One example of community support in the Hill District is the Oak Hill apartment community. This is a mixed income housing development that is run by a private corporation, but gets public funding in order to provide affordable units to low and moderate income residents that are mixed in with market rate units. This model became popular in the late 20th century when people were becoming increasingly frustrated with traditional public housing communities. These new mixed income projects would be better for tenants in both the affordable and market rate units. For those in subsidized units, there would be many neighbors of higher economic standing who potentially help them out. On the other side, residents in the market rate units would be able to interact and learn from those not as fortunate. These interactions would help provide them with a more well-rounded perspective. Also, having three different tiers of housing costs helps to minimize the gap between the residents of different income levels. Perhaps the most important aspect of these units is that there is no difference in quality between the market rate units and low or moderate income units. This again helps to minimize the difference between these groups because at the end of the day, they all deserve to be treated exactly the same.
Before this location was home to Oak Hill, it was another public housing project known as Allequippa Terrace. This was one of the many outdated public housing developments in the Hill District. These ran into disrepair primarily due to the fact they were run and managed by the government, with little incentive to keep them in good condition. Not to mention the fact that the City of Pittsburgh was going through some tough times in the mid to late 20th century. To gain a better understanding of what the conditions were like, I spoke with a developer of Oak Hill. He
Photo of Apartments by Photographer
said that these units did not have any kitchen cabinets and residents had to flip a switch in order to run water to the sink or the shower, which means they could not be run at the same time. With businesses and residents leaving Pittsburgh the city faced a decreasing tax base, so it is no surprise the public housing projects were not getting their fair share of resources. According to him, the plan was that with a private company trying to rent a certain percentage of units at market value, it would encourage them to keep all units in not only good, but great condition.
Another aspect of this project that differentiated it from past large scale publicly funded housing projects was the role of residents. With the construction of Oak Hill, all Allequippa Terrace residents were guaranteed to get housing in the new development. A practice that had not always been in place. For example, when the Civic Arena was constructed, many residents in the Lower Hill lost their homes. In Smoketown by Mark Whitaker, he shows how the this ended up leaving a very negative impact on the Hill District neighborhood by juxtaposing it with how much of a hot area it was before. Giving residents guaranteed housing helped prevent many of the poor impacts destroying someone’s neighborhood can have. All of these were discussed at length in Mindy Thompson Fullilove’s piece Root Shock, but the most heartbreaking part to me was hearing about taking one’s emotional ecosystem. This book goes very in depth to explain all of these negative impacts. Keeping residents local prevents this from occuring. Also, during the planning for Oak Hill, a social service company was hired to meet with residents in order to try and understand what it was they wanted to see in the new development.
One of the first things desired was different housing types. While many residents were fine with apartments, there was a good amount that wanted to have a front and back door all to themselves. Because of this, the development company not only built apartment buildings into the final design, but they also included townhouses to please the residents and also give the area more of a neighborhood feel than Allequippa Terrace, something residents wanted. To be fair,
Allequippa Terrace did a slightly better job of replicating a neighborhood than many of the massive public housing towers that were constructed around the country at the same time. Its buildings were of a smaller scale, and had plenty of green space for kids to play in. That being said, Oak Hill is definitely an improvement. Other things that add to this sense of neighborhood are the mixed uses. This entails having stores and offices, not just residential buildings. In the lower section of the development there is a general store as well as office space that the
Photo from Porch by Photographer
University of Pittsburgh rents from the management company. This mix of uses provides residents with some things that can help them live their lives a little bit more easily. Being able to walk to a store for groceries is vital in an urban setting, especially one where many residents may not be able to afford a car.
With all this information, it is clear that Oak Hill has done a better job of providing safe and comfortable housing to low income residents than Allequippa Terrace was able to. Since that has been established, it is now fair to point out some of the things that may not be perfect about the development. For starters, earlier it was mentioned how Oak Hill is trying to replicate a city neighborhood with mixed housing types and mixed uses. Does it do this? The answer: kind of. While there are different uses such as an office building and general store, it is a bit of a stretch to say that Oak Hill matches a neighborhood such as Oakland or Squirrel Hill. Is that something that can be changed? Well, not really. Oak Hill is in an interesting location. Its name is literally a play on being in between Oakland and the Hill District. This location allows its residents to have relatively easy access to both neighborhoods, but also somewhat isolates it. This fact makes it extremely hard for Oak Hill to build any substantial commercial district of a traditional neighborhood, as there is not really a large enough consumer base to support more than a single store. On top of this, the private company might just want to maximize the number of residential units, as they tend to be more profitable. There is an expansion being built at some point in the near future closer to the Hill District. It will be interesting to see how this changes the development. Another issue that faces Oak Hill is the maintenance. It is a large development to be run by a single company, and this makes it difficult to keep everything up to par. Having multiple property owners, such as a normal neighborhood, could help force companies to stay more on top of maintenance requests, but that is just a theory.
As a reader, you are probably wondering how I know so much about this housing development. Well, the truth is my Dad was the developer I talked to. This is why I know so much about Oak Hill, and why I am probably biased towards it, even though I try to write from an objective perspective. Sure, Oak Hill is not perfect, but it is impossible to make an argument that Allequippa Terrace was better. The units are nicer, it is safer and there is somewhat more of a neighborhood. The most important thing though is the lack of a stigma. Someone who lived in Allequippa Terrace always had some people looking down on them for living in public housing. With Oak Hill, those same residents now live in a quality place with mixed income residents. It is no longer this undesirable place to live, and the pride that comes with that is something that is hard to measure.
Works Consulted
Fullilove, Mindy Thompson. Root Shock: How Tearing up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do about It. New Village Press, 2016.
Whitaker, Mark. Smoketwon: the Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance. Simon & Schuster, 2019.
Photographer. Photo of Apartments. Oak Hill Apartments. Corcoran Jennison Management, 5 Aug. 2013, https://www.oakhillapts.com/uploads/images/images/original/320359/Oak_Hill_238960_Oak_Hill_mid-rise_and_townhomes.jpg?1519672541
Photographer. Photo from Porch. Oak Hill Apartments. Corcoran Jennison Management, 5 Aug. 2013,https://www.oakhillapts.com/uploads/images/images/original/320365/Oak_Hill_238969_slideshow_homepage.jpg?1519672549