Moratorium

The following was sent on December 7, 2019 to members of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation Board of Directors, and members of the Pittsburgh City Council, among others. 

Executive Director Wanda Wilson
Oakland Planning and Development Corporation

For the past twelve years, our grassroots movement has initiated numerous bold actions to protect and preserve Oakland, as well as to respect the dignity and improve the quality of life of its residents. One such action was calling for the end of the University of Pittsburgh’s expansion in Oakland.

Unfortunately, that action received no support from either the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation (OPDC) or members of the Pittsburgh City Council. This lack of a moratorium on the unbridled university expansion has resulted in the further cancerous decimation of our neighborhood that has now been replicated by Carnegie Mellon University, as well as by numerous developers who support these universities.

This further destruction of our neighborhood must end NOW. OPDC and the Pittsburgh City Council must fully support an immediate moratorium on all development in Oakland.

No one is under the illusion that University of Pittsburgh administrators highly respect the members of OPDC and city council. At several of the Institutional Master Plan (IMP) meetings, University of Pittsburgh administrators were asked to detail the negative impacts that the university’s expansion has had on Oakland. They gave no details. In the past, administrators have not taken any responsibility for this decimation of our neighborhood, and instead have blamed others by telling us that all of their expansion had the approval of OPDC and other Oakland organizations, as well as the approval of city council and other city departments.

Was the recent $250,000 loan from the University of Pittsburgh administrators to OPDC a manipulation on their part, in order to receive support for the IMP? That loan is very suspicious considering that in past years, according to you, university administrators were giving OPDC only $25,000 in direct funding yearly, which is the meager equivalent of less than $1 (one dollar) from every student’s tuition fee.

The university administrators will soon be coming before the Pittsburgh Planning Commission and the Pittsburgh City Council for approval of the IMP, and we do not know how much money university administrators or their supporters have offered, or will offer, city government.

In our letters to you on November 4 and 17, 2019, we asked you to respond to eight concerns of ours (Links 96 and 97 at www.OaklandDignity.com). Once again, please respond to those concerns, and to this one:

9) Does OPDC fully support an immediate moratorium on all development in Oakland?

Thank you
Carlino Giampolo

Note: In an email on December 19, 2019, Wanda Wilson responded to the above question # 9:

OPDC does not support a moratorium on development. That would not be a successful method of neighborhood advocacy. Instead, we use our planning expertise and advocacy/organizing ability to oppose development that is inconsistent with The Oakland 2025 Master Plan. We work to leverage opportunity to achieve neighborhood goals in partnership with institutions and developers. In this way, we can achieve more for the neighborhood’s benefit.

(Other responses in the email by Ms. Wilson are on Links 97, 96, and 95.)