Equity, Sustainability and Neighborhood Planning

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Equity, Sustainability and Neighborhood Planning

• Bringing equity into planning for sustainability
• in Weinland Park.
• Jason Reece AICP
• Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
  Ethnicity
• The Ohio State University
• October 12th, 2004

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About the Kirwan Institute (KI)

• Under the leadership of john powell
• Multidisciplinary institute with a mission of
  working to eliminate racial disparity and racial
  hierarchy
• Analyze racial disparity and inequity using a
  structural and institutional framework
• Structural Racism
• Policy oriented
• Conduct work in many areas
• Education, Affirmative Action, Diversity,
  Community Development, Housing Policy
• Particular focus on issues of regionalism, smart
  growth and equity as vehicles to address racial
  disparity in America

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Todays Presentation

• The sustainability movementwhere is social
  equity?
• How can you adopt an equity-oriented approach?
• How does this apply to neighborhood planning?
• How can we apply this to Weinland Park?

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The Three Es of Sustainability
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Where is the third E (Equity)?

• Many social equity advocates are critical of the
  sustainability movement (and the smart growth
  movement) for ignoring issues of equity.
• Policy example State Smart Growth Reforms
• Throughout the 1990s (and today) many states
  have embraced smart growth measures to better
  control development.
• A study by the American Planning Association in
  1999, identified areas lacking attention in
  updated state land use statutes. The APA found
  that urban redevelopment was lacking from most
  state land use reforms and that planning laws
  generally focused on conservation goals more than
  redevelopment.
• In addition, only half of the state planning laws
  addressed housing issues, affordable housing
  received little attention from most state land
  use reform.
• Source American Planning Association (1999)
  Planning Communities for the 21st Century found
  on-line at http//www.planning.org/growingsmart/p
  df/planningcommunities21st.pdf

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How can equity and environmental principles
conflict with each other?

• Conflict between the principles of sustainable
  development is not inherent.
• But, principles such as the environment and
  equity can work in concert or conflict with one
  another depending on the impact.
• Environment and Equity Working in Concert
• Urban growth boundaries in Portland (spurring
  inner city redevelopment), revenue sharing in
  Minneapolis (helping control growth).
• Environment and Equity Working in Conflict
• South Carolina Example

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High Rural Poverty by Race in America 1999
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How can equity and environmental principles
conflict with each other?

• Conflict over smart growth and equity in Richland
  County, SC
• Concerns over smart growth policies in Richland
  County, South Carolina
• Economically depressed South Richland has one of
  the highest rates of African American land
  ownership in the nation
• Concern that smart growth policies are being used
  to dispossess the African American community

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Background on Lower Richland
Sewer Lines in Richland County

• Historical discriminatory infrastructure
  policies have curtailed growth in Lower Richland,
  while other areas have sprawled.
• Residents cannot gain financing for homes so
  their land holdings are their primary asset.

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How can equity and environmental principles
conflict with each other?

• After analyzing the impact of the master plan for
  the County (which has received national praise)
  our Institute and the Center for Social Inclusion
  found the plan to produce inequitable outcomes.
• Growth restrictions were placed (large lot
  zoning) primarily into economically depressed
  Lower Richland.
• Impacting wealth building for the community.
• Strategies to promote community development in
  Lower Richland were infeasible.
• Attempts to open the housing market were
  relocating subsidized housing into Lower
  Richland.
• Currently working with the community to introduce
  more equity into the planning process.

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How do we fix this dilemma?

• Make equity a primary goal in all your planning
  decisions.
• Consider the equity impact of all decisions.
• Make the principles (economy, environment,
  equity) work in concert not conflict.
• Adopt an equity oriented approach to planning.

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How to Adopt and Equity Oriented Approach to
Planning/Development.

• Background What is Equity?
• Social Equity is equivalent to social justice
• Equity is not equality or treating each person
  in exactly the same way
• Equity brings society into balance
• Equity requires investment in all our human and
  communal resources to maximize our potential as
  individuals, families, communities and a nation
• Source Ford Foundations Initiative on Race,
  Equity, Community Philanthropy in the American
  South

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Promoting Social Equity

• Equity requires us to restructure systems and
  institutions that result in racial disparities
  (and class/gender disparity)
• Equity requires us to take the particular
  racialization of space into account when
  fashioning remedies
• Equity requires us to link the creation of
  opportunities to disenfranchised residents

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How to Adopt and Equity Oriented Approach to
Planning/Development.

• Equity requires looking at structures and race
  (also class and gender)
• We have seen a move away from explicit legal
  racism and personal prejudice to a racial
  hierarchy that is enforced through
  institutional/structural means.
• Structures are not as refined and explicit (or
  perfect in blocking access) as de jure
  segregation
• They act as filters (creating cumulative
  barriers)
• de jure segregation ? de facto segregation

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Spatial racism The Civil Rights Agenda for the
21st Century

• Overt racism is easily condemned, but the sin is
  often with us in more subtle formsof spatial
  racismSpatial racism refers to patterns of
  metropolitan development in which some affluent
  whites create racially and economically
  segregated suburbs or gentrified areas of cities,
  leaving the poor -- mainly African Americans,
  Hispanics and some newly arrived immigrants --
  isolated in deteriorating areas of the cities and
  older suburbs.
• Francis Cardinal George, OMI Archbishop of
  Chicago
• Spatial Racism and Inequity
• The government plays a central role in the
  arrangement of space and opportunities
• These arrangements are not neutral or natural
  or colorblind
• Social and racial inequities are geographically
  inscribed
• There is a polarization between the rich and the
  poor that is directly related to the areas in
  which they live
• Concentrated Poverty and Concentrated Wealth

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Structures and Equity Historical Government Role

• If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is
  necessary that properties shall continue to be
  occupied by the same social and racial classes.
  A change in social or racial occupancy generally
  contributes to instability and a decline in
  values.
• Excerpt from the 1947 FHA underwriting manual.

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Structures and Equity Contemporary Government
Role

• Spatial Racism is not natural or neutral,
  produces cumulative impacts for people of color
• Municipalities subsidize the relocation of
  businesses out of the city
• Transportation spending favors highways,
  metropolitan expansion and urban sprawl
• Court decisions prevent metropolitan school
  desegregation
• School funding is tied to property taxes
• Housing policies.
• Zoning laws prevent affordable housing
  development in many suburbs
• Housing policies concentrate subsidized housing

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Subsidized Housing in Cleveland

• The Low Income Housing Tax Credit is the primary
  new low income housing construction program in
  the nation.
• The placement of many LIHTC projects in Cleveland
  has further concentrated poverty and increased
  segregation. (see map)
• In 2000, LIHTC neighborhoods in the Cleveland
  region had 23 poverty rate and were 50 African
  American.

Source Brookings Institute Siting Affordable
Housing March 2004 and the Department of Housing
and Urban Development
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Subsidized Housing in Columbus

• Poverty in Columbus is a spatial phenomenon,
  generally concentrated in the central city
• The placement of Low Income Housing Tax Credit
  Projects in high poverty areas further compounds
  this phenomenon

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Population in Poverty and Low Income Housing Tax
Credit Projects in the Baltimore Area (Dark
Colors Highest Distribution) (Blue Dots LITC
projects)
21
Land Use Policy/Zoning

• Exclusionary Zoning in Columbus
• Exclusionary zoning exists in Central Ohio
• The 2001-2003 Fair Housing Plan for the region
  identified impediments to affordable housing
  production in 2000
• While Columbus allowed single family homes to
  exist on lots of 5,000 square feet, the
  surrounding suburban communities required 8,000
  to 11,000 square feet
• Square footage requirements for structures in
  suburban communities were approximately twice as
  large as the 740 square feet required in Columbus
• Zoning restrictions and site development
  restrictions prohibit affordable housing
  development in suburban areas
• Zoning which restricts multi-family use
• Large minimum lot sizes
• Large building set backs

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The Impacts of Exclusionary Zoning

• The majority of new homes are built outside of
  the city of Columbus
• The number of new homes sold in the Columbus
  Metropolitan Area that are affordable to moderate
  income households has declined from 1,145 in 1998
  to 268 in 2001.
• Almost 90 of new single family homes built
  between 2000 and 2002 in Franklin County cost
  more than 120,000. These homes were not
  affordable to over 70 of Franklin Countys
  African American households and 74 of Hispanic
  households (over 60,000 households).
• Source Community Indicator Database Report,
  Community Research Partners 2001 and analysis of
  income and property sales transactions for
  Franklin County Auditor and U.S. Census data by
  the Kirwan Institute.

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Sprawl and Fragmentation Magnify Racial Inequity

• Two factors are instrumental in magnifying racial
  inequity
• Sprawl
• The continual movement of opportunity from the
  central city to the urban periphery
• Fragmentation and localism
• Political fragmentation and localism exasperates
  the flow of resources to the urban periphery as
  communities compete over commercial investment
  and high income population (the favored quarter)
• Fragmentation allows communities to sort what
  people and business they wish to attract
  (strengthen economic and social isolation)

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Effects of Sprawl
By pushing good jobs, stable housing, and
educational opportunities further into the
suburbs, sprawl creates segregated, impoverished
areas of the central city and inner-ring suburbs
that are locked off from access to meaningful
opportunities.
Source University of Boston Geography Dept.
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How to Counteract and Promote More Equitable
Development

• What are we working against
• A long history of inequitable patterns of
  development which have created
• Concentrated poverty
• Segregation
• Inequitable infrastructure
• Residents disconnected from opportunity
  structures
• Jobs, Education, Stable/Safe Neighborhoods,
  Wealth Creation,

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How to Counteract and Promote More Equitable
Development

• What should we promote?
• Ensure that investment benefits current
  residents, businesses, and cultural institutions
  
• Link residents to regional economic
  opportunities
• Secure the equitable distribution of affordable
  housing throughout metropolitan regions
• Foster participation of low-income communities
  and communities of color in local and regional
  planning decisions and
• Address gentrification to avoid residential
  displacement.

Source Taken from the Policy Link web site,
http//www.policylink.org
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How to Apply These Principles

• Applying equitable development principles works
  differently at different geographic scales
• Example Region vs. Neighborhood

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Promoting Equity at the Regional Level

• At the regional level we would be focusing on
  more large scale solutions
• Revenue sharing models
• Opportunity based housing models
• Inclusionary zoning
• Growth management strategies
• Equitable infrastructure policies
• Large scale infill development strategies
• Public school disparity/inequity
• More able to address the larger structures and
  regional forces creating inequity

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Promoting Equity at the Neighborhood Level

• Working at the neighborhood level requires a
  different orientation.
• Should be aware of regional forces/structures
  impacting the neighborhood, but less control over
  mitigating these.
• Consider coalitions to address these macro-level
  issues
• More concerned with promoting reinvestment while
  avoiding gentrification
• Neighborhood revitalization instead of
  gentrification.

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More on Gentrification

• Viewpoints on what gentrification is may vary
  significantly, and based on these misconstrued
  definitions conflict over gentrification in
  unavoidable.
• The term is often mistakenly intermixed with
  urban revitalization or is used to describe any
  physical investment within a neighborhood. These
  definitions are flawed and miss an important
  distinction.
• Gentrification is not simply reinvestment into
  the neighborhood, gentrification is a process
  that extensively dislocates traditional low
  income residents (usually residents of color) and
  extensively changes the social fabric of the
  neighborhood.

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More on Gentrification

• Gentrification is not occurring
• If higher income residents move into a
  neighborhood at a scale that is too small to
  displace existing residents,
• Or redevelopment is targeted toward abandoned or
  vacant structures or lots.
• Also, the existence of economic development
  activity (revitalization) does not automatically
  provide for gentrification.
• Gentrification is the process of permanently
  changing a distressed community into an exclusive
  upper income community and does not simply equate
  with community reinvestment.

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Gentrification vs. Revitalization

• Important to understand the difference between
  gentrification and revitalization
• Gentrification Neighborhood in transition to
  exclusive upper income white community
• Large scale displacement of low income residents
  by influx of high income residents
• Disruption of social networks and services for
  traditional residents
• Revitalization Neighborhood in transition to
  mixed income, mixed wealth, multi-racial
  community
• A community of choice available to a wide range
  of households
• Social networks and services for traditional
  residents maintained and improved

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A Revitalization Model of Neighborhood Development

• The distressed community transitions into a mixed
  income, mixed wealth and diverse community.
• The social networks and services utilized by
  traditional residents are maintained and
  improved.
• Existing neighborhood businesses are supported
  while additional viable businesses are created in
  the community.
• Neighborhood improvement not only focuses on
  improving the physical environment but focuses on
  creating wealth and opening opportunities (such
  as employment) to existing residents.

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Comparing Gentrification with Revitalization
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Promoting Equitable Development at the
Neighborhood Level

• Understand the economic, political, and social
  forces at work
• Assess, map, and analyze the potential for
  displacement
• Support resident participation in land use
  planning that envisions community-wide economic
  improvement
• Stabilize current residents
• Build public awareness of the issues and proposed
  solutions among key players
• Advocate mixed-income development at every turn
  and across jurisdictions
• Expand the range of housing not susceptible to
  the commercial market through permanent
  affordability mechanisms

Source Taken from the Policy Link web site,
http//www.policylink.org
36
Promoting Equitable Development at the
Neighborhood Level

• Promote diverse homeownership opportunities for
  current residents
• Target income and asset strategies to stabilize
  current residents
• Utilize equity criteria to guide new investment
• Anchor culturally-rooted commercial, nonprofit
  and arts organizations
• Tie housing production to commercial growth
• Plan for newcomers to promote a diverse community
  mix and ensure affordability
• Strengthen regional cooperation in community and
  economic development planning
• Craft policies to engage local, regional, state
  and federal governments in addressing
  gentrification pressures

Source Taken from the Policy Link web site,
http//www.policylink.org
37
Applying Equitable Development (and
Sustainability) to Weinland Park

• SWOT analysis
• Know your neighborhood.what are the major
  concerns and opportunities
• Also consider the regional forces impacting the
  neighborhood
• Revitalize the neighborhood but avoid
  gentrification
• Develop policies/recommendations that work in
  concert with the principles of sustainability
• (equity, environment, economy)

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Weinland Park Selected Characteristics

• Disinvestment
• Poverty
• Subsidized Housing
• Crime and Public Safety
• Vacancy
• Proximity.
• Potential for Revitalization or Gentrification
• Tremendous investment in close proximity
• Good access to public transit, employment
• Many stakeholders working to improve the
  neighborhood

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Disinvestment and Poverty

• Population has decreased in Weinland Park by
  almost 30 in the past 30 years
• Median household income in 2000 was less than
  16K, while 50 of households were in poverty
• Concentrated poverty is considered any
  neighborhood with a poverty rate higher than 40
• Studies have shown concentrated poverty to have
  adverse effects on many facets of life, some of
  these include
• Employment
• Education
• Health
• Criminal Behavior

Source Taken from the 2004 Weinland Park Market
Study, Northside CDC
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Subsidized Housing and Concentrated Poverty

• The high concentration of subsidized housing in
  Weinland Park further concentrates poverty in the
  community
• Recent efforts to reduce the over supply of
  subsidized housing are important, must also
  consider the fate of subsidized housing
  residents.where will they relocate
• Into a better opportunity area or another
  distressed poor community?

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Crime Public Safety

• High crime rates
• Public safety impacting the neighborhoods image
• A combination of factors creates ideal conditions
  for crime in the University District (and
  Weinland Park)

Public Safety Problems
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Crime in the University District

• Analysis of Crime Rates in 2002, indicate crime
  is concentrated in the eastern and southeastern
  portion of the University District

Source City of Columbus Police Department
Census 2000
43
Crime in the University District

• Analysis of Crime Rates in 2002, indicate violent
  crime is concentrated in the southeast portion of
  the University District

Source City of Columbus Police Department
Census 2000
44
Vacancy

• Recent market study found 18 of the area to
  consist of vacant buildings and lots
• Vacant properties cause significant public safety
  hazards and discourage new investment, reduce
  nearby property values
• Direct links between vacancy and crime

Source Taken from the 2004 Weinland Park Market
Study, Northside CDC
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Proximity

• Weinland Park is centrally located with multiple
  redeveloping neighborhoods bordering it..
• In addition, large scale public investments in
  close proximity will increase investment into the
  community.
• The challenge will be to promote this investment
  (revitalization) while avoiding gentrification of
  the community.

Source Map from the 2004 Weinland Park Market
Study, Northside CDC
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Promoting Equity in Weinland Park Example
Improve Access to Opportunity

• Understand what critical impediments are blocking
  residents from key regional opportunity
  structures
• Is it proximity to employment, lack of
  education/job training, child care, crime?
• Must draft policies to address these critical
  levers to promoting opportunity
• Example Crime and Employment
• Example Child Care and Employment
• How to do this?
• Survey, talk to residents, obtain input, work
  with stakeholders that know the neighborhood and
  the its residents

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Promoting Equity in Weinland Park Example
Build Wealth for Residents

• What is wealth?
• Income is what people get paid, wealth is what
  people own (investments, equity, assets)
• Wealth is a surplus, resources that may be relied
  upon in time of need
• Wealth is what we use to buy opportunity and it
  allows us to take risk which also creates new
  wealth
• Wealth changes your time frame
• A welfare recipient lives on a day to day, week
  to week basis a wealthy person can plan in the
  long-term (years or decades)

48
Racial Disparity in Wealth

• Why is wealth important?
• Wealth is concentrated opportunity that is often
  intergenerational
• Wealth provides opportunity and provides access
  to the political process
• Wealth broadens the playing field in terms of
  time and reach
• Wealth is realized at the individual and
  community level

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Racial Inequity in Wealth

• Government action to promote wealth
• The role of the nation state is to create a
  structure that supports the wealth creation and
  welfare of its members
• Blacks and other have not been full members
• Two major national policies to drive wealth
  creation
• 19th century policies for land grants
• 20th century housing policies (primarily the
  extension of mortgage insurance for housing, tax
  policies benefiting home owners)
• These policies benefited White Americans but not
  people of color
• Housing assets (home equity) are the primary
  source of wealth for middle class White Americans
  (accounting for approximately 70 of White
  household net worth)

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Racial Inequity in Wealth

• Wealth disparity in America
• In 2000
• The median asset value for a white household was
  79,400, for African American households this was
  7,500 (a disparity of 900)
• For every 1 in assets held by the average
  African American family, the average white family
  has 9 in assets
• The additional assets held by White Americans
  open doors to more opportunity

Source U.S. Census Bureau
51
Wealth Building Strategies

• Neighborhood policies to build wealth
• Improve access to homeownership to existing
  residents in the neighborhood. (CRITICAL)
• Explore alternative models of ownershipcooperati
  ve ownership for business.
• Expand the access to income for existing
  residents (tax policies, living wage).
• Explore alternative community based financial
  institutions.

For More Information Visit the Policy Link Web
Site at http//www.policylink.org
52
Promoting Equity in Weinland Park Example
Avoiding Gentrification

• Working to avoid gentrification while promoting
  revitalization
• Know the risk for gentrification in the
  neighborhood
• Characteristics of neighborhood with the
  potential to gentrify (does Weinland Park exhibit
  these?)
• The neighborhood contains a high proportion of
  renters (population most sensitive to
  displacement pressure).
• Easy access to job centers and regional
  amenities.
• Comparatively low housing values in the context
  of the regional and local market, particularly
  for housing stock with architectural merit.

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Promoting Equity in Weinland Park Example
Avoiding Gentrification

• Monitoring for gentrification is critical
  (consider an early warning monitoring system for
  the neighborhood)
• Perhaps the most important task for neighborhood
  residents, local and regional government
  officials and other stakeholders is to identify
  gentrification pressures early, and to understand
  how gentrification dynamics are to unfold.
  Brookings Institute. Dealing with Neighborhood
  Change. Page 30.

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Monitoring for Gentrification

• One of the recommendations widely supported for
  addressing gentrification pressure is
  neighborhood monitoring and assessment.
• Establishing a diagnostic system for monitoring
  investment and property ownership enables
  intervention before gentrification occurs.
• Case studies have shown too many communities have
  organized to mitigate gentrification after
  significant displacement has altered the
  neighborhood.
• Conversely, this system enables a community to
  analyze if reinvestment in the community poses
  little threat of gentrification, thus resources
  can be targeted toward other neighborhood
  concerns.

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How to Monitor

• The tools to monitor for gentrification depend on
  the housing market and size of the area of
  concern.
• Diagnostic systems may be city wide (measuring
  all neighborhoods) such as systems found in
  Philadelphia and Providence RI.
• The Providence, RI monitoring system analyzes the
  property sales and abandonment to identify areas
  of potential land speculation.

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Monitoring at the Neighborhood Level

• At the neighborhood level, diagnostic systems can
  be more proactive, specific and accurate.
• Indicators to consider monitoring include
• Property appreciation rates, how fast are they
  growing, compare rates with the region, the city
  or other urban neighborhoods.
• Analyze the rental market in the community.
  Determine if rents are changing and how they
  compare the change in rents in the region, the
  city or other urban neighborhoods
• Are critical neighborhood social services under
  pressure to relocate?
• Determine if any displacement is occurring in the
  neighborhood. Are other local (neighborhood)
  housing opportunities available to displaced
  residents?
• Are traditional residents able to maintain
  properties, monitor if code violations are
  threatening to cause displacement.

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Identify Mitigation Strategies

• Many strategies/policies exist to counter
  gentrification (displacement)
• Ranging from maintaining the base of affordable
  housing units to stabilizing local businesses or
  offering financing/loans/grants to existing
  residents
• Identify these early (before problems occur)
• Be prepared to implement if necessary

58
Other Gentrification Issues

• Preserve key social services and neighborhood
  institutions
• The removal of one key social service or
  neighborhood service can be more detrimental than
  multiple residential displacements
• Consider subsidies/support to stabilize
• Avoid property speculation (flipping)
• Target code enforcement
• Align subsidies and other redevelopment policies
  to avoid speculation.land bank, do not allow
  speculators to benefit from subsidies
• Consider real estate transaction fees if the
  problem becomes severe
• Attempt to balance access to opportunity for
  existing residents and higher income residents
• Financing for home improvements
• Assistance in code compliance
• Access to the buyers market

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Concluding Thoughts

• Keep Equity a Priority
• Plan for the neighborhood not just the physical
  environment
• Consider Equity in all Development Decisions
• Be strategic and balance priorities, look for the
  turning point
• Promote Revitalization not Gentrification
• For More Information http//www.kirwaninstitute.o
  rg

60
Discussion Questions

• What policies/strategies can you think of that
  promote both social equity, environmental quality
  and economic health?
• Examples??????
• What regional factors/structures do you think are
  impacting Weinland Park?
• Examples?
• What can be done about this?

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Discussion Questions

• How do you address the over-concentration of
  subsidized housing in Weinland Park?
• How could you address Gentrification in different
  neighborhoods?
• Olde Town East
• Gentrification underway
• Weinland Park
• Potential for gentrification