Housing consultant urges Pittsburgh council to oppose David Vatz nomination to planning commission

Daniel Schaefer, a consultant who works with small affordable-housing developers across the city, told Pittsburgh City Council on March 4 that the council should oppose the nomination of David Vatz to the city’s planning commission.

Schaefer said Vatz’s public comments and social-media posts show a ‘‘severely limited understanding of how community engagement works’’ and a tendency to treat public meetings as a single ‘‘data point’’ rather than an ongoing process. He also criticized what he described as Vatz’s past efforts to discredit housing advocates and community members.

“I was here a few weeks ago to express my concerns around Mr. Vatz’s appointment,” Schaefer said. He pointed to a tweet he attributed to Vatz: ‘‘I just want history to show that our research showed that I was killing housing and now there's even more proof. Waiting to hear the spin from Mayor Gayy, PCRG, Lawrenceville United, OPDC, 412 Justice, One Hood, and others on this horrendous news.’’ Schaefer said that language and the blocking of critics on social platforms demonstrate an unwillingness to engage constructively with community opposition.

Schaefer also criticized Vatz’s interview remarks about navigating contentious developments, saying that Vatz’s description of relying on ‘‘talk[ing] to the experts in opposition to understand them’’ is inconsistent with the candidate’s public conduct. “After witnessing Mr. Vatz spend the last two years trying to discredit myself and my colleagues who are on the ground building and supporting housing development, I do not believe he is capable of this,” Schaefer said.

The council did not take formal action on the nomination during the standing committees meeting. Schaefer’s remarks were offered as part of the public-comment period; committee business proceeded to the scheduled agenda items after public comment closed.

What happens next: The standing committees meeting did not record a vote on the planning-commission nomination. Council rules and the council’s candidate-interview schedule determine when nominations receive formal consideration, and no such vote or confirmation was recorded in the March 4 standing-committee proceedings.

(Reporting note: statements above are drawn from Schaefer’s public comment on March 4, 2026.)