A recent Plain Dealer story highlighted the First Suburbs Development Council (FSDC) and Director Lou Tisler as housing innovators in Cleveland Heights. The FSDC is taking a two family house on Beechwood Road - a street filled with nice but tired-looking homes near Severance Town Center - and giving it a complete make-over. No, it's not 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'. The FSDC is re-imagining the 'Cleveland double' - so named for its ubiquitous presence in Cleveland and some of its older suburbs - as a snazzy, side-by-side duplex. The group bought the home for the bargain price of $100,000. After tens of thousands are poured into the rehab, the side by side townhouse-style homes will sell for about $165,000. The rehab is a gut job that will include an exterior renovation, a new porch, a new interior common wall, refinished hardwood floors, a reconfigured, open floor plan, higher-end finishes such as luxury countertops and much more. Buyers will be able to enjoy the modern amenities of new construction slipped into the shell of a charming, older home.

The First Suburbs Development Council and Tisler have been getting some attention by making an aggressive bid to redevelop the First Suburbs. The makeover they're doing on Beechwood in the Heights is the beginning of a range of services they want to provide to member communities. We caught up with Lou Tisler to talk about hurdles that they'll have to jump through to make the First Suburbs competitive, the realities of regionalism, how we can help our legislators in Columbus 'get it.'

Lee Chilcote: So what does the First Suburbs Development Council do?

Lou Tisler: We were incorporated as a 501c3 in July 2002. Our goal is to mirror the work of community development corporations (CDC's), but to do so more from a ten or fifteen thousand foot perspective. We wanted to try to make it easy for developers to come into these communities, to add capacity to local development directors of these suburbs, and to forge partnerships so that we could provide some of the "on the ground" services that a CDC might provide.

LC: When were you tapped to lead the organization?

LT: I started at the United Labor Agency, and then I became the director of the Westtown CDC, which provided services to a city ward. For me, the next step was something regional. The Westtown neighborhood in Cleveland has the same issues with density as the First Suburbs [making it hard to redevelop due to lack of available land], but the First Suburbs are much larger. I saw it as a challenge to work with a start-up organization, and also to try to effect positive change in the region.

LC: Was it a culture shock to go from working in the City of Cleveland to working in the First Suburbs?

LT: When I was working at Westtown, the suburbs were the 'bad guys'. The neighborhood had a myopic, stereotypical view that the suburbs are stealing our economic base. In reality, we need a regional approach. Whether it's the central city or suburbs, everyone needs to be thriving in order for the region to thrive. I've been on tours of the suburbs, and the public officials will say, 'This is our worst area.' Yet their worst area is not nearly as bad as the worst area in Cleveland, and it really needs to be addressed with preventative maintenance so that it doesn't spread. They say, "These are the four houses that we really need fixed up," and I can say, "I've seen four Census tracts that are like that" in a Cleveland neighborhood!

LC: The housing stock is very similar in many of the older suburbs - it's a vision of what Cleveland was like 30 or 40 years ago.

LT: We've got to stop that deterioration from taking place. Sometimes cities say, "Why would we belong to the First Suburbs? That's a low to moderate income organization." Yet it's really about the foresight of cities. Inner ring suburbs have the same problems as the city - we have tired out retail as well as an industrial base that's leaving. None of our member cities wants to qualify for Empowerment Zone money. They'd love to have it, of course - but they don't want to get to the point where they qualify for it. It's similar to the health care industry - a lot of the time, there's not funding for preventative maintenance. You have to be on your knees in order to get assistance.

LC: We've talked a lot about regionalism in Cleveland. It seems to me that the First Suburbs Development Council is an example of governments actually doing something, instead of just talking about it. How did this group come about?

LT: These cities really came together in a confluence against urban sprawl. The First Suburbs Consortium [the coalition of governments that, several years later, founded the First Suburbs Development Council] came about with the widening of I-271 back in the mid 90s. These communities were concerned about the flight of businesses, of the economic base and the income taxes that go with it, down the 271 corridor and into communities that were easier to develop. The playing field is not level - it's much easier to develop 100 acres of green space than it is to develop in the First Suburbs. These cities are still looking at legislation, but they formed the First Suburbs Development Council to bring solutions to the table. The Consortium is the think tank/advocacy organization, and the development council does the programming. They have the same membership generally, but they're addressing the issues on two different levels. Our goal is to foster community and economic development in the First Suburbs. In August, we launched a program with the American Institute of Architects called the ADAPT Program. It's a private-public partnership, and the acronym stands for 'Architect Design Assistance Program Team'. The AIA met with us and the county, and the economic development directors talked about promoting storefront renovation. We realized that we didn't have anything to show them, so we created this program. It allows architectural firms to 'adopt' a community and provide pro bono architectural renderings and other services. We are working with the county to revamp their storefront renovation program; we'd like to leverage the ADAPT program, the storefront program and others. We also have a housing initiative in the City of Cleveland Heights on Beechwood Road. We're converting a two family house - an up and down double - into a side by side duplex. We are taking a property that would have probably been owned by an absentee landlord, and increasing home ownership by selling both units. They will be owner occupied. We're hoping to finish construction by April - a 1922 structure with like-new condos in both sides. They'll probably sell for about $165,000 per unit.

LC: $165,000 is probably more than the double sold for originally, right?

LT: We purchased it for about $120,000. Yet we think that the price point is low enough to make it affordable for this market. We're targeting the urban pioneer that is willing to take the risk and to say, "Well, here's a great new product - I get to buy new construction, and I'm on a street that has some issues but it's improving." Fifth Third has really taken a leap of faith through providing the financing.

LC: These units are three stories, so they're really kind of like townhouses, which is a neat feel. What will the interiors be like - are they contemporary?

LT: Yes, very contemporary. We're also applying for brown fields money from the U.S. EPA, a million dollars specifically for First Suburbs member cities. We applied with the city and the county - there would be another million for the city and another million countywide.

LC: You hear a lot about redevelopment in cities like Cleveland Heights - there was an article in the Plain Dealer recently that said that Cleveland Heights was a leader in housing redevelopment. What are the challenges in other cities that may not have the same assets in terms of housing - Maple Heights, and places like this?

LT: It's funny, everyone's talking about the 'Quiet Crisis' - but there's really a bunch of quiet successes happening. We're taking those successes five, fifteen or twenty housing units at a time. Garfield has a project that you don't really hear much about along I-480. Maple Heights is looking at offering tax abatement. Warrensville Heights has an innovative approach - the tax abatement is geared towards the square footage of the house, and the more square footage the home is, the more tax abatement offered. That's designed to promote adding options onto the housing continuum. Bedford has a pharmaceutical company, Bienvenue that just did an 80,000 square foot expansion. It's just not something they really trumped up. The company could have moved anywhere - but they picked Bedford, and there are quality jobs coming in. It's really a capacity issue. You have some economic development directors that are also public service directors. You have four entitlement communities that are able to get Community Development Block Grant money from the federal government - Cleveland Heights, Euclid, Lakewood and Parma - because they have over 50,000 in population. The rest receive CDBG money through the county, but they don't get their own designation. In this case, the cities have to be competitive; they have to go to the county and ask for set aside money. In some of the communities that don't receive CDBG money, there is still a lot of redevelopment taking place - like in Shaker Heights. In others, the capacity at the city level is low or non existent, yet their need is as great.

LC: What do you see happening at the state level? Do you see the state becoming more or less responsive to smart growth issues?

LT: I think we're still suffering from a lack of promotion of smart growth, a lack of focus towards the urban areas, and a focus instead towards green field development. When [?] Wolpert came out with the Smart Growth Commission it was really good to see that it was on somebody's radar screen. I am hoping that the new smart growth organization "Greater Ohio," with the partnership of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus in this campaign, will be able to spur some change.

LC: What's the long term plan for the First Suburbs Development Council?

LT: We'd like develop our capacity to be able to provide services. We'd like to move into commercial redevelopment, to help bring quality jobs and increase the tax base in our member communities. We want to work on issues countywide - the Cuyahoga County Department of Development has been very responsive. We'd also like to be able to work collaboratively, with regional economic development groups like Team NEO. In two to four years, we'd like to be helping to move the region forward through housing, commercial and industrial development.

LC: What role does housing development play in that mix?

LT: We need to be able to provide options in the First Suburbs so that people don't have to move up when they want to move out - so that there are options along the housing continuum. We have empty nesters that need first floor master bedrooms, and access to services. The appreciation of new housing will add to basic services and the tax revenue stream.

LC: Has the City of Cleveland partnered with your group?

LT: Cleveland has always been at the table, but they are inundated with issues that are a priority. The city realizes that if there are failing suburbs, they fail too. Look at the Mount Pleasant NOW Development Corporation - they are working with the City of Shaker Heights on the Kinsman/Chagrin corridtor. Westtown and Cudell CDC's have always worked with Lakewood. Look at our joint brownfields application - it's much stronger to have the City of Cleveland with us, than to go against them.

LC: What's the reaction of outer suburban communities to your group?

LT: First, they have an apathetic view that they're taken care of; second, they think that we're in competition. There are some that have the foresight - like Mayor Sutherland of Bay Village - to realize that the First Suburbs banding together is a good thing, because sooner or later those other cities are going to have infrastructure and density issues, also. Tom Bier says that Cuyahoga will be the first fully developed county in the state of Ohio. Some communities that aren't members of the consortium come to the meetings because they know that sooner or later there are issues that they're going to have to address, and they're trying to shorten that learning curve.

LC: Do you see a link between community involvement and engagement and what's happening in these communities?

LT: Yes. An involved citizenry really moves the agenda forward. People do not want to move out when they're involved in their community. They want to stay close to churches, friends, family, local retail. They're the ones that are saying, 'We're going to have two more children, we need housing that will keep us in our community'. If you look at the communities that have the greatest levels of community involvement, these places are ahead of the curve.

from Cool Cleveland contributor Lee Chilcote

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