Ik ben Good afternoon and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's cable cast post agenda on Bill 2026 0531 relative to authorizing the adoption of the downtown Pittsburgh Transit Revitalization Investment District Implementation Plan and Related Agreements.

Council District 1.

For the record, we are joined by Council President Daniel Lavelle, Councilwoman Erica Strasberger, Councilwoman Kim Salonetro, and Councilwoman Bar Warwick.

Other members may be joining us shortly.

And before we invite our esteemed panelists, I did want to give some brief remarks.

I did want to give some brief remarks.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

And we also, because my back is turned, we also have uh Councilman Wilson and Councilman Charlotte joining us online as well.

Thank you for that.

Um, and because I didn't have opportunity to give remarks at the public hearing, I just wanted to start off with some brief remarks before we invite our panelists.

I want to welcome my colleagues on council, our administration officials, community stakeholders, the residents of Pittsburgh who are joining us today, as well as those who have reached out to my office to express your support or opposition to this proposal.

Today we are convening this post-agenda hearing to discuss the proposed downtown transit revitalization investment district, or as we call it the TRID.

I called for last week's public hearing and today's post agenda several weeks ago to increase public engagement, and I strongly urge all stakeholders to continue to weigh in as City Council deliberates.

So if a property owner appeals to assessment today, the county takes the prop the property's current fair market value and multiplies it by the common level ratio, with the common level ratio at 50%, a commercial property could be taxed on half of its current market value.

As a result of the pandemic, when downtown building owners saw their actual market values drop, a wave of tax assessment appeals were filed.

A staggering loss of a half billion dollars in taxable value from just a handful of buildings.

About a quarter of the entire city's property tax revenue for a century.

This fiscal fallout has been acute, creating a severe financial dilemma.

Because of many of these appeals took years to resolve and apply retroactively, the city has had to pay out millions of dollars in cash refunds to taxes already collected.

And Pittsburgh's real estate tax revenue has seen a downward trajectory.

City budget projections show annual property tax revenues steadily declining, complicating funding for local services and other critical programs.

And with the downtown commercial tax base shrinking, a larger percentage of the property tax burden is shifting onto residential homeowners who either have an appeal, their their assessment or properties have not lost market value.

The loss of property tax revenue paired with the expiration of federal pandemic relief funds contributed to a multi-million dollar deficit for the city, forcing tighter spending controls and forcing officials to rely heavily on other areas such as earned income tax, detransfer taxes, or most recently skill games to keep the city financially afloat.

During our discussion today, I will be viewing this proposal through the following lenses.

Optimizing affordable housing in the golden triangle.

To ensure growth occurs comprehensively, sustainability and responsibly, the use of public mechanisms to spur investments in downtown must guarantee permanent affordable housing.

True transit-oriented development means that the working class families, the service workers, and the folks who rely on our transit system the most are able to live next to it.

Intentional economic inclusion.

The economic investment of the trip must also create pathways for minority-owned women-owned and local small businesses to shut up shop and thrive in a rebuttalized downtown.

It means ensuring that the construction and development jobs generated by this district pay family sustaining wages, utilize local hiring, workforce training pipelines, and our local labor unions.

Robust, transparent community engagement.

Trids by design require meaningful community engagement.

We need to establish clear and continuous mechanisms for residents, advocates, and stakeholder groups to weigh in and understand how these captured funds will be invested.

The community's voice will be an active participant in this process.

Investments in upgrading our bus stops, ensuring our light rail and rapid transit access points are fully ADA compliant, slowing down traffic to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists, and making the actual experience of that navigating downtown safe, enjoyable, and seamless for everyone, especially our seniors and neighbors with disabilities.

It is imperative that the value capture builds more than just brick and border, but builds community.

My goal today is to listen, ask questions, and to ensure that this trip proposal is robust enough to deliver on these promises to begin a new chapter of prosperity for our beloved city.

We want growth, but we want just growth.

I look forward to the testimony for our from our esteemed panelists and questions from my esteemed colleagues.

Thank you all for being here today.

And with that, I turn it over to our esteemed panelists and ask you to join us at the table.

And now once you get settled, please introduce yourself and thank you for joining us today.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for having us.

My name is Sushila Nimani Stanger.

I'm an executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and I'm joined by some colleagues who are allowed to introduce themselves.

Hello, my name is Catherine Murray.

I'm the director of government affairs and strategic initiatives at the URA.

Thomas Link, uh Chief Development Officer at the URA.

Kate Dearson, managing counsel at the URA.

Matt Singer, Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the Mayor.

So thank you again for providing this forum for us to brief you a little bit on the content of the TRID and the related outcomes.

The plan that we have, and let me know if this is okay with you, is I'll say some brief remarks, and Tom will cover a PowerPoint to go through the process and content.

We hope to be wrapped up by that in 15 minutes.

Does that work for you?

Okay.

And then um QA after that, if if that works.

All right.

So thank you.

Set a timer because I don't like to go too late.

So I want to just briefly frame today's subject matter and related legislative request in the larger context of economic development at large.

So public investment is used and needed to unlock opportunity, strengthen neighborhoods, and attract private investment.

We've report on these outcomes in our quarterly impact report.

And I do pass these around at the um city council offices, and I'll say one for myself and pass the current one around.

And it's important for me to just highlight the quarterly impact outcomes because what this TRID does and what this TRID-backed bond will do is create outcomes.

And so TRID is one investment tool in a larger revitalization effort that is designed to spur activity and private investment downtown, complement the transit district, which has been spurred by BRT, other public realm improvements, and will deepen affordable and quality housing options advanced downtown.

This trid-backed bond is the missing piece in a larger comprehensive investment strategy that's needed for the post-COVID downtown that we have.

And so I'll just take a little step back from downtown.

So a lot of you know this already, but I'll just be brief.

Different neighborhoods require different strategies.

And economic development is always the long game.

It's not one funding source, it's not one project, it's the larger comprehensive approach.

And so we take a deliberate neighborhood-specific approach to development.

And the strategy for downtown is different from every other neighborhood that we work in.

Downtown's primary challenge differs from that of most neighborhood business districts.

Ironically, many of its greatest assets, its extensive building stock and development capacity, are underutilized with large amounts of vacant space.

And so we're used to typical neighborhood blight that's visible at the street level, it's almost like horizontal to the eye.

Downtown's vacancy extends vertically through upper floor office spaces, and we think about it in terms of vertical blight.

And this vertical blight undermines the district's vitality and has an outsized impact on the region's tax base due to the sheer scale and concentration of vacant space.

So there are a couple attempts that we've made since COVID, more than a couple.

We've made numerous attempts since COVID in 2020.

There have been many efforts over the past six years to reposition downtown.

Each study has called for a distinct downtown fund.

And we're here.

We're here, and we know that what we need is a fund, a flexible funding tool.

So I'll just recap some of the things that we've done since 2020 since COVID hit.

Number one, we established in 2023 the $8 million downtown conversion fund, and we've deployed it.

Hi councilman.

And we deployed that fund fully in 2025.

Three years ago, we asked the county and school district to allow for a 10-year buy-right downtown tax abatement to encourage redevelopment with a three-year application window.

That window closes in January of 2027.

The request and what this the county and school district did allow for was a tax abatement program to spur development that mirrored the city's tax abatement program.

Now you'll also recall that Councilman Wilson strengthened the city's tax abatement program in order to continue to spur development.

That program, that three taxing body program, move some projects over the finish line, but not nearly the volume that we had that we need to, and that um that we know that we need to spur development in.

Okay, so that effort and outcomes we see demonstrates, and we've we've talked with a lot of developers, we've talked with a lot of um different owners who just cannot move the needle on their projects and move them across the finish line, and and what we really need is an additional financing tool that's flexible and that can address the current market conditions and help rebuild the tax base.

In addition, and um I'll be brief on this.

We also submitted a TIFIA application to the federal DOT, which did not come to fruition.

And so, you know, economic development is a holistic process.

And neighborhood revitalization is not, as I mentioned, it's not one single funding source, it's across multiple components from infrastructure transit, small business support, housing preservation and production, public space repositioning, and the redevelopment of vacant properties.

These components required related investments that reinforce one another, and they don't always move forward simultaneously.

Ideally, every investment would occur in a perfectly sequenced order, but in practice, economic development rarely works out that way.

This proposed TRID-backed bond is intended to serve as a tool to help unlock redevelopment opportunities, support job creation, and increase affordable and quality housing production as part of the overall downtown investment strategy.

Our analysis as an exhibit to the plan, it was our economic impact analysis.

It does estimate that 20 to 25% of the pipeline projects would include affordable housing units.

And I know that a lot of you care deeply about this.

And Tom will also cover some more.

So one thing I'll just end on, and that is let's talk about the transit component of the TRID.

A lot of questions were raised, particularly at the public hearing, about what the transit component is of the TRID.

And it's important to recognize that significant transit investment is already underway downtown with more transit and related infrastructure improvements that will be needed.

So the downtown and Oakland Bus Rapid Transit project represents a 291 million dollar transit investment.

It's one of the largest transit investments in the region in decades and will strengthen connections between downtown and Oakland, home to two of Pennsylvania's largest employment centers.

I'm very familiar with the history of the BRT and uh Councilman Lavelle, you may remember the URA was the original applicant to the FTA grant for the BRT.

First attempt was in 2016 or 17, and the successful attempt to submit this application was in 2018.

And thankfully, we were able to transfer that grant and the project to the PRT, who's doing a wonderful job implementing the program.

And I do want to be clear, I do not speak on behalf of the Port Authority, but I will reiterate that this that the FTA and the related investment demonstrates another funding source and a larger investment strategy for one of the region's most important districts that help stabilize and strengthen our region and advances a transit district.

So what happens next is the PRT will complete the bus rapid transit, they'll begin to monitor how it's being used, they'll take a systems approach to connecting the BRT with the light rail through multimodal connections that they'll recommend.

Those multimodal connections will absolutely utilize the TRID program and the TRID funding source to move those forward.

And I do just want to remind everyone that the federal BRT investment established the framework for transit oriented development.

And so properties within the designated proximity to the BRT corridor are positioned to benefit from that transit investment.

However, TOD, transit oriented development, requires both transit infrastructure and the ability to fund development.

And that's what this TRID-backed bond allows us to do.

It provides the environment around which we can really bring to fruition the transit-oriented development.

And so finally, I'll just close out by saying, you know, funding sources like the FTA Small Starts Grant, the Downtown Conversion Fund, RCAPS, and this TRID allow for impacts, like the impacts and outcomes outlined in our quarterly impact report.

And for now, I'll just turn it over to Tom, and he can talk more about the process and content related to the specific TRID.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Sushio.

Thank you, members of council to the public.

I know this has been recorded, and thanks for your time and consideration, and I appreciate uh the opportunity to brief.

So we have a PowerPoint.

I'll try to move through this reasonably quickly that gets into some of the specifics and logistics and mechanics of the proposed uh TRID.

You can go to the next slide.

The first slide here is just where we are in the legislative process.

I know that's very difficult to read for me sitting here now, but we are at the kind of the beginning of our process working through a three-taxing body legislative process as to an enactment and adoption of the TRID.

The URA board has taken multiple actions to date to allow us to continue from a URA perspective, advancing of the TRID.

We are have had, you know, obviously at this table, multiple uh public uh um opportunities to discuss the TRID at this table.

Uh to the extent that this body uh were to take a next step with the TRID, we would then advance through our partner taxing bodies, the Pittsburgh Public Schools and County uh Allegheny County to ask them to adopt the same and then finally Pittsburgh Regional Transit as a um as a as a legislative uh partner as well as to TRIDS.

I'll remind the public and the in this council that you know from a bond uh from a financing perspective, individual bond issuances, there would be future actions both at the URA board to issue debt as well as here at City Council to authorize uh respective guarantees to trade issue debt, and that's reflected in this uh this legislative calendar.

Go to the next slide.

Um, this is just our agenda.

I'll skip this, what we're gonna talk about.

Um, why downtown matters candidly, Councilman Mosley, you kind of you said most of what I was going to say why downtown.

So I'm not sure what to say.

Um but top level, we know that downtown is as a city and as a region, we know that we significantly rely on downtown Pittsburgh for tax revenue.

We know that in the combination of the outcome of the pandemic, downtown's um reliance on office properties, and the change in the common level ratio as Councilman Mosley described, has created a I think he used the word cratering effect, which I think is well put.

I wasn't in my notes, but well put as to what that means from a revenue perspective, not just for the city, uh, but for all three taxing bodies.

Um, I brought this just I you know I encourage folks to read it.

The Allegheny County Controller uh recently published their uh the county's popular annual financial report.

And if you go to pages 17 and 18, you know, the county audit uh the county controller, excuse me, describes the uh sort of outsized effect on the decrease in revenue at the county level, in addition to at other the taxing body level, uh a discrease in downtown's assessed value has had on revenues.

And it's it's dramatic and it's uh it's uh it's something that you know I know that we're all grappling with.

Councilman, you said this as well, but just this to reiterate uh, you know, it's when downtown real estate taxes fall, we know that it's not a matter of the revenue just goes away.

The burden shifts, and I think you said this in your remarks, but um someone else has to pay those taxes, right?

So we know that you know there's been an increase in uh uh in in real estate taxes, that that burden then shifts to other property owners who uh would end up having to pick up the the that that tab, so to speak, to make up the revenue shortfall and/or your risk of a reduction in services.

And this is sort of the why downtown matters from a revenue perspective.

You can go to the next slide, thanks, Catherine.

So action is needed.

You know, Sheila, you talked about this, but we we're at a we are at a moment where we are in a process to to uh you know we've tried various strategies with some success.

We can we believe that there's a need to continue to take pretty bold, frankly, action uh to reinvest in downtown to stem this this what I've just described.

So some of the analysis that we've done working with third parties to understand sort of the impact of what it means when downtown office towers lose their assessed value.

You know, for the largest office towers, which we think is a good proxy for downtown.

Um, for every 20% decrease or increase, depends on which way you go, it represents about a six point five million dollar either increase or decrease in real estate taxes across the three taxing bodies on an annual basis.

For the city, that's roughly 2.2 million dollars.

So there's an opportunity cost at some basic level of continued decrease in real estate taxes, you know, long-term.

I mean, we're not talking about magic elixirs here, but long-term, you know, increases in the SES values downtown, increased real estate taxes, obviously, stabilizing is an initial goal to stabilize our tax base.

Um, some further data, we've done analysis on what it means to attract a new uh resident to downtown, like from an in an income tax perspective.

Um, our analysis suggests that for every 500 new residents that could be attracted to downtown, that would that would generate approximately $200,000 annually in an income tax for the city, $400,000 for the school district.

There's a variety of other spin-off tax effects, hotel taxes, sales taxes, et cetera, uh, increased vitality for small businesses, et cetera, with you know, it's some basic level people being downtown, both as residences and as workers.

Um, and of course, construction jobs.

We we we estimate that if on our current pipeline, if we were to fully execute that pipeline, that would represent over 5,000 uh new construction jobs.

Um the downtown trid is really stimulating growth downtown, reversing trends that we've described, and Cecil, you only talked about this, but transit-oriented growth and infrastructure, increased housing, and of course stabilizing uh downtown's tax base.

Kathy, you can go to the next slide.

And I'll just talk now about the the TRID in and of itself.

I can't believe I forgot my glasses, I can't see that.

But um, so why a trid?

So we just talked about this.

Pittsburgh's long-term economics and social health depends on downtown.

We as a city and a region, we know that um, and we've this has been studied over several years, the need for a predictable and flexible funding source to invest in downtown to achieve growth and stability.

Uh as Sheila described, the TRID uh is a tool to help realize that.

Um, to be clear what a.

Oh, sorry.

Um, you went over, okay.

I'll try to be brief.

I'll try to try to be brief.

Um, and I forgot to start my time.

Um to be really clear here, so what does the TRID do?

So the TRID will borrow from future incremental real estate taxes that to be very clear do not exist sitting here today.

Um, these are not taxes that are that are exist here today that would borrow from those future incremental taxes within a value capture area to take a portion of that to essentially be a source of debt service payment on issued debt, which I described at the beginning initially that we're modeling up to about $50 million.

Um, you know, what does that mean?

So it does not exist, does not divert any existing real estate taxes.

So whatever base taxes exist today, the TRID is not diverting any of that.

I've been asked about the term.

So the term of the trid is 40 years.

This is consistent with both state statute, and of course, we have two other trids in our city today, the East Liberty Trid as well as the Manchester Chateau TRID, both are 40-year terms.

Um I think it's important to note from a pledged parcel perspective, an individual pledged parcel can only be pledged for 20 years.

So, sort of the spirit of a trid is it allows for a long-term district-wide investment plan so that you can have multiple borrowings over the course of all period of time, you know, using incremental taxes from stage staggered sort of um pledged parcels to pay debt service on individual borrowings.

Um the plan itself has some specific pledged parcels today, which we are sort of known development pipeline projects, but also allows for in the future a mechanism to pledge future development parcels that are triggered by essentially substantial development.

So the way the TRID reads is that an individual pledge parcel is defined as a development project with a minimum of a five million dollar construction value.

So the spirit here is that to be a pledged parcel within the district, you are having some there's some sort of substantial either new construction or rehabilitation project happening with six significant construction costs that then trigger it as a development project.

And then, of course, for it to have incremental real estate taxes, it has to be reassessed, right, to have the have the new taxes pledged.

The diversion rate is 75% diverted to the TRID, 25% again of future taxes uh retained by the uh taxing bodies.

I think the next slide is the boundary.

Yeah, and I'm so I want to, you know, this is a description of the boundary.

We in this been talked about at this table, and just again for the public.

The value capture area is includes our central business district downtown, a portion of the North Shore, and then the strip district.

The investment area for this TRID is the Golden Triagle or downtown.

I'm going to read a description of the map, because I think that's important based on some of the feedback that we've received.

So I'm just gonna read it here for the record, and you know, we can share this obviously separate separately.

So the value capture area includes, as I said, downtown Pittsburgh and extends to encompass a portion of the North Shore, generally bounded by the Manchester Chateau Trid boundary on the west side.

Uh interstate 279 and interstate 579.

Excuse me, 579.

The area further includes a portion of the strip district, generally bounded by the Allegheny River, 33rd Street, Liberty Avenue, the 28th Street Bridge, the Martin Luther King Jr.

East Busway Corridor, and Interstate 579.

So that's a description of the boundary.

We can answer questions on that as need be.

So if you go to the next slide, the borrowing.

So again, as I've described, the intention here and what our initial modeling is to do an initial borrowing of up to $50 million, as we're describing it as a tranche one borrowing.

This borrowing would be guaranteed as I mentioned before by the city of Pittsburgh, but the primary source of revenue to pay back the bond are the TRID revenues and the modeling that we're involved with today, and we'll continue to do.

And you know, just to be clear, there's work to be done to fully model debt issuance, you know, bond council and bond underwriters to ensure that it in fact is a marketable uh debt instrument, subject to a fund being in place.

Uh, the revenue source to repay the bond would be the TRID revenues.

And also just to be clear, just I think it's important for the public and for this table to know.

If fully adopted by the taxing bodies, all three taxing bodies are then participating in this in this revenue source to repay the debt with the city's guarantee behind it.

So I think just want to make sure I say that.

Um any future borrowings outside of this $50 million that would happen would have to come back both to the URA's board for an issue uh authorization to issue debt as well as back to this table, you know, for city council to issue guarantees, as would be what would occur for those first $50 million borrowing.

Um the plan itself allows for up to 200 million dollars in borrowings over the course of the 40-year term of the TRID.

Again, we're not borrowing 200 million dollars today, but allows for that over staggered borrowings over time to the extent there's a there's subs there's um sufficient revenue that the TRIDS creating to uh support debt, as well as, frankly, that there's need for the debt to be issued to support project costs.

Um, on the sources and uses, the initial borrowing, the way it's modeled is essentially a 40 million dollar taxable bond, a 10 million dollar tax exempt bond, approximately 40 million dollars would go directly into essentially gap financing for real estate development projects, 10 million dollars for public infrastructure, transit infrastructure.

I mentioned the 200 million dollars uh potential borrowing over the 40 years.

Um, I'll leave it at that.

Affordable housing.

So what you know, why the TRID investment, the priorities of the TRID investment, and I'll work through this.

So we know we've talked about housing and affordable housing.

So I mentioned before the potential earned income, the fiscal impact of more folks living downtown, and frankly, more folks living in our city.

But for downtown in particular, we've modeled this to show the potential over income taxes.

We're monitoring a current pipeline of development.

These are not, you know, as we know, development is not a you know can ebb and flow, but our current uh model pipeline that we're monitoring, if fully deployed over several years, could deliver up to you know approximately 1,745 new units of housing downtown.

That current pipeline, uh, we think approximately 27% of those units would be affordable housing units.

Um, if fully delivered, um the current uh mix of affordability of downtown units is 18% of existing units downtown.

If that full pipeline were to be deployed at the at the uh percentage that I just described, that would increase it from 18% to 20 21% of the total mixed downtown as affordable uh housing units downtown.

Um Sheila talked about public infrastructure, transit connectivity.

I'm not gonna reiterate it, but that's certainly a priority of the um of the of the TRID, and then of course economic development.

Um we've talked about this downtown is a place that it's corridor tax base, but you know, there's a sort of an intangible too.

Like when folks think about investing in our city, living in our city, downtown is sort of that front door, that porch, that gateway to that, and downtown as a thriving uh base for our city is is certainly critically important.

I think most folks would agree with that.

We have a couple of slides on our existing tact tax increment financing and tax diversion portfolio.

We can share this separately, but um that's our active portfolio.

Just a couple of quick numbers.

So that's our active portfolio, represents a nearly 14x increase in assessed real estate value of the pledged real estate development uh parcels within our existing uh TIFF and TRID districts over their base assessed value at the inaction of the TIFF or TRID.

Over the last 10 years, we've retired 13 TIFFs, while it only creating three new ones.

So this portfolio has been shrinking considerably over the last 10 years.

Um in fact we have three more that will retire the next well, a couple in the next six months, and then another within the next year and a half uh to further reduce the uh this portfolio.

So PNC first to market, the Pittsburgh Technology Center and Bakery Square TIFFs are all set to retire um in the short term, and those particular TIFFs uh represent about a 13-fold increase in the assessed value of their assessed value prior to the TIFFs uh being enacted.

Um there it is again.

We kind of this is kind of a repeat of the first slide, but our next steps here um are is this is this taxing body, so you know, working through with you and city council from a legislative perspective, and then the next steps would be with uh the other their Pittsburgh Public Schools allocated county PRT.

I will note that we did brief um the Pittsburgh Public Schools uh budget and finance committee publicly on June 8th, I believe, uh on this trade plan as well.

So that's we've sort of started that formal process as well with Pittsburgh Public Schools.

With that, I thank you, and we're certainly happy to answer questions and have discussion.

So thank you.

Yeah, that uh thank you.

Uh Mr.

Link, I believe our stack uh in person starts with uh Councilwoman Strasberger, followed by Councilwoman Warwick.

Thank you, uh Councilman Mosley and uh Mr.

Chair, and um thank you all to for our guests for being here today.

I um I'll just jump right into questions and then if there's if there are comments as as as I ask the questions can get into that.

Um so I'll start with a question that came up uh I know at the uh I was listening in after the fact to the public hearing and um uh and I heard the answer and I still have additional questions about the 40 year term because I hear what you're saying about 40-year term, I hear what you're saying about a 20-year limit on per parcel.

But maybe for people like me who might not understand um why a 40-year term, like I'm not an economic development professional.

What is what is sort of magical about the number 40 years?

20 years feels like long term for me.

Is it that is it that 40 years is just a um it's it's the sort of minimum necessary to demonstrate long-term um dedication to a certain project or sort of certain certain plan.

Uh that would be helpful for me to understand.

Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll start.

So I think I think so.

For one thing, it's a trid allows for 40 years.

So that's where the sort of the mechanics baseline.

I'd say for the more practically speaking, you know, the downtown trip, and I would say trids generally are really district wide investment strategies, right?

They're they're not project-specific necessarily as TIFFs are.

They're meant to allow for a long-term investment strategy and growth for a particular district.

Um, you know, we believe 40 years is a time that you know we even just talking today.

We've said it's been 10 years really, we've been talking about downtown.

So it can take many, many years uh to fully uh uh you know raise the necessary funds and reinvestment of district uh over the long term to ensure sustainable growth.

Um it also 40 years allows for this idea of multiple borrowings.

Um, get you to your point, councilwoman, um, you know, initial it allows for sort of these multiple potential borrowings uh to reinvest in a district over time as the district needs evolve over that period of time.

So that's the way I think about it.

Um, but yeah, certainly that's the way I think about it.

Yeah, that was but I I agree with Tom, and I'll also say that um, you know, 20 years can work for a discrete development, like Bakery Square, it will retire next year.

Bakery Square TIFF one.

I know it seems like it just happened in my opinion.

I felt like it just happened.

But um when we know when and how a project comes out of the ground, a 20-year clock works.

When we have a more district-wide visionary approach to stabilizing and strengthening a neighborhood, we really need a longer time horizon on the value capture boundary.

So I think about it in terms of it's a 40-year boundary, but a 20-year pledge of each.

So it just allows for more flexibility in terms of our um credit worthiness for the bond and being able to predict when a certain building will be redeveloped, is somewhat known, but not as accurate as if you have a 20-year discrete project.

That makes sense.

So the the geography, the size of it, because it's not one project that is more predictable.

Well, it sounds like the bond is a driving force behind that.

Somewhat, somewhat, it's also the need.

The need is a driving force as well as the credit worthiness of the bond.

And you know, we have hundreds there are hundreds of owners in the value capture district.

When we have when we advance and recommend a TIFF for a particular project, we usually have one owner, a handful of parcels.

And I'll say that there, you know, there were some lessons learned with our previous um district-wide TIFFs where we were not able to really advance the public infrastructure and the public realm improvements that we know that we needed to on certain previous district-wide TIFFs because we didn't have enough increment remaining because the clock was ticking on the 20 years.

So yeah, in order to really stabilize an entire neighborhood, um we we were recommending that 40 year boundary with the 20-year distinct value capture.

Is it your experience that 10 years in a building that might have been languishing, didn't have any takers, that is like the whatever the timing lines up so that a new player comes in and says, hey, now is the time I'd like to start the process here, or is it more like we all kind of have a plan, we already know what parcels are going to be moving and when, and we just need that time.

I'm trying to figure out like the sequencing.

So could we be surprised by someone kind of, you know, all of a sudden conditions are right for a certain parcel to then initiate a you know, I believe that's right, yes.

Okay, there in the JLL report does outline the projects that we know are in the pipeline on the horizon, but I do believe that once the conditions are more favorable that that more buildings will become redeveloped.

But it's just you know, every every building owner has a different temperament.

Great.

Um what would you say?

We've you've covered this, you've covered this, but I'm gonna ask it just more directly.

What would you say around the um the benefits and the drawbacks of investing in this way in a very particular area versus encouraging that investment to be spread more broadly, not just like say in the capture area, the revenue capture area, but like throughout neighborhoods across the city.

I'm guessing part of it is like it doesn't have to be an either-or, this is one tool, but this is a very concentrated, this is an effort in a very concentrated area.

Um, we also have neighborhoods across the city that are um in have extreme need.

So, yeah, what is the what is the general answer there?

Um generally speaking, I think about it in this way.

Since 2020, there have been countless post-COVID downtown studies advanced, and those almost all of them recommend that the need is a flexible funding tool to invest in redevelopment projects and public realm improvements that help move the needle on downtown and create more favorable um conditions.

Um related to citywide needs.

I hunt 100% agree with you, and um we we talk about those when we come to the city for our budget hearing.

There are needs throughout the city.

There's no doubt, and that's what the city budget is for, right?

The pay-go bond, CDBG funding sources is you know helping us serve every neighborhood in all of the ways that it that uh that aligns with their needs.

100%.

Yeah, yeah, there are needs everywhere.

Um I sorry.

I also understand that some of the the argument for this is that is it's I mean, at this time I that could change it for 40 years, I understand, but at this time it really is um stabilizing a critical economic generator, right?

For not just the city and the region.

Um could you reiterate those numbers?

Like the st if if we if there is if there is uh without investment, what we would see and what that would mean for Pittsburgh specifically in terms of um uh the assessed value and real estate taxes.

I can do that.

And I was just gonna add I think on the dis I think downtown represents something like four or five percent or maybe less of like the city's land mass.

But it represents 25% of our tax base.

Um so when I I personally think about that, that says to me this this what yes, maybe this it's it's distinct, maybe it's relatively small, but it it really does have an outsized impact on our on a frankly our city and our region's ability to provide services and be a place to invest.

But your question as to the um the revenue, I have to get to my data point here.

I apologize.

I just read it.

What I have written down, but I'd love to city specific is 13 million less in real estate taxes and then 478 million less in assessed value, but that was for through all you know, yeah, so all three bodies.

So we modeled it based on the 28 largest office towers, just to get a proxy for downtown.

And again, the future tax revenues are highly subjective to changes in the common level ratio, you know, reassessment.

So there's a variety of factors here.

So but based on sort of an analysis based on facts that we have in front of us today, and based on what we've just experienced ranked over the last three years and a reduction in tax revenue.

Um for every 20% change, so increase or decrease that represents about a six point five million dollar, could be increase, could be decrease, depending on which way that 20% goes, and uh real estate taxes across the taxing bodies for the city in particular, that's about 2.2 million dollars for every for every 20%.

So we I think this downtown just lost 42% of its of its tax are in the last I think two years.

So if that happened again, say we lose another 40%, yeah.

That's another third, that would be a thirteen million dollar or so decrease in real estate tax revenues across the taxing bodies, um, roughly 4.4 million or so annually for the city specifically on real estate taxes alone.

That doesn't account for small businesses close.

I mean, there's a variety of sort of spinoff effects, but on the real estate taxes uh in particular, uh that's that's the that's the data that we're thinking that we look at.

And while we don't have control over a countywide reassessment, let's just say that one uh does occur and is sort of wrapped up and completed by 2030.

Would that negate the need of a trid in any way?

Because that would sort of stabilize the um common level ratio at the at a certain level.

What would be the argument for continuing on with a TRID or can to not continue on with it, but like to have it in the first place when we think that might be happening?

It still doesn't solve the need for a flexible investment tool to invest directly in projects that create housing units and public infrastructure and public realm improvements.

So to go above and beyond stabilization, but to like actually like create new.

Okay.

So in those new projects, I know I know um we've talked how we've talked housing, we've talked trans revitalization.

Um, I've heard some concern about like well, uh you gave an example, and this is actually super interesting to me because there's long been criticism about busway and BRT not connecting to light rails.

So I think that might be an example of like true connectivity between our different modes of transportation.

Are there other examples that are like very specific transit related?

Like pedestrian improvements are great.

I don't know if everyone considers that to be transit.

It is, and it and it isn't, right?

It's not like a bus station, it's not a transit center, it's not um, you know, it's not exactly the same.

So are there any examples like that that you can give or anyone can give around?

There are um a number of needs downtown for pedestrian safety, crosswalks, um, enhanced um, you know, uh signalization.

I think that that's those multimodal connections are critical.

I mean, we know every time a rider changes modes, we lose a rider, right?

Um so but that but you know, I you know, and I and I know I never want to overstate transit capital project commitments because that's really the point PRT, and they do a fabulous job.

But um, you know, they are moving the BRT, and I do know that they care a lot about those connections between the bus rapid transit, the light rail, the bus way, you know what I mean?

Like, they need all of that to connect.

And um, you know, and the TRID is there to help fund those projects when they're ready.

I think I think piggybacking picking piggybacking off of that, excuse me, and also touching on the the idea of what what does this do above and beyond stabilization is I I think uh a key a key part of this is sort of like the the proactive vision for what it does for downtown and Pittsburgh beyond just the the good it will do for our budget.

I mean, everyone at this table is intimately familiar with the the threats to revenue.

That every single day council's dealing with this um at the table that affects our ability to pick up trash, fix up parks, everything under the sun.

Um but I think additionally this the trig gives us the ability to really rethink what downtown is and how it is this benefit for the city and the region.

They're really strong market forces kind of pulling downtown away from this office use and frankly away from a space that was designed for offices and getting around it really just using single occupancy vehicles mostly.

It's instead trying to pull it towards a more residential, vibrant 24-hour neighborhood.

Um council talks about zoning changes or other policy changes to spur what they want to see in the neighborhoods.

They want walkable streets, they want first floor activation.

They want people to get in and out or within that neighborhood as best as possible and with as many options as possible.

That is something else that the trade can help us do beyond just the the boon that it will have to our budget.

Um I think as well, um, when we talk about that connectivity, the again, we can't speak for PRT here, but the the success of the BRT line is not just going to be improvements in service, more people taking it.

That success is really gonna ride on the entire environment around it as well.

Um we know that things like issues with uh pedestrian safety, um, the ability to get to connections in and around downtown and things like that, even complaining that last mile.

Those are big inhibitors of people actually using transit and a neighborhood being a pedestrian-friendly transit-oriented place.

We we have an opportunity to really make downtown this this regional model and this regional leader in what transit-oriented development can do with with high density, reduced reliance on parking, reduced reliance on cigar occupancy vehicles.

We're able to hopefully stand in partnership with PRT and say that as they are investing in the just for example, the station itself, we get to help using the trade, build that world around it to maximize usership, to maximize the ability to for to endure and to have this long-term transit-focused benefit.

Um, I think as well, it's it's we do have that, we do have that opportunity here.

Um, the trid gives us the chance to really like capitalize on these two simultaneous forces, which is market-driven investment and also our ability and our desire to really invest in that public realm.

Especially also keep in mind that public realm, we should look at it as as an economic asset.

Um safe streets, public plazas, connections to our parks and riverfronts, those are things that drive people to want to visit there, live there, frequent the businesses there, go to schools there.

Um, again, I I forgive me for repeating myself, but in addition to that budgetary good that it does for us, we really do get that benefit of transforming downtown into this this better anchor with the plus that it's also the western hub for the BRT as well as this central node for all these connections downtown out into our other neighborhoods.

Appreciate that.

And two more questions.

One is so you mentioned some some of the conversion projects, some of the other um, I guess residential projects are in various phases of the process, completion.

And you mentioned that despite other tools that we are deploying or have deployed, there are gaps.

Are there some that would not be able to reach completion were it not for TRID at this point?

Is that your understanding?

I would say most of them.

Most of them.

Yeah, at least within downtown.

Within downtown.

Right.

I'd say there's, you know, the um I mean candidly, can't the there's a, as Sushila mentioned, we've, you know, between the initial downtown conversion fund, which again, thank you to the city, you used our money to help with that, the state, as well as you already redeployed monies, you know, we move that into two specific projects.

Um the housing bond helped fund a number of you know, a couple of uh downtown projects, those funds are largely deployed at this point.

So just the funding generally at scale, these downtown redevelopment projects are are substantial, right?

And the the dynamic of, you know, rising interest rates, rising construction costs, and market volatility are and the difficulty generally of converting an office tower to a um to housing uh continue to uh persistent gaps in them.

And certainly affordable housing development, we know we'll have, you know, as this is a nature of the of the economics of affordable housing, certainly have gaps.

This is a tool that's absolutely will be necessary to advance affordable housing development downtown.

But even those projects that are not explicitly affordable housing development, many of them, and I would suggest, you know, all of them.

Otherwise they'd be happening, um, you know, that would require there's continues to be gaps in their capital stacks to try to get these projects to the um to closings.

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

That was gonna be my next kind of follow-up is is how many of those are are um that that require this, you know, for gap financing um are affordable.

Um so some of them are pure will be purely or tax credit deals basically, six percent or not six percent, four percent or nine percent of a tax credit deals, and then some will not be, but I would imagine many would take advantage, frankly, of the city's downtown learner, which of course has a specific affordability requirement built in.

Um so all of them from my estimation, you know, assuming they are either and or using PHFA tax credits and or the downtown learner will have affordable uh units as part of the development, part of their um housing development program.

Oh, but so but what what how many are like especially for the 4% 9%, you know, um or light tech uh or PHFA kind of uh projects are at risk of not finding suitable gap financing without without the TRID.

Do we know?

We can get back to your question.

Yeah.

Is that okay?

Yeah, and do we know how many affordable units already are sort of like like not just projected or hoped for, but are about to come online downtown?

We can get that too.

Yeah, we'll go.

Um so LITEX unfunded.

Lite tax unfunded, and then just total number.

I had heard a number like uh reference like in the 400s currently, but I wasn't sure if that was if that was right.

Um follow up on that.

Thank you.

I think oh it's just about process.

So we're all you know, I think many, many of us here are cons are concerned or or are cognizant of ensuring that the projects or the priorities that are that are prioritized in this process align with, you know, councils and this the publics at large, and so at what point um can you just remind us and remind me of the process and where we will have uh an opportunity to continue to weigh in, particularly on the standards, like the like percentages of so we already know the that there's a downtown LERTA, but uh you know uh percentages or types of projects that are mixed use, mixed income, or you know, light tech and very low income.

Um, the types of projects that are, you know, the the types of um transit or transit oriented developer projects that you know we would want to prioritize.

Where where else will we have?

Where are we in the process in terms of sorry, I won't ask that because you've told us where we are in the process, but where else will we have the opportunity to guide that conversation and take votes?

It's a couple places.

One would be certainly at the issuance of prior to an issuance of any debt, and then certainly the city's guarantee, there's opportunity uh at this table in public engagement as to that particular legislation.

On individual financing through the TRID, um, all financings would have to be would require approval by the URA board of directors, which would at public in public meetings through an underwriting and engaging your process, specifically on the real estate, you know, real estate gap financing, um, which would require public votes at the URA board.

Um in addition, I would say on the public infrastructure side, you know, the sort of the implementers of the public infrastructure and transit, of course, are the PRT, Pittsburgh Regional Transit, and the city, frankly, and you know, the from the URA's perspective, engagement with those entities uh to identify and uh priorities, needs and readiness to proceed and eligibility with TRID and then sort of the public processes that exist with those agencies to identify those projects that make sense to be included in a trade financing plan.

But now is the time that we're uh considering like the guidelines and what's in it, future bond would be just you know, I guess another opportunity, but maybe not as as specific or creating the guidelines as this is, right?

Okay, so okay, that's helpful.

That's the extent of my questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thanks everyone for coming.

Um so just uh I don't have the slides in front of me, so just ask some questions and and correct me if I'm wrong.

So I believe that it said that we're losing eight million dollars a year on downtown.

Is that was that in the slides?

So, roughly.

Well, the taxing body is roughly six point five million dollars in real estate tax revenue losses for every 20% decrease in assessed value of downtown real estate.

Um over the last two years, I think it's something like 40 something million.

Thank you very much.

So I'm looking in the wide.

Or 42% decline, which represented an $8 million decrease for the city and a $20, thank you, $23.3 million dollar decrease across the taxing bodies since 2020.

Right, so so about eight million dollar drop in revenue.

For the city because of the down because of the you know pandemic, et cetera, downtown.

Um so we start with a fifty million dollar loan.

Um that we would then, you know, use to give to the lion's share of which we would give to to private developers.

What um what would we have to pay every year on that first loan?

So if it's a 50 million dollar borrow, and these are not fully modeled yet, but it's roughly there's another slide here actually if I can borrow from it.

It's roughly about a 5.2 million dollar debt service payment.

Okay, so we're losing about 8 million.

So we're taking out a loan that we're gonna have to pay 5.2 million just to repay the loan.

Which would be paid for by future.

Well, but I mean today.

A future the the repayment source for any borrowing would be the future incremental real estate taxes that are generated by the TRID.

Right.

But I mean, but when we have to pay each, like you know, when we're looking at our budget every year.

So we're paying we're we're looking at paying 5.2 million to make up for an $8 million loss.

If I can note it's actually $5.2 million spread across the taxing bodies for the diversion rate.

Um so we're looking at about 1.9 on the city side.

Okay, okay.

Um, and so I'm wondering, so so this this and and it sounds I have to say the the transit component sounds incredibly vague, right?

Like this potential maybe connection between the BRT and the rail.

I don't know.

Do we have something concrete?

So part of that is because the uh PRT will work this on this.

That's why we as the city or the URA at this point in time can't say at this specific station at this specific crossroad, they will get this specific improvement.

Given that the governance structure does have PRT and the county working this as partners in co-governance on this, we can't unilaterally say this is exactly where that money is going to go.

We do that in conjunction with them.

But we are saying that only what is it, 20% of the money will go toward these like public infrastructure, and then 80% will go toward or 10 was it was it 10% or 20% goes to the public infrastructure.

So the initial borrowing of 50 million would be 40 million for real estate investment and then 10 10 million for public infrastructure and transit investment.

Okay, so so we'd be borrowing this money, 10 million of it would actually go to like, you know, immediate public benefit, and the other 40 million would go to private real estate development.

I personally would describe that as public infrastructure and then reinvesting in real estate development that does things that have public benefits such as jobs, people living in our city, paying taxes, et cetera.

But I understand.

I mean, and I understand this sort of vague growth transformation rhetoric is there, you know, but it's there's nothing concrete, right?

That's um I just wonder, you know, if we're taking out a $50 million loan.

And how many units did you say that we're we're thinking that the first $50 million could potentially.

So the cell pipeline we're monitored is like $1,700 units.

$1,700 units, yeah.

Yeah.

I just wonder um for $50 million.

I mean, I feel like we could give like a thousand families a down payment for a new house.

You know, like a thousand Pittsburgh families.

That'd feel like economic growth to me.

Um, you know, folks who are renters or or whatnot, right?

Or students who want to live here.

That would feel like generational wealth and economic development.

It's just weird to me that we're like choosing to give this to our wealthiest property owners, um, as opposed to using this money.

I mean, if we really are taking out a loan on on um future tax revenue.

I also want to go back, so so you did say to respond to one thing in there.

I think the use of the word give should be clarified a bit.

Like it's not just uh someone comes in and they get up publisher's clearing house check to finish their building.

It's meant to be a loan structure that money is staying, that value is staying within the TRID district.

Explain that again?

So it's not like uh the word give there, I think deserves clarification.

It's not like free money that just disappears.

Okay.

Can you explain that?

I mean, I understand that like future tax revenue, right?

Like, like the individual loans that would be made to XYZ real estate development project would have a return mechanism.

So they would those projects would be asked to repay that financing over time, either through some sort of debt instrument or perhaps like an equity type investment.

But generally speaking, there would be a return to of that capital back to the public through the TRID to redeploy that money back into future projects within the TRID district.

And is there so if it's a loan, so why why then wouldn't they just take out a loan?

I mean, why wouldn't they just get a loan?

Well, they certainly will.

I mean, so these projects.

No, I mean, like on the I mean, it's the private market, right?

Like we, you know, like why why can't they just go get a loan?

This is a project that they're building, they're investors, right?

Why can't they go get an investor to come invest in their project?

Well, they will.

I mean, they'll they'll max they'll re they'll get private debt financing, they'll they'll attract private equity investors.

Um, and as the nature of gap financing and development projects, there's still at times still a gap in that financing necessary to uh complete a the construction cost on a capital stack.

So we know with affordable housing, the ability to raise private debt is nominal, frankly, because of the revenues generated by uh affordable housing development has a um does not generate enough operating revenue through rent to cover substantial uh private debt.

So it's usually a nominal debt in private debt that's able to be raised for affordable housing.

Um equity can be uh generated largely through the sale of tax credits for affordable housing.

Um but then there's you know substantial additional costs and financing necessary to complete the capital stack.

Um so that can also play out with a non-affordable housing deal.

So, you know.

If you're in my class like Ricky Millennium, you've heard me talk about this.

But basically, when when value and cost do not align, that's the nature of gap financing.

So if you know there's some value to a project, and that value is really a function of its revenue, right?

It's not the function of the cost of the bricks and mortar, it's not the function of I look out and see a building and think it's worth something, it's the function of that building's ability to raise revenue.

And for um most real estate, um, especially downtown real estate, that's typically multi-family revenue or endorse some sort of mixed income or mixed-use development, which is essentially tied back to rents, right?

So you rent to an individual, you rent a businesses, you pay rent, you pay your costs, and you have that creates a value.

There's some value of that cash flow.

Um, banks will lend against that, investors will invest in that to get a return on that investment to pay their debt service and return their um and return on their investment income.

Um, but oftentimes that that value of the revenue does not equal the cost of the project to get to that revenue.

And that's where the nature of a gap finance a gap comes up.

So when we think about, you know, the rental gap program that we use sometimes, we think about state our cap dollars, these dollars are going into projects where there's a defined gap that's that need to be filled to sell that capital stack.

So anyway, to answer your question, these projects will certainly would borrow money, and we would underwrite that to ensure that they're they're maxing out what they can borrow based on their cash flow and that there's in fact a gap.

So to so to go back to sort of the as they that that's also with just sort of a regular homeowner, right?

Might be in a situation where they're like, oh man, I've got almost all of my down payment.

I just don't have that last two thousand dollars.

And if that's all we were giving them, right, then we could do even more.

Right?

I mean, I was seeing an example of we would give them the entire down payment, like an entire fifty thousand, which is you know, I mean, that sounds silly, doesn't it?

Well, what if we just gave just everybody who wanted to buy a home?

Every young person, every student, um, every single mom who's renting right now, just gave them a couple things you know, that was right on the cusp.

Like, God, I could almost buy that home.

That would be, you know, would would that be economic development?

I mean, would that help like improve the the economic development of Pittsburgh and the people of Pittsburgh?

Absolutely.

And then you know, we have a great track record of programs like that, especially with owned PGH.

Yeah.

So we agree that you know something like that is so valuable, and I I really hear your commitment to that.

How much have we put into OMPGA?

I can I can pull up those numbers for you and get them get them for you in terms of a total report of how much we put in and then how many homeowners we assisted.

Yeah, and those homeowners and the outcomes are in the quarterly impact report that we share with you all.

And I think the number you're gonna have to correct me on this maybe.

Some I think we're at like 40% new to the city.

So that's amazing.

Right, yeah.

So that's the thing.

Again, this is like a holistic economic development approach.

One's not wrong, one's you know what I mean?

Like, all together.

But here's my issue with this one, right?

Is I I get that, right?

I get the value of own PGH.

I get the value of the bond.

Oops, excuse me, the affordable housing bond, right?

Where like that money, it may not be going into vehicles, it may not be going into like building, you know, whatever a new roof on the recenter or paving or something that's like tangible, but it's going into people's lives.

That is tangible, right?

And this, though, like I think you said only 25% of the projects that we give money to will have affordable housing components to them.

Is that was that?

So the pipeline we're tracking right now is 20%, 27% of the units within the pipeline are would be affordable units.

So not 25% of the project necessarily with 27% of the units.

But how many of the projects would have affordable like of these would we be investing in projects that have no affordability?

As we do envision that.

Do we know how how like compared to the ones that have affordability versus no affordability?

Well, as Tom described, we would underwrite for our gap for the funding gap.

Like what is the true funding gap?

And we would um evaluate what the need is.

See, this was like because I think I asked this at the beginning is would would there be an openness to update this plan to say, if your project has no affordability, like n not say it has to have extra necessarily, but it has to have an affordability component, then you would if if you then you could be eligible for for this gap financing.

But if it doesn't, if it has no affordability, so we are just doing like super expensive condos downtown, you don't get this money.

You have to go find your investors elsewhere.

And I was told no.

I was told under no uncertain terms, no, we will not make that adjustment to the plan.

Is that still the case?

What we're proposing is something that we think is a that we know based on multiple studies is a need downtown, a flexible funding source needed for a myriad of different projects.

Affordable housing, market rate, conversion of office to residential, office renovations and redevelopment, something that's an office that will be improved to stay in office.

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I just I have a hard time with the with the the I mean we the FMB building just went up, right?

Like a brand new building just got built.

Uh you know, so this this idea that there's like this desperate need.

I I it just really feels like this is large-scale property owners who um, you know, got unlucky with the pandemic, right?

And now they they want they want the taxpayers' help bailing them out, but they don't, you know, but I don't see the public benefit other than this very vague, and as you said, I think I can quote you to say future tax revenues are highly subjective.

What if there's another pandemic?

What if we see another future drop of forty percent?

I mean, we don't know, right?

We're on the hook for this.

No?

If I can respond to that, I mean, yes, the city is backing up the bond as the city backs up every bond and every piece of borrowing it takes out, everything from the affordable housing bond to the recurring capital bonds that we have to take out at the end of the day.

If we if we don't have the money to pay that back, it's the similar as everything else.

We gotta come up with the money.

Um, it's not it's not at all unique in that sense.

Um, I think in terms of who got unlucky during the pandemic, I think it's important to keep in mind like the city was perhaps the unluckiest of them all.

Um our budget hurts in a way where we can't make up revenue the same way the private sector code.

We have a very narrowly defined suite of options from which we can pull in our revenue.

It's we're limited on what we can do with property taxes, we're limited what we can do with amusement tax, so on and so forth.

Um the idea too of it of it being a giveaway, again, I think sort of ignores the reality of no one's getting free money.

It's it's a loan to finish a project, which then that value and the loan returns to the district.

I do think that overall the goal, one of the many goals of the trade, but the goal we're talking about in this specific piece of the conversation.

So that again, what do you mean the loan returns to the district?

It's it's a loan.

It the end of the recipient pays it back.

Okay, to the URA.

Yes.

Okay.

And again, but it stays in that investment district to keep doing further investments, portion of it going to public realm improvements.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a sort of another component.

But but um, you know, so let's come back to this tax revenue.

Uh you know.

How much did you say these folks, how much are we paying back these same people that we're saying we're gonna give this money to?

How much are we paying them back in in um refunds on uh, you know, when they win their their reassessment cases?

Do we know?

Like how much are the taxes?

So the URA doesn't have those figures.

That would be interesting because I would I would love to know if there's a particular property owner that is, you know, wanting to get one of these, you know, one of these loans, wanting to get some of this TRID money, are they sort of shirking us on their taxes, right?

That would be interesting to know.

And if they are, could that make them ineligible?

You see what I mean?

Like these are the very same property owners, these are the biggest property owners in the city, one of the wealthiest people, and don't even probably live here, but whatever, like that's not necessarily relevant.

But um, you know, the wealthiest property owners in the city of Pittsburgh are, you know, killing us with their with their, you know, going to court on on the about their taxes.

We're giving them refunds on their taxes.

And and and now we're sort of, you know, taking out this, you know, this bond, this like video to give them money to make sure to help their projects pencil.

I don't know.

It just doesn't uh I I guess I'll I'll I'll I'll leave it at that if I if I think of um if I think of other questions as we go along.

It just doesn't feel right to me.

It doesn't feel fair to the taxpayers of this city, right?

It doesn't feel fair when we, you know, are struggling to provide such small, you know, when we're struggling to buy vehicles when we're struggling to, you know, when we don't have just basic, like after school care programs in all our communities when we are, you know, just looking everywhere just for for the smallest things for our rec center roofs, for you know, all these things that benefit our residents, right, in real time today.

And you know, we talk a lot about growth and the future and bringing new people, but but we serve the people here today, and I just don't see how, other than this kind of vague, you know, spend money to make money concept.

Um I just don't see how this particular plan serves.

And I mean, uh also that you know that it'd be nice to have brought sort of the printout of the plan.

I mean, I uh, you know, I did actually read the plan, and I know councilwoman gross actually printed out the plan and read the plan.

Thank goodness.

I know she wasn't able to be here today, but thank goodness for councilwoman gross, who literally prints out and reads everything, because I wouldn't have known, right?

I would have just sort of been a little unclear a few Wednesdays ago, and you know, kind of hesitantly been like, okay, and then she she's like, no, no, actually, I read this plan, and and this is what it is.

And then also, uh I guess I'm gonna keep going a little bit.

Let's talk.

I I would like to ask a little bit about the the sort of downtown.

So, so this includes the North Shore, the strip District, and there's so much building in the strip, right?

Like, that is a huge amount of building that's happening in that neighborhood, right?

So we're generating a lot of new tax revenue in that neighborhood.

It is very strange to me that that tax revenue should go only to downtown, right?

That we're doing this and it only benefits downtown.

And it does feel a little slippery.

I mean, I have very wealthy neighborhood in my district, right?

I have some very expensive houses in my district.

What would stop?

I mean, what would stop me from, you know, trying to do a trid around my district that included Hazelwood and Squirrel Hill, right?

And all the and then just say, and this is only from me, this is only from my district.

That to me is not how taxes should work, right?

Like this is for everybody.

And places, what about the West End?

Right?

What about, you know, Councilman Coghill's district?

What about out in the 31st ward?

What about Hazelwood or or other other places?

Could I speak to some of the points you raised?

Sure.

So, in terms of what it does for all of the districts, and and you had mentioned the struggle that the city's under to fund so many things.

I will be, I will say this in unequivocal terms.

That struggle will get worse unless the city does something to bring in more revenue.

That is that is the future of the White City.

It's it's tougher decisions on the budget, it's less money available to spend on the things that residents expect to and need to see in their neighborhood.

The city continues to lose revenue, and without anything to change that course, that struggle only gets worse.

Further, in terms of what it does in other neighborhoods, that you you sort of answered it, but the collection of taxes is not limited on a single neighborhood basis.

If that were the case, wealthy neighborhoods would get everything, and neighborhoods that perhaps have lower populations, lower real estate values wouldn't get anything.

It is the very nature of how the city collects taxes that it takes from a broader body and then does targeted specifics based on what this council approves.

The we if we need to build a new if we need to replace the the Elizabeth Street Bridge in Hazelwood, we don't say only dollars that come from Hazelwood come from this.

It's what has been collected from a larger scale that then gets deployed based on a need that the city identified and was further addressed by or excuse me, approved by council.

I do also want to make a note about um what you said about the documents and the plan.

To to be clear, all of the documents are publicly available.

Sure.

The implementation plan was submitted as an attachment to the legislation, which is made available to council members, made available to the public.

Hang on, but the document is public to the URL.

And the planning to the URL.

Nobody contacted me ahead of this is a major decision.

So I will stop you there because you're very familiar with how city council works.

And I don't want to have a RPG.

If I may I've been I've been offering everyone briefings, you know, for months, and I have I can follow up and show you those emails, but I've I've sent over council.

I know, but this is big enough, I will say, that I think that it would have been worthwhile to say we are talking about like a speci I mean, I know I get the I get the the emails every month that are like things are this can impact your district, right?

But this feels big enough that it would have been worth and we wouldn't even have a public, we wouldn't even have had a public hearing, we wouldn't have even had this post-agenda, right?

If it hadn't been for councilwoman gross taking the time to sit down and and read through this and bring the plan to the table and and walk us through the planes on the table as a piece of the legislation.

Again, I don't I don't want the public to get confused about this because it's a pretty serious accusation that you're saying the administration of the URA was deficient or trying to do something shady.

There were offers made to you.

This is part of the legislation and the agenda that is circulated to council members.

I do take a really big contention with the implication that we are trying to take something by you.

You were offered briefing materials, this is publicly available.

We cannot compel you to act on an offer to brief you on it.

I don't believe I ever got an email that said, we'd like to offer you a briefing on the downtown trid.

Maybe I did.

Maybe I did.

Um, but you know, we we do offer briefings on every TIFF and TRID that um we propose, and we and we um we present those to the council people, and um sometimes the council member shows up, sometimes their staff members shows up, but we always offer pre-briefings before we submit legislation.

Okay, uh well, that that that could be my mistake.

That could be my mistake.

I'll but um at any rate, um, yeah, so I guess I'm gonna leave it at that.

Um it doesn't feel equitable that all of this future tax revenue should go just to especially now in this in the budget crunch that we are in, right?

In the budget crunch that we are in when we're when we're literally sitting at this table fighting over a couple hundred thousand dollars for this or that, that we should be investing this, you know, taking out a loan against future tax revenue.

By the way, this is like the you know, taxes for for future years, right?

Um, just to invest it in this teeny tiny part of downtown.

And I recognize that downtown is important.

And I, you know, and I and and without any guarantees that the money goes to projects that include affordable housing, and without um any guarantees that the money goes, that money will not go to property owners who are um who are getting, you know, refunds from the city because they don't want to pay their taxes.

Those are two two big points for me.

I mean, that's was from the jump, you know, why I don't feel comfortable comfortable with this among an uh uh among a variety of reasons.

But anyway, I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Um, next in the queue, we have Council President Lavelle, followed by Councilwoman Salonetro.

Thank you.

Um I actually don't have any questions between the conversation that's already taken place, the questions that Councilman Strasberger asked, and many of you all's answers, I don't really have any questions.

Um, what I will say, just based on the last conversation I heard, especially when we begin to sort of talk about what's equitable, right?

Um to do nothing is also a choice that will have an unequitable response for many within the city.

Councilman Warwick, you mentioned very wealthy parts of your district, Squirrel Hill, Shady Side, the likes, and not most squirrel hills specifically, not Shady Side.

The reality is if we do nothing and we continue to lose 8 million over the next two years, like we lost the past two years, this council will have to make unfortunate decisions that are going to affect those citizens.

Here's the reality.

And so we have to take care of it.

And understandably so.

But what will also happen is unfortunately some of our less fortunate neighborhoods will then get short will then get short certed.

And so to not take action, to not do something, is to also make a conscious choice that we were going to either begin providing less services, like doing all the things that Councilman Warwick said, wouldn't it just be a better usage?

I agree, those are all great usages.

Like the rec centers, the give the $2,000.

Like don't doing all that would be really great.

But if we do not do this, we will have even less money to do any of that.

And those citizens in the city that are already being harmed will be harmed even more so.

And so for me, and I've just to be clear, I'm gonna vote.

I've taken three votes to advance this already at the URA.

So I think everyone knows where I stand on this.

But my point to my to my colleagues as a whole is to not act is also making a very hard decision, which is a decision to potentially be even more harmful for the residents of the city of Pittsburgh.

I will also simply say, in some respects, I compare this to the creation of the housing opportunity fund.

We say we have a problem.

We studied the problem.

There's a whole task force that studied the issue.

The number one recommendation said you have less federal money coming into your city, you have less state money, you have less, less, less, less.

If you want to tackle this problem, you have to create a dedicated source of funding to do so.

And that was in the creation of the HOF, which took about two years of political arguing to get established.

Downtown has been the same way for the last four years.

Everyone who has looked at it has said less this, less that.

Thank you.

We were fortunate that a year ago, the governor came in and gave and assisted with a huge boost to put resources into downtown.

But everyone has also said you have to have a dedicated source of revenue that can tackle this issue that allows us to hopefully begin gaining new revenue to tackle all the other issues we as a body want to tackle.

Lastly, I'll simply say, yes, we could, as a body, say we want to borrow money so that we can give every renter two thousand dollars.

We actually could do that.

We actually do it now with the HOF.

We would give people money to a system of buying house.

We could, as a body, decide we want to borrow money for the purposes of doing that.

That's just a that's a separate decision that would have to be made.

My point is it's not an either-or, all the things need to be done.

This is one tool to affect one portion of what needs done to affect the city as a whole and help us grow, stabilize our tax base, um, and hopefully then be able to invest in all the other things that we see as critical to our residents.

Um, uh I think that's yeah, I think that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh we have uh councilwoman Salonetro followed by Councilman Coghill.

Thank you everyone for coming today.

I appreciate it.

I can you talk a little bit how you arrived at the proposed capture area.

I'm not quite understanding why you chose uh all the way to the strip district and the north shore.

I mean, what what what thought processes did we use to come up with the capture area?

Yeah, I mean, basically we studied frankly where is their near-term future incremental real estate taxes by virtue of development that can be used to essentially pay debt service on bonded.

We know that there's potential development on a portion of the North Shore and I, you know, and the strip district as areas where there is this potential for future development that will pay you know incremental real estate taxes that we can in turn use to borrow to use as a source of debt service repayment on the on the financing that we're describing.

I would also say, you know, that's sort of part of the mechanics.

I would also say that um you know from my perspective, you know, downtown the North Shore and the strip district, there's sort of an intimate tie to all of them, right?

Like to the extent that one or all or multiple fail or continue to experience a devaluation, they could all they can all suffer from that.

So there's that there's a there's a specific tie that we believe exists between these three communities to to make it uh um to argue that that's an appropriate value capture area.

Okay.

Now we know that we're not the only city struggle struggling with uh these issues in downtown.

Have you seen any other city that maybe we are modeling against?

You know, maybe somebody else started out a little bit ahead of us in insofar as doing their if they call it a trade or they call it something else.

Um do you know, are we looking at any other cities and seeing their success and and what they've done or their failure and what they've done?

We do.

I mean, if I'm being totally honest, I spent a lot of time thinking about Pittsburgh.

So, but it's a great question.

Um, you know, we do know that parts of New York City, Cleveland, uh, Calgary's interesting, have been pretty aggressive in re in reinvesting in their downtown through various mechanisms.

Can't at least some cities look to us, we get calls all the time actually about well, that's really interesting what you're doing because we're not anywhere near where you are.

So I think in some degree I would say that, and I and I don't speak too out of term, but I know our friends across the state look at us and say, Boy, that's you're really being aggressive and innovative for your downtown in ways that that's enviable, to be honest with you.

Um, and so we do monitor other cities.

I mean, every city has its own dynamic.

Um, you know, it in Pittsburgh I mean it's we didn't talk about this from a data point but I think it's important just for the public record and just to kind of remind that the council bodies our downtown the city of Pittsburgh is downtown our central business district our built environment downtown is heavily skewed towards office and that is unusual nationally we have tracked this it's um excuse me it's the built environment downtown so our downtown is heavily skewed towards buildings that were built to be offices and that's unusual compared to other downtowns.

So I I can't remember the data off the top of my head but I think something like sixty five to seventy percent of our existing built environment downtown Pittsburgh right now is is is an office building.

Largely built in the 1980s we had a big building boom back in the 30s there was a building boom so we have a lot of office buildings that's much a higher it's a much higher percentage compared to a lot of cities that have a more diverse use of uh environment so they have more how city like Nashville as an example a lot of folks look to national and say that's like an ideal mix of built environment.

Like 45% office 45% housing 10% sort of public use.

Pittsburgh right now is like 70 office 20ish housing the balance public use.

And that's a very that's a not a mixed portfolio of investment as I would think about it and that's unusual across nationally as we benchmarked against other cities.

So I don't know if that's helpful.

Yeah I think that's helpful thank you.

I'll just add that um off the top of my head Cincinnati they have a large scale TIFF that captures value and it's backed by a large a large consortium of corporations.

And one of our fellow former URA colleagues now leaves that um Cleveland they have a fund and they have a really aggressive tax abatement post COVID that they put together did I say Philly?

I said Cleveland I meant Cleveland okay sorry thank you.

I made reference to Philadelphia sorry about that yeah Cleveland has a fund and a large tax abatement that has spurred a lot of activity Boston also has a post-COVID fund that has helped move the needle on downtown conversions.

And then um Chicago they do TIFS all the time because the state of Illinois backs their TIFFs and um they're they just I mean they can fund almost anything.

Yeah and some of the state statute like Milwaukee is very aggressive with tax diversions because they have the state statute allows for essentially like the sort of broad use of tax value captures to invest in like downtown.

So they there's some cities that are extremely aggressive with using these types of tools to reinvest in their cities.

Okay.

The only other question I had for you was this was I I thought it was interesting and I kind of wondered how you forecasted this you uh in your I have your presentation here in here and I I was studying this earlier uh in the week and you talk about qualifying development projects and you have currently eight in the works uh 20 in the planning stage and you talk about how you forecast for unknown projects and that's that's my question how do you forecast for unknown I get how you're using you know the eight of the in the works twenty you're in the planning stage so you can you know kind of feel feel for what that's gonna value but how you forecast for unknown projects that's a great question and um it's hard um and it's a certainly imperfect that's not science.

I will say that we use the third party who specializes in analyzing real estate development trends.

Well JLL is our is a part that we used so they they worked with us on their forecast and what they did is they used I believe it was a I can't remember it's a five or ten year preceding trend across the district on housing development hotel development and office development to build a baseline of what could be projected in new housing new office new hotel development sort of based on trends that we've seen over the last several years to create a baseline for what future development could hold.

So that's how we that's how that projection was arrived at based on that data.

Yeah I just that was a that was a little confusing a little challenging of how you how you do that and we still if I mean totally honest, we struggle with that because it's a obviously develop real estate development is hard to especially for this long of a period but we we think it's a we think it's a valid model to at least provide a possible scale right of potential development within the value capture district.

That's it for me.

I thank you all for your uh your work on this thank you thank you, Councilwoman Salonetra.

Now we have uh councilman cockhill and then followed by Councilman Charlotte and Wilson, uh believe they're still online.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um thank you all for being here.

Uh I just first want to start with say we approve it, just hypothetically in school district and county doesn't, or one of them doesn't does it kill the whole trip?

We would have to reanalyze our assumptions.

We can negotiate with them, basically.

Um, we we modeled it based on the three taxing body participation.

Right.

So we'd have to revisit that.

Right.

So we're the first step.

And I know you've already Tom, you said you've already talked to school district a little bit.

Yes, we we briefed publicly.

So this Pittsburgh Public Schools um now the budget and finance committees, the way there's I think it was June 8th, we had a briefing with the it was the full of the board.

So the plan is to see if once we get through our process, whether if we vote it down, it's pretty much back to the drawing board.

But if we pass it, then you move on.

But you're not gonna simultaneously um be at the school district and at the county pitching this until we find out what we do.

Is that fair?

Yes.

That's right, you're on first step.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So let me ask you this.

Is this all really tied into the governor's proposal and council president referred to this a little bit?

Um, you know, the $600 million into the region of the downtown area.

And was this all kind of tied together or yeah, I mean, the the the uh the downtown reinvestment strategy that culminated in the governor's as the council president mentioned generosity?

Um that's there's a that's a full study that would took you know, came it was a um culmination of several months really of engagement and studying downtown to figure out what does downtown need.

And but that was never part of the entire plan when a governor was proposing that it wasn't like oh well the URA and the city of Pittsburgh's gonna have to do this, not have to do it.

Not part of the entire thing.

But but it really ties in because that's where we're investing.

And to Councilwoman Salonetro's uh point when she asked the the boundaries and why you selected that area.

Do we look at this as the most fertile area as to how we're gonna attract development, whether it be housing or business or whatever.

From my perspective, um multifamily housing, probably almost certainly.

Right.

Um, office is so hard right now.

You know, so who's this is where the market is where the market is.

The downtown's multifamily market is that value capture area.

Right.

More or less.

And that's why transit's so important to the whole project and everything.

Let me ask you this.

Are you confident and say after let's jump ahead 40 years?

Okay.

Let's say you extended your loans to 200 million dollars to where you can max out.

Are you confident at the end of the 40 years that we will be gaining more in tax revenue from the gaps that you filled than we spent with the 40 or 200 million dollars?

Yes.

When I look at our tax increment financing portfolio, I see results.

We have no delinquencies.

We see um, and we can I mean we can go to that if you need to, but um we've had real results in tax generation, the creation of jobs, uh production of housing, and the elimination of blight.

Right.

Not only the TIFF and TRID portfolios, but if you look to the Pittsburgh Development Fund, which was a fund that was created and advanced.

How many years ago?

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Well, 35.

The PDF fund has done significant it has turned around many neighborhoods in the city of Pittsburgh.

And um it's a revolving loan fund, and we are um still seeing the benefits of that loan fund.

Right.

So, yes.

Okay, but so at the end of 40 years, um, any tax revenue that comes in above and beyond is gonna be invested back into the same TRID.

That's what you're telling me.

I could I pause, yeah.

So at the end of 40 years, this is all over.

Right.

All everything that's been created is all after 40 years, all tax revenues will then be coming right to the city of Pittsburgh, generated from all the projects that you will be working on.

It will be returned 100% to the three taxing bodies pro RADA.

Yeah, right.

So it's kind of like I don't want to say a bet on our part, but you know, it's uh big time investment right now in a tight spot that we're in, I will say.

Yeah, in hopes in lieu of multiple uh, you know, uh times what we have invested that we will have secured in future tax revenue.

That's correct, it's an investment in ourselves.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Um, you said our debt service would be about 1.9 million, is it?

So 50 million, I mean we have to mod the sum of this is, but generally speaking.

I'm trying to figure out what you're figuring in interest.

Yeah, we've modeled the tax is it's a it's a blended between modeling right now.

We still have bond under rent.

So you're guesstimating a lot of this.

It's the tax exempt and a taxable bond.

Um 1.9 million, would that be over 40 years, or it would just be over 20 years.

20 years.

Okay, so two, so it'd be 40 million for the city of Pittsburgh.

So are we gonna be uh do you have any idea of the interest rate that we might draw from this?

I we can get that.

We have some modeling, I can get that to you.

So it's a 20-year 20 years fully amortizing.

It would build on a debt service reserve fund as part of the borrowing, so we'll build that into it.

Um there'd have to be two separate borrowings that it'd be a taxable and a tax exempt based on our structure right now.

Tax exempt obviously would have a lower interest rate than the taxable bond.

But I don't want to give it.

Is it okay if I get you the money?

No, no, it's fine.

That's fine.

No, I'm just saying, yeah, I don't some of these questions I don't have to answer to.

I know it's difficult and projecting, really.

You're projecting things.

How many units um well let me ask you this.

You get the loan, so everything goes through, you you you take out the bond for 50 million dollars.

Do you have the revenue coming in from new places already to make your payments?

Yes, that's how this is being structured.

Right.

So the revenue's there already.

Will we the revenue will be future incremental real estate taxes would be there by virtue of the development activity that already is going to be.

Right.

Candidly in the near term, largely in the strip district in the north shore.

So so we're really um kind of betting on number one, what we already know is in the pipeline, and that's enough to secure the loan, basically.

That's right.

Okay.

Um we're also betting on you know what's unknown, which who knows what projects spur and come about, whether it's housing or you know, business or whatever it might be.

Um but what you're saying is it's sufficient enough to know that tax increase that we're gonna have from these new units that it secures you're not gonna default on your loan, and it's not gonna come back to us.

That's what I'm asking, right?

That's right.

Yes, right.

Okay.

Um, you know, five years ago when we were throwing money at you from from the ARPA, you know, for the four, I don't know, to four years ago, maybe affordable housing units.

You know, I I I will admit I didn't really know how you operated and functioned, I could tell you, you know, to the degree I do now.

And on a smaller scale in my district, whether it be Berg Place, Casa San Jose on Broadway Avenue, hopefully a grocery store in Carrick, um uh there was others too, I could tell you.

But I see the importance of the URA to be able to jump in and say, Oh, we can make it work because all those deals were not gonna go anywhere.

Until the URA came in and said we can help, and that's what we're here for.

So, um and initially I was thinking, oh, oh, geez, we're gonna we're finally getting some new tax revenue and we're gonna forfeit it to the URA for for 40 years.

And so that really didn't sit well with me, I could tell you, but I am one of who believes the economic engine is the city of downtown city of Pittsburgh, whether it be the North Shore, whether it be the Golden Triangle or the Strip District.

Um I do feel like that's the big prize.

I do feel like we need, and you're I know your studies show, you know, that we need to make investments into investors, basically, in order to increase our population, which of course increases our tax base, and you know, through it all.

So five years ago I probably would not have gone for this, I will tell you.

Um, but I am betting on the URA.

I've seen your work, I've been in the meetings with you, I've seen what you do on a small scale, and I just imagine this to be on a bigger scale and attracting, you know, uh the things that we need to attract to make our city uh first class city, which we all feel it is, but you know, to compete with with the other cities and and the downtown is our economic engine, you know, and that's just the way it always was, and that's the way it's always gonna be.

So um, but through your headwork, through what you've shown me over the past five years in the smaller proceedings in my district, um, I'll be supportive and I'll bet on you.

And I believe 40 years from now, my grandchild will be like, oh, I'm so glad Pappy did that, you know, or Sultan City.

So uh, yeah.

So I have faith in you.

Okay.

I have faith in the project.

I I have faith that someday, even though it will cost us short term in tax revenues that we can count on, um, you know, I have faith in the administration, they they want it, I know they feel it's a good thing, and um I want this mayor to be successful, and I feel that this administration feels like they need this to be successful.

So um again, I feel it's a little bit of a gamble, but I trust in you, I trust that you know, in the end, the city will be in a much better footing and collecting more taxes and increasing our tax revenue.

The only thing I want to promise is you're not gonna forget about the little projects like the grocery store in Kerrick and like these things, right?

I mean, I don't want your focus to be sidetracked.

We multitask, for sure, and thank you for saying what you did.

We you know we care a lot about impact and we care about relationships as you know equally, so thank you.

Yeah, no doubt.

Well, your work is as important, if not more important to me, in the little neighborhoods that you come in and hopefully make something happen, and we'll talk later about you know how fine is to uh projects that are in the pipeline still, one on Broadway, one in Brownsville Road.

So um, so yeah, those are very impactful, and again, because of uh, you know, getting to see up close what you do over the past four or five years.

I my faith has been renewed.

Not that I didn't have faith, but you know, no, I understand.

And it takes time.

It does, yeah.

Right.

No, no, it all takes time, right?

No doubt about it, no doubt about it.

But I'm convinced these are all major projects for our little neighborhoods, yeah.

And I'm convinced none of them, at least the ones I named, uh, would have got the footing and got on track to be successful without the URA.

So um, so that's great.

I look forward to big things and big tax revenues in the future.

And and let me just ask this one last one last question is the 40 or the 50 million dollars, um, if and when you decide, oh, everything's going so great, you'll have to prove it to us again to take out another loan on it, and we'll see our we'll get to see it in you know, real uh reality as to what what you are doing and what you've invested in.

But uh so but there is a cap at 200 million dollars in this over 40 years, yeah.

Right, over 40 years, right, right.

Okay, all right.

Um yeah, well thanks.

I appreciate it.

Um Matt, thank you for you know informing me of all the questions that I've had, and uh I'm comfortable and you know I'll be I'll be supportive.

Thanks.

Thank you, councilman, and now we're uh moving from our in-person colleagues to our online colleagues, starting with the esteemed councilman from District three, councilman Bob Sharlotte.

Thank you, Annie Chairman, and I want to thank the US staff and the mayor's office uh for being here.

Um, like I think I just said before, this is something I've already voted for uh I believe three times, and we'll continue to support um largely because I you know understand the importance of what downtown means to the rest of the city.

I want to start off uh by asking, we you know, this is a tool that has been available for us for a while, um, and to the viewer is that why why now?

Why why do we think this is an important time to act?

I'd say a couple of things.

One, we, you know, so Sheila mentioned this, and thank you for the question, by the way, and thank you for the feedback.

Um we had we had one of our initial uh tools that we advanced, and you know, thank you to this body here was the downtown Lerta, and we we advanced that and and witnessed what what it has done and what it where it may have fallen short.

Um so we're you know we're in a kind of a continuous study and recognition of what's necessary to reinvest downtown.

Um there's there's only you know, at this scale, frankly, to be able to invest at this scale, the only tool, at least that I'm aware of, at least at the local level, to be able to invest at this scale is um is the use of a tax value capture.

And, you know, as we kind of as we do our analysis, as we monitor and as we've talked about the last, frankly, since the alerta, the last two or three years have not been kind from a real estate revenue uh perspective for downtown and for our city, you know, continuing to work at okay, what is the next thing?

How are we going to, what tools are at our are available to us to reinvest in our city, and trade is and from a district wide perspective, trade is the local tool that we have at this scale uh to reinvest in our city.

So, it's really a good moment.

Like, why now then?

Like, why uh this is July of 2026?

Why now?

Why July 2026?

It's a great question.

I mean, I don't know, we work every day.

I will say, I mean, there's some practical elements here just to be want.

There's development happening that if we want to borrow 50 million dollars, we need to have this trip in place to take advantage of that that development activity that's happening in the North Shore of the Strip District.

If we wait, and I don't want to put a specific date on it, but there would be some point at which you would have missed, there would have been missed the window to be able to use those incremental real estate taxes.

So there is some specific timing just from a development pipeline perspective that's at play.

Um so that you know, but yeah, I don't know.

Other than we work every day thinking about downtown, we've been thinking about this, and we've brought this plan forth here at this time.

Um, so you know the other question that I've heard is that you know downtown gets all this attention done is where we'll, you know, where everyone's focusing, uh they're not focusing on uh you know on neighborhood scale projects and things that we need over in neighborhoods.

Um but I understand that without helping downtown, that we can't do anything else we would like to do.

Nothing you know, none of the other trends are on time if downtown's not thriving.

Um, unless of course we we reshift our tasks to take more from the neighborhoods and us from downtown.

We need a health and downtown um for the for the neighborhoods here.

Also at the same time though, and I think councilwoman Salvatore kind of touched on this.

Um I'm curious how we measure our health and downtown, is how do we stack up compared to comparable cities?

How can we measure that?

If you're on our staff that could handle quite a bunch of them, I'm curious what you're looking for to say that downtown is an area that actually needs this kind of investment compared to uh compared to our complical cities.

Yeah, I appreciate that question.

I'll I'll take the last part first, so I can't know what game trailer is.

But last part first.

Um I kind of mentioned this, Councilman Salentaro asked us about benchmarking against other cities, and one of the things that we see uh that downtown Pittsburgh has a dynamic is that we have a, I don't want to say disproportionate because it just is what it is, but compared to many other central business districts and downtowns across the United States, we have a much higher proportion of our built environment, buildings downtown that were built to be office buildings.

So that puts downtown Pittsburgh at a sort of higher risk, I would say, than other cities, as to the uh decrease in the value of office buildings, right?

And we've seen that.

So we talked about the numbers.

As office has struggled and there's been failings, and the value value has decreased, it has a outsized impact on real estate tax revenues compared to what other cities might experience because they may have a more balanced portfolio.

Um so we're roughly right now, I think about it's roughly 70% office, 20% housing, 10% sort of other study that we've sort of monitored and we look at what a balanced city downtown we think should look like would be more like 45, 4510.

Now, just to give some sense of scale to that, there's something like 26 million square feet of office in downtown Pittsburgh.

Um to get from roughly 70% to 45%, we'd have to remove something like eight million square feet of office from downtown to kind of strike that balance.

Um that's gonna take a lot of work.

Like to your point, if it's forty years from now, if we've accomplished that, we should be really, really proud of ourselves.

That's not happening in five years, it's not happening in 10 years.

That would that's a lot of work.

The current pipeline might be roughly two million square feet.

I mean, so you have to do that four times at least probably to get to that balance.

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

You know, I think about sort of a balanced approach to a downtown that makes the downtown, which for Pittsburgh in particular, is really reliant on downtown from a tax revenue perspective.

We've you know, talked about that with different data points and different comment.

Um reliance on a single portfolio of type of uh real estate, uh puts us at more risk.

And it's the extent that there can be a more balanced um revenue generation, this particular real estate revenue through a diversity of product that's more balanced and specifically office housing, other um, you know, makes us less susceptible, frankly, to future, you know, future crisis that could affect one type of use or another.

I'll just quickly add it.

Oh, go ahead.

Oh, sorry.

I'll just I'll just quickly add that another measure that we'll use is you know, when the trid is implemented, there will be a base tax value for the capture area, and we'll know what that is.

Um over time, as projects are redeveloped and taxes increase on those properties as a result of reassessment, we'll be able to see the taxes generated as a result of investment.

We'll also see the number of housing units and public realm investment.

That's another measure.

So you know I think why, well, that's question here.

I I don't remember it's a downtown, right?

Um I represent a district that has a lot of needs in a different part of the city here.

Um, but uh what I what I know when I'm looking here, you guys can talk about the risk.

How does the trend benefit areas like West Hoover and outtown and all that that don't um going to benefit from you know the funding from the trade on the game, but also gonna benefit from the funding of it.

How can they benefit?

I can take that one.

Yeah, but thanks, Matt.

Yeah, no, um, so generally I would say that the the performance of an economically strong neighborhood in any part of the city benefits the city as a whole.

Uh we we touched on this a little bit before, but generally we don't we don't measure what a neighborhood gets or what they deserve, deserve based on how much money they put in.

Residents should expect and residents deserve city services in every single neighborhood in this city.

Is the city able to deliver 100% of the time to every single need on every single request?

Unfortunately, no, because our resources are limited, but things like the TRID through which we can really get our hands around and fully reap the benefits of growth while encouraging growth, sending out this long-term plan to increase the city's revenue base.

That increase in the revenue base is what does give us the capacity to invest in projects throughout the city.

So when downtown real estate values go up and the city brings in more revenue, that's more funding to do projects like say the McKinley Park retaining wall.

Yeah, I think first you say that you can I think while it might be difficult, essentially for, you know, for folks to understand when I pay taxes, you know, in my neighborhood, I'm not the tax dollars aren't necessarily scale in my neighborhood.

They're benefiting the city as a whole, which therefore benefits me as a whole.

Um and I think this is one example of that that we need these tax dollars, you know, in downtown to make sure these projects go through so that we can uh then tax these these buildings and get that money and then finally you know fix my my ten million dollar retaining wall uh that I guess that we need in in Boston and uh in Buster here.

So um again, I find it just the value of this, it's something that I think we will need to continue to monitor closely, but uh I I'll find the above the order of the mayor's office for trying to keep this uh big flame and stabilize our city and make so this council isn't forced to risk taxes again, but and put the burden on our residents to pay for the things that we believe they need in their neighborhood.

So thank you uh for this time.

Thank you for as always for answering whatever questions I have and being more than willing to meet with us, you know, leading up to this, uh, make sure that we felt comfortable, uh, being very available to the council members before this process started.

I appreciate you know all those efforts there.

Um with that, Mr.

Chair, I will interrupt you.

Thank you, Councilman, and uh the last uh pitcher coming out of the bullpen.

Um as we go into the late innings, uh, is my good friend, my long time, yeah.

Do we have a hockey equivalent for that metaphor?

It's just that it's cool.

Hopefully we don't get on the extras, yeah, because we don't know Texas League rules here.

Nobody starts the second base.

Um my good friend uh representing district one on the north side, Councilman Bobby Wilson.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh, can you hear me again?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay.

Just wanted to confirm with that first.

And uh, you know, to your uh analogy, I think I'd rather be cleaned up that than the district.

But um, you know, I appreciate the good analogy.

And you know, just to get started here, I just want to thank the ULA and the mayor's office for their time and attention to this.

Uh especially for myself.

Uh I know that early once any many months ago, uh, whenever heard about the trend, I I uh definitely have some kind of case as to uh what this was about, and uh especially with you know the amount of uh effort that has already gone into help uh downtown, but um but it's clear even after the first conversation how much more is needed.

And uh I think that it's um it's also important to note that, you know, even though we've gone through and I heard the URA, the mayor's always talk about the need for downtown.

I mean, if you're an elected official within the city of Pittsburgh or around the city of Pittsburgh, or even in Pennsylvania, you're not aware of the situation in downtown and what the need is.

I mean it's just it's critical that that is like very much, um, you know, part of your conversation.

I think I mean it was a very important part of your conversation as a politician, someone that's representing an area in the city of Pittsburgh, how we explain.

I think it's very important how that we continue to find our stand is state in downtown so we can continue to explain why the need is so important.

And so we look at a quarter, literally 25% of our real estate tax that used to come from downtown and has you know been uh descending to the turn of six million, uh, you know, we look at many tools, you know, to try and help the situation because I know my office today uh will be submitting because it's you know, all of our office will be submitting uh capital requests instead of my office will submit 10 million dollars of uh on the office of 10 million dollars of capital requests or uh for my district, and so you know, this idea that you know just let downtown just you know implode on itself.

I don't I don't think it's a good strategy since I need that money to really, I need that tax revenue to continue to come in and support all of Pittsburgh, especially whenever each year I'm looking at 10 to 15 million dollar requests of capital investment.

That's just capital investment that's before we get to the flea, but before we get to, you know, any of the operating uh things that you see, picking up trash.

So I I just think it's critically important that we continue to support downtown.

Uh unless unless places like Pittsburgh and other cities come out with some other urban strategy other than having an economic engine like a downtown, and then um you know we have our neighborhoods on the outside of that downtown, unless we come out of a different setup, I'm not I'm not sure that we move away from this strategy to make sure we have a consistent economic engine like downtown that not only supports the real estate tax, but we also have payroll tax.

We also even have uh our uh a RAD go on rad assisted so that you know that 1% from the drink tax that goes to the county and then goes back into our parks to different regional assets like we do, I just think it's perfectly important that we recognize how much really goes into this.

So I'm sorry, I'm kind of belaboring my my comment, but I I don't have a lot of questions for the URA or the administration.

I just want to make sure we continue to set the record straight about transparency because you know, even if even if members aren't gonna read their emails or to readings to understand uh what the trip is and then be able to explain it properly to like their constituency, uh we uh at the city, you know, member, I feel like there are still members here that really want to get to the root of the conversation of what we're trying to solve, and that um, you know, we're having those conversations, learn what's going on.

And if I recall, because I know there's a lot of you know, thank you being given to certain members to kind of question this, and really it's it seems to be directed as like the questioning it, um, you know, they're thankful for the questions because they're on the opposite side of this, so they wouldn't be supporting this, that somehow they are the ones that gave transparency to this.

So, you know, I hate those pets.

I hate the fat myself in the back here, but I'm literally the one that brought everyone at the URA to the table of the Bill Game that I had everyone skipped through 20 minutes of questions that we all should have done anyway, and then a lot of balls went off on individual, like individual council members that really want to throw some baggage into this.

So I want to set the members free on that that, you know, I think we're all trying to do our job as being as transparent as possible about what's happening here, and uh it's been great to listen to uh, especially Mr.

Singer, uh, for really uh letting the public know that this is not a giveaway.

Um once again, like if you're not willing to really understand what's going on here, then you're really doing the public a disservice, and uh, you know, it's hard to have that real conversation on the council table for us here that are trying to get something done.

We're trying to get something done for the working families in the city of Pittsburgh, and that's pretty evident, especially when I'm talking about the 10, 15 million dollars that are accountable projects.

Um, so you know, if you're not willing to have a real conversation as to uh that these are loans and that the UA has a zero percent, well sorry, they have zero loans that are given in this fashion like this, that are in default, meaning like past trades and current trades, past trips, and also uh current tips and past tips, like basically those loans that were given to these projects are have been repaid or on the fact should be repaid, and they haven't defaulted on the loan.

So, yeah, no one's coming to pick up, no one's coming to refill the cars for those projects.

I also uh want to make sure that we, you know, talk about the affordable uh housing that's happening through the trip.

I'm hearing numbers of upwards of three times of affordable housing.

Uh upwards of 28% possible for uh downtown uh to be affordable, and there's you know, basically 28% of of these these funds going into this would create upwards of 28%, which is approximately almost threefold of what uh you know any other uh ideas that are brought forward since I've been council that's three times the amount uh you know, say, Blue Sharon Zone, three times the amount of luxury zoning uh of affordable housing that would happen downtown.

So I think that's also good important to note that if you you know see something that could be as successful as this and you're you know, doesn't fit your narrative that this is a giveaway, you know, that those are the terms that are being used that really you're also really just doing an injustice to people who could receive that affordable housing.

So I mean I just think this is really a time whenever you see uh a mayor and a council and the URA trying to come together to try to solve a really large long-term issue uh for individuals to really try and buckle down and figure out how to use the tools we have available to really accomplish something.

I just think this is uh I think this is that time that the public is seeing, and uh and I just I just want to thank what everyone applaws.

So I do have a couple questions here.

Uh the one question is the projects uh that will receive funding.

Uh could you could you uh could you help us understand more of those affordable housing numbers?

I know that there is some questions going back going back on LITEC, but uh I think it's just important to to note uh some of the some of the housing, the uh affordable housing that will be created for this, and then also uh second part of that question is how much actual conversions could we actually continue to do and how many how many are left because in downtown, there is really not that there's a max number, but there is a a max likely number since only certain buildings are right for conversion.

Okay, yeah, well thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um we appreciate your feedback and your engagement uh as we've worked through this process.

I think your first question on the affordable housing.

So the current units that we're tracking today, and again, these are not these can change, but it's it's about 1700 or so units that have not been delivered that you know could be delivered.

Um of those 1700 units that we're tracking, about twenty-seven percent of the units within those of those seventeen hundred uh currently right now we plan to be affordable units.

Now that would be a mix of some nine, you know, PHFA tax credit projects and potentially other development projects that are mixed income projects that candidly would probably take advantage of the downtown LERTA and have the affordability attached with that.

Your second question.

Oh, how many projects downtown?

So the current plan I think has something like 10 to 12 individual pipeline buildings downtown that are potential redevelopments that can change.

We may, you know, I don't, even when I was gone, there was some project came up that I had heard of before.

So development is obviously uh it can change over time, but sitting here right now, something like 10 to 12, maybe up to 15 individual buildings that are in some level of reality of a potential redevelopment.

That's not to say that they will all happen.

Um, and it's not also to say that there could be future developments that we don't know about sitting here today that could come along.

But that that's that's what we're looking at uh right now in our pipeline.

Okay, great.

And then, yeah, I do want to solve and recognize, and I know there's some questions being asked about the common oil ratio.

You know, I don't think you know that's getting really really into the weeds on what we're looking at here.

I mean, tax reassessment, I'm gonna say the tax reassessment may fix uh you know in the houses with fixed common or ratio.

You know, everyone wants to go and look that up, look that definition up to see understand what that is, but it doesn't make the properties more.

Well, let me say it doesn't put people in those empty buildings.

So just because there is this reassessment, it doesn't actually, you know, fix our fix our our tax loss problem here.

Is that true?

That's true.

I mean, yeah, okay, well, I'm not gonna go over that.

And then we that the absolute that the 40 years, I think it's also important to know that those 40 years, even though it does sound like a long term, I just want to reiterate that there is some of the truth, every other trip that we have in the city of the 20 years.

Is that correct?

Yes, sorry.

Yes.

So that's correct.

So the reason for that monitoring, talking to you all is that you know, this reassessment, one of the properties reassessed from this tax capture, so we use, let's just say building one, uh, in the strip district, but that's that's bill.

We know it's gonna be done in year one, okay.

That could fit into a smaller, uh, you know, a smaller uh trip.

Uh you know, smaller uh trip like a 20 year, whatever, like a 22-year trip maybe.

But the project that gets done in year six, it isn't an assessment until it's reassessed until year six.

We couldn't capture the full 20 years of one of the cash of that in in that in a smaller trip.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying.

I mean I think what you're saying is that there's a timing element here, right?

So you don't the the trid revenues are not available until there's a reassessment and the you know the property is completed, the construction happens, the risk reassessed taxes are paid.

You know, the clock at your point if it's three years from now, you know, the forty having it be longer than a 20-year term essentially allows for that 20 years to kind of go through that term and allow to collect the full benefit of those revenues for um for the purposes of you know paying debt service essentially on trade borrowings.

Okay.

Um, since I did say this was a fact from the uh meeting, the use clearance fine also uh why you have uh zero controls on loans of trips and uh TIFS.

Is that correct?

Yeah, we so the answer is yes, we have no there's no defaults in our current TIFF for tax value capture uh portfolio.

Um why that is, I mean I would generally say because we candidly have a deep deep experience and professional expertise to underwrite and structure these.

We use we use you know outside expertise, including bond underwriters, bond counselors, bond council, excuse me, uh to ensure that when we structure these borrowings and it's structure these TIFFs and TRIDS that they're set up in a manner that you minimizes to the best extent as possible risk associated with the TIFF and TRID borrowings.

And that's in our experience has been that we've been very successful in doing that.

Okay, uh, well, I almost want to thank you all for your time.

Yeah, I think the risk is doing nothing.

Uh you know, I think that there's a huge risk when you're talking risk in terms of leaving downtown uh in the way that it is, and uh really appreciate you all, especially uh uh Director Namani Steiner for going through the kind of trying to paint the visual picture of uh the vertical uh we call it a vertical blank, but really what, you know, this is really invisible, uh, it's invisible to most of the public what's happening downtown, and it's only on paper unless you take a tool in these buildings to take pictures of it, which I think will be a good idea uh for the public to understand what's happening here, but you know, for us to just ignore that this is happening is is not is not a real solution.

Uh these these uh uh there was something else I want to say, which was just really speaking to the value of of this of this tool, which is the truth.

So, you know, that we can we can actually try to inject some funds in in uh in projects that the banks uh you know may not banks and investors may not um you know see as as uh as much of value to them, but for you know, the residents of Pittsburgh, but somebody represents the residents of Pittsburgh, that is that the downtown is uh is a real value to to us and for us to you know insert these loans into these projects to get them done, as we can see, uh continued, you know, real estate increased real estate taxes generated from that I think would be incredible um to see.

And so, you know, uh looking forward to the first uh disbursement uh of this so that whenever we all come back for the first tranche, and you know, the risk is uh will be evaluated then in terms of the projects we propose that will be you know able to repay uh the loan, which you're saying to us is 1.9 million dollars of the version uh to see the greater benefits.

So and then if this works out, then we come back for a second time.

But uh I think it's important just to know that if you know, yeah.

If and only if we see that this tool has been uh been broken, then we would move forward with that.

Is that correct?

It's kind of my last question.

Just that, you know, if this plan that we're proposing, if we aren't seeing it really benefit, benefit us or be you know successful in terms of risk, then the bill will be a lot more questions on the second tranche.

Is that correct?

Yeah, there's no obligation to approve a second tranche.

The plan allows for it, but we could require you know future authorizations.

And we currently.

So we can reevaluate that then.

Uh I want to thank you all for your time.

Thank you, Chair, for making this happen.

Uh Chair Mosley, appreciate you making sure that uh you recognize us online, and also uh appreciate your promise about starting us off.

Thanks everyone.

Have a better rest of your day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

And before I begin my brief round of questions, um, you know, most questions have been asked and answered um multiple times, but I do want to just know for the record again, you know, uh we've been joined by councilwoman Strasberger, Councilwoman Warwick, Council President LaBelle did join us earlier, Councilwoman Salonishro joined us earlier.

We're still joined by Councilman Coghill, and we're also joined by Councilman Charlotte and Councilman Wilson online.

Um I just have a a few questions before we close out.

Um my first question um is for Chief Singer.

You know, there's been uh you know, there's obviously the back and forth at the table.

There's obviously a lot of chatter um, you know, in the public around uh the nature um, you know, uh uh of this proposal of of the of the loan of versus the giveaway um uh for lack of of a more artful way to say it.

Can you just talk about you know uh the the point that you made earlier of of of why it's a loan and kind of just walk us through you know that that process map of of of why um from your standpoint this is a loan and and in your rebuttal against those who would say this is a giveaway for developers?

So I'm going to suggest that Tom, you're probably more equipped to talk about what happens once money actually goes out but I think generally the sense of if we are committing public tax dollars to a project and we in turn are able to bring tax dollars in and they return to the city the money has gone out and the money is gone money has come back.

Yeah the intention here would be that monies that the TRID generates through a borrowing that are that flow through the ore to make investments directly in real estate projects would be some sort of a debt instrument that would have would be repaid.

So I mean they just to be clear they would you know work with the questions before private financing and private equity and other sources of public finance for presumably in some of these projects but would have a uh the fund loans would go in as a gap uh gap financing to fill a last piece of the the structure of the capital stack and would have um the terms would have return of those funds back to the URA um by the project themselves to be able to redeploy to trade eligible projects in the future that's the that's the plan.

All right thank you um and then I just have a couple other um questions um we talked about when you were at the table a couple weeks ago but in particular um the the success and the model of the uh the affordable housing fund that was created in East Liberty um and uh could you talk about like a at what part of of the process of this particular you know project um could something like that uh you know be implemented you know as as we go through the timeline of where we are now to like what part of the process um you know because I think one of the unique things and to speak a little bit to council uh person warwick's um you know contention about how some projects are you know all market rate you know some projects I would assume may be exclusively affordable or um majority you know affordable and how you get to that that uh 27 28 percent number I know in East Liberty was similar to some you know projects that were all you know market rate but then there's uh projects like Mellon Orchard you know which are heavily um you know affordable and I know that was uh uh uh a product of the affordable housing fund so it you know so even if someone did a all market rate development um the the proceeds from the trid would go into a fund that would create affordable housing in other places um so taking that in mind at what point uh in the in the process could we look at you know establishing a similar kind of fund that we saw in East Liberty around affordable housing around you know around this district that's a great question so just to kind of step back the yeah so the L and C Liberty Trid there's a housing fund that is one of the uh the East End affordable housing fund which is a fund that was created as as part of one of the uses of funds from uh TRID revenues that were created that create a specific fund that makes um direct investment in in affordable housing development within the uh within the El Treasure um so the way this plan reads is that there would be a fund created to make direct investment in in real estate development projects um and and largely I think in the near term in fact all of them I would almost certainly would be how multifamily housing development um a number of which would uh be affordable housing development um the question of when we would when to have a conversation to create a specific separate fund that would be specific for affordable housing I'd have to think on that and we'd have to I think that warrants further discussion um the plan frankly does not specifically call for that right now I could potentially again I'm just we're having conversation here you know future borrowing perhaps uh that could be could be part of that um or even thought to frankly returns on the loans that we actually do make that could be a potential source of actually of a similar fund but that's there's that's my initial reaction to that.

Okay.

And then um as we said, there's a uh uh ultimately a 40-year time horizon, but it seems like a 20-year participation period for again like a lack of a more artful way to say it.

So at the end of those 20 years, then all of the tax proceeds begin to come back um to the taxing bodies, even though, like, say, for example, somebody's, you know, starts, you know, hypothetically if this passes and in this begins, you know, and in 2027, they begin, so then in 2047, you know, they'll be done, those proceeds will then begin to come back, even though you know, was it 20?

Now we're talking 2066 or 2067, the entire horizon of the district would exist, but 20 years from now, you know, that participant would then be get, you know, all the full taxes would come from um, you know, that pro that project.

That's right.

And I I don't know there's any other that's that's well, I don't know how else to say that's right.

So the individual parcel that would be pledged to a specific borrowing, that borrowing can be no more than 20 years, that parcels incremental real estate taxes and are used to outpay the debt service once that borrowing is retired, you know, and fully uh at the end of the 20 years, that parcel that was pledged to pay that debt service then is released from that, and the full taxes then would come back to the taxing bodies.

Okay, and then um and my next question is again, I'm kind of beating this phraseology into a uh to a dead horse, but for lack of a better way to say it, um I'm just calling it like a 40 10 model, you know, the 40 million, 10 million.

Um, in you know, again, hypothetically speaking, you know, this passes, this moves forward.

Do you see in in future increments because you said you know, this would be a fifty million dollar, potentially up to 200 million dollars.

Do you see that kind of each $50 million increment um having that same 40-10 model, or is there a possibility to kind of uh revisit that in 3020, 2020, you know, 2525, et cetera.

So I would say that yeah, the future borrowing there would be an opportunity to revisit.

I mean, I think it's gotta be based on need, right?

Like so what it the say five, I'm you know, whatever may come back for future borrowing.

The first question is what is it, what is the need and what are the types of projects that have need, and then how can they be paid for and how can TRID support that?

And that should inform to your question, is it 40 10?

Is it 50?

I don't, you know, and what the scale of the borrowing is, right?

Like for we're modeling today, we think we could do up to 50 million based on current development pipeline.

The next borrowing we'd have we would have to do a similar analysis.

Okay, what what development pipeline is available and potential real estate taxes to support the size of a debt?

So I think it all that all of that conversation would have to happen.

To answer your question most simply though, I do think that would be an opportunity to revisit that for future borrowing that sort of mix.

Right, and and is there um a sense of the time horizon on the completion of the current projects in the pipeline, because that's kind of when the value capture begins, like once those are completed.

Right.

So the the projects that we would be using for the incremental real estate taxes to borrow against, I see you know those are near-term projects.

We expect construction completions and reassessments, hopefully within the next like three to five years, right?

These are known projects that are in a sort of in a process.

The downtown projects, you know, it's a little hard to say.

Um the projects would have to come forth and have a right a level of readiness.

So just to be very clear, we would not like the TRID would not invest in a real estate project that doesn't have all of its other sources ready and in place to actually start construction.

Um, you know, my anticipation is that um, you know, with if this fund we you know, if we go to a borrowing and we're in a position to deploy funds, say by first quarter 2027, you know, we wouldn't want to get the majority of those funds out uh within a year, right?

We don't want to borrow money and then be sitting on it waiting for it to be.

So we would have done an analysis and say, Okay, here are the these projects are ready with this specific dollar amount from this timeline to get completed.

Otherwise, we we wouldn't deploy monies into those individual projects.

They should be relatively near term.

All right, and uh and I think my my last question, because obviously very soon you'll y'all all be back at the table, and I'm sure we're gonna have um you know um another long discussion, which I think is good.

You know, I think it's very important, you know, for the public for us to have these discussions and have these forums to discuss these uh important matters.

But my my last question is is kind of uh um a piggyback off of the line of questioning that Councilman Salah Netro uh was going on.

If you could kind of pick out, you know, a couple peer cities, you know, and and I think you mentioned it, but even if you could elaborate further on some peer cities that you feel like have you know jumped out ahead of us, you know, since 2020, um, you know, specifically around using these tools or even other tools, you know, cities we really um need to look at.

I know you spoke specifically about the unique characteristic um uh of our downtown footprint, you know, and how it leans so heavily commercial.

Yeah, you know, I think partially because it was the third largest corporate headquarters in North America, you know, uh for the better part of the 20th century.

So you know, particularly given the size of New York City and Chicago and the and the size of Pittsburgh, the fact that it was the third largest corporate headquarters in North America, um given, you know, obviously how we're much smaller, anybody's ever been to the five boroughs or the window city knows how geographically we're small, so it makes sense of how skewed that is um to a tour commercial for our downtown.

Um but if you could just you know, um, you know, you speak from from your per your perspective on the cities we really need to look to, you know, specifically around this tour or any other, you know, potential tools as we try to catch up as we you know continue to wade our way out of the pandemic.

So I think the discussion we had before, I mean, Cincinnati comes to mind almost immediately.

They've been very aggressive for frankly for a long time, uh, with specific dedicated funding that's been available for several years, um, that's that to reinvest specifically downtown, is a city that um, you know, I think is a city that we look to.

I mean, I personally, you know, Cleveland comes to mind oftentimes.

I mean, some of this is state, you know, there's not everything we can control, but like in Ohio, they have more, some more aggressive opportunities relates to Lerta and the use of other sort of tax tools.

But um Cleveland comes to mind as a city that's been very aggressive uh and using these types of types of tools, you know.

They learn as more uh or tax abatements more prevalent in Cleveland, um, but to advance downtown.

So those two cities, I think from a scale perspective come to mind uh similar to Pittsburgh.

Just from a like and I have not I have to say I I admit this, I've never been there, but I read about so I can start for me to say it's from first hand knowledge, but Nashville comes up a lot as sort of a downtown that has found a good balance of what a mix of sort of housing, office, public space, and it should be, and a lot of folks sort of point to that, frankly, might be worth a visit for me personally, but others to kind of check out to see what that actually looks like and how successful that is.

But those are cities that come to mind for me.

Well, thank you.

I think that exhausts my question for today.

There'll be uh you know, many more questions, and it seems like uh my colleagues have some questions.

I first saw your hands up, count Councilman Cockhill, then Councilwoman Warwick.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chairman, and thank you again for calling this uh post-agenda.

I feel like I I really needed I needed their things out and it, you know, clarified some things for me.

So thank you.

I don't mean to put us in extra innings here.

But um just two quick questions, really.

Um, these are quick.

Uh 25% will go into um transportation.

12.5 million roughly of the 50 million, correct?

10.

10 million.

So we do 50 roughly, 40, real estate, 10, okay.

So and that will go in anticipation as to being like partnerships with PRT, is that right?

And whether it's a new station, whether it's just to try to help fill gaps there with PRT, we're hoping we'll invest as well, and we together will help bridge that gap as we do.

And um that's kind of what the tr transportation aspect is, right?

Yes, because these new places, these new units, these are new housing, it's vital to have good transportation there, and that's the whole idea behind it, right?

So that had to be baked into the kind of the plan.

The other thing was so what happens uh, say we're 10 years in our debt payment is two million dollars as a city, but and you may have answered this, but we're now generating five million dollars in new revenues from new units.

What happened to that additional three million dollars?

Where's that go?

Or do we just put it towards the principal or well?

The excess goes to the taxing body.

So we have pledged increment that goes toward the repayment.

75% is pledged increment that goes toward the repayment of the bond.

Right.

But but I'm saying if if it's a two million dollars payment for us for for the URA annually, but we're taking in at this point five million dollars.

The three million dollars goes to the tax back to the taxing bodies.

Well you receive the unpledged 25%.

The pledge, 75%, goes to pay down the loan.

Okay, so we get 25% of whatever comes in over the right of the taxing bodies.

Does that start um does that start before the loan is paid off then?

Yeah.

So okay.

So the day one, it's it's rated and judged by the payment.

So if the payments two million dollars, we're bringing in six million dollars, three million dollars, twenty-five percent of three million dollars will be split between the three taxing bodies.

Is that correct?

Yeah, pro random against your military.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um okay, uh that's it.

Uh I'm ready for the bullpen.

Council reward.

So I just wanted to quickly, and I know this has been long.

I just wanted to clarify one last time, because I I'm still not clear.

When we're providing this gap financing to a given pro, so you know acme construction is building a building or whatever acme developers building building, and we are, and they're like, I need an extra five million dollars in order to you know get this project done.

They get five million dollars out of this, you know, out of this program.

Do they pay that back?

Do they pay like monthly payments and a loan, like a loan?

We'd have to strike, I mean, I don't know so individual projects you would have to structure it individually.

Just have to be really clear.

So affordable housing, just as an example.

Like if you do a nine percent, like they say it's not paid back every month.

But can you answer the question?

Is it paid back like as like like the same way?

Like I I buy my house, right?

And the bank gives me money, but they don't give me money, they lend me money, and I pay them back with interest every month.

Is that what these developers are doing with if we give them five million dollars of gap financing?

I think each project we'd have to underwrite specifically, and the the specific repayment terms would have to be against the individual project.

Is that is that what this is?

Yes.

So, please.

Yes, so yes, we would have repayment, and I think um might be getting a little into the weeds as to what those are payment terms would be and whether they'd be monthly or how they would be structured based on what that would be.

So how would they be structured typically?

So it would depend on the project, right?

And that's you know, kind of that it depends.

But that's that doesn't uh can I have an example?

Sure.

I'm gonna turn back to Tom.

Okay, and so for example, 9% affordable housing development, you probably would have I might look to my colleagues, it's like 30 40 year terms, very, very low interest rates, and you're probably I can't but you're paying like an interest only payment uh for a good portion of that term because affordable housing developments, they can't just they're not able to support that in the way you're describing, like fully amortizing debt.

More market rate deal, we wonder right if there's enough if the cash flow is sufficient after they've paid debt service on their prime their bank loan, like they're gonna have to go get private debt, um, you know, they have to satisfy their investors.

Um cash flow that's available to pay debt service, then that could be structured against that cash flow to pay the debt back, depending on the timing of and uh value of that that excess cash flow to repay the debt.

That doesn't sound like a loan to me.

I don't know.

That doesn't that sounds a very vague, incredibly vague.

And that they would pay, I mean, like I I would rather them owe us first.

If we're giving if the taxpayers are giving them money, I would rather them owe us, not them.

Well, you pay back your bank and you pay back your mortgage and all your private loans, you you take care of you first, and then if there's a little money left over, or we'll structure it in such a way that then you pay back.

That doesn't feel like a loan to me.

And I think that is why, as we've been having this conversation, and in prior conversations where this question of it's a loan has come up, and so many people again.

I am not an expert in any of this.

This is all brand new to me, and I'll get to that in a moment.

This is all brand new to me.

Uh that's why so many people, both now and over the past few weeks have been like, this is not a because I've said, but I've heard from so and so that it's a loan, it's not a loan.

So I think that's the key.

I think one of the things that's interesting as someone who's like the newest person to the URA at this table is to kind of see how these projects go forward.

And I think that when we talk about URA funding, we kind of that's falling into one of two buckets, essentially, right?

It's a loan or it's a grant, right?

And when we give a grant, we say, here's your money.

There may be some ways we're telling you to spend it, but as long as you spend it that way, that's your money.

And then there's loans, and the way that these loans are structured are not going to be the way uh standard bank loan is structured because often URA loans are forgiven, right?

After seven years.

I was not saying with small business, I mean there's other loans.

So I think it depends on the loan.

I think some loans are set up that way.

I d I would not say often URA loans are forgiven unless they are structured in a way that that is how they are intended.

So it's an, you know, and I think that how those are structured, and we have a great team that looks at those, and that those are conversations about how those repayments are coming in and what that looks like, and how we are not your standard lender.

And so it's not so, in defense of the folks who are calling this a giveaway, I think this lack of clarity about how we get the money back is fair.

I will just say that.

Okay.

I I would disagree, and I would think that we would be able to provide additional information about how those are structured and maybe outside of the uh outside of this room about kind of what those repayment terms can look like.

Okay, so that actually brings me to my my next point.

And I do want to so Catherine, I do want to say you have sent numerous emails.

This has been mentioned numerous times in emails since January.

So I want to make sure that thank you.

I appreciate that.

I so I I do want to be clear about that.

But I do want to say, and this is not uh on you, but I had I did not know what a TRID was before this.

I don't I can't speak for other members.

Um, you know, I admire Councilman Wilson who reads every email and every PDF that's attached to every email.

That's that's wonderful.

Um I uh this is new to me, and I would appreciate from the administration and from the URA for something that is dealing with hundreds of millions of tax dollars over the next 40 years, a briefing for council, which is very common, where we get, you know, we can come and I know some people send staff.

I I try to go to briefings as much as I can.

These like in the um, where we can sit down and we can get into these nitty-gritty questions that that we're talking about, right, before we come to the table, and so you know, so all of that is to say, I want to thank councilwoman gross again, because if it weren't for her, and I'm um I'm bummed out that she's not here today.

She would have been a good person to have at the table today, but she she had a prior engagement.

Um, you know, I would have not even known to like dive into this as much as we we had.

I I would have never known.

And and you know, maybe that's on me as a council member.

That's fine, but um uh nonetheless.

Now I do want to say though, just because quickly, yes.

I appreciate your feedback and you know your partnership on so many other projects, and we did offer individual briefings, and I appreciate that maybe in the future having everyone as a collective.

Um, so thank you for that feedback.

Many of many of other your colleagues took us up on those individual briefings, and we also just want to note for the record, had a really robust conversation with Councilmember Gross on Friday, and she asked many of the questions that she would have asked today, and we had a really thorough discussion.

So I want to thank her for that info too.

And we had a we had an in-depth conversation after it was introduced, right?

Like I, you know, I I I asked for an and absolutely got one.

So I want to, you know, be clear on that.

I I appreciate it.

Um, I do want to ask though, so and again, I'm this this is being sent to me, but um, and I'm just reading this here.

Um, it says the PA TRID Act of 2024 requires that, quote, community and public involvement in the establishment of TRIDS is required.

The music municipality and the public transportation agency shall jointly conduct at least one public meeting in the proposed TRID area prior to the enactment of a TRID and TRID planning study.

Uh so I guess the question is has the planning study been completed?

And if so, is this the plan that we're talking about?

And uh did did we have the required.

I mean, I know we had this public meeting because we called for it, right?

Um but was this public process followed before all of this, you know, discussion rolled out.

There are two, there are two related documents that well, three related documents that are part of the TRID legislation.

The TRID implementation plan that memorializes what we're proposing as the value capture district, the 75%, the 40 years, the 20-year individual parcel pledge.

The TRID Planning Study, which is an attachment and exhibit to the TRID implementation plan, and the JLL analysis, and that's the study that shows what the TRID could yield as a result of development that would occur in the value captured district.

The TRID planning study is a compilation of studies that have been conducted since 2020 in the post-COVID downtown.

And I don't know if we've read it yet, but it's it's a it's a compilation of vision studies, analysis, planning efforts, including meetings and participatory um, you know, um engagements around post-COVID downtown.

See, right.

Yeah.

Um, but I mean, was there a public hearing, a public meeting?

There were many public meetings related to the downtown post-COVID revitalization efforts.

But the TRID though.

For the TRID, we had the public hearing, was it last week?

Yeah, yeah.

And so we have, you know, a number of last but you mean the public hearing the city council called.

As part of our process, yeah.

Yes.

And as detailed on, I would pull it up, but my laptop has um is without battery now.

Um, there's so many different steps with the public throughout the whole process, and every time that this is considered before the URA board, those are public meetings as well.

There's a many steps kind of taken over.

And is and oh, also is the is is the TRID posted now on the URA website.

It is.

When was it posted?

We it was posted last week after we received um you know feedback from the public about that, and we really appreciated that.

That was an oversight.

And it was also already attached, it was already public.

I mean, it was already, as you would know, we submitted the implementation plan when we submitted the legislation that was you know submitted on May 20th, and that was open to the public on Legislatar prior to that public hearing last week.

Got it, got it, okay.

It's also been in front of URA board meetings, which there's always a public component to our board meetings, like two, three times since January.

I believe uh three.

Three, okay.

I mean, uh I I understand, but you know, just sort of knowing government and things are quite buried, and there's you know, posting something or having something in an agenda in a meeting versus having you know, and we appreciated that that you know, that feedback last week, and you know, immediately responded to have that on our website.

I I just while I'm while I'm speaking, I do need to clarify something as someone formerly ran commercial lending.

I want to say on public record that it's not um common practice for URA loans to be forgiven after seven years anymore.

Um that might have been previously, but our commercial lending shop um is a mission-based lender, does an excellent job deploying capital every year, primarily to minority and women-owned businesses.

We do um really expect repayment and take out collateral on those on those loans.

Okay, okay.

And then the last thing, so again, just to go back to the pure cities, so Cleveland.

Now you said Cleveland doesn't necessarily do trids, they do abatements.

I believe in their post-COVID environment, they passed a really steep tax abatement.

Really aggressive and generous tax abatement, as well as creating a fund for downtown conversions.

Okay, yeah.

So I do want to say, and I don't, I mean, you know, I I I burst a little at tax abatements too, right?

Again, but um, you know, um, but uh an abatement is different than this, right?

And abatement is different than taking an abatement is just not like saying you don't need to pay the taxes for this number of years, then that helps you kind of figure out your financing over the years, but that's not money that the city is paying today.

It's just money that you know, taxes that you don't have to pay down the road tomorrow for a certain period of time.

So it's quite different, and abatement versus what we're doing here, which is taking out a loan against future tax revenue that you know, future estimated tax revenue, right?

Alone that then we have to you know pay back with interest.

Um and then you said Nashville was the other, the Nashville downtown.

Uh yeah, I also I mentioned the Cincinnati that was that they have a large citywide TIFF program that um is backed by uh a consortium of corporations, um so not the city of Cincinnati, but corpor but corporations right are back are are backing that loan.

But not the city of Cincinnati.

So not the taxpayers of Cincinnati.

I can get back to you on it.

Okay.

And then just as far as Nashville, and maybe they, but I I do I mean Nashville, I would not consider Nashville at Pierce.

I've been to Nashville.

Nashville downtown is wild, right?

It is wild.

It's it's like Las Vegas.

I mean it's not as big as Las Vegas, but it is not the same thing as as downtown Pittsburgh, right?

I think that's fair.

Um anyway, I know this has been a long, so I I'll stop now, I'll leave it at that, but thank you.

Thank you all.

Yeah, thank you.

I believe Councilman Wilson um had a final comment that he wanted to share before we adjourn.

I appreciate that uh you know I'm just a bit sitting here listening to uh Councilman Ward and uh uh it's interesting.

It's interesting to see the mental gymnastics of trying to turn what is a loan into sound like a grant, and uh yeah, I just think that we should recognize you know our partners of URA and want to believe that they are truthful, want to say that they're that these are loans, uh, some structural.

We can do this in the structure of it, but I mean this is this is really getting into the wings of it, but a loan is a loan and a ground is a grant.

And then also, uh the other thing I thought was interesting was that our voted for the Manchester trip.

So I'm hoping we know what a trip is, and uh that's about all I want to say.

I just uh don't really appreciate it when we see home service like you on any tree like this, and uh wish we would just take the information that they have and not try and twist it.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Wilson.

Anything else from the floor?

Okay, well I want to again um just acknowledge that we were joined by Councilwoman Strasberger, and we're still joined by Council Woman Warwick.

We were joined by Council President Labelle, who were joined by Council Woman Salah Netro, Councilman Coghill, and all by Councilman Wilson, who I believe is still with us, and Councilman Charlotte and I want to thank uh Director Murray, Director of Mani Stinger, Chief Link, Counselor Dearson, and Chief Singer for being here today and um answering uh numerous questions and looking forward to you coming back to the table uh later this month as we continue this conversation.

I want to thank everyone who is is contributed and will contribute to this ongoing um conversation conversation as as it is a very critical conversation for our city and having exhausted the business of this post-agenda, this meeting is now adjourned.

Thank you.

But I do see we have Colleen Cadman here.

I think Colleen Colleen, would you like to make public comment?

Hello, can you hear me?

Hi, we sure can.

Um hi my name is Colleen Cadman.

Um I currently own a home in Carrick Avenue.

And um unfortunately I feel like um I have uh fallen into a circumstance, unfortunately, that many have that where I've gotten a divorce and um the home has uh been uninhabited for uh several years, and it's just gotten to the point where I financially cannot maintain the property or fix it up or um do anything with it.

I tried to sell it a couple of years ago, um, but due to the um taxes, their tax lien on the property, um it just the deal fell through.

Um I'm very thankful for the program that uh the Pittsbury Land Bank is providing with the opportunity that maybe you know the the taxes can be cleared and donate the property so that it can go to another family, um somebody that maybe can flip it and it can go to another family.

It's a great home, steps away from one of the best elementary schools in the city.

Um so I really hope that it can go to another family and get a second life um and help clean up the neighborhood.

Um I loved living in Carrick when we were there.

Um there's so many opportunities and and everything, but you know, I would really like this property, like I said, to be able to get fixed up and um go to somebody who again can enjoy the city and what it has has to offer.

Thank you, thank you, Colleen.

Um let me move down my list here.

I see um Reverend Walls.

We'll be making public comment today.

Hello everyone.

Um I name is Lee Walls.

I am the founder and executive director of Monty Christian Community Development Corporation.

We um are uh scheduled to receive some property uh in our portfolio for the development of a parcel in along Kelly Street in Pittsburgh Homewood community.

Um first of all, I want to thank the land bank for all of its efforts to help us revitalize our communities all across the city of Pittsburgh.

I think with a fully funded to those who might be listening.

Uh Land Bank uh continually yearly uh moving forward.

It would greatly advance the opportunity for community development corporations and nonprofits to revitalize and change our communities, but specifically for our particular project, it is a thirteen unit um for sale uh project.

Um, and it is in homewood, uh community that has been disinvested uh for over 30 years, and we certainly want to uh acquire this property to uh move the dial on uh potential home ownership.

So I'm grateful for the land bank, uh its staff, uh Sally, Stadleman, and Josh uh for um just going beyond the call to make sure organizations like myself are able to move forward with our intention to provide home ownership for the residents across the city of Pittsburgh.

So thank you.

Thanks, Reverend Walls.

Next up we have Maggie Dudley.

Maggie, whenever you're ready.

Hello.

I just want to make sure we're not waiting for certain properties to be to be addressed.

I can just jump in with the property that I'm here to represent.

Exactly.

Yes, this is your moment to speak.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

My name is Maggie Dudley, and I am representing Beacon Communities.

We have just uh completed construction on a 51-unit multifamily affordable housing project in Uptown on Fifth Avenue.

On the same block of that project called the Standard.

There are several vacant um homes, some of which have fallen into disrepair, some of which are the site of some uh very highly trafficked criminal activity.

Um, one of those buildings, one of those vacant homes, is owned by the city, and our hope is to acquire that property and eventually assemble the rest of the to uh keep our residents in this new multifamily building safe from you know hazards from those buildings, possible criminal activity, and eventually restructure the site to uh either provide more green space for those residents, provide parking, possibly add some additional units, you know, with any hope some combination of those three things.

Uh so we we really appreciate uh the opportunity to acquire this property in order to um, you know, again, just create a block that is serving our residents to the best extent possible and keeping them safe.

Thank you so much, Maggie.

Um I don't see any other online speakers.

Um, if there's anyone else that would like to speak, please use the raise hand function.

Um otherwise I'm gonna move on to our in-person speakers.

Uh and we have uh Shakira Carter.

Yes, I think we have a camera that's in that.

I think Josh hopefully will help us switch switch up our CS.

I'm good to go.

Okay, perfect.

Um, I just am not good to go.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you so much.

Um I first wanted to say thank you to the URA and the Pittsburgh Land Bank um for the opportunity to speak and introduce myself in my acquisition of the parcel in question, which is on Brushton Avenue in Pittsburgh's Homewood North.

Uh, my name is Shakira Carter.

I am the very proud owner of the property that neighbors the parcel in Homewood North as I had mentioned.

This property has been in my family.

It's actually the home that I was born to, and it has been in my family for over 34 years.

We're going on 35 years that the property has been in my family.

And so I am extremely excited to be moving forward with the acquisition of the parcel.

The purchase or the property was originally owned by my grandmother who no longer resides in the property, but she created a legacy for my home, which is 7424.

Um, and she continues to inspire and influence my passion for community engagement and development within Homewood, specifically Homewood North.

A little bit about myself, my personal self, my education.

Um, I am a two-time Penn State alumna.

My master's is in community and economic development, and I am currently a doctoral student at Duquesne for their educational leadership program.

And so we mix in my passion with my education.

That is really what led my acquisition of the parcel.

I see the land as an opportunity to address the food desert that's in Homewood North, specifically around Hilltop, and close by.

This is an opportunity to do some small-scale farming, urban farming, um, to be able to provide some fresh produce and herbs to my neighbors, which I know is an essential, especially during times like now.

And then eventually later down the line, I would like to use the land to um work with Homewood youth to create opportunities for community engagement through workshops, through educational workshops, through some hands-on learning, through gardening to get their hands dirty, and then to also create some community maintenance.

I know specifically in my area, it is not necessarily one of the areas that is highly invested.

And so I believe that some of the responsibility needs to fall back on its uh residents, which would be myself and then the folks that I'm working with closely.

All in all, my my objective is to create positive impact in my small corner of Homewood and then to create and inspire change for other areas through advocacy, education, and engagement.

And I really just want to be an example not only for my community members, but for others that are looking to take interest in the opportunity that the URA and the Pittsburgh Land Bank presents with their homeownership.

So thank you all again for you know being a part of my acquisition and supporting me in this vision.

Thanks.

Thanks, Shakira.

And next we have Aaron Simon.

Hey, good afternoon.

Thank you for having me, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Aaron Simon.

Uh I live in Larimer, and uh since I moved there, I applied four years ago to purchase the vacant lot next to me from the city of Pittsburgh.

It was not available for sale at the time, but it has since become available.

So I appreciate the land bank being able to assist uh in potentially considering that sale to me.

Um I want to return the lot to productive reuse, uh, pay taxes on it, put up a fence, and have more space for gardening.

And uh I also want to pay taxes and secure it, maybe have some chickens, and uh maybe even build in the future as well.

So that's that's my dream for it right now, and thank you very much for the consideration.

Thank you very much.

Um let me just do a final call here on online.

Is there any would we have any other speakers?

Please use the raise hand function.

Going once, going twice.

All right, back to you, Director Cashway.

Thank you, Director Stadleman.

And I'm sorry, you're not director.

So we'll get to the uh uh approval of the uh May 26th board meeting minutes.

Um, I have a motion to approve those minutes, the May 26th board meeting minutes.

So moved.

Thank you, Jean.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Jesse.

Discussion.

Sorry.

Hearing none, um, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, any abstentions?

I I'll be abstaining.

I was not present uh at that meeting, so I will abstain.

Thank you, Director Thompson.

So one abstention, the motion is carried.

Thank you.

We'll move now to Director Wilson's treasurer's report.

Thank you.

Um we have the financials for May closed.

Um, and I can report to you that um everything's going well with the new bookkeeping company, and things are going really smoothly.

Um, so that transition, as I've reported before, gone really well, and you know, we're getting timely reports.

Um closing, you know, so quickly, the most recent month is impressive.

Um, it's a it's a quick close given where our board meeting lands in the month.

Um so everything's going well.

Um, I don't have really any anything really specific to highlight in terms of the financials.

Um we again continue to be in a strong financial position, um, you know, with 1.9 million in net assets.

I would say we are just one thing to highlight on the balance sheet here in front of you is um, you know, we are um our payroll is quarterly billing, but we're booking um the monthly amount into our financials so we can keep our financials as accurate presentation as possible.

So the amount that we're um uh you know booking before it's actually we pay the bill is is being accrued.

So you can see that um on line 2410 in the balance sheet, those are that's what that accrued expenses amount is that's two months of payroll before we get that um quarterly bill paid, and then that will would get cleared off at that point.

Um we could go to the next slide, which is um the income statement.

Um we've done a little bit um of changes, you know, again, as we're getting bookminders up to speed all their systems.

Um we're actually getting being able to see very clearly a lot of detail about the purchases and sales as they go through the financials.

Um, and that was an issue with our you know, prior years.

We didn't have a lot of detail, wasn't really hitting the balance sheet on a monthly basis as it is now.

So again, I'm really pleased with that, and we've added um the fixed asset disposals and fixed asset purchases so we can really see all that activity happening in the income statement.

Um, the next slide we have is um, it's really the same information, you know, in the same categories, but here is the profit and loss um for the year to date.

So this is all the activity we've had um for the year up through the last closed month, which is May.

Um, and I don't really have anything to report um that you know I haven't already mentioned.

So um, so I would um before we go to the renewal of the insurance policy, um, I will make a motion to accept the May uh 2026 financials.

Um, and you know, if there's any discussion or questions, I'm happy to entertain that.

So moved.

Second.

Discussion.

All in favor, uh, any opposed?

Any abstentions?

The motion is carried.

The next item I have for you is an approval of renewing our general liability insurance policy.

Um, so we have a quote um to renew the policy for another year.

Uh, this covers all of the um properties that we have um, you know, that are in the land bank inventory.

Um, and so the amount is $4,750.

Um, so I will make the motion to approve the renewal of the commercial general liability insurance policy with the housing and redevelopment insurance exchange for 2627 at a cost of four thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars using ARPA funds, and to authorize the PLB acting executive director to execute the documents.

Thank you, Jane.

Discussion.

All in favor.