AUBURN — Neighborhood groups could apply to the city for money to build planters, create a neighborhood gateway or paint creative crosswalks, according to Mayor Jonathan LaBonte.
Auburn staff is working to spruce up individual neighborhoods.
“We are looking for ways the city can reward neighborhoods and neighbors that are trying to clean up their front yards,” LaBonte said. “The hope is to make some money easily accessible for projects that demonstrate neighborhood involvement.”
The idea grew out of the budget discussions when councilors set aside $25,000 in a neighborhood challenge grant. Money might come from the city’s federal Community Development Block Grant allocation, the Tax Increment Finance accounts and other sources.
“For example, the New Auburn neighborhood is interested in creating a creative crosswalk,” LaBonte said. “Perhaps they can apply for a grant to pay for that. Another neighborhood may have ideas of creating gateway signs, to let people know they’ve entered their neighborhoods. It would be a way to fund smaller ideas, small projects that might not normally be funded by the city but are ways to reward folks for volunteering and stepping up in their neighborhood.”
LaBonte said the idea is loosely based on the series of grant programs offered by the city of Geneva, New York. In that city, residents can apply for money to improve senior citizen housing, improve sidewalks, conserve energy or create public amenities. Those have included building neighborhood dog parks, adding benches and landscaping to a neighborhood park, maintain a 9/11 memorial and host a block party.
The programs are funded with a series of New York state and other grants, as well as other municipal money.
LaBonte said Auburn’s program funding is still being created, but he expects to make a presentation to councilors later in October.
“As we think about the structure of our economic development program, we can look at how we can use our downtown TIF district, for example, to help those downtown neighborhoods,” LaBonte said.
How the grant money gets spent by Auburn’s neighborhoods depends on what they come up with, he said.
“I don’t want to see neighborhoods getting bogged down in grant applications,” LaBonte said. “But with neighborhood watch programs taking off, if neighbors have ideas of ways to make their neighborhood safer or more inviting or more connected, this could be a way to turn some of that block grant money loose on building neighborhood connections.”
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