Denver, Colo. – Cheryl Cohen-Vader, president and CEO of the Stapleton Development Corporation, is the head keeper of the “Green Book.” It holds all the plans, goals and values that the citizens and community leaders wanted Stapleton, Colo. to encapsulate.
That book could soon be important to St. Louis as well. St. Louis’ Northside Redevelopment project is being modeled after Stapleton, and the lead urban planner, Mark Johnson, is also the Northside’s lead planner.
Cohen-Vader tells how the citizens’ governance works in Stapleton.
How did the Green Book originate?
When Denver residents realized that the old airport, Stapleton, was going to be shut down to build a new fancy airport, a group of citizens came together to figure out what the City was going to do with 4,000 plus acres in the middle of the city. They didn’t want to see it auctioned off to the highest bidders for industrial uses that probably weren’t compatible with the surrounding neighborhood areas.
So the citizens were formally put together, and they created what is called the Green Book, which was the Stapleton Redevelopment Plan. Not just in regards to the physical property, the Green Book talks about the values we wanted to see. We wanted diversity, lifelong education, to be green; this is a very green community.
There are about 14 guiding principles in the Green Book, along with the master plan. To make sure it happened that way, the Stapleton Development Corporation was formed, and its primary function is protector of the Green Book.
Stapleton Development Corp. is composed of business people, people with expertise in different areas, and people from the community. As an extension of our board, we have a citizens’ advisory group. They are the people we initially put together to help make sure that the corporation knew what was happening on the ground.
As the Stapleton community has developed, we now have people who live here are also part of the group. But its mission is the same – to give us on the ground advice of what’s going on and how it’s perceived by the people who live here.
Is Stapleton successful in meeting its diversity goals?
It’s reasonably successful regarding our diversity goals. It’s getting a reputation of an upper-income, yuppie wasp living here. There is some diversity, but not as much as we would like to see. We’d like to figure out how to get some more minority businesses out here.
How do you gain the community’s trust?
Our biggest efforts are really engaging the surrounding communities in the process. People do come here to shop. It was one of the underserved neighborhoods in terms of grocery stores and department stores. But I think there is a tendency with surrounding areas to feel that this is rich people over here.
We call it the invisible wall. One of the things we are thinking of is: how do we start to break down those barriers? Where they do come over and enjoy the parks? Where they do come and enjoy the festivals?
But that’s part of the diversity packet. As part of governance, we have people from all of these communities that are on the Citizens’ Advisory Board, who can help us figure out what the issues are.