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History
The Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation is a joint creation of Healthy Mountain Communities, a 13 year old regional nonprofit organization and The Manaus Fund, a donor advised fund of The Aspen Community Foundation, which fosters social entrepreneurship.
What
is a CDC? A Community Development
Corporation (CDC) is a 501©3 non-profit, community-based
organization designed to create or provide the infrastructure,
services, and amenities often over looked by private
businesses, corporations, and local governments. CDCs began
to gain support as an important community development tool in
the late 1960s. Today, there are over 4,000 CDCs operating in
the U.S.
In the same way that
traditional businesses seek venture capital to start or
expand, CDCs seek grants and investors interested in moving
the market toward more social purposes (affordable housing,
job training, commercial development, health clinics) while
still generating a return on the initial investment. CDC’s
help re-circulate capital to build community wealth and
address social issues. They are run by a local board of
directors and have a mission of community improvement that
often emphasizes democracy, social justice and equity, and
quality of life.
What does a CDC do?
Community Development
Corporations work as brokers, catalysts, and facilitators
between public and private interests and investments. Where
nonprofit organizations normally seek annual grants to
accomplish their socially oriented mission, CDCs operate more
like a business. By creating products and services the
market values and people will purchase, CDCs use market
mechanisms to achieve their social mission – a double bottom
line. This approach combines the generosity, caring, and
determined optimism of the non-profit sector with the
financial sense and innovation of the for-profit sector.
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Mission
The Roaring Fork Community
Development Corporation’s mission is to improve the health and
welfare of people and communities in the Roaring Fork and
Colorado River Valleys.
As a 501©3 tax-exempt
charitable nonprofit organization, the Roaring Fork Community
Development Corporation achieves its mission by working as a
broker, catalyst, facilitator, and developer to create
community-based / civic focused projects that ensure low and
middle income individuals and families can live in the
communities of the region, increase opportunities for locally
owned businesses, and encourage the efficient use of energy,
land, and community resources.
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Vision
Affordable Spaces
In the Roaring Fork and Colorado River Valley the economy
operates has priced many middle income and lower income
households out of the housing and commercial markets.
Consequently, workers commute great distances to reach their
places of employment. The lack of affordable commercial
rentals limits locally owned small business expansion as well
as new start-ups. Roaring Fork CDC works with nonprofit,
public, and private entities to create affordable spaces to
ensure both the diversity of people and businesses in a
community.
Placemaking
Cultures and climates differ all over the world," notes
architect Jan Gehl, "but people are the same. They will gather
in public if you give them a good place to do it." In a
democratic society, such gathering places aren’t just
niceties, they are practical necessities that give citizens
places to "rub shoulders" together and exercise their
community and democratic skills. Roaring Fork CDC works to
ensure private and public projects are "places for people" by
incorporating people centered design and raising additional
funding as necessary.
Community Ventures
Individuals invest in their future through IRAs, 401ks,
and REITs while communities invest in their future prosperity
by reinvesting in their children and public infrastructure
(schools, parks, housing, health care).
Roaring Fork CDC works to combine these
investment tools and strategies to catalyze community-based
investment and broker private / public partnerships to develop
projects that not only build community wealth but address
community and social goals as well.
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Board
Don Ensign
Colin Laird
Michael McVoy
Doug Pratte
George Stranahan
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Projects
>> Carbondale Community
Nonprofit Center <<
Learn
more . . .
|
Image by Yoshimura, CES Feasibility Study |
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>> Transit Oriented Development <<
Learn
more . . .
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In the news
July 12 - July 19, 2007
Nonprofits center plans moving ahead
By Gina Guarascio
Carbondale trustees voted on Tuesday to
enter into an agreement with the Sustainability Center of
the Rockies and the newly formed Roaring Fork Community
Development Corp. to help manage the old Carbondale
Elementary School building as a nonprofits center and
small business incubator.
The two nonprofits will act on behalf of the town to work
through details of what SCoR’s Gavin Brooke calls “an
incredible community asset.”
The town authorized $22,500 for SCoR and the CDC to
perform pre-development services. Those services include
things like creating a rate structure for the tenants of
the building, meeting with potential tenants and making a
recommendation whether the spaces will be for sale or
lease, researching financing and fundraising options as
well as an estimate of total costs to bring the building
up to code and make desired aesthetic and efficiency
improvements.
The town also approved $31,100 for local architect Jeff
Dickinson, whose firm Energy and Sustainable Design was
chosen to perform architectural services on CES in June.
And up to $10,000 was allocated to enable local
consultants Joani Matranga and Bob Schultz to continue the
services they have provided for the town until the project
can be fully turned over to the SCoR/CDC team.
The money for the services comes from the town’s general
fund, where $100,000 was budgeted in 2007 for work at CES.
Meanwhile, the Carbondale Planning and Zoning Commission
is reviewing a rezoning request for the entire 14.2-acre
school site, which includes the old CES building as well
as the land surrounding the former Carbondale Middle
School building. The CMS building itself will become home
to Bridges High School and other school district programs.
The rezoning and subdivision of the property need to take
place before the town can take ownership of the
approximately 2.9 acres that includes the old CES
building. The town is in the process of trading the
Roaring Fork School District for the town-owned land near
the new Roaring Fork High School, in exchange for CES,
which it plans to turn into the Carbondale Community
Nonprofit Center.
P&Z starts the land use process with a public hearing on
Thursday, July 12. The proposed rezoning will change the
site from School Facilities, Recreation and Open Space, to
School, Community Facility, Residential, Recreation and
Open Space. The new zoning will create several different
zone districts for medium- and possibly high-density
housing on the site.
“It’s designed for affordable housing,” said Carbondale
Town Manager Tom Baker of the residential component of the
site. “The middle school and the playing field will remain
open space, there are small parcels created along Sopris
Avenue and Third Street. There’s the CES parcel and a
parcel to the south as well.”
Baker said there will be seven smaller residential parcels
created with medium density near the existing
neighborhoods and higher density internal to the site.
There will be a total of 11 different parcels on the
property, according to the school district’s application.
“It might be going to the trustees at the end of July or
early August (for approval),” Baker said. “There could be
50 to 80 affordable units, but it’s really conceptual at
this point. We need to make sure the roads and
intersections can handle the impacts; that’s going to
drive the density.”
The school district will retain ownership of the remaining
land and could possibly partner with agencies like the
Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, the town or the
Carbondale and Rural Fire protection District to build
employee housing.
Most of the housing would be offered to school staff, as
teachers who leave the district often cite the cost of
living in the area. |
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Resources
Local Initiative Support
Corporation (LISC)
Community-Wealth.org:
Wealth-Building Strategies for America's Communities
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