Park Place Blog

The Greater Park Place Neighborhood Association will be hosting a holiday party on Thursday, Dec. 6, at the Waverly Church social hall.

We will serve dinner and the party will run from 6 PM to 8:30 PM.

Homemade meat and vegetarian chili will be provided and others are encouraged to bring a dish to share. The theme is international. We will ask Park Place residents to bring their favorite ethnic holiday dish.

There will be a Peebles Square Community Meeting on Monday November 19 at 7:00 PM at the Church of the Nazarene, corner of Peebles & Waverly.

Please try to attend this meeting because there have been changes to this project since we last met in January!

A couple of weeks ago the County & Action Housing prepared a layout to present to the Borough Planning Commission, which has reduced the number of new homes and increased the size of the lots from what we had last seen. Throughout the year, at monthly meetings I have repeatedly requested that if any changes were made from our consensus plan, that the design first come back to the community group and the neighborhood before moving forward. I have met with the County and Action Housing and they agreed to meet again with the neighbors although this new layout was presented to the Planning Commission last Monday.

The Planning Commission did agree to table any vote until after our meeting next Monday.

Another concern that I have is that it does not appear that Action Housing will be hiring an architect for this phase of the project. They plan to use an in house architect or possibly an engineer from Mystic Construction. Melana Mears from Action Housing sent me a sample of a model home that they’re considering.

I would like to see Donyo Rothschild brought back to continue to work with the community on this project.

Personally, I look at the house at West & Kelly with the very large lot, or the house at Mifflin & Kelly which looks to me like a model home & that is not what I was expecting from this project.

So PLEASE come to this meeting and spread the word.

Bluntly, I’ve been to bat a couple of times on this one & the county & the developer have both insinuated that perhaps these are my feelings but not representative of the neighborhood. So, we really need to fight to have this project be the best it can be. Jason Vrabel from the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh worked with our group last year and the article below is very relevant to this discussion.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07295/827381-53.stm

Feel free to call if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Tracey Evans
412-244-9588 412-401-4666
Wilkinsburg Borough Council

There will be a Peebles Square Community Meeting on Monday November 19 at 7:00 PM at the Church of the Nazarene, on the corner of Peebles & Waverly. [map]

Please try to attend this meeting because there have been changes to this project since we last met in January! (more…)

The GPPNA was able to negotiate $10,000 from Paradise Developers for street tree planting. The street tree program offered by the GPPNA aims to help beautify the neighborhood by providing free trees to property owners. The GPPNA will be working with the Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest (FPUF), Nine Mile Run Watershed Association (NMRWA), and local governments on this program.This street tree program is different from the street tree program offered by the city. The city offers street trees through the shade tree commission (based out of the mayors office, http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/cp/html/shade_tree_commission.html) and the Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest (FPUF), however there is currently a long waiting list for trees. The GPPNA street tree program is separate from the city’s street tree program and there will be no long waiting list for trees through the GPPNA street tree program. In fact, we hope to start planting trees in April! (more…)

Monthly meeting of the Greater Park Place Neighborhood Association.

Church of the Nazarene, corner of Peebles and Waverly

7:30pm