Our History

           In 1979 neighborhood development corporations were still a fairly new idea. 
The first Cincinnati CDC, Mt. Auburn Good Housing Foundation, was created in 1968 
by Carl Westmoreland. By the mid-70's the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, 
Avondale Redevelopment Corporation and Bond Hill - Paddock Hills Community Urban 
Redevelopment Corporation were all beginning their work.

           Those Executive Directors, Don Lenz, Jim King and Patricia Garry, all 
emerging leaders from their respective neighborhoods, found that many other leaders 
wanted to learn how to foster community control of development in their areas. Thus in 
1979 they wrote up the by-laws, filled out the incorporation papers, and filed the 501(c)(3) 
non-profit tax request for the Neighborhood Development Corporations Association of 
Cincinnati (now the Community Development Corporations Association of Cincinnati). In 
collaboration they developed a proposal for then City Manager Sylvester Murray to create 
the Department of Neighborhoods. This department was vital because, as experience 
had taught them, the City's Department of Development focused almost exclusively on 
major developers and developments; downtown. They knew that community success 
depended on staff whose focus was on the neighborhoods which are the backbone of 
Cincinnati. 

               Currently Don Lenz is Project director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation's 
Cincinnati and N. Kentucky office.  Jim King is President of the Community Redevelopment 
Group, which staffs both the Avondale Redevelopment Corporation and the Walnut Hills 
Redevelopment Corporation (of which Pat Garry is Board President), and is developing 
new housing in Evanston, as well. Patricia Garry is Executive Director of the CDC Association 
of Greater Cincinnati.