There is a recurring scene that plays out at nearly every community meeting about development plans, particularly those in poor and minority neighborhoods, few residents attend and those that do find one or more of these circumstances:
•They had no knowledge of any neighborhood plan before the meeting;
•They had no input on where housing, parks, roads, or industrial buildings might go; or
•They own property inside/outside the proposed development area, and don’t know how it will affect them either way.
Operation Better Block Executive Director Jerome Jackson has seen enough of this kind of disenfranchisement and has developed a method to ensure it does not happen when development with a capital “D” comes to Homewood. It is called “cluster development.”
The simple concept came to Jackson as a kind of epiphany.
“We were looking at dividing up Homewood into sections that we, as a staff, could survey for our programming, and it occurred to us—why not do that for development,” he said. “So we did. We broke Homewood into nine clusters plus the business district, and we now have detailed land-use plans for five of them.”
The cluster approach ensures resident participation. By going door to door, asking residents about their immediate neighborhood, telling them what they are doing, getting their input and then honing design ideas through a series of three meetings and follow-up surveys involving only cluster residents, the plans for each cluster emerge.
During this process, OBB also has regular bi-monthly meetings with the Pittsburgh Planning Office. It then gives the data to its design partner, the Studio for Spatial Practice, which creates color-coded maps for each cluster showing all occupied and vacant buildings, and vacant lots. The maps also show current uses, proposed uses, and who owns the properties and how they are zoned.
All of the information; the dates of the meetings, how many attended, proposals and conclusions are compiled into a brochure containing the consensus vision plan for each cluster. Once all 10 cluster plans are completed, OBB will convene a synthesis meeting to combine the clusters into a master development plan for Homewood.
In addition to assuring residents are more informed and involved, Jackson said the cluster approach has another advantage—cost.
“When it’s all said and done, we’ll probably spend about $100,000 for the complete Homewood Vision Plan. Compare that to the plan for the Hill District, which cost about $250,000,” he said. “The reason is, because of the cluster approach, we’ve done all the survey work for the designers ahead of time. They don’t have to do it.”
Jackson praised his community organizers Kahlil Morris and Chandra Robinson, and office manager Gina McMillan for doing most of the legwork.
The final advantage to this approach is time saving. Operation Better Block began its surveys and interviews for Cluster 8, the first, in February, three more have since been completed and the first meeting for Cluster 1 took place Oct. 7 at Shiloh Baptist Church.
“The holidays and winter weather could slow us down, but assuming nothing unforeseen happens, all 10 cluster plans should be finished by June 2015,” said Jackson. “Now, developers can come to us and know what is going on and we act as liaison with the cluster associations. There are no surprises—for anyone.”
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
Follow @NewPghCourier on Twitter https://twitter.com/NewPghCourier
Like us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Pittsburgh-Courier/143866755628836?ref=hl
About Post Author
