The housing shortage is a critical issue currently facing the citizens of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania. We believe the solution to this crisis involves providing abundant and affordable housing for all. We fight for more housing because we want to reduce poverty, end homelessness, eliminate racial segregation, create jobs, and stop climate change, and we believe elected officials at every level play an important role in solving this crisis.

We asked all candidates what specific actions they will take to solve this crisis, if elected.

We received answers from: Mayoral candidate Corey O’Connor; Candidate for City Council District 2, Kim Salinetro; Candidate for City Council District 4, Anthony Coghill; Candidate for City Council District 8; Erika Strassburger.

We did not receive any answers from incumbent Mayor Ed Gainey, or City Councilman, District 6, Daniel Lavelle [note that for Councilman Lavelle, due to an administrative oversight, he did not receive the questionnaire until 4/30, so we have not highlighted his non-response below]

All responses are published in full below, and informed our official endorsements.

1. What has been your experience personally with housing in Pittsburgh? Do you rent or own? If you own your home, how long ago did you buy it? Have you or do you know others who have struggled to find affordable housing in the city??

I own the home in which I currently live with my wife and children. I’ve lived in my home since 2023. Prior to that, I lived in a home that I had purchased in Swisshelm Park for a number of years, before which I rented a home in Swisshelm Park.
I’ve met and known many people who have struggled to find affordable housing in Pittsburgh. Housing insecurity isn’t restricted to specific neighborhoods or zip codes. Across Pittsburgh, we see people struggle to find a place that they can call home that fits within their budget. During my time on City Council, I fought to bring more housing, including affordable housing, to neighborhoods across my district, from Squirrel Hill to Hazelwood. At the same time, I fought for funding for housing initiatives across the City. And during the height of the pandemic, when housing insecurity was ravaging countless households, I was the only City Council Member to amend the budget to put additional funds toward rental support, eviction prevention, and housing stabilization.
I understand that Pittsburgh faces an affordable housing crisis. That’s why my focus as Mayor will be on bringing more housing to Pittsburgh, keeping housing affordable, helping people stay in their homes, providing resources to homeowners in need of repairs or accessibility modifications, and allowing residents to stay in their homes and communities instead of being priced out. In a region where we desperately need new units and construction, as well as upgrades and improvements to the existing housing stock, the City’s continued inaction will only make things worse. If the City is standing in the way of bringing new affordable units online, all that it’ll accomplish is having made the housing shortage worse.

Mayor Ed Gainey did not respond to the questionnaire.
*EDIT: After the deadline had passed, and after all other candidates responses had been posted, Mayor Gainey* *submitted this response*.

I've lived in Pittsburgh my entire life, growing up in Sheraden and later moving to Banksville after getting married. My husband and I own our home, and we've lived there for many years—raising our twin daughters and becoming deeply rooted in the community. I'm the President of the Banksville Civic Association.
Through both my personal life and my work as Chief of Staff for Councilwoman Smith, I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be for many residents to find safe and affordable housing in our city. I’ve known families—friends and neighbors—who’ve struggled with rising rent or limited options, . That’s why housing is such an important issue to me, and why I’ve worked on initiatives like helping Fairywood residents return to quality housing after years of displacement. Affordable housing should be a right, not a privilege, and I’m committed to pushing for policies that make that a reality for more people in our city.

I grew up in a single-parent home with two older brothers. My mother rented a tiny two-bedroom duplex in Beechview. I watched her worry and struggle to pay the monthly rent. I am all too familiar with the challenges of affordable housing. I purchased my home 27 years ago and it continues to be a labor of love. I'm proud to say I have been mortgage-free for 15 years and have invested in future rental properties.

I have both rented and owned a home here in Pittsburgh. My family and I purchased our home in November of 2019. I have many friends and acquaintances who have struggled to find affordable housing in the city, particularly those who wish to live in a certain area of town, or colleagues who must live in the city due to city employee residency requirements.

2. Despite outward appearances, the Pittsburgh area has seen some of the lowest construction levels for new housing of any major metro area since 2010, while simultaneously Pittsburgh has a rapidly growing job market. This shortage of housing supply has been a factor that has caused housing prices to go up significantly in certain areas of the city, and pushes people to move outside the city taking their tax dollars with them. What do you see as the largest contributing factors to the housing crisis here in Pittsburgh? What policies would you enact to fix these causes? What evidence do you have that these policies would work?

Pittsburgh needs to build more housing, full stop. It’s unacceptable for other, smaller cities like Harrisburg to be eating our lunch when it comes to housing construction. We also see other cities like Philadelphia growing. We should be asking ourselves why we can’t do the same here.
Time and time again, we’ve seen a number of projects fall apart because the City has been using the same outdated and broken zoning and permitting regime that has been in place for decades. We’ve lost out on hundreds of potential new units over the last few years because the zoning code’s restrictions on height and density made a project unviable, or because permitting approvals were so backed up that a project’s capital stack fell apart in the interim. These were housing units that could’ve been accessible to both low-income and moderate-income residents. Instead of new housing, we have old parking lots and empty buildings.
We need comprehensive housing investment plans across Pittsburgh so that housing is available to residents where they are. Therefore, Pittsburgh’s zoning code must account for several housing construction options that are currently infeasible due to our outdated code, despite demonstrable success in other cities. For example, we need zoning incentives for infill constructions both between buildings and above one-story buildings. We should also implement code modifications to better accommodate manufactured and modular housing unit construction techniques where it’s feasible to do so. These reforms will offer more options for housing construction in neighborhoods and business districts while bringing other amenities online in areas throughout Pittsburgh. We also desperately need to take strategies like transit-oriented development seriously, which I plan to do.
We must make it easier to build and permit new and renovated residential housing. An additional benefit to these reforms is that it would also make it easier to bring new amenities to neighborhoods in general, such as early childhood education centers, small retail businesses, cares, and more. But, most importantly, when we make it easier to build housing altogether, we also make it easier to specifically build affordable housing.
I want to improve the City’s permitting processing capacity so that permit approvals for affordable housing and home repair programs are accelerated. The lag in permit approvals affects both large-scale affordable housing developments and small-scale home preservation work, and shrinks the pool of contractors who engage in work in Pittsburgh, thereby adding more costs and delays. As Mayor, I will create a dedicated unit within the City’s Department of Permits, Licenses, and Inspections focused specifically on permits for affordable housing construction and preservation to make sure that projects are started and completed faster, meaning more affordable homes for our communities.
We need to do better in our ongoing efforts to convert real estate in Downtown to residential uses. That requires a focus on accelerating the conversion of commercial space to affordable housing inventory that supports the ongoing conversion of space to market-rate housing. A balance of the two will increase the vitality of Downtown as a neighborhood. We must assemble a pool of gap financing and private capital below-market loans that’ll enable a significant use of the volume cap four percent credit. This working connection between private capital and public gap financing dollars will enable affordable housing development and lead to a more inclusive conversion effort from office space to residential housing units in Downtown.
Funding that’s available through gap financing should consist of below-market loans and deferred loans to better induce conversion projects. Although a fund for similar work was created previously, the slow pace of conversions showed us that it wasn’t enough. A stronger gap financing program that focuses on both affordability and scale is needed, meaning that funding should also reflect the amount of square footage to be converted. We should have a goal of $250 million in funding from public, private, and philanthropic investment so that we can create a gap financing program sized to convert three million square feet of commercial space to residential use while making sure that these projects bring affordable housing units online. The conversion process can be further accelerated by expediting processing of approvals of conversion projects, expanding capacity at the Urban Redevelopment Authority to better capture allocations of volume cap financing, and establishing program goals to achieve an affordable housing mix that aligns with additional financing opportunities
In addition to bringing more rental units to Pittsburgh, the City also needs to expand homeownership and preserve existing homeownership. This can be accomplished using programs that support homeownership, including those focused on energy conservation upgrades, accessibility modifications, lead and pollutant remediation, and housing counseling. The City can partner with other governments and nonprofit organizations to focus on increasing down payment assistance and creating first-time homebuyer programs.
With the City’s massive portfolio of publicly-owned property, it can use parcels and sites for programs that support the creation of home homeownership opportunities for move-in-ready buyers and housing units for renters. Every single vacant or under-utilized piece of land that the City sits on while doing nothing should instead be looked at as a resource for neighborhood improvement, including as a site for housing opportunities. The City has a lot of latitude in terms of how it can get these parcels back on the tax rolls and dedicate them to higher and better use, and expanding housing opportunities is a prime example of my goal to more efficiently use resources to support our neighbors.
To go even further, we need a broad-based coalition that includes the City, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, other governments, nonprofit organizations, and private real estate groups all committed to championing and implementing strategies that’ll increase the construction and preservation of new housing units while also supporting homeownership strategies. This means also taking the fight for more affordable housing to Harrisburg to advocate for legislation that’ll accelerate the title clearing process and allow vacant buildings to be repurposed more efficiently by the Pittsburgh Land Bank and other entities.
Finally, we must do right by our neighbors using vouchers. Households participating in the housing choice voucher program deserve better than what they’re getting right now. Despite an increased need for affordable housing for low-income residents and those at the risk of housing insecurity and homelessness, there’s still a substantial number of unused vouchers due to market conditions and complications with the program. Even when a voucher is awarded, placement rates are still too low. Pittsburgh has to do something about the estimated nearly 1,000 unused vouchers.
The City has to work in better alignment with the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh to expand the pool of landlords who accept vouchers and increase the number of staff dedicated to working on the voucher program in order to create turnaround processing that competes with the private market. As Mayor, I’ll partner with the Housing Authority to increase the capacity of dedicated program staff and collaborate with private and public organizations to expand the recruitment of landlords, speed up application processing, and assist voucher holders in finding approvable units.
In terms of evidence, we don’t even have to look that far. Midwest cities like Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Cincinnati are all building more housing and seeing successful results. This isn’t rocket science: We know that modern, progressive housing solutions work. We know that more abundant housing options make cities more affordable and give people more flexibility to find the housing that they want where they want and at the price that they want. We can’t let ourselves get bogged down by outdated strategies that no longer work or have failed us when we need to be laser-focused on solving the housing crisis here in Pittsburgh.

One of the largest contributing factors to Pittsburgh’s housing crisis is the lack of investment in new, diverse housing stock—especially affordable and workforce housing. This problem is made worse by outdated permitting and inspection processes that discourage developers and delay much-needed construction. Blighted and tax-delinquent properties also sit idle for years, creating safety concerns and wasting opportunities for redevelopment
To address these issues, I would advocate for an overhaul of our current permits, licenses, and inspections systems to make them more efficient and transparent. I would also push for increased funding in the Capital Budget to support the demolition of hazardous properties and create incentives for private developers and homeowners to rehabilitate salvageable ones. We can also look into expanding Community Block Grant funding to support these efforts in under-resourced neighborhoods.
Additionally, I believe we need stronger policies that hold property owners accountable for fire-damaged or neglected properties, especially when insurance payouts are involved. We should explore timelines for rehabilitation or demolition and introduce enforceable fines for non-compliance.

I believe the largest contributing factors to our housing crisis are our outdated zoning, hostility towards developers, and a permit license & inspection department that needs a major overhaul to be more efficient.

Our ability to build housing at all price points has been slowed by a number of factors. The city is one of the few in the country that lacks a comprehensive plan. Although we are initiating a two-year process to create such a plan, this should have occurred years, if not decades ago. A part of this plan must be a citywide housing strategy that can inform our policy positions. The process to create a plan can also help us build the trust in communities that is necessary to accomplish big housing policy decisions. These policies could include: upzoning along transit corridors, near major transit stations, and near commercial districts; eliminating arbitrary parking minimum mandates; allowing ADUs citywide; reforming minimum lot size requirements; and allowing more live-work zoning areas in the city. Currently, community processes, while critically important in land-use decisions, are being used to litigate each and every proposed development, sometimes succeeding in killing new housing projects. A housing plan, standards for new housing that are tailored to each area of the city, and a new approach to community engagement could help new housing move through the necessary community process while also empowering the community to feel empowered by the new housing being developed.
Additionally, we must continue to improve our internal city processes to vastly improve both the reality and perception of our permitting processes. The opening of the in-person OneStopPGH counter is a good start, but the City also needs increased capacity along with updated processes within PLI, Planning/Zoning, and DOMI (and the interplay among all of these departments) in order to improve our ability to shepherd projects large and small through our sometimes complicated processes.

3. The city is currently considering expanding Inclusionary Zoning citywide. Recent research has shown that unless properly calibrated, IZ can be a lose-lose - it can cause a decrease in both market rate and affordable housing. What is your ideal model for building mixed income, social, or public housing? What models do you think work best to build or maintain privately or publicly-owned affordable housing?

While inclusionary zoning is an important tool in Pittsburgh’s toolbox to combat housing unaffordability, the City shouldn’t only rely on a one-size-fits-all strategy. An abundant supply of housing will provide more affordable options to residents.
While on City Council, I supported the inclusionary zoning districts in Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Bloomfield, and Oakland. However, a universal mandate handed down from Grant Street fails to take into consideration the reality that housing markets can differ dramatically from neighborhood to neighborhood. While the markets in those neighborhoods were very active, we can’t assume that, when it comes to the housing market, what works in Bloomfield is always going to work in Lincoln Place, or that what’s best for Friendship is always best for Sheraden.
Mixed-income housing helps open neighborhoods up to more people and make them more vibrant. As detailed throughout my responses, I believe that there are numerous strategies for building more housing that’s available to residents all across the income spectrum. When it comes to social housing or cooperatively-owned housing, we should be open to any viable project or path to housing production that gets more people in homes here in Pittsburgh. The same undoubtedly goes for publicly-owned housing. Whether they want to rent or own, Pittsburgh needs to be in the business of making sure that everyone has a safe, affordable, healthy place to call home. And we’ve seen time and time again both in Pittsburgh and in other cities that mixed-income and affordable developments help communities thrive.

Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) can be a valuable tool, but it must be carefully tailored to the realities of each neighborhood’s market conditions. A one-size-fits-all approach across the city could backfire—discouraging new development in weaker markets .
Offering tax abatements, or expedited permitting for developers who include affordable units—especially when targeting deeply affordable or workforce housing. Working with land banks to acquire vacant or tax-delinquent properties and partnering with developers to turn them into quality, permanently affordable housing. Programs that help landlords maintain affordable units through low-interest rehabilitation loans, and expanding protections for tenants in at-risk housing.
That’s the kind of thoughtful, hands-on approach I would bring to City Council.

I am a firm believer that an inclusionary zoning (IZ) mandate city-wide is a recipe for failure! I personally voted for IZ in certain neighborhoods.... it’s important to know that I voted for it as a means to slow down development, and I think the data will show that it has done just that. The best way to address our affordable housing supply is to make sure it is easier and profitable to build. Supply and demand!

Inclusionary Zoning can be a part of an overall housing strategy for some cities, but as mentioned above, it would ideally be crafted after moving through a comprehensive planning process that provides policymakers with the data necessary to create the exact right policy for Pittsburgh. It is far from a panacea. Currently in Pittsburgh, IZ could remain part of the omnibus zoning package and help to build new affordable units, but it must include gap financing in the form of LERTAs (or other funding if available) to help cover the cost of increasingly expensive housing units and should include more flexible terms such as varying AMI levels and offsite units. It should be paired with the policies and permitting reform above.
Additionally, we must work collectively to improve the reputation of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh so that new rental property owners can be persuaded to do business with HACP, accept Housing Choice Vouchers holders, and help clear the massive backlog that exists in the city.

4. Upzoning is a type of policy change whereby zoning rules are made more permissible - including, but not limited to, allowing multi-family housing in more places, permitting more density or height, limiting parking requirements, or other such policies. Upzoning has been credited with controlling housing costs in cities like Minneapolis and Austin. What is your thought on broadly upzoning the city in order to build more housing as recommended in the city’s housing needs assessment? How do you view the role of the in-progress comprehensive plan in this need for upzoning?

I believe that one of the best ways to show that you love your neighborhood is to welcome more people to it. However, as long as we face a massive shortage of housing affordable to residents at all income levels, we’ll continue to see more residents pushed out of Pittsburgh because of rising costs and a shortage of available housing units. Having more options benefits both homeowners and renters, just as it benefits both longtime residents and newcomers, all of whom should be welcome in Pittsburgh to find a place to live and call their own. As Mayor, I won’t just talk about housing — I’ll make sure that we actually build housing that is affordable and accessible so that everyone who wants to can make Pittsburgh their home.
Pittsburgh needs to get serious about transit-oriented development, which can go hand-in-hand with upzoning. The current Mayor’s stalled transit-oriented development plan really doesn’t do much besides cherry-pick a handful of parcels around transit stops and designate them for modest upzoning, such as changing a designation from single-family to multi-family. That’s not enough and doesn’t do much to actually support transit-oriented development, the purpose of which is to spur the creation of mixed-use development and mixed-income housing in close proximity to existing or proposed transit hubs. Transit-oriented development can give us more vibrant, accessible neighborhoods. It’s a valuable tool to encourage catalytic investment and development in and around key neighborhood corridors and business districts.
As Mayor, I’ll develop a true transit-oriented development plan centered on the creation of a new zoning overlay district. Areas fit for the overlay district will be identified based on their proximity to current and proposed transit hubs. The overlay district will permit notably higher density and afford other development incentives while also reducing requirements on parking, lot size, and other costly, growth-prohibitive restrictions. This will encourage mixed-use amenities available to the surrounding community while improving residents’ accessibility and mobility options.
I believe that the in-progress comprehensive will tell us many things that we already know: Our zoning code is broken, our land use policies are outdated, our permitting processes are deficient, and these shortcomings are all having negative impacts on communities across Pittsburgh. We already know that we’re holding communities back by making it harder for neighborhoods to grow. So long as the City continues to make it hard to build, renovate and preserve housing, as well as to open small businesses or other neighborhood amenities and third spaces, it’ll continue to be difficult for neighborhoods to chart their path forward.

I believe upzoning can be an important tool in addressing Pittsburgh’s housing shortage—if it's done thoughtfully and with community input.
That said, upzoning shouldn't be a blanket policy. Each neighborhood has its own character, needs, and infrastructure capacity. We need a targeted approach that aligns with transit access, school capacity, and community priorities.

Upzoning is a must, and in my opinion is the single most important thing we can do to impact our housing crisis without placing unnecessary mandates on developers - such as the proposed citywide IZ mandate.
I do not see the current comprehensive plan the city is working on as a compass or good source for guiding our housing needs and priorities. The comprehensive plan (that I did not vote for) is going to be lengthy, focused on many other issues besides housing, and there are no building or housing experts that I know of who work with the comprehensive plan.

I strongly believe the city’s zoning needs an overhaul, and strategically-placed upzoning throughout the city could help unlock the potential for thousands of new units in Pittsburgh to be built. In order to upzone throughout the city, we need to build trust with the community. The comprehensive planning engagement process can help lay the groundwork for these conversations.

5. Pittsburgh’s Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Adjustment, and other Commissions and Board have recently seen contentious meetings where recommendations were made to deny or delay housing construction. How would you shape the culture of these organizations to change from a culture of saying “No” to saying “Yes”?

A Mayor needs to take several factors into consideration when contemplating appointees to Boards, Commissions, and Authorities. Among those are lived experience, domain expertise, and alignment with a progressive, forward-looking vision for the City.
As with any appointee to a Board, Commission, or Authority, we need people dedicated to public service and contributing toward Pittsburgh’s stability, growth, and success. With respect to the Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment, it’s imperative that we have people who understand Pittsburgh’s needs and the state of the City right now.
Our City’s current leadership has been managing decline instead of planning for the future. Appointees to bodies like this must understand that Pittsburgh faces an inflection point where we can either grow or continue to decline. They should be responsive to the needs of the communities that they serve. For example, if we all know that Pittsburgh needs more affordable housing, why are these bodies standing in the way of that, even when we have community members supporting projects? Why are we letting politics and political favors dictate how we conduct the business of community development? We need change, and that starts at the top in the Mayor’s office.

Our Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Adjustment, and related bodies play a critical role in shaping the future of Pittsburgh—but right now, many residents and developers alike feel that the process is unpredictable, overly bureaucratic, and at times, resistant to growth. I believe we need a cultural shift toward transparency, accountability, and solution-oriented decision-making.

I would start by replacing many of the Commissioners and Board members that continue to be obstructionist. As a council member I do not have the authority to do so, but I would lobby the mayor - who does have authority over most appointments to such boards.

While major land-use decisions will always be contentious, we can eliminate the need for many of these marathon commission and board hearings by crafting a housing plan that works for Pittsburgh, and by rezoning our city to meet the modern age. From there, individual neighborhood plans can help drill down into the precise needs and desires of different parts of the city, thus largely eliminating the need for the huge numbers of variances and special exceptions that many new housing developments, both large and small, currently require.

6. From 1913 to 2001, Pittsburgh had a split rate property tax that taxed land and buildings at different rates. Recent research shows that a split rate tax or a land value tax increases housing construction relative to a uniform property tax. As of 10 years ago, Clairton, Duquesne, and McKeesport had split rate property taxes. What are your thoughts on a potential Land Value Tax or Split Rate tax in Pittsburgh?

I’m open to exploring any tax reform so long as it meets the following conditions: It impacts taxpayers equitably, benefits Pittsburghers, supports stability in the City’s budget, and doesn’t run afoul of state-level authorizations for the City’s ability to set and levy taxes.

Any shift in tax policy must be done carefully, with a full fiscal impact analysis and strong protections for homeowners—especially low-income and long-time residents. We need to ensure that any changes don’t create unintended burdens, and that the policy works hand-in-hand with our housing and economic development goals. Having just said that, I'm open to discussions of change.

I am not that familiar with the benefits of a split-rate tax versus a land value tax, but would most likely support the formula that helps incentivize building.

I am generally in favor of a split rate property tax structure to help incentivize new development rather than sit on vacant or underdeveloped property and land speculation. I would, however, want to gain a better understanding of how a move to a split rate tax would interact with a Countywide reassessment (something that should be mandated to take place at least every five years) to know how individual taxpayers would be impacted. This would help us determine the timeline for implementation would need to be staggered in some way.

7. What books, articles, or research have you read that have informed your views on housing?

May 2025 Primary - Questionnaire Responses

May 2025 Primary - Endorsements

Policy - Allow Single Staircase Buildings