Lillie Jackson still thinks her family should have gotten more for the homes they lost when her dad and two uncles were displaced by the construction of the Innerbelt in Akron.
So she’s disappointed that a new master plan that sets the vision for how Akron will develop the decommissioned mile-long portion of highway, and the neighborhoods around it, doesn’t include compensation for those who were forced to move.
She’s not thrilled with plans to plant greenery and make the Innerbelt walkable.
“I don’t go down there. I need to be walking with a walking cane,” the 79-year-old Goodyear Heights resident said.
But Jackson is optimistic because the master plan calls for the construction of affordable housing, and she hopes the city follows through.
“I just hope it can materialize,” Jackson said. “Don’t be just giving us dreams.”
Mayor Shammas Malik hopes the city will be able to move forward with many of the proposals in the nearly 200-page plan that was released Monday. While he called the culmination of more than a year of work an “aspirational” document, Malik said he intends to begin moving forward with proposed projects this year.
“The reality is not everything in the plan will happen,” Malik said in an interview Monday. “If we’re able to do 80% of the projects in that document, it would be a huge economic impact. It would be transformational.”
Residents are ready to see projects start
The city has allocated $500,000 toward Innerbelt projects this year, and Malik said pedestrian and bicycle improvements on Vernon Odom Boulevard, as well as intersection improvements, will be among the first projects to move forward. So will efforts to beautify the decommissioned portion of the Innerbelt — the plan calls for turning it into a walking trail with public art in the period before development can occur there.
“It’s important for people to see concrete change to the built environment,” Malik said of the need to begin not with more studies, but with something tangible. “Activation will be important.”
He noted that residents — who contributed to the final plan with months of meetings and interviews — are ready to see work begin. It’s why putting money toward the project in this year’s budget was important, he said, even as the city experiences financial strain.
It will take decades and tens of millions of dollars to accomplish many of the proposals, but Malik said accessing the Innerbelt and some road improvements don’t need to take 30 years.
“We have a lot of work to do on implementation,” he said. “It’s not a ‘snap your fingers and it’s done.’”
For Zinga Hart, how it gets done is just as important as what gets done.
Hart, who lives in Northwest Akron, said she had attended Innerbelt meetings in the past as a former president of Torchbearers Akron and someone who is interested in economic development. She said she appreciated a letter Malik wrote as part of the master plan about the need for the Innerbelt project to help repair the area.
But she would have liked the plan to speak to more than just the what of development — it’s one of the ways the work can help repair what was lost.
Follow the full story: See all of our reporting on the Akron Innerbelt in one place.
Will the people doing the eventual construction work be hired from Akron? How much grant money will be available to invest in small businesses? She’d like to see creativity in how the money is spent in order to direct benefits toward residents. Maybe the work to plant greenery on the Innerbelt is a summer job for high school students, she said.
“Put money toward the needs of the community,” Hart said. “That is the repair. That is care.”
She called the lack of detail about where money would go “a really big missing piece” but said she thought the plan as a whole covered the needs that were discussed by community members.
Affordable housing among Innerbelt priorities
Mary King lived in Akron when the Innerbelt was built and said previously that watching its construction was heartbreaking. Monday, she said she appreciated the plan’s focus on improving mobility and pedestrian access.
King is also glad that infill housing and businesses are priorities of the plan, as is a move toward using local developers to build some of those projects.
But she wishes the plan focused more on improving transit. She’d also like to see more support for young people, like a community center or youth activities.
Still, King said, she was very impressed with the level of planning and thinking that went into the proposal. It helps make up for the intentional destruction of a vibrant area, she said.
“This attempt to make redress is so, so valuable,” she said. “It’s taken a long damn time, but it’s happening now.”
The improvements, she said, are likely to take a lot of work. But she hopes they help rebuild, in part, what was lost.
Jackson also said she’d like to see youth programs, particularly in the summer, when students are looking for things to do.Some programming might come from the Akron Rites of Passage Institute, which is planning to build in Sherbondy Hill.
Natalie Smith, who lived in a family home in that neighborhood for 30 years, said she thought the building was a good idea and could help create jobs.
New homes and offices would also be welcome and could help make the area more diverse, she said. But Smith, who moved to Kenmore in August, cautioned that any homes built there needed to be affordable — $150,000 or less, she said.
She said the Innerbelt coming through “was a waste” and she hopes the city’s efforts make a difference.
“I don’t know if it fixes it, but I think it’ll be a great big help,” Smith said of the master plan. “That’s a good start. I’ll say it’s a good start.”
It’s an exciting one for Malik, who said he was pleased to see the community-centered vision come to fruition. The response, he said, has been positive.
Malik said there’s a chance that past and future could be in conversation as projects in the newly built neighborhood create echoes of history that was destroyed.
“Here, we’re working with not a fully blank canvas,” he said.
Jackson, whose family lost properties when the Innerbelt was constructed, said anything that helps improve the area will make a difference. But she said she wants to see that improvement start soon — not in three to five years. Longer than that, she said, “I’ll be dead.”
“I just hope whatever they decide to do, they can get the money to do it,” she said. “Promises have been made.”