Macon-Bibb residents offer ideas for neighborhood blight projects

Concerned about overgrown vegetation and dilapidated buildings, residents of one Macon-Bibb County Commission district rated projects Monday they would like to see done to remedy blight.

Commissioner Bert Bivins hosted a forum at Bethel CME Church on how $1 million in blight money could be spent in his district. About 60 people in attendance were able to rate six places in Unionville and recommend other projects in neighborhoods such as Pleasant Hill and the area around Bartlett Crossing.

The nine members of the County Commission each have $1 million that can be spent on blight projects.

Some of the areas highlighted Monday by Bivins were places with dilapidated buildings, overgrown vegetation, and garbage along streets such as Moseley and Lilly avenues.

There also has been discussion among some commissioners about having a future special purpose local option sales tax to raise $40 million to $50 million to spend on future revitalization projects, Bivins said.

"What I'm trying to do is set priorities," he said. "We cannot do everything we need to do with $1 million. We're trying to come up with a project we can do in Unionville and pick something based on what we see here tonight."

Delois Harmon, of Harmon & Harmon Realtors, said the approach that should be used is similar to a strategy in Atlanta where an entire block is revitalized instead of just one blighted lot along a street.

"The spot improvement is not going to do well when you approach investors," she said. "If they improve one house, you're not going to get a buyer wanting to purchase it with a blighted house right next to it."

Resident Cynthia Knight brought up her fear that after homes are demolished they won't be rebuilt and the lots will become vacant.

"If we knock down some houses and leave vacant lots and people start dumping again, then we've spent a million (dollars) and wound up at the same place that we started," Knight said.

To contact writer Stanley Dunlap, call 744-4623 or find him on Twitter

This story was originally published November 16, 2015 at 8:31 PM with the headline "Macon-Bibb residents offer ideas for neighborhood blight projects ."