Planning Commission pushes back tiny home for homeless vote

PITTSBURGH — At a packed board table, City Council members went over every detail of their plans to help the homeless.

“We want them to know this is a very important decision, lives could hang in the balance of this,” said Anthony Coghill.

But there are still a lot of questions about the plan to change zoning in order to accommodate a pilot program of ten tiny homes. It’s not just the Planning Commission with the questions.

“I think we need to know what happened to these other cities that have established these items, that have established these temporary houses. Did their homelessness grow because now there is housing available?” said William Goodrich, who lives on the Northside.

Because of the concerns, the vote is being pushed back by eight weeks.

“The only real concern I’ve heard from the commission itself, if we do temporary managed site it would somehow deem the current tent sites illegal but we know they are illegal already and we never suggested we’d be sweeping tents off the street,” Coghill said.

But now the two sides have the opportunity to get together and dive into those concerns, tweak the bill and come to an agreement that will help. City Council member Deb Gross said this is about humans and helping them survive as Pittsburgh’s homeless population sits nearly seven percent higher than the national average.

“We are hoping one of them catches on and we are hoping for support and cooperation through the administration and county to see one of them through and this is the latest of five,” Coghill said.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

©2024 Cox Media Group