Brighton Road is a main thoroughfare through the North Side,
bordered by some of the City’s wealthiest residents and some of its
poorest. Million-dollar renovated Victorian mansions near crumbling
structures home to rodents and junkies; gleaming new stadiums and a
generation of young people who have little hope for their futures. The
Brighton Road study area provides an opportunity to bring together a
diverse collection of residents and neighborhoods that are too often
isolated from one another.

A. Lending institutions – representatives of the community development
department of local lending institutions.
B. Community organizations The Manchester Citizens Corporation, Allegheny West Civic Council, Central Northside
Neighborhood Council, California-Kirkbride Neighbors, Northside Coalition for Fair Housing and the Mexican War Streets Society will
provide representation.
C. ULI – Pittsburgh membership and Rose Gray, Inner City Advisor
D. Local government – Department of City Planning, the Mayor’s Office, City
Council member representatives, URA
E. State government – Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection

During the past five decades Pittsburgh population has declined by half leading to large scale abandonment of previously
productive properties. The City of Pittsburgh has seen a decline in population from a
high of 676,806 in 1950 to 334,563 in 2000; recent estimates appear to indicate that the
decline has continued during the past six years. Regardless of Pittsburgh’s exact
population today, it is clear that we are now a City approximately half the size we were a
half a century ago, at least in terms of the number of people living here. Even though
the average household size has decreased, the number of structures needed to house
our population is continually declining.

Pittsburgh Case Studies
Though a declining population is not the sole reason for the increased number of vacant
structures it is certainly a major contributor and the number of vacant structures in
Pittsburgh is increasing despite what has been a fairly aggressive demolition program by
the City’s Bureau of Building Inspections (BBI). During the past decade BBI has
demolished approximately 300 structures annually. The annual cost of these
demolitions has varied between approximately $1.5 million and $2 million. During these
same ten years approximately 300 structures have been condemned, i.e,, scheduled for
demolition. Unfortunately, there has also been an inventory of 1,200 vacant structures
that has remained fairly stable. Since resources available to the City to carry out these
activities have declined, it has been difficult to demolish more structures than become
vacant. Therefore, the blighting influence of the vacant structures continues.
Two formerly vital commercial districts in Pittsburgh neighborhoods, one on the North
Side and the other in the Hill District, illustrate this issue which many older U.S. cities
currently face. The North Side example – the Brighton Road Corridor – features an area
that contains many privately owned properties that are vacant and abandoned, while the
Hill District example – the Herron Avenue Corridor – is mostly comprised of vacant lots
owned by the City’s Urban Redevelopment Authority. Regardless of the ownership,
these under-utilized properties are a negative influence in their respective
neighborhoods and are a liability rather than an asset. As part of a broad and inclusive
planning process, a study of these two sites will provide valuable case studies, which
will, in turn, be useful in producing broader strategies for revitalization and reuse in
similar situations. The ULI Community Action Grant will be used to conduct feasibility
studies for the area in order to synchronize community priorities, determine market
potential and create overall development strategies as well replicable models.

The five neighborhoods impacted by the Brighton Road Corridor have
actually experienced a population decline that exceeds the rate of the
entire city, e.g. during the past five decades total population for these
neighborhoods has declined from a high of 45,699 residents to
12,463, a loss of over 72%. With this population loss has come an
increase in the number of vacant structures. Overall Pittsburgh
maintains an average vacancy rate of 12.0%, but in these five
neighborhoods of the 6,792 residential properties, a full 1,377 stand
vacant. This number represents a vacancy rate of 20.3.

Partners/Participants - though this project will be a three-way collaboration
between the URA, Carnegie Mellon University and ULI Pittsburgh, significant input will
be expected from a variety of partners subsequent to the planning process:

Planning Process - The planning process will be organized around a planning
charrette which will bring together all of the participants in a concentrated work session.
At the beginning of the planning process, an organizational work session with the core
participants and the ULI Inner City Advisor will take place to map out the strategy and
work plan for the project. During the beginning of the fall academic calendar the student
and faculty participants will collect the necessary background information and conduct
analysis as defined during the organizational work session. These materials will form
the intellectual basis of the planning charrette.

The Urban Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University will dedicate a group of students to
this project. They will follow a rigorous 15 week process structured around 3 major
community design workshops. The studio exercise sequence is a cumulative feedback
loop which leads to a detailed and nuanced urban design vision over the course of a
semester. The project has three phases with a community workshop at the end of each
phase. The analysis phase is dedicated to examining economic, social and physical
layers of the community, through words, images, maps and models. In the first
community workshop the analysis is presented and students work with participants to
identify community issues and objective. The second phase, urban design frameworks,
transforms the community issues and objectives into a series of urban design proposals
culminating in a strategic vision for the neighborhood. The second community workshop
functions as a planning charrette to refine design ideas and select a key catalytic area of
focus for further design inquiry.

The planning charrette will bring together a large collection of participants including:
members of the CMU Urban Lab, members of the CMU School of Architecture, CMU’s
Center for Economic Development, the CMU Heinz School of Public Policy,
neighborhood stakeholders from both communities, local Pittsburgh ULI members, the
Inner City Advisor, community development representatives from local lending
institutions and representatives of the URA.

The goal of the charrette will be the collaborative evolution of redevelopment and reuse
strategies that are appropriate for the specific sites while having widespread application
in similar cities. The final phase develops this area of focus as a catalytic project for the
community through a detailed three-dimensional urban placemaking study. The final
community workshop is used to summarize and present the work and to discuss next
steps for the community. The local ULI members and the URA will serve as mentors to
the student participants throughout the completion of the project.
 

Issues to be Addressed during the Planning Process – the planning process
will be guided by certain principles:
A. Smart growth – what is the best place to invest scarce resources and
investment dollars that will capitalize on development opportunities.
B. Green development – large parts of these study areas contain
environmental challenges including acid drainage as the result of
previous mining activities. What are the best strategies for
remediating and reusing these lands.
C. Sustainability – how to create economic as well as environmental
sustainability.
D. Highest and best uses of property given community needs and market
conditions – fostering a discussion of how we make prioritized
decisions as a larger community.
E. Developing a broader community consensus – because we will be
studying two different neighborhoods, with different, as well as similar
challenges, we hope to foster a broader understanding of the common
challenges they face. It is our intention in the progress of the project
to ask members of each neighborhood to look at the problems faced
by the other neighborhood as well as their own The goal is to fosteri a
collaborative attitude that can transcend the provincial boundaries that
can often prevail in neighborhood redevelopment.

Schedule

1. June 2006 – Organization work session with planning team
including the ULI Inner City Advisor, URA, CMU Urban Lab and
ULI Pittsburgh TAP membership.
2. June to August 2006 – preliminary community meetings
3. August 28 to September 22, 2006 – Student data gathering and
site analysis
4. Week of September 22, 2006 - “Sharing Understandings”
preliminary meeting with community members and stakeholders
to present preliminary analysis results and build a shared
understanding of the problem and the process.
5. September 25 to October 23, 2006 – “Urban Design
Frameworks/Planning Charrettephase, where alternative Urban
Design proposals are produced.
6. November and December 2006 – Design development and
place-making.
7. Week of November 27, 2006 – Student’s final presentation and
community reception.
8. January/February 2007 – presentation of project results at ULI
breakfast forum.