where that a 20 alerta is.

And then furthermore the conversation about moving you know out to the into the capture where there where wouldn't be money spent uh we're having a good conversation with the uh residents in in the strip district um continuously about transit especially um I'm sorry even recently uh we had a dumpy had a meeting where it's five projects so forget about what's already been done but five new transit pro mobility uh projects increase mobility in the strip district uh millions of dollars spent uh to uh really increase uh the amount of um you know uh different types of transit mobility you know um whether you're driving biking rolling or taking a bus or even just trying to prevent lives from being safe especially on Liberty Avenue uh so all the all those dollars that are being spent um on the strip district uh is is a really great start and so to continue the conversation and have a good conversation with the administration uh to follow through with not only those projects but also to look in the future um and how we can continue to improve those areas as that is the number one place in in the city I believe that continues to see increased amount of residents uh living there so uh I'm willing to to take the bet here today to you know get this get this moving so that we can uh you know realize what the potential of downtown is and really we're nothing without um you know areas like downtown uh and and uh you know I mean just like you said this 20% of uh you know that real estate tax revenue that's been said here multiple times at the table and we really need to um you know go down the path of making sure that we're making the right investments downtown so that Pittsburgh is successful.

So thanks for being here today and um you know looking forward to um you know getting this done and following through with uh all the great projects throughout the district.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I had uh councilwoman Gross and then for third round I see councilmember Warbeck.

Thank you Madam Chair.

So the vote today to Councilman Councilman's point is to approve the trade plan that you've already completed.

And then so it would kind of approve like these basic terms that are in front of us, right?

The 40 year the map, etc.

You also I think in answer to another council person's question said that we could amend those terms.

But once borrowing if we let's say start to approve borrowing then we would have difficulty amending the terms of the TRID because we've experienced that before like once there's a bond issued um you know we can't like dissolve the SEA or something like that, because they've got outstanding bonds.

So explain.

How would that happen?

Can you clarify the question?

If we vote for this today yeah right if we and I think it would be premature to take a vote today, to be clear um I feel like we've literally had to go at the big since at the beginning of the alphabet here of like what exactly is a trid, what exactly is a TIFF?

And if we're this, you know, as a body um at that level of understanding, I think the public probably is too, and needs to get a little more comfortable for a map this big for sure, right?

We've done we've done these kind of votes before for like a couple of parcels or a single parcel, even.

So in the course of the discussion, council members have asked, Well, what if we change our minds?

And I believe the answer from the panel was, well, a legislative body has the prerogative to change their minds.

You could just change your mind and change this plan.

Shorten it, not do the 40 years, change the map.

I think and do you want to change your answer?

I yeah, I'm not trying to.

I mean, so the plan is a plan is a first of all, that's that or not.

Do you agree with the way I just framed the conversation?

So I can understand.

Did I misunderstand the conversation?

You're I'm just I think I'm I think you're trying to paraphrase what Tom was talking about with Councilmember Warwick.

I think so.

Or I don't think it was Councilman Warwick who asked about changing the plan.

It might have been Councilman Coghill in this first round, my recollection.

Okay.

What if we change our mind in years from now?

Maybe it's Councilman Salonetra, I don't remember.

That is my question.

That was your question.

We change your mind 10 years from now.

Okay, thank you.

Let me take a stab at it, and if I'm wrong, I really defer to my colleague Tom to correct me on this.

This is what we see as a framework of the implementation plan at large.

And so if there are changes to that in the future, then we would come back to the table and amend the plan.

But if it's not you asking for it, what if it's us?

What if we decide?

You could propose that changes to that.

But once borrowing has started, let's say we approve you get you know the developments that are listed here, move forward.

You've borrowed a 20-year bond against them.

I think that would preclude us from changing the boundary of the capture.

I think it would make it really difficult because you come back and we'd be like, well, no, you can't do that because there's a bond issued against this capture map.

I I just don't want to misspeak here.

Um what I'm seeing is that we're talking about adoption of an overall framework that will guide the trid, and then when we come back at the time to um get approval for that borrowing, uh-huh, then we would go into the level of specificity related to pledge parcels and related to kind of how we see those funds being used.

Um so if there's kind of overall broad brush strokes on how you want the framework of the trid to be different, then it is certainly your prerogative to propose those changes for the plan.

It's absolutely prerogative to do so.

Even after the borrowing.

I'm sorry?

Even after the approval of the borrow of the bond issuance.

What would that look like?

Do we have an implementation?

Yeah, I'd have to we'd have to think through that.

I mean, there's an implementation plan that we're asking you to that asking the body to consider.

Um, we understand that part.

My question is, the your the panel's suggestion that but you know elected bodies can just change the terms whenever they want, is probably not entirely true.

Um, that you are going to have to think about how that might work, is what I'm now hearing.

So the first round answer was maybe a little off the cuff.

I think we're we're trying to to boil down the complexity of this as best we can.

So if we're well, so that's what exactly why we're having this discussion, right?

There's so there are there is complexity, and we don't have all the answers right now.

So that is one thing I would like, I think the body wants a an answer for from the panel.

How would that work and when?

If a future council changed their minds, how would that work?

And if you don't have the answer right now, we need the answer.

We can look into it.

We can look into that.

Yeah, yeah.

My like best guess is that what we're coming back with the um with the borrowing that like you're right.

I think that once we take out that borrowing, it will be difficult to change that.

That being said, we're probably going to ask for an initial borrowing later this year and next year, and there's the possibility to take on other borrowings too.

If it's approved, correct.

All right, second question.

This piece of legislation authorizes the adoption of the downtown Pittsburgh Transit Revitalization Investment District Implation Plan and related agreements.

I don't think this is the whole plan.

This is an outline.

I mean, I've got the entire text file with me.

So it's this is like every piece of the thing that is attached to this legislation.

Is supposed to be is like printed out here.

This is the outline.

I mean, it says outline.

At the top of the document.

This is the outline of your plan in front of council and the public right now, or it's the whole plan.

That's the full implementation plan.

Oh.

Okay.

Sorry then.

The full plan starts on page eight.

So it's like.

Okay.

Would I then if this is everything?

And related agreements.

Are the related agreements in front of us?

There'd be a cooperation agreement between the taxing bodies, the PRT and URA.

And we don't have that?

Not sitting in front of you right now.

Can we have that, please?

I can absolutely provide what we have at this stage for sure.

Thank you.

And when can I have that?

I don't know, but I'll get back to you with an answer on timing this afternoon.

It would be best if it's before council votes on it.

Because I'd like it attached to the record.

Okay.

Understood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I again have to dither here with these this map.

Um, because it isn't.

There's um, you know, when we're defining maps, sometimes we do just attach a map.

Um, but oftentimes it's also described in words.

Thinking like redistricting committee map or something like that, you know, you have their latitudes or you have street names, and you say the area bounded by.

Am I missing it?

I don't see any language about the map.

And that seems weird because you know, there's the chart with the specific parcels that you expect to see being included in the first bond, right?

But then there's this map, which again just kind of has uh fuzzy incorrect line.

So, how do we how do we amend this?

Like, there's some I was literally looking for like what I could strike out, like, oh well, it must have the parcels listed because this any map in the city uh is uh constituted by property parcel dubbers, and but those aren't fully listed, and so I was like, Oh, I'll just strike out the ones that are incorrect that aren't in the strip district.

Um, but I there was they're not in here.

Um, and then it was like, well, is there like a street boundary?

And I'll just strike that out because it should be like not including um, you know, the east or southeast side of Liberty Avenue between 28th and 33rd, but that's not in here.

So is there no words for the map?

We can provide that.

I mean, I can't amend into the legislative record a little hand scribble here when there's not even street names, you know.

That's not that's not actually not something I can do.

I could draw it, but it's not gonna be, you know, stand up in court.

Okay.

So um, you know, we should not vote on this drawing.

And I I mean it's the only thing I see, I don't see any other words to describe what we're deferring again.

Again, you know, there should be parcels.

Like the full parcel, all the parcels that are inside the capture area, should you know, I think be listed because the taxes are based on those parcel IDs.

Is your parcel ID in the map or is the parcel ID not in the map?

So are you subject to the TID or not subject to the TRID?

And then we could just make sure that those are correct.

So again, I don't think this is what should pass.

You know, I mean, I think that it's kind of a um vague.

Um, and so I that's uh that's a hard ask.

So I would like to say it the agreement.

I would like the parcel list or something.

Again, it can be street boundary.

Sometimes we do official legal maps that way.

Um I would like to see more discussion.

This is getting long.

I like other members have already left for other meetings.

I've got another meeting as well.

I think that we're not this is not fully discussed.

Um, so I would like to see a public hearing myself, but I would suffice if members just want to revisit this in a week or so, um, I would just motion for a one-week hold.

Can I get a second?

Oh, second.

Is that it?

Okay, that's a motion.

I know that uh discussion, and I know that council member warwick, you also had uh further questions or comment.

Yeah, I mean, just uh the risk of repeating myself.

So I mean, again, just in terms of of you know, public money, you know, deferred tax dollars, whatever going to individual projects.

If we're saying that most of the projects will have affordability anyway because, you know, these projects need to rely on lie text and need to rely.

Right.

So, if most of them are gonna have that anyway, I really don't see the harm in just putting that in the plan.

Just saying in the plan that any um any money that goes, you know, from this trid that goes to a g uh project that is a residential project that it include whatever you know base affordable, you know, 10% at f or whatever it is.

I understand that's maybe a little bit more complicated, but that there at least be a certain amount of affordability.

That's all.

And again, but it but to the councilwoman's point, I don't understand how we do that after we've adopted the agreement.

That does feel like the car, you know, like it's out of the gate, we borrow money.

Some bank is gonna lend money based on this agreement, and if we go tinkering with the agreement, then that might, you know, screw up our agreement with whatever financial institution.

Again, that's simplistic, my very simplistic understanding of it right here.

So but I would like to, I would like some assurance that, you know, I get it that we're not forcing affordable, but but if if if some developers getting getting our tax money, I would like uh, especially if they're probably doing affordable anyway, then I don't see the harm in putting that requirement in there.

Okay, so we have a motion for one week hold and a second.

Any further discussion on that?

See none all in favor of a one-week hold on bill 531.

Please say aye.

Aye, aye, one no.

Any abstentions?

The ayes have it.

Bill 531 will be held for one week.

I'm sorry.

Oh, two no, sorry.

We have council person charlin in absence.

Um, so two no's ayes have it, bill be held one week.

Thank you.

Now, as part of motions and resolutions, we have uh similar announcement to yesterday given uh new tax that is being proposed from the legislative project.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us at the table today.

Appreciate it.

Good afternoon, everybody from the council of the city of Pittsburgh regarding Council Bill 2026-0544, mechanical amusement Devices Tax.

Please be advised that pursuant to the act of December 31st, 1965, pamphlet laws page 1257 as amended, the council of the city of Pittsburgh has introduced and intends to levy a new tax in the city called the Pittsburgh Mechanical Amusement Device Tax.

An amusement device is the devices and apparatus subject to this tax are herein described.

Class 1.

Class 1 devices include poker machines, video slot machines, video sweepstakes machines, and any other type of purely amusement device permitted by law.

The tax for Class 1 devices shall be $1,000 per device per year.

Class 2.

Class 2 devices include machines which offer prizes for amusement such as stuffed animals, toys, candy, or other items.

The tax for class two devices shall be 100 dollars per device per year.

Class 3.

Class 3 devices include machines and apparatus used for entertainment and public participation for sport, which includes but is not limited to darts, jukeboxes, pool tables, pinball machines, shuffle board machines, and children's video games.

Initial estimates by the council project $2 million to $3 million per year in new revenue will be derived from this tax.

Thank you, members.

Thank you, Mr.

Carter, and thank you for keeping us uh in order with the newly proposed tax.

Appreciate it.

We do have meeting announcements this afternoon with sessions at 2 and 2 30 p.m.

Council will hold a briefing on the mayor's recommendations to the governor pertaining to the designation of census tracks as opportunity zones.

Tomorrow, Thursday, June 4th at 1 p.m.

Council will hold a cable cast public hearing on bills 487 and 516 concerning petitions related to Serpentine Drive in Shenley Park.

Speaker registration will close at 11 a.m.

To register to speak at any of these meetings, please complete the sign-up form on the council meeting webpage or call the clerk's office at 412-255-2138 by the applicable registration deadline.

Seeing none, I will take a motion to uh approve the minutes and adjourn the meeting.

So moved.

All in favor?

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.