"A New Deal for Neighborhoods"
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
"A NEW DEAL FOR NEIGHBORHOODS"
Kevin Acklin |
July 14, 2009
Good
morning. Thank you for being here.
Pittsburgh
was once a city of 700,000 residents. Today, we’re just over 300,000. With that significant decline in
population comes an equally significant decline in our housing occupancy. As a
result, too many neighborhoods in this city are plagued by abandoned
properties.
They’re
a source of public safety concerns. They’re a haven for illegal drug activity.
As we saw in Greenfield just a few weeks ago, they’re the scenes of terrible
assaults on our children. As we’ve
seen in Sheraden these past few weeks, they’re an easy target for arsonists who
put whole communities at risk. In
the past, we’ve even lost city firefighters battling fires at houses that
should have long been torn down.
We’re putting people’s lives in danger by not addressing this problem.
Abandoned
houses diminish the quality of life in our neighborhoods and stand in the way
of growing our city. They’re a significant drag on our property values, they
discourage investment and development in our neighborhoods, and they leave
hard-working families who care deeply about their own properties stranded next
to dangerous eyesores.
This
administration’s policy of not addressing abandoned housing leaves Pittsburgh
with a diminished housing stock, drives families out of the city, reduces the
values of the homes of families who do stay, and further erodes the city’s tax
base.
Whether
I’m door-knocking in Sheraden or Beechview, in Homewood or Manchester, I hear
from residents every day who are sick and tired of seeing their complaints,
their concerns, their cries for help on this issue ignored. In my work with Renew Pittsburgh, I saw
and heard those same things. This
issue is so important to me, and to the future of our city, that I’ve chosen to
make it the first major public policy announcement of my campaign.
This
is a problem that plagues every major urban area in the country. There is no single issue facing an
American mayor that has the potential to improve our citizens’ quality of life
in so many ways. Solving this
problem will make our streets safer, our neighborhoods stronger, and our city
more economically competitive.
Solving this problem takes real leadership and a systematic plan of
action; it takes more than just sending out the Redd Up Crew.
That’s
why today, I’m proposing a bold four-point plan that will address head-on the
problem of abandoned properties.
1) INVEST EVERY POSSIBLE STIMULUS DOLLAR
Besides real leadership and a
systematic plan, the other thing you need to solve a problem like this is a lot
of money. Which, clearly, a city in receivership doesn’t have. Unless it’s
about to receive a once-in-a-lifetime windfall of tens of millions of federal
dollars.
We’ve received over $20
million of stimulus money so far.
We expect to receive a lot more. With this money will surely come the
temptation to reward friends, champion pet projects, and spread the funds for
the benefit of a few.
We need to resist that
temptation, and spend those stimulus dollars in a way that benefits everyone.
That’s why today, I’m proposing a New Deal for Neighborhoods – a plan that will
have a truly lasting impact on our city and on our future.
As Mayor, I will put every
single stimulus dollar that I’m legally allowed to spend toward solving our
long-ignored vacant housing problem.
Spending stimulus dollars
on the demolition and refurbishment of abandoned houses will serve as a
catalyst, allowing us to set new priorities and become the first city in
America to take major strides toward solving its abandoned housing problem.
We’ll never have a chance
like this again: to clean up our neighborhoods, improve our quality of life,
put properties back on the tax rolls, encourage new development, and put people
to work – all with one single investment.
This is an opportunity for
every Pittsburgher – not just today, but decades from now – to benefit from
these stimulus dollars.
2) REINVEST IN THE BUREAU OF BUILDING INSPECTION
Two years ago, the Mayor
began the process of effectively crippling the BBI by firing without cause a
well-respected professional who’d served the city for over twenty years. Last
year, the ICA issued a report that said the BBI was in “severe distress.” This
year, the ICA threatened to revoke its funding, noting that its solutions were
not being implemented fast enough. The current BBI workers are good and honest
public servants, but it’s clear that they have not been given the support they
need to do their jobs effectively.
We’ve seen the reports and
recommendations. We’ve heard the
promises. Now it’s time to get it
done.
We need to implement those
ICA recommendations and re-invest in BBI, so that we can increase the bureau’s
ability to inspect properties and enforce code violations in neighborhoods all
across the city. When BBI professionals
who have been trained by city tax dollars left for other jobs in the suburbs,
their positions have been left unfilled. The scope and expertise of the bureau
has suffered as a result. What
we’re left with are overworked, underfunded staffers who can’t effectively
enforce Pittsburgh’s housing codes.
3) COMPLETE ABANDONED PROPERTY INVENTORY
The third part of my plan
is to compile a comprehensive, street-by-street, neighborhood-by-neighborhood
inventory of all abandoned properties in the city. Once our inspectors have identified which houses can be
refurbished and which should be demolished, we’ll set a clear and transparent
deadline for tearing down these properties targeted for demolition.
4) ABANDONED PROPERTY RESTORATION PROGRAM
The final part of my New
Deal for Neighborhoods will address abandoned properties – and there are many –
that are still worth saving.
I propose that the city
enter into partnerships that will allow individual owners and community-based
organizations to acquire abandoned properties and pledge to refurbish
them. Under these agreements,
purchasers of the properties would pledge to complete the renovation and bring
the property up to code by a specific deadline, and the city would pledge to
provide access to capital through a combination of low-interest loans and tax
credits, as well as true coordination on addressing code and zoning issues.
This plan would increase
the quality of the city’s housing stock, put homeowners and community groups in
charge of rehabilitating the home, and attract more residents to live in the
City.
The ad hoc manner in which abandoned
properties have been handled by this administration has to come to an end. Pittsburghers need to know that the
city has a plan for dealing with these abandoned properties, that it’s a top
priority, and that the Mayor intends to carry it out.
How many neighborhoods
have to crumble, how many houses have to burn down, how many lives and
properties have to be endangered, before we take this problem seriously as a
city? If we implement this plan,
we won’t have to find out.
Thank you. I’ll be happy to take your questions.
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