5. What will be the agenda and priorities of the planning department in your administration?

CARMEN ROBINSON: My Planning department will be the Department of Neighborhoods. The number one priority will be to target the communities in most distress. The criteria for distress status are communities inundated with violence and blight. I plan to provide urban development that sustains our communities while avoiding the damage gentrification can cause. I plan to rehabilitate existing structures, employ community garden and farms because these projects will not displace people, which must be key in implementing urban planning. Green sites will create healthy environments and during this fiscal crisis with record job loses; we need to focus on inexpensive safe food for our children to eat.

PATRICK DOWD: 1) Comprehensive Plan. The current city budget provides funds for a comprehensive plan, but little has happened yet to make it a reality. My administration would fast-track and prioritize the plan and would expand its scope to look forward 20 years. Such a
plan would be based in our neighborhoods, would require our planners to be out in the streets and use current best practices for civic engagement.
2) Education. The planning department must be strong and educated about best practices so that those practices can be implemented and explained to the public.
3) Coordination. The planning department should actively seek the support and counsel of community groups like the Friendship Preservation Group and the Central Northside Neighborhood Council.

LUKE RAVENSTAHL: 1. To continue to implement a coordinated, comprehensive
vision for the City that focuses on riverfronts, open spaces and market-driven planning.
2. To undertake transportation planning that focuses on ways that we can reduce the City’s carbon footprint. Pittsburgh should be pedestrian and bicycle friendly and offer a world class transportation system.
3. To provide data that will help Pittsburgh residents, visitors and the rest of the country understand social, economic and demographic trends in the City.
4. To work with developers and residents to ensure high quality design in the City of Pittsburgh.
5. To invest in small scale and strategic planning and visioning paired with long-term visioning that will be implemented.

CARMEN ROBINSON: My plans for blight and abandonment were answered above. I
plan to commission a department of neighborhoods where the focus is to work on our neighborhoods as a group. Every neighborhood will be represented. When real people take on this task, real change will occur.

PATRICK DOWD: 1) Focus on growth. We have blight and abandonment because we have a shrinking population. We need a comprehensive plan to address this issue.
2) Find creative ways to use vacant property in the interim. Where communities need a push, the city should purchase abandoned homes, evaluate how difficult they would be to rehabilitate, and then give those homes, at low cost, to residents who commit to staying in Pittsburgh and renovating them. This program will rejuvenate neighborhoods and draw people back into the city,
saving us money in the long run.
3) Prioritize financing incentives so that the developers receiving the most assistance are those who tackle blight and abandonment in neighborhoods in the city’s long-term plan.

LUKE RAVENSTAHL: The transformation of blighted communities into thriving neighborhoods with housing and commercial development remains a top priority. My programs and policies aim to curb and eliminate blight that hinders growth and development in our neighborhoods. I doubled the demolition budget in 2008 and increased it again in 2009, insisting demolitions are done in a strategic and comprehensive manner. Property owners are now held accountable by the Rental Registration and the Disruptive Property Ordinances. We are re-building the Bureau of Building Inspection from the ground up by deploying inspectors to neighborhood Police Zones. Through the Green Up Pittsburgh Program, we replace blight with healthy green spaces that serves as sideyards, community gardens and future development sites.

CARMEN ROBINSON: Less or nonexistent violent crime, efficient land use; less automobile use but with better access to any neighborhood in the city; efficient resource use, less pollution and waste; the restoration of our natural systems; good housing and living environments; a healthy social ecology; sustainable economics; community participation; and preservation of local culture and wisdom. We get there by taking care of our communities first. We must treat our children as important as or even more important than fixing our infrastructure. Place money in our community centers, schools and public safety institutions is a start, finding money for small business, recycling and reclaiming our river fronts are just a few good measures in getting started.

PATRICK DOWD: • Population: 375,000 – 425,000
• Unemployment: 2%
• Comprehensive transportation system that connects trains to buses to trails to livable streets
• Best urban school system in the country
We start planning now. We put our financial house in order. We end the cronyism, waste, and corruption so that we’re doing business in an ethical and forthright manner. We empower stakeholders from all parts of the community: artists, developers, students, families, seniors, and low-income residents. We create stronger partnerships between the city, the schools, and community organizations so that we’re strengthening the weave of our social fabric as we tackle our problems with infrastructure, population loss, truancy, and debt.

LUKE RAVENSTAHL: Our population has doubled and Pittsburgh has established itself
as a global leader in green technology and sustainable development. We are no longer a rust belt city, but rather a green belt city. Universities have remained world renowned and nearly 100% of graduates stay in the City. Pittsburgh Promise graduates, now community leaders and corporate innovators, have established their own Pittsburgh Promises. Riverfronts are fully activated and deeply connected to our neighborhoods. We are a model city of living: enabling residents to live, work and play within short walks of our world class transportation system. Neighborhoods once considered blighted are destinations of choice. We will get there by continuing to embrace smart, strategic planning and investments that are
based on markets and community dialogue.



8. How will you engage the community in a citywide visioning process?

CARMEN ROBINSON: I believe the community wants to be involved and are chopping at the bit to have a voice. Most of my ideas come from people who wrote letters, emails and whom I talk with at their front doors. None of my ideas are original hence; all we need to do to increase
participation is to just listen.

PATRICK DOWD: We should engage in grassroots neighborhood planning using models such as visionPDX as our guide. We must take a proactive stance towards planning to ensure that a vision of Pittsburgh 20 years from now includes the voices of all. Working with established community-based and development organizations, theater groups and consultants, we can create vision events that attract traditional participants and those whose voices have been left out. Pittsburgh has a great network of established community based groups and development organizations that should be engaged in the process. We have tough questions to answer about how to grow our city in a just and socially responsible manner. These questions can best
be answered through the full engagement of our community.

LUKE RAVENSTAHL: Community visioning is a critical component in our current
comprehensive planning process focused on connecting neighborhoods, riverfronts and open space. My administration continues to embrace and advance smart grassroots small scale change agendas as they have proven to be successful in the past. We continue to engage community stakeholders in solving legacy issues: budget, infrastructure, population loss and public safety, with the sole purpose of creating solutions. Fortunately, there seems to be great optimism in the air and a desire and passion to work together to make transformative change. I know through strategic, comprehensive, community-driven and supported plans, we will have
a shared vision for Pittsburgh.