In Ohioview Acres, a gate is not just a gate. In fact, depending on who you talk to, it is a cage, a prison, a violation of constitutional rights or a darn fine idea.
These diverse definitions stem from a controversy over whether the Allegheny County Housing Authority has the right to install a $65,000 manned security gate at the entrance to the Ohioview Acres public housing project in Stowe.
Edward R. Jagnandan, executive director of the housing authority, is in love with the idea of a gated community. Gates cut down crime, make residents feel more comfortable and keep out drug dealers, troublemakers and other rabble, Jagnandan said.
He has come to this conclusion based on his experience installing gates at the projects he oversaw while working in Texas, as well as on his observations of communities housing the rich.
“You will find gated communities in upper-income areas,” said Jagnandan.
Not so for Witold Walczak, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Pittsburgh chapter.
Walczak filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the housing authority and Jagnandan, charging that a manned gate would violate a number of rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution, such as the right to privacy, the right to engage in intimate and political associations anonymously, and protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
The suit also said the installation of a gate would amount to racial discrimination.
According to the ACLU, 69 percent of Ohioview’s residents are black, while as of 1990, only 5 percent of the residents of Stowe and neighboring McKees Rocks were black.
A gate would affect only an area that is predominantly black, the suit states.
There are eight plaintiffs who joined in the lawsuit. They are residents of Ohioview Acres, visitors to the project and residents of two private houses that would be affected by a gate.
Everyone would have to drive through the checkpoint because there is only one road in and the same road out.
Under Jagnandan’s plan, residents would be issued special access cards, such as those used by a lease-holder in a garage, that would lift the gate.
Stowe police officers would ask guests to sign in a log book, show identification and declare who they are visiting.
“I pay my rent, I have no problems with anybody up here,” said Carolyn Washington, one of about 15 people who attended an ACLU news conference at a community center in Ohioview.
“Why should my family and my friends have to come in here, show ID, say where they’re going and say how long they’re going to be here?”
In an informal poll before the conference, 10 out of 10 residents and visitors interviewed opposed the gate. All were black.
“If they put up a gate, I’m going to leave. I’m not paying rent to be caged,” said Shelley Saunders, 21. “If there’s a gate, people will bring in drugs regardless. How do they know the visitors aren’t bringing drugs in?”
Over at the “Towers,” a locked, six-story building in Ohioview that houses senior citizens, most of whom are white, views were distinctly different.
“We all want the gate,” declared Edna Orr, who is in her 70s, from her perch in the lobby. Her four friends echoed her.
Several senior citizens said they had discussed the idea of a gate with the relatives who visit them, and no one was opposed.
The case will be heard June 16 by Judge Robert J. Cindrich. The housing authority has agreed to hold off on the gate until then.
Jagnandan, for one, is mystified by the current situation considering his experience in other states and even in another local housing complex — Burns Heights in Duquesne.
“I’ve had overwhelming support from the ACLU” and the residents of Burns Heights, Jagnandan said. “This to me is very confusing.”
