Equity & Gentrification Recommendations for the Community-Based Public-Private Partnership Approach to Green Stormwater Infrastructure
by Kendall Wimberley and Arfa Waheed, Duke University Masters Students
The Community-Based Public-Private Partnership approach to green stormwater infrastructure investment has the potential to incorporate equity and help prevent gentrification, but ensuring community plays a meaningful role is key. Incorporating equity requirements within official documents, increasing transparency and community involvement, more clear feedback and accountability mechanisms, and defined metrics for tracking any negative implications of green infrastructure projects are some possible pathways of achieving equitable green infrastructure development through the community-based public private partnerships.
Introduction to CBP3s and Our Research Focus
Visual representation of our understanding of stakeholders and roles within the CBP3 model.
We researched a novel approach being implemented in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) supported by the EPA: a Community-Based Public-Private Partnership (CBP3). Because stormwater infrastructure in many places across the United States is aging, cities and counties are in need of major infrastructure investments. Officials, community groups, and private firms are exploring new approaches together for achieving and maintaining water quality and stormwater compliance. The CBP3 approach includes social and economic goals in addition to the environmental focus, but could go further in specifically incorporating and ensuring equity.
The CBP3 approach started to appear in 2015, and in years since it has been adopted and considered in a handful of places across the nation. A CBP3 seeks to address environmental, economic, and social goals through installing and maintaining GSI in pursuit of compliance with water quality standards and MS4 permits. Although our research and many applications of CBP3s to date are centered around GSI, the approach is not limited to stormwater.
Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4) permits are a part of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) under the Clean Water Act. Permits are issued at the state level and implemented at city and county levels to manage stormwater discharges. Public education and outreach is a part of MS4 permitting requirements. (EPA)
To date, the approach has been able to provide flexibility, transfer risk, and expedite needed stormwater infrastructure improvements in multiple communities. To better understand the CBP3 approach, we looked at two case studies already years into implementation: the Clean Water Partnership in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and the Stormwater Authority of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania. In addition to environmental goals, social and economic goals were incorporated into the partnership contracts.
In the Clean Water Partnership (CWP), there is an emphasis on local workforce development and environmental education. There are requirements that contractors be based in Prince George’s County, and the partnership includes a Mentor Protégé Program where firms are mentored through the process. Additionally, there is a program where schools in the county are engaged and able to learn about stormwater through rain garden installations and what it means to be in a green career.
In the Stormwater Authority of the City of Chester partnership, local job creation was also mentioned as a goal. We did not find a specific mentoring program, but we found a report that local resident participation has exceeded their goal. For Chester, stated goals were primarily around improvements to the aging infrastructure and helping prevent flooding while aiming to revitalize the city.
Because CBP3s tend to operate on long time scales and impact many areas within a community, we wanted to explore the approach in terms of a social and equity angle. We focused on how equity was discussed in documents and conversations with people familiar with each CBP3 and whether gentrification prevention was a part of the partnership approach.
Gentrification is “a form of neighborhood change that occurs when higher-income groups move into low-income neighborhoods, increasing the demand for housing and driving up prices.” (US Department of Housing and Urban Development)
Large scale infrastructure investment, especially with green infrastructure focused projects, has the potential to impact neighboring property values and possibly contribute to gentrification outcomes. This has been referred to as “green gentrification” and has been researched across cities in Europe and North America in recent years.
Gentrification has the potential to impact communities and neighborhoods in unequal ways. Through conversations with those involved in the two CBP3s, we learned that gentrification is not a present concern for either case study. Because property values and affordability for residents are always in flux, we recommend increased tracking of property data for any changes in affordability for renters and homeowners and further coordination between those involved in the CBP3 and county or city officials who may already be tracking potential gentrification in order to notice shifts and be able to incorporate them into the partnership’s approach. For areas considering a CBP3 where gentrification does present a current concern, the data tracking in coordination with direct engagement with the community with respect to gentrification and affordability will be especially important.
Equity in a CBP3 depends on the extent of community involvement in procedure and in the distribution and share of outcomes and opportunities. We were interested in exploring these equity dimensions and determining whether gentrification is being discussed in two existing CBP3s in order to develop recommendations for those currently involved in or considering a Community-Based Public-Private Partnership. While there were very little specific mentions of equity in either partnership, we found that proxy terms (e.g. access, participation, and opportunity) were more readily mentioned or implied in documents and conversations with those involved in our two case studies. Explicitly incorporating equity into the CBP3 approach is one of our main recommendations.
Including the community as a defined stakeholder sets CBP3s apart from other Public-Private Partnerships and opens the approach to more community centered and socioeconomic driven goals. We felt that meaningfully incorporating the community into such a partnership would mean going beyond the bare minimum of checking a box that the community has been engaged. Our research found varying levels of community engagement and involvement across the two case studies, but generally the Clean Water Partnership lived up to the community-based element of the CBP3 and Chester had more room to improve.
Case Study Differences and Demographics
The timelines of the two CBP3 partnerships we looked at are both operating for at least 30 years. The Clean Water Partnership in Prince George’s County, Maryland began in 2015 and goes through 2048, and the Stormwater Authority of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania began in 2018 and also operates through 2048. Area involved in the two partnerships is drastically different, with one operating at the whole county level and the other at the city level (over 400 square miles vs just over 4 square miles, respectively). We found this difference in scale to be important in comparing the extent of community engagement, stakeholders involved, and emphasis on job creation. Stakeholders involved in both CBP3s included local governmental officials and Corvias, the primary private partner. In the CWP, there were also identified non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and additional private firms as subcontractors within the partnership.
In thinking about the potential for gentrification in each case study, we looked at demographic differences and homeownership rates. Both CBP3s we looked at are located in majority minority communities. Prince George’s County is over 80% African American and Hispanic or Latino. The City of Chester’s population is 71.9% African American and 9.0% Hispanic or Latino. Home ownership rates in the two areas were almost opposites: 62.2% owner occupied housing unit rate in Prince George’s County and 63.2% renter rate in Chester.
High Level Findings
In terms of the CBP3 approach living up to the community-based title, we found that to be the case in the Clean Water Partnership. Their community engagement, outreach, and educational efforts appeared to go beyond just checking a box that public engagement had taken place. We also learned that at the outset, organizations and officials helped to orient the private party to local goals and priorities. From several of the people we interviewed, we heard that community feedback gets incorporated into how projects are designed, what they include, and whether they move forward. We also learned that individuals within the partnership were considering state mapping tools regarding environmental justice areas when considering new project sites within Prince George’s County.
In Chester, we found community engagement, outreach, and education to be less robust. We found evidence of community meetings when the partnership was first announced which revolved around informing the public of new fees being imposed as well as what the potential benefits of the CBP3 would include, but limited engagement since. Despite local organizations working on water quality and environmental justice issues being present in Chester, we did not see evidence of community organizations being specifically involved in Chester’s CBP3. Some of the people we spoke to in our interviews were not aware that a CBP3 existed, only that the Stormwater Authority (utility) had been created.
For both CBP3s, we did not find evidence of present gentrification concerns. Because we learned of the flexibility and adaptive nature of the CBP3 approach in terms of how projects get selected and how they are able to quickly address goals within the partnership, if gentrification becomes a concern in Chester, Prince George’s County, or additional CBP3 project areas, we believe there could be room to coordinate and incorporate preventative measures within the partnership model.
Similarly, we determined that equity could be more specifically incorporated into the partnership framework and documentation internally and externally. Neither case study had equity specifically fully integrated into the partnership goals. In our initial document review we did not find specific mentions of equity outside of the financial understanding of the term, but through conversations in interviews, we learned equity in proxy terms (e.g. access, participation, opportunity) were more prevalent especially around some of the socioeconomic data that were being tracked.
The following figure represents the findings from our interviews with individuals connected to the Clean Water Partnership based on different stakeholder roles and mentions of equity themes. The heat map stakeholder matrix we created based on coding interview transcripts in NVivo helped us understand how equity was coming up in conversation across different perspectives within the CWP and across different stages. We found it notable that many of the stakeholders emphasized equity themes in discussions around how feedback from the community gets incorporated into the program operations. The NGO perspective was most consistently mentioning equity and proxies of equity across different stages of the partnership.
We were unable to set up interviews with people specifically involved in the Chester Stormwater Authority partnership during our research, and instead we spoke to a few people familiar with Chester on background. Through those conversations, we learned that there was limited understanding of a CBP3 existing, limited community stakeholders involved, and a lack of a robust engagement or educational component to the partnership.
Prerequisites and Recommendations For Those Involved In or Considering a CBP3
We found the success of the CBP3 approach to be partially dependent on the extent of the involvement and inclusion of the community. Because the CBP3 approach has not been applied in many areas but is expanding in use, we considered whether there should be specific prerequisites in place for a CBP3 to be the right choice for a community.
By prerequisites, we mean things to especially consider when starting a CBP3. The main elements we determined to be critical prerequisites were community buy-in, supportive regulatory and legislative conditions for the partnership and for equity emphasis, and a participatory decision-making approach. In the CWP where community stakeholders were specifically involved, where education and outreach efforts were robust, and where local participation exceeded expectations, we found the prerequisites to be met. In Chester, however, we found there was a low understanding of the CBP3 in the community and a less community buy-in. The introduction of stormwater fees was met with resistance from the residents and lack of willingness to pay for stormwater improvements, resulting in multiple legal battles over the stormwater authority at the center of Chester’s CBP3.
The CBP3 approach is flexible and can be tailored to the environmental and social goals of the community where it is applied. As the approach continues to evolve, we hope to see equity more specifically incorporated into the framework to ensure the large-scale green stormwater infrastructure investment is not contributing to or exacerbating existing community inequities.
We intend the following recommendations to be applicable to individuals or officials currently involved in CBP3s or considering the approach for their city or county. Acting on these recommendations would help to ensure the CBP3 approach incorporates equity in a thorough way, help to track and prevent gentrification more specifically integrated into the partnership, and help to increase transparency and efficiency of the partnership approach.
Incorporate Equity Requirements into Partnership Framework
This can be done within internal and external documents and websites to increase transparency and allow for greater understanding of how the partnerships are thinking about and working towards equity in terms of access, participation, and opportunities as well as across different phases of projects.
Ensure Stakeholder Inclusion across Phases
Ideally community stakeholders are involved in the envisioning and considering phase of entering into a CBP3 as well as the planning and implementation phases. In order to ensure community buy-in and incorporate crucial feedback, stakeholders should be included in a meaningful way across each phase of the CBP3 in a community.
Increase Transparency and Ensure Prerequisites
We recommend transparency around how projects and sites are selected and distributed to help ensure equity in the process. Transparency and accessibility around how potential community organizations and private firms can participate in the CBP3 can also help build trust and buy-in. Incorporating community values and buy-in for a CBP3 are some of the main prerequisites we identified. Especially if additional taxes or fees are to accompany the creation of the CBP3, there should be a thorough understanding of how that would impact affordability within a community and how people would benefit from the CBP3 directly or indirectly.
Track Property Values within Project Areas
To understand the potential for gentrification effects or existing gentrification outcomes in a community, it is important that property values are being tracked. Especially if gentrification is a community concern where a CBP3 is being considered, this property tracking should be communicated to and coordinated with the partnership’s managers and other socioeconomic goals.
Consider Potential Gentrification outcomes for Homeowners and Renters
Impacts of gentrification differ based on the housing security of a resident. In order to assess whether the CBP3 model is contributing to gentrification, it is important to consider affordability changes (e.g. rent hikes, increases in property taxes) for both homeowners and renters. This recommendation is implicated in how fees or taxes are structured if that is a part of the funding mechanism of the CBP3.
Coordinate across Government Offices / Departments
Ensuring equity and preventing negative gentrification outcomes requires collaboration on goal setting and data tracking across offices and departments within a city, county, or state. Compliance with environmental justice or equity related initiatives in the area where a CBP3 may be implemented or considered could become incorporated into the approach through increased coordination.
Switch From Passive to Active Adaptive Management
The CBP3 offers the flexibility to allow an active style of adaptive management wherein multiple choice options can be tested and can be based on a collaborative learning process for facilitating equitable GI development. We recommend exploring active adaptive management for existing and prospective.
Conclusion
Throughout our research, we discovered additional areas that are considering and adopting the CBP3 model. In Washington State a feasibility study considering the CBP3 model was conducted in 2019, and in 2020 Corvias entered into a partnership in Milwaukee, the Fresh Coast Protection Partnership. We expect this approach to financing, implementing and maintaining stormwater infrastructure with an emphasis on the involvement of and benefits to communities to continue expanding.
Our research centered around how equity is currently incorporated and considered within two CBP3s, highlighting differences, room for improvement, and future considerations. The recommendations presented can be incorporated into existing or prospective CBP3s, applicable for anywhere considering this approach and wanting to ensure equity plays a central role in the partnership operations and gentrification outcomes are prevented.
Community-Based Public-Private Partnerships have the potential to continue delivering on environmental, economic, and social goals. We hope to see equity more specifically incorporated as this approach continues to adapt to community context, needs, and goals in cities and counties across the United States.