In the past decade, thousands of single-family homes and dozens of luxury apartments have been built across Cleveland. But development hasn’t been equal from west to east.
In that same stretch, only two new single-family homes were built in Hough, Central and St. Clair-Superior, Mayor Justin Bibb reminded a crowd the City Club this week.
That grievance and unfortunate stat is Bibb’s focus for the latest optimistic initiative to spring out of City Hall.
On Tuesday, the city announced that those three neighborhoods—Hough, Central, St. Clair-Superior—would soon be wrapped into a Housing Innovation District, pending approval by City Council. Streamlining construction permits and bringing zoning code into the 21st century will spur development where there hasn’t been for a long time, Bibb believes. And in areas that make up the fabric of the city but haven’t seen the same attention that neighborhoods like Tremont, University Circle or Ohio City have benefited from.
“For generations, residents in Hough, Central and St. Clair-Superior have carried the culture, strength and identity of Cleveland forward,” Bibb wrote in post on Facebook. “But too often, these neighborhoods have gone without the investment they deserve.”
A big focus of Bibb’s plan lies in Cleveland’s slow adaptation of what’s called form-based planning code, or Smart Code. It’s a rewrite of city laws that govern how buildings and streets are built with an eye to making them more livable and walkable.
Smart Code has been tested via a pilot program in a few neighborhoods, including the Opportunity Corridor. The city has conducted public surveys gauging residents’ thoughts thus far, which development chief Tom McNair said have come back generally favorably.
The philosophy should drive investment. If new code and tax-increment financing and permit modernization come together, developers will be less prone to overlook areas like Hough.
“I think in the old Euclidean-based code, almost anything you wanted to build in the city of Cleveland was technically illegal and required variances from the law,” Tom McNair told Crain’s.
“What we’re doing is trying to make it easier for people to invest in housing,” he added.
Bibb’s new district idea follows some good news for the east side in the past few years.
Earlier this month, Bibb and a handful of stakeholders ushered in The Midline, a gargantuan industrial parkway of 350 acres in the Southeast Side set for redevelopment to attract businesses and jobs. And bulldozers are moving earth at Gordon Park and Metropark’s CHEERS project north of it.
City Council is set to review the Housing Innovation District plans at its June 1 meeting.
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