LEWISTON – Defenders of Lewiston’s residential downtown want the same things as city leaders, according to City Administrator Jim Bennett.

“When you peel it back, who can argue with wanting to make the downtown safer? Who is against needing fewer police calls, and who’s against giving it a better sense of place?” Bennett asked.

He’s hoping to enlist critics in a new effort, starting with a downtown development advisory board.

“I think what people want for the neighborhood, it’s all pretty much the same,” Bennett said. “But implementing it, getting us there, that’s where everyone differs.”

Bennett said he hopes to bring his plans for a new advisory board for residential downtown before city councilors in October. He hopes the board will come up with new ways to redevelop the downtown and clean up the poorest section of the city.

It’s not a new idea. Bennett and city councilors unveiled a massive redevelopment plan in June 2004, dubbed the Heritage Initiative. That called for a 10-year redevelopment scheme bringing new business to the area. The downtown would have been linked to the outside by a new tree-lined boulevard.

But downtown residents objected, fearing the boulevard would roll over their homes and traditional neighborhoods. Neighbors and local activists formed the Visible Community to oppose the initiative. City leaders backed off of the plan in 2005.

On Thursday, Bennett said the Heritage Initiative began as a city staff-led idea. It needed more public comment before it was released, he said.

“I don’t think there is any doubt that it needed more process,” Bennett said. He hopes the new advisory board will do that.

It would be modeled after the Downtown Advisory Board, made up of downtown business leaders.

“That committee has been in existence for about a decade, and it’s really focused on what happens down there,” he said. “You can see the results.”

The new new board would focus on residential downtown. He guesses the board would have between seven and nine members, including members of the Visible Community.

Sister Claire Lepage, spokesperson for the Visible Community, said she’s skeptical of the city administrator’s motives.

“It sounds good, but it’s hard to say until it’s finally organized,” she said. “Downtown, people are afraid to get involved, afraid of politics and afraid to lose what they already have.”