Quality greens spaces, community centers, and recreational facilities that are well planned, designed and managed can be central to the success of mixed-income communities.
On Aug. 25, the most recent forum
of the “Building Successful Mixed-Income Communities” series tackled the issue
of “Community Space and Stability: Parks, Community Centers and Recreational
Facilities.” Co-sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
and MPC, in collaboration with the CHA, the goal of this series is to
provide a venue for stakeholders of the CHA Plan for Transformation to explore
best
practices, as well
as their respective roles as
policymakers, public officials, business andcommunity leaders, and developers, in contributing
to the success of the communities emerging as a result of the
Plan.
The format of the forum was
a panel of local and national experts:
- María Saldaña
(moderator), president of the
Chicago Park
District
Board of Commissioners,and
MPC Board member
- William Little, Managing Director of Development,
Chicago Housing Authority
- Lawrence Vale,
Head of the
M. I. T. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
- Gabriella DiFillippo , Vice President
of Real Estate Services,
Illinois Facilities Fund
- Eileen Rhodes, Director of Development,
East Lake Management Development Corp.
Click here
to learn more about the
panelists.
Opening Remarks
María Saldaña and William Little
opened
the panel, focusing on the coordinated efforts of the Chicago Park
District
and CHA. Saldaña particularly stressed the
need for green spaces in many
neighborhoods
of Chicago, a city with approximately 7,300
acres of green space distributed throughout more than 500 parks. Not only does
this represent less acreage that smaller cities such
as
Denver, but
39 percentof this open space is located along
the lakefront.
Historically, one
of the most innovative and important ideas to grow out
of
the Chicago park
system, she noted,was the “field house.”
The
idea of this building type within a park was pioneering because it established
“a new national standard for park design and programming.” For
the first time, these parks offered a
variety of year-round
services
including both indoor and outdoor recreational
facilities as well as educational, recreational, and athletic programming,
and other services (i.e., free public bathing facilities, earliest local
branch libraries, inexpensive hot meals, cafeterias, health services, English lessons).
Essentially, these parks served as community hubs. The Park
District now owns 250 field houses or
"recreation centers" — as they are now called — and there is a demand for
more.
As far back as the early 1900s, the founders of the city's park
system recognized the value of leveraging public
resources by partnering with other public agencies. The Chicago
Park District and CHA have a long history of cooperation that dates back
to the 1940s, when both agenciesbegan working together to provide open space surrounding
the new public housing properties being developed throughout the city.
More
than 50 years later, the CHA Plan
for Transformation has made the cooperation between the Park District and the
Housing Authority stronger than ever. One
example,
as
expressed
by Little, is Fosco
Park, a 57,000-square-foot community center
located
in the Roosevelt Square community (the former site of the ABLA homes), which
will include an indoor swimming pool, gymnasium and new daycare facility.Little called
for stakeholders willing to participate in partnerships to help create the green
spaces and community facilities needed for the mixed-income communities to be
viable.
National perspective
Prof. Lawrence
Vale described the key role the “dynamics of trust” between
stakeholders (housing authorities, residents, developers, etc) play when it
comes to planning and implementing the revitalization of distressed public housing.
Public housing designers in the early 1940s resisted connecting housing with
street life, avoiding spaces that were not either wholly public or wholly
private, such as porches and front yards, when planning new housing developments.
These decisions, along with the insistence by HUD on cutting costs and not
involving residents in the planning of public housing, led to the construction
of massive “projects” located in isolated superblocks and disconnected from the
street grid, where the mid and high-rises were surrounded by poorly designed and
maintained green spaces.
Vale presented
two cases of successful revitalization of public housing in Boston, which tried to
fix the mistakes of the past by including residentsin planningand giving them a voice
and decision power throughout the design, construction and management processes.
The two
examples were:
-
Harbor Point (the former Columbia Point), a 1,502-unit development
built in 1954 and redeveloped between 1978 and 1990; and
-
Commonwealth (also known as “
Fidelis Way
”), with 648 units, built in
1951 and redeveloped between 1980 and 1985.
Coulumbia Point was
created in the 1950s in close proximity to the city dumps and prison, a
sad metaphor, according toVale, of the spirit of public housing development in that period.
Located steps
away
from Boston ’s shoreline, the site had
no connections whatsoever to this amenity, nor to any kind of community-friendly
open space. After decades of neglect, federal and local authorities decided to
redevelop the area in a way that would re-conquer the open space for the residents,
adding trees, sport facilities and parks and, more importantly, linking the
waterfront to the housing through bike and pedestrian paths.
Columbia Point before its transformation
The role of residents
was vital in the redevelopment planning process. As one tenant stated: “The
community is not interested in being planned for; the community is interested
in planning.”In the beginning, residents wereopposed tothe new public space areas, fearing
that drug-dealing and other undesirable activities would take placewithin them. Yet after
negotiations and through quality design and management plans, the areas became
safe environments where all residents — public housing tenants and newcomers living
in the affordable and market-rate homes — spend time and enjoy
the facilities.
Harbor Point: Columbia Point after its transformation
In Commonwealth,
the revitalization of the site did not include a mixed-income component, but it
has also became a successful model. Additional roads were created, along with
a community and daycare center, and a
new
city
park. The mid-rise buildings were converted into
townhomes with private gardens and yards, as well as porches. The tenants were
deeply involved in the revitalization process from the very beginning, and
through an agreement with the Boston Housing Authority and the developer,
retained the right to fire the management company.
Vale
shared a number of lessons learned:
-
Successful new communities are built from the successful parts of
older communities;
- Design process matters as much as design products;
-
Public space must be planned for and managed through agreed-upon
standards;
-
New communities should be city pieces, not enclaves;
-
Private spaces should provide informal surveillance of public
places.
To download the complete presentation
by Lawrence Vale in PowerPoint, click
here
.
Local Resources
Gabriella DiFilippo of the Illinois Facilities Fund
(IFF) opened her presentation stating, “With the right mix of people, place,
programs, and partners, community facilities offer an important foundation for
community building.” The IFF, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, is
producing a high level assessment of the community facility needs in nine CHA transformation sites and its surrounding
community. The sites are:
-
Roosevelt
Square
(formerly the ABLA site)
-
Westhaven (formerly Henry Horner Homes)
-
West End (formerly Rockwell Gardens)
-
Park Boulevard (formerly Stateway Gardens)
-
Legends South (formerly Robert Taylor)
-
Oakwood Shores (formerly the Madden-Wells-Darrow
site)
-
Hilliard
-
The Lakefront area, including Lake Park
Crescent and Jazz on the
Boulevard
-
The Near North mixed-income communities located on and off-site
the former Cabrini-Green
The assessment prioritizes those sites most ready for a
community facility plan and will include specific recommendations on how
community facility needs should be addressed. The IFF’s approach to developing
community facilities will be broad – in every case, the services provided must
meet the needs of a community and be sustainable over time.
Some of the findings to date
are:
-
There is no consistent approach to planning for facilities in
those nine sites
-
Good demographic projections do not exist for the age breakdown of
residents (IFF had to develop its own methodology)
-
Services are not needed everywhere as demographics do not show
need
-
Available land shortages and insufficient funding are large
barriers
Help is needed, according to Ms.
DeFilippo, to increase the awareness of existing assets and services in the
communities, establish more partnerships, coordinate between entities that own
land or buildings (such as the Chicago Public Schools or the CHA), and obtain
more financial support for the development of facilities where they are
needed.
To download Gabriella DiFilippo’s presentation in PowerPoint format, click here .
Local Practices
At East Lake Management Development Corp., Eileen Rhodes is responsible for
overseeing all aspects of East Lake’s development portfolio: from financing to
design to construction management to property management and occupancy. East
Lake is the master developer of West End, an 823-home mixed-income development
being built mainly on the site of the former Rockwell Gardens (bounded by Madison, Western, Van
Buren, and Rockwell) and on nearby properties off-site.
During her presentation, Rhodes outlined three kinds of challenges that her
firm has faced while trying to develop open space and community centers for the
West End community.
The first set of challenges were location-related: where to put the community
space in an area where available land is scarce, and even off-site land has been
acquired in order to accommodate the projected homes? The proximity of service
providers such as Marcy Newberry, the Salvation Army or Medical Center, led the
planning team to question whether the provision of on-site centers would
duplicate services already provided by these agencies on nearby sites. Finally,
the community residents had different concepts of open space, depending on their
needs: some of them wanted private green space around their homes, others
prefered medium-size parks, and others gave priority to the creation of a large
park with sports and recreational facilities.
The second set of challenges relate to the lack of strong, established
stakeholders in the area. Although the development has a number of allies in the
community, unlike other transformation sites, West End lacks strong institutions
that feel connected to the redevelopment of the community, such as the
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), tied to the Roosevelt Square community;
the YMCA and the LEED Council, both connected to Cabrini-Green; or the Illinois
Institute of Technology (IIT) in the Park Boulevard area.
Finally, funding constraints are provoking delays in the construction of a
community center that is $300,000 short of budget. East Lake is proposing a $1.6
million campus-park to be developed in partnership with the Park District and
CPS at nearby Grant School. This underutilized school might be used by Marcy
Newbery for the provision of services such as daycare.
Questions and Answers
The forum closed with a Q&A session. Here is a sample:
Q: Did residents of the Boston public housing developments have access to
professional assistance from planners, architects, lawyers, etc. through the
revitalization process?
A: (Lawrence Vale) Yes, they did. Many residents volunteered their time to
participate in the planning process and negotiate the different agreements with
the housing authority and private firms involved in the redevelopment effort.
The Boston Housing Authority paid for professional assistance for these
residents, and firms located in the Boston area provided pro bono architectural
and legal assistance.
Q: How do you guarantee that all residents will use the public spaces and
facilities?
A: (Gabriella DiFilippo) If the facilities are planned, built and managed
following high-quality standards, they will be used by the entire community.
A: (Lawrence Vale) It is important to work with the edge. If the community
looks enclosed or gated, only people from the “inside” will use the common
areas. If these common spaces are inviting and welcoming, more people will feel
attracted. To avoid that sense of enclosure, it is important to be careful when
placing architectural elements such as gates or fences.
For more information on MPC's Public
Housing in the Public Interest program and its Building Successful Mixed-Income Communities
series,
click here
.