North End Neighborhoods Revitalization Project (2014 LGAA)

City of Geneva (Winner)
County: Ontario County
Population: 10,001 to 50,000
City Hall: (315) 789-2603

In 2008, Geneva's Office of Neighborhood Initiatives (ONI) launched a citywide revitalization approach based on strategic neighborhood initiatives and investments. After assisting several areas across the City with forming associations and defining neighborhood identities, ONI turned to the City's North End neighborhoods. Built around manufacturing and industrial uses, the North End neighborhoods face challenges of vacancy and disinvestment.

With funding from the NYS DOS, ONI and the City's consulting team (Skeo Solutions, Investment Consulting Associates and Sustainable Strategies 2050) used a neighborhood-based area-wide planning approach to ensure that targeted revitalization, development concepts and investments take into account the needs of neighborhood residents along with market considerations and physical conditions. In this project, the city incorporated real market needs, built consensus and meaningfully engaged stakeholders in the development and implementation of a comprehensive revitalization planning process which is oriented around the three priorities of: supporting economic development, improving neighborhood quality of life, and enhancing access to open space and neighborhood connectivity. The project resulted in a Brownfield Opportunity Area Pre-Nomination Study, the accompanying North End Neighborhoods Revitalization Framework and a supplemental action plan to guide capital improvements, neighborhood initiatives, programming and site-specific redevelopment efforts.

The NYSDOS Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) program takes an area-wide approach to brownfield revitalization through evaluating environmental, land use, infrastructure and site conditions across a broader area to help identify revitalization opportunities and cleanup objectives for specific brownfield sites or clusters of sites. The City of Geneva brought an innovative model to the BOA process by extending its neighborhood initiatives approach to the City's North End and grounding site-specific development opportunities around a set of broader area-wide revitalization strategies.

The neighborhood-based, area-wide planning approach employed for this project was specifically designed to identify and address the needs of neighborhood residents and business owners. The city led a collaborative community engagement process organized around a series of iterative stakeholder discussions and focus groups to identify project goals, neighborhood assets and challenges. Through this collaborative dialogue, the project team identified a set of three revitalization themes and high-impact strategies to advance economic development, neighborhood quality of life and open space goals.

Based on the revitalization themes and strategies, the city and community partners prioritized seven catalyst sites and developed an action plan to guide programming and investment at each catalyst site and across the neighborhoods. Another key innovation was the consultant team's use of a "reverse-site selection" model in the market analysis. In this approach, the project team analyzed community and economic indicators, existing institutions, infrastructure, and other community features and then, using these data, identified specific end-users and industries that are a natural fit with the community's assets. The project also prioritized strategic vacant properties and brownfield sites helping to transform liabilities into community assets. Targeted revitalization efforts are already re-positioning vacant properties for acquisition to bring them back on the tax rolls. Over the long-term, the City anticipates that targeted demolition and renovation of poorly maintained and non-code-compliant housing in strategic pockets will improve overall housing quality and property values throughout the North End neighborhoods.

The project's supplemental action plan prioritizes short- and long-term actions and outlines potential funding sources across multiple state agencies tailored to support specific revitalization action items. The City is integrating the action plan with its neighborhood initiatives model to direct funding and investments to the North End neighborhoods, specific sites and infrastructure that will directly promote revitalization goals. Today, the action plan has helped the city to target near-term funding opportunities that can quickly advance high-impact strategies aligned with the community's vision, such as park programming improvement grants for a neighborhood association, and housing demolition and renovation grants.

The North End Neighborhoods Revitalization Project also helped to foster greater efficiency in the delivery of services across City departments. Bringing Police, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, and Neighborhood Initiatives offices together throughout the process has helped to: coordinate department efforts; reduce redundancies; and align mutually beneficial projects for capital improvements. Finally, by transforming fragmented public lands and legacy rail infrastructure into a functional open space network, the North End neighborhoods will offer increased access to recreational amenities, and regional trails and bikeways to further bolster property values and attract tourism visits.

In addition to spurring several productive public-private partnerships by bringing together city departments, churches, not-for-profit partners, educational institutions and local development corporations, citizen involvement was the bedrock of the six-month revitalization planning process. The process began with the assembly of an advisory committee of city staff, neighborhood residents and community partners. Through close coordination with businesses, residents, city officials and community partners, the Office of Neighborhood Initiatives and the consultant team designed a collaborative approach to engage community stakeholders.

The City's dedication to meaningful citizen engagement has paid off. By the end of the project's last formal meeting, residents of the Eastlake View neighborhood formed a new neighborhood organization that is now helping advance revitalization initiatives through neighborhood identity branding, parks improvements, and establishing minimum standards for property maintenance to address housing issues. The East Lakeview Neighborhood Association's efforts garnered national recognition as its members represented Geneva at the NeighborWorks America Community Leadership Institute in Sacramento, California, in October 2013.