Street's neighborhood clean-up efforts to be campaign issue

During the mayoral campaign in 1999, then-Democratic candidate John Street pledged to focus specifically on neighborhood issues and continue the forward progress the city made under former mayor Ed Rendell.

Upon his election, the commitment to neighborhoods came to fruition in the form of a five-year plan known as the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. The program, proposed in April 2001, was passed by the City Council in the fall of that same year.

As the next mayoral contest rapidly approaches, with Street facing off against Republican challenger Sam Katz in a rematch of the 1999 race, the current mayor is sure to point to the successes and potential of that initiative.

Street's legislation called for the issue of a series of public bonds, expected to net the city around $295 million. This money, a one-time debt, is to be used for a variety of projects and government overhauls aimed at making the redevelopment of the city's neighborhoods more efficient and cost-effective for both public and private endeavors.

The idea is that "rather than dealing with [the money] on an annual basis, which never really solves anything, you go into debt," said Mark Hughes, a senior fellow in the Fox Leadership Program. "You've got a lot more money to spend at once, and the idea is that you design a plan and you fund the plan with that debt and proceed over a five-year period."

"You get a lot more done than you would with the kind of drip, drip, drip annual approach," he added.

The initiative took off and quickly became a cornerstone of the mayor's first term in office. Even before the program was announced, the administration undertook a massive anti-blight campaign which removed more than 185,000 abandoned cars from the street, according to statistics on the NTI Web site.

Since the program's inception, the city has acquired thousands of abandoned properties, removed more than 15,000 "dangerous trees," cleaned and catalogued over 31,000 vacant lots in fiscal year 2002 alone, and will continue to return to these lots and others over the next several years.

"One of the major successes [of the NTI] is that for the first time in the city's history, as far as we know, the city acquired through condemnation more than 5,000 parcels [of land] in one year," said Cynthia Bayete, spokeswoman for the initiative. "This is an essential piece of the NTI effort: to change business practices in city government, to organize our efforts around land management and begin to land bank."

The program has also been used to design and create both market-level housing and affordable housing -- something, Bayete said, that hasn't been looked at in the past. Additionally, the city has offered more than $1.3 million in home improvement loans to city residents.

Still, the program has not been without its critics. Several neighborhood activists have pointed to the slow pace of the changes, and the lack of fundamental change in the government agencies themselves.

Katz has criticized the mayor's desire to immediately tear down abandoned buildings.

"Sam wants to focus on the construction of houses and building strong commercial centers," Katz spokesman Nathan Raab said, "instead of blindly tearing down property and laying the groundwork for even more blight."

Other critics have pointed to problems in other areas of the city's redevelopment policies. For instance, if an investor wants to develop an area, there are, depending on the scope of the project, between four and 17 agencies that have possible veto power over the project.

The Mayor's Office has studied the issues and admits that it is a significant problem, but has not yet released a timeline as to when, if ever, some of these agencies will be streamlined.

"One of the first things [the NTI office did] was a study to see exactly how complicated it would be for someone to invest in" a development project in the city, Bayete said. "Beyond the various agencies, there were at least 90 steps identified that people have to take."

This is the type of problem that critics like Hughes believe the program ought to target.

"We still don't have a lot of the pieces that, ironically, don't take that much money to do, but would have taken some political leadership," he added. The program needs "to be doing the kind of thing that justifies going into debt."

Philadelphia City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell dismissed criticisms of the mayor's NTI project, and praised the initiative for its stress on individual thinking and new ideas.

"Most people aren't accustomed to creating your own neighborhood agenda," said Blackwell, who represents the area surrounding Penn. "Initially it was tough for some people because some of my colleagues and some elected officials... had never before focused on neighborhood initiatives"

Blackwell points to the opportunity to use city funds to match grants, both public and private, to finance projects and ideas that have never been able to come to fruition.

For instance, she said, NTI money can be used to bridge the gaps in funding in a specific project.

"A project can be totally federally funded, and then we need funds to do some linkages... or may need money for infrastructure."

On the whole, the project has been considered a measured success, but it won't be until after the election that city residents will be able to pass final judgment.

Whichever of the two candidates is elected in November will control both the money and the momentum behind the project, Hughes noted. It is up to the voters to decide which candidate they believe will do a better job.

Street "gets an A for theory," Hughes said. "I would give him a C+ for practice."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.