MOUNT VERNON — About 24 residents showed up at the first two meetings discussing the Pleasant Street/Hilltop neighborhood revitalization project.
The next meeting is Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Pleasant Street Elementary. Additional meetings are scheduled for Tuesday, May 5, and May 19, both at 6 p.m.
City engineer Brian Ball said the city is still actively collecting information.
“As we get to the fourth and fifth meeting, we will take the ideas that the citizens have brought us and put some cost to those and start debating on which type of infrastructure work is more important,” he explained.
The project is a competitive Community Development Block Grant through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Ball said the project has two parts: sidewalks and revitalization.
The city gets around $160,000 every two years for sidewalks based on low- to moderate-income census tracts. Last year’s project was the north side of East Vine Street.
“We were going to do the south side [of East Vine], but then the censuses re-stacked, so that area no longer qualifies,” Ball said.
“So our plan is to put that allocation funding somewhere in the Pleasant Street/Hilltop area for a sidewalk.”
On the revitalization side, the $750,000 government grant requires the city to include at least five components. Components can include sidewalks or playground; water, sanitary, or storm water lines; and street lights, crosswalks, or traffic signals.
“It’s a little bit competitive, but we’ve been very successful because we execute the projects, and we get all the reporting done,” Ball said.
Neighborhood input is critical
Ball said in neighborhood revitalization, the city focuses on what neighborhood residents want.
“We spend three full meetings listening,” he said. “Then we start to put the cost to the projects and start to formulate the projects in the meetings with the neighbors. And then we apply for the revitalization grant.”
Ball noted that Hiawatha Water Park is part of the area involved.
“One of the comments we got is people would like to see more basketball courts around the pool,” he said.
“The pool itself cannot be part of the project because it’s a fee-based operation, but anything in that tract of land that’s outside of the pool is also part of our neighborhood study.”
The city will apply for the grant in June.
Ball encouraged residents to email the engineering department with suggestions if they are unable to attend the meetings. He is interested in hearing not only what residents want, but also things they do not.
