Detroit Suburbs Redevelopment Ready

The Michigan Suburbs Alliance has certified five cities as the region’s first Redevelopment Ready Communities.  Eastpointe, Hazel Park, River Rouge, Southfield and Ypsilanti recently completed the pilot program of Redevelop-ment Ready Communities (RRC), which encourages older suburbs to bolster their competitive attractiveness by making their development processes more efficient and less complicated.

“Urban redevelopment is challenging enough without the added burden of complications at the municipal level,” says Conan Smith, executive director of the Suburbs Alliance. “By prioritizing early public engagement, comprehensive planning and streamlined review processes, RRC cities can compete with anyone for development dollars.”

The program encompasses a multi-step certification process, throughout which cities can receive technical assistance from professional planning consultants at no charge. An RRC consultant evaluates the cities’ redevelopment processes to produce a score and evaluation report against which cities are measured to achieve certification.

The Michigan Suburbs Alliance also released a revised version of the RRC Best Practices, a set of guidelines that address the principles essential to an efficient, successful redevelopment process. A committee made up of half public and half private sector representation comprising local and state-level economic development officials, developers, planners and others developed the best practices with the help of nearly 20 national experts on redevelopment. The RRC committee has met twice monthly for the past two years.

Since February 2005, officials from the RRC pilot cities have been working to integrate the program’s best practices into their redevelopment processes in order to increase efficiency, condense project timelines, and reduce costs and potential risks. 

RRC certification signals to the development community that a city has the processes in place to make redevelopment a streamlined, predictable experience.  Developers know that if a community is RRC certified, its development process is written, deliberate and applied consistently.

“The need for speedy handling of redevelopment projects increases as the complexity increases,” says Bren Buckley of Burton-Katzman Development.  “Redevelopment Ready Communities acknowledges this and treats developers accordingly.”

Cities also benefit through strengthened relationships with developers, better communication and understanding among city staff of responsibilities in the redevelopment process, and a targeted, community-supported plan for redevelopment. BFN