City, LG Realty reach settlement on Penn Plaza... (Pittsburgh, Liberty: low income, apartments)

[eschaton]

Read all about it here. The Trib has some more facts.

Summary across the varied sites:

1. LG Realty is abandoning the plan to build 200 apartments at this site, instead building retail and offices, along with underground parking. Groundbreaking next year, open by 2019 or 2020.

2. However, they will have to chip in money towards developing 490 units of housing within a one-mile radius of the site, with the subsidized/market rate balance split around 50/50. This will not only effectively replace all of the affordable units lost when Penn Plaza was knocked down, it will result in more market-rate units than they originally intended. I have a few guesses on where these apartments will go, but we don't know anything concrete yet. The amount of money batted around in these articles does not seem enough to build that many units, but maybe it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of allowing for other grants and subsidies to flow.

3. The silly "Friends of Enright Park" got something out of the deal too, with LG contributing $1 million to the park's redesign. It seems the park has to be the same size or larger, but may be reconfigured a bit - which is good, because it needs to be.

[gg]

deal designed to fund low-income housing

What else is new? Goodness, what happened to the middle class and people who actually contribute and work to get the prime locations. I really HATE the way Pittsburgh is going. I feel bad for the college grades with huge debt, but they make enough not to live in the subsidized stuff. Pittsburgh isn't the place to be if you are trying to work hard and move forward I guess. It is all about the poor that will just run everything into the ground like they did to East Liberty and East Hills. It is what it is.

Only a few more years and I can get out of here. I am tired of subsidizing the people that aren't contributing and never did.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by gg

deal designed to fund low-income housing

What else is new? Goodness, what happened to the middle class and people who actually contribute and work to get the prime locations. I really HATE the way Pittsburgh is going. I feel bad for the college grades with huge debt, but they make enough not to live in the subsidized stuff. Pittsburgh isn't the place to be if you are trying to work hard and move forward I guess. It is all about the poor that will just run everything into the ground like they did to East Liberty and East Hills. It is what it is.

Only a few more years and I can get out of here. I am tired of subsidizing the people that aren't contributing and never did.

Tyovan4 and I are the only two on here who regularly ask why there’s so much welfare thrown at the development of both luxury units and low-income-targeted units in prime walkable neighborhoods while the working-class is told “go pound sand”. If poor and rich people are being subsidized to live in nice parts of town, then I’m not going to work hard to be forced to move to a bad part of town.

[eschaton]

If you guys read the link on the Post Gazette, the plan will up the number of market-rate units developed from 200 (on the old footprint of Penn Plaza) to 239 (scattered within a mile radius). So it really isn't the case that this deal just has good things for low income people.

[Goinback2011]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Tyovan4 and I are the only two on here who regularly ask why there’s so much welfare thrown at the development of both luxury units and low-income-targeted units in prime walkable neighborhoods while the working-class is told “go pound sand”. If poor and rich people are being subsidized to live in nice parts of town, then I’m not going to work hard to be forced to move to a bad part of town.

Renting one of those apartments would mean you pay higher rent to pay for the "low income " tenants. Nothing is free. Someone pays and it's not the owner of the apartments.

[xdv8]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Read all about it here. The Trib has some more facts.

Summary across the varied sites:

1. LG Realty is abandoning the plan to build 200 apartments at this site, instead building retail and offices, along with underground parking. Groundbreaking next year, open by 2019 or 2020.

2. However, they will have to chip in money towards developing 490 units of housing within a one-mile radius of the site, with the subsidized/market rate balance split around 50/50. This will not only effectively replace all of the affordable units lost when Penn Plaza was knocked down, it will result in more market-rate units than they originally intended. I have a few guesses on where these apartments will go, but we don't know anything concrete yet. The amount of money batted around in these articles does not seem enough to build that many units, but maybe it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of allowing for other grants and subsidies to flow.

3. The silly "Friends of Enright Park" got something out of the deal too, with LG contributing $1 million to the park's redesign. It seems the park has to be the same size or larger, but may be reconfigured a bit - which is good, because it needs to be.

Do you expect these 490 apartments would be located on one site? It wasn't clear to me how this part of the deal is structured.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this deal. To me it sounds like we get the best of everything. More apartments as you mentioned, and they are a balance of market and affordable. The parking is now going to be underground and the area needs more office space.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by xdv8

Do you expect these 490 apartments would be located on one site? It wasn't clear to me how this part of the deal is structured.

Probably not. LG owns smaller parcels at two of the other corners of Penn and Negley (the former Babyland site and the former Monroe Muffler site). Presumably it would be easier to build apartments there because they don't need to acquire the land, but I couldn't see more than 100 units in those locations - probably less. There's other parcels further up N Negley that ELDI has been trying to redevelop that the city might have in mind ad well. Keep in mind that given the huge zone the land can be developed within, some of it could be scattered site infill in Garfield or East Liberty or something as well. It's too early to tell.

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Tyovan4 and I are the only two on here who regularly ask why there’s so much welfare thrown at the development of both luxury units and low-income-targeted units in prime walkable neighborhoods while the working-class is told “go pound sand”. If poor and rich people are being subsidized to live in nice parts of town, then I’m not going to work hard to be forced to move to a bad part of town.

Why don’t you try being poor, since they have it so much better than the so-called “working class”. Tell us how that works out for you.

[safak]

Originally Posted by gladhands

Why don’t you try being poor, since they have it so much better than the so-called “working class”. Tell us how that works out for you.

eye of the beholder. works out just fine for many people.

[gg]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Tyovan4 and I are the only two on here who regularly ask why there’s so much welfare thrown at the development of both luxury units and low-income-targeted units in prime walkable neighborhoods while the working-class is told “go pound sand”. If poor and rich people are being subsidized to live in nice parts of town, then I’m not going to work hard to be forced to move to a bad part of town.

Agreed. Prime land should be more for the working people, not the folks just hanging around watching a big screen TV. They can do that anywhere.