Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority approves $15.9M operating budget

Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority has adopted a $15.9 million budget for next year.

Nearly half of the revenue in the operating budget, unanimously approved Thursday, will come from government grants, the authority said. Federal grants will account for about 38% of the revenue, while local grants will provide 9% and state grants will make up 1%.

Other sources of revenue include proceeds from land sold by the authority, fees for programs and services, income from URA investments and money from URA-managed property, including parking garage income. It doesn’t include restricted government grants or other restricted funding for programs, projects or services.

Over 81% of the URA’s budget will be spent on personnel.

City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, who sits on the URA board, said the budget is a reminder that the URA has a limited amount of available funding.

“The budget’s actually tight,” he said. “There’s more demand than we actually have available resources.”

Lavelle said URA officials often hear residents calling for the authority to do more. It is making the most of what it has, he said.

“We would love to do as much affordable housing development as humanly possible. The reality is we just don’t have the resources necessary,” Lavelle said. “We will absolutely accomplish as much as humanly possible with what we have.”