Development in Oakland is delivering affordability

In 2022, the Oakland Plan re-wrote a lot of the zoning for Central Oakland and the Boulevard, making it easier to build the kind of multi-family housing that the neighborhood needs to keep up with rental demand. Three years later, the residential building boom is really picking up! 

• Walnut Capital is currently building a 159-unit development on McKee at Louisa  

• Paramount is converting 3339 Ward into a 19-unit residential building   

• Trinitas is planning a 326-unit development on Halket Street  

• Hudson is moving forward with two new developments on Melwood above Baum totaling 208 units  

• Subtext presented plans for their proposed 299-unit building at 250 Atwood at a development activities meeting on September 8 

 All together, these projects will create almost 800 new apartments – more than 2,000 new beds – and there are more projects in the pipeline right behind them. Thanks to inclusionary zoning, all this new development will deliver over 100 new affordable rental units to Oakland in the next couple years! Click here to find updates for each of these projects. 

Meanwhile, Presbyterian Senior Care is putting the finishing touches on its new apartment building at Forbes and Craft, The Mosaic – an 80-unit LGBTQ+friendly low-income housing tax credit building for people over 62.   

We’re hopeful that new density and diversity will benefit all of us in Oakland. Locating more students in apartment buildings reduces the rental demand in lower-density residential areas, easing displacement pressure, making noise and trash and parking more manageable. Affordability increases opportunities for working families to live closer to jobs and school, reducing traffic for everyone; and new affordable senior housing close to transit, hospitals, and cultural amenities is good news for everybody.  

Students return to Oakland - in greater numbers than in years past

Image courtesy of University of Pittsburgh Facebook page

August is Moving Month in all of Oakland’s neighborhoods, as leases turn over, graduates move away, and returning students fill their places. This year – it's not your imagination! – there are more students arriving in Oakland than in years past. The University of Pittsburgh has admitted what might be its biggest freshman class ever. To house them all, the university is getting creative with the bed configurations in its dorms and is expanding its block leases in local apartment buildings and hotels. 

Back in 2021, when Pitt published its current institutional master plan (IMP), it anticipated a slow steady rate of growth, with an aggregate increase in undergraduate enrollment over the next ten years of no more than 5% to 10% (which translates to as many as 1,800 additional students by 2031). Acknowledging that student demand for off-campus housing has put enormous stress on Oakland’s residential neighborhoods over the last 50 years, the university promised to build new dormitories to make up the difference – to add over 1,000 new on-campus beds.  

Pitt hasn't built any new dorms since the IMP was published, but the rate of enrollment growth is pushing the limits of everyone’s expectations. New apartment buildings built by private developers have added more than 2,300 net new beds to Oakland since 2017 (not all of which are occupied by undergraduates) and more are under development and construction. But to actually ease the rental pressure in Oakland’s residential neighborhoods, Pitt needs to follow through on its IMP commitment and build more dorms. 

Oakland homeowners and long-term residents want Oakland to be more welcoming to families with children, people who will help care for their properties and the community, support local businesses, and get to know their neighbors. It might seem counterintuitive, but to make that possible we will need to encourage much more residential density – including tall apartment buildings and dorms – close to Oakland’s universities and employers. 

We’re urging the city to prioritize safe streets in Oakland in the 2026 Capital Budget

It’s city budget season! Every summer, the city’s Office of Management and Budget works with the public and city department leaders to gather proposals for capital projects (traffic calming, rec and senior center upgrades, playground renovations, landslide remediation, etc.) After reviewing all the feedback, the budget office works with the Mayor’s Office to prioritize and send a final budget proposal to City Council in September. Council makes amendments and gathers more input before passing a final budget in December. 

As a Registered Community Organization with the city, we play a crucial part in ensuring Oakland residents’ needs are considered during this negotiation process.  OPDC has worked consistently over the last year with residential and institutional neighbors to address pedestrian safety concerns in three areas of Oakland. Our 2026 Capital Budget requests to the City of Pittsburgh build on that advocacy, urging capital investments on South Neville/Boundary connecting Panther Hollow with North Oakland, Bates Street between the Boulevard and Bouquet in Central Oakland, and Terrace/Robinson in West Oakland. Read the specifics, including links to our full letter to the city, below:

1. Boundary Street pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements—especially a sidewalk! We’ve long advocated for making this vital connection between North Oakland and Panther Hollow/Schenley Park safer. This connector was also highlighted in the Oakland 2025 Plan (published in 2012) and The Oakland Plan (2022). The city has begun planning and design work; we need to ensure the improvements are built. 

2. Bates Street pedestrian safety: This past Spring, the Pitt Urban Planning and Complete Streets Clubs surveyed Bates Street pedestrians and businesses to gather data on how it can be safer. The students presented their findings at a March community meeting.  

   Click here to read the Pitt Urban Planning and Complete Streets Clubs’ survey data linked here.  

   Most respondents (94%) said they walk Bates Street and the words used most often to describe traveling Bates Street by respondents are “dangerous,” and “scary.” We are asking for new crosswalks and sidewalk restoration to make this busy corridor safer for all.  

3. Robinson/Terrace traffic flow: We continue to advocate for a traffic barrier at the base of Robinson Street to prevent illegal use of the Fifth Avenue slip ramp onto the Parkway. The city is currently working with Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) and Emergency Services on a solution that should be incorporated into PRT’s construction for the University Line on Fifth Avenue next year. Alongside the many organizational partners that use this intersection, we will continue reminding the City of the need for safety in West Oakland. 

Read the full letter detailing OPDC’s Capital Budget requests here.

Check out the city’s Budget Engagement Engage PGH page, linked here, to follow the City’s budget process.  

Funding public transit: how did we get here?

Pittsburgh Regional Transit is facing a catastrophic budget crunch, with a projected shortfall of $100 million for the coming fiscal year unless new state and local funding is identified. All of Pennsylvania’s transit agencies are in similarly dire straits, and will be forced to take drastic steps in the coming months to cut service – including whole routes, frequency, and service hours. OPDC stands with community organizations all over Pittsburgh in demanding bold action by our state legislators to ensure PRT's buses continue to roll. 

The current crisis has been 20 years in the making, the result of back-to-back 10-year fixes that weren’t sustainable. Act 44 of 2007 provided dedicated transit funding by increasing Turnpike tolls, but that solution was designed to be temporary, and the Turnpike’s payments ended in 2022. Act 89 of 2013 tried to pick up the slack by allowing increases to wholesale gasoline tax revenue and vehicle registration fees, but it wasn’t enough to solve Act 44’s shortcomings. Increased federal funding for transportation infrastructure under the Biden administration gave us an extra three years’ reprieve... but time is now up: Pennsylvania needs to get serious about funding public transit. 

Fares cover less than half the cost of running bus service – that's been true since Port Authority was created in 1956. Without additional public funding, PRT will reduce the number of routes, cut back on frequency, and raise fares. Those actions might seem like prudent solutions to the problem, except those are the very things that make transit less useful, less accessible, and more hassle than people might think it’s worth. If fewer people ride the buses, the whole system collapses, and pretty soon there’s no transit at all. 

Without weekend and nighttime service, people can’t get to swing shift jobs. They can’t use buses to run errands on weekends. They can’t come to Oakland for evening classes or study sessions at the libraries. Local institutions absolutely rely on PRT buses to bring students, patients, and employees who live all over the county into Oakland – and longer routes are more at risk of being cut. If buses come less frequently, they become less reliable, and people with a choice start opting to drive, even though it’s more expensive and time-consuming. 

One thing all Oakland residents understand very well: our neighborhoods can’t handle more car commuters. Making room for parking makes housing more expensive and has a big impact on our quality of life.  

Whether or not you ride the bus, robust transit really matters for Oakland.

Please call your reps and ask them to help us save transit: 

• Representative Dan Frankel: 412-422-1774 

• Representative Aeron Abney: 412-471-7760 

• Representative La’Tasha Mayes: 412-665-5502 

• Senator Jay Costa: 412-241-6690

Pedestrian safety in Oakland: old challenges bring new alliances together

Residents at OPDC’s March Let’s Talk meeting discuss ideas for improving bike and pedestrian safety on Bates Street.

Oakland is dense and walkable, and many of our residents do not use cars to get around. It’s also home to busy streets where cars, buses, shuttles, and bicycles all compete for access. Safe sidewalks, street crossings, bike lanes, and access to transit are incredibly important here.  

We’re always mindful of the old saying, if you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Delivering safer streets in Oakland is never simple or straightforward: problems have multiple causes, and solving those problems requires coordinated effort among stakeholders and agencies that each have different tools to offer. Over the last several months, we’ve convened conversations to ensure resident concerns are reaching the right ears at the city and our neighborhood institutions. 

Bike Pittsburgh leads residents on a pedestrian and bike safety assessment and walk through West Oakland.

Some of these issues — like those that Pitt Safe Streets and Pitt Urban Planning are highlighting on Bates Stret — are about street design and public infrastructure. At our March Let’s Talk, students and long-term residents came together to talk about their experiences trying to cross Bates, noting where visibility is poor and traffic flow is chaotic. We’re coordinating with Oakland Transportation Management Association, the Department of City Planning, and the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure to prioritize and tackle the problem intersections and enforcement challenges Oakland neighbors highlighted.  

Other pedestrian safety issues — like those West Oakland residents have raised for years about Robinson, Darragh, and Terrace Streets — are as much about the ways Oakland’s institutions manage their employees and clients coming into Oakland, as they are about street design and infrastructure. We’re supporting DOMI to work with Pittsburgh Regional Transit and emergency services about changes to traffic flow on Fifth Avenue, and we’re putting together transportation demand management planners from UPMC, Carlow, and Pitt to work proactively with DOMI to coordinate their forecasting and strategies. We continue to support West Oakland residents to be present in these conversations, because there are no good solutions without a clear definition of the problems, and it’s lived experience that best informs that analysis. 

OPDC’s 2025-2030 strategic plan calls for building social connections that support a thriving intergenerational community. We will continue to create space and opportunity for neighbors to work together to develop plans that are responsive, creative, and inclusive. For more information, or to share your Oakland pedestrian safety concerns, contact Liz Gray at 412.335.0933 or email questions@opdc.org.