Pittsburgh City Council
Public Comments

The Legal Rape of Oakland

February 9, 2016

Campus Advantage, a Texas-based Company that specializes in student housing, made a presentation to the Oakland community on February 3 about a development on Forbes Avenue that could house 494 students. This is one block away from an even more massive development called SkyVue, which is still under construction.

Last year, Campus Advantage proposed a development at the same site that would have housed 295 students. They applied for a height variance based on economic hardship. I testified against the variance. Oakland’s three Councilmen wrote letters of support for the variance. Wanda Wilson, Executive Director of Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, and University of Pittsburgh Vice Chancellor Paul Supowitz, as Chair of the Oakland Task Force, also wrote letters of support. The variance was granted on June 28. A lawsuit was then filed to void the variance.

Driven by what some call greed, Campus Advantage now has decided to increase their development plans by expanding horizontally and taking over the adjacent Arby’s Restaurant. Is this what is commonly referred to as “bait and switch”? Were our councilmen and others duped by the Company’s proposal last year? There will be a Planning Commission briefing on February 23 and a Commission hearing on March 8. Most people justifiably believe that approval for this new development is a done deal.

Pittsburgh could quickly become the laughingstock in the country. Other national developers could study and duplicate Campus Advantage’s approach as word gets out that, with the right backers, you can develop plans to house 500 students and possibly be granted permission by the Planning Commission in little over one month.

Why is there a need for the SkyVue and Campus Advantage buildings that can house over 1,000 students? In my opinion, there are three reasons. First, Pitt was not content with 30,000 students and 8,000 dormitory beds in Oakland, so they built Nordenberg Hall which houses 559 first-year students only. In the past three years, 1,600 students passed through that building. Second, Pitt’s Master Plan which was approved by City Council in 2010 was not fully vetted out. The first two hearings on May 6th and 12th, chaired by the now current mayor, lasted 16 minutes, and approval was granted for Pitt the following week. Third, The Oakland 2025 Master Plan is woefully inadequate to stop this kind of development.

Oakland has been and continues to be legally raped by its two largest universities as well as developers. South Bouquet Street and Forbes Avenue are just two examples. The website www.OaklandDignity.com has 75 links of actions to help put an end to this destructive domination. Oakland further needs both federal and national media investigations to end this legal rape. We hope the day comes soon. Enough is enough.

I speak to you in truth of what all of you know in thought.

Carlino Giampolo

Pitthetic: noun – a university, organization, government entity, or individual that negatively impacts a community by action or inaction; adjective – pathetic as a direct result of a university, organization, government entity, or individual's negative influence.