Peebles Square Community Meeting Monday November 19
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!
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.
East Liberty housing’s good design is rewarded with funding
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
Revised Plan, provided by Action Housing
Previous Consensus Plan presented to the community.
Well I can certainly add my voice to this as a community member that I too am very concerned about this surprise turn of events. I had every expectation of the community being part of this process. If the county and Action Housing would include the community in these discussions, they might not be under the misinformation that you are standing alone on this.
So the consensus plan a local architect was commissioned to draw up- after meeting with over 40 people from the community and after several sessions, was all theater? I thought we already identified house prototypes that maintained the neighborhood character and materials? Was this just a waste of the people’s time and taxpayer’s money?
What part of consensus plan do they not understand? So much time and money was already invested in Rothchild Architects, it is a shame that the developer should be allowed to go off and do what benefits them!