March 9th planning commission is now online. There are four new items on the agenda, all of which warrant some discussion:
1.
Part 2 of Pitt's new master plan. The plan has been split into chunks because this is by far the weightiest single item that the commission reviews. This section is focusing upon new development within the 10-year window on the upslope part of Pitt's campus. There are nine sites focused on, but the presentation is honestly quite vague regarding the actual projected uses at each of the sites. More may be clear during the stream.
2.
Downtown, there is a slight tweak to the Penn/8th development. The bottom two floors of the furthest south building (the McNally building - one of the two rehabbed as part of the project) remained a shell, presumably in hopes of finding a large commercial tenant. The building owners seem to have given up on this, and are now subdividing the floors, with a small section in the front to be used for a coffee shop, while the rear portion will be used for an additional four loft apartments.
3.
A new, 600-stall parking garage at the Pittsburgh Technology Center. This is replacing
a current surface lot. It's an Indovina building, and as parking garages go, it's not a bad design at all. While I find new garages generally disappointing, PTC is basically a lost cause.
4.
A zoning change - the official "inclusionary zoning overlay" for Lawrenceville. My basic feelings on the proposal have not changed - I feel this is close to a meaningless gesture. I say this because the inclusionary zoning requirements are only applied for developments of 20 or more units. As the study itself shows, there have only been seven such developments in Lawrenceville in recent history. The vast majority of new projects coming online in Lawrenceville are small scale 1-6 unit stands of townhomes, which are not regulated by this process at all. Indeed, the vast majority of Lawrenceville is only zoned for single-family housing. 95% of the areas multi-family is allowed by right are either right along Butler Street (where 20+ unit new developments are unlikely) or within the riverfront zones. Further, any zoning change which simply adds affordability requirements without loosening requirements elsewhere will result in a net rise in housing costs, because it doesn't up the supply, meaning developers will simply have to increase the rent/sale price of the market-rate units to make up the difference.