This week's Community Call delved into the complex ways successions, land banks, and land trusts can unintentionally contribute to gentrification, leading to displacement and worsening poverty in vulnerable communities. We explored how changes in property ownership, such as through successions, can drive gentrification, and how land banks, despite their intentions to repurpose vacant or foreclosed properties, have sometimes displaced long-term residents. Additionally, we examined the crucial role of land trusts in preserving affordable housing as a tool to prevent gentrification and maintain community stability.
Read on to learn from our guest speakers Geno McLaughlin, Terrell Dupard, Eugene Collins, Gretchen Siemers, Trey Harris, and Manny Patole.
Notes
Tia Fields: That was one of the things that I wanted to touch on, that there is a very stark difference between gentrification and neighborhood revitalization. So I hope that later in the conversation you're able to speak power to that. Good morning. Today we'll be discussing a little bit about gentrification and what things we can do and what indirectly impacts that. If you guys heard me earlier, understanding that there is a difference between neighborhood revitalization and gentrification, I'm going to allow the guests 3 to 5 minutes just to introduce themselves. Tell us a little bit about the work that they do. And we'll jump right into our Q and A. I'm going to start with you Terrell. You have 3 to 5 minutes to tell the people who you are and what it is that you do.
Terrell Dupard: Good deal. Good morning everyone. My name is Terrell Dupard. I'm a lawyer here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I've been in practice since 2016. Southern University graduate law school and undergrad. Currently I practice in the areas of succession, family law and personal injury. And I also contract with the public defender. Provide services to indigent parents in child abuse and neglect proceedings. The juvenile courts in Baton Rouge are divided up into 2 sections. A and B and actually C, 3 sections, but they hear not only what we call CINC cases, child in needed care cases, but also delinquency cases and I represent youth and delinquency cases as well as the parents in the same cases. Most of my practice centers around helping individuals and families. Parents and children, but as it relates to this particular conversation, my successions practice is probably the most relevant piece. And that it deals with legacy inheritance, heirship property, and all of those things that we're here to talk about today. So I'm always grateful to be in rooms like this and in spaces where we can discuss these topics that are very important to all of our communities so that we can try to keep and maintain that which we acquired through our lifetimes and for generations to follow.
Tia: Thank you for that, Mr. Dupard. Trey, you're up next. You have three to five minutes to tell the people who you are and what it is that you do.
Trey Harris: All right. Thank you guys for allowing me to be here today. My name is Trey Harris. Name of my business is CDM7. I'm a native Houstonian, but my roots extend from Alexandria, Louisiana, from both sides of my family. Everybody basically left Alexandria at some point in time and migrated to Texas. But I'm an HBCU grad as well. I've been working in construction and development industry for about 20 years now, completing over about 2.6 million worth of space over the past six years. I've been running my own business and focusing on construction as well as the commercial revitalization and underutilized communities and also focusing on movie studios as well. So I'm definitely glad to be here today to talk about the revitalization of communities and talking about gentrification and how we deal with these things and from a community space. And again, I appreciate being here.
Tia: Thank you so much for that Trey. Geno you're up next.
Geno McLaughlin: All right. Good morning, everybody. I’m Geno McLaughlin, Geno Walter McLaughlin, Walter to some people. Most people know me as Geno, but from Baton Rouge. Actually from Memphis, Tennessee, originally by way of New Orleans, but also been in Baton Rouge pretty much my whole life, I went to high school here, went on to Southern and then into my professional space. Some people know me as an artist. So I always tell people I'm an artist first, but also probably most notably an activist, community advocate for hopefully for all things good and just. An active leader in the movement for black lives across the region. Obviously, you take it from 2016, the murder of Alton Sterling on into, the summer of George Floyd both in the streets but also, we had to be a leader in taking protests and turning that into policy as well. And myself, along with a lot of other really good people and also some new people are attracting new people into the space. We were able to keep Baton Rouge from burning, but also from both a regional and national level, lead us through a lot of tough times. In that work, I've been focused on racial justice, environmental justice, restorative justice, housing justice, education, equity the list goes on and on pretty much. Also in that work, I went on to become statewide director for organizing with the Power Coalition for equity and justice. I led that, that organization, the efforts to get out the vote that's pretty much their main bag, but they also do an array of things. Many of the listeners on this call are probably familiar with Power Coalition led by Ashley Shelton. But also in that work really in 2022, we led the fight for redistricting Eugene, who I think is on this call was also involved in that work as well. Ultimately, with that work, we were able to win a 2nd congressional district that we will very soon in November get a chance to elect our 1st, 2nd, black congressional district Congressman from Louisiana. And happy to be a part of that work. But professionally, I think for this call I'm a community engagement specialist by profession, I’ve in worked in health care, education, housing, community development, the violence prevention space as well as a community engagement specialist. Most recently, I was director of community engagement for East Baton Rouge Parish school system. And previous to that, I was directed for community engagement for Build Baton Rouge, which is the redevelopment authority for the city and parish. And I think it was that work in the city that we began to envision a north Baton Rouge that was no longer neglected. One that wasn't disinvested in one where we could redistribute resources more equitably. We've done a lot of work on government street. We've done a lot of work downtown, obviously, but we hadn't touched North Baton Rouge. And our residents there had been. Plan to death and on the direction of Chris Tyson I was able to do a lot of work in the community and bring residents into the work and make sure that their voices were heard and make sure that their vision for what an equitable, but also a better North Baton Rouge could look like and that stemmed from the Imagine Plank Road process. The Imagine Plank Road master plan see Manny's here. So he was also brought in from New York and was certainly and still is a big part of that work there. So happy to be with you guys. And we can talk more about that later on.
Tia: Thank you so much. Next I will open up space for Gretchen, then Manny and then Eugene themselves. Gretchen, you can go ahead and tell the people who you are and what it is that you do.
Gretchen Siemers: Thank you. Gretchen Siemers, I know many of you all on the call already. I am with the redevelopment authority also known as Build Baton Rouge. We are the local agency, we're a state agency, but we're tasked with redeveloping the city parish of Baton Rouge. Over the past several years, we have had a focus on Equity and developing plans and projects that really help to create economic opportunities and social capital building in areas that have been disinvested historically. And so one of the main tools that the redevelopment agency has for investing in property is called a land bank. And usually the land banks can be a government entity. Sometimes it's a nonprofit or non government entity. But in this case the land bank was established along with the redevelopment authority back in 2007. And so we have a accumulated over 100 properties at this point, and some have been turned over the past several years. And so really, we use this as a tool, to reinvest in the community, but also as a tool to stave off gentrification. And we'll talk a little bit about the land trust and how we're doing that in a minute. But right now we have about 110 properties in the land bank and we're working with local developers on redeveloping those. Sometimes we'll maintain ownership of the property long term in order to funnel reinvestment back into the community, and sometimes we will work on a disposition of the property. So back in 2016, though, we did have a major setback in terms of recycling the properties back into productive use, and that was a court case that requires process server notification for every potential former heir. And so this requires a lot of capital that would normally go to development activities to go to title work. For example, we have a property up on Scenic Highway that we probably spent 65,000 right now just clearing the title so that we can move forward on a project because the banks will not lend to us. Or buyers will not buy the property if the title is not clear. So that's been a major setback for the land bank. And so we're really looking to maybe some legislative remedies with in terms of state law that we can affect to maybe streamline that process a little bit and so a little bit about me. My role is COO at the redevelopment authority where I'm one of three staff right now. We are in an executive search for a CEO. So spread the word. We are also do planning and I'm an urban planner by trade. And so over the past year, we've been working on a master plan for the Florida corridor. Some of our team is on this call too. And that was recently approved by the Metro Council two weeks ago. So we're going to move forward in implementing that along with the other projects that we're working on along Plank Road.
Tia: Thank you so much for that, Gretchen. Manny, you're up next.
Manny Patole: Hey folks. Thank you for letting me speak during this call today. My name is Manny. I am with an organization that was formed to help with the development and implementation of the imagined growth plan, starting in April, 2019 work closely with, in the beginning there, but also to share with you that I'm a professor here at New York University. And as part of the lesson for today my students who are here, if you all want to wave. Sharing the work that you folks are all doing that is valuable to Baton Rouge, but also valuable to the next generation of leaders and creators out there. So I've been working with Build Baton Rouge since April of 2019. Like to proudly say that we have started the ground, but we had the groundbreaking of the first property for the Plank Road Community Land Bank and Trust on October 1st. Some of you were out there and showing your support in person. I know many of you were there in spirit. So thank you for that. And great to work with folks like the Walls Project as well as Build Baton Rouge on the creation the development, creation, and establishment of the Plank Road Community Land Bank and Trust, which is one of the first in the world that's a hybridized institution that has both land bank and community land and trust capabilities. I'll end it there, but I also know that we have shared our work with many folks outside of Baton Rouge. One of those folks is a Chris who is also I'm working with on development of an anthology of sorts with the American Bar Association around community land trust law, which should be coming out. And hopefully by the end of next year. So thank you. And I like to hand it back to you.
Tia: Thank you so much. And next up we have Mr Eugene Collins. Go ahead and introduce yourself and tell the people who you are.
Eugene Collins: How y'all doing today? My name is Eugene Collins. I see my brother Geno on the call where he talked about protest policy, right? A lot of us started on that front line. And most of the time folks get a real misconception about activism and the protest, right? The protest, if you look at Dr. King and some of those historical movements, it was always used as a leverage to accomplish good policy, which as we have this conversation about gentrification, I know that some of us are going to probably get into the role of activism in other places. But my name is Eugene Collins. I have extensive experience in policy work. I worked for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals for over 10 years. I'm the former president of the NAACP here in Baton Rouge. I'm the current lead organizer for the Scotlandville Food Access, where we're charged with the goal of bringing a grocery store to Scotlandville. In addition to that I will say my work around this particular topic started in my phase as a consultant and a grant application that I wrote for the Baton Rouge Development Authority, I believe that was the name of it. Folks came to me on a Saturday about writing the grant application that was due that Sunday. We wrote that application, got it funded, and that started to work around making South Baton Rouge a historical district. That application was funded and work is still being carried out. And that was the 1st time I got a crash course when we talk about this topic of gentrification. And I'm looking forward to jumping into this topic with some of my good friends. I know here Geno and Terrell. One of my newer friends, Trey, and I see the other folks, and I always like to let folks know this, especially when I'm on the on any line of panel with Geno and Terrell, that I'm also a part of the greatest fraternity known to man, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated.
Tia: Okay. I have nothing to say about that, but I saw that Trey had introduced himself and he had made a comment about being invested in community revitalization. So I just want to open up the space and give time for any of the speakers to define the difference between gentrification. And neighborhood modernization.
Manny: Was that for just all of us?
Tia: It's for anyone who wants to answer.
Manny: I'll start off and in terms of the academic perspectives, as what I'll provide there when we're looking at this what I like to communicate is that gentrification is not only. It has more of a cultural, social, cultural component in addition to the physical movement of folks. When we're looking at this and here in New York City, or in other places throughout the world it's important to describe. The what's going on, right? If you're thinking about that in terms of displacement versus gentrification and economic development doesn't mean all those things have to happen. You can have localized economic development. That doesn't displays or gentrify. You can have displacement without gentrification and you can also have gentrification with and without the other 2. They're not always mutually exclusive.
Geno: Yeah, I'll piggyback there too. I think, certainly from many of our community members, especially here in Baton Rouge, I think, obviously the word and really, no matter where you go, whether it's New Orleans, whether it is New York, right? Gentrification oftentimes is thought of as displacement, right? It is the most negative component of gentrification. Obviously, revitalization is a great thing, in and of itself. But when you think of the term gentrification, oftentimes, we'll think of it as, rich people coming in you invest in an area they bring in their cool little coffee shops, their yoga studios but with that your rent and your property prices are going to skyrocket and the people that are native or indigenous however you want to use that word to that area are also moved out. Because there is no, yeah. There's no room for lower income people in this new area, right? You need people that can afford to shop at the coffee shops, people that can afford to uplift those new businesses and retail shops that have been brought in. I would argue that it doesn't have to be that way, and I think, like minded people on this call would say, we'll probably ask the question. What if we do redeveloped an area? But on the front end, we were intentional. We were intentional about who we were doing that redevelopment for, right? Also, I think, on the front end, you can also be intentional about being inclusive of that native population, right? The people that live and work there and pray there, you want to be inclusive of them in dreaming and bring them in as thought partners about what a new reality in their neighborhood could look like. And there's some mechanisms and I'm sure some of us will touch on it. There's some mechanisms that I think on the front end that we can be thoughtful about. But to me, that's really where I think most people probably draw that line of delineation is, revitalization. But then with that comes that negative connotation of displacement.
Eugene: Yeah, and just to touch on what brother Geno said, and he brought up some great points and I'm looking at some of the notes that are popping up. We're talking about Starbucks and bike lanes. And that's an indicator in 2024. But if you look at this historic historically, especially towards the mid. Of the 19th century, what you start to see is some other things pop up, right? Historically, when you look at certain underserved communities, when you saw bike lanes and greenery, and in that period, people got afraid, right? Because typically with bike lanes and greenery meant that there was going to be more government intervention in that area. And depending on your policymaker, that could be a scary thing. So it wasn't always just Starbucks and bike lanes. It used to be. Sidewalks and trees, right? Not only that you got to look at certain regions of the country, right? As we think about gentrification, sometimes it's about the materials that you use to build the multi purpose multi housing purpose facilities. And I know trade is probably going to talk about that a good bit. But when you look at the materials that these things are made of, and whether it's made to fit low income housing, those things matter, right? When you look at regions like Philly and New York, when those folks thought brownstones coming, you will hear them say some of the same things in that time period that you hear about some of these apartment complex or box buildings that pop up in certain communities, right? They will say that they were poorly built that they weren't built to last and all those good things that you sometimes hear attached to this gentrification conversation. So it hasn't always looked like a Starbucks. And a bank lane in certain parts of the country, it looked like brownstones or certain parts of the country. It looks like it looked like greenery. It looked like sidewalks. And that's important. When you look at the scope, when you look at the different types of gentrification, because when we look at. Different types of gentrification. You got to drive down into those definitions. For real. When you look at pitchfork gentrification, which is some folks might even call direct gentrification. That's when people move into your communities, move on your block and want to call the cops on you for playing music too loud or walking your dog. And that is the kind of gentrification that we typically learn about, right? What we don't always talk about is indirect gentrification and into indirect gentrification can be younger professionals moving into older neighborhoods, disrupting the cultural identity of those neighborhoods by just being. That's your presence, right? Not only that, when younger professionals who might have a more stable income, maybe a little bit more income driven, move into some of these underserved areas and they develop a house, they pay a little bit more for a house, so they increase the value of that house, that's going to increase the taxes of the folks around them. And when we look at gentrification in this country, I always think that it was forced, right? When in reality for a large part of the history of this country, gentrification has not been forced. Gentrification has happened by people dying and their grandkids or their children not necessarily wanting to live in that neighborhood. That displacement has also happened when you look at just people wanting to move to a different type of neighborhood, a better neighborhood. And when you look at the last couple of decades, we're definitely dealing with what we call a housing crisis, which is essentially the lack of housing. You're starting to see people wanted to matriculate in areas that they, at some point left. When you look at gentrification, you have to really drive down into the definition. And gentrification can look very different depending on what region of the country that you're stepping in. So gentrification on his face to some, they could actually think of it as a good thing. It's bringing something new, but at the same time, when you disrupt the cultural identity of a population, and you displace that population, it has far reaching effects for the underserved that sometimes we just don't have an answer for. And I want to say this before I close. Because sometimes we'll put this on the fault of the developer, right? When it's actually not the fault of the developer, it's the policymakers fault, right? They have to put things in place. I think we talked about land trust a bit and I don't want to touch on the stuff that I know the development folks are going to talk about. But land trust, right? Putting some of those things in place abatement issues, right? And you're developing a house and you sell a house on the block for 400,000. but the next house next to it is worth about 60 or 80. you have to look at proper abatement issues and ensure that the policy matches up with the development and the policy should come before the development. And if not, you're looking at some issues down the line that can just be a a terror to fix, not unfixable, but definitely a terror to fix.
Tia: Thank you for that, Eugene. You brought up two things where I I have some other questions, but I want to give space to turn it apart to talk about what is air property when you speak to families. Somebody passing away and they're leaving a property to one of their kids and the kid doesn't want the property. So what happens? Can you talk a little bit about the succession process and how that may play a part into how property is being exchanged Mr. Dupard?
Terrell: Sure. So I think to pick up maybe where Eugene and some of the other panelists left off. In thinking about gentrification and revitalization and kind of the distinction between those 2 you have to look at what the root causes are or the indicators may be of some of these occurrences happening. And definitely when you think about gentrification, that's preceded by an area that might be devalued or experiencing divestment. Of funding and economic support. And what why is that? Why. We have to ask ourselves why that happens. We have historic areas of our city in Baton Rouge in particular. Old South Baton Rouge. Spanish town and the like, and some of these areas have actually experienced revitalization over the years, and over the changing of the guard and different city administrations, but particularly as it relates to heirship, a lot of these areas. Particularly the historic areas of our city have generations that kind of come and go. And we see in some of these areas, generations to follow that are not so vested in the neighborhood that they inherit or the home or a property that they inherit. And unfortunately, we see signs of divestment and devaluing of a particular area, which causes then this gentrification. Or brings about this gentrification to occur over time. As it relates to property and heirship And I guess I could not assume that folks understand successions in Louisiana. So a brief description of that. In Louisiana property is inherited by an individual who survives. A decedent, a first in line would be any descendants. So the children of a decedent would inherit their property. And that happens upon death, but the title of that property is not clear until succession is done and proper court are public record documents are put in place and authorized. And so from their titles, and I'm saying that word title, that's a whole issue in and of itself, the clearing of titles and individuals passing on into transition and their families inherited their property and the issue we see arises that successions aren't done for generations. I had a prospective client call the other day and he was like. His great uncle gave a piece of property to his great grandmother and it went on down the line from her to his grandparent and then his father and then him but no succession was done throughout that process. And basically it the title or ownership of the property become so diluted to a point where. It's very difficult to get legal possession of the property and clear the title, but then also put that particular piece of property back into commerce. Back into a useful posture where it can be leased or sold or rehabbed. And so that is an underlying those are underlying conditions that we see as it relates to these issues of gentrification and revitalization. I would dare say that they. Might represent barriers to those things occurring.
Tia: So is there at any point in time if a air doesn't do anything with the property that it is relinquished by the city or the state, or it just is a property that's just sitting there?
Terrell: It could be a combination of the two if, because what happens is somebody will inherit property to never do a succession, but they'll pay the taxes. And if somebody is paying the tax, anybody can pay the taxes just to be clear. And that, but if taxes aren't paid, then that can be. An avenue where a government intervention could come in through adjudication. And where property can be seized by the municipal entity for non payment of taxes. And at some point. After the passage of time, what we call a redemption period, I think it's typically 3 years. Then that property can be sold at auction or what we call tax sale. And the government intervention is not automatic. Sometimes the property just sits there in the case of the perspective client. Who contacted me whose family had this property in their possession for generations, but nobody bothered to do a succession. It lends to the question of just knowledge in general and information, which is why spaces like this is so good. Because I encounter so many people who don't even know that they need a succession is not until they attempt to do a refinance or sell a property or lease it or try to engage in some commercial endeavor with a piece of property that the 1st comes to mind. Okay. There are things I need to do to preserve my right and ownership and to make sure that the title is merchantable.
Tia: Thank you for that, Mr. DuPard. It just leads me, and I have so many other questions that you'll hear me jump back and forth from different kind of topics, so y'all just flow with me. This question may be for either Manny or Gretchen, or anyone that can answer it. At what point in time, or what is the process, how does a property end up in a land bank or land trust?
Gretchen: Okay, so for a land bank it's two ways, right? We all three. Technically, we can accept donations of property. Sometimes if someone has a remnant property or a nonprofit has a property or corporation has property. They want to make a charitable donation. We can accept that. The second way is we purchase it. We can purchase it at appraised value, market value, below market value, depending on the circumstances. And then the most common way is through an agreement with the local jurisdiction having control over adjudicated property. And so in our case we have a cooperative endeavor agreement with the sheriff's department and the city parish assessor's office. And so we can if a property is adjudicated, and typically we don't take properties, I think, for at least five years after people have been noticed that they have a non payment of tax. After 5 years, we can request that those properties be transferred into the land bank. And They do not go to public auction. So we get like a right of first refusal over those properties. We can pull them directly into the land bank and dispose of them. We can develop them, dispose of them, in a different way or hold on to them for other reasons.
Manny: Yeah, and I'll just piggyback on that just for folks to understand with land banks they're usually they have a service area connected with their administrative boundaries, whether it's the city or a county and that's usually provided by some sort of enabling legislative statute from the state or from the municipality there. Louisiana between its Napoleonic codes and other things have some interesting Challenges there for this when we're talking about land banking, whereas other places but it's also if you look at the center for community progress, they have a great map about where there are land banks. And it is when you're looking at it historically, they've been around for a while. But about. I want to say about 60 to 70 percent of them actually emerge over the last 10 or 15 years after the real estate crisis, when we're looking at land banks or sorry, land for us have been around for a while, community land trust, or what we're trying to focus on here. And that is usually can be bounded by a neighborhood. It could be bounded by specific section of the city. So on and so forth. So usually when you're looking at these in comparison. Land banks are usually the bigger jurisdiction. Community land trusts are more private or nonprofits, whereas the land bank is a government entity. And when we're looking at these, both in collaboration, land banks are usually having a disposition issue, which means it's harder for them to develop because they're government entities. And when we're looking at this from the perspective of the community land trust, they have an acquisition issue, which means they have a problem of actually getting a property that's. On the cheap, basically, that they can do more stuff with and to Mr. Dupard comment before we're looking at this and that illusion in New York or wherever else. These, some of these succession issues are where our main barrier. For economic development for the city or other, because they do not have that clear title and folks therefore don't have the appetite for risk. And that kind of can prevent certain things from happening. Those. You may have an appetite for risk, may have more money to throw at the problem, and therefore are probably a little bit more richer, and that's where you can see some of these facets of fostering gentrification in some very small cases. But usually when we're looking at this land banks and community land trust working together are actually helping people preserve affordability and preventing some of those things that we're talking about.
Eugene: Just piggyback on some things they say, and this might be more of a follow up for trade as well on the development side. But we talk about government intervention and they spoke about specifically about two aspects, right? But you also have to look at the use of mixed use facilities, right? The use of mixed use housing, making sure that you create a situation of affordability for the residents that live there to ensure that you preserve the cultural identity of those communities. And not only should you look at the things they mentioned and make shoes, but you should also look at government assistance programs, ensuring that people have competent rental assistance programs in the neighborhoods. And somebody brought up the issue of blight in the conversation, which is something that is a concern. If a property isn't necessarily adjudicated or if a family wants to hold on to their property, you have to have competent programs to go in and help these families actually put that property back into commerce. Or move back into their property, depending on the situation of what underserved community that you're working in, but you have to have good governmental programs and policy in place to assure that gentrification does not happen. And some of that might start on a very basic ground. Just competent rental assistance programs to ensure that people can actually live there and afford to live there. It's not just about building new buildings. This is what most people don't understand and be actually due to what you'll find is that when new buildings go up in communities people typically hate them. That's just the reality. You have to sell people on some of those new buildings and the reasons they hate them it might be the materials how they built and sometimes these new buildings look very different than the landscape of the architecture that's already there. So you have to implement these things when you talk about development with the community, not the community in mind. It needs to be done with the residents. And have a resident should have an active voice in these conversations when you talk about development in some communities, especially with all the historical aspects that just come in.
Tia: That answered my next question in terms of finding balance on the preservation of a community. But also revitalizing or developing a certain neighborhood, but keeping the cultural history to that particular neighborhood. Trey as a construction developer when you're going in on a project, how do you balance the feasibility and profit of a project And making sure that the integrity of that community's cultural connection is still intact or stays intact.
Trey: Yeah. So I think that's the challenge, obviously in, in certain neighborhoods with finding the funding to support the feasibility, as you just stated, that's always the challenge in certain communities. I think the other side of that just. Piggybacking on what Eugene was talking about and everybody has stated just the look of what a community becomes is if you go back to where it starts from the people that design it, draw it, develop it. We're talking about in the African American community, engineers and architects only represent 1 percent of the licensed architects and designers in the United States. When you talk about what a building looks like. It's not majority of us or minorities that are designing these buildings to make sure they represent what the communities represent. I think that's our challenge where it starts with the ability to get an access to capital 1 and then also the people that are designing it and making sure that we're keeping that pipeline of people that represent the community involved in the community. And so I think you have to keep that in mind. And then you also have to Speak to the community, involve the community and see what the community wants and it takes somebody that can't say that comes from the community, but really has to understand the history of the community and where it's going.
Manny: I'd like to chime in on that as well. I think when we're talking about all of this, it's understanding what was the inherent culture and then also you have to be mindful of how far do you want to go back. If you look at where I'm living right now in Brooklyn, it was always a blue collar immigrant community of folks that had a certain type of job. Now, whether, when it was originally done, it was Irish and Scandinavian. Now it's Middle Eastern North African. East Asian, something else. Now they're still the same type of people, which means that they're culturally still the same in terms of socioeconomic, maybe not ethnically. But the general spirit is still there. So you may have had people who either displaced or moved on because they achieved a different economic status and they're able to move from a more working class neighborhood to something that's more affluent. But then you also have to understand how do those amenities correspond? Maybe so just recently, a couple of years ago, a Scandinavian bakery closed, but then there was more of a Latin X, a bakery that opened up. There's still a bakery. It's still serving the local fair, but it's specific to the community that's there as compared to what Geno said before about the Starbucks and the yoga and things like that how are those amenities that are being used? Created in those communities, reflecting not reflecting the needs, but also the culture. So there might be a need for that Starbucks, but it may not be the same culture as, 1 of the shot, the carts that are here in New York City. They're providing, translate just cakes and tamales along with coffee and a bagel or something like that.
Geno: Also think just to fill up a little space here. 1 of the, the ways that you go about doing that, and I've done that in a number of different capacities here in this city. When you talk about going into communities, I think you have to take real time. You can't just microwave that sort of connection. I think to try his point. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily matter if they're from that specific community, especially if you're talking about like a large swath, you can have a number of communities. And we'll talk about plank road. We probably had about 5 different. Maybe 6 different communities from Zion City, Glen Oaks Dixie and Istroma, Northdale, a number of different communities really all alone that I think it was like 4.7 mile quarter. But you have to take the real time to go into those communities. Hopefully, if it's somebody, luckily, I have a lot of trust already in those communities and I knew a lot of people. In those communities, and so I would employ those individuals to come with me and we just have conversations, right? Sure we did big, not celebrations what do we call them? Large scale events, right? We did those as a tool to attract people to the spaces and also employ different tools to invoke or evoke rather a conversation, but I think it's really taking the time and going to slow bait conversation and build real relationships. I will never forget. I led a group of LSU students I don't know if it was Dayton street. I'm not sure where we were. It was around their original pocket park location. Manny, I can't remember what street that was situated on.
Manny: Bordelon and Plank.
Geno: Bordelon and plank, right? I will never forget. I took some LSU students around there.
Manny: That was a great story. Yes, please tell it.
Geno: We just went door to door. And I never forget the last house as we made the round about the last house that we got to some gentlemen sitting on the car and some of the students, they was nervous to even go approach them. Just because of how they were dressed and, the whole nine or whatever. But these are my people. And so we go in, which we're talking, we spent, probably about 20, maybe half an hour talking to those guys. And what he said, as we were just about to leave, there was that. Man, nobody has ever come down this street and asked me what we thought about anything in terms of this city. I still have that young man's phone number. I've reached out to him for a number of different things, and he's shown up for a number of different things, but that shows you that when you are unafraid to go talk to people, people are eager. People are hungry to be engaged, and people, no matter their background, they want to see a better community because it, where there's North Baton Rouge, South Baton Rouge people all want the same things. They want good schools. They want safe communities to live in. And they also want opportunities to lift themselves up out of poverty.
Trey: If I can just add one more thing to that, because you spoke about, preservation, right? I think from the construction and the building standpoint, we got to think about the standards that have changed over the past 30 to 40 years and the materials and things that we're building with. So when you talk about preservation, it's something actually worth preserving or is it time to move on? Because the value and the time and effort that's going to be put into it into preserving it, it may not be equate out, so I think that's 1 thing to very much keep in mind when we talk about preserving.
Tia: Thank you for that trade there. Manny has to he's getting ready in his class and I want to hold space for him to give any last closing remarks, but I do want to lift up Marcella's comment. She said 1 common failure is wanting to fix when the community is not ready or even interested in being fixed. You go in and create these developments, but that's not something that the community actually wanted or that they feel that they actually need. To your point, it is important to always include the community and things that are going to affect the community. All right, Manny, I'll yield to you.
Manny: No, I think it was great.
Eugene: Before you leave, I just want to highlight your point that you made about how far do we go back? And that was like, just truly profound. And you talked about New York, but we got some of those similar things right here in Baton Rouge. We just don't know about it, right? We look at catfish town and we want to start talking about Negro village, right? You get into some of those things. So I was happy to see that you brought up that point of like, how far do we want to go back? Thank you, man.
Manny: No, and it's true. I have my students who have actually stayed now a half hour later than they normally do. It's the benefits of having a class on a Friday morning. But the idea is all of this, right? Is that how are you looking at the community first and then looking at the plan when working with Gina when we were doing the the eco park, we convened some community leaders, and we had to decide whether we're focusing on 1 neighborhood and go deep or focus on the general area and go wide, but have a general consensus of some things. And we did this intentionally because of poor planning practices from before, where you don't involve the community until the, until you're just trying to figure out what paint you want to put on the building. But working with Geno and that profound question that he always brought up that I still use to this day was to do what. Right and this idea of, like, when you're going in, how are you actually engaging those communities in the beginning to understand what you want to do? And it does that align with what they need and what they would like to see and then develop those understand what they're saying 1st. And then maybe figure out how to code switch it, depending on the audience, because I think that's also lost in this mix is that a lot of folks know what they want, and they know what they need. They don't always know how to articulate it in these different scenarios. And sometimes when they go into these rooms, whether their English is their second language, or they're not familiar with the law, and they don't have someone like a Terrell DuPard or a Trey Harris or a Geno at their disposal, how can they learn how to do that? When we did this with the Eagle So it takes a little bit longer in the front end. Don't get me wrong. But you have a better product in the back end, and sometimes it's not always built in financially for a lot of these projects to to value the work that needs to get done working with communities. So I commend all the folks on the call, as well as Build Baton Rouge and others on that constantly do this work with very little or no pay. So thank you all. And with that, I would like to say ciao for now. And feel free to connect with me with my new role as well. I have a lot of more bandwidth and leeway to access to some great students like I have in this class who may want to lend their data analytics help in helping with communities. Thank you all.
Terrell: Thank you, Manny. I just I want to back door some of the stuff you said, and I shared my contact with you in the chat. And to Eugene also, acknowledging the point, how far do we go back? I would be remiss if I didn't mention. This. A lot of what we're dealing with as it relates to land use and ownership in Baton Rouge goes back to the city's inception and a period probably before the Civil War through the various occupations colonial occupations that existed in Baton Rouge. Through the Civil War reconstruction period into present day. Of course, the fight as most of us understand it surrounding the Civil War was due to the American institution of slavery and this agro biz super agro biz that was grown out of that institution. But that how it. The slavery and the conclusion of slavery through the Civil War, particularly that battle of Baton Rouge, and then going into reconstruction helped to shape land ownership, even down to the actual neighborhoods that exist, even to present day. Neighborhoods that are historically now occupied by minority communities. Versus other neighborhoods that were. Former plantations are owned by plantation owners and just how that whole land use and ownership. Can be traced all the way back to the end to the 1800s. So that was an important point that he made Manny made that was echoed by Eugene and also share that is an important aspect of this whole entire conversation. The historic context of how we got to where we are.
Gretchen: I think that's a really good point, and especially to keep in context. Now in the 2020s, we're living in an age where land and housing especially is hyper commodified. And so we have, we're trying to, we're here talking about all these important strategies to stave off gentrification and include people in participatory planning processes that impact their communities. But at the same time, we're also living in an era where private equity is buying up. Entire blocks at a time. And we have to keep that in context and try to figure out some policy remedies at a larger scale at the same time because as hard as we fight on the ground, there are things happening at other levels that are really squeezing folks that are working and in working in middle classes.
Geno: Yeah, look, I'll jump in there. I think that's where the conversation around, what the role of government can play. Obviously, we're in election season. It's also why you elect the right people who have the right frame of mind and perspectives, but from a government perspective, I'm not a huge component on government saving us, right? I don't believe that anybody's gonna come in and save our communities. We have a lot of the capacity and a lot of the tools to save ourselves. If we were back to some of our old ways of doing things, a co-ops or what have not, but there is a real role of government and we all play a part in it, right? We all pay our taxes. And so we do have to hold government accountable to do the things that they say they're going to do. That being said. Government can be a good partner, especially when we talk about, whether it's Build Baton Rouge, right? Utilizing the land bank in an equitable way establishing land trust and courting off. A specific area that we might say, we know what. We know that market forces will be what they are, right? We know that, once we plant a flag in a specific area, you can't save off, private investments sweeping in. But because we do have this. Area right here that we have at our disposal. What we can do is put in certain mechanisms, whether it's utilizing the land bank, but establishing a land trust and trying to hold off or control pricing. You can establish, a 1st time home buyer fund, right? But within that land trust, make sure that individuals, there might be a cap with some people might not like, right? There might be a cap on your equity that you can take out. Those are some of the drawbacks, but the good thing about is that you can, to some degree in a certain area, you can control the market prices and allow newer people to still buy into that process. Another thing is also to government can also dictate mayors, right? Can dictate. What the policy is and say, I said this early in the conversation, we had put so much investment and use so many different, mechanism tips or what have you to build Downtown we've done the same thing on government street. Why hadn't we gone to North Baton Rouge? And as advocates, those are the things that those are the conversations that we were having with. Our elected officials and those who were looking to become elected officials. Impressing upon them that if you want to get my vote, then you have to do something about North Baton Rouge. And I think in this election season, I know I'm putting a lot of things together, but in this election season, these are the conversations that you need to be having with the mayor Broom, right? Hold her accountable for the things that have been done, but also, or ask her about the things that have been done, but also hold her accountable for the things that haven't been done. Talk to Ted and say, Hey, listen, brother, you want to be a mayor, but what do you want to see? What is your vision for low batteries? How do we make sure the plank road master plan, doesn't fall by the wayside because it is not a shot at Gretchen or anybody will build that route, but there's some, there are some tenants of that plan that I now know that will not come to fruition unless there's a recommitment to that plan, right? A recommitment to that vision. Okay. And what frustrates me about that is that we spent two, three years talking to individuals, right? And we told them that this time was going to be different, right? Do, use his trust and, in the community to bring people in who otherwise do not trust government. I know I'm sounding like activists now, because I get real passionate about this, but I don't want those efforts to go to be wasted, right? Because people did believe in that process. And we need to be talking to those elected officials and in this season, those that are running and saying, what is your commitment to making sure that North Baton Rouge is invested equitably and continuing the plan, whether it's, the Florida quarter or even in South Baton Rouge, but certainly Plank Road as well.
Tia: Thank you for that, Geno. Before we wrap up on time and go into our community announcements, I did want to acknowledge Laquita's question. To build boundaries surrounding community benefit agreements. Is that a way that could curve the process of gentrification and make it more revitalizing to the particular community that's in harm's way?
Gretchen: Absolutely. It can. It's a great tool. A lots of things can be included in a community benefits agreement. You can have local higher requirements. You can have, uses making sure that for example, if you have a mixed use building and, you need to save some space for a community Nonprofit or just that the space is in fact occupied and the landlord is not going to inflate rents to the point where nobody can afford to occupy the space. So some of those things can be very positive. I will say though, and just to speak plainly that community benefits agreements work better when there is Enough pressure to include them, right? So in areas in Baton Rouge, like along Plank Road and north of Florida, we are, at least in my experience thus far, really just begging for investment. We are just saying, please, anybody just come here, build something. And we don't have a lot of leverage to require things that are more and more expensive for the developers. And it works better when there is, and I think that there's already some externalities that would make it worth a developer's while.
Tia: thank you so much for that. And as we're hitting on time, I just want to take the moment to thank all of our guest speakers on today on this important conversation. I look forward to doing a part 2 on it. I do encourage everyone to drop their contact information in the chat. So that we can make sure that we are building a more equitable community by staying in partnership and collaboration with one another. And using the people who are connected to the community. We can't lose that voice. Cause we are all that we have in terms of making sure that we get what we need. With that, thank you all for joining today's One Rouge Call. I will now open a space for any community announcements, events coming up and There y'all have it you got the floor.
Terrell: I guess I could share something. The Baton Rouge Bar Foundation through the Baton Rouge Bar Association a band of lawyers here local in town as hosting its annual belly up with the bar event this evening at the LSU Parker Coliseum. It is a fundraising event to support the initiatives and scholarships and different projects of the boundaries bar foundation. You can purchase tickets at the door. Don't ask me the price right now, because I don't remember off the top of my head. I'm gonna say somewhere around 35 dollars or something. But it's a great event. There are several vendors. It's like a cooking competition. And there'll be various dishes for you to try desserts and other dishes as well as beverages. It's a fun event. There's live entertainment. And the legal community, of course, will be out law students. And their families, so if you are looking for something to do this evening. You can join us this evening at the Parker Coliseum on campus 6 o'clock. For the Baton Rouge Bar Foundation's belly up with the bar.
Tia: Thank you for that, Mr. Dupard. Anyone else have, oh, go ahead, Marcela.
Marcela Hernandez: Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to invite you next week on Wednesday the 11th, the 10th the 10th. We're going to be in New Orleans for those who came on the TPS, DED, and DACA conversation for the One Rouge. You probably already know what DACA is, but so DACA is going to be presented at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and it's they're reviewing the case against DACA. So if you guys want to join us please get in touch with us. We'll be very happy to have our partners there. And then also, if you would like to come and join us in our phone banking efforts Tia has been spending some time with us in our phone banking parties. If you guys would like to come and join us in supporting this effort to call and help us getting everyone involved and interested in voting, please get in touch with us. We'll be very happy to have you as a volunteer. Thank you.
Trey: And this is a Trey Harris just speaking out. We have a couple of developments that we're working on in Scotlandville area community. Any contractors, subcontractors, architects, engineers, I've left my information there in the chat area. Please reach out and see how we could possibly work together.
Casey Phillips: Good morning. Yeah. Good morning. Good people. First of all, to all the speakers that I know very well. Thank y'all for sharing the space and thank y'all for doing what you do for decades. You're not new to the game, so I appreciate all the passion that y'all bring all these years. An unrelenting will for equity. Truly. Thank you all for sharing the space. We have the on October 12th, not this Friday. Not the Saturday next Saturday. We have the so good resource summit. Helena is going to drop it in the chat. The links to what I'm talking about as well as the festival itself, but it will happen on Windburn Avenue. At one end at BRCC North Acadian, people will be able to sign up for classes to get vouchers and to be able to walk out the door with free laptops provided by the James M. Cox Foundation. So if any of you all have clients that qualify as LMI, which is pretty much the majority of our city, pretty easy to check that box. If anybody qualifies as LMI. They can come and there's going to be workshops facilitated by Gary Chambers and myself and some of the other local leaders around broadband and digital literacy, and then those participants will be able to get a free laptop. So please have people sign up.There will also be workshops out at Baton Roots community farm at the other end at Brec Howell Park and a volunteer opportunity. So we hope to have you all join us. It's a great real world opportunity for the One Rouge community to come out and enjoy the urban oasis and beauty of bad roots community farm, as well as get resources, including free paint for fix up projects. Whether it's your property or elders in the community that will also be another element of the resource fair. Please reach out if you have any questions, thanks for the space and thank you again to our speakers.
Tia: Reverend Anderson and then Mr. Sesay
Reverend Anderson: Morning. I just wanted to share with everybody that this week, the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition had a breakfast and we hosted a lovely gentleman who had been exonerated after 38 years of being wrongfully incarcerated. And his presentation is on our Facebook page, which is EBRPPRC. It's a wonderful presentation about hope Mr. Raymond Plank is just an amazing human being, and I encourage anybody who just needs to know how to hold hope in a hopeless situation to visit it. The other thing I wanted to share is that the coalition on Tuesday mornings, between now and the election, will be at our iconic chicken shack to encourage our village to get out and vote. And make sure that their voices are being included. So if you just want to take advantage of the two piece special, please come, but if you want to come and have a conversation about why we have to start voting, we're not telling people who to vote for. We're telling people that we have to be the change we're looking. And so we wanted to share that on Tuesday, October the 15th. Is our in person meeting at the Eden Park Library at six o'clock at five o'clock is our standard monthly training for people would like to participate as court changers. And then on October 17th, which is that Thursday is our empowerment education meeting and the topics are going to be, of course, the election, but also what it means to be a domestic violence victim and to also be justice impacted. So it's going to be a very powerful conversation. Thank you.
Tia: Thank you so much for that. Reverend Anderson. Mr. Sesay, did you still have something that you wanted to add?
Dauda Sesay: Yes. I just want to piggyback to where Reverend Anderson ended. When it comes to voting, just remember, in three days, the registration will close for paper registrations. On the 7th, October 7th. So please, if you haven't registered yet to vote please check your registration status and vote. And then on the 15th, the online registration will be closed. So I just want everyone to have that in mind. So you can vote if you don't register and be mindful as well, that a lot of people have been pulled out. So check your registration status. Last Friday we did a an outreach on that and we discovered that two people checked their status and they freak out knowing that they vote before, they voted before and they were not on the list. So that's a re registered again. So I just want us to know that. And on the 11th Lori, we'll have our one community dialogue, which is a virtual session, and the theme for this year is we're going to be uniting for democracy, every vote, every voice. It's a virtual and it's going to be at five p.m. Detail will be shared hopefully in the next One Rouge. The zoom link and how you can register to join. If you already joined our one community dialogue before. So basically you go to go, you can use the same link to join as well. So let's just remember everything that was taught today. The people that were put in office. Thanks. Make the choice and make the choice and the decision that impact our lives and this election up and down the ballot. We have that opportunity to make the changes that we need by electing people that are here for the community and for our well being. That's all back to you.
Tia: Good deal. Do we have any other community announcement? All right. Seeing none, peace and wellness to all. I will see you guys all on next week. Hopefully we will talk on climate change and the impact on impoverished communities. If you know someone that is in that is their wheelhouse of power, please send them my way and until next Friday.
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