"Oakland, he asserted, is the only innovation district in the country that isn’t growing."
- Thread starter HailtoPitt
- Start date
pittdan77
Athletic Director
It feels like there are too many fractured interests that run together in Oakland. I understand why the residents are sensitive to development but I don't think it does the city much good to wait for them to come up with idealistic plans.
The Oakland Development Group seems opposed to ANY development.
Agreed. If the Bakery Square project is the model- move this one forward ASAP.
Honestly, how many permanent residents, who are unaffiliated with Pitt/UPMC does Oakland have? 29?
I wouldn’t necessarily agree that it isn’t growing - there’s a ton of development happening right now, today, when I went into an appointment this morning. The old Marathon station project is fully underway, there’s fencing up at the old Croatian building, and the former Walnut Capital tower is only temporarily on pause as they transfer ownership to Pitt. There’s also the big Pitt/UPMC research building on Baum that’s moving, and they’re still planning on breaking ground on the new hospital tower at Presby next year. There are a bunch of projects on Pitt’s campus, too. Is the development happening fast enough? I don’t know. But I wouldn’t argue that it’s not growing at all...it is.
I’m generally pro-development, but I do get some of the gripe here. The city has been working on the Oakland Plan for a few years now with all of the involved parties - universities, developers, and community groups - and now all of a sudden because one of the city’s favored developers in Walnut Capital wants to do something, the city wants to push their preferred changes through outside of the already-defined process.
I’m generally pro-development, but I do get some of the gripe here. The city has been working on the Oakland Plan for a few years now with all of the involved parties - universities, developers, and community groups - and now all of a sudden because one of the city’s favored developers in Walnut Capital wants to do something, the city wants to push their preferred changes through outside of the already-defined process.
28. Elmer Hoffman moved to Wilmerding last Tuesday.
Tear it all down and build new stuff. We dont need houses built in 1908, which aren't even well maintained.
Oakland Anti~Development Group! South Oakland is a dump and this would have been a great way to clean up that area and spur growth..........Buuuuut nooooooo
I feel bad for gentrification projects, but South Oakland constantly looks like a bomb went off and rent at almost $2.00 sq/ft. It looked bad 20 years ago when I had friends that lived there and it somehow looks even worse now.
You can get 1,700 square feet in a clean and modern apartment off market square for $2,400.
Or for that $2,400 you can get 1,500 square feet with 4 bedrooms that barely fit full-sized beds and cabinets from 1972 with broken appliances and a moldy basement in South Oakland.
You can get 1,700 square feet in a clean and modern apartment off market square for $2,400.
Or for that $2,400 you can get 1,500 square feet with 4 bedrooms that barely fit full-sized beds and cabinets from 1972 with broken appliances and a moldy basement in South Oakland.
"keep this play looking like a #hithole b/c i'm too old and lazy to somewhere else."
who the hell,"lives," in oakland who aren't connected to one of the local universiities? GTFOH.
who the hell,"lives," in oakland who aren't connected to one of the local universiities? GTFOH.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
I don't think there is a defined process that is being sidestepped. I think the residents expect to be able to write their neighborhood plan -- at their convenience -- before any development is considered. Looks like they want to be able to require any development to include affordable housing but that's not a requirement at the moment.
All the planning department does is try to steer projects to a point where they "fit" the strategic plan. The planning commission is the nuts and bolts of making sure the project fits the legal requirements of the city code while considering waivers and so on. So the "strategic planning" people can say, you have to have affordable housing and then the developer goes to the planning commission and probably gets a waiver to reduce or eliminate it, within reason, or something.
I travel all over the country for work. I often I ask myself why I don't live in any number of other places besides Pittsburgh. That is LARGELY due to PA State Government vs the City itself. But then when the City also can't get out of its own way, it makes the move look even more tempting.
Yeah where is the community outrage when it comes to current conditions? Either they are all for improving the quality of life across the board or they are just looking to obstruct. I feel like the anti-Pitt, anti-progress sentiment amongst Central Oakland residents is ridiculous. They must realize what their neighborhood would look like without Pitt. It most likely wouldn't be good.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
There is a "nicer" residential area and I understand why they don't want it inundated with traffic or something but they surely have to realize that the billion dollar operation at the center of Oakland isn't going to just lie down and let the residents stifle reasonable development. They should be angling for tax levies on development that are earmarked for infrastructure and upgrades.
Is this even gentrification at this point? There's close to 0 permanent South Oakland homeowner residents, at least on the Pitt side of the Blvd of the Allies.
I'm going to take a guess and say that Walnut and Pitt got wind of what the plan will contain, like policies to stop Pitt expansion as well as a lot of stuff about affordable housing and equity. They realize that Peduto has been much more a friend to then then the next Mayor will be, and so, Walnut and Pitt made a deal to move forward quickly. Changing the road layout should actually be a clue for a future project.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Actually, it appears that the residents are asking for the project to include an element of gentrification.
When I was a student at Pitt, I interviewed Central and South Oaklands residents who weren't Pitt students. Generally speaking, you had two categories: Old people who grew up there and Pitt/CMU staff and faculty. The old people somehow believed the neighborhood would be an Italian ethnic enclave from the 40's and 50's if not for Pitt. The CMU and Pitt staff members and faculty were much more realistic and seemed to just want students to not vandalize their homes, vomit/litter on their sidewalks, throw loud parties late at night, etc.
The OPDC, on the other hand, lived in an alternate reality where there's no need to account for the demand for affordable student housing in the future. I never understood any of their plans.
I'd include in the Oakland Dev Corp's Plan some language about home owners making the house they buy there a permanent residence, which would help to reduce slum lords and encourage more people to improve their properties. Not sure about the legality of this, though.
Right, at this time, there's almost 0 homeowner residents who don't have a Pitt/UPMC affiliation. When I was there, you had some 80-90 year old residents, who were the original homeowners but those people have surely died by now. I just cant imagine there's more than a dozen or so homeowner residents north of the Blvd. with no Pitt/UPMC affiliation and the Pitt/UPMC homeonwers would obviously be more receptive to development
It's the old Best Western with the Panera on the ground floor. I wasn't aware that was still a hotel.
Unwillingly, I might add... Hey, you know Elmer...always a rebel!
That is scary to me as an alum who would really like to see Pitt expand and eventually fill in a good bit between the Blvd, Bates, and Bouquet. I feel like that should be Pitt's endgame here. I'm not saying demolish everything but there are large swaths of complete dumps in there that serve little purpose but to make negligent landlords a lot of money. And help the community groups to improve the neighborhoods east of Bates and south of the Blvd.
sounds plausible, this new mayor is looking like he will be a real putz. Scary that the two most friendly Pitt/UPMC politicians locally are both nitters.
I don't think it has been open for awhile so the plan is to remodel and make it apartments.
their real goal is to have Walnut grease their palms like what happened with the development on Forbes
I can't tell if the rendering is a new building or a just a re-cladding of the current one. I think it might be the latter.
I don't the new guy fully expected to win the primary, ha. I don't think he's going to be good for the city but I hope I'm wrong.
It’s a little more complicated than that. The city specifically had sought out and worked with stakeholders like these groups (as well as developers, Pitt and UPMC) for more than two years on the Oakland Plan, and the plan, according to the city, will specifically include proposed changes to the zoning codes. The plan wasn’t even scheduled to have a draft completed yet, and that schedule was created pre-pandemic.
So what happened? Walnut Capital works with the Peduto administration (they’ve always been his closest ally) to draft new zoning regulations, outside of the plan creation process, and they try to get it approved in one swoop, outside of the way zoning changes are typically done. I generally am in support of this project, but the process is absolutely outside of the norms of both the way zoning changes are typically done in the city, as well as done outside of the neighborhood planning process that the city itself came up with years ago and is in the process of doing right now.
I also wonder how many of these concerned residents stand to lose rental income when students start moving into newer and nicer apartments.
The SEIU is fully behind this guy, he just recently attended a rally where they were protesting UPMC and asking for service workers to get $20/hour (apparently the $15/hr UPMC was at isn't enough and they want to be the highest paid fry cooks in the city). Unfortunately I don't think you will be wrong about Gainey
The city wants this to go private instead of going to pitt for future tax revenue. Hence the endless battle between the city and pitt.
Of course the university wants any open real wastage and it makes sense that the city wants the most coveted real estate in the city to not go to pitt.
It’s why this battle will go on forever.
I always envisioned it in that hazelwood project area on the river. I mean private land already owned with a million other issues that would make this impossible but yeah, would have been cool.
On the river, boats coming in from across river in south side. Call your buddy who owns a boat for some water tailgates.
UPMC was able to quiet questions about it's tax status by creating a scholarship fund for PPS students. I don't think Pitt would have the same ability to drop 100 million like that but there has got to be some way they can work with the city.
And students still rent it and have their house parties....just as in the late 70's and early 80's....some things never change......
Latest posts
-
Recruiting Article Delalic on Pitt commitment: 'I just felt it'
- Latest: FreeportPanther
-
-
