Garden Hills and Priorities

Funding for one of the federal programs funding some of the Garden Hills Neighborhood improvement projects is at risk in the current budget. From the News-Gazette last week:

Cities touting projects made possible by federal funds currently at risk
Last year alone, federal funds through the Community Development Block Grant program positively impacted 60 households in Champaign.

Without those grants, neighborhood safety projects like the Garden Hills Safety Lighting Energy Efficiency Program — a partnership between Ameren Illinois, the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission and the city of Champaign — would have a much more difficult time finding funding...

Passed during the Ford administration with bipartisan support, the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 remains one of the longest-running programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Over the years, it has contributed more than $10 million in funding to the city of Champaign, and more than $6 million to Urbana.

But just as in 1986, when an awareness initiative about the grant program was launched, Community Development Week this year ends in the middle of a hostile congressional appropriations season, as President Donald Trump's budget calls for eliminating the program and its $3 billion annual budget altogether.

The program has faced widespread cutbacks since it began, when it had nearly four times as much funding as it does today. Back then, Carlson said, the program was a way to address criticisms of the top-down approach the federal government took to urban renewal and community development.

Full article with additional information here. If you want to contact your federal Representative in the House and Senate in support or opposition of this funding, here's a link to the House lookup tool here and the Illinois Senator contact page here. This is following up on a couple recent Cheat Sheet posts, including one that had some details about the SLEEP improvement project here and an earlier one with a broader look at the neglect the neighborhood has been fighting. An excerpt from that post:

WCIA had a recent video segment which contrasted the darkness of the neighborhood compared to other local neighborhoods and the need for initiatives like SLEEP (Safety, Lighting, Energy Efficiency Program information here). Here's a couple screenshots (click to enlarge):

That post with a lot of additional information and links available here.


In addition to the federal government's priorities, the City of Champaign's priorities came into question by council member Fourman during the recent Study Session on "The Yards" planning project. From WILL:

New tax revenue generated by the downtown project through the city’s Downtown Fringe tax increment financing district would help pay back the city of Champaign for its $35 million in assistance over two decades. Other downtown Champaign hotels --- including the one at “The Yards” and another projected to be built at 401 N. Neil Street --- would contribute through a new hotel-motel tax imposed in a special Business Development District.

But some of the city funding would reach developers early, in the form of bonds issued by the city to finance the building of the parking structures and also new sanitary sewers to serve both the new development and other buildings in the area.

That didn’t sit well with residents of the infrastructure-poor Garden Hills neighborhood, which isn’t expected to get its long-sought new storm sewers, streetlights and sidewalks until 2030. Two neighborhood activists, Chad Smith and Amy Revilla, told council members they didn’t appreciate waiting while the new downtown development was seemingly given priority. Another Garden Hills resident who complained was First District council member Clarissa Nickerson Fourman.

“So we issue bonds to improve the quality of life for people in downtown Champaign for development, but we don’t for people who live here and reside here,” said Fourman. “Interesting.”

More at the full article here, including one response that noted that increased revenues could theoretically benefit all neighborhoods in the city. The issue of priorities wasn't the only criticism that emerged out of the meeting as noted by the News-Gazette today here and an earlier Cheat Sheet post here.

Update: The News-Gazette had some additional background relevant to this post in Tom's Mailbag on May 11th on how the infrastructure in Garden Hills and some other neighborhoods were built by different construction standards:

Areas like this are a common problem for many municipalities that annex older neighborhoods that were developed with substandard infrastructure.

It happened in this neighborhood during the postwar housing boom of the 1940s and '50s, said T.J. Blakeman, a senior planner for the city of Champaign who also is president of the board of the Champaign County History Museum.

Before the war, Blakeman said, Russell Street was the city's western boundary, except for the area north of Springfield Avenue. Because that section was served by a street car line it was developed much earlier than the area south of Springfield.

"This led to substandard infrastructure across large areas of town that developed outside of the city's regulations," said Blakeman. "Garden Hills seems to be a little different. That area began platting in 1955 and was annexed as it was platted between 1955 and 1958. However, you can see by these dates that a lot was changing at one time here in the city. By the time 1960 rolled around, Mattis Avenue was the new western limit of town, and by 1967, much of the city touched Duncan Road."

Full mailbag article here.