Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance

Ford and Barr foundations pledge $1.5 million to groundbreaking approach helping struggling places revive and good places become great.

(Boston) June 23, 2011 – The Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance today announced the five Massachusetts communities chosen to take part in the innovative Great Neighborhoods program, a comprehensive regional and community planning initiative that will transform the lives of more than 100,000 residents. The announcement of the five communities took place during a day-long summit at UMass Boston featuring Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston and Mayor Joseph Curtatone of Somerville, along with a host of leading policy experts, public officials, and community and business leaders.  The five communities are: Somerville, Lawrence, Winchester, Roxbury, and Boston’s Fairmount Indigo line, which runs through Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park.  

The Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance also announced major grants totaling $1.5 million to support the work of for Great Neighborhoods from two leading foundations – the Ford Foundation, as part of its Metropolitan Opportunity Initiative, and the Barr Foundation, as part of its strategy to make Boston and Massachusetts a national model for reducing our carbon footprint and mitigating climate change.  

“We know there are many great places already in Massachusetts,” said Andre Leroux, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, “but there are also struggling places trying to revive and good places that want to be great.  They want to create places that are healthier, more diverse, and more environmentally sustainable – places where businesses and people thrive, and where getting in a car no longer feels like the only way to get anywhere.  Unfortunately, our zoning and land-use policies, and our business-as-usual ways of doing development projects in the Commonwealth make it easy to build new strip malls, anywhere-USA housing developments, or dead end office parks.  But creating the kind of vibrant places we all want will take new ways of working – the very ways we’ll work with Great Neighborhoods.”

Great Neighborhoods facilitates collaboration among community and business leaders, local residents and public officials on a variety of community initiatives, including economic and housing development, transportation and environmental initiatives, and design and planning.  Throughout the process, the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance will tap its extensive network of technical experts, bringing in leading thinking and best practices from elsewhere in Massachusetts and across the country, and helping communities tackle thorny issues – like zoning, building codes, or land-use policies – that too often stand in the way of good projects being done in sensible places. 

The five Great Neighborhoods sites were chosen among a competitive process featuring dozens of applications from local governments and community organizations around the state. The multi-year initiative will ultimately spur the creation of thousands of new jobs and affordable homes, almost a dozen miles of green space, and result in significant carbon dioxide and driving reductions. 

“Great Neighborhoods is providing vital support to advance the great work occurring in our City’s neighborhoods, including Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park,” said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.  “This tremendous initiative will help our community leaders and residents, who are working to build more affordable homes, create new business opportunities, generate new jobs, and add parks and green spaces for walking and biking that will improve the lives of thousands of children and families.”

 “Great Neighborhoods is helping our city to rethink urban living in the 21^st century,” said Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. “We’re designing more pedestrian- and bike-friendly neighborhoods around the new Green and Orange Line stations that will be opened in Somerville in the coming years. Even though Somerville is the most densely populated city in New England, we’re looking to tie-in new parks and playgrounds so that every neighborhood can enjoy some green space and so that local kids have a nice place to play. This program is working with us to accentuate the human needs in our community.”

 “We believe that the Great Neighborhoods program can serve as a national example of how to build prosperous, equitable and vibrant metropolitan regions that bring opportunity to all people,” said Lisa Davis, program officer at the Ford Foundation. “This innovative effort shows that real solutions are achievable—and that success is driven by leadership from the public and private sectors and the participation and creativity of all residents.” 

“Some are motivated – like we are – by the urgency of climate change,” said Pat Brandes, Executive Director of the Barr Foundation.  “Others are motivated by job creation and economic competitiveness.  Motivations don’t actually matter. The solutions are the same.  We need to create more vibrant, connected, sustainable places.  Great Neighborhoods is doing just that, and we are proud to support it.”

Every community selected to participate in Great Neighborhoods has already worked with the Alliance to spell out a set of goals for the Great Neighborhoods collaboration.  For example: 

• Great Neighborhoods Roxbury is working to develop nearly 1,000 new homes; to create or retain more than a hundred local businesses; and to reduce commuting time along Warren Street (the most heavily trafficked bus route in the entire MBTA system); and to increase active walking and biking in the corridor. 
• Great Neighborhoods Lawrence is working to create 200 units of new housing and several hundred new jobs in the North Canal Mill District; to establish five miles of community paths that connect various neighborhoods; and to establish a master plan that addresses land use, infrastructure, transportation, and additional economic development strategies.  
• Great Neighborhoods Somerville is looking to double the amount of open space in the city; to grow the amount of affordable housing from 9 to 15 percent; to connect the Charles River Path network with the Minuteman Bikeway through Somerville; to promote local jobs and economic development; and to tie 80 percent of Somerville’s growth to areas within walking distance of public transportation. 
• Great Neighborhoods Winchester is working to achieve several goals relating to its town center, including: promoting economic development and adding new housing options; expanding cultural and social initiatives; identifying best practices for land use in the area and updating zoning laws; reducing the impact of development along the river and floodplain areas; and improving walking and biking access to the town center and the commuter rail station.  
• Great Neighborhoods Fairmount Indigo Line is working to create nearly a thousand news jobs along the corridor that includes Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park; to build or preserve approximately 1,500 homes within a quarter mile of transit stations, with at least half qualifying as affordable; to construct or renovate almost 800,000 square feet of retail and commercial space within walking distance of the stations; and to construct a six-mile green corridor of linked parks and community paths. 

Fred Kent, the President of Project for Public Spaces and leading thinker on designing vibrant places, said during his keynote address, “We need to turn upside down the way we think about developing our communities in order to get them right-side up again.  The Boston region will compete in the global marketplace based on the amenities offered by its great places.”

For more information, please visit http://www.ma-smartgrowth.org/

About the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance 

Founded in 2003 by seven leading Massachusetts-based policy organizations, the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance works to improve the State’s development policies in order to build welcoming communities with a high quality of life. Founding members include the Boston Society of Architects, Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston the MA Association of Community Development Corporations and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.