@the horizon

How Ideas (and Drive) Transform Neighborhoods

It started with a piece of land, an innovative spirit and a community-first mindset. Ohio City's urban farm feeds families, creates jobs and supports local businesses in Cleveland. 

"It really is a good model: Build on your strengths," says Mark McDermott, Enterprise VP and Ohio Market Leader, in the article. 

Ohio City won the inaugural 2012 Enterprise Community Innovation Award, which recognizes organizations creating new and lasting community development solutions in Greater Cleveland. Ohio City Inc. will receive a $25,000 unrestricted grant from Enterprise, funded by KeyBank, to fulfill their visionary initiative to transform the area into a thriving commercial corridor.

How can all of us emulate Ohio City's innovative spirit to transform communities?

Join the Green Discussion

Enterprise’s green online discussion forum is the space where the affordable housing community and green building experts meet to share best practices, answer questions and discover the latest in green.

Have a green question or idea? Get involved on the forum.

Field Notes: Round Table

The current Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellows share their ideas, inspirations and photos from the field on our blog. Learn more about the Fellowship.

By Mark Matel, Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow

I recently attended the follow up meeting with the Mission Hill Community RFP development charrette. As an observer in the audience, I watched the community members grow frustrated, resulting in frustrated facilitators and conflict between the two.  The results of the meeting reiterated one of my thoughts about the importance and effectiveness of a facilitator in helping to create the environment to build community buy in.

One of the best examples of created environments for building consensus is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights congregated. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status. Although everyone who comes to the table comes from different levels of expertise and backgrounds it is important to create an environment to encourage all parties to participate. Creating the environment to build community buy in is an important but often overlooked component in establishing consensus. 

 

Figure 1: Consensus Environment Diagram  

Figure 2: Power Head Structure

As communities build consensus on their ideas and challenges it is also important to know that it is the job of the facilitator to not only synthesize the community’s thoughts but to also show the community what has been recorded. Although the facilitators at the Mission Hill charette conveyed these recorded thoughts to the community they were presented from what I am calling a “Power Head” structure. This format has an individual(s) presenting information to the audience, which in some cases work, but for consensus building it can be counter intuitive. The message delivered by the Mission Hill facilitators, although developed by the community themselves, was not conveyed correctly.  This made it seem that the facilitators did not listen to the community’s thoughts when in fact they did. What was unfortunate was the facilitators concluded and decided on what the community was going to develop. This information and the division in the room by the “Power Head” format made everyone uneasy.  In a community oriented process this can be detrimental to the development and can lead to mistrust between all parties.

Figure 3: Round Table Discussion

The image above depicts a smaller community meeting but we had the same agenda as the Mission Hill Charette, to build consensus on shared decisions made by the community. We made sure that all involved parties voices were heard and documented. Ideas were bullet listed and crossed out as they were discussed. One of the key components was how we were arranged. This community meetings attendance ranges and when it gets too big for one facilitator to handle the meeting splits to multiple groups as needed and the meeting is conducted in smaller round table discussions. In all cases establishing equal status among all involved parties takes priority.

The round table format seems to be a no brainer and standard protocol for community organizers and facilitators, but I have been to numerous community meetings in Roxbury where the “Power Head” structure is used.  This method tends to create long and unproductive meetings. One can argue that the facilitator must engage the audience, but as an observer I am starting to see a productive link when community meetings are discussed round table style.

For me as a Fellow, this particular meeting was a poignant learning experience about what not to do when looking for community buy in for a project.

Field Notes: Daylighting Waterways

The current Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellows share their ideas, inspirations and photos from the field on our blog. Learn more about the Fellowship.

By Ceara O'Leary, Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow

I am currently spending much of my time working in support of the Detroit Works Project, an ambitious long-term vision for the future of Detroit, which I will certainly write more about soon. When I have a few spare moments at work, my mind wanders to stormwater management efforts and daylighting urban waterways. Indeed, I look forward to spending more time working on the Bloody Run Creek Greenway Redevelopment Project, previously introduced on this blog. Meanwhile, I have been reading up on other daylighting projects across the country.

Strawberry Creek

Several sources cite stream daylighting projects in Berkeley, CA as early progenitors of other creek diversion and restoration projects. In particular, Strawberry Creek is a waterway that runs exposed through the UC Berkeley campus but is piped through most of the city to the San Francisco Bay. In the 1980s, a portion of the creek that ran under an old railyard was daylit within the context of a larger neighborhood park. The creek is now a cherished amenity, which has boosted property values, reduced local crime and contributed to stormwater management. Notably, city officials initially resisted the proposed park and Strawberry Creek’s success is largely due to the spirited support of the surrounding community.

 

Gilkey Creek, Flint

Closer to home in Flint, MI, the daylighting of Gilkey Creek from 2007-2009 turned an often-overwhelmed underground drainage culvert into a natural waterway, effectively eliminating flood risks in a frequently-inundated area. This environmental restoration project daylit 1100 feet of the creek and the included a retention pond, stream bank and wetlands meadow with native plantings that further contribute to stormwater management. And in Kalamazoo, the Arcadia Creek daylighting project linked ecological and economic revitalization. This effort included early buy-in from local businesses and nearby property owners, contributing to its success. Additionally, the Arcadia daylighting project includes a stormwater pond that is designed as a public amphitheater and further contributes the overall impact on the city’s downtown redevelopment. These examples illustrate the potential benefits of creek daylighting in terms of stormwater management and environmental rehabilitation, as well as community and economic development.

 

Arcadia Creek, Kalamazoo

The term daylighting refers to the restoration of a stream that was once diverted into a culvert pipe or drainage system. In general, daylit creeks and urban wetlands have the potential to serve as natural drainage systems that contribute to the retention and filtration of stormwater runoff.  In many cases, daylighting projects do not necessarily unearth covered creeks, but rather approximate former riparian routes and sometimes serve as sewer separation strategies. Importantly, in cities with combined sewer systems, the restoration of urban waterways diverts stormwater from municipal treatment facilities, potentially reducing polluted discharge into larger bodies of water. According to The New York Times, 772 cities across the country have combined systems, which collect wastewater and storm runoff in the same pipes, and are designed to overflow during heavy rains, rather than overwhelm treatment plants.

As in many older cities, combined sewer overflow afflicts Detroit, and the city would benefit greatly from increased efforts at environmentally-sensible stormwater management.  The implementation of wetlands and daylit waterways could provide a partial means to this end. At present, the local Sierra Club chapter and the city’s Green Task Force Water Subcommittee, as well as the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, are working to improve stormwater management in the city and reduce the risk of overwhelming the combined sewer system. However, much work remains to be done. One of the driving factors of the Bloody Run Creek project is the impact that the proposed waterway could make on the diversion, retention and filtration of stormwater runoff.  Correspondingly, one of the most exciting aspects of the project for me is the potential to complement and collaborate with other progressive stormwater solutions already at play in the city. As our team pushes the project forward, it is important to note that for many daylighting precedents, public participation was central to success. In particular, educating and engaging with the surrounding communities early in the planning process often contributed to ongoing investment and support.

To close, I want to highlight one more ambitious project that may provide an ideal precedent for citywide stormwater improvements along sustainable lines. Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters program is a 25-year plan to “protect and enhance [their] watersheds by managing stormwater with innovative green infrastructure.” In early April of this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency endorsed the city’s plans for green stormwater management, an important step in a game-changing endeavor. Detroit boasts similar potential. Please see the resources below for additional information.

Strawberry Creek:

http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/files/Citywide/Glen_Park/PUC_Daylighting_FAQ_and_Case_Studies.pdf

http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/richard-register/personal-oddesy/creek-daylighting-fruit-street-trees-solar-greenhouse-ordinance-and-“ecocity-berkeley”

Michigan Creeks:

http://blog.mlive.com/get-healthy-in-genesee/2009/06/rehabbed_gilkey_creek_proves_u.html

http://www.mibiz.com/news/sustainable-biz/18949-unearthing-opportunity-kalamazoos-arcadia-creek-project-helps-drive-economic-social-environmental-growth.html

http://www.nps.gov/ncrc/programs/rtca/helpfultools/daylighting.pdf

 

Philadelphia:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-04-11/news/31325352_1_storm-water-untreated-water-overflows

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/12/24/24greenwire-citys-all-green-stormwater-plan-raises-eyebrow-45258.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.phillywatersheds.org/what_were_doing/documents_and_data/cso_long_term_control_plan

http://www.sustainablecitynetwork.com/topic_channels/water/article_b296460c-8caa-11e0-93e0-001a4bcf6878.html

 

 

Field Notes: Dale and University Community Charrette

The current Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellows share their ideas, inspirations and photos from the field on our blog. Learn more about the Fellowship.

By Sam Carlsen, Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow

On April 11 and 12, the Saint Paul Design Studio partnered with the Frogtown Neighborhood Association (FNA) and the Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC) to run a two day community charrette on University Avenue in Saint Paul, MN. This community charrette focused on the Northwest corner of University and Dale, which the Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC) is hoping to redevelop. The purpose of the charrette was to combine local residents’ expertise in their neighborhood conditions and needs with the expertise of local designs in building and program design. The charrette used residents’ and designers combined skills to create and evaluate possible site activities, building placements, sizes and styles.

The intersection of University and Dale is an important historical intersection for the community and a future station for the Central Corridor Light Rail. Two corners at the intersection have already been redeveloped using Transit Oriented Design guiding principles.  The northwest corner contains several small commercial buildings, two of which are NDC as business incubator sites.

Gathering information on a site walk

 We started our charrette on Wednesday night with a community walk on which we examined existing conditions of alleyways, sidewalks, parking lots and facades for both the old and new buildings. At each stop along the way we considered specific conditions on site or common in the neighborhood. The group of community members, neighborhood leaders, designers and developers, considered questions like “How do we make alleys with homes and businesses work for everyone?” or “What would make row houses fit into the neighborhood better?”, pointing to built examples to make points as often as possible.

After the site walk, we brainstormed important issues and features for the site. After listing the relevant issues we could think of participants ranked issues using dots. These issues were the criteria we used to evaluate our design work with the help of many of the residents who retuned on the second evening.

Residents ranking issue importance on site

The second day started with a team briefing which included an overview from the previous day as well as technical briefings from city planners and stormwater engineers. Choosing from the list of issues identified from the briefing and the previous day a group of designers and local residents sat down and did a series of “design flashes”, quick sketches or phrases on index cards which addressed an issue with a design element. These design flash cards were then the ingredients that groups worked to combine into schemes for the rest of the day.

Design team members creating design flash cards

In the late afternoon the charrette team exhibited the entire process and three site schemes developed by the design teams.  The schemes presented three levels of development intensity; from restoration and infill to block scale redevelopment. This charrette took place very early in the development process when the scope, scale and use of the project are still in flux. NDC and FNA both wanted to develop continual of community participation in the development process. With the project on a long timeline, the challenge will now be turning the work and input into a document or tool that will continue to be relevant and useful throughout the process. Hopefully we can present the work in a way that helps maintain the characteristic strengths in addressing the community concerns while allowing future project iterations to freely incorporate elements.  Once the summary document is completed, we’ll get a summary posted here on the blog.

Brainstorming issues for design team briefing

 

Give Creative Students a Book on Their Wishlist

  


On Wednesday, May 30, our New York office is hosting its annual "House New York" Happy Hour. The event celebrates 25 years of Enterprise making housing happen in New York. 

The Happy Hour will feature spoken word performances by the kids of DreamYard, the largest arts education provider in the Bronx.

DreamYard uses project-based arts learning to ignite the transformative spirit in youth, public schools and communities. As one of the largest providers in the city, DreamYard impacts the social and intellectual growth of thousands of K-12th grade students each year. 

Want to give back to these inspiring students and quench their thirst for learning? Buy a book from their virtual wishlist on Amazon!

Here are just a few examples of books the kids requested; go to the full wishlist for more and to send your gift to a deserving student.

 

Reblog: Rejecting the Notion that HUD Should be Eliminated

I hope you'll read and consider the opinions of two affordable housing leaders in the Denver region in this blog post, which originally appeared yesterday on the Urban Land Conservancy website.

If more of our elected leaders understood the financial leverage created by these programs and witnessed first-hand their powerful impact on our low-income communities, I doubt they would be as eager to throw them out.

— Brad Weinig, Enterprise Program Director, Transit Oriented Development

Why HUD is a Critical Economic Development Partner – Our View from the Trenches

By Aaron Miripol, President & CEO, Urban Land Conservancy and
Ismael Guerrero, Executive Director, Denver Housing Authority

You may not have caught it, but recently presidential candidates and elected officials have suggested the way to balance the budget is to close down entire federal agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As no surprise, this statement caused quite a stir. One of the first to respond was Edward Glaeser, Harvard Economic professor, and national expert on the housing market. Mr. Glaeser makes some interesting suggestions on what do with HUD’s “best programs” if the Department closed.  Here in the “trenches” we strongly differ with Mr. Glaeser as closing HUD, moving the voucher program and FHA mortgage insurance to the Treasury Department, and phasing out Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), will only bring about greater economic stress to the communities we work in.

The Denver Housing Authority (DHA) and Urban Land Conservancy (ULC) are two distinct organizations with a common mission of revitalizing urban communities for our most vulnerable populations. At DHA we provide over 26,000 people a year with affordable housing choices. At ULC our real estate investments in schools, non-profit facilities and affordable housing, touches over 10,000 people a year. We see HUD as a critical investment partner in our economic redevelopment of neighborhoods.  On average, every $1 million dollars of public capital investment from HUD into a DHA mixed-income urban revitalization effort will leverage $4 million in private investment. At the Urban Land Conservancy, every HUD dollar invested in our real estate developments leverages another $9 in private investment. Our work in Colorado illustrates several reasons why HUD and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (administered by Treasury) are critically important programs.

We reject the notion that HUD can or should be eliminated. There is a growing consensus that major reforms are needed at HUD. Support for reforms comes from within HUD as well as from the many organizations that partner with HUD. To date, HUD has proposed major overhauls to the core programs mentioned by Professor Glaeser, including public housing and housing choice vouchers. However, the most ambitious and impactful reforms require statutory changes which only Congress can enact. The extreme partisanship in Washington has thwarted or stalled those efforts for years.
 

Read the rest of the blog post and tell us: do you agree that HUD shouldn't be eliminated?

 

What Can We Learn from Lost Subsidized Housing?

By Anne Ray, Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse Manager, Shimberg Center for Housing Studies

A Section 8 building for residents with disabilities was sold when property conditions deteriorated and retrofits to modern accessibility standards were deemed too expensive. An affordable townhome development in Miami converted to condominiums after rent restrictions expired. Since 1993, Florida has lost 451 subsidized housing developments and more than 42,000 affordable homes.

Taking stock of these properties – many of which were converted to market-rate rental housing and condominiums, demolished or more recently, closed or sold because of the foreclosure crisis – can help us build an early warning system for future at-risk developments.

Through the Lost Properties Inventory, a product of a partnership between the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, the Florida Housing Finance Corporation and the Florida Housing Coalition, we tracked Florida’s formerly subsidized housing stock. Our findings:

• Florida began to lose large numbers of units in 2002, as early tax credit and bond-financed properties met their subsidy expiration dates. Condo conversions also spiked in the early and mid-2000s. More recently, we have lost a number of properties to foreclosure and property distress. 

• Most lost properties were designated as family housing, but 23 developments served elders or persons with disabilities.  

• Most properties targeted households with incomes of 50-80% of area median income (AMI). However, one in six of the developments provided units affordable to extremely low-income tenants (30% of AMI or less) because of rental assistance from HUD or USDA Rural Development (RD). 

• Most developments (70%) continue to operate as rental housing. One-fifth of the developments have been converted to condos; most of the rest are vacant or have been demolished. 

• Of developments still offering rental housing, most (61%) provide apartments affordable to tenants at 60% of AMI. However, none offer affordable units for tenants at 30% of AMI or below. 

So what are the preliminary lessons learned?  

We need to focus on the current environment. Today, foreclosures and properties in physical distress are by far a more common reason for loss than market-rate conversion. Of 41 properties lost in 2009 and 2010, at least 24 were distressed properties.  

Nonprofit-owned properties are at risk, too. In the past two years, nonprofit or public owners of two large, distressed properties opted out of Section 8 contracts because they felt property conditions were too poor to make renovation feasible. Nonprofit owners of three other large properties in sound condition opted out of contracts because of conflicts with HUD or to pursue other priorities that fit their missions. 

Preservation and property loss is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Several small former Section 8 developments continue to operate as care facilities for people with special needs. Two larger distressed properties that have lost Section 8 subsidies will be renovated as affordable rental housing using NSP funds, although the developments will not be targeted toward the extremely low-income tenants typically served by the Section 8 program. 

Learn more about our efforts to build an early warning system and support the preservation of affordable rental housing nationwide with funding from the MacArthur Foundation’s Window of Opportunity initiative.

Abode Communities Puts Youth in the Spotlight

 

Last Earth Day, Enterprise Green Communities awarded six $25,000 grants to nonprofit community development organizations to implement new resident engagement tools focused on maximizing the green benefits in their affordable housing developments.

This week, we're catching up with these organizations to see how they put these tools to work in their communities.

 

Abode Communities, Los Angeles

The Enterprise Green Communities grant awarded to Abode Communities supports the implementation and expansion of their Green Living initiative at Ivy Terrace, a new affordable housing development. Located in the Van Nuys community of Los Angeles, Ivy Terrace is a 52-unit multifamily development that serves 115 residents with incomes between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income.

Abode set out to build on its existing Green Living Guide by creating a comprehensive Green Living Youth Curriculum in collaboration with students living at Ivy Terrace. By adapting the Green Leader Toolkit for youth education, Abode is helping younger residents share lessons – and infectious enthusiasm – with their own families and peers, which is likely to boost overall participation and create lasting behavioral change throughout the community.

See the Ivy Terrace kids broadcast their green knowledge on the 2 '0 Clock Earth News, a program they developed to share environmental tips.

 

Earth Day: 5 Ways to Change the Way We Live

In the Huffington Post this week, Enterprise Lifetime Trustee Edward Norton penned an Earth Day op-ed, describing the urgency of changing the way we live for the sake of our environment:

"Earth Day is important because it's about waking up more people to this challenge and committing to engage in it more deeply ourselves. Power in numbers is real, and when we take collective action it matters. We can affect things with daily choices like the products we buy, we can affect things with our votes and we can also affect the pace of change by directly supporting the many terrific organizations working for environmental health."

So what are five everyday changes we can make to protect the planet?

1. Make small swaps. Instead of buying plastic water bottles, switch to a reusable cup, and bring your own travel mug to coffee shops. Swap regular light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), which use 1/3 the electricity. Change your normal washing machine cycle to a lower setting to save water. World Wildlife Fund has many more ideas.
    
2. Offset your impact. Each time you travel, plan an event or turn on the TV, you're contributing to carbon dioxide emissions released into our air. Use a carbon calculator to estimate your footprint as an individual or an organization, then offset your impact to help create healthy, carbon-reducing homes for low-income families.
    
3. Educate others. Property managers, owners, building staff and residents can teach friends and neighbors how to conserve energy and water, reduce waste and live healthier to maximize the green benefits of their homes. Learn how you can be a green leader.
    
4. Support green organizations. In his op-ed, Edward Norton speaks to the power of grassroots campaigns and giving back. Find a charity that works hard for our planet and contribute when you can. You can donate to your favorite green organization through CrowdRise's Groupon Earth Day Challenge.
    
5. Commit to a greener future. The plans we make today inform the future. Create forward-looking goals for your family, community and business, like saving $5,000 on your annual utility bills or starting a recycling education program. And spread the word about the 2020 Green Call to Action, a national commitment to bring green building practices to all affordable housing.

Stay tuned this week as we catch up with six organizations who received Enterprise Green Communities grants last Earth Day – we'll find out how they built movements in their own communities using our green resident engagement tools.

Update: How Will States Use Their $2.5 Billion?

By Amanda Sheldon Roberts, Housing Director, Public Policy at Enterprise

Today, we released a new paper describing how 49 states and the District of Columbia are using their collective $2.5 billion in National Mortgage Settlement funds. This is an update to an earlier blog post based exclusively on the language in the settlement documents filed in the courts on March 12. The settlement was vague on how some states would use funds and other states have changed their minds since the settlement was released. 

Therefore, we’ve spent the last month digging deeper to try to figure out how the funds are really being used. Using the best available information, we’re releasing a paper that describes how states are using their settlement funds. The intention of the paper is to provide a holistic view of how the funds are being spent. 

The status of the decision is important for advocates seeking to influence how their state’s funds are used. We determined that only 9 states have finalized their decision as to how the funds will get spent. The remaining 41 states are still in the process of deciding. Common status points include the AG submitting a recommendation to the state legislature, the AG publicly announcing how the funds will be used (although the legislature or governor may need to approve this plan) or the process is completely open as the legislature, AG or governor decide how to proceed.

This map shows which states are using their settlement funds to support housing and foreclose-prevention programs:

Information was gathered through a combination of news sources, Attorneys General websites, conversations with local housing advocates and the original settlement language. However, decisions are being made every day, and some of the information will change with time. Therefore, we welcome new information from those of you at the local level and will update this as frequently as possible. You can reach me at aroberts@enterprisecommunity.org.

For more information, read our new report: $2.5 Billion: Understanding how States are Spending their Share of the National Mortgage Settlement.