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Background[]
Pennsylvania, and its cities, such as Pittsburgh, built on many hills, has serious troubles with land slides.
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Dan Sentz, a Pgh employee, gave public comment: Pgh has zoning regulations in land-slide prone areas that have been around for 20 years. The areas were done by the geology society based upon the bedrock in the area.
- Undercut the base or toe.
- Extra water
- Extra weight
Builders and Developers in Pittsburgh are required to get professional assistance to review and make recomendations. Minimize damages to adjacent properties or the development itself.
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After a tropical storm hits the area, land slides happen in greater amounts. Pittsburgh doesn't get many tropical storms. What do they do with land banking and land slides in the tropics and other regions of the world where land slides are more of a pressing threat?
Slides on public property and slides on private property.[]
Little or nothing can be done on backyard slides.
Money is for city-owned properties, only.
BBI (Building Inspection) gets to look at the land slides on private property. Public Works does nothing. Ronald Graziano, Chief of BBI.
Attempts are to avoid Housing Court. If a property owner does not want to leave the property and there are dangers, the building inspectors will go to court.
If a situation is caused by mine-subsidance insurance.
Grants, revolving loans, insurance for land-slides.[]
New bill from Senator Jay Costa, 43rd, seeks $2.5-million for insurance and another $2.5-million for a revolving loan fund. This is not a priority among most in the state. Costa urged citizens, affected by the slides and otherwise, to contact State Reps, State Senators, Governor, and raise this as a priority.
Sticking points:[]
- Amount of money needed from the budget is great (>$5-million).
- Coverage areas are small.
- Costs greatly exceed the amount of money available. For example, in the city a projected low cost to fix land slides is $1-million.
- The bill only addresses land-slide prone areas. The criteria for that designation is hard to describe.
- The state has a reluctance to take on another program by state government.
- How do you determine what the insurance should cover?
- A possible formula is $1 for every $1,000 of coverage with a limit of $250,000 of coverage.
- One hope is to make the programs self sustaining.
Much like mine subsidance.
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Media[]
- Couple gets sympathy, citation, no fix for hill November 30, 2006, by Jan Ackerman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- Yard from vacant house sliding onto Brookline family's Seaton Road property; retaining wall damaged. Ever since Hurricane Ivan stormed through Western Pennsylvania more than two years ago, Gail and Lou Hendrix have felt like something is hanging over their heads.
- Landslide could keep Route 65 closed for days September 20, 2006, By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- Ohio River Boulevard (Route 65) in Kilbuck could be closed for days, and possibly more than week, because of a massive landslide that started last night at a developer's excavation site and continued today.
- West End hillside from May, 2006 and eminent domain.
- Elliott: Fixing landslides less costly, July 14, 2006, Post-Gazette, The cost of stopping landslides along Corfu Street in Pittsburgh's Elliott neighborhood is coming in almost $1 million lower than expected.