Around the Neighborhood

I met with NN City Council members Cleon Long and Terri Francis, Neighborhood Services Manager from the City Manager’s Office, along with representatives from some other neighborhoods in the central district of Newport News.

The purpose of the meeting was a listening session for neighborhood representatives to voice concerns to the city. Mr. Long is fronting an effort to revitalize older neighborhoods, realizing that neighborhood community is an important aspect in enjoyable living in the city.

There were three other neighborhood HOAs represented (Village Green is a Community Association), all voluntary ones, of varying sizes. Village Green is the largest with Wendwood being a close second and the only other with a pool. The others are considerably smaller, but all have retention ponds managed by the Newport News Stormwater department. It seems that Village Green is the only neighborhood where there is no public access to the pond.

By and large, the greatest two concerns of all the neighborhoods were the lack of paid members and the vegetation growth in their retention ponds. In the others, they are able to install their own aeration systems and help manage vegetation growth while we are fenced off from ours.

One of the concerns that Mr. Long brought to the table was the maintenance and repair of our ageing neighborhood facilities. His desire is to find monies and convince the other members of the city council to appropriate matching grants to the neighborhoods where monies are needed. Aeration equipment, our clubhouse roof, clearing out of some of the trees that have overtaken our central park area and destroyed our tennis courts, paying for the fencing that we are currently replacing, covering expenses for pool maintenance and repairs, etc.

Another of his concerns is revitalizing existing neighborhoods and generating new ones that attract buyers rather than renters – those who statistically have more of an investment in their homes and their neighborhoods, in a time when volunteers are harder to find. This is where the Neighborhood Services Manager comes in with her Strategic Housing Initiative Plan.

They are also working on a Spot Blight Abatement program to address the current ineffectiveness of our codes enforcement. They recognize that neighbors feel reluctant to snitch on their own neighbors while also being in a position of wanting their neighbors to keep up their properties appropriately.

Mr. Long also spoke of a Rental Inspection Program which provides some limited authority to inspect rental homes in areas of the city where property values are being brought down by a majority of rental property versus owner-occupied homes. Village Green does not fall into one of their zones of interest and the program does not allow a city-wide net but rather distinctly-defined zones.

Another program is a Land Bank whereby derelict and unproductive properties are purchased and used as green spaces or for other uses by the city for the public. A private example is what CNU is doing with the bank property they recently purchased on Warwick Blvd. They demolished the old building and are turning that space into an art display, welcoming citizens to CNU.

I will be following up with Mr. Long to see if we can get some matching grants to help cover some long term “desirements” we have here in our neighborhood. I am also actively pursuing a better understanding of the retention pond and our access to the area around it as a possible access from the rear of the neighborhood to the common recreational areas, something that was originally planned when this neighborhood was designed and built.

One of the other items that was brought to my attention, prior to this meeting, was the confusion at the intersection with Oyster Point. I have been communicating with one of the traffic engineers and it appears the city will be installing directional signs mounted to the traffic light bars, further defining the direction of travel for the outgoing lanes. Widening that intersection, to allow a right turn lane would be a much larger discussion for later. Also, one other neighbor had called in about the issue, so calling 311 to report issues within the city does produce results.