Infill Housing and the HUD Livability Principles

In June, the NEOSCC published its first report, the Conditions and Trends platform.  The platform is the result of over 150 experts in the region coming together to look at Northeast Ohio and how our land use effects economic development, the environment, housing and communities and transportation.  The resulting report was transformed into what we call a platform or launching place for engagement. By creating an on-line tool, we ensured that the platform can evolve as we engage the region in a discussion about existing conditions and trends.  It also creates the opportunity to add more data, maps and graphics as we become aware of these resources. We developed the Conditions and Trends Platform with four distinct ways for everyone in Northeast Ohio to learn about the findings: Themes – five themes were developed based on the relationship between the findings; Subject Matter (i.e. Economic Development, Environment, etc.); Maps/Geographies – the…

One of the Vibrant NEO 2040 work streams is focused on the attributes of a quality connected place and the elements that lead to vibrant place making. We have many of these great spaces and places through Northeast Ohio that truly make our 12 county region unique. A good way to begin analyzing these attributes of quality connected places is to think about what we have as assets in the region. Northeast Ohio is a diverse, vibrant and exciting region, with assets, attributes and points of pride in every community. Those assets may be natural wonders, historic buildings, cultural monuments, arts institutions, etc. Everyone who lives here has his or her own idea of Northeast Ohio’s most important assets. NEOSCC has been working to catalog, map, and quantify the impact of Northeast Ohio’s regional and local assets. Because our assets make us what we are as a region, we want…

AMATS, the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study, is one of the four Metropolitan Planning Organizations involved in Vibrant NEO 2040 that we discussed in our post last week.  One of their many initiatives is the Connecting Communities program which “is designed to provide communities with funding to develop transportation plans that will lead to the identification of projects eligible for AMATS funds.” The Connecting Communities grant program was a recommendation from  AMATS’s Connecting Communities Planning Initiative (link is to a large pdf file) in 2010.   The purpose of Connecting Communities – A Guide to Integrating Land Use and Transportation is to promote a region that balances environmental, social and economic concerns by improving coordination between land use and transportation. Connecting Communities utilizes a regional planning process to explore strategies to increase transportation choices and accessibility, help communities make collaborative, informed decisions to coordinate development, reduce environmental impacts and improve regional connectivity….

As a stakeholder in Northeast Ohio, you and your input can help to guide our region, to preserve and build upon the things we value most and ensure our communities thrive. Our organization, the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC), which is a collaboration of 33 organizations from across the 12-county Northeast Ohio region, understands and shares this responsibility. To help Northeast Ohio leaders and residents ensure that our region is sustainable, resilient, and vibrant, we have created a tool to help us better understand the existing conditions of our region. This tool is the NEOSCC Conditions and Trends Platform, located online at cat.neoscc.org. The Conditions and Trends Platform is a groundbreaking, comprehensive compilation of research about economic development, the environment, housing and transportation in 12 Northeast Ohio counties: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne. It helps Northeast Ohioans better understand the region’s…

As two of the most significant expenses in our personal lives, housing and transportation cost can play a key role in our quality of life and where we choose to live.  Over the last few years a new tool has been developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology to analyze some of these costs relative to income and geography. To integrate this way of thinking into the choices and decisions made by home buyers, renters, urban and transportation planners, and developers, CNT and our collaborative partner, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), developed a groundbreaking tool, the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, that measures the true affordability of housing choice-by factoring in both housing and transportation costs in a neighborhood. The cost of getting around takes a significant bite out of household budgets. The average family in the United States spends about 18% of after-tax income on transportation, but…

Throughout Northeast Ohio, different organizations are integrating sustainability into their approaches to planning, operations and decision-making. As part of a recent Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant, Stark County Regional Planning Commission (SCRPC) created the Sustainable Planning and Zoning Handbook.  Created in 2011, SCRPC developed a tool that provides principles, examples and approaches to planning and zoning. SCRPC describes the handbook as… The purpose of this handbook is to provide local communities with guiding principles to assist them in becoming more sustainable. Each section will briefly cover different steps that communities can take to achieve this goal. Examples and/or resources of what other communities are doing will also be provided in each section. The appendix of this document contains sustainability-designed, model zoning ordinances that can be tailored to conform to individual zoning resolutions. Please note that not every principle in this handbook may apply to every community. Do keep in mind, however,…

NEOSCC Consortium Member, the Green City Blue Lake Institute has launched a wonderful new website:   The new site is based on a three-step process: Explore: Until you experience Northeast Ohio and the natural systems that support life here the soils, the water, the plants and animals, the climate it’s hard to know how to take care of this place. So the first step is to explore the bioregion, root yourself here, learn to love your home territory. Live: Empowered with the intimate knowledge of place, you can begin to improve your own life. You can lead a healthier, more fulfilling life that has less environmental impact. Transform: Beyond the changes you can make in your own life, we all need to work together on big, complicated things like the design of more sustainable cities, buildings, and transportation systems. We need a sustainability policy agenda and projects that transform the region.   What…

Translating sustainability and the triple bottom line  into accessible concepts and actions has long been a difficult aspect of broadening the audience and stakeholders for sustainability initiatives.  This has been particularly true in how everyone can take action. At its recent Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit, The City of Cleveland launched its new dashboard.  The new tool includes performance measures that will help to capture progress made along the 10 year initiative: Measuring progress is essential to the success of Sustainable Cleveland. The performance indicators measure results, inform strategy, shine a light on what is working and they educate and inspire us through stories and metrics. The framework focuses on sustainability initiatives in the areas of business, personal/social, built and natural.  Most importantly, the site highlights how you can affect these areas at home, work and in your community.   While some of the measurements have yet to be published, it is definitely worth…

The image above is part of the  Vibrant NEO 2040 presentation that will be presented today at the first in a series of meetings with Northeast Ohio’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations/Council of Governments Board of Directors.  This morning at the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), we will be discussing the overall status of the project, the upcoming scenario planning process, project outcomes/products and engagement. This conversation will be followed by brief roundtable discussions on four of our work streams:  Economic Development, Environment, Connections and Housing and Communities.   Utilizing the findings from the Conditions and Trends Platform, we hope to engage local leaders in exploring the following: What do these findings mean to you and your community? What do these findings mean to the region? What else do you need to know about your community? What else do you need to know about Northeast Ohio? Over the course of the next…

One of the most interesting findings in the Conditions and Trends Platform is that 90% of NEO populations is within 1 mile of a park or a green space. The highest concentration of parks and protected spaces is in the center of the region, around the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Ravenna Arsenal in Summit and Portage Counties. There are, however, areas concentrated along the edge of the region that are further than two miles from a park or protected space. These areas include western Lorain and Medina counties, southern Wayne and Stark Counties, and parts of Ashtabula, Trumbull, and Mahoning counties. What Can I Do Today? Learn: Watch the NEOSCC October Board Meeting on You Tube Share your thoughts: Take the Bike Cleveland Northeast Ohio Biker Survey Act: Become a member of the Conditions and Trends Platform and let us know what you think about our findings

As part of a grantee peer-to-peer exchange in Pittsburgh this week, we were given a tour of the East Liberty Neighborhood redevelopment project. From the East Liberty Development Corporation’s website: Our first community plan, A Vision for East Liberty, produced in 1999, helped guide our neighborhood’s recovery from urban renewal efforts. Recognizing the success that followed the 1999 plan, we decided to come together again to include new and old neighbors and expand and refine our vision. Through a process of community meetings, a broad range of people who live, work, shop, play, worship, and invest in East Liberty shared our love for the neighborhood, our concerns, and our dreams for its future. The guiding principles below, which emerged from these meetings, will guide residents, developers, organizers, and stakeholders through the ever-evolving process of planning and development toward our community’s goals. Over the last 12 years, 1,400 high-rise public housing…

Northeast Ohio has a story. Help us tell it. You are an expert on your piece of Northeast Ohio. No one else knows your experiences better than you. As part of the Vibrant NEO 2040 initiative, we want to tell stories about what makes Northeast Ohio such an extraordinary place to call home. Through these stories we can all have a better sense of what we need to create a more vibrant, resilient and sustainable present and future Northeast Ohio. MyVibrantNEO wants you! In fact, it IS you! What do you love about our region? What needs work? We started the MyVibrantNEO campaign to help connect Northeast Ohioans as part of a conversation about what makes each community great, and what could make each community better. Visit MyVibrantNEO to learn more.

Back in June, NEOSCC took its board meeting to Mahoning County.  As part of our 12 Counties in 12 Months Program, the NEOSCC Board had an opportunity to tour some of Youngstown’s unique assets as well as some of the redevelopment work that is occurring. Part of the tour was led by Youngstown Neighborhood Development Council (YNDC), a multifaceted neighborhood development organization launched in 2009 in partnership with the City of Youngstown and The Raymond John Wean Foundation to catalyze strategic neighborhood reinvestment in neighborhoods throughout the city.  YNDC highlighted some of the neighborhood revitalization work during the tour. We wanted to showcase a recent YNDC publication:  Lots of Green 2012 Impact Report. YNDC’s Lots of Green program is a nationally-recognized, vacant land reuse strategy implemented in Youngstown neighborhoods by the YNDC and multiple partner organizations. The program engages residents and volunteers through several programs, including Iron Roots Urban Farm, Market Gardener Training, Community Gardens,…

With Thanksgiving just a few days away, we wanted to share a recent post from the Good website proposing a 100 mile Thanksgiving challenge.  Happy Thanksgiving! In the spirit of using less fuel and supporting local farms and food artisans, we challenge you to try a 100-mile Thanksgiving. A 100-mile Thanksgiving uses ingredients sourced from within 100 miles of your dinner table. Think of it as an opportunity to celebrate local food, rather than an obligation to source every last ingredient from within 100 miles. Food miles, or the amount of miles a certain product has traveled to its final destination, are an important consideration when trying to reduce your carbon footprint and the amount of oil and gasoline used in making a meal. What Can I Do Today? Learn: Visit NEO Food Web for information on Local Food Act: Visit the Local Food Network to get involved Share your thoughts on our…

NEOSCC counts numerous Public Housing Authorities among its membership.  Shawna Daugherty of Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority prepared a NEO 101 Series presentation on “What is a Public Housing Authority?” to educate our board on the different aspects of PHA’s.  Here are a few facts: Public Housing Authorities (PHA)provide housing and rental assistance to low-income families through two programs: Public Housing With this method, the PHA owns and manages properties. Approximately 1.2 million families reside in public housing around the country. Properties range from single family homes to high-rise apartments. Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) This method allows families to use a voucher anywhere a landlord is willing to accept it. The housing authority will subsidize the rent and utilities. Voucher programs serve about 3 million families nationwide. Beyond these core services, PHA’s offer a variety of ancillary community services in support of their housing developments. There are a number of community partners…