Appeals of Allegheny County property assessments, unleashed by a lawsuit, are starting to bite into the revenues of governments, notably in already strained Mon Valley communities. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, has stayed above water, because rising residential value has outstripped slashed skyscraper tax bills — so far.

Unbalanced
How property tax assessments create winners and losers

As thousands of pending appeals threaten to upend municipal and school budgets, County Executive Sara Innamorato is taking a cautious path on one of her key campaign planks supporting routine countywide reassessments.

A reassessment would come with political costs for Innamorato and monetary costs for some individual property owners. (It could also cost her personally, by boosting the low tax bill on her Upper Lawrenceville house.) But experts say it’s the cure for a defective system that currently overtaxes some and undertaxes others.

Even with most of last year’s appeals as-yet undecided, some municipalities saw a drop in taxable assessed value in the last two years, with much of the downturn coming in Mon Valley communities that are hurting economically. Fifty of the county’s 130 municipalities lost taxable value since the start of 2022; Homestead (10%), West Homestead (6%) and Clairton (4%) saw the biggest percentages of their tax base disappear.

Property owners filed an unusually large number of assessment appeals last year. That’s because a court ordered a change in the math used to calculate assessments determined by appeals, making it more favorable to owners.

Owners of large commercial buildings appealed en masse and are expected to win significant cuts to their assessed values, lowering their tax bills. Already, three of the dozens of Downtown towers have won appeals and seen significant tax relief. 

When big property owners saw the new tax math, “they jumped on it,” said Dominick Gambino, a local government consultant who managed the county’s assessment office from 2001 to 2003. He added that yet another change in the tax math, taking effect this year, could cause a fresh round of appeals.

While Pittsburgh’s assessed value rose 1.87% from 2022 to 2024, a PublicSource review found, a decline has already begun Downtown. 

Assessed value in the city’s 2nd Ward, which spans much of Downtown and the Strip District, dropped 3.73% during that time period, shedding more than $112 million in assessed value. Using current tax rates — measured in mills — that $112 million represents more than $900,000 in lost tax revenue for the city and $1.2 million for the city school district. And appeals for dozens more commercial properties are still pending. 

So far, value has increased enough in residential neighborhoods to make up for Downtown’s problems. The 6th Ward, in Lower Lawrenceville, saw a whopping 30% increase in assessed value ($130.2 million in taxable value). The 5th (Hill District), 16th (South Hills) and 17th (South Side) wards each increased between 9% and 13%.

But the math is unlikely to favor taxing bodies for much longer.

Looming crisis

The successful Downtown appeals are “just the beginning” of the wave of assessment cuts Downtown, said Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research. “I think what’s in the news of late of the percentage declines in these big buildings are probably typical of what most Downtown buildings will get in the short term.”

Six-figure tax bill decreases for dozens of commercial properties would have a devastating effect on the city and school district. The city is facing a razor-thin budget in the near future with an operating surplus of just a few million dollars. The school district is already operating at a deficit and is considering plans to close school buildings to cut costs.  

“One way or the other, property values Downtown are coming down,” Briem said. “It’s probably going to force a millage increase on everyone else.” That would effectively raise tax bills on property owners throughout the city to make up for the lost revenue coming from Downtown.

While Downtown owners will see lower tax bills, Briem said they are hardly winners in the situation. 

“They’ve lost, they’ve lost a lot and they’re going to keep losing,” Briem said, because decreased demand for office space since the start of the pandemic has crushed commercial building revenue. The assessment cuts are “reflecting that reality.”

Pittsburgh Public Schools solicitor sounded the alarm in a January interview.

“If these large reductions that have occurred Downtown and will continue to occur, they simply do not have financial wherewithal to sustain that,” solicitor Ira Weiss said.

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s office took a less dire tone. 

“Budget wise, the team forecasted the possibility of reduced real estate tax revenue,” said city press secretary Olga George. “Currently, Finance and [the Office of Management and Budget] are watching how real estate collections are processing.”

The mayor’s 2024 budget does not forecast a drop in real estate tax revenue. This year’s budget plans for a number slightly higher than last year’s, and the city’s five-year plan projects increases each year.

George said the city is assessing new valuations and deciding whether to contest them in court. 

Peter McDevitt, the budget director for Pittsburgh City Council, said it’s too early and there are too many variables to “hit the panic button,” but the city could eventually be forced to find new revenue or cut services. “Raising millage is not the only avenue, but it’s the most viable one” to raise revenue, he said. 

The county’s $1.1 billion operating budget, which relies on property taxes for around 37% of its revenue, is not in danger of a shortfall, according to county spokesperson Abigail Gardner.

Reassessment vs. ratios

Experts including Briem and Gambino say the fix for the county’s assessment woes lies in conducting routine, countywide reassessments — a concept Innamorato has endorsed, as long as it can be done with new protections for vulnerable taxpayers. 

Gardner confirmed that Innamorato continues to believe “that a reassessment would be a more fair and equitable way to determine values,” adding that “there are no immediate plans to engage in a reassessment.” The real estate market is shifting, she wrote in response to questions, prompting “a reimagining of how to keep our Downtown thriving.”

The last time the county reassessed all its properties was in 2013,after a judge ordered then-County Executive Rich Fitzgerald to do so. Fitzgerald never did so again.

Pennsylvania allows counties to leave decades-old assessments in place, subject to appeals where there’s evidence of rising value. 

In counties that use this “base-year” approach, properties without improvements or recent sales generally keep the same assessments each year. Where there’s evidence of a change in value, the owner or a taxing body can file an appeal.

When an appeal is filed in Allegheny County, the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review assigns a new fair market value. That value is multiplied by the common level ratio [CLR] to come up with an assessment.

The CLR is meant to adjust appeal-generated assessments to resemble those last set in the base year. But a lawsuit revealed that the county submitted flawed data for the calculation of the CLR, and a judge forced its reduction. 

For appeals filed in Allegheny County this year, the fair market value will be multiplied by 0.545 to determine the assessment, meaning a property with a post-appeal value of $100,000 would be assessed at $54,500. By contrast, for appeals filed in 2021, the ratio was 0.875, meaning that same property would have been assessed at $87,500. 

Property owners whose assessments were boosted in prior year appeals may appeal now, and use the lower CLR to push their assessments down. The ratio, though, won’t help owners whose property values have soared.

Your tax depends on when you bought

Despite the change in the ratio, tax bills in Allegheny County continue to be driven less by the value of the property than the date of purchase. The wild variances in assessments are evident on the streets of the current and prior county executives.

Fitzgerald arguably benefits to the tune of thousands of dollars per year from his decision not to reassess.

He bought his house in Point Breeze in 1989 for $202,000. Because the county doesn’t regularly reassess, his tax bill has remained static, even as property values have soared.

A next-door neighbor bought a similarly sized house in 2021 for $970,095. That price drew an assessment appeal by the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and a resulting fair market value of $616,000.

The neighbor’s total annual tax bill — county, city and school district — is around $3,000 higher than Fitzgerald’s.

Innamorato could lose out financially under the scenario she proposed during her campaign for executive. She has said she'd like to reassess all properties, while increasing existing tax breaks for homeowners and seniors and adding protections for longtime owner-occupants.

Innamorato bought her row house in Upper Lawrenceville for $71,000 in 2015. On the same side of the same block is a house that’s around 20% larger (though it’s not a row house). Purchased during the Lawrenceville real estate boom, it is subject to a tax bill around five times higher.

Gambino said the current system, with no reassessments and one CLR for the entire county, is unfair because different areas have appreciated at different rates since 2013 — meaning homeowners in low-appreciation markets are subject to the same ratio as those in high-appreciation areas.

The base-year system is “something Robin Hood’s evil twin would condone,” Gambino said. “All this talk about reduction and refunds, these are all symptoms of a sickness called the base-year scheme.”

Plight of boroughs

Seth Abrams feels conflicted. On a personal level, a countywide reassessment would cost him money. He bought his home 13 years ago and said it has appreciated significantly since the last time the county assessed its value.

But Abrams is the borough manager for Munhall, a place that stands to lose a lot of money in pending appeals. Just one appeal, by the Lowe’s hardware store in the Waterfront, has already cost the borough $50,000 in annual revenue, enough to wipe out a cushion he had planned for the 2024 budget.

Now, the possibility of a millage increase weighs on him as more appeals, including some from U.S. Steel, are pending.

“If [U.S. Steel] got something along the lines of what Lowe’s got and they got their assessment cut in half, that’s another $60,000 or $70,000 loss that I’m trying not to factor into things right now,” Abrams said. “That would mean that we would have to dig into the reserves, we would have to look at all of our fees and our taxes.

“People will see increased costs if this trend of losing taxable value continues.”

Despite the implications to his personal tax bill, as a professional, Abrams wants to see a reassessment. 

“I need to look out for the needs of an entire community. In Munhall, I’m looking at 5,000 or 6,000 residences. For me, I’m looking at one.”

Assessed values dropped from 2022-2024 in numerous Mon Valley communities near Munhall, showing Abrams’ problems are shared by his peers in other towns. Many of those municipalities and the adjacent school districts already have some of the county’s highest millage rates, giving them less margin to raise the levy.

Clairton will have to deal with the outcome of 32 parcels under appeals filed by U.S. Steel, which operates the Clairton Coke Works there. Clairton Mayor Rich Lattanzi told PublicSource in April that the steelmaker accounts for about one-third of its tax base, and the revenue loss from appeals could “be catastrophic for the City of Clairton.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Delaney Rauscher Adams.

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A year after its director was plucked into the service of the state, the Allegheny County Health Department remains without a long-term leader. 

The Board of Health and new County Executive Sara Innamorato have just begun an effort to fill what a spokesperson called “a vital position for the administration.”

“The director and the [board] have broad responsibilities that range from infant mortality and the opioid epidemic to air pollution and food safety,” wrote Abigail Gardner, the county’s communications director, in an email to PublicSource. “Leading the Health Department is highly technical and process-oriented work,” requiring understanding of law and regulations and “a massive amount of genuine public engagement.”

Unclear at this point is the public’s role in the selection process. Gardner wrote that “it is likely that there is some kind of piece of the process that will involve public input.”

At its Jan. 17 quarterly meeting, the Board of Health did not discuss plans to choose a director, and Acting Director Patrick Dowd declined comment.

Some advocacy organizations are setting out their expectations up front. 

On Dec. 7, a coalition of 35 organizations and 37 individuals under the banner of the Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh Network petitioned the county to prioritize health disparities and social determinants of well-being in its choice of a new director.

“The Health Director’s role and the Health Department affect so many aspects of people’s lives,” said Jason Beery, director of the network, convened by UrbanKind Institute, a Pittsburgh-based “think-and-do tank.” A new director would likely want to be involved in issues including air quality, housing health and the county’s development of a climate action plan, he said, so it’s important to hire someone “with certain qualities that we think would best address some of the complex health challenges and health outcomes that affect all of our communities and municipalities.”

Important department, leadership vacuum

Debra Bogen served as the county’s health director from early March 2020, as the pandemic shutdown loomed, until January 2023, when Gov. Josh Shapiro announced her nomination as state secretary of health. Bogen serves as the acting secretary because Republican lawmakers’ concerns have prevented state Senate confirmation. Dowd, the acting director, is a former Pittsburgh City Council member with a doctorate in history.

The 300-person department’s responsibilities include:

• Monitoring air quality, enforcing emissions regulations and allocating the Clean Air Fund
• Inspecting restaurants and otherwise enforcing food safety measures
• Enforcing housing health rules
• Striving to curb violence, overdoses and other causes of death
• Preparing the public for health emergencies like the pandemic.

The director is technically chosen by the nine-member Board of Health. Eight members continue to serve despite expired terms. The slots are some of many that Innamorato can use to shape the county bureaucracy after 12 years of former Executive Rich Fitzgerald making appointments. Gardner did not provide a timeline for reappointing or replacing members, or for hiring a director.

“We look forward to continuing to dig in with them and understand the expertise the board could use going forward to meet the moment or urgent public health needs,” Gardner wrote.

At its meeting, the board reelected as its chair Lee Harrison, a physician and epidemiology professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He has served on the board since 2001, was last reappointed in 2017 and has continued though his term expired in 2020.

‘Hard to get information’

Innamorato’s transition team has posted the health director position on its job opportunities website, indicating that it wants candidates for the $270,000-a-year position who:

• Will focus on racial and economic health disparities
• Has experience making “a measurable impact” on community health
• Is ready to support marginalized communities
• Can craft “an inclusive strategy” to fill vacancies in the department
• Will partner with governmental organizations, nonprofits and businesses to address health challenges.

A medical doctorate is “highly desirable,” according to the posting, though a candidate with a doctorate in public health may be considered.

In its letter to the Board of Health, the Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh Network called for a health director conversant in the social determinants of health — the effects that economic, environmental, political, social and cultural factors have on well-being.

The letter also noted the longstanding disparities in health care in the county, some of which improved in recent decades but many of which remain stark. 

The local health system’s failure to bring Black residents’ life expectancy and chronic disease rates in line with those of white residents was magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The department pledged to work on closing gaps in care driven by racism and the lack of culturally appropriate health access in announcing a five-year plan a year ago.

A new director should also have experience in policy implementation and commit to transparency, openness, accountability, accessibility, cultural humility, collaboration and public participation in budgeting, according to the letter.

“It’s been hard to get information out from [the Health Department] in the past, and considering it is a department focused on public health, it feels like a lot of that information needs to be made public, and there needs to be clarity on why the department is making certain decisions,” said Beery in an interview with PublicSource. He also outlined the network’s views during the public comment portion of the board meeting.

The four-year-old network has never weighed in on a personnel decision before, according to Beery. Member groups would like to see some kind of public input process, potentially including representatives of underrepresented communities, areas burdened by pollution or other health threats and groups directly affected by health policy.

The network has not yet received a response to its letter, which was sent to the department, the Board of Health members and several Innamorato transition team chairs.

Beery said that a thorough and prompt process would be ideal, but added that the network is not trying to be antagonistic. “There is an amount of grace that we would show any new person in this kind of executive role,” he said.

Less patient was Clairton resident Kim Meachem, speaking at the board meeting as the department moves toward issuing a new operating permit for U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works.

“We are sick and tired of coming before this panel to tell you the same story over and over and over again,” she said, “and not seeing any results.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or on Twitter @chwolfson.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation has contributed funding to PublicSource’s healthcare reporting.

The post County’s top health post, vacant for a year, ‘vital’ to Innamorato administration appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

During this holiday season, around 900 people are known to be sleeping outside or in shelters in Allegheny County.

Housing and homelessness were ever-present concerns in the Pittsburgh region this year. But even as tents went up and shelters swung shut, new leadership came knocking on the doors of power with pledges of responsiveness and equity.

With COVID-driven funding expiring fast, though, the long-haul effects of the pandemic may be just beginning for the city, the Pittsburgh Public Schools and other local institutions.

In so many areas of life in our region — education, environment, equity, public health and safety — the gears of history continued to turn, and sometimes to grind, in 2023. PublicSource highlighted emerging trends and dug deep into the data, documentation and human-level impact.

Here are some of the stories we reported, many of which will echo into 2024 and beyond.

What happens after a camp is cleared?

The year 2022 closed with the City of Pittsburgh removing an encampment along Stockton Avenue on East Allegheny’s edge and sweeping aside with it a longstanding agreement.

The tents went down just as Allegheny County’s new Second Avenue Commons shelter prepared to accept displaced people while the Smithfield United Church of Christ’s basement doors creaked open.

If anybody thought those developments would noticeably blunt the effects of the housing crisis, they were quickly disabused of that notion.

The early days of Second Avenue Commons were marked by staffing problems and safety questions, while this autumn saw ramped-up evictions from its single room occupancy units. The Smithfield shelter, meanwhile, became a haven for hundreds but a bugaboo for Downtown businesses, until its June closure demonstrated just how tattered America’s safety net has become.

“I understand that it can’t exist indefinitely, but this haphazard closure is going to cause death and we need to hold people accountable for that.”

Aubrey Plesh, founder of Team PSBG, which operateD the shelter at the Smithfield United Church of Christ, Downtown

With cold weather’s return came a slow-motion rollout of the county’s and city’s plan for emergency shelter. The persistent presence of at least 200 people on the street, though, left leaders looking for… 

A path to long-term affordable housing

The affordable housing shortage has been well documented for at least a decade, though never so viscerally evident as it was in 2023. Yet one of the most versatile tools for addressing housing needs — the Housing Choice (Section 8) Voucher — had become rusty and blunt by the time PublicSource documented concerns of landlords, tenants and former Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] insiders. That reporting spurred pledges of prompt improvements in customer service in the program, but the year ended with curbs on the portability of vouchers.

City development officials, meanwhile, scrambled to preserve affordable units that might otherwise fall into disrepair or convert to market-rate status. A $50 million federal grant raised hopes for more and better Hill District homes.

County-level interests sought to bring to the boroughs some of the models that have taken root in the city. And after nearly a decade of inactivity, the Pittsburgh Land Bank slowly began the process of reclaiming abandoned city property, sidestepping legal obstacles that held up progress. 

While fears of gentrification have been most pronounced in Pittsburgh, housing market forces don’t stop at the city line. That’s why Sara Innamorato was quizzed about the issue during her successful run for county executive, which has everybody asking …

Will a fresh approach on Grant Street really change things?

In what will be the last Allegheny County election season to feature direct six-figure contributions to candidates, Democrat Innamorato barely overcame Republican Joe Rockey’s large fundraising edge. (Conversely, District Attorney Stephen Zappala ran as a Republican, and bested billionaire-backed Democrat Matt Dugan.)

Innamorato’s pledge to focus on the “struggle of everyday people” has a different feel from outgoing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s recent emphases, which have tended toward consensus building with business, labor and multiple levels of government, plus stable property taxes.

Innamorato has said she’d like to address increasingly skewed assessments, but also wants to reduce a reassessment’s impact on those least able to afford tax hikes.

Innamorato also heard “alarm bells” in the county’s selection of nonprofit contractor Adelphoi to take over the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. But she will become executive amid heightened attention to violent crime, which the county has sought to address with a $50 million effort to beef up prevention efforts.

That’s a lot on the plate of the likely most prominent member of what we’ll call … 

Southwestern Pennsylvania’s pandemic-forged leadership class

Innamorato follows political ally Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to Grant Street, but also joins dozens of new leaders who replaced longtime executives in both the public and private realms.

Also reaching prominence this year were Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto (who promptly disappointed some accountability advocates) and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel (whose statements on Israel and Gaza left some dissatisfied).

The three years of turnover at the top that followed the Great Resignation may be remembered as a pivot point for the Pittsburgh region, but it won’t likely herald an extended and unanimous chorus of Kumbaya. Exhibit one: Gainey and UPMC (now led by Leslie Davis) show no signs of reaching an accord on any obligations the healthcare giant may have to the city’s coffers.

And the city’s bank balance? It’s likely to get leaner, as federal American Rescue Plan Act funds run dry. 

Gainey won’t be the only local leader scrambling for funds because … 

Schools will likely be scraping by

The Pittsburgh Public Schools are expecting similar headwinds as relief funding dries up and costs mount.

To get through the next budget year, PPS needs to draw nearly $30 million from its depleting rainy day fund. But even then, glaring inequalities persist, with students in some schools feeling they’re being taught in a “playground” instead of a rigorous educational setting.

The district also faces challenges over disparate student outcomes, variable teaching quality and uneven costs maintaining a patchwork of buildings that far exceed the needs of a shrinking student pool.

Graduates of high schools in Pittsburgh and suburban districts may be wise to review university balance sheets before filling out applications as … 

Higher ed weathers storms of its own

Higher education fairs little better in a city that’s hinged its revival on an “eds and meds” economy. 

Many newer workforce entrants are questioning the value of a degree altogether. The Community College of Allegheny County lost about half of its student body between 2010 and 2022 – and even a steep drop since the 2020 pandemic doesn’t account for the whole picture, one of steady decline.

Alarm bells rang out from Chatham University’s sedate Squirrel Hill campus in summer, when faculty learned the university faced a $12 million budget hole. To close the gap, President Rhonda Philips laid off department staff, trimmed administration salaries and slashed faculty pension contributions.

Chatham faculty answered with an early unionizing effort they hope will strengthen their position as the administration seeks to patch its deficit. That push can be viewed as one of many efforts aimed at …

Leveling society’s playing field

Campus concerns early in the year were focused primarily on safety for LGBTQ students, and when Pitt’s response wasn’t satisfying, an effort to bring the issue before the Board of Trustees resulted in criminal charges and student conduct hearings. At Duquesne University, a bid to rename Lambda to the Queer Student Union stagnated amid ongoing tension between the school’s Catholic orientation and the growing push for LGBTQ inclusion.

Nearly every university is grappling with diversity in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

That ruling was also seen as a potential warning shot for other programs meant to undo effects of discrimination, and lent some urgency to the Gainey administration’s pledge to refresh the data behind race-conscious programs. Equitable law enforcement remained a work in progress, too, as a mayor elected in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police didn’t immediately dent the racial skew of his own department’s activities, or make “driving while Black” a thing of the past.

Equity efforts increasingly overlap with the ongoing environmental and climate catastrophe, and nowhere is that more newsworthy than in …

A region still fueled by fossils

Pollution from coal, manufacturing and other fossil fuels continues to plague a region still trying to shrug off the nickname “Smoky City.”

After Shell Chemical Appalachia opened its giant new petrochemical plant in Beaver County, a PublicSource investigation revealed a litany of malfunctions where, in many cases, the Department of Environmental Protection largely relied on Shell to assess its own missteps and the validity of public complaints.

In October, the Biden administration announced funding for two hydrogen hubs spanning stretches of Pennsylvania, although a proposal centered around Pittsburgh did not make the cut. Opinion is fiercely split on whether hydrogen has a role in the transition to clean energy or merely extends our fossil fuel dependence.

To some, natural gas extracted through fracking offers another pathway to weaning off coal and its carbon-heavy cousins. But families living less than 900 feet from a well pad in Washington County say their health and quality of life has suffered accordingly, while state legislation to keep drilling away from homes fell flat this summer.   

Climate change and air quality are daunting big-picture problems, and if you’re yearning to feel good about humanity, it might be advisable to look at …

Spirited neighborhoods rising to challenges

If the arc of history bends toward justice, the end of that rainbow can seem elusive — but perhaps it will end in the Hill District.

The neighborhood is still wary about developer promises after witnessing one of urban renewal’s most infamous injustices when the city razed the Lower Hill District and built the Civic Arena and parking lots. But leadership at the Bethel AME Church, victimized by the wrecking ball in 1957, believe they have a pact that will partly redress that tragedy with affordable housing.

Similarly, Wilkinsburg’s population losses created both a need for redevelopment and fear of gentrification. The apparent collapse of a push to merge the borough into Pittsburgh may invite civic leaders to build on the community’s strengths.

Pittsburgh’s growth depends on its embrace of diversity and its willingness to welcome newcomers, and nowhere was that more evident than in Beechview. The South Pittsburgh neighborhood hosts the biggest concentration of Latino residents in the region, and its business district — once crippled by disinvestment and fraud — features what may be the region’s most bilingual main street.

As PublicSource enters its 13th year of writing, photographing and otherwise pursuing stories for a better Pittsburgh, there’s plenty of room for improvement — in the region and the media. Also ample is the spirit of determination to solve problems, whether they’re as concrete as the shortage of affordable housing or as intangible as equity in education. We’ll continue to seek and share truth, whether it’s in the form of professionally reported investigations or community members’ essays. We hope you’ll continue with us on that journey, and thank you for your readership and support.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSourceand can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Fact-checked by the PublicSource staff.

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Pittsburgh’s City Planning Commission on Tuesday approved the demolition of several Downtown buildings to make way for four bocce courts, over the objections of some historic preservation advocates.

Developer Troiani Group has owned buildings along Market Street and First Avenue, in Downtown’s Firstside district, for decades. Perhaps the best-known housed the long-defunct Froggy’s bar. 

Since 2020, Troiani Group has argued that the buildings can’t be salvaged and are in danger of collapse.

One of the buildings “has probably lost about 40% of its capacity to maintain itself in an upright position,” said Steven Regan, a real estate attorney with Steptoe & Johnson who is representing Troiani Group, in a presentation to the commission.

“We are managing an emergency condition at this site at this time,” said Michael Troiani, a member of the family that owns the properties. 

In 2020, the commission blocked Troiani’s proposal for demolition and replacement with an office-and-residential tower, following opposition by historic preservation groups. Those groups argued that the structures — while not designated historic under local laws — sit within the Firstside National Register Historic District. 

Planning Department staff indicated that the commission’s thresholds for approving a demolition depend in part on the planned use of the site, and the scrutiny demanded of an office building is higher than that warranted by recreational uses.

The buildings’ brick exteriors and modest heights contribute to the historic nature of the district, advocates argued again Tuesday.

“These are brick buildings that represent the historic scale of the district, and demolition of the buildings would be a crying shame,” said Karamagi Rujumba of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. “They are only a public nuisance because their owner has allowed them to become a public nuisance.” 

PHL&F has offered to buy the buildings, but has been rebuffed by Troiani Group, Rujumba said. 

“It would be a shame to see a historic Downtown block erased because there has not been the stewardship or a creative approach taken,” said Melissa McSwigan, speaking on behalf of Preservation Pittsburgh.

But James Moritz, a resident of the nearby 151 First Side condo building, supported demolition, saying it’s “a health and safety issue, clearly.”

“There are pieces of this building that fall off,” Moritz continued. “Someone could easily get hurt, killed or have property damage done. … These buildings are occupied by vermin, rats and pigeons that create health issues that I have to live with.”

The plans were originally presented last month, and commissioners pushed successfully for more attractive picket-style fencing — instead of the chain link originally proposed — along Market and First. They also asked for information on whether Troiani has plans to quickly pivot from bocce courts to another office building proposal.

“I don’t have a glass ball to predict the future. I think this use is going to be awesome,” Troiani answered. “I hope it has a long and successful run.” 

He said the planned four bocce courts would be available by reservation on weekdays and used for league play on weekends.

All of the commissioners in attendance voted to approve the demolition.

Colorful banners raise questions for Uptown apartment proposal

The commission is likely to vote in January on a proposal to build a six-story apartment building — including some affordable units — on most of the 1600 block of Forbes Avenue in Uptown.

Commissioners, though, had questions about colorful art banners that would hang along the proposed building’s facade.

“I think there needs to be some definite oversight as far as that’s concerned,” said LaShawn Burton-Faulk, following a briefing by architect Jon Grant, with the design-and-development firm GSX Ventures.

GSX wants to demolish three buildings in the block bounded by Forbes, Marion Street, Watson Street and Van Braam Street. The land now is owned by the family of Harold K. Waldman. Several buildings at the corner of Forbes and Marion would remain.

The 1.4-acre site freed up by the demolition would host an E-shaped building including:

• 211 apartments, including studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units
• 72 vehicle parking spaces
• 74 bicycle spaces
• 1,365 square feet of ground floor retail.

“There is a significant affordable housing component here,” said Shawn Gallagher, an attorney with the firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, representing the developer. He said 10% of the units would be priced for households earning 60% of the area median income. Grant said that units of all three types — studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms — would be priced at that level.

Commission member Peter Quintanilla called the plan “actually fantastic,” but said he wanted to see what the facade would look like without proposed decorative panels. “It kind of like muffles the architecture of the building,” he said. He said he wants to see how the building would interact with the streetscape that will emerge with the completion of the Bus Rapid Transit line on Forbes.

Burton-Faulk said the art plan is “a little bit of a challenge for me,” worrying that decorative panels could be converted into advertising.

The developer’s plan submitted to the commission indicates that panels hanging along the Forbes side would be crafted by local artists selected by a panel of Uptown art advocates. “Art will be easily dividable and changeable to allow for local artists to participate over time to create a living wall of art” governed by the council, according to the plan.

Burton-Faulk said she wants to know more about that process before the next step: Public comment and then a commission vote on the plan.

The commission next meets on Jan. 9.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The post Downtown demolition for bocce approved despite preservationist ire appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

On the day before Thanksgiving, a 34-year-old man in a high school letterman’s jacket entered District Judge Oscar Petite’s courtroom, looking weary. “I don’t sleep very well,” he told the judge, attributing it to a traumatic brain injury.

A year prior, he had signed a lease to stay in a single room occupancy [SRO] unit at the county’s then-brand-new Second Avenue Commons. 

Even as he walked into court to defend himself against eviction from Second Avenue Commons, that facility’s board showed members of the media around its $22 million building, touting what its management called in a press release “one year of service to adults who are experiencing homelessness, their partners, and their pets.”

The tenant — who is not being named because publicity might make it harder to find new lodging — was $388 behind on his rent for the room. He was also accused of having visitors in his room after formal visiting hours, which are 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Renee Brown, an assistant property manager at Second Avenue Commons, told the judge that the tenant kept a “cluttered” room, had tried to enter the facility with an unspecified tool and had argued with building security.

Asked by the judge whether the facility might give the tenant another chance, Brown, an employee of NDC Asset Management LLC, said, “It’s not possible.”

The man is among 69 people, currently or recently living in three centrally located SRO facilities, who have been subjects of landlord-tenant complaints — which initiate eviction proceedings — this year. Of those, 19 were filed from Oct. 31 through Nov. 2. Eight of those 19 apply to Second Avenue Commons tenants.

The evictions were filed by NDC, a firm based in Bradenton, Florida, with a Strip District office. That company handles the day-to-day management of the SROs at Second Avenue Commons; Wood Street Commons, Downtown; and Centre Avenue Housing in the Hill District.

NDC officials did not respond to an email or voicemail messages seeking comment. NDC works in partnership with nonprofit developer and manager ACTION Housing at all three facilities.

“I’ve had conversations with NDC about evictions,” Kyle Webster, ACTION’s vice president of housing and general counsel, told PublicSource. “We expect them to ensure that they have exhausted options before they file for evictions. We do know that threatening eviction is one of the options you have to exhaust” in some cases to get the tenant’s attention, he added.

Simply filing a landlord/tenant complaint, even if it does not end in an eviction, can poison the person’s prospects of finding alternative housing, said Eileen Yacknin, an attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services who has previously defended an SRO resident.

“It’s becoming increasingly hard and devastating to poor people to find adequate, affordable, safe and secure housing in Pittsburgh and all over,” she said.

The 19 autumn evictions come as the Allegheny County Department of Human Services [ACDHS] and the City of Pittsburgh worked on plans — still not fully detailed — to address the needs of the unhoused this winter. ACDHS has said it has 450 shelter beds available and a plan for more beds in severe weather situations, but the agency’s online dashboard counts nearly 900 people either in shelters or receiving outreach services while living outside.

The department funds some beds or tenants in each of the three SRO facilities, and in some cases tenants must participate in program requirements in order to receive rent benefits, according to Mark Bertolet, the ADCHS spokesperson. In an email response to questions, he did not address whether the county has guidelines regarding evictions from those units.

For some of those in SROs, the alternatives are bleaker than the weather.

Asked by Petite about his income, the young man said, “I don’t have one right now.” The judge asked whether he has a substance abuse problem. “No.” How does he eat? “I get by.”

SROs part of ‘homelessness prevention’

SROs are an important link near the bottom of the continuum of housing options, said Webster. The rooms are small, some with their own bathrooms, and typically connected to communal kitchens and other shared spaces.

“They’re kind of a lower-barrier housing option,” he said, much as YMCAs were for single men in decades past. “A primary reason [for their existence] would be homelessness prevention,” he added, and some people thrive in them because of their communal nature.

Financing their creation and operation is a complex task, Webster said, often involving a mix of public housing funding streams, investor contributions, other contracts and tenant rents. Rents for Second Avenue Commons SROs, disclosed on landlord/tenant complaints, appear to range from $525 to $646 a month. Tenants, though, don’t usually pay full freight.

Tenants with Housing Choice (Section 8) Vouchers can pay just 30% of their income in rent, Webster noted, and that can push their obligations below $100 a month, or even to zero.

The tenant in Petite’s courtroom on Wednesday had been receiving rent help through a program administered by Pittsburgh Mercy, which runs the emergency shelter at Second Avenue Commons. According to Brown, the man failed to attend required counseling, so the rent aid stopped.

‘Nothing offered’

Second Avenue Commons includes 43 SROs, 95 year-round shelter beds and 40 overflow beds available for the winter months.

Down the block from his SRO unit at Second Avenue Commons, Brody Tuckfelt passed Tuesday at Allegheny County Jail, where he was being held on a nonviolent offense. On a phone call, he said he found out he was evicted from Second Avenue from his girlfriend, who lives in the neighboring SRO unit in the facility. 

“My girlfriend told me they put a sign on the door saying you got evicted and you owe two thousand-some dollars,” said Tuckfelt, who said a housing program through Pittsburgh Mercy had previously picked up the rent. 

“There was nothing offered like, ‘Hey, you can go to another shelter,’ nothing,” he said of his eviction notice from NDC.

The notice came about a year after the controversial closure of the Stockton Avenue encampment where Tuckfelt had been tenting. He was on the local news as one of the first enthusiastic residents of Second Avenue Commons on the heels of the camp closure, excited for his own room, a microwave and brand new facilities.

With no job or Social Security income, Tuckfelt is counting on his contacts at Community Care & Resistance In Pittsburgh [CCRIP], an aid group serving those recently released from jail, to help him secure an alternative to living, again, on the street.

On Wednesday, Russell Beyer, a guest on Second Avenue Commons’ shelter floor, walked through the rain to the bus to accompany an SRO resident to an eviction hearing, wondering why his friend had to go to court to stay sheltered. 

“The whole point of these SROs is you’re housing homeless people, so if you’re not going to elect to renew the lease for the term then you should have some plan for them so they’re not homeless again,” said Beyer.  

SRO eviction reasons? Mostly, failure to pay

Pennsylvania law allows evictions when the rent isn’t paid, when the lease expires and when a term of the lease is violated. Landlords must state at least one reason on the landlord/tenant complaint, though they are allowed to add more at the time of the hearing.

Judge Petite’s office provided PublicSource with complaints in the most recent 32 cases filed by NDC against tenants of Second Avenue Commons, Wood Street Commons and Centre Avenue Housing. Of those:

• All 32 alleged that the tenant was behind on rent
• None alleged that the lease had expired
• 12 indicated there had been other lease violations — mostly untidiness or abandoning the unit — but did not suggest violence
• 3 claimed the tenant was violent or threatening.

Petite said that when someone is behind on rent, he can refer them to rent relief specialists or Neighborhood Legal Services attorneys, who are often right in his courtroom. Sometimes he tells them to go immediately to the Housing Stabilization Center on Seventh Avenue, Downtown. That center guides tenants to a variety of available housing funding sources.

Webster added that the tenant must be involved in the rent help application process, and some “are completely unresponsive until they get that court date.”

“I hate evicting people for failure to pay,” Webster added. “I think it’s a stupid reason to make somebody potentially be unhoused.” But sometimes program requirements or investment contracts require that every tenant pay rent.

Webster said some SRO tenants have behavioral health problems, and managers should be understanding, but there are limits. 

“If one tenant’s behavior and activities are adversely affecting the enjoyment of the premises by other tenants,” he said, an eviction filing may be unavoidable. “It is unfortunate that in our current system the primary leverage a landlord has is the threat of eviction, but that is the system we exist in.”

Housed for Thanksgiving?

Yacknin said landlords often scrutinize the rental histories of prospective tenants, and can access limited information on eviction cases via publicly available dockets. 

“They are able to see on a court docket that an eviction case has been filed against prospective tenants, regardless of the outcome of that, regardless of the merits,” she said. “What has been happening is that the landlord will adamantly refuse to lease to anybody with a record regardless of anything that [the tenant may say that] doesn’t appear on the record itself.”

Some states seal some eviction records, so they don’t become barriers to housing, but Pennsylvania has not taken any such measure, she said.

Back in the courtroom, Petite weighed his options. “The condition of your unit is enough for them to put you out,” he told the Second Avenue Commons tenant. “It’s very cluttered.”

The tenant said the room was a mess because he “was getting ready to sell a bunch of stuff in there.”

After Brown, of NDC, said the company would not consider extending the tenant’s lease, Petite noted that it doesn’t expire until Nov. 30. He postponed consideration of eviction until Dec. 5.

Said the judge to the tenant: “You can stay over Thanksgiving.”

Are you facing possible eviction?

Call the Allegheny Link at 1-866-730-2368.

If you’ve received notice of an impending eviction and have a landlord open to mediation, contact Just Mediation Pittsburgh at 412-228-0730.

If there has been an eviction action filed, contact Neighborhood Legal Services at 412-255-6700.

Need in-person help? The Housing Stabilization Center at 415 Seventh Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh has drop-in hours Monday through Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Check out eviction process information and resources from Eviction Lab.

The Allegheny County DHS Housing Navigator has a downloadable step-by-step guide to the eviction process and has a unit that works with renters and their landlords to help keep people in safe, affordable housing.

Correction: This year 69 landlord/tenant complaints have been filed against tenants of Second Avenue Commons, Wood Street Commons and Centre Avenue Housing. An earlier version of the story included a lower number. This story has also been updated to reflect comment from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services received after initial publication.

Stephanie Strasburg is a photojournalist with PublicSource who can be reached at stephanie@publicsource.org, on Instagram @stephaniestrasburg or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @stephstrasburg.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Venuri Siriwardane contributed.

The post ‘Lower barrier’ SRO housing facilities ramp up eviction filings appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week ruled that evidence derived from Pittsburgh’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system was properly allowed in the prosecution of a now-72-year-old North Side man, but two justices expressed concern about the admissibility of tech-derived reports.

The six sitting justices ruled unanimously that Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jill Rangos did not err when she allowed prosecutors to submit, and a City of Pittsburgh police officer testify regarding, a ShotSpotter-generated report in a case against Angelo Weeden. 

He was charged in a 2018 incident involving shots fired at a car in which a former romantic partner and others were riding. Court records indicate two bullet holes in the car door, but no injuries. A jury convicted him of aggravated assault and related charges, and Rangos sentenced him to 10 to 20 years of incarceration.

Weeden’s attorney, Justin Romano, appealed the conviction, arguing that ShotSpotter’s “inherent unreliability” and the failure of the prosecution to present any witness who could be effectively cross-examined about its methodology, resulted in a violation of Weeden’s right to confront an accuser.

ShotSpotter installs acoustic sensors in locations like the tops of buildings, streetlight poles and cellphone towers. The sensors listen for loud sounds, and an algorithm calculates the location. The technology, plus human reviewers, determine whether the sounds are likely gunfire. The information is then transmitted to the county 911 system, which determines whether to dispatch police.

The state Supreme Court ruled that the ShotSpotter-generated report tied to Weeden’s charges did not constitute testimony, because it was just a repackaging of data generated by ShotSpotter at the time the shots were fired. Based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent allowing admission of evidence gathered in an “ongoing emergency,” the state’s high court found that use of the report did not run afoul of Weeden’s rights as a defendant under the Sixth Amendment.

Justice David Wecht, while concurring with the opinion because of federal precedents, wrote that admitting such reports “without a corroborating witness on the stand to undergo cross-examination hardly contributes” to the goal of fair trials. “To the contrary, it all but guarantees the opposite.” Unless the U.S. Supreme Court “reverses course,” he wrote, “this inequity shall continue.”

Justice Kevin Brobson, in another concurring opinion, wrote that “as technology advances, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence, these concerns will continue to arise.” He recommended that the state court system’s Committee on Rules of Evidence examine concerns with the use of emerging technology as evidence.

Pittsburgh began using ShotSpotter in early 2015 over a 3-square-mile area in the northeast of the city, with officials billing it as a way of summoning police and medical assistance to gunshot victims even when no one calls 911. It has since been expanded to cover roughly one-third of the city.

The city pays ShotSpotter around $1.2 million a year and the current contract runs through 2025.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The post Pa. high court approves use of ShotSpotter report in North Side man’s conviction, airs concerns appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Thanksgiving — a complicated holiday rooted in colonialism — is often associated today with hearty foods and good company. PublicSource Managing Editor Rich Lord has spent upwards of 45 Thanksgivings in Pittsburgh. Stephanie Mirah, the audience growth and engagement producer, is about to spend her first Turkey Day in the area. 

While Lord has a fuzzy memory of spending at least one holiday alone in college, both have typically spent the day surrounded by family or friends. We’ve known people, though, who spend the holiday alone — some by choice, some because they don’t see another option. 

Are you expecting to spend Thanksgiving alone this November? Share your experience below in 200 words or less. 

We’ll publish your accounts and observations Thanksgiving week along with resources and places to celebrate a community Thanksgiving.

The post Alone on Turkey Day? We want to hear from you about it. appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Update (11/1/23): The Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Nov. 9 board meeting will be held at 2 p.m. in the August Wilson Conference Room at 412 Boulevard of the Allies, Downtown, with limited in-person attendance. Those who wish to register to attend in person or get details on virtual participation can find information here.

The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh board expects to resume in-person meetings in December, according to a spokesperson for the agency. The board is scheduled to meet at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 14.

Reported 10/25/23: The Pittsburgh Public Schools board and the Urban Redevelopment Authority will resume in-person public meetings next month, following a PublicSource inquiry into the legality of ongoing virtual-only access to decision making at several area governmental bodies.

The City Planning Commission, though, has no immediate plans to return to admitting the public to its meetings, and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh did not respond to PublicSource’s inquiries regarding any plans to abide by the state Sunshine Act.

The school board’s legislative and agenda review meetings will admit live audiences, for the first time since 2020, starting in November, district solicitor Ira Weiss wrote to PublicSource this week. Members of the board and the public will also continue to be able to attend virtually, he added.

Weiss noted that the district adopted a virtual-only format under state legislation enacted in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The board’s approach up until this time has been in recognition of health concerns of board members and staff and was borne out of caution rather than any desire to avoid the legal requirements of public meetings,” Weiss wrote.

The board’s meeting today will only be accessible online, with board members present physically but the public only attending electronically, Weiss wrote. “The logistics of having public meetings involves advertising under the Sunshine Act, providing for security, and other set up issues which cannot be accomplished by the legislative meeting” today, he added.

Interest in Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] affairs could be heightened in the upcoming budget season.

The district has projected a $15 million operating deficit in 2024, a $6 million increase from this year. Federal pandemic relief funds are set to expire in September, potentially exacerbating the district’s financial difficulties. 

The district has increased staffing even as it consistently loses students, leading to high overhead costs such as salaries and building maintenance. With 27 school buildings being less than half full, the district has resumed talk of school closures. 

As part of its ongoing coverage of the district’s challenges, PublicSource has been seeking in-person access to PPS board meetings since late last year.

Last week PublicSource compared the public input and transparency practices of 10 City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County boards and commissions. One finding: Despite the fact that a pandemic-driven state law allowing that practice expired two years ago, some city panels were continuing to conduct virtual-only meetings.

“I was surprised by that, because it’s not been the law for quite some time,” said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which PublicSource is a member. “I was surprised to hear that there were still so many — and large — agencies holding virtual-only meetings.”

Following publication of the story on public input practices, PublicSource reached out to three city development agencies, plus the PPS board.

PublicSource noted, in correspondence to the agencies, that authorization for virtual-only meetings had expired, asked for any legal rationale for continuing that practice, sought a date for the return to in-person gatherings and indicated its intention to send a reporter to coming meetings. PublicSource asked each agency to respond by Oct. 24.

Virtual-only option expired in 2021

When COVID-19 shut down most in-person activity in 2020, the General Assembly passed Act 15, allowing (among other things) virtual meetings of public agencies for the duration of the public health emergency.

While temporarily justifiable, the results of online meetings were not ideal, said Melewsky.

“We had numerous examples of people being excluded because they simply do not have the technology to participate,” she said, or because the technology didn’t work. 

Even when the technology worked, she added, virtual meetings fell short in terms of government accountability to the public. “It was very hard to gauge all of the non-verbal cues that go along with speech,” she said. 

“It’s really easy for elected officials to just hit the mute button when they don’t want to hear what’s being said,” she added.

The emergency legislation expired in the summer of 2021.

Many agencies then shifted to hybrid formats, in which officials and members of the public can participate in person or online.

Melewsky said the online option has proved to be a plus.

“We very much support agencies expanding access, having their public meetings and streaming as well,” she said. “That’s good public policy, providing as many avenues of public input as possible.”

Renovations not a reason to bar public

Pre-pandemic, the Urban Redevelopment Authority [URA], City Planning Commission and Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] had offices and held meetings at 200 Ross St., Downtown. Since 2020, city development functions have moved to 412 Boulevard of the Allies. David Geiger, the URA’s director of government and strategic affairs, told PublicSource that the new location’s conference room continues to undergo renovation, and that a return to in-person meetings would follow the completion of that work.

Pittsburgh Press Secretary Olga George said this week that the city continues “working to have facilities so we can have hybrid commission and board hearings.”

Melewsky said that was a surprising, and legally insufficient, rationale. “If your regular meeting room is under construction, you need to find a different meeting room. It’s difficult to imagine that a large agency in a city as large as Pittsburgh couldn’t find another room in the city in which to hold in-person public meetings.”

This week the URA responded to PublicSource’s inquiries by agreeing to provide “limited in-person seating” plus virtual access at its November board meeting. The agency will release details by the end of this week, according to URA Director of Communication and Community Relations Tanika Harris.

The development agency “never intentionally operated in a place of non compliance,” Harris wrote in an email response to PublicSource. “We focused on making sure we were able to operate as efficiently as possible” and used technology to enable access for people who were unable to attend in-person meetings. 

“We’re also experiencing issues with limited physical space available to us.”

HACP did not respond to inquiries.

The city development agencies face decisions which could warrant public input.

HACP is transforming Bedford Dwellings, in the Hill District, into mixed-income housing in a process that will involve relocating hundreds of households and spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Every other week, the Planning Commission votes on multiple proposals for new construction or renovation.

Melewsky said the state Sunshine Act, which requires open government meetings with some exceptions, provides mechanisms for citizens to compel agencies to comply.

“Anyone who believes the law has been violated has the right to pursue the civil or criminal penalties that are outlined in the Sunshine Act,” she said, by filing a civil lawsuit or making a private criminal complaint to the district attorney, who would then decide whether to file summary charges.

“It’s not without pitfalls for a government agency to play loose and fast with the rules,” said Paula Knudsen Burke, the Pennsylvania lawyer for the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Her office has worked with journalists to remedy Sunshine Act violations, typically sending warning letters and suing if they are not heeded.

“If agencies won’t follow the law there are ways to attempt to make them follow the law, including court action,” she told PublicSource. When the courts find a violation, penalties can include fines and mandatory training in the open meetings law.

Rich Lord is the managing editor of PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.

The post Updated: Public allowed into meetings following PublicSource probe of legality of virtual-only boards appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Explore the series

On a late-September day, 10 tenants of Hi View Gardens in McKeesport clustered around a patio, smashing spotted lanternflies and planning next steps in their ongoing efforts to improve their subsidized apartment complex.

“You’ve got to voice your opinions,” urged Tanya Brown, a great-grandmother and leader of the Hi View Gardens Tenant Council, at its Sept. 26 meeting, which attracted residents and a handful of kids. “You can’t just watch the whole place fall apart and not say anything.”

It had been a long road for the tenants at the five-building complex, and just when they thought it might turn a corner, it seemed to hit a dead end.

Complex owner PNC Bank’s effort to sell its affordable housing complexes in McKeesport have stalled. As a result, pledged payments to careworn tenants — tentatively negotiated a year ago but tied to the proposed sale — have not materialized.

While much has improved at Hi View since PublicSource and WESA exposed conditions there and at nearby Midtown Plaza in 2021, residents continue to have serious concerns about maintenance and pests. For the second time in two years, a management company is being dismissed, meaning the residents will soon meet yet another new team of office personnel and maintenance workers.

“When the hell is our maintenance going to fix this shit up?” asked Brown. “It’s terrible, especially for women with kids.”

“And dads with kids,” added resident Devonte Doss, who said it’s difficult to decide whether to let his four children play outside in the complex.

PNC spokesperson Olivia Lammel wrote in response to questions that the bank is “fully committed to residents receiving appropriate service from those that operate the properties.”

Not sliding back

PNC bought Hi View and 11-story Midtown, totaling around 200 units, in 2018. They became part of a nationwide portfolio of a few dozen affordable properties the bank has purchased in an effort both to make money and to preserve housing for low-income households.

By 2021, when tenants first organized the council, health code violations and 911 calls across the two properties had soared, according to a PublicSource and WESA investigation.

In the wake of those findings, PNC pledged investments. It met with Hi View tenants. It made improvements to Hi View’s heating system, improved door locks, replaced roofs and fixed up a vacant structure that had been damaged by a May 2020 fire.

“Tenant council input was valuable because they showed the owners where money needed to be spent on improvements,” said Dan Vitek, an attorney for the tenant council from the nonprofit Community Justice Project. “The collaborative effort between the owner and the tenant council has kept the focus on improving the quality of life and not letting things slide back to the way they were before Public Source and [WESA] first shined a light on the troubles there.”

The bank said last year that it planned to sell the properties.

A recent sale attempt fell through, PNC’s Lammel confirmed, and “the property is actively being marketed for sale.” Any sale would have to have approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Guns, glass and ‘extra protein’

Where tenant concerns in 2021 focused on balky heating, leaky roofs and slow response to broken windows and appliances, complaints this season skew more toward public safety and pests.

During the September meeting, Vitek showed a police report indicating a raid a few days before netted seven arrests, nine seized firearms, heroin, cocaine and marijuana.

“It is scary at night to go to sleep,” one resident piped up during the meeting.

“I’m a father first. So my kids’ safety is everything,” said Doss. “So if I feel that my kids aren’t safe to be able to go outside on the playground and play without getting cut by a piece of glass, I don’t want to send my kids outside. But then I have a problem with my kids asking me why they can’t go outside and why they can’t do this, that and the third. I just feel like the property management could do better with keeping up on the grounds.”

Preparing a meal is likewise fraught, said resident Liddie Rutherford, a retiree who lives with her husband in the complex.

“When I’m cooking dinner, I have to keep a can of spray beside the stove,” she said. “I use the can of spray, spray the bug, wash my hands and go back to cooking whatever I’m cooking. … As a matter of fact today when I was cooking, there was a roach above the stove and it almost went into what I was cooking, my meat. I don’t need no extra protein in my meat.”

After WESA and PublicSource first reported on conditions in Hi View and Midtown, PNC in 2021 replaced the properties’ management company, Maine-based Preservation Management Inc. The bank assigned oversight to the nonprofit, New York City-based NHP Foundation, which owns and manages affordable housing in 16 states. NHP in turn hired Strip District-based NDC Asset Management to perform maintenance.

Going forward, NDC “will no longer be involved with Hi View,” wrote Fred Mitchell, a senior vice president at NHP, in response to questions from PublicSource and WESA. He said it was too early to name a replacement maintenance company, but said NHP remains “fully committed to residents receiving appropriate service from those that operate the properties.”

NDC did not respond to email and calls requesting comment. PNC declined to provide more information about the change in contractors.

Paying up 

Vitek told tenants that PNC’s promised six-figure payment to be divided among them, made in light of years of subpar maintenance, was originally to be tied to the planned sale of the property. With no sale on the horizon, the bank and the tenant council would renegotiate the terms, he said, in hopes of getting payment of some tenant appreciation funds this year.

He asked WESA and PublicSource not to publish details of the tenant council’s discussion of the proposed fund, out of concern that disclosures could affect negotiations.

Lammel confirmed the bank’s “intent is to fund the tenant appreciation fund on terms and conditions to be determined” by the parties.

At their council meeting, tenants focused largely on their desire for a cleaner, safer community, rather than any settlement or sale. But the issues are linked, according to Brown, the tenant council leader.

“If they want to sell this property and everything,” she said, “they’d better fix it up way better than what they got it.”

Read all of Tenant Cities and the initial PublicSource/WESA investigation of PNC’s McKeesport Housing.

Rich Lord is the managing editor of PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Kate Giammarise is a reporter covering social services and affordable housing for WESA and can be reached at kgiammarise@wesa.fm or 412-697-2953.

This story was fact-checked by Sarah Liez.

The post Fighting for improvements, Hi View Gardens residents wait for PNC to sell or pay appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh Bureau of Police activity dropped, by several key measures, during the first year of Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration, but the historic skewing of arrests and other such actions toward Black males did not budge.

The bureau in recent days released its annual statistical report, an 85-page chronicle of activity by a force that has steadily waned from around 1,000 officers in 2019 to fewer than 800 today. Among the findings, the report shows a sizable drop in overall arrests, traffic stops and park-and-walks between 2021 and last year.

A police spokesperson said this is consistent with national trends since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 but the underlying causes are unclear.

“It’s difficult to pinpoint any one thing that may have resulted in decreased numbers in these areas,” Cara Cruz, the department’s public information officer, wrote in an email.

From the vantage of officers, staffing shortages appear to be a factor.

“You’re losing numbers so you can’t do as much proactive policing,” said Robert Swartzwelder, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge representing the bureau rank-and-file. “It’s probably significantly correlated … You see the number of police officers dropping at the same rate as you’re seeing that activity dropping.”

Read more: Gainey supporters frustrated as mayor, chief resist consultant’s suggested police reforms

Anthony Coghill, a city councilor who chairs the public safety committee, said he had not yet reviewed the report but reiterated Swartzwelder’s concerns about the impact of reduced staffing.

“That’s disturbing to me,” he said. “It’s alarming.”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the reduced activity tracked closely to declining officer counts. The 2022 report did not include updated information on the force’s numbers and demographics. It included outdated numbers that were identical to those in the 2021 report. Cruz said the bureau was working to correct that error.

During his successful 2021 mayoral campaign, Gainey said high arrest rates of Black Pittsburghers reflected a failure to implement community-oriented policing, adding that there was "a serious issue with overpolicing in our neighborhoods, and the numbers don’t lie."

During his first year in office, Black men continued to comprise nearly half of those arrested by the bureau, and nearly three-fourths of those who were stopped and frisked.

In May, Gainey appointed Larry Scirotto to lead the department, following a year-long process to name a successor to former chief Scott Schubert. In announcing his appointment, Scirotto, who identifies as biracial, vowed to restructure the department around violent crime intervention, officer wellness, and community police partnerships.

Cruz pointed out that Scirotto was not leading the bureau during 2022 – the year of the most recent data – but noted, “The statistical data serves as a guideline for where the Bureau can improve and focus efforts to ensure that fair and equitable policing is the primary objective moving forward.” 

A spokesperson for Gainey said the administration is aware of “lasting issues” over policing in the Black community and is “continuing to evaluate the systems.” 

“One change that has happened is the hiring of a new police chief that understands the need for community building,” said Olga George, Gainey’s press secretary. “Dealing with this issue must start at a place of mutual trust and respect to change those disparities.”

Swartzwelder said it’s difficult, with the data available, to conclusively determine whether police actions reflect "a problem" involving racial bias.

“The metric that’s not being studied is, where is the call volume being generated?" the union leader said. “Who is calling the police? ... Where’s the volume of ShotSpotter alerts coming from?” If calls and gunshot alerts are disproportionately coming from neighborhoods with given demographics, police interactions are likely to reflect that, he said.

If not? “Is it a serious outlier? Well, maybe you do have a problem.”

 Scirotto has made similar arguments when asked whether traffic stop data reflected bias.

The annual report indicates that use of force by city officers, which surged in 2020 but fell in 2021, remained roughly unchanged last year.

Earlier this year, the union and the city agreed on a contract that created a first-in-Pittsburgh-history disciplinary matrix governing punishments for policy infractions. It will oversee officer violations going forward. 

Disciplinary actions last year were lower than in recent years, but terminations were up. That appears to be driven largely by Gainey's response to the October 2021 death of Jim Rogers, 54, who was shocked repeatedly with a Taser in Bloomfield. The city terminated five officers over the incident.

“Certainly, since Chief Scirotto began his tenure mid-way through 2023, he has been very clear about his expectations and directives for officers to treat every interaction, every call, as an opportunity to build positive relationships in the community,” said Cruz.

People across the political spectrum have criticized Gainey’s handling of the police department during his first two years in office.

Progressives who helped elect him have grown frustrated at a lack of progress on police reform after his 2021 primary election campaign focused in no small part on changing the bureau. They’ve criticized his decision to ignore a consultant’s recommendation to shrink the force’s patrol units significantly.

Meanwhile Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala — the Republican nominee for that post — and unsuccessful county executive candidate John Weinstein have said that Gainey is not supportive enough of the police and is making it too hard for them to counteract crime.

Swartzwelder said the available data doesn't definitively show whether city officers are "dialing it back."

In response to news that the city was dropping its budgeted officer count from 900 to 850, and did not expect to reach 900 officers again until 2027, he said the city will have to decide what it wants from the force. With current staffing levels, he said, the city is "running these officers into the ground."

He added that the union last month filed a grievance after the city barred several classifications of officers from taking time off during a series of large public events running from The Pittsburgh Great Race in September through First Night Pittsburgh on New Years Eve. Under its contract, the city can bar off days for emergencies.

"These are not emergency events," Swartzwelder said. "They're all for fun. And you don't have the personnel for fun."

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is PublicSource’s deputy editor, and can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Charlie Wolfson contributed.

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