Mayor's tax plan leaves out some city locations At a recent City Council hearing, Brightwood advocate Ed Brandt, fired by frustration, called the applications 'capricious and arbitrary. I have spent 15 years working on the North Side, and nothing tells me the logic of why Spring Garden and not Troy Hill, why Fineview and not Perry Hilltop [Perry South], why Manchester and not Brightwood?'
The way to fix this unfair plan, the Luke lie, is to give everyone a tax break.
A sift back to the land-value tax is a move in the right direction. It is fair. It is universal. It promotes freedom. It respects the marketplace. It works to insure a dense, urban landscape.
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Mayor's tax plan leaves out some city locations
Monday, May 07, 2007
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's 10-year property tax abatement plan for housing development included 21 neighborhoods when he proposed it in February.
"It is important to me that the neighborhoods [other than Downtown] are included," he said at the time.
The abatement would ideally spur investment where little or none has happened, but a lot more than 21 neighborhoods are in that camp. To those left out, the plan is a bit like a disaster relief truck without enough food.
A set of planning criteria determined who was in, but neighborhood advocates who roll stones uphill every day rank need more intuitively.
At a recent City Council hearing, Brightwood advocate Ed Brandt, fired by frustration, called the applications "capricious and arbitrary. I have spent 15 years working on the North Side, and nothing tells me the logic of why Spring Garden and not Troy Hill, why Fineview and not Perry Hilltop [Perry South], why Manchester and not Brightwood?"
Sheraden, which has long been in an investment slump, also was excluded from the mayor's tax abatement proposal, an omission that puzzled Sam Palombini, president of Sheraden's Community Council.
Carrick's social dynamic is teetering, as well, but Carrick wasn't included.
Bob Zebra, a board member of the Carrick Community Council, said of the mayor, "I used to think he was a good guy. Now I don't. It is bad up here now.
"We've been fighting and fighting, and it's like hitting your head against a brick wall."
In Troy Hill, a housing plan for Cowley Street had been foundering for years when, in March, the contractor "took off," said R. Dennis Hughes, chairman of Troy Hill Citizens Inc. "We had contracts with them, and it took a long time to get stuff in order. March 15 was the deadline for them to get back to us, and they don't respond. Now, we're seeking other contractors."
A tax abatement might be a sweet lure, he said.
The "in" neighborhoods are Allentown, Arlington, Beltzhoover, California-Kirkbride, Downtown, Elliott, Esplen, Fineview, Hazelwood, Homewood North, South and West, Knoxville, Larimer, Lincoln-Lemington, Lower and Upper Lawrenceville, Manchester, Spring Garden, the Upper Hill and the West End.
Josette Fitzgibbons, a principal planner for the city, described the criteria.
One is the planning department's vitality index, developed from an analysis of neighborhoods over the past year with help from Carnegie Mellon University's community information system. The indicators include population loss, education levels, single-parent families, tax delinquency and violent crime.
A second criterion was whether property investment, based on building permits, totaled less than 20 percent of the city average.
The mayor's plan would offer tax breaks for new construction and rehabs, as well as office-to-housing conversions. The abatements would be limited to no more than $250,000 of each unit's market value.
City Council's preliminary vote on the matter is pending but could be as early as Wednesday.
Mr. Ravenstahl and Councilman William Peduto, then his mayoral challenger, proposed separate plans in February to give housing developers 10-year tax breaks. Both included Downtown.
Mr. Peduto proposed the incentive for areas of large-scale, very costly development, including the Strip, South and North Shores, Uptown and the lower Hill. The abatement span of 10 years is applicable to such heavy investment, he said, while other incentives, like $1 houses and elimination of closing costs, are better fits for neighborhood projects, he said.
"There is no safeguard that absentee landlords won't develop and make neighborhoods worse," he said.
Developers of large-scale properties urged a 10-year abatement plan.
Timm Judson, chief investment officer for the Ferchill Group of Cleveland, which has developed the Heinz Lofts in Troy Hill and the Pittsburgh Technology Center in Oakland, said the impact of long-term abatements "is almost incalculable."
David Bishoff, president of E.V. Bishoff Co. of Columbus, Ohio, told council, "We'll look back on this as a pivotal time in Pittsburgh." His firm owns a half-dozen high-rises Downtown, including the Carlyle -- the Union National Bank that was refitted into high-end condos.
"Abatement is about repopulating a city. Don't get too bogged down in boundaries. Pittsburgh wins when Pittsburgh has 10,000 to 20,000 new residents Downtown," he said.
Aggie Brose, deputy director of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., said she has heard from those concerned that "people will follow the money and leave us behind if we don't have the incentive. But we have a three-year abatement incentive that we're benefiting from now in Garfield," where community nonprofits have developed new housing over the past decade.
The mayor's proposal may be one way to ameliorate imbalances between neighborhoods that have strong development presences and those that don't, she said.
"I want to express gratitude for Elliott," said Norene Beatty of the West End-Elliott Citizens Council. Elliott made the mayor's "in" list. "But it's important to have a follow-up of how these properties are maintained."
She admonished City Council to "look hard at why people left the city. They left for safe streets, good schools and quiet neighborhoods. This is a start, but we need to do more."
(Diana Nelson Jones can be reached at djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626. )
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07128/784283-298.stm
another reason not to abate taxes at all.
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