Margaret J. Krauss

A City of Pittsburgh bond intended to cover significant investments in affordable housing has yet to materialize, a delay that has affected efforts to budget other funds for housing in the city.

The board of Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority Thursday moved to protect 170 units of affordable housing. The URA will make $3.6 million in loans from its Housing Preservation Program. Officials say the loans close critical funding gaps that would otherwise have prevented the five projects from moving forward.

An image of the Hill District's historic New Granada Theater under renovation.

Officials briefed the Pittsburgh Planning Commission Tuesday on two very different proposals to improve residents’ quality of life: changes to how the city regulates child care businesses and a historic nomination for Frick Park.

Pittsburgh’s zoning code — which governs what can be built where, what the buildings look like, and what goes on inside them — isn’t generally the stuff of party chatter and barroom debates. But with the rejection of two high-profile development proposals within the last month, there is increased grumbling among community development officials that the city can’t change for the better without tackling a rewrite of its zoning code.

Traffic circles are one example of the City of Pittsburgh's efforts to make streets safer.

Pittsburgh’s Department of City Planning will begin work on a city-wide comprehensive plan in 2024, and one of the major goals of that years-long process will be to recommend zoning-code changes to support a long-term vision for what the city should become. But during a Monday budget discussion, staff reassured City Councilors that the department would not leave neighborhoods in limbo.

Pittsburgh-based Echo Realty says rejection of its plan to build a new apartment building and grocery store at the former ShurSave site in Bloomfield should be reversed

City officials announced Thursday that a long-awaited bond issuance closed.

For the better part of a century, Downtown Pittsburgh functioned as the region’s economic dynamo. Companies and workers flocked to the Central Business District — there it is, right there in the name — and to city and county government offices for the day’s labors. Though it long had a reputation of emptying out after 5 p.m., in more recent years, “town” managed to attract people for the after-hours pleasantries of drinks, shows, and events, and even started to develop a fledgling residential population.