Planning for walkable, thriving public spaces: East Hills takes steps toward a sustainable future

Monday night a group of about 30 residents from the East Hills Council of Neighbors (EHCN) neighborhood gathered to hear the first draft of a plan that will form a framework for the neighborhood's public spaces: parks, streets, sidewalks, and business districts. The meeting was the culmination of a year of information gathering by two committees: the public space committee chaired by resident Rachel Lee, and the complete streets committee, chaired by resident Josh Leffingwell.

"We're looking at creating a possible area specific plan where pedestrians come first," says Rachel Lee, adding that the planning is funded by a $45,000 grant from the Dyer-Ives Foundation. The idea for the plan came about last year when the neighborhood's Cherry Park landed $10K from mygrcitypoints.com for a park makeover.

Ted Lott, architect and partner at Lott3Metz Architecture, and Mark Miller, urban planner at Nederveld, Inc., led the discussion and gathered ideas from attendees. Lott began the meeting by saying that there is "planning fatigue in the city" and, therefore, the focus has been to use information already gathered by others and to add to it with ideas from the neighborhood residents.

The neighborhood, bounded by Fulton St. on the north, Union Avenue on the west, Wealthy St. on the south, and Fuller Avenue on the east, includes two large public parks: Cherry Park and Congress School Park. Brainstorming possible improvements generated ideas that included lighting, a new water play area (Cherry), new public-friendly fencing at both parks, electrical connections for events usage (Cherry), bike racks, a skating rink, a possible dog park area, board games spaces, more shade, an amphitheater for public and school events/outdoor classroom (Congress), and improved soccer and track facilities (Congress).

Ideas for pedestrian-friendly streets included considerations for Congress Elementary, the East Hills business district, and residential streets. Ideas included sheltered bus stops, safer crosswalks, more brick streets to add character and slow traffic, four-way stops in lieu of traffic lights, and parking improvements.

Redevelopment ideas ranged from identifying places that need redevelopment or infill buildings to promoting economic diversity by encouraging a greater variety of retail businesses.

Lott says the next steps are to meet with the EHCN to review the ideas and develop the next steps of the plan, which will be presented at the EHCN annual meeting at 6:30 p.m., October 21 at the Inner City Christian Federation building, 920 Cherry St. SE.

Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor