Last Updated on August 6, 2023, 2:51 AM | Published: January 8, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — The City of Oklahoma City’s Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, a HUD-funded city program focused on revitalizing inner city neighborhoods with community support, is celebrating both a rousing success and an exciting new addition.
Launched in 2012 as a way to use federal grant funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to breathe new life and new community investment into underserved city neighborhoods, the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, or SNI, already has a decade’s worth of success stories.
But they’re writing a new chapter this week with the simultaneous announcements that the Capitol View neighborhood will be “graduating” – meaning they’ll be drawing the area’s SNI investment to a close after a successful meeting of the program’s objectives – and that the Martin Luther King neighborhood is joining the program.
The Capitol Hill neighborhood, which came into the program five years ago alongside Capitol View, will see an extension of another two years as city staff and community supporters in the area attempt to address some hurdles that have complicated revitalization efforts.
To date, the city has provided funding totaling $14.5 million for SNI projects in neighborhoods across OKC, but the Initiative’s efforts to secure private investment in the rejuvenated areas has resulted in more than $42 million in locally conscious neighborhood development.
A thoughtful approach
“This isn’t re-development,” explained Shannon Entz, Program Planner for Neighborhood and Commercial District Revitalization with the City of OKC Planning Department.
“Much of neighborhood revitalization is offering programming for the residents who currently live there,” Entz said. “We want residents to age in place and to be able to capitalize on the incremental improvements and increased values. This requires a thoughtful, gentle approach. Otherwise, we risk the negative forms of gentrification.”
That kind of gentle touch is achieved through working directly with non-profits, local investors, and above all else, with neighborhood residents themselves to guarantee that the community is evolving the way that they want it to and not forcing the removal of longtime residents or the erasure of longstanding culture.
That policy of listening to the community itself has paid off wonderfully in Capitol View. The neighborhood is set for “graduation” from the SNI program in this coming June, signaling that program leaders believe the area’s positive, community-and-culture-focused development is now self-sustaining.
“Capitol View has had phenomenal resident participation,” Entz told me. “Whether it is home repairs, hazardous tree removals, tree planting, public art, cleanups, food distributions. They have shown up. They were very organized and committed to improving their neighborhood and the lives of their neighbors.”
Road blocks and success
However, sometimes that same thoughtful approach means being honest about shortcomings and difficulties in working with community residents, as has been the case with Capitol Hill, resulting in the decision to extend the neighborhood’s program for another two years.
“The level of resident participation [in Capitol Hill] has been lower than expected, partially due to language barriers and cultural understanding,” Entz explained, also admitting to a level of general distrust of city government itself within that community. “But we know they need the assistance, so staff plans to dedicate more tools and time to increase those numbers.”
But, there are grand successes being celebrated by neighbors in the Capitol Hill SNI.
Part of the original planning for SNI development in Capitol Hill included the long-desired plaza addition to Calle Dos Cinco in Historic Capitol Hill district. With that project finally approved recently, the extension of two more years will also give the SNI program the opportunity to help the neighborhood usher that closely held dream into reality.
Next neighborhood announced
The other celebratory news in the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative announcement to the City Council on January 3rd was the selection of the Martin Luther King neighborhood as the next community set for SNI funding and development.
The neighborhood – comprising points west of Martin Luther King Avenue between NE 23rd and NE 30th Streets – has already seen renewed interest in recent years, thanks primarily to restaurants like Florence’s and Eastside Pizza, and their proposal to join the Initiative was impossible to pass up.
“We are already impressed with the MLK neighborhood’s enthusiasm and preparedness for SNI,” Entz said. “There are fantastic developments and investments coming to the MLK area, such as the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, Ralph Ellison Library improvements, intersection improvements, and more that will add to the recent investments, such as East Point.”
But before the work gets started, Entz says the very first priority will again be meeting with the local community in the neighborhood to hear about how the residents themselves want to proceed.
“We will meet with the neighborhood February 4th to discuss their needs and begin to develop their SNI Revitalization Strategy,” she said. “We will discuss housing, business and economic development, public services and infrastructure.”
More information
For more information about the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative in OKC, including ways that you can participate as a resident and a complete 35-page presentation of the program’s structures and goals, visit okc.gov/sni.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
