Syracuse residents who attended a public meeting Wednesday about the city’s strategy to revitalize middle income neighborhoods largely supported the plan.
But some said they left with unanswered questions about key pieces of the plan.
The city held Wednesday’s meeting after Councilor Rasheada Caldwell accused the city of failing to do proper outreach about the strategy in the Salt Springs neighborhood.
More than 70 residents packed Soule Branch Library, near Le Moyne College, to ask questions about the plan. Only about five who attended were landlords. Most were homeowners in the neighborhood.
“A lot of these neighbors have been here 30, 40, 50 years and they really care and they want to do better, but they want to know,” Caldwell said after the meeting. “You can’t just tell people, they want to be involved. They need to know every step of the way,” Caldwell said.
The city’s Common Council canceled a vote that could have codified the plan after Caldwell’s pushback on Aug. 13. The council next meets Aug. 28 for a study session and Sept. 3 for a voting session.
City officials have been working on the plan throughout the year. It is based on a study of the city’s housing market by consultant czb LLC. The firm found it would take more than $1 billion to fix the market’s affordability and quality.
If the plan is codified, the city would begin work in phases. Under the plan, the Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Corporation would be tasked with giving grants and low-interest loans for beautification projects in selected neighborhoods. The first phase of the project would tackle the Salt Springs and Tipperary Hill neighborhoods and start in 2025. Phase I would cost $25 million. The work in the first phase is estimated to take about a decade to complete.
Work on other phases would begin incrementally following the first phase.
“I’m very pleased with it, the people in the neighborhood who I talk with are really excited and hopeful, because we care about our neighborhood.” said Michael Messina-Yauchzy, a longtime East Side resident.
Joyce Suslovic, a Salt Springs resident, also echoed the same hopeful sentiment.
Others, however, felt the plan lacked specifics.
Salt Springs residents asked questions about the grant application process, grant and loan eligibility, the types of projects that are eligible for funds, and more. The city said those parts of the plan will be hashed out after the strategy gets approved.
“I’m very concerned because I think that sometimes like in any project we rush into it,” Caldwell said in regards to the lack of details residents have about the strategy.
Arthur Paris, a Salt Springs resident and Syracuse University sociology professor who specializes in urban sociology, said that he is skeptical of the city’s interest in community feedback.
He said he had a difficult time getting in touch with city officials after reaching out several times.
“I didn’t have any sense as to whether they were really getting to talk to people or if this was just a performance thing,” Paris said.
Michelle Sczpanski, the city’s deputy commissioner of Neighborhood and Business Development, said that the city plans to gather feedback before deciding how the plan will roll out.
Sczpanski said that her department would use the feedback from the public meetings they’ve hosted to inform proposals they would provide the Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Board. The board would be tasked with approving proposals.
When Sczpanski was asked about residents’ concerns, Sczpanski said she encourages people to reach out to her office with any questions. She said the city wants to avoid rolling out the plan in a way that doesn’t meet residents’ needs.
“We are very intentionally trying to avoid that here,” Sczpanski said.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Common Council would vote on the new housing strategy on Sept. 16. The Common Council will vote on the housing strategy on Sept. 3. Central Current regrets this error.
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