Wilson, AR

Comprehensive Plan

In 2015, czb was hired to craft a Comprehensive Plan and strategic development guidebook for the City of Wilson, a municipality of approximately 900 residents in the Mississippi Delta.

After The Lawrence Group purchased much of the agricultural land and commercial property in town and began pouring millions of dollars into the development of the town and its amenities, Wilson became the focus of much attention. With the opening of a local boarding school, a high-quality organic farm, and a farm-to-table restaurant in a short period of time, Wilson was attracting more outside investment and interest from the greater Memphis region.

Juneau, AK

Housing Action Plan

The City and Borough of Juneau, a community of 32,000 residents in the Alaskan panhandle, hired czb in 2015 to develop a housing action plan. The city’s fragile economy was discouraging the private market from taking risks on development beyond the production of a few high-end units, leading to the unusual combination of both housing price escalation and widespread housing disinvestment.

Virginia Beach, VA

Housing Needs Assessment

Virginia Beach, a coastal city of approximately 450,000 in southeastern Virginia, is home to a large tourism economy, several military bases, and many seasonal homeowners and renters. In 2015, czb partnered with the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech to develop a Housing Needs Assessment and Stabilization Recommendations for the City of Virginia Beach.

Seattle, WA

Affordable Housing Levy

czb was instrumental in designing a levy program for the City of Seattle, WA, which now plays a central role in the city’s affordable housing delivery system. Since 1981, Seattle voters have approved one bond and five tax levies to create an affordable housing fund. The city has now funded more than 12,500 affordable apartments for seniors, low- and moderate-wage workers, and formerly homeless individuals and families. It has also provided homeownership assistance to more than 900 first-time, low-income home buyers and emergency rental assistance to more than 6,500 households.

Bowling Green, OH Future Land Use Plan

A city of approximately 30,000 in northwest Ohio, Bowling Green is home to Bowling Green State University, a traditional, walkable downtown, and a variety of housing and retail. While asset rich, Bowling Green is also a community at risk of becoming another small city in decline, indistinguishable from other communities of chain restaurants and suburban-style housing.

Bowling Green’s Future Land Use Plan was approved in 2014. Also that year, the plan won an Ohio APA award for Best Plan in its small jurisdiction category.

Charleston, SC

North Central Neighborhood Plan

The North Central Neighborhood of Charleston is a historically African-American neighborhood of 5,000 residents on the rapidly gentrifying Charleston peninsula. In 2014, the Historic Charleston Foundation hired czb to review its Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative for this neighborhood.

Danville, VA

Neighborhood Revitalization & Reinvestment Strategy

czb came to Danville, a historic community in south-central Virginia on the border of Virginia and North Carolina, in Fall 2014 to provide the city with an evaluation of its housing market conditions and a list of recommended strategic interventions for regaining market strength.

Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, MI

Affordable Housing Analysis & Strategy

Throughout most of 2014 and into early 2015, czb worked with officials in Washtenaw County, Michigan to develop a countywide affordable housing strategy. The complex undertaking meant analyzing the county’s highly varied submarkets from booming Ann Arbor to struggling Ypsilanti, the impact of the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University on those markets, and the fall-out from the Great Recession. The result was an unprecedented level of cooperative work among more than a dozen jurisdictions setting shared policy and production goals for housing across the county.

Millinocket, ME

Town Analysis & Planning

In 2014 and 2015, czb worked with the Town of Millinocket in north-central Maine on a strategy to guide the town’s future development after the closure of the Great Northern Paper mill, which once drove the area’s economy. czb team members met with local officials, conducted focus groups, analyzed economic trends and data, and circulated an online survey designed to gauge how Millinocket residents felt about the future.

Village of Perry, NY

Comprehensive Plan

In 2014, czb was selected to work with the Village of Perry on its Village Comprehensive Plan. Perry, a small village in central New York State, had not gone through a comprehensive planning process since 1967 and needed to revisit many of its land use, zoning, economic development, and growth priorities. With a population of 3,600, Perry had long prided itself on being “a village that is still a village” – a place of caring neighbors and business owners with a walkable downtown, its own independent school district, and great recreational facilities.

Canton, OH

Comprehensive Plan & Zoning Update

In 2014, czb was retained to develop a Comprehensive Plan for the City of Canton, a municipality of approximately 70,000 residents in northeast Ohio. Since the 1950s, when its last plan was written, Canton had lost 38% of its population, the number of vacant housing units increased more than eleven times over (from 300 to 3,500 units), and the city increasingly struggled to compete with its nearby suburbs.

Between 2014 and 2016, czb worked to create a Comprehensive Plan designed to right-size and reimagine investment in the city.

Boulder, CO

Strategic Plan for Boulder Housing Partners

Between 2013 and 2014, czb partnered with Boulder Housing Partners to identify and address the overall scale and nature of the city’s affordable housing needs. Our analysis, findings, and strategy recommendations were used to develop a Strategic Plan for Boulder Housing Partners that includes an actionable plan to add 200 affordable housing units to the city’s inventory each year over the next 10 years.

Lexington, KY

Affordable Housing Strategy

During 2013 and 2014, czb worked with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government to create a framework for affordable housing strategy and development. The county’s needs were stark: when czb arrived, there was a $36 million gap in affordable housing funding and a shortage of more than 6,000 affordable housing units.

Park City, UT

Multiple Projects

Between 2009 and 2013, czb guided Park City, Utah — a city of approximately 8,000 residents just east of Salt Lake City — through three different projects: community visioning work, the creation of an affordable housing strategy, and recommendations for strengthening its Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Bank.

Chapel Hill, NC

Neighborhood Analysis and Strategy

The Center for Community Self-Help is a community development and real estate lender based in Durham, NC that has provided more than $6.8 billion in financing since its founding in 1980. In 2012, czb was hired by the Center to provide a market analysis and strategy framework for Northside, the largest historically African-American community in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro area. The Northside neighborhood had been losing longtime residents and experiencing real estate pressure from the rapidly expanding student housing rental market at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ogden, UT

East Central Revitalization Study

The City of Ogden has endured a 25-year period of slow economic decline. czb came to Ogden to provide recommendations on how to revitalize East Central, a special collection of neighborhoods in the city. General declining interest in living in Ogden had led to a decline in property value appreciation throughout the city. Aging stock, a hard-to-market downtown, and disinvestment all contributed to a growing sense that the city was not moving in the right direction.

Wheat Ridge, CO

Repositioning Wheat Ridge, Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy

In 2005, Wheat Ridge City Council adopted the Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy (NRS) Report, Repositioning Wheat Ridge, and adopted its findings and recommendations as guiding principles for revitalizing the city. Creation of the document took approximately seven months, during which time the project team evaluated the state of the city, the population and housing trends, job and retail sales trends, housing market and commercial inventory. The purpose of the effort was to restore the city to a community of choice for homeowners and businesses. The effort resulted in the creation of a nonprofit community improvement organization called LocalWorks, an updated comprehensive plan, and eventually an update to the strategy itself in 2018-2019 as market conditions evolved in the Denver area.