Post Dated: August 13, 2021
Open Letter about the Etzel Place Apartments VI and Meaning of Resident-Led Equitable Community Development
The West End & Visitation Park Development Review Committee seeks to promote quality, equitable residential and commercial development in the West End & Visitation Park neighborhoods, per the West End Plan (currently under development). We stand together as one neighborhood representing too many who have been denied agency in defining the future of their communities. We demand a reckoning of equitable development practices from real estate developers, regional housing authorities, funding agencies, and community partners both inside and outside of our neighborhood that centers, honors, and celebrates resident voice, especially that of people of color.
For years, the voices of neighborhood residents, especially neighborhoods with majority Black residents have been systemically excluded from tables at which design and planning decisions that shape their built environment take place. Denying the ability to literally map out one’s place in the world is to functionally marginalize a person, restricting sovereignty, wealth, and in many cases, peace.
We believe in the power of equitable planning to create Black spaces in which all are welcome and where the community is free to imagine revitalization on our own terms based on dignified processes that honor the local context and disrupt painful histories.
The West End & Visitation Park neighborhoods are continuing a resident-led planning process that has been iterative and evolving, but consistent in its mission to center the voice of residents. Through the plan, we will define the types and locations of the development that reflect our long-term outlook and commitment to broad alignment and support in decision-making. A critical part of this planning process will also inform our neighbors about best practices in equitable housing development including strategies for preventing displacement and increasing quality affordable housing. We want to ensure that every person, no matter their background or economic status has an opportunity to find a place in the neighborhood they can call home. We also must ensure that the racist and classist practices of concentrating poverty in sub-standard and poorly maintained housing does not continue.
We stand with our community and all neighborhoods that work to honor meaningful resident engagement because we believe community support is an essential component of advancing prosperity for everyone in our region, especially people of color and women. Moving development forward without community support reinforces historic patterns that reify racist systems of oppression. The Development Review Committee and West End Plan are community tools to propel us into an equitable future, knock down doors, and secure our seat at the table. To work in our neighborhoods we expect nothing less.
We call upon all real estate developers and investors, to respect the local context and voices of residents, in particular people of color, and urgently look to invest in partnerships with the dedicated neighborhood entities functioning as the anchor institutions for marginalized communities, namely: neighborhood groups, community development corporations, local schools and daycare centers, faith-based organizations, and community-based health care institutions.
We specifically call on CF Vatterott (dba K-M Housing LLC) to stop the Etzel Place Apartments VI development in our neighborhood at this time, reflecting the will and desire of the West End residents to complete the planning process that will ensure quality and distributed affordable housing.
We call on local governing authorities such as Missouri Housing Development Corporation and city and state elected officials to deepen their commitment to community voice, strengthening formal and informal communication channels with neighborhood groups and lowering the barriers to engagement through a new emphasis on civic accessibility and capacity-building for all residents.
We call on banks, funding authorities, financing partners, and all those, like Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust and Sterling Bank, with fiduciary responsibility over investment decisions to investigate the extent with which developers seek and secure local community support for development projects. Your commitments to racial equity and community revitalization must include meaningful inquiry into equitable community development practices driven by a heightened awareness of neighborhood-based efforts to reclaim spaces from exploitative development patterns.
We acknowledge the role of the Saint Louis Association of Community Organizations (SLACO) in moving the Etzel Place Apartment VI project forward without resident support and we recognize their apology and new commitment to restore their partnership with the West End & Visitation Park in good-faith.
We call upon our fellow neighborhood organizations to seek to continue to respect each neighborhood’s sovereignty, continuing to operate in a way that centers resident voice and resists practices that call for support in the absence of context. We hope you will be empowered to be patient.
We ask local governing bodies to be diligent in ensuring that BIPOC representation is considered in a beyond a surface level or standard MBE/WBE certification to ensure that those leading the development are actively advancing issues of diversity and representation in their respective fields.
Finally, we envision the West End and Visitation Park to be a neighborhood that is a unified, thriving, desirable community where history is embraced and all are welcome to make it home. Our collective response is based on the recognition that our region is at an inflection point where development must be truly intentional, collaborative, and trustable to begin to be restorative, just, and equitable.
In closing, we offer these nine characteristics of an equitable planning process and our hope that all residents will be regarded and heralded as designers of their own spaces, places, and worthy of respect:
· Accountable to Residents: the development process must be accountable to neighborhood resident and responsive to their stated needs and concern.
· Inclusive Outreach: participation reflects neighborhood residents.
· Meaningful Engagement: neighborhood participation includes leadership and decision making for external and internal planning work.
· Space for Healing: acknowledge past mistakes, historical harms and leave room for feelings, emotions, and listening.
· Honors Local Context: appreciate characteristics of a neighborhood and seek to build on local knowledge, assets, culture, and aspirations.
· Long Term Outlook: intentional about exploring long range effects of planning decisions.
· Strives for Consensus: prompts broad alignment and support for decision making.
· Examine “For Whom”: The process should constantly explore and question who benefits and who is burdened by plans.
· Iterative: The process is flexible, deliberate, and patient.
We hope this will be the beginning to a series of productive conversations that change inequitable community development practices.
West End & Visitation Park Development Review Committee
Read the original letter response from the West End & Visitation Park DRC to Vatterott Properties and see the timeline of events as well as next steps for the discussion.