Five years out, the Philadelphia Inquirer reviews Mayor Street's anti-blight program. Philly.com |

Street's fight against blight proceeds ahead of schedule

By Anthony S. Twyman

Inquirer Staff Writer


Buoyed by an improved residential real estate market, Mayor Street's multimillion-dollar effort to reduce blight in city neighborhoods has surpassed many of its goals thus far, according to city officials.

Although critics say the five-year program has failed to create enough new housing in its first 21/2 years to replace the city's many rundown buildings and vacant lots, Street says that as a new year begins, he "couldn't be more pleased."

"The Neighborhood Transformation Initiative has, in many cases, exceeded its expectations," the mayor said in an interview with reporters. "We have had neighborhoods in this city within the last year [that] have literally turned the corner in desirability and livability."

City officials paint a pleasing picture of the initiative, citing the following accomplishments as of June 30:

5,507 houses and apartments for low-income residents have been built or renovated. The goal was 3,500 in five years.

6,839 houses and apartments have been built or started in large-scale developments consisting of 40 or more homes. The goal was 2,000 homes in five years.

6,885 buildings have been demolished or are under contract to be demolished. The goal was 8,000 to 10,000 demolitions in five years.

13,962 homeowners have received grants or low-interest loans to repair their homes. The goal was 4,500 preservation investments in five years.

The initiative helped developers build or plan the construction of 7,653 market-rate homes. The five-year goal was 6,000.

Aided by the city's 10-year tax abatement for new residential construction and the lowest mortgage rates in more than 30 years, the initiative also has benefited from a real estate boom in the city that has pushed up median house prices 26 percent over five years.

"If you think of the NTI proceeds as a stimulus to jump-start other activities... it has succeeded," said Patricia L. Smith, director of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative.

Still, perspective is everything when it comes to the mayor's initiative, so although some residents praise it, others say it is misguided.

"I like what the NTI program has done," said Lillian Ford, 38, who lives in a working-class neighborhood in the city's Germantown section. Ford said the city recently tore down three houses, including one that had become a hangout for neighborhood youths who drank alcohol on its steps, a half-block from her home. The city replaced the houses with grass and small trees, and it enclosed the lot with a wooden fence.

"It's a part of the neighborhood now, more so than a blight on the neighborhood," said Ford, who has lived on the 300 block of Berkley Street for 28 years.

Across town, many working-class residents in North Philadelphia's Norris Square neighborhood tell a different story.

"We're the ones in the trenches who are experiencing their rosy picture, and it's a lie," said Rosemary Cubas, who has lived on the 2100 block of North Second Street for more than three decades.

Cubas said residents in her neighborhood recently united to stop the city from tearing down two vacant houses and a storefront church near her house. "They're not taking blighted properties," said Cubas, a member of a group called the Citywide Coalition to Save Our Homes. "They're taking solid, well-organized communities and destroying them."

The residents sent a letter to the Philadelphia Housing Authority, which owned one of the houses, asking the authority not to let the city demolish it. Cubas said PHA fixed the property, which had been damaged by a fire in 2003, and moved in a new tenant.

Cubas said residents also persuaded the owner of the second house to sell to a new owner, who is rehabilitating it.

In the case of the church, which was not vacant, residents discovered that the city had mistakenly listed it as blighted, Cubas said.

Cynthia Bayete, a spokeswoman for the initiative, said that she was not familiar with the specifics of Cubas' assertions but that there could have been an error.

Robert Solvibile Sr., the city's acting Licenses and Inspections commissioner, was not familiar with the specifics of the church but said if it appeared to be vacant and had building code violations, it might have been put on the demolition list when officials toured the neighborhood.

"The only way we would identify an occupied property [for demolition] is if it was imminently dangerous," Solvibile said.

Bayete said the initiative tries to solicit neighborhood input before slating homes for demolition. "This is one of the integral parts of NTI of listening to neighborhood concerns and adjusting," she said.

The divergent opinions about the mayor's initiative show how difficult it is to gauge whether the program is making a lasting difference.

Some say it helped rid many neighborhoods of the hulking, vacant buildings that kept potential developers away. "The clearance project was the important first step, and that has been done well," said Edward Schwartz, a former city housing director and former City Council member who now heads the nonprofit Institute for the Study of Civic Values.

Others see problems. In her new book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It, Mindy Fullilove, a Columbia University clinical psychiatry professor, says urban renewal programs, such as the one in Philadelphia, leave psychological scars on displaced residents.

"What must be heard in these stories of urban renewal - their emotional core - is the howl of amputation... and the rage at poverty imposed through repeated dispossession," she writes.

Fullilove devotes a chapter in her book to describing David Jenkins, born in 1947, who was displaced, with his family, from a home in Philadelphia's Eastwick section during the 1950s by an urban renewal project that made way for Philadelphia International Airport.

"In the early days, he would often run back... and sit by his old house and cry," wrote Fullilove, who visited the city several times.

In a phone interview, Fullilove recommended that instead of demolishing homes, the city invest in education, safer streets and job training.

City officials say that seizing property is not a task they take lightly but that sometimes it must be done for the good of the entire community. As many as 250 property owners may be relocated to some of the newly built homes and to other locations at the city's expense as a result of the mayor's initiative, according to the city. Since 2002, more than 1,229 houses have been demolished, and 2,361 more are under contract to be demolished soon. These homes are part of a total 6,885 demolitions either completed or under contract as part of the initiative.

The mayor's initiative is investing $275 million in city bond funds, $250 million in federal funds, and more than $50 million in city general funds in hundreds of projects and programs, from removing abandoned cars to planting grass on vacant lots. (Although the initiative began in 2001, it did not receive City Council's approval for the bonds until 2002.)

Private foundations and companies have pledged more than $1 million toward the effort. Street also has tried to reorganize the many city agencies that developers must navigate when seeking to build.

Michael S. Schurr, president of OKKS Development L.P., said the initiative has helped the community groups his company works with by acquiring and demolishing vacant properties. Schurr's company is helping build more than 150 houses in the Cecil B. Moore Avenue area of North Philadelphia and 50 houses in the Juniata section.

"What we're hoping to do is create blocks where people want to be there, where they want to take pride in the neighborhood," Schurr said. "Without NTI, none of these things would be happening."

Progress Report on Neighborhood Program

The following is what city officials say Mayor Street's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative had achieved as of June 30, 2004:

Activity Five-Year Goal Progress

Market-rate Help create 6,000 new homes 7,653 homes built,

housing development under construction, or planned

Low-income Help build and/or renovate 5,507 houses and apartments built

housing development 3,500 new homes

Large-scale Help build 2,000 new homes 6,839 homes built, planned

housing development or under way

of 40 or more homes

Demolitions 8,000 to 10,000 buildings 6,885 buildings demolished

or under contract to be demolished

Housing preservation Make 4,500 investments 13,962 investments made

investments (loans and

grants to homeowners)

SOURCE: Philadelphia Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation


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Contact staff writer Anthony S. Twyman at 215-854-2664 or at atwyman@phillynews.com