By Mark Brunswick
The Southbridge news event was held at Peter Spencer Plaza, across from City Hall yesterday. As I sat waiting for something to happen, I thought about how development has affected the city during my lifetime.
The Eastside of Wilmington used to be “east of Market St”, not 10th and Pine. The Poplar St. A project changed that and it took political scandal to get that one through. Peter Spencer Plaza rests on the bones of the Eastside’s Black foundation in the city. It’s interesting to cite this again, Alice Dunbar Nelson’s essay gives a vivid description of the community.
The original proposal for I-95 was farther to the east, where I-495 is now. I remeber seeing highway construction for I-95 during the last parish carnival in St. Paul parish. The project destroyed the heart of Sacred Heart parish, diminished St. Paul, took a slice from St. Hedwig and the neighborhood around Trinity Episcopal Church. Of course, White homeowners got a chance to save their investments while Black renters had to move on.
There used to be a tannery where Adams Four Plaza and McDonalds are today but the insurrection took out business and housing infrastructure in West Center City. There’s a community center named after a beloved community activist but the larger community seems to be the one of the targets of the Wilmington Land Bank, an entity more aligned with larger development than stabilizing communities.
The Frawley administration wanted to sell the Rock Manor golf course and turn it into a mall. It took a coalition of city residents and the dominant Council of Civic Organizations of the Brandywine Hundred (CCOBH) to stop the project. The pushback from the communities brought the Greenways movement to Delaware.
Mike Castle’s administration wanted to gift the community with a prison. It was to be on south Heald street on the most contaminated land in the community. The plan followed the politics of prision siting. It was stopped with the communities of south Wilmington and New Castle forming a coalition and an alliance with CCOBH. The focus on stopping the project was on the Planning Board. The community succeeded before it got to that point and Delaware got significant alternatives to incarceration, a separate facility for women and a slowdown in our world class prison rates.
The RDC wants to swallow us all.
The alliances in Southbridge have produced significant pushback to Mayor Mike’s bullying. There are some pieces that need to be strengthened. Other communities are pushing back on development or will soon be in the mix. It’s time to make common cause with them. The City’s Zoning Board is structured to be the mayor’s creature. He has reliable votes. City Council is poor at weighing in against the RDC. It’s time to push City Council.
The press conference yesterday was not a press conference. No media were present and the time was wrong. Other than the anger of resistance, no statement was made. Developing relationships with the press takes strategy and skill. The learning curve was evident but it can be flattened.
As I write this, I have not seen any reports of the outcomes of the Zoning Board meeting. They are the mayor’s creature and I expect they did his bidding. That sets up a potential court case for the residents of Southbridge. Their resilience is about to undergo a stress test.