A formerly blighted parcel of land in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood that enjoyed a 20-year tax break to spur development could return to the tax rolls next year — nearly a decade earlier than expected.
If City Council agrees, Pittsburgh, its school district and Allegheny County will see estimated total property tax revenue of $1.8 million each year, money that the taxing bodies had not been receiving.
Of that amount, Pittsburgh is expected to get about $630,000 each year.
The money will come at an opportune time, with all three taxing bodies suffering from lower property tax revenues because of declining real estate values and lower assessments.
In 2013, the Urban Redevelopment Authority asked the city, county and Pittsburgh Public Schools to agree to a $24 million tax deal with a developer looking to build more than 700 homes on the site.
Under the arrangement, known as tax-increment financing, money that would typically be paid in property taxes would be diverted to help fund the development project for 20 years.
The project was supposed to include the creation of new houses, roads and a bridge at an old slag heap that overlooks the Parkway East near the Squirrel Hill Tunnel.
But the final phase of the project, which was to be aided by the special tax district, was scrapped because it was too expensive, said Councilman Khari Mosley, D-Point Breeze.
Mosley on Tuesday introduced a bill to dissolve the tax deal early.
Instead, the site is now set to become a 15-acre solar farm. An additional 55 acres of the land will be set aside as an expansion of Frick Park, Mosley said.
The solar farm and park expansion project will receive $2 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as money that had been set aside so far from the tax diversion.
Mosley could not immediately say how much money that would be.