JOSANA Neighborhood Master Plan
A Plan for a Place We’re Proud to Call Home
Rochester, NY
A small neighborhood located close to downtown Rochester, JOSANA has long been cited among the “worst of the City’s worst neighborhoods.” In 2001, tragedy struck the community when 10-year-old Tyshaun Cauldwell was caught in crossfire that erupted during an argument over a bicycle and killed – an innocent bystander taken far before his time. It was this devastating turn of events that thrust the neighborhood into the public eye, galvanized neighbors into action, and attached a sense of urgency to a renewed push for change. Since 2001, the neighborhood, the City, local institutions, and private and non-profit partners have responded to that sense of urgency, propelled by grief, a desire to heal, and a commitment to usher in a safe, stable, healthy, productive, and green future for the community.
Ten years later, JOSANA is a fundamentally different place – a community with involved and proactive neighbors, unique institutional assets including a medical center, dental clinic, beloved elementary school, and the Rochester Rhino’s soccer stadium, recent and ongoing investments in the local housing stock, and growing support for remediation and economic development within a Brownfield Opportunity Area.
In 2010, the City of Rochester’s Department of Neighborhood and Business Development, hired Interface Studio to lead a community-driven planning process for JOSANA, creating an opportunity to bring the various actors in the area together to weigh desired outcomes and coordinate efforts moving forward. The goals of the plan are to build upon recent grassroots efforts and affirm the community’s vision for the future, and to leverage recent public and non-profit investments, all while remaining realistic about the City’s declining population and commitment to innovative solutions that enable Rochester to grow smaller gracefully. The plan builds upon the findings of the City-Wide Rochester Housing Study completed in 2007 by Interface Studio.
Interface worked in close collaboration with the Charles Settlement House and local residents, institutions, and other stakeholders organized as the Charles House Neighbors in Action to document the community’s collective vision for JOSANA as a place that people are proud to call home. The recommendations include rebranding the neighborhood and improving area gateways, providing additional youth programs and a dance studio where local teens can further develop their talents, better integrating the stadium with the community through streetscape improvements and programming, modest housing investment in keeping with the findings of Zimmerman/Volk Associates’ residential market study, and a multi-faceted vacant land maintenance and reclamation strategy that calls for stabilization, remediation, gardening, growing food, and side-yard disposition.
Clients: City of Rochester Department of Neighborhood and Business Development, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., United Way of Greater Rochester, Inc.
Project Team: Zimmerman/Volk Associates, Inc., Eileen Flanagan Community Development Consulting
