'We need homes, not vacant lots': Pittsburgh council hears public land bank support

Pittsburgh City Council on Thursday heard public support for legislation that aims to make it easier for the city’s land bank to take the city’s blighted properties and bring them back to reuse.

The proposed legislation deals with what city officials refer to as the tri-party agreement, which outlines how Pittsburgh, the city’s land bank and the Urban Redevelopment Authority work with one another.

Under the proposed legislation — which has been put on pause since it was first introduced to council more than a year ago — the three entities could transfer properties to one another. The existing agreement allows the city’s land bank to transfer properties to the URA and the city, but not the other way around.

Jake Pawlak, director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, last year described the measure as an effort to make it a “two-way street” between the entities.

All three entities have their own ways of moving property, Councilwoman Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, explained during a post-agenda meeting on the legislation last month.

The city can take property to auction, but it can only sell land to the highest bidder. City Council also can opt to send properties to the URA, which is able to more specifically determine how they want land to be used, rather than selling it only to the highest bidder. The URA’s process, however, is a “very long, cumbersome” one because of state regulations, Gross said.

The Land Bank would be able to sell properties specifically for certain purposes like the URA, but with a less “burdensome” process, Gross explained. The Pittsburgh Land Bank would be able to dedicate properties for specific uses — like urban agriculture or affordable housing — and clear property’s titles to make an easier path for redevelopment.

About 20 city residents on Thursday urged City Council to approve the legislation that would allow the city to transfer properties to the land banks.

“If we don’t have the land bank to recycle properties, what other options are you suggesting?” Pittsburgh resident Sharlee Ellison said at Thursday’s public hearing. “You wouldn’t want to raise your kids next to an overgrown lot or vacant house.”

Pittsburgh owns more than 13,000 properties and has fallen behind on maintaining or disposing of many of them, City Solicitor Krysia Kubiak said.

Some properties, she said, have sat undeveloped for decades.

Residents told council they wanted to see the land bank move to change that.

“Pittsburgh needs to be able to quickly repurpose these properties,” Clayton Manley, of South Oakland, said after voicing concerns about blighted properties in his neighborhood.

“For too long, the city has been unable to take on their responsibility” for caring for or recycling blighted properties, said Ed Nusser, executive director at City of bridges Community Land Trust in Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood.

Residents said they were hopeful the legislation would clear the way for the land bank to move property to advance the city’s goals of addressing affordable housing or improving urban agriculture.

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“We need homes, not vacant lots,” Vlad Kaplun said. “We shouldn’t be creating impediments to stabilizing homes and neighborhoods.”

He said there are a “bunch of vacant houses” near his East Liberty home, and the longer they sit there deteriorating, the more costly they’ll be to eventually repair.

Kaplun was one of several residents who pointed out that the city’s blighted properties contribute to quality-of-life problems for nearby residents.

Some council members have voiced support for the measure, while others seem to have lingering concerns.

“It’s long overdue,” Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, said of the proposed updates to the tri-party agreement.

As a general contractor, Coghill said he understands the need to stabilize properties and bring them into reuse before they spend years deteriorating. The land bank, he said, could fix those problems.

Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said she was generally supportive of the land bank but had reservations and worried the high expectations people had for the land bank would vary from reality.

“This is complicated,” she said. “It isn’t simple. The notion that the land bank is going to magically be fast, it’s going to clear titles and people are going to be able to get a house right next to them just like that — that’s not what’s going to happen.”

She pointed out that the process of clearing titles and disposing of land will still take months, if not more than a year. The land bank, she said, won’t be “handing them over free of charge to a lower-income resident who wants to try out their first flip or build some generational wealth” as some people seemed to hope.

The measure also won’t address blighted property that the city doesn’t own.

Warwick and Council President Theresa Kail-Smtih, D-West End, voiced concerns about giving too much power to the land bank’s board, which is appointed by the mayor.

“If they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, you can’t vote them out,” Warwick said.

Kail-Smith said she wanted to ensure “the public always has some kind of voice.”

“I get nervous when you take something out of our hands,” Kail-Smith said when the legislation was first introduced last year. “We are the only voice for the community.”

Some council members have suggested they’d like get votes on what the land bank does with properties after the city puts them under the land bank’s control.

Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, D-Hill District, who sits on the land bank’s board, said research from other land banks around the country indicates that land banks operate well when they’re able to do so without too much council oversight.

“Land banks that are most effective do not have council inserting themselves into the process after we’ve already dedicated land,” he said.

Kail-Smith and Gross suggested they’ll likely suggest amendments to the legislation, but did not specify what those amendments would include.

The measure will likely return to council for further consideration next week.