Elm Street Program

History and intent

Noting how the Pennsylvania Main Street Program’s integrated approach to revitalization had helped the Commonwealth’s downtowns and urban corridors, an observant legislator (Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Easton) proposed that the state try a similar integrated approach for the older neighborhoods around “Main Street.” Colleagues enthusiastically agreed and passed legislation unanimously. Governor Rendell signed the Elm Street Act in February 2004.

The Elm Street Program was created to strengthen the older historic neighborhoods that characterize many of the commonwealth’s communities. Too many of them today are beset by low property values, a negative image, and perceptions of poor public safety. While Main Street Programs have made positive changes in older downtowns, most downtown revitalization programs (including Main Street) have had little impact beyond the borders of downtown into adjacent neighborhoods that historically served as Main Street’s core market. Main Streets that are surrounded by distressed neighborhoods continue to struggle despite hard work on the part of downtown advocates. This situation is not unique to Pennsylvania.

The nation’s urban neighborhoods have, since World War II, traditionally seen disinvestment, outmigration, the aftershocks of urban renewal, and more, challenge their vitality, leaving a swath of damaged communities that are no longer functioning well or, in turn, contributing to the health of nearby downtowns. These “core communities,” made up of the downtown/Main Streets and their nearby neighborhoods, constitute a relatively untapped asset and together are the heartbeat of Pennsylvania’s cities, towns, and boroughs.

Elm Street aims to improve the situation of Pennsylvania’s urban neighborhoods while linking revitalization efforts to those in adjacent/nearby Main Streets/downtowns. With the long-established Main Street Program as a model, Elm Street as learned from some 40 years of experience by many successful and not-so-successful neighborhood revitalization programs throughout the nation. The Elm Street Concept is structured around simultaneous actions in five focus areas, integrated through a community-based strategic planning process. The elements of the so-called “five-point approach” include:

  • Clean, Safe and Green
  • Neighbors and Economy
  • Design
  • Image & Identity
  • Sustainable Organization

It is intended to operate in parallel cooperation with existing downtown or commercial corridor revitalization programs, including the Pennsylvania Main Street program. In this way, the fabric that connects healthier neighborhoods and more robust business districts can be rewoven.

 

Elm Street Program Operations

The commonwealth’s Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) manages the program. DCED accepts and either approves or rejects applications from communities for participation in the Elm Street Program. DCED also oversees the flow of state funding to those receiving grants. The appendix of this document includes the current program application and guidelines, including eligibility requirements for funding.

DCED has turned to the Pennsylvania Downtown Center (PDC) to provide assessment, training, and technical assistance to Elm Street communities, similar to how PDC has supported Main Street communities. PDC is itself expanding its mission to encompass revitalization of core communities: older downtowns and their adjoining historic neighborhoods. PDC’s role will eventually include connecting Elm Street communities with resources beyond the state’s program, such as foundations, implementation partners, or national/regional nonprofits with complementary missions and programs; acquiring and redistributing grant funds for targeted issues; and linking communities without real estate development expertise with those who could help them with real estate development assistance. A key role that PDC is serving is to monitor and document how well this new program initiative is working at the neighborhood and community levels – tracking what works, and what seems to need a different approach – and to advise DCED and state leaders as the program evolves.

The Elm Street Program is a work in progress and is likely to be so for the next several years. Expect changes as together we learn. Although receiving one grant is not predicated on receiving the others, there is an ideal sequencing to the funding and assistance available through the Elm Street Program.

  • Planning Grants: Communities must have a plan that meets the program’s requirements—it must address all five facets of the approach, for example—to be eligible for Elm Street designation. Thus, most communities will apply for and receive planning grants first. Even communities with recent plans that don’t quite meet Elm Street Program requirements might apply for planning grants to augment existing documents for Elm Street. Communities with DCED-approved eligible plans may forgo the planning grant and apply for designation directly.
  • Elm Street Designation: An application to DCED and the submission of an Elm Street plan make up the package required for designation. The majority of communities will have completed an Elm Street Plan with an Elm Street planning grant, but some will submit plans created independent of Elm Street funding. Designation carries administrative and staffing funds, including support for an Elm Street Manager position.
  • Residential Reinvestment Grants: These grants provide funds for physical improvements in neighborhoods. Elm Street Designation is not currently required for grant eligibility, but these grants are generally targeted for Elm Street communities. As more Elm Street communities are designated, competition for the Residential Reinvestment Grants will grow, making it more and more difficult for non-designated neighborhoods to acquire these funds.

In order to make the Elm Street Program accessible to a wide variety of the commonwealth’s neighborhoods, the thresholds for acquiring a planning grant are low. The neighborhoods who receive planning grants will also receive guidance from the Pennsylvania Downtown Center as they create their Elm Street Plan. However, because the requirements for receiving a planning grant are lower than might be expected, it is anticipated that not all communities who receive planning grants will go on to earn Elm Street designation. Designation will require that the neighborhood’s Elm Street Plan –and planning process –meet a set of standards that are more rigorous than those laid out for planning grants. In addition, the thresholds for residential reinvestment grants and other resources offered to designated Elm Streets will be even more competitive than designation. This ensures that the commonwealth’s resources are targeted well and leveraged properly by highly competent community initiatives while also keeping the door open for those that are just getting started and that may need more effort to earn designation.

 

The Elm Street Approach: Integrated Revitalization

In launching the Elm Street Program, Pennsylvania’s legislators, governor and other state leaders are investing in a bold initiative to encourage neighborhood revitalization in the Commonwealth’s older towns and cities. The first few years of the program will see experimentation as we all learn from sharing experiences. One experience we are starting with is Main Street, the Commonwealth’s very successful downtown revitalization program. Three decades of work by scores of Main Streets across the state has confirmed the wisdom of an integrated multi-pronged approach to revitalization. Many people are familiar with the Four Point Main Street Approach.

It stands to reason that a systemic approach could apply to neighborhood revitalization, too. The Elm Street Approach, being field tested in the program’s early years, is a system where activity is underway in four categories, orchestrated by an organization that grows in effectiveness by doing. This is a brief introduction to the elements of Elm Street Approach to neighborhood revitalization and how it relates to Main Street.

The Elm Street Approach envisions coordinated actions in five key areas of focus:

  • Clean, Safe, & Green
  • Neighbors & Economy
  • Design
  • Image & Identity
  • Sustainable Organization

Because coordinated action can only be sustained over the long term via a robust organization, Sustainable Organization is at the center of the diagram – and the ultimate, long-term goal of the program is to enable local neighborhood revitalization leaders to achieve results, demonstrate worth, and build a sustainable program. This decision has been informed by many years of experience with the Main Street Program. Neither downtown nor neighborhood revitalization are short-term games. Both require constant attention and that calls for sustained organizational capacity.

Each neighborhood is different, and coming out of its Elm Street Planning effort, each is likely to identify its own priorities. However, all Elm Street neighborhoods are expected to address all of the focus areas.

 

Clean, Safe & Green

Arguably the most important factor in a neighborhood’s health is how safe and pleasant people believe it to be. Perception and reality can sometimes differ, and a neighborhood with relatively little crime, but an unsafe image, will often have problems attracting new residents and motivating current residents to buy homes and stay. It will also be a challenge to attract even neighborhood-serving business to an area viewed as unsafe. Dealing with crime and cleaning up features in the neighborhood that are, or seem to be, unsavory/unsafe is a critical first step in changing the community for the better.

Even more challenging is the neighborhood with a higher than average occurrence of crimes, especially violent crimes. The effects of crime on neighborhoods and their efforts to revitalize are clear—crime breeds fear and isolation, instability and transience in the residential population, and disinvestment, which provides opportunity for more criminal activity.

Another facet of neighborhood safety deals with movement to and through the area. Some cities, through urban revitalization programs or reconfigurations to allow access to highway systems, have been cut up by road layouts for which the neighborhoods were not designed. This results in areas where street crossing and walking or biking are dangerous, and some neighborhoods have trouble spots where many incidents take place. Part of ensuring safety in a neighborhood includes providing safe routes for children to walk/bike to school, for residents to access commercial developments, and for recreation.

Clean is a bridge between safety and greening. Littered vacant lots, illegal dumping areas, and the like are often opportunity zones for crimes to take place. In addition, a filthy and untended neighborhood has been shown in studies (popularized in the book Fixing Broken Windows authored by George L. Kelling and Catherine M. Coles) to signal that no one cares, leading to increased discord, petty crime, and eventually more serious crimes and systemic disinvestment. Cleaning up trash and chaos also reduces the perception of crime.

Greening is relevant to a neighborhood’s image, appearance, and health issues. Landscaping, trees, and other plantings impact the visual appeal of residential and commercial streets alike, with mature trees and healthy, maintained landscaping elements creating a consistent and cared-for appearance. Parks and other green space do more for neighborhoods than make them more visually appealing; a recent Wharton School study has found that investments in greening and vacant land management can increase property values by as much as 30%. A neighborhood that is struggling with clean, safe, and green issues is likely to have:

  • Higher rates of property and/or violent crime than the region
  • Prevalence of graffiti and barred window/door openings
  • Higher percentage of vacant buildings and lots
  • Abandoned cars
  • Inconsistent trash pickup and surface cleaning, evidenced by refuse on/in sidewalks, parks, and other public realm spaces
  • Trash dumping on vacant lots or alleys
  • Failure to maintain equipment and landscaping in parks and public spaces
  • Higher rates of pedestrian-car or bike-car accidents
  • Poor lighting on major through-streets

Interventions for improving neighborhood cleanliness and safety might include:

  • Community policing or block watch programs
  • Cooperative agreements with local governments for increased trash pickup, police patrols, graffiti removal, and public space maintenance
  • Resident/volunteer clean-up efforts to remove graffiti, install/maintain public plantings, and clean up public spaces and sidewalks
  • Full or partial grants for landscaping elements, or giveaways of trees, bulbs, and other resilient plants
  • Community gardening projects

 

Neighbors & Economy

Underlying economic factors—such as employment rates and homeownership levels, among others—heavily influence neighborhood health. Obviously, low income and high unemployment can lead to lower homeownership rates and to poor property upkeep. Income levels can also influence crime rates; Department of Justice statistics show that as income drops, the likelihood of becoming a victim of personal crime rises*. Anecdotally, stories of the decline of a block or neighborhood happening hand-in-hand with the increase of criminal activity are common in community revitalization.

A major indicator of neighborhood desirability and health is home values; for many residents, their home is a primary factor in their net worth. A neighborhood’s economy can be based upon proximity to and the availability of jobs. but Some neighborhoods do well, however, despite being inconvenient to job centers. Often, these are neighborhoods with a high quality of life that attract residents to their amenities and characteristics, ensuring a stable tax base. A neighborhood with a mix of incomes may be more desirable than one populated primarily by the poor or solely by affluent residents. For many distressed neighborhoods, gentrification may be more of a mythical fear than a reality. In some cases where sudden change is leading to displacement of older residents or those on fixed income, strategies to retain an economically diversified population are often employed.

Depending on the level of distress, a neighborhood may require interventions to stabilize aspects of its economy—special homebuyer programs, gap financing for housing rehab, new job skills training, and other initiatives are all commonly used to improve a neighborhood’s economic conditions.

  • Neighborhoods with a struggling economy will share certain characteristics:
  • Low rates of homeownership
  • High incidences of vacancy and absentee property owners
  • Higher unemployment rate than the region
  • Lack of employment and business opportunities in neighborhood and nearby commercial areas
  • Struggling commercial areas adjacent/nearby
  • Low average house prices compared to region at large
  • Lack of partnerships with community programs, schools, churches, BID/Main Street, and city hall
  • Fewer housing options (senior citizen and disabled housing, condominiums, rental for various income levels)

Interventions that can help a neighborhood ‘s economy include:

  • Homeownership programs
  • Employment training and mentoring
  • Partnerships with nearby Main Street programs and business organizations

 

Design

The character of a neighborhood is often the difference that makes a place special. The overall “feel” of a neighborhood street and the familiar appearance of its houses can signal the unique atmosphere of the community not only to its own residents but also to citizens in the larger region. Design includes a range of features; it is about everything that is visible when walking or driving through the neighborhood.

Architecture is the most obvious aspect of design. Not only consistency of architectural style but also general features like number of stories, roof shape (hipped, gabled, etc.) and the prevalence of building features—such as porches or stoops, bay or dormer windows, and garages—can influence the overall design rhythm of a neighborhood.

The importance of non-architectural design elements should not be underestimated. Property site plans have a fundamental impact on how the neighborhood appears and feels. The distance buildings are set back from the street, the inclusion of sidewalks or trails, the width of sideyards, the placement of garages at the rear of a property or the front, and the number of curb cuts along a street—all these and more can change the way a property or street appears and functions.

Streetscape, including landscaping, also plays a role in a neighborhood’s design features. From street trees to planting pits to traffic circles or parking bump-outs, the vegetation or lack thereof in a neighborhood can make a significant difference in the appearance of a street. For example, planted median strips can make a street appear more “green” while also creating a narrowed appearance that tends to slow down through-traffic. It is not uncommon for consistent site plans, landscaping, and mature street trees to unify a neighborhood even if the architectural styles are eclectic.

  • Neighborhoods where residents pay careful attention to design share some common features:
  • Well maintained property, including structural building upkeep (i.e., front porches and roofs), painting, yard work, etc.
  • Sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, and/or other relevant pedestrian/bike amenities
  • Consistent scale, massing, and setback of buildings
  • Compatible architecture from building to building and from block to block

Design factors can be improved within a neighborhood by:

  • Streetscape improvement projects, including sidewalks/pedestrian amenities, lighting, and trees/landscaping
  • Revolving loan funds for building rehabilitation
  • Small matching grants for housing rehabilitation activities, such as painting, façade improvements, roofing, and porch repair
  • Providing guidelines for rehabilitation of the neighborhood’s historic properties
  • Screening vacant lots

 

Image & Identity

Image refers to how the neighborhood is viewed by non-residents: Main Street/downtown business owners, regional citizens, city employees and local officials, and residents of adjacent or nearby neighborhoods. Identity describes how residents view or feel about their own neighborhood—for example, whether they view it as safe, friendly, and attractive. It is not uncommon for the identity of a neighborhood to contradict its image in the region.

A neighborhood’s image will often impact the perceived desirability of homes in the neighborhood and the level of investment in the area. It can also influence the application of revitalization or other programs, as a neighborhood generally thought to be “hopeless” or too “tough” could have a harder time attracting program dollars. It can also impact how residents feel about their own community over time, especially if the area receives a lot of media attention for criminal activity.

Identity is more closely tied to whether residents become engaged in their own community, whether they desire or plan to stay, and whether they invest in updates and repairs to their own properties. Just as image can affect neighborhood identity, identity can impact image over time, especially when property owners and residents see their neighborhood as a good place to live. Residents with a strong sense of neighborhood identity and translate this vision into regular home maintenance, care in selecting tenants for rentals, and the sustenance of an active neighborhood association, and well attended neighborhood events.

  • A neighborhood that has a positive image will:
  • Receive favorable press coverage
  • Attract new residents from within the region
  • Be viewed as an asset by Main Street/downtown businesses

A neighborhood with a positive identity will:

  • Be a desirable place for residents to stay
  • Have high resident participation in community groups/organizations
  • Have neighborhood pride, fostering friendliness and relationships among neighbors

A neighborhood can improve its image and identity by:

  • Using media and outreach to highlight revitalization successes, signaling positive changes in the neighborhood
  • Hosting events, such as street festivals, clean-up days, fundraisers, athletic events (fun runs), and children’s events
  • Hosting awards programs for community activism, good home rehabilitation, or volunteer contributions, for example
  • Distributing neighborhood information through a website or newsletter
  • Seeking positive media coverage of neighborhood accomplishments

 

Sustainable Organization

Neighborhood revitalization requires the knitting together of many varied threads of activity. Factors as distinct as safety, building conditions, income levels, public school performance, cleanliness, and residents’ level of engagement, to name a few, play a significant role in neighborhood stability. Coordinating activities and programs that can identify and address problems across this diverse spectrum calls for an organization capable of operating flexibly and efficiently, often through partnering with other groups and public agencies.

One of the most difficult challenges of the Main Street Program is ensuring that efforts in a given community continue after public funding for operations end. For most organizations, this means a five-year stretch of support. Because neighborhood revitalization is generally a very much longer-term effort, Elm Street organizations need to be able to continue beyond the state program’s projected funding cycle. Thus, the Elm Street Program is giving priority to identifying and increasing sustainability in the local implementing organizations. Sustainable means having stability in leadership, governance, finances, and staffing.

An organization that is sustainable will:

  • Be getting results— visibly making a difference
  • Be entrepreneurial and have diversified funding sources
  • Be partnering with organizations/agencies in housing, public works, employment, and other varied revitalization concerns
  • Attract and retain volunteers and garner in-kind donations
  • Have credibility within the neighborhood and the community at large and be at the table when the neighborhood is involved in important initiatives

Improving organizational sustainability could include:

  • Providing/attending staff and volunteer development and training in neighborhood revitalization
  • Seeking out and nurturing partnerships with other interested organizations, especially municipal government
  • Active outreach to and involvement of residents and property owners.

To learn more about the Elm Street Program contact the regional office of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development or the Pennsylvania Downtown Center. You may also get more information about the Elm Street Program funding guidelines by visiting the following DCED website http://www.inventpa.com/default.aspx?id=531

 

* “Personal Crimes, 2002: Victimization rates for persons age 12 and over, by type of crime and annual family income of victims (Table 14).” Office of Justice Programs: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2002. U.S. Department of Justice. 04 Feb. 2005 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cvus/violent_crimes276.htm.