nl119 at columbia.edu
03-07-2000, 11:33 AM
Fellow CDB List Subscribers,
Thank you to everyone who has responded to my most recent request, this
time regarding community development financial intermediaries (see
below). I hope to receive yet more, and anyone who would like to respond
to me directly can send notes to NL119@columbia.edu. I will summarize all
responses and post them to this listserv.
A clarification: somewhere towards the end of the second paragraph of my
posting I wrote about how the project funded by this intermediary "could
be undertaken if they would lead to the displacement of people and
neighborhoods." when I meant that they "could NOT be undertaken if they
would lead to the displacement of people and neighborhoods." Oops - a
very important distinction.
Thanks again for all the great responses,
Noah Leff
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
I recently posted a request on this list for information on community
banking and information technology and was overwhelmed with the amount of
useful information I received from subscribers. So I've decided to post a
note regarding another project I am working on to see if anyone else is
working on the same kind of thing, or if anybody has any suggestions or
insights.
I am working with a group of graduate students at Columbia University to
help a large foundation in the Boston area develop models for a financial
intermediary that could aggregate funding to finance major urban economic
development projects. The general mission of this intermediary would be
to combat urban sprawl by financing redevelopment projects in inner cities
to make them more livable. An indispensable qualification to these
projects is that they would have to proceed with a high degree of local
control, and could NOT be undertaken if they would lead to the
displacement of people and neighborhoods. The first beneficiaries of this
kind of redevelopment should be the people already living in inner cities.
The specific part of this effort that we are working on is trying to
structure the financial component of such a model. We are pretty well
versed in most of the public funding available for urban redevelopment
projects, and have some idea of how market-rate private capital might be
incorporated. Where we could use the most help is in identifying sources
of capital that would accept below-market rate returns on community
investment projects. We would also appreciate any insights into how
different models for such an intermediary might be structured (i.e.:
different combinations of debt and equity, methods for leveraging private
financing, staff and board size and composition, etc.).
Any suggestions, ideas, comments, questions would be greatly appreciated.
As with my previous query to this list, I will be happy to summarize and
post people's responses to this listserv.
Thank you,
Noah Leff
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Noah Leff
Project Coordinator
Center for Urban Research and Policy
Columbia University
Phone: (212) 665-4827
NL119@columbia.edu
This post transferred from the cdb-l mailing list
Thank you to everyone who has responded to my most recent request, this
time regarding community development financial intermediaries (see
below). I hope to receive yet more, and anyone who would like to respond
to me directly can send notes to NL119@columbia.edu. I will summarize all
responses and post them to this listserv.
A clarification: somewhere towards the end of the second paragraph of my
posting I wrote about how the project funded by this intermediary "could
be undertaken if they would lead to the displacement of people and
neighborhoods." when I meant that they "could NOT be undertaken if they
would lead to the displacement of people and neighborhoods." Oops - a
very important distinction.
Thanks again for all the great responses,
Noah Leff
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
I recently posted a request on this list for information on community
banking and information technology and was overwhelmed with the amount of
useful information I received from subscribers. So I've decided to post a
note regarding another project I am working on to see if anyone else is
working on the same kind of thing, or if anybody has any suggestions or
insights.
I am working with a group of graduate students at Columbia University to
help a large foundation in the Boston area develop models for a financial
intermediary that could aggregate funding to finance major urban economic
development projects. The general mission of this intermediary would be
to combat urban sprawl by financing redevelopment projects in inner cities
to make them more livable. An indispensable qualification to these
projects is that they would have to proceed with a high degree of local
control, and could NOT be undertaken if they would lead to the
displacement of people and neighborhoods. The first beneficiaries of this
kind of redevelopment should be the people already living in inner cities.
The specific part of this effort that we are working on is trying to
structure the financial component of such a model. We are pretty well
versed in most of the public funding available for urban redevelopment
projects, and have some idea of how market-rate private capital might be
incorporated. Where we could use the most help is in identifying sources
of capital that would accept below-market rate returns on community
investment projects. We would also appreciate any insights into how
different models for such an intermediary might be structured (i.e.:
different combinations of debt and equity, methods for leveraging private
financing, staff and board size and composition, etc.).
Any suggestions, ideas, comments, questions would be greatly appreciated.
As with my previous query to this list, I will be happy to summarize and
post people's responses to this listserv.
Thank you,
Noah Leff
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Noah Leff
Project Coordinator
Center for Urban Research and Policy
Columbia University
Phone: (212) 665-4827
NL119@columbia.edu
This post transferred from the cdb-l mailing list