You Can’t Build That Here — 21 Lanark St
November 22, 2023
Our third entry in the You Can’t Build that Here series looks at an 20th century row house in Fineview .
For our third entry in our “You Can’t Build That Here!” series, we cross the Allegheny River and climb up to Fineview.
Each entry in this series highlights a currently existing building that would be illegal to build under the existing zoning code. The purpose is to highlight how flawed our zoning code is.
Today, we’re looking at 21 Lanark St, Pittsburgh, PA 15214 in Fineview.
The house that exists there now is an attached rowhouse built in 1900. It’s a simple 3 bedroom, 2 and a half bedroom house, 1,992 square feet.
Image from Pittsburgh Zoning Map depicting the plot.
The lot it sits on, parcel 21-C-213, is 20 ft by 90 ft - 1,800 square feet. Under the current zoning code, it is R1D-H (single unit detached residential high density).
Under the current zoning code, residential dense housing requires minimum front, rear, and exterior side setbacks of 15 ft, and interior side setbacks of 5 ft. It also requires minimum lot sizes of 1,800 square feet, maximum heights of 40 feet (not to exceed 3 stories). Also, for a detached house, one off street parking spot is required.
All that means that this row house - which has no setback from the front or sides and no off street parking - could not be built today without a zoning variance.
The largest house that could be built by right would be 10 feet wide by 60 feet long, and a maximum of 3 stories - and would require off street parking. While that would be an 1800 square foot house, it would be very oddly shaped.
Surely, though, in a neighborhood like this, where every house on the street was built as a rowhouse, a zoning variance would be easy to attain.
You would think so.
But no.
Starting in 2010, the non-profit Fineview Citizens Council began acquiring lots, including 21 Lanark St., with the purpose of providing affordable housing. In 2020, they published their Five Year Affordable Housing Plan where they identified Lanark Street explicitly as a place to build some new affordable homes.
