The UpDayton Summit

UpDayton Volunteers

Guest post by AJ Ferguson, Director of UpDayton

The 2015 UpDayton Summit will be held on Friday, April 10th at the Dayton Art Institute from 2pm to 6pm. You can learn more or register online at http://updayton.city/.

UpDayton seeks to spur economic growth in the Dayton region by attracting and retaining young creative talent. UpDayton wants to show young adults that the Gem City is a great place to live, work and play. And if top-notch creative young professionals want to live in our community, then top-notch entrepreneurs, businesses and investors want to be here, too!

UpDayton is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The vast majority of UpDayton’s impact stems from the work of volunteers who want to build a better Dayton for themselves and their peers. Volunteers lead and power UpDayton’s targeted committees and projects that address factors college graduates and young professionals employ when they decide what city to call home.

Each year, UpDayton hosts a young creatives summit, bringing together diverse young talent, business leaders, non-profits, universities and elected officials to address the flight of young talent from the region. At the each Summit, the Dayton region’s diverse young creatives come together to share their needs and concerns for the Miami Valley and brainstorm ideas to make the region a better place to live, work and play.

Primary goals of the annual Summit:

• Solicit young, creative professionals for their needs, cares and concerns and challenge attendees to devise ideas for making the region a better place to live, work and play

• Launch a community action plan based on the Summit ideas and recruit attendees and other young creatives to implement the plan

• Educate young creatives about regional assets through a Summit Resource Fair

• Foster great collaboration between the region’s young professional organizations

• Attract local media attention

The Summit is an annual event intended to sustain a constant, community-coordinated focus on attracting and retaining young talent in the region. Each year the Summit is an opportunity to highlight the progress of the previous Summit’s action plan and launch new projects.

During the breakout sessions, attendees discuss possible project ideas for the coming year and ultimately choose the three that will be implemented. Each project receives $1,000 in seed money and the support of UpDayton’s network of volunteers and partners.

In 2014, projects included:

Dayton Inspires - A community pride social media campaign encouraging the community to recognize how Dayton inspires our own personal greatness, ambition and achievements, and to remind us why we’re proud to call Dayton home.

Wright Now Downtown - An effort to better connect the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base community to downtown Dayton.

Downtown Disc Golf - An effort to bring a new disc golf course to Dayton well within the reach of downtown residents.

Other notable projects:

SR-35 Pedestrian Bridge Mural - This bridge mural brought new life and vibrancy to a bridge connecting two of Dayton’s strongest historic neighborhoods.

Walkable Dayton - This project team put up basic wayfinding signs throughout downtown Dayton that emphasize the city’s walkability.

Streetvival - This placemaking project brought an inspirational and interactive mural to a Dayton neighborhood. The mural included chalkboard paint areas for community members to add their own messages of hope and optimism.

GOPC Testifies to New Jersey Legislature on Benefits of Land Banking

On Monday, GOPC Executive Director Lavea Brachman gave testimony to the New Jersey legislature Housing and Community Development Committee on the status of land banks in Ohio to help inform their consideration of proposed land bank legislation for New Jersey.

At the invitation of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, Brachman gave the following remarks (excerpt from testimony):

“Similar to New Jersey, Ohio’s cities have been hit hard by urban blight and decline, experiencing some of the highest foreclosure and vacancy rates in the country. At its height in 2009, Ohio’s foreclosure filings was almost 90,000 per year, and the vacancy rates have climbed to devastating levels of over 15% in such cities as, Cleveland, Youngstown and Cincinnati, and over 20% in Dayton and many other cities and towns around the state.   These vacancies have also cost municipalities exponential amounts in collateral damage, represented in the form of public safety hazards and decreased property values.

In 2008, in response to this unparalleled foreclosure and vacant and abandoned property crisis, the Ohio General Assembly, with bipartisan support, passed legislation creating Ohio’s first county land bank, piloted in Cuyahoga County (where Cleveland is located). In 2010, GOPC and a coalition of partners from around the state successfully advocated for passage of legislation that extended land bank authority to an additional 42 out of Ohio’s 88 counties (based on a population threshold), permitting these specified counties to create a hybrid organization that combines the private sector efficiency of a non-profit corporation with the public purposes, powers and funding of a governmental organization.

Ohio land banks are a welcome example of a state policy implemented with appropriate local control intervening effectively to jumpstart local market operations. While Ohio communities have a long way to go to return to economic and physical health—and while there is room for land banks to maximize further use of their tools to help individuals thrive and achieve community revitalization—many cities and counties are actively leveraging their land banks’ capabilities demonstrating that well-intentioned state policy interventions in combination with local capacity and oversight can work in tandem with market operations. They are working so well that a recent proposal floated by the county treasurers’ association to expand land banks to the rest of the counties in the state.”

GOPC applauds the New Jersey legislature for considering the merits of land banks, which have made significant strides in blight elimination and neighborhood revitalization throughout Ohio.

The Water & Sewer Infrastructure Crisis and Potential Paths Forward

By Samantha Dawson, GOPC Intern, and Marianne Eppig, Manager of Research & Communications Our nation and its legacy cities are facing an impending infrastructure crisis: water and sewer systems are failing and require modernization as soon as possible. Most of these water and sewer systems were built following WWII, meaning that they are approaching the end of their useful life. In some places, the infrastructure is already beginning to fail, leading to water main breaks, housing floods, sewage overflows into the environment, and public health crises.

While the national bill to upgrade this infrastructure has been estimated at around $1 trillion, costs for addressing Ohio’s existing water and sewer system deficiencies are estimated to be around $20.84 billion, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

To meet federal clean water mandates, cities must find ways to finance these needed infrastructure overhauls in short order. So far, many cities around Ohio have been ratcheting up water and sewer rates. The city of Akron, for example, has increased rates by 71% in one year. Other cities around Ohio have raised rates between 30% to 50% or more within the last two years.

   

GOPC is currently looking into other financial tools that can be used to restore Ohio’s water and sewer infrastructure systems. We will be discussing these tools with a panel of experts at our upcoming 2015 Summit on June 9^th during the following session:

Finding Solutions to Ohio's Water Infrastructure Challenges 

Ohio cities, large and small, must address the critical behind-the-scenes challenge of modernizing their water and sewer infrastructure to avoid potential serious public health crises and environmental degradation, and to create capacity to attract and support businesses and residents.  However, Ohio’s cities are struggling to find ways to finance the complicated infrastructure overhauls needed to address these challenges, comply with federal mandates, and even support on-going maintenance. On this panel, experts will discuss the scope of these infrastructure challenges along with innovative financing approaches and sustainable solutions necessary for Ohio’s cities to function smoothly and accommodate regrowth.

We hope you will join us at the 2015 Summit! For more information about the Summit agenda and to register, click here.