North College Hill : Development News

For five years, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls has been working with the City of Cincinnati to develop form-based code for the city. Last Wednesday, City Council officially approved the Cincinnati Form-Based Code.
 
“Cincinnati now joins hundreds of cities that are using form-based code to build and reinforce walkable places that create value and preserve character,” Qualls says.
 
Cincinnati’s neighborhoods originally developed so residents could easily walk to restaurants, shops and grocery stores in and around business districts. Form-based code will allow neighborhoods to return to that original ideal and reinforce or create places where residents can live, work and play, Qualls says.
 
Current zoning code makes creating mixed-use neighborhoods difficult—the new code will help streamline the development process. To start, form-based code will be applied to business districts and adjacent residential areas in four pilot neighborhoods that volunteered for the chance—College Hill, Madisonville, Walnut Hills and Westwood.
 
The code is a result of six Neighborhood Summit training sessions; five years of neighborhood working group meetings, neighborhood walks and training sessions; five delegations to learn about Nashville’s form-based code; a five-day citywide urban design workshop; a four-day neighborhood urban design workshop; and more than 600 public comments on the draft from residents, stakeholders, neighborhood groups and city departments.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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Just in time for the new school year, Carpe Diem Learning Systems will open its first Ohio school at Aiken High School Aug. 21 in College Hill. Carpe Diem is Cincinnati’s first tuition-free public charter school for the general district population, and is sponsored by Cincinnati Public Schools.
 
Carpe Diem-Aiken will offer a blended learning model of digital curriculum with blended learning experiences, says Rick Ogston, founder of CDLS.
 
Twelve years ago, Ogston’s wife, Sharon, encouraged him to go back to school and get a Masters' degree in education. After that, he started to learn about charter schools and the difference they can make in communities. From there, Carpe Diem was born.
 
“Carpe Diem is about personalizing education to the nth degree,” Ogston says. “It brings the uncommon combination of personalized education and high academics with a career focus on achievement to the table. We prepare students academically for the 21^st century, but we also allow students to progress at a pace more comfortable to them.”
 
The curriculum at Carpe Diem is tailored to meet the needs of a spectrum of students, from those who are lost in large schools or traditional classrooms, to gifted students who want to work at an accelerated pace.
 
Tyree Gaines is the new principal of Carpe Diem-Aiken, and she hopes to contribute instructional leadership that opens the door for students and teachers to maximize their potential.
 
“I want Carpe Diem-Aiken to empower students to be learners, thinkers, doers, believers and achievers,” she says.
 
Carpe Diem-Aiken will bring an innovative new educational model to the area, but it will also be debuting Aiken New Tech, which infuses technology into curriculum while incorporating project-based learning and real-world experiences, says Janet Walsh, director of public affairs for CPS.
 
“We love that the Carpe Diem model incorporates ‘blended learning’—a combination of technology-driven and teacher-led instruction, which is very much a wave of the future,” Walsh says.
 
CDLS is North Central Association-accredited and includes Edgenuity’s instructional content, uBoost’s online recognition and reward system, and a secure online portal to provide parents with real-time student data. Carpe Diem also offers opportunities for career concentrations in Information Technology, Science and Engineering, Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Digital Arts and Entertainment, and Health Sciences.
 
Carpe Diem-Aiken joins CDLS’s first school, Carpe Diem Collegiate High School in Yuma, Ariz., and Carpe Diem Meridian, which opened in August in Indianapolis. Carpe Diem Summit in Fort Wayne is scheduled to open this August as well.
 
 Parents and students who are interested in meeting with Gaines and learning more about Carpe Diem-Aiken can email her at TGaines@CarpeDiemAiken.com or call her at 513-612-0153.
 
If you’re a Cincinnati student who is interested in attending Carpe Diem-Aiken and is 12-16 years old, you can enroll in Carpe Diem here.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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The City of Cincinnati has taken out the back-and-forth that can occur when residents try to reach them to report issues in their neighborhoods. At the Neighborhood Summit on Feb. 16, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls announced that the Cincinnati City Hall mobile app is available to the public.
 
With the app, residents can look up trash, recycling and street sweeping days, and set reminders; locate and report problems by address; bookmark locations for quick reporting; and track the status of reports. City Hall mobile also has GPS, so users can report issues, even without an address. There’s even a searchable map with property owner information, which enables residents to see if a property is occupied or vacant.
 
A few years ago, residents had to use the Yellow Pages to look up the number for city departments to file complaints, says Kevin Wright, executive director of Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation. The city then implemented a hotline for all complaints, but residents never knew the status of their reports.
 
“It’s amazing how comprehensive the app is,” Wright says. “If you see a broken window, pothole, graffiti, hanging gutter or anything else that is physically wrong with your neighborhood, street or community, you can report it in an instant. It’s a great tool for neighborhood redevelopment.”
 
The app can also be used as a community-organizing tool, Wright says. For example, if there is a property owner who historically hasn’t taken care of his or her property, social media can help organize a community and target the property to enforce codes until the property is fixed, which is what neighborhood councils and organizations like WHRF do.
 
“We’re really putting power in the hands of the citizens of the neighborhoods,” he says.
 
As with most tech programs, the app has room to grow, too. In the future, it could be linked with Facebook or Twitter, so your friends and followers will know who reported problems and where they are.
 
Cincinnati residents can download the app in the Apple App Store or download it through Google Play.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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As many areas of Cincinnati are being rejuvenated, including OTR and Washington Park, the City of Cincinnati approved a comprehensive approach to focus on development in the city as a whole, not just targeted neighborhoods. 

Last Friday, the City Planning Commission approved and adopted Plan Cincinnati, which was designed with input from residents. The Plan is an opportunity to strengthen what people love about the city, what works and what needs more attention, says Katherine Keough-Jurs, senior city planner and project manager.
 
The idea is to re-urbanize suburbanized Cincinnati; in a sense, to return to the strengths of the city's beginnings. Cincinnati was established just after the American Revolution in 1788 and grew into an industrial center in the 19^th century. Many of those industries no longer exist in the city, which is part of why Cincinnati has become more suburbanized in the past 50 years. One of the long-term goals of the Plan is to bring new industries to Cincinnati.
 
With a new approach to revitalization, Cincinnati is blazing the trail for other cities. With a focus on building on existing strengths rather than tearing down structures and creating new ones, the Plan aims to capitalize on the city's “good bones” and good infrastructure.
 
Cinicinnatians had a huge role in developing the Plan. The first public meeting for the Plan was held in September 2009, when residents offered their insights into “what makes a great city?" and "what would make Cincinnati a great city?” A steering committee of 40 people representing businesses, nonprofits, community groups, local institutions, residents and City Council helped develop the Plan.

The Plan also got support from a grant from the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which the City received in 2010. The grant allotted $2.4 million over three years to support the Land Development Code, which combines and simplifies Cincinnati's codes, reviews the development process, implements Form-based Codes and considers more creative uses for land. The grant allowed the city to start implementing some of the ideas voiced in public meetings.
 
Visionaries included youth, too. City staff worked with community centers and Cincinnati Public Schools to develop an art project for children. They were given clay pots and asked to paint their fears for the city on the inside and their dreams for the city on the outside. The children saw the big issue was quality of life, just like the adults did.
 
“It was an interesting way to get the kids involved and thinking about the future,” Keough-Jurs says.
 
The Plan aims to strengthen neighborhood centers—the neighborhoods’ business districts. It maps out areas that people need to get to on a daily basis and found that most are within about a half-mile of the business districts. But in some neighborhoods, residents can’t access their neighborhood centers. 

The accessibility of a neighborhood center is based on walkability—not just for pedestrians, but also about how structures address walking. For exampke, if a pedestrian can walk from one end of the neighborhood center to the other without breaking his or her pattern (the window shopping effect), the area is walkable; if he or she has been stopped by a parking lot or vacancies, it’s not walkable, Keough-Jurs says.
 
The neighborhood centers are classified in one of three ways in the Plan: maintain, evolve or transform. Some neighborhoods have goals to maintain levels of walkability, whereas others need to gradually change or evolve. Still others need to completely transform in order to strengthen their business districts.
 
“Cincinnati is at the heart of the region,” Keough-Jurs says. “If we strengthen Cincinnati, we strengthen a region.”

The next step for the Plan is to go before the Cincinnati City Council, specifically the Livable Communities Committee, which is chaired by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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For most people, a vacant funeral home might not seem the optimal office and retail space.

Matt Kotlarczyk and a business partner aren't most people. When they saw the vacant Chas. A. Miller funeral home in Northside, they saw opportunity. The Northside landmark that has been vacant for the past three years is currently being remodeled into office and retail space. Kotlarczyk hopes to have the space ready for tenants by April.

“I’ve been looking for a project in Northside for a while,” Kotlarczyk says. “It’s an interesting building, and it can be a very unique space.”

Renovators are tearing up carpet and building walls to create offices, but the building will still keep its character. Kotlarczyk  says only minor changes are being made--for example, the former viewing room will be turned into a conference room.

The 16,000-square-foot space, including the three-car garage, is already being leased. The entire first floor is being rented by Caracole, a center that provides housing and supportive services for those living with HIV/AIDs. The first floor will serve as an office for the non-profit's 30 employees.

Half of the second floor is rented to Future Life Now, a center that works with individuals and groups to makes changes in all aspects of life, which is currently based in College Hill. FLN is doubling its current space with the move. FNL had been looking for a new space for more than a year.

“It will give us more space and a better location to serve our clients from all areas,” says Cynthia Allen, owner of Future Life Now. “We always wanted to support the revitalization of an urban neighborhood. Northside really has shown that it has the moxie to bring diversity together and create a healthy neighborhood.”

The second floor still has 2,500 square feet for rent, as well as the three-car garage behind the building. The garage has high ceiling and a bathroom. According to Kotlarczyk, a sculptor himself, it would make a great studio.

By Evan Wallis