Strong Neighborhoods Initiative
Welcome to the Planning Divisions' Strong Neighborhoods Initiative (SNI) page.
The Strong Neighborhoods Initiative (SNI) is a partnership between the City of San Jose, the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) and San Jose’s residents and business owners to strengthen the City’s neighborhoods by building clean, safe and strong neighborhoods with independent, capable and sustainable neighborhood organizations. By coordinating and combining resources from the City, RDA, property and business owners, individual community members, and public-private partnerships, the Initiative will help these neighborhoods reach their full potential as highly livable communities.
The 20 (19 active) Strong Neighborhoods Initiative areas encompass about 10,000 acres and are located in many sections of San Jose. While facing some common urban challenges, all of these communities possess important assets and attributes. The underlying principle of the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative is to build upon neighborhood assets, and special SNI resources, in a deliberate strategy to develop the capacity of communities to become their own agents for improvement over the long term.
The Strong Neighborhoods Initiative is a two-stage process: Planning and Implementation. The Planning stage included the development or update of Neighborhood Improvement Plans. Each Neighborhood Improvement Plan was developed through the collaborative efforts of several groups and scores of individuals, and contains a “Top Ten” Priority Action Plan for improvements. The second stage – Implementation – focuses on implementing the proposals and recommendations identified through the planning process.
The process for creating each Plan took approximately eight months to one year to complete, and involved public monthly Neighborhood Advisory Committee (NAC) meetings and several community workshops. The planning process was successful in engaging the attention and dedication of the Neighborhood Advisory Committees and at-large community members within the various SNI communities. Some areas have experienced growing community participation and the formation of new neighborhood and business associations.
The implementation of the Neighborhood Improvement Plans will depend primarily on community residents, property owners and other stakeholders acting as advocates for proposed action items. The Neighborhood Advisory Committees have transitioned from Planning to an Implementation capacity, with several significant roles and responsibilities. These include organizing and leading its own activities, overseeing and monitoring the progress of the their plans recommended Actions, providing input on design and development of public and private projects, completing Plan tasks for which it is responsible, and acting as liaison to its member neighborhoods.
Please refer to the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative website at www.strongneighborhoods.org for current information on the Planning and Implementation phases of this program, including the proposed SNI Budget, the SNI Newsletter, monthly NAC meetings, and special events and activities.
The navigation bar on your left can be used to access the following:
1) SNI Plans page providing a copy of the final plan document for each SNI area in a .pdf file format.
2) SNI maps page for identification of plan boundaries.
3) Strongneighborhoods.org website for current information on the planning and implementation phases of this program.
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