Brothers and co-executive directors of the Matthew 25 ministry, Courtney Ball (left) and Clint Twedt-Ball, as they discuss a proposal for the Ellis Urban Village in the Time Check Neighborhood. (Cliff Jette/SourceMedia Group)

CEDAR RAPIDS — If not us, then who?

That is the notion that has helped drive brothers Clint Twedt-Ball and Courtney Ball to conceive a plan, called Ellis Urban Village, that is designed to bring back to life a two-by-three-block, flood-pounded piece of the Time Check Neighborhood, part of which is in the 100-year flood plain and some of which is split in two by railroad tracks next to an industrial zone.

In case you’re wondering, the brothers didn’t just fall out of bed one morning with some kind of cockamamie scheme.

They are co-executive directors of a successful neighborhood-building effort called Matthew 25, which is a partner in the equally successful Block by Block rebuilding effort in the city’s flood-damaged, west-side neighborhoods, including Time Check. With a mix of private, public and non-profit support, Block by Block has helped or is helping rehabilitate more than 300 flood-damaged homes on 24 blocks. The program also has bought some homes and renovated them for resale.

The brothers’ idea now is to create a village in a piece of the Time Check neighborhood that will include homes renovated after the flood; affordable new homes built on lots on which flood-damaged homes have been demolished; the transformation of two, flood-damaged warehouses along G Avenue NW into apartments and commercial and office space; and the creation of about two acres of urban farm.

Yes, “farm.”

Not row crops with big tractors, nitrogen fertilizer tanks and livestock, assures Twedt-Ball, 39, and Ball, 34. Instead, the idea is for some version of what is called Small Plot Intensive farming, or SPIN, that they say is part of neighborhoods in urban areas across the country.

Those in the village will be able to volunteer on the farm and in its greenhouses on the site in trade for free or reduced-priced vegetables and fruit.

 The project already is more than just a concept for the area between Ellis Boulevard NW and Fourth Street NW and F Avenue NW and H Avenue NW.

To date, Block by Block has helped renovate two homes in the proposed village area and has been given a third one next door to renovate through a City Hall program that is attempting to salvage some flood-damaged homes that have been purchased through the city’s buyout program. Owners of a few other homes in the area also have renovated their homes. In addition, Block by Block has been awarded five vacated lots to date in the proposed village area through a City Hall program designed to motivate builders and neighborhood programs to build new, affordable homes to fit with the renovated ones in the flood-hit areas. As for the farm, Matthew 25 has set up a small, temporary experiment elsewhere in the neighborhood to get some experience.

“We looked at this area, and said, ‘Here’s a neighborhood where a lot of developers aren’t going to choose to reinvest in,’” Twedt-Ball explains. “So we thought, what would be a way to invest in this area so that others start to see it as some place they want to be, a place that will really thrive.”

The spot borders the key street through the neighborhood, Ellis Boulevard NW, and investment on and near it will help revitalize the street, Twedt-Ball says.

“The idea takes a place that right now is pretty rundown and turns it into something where there’s some real positive energy,” adds Ball. “It makes it more of a destination for the area rather than a place to avoid.”

In total, the two imagine that the village will include about 20 single-family homes, about half renovated ones and half new ones, plus 10 two-bedroom or three-bedroom apartments in one of the two, two-story warehouses along G Avenue NW, now vacant and expected to be sold by the owner, the Cedar Rapids school district.

Some of the building and renovating will come with the help of federal disaster funds filtered through the state and city, which will require that the properties be targeted for working people who qualify for affordable-housing programs. The hope is that historic tax credits will pay some of the renovation costs for the warehouses, which Twedt-Ball says come with a history reaching back to the late 1800s when they were part of a pump factory.

Twedt-Ball, a Methodist minister, and Ball, who has served as a Methodist pastor in the past, see their Matthew 25 community ministry and the Block by Block housing program of which they are a part as more than bricks and mortar. They are taking a stab at building the other qualities that can come with good neighborhoods, like neighborliness, community, family-building, childhood education and safety.

In this regard, they think both the farm piece of the village plan as well as a planned after-school learning center can serve to teach neighborhood youngsters how to grow food and eat properly and how to learn to enjoy learning. Such skills are important at a time when child obesity has been identified as a problem nationwide and at a place in Cedar Rapids where school performance has not been the best, they say.

“We wanted to create a place to get at some of those problems,” Twedt-Ball says. “The idea is to get kids excited about learning and get them healthy.”

The City Council’s Development Committee has begun to discuss the Ellis Urban Village plan, with some initial questions about the possible use of farm chemicals and fertilizers in the city and about the day-to-day oversight of the farm area to make sure it is well kept.

Twedt-Ball and Ball say the farm operation will be an organic one with few chemicals and come with a goal of growing food near where it actually is eaten. Matthew 25 will own and operate the farm.

The general area envisioned for farming is by and large in the 100-year flood plain and, without the city’s proposed flood-protection levee, would not be a place on which to build housing. The farm area also is along a railroad track and close to industrial buildings that also make it good for farm use rather than for housing, they say.

The alignment of the city’s proposed levee is closer to the river than the village area and so all the village area will be protected by the levee if and when it is built. Much of the site already is in the 500-year flood plain, the brothers report.