Not all developers are bad. Pittsburgh just makes you think they are because it's only the huge, mega-corporation, conglomerate developers that have the resources and cash to get anything done. And those developers suck soooo much. Pittsburgh zoning all but eliminates small-time developers who really do want to improve their communities. Compared to other cities, it's absolutely insane. Cities need development and when the only ones who can afford it are the plain Jane corporations that only care about dollars in their spreadsheet, you get a shitty, boring city.

Yeah I agree. With so many people in the room, the end product ends up as a strained compromise that looks nothing like what anybody wants. It’s just so hard to trust the developers to do the right thing. Look at how the news segment uses the old renderings for walnut capitals Oakland crossing project. The current project looks nothing like the pictures they showed originally and people are going to shit a brick when they see that thing built. They got an exception to build a 400 foot long building when they were showing two separate buildings for a long time. I though it was very important urban design principle to not build monolithic super-blocks like this building. The zoning only slows 250 feet which is the average block size in the area. Walnut capital gets whatever they want from the city and I can’t think of a zoning variance they didn’t get so it’s just obnoxious of them and shows how entitled they have become to getting their own way. I can just never tell what is reasonable to bring down costs of housing and what is a profit grab

https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2023/03/01/oakland-crossing-walnut-capital-zoning-plan.html

https://nextpittsburgh.com/city-design/how-one-pittsburgh-developer-wants-to-fix-oaklands-dead-zone/

https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/news/oakland-crossings-what-it

A more agile and visionary administration would be shoulder deep in reforming the zoning and review process by now. Gainey, however, would rather concern himself with speed bumps.

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>These buildings will stand for 50-100 years and should be reviewed thoroughly by the city.

Absolutely, which is what PLI does for building permits. Building permit fees can easily be in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousand because they are technical reviews for health and safety.

The zoning review process should be fairly straightforward and efficient. Unfortunately, the zoning code is so complicated and the review process so capricious that it takes the city many more months to complete than the building permit process.

So, of course, buildings should be reviewed, but the way Pittsburgh does it and the requirements within those reviews have serious negative impacts on housing affordability.

Well a month ago he was already home, having friends over, and wheeling himself around. If necessary I'm certain the writers can make changes to the plot and scripts due to any physical limitations. The show recently announced they have this series mapped out for another 8 seasons, all to be filmed in Pittsburgh. Sounds like they anticipate he'll return in some capacity. I have my doubts, regardless of health, that it'll last that long though. But that's just my opinion.

I worked a 16 hour day as an extra on MoK last summer. The overwhelming majority of that time was spent sitting around a tent city prison in the August heat. The stars spent that time sitting around in air conditioned trailers.

It's not a typo. The city used to have a site plan review fee that rarely surpassed $30,000, even for big projects. The new fee is based on a project value of $3 per $1000 of construction costs. That's a huge increase.

Your using a statistic about how much the fee went up to get sympathy for developers. What is percentage of the development cost? Is the fee really the impediment to development or is restrictive zoning, excessive litigation and lengthy revisions the real issue? Can these developers discuss logistical issues to speed up reviews instead of just being money grubbing cry babies anytime they have to part with a believed dollar. A lot of the mega developments that pay the most fees get huge tax grants anyway. I’m looking at you walnut capital and piatt esplanade.

There’s even a town near Wheeling built around a burial mound. Moundsville WV.

It's a mixed bag, and many of the NIMBYs are in the DSA/activist circles. Even those not outright anti-development advocate for policies and requirements that make building more time-consuming and expensive without considering the negative impacts. Take a look at the zoning code sometimes; there are some wildly impractical requirements that you can tell no architect or engineer, or even attorney, had any hand in writing.

McKees Rocks too, I believe.

Please have the lobbyist who pays you to make these posts provide you with actual data from an impartial source you can share.

East Liberty has more below-market housing units now than when the abysmal towers were there. No housing was torn down to make way for the "luxury" apartments.

Didn't the developer actually add a sidewalk to a part of Liberty that didn't have one while they built this building with a lane temporarily closed? It's still two lanes until the bike and turning lane project.

I agree to an extent. I’ve actually had face to face meetings with Mayor Gainey about issues effecting my neighborhood. Something I could never get with mayor peduto. Like I said, I do think his heart is in the right place. And, if nothing else he has breathed some fresh air into the city county building. But, I don’t know if his trusted advisors have a strong grip on policy.

I get it, it’s easy for me to complain from the sidelines. And, you’re never going to please all of the people. I just had higher hopes.

My city council person is light years ahead of their predecessor. So, we’ve got that going for us.

Oh, you must have never been to East Liberty. Sorry.

Yes, for someone who almost died and barely avoided leg amputation. Not for an action star pulling 16 hour film days

Peduto was constantly criticized. He knew the city inside and out and could pull levers to get things done but that always manages to piss off some group of vocal people. It’s a lose lose situation running a city. The best we can hope for is a dialogue and constant refining and improving. We especially shouldn’t jump to conclusions from a poorly written obviously misleading local news story. The fees are still a small percentage of total development cost. We could to study how other cities do this and the news should be giving us comparisons of what the going rate is for these sort of things

Lol take a look at the post history of the dude you’re replying to, I think he has a modest proposal for the housing crisis

Where in Pittsburgh have affordable houses been knocked down to make way for new apartments?

City mayors are put into a circular firing squad on day one. Few people want that job. We have to try to work with what we have instead of constantly whining about every little issue stoked by local news

> I'd chalk Japan's lost decades up to too much micromanaging by the Bank of Japan,

 
Read the book, the entire issue started when the Chicago School guys came back and said BoJ meddled too much that they had to move to a "free market" solution since those were the only thing that worked. Whoops!
https://www.amazon.com/Princes-Yen-Central-Bankers-Transformation/dp/0765610493
 
Prior to the 1980s Japan had basically a command economy pointed towards producing consumer goods.

>capital-holding classes

lol, that's a loaded phrase if I ever saw one. I've been called worse.

I'd chalk Japan's lost decades up to too much micromanaging by the Bank of Japan, a liquidity trap, and bad demographics (birthrate too low).

Most of the anti development campaigns are just neighborhood nimbys and sometime worse, landlords astroturfing to reduce competition. Which developments have been blocked by actual housing equity activists?