Meeting Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's Cablecast public hearing for Monday, June twenty second, twenty twenty-six, relative to bill twenty twenty-six zero four two six. By creating a new chapter two sixty-nine real estate tax exemptions for constructions or adaptive reuse of buildings on Pittsburgh North Side. You can go ahead and introduce yourself. Okay, my name is Morgan Martin, and I serve as a legislative aide for Councilman Wilson. And I'll be giving a brief presentation on the legislation and what it does. So as a councilman said, we are here today to speak about Bill 2026-0426, which establishes a new local economic revitalization tax assistant program for a designated area on the north side. So this legislation creates a new North Side specific LERTA program. And it also establishes a temporary tax incentive to encourage redevelopment and the adaptive reuse of projects located on the north side in a specific designated area. And it creates a new chapter 269 of the Pittsburgh City Code and establishes a targeted tax exemption program located within this designated area on the north side. It encourages the rehabilitation and the redevelopment of older buildings. And it also supports office to residential conversions and other adaptive reuse projects. So to qualify under the legislation, properties generally must be located within the designated program area, be multi-story buildings constructed before January 1st, 2026, contain at least 5,000 square feet, have more than 50% office use, either currently or historically, and have retail uses comprising of less than 25% of the building's total square footage. And this legislation creates two levels of tax exemption: a standard tax exemption and an enhanced tax exemption. And this exemption is available for a period of six years. And for an enhanced uh tax exemption, um, these are for projects that provide additional public benefits. And the legislation offers um at this enhanced tax exemption, and projects may qualify for a greater level of tax relief by incorporating affordable housing units or creating significant numbers of new jobs. And depending on the level of public benefit provided, eligible projects may receive up to 100% exemption on the value of the improvements for as long as 20 years. And so as I mentioned, uh this legislation only applies within the designated north side area, which is pictured here and bounded by the black lines and is located within the Allegheny Commons Park. And in the legislation, this picture and map is also shown under exhibit A. Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. And our next order business uh would be good to go to our registered speakers and just to confirm uh madam clerk, are there any registered speakers? Okay, so being that there's no registered speakers, um, our next order of business would go to anyone that's in the audience that would wish to speak. Um I'm not seeing anyone. If there's anyone, I haven't seen anyone come in, there's no one in the audience, so we're gonna move on to um the time where we typically have comment from members. Uh so I'm I'd like to make a comment, which is you know, as as we continue to see downtown uh struggle in terms of the tax base for a real estate income. We're seeing that these, you know, especially downtown, uh, these older structures have they need a lot of more assistance to get these projects done, and there's only so much that the city can do to really uh try to infuse some um some money to the project. And one way uh that we've done that historically has been through tax abatements, and so that that was activated downtown. Uh the the LERT of um the tax abatement that we're talking about here for the north side for a particular part of the north side. Um that would be the same as what's been activated downtown. And I definitely see that necessary um in this area, especially because there are some really, I would say, really nice historic structures that we want to keep on the north side, uh, even though that area does have um quite a history of of uh what I would say is uh it'd be interesting to go back in time to see if we would actually do that urban renewal project, which is Allegheny Center, if we would do that again. But since it exists, and there are some structures there that are uh in need of a new life. Uh we I do see the need to um I don't I don't actually I don't see any difference between those structures and and the same historic structures that are downtown. So therefore, um some of this assistance can go to the north side as well. Um, we see that downtown obviously is the golden triangle, but to extend that to other areas of the city, especially in this area where there are some older structures where we are seeing that these conversions to from office to residential, uh there are some very large gaps, prices are very expensive now. And to get people into these structures, these older structures as soon as possible, would be really important for our income tax base, and so that and also for the local community there, and for to take advantage of um the different tiers of affordability, which we would really make these projects work. Um so for instance, if the project did take advantage of anywhere between 60 to 80 percent of the um AMI requirement, they would get sixty to eighty percent of the taxes um off per year. So the real estate taxes. Um, technically, okay. All right. Thank you very much. And have exhausted the business of the public hearing, this being is adjourned.