How to become redevelopment ready
The Redevelopment Communities® (RRC) process consists of three steps: Engagement, Evaluation and Certification. Learn more about each step below. For questions on the process, contact the RRC Planner for your region or your Community Assistance Team (CATeam) Specialist.
1. Engagement
Formal engagement indicates your community's desire to work toward certification by officially establishing contact with the RRC team and beginning to access customized guidance. Engagement consists of the following steps:
- LEARN
Attend Best Practices Trainings—A community must complete training on all 6 best practices. We offer in-person, 2-day trainings across the state: Day 1 includes practices 1/2/3 and Day 2 covers 4/5/6. To learn about upcoming trainings, visit our events page. Don't have time to attend an in-person session? You can also complete the training series online. Learn more here.
- APPROVE
Pass a Resolution of Intent—The community’s governing body must pass a Resolution of Intent outlining the value the community sees in engaging in the process. Check out an example.
- CONNECT
Reach out to your RRC Planner, notify them of your intended engagement in RRC, and attach the Resolution of Intent in the outreach email. Your RRC Planner will create a Trello Self-Evaluation Board for your community and will invite you to join. Trello is an online project management software which allows communities, RRC, and other partners to collaborate on aligning with the best practices. Check out www.miplace.org/trello for more details.
- Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
The MEDC legal team will send a standard RRC MOU to the community point of contact. The MOU should be signed by a municipal executive and sent back to the contact on the MEDC legal team.
2. Set Up for Success
Once your community has a Trello board and has begun working on its self-evaluation, you’ll begin to notice areas where the community may not be currently aligned with the RRC Best Practices. Work with your RRC planner to prioritize some low hanging fruit and discuss the best way to start meeting the best practices before formal evaluation. RRC Planners can help provide feedback and help you set your community up to have a better outcome on the formal evaluation.
3. Baseline Evaluation
After formal engagement, communities will be placed in their RRC planner’s pipeline. Each community is evaluated in the order of their formal engagement date. While awaiting formal evaluation, communities should begin to update the plans, policies and procedures identified in their self-evaluation that do not meet best practices criteria. The formal evaluation process is conducted by the RRC team through stakeholder interviews, meeting observations and data analysis.
- Resolution to Proceed: The RRC Baseline Evaluation has been completed and is presented to the communities governing body. The governing body is asked to accept the report and the recommendations and pass a resolution to proceed with the RRC program. This should be done within 30 days of the community receiving the RRC Baseline Evaluation. The Resolution to Proceed should be added to the community’s Trello board. Visit the RRC Library to see examples of the Resolution to Proceed (near the bottom of the page).
4. Incorporate Missing RRC Best Practices
Once your community has been formally evaluated official, it will have a firmer understanding of which best practices are already in place and which may need some work to fully align. Now is the time to work to meet the best practices that have been identified as missing. Work with your RRC planner to continue to prioritize which best practice to begin working on first. Upload supporting documentation to Trello. A community is expected to be making progress toward certification on a regular basis in order to remain in good standing, but ultimately a community can work toward certification at its own pace.
As your community is in this phase, be sure to familiarize yourself with two main tools the RRC has built to provide direct assistance:
- Technical Assistance Match Funding: Once your community has successfully incorporated some missing Best Practices as identified in your baseline report, and confirmed by your RRC Planner, you can work with your RRC Planner to request technical assistance matching funds. Learn more about the RRC Technical Assistance Match Funding process at www.miplace.org/rrctamatch.
- RRC Online Resource Library: Working with more than 250 comunities across the state, the RRC has seen countless great examples of how to incorporate best practices into communities of all sizes. We've compiled many of those examples into one place - the RRC Libary - to help you avoid recreating the wheel. Whenever you need some inspiration, check out this resource to get the ideas flowing. Visit the library at www.miplace.org/rrclibrary.
5. Certification & Maintenance
- Certification: The RRC certification is a formal recognition that a community has a vision for the future and the fundamental practices in place to get there. To become a certified Redevelopment Ready Community, your community must demonstrate that all RRC Best Practices have been met. The documentation should be outlined on your community’s Trello Board. Once certified, communities have access to additional technical assistance and opportunities to showcase their community to potential developers.
- Maintenance: The process of continuous improvement does not stop once a community has obtained RRC Certification. Your community will be responsible for keeping up with certain Best Practices including annual updates and reporting for certain items.
