"Does Penn Hills Need a CDC" Panel Notes

On Thursday, November 12, 2009 over 60 residents, business owners, church leaders, and community leaders attended the panel entitled "Does Penn Hills Need a CDC?" The panel consisted of five experts who shared their diverse perspectives on what CDCs are and what they can do for a community like Penn Hills. A summary of what was discussed is below:

Overall, the panelists believed that a CDC could be a great tool for a community like Penn Hills through which businesses can be revitalized or new businesses brought in, public safety issues can be addressed, and blight can be taken care of. The panelists warned that we should not be swayed to tackle every issue that Penn Hills faces, but instead choose one or two and address them very well.

Panelist Bethany Davidson from the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group discussed the multiple forms that CDCs can take: they can be volunteer organizations, they can be official nonprofit organizations, they can be as small as a block group or as large as a million dollar nonprofit (think the Mon Valley Initiative).

Scott Leff, of the Bayer Center for Nonprofits, warned that garnering foundation support is a critical component of creating a successful CDC. This is a difficult task he warned - to procure such support requires making a convincing argument for why Penn Hills needs a CDC (including why Penn Hills needs its own CDC instead of working with others, why it is important to tackle the issues it chooses to take on, etc...).

Panelists agreed that a CDC requires a board and a lawyer. The Bayer Center for Nonprofits are a useful tool for putting a board together and learning best practices. Panelists said that it is possible to get committed volunteers and community organizers (e.g. an Americorp volunteer or a volunteer from the Regional Internship Center)to work to put together a CDC infrastructure - this is something that may appeal given the commitment that starting a CDC requires.

Matt Ciccone, co-founder of GTECH, told the audience that for the work that his organization does (they revitalize blighted, vacant land for green purposes) CDCs are invaluable. CDCs, he says, serve as an excellent source of collective memory and information about any given community. When organizations want to bring in development or rehab, a CDC is usually the first stop an outside organizations takes to learn about the needs and desires of the community.

A significant advantage of CDCs are they are eligible for a number of community and economic development grants not available to local municipalities or other types of nonprofits. Without a CDC a community like Penn Hills is blocked from such resources.

Aggie Brose shared her experiences founding and working to make successful the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation. She recounted how one vocal neighborhood priest pulled residents together to tackle small problems. In the beginning, member paid $5 - money that was used for the corporation's work. The first thing the group got done was push a local grocer to paint their building. Since its foundation, the corporation has brought business to Bloomfield-Garfield, kept certain businesses out, created workforce development programs, rehabbed housing, and the list goes on. Aggie shared with us a paper that the corporation publishes. In the paper their is printed community news that features community strengths and weakness. For example, the paper highlights good work that community people are doing in the neighborhood, but also features pictures of folks who have abandoned their property or let their property become an eye sore. According to Aggie, one of the biggest jobs of a CDC was to hold people accountable - residents, politicians, businesses, etc...

After each panelist spoke, many audience members had questions and/or concerns. For the most part, audience members thought a CDC would be good for Penn Hills. One idea was to create small, neighborhood CDCs in Penn Hills and then one big, umbrella CDC. A panelist said this could work but emphasized that people need to realize that development that goes into one area is good for the whole community - sometimes groups need to be selfless for the sake of the whole community. Many of the panelists agreed that much community education would need to be done for CDCs to be successful.

One audience member asked what types of development can we bring to Penn Hills that would turn the community around. Panelists agreed that the heart of the CDC was local sentiment, and only local stakeholders can decide what is best for the community.

An audience member warned the audience to be careful of strong developers who could conduct development in ways not desired by the community. The Waterfront in Homestead was cited as an example of a successful development that has decimated the local downtown.

Questions were asked about where the line stands between CDCs, the local municipality, the county, and the state. Panelists agreed that CDCs can be politician's best friends and worst enemies. She talked about the delicate dance that occurs between working together to get things done, and exerting pressure despite resistance, to get things done.

Did I miss anything? If so, please feel free to add to these notes!