Pittsburgh receives grant to evaluate vacant property in Homewood

A $17,500 state grant that will pay for a study of Homewood’s properties will be a key to implementing an improvement plan for the neighborhood, Pittsburgh City Councilman Ricky Burgess said Thursday.

The city received the grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development. It will identify vacant properties that are salvageable in the neighborhood.

The Homewood Community Plan was drafted over the course of several years and it is now in the implementation stage. The vacant property study will move things in that direction, Burgess said.

It also will find city-owned lots that could be sold through the city’s Side Yard program to an adjacent property owner and other city-owned property that could be used for development by the city through its Urban Redevelopment Authority or sold through its Land Bank, the city said.

“This will allow us to develop a specific parcel-by-parcel plan for the best and highest use and reuse,” Burgess said.

More than 60% of the properties in the neighborhood are delinquent on their taxes or vacant, Burgess said.

He led an effort for a comprehensive improvement plan for the neighborhood. The study will help to implement its objective of revitalizing and rebuilding Homewood, Burgess said.

“It’s a valuable tool in helping to transform Homewood into a stable and robust mixed-income community,” he said.

It will be the latest effort to do so.

“Addressing vacant properties in Homewood and other city neighborhoods has long been a challenge but with studies like this, and the recent reorganization of the Land Bank, the city is confident it can effectively tackle the issue,” Tim McNulty, Mayor Bill Peduto’s spokesman, said.

In March the city announced a $26 million home ownership program, OwnPGH, that will provide loans to people who otherwise wouldn’t be eligible for mortgages. At the time, officials also announced a revamped Land Bank that will be led by URA Deputy Director Diamonte Walker.

The goal of these programs is to improve neighborhoods like Homewood, where the population is about 6,000, 94% of which is Black, that have many blighted or vacant properties.

It will build on projects like the 2018 development of 36 new duplexes and single-family homes. It was a $13 million project the city worked to complete with the URA and private developers.