South Bronx Unite Teams Up to Reclaim Community Turf
Bronx Times
By Sarah Valenzuela
With all the new development that is happening in the Bronx over the last decade, one community has sought to take back its neighborhood.
In April of 2017, Design Trust for Public Space sent out an open call for “project ideas to ensure New York City’s public realm remains truly public.”
Called Public for All: Rethinking Shared Space in NYC, Design Trust selected two out of the 105 project proposals they received.
One of these proposals was Community Land Trust as a Model for Public Space by South Bronx Unite in collaboration with New York City Community Land Initiative and the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards.
This project officially called Power in Place: Building Community Wealth and Well-Being in Mott Haven-Port Morris, was officially launched on Saturday, December 2 at a kickoff event in the Hub. The kickoff event informed community members of the project, as well as call for others to join the effort.
“We formed our Community Land Trust as the natural opposing force to hyper real estate speculation and displacement and to make sure that our community could continue to exist in our community,” said Mychal Johnson, a founding member of SBU and a 15-year resident of Mott Haven.
