The City hired consultants Marcia Nedland & Eileen Flanagan from Fall Creek Consultants from New York to help revitalize New Albany. The ultimate goal is to make New Albany an All American City as it was in the 1960's. This is quite a challenge as everyone knows.
The final results of the study will not be revealed until September. But several items were discussed which we could start to implement immediately.
- As everyone probably guessed is clean up. The "Adopt a Corner" plan was mentioned and the consultants thought that was a good idea. We need to keep the trash out of the streets, yards and alleys. More neighborhood clean ups are planned.
- Housing is another big issue. We need to have more people moving into homes and fixing them up.
- Along with the lack of affordable housing comes the unsafe housing. No one wants to move next door to an abandoned home which is a magnet for drug dealers or curious children. Not to mention rats and other unpleasant creatures.
- We need affordable financing if we are to put people in these homes and ask them to do a major renovation. The banks and lending institutions need to help with this. It was mentioned that New Albany has several ways to help low income families buy homes. I think these plans need more advertising. Some people may not know that they could qualify for a mortgage.
- In addition to people purchasing modest homes, it was mentioned that we need people from the East End of Louisville to look at New Albany as an affordable alternative to Cresent Hill or the Highlands. This idea needs to be marketed also. Many people in Louisville look at the river more as the Atlantic Ocean than the Ohio River.
- The downtown needs to be associated with the Greenway. We all know that it is there but we need to visit there and tell others to do the same.
- Keep our neighborhood schools open. Schools work as community centers as well as education centers and the fabric of the neighborhood is affected when an elementary school closes.
Basically we need to compete for the next generation of home buyers. The young people need to stay here or the city will become stagnant. It was said that young people need to start thinking of New Albany as a "cool" place to live. It seems that some people are moving back to settle down and this trend needs to increase.
I know this is a tall order but it can be accomplished if we each do a small part and keep our elected officials aware that we are serious about this. We need more people to attend the City Council meetings, especially West End residents, and make our voices heard.
