Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s economic development plan, released yesterday, has a major focus on sustainability as a way to “change the trajectory of Ohio’s economy”. The plan calls for investing in regional assets in order to build sustainable, connected, vibrant communities.

Specifically, the state will invest in advanced energy and environmental technologies to raise electricity supplied by advanced energy from 10 to 25 percent. And it calls for a renewal of the Clean Ohio Fund to push Development Ready Sites supported by public investment from 3,774 to 15,000 acres by the year 2020.

The plan calls for an Ohio Green Places to promote and develop programs and policies that will advance the goal of making Ohio the leading state for sustainable green development. This will include building an advanced energy business sector with a robust supply chain and a green building industry.

Read more.

Location(s)

A major state policy conference sponsored by Greater Ohio and the Brookings Institutution on the land use, transportation, and economic development policies needed to support the revitalization of Ohio's cities.

Agenda and registration information.

A pair of public meetings tonight begin to shape the future for two of Cleveland’s prime destinations: The Flats and University Circle.

First, Ohio Canal Corridor and the City of Cleveland will introduce the Canal Basin District Plan. The focus of the plan is on “connections”—trail, bikeway, public transit and pedestrian boardwalks—to and from a new 21-acre urban park at the last oxbow in the river with major redevelopment activity in the Flats. Canal Basin Park will serve as the destination or jump off point for the Towpath Trail, but beyond that goal, how it integrates with the boardwalk along the river to Flats East Bank and to public spaces in and around the Flats and Cuyahoga Riverfront are still up for discussion.

Going on at the same time, uptown, is the continuation of plans to find a higher purpose for the sea of surface parking lots along Mayfield Road—the main artery connecting Little Italy and University Circle. Last year, an arts and retail village idea was floated along with RTA’s plans to move a Rapid Transit station to Mayfield and E. 119th (from its current location at E. 120th). Tonight’s meeting will introduce the city’s streetscape planning project for this stretch, begin to analyze traffic circulation and set goals to improve pedestrian friendliness.

Location(s)

National and local experts who will look at the national context in which Carl Stokes was elected Mayor of Cleveland and the current state of race, politics and cities, and what still needs to change in America's cities.

Keynote Address: Leonard Moore, associate professor and assistant vice president Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, The University of Texas at Austin and author of "Carl B. Stokes and The Rise of Black Political Power."

Panel Discussion: Moderator, Mansfield Frazier, author and columnist for Cool Cleveland

• Norman Krumholz, Professor, Levin College of Urban Affairs and former Planning Director of the City of Cleveland from 1969-1979.
• Dennis Keating, professor, Levin College and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
• Ronnie Dunn, assistant professor, Levin College
• Roldo Bartimole, journalist and former editor and publisher of Point of View and a columnist for Cool Cleveland

Free and open to the public.

To register and for more information visit our website at www.urban.csuohio.edu or call 216.523.7330

• Cameron Sinclair told last night’s MOCA Cleveland Talalay Series that he launched Architecture for Humanity to be a virtual, viral network responding to natural disaster around the world with thoughtful housing solutions. With only five full-time staff, Sinclair relies on an army of 5,000 volunteers—architects who organize local chapters around the globe and then move nimbly into the field whilst forming relationships with local residents before they design and build homes, community centers, soccer fields— whatever is most needed to restore the community—from Zimbabwe to Biloxi. Whenever possible they use existing plans, local materials and off-the-grid technology. Their AFH Rangoon chapter has already raised $30,000 and is gearing up to face the aftermath of the Myanmar typhoon. Their motto is ‘design like you give a damn’.
• The city of Toledo is investing in green energy. Its new Bay View cogeneration plant will burn methane piped in from a sanitary landfill to provide power to the city’s waste water treatment plant. The biogas, which is currently being flared into the atmosphere, will provide 4.5 mega watts for water treatment and provide electricity to the landfill and the new Veteran’s Skyline Memorial Bridge lighting. Read more.
• They grow up so fast. This season’s peregrine falcon chicks are leaving their nestbox and walking around the ledge on the 13th floor of Terminal Tower. Falcons are cliff-dwellers and are adapted to high places, so the chicks instinctively know how to avoid falling over the edge. Pretty soon they’ll be fledging, that is, learning to fly.
  
  

The Clean Ohio Program has invested more than $138 million toward brownfield assessment and cleanup projects in the past four years (leveraging $1.3 billion in private investment). Governor Ted Strickland has proposed renewal of the Clean Ohio Fund through the bi-partisan job stimulus package. This issue is expected to appear on the ballot in November 2008.

In the meanwhile, House Bill 496 recently provided $47 million in capital re-appropriations for the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund program. Twenty percent of the net proceeds for the Clean Ohio Revitalization fund are dedicated to the Clean Ohio Assistance Fund (COAF) for brownfield redevelopment in Eligible Areas. The Urban Development Division will begin accepting applications for the COAF program beginning July 1, 2008.

Read about the brownfields portion of the program here and about the natural areas preservation portion of the program here.

Location(s)

The Ohio Department of Development Urban Development Division and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency invite you to attend a Clean Ohio Assistance Fund Application Training Session. The training will include application overview, discussion of application changes and additions, tips for a successful application, along with a question and answer session.

Space is limited for this event, a maximum of two persons per organization is requested.

To RSVP.

The curtain is rising on Gordon Square Arts District. Last week’s groundbreaking for the renovation of 1920s-era movie palace, Capitol Theatre, finally provides the West side with an indie film house. Nonprofit Detroit-Shoreway Community Development Organization owns the building and will oversee the $7 million facelift.

The confluence of $24 million to renovate storefronts and install a new streetscape at W. 65th Street and Detroit Avenue, an area once riddled with crime, and the creative programming force of Cleveland Public Theatre’s James Levin are a model for reinvention and a reminder that the best artist communities often grow naturally and, sometimes, over the space of 15 years.

The costs of sprawl and redundant infrastructure are too high to ignore, says Chris Warren, Cleveland’s Chief of Regional Development. Trends over the last decade show our region consumed 50% more land while population and wealth flattened out.

Regional leaders are taking an historic step to address these costs, but also boost regional competitiveness. The Northeast Ohio Mayors and (city) Managers Association meet this Thursday to review a report from Cleveland State University Levin College professor Tom Bier on the adaptability of the Twin Cities’ regional approach to economic development. They’re scheduled to vote on whether the time is right for collaboration and sharing. What do you think of regional planning to accelerate economic growth? Advanced Northeast Ohio asks.

Read about ‘What is regional tax base sharing?’ and more about the Mayor’s and Managers regionalism discussion.

Making sense of vacant land—which properties are ripe for redevelopment and which are better suited for preservation—is coming into focus for the City of Cleveland. Freddy Collier, a planner for the city of Cleveland, recently outlined how the city will make those decisions:

A vacant property with the right size and characteristics, such as proximity to parks and green space, might make the first cut toward preservation. If it makes that cut, the city might consider a menu of green development approaches, such as a tree nursery, community garden, or maybe even an urban wind farm.

Otherwise, proximity to the city’s Core Development Areas are among several factors that will determine its development potential as ‘strong’ or ‘weak’. Either way, the city has a path for that land which range from short-term holding strategies like lawns-and-fences to a test plot for bioremediation.

“This begins to frame how the city will look at criteria for evaluating (vacant) land,” Collier said. “If development potential is weak, such that it will take five years to redevelop, there may be short-term greening opportunities.”

The process is detailed in this decision flow chart, which relies on existing tools such as Cleveland Department of Community Development market typology data. “We might cross reference that with the data on the land they have targeted for the land bank,” Collier added.

Re-imagining Cleveland will build from this decision flow chart to detail strategies based on an analysis of market feasibility for the greening vacant land options.