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The People's Planning Initiative of Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation Merrimack College Merrimack ScholarWorks Community Engagement Student Work Education Student Work Spring 2020 The People’s Planning Initiative of Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation Cassondra Y. White Merrimack College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/soe_student_ce Part of the Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social Policy Commons, Social Statistics Commons, and the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons Recommended Citation White, Cassondra Y., "The People’s Planning Initiative of Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation" (2020). Community Engagement Student Work. 42. https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/soe_student_ce/42 This Capstone - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Education Student Work at Merrimack ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Community Engagement Student Work by an authorized administrator of Merrimack ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Running head: PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 1 The People’s Planning Initiative of Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation Cassondra Y. White Merrimack College 2020 PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 2 MERRIMACK COLLEGE CAPSTONE PAPER SIGNATURE PAGE CAPSTONE SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF EDUCATION IN COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CAPSTONE TITLE: The People’s Planning Initiative of Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation AUTHOR: Cassondra Y. White THE CAPSTONE PAPER HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF EDUCATION IN COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT. Audrey Falk , Ed.D. May 4, 2020 DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY SIGNATURE DATE ENGAGEMENT Melissa Nemon, Ph.D. May 4, 2020 INSTRUCTOR, CAPSTONE SIGNATURE DATE COURSE PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 3 Acknowledgements As someone doing research and community work in the housing field that deals much with property and land, I would like to first acknowledge that the land in what we now know as Boston was originally named Totaunt and was stolen from the Massachusett tribe (The Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, 2019). I would also like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Melissa Nemon, whose guidance throughout this capstone project was pivotal to its completion. It is to her credit that I considered doing a program evaluation and felt supported throughout the process. This evaluation would not have been possible without the partnership with Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation, Jason Desrosier, and the dedicated resident advocates of the neighborhood. Thank you for sharing your time and energy. Also, I would like to thank all of the professors throughout my time at Merrimack who have helped strengthen my critical thinking and allowed me to explore topics that I am passionate about: Dr. Audrey Falk, Dr. John Giordano, Gregg Grenier, Dr. Jolan Rivera, and Gerardo Zayas Jr. Finally, thank you to my partner Daniel Perez for his endless support and encouragement for me to pursue my interests. PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 4 Abstract This program evaluation looks at the Community Planning and You workshop of the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, MA. The literature review explores the effects and responses to racialized housing policies, including the development of the community development field and its use of neighborhood organizing. The evaluation is grounded in the frameworks and theories of Arnstein’s (1969) Ladder of Citizen Participation, Putnam’s (1994) social capital, and Freire’s (2018) use of popular education to develop Critical Consciousness. There are three key evaluation questions: 1) if participants increase their knowledge of the Article 80 process; 2) if participation in community processes has increased; and 3) if racial and socio-economic diversity in the Article 80 process has increased. Findings included participant increase in knowledge and participation in community process, but no increase in racial and socio-economic diversity. PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 7 Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 25 Results ........................................................................................................................................... 30 Discussion ..................................................................................................................................... 37 References ..................................................................................................................................... 45 Appendix A: Survey Tool ............................................................................................................. 51 Appendix B: Informed Consent Form .......................................................................................... 56 Appendix C: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................... 57 PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 6 The People’s Planning Initiative of Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation Community Development Corporations have historically grown out of a need for residents to build power, expressing a form of consensus organizing (Cummings, 2001). In 1980 the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation (ABCDC) was formed and was able to convert a historic school into affordable housing (Tartar, 2019). ABCDC has continued to develop and advocate for new affordable housing for neighborhood residents. The Community Engagement department of ABCDC advocates for a more affordable Boston through resident engagement and leadership development. It offers workshops to support new and experienced community leaders to participate in the City of Boston’s development approval process. One such workshop, Community Planning and You , focuses specifically on the Boston Planning and Development Agency’s (BPDA) development review process, Article 80 and its formal avenues for resident input. The BPDA developed Article 80 in 1996, which could include a review of the proposed development’s impacts on transportation, the environment, and the amount of affordable units and community benefits provided along with the project. The Community Planning and You workshop was held in October 2018 with 32 attendees and again in October 2019 with 7 attendees. It is a two-hour workshop that makes the approval process for developments in Boston more accessible to residents. In addition to its educational focus, it emphasizes three opportunities for residents to be involved in the Article 80 process: writing comment letters, speaking at public meetings, and serving on Impact Advisory Groups (IAG’s). The workshop grew out of a resident request because they recognized that BPDA held Article 80 trainings for developers, but not for residents. Additionally, research by Einstein, Palmer, and Glick (2018) supported the need to diversify housing development community PEOPLE’S PLANNING INITIATIVE 7 meetings. They found that residents who participated in community meetings are “more likely to be older, male, longtime residents, voters in local elections, and homeowners” (p.29). Given that Allston Brighton is a diverse community, and is in need of affordable housing, the Community Planning and You workshop is a way to invite new residents into the process so that it can become more representative of the community and its vision for the future. This program evaluation will examine the effectiveness of the intended outcomes of the Community Planning and You workshop. The primary goal is to ensure that residents have the opportunity and power to impact the housing development process in their neighborhood. Arnstein’s (1969) Ladder of Citizen Participation will be used as a way to explore the distribution of power between residents and government, with levels ranging from non- participation to citizen power. Freire’s (1970) development of critical consciousness through popular education will guide the strategies of the workshop. Putnam’s (1994) concept of social capital will be used to consider the networks between residents as a way to build agency for social change. Additionally, recommendations will be outlined for future Community Planning and You workshops that may be also applied to the broader People’s Planning Initiative. Literature Review Housing in the U.S. and Boston Today’s displacement and gentrification are connected to a long history of housing policies that were based in overt racial and class discrimination. As early as the 1920’s, housing policies encouraging discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and class were legal and commonplace. These century-old practices have mostly been outlawed, yet have ramifications that are felt today. From the 1920’s to 1948, racially restrictive covenants were a common tool, PEOPLE’S PLANNING
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