After nearly a year of two-steps-forward-one-step-back progress, the BWNA-initiated grassroots organization known as United Neighborhoods for Reform (UNR) has achieved two of its main objectives: 1) uniting a wide range of neighborhood associations to craft and endorse a common resolution for demolition/development reforms; and 2) presenting the resolution’s recommendations at City Council hearings. It was a journey replete with hours of organization, volumes of internal debate and a slew of public testimony, all a prelude to the home stretch ahead: adoption and implementation of reforms.
From the start, doubts abounded: would it be possible to attract interest from around the city? Was it feasible to craft a common resolution that could garner endorsements in a timely way from so many different neighborhood associations? And even if that succeeded, under what circumstances would it be possible to argue for that resolution before the City Council? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what hope was there that a skeptical political establishment would ever consider adopting such reforms?
Yet UNR succeeded. From a nascent gathering of like-minded neighborhood association leaders and preservation activists at “Summit I” to a packed room of representatives from over two dozen neighborhoods at “Summit II” to the naming of the organization and assembling of a Draft Proposal Committee at “Summit III” to the eventual compressing of over 50 recommended items into a one-page resolution that went on to be endorsed by neighborhood associations representing close to half the city’s residents. The resolution can be accessed via UNR’s blog http://unitedneighborhoodsforeform.blogspot.com.
And what about relations with City Hall? Grassroots support for the movement increased, local media picked up on the story and doors began to open for UNR. The Bureau of Development Services, in charge of demolition permits, months earlier had created a committee to consider demolition reforms and UNR representatives were invited in February to sit down at the negotiating table to hammer out the final details on a proposal for City Council including improved demolition notification and warning procedures and a compromise demolition delay provision for the purpose of seeking alternatives to demolition. Meanwhile, UNR was able to effectively advocate for its full spectrum of reforms at two City Council public hearings through a series of carefully orchestrated 2-3 minute testimonies along with submitted documents. Emphasis was placed on preserving older viable, affordable homes, regulating the footprint of new replacement homes to better fit the existing fabric of a neighborhood (one of Mayor Hales’ stated priorities in his State of the City address), holding developers accountable for inspection and abatement of hazardous materials at demolition sites and mandating a program for deconstruction (recycling of materials for reuse). With the mayor and other Council members committed to pursuing these reforms, UNR has emerged as a player at the table—a force to be reckoned with at City Hall.