N a t u r e i n t h e P o s t - I n d u s t r i a l L a n d s c a p e

However, multiple stakeholders almost always implies multiple interests, and the redevelopment plan evolved considerably from the time the site was purchased to the time that the housing was built. The Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority purchased the site in 1995, the year after the mayor had created a brownfields redevelopment fund.  Redevelopment was to occur through a public/private partnership of the city and the developer (Summerset Land Development Associates), to reduce risk to the developer and to ensure that the city received revenue from the development.  The redevelopment was a city-initiated effort, though it was heavily influenced by citizen participation. 

By 1996, a master plan was completed that showed over 1,000 housing units fitting on the site – provided that Nine Mile Run itself was put into a culvert and the valley was filled using some of the slag to create more buildable land.  However, this plan received substantial negative reactions from the public, and thus it was revised to provide fewer housing units (713) and to restore the stream, creating a natural corridor up the valley that connected to the existing Frick Park to the north.  The city originally lost sight of the environmental value of the Nine Mile Run Valley, and it was due to the concerns non-governmental organizations and citizens that the intrinsic value of this natural system and amenity was brought back into focus.

However, one significant aspect of the plan that proceeded despite its somewhat dubious grounding (no pun intended) was the intention to build houses on top of the slag heaps. Slag is so often reused for other purposes that heaps of this size and recency are relatively unusual. The risks associated with building on slag, which is a material akin to gravel, are unexplored -- both from the perspective of the buildings on top and the development and park that lie below, potentially in the path of harm were the slag heap to erode or slide.