Giving Residents a Seat at the Table

The largest proposed redevelopment in Brooklyn Center's history — the long-vacant Brookdale mall site, discussed for more than a decade — could have been negotiated the usual way: developers and city staff behind closed doors, residents finding out at the ribbon-cutting.

Instead, Mayor Mike Elliott built the process around community voice: an Opportunity Site Task Force that seated residents and community organizations — including African immigrant groups like ACER, the Liberian Business Association, CAPI USA (Center for Asian Pacific Islanders), and Juxtaposition Arts — at the center of planning for the city's future downtown. The result was a community benefits agreement: negotiated commitments ensuring the development would deliver for the people who already lived there.

This talk is for cities, planners, developers, and community coalitions: what a community benefits process actually looks like from the inside, why it produced a better plan and a more durable project, and how to replicate it.