Conversations with Advocates of Fair Growth
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Mike Pyatok: Architect to the Poor and Working Class
As Michael (Mike) Pyatok sits gingerly in a chair in his architectural offices in downtown Oakland, wincing from a back spasm that kicked in the night before, he might easily be mistaken for a labor negotiator. With the neck of his blue shirt open, sleeves rolled up, and rimless glasses set on a clean-shaven face, Pyatok, 60, is a no-frills kind of a guy. Despite a subdued and modest manner, he is at the forefront of a movement to give local residents a voice in the design of affordable housing built in their neighborhoods.
While many architects salivate at the prospect of designing over-sized, high-priced homes that showcase their skills and dream of seeing their work featured in Architectural Digest, Pyatok took a different path and put his talents to work building affordable housing for families on welfare and the working poor. He is doubly unusual as an architect because he does not think he has all the answers. Instead of creating some shockingly new design that will win him prizes and acclaim, Pyatok visits the neighborhood where the project is to be built and engages the community in a series of design workshops. He is convinced that local residents have great wisdom about what kind of housing will work best for them.
This willingness to listen to residents before building in their community comes out of Pyatok's personal history. "I came from a welfare family and grew up in the tenements of Brooklyn," Pyatok explains. An exceptional student, he attended Regis, a tuition-free Jesuit high school in Manhattan; Harvard University; and Pratt Institute of Architecture in Brooklyn. "All this education was layered on a working class mindset," Pyatok observes. Now that he runs a firm with 3 junior partners and 24 architects working for him, one would expect Pyatok to move "uptown" into an affluent neighborhood. Instead, he chose to live in a series of low-income communities first in Philadelphia, then St. Louis and now in Oakland so he can "be in the thick of it" and understand the realities faced by the people he serves. It is this experience that has led him to design affordable housing that residents can use as a live/work space out of which they can run a home-based business or sublet an apartment to earn extra income. Many of his designs for first-time homeowners are also "expandable" so that owners can add on to their homes as they accumulate savings.
What is striking about Pyatok's work is that he has spent a lifetime evolving and refining participatory design methods that use easily understood graphics and models to help residents make well-informed decisions. These graphic aids help residents decide how many units to place on the site, how the residential units will be organized, where the open space will be located, how parking will be handled, what profile the structure will present to the neighborhood, and in what materials and colors the buildings will be clad.
This commitment to community involvement in design started early in Pyatok's career. In the 1960s, while still a student, he was involved in the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements and in a critique of the top-down way in which architects decided what was good for a community and then imposed their design on the neighborhood. He was particularly disturbed by urban renewal schemes that bulldozed low-income communities across the country as part of a "slum clearance" initiative. "Why were they calling these neighborhoods blighted when there was a strong social network in them," Pyatok asked? Even though the built environment in many of these communities is run down there is nevertheless a great deal of ingenuity and entrepreneurial energy that can be tapped if the proper infrastructure is put in place, he continues. Arguing that "lower income groups inevitably get the short end of the stick because they are not involved in the decision-making process,"
Determined to change this process, Pyatok was part of a group of architecture students and "advocacy planners" who experimented with ways to "increase the number of voices" heard in the design process. The idea was to seek community input into the most important design decisions and to provide residents "with lots of options" so that the buildings that were built served their needs and not just the ego and pocketbook of the architect. He continued this work after graduate school when he began to teach first at Penn State (1968-1973) and at the University of Washington in St Louis (1974-1977) where he involved his architecture students in connecting with neighborhood groups that needed their services.
As the participatory design process evolved, Pyatok learned that lay people need models to visualize the implications of their options instead of architectural drawings. To this end he developed model box kits he distributed to residents who came to design workshops. Participants were teamed up in groups of eight to ten members and given the hands-on experience of cutting up a pieces of foam core material that was sized to represent (at a 1:20 scale) the building to be built in their community. They could cut the material and stack it for greater density or spread it out across the property as a low-rise structure. In the process they learned that greater density in the design of the living units freed up open space where trees could be planted and children could play. Similarly, they had to make hard choices about whether to give each living unit its own parking spot or collect the cars in parking lots or garages.
Pyatok favors the latter solution because it is more efficient and frees open space for courtyards, trees and play grounds. But some of the residents who he works with see their car as their most valuable assets and want it right next to their house. Asked what he does when residents make less than optimal design choices, Pyatok says that it is his job to guide them to the best design possible but that ultimately the choice is up to them "It is hard for people to make really dumb choices," he insists, because everyone has had the experience of living in a house or an apartment."
During the workshops, Pyatok saunters from group to group talking with participants, asking questions, and making suggestions. Then each group elects at representative who presents their proposed model to the larger group in which Pyatok draws out the advantages and disadvantages of each model as he steers the gathering toward consensus.
He then goes back to his offices and pulls the proposed suggestions together into one vision, taking the best suggestions from each group. This second-stage model is then presented to the community for further modification.
With the site plan in place, Pyatok begins to work with residents on the finer grain issues of how the living units will be laid out. He asks about special requirements that residents have. Are there a lot of children who need outdoor play space, old or handicapped people who need street-level entrances, or multi-generational families of multiple generations accustomed to living together? And how will the units be used: will people want to work out of their homes? In short, Pyatok asks residents to describe how they use their homes and then tries to come up with a model that will serve their needs.
A third workshop addresses the exterior of the project. Residents are asked to decide whether the design will mimic the prevailing style in the neighborhood or break new ground. Elevation drawings are presented as well as a packet of photographs which give residents choices about how the exterior will look. There are also decisions to be made about what materials will be used on the outside, what color it will be, how the trim and the windows will look, and what will the entrances and gates look like. When these decisions are made, community members are then asked to select a design committee, which will continue to consult with the architects as the project is built.
Pyatok also uses architecture graduate students to provide communities with free preliminary design services. This is a double win, he explains because students learn to engage residents in the design process while providing them with free services. During an eight-week, summer design workshop he gave from 1988 to 1990, he assigned students to study underutilized sites near streets served by mass transit in Oakland and asked them to propose plans to develop them. Dozens of potential development sites were identified and Pyatok shopped them around among non-profit developers. These sites had not tempted private developers, Pyatok notes, because they were in a low-income, high-crime neighborhood. But where others saw high risk, he saw an opportunity to build attractive affordable housing a first step towards improving the economic prospects of the community.
One site 15 blocks from Pyatok's own home in the San Antonio section of East Oakland stood out. It was located on the heavily trafficked International Boulevard in a mixed-ethnic, working class neighborhood within walking distance of the Fruitvale BART station. Pyatok argued that the site was ripe for development and that the zoning was already in place for a mid-sized affordable housing complex. The East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) purchased the property, hired him to be the architect, and joined forces with the San Antonio Development Corporation that was based in the neighborhood. Hismen Hin'Nu Terrace
Katie Davis, director of property management for EBALDC, remembers the design workshops for the Hismen Hin'Nu project well. The project (the name of which means "sun gate" in the language of the Muwekma Ohlone Indians, early inhabitants of the San Antonio district) got off to a rough start. Some residents argued that the area did not need more affordable housing while others contended that the local school was already over-crowded. The issue went to the City Council where the original proposal for placing 100 units on the property was reduced to 92 units. A deal was brokered where the children of families who moved into the new housing would be bussed to other schools until a new school opened up in the neighborhood. Once the project won approval Pyatok was involved in two sets of workshops one for the ground-floor commercial and other on the residential side of the development.
"The first meeting I came to I felt hostility," Davis recalls. People suspected that the developer and architect were going to come in and "push down their throats what they want to see built. You could feel the tension," she said. But once Pyatok got started he set a tone that made people feel included in the decision-making process and their fears subsided, she says. "He told them that he was there to get their input. He would not be able to promise them they would get everything they wanted but he would try to incorporate some of their desires in the project. And he did," she observes. The finished product that emerged from these workshops demonstrates that functional and attractive affordable housing can be built while adopting design guidance from local residents. The street-level floor of the project is taken up with commercial space devoted to a Head Start program, a mental health clinic, an Art Center. The residential units, which occupy the majority of the property, are split into four quadrants. The main entrance passes through an ornamental Sun Gate on either side of which are two four-story, elevator-served buildings that hold 15 one-bedroom and 35 two-bedroom units. The back two quadrants contain 30 three-bedroom and 10 four-bedroom town homes. The central courtyard is tree-lined and broken up into pleasant plazas. There is also a nicely landscaped second-level courtyard with places for children to play. Two garages are hidden on the bottom floor at the sides of the building.
The complex houses a wide racial and ethnic mix of local residents who speak 17 different languages. To qualify to live in these apartments residents' incomes can be no more than whose incomes are 35 to 55 percent of the area median income. This reaches people who have jobs as child-care workers, maids, housekeepers, janitors, bank clerks, retail employees, and bus drivers who have a job but can't afford a place to live. A three bedroom apartment goes for $556 to $852 a bargain in the Bay Area. Some welfare recipients are also able to live here using Section 8 federal housing vouchers.
Katie Davis had one run-in with Pyatok over the design of this complex, she reports. It involved the gates that serve the parking garages. Pyatok wanted metal gates with bars that you could see through, arguing that they were more attractive than solid doors. But Davis said that they wouldn't work in this kind of neighborhood and that this design was more appropriate for more upscale areas. Pyatok went so far as to pay for her and another resident to go up to Seattle and visit Pike's Market where garage doors similar to those he wanted to install were in place. Davis went along for the ride but returned adamant that kids would hang on the gates and ruin the mechanism that opens and closes them. Despite this advice, Pyatok installed the gates he preferred but within months Davis prediction turned out to be prescient and after numerous service calls the gates had to be replaced. "See, we had to take those garage doors down," Davis told Pyatok in a rare I-told-you-so-moment.
Despite this minor skirmish, Davis has high praise for Pyotok. "Mike really has a commitment to low-income people and communities and I think that is why he gets so much work from non-profits," Davis comments. By the end of the workshops residents felt as if they have had real input, she continues. This is important no matter what income group you come from. Pyatok was straight with residents that there were economic constraints on what could be done. He did not promise them that they would get everything they wanted. But in the end they felt they had gotten a lot of what they asked for. Marcus Garvey Commons
On the other side of the city in West Oakland, Pyatok designed the 22-unit Marcus Garvey Commons in a section of the city located in the shadow of a major elevated freeway. Also looming overhead are the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) lines just before they plunge into a tunnel under the Bay on route to San Francisco. "This is a really depressed community" surrounded by industrial works, observes Davis. Immediately adjacent to the property is a massive postal mail-sorting facility. There are few services for residents in this area Esther's Orbit Room, a legendary eatery opened in 1950 that specializes in soul food breakfasts.
The project came to Pyatok because ten years earlier he had worked with a group of African-American women in the same neighborhood and befriended them during the design of another project. As a result when it came to seeking an upgrading of the zoning for the Marcus Garvey project so that it would permit greater density and be economically feasible, Pyatok already had friends in the neighborhood who trusted him and knew he would design something that would work for the community. He was subsequently hired by EBALC and Jubilee West, a non-profit with roots in the neighborhood. From there on out the workshop design sessions went fairly smoothly and a new, attractive, affordable housing complex was built that serves residents at 30 to 60 percent of the median area income. Residents wanted small, one bedroom apartments with wheelchair accessibility built on the lower floor. Above them are town homes with multiple bedrooms. There is also a building with a management office, community room for family gatherings, and laundry room. A white picket fence sets the complex off from the street. Organizing Tool
Involving the community in a grassroots design process is an efficient way to organize a community, Pyatok observes. As residents go through the workshops they become accustomed to meeting regularly and once the project is built they can point to it and proudly say: we did that. With evidence that they can make real changes in their community, they can then begin to take on longer-term, more intractable problems such as unemployment, drug addiction, truancy, and teenage pregnancy.
Some nonprofits are good at this kind of organizing while others are more focused on how much affordable housing they can build in a year. The production oriented non-profits are sometimes wary of becoming involved in a lengthy process of seeking community input and may seek shortcuts to winning approval for their project. But Pyatok warns that they risk running into a "buzz saw" when the community hears about the project and decides it is being imposed on them.
In affluent and middle class neighborhoods, proposals to build affordable housing are often greeted with a Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) response because residents worry that their new, lower-income neighbors will degrade the quality-of-life in their neighborhood and lower property values. In working class and economically-distressed communities, where Pyatok mostly works, there is less resistance to affordable housing but residents must still be approached with respect, observes.
The worst approach is to come to residents with a completed design and try to force it on them. Nor is it wise to come in from the outside and try to do an affordable housing project without first finding people in leadership positions in the community with whom to partner. All of this takes a certain amount of diplomacy and experience, which Pyatok brings to the table.
Over his 25 years in Oakland he has learned that the first step is finding a grassroots group or non-profit in the community with which to partner; and to avoid calling large gatherings where residents tend to grandstand and voice their suspicions are loudly. Instead he prefers to identify the leadership in a community, bring a small group of them together in an intimate setting, and let them hear about the proposed project. If they like what they hear, these local leaders can then spread the word and sell the project to their neighbors. Rescuing Failed Projects
When non-profit builders of affordable housing try to push through a project without consulting the community first, sometimes they provoke community opposition. Pyatok is occasionally called in to rescue endangered affordable housing projects that are stymied when large numbers of local residents organize to block them. This happened with the Gateway Commons project located scheduled to be built where San Pablo crosses from Oakland into Emmoryville. There, local residents had convinced city officials to revoke the liquor license of a store where drugs had allegedly been sold and tear it down; an abandoned gas station was also demolished. It was on this site a non-profit proposed to build a 40-unit affordable housing complex on half an acre. Neighborhood residents resisted the plan as too dense and bulky so Pyatok was hired to work with the community to see if he could come up with a design they would agree to see built.
In the community workshops Pyatok held, he broke the gathering of 40 residents into four working groups assigned to work first on the question of density. One group worked with a modeling kit that yielded 15-20 units, the second group 20-25 units, and the third group 25-30 units, and the fourth group 30-35 units. After the session a few people were willing to go with 20-25 units on the site but the majority wanted the lowest density possible, 15-20 units. Pyatok was disappointed in their decision because he saw the site as inner-city land on a bus route that could accommodate a higher density. But the community had spoken and he moved on from there.
Residents wanted storefront retail shops on the street but Pyatok doubted that there was enough pedestrian traffic to support the stores. As a compromise, he convinced workshop attendees to design the units large enough to accommodate a store but capable of also being used as a live/work space. In the end artists, musicians, and a woman ran a beauty salon took these units. He also designed the complex so that renters of the units on the back of the building were able to sublet an efficiency apartment to augment their incomes. Jingletown
Sometimes Pyatok receives a call from community residents who feel threatened by what is known as a locally unwanted land use (LULU). This occurred in a neighborhood known as Jingletown, a group of about 250 homes in East Oakland that was inhabited at the turn of the century by Portuguese immigrants. The area got its name because some of the men would stand on the corners and chat while jingling coins in their pocket to advertise the fact that they were not unemployed.
Pyatok learned from a friend he worked with the Oakland Community Organization that an industrial site was up for sale and that residents had heard that it would be purchased by the Roadways trucking company, which planned to use it as a site to park semi-tractor trailer trucks. If the sale went through it meant this fragile little community would be engulfed in large amounts of truck and diesel pollution. With help from Pyatok, residents changed the zoning from industrial to an industrial/residential overlay zone. The Pyatok approached some people he knew at the Oakland Community Housing Inc, a non-profit that builds affordable housing, and told them that the site was available for an affordable housing project. They subsequently hired him to lead a community workshop to design 20 homes. The houses are designed so they can expand into adjacent spaces in which garages with one bedroom units above can be built. The smaller homes also have an attic which can be turned into a bedroom with a bath. Some of the homes also have living rooms on the second floor and a bedroom on the first floor next to the garage. This can later be turned into an office next to a workspace for home-based businesses, Pyatok explains. Pyatok believes that wherever possible affordable housing should be designed as live/work space so that it can become "24-hour engine of economic activity" out of which residents can either make a living or augment their incomes. As they set aside saving, residents have the option of expanding their homes, he adds. Gentrification
Affordable housing, if done well, can actually help bring a neighborhood up economically, Pyatok explains. In middle and upper class neighborhoods the old version of affordable housing was seen a threat and residents try to keep it out because they fear it will bring the value of their homes down. But in low-income neighborhoods an attractive new apartment complex can actually attract for-profit development. The Hismen Hin'Nu complex is a case in point. Once it was built another complex was built across the street, the McDonalds fast food outlet behind it was renovated and there is new economic life in the area. Over time private developers will move in, Pyatok predicts and property values will go up. The only way to ensure that this gentrification will help local residents instead of displacing them is if the city and non-profits to buy up vacant land and abandoned properties before land prices rise. These land-banked properties can then be developed over time as permanently affordable housing, Payatok adds.
In his spare time, when he is not teaching in Seattle, running his architectural firm, conducting design workshops, or attending numerous non-profit meetings, Pyatok has found time to co-author, with Tom Jones, William Pettus, a book entitled Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing. The book provides numerous illustrated examples of high-quality, attractive affordable housing being built in the U.S. demonstrating that we have moved beyond the old high-rise poverty towers that became lawless concentrations of poverty and crime. And it documents the fact that when done properly affordable housing can not just meet a critical need, it can also enhance a community and bring new life to under-utilized parts of the city.
While more high-quality affordable housing is being built around the country, not many architects are as committed to working closely with residents through a lengthy design process as is Pyatok, notes EBALDC property manager Katie Davis. One architect she is currently working with has just about finished the design of an affordable housing complex and the community still has yet to be consulted in any meaningful way. Pyatok's approach of multiple community workshops is time consuming but in the end residents feel proud about the role they play in designing a handsome affordable housing project in their neighborhood, she says.
"Not all architects have that but Pyatok has a personality where he can work with community residents. I have been in meetings where community people have been turned off when they think people are talking down to them or disrespecting them. That is not Mike. He listens to them," she concludes.