Housing Monitors Needed
By Jim Golan
The FCA Housing Block Watch is simply a network of Finneytown residents looking for signs of housing distress, and directing this information to Springfield Township for corrective action.
How is distress defined? It is those visual signs which would cause its neighbor to lose resale value. The visual signs include vacancy, overgrown grass and plants, peeling paint, roof problems and suspicious activity.
Block Watchers agree to monitor certain streets at least monthly. The watching can be walking or “windshield” (by auto). The streets monitored could be nearby or reachable by auto. The data is then entered into a spreadsheet, processed and forwarded to Chris Gilbert at Springfield Township.
Interested in Block Watching? Call Jim Golan at 522-8075.
Springfield Township Master Plan
Please attend the public forum scheduled for your neighborhood to discuss the planning procedure and gather input for the creation of a neighborhood master plan.
A presentation of current neighborhood conditions will be included in each meeting. Existing land use, zoning, current proposed land use recommendations, redevelopment potential, property maintenance violations, street conditions, crime rate, fire and EMS call response time, service delivery issues and special characteristics of the neighborhood will be discussed. After the presentation, residents will be asked a series of information-seeking questions. The answers that residents give will provide the valuable feedback necessary to begin a plan for the future.
The Finneytown neighborhood meeting (Oct. 26 at the Grove) is the last of eleven public neighborhood meetings held throughout Springfield Township. Trustees will host similar meetings, with the same structure in every Township neighborhood district. Residents will be asked if they wish to participate as a focus group for their neighborhood. Each neighborhood master plan will take one year to complete.
For a street-by-street listing, visit the “Living in Springfield Township” tab (Neighborhood Master Plan) on www.springfieldtwp.org, or call 522-1410
