[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Walker Orenstein[/image_credit][image_caption]The creation of Justice Built Communities by Pillsbury United Communities was a reaction to the death of George Floyd; organizers hoped to use his memory as the catalyst for new models for development.[/image_caption]
Justice Built Communities, an offshoot of the Minneapolis-based community-building nonprofit Pillsbury United Communities, was granted exclusive development rights for 12 months for a city-owned parcel of land located at the corner of Penn Avenue North and 44th Avenue North, two blocks west of Patrick Henry High School. The Community Planning & Economic Development approved the deal on Nov. 30.
“In the past … we wouldn’t have taken on an emerging developer because we would want an established track record,” said city Director of Economic Policy and Development Erik Hansen. But the city’s vetting of JBC led officials to recommend a partnership with the organization, and its approach could yield a new model for anti-displacement efforts, said Hansen. “The reward is much greater than the risk,” he said. “We’re not giving exclusive development rights for the next 20 years.”
The creation of JBC by Pillsbury United Communities was a reaction to the death of George Floyd; organizers hoped to use his memory as the catalyst for new models for development, and it has purchased several privately owned properties in north Minneapolis damaged during the unrest following Floyd’s killing. (Disclosure: Pillsbury United’s CEO, Adair Mosley, sits on MinnPost’s board, which plays no role in editorial decisions.)
JBC’s senior director of community development, Jimmy Lloyd, said the organization “leverages land, labor, entrepreneurship and capital to help build equitable wealth for Black and brown residents, and prevent gentrification and displacement.”
Lloyd defines gentrification as the process by which longtime residents of a neighborhood are priced-out or marginalized in their communities due to rising costs associated with new development. During a normal development process, the public is given a chance to weigh in after a builder has come up with a plan. But JBC seeks to “reverse that process,” said Lloyd. “So, it’s first: ‘Hey, community, let’s put something here with your input leading the way.’”
Though Lloyd understands JBC won’t be able to “guarantee everything,” every neighbor wants, the group’s model aims to “show more cooperation” with the community when building in their backyard.
To do that, JBC will seek neighborhood input on both housing and commercial elements of the development, so that residents feel connected to whatever is built. The ultimate goal is to build wealth for Black and brown locals by having them share in the economic benefits of the development — seeing their homes and businesses rising in value, for one — without experiencing the displacement that can accompany economic investment in lower-income communities.
“We get people to work, live and play in the community by giving them the opportunities to do so,” said Lloyd.
Neighborhood support
JBC first went to the city in 2020 with hopes of identifying land ripe for development in areas that are also vulnerable to gentrification. Though attention and money flowed to projects along Lake Street and West Broadway Avenue (including JBC projects) after properties in those areas were damaged by vandalism and arson in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing, Lloyd noticed not much attention had been paid to potential development in places like north Minneapolis’ Victory neighborhood.
One property that seems to fit the bill was at the corner of 44th Avenue North and Penn Avenue, which now includes two buildings that formerly housed a hair salon and a pizza place. Owned by the city since 2018, the property is located on two arterial bus rapid transit lines (the C and B), and Hennepin County chipped in money to have the site redeveloped.
One of the first things JBC did was reach out to the Victory Neighborhood Association, which eventually wrote a letter to the city in support of giving the group development rights. The neighborhood association also told JBC they’d like the area redeveloped as soon as possible.
JBC’s exclusive development rights last a year and come with a checklist of objectives, including completing community engagement efforts, coming up with site-specific plans, lining up other development partners and completing other forms of due diligence.
At the end of the 12 months, the city’s director of Community Planning & Economic Development can choose to extend the rights for another 12 months. “This is more of an iterative process that gives JBC time to work with community, come up with what the development concept should be at this site, and how it reflects not only what we want to see in the Minneapolis 2040 plan, but what is needed in the neighborhood and also greater Northside,” said Hansen.
So far, JBC has no plans or projections for what the mixed used development will cost (the organization has raised $6 million from a coalition of private funders for its overall efforts). Starting early next year, Lloyd said JBC will start to engage the community, holding enough meetings so that a plan for the property can emerge by the middle of 2022. Said Lloyd: “What we want to do is have the community see their ideas and some of their concepts come to life.”
Good luck and all, but this probably is going nowhere.
A noble idea; but even determining who is getting pushed out can be controversial. Many of the wealthier suburbs have allowed for small homes to be bought up by developers who then price out working and middle class. Minneapolis also has allowed mcmansions to take over small homes. The challenge in the area listed in the article is that people who are moving in are pretty much working/middle class who can’t afford elsewhere.
I’m not certain what you do about gentrification except for build government-owned buildings and really almost even neighborhoods. I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily a good idea, but I really don’t know how you would otherwise prevent it.
Most real estate’s value (assuming the building is the same) is based on location, amenities, schools and crime rates. As soon as you take a low-property-value neighborhood and improve it, the value of the real estate is going to go up, driving out those who had been there before, unless they own property.
The opposition to gentrification is essentially saying that neighborhoods should never be improved. Housing should not be fixed up. Parks, libraries, street improvements and other government spending should not occur in poor neighborhoods because they drive property values and rents up.
That’s what I’m struggling with – how do you improve the neighborhood without some sort of gentrification or how can you do something to counteract gentrification? Again, not sure what the answer is but the two goals of improvements and keeping values low seem to be in contradiction with one another in the current system.
I would make a distinction between gentrification and displacement – displacement being when low-income housing is torn down and replaced with more expensive housing. I think everyone can agree that shouldn’t be done unless there is an equal amount of equally affordable housing built. But adding housing without other housing away should not be considered displacement. And we should be trying to improve neighborhoods, even if it does change who lives there. Keeping people trapped in poverty, unable to build wealth as the value of their properties stagnates, isn’t the answer.
Well not necessarily, it could also be argued that they want all those things to occur concurrently with improving the lot of those poor people monetarily so that THEY might actually benefit from those improvements as opposed to being displaced so that those benefits can go to others who already enjoy them elsewhere. Of course only one of those propositions involves profit taking and rent seeking so you know which way American capitalists are gonna go.
I am sure the anti-gentrification folks want all kinds of things. The problem is those wants conflict with economic realities. Its like rent control – in the real world, rent control just hurts the most vulnerable people. Anti-gentrification just means keeping poor people from building wealth.
They aren’t building wealth by being pushed from blighted neighborhood to blighted neighborhood Pat. Who is that you think is buying the housing in gentrified tracts? Improving the neighborhood doesn’t somehow make existing renters richer or more able to buy a house, it generally just pushes them out. If your “economic realities” consist of continual gentrification up to and the point of homelessness for the poor, I’m not exactly sure what your point is. I don’t think all the improvement in the world will do much for the neighborhood, or the city, if it’s previous residents are displaced to the street.
It won’t build wealth for renters, but it will for homeowners. My home has appreciated more than $200,000 since I bought it 10 years ago. That is $200,000 in real money I have made for doing nothing but living there. But if you have a home in a neighborhood where the values don’t increase, it won’t. And the anti-gentrification people who want to keep neighborhoods “affordable” by limiting progress and improvements are part of the problem.
Gentrification isn’t causing homelessness. Adding new housing isn’t causing homelessness. No, what causes rents to go up and people getting pushed out (and onto the streets in some cases) is the opposition to gentrification. Rent control will increase homelessness, because while it will limit increases for some existing renters (many of them wealthy) it will reduce the amount of affordable housing available. This isn’t about progressives and moderates. This is about things that actually work (albeit sometimes slowly) and terrible, nonsensical policies that do nothing but punish the poor.
Except this isn’t rent control, as much as you’d like to conflate it with that issue. It’s preferential development.
I don’t care about your homes value, I care about people being housed. If your value craters nothing, but 100 more families have a roof over their heads, that’s a win in my estimation.
Its not rent control, but its related because its part of the same lack of understanding of how housing costs work. Its the same people and groups pushing these things, and in both cases making the problem of housing affordability worse.
Yep, 100% agreement, keep all those low income folks in the same low income locations and add more. If you are a minority or low income home owner, lets make sure that your property gains/growth is limited, no high offers, just low offers, be they from any one, and then the super progressives that set this up can scream/complain about low income or minority folks are not able to develop equity that could be passed to the next generation, (as they steal money out of their pockets with these programs)!
Or we could you know, just cut out the middle man, and pay them directly to make up the difference in equity, tomorrow. But then the poor moderates might have a heart attack at the “moral peril “, of doing the right and just thing.
And what is the value of that equity, and how do you stop the concentration of poverty (low income folks) which is the objective of the program, setting aside areas of the city that have restricted or low-no growth capabilities, in the old days they called those ghettos.
Who do you propose is going to pay them the difference in equity?
Good luck! At this point less than 20% of the businesses burned out by “peaceful protesters “ have been rebuilt. Giving credence to the saying “it takes years to build and hours to destroy “. Never been a fan of HUD like public/private joint ventures. Public money and the power of unelected bureaucrats deciding who gets tax dollars usually ends in a disgruntled public.
What a great concept, and what a wonderful opportunity to “redevelop” this corner. We lived in Victory for a few years and know this corner well. Some of the other comments lament the potential of gentrification, and that is certainly a legitimate concern, but it seems that threat is downplayed by the willingness of the developer to not jump right in and start tearing things down. Having the approval of ViNA is an important step in ensuring what ever is developed will be done so in partnership, with a nod toward making it fit, and not be an outlier for the neighborhood.