New Program in the Preservation of Pittsburgh Master Plan

This month, JPMor­gan Chase award­ed House­Proud Atlanta $50,000 to sup­port the cre­ation and imple­men­ta­tion of a Code Com­pli­ance Assis­tance Pro­gram in the Pitts­burgh neigh­bor­hood. House­Proud will pro­vide 15 to 20 elder­ly and low-income home­own­ers with high-qual­i­ty house repairs to bring their homes into code com­pli­ance. The pro­gram is an estab­lished demon­stra­tion project in the Preser­va­tion of Pitts­burgh Mas­ter Plan.

To sup­port the pro­gram, the Atlanta civic site will fund a res­i­dent leader who will mar­ket the pro­gram in the neigh­bor­hood, help­ing res­i­dents apply for assis­tance and advo­cate for them­selves with code enforce­ment. The com­pli­ance pro­gram com­ple­ments the efforts of the Pitts­burgh Com­mu­ni­ty Improve­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, which has been work­ing with city offi­cials to hold absen­tee land­lords account­able for vacant and non­com­pli­ant homes.

As a fur­ther exam­ple of Pitts­burgh’s nation­wide lead­er­ship in neigh­bor­hood revi­tal­iza­tion, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers will be high­light­ed in a May pan­el ses­sion at the Brown­fields 2013 Con­fer­ence, cospon­sored by the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency and the Inter­na­tion­al City/​County Man­age­ment Association.