Quote:
Originally Posted by qwho
Having worked in that building I'm torn on if it should be completely leveled or not... The front facade is kindof historic-looking. Inside I can absolutely say it has no 'charm' or anything. It has been completely transformed into a cubicle wasteland. When I worked there, the consensus was that it was a repair center for trucks. The historic maps of Pittsburgh someone posted here one time seem to show it was a location of The White Company, which would make sense. Anything earlier than 1923 shows Luna Park.
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While I certainly don't have an issue with three new steel-framed apartment building going on a single block of Melwood within a few years, I do think the location isn't ideal for high-density housing, student or otherwise. The incentive to build there basically just comes down to Pittsburgh's antiquated zoning system.
The core of Oakland (along Fifth/Forbes) is now effectively barred from having any new apartment buildings due to asinine decisions involving rezoning.
The core of the North Oakland apartment district theoretically allows for high-density apartments, but due to the crazy antiquated, it's pretty hard to build new apartments. Zoning requires 25 foot setbacks on all sides other than interior sideyards (which is crazy), but the biggest issue is the minimum of 400 square feet per unit. This means that if you had a full acre of land, you couldn't build more than 109 units of housing by right. This is why One on Centre was done with spot zoning via a SP district.
In contrast, the area north of Baum is zoned UI, similar to much of the Strip. The city loosened UI zoning about 25 years ago, making it one of the easiest zones in the city to build new multifamily.