By Steve Kemme
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Paul Phillips Jr. sits with three of his daughters, (from left) Jocelyn, 17; Amber, 13; and Tanisha, 18, at their home in Lincoln Heights. Phillips, 41, has been a resident of the village his whole life. The Cincinnati Enquirer/ERNEST COLEMAN

Some of the pieces of property don't look too promising right now.

One is a grassy lot littered with discarded bottles, paper cups and other trash. Another is a tract with a sprawling, boarded-up brick building that had been a community center. Another is a large chunk of an industrial park that was a graveyard for hundreds of junk cars.

But officials of this small community, where all but a few dozen residents are African-American, have big plans. New housing is planned for the first parcel; a new recreation and community center might replace the boarded-up brick building some day; and the industrial park section with vacant land and junk cars eventually might attract new businesses.

Lincoln Heights has struggled for years with deteriorating housing and crimes rooted in drug activity and poverty. This central Hamilton County village of more than 4,000 is so strapped for cash that its administrative offices are open only four days a week.

But Lincoln Heights' recent push for new houses and commercial and industrial development offers glimmers of hope.

"We're all working to make Lincoln Heights better," said Police Chief Ernie McCowan Jr., a native of the village. "But we're not unrealistic. It won't happen overnight. There's a lot of work to be done."

Johanna Looye, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of planning, said communities with high concentrations of low-income families, like Lincoln Heights, have a difficult time attracting good housing, middle-income families and businesses. About one in five families in the village have incomes below the poverty level, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

But Looye said Lincoln Heights' development proposals reflect good, thoughtful planning. If the village along Interstate 75 improves its housing stock, she said, it has a chance to draw young black professionals and families from Greater Cincinnati's large black middle-class.

Lincoln Heights development officials have set some lofty goals. They include:

• Build seven new houses on a vacant lot on Jackson Street next to Martin Luther King Estates, a subdivision of attractive houses built within the past 12 years that has drawn middle-income residents. The houses would sell for $125,000 to $150,000.

The Lincoln Heights Community Improvement Corp., which handles the village's economic development activities, has applied for a grant that would knock $40,000 off the cost if the owner stays for at least five years. That would make the housing affordable for families earning $30,000 to $50,000 a year.

• Construct a row-house development with about six units on the southwest corner of Lindy Avenue and Legget, adjacent to the planned site of the new Lincoln Heights Elementary School. The school will be ready to open in the fall of 2006.

• Redevelop Valley Homes, a subdivision filled with substandard housing that was built as temporary housing in the 1940s for workers at the Wright Aeronautical plant, later taken over by the General Electric Co. Almost one out of four Lincoln Heights residents lives in Valley Homes.

• Transform the Steffens Avenue corridor into a mixture of offices, stores and homes.

• Attract businesses along Mangham Drive.

• Build a recreation facility and community center on the site of the Smith Flowers Community Center, which has been boarded up and will be torn down.

• Attract businesses into the 23 acres of Anthony Wayne Industrial Park that's in Lincoln Heights. The village received a $200,000 federal grant to evaluate whether the site, which is possibly contaminated by toxic chemicals, needs be cleaned up. An auto junkyard occupying part of the site is moving out.

"We hope to turn it into a productive component of the industrial park," said Al Kanters, executive director of the Lincoln Heights Community Improvement Corp. "This is a critical project for the village. It would provide the tax revenue the village needs to be self-sufficient."

All these initiatives depend on federal and state funding and private financing. But the Community Improvement Corp. will focus first on the new housing developments.

With a largely residential tax base since its incorporation in 1946, Lincoln Heights has never had an easy time of it.

Its recent financial problems stem from federal and state funding cutbacks and the city's overspending. For the past two years, the village has worked to whittle a deficit of about $200,000 by slashing expenses and not filling open positions.

Mayor LaVerne Mitchell said the village should be on solid financial ground by this fall if it sticks to its budget.

Over the years, Lincoln Heights' public image has been battered more by crime issues than money problems.

McCowan recalls one media report that described Lincoln Heights as "a wall-to-wall war zone." He said that's a flagrant example of how the media sometimes distorts the village's everyday life.

Paul Phillips Jr., a 41-year-old cable company employee, has lived in Lincoln Heights his entire life. He and his wife, Elaine, are raising four daughters. Two of them will be going to college next school year.

"We bought a new house here 10 years ago and have not had one problem with crime," he said. "I had the opportunity to move from Lincoln Heights on several occasions. But I love my home and I love my neighborhood."

Lincoln Heights has its selling points: close to I-75; a short drive from downtown Cincinnati; and it's part of the Princeton School District.

Long-time residents such as Phillips believe that if outsiders look closely enough, they'll sense the village's close-knit neighborhood feeling, a feature that can't be captured in statistics or charts.

"A lot of people only know Lincoln Heights from the negative things they hear on TV," Phillips said.

"But it's a beautiful place to live. The community is so small, it's like family."

E-mail skemme@enquirer.com