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I am just having a hard time understanding how lower property taxes leads to higher rent..
There are many abandoned houses in Wilkinsburg. I imagine this is because the cost of rehabilitating the homes can not be recouped by the lower rent / high property tax scenario in Wilkinsburg. Lowering the taxes means more people may invest, the neighborhood gets fixed up, and improves.
While I generally think that gentrification sucks, Wilkinsburg needs the investment. It is not healthy to have all those abandoned houses, and many of them are worth preserving. It would be worse to see Wilkinsburg continue to decline and look like McKeesport in five years, not that it's far off. You said Wilkinsburg is "fine" the way it is, but it's really not. I imagine if it was 1950, it would all be leveled for Garden Apartments.
I am just having a hard time understanding how lower property taxes leads to higher rent..
There are many abandoned houses in Wilkinsburg. I imagine this is because the cost of rehabilitating the homes can not be recouped by the lower rent / high property tax scenario in Wilkinsburg. Lowering the taxes means more people may invest, the neighborhood gets fixed up, and improves.
While I generally think that gentrification sucks, Wilkinsburg needs the investment. It is not healthy to have all those abandoned houses, and many of them are worth preserving. It would be worse to see Wilkinsburg continue to decline and look like McKeesport in five years, not that it's far off. You said Wilkinsburg is "fine" the way it is, but it's really not. I imagine if it was 1950, it would all be leveled for Garden Apartments.
I don’t know about Wilkinsburg, but I guarantee you that Mt. Oliver residents would love Pittsburgh millage. I couldn’t imagine investing there until the millage was brought down.
sorry, but this is a terrible point. if your not a minority, to hell with you? if they are leaving, chances are non-minority people are, too. why is the minority situation a special consideration? kinda racist.
Do you live in a bubble? When the census is officially released this will
Likely big a national news story.
I am just having a hard time understanding how lower property taxes leads to higher rent..
There are many abandoned houses in Wilkinsburg. I imagine this is because the cost of rehabilitating the homes can not be recouped by the lower rent / high property tax scenario in Wilkinsburg. Lowering the taxes means more people may invest, the neighborhood gets fixed up, and improves.
While I generally think that gentrification sucks, Wilkinsburg needs the investment. It is not healthy to have all those abandoned houses, and many of them are worth preserving. It would be worse to see Wilkinsburg continue to decline and look like McKeesport in five years, not that it's far off. You said Wilkinsburg is "fine" the way it is, but it's really not. I imagine if it was 1950, it would all be leveled for Garden Apartments.
Rent will go up for sure. You aren’t getting anything at a reduced rate if you merge with Pittsburgh. Gentrification and displacement is the name of the game. The hill district in the 1950s. East Liberty present day. Wilkinsburg is in a good location with good access. Property will get reassessed higher and rents will go up.
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Originally Posted by Lost_In_Translation
I don’t know about Wilkinsburg, but I guarantee you that Mt. Oliver residents would love Pittsburgh millage. I couldn’t imagine investing there until the millage was brought down.
Yet nobody is chomping at the bit up there to start a merger. Likely the same deal. Majority renter and people don’t want to pay more in wage taxes or rents.
“Some Wilkinsburg residents believe their property taxes would be slashed drastically if a merger materialized, but Peduto says that's not necessarily the case, as Wilkinsburg properties would be reassessed at a higher value, in accordance with properties in Pittsburgh.
"There will have to be an adjustment made for the properties reassessed in Wilkinsburg, in order to provide the uniformity of taxation," Peduto said.”
Pitt Professor:
“George Dougherty, an assistant professor of public administration at the University of Pittsburgh, said local property tax rates are not the driver of gentrification. He said rehabilitation costs are far more important to would-be developers, and because those are generally high in Wilkinsburg, rampant gentrification is unlikely, at least in the near term.”
Wilkinsburg resident concerns:
“Longtime Wilkinsburg resident Dorine Lowery-Coleman, a 34-year-old mother of two, opposes the merger chiefly because of education. She has a kindergartener and a third-grader, and while Wilkinsburg middle and high school students attend city schools, she doesn't want her kids in Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] before then.
She said she was impressed by the Wilkinsburg schools’ response to the pandemic, noting that they received learning packets within two weeks of the March 2020 shutdown and received iPads within a month. She contrasted this with Pittsburgh Public’s much slower response and said she doesn’t “have confidence in the attention they give to each student.”
She said another reason for her opposition is the fear of gentrification. She’s seen what’s happened in parts of Pittsburgh like nearby East Liberty, and she doesn’t want developers to come into dilapidated parts of Wilkinsburg and “build apartments that people can’t afford.”
“Wilkinsburg has a hometown feel,” Lowery-Coleman said. “People walk around and they know their neighbors. Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t welcome new people. But we should not welcome them that way.””
I guess nobody reads the New Pittsburgh Courier. Apparently there was a lot of support against a municipal merger by African American residents of Wilkinsburg a week and half ago. This likely is the reason why this movement was halted. If you read the article statements made this referendum would fail miserably. For the same reasons I have stated all along.
Article statement:
“But on Thursday, July 1, right before the holiday, there was an “explosion” of support from Wilkinsburg officials and residents, saying they don’t want any part of merging with Pittsburgh.“
If you feel "gentrification sucks", why on earth would you use the screen name "preservationpioneer"? Gentrification saves the old architecture. For example, East Liberty was saved partly due to people that work moving in and fixing things up as people that don't work or contribute move out. Friendship was saved mostly. Highland Park thankfully didn't get destroyed like the East Hills.
I wish people could start living in "the real world" soon. Reality is a good thing.
I can't let this one go. Preservation and gentrification go hand in hand and I love our old buildings. Look at the Hill and Homewood. They are gone and there is no one to blame but residents living there. We can still save some areas. We have such amazing buildings and people that have no self pride at all, will certainly not save our old buildings, nor will they pay taxes that build infrastructure and a better life for all.
Now I am gone again, but hoping sometimes people can be real for at least a moment. The fake thing is getting old. There was a time East Hills had a very nice shopping center. It was taken over and destroyed. Monroeville Mall is going to go soon just like East Hills. People don't like crime and want to shop safe. There was a shooting at Ross Park Mall. I thought it would be the last to go, but maybe not, as people don't want to shop in "the hood" environment. Yes, this is living in the real world, not made up. Look at the news and watch interviews at Ross Park Mall, that people glaze over. I should know.
As migration goes on, so does the typical thing that happened to that wonderful East Hills Shopping Center. When it turns it turns. Look at what Kennywood is trying to do. No more under 18 without parents. Of course not. Why? East Hills Shopping Center is the answer. Yep, this is "real life".
Sorry, but we do need to get real at some point. Fake isn't real and we need to start facing facts. If crime goes down, which isn't "real world" then we can rebuild, but crime is skyrocketing in the same old areas. It is off the charts. No one talks about it. Why? Ah, fake world is nice. Yep.
I'm not following the logic that the minute Wilkinsburg becomes Pittsburgh, it gentrifies and the fancy condos go up. I don't believe for one minute that the only thing stopping Wilkinsburg from becoming the next East Liberty (for better or worse, depending on your stance) is the boundary of the city limit. It will gentrify, or it won't, but the city limit probably isn't going to make that determination.
If you feel "gentrification sucks", why on earth would you use the screen name "preservationpioneer"? Gentrification saves the old architecture. For example, East Liberty was saved partly due to people that work moving in and fixing things up as people that don't work or contribute move out. Friendship was saved mostly. Highland Park thankfully didn't get destroyed like the East Hills.
Gentrification destroys as much historic architecture as it saves. The two ideas are unrelated. Gentrification is about income and displacement. Preservation is about history and architecture. Gentrification is about developers and flippers. Preservation is about restoration, skilled craftsmen, and historians. Gentrification is condos and drive through Starbucks where old churches, corner stores, and affordable single family homes used to stand.
Sometimes the two concepts overlap, but that is mostly due to developers getting tax credits for restoring historic buildings correctly. Many of the most historic and intact neighborhoods were once slums. Manchester and the South Side Flats were both noted slum districts in the 1930s. These areas survived intact partly because developers weren't rushing in to build them up. There was no demand, the area stagnated, and the buildings survived. Of course, deterioration kills as much history as the greedy developer. Fortunately, the city adopted some historic districts, of which the South Side is the largest. That's why East Carson Street has that long, glorious stretch of Victorian business district.
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can't let this one go. Preservation and gentrification go hand in hand and I love our old buildings. Look at the Hill and Homewood. They are gone and there is no one to blame but residents living there.
The Lower Hill is gone because of government intervention, eminent domain, racism, and the suburban mindset of the 1950s. The residents were not to blame.
Homewood was one of the neighborhoods that poor families from the Lower Hill were relocated to, after the city took their homes. Then you had the steel industry collapse, suburban migration, and the crack epidemic and war on drugs. That's what happened to Homewood. If you want to blame someone, maybe the slumlords who let the properties decline. I am guessing the home ownership rate in Homewood is not super high.
Last edited by PreservationPioneer; 07-15-2021 at 12:36 AM..
I'm not following the logic that the minute Wilkinsburg becomes Pittsburgh, it gentrifies and the fancy condos go up. I don't believe for one minute that the only thing stopping Wilkinsburg from becoming the next East Liberty (for better or worse, depending on your stance) is the boundary of the city limit. It will gentrify, or it won't, but the city limit probably isn't going to make that determination.
People don’t trust the City of Pittsburgh. And for good reason, there is a history of displacement and botched mergers. Hence the reason this doesn’t happen very often.
The other side of the coin is the Pittsburgh area is not very good with job growth and economic opportunities. Wages are lower than average here. People are happy to have what they currently got and do not want changes. That’s why you see a resistance to change. People are struggling to make it here in the first place. If there was more opportunities and better wages in the area this would be a much easier sell.
Many want to keep Wilkinsburg cheap because of its location and because it is one of the few places left that renters can afford. The fact there are vacant storefronts and houses don’t matter. It’s cheap and in a good location and better than what Pittsburgh currently offers the same group of folks. People are getting what they want in Wilkinsburg. Outsiders with ideas on urban revitalization or preservation may not agree but they aren’t the ones living there, paying rent and putting food on the table.
Plus the one pushing the merger is a non profit group that has 0 to do with Wilkinsburg residents. In fact there has never been a huge outcry documented that residents want this to happen.
Whether it merges or not the ridiculous amount of municipalities that are tiny is obsolete (and one could argue it never made sense to have clusters of separate communities that are 2 square miles etc.)
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