Safeguard Properties - Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan

Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan

Monday, 11 June 2007

As outlined in Mayor Frank Jackson's 2007 State of the City Address, the City of Cleveland OH has created and commenced with a new strategy for development and revitalization.

Titled, Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan this new long-term comprehensive plan involves all aspects of city government and is spearheaded by the Departments of Economic and Community Development.

This version of the Citywide Plan is the first update since 1991, and represents several firsts for the City of Cleveland:

It incorporates into the implementation more than $1.5 billion of investment in the City of Cleveland through the Five-Year Capital Improvement Program.
It includes a unified development strategy for implementing the vision of the Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan developed by the Departments of Community Development and Economic Development.
It includes neighborhood plans for each of the City’s 36 neighborhoods.
It will be the first citywide plan that is readily accessible to residents and businesses through the City of Cleveland website.

To implement the Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan the City of Cleveland has developed a unified development strategy. The strategy focuses on innovative solutions to meeting the challenges and opportunities Cleveland faces. For example, it includes economic development agreements and water service agreements with suburban communities that will allow Greater Cleveland to compete as a region rather than competing within the region. Also, the strategy places an increased focus on sustainable, "green" building techniques.

Additionally, the unified strategy confronts one of the fastest growing issues facing Cleveland, vacant and distressed properties, in an innovative fashion. The recently submitted 2007 GO Bond Ordinance includes, for the first time, a line item for demolition. The amount of the line item, $3 million, is nearly double the amount of demolition money included in last year’s allocation from block grant funds. The corresponding savings in block grant funds will be invested in the home repair and rehabilitation programs, allowing the City of Cleveland to attack the issue from both sides: increased demolition of properties that are beyond repair, and increased funding for the rehabilitation of properties that are salvageable.

In crafting and presenting its vision, the Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan organizes the City around clusters of neighborhoods. This neighborhood-based structure allows the plan to focus holistically on each City neighborhood as a building block of the larger plan.

To assess current market conditions, Cleveland has developed a Neighborhood Market Typology that quantifies the relative strength of housing markets throughout the city. The typology analysis ranked seven factors available for every one- and two- family property in the city.

Average assessed home value (2005)
Change in value (1990 – Current)
Net Change in number of homes (1990 – Current)
Percent sold at Sheriff’s Sale (12 month ending 7/24/2006)
Percentage of homes boarded or condemned (as of 5/2006)
Percentage of units rated “Fair” or lower by the County auditor (2003)
Homeownership rates (2000)

The results were used to place neighborhood markets in one of five categories:

Regional Choice - Areas of high value, strong appreciation, and excellent condition. The market here is robust. The public intervention should support the maintenance of community standards.
Stable – Areas of stable value and good condition. The public intervention should be to maintain community standards. Several near-downtown and center-city areas have recently achieved this status and may require support of emerging community standards through design review or similar intervention.
Transitional - Areas with moderate housing values and signs of physical distress or market distress with significant foreclosure. Individual investment needs to be supported by rebranding, development of anchor projects or concentrated rehabilitation of vacant and abandoned homes on a targeted basis near an established anchor or community asset.
Fragile – Areas with low housing values, low appreciation marked by demolition and abandonment. Rebranding, the development of new markets and/or an anchor project to redefine the area will be needed.
Distressed – Area of low value, low appreciation, significant demolition and abandonment. May be an area where residential uses are not the best and highest use. In areas with a residential future an anchor project will be needed to reestablish a market.

To view the full report, please click here.

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Safeguard Properties is the largest privately held field services company in the country. Located in Cleveland, OH and founded in 1990 by Robert Klein, Safeguard has grown from a regional preservation company with a few employees and a handful of contractors performing services in the Midwest, to a national company with over 425 employees. Safeguard is supported by a nationwide network of subcontractors able to perform any requested superintendence, preservation, and maintenance functions, as well as numerous ancillary services in the U.S., the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.