y’all: The wecollab Plan is Here.
No, see you don’t understand how exciting this is: the Plan is Here. El Plano esta aqui! No? How about…プランはこちら (Puran wa kochira). Still nothing? Ok, Mpango uko Hapa. I joke, but seriously…this represents a historical moment that will shape the next 20 years of our neighborhood.
Residents of the West End/Visitation Park partnered with Yard & Company, Invest STL, and Cornerstone CDC to create a neighborhood plan, and the draft is finally ready for official city review and approval on June 14th.
Why is this Moment so Important?
Years ago… in 2018 the Year of Our Lord, residents started a planning process in the West End and Visitation Park. It was a simple time when no one locally outside of public health really appreciated the concept of “pandemic,” and it was unimaginable for corporations to have “Racial Equity and Justice” statements flashed across their websites for public consumption. It was then that we began to invite residents to imagine what was possible for their neighborhood, and have it become a drafted document to be adopted by the City of St. Louis as functional law. Hopes and dreams becoming law is incredibly powerful…and that is what the West End/Visitation Park plan represented.
Lisa Potts, Cornerstone CDC board member and resident leader, sharing her feedback, 2022.
Since the entire drafted plan to be presented to the City’s Planning Commission on June 14th is over 236 pages long, I thought I would highlight some of the key components.
weCollab Drafted Plan Highlights
Racial Equity is meaningfully centered in the plan
In many ways, racial equity is the primary framework and pursuit of the weCollab plan. It seeks to center well-being of residents, minimize the displacement, and monitor unintended consequences of development. In addition to the Racial Equity Proclamation and Statement, there are original Principles for Equitable Planning and Characteristics of Equitable Development crafted by the resident leaders of the plan.
Residents weren’t just included, residents’ Voice Built the Plan
In addition to the residents who made up the Steering Committee governing the planning process, resident voice framed up the entire plan. In all, 667 surveys were collected — saying nothing of the hundreds of informal conversations that shaped the content and provided the tone and cadence for the report, most clearly captured in the Project Themes and summary of survey responses.
West End residents completing a project survey used as content for the weCollab draft plan, June 2022.
There are Five Focus Areas for Development in west end/visitation park
This plan is intended to guide growth and development in an organized, meaningful, and equitable manner over the next 20 years and it starts with five focal areas in the neighborhood. These areas were selected for their geographic diversity, land availability, placemaking opportunities, and existing assets that might create momentum for the rest of the footprint. Those areas are Page and Blackstone, Hodiamont and Tracks, Maple and Goodfellow, and Delmar and DeBaliviere. It is important to note that we will not just focus on these cross streets, but also the immediate 5 to 10 block radius surrounding those intersections as well.
It is a Living Plan and an Actionable Plan…
The plan is the beginning of a series of new, fresh conversations with our neighbors once the plan is adopted. It is meant to guide development, but will continue to be responsive to the growing and changing desires of residents. That said, the plan is also packed with tactics for implementation across a 1 to 5 year timeframe and has a complementary work plan. That’s right: residents teamed up with technical experts and stakeholders to ensure that the plan is actionable.
it Honors the Need to Preserve Affordable Housing
Now this last one is included as a bit of a bias :-) Cornerstone CDC has maintained for decades that affordable housing is key to poverty alleviation and equity, and the residents agree. There is a call for innovative development, but it is coupled with a call to preserve affordability and intentional designing a plan to do so equitably. There is a Project Theme in fact that insists that the West End/Visitation Park must “Grow without Displacement” and that investment that welcomes new neighbors should not exist without intentional policies and actions in place that defend existing ones.
Hopes and dreams becoming law is incredibly powerful…and that is what the West End/Visitation Park plan represented.
Though this blog gives you just a taste of the drafted plan, we hope you take the time to read the full proposal. Cornerstone CDC stands with our neighbors as we eagerly await what is in store for our footprint. The plan is here!
Executive Director of Cornerstone CDC at weCollab kickoff, October 2021.
Read the full weCollab plan here.