Strategy for Vital Neighborhoods Summit

"Stategy for Vital Neighborhoods"  summit was held with 140 invited guests in attendance. Mayor Bob Day welcomed everyone at 8:30 A.M. and then Planning Director Neil Montgomery set the tone of the summit with details of the challenges and opportunities of being a First-Ring Suburb.

Marcia Nedland and Michael Schubert, from Fall Creek Consultants, laid the foundation for the summit. To get the attendees thinking, they asked the following quesitons:

* What is a healthy neighborhood?
* How do we change neighborhoods?
* What are healthy neighborhood outcomes?
* What is the difference between affordable housing production and neighborhood revitalization?

The group broke to attend any one of four workshops. The workshops were repeated so everyone would be able to benefit from two workshops.

Lunch was served but the information kept flowing. Alex Koenig, Neighborhood Planner for the Planning Dept, presented the Strategy for Vital Neighborhoods that was presented to the Council a couple months ago.

The final working sessions were divided into four areas of interest: Residents, Public Sector, Private Sector, and Non-Profit Sector. Everyone came back together to share their conclusions.

Mayor Day once again addressed the group and challenged each person to take the ideas and lessons of the day back to their neighborhoods and to not let this beginning die from lack of effort.

Framework for Neighborhood Change

Presented by Fall Creek Consultants

Characteristics of a Healthy Neighborhood

1. A place where it makes economic and emotional sense for people to invest their time, money, and energy
2. A place where neighbors successfully manage neighborhood-related issues and neighborhood change

How We Change Neighborhoods

1. Read neighborhoods to figure out what's working and what's not working in terms of people's decisions to invest or not.
2. Diagnose "what went wrong" and develop an approach for revitalization.
3. Set outcomes and indicators of progress/success for a healthy neighborhood.
4. Choose the strategies that will best achieve those outcomes.
5. Assess and strengthen capacity to deliver revitalization strategies; implement strategies.
6. Measure progress toward outcomes, not activities.
7. Develop new strategies, based on outcomes, when needed—when the old ones aren't enough or the situation changes.

Healthy Neighborhood Outcomes

Outcomes are a way to describe how a neighborhood looks and behaves when it is healthy. Revitalization strategies that seek to create healthy neighborhoods are focused on achieving important outcomes in four areas.

Image
The neighborhood will have a positive image that attracts investment—from homebuyers, homeowners, businesses, and government. People will be confident in the future of the neighborhood.

Market
The residential and commercial real estate market will reflect this confidence. The neighborhood will make economic sense for key investors—homebuyers, homeowners, landlords, businesses, and government—because property values will be steadily increasing. This will enable homeowners, homebuyers, and landlords to carry out improvements and build assets. It will enable businesses to remain or locate in an improving neighborhood, and it will enable government to see the property value base stabilize. At the same time, the neighborhood will offer housing options for, and be attractive to, a variety of income groups. It will help neighbors who want to, to stay and benefit from revitalization.

Physical Conditions
Physicial conditions, whether residential or business, will reflect pride of ownership and a high standard of maintenance. Public infrastructure will be maintained and improved to a standard similar to neighborhoods currently viewed as better.

Neighborhood Management
Collective action by residents, institutions, and businesses will ensure the neighborhood will compete well with other neighborhoods for resources. Residents will have the capacity to manage the day-to-day activities on their blocks. Neighbors will feel comfortable being "neighborly"—looking out for each other, getting together to work on problems, taking action to reinforce positive standards and actions, etc. Neighbors will feel safe in the neighborhood.

Principles for Creating Neighborhoods of Choice through Revitalization

1. 1. A neighborhood is defined primarily by those who live there. This definition is fluid and varies by the different groups and sub-neighborhoods in the neighborhood.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to acknowledge the variety of population groups and locally-defined boundaries, and to develop strategies that respond to those demographic and geographic sub-neighborhood areas.
   
   
2. The condition of the neighborhood is the sum of past and current choices.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to influence future choices.
   
   
3. Neighborhoods compete for public resources, private investment, and political influence, but most of all, neighborhoods compete for the choices of households to live, stay, and invest in a particular neighborhood.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to make neighborhoods more competitive at all levels, but especially in attracting and/or retaining households with choices among many neighborhoods and investment behaviors.
   
   
4. A neighborhood that is healthy enough to attract positive investment choices by current residents, homebuyers, financial institutions, and others has a market where property values appreciate in a way that supports such economic choices. In a very hot real estate market, property value may be less of a concern than maintaining housing quality or securing permanently affordable housing options.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to define a property appreciation outcome appropriate to the local market, to design strategies that support that outcome, and to create an environment where it makes economic sense to invest time, money, and energy in the neighborhood.
   
   
5. The health of a neighborhood is determined in part by the degree of confidence neighbors and others have in the future of the neighborhood. Confidence is reflected in the range of social, financial, civic, and time investments people make, regardless of income level.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is directly aimed at building confidence and, thereby, influencing investment behaviors.
   
   
6. The process of change in a neighborhood (i.e., what people mean when they talk about their neighborhood getting "better" or "worse") is set by how people "read" who's moving in and who's moving out.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to recognize this pattern and to address current and potential investment and disinvestment.
   
   
7. Social disinvestment in a neighborhood precedes financial disinvestment.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to recognize this pattern and to address both kinds of disinvestment.
   
   
8. A successful neighborhood revitalization approach represents more than just the sum of individual projects. Revitalization won't happen with only a project focus and can actually be undermined by such an approach.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to read the way people perceive and make decisions about the neighborhood and their roles in it and deliver strategies to address that logic—as opposed to only seeing a few abandoned buildings and potential tax-credit deals.
   
   
9. Description is everything in revitalization. How you describe the neighborhood and your work will have an enormous impact on the investments you engender.
   
   The work of neighborhood revitalization is to be conscious and vigilant about describing the neighborhood and to work only in ways that inspire confidence and investment.
   
   
10. Money follows the vision. When we have a compelling vision for real neighborhood change, the resources will follow. Many people will pay for a more expensive strategy if it is a compelling strategy that clearly deals with outcomes rather than activities.
    
    The work of neighborhood revitalization is about discontinuing self-limiting beliefs, creating the vision and strategy that will accomplish revitalization outcomes, and seeking funding from sources that support that vision and strategy.