This Week’s Top Agenda Items

• The city looks at taking over a blighted apartment building
• Land bank looks to spend millions to return properties to the tax rolls
• Pittsburgh inks $100,000 contract to teach residents to recycle

The city looks at taking over a blighted apartment building 🔗

The city may condemn a 100-unit apartment building in Homewood in order to save the homes of the people who live there.

The residents of Homewood House on Frankstown Avenue have been living in squalor, with broken heating units, missing floorboards, bedbugs and rats for more than five years. The current owner filed for bankruptcy in Oct. 2025. Doing so puts the building at risk of foreclosure, which would displace its low-income, primarily senior, residents.

The city will use eminent domain (the takeover of private property for public use) to secure the complex located in Homewood North. Once the county’s court of common pleas finalizes the process, the Housing Authority of Pittsburgh will assume building management.

The current owner’s parent company, NB Affordable Properties, has been accused for years of keeping its properties in deplorable condition.

Council held a post agenda meeting on NB in Jan. 2025. Members of council, other city officials, housing advocates and Representative Summer Lee discussed barriers to intervention. Use of eminent domain on any of the company’s local properties did not get brought up as a potential solution.

Council Member Khari Mosley of Point Breeze North told the Trib that it could cost the city around $5 million to settle with the current mortgage lender. The price was not included in the text of the legislation, nor did council discuss the takeover prior to its vote.

Land bank looks to spend millions to return properties to the tax rolls 🔗

The Pittsburgh Land Bank (PLB) has estimated it could cost $168.5 million to put 11,311 abandoned parcels back on the city’s tax rolls.

Council authorized the task force last summer to address the end of funding through American Rescue Plan Act money. That report was submitted on Dec. 26.

The report centers a five-year comprehensive blight eradication plan. An estimated $32.3 to $34.8 million per year would help the land bank put 11,311 properties back on the tax rolls. Currently, those properties account for $54.7 million in estimated delinquent property taxes.

The accompanying budget creates three six-figure positions. It also increases the inventory and construction manager’s 2025 salary of $27,470 to nearly $110,000 for 2026.

The PLB requested almost $1.5 million in the 2026 city budget. 

The task force noted its plan is unlikely to come to fruition. Its more realistic recommendations include establishing recurring city funding, cost-sharing agreements with the county and school district and institutional partnerships with organizations such as UPMC. It also suggests lobbying with other Pennsylvania land banks for a funding structure like Ohio’s, which ties funding directly to the land recycling process.

To increase sales, the task force recommended bundling structures to attract developers and increasing market-rate redevelopment. Currently, 80% of PLB dispositions must be for affordable housing, community use or green space.

Pittsburgh inks $100,000 contract to teach residents to recycle 🔗

The Department of Public Works (DPW) wants residents to stop trashing recyclable packaging.

On Dec. 29, council authorized a $100,000 contract with Eastern Research Group to provide recycling education outreach services for one year. Research and outreach materials will focus on community-based barriers. 

DPW said in its request for proposals (RFP) that recycling rates remain stagnant even though the growth of e-commerce has increased the amount of recyclable material. 

According to a 2024 KDKA report, Pittsburgh had a 17% recycling rate. The national average was 30%. Even so, the city retains its goal of 90% diversion by 2030.

In 2020, DPW began a $5 million, five-year initiative to distribute 100,000 blue bins to residents.

The RFP states improving rates will lower operating costs for trash and recycling services in addition to increasing sustainability. 

The city also received a $1.6 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in Aug. 2025 to increase its yard waste collection. It has not yet announced plans for the money. Currently the city uses its garbage trucks twice a year for curbside collection of leaves, branches, brush, grass and pumpkins. Residents can also drop off yard debris at three DPW sites.