The Observation Deck

Community Vision Workshop
Monday, May 14, 2012 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: University of Akron Lakewood, 1415 Warren Road

Lakewood City Council and the Planning Commission are hosting the first in a series of workshops to begin the process of updating the City’s 1993 Community Vision. This interactive workshop will review the current vision, open the discussion about purpose and content and outline a public process. All are welcome. For more information please contact the Department of Planning and Development at 216.529.6630 or planning@lakewoodoh.net.

I'm attending. Anyone else wanna join the discussion?

Wow that's great.

Not a secret Shawn Juris meeting after all. And in fact, he is being pro-active putting it on his facebook page, though I would prefer that he have a public page.

It seems like this workshop would benefit from some preparation. Do you know where one can see the text of the last Community Vision plan? I think it was from the 90's. It might help to see what the last one said, and how it was put together.

Thanks Peter.

Betsy Voinovich

The 186-page Plan is available on the city website http://onelakewood.com/Development/.

Look for the of downloadbale pdf.file called "Lakewood Community Vision" on the bottom-right hand side of the page.

Shawn is always good about posting on his Lakewood Ohio Ward 3 facebook page.

My husband and I plan to attend.

Peter Grossetti wrote:The 186-page Plan is available on the city website http://onelakewood.com/Development/.

Look for the of downloadbale pdf.file called "Lakewood Community Vision" on the bottom-right hand side of the page.

Hi Peter and all,

This PDF might sound intimidating at 186 pages, but it isn't at all. A lot of the pages are actual grids full of notes from the session. Much of it is short, and to the point, and includes categories like: "The Problem," "The Solution," "The Vision."

It would make a very good introduction to what will be happening this coming Monday at this workshop.

Here's "The Problem" as it was defined in 1993:

Lakewood is an older, urban, fully developed suburb along Lake Erie and contiguous to Cleveland's west side. Almost two-thirds of its housing was built before 1940. Most single family houses are on small lots. More than 50% of the dwelling units for its 60,000 residents are rental, with a higher proportion of lower rental rates than in surrounding Cuyahoga County. The City is diverse in its range of housing types, housing values, income levels, and household composition.

With these challenges facing the City, Lakewood lacks a credible plan for the future. There is no shared vision for Lakewood and no coordinated policy to guide decisions. Previous planning efforts produced studies and collected data for subjects such as: housing, retail development, downtown development, parking, etc. These served primarily to make public policy recommendation without due consideration and prioritization of other critical issues.

Pretty interesting, huh? This the whole definition of The Problem. It's on Page One. (Actually it's the 5th page of the PDF, after the letters from the mayor, etc.) It's followed by The Solution! Also on Page One. This continues on to Page Two.

You know you want to know what it is.

It's a really quick downloadable PDF, not a space-hogger at all, it will take you ten seconds.

Real stuff, people trying to suss it out. Worth looking at, especially if you're planning to go to the workshop on Monday. Come prepared. Read and digest 1993 and think about how YOU see this city that you live in and that you have chosen and what you think it needs and how you think you can help. This is a great opportunity.

Betsy Voinovich

Meant to put this on here.



Betsy Voinovich

Interestingly enough, nearly 20 years later Lakewood is still essentally "an older, urban, fully developed suburb along Lake Erie and contiguous to Cleveland's west side" (no mention of contiguous to Rocky River's east side?) ... with no shared vision ... and no coordinated policy to guide decisions."

I am THRILLED that council and the adminstartion is dusting this Plan off and revisting it. Just wondering, should it be "revisted" or "started from scratch"?

Betsy - agreed ... a great opportunity, indeed!

Betsy Voinovich wrote:Here's "The Problem" as it was defined in 1993:

Lakewood is an older, urban, fully developed suburb along Lake Erie and contiguous to Cleveland's west side. Almost two-thirds of its housing was built before 1940. Most single family houses are on small lots. More than 50% of the dwelling units for its 60,000 residents are rental, with a higher proportion of lower rental rates than in surrounding Cuyahoga County. The City is diverse in its range of housing types, housing values, income levels, and household composition.

I guess I'm a bit confused. This is a description of Lakewood. Are they saying the problem of Lakewood is Lakewood?

Charlie Page wrote:

Betsy Voinovich wrote:Here's "The Problem" as it was defined in 1993:

Lakewood is an older, urban, fully developed suburb along Lake Erie and contiguous to Cleveland's west side. Almost two-thirds of its housing was built before 1940. Most single family houses are on small lots. More than 50% of the dwelling units for its 60,000 residents are rental, with a higher proportion of lower rental rates than in surrounding Cuyahoga County. The City is diverse in its range of housing types, housing values, income levels, and household composition.

I guess I'm a bit confused. This is a description of Lakewood. Are they saying the problem of Lakewood is Lakewood?

Hi Charlie--

I think the first paragraph that you have quoted was necessary information to get us to the next paragraph: the first paragraph, in describing Lakewood, presents "The Challenge." The next paragraph more accurately describes, "the problem" which is that there is "no credible plan"; that earlier public policy recommendations were made without adequate thought and prioritization of "critical issues." To make policy based on the study and collection of data for housing, retail, development, downtown development, parking etc, without consideration given to other critical issues, is what this report characterizes as "lacking a credible plan."

Here's paragraph two:

With these challenges facing the City, Lakewood lacks a credible plan for the future. There is no shared vision for Lakewood and no coordinated policy to guide decisions. Previous planning efforts produced studies and collected data for subjects such as: housing, retail development, downtown development, parking, etc. These served primarily to make public policy recommendation without due consideration and prioritization of other critical issues.

It makes you wonder what the other critical issues are, and what effect they could have on policy. And how they prioritized and incorporated other critical issues back then.

Peter Grossetti said:

I am THRILLED that council and the adminstartion is dusting this Plan off and revisting it. Just wondering, should it be "revisted" or "started from scratch"?

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Hi Peter, as far as I know, the Council and Administration are not necessarily dusting off this plan. This is just the 1993 PDF from the Planning Department's website. I'm providing parts of it here to read and think about, in an effort to help people prepare to make useful, informed contributions at the upcoming 2012 meeting. I think it's great that the Planning Department makes it available for public perusal. I think you went to the very first 2012 new Community Vision meeting. Did they mention using this plan as a starting point?

It makes sense to look at what has been done in the past, and evaluate the decisions made for how successful they were or were not. As you pointed out, Lakewood, 20 years later, is still essentially ""an older, urban, fully developed suburb along Lake Erie and contiguous to Cleveland's west side..." As for there still being "no credible plan"-- some think there's no plan, some think there's a pretend plan, some think there's a secret plan, some think there's a bad plan. The fact that this is how people regard their own city means that this is a really good time to develop an updated Community Vision, and a good time to encourage the community to participate.

Some "revisitation" is always called for, there is no need to re-invent the wheel, the Administration and Council in 1993 were serious about what they were setting out to do, but this does not mean that our current Administration shouldn't make an informed fresh start.

I think it's commendable that the City wants to workshop ideas about Community Vision with civilians. It's the least we can do to try to be prepared to actually contribute. And it's not that easy to be prepared. This old version gives us a place to start.

Betsy Voinovich

I have to agree “there is no shared vision for Lakewood and no coordinated policy to guide decisions”. I hope that will be a product of the vision workshop.

The problem with the plan is not that a credible plan doesn’t exist but the plans themselves. They seem to be rarely or half heartedly executed. After the high fives are issued, the plans sit on a shelf collecting dust. The Detroit Streetscape plan comes to mind. After spending countless thousands of dollars on consultants and architects where are we with this? Nowhere, unless we come up with 40-60 million. Another is the wayfinding signage. On the surface it sounds like a good idea. But apply an ounce of thought and it quickly falls apart. Yet countless thousands were spent on its design and implementation. I’d rather CVS had spent their money sponsoring a bench for walkers to rest a bit than a ‘DowntowN’ sign. Where’s the value? We are repeatedly told we have no money to bring basketball courts back but suddenly we have $250,000 laying around to upgrade to the fancy light poles on Detroit. Apparently the standard light poles weren’t good enough. 250k would buy a lot of graffiti remover, a few basketball courts, some benches and other quality of life improvements.

I think we have to be honest with ourselves and ask what are/should be the priorities of our city? And who is defining these priorities? Are we thinking for ourselves when defining these priorities or being shepherded down a predetermined path? And how do our everyday actions align with these priorities? Are we saying one thing then doing another? Is anyone keeping score?

Charlie Page wrote:I have to agree “there is no shared vision for Lakewood and no coordinated policy to guide decisions”. I hope that will be a product of the vision workshop.

The problem with the plan is not that a credible plan doesn’t exist but the plans themselves. They seem to be rarely or half heartedly executed. After the high fives are issued, the plans sit on a shelf collecting dust. The Detroit Streetscape plan comes to mind. After spending countless thousands of dollars on consultants and architects where are we with this? Nowhere, unless we come up with 40-60 million. Another is the wayfinding signage. On the surface it sounds like a good idea. But apply an ounce of thought and it quickly falls apart. Yet countless thousands were spent on its design and implementation. I’d rather CVS had spent their money sponsoring a bench for walkers to rest a bit than a ‘DowntowN’ sign. Where’s the value? We are repeatedly told we have no money to bring basketball courts back but suddenly we have $250,000 laying around to upgrade to the fancy light poles on Detroit. Apparently the standard light poles weren’t good enough. 250k would buy a lot of graffiti remover, a few basketball courts, some benches and other quality of life improvements.

I think we have to be honest with ourselves and ask what are/should be the priorities of our city? And who is defining these priorities? Are we thinking for ourselves when defining these priorities or being shepherded down a predetermined path? And how do our everyday actions align with these priorities? Are we saying one thing then doing another? Is anyone keeping score?

Charlie! Hi.

Your question, what are/should be the priorities of our city, is the place to start.

That’s two questions. What are our priorities now? What should they be?

A good workshop will keep things very simple.

Again, A GOOD WORKSHOP WILL KEEP THINGS VERY SIMPLE.

It will not spend all of its time planning how to plan.

It will not focus on how to construct a strategy, how to report on a strategy, how many committees to break into to discuss how to construct a strategy, and then the different “reporting out” periods.

Jeff Patterson, our School Superintendent conducted very successful Community Meetings by himself, with a very good note-taker by his side. He brought his meetings to the residents where they lived, and guaranteed that he got a good sampling of parents and residents by getting a lot of samples, in a lot of places, and by listening and confirming that he had heard, by summing up and reporting what he had heard and asking if that was correct.

At no time did he pit people against each other, or have votes that disallowed some of the people’s opinions from being registered.

He went for priorities, and took the time to understand clearly what each of them was.

He didn’t try to make parents and residents into amateur planning committees in small groups at tables, and then have each of them vote on the best way to proceed as if that was representative of ANYTHING. (Yes, I refer to committees of the past, which you have participated in, with high paid consultants who seemed to be paid to confuse.)

Simple. For example: Housing Stock. We agree. We need to maintain it. It is literally the structure of our city. It is where we live.

Maintaining a population of 50,000 or above, by keeping the city attractive to potential residents and keeping current residents satisfied. How is this done?

Safe streets. Clean streets. Good schools. Well-maintained homes to move into, or to stay in. And then the rest-- But if it's dangerous, dirty, schools aren't good, and houses are crumbling... then we get into the rest of it, my favorite, "Walkable"! Etc. And the very valid issues about what our main streets look like. Are we happening? Are we all empty storefronts. Also important. But it comes after "living here." Do we agree on that?

Unless we don’t agree that keeping a 50 thousand plus population is a priority. If this is not a priority, what is?

Unless we don’t agree that our housing stock is important. If this is not a priority, what is?

Everyone will agree on the top three or four priorities—that they are priorities.

So we manage to figure this out—then your next points come into play.

How do our everyday actions align with these priorities. Are we saying one thing and doing another? Is anyone keeping score?

Part of this discussion has to be about answering these questions. What actions will make the vision come true? Are these actions occurring? How will we know? Will we continue to be included as citizens in helping to fulfill our Community Vision.

Clearly-- it won't take just one workshop. It'll be fun.

Betsy Voinovich

Well today's the day. I've been reviewing the 1993 Community Vision document. There is a lot of work there. To Charlie's point that it never seems to come to fruition, I have to say again that it needs to be simple. Given the sometimes warring viewpoints about what Lakewood is, who lives here, and where it's going-- it would quite an achievement to just get on the same page with that in real terms. Easy to say, yes.

Anyway-- here's how the last one was described in one page before all the working groups were defined and sent off. (That's right, I typed this from the PDF onto the Deck by hand, because that's just how committed I am.) I will bold some things that really stand out.

I added the bold.

Lakewood's Vision, 1993

The Lakewood Community Vision is a picture of the desired future City of Lakewood in terms of broad goals in the four issue areas of IMAGE, HOUSING, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, and PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT. To this end:

1. We envision a community that is a great place to live; a community that cares about the environment; a community that

-Maintains a high-quality visual image;
-Is supportive of high-quality schools; increased parks and recreation, medical facilities, and senior and youth services;
-Has regular community events such as fairs and festivals and other diverse cultural entertainment facilities;
-Has efficient public and private transportation;
-Has adequate off-street parking for all facilities;;
-Is accessible and complies with ADA requirements;
-Enables commercial and residential land uses to successfully coexist.

2. We envision an image of the community as a comfortable, safe place to live with secure neighborhoods and a "neighborly" and small town feeling.

3. We envision a housing market that is stable and provides for moderate growth in housing values.

4. We envision strict enforcement of fair housing standards that support adequate housing opportunities for the City's economically and culturally diverse families, including the elderly.

5. We envision a high-quality housing stock that is diverse in style and is well-maintained through aggressive code enforcement, aggressive community home improvement programs, higher rates of owner-occupancy, and has made available adequate resources to support these programs.

6. We envision a growing and diverse business sector which provides residents with a wide range of products and competitive services (by utilizing realistic and imaginative land concepts) and which includes a flourishing town center and a vital economic development corridor on West 117th Street from Clifton Avenue to Berea Rd.

7. We envision a vital and attractive business environment that focuses on the community's accessibility, the availability of business support services, and which has a well-trained work force.

8. We envision a long range economic administrative strategy that involves an active public/private partnership for business attraction, recruitment and retention, and that is based on a "can-do" attitude and a clear set of community preferences for economic growth.

9. We envision a community which has cooperative, progressive, responsive leadership; which provides a high quality of government and public services to its residents; which meets the needs of small businesses; and which is committed to business vitality and growth.

That's it!

Two bullet points about the feel of the community of Lakewood-- not well-defined here: "small town" "neighborly" and of course good schools and increased parks and recreation!

Three bullet points about housing.

Four bullet points about business development.

The place in this short summary document that seems to point to a good starting point for the 2012 version, to me anyway, is the part that says "A clear set of community preferences for economic growth."

That would be the vision thing. We know we need our housing stock to be stable and well-maintained, we know we want to have areas of business that are functioning and active, not empty store fronts. Those are the points that people agree upon.

Now what is the community preference for economic growth? Who is the community? Who is speaking? Who is listening? How can you tell?

Onward!

Betsy Voinovich

Onward through the fog!

http://youtu.be/yRhq-yO1KN8

Am I the only person who thinks that Lakewood's HOME program is a bit absurd?

How can a two-person household making less than a combined income of $40,000 even afford a $230,000 home?

Perhaps the income level needs raised? Especially when even on a $150,000 home, there are many many repairs to be done that equal in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Just food for thought for the "Community Vision" for home improvement options.

As someone who is in the market for purchasing a home, it's rather hard to put my foot down and scream "but I love Lakewood" when I can purchase a $150,000 home in Berea that already has air conditioning installed, new windows, and a concrete driveway that you can't pick up pieces from it.