Morgantown, where Coal is still King!

West Virginia Sustainability Summit
November 12, 2010
Morgantown, WV


The summit, sponsored by the Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation, itself sponsored by Senator Jay Rockefeller, had its ups and its downs like most events of this nature. Overall, it’s interesting to see what other grassroots efforts are going on in similar communities in the region. For as close as Morgantown is to Pittsburgh there seems to be very little cooperation between the two regions on the sustainability front, despite working on a nearly identical set of issues (Joe Bute and myself appeared to be the only people who came in from the Pittsburgh region). This may have something to do with the fierce pride on display, a theme reinforced by nearly every speaker at the podium.

Disappointingly, clean coal and carbon capture & storage (CCS) was another theme, touted by Senator Rockefeller and repeated ad nauseum throughout the day. But if you stop and think about it, it’s similar to what is happening in Pennsylvania with natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, albeit coal has been WV’s life blood for over a century while PA’s obsession is only just beginning. Most of big business and much of government in Pennsylvania is trumpeting shale extraction as the future of the new energy economy and an endless supply of jobs. Only one speaker really questioned the scientific validity of coal’s “cleanliness”, given the environmental and social damage caused by its extraction.

Ups
Mark Berardi – Manufacturing Support Manager for Toyota of WV: It’s great to see that Toyota’s culture, employee empowerment and Kaizen business model has been successful even in communities steeped in history and a conventional way of doing business.

Trey Dunham – Marketing Director for SustainU Clothing: Trey spoke of the contradictions between what universities stand for (education, success, community) and the clothing they emblazon their names on (imported goods, sweatshop labor). SustainU’s clothing lines provide work to experienced but out-of-work textile workers in North Carolina, reduces environmental impacts by making tees out of recycled cotton and PET from soda bottles, and partners with universities to build student pride in their responsible purchasing program.

Eric Landen – President of Landen Consulting: While understated in his presence, I believe that Eric is nothing short of visionary. He truly understands how sustainability can be of benefit to businesses, corporations and governments through a lens that he calls “Sustainability 2.0”. Sustainability 1.0 includes initiatives like energy efficiency, waste reduction, LEED, carbon counting, water savings. He sums this up with the phrase “How do we impact the environment?” The next generation of sustainability initiatives will look at how we depend on the environment to sustain life and business. From the Landen Consulting website is this statement: “we change the language of the sustainability conversation from ‘cost savings and efficiency’ to ‘revenue generation and risk mitigation’ by helping your organization incorporate ecosystem interaction and ecosystem health into your corporate balance sheet and strategic decision-making toolkit”. I believe that big thinkers and doers like Eric Landen are the types of people that will be able to make real change in the world, and are an inspiration to the rest of us with the passion for seeing true sustainability come to fruition. Although it was probably over the heads of most people in attendance, hopefully the attendees absorbed some of it such that it will trigger an epiphany months or years from now. “I get it now!”

Downs
Neil Hawkins – VP of Sustainability for DOW Chemical: After promising that his presentation would be more than an advertisement, he proceeded to give an hour-long infomercial on all of the great work that DOW is doing across the spectrum of industries. Their diversity of businesses is tremendous, as would be expected from a multi-billion dollar international company. Only one point of interest for me: part of their $1.6B annual R&D budget is spent on what is called “Consumerism”. By that they mean product packaging, but the irony is certainly not lost on me that a) their entire marketing budget is truly spent on consumerism, and b) consumerism and conservation are actually opposing forces.

Adam Krason – Principal at ZMM Architects in Charleston, WV: As a result of my five-year tenure in green building consulting, my interest in LEED has essentially flagged entirely. Apart from my disdain for the one-size-fits-all rating system, its architects like Mr. Krason that don’t have a wider understanding of sustainability beyond green building and often LEED in some cases (that is to say that LEED equals green building, but green building does not entirely equal LEED). This shortsightedness leads to a false sense of accomplishment when it comes to buildings, as success in LEED is measured by how many points are received instead of how well the building performs in the environment in which it is located. The architectural profession was in many ways the first to arrive on the sustainability scene with the green building movement, but somehow they haven’t moved very far since. I think we need to re-cast the green building movement as being only one part of the larger sustainability movement. It seems to me that presentations such as this do nothing to help that idea along.

Somewhere in the Middle
Jim Hunt – ED of Sunnyside-Up Campus Neighborhood Revitalization Corp: To explain, Sunnyside is a neighborhood adjacent to WVU’s Morgantown campus that is heavily populated by college students, akin to South Oakland in Pittsburgh. Jim Hunt seemed like a fairly affable and likeable fellow, but really struck me as stereotypical of the old-school, small-town politicians: great energy and connection to the community, but still lacking an understanding of the big picture. He spoke of their efforts in the neighborhood re-painting dumpsters that had been torched in the nearly-weekly dumpster fires, replacing streetlights with LED lights, and securing a ZipCar for the neighborhood. These are all good things, but he didn’t seem to grasp, a) why it’s important as it relates to sustainability, and b) what the outcomes were and why they are important to talk about.

11/01/10 Letter to the Pgh Post Gazette Editor

In Response to Diana Nelson Jones' article: South Side Real Estate Board Says Mission Accomplished, 11/01/10;
"Call a Spade a Spade"

It seems that in the prevailing definition of "Community Development Corporation", two concepts have been juxtaposed into one: community and real estate. New real estate development and property values have been relied upon to be the de facto indicators for community health and well-being, but ignore far more important concerns such as high school graduation rates, college matriculation rates, and the number of families lifted out of poverty. We should rename organizations like SSLDC and their kin to be more appropriately called Real Estate Development Corporations, and then channel the dollars they once received earmarked for "community investment" into community programs that actually help people in need, not buildings. It's organizations like these that are hastening gentrification by way of their own measure of success, property values. It's time we re-think this paradigm and more importantly, call a spade a spade.

Penn Ave Community Development: Glass Lofts

This was my comment/response to the following blog post, found on the East End Mutual Aid blog. See the full post after my response.

http://www.eastendmutualaid.org/archives/213


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To whoever posted this, I think you are right on the money in terms of the biased understanding and skewed approach to community development. I've been thinking a lot about this recently, as I watch projects like Glass Lofts and Target go up, and wonder who exactly these projects are helping. The idea that new buildings, which improve the physical appearance of the neighborhood (aka. increase property values) , are somehow considered “community development” is shameful, and takes a narrow view of the problems that afflict our community. To me, the word community is about people, not buildings, and organizations like FDA are not really interested in helping people as they are about developing real estate to attract the type of people they see fit for this neighborhood (complete with snooty coffee shop). This approach may not be as insidious as you imply, it’s just the path of least resistance to achieving the outcomes they desire. It’s also the case of the “haves” not comprehending the needs of the “have-nots”, and instead sticking to what they know best: buildings, sidewalks, lighting, trees (read Penn Avenue PennDOT Renovation).

Where I think you missed the mark is in the solutions you offer. I think you have fallen into the same trap of focusing on buildings as the solution. Derelict and condemned properties are merely the symptom of deeper problems in the community: broken families, lack of education, lack of jobs, substance abuse, personal health and wellness, discrimination, and I’m sure there are more. Home ownership is not the solution to these problems, it merely kicks the can down the road a bit. You are correct that BGC should be lauded for their programs, but not the home ownership program as much as the afterschool, job training, and workforce development programs. These are the programs that are working to restore the social fabric of the community. Fix these, and the buildings will naturally follow on their own (case in point, Shadyside doesn’t need an org to fix up buildings, the affluent residents take care of that on their own). Imagine if we had dumped $6.4 million into social programs instead of a community boondoggle how much difference we could have made in the lives of Garfield residents.

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Broken Logic at Root of Glass Lofts Development

[Note: Blog posts are an ongoing series where EEMA members explore their personal views and experiences relating to issues of development and community organizing. While the general spirit of the postings may reflect the opinions and work of EEMA the views expressed have not been reviewed or agreed to by the group as a whole.]

Who should society reward for building, and buying, property? Is it in the interest of an economically deteriorated community to build new subsidized housing, or could this money be better directed? Are the development strategies being pursued by local organizations about revitalizing the current communities or about displacing and replacing them? How do these developments come about? Who profits? Who loses? Are there alternative models?

Friendship Development Associates (FDA) is currently wrapping up construction of The Glass Lofts, a $6.4 million “Green” Condo complex on Penn Avenue.

The 18 units are available in a variety of sizes, from two small units (831 sq. ft.) for $127,000, up to 1,700 sq. ft. models for a cool $375,000. The majority of the units lie in the $200,000+ range.

The real kicker is in the incentives, which grant buyers eight years of no local real estate taxes and exempt them from local and state income taxes. The more you make, the more you save.

According to the FDA, the real estate tax savings alone will be over $850,000 – money that won’t be going to an already broke government.

These generous benefits come courtesy of Garfield’s designation as a “Keystone Opportunity Zone,” a collaborative program between various state bodies to spur job creation and development in blighted communities.

Take a jaunt over to the project’s showcasing web site and your eyes may be drawn to the prominent section entitled, “The Neighborhood,” ostensibly intended to acquaint prospective buyers with the place they would call home.

The first two paragraphs state, “The Friendship neighborhood offers the diversity, beauty, accessibility, and community that exemplify the best of urban living; in the heart of Pittsburgh’s East End. Friendship is a vibrant, diverse neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s East End, located within a few miles of Downtown Pittsburgh, universities, world-class medical facilities, and thriving residential and commercial neighborhoods such as Shadyside, East Liberty, and Bloomfield.”

What is missing is the entire neighborhood of Garfield. You know, the neighborhood the structure is actually located in and the reason the development qualifies as a Keystone Opportunity Zone project.

Now, there would be nothing wrong with a description that made clear the lofts sit at the crossroads of a number of communities, but it is this kind of snake oil salesman verbiage that adds to the perception that the development strategy along Penn is not so much about improving Garfield as it is about erasing it.

In fact, as of this article’s publication, you won’t find Garfield referenced even once on the website.

There is an obvious tension inherent in how development is occurring along Penn Avenue. Pretending people don’t exist can be the worst and most disrespectful position of all.

The project itself was built with millions of taxpayers’ dollars in the form of loans from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), and taxpayers will pay the price for attracting the eventual buyers.

Certainly this is not the first, and doubtfully the last, such project along Penn Avenue.

This is the basic cycle: The mayor appoints favored individuals to run the URA. Taxpayers fork over large sums of money to the URA through a regressive sales tax. The URA doles out loans to development corporations. Development corporations give the mayor, and other politicians, significant campaign contributions. The politicians create special zones and inducements that further distort markets and plump up profit margins, favoring certain companies and ensuring products (in this case housing) can be produced and sold with an advantage relative to other similar products for sale. So-called “community organizations” work hand-in-hand with the development corporations to advertise the product while building and providing the appearance (and sometimes reality) of community support for the process.

What is so insidious about the arrangement is that it obscures that there might be any alternatives, and diverts attention from who is profiting in such a blatant form of trickledown community development.

If residents of Garfield were asked to vote on where to allocate $2.2 million in loans for development, or who should reap over $1 million in tax breaks, it is doubtful they would clamor for loft housing or reward a buyer who is already able to afford a $300,000 house.

Neither is it likely that residents of Friendship who have homes for sale would view their community as best served by incentives favoring buyers who choose new lofts over acquiring beautiful properties on S. Atlantic Avenue.

The reason there is little outcry is because people believe it is this or nothing, that there is no chance money could be directed towards other kinds of programs.

This is a shame, because there are a number of buildings for sale on Penn Avenue and there are a number of local small business owners that are known to be looking for property but have trouble finding financing.

There are nice houses deteriorating year after year, and Garfield could use a boost in its home ownership rate. And there are people losing homes to foreclosure. There are dozens of lots that could be turned into green spaces, community gardens, parks, farms, apiaries, and more with a couple hundred thousand dollars in seed money.

And while the general uptick in property values and activity along Penn Avenue will surely benefit some stores there is a reasonable skepticism this will trickle down to those businesses currently serving the still predominantly African American residents. High income individuals enticed into distressed neighborhoods by housing incentive programs are among the least likely to support existing small businesses.

It’s important to acknowledge that class and cultural differences are real, and that they drive divergent buying patterns. New residents with unmet consumption desires become an untapped market, leading to new businesses and upward pressure on rents. Stop into Voluto for a morning cup of Joe and it is not hard to see this phenomenon playing out.

Alas, few interesting questions are being raised in the sparse coverage emanating from the media and community organizations. PopCityMedia.com has covered the issue with some regurgitated press releases and cheerleading befitting the fact its development “news” is sponsored by the URA.

The only minor exception has been media mention of the builder’s use of steel from a company under sustained attack by labor and human rights organizations.

So what should be done?

The goal of neighborhood development should be to encourage and support those already in a community, who’ve stuck with it through the hard times and give them the reasons and resources they need to help guide its rebirth.

To do otherwise displays an extreme pessimism towards the capacity of the existing community to better its own situation. This paternalism becomes even more perverse when looking at the role other well-intentioned forces played in previous redevelopment schemes that failed in East Liberty and decimated the Hill District.

Long-term residents are the bedrock of neighborhood stability. If millions of taxpayer dollars are to be spent anywhere it should be to help renters become owners, to help existing owners fix up and improve their properties, to help small business owners expand, and to improve the general quality of life through funding the good ideas already germinating.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are already some good efforts along these lines, including some of the efforts of the, albeit often problematic, Bloomfield Garfield Corporation. The BGC has, for instance, been a genuine advocate of improving home ownership among existing residents.

The soon to occur official opening is not a time for celebration because the benefits are unclear and the costs to all but a few are high. It is folly for neighborhood revitalization efforts to use millions on providing incentives to continuously move around the small portion of the population who are interested in, and can afford, new loft style housing.

Let us hope that the next time a similar project is proposed our communities are better organized, that there is a more substantive debate through which many more voices are heard, and different policies are pursued.