People’s Plan suffers from same troubles as Heritage Initiative.

Since the 2004 announcement of the Heritage Initiative by the city of Lewiston, significant organizing by community activists and social service agencies occurred to look at strategies for overcoming the challenges documented in that downtown neighborhood.

The Heritage Initiative, as some may recall, was branded by many as a modern-day urban renewal project with a proposed boulevard bisecting one of Lewiston’s densest neighborhoods, often known for the streets named for trees; Maple, Birch, Spruce, Walnut.

An ongoing effort, led by the city’s Downtown Neighborhood Task Force, is looking to create an alternative to that plan and has been guided, in part, by a “People’s Plan” created by the Visible Community. The time and energy spent to date is laudable, but it appears to be unfolding with similar qualities that led to the demise of the Heritage Initiative. Simply put, both plans were created with the agenda of their creator without a broader community vision.

At the core, a downtown in any community can be described as place of many different activities from civic to dining and entertainment, and from residential to commercial. The qualities that make it unique from other areas of a community tend to be the density in which these different uses exist.

For example, buildings in a downtown tend to be taller and more closely spaced than in other neighborhoods and in some cases, multiple uses will co-exist in the same building (apartments above storefronts, for example) or in close proximity (an office building next to condominiums).

While the issue at play here is downtown Lewiston, these traits apply to most downtowns, which in Maine are the centers of original settlement for communities. The central problem is trying to reconcile how downtown Lewiston went from a vibrant center for living, working, and playing to the social ills and investment struggles highlighted in the city’s research behind the Heritage Initiative.

It was argued the city’s plan was driven by business and economic interests only, in looking to drive up property values, diminish crime by reducing the population significantly, and to expand the commercial district in the Southern Gateway, which is already home to several new buildings and a parking garage.

The lack of community engagement in the planning, whether actual or perceived, drove the plan into the ground as cries over the loss of affordable housing and the destruction of a neighborhood feel resonated strongly with the media and ultimately with policymakers.

The “People’s Plan” has introduced the other extreme of the argument. By laying out a strategy grounded predominantly from the viewpoint of current neighborhood residents, its goals highlight service needs and demands to maintain the status quo: a downtown neighborhood that is among the poorest in the state and into which significant social service investments must be made to sustain the neighborhood, which further isolates residential uses from traditional downtown commerce.

There does not need to be significant research by social scientists, or urban planners for that matter, to conclude that by clustering all of the subsidized and affordable housing developments into a small area of a community that a culture of ownership and economic opportunity will struggle to take hold.

The Lewiston of old, though often romanticized, offered a downtown inhabited by not only millworkers and their large families, but also the business and civic elite. Those working in business, with their higher incomes, helped to support the proliferation of shops and other downtown amenities that could then be taken advantage of by workers or citizens of more modest incomes.

Of course, 100 years ago, the modes of transportation set limits on how far those working in the downtown would choose to live from their jobs. Today, the cost of transportation is reintroducing that reality, but will the perceptions of living in downtown Lewiston lead them to look elsewhere?

Known for its relatively affordable downtown housing, when compared to Portland, Lewiston is in a unique position to plan today to ensure that affordability remains a strategy that is fully integrated into the concept of market rate housing in those same neighborhoods.

Given the ongoing efforts, it appears the city will need mediation to find the right balance between addressing the economic stagnation in that neighborhood, and providing for a reasonable network of subsidies and social service assistance for those in need.

Jonathan LaBonte, of New Auburn, is a columnist for the Sun Journal. E-mail: [email protected].