Backlash prompts Pittsburgh URA to remove for-sale signs on nearly 600 properties

When Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority this summer began placing for-sale signs on hundreds of properties it owns throughout the Hill District, Randall Taylor was alarmed.

Taylor, a community leader with the Hill District Consensus Group, said he was concerned that land speculators could see the signs and gobble up land in the neighborhood. Developers could use it as an opportunity to gentrify the community, he worried, and displace Hill District residents.

Taylor said he felt placing for-sale signs on the properties was “highly reckless, highly irresponsible.”

“You don’t just throw open these vulnerable communities to the highest bidder,” Taylor said Tuesday.

Authority officials, he said, didn’t communicate with registered community organizations — like the Hill District Consensus Group — before plastering their neighborhoods with signs announcing URA-owned properties were up for grabs. Taylor said the lack of communication led to frustration and confusion.

“The solution to these kinds of things is really just communication,” Taylor told TribLive.

In response to concerns raised by Taylor and others, the authority this week announced it is taking down the for-sale signs posted on nearly 600 parcels of mostly vacant land throughout the city.

In a statement Monday, the authority said the goal in posting the for-sale signs was “radical transparency” to ensure neighborhood residents could identify URA land holdings in their communities.

“We believed this was a step towards a more equitable process, as private developers and well-established organizations are well-versed in how to find our available properties,” the authority said in a statement. “This decision to expose our inventory to a wider audience and our hope to generate more diverse interest in property ownership and development opportunities left our sales process unchanged.”

That process still includes multiple public board votes and community input before a land sale.

The authority describes itself as Pittsburgh’s “economic development enterprise.”

All of the properties are still for sale, said City Council President R. Daniel Lavelle, who sits on the authority’s board.

Lavelle, D-Hill District, said there was “good intention” behind placing the signs, but “not enough community engagement on the front end.”

Authority officials said they also hoped that with the signs, the community would be able to see which properties the authority owned and hold them accountable for property conditions and maintenance.

Though the authority is yanking the signs, Taylor is still displeased. He called for it to halt the process of selling its properties altogether.

“We want that whole process ended,” he said. “The URA has demonstrated they want to offload these properties. You’ve got to talk to these communities about that.”

Taylor said he thinks the authority should allow community organizations to identify partners they want to develop land held by the URA before any consideration of selling them to someone else.

K. Chase Patterson, chairman of the Larimer Consensus Group, said he initially had misgivings about the signs. He said he and others in the group were concerned they might signal that community engagement was being stripped from the disposition process.

But within a day of learning about the signs, he said, top authority officials discussed those concerns with him and assured him the process of selling properties would not be changed and the community would still have a voice.

“Irrespective of whether the signs are posted or not, we are comfortable that our position as a community-led organization would remain intact during the disposition process,” Patterson said. “We remain confident in the URA’s process, and we remain confident in the community’s voice being engaged in the disposition of the URA’s real estate.”

City Councilman Khari Mosley, D-Point Breeze, thanked the authority “for being responsive to the concerns of the community.”

“There was definitely an outcry in the community and not the kind of community engagement you would like to see before taking that kind of step,” Mosley said. “It was definitely not received in the community the way the URA expected it.”