Planning Commission Votes Down Penn Plaza Development Plans

EAST LIBERTY (KDKA) -- It's become ground zero in the fight over gentrification.

The Penn Plaza Apartments, once home to middle class renters, are being torn down to make way for a new Whole Foods and luxury apartment complex.

Tuesday, the Pittsburgh planning commission said not so fast, voting to deny the project.

The commission members said the developers, LG Realty Advisors, did not sufficiently comply with promises to replace a playground and park and didn't actively engage the community in its planning. But Jon Kamin, the attorney for the developer, said the developer hosted dozens of community meetings.

"In terms of public engagement, more than 35 meetings with the various constituencies and groups is public engagement like the city has never had," Kamin said.

But although the developers are not required under any ordinance, former residents say the real problem is that the plan includes not provisions for affordable housing.

"We don't have no place to go because there's no incoming development for us to go," one woman said. "So I'm glad. Maybe another developer will come in here and understand us."

If the developer gets a tax abatement, it says it will contribute half to the city's affordable housing trust fund, but it has no plans of having subsidized housing on this site.

The decision sends the developer back to the drawing board, but with it, the planning commission is sending a message -- build affordable housing into every new project.

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