Neighborhoods

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development
Corp. had a busy second quarter as the organization hosted 11 community
workdays, sold six rehabilitated houses and launched the Iron Roots Community
Supported Agriculture program to provide fresh produce to members. 

According to its second quarter report released Wednesday,
YNDC hosted workdays in Wick park, Fairgreen Community Garden, Idora
Neighborhood, Oak Hill, Newport Community Garden, Mineral Springs Community
Garden, Lincoln Knoll and Powerstown. In total, YNDC has held 14 workdays this
year, drawing in more than 650 volunteers. YNDC received two major grants in the second quarter:
$200,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency to complete assessments of
“priority sites” along commercial corridors and another for $150,000 from the
William Swanston Charitable Fund for improvements at four city parks. In total,
YNDC was awarded more than $1.3 million in grant funds in the last quarter, the
agency reported. As part of its house rehabilitation work, YNDC has five
houses in progress with three more recently acquired. Six completed houses have
been sold, three are being rented and two are on the market. Beyond full rehabilitation, the community improvement
corporation’s Paint Youngstown program has completed five limited-repair
projects and six owner-occupied rehabs across the city. More than 60 people registered to take part in the Iron
Roots CSA program, which launched June 13. Each week, members pick up their
share of the crop from Iron Roots farm and other local growers from the Idora
Neighborhood Farmers Market, the Warren Farmers Market or Catullo Prime Meat.
The program runs through Oct. 31.

The city of Youngstown has a new weapon in its arsenal to
combat urban blight.

Usually, when you see the National Guard come into a city
it's because they are helping during a national disaster. But this weekend The
Ohio National Guard is coming to the south side of Youngstown to fight blight. Heavy
machinery will be brought in to demolish 28 vacant homes. "The city has to
pay for the dumping at the landfill and all the pre-demolition activities but
they are bringing all of their own equipment and manpower," said Community
Development Director, William D'Avignon. The National Guard will likely save
the city a couple hundred thousand dollars in demolition costs. Obviously,
tearing old homes down will benefit the community but it also benefits the
National Guard as well. It allows all of the National Guard members to get
training on the heavy equipment that they need to use. It's all part of a
Department of Defense Civil-Military Innovative Readiness Training Program. An
entire battalion from Camp Ravenna will be doing the work for the next two
weeks. People who live near the vacant houses say they'll be happy to see them
go. James Brown of Youngstown said, "The rodents, the squatters running in
and out and tearing them up. It's a bad eyesore." The Community
Development Director says if the program proves to be successful for the
National Guard, there's a possibility it could be expanded in the future to
remove a couple hundred vacant homes in the city. He says right now, there are
a couple thousand that still need to be removed. To read the full story from WFMJ, click here. 

It’s the middle of the afternoon and the
Common Wealth Kitchen Incubator is a hive of activity: Chefs dice produce, cooks
prepare barbecue and bakers set bread and pastries out ready for that day’s
farmers market.

The scene was the same early in the day just as it will be
repeated that evening. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” says Tom Phibbs,
manager and business coach of the incubator. “It’s exciting to watch the
project go from, when I started, maybe a handful of users, to yesterday being
at capacity. We would have had to turn folks away. It’s been beautiful to see
it unfold.” In 2014, Phibbs and his wife, Katie, moved their business, The
Lettuce People, into the kitchen incubator as one of its first clients. Since
then, they’ve become tenants with him operating the incubator as she runs The
Lettuce People from the basement below the kitchen. A year ago, Common Wealth
Inc. – parent of the incubator – and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development
Corp. were awarded a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services to buy and install a canning line. Another recent addition is
the blast freezer funded by a $60,000 grant. “That will help us launch new
frozen-food businesses out of here, as well as help large businesses that are
looking to ship across the United States,” Phibbs says. To read the full story from the Business Journal, click here. 

Two of the three members of the city’s Board of Control
today approved a liability waiver related to a demolition project by the Ohio
National Guard, with the third member – Finance Director David Bozanich —
absent.

Bozanich has been largely absent from City Hall since Thursday, when
investigators executed search warrants Thursday at his house and that of his
reported girlfriend, along with two other locations. Speculation has centered
around a connection with the warrants executed in March at the offices of NYO
Property Group and the home of developer Dominic Marchionda. Kyle Miasek,
deputy finance director, said this morning he had been under the impression
Bozanich would be in the office today before being informed he would likely be
back Tuesday. The 50 members of the 112th Engineering Battalion were expected
to begin demolition today on the 28 residential structures, five on the North
Side and the rest on the South Side, Abigail Beniston, code enforcement and blight
remediation superintendent, said. They arrived Saturday, she reported. The
release from liability approved this morning by the board’s other two members –
Mayor John McNally and Law Director Martin Hume – absolves the Youngstown board
of Education from liability related to the battalion’s use of the former
Sheridan Elementary School, 3321 Hudson Ave. The battalion will store equipment
and setup its radio tower at the site, Beniston said. “It will be what they
operate out of while they’re in town,” she said. The guard is demolishing
through the South Side Blight Removal and Greening project through the
Department of Defense’s Civil-Military Innovative Readiness Training Program.
The demolition work is slated to run through July 22. The goal of the IRT
project will be to demonstrate that the training is a benefit to the Department
of Defense, so that can be leveraged into a larger IRT project of 100 to 200
houses, Beniston said. “We already do have applications in,” she confirmed. The
work getting underway today will save the city in the range of $159,000 in
demolition expenses, she said. To read the full story from the Business Journal, click here.

An Army National Guard unit from Brook Park will start
demolishing 28 vacant houses, mostly on the South Side, today.

About 50 members
of the 112th Engineer Battalion are in Youngstown until July 22 to do the work.
The city’s board of control today approved a liability release with the city
school district allowing the unit to use the former Sheridan School, 3321
Hudson St., as its base of operations to store its equipment. The work being
done will save the city $159,000 in demolition costs, said Abigail Beniston,
Youngstown’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

YNDC is partnering with Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and Northeast Ohio Medical University to survey residents of Youngstown about food access in the city.

Food access has been identified as a barrier to health in Youngstown and the data collected by the survey will be used to inform the creation of a Food Access Action Plan to address health disparities related to Youngstown's food environment. The survey consists of basic questions to assess shopper's preferred stores, the distance they travel to the store, and the accessibility of fresh fruits and vegetables. If you are a Youngstown resident, please take the survey by clicking here. 

Three years after the release of the U.S. 422 Corridor Redevelopment Plan,
Girard and Youngstown are making progress to transform the industrial corridor
that links them. 

“We’ve gotten quite a few things done,” says Lauren Johnson,
manager of the 422 Corridor project. “We have a lot more that will happen in
the future.” The project is especially important to Girard. “The future of
development must include the beautification of that area,” Mayor James Melfi
says. Girard installed a welcome sign and landscaped sections of U.S. Route 422
shortly before the official release of the plan in May 2014. Youngstown began
landscaping stretches in Brier Hill near the entrance to the state Route 711
connector about the same time. The redevelopment plan aims to transform the
appearance of the industrial corridor, improve infrastructure and encourage
economic and neighborhood development in both cities. The Youngstown
Neighborhood Development Corp., the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber and the
Trumbull County Board of Commissioners helped bring together 14 organizations
to fund the comprehensive plan for the corridor, which was written by Interface
Studio LLC of Philadelphia. The funding phase began after the study was
released and Johnson was hired as project manager in November 2015. “This is
our legacy corridor,” she says. “This is where the steel mills were. So this is
some of the oldest infrastructure we have in the Mahoning Valley.” The project
extends from state Route 193 in Youngstown to Liberty Street in downtown
Girard. Much of the Girard side of 422 is made up of retail properties.
Industrial and warehouse properties dominate the Youngstown side. To read the full story from the Business Journal, click here. 

With
beautification and revitalization efforts underway throughout the U.S. Route
422 corridor, Girard is positioning itself for success in a new era.

To watch the video from The Business Journal, click here. 

Thursday, July
13, 2017

On Wednesday,
July 12, leaders and representatives from neighborhoods across the City of
Youngstown gathered at YNDC for the first Citywide Neighborhood Action Team
meeting.

Residents discussed issues facing their respective neighborhoods and,
through a number of exercises, were able to pinpoint common problems that
affect residents throughout the city. Some of the issues discussed included
infrastructure development, lighting, crime, vacant property upkeep, youth and
senior activities, parks, code violations, policing, and more. The purpose of
the meeting was to find common ground and prioritize development moving forward
so as to benefit as much of the city’s residents as possible.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

YNDC has established a Neighborhood Champion Award that will
honor three Youngstown residents who have stood up and taken action to improve
their neighborhood.

Any resident of the city may be nominated for the award. To
nominate someone who deserves to be recognized, simply fill out the form below
with the candidate's name, contact information, and a description of why they
are a Neighborhood Champion. Three selected Champions will receive $1,000 each
for a neighborhood improvement project of their choice!

The form can be dropped off or mailed to the YNDC office
located at 820 Canfield Road, Youngstown, OH 44511, or emailed to Tom Hetrick
at thetrick@yndc.org.  The nomination
deadline is Friday, August 11 at 5pm.