Norm Roulet's notes from REI - presentation by the Glenville Development Corporation on the Future of Glenville.

GDC service area corresponds with the bounderies of Ward 8, an odd shaped neighborhood on the East Side of Cleveland running along Lake Erie from E. 72nd street to around E. 110th, and south including Martin Luther King to University Circle, and environs surrounding (PDF map linked as attachment).Presenting were John H. Cieszkowski, Jr., Business Development Specialist, and Tony R. Diggs, Community Outreach Coordinator. The Glenville Development Corp. website is linked below:

Glenville development corp. website

More information on Glenville is found at Cleveland State University's Neighborhood Link site at http://www.nhlink.net/neighborhoodtour/glenville/

Detailed 2000 census data is posted at http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/census/factsheets/spa32.html

First presenter is John, who points out that despite challenging economic conditions Glenville has wonderful physical assets, a wealth of historic property, close proximity to Lake Erie, parks and University Circle and many other strengths. His presentation focused on many great efforts of the GDC to leverage those strengths to develop the neighborhood's housing stock and quality of life of residents, focused on a bright future.

In order to address issues facing neighborhood retail corridors, GDC participates with 10 other CDCs (Community Development Corporations) as part of the Re-$tore Cleveland program.

ED successes include retail development such as Glenville Towne Center (featuring East Side Market), a McDonalds, video store and Rite Aid - area is nicely landscaped and enhanced with clock tower to accentuate this special retail dsitrict.

He stressed the interest to redevelop historic areas and properties, but acknowledged the cost and design requirements require tradeoffs for such initiative. Mentioned an article in PD on tradeoff of historic development costs vs. new construction from last Sunday. In balance, GDC is progressing on driving for renovations in harmony with expanding new housing and having great success... new construction seems very well integrated with the natural assets and historic character of the region... which makes Glenville desirable and special.

The focus of this presenter is inventorying property and trying to work with owners to restore and reuse existing structures and enable harmonious new development - but absentee and negligent landlords are a serious problem. Gave several cases of owners blocking redevelopment and refusing to sell or trying to overprice, despite multi-year patterns of neglect, violations, unpaid taxes.

One solution is for the city and county to develop concerted policies toward negligent property owners - help them renovate their property if they are willing - must optimize all physical assets. Really inspiring presentation - full of good deeds and hope to accomplish important goals - they are looking for help and I hope everyone in Cleveland appreciates these opportunities and will work together with GDC for betterment of this important historic neighborhood... one of the most strategic in the region.

A Glenville resident attending the session is concerned she and other long term residents are not able to access funding for renovations - it is difficult for 30-50 year resident property owners to secure funds. The regional community needs to help all resident property owners to secure funds for their home improvements - these long time citizens are the foundation of the community.

Another attendee, Ms. Woods, proposes inventorying "technology" assets in the community. Tony Diggs is a database developer and he is attempting to use what applications he has on hand to support GDC needs. Ms. Woods says her concern is more with the technology assets available to residents - I suppose like wifi, computer labs, etc., which allow people to escape poverty through human development and connectivity.

John concludes with the theme: Physical Development (bricks and mortar) + Human Development (community cooperation) = Healthy Neighborhood = Healthy Region

Other presenter Tony R. Diggs is working within Glenville development corporation to
create databases and use GIS for specific needs but they don't have funding
for the most sophisticated tools.

Tony R. Diggs - Community Outreach Coordinator - stresses "Individuals, Organizations & Networks" must all work together - he is working to tap into each of these elements and get them working in unison - has developed a Community Outreach Committee.

Distributed handout which illustrates the problem REALNEO is solving - the solution is one network for one community mission. As an example, he points to one church he knows of in SC that spawned major community development around it, and then considered there are 15 churches within 1.5 miles in one area of Glenville.

So Tony has met with a few leading ministers who are interested to drive for community improvement and all the church leaders plan to assemble and hold "God's Roundtable" on developing this neighborhood together.

Ms. Woods stressed where is the individual in all this planning - especially the entrepreneur?

Tony deals with the SEED Program, which is an entrepreneurship training program, which helps potential business starters get training to make them fundable.

Tony wants to continue the training and then unite the potential entrepreneurs as partners to work together - find like minded business people and bring them together on business concepts as limited partnerships - co/ops - get creative.

Goal is to get community as a whole to inventory all assets - capacity building tools - and align with goals.

Some key references from the GDC website and Tony's handout:

GDC Mission: The mission of Glenville Development Corporation
(GDC) is to provide residents, business and institutions
with the advocacy, guidance and resources needed to improve their
economic health, making Glenville a safe, self-supporting community
in which anyone would be proud to live and raise a family.

From handout:

Community Capability is the interaction of human capital, organizational resources, and social capital existing within a given community that can be leveraged to solve collective problems and improve or maintain the well-being of that community. It may operate through informal social processes and/or organized efforts by individuals, organizations, and social networks that exist among them and between them and the larger systems of which the community is part. - from Building Community Capacity - Robert J. Chaskin et al.

A slide illustration demonstrated that the current community capacity in Glenville is not well united, and some segments are not optimally aligned - shows moving to different degrees in the right directions are the Ward 8 office, GDC, merchants and block clubs.

The preferred vision, shown on the next slide, has all individuals, organizations, and social networks working together in one coil - network - with a clear Community Mission focused on defined goals.

< />Community Outreach Committee Mission Statement Proposal is to align human capital, organizational resources and social capital for the purpose of improving the quality of life in Glenville through community empowerment initiatives, citizenship and life skills training.

Relevant quote closing handout::

I empower myself to live life with the window of the soul open to new thoughts of community and new ideas and aspirations of community empowerment. - Harold Ickes

Obviously, REALNEO fits well with GDC's vision. Expect to see a REALGlenville site deployed shortly.