Build Trust and Shape the Work
Neighborhood relationships and knowledge influence what is created and how it serves the surrounding place.
More Than Buildings
A Physical Project With a Larger Community Purpose
Neighborhoods Built by Neighbors is York XL’s small-scale development initiative within EPIC WealthBuilders. It uses a real property project to connect housing, enterprise, development learning, neighborhood participation, long-term stewardship, and a path toward community ownership.
The goal is not development for development’s sake. NBBN is intended to interrupt a familiar pattern in which money generated in urban neighborhoods leaves those neighborhoods instead of building lasting local capacity and ownership.
Urban neighborhoods already produce value. The problem is that too much of that value is extracted instead of remaining to build ownership, opportunity, and the next generation of neighborhood investment. The central problem NBBN is designed to address
A Condensed Theory of Change
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Change Who Benefits From the Value a Place Creates
NBBN begins with neighborhood trust and a carefully scaled physical project. The properties create useful spaces and recurring rental income. After responsible property expenses and reserves, available net rents are intended to help seed a cooperative through which community members can build an ownership stake and participate in decisions about future reinvestment.
Create Useful Neighborhood Assets
Housing and small-business spaces generate practical benefit and recurring economic value.
Keep Net Value Working Locally
After operations, maintenance, reserves, and obligations, available net rents become a seed for the larger community-ownership system.
Build Cooperative Ownership
A membership cooperative is intended to give participating community members a structured ownership pathway and a voice in reinvestment.
Reinvest and Repeat Carefully
Experience, revenue, and shared decisions can support future enterprises, learning, or neighborhood projects without assuming every block needs the same solution.
The intended shift: from neighborhoods serving mainly as sources of rent and outside return to neighborhoods gaining durable assets, recurring value, ownership pathways, and influence over what comes next.
The First Project
Three East Walnut Street Lots With Connected Uses
The working concept focuses on 234, 236, and 238 E. Walnut Street near the Broad Street Greenway in York’s Northeast Neighborhood.
3 lots234–238 E. Walnut Street
4 buildingsTwo detached rowhouses and two mixed-use buildings
6 homesPlanned housing units across the site
4 baysPlanned small-business spaces plus open programming space
What the Project Connects
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Small-Scale Development Can Serve Several Purposes
Housing
Add carefully scaled homes intended to fit the site and the surrounding neighborhood pattern.
Business Space
Create smaller bays where neighborhood-serving enterprises could begin, test ideas, and grow.
Development Learning
Use a real project to strengthen understanding of feasibility, design, approvals, financing, construction, and stewardship.
Neighborhood Participation
Create practical ways for people to influence design, use, access, programming, and neighborhood benefit.
Community Ownership
Use available net rents to help seed a membership cooperative and create a pathway toward shared ownership and reinvestment.
Long-Term Stewardship
Maintain the properties responsibly, learn from the first project, and decide carefully what should come next.
Neighbors First
Trust Comes Before a Finished Plan
Neighborhood participation is not one meeting at the end of development. The Neighbors First approach begins with relationships and builds toward specific opportunities to shape the work.
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Build Trust
Listen, show up consistently, and understand the surrounding place and relationships.
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Make Change Visible
Use welcoming activities and temporary improvements to help people experience possibility.
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Shape the Project
Connect neighborhood knowledge to design, use, access, programming, and opportunity.
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Sustain the Relationship
Keep communication and participation active as the project advances and changes.
Where the Work Stands
Important Progress—And Important Work Still Ahead
The rendering is a working project concept. It is not a photograph of completed construction or a guarantee that every feature will be built exactly as shown.
Work Already Advanced
- Site option and early site control work
- Architectural and planning concepts
- LSA-supported planning
- SCALE/NGIN project support and technical assistance
- Coordination with the York City Redevelopment Authority
- Zoning pre-rejection and preparation for the required relief process
Work Still Required
- Refine design, engineering, scope, and costs
- Complete zoning and other approvals
- Continue neighborhood engagement
- Assemble construction financing
- Finalize contracts, schedule, and operating plans
- Proceed only when funding, approvals, and capacity align
Support Assembled So Far
$41,300
$15,000
$15,000
$5,000
Planning, Engagement, and Technical Assistance
Each award has its own eligible uses and conditions. Planning support does not mean construction is fully funded.
LSA Planning
Support for planning and development work connected to the initial project.
NGIN Project Support
Community Wealth Building track support through SCALE.
Technical Assistance
National expertise to strengthen ownership, governance, capital, and implementation strategy.
Engagement Support
Resources for neighborhood participation and relationship-building activities.
Explore the Details
Open the Parts You Want to Understand
Who owns the initial properties?
York XL is expected to retain ownership of the initial LSA-supported properties for at least the required 20-year period. That legal ownership carries responsibility for financing, compliance, maintenance, operations, and long-term stewardship.
What does “built by neighbors” mean?
It describes a development process shaped by neighborhood knowledge, participation, learning, local relationships, and community benefit. It does not mean residents are individually responsible for legal ownership, financing, construction management, or every project decision.
What is planned for the two mixed-use buildings?
The working concept places apartments above small commercial bays. Across the two buildings, that creates two planned homes and four planned business spaces. Designs may change as approvals, engineering, costs, and operating requirements are resolved.
How will rental income be used?
Gross rent is not the same as available community revenue. Property income must first support responsible ownership, including operations, maintenance, reserves, compliance, debt or financing obligations, and other project costs. York XL intends available net rents to help seed the membership cooperative and support the larger community-ownership and reinvestment system.
What is the membership cooperative?
The cooperative is the intended democratic membership structure through which participating community members can build an ownership stake and have a defined voice in eligible reinvestment decisions. Its membership rules, governance, legal structure, relationship to York XL, and financial mechanics are being developed through the EPIC WealthBuilders technical-assistance process.
Does the cooperative own the initial Walnut Street properties?
Not under the current initial structure. York XL expects to retain legal ownership of the LSA-supported properties for at least the required 20-year period. The properties’ available net rents are intended to help seed community ownership through the cooperative while York XL remains responsible for the real estate and its obligations.
Is construction funded?
Not fully. York XL has assembled planning, project, engagement, and technical-assistance support and continues to pursue construction financing. An application, request, or funding target should not be treated as an award.
What is SCALE/NGIN helping York XL do?
York XL was selected for SCALE’s Community Wealth Building track, led by the New Growth Innovation Network and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The work combines project support, engagement resources, technical assistance, peer learning, and national exposure to strengthen the broader NBBN and EPIC WealthBuilders strategy.
Who are the principal project partners?
York XL leads the initiative. Collaborators have included the York City Redevelopment Authority, Penn State York LaunchBox, and SCALE/NGIN technical-assistance partners. Additional professional, financial, construction, and neighborhood relationships will be needed as the project advances.
Will York XL repeat the model elsewhere?
The priority is to complete the current grant commitments and advance the East Walnut Street project responsibly. Any future expansion should follow evidence, capacity, funding, neighborhood fit, and lessons from the first project—not an assumption that every site needs the same solution.
Stay Connected
Follow the Work or Bring Useful Expertise
York XL welcomes conversations with neighbors and with aligned design, development, construction, finance, legal, business-support, and community partners who can help the project move responsibly.