Recapping the ULI Fall Meeting with Renee Schoonbeek

Announcement | October 30, 2020

Renée Schoonbeek is a senior associate vice president who leads the planning and urban design studio in CallisonRTKL’s New York City office. A visionary and results-driven urban planner, Renée has a wealth of experience in both public and private sectors in strategic planning, economic and community development, and managing complex planning and design projects in dense, urban environments.

At the Infrastructure Forum at ULI’s fall meeting, the speakers discussed the relationship between infrastructure and real estate. How do infrastructure demands affect real estate at the neighborhood level?

RS: The breakout session I moderated featured the Rondo Community Land Bridge from Cyrus Knutson of the MnDOT Rethinking I-94 Initiative and Keith Baker who leads ReConnect Rondo, a non-profit neighborhood organization. The project they discussed sought to reconnect a bisected neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. The project is as much about infrastructure as it is about restorative justice and community ownership. Essentially, they are propositioning to overbuild a highway to reconnect the historically Black community and restore the cultural district.

To build the highway, about 700 homes were demolished. ReConnect Rondo is looking for ways to capture the value of the lost homes and invest in infrastructure– a land bridge. The group is connecting infrastructure, quite literally, to land value and real estate development.

What elements can help under-funded neighborhoods gain resiliency in challenging circumstances?

RS: The main focus areas for the St. Paul project are restorative justice, community ownership, community benefits and no displacement. It’s really important to empower the people living in these communities and give them a say in decision making. They need to feel like the community that they care for cares for them back. There’s a fourth “P” in the concept of public-private partnership—and that’s people.

At the Placemaking Council’s “The Public Realm and Streets in the Time of COVID” session, panelists discussed opportunities for inclusive placemaking during the pandemic. What solution stood out to you most during this conversation?

RS: We had two guests speak to us about their respective city’s responses to the pandemic—Kim Lucas, CRM who works for the city of Pittsburgh, PA and Warren Logan who works for the city of Oakland, CA.

COVID-19 has built a huge momentum around the rethinking of streetscapes and a good swell of community-based initiatives. In a rapid response to the health crisis, cities across the US have taken measures to create more outdoor space for people and businesses. Open and shared streets programs and relaxed rules to allow for outdoor dining have had a transformative impact on our cityscapes. People have taken full advantage of the opportunities to claim the public realm and streets, ride their bikes, walk the streets, work out and sunbathe while socially distancing. In addition to city-sponsored initiatives, non-profits, community-based organizations, and design collaborations have generated an unprecedented outpouring of creative solutions from digital toolkits, design guidelines and manuals, art installations, to support for struggling small businesses. With so much happening at the same time, all over the US, it may be too early to draw any firm conclusions. There are four major observations to consider what this means moving forward.

One of these is the idea that people are reclaiming the streets. All the major cities we discussed have stablished some sort of open and shared streets programs for outdoor dining, outdoor exercise—whatever you can think of — people are doing it. We also must remember that rapid response is temporary and low cost. Initiatives are relatively easy to implement and require few major adjustments. Another tenant was the key to streamlining all the small businesses affected are simplified rules and regulations. Cities have lowered the threshold and prioritized small business survival over enforcement. Finally, there currently is no long term or permanent strategy in place. Cities are just starting to explore longer-term implications of the shift that has occurred—and we still don’t know what the future post-COVID looks like.

How can we make these temporary programs and solutions into long term positive change and achieve inclusive placemaking?

RS: I think there are four major areas we must consider as part of the response: the public response–which is the city giving people opportunities for innovation through land use and zoning, the civic response—which is the nonprofit and design collaborative creating solutions to support communities and businesses, and the individual response—which is people taking the space away from cars for social activities. What the fourth response is, the private sector response, as well as the role that businesses, property owners and real estate developers will play in it, we have yet to figure out. The big opportunity is to make long term lasting change towards less car-centric planning and urban design. One of the biggest challenges are the need to change urban policies and governance, funding of permanent improvements and maintenance and operations. We all need to be a part of the solution if we want to create better, more resilient cities.

ULI Members can find the recording of the session here

https://knowledge.uli.org/en/videos-and-webinars/webinars/2020/2020-uli-virtual-fall-meeting-infrastructure-forum