New Report: Town Gown Collaboration in Land Use and Development

Posted by on August 17, 2009

Lincoln Institute has just released a Policy Focus Report, “Town Gown Collaboration in Land Use and Development.”

The abstract and an article on the report from Lincoln Institute’s e-newsletter appear below.  To download the report, visit: http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/1575_Town-Gown-Collaboration-in-Land-Use-and-Development

Abstract

Institutions of higher education are entering a new era. Once considered enclaves of intellectual pursuit, they now play a much broader role in their neighborhoods and cities. They have become anchor institutions and key partners in contributing to urban economic and community development, not only through their direct impacts on employment, spending, and workforce development, but also through their ability to produce innovation, attract industry, and revitalize their own neighborhoods. To meet their expanding missions, institutions often have to reach beyond traditional campus boundaries, and establish more collaborative towngown relationships. This policy focus report describes the economic role of the university and sources of conflict with the community.

Building town and gown

This is a tough time for colleges and universities, with shrinking endowments, layoffs and budget cuts, and campus expansion plans put on hold. Harvard University, for example, is moving slowly in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, across the Charles River from the main campus. Other universities are keeping the focus within, for new student housing. But a new Lincoln Institute report urges anchor institutions to maintain close working relationships with the urban neighborhoods where they reside. Town Gown Collaboration in Land Use and Development, by Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz, the Lincoln Institute’s latest Policy Focus Report, advises balancing university and community roles as part of a large, complex urban environment; working together toward common goals by sharing responsibility, authority, and accountability; and creating lasting change founded on ongoing communication and long-term, relationships.

“The ‘town-gown’ relationship has clearly evolved,” says Lincoln Institute president Gregory K. Ingram. “These anchor institutions have entered a new era of community engagement – no longer enclaves of intellectual pursuit, but rather centers of employment, spending, and workforce development, and economic engines that attract new businesses and highly skilled individuals to revitalize urban environments.”

Over 80 percent of U.S. colleges and universities are in urban neighborhoods. To fulfill their mission, these institutions often become involved in land development at the campus edge, whether to construct new dormitories and research facilities or to offset neighborhood decline. These activities usually have an immediate impact on the neighborhood and on the entire city. When the use of urban land for university purposes competes with its use for local priorities, conflicts inevitably arise. A variety of stakeholders – ranging from local governments to nearby residents – may mobilize to counter university land development for reasons related to social and economic concerns, quality of life in the neighborhood, the planning and design process, and loss of property tax revenue.

The report includes a matrix of what works and what doesn’t in approaches to land use and development, categorized by community concerns:
*  Social equity. Efforts to mitigate displacement and gentrification, and to generate job opportunities for local residents and businesses works; ignoring the neighborhood’s social and economic context doesn’t.
*  Planning. A joint planning process that involves the university, the community, and city leaders works; land banking, finalizing university plans internally, or consulting only with citywide organizations doesn’t.
*  Design. Planning and developing the university or college campus in ways that blend the academic and local communities works; development that is out of character with the surrounding neighborhood scale doesn’t.
*  Leadership. Close involvement of the university president or other top-level leaders in developing and sustaining the commitment to community engagement works; having no formal mechanism for senior officials to work with the community, except on an ad hoc basis, doesn’t.
*  Tax-exempt status. Recognition of inequitable tax burdens due to institutional status and use of alternative payments works; long-running disputes and court cases between the universities and cities over development projects and tax-exempt status doesn’t.

The challenges for anchor institutions in a highly competitive environment and in a period of extreme fiscal pressure, the report says, is to blend their goals and the interests of the city and the community.