Gainey highlights affordable housing at CMU town hall

By Nina McCambridge and Anna Deng

Pittsburgh’s Mayor Ed Gainey participated Thursday in an open town hall hosted by the Graduate Student Assembly and Undergraduate Senate, taking questions from students on various topics including housing quality, infrastructure, and local businesses.

Since assuming office in Jan. 2022, Gainey’s administration has been focused on public safety and infrastructure. In November, he presented the 2024 budget plan, which underlined bridge maintenance, police department restructuring, and investment in key neighborhood projects. In the introduction to the town hall, Gainey highlighted the work of members of his staff, saying “I’ll take the blame as long as you give them the praise.”

A majority of the questions involved housing issues. Third-year student Kyle Hynes, president of the Student Senate, began the discussion by expressing his concern about housing code violations in South Oakland.

The mayor pointed out his attempt at “a rental registry, so that we can make sure that the housing is safe and the quality of housing is good.” However, he said, “now we’re kind of in a court challenge because a lot of these landlords don’t want this rental registry because they know they have to adhere to the laws that are put forth.” The registration requirement in question was struck down by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in March. Gainey also emphasized the use of inclusionary zoning as a tool to regulate rentals.

In response to a question concerning gentrification, the mayor expanded upon his inclusionary zoning policy. Gainey said that his administration only approves proposed housing developments with at least 15 percent of affordable units “to make sure that we stabilize our neighborhoods because the reality is we did a lot of market rate housing through the years.” He further described that since the city has “lost over 15,000 people through gentrification … we might have got a higher wage tax, but at the end of the day, we’d lost 15,000.” Gainey explained that this was important because “We are down to 300,000 population in the city. If we get down towards 270,000, suddenly we will lose our status as a second class city and we wind up being a third class city, which means that we lose state and federal dollars.”

The issue of property taxes also came up. One question concerned the tax-exemption policy of nonprofit institutions like Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

The mayor said that his office took the large nonprofits “to the Allegheny County Office of Property Assessments, so that they can go through the process of seeing if they meet the purely public charity so that we could find out whether they are really a nonprofit.” This was important to Gainey because he expressed “We can’t grow as a region when some of our biggest land owners are tax-exempt. They’re paying no taxes but getting public subsidies to build world renowned universities.” Gainey did acknowledge benefits of institutions like Carnegie Mellon in his introduction, saying that “CMU is a vital part of the city,” and “from a job creation standpoint, CMU has been terrific.”

Another student asked for the mayor’s opinion on county executive Sarah Innamorato’s plan to reassess property values, an action that would lead to higher property taxes for many people.

The mayor said that his office “understands what reassessment means and I’m not going to try to sugarcoat it: We really don’t want it.” However, he doesn’t “want to judge her right now. I support Sarah Innamorato and I think Sarah’s gonna be a great county exec.” He regarded it as “premature and disrespectful” to disagree with her plans before looking at her budgets, because “that doesn’t build bridges, that just causes chaos.”

Mayor Gainey also discussed safe street design, the importance of cultural diversity, and his intention to restrict gun rights. He especially encouraged Carnegie Mellon students to volunteer and get involved in different neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. He said this will help them understand the “fabric of the city” and build leadership skills.