Together We Are Safe questions AmplifyGR's commitment to true community ownership

City planning has the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. 

Jane Jacobs, 1960s activist against gentrification

We at Together We Are Safe recognize that we are currently occupying Anishinaabe land, and that under unjust settler and colonizer systems, wealth and power are based on who “owns” land, or property.  

We have watched with concern as the DeVos-backed non-profit Amplify GR has purchased millions of dollars of property in secret and then claimed to open the decision process up to the community about what should be done with the properties.  

We attended the 2017 meetings that ended in outrage from the community members.  We have questions.

1. Amplify writes that the proposed redevelopment meets the standards of the neighborhood because they “held three neighborhood input sessions attended by more than 300 different local residents and stakeholders” in 2019. (p. 76 of the Amplify application to the Grand Rapids Planning Commission)

   Is 300 people enough?  Were they the right 300 people?  Were they the most vulnerable who are often criminalized and otherwise marginalized and dismissed?
    

2. Were residents of Boston Square and the surrounding South GR community asked to draw a map of what they’d like to see, or did they just have their questions answered about already drawn plans? 
    

3. Was there a renewed effort after the public meetings of 2017 to have widespread and messy community conversation, where everyone could hear and participate and build off each other?  Were the residents separated into stations, or were they together in a space that allowed for generative discourse and dissent?
    

4. Were Boston Square residents given control to build community?  In other communities who fight gentrification, this kind of conversation has happened organically through events such as block parties or small markets.  Have residents been supported in organizing and community building in organic ways?  

5. When community members have asked for the resources and tools to simply do the building themselves, what are the responses from AmplifyGR?
    

6. In earlier public meetings in 2017, Executive Director Jon Ippel said that community trusts and collective business building were going to be discussed.  Boston Square residents who shut down one of the public meetings in 2017 talked specifically about community benefit agreements.  So as many folks have been asking, are there community benefit agreements, as well as the collective power to build businesses and community together?  Where is this conversation taking place?
    

7. Amplify will create these multi-use buildings and a plan that “promotes affordable housing for seniors,” and “expands affordable and market rate rental and homeownership opportunities.”  (pp. 75 & 77) Many want to know how that’s kept accountable - that the housing remains or becomes affordable for the families who are in the area now (not by the citywide average income) - and how that’s kept in community trust and in community ownership.  Has Amplify centered the voices of renters?  Or have they centered developers, landlords, homeowners, or a few individuals who are poised to profit, just like in every other new development in the city? 

8. Amplify shared with the Planning Commission that they are planning to apply for state tax incentives as they build.  That means that everyone in the community will be helping to pay for their plans.  So why is the current narrative that input must be limited to Boston Square and Oakdale residents only?

The Boston Square Neighborhood is a Village and Neighborhood Mixed-Use Center of the Southtown Business Area Specific Plan that serves up to 35,000 folks in the Master Plan of the City.  We at Together We Are Safe think that the Boston Square neighborhood and the greater city is likely not being served by the current plans of AmplifyGR, given their reluctance to mention the meetings of 2017 and given the apparent absence of community benefit agreements.  We think that real community planning and community land trusts take more people, more planning, more conversation, and more true community control.

Despite AmplifyGR’s narrative, we think that the power of who has ownership of space and housing will continue to reside with the rich and well-funded until the neighbors of Grand Rapids - particularly the renters, which make up 33% of Boston Square and 46% of the city proper - come together to assert our collective power.  And that is exactly what we intend to do.

Follow our FB page @TWASforMLK to see upcoming announcements about meetings for a Tenants Union.  Read an in-depth interview about this statement here.

Together We Are Safe began in 2017 as a small group of neighbors near MLK Park in Grand Rapids, MI, who wanted to develop community solutions in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.  Since then we have grown to include the Greater Grand Rapids area as we all face the housing crisis and over-policing together.  

Our group shares resources and advocates for community ownership of property, businesses, and solutions.  If you believe that neighbors are safer when we come together, follow us on Facebook @TWASforMLK. You can message us there.

You can also reach us by email at [email protected] or by phone at 616.236.3010