This ‘Green Vision Plan for Kingsessing’ was drafted with the say — and approval — of community members

Green development is coming to Kingsessing. But not without its residents having their say.

A collection of environmental organizations are partnering together to build new green stormwater infrastructure in neighborhoods like Kingsessing as part of the Resilient Communities Stormwater Initiative (RCSI), a project funded by the William Penn Foundation.

That new infrastructure can include rain gardens, trees, permeable pavement, or any other structure that helps reduce flooding and pollution caused by stormwater. While stormwater is the focus, this infrastructure also can add other greening benefits, like reducing local temperatures and improving air quality.

This summer, RCSI held its first neighborhood workshops in Kingsessing. Over the course of three meetings in Bartram’s Garden, local residents and community leaders were given stipends to work with the RCSI team. Together, they mapped out all of the existing greening programs and vacant lots in the neighborhood, toured them in person to evaluate options for further greening and potential challenges, and reviewed and approved a draft “Green Vision for Kingsessing” plan.

“We can show others how to create green spaces. That’s what’s important,” said Carol Simmons, a Kingsessing resident and community activist. She’s been eating a plant-based diet for about 50 years, and believes greening is critical because research indicates it also may help reduce violence.

“We want Southwest to be better. To be a great neighborhood. So, yes, these workshops [reinforce] our community work. It reinforces our relationships. And it reinforces that we all are after the same goal, which is to make it better through the greening.”

Over at least the next two years, RCSI will now use the “Green Vision Plan for Kingsessing” to work with Kingsessing residents and coordinate with resource organizations and funders to make the projects happen.

The plan maps out sites for greening, categorizes them, and shares information that potential developers should know. For instance, the plan identifies the Paxon Street Community Garden as an existing site where more greening is possible.

“The development of this new community space is being spearheaded by Dianna Coleman ... to make a new space for food production and youth. The space is currently being envisioned as having some raised beds and fruit trees with places for young people to learn and spend time,” it reads.

“We need to have things that are for us, by us, because that’s the best way to impact us.”

Traditional green development projects sometimes have negative side effects for community members, like raising property values which displace longtime residents, or becoming a costly nuisance to maintain. RCSI’s project aims to mitigate some of those effects by working closely with community members to plan and execute greening that best fits their needs.

“There’s going to have to be a plan for how each [project is] going to happen and the people living in the community have to be engaged, or else they’re not going to happen,” said Maurice Sampson, the Eastern Pennsylvania director of Clean Water Action and one of the RCSI leaders.

“These neighborhoods are used to people coming in and talking about things they want to do and then going home after they are satisfied or leaving people adrift or not delivering at all. [They’re] used to that. So this process has been one where we’ve had to build a trust.”

» READ MORE: How can Philly build green without displacing residents?

When the RCSI first met with Kingsessing residents about bringing green development to their neighborhood, Victoria Miles-Chambliss made it clear where she stood.

“I’m about getting it done. Don’t give me any words, let’s get it done. That’s what communities want to see,” said “Miss Vicky” as she’s known by her neighbors. “We’re tired of people saying they want to do things and then don’t do it. So this is... where we’re holding you accountable.”

She knows the bureaucratic red tape around greening all too well. As an officer with the Empowered CDC Inc. organization, Miles-Chambliss spent nearly a decade fighting with her neighbors to transform a vacant Kingsessing lot into a green space called the Cecil Street Community Garden. Even though the garden is a small place of respite, Miles-Chambliss believes its impact is significant.

“Young people have a place to congregate, instead of looking over their shoulder to see if they’re going to get shot,” she said. “You sit there and it’s tranquil. You have traffic going by, but you don’t hear it.”

» READ MORE: ‘A place of tranquility’ grows in Southwest Philly with the work of community and a lot of friends

She feels the same way about building more green infrastructure in her neighborhood.

“If you bring a tree and put it in the neighborhood that didn’t have any trees, people start looking at it differently. You bring a planter and put it in the neighborhood, people start looking at it differently,” she said.

Lotus Barron, 25, was one of the youngest Kingsessing residents at the workshops. But she learned from her mother and Miss Vicky, her old block captain, that it was important to take a role in shaping her community.

“We need to have things that are for us, by us, because that’s the best way to impact us,” she said.

“It’s not that we don’t have the intellect, it’s that we don’t have the resources.”

The Kingsessing residents understand that even with their input, these projects can lead to some downsides like gentrification. But they still felt strongly that developing and greening their neighborhood was important enough to withstand the challenges.

“We’re investing in the future.”

“You can’t go into a project with one eye closed,” said Greg Thompson, the 40th Ward leader and Kingsessing resident, about acknowledging everything that comes with green development. “People used to ride horse-and-buggies to work, now we drive. People fly from New York City to California in [several] hours. But there’s gas in the [atmosphere]. There’s a trade-off for progression.”

“It’s not going to keep the property taxes down. But I think it’s going to give us more of an initiative to hold on to the spaces that are around us,” Barron said. “I think only good things can come from this.”

As development gets underway in Kingsessing, the workshops and and resulting Green Vision Plan here will serve as a model for RCSI as it works with other neighborhoods. But for now, the focus remains on Southwest, and what its residents want to build in this corner of Philadelphia that they are bonded to.

“We’re investing in the future,” Thompson said. “We’re able to put things in place that’ll be here for a hundred years.”