Unfortunately, I worked late tonight and didn't make the first 45 minutes of the town council meeting.
The meeting was held at the Lions Building because of the discussion with the Area Planning Commission. What questions I heard, were good questions, some repetitive. Someone asked why would we want to join the Commission when we don't have any problems in town. This is where the problem lies. We have had single family homes that have been turned into triplexes and the neighbors don't like it. I get that, but I don't want to have to ask someone permission to be able to do something to my property. A questionnaire was discussed to see what members of the community think of the Area Plan Commission, but at the end of the meeting nothing was resolved.
Once again Rick Stookey was not in attendance at the meeting. Like I said, I missed the beginning of the meeting, so I am not sure what was said about this. The question was asked where and what is going on with Rick Stookey? The board said they were not sure what was happening. I can't figure it out....It is like "Where is Rick Stookey"???
On a sad note, the pizza place has closed and I heard that there are possibly two other businesses that are thinking of closing their doors. I went into the grocery store last week and it saddened me to see what it had become....I am sure people don't frequent it, that is very obvious when you walk in the door. Sad because that is why people came to Leesburg, not anymore. Not sure what the answers to these problems are and I don't think our town council knows either.
So, as someone said last night...."We Are Sinking"
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The way to avoid sinking is to attract new single family residents and related businesses. The type of business that will contribute most to making this community attractive to young couples looking to relocate near the Warsaw area is retail.
ReplyDeleteYes we've lost the Hardware store, the flower shop, antiques stores from the downtown area.
There is rumor that we may soon lose the Post Office as well. Sadly now the School is now just beyond walking distance for children as of this next school year, due to many things but not the least, complete inaction by our previous Town board to work with the School board to retain the Schools attachment to the greater Leesburg area. We still have some options that have come to life on the outskirts, such as D+D who also have hardware as well as grain and landscaping products. We still have our restaurants and our brick streets.
One of the points behind the area plan is to give homeowners and property owners protection from each other and have some sort of rule or guideline as to what you or they can do with thier property. This does serve as an attraction to potential new residents. It primarily is used to control the overall footprint of buildings and the type of building that can be newly constructed based upon thier end use. It places restrictions on someone who wants to place a hog farm or junk yard next to your house, essentially protecting your property values. Understand this, without the area plan, your neighbor could start a junk yeard or hogfarm right up to the edge of your property and you have little to no recourse beyong suing them outright in a court of law. If there is no ordinance you will lose.
There was a comment about preventing the growth of Leesburg to preserve it's quaintness and small town charm. There should be no problem preserving these qualities if any form of expansion is done in a planned, well thought and gradual manner. Part of this is not only to protect or increase property values but to eventually bring enough people on board to be able to lower Sewer rates. The Sewer rate pressure is and will continue to contribute the the downward spiral of business in the greater Leesburg area.
Everything is interconnected and your two choices are improvement or deterioration. For those who think everything is just fine the way it is, take a closer look, try to think about what has changed or been lost. Think about those who have built and encroached into alleyways and others properties or sidewalks, drive through the alleys and look at what peoples backyards look like and then try to visualize what that will look like 10 years from now if absolutely no controls are put in place.
Sinking indeed. The point missed in all this is the way forward to slow down the obvious rate of deterioration is to attract new residents to the Leesburg area. One of the ways make our homes more attractive to the market (regardless of the currently depressed housing market) is to have safeguards in place that discourage they kinds of things that detract. Not only do we want to be able to sell our existing homes for more money but future homeowners will want to be able to do the same. One of the first things they will want to know is what kind of safeguard are in place to protect their property values. Do we tell them, there is nothing? Or do we tell them that they have the same ordinance and zoning protection that is available county wide?
ReplyDeleteWhat else is there to attract the kind of homeowner that will keep their property up to a certain standard. Little things like, no Junk cars, No Pit Bull puppy farms, no Hogs or Chickens in our residential areas. No building right up to the sidewalks and then parking on them.
There is a real drain of attractions, The School is no longer within walking distance for our children, the hardware store moved out a long time ago(that made me cry) however D+D does have an excellent nut and bolt collection, Jones future is in doubt and I hear rumor that the Post office may get closed down.
So what’s left? At the very least we can keep our streets clean and orderly, put something in place to discourage someone from allowing their property to fall into ruin because they don’t care about the impact on their neighbors and the community as a whole.
For those who say we like things the way they are, then they must either be walking around with blinders on, or have decent enough neighbors that any problems are out of sight, have low standards and don’t care about empty abandoned homes, or are perpetrators of something they have taken advantage of in the absence of any real housing standard.
Sink or Swim, and if you sit on your hands, do nothing and “leave things the way they are”, you will certainly sink.
I aplogize for 2 posts, my PC puked and I thought the first one didnt take ....
ReplyDeleteOops now it's 3!
Looking forward to your take on whats going on so far... :-)
ReplyDelete