Hays Woods officially designated a Pittsburgh park

Hays Woods is officially a Pittsburgh park.

City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved legislation that officially recognizes the 624-acre site — which includes city-owned land in Pittsburgh’s Hays and St. Clair neighborhoods as well as Baldwin — as a park.

The sprawling wooded area will be the second-largest park in Pittsburgh, behind Frick Park.

“This is very exciting,” Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said of the park, which is located in her district. “It’s a new park with lots of potential.”

City officials plan to leave the park mostly untouched, Jake Pawlak, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“The plan has always been that it remain a more primitive park, more about preserving wild spaces,” he said.

Pawlak said the park will likely see some new or improved trails and access roads, as well as ecological restoration work. He said the city also is looking to allow camping there.

City officials under former Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration purchased the land from the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority in 2021 for $1 plus costs.

The URA had purchased it about six years ago. The city will pay the authority $2 million to cover the costs it incurred over the time the park was in the URA’s possession, Pawlak said.

The area was not a park during that time, he said. Since the city has acquired the land, Pawlak said, officials have been taking necessary steps “to prepare it to be a park,” including entering into conservation easement agreements with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Because it hasn’t been considered a park, Warwick said, there’s been hunting on the land. Now that it is a park, the city will bar hunting there, leading to some concerns about what could be a “new explosion of deer,” she said.

According to Pawlak, city officials are exploring potential ways to deal with the deer population. He said the administration will likely be prepared to have a “wider public discussion” on the issue in the fall.

“Work is underway,” he said.

The city also is looking to get Allegheny County Regional Asset District designation for the park, which would help bring in additional funding for any work that may need to be done there, Pawlak said. Money from the city’s parks tax also could be used to support Hays Woods.

The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy already is using a $233,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation to partner with Allegheny Goatscape to remove invasive plants.

Related:

• Hays Woods poised to become a Pittsburgh city park

• Pittsburgh officials celebrate purchase of Hays Woods, city's newest public park

• Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy to partner with Allegheny Goatscape to improve Hays Woods Park