Park Place Blog

Large numbers of community members from Park Place and a host of other local community organizations and non-profits have worked hard beginning in 2005 and throughout 2006 to protect our neighborhood from bad development, winning important concessions from Walgreens and Paradise Development. The final agreement between GPPNA and the developers stipulates among other things that the developers:

• are permitted to take only the one house closest to the commercial lot on Braddock Avenue
• must purchase and make specific renovations to the remaining adjacent homes and sell them as residences
• must pay for $10,000 in street trees

You may see the details and full agreement here:
Agreement between GPPNA and Paradise

This is a great outcome for the community— we gained input over the commercial development of our own neighborhood and we also can stabilize the adjacent residential properties through direct investments and deed restrictions.

The most important factor in our success was the significant level of participation from community members at protests, community input meetings, and hearings— all of which had tremendous impact in the development’s rather political process. In addition to that critical support from our own community, we also had help from all of the following organizations which provided letters of support and/or sent representatives to city council and planning commission hearings:

• 14th Ward Democratic Committee
• ACORN
• Nine Mile Run Watershed Association
• North Point Breeze Development Corporation
• Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation
• Regent Square Civic Association
• SPUR Consulting
• Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh

Thank you to everyone for all the hard work and tremendous participation throughout this process. This conflict with our city officials and Walgreens lasted well over a year, but the final outcome is a good one for our community. We have influenced the development process into one that accommodates the specific needs of our community, strengthening an important entrance to the neighborhood. We also have shown, to our elected officials, future developers, and ourselves, the strong commitment that out friends and neighbors have for our community.