Pittsburgh Greenhouse

Another Polish Hill property under consideration for redevelopment was sold at the 3TB/City/County Sheriff Sale. Terry believes that it may have fallen to a Section 8 landlord. The building(s) were tentatively slated to go to a local resident and re-developer/contractor friendly to PHCA.

Unfortunately, in addition to potentially becoming a section 8 property on the main business district, this also abolishes any such hope of converting the property back to mixed user commercial/residential.

PHCA has some plans in motion to potentially counteract this move.

Thanks to Terry Doloughty, PHCA, the PCRG VPWG, the URA, and the City Finance Dept. After 4-5 weeks of inquiry, the discovery process for the new owner turned up a name: Ledonne Construction. They bought two properts at the September sherif sale: 329 Hanock and 3212 Downing St. Google Maps puts them on Route 19 in the North Hills / Perrysville area (near where I grew up in Ingomar, PA). They are on LinkedIn.com but outside of my network. PCRG/URA was nice enough to query the entire county for properties owned by this group: several properties in Lawrenceville and Penn-Main.

I'll drink to that. More details in the AM. http://www.pahouse.com/pr/042111208.asp

After meeting with Stephanie Cipriani and Maryellen Sullivan of PNC Bank this morning, I'm feeling optimistic that financing options may still be available for residents of Polish Hil. Specifically, the meeting resulted in the following

• PNC's acquisition of National City will not adversely affect charitable projects run by National City, in fact it will bolster them (Per PNC)
• PNC's community development financing options, under a separate LLC in conjunction with Wells Fargo, are still available to qualified borrowers under certain conditions:

So as a quick afterthought to San Francisco: On my way back from Pitt Intl Airport, I stopped at Ikea to buy the heaviest down blanket they sell. I noted that pedestrians in Robinson still have precarious provisions.

I consider this taxpayer neglect by affluent white suburban municipalities within Allegheny County tantamount to "Neuvo Racism" (a la subtle discrimination of minorities).

Anyway, having had been part of that discrimination in 2005, and having no progress been made in three years, I think its time to ask the local media/press to investigate.

So I just got back from a mini-vacation in San Francisco / Mountain View -- Visiting family and attending the MeetBSD prof. dev conference at the GooglePlex (Heya WndrGrl!!). Now there's a city with a sprawl issue. SF-true is okay, and San Jose has a cool vibe, but wow does the rest of the valley need a urban planning clue-by-four to the back of the head.

On news of the loss of 329 Hancock St to an anonymous bidder (on ~15 days till the 90-day holding period expires, BTW), we've regroups and begun to re-examine the plethora of other vacant, tax delinquent, and abandoned homes. We're making use of Mediawiki, with a bit of configuration guidance and templates to graft data structure. This was the best low-cost alternative to using a custom made, ridgy structure relational database. I'm hoping to have a training session with Susan Constance, Alexis Miller, Yoko Tai/Steve Lee, etc. in the very near future. ~BAS

I've got a meeting scheduled with Mary-Ellen Sullivan and Stephanie Cipriani for Monday 11/22/2008 to discuss auxiliary financing options for both PghGreenHouse.org as well as general urban redevelopment projects. PNC seems to be weathering the international financial meltdown well; a positive reflection upon them. Certainly, a URA or FHA-style construction loan will be the topic. Ought to be interesting.

In case you didn't get a chance to go:

 http://www.ccicenter.org/

 CCI is a non-profit that helps low income and special needs

individuals perform energy audits and also promotes environmental awareness.

Event Flyer:

http://www.getenergysmarter.com/GES_flyer.pdf

Photos:

https://mail.digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=47&pos=280 https://mail.digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=47&pos=281

Despite recent disturbing news that might derail the 329 Hancock St project, I plowed forward with the alternative financing search today. I contacted Stephanie Cipriani and Mary Ellen Sullivan with PNC's Community Development Banking department about a walking tour of Polish Hill.