In the News
Study to guide placement of development funds in city
By Rich Lord
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 30, 2008
Ed Brandt figured that the best thing to do with a plot of cleared land in the city's Marshall-Shadeland neighborhood was to build 17 houses on it. A new trove of city data told him otherwise.
That data, which Pittsburgh officials shared yesterday, persuaded Mr. Brandt, and the rest of the Brightwood Civic Group that serves Marshall-Shadeland, to build just three houses and leave a grassy mini-park. That park could boost the value of older homes and save most of the $2.2 million in public aid that would have gone into 17 houses.
The data came from a five-month study commissioned by the city of Pittsburgh and conducted by The Reinvestment Fund, a Philadelphia nonprofit organization. Officials and community developers view the resulting computer maps, to be put on the Internet within weeks, as a tool to help neighborhoods and planners invest better.
"In years past, somebody would get an idea or a whim and say, 'You know what? We've got to build five houses on that street,'" said Kendall Pelling, a project manager at East Liberty Development Inc. "There wasn't a data-driven piece to that."
That gap prompted the city to bring in The Reinvestment Fund, which has also studied Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Its maps use data on the numbers of homes and businesses, sale prices, vacancies, new construction, building code violations, foreclosures and the prevalence of Section 8 housing. The final map applies a seven-shade color scale to the city, with stable or improving housing markets in purple and blue, and weaker ones in shades of orange and yellow.
It finds the strongest markets in Squirrel Hill and Shadyside, and parts of Highland Park, Banksville and Brookline. The weakest are in parts of Homewood, Lincoln-Lemington, Perry South, Beltzhoover and Hazelwood.
Rob Stephany, interim executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, said that the key is not "what the color of the neighborhood is" but what the underlying data says and where an area fits into the city's tapestry. For instance, Homewood is distressed, but the strength of nearby Point Breeze suggests that investments along the border could then spur building deeper into Homewood.
Mr. Stephany said the city and neighborhood groups can use the data to fight "the slum landlord market" that occurs where retirees or their heirs sell homes to investors who make few improvements and then rent them out. The city or groups instead might buy up at-risk properties for responsible renovation.
The study also will help the city create a development master plan, said Planning Director Noor Ismail.
"It allows us to look at the city as a whole at the same time that neighborhood groups are looking at their specific pieces," she said.
The Brightwood Civic Group got an early taste of the data, which showed that 17 new houses might not sell well. City Neighborhood Initiatives Director Kim Graziani said that Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's administration will set up a series of community meetings from late May through July, while trying to round up more funding for investment driven by the data.
The study cost $35,000 and was paid for by the URA and the New York City-based Surdna Foundation. The Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group oversaw the process.