As we move through the ever changing economic, cultural, and social shifts of the last few years, PDC will be centering on a few key items, those of which we have seen surface as recent priorities in our central business Main Street districts as well as our neighborhood Elm Street districts.
As community development Main Street and Elm Street programs, what are the areas where we have the ability or responsibility to impact from what we’ve learned over the last two years?
Focus on Upper Floor Housing & Housing Diversity
(higher density = more hyper-local customers)
What is the current state of upper-floor housing in your downtown or central business district? Is it occupied? Is it market rate, workforce, accessible, or affordable? Are there a variety of options? Are your existing upper floors up to code – accessible and fire safe?
Prioritize Updates to Planning
Are your current zoning ordinances supporting the types of businesses and uses of buildings that you currently want, now and into the future? Does your municipality even have zoning? Is your current planning, subdivision and land development ordinances, updated universal building codes, solid property maintenance codes, etc. supporting the kind of community you want now and into the future? Do you have café ordinances or other ways to support outdoor seating, expanding businesses beyond their doors, and creative uses of public spaces? And lastly, are you providing financial incentives for those who truly cannot afford the accumulated upkeep and maintenance that is required?
Focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
We’ve learned that there was a disproportionate amount of small and small diverse businesses (SDB) that received COVID relief compared to non-SDB. What is needed to meet this audience? Services such as outreach, technical assistance, coaching, peer-to-peer support, translation services, and additional funding opportunities that build trust in our communities are a great place to begin. There is also an increased awareness around nonprofit boards truly representing the community in which they serve and the need and opportunity to build more local leadership within our communities.
Focus on Local Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and New Consumer Habits
Are you utilizing upper floors for live/workspaces? Are you encouraging new businesses such as local food delivery options, and shared business-to-business services and support for e-commerce sales? Are you creating or supporting a local business incubator that is offering flexible and shared office, meeting, and event space, or a commercial kitchen supporting a shifting model for restaurants and prepared foods?
Identify and Support Needs of Local Nonprofit Organizations
We understand that many of your fundraising events were cancelled or postponed, and that volunteering has shifted. Although it has taken some adjustment, the realization is that most nonprofits have found it difficult to increase their capacity to meet the building community and business expectations for additional needs and services. It has never been more important to tell your organization’s story, and to promote the great work that you all do in your communities!
Connect to Outdoor Recreational Assets and Activities
Nature-Based Placemaking improves and enhances your community’s attractiveness as a place to live and work, and it can improve one’s physical and mental health, increasing social well-being, all while improving the economic viability and vibrancy of our downtowns and neighborhoods.
These are all exciting topics, and we will continue to provide updates to funding opportunities that could relate to any of the above. Make sure to keep an eye out for a few exciting new projects and programs that we will be implementing soon in Pennsylvania!
In the meantime, although we could focus on a multitude of topics and themes for our current fiscal year 2022-2023, our attention will be on the ever changing but incredibly impactful issues related to housing needs and the untapped potential and opportunities in our own communities. The title of PDC’s 2023 conference in Scranton is Making Space: Housing for a Vibrant Community. We’ll be exploring a variety of approaches and tactics that communities are incorporating into their housing related strategies, those of interesting and non-traditional partnerships, outside-the-box funding initiatives, creative homeowner and maintenance incentives, and inventive residential recruitment strategies.
In anticipation of this year’s theme, we encourage you to read the recent report from Main Street America, At Home on Main Street: A Report on the State of Housing in Downtowns and Neighborhood Commercial Districts. A few key points to stress here in Pennsylvania, according to the report:
There is a huge opportunity for housing in downtowns/Main Street districts. 74% of respondents say housing in downtown adds economic and social vitality to commercial corridors, but 75% report a lack of available housing stock to meet demand.
Upper floor vacancy and underutilization is a huge, missed opportunity, particularly in PA. Two-thirds of Main Street programs report vacant upper floors, and over half report completely vacant buildings. We could begin to address the housing shortage and demand by providing incentives to operationalize upper floors, by bringing them to code by installing fire suppression improvements and shared elevators in common public spaces between adjoining buildings.
While housing in Main Street districts is growing, it is uneven – not all communities are able to experience growth, and some are losing housing units. Within the boundaries of Main Street districts, Pennsylvania has some of the most diverse housing typology, and PA Main Street districts also have some of the oldest housing stock, making it third oldest among fellow coordinating programs in the nation. We can provide incentives to assist seniors to adapt their residence, so that they can age in place and remain safely in the place they called home for the last 60 years.
As most of our communities are shrinking in population, we will be delving into tactics such as right sizing and what implications this could mean for your town or city, determining whether your community is missing Middle Housing, and exploring what types of housing options are appropriate to meet the needs of residents aging in place as well as our new multi-cultural, and sometimes multi-generational families to our neighborhoods.
Now more than ever it is important for us to understand who lives in our communities – to understand what they need to thrive and then to be able to provide options and promote why more people may want to live in your neighborhood, community, or upper floors of your business district. Many communities may have an asset-based market-driven vision, with defined Transformation Strategies for your business district, but how many communities have a similar vision and strategy for your neighborhoods and residential districts? Does your Main Street or Elm Street program, or your greater community have a full understanding of the who, what, why of your existing and even potential residents?
It is imperative that we do our part to help to create communities where residents are proud and choose to live, to raise their families, and to retire; to support downtowns of entrepreneurial ecosystems where businesses are given the tools to start a business that has the power to transform their lives and the lives of future generations. We will be exploring what it really means to be a community that people want to call home, supporting places that offer a high quality of life for our residents, creating safe places for children and for seniors, gathering places to celebrate, and welcoming places for all.
Having the appropriate tools, funding incentives, and strategies to implement are key to substantive and transformative improvements in our Pennsylvania communities, and we hope to continue to be a resource for you and your organization as you navigate this next stage of your community’s revitalization journey.