"building urban villages"
January 26th, 2006
As the gap widens between those with wealth and those
without, it's refreshing to find a community that is actively
planning and creating its neighborhood so as to promote
stability and homeownership, especially among its lower-income
residents. The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (www.dsni.org), one
of the most innovative and well-respected planning and organizing nonprofits
in the country, has lead the revitalization of Boston's poor but diverse Dudley
neighborhood through the use of a community land trust.
In the mid-1980's residents of Boston's Dudley Street
neighborhood were concerned about a plan to redevelop
the area, a move that could potentially gentrify the
community and displace a majority of its then residents.
In an article for the Newsletter of Poverty and Race
Research Action Council (www.prrac.org), Gus Newport
explains how the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative
formed, "This initiative grew out of the community’s
concerns about a new Redevelopment Area plan which was
being brought forth supposedly to raise the quality of
life for the residents, through improvements such as
housing, open space, recreation and cultural institutions. When
this planning process became public, the community came
out in large numbers to voice its opinion as to what
the planning process ought to be, and why a method had
to be imposed that would assure the community’s
input in all pertinent planning decisions and protect
current residents’ ability to enjoy the improvements
into the future."
The Dudley area residents wanted to participate in the
process of planning for the community, in part to promote
home ownership for lower-income residents. In 1988,
DSNI became the only community group in the nation to
win eminent domain power to acquire vacant land for development.
They formed a community land trust to hold the land and
involved the neighborhood members in the process of planning
the use of that land.
Since then, approximately half of the 1,300 vacant lots
it took control of have been developed with 300 new homes,
300 rehabbed homes, a Town Common, gardens, urban agriculture,
a commercial greenhouse, and parks and playgrounds. Neighborhood
residents purchase the homes and lease the land on long-term
leases. The homes have a cap on resale prices so
that they remain affordable to future resident-owners. This
permits lower income members of the Dudley Street area
to build equity in the replacement values of their homes,
though not in the land value which is held by the community
as a whole.
The Fannie Mae Foundation recently selected Dudley as
one of the 10 "Just Right" emerging neighborhoods
across the country for increasing affordable homeownership
while attracting capital investment.
Two young and dynamic DSNI leaders, John Barros, and
Jason Webb, will be speaking in Great Barrington, Massachusetts,
on February 3, 2006, for the annual meeting of the Community
Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires. The topic
of their talk will be "The Creation of an Urban
Village: The Journey of the Dudley St. Neighborhood Initiative."
In 1991, Barros was, at age 17, the first young person
elected to the DSNI Board of Directors, triggering a
more visible, active presence of youth across the organization. He
was one of the co-founders of the youth committee - Nubian
Roots - and the designer of a prominent neighborhood
mural. After graduating from Dartmouth College
in 1996, Barros served as Vice President of the DSNI
Board and of Dudley Neighbors, Inc. the community land
trust created to assure permanent affordable housing. Barros,
a lifelong Dudley resident, was elected DSNI's Executive
Director in 2000 after the departure of Greg Watson.
Jason Webb, the Director of Operations of the community
land trust, Dudley Neighbors Inc., has worked at DSNI
since 2001, staffing the community land trust and the
community planning functions around physical and economic
development. In addition, Webb has played a significant
role in DSNI’s internal technology capacity as
well as the use of technology innovations in the community
building process. He has assisted in various youth
development activities and the annual Multicultural Festival. Webb
joined the DSNI staff after a long history of involvement
as a dedicated resident volunteer, dating from the age
of seven. He was a co-founder of Nubian Roots Youth
Committee, and served on the boards of both DSNI and
Dudley Neighbors, Inc.
The Community Land Trust meeting, with these featured
speakers, starts at 7:30 PM, Friday, February 3rd at
the First Congregational Church, 251 Main Street, Great
Barrington, Massachusetts. Tickets are $5 at the
door.
The E. F. Schumacher Society is one of many co-sponsors
of this talk. Other sponsors include Berkshire
Co-Op Market, Berkshire South Regional Community Center,
Center for Ecological Technology, Community Development
Corporation of the Southern Berkshires, Construct, Friends
of the Du Bois Homesite, Great Barrington Land Conservancy,
The Orion Society, Railroad Street Youth Project, Sheffield
Land Trust, Tri-Corner Community Development Corporation,
and the Upper Housatonic Valley African-American Heritage
Trail.
If you are in the region on February 3rd, please join
us to hear John Barros and Jason Webb. Membership information
for the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires
is at: www.clandtrust.org. General information
on community land trusts and their application in shaping
stable local economies and local communities is at the
E. F. Schumacher Society's website: www.smallisbeautiful.org.
Warmly,
Staff of the E. F. Schumacher Society:
Meagan Ledendecker,
Joshua Lichtman, Chris Lindstrom, Julie Macé,
Mike Mugridge, Susan Witt
----------------------------------------------------------
"The gap between wealth and poverty is growing
in the U.S., because policies to stabilize the lives
of the poor and people of color do not focus on long-term
solutions. Our economy is unstable, in an inflationary
spiral that continues to raise the cost of basic goods,
including food, gasoline, medicine and health care. Most
depressing is the lack of affordable housing for the
poor, working and unemployed, and seniors with limited
retirement income."
"Through a series of policy firsts, DSNI became
the first community nonprofit organization in the country
to be awarded eminent domain powers over vacant land
in a 1.3 square mile area of the city of Boston. Through
a seldom-used statute on the books in Massachusetts known
as “special study status,” the community
plan became the zoning plan for the area. Having received
eminent domain rights over 30 acres of land, DSNI sought
a mechanism to assure permanent affordability and discovered
the Community Land Trust model."
"Dudley Street has become a renowned example of
the power of truly participatory community-building for
the long term, which addresses the fundamental policies
and practices that have caused poverty and decline in
cities across the country. Through the community-controlled
land trust, the residents were able to create a vibrant
multicultural community, developing hundreds of affordable
homes and providing an opportunity for residents to personally
benefit from the community revitalization they themselves
planned."
— "The CLT Model: A Tool for Permanently
Affordable Housing and Wealth Generation" by Gus
Newport
----------------------------------------------------------
"What drives the remarkable scale of change here?
Resident voices determine how their dream of an urban
village unfolds. And at the center of this renaissance
have been young people who, nurtured by adults who believe
in them, have contributed guts, ambition and sincerity
to building their community."
—"Essential Partners," report for the
Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1999
----------------------------------------------------------
"Many scholars and housing activists view market
forces and housing affordability as mutually antagonistic:
Either a community remains affordable for its low-income
residents, or it attracts capital investment, development
and growth. If there is a way out of this fundamental
contradiction, Boston’s Dudley Street Neighborhood
Initiative (DSNI) has found it."
—"Ten ‘Just-Right’ Urban Markets
for Affordable Homeownership," Fannie Mae Foundation,
September 2000
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