You Can’t Build That Here - 21 Lanark St

For our third entry in our  “You Can’t Build That Here!” series, we cross the Allegheny River and climb up to Fineview.

Each entry in this series highlights a currently existing building that would be illegal to build under the existing zoning code. The purpose is to highlight how flawed our zoning code is.

Today, we’re looking at 21 Lanark St, Pittsburgh, PA 15214 in Fineview.

The house that exists there now is an attached rowhouse built in 1900. It’s a simple 3 bedroom, 2 and a half bedroom house, 1,992 square feet.

Image from Pittsburgh Zoning Map depicting the plot.

The lot it sits on, parcel 21-C-213, is 20 ft by 90 ft - 1,800 square feet.  Under the current zoning code, it is R1D-H (single unit detached residential high density).

Under the current zoning code, residential dense housing requires minimum front, rear, and exterior side setbacks of 15 ft, and interior side setbacks of 5 ft. It also requires minimum lot sizes of 1,800 square feet, maximum heights of 40 feet (not to exceed 3 stories).  Also, for a detached house, one off street parking spot is required.

All that means that this row house - which has no setback from the front or sides and no off street parking - could not be built today without a zoning variance.

The largest house that could be built by right would be 10 feet wide by 60 feet long, and a maximum of 3 stories - and would require off street parking.  While that would be an 1800 square foot house, it would be very oddly shaped.

Surely, though, in a neighborhood like this, where every house on the street was built as a rowhouse, a zoning variance would be easy to attain.

You would think so.

But no.

Starting in 2010, the non-profit Fineview Citizens Council began acquiring lots, including 21 Lanark St., with the purpose of providing affordable housing.  In 2020, they published their Five Year Affordable Housing Plan where they identified Lanark Street explicitly as a place to build some new affordable homes.

Last year, in June 2022, Fineview Citizens Council partnered with another non-profit City of Bridges Community Land Trust and applied to build 8 new affordable houses - 6 rowhouses and 2 detached houses on Lanark Street - including the lots next to 21 Lanark St.

On January 5, 2023, they presented their case for requesting zoning variances to the Zoning Board of Adjustment.  In March 2023, the Board agreed to grant them the variances. However, in April 2023, two local residents, Ellen Mazo and Candace Cain, filed a lawsuit to overturn the variances.  In September 2023, Judge Mary McGinley ruled that the zoning variances should not have been granted.  

As reported by Kate Giammarise for WESA 90.5:
“The groups plan to push ahead with the project in a modified form, but the ruling from Common Pleas Judge Mary McGinley means they will have additional costs and delays, they said.

“It will be significantly more [expensive],” said Ed Nusser, executive director of City of Bridges. He estimated the change will add another $120,000 in costs to the project and at least a year of additional time for fundraising, more engineering, and additional zoning review.”

Delays and costs such as these constrain the supply of housing in this city. The costs of those constraints are borne by the residents of this city in increased house prices and rents. It is absurd that when people want to build homes here, they are so often met with a reply of “You can’t build that here!”

By Jack Billings with contributions by Clayton Manley