LORAIN – The neighborhood around the Southside Gardens could be redeveloped through efforts of the Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority and nearby residents.
LMHA officials held a public meeting on July 24 to gather ideas and share a vision of how South Lorain might evolve from now to 2020.
The agency intends to apply for a Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That money would pay for additional planning to redevelop the neighborhood with new houses and apartments, green spaces and streetscapes.
‘It’s a new plan for an old neighborhood,’ said Alex Pesta, principal with City Architecture of Cleveland.
Pesta and City Architecture Principal August Fluker spoke along with LMHA Executive Director Homer Virden; agency Assistant Director John McMahon; and Don Lenz, principal of Lenz Planning & Development Services of Westlake. About 36 people attended at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, while about a dozen Southside Gardens residents also shared their ideas in a resident meeting on July 22.
Southside Gardens has 108 units with an average of 4.1 people per unit. It is 97 percent occupied and 93 percent of the units have female heads of the household.
The planners cited examples of Arbor Park Village and Heritage View Homes in Cleveland, which were redesigned and rebuilt in a new style.
Out is the ‘bunker-style mentality’ of piling people into units stacked on top of each other. The new designs reduced the number of units per acre while creating the feeling of a neighborhood with fresh homes.
‘It is all about neighborhood, housing and people, not just about housing,’ McMahon said.
The plan would incorporate not just LMHA buildings but the entire area bordered by East 28th Street south to the south side of East 31st Street; and between Fulton and Globe avenues.
The group of South Lorain residents responded with suggestions about making new units handicap-accessible or amenities such as a no-step entrance and doorways at least 32 inches wide to accommodate wheelchairs. LMHA already is building some of those features into new units, the officials said.
LMHA also will construct a four-unit prototype building on East 30th Street in spring 2015 to replace a building damaged by fire.
The residents also suggested LMHA post informational and meeting notices in Spanish for South Lorain residents, and they also had questions about attracting a grocery store, improving public transit and adding bike lanes to streets.
LMHA and the federal grant would not necessarily cover those amenities, but the officials stressed the importance of building relationships with groups ranging from city police to banks to Lorain County Community College.
The federal grant application is due Aug. 12 and LMHA and its consultants said they would expect to hear in January 2015 if the agency will receive a grant.
About $5 million is available nationwide for planning grants, Pesta said. Receiving the grant could help LMHA score additional federal funds to help renovate the affordable housing, but more money is not guaranteed, he said.
‘It’s a very competitive process,’ he said.
More information about LMHA is available at: http://bit.ly/1jYjpP5
