Hello neighbors!

The February Highland Park Community Council Community Meeting is this Thursday, February 15th, at 7pm via Zoom. These community meetings are open to the public. Please register online using the link below the agenda. You will then get an email with the actual meeting zoom link.  

This coming meeting will feature the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority (PWSA). 

PWSA will present on construction activity in the neighborhood, including the start of the new Highland Reservoir Pump Station andupdates on the Highland Reservoir Microfiltration Plant, located on Reservoir Drive. Presenters include: 

Full Agenda:

1. 1. Announcements and Updates from HPCC
   2. Update from Zone 5 Police
   3. PWSA Updates. Rebecca Zito, PWSA Senior Manager, Public Affairs and Barry King, PWSA Director of Engineering and Construction, Mora McLaughlin, Construction Cmm. Project Manager  

What: February HPCC Community Meeting  
When: February 15, 2024 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking this link.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Thank you,

Highland Park Community Council

Neighbors who live near St. Andrews may have noticed some work happening on the building and a sign on the corner of Hampton and Euclid from the Pittsburgh History and Landmark Foundation. We caught up with Matt Walsh, the junior warden with the church, to find out more about what’s going on.  

Passing by the front of the church on Hampton St., you may have stopped to read the plaque noting that the building was constructed around 115 years ago. Since the bulk of the homes in the neighborhood were built in that time frame, many of you will know the challenges with living in an old building – now multiply that several times to imagine maintaining the church.  

The two side roofs that are currently being repaired have been leaking for some time and were just getting worse, moving their repair to the top of the to-do list, Walsh said. No one affiliated with the church knows for sure if the roofs were original but long-time church members believe they’d been in place at least 50 years, maybe more.  

For now, the new roofs are shiny copper but over time they’ll oxidize and patina to a similar green hue that we’re used to seeing. “We deliberated whether to use shingles because it’s more cost effective in the short term to use shingles, but we decided to go with copper to preserve the character of the structure. The more aesthetic modifications we make, the harder it is to maintain historic designation,” Walsh said.  

The building currently doesn’t have an official historic designation. But church leaders are considering pursuing one so that they can qualify for certain grants that are restricted to historic structures.

That will be key for two major projects that are now at the top of the to-do list: replacing the rest of the roof and maintaining and preserving the organ, both of which will require significant funding.  

The current replacement of the two smaller roofs was funded through a variety of sources including the Pittsburgh History and Landmark Foundation, the Rust Foundation and private donations from members of the church.  

St. Andrews invited a few different companies to consider completing the project and settled on Rick John which Walsh said is well known for work on historic buildings.  

Walsh noted that while the church is where the congregation gathers to worship, “we aspire for the campus and facility to be something that all of Highland Park can use.”  

Happy new year, neighbors!

The January Highland Park Community Council Community Meeting is Thursday, January 18th, at 7pm via Zoom. These community meetings are open to the public. Please register online using the link below the agenda. You will then get an email with the actual meeting zoom link.  

This coming meeting will feature the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. This won’t be about Heth’s Run, which came up at the Zoo’s last presentation at an HPCC meeting earlier in the fall, though conversations about that are ongoing. For this coming meeting, the focus is on sharing with the community what the Zoo has planned in 2024, including Zoo camps, special programs, new additions, etc. This is also a time for the Zoo to hear other ideas or feedback from neighborhood community members. If you have questions or comments you’d like the Zoo to address in their presentation, please submit to hpccpgh@gmail.com.

There will also be a brief update from PWSA on the Microfiltration Plant.

Full Agenda:

1. Announcements and Updates from HPCC
2. Update from Zone 5 Police
3. What’s New and Upcoming @ the Pittsburgh Zoo for 2024: Jenn Torpie, VP of Education & Community Engagement, Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium
4. PWSA Microfiltration Plant Update. Rebecca Zito, PWSA Senior Manager, Public Affairs and Barry King, PWSA Director of Engineering and Construction

What: November HPCC Community Meeting  
When: January 18, 2023 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking this link.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Thank you!

Grab an inaugural HPCC calendar from Bryant St. Market while supplies last! They turned out great and feature some really beautiful photos taken by neighbors.

Calendars cost $15, with proceeds going toward supporting HPCC programs, including the Hullabaloo, yard sale, Light Up Night and more.

Bryant St. Market has kindly agreed to sell the calendars. Next time you pop into the shop, feel free to ask to check one out — they are on display behind the register.

We had 29 people send in more than 130 photos and it was tough to whittle those down to the limited number we could print in the calendar. Thanks again to all the neighbors who submitted photos!

By Nancy Gohring

A couple of years ago, my husband and I decided to set up our own DIY food composting system in the back yard. We moved here five years ago from Seattle which has compulsory curbside food composting (if the garbage people spot food in your trash, they can theoretically fine you) and it killed us to throw away our food scraps. Also, we’re gardeners and love the idea of making our own compost to feed our plants. And we know that composting food scraps has a significant impact on the environment, since it retains the nutrients from food scraps, feeding it back into the soil, rather than wasting it in a landfill.

Despite all the blog posts we read and YouTube videos we watched that described how easy it is to compost food, we failed at it. We never were able to get most of the food to break down enough into a recognizable form of compost that we’d want to scatter in our gardens.

Then we took notice of the buckets that many neighbors set out with names of composting services on them.

While curbside city compost pickup isn’t just a west coast thing — New York City started rolling it out last year and will introduce it across the city this year — Pittsburgh doesn’t offer it. However, Highland Park is a great place to live if you’re interested in signing up for a service that will compost your food: we currently have five companies serving our neighborhood. Apparently we are an environmentally conscious bunch if we have attracted so many composting businesses!

I plan to sign up for a service this year and did some digging into each of them. The prices are relatively similar but they have somewhat different policies that might be important to you. I pulled together what I found out into a spreadsheet in hopes of giving other folks in the neighborhood a leg up. Please do double check everything with the companies: I compiled this information from their websites and also via email (not everyone replied to my questions).

Happy composting!

(Note that if you scroll to the bottom of the table, you can scroll to the right, if your browser doesn’t display the entire table. This post is probably best viewed on a monitor rather than a cell phone.)

Service	Cost	Pickup	Other fees	Meat/dairy	Compost return	Out of town policy	Other
Carbon Compost	$19.50/mo or $214/year	Every other week	$15 signing fee	Accepts meat and dairy	Two bags of compost in the spring and fall, 20-40 lb bags	Will pause and restart but only if you’re on the month to month plan	Website says they “provide additional” compostable liners as needed after the initial 12 run out. Unclear whether there’s a charge for additional bags.
Shadyside Worms	$25/mo, scales up for additional bins	Weekly	$10 signup fee	Cooked meats and dairy accepted	20 lb of compost in the spring, option for additional in summer or fall. They donate your share if you don’t want it.	Very flexible: will adjust invoice when out of town or offer credit for future invoices. Service can be paused any time.
Zero Waste Wrangler	$22/mo or $264 a year. Drop off plan available instead.	Weekly	$15, includes 25 liners. Additional roll of 25 liners costs $3.11	Meats, bones, cheese accepted	Yearly plan comes with 10 gallon bag of compost.	$2 “skip credit” for each skipped pickup. For longer periods away, service can be paused, with subscription extended.	Instead of curbside pickup, for $10 every four weeks, you can drop off your compost at a few locations, including one near Trader Joe’s and one in Bloomfield.
Compost People	$22 mo/$264 a year	Weekly	$15 includes eight bin bags, after which you purchase more. Starter fee is waived for yearly subscribers.	Meat and dairy accepted, as well as food soiled paper products, BPI compostable bags, coffee grounds, coffee filters, tea bags minus the staples, non chlorine bleached napkins and BPI Certified Compostable service ware	1 cubic foot of compost yearly
Worm Return	$30/$40. Check website: they have many different pricing plans.	Every other week or weekly	No extra charge for bin liners		Some amount of worm tea available for free		Dashboard available that shows how your level of composting impacts the environment.