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Haddington-Cobbs Creek Citizens Challenge Eminent Domain
by
Todd Wolfson, Philly IMC | 03.08.2006
On Monday night over 200 residents of the Cobbs Creek and Haddington neighborhoods of West Philadelphia converged on the Haddington Multi-Service Center at 54th and Haverford to hear about the “Haddington/Cobbs Creek 2010 Project”. As the meeting illustrates, Philadelphia is the center of a growing battle over government and corporate abuse of eminent domain.  The “2010 project” is a sweeping urban renewal program meant to strengthen the Haddington/Cobbs Creek neighborhoods in West Philadelphia. Despite the fact that this project was unveiled in a celebratory event on September 8, 2005 at the White Rock Baptist Church at 52nd and Chestnut Streets, most residents attending Monday’s meeting had never heard of the plan. There have been some community meetings on "2010", but what made this meeting distinctive was that it was not organized by the projects facilitators--AchieveAbility, The Partnership CDC, and Wachovia Bank--but rather it was organized by a Haddington resident. The major concern of people at the meeting: the prospect of eminent domain abuse in the plans for ‘revitalization’ of the neighborhood. The "2010 project" according to the website is a "collaborative effort of residents, local organizations, institutions and community leaders of the Haddington/Cobbs Creek” that “departs from only focusing on building physical structures but focuses on building up the community through investing in the resourcefulness and self-sufficiency of its residents”. Al Alston, executive director of the African American Business and Residents Association (AABRA) of North Philadelphia and Rosemary Cubas of the Community Leadership Institute (CLI) addressed the meeting. Alston detailed a battle AABRA is undertaking in the Brewerytown section of North Philadelphia, against the development of market-rate condos that has spurred gentrification and the displacement of poor homeowners and renters. He cautioned the group of residents to get organized and unified in preparation for what the plan might entail before implementation begins. Rosemary Cubas followed explaining the different ways the city has seized homes: Tax Foreclosure, Eminent Domain Abuse and Licensing and Inspections Violations. She went on to chronicle the varied battles CLI members have had protecting their homes against city seizure. Cubas advised that this is a battle that can no longer be won in the courts it is a battle that needs “to be won in the streets”. Zakiah Jeffries, Temple Graduate Student and homeowner in the Cobbs Creek section explained that she was nervous because “2010” and programs like it have consistently “disempowered poor and working class people, in an effort to make neighborhoods the basis of income generation for wealthy speculators and the city.” The fight over eminent domain is an old one, but it has re-emerged in Philadelphia in recent years. Some argue this is because the city has a disproportionately high percentage of home owners and Mayor Street has aggressively taken homes under the banner of his massive 21st century urban renewal project the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI). For this reason, Philadelphia is one of the central nodes in a growing grassroots movement against eminenet domain abuse and the new wave of urban renewal. The meeting closed with a showing of the locally made film "All For the Taking" by George McCullough which chronicles eminent domain abuse in Philadelphia. As people were gathering there things to leave one of the event planners yelled out, “we have to get organized”. That is exactly what the residents of Haddington/Cobbs Creek are planning to do. |
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