Free Workshop on Housing and Legal Issues

Want to learn more about landlord and tenant laws, rights and responsibilities?  What kind of actions constitute housing discrimination?

Please consider attending this free informative workshop 4:30 – 7:30 p.m., Thursday, September 20, 2012, where officials from state and regional agencies will discuss these issues and respond to questions. Dinner will be provided. Please call to RSVP as seating is limited.

The workshop is appropriate for members of civic boards and commissions, organizations that work to provide housing, bankers, neighborhood groups, real estate agents/brokers, property owners or managers & tenants, persons with disabilities and advocates, or anyone who wants to learn more about these complex issues.

With any questions, please contact:

Janet Gapen

Senior Planner

Community Planning Services - City of Salisbury

PO Box 479, Salisbury, NC  28145-0479

PH: 704-638-5230

www.salisburync.gov

  

So Much Happening!

The Old North Salisbury Association, the North Main Neighborhood Association, met last night to discuss new projects going forward. We have been very successful in our effort towards getting the new sidewalk and crosswalk at W. Miller St and all who worked towards this should be very proud of your achievements! Here are some of the exciting new topics we covered last night:

1. A possible fund raising effort to put decorative, pedestrian level lighting along the new sidewalk project. We are in the process of obtaining cost estimates from the City to help us determine what is needed and how to go about it.



2. We discussed officially changing the Association name, currently the Old North Salisbury Association, to North Main or NoMa because it is more relative and meaningful. We are checking to see if Old North Salisbury was legally incorporated and what a name change would mean in that regard. We've asked for serious thought and a final vote at the next meeting.



3. Putting together a "Welcome Packet" for new neighbors



4. Dividing the neighborhood into Quadrants with Quad-Captains in order to better communicate with folks throughout the neighborhood.



5. We discussed getting more involved with the Police Department and getting them more involved in our neighborhood. We need to send representatives to the SNAG meetings (see earlier posting) and CALL-CALL-CALL 911 when anything even APPEARS to be amiss in the neighborhood. The squeaky wheel will get the grease!



6. We unanimously voted to include the west side of N. Jackson St. in the neighborhood. Our boundaries before this included the east side of N. Jackson but not the west. That portion of neighborhood currently is not supported by a neighborhood group or association.



7. We are looking at hosting a NoMa Home/Garden Tour in Spring 2010! How exciting - stay tuned for more!



8. We agreed to meet monthly on the 4th Thursday of the month, except for November & December when meetings will be scheduled as needed. A Christmas Party may take the place of a November/December meeting.

In addition to the above, we were very pleased and proud to have Maggie Blackwell join us as a guest. Maggie was president of the highly successful Fulton Heights Neighborhood Association and shared some of her insights and successes with us. We could not be more grateful to Maggie for sharing her time and wisdom with us. Maggie is running for City Council this fall. Not only did we get to meet and speak with this wonderful intelligent woman who shared with us her neighborhoods strengths but we got to know our candidate better as well! Thanks, Maggie!


We perhaps had our biggest turn-out in recent years at last night's meeting. So Cool! For anyone who thinks these meetings are stodgy and stuffy - they are not! We conduct the meetings in a casual atmosphere (last night we were scrunched in Sue McHugh's living room on Main St.) and everyone is welcome ~ all ideas are welcome ~ and the energy is positively electrifying! Thanks to everyone in attendance from all the corners of our neighborhood!
The next meeting will be on August 27th. We'll post the details here as that date approaches.
THANK YOU NOMA!

Hurray! Miller St. Sidewalk and Crosswalk Project Finally Surfacing!!

We've been hearing the promises regarding the improvements along N. Main St. and Miller St. for months now and many of our neighbors have expressed frustration at the snail's pace with which the project has moved along. (Truthfully the snail probably moved faster!) It has just been announced that, finally, Salisbury City Council is expected to award the contract this Tuesday July 21st for installation of the new pedestrian crosswalk across N. Main St. at Miller St. and the new sidewalk along the south side of W. Miller St. from N. Main St. to Jackson St. Hurray!!!

The project is connected to the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund's Fit Community Grant, which was awarded to the city last year. Connected with the sidewalk and crosswalk is a new walking program being rolled out by the City's Parks & Recreation Department - Striders for Life. The project ties into the many physical improvements planned for the N. Main Street area in the City's Small Area Improvement Plan and will additionally encourage healthier lifestyles for our residents here. Residents young and old will be able to get to City Park and Hurley Park via the sidewalks where currently they must walk in the streets to get to the parks.

The construction will reduce the width of West Miller Street from 34 to 26 feet with the addition of a 5-foot-wide sidewalk and a 3-foot planting strip. We are very excited to see this project finally reach reality!

Council meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 217 S. Main St. where the project will be awarded. It would be wonderful if many of our NoMa residents could be there to witness the award and perhaps offer a round of applause!

North Main St Neighborhood Meeting - Apr 13th - 6:30PM - City Park Rec Center

Be sure to come to the neighborhood meeting this Monday to hear the update about the new sidewalks (at last!) planned for West Miller Street! We've been hearing about these improvements to the neighborhood for some time and now it appears very close to happening! This is your opportunity to hear about it first-hand from the City engineers and planners - your opportunity to ask questions.

The meeting will be held this Monday April 13th at 6:30 PM at the City Park Recreation Center on 316 Lake Drive in Salisbury.

We'll be hearing about the sidewalks and proposed crosswalk at North Main Street and West Miller Street. The sidewalk is the first step in a plan to connect our Old North Salisbury neighborhood to the city parks and the Salisbury Greenway system. After we get the West Miller Street sidewalk, we'll see more sidewalks go in along the 900 block of North Jackson Street along the City Park edge, then up and around Lake Drive and over to Hurley Park. The planned sidewalk improvements will provide safer, more convenient access to the parks for our neighborhood residents. These changes were recommended by our neighborhood residents who took part in the North Main Small Area Improvement Plan completed in 2007. The project is being funded by Salisbury City Council and a grant from the North Carolina Health & Wellness Fund as part of the Fit Community initiative. Members of the Old North Salisbury Association attended several of the grant meetings and were instrumental in having Salisbury become a grant recipient.

This is an exciting time for our community and we hope you will find the time to attend this meeting to both show your support and learn more about the whole process. Please come! The more we know, the more we can help initiate more improvements like this in the Old North Salisbury - North Main Street neighborhood.

We hope to see you there!

Councilman Takes Tour of Neighborhood

Hello Friends & Neighbors:

On February 4th, Board Members of the Old North Salisbury Association invited one of our City Council members to take a tour of the Old North Salisbury neighborhood with us. We knew that City Council was soon scheduled to take their 24th Annual Future Directions and Goal Setting Retreat February 12-13, 2009. With this in mind, we invited Councilman Bill Burgin, a former long-term resident of the North Main area, to tour the neighborhood and listen to some of our specific concerns. We took special care to outline many of the positive changes we have seen in the neighborhood over the past few years. We demonstrated where people have moved in, purchased and renovated our historic homes, and stayed to live in the homes, instead of renting them out. However we wished to call special attention to the need for ordinance enforcement in our area. We pointed out homes that have been allowed to deteriorate, homes that have been altered in appearance outside of the historic codes. We pointed out our 'hot-spots' for trouble, and we know every neighborhood has them, as well as our highlights. We had further discussions about the City's North Main Small Area Improvement Plan that appears to have no traction at all, because we have seen little impact to the area - even though the plan was approved at City Council in the summer of '07. We wished to impress upon Bill, in hopes he would share this with other Council and City Planning personnel, that we are determined to continue to make positive changes to this important Salisbury community and that we need the City's help to do so.

We are very grateful to Councilman Bill Burgin for taking the time with us that cold February morning to examine the neighborhood and hear our concerns. We thank Pat Sylvester, Sean Myers, and Sue McHugh for taking the time to conduct the tour and outline the specific topics and issues.

Bill urged us to keep going with our progress. He said that, "it is North Main's time and time for the City to devote attention here.". He further urged us to come forth at City Council Meetings with a formal presentation of our concerns. We have been discussing this at Board Meetings but have yet to develop the presentation or make the plans to get on the Council agenda. But with the positive reinforcement from our Councilman, we are better positioned to make this happen in the near future.