Policy - Broad Upzoning

Jul 24

This is the sixth entry in our ongoing Policy series. Pittsburgh is in the midst of a severe housing crisis, with many neighborhoods becoming increasingly out of reach for many families. While the causes for our housing problems today are many, the goal of Pro-Housing Pittsburgh is to advocate for each and every change that can lessen the extent of the crisis. Each entry in this series describes a specific Policy that can be undertaken by the local government to help with the housing crisis in Pittsburgh.

The Problem

So far, we have focused on zoning code policies that drive up the cost of housing such as parking minimums or lot size requirements. However, one overarching theme is the sheer complexity of the current zoning code.

The Zoning Code defines 3 major categories of residential zoning districts: Residential, Mixed Use, and Special Purpose. These in turn define subdistricts, with Residential listing 5 districts, with 5 sub districts each, Mixed Use with 10 districts, and Special Purpose with 4 districts: P, H, EMI, RIV (with RIV defining 5 subdistricts). In addition to the 19 different residential districts (43 residential subdistricts), there are an additional 6 Environmental Overlays, 4 Development Overlays, 3 Public Ream Districts, 2 Planned Development districts, and 1 Golden Triangle district (with another 5 separate subdistricts).

Altogether, Articles 1-3 of the Zoning Code detail 53 separate subdistricts, before including any overlays. In addition, each of these subdistricts' uses and restrictions can also be altered by proximity to other districts and buildings. We have made an attempt to try to count how many different sub-sub-districts these various rules and overlays made, but lost count when we got past 200 unique districts!

Each set of rules has requirements for the number of units allowed, the lot size required, the number of parking spaces per unit, the lot size required per unit, and other rules that were engineered to exclude. These districts are then applied to thousands of different geographic fragments of our neighborhoods within the city. In the neighborhood of Shadyside alone there are over 15 distinct sets of zoning rules that split the neighborhood into over 30 distinct zoning districts, all to govern a single neighborhood.

As we have repeatedly illustrated in our You Can’t Build That Here series, these zoning code fragments were overlaid on neighborhoods where the new code did not match the existing structures - preventing them from being rebuilt or reused, or building new buildings that match the existing fabric. The result has been to choke off new home construction in large swaths of the city.

*Pittsburgh’s unnecessarily convoluted* *zoning map*.

When confronted with the sprawling complexity of the zoning code, cities will often view it as easier to upzone only narrow strips of land to concentrate development. Unfortunately, this can often drive up land prices in those areas because land owners know there are so few options for development, diminishing affordability gains from increased housing and enriching a select few landowners instead. By applying these rules evenly across the city, this ensures landowners cannot extract unreasonable sale prices, driving down housing costs. Simultaneously, not upzoning desirable areas enforces scarcity and excludes people from those neighborhoods - deepening the segregation of our city.

Suggested Policy - Growing Pittsburgh Together

Our recommendation is to reduce the number of different residential districts while unlocking desperately needed housing across our city. The end result should be no more than a few zones, using simple height based limits and rules limiting nuisances such as noise or smell to distinguish them.

Even the most restrictive zones should allow for ADUs, duplexes, quadplexes, and small single-stair apartment buildings by right. In addition, most districts that are today zoned RM, UNC, and RIV, and the golden triangle should allow high rise and mixed use buildings with minimal administrative and contextual requirements. We believe a district like UNC is the best baseline to use for consolidating districts. It has no minimum lot sizes, no minimum lot size per unit, no setbacks, and height limits of 45 ft or three stories, but currently has unreasonable residential compatibility standards and contextual setbacks that hamstring its effectiveness.

By upzoning broadly, it will allow all of our neighborhoods in our city to spontaneously grow and thrive again. It will allow for stores and restaurants to be more easily accessible, which allows for more walkable neighborhoods. It would bring back much-needed tax revenue to revitalize our city. And most importantly, it will unlock a swath of new housing supply to combat the enormous increases in housing costs Pittsburgh has experienced in recent years that is driving families out of our city.