Barbara Koenen, director, Chicago Artists Resource (she's also an artist, most recently producing rugs from spices and did a gumdrop cow public art project) discussed four initiatives in Chicago to assist artists.
Artist Housing Initiative: Started in 1999. First project Switching Station Artist Lofts. In hard hit neighborhood but across from a park. Also included Acme Yards artist studio that took 14 years to develop (now fully tenanted).
Led to realization that education is as important as bricks and mortar to support the artist community. Developed Chicago Artist Resource, a web site that is a curated list of resources, call for entries, a job board, event calendar, etc. (ed: maybe CPAC can do this for Cleveland?). Also includes Square Feet Chicago, a manual that explains the ins-and-outs of the real estate market geared to artists and urban spaces.
Cermak Road Creative Industry District: I know there's some debate over planning a big arts district, and there is a debate on retaining jobs in the region. With an industrial TIF, we created 1 million sq. ft. zoned industrial that was unused. Enter artists. Looked at Granville Island in Vancouver as a self-sustaining model. The Distillery District in Toronto also a model for repurposing industrial buildings.
Bob Brown, director of Planning, City of Cleveland
Bob was responsible for writing the city's live/work zoning overlay. His presentation is titled, "Promoting artist housing in Cleveland through comprehensive planning."
Part of vision we see for Cleveland is a mecca for arts and culture. We see this as a focal point for our revitalization. As part of mixed-use districts with live-work spaces. And where diversity is tolerated.
Promoting artist housing in Cleveland through zoning
Cleveland's zoning code is pretty traditional. Our zoning allows home occupation which is a little like live/work zoning. It gives preference to home professionals as long as person lives and works there (it even allows for one employee). No retail sales out of the house. But in our commercial districts you are permitted to have housing, office and retail.
Councilman Joe Cimperman introduced the live/work overlay permits which says live/work is permitted as a conditional use where residential use is otherwise prohibited. To promote shared occupancy by residential uses in combination with work activities. It was thought up as an economic development strategy because we have so many residential spaces.
What's permitted? Everything in the underlying zoning. For example, can do industrial in an industrial zoned area (except heavy industry); up to planning to determine if housing is appropriate (cannot subject people to excessive noise or pollution). Example of a Cleveland live/work zone is Superior Avenue warehouse district. Tower Press is an example of a development that took advantage of the live/work zoning ordinance. One of the other advantages is grandfathering in the amount of parking spaces even in a converted building (normally, if you changed the zoning to residential, more parking might be required). The city also has a notice that tells industrial users that they have notified residents that they are living in an industrial district and there might be noise).
Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis
Where we are going to be on property reassessment is going to be critically important -- I think it's going to be devastating for Cleveland . I could talk about who was responsible, but need to talk about what to do about a project 17,000 foreclosed homes in Cuyahoga County by 2008.
Introduced legislation to Ohio General Assembly to deal with section of Ohio Revised Code allows the creation of a foreclosure authority to take and swap ownership of properties. Second, would borrow and pay what is owed on properties to put in a land bank. Third, once property has gone through adjudication, the property will return to the land bank. Why? As this foreclosure crisis plays out, hundreds of thousands of properties will be dumped at auctions. I can give you the site on eBay where people from out of town are buying Cleveland property. We have to intervene with demolition and hold it long term, maybe a 25 year strategy to think long term maybe have some incredible deals for artists.
We want to support existing land banks and be part of a process that responsibly moth balls them. We'll have a planning process...that puts city in driver's seat. I'd rather see a house used by a young artist. Or take vacant properties that can be used for farming.
Q&A session
Live/work zoning is a great marketing tool (Friedman may not agree).
Harriet Gould, ArtsSpace Cleveland How can we make live/work affordable with existing building codes?
Brown: It's a real problem bc live/work is just zoning. Building codes might require a second exit or a sprinkler system. We agree these are health and safety issues. It's one that we sure is being dealt with by other cities.
