A plan to replace the derelict building next to the Monongahela Incline with a hotel and condominiums is about to embark on its own steep climb through the Pittsburgh bureaucracy and up the slippery slope of Mount Washington politics.

Chicago developer Steven Beemsterboer's $80 million proposal, called One Grandview Avenue, would put a 140-room hotel and some 50 condos on the site of the long-vacant Edge Restaurant. The plan, though, calls for changes in land-use rules that have been hashed out over decades, and trading a piece of privately owned woodland for a sliver of the city's newest park.

Those processes, which may start within weeks and should involve public hearings and votes, could pit those desperate for an economic shot in the arm against those concerned about the scale of the proposed development.

"Some people have said, 'Is that too tall? Is it going to be unattractive?' " said Chris Beichner, executive director of the Mount Washington Community Development Corporation, "We've had a condemned building there for 30 years. We've got to have something happen."

The site was the subject of hotel proposals in the 1990s. A pitch for a 347-room Ritz-Carlton didn't survive the criticism and conditions placed on it by the community. Since then, the former restaurant has become a neighborhood nightmare.

"Prostitutes have been working out of it in the summer time," said Linda Rosenthal, a community development group board member, speaking as a Bailey Avenue resident whose home sits above the site. "Drug dealers have been coming down there. Rats the size of small dogs."

Now architect Charles L. "Luke" Desmone has designed a sloping hotel that would rise 19 stories on its western end, next to the incline, and then step down to a semicircle of condos above P.J. McArdle Roadway. The hotel would include meeting rooms, stores, restaurants and a 430-space underground parking garage for both the facility and the condos. A plaza in front would be a prime site for fireworks viewing, he said.

The complex would sit on a sloping 4-acre site, most of which Mr. Beemsterboer controls, through acquisitions and an option to buy the Edge Restaurant site from a company controlled by Francis Hurite. The plan, though, bleeds into the 268-acre Grandview Scenic Byway Park, which the city created in 2006.

Mr. Beemsterboer's proposal to trade land next to Sycamore Street for an equal-sized sliver of parkland likely would require a City Council vote and could be a flashpoint for controversy.

"I don't know that I like the precedent [a parkland swap] sets," said Lynne Squilla, a former community group president who advocated for the park. "I think a park is a park. You protect it as a park for a reason."

Mr. Beichner, though, said the plan might enhance the park by adding trails and stairways. The developer has spoken of a 720-step stairway to Carson Street.

Height could be another sticking point.

Mr. Desmone said the sloping design is meant to ensure that only "a small portion" of the Downtown view of those behind the building would be blocked. Still, going to 220 feet puts the plan at odds with Grandview zoning rules painstakingly set in the 1990s, that generally limit new buildings to 100 feet.

Since the site includes areas within the special Grandview zone, and others zoned for commercial and residential development, building on it could entail a slew of variances and other exceptions.

To avoid that, the developer hopes to apply within weeks to have the site declared a mixed-use planned development. That would require council approval and then obligate the developer to seek planning commission approval for the blueprints, according to Planning Director Noor Ismail.

Councilwoman Theresa Smith, who represents the area, said the hotel seems like "a wonderful idea" but she will seek more neighborhood input before deciding how to vote.

Mr. Beichner had no objection to the zoning change, noting that the developer is first seeking city approval of studies on reducing the hotel's traffic impact.

But Jamini Davies, whose Sycamore Street home would be behind the hotel, said the zoning change would mean "that public process is going to be pretty thoroughly circumvented."

The developer estimates that the hotel would generate $6.2 million in state and local taxes over 10 years, and that condo owners would pay $5.9 million in property taxes over the same period. Mr. Desmone said the developer doesn't plan to seek tax-increment financing, in which the city borrows money to back development and pays it off using future tax dollars. But he may go after state funds.

Concerned neighbors like Ms. Davies and Ms. Squilla have drawn the undisguised ire of community group members who say their group is united in favor.

"They are, as you know, rampant environmentalists," said Ms. Rosenthal. "You touch a leaf, and they want to sit there and cry about it."

Ms. Squilla, though, said she's not anti-development. "It would be lovely to have the beauty of what [Mr. Beemsterboer and Mr. Desmone] have come up with, but at a scale suitable to this site."