Bloomfield housing project in jeopardy after zoning setback

A proposal to add hundreds of housing units, a new grocery store and public plaza to Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood hit a major setback Monday.

The city’s Zoning Board of Adjustments denied a variance for increased height and additional housing, including over two dozen affordable units, for a proposal at the Community Market grocery store site at the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Main Street.

O’Hara-based Echo Realty sought to increase the maximum height allowed on the site in order to build a 248-unit apartment building (25 of them kept permanently below market-rate), a 28,000-square-foot grocery store, about 10,000 square feet for various retail, a public plaza facing Liberty Avenue, and 318 parking spaces, some of them underground.

Currently, the site at 4401 Liberty Ave. houses the Community Market grocery store (formerly a ShurSave IGA) and a large surface parking lot that is typically only partially used.

Zoning for the Local Neighborhood Commercial district, where the site sits, allows for a current maximum height of 45 feet.

Echo was seeking a maximum height of 75 feet on sections of the building adjacent to Liberty Avenue as well as increased floor-area ratios for the development. The zoning board denied both in its Monday decision.

In a letter, the zoning board members wrote that the board does not have the authority to disregard council’s determinations of what the height and residential compatibility standards are to the order of magnitude proposed by Echo.

Additionally, the letter said Echo “did not present sufficient evidence” for its request variances.

Echo Realty did not immediately return a request for comment. It’s unclear if the company will appeal the decision.

In July, Echo vice president Phil Bishop said the project needed to exceed the maximum height under zoning to make the project economically feasible. Echo also told the zoning board that the affordable housing requirements under the city’s inclusionary zoning policy is cutting into the costs of the project, necessitating more height and units.

“The density for the plan is because of economics,” said Bishop in July. “Construction costs are getting higher, and when we put the numbers together, it doesn’t work without the density proposed.”

The project was supported by a number of community groups, including the Bloomfield Development Corporation. The Echo proposal sought to comply with Bloomfield’s neighborhood plan.

According to the zoning board, Echo was going to accept housing choice vouchers for the development and agreed to fund pedestrian safety improvements at nearby intersections.

The Bloomfield Development Corporation said in a statement the organization is concerned that this decision makes it harder for people to move to the neighborhood, buy homes in Bloomfield and start businesses there.

The group said the project would have doubled the number of income-restricted affordable units in Bloomfield overnight and would have loosened housing supply in a neighborhood where household growth has greatly outpaced the increase in housing units.

The Bloomfield Development Corporation said the neighborhood is transit friendly and should be accepting developments that received buy-in from community partners. The group said the city’s current zoning code is hurting good development projects.

“For the first time in several decades, more people want to move to Bloomfield than leave it,” reads a statement from Bloomfield Development Corporation. “Limiting new development hinders economic growth for our small businesses, displaces low-income residents (who are outcompeted for existing units), and continues the exclusionary practices that originated in redlining and continue to echo in our restrictive zoning code.”

There were also a small number of people opposed to the project, who were concerned about the density of the development and potential impacts on traffic and parking, according to the zoning board.

Local advocacy group Pro-Housing Pittsburgh criticized the zoning board’s decision. David Vatz of Pro-Housing Pittsburgh said the city needs to update its zoning code so that projects like this are approved, and said the code is restricting housing supply in the city, citing other recent rejections including an affordable housing project in Fineview and the Irish Centre proposal near Frick Park.

“As we’ve now seen from Fineview, the Irish Centre, and now from the ShurSave parking lot — if it’s hard to build housing, it doesn’t matter if it’s affordable, market rate, public housing, supportive housing, or anything else,” he said. “Until we fix our zoning, this will keep happening.”