Special Community Initiative: Melbourne, Florida
By Sherrie Voss Matthews
Eau Gallie is French for rocky waters. Some say it was aptly named, and not only because of the dangerous rocks that lie offshore.
Eau Gallie is hemmed in. It is also divided into three neighborhoods: the Booker T. Washington neighborhood on the west, bordered by a huge brick wall and U.S. 1 and railroad tracks; the Pineapple neighborhood on the northeast; and the Olde Eau Gallie Riverfront Downtown on the southeast.
Over 30 years, the neighborhood sailed through some crag-ridden shoals, survived a merger, and fought crime, prostitution, and sinking property values. But the area is coming back. City staff members and residents began working together to tackle the problems, and for the effort to revive Eau Gallie, the city of Melbourne receives the 2003 APA award for Outstanding Planning: Special Community Initiative.
'We'll never be from Melbourne'
Eau Gallie merged with the city of Melbourne in 1969 to save on costs and gain a bit more clout in the statehouse at Tallahassee. But in the process, Eau Gallie seemed to lose its identity.
"The 'old timers,' the people who had lived there for generations, felt that they had been sold out; there had been very big rivalry between the two towns," says Peggy Braz, AICP, planning and development director. "Some even said, 'I'm from Eau Gallie, I'll never be from Melbourne.'"
The city of Melbourne (pop. 72,500) is slightly more than 35 square miles; old Eau Gallie comprises about seven square miles. The city is in Brevard County, on Florida's Space Coast south of the Kennedy Space Center and some 90 minutes east of Orlando. Eau Gallie is an interesting mix: multi-million-dollar homes as well as two low-income projects near the water. Further inland is downtown Eau Gallie, as well as neighborhoods with longtime residents mixed with a transient population living in rental housing.
A 1982 plan for Eau Gallie was developed without residents' participation. When the plan was shown to the merchants and residents, they quickly made their opinions ‹ and resentment ‹ known. "There just wasn't enough trust between the city of Melbourne and the residents in Eau Gallie," Braz recalls. "They asked us to please go away. And so we did, but we told them to let us know when they were ready for us to come back."
Fighting back
Shortly thereafter, Eau Gallie became a haven for drug dealers and prostitutes, who benefited from the lack of lighting and through streets. The vibrant downtown became a line of vacant storefronts and a declining tax base. The Booker T. Washington neighborhood, home to about 700 residents, 65 percent of whom live below the poverty line, suffered.
"We started to have an increase in crime, and we never had that problem before," says David Wickham, a lifelong resident of Eau Gallie and former chair of the Crime Watch. "It came in the back door, it kinda snuck in on us, then it got a foothold here, then it increased. It gave us all a rude awakening. We realized we had to make some serious, serious changes here."
In 1997, Eau Gallie had 169 burglaries, 31 robberies, 149 narcotics arrests, and 145 assaults. By 1999, Eau Gallie residents and the merchants association decided it was time for the city planners to come back.
Residents called for increased police presence, but Henry Hill ‹ then city manager, now deputy city manager in Frisco, Texas ‹ realized that to work for the long term, the neighborhood needed to pull together, develop an identity and a sense of pride, and learn to trust. A patchwork solution would not work; drug dealers and prostitutes would just move from one area to another.
"What caught my eye was that we had a lot of efforts in and of themselves that were directed at a part of the problem," Hill recalls. "But no one looked at it and said, 'They're all connected.' Any success that was achieved had to be done as a whole."
Reclaiming Eau Gallie
The city and neighbors developed a three-fold strategy. First, they created an improvement area and a neighborhood crime watch. Then, the city renamed the North Melbourne Target Area ‹ it became the Booker T. Washington neighborhood ‹ and worked with residents to develop pride of place through community meetings and vision planning. At the request of business owners, the city designated the downtown as an urban infill area to make it eligible for federal and state grant money.
It started small: cleaning up vacant properties, trimming shrubs, and adding streetlights. Dumpsters were cleaned, garbage removed from alleys. Code enforcement became proactive, and when a cracked sidewalk was noticed, it was fixed immediately.
"Everybody saw that the city staff was indeed interested and active and was going to follow through," Hill says. "Part of that was to not wait until all the information had been gathered, and then develop a plan. When things were identified as problem areas, they were taken care of."
The city used grant money to hire community plan consultants such as Rochelle W. Lawnadales, AICP, principal of Lawnadales Planning Affiliates in Melbourne. She was a facilitator in the Washington neighborhood and the Pineapple Improvement District.
More than 250 people showed up in a church meeting room for the first meeting in November 1999. About 50 took very active roles, and the steering committees had at least 20 to 30 active participants from the neighborhood, says planning director Braz, although at first the meetings were gripefests.
"But you have to go through that part, then finally we got through (to them), and told them to tell us everything," Braz says. "To be our eyes and ears ‹ where are (the dealers and prostitutes) hiding? Why can't police drive through this alley? Once we were responsive, once they told us what was going on, it was a team effort."
Melbourne police gave residents phones that were programmed with the police department number only. At first crime rates shot up, Braz said, but only because residents were now reporting crime as it happened.
"It was a community effort because everybody got involved," says longtime resident Wickham. "The city got involved, from the city manager to the council people, and everybody worked together."
Residents not only knew the names of the police chief, police officers, and the state's attorney, they also knew the names of prostitutes and drug dealers who worked the streets. Drug property was confiscated. Prostitutes were arrested, and if convicted, they were not allowed to return to areas in which they had conducted business.
A better Eau Gallie
Along with listening went plan building. "Each meeting had a specific task, and we would just build upon the outcomes," Lawnadales says. "Some focused on land use, some on physical improvements, some on economic issues, others on crime, and so ultimately a plan began to emerge."
When the plan was presented to the Melbourne city council 18 months later, the chamber was packed with residents who supported the vision the community had developed. "There were 50 to 60 people standing behind me, and that was extraordinarily powerful to me," Lawnadales says.
Melbourne planners worked with the Florida Department of Transportation to improve roads, and used the Waterfront Florida program to improve the pier and obtain new lighting. A $25,000 matching Coastal Zone Management grant is being used to develop plans for a riverwalk. EDAW began developing a design, which will follow the community's plan. Phase one is the design of 250 feet of walkway, which the city hopes to have completed within a year. Right now, tax increments are limited, but the city is seeking funds from federal, state, and private sources, Braz says.
In the Washington neighborhood, the city has partnered with Habitat for Humanity, which has built 22 new homes. Community block development grants and HOME and SHIP programs are also used.
Property values have gone up more than nine percent in the past 10 years, Braz says, and crime has dropped. The city recently bought a half-acre of land to create a town square, which it was from the late 1800s to the 1930s.
"There's just a lot of progressive things in the air, developers are looking at the area and there's potential that we've never had before. We're looking toward the future of this community," David Wickham enthuses. "In another 10 years, you won't even be able to recognize the place, it will be night and day."
For more information: see www.melbourneflorida.org. or contact Peggy Braz at 321-674-5743 or pbraz@melbourneflorida.org.
Sherrie Voss Matthews
Sherrie Voss Matthews is a copy editor with Planning.
