last week\u2019s standing committee<\/a> meeting saw two hours of public comment and two-and-a-half hours of discussion amongst Councilors. Council voted 6-3 Tuesday to approve the plan, along the same lines as they voted last week. Councilors Barb Warwick, Deb Gross and Khari Mosley all voted no.<\/p>\nSupporters of the bill, like Councilor Anthony Coghill, said the plan would be a \u201cbold\u201d investment, even as the city of Pittsburgh struggles with tight financial forecasts.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong-term, this financially will benefit the city of Pittsburgh. It will help spark revitalization in key areas that we’ve identified that are ready for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t like to give up [or] forfeit future taxes, especially at [a] time that we’re at in the city of Pittsburgh and our financial situation. However, again, this is to bolster our financial situation, not hurt it. Short-term pain for long-term gain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a healthy Downtown Pittsburgh is a healthy city, and I feel like we need to make this investment to achieve that,\u201d noted Councilor Kim Salinetro.<\/p>\n
Opponents said the money being funneled into Downtown should be used for things that benefit larger swaths of the city, with Councilor Barb Warwick pointing to abandoned building remediation as one worthy cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cEliminating the blight that that causes, bringing those properties back on the tax roll, and covering every single neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh, and also potentially making back 30 to 40% on those sales, potentially \u2014 that is something that I would consider an investment,\u201d she said. She argued the TRID plan would not be an \u201cinvestment\u201d because the city does not own the buildings involved.<\/p>\n
Councilor Deb Gross questioned whether the plan was fully in line with state rules for how such tax incentives should be implemented. She also pointed to two letters sent to Council by the Strip District Business Association and Northside\/North Shore Chamber of Commerce asking for Council to take more time to consider the bill. Gross attempted to call for a hold on the bill Tuesday to wait for a legal opinion, but the motion failed 7-2.<\/p>\n
Council President Dan Lavelle, who sits on the URA board, noted that he has been discussing the plan since January with the URA and said he was confident that the city was legally \u201cin good standing.\u201d He voted to support the bill Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Lavelle clarified that developers still will need to pay taxes on properties they redevelop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf and when a building is redeveloped, it is then reassessed. At that time, developers have to pay that new value on the reassessment,\u201d he explained. \u201cHowever, a portion of those tax dollars are then diverted into a fund to support redevelopment efforts. So the taxes are still being paid. It’s just how the taxes are then being used on the back end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilor Erika Strassburger, who voted for the plan, said she understood the \u201cdiscomfort\u201d some felt about the strategy, but still felt it was the right move.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can’t predict the future. We won’t have full control over what is going to take place Downtown,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think we’re doing as much as we possibly can by putting it in the hands of the URA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more tense debate, Pittsburgh City Council gave final approval to a controversial package of tax incentives intended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-254191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}