SECTION TWO

Leverage and Build Upon Existing Assets and Initiatives

Of the numerous programs that the assessment team identified during its visits, two initiatives
that regional leaders should showcase as the centerpieces of their blueprint for revitalizing and
reclaiming vacant properties rose to the surface: (1) the use of universities, schools, and
hospitals as reinvestment anchors; and (2) the revision of general plans and modernization of
local zoning codes to facilitate revitalization.

The Miami Valley need not look far for examples of neighborhood revitalization success, such as
the initial redevelopment of Wright-Dunbar historic area, CityWide’s new downtown lofts,
Trotwood’s redesign for Salem Mall, the technology business parks (e.g., Air-Plex) and urban
village (Tech Town Phase One), and the Fifth-Third ballpark. Dayton area hospitals and
universities have also served as catalysts for neighborhood revitalization. The Miami Valley
should further expand these homegrown initiatives. The outstanding challenge is to determine
how to transfer the momentum from these pockets of successful revitalization outward to
adjacent places and neighborhoods.

Regional Attributes and Assets

Among the many positive attributes that give the Miami Valley significant potential for
redeveloping vacant properties, the assessment team noted the following:
• Location/geography: Good access to other regions of Ohio and nearby states, strong
transportation linkages within the region, and a downtown core with new attractions (such
as the performing arts center and Riverscape) and a good integration of older urban fabric
with more recent new development
• Regional organization and commitment to improve: Several organizations—especially the
sponsors of this project and some of the region’s most influential and capable community
and economic development leaders and practitioners⎯that have been actively engaged in
organizing available resources to improve the region’s potential for economic growth
• Anchor institutions: Academic and health care institutions that employ many residents,
contributing to the region’s status as a center of the “knowledge industry” and serving as
anchors for neighborhood revitalization strategies based on the principle of “building from
strength”
• Rich land use planning tradition: Dayton and the Miami Valley have a long history of
innovation in land use planning and zoning, especially in the realm of civic engagement.
They should leverage existing planning and zoning reforms to serve as catalysts for the
vacant property revitalization and reclamation.
• Implementers: Capable community and economic development organizations—COUNTY
CORP, CityWide, Dayton Development Coalition—with strong track records in
development, many public-agency staff members with significant experience in relevant
activities (such as code enforcement, blight removal, housing, site assemblage, and property
development), and a number of nonprofit organization leaders and staff with similar
experience at the neighborhood level.

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 Universities, Schools, and Hospitals as Reinvestment Anchors
Miami Valley academic and health care institutions serve as anchors for the neighborhoods
where they are located, and they can play important roles in stimulating investment and
development in these areas. In light of the number of institutions located in the region, and their
status as major employers and owners of real estate, these entities could serve as the centerpieces
of a regional reinvestment strategy.

The Miami Valley, like many metropolitan regions in the Northeast and Midwest, became a
population and business center during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because of
the rapid growth of the nation’s manufacturing sector, this region was considered an excellent
place to establish and expand colleges, universities, hospitals, and research centers. These
academic and health care institutions developed their facilities outside the business districts of
central cities, in nearby neighborhoods, or in relatively unpopulated areas where residential
communities subsequently grew up around the institutional campus. As major employers and
property owners, these institutions helped define the regional environment and the identities of
the neighborhoods and municipalities where they are located.

While the decades-long trend of population decline and job loss in older metropolitan areas
would be a major concern to any business enterprise, the academic and health care institutions in
the Miami Valley have a greater stake in the region’s future because most of them, unlike many
private businesses, do not have the ability to move elsewhere. Thus, it is in their best interests to
actively promote economic revitalization in the region.

In collaboration with area wide nonprofit organizations (e.g., COUNTY CORP and CityWide),
the city of Dayton, Montgomery County, local banks, adjacent neighborhood groups, and
academic and health care institutions have already begun several redevelopment initiatives in the
region:
• Miami Valley Hospital—The Genesis Project: Since the project began in 2000, the hospital
has removed forty-one structures, rehabilitated eleven single-family houses, and constructed
twenty-three new houses in the Fairgrounds neighborhood and Brown-Warren Business
District.

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• Good Samaritan Hospital—the Phoenix Project: Preliminary plans call for redeveloping the
greater Fairview neighborhood over the next five years by improving home ownership
through new construction and rehabilitation of single-family homes and for improving the
commercial areas that serve as gateways to the hospital.
• United Theological Seminary: Last year’s sale of the Jewish Federation Center to the United
Theological Seminary provides Trotwood with an opportunity to expand and link the future
seminary and its eighty-acre campus with plans to revitalize the Salem Avenue corridor and
the current Salem Mall.1

Local efforts can be guided by the experiences of institutions in other cities that have led or
participated in a variety of vacant-land reclamation and development activities and housing-
preservation initiatives. For example, the West Philadelphia Initiative, launched in the mid
1990s, is a very ambitious redevelopment project led by the University of Pennsylvania.

West Philadelphia Initiatives—University of Pennsylvania as Developer

Penn’s trustees, the university’s president, and its senior administrators took the lead for a
series of redevelopment activities:
• Participating in the creation of a special services district (funded by grants from
institutions and foundations, not by a property tax assessment) to help make the
neighborhood adjacent to the university “clean and safe”
• Promoting a targeted, employer-assisted housing program that included an incentive
for university employees to buy homes in nearby neighborhoods, as well as matching
grants to encourage employees who currently owned homes in these neighborhoods to
undertake exterior-improvement projects
• Developing new retail facilities on vacant or underused land, with priority
consideration given to retail services that appeal to neighborhood residents as well to
students and faculty (e.g., supermarkets, movie theaters, and bookstores)
• Acquiring and rehabilitating vacant single-family houses for subsequent sale to home
buyers; and acquiring, rehabilitating, and managing vacant or deteriorated apartment
buildings
• Collaborating with the school district and teachers’ union to develop a new, high-
quality public elementary school in a neighborhood adjacent to the University of
Pennsylvania’s campus.
Source: John Kromer and Lucy Kerman, “West Philadelphia Initiatives—A Case Study in
Urban Revitalization,” Fels Institute of Government (2004) www.sas.upenn.edu/fels/

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Although academic and health care institutions in the Miami Valley region might not have the
resources to adopt an approach as wide-ranging and capital-intensive as the University of
Pennsylvania’s (see box previous page), similar strategies and interventions should be considered
for possible refinement and replication in the Miami Valley region. A critical ingredient to the
success of the West Philadelphia Initiatives was the leadership provided by senior administration
rather than by a community affairs officer or by faculty and students engaged in community-
service activities. Even in locations where an institution is not playing a direct development role,
the stability of the institutional campus can make it an important element of neighborhood
strategic plans based on a principle of “building from strength.”

Similar anchoring strategies for local universities and hospitals could also extend to public and
private schools (K-12). Successful neighborhood schools can serve as catalysts for community
revitalization and economic development. Several cities across the nation are leveraging high-
school reform as a way to engage neighborhoods and municipal leaders.2 In fact, Dayton public
schools have begun a pilot project to reform six schools as community centers (see box below).

Dayton’s Neighborhood School Centers Project

The city of Dayton, Montgomery County, and the Dayton School Board have begun to
revitalize six area elementary and middle schools as neighborhood centers. With support from
the Dayton Foundation (a $365,000 planning grant), the Raymond Fitz Center for Leadership
at the University of Dayton is leading the current strategic planning effort. The goal is to
launch a wide range of community activities and programs along with the physical
renovations of these six pilot schools by the fall of 2006. Dayton’s public schools are already
spending hundreds of millions of dollars to remodel their buildings after approval of a bond
issue in 2004, so why not design these schools to serve as centers for neighborhood services
as well? Each school will offer a menu of recreation and medical and social services,
depending on the neighborhood’s needs. The Dayton Daily News editorial on January 15,
2005, remarked, “By turning its schools into genuine community centers, Dayton’s schools
are trying to make precious resources go further. The model they’re creating shouldn’t just
apply to schools.”

The Fitz Center designed and facilitated a collaborative process for selecting the schools and
encouraging ownership in the project by executive-level officials from the city, county, and
school district. The six pilot schools represent different locations, with diverse institutional
partners in neighborhoods with histories of active associations. School officials talked
directly with adjacent neighborhoods and individual school staff along with prospective social
and recreational service providers. They also met with principals and potential partners,
created an oversight council, and coordinated media relations.
For more information see http://clc.udayton.edu
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POLICY RECOMMENDATION: The Miami Valley academic and health care institutions
should serve as the centerpieces of the region’s overall economic and community
development strategy.

• ACTION ITEM: Business leaders, foundations, and policy makers, together with
university presidents, school district officials, and health care CEOs should convene a
roundtable to identify concrete ways to expand and enhance existing initiatives for
stimulating reinvestment and development within those neighborhoods that exist within
and near the spheres of institutional influence.

• ACTION ITEM: Identify and seek out other potential institutions, such as regional and
local churches, representatives from Wright Pattern AFB, and Wright State University,
and engage their leadership in a dialogue on ways in which these institutions could
facilitate revitalization and redevelopment in adjacent neighborhoods.

• ACTION ITEM: Consider the possibility of locating and building satellite institutional
facilities on vacant and abandoned properties, especially in those neighborhoods that
have histories of institutional support.

Reform Zoning Codes and Comprehensive Plans

To Facilitate Vacant Property Revitalization

For the past three years, the city of Dayton has engaged in a collaborative process to modernize
its thirty-five-year-old zoning code (see box next page). Having a modern zoning code and a
more efficient approval process could provide developers with greater certainty and could help to
attract private reinvestment back to the city. A new zoning code could further support the
framework for a series of neighborhood reinvestment plans as discussed in Section Three of this
assessment report.

Local governments throughout the Miami Valley should also consider modernizing their zoning
codes as a way to attract private reinvestment back to the region’s core communities and
neighborhoods. Many traditional zoning ordinances have cumbersome procedures that can delay
development projects. Moreover, these rules often make it difficult to revitalize older
neighborhoods. Traditional zoning codes often do not allow for the construction of mixed-use
developments that have been at the forefront of urban revitalization. Over the past five years, a
growing number of communities have revised their zoning ordinances in favor of new, form-

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based districts. These zoning innovations can help to facilitate mixed-use projects, expedite
approvals, and serve as an incentive for revitalizing priority neighborhoods.

Dayton’s Cutting-Edge Zoning Code

Dayton first set a new vision by revising its comprehensive plan in 1999. Citi-Plan 2020
called for a comprehensive rewrite of Dayton’s thirty-five-year-old zoning code. The 1969
zoning code set forth the classic separation of uses that created typical suburban
development—subdivisions and strip malls. Starting in 2002, the zoning-code update sought
to reduce the overall length of the code and to simplify regulations and processes while
stimulating attractive, orderly development. The assessment team found the pending draft
code to be an outstanding model that other cities should follow. It focuses on protecting the
existing character of Dayton’s diverse neighborhoods (e.g., eclectic and mature districts) by
preserving traditional, high-density neighborhoods with smaller lots. The new code also
allows for more housing options that, for example, make it easier to build live-work and
accessory dwelling units. With respect to commercial development, the proposed code creates
nodes along the major arterial roads in an effort to cluster underperforming commercial strips
and vacant storefronts. The city’s planning department and its plan board managed the
public-participation process, known as Designing Dayton—Strengthening Our Future through
Zoning. As of the release of the Campaign’s assessment report, city of Dayton staff anticipate
holding hearings before the plan board and city commission for final approval during the late
summer and fall of 2005.

POLICY RECOMMENDATION: The city of Dayton should adopt the pending update of
its zoning code and should provide sufficient training and education for its staff and the
development community so that everyone can easily understand and use the new code.

POLICY RECOMMENDATION: Borrowing from Dayton’s experience in modernizing its

zoning code, other jurisdictions within the Miami Valley should consider revising their
zoning codes to foster and facilitate revitalization of vacant properties within certain core
neighborhoods and districts.

• ACTION ITEM: Convene a series of local workshops that will explore Dayton’s
revised zoning code in depth, and schedule a session at the next Miami Valley
Planning and Zoning Workshop, to be held in December 2005.

Vacant-property revitalization and reclamation should also be incorporated into local

comprehensive plans. Dayton’s Citi-Plan 2020 already provides a solid planning foundation by
establishing a series of city-wide goals that city officials regularly monitor and update.3
Revising this plan so that it includes policy objectives that specifically include vacant properties
can provide a measure of institutional guidance to ensure that revitalization and reclamation

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remain top priorities. Several jurisdictions within the Miami Valley have revised their
comprehensive plans or are in the process of doing so.4 These revised plans should include
specific vacant-property revitalization goals and guidance.

As part of its successful renaissance, Portland, Oregon, revised its comprehensive plan to
connect vacant-property revitalization with regional and local land use planning objectives.
Most people might not know that in 1988 Portland had nearly 3,000 vacant and abandoned
properties. By employing an effective blend of growth management strategies and a strong
network of community development groups, and by integrating brownfields redevelopment at the
neighborhood and community levels, Portland revitalized and reclaimed thousands of vacant and
underused properties.
Portland’s Comprehensive Planning for Vacant-Property Revitalization
Portland’s comprehensive plan affirmed the city’s role as the center of the region’s housing
market by ensuring that the plan would provide for an adequate supply of housing to meet the
needs, preferences, and financial capabilities of current and future households. Portland’s
plan pledged to designate sufficient buildable land to accommodate the city’s fair share of
regional household growth and to reduce the need to expand the urban growth boundaries.
State laws required that sufficient developable land be available inside growth boundaries to
meet expected demand over the next twenty years, thus giving the city a significant incentive
to identify all unused parcels for future residential development.
Redevelopment of vacant, underdeveloped, and infill lands was integral to meeting Portland’s
housing goals. In its comprehensive plan, the city’s vacant-property objectives included
• Encouraging the efficient use of infrastructure by focusing well-designed new and
redevelopment housing on vacant, infill, or underdeveloped lands
• Reducing nonregulatory barriers to the development of vacant residentially zoned
sites
• Encouraging investment in the development, redevelopment, rehabilitation, and
adaptive reuse of urban land and buildings for housing opportunities
• Enhancing the quality of the design of new infill residential development
• Redeveloping surface parking lots to accommodate housing and mixed-use
development
• Promoting the development and preservation of quality housing that is affordable
across the full spectrum of household incomes.
Source: Naomi Friedman, “Portland Case Study,” available at
www.icma.org/vacantproperties.

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POLICY RECOMMENDATION: The city of Dayton and its core communities should
amend existing strategic and land use plans (comprehensive and community-wide) with
explicit policy objectives that address vacant properties; these plans should also refer to the
network of community-reinvestment plans.

• ACTION ITEM: Schedule a session on amending comprehensive plans with

specific vacant property goals and objectives for the next Miami Valley Planning and
Zoning Workshop, to be held in December 2005.

1
“Seminary Move Could Revitalize Salem Avenue,” Dayton Daily News, August 14, 2004.
2
“We believe that it takes a whole city to reform high schools and to build the necessary structures for learning.
Only by establishing true community learning places can cities restore to high schools and their students a sense of
place.” Elliot Washor, cofounder of the Big Picture Company (www.bigpicture.org), “Successful Schools Can
Contribute to Community Revitalization,” National League of Cities Weekly, March 24, 2005.
3
In 2003, the city convened a special working group to update the economic development component of the plan.
However, the assessment team could not determine whether the working group identified new or supplemental
economic development goals and established new priorities for subsequent implementation for 2004 and 2005 and
beyond.
4
Trotwood and Kettering have recently finished revisions to their comprehensive plans.

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