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East Hills Visioning Process
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The East Hills neighborhood of Pittsburgh consists of townhouses, low-rise apartment buildings, and a single high-rise apartment building, divided into four distinct sub-neighborhoods. Three are exclusively rental properties with centralized ownership, largely subsidized, while the fourth consists of both owner-occupied and absentee landlord rental properties. Despite the presence of amenities such as a city park and an elementary school, the neighborhood has declined over time. In 2003, First and Second East Hills were purchased from their longtime owners by out of town developers with extensive experience in low-income housing: Winn Development and Telesis, respectively. These companies are working to renovate and rebuild their portions of East Hills, and have partnered with the Urban Redevelopment Authority to create a vision for the future of East Hills, one that can guide future development and neighborhood improvements, one that will engage the residents for East Hills to envision and create a better future for themselves, their families, and their community.
To facilitate this process, Hanson Design Group, Ltd. was contracted to investigate and analyze existing conditions and to conduct a Community Participatory Process that would engage residents in eliciting thoughts about how the neighborhood works now and developing a communal vision for improvements, including methods for getting there. To augment their work and help develop a better understanding, Hanson Design Group partnered with the University of Pittsburghıs University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR), which performed demographic research and other investigations in order to prepare a number of tables outlining relevant population data for both East Hills and the adjacent neighborhoods.
Based on analysis and community input, Hanson Design Group identified a number of planning-level issues, particularly isolation from surrounding communities and across sub-neighborhoods. To address these issues, Hanson Design Group proposed a series of strategies and recommendations for new policies and design principles. These are being incorporated in the work of Winn and Telesis, and will help guide the URA and other public agencies through future initiatives.
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Owner
Urban Redevelopment Authority
Budget
N/A
Status
Completed July 2004
Location
East Hills Neighborhood, Pittsburgh, PA
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