CLEVELAND, Ohio — Mayor Justin Bibb, within days of taking office, partially fulfilled a campaign pledge to change the way the city approaches planning and urban design by shaking up the city’s planning commission with new leadership.
The new administration announced Wednesday it has appointed Lillian Kuri, an architect and executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Cleveland Foundation, as the new chair of the commission.
Kuri, 51, has been an influential advocate for progressive urban design, planning, and architecture in Cleveland for more than two decades. She has served several years on the commission as its vice-chair and is now the first woman to serve as chair. She said sources at City Hall provided confirmation of that fact Thursday.
Kuri described her new role as an opportunity to dramatically increase transparency and public engagement in planning, to focus on improving the public realm to make the city more livable, and to work collaboratively with the new administration.
She said her priorities will include increasing public access to waterfronts and making streetscapes more bike- and pedestrian-friendly.
With new federal money available for infrastructure projects, Cleveland could position itself to speed the delivery of projects that have long remained unrealized, she said.
“I’m really honored to be asked to serve by Mayor Bibb,’’ she said. “I think it’s an opportunity of a lifetime.’’
Kuri will succeed David Bowen, whose actions as the principal of a Cleveland architecture firm raised questions over potential conflicts of interest in relation to his role on the commission.
August Fluker, another Cleveland architect, with long experience as a principal of the firm of City Architecture, will serve as vice-chair of the commission.
The changes follow the administration’s announcement Monday that Freddy Collier, Jr., who had served as planning director since 2014, would join Bibb’s Office of Quality Control.
On Tuesday, the administration posted on the city’s website that it’s seeking a new planning director. The job description states that the director is “nominated by the commission and appointed by the mayor at his discretion.’’
Bradford Davy, Bibb’s chief strategy officer, said the administration would appoint Marka Fields, the city planner overseeing development on the city’s southeast side, as interim planning director.
“We thank David Bowen for his service and look forward to collaborating with Lillian, August, and Marka to bring inclusive growth to every part of our city,’' Davy said.
Bibb wanted to move quickly on the changes at the planning commission because “development happens every day and we don’t want to hold things up,’' Davy said.
The commission is a powerful semi-independent body assigned by the city charter to devise and review development plans and to make recommendations to City Council, which can override the commission by a two-thirds vote.
Kuri earned a bachelor of architecture degree at Kent State University in 1994 and a master of architecture and urban design at Harvard in 1996.
After working for the City of Boston, she joined the Cleveland city planning staff in 1998 under former mayor Michael White before becoming director of the nonprofit Cleveland Public Art in 2001.
In that post, Kuri fought to have bike lanes installed on the Detroit-Superior Bridge, a proposal that was partially realized after heavy opposition by industries reliant on trucking, based in the nearby Flats District.
Kuri joined the Cleveland Foundation in 2005 to work as a consultant in the development of the Greater University Circle Initiative, which promoted collaborative planning among the area’s medical, cultural, and educational nonprofits.
At the foundation, Kuri has led initiatives related to the arts and urban planning. Most recently, they have included a project to move the foundation’s headquarters from rented offices at Playhouse Square to a new building in the city’s Midtown neighborhood, on the south side of Hough.
Among other things, Kuri said she wanted to enhance the stature of the planning commission and of planning as an important facet of city government.
Under Jackson and Collier, the planning department developed new visions for Opportunity Corridor, the Cuyahoga Valley, and large swaths of the city’s impoverished East Side.
But many critics felt frustrated during Jackson’s 16 years in office that the city failed to follow through strongly on its plans. Jackson also ran City Hall in a tight-lipped manner that often felt opaque.
“I’d like to be a chair [of the planning commission who’s open to community voice and process as projects come up,’’ Kuri said. “I also want to work with the administration to set an agenda of what they like to move.”
During his six-year tenure as chair of the planning commission, Bowen fought vociferously as a West Side resident to block a Cleveland Metroparks proposal to widen a sidewalk on Lake Avenue to help complete a regional bike path connected to Edgewater Park.
Bowen also raised questions over a potential conflict of interest in June when Richard L. Bowen Associates, founded by his father, accepted an assignment to design the adaptive reuse of a building atop the Irishtown Bend hillside.
Critics interpreted the assignment as in conflict with a vote Bowen took in 2017 to approve plans for a park on the site. Bowen said in October that he saw no conflict, but that he would recuse from future votes on the park “if I had to.”
During his campaign, Bibb said in an interview with Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that Bowen’s actions sounded like a conflict, and he pledged to address that and other matters related to planning quickly.
”Trust and transparency will be cornerstones of our administration and we will be working hard from day one to bring both forward across the entire enterprise,’' Davy said.
Note: This story has been updated to note that Lillian Kuri is the first woman in Cleveland’s history to serve as chair of the city’s planning commission.
Additional coverage:
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/10/city-planning-urban-design-in-the-cleveland-mayors-race-how-do-candidates-compare-commentary.html
https://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/2021/10/cleveland-planning-commission-chairmans-involvement-on-irishtown-bend-park-project-rankles-participants-as-his-firm-works-on-opposing-project.html
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/11/owners-of-building-atop-irishtown-bend-hillside-sue-port-of-cleveland-others-over-future-of-property.html
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/06/cleveland-metroparks-widening-of-lake-avenue-sidewalk-to-improve-edgewater-park-access-is-a-great-idea-despite-shrill-pushback.html
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