National and local experts share development techniques and strategies for community involvement in the planning of mixed-income sites
MPC’s
10th Building Successful Mixed-Income Communities forum,
on March 28, 2007, attracted more than 200 developers, public housing
residents, and affordable housing advocates. Co-sponsored by the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with the Chicago Housing
Authority (CHA), the forum focused on planning, design and architecture in
mixed-income communities. The panel offered national and local perspectives on
development priorities and community involvement in the planning process.
MarySue Barrett, MPC president, welcomed panelists and
attendees, and Commissioner Lori Healey of the Chicago Dept. of Planning and
Development (DPD) and Carl Byrd, CHA director of management,
made opening remarks. Joseph Williams, president of Granite Development Corp.,
and MPC Resource Board member, moderated the panel featuring:
-
Don
Carter,
president of
Urban Design Associates
(Pittsburgh, Pa.);
-
Peter
Levavi,
vice president of
Brinshore Development,
and MPC Housing Committee member; and
- Shirley Newsome, chair of the North Kenwood-Oakland Conservation Community
Council.
Carl Byrd, Joseph Williams, Don Carter, Peter Levavi and Shirley
Newsome
Williams highlighted MPC’s position that the relationship
between “bricks and mortar” and residents’ lives must be “in harmony” and
reminded the audience of MPC’s long-term commitment to being “part of the solution” as mixed-income communities flourish in Chicago. Outlining his
work with Granite Development Corp., Williams admitted community planning is
both “excruciating and extraordinary.” Planning and design play a significant
and strategic role in success, and “we only win if the community process wins.”
Comm. Healey stressed DPD works to bring public institutions into
neighborhoods to serve as anchors for development. Land use,
selection and design are critical so that new mixed-income communities “blend
in” with the surrounding neighborhood. The focus is on creating housing because
“without rooftops, you don’t get the retail,” which drives additional commercial
development and jobs. The built environment is about more than housing,
Comm. Healey said; “it’s about creating neighborhoods with the opportunity to
live, shop and work.” She also highlighted the need to establish strong
transportation hubs in communities where the region’s transit networks have been
underutilized for decades.
Byrd emphasized that “CHA residents are citizens of
Chicago first,” and despite its past “dismal record,” CHA is working to
“re-engage residents and communities back into the fabric of the city.”
According to Byrd, over 60 percent of CHA’s Plan for Transformation is complete,
with 9,500 units of senior housing and 2,500 scattered sites rehabilitated by
the beginning of 2007. He acknowledged that the development of mixed-income
sites has taken more time than the rehabilitation of other sites because it
requires collaboration between city agencies and departments, developers,
community groups, and other stakeholders. Byrd’s presentation demonstrated the success of three mixed-income
sites
at
the family, development and neighborhood levels: West
Haven Park
(Henry
Horner), Roosevelt Square (ABLA), and Oakwood
Shores
(Madden/Wells/Darrow).
Byrd closed by saying, “What used to be a cautionary tale of
two cities is now a story of integration and the end of
isolation.”
After Healey and
Byrd’s opening remarks, Williams asked panelists to address the following
questions:
- What principles, methodology and techniques can be
used to include the community’s voice into the final plan, from inception to
“final product”?
- What is the relationship between the bricks and mortar
of a new development and the well-being of its diverse residents?
- How do community residents, developers and planners knit together the new
mixed-income communities and their surrounding neighborhoods, and how can the
surrounding areas (and city) contribute to the success of these communities?
Don Carter, of Urban Design Associates (UDA)
in Pittsburgh, began by commending Chicago for its efforts to create opportunities
for public dialogue such as the day’s forum. He described UDA’s extensive work
in building mixed-income housing across the country, including in Pittsburgh,
Pa.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Portsmouth, Va.; Baltimore, Md.; Louisville,
Ky.;
Charlotte, N.C.; and even Chicago (at the former Madden/Wells site).
Carter’s presentation outlined key principles for designing mixed-income
communities, such as involving residents, respecting historical
context and architectural precedents, providing connections
within neighborhoods and to the surrounding community,
developing and providing design guidelines, and enhancing neighborhood
amenities. Moreover, he said, affordable and workforce housing must
be dispersed within and indistinguishable from market-rate housing. As an important
component of its work, UDA has created pattern books that offer guidelines and
controls for builders and developers of mixed-income housing, and contribute to
creative design and housing variety in these communities.
Excerpt from UDA Pattern Book
Carter said the first principle of planning is resident involvement. “Sometimes
you have to meet the people on their porches,” he said. Community planning
with broad-based participation is a three-phase process: one, understanding what
is going on currently; two, exploring new ideas; and three, deciding what
to do. Developers are thus “facilitators of a process, not the dictators of
a plan,” he said. Carter described a case in which community residents were
asked to label a neighborhood map with negative and positive areas as well as
areas where they “want new things to happen.” Carter concluded by sharing
Maine’s “design features of great American neighborhoods,” which states
neighborhoods should be walkable from end to end; have a civic core and mix of
uses, an interconnected street network, recognizable boundaries, and housing
variety; and provide for chance meetings and privacy.
The former Madden/Wells site in
Chicago
Plans for the new Oakwood Shores community in Chicago
Brinshore Development’s Peter Levavi summarized three components of
architecture and design of mixed-income communities based on lessons the
company has learned: the decision-making process, macro-planning, and micro-planning.
He reiterated the importance of community participation for legitimacy and
support, but stated it is difficult to get “real, important and meaningful input”
for a couple of reasons. Many people have pressing concerns or
grievances that need to be addressed before they can focus on community
planning. In addition, most are ill-equipped to have a technical discussion
about architecture. To remedy this reality, Brinshore uses Image Preference
Surveys to solicit public input through a series of slides that are ranked by
participants on a scale of 1 to 5 according to their desirability. After the
initial survey, a new slide show is created and the images are ranked again.
Levavi commented that these surveys show “how much shared vision there really is
between income groups.”
For site planning and building design,
Levavi recommended a few best practices, including: creating solid streetwalls, i.e., avoiding
gaps between buildings that become no man’s territory; designing buildings that
face the street so people can see what’s going on from their homes;
rearranging Chicago’s typically narrow residential lots in a creative manner to provide
private outdoor space; and including diverse
residential designs by
using a team of architects instead of just one
firm.
In his
experience, Levavi said backyards attached to individual units work better than
large, communal areas of open space because they promote each resident’s sense
of ownership. A variety of building designs help create a sense of uniqueness
and attachment to units and buildings. Levavi also stressed the concepts
of universal design to accommodate the needs of diverse households and
green initiatives for energy-efficient plans that contribute to sustainability
while reducing utility bills – a significant expense, especially for
low-income
residents. He
acknowledged that public housing redevelopment can be “fantastically expensive,” but
explained the task of building mixed-income communities is an “iterative process
in which we learn more from each development.”
Shirley Newsome shared her experience in community planning in the North
Kenwood-Oakland
area,
on
Chicago’s South Side. The neighborhood has an ideal location on the Lkefront and also
is a designated historical district. Efforts to rebuild public housing in
the neighborhood began before the onset of CHA’s Plan, and it is now home to
three mixed-income
sites: Lake
Park
Crescent, Jazz on the Boulevard, and
Oakwood
Shores.
Newsome highlighted a few key strategies
for making the community planning process successful: have elected officials
involved “at every step along the way;” establish personal relationships
with residents; respect different leadership styles in each community;
involve residents in more than housing planning such as schools and parks;
and keep residents and community members informed through ongoing
communication.
A brief Q&A
session followed the panelists’ presentations. Below is a sampling of topics
that were discussed:
-
Private vs. Community Space
-
Carter said in
his experience, leftover spaces and undesignated common areas are generally
“taken over” and became trouble spots in the communities. He also clarified
that open space can work if it is well-designed and thoughtfully managed.
Newsome agreed, and said that because of quality design and management, open
spaces are not problem areas in the redeveloped North Kenwood-Oakland
community.
-
Unit Accessibility
-
Carter said the
Congress for the New Urbanism is currently working with a U.S. Dept. of
Housing and Urban Development task force to address the issue of
accessibility and “visitability.”
In traditional neighborhoods, there are usually steps to a front
porch; however there are alternate ways to make buildings more accessible
such as side entrances.
-
Creating Indistinguishable Units
-
Levavi said
he does not consider making market-rate and subsidized homes
indistinguishable a challenge, but acknowledged that “the bar has been raised for rental
units in mixed-income communities.” Amenities such as dishwashers and
washer/dryer hookups are expected. He also said market-rate and affordable
housing renters often have lower expectations than public housing residents in
terms of room size, and it has been more of a challenge to attract public
housing renters to the new homes than market-rate or affordable renters.
Newsome pointed out the units are identical in one of the mixed-income sites in
the North Kenwood-Oakland area because any unit could be for a public
housing, affordable, or market-rate buyer.