SitemapEarlier this year, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) and the City of Youngstown held a series of public meetings to gather feedback from residents regarding the conditions of their neighborhoods.
'Revitalize Youngstown' is 15 month planning initiative.
The 15 month initiative - titled Revitalize Youngstown - sought to gather feedback so that realistic individual neighborhood strategies could be developed throughout the city.
The feedback from those meetings was based on a highly detailed neighborhood conditions report which was published by YNDC in February 2014.
The last plan the city completed was the Youngstown 2010 Citywide Plan. You can click here for a detailed analysis of what was and wasn't accomplished under that plan.
In 2013, YNDC won a bid to take over city planning services. Last month, the organization was named the community development corporation of the year by the Ohio Community Development Corporation Association.
YNDC Executive Director Ian Beniston discusses the details
of the Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Report to residents at the Covelli Centre.
And last Wednesday at a standing-room-only meeting at the Covelli Centre, the results of this year's community meetings were made public. YNDC presented attendees with a 'Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Report' which focused on four key areas:
Housing & Property Issues
Infrastructure Repair & Maintenance
Crime & Safety Concerns
Encouraging Economic Development
Each section contains a list of action steps as well as best practices from other cities and organizations, funding opportunities, recommended policy changes, and improved process descriptions.
Certain areas of the city will receive specific Action Plans in which teams of residents and city officials will team up to work through the details of those plans. Some of these meetings have already begun. Other will begin this year and will commence throughout 2015.
To read the full story from Defend Youngstown, click here.