High Impact for Low-Income Properties For Len Hooper, chief landscape architect with the New York Housing Authority, repositioning a property has a different meaning than for many other landscape architects.
While Hooper’s clientele–the public housing residents of New York City–wants many of the benefits of active street life, nearby green space, walkable access to work, and entertainment that market-rate residents do, the results at public housing communities are measured by different standards of success.
“In 1986, Red Hook House was on the cover of a Time magazine issue addressing crime, drug use, and poverty in America,” Hooper says. “Last year, it was on the cover of Newsday because there were no homicides in the community.”
Hooper credits an approach known as Crime Protection Through Environmental Design, or CPTED, which outlines simple strategies for reducing crime through thoughtful design practices. Other additions at Red Hook House include the development of children’s and seniors’ centers on ground level and the creation of adjacent play areas and seating sections that bring watchful eyes to community spaces during a variety of times in the day.
“We spend a tremendous amount on our open space areas to make them more enticing for positive activities,” says Hooper, whose department spends approximately $50 million a year on landscaping and park amenities. “We have taken unused and misused spaces and now have them overflowing with people.”
According to Hooper, one CPTED element that helped revive Red Hook House was the involvement of community members in the design of park spaces, material selection, and the creation of art and sculpture for the public spaces. “When people have a meaningful hand in creating their parks, they guard the result as if it is their own,” Hooper says.
– Michael Bordenaro is a freelance writer in Chicago. He can be reached at mike@bordenaro.net.