REDEVELOPMENT 101: IF THE CRA WON'T DO IT, DO IT YOURSELF!

The City of Miami Community Redevelopment Agency's failure to reduce slum and blight is well documented and can be seen firsthand every day in the Park West and OMNI neighborhoods of Downtown Miami (see: Once full of hope, Park West now forgotten).  Beginning with the 1982 Redevelopment Plan, which has never been implemented (see 2008 comparison with 1982 plan), to the wasting of millions discovered in the 2003 Audit, to a report to the Miami City Comission by the 2005 CRA Oversight Committee which again confirmed that the CRA had not fulfilled its mission of reducing slum and blight. Finally the 2009 Formal Request for Legal and Performance Audit of CRA's documented that the CRA continues with its old practices of spending money on anything but fighting slum and blight. The last straw was the refusal of the CRA to fund a neighborhood beautification project requesting a meager $25,000 grant (of a total project cost of $65,000) in order to beautify nearly 500,000 s/f of blight, prompting a frustrated e-mail to the CRA Board (Why do projects which create jobs and reduce slum and blight never get funded by the CRA?)  

So what do you do if you have invested millions in the neighborhood and the slum and blight is putting your business and property at risk? - Redevelop the neighborhood yourself!

A group consisting of the OMNI PARK WEST REDEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (OPWRA) and GRAND CENTRAL, inspired by a recent post on transitmiami.com/ (Better City block by block Dallas as our example), decided to "just do it!"  Unemployed residents and homeless were hired to repair the curbs, improve the streets, landscape, and bulldoze the 5 acres of rocks on the site of the old Miami Arena.  "We've invested nearly $2 million in Grand Central, and it's important that the neighborhood be clean, safe and well lit." said Aramis Lorie, principal of the new venue, scheduled to open on May 13th (grandcentralmiami.com/).  Nearby residents were impressed.  "Its about time the CRA spent some money in this neighborhood," said a passerby.  "Unfortunately this is not the case," said Bradley Knoefler, President of OPWRA, "in the 10 years I have been here the CRA has not repaired a single sidewalk or repaved a single street despite having a $25 million annual budget and $70 million in the bank. It really is beginning to seem intentional rather than due to incompetence," he said.  Knoefler also called on absentee landowners to join in the cleanup effort, pointing at the lots across the street owned by Nitin Motwani, a board member of Downtown Development Authority.  The public parking lots, which have collapsing barbed wire fences and are overgrown with weeds, stood in stark contrast to the freshly painted streets, which appeared newly paved. "We've called code enforcement on that illegal lot for years but nothing has been done." he said.  "Maybe because he's a DDA Board member he gets special treatment but the reality is that people live and work here and it really is a slap in the face to local residents to keep your property in that condition."

In addition to vastly improving the surrounding block, the project had several positive impacts on residents' lives.  Barry Williams, homeless since the CRA demolished the church where he had lived as caretaker, used his earnings to move out of Camillus House into his own room at a local rooming house.  T-Bone Ford, who also worked on the project, was inspired and wanted to do more. "Maybe we can do something like this over in my neighborhood," he said, flashing a wide smile.