68 6. Community Involvement Strategy
Date: September 18, 2019
To: Mike Kramer (Woodland Park Communities)
From: Liz Ogbu (Studio O) and Emily Weinstein (Emily Weinstein Consulting) Subject: Community Involvement Strategy Report
Introduction
Just over three years ago, Woodland Park Communities, an affiliate of Sand Hill Property Company, acquired the Woodland Park Apartments in East Palo Alto. As a local, family owned business with a longterm approach, they are committed to the East Palo Alto community and increasing the quality of life for their tenants. As part of this commitment, in 2017, Woodland Park Communities engaged two social impact firms, Studio O and Emily Weinstein Consulting to provide ongoing strategic guidance.
Woodland Park Communities has a deep understanding of the history of the Westside of East Palo Alto and the harmful legacy of the previous property owners. Working with Studio O and Emily Weinstein Consulting (refer to page 78 for more specific information about the team), they have committed to helping rebuild the trust of their tenants by listening and responding to tenants’ needs and launching new community building efforts. As Woodland Park Communities determined there was a need to improve housing and replace certain buildings, this commitment extended to engaging in a community informed planning process for both short- and long-term property improvements, including committing to a No Displacement approach.
This report details our approach to community engagement and the community involvement strategy from 2017 to now, including the strategy around the Euclid Improvements. Specific data around the type of engagement efforts and the number of participants in these efforts can be found on page 74. We and Woodland Park Communities expect to continue the robust community involvement strategy into the future.
Community Engagement Approach at Woodland Park
We know that community engagement tends to have limited effectiveness when it is done as short-term community outreach. Our work with Woodland Park Communities has been rooted in a commitment to relational – as opposed to transactional – outreach rooted in the creation of long-term partnerships with Woodland Park tenants and East Palo Alto residents and organizations. We believe that this is critical to ensuring meaningful improvements to the quality of life on the Westside. This commitment is not just for the sake of the Euclid Improvements application; it is something that Woodland Park Communities has prioritized since they acquired the property and that we have been working to support on an ongoing basis.
Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
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Community Involvement Strategy
69 Led by Liz Ogbu and Emily Weinstein and a team of full time, bilingual community engagement staff located on the site, the Woodland Park community engagement approach takes into account the following fundamental principles:
• Listen
• Repair community relationships
• Foster trust
• Create opportunities for community building
• Engage around community informed plans
Listen
In the winter of 2017, Woodland Park Communities embarked on a series of tenant listening sessions.
These listening sessions, of approximately 10-15 tenants provided an opportunity for Woodland Park Communities to learn more about its tenants, their daily habits, their aspirations and their needs in a small group setting. In total, the community engagement staff met with nearly 150 tenants over a three-month period.
In response to the success of the listening sessions, Woodland Park Communities launched monthly “cafecitos,” small morning or afternoon get togethers located in key gathering areas on site. People gather to meet over light refreshments with the Community Engagement Manager to share their ideas and concerns for the property, and learn more about what is happening on site. These monthly gatherings help create an open dialogue between tenants, property management and Woodland Park Communities.
In an effort to continue to listen to tenants and better understand how to respond to their needs, Woodland Park Communities hosts regular community dinners, focused on specific themes such as safety, public spaces, youth and family programming, the future of the Westside, etc. At all the community dinners participants divide up into facilitated discussion groups to ensure collaboration and authentic conversations. It also enables the opportunity for a broader diversity of voices to be heard. We understand that people have different preferences in how to best express their thoughts, so feedback is captured through a variety of tools including comment cards, interactive activities, dot voting, post-its and facilitation guides.
Repair Community Relationships
Based on input from tenants it became clear that the relationship between property management and the tenants was strained in part by a lack of cultural competency and sensitivity around language and cultural needs. As a result, Woodland Park Communities hired new Spanish speaking management staff as well as a new security company with bilingual security guards. The change to bilingual staff has allowed property management to be more responsive to tenants needs and create a more welcoming environment for tenants. The change to a bilingual security company has provided a safer environment for tenants.
In addition to improved on-site relationships, Woodland Park Communities has prioritized forging strong relationships with East Palo Alto-based organizations to improve access to programs and services on the Westside and to improve relationships between property ownership and important community institutions. Our team has worked with Woodland Park Communities to provide on-site programs in Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
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Community Involvement Strategy
70 partnership with community organizations, including the East Palo Alto Family YMCA, EPACENTER Arts, Fresh Approach, the East Palo Alto branch of the San Mateo County Libraries, and the Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA. To further support this work, the Woodland Park Communities Foundation was created.
It is dedicated to funding local non-profit organizations. To date, the Foundation has given more than 30 grants to local organizations and events.
Foster Trust
Fostering a sense of trust between Woodland Park Communities and the tenants is crucial given the historical tension between the community and previous property owners, and tenants’ concerns about housing affordability and gentrification. From the beginning, Woodland Park Communities has been clear about their commitment to No Displacement and backed up this commitment by communicating regularly and consistently and putting everything in writing. We’ve supported Woodland Park Communities in creating a variety of communication materials in Spanish and English including a quarterly newsletter, Frequently Asked Questions, Relocation Commitments for the Euclid Improvements, and Project Handouts.
Additionally, Woodland Park Communities has created Core Principles based on feedback from the engagement process. These principles are intended to respond to the community’s fears around real estate development and ensure that the commitments are well understood by the community. The Core Principles have been emphasized in all written materials:
1. No Displacement
2. Preserve Housing Affordability + Stability*
3. Community Informed Plan
4. Better Parking and Mobility
5. Safer, Healthier Buildings
*This is a new core principle that we’ve added in Summer 2019 based on community feedback during the Pre-Application process.
Create Opportunities for Community Building
A key component of fostering a healthy community is community building. A connected community is a stronger community. And early conversations with tenants revealed a strong desire for more places in which people could come together. Woodland Park Communities has understood that it has an important role to play in providing opportunities for community to come together, and so an important part of the community involvement strategy has been to come up with and implement events and spaces in which that could occur.
From early in its tenure, Woodland Park Communities has hosted events regularly throughout the property. In particular, it has utilized a large site at Newell Street and West Bayshore Road to host quarterly free events for tenants, from Fall Harvest Festivals to an annual Back-to-School event. Additional events/activities including holiday celebrations, summer kick-offs, community resource fairs, and monthly bookmobile visits have been part of the amenities that Woodland Park Communities, led by the Community Engagement Team, has put in place.
Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
nodisplacement.com
Community Involvement Strategy
71 In addition to particular activities, shaping temporary spaces that can support community building has also been an important part of the community involvement strategy. There is no park on the Westside of East Palo Alto. What’s more, other spaces that could help foster healthy living and safe play are located on the east side of the City. Early engagement activities like the Listening Sessions revealed that many tenants desired places to be healthy and active, gather with family and friends, and know that their children could play safely, all that were closer to their homes.
Together with Woodland Park Communities, we identified two underdeveloped spaces that could be converted into temporary popup community spaces. These two sites were co-designed with tenants through interactive activities across several community dinners and events. Since their opening, Boom Pop Park (corner of Donohoe Street and West Bayshore Boulevard; opened September 2018) and Bridge Pop Park (corner of Newell Street and West Bayshore Road; opened August 2019) have been wildly successful. They have also become staging grounds, along with the Cabana on Newell, for a similarly successful partnership with the YMCA, which provides classes at no cost to participants in yoga, Zumba, and boot camp at the sites 5 times a week. In short, there are now places close to tenants’ homes in which to play safely, exercise, and gather.
Engage around community informed plans
The Woodland Park buildings are between 50 and over 100 years old. Though Woodland Park Communities has been making incremental improvements, it has become clear that maintenance and small-scale improvements alone won’t be enough to keep up the buildings and the shared spaces at the high quality that the community deserves. In Summer 2018, Woodland Park Communities began a process of exploring the redevelopment of buildings known as the Euclid Improvements. Since then, our team has helped to establish a dialog between Woodland Park Communities and the Improvement Area tenants, the broader Woodland Park community, and other local stakeholders that focused in particular on a review and discussion of the Westside Area Plan, the development and fulfillment of Core Principles for the project, and key components for the Euclid Improvements. Throughout this process and moving forward, the hope is to make improvements in a way that improves the quality of life for the Improvement Area tenants, all Woodland Park tenants, and the wider East Palo Alto community.
Working from the Core Principles (noted above) we have worked with the tenants to create a preliminary plan for the Euclid Improvements. The plan has included a process for co-creating Relocation Commitments with tenants living in the Euclid Improvement area and community design meetings to influence the Euclid Improvement program and design. Below is a description of these meetings and the main takeaways.
Co-created Relocation Commitments
As noted earlier, fostering trust has been a critical aspect of the community involvement work. We all know that conversations about redevelopment often trigger fears of displacement. From the beginning, Woodland Park Communities has committed to No Displacement, but it also understands that building trust is an ongoing process. And although a formal relocation plan will be developed and submitted to the City when it comes time for project approval, it was important to start to develop a robust set of relocation commitments now. Therefore, through a series of 4 meetings with Improvement Area tenants, a series of relocation commitments were created, vetted, and refined. (A more detailed breakdown of those Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
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Community Involvement Strategy
72 commitments as well as how they were adapted in response to feedback can be found in Section 4 – Tenant Protection and Community Housing Preservation Plan on page 20.) What we heard: Because of previous owners, tenants may be wary to trust our promises about relocation and No Displacement. Additionally, there is a desire to preserve housing affordability and stability, especially for long-time residents.
What we’re proposing:
• Created Relocation Commitments with input from Improvement Area Tenants • Will issue all relocation commitments in writing, signed by the ownership • Have been and will continue to work with the East Palo Alto Rent Board, City staff, Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto, and other stakeholders • Relocation Commitment highlights include
o The right to a replacement apartment at Woodland Park during construction and a right of return to the new apartments
o Guarantees to pay the same rent that they otherwise would be paying and to receive an apartment with the same number of bedrooms
o Moves by a qualified, insured moving company fully paid for by Woodland Park o The complete set of relocation commitments can be viewed at www.nodisplacement.com/committments/
Community Design meetings
From the time that the Pre-Application process started in January 2019, and building off of the meetings that occurred in Summer 2018, there have been a series of 4 meetings to engage tenants and the broader East Palo Alto community in a discussion of key components of the design. Features of the project that people were most engaged in shaping included the new park, community space and neighborhood retail, better parking and mobility options, and increased safety. All of these elements have been incorporated into the plans being submitted as part of the application. The input provided by the community greatly improved the design elements being proposed. Below are the main takeaways from the community design meetings and the way in which Woodland Park has incorporated feedback:
• Parking & Getting Around
What we heard: Tenants and neighbors often find traffic and parking challenging, and alternate transit options tend to be limited and often not convenient.
How we’re responding:
• Planning to work with City to perform full traffic study as part of the Environmental Impact Report
• Will implement a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Plan with a variety of transportation options, including ride share
• Working with local agencies to improve transit options and include a new bus stop on site • Making it easier and safer to walk and bike through better street design and amenities • Seeking parking agreements with local property owners that have surplus parking Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
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Community Involvement Strategy
73 • Increasing off-street parking with a central garage, and planning to increase on-street parking in partnership with the City
• Neighborhood Parks and Community Spaces + Retail
What we heard: The neighborhood needs more public spaces, including a park that can host a wide variety of activities from kids’ play area and fitness space to a place for tenants to hold parties. There’s also a desire for more neighborhood-serving retail.
What we’re proposing:
• Including a neighborhood park as part of the Euclid Improvements • Providing additional multiple use public spaces to allow for spaces to be used for a greater variety of activities at different times
• Providing flexible and appropriately sized spaces for both community and retail activities • Designing the community space to open out onto the park to provide greater access to both the community space and the park
• Including neighborhood-serving retail space, with locally focused options like a convenience store, cafe, clinic, or pharmacy.
Conclusion and Moving Forward
The result of these efforts has been a deepening of trust between tenants, Woodland Park Communities and property management and a greater understanding of how to improve the quality of life at Woodland Park in way that is community-centered. Specifically, it has resulted in:
o Co-created Relocation Commitments for the Euclid Improvements o A Euclid Improvement planning application that reflects responses to community input o Increased family resources and programming on site
o Two temporary pop up parks for the communities’ enjoyment o Ongoing communications and community building opportunities As noted earlier, Woodland Park Communities views ongoing proactive and deep community engagement as fundamental part of existing in this community. Looking forward, Studio O, Emily Weinstein Consulting, and the community engagement team will continue to support that work by maintaining the system of community partnerships, engagement materials, events and spaces. Plans are underway to create a tenant advisory council to provide another mechanism for Woodland Park Communities and tenants to be in dialogue. Furthermore, as it relates to the Euclid Improvements, there will be additional community design meetings to inform and get additional input about the overall design, additional meetings with Improvement Area tenants to inform and get input about more specific elements of the design and development process, participation in relevant public hearings, and stakeholder meetings with key community, city, and regional stakeholders.
Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
nodisplacement.com
Community Involvement Strategy
74 Previous and Ongoing Community Engagement
Since Woodland Park Communities purchased the property, they have prioritized community engagement and frequent tenant communications. Below is a partial list of these efforts:
Staffing
• Hired bilingual community engagement team, including full time on-site Community Engagement Manager, Teresa Morales, in 2017.
• Expanded community engagement team in 2018.
• Hired 5 community “promotoras” who are tenant leaders who assist with communications and outreach
Meetings/Engagement Sessions
• Town Hall Meetings. Four (4) meetings in February 2016 to introduce new ownership, hear tenants’ and neighbors’ concerns, and answer questions.
• Listening Sessions. Eighteen (18) focused sessions held between October 2017 and January 2018. We heard from 120 adults and 58 youth. The Listening Sessions offered an intimate setting to better understand tenants’ needs, discuss the issues most pressing to tenants, and create a vision for how Woodland Park can best evolve. • Cafecitos. Twenty (20) small morning gatherings for tenants and neighbors to meet over light refreshments with the Community Engagement Manager and review new materials. They are held monthly both on the north and south sides of University Avenue. To date, we have heard from over 140 adults and 65 youth. The series of cafecitos is ongoing. • Community Dinners. Fourteen (14) catered dinners serving over 900 meals between September 2017 and September 2019. These dinners provided an opportunity for tenants to interact with ownership and management, hear updates about the property, and provide input on programming and improvements, including the Euclid Improvements and the Relocation Commitments. Community dinners will continue be an ongoing feature of our community engagement activities. • Community Design Meetings. Six (6) structured meetings to discuss (a) the future of and vision for the Westside; (b) Westside Area Plan priorities; and (c) concerns and comments on the Euclid Improvements. Approximately 250 unique participants and 950 duplicated participants came to these meetings. The community design meetings will continue throughout the lifetime of the project. • Euclid improvement Area Tenant Meetings. Four (4) meetings were held with the tenants that live within the Euclid Improvement Area buildings. The meetings were focused on co-creating relocation commitments that reinforce Woodland Park Communities commitment to No Displacement and provides an overview of the benefits that tenants will receive through the process. Approximately 90 unique participants and 145 duplicated participants came to these meetings, • Information Booths: Prior to the Euclid Improvement Area Tenant Meetings, Woodland Park Communities held Information Booths throughout the Euclid Improvements area. These booths were Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
nodisplacement.com
Community Involvement Strategy
75 advertised in advance and allowed tenants to meet with Mike Kramer and Teresa Morales to ask questions, review materials and provide input. Approximately 45 participants came to the information booths.
Community Events
• Special Events and Festivities. Fifteen (15) celebrations commemorating seasonal activities. Our latest events have, on average, attracted between 400-500 participants. Examples of these regular events include the beginning of summer, Back to School, and holiday celebrations. These are times for tenants and neighbors to socialize and get to know each other better. At these events, we also invite community organizations to provide resources to tenants and assist in bringing community services to the Westside.
Partnerships and On-Site Programming
• Fresh Approach. We collaborate to install community gardens throughout the neighborhood and provide gardening and healthy food education.
• East Palo Alto Family YMCA. We partner on a discounted membership program for Woodland Park tenants, free swimming classes for youth, and free weekly exercise classes on-site, including Yoga, Boot Camp and Zumba. To date over 100 tenants have participated in the Woodland Park sponsored YMCA exercise classes on-site.
• Ravenswood School District. We work together to provide access to the Ravenswood schools’ online portal in Woodland Park’s two computer tech centers, which are available to tenants.
East Palo Alto branch of the San Mateo County Libraries. We coordinate to host the monthly bookmobile on-site and maintain small libraries throughout the neighborhood, host the library’s English Conversation Club, and host a Talk, Read, Sing program for young children and their caregivers. • Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA. We host a free summer Animal Camp for Woodland Park youth and provide animal care classes.
Space and Facilities
• Northside Management Office. We opened a new tenant services office on the north side of the neighborhood at Euclid Avenue and East O’Keefe Avenue, to provide our tenants north of University Avenue with convenient access to staff to make maintenance and customer service requests or pay rent conveniently.
• Community Engagement Office. We opened a new office, staffed by our full-time community engagement team, inviting tenants to discuss any ideas, suggestions, or concerns directly with the ownership team representatives.
• Free Technology Centers. We opened two technology centers on-site for use by Woodland Park tenants. The tech centers offer free and accessible computers and printers, and free wi-fi. We have partnered with the Ravenswood City School District to install school software on our computers, so students can work on their homework at the tech centers.
Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
nodisplacement.com
Community Involvement Strategy
76 • Boom Pop Park. We created a temporary pop-up open space for community enjoyment at Donohoe Street and West Bayshore Road. There is space for gathering, play, and exercise. East Palo Alto YMCA instructors teach free weekly fitness classes every Saturday morning. • Bridge Pop Park. Based on the success of Boom Pop Park, we created a temporary pop-up open space for community engagement at Newell and West Bayshore Road. There is dedicated space for exercise, play, family gatherings and is designed to accommodate our large community events with stalls for community groups and resources. YMCA instructors teach free weekly fitness classes every Saturday morning.
• Bus Stop Improvements and Neighborhood Benches. At the location of existing school bus stops, and other selected locations around the neighborhood, we have added improvements to improve the neighborhood quality of life, including new benches and additional trashcans. • Little Free Libraries. To date, we have installed six “Little Free Library” boxes around the neighborhood, where tenants and neighbors can take or leave books in English and Spanish for their enjoyment. We have partnered with the East Palo Alto branch of the San Mateo County Libraries to stock the Little Free Libraries with books for all ages in both English and Spanish. • Community Gardening. We have partnered with Fresh Approach (formerly Collective Roots) to plant garden boxes around the neighborhood with flowers and vegetables for tenants to tend and enjoy. • Cabana. We have offered the use of our on-site “Cabana” off Newell Avenue for select city-related and community events, such as The Primary School’s orientation for Woodland Park parents, East Palo Alto Police Department beat meetings, and a meeting of the Rent Stabilization Board’s Outreach and Education Committee. YMCA instructors teach free weekly fitness classes every Saturday morning and Thursday evening.
Communications
• Newsletters. Quarterly newsletters are distributed to all tenants and a range of local and regional stakeholders. They are written in English and Spanish.
• Euclid Improvement Handouts. Woodland Park communities has created two Euclid Improvement Handouts with detailed information about the project description, guiding principles, timeline and images. The handouts are in English and Spanish.
• Frequently Asked Questions. Throughout the community design process, Woodland Park Communities has been soliciting questions through a variety of engagement strategies and providing written responses in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions document that is provided to all tenants in English and Spanish.
• Euclid Improvement Area tenant mailings. In an effort to engage the tenants that will be most impacted by the Euclid Improvements, Woodland Park Communities does regular mailings to the tenants in the area with up to date information, draft documents including the draft Relocation Commitments and announcements.
• Community dinner and meeting invitations. All community events, dinners and meetings are advertised through a variety of channels including door to door delivery of branded materials.
Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
nodisplacement.com
Community Involvement Strategy
77 Woodland Park Communities Foundation
Woodland Park Communities supports East Palo Alto-based and East Palo Alto-serving organizations and events by providing funding through the Woodland Park Communities Foundation as well as providing financial support for programming on site. A list of the organizations includes (in alphabetical order):
• AbleWorks
• Aim High for High School – East Palo Alto
• Bring Me a Book Foundation / Reading Bonanza at the Park • Canopy
• Catholic Charities for Youth at St. Francis of Assissi • Computers for Everyone
• EPA Children’s Day Committee
• East Palo Alto and Belle Haven Chamber of Commerce
• East Palo Alto branch of the San Mateo County Libraries • East Palo Alto Blues Festival
• East Palo Alto Boxing Club
• East Palo Alto Junior Golf Program
• East Palo Alto Police Activities League
• East Palo Alto Senior Center
• East Palo Alto Tee-Ball and Pitching Machine League
• East Palo Alto YMCA
• East Palo Alto Youth Arts & Music Center
• Ecumenical Hunger Program
• El Concilio of San Mateo / Comite Latino
• EPACENTER Arts
• Free at Last Community Recovery and Rehabilitation Services • Girls to Women
• Hagar Services Coalition
• Housing Endowment and Regional Trust (HEART) of San Mateo County • JobTrain
• Live in Peace
• Mid-Peninsula Athletic Association / Mid-Peninsula Mastodons Football • Nuestra Casa de East Palo Alto
• One East Palo Alto
• Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA
• Project WeH.O.P.E.
• Ravenswood Family Health Center
• Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center Mid-Peninsula, East Palo Alto • StreetCode Academy
• Youth Community Service
Euclid Improvements Application – September 2019
nodisplacement.com
Community Involvement Strategy
78 About the Social Impact Consultants
Studio O is a design and strategy consultancy working at the intersection of racial and spatial injustice.
Founded in 2012 and based in Oakland, the practice builds on over 15 years’ experience in the design and social impact sector of its founder and principal, Liz Ogbu. It collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to work on projects with/in historically marginalized communities around the world. With a mission to create or improve systems, services, and places that can heal conditions of injustice, Studio O leverages a combination of community-centered research; dynamic forms of engagement and prototyping; spatially just architecture and planning; and tools to build participatory power and community-centered systems.
In addition to her projects, Ogbu is speaks nationally and internationally on issues of spatial justice, including a widely viewed TED Talk on gentrification and spatial justice.
Emily Weinstein Consulting is a strategic consultant and leader in housing, community development and public engagement. For the past 20 years Emily Weinstein has worked on large scale affordable housing and community development initiatives to transform some of the most economically distressed and underserved neighborhoods in California. Emily Weinstein Consulting works with developers, public agencies, community organizations and design teams to achieve greater economic, social and health impacts by applying a wide set of community-centered strategies throughout the real estate development process. Emily’s passion for marrying real estate and social impact stems from a belief that the built environment has the power to transform lives, and that developers have a responsibility to create equitable, healthy places where people can thrive and children can meet their full potential. Emily Weinstein also served two terms as a Planning Commissioner for the City of Oakland from 2013-2018 and is the pioneer of the Trauma Informed Community Building model.