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Healthy neighborhoods promise a healthy community!
Neighborhoods are an integral part of any community - they provide an immediate and often enduring sense of place and belonging. Athens has many wonderful neighborhoods, from the in-town historic districts to subdivisions like mine in Beechwood, the first planned subdivision in Athens.
During the 2002 and 2004 political campaigns, neighborhood issues were among the top issues that motivated our citizens. Your voices have been heard loud and clear! During my first term, I’ve never forgotten what you’ve told that you care most about and I’ve led the fights for protecting and improving the backbone of our community – our neighborhoods!
I have worked to ensure that neighborhoods have been well-represented during discussions, planning, and decisions. Neighborhood groups have responded overwhelmingly by demonstrating their eagerness to have this seat at the table. We’ve seen a reduction in the encroachment of commercial development into our neighborhoods and spot-zonings have diminished. The results have been most gratifying – businesses and developers are now working more closely with neighborhoods than ever!
I vowed to take our nuisance ordinances seriously and have worked to established vastly improved enforcement of those standards under which we have collectively agreed to live together. As a result, many neighborhoods have seen a marked increase in owner-occupied housing and friendly, respectful, neighborly rental tenants. The long maligned practice of “harvesting” houses in single-family neighborhoods by uninvolved and out-of-town real estate speculators has been greatly reduced. Homebuyers no longer have to compete with speculators for housing! Neighborhoods are being revitalized as centers of community life.
As I continue to lead the fight to uphold standards of conduct in our neighborhoods and protect the investments of our homeowners, conflicts have been greatly reduced. All of us are able to live happily with each other as we “Think locally and Act Neighborly”.
In my 2002 campaign, I proposed that we needed some kind of neighborhood planning unit system. I am pleased that we’ve taken steps towards the formal recognition of neighborhoods and I will continue to encourage this kind of meaningful participation. We have made tremendous advances towards the realization of so many of the goals this community has consistently expressed in their vision but we can never stop being vigilant! There are always external pressures from those for whom our neighborhoods represent nothing more than real estate parcels for investment opportunities and those who invest nothing more than money into our community without regard for the impact on our citizens.
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