Though still a work in progress, improvements to the housing stock in the City of Bradford and neighborhood revitalization projects continue.
Sara Andrews, executive director of the city’s Office of Economic and Community Development, took time to update The Era as to the many ongoing projects.
“We have many areas that we are striving to improve upon as far as the quality of the housing stock,” Andrews said. “It’s still a work in progress, but we’ve had some success in some areas of our target neighborhoods in terms of repairing and constructing new housing and removing blighted structures.”
She pointed to Onofrio Street and the Project Pride neighborhood — the area surrounding State and School streets — as examples of successful progress, and mentioned plans in the works for the Second Ward Revitalization Plan and Neighborhood Partnership Program.
“We did a targeted removal of blight in Project Pride and we’re doing the same in our Second Ward neighborhood,” Andrews said. “We’re going to be doing a block of demolition of blighted properties in that area and we are hoping to replace them with new in-fill housing.”
The Second Ward neighborhood encompasses Congress and Jefferson streets in the southern portion of the city. According to Andrews, a total of seven houses are slated to be torn down, with the first house to be demolished in the coming week or so.
Zippo Manufacturing Co., American Refining Group and Northwest Savings Bank have pledged $100,000 each per year for the five years to go toward the Second Ward neighborhood.
She said three houses would be removed between Congress and Chestnut streets, followed by four more properties located on Congress Place.
“In-fill housing is when you are working in an urban setting and have an empty lot among other properties that you want to build a house in,” Andrews said, explaining how the properties will be replaced. “We are going to seek some funding assistance through the state to subsidize the construction and we may pursue other ways to fund the construction of the new housing stock.”
Additionally, Andrews said six facade projects have already been completed with residents and business owners “taking advantage of the $10,000 matching grant and they invested their own $10,000 for a minimum of 20,000 investment.
“We’re very encouraged by the interest in the program,” Andrews said. “Along with that, we’re also currently working on a home federal grant application for $300,000 to provide grant assistance to qualified owner-owned homes in that neighborhood.
“This could be used to address anything identified as a code violation — mainly exterior improvements, structural improvements, new roofs, foundation work, porches, interior work such as plumbing and electrical upgrades, new heating systems, a lot of them need bathroom upgrades,” Andrews said. “To be eligible, you have to be current on utilities and taxes and meet income qualifications. For example, a family of four must have an income below $44,250, but we’d be able to help quite a few people in the community through this program.”
The former Second Ward School building was recently purchased by a developer from Los Angeles, Calif., who has expressed an interest in the historic value of the property and turning the property into affordable housing for older people and young professionals.
“With regard to the purchase of Second Ward School and the possible renovation into upgraded housing — that will definitely compliment what we’re trying to do with the neighborhood,” Andrews said. “We would certainly welcome private sector investment into the Second Ward neighborhood and we look forward to seeing this happen.”
She said the Project Pride neighborhood revitalization is in its seventh year and close to $1.5 million in existing home improvements have been made.
One new house has already been built in that neighborhood and two are in the construction process, both on School Street, according to Andrews.
“Those were replacing some dilapidated houses that the city purchased and demolished several years ago,” she explained.
Andrews said she and her husband moved to the Project Pride neighborhood in 2009 and have personally witnessed many of their neighbors painting and making improvements to their homes along with the city’s efforts.
“People are taking pride in their properties,” Andrew said. “The projects we do definitely have a very positive affect in the neighborhood. When people live by blighted properties for a long time and then see them torn down, I think it gives them the feeling that they can do something with their own property, that it has value now.
“I think it restored pride in that neighborhood,” Andrews added, “not only with housing improvements, but the streetscape improvements have made a huge difference with new sidewalks and street lighting — people feel more secure and it looks better.”
The city has also taken on demolition of other properties scattered throughout the municipality as part of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, she noted.
“A lot of great changes are beginning to occur with local housing,” Mayor Tom Riel said Sunday. “On the low end of housing stock, the city has begun to more aggressively apply a newer state law that allows owners of multiple properties to have restrictions placed upon one property because of deficiencies on another.”
Riel said this has resulted in dozens of lower end units being vacated, including the Terminal Building downtown.
“There is a shortage of much-needed higher-end units in Bradford,” Riel said. “Dr. (Joshua) Halbauer has renovated a few of his apartments on Congress Street as well as making progress on the deteriorated former VNA mansion.
“Plans have been drawn up for five real nice second floor apartments in the former Archer’s building on Main Street,” Riel said. “The building was completely gutted and more than 110 tons of debris hauled away.”
Riel mentioned that local businessman John Kohler has put a new roof on the former IAS building in Veterans Square and completely gutted the building. “I hope he puts a few nice apartments in there as well,” he said.
“It’s a holistic approach, we are addressing housing issues in a variety of different ways,” Andrews said. “We have a lot of private sector people doing their best as well, investors doing a great job, and on the other end of the spectrum there are landlord properties that are in significant need of repair and those are the ones that we need to find a way to address.”
She said a multi-faceted approach is critical to making progress: First, addressing blighted conditions through code enforcement; second, making sure properties are maintained and meet code standards; third, removing blighted properties; fourth, rehabilitating existing properties; and finally, construction of new properties.
“Those are the keys to bringing back the quality of our housing stock to the standards that I think we should have in our community,” Andrews said. “It’s best to get to them before they get to the stage that they have to be demolished.
“We just keep plugging away,” she said.
