Riverdale: Panel offers vision for Pacesetter neighborhood

To reinvent a neighborhood with deteriorating housing, a Campaign for Sensible Growth and Urban Land Institute Chicago panel suggested encouraging renters to become owners.

September 30, 2003

When landlords are absent, housing complexes can decline from a variety of problems: maintenance failure, unsuspecting residents taken advantage of through overcharging for basic services or not providing them at all, or unresponsiveness to village efforts to enforce building, health and fire codes. In the Village of Riverdale, this is happening in a subdivision called Pacesetter, and this is the problem that local leaders presented to a recent Technical Assistance Panel co-sponsored by the Campaign for Sensible Growth and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Chicago. After a two-day, intensive analysis of the problem, the panel presented the Village with a bold plan for turning Pacesetter around by encouraging home ownership for the 300-plus units, adding social services for the community and opening up the community physically by removing some units to make way for street extensions.

The complexity of the problem called for additional help to the community. The ULI/Campaign panel will meet three more times through 2004 to help Riverdale move forward on the recommendations. The TAP was held in the Riverdale Village Hall Aug. 20 and 21, 2003, with a public presentation on the second day making recommendations that the panel and Village officials expect to form the basis of an action plan for the community.

Riverdale, population 15,055, is located 23 miles south of downtown Chicago, an attractive suburb with well-maintained, single-family houses on tree-lined streets. While Riverdale was once an economically thriving community, times have changed as many heavy industrial businesses, primarily Acme Steel Co., closed their doors or dramatically scaled back operations, leaving unemployment and brownfield sites behind them. This has, in turn, brought down the housing value in the community. Pacesetter, the residential neighborhood located in the northeast section of the Village, has become a serious problem both for its residents and the community at-large. Despite the poor conditions, there are several long-term individual owners who live in their units in addition to absent landlords, and a community of at least 1,200 residents who are seeking better housing in a safer neighborhood with better access to transportation, services and parks.

Among others, the Village asked the 12-member panel of experts to consider the following questions:

· Should Pacesetter be redeveloped and upgraded as 100 percent housing, a mix of housing and light industrial or all industrial uses? If housing is preserved at Pacesetter, what density level and types of housing are appropriate for the site?

· What role should the Village play in the redevelopment effort?

· What public and private finance options are available for the redevelopment effort?

· What social services will be needed for the short and long-term needs of the residents?

· How can the redevelopment of Pacesetter be a replicable model for other failed housing developments?’

The panel’s recommendation for Pacesetter was daring: redevelop it as an owner-occupied development, bringing the neighborhood’s residential stock in line with the rest in the Village, increasing the stability of the residents’ lives through homeownership and eliminating the isolation of the development. The panel’s concrete, short-term recommendations ranged from opening up streets to connect Pacesetter to the rest of the Village to suggestions for funding for homeownership and counseling for low-income renters. The panel also urged the Village to look at Pacesetter as a potential strength that can add to its overall redevelopment activities.

The change will not be easy, the panel warned. The Village must play a major role. While many physical changes were recommended, the panel based all of its conclusions on a plan that can be financed through conventional means. To integrate Pacesetter into the fabric of Riverdale, both physically and socially, the panel proposed opening up one street from east to west to provide direct access to the Village’s public safety building and U.S. Post Office branch. Extension of another street will promote pedestrian and other traffic along a route useable for, among others, Pacesetter youngsters going to the community center or park.

Answering the first major question — whether Pacesetter should be reconstituted and zoned for light industrial use — the panel was clear: the development should remain 100 percent housing, although at a lower density. An examination of development studies indicated that Riverdale has ample space for future industrial development without including Pacesetter. Large vacant parcels — some as big as 80 acres — exist to the north and west of the area and could be consolidated should a future industrial tenant want a large site. But, since the redevelopment envisioned in the Village’s industrial corridor plan may take 10 years or more, and the cost of acquiring all the land necessary for a conversion of uses is extraordinarily high, housing is the highest and best use for the site.

The panel recommended that the Park District’s recreation building, built with the subdivision in the 1950s, be transformed into a true community center with a play lot outside and smaller rooms for tutoring, classes and other events inside. The surrounding playground features swing structures that do not have swings on them and gravel the size of large stones on the “playground.” Physical improvements should be planned in concert with social services, proper security and a major redevelopment activity to prevent vandalism.

To truly change the development, some on the panel even suggested Pacesetter could shed its negative image with a new name — but only as the outlines of the bold plan become reality. Such a transformation cannot be an overnight fix. Panel members said that Riverdale would need a Master Plan to govern the transformation. They suggested a phased redevelopment, rehabbing 30 or so units a year using funds from various subsidies, then re-selling them through lease-to-own or other financing programs to low income families. In the meantime, the Village should exercise stronger control over existing owners by adopting a landlord ordinance and vigorously enforcing home maintenance laws now on the books. In addition, the Village can work with existing owners or encourage them to sell to new owners who support the redevelopment vision.

The Village of Riverdale will play an important role in these changes, but will not be alone. Panelists recommended that the village form partnerships with community development organizations or another entities to provide assistance with planning, staffing and funding. When the task is completed, the new Pacesetter should set the pace for other communities dealing with similar deteriorating housing complexes.

In the short-term, the panel recommended that the Village:

· Begin a regular street sweeping program, posting signs to alert car owners to park elsewhere on those days and ticket those who don’t move.

· Be more aggressive in ticketing and enforcement for infractions like unmowed grass and garbage in the yard.

· Not allow general overnight parking on the streets. Institute a parking permit program, which should both limit parking and give the Village a better idea who is living there.

· Tear down abandoned units and clear the lots to make small ‘parking pods.’

· Conduct regular community ‘sweeps,’ picking up trash, pulling out weeds, etc.

· Consider building ‘corrals’ or other structures to hide unsightly garbage cans so they do not have to be moved from the front yard, where garbage is collected, through the house to the back to be stored.

· Work with the park district to “clean up and green up” the nearby Recreation Center.

Rerouting the streets will require razing approximately 30 units, which will reduce density in the area. In addition, a detailed analysis of the homeownership, condition and value of all Pacesetter properties will be required to determine which owners the Village can partner with in redevelopment, which units need to be acquired and which units through strict code compliance will bring properties up to the level expected of them.

The goal is eventually to make Pacesetter 80 percent homeowners and 20 percent renters. Home ownership encourages responsibility, which will make the neighborhood more stable.

For the short-term, the panel recommended evaluating and enhancing its building codes with aggressive and regular code enforcement. The formation of a community association and a physical inventory of existing units, to determine financial feasibility of acquisition and rehab, should begin immediately. The Village was advised to identify partners it can work with, including community development corporations and social service providers. Facing the future, the Village needs to create a Master Plan and formulate an acquisition, infrastructure and development financing strategy. Included in the evaluations is the need for a community and social service assessment. Landlord ordinances should be revised or created are those for landlords. In addition, parking permits and parking enforcement should begin immediately.

In recommending the Village develop a financially sound redevelopment plan, the panel suggested:

· A feasibility study to determine the cost of rehabilitating each unit.

· An acquisition plan to buy up units when they become available to begin the required rehab process.

· Some organization — a CDC, a hired housing corporation, or other entity — engaged to direct and manage this process. Code enforcement should be an acquisition strategy. As the village gets tougher with absentee landlords, they will be more inclined to sell their units.

· The Village encourage resident buy-in and support of the plan through establishment of a community association now and a formal Pacesetter Homeowners’ Association once the switch to individual home ownership there becomes a reality.

· Providing social services for present and future residents, including tenants, and owners/landlords and property managers.

· The Village appoint one person to coordinate services for Pacesetter residents with the community’s two park districts, two school districts, the village, township and state offices, and the Chicago Housing Authority and Cook County Housing Authority.

Key to the Village’s success will be identifying a community redevelopment manager who can coordinate village services, and establishing a relationship with either a nonprofit or for-profit organization that it will work with. Serious resources must be dedicated to this task; it is not something that be done as part of a larger job in a few hours a week.

At the close of the presentation, Mayor Zenovia Evans thanked the panel. “What you’ve done is take a holistic look at the Pacesetter problem and given us a realistic look at what we can do about it,” she said. “How fast Riverdale can accomplish these long-term changes depends on our financial situation. In the meantime, we can concentrate on your short-term recommendations and do what we should be doing to make Pacesetter more liveable for those who are there now. We can begin with projects like creating green space, educating current owners and tenants about their responsibilities and increasing communication between Pacesetter and the rest of Riverdale.”