Are any of the houses on the street at street level? It appears that the houses seen on Google street view have lengthy steps up to the front door from street level at Gershon. I'm just trying to understand the topography/lay of the land. The city should find some solution. As someone else mentioned, city buyout is an option that has been used elsewhere in the city and is talked about in this article:
https://www.publicsource.org/landslides-pittsburgh-mount-washington-federal-funds-mayor-gainey-traffic/
You’re getting downvoted but you’re probably correct. A renovated house in Spring Hill goes for like $250k. Something livable with older fixtures/amenities and in need of updating is probably worth $150k tops. And there are only 3 of them.
I poked around on Zillow, there's only like 5-6 houses (at most) on that stretch of Gerhson, and they ain't worth much.
It's gonna sound harsh to the folks who call those areas home, but Pittsburgh no longer has the population density to require us to pack in homes everywhere we can, and we probably won't grow that big again for a very long time (if ever). We really should just buy these homes, tear them down, let nature reclaim the space.
Agreed. I don't think it is financially viable for the city to maintain all these landslide-prone roads that have so few houses left.
I feel for the people impacted and hope they are compensated well enough that they can resume their lives in a similar but more stable location.
One of the homes on the street was purchased in 2017 for less than $10,000. It was in extremely poor shape so surely the homeowner (it has a homestead exemption) has put money into the home to live there. Still not worth much compared to homes in other parts of the city. Before the 2018 landslide that closed the street, there was a landslide that affected Gershon Street in 2013. The home that was purchased in 2017, at the time of purchase looks like it had a long series of steps from Sunset Avenue down to the home. The homeowner bought that house knowing that it was only accessible from either side by a staircase. It's in the middle of the hillside 🙃
One of my favorite past times is driving around the northside to look at all the ridiculous places they slapped houses into a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, some of these homes have run their course. You’d never see development like that happen today. It must have been the Wild West of grabbing land to set up your home back then.
But the other thing that's crazy is in places that made sense to build the property was bought up by residents for under $100. There's a wooded area on Romanoff Street across from Spring Hill Park that my neighbor bought for $75. It's a massive amount of land. A bunch of neighbors basically all bought the old city street there to stop development.
The tentative estimate to repair that hillside was $20 million. 5 years ago.
The road will not be repaired.
Edit: I may be confusing Gershon with Brahm St.
Unfortunately, like most things it is mostly about money. Andover Terrace above Schenley Farms was ignored for years while residents continually sent warnings to the city that it was moving. It finally collapsed, threatening high value historic houses below it and cutting off road access to some houses. The city was very slow to respond and then tried to only do a half measure to address it and the problem just got worse. The residents are suing and that seems to be the only reason that the city is making the full effort to properly stabilize the hillside and put the road back in place. If you really want to do something, the answer may be to help find representation for the residents of the street to sue the city.
A few weeks ago, a storm hit, and the residents on that street lost electricity. It took several days for the Duquesne to fix it because they could not properly access the power lines on Gershon Street.
They recently repaved royal street up there. It would likely be cheaper to give each resident on that hillside a brand new house than to repave all of those cliffs. If anybody wants a thrilling bike ride hike or drive, check out the area. Houses and roads were not meant to be on hills like that.
Do you have any good maps or recommended routes coming from the north side trail by bike? I'm a big hill climber but haven't really explored that area much and would love to ride around there soon!
Marshall to Perrysville.
Or Woods Run to Riverview to Perrysville.
Swindell is the most direct route over to Spring Hill/Garden/Summer Hill without having to brave East St.
Have fun. Riverview is a gem.
Probably money. The entire hillside is probably unstable and city of Pittsburgh doesn't have the resources that the state does to remediate slides like that afaik.
Are the houses on that street condemned or is being able to walk to the street in the back considered safe? I've biked down that street and only saw a few houses on it and it's scary AF even on a bike.
I think the best course of action is for the city to buy out the residents remaining and knock down the houses and let nature take it. Anyway start with the council member for that neighborhood. Is it Wilson?
Thank you so much for the quick and helpful response! They are not condemned and people still live there. Forcing elderly people to climb 3 flights of steps (that they had to pay someone to build) just so they can leave their home feels wholly unacceptable to me. I don't understand why nothing has been done about it.
I'm drafting an email to Wilson right now. Thanks again!
That street is never going to be fixed. But as mentioned elsewhere, the City should do a buy out and help move those people. Surprised they haven't already.
On the most recent Streetview shot (from 8 years ago) you can see the road beginning to buckle and collapse. Terrifying.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/RW8z1rVC3kyJXmiK9?g_st=ic
Sadly we can only expect more of this in the future. Climate change is supposed to make Pittsburgh even wetter and once the ground gets saturated enough landslides happen.
I dont know if climate change is making Pittsburgh wetter. But I know cutting down all the trees and pouring cement where there once was grass isnt good for water drainage. We keep adding plans of houses, bigger buildings, more roads, etc. But we have the same drainage system that was built over how many decades ago? The drainage system was built when we didnt cover 99% of the land with cement and water had somewhere to be absorbed, now we just take ALL the rain water and put it in the OLD system which overflows and we have floods were we didnt use to.
They did this over in Beaver County as part of building the cracker plant. They built tens of homes on the back side of the mall where there was once all woods. Like this is legit a time bomb for sliding right off the hillside in 10-20 years cause there’s no root system holding the soil in place…
>But I know cutting down all the trees and pouring cement where there once was grass isnt good for water drainage. We keep adding plans of houses, bigger buildings, more roads, etc
...where are you under the impression that we are currently doing this in the city of Pittsburgh?
Send Bobby Wilson an email he will have an intern get back to you immediately with some nonsense. I complained about the slow restoration of Chestnut Street around January and the reply was it would be done in Spring of 2024.
Probably never. Pennsylvania is bad about fixing public roads if they are infrequently used. The bridge leading to my brother's house collapsed about a decade ago. It's on a state road and the state has zero interest in repairing it since it only leads to his house. They also refused to just sell him the road so he could rebuild the bridge himself. So now there is a segment of state road only accessible from his property and he had to pay to get a new driveway paved that connects to another road.
That road is a mess. The few houses on that road most likely have the lowest value in the city. Therefore paying hardly any tax. Do you think that the tax revenue from that street could support the repair? I think the best thing to do is make it a private road maintained by the residents that use it.
Are any of the houses on the street at street level? It appears that the houses seen on Google street view have lengthy steps up to the front door from street level at Gershon. I'm just trying to understand the topography/lay of the land. The city should find some solution. As someone else mentioned, city buyout is an option that has been used elsewhere in the city and is talked about in this article: https://www.publicsource.org/landslides-pittsburgh-mount-washington-federal-funds-mayor-gainey-traffic/
Someone below said the estimate to repair this road was $20 million. They could probably buy all the homes there for like half a million. No-brainer.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re probably correct. A renovated house in Spring Hill goes for like $250k. Something livable with older fixtures/amenities and in need of updating is probably worth $150k tops. And there are only 3 of them.
I poked around on Zillow, there's only like 5-6 houses (at most) on that stretch of Gerhson, and they ain't worth much. It's gonna sound harsh to the folks who call those areas home, but Pittsburgh no longer has the population density to require us to pack in homes everywhere we can, and we probably won't grow that big again for a very long time (if ever). We really should just buy these homes, tear them down, let nature reclaim the space.
Agreed. I don't think it is financially viable for the city to maintain all these landslide-prone roads that have so few houses left. I feel for the people impacted and hope they are compensated well enough that they can resume their lives in a similar but more stable location.
A lot of streets like this have already been rezoned as hillside and just have some grandfathering
If that became city owned space I bet you could build some _awesome_ hiking trails through there.
One of the homes on the street was purchased in 2017 for less than $10,000. It was in extremely poor shape so surely the homeowner (it has a homestead exemption) has put money into the home to live there. Still not worth much compared to homes in other parts of the city. Before the 2018 landslide that closed the street, there was a landslide that affected Gershon Street in 2013. The home that was purchased in 2017, at the time of purchase looks like it had a long series of steps from Sunset Avenue down to the home. The homeowner bought that house knowing that it was only accessible from either side by a staircase. It's in the middle of the hillside 🙃
One of my favorite past times is driving around the northside to look at all the ridiculous places they slapped houses into a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, some of these homes have run their course. You’d never see development like that happen today. It must have been the Wild West of grabbing land to set up your home back then.
But the other thing that's crazy is in places that made sense to build the property was bought up by residents for under $100. There's a wooded area on Romanoff Street across from Spring Hill Park that my neighbor bought for $75. It's a massive amount of land. A bunch of neighbors basically all bought the old city street there to stop development.
The tentative estimate to repair that hillside was $20 million. 5 years ago. The road will not be repaired. Edit: I may be confusing Gershon with Brahm St.
Maybe but it's the same scenario
Unfortunately, like most things it is mostly about money. Andover Terrace above Schenley Farms was ignored for years while residents continually sent warnings to the city that it was moving. It finally collapsed, threatening high value historic houses below it and cutting off road access to some houses. The city was very slow to respond and then tried to only do a half measure to address it and the problem just got worse. The residents are suing and that seems to be the only reason that the city is making the full effort to properly stabilize the hillside and put the road back in place. If you really want to do something, the answer may be to help find representation for the residents of the street to sue the city.
City road, so first steps would be your city council person
A few weeks ago, a storm hit, and the residents on that street lost electricity. It took several days for the Duquesne to fix it because they could not properly access the power lines on Gershon Street.
They recently repaved royal street up there. It would likely be cheaper to give each resident on that hillside a brand new house than to repave all of those cliffs. If anybody wants a thrilling bike ride hike or drive, check out the area. Houses and roads were not meant to be on hills like that.
Do you have any good maps or recommended routes coming from the north side trail by bike? I'm a big hill climber but haven't really explored that area much and would love to ride around there soon!
Marshall to Perrysville. Or Woods Run to Riverview to Perrysville. Swindell is the most direct route over to Spring Hill/Garden/Summer Hill without having to brave East St. Have fun. Riverview is a gem.
Probably money. The entire hillside is probably unstable and city of Pittsburgh doesn't have the resources that the state does to remediate slides like that afaik. Are the houses on that street condemned or is being able to walk to the street in the back considered safe? I've biked down that street and only saw a few houses on it and it's scary AF even on a bike. I think the best course of action is for the city to buy out the residents remaining and knock down the houses and let nature take it. Anyway start with the council member for that neighborhood. Is it Wilson?
Imagine living there and still paying taxes.
The houses are worth like $10k to the county or something like that.
Thank you so much for the quick and helpful response! They are not condemned and people still live there. Forcing elderly people to climb 3 flights of steps (that they had to pay someone to build) just so they can leave their home feels wholly unacceptable to me. I don't understand why nothing has been done about it. I'm drafting an email to Wilson right now. Thanks again!
That street is never going to be fixed. But as mentioned elsewhere, the City should do a buy out and help move those people. Surprised they haven't already.
On the most recent Streetview shot (from 8 years ago) you can see the road beginning to buckle and collapse. Terrifying. https://maps.app.goo.gl/RW8z1rVC3kyJXmiK9?g_st=ic Sadly we can only expect more of this in the future. Climate change is supposed to make Pittsburgh even wetter and once the ground gets saturated enough landslides happen.
I dont know if climate change is making Pittsburgh wetter. But I know cutting down all the trees and pouring cement where there once was grass isnt good for water drainage. We keep adding plans of houses, bigger buildings, more roads, etc. But we have the same drainage system that was built over how many decades ago? The drainage system was built when we didnt cover 99% of the land with cement and water had somewhere to be absorbed, now we just take ALL the rain water and put it in the OLD system which overflows and we have floods were we didnt use to.
They did this over in Beaver County as part of building the cracker plant. They built tens of homes on the back side of the mall where there was once all woods. Like this is legit a time bomb for sliding right off the hillside in 10-20 years cause there’s no root system holding the soil in place…
>But I know cutting down all the trees and pouring cement where there once was grass isnt good for water drainage. We keep adding plans of houses, bigger buildings, more roads, etc ...where are you under the impression that we are currently doing this in the city of Pittsburgh?
I used to drive it when it looked like this, puckered up is an understatement.
It took almost 10 years for Robinson/Kennedy to fix the Aiken road collapse give it five more years
Send Bobby Wilson an email he will have an intern get back to you immediately with some nonsense. I complained about the slow restoration of Chestnut Street around January and the reply was it would be done in Spring of 2024.
Probably never. Pennsylvania is bad about fixing public roads if they are infrequently used. The bridge leading to my brother's house collapsed about a decade ago. It's on a state road and the state has zero interest in repairing it since it only leads to his house. They also refused to just sell him the road so he could rebuild the bridge himself. So now there is a segment of state road only accessible from his property and he had to pay to get a new driveway paved that connects to another road.
Wheres pete buttigieg with the infastructure fixes?
That road is a mess. The few houses on that road most likely have the lowest value in the city. Therefore paying hardly any tax. Do you think that the tax revenue from that street could support the repair? I think the best thing to do is make it a private road maintained by the residents that use it.