Good Neighbors The community really needed a sophisticated nonprofit to be able to deal with the neighborhood on the apartments for the homeless. “They did a great job working with us to get out in the street and show the community how it’s important and how it fits the city’s overall plan,” says Mike Brown, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s office.
Before tackling a project like this, NCR always makes sure that it has support from the leaders in the community and that these officials recognize the need for affordable housing. “I think the NIMBYism (not in my back yard) challenge is always there. I think the key is experience in knowing what to expect and how to deal with it and how to keep moving forward and reading the signals about whether you’ve got a project that’s going to make it or not in terms of a governmental vote,” Slemmer says. “We enjoy a very good relationship with most of the communities that we’re in. We’d never want to take on one of these projects without some really assertive governmental support.”
Slemmer believes NIMBYism is common in our culture. “If you build anything next door to homes, you’re going to get concerned residents,” he says.
The Commons at Grant is across from a very historic, very wealthy section of Columbus called German Village, says Slemmer. “The opposition came from a very vocal faction in German Village that opposed it based on gut reaction. They assumed if it was going to be for the homeless, it would be housing rapists, murderers, pedophiles and other people with criminal backgrounds, which certainly wasn’t the case,” he says.
NCR needed to educate the community and explain that the project wasn’t attracting outsiders, but rather serving workers in their community – people who work as clerks in the grocery stores and banks and other lower-income wage earners who couldn’t afford housing.
It got the message across by meeting one-on-one with anyone who wanted to meet with NCR, explains Patrick Higgins, director of communications at NCR. “It was a very grassroots effort. We would meet with people at all times and all hours, whenever they wanted.”
In addition, the company created a “good neighbor” advisory group that negotiated a good neighbor agreement with residents and business owners. “We didn’t give the advisory group any input as to how we’re going to operate, but they had input as to, ‘what happens if I hear a disturbance at night? What happens if your property isn’t maintained?’ So we put all the covenants into a document to demonstrate that we plan on being a good neighbor,” says Higgins. “But, it was reciprocal too. We put those in place so that we would be assured that all our residents would be welcomed to this neighborhood and wouldn’t be ostracized.”
The agreement requires that both parties create a peaceful, safe and beautiful neighborhood; share open and honest communication; help each other address concerns and solve problems; and offer public service for the benefit of the neighborhood.
Whenever NCR starts a new project, it always uses examples of communities that it has completed to demonstrate how affordable housing can be integrated into any community without causing problems.