On Dec. 5, 2017, the Metropolitan Development Commission approved adoption of a Neighborhood Investment Strategy as part of the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The plan seeks to promote coordination of public, philanthropic, nonprofit, and private community development resources. According to Brad Beaubien, director of long-range planning for the City of Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development, the plan uses data on the condition of both people and places to understand the variety of needs in neighborhoods around the city. “Using a national best-practice model, our market value analysis in the plan groups blocks into one of six typologies based on the real estate market, with variables like home price sales change, distressed sales, and building permit activity,” he testified to the Commission. A first-of-its-kind model, called the Neighborhood Investment Analysis, was created to study the “people” side of neighborhoods, he said. “It groups blocks into 12 different typologies using measures of opportunity like poverty, housing cost, urban displacement risk, access to healthcare and healthy food, and crime,” he said.
Beaubien said a “toolbox” was created using research gathered from both national best practices as well as local community development practitioners. The toolbox includes a mix of investments and interventions, most relevant to each typology, he said. “This will help all players in our community development system understand where their work can have the greatest impact,” he said.
The plan was prepared in close partnership with the mayor’s office and is in direct response to Mayor Hogsett’s vision for neighborhoods, which states that his administration will implement “a comprehensive program that meets all neighborhoods where they are now.” Further, “by recognizing what stage of development a community is in, the City can provide appropriate resources to foster and build human infrastructure to address neighborhood needs across the spectrum.” Download the plan HERE.
