Deanell: Community Is Connection

I am a people person. For those who have met me, this is not a surprise. I grew up the oldest of six kids, so while I certainly need time alone to rejuvenate, I gain energy from connecting with others. This goes for both my work and personal lives.

An interesting lesson for me has been distinguishing between friendship and community. I have always valued friendship tremendously, but it’s only recently that I’ve truly come to understand how important community is to me.

I’ve discovered that connection is formed in a variety of ways.

This has never been more apparent to me than over the last 3 years as I’ve fought side by side with my neighbors. I’ve lived in a historic neighborhood for nearly 19 years. In 2013 I was asked to join 2 others in a quest to change zoning for 55 neighborhood properties to allow only single-family homes. The closer the upcoming light rail completion gets, the more property values increase in our town. Residents are under pressure to sell to the highest bidder, who could be a developer. We wanted to protect our area and keep developers from assembling a larger parcel of land and building multi-family dwellings.

Our small group talked with city planners and visited every house. We educated homeowners and asked them to sign petitions. We presented our findings to the City Council twice, but the first meeting was particularly scary. Community support was key, so we were thrilled to see the Council chambers full. I was nervous, but I stood tall and proud knowing how many people were supporting our efforts.

Their support was my strength.

There was one person in the room who was against what we were doing. Although she put up a fight, our rezoning effort was approved in Spring, 2015. This was only the first step. We immediately pursued design guidelines to ensure that new architecture honors the scope and scale of the current neighborhood. No McMansions, please!

The bully is still fighting us, but we have community on our side. We are consistent in our approach and believe we belong to something special. Now, no less than 40 people regularly attend meetings. The city continues to be surprised by our grassroots efforts and the swell of community support. But they shouldn’t be . . .

After all, connection is contagious.

I don’t know if we’ll achieve our goal of truly protecting these homes, but we know we’re fighting to save something unique. It takes effort, it takes time, and it takes all of us. I was uncomfortable during a lot of this process, but I came come away with an important insight: Community has far greater value than I could have imagined.