(ABOVE) Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr and the Danville City Council Public Services Committee at Tuesday evening’s meeting.
With $399,000 in community revitalization grant money on the way, Danville Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk says the funds will be used for tearing down between 26 and 30 blighted, abandoned homes that are already in possession of the city. Cronk says once all the fine print gets taken care of, the real work should begin early next year. And the idea is a massive bid, perhaps involving multiple contractors, where all can begin at the same time.
AUDIO: We’ve got to cut through all the standard grant red tape first, so that will take a couple of months. I would imagine, ballparking a timeline, early spring is when you’ll start to see these grant funded homes being demolished. And all 26-30 of these homes will go down quite quickly.
Danville Alderwoman and Vice-Mayor Tricia Teague says one thing the city should do is look for more ways to prevent homes from becoming blighted in the first place.
AUDIO: We have a lot of people who are retired in our town, who don’t necessarily have the means to upkeep their houses; but have been in their homes for 40, 50, 60 years. So we should be providing more opportunities for them to maintain their homes so they don’t become blighted.
Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says there are already areas where the city is trying to get ahead of the problem.
AUDIO: I think one of the biggest things we have done already is to up our code enforcement; to make sure that our inspectors are supported in the work that they do, and that we hold people accountable when they allow properties to get blighted or dilapidated.
The mayor pointed out that Danville currently has 2,500 more homes than needed to house its current population, and that 1,000 of those extra homes are needing to be torn down. Williams says the city has torn down over 300 homes in the last four years, which is a much higher rate than in previous years.
