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May Louie, DSNI’s director of leadership and capacity-building, notes that the group plays a significant role in bringing residents together “by embedding a set of community principles in the composition, functioning, and performance of the board: community control; accountability to the community; all stakeholders represented; resident-led; and power sharing.”

Sr. Margaret Leonard, executive director of Project Hope (a neighborhood CBO) and a DSNI board member, says that DSNI’s representative governance structure, experienced staff, and inclusive, respectful process all contribute to its success in reflecting community interests. “The fact that you have a board representing the diversity in the neighborhood, with the opportunity for organized partnerships with CDCs and service organizations [enables DSNI to] organize diverse constituents across the neighborhood,” Leonard says. “Neighborhood associations often represent only one part of a neighborhood. DSNI represents a larger neighborhood, with a broader constituent base. Without this structure and vehicle, what would community consent give you? You need to have those pieces in place.”

DSNI’s outreach to a broad cross-section of the Dudley neighborhood, coupled with its intensive, long-term engagement in strategic planning, created the framework for its successful use of eminent domain. In developing the DSNI plan, it became apparent that patterns of land ownership created a formidable barrier to redevelopment, similar to the challenges in East Baltimore that Jim Kelly describes. Within the “Dudley Triangle,” a 64-acre area at the heart of the community, 30 acres of land lay vacant; of these, about half were city-owned, and half privately owned, interspersed so as to make site assembly extremely challenging. Most of the more than 100 private owners lived outside the neighborhood.

Recognizing that successful redevelopment required acquisition of contiguous parcels, DSNI persuaded the city to grant its affiliate, Dudley Neighbors Inc. (DNI), status as an “urban redevelopment corporation,” with the power to acquire vacant land within the Dudley Triangle by eminent domain. Land taken as well as land acquired by purchase from the city is held permanently in a community land trust. Since 1988, DNI has acquired about 28 of the original 30 acres of vacant land in the Dudley Triangle. Initially, when no one else would take on the risk of development in this area, DSNI became the developer of last resort, building 36 homes for sale to low-income homebuyers. Since the first project, both for-profits and CBOs have developed housing under long-term ground leases from DNI. To date, 157 new, permanently affordable homeownership units have been developed, and an additional 68 units are in process. Despite the wave of foreclosures affecting the North Dorchester and Roxbury communities in 2007, not a single home on DNI land has been lost to foreclosure.

Since the 1980s, DSNI’s planning role has continued to expand, and the City of Boston has partnered with DSNI as the voice of the Dudley community. In 1999, recognizing that redevelopment “has to fit in order to last,” the city agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding under which DSNI and the community at large participate in every stage of planning for new, city-sponsored projects within the neighborhood. This process often begins months before the issuance of a Request for Proposals. The city and DSNI jointly plan and sponsor community meetings at which residents can voice concerns about issues ranging from land-use options and housing needs to traffic, transportation, and physical design. City staff and planners, together with DSNI board, staff, and volunteers, provide visual models and detailed information to help community members evaluate the options. DSNI’s Louie characterizes the process, from project conception to developer selection, as a joint effort of the city and the community. “It’s not that there are never disagreements, but I think it’s mutually beneficial, and both of us really act that way.”

The city has recognized the positive role that DSNI and its affiliate, DNI, play as representatives of and advocates for the Dudley neighborhood. On January 30, 2008, in ordering a hearing to explore the benefits of community land trusts, Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney explicitly acknowledged DSNI’s beneficial role and asked the city to examine the DNI land trust as model for expansion of the concept in Boston.

These efforts have had a profound impact on physical redevelopment in Dudley. More than 400 new affordable housing units have been built in the neighborhood, and more than 500 rehabilitated; other recent improvements include parks, playgrounds, schools, new businesses, community centers, and a town common. Today, Dudley Street, the main thoroughfare in DSNI’s core area, is lined with attractive housing, small businesses, community institutions, and public spaces. It seems almost inconceivable that, less than 20 years ago, the vista was largely abandoned structures and garbage-strewn vacant lots. What is most remarkable about this transformation, however, is that it resulted from grass-roots organizing, community-based strategic planning, and development targeted to community needs, rather than gentrification or top-down redevelopment.