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City of Lincoln Urban Development Department Mayor's Neighborhood Roundtable Meeting Agenda and Summary November 2007

Chairperson Tracy Lines Corr called the meeting to order at 5:33 P.M., Thursday, November 8, 2007, in the Mayor’s Conference Room, County/City Building, Lincoln, Nebraska. Twenty participants attended.

Tracy Lines Corr, 40th & A St. Neigh. Assoc.	Jeff Schwebke, Arnold Heights Neigh. Assoc.
Cherie Krueger, East Campus Com. Org.	Paula Rhian, Everett Neigh. Assoc. / NE Dept. of Econ. Dev.
Ruth Johnson, Hartley Neigh. Assoc.	Dorothy Ebner, Hartley Neigh. Assoc.
Gary Irvin, South Salt Creek Com. Org.	Gail Anderson, University Place Com. Org.
Larry Frisch, Witherbee Neigh. Assoc.	Erik Laing, Free to Grow
Russell Miller, Lincoln Neigh. Alliance	Michael Snodgrass, NeighborWorks®Lincoln
Shawn Ryba, NeighborWorks®Lincoln	Lynn Fisher, REOMA
Harry Haefer, Linc./Lanc. Health Dept.	Rick Hoppe, Mayor’s Office
Lin Quenzer, Mayor’s Office	Wynn Hjermstad, Urban Development Dept.
Nancy Engel, Urban Development Dept.	Mayor Beutler

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Ms. Corr opened the meeting and asked the participants to introduce themselves. A sign-in sheet was provided for check-in.

Nancy Engel announced two items regarding the graffiti program – UNL Big Event and LUC Opportunities. Please contact Nancy (441-5658) for details.

MAYOR’S COMMENTS
Mayor Beutler mentioned four items. First, this morning the Mayor appointed Greg MacLean Director of Public Works and Utilities Department. He has extensive experience with several different cities. The Mayor hopes Mr. MacLean will be a fine communicator including communicating with neighborhoods. He will start mid-December.

Second, the Emerald Ash Borer was discovered in Michigan destroying ash trees. This insect spreads a disease that may be as devastating as the Dutch Elm disease several years ago. The borer has spread out of Michigan east to Pennsylvania and crossed Illinois entering Iowa. Unless a solution is found in four or five years, it will be here and could kill our ash trees that are approximately one-fourth of our trees. The City will be working with our environmental committee to come up with recommendations for action – not to plant ash trees, to protect existing ash trees, what to do in the future when ash trees are cut down, and what to do to replant trees.

Third, starting this morning, the City is having extended discussions on city street rights-of-way and uses of rights-of-way. Jonathan Cook has taken a long interest in how rights-of-way are used and has been advocating for a more reasonable set of laws dealing with that – fences, walls, plants, and anything that shows up in City right-of-way. How do we deal with it? Do we require a permit, insurance? Should it be taken down? The biggest concern is that matters have not been treated uniformly in the past. All the department heads met this morning. The Legal Department is taking input and working further with them to develop suggested policy in the form of an ordinance. The Mayor’s office will work over the language of the ordinance about a month from now. Then, we will seek input from the City Council and neighborhoods and other groups to see if we can put together a policy that is more rational, more neighborhood friendly, and more fair in the way it is administered and the rules that pertain.

Fourth, Dan Marvin, City Council member, is working on proposals he intends to apply to neighborhoods generally. These proposals are along a variety of lines with the purpose of strengthening neighborhoods. The Mayor will meet with Dan and plans to work with him on the package. It is a great idea because the Mayor is concerned about neighborhoods.

Mayor Beutler took questions and discussion followed with the Roundtable regarding:

• the proposed 10th Street & Military Road project
• flood plain concerns
• the proposed arena project

NEIGHBORWORKS®LINCOLN
Michael Snodgrass, Executive Director of NeighborWorks®Lincoln (NW®L), presented information about his organization. He briefly covered his experience in community development over the past 18 years and showed slides of some residential and commercial projects he completed in the Kansas City area. Michael started his current position August 1, 2007. NW®L was established in 1986 and was the first non-profit organization in Nebraska offering home-buyer education. It was among the first in the nation establishing a home building program for high school students. NW®L was the first Nebraska organization to become a member of the NeighborWorks®Network. Some of their programs include: full-cycle lending, home-buyer education, mortgage counseling, mortgage foreclosure prevention (starting soon), housing construction and repair, and neighborhood leadership training. Also, NW®L is the neighborhood champion for the Antelope Valley Project.

NW®L is able to leverage more money for the neighborhoods using HOME Investment Partnership Fund (federal funds) provided by the Urban Development Department. NW®L offers first-time home buyer programs for down payment assistance and/or rehabilitation at 0% interest.

• In the Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area (NRSA), up to $25,000 forgivable over a ten-year period,
• In the Low- to Moderate-Income (LMI) area, up to $15,000 half forgivable over five years and the balance deferred until sale of the property, and
• Outside the LMI but within the city limits, up to $15,000 is deferred until sale of the property.

Home ownership is a neighborhood challenge. The national average is about 70% and the state average is about 68%. The home ownership average for the City of Lincoln is about 60%. According Michael, these are some examples of neighborhood home ownership rates (2000 Census):

	Everett/Near South/Downtown (Tract 20)	-- 6.4%
	Near South	-- 12.8%
	Downtown/Woods Park	-- 14%
	Malone & Hartley	-- 14%
	North Bottoms	-- 26.6%
	College View	-- 34.4%
	East Campus	-- 35.9%
	Clinton	-- 39%
	South Salt Creek	-- 46.6%

In community development thinking, an average less than 55% is a danger zone. The danger is further collapse – more people moving out than moving in. When the average home ownership falls below 55%, the perception of the neighborhood changes. Statistics show the higher the home ownership rate, the safer and more sound the neighborhood. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy by which the neighborhood becomes a better place. The decline does not happen overnight – it takes decades. The challenge is about a 10-year window to turn these neighborhoods around.

Programs and new development need to be put in place in these neighborhoods to move back toward the 55% tipping point. A map representing NW®L projects shows, when given a choice, people choose to take advantage of the money available in the NRSA, but just inside the boundary – not the core area. NW®L will move in a new direction. The home buyer program will continue with the addition of more new construction of single-family homes, speculative acquisition/rehabilitation of single family dwellings, minor home repair, a focus on crime and safety, infrastructure needs, and parks/school involvement. Lincoln has very good schools and should be proud of the school system. This is an asset that we can build on to improve neighborhoods.

Another issue is sprawl. As Lincoln continues to sprawl, infrastructure funds are spent on new development in farmland and also major arteries into the city. Older neighborhoods typically suffer a vicious cycle. Existing housing stock and infrastructure is aging. Homeowners move to areas on the fringes or areas of new development leaving properties in the core that become rentals. Rental stock ages and new rentals are built on the fringes promoting a high vacancy rate. Then, the older neighborhoods experience concentrations of lower income people. Commercial/retail development then follows the money out of the core area. A program NWL will look to create is a rental conversion program – acquiring several rental properties in a concentrated area and converting them to owner-occupied properties.

NW®L will expand its neighborhood involvement by looking at policy changes. New tools are needed and existing tools may need to be tweaked. Some examples of what other communities are doing include: state historic tax credits, code enforcement tools, public nuisance ordinances (with teeth), rental licensing of single-family and duplex dwellings, and overall funding for neighborhoods. NW®L will initially staff the Lincoln Policy Network with the hope that all the neighborhoods and neighborhood residents will want to participate. Many neighborhoods are attempting to affect their neighborhood, but this effort will be to coalesce these several activities into a more formalized structure that is able to create and tweak the needed tools. Eventually, the Mayor and city staff will be involved to work with us to create those tools. Initially, the focus will be neighborhoods getting together to talk about policy.

NW®L wants to accomplish more community development in our neighborhoods. NW®L wants to work with city and state partners to achieve this goal, but most of all involvement of the neighborhoods and neighborhood residents is needed. Right now the focus of efforts will be in the Heart of Lincoln neighborhoods.

SET DECEMBER AGENDA
The next meeting of the Mayor’s Neighborhood Roundtable is scheduled for December 13, 2007, 5:30 p.m., in the Mayor’s Conference Room, County/City Building, 555 South 10th Street, 2nd floor. The December agenda will include a presentation by Chief Niles Ford, Lincoln Fire Department.

ADJOURN
There being no other business, the meeting adjourned at 6:27 p.m.

Submitted by David G. Ensign
Urban Development Department

Urban Development Community Development Division Mayor's Neighborhood Roundtable

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