Blog
Have stuff to get rid of? OPDC’s got you! Drop off at OPDC.
WHERE: 294 Semple Street
WHEN: Mon-Thurs 9am to 4pm OR Saturdays July 18th & July 25th 11am to 3pm
Have questions about an item or need help moving your stuff? Contact Sophia Bottiglieri at sbottiglieri@opdc.org .
The last two years have been eventful for OPDC - and times of great change offered us an opportunity to reassess and redefine ourselves. Our latest report shares more about our work to reorganize around a new team, new strategic vision, and the impact we’ve continued to deliver across our programs over the past two years. As you read the report, we hope you see yourself as a participant in building the Oakland of tomorrow: one with strong social connections, spaces to build community and have fun, and housing that is inclusive of everyone, especially our most vulnerable neighbors. We are all stewards in making these dreams a reality.
Click here to download a PDF of the report - or view it below.
In 2022, the Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh (BAMP) filed a complaint against the City of Pittsburgh's Inclusionary Zoning ordinance, claiming IZ violates the takings clause of the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution. This complaint has been amended and argued back and forth over the years, but this spring Walnut Capital and a property owner on Fifth Avenue joined the suit, claiming specifically that the enforcement of IZ in Oakland must be halted. OPDC joined with Lawrenceville United, Bloomfield Development Corporation, Polish Hill Civic Association, Hill District Consensus Group and the Fair Housing Partnership of Greater Pittsburgh to file an amicus brief in support of the City. On Monday, Judge Colville delivered a memorandum opinion granting the City's motion to dismiss the case and denying BAMP's motion for a preliminary injunction against IZ.
This is great news! Inclusionary Zoning is working in Oakland: projects are moving forward that will deliver more than 100 affordable rental units here in the next few years, increasing economic diversity and opportunity close to transit, jobs, education, cultural and other amenities. IZ obviously won't solve our affordable housing crisis on its own - but it's an important tool for building a more inclusive and vibrant Oakland, and we're celebrating this reaffirmation this week.
In 2022, the Oakland Plan re-wrote a lot of the zoning for Central Oakland and the Boulevard, making it easier to build the kind of multi-family housing that the neighborhood needs to keep up with rental demand. Three years later, the residential building boom is really picking up!
Walnut Capital is currently building a 159-unit development on McKee at Louisa
Paramount is converting 3339 Ward into a 19-unit residential building
Trinitas is planning a 326-unit development on Halket Street
Hudson is moving forward with two new developments on Melwood above Baum totaling 208 units
Subtext presented plans for their proposed 299-unit building at 250 Atwood at a development activities meeting on September 8
All together, these projects will create almost 800 new apartments – more than 2,000 new beds – and there are more projects in the pipeline right behind them. Thanks to inclusionary zoning, all this new development will deliver over 100 new affordable rental units to Oakland in the next couple years! Click here to find updates for each of these projects.
Meanwhile, Presbyterian Senior Care is putting the finishing touches on its new apartment building at Forbes and Craft, The Mosaic – an 80-unit LGBTQ+friendly low-income housing tax credit building for people over 62.
We’re hopeful that new density and diversity will benefit all of us in Oakland. Locating more students in apartment buildings reduces the rental demand in lower-density residential areas, easing displacement pressure, making noise and trash and parking more manageable. Affordability increases opportunities for working families to live closer to jobs and school, reducing traffic for everyone; and new affordable senior housing close to transit, hospitals, and cultural amenities is good news for everybody.
Image courtesy of University of Pittsburgh Facebook page
August is Moving Month in all of Oakland’s neighborhoods, as leases turn over, graduates move away, and returning students fill their places. This year – it's not your imagination! – there are more students arriving in Oakland than in years past. The University of Pittsburgh has admitted what might be its biggest freshman class ever. To house them all, the university is getting creative with the bed configurations in its dorms and is expanding its block leases in local apartment buildings and hotels.
Back in 2021, when Pitt published its current institutional master plan (IMP), it anticipated a slow steady rate of growth, with an aggregate increase in undergraduate enrollment over the next ten years of no more than 5% to 10% (which translates to as many as 1,800 additional students by 2031). Acknowledging that student demand for off-campus housing has put enormous stress on Oakland’s residential neighborhoods over the last 50 years, the university promised to build new dormitories to make up the difference – to add over 1,000 new on-campus beds.
Pitt hasn't built any new dorms since the IMP was published, but the rate of enrollment growth is pushing the limits of everyone’s expectations. New apartment buildings built by private developers have added more than 2,300 net new beds to Oakland since 2017 (not all of which are occupied by undergraduates) and more are under development and construction. But to actually ease the rental pressure in Oakland’s residential neighborhoods, Pitt needs to follow through on its IMP commitment and build more dorms.
Oakland homeowners and long-term residents want Oakland to be more welcoming to families with children, people who will help care for their properties and the community, support local businesses, and get to know their neighbors. It might seem counterintuitive, but to make that possible we will need to encourage much more residential density – including tall apartment buildings and dorms – close to Oakland’s universities and employers.
