Good morning and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's Cablecast public hearing for Thursday, July 9th, 2026, relative to Bill 2026-0513.

Would the clerk please read the title of the bill?

Ordinance amending the Pittsburgh Code Title Nine Zoning Code Article One Introduction and Establishment.03 zoning map to rezone parcels 125 G thirteen, one twenty-five G fourteen, one twenty five G fifteen from residential single unit detached low density to urban industrial in the Homewood West neighborhood.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

And for the record, we are joined by myself, Councilman Kahari Mosley, other members may be joining us shortly.

And our first order of business will be a brief introduction of the legislation by representatives from the Department of City Planning, followed by a presentation by the applicant, Katie Seftis.

Thank you, Councilman.

And members.

With that, I'll turn it uh back over to you.

Thank you.

And I would like to uh invite the applicant uh to come up.

Give a brief presentation as well.

Feel free to introduce yourself and thank you for joining us today.

Yeah, thank you for having us, Councilman.

Um, really pleased to be here this morning to present at a public hearing on the proposed rezoning of these three parcels in uh in the Homewood West neighborhood.

Um if we go to the next slide, I'll introduce our team briefly that'll be presenting today.

Um my name's James H.

I'm the director of real estate development at Action Housing.

Um we are the developer of the site, and with me today is uh Jody Lincoln, uh senior development officer also with Action Housing, and our design partner, Moss Architect, Katie Seftus, will be will be presenting.

Um and I did want to note also in attendance is ML Meyer.

Um she's the senior director of real estate with the URA who you know and they are the property owner of all of the parcels we'll be discussing today.

Thank you.

Um I also wanted to note two projects that we that we sh that we Action Housing have developed um recently.

Um for those unfamiliar with Action Housing.

We are a nonprofit affordable housing developer and supportive service provider located here in Pittsburgh, but we do um work throughout Allegheny County.

Um we currently have about 2,000 units of affordable rental housing that we own and operate.

Um and I'm showing two projects here.

Uh our most recent one, which opened about two years ago, flats on forward.

Um this is a fully affordable rental project located at the in Squirrel Hill at the foot of um of Murray Avenue at the intersection of uh Forward and Murray.

Um, and Penn Matilda Apartments, which was opened, I think about eight years ago, um, located on Penn Avenue in uh the Bloomfield Garfield area.

Um that project was also incidentally designed by Moss Architects.

Um and these these two projects represent um the type of of work that we do.

So to briefly orient you to the project site, um we see the map here with the project site noted in red.

Um this is located in the east end, um just northeast of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Penn Avenue.

Um so you'll note the East Busway directly to the south, and then uh Bakery Square kind of to the to the northwest or the upper left portion of this of this slide.

On the next slide, we have a uh closer view of the project site highlighted in yellow.

Um so in this uh slide you're looking roughly southwest.

Um the frontage of the site is along Kelly Street.

Uh you can see to the right on this slide the commercial uses um that exist along Fifth Avenue, Washington Boulevard.

So there's self storage, beer distributor, fast food, things of that nature.

And then you can see as you move to the left into Homewood West, kind of the transition to more of a residential nature.

And the next two slides um show images of our project site.

So these are our four parcels.

Uh the image on the left shows the three vacant parcels that are zoned R1DL.

These are the three that are up for consideration for rezoning.

Um these have been vacant for over 20 years.

Um again, all four of these parcels are owned by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Uh the image on the right shows the fourth parcel, which is a vacant um you former UPMC building, which was donated to the URA with an expressed um desire to help forward an affordable housing project.

Hello, so um as James had mentioned, the the lots under consideration, the three vacant parcels are currently part of an isolated kind of pocket of R1DL zoning in the city, kind of within a larger expanse of urban industrial UI zoned uses.

Um the former EPMC building that we saw in the previous slide is the lot currently zoned UI, which you can see kind of bracketed in red.

Um our total project site.

So the the three parcels zoned um R1DL are shown in the yellow that were were under consideration for today.

Earlier it was mentioned that there were 19 parcels that were um rezoned to urban industrial in the fall of 2023.

Those are two on the north side of our site along Kelly Street.

Um, and that was for an anticipated get-go gas station project that has no longer moving forward.

This slide is again kind of highlighting the three lots that we are discussing today that we are requesting be rezoned to urban industrial.

Those lots in combination with the fourth lot that has the former EPMC building together are really required in order to make this project work successfully as a multifamily affordable housing project.

All four lots are owned by the URA, and they were donated or obtained by the URA with the intention of something that's a community-driven purpose being built on these lots.

The lots in question for rezoning have been vacant and not underutilized for at least 20 years.

As you can see in the photo on the right, going back to May 2024, you can clearly see those lots as being vacant.

The former UPMC building has been vacant since 2020 when UPMC left that building.

And so we've we feel that this zoning change really allows for springboarding development for this kind of underutilized portion of the neighborhood.

So why is the zone change necessary?

As I mentioned, the larger kind of property site expense is needed in order to facilitate the housing development size that is really needed for this affordable housing project.

The UI zoning district allows for a special exception for a multifamily use.

Yeah, so we are proposing for this site if we get the zoning approval to build a multifamily affordable housing development.

We're still in early schematic design.

It's part of a long process, but we'd be looking at approximately 38 units, and all units would be affordable for folks under 60% area median income because we'd be going for the low-income housing tax credit awards.

So this whole process is part of preparing for our LITEC application that we would be applying for in the next round.

We're anticipating that to be in early 2027.

So as mentioned, right, this is an extensive process.

You know, we'd be looking at five years if we get funded in this next round until construction is completed and lease up is happening.

We are starting with zoning though as a feasibility requirement for the project.

So if we get approval on the zoning change, then we'll be going to the zoning board for a number of variances and special exceptions related to neighborhood compatibility.

Apply for the financing, and if awarded, you know, go through our pre-development and construction over the end of the 2020s.

So as JD mentioned, we are very early in the overall design process for this project.

This is a kind of critical milestone for us to get over in order to further the applications that Jody just mentioned.

But I'll walk through our current planned use for the site.

So what you're looking at is the full lot four lots, and what we're proposing to develop on the ground floor, which would be primarily amenities for the building occupants on the ground floor.

But we are planning for a community room which would be available to the neighborhood to utilize as an event space or a meeting space.

This slide illustrates the second, third, and fourth floors as well as the anticipated roof plan of the actual unit floors themselves.

These will be a mix of one-bed, two-bed, and efficiency units is the current anticipated breakdown for the total 38 units.

And this is also in alignment with what we have heard from the community so far in terms of the need for sizing and types of affordable spaces and rental units in this neighborhood.

This is a conceptual 3D massing illustration of what we currently are anticipating this building would look like.

As I had mentioned before, the homework cluster plan identifies Kelly Street as having kind of a gateway into the neighborhood, and we feel like this building could really act as that, as well as a buffer to the existing three residential homes, single-family homes that exist on Kelly Street from the more commercial uses that are on Fifth Avenue, which are more towards the right side of this image.

So as the building gets closer to those homes, we're anticipating breaking down the scale of the building to kind of help have a contextual relationship to the proportion of those existing homes.

Yeah.

So Action Housing as a developer is deeply committed to robust community engagement process in all of our projects and Kelly Street, no exception.

We actually first started talking to the URA and the homewood community about this project in 2022.

Had some initial designs and then stepped away for a couple of years and began to work on this project again last fall.

So we've had a number of meetings with local council and mostly, the neighborhood groups, and direct neighbors impacted by the project.

So the last six months have been a really active engagement process with the community, and we're also dedicated to keep that throughout the process of the project, including during construction, and have active engagement for lease up.

You know, we do have the zoning variances and the URA disposition process, so there'll be continual opportunity for public comment and engagement on this project in the coming months.

And then just to highlight some of the project benefits for the neighborhood and the city as a whole, currently, right?

These are vacant lots and a vacant building.

So activating land, as Katie was mentioning, we think this makes a really good transition from the more commercial UI uses into the neighborhood.

And it really does align with what we've seen in the neighborhood cluster plans and in talking to you know the neighborhood community groups have gotten a lot of really good positive feedback.

Also, want to mention since you know we have brought up the get-go UI conversion, that this project, while we're asking for this change of uh zoning now, and then that'll be permanent.

If this project doesn't get financed, all of this land is still in control by the URA, and any future project, if this specific one doesn't go forward, would have to go through the same URA community disposition process.

So it's not owned by a you know uh for-profit landlord that would then sell it to um, you know, a more UI inclined use.

Yeah, just in summary, you know, the maps here and images to highlight the three lots um in that R1 district that we would be uh seeking to convert to UI to enable this project.

Thank you.

Um is there any anything else you want to add or that's it?

Presentation.

Yep.

Happy to entertain any questions.

Thank you.

Um yeah.

You know, and again, it was 38 units right now, is is the prognosis.

Um, and it was uh it was studios, ones and and two bedroom.

Absolutely.

Yep.

Yeah, uh one I just want to um you know thank you for the extensive community engagement that that you've done um you know over this.

Uh I believe Lena had reached out to me, I feel like almost a year ago, I think of my initial, you know, conversation you know, uh about this project, and I'm glad to see that um it is uh you know being received positively, you know, by the community, obviously a community uh that needs more um housing in general, but obviously, you know, more affordable housing, particularly newer affordable housing and not just naturally occurring affordable housing.

Uh but uh affordable housing that's being done intentionally.

Um I think um, you know, this is you know, uh I believe you know, pretty cut and dry, um very straightforward.

Um, I don't believe I have any um other questions.

Um I would like to uh you know provide an opportunity if there's anyone um here in the gallery that would have uh um any public comment to open it up for public comment.

Okay, being that we have no uh um uh no uh public speakers um and we have no um additional members uh from council.

I just want to just reiterate uh, you know, my comments, thank you so much for keeping my office engaged through this process and continuing um to be in touch with not only the community groups and stakeholders in the community, uh, but also taking an intentional uh approach to the residents who live um adjacent to this parcel, um, who I don't know had a lot of concerns about the get-go, and I appreciate the fact that you in a very intentional way have reached out to them and kept them and and uh and have treated them as as a stakeholder similarly to a community organization or a larger institution within the community.

I think that's very important.

I continue to encourage you to um move forward with that spirit, you know, and keeping those uh those residents that live in close proximity to this parcel and as important stakeholders in the process.

So being that there is no uh public speakers, and the presentation has concluded um having exhausted the business of this public hearing, this meeting is now adjourned.