Density Done Right - New Castle
Existing Conditions
Census Description: Block Group 2, Census Tract 4, Lawrence County
General Description: Central New Castle
Dwelling Units (DUs): 453
Acres: 187
DUs/Acre: 2.4
Many blocks in Central New Castle don’t have any housing at all; nearly half the housing in the neighborhood is located in two apartment buildings (Riverside Apartments and Skyview Towers). 42 blocks in the neighborhood have six or fewer DUs.
Density Done Right Conditions
Dwelling Units (DUs): 812 (+359)
DUs/Acre: 4.4 (+1.9)
Nearly doubling the number of housing units downtown sounds like a lot, but this level of density already exists in New Castle, and can be found in the small-lot, single-family neighborhoods in North Hill and the South Side. In a mixed-use context, Downtown Pittsburgh south of Forbes Avenue has a similar density, as does much of Lower Lawrenceville. For small-town, mixed-use density, look no further than Oakmont or Sewickley.
South Side, New Castle, 4.3 DUs/acre
North Hill, New Castle, 4.5 DUs/acre
Downtown, Pittsburgh, 4.2 DUs/acre
Lower Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, 4.9 DUs/acre
Sewickley, 5.0 DUs/acre
Oakmont, 4.6 DUs/acre
What’s Getting in the Way?
New Castle’s zoning code does not make new housing easy to build downtown. Any housing with four or fewer units is not permitted under any circumstances, while “Apartment Houses” are listed as a conditional use, requiring a recommendation from the Planning Commission and approval from the City Council (in contrast, by-right uses are simply reviewed and permitted by staff, saving both time and money).
Apartment houses are also subject to a minimum lot size requirement of 13,000 square feet, plus an additional 500 square feet for each dwelling unit in excess of four. Many lots in the district are not large enough to qualify. Non-residential uses are not subject to the minimum lot size requirement. The 128-unit Riverside Apartments could not be built under the modern zoning code, and would be limited to 107 units.
And then come the parking requirements. If an apartment house is under two stories, it is required to provide 1.5 parking spaces per unit. If it’s over two stories, it is required to provide one parking space for each 2.5 units, plus one for every two employees. At 330 square feet per parking spot, having to provide excess parking can greatly reduce the buildable area of the parcel, and makes smaller parcels nearly undevelopable.
How can you change it?
To introduce more housing into Central New Castle, the zoning code needs to be updated to:
Allow for more housing types
Reduce or eliminate minimum lot size requirements
Reduce or eliminate parking requirements
Typically, changes to a zoning code would be drafted by a city’s planning department, reviewed by their planning commission who would present a recommendation to the city council, voted on by the council, and then approved by the mayor. New Castle’s website does list a phone number for their Planning and Zoning Office, but the City Directory doesn’t list anyone as working for the Office, so it’s unclear if there is a specific person to reach out to. There is no information on the Planning Commission, but there is contact info for the entire Council and the Mayor, so that may actually be the best place to start. Please reach out to the City Council and ask them to:
include all housing types in the district by right (not as a conditional use)
Reduce or eliminate minimum lot size requirements
Reduce parking requirements to one parking space per unit or less; ideally, eliminate parking requirements altogether