Pratt Center for Community Development

Planning, Building, & Educating for Change.

Pratt Center eNews, August 2004

August 2004
In this Issue:

Welcome!

Stay up to date with PICCED's new E-newsletter and Website

PICCED is pleased to announce the launch of our quarterly e-newsletter! It will feature updates on our projects, announcements of upcoming events, policy briefs, and information on community development. You can find additional information by following the links to our newly designed website . We will also send occasional "e-alerts" to notify you of timely news. If you do not wish to receive email correspondence from PICCED, please click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this newsletter. You can also choose to receive the HTML formatted e-newsletter by clicking the subscribe link below.

The e-newsletter and website are part of the Pratt Center's transition from founding director Ron Shiffman to new director Brad Lander. We will maintain our steadfast commitment to empowering community groups in New York City's neighborhoods to combat poverty and achieve sustainable community development. At the same time, we will be exploring new ways to advance this vision. We will keep you updated on the work of our staff and new Pratt Center Advisory Board as we move forward.

Much of our current work centers on themes of shared prosperity (insuring that all New Yorkers have the chance to benefit from development plans); of environmental justice and sustainable development; and of new forms of community empowerment (including development of community facilities, and linkages between arts & culture and communities). The projects highlighted below address some of these themes.

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Cypress Hills Community School

Construction to Begin Soon on Community-Based School in Cypress Hills


Rendering of future Cypress Hills Community School
PICCED's architectural staff, led by Perry Winston, recently completed construction documents for the new home of the Cypress Hills Community School. The community- and parent-led school has been looking for a building since it was founded in 1997. The Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation (CHLDC), won the right to build a new building after a significant community organizing struggle, assisted by PICCED's "advocacy architecture."

CHLDC will convert an underutilized industrial building in Brooklyn into an environmentally conscious school that will serve 400 students. Once complete in 2006, the building will include sustainable features such as an under-floor air conditioning and displacement ventilation system that provides cleaner air more efficiently than a conventional system.

Learn more about Cypress Hills Community School

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South Bronx

Environmental Justice in the South Bronx


South Bronx River Watershed
In June, PICCED Senior Fellow Joan Byron presented to the plenary session at the "Walk21-V: Cities for People Conference" in Copenhagen. The presentation focused on her work with a remarkable set of young leaders and community organizations in low-income communities of color in the South Bronx, which have long borne a disproportionate share of the region's environmental burdens. These groups are working together to reclaim the area around the Bronx River as a model community characterized by environmental and economic justice, and to insist that environmental harms are both reduced and distributed more fairly.

The paper highlights the work of Sustainable South Bronx, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice , Mothers on the Move , The Point CDC , and their many partners. Specific projects include the Bronx River Greenway (as part of the Bronx River Alliance), the community plan to decommission the Sheridan Expressway, and sustainable alternatives to plans for yet another power plant.

You can read Joan's paper, "Transforming the Southern Bronx River Watershed", online in PDF format.

The Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance is sponsoring a symposium on deconstructing the Bronx's Sheridan Expressway on September 21. For more information, contact Joan Byron at [Sorry, display of this email address requires a Javascript-aware browser, in order to deter spam. Please use the general contact page instead.].

Learn more about PICCED's work in the South Bronx

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Fulton Mall

Fulton Mall: New Strategies for Preservation and Planning


Fulton Mall
photo by C. Gifford
Amidst the city's broad redevelopment plan for downtown Brooklyn, a new PICCED project led by Vicki Weiner seeks to assist in revitalization that will improve and secure the future of Fulton Mall as a vital public place. By bringing historic preservation, urban planning, ethnography, community cultural development, and economic development tools together, Vicki will work with other stakeholders to create a "holistic" plan that addresses the Mall's physical condition, identifies new economic opportunities for property owners, preserves the most important historical resources, and provides unique and useful retail for surrounding communities.

Learn more about the Fulton Mall Project

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Coming Soon...

In the next few months, watch for PICCED's work on:

Inclusionary zoning: In September, PICCED and PolicyLink will release a report on expanding housing opportunities in NYC through inclusionary zoning. We have been working closely with the Campaign for Inclusionary Zoning, which is calling for a guarantee of affordable housing in areas of the city that are being rezoned.

Community plans in West Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant: In the next month, community boards in Manhattan and Brooklyn are likely to approve comprehensive community "197-a" plans - prepared with extensive community process by PICCED's community planning team - to guide the future of their communities.

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